desire to be great Then ye must become little that ye may be great For he that would be exalted must humble himself and he that humbles himself shall be exalted Behold I came down from Heaven and have humbled my self by taking the form of a Servant to be despised upon Earth and ye poor Earthen Vessels are ye lifting up your heads and your pretentions to the highest places in Heaven The second thing that he requir'd of them was that they should have the same Sincerity Goodness and Purity of Soul which that Child had Unless ye become pure and simple as this child ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven This was to move them to that first Grace in all its Purity and Perfection since without that no Soul can enter into Heaven For a Christian must be brought back to that first Grace and Purity which he received in Baptism either by keeping his Soul from sin even from the lightest or else after having sinned whether lightly or grievously by washing his Soul with Tears of Repentance and Contrition and cleansing it from all stain and guilt by Faith in the Passion of Christ and by partaking of his Body and Blood in the Holy Sacrament and so the Soul is brought into the Purity of that little Child and made capable of entring into the Kingdom of Heaven Now the Sincerity and Charity and clearness of Conscience wherewith the Lord by the force of the Spirit and by the holy Exercises of the Spiritual Life cleanseth and purifieth a Soul St. Paul calls Goodness which in substance is an inward and superiour degree of pureness of Conscience so simple and so perfect that it resembles the Innocence of a Child This Goodness is an absolute compliance of our Thoughts Words and Actions to the Will of God It is a full resignation to whatsoever God does that goes whithersoever his Divine Majesty directs performs whatsoever he appoints and seeks and follows and loves God in all things By this kind of Goodness a good Man does not seem to be in search of that which is good but to be already in the possession of it and holds it as a thing which he had found before This Purity of Loving Thinking Speaking and Doing the Lord Jesus requir'd also in his Disciples when he said to them Let your words be Yea Yea and Nay Nay as if he should have said let your words speak according to your hearts and your hearts speak according to my holy Will Say neither more nor less than what ye think for the Speech ought in all things to be conformable to the Thoughts and whatsoever is more can neither be Goodness nor Sincerity for Christ himself says that it is sin and therefore to praise a Man very much we properly say he is a Man that thinks what he speaks and speaks what he thinks for the former praises his Truth and the other his Ingenuity and Goodness This intrinsick Goodness is that which is in God by his Essence and that for which he is so often praised in the Scripture saying Thou art good O Lord teach me to be good by thy goodness as who should say O uncreated Goodness impart some of thy Goodness to me and the Soul begs this same Goodness with a gentle Sweetness and Meekness when she prays Let the light of thy countenance O Lord shine upon us and teach us thy statutes which is a Prayer we ought very often to make to God Of Meekness This kind of Goodness is accompanied with Meekness as Light is with Brightness for that being true and sincere and holy and having so much of God in it his Divine Majesty does as it were cloath him outwardly with the latter who inwardly possesses the former making a sweet and gentle Meekness to shine through all his Deportment And so thou mayest know a good heart by a peaceable quiet behaviour for nothing moves or disturbs it Nothing disturbs a good Man because his Confidence and his Affection are only placed in God he loves and seeks him and disregards all things else Nothing affrights him for his Goodness by Love doth cast out Fear he desires nothing that is Temporal for he sees whatsoever is so passeth away and comes suddenly to an end Nothing moves him because he only seeks for God who is unmoveable Nothing afflicts him because he resists and conquers all Crosses with his Patience He wants nothing because he possesses God who possesses all things and desires nothing because God alone is to him All-sufficient Now consider what Meekness that Soul must have who neither loves nor desires nor pretends to any thing who is neither troubled nor affrighted nor discomposed at any thing but in all Occurrences rests quietly in God This is a rare Meekness indeed I say rare because it is admirable and because I believe few have it in this Mortal Life since we see that even the holiest Men have been angry and there are Persons that are very perfect who Reprove and Chide who Reform and Punish with Anger Nay even Moses himself who is called the Meekest Man upon Earth was certainly transported with great Anger when he threw down and brake the Tables of the Law which God had written with his own finger God and his Love can do all things and no body can number or weigh or measure the Miracles of his Grace But thou deceivest thy self as I have told thee if thou thinkest that a Spiritual Meekness excludes Zeal for Reformation since the being gentle in Heart and very couragious in Zeal may well enough consist together and it was a great cause of surprize and indignation for Moses to find that People worshipping an Idol that had so manifestly seen the Power of God so many ways made known to them in their Protection and Deliverance And Christ himself who far excell'd Moses in Meekness as in all other Vertues was angry when he whip'd the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple urging that Verse of the Psalm The Zeal of thine House hath even eaten me up And when he reprehended the Masters of the Law for destroying the Law and suffering the People to be loose and wicked though he was angry with them yet he was not the less meek in heart for the gentleness and serenity of it shin'd even through his Zeal and even then also he might have said Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart He meekly had a sweetness within his Zeal as the Honey-comb was in the mouth of Samson's Lion He shewed his Anger to draw them to his Meekness and seeing so many Discourses and so many Sermons and so many Miracles had wrought nothing upon them to soften their hardness as we do Iron by Fire he applied that of his Zeal for a Remedy The Vices do oppose and hinder one another but the Vertues do assist and help one another A Man cannot be Prodigal and Covetous at the same time for if he will give
thou wert never to be called to Account therefore O sinner thou wilt find at thy death that 't is more easie to tremble at thy Account than to give it 4. Thou hast spent all thy life in sin and wickedness without any remembrance of the Glory to come what Idea therefore can thy Memory have of that Glory when thou comest to dye If it be tedious and wearisome to thee to confess a few daily sins how dost thou think thou shalt find Diligence and Patience enough when thou comest to dye to confess that infinite number thou hast committed from the time of thy birth Thou canst not or wilt not now in thy health lift a hundred weight and dost thou think thou shalt be able in thy sickness to lift a hundred thousand Dost thou reserve that weight to be laid upon thee in thy weakness which thou darest not venture to lift at in thy full strength What profit or advantage can thy Death bring thee when all thy care and trouble will be imployed about the losing of thy Life Thy Heart being glued to the Wealth and to the World which thou must leave How wilt thou be able to loosen it from thence and to join it to what thou hast never cared for The Chains of thy Passions tye thee fast to this transitory World How wilt thou be able to break them in an instant and to give thy self to that which is eternal 5. It cost me Tears and Groans Prayers and loud Cries to raise up Lazarus to Life again who had been dead but four days of a natural Death What will it cost to raise up thee from the spiritual Death in which thou hast lain dead perhaps these forty Years I raised up Lazarus without his doing any thing to help towards his own Resurrection but I will not revive thee unless thou dost something on thy part and how wilt thou be able O wretched Man to perform that under a double Death thy Soul in that of Sin and thy Body so near to that of Corruption Thy Spirit being conquered and having yielded it self a Slave to thine Appetite which has domineer'd powerfully all thy Life and forc't thy Soul to the Drudgery of Sin Dost thou believe that in breathing out thy last Gasp thou shalt be able to recover its liberty No thou wilt find that though it be freed from thy Body for a time it is going to suffer a much greater slavery in Hell and to be tormented by the Devil in Chains of Darkness till the Day of Judgment when thy Body indeed shall rise from the Grave as did that of Lazarus to be joined again with thy Soul yet not as his to Life but to die eternally and to be for ever banished from my sight 6. Thou hast used thy self all thy Life to follow thine own will and never to deny thy self in any thing and doest thou think thou shalt have power to do that in the end of it which has always been so contrary to thy Inclinations Or if thou hast endeavour'd to get Victories over thy self and hast fought without success that spiritual Combate is it probable thou shalt overcome thy self better in thy utmost weakness and when thou liest gasping for Breath If thou couldst not conquer that Enemy when thou hadst all thy strength if with the force of Reason quicken'd by frequent Admonitions called upon by many Exhortations and excited by several good Examples thou could'st not subdue thy sensual Appetite in so many Years how wilt thou conquer it when thy Reason and Understanding shall have forsaken thee and when the Ear of thy Body shall be as deaf to all other Motives as that of thy Soul has been till then Thinkest thou when thou liest fainting in thy Death-bed without strength to move a Hand rattling in the Throat and gasping for Breath to overcome that Enemy that potent Enemy insulting over thee in the Pride of so many repeated Victories That Enemy which the Apostles themselves and their Successors with so many other excellent Saints fought against all their Lives wilt thou conquer with the dregs of thine being without Memory without Understanding and even without Sense in that great disorder and confusion which Death uses to bring especially to those who have always suffer'd their Appetite to triumph over them 7. How long O Sinner wilt thou go on in this foolish Presumption I do not bid thee despair when thou diest but I bid thee work out thy Salvation with fear and trembling while thou livest I deny not but that I saved the good Thief He believed on me when my Disciples forsook me and fled and prayed to me even when I was nailed to the Cross to such an extraordinary Faith I shew'd an extraordinary Favour and though I promised he should be with me that day in Paradice thou mayest remember I suffered him that was crucified with me on the other hand to be condemned If he who died so near my side and looking upon that Blood which I shed for him was damned Wilt thou delay still and hope to escape at that last Hour I do not forbid thee to hope when thou comest to die but I bid thee to do good works in the mean while and serve me during thy Life without deferring it till Death for if thou despisest the warning I give thee now the time will come when thou shalt call and I will not hear and when thou shalt cry Lord Lord I will answer I know thee not thou worker of Iniquity Depart from me into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels The Fourth WEEK The Answer of a repenting Sinner and that we ought to prepare our selves for Death 1. AH let us all quake and tremble what shall we answer to these terrible Words of the Lord What shall we answer to these Arguments which are rather evident Conclusions What shall we answer to that eternal Wisdom to that eternal Light and Truth whose Sayings are undeniable and whose Accusings are clear Convictions Here is nothing to be done but to acknowledge our guilt to humble our selves and amend our Lives Here is nothing to be done but with Repentance Humility and Contrition to weep and sigh and earnestly beg for Mercy 2. Here is nothing to be done but with a most intimate Desire and Sorrow of the Soul to say Lord I have sinned against thee all my Life and I will bewail my offences during my Life that I may likewise bewail them at my Death If I be not willing to lament them now perhaps then I shall neither be willing nor able I sinned in the best of my time and so made it the worst and I desire to forsake my Sins in the best that remains before the last comes which is the worst indeed I desire O God to imploy the remainder of my days in thy Service since thou yet affordest me time to bewail that time which I so sinfully have lost I desire to lament my Sins with all
laugh at the Godly for mortifying and persecuting themselves with Abstinence and other Acts of Repentance living retir'd and abstracted from the World and despising Humane Delight and Felicity Loose and debauch'd Persons use to ask those of stricter Life What Fruit do ye get by that Mortification by that Solitariness and Fasting wherewith ye torment and destroy your selves Had you not better live merrily and enjoy the Pleasures of the Flesh as we do The Apostle replys What Fruits do we get Twelve heavenly Fruits the Holy Spirit gives us which we would not Exchange for all the Fruits for all the Delights and for all the Pleasures which the World can bestow And we must take notice that he most discreetly forbears to reckon for the present Fruits those Eight Beatitudes with which Christ begins his Sermon upon the Mount for they are Promises of Blessings in the future and though some of them are not without effect even in this Life yet they all chiefly regard the Life to come He says Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted that is with everlasting Comforts Blessed are the meek for they shall possess the earth that is the Land of the Living which is Heaven Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness that is do earnestly desire to be good for they shall be filled that is shall have most perfect goodness in Glory Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy that is at the Day of Judgment Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven St. Paul would not reckon these for the Fruits of the Spirit because our Saviour had spoken of them before in his Gospel and these are not the Fruits of our Banishment but of our Country Those Beatitudes are the Fruits of these other Twelve which St. Paul here nameth That which he meant was to turn the Argument upon those poor deceived Wretches of this World saying Do ye ask us What Fruit we have in mortifying our selves by the power of the Spirit We answer That we not only obtain Eternal Glory as Christ promised us in the Life to come and that proportionable to what we suffer here for he says We shall receive an hundred fold but that even in this Life he gives us Fruits of Glory Comfort Peace and Joy and the Spirit causes such heavenly Effects in us as give our Life the advantage far above all the Feasts and Merriments of yours St. Paul seems to compare Spiritual Delights with Sensual Pleasures and the Recreations of the Good with the Pastimes of the Wicked This appears in that he does not count Eternal Glory for the Fruit of the Spirit but those Effects which the Spirit it self produces in this Life which are Joy Peace Long-suffering c. as if he should have said The Spirit has two sorts of Fruits one for this Life which is an Internal Glory and the other for the Life to come which is both an External Internal and Supernal Glory Two Fruits one of Temporal Peace upon Earth and the other of Eternal Peace in Heaven This Question which sinners make to the righteous seems to correspond to that which St. Paul makes to sinners when he asks them What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed and they if they will answer truly can answer nothing but that Grief Misery and Confusion has been the Fruit of them but they answer only with another Question saying And you What Fruit do you get by following of Vertue To which St. Paul answers Not One Fruit but Twelve most savory and pleasant ones which are the cause of Eternal Fruits He likewise implicitly puts the Beatitudes for the Fruit of the Spirit and comprehends them in these Twelve as one that gives the name of the Effect to the Cause for it is as if he had said Do thou assure me that thou enjoyest these Twelve Fruits of the Spirit in this Life and I will assure thee that thou shalt enjoy those Eight Beatitudes in the other Life Do thou assure me that thou livest here in the Kingdom of Grace and I will assure thee that thou shalt Reign there for ever in the Kingdom of Glory 'T is true one would think that these Twelve Fruits which we now speak of gathering in and storing up for the Harvest of the Spiritual Year seem to be those common Vertues we spoke of in the Second Part but though they be like there is great difference between them for this Peace this Chastity this Charity this Benignity c. are not altogether the same with those there spoken of but these do presuppose those and these are a Supream Habit which God gives by his Holy Spirit whereby he raises facilitates perfects and crowns those Vertues which are there begun and brings them to an high and heroical Perfection The Reason upon which I ground my self is That those Vertues though they be serviceable for the Exercise of Grace yet they are not called the Fruits of the Spirit but Vertues which conduce to the Spirit and with which we begin and proceed in the Spiritual Life but these Fruits which St. Paul here mentions are more than Vertues they are Gifts and Fruits which grow from the Spirit and as a Tree after having been digged about manur'd prun'd and taken care of all the Year does by gathering an inward Sap beget the generative vertue of its Fruit defends it by its Bark in the Winter shelters it with its Leaves in the Summer seasons it with the Sun and the Air in the Autumn and lastly offers up its Fruit to be gathered by the owner which is the best of all his Labours So also these Twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit are the best of the Spiritual Life and much more excellent than those Vertues wherewith Men begin and go on in it at the first and these grow from them into a Fruit which by and through their means the Holy Spirit ripens and makes more fragrant more savoury and more substantial than all those Vertues of the beginning We will go on discoursing of these Twelve Fruits in the remaining Weeks of this Spiritual Year to the end that thou mayest rejoyce in finding That Blessedness is not only the Reward of Vertue but that Vertue it self is Blessedness already and that thou mayest see and know and feel within thy self that whatsoever is not Spirit and Vertue and the Love of God is nothing but Sadness Pain and Misery Of Charity the first Fruit of the Holy Spirit Here St. Paul the great Master of Souls seems in these Fruits and Gifts of the Holy Spirit to joyn the beginning with the end and the Root with the Fruit for he says that the two first Fruits which the Holy Ghost gives to a Spiritual Man are Charity and
Peace This Charity which the Apostle here offers as the highest Gift and Fruit of the Divine Spirit is reduc'd into two kinds First that which the Soul bears towards God not only when it begins to be in Grace for that may be with many imperfections and fastnings to worldly things but an excellent perfect and inflamed Charity which with its fire burns up and with its flame consumes all the Dross Imperfections and Miseries which our wretched Nature sends up as in smoke to the Region of the Spirit This excellent and superiour Charity which neither suffers nor allows so much as a consent to the smallest sins nor admits voluntary imperfections and adhaesions to earthly things how little soever they be and which if they come does not entertain them but presently casts them out and bewails them is a great Gift of the Holy Spirit the highest of all its Fruits for this strips the Soul of all that is imperfect and cloaths it with all that is holy perfect and heroical This Fruit of the Spirit is the Source and Original of whatsoever good our weakness is capable of it takes off those Skins that covered the old Adam and adorns us with the Garment of Grace of the new Adam Jesus Christ our Lord. Those Skins are our Passions and Imperfections and this Garment is made up of our Saviour's Vertue This Heroick Charity not only begets but defends the new Man in us it roots out our old customs of sin pulls up those habits of sensual delight and throws out those formerly beloved Vices and Miseries wherewith it hath been choaked up so that the Lord's Inheritance becomes clean and fitly tilled to receive the spiritual Seed namely those Gifts and Graces which God is pleased to communicate to Souls Where God bestows the Fruit of this ardent Charity I count that Soul to be safely got into Port as having by the Grace of our Lord overcome those strong Billows and broken through those contrary Winds that would have hindred its passage because God affords therewith a constancy and firmness in holy Exercises a continual desire and longing to prosecute and to finish its Course and to die in Christ with Christ and for Christ for all things else it neither values them nor loves them nor fears them He that has gotten to receive from God this high degree of Charity is governed in all things by his Hand and punctually follows his Directions for he loves the Name of God and that Love moves and guides informs counsels and accompanies him from Life to Death This Love is that which the Church asks of God for her faithful Children when she says O Lord who never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast fear and love keep us we beseech thee under the protection of thy good Providence and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy Holy Name through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen St. Paul had this Fruit of Charity when he said Who shall separate me from the love of Christ Who Neither Tribulation nor Sword nor Persecution nor Death no nor Hell itself which is as if God having cloathed and armed that Saint with this Charity had made him capable to defie all Creatures and all things contrary to the love of his Creator This Charity and Fruit of the Holy Ghost he had when he said That he desir'd to be dissolved and to be with Christ for that his Soul filled and enflamed with Charity which is the ripe and seasonable Fruit of the Holy Ghost waited to be gathered by the hand of the Master of that Garden who planted it in him and had not the Earth for its Centre which corrupts and rots the Fruits that fall upon it but Heaven where he was to be laid up and preserved for ever This Charity and Divine Fruit of the Spirit that Saint had who said I live but not in my self and I so earnestly long after so high a life that I even die because I do not die as St. Paul also said I live yet not I but Christ who liveth in me his Death was Life and his Life Death as he likewise spoke Who shall deliver me from this body of death or from the death of this Body as holding the life of this Body to be no better than death and very death it self to be as life because it was to be a sweet passage to him to Eternal Life All the Saints have held the same for God communicates this high Fruit of Charity either more or less to them all and all of them have suffered this amorous Impatiency which is that the Spouse in the Canticles expresses when she says Encompass me with flowers for I die for love O sweet Death O glorious Life O healthful Sickness O Coelestial Fire which kindlest and enflamest which enlightenest and enamourest burning with delight and by thy consolations changing Earth into Heaven O eternal Jesus O sweet O glorious O loving and powerful Lord grant that I may die of this Wound Grant I may be enflam'd by this Heavenly Fire Grant I may see by this Light and be consumed by this Heat O that I might be turned into ashes in the burnings of this amorous Fire and that I may cease to be in this life to the end that I may be with thee eternally in the other Ah! when a Soul once comes to know and to understand this Love how little does it regard the loves of this World I mean not only those that are light and vain but those also that are allowable if they be worldly for God cleanses and purifies the Soul in such manner from all Propriety although it be of those Affections which are tolerable yet imperfect through their excess that he possesses the Soul totally with his love and from the most inward to the uttermost extent of the heart and from the superiour to the most inferiour parts of it fills it wholly with himself so that if such an one loves his Parents whether Natural or Spiritual he does it in God and for God and if he loves his Brethren whether those of Nature or those of Grace he loves them also in God and for God who orders and governs all his Love This the holy Soul says in the Canticles when amongst other Favours her Spouse had done her she acknowledges that he had ordered and governed her Affections As if she had said though there were Charity in me yet it was inordinate for I loved some more than I ought to have loved them others when I ought not to have loved them and others after another manner than I ought to have loved them I loved more than I ought to have loved because that Affection which I gave inordinately unto a Creature although a Father I stole from the Creator who is my true Father I loved them for that which I ought not to have loved them for that is for mine own Delight for mine own Interest and
is a full resignation to all that God doth disposeth or permitteth and there he quiets comforts and chears up himself where the Will of God is for in that the true Peace consists The Third WEEK Of the Third and Fourth Fruits of the Holy Spirit Longanimity and Benignity THE Apostle of the Gentiles proposes Longanimity as a Fruit of the Holy Spirit because it is not only profitable but necessary for the preservation of Peace and Charity and is a most excellent Vertue of Souls Longanimity signifies a dilating and enlargement of the heart which gives it a capacity of bearing both inward and outward Troubles and having this nothing affrights or amazes nothing terrifies nor afflicts it And if God did not give this admirable Fruit and Gift to the Soul it would be lost and fall away at every step and neither act with valour constancy nor perseverance The heart of Man is so little that it is not sufficient to give a small break-fast to a Kite and so of it self it is not capable of any great thing being so wretched a Morsel Can the Sea be contained in a Thimble Can the thing contained be greater than what contains it If the Vessel of this Human Nature that is Man's heart be so narrow what great thing can find room within it Now see the Miracle that God works with the Spiritual Man and how high a Fruit this Longanimity and the Enlarging of the Heart is which God gives to a Soul according to the measure it hath served loved and pleased him or according as he thinks fit to give it of his own good will making it so capacious as to be able to contain the Soveraign Gifts and Vertues of God and which is more even God himself who contains all things It would be a rare thing if a Man that lives in a poor little Cottage should of a sudden find himself in a Royal Stately and Majestick Palace or in a huge populous City What a wonderful Enlargement would that be of his poor Hermitage O Divine Beauty O heavenly Architect O immense good of Souls How vastly thou dilatest how strangely thou enlargest Man's heart with thy Grace and with thy Spirit Who does not sometimes see a Man great in Wit in Fortune and in Quality Who in a few years nay perhaps in a few Months before was busily running after childish Pleasures and drag'd along by his mean vile and sensual Appetite in such trouble anguish and affliction that his Soul hardly so big as a Child's Rattle was capable of nothing but empty Vanities his Heart being scarcely so big in comparison as a Pepper Corn mistaking every action stumbling at every step every thing afflicting him every thing tormenting him and God of a sudden entring into him and with Soveraign Light enlarging his Heart and spreading out his Mind by Longanimity he begins to despise and to mock at those things which he so fondly hunted after before and pretended to as things highly considerable but now being made capable of greater Matters turning his back to such mean vile Trifles he seeks after that which is really great and high that which is heavenly and unspeakable without ever resting or contenting himself till he have attained it What is this who enlarged that Heart Who stretched out that narrow Vessel which before was fill'd with a few small drops and now nothing can fill it but the unmeasurable Sea of the Passion of our Lord Who made a Giant of this Dwarf that before could hardly wield a Straw and now like Sampson is able to throw down and carry away Pillars and bear all the strong weaknesses of this Life Who hath made him that before cried as a Child because he could not get an Hobby-horse for such are the highest things the World can give now undervalue and despise whole Nature to ingulf himself in the vast Ocean of Grace Who hath made him that a while before followed hunted after and embraced Dung and Corruption to think the whole Heavens too little for him aiming to seek and possess the Creator of them and of himself Yesterday he was as busie in making little Houses of Sticks upon the Sand and covering them with Straw as Children are about making Dirt-Pies in some Corner and now he tramples upon the Stars and pretending to Eternity can content himself with no House but the Empyreal Heavens Who could work these Miracles but the Holy Ghost giving that Heart his Fruit and Blessing in that high Gift of Longanimity which enlarges it and dilates the Soul making it capable of those infinite good things that Supream Gift being the Tree which bears these admirable Fruits This St. Paul knew when he said When I was a Child I spoke as a Child I thought as a Child and did as a Child and in all that he acknowledged his own littleness but now that I am a Man I act as a Man and put away all childlish things Behold the difference between a Child and a Man In a Child all things are childish in a Man they are serious In a Child there is neither strength nor capacity he is a publick Necessity that lives upon Alms which Charity bestows upon him whether it be of his Parents or of his Nurse or of any other that takes pity on him A Man has strength and ability he is a publick Succour that is capable of any thing Now the same difference that there is between a Man and a Child nay a far greater there is between a good Spiritual Man and a wicked debauch'd Fellow that lives in a loose and sinful Course I say a much greater for the growth of a Child that becomes a Man is a natural Growth which is short limited and slow increasing by very insensible degrees and that hardly rises six Feet from the Ground in fourscore Years but the growth of a Man that was wicked and to whom God hath shewed the kindness to make him good and holy and to give him that Gift of Longanimity that is a growth of Grace in which there is no Geometrical material Distance or Degrees but is all Supernatural Behold the distance there is between Heaven and Earth that between an evil and good Man is yet greater Nay how far it is from Hell which is much lower than the Superficies of the Earth unto the Empyreal Heaven where God himself doth inhabit and so great is the distance between a vicious and a vertuous Person Now consider what difference there is between a heart when God hath enlarged it with this Gift of Longanimity and what it was before for that which was so fill'd with some trifling Passion that the Breast was not able to contain it but it broke forth and ran over through the Lips is made capable to receive even God himself so vast is the difference between an evil and a good Man And take notice that this place of St. Paul may also be understood not only of the infinite distance between the
should have said Although I do believe yet I fear my Incredulity and therefore O Lord I fain would believe with an higher Faith and with a more firm Assurance The Faith then which that Man desir'd over and above that which he had already is that Fruit which is here spoken of by St. Paul Consider that Faith for the want of which our Lord reproached St. Peter when he leaped out of the Ship into the Sea to go to adore him and feared and sunk and begged help whereupon the Lord stretching out his hand to succour him said Why art thou fearful O man of little Faith That Faith which our Saviour found wanting in St. Peter although he had so high a Faith as to throw himself into the Sea is this Fruit of the Spirit That Faith which gave him the boldness to leap into the Sea was great and that Faith which he had in crying out to the Lord for help was that Faith which we call the Theological Vertue but that which he wanted yet and which our Saviour found wanting in him was this high Gift of Faith Consider that Faith with which the same St. Peter being with St. John in the Porch of the Temple which was called Beautiful after the Passion of our Lord said unto the lame Man that begged an Alms of him Silver and Gold have I none but that which I have I give thee In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth rise up and walk and he cured him in such a manner that it seemed as if St. Peter had taken Strength and Faith as Money out of his Purse Now this Soveraign Gift of believing that God can and that God will work such a Miracle and that it will succeed according to his Faith is the Gift which St. Paul here speaks of Consider that Faith of the Centurion and that of the Canaanitish Woman which the Lord so highly commended that Faith is this Fruit of the Divine Spirit That Faith whereby the Gospel was propagated which the Lord gave to his Apostles after he had confirmed them in Grace and which was necessary to conquer the Gentile-World and which in less than an hundred years enlightened all the World so that those Trophies of Faith were seen and heard and felt in all places and the Echo of them resounded into all Countries that Faith which we might explain and set forth by many other Examples St. Paul here calls the Fruit of the Spirit but after Christ had formed and established his Church he hath very seldom given this kind of Faith unless unto some few that have led a very Spiritual Life and have often conquered the Flesh by the Spirit and have held the Inferiour part of Nature so subdued by Grace that God hath been pleased to bestow this high Gift of Grace upon them for the Service of his Church in some extraordinary occasion Some others will have this Faith and Fruit of the Spirit here mentioned to be an high Gift of believing the Truths of God and his Promises Behold that which the Blessed Virgin had in believing the Soveraign Mystery of the Incarnation of her Son and that profound Humility wherewith she captivated her own Understanding and her Will unto the Power of God Behold that Faith wherewith the Prophets believed and declared such Heavenly Mysteries long before they came to pass Behold that belief of Faith which the Lord found wanting in Moses and Aaron at the Waters of Strife in the Desart for which they were condemned never to enter into the Land of Canaan Behold that Faith which the Holy Angel Gabriel wanted in the Holy Priest Zachariah when he declared to him that the Baptist should be born of an Ancient Mother and struck him dumb because he believed not Behold that Faith which the three Children had in Babylon when they told the Tyrant that though he should cast them into the fiery Furnace or into the Den of Lions yet the Lord their God would deliver them nay and though he should nor deliver them yet would not they quit their Faith nor cease to believe in that same God which was a most excellent and discreet Answer Now this Fruit proceeded from the Spirit which governed those Holy Souls and others that have been favoured and adorned with this Heroical degree of Faith There be some also that say that this Gift or Fruit of the Holy Spirit is the Gift of Fidelity to keep Faith and Promise to our Neighbours Though this be holy profitable and necessary for if the due regard of this Vertue fall to the ground all Peace and Truth in Correspondency between Man and Man falls with it yet for all that I am of Opinion that this Holy Fruit is no other but that Supernatural Gift first mentioned and that whosoever has that shall have all the rest for they depend upon its Power and Vertue And therefore do thou act with Diligence and Constancy Pray continually with Fervency and love thy Redeemer ardently and tenderly for to those who do these things God grants this Fruit and excellent Gift of the Spirit Of Continence Continence which is the Sixth Fruit of the Spirit though it seem to be the Antidote of that Vice which is forbidden in the Seventh Commandment yet I do not believe that in this place it signifies the Fruit of Chastity for St. Paul puts that expresly for the last of the Twelve and it is not probable that he would offer us the same Fruit twice for that would be an imperfect repetition and cannot suit with the Wisdom of that Spirit which guided his holy Pen and so my Opinion is that in this place by Continence is meant an Universal Girdle or Wall that encompasses the honest Appetite on every side to the end that it may not go beyond the due compass allowed nor break forth to any thing prohibited but that it may preserve guide and promote the Fruit of the Holy Spirit Continence is a Gift and a general Vertue whereby whatsoever is loose and destructive whatsoever is opposite or repugnant to the Divine Spirit is restrained It is a Bridle to the Appetite and the Bit that curbs it and brings it so under subjection as to make it go right It is the Mother of the Spirit and that which most nourishes and advances the Vertues thereof making it to become great and heroical This Gift of Continence begets Mortification in all things subdues the Flesh and makes it yield to Reason It also begets self-denial whereby a Spiritual Man rejects his own Will and delivers himself up to be disposed by the Will of God It begets that Heroical Humility whereby he brings down Pride and flies from his own Excellency to prostrate himself before the Excellency of God This Girdle of Continence which St. Paul here speaks of that which the Lord bids us to gird our Loins withall against his coming to Judgment for being begirt therewith and having our Lamps burning in our hand we shall be admitted unto
that everlasting Wedding The Ancient Philosophers were wont to say as we have told you already that the greatest part of Vertue consisted in Abstinence and here St. Paul with a great Propriety calls that kind of Abstinence by the name of Continence because that looks at the interiour defence of the exteriour but this at an interiour care and attention so to encompass that which is within that nothing from without may ever be able to overcome it That encompasses one or some single Vertue this all That is a Natural Vertue and Heedfulness this a Supernatural and Heavenly one which in all things looks towards God and is given by God and this is that Continence which St. Paul here speaks of and which thou art to pray to God to bestow upon thee DECEMBER The First WEEK Of the Seventh and Eighth Fruits of the Holy Spirit Joy and Patience JOY is properly a Fruit of the Holy Spirit in those who follow and advance in the Spiritual Life for since all their Care and Diligence consists in emptying the Soul from its own Will which is that that begets the Passions of it and that they are a certain Vermin which sting disquiet discompose and disturb it having once freed itself from them the Heart remains quiet the Soul clear and God works in it as in his own dwelling fills it with himself and with his Blessings It is manifest that God is all Peace Quiet Chearfulness and Joy and this Joy is not only found in very Spiritual Persons whom God by continual Exercises of Mortification and Self-denial has made capable of those Gifts but even in beginners also for it is most certain that in the first steps of Spiritual Life the very being eased of the burden of their sins and the seeing themselves delivered from that intolerable load causes in them an unspeakable Joy and Gladness See how often it comes to pass that a Man enlighten'd by God with the knowledge of his sins finding the grievous Wounds they have made in him by his long continuance in a debauched and wicked Life upon his making a general Confession of them and taking a firm Resolution to forsake them feels in himself an inward Joy and Contentment as if in taking away the Passions and Sins out of his Soul his Body also had been freed from Chains and Imprisonments And he that a while before being press'd down under the hard Yoke of his Offences liv'd in Sorrow Affliction Disquiet and Anguish presently after Confession and Absolution becomes light and free lively and joyful by the assurance of Pardon Now to the end thou mayest see and believe the Wonders of God though this happen to all that lead Religious lives yet most frequently to those that live the most strictly and use the sharpest Exercises of Repentance and Mortification for God will manifest his Power and the effects of his Spirit and make Humane Nature know that in seeking his Infinite Goodness they shall find more Motives and Exercises of Joy than they could have apprehended occasions of Trouble before in those Severities O the Goodness and Power of God! O the Greatness of his Mercy Here methinks he Triumphs over our Nature and will have the Devil the World and the Flesh to know and Men as well the bad as the good and the holy as well as the profane to understand that God gives more Joy and Comfort in one day of a vertuous Life than wicked Persons feel in many years of their repeated Delights This is so efficacious an Argument to any understanding Man in favour of the Spirit that all they whose Judgments are awakened must not only know and avow it but that some have thereby been mov'd to forsake the World and to follow that holy Call unto a Devout Retirement and others by seeing the Joy the Peace the Comfort and the Delight which they have met with in those that have embraced the like Austerities have with great Devotion followed their Example and have gone to seek that holy Joy in their Conversation and manner of Life which they vainly had endeavoured to give themselves by running after the Pleasures of this World What is this O Christian What dost thou forsake and what dost thou seek after What Wilt thou leave the Delights and Jollities of this Life He Answers No I leave only the Disquiets and Vexations of it What Dost thou seek after Grief Sorrow and Repentance No says he I neither seek nor find any thing but Consolations and Satisfactions I live here in this Religious course as if I were already in Glory and while I spent my time in the debauched Rambles of the World though I had outward Pleasure I had an inward Hell And that thou mayest practically see what the Joy is of those that serve God besides innumerable Examples that might be given of it I can assure thee that I my self knew a Man not in a Religious House but abroad in the World who having left a very loose and wicked Life upon the Light of Truth that had undeceived him was seiz'd with so excessive a Joy soon after his Conversion that not being able to contain himself he would rise by Three of the Clock in the Morning and sometimes much sooner to break forth into Divine Praises and give vent to the overflowings of his Delight by singing Psalms which he was not able to forbear What is this Lord What is this Yesterday a Thief and a Murtherer that fill'd the Air with the Cries of those that felt his Violence and to day fills it with soft Tunes of his Spiritual Musick Yesterday a Devil to day an Angel Yesterday groaning under the Chains of Vice to day rejoycing for the recovery of his Freedom O the Infinite Goodness of God! How wonderfully thou workest with the Sons of Men In short this inward Joy increases in such manner in the Spiritual Life that if God did not enlarge the hearts of those to whom he gives it they would even burst and dye in the excesses of it and pass from that Spiritual to Eternal Joys for being greater than can be entertain'd within the bosom of their Soul it breaks out and finds itself a passage through their Lips and through their Eyes There are some that cannot contain themselves in their Prayers but prostrate themselves and cry out as one did Hold Lord It is enough it is enough And it is reported of another that he even died with such transports and that not so much grief for his Sins as the high delights of his Joy and the efficacious Power of the Divine Love was the cause of his Dissolution Ah! If thou didst but taste the Joyful Affections and Glorious Delights of the Love of God If thou didst but taste of that ravishing Wine which makes glad the heart that is filled by the love of him that trod the Wine-press alone thou wouldst know where the holy and true Joy is to be found and wouldst abhor all the Delights and
in receiving Honours And this which seems to be a very hard Law is so sweet an one that though St. Paul contents himself here with an Equality yet some Saints as we see in the Examples that have been given pass on further and express more Joy in Sufferings than in Comforts though these come from God and those from the hands of Men. As we may believe that the Divine Goodness of our Lord took more delight in Redeeming Mankind upon the Cross than in the Glories of his Transfiguration upon Mount Tabor though upon Mount Tabor those Favours came from the hands of his Father and upon Mount Calvary his Sufferings came from the hands of Men. So likewise those who suffer for God the Holy Apostles and all those that now follow or have followed them rejoyce more in Pains and Tribulations which God sends them by the hands of Men than in those Favours and Comforts which they receive immediately from God himself Therefore our Saviour said to his Disciples at his going to his last Supper when he was beginning to enter upon his Holy Passion With a great desire have I desir'd to eat this Passover with you but he said no such thing to them when he went to the Glories of Mount Tabor In imitation of this we read of one that for a favour begged of Christ to be crowned with Thorns another to bear the marks of his Wounds with a lively feeling of his dolorous Passion One Devout Soul begs Lord if I may obtain my desire grant that I may be despised for thy sake Another meditating on Christ crucified Lord I desire nothing but thy self and to be crucified with thee This in my Opinion was an high and wise Petition because he asked to suffer with Christ in this life as Christ in this life had suffered for him and then presently to have Christ himself for a Reward in the Life Eternal for he that begs for Christ crucified to be made his it is clear he does not beg for a Glorious Christ but wounded bloody and in the anguish of his Passion and so he asked not the Crown of Thorns alone nor the five Wounds alone but also what he suffer'd in the scourgings at the Pillar Not only the Mockeries the Buffetings and the pains of his Passion but the Slanders Affronts and Persecutions which he suffered before it And not those alone but whatsoever he suffered from his Blessed Mother's Womb and the Manger till he expir'd upon the Cross This we ought to ask and imitate in this life and to advance thereby in Grace and Patience and thereby thou shalt see how certain it is that such Holy Devout Persons not only do possess that equality of Patience wherewith St. Paul Arms his Spiritual Man in receiving Affronts and Crosses with as chearful a Countenance as the Pleasures of this World but that their Delight is greater and their Patience more chearful in suffering than their Joy is in rejoycing The Second WEEK Of the Ninth and Tenth Fruits of the Holy Spirit Goodness and Meekness THese two Fruits of the Spirit which God gives to those that are exercised in the Spiritual Life are as the Cause and the Effect for in truth Goodness is the Mother of Meekness And as some Fruits by reason of their great fecundity grow one within another and as an Ear of Corn produces many Grains so Goodness produces Gentleness Meekness and Affability repeated again and again in all its words and actions And we must take notice that this Goodness which St. Paul names here for a Fruit of the Spirit is not barely that Vertue which is the first cause of Grace that is to say a disposition to receive and to hold it by the Soul 's being free from the guilt of any great sin for that is a Fruit of the Divine Goodness and Mercy which gave the Soul light and strength to cast out sin rather than a Fruit of the Spirit But the Goodness here meant is in my Opinion an high Gift of Grace and Favour which God grants to holy Souls after they have serv'd him long in the Spiritual Life whereby the Soul is cleansed and purified not only from greater sins but even from lesser nay even the least Passions and by taking away those Barks as it were and inward Rinds of our Nature lays it bare and naked from those folds and doublings of imperfect Habits leaving the Soul in so great a purity truth and sincerity that St. Paul calls it perfect Goodness It is as if God should make an Old Man to become a New Man or as if an old decayed and broken House should by his Power not only be repaired and strengthened and made up again in the same proportion grace and Beauty it had at first but also be brought to a greater perfection and enriched with more costly Ornaments And though it still leaves in him the incitement and provocation to sin for that never ceases nor does Grace take it away yet it is as much weakened and disabled as Reason was in it before This Goodness and Sincerity the Lord found in holy Job and to give him an high Praise indeed he said He was single and upright God by his Grace had taken from him all those folds and doublings which we have in our Souls those corners and hollow places where Malice uses to dwell He had cast out all Imperfections from thence and had filled it with his Lights and Vertues making him a Mirrour of his high Perfections This Goodness and Sincerity is that which Christ desir'd to find in his Disciples when they were contending who should be the greatest and he Discoursing upon it took a Child and laying his Holy Hands upon the Head of that little Angel said unto them Unless ye become as this little Child ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Some Authors say this Child was St. Ignatius afterwards Bishop of Antioch and Martyr who was one of the most Holy Disciples that the Apostles had and from that touch of Christ's hand he became so much in love with him that he took for his Motto Amor meus crucifixus est For his only Love was Christ crucified and at his Martyrdom this holy Man defied the Lions that were to tear him in pieces and said to them I am the Wheat of Christ and I shall be ground by your teeth that I may be worthy to be made the Bread of that Lord. This Digression I have made to quicken the Faith of Clergy-men for if Christ but by touching him made him to become so holy how holy ought we to be who not only touch the Bread of the Lord but the Bread which is the Lord and do so often Consecrate and Receive it Two things God requir'd of the Apostles in imitation of that Child first Humility for since they were proudly striving who should have the highest place he could not set before them a fitter Example than that Age and that Humility Do ye
inward thoughts are loose and ungoverned what is it but a well-composed Falshood and a well studied Hypocrisie And all this is highly abominable to God nor do I wonder he should abhor it for his Divine Majesty is Truth and Sincerity itself and therefore he must of necessity detest a substantial Lye mask'd under the appearance of a Truth Christ reproved the Pharisees for making clean the outside of the Cup and Platter while within they were full of the deadly Poison of Extortion and Excess Make clean said he the inside and thereby the outside will become clean also He also calls them whited Sepulchres which had the appearance of Vertue and Religion but within were full of Bones Worms and Rottenness as if he should have said Ye have lively Passions within while your Passions seem utterly mortified without Thus this outward Modesty while it corresponds with the inward is both Vertue and Example but if it be not proportioned to that it is but a Mantle of Snow that covers an heap of Dung the Sun of Truth comes and melts it and then it is so much the worse by how much before it appeared the better Outward Modesty is always convenient in as much as it covers Imperfections to the end that a fault may not pass on to a scandal which is the worst and the most hurtful thing in the World yet when an ill Man makes use of outward Modesty to give Credit to his Authority and to those Erroneous Practises which he inwardly favours that concealed Wickedness is a great deal worse than a manifest Crime A Wolf in Sheep's cloathing is much more dangerous to the Flock than when he appears in his own shape for so he is known both to the Dog and to the Shepherd The one does but whistle and the other presently flies at him but when he comes in a fair Disguise he is unknown to both and the poor Flock is in danger to become his Prey Every body that has Eyes may escape a Precipice but hardly any body can escape a Snare for that has a seeming shew of Security but the other visibly shews the Hazard and the Danger The Common Enemy is never more dangerous to Souls than when he tempts with pretences of Good for he that takes him for an Angel of Light and of Holiness will more easily suffer himself to be perswaded than if he saw him in the Deformity of the Devil Though the Devil was a Serpent yet some Expositors say he spoke not to our first Parents in the figure of a Serpent but cloathed himself with a beautiful Appearance for fear lest Eve seeing him so ugly should have been afraid of his approach and so not have suffered her self to be perswaded by him He took the Colours of the Forbidden Fruit which was Beautiful in shew and Poison in reality Thus the Substantial Fruit of the Holy Spirit which thou must endeavour to obtain is not only an outward Modesty for under that great Treacheries and much Hypocrisie may lye hid though of itself it be good when it is not abused but an outward and an inward Modelty coupled together as well in the actions as in the manner of doing them and in ordering all we do in such a way that the Circumstances and Substance may receive mutual Advantage from one another and may together be like a fair gilt Case and Dial-plate exactly fitted to the proportion of a well-wrought Clock whereby being preserved from Rust and Foulness and defended from those Accidents that might spoil and disorder it the motions of its Wheels are kept regular and it is not only an Ornament to the place where the Maker sets it but a needful Help and Direction to all that look upon it for the disposing of their Time and of their Affairs and thereby the worth of the Case is also improv'd as a necessary and proper means of attaining the end for which the Clock is designed but if that be taken away the Case remains an empty useless thing and though the sight of it may please Fools and Ignorant Persons who regard not though the Hand point to a wrong Hour yet those of discerning Judgments will soon perceive the want of life and motion and disregard it as a thing of a flight and inconsiderable value Of the Fruit of Chastity The Fruit of Chastity is also a more excellent and higher Vertue than that we formerly spake of for this Fruit grows out of that being the Flower of that Tree and the production of that Holy Root This is a Chastity of an Heroical degree a Chastity of Supream Magnitude 't is that which those Saints were blessed with who gave their Lives to defend it or not to lose it This is that which the Blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of Virgins and the prime Example of Chastity had This is that which Joseph had not only the Patriarch who was first of that Name when by his Chastity he triumphed over the wanton Lightness of his infamous Mistress choosing rather to suffer a cruel Imprisonment than to blemish it or do a Treachery to his Master but also the other Patriarch Joseph the Husband of the Blessed Virgin more Holy and more Chast than the former This is that which the great John Baptist had in losing his Life for having endeavoured to cleanse the heart of that Tyrant Herod from the Vice contrary to Chastity which cost him his Head that was sacrificed to the Revengeful Adulteress And this is that which many of the Primitive Christians valued to so high a degree that nothing could stain the whiteness of their Chastity but the Blood of their own Veins which was shed for the preservation of it This excellent Vertue may live and reign also even in Wedlock and shine brightly in holy Matrimony for Continence Temperance and Modesty in the use of Marriage is perfect Chastity sanctifying honouring and authorizing that holy Bond as St. Paul says This Fruit of the Spirit is acquir'd or to say better given by God through the Holy Spirit both to the married and unmarried to Virgins and to all those that have exercis'd themselves in keeping a clean and holy Purity both in Body and Mind And although all these Twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit are owing to his Infinite Bounty yet this of Chastity is so more than all the rest for if as we have said none can have that former degree of Chastity out by the Gift of God Nemo enim continens esse potest nisi Deus dederit how can any one by other means obtain this Flower of Chastity which is the Crown and Fruit of that excellent Vertue which honours and improves even Chastity itself being exercis'd in such occasions and with such Heroical Vertues as do much increase the Glory of it Nor does the dependance of this Admirable Vertue upon the Bounty of God more than others increase the difficulty of it for in my Opinion and according to my way of Understanding it
places and orders of Men which sad and lamentable Evil as it is the desire of all good Men as far as in them lies to remedy so he believes an impartial and diligent perusal of this and such-like Spiritual Treatises will by the assistance of God's Grace be Instrumental to the producing of that blessed effect He found by reading this Book that in it were laid down the most profitable and useful Instructions the most affecting and forcible Arguments to allure to the Service of God and the most solid and substantial Nourishment that can be administred to Souls And this gave him Encouragment to undergo the pleasing Trouble of preparing it for a Publick Reading Which being effected his hearty Prayers to Almighty God are that his Endeavours may have their desired influence upon the Hearts and Minds of all that shall vouchsafe to peruse them and that that Devout and Heavenly Spirit may in some measure be communicated to them whereby the Spiritual Author of this Spiritual Year was acted in Designing and Perfecting so Divine and Profitable a Work THE Author's PREFACE THE Design of this Piece is to draw Souls to the serious Consideration of Eternity to move their Affections to the Love of Heavenly things and to bring them to a Contempt of those that are Temporal and transitory In it they will see much of what is treated at large in divers Spiritual Books and the substance of what lies dispersed in them summed up in this one not with that Spirit and Learning wherewith those Authors wrote but with equal desire for the good of Souls Indeed that which we are able to do is nothing in respect of what God does by that Grace which he hath tyed to the Ministry for without all doubt 't is He that does all He that moves all He that directs all He that amends all and brings all to Perfection Though St. Paul was a Vessel of Election full of the Spirit and might have had as great confidence in himself as any other Apostle yet this made him say That his Planting was nothing and his Watering nothing but that it was God that gave the Increase However it much animates the Labourers of the Gospel in the Spiritual Work to find that it often happens to them as it does to Husband-men who scatter their Seed on their Land with perfect heedlesness part of it falling beside and part being thrown from them with an uncertain direction only with a purpose to fill the Field with Seed and yet returning home afterwards to take their rest God while they are asleep sends Rain upon the Inheritance moistens the Earth disposes the Seed tempers the Heat seasons the Elements makes it rot revive and rise again so that even in Corruption it takes Root grows up and brings forth the full Ear. What did the Sower more than cast away the Seed from him as if he regarded it not And yet it springs up and gives an abundant increase All that he did was to prepare the Matter that God might work the Miracle which as St. Austin says is only little in Man's Consideration because he sees God work it so often This hope encourages me to scatter the Seeds of the Divine Word into the Hearts of the Faithful trusting that God who is the Worker of all that we do will give his Blessing his Grace and Power to the end that the Fruit may be multiplied which Effect in the Parable of the Sower his Divine Majesty intimates he useth to produce in those Souls who receive it with Attention and with a pious holy Affection it taking Root in them as in a fertile Soil But it may be some will say there be already so many Books of Devout Meditations that this might well have been spared they being so Holy and Spiritual and this not so being written by so wretched a sinner as I am To this I answer that though all other Persons might be questioned why they make Spiritual Treatises since there are so many yet that account ought not to be demanded from Bishops since it is a thing as proper to their Ministry to Write to Teach and Instruct as the very Name of a Pastor And in that Work 't is lawful for a Prelate to Teach not only Opportunely but in a manner Importunely as St. Paul teaches his Disciple Timothy who was Bishop of Ephesus Preach the Word be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long-suffering and Doctrine that is by Sermons by Writing by Conversing and by Example And therefore We Bishops ought ever to fear the contrary Censure and Question Why do ye not write Spiritual Books And this being the more dreadful Censure we ought to embrace that which we have least need to fear and to avoid that which can most condemn us Moreover 't is a very affected and unreasonable Complaint of the Politick Censurer who is troubled that so many Spiritual Treatises come forth into the World for God can never be too much praised thereby nor can Evangelical Counsels be too often repeated nor Discourses that aim at the Salvation of Souls be too frequent though consisting of one same Matter To say the truth we have seen nothing else in the Church of God from the time that His Divine Majesty settled it with his Blood but this Succession of Doctrine which has accompanied that of those same Ministers whom by their Vocation and excellent Abilities he called and appointed for Masters of Christian Instruction The Four Evangelists wrote those four Books which contain all the Treasures of Grace in the Life and Death of our Saviour yet St. John did not forbear to write his three Epistles and the Revelation St. Luke the Acts of the Apostles St. Peter two Epistles and St. Paul fourteen St. James one St. Jude another and their Disciples Ignatius Polycarp and others did also write though they might have contented themselves with what the Apostles had done who were the General Ministers and Teachers of the Faith After these succeed the Doctors of the Greek and Latine Churches who filled the World with Writings without any prejudice to those or rather proceeding upon the same Doctrine and using it according to their purpose have enlightened and enriched the Church to the great profit and comfort of Souls That Book of the Imitation of Christ made by Thomas a Kempis which some call the Contempt of the World and others The Christian Pattern though it be a very little one is yet so full of weight that those other Spiritual Treatises which have been written since might seem superfluous yet for all that the Venerable Lewis de Granada having translated and incorporated it into his Meditations with those of another excellent Author which are very Heavenly both in their Spirit Style and Matter did not only make others after them but wrote also the Guide of Sinners which has reduced converted and guided so many as likewise the Symbol of the Faith and several
inheritance eternal in the Heavens which fadeth not away and not only a temporal Life as well as he but also an eternal one receiving instead of it an everlasting Death as the just Reward of thy more wilful Folly 7. Again Suppose a Husbandman instead of manuring plowing and sowing his Land in the right Season should waste the Year in carelesness and think it time enough to fall to those businesses when his Neighbours who have done them all in due order are reaping their Corn and filling their Barns with a plentiful increase What wouldst thou judge of him for having not only slighted their good Example but despised their frequent Advices to be more provident and industrious Though thou mayst have learnt by the former Simile to apply this to thy self I cannot but condemn thee as more ignorant than the very Birds and Beasts for they infallibly know and exactly observe their several Seasons But all they that delay their Repentance are beyond comparison more ignorant and more slothful then that Husbandman considering the infinite disproportion there is between those hopes that should have moved his Industry and those assurances which should encourage theirs as likewise between those fears that should have quicken'd his sloth and those terrors that should rouze up theirs That Husbandman might possibly make a shift though a hard one to rub out that fruitless Year by the help of charitable Persons and having dearly bought more wit by the sad Experience of his Poverty might buckle close to his work and by future diligence against the following Harvest be Master of as rich a Crop as any in the Field but if thou defer thy Repentance till the Harvest of Death there is no possibility for thee to have another Year No in that Harvest thou shalt be reaped thy self and bound up with the Tares to be cast into the Fire Nor do thou adventure to trust to the Charity of others But remember that although the wise Virgins had Oil in their Lamps yet were they so far from having any to spare that they had hardly enough for themselves and when the foolish ones that wanted came to them for a supply they were sent away with a flat denial and it being then too late to get any for their Money they were shut out from the Feast of the Bridegroom for ever 8. Oh what sad stories might be related to thee upon the Subject of delayed Repentance How many Examples be there of Persons that after long sleeping securely in Sin have been rouzed of a sudden by the sharp Stings of Conscience at the Approach of Death and frighted from the vain Confidence they had of their Salvation into the other Extream of Despair by the dreadful Terrors of Hell-fire which then seemed to flash in their very faces Some of them have started into such dismal Apprehensions of God's severe Justice which they never regarded before that they quite forgot the abundance of his Mercy whereof till then they had groundlesly made themselves too sure nor could they in that condition be perswaded there was any pardon to be got for them though they should repent never so much they could not believe the Goodness of God though infinite was large enough to afford them any share in that Redemption which he sent his Son into the World expresly to purchase for all Mankind at the price of his most precious Blood Though He be so gracious as to call all Sinners and to say he came to seek and to save them that were lost professing with an Oath that he delights not in their death but rather that they should turn from their wickedness and live Nay that he would have all to be saved and none to perish yet the Devil taking advantage upon their having so long delayed to repent makes them now to believe that it is too late as he did before that it was too soon They can entertain no thoughts of God but what are dismal looking upon him as their greatest Enemy and some of them even hating him out of a prodigious Belief that he created them on purpose for Damnation This Crime is so heinous and of so deep a dye that the Stains of it can hardly be fetched out even with that Blood which makes Sins though red as Scarlet to become as white as Snow yet not for want of Vertue in the Remedy but because that Sin is so hardly repented of nor is it strange if upon so high a provocation God in his Justice suffer their wretched Bark to be tossed and weather-beaten upon the unquiet Billows of a wounded Spirit and to be dashed in pieces against the Rock of Despair by the violent Gust of his Displeasure Methinks I hear their loud Complaints and lamentable Cries and though I dare not so much as imagine the horrible Blasphemies which some of them utter in that woful anguish of their Souls yet I cannot but learn how amazing their condition is and how insupportable since it makes divers of them hang drown poyson or stab themselves and blindly to fly from temporal into eternal Torments Oh take warning by such dismal Examples which the divine Providence sometimes permits as humane Justice does notorious Malefactors to be exposed in Chains for the greater Terror of all that behold or but hear the Narrative of their Execution 9. And yet there is another State which though quite contrary is no less dangerous then theirs and numberless is the Multitude of those that are in it which makes me the more earnestly beg of thee to be careful thou be not one of them These flatter themselves vainly with the false Notion of God's infinite Mercy and quite forget the strict severity of his Justice they think it enough to avoid gross and scandalous Sins and count those they commit so inconsiderable that they are safe though they neither repent of them nor regard the Performance of Religious Duties Thus do they pass their days in a Lethargy of Security till their dead sleep be changed into the Sleep of Death and they swallowed up in the Gulph of Presumption without any noise few reflecting upon their end and fewer being warned by their Example Some of them indeed seem to be more awaken'd to rise out of this Spiritual Lethargy and to walk in the Course of Religious Duties but resting in the outward Performance of them without the Sincerity of Repentance or fervency of Devotion they are but like Men that walk in their sleep and while they dream they are going in the right way to Heaven drop into Hell with more presumption in themselves and less warning to others than the former most thinking them in a safe Condition and being therefore encourag'd to follow them in the same Road. But oh take heed of that Security and of resting upon the broken Reed of formal Religion for even some of those Despairers that strike so much terror into those that see them may sooner escape provided their Despondency proceed from
Christian and now no body can destroy thee but thou thy self and thou art told by the Word of Truth that the greatest outward Enemy the Devil will flie from thee if thou dost but resist him Thou canst not but be greatly chear'd with these Encouragements and much comforted by seriously considering what thou hast received in Baptism We Christians certainly ought never to lose the sight of that Benefit but still to reflect upon the greatness of it with thankful hearts Yet we ought not only to look upon what God hath done for us but also to think upon our part of this Covenant and to weigh the Duties we are oblig'd to by it Remember that thy God fathers and God-mothers when thou wert baptized did promise and vow in thy Name that thou shouldst forsake the Devil and all his Works the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked World and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh as likewise that thou shouldst believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith contained in the Apostles Creed and finally that thou shouldst keep God's Holy Will and Commandments contain'd in the Decalogue and walk in the same all the days of thy life The Church appointed them to do this for thee as thy Sureties because at that time by reason of thy tender Age thou wert not able to make much less to perform these Promises but being come to Understanding thou art bound to take that Vow upon thy self and they may properly be called God-fathers and God-mothers because in the mean while it is their Duty to take care that their God-Children as they grow up may be taught what a Solemn Vow Promise and Profession they have made for them and to cause them to be instructed both in the Articles of the Creed and in the Ten Commandments Moreover if at any time they shall hear them speak or see them do any thing contrary to that Divine Law they ought to put them in mind that they promised and vowed the contrary in their Baptism But O! how little of this care is there in the World there is nothing more neglected or forgotten than this Duty of God-fathers yet I hope not generally I cannot have such hard thoughts for though I must needs confess it is too much slighted yet certainly there be many that have a due regard of it But since Children when they grow to Age are themselves bound to perform what was promised in their Names by their God-fathers and God-mothers They may in great part discharge themselves when they take care that their God-children be so well Instructed in the Christian Religion as to know the Duties that Vow engages them to and when being of years able to renew that Covenant and to take the charge of their Souls upon themselves they shall have perswaded them upon serious consideration so to do and have brought them to the Bishop to be Confirmed according to that Order which the Wisdom of the Church hath established appointing all the Members thereof to be so or at least to be ready and desirous to be so before they be admitted to the Holy Communion The Bishop by whose Ministry this Office is performed first causeth the Parties who are to be Confirmed to make an open Confession in the Publick Congregation that they do renew the Promise and Vow that was made in their Name at their Baptism ratifying and confirming the same in their own Persons and acknowledging themselves bound to believe and to do all those things which their God-fathers and God-mothers then undertook for them He also prays to God to strengthen them by the Holy Ghost the Comforter and daily to increase in them his manifold Gifts and Graces the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Counsel and Ghostly Strength the Spirit of Knowledge and true Godliness and to fill them with the Spirit of his holy Fear for ever Lastly he lays his hand upon each Child and blesses him as our Saviour did upon those Children that were brought to him and concludes beseeching God to direct sanctifie and govern both their Hearts and Bodies in the ways of his Laws and in the works of his Commandments that through his mighty Protection both here and ever they may be preserved in Body and Soul through our Lord Jesus Christ Much are those Parents and Sureties to be blamed that omit to bring them to this Order of Confirmation it being a great benefit both to the Sureties in the discharge of their Obligation and to the Children who are duly fitted and prepared for it for they are thereby awakened to an early sense of Religion and to a future endeavour of performing their Duty in it When Young Plants are removed out of their Nurseries and set in the open Field it is necessary to fence them about with Stakes to hinder their being crop'd or trodden down by Beasts and it is no less necessary thus to confirm and strengthen new beginners in Christianity that they may be the better guarded at their coming into the open World against the dangerous approach of brutish Men. Such Branches as are so engrafted into the true Vine God doubtless vouchsafes to water with his Grace and though in weak measure at first yet if they continue to take firm Root he will not fail to make them thrive and bring forth good Fruit. Those gifts of the Spirit prayed for on their behalf will likewise through his Mercy increase till they become so many strong Bulwarks to defend their Souls against the Common Enemy within which they may stand safe to fight according to their Vow against the World the Flesh and the Devil Remember therefore always the Obligation that lies upon thee by that Vow We are engaged in our Childhood to that which we neglect when we are grown up whereas being grown up we should be careful to perform that which our Sureties promised for us when we were Children Keep then still in mind that thou art a listed Souldier forget not in what Army thou art enroll'd what Captain thou art to follow what Fidelity thou hast sworn to him and fight valiantly even to the death rather than suffer thy self to be overcome by the subtil Perswasions and Devices of his and thine own Enemies The Souldiers of this World for a very small hire keep Fidelity to their General they fight and die for him without any other bond or tye than that of some little piece of Money ill paid and yet they give their blood and daily venture their life for that Pay whereas we Christians the Souldiers of Jesus Christ listed under the Ensign of his Cross assisted by so many Benefits of Grace being Heirs and Co-heirs of Glory and having Heaven for our Pay do frequently desert our Colours like vile infamous Cowards and by sin treacherously fly over into the Enemies Camp The Souldiers of the World fight to defend their King or their General but here our General fights and gives his Blood and his Life for the
defence of his Souldiers They hazard their lives for a pitiful Pay which oftentimes they never get but our King and Captain secures us a certain Pay rewarding us with Life and Glory If they fly over to their Enemy 't is out of hope to preserve their lives but if we do so we run to eternal death and fly from eternal life The War of the World is made by wounding hurting and killing others but the War of God against the World is made by receiving Injuries Affronts Wounds and even Death it self if it be necessary The War of the World is to Conquer by destroying others but the War against the World is to Conquer by undergoing Difficulties and Suffering for God's sake In that War it is Force that overcomes in this 't is Patience The Victories of that War are gotten by pulling down and trampling upon others but in this by debasing and humbling our selves The Triumphs of that War are here upon Earth and of a short continuance but those of this War are to be in Heaven above and to endure for ever and ever Fight therefore couragiously have patience and persevere the Battle lasts but for a while thou art already near the Crown that is to be thy Reward Arm us O thou great Captain of our Salvation for this Warfare with the Shield of Faith the Breast-plate of Righteousness the Helmet of Salvation and with the Sword of the Spirit and grant that having our Feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace we may chearfully withstand all Assaults of our Ghostly Enemies keeping still present in our thoughts the Vow we made to thee in our Baptism to fight manfully under thy Banner against the World the Flesh and the Devil and to continue thy Faithful Souldiers and Servants unto our lives end The Second WEEK Of Repentance and Absolution OUR blessed Redeemer and Saviour of Souls did not stop here He thought it not enough to Arm us for the Spiritual Warfare but has also provided a Remedy to cure our Wounds His Divine Majesty knew our weakness he knew our proneness to Vice he knew that like Cowards we should sometimes throw down our Weapons at the feet of our Enemies and basely fly from his Banner for the sake of some filthy Appetite He would not leave our Souls without help but his Compassion seeing our Frailty and Misery was pleased in the very sight of so great Ingratitude to prepare a Medicine for the cure of our Wounds and an Antidote for the Poyson of our Sins by establishing the Doctrine of Repentance and by giving Power and Commandment to his Ministers to declare and pronounce unto such as are truly Penitent the Absolution and Remission of their sins Great was the Love of our Lord in dying for us upon the Cross nor was it less in giving us this means to make his Sufferings effectual to us To pardon past Offences has been seen and sometimes one man to suffer for another but not at so dear a Price as his own Blood For a Person offended to suffer the sight of his Enemies is much when it is to do them good but 't is much more when he knows that they are not only Enemies but that they are ungrateful and despise his Benefits to shed his very blood to make a Medicine for their Wounds This is a pity exceeding all Humane Understanding That there should be care taken in Armies to cure the Wounded and Hospitals for the Sick it is not strange because they are Faithful Souldiers and venture their Lives in Fighting for their King But in the War of the Spirit that the Saviour of Souls should prepare Remedies not for his Friends that fight on his side but for Enemies and Souldiers that desert him that he should admit them again to be new listed under his Banner is a Mercy beyond comparison To pardon Mutineers has been seen in Armies but yet the Heads are commonly punished and the Companies disbanded but not only to pardon such Enemies and Traytors but to call them back to Love to Cure to Reward to Honour and Sustain them with his own Flesh and Blood can be the effect of nothing but an Infinite Charity and Compassion So great is the Benefit of Repentance which giving us a Title to the blood of Christ not only Cures those that are wounded but also raises those that are dead in sins nor is there any thing above the Cure of that Soveraign Medicine unless the Party affected resists the power of it which is so great that it not only cures the Wound but takes away the very Scars and makes those that are recovered more sound and healthful than they were before Behold a Man fallen from a Ship into the Sea and ready to be drowned amidst the Waves see with what eagerness he calls for a Cable with what greediness he catches at the Plank nay the poor wretch would even lay hold on a naked Sword to save his Life though with the loss of his Blood so the Christian who by the Grace of Baptism sails in the Ship of the Church being carried by his Passions throws himself into the World and is sinking in the Tempest of his sins and if he be drowned he perishes to Eternity but as he is sinking he finds this second Plank of Repentance to save him from Shipwrack and by it is drawn up into the Ship again and preserved to arrive in safety at his desired Port. Apply thy self therefore to the use of this Remedy with Humility with an holy Disposition and great sorrow for thy sins and by Faith in the Merits of Christ's Blood and then thou shalt rise up not only cured but crowned Call to remembrance thy sins and make a firm Resolution never to offend thy Lord again Be affected with a sorrow that is pure in its sincerity pious in its intention great in its degree perpetual in its lasting and particular in the enumeration of thy several sins with all the aggravating Circumstances thereof Finally let thy Confession be clear and undissembled with confusion of Face for thy often relapses giving Glory to God and taking Shame to thy self Make use of a Spiritual Guide in all difficulties of Conscience for thy Instruction and Consolation Forgive all Injuries thou hast at any time received which are but a few Pence in comparison of the many Talents which thou hast to be forgiven and remember that Christ says Except ye forgive men their trespasses neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses And not only forgive thine Enemies but embrace them with unfeigned Affection for his sake and by his Example who loved thee when thou wast his Enemy Of the Holy Eucharist In this Preparation of Soul wounded both with Love and Grief and thirsting as the Hart for the Water-brooks approach reverently to the Sacrament of thy Saviour's Body and Blood which that gracious Lord instituted at his last Supper for a continual remembrance of the Sacrifice of himself
most that run furthest from God O how much greater are the Sufferings of those that are so deceivd how much more painful and afflicting The Sinner passeth his whole Life in pains by reason of his Vices and so much the greater are his Torments by how much the greater are those Passions which disquiet and molest his troubled Mind Behold the loathsome Diseases of the sensual Man both of his Body and Soul Behold the unclean Surfeits of the Glutton Behold the fiery Rage of the Angry and Revengeful The racking Cares of the Covetous and the uneasie Emulations of the Proud Behold the frettings of the Envious Man All of them live or rather all of them die for how can they be said to live that undergo such Anguish and Vexation Then behold the difference between him that suffers for God outwardly and feels joy and comfort inwardly And how wilt thou grow in the Spiritual life without Temptations and Tribulations Thou canst not only not grow nor thrive but not so much as live in it Wouldst thou drive Sin out of thy Heart It must be by Mortification or else it will still remain there Wouldst thou drive away thy Passions It must be by conquering Temptations Wouldst thou be fitted for the Coelestial Building It must be by the Chisel and Mallet of Temptation and Mortification Wouldst thou throw out Vitious Habits It must be by exercising contrary Vertues Wouldst thou live humbled It is necessary that thou shouldst be afflicted Wouldst thou know what thou art By suffering Temptations thou shalt perceive thine own Frailty and Misery Wouldst thou cast Self-love out of thine unquiet Heart Deliver thy self up to an holy Self-denial Wouldst thou give thy self wholly to God thy Saviour and Redeemer Deny thy self and refuse to satisfie thine own desires Finally wouldst thou have Glory Take up the Cross embrace Sufferings love Tribulations do not defend thy self from the Cross but under the Cross and by the Cross do not defend thy self from Sufferings but under them by the power of Grace do not defend thy self from the Temptations which God sends thee but from the evil of those he sends thee That it is no easie matter to be saved but that it is necessary to fight Believe it he does but deceive thee who tells thee that thou mayest enjoy God in another Life without Suffering for him in this Life He does but cheat thee who says there are two Glories for the Soul one of Temporal Delights the other of Coelestial He deludes thee who says without any Tribulations thou shalt enjoy that Glory which our Lord entred into by suffering them He deceives thee who makes thee believe there is another way for thee than that which all the Saints pass'd through He cheats thee that says It is an easie matter for thee to live ill and to die well to take thy fill of Pleasures here and to partake in Eternal Joys hereafter He abuses thee that says 't is an easie thing to be sav'd and that the Gate of Heaven stands open for him at his death who hath lived wickedly all his life No the Saviour of Souls does not tell thee so but he says That narrow is the way that leads to Salvation He says We must strive to enter because the gate is strait He says The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and that the violent take it by force He tells thee His Flock is a little Flock that many are called but few chosen All this speaks no easiness nor temporal and sensual Sweetness but Rigour Courage Constancy Repentance Sorrow and a Life of Crosses and Tribulations Believe it the strictest Livers are at no small labour to obtain Salvation Strive therefore since it was not without cause that so many Holy Persons before thee have undergone the most terrible Difficulties and Afflictions in their way to Heaven Of the Grace of God This indeed is a sharp unpleasing Doctrine and very unwelcome to our Nature but if it be an Enemy to our Nature it is a Friend to our Spirit and to that Grace which brings Glory to our Nature It is a safe Doctrine because it is taught by our Redeemer It presses Men to take care of their Souls that they may seek God and not forsake him that they may serve him and not offend him But all this which is so difficult and even impossible to our frailty is sweet and easie by the Grace of God It is that Grace which fills and supports assists and conquers convinces and disposes does and perfects all The most powerful Grace of God is that which sweetens all Labours and renders them not only tolerable but delightful This Grace makes the good desire Sufferings as the bad do Pleasures and causes them to find Joys in their Austerities when the wicked find Trouble in the midst of their Delights Grace encourages sustains comforts and gives an inward sweetness to Sufferings which makes them more savoury and pleasant than the most pretended Enjoyments of this World Grace in the Spiritual Life strengthens the weak enlightens the blind eases the afflicted comforts the sorrowful and gives joy to the disconsolate Grace supports the Soul animates guides accompanies raises it when it is sinking leads it in the way and crowns it in the end O most powerful Grace of God! thou admirable effect of his Goodness All is owing to thee How many steps are taken in the Spiritual Life how many affections and desires are stirred up how many good actions are done how much perseverance is exercised how many tears are shed and how much love is enkindled all is owing to God's Holy Grace Fear not therefore Tribulations if Grace be with thee for by it Temptations and Tribulations will be rendred of no force and thou shalt conquer all by its Effectual and Omnipotent Power I can do all things saith the Apostle of the Gentiles through him that strengtheneth me for then he was strengthened by Grace Not I says he but the Grace of God which is in me as if he had said I work but I am carried guided and assisted by Grace for without it I neither know nor can do any thing being of my self unable so much as to think one good thought Behold with what facility David lamented his fall by the help of Grace Behold how quickly St. Peter wash'd away his sin with tears by the help of Grace Behold with what Resolution Mary Magdalene broke off the dissoluteness of her sinful Life by the help of Grace Behold how suddenly St. Paul from a Persecutor became a joyful sufferer of Persecution and the Prodigy of the World by the help of Grace See the World converted and reformed and Heaven peopled in a short time by the Apostles through the help of Grace Now that same Grace which made them Saints may make thee one also though now thou art a sinner 'T is the same Grace that favours and assists thee and is not less powerful now but is as kind as sweet
strive to Purchase them even at the loss of all which is Temporal and in this Life as much as may be to imitate the same Eternity which is to be done by the Practice of those three Vertues which St. Bernard recommends to us in these words With Poverty of Spirit with Meekness and Contrition of Heart is renewed in the Soul a Similitude and Image of that Eternity which embraces all times For with Poverty of Spirit we merit the future with Meekness we possess the present and with the Tears of Repentance we recover what is past Let all thine Actions be accompanied with this Thought For Ever that for ever shall be rewarded what thou doest well and with this consideration thou wilt not only animate thy self to do good works but to do them well If in all thy deeds thou wouldst but propose to thy self Eternity and wholly respect it thou wouldst find little difficulty in any good works thou goest about Fix therefore thine Eyes and Thoughts upon that which is to be given us for that which may be done in a moment Blessed be God who bestows upon us a Reward without end for Troubles so short that they scarcely have a beginning The Benefit which David reaped by this consideration was a firm Resolution to mend his Life and change into a new Man animating himself to a greater Observance and a more high Perfection And so in that Psalm wherein he says That he thought upon the days of Old and the years of Eternity he adds immediately the effect of his Meditation saying That he was to begin anew Considering that Eternity never ends but still begins and that it is wholly a beginning he determined with such new fervour to give a beginning to a more perfect Life that he would never flag or be dismayed in the prosecution of it willing in this to imitate Eternity which as it is ever beginning so he would ever begin to deserve it And what great matter is it if that which we are to enjoy for ever be ever in beginning that we should likewise be ever beginning to deserve it Our Reward is not to fail us and therefore there is no reason why we should fail and grow weary in our Service and Endeavours Our Joy is ever to begin why should not then our Endeavours be ever beginning The Repose we hope for shall never have an end why should then our Deservings ever cease We ought never to look back upon our Labours past but still to animate our selves to labour anew for God and his Service as did the Apostle St. Paul who says of himself That he did forget what was past that he did enlarge his heart and mind extending it for that which is to come which the Apostle spake in a time when he had suffered much and done such Services to God in the good of Souls that he had already laboured more than all the Apostles After that he had entred into the Synagogues of Damascus and publickly preached Jesus Christ with the most evident danger of his Life After that he had converted many People in Arabia Tarsus and Antioch After he had distributed great Alms gathering them with much labour made long Journeys and brought them unto the Poor in Jerusalem After the suffering of innumerable Persecutions and after infinite more Services performed for the Church After all these it seemed unto him that he had suffered nothing done nothing for Christ and he forgot it all as if it had been the first day of his Conversion determining still to do more to suffer more to labour more to begin anew esteeming himself after so many Labours and Services an useless unprofitable Servant and to be far short of deserving that Eternal Blessedness which is reserved for the Faithful in Glory And indeed what proportion does a whole Life of Labours and Sufferings bear to an everlasting Reward and never-ending Joys What Conditions canst thou think too rigid to be performed or what Calamities too hard to be undergone for the attainment of an Immortal and Incorruptible Crown If we would but allow this Point it 's due consideration how slight should we think all the Evils and Troubles of this World How inconsiderable are all Pains and Difficulties to them that have a Prospect of those future Beatitudes Let me see thee O God in thy Glory and let me suffer a thousand Torments in this Life till I come to see thee Let me see you O Blessed Angels in Heaven and let me suffer upon Earth till I come to see you Let me be admitted into your blessed Company O happy Saints hereafter and let me suffer whatever ye suffered here Come Pains and Punishments so I may but see those Eternal Joys and Contentments Let me endure any thing in this Vale of Miseries so I may at last come to the City of God the Heavenly Jerusalem abounding in all manner of Joys and Comforts Finally O my Jesus do whatsoever thou wilt with me here so that I may but at last see adore praise and enjoy thee for ever there The Third WEEK Of the Imitation of the Life of our Blessed Saviour and of his Mysteries IF the Examples of Men nay even of the worst may help very much towards the making us good being incited thereby to take care to avoid their evil Action and if those of good Men are so prevalent to draw us unto Vertue what excellent Vertues may be acquir'd by imitating those which are to be seen through the whole course of the Life of our Blessed Saviour who has commanded us to learn of him And whither should we go but to the Life and Passion of our Blessed Redeemer for the attaining of that Glory which he has purchased for us with his most precious Blood Where shall we find those Vertues which we ought to practice in the Kingdom of Grace which is the way to it but in his holy Imitation Where those Merits which must give Life and Value to all the best Actions we can possibly perform but in the Merits and Sufferings of his Cross And where the Grace that must Animate Quicken and Fortifie our Nature but in that which he obtained for us by those Sufferings and by that Cross And thus wouldst thou have Glory Then go strait to the Passion of our Lord. Wouldst thou improve thy self in good and holy Customs Fix the Eyes of thy Consideration upon the passages of his most Holy Life Wouldst thou know how to Fight and Conquer Behold his Battles and his Victories Wouldst thou walk in the way of Eternal Life Follow him in those holy steps which he has trod before thee Wouldst thou overcome the World the Flesh and the Devil those Enemies of the Cross Take up the Cross and follow him who goes before thee carrying it upon his own shoulders Dost thou desire Light and Knowledge the Fire of Charity the Fervour of Devotion and to banish all Wickedness and Imperfection from thy Soul Then contemplate the
to his Face Let so many Publicans and Sinners so many Harlots and other wicked Livers speak this who repenting were pardoned and the Traiterous Apostle Judas who persisting in Impenitency was Damned Of the Institution of the Holy Sacrament This Gracious Action being finished he holds a most loving Discourse to his Disciples preparing them to see their Master suffer and to bear all those sufferings they were to undergo themselves O how does he forewarn and advise them How does he encourage and instruct them How does he enlighten and comfort them There he rebukes Peter thereby giving a Lesson to the rest and shews them Beams of Mercy even in those Prophecies of Tribulations and Afflictions that were to befal them If he foretel their Frailties and their Failings he also assures them of Victories and Triumphs and that they shall subdue and trample upon the World through the Vertue and Power of his Grace That most tender Discourse being likewise ended he Celebrated the third and last Supper or more properly the admirable and unspeakable Mystery of the Sacrament in which he expressed and Epitomized the Intimacies of his unmeasurable Goodness and Charity To make himself Man and to suffer for Man seemed but a small thing to his Love unless he still remained with Man to be the food of Man O Infinite Charity which contentest not thy self with being our Redemption unless thou also becomest our Nourishment O Infinite Charity who not only offerest thy self to Death to save my Life but who also wilt enter into my Breast to give me a better Life and to defend and free me from a more lasting Death O Infinite Charity who having our Ingratitude in thy thoughts and that thou wert to be condemned by Men to die upon the Cross yet leavest us a benefit which we could not have received but by thy passing first through so great an Ingratitude of Men O Infinite Charity which knowing that my Offences would nail thee to the Cross wert yet providing that remedy for those very Offences O Infinite Charity which knowing that a thousand Injuries and Torments were contriving in the Hearts of Men against thy unspeakable Goodness and Mercy didst yet leave thy self for Food to those Infamous Mouths and having it in thy Power to inflict a severe punishment upon them for so great a Wickedness wert offering them means and expedients of Mercy Goodness and Charity What was Man doing when thou didst institute this blessed Sacrament for him What but preparing the Scourges the Crown of Thorns the Nails and the Cross for thee He was designing thy cruel Death and thou his eternal Life He was contriving Torments for thee and thou Glory for him He was platting a Crown of sharp Thorns for thy sacred Head and thou a Crown of Joys and Eternities for his Lord is it thy Custom to repay Benefits for Injuries and to give Crowns for the Reward of Ingratitude Come hither O devout Souls come and bewail with me so great a Sin Come love with me so great a Love Come with a Spiritual Hunger and offer up your hearts to receive that Divine Nourishment and let whatsoever is in you of your selves go forth of you to make room for this most deservedly beloved Lord to enter Of the Consecration of the Apostles After that our Sovereign Lord and Master had Consecrated the Elements of Bread and Wine breaking the one and giving it them to Eat and pouring out the other and commanding all to Drink calling the one his Body and the other his Blood and thereby changing not their nature but their use that they might become a Sacrament which should remain in his Church not only for a Remembrance of his precious Death and Passion but also for a Conveyance of the Merits thereof for the Remission of Sins He Consecrated also the Apostles themselves and gave them the Power and Vertue to Consecrate and Ordain others and to send them forth as he did them for the Propagation of his Gospel and for the Administration and Government of Souls This was another admirable expression of the Love of our Lord Jesus to Mankind since whereas he could have taken upon him the nature of Angels and left them Heirs of that rich Possession of Receiving Consecrating and Administring those precious Symbols he was pleased to bestow that Benefit and Priviledge upon Mankind which thereby received Honour and Favour as well as Remedy But Lord I wonder not at that since from the time thou madest thy self Man all advantages were brought to Man by joyning thy Divinity to his Humanity O that as thou hast given to us Bishops and Priests this Dignity we had also the Spirit the Devotion and the Piety of the Apostles And Lord as the Power thou hast conferr'd upon us is what thou hast not granted to Angels and to Seraphins O that the Perfection of our Manners and the Purity and Charity of our Souls were in some degree suitable to that of Angels and of Seraphins But O God we have a Dignity of great weight upon very weak shoulders the Dignity is fit for Angels the Weakness is of miserable Sinners And thou only O Eternal Goodness thy Mercy and thy Strength alone can help and encourage and support our Weakness and Misery Since then O sweet Lord thou givest us this Dignity give us also those parts and qualifications which are expedient for it Since thou hast given us the Obligations help us also with the Abilities since thou givest us the Ministry give us also the Spirit As thou hast made us to represent thee make us also to imitate thee As thou hast given us the Power give us also the Vertue with the Power Suffer us not O Divine Goodness to serve in that High Dignity with Uncharitableness and Indignity If thou wilt not help the Bishops the Fathers of the Faith and the Shepherds of Souls O thou Eternal lover of Souls whom wilt thou help If our Light must enlighten the Souls of others what shall become both of us and others if we want thy Light Thou callest the Apostles and Ministers the Salt of the Earth and if the Salt lose its savour how shall their Doctrine be seasoned If the blind lead the blind shall they not both fall into the ditch Grant O Lord that thy Goodness and thy Love may dwell in us that thy Mercy and thy Charity may burn in our hearts and that the fire of thy Divine Love may break forth from thence to kindle and enflame the hearts of our Christian Brethren Our Blessed Saviour having Consecrated his Holy Apostles to be Teachers of the Faith and Pillars of his Church and having made himself their Minister and their Priest enters into the breasts of those that were to be his Ministers and Priests to become an unbloody Sacrifice in the Altar of those living Temples before he was a bloody one upon the Altar of the Cross They with profound Reverence receive the Lord whom they adore and behold
Temperance has two Reins in her hand sometimes she stops sometimes she puts forward now she turns on the one hand now on the other Whithersoever the Law Reason and the Divine Will directs thither she guides How should all be governed without Error if the Mind be not moderated enlighten'd with Reason and subdued with Mortification How is it possible that Temperance without God should be able to contain and moderate man's unbridled Appetite either irascible or concupiscible Or how can it without the power of Grace subdue our corrupt rebellious and unruly Nature How can this outward part be governed unless God illuminate and guide it from within And what can shew us the way of Vertue here below but the light that comes in to us from above The Gentiles did practise some Moral Vertues with Temperance yet even in them and in others they themselves acted with Intemperance Diogenes an humorous overweaning and wilfully-poor Philosopher tramples with his bare Feet all dirty upon the stately Train of Plato a wealthy Philosopher richly apparell'd Plato asked Diogenes What dost thou He answers I trample upon Plato's Pride Yes reply'd Plato but with a greater Pride Here the very Light of Nature judg'd among the Gentiles and enlighten'd them to see their Errors and one Pride reformed another for there was Pride in both Plato will be an Heavenly Man full of Vanity and Pride and fast giued to the Commodities of Life playing the Philosopher about Eternity only in Speculation but giving up his Will and Passion wholly to Temporal things Diogenes on the contrary despising outward things was neither contented in himself nor could live quiet among others being full of an inward Pride that contemned abused and offended all Both of them were acted by Intemperance and were Philosophers of this World and of Nature but not true Philosophers of God nor of the Spirit of Grace If one of the Saints or ancient Fathers of the Church had come into the richly-furnished Room of Plato he would have despis'd but not trampled upon his costly Furniture He would have despis'd his Riches with the same holy Humility wherewith he despised himself He would have despis'd the brave Hangings and Carpets of Plato but not the Person of Plato O the Celestial Knowledge of God and of his holy Law O incomprehensible Wisdom How pure and clear how bright thou shinest in the heart of a Christian who suffers himself to be govern'd by thy Light and directed by thy Means It is a ridiculous thing to think there is any perfect Vertue without God neither Prudence Justice Fortitude nor Temperance can be so without him for without God Prudence is Imprudence Justice is Injustice Fortitude is Weakness and Temperance Intemperance If God does not govern order temper and enlighten it if he does not guide and direct it natural Vertue will be so weak and full of imperfections that it will stumble at every step If it go right now it goes wrong within a moment and if here it punishes the Guilty there it condemns the Innocent But the Government of God and that Soveraign Light which enlightens a Righteous Man that heavenly Grace which assists and counsels him that is it which thou art to pray for and endeavour to obtain that is it that must temper thee if thou wouldst attain to the true practise of the Moral Vertues Of the Manner of Governing the Moral Vertues by the Cardinal By these four principal Vertues thou art to govern and direct the seven Moral ones I mean those which are opposite to the seven deadly Sins which in the Spiritual Life do order our Manners and make the Soul acceptable to the Lord of Vertues The former do command dispose guide encourage and direct us in the way but the latter to practise and put in execution what the others ordain Prudence gives the Manner Justice the Rectitude Fortitude the Courage and Temperance the Measure in all thy Actions Of all the Moral Vertues there is not one perfect which in its Exercise Duration and Perfection does not contain all the four Cardinal ones within it self Humility the Glory Peace and Foundation of the Spiritual Life the most fruitful Seminary of Gifts and Excellencies stands in need of Prudence Justice Fortitude and Temperance and so do all the rest First â—…t has need of Prudence for without a prudent management Humility might pass on so far as to become Scandal or Vanity Secondly It has need of Justice for a Man ought to keep it in such manner as likewise to keep up his Office Ministry or Dignity Thirdly It has need of Fortitude to preserve the Man between two vicious and contrary Extreams which the Moral Vertues are always in danger of unless they be corrected and assisted by the four Cardinal ones And lastly It has need of Temperance to keep a well-ordered proportion in every business Of Judging falsly But observe that there is a worldly judgment of persons and things that has nothing of the Spirit and another that is Spiritual and Internal therefore in thy Actions avoid the former and give thy self wholly to the latter Whatsoever a Soul does for God is accounted foolishness by those of the World because they take their own Rule and measure the Action with a natural Measure whereas the end for which it is done is Supernatural and so he who does that good thing does not suit nor proportion himself to the Judgment Rule and Censure of evil Men. They hold that for imprudent unjust weak and intemperate which is heavenly Temperance Justice Fortitude and great Prudence Gâ—… calls the Soul with an effectual Vocation and presently the gallant Young-man and the beautiful young Lady quit their Vanities and Follies and despise the Pleasures Honours and Riches of this World to secure an Inheritance in that to come by entring into a strict course of performing the Duties of Religion God calls the ancient Person who being undeceiv'd by Experience presently forsakes the World and retires from Business to spend his Age in a severe and penitent Life that he may give an holy end to those beginnings and middle parts of it that were wicked and scandalous This the World esteems to be imprudence injustice lightness of affection and takes it for the distemper and disorder of Reason The Spiritual person fasts and uses other Austeries he flies from those Companies that formerly were the occasion of his sins he seeks God in Solitude or else in Business and Employments and lives in his Service having an eye to him in all his Actions The World instantly gives him the Character of a strange singular extravagant and distempered Man whereas he is truly just temperate valiant wise and one that gives life unto the World For this reason it is that our Saviour says that the Prudence of this World is an Enemy to the Prudence of God for these two sorts of Prudence being very opposite and contrary do always look upon each other with an eye of
Wealthy From hence it comes to pass that the humble Man is very free and liberal for he that desires nothing for himself does easily give away all and he that thinks that all he has is too much for him does neither covet nor desire any thing he has not Thus the humble and meek of heart are not only liberal and forward to give Alms but prodigal after an holy manner and when they want wherewithal to give they readily give their very selves Serapion the Sindonite gave his upper-Coat to a poor Man he met and passing on further he gave his under one to another remaining in a manner naked with only the New Testament in his hand which he also gave away to a third and being ask'd Who stripped him so He answered that Charity had strip'd him of his upper-Coat the Gospel of his under one and of the Book of the Gospel Christ himself the Author of the Gospel This same Man sold himself twice to Slavery that he might convert his Masters And another Bishop after he had given all he had to the poor hired himself out by the Day that he might have wherewithal to give therefore fly from Covetousness more than from the Fire Love Holy Poverty Charity and Liberality and if thou must exceed in any kind rather err on the right hand of giving than on the left hand of refusing Our Saviour as an Ancient Father of the Church says is always between two Thieves and this is most verified in the Moral Vertues because the excess or defect destroys the Vertue which consists in the middle He that does not give that which is sufficient is covetous He that gives too much is prodigal but he that gives that which is useful fitting and necessary is liberal and so with him Jesus Christ is to be found Therefore when through Humane frailty thou art like to err on the one hand or the other and dost not know how to walk straight in the middle way keep on the right hand for the Prodigal Man is the good Thief and the evil Thief is the Covetous and God more easily pardons him that gives I always observe in the Holy Gospel Prodigal Persons pardoned and Covetous ones condemned Mary Magdalene was tax'd of Prodigality for breaking the Box of precious Oyntment to serve our Redeemer which was great wast according to appearance O Heavenly Prodigal all seems little to her for the anointing of her Lord She breaks the Box and with it all her vain desires she casts her self down a prodigal Sinner and presently rose up a pardoned Saint she was Prodigal in good and so what she did was to be accounted rather love than wast but the Prodigal Son was Prodigal in Evil and spent his Portion foolishly amongst Harlots wandring and distressed about the World yet in the midst of all those squandrings God gave him a good and holy Consideration of remembring his Father and a Resolution to return penitently to seek him This wretch went astray 't is true but yet he gave he ruined himself but he relieved others If he sinned in giving ill yet there was something good wrought in that giving ill namely to give to succour and to sustain those that wanted If he offended God in sinning yet he imitated God in giving at least for God gives not only to the good but also to the evil and to give though with squandring to the bad was an evil not totally void of good The unjust Steward that lessened the Debts to his Master's cost to pass them so afterwards in his Accounts did very ill but yet he gave and the Lord commended him as having done wisely and puts him for an Example that we should make Friends of the unrighteous Mammon that is of Money ill-gotten and that we should get out of that wickedness by giving when we cannot find the Person to whom it should be restor'd but the Covetous Man that had so many Barns and yet in his thought was foolishly contriving to build more and greater ones to hoard up the great abundance of his Corn was himself cast into Hell as a bundle of Tares And the other Rich Glutton who would not give so much as the broken scraps of his Gluttony to feed the holy Beggar that lay at his Door was also for ever condemned there being amongst the evil they did nothing that was good for Pity to lay hold on And thus it is ill to be Prodigal and it is also ill to be Covetous The good thing is to be Liberal and a giver of Alms yet of the two extreams he is the less evil with equal imperfection that gives than he that refuses He that throws away than he that takes away and he that wastes than he that spares Of Chastity and Abstinence With Humility and Liberality thou oughtest to love Chastity the inward and the outward Cloathing which cleanses and beautifies the Conscience and adorns the Soul with a white Garment sweetly perfumed and very pleasing in the Lord's Eyes A Vertue beloved of our Saviour and his Mother and one of those he shew'd most kindness to Jesus being a Virgin himself would have a Virgin-Mother and a Virgin-Father in her Husband Joseph a Virgin-Fore-runner in the Baptist a Virgin-Disciple in St. John the Evangelist and even in Heaven Virginity had its first birth in the Angelical Nature O Heavenly Virginity O Soveraign Purity O un-utterable Chastity which dwellest in Heaven and wert a Vertue there before thou wert known upon Earth O Heavenly Virginity which waitest upon the Virgin-Lamb who is accompanied by Virgins that follow him whithersoever he goeth O Heavenly Virginity which art the fruit of the Blood of the Lamb since it is that Wine which engendreth Virgins Virginity and Chastity purifie the Soul and which is more admirable preserve the Body also pure white and spotless Chastity makes the Spirit pure clean and fervent Chastity disposes the Will to give itself wholly up to God and not to love the Creatures nor to forsake the Creator for them Chastity keeps the Powers Faculties and Senses clean to the end that being pure chast and dis-engaged we may forsake all Creatures freely seeking after the Creator Chastity betroths itself to Vertue protects and defends it and obliges the Eternal Son of God and his Holy Mother with all the Saints and Angels to be our Friends Finally wouldst thou see the excellency of Chastity Look upon its contraries Lust and Sensuality Wouldst thou know the beauty of Light Consider the ugly and loathsome horror of Darkness These defile embase and make deformed whereas the other clears adorns and beautifies The Mischiefs of Sensuality Sensuality depraves the Senses defiles the powers of the Soul disorders all our Faculties destroys all our Rational part and reduces us to be meerly Animal Sensuality obscures Reason and makes Passion tyrannize over it Other Vices do bespot the Soul this the Soul and Body too The rest are Vices and Passions of Discourse this is a
kissed the Plague if he had met it in the Street There was another like this that was also a great Enemy to Mankind and they two visiting one another the first said I am very glad to be in the Company of one that abhors Men To which the other replied So should I also to be in thine but that thou art a Man Were these Men No certainly but Beasts and fiercer than Beasts Our blessed Redeemer did not thus but was always pleased to be called Man and being God the Eternal Son of God God of God seldom or never called himself the Son of God but often the Son of Man honouring that Nature which he came to Redeem and making himself Man by taking his Name from it Love thy Nature says the Holy Ghost hate not thine own Flesh If Men abhor Men and which is more Men that are vertuous for that is it which Envy commonly abhors who shall love Men or reward Vertue He is no true Christian that abhors Men through Envy or Cruelty for he follows not the principal Vertue which Jesus Christ did practise God being Divine became Humane and being God cloathed himself with our Nature to become Man and canst thou abhor thine own Nature or at least a Man Tell me after what manner did God converse with Men being perfect God and perfect Man How meek how gentle how favourable how sweet and gracious towards all Men Of Courtesie And this he did amongst other things to teach us not only Humility but even Courtesie Humanity and Civility as Beams of that Charity for that Infinite Love bestowed and communicated himself on that manner with his very Humanity The Saviour of Souls condemns any one that shall be rude and discourteous or that shall call his Brother Raca which in the Opinion of grave Expositors signifies a manner of discourteous and reproachful Behaviour and St. Paul also makes Courtesie an holy and a Sacred thing counselling that in honour we should prefer one another Honore se invicem praevenientes as who should say be Courteous and prevent one another in Civility or strive each of you to be the first in Courtesie Think not that Humanity and kind Behaviour is a slight matter in the Spiritual Life No it is of great weight and of much worth When thou art invited says our Saviour sit not down in the chiefest place least a more honourable than thou come and thou be forc'd with shame to take the lower Room Thou should'st strive to be Courteous and Civil for it is a great good to thy self and very pleasing to others Thy love of God cannot be great if it make thee not shew thy self meek and courteous towards Men. That has but a very small force which cannot break forth through the thickness of four fingers and that is as much as the distance can be from thy heart to the outside of thy breast If thy love of God be a true love it is not possible thou should'st forbear to love his Creatures and thou wilt do it so much the more by how much the more the love of God is pure and perfect in thee In the same proportion that thy love of God increases thy love to thy Neighbours will increase likewise and in the same proportion the one wasts and decays the other ceases and vanishes also If God who is love it self do love Man how can a Man that loves God forbear to love Man and to desire his good The love of God to Man appeared before his Divine Majesty created him his love being uncreate and eternal in it self though in respect of its manifestation to Mankind it had a beginning That loving Apostle the glory of Apostleship the beloved Evangelist and the adopted Son of the most blessed Virgin wrote an Epistle perswading to the love of God and of Men and being grown so old that his Disciples were fain to carry him in their Arms all his Sermon was Little Children love one another All we Men are Sons by Grace of one same Father which is God and Sons by Baptism of one same Mother which is the Church We are all made by one same Creator all redeemed by one same Price which is the Blood of Christ and all nourished by one same Milk which is his most holy Doctrine and admirable Sacraments And is it possible that so many Bonds and Obligations should not tye Man close to Man nor make them love and help one another Is it possible that Wrath Passion and Envy should break all these Obligations No No. Love Humane Nature for though it were not noble in it self yet it being created by God it becomes noble and is illustrious by being redeemed honoured and favoured by his most precious Son That which cost much is of great value but the repairing of Man's Nature cost the Blood of the Eternal Son of God He cloathed himself with it and honoured us also by it God Created Man after his own Likeness Who will not esteem Man for being the Image of God And the more because God afterwards by becoming Man made himself the Image of Man The Fourth WEEK Of Diligence and Fervency and of the Mischiefs of Omission and Sloth THE Vertues help forward one another The love of God will guide thee to that of Men. This love will bring thee to fervency and fervency will open the Gate to zeal and zeal for the good of thy Neighbours burning in Charity both for them and for thy self will open thee the Gate of Heaven This fervency and this love will not suffer thee to be lazy and sleepy for sleep is no usual Companion of Lovers Charity and Sloth cannot dwell together in one breast To sleep much and to love much are not things consistent My Father always worketh saith the Lord and I work What wonder is it that the Father and the Son should always be working since through the Holy Ghost they are always loving There can be no such thing as a lazy Spritual Person for so much as he hath of sloth so much he wanteth of being spiritual Love is full of an holy disquiet It is a sweet longing and refreshing and if it be afire how can idleness and sloth be in so active and stirring an Element Fly from sloth in the Spiritual Life fly from it I say for it is a great and terrible Evil. Go learn of the Ant says the Holy Spirit to the sluggard Judge what the Vice is and what the Person is that is infected with it who needs to be taught by so contemptible a Master and how much more wretched and contemptible is the Scholar Sloth stupifies the Senses dulls the powers of the Soul puts shackles upon all the Faculties and by little and little strips the Spiritual Man quite naked and leaves him meerly natural and sensual Sloth is the Mother of Omission and Omission is manifestly the ruin of us Dost thou see all the evil that is in the World It all proceeds and takes birth
profit 't is manifest that in the Night you will find nothing but Errours and Mischiefs Who would refuse to go his Journey while the Sun shines believing that he shall find his way better in the dark Therefore shake off idleness and embrace fervency and diligence Do you think you shall be able to find diligence at your Death when you have wasted all your Life in laziness and in sloth or that you shall find Amendment when you come to be judged Idleness being the Mother of all Vices The Saints call Idleness the Sepulchre of the Living because Worms Rottenness and Corruption are engendred by it and that it foments all kinds of Miseries together That holy Man understood it well who living in the Desart busied himself in carrying stones from one place to another and in bringing them back thither again and being asked why he did so he answered I avoid idleness or at least I master that body that would master me No Vice is so destructive to the Spirit nor so kind a Companion to the Flesh as idleness and although it seems the least is yet the cause of the greatest Evils Besides being slothful and idle in good there is no ill which does not encrease and become worse by it for it is the same thing as to set open the Gate of the Soul to all the Passions and Vices that shall have a mind to enter There is no Vice so mean but will adventure to assault an idle Man because it looks upon him as one that will not take the pains to make any resistance being so weak as to have yielded up himself even before he be attempted and so all wickednesses take confidence to come upon him and assume to themselves a Jurisdiction over him If the Devil be diligent watchful bold strong heedful crafty and cruel What will he be not able to do against a weak idle careless and disarmed Man The holy the spiritual and the diligent who night and day busie themselves in some vertuous Employment have much ado to escape free from the Assaults of the Devil How then shall the slothful be able to defend himself from so designing and so dangerous an Enemy So much thou dost encrease in holiness as thou dost encrease in diligence and therefore work always without ceasing for those works are Safety and Reward and do advance thee in Spirit and Charity The blessed Virgin came to so much Perfection by working for having begun with such unspeakable Graces she rose to more than can be imagined only by going on each moment encreasing and improving her former Gifts and Graces The holy Apostles were the Light of the World and observe how diligent they were They went about like the Sun in perpetual motion and by that means Twelve Men alone were able in a little more than Thirty Years to enlighten to reduce and to confound the blindness of the Gentiles throughout the whole World How could holy Persons in former Ages become in few Years such Prodigies of Holiness but by their diligence to encrease and redouble their Talents and by constantly following the Dictates of the Holy Spirit which governed them Even those valiant and ambitious Men that heretofore conquer'nt so many Nations and Countreys could never have done it but by diligence One of those being ask'd How in less than Nine Years he had gained so many Kingdoms answer'd Non procrastinando by not delaying till to Morrow If this be necessary for the Conquest of frail mortal and inconstant Kingdoms that are but Heaps of Dung What diligence and care is needful in us Christians for the gaining of the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven Traffick till I come says the Saviour of Souls Be industrious and suffer not your Talents to lie idle That slothful Servant who buried his Talent did no other harm but that he did so and sat down quietly by it and yet for all that the Lord condemns him to Hell and calls him wicked Servant Serve nequam Cursed of God because being lazy and sluggish he gave that to the Earth and to what is Sensual which was due to Heaven and to what is Spiritual Our Humane Condition and Misery can hardly hold to an Indifference If thou dost not labour in that which is good thou wilt take pains in that which is Evil not to watch is to fall asleep not to serve God and please him is little better than to offend him and in the Opinion of those who will allow no indifference in things it is as I have shew'd absolutely to offend him Believe me 't is not for nothing that Christ so often calls upon us to Watch He pronounced that word fourteen times and his blessed Lips exhort us to it so often with that very same word Watch. Sloth Idleness Omission and Negligence is the sleep of Death which carries us to Death Eternal Watch then for the Devil sleeps not for thine Appetite sleeps not Watch least the Bridegroom find thee without Oyl like the foolish Virgins when he shall come to judge thee Watch for the Thief goes about carefully to rob thy House Watch for the Infernal Lyon goes about seeking to devour thee Watch and expect the coming of thy Lord with thy Lamp burning when he shall come from the first Marriage unto the second that is from his first to his second Coming Finally If thou wilt be a true Spiritual Person thou must work and labour sweat and walk without stopping and with fervent steps follow the Lord who goes before thee carrying the Cross on his Divine Shoulders and giving strength breath and courage unto thy Fervency by his Love NOVEMBER The First WEEK Of the Twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit in General IT is time now to gather in the Fruits of this Spiritual Year that we may praise God in the advantages of a Plentiful Encrease St. Paul the Light and the Apostle of the Gentiles teacheth us That the Fruits of the Spirit are Twelve to wit Charity Peace Long-suffering Benignity Faith Continence Joy Patience Goodness Meekness Modesty and Chastity I admire that he puts the End in the Middle and seems to make the Root to be the Fruit For I should think that the Fruits of the Spirit were the Graces and the Blessings we have already treated of in some of the former Months that is to say a happy Death Absolution from Judgment a Pardon pronounced to us at the passing of that Sentence and the Reward Crown and Glory of the Blessed in the other Life which is given to those that have fought a good fight in this but to make the Fruit of the Spirit and of being vertuous to be Vertue it self seems to me either to put the end of Vertue in the middle or else to anticipate that Fruit in this Life which only can be attained perfectly in the Life Eternal But St. Paul by naming the excellent Fruits of the Spirit wisely answers the wicked of this World who hold the Spiritual Life for Folly and
Comfort and though my love was Lawful yet the end of it was Natural when it should have been Supernatural I loved them after another manner than I ought to have done for my love was Sensual whereas it should have been Spiritual and all this the Spouse felt very much even in those loves which were allowable and complained of it to her Beloved and his Divine Majesty as being much pleased with it took into his own hand the love of his Spouse towards her Neighbours and towards all Creatures and ordered it rightly making her to ove them all in that manner for those ends and in that degree which he approv'd And this which the Spouse asked of her Beloved we ought oftentimes to beg of him for our self love if the Lord doth not rectifie and reform it destroys and burns up the Soul with an inordinate fire and so the love of God is the only love which can be called love without fear of loving too much and all other loves whatsoever are loves of fears and jealousies and disquiets to an holy Soul They are loves intermix'd with fears whether I do not exceed whether I do not take from God that which I give to the Creatures whether I do not tye my Soul too fast unto them and entangle it with snares in the way of my Spiritual Life O Lord thou love of all the Creatures how miserable is this Life how full of Thorns and Stumbling blocks how full of Griefs Hazards and Dangers Since I cannot love that which is good and allowed without the fears of running into that which is evil and prohibited O God do thou regulate our love O thou Eternal Good grant that we may only love thee and that in thee alone we may love those whom thou wouldst have us to love and that we may do it when and how and for those ends that thou approvest Let none other love but thine O Lord enter into my Soul Drive out of it all other loves but that and if any other would force an entrance into my heart let the strength of thy love defend it and not suffer any other love to disturb my Soul nor oppose thy love within my Soul Thy love O dear Lord is a sweet love it is Chearfulness and Comfort Quiet and Contentment it is Joy and Glory All love besides this and contrary to this is Perturbation and Disquiet Heaviness and Pain Sorrow and Affliction Finally all the Saints have tasted of this Fruit and I have only given thee an Example of St. Paul to the end thou mayest know that the Holy Spirit and its Fruits are the same in the Primitive Church in these times and will be so in those that succeed us for God never waxeth old neither do his Gifts and Graces decay and if we miserable sinners neither have nor feel those Fruits it is because we hinder them with our Passions and by giving the Rein freely to our Inclinations for there are many now in the World who have and enjoy this heroical orderly and perfect love to God and to their Neighbour but let thou and I who are weak and frail endeavour to exercise our selves in those first Vertues and to cultivate the Tree of our Souls with Repentance and Contrition with Mortification and Tears but above all with the Blood of the Lamb and with hearty Prayers to him who shed it through the excess of his love that he would give us that sweet and excellent Fruit that most ravishing and glorious Love The Second WEEK Of Peace the Second Fruit of the Holy Spirit NExt to this Savoury Fruit of Divine and Humane Charity or of Love to God and our Neighbour follows the Delightful Fruit of Peace which quiets and recreates the Soul freeing it from those common Perturbations that use to disturb it Fear and Hope are two Humane Affections which do disquiet and discompose Worldly Minds God drives out these two from a holy Soul with two Coelestial Gifts which are Remedies against their Poyson and these be the Fear of God and the Hope of Glory From the instant that our Soul fears God alone it despises all things else from the instant that it hopes only for things Eternal it tramples upon those that are Temporal Such a Man keeps Peace with all Persons because he neither troubles nor importunes he neither vexes nor is jealous of any body since no body can deprive him of Eternity which is all he pretends to This Fruit of Peace also hath two parts one inward Peace of the Soul with God the other outward Peace with the Creatures From the inward Peace with God which is the Root springs up the outward one and spreads into several branches of the Creatures just as an outward heat proceeds from a secret fire and the brightness of light from flame and the love of our Neighbour from that of God The inward Peace of the Soul depends upon the Unity and Conformity of a Spiritual Man's Will with the Will of God for if he loves and desires the same thing and conforms himself to all that God does and resigns himself to all that he suffers and does so not only after things have come to pass but even prevents them with his desire that the Will of God should be done in him it is manifest that by such an Unity and Conformity he must have a constant Peace and that there can be no disagreement between that and him This Union with the Divine Will and the finding no contraction between it and the Humane Will begets Love and Peace with our Neighbours and makes it communicate with all Creatures for since it neither loves them nor desires any thing from them in any other way than according to God's Will and that God's Will is in order to Peace because it is the Original of Peace it necessarily follows that he must also have Peace with all the Creatures And so the true Spiritual Man who loves God with that Holy Fruit of Charity we have spoken of loving his Neighbours also in their proportion and keeping Union with the Will of God and inward Peace with him and for his sake with his Neighbours in all things that are good and holy must needs satisfie and content all Persons if they be good and if they be not so though he does not content them because that is not in his power yet he satisfies them with his Reason though perhaps they will not acknowledge themselves to be satisfied for if they be his Superiours he obeys them with Humility behaves himself towards them with Respect and yields readily to their Orders and Commands obeying his Superiours in the same manner as he obeys the Will of God If they be his Equals he gives them all that belongs to them and applies himself with Charity to assist in their Affairs He eases them in their Troubles comforts them in their Afflictions counsels them in their Doubts and helps them in their Necessities And if they be his
Pleasures of this World in comparison of it This Joy overcomes all Difficulties it tramples them down and flies above them it burns and consumes them and makes the greatest Labours to become a Pleasure The Masters of the Synagogue called the Apostles before them reproved them scourged them threatned them and commanded them that they should not Preach sending them away not only punished but reproached and shamefully affronted but they go out and presently Preach again with exceeding Joy as the Text saith that they were thought worthy to suffer for the Lord's sake Take heed say some to the Apostles it is not two Months since the Jews crucified your dear Master and if you do not forbear to Preach they will do the same to you What care we answered they if the Joy we feel outweighs that fear nay that Joy hath already banished it and made us utterly insensible of it arming us against the worst that they can do This Joy and this Courage continued in their Successors many of which so readily embraced Martyrdom A Tyrant commands St. Lawrence to give him up the Treasures of the Church who replies he will do it very willingly He goes and distributes the Treasure amongst all the Poor he could find and brings an Army of Lame and Blind of weak and diseased Persons unto that Covetous Praetor saying very chearfully to him Here I have brought you the Treasures of the Church Take heed good Man the Tyrant will be revenged on thee Let him do what he can I care not for my Joy in serving God is dearer to me than my Life They lay him upon a Grid-Iron with live Coals under it which kindle the fire of his Joy and of his Love at the same time that the flames do scorch his Body yet he smiling and jesting says to the Tyrant Now this side is broyl'd enough it is time to turn the other and you may eat of it Who among such real Torments among that Fire Smoak and Confusion could produce that holy Jest that Joy that chearfulness that pleasantness of Wit and Contentment God and none but God who was pleased to make that Martyr's Joy to Triumph over all his Sufferings Who made St. Andrew the Apostle to sing the Praises of the Lord when he was fastened upon the very Cross but this Joy this wondrous Fruit of the Spirit Certainly there is no Chearfulness no Contentment no Joy but in God Rejoyce and be glad in the Lord ye righteous says David and in another place Great is the joy of those that fear the Lord. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad says our Saviour when ye shall suffer for my Names-sake for great is your reward in Heaven and Christ himself for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross and despised the shame Thus that inward Joy drives away and banishes all the toils and troubles and all the Sufferings of the Spiritual Life This Fruit then of the Spirit which is called Joy contains in it both Honour and Profit and is well worth thy praying for since it facilitates and sweetens all thy Pains and will make thee forward and chearful in giving up thy self to undergo any thing for the Lord's sake and will thereby make thee to be favoured and be loved by him For as the Scripture tells us God loveth a chearful giver Of the Fruit of Patience The Fruit of Patience is more properly called a Fruit than the rest because Christ literally calls it so where speaking of those that keep the good Seed of his Divine Word and of his holy Inspirations in their hearts and lay them up and put them in practice He says they shall bring forth their fruit in Patience that is because a chearful and resigned Patience is one of the most excellent Fruits of the Holy Spirit and the most profitable and necessary to serve God with Purity the most profitable because the Lord says In Patience ye shall possess your souls which is the greatest profit that can be attained or thought of in this life as who should say if your Life be Spiritual full of Tribulations and a sharp continual War both within and without if it be a Conquest that consist in dying not in killing not in Persecuting and Oppressing others but suffering Persecutions and in subduing ones self certainly Patience is very necessary for that War And as in those of the World Men get the Victory by Impatience by Anger and Fury by Force and by Revenge so in the Spiritual Warfare we must Conquer by Suffering and by Humility for the Combat here is to undergo Pains and Hardship to live and die with bearing and with Patience This Fruit is also necessary because by it the rest are preserved The Apostle explains it where he says Patience is necessary for you that ye may obtain the Promises and in another place That ye may be made worthy of the promises of Christ that is that ye may obtain the Blessings which are set forth in the Eight Beatitudes and in many other places where the Lord says Your name is written in the Book of Life and that there ye shall receive an hundred-fold whatsoever ye shall have forsaken here for the love of God Patience is necessary because neither Faith Hope nor Charity nor any other of the Moral and Cardinal Vertues without Patience are of any worth for in losing that they lose their Beauty and become vain and ineffectual Finally if this be a life of Labours and Afflictions of Slanders and Reproaches what Vertue can be more profitable more necessary more important and of more frequent use than Patience For all the blows both inward and outward that are struck at the Mind of Man must be receiv'd upon the Shield of Patience and he that wants that can never be able to sustain the Combat therefore St. Paul when he furnishes the Christian with Spiritual Arms puts upon his left Arm the in-expugnable Shield of Patience that he may be able to withstand the fiery Darts of his Enemy Assumens scutum inexpugnabile Equitatem observing that in the word Equitatem he not only meant to express ordinary Patience but an equality of Mind which is the Excellent and Heroick Patience and that is the Fruit here spoken of as who should say It must be a Patience full of Equality receiving Crosses and Afflictions with as great a Chearfulness and Contentment as thou couldst do their contraries Take notice that St. Paul says not that thy Patience should be equal but even Equality itself Consider the Joy thou hast for the Favours of God thou oughtest to have the very same when he sends Tribulations for they also are his Favours Give not thy Affections more to things that are Delightful than to those that are Disgustful to Pleasure than to Pain to Comfort than to Affliction Thy Chearfulness ought to be equal in Sufferings as in Joys in Rebukes as in Applauses in being pull'd down as in being advanc'd and in suffering Affronts as