by Jesus Christ there being no other Means to attain Salvation 6. That the Sacred Trinity which consists in the perfect Knowledge and pure Love of the Divine Persons is the true Model of Perfect Prayer These deeply consider'd are very instrumental to elevate a Contemplative Soul to so high a pitch that sometimos she in a wonderful manner participates of that Life Eternal which is in God himself I have made a Resolution to desire of God that my Prayer may be altogether Intellectual to the end I may not feel such sensible Gusts of Heavenly Consolations which prejudice Nature These are but sweet Baiâ—s for self-Love which sullies the Purity of Prayer and diminishes the Contemplative Attention which continues more strong and vigorous when kept on the point of the Spirit whereby the Fire of Divine Love burns brighter and with more constant Flames This is that continual Union which is the Object of Perfection and whatever hinders this ought to be suspected as are sensible Gusts of Devotion in Inferiour Nature O my Soul let us therefore entirely give up our selves to God in Prayer to receive from him such impressions as he thinks best let our chief care be fully to submit our selves to him and to be disingag'd from all worldly things and accept with Thankfulness whatever he gives us If he gives us nothing let nothing content us and peaceably acquiesce in Union with his Divine Will A Soul faithful in the state of Privations will sooner or later as God sees best be raised to pure Union and Enjoyments on the lofty Wings of Contemplation CHAP. IX Of the Prayer of Faith THis Prayer is a bare reflection or simple remembrance of God who is believed by naked Faith as he is seen and known by the Light of Glory 'T is the same Object here and there but known by the Soul in a different manner The way of knowing God here is but learned Ignorance Earth is the Land of Believing Heaven of Seeing To see God as we are seen of Him and understand all Divine Mysteries is reserv'd for the Light of Glory here we must walk by the obscurities of Faith This Faith must be naked without Images or Representations simple and without Discourse universal without a distinct consideration of particulars The operation of the Will is conform to that of the Understanding Naked Simple Universal Spiritual Independant on the Senses We must expect great Combats in this way from our Spirit which will still be working and rely on Creatures But though it be much distasted by the understanding part of the Soul yet she must strive to die to her own operations and willingly entertain what helps her in this Combat as Aridities Privations Desolations which at last leave the Soul in exercise of pure Faith whereby God is known in a higher manner than those Lights which serve as a Medium between God and the Soul for this Union of our Spirit with God by pure Faith is immediate and so more elevated The Will also must die to what ever is not God To live only in Him and to him by pure Love For the Life of the Will is this Death and this Death is not ordinarily wrought but by Privations This kind of Prayer is uniform and not much lyable to alterations nor brings any damage to the Body For Nature has nothing to do in it being not procurable by greatest endeavours of Humane Industry but depending purely on the Will of God who alone gives it when and to whom he pleases 'T is true this pure and naked Contemplation of God by Faith is given but rarely and to those who have past through many Purgatories and states of Penance to fit them for it In the beginning it darts into the Soul but Transient Irradiations like flashes of Lightning if at any time they continue about half an hour 't is very much However they work in the Soul very great Effects One of the principal is that this Light of Faith discovers to us the verity of Divine Mysteries Imperfections and the Perfections we want and practical Virtues And all this at once not successively one after another by discourse which could never arrive to produce a knowledge so clear and universal But indeed the understanding has much ado to die to its own operations and not act by Humane Lights by being wholly given up to the obscurity of Faith However this must be done to be rightly disposed for Divine Operations There are divers degrees of Contemplations but what God is pleas'd to give us must be received with submissive Thankfulness While we live in Mortal Bodies we shall have always something to purifie and therefore always something to suffer Three parts of our Life pass away in a Suffering condition In a state of obscurity the Soul is intimately united to God although she be not sensible thereof I am much taken with the way of pure Faith in Prayer whereby the Soul knows God as much as she can do in this Life and though it be obscure it matters not being sure and certain For my part take as much as you will of my Light of Reason if the Light of Faith increase thereby O how Beautiful is pure and naked Faith It much conduces to Spiritualize a Soul to live continually by Faith to esteem and love nothing but what we ought to esteem and love Man rarely will relinquish his Reason and nevertheless he must raise himself above it or drag on the Earth with Imperfections Faith is a participation of the Eternal Wisdom she only conducts us with true assurance for her Lights though dark are certain and their obscurity does incomparably transcend the clearest evidence of Natural Reason Moreover to make Prayer more Intellectual and that Nature may have no hand in it we must leave off some things which usually did raise our hearts to God with a sensible Devotion As Musick Rich Ornaments Devout Pictures in Churches and the like This is good and profitable in the beginning of a Spiritual Life and some time after but when a Soul has attained purity of Prayer there 's no need to take her nourishment that is her Knowledge and Love but from pure Faith and Supernatural Lights infused into her When we take not good heed we keep not our selves sufficiently passive to the Operations of God but we go a beging for the Life of the Soul to sensible Objects when God himself would nourish her with more purified Knowledge and Diviner Love Why should we hanker after sensible Gusts of Devotion seeing Nature is commonly too much taken with them to the damage of naked Faith and the hindrance of our pure Union with God which requires a total denudation of all Creatures Notwithstanding when God tryes us with Derelictions and gives us not admittance into his presence but by things sensible and Discoursive Prayer we must humbly comply with this state and not pretend to higher elevations in our Addresses to him Yet if a Soul in
understand the Spirit of the Book by the Spirit of the Author I have describ'd as much of the Qualifications of that Excellent Person as I could collect from the French Preface the perusal whereof I assure thee good Reader is worth thy pains and consideration THE Author's Life Extracted out of the French PREFACE THE worthy Author of this Excellent Treatise was a Person whose Life was answerable to his Writings a true Interiour Christian elevated by God's Holy Spirit to Sublime Contemplation making it his Business to have his Conversation in Heaven while he was upon Earth 'T is said of Moses that after he had Conversed familiarly with God and descended from the Mount that his Face did shine with an extraordinary Glory So this excellent Christian came from his Prayers as it were from Heaven all enflamed with Divine Love raising a holy Fire in their Breasts who enjoy'd the Happiness of his Conversation But his Goodness was more Diffusive for many of his absent Friends received wonderful Benefit and Advancement in a Spiritual Life by his Heavenly Instructions and Divine Letters Which were so many as that from those Writings was extracted this Interiour Christian not long after he had left men to live with Angels by a Person of Worth and Quality who was so touched to the heart by reading some of his Letters that he thought himself oblig'd in Charity to make them Publick for the Common Good Especially in this Corrupt Age wherein alas we find more Formal than Interiour Christians And doubtless it was the Will of Heaven this Treatise should not lie hid but be expos'd to the View of the World having in a short time enriched the Hearts of many with inestimable Good who entertain it with great Joy and Satisfaction He was in the right who said Loquere ut te videam If once I hear you speak I shall know what you are For 't is impossible to read this Book without some Knowledge of the eminent Perfection of the Authour for what Soul unless irradiated with extraordinary Beams of Heavenly Light could make such Discoveries or give such Directions in Spirituality It was from hence that the Humiliations and Dolorous Bloody Sufferings of Jesus Christ so terrible to Nature did appear to him with a Ravishing Beauty being taken with nothing more in his Devotions than Jesus Suffering For he had a singular Devotion to the Humiliations of Jesus and thought himself a Person cull'd out by Providence to honour his Sufferings He did much affect to lead his Life in Abjections and yet notwithstanding his profound Humility he was much esteemed and admired by all who had the Happiness to know his Virtues Though he lookt upon himself as an unprofitable Servant yet God was pleas'd to treat him as a faithful Friend Though he desir'd the Bitterness and Rigour of the Cross yet God did oftentimes so visit his Soul with extraordinary Consolations that sometimes he would cry out When then good Jesus shall I suffer for you Though he desired to follow Jesus on Mount Calvary yet God was pleased to lead him to Mount Tabor and vouchsafe him the Glimmerings of Glory on this side Heaven Though too many make it their Business to find out wayes to please their Sensuality he made his Body a Continual Victime of Mortification hardly abstaining from Austerities when his Weakness required a Relaxation He earnestly desired that after the Example of Jesus he might finish his Life on the Cross and on the day the Church celebrates the Invention of the Cross God was pleased to rob the World secretly of so great a Treasure lest if his Sickness had been known publickly the holy Importunity of many Prayers might have prevailed with Heaven to defer his Happiness He wanted no long Preparation for his Death by a Languishing Disease but being Fruit-ripe for the Harvest of Glory by the constant Dews of Heaven and Fervour of Charity upon short warning with wonderful Content commending his Soul into the hands of his Saviour he joyfully embraced Death to live Eternaly This shew'd the extraordinary Triumph he had made over the World and Himself by the Power of Grace For though some even Great Saints who had left the World for Christ's sake to avoid it's Contagion seem'd timorous at their Deaths yet He with an invincible Generosity contemning the World without forsaking it did conquer Satan in the midst of Temptations and smile on Death as a Friend to his Happiness Though he chang'd not his Secular Habit yet he had fully banisht the World from his heart and without engaging in any other Profession than that of a perfect Christian he spent his dayes in the Exercise of the most Austere Religious And this was more admirable in him than in those Fountains which conserve their Sweetness in the midst of Salt Waters because he did not only keep the Purity of the Spirit of Christianity among the Infections of a Corrupt Age but without any great noise he made notable Conquests over the Powers of Darkness seeing by his Pious Endeavours he chang'd many Carnal Men into Spiritual Christians We may say without Vanity that the World never had a more Dangerous Enemy He stay'd in it the better to discover its Designs and convert Worldlings exposing himself to combate its Allurements that their Weakness might be known and to testify to the World that one may be a Perfect Christian in despite of this great Enemy of God and Godliness His Example hath made it manifest to all Persons of Quality that one may live like a Hermit in the midst of a City and may love Evangelical Poverty though not practise it in the Possession of Riches and that true Self-contempt is not impossible to such whose Birth or Imployments have advanced them to Honour and that without being an Apostle or Preacher one may be an Evangelist And lastly that throughly to establish the Maxims of Christianity solid Practice is more efficacious than thundring Eloquence And though the Graces which beautifyed his Soul did most incline him to deep Retirements and Contemplation yet he was so wonderfully dexterous in the affairs of God's Service abroad that his Eyes fix'd on Heaven did not hinder him from affording a Helping hand to the good of his Neighbour neither was his Zeal herein confin'd to one onely Kingdom His Piety was so ingenious that he found out wayes to be at the same time one of the greatest Solitaries and yet much ingaged in the Labours of them who endeavour'd the enlargement of Christs Kingdom His way of expressing himself is conform to his Thoughts and both of them to the Gospel where such who chiefly hunt after Eloquence and vain Curiosities will find nothing that will please their Palate But a Soul which relishes Evangelical Truths cannot but find a Gust in the Expressions of this Book which breaths forth nothing but the Spirit of Christianity And God grant that they who take it into their hands may find it working
have inflamed affections for you is my greatest work but to bring my heart to such a temper it must become like dry wood being emptyed of humidity by a seperation from all Creatures This desire of inflamed affections puts me upon purifying my heart and the expectation of enjoyment makes me eager in the practice of Mortification by embracing Evangelical Councels and maxims of Christianity Seeing poverty contempt and crosses increase the flames of Divine Love they are welcom to me for I ardently desire to see them arise to their highest elevation I know a good Religious man who in his Solitudes is in continual Prayer not only by the elevation of his Spirit but by union with God in a wonderful manner My Soul finds great contentment in his discourse and conversation In sickness his enjoyment of God is not so vigorous nor his Peace of Soul so savorous though always great Worldly conversations seem but as dreams to him and when past they did only leave confus'd Idaeas in his memory A blessed man doubtless while here on earth And conversing with me in simplicity of heart by obedience he declar'd to me what wonderful enjoyments God was pleas'd to vouchsafe unto him He told me that to attain Purity of Heart we must divest our selves of all affections to Creatures and not satisfie our natural desires which is a great Mortification when 't is continual In sickness we must stand very much upon our guard for we easily relax and yield too much to nature Not to correspond to a known inspiration is gross infidelity and much retards our advancement in a Spiritual Life A principal point of Devotion is by a punctual fidelity to omit no occasion to practice virtue whether of humility patience abjection or any other This Contemplative told me that the choicest effect wrought in us by Revelations or Visions is this punctual fidelity to Gods calls 'T is an affair will take up the whole Soul to free her self from any engagement with Creatures and conquer her own natural Inclinations that she may enter into the states of Jesus crucified and into his ways with his Spirit that is with his intentions and dispositions Let us O my Soul in the profound silence of our Solitude often say to Jesus O Divine Jesus despised for me contemptible poor for me a poor Creature annihilated for me a meer nothing Terms which in some sort express the perfect union that the Soul ought to have with Jesus Crucified And this union is the grand occupation of Solitaries In the Court of Kings the Cooks and Bakers and other meaner Officers labour more than a Gentleman of the Chamber who has little to do but to attend his Majesty as a Companion rathen then a Servant A Favourite has yet less employ being admitted into his Prince's Closet to converse freely with him and entertain each other with mutual caresses In the House of God they who are appointed most for action are not the greatest Favourites those to whom God vouchsases extraordinary visits in Contemplation labour less and yet are more accepted by him T is not for us to apply our selves too much to Exteriour actions of Charity but to correspond to Gods Holy Inspirations if he call us to Solitude to attend on himself alone out of the noise of Creatures Is it not great pity that Temporal affairs should take up the best days of our years and the choicest hours of our days leaving us little time in comparison to apply our selves to the one thing necessary the work of our Eternal Salvation 'T would be better for us if we would allot more time to our Holy retirements to converse with God by Prayer and Contemplation and begin on earth what we must continue without end in ever Blessed Eternity CHAP. V. How we may put our Soul and Senses into a Solitude LEt us not deceive our selves in being content to receive the seed of Divine Inspirations without bringing forth any fruit according to the designs of God If we have a discerning Spirit in the ways of Grace we shall soon discover that this our only affair and all the rest is but amusement and folly To nourish this Divine Seed in us we must shun the conversation of Worldly wisemen who are guided only by Carnal Prudence and so being strangers to the Procedings of Grace leave in us more or less by their Discourse some Impression of their ill opinions which will retard our advancement in the ways of God To put the Soul into Solitude we must retire from all Creatures and put our selves absolutely in the hands of God to do with us what he pleases and apply our selves to him alone with all possible endeavours To be faithful herein we must resolve to suffer much for we cannot abide Peaceably in this Divine Hermitage without leaving Parents Friends Worldly Entertainments Affairs and to suffer almost a continual Persecution on every side For one tells you that it is an Hypocritical and unprofitable Life Another that so much Solitude cannot be good in that we ought to have some Charity for our Neighbour But let them talk on every one is to follow his own work and the will of God according to their vocation The best and most noble imployment in the World is to converse with God and do that on Earth which the Saints and Angels do in Heaven How the Devil persecutes a Soul in this state under fair pretences But she must stop her ears and quit all to adhere to her Soveraign good when he vouchsafes to call her to attend on him alone When God says he will lead a Soul into a Solitude Ducam eam in Solitudinem 'T is a singular Mercy For we shall find but few in the World prepar'd for the Cross and resolv'd to go through all the difficulties of a Life so supernatural A Soul that is in such a happy disposition will live Solitary not troubling her self with the cryes of others When God once speaks Powerfully to the heart 't will make more impression on us than all the noise of the World It comes into my mind that to be Faithful to the Call of God which I have to Solitude requires of me to spend six hours a day in Prayer and to comply therewith to retire my self about five in the Afternoon and eat little at night Methinks also I ought to observe a general Solitude not only in relation to my Soul but to my Interiour and Exteriour Senses yea when I shall converse with my Friends and behold her I conceive this may be done Sacred Solitude consists in being alone with God in a vacancy from Creatures and whatevet is not God It seems to me then when we discourse of God and his affairs we make our tongue Solitary and so speak like a Hermit When we will not give ear to any but Divine Discourses our ears turn Hermits When we will not allow our eyes any Objects but such as are pleasing to God we put them into
things else are but deceit and vanity 3. They considering the Mysteries of Jesus begin to discover the beauty of his Humiliations and Sufferings which yet is shadowed with some obscurity 4. Their eyes being more open'd they behold distinctly the Beauty of the Sufferings Contempts and Poverty of the Word Incarnate and thereupon conceives a great contempt of the World 5. In persuance hereof they contemplate the Divine Mysteries and if they be Faithful to imitate Christ Crucified they will arrive to a great knowledge of the Divinity 6. Then if they keep close to Purity of Heart they are wholly in a manner taken up with the Divine and Humane Mysteries of Jesus being very sensible what an Infinite Mercy it is to be deliver'd from the darkness of that ignorance which is in carnal men who have no feeling in the things of God or their Salvation 7. Their Light increasing they more and more discover the Perfections of God in the Creatures more clearly without comparison in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus but yet more transcendently in their Source the Divinity sweetly applying themselves thereto with much Felicity Behold this is what God gave me to know â—n a little time and this Light will increase if I be Faithful to practice the Virtues of Jesus Crucified who is the True Way to the Divinity the center of the Soul and her perfect repose In my third Prayer I found my self in a disposition to admire the operations of the Holy Spirit in our Souls God our Creator works in them what he pleases he having endowed them with a certain capacity extraordinary to receive his extraordinary Divine operations This must needs be extraordinary to our Faculties which before had great difficulty in believing the Mysteries of Faith and with great obscurity and with little or no gust But no sooner is this Light darted into our Souls but we see and tast them with great delight not as in Glory but in a very sublime and extraordinary manner The Meditations of many years cannot attain to this 't is a special gift we must receive from the Father of Lights to which we can only dispose our selves by Humility and Mortification O what Happiness is it for a Mortal man to be thus elevated and Spiritualiz'd by the Holy Ghost Let us therefore O my Soul humble our selves profoundly for the Spirit of God takes not up his Mansion but in a humble heart I know we ought to go whither God is pleas'd to Call us and not refuse his Gifts under the pretence of a counterfeit Humility But I know also that 't is not displeasing to God for us to be careful how we entertain extraordinary attracts least we be too ready by innate Pride of heart to walk in ways above our capacity In my fourth Prayer I consider'd the admirable preventions of the Holy Spirit in the conduct of Souls How he awakes us from the sleep of sin and draws us from the love of the World to unite us to himself by undeserved preventing Graces What wonders are there unknown to Carnal men which pass in these preventions I know nothing that may work in us more Love or more Humility For would any but a God of Infinite Goodness look with an eye of Mercy upon a Soul all black with Sin Ingratitude and Infidelity This miserable Creature is beloved of God having nothing to invite him but on the contrary to avert him from us and if his exceeding love had not surmounted the Infinite hatred God has of sin we had perish'd for ever without a Saviour To Love us Redeem us and prevent us with such Mercies does only proceed from his incomprehensible Goodness I am astonish'd to see that any Soul believing these admirable preventions should not be enflam'd with Divine Love What can more humble a poor Creature than to consider that we are nothing but Misery from which we can never free our selves unless God prevent us with his Grace and Favour What can more enflame us with Divine Love than to consider that God then loved us and prevented us with his unspeakable Mercies when we were just objects of his Eternal Hatred O my God who can comprehend the riches of your Infinite Goodness O my Soul acknowledge with thankfulness the great obligations thou hast to Love God with all thy Powers and Loving him to Praise him to all Eternity Eighth Day IN my first Prayer this thought presently possess'd my mind that all Power is attributed to the Father all Wisdom to the Son and all Goodness to the Holy Ghost And seeing these three Divine Persons are in each other by a Communication of the same Substance and Infinite Perfections the Eternal Father is the Power of the Son and Holy Ghost the Son is the Wisdom of the Father and Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the Goodness of the Father and the Son A pure Soul that lives in the sublime exercises of a Supernatural Life becomes a Mansion for the Divine Persons and receives from them the impressions of Power Wisdom and Goodness The Power of the Eternal Father dwelling in her gives her strength and a Christian generosity to conquer all the obstacles of Perfection and she discovers that many difficulties are rather imaginary than real insomuch as the Principal and the most difficult of Christian actions is to believe that they are possible and that nature shall not suffer so much thereby as is imagin'd The Wisdom of the Son cummunicated to her affords her Light and Overtures to defend her self against the apparent reasons of sensual nature which damp many excellent Spirits that they can make no great advancement in the ways of God because they have too much of humane consideration and too little of this Divine wisdom which discovers to us the Beauty of Contempts and Sufferings in following Jesus The Goodness of the Holy Spirit imprinted on her makes her conquer the Inclinations of corrupted nature which is more or less according to the degrees of Grace in us He that is Holy let him be Holy still but we shall never rise to the heighth 'till we come to Glory In my second Prayer I considered that the adorable Trinity is the Treasury of all Beings Increated and Created That in respect to the Divine and Uncreated Beeing the Eternal Father is a Treasury that is exhausted by communicating all his Infinite Perfections to the Son and Holy Ghost But in respect of Created Beings the Sacred Trinity is an inexhaustible Treasury because all the whole World or ten thousand more cannot exhaust or diminish the least drop of his Infinite Power and Goodness I was almost equally taken up with both these wonders That a Million of Worlds drawn out of the Treasury of Gods Omnipotency should not make the least diminution of his Power is certainly matter of admiration But much more that the Grandeurs of the Eternal Son should be so elevated above the World as to exhaust the whole Substance and Perfections of
Divinity repos'd with Infinite joy in the Humanity of Jesus Christ in his Suffering state And a Soul never loves more nor renders a greater homage to the Divine Perfections than by the Cross and Sufferings Sacrificing her self to Gods Interests and Glory This then is the Motto of a loving Soul Aut pati aut mori Jesus let me suffer or let me die CHAP. II. That we must have a Love for Crosses A Life without a Cross is a Life without Love This Saying too common among us That we must live an easie Life does not become the Lips of a Christian for 't is all one as to say We must live a Natural Sordid Life Next to the Divinity nothing is more amiable than the Cross of Christ We must either enjoy with the Divinity or suffer with the Humanity and the more we suffer with the one the more we shall enjoy with the other A Soul conducted by enjoyments must also participate of great Sufferings for these make those more sweet and pleasant We find by experience that the least contentment taken in Creatures does diminish Divine enjoyment and therefore the Saints have been severe to themselves so as to allow Nature only what is purely necessary by a resolute denyal even of Lawful Pleasures We too often enlarge the Law of necessity and indulge our selves in our Refections and Recreations and Accomodations Nature is content with little but the clamours of others and the fear of prejudicing our Health does us no small hurt in our way towards Perfection 'T is a sign we march couragiously in the way of the Cross when we find in our Souls such a Peace and Serenity that does not indeed hinder Nature to feel the bitterness of Sufferings but inspires with a generous resolution to embrace and cherish them looking upon them as special favours from Heaven notwithstanding the regrets of Nature to prove our Fidelity and advance our Glory It comes into my mind that to take away the bitter tast of Crosses we must sweeten them with several Sauces that is with different confiderations Sometimes by accepting from Gods hand with a Spirit of Pennance Other times with a Spirit of Sacrifice And then again with the Spirit of pure Love Sometimes to be conformable to Jesus Christ in his suffering state and besides to do the Will of God and submit our selves with all Humility to the Orders of his Divine and Sacred Providence Thus the Soul may make use of several considerations to sweeten the bitterness of Sufferings and so preserve a Love of the Cross among all the repugnances of Humane Nature When God designs to advance Divine Love in a Soul he affords her great occasions of Suffering by the order of his Providence and she contentedly embraces them though very bitter to sensual Nature Such favours are precious and we ought to manage them with Prudence and Councel 'T is very true what our Blessed Saviour says in the Gospel Multi sunt vocati pauci verò electi Many have calls to Perfection by Inspirations Lights and Motions of Grace And yet they arrive not to it for want of Fidelity and overmuch sparing themselves by too tender a love of their Body Goods Friends and Relations giving an ear more to Humane reason than the voice of Grace Sometimes we perswade our selves that Devotion is a Life full of Peace without Crosses but we deceive our selves nor ought we to enter into the Service of God without a disposition of Indifferency to all states to be mortified there not as we would have it but after what manner best pleases God Crosses from the immediate hand of God do much conduce to Sanctifie us but what arise from our vanity or too much love of the World are for the most part unprofitable and rather a hindrance to the Soul in her way to Perfection Suffer we must more or less and what pleases God we must accept of with contentation O how rare is it to find Souls truly amorous of Crosses I am of Opinion that the little love we have for Sufferings is the only cause we so little advance in the ways of Grace and if we well examine our selves we shall acknowledge it The love of Sufferings is quite repugnant to our Natural Inclinations but God can make that easie by Grace which is impossible to Nature and if we ask this great Grace as we ought we shall receive it as God has promised Neither does the Love of the Cross so much consist in great Corporal Austerities as embracing with an amorous generosity all those little Contradictions Mortifications and Humiliations we dayly meet withall either from others or our selves or by the secret orders of Divine Providence and to make good use of them for our Spiritual advantage is not the work of Nature but of Grace The more perfect our Virtue is the more we have a love for the Cross that we may be more conformable to our Blessed Saviour Know we not that they who will live Piously in Christ Jesus must suffer Persecution They shall suffer indeed on all sides from the Flesh from the Spirit from the World and God himself will try them with Afflictions This on earth is the high way to Heaven wherein Love must walk to come to Perfection which can never be gain'd without a labourious and couragious resolution CHAP. III. That we must have a great Love for Crosses WE must have a great Intellectual thirst to suffer all sorts of Crosses This is the Character of true Christians this is the Mark to know that Jesus Crucified is establish'd in us And this thirst ought to continue in us whatever our condition be because it much augments our Enjoyments and Consolations The more the Soul enjoyes the more she becomes thirsty not only of a more Savorous Union but also of a more heavy Cross Jesus Christ did thirst after his Passion for us and Dying on the Cross his thirst Increased being not quenched with all his Sufferings We say we ought to have the Image of Jesus Christ Crucified imprinted on our Souls and what is this but to have a thirst for Sufferings as he had O how the cup of affliction is pleasant to a Soul athirst for Sufferings When some great Cross happens to such a Soul she finds comfort and satisfaction therein as one enflamed with heat is refresh'd with Drinking God has a strange thirst for our Sufferings he is a thirst in us by the Fire of his Divine Love wherewith he loves himself and his Divine Perfections why do we not refresh him with our Sufferings But alas this Divine thirst is little known to men O how is it hidden from sensual eyes O Jesus how little are you known How little are you loved These Proceeding of Jesus are not understood by those who only follow the Light of Sense and Reason Emitte lucem tuam Whence once the Spiritual man discovers this nothing is more desirable to him then Suffering The great desire of the
in their hearrs to engage them efficaciously in his Love and Service So be it Amen The Contents BOOK I. OF the Love of Humiliations which is the solid Foundation of all Christian Perfection Chap. 1. That we ought to endeavour to attain Christian Perfection with the spirit of Humility Pag. 1. Chap. 2. The foundation of Christian Humility 5 Chap. 3. That the Centre of the Creature is his own Nothing 8 Chap. 4. That the greatest Saints have attain'd to Perfection by a singular Love of Self-contempt and Abjection 11 Chap. 5. That we have only so much of the true Spirit of Jesus Christ as we have an inclination to abjection 14 Chap. 6. That the sight of our own Nothing inspire us with Self-contempt and the love of God 17 Chap. 7. That God is glorified by our annihilation 20 Chap. 8. That the Soul is rich when she possesses the Love of Self-contempt 23 Chap. 9. What profit we draw from Humiliations 26 Chap. 10. The way how to arrive to perfect Humiliation 29 Chap. 11. That we ought to leave our selves wholly to God to become annihilated 32 Chap. 12. That we must renounce our sense and humane reason to love humiliations 34 Chap. 13. That the experience of God's goodness to us does annihilate us powerfully 44 Chap. 14. That a Soul espousing Jesus Christ espouses his Cross and Sufferings 41 Chap. 15. That the experience of Gods goodness to us does annihilate us powerfully 44 Chap. 16. To be content with abjection after our faults repairs the injury to God and makes up our ruins 46 Chap. 17. Considerations upon tho vileness of this corruptible body 51 Chap. 18. Considerations upon the natural inclinations we have to evil 54 BOOK II. Of the Supernatural Life which is the Life of all true Christians Chap. 1. The Idaea or description of the Supernatural Life 75 Chap. 2. Of the high esteem we ought to have of the Christian Life 60 Chap. 3. That we ought with St. Paul to convert our selves wholly to God 63 Chap. 4. Of the Alliance we must make with the holy Folly of the Cross 67 Chap. 5. How we ought to conform our Interiour to that of Jesus Christ. 70 Chap. 6. The sublimity of the Christian Life 74 Chap. 7. There are divers degrees of this supertural Life 77 Chap. 8. The practice of a Supernatural Life 80 Chap. 9. Of the Liberty we enjoy by the exercise of the supernatural life 81 Chap. 10. Our greatest happiness on earth is to profess the way of Christianity 87 Chap. 11. That Truth is only found in the Spirit of Christianity the rest is Vanity 91 Chap. 12. There are many wayes in Christianity all which are according to the Life of Jesus Christ 94 Chap. 13 Some Maxims concerning a supernatural life 98 Chap. 14. What content a soul receives in a supernatural life 101 Chap. 15. That it 's impossible to live this supernatural life by humane prudence 105 Chap. 16. The Conclusion That we ought to apply our selves to the practice of a Supernatural Life 108 BOOK III. Of the Presence of God and giving our selves up to Divine Providence Chap. 1. Our first thought in the morning ought to be That God is present 111 Chap. 2. The presence of God in the soul makes us little value the absence of the Creatures 114 Chap. 3. That we can and ought to conserve the presence of God in occasions of Extroversions 118 Chap. 4. That the presence of God is clearly seen in a purified interiour 121 Chap. 5. That our union with the Presence of God ought to be the Rule of our Actions 125 Chap. 6. That the presence of God in us puts us in a state of suffering and enjoying 128 Chap. 7. That the Divine Presence makes us to love Prayer or Action as best pleases God 132 Chap. 8. The Presence of God brings us into a disesteem of other things 136 Chap. 9. Where we may best find the Presence of God 139 Chap. 10. That we ought to give our selves up with Divine Providence 143 Chap. 11. To be indifferent to all things but Gods good Pleasure 146 Chap. 12. We ought to comport our selves with a respectful reverence in God's presence 149 Chap. 13. To give our selves up to the conduct of Gods Spirit 153 Chap. 14. How the perfect abandon of our selves to God makes us find a Paradice upon Earth 157 Chap 15. How the Beauty that is in the Order of God contents a Soul 161 Chap. 16. The practice of the Presence of God for the seven days of the Week 163 The first Day The Beeing of God 164 The second Day The Omnipotency of God 166 The third Day Of the Wisdom of God 167 The fourth Day The Patience of God 169 The fifth Day Of the Love of God 174 The sixth Day The Justice of God 172 The seventh Day The Mercy of God 173 BOOK IV. Of Solitude and the Practice of two excellent Retreats of ten Days Chap. 1. Of the Beauty of Christian Solitude 175 Chap. 2. Of the necessity of Solitude 179 Chap. 3. The difficulties of Solitude 182 Chap. 4. The Occupations of Solitude 186 Chap. 5. How we may put our Soul and Senses into a Solitude 189 Chap. 6. A Solitude or Retreat of ten days upon the infallible Mystery of the Sacred Trinity 192 First Day 195 Second Day 199 Third Day 203 Fourth Day 207 Fifth Day 211 Sixth Day 215 Seventh Day 219 Eighth Day 224 Ninth Day 228 Tenth Day 232 Chap. 6. Another Retreat of ten Days upon the Adorable Person of Jesus Christ 236 First Day Of the Mystery of the Incarnation Ibid. Second Day Jesus an Infant 241 Third Day Jesus Poor and Abject 245 Fourth Day Jesus the Fountain of Grace and Piety 249 Fifth Day Jesus Zealator of souls 253 Sixth Day Jesus contemplating and enjoying 257 Seventh Day Jesus our Exemplar and Guide 262 Eighth Day Jesus our Light 266 Ninth Day Jesus suffering and dying 280 Tenth Day Jesus risen from Death and Gloririous 285 BOOK V. Of Communion and its Effects Chap. 1. Of Preparation before Communion 291 Chap. 2. To Communicate worthily we must put our selves in a state conformable to that of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament 294 Chap 3. To receive the Communion Worthily we must imitate those Actions which Jesus Christ practised when he Instituted it 298 Chap. 4. Interiour Entertainments during Communion 303 Chap. 5. Other Entertainments to give Thanks after Communion 306 Chap. 6. Another Method of Thanksgiving after Communion 309 Chap. 7. The first Effects of Communion is to beget in us the Love of Crosses and Humiliations 313 Chap. 8. Continuation of the same subject 316 Chap. 9. The second Effect of Communion is to Transform us 319 Chap. 10. The third Effect of Communion which is the perfect and consummate Vnion 323 Chap. 11. The fourth Effect of Communion is to confer the highest Love 327 Chap. 12. The fifth Effect of Communion is to give strength and perseverance in the service
of God 332 BOOK VI. Of Interiour and Exteriour Crosses Chap. 1. That we must have a high esteem for Crosses 337 Chap. 2. That we must have a Love for Crosses 341 Chap 3. That we must have a great Love for Crosses 444 Chap. 4. God is pleased to send us Crosses in the place of Persecutions that our Life may be a continual Martyrdom 347 Chap. 5. Of exteriour Crosses by the loss of Goods Chap. 6. Dispositions during Sickness where the Body suffer'd and the Soul rejoyced Chap. 7. Other Dispositions in the time of Sickness where Body and Soul are on the Cross 357 Chap. 8. The Interiour Crosses of the Soul in Obscurity 360 Chap. 9. Of the heaviness of interiour Crosses 364 Chap. 10. The great Fruit we may reap from interiour Crosses 368 Chap. 11. That we must bear patiently our Imperfections 371 BOOK VII Of Ordinary Prayer and Contemplation Chap. 1. What esteem we ought to have for Prayer 377 Chap. 2. Of the different sorts of Mental Prayer 380 Chap. 3. That we ought to be indifferent to what manner of Prayer God is pleased to give us 384 Chap. 4. That above all things 't is necessary to practise Prayer 387 Chap. 5. Of the impediments of Prayer 392 Chap. 6. Of the Means that facilitate the Exercise of Prayer 396 Chap. 7. That we must not presume of our selves to attempt any manner of Prayer but what is ordinary 400 Chap. 8. How to pass from Ordinary Prayer to Contemplation 404 Chap. 9. Of the Prayer of Faith 407 Chap. 10 Of the Sacred Darkness of Prayer 411 Chap. 11. Of the Lights of Prayer 414 Chap. 12. Of Passive Prayer 414 Chap. 13. Of pure and perfect Prayer 421 Chap. 14. Of the hungring of the Soul after God and of her being satiated with him 425 Chap. 15. Of infused Prayer 429 Chap. 16. Of Prayer of quiet 433 Chap. 17. Of the intimate Vnion of the Love of the Soul with God in Prayer 437 Chap. 18. Of interiour Silence where God speaks and is heard 441 Chap. 19. Of most purifyed Contemplation 444 Chap. 20. Of the different Caresses God vouchsafes a Soul in Prayer 448 BOOK VIII Some Maxims of Great Importance to conduct us in a Spiritual Life Chap. 1. To have above all things an extreme Horrour of Sin 453 Chap. 2. To keep an even pace with Grace neither out-running it nor following too slowly 456 Chap. 3. That a Soul must wholly give her self up to God 459 Chap. 4. We ought to make it our Business to be content to suffer 461 Chap. 5. To renounce or selves wholly and strive against our proper Inclinations 463 Chap. 6. How to comport our selves well in Superiority 466 Chap. 7. That we ought to have our intentions purified from all Self-interest 469 Chap. 8. A conference clearing many difficulties touching Prayer 471 THE Interiour Christian BOOK I. Of the Love of Humiliations which is the solid Foundation of all Christian Perfection CHAP. I. That we ought to endeavour to attain Christian Perfection with the spirit of Humility LEt us endeavour after Perfection not because it is a sublime and elevated condition but because it is the will of God We ought not to set upon the practice of Piety by a motive of grandeur and to become greater Saints but only to do what God wills and expects from us and rest therewith content and satisfied Our happiness consists in a constant dependence on his divine will and pleasure with a perfect submission and resignation thereunto I must be content with my condition whatever it be seeing it is what God expects from me and 't is no small presumption to assume to our selves what great Saints have found in the practice of Piety God calls some persons to glorious performances others he places in a lower rank in all this we must suffer him to work his will upon us and receive with thankfulness his Divine Impressions whether great or little 't is enough for us that they come from God This is the way God calls us to walk in a way sublime pleasant full of peace in which we desire nothing but to please God It concerns us to take whatever he gives with simplicity of heart be it never so little 't is certainly more than we deserve To be annihilated in God is to will nothing but what God wills and in what manner he pleases otherwise we seek our selves and our own satisfaction and not purely God and his good pleasure We must labour for Perfection with a Spirit wholly dis-engaged from all self-interest To suffer to live poor and despised being the only way among infinite other means the Eternal Father made choice of for us to attain to Glory and regain those Excellencies Adam lost for himself and us by sin This being his design from Eternity his Son in the fulness of time embraced the Cross with affection and was inflamed with the desire of suffering valuing the Cross as a thing of great excellency being the Altar chosen for the life-giving Sacrifice by his heavenly Father preferring the Glory and the Will of God before the natural inclinations of his Humanity which had a repugnancy in the sensitive part thereof to pains and sufferings This is evident from that of the Evangelist Pater si possibile est transe at c. Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me yet not my will but thine be fulfilled And that of the Psalmist Sacrificium Oblationem noluisti c. Thou would'st not have Sacrifice or Oblation but thou hast prepared a Body for me and behold I come to do thy will And so he did run his course with joy though full of sufferings because he knew it was the good pleasure of his Father Wherefore by how much the more welove and esteem the Cross by so much the more do we participate of the Spirit of Christ and please his heavenly Father For to suffer is to sacrifice to God our pleasures and interests uniting our selves to the design that Jesus had by suffering to repair his Father's Glory O my Soul if these Verities have made deep impression in thee thou ought'st from henceforth to glory in being despised seeing thy Glory is to procure the Glory of God which cannot be done more advantagiously than by imitating his only Son O good Jesus possess my heart with your divine Spirit that may enable me to live your life O how your humiliations seem great unto me your abjections honourable your poverty rich and your Cross pleasant My Soul doth languish to possess your Spirit and desires it most ardently whatever has not a relish of your Spirit is not grateful to me O that I had inflamed affections to embrace the Cross and that I could bear the greatest can happen to me In the interim it seems to me that I do nothing and when occasion presents it self I find difficulty to suffer the least afflictions Dear Saviour how is this life troublesome unto me Strengthen
let him but heap up his own miseries and lay himself thereon as Isaac was on the Altar and then sacrifice himself by a voluntary annihilation with the fire of Divine Love and God will be glorified thereby When a Soul is left to her self in Prayer so that aridities and desolations do darken her wonted light and deprive her of the usual feelings she had of God and Goodness she may make her address in these or such-like words My God! I am nothing and I am contented with all my heart with this dealing with me it is your pleasure thus to mortifie me and I have no other will but yours You have sometimes vouchsafed unto me illuminations and consolations which were dear unto me but now you are pleas'd to deprive me of them blessed be your name I am contented with your pleasure If poverty or ill success or sickness afflict us let us apply our selves to God with these or such-like words My God! I can do nothing of my self but I am well pleased with what you do unto me sacrifice me wholly to the grandeur of your Majesty whatever reluctance I find in Nature upon the Altar of my miseries and imperfections Little Isaac ready to be sacrificed by his Father's hand might have said these or such-like words I had hopes that in after-times I might have been signally instrumental for the glory of God and that according to his promise out of my Loins by continued Generations should come the Messias but I sacrifice all this before-hand and reflect on nothing but the Burnt-offering God is pleased to make of me by my Father's hand St. Lewis had hopes to establish the glory of Jesus Christ in Palestine but seeing his Army defeated he might comfort himself in saying O my God! seeing 't is not your pleasure to have it so but have humbled me and my Army by the Pestilence and Sword of your Enemies your will be done I submit unto it I behold the generous Enterprises of your Servants and their great Attempts and bless you for them but my comfort is in the consideration of my objections which have brought me to a state wherein I see God alone and possess Him in the denudation of all Creatures after the example of Jesus Christ Christus non sibi placuit whose work was only to do your will Let us not then so much disquiet our selves with our imperfections They are indeed but an ill brood and deserve not to be loved but we must bear them with patience seeing they serve to debase our selves in our own eyes and to conform us in some sort to the infinite humiliations of Jesus Christ crucified for us Man was created in the state of innocency now he is born in a sinful condition He has then had two opposite ways to conduct him to Glory The first was a state of Exaltation happy and enjoying all Creatures freely but the second is a state of Abjection in misery and denudation of all Creatures He that will walk a third way attempts above the condition of that from whence he is fallen and that provided for us after this life CHAP. X. The way how to arrive to perfect humiliation I Conceive three deprivations necessary to effect this First the deprivation of all exteriour things as Riches Honours Pleasures This is the first advance a Soul must make to draw near to God for as long as there remains the least inordinate affection to these things she can never make any great progress in finding God being fetter'd as it were by other affections and so cannot have perfect possession of God being excluded by the Creatures which more or less take up the heart When necessity or charity require it we may have the real possession of these things and live only in disposition of spirit and affective poverty However it will be matter of joy to be freed from them because for the most part they rather hinder than advance us towards union with God And if we have not a great care Nature will cheat us with a pretext of Charity and helping others which is but a good illusion for sometimes they who have the less Riches have the more charitable hearts 'T is good counsel to forsake Riches and Honours when it may be done conveniently but when by secret tracts of Divine Providence they forsake us 't is our duty to possess our Souls in patience and be contented which is in a manner better than if we our selves had left them especially when we believe these losses happen'd by our own fault and imbecility for this brings us to a greater abjection and self-contempt which is the centre whither we ought to tend If there was nothing else good in poverty but this that it mortifies our liberty and independance whereof naturally we are so amorous 't is a great happiness to be enrich'd therewith When we are out of Employment and Honour in the world we are look'd upon as unprofitable and easily forgotten and forsaken by our best Friends 't is so much the better for our humiliation This is the second deprivation that we must suffer O the great Grace that is necessary to carry on a Soul to God when we are despised by our Friends whereby they become rather the subject of affliction than affection to us Without doubt we have a strong inclination to them to whom we are so glew'd that without some great and special grace we can never mortifie our selves therein without some attach to conserve such friendship They are happy occasions whereby we are depriv'd of our Friends without sin in losing them we lose a great upholder of self-love in us St John Baptist when very young left his Father's house to live in a Desart with God alone Great Saint they are Saints whom you forsake I know that very well says he but they are my Relations that have an affection for me O what a violence is this to nature For when an attach to Friends especially if virtuous seems more spiritual and reasonable than any other affection to mortifie our selves in this is an extraordinary Sacrifice to God and only granted to such Souls whom he carries on to great perfection But we must pass further yet For there 's a third deprivation to lose our selves which is to be esteem'd as Fools for Christ's sake according to that of St. Paul Nos stulti propter Christum To love to obey and be in subjection to have no reason and yet to renounce our own reason and to enthrone Faith in our Souls for direction O how the pure light of Faith discovers to us that we ought to be well pleased to have no great natural parts but to be as it were good for nothing For the view thereof if it come to the heart does powerfully annihilate the natural inclination we have to be esteemed To consent willingly to be abject and despised is a great means to empty us of this self-love and according to the measure of this evacuation
according to Nature and must employ all means and Motives to this effect I will set down some of them 'T is a good Motive or means to renounce all Creatures and our selves by a spirit of denudation saying with great fervour and affection Away Creatures get hence from me and leave a place in my heart for God alone 2. 'T is a good Motive to do this by a spirit of Poverty for it is not possible to follow Jesus poor and abject unless in due circumstances we be willing to leave all things for Jesus sake and become poor to follow him Let us therefore be content to quit all things joyfully and be glad to have nothing to possess God himself alone 3. ' Tisae good Motive to die to all things by a spirit of abjection What greater happiness is there O my Soul than to live in humiliation seeing this was the life of God upon Earth To be despised with Jesus is a state of beatitude Worldly Prosperity is a hindrance to our happiness 4. 'T is a good Motive to abandon all things by a spirit of oblation sacrificing and annihilating our selves sincerely to pay homage to the Infinite Majesty of God with such a confidence in him so as to rely never more on any Creature Quid enim mihi est in Caelo aut à te quid volui super Terram Deus cordis mei O my God! shall any Creature take part of my heart with you when all is yours If it was possible to love you too much I might give place to something else but seeing I am infinitely below my duty in that particular what Creature can pretend to have the least part with you CHAP. IX Of the liberty we enjoy by the exercise of the Supernatural Life 'T Is wonderful to see the great liberty which a Soul enjoys by the exercises of a supernatural life When the illuminations of this state irradiate a Soul throughly she enters into a new region of light full of Peace and Love marvelous large and spatious in which she lives in high union with God A union which is not so liable to vicissitudes and disturbances as formerly because accidental occurrences as sickness disgraces c. do not hurt such a Soul by reason they make no strong impression in her and by consequence being become less sensible she is not easily diverted from the supernatural Object of her love Yea such a Soul improves hindrances and divertisements to her greater recollection and increase of Divine Love because in this state she is dis-engag'd from the Creature and so freed from fear of miseries which she can chearfully embrace as the occasions of her happiness whereby she enters into a perfect liberty and great purity of Virtue I could never well understand what that is which is called Purity of Virtue but now I see 't is the state of a supernatural life wherein the Soul lives no more in her self and of her self and for her self but in God and of God and for God being wholly separated from the Creatures and united to God Alas how is this poor Soul afflicted to do things so much below her self in this high condition For oftentimes she must act according to her natural inclinations and the dictates of pure reason which affords her matter of sighs and languishings after her Beloved This is that which kindles in her breast an ardent desire to be dissolved and leave this earthly Tabernacle wherein by the common misery of mankind she lives a life displeasing to her self for being not wholly for God as she desires it seems to her a kind of death And seeing she cannot continually live this supernatural life without vicissitudes it is as it were a death unto her A Death unknown to sensual men but such that are spiritual are very sensible thereof O Jesus deliver me from this life of mortality seeing here I cannot live your life of purity in comparison of which all other lives are but death and corruption To see so clearly the excellencies of a life so lovely and not to be able to live but little of it considering my frailty makes me resent my misery and acknowledge dear Jesus how necessary your Grace is for me O how great is the dependence which my Soul hath on your mercy 't is so mighty and essential dependence that words cannot sufficiently express it However this comforts me herein that it gives you all the Glory of the Interiour beauty in the Soul which is a work more magnifies your Power Bounty and Wisdom than the whole outward work of the Creation Your greatest wonders dear Saviour are secret and hidden A Soul that lives this supernatural life above her inclinations does more set forth the great power of God than to elevate the Heavens above the Earth for this is as miraculous as to elevate the Earth above the Heavens This makes me O my God desire to live this blessed life that I may thereby bring greater Glory to your Name Assist me powerfully with your Grace for if I be once left to my self I shall relapse into my natural weakness which is but a meer Nothing and Infirmity Some trouble themselves too much in philosophising on this spiritual life which is needless it being enough to say The Spirit of Jesus must be the Spirit of my Interiour 't is He by whom I must live this life and act accordingly and so free our selves from other considerations which may hinder our liberty to follow this light and fall faithfully to practice on the occasions of Crosses Contempts and Disgraces which happen to us in this life I ought daily to endeavour after purity although I cannot attain the highest practice because the course of my life wherein God has placed me will not permit it nor does exact of me to attempt of my self the grand effects of purity lest I should be discourag'd by failing in the enterprize This is only the perfection of the greatest Saints and herein we must give our selves up to the conduct of the Spirit of Jesus Christ who being infinitely wise we need not fear having him for our Leader But as we ought not to be too rigorous so we must not be too faint-hearted in the ways of perfection but apply our selves with love and resolution to all occasions by suffering peaceably and with contentation whatever injuries we may receive from others in seeking too much their own interest All sufferings are to be entertain'd with love but especially what we suffer by Injustice For is not this that which the Son of God hath done principally upon Earth by suffering innocently Do not therefore say I would suffer this injury if he that does it had the least reason for it for this proceeds from self-love and passion It may well be that he has no reason to do you this injury but Divine Reason and the spirit of Christianity teach you to bear it patiently 'T is good to suffer thus and in this to imitate Jesus is
Purity in the Soul we find the presence of God in us and the following Instructions in my judgment may conduce to purifie the Soul and preserve her in Purity 1. An indifference to every condition to any employ whatsoever whereby God may be glorified 2. To be regular in our Exteriour Actions not to busie our selves too much and to do them with great attention 3. To be well rooted in the Spirit of Mortification to love Suffering and Humiliations a manifest sign of a purified Interiour 4. To have a great love for Jesus Christ dying on the Cross for us 5. To have a continual recourse to God for a supply of his Grace with a constant dependance on it 6. To be dead to the World and worldly things 'T is said That God is in the fond of the Soul and there is hidden so as to find him we must hide our selves there also by recollection and an internal Life which Spiritual Authors call The state of Introversion The night time is most conducing to advanee this disposition when all creatures are in a manner dead to us making no impression on our Senses whereby we better conserve that reverence we owe to the presence of God in us O how many Irreverences are we guilty of on this account We leave him alone when we perceive he is in the fond of our Soul to receive our homages and we turn our eyes from his Majesty though he regard us Just as if one by special favour admitted into the Closet of his Prince to converse with him should presently turn his head to look out of the Windows to behold the Passengers A Soul that is sensible of Gods presence is not guilty of such ordinary miscarriages The least word or action that tends not to God is troublesome to her because that being unwilling to leave that respect she owes to Gods presence she fears the least irreverences as death And seeing that all Creatures are nothing to the Creator she often cries out Quis ut Deus Deus meus omnia Who is like unto God My God is all in all unto my heart In this state the Soul has not only a great respect for God as God but for Jesus Christ God and Man and for his Doctrine and for his Maxims The privation of all Creatures does relish better with her than the possession knowing for certain that to enjoy God by such happy experience is of more worth than the World CHAP. V. That our union with the Presence of God ought to be the Rule of our Actions THat Soul has no small obligations to God who manifests his Presence in her Interiour and makes her sensible of this blessed union I know very well that this union is so full of sweetness and desirable that 't is of more worth than the enjoyment of all Creatures But 't is also full of extreme rigour separating a Soul without any pity from whatsoever nature loves most dearly She must then bid adieu to the most innocent Pleasures by being generally dead to all things but God or what relates to him O what a pain is it not to dare because God is present to be complacent to our Friends or be serviceable to them with a natural inclination but only upon a motive of Grace For such a Soul must not follow the order of Nature as from nature but as elevated by Grace If the World call upon us let us not regard it for it will withdraw us from the presence of God to please our selves or others by divertisements A Soul attracted to enjoy the presence of God has another rule Those who are not thus attracted nor have this enjoyment may do well to comply with their neighbours by charitable complacences The Fidelity which a Soul owes to God present requires of her not to charge her self with affairs but what are necessary and to manage them with the Spirit of indifferency aiming only to do Gods will which sometimes we meet with as well in ill as good successes She must be more taken up with God than those affairs knowing well no business is of greater importance than to conserve her union with God present It no less concerns her to be well resign'd to the Orders of Divine Providence to be content with Poverty with Miseries with Desolations never seeking deliverance upon natural motives but being pleas'd with abjection and humiliations to say with St. Paul Placeo mihi in infirmitatibus I am well pleas'd with my Infirmities Such a Soul will give her self up absolutely into the hands of God to let him work her into what form he pleases as soft wax and set what Impression he thinks best upon her receiving all with profound humility and if she be left naked she rests contented O how a Soul so dead to all Creatures is a pleasing Mansion for God to dwell in 'T is his delight to take there his habitation O how a Soul that finds God thus present with her is troubled to be obliged to quit the sweetness of his presence And when this is often makes life somewhat troublesom and she cries out O my God the well-beloved of my Soul when will you deliver me from this burdensom necessity This is the greatest of miseries to be depriv'd of all Creatures is no misery in comparison But to be depriv'd of you to enjoy whom I was created and without whom I cannot but be miserable makes me cry out Quando veniam apparebo ante faciem tuam O when shall I come to enjoy your presence It seems to me I am like a Traveller who sees a far off a high mountain and the way before him but being on foot he must sweat to get thither In like manner I have some prospect of Perfection and the obligations of a Soul longing after God but I cannot accomplish them However I have a desire and I stand in need of an abundance of Grace to mount to Perfection Holy Virgin Mother of God intercede for me that I may receive a participation of your Graces to enable and conduct me in the ways of God We must have a care that the Contentments we enjoy by this union with God present does not exclude a union with the Cross Contempts Poverty and Sufferings A strict tye to the Interiour of Jesus glorified does require also a strict conjunction to the Interiour of Jesus Crucified Those two unions go hand in hand here it being impossible to have part in the state of Jesus in Heaven without having part in the states of Jesus on Earth Let us take courage and love as yet rather to suffer than enjoy We have but this short life to suffer in but our enjoyment shall be to all Eternity CHAP. VI. That the presence of God in us puts us in a state of suffering and enjoying PErfection doth not consist in a general freedom from Interiour and Exteriour troubles Hitherto my weakness could not comprehend how a Soul at the same time might be happy
secret Orders well known to her self and walks Peaceably in the pursuance of those Affairs which have immediate relation to God And is content also to be extroverted by Secular Affairs as Goods and Honours to serve our Corporal necessities and help our Neighbours But 't is God present in us that sets a a Soul on work by his Orders and necessary Instructions 1. We must undertake no business yea not good works without a Mission that is without some Interiour Call from God And therefore it concerns us to have recourse to him by Prayer to know his will least we do what he does not require of us 2 When we know that God sets us on work we ought to be very faithful in the performance of it I observe that affairs of obligation do not distract our Introversion 3. We must acknowledge our insufficiency to bring our endeavours to a Happy issue 'T is the Sun that makes the Plants to grow to blossom and fructifie and not the Gardiner that sets and waters them In like manner 't is the Grace of God that makes our endeavours prosperous Paul may plant and Apollo may water but God gives the increase 4 To regulate the times of our Exercises without which the Soul will languish and grow feeble Charity well order'd begins at home I must not for others neglect the most important affair of my own Salvation O my God when I am in the privation of the sensible sweets of your presence and find a dryness on my Soul it seems to me not hard to bear it But when I am ravish'd with enjoyment to be call'd from it to mind other business this seems to me more difficult and mortifying We may strive to have the like content in other affairs but our infirm condition will not suffer it and do what we can we fall short of the sweets of such enjoyment It remains then to make an excellent act of abnegation and by an amorous resignation of our will to Gods make it our contentment to have no other contentment than Gods good pleasure who will not have us to be disturb'd to want enjoyment And thus we offer up to God an excellent Sacrifice seeing we give to God what is most dear and precious to us by dying to our selves to live to him I am therefore resolv'd to fall a working without troubling my Spirit too much with the Ideas of Affairs that I may still conserve an actual endeavour to practice on divers occasions and maxims of Christianity and Evangelical Councils by self-denyal and a love of Sufferings for Christs sake And if I continue in this Spirit of Sacrifice and entire abnegation it will make me content with that little Service God requires of me being unworthy by reason of my sins to be advanced to greater performances He is indeed our Soveraign Lord and he may be do with his Creatures what he pleases But whatever we undertake let us have a care to do our works for God with purity of intention and in ill successes to have a Spirit of resignation which may prove to us of more worth than the conversion of Souls When we are in the heat of our Affairs it much concerns us not to let them deface in our Soul the incomparable Idea of the Interiour of Jesus which is the Copy we must endeavour to write after in imitation whereof we always find sufficient matter of glorifying God which is the only pretention we ought to have both for Time and Eternity In this Abiss of Perfections I find how to behave my self in Prayer in Action in Affairs in Contempts in Temptations in Aridities in Disconsolations And without the Idea of this Divine Interiour we do but blunder in the way to Perfection and seek our own esteem and excellency There are in Spiritual Persons three sorts of Purity 1. Purity of Conscience 2. Purity of Virtue 3. Purity of Perfection Whoever is careful to avoid sin even those that proceed from Frailty has purity of Conscience Those who on all occasions practice Virtue without a mixture of nature have Purity of Virtue And those who being divested entirely of themselves and the creatures endeavour purely to practice the perfect acts of Virtue are arrived to the purity of Perfection By these degrees of Purity we may discover the different states of Virtuous Souls CHAP. VIII The presence of God brings us into a disesteem of other things AFter God has manifested himself to a Soul making her to see that he is all the Soul enamour'd on this adorable presence takes no rest but in him finding her self ill at ease without him who is all in all unto her O how Powerful is this Divine Idaea to withdraw a Soul from all Creatures that she may be united to her all How does she happily loose her self in this great all O my God says she how true is it that you are all and I am nothing Dear Lord what can we do for you You are all and have no need of our goods Of the all of our Souls how little are you known and beloved I know not what men intend in not having their thoughts taken up about him who is our all Where art thou O my Soul when thou art not in this all Without doubt thou art in nothing for as long as thou art in thy self or in the Creatures thou art in the depth of nothingness The content I have in that God is all is more as it seems to me for him then my self For my joy is to know him to be what he is before I was any thing O great all be you for ever what you are and that you shall be our all everlastingly does comfort and ravish me I see that God is not only all but that all Glory all Grandeur all Beatitude is in him neither loses he any thing by his communications to his Creatures He takes infinite Pleasure to do good to them by his mercy and no less content is he to punish them by his Justice because they deserve it for nothing can disturb his happiness O what Felicity is it to a Soul that loves God purely to be assured that God shall be infinitely happy to all Eternity and that no malice of man can alter his Beatitude Such a Soul is greatly pleased to consider the contentment God takes to make her live to make her die to keep her in Health or in Sickness to supply her Corporal necessities and furnish her Interiour with all Graces For God draws great Glory to himself by all his Creatures Be comforted then O my Soul and be not disconsolate seeing that God is always happy Be not troubled for any thing seeing that every thing which torments thee may bring Glory to God Do not value any thing but God alone seeing in his presence the most excellent Creatures are as pure nothings Tanquam nihilum ante te 'T is easie and pleasant for a Soul to value nothing in the presence of God she finds in
thee That is to say let thy care be to be lost in me and I will take order for thy affairs Such a Soul does not spend much time in the things of this Life but in the praises of God Her exercise being a pure consideration of Divine Providence in whose arms she quietly reposes her self fearing nothing but infidelity CHAP. XIV How the perfect abandon of our selves to God makes us find a Paradice upon Earth SO much as a Soul is faithful to this abandon so much doth she abound with consolation For she is content with the state wherein Providence has put her and is well-pleased with all God's Ordinations concerning her self as are most for his Glory and has a tender love for the Decrees of God's will who from all Eternity has determined to conduct her in this way which she would not change for one more elevared though one sigh would gain it Moreover such a Soul takes much delight in knowing that many Souls are conducted by more excellent ways whereby God may be more glorified For seeing she desires purely the Glory of God she is well-pleased that God is glorified by others and rejoyces at it saying with great resentment Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum Let every spirit praise our Lord every way every state This resentment somewhat resembles that of the Blessed in Heaven where the Angels rejoice more at the Glory which the Seraphins render to God than at their own service And that great difference which an Angel sees between himself and a Seraphin does not raise in him the least desire to be a Seraphin and his joy is greatest in that the Divine will has made him only in the Order of Angels Thus it ought to be with holy Souls on Earth who participating of one anothers good are content with the graces God bestows upon them and sees no good dispositions in themselves or others which does not comfort them O what profound peace is here There is but little difference to be in the state of blessedness or in a perfect abandon to God's good pleasure because there is nothing can afflict such a Soul and she can want nothing that contents the heart Great Saints do not wait for Paradice with impatience having in a manner found it upon Earth by a perfect abandon to God's good pleasure O holy Virgin how were you content that your Son should ascend into Heaven without your company Had not you as much right to follow him as the holy Fathers detained in Limbo They were his Servants only but you his Mother also and yet you remain upon Earth to partake of Miseries and they mount to Heaven to possess Joys eternal and a Crown of Glory How different is this distribution Your own dear Son holy Virgin vouchsafes to go to Limbo to assist the holy Fathers and carry them from thence with him and you who are so near him who have serv'd and accompanied him during his mortal life even in his Passions and Ignominies now he is full of Glory leaves you here And what I more admire you amorously acquiesce in this abandon and are content to want his corporal presence with spiritual joy O what marvels do pass in your Soul O admirable Mother which transcends our understanding All that we can discover is that you are as well content with the privation as presence of Jesus to remain in Jerusalem among his Crucifyers as the company of Angels who sing his Praises when 't is the good pleasure of God and the Eternal Father has so ordained O my Soul when shalt thou be perfectly abandon'd to God's good pleasure Dost thou find thy self as equally content in privations as enjoyments When wilt thou be satisfied with all events dis-engaged wholly from what is not God and value nothing but his good pleasure Seeing that the Mother of God is content to be deprived of the visible presence of Jesus because he will have it so oughtest not thou to desire solely the will of God with an indifferency to all things else If thou might'st choose thou ought'st rather to embrace Desolations than Consolations Neglects and Contempts than Honours and Endearments seeing Jesus and Mary have most loved a suffering life But this perfect abandon this holy indifferency to any state this union with the good pleasure of God is yet a Mine of greater Treasures 'T is the sublimest purest perfectest disposition that can be in the Soul 't is of more worth than other dispositions and they without it are of no value yea in some sort are but imperfections Contemplation a desire to be charitable a will to help our Neighbours in spiritual things are good and holy disposition however God does not always require these of us When God is pleased to leave a Soul in aridities poor and desolate she would be unfaithful if then she should attempt such matters but union to the good pleasure of God can never lead us to imperfection but always elevates us in grace and therefore ought to be permanent in us When a Soul has lost all she may believe she has lost nothing so that she lose not this disposition of union with the will of God which indeed cannot be lost if our hearts be elevated above all earthly things Such a Soul can say truly with some great Saints Deus meus omnia O my God! you are my all in possessing you I have all things else How ignorant are we in complaining of the loss of whatever this world affords seeing the loss of them if we be not our own Enemies may make us find a more pure union with God's good pleasure For we never advance more in Virtue than in a state of denudation And if we desire nothing but the will of God and are content with that whatever it be we can want no disposition to perfection Every state every gracious disposition hath its proper worth they are good and pleasing and ought to be valued though some have more excellency in themselves than others But we must be content with those God is pleased to vouchsafe us in peace submission humility and indifferency to every state reposing our selves in the will of God as in our center A Soul in this state somewhat approaches to the Peace and Felicity of the Blessed in Heaven CHAP. XV. How the Beauty that is in the Order of God contents a Soul I Never yet have well understood this verity so often repeated Not one hair of your head shall fall to the ground without the will of your Heavenly Father The clear and full understanding of which will make a Soul happy on earth and the crosses which before did afflict her Spirit will be a joy unto her and cordial comfort For then she tasts the wonderful sweetness contain'd in the order of God to bring her to Happiness so that Paradice without this order would be as a hell unto her and to be in a suffering condition with this order will become a Paradice The order
behold you on the Cross with carnal eyes else next to the Divinity they would discover nothing more sweet and lovely Do not therefore stay me up with Flowers but with Thorns do not encompass me with Apples but with Nails because I languish with love The beauties and sweets of Jesus pierce my heart and I cannot suffer more than to be without suffering in the sight of my suffering and crucified Jesus But some say to suffer much is hurtful to us Alas do we find it hurtful to us to love much Wherefore will ye that love crucifying shall be more moderate then love-enjoying which too often weakens the Soul and sometimes wounds us to death A too great solicitude about corporal health is a sign we do not take up our abode in the wounds of Jesus crucified We are never better then when sighing under the burden of the Cross God beholding himself takes infinite delight in his own perfections out of himself he is alike pleased to see those Perfections crowned in his Creatures His mercy does triumph in the Blessed Saints and Angels and his Justice in Hell A Soul introverted in solitude with God alone finds sweetness unspeakable in considering these marvels She feels also an excessive joy to see that the travels and sighs and sufferings and blood of Jesus are crowned with a Glory by the Elect on earth whether it be by suffering or enjoying When they conquer a temptation the blood of Jesus is crowned When they practise heroick acts of Virtue the blood of Jesus is crowned All glory be to him both in Time and Eternity O Mortals come and see if there be any beauty goodness and perfection comparable to that of Jesus our God and Saviour O how lovely is he and yet how little is he beloved How great and yet how despised How infinite in his Perfections and yet how little known O the only desire of my Soul discover your self somewhat more clearly to me that being ravish'd with your Beauties I may be solely taken up with your Perfections Shall any creature after this oblige me to regard it No my eyes shall be fixed on God alone Farewell then poor Creatures I am above you you shall never more amuse me I leave you to place my thoughts on my Well-beloved Methinks I feel his powerful attracts drawing me out of my self to possess him alone My Friends do not molest me any more leave me in my self to possess my God and admire his Perfections You may serve him by helping others but leave me to serve him in himself I desire none but him nor to be taken up with any thing but him seeing he is pleas'd to let me know it is his pleasure Farewell Creatures farewell Friends farewell Devotes farewell World I am going to God to unite my self unto him by a constant retreat that shall never suffer a separation CHAP. II. Of the necessity of Solitude I am resolv'd on the Vigil of All Saints to mount up to Heaven to congratulate their Happiness and beg their Charity for surely they will be very liberal on their general Festival and my Soul hopes for great succours from them in her miseries However I will chiefly sollicit the Blessed Hermits and Solitary Monks whose habitation in this Life was in Desarts and Monasteries I have a call from Heaven to address my self to them to beg their Intercession for some part of their Spirit of Introversion retirement from the World and Interiour poverty which is the true life of Holy Recluses being in a profound solitude of Soul by a denudation of all Creatures while their Bodies inhabit the most secret Desarts Great Saints what do you here upon Earth You labour not to help others being far remov'd from the company of Men so that you seem to be but unprofitable servants Alas how ill do sensual men judge of the Interiour of Saints I tell you these are the great Servants of God who in their Desarts offer up continual Sacrifices to the Grandeurs of an incomprehensible Majesty by profound poverty of Spirit and annihilation of themselves And being in a denudation of all Creatures their desires are for God and him alone This is the Happy state this is the Paradice my Soul sighs after at present to live so sequestred from Creatures as if I were in the Desarts of Lybia Good Jesus there 's nothing impossible to your Grace grant me this poverty of Spirit and if Exteriour poverty be necessary to possess this Interiour whereof I speak make me as poor as Job if my Friends must leave me I will freely part with them and be content to be forgotten in their affections for ever O my God estrange me from all Creatures give me that profound poverty of Spirit which methinks I understand though I cannot express it Thus dead to the World I shall enter into the joy of my Saviour for there 's no enjoying of God without a perfect denudation of all Creatures But how shall I get this Treasure who have the dominion of Temporal Possessions I must either really quit them to gain this Jewel or possess them as if I possess'd nothing The examples of the Blessed in Heaven afford me both comfort and satisfaction The Saints are rich for they want nothing and notwithstanding they are poor in Spirit because they continually annihilate all the riches of their glory in the presence of the great God being ready to part with their Felicity and to be annihilated if such was the Will of God In this manner I must possess what I have being prepared to part with it when God will have it so I observe that for want of Solitude the Soul does not discern the more subtile workings of God in her interiour which afterwards she discovers by experience These are great Graces but come to no effect for want of introversion and attention I know well enough that Faith is sufficient to direct the Soul to attain to the knowledge and love of her Creator But 't is true also that the God of love has more secret and in-time ways wherewith the Divine Wisdom works the Soul into a temper to make her sensible of his amorous embraces O my God how are you hidden in the fund of our Souls And you do not discover your self to us except in a perfect Solitude when we are out of the noise of Creatures God and the Soul being alone together O poor Mortals how long shall your hearts hanker after the things of this World Turn your selves perfectly to God and see and taste how sweet he is Happy are those moments although but short wherein we have a taste of the Divine sweetness and partake of the effects of his sensible presence Such a Soul will find in her self a certain aversion and disgust of worldly Vanities a desire to leave them a love of Solitude and Silence to be the more at liberty to attend to Gods Service all other things now appearing to her but as dross and dung and
a Hermitage The same may be said of our Memory wholly taken up with Idaeas of God and his Excellencies Of our Understanding and will imployed only in the knowledge and love of God If we would often put our Senses into this Solitude we should attain great Purity of Virtue A true Solitare does hardly touch the earth with his Feet that is all his stay with the Creatures is for pure necessity his Conversation being with God and Heavenly things I have Inspirations from God to Prayer and Solitude so frequent and powerful that my Soul takes pleasure in nothing else Methinks God speaks thus to my Soul Be thou Faithful to quit all Worldly things and I will conduct thee into an Interiour Solitude where no Creatures shall hinder thee and I will speak to thy heart which shall answer Of what will my Divine Bridegroom speak except of his Infinite Beauty and Goodness CHAP. VI. A Solitude or Retreat of Ten Days upon the Infallible Mystery of the Sacred Trinity ALthough every one who will seriously apply himself to the great affair of his Salvation ought to have an affection for Solitude as the proper School of Virtue yet 't is necessary from time to time to make some more severe retreats by seperating our selves from all business and company that we may converse with God alone in a more continual Prayer than ordinary I observe that there are divers manners to treat with God in Prayer and a devout Soul must conform her self to the measure of Grace bestowed on her co-operating therewith with all humility and dependance whether her Prayer be of higher or inferiour nature The first is when the Soul by the light of reason discourses on the Principles of Faith The second is when in converse with God she only beholds the proper objects of Faith by a simple view and apprehension The third is when a Soul receives Supernatural Illustrations in the understanding and extraordinary motions in the Will to know and love God by the gift of Wisdom And this passive and extraordinary Prayer hath many degrees of which I have nothing to say at present A Soul experienced in the operations of Grace will easily know to what sort of Prayer she has a Call from God and will betake her self to it with great sweetness submission and simplicity Spiritual Authors tell us there be three sorts of passivity The first not approved by them is when a Soul yet very imperfect in Prayer expects extraordinary illuminations from Heaven by neglecting to help her self with considerations suitable to her condition The second doubtful and call'd in question is when a Soul yet imperfect provides her self of no subject for Meditation and mental Prayer but expects that God should furnish her immediately with matter for it The third good and commended is when a purified Soul receives Divine impressions in her Spiritual Exercises 'T is also of high concern to observe well that a Soul may be Divinely inspir'd to this or that undertaking or kind of Life in such different ways that to discern perfectly the Call of God will be somewhat difficult 1. God sometimes works upon a Soul by his Grace joyntly with the Light of reason to move her to those things which do not transcend but are conformable to the dictates thereof 2. There are some things to do which we can have no motions but only by the Light of Grace and Instinct of the Holy Spirit But those whom we consult about them ought to be experienced in Spiritual matters and in whom the Light of Grace is more predominant than that of reason For if those instincts are purely from God the light of nature is no fit judge of Supernatural Inspirations From whence arise great troubles to persons so inspir'd by meeting with contradictions on every side A Director must be highly elevated in Grace to discern between the motions of Grace and reason And therefore 't is no wonder to see some good men of good judgment not to relish or approve of some manner of extraordinary Devotion Great resolution and fidelity is requisite to follow such Instincts of Grace for Sense and Reason and their Partizans who are no small number will mantain strong disputes with them I will begin my Exercises taking God for my only Conductor but nevertheless am resolv'd according to the method prescrib'd to me by a Friend on Gods behalf to take up my thoughts principally with the Infinite and Eternal Perfections of the Divine Persons of the most Sacred Trinity and set apart at least four hours a day for Prayer and Meditation First Day BE taking my self to Prayer the first day I was seis'd with astonishment that men so little consider'd this ineffable Mystery Yea great Devotes are much taken up with it but apply themselves either to the Saints or the Mysteries of Jesus Christ which is very well done however this grand Mystery ought to be the principal Object of their Thoughts and Adorations O Mystery of Mysteries foundation of all other Mysteries A Mystery not only Divine but God himself involv'd within himself A Mystery of Beauties and Eternal Grandeurs A Mystery of Eternal Ravishments in consideration of the Infinite Perfections of the God-head O Grand Mystery too much forgotten by us who think but little on these Infinite Productions The greatest of Mysteries and the most forgotten O my Soul let not this justly be charged upon thee but be often attentive to these eternal emanations adore them continually and sing on Earth the Song of the Angels in Heaven Holy Holy Holy Holy in Essence Holy in Attributes Holy in all his Ways and all his Works This present Retreat will work much good in me by putting me in mind of my Duty towards the adorable Trinity Hereafter nothing shall appear to me so great and beautiful as this employ about the most Sacred Trinity The application to Saints and Mysteries of Jesus must yield to this and not appear while this possesses my Soul nor take place 'till God is pleas'd to change this disposition In my second Prayer I consider'd that my Soul was created to be an express and excellent Image of the most Sacred Trinity God having made it Spiritual Intelligent and Loving to exercise in her his Divine operations which are the knowledge and love of God Entring into this Idaea I consider'd that the found of our Interiour ought to be a Pure Mansion for God himself and his Divine operations and that the best Prayer we can make and most acceptable to his Majesty is to annihilate all the Powers of our Soul in her operations that God may work in us who can only know and love himself according to his infinite Perfections That our understanding be not otherwise imployed then to adore God present in his operations and the will to consent thereto That the Soul wholly apply her self to Gods workings in us corresponding in all things to his good will and pleasure by a ready and faithful
co-operation O how did I discover clearly the abuses most men commit by profaning the Faculties of their Soul in employing them about Vanities and unprofitable Curiosities as are for the most part our Worldly Affairs We see not except in a Retreat and Solitude how Worldly business hinders the actual knowledge and love of God wherein consists the true Life of our Soul O the happy condition of true Solitaries O how great Wisdom is it to free our selves from Worldly Affairs the better to mind the one thing necessary that is to live a life Divine for which we were created Let us O my Soul flie from distractions and the amusement of Affairs which engage us in a thousand Discourses Vanities Extravagancies and Weaknesses Let us be Faithful O my Soul and give our selves up wholly to God that we may live up to the end of our Creation In my third Prayer this Truth made deep impression on me that the most Sacred Trinity made Man after the Image of God which afterwards being disfigured by sin the same adorable Trinity vouchsafed to imprint it anew and more exactly in our Holy Baptism when we are Baptiz'd In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost We owe our Christianity to this impression of the three Divine Persons We enter not into the Church but by this great and ineffable Mystery which is the foundation of our Catholick Faith I do not see that the Sacred Trinity brings forth any thing created of a more noble Production than a Christian the whole Machine of the World is less considerable for the order thereof is only Natural but a Christian is a Supernatural work wherein it seems the most Sacred Trinity takes delight to be born as it were anew by imprinting his Image in our Souls Shall we deface this Image to make our Souls deformed by some monstruous resemblance Yet this is that we do O my Soul when instead of carefully preserving the Image of the most Sacred Trinity imprinted on us by Baptism not considering the great Honour and Happiness we receive thereby we deform our selves by sin and deface this Image with unclean resemblances O my Soul when shall we be purified Flie from the World and betake thy self to a Holy Solitude For my fourth Prayer God was pleas'd to inspire me with this thought that my Conversation ought to be in Heaven already that is in God for 't is God is our Heaven and 't is in Him I ought to take up my Mansion seeing I was created to consider his Eternal and Temporal Affairs and to contemplate his Infinite Perfections I call the Eternal Affairs of God his Divine Interiour operations the generation of the Eternal Word the procession of the Holy Spirit and the Infinite Complacency which he takes in his incomprehensible Beauties and Grandeurs the Eternal Designs of the Mysteries of the Word made Flesh which was to be accomplish'd in the fulness of time in which however he took an Infinite satisfaction from all Eternity I call the Temporal Affairs of God the execution of his Divine Decrees touching the Mystery of the Incarnation and Passion of Jesus Christ the Creation of the World the Justification and Reprobation of Men God before all time having Infinite Sallies in himself by the Production of the Son and Holy Spirit hath in time had Sallies out of himself full of wonders and admiration O my God how a Soul enlightned from Heaven finds great joy and content in contemplating these Eternal and Temporal Verities out of which all is but deceit and vanity But how low Spirited are they who never attempt the knowledge of these Truths For my part I will never more stand in admiration to see the Holy Hermits forsake the World with intentions never more to return to earthly matters when once they have discover'd the Truth and Beauty of things Eternal and Divine O my God make me dead to the World that I may live to you alone and my Thoughts may be only taken up with your Perfections Second Day BEhold what suddenly comes into my mind about this great and incomprehensible Mystery I am wonderfully content to be in a state of inability to understand it in that the Powers of my Soul are led captive by Faith surrounded with Clouds This inability this obscurity this captivity are pleasing to me and for the future I 'll believe that there is no better way upon earth to please God then by submitting our understanding and will to his Revelations Yea I do more value this captivity to Faith in believing what I see not than all Splendours imaginable How is this submission of our Spirit naturally curious and inquisitive pleasing to God! How much hereby do we honour and glorifie him O glorious Saints with all due reverence I challenge you to be more in love with your Eternal Splendours than I am with these Clouds of Holy Faith If you be content I am no less to be so happy as willingly to captivate my understanding to the high Mysteries God has revealed And that which fills me with joy and makes me happy before I come to Heaven is to find my will in perfect submission to my God and to the meanest Creature for love of him O blessed Souls I am a little too bold with you yet I speak the Truth and ye well know it I aspire to Perfection of Divine Love and this submission is the way to practise it A way sure and excellent In my second Prayer I yet found my Soul taken up with the Grandeurs of this incomprehensible Mystery and being almost lost in this Ocean of infinite wonders was full of Faith and Sweetness at the sight of such adorable Perfections though all surrounded with clouds of darkness For as soon as this Mystery presents it self to the eye of the Soul her light is obscured and casts our Spirit into a thick darkness which yet brings with it a Light to see what reason cannot Nox illuminatio mea My night hath some day and I perceive the Infinite distance between the Creator and his Creature and being plung'd into the Abiss of my own Nothingness I acknowledge O my God and adore your Grandeurs and Perfections I admire I love I obey O my God I adore and believe stedfastly what you are pleas'd to reveal to your Church I neither know nor comprehend nor desire it but am content with my ignorance and submission Let us O my Soul abide as low and abject as Grace can make us for nothing renders us more pleasing to God than profound Humility and annihilation God who is infinitely delighted to dwell in his own Grandeurs is also well pleas'd to see an abject Creature content with its own nothing 'T is an error in Spirituality and savours of self-love to shun abjection under pretence to advance our selves in Divine Love O my Soul let us comply with Gods will and march on in the ways of abjection if God be pleas'd
to require it of us My third Prayer pass'd on in these Thoughts that the most Sacred Trinity being Eternally Knowledge and Love Substantial my Soul ought to endeavour to produce in her self an actual knowledge and love of God the better to resemble this adorable Trinity A Soul in the state of Contemplation renders this honour to God in a more peculiar manner enjoying God by the guift of Prayer in as transcendent a manner as Mortality permits 'T is true the prospect I have of this Divine Life here below draws my Soul Powerfully after it and I love it better than formerly But I see that to persevere therein we must be very poor in Spirit that is not only free from exorbitant Passions but all distracting Images which pass by the senses that are not Mortified News attended with curiosity or the eyes attached to sensible objects or such like immortifications fill the Soul with unprofitable Images which make her uncapable of Divine impressions by corresponding to which we most benefit our selves and most glorifie God In my fourth Prayer I was taken up with a view of those amorous complacencies and those Infinite joyes wherewith the three Divine Persons replenish the Souls of the blessed in Heaven It seem'd to me that the Happiness of the Saints was the clear vision of the Ineffable Mystery of the most Sacred Trinity and to be made partakers of that knowledge and love which is reciprocal among the Divine Persons To see God clearly is the Beatifical Vision Alas how ought we to be humbled to consider how Infinitely we fall short in our Devotions of the continual Hallelujahs of the Saints in Glory Yet this is the end of our Creation and our hope is at last to bear them company O how this life is poor and miserable where all is vanity and vexation of Spirit The view of my own weakness making me sensible that all I do for God is as nothing what shall I say at the sight of my sins and unworthiness I have nothing to say dear Lord but that I merit Eternal Confusion which must needs fall upon me unless your goodness have pity on me according to the greatness of your Mercies Can we imagine we can do any thing too much for God 'T is for the glory of his Bounty and Goodness that he is pleas'd to accept of our small service and endeavours and reward them eternally O how great a Truth is it that Grace and Glory are the effects of his pure Goodness and Mercy vouchsafed to us Blessed be his Name to all Eternity Third Day IN my first Prayer of this day I consider'd that the three Divine Persons were Happy in Contemplation of themselves from all Eternity When they created the World the Preservation and Government thereof does not at disturb their repose and Felicity The Father is the center of the Son and the Father and the Son is the center of the Holy Ghost Three in One and one in Three Infinitely Happy in each other before all Time and shall be to all Eternity O what ravishing Beauties do they behold in each other and what unspeakable Delights do they take in ther Infinite Perfections Nothing without them can interrupt their Joys or add to their Happiness Tho true Solitaries who live the Life of God in like manner repose only in him and being dead to themselves and all Creatures live only in him to him and for him O Divine Life of Solitude Thou art here begun on Earth and canst not be perfected but in Heaven A true Hermits life is not a Sensual but Divine Life God calling me to Contemplation I will repare to Church as to a Hermitage where I may live this Divine Life The Psalmody there much rejoyces my heart and lifts up my Soul to Contemplation Through Natural Considerations I have condescended to please others against my own inclination but now I have the Happiness to converse with the three Divine Persons I can no more relish the Company of my Friends and Relations except rarely to maintain Peace and Union or for some great necessity and if they be displeas'd I must not value it My second Prayer was an amorous attention upon what past Eternally among the three Divine Persons How the Father knowing his Divine Perfections did beget his Son and how the Father and the Son by an Infinite Love did produce the Holy Ghost The Father is an Infinite Ocean of Perfections by an Infinite Fecundity begetting his Son and they being absorpt in each other produce the Holy Spirit by an everlasting flux and reflux of Love This I did contemplate with great repose of Soul and yielded up the Intellectual Powers thereof to the obedience of Faith to receive some Rayes of Divine Light about such great and Incomprehensible Mysteries God then working in my Soul I became passive contenting my self to behold simply and sweetly the Infinite operations of the Sacred Trinity and said within my self Blessed Trinity know your selves for I can do nothing towards it 't is enough for me to contemplate that mutual Love which is among you which I believe and admire with adoration It seems to me that no other Mystery of our Faith can so take up and content my Soul nothing being more Divine than the Divinity No other practice is so charming to me we being created to know that Knowledge and to love that Love which God has to himself to all Eternity In my third Prayer I consider'd the Souls of Just Men and Blessed Spirits are as so many Sacred Vessels into whom God infuses his love and knowledge by a continual emanation Which love and knowledge returns to God its source as the water of a running Fountain rises as high as the Spring from whence it had its Origen This love and knowledge does establish God in us and also does firmly establish us in God So that God takes a delight and repose in the Soul and the Soul finds her center and rest in him Thereby faintly representing how the Divine Persons have a mutual repose in each other Empty Vessels are most capable to be fill'd And by how much the more our Souls are empty of Self-love and Nature by so much the more are they capable of Divine Love and Knowledge A Soul in such a state delights in Solitude and cares not to live in the thoughts and affections of men What most saddens our Spirits and retards us in the ways of God is a natural aversion we have from a hidden life For man naturally desires to be known and lov'd and thinks life is as nothing without repute And as long as we are full of this liquor we are not vessels proper to receive the influences of Divine Love and Knowledge Let us O my Soul empty our selves of Self-love that Divine Love may take place in us In my fourth Prayer I found an amorous complacency in my Soul in that God being but One doth subsist in three Persons knowing and loving themselves
wherein consists their Felicity The Father is the source of Being the the Son the term of his Knowledge and the Holy Spirit of his Love The Son and Holy Ghost are from the Father The Father and the Holy Spirit know the Son The Father and the Son love the Holy Ghost These are the wonders that make Heaven Happy Firmly to believe them is our Blessedness on Earth and to Contemplate them continually brings solid consolation to the Soul I saw clearly that to dispose my self for this incomparable Happiness I was to purifie my Interiour and to mortifie some natural resentments which yet live in me As namely too great a fear about the loss of Worldly things or to be despis'd by others or ill success of Affairs besides too great a sense of humane respects and a backwardness to follow the instincts of Grace for worldly considerations I know God sometimes suffers these Imperfections to live in us for the exercise of Virtue and the Tryal of our Fidelity However his will is that we strive to be dead to the World and our selves having our affections so fix'd on Heavenly things as to live a Divine Life in Mortal Bodies Believe me 'till our Interiour be throughly purified we shall not not be capable of high contemplation nor arrive to much knowledge in the secrets of God Fourth Day IN my first Prayer I was principally taken up with the adorable Person of the Eternal Father Methought I saw how he was ravish'd with Infinite Joy in Himself with the Son and the Holy Spirit And what complacency he also took in the Suffering of the Humanity of Jesus Christ though he loves him with the same love wherewith he loves himself And because these sufferings were pleasing to his Divine Father as satisfactory for our sins he did thirst to suffer more to fulfill his will And therefore after such variety of dolorous sufferings dying on the Cross he cryed out Sitio I Thirst It much rejoyc'd my heart to see what Infinite Complacency the three Divine Persons took in the Divinity and said within my self O Sacred Trinity enjoy eternally these Infinite delights But I desire as much as I can to add to your Exteriour Contentments by imitating the suffering of my Blessed Saviour And herein I will not have so much an eye to the reward to please the Sacred Trinity whom I adore Behold then what hereupon it seems to me God put into my mind 1. To eat neither Fish nor Flesh but in case of Sickness 2. To Discipline every day 3. To be pleas'd with occasions of Contempt 4. To despise all Temporal things to follow the attracts of Divine Love 5. To lie down upon a hard Bed 6. To cut off all Worldly Visits and retire my self into a Solitude where the World may despise me I consider'd in my second Prayer that the Son of God in the bosom of his Divine Father in possession of Infinite Delights and Joys unspeakable out of love to his Father did quit his bosom and cloath himself with Mortal Flesh to plunge himself in the depth of Miseries abjection and sufferings that he might glorifie his Divine Father by his humane and suffering Life and teach us Men his Brethren that the way to enter into the Love and Glory of his Father is by the gate of Sufferings Is it You O only begotten Son of the Eternal Father is it You born in a Stable working in a Shop dying on a Cross You that are all Splendor and Glory the Light of the World and the Delight of Heaven Is it You that are so poor and abject so void of Friends so full of Disgraces so scorn'd and despis'd Is it You whom they esteem as the out-cast of men and not worthy to live on the face of the Earth O the Love of the Son towards his Father O the strange invention of the Son to advance the Glory of his Father O my Jesus how admirable are you in your Divinity But how amiable are you in your Humanity I desire O dear Jesus to follow you all the days of my life and seek no other Glory than in your Cross and Poverty your Humiliations and Sufferings Absit mihi gloriari nisi in Cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi The Cross of Christ is my Crown and Glory We ought not to possess Honours Riches and Worldly Preferments without Fear and Humility Have we not cause to fear that in a state of Worldly greatness Nature will seek her self and not follow Jesus poor and humble which ought to be done either effectively or in affection A state of Suffering under the Cross is truly Glorious and full of Interiour Consolation In my third Prayer I consider'd that the union of the Father with the Son and of the Son with the Father is by the Holy Ghost a union Infinite and adorable O Holy Spirit seeing 't is your property to unite unite my heart so intimately to the adorable Trinity present in me that I may never suffer a seperation and that this adorable union may be frequent in my Thoughts and Meditations Blessed be your Holy Name my God that you are pleas'd to be so merciful unto me as to take up my thoughts with this incomprehensible Mystery O how do I begin too late having been too long amuz'd with vain trifles My past Life displeases me and the course of the World is troublesome unto me seeing it hinders me from conversing with you as I desire Natural Necessities as to Eat to Sleep to Recreat are burdensom unto a Soul quickened with your Spirit strongly inclining us to live here on Earth as in Heaven in a perfect and perpetual union with your Goodness The consideration which took up my thoughts in my fourth Prayer was that the Eternal Son and Holy Spirit seem'd to have more commerce with men then the Eternal Father because they appeared to us by external Missions the Son being made Man for to die for us and the Holy Spirit taking divers forms for the Service of man and to enflame our hearts with Divine Love The Eternal Father seem'd always to remain in himself ravish'd with his own Infinite Beauties and Perfections O adorable Mansion of the Eternal Father within himself O wonderful Missions of the Son and Holy Spirit towards us Men and for our Salvation eternal matter of Adoration O my God when shall I go out of my self to elevate my heart to you and converse with you I see very well that to enter into a Spirit of Prayer Retirement is requisite Abstinence and Spiritual Exercises And to conserve the same temper of Soul we must practice silence as much as our condition and affairs will permit If the Son of God and Holy Spirit did appear here upon Earth only for our good certainly we ought to endeavour to have our Conversation in Heaven and adore the most Sacred Trinity for these Infinite Mercies Fifth Day MY first Prayer past in acknowledgment and admiration of the Fulness of
sufficiently and fewer that practice it in Purity and really aspire to form the true image of Jesus in them In my second Prayer I did apply my self to consider how the Son of God being eternally in the midst between the Father and the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven to be a Mediator between his Eternal Father and us Sinners He tells us that no man can come to Father but by him and that he is the way which leads to Happiness And is it not a sad case that men should so much go astray This is a low and humble way and they puff'd up with Pride will march over mountains in ways above them This is a poor penitential suffering way and they are for a way easie delicious rich and commodious Is it possible to come to the bosom of the Eternal Father except we will march by the way of his Son There 's no other way to come to him and if we take our own way at every step we go farther from him O my God how long shall my Soul lag behind meerly in a way of nature When shall we O my Soul enter into Dispositions truly Christian and conform to the Dictates of a supernatural Life O Jesus my Saviour Redeemer my Exemplar my Way my Light 't is only by following you and your Divine Maxims that we can enter into the light of Life Of necessity then we must pass by Jesus Crucified to come to the Divinity of the Father and enjoy Jesus Glorified We must take up our Cross and follow him if we will enter into Glory My third Prayer was a continuation of like Thoughts I then understood that there 's no entring into Society with the three Divine Persons or arriving to such a height of Prayer as thereby we may live in them a Divine Life but by entring into communication with Jesus Christ and conforming our Life to his example This is a general Rule without exception The Life of Jesus was a severe self-denying Life and ours ought to be of such an austerity as may not ruine our health or dull the Spirit but humble the Body to elevate the Soul In a word we must daily endeavour to humble and annihilate our selves having only in our eye the Will of God The Eternal Father cannot take delight in any Soul that does not endeavour to resemble his Son It concerns us therefore to examine our hearts to see how they stand affected to Sufferings on all occasions If we cannot relish them but flie and complain 't is to be fear'd nature does possess us and not the Spirit of Jesus Christ Water in a glass remains quiet but if it finds the least passage it tends to its own element from whence it can only be kept by force In like manner a Soul that has overtures of Sufferings afforded her will find an inclination to embrace them if Jesus Crucified be her center It matters not by what means these occasions to suffer happen whether by the imprudence of Friends or the malice of Enemies Or her own neglect or any other accident she layes hold on the occasion to unite her self to the abjections of Jesus as to her center Happy is that Soul which is in this temper Grace and the Spirit of Jesus has wrought it in her In my fourth Prayer I went on to entertain my self with the wonders of the Son of God I admir'd that being in the Glory of his Father he descended to our Miseries that he might glorifie his Father in a new manner by purchasing for him such holy Souls who being animated with his Spirit after his example would be in love with Sufferings for Gods sake I saw clearly how the Son of God by his Eternal Birth is most glorious with Infinite Perfections and how he became Man to be capable of Sufferings for our sake And that we must follow Jesus in his Humiliations if we will be partakers of his Glory O what dark Souls have they who see not these Glorious Truths We live here a sensualor worldly life or at most do follow the light of reason rarely do we live a Christian and very rarely a Divine Life A thousand times happy are they who dear Jesus are enlightned by you the true Light of the World Jesus Christ cloath'd himself with a Mortal Body that he might suffer and be Sacrific'd upon the Cross and we ought to bear part with him The Saints who have known and tasted of his Spirit have Martyr'd their Bodies by a thousand Austerities Others have wasted away by degrees in the flames of Divine Love All have been desirous to suffer more or less But we are afraid to hurt our selves and are too apprehensive to endamage our Health For whom do we keep our embraces or for what is it that we are so desirous to live long upon Earth 'T is a vain fear to think we shall shorten our days by our endeavouring to live a Divine Life in our Mortal Bodies Seventh Day I Began my first Prayer by a peculiar instinct of the Holy Spirit bringing often to my mind those precious words of St. Paul God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our Hearts crying Abba Father And then I found that a Soul assisted with the extraordinary infusions of the Holy Spirit is elevated above her self which is the effect of the gift of Wisdom freely communicated whereby she sees and tasts the ineffable Mysteries of our Religion O what a gracious gift is this What a great favour is it when God is pleas'd thus to communicate himself unto us It then seem'd to me that the faculties of my Soul ceas'd their ordinary operations and the obscurity of Faith as it were vanish'd this Divine Wisdom elevating them in such a manner which they cannot conceive who know not by experience to a very sublime way of working much above their ordinary proceedings The Soul stands wondring at it and can hardly believe she could arrive to such a point of Perfection Then a Divine Light gave me to see at once my unworthiness to receive the Graces of God his Goodness and Mercy to bestow them on me and the merits of Christ whereby they were purchas'd I was much amaz'd that God should vouchsafe so great favours to so wretched a sinner And I did melt in acknowledgements being humbled in my self with an entire confidence in the merits of Jesus I continued my second Prayer and this Divine Light increas'd in my Soul and discovered the favours God vouchsafes to Souls of which there are many degrees according to the proportion of their Purity of heart 1. They see the Deformity of Sin clear enough to conceive a horrour and detestation of it and know confusedly the Christian Virtues the Mysteries of the Sacred Humanity and Divinity 2. They see more clearly some Christian Principles as an Eternity of a Happy or Miserable condition after this Life that our Salvation is our Principal concern and the one thing necessary aend that all
the Father as that he cannot beget another like him O my Jesus how this Verity discover'd to me the Riches the Glory the Grandeurs of your Person What Prodigious blindness has seis'd on men as not to see this and not to esteem you above ten thousand Worlds You appear poor humble and abject in their eyes and nevertheless 't is true the whole World is less than an Atomn in your presence I took for the subject of my third Prayer this admirable Truth That the Eternal Father is the source of the whole Divinity which he Communicates to his Son begotten of his substance yet without any Superiority or Authority over him by his Paternity And the Son who receives all from his Father owes him nothing of thanks of service or obedience Not but that he knows his Father well deserves all these returns But being of the same Substance and Authority with him he is not capable to render these Submissions But the Infinite love he has for his Father made him go out of himself and put himself into an Inferiour state by his Incarnation that he might render those thanks praises and services which he merited descending to those wonderful Humiliations and profound annihilations whereby he might do homage to the Infinite Grandeurs of his Father Teaching us by his example that as the Son of God had no other means to honour his Father than by Humiliations and Sufferings so we should take up our Cross and follow him that God may be Glorified My last Prayer this day was a profound consideration of this verity That all the works of the adorable Trinity in relation to the Creatures are common to the three Divine Persons The Father Son and Holy Spirit did concur in the same design of Creation and Conservation of the World though the Father alone begets the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both But all three united imploy'd their Power to do us good as if We had been the object of their Beatitude Is it then true O my God that all the Orders of your Providence by your united forces tend to our good and shall we not have an eye to you Alas we little think on you although the most serious Affairs of the World are nothing in comparison of our concern to consider your Infinite Perfections and love your incomprehensible Goodness St. Arsenius saw this very well when he quitted the Emperour and would not so much as write to him Those who are thus nobly imploy'd cannot be taken up with Worldly Vanities You see a poor Hermit in the Desarts of Thebais ill Clad abject and unknown who seems to the eyes of Flesh the scorn of men however his Soul is wholly taken up with God which is of more worth than the whole Universe You see a great Prince glittering with Gold and precious Stones with a great Train of Courtiers Honoured and Respected of all and in the Interim his Life being only taken up with Worldly concerns is guilty of the greatest Folly and of no esteem in the eyes of God Ninth Day IN my Morning Prayer our Blessed Saviour plung'd me into the Abiss of our own Nothing and Vileness insomuch that this exercise was wholly taken up with my own annihilation Thereupon I said None but the Eternal Father can give to his Son none but the Father and the Son can give to the Holy Ghost and these Presents made to each other are Infinite There pass among them Communications Ineffable and proportion'd to their Grandeurs I consider'd them in my Thoughts and rejoyced plunging my self in the Abiss of my own Weakness in that I could do nothing for God nor give him any thing The best present I can make him is to acknowledge I can give him nothing worth acceptance and this acknowledgment I receive also from the hand of his bounty 't is the effect of his Grace for of my self I cannot do it O the depth of the Nothing of a Creature If I should give my Life for God 't is less then if a Pismire should give hers for a King there being an Infinite distance between God and a Creature All the Angels and Saints that ever shall raign in Glory can add nothing to the Divine Grandeurs The Abiss of my Nothing is beyond expression God only knows it and I see nothing of it but by his Grace O my God if all the Angels and Saints are as nothing before you I that am infinitely below them what I can give is less than nothing My second Prayer went on in the same Thoughts and Considerations And I was much astonish'd in that being acquainted with many Persons and seeing their examples I was so far behind them in Virtue But looking narrowly into my self I must needs acknowledge that the least pittance of Grace the least degree of Prayer the least part I can have in the states of Jesus is infinitely above my deserts 'T is true that a Soul inflamed with Divine love is confounded at the sight of her own unworthiness and suffers a kind of Martyrdom For in that she loves she would do something for her Beloved and being conscious what a Nothing she is of her self and that she can do nothing being in suspense between will and weakness seeing in effect she can do nothing of her self she breaths sorth her desires in such like amorous expressions If I was God and you my God a Creature I would willingly be a Creature that you might be God But seeing this is an imagination of a thing not possible her Martyrdom of love increases and she languishes in that she loves and can do nothing for her Beloved That which comforts her is that being able to do nothing for God she sees that he is all and wants nothing and taking a complacency in this she reposes her self quietly in the bosom of the Divinity with full resolutions to abide there for ever In my third Prayer I apply'd my self to consider the Divinity it self without forming any distinct thoughts thereof but though so I saw nothing yet I knew God more then when I see him in his Creatures They are always finite and limited and therefore the knowledge they afford of God is narrower than that which I have of him beheld in himself Oftentimes when we apply our selves to God to know him we become stupid and as it were without understanding 'T is our duty then to give our selves up into the hands of God who does justly chastise us for our sins by withdrawing himself from us God is very merciful unto us to give us patience in this state During which we must continue our Exercises of Prayer and Retirement and rest as well content with these Insensibilities and dryness as with illustrations from Heaven and gustful Devotion seeing a Soul in either state is well pleasing to God A suffering Life is our Portion on Earth that we may be conform to Jesus Crucified For the union with Jesus Glorified is a Life more proper
The poorer we are in Spirit the richer we are in Grace the more a Soul is nothing in her self the more God is all in her and is pleased to work great things for her Jesus presented himself to my spirit in my second Prayer discovering to me in general the different states of his life passive in his Sufferings active in Virtues and how he is the Origen and Source of all purity to which we aspire by a spiritual life I conceiv'd first That there 's a purity of suffering which is great indeed when we suffer without seeking relief carrying this Cross for God's sake as long as he pleases There is a purity of action when we act not whether interiourly or exteriourly but by the motion of God's spirit with pure intentions Here arguments of humane reason are cut off and we stir not without some impressions of Grace working only for God by his working in us We must labour hard and be perfectly dead to the world before we can come to this state of purity There 's a purity of intention when we have only an eye to the will of God to do what pleases him without acting upon other Motives though good and laudable wherein seems to be some self-interest as fear to offend to be faithful to God's call to be more loved and rewarded A Soul in this state has no regard to her self but solely to the will of God her End and Object There 's a purity of imployment when a Soul will not divert her thoughts from God but by Order from God himself by some motion of his holy Spirit Hence we shun unnecessary visits unprofitable words superfluous occupations and that is superfluous to one Soul which is not to another by reason of the different degrees of Grace imparted to them We must suffer many mortifications to attain this purity and such a Soul must fear nothing more than Infidelity This is but a branch of the purity of action There 's a purity of Virtue when we practice only what God will have us to do There 's a purity of spiritual delight when the superiour part of the Soul receives no consolations willingly from any Creature or sensual things but stands upon her guard to keep them out And there 's a purity of Prayer when the Soul elevated above her self by the workings of God in her is in extasie of spirit and united to God alone by contemplation A Soul that once has had a feeling of God in her sees an infinite difference between Him and the holiest Creatures and entring into a great interiour solitude converses with God alone All these sorts of purity appeared to me in the Interiour of Jesus as in their Source In my third Prayer I came to know that the mysteries or states of Jesus Christ are not only the exemplar but also the efficient of our states so that we suffer not only to imitate Jesus in his sufferings but because Jesus by his sufferings imprints on us the virtue of his spirit to give us the grace to suffer for him When we pray 't is not only to imitate Jesus in contemplation but because he infuses into our hearts the gift of Prayer by his holy Spirit And if a Soul arrive to that heighth as to possess Jesus Christ in an extraordinary manner he then does all in her and for her she being only pliable to his Divine Operations We cannot continue in this state without wonderful purity the least sally of immortified Nature will much endamage it How often has God been pleas'd to give me experience of this when Jesus uniting himself unto me in the holy Communion annihilates all my thoughts words and affections to become to me all things in me He is my Thankfulness my Offering my Humility my Charity my Prayers and I do nothing but remain united to him who works all for my Soul as it were annihilated in his presence Words as well as thoughts fail us in the presence of the WORD who pleads to his Fathers for those Souls he possesses in such a mysterious manner What marvels are there hidden beyond expression In my fourth Prayer I consider'd that being a Christian I had a strict obligation to follow Christ but besides that general tie I had a special vocation to imitate Jesus in his humiliations To follow him in this way with purity I must forsake all grandeur and be content with poverty and objection and labour stoutly for a perfect abnegation of my self Since God has given me a generous resolution to sacrifice my self wholly to his service I will follow his call though I die for 't Methinks I am enabl'd to do it with great peace and liberty of Spirit What evil can happen to me if I die for God who died for Me Those who choose to be poor out of desire to follow Jesus are peculiar Objects of God's care and providence which extends it self to all men but especially to those who are the lively Images of his Son He is their Father in a peculiar manner and sets a watch about them more than others For is it possible he should not give Bread to them who leave all their Temporals to serve him better and love him purer Let us stifle all humane reasonings on this subject let us go whither Grace calls us and fear nothing If we die in the service 't will be happy for us 'T is a great favour from God when we breath out our Souls in the flames of Divine Love Fifth Day Jesus Zelator of Souls IN my first Prayer I apply'd my self to Jesus as Zelator of Souls for whom he gave his most precious Blood I beheld what I could not comprehend that this Zeal of Jesus for the good of Souls was infinite It seemed to me that my Soul receiv'd some small portion of this holy Zeal and I was powerfully inclin'd to lay out my self for my Neighbours good offering my self to God to do and suffer what he pleased But I perceiv'd this Zeal for Souls must be infused into us we must not run before we be sent otherwise we shall neither do good for others nor our selves but disturb our Interiour and commit many disorders When this Zeal is kindled in our Souls by the breathing of God's holy Spirit it puts nothing out of order but we go in Perfection and advance in Prayer However all must be regulated by Prudence lest we out-run our call and hurt our selves while we would do good to others For our care must be to procure the good of others according to the grace conferred upon us Some in an active life by Preaching and Instructing some by works of corporal Charity others by offering up to God their contemplative life their Solitudes their Austerities their Sufferings their Prayers There are many ways to be instrumental for the good of others Let every one imploy his proper talent Our blessed Saviour being near his Passion left us as a Legacy this divine Commandment Love ye one
another as I have loved you which was the subject of my second Prayer I then found that when a Soul has made a good entrance into the heart of Jesus Christ and by the light of Prayer sees the infinite love of God towards men Grace then discovers how this divine charity is free generous and magnificent Free having a love for us when objects of his just displeasure Generous surmounting all difficulties and conquering all resistances Magnificent in giving his own life for our Redemption This is a Zeal truly Divine for the Salvation of Souls Now his pleasure is that the charity we have for our Neighbour be regulated by this divine Model that we love them to do the will of God and obey his Commands That we love them generously without any regard to natural aversions or injuries they have done us or any temporal advantages we may receive from them but after the example of Jesus to love and do good even to our greatest enemies O how many great Saints considering the ardent love of Christ to us have burn'd with the flames of a holy Zeal and spent themselves in labours to do good to those Souls for whom Christ died But alas we have little zeal for God for our Neighbour or our selves My third Prayer passed in considerations of the prodigious goodness of Jesus to men who seem'd to forget himself and depose the grandeurs of his Majesty to debase himself in the search of our Souls to indulge and love them with as much affection as if they did contribute to his felicity He prevents them with wonderful mercies and though they be unworthy of his love he gives them sensible feelings thereof by speaking to the heart in this or such-like manner My Sister my Spouse my love takes a delight in thee knowest thou well who I am 'T is I that am thy God thy Creator thy Saviour 'T is I who came from the bosom of my Father into this world to find thee being lost and tell thee how I love thee and I demand nothing but love again My Soul thus prevented with the blessings of this sweetness and powerfully touched with a sense thereof wanted words to express my thankfulness However I said O my God! You are my love I love you and will love you eternally with all my heart for what else have I to return but love for love 'T is a wonderful love for you to debase the grandeurs of your Divinity to search after poor sinful Souls Nor is it less wonderful for you to draw these Souls out of themselves to free them from their miseries and advance them to your embraces and place them in your heart as some rich Treasure This is the wonderful excess of the love of Jesus Zelator of Souls This love that so humbled Jesus does elevate a Soul to these amorous exercises and makes her see her own unworthiness and the incomparable beauty of her well-beloved In my fourth Prayer I had a deep impression of Jesus humbled and doing Penance for us I beheld him as it were annihilated in the presence of his eternal Father to honour his eternal Beeing by sacrificing his humanity which he continued his whole life and consummated on the Cross I beheld also how being charged with our sins he did continual Penance for us to satisfie the divine Justice and give content to that infinite love he has for our Souls Let us love then O my Soul our Jesus as he has loved us and imitate his sufferings by a spirit of penance and annihilation I am a great sinner and therefore ought to entertain a spirit of penance and thereby make advantage of all evils and infirmities which happen to me My principal affair in this world ought to be to annihilate my self and to suffer to annihilate my self to pay homage to the infinite grandeurs of God and to suffer as a just punishment of my sins After Confession having but one Gloria Patri for my penance it came into my thoughts that no penance is little when 't is united to the sufferings of Jesus Christ who by them has done penance for our sins It seemed to me that one only Ave Maria united to the sufferings of the Son of God which are of infinite merit and did infinitely satisfie his eternal Father becomes a penance which wonderfully satisfies for our sins My Soul was comforted with this truth and I had no more to do than to unite my little Crosses to the Cross of Jesus Sixth Day Jesus contemplating and enjoying OUr blessed Saviour did fill my Soul with such super-abundant consolation in my morning Prayer that I seem'd to have some part of that state of enjoyment which is reserv'd for the Saints in Glory O amorous enjoyment how wonderfully dost thou purifie our Souls Thou takest our hearts off from the World thou dost Crucifie us with a delightful Martyrdom thou dost enlighten thou dost purifie thou dost inflame thou dost mortifie thou dost fortifie thou makest us live and die together A small tast of this Ocean of delights will inebriate the Souls of men and the Angels in Glory This is that Blessed Life which is granted to some Servants of God honouring him by continual enjoyments which he pours into their Souls 'T is a great secret of the Interiour Life to be passive to the operations of God in us whether he visits us with dolorous and crucifying or joyful and beatifying impressions Our fidelity consists in a pure correspondence to his designs without reluctance If he please to make our Soul a Garden of Delights embrace his Favours All the ways of God are good in themselves but that which he puts us in is best for us O how the state of Jesus suffering is adorable O how his state of enjoying is admirable We must apply our selves to one or other according to the designs of the Divine Wisdom I found an Image of Jesus in Contemplation his Look and Posture ravish'd me and this took up my second Prayer I was not satisfied with beholding his Divine Aspect I admir'd and ador'd him Considering the profound attention he had to the Grandeurs of his Eternal Father and how he was absorp'd in the Divinity I made it my work to contemplate also by him and in him uniting my self to the utmost of my Power to his Divine entertainments O Jesus contemplating Jesus taken up with your Father with whom you pass in Prayer whole nights made as bright as the days of Eternity Jesus living a retir'd life in the Divine Essence You are the object of my Love I see nothing so beautiful as you are in this state My Soul hath no greater delight upon Earth than to have an eye to Jesus to think of him to speak of him to sigh after him O how happy is that Soul which Jesus makes his Mansion I know not how Jesus comes into a Soul but he 's there sometimes sooner then perceiv'd filling her with Blessings and making her to find that
and Redeemer to lay out thy self upon the Creature and not correspond to his Inspirations who calls thee to himself What a horrible Infidelity would this be Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are Sealed to the day of Redemption The subject of my third Prayer was the admirable Oeconomy of the Incarnation in that by the excess of Love and Goodness God was made Man and Man became God I had profound veneration for the adorable Humanity absorpt in the Divinity and with an amorous confidence beheld the Divinity as it were annihilated in the Humanity which seem'd to me as a Tabernacle of Honour where God dwelt with Infinite Delight This Humanity also in a manner diviniz'd takes Infinite Delight in the Divinity from whence it receives wonderful Impressions of Annihilation to be poor abject and despis'd Crucified For after God was made man he inspir'd the Humanity with ardent desires and love of Sufferings for us Men and our Salvation O Jesus when you communicate your self to a Soul she receives impressions from you which incline her to a love of Contempts and Sufferings And when a Soul feels in her self the greatest propension to Sufferings and Self-denyal 't is then she most participates of your communications and has the greatest assurance of them For O good Jesus your Spirit is full of such impressions from the Divinity and the Soul where you reign as King does Infallibly receive the like impressions from your presence In my fourth Prayer I was touch'd with a great desire to leave this Mortal Life so full of Sin and Misery and depriv'd of the Beatifical Vision of God my Saviour Oh how irksom is it not to be in a capacity to contemplate at leasure this Infinite Beauty this Essence full of Infinite Perfections this only true Object of the Loves of Heaven and Earth O when shall I be deliver'd from this Prison of Flesh that I may behold Jesus the Light of my Eyes and Joy of my Heart Must I yet continue longer in this banishment What a cross is it to live here What a punishment is the delay Death how welcom wilt thou be in my embraces We must languish with Love after the Infinite Beauty of Jesus Christ and sigh to enjoy him O my Soul do not amuse thy self with Creatures love the Cross which is the high-way to Happiness Is it possible to believe in Jesus Christ and Love him and to languish with Desires to enjoy Him To stand much in fear of Death is a sign we have little desire to see the Infinite Beauties of God seeing Death only opens the gate of Paradice O Death thou art desirable come and put me in possession of the Object of my Love that I may live with Jesus who is the source of Life and the joy of the Blessed In the interim O my Soul let us have neither Love nor Life nor operation but what is in him and for him our Soveraign Happiness Vivit in me Christus Eighth Day Jesus our Light JEsus was present to me in my first Prayer as the Light of the World which discover'd to me such a Beauty in the Mysteries of our Religion with rayes of a new Light that I saw more then ever the vanity of the World and the strange Sottishness of such men who preferr'd the Darkness of Falsehood before the Light of Truth Insanias falsas The beams of this Light works wonders in a Soul for it leaves such impressions as bring her to know Truth in another manner then by the sole Light of Reason or Faith either If we be in the Closet of some great King in the dark we know well there be excellent pieces there we may know their number bigness and value of the Precious Stones the rareness of the Painting and what else we see not But when once the least light of day appears then we begin to have a view of all their Riches Beauties and Excellencies and the whole order of the Closet salutes our eyes and in admiration thereof we are taken with it in an extraordinary manner When it pleases God to give us a sight of his Divine Beauties discovering them to a Soul by the least Ray of his Heavenly Light then the Soul is wonderfully affected and being more then ever transported with admiration looks upon all things of the World as nothing Faith indeed gives us a certain assurance of her Objects but leaves in obscurity But one sole Ray from the Eyes of Jesus when he is pleas'd to dart it into a Soul doth confirm fortifie encourage and refresh her with Illustrations extraordinary and Soveraign consolations Accedite ad eum illuminamini We cannot approach to Jesus and not be enlightned I came to know in my second Prayer that when Jesus is pleas'd to manifest himself to a Soul he infuses a Light into her which gives her a marvellous Facility to believe the Verities of the Word Incarnate She has a certainty and as it were experience that his Thoughts his Words his Actions his Proceedings his Doctrine his Sufferings were Divine and brought a Soveraign Honour to the Divinity O Science of Jesus how art thou sweet and admirable All other knowledge in respect of thee is but ignorance and vanity I have by the great goodness of God had some little experience to know Jesus in this manner but I cannot express it The more this knowledge increases the less is it explicable The profound attention to Jesus does so take up my Spirit that it takes away my Speech It calls me from all Creatures to converse with him alone and draws me out of my self to be ravish'd with him O World how blind art thou not to see the Beauty of the Poor and abject states of Jesus His Doctrine and his Maxims are the only true Light All that thou hast O ignorant World seduced by the Prince of Darkness is but meer Darkness thy opinions thy imployments thy hopes thy fears thy desires thy entertainments are but Darkness and disorder thou stumblest almost at every step because thou walkest in Darkness out of which thou canst never get but by Jesus Christ For as the Sun is the principle of Corporal Light to the World so Christ the Sun of Righteousness is the source of all Spiritual Light and whom his Grace and Doctrine do not enlighten they wander in Darkness Ego sum Lux mundi qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris My third Prayer pass'd in continual astonishment in that I had so little known Jesus Christ and of that extreme blindness wherein I had liv'd At present I had almost a continual sight and a sweet and forceable inclination to regard this admirable Object so that I thought every moment lost which was not so imployed To behold him with amorous affections is a Cure for all my evils For when my Soul is afflicted with fears of loosing Gods favour or with experience of her Miseries or with difficulties about Perfection one
true these are Crosses and Cruel Persecutions but if we bear them Faithfully with Love 't is a Martyrdom pleasing to God and profitable to us The Persecuting Tyrants tempted the Primitive Christians sometimes against their Faith sometimes against their Chastity which were Glorious Tryals of their Fidelity O how Blessed a thing is it to fight for that Faith and Fidelity we owe to God O what lovely Charms are there in this Martyrdom to those who behold them with the eye of Faith CHAP. V. Of Exteriour Crosses by the loss of Goods BEing in a Friends House who served God truly news was brought me that the Soldiers had ceas'd upon all my Goods at home and Blessed be God it little troubled me But rather I rejoyc'd and put my self into the Hands of God to do what he pleas'd with me preparing my Heart to undergo greater Losses contentedly I was much comforted by my Friend and I went home full of Joy and Cheerfulness accounting my self Happy that Divine Providence had brought me to Poverty and Abjection And I said with my self Courage my Soul our Blessed Saviour continues his Mercies Poverty and Abjection will afford us wings to flee to Perfection Behold now is the opportunity to make great Progress in Virtue if we be but Faithful It seem'd to me that at this time few Persons pityed me and yet they talk'd of my Affliction as no ordinary Tryal They blam'd me in some sort of Proceedings and after all I found my self an Abject and little considered I could never consent to the Councel of those who would have me either yield to anger or discontent For I always thought I ought not to part with that Meekness and Humility which becomes a Christian for the greatest Temporal loss that can happen to me I considered with my self that these little Crosses were hardly to be named with those that they suffer who are tormented with anguishes of Spirit or those who are Slaves under the Turk or such who are put to Death with grievous Tortures That which I suffer is nothing in comparison of those poor Creatures For I instead of being contristated by Suffering found a certain joy to possess my heart and a greater desire to suffer more Hereupon one told me That our Saviour sent me Crosses adorn'd with Flowers which though they took not away their heaviness yet their Odours did refresh and strengthen me to bear them This Persecution continuing I found my self always disposed to suffer it with great Interiour Peace and I kept my Soul from harbouring any thoughts of Bitterness against those who assisted my Plunderers I Saluted them with a Cordial Love although Nature had a repugnance to their Proceedings I beheld with contentment the Fall of our Family how our Friends did forsake us and some treat us very unworthily and yet I could not think it a misfortune but a signal favour from the hand of Providence And I did not complain but digest all this bitter Cup with Interiour joy O bona crux O good Cross The words of St. Andrew seem'd to me very true O how Crosses are good though full of Bitterness We ought to love what is good and make much of it In reality there 's an exquisite goodness in Sufferings and the Fruit of the Cross is wonderful Savorous For at last we shall find that the degrees of Glory shall be according to the measure of our Sufferings and degrees of Love I was then told some means how to get out of this Suffering condition Nature began to resent this with some joy but Grace repress'd it stifling this emotion of Nature that I might have no joy but in God alone and in the accomplishment of his good Pleasure CHAP. VI. Dispositions during Sickness where the Body suffer'd and the Soul rejoyced GOd has been pleas'd to make me enjoy during my Sickness an Interiour Peace so profound and great that I was altogether astonish'd at it considering my Miseries and former Transgressions I said within my self What is this that I find within me How comes it to pass that so miserable a Creature should be thus content and satisfied For my Soul was in a perfect calm from all her Passions feeling nothing but a pure and total union to the good pleasure of God and an absolute abandon of my self to the conduct of Divine Love It seemed to me that some dayes before this Sickness I was in a disposition of extraordinary Peace and Tranquility and one day after Dinner I was taken with a continual Feaver accompanied with much Head ach and Pains throughout all my Body But Divine Love methoughts continued his operations and set me all a flame with Holy Fires So that I often cryed out O Love O Love O Love And could say nothing else When I seem'd as a dying man my Friends weeping about me and every one saying I could hardly Recover my Soul beheld all this without being touched with any Sentiments of regret or tenderness for my Friends being wholly taken up with Divine Love which did so entirely unite me to the good Pleasure of God that methought I could never be seperated from it 'T was no part of my care to beg for my Life and one of my Friends proposing to send me some Reliques of Saints which had done Miraculous Cures I only thank'd him for though I have no small veneration for them yet I had no mind to make use of them for my Recovery but I would wholly put my self into the hands of Divine Love and leaving my self entirely to the conduct thereof whether for Life or Death for Time or Eternity In this extreme weakness of Body my Soul found her self Victorious and Triumphant to see that fall of Pain and her self full of Love and instead of being compassionate seem'd to me to smile at these Sufferings This was an extraordinary effect of Love that in this great weakness of Body my Soul kept up her strength and especially that the great Pains of my Head did not hinder her Interiour occupations This disposition of Love continued as long as my Sickness and I entertain'd my Friends with little consideration and I believe with too much talking fearing now to have discover'd then too much those Holy Fires that inflam'd my heart and that Self-love made me declare too freely my inward feelings My thoughts now make me suspect this defect but being inebriated with Love I said I know not what being like a drunken man that for a time forgets his Poverty and Miseries So in this disposition I forgot my Sins and extreme Frailties and cast my self into the Arms of Love that I might be united with my Well-beloved and enjoy his Reciprocal embraces I had a care to examine my conscience and confess my sins as a dying man and set in order my Temporal Affairs to pass to Eternity Finding my self not able to give much to the Poor it was a joy to me to die in Poverty and I was as well content to give
so compleat a Sacrifice as on the Altar of interiour Crosses whether they come from the immediate hand of God from others or our selves It matters not much who makes the Cross on which we suffer be they friends or enemies God or our selves if we do but suffer 't is sufficient and we ought to be joyful or at least content to see our selves crucified some way or other And as long as we live Exiles here we shall hardly be without some Crosses A Soul that hath once tasted the sweetness of God finds it a cross to be taken up too much with worldly business yea even to satisfy necessities becomes troublesome to her She finds a cross when she is put to appease the sedition of her Passions when she perceives the eyes of Contemplation darkned by her Imperfections when she is over-burden'd with the weight of her mortal body tending to corruption all these miseries are crosses to her hindring her enjoyments of God But a saithful Soul to accomplish the will of God does bear them couragiously It much concerns us to desire of God a particular Light and Grace to see the beauty of the Cross that we may love to suffer We complain of the miseries of this life and the rigours of our banishment because we discern not that secret virtue which Privations and Crosses have to unite us to God It is great and powerful though little known and less sought after by reason it is not so sweet and pleasant as that force which ceases our Spirits in the Lights of enjoyment But it suffices me my God that I am united to you I desire not the pleasing Sentiments of Union because Purity there is not so eminent The Mercy of God does triumph in the state of Light and Sweetness and this is the time to glorifie his Goodness The Justice of God appears more visible in the state of Obscurity and Sufferings and this is the time to magnify his Greatness And what contentment is it to a Soul to know that let her condition be what it will the Divine Perfections may be glorified by her When God in a manner leaves us to our selves our weakness appears so great that the least stroke of Adversity quite casts us down at other times when we are supported by the Almighty an Army in battle aray can never daunt us Let us follow the conduct of Grace when she invites us to reflect on such like dispositions for the Soul will thereby know her extreme dependance upon God and her own infinite frailty her confidence in God will be re-doubled and her diffidence in her self will be augmented and she will know by experience that God mortifies and quickens when he pleases and that he is our only Supporter To be then in continual union with God the Soul must necessarily have a perfect indifferency to every state and a resolute will to be wholly for God Illustrations indeed make the Soul more attentive but not more united for a loving Soul in Sufferings adheres to God more closely than in the greatest Lights of Prayer Let us not then measure the Union by Enjoyment but by Suffering for the more the Soul suffers for God the more intimately is she united to him This is one of the Excellencies of the Supernatural Life and the only thing that can prevail with us to make Crosses the heavier they are to be the more acceptable I know a Soul that suffers extraordinary pains of all sorts but 't is with aridity of Spirit seeing only the Will of God therein without discovering the Beauty of Sufferings unless when they have left her God being not willing she should receive Consolations from such a sight which might much diminish the Purity of her Love CHAP. X. The great Fruit we may reap from Interiour Crosses I Thought that on this day of particular Devotion I should have been all on a flame with Divine Love But I have been in a manner always distracted in my Prayers though I had my Book in my hand my Spirit not being in a temper for Interiour Exercises To speak Truth I found my self much chang'd it pleasing God that having not corresponded to my state of Light and sweetness his Justice should put me into this rigour and obscurity and blessed be his Name for evermore What augments my sorrow is that I have not been Faithful to many opportunities of practising great Virtues At other times I have found all things helping me towards God now every thing diverts me insomuch that the fire of Love is in a manner wholly extinguished with the waves of Temptations Methinks I find my self in an abandonment so great as if I never enjoyed consolations Being to begin any good work I feel a tepidity and repugnance to it The very thoughts of Poverty did horribly afright me To be despised to want accomodations to suffer pains was terrible unto me It increas'd this bitterness in that the Servants of God did not comfort me as formerly so that it must go very ill with me if some powerful hand come not into my succour And what makes my condition more deplorable is that I am so sensible of the privation of earthly things For if it was the want of Gods presence and his Graces that did afflict me that methinks would afford some consolation I now in a manner make no Prayer that is my Prayer is as good as nothing I am full of Distractions when I Communicate I am apt to fall into passion on every occasion the least thing does much trouble me This day I had some good Intervals during which I was taken up with these thoughts What is man O my God when you cease to visit him How great is his Poverty his Wants and his Miseries I should never have believ d it if I had not known it by experience in this small time that you have left me to my self O my Soul how great is thy weakness How profound is thy own nothing and almost incredible Lay it up well now in thy memory and never forget it What can I do O my God without you My Spirit is nothing but a dark Dungeon and my heart is a recepticle of all sorts of evil Sentiments and extravagant Thoughts No inclinations to good but strong efforts to that which is evil Alas 't is now I find by experience the absolute dependance I have upon you more than a shaddow on the Body or the Light on the Sun I was never so annihilated and plunged in my own nothing as now I can see no stability either in my self or any Creature The whole World cannot uphold him whom you have forsaken O how vain is the consolation of Creatures when that of the Creator fails us Dare I hereafter think my self worthy of the least Sentiments of Grace that have had the experience of my excessive miseries Verily if God should plunge me into Hell I should not be astonish'd at it but rather admire his Mercies for bearing so long
VI. Of the Means that facilitate the Exercise of Prayer WHosoever is resolved to undertake the Exercise of Prayer must expect to suffer all sorts of Temptations from Satan who above all others hate the Praying Nation And no less from Nature which hath strange repugnances to so Crucifying a Life and such Exercises as elevate her above all her Natural Inclinations And also from the World which does not relish at all so much Solitude and Mortification But we cannot be true Servants of Jesus Christ Crucified without taking up our Cross to follow him A Poor Abject Despised Suffering Life contented with pure Necessities for Food and Cloathing is a good Disposition to Prayer It will very much dispose us to this Holy Exercise to keep our selves in a Conformity to the states of the Suffering Life of Jesus Christ and in the practice of pure Virtues on all occasions To esteem the Sacred folly of the Cross the greatest Wisdom and correspond to the Inspirations of Gods Holy Spirit against all opposition whatsoever that thwart the Designs of God and hinders the operations of his Grace in us 'T is a great help to Prayer to make it our sole and only business and doubtless of high concern seeing 't is to do that on Earth which the Saints do in Heaven to Contemplate and Love the Beauties of God However if we have other Affairs at least we must make this the principal to which the rest ought to give place and not as alas too many do regulate our Devotions by our Secular Affairs Why should we overcharge our selves with Imployments by offering our service to others on the pretence of Charity Martha who was very busie about the Corporal Service of Jesus Christ was reprov'd for troubling her self with so many distracting Offices and her Sister commended for attending to the only thing necessary the Love of God and Contemplation 'T is a good help to Prayer not to engage our selves in Worldly concerns nor in giving or receiving Visits without necessity such as the Oblations of Charity or of our place and condition requires of us If we be free to shun all entertainments that are dangerous or unprofitable and chuse to converse with such who commonly discourse about the one thing necessary which consists in the Service of God and the exercise of Prayer But all this must be so done as our Discretion may not be call'd in question nor Charity wounded 'T is an important help to Prayer to stand always upon our guard in the time of Sickness or Indisposition of Health so as not wholly to leave off our usual Exercises of Devotion Under pretence to cherish the Body we commonly yield too much to Nature and so sometimes in a short Sickness we loose long habits of Mortification which cost us dear in their acquisition Prayer is not to be laid aside at such a time but we must endeavour to keep up our Union with God by Interiour acts of Virtue which require no strength of Body nor gusts of Devotion but agree well enough with a state of Trouble and Dereliction 'T is a very profitable help to Prayer to accustom our selves to do nothing of concern without a motion from God The Holy Spirit is in us to conduct us and we may safely follow such a Leader This keeps the Soul in great Purity which knows the Inspirations of Grace by the Internal Peace Sweetness and Liberty that always more or less attend them And if she quit them to follow Nature the secret stings of Conscience tell her she has been Unfaithful to Gods Graces and retarded her progress towards Perfection 'T is a very necessary help to Prayer for a Soul to get a habit of being so dead to the World as to live only to God and in God her only center and true repose This is the end of our Creation and if she deviate therefrom to take a complacency in her self or any Creature she falls short of the Designs of God I know well enough that in the beginning of a Spiritual Life 't is very hard to bring our minds off from thinking on vain and Worldly matters and to habituate the Soul to strive against Imperfections and adorn her self with all Christian Virtues However she must then reflect on her Imperfections her good and evil Inclinations as she finds the motions of Grace to Dictate to her She is not as yet capable of a more elevated degree of Prayer and so her Thoughts are profitably imploy'd in this lower exercise But when God is pleas'd to enter into her as to make her enter into him by a more intimate Union her Thoughts then must be all upon God and for him seeing he is only her true rest and repose Many Spiritual Persons fail herein not well observing the method and ways of God in the conduct of Souls They have not an eye severe enough on their Interiour to discover all the motions of the Heart to examine and search and find out the least root of their Imperfections This must be done and is good and profitable in its season But when God calls us to higher elevations in Prayer we must follow the conduct of his Holy Spirit or we shall never advance in the ways of Perfection CHAP. VII That we must not presume of our selves to attempt any manner of Prayer but what is ordinary IN our Spiritual Exercises we must ordinarily prepare the Subject of our Prayer and converse with God This is the Practice of all holy Persons and to do otherwise is to fail in our respect to the Majesty of Heaven If we be to speak to a King or any Person of Quality we think thereon aforehand and shall we not have consideration of what we have to say to the King of Glory This preparing of the matter of Prayer must be done some little time before we set upon the Duty Then we must lift up our Hearts to God and desire him to put into our minds what may be most pleasing to him in our Recollections and what ever it be to entertain it in our Thoughts and dwell upon it unless God inspire us with some other matter that calls upon us for our Attention and Fidelity For to comply with this we ought to quit the Subject we have prepared for our Exercise Let us not soar above our Abilities but make choice of such matters for Prayer as are most suitable to our Spiritual State and we find by our Interiour to be most agreeable to the will of God Let us never begin our Prayers without asking God pardon of our Sins and imploring his mercies For to put our selves into his Sacred Presence and to converse with him without a detestation of these Imperfections wherewith we have displeased him is to make our selves unworthy of his Grace and Favour 'T is of very great importance to know how God usually conducts Souls to Perfection that we may the better comply with the Designs of his Grace All are not call'd
to the same sort of Prayer and without a special Vocation we ought not to apply our selves but to the more ordinary way of Devotion whether we converse with God by discursive Considerations to raise our Affections taking some Book to our Assistance or whether we call to mind some Subject wherein we formerly have found some Gust and Spiritual Advantage Let this be done with Humility Dependance and Fidelity for a Soul having no Call from God to a more elevated Prayer if she cease her own Operations she ceases to Pray and falls into Distractions or is guilty of Idleness But it is far otherwise with her when she is raised from Meditation by the workings of God in her to Prayer of Contemplation 'T is true that a Soul having plac'd her self in the presence of God and thinking on the Subject she has prepared ought to meditate thereon with great attention of Spirit but if God please to take her Thoughts up with something else she ought without any Disturbance leave her own to comply with the Operations of Gods holy Spirit For when God is thus pleased to possess a Soul by the operations of his Grace she ought to put no Obstacle thereto which we do too often by our Industries which seem to us necessary and without which we believe we should do nothing when as then we should give way to those Divine Operations to the end they may become more efficacious Otherwise we have less respect for God than we would have for some earthly Prince to whom we speak with much Reverence as long as he is pleased to give us Audience but as soon as he thinks good to speak we presently are silent and give ear to his words with much Attention and Respect not presuming in the least sort to interrupt him Our principal affair is to serve God the Vnum necessarium recommended to us by our Blessed Saviour and therefore it concerns us not to distract our selves with too many exteriour Imployments though good and lawful Because if the heart be bound with a Chain of Gold 't is no more at Liberty to converse with God than if it was fetter'd with Links of Iron Wherefore whatever we can do for the Service of God and Good of our Neighbour let us do it with Willingness of Heart according to our Talents and Abilities But above all we must have an esteem of Prayer and a desire to practise it being firmly perswaded there 's nothing whereby we can better serve God or more profit our selves in a Spiritual Life For my part I in some sort more value Prayer though imperfect than the best Actions that carry more of outward Splendour and and seem more Glorious in the eyes of men We must therefore never be disgusted with Prayer nor quit the frequent Exercise thereof because we to our thinking make little Advancement therein but persevere faithfully to practise it in the best manner we can and expect with patience the good pleasure of God If we do our Endeavours we have discharg'd our Duty and Obligation The Servant that had but one Talent was blamed by his Lord because he did not improve it by his Industry When my Soul is not in a temper for the Exercise of Prayer I use short Reflections to call to mind what is most distastful to me and I make a Resolution to do it or set upon it presently if I can as to converse with one from whom I have an Aversion or make some visit where I know I shall be much mortified that I may conquer my self in those things which raise a continual War within me I have oftentimes by this facilited the Exercise of Prayer God being pleased by so much the more to dispose our hearts by how much the more we offer Violence to our selves to surmount all Difficulties CHAP. VIII How to pass from Ordinary Prayer to Contemplation A Soul that does not nourish in her self any voluntary Imperfection having efficacious desires to live the Life of Jesus ought to be passive to the Conduct of God in Prayer and aspire after great Simplicity by giving a check to the Discourse of her Understanding and multiplicity of Acts in her Will and Affections I am not ignorant that she ought to exercise her self in Meditation and a lower degree of Prayer till God is pleased to raise her to Contemplation but withall she must elevate her self as soon as she feels interiour Attracts and shun a false Humility which hinders us to follow the Motions of God's holy Spirit who communicates his Graces to the Perfect to augment their Purity and to the Imperfect to purify their Souls from Terrene Desires In my judgment 't is of great importance in the Exercise of Prayer to receive with Humility the impression of the Rayes of the Divine Sun who rides in the Interiour of our Soul 'T is he that can enlighten us without the Succours of our Discourse who inflames us with Divine Love without troubling our Will with the production of a multiplicity of Acts and in a manner almost imperceptibly makes all Virtues to grow ripe in us and arrive to Perfection If a Soul makes it her work to mortifie all her Imperfections and desires to live a suffering life for Prayer she need not much trouble her self God will do her Work for her and in a manner above her Hopes and Understanding God does not work this but in such a Soul that freely puts her self into his Hands with all submissive Humility to be guided by Him In this state of Prayer the subject prepared for our Exercise sometimes may be useful sometimes God suggests some other matter as he sees best and the Soul must peaceably comply with his Communications We cannot give certain Rules to such who are in this state of Prayer God working in them as he pleases in different manners All the Counsel can be given is To keep themselves in an entire Indifferency to Illustrations or Privations to Sweetness or Rigour Nevertheless I believe we may profitably descend to a lower Degree of Prayer when we have no Overture to one more elevated but this is not to be done till we often knock at the gate of Mercy with a holy Importunity But if the Bridegroom of our Souls is not pleased to vouchsafe us a Kiss of his Lips by Contemplation let us keep our selves at his Feet by Conversing with him in Meditation It will much conduce to elevate a Soul to a more perfect Union with God to have in memory many universal Verities of the Divinity and Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ 1. As That God is Omnipotent and an Infinite Goodness 2. That his Love to us is from Eternity and the Eye of his Divine Providence is watchful over us to conduct us to Happiness 3. That God being Love requires nothing of us but Love and Affection 4. That God is the Center of our Soul which can find no true Repose but in him alone 5. That Grace and Truth is
hath to Jesus the Soul loosing the sight thereof falls into distraction being carried insensibly to a different matter But when she considers Poverty as inshrin'd in the heart of Jesus and practis'd by him she is taken up with Jesus which is much better And so this digression proves profitable and she gains by this loss 'T is the same when we meditate on any Perfection of God and falling from our first subject we are happily lost in the depths of the Divinity where we find no Love but of God himself O Happy loss There 's no knowledge more necessary for us than of our Miseries and Imperfections because that or nothing will well ground us in Humility without which we cannot raise Virtues to any height in a Spiritual Life We may get this knowledge two manner of ways Either directly by considering them in themselves Vir videns paupertatem meam Or by considering the Divine Perfections in the Light whereof by reflection we discover our own Miseries and Imperfections The first manner is somewhat like a Winters-day wherein we feel nothing but Cold and see nothing but Sterility yet it affords Light enough to work in us a low esteem of our selves But this Humility oftentimes causes in the Soul disquiet dependency and discouragement The other manner resembles a fair Summers-day which is more Warm and Lightsome and full of Refreshment The sight of our Miseries by this way is more advantagious and begets in us a more generous Humility and fuller of confidence in God For the view of the Divine Perfections which is the chief and direct work of the Soul raises in her a Holy Fire which inflames her Affections towards God in the midst of her Miseries Behold now the reason why 't is a great secret in a Spiritual Life to behold all things of God who is an Infinite Light and never to forsake him because in him and by him we can best know and do our Duty After that a Soul is habituated to march through the ways of Faith and Purity she gets so great a Facility to converse with God that 't is a trouble to her to descend to Creatures knowing by experience that he only is her center where she finds true repose and her only Light to conduct her to Happiness The Soul of Jesus Christ our Grand Exemplar did not only abide in God by Apostatical Union but all his Thoughts and Affections were absorpt in the Divinity which replenish'd this admirable Creature with Grace Light and Truth for the Execution of the Eternal Decrees of his Heavenly Father for the Redemption of Man He finish'd the Mysteries of his Mortal Life but still conversing with God and plung'd in the Divinity wherein he beheld what he came to do upon Earth Let us follow his example that we may receive from God a Light to conduct us which ordinarily is communicated to us in Prayer Accedite ad eum illuminamini Draw near to God and ye shall be Enlightned CHAP. XII Of Passive Prayer PAssive Prayer is after this manner We take a view of God in his Perfections or of Jesus in his states or of some Christian Verity by the Light of Faith and then the Soul abides in a perfect repose gently receiving the Divine Impressions which enter with so much Conviction that she is presently warm'd and inflam'd with all sorts of Vertues And though she does not distinctly practise their interiour acts yet she feels a delightful Joy by the sweetness of those impressions and finds her self well aispos'd to be faithful to them on all occasions In Meditation God works with us but we in a manner do all in passive Prayer we cooperate with God but in a manner the whole work is his We must not easily believe that we are in a state of passive Prayer To be disposed thereto requires great Purity and long Practice of Prayer with the advice of a good Director and in the interim to exercise our selves in Meditation A Soul elevated to the state of passive Prayer finds her self united to God without any Labour of her own and receives from him many Lights and Illustrations Desires and Affections according to his various Workings in her Then the Soul purely adheres to Grace holding close to the Infusions of God's holy Spirit and follows the Divine Motions by the Annihilations of her proper Operations When she is thus passive and dead to her self her state changes not although her ordinary dispositions may alter for then she receives with equal Contentment from the hand of God Darkness as Light Aridities as Comforts Poverty as Abundance in a firm Resolution to will nothing but what pleases God with an entire Indifferency and a perfect Death to her own Operations 'T is observable in this passive state that the Soul sometimes remains in Union with God and Contemplation of his Divine Perfections keeping her self in a profound Repose as it were without Action and at other times she acts by her own Faculties as it pleases God to excite her to these Acts her only business being to submit perfectly to the Motions of Grace and she acting as Grace excites her does not leave her state of Passivity seeing she only moves her self according to the Motions of God's Spirit A Soul cannot arrive to this passive state unless she be dead to her self unless she be advanced in Virtue unless her Interiour Peace be great and stable unless her Prayer be in a manner continual and unless she be purifyed from all voluntary Defects For how can God in such a gracious manner visit a Soul which is free from Disquiet and Ordinary Imperfections How can she hear the Voice of God amongst the Noise of Creatures if they live in her with any Affection To put our selves into the hands of God to do with us what he pleases in our Addresses to him we must be exactly attentive to his Orders which he will interiourly make known to us either by Illustrations in our Understanding or Instincts and Motions in our Will Perfect Purity of Heart requires that the Soul have no Eye to her own Interest but solely to do the Will of God Her principal Care must only be to regard him to love and serve him without curiously examining his Gifts and Graces she knows well enough that in passive Prayer there are many wayes to come to God and divers manners to sacrifice our selves to Divine Love Some spend themselves in doing Good to their Neighbour others in Suffering for their Faith by the Cruelty of Tyrants some by Mortifications and Penances others by Ardours of Love in Prayer The Soul must be indifferent to be sacrific'd by Love what way best pleases God the Divine will being the sole Rule of her Choice and not the Beauty or Perfection of the State so that when she knows it is God's Will a less elevated Condition is pleasing to her God is our Father and Directour operating in us in different manners Sometimes he infuses more
nothing to work this amourous Tendency towards God Not but that sometimes it presents some excellent Truths to quicken Love but yet that Truth was there without it I admire that after the Visits of Friends I alwayes find my will converted to God the only center of my Soul and I know not how this amourous Inclination is entertained and preserved in me I find by Experience that in this state my Soul is well dispos'd to practise all sorts of Virtues though she make thereof no formal Resolution After the Exercise of this Prayer the Soul is extreamly in love with Mortification and Self-denyal desiring nothing but God alone She understands also that she cannot persevere in this happy state without a constant Love of the Cross of which she daily becomes more amorous I begin this Exercise of Prayer without any other Preparation than Purity of heart as soon as I find my self in such a Disposition for God loving the Soul does sometimes prevent her before she perceives it I continue herein me thinks without any Industry or Trouble provided my Soul be but amorous of perfect Purity and faithful to the Practice of Mortification If I deeeive not my self God has been pleas'd to vouchsafe me this Mercy and it concerns me to be thankful and desire the Divine Goodness to assist me with his Grace that my Infidelities may not deprive me of this State and Favour CHAP. XVIII Of Interiour Silence where God speaks and is heard WE can never arrive to this Happy state of Interiour Silence where are the most secret Communications between God and the Soul except we pass through three tryals wherein we find much trouble and bitterness The first is the Death of the Exteriour Senses whereby all Sensible Objects become in a manner distastful to the Soul for as long as she does amuse her self with any Sensual Delights she can never arise to this Elevation This general Mortification is so difficult that the greatest part of Devotes suffer themselves to be conquer'd herein and pass no further The second is the Annihilation of the workings of their Interiour Senses wherein we have such difficulties to conquer that unless God who conducts Souls by his Divine Motions does strengthen them in this Combat and bring about this Interiour death by the secret workings of his Grace they will quickly loose courage in this attempt The third tryal is yet more laborious for we must mortifie the operations of our Spiritual Faculties the Memory Understanding and Will then which nothing is more difficult 'T is a long time before the Soul can understand how this must be done and longer before she can bring it about And except God be pleas'd to withdraw from the Soul those helps she receives from her own Lights and Affections she will never compass it In this Combat the Soul meets with a thousand Temptations As that we do but loose our time that 't is no better than pure idleness and much hinderance sometimes from Directors who having no experience of this way cannot understand it much less approve it Happy is the Soul that meets with a Director to strenghthen and encourage her in the difficulties of this passage otherwise she will never arrive to this Sacred Silence unless by some extraordinary Grace and Favour The Soul then thus dead and annihilated enters into this Sacred Silence the beginnings whereof are somewhat bitter though with a mixture of sweetness by a certain experience of the presence of God in the Soul Which being elevated above all natural Lights to behold God by the single Light of Faith is assisted by another Light that seems to participate of Faith and Glory For it has something of the Rayes of Glory Not that 't is really either this or that but a resemblance of them Wonderful are the effects which God produces in the Soul in this state of Interiour Silence For he deals with her as a Painter does with a Blank prepared for his Work where he draws divers lines as seems best to him God sometimes makes a silence in all the Powers of the Soul keeping them bound in the dark but in a disposition to do whatsoever he pleases with them The Spirit is a little busie to see what is doing but being check'd is quiet and the Soul having nothing to rely upon being annihilated in her self rests solely on God reposing her self in him with Patience and Humility Otherwhile God puts the Soul without any operation of her own in great repose and quiet neither willing nor applying her self to any thing in particular but in a readiness to do whatsoever God manifests to be his Will And this seems to me to be the most usual disposition of the Soul in the state of Interiour Silence At other times the Soul feels such a Fulness of God that she seems wholly to possess him insomuch that the Senses are partakers of the gusts and sweetness communicated to them the Soul in the Interim wholly Mortified by a constant readiness to be Sacrific'd to the Will of God At other times the Soul is wholly taken captive by Divine Love which giving her a relish of her Soveraign good all other things how excellent soever they may seem are but bitter to her The understanding here makes no use of the Light of Reason but God is pleas'd to infuse certain manifestations quick and suddain which work so secretly such changes in the Soul that she cannot perceive 'till they are done At other times when the Soul is in doubt or troubled with some disorder or discourag'd by her own weakness she finds God showing himself present with her to instruct to quicken to strengthen to succour her according to her present necessities The Soul in this state is disposed to whatsoever God pleases desires nothing required of her God works his will in her and she is Humble and Faithful and altogether submissive and plyable to his operations Thus the Soul must stand affected in respect of God but she can never come to this without great Combates continual Deaths and long Sufferings However all the Crosses can be endured in this World are but a cheap rate to purchase the enjoyment of God but for a moment In this state of Interiour silence the Soul cannot prescribe any Law to her self in her Spiritual Exercises but wait with all Humility to receive what God shall give her and be Faithful in corresponding thereto Sometimes she Suffers sometimes she Acts either in this or that manner according to the Nature of the Divine Impressions CHAP. XIII Of most Purified Contemplation ON St. Alexius's Day our Saviour gave me knowledge of a state of Prayer wherein at present I must constantly exercise my self as some Servants of God advise me but the reason they tell me I understand not My Prayer then is a denudation of all Creatures where the Soul as it seems to her does nothing but enter into possession of God in a peculiar manner who works in her what
God to deal with her as seems best pleasing to him For ought she knows 't is best for her to be afflicted and therefore she willingly submits to Gods chastisements rejoycing thereat and Blessing him for them Yea if she may but bring Glory to God thereby she is content to be cast into Hell In this state her Love is wholly centred in God and she gives her self up to the rigours of Justice that she may be entirly Sacrific'd to Gods Glory which is an Intention pure from all Self-interest An indifferency to any state does possess that Soul which has a well purified Intention with a perfect resignation to the good pleasure of God to remain content with her present condition being satisfied with whatsoever portion of Grace she has received with profound Humility and Mortification Being thus disposed she has no mind to any thing but what pleases God and does that Faithfully and by this means obtains wonderful Peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost To Will nothing but what God Wills requires a great degree of Mortification and being dead to all Greatures for this is the highway to the Purity of Divine Love What did the Ancient Hermits search for in the Deserts but by a perfect denudation of all Creatures to arrive to the Perfection of Divine Love Let us fear and sigh to see our selves so engaged and beset with several Temptations in the World 'T is a hard matter but some or other may cease upon us and rob us of that perfect poverty of Spirit which puts us in full possession of God alone 'T is a special favour of God to have a vocation to the Poor and Abject states of Jesus Christ And 't is no small Grace when God conducts us to them by a Happy necessity with little noise or stir to call the eyes of others upon us 'T is well enough if the Soul consent purely to the Ordinations and events of Divine Providence CHAP. VIII A Conference clearing many difficulties touching Prayer Qu IN what consists precisely good mental Prayer I find many sorts thereof in Books The Saints have practic'd it with much difference and yet all so good that I am taken with them To which of them shall I betake my self Ans The ways of Souls in Mental Prayer are so wonderful various that 't is best for every one to hold to that which they find most proper for them Or else they will loose their time in a wilderness of Thoughts without Spiritual profit Hence it is that in Mystical Authors we seldom meet with what is proper for every Soul And though we find very sublime and solid Verities concerning Prayer in the Writings of St. Teresa Blessed John de la Croix and others yet they have but described their own experiences and not how the case stands with other Souls unless a light discovery in some things agreeable to their illuminations Such Instructions are good to read but not exactly to be followed so as to conform our selves entirely to their manner of Prayer We shall find in such Books matter very profitable and 't is time well spent in Spiritual Lectures and not without delight to Virtuous Souls Qu. From whence proceeds these different manners of Prayer seeing there 's but one Soveraign and single Verity in God to be known one Soveraign good to be Loved and Charity being of the self-same Nature in all Souls one would think there ought to be a great conformity among all those who know and love God Ans That which makes so many different manners of Prayer arises from the different manner of knowing God Some conversing with him by Meditation and humane Ratiocination Others receive from God Heavenly irradiations above the Powers of Reason by which he manifests himself immediately to the Soul as the Sun by his Beams Others contemplate God by the obscure Light of Faith in an ineffable manner which is a kind of feeing him without seeing him These different manners of treating with God make not only different manners of Prayer but cause also much diversity in every manner For example in the Prayer of Faith which seems more simple than the other there are many degrees which represent to the Soul different views of God and Divine matters When Faith is seated in an understanding well purified from Images and alien Representations she then discovers God more sublimely as he is in himself though but in a manner negative general and confus'd yet efficacious to work in the heart a great esteem of God and ardent Charity All Books and Sermons and Conferences will not satisfy a Soul advanced to this kind of knowing God For those manners of speaking and conceiving God seem to her too full of Imperfection Faith wholly purified contents her self with having an eye to the Light of Glory which discovers God in his Infinity although but obscurely and according to the measure that Faith is more or less pure and simple these discoveries are more or less perfect Qu. Are all sort of People capable of these sublime manners of Prayer and if any one desire to attain them by what means must he go about it Ans The gift of Prayer is not proper for all People yea some great Saints have never had it as some good Servants of God who have become Holy in the Exercises of an Active Life which would not afford them much time for Contemplation and accustom'd themselves to the ordinary method of Meditation which is good and advantagious for such Souls whom God calls not to a more sublime way Those whom God favours with the extraordinary gift of Prayer do possess an inestimable Treasure and with this only Grace which is the source of many more they are rich enough though never so poor in things of this Life But seeing 't is the meer gift of God I account it Folly and Rashness to think we can bring our selves to the sublime state of Contemplation unless God elevate us by his immediate work and special favour All that we can do therein is to dispose our selves by corresponding Faithfully to the motions of Grace by dying daily to our Natural Inclinations in the practice of Mortification and leave God to do the rest Except God build the House they labour in vain who think to raise the Edifice by their own Abilities Qu. A Soul establish'd in a sublime manner of Prayer and that hath a long time practic'd it can she easily fall from this state Ans If such a Soul gives her self over to her Sensual Inclinations and commit gross Imperfections becoming Faithless to Gods Holy Inspirations she may fall from it But 't is very credible she will return to it For she cannot long endure the loss of so great a Happiness without forcing her self by her Humiliations and Penitences to recover her former state And as much as she dies to all Creatures so much she advances to God But she can never attain it without Practice a Fidelity and therefore it highly concerns her to free her self from too many Worldly Affairs and love Retirement Notwithstanding those which God requires of us as belonging to our Duty will not hinder us from arising to such a degree of Prayer as God hath prepared for us from all Eternity Qu. The most elevated and perfect Prayer is not without Darkness and Privations and sometimes perplex'd with Interiour Crosses and Desolations But is there not a state of Light and enjoyment to be attained here wherein the Soul may possess God clearly and peaceably without any disturbance Ans No the permanent state of Enjoyment is reserv'd for Heaven In this Life indeed we are visited without Divine Irradiations and Glimmerings of Glory but they are only now and then and transient The term of this Life is working Time and not of Rest for acquisition not possession where the Soul may daily purchase new Graces and advance her self in Prayer according to her progress in Virtue and Purity by being Faithful to the Calls of God on all occasions Gods usual way is to make Souls pass through Darkness Temptations Derelictions Desolations Exteriour and Interiour Sufferings to come to a good Stock of Virtue and a higher degree of Purity which raises them to a more sublime state of Prayer And being exercised some way or other to raise them nearer to Heaven by Spiritual Ascensions they at length leave Time to meet with Eternity Neither must we wonder to see the wayes of the Just thus beset with Thorns and Bryars for this is expedient to advance them in Perfection and Divine Love Qu. How much time must we imploy daily in Prayer if we mean to Profit thereby so as to attain Perfection Ans We cannot much advance in Prayer without a long and constant usuage of this Divine Exercise 't is not enough to do good Works but we must spend some Hours in our daily Devotions 'T is by Prayer we advance in the ways of God and not otherwise We must be careful to imploy much time in the Exercise thereof if God calls us to it and not apply our selves to the Active way Let us not be too Sollicitous to discharge our other Obligations for a Soul in the state of continual Prayer performs readily what she ought on all occasions When the time comes for Confession she is presently all dolorous Love Contrition When she Communicates she is all Humility all Desire and flaming Affection When she is to correct she is all Sweetness and Charity When she is to help her Neighbour she is all Zeal and Love When she must act for God she has an intention purified from all Self-Interest And all this she performs in Virtue of Prayer as it were without distinct Acts but habitually and in an excellent sublime manner by the special operation of Gods Holy Spirit and not by Meditations or Considerations which are means only to find God A Soul that thus once hath laid hold on God does take her repose and rest in him making it her only business to Love and Worship him in Spirit and Truth FINIS
ashamed to be so much attached to worldly things she is taken with the excellency of this admirable way and begins to be mortified to her self and the world aspiring after a profound oblivion and contempt of all Creatures and desiring to be in privations the better to curb her sensual inclinations and practice Virtue Thus the Soul proceeds in the purgative way of this supernatural Life The Soul thus purged advances to partake of the Divine Illuminations of this Life and becomes in a manner clear-sighted thereby her understanding receiving many illustrations and discoveries of its excellency and grandeur She sees the wonders couch'd in the mystery of Jesus poor suffering and annihilated She perceives the eminency of those sanctified Souls who have followed Jesus in his humiliations She begins to apprehend that a Soul which has no knowledge nor esteem of this life is buried in darkness She is amaz'd at the blindness of Christians in being besotted on empty vanities And lastly she perceives that there is enjoyment in suffering and that by crosses and privations we come to union with God The Soul thus illuminated enters into the Unitive state of this life and tends to a continual union with God whom she sees present in her Interiour Nothing can hinder this union as long as the Soul finds enjoyment in sufferings This proceeding of grace in a Soul is not extraordinary God behaves himself in a Soul as a King in a Kingdom newly conquer'd who kills and destroys all that oppose the establishment of his Dominion Notwithstanding the Prince hereby seems to put all things in disorder 't is but to procure peace and to rule without disturbance by the conquest of his Enemies God proceeds in like manner As soon as he enters into a Soul to set up his Kingdom he makes a havock of all his Enemies by penetential rigour to bring the Soul wholly to his Obedience Then he establishes the Maxims of his Policy and convinces the Soul how good and just they are by the following illustrations First That the greatest Treasure on Earth is to have part of the Poverty of Jesus Christ. Secondly That the greatest Glory is to be partaker of his abjections Thirdly That the greatest Joy is to suffer pains with him Fourthly That the Life of Christianity is to deny our selves take up our Cross and follow Jesus That when we cease to die to our selves and crucifie our Lusts we leave off to be Christians and die in a manner to Christianity because we lose the Spirit thereof Fifthly That there 's nothing more amiable more precious and more honourable in the world than to imitate Jesus poor and abject seeino this state was most precious in the eyes of God his Father Finally The Soul being persuaded of these verities which are in a manner evident unto her tho' by the obscure light of Faith has no love for any thing upon Earth nor any pretensions but those of Jesus Christ and these were only to suffer and be annihilated to perfect in his Person the designs of his eternal Father by dying on the Cross Then she absolutely forsakes her self to give her self up wholly to the Maxims and Spirit of Jesus Christ uniting and conforming her self as much as may be to his states and her thoughts are far different from others sentiments And this is not to be wondred at seeing St. Peter says of Christians that they are Gens sancta Genus electum regale Sacerdotium a holy Nation a chosen People a royal Priesthood to offer to God Sacrifices of good Odour which is by crucifying themselves with Jesus Christ who is a continual Sacrifice O the sublime state of a Soul in this supreme degree of a supernatural life Alas the sentiments of Nature do too much take up our hearts so that those of a supernatural life have little or no place in them What a misery is this CHAP. VIII The practice of a Supernatural Life WE without cause esteem our selves spiritual if we march not streight without reserve by the ways of Jesus Christ or pretend to any thing on Earth then to be conformable to him This does not consist in sole speculation for we can never do it better than when the occasions of abjection and contempt present themselves to embrace them heartily as the most necessary means to make us conformable to Jesus Christ God the Father cannot praedestinate us to be conform to the Image of his Son but he must prepare for us from all Eternity many occasions of contempt and abjection which time brings forth Our fidelity lies in complying with these occasions to follow Jesus without reserve by his Light and Power I will tell you how it must be done We ought before all things to have an eye to Jesus abject and despised repose our selves in his bosom abide there with delight and then make upon our selves some short and sharp reflections Reflections that may form in us the Image of Jesus Christ without any great trouble to our selves These when done to the purpose are as so many powerful Thunderbolts to beat down our natural inclinations and destroy the Maxims of human Prudence according to which we commonly square our actions Such Reflections breath into us a supernatural wisdom which gives us a relish of the proceedings of Jesus Christ crucified so little known by worldly men But perhaps it would be better to regard nothing but the infinite beauty of Jesus in the state of his abjections without making any reflections on our selves or busying our selves with our own miseries considering only the example of Jesus expos'd to our view and the power we receive from his grace to follow him It is enough if he vouchsafe to cast a glance of his Divine rays on our natural repugnances to quell and conquer them O my Jesus I will regard you in your humiliations and then you will look propitiously upon me and that is sufficient O Jesus annihilated in your sufferings make me as it were lost in my self by suffering with you that I may be absorpt in you and by you in God Shall the men of this world be more provident than the children of Light What shall they have a care of their affairs and I neglect my business I will enrich my self as well as they with my own ruins and from my humiliations I will draw great aids and succours to follow Jesus for my resolution is to march after him absolutely without reserve To do any great matters in the ways of the world we must have much Wealth many Friends and good success To do great matters in the ways of God it will suffice to be poor and despicable to have Enemies and ill successes For the more a Soul suffers the more she does great matters in God's service the more she is deprived of the Creatures the more is she enriched with the Creator Therefore she must work as hard for poverty of Spirit and Self-denial as worldly men do labour to enrich themselves
eminent ways but judging our selves unworthy thereof and content with little our Saviour shall please to give us we must co-operate humbly and faithfully with that small portion of Grace we have already and not grow idle wishing for those eminent Graces wherewith perhaps our Souls shall never be beautified This is one of the chiefest points of humility to be content with that little portion we have in the state of Grace and judge our selves unworthy of God's favour 'T is true there 's nothing we ought so highly esteem as Grace and its increase in us and desire it of God with incessant prayers but this must be with perfect submission to his Divine will and pleasure that we may not disturb the peace of our Souls On one side I behold my extreme misery and I find my self so depressed that all my natural strength and endeavours do what they can to the utmost can never bring me out of my self On the other side I burn with desire to be wholly for God by living a supernatural and spiritual life It is to you O Divine Spirit I address my sighs the infinite source of all Graces you know I have a longing to live this spiritual life in the exercise whereof I shall find the true practice of Divine Love by which I shall satisfie my ardent desires to be wholly for Jesus and shall live no more after my natural inclinations and the Maxims of human Prudence But I see how impossible it is for me to attain this unless you vouchsafe to assist me with your illuminations against my darkness with your strength against my weakness with your continual supplies against my relapses For how often O Divine Spirit have I begun this supernatural life and fallen from it conquer'd by my Nature and worldly temptations Draw me after you so powerfully and continually that I may no more return into my self but may follow your attracts with perseverance I will follow you dear Jesus in the states of your mortal life in annihilations contempts poverty and sufferings And if I lose the sight of you in those obscurities which sometimes cloud my Soul yet let me not lose courage Provided I continue in your ways that is in the esteem and love of the true Christian Life you will not be far from me it being impossible that Jesus annihilated and suffering should not be near to a Soul suffering and annihilated Well then though we may lose the sight of Jesus the light we have in Prayer leaving us though we feel him not by sensible influences yet we are assured that he is near us if we be in his ways by self-denial and a love of humiliations for his sake O how happy is a Soul to be content to follow the annihilations of Jesus without the feeling of his persumes and sweetnesses She does practice the purity of love in this condition For to be deprived of light and consolations which is very harsh to Nature and suffer it contentedly is one of the most excellent acts of a spiritual life which consists chiefly in a perfect resignation to suffer as well inwardly as outwardly when God pleases I am very sensible by experience that there 's a vast difference between thinking and doing talking and living this true Christian life When we meet with no repugnance we find it not difficult to practice Virtue whereof the Idaea's are as sweet as the Acts are bitter of such as consist in privations and sufferings I am in a state wherein I feel repugnances and am resolved thereby to humble my self the more and keep the peace of my Soul by an entire confidence of the succours which the Grace of God will vouchsafe unto me I consider that nothing was more seeble than the Apostles before Pentecost They hid themselves abandon'd their Master in his sufferings and Peter deny'd him but after they had received the Holy Ghost he infus'd such strength into their Souls that they became powerful and couragious to admiration CHAP. XV. That 't is impossible to live this Supernatural Life by Human Prudence THe supernatural Life is a continual mortification of depraved Nature 1. For 't is certain First That we cannot live this excellent life but by annihilating our sense and reason 2. Secondly That this life is wholly according to the Spirit which cannot be but the Spirit of God which inspires the Soul with his influences and sacred motions 3. Thirdly That the Soul which lives this life must be elevated above sense und reason whether it be in Prayer or the practice of Virtue which cannot be done but by offering up her self to God as a continual Sacrifice That though oftentimes w must do things sensual as to eat and drink yet these must be done as Grace directs us And other things according to reason as to love our Relations and Friends yet this must be only in God and as his Oracles do dictate to us O life of Grace how art thou a continual death and mortification Who lives Christianly lives a Martyrdom Tota vita Christiana Crux est Martyrium However 't is a joyful Martyrdom for solid joy cannot but make glad the Soul where Grace inhabits O that this fundamental truth of our Salvation did once well sink into our hearts The Son of God and eternal King of Glory leaves the bosom of his Father and becomes man to live and die in infinite humiliations Jesus gives us life by his death He puts us in a state of Grace by ruining himself according to Nature He purchases Eternity for us by yielding up his temporal life And the Evangelist expressing his death doth on set purpose use these words Emisit Spiritum He sent forth his Spirit Without doubt he sent it into the hearts of his faithful Servants to the end they may learn to live by his Spirit to him who died for them So says St. Paul Misit Deus Spiritum Filii sui in corda nostra ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est What remains then but that we banish our carnal Spirit which carries us on to sensual delights although sometimes not sinful Let us love the Spirit of penance of suffering of self-denial and humiliations Gerson hath an excellent saying By how much the more Nature is mortified by so much the more Grace is infused We must often call to mind that the Grain of Wheat cast into the Earth except it die cannot bring forth fruit If we do not die to our selves and the World and the Spirit of Nature we can never become perfect Christians nor bring forth the fruits of Divine Love We must be as nothing before men that we may be something in the sight of God Why should the Disciple be above his Master The Spirit of Grace and the Spirit of Nature do continually jar and war one against the other The exercise of the spiritual life will afford us light to discern their different motions but when
discerned it requires great courage to be faithful to the motions of Grace To yield to Nature weakens and darkens the Soul to follow Grace gives life and vigour It concerns us therefore to take part with God against our selves This practice is clear and efficacious to conquer our passions and carry us on to the purity of Virtue when this light is infus'd into us after the manifestation of God's goodness to us Reason may be serviceable to conquer our passions but this light must give place when the beams of Grace display their splendors For we ought as much as we can to stifle the Maxims of reason that we may become more capable of Divine Illuminations which elevate us above human reason In a word as no man can come unto the Son unless the Father draw him by preventing Grace so no man can come unto the Father but by the Son following his Maxims and Example and obeying the motions of his Spirit This is the order and way of Grace and 't is in vain for us to look for any other in a spiritual life CHAP. XVI The Conclusion That we ought to apply our selves to the practice of a Supernatural Life WE must have a special care that we place not Perfection amiss for this will much retard us in the way of Virtue Hence it will do well not to have too great an esteem of the Vnitive and Mystick way Not but 't is good yea excellent for a Soul to be so elevated by God's gracious conduct However we must acknowledge that the unitive way brought to practice is more excellent and necessary seeing this is the Christian life in action and the other is a mystick life consisting in extraordinary elevations of the Soul and wonderful unions with God in Prayer and Contemplation I observe that our blessed Saviour says Whosoever will be my Disciple must take up his Cross and follow me He does not say that he must be elevated in Prayer but that he must take up his Cross that is he must practice the Maxims of the Gospel Happy then are they who are crucified to the world though they be not elevated in Spirit and those elevated Souls are but happy in that they are conformable to Jesus crucified and by their unions more disposed to the Cross and Sufferings The crucified Life is as it were the end of the mystick life whose illuminations and sweet influences do much conduce to fortifie the Soul to bear the Cross S. Teresa observes That one of the best signs of a Divine Extasie is when it works in the Soul an extraordinary desire of suffering and that a Soul cannot return to her self from such holy communications with God but well instructed which must needs be that the perfection of love consists in suffering for Jesus and not in enjoying him Enjoyment in this life is not of so much worth as suffering This more than That advances our Glory Let us not then complain that we have not our part in the mystick life so that we be but crucified Christians and let us be content to feel our Spirit in Prayer among Thorns of aridities coldness and desolation as well as among the sweet perfumes of a sensible Devotion We must take up our Cross to follow Christ as well when we suffer in Soul as Body For 't is the property of a true Christian to glory in the Cross of Jesus Christ But this did extend as well to his Soul as to his body The Divine Soul of Jesus was left without sensible influences and succours from the superiour part and from his Father for some time We must love to be conformable to him herein and rest there with resignation and contentment Let our affections be more inflamed with the love of her sufferings here than of enjoyments And if we complain of any thing let it be when we do not suffer something for Jesus Christ The End of the Second BOOK BOOK III. Of the presence of God and giving our selves up to Divine Providence CHAP. I. Our first thought in the morning ought to be That God is present AS soon as I awake I ought to consider that I am in the bosom of God for in Him we live move and have our being We live and are indeed in his presence and yet hardly think of him I am surrounded with his Grandeurs his Mercies his Riches his Divine Perfections and yet am taken up with petty matters O what blindness what darkness is this I fall from one sleep into another my Soul being no more awake by day than by night my interiour senses being then bound up as before the exteriour I am like a blind man asleep doubly blind for sleep takes away his sight a second time When he awakes he sees not the light of the Sun nor the beauty of the Universe nor the variety of Creatures that are before him He walks in the world but beholds not the different parts thereof when he is asleep his blindness increases In like manner when we sleep we are in a profound forgetfulness of God But what is lamentable we continue this Oblivion when we are awake by reason we seldom think on God and his Perfections our Souls are so wholly taken up with worldly business Alas how dangerous is this sleep and forgetfulness We have no excuse seeing Nature does teach us better manners Tempus est de somno surgere When the Sun rises 't is time to walk as Children of light When natural sleep leaves me let me not dear Saviour lose my self in the crowd of Creatures but take up my thoughts with your Perfection with your Love with your Mercies that I may not sleep all day long by being unmindful of your presence Dear Jesus 't is not in my power to hinder this spiritual drowzyness and my misery will not permit me to think on you continually but be pleased to watch for me that I may be conversant with God by your divine and holy Occupations that I may know him by your knowledge that I may have an eye to him by your regards that I may love him by your loves and by this means I shall be strengthened in my weakness If we do not awake with Jesus Christ we sleep with the men of this world who sleep their sleep being wholly taken up with worldly matters To be awake with Jesus Christ is to be exercised in the operations of this life to do as he did and be content to take up our Cross and suffer with him Pains sufferings reproaches ought to be dear to us seeing they make us to be awake with Jesus Christ and live his life a life of sufferings On the contrary we must look on HOnours Pleasures and Worldly advantages with a suspicious eye because they are apt to make us forgetful of God When we see with the eye of Faith that God is every-where and is the first Mover we take delight therein and look upon God as the Soul of the world and