all pollution from them like as the Sun shineth upon a dunghil without taint or imperfection Simplicity quitted him from all multiplicity engagements reflections upon his own Interest Complacencies Vanity passion of Joy or Sadness from any of his own Performances or Speeches from Praise or Dispraise or from the Vices of the Times Places or Persons he conversed with to receive any pollution from them no otherwise than a new-born childe beholdeth a Pageantry which passeth before it which is forgotten as soon as removed Lastly Purity directed his eye in a straight line to God pretending to nothing but his glory in any thing that man had a hand in And this proceeding of his all ought to imitate if they desire to make progress in Vertue and arrive to perfection and particularly those that treat much with their neighbour in the negotiation of his salvation that they may do it with more advantage to him and with no damage to themselves PART IV. His Vertues whereby he was elevated and united to God CHAP. 1. His Interiour and his Application to the Sacred Trinity ALthough what we have hitherto said of the Heroick Vertues and famous Actions of Monsieur Renty which had respect either to his own perfection or the good of his neighbour is very remarkable Yet the principal and more admirable is that which remains viz. The state of his Interiour and his communication with God So David saith that the Kings-daughter is all glorious within and the Holy Ghost setteth forth in lofty expressions the Spouse in the Canticles for the beauty of her face and of her whole body But it addes that nothing could sufficiently be uttered concerning the hidden graces of her Soul and Interiour which were far more charming and attractive even as the chief excellencies of our B. Saviour consisted not in his Exteriour or in those things he did either for himself or for men but in the intimate union he had with God and those actions he produced in the profundity of his Spirit towards him In like manner our perfection consists not in our good works which appear outwardly nor in the exercises of Charity Humility Poverty and the like Vertues open to the eye but in the application of our spirit to God and our union with him by the acts of vertue and chiefly of the three Theological ones It consisteth I say in honouring and adoring him in the Temple of our souls in performing to him there the Sacrifices of a lively Faith upon the Altar of our Understanding in offering up the Holocausts of perfect Hope and ardent Charity upon the Altar of our Will and in a total subjection of our spirits to his and an union of all our faculties with him whereby we become purified sanctified and deified proportionably as the blessed Saints are in heaven where this perfection is compleated This was Monsieur Renties practice whereby he had a true feeling of S. Pauls words Your life is hid with God through Jesus Christ concerning which he expressed his thoughts thus to a friend There is nothing in this world so separate from the world as God and the greater the Saints are the greater is their retirement into him This our Saviour taught us whilst he lived on earth being in all his visible employments united to God and retired into the bosom of his Father His principal care was incessantly to cultivate and adorn his soul to unite it intimately to God by the operations of his understanding and will to give up himself with all his strength to this hidden and divine life of Faith Hope and Charity of Religion of a mystical Death and entire Abnegation of himself Some years before his death his particular attractive was the contemplation of the B. Trinity being the last end in which all must terminate Whereof he gave this account to his Spiritual Guide in the year 1645. I carry about with me ordinarily an experimental verity and a plenitude of the presence of the Holy Trinity And in another Letter thus All things vanish out of my fancy as soon as they appear nothing is permanent in me but God through a naked faith which causing me to resign my self up to my Saviour affordeth me strength and confidence in God the Trinity in that the operation of the three Divine persons is manifested to me in a distinct manner viz. The love of the Father which reconcileth us by his Son the Father and the Son who give us life through the Holy Spirit the H. Spirit which causeth us to live in in Communion with Jesus Christ which worketh in us a marvellous alliance with the Sacred Trinity and produceth often in our hearts by faith such inward feelings as cannot be expressed He writ also to a confident friend and one that was much devoted to this Sacred Mysterie How that the proper and special effect of Christian grace is to make us know God in the Trinity uniting us to the Son who causeth us to work by his Spirit And to say the truth we are consecrated by our Baptism to the worship of the B. Trinity Therein we are consecrated to his Glory receive its Seal and put on its Badge and Livery to manifest to us and to all the world that we are perfectly and absolutely its own He writ to the same party in the year 1648. on the same subject The Feast of the blessed Trinity giveth me this occasion to write that we may renew our selves in the honour and dependance we have upon this incomparable Mysterie I desire to joyn hearts with you to adore that which we are not able to express Let us melt into an acknowledgement thereof and foâ—tifie our selves by the grace of Faith through Christ to be perfected in this adorable Mysterie Infinite things might be spoken which my heart resenteth of the latitude of this grace but I cannot utter them I beseech you let us adore God let us adore Jesus Christ let us adore the holy Spirit which Spirit discovereth unto us the operations of love and mercy of these Divine Persons in us and let us make good use thereof The same year he clearly expressed his condition and the manner of wholly applying himself â—oâ—th Sacred Trinity how that his soul was most entirele united to the three Divine Persons from whence he received illuminations that surpassed all humane understanding how he lived perpetually retired and locked up as it were with the Son of God in the bosom of his Father Where this Son became his Light his Life and Love and the holy Spirit his Guide his Sanctification and Perfection how he did bear within himself the Kingdom of God which he explained by a resemblance of what the Blessed enjoy in heaven by vertue of that view and transcendent knowledge of the sacred Trinity which was communicated to him and that pure Love by which he felt his heart inflamed and as it were transformed into God in whom he possessed a joy and repose beyond all expression That
in this estate he had a conformity with the Son of God by a participation and fellowship both in his Beatitude and Sufferings which he endured here below and that by his holy Spirit were accomplished in him the mysteries of the whole Pilgrimage of our Saviour in this world rendring him as a daily sacrifice to the B. Trinity breathing after the Resurrection and his perfect Consummation in Glory Suâ—h was the disposition of this holy man towards the B. Trinity in which he passed his latter years and in which he dyed finishing his sacrifice and was often wont to say That when a man is call'd up hither he must abide there without any changing Being guided this way and treading these pathes he made an admirable progress to the highest pitch of perfection attainable in this life each Person in the sacred Trinity working in his soul wonderful impressions of grace sealing him with their particular characters and sanctifying him in an extraordinary manner The Father kept him alway retired and recollected in his own bosom where he bestowed upon him a large share of his own infinite inclination to communicate himself to others and of this blessed Celestial Fecundity in begetting children not of flesh and blood but of the Spirit enflaming his heart with a paternal and maternal love towards mankinde from whence did flow that unparalell'd charity whereof we have spoken The Son transformed him into a lively image of God through the resemblance of his own perfections bestowing on him a filial spirit to acquit himself towards him in all his endeavors with that singular reverence saith confidence love obedience as is required from a Son to a Father bringing him into such a condition as that God spake to him Interiourly producing in him his word accompanied with such power and strength as was able to touch mens souls and work in them the blessed fruits of salvation The Holy Ghost that infinite pure and reciprocal love of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father cleansed him from all the impurities of self-love and self-seeking enflamed him with a perfect love towards God taught him the way of spiritualizing all material things of sanctifying all indifferent things of extracting good out of all evil and finally of leading a life truly spiritual after the grand pattern of our Saviour This he expressed in brief in a Letter to his Director writ in the year 1647. The Divine goodness worketh in me that which I am not able to express I possess even the B. Trinity and finde distinctly in my self the operations of the three Divine Persons CHAP. 2. His Faith THe better to take this Spiritual Life in pieces we will begin with his Faith the prime Theological Vertue which Gulielmus Parisiensis calls the Primum Vivens of the soul and S. Paul the first step we make in our advance towards God This blessed man studied with particular care a solid foundation in this vertue knowing the incredible consequence thereof for a spiritual life and how all other vertues depend on it as on their Root their Rule and Measure O how good a thing saith he in one of his Letters is it to live of Faith I seem to understand this Vertue every day better and better Those that are established in this the life by which the just live according to S. Paul are at length compleated to Perfection and enjoy here the first fruits of glory He possessed this grace in so high a degree that he was more ascertained of the presence of God of the verity of the mysteries of our Faith than of the shining of the Sun He truly lived by Faith this was the path in which he walked working all by the spirit thereof Hereby he looked upon things not onely with his corporal eyes but with those that pierced deeper considering them not according to their present or past condition or the order of nature but their future and eternal according to their relation to grace and glory regarding nothing but as it was or might be a means of â—â—s own or others salvation All his works were performed by the hand of Faith which proves strong and effectual which more willingly handles Ulcers and the loathsome soars of poor people than gallants do Sattins or Velvets The pure and vigorous Faith of the primitive Christians said he caused them to act without those conveniences and necessaries which we stand upon which indeed argue the decay and weakness of Faith such heroick actions as we onely now admire these assuredly lived by Faith without any form and composition of their own proper spirit in great Simplicity Efficacy and Verity Being fortified by this Faith he was wont to say that he felt no difficulty at all when our Saviour sensibly deserted him for a time and sent him great aridities attributing all those inquietudes impatience and anxities which we labour under in this estate of privation to the want of this grace I have taken out of one of his Letters what he writ to this purpose We seldom meet with persons addicted to prayer that can behave themselves prudently under Interior derelictions or that can have patience to wait for some time at the door of sensible consolations and enlightnings without making a forcible entry that do not chafe themselves and cast this way and that way and seek by their own means to procure them seeking for another support than that of Faith which alone should suffice any spiritual man These sensible gusts are but sent as supplements of the littleness and cordials for the faintings of faith But the just should live by faith and upon that foundation rest himself in expectation of our Saviour with patience Our inconveniences arise from hence that we are a people of little faith to discern things by its light although we often pretend to know more than really we do To another he writ concerning this point upon the subject of the Centurions faith thus Where shall we meet with a Faith comparable to that of the Centurion Alas what a shame is this to our Spiritual persons who talk much of Faith but indeed have little more than the sound scarce any thing of the truth and effect thereof how few are there that can bear the afflictions of spirit or body with a naked Faith and such a simplicity as sooketh remedy onely from God and maketh use of patience when comfort doth not appear so soon as expected We all covet to enjoy Jesus Christ sensibly and that he would come to our houses to cure our anxieties And for want of these sensible comforts the Spirit runs and wanders on all hands seeking repose but findes it not because indeed it is not to be found in her action but onely in her sacrifice made in Faith which brings down the Spirit of Christ which is our strength and life in the midst of troubles and of death The Centurien was ashamed and confounded that Christ would come to his house
this time of resignation of my self to sufferings is to make good use of my affliction and endeavour after solid vertue with a perfect abandoning of my self to the will of God Behold here the blessings of God upon his endeavours for the good of his neighbours which working such strong impressions upon their hearts to bring them to God almost always accompanied his labours At which indeed we ought not much to wonder if we consider him as a happy instrument fastened and united to the Lord of hearts and Saviour of souls singly aiming at the glory of God and good of others and sparing nothing he conceived necessary thereunto To which purpose his custom was before he undertook any such business to give himself up to our Lord they are his own words to speak by his Spirit and in his Power And this Lord who desireth infinitely the salvation of man finding him so well disposed and fitted to his hand used him for noble imployments and furnished him with suitable graces and favours even to work wonders Which may serve both for the instruction and shame of such who by their calling are designed for the procuring of the salvation of men and yet through their own fault do it with so little profit I finde moreover that God gave him sometimes beforehand knowledge and foresight into the affairs which he would have him do thereby to prepare him to undertake them without fear and to acquit himself well therein Being at his house in Citry at the latter end of the year 1642. he had a secret intimation from God that at his return to Paris he should finde a new imployment about the poor and should be much taken up therein Which fell out accordingly two days after his arrival there certain persons coming to advice with him about a course to relieve such poor as were ashamed to beg throughout that City intreating him to take it into his care which he did accordingly undertaking for his share to visit the fourth part and distribute there alms according to their necessities which was a sufficient employment for one man to take up his whole time though he had no other business which yet he performed notwithstanding the multitude of his other occupations so that we may say that according to humane reason and without a special assistance from God he could never have been able to have done and suffered such great matters But God who hath given us a limited strength of body and minde can as easily heighten them when and how he pleaseth One day he said to one of his great Confidents with much humility and devotion I have been this night bathed all over in tears by a view which our Lord hath given me At which words making a stand remaining sometime recollected in silence and transported with that grace he had received afterward he went on saying that whilst he was at prayer he understood that there was a great imployment assigned him for new France in the Indies Which afterward fell out and chiefly in the building of a Church in the Island of Mont-real In which noble design other pious persons whom God had chosen thereunto joyning with him He by his cares counsels credit and liberality both of his own and what he begg'd from others was highly serviceable Sometime he received beforehand not so great light of his business but onely a bare knowledge and present impulse of doing something without any further discovery As when he was much pressed in Spirit to go to Pontois without understanding any reason for it having at the same time much employment at Paris yet with obedience to the inspiration without debating he undertaketh the journey where unexpectedly he met with a Nobleman of great quality from a Province far distant who came thither conducted by God to ask of Monsieur Renty and receive from his mouth instructions for his souls health and how to serve God perfectly which he had little known and less practised Which thing Monsieur Renty then taught him professing at his return from thence that he could give no account what afterward became of the party or how he lost him SECT 10. His grace in assisting particularly some choice souls THough this great servant of God had an excellent faculty in assisting all men for the good of their souls yet was he more eminently happy in some particular choice persons to whom our Saviour had assigned him for the curing of their imperfections to make them march on apace and that thorow the narrow way of vertue and perfection But because the greatest number of these are yet living whose modesty I dare not offend I shall speak something onely of some who are dead and chiefly of one person which may serve as a taste of all the rest This was the Countess of Chastres who being deeply in the affections of this world according to the custom of most young Ladies of her quality it pleased God out of his infinite love to her to bring her before her death from those vanities and conduct her by the thorny strait-way to the paths of vertue and high perfection for which great work Monsieur Renty was assigned from God He inspiring the one to request assistance and counsel and the other to afford it and this with so happy success that within less than a years space her advancement herein was so notable that he himself was astonished at it For in that short time she became so perfectly disingaged from all those petty conveniences and accomodations which our Ladies flattering themselves pretend still to have need of that one presenting her with something of that nature wherein she had formetly taken delight she returned this answer which may serve for a good lesson to us all especially if we consider that she was well known to be of a very delicate tender complexion and very sickly how apt we are to multiply necessities I thank God I have quitted this and far more other things for the love of God and yet finde no want at all It is true that nature of her self is dainty and prone to flatter her self upon the pretence of necessities which she is willing to apprehend much greater than truly they are and often maketh them such by her imagination God indued him with great grace and light to discern her proper way and to perswade her to follow it to advance her in the pathes of solid vertue and to teach her by degrees to dye to herfelf to support her in great interior afflictions and to instruct her very effectually in what was most proper for her present condition he being accomplished with all the qualities of a fit Director and she on her part perfectly resigning up herself to believe what he said and force her self to put it in execution A thing very requisite in those that resolve to make use of the conduct of others to good purpose She received his counsel with all the resignation she could imagining our
it by God and for God In another Letter to him thus I finde for some time that my prayer is no more regular I possess the Sacred Trinity with a plenitude of verity and clearness and this with such an attraction so pure and so vigorous in the superior part of my soul that my outward employment create me no diversion at all And another time he writ thus Jesus Christ worketh the experience of his Kingdom in my heart and I finde him there my Lord and Master and my self wholly his I discover now a greater enlarging of my heart but so simple that I am not able to express it save onely thus that it is a simple but most real sight of the Trinity accompanied with praising blessing and offering up all homage thereto All which is done so silently that it causeth no noise below neither can it be discerned in the higher part of my soul by parcels so as to be expressed except it be by reflexion Whether I utter my self well to you or no I know not This blessed man thus united by contemplation to God the supream verity received abondant light both for himself and others upon all subjects but especially those he had for the understanding of the holy Scriptures and especially the New Testament and therein the mysteries of our Saviour were admirable Thus in a Letter to his Director Upon one word I shall read in the New Testament I shall sometimes discover notions of those truths in so full and piercing a manner that I ever feel my body replenished therewith that is my whole nature penetrated And to one of his friends thus When I read the Sacred Scripture I fortifie my self to enter into those effects they work which is a plenitude of the truth of God wherewith the soul is solidly and experimentally satisfied And he made notes upon all the Lent-Gospels full of piety and those great illuminations with which his spirit was replenished This is a short account of the Prayer of this great servant of God so far as we could discover it for the chief part thereof is that which passed within the Sanctuary of his own Soul where his union and converse with God was so wonderful that after he had spent seven or eight hours therein he found himself in the end as if he had onely then begun it except onely that he had then yet more desire to continue it and at length arrived to that height that he never ended it at all being wholly and constantly in recollection and application to God Whereupon he professed to an intimate friend that he need neither particular place nor time for prayer since in all places times and business he continued it CHAP. 9. The state of his Mystical Death and Annilation WE are now come to the highest degree of Vertue and the ultimate disposition of soul to render her capable of a most intimate union with God wherein her perfection consists She must dye first before she can live this new life and must be annihilated to become truly something This death and annihilation stands not in the destruction of mans naturals to deprive him of understanding memory will and affections much less of his senses but in the ruine of the old man which is wholly corrupt and infected with sin in such sort that the understanding and other faculties spiritual and corporal be cleansed and animated by the Spirit of Christ Jesus to work no more according to nature corrupted nor yet nature pure but nature elevated by grace and sanctified by Jesus Christ Now as the corruption and malignity of the old man holds an entire possession of our nature and the poyson of sin is spread all over body and soul so that from the crown of the head to the soul of the foot as saith the Prophet there is no sound part in us So all these parts must be healed this corruption purged out and the malignity perfectly mortified and destroyed When I say perfectly I mean so much as this can be done here on earth for it is onely in heaven in the estate of glory where this happiness is compleatly perfected but in this world there will still remain something to be purged This holy man writing to one concerning this state of death and annihilation tells him how that singing in the Church with others the Magnificat he was illuminated upon these words Deposuit potentes de sede c. He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble which represented to him a soul full of it self compleat in the power and riches of its parts and natural endowments in its life of Exterior and Interiour sense undertaking to see and understand every thing full of it self and quite empty of God Then he addes Now our Saviour gave me to understand in this verse that he divesteth this soul of her own proper arrogant spirit rich in nothing but iniquity that he humbles and empties and annihilates her and so exalteth the lowly advancing her at length to a wonderful condition where I saw her reduced to an happy and rich annihilation emptied of herself and dispoiled of what she possessed of sense and man divested not onely of the old man but of the gifts of God that are in her to be presented before him in nakedness and simple obedience I understood that in this estate the soul being affected with great humility and affiance likewise God did in her that which he pleased and that she was throughly enlightned and that she discovered afar off the least things as we usually do a little bush in the midst of a mown field He writ this following Letter to his Director upon the same subject Since the time that I gave up my liberty to God signed with my blood as I told you I was given to understand to what a state of annihilation the soul must be brought to render it capable of union with him I saw my soul reduced into a small point contracted and shrunk up to nothing And at the same time I beheld my self as if encompassed with whatsoever the world loves and possesseth and as it were a hand removing all this far from me throwing it into the occan of Annihilation In the first place I saw removed all Exterior things Kingdoms great Offices stately Buildings rich Houshold-stuff Gold and Silver Recreations Pleasures all which are great encombrances to the souls passing on to God of which therefore his pleasure is that she be stripped that she may arrive at the point of nakedness and death which will bring her into possession of solid riches and real life Secondly all Interior things which are more delicate and precious as Acquired Sciences skill and sublime Learning operations of the Memory and strength of Vnderstanding humane Reason experience of Sense of which the soul must likewise be purged and dye to itâ— own proper actions And I perceived that we must come like little Infants simple and innocent separated
to God which kept him from any other diversion I cloath my self which is soon done and after pass to the Chappel through a little Parlour where over the Chimney I have set an Image of the Holy Virgin holding her Son as the Lady of the House I kiss the earth before her and say Monstra te esse matrem c. I devote my self to her service entirely with the offering up of my Family Wife Children Domesticks and I have practic'd this offering of them to her a long time that by her means they all may be perfected for God and rising up I say to her Mater incomparabilis or a pro nobis After that I enter into the Chappel where I cast my self down and adore God abasing me before him and making me the most little most naked most empty of my self that I can and I hold me there by faith having recourse to his Son and to his Holy Spirit that whatsoever is his pleasure may be done by me and so I abide If I have any Penance to do upon half an hour after six I do it and then I read two Chapters of the New Testament barcheaded and on my knees At seven a clock I go up to a Closet where there are three Stations the first to the Virgin the second to St. Joseph and the third to Teresa to all which I render my little Devoirs and afterwards I give place to my affairs but if there be no business urgent I prostrate my self before God till the time that I go to Mass staying at the Church till half an hour after eleven except on those days when we dine some poor people for then I return at eleven Before dinner I make the Examen of the morning and some Prayers for the Church for the Propagation of Faith and the Souls in Purgatory after that I say the Angelus I dine at twelve and in that while have something read half an hour after twelve I spend an hour with them that have business with me and that 's the time I appoint for that purpose Afterwards I go forth whither the order of God shall direct Some days ore order'd and assign'd for certain Exercises therest are reserv'd and unlimited from one week to another Now if it fall out that I have nothing to do I pray in a Church but happen what will I endeavour not to fail to visit every afternoon the Holy Sacrament and to spend about evening an hour in Devotion About seven a clock when I have made some vocal prayers we go to supper during which time one reads the Martyrologie and the life of the Saint for the day following Supper being done I talk to my children and tell them something for their instruction At nine a clock the bell rings to Prayer which all my Family is to be present at which done each one retires but I keep me in the Chappel in Meditation till ten and then I go to my Chamber recommending my self to my God according to my Bottom of Self-Annthtlation to the Holy Virgin my good Angel and other Saints I take holy water and lay me down in bed where I say the de Profundis for the dead and some other little Prayers and so endeavour to repose And so you have in some sort the order of the day as to my Exterior But for the order of my Interior I have not as I may say any for since I left it will be a yearâ— the Holy Week next my breviary all my forms have left me and now instead of serving meâ—â—s means to go to God they would become hinderance I bear in me ordinarily but with many infidelities so great in all this that I am about to speak of that I write it not without regret because I am nothing but vice and sin I bear I say in me ordinarily an experimental verity and a plenitude of the presence of the most Holy Trinity or indeed of some Mysterie which elevates me by a simple view to God and with that I do all that the Divine Providence enjoyns me regarding not any things for their greatness or littleness but onely the order of God and the glory which they may render him For the Examens and things done in Community which I mentioned before I often cannot rest my self there I perform indeed the Exterior for the keeping of order but I follow always my Interior without making any change there because when a man hath God there 's no need to search him elsewhere and when he holds us in one manner it is not for us to take hold of him in another and the soul knows well what it is which bottoms it more clearly what unites it and what multiplies and distracts it For the Interior therefore I follow this Attractive and for the Exterior I see the Divine Will which makes me to follow it and which carrieth me to govern my self according to it with the discernment of his Spirit in all simplicity and so I possess by his grace in all things a great silence Interior a profound Reverence and solid Peace I confess me usually on Thursdays according to the order that hath been given me and communicate almost every day as perceiving my self drawn thereto as also to stand in great need of it In a word the Bottom which hath been shewed me to stand on is to render my self to God through Jesus Christ with such a purity as hath in it operation to worship God in Spirit and Truth after a manner altogether stript and naked and of loving him with all my heart with all my soul and with all my power and of seeing in all things and adoring the conduct of God and following it And this onely abiding in my soul all other things in me are defaced and blotted out I have nothing of sensible in me unless now and then some transitory touches but if I may dare to say it when I sound my will I finde it sometime so quick and flaming that it would devour me if the same Lord who animates it though unworthy did not restrain it I enter into an heat and into a fire and even to my fingers ends feel that all within me speaks for its God and stretcheth it self forth in length and breadth in his Immensity that it may there dissolve and there lose it self to glorifie him I cannot express this thing as it is I do not make a stand upon any thing that passeth in me but fall always into my nothingness where I finde my act of purity towards God as above He concludes afterward in these terms I beg your pardon my Reverend Father if this thing here be so ill ordered I have set it down as it hath happened to me I should be very happy if you could know all my miseries for you would have them in great commiseration This was the writing he gave to his Director They that shall read it will judge without doubt if they understand it well and penetrate
to the bottom the sense of his words that very great were the Vertues and highly rais'd the perfection of this excellent servant of God and by so much the more ought they to judge so as they may assure themselves that he hath not a jot exceeded in the report of the things which concern him but rather that he hath diminished them being by grace and indeed by nature also extreamly reserved and most considerare in whatsoever he said and especially in speaking of himself SECT 2. The Source from whence these Vertues flowed IF now we will examine the Principal of those Vertues and Perfections and the Well-spring whence they issued we shall finde that it was from the intimate Union which he had with the Lord Jesus Christ whereunto he alwaies above all things gave up himself His sage and illuminated Director the Reverend Father de Condrien knowing that the Union with Jesus Christ is the foundation of our Predestination Justification and Sanctification of all the grace and glory which we can ever have that Jesus Christ being the way whatsoever is out of this way can be nothing else but wandring that he being the Truth whatsoever is nor conformable thereto is nothing but lying that he being the Life whatsoever lives not by this life nor is quickned by the Spirit of Jesus Christ is not alive but of necessitie dead he did therefore that which ought alwaies to be done with great care by all Directors of souls which was to make him to know the importance and the necessity of this Unon to fix him stronglie and constanâ—lie to Jesus Christ for the Government of his Interior and Exterior to put him this Way to binde him to this Truth and to Unite him to this Life Monsieur de Renty followed exactly this conduct and therein made a great progress which he went on in perfecting to his death with marvellous improvements so that as the last touches which the Painter gives to his Picture are far different from those of the first rude draughts or as the Sun hath more of heat and light as he advanceth higher in his carreer and approacheth to Mid-day than when he but newlie riseth In like manner the applications the ties and the unions which this excellent man in his latter years had with Jesus Christ and the actions which he either did for him or received of him were quite other from those at his beginning for he was then wholie consummate in Jesus Christ he had as it were passed into him and he carried him as it were in a livelie manner in his soul in his thoughts in his affections in his desires in his words and in his works Hence it was that he had no other object before his eies but Jesus Christ that he thought not but of him that he loved nothing but him that he spake not but of him that he wrought not but for him and alwaies after his sampler that he read not but the New Testament which he carried alwaies with him and endeavoured by all means possible to engrave the knowledge and love of it in all hearts Wriâ—ing to his Director the year 1646. concerning his dispositions he sent him these words among other To speak to you of my Interior I feel my self not to will but God and in union with our Lord Jesus Christ to yield him all my homages This is the fulness of my heart and I feel this well when I sound it He said this to him in another Letter I am in great necessity of Jesus Christ but I ought to tell you by an acknowledgement of the Mercy of God by a certitude of this truth that I feel that he is more ruling in me than my self I know for all that that of my self I am but sin but withal I experiment my Lord in me who is my streâ—gth my life my peace and my All I beseech him to become our plenitude Moreover in another thus I finde my self said he much troubled what to send you because all things become raz'd out of my minde as soon as passed and I cannot retain within me anything but God and this in a kinde of a hoodowink'd blinded manner with a naked faith which faith making me know the evil bottom which is in my self gives me notwithstanding great force and confidence by way of abandoning and Self-Rejection upon our Lord Jesus Christ in God I haue found this morning a possage in S. Paul which I believe our Lord hath put into my hand to express my self by seeing it is the very â—ruth of what I experiment Fiduciam â—urem talem habemus per Christum ad Deum non quod sufficientes simus cogitare aliquid a nobis quasi ex nobis sed sufficientia nostra ex Deo est This boasting we have by Christ to God-wards not as if we were sufficient to think any thing of our selves as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God It is about a fortnight since these words were put upon my spirit without any contribution on my part or of any thing that might renew the Idea's of them quaere venam aquarum viventium seck the vein of living water and just as they were exprest to me my spirit like as when one comes up a River to its Spring-head was to seek Jesus Christ from the beginning of his Pilgrimage to the point of his Glory when set down in his Throne at the right hand of his Father whence he sends his spirit to animate his Church and enliven those that are his I saw that there indeed was the Source whence the springs of living waters do flow to us and that thither we were to make our addresses I could report here more such touches with which his letters to his Director were besprinkled but I believe I have given enough for the present to evidence his disposition towards our Lord and his union with him When he wrote to other persons he always insened something of our Lord to excite them to binde themselves to him and to propose him to themselves in all things as a model of their actions One while he writes thus Let us forget all to think of this faith which makes alliance between God and us through Jesus Christ who is come to publish this truth which he hath sealed with his blood and which he will consummate in his glory at that time when we shall appear to have been faithful in following his Spirit Let us go after and with Jesus Christ to God for he is our way Another while thus 'T is a thing admirable that it hath pleased God to seud us his Son to the end that we may not look on him any more as our Creator onely but also through the alliance that we have with him we may call him Father He is therefore our Father from this time forward and it is certain that he considers us as his children in the person of his Son Incarnate But the thing of importance is a firm
his labour and vertue which had made this blessed work in him and had changed his nature for they that knew his youth report that naturally he was of a swelling hasty haughty and jeering disposition which he had so corrected or to say better annihilated that in truth it was admirable insomuch that he was become moderate staid patient humble and respectful in a degree of consummate perfection So that if we consider him well a man may say that he was of a disposition quite contrary and diametrically opposite to that which he brought from his mothers womb teaching us by an example so assured and illustrious that a man may prevail much over himself if he endeavour it sincerely and that whatever vice he hath he may at last rid himself of it if he force himself according to those words of our Lord The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force And therefore he recommended in a special manner this holy courage and the necessity of self-enforcement as being that by which we may measure what profit we have made in true vertue and a means also absolutely necessary for the gaining of perfection He wrote to a person that practised devotion thus O how much to be feared is it that we cheat our selves with the name and the appearances of devotion relying much on our exercises of piety which it may be are barely performed and in speculation onely never coming to the practise nor to the conquest over our selves In the morning we worship Jesus Christ as our Master and Director and yet our life all the day following is not directed by him we look upon him as our pattern and imitate him not we take him for our rule and guide of our affections and yet we do not sacrifice to him our appetites we make him the model of our conversation which yet is never the more holy we promise him to labour and get above our selves but it s no more than in imagination The truth is that if we know not our devotion rather by the violence and enforcement we make upon our selves and the amendment of our manners than by the multiplication and simple usage of spiritual exercises it is to be feared they will be rather practises of Condemnation than of Sanctification For after all to what purpose all this if the work follow not if we change not our selves and destroy not that which is vitious in our nature It is no otherwise but as if a builder should pile together many materials towards making of a brave Edifice and yet never begin it And yet we see the work of Jesus Christ is almost reduced to this pass amongst the spiritual persons of these times He said to another that the love which a Christian soul was obliged to bear to he vertues which Jesus Christ hath taught us ought not to end in the simple sentiments of esteem and respect toward them whereby souls of the common sort are easily perswaded that they have done their duty but therein they deceive themselves for that our Lords will is undoubtedly that they make a further entry into the solidity of his Divine practises specially in Mortification Patience Poverty and Renouncement of our selves and that is the cause why there are so few souls truly Christian and solidly spiritual yea even sometimes amongst the Religious was this that men contented themselves to make a stand at this first step I will end this Chapter and this Second Part with a Letter which he writ to his Director who had thought it fit for him to visit a person that had great need of succour and instruction for some spiritual dispositions which he performed with much success and benediction This Letter dated the 14 of May in the year 1647. will make us well see the great disengagement that he had from himself and his perfect Mortification attended with gifts inestimable and his great light whereby he clears and explicates matters of great subtilty The tenour is as followeth For the person whom you know and the visit I made him it is God and your direction that hath done all I am so much afraid to mingle therein any thing of mine that going to the place where he is yet I perceive I shall not visit him without a new order from you or that he much desire it I have not since that time so much as sent any commendations to him considering with my self that we must keep the man reserved and in great sobriety And I thought it fit to cast all this upon you as my guide in the business Ha Father the great imperfection of souls is the not waiting enough on God the natural disposition strugling and not brought into subjection comes in with fine pretexts and thinks to do wonders and in the mean while it is that which sullies the purity of the Soul that which troubles its silence and turns aside its sight from Faith from Affiance and from Love whence it hapneth that the Father of Lights expresseth not in us his Eternall Word nor produceth in us his Spirit of Love The Incarnation hath merited all not onely for the abolition of our faults but also for all the dispositions of grace whereunto Jesus Christ is minded to â—ssociate us of which this is the principal and was in him so far as he was man to do nothing our selves but to speak and act according as we receive knowing that we alone are not to do the work but that the holy Spirit which is the Spirit of Jesus and which governed him in all his ways is within us which would stamp upon us his impressions and give us the life the life real and experimental of our faith if ballasted and held back by patience we would but wait his operation This is it in which I feel my infirmity and yet whither I finde a great attractive I see that which I cannot utter for I possess that which I cannot express And the cause Father why I am so brief comes both from the imperfection of my natural disposition and from ignorance as also from a great largeness of the Divine goodness which works in me that which I cannot utter The effect of this is a fulness and a satiating of the truth and clearness of the magnificence of God of the greatness of Jesus Christ and of the riches which we have in him of the most Holy Virgin and of the Saints one sees here all praise and adoration and comtemplates them within I tell you here of many things me seems and yet all this is done with one draught so simple and so strong in the superiour part of the Spirit that I am nothing diverted from it by any exteriour employments I see all I understand all and I do though it be ill all that I have to do This is that I present you with to receive therein from you instruction and correction Thus we see the admirable benefits that come from perfect Mortification and
the delicious fruits that are produced from this mysterious grain of wheat when it is dead PART III. CHAP. 1. His application to our Lord Jesus Christ in regard of his Neighbour WE have observed in the first part of this History that the grand exercise of Monsieur Renty was to apply and unite himself to our Saviour and from that union and his example to derive all his vertues and good works This was the general course he held in them all to mould himself after him for the composition of his Exterior and Interior never taking his eye off this Divine Copy but endeavouring to draw each line exactly and pensil his true lineaments making him his native and perfect Original This was the scope of all his designs and cares and particularly of his charity to his neighbour for which he propounded our Saviour as his grand Exemplar marking what he had done and what he had suffered for men weighing those affections and tendernesses he bore towards them how he sought after and conversed with them how he instructed comforted and encouraged them sometimes reproving otherwhiles bearing with their infirmities and at all times carrying them in his most dear embraces and most intimate inclosure of his heart He pondered what he had delivered concerning this vertue of charity that it was it that he had established as the ground and perfection of his new Law having left us this one command more expresly which with special propriety he had termed his own and the execution whereof he had inforced above all other he much thought upon it how that this Master had charged us to love our neighbour according to the model measure and fashion that he had loved us And finally that he had made this vertue and no other the distinctive character betwixt such as possessed his Spirit in truth and those that had it onely in appearance Wherefore having well-weighed these actions and doctrines of our Saviour and resolved to do his utmost to render himself a good Christian and his perfect Imitator he determined as far as he could both to embrace this doctrine and follow his actions and to love his neighbour with the bent and spirit of of such a divine Master Writing to Sister Margeret a Carmelite of Beaulne he said I sigh after my Saviour Jesus desiring to imitate and follow him whither he pleaseth I beseech you by your prayers obtain for me his Spirit to be my life my whole life sigh and groan for me after my God that I may be wholly for him in his Son that I may follow him and not live but by his Spirit And to another person he writ thus I have so great a view of the love and of all the effects of the love of the most Holy Soul of our Lord that this Interior so full of clemency bounty and charity makes me conceive far otherwise than ever how that we ought to live of this Divine love even in our deportment towards men and how in effect it is in him that the whole Law is accomplished in its perfection Furthermore to the same party thus Since God hath manifested himself to us by his Son and hath admitted us through him into his grace and made us partakers of all his actions both towards God and man how can we ever quit this his dear Son He that hath Jesus Christ hath a key which opens many doors it discovers unto us large prospects it enricheth us with vast treasures and breaks open the prison of mans heart as being too strait for his Immensities And to the same thus also Ah how good is that desart when after Baptism we are conducted thither with our Lord by the Spirit of God Thence it was that our Saviour came out to converse with men to teach them and work their salvation Since therefore we together with him make up but one Jesus Christ as having the honour to be his members we should live his life take on us his Spirit and walk in his steps This was the ground that made this perfect Disciple apply himself with all his power to this admirable Charity which we are now coming to speak of at large endeavouring in all the commerce he had with men to unite himself most intimately to our Saviour rendring himself up as an instrument to be guided by his hand in the helping of others beseeching him to breath upon him this Spirit of Charity recommended so much to us in his word but more in his actions and to inflame him with this divine fire which he hath kindled in the midst of his Church to be wholly burnt and consumed with it he consulted him in all his doubts concerning it begging of him to inspire what and how and when he should speak and act for the good of his neighbour and that in him and by him these might all be done He look'd upon men not according to their natural qualities their beauty nobility riches dignities and wordly honors but according to their more noble relations and those common to all viz. as creatures divine the lively images of God created to praise and love him to all eternity as dyed and purpled in the blood of Jesus brothers and co-heirs with him his purchase and inheritance bought with the price of his life and a thousand dolours and who therefore must be infinitely dear unto him and most passionately beloved of him In this capacity it was that he beheld men loving and applying himself to their necessities and he arrived by the purity of this conduct to so far perfection that as on the one side he was extreamly useful to his neighbour and received therein wonderful blessings from God so on the other this communication with them did not distract nor bring any prejudice to himself but very much good There are that advise them who have to do with others in the matter of their salvation especially with such from whose converse any danger may arise to consider them as bodies without souls or as souls without bodies and as pure spirits The counsel is good and some make profitable use of it but Monsieur Renties view was to look upon God and Jesus Christ in every man and to consider that it was they that demanded succour of him and prepared his thoughts to talk to them and perform what was necessary for their souls and bodies believing truly that it was to God and Christ that he rendred these assistances and service And this same thought is much to be made use of that we may do good and take no hurt from others otherwise we shall hazard ourselves and do little good for when we proceed upon the inclination and motives of nature the effects have a relish of their cause proving no more but natural or vicious or at most indifferent viz. loss of time light discourses amusements engagement of affections which carry in them much of sense and degenerate afterwards into something worse whereby instead of purifying one another a
and pastimes and other vices 3. To prevent that their Servingmen haunt not Taverns and oppress not others 4. The Mistris of the house must provide that her servants be carefully treated and tended in their sickness that she visit them in her own person even being as our brethren and fellow-servants of the same God and Father of us all And at all other times make provision for their necessaries that they be not tempted to pilfer or murmure 5. Let her also endeavour not onely in her own house but also among her neighbours to bring in the custom of common prayers at night and if her husband be absent let her supply his place in calling them together and praying with them 6. Let her and her children be continnally in some imployment that their lives be not unprofitable or their family brought up in idleness remembring the Apostles rule that he that will not work shall not eat which thing prudently ordered will prevent many inconveniences 7. Let her often visit her poor neighbours to comfort and encourage them in vertuous living 8. Let her take into her eare the repairing of the Ornaments and Linnen of the Church lest the holy mysteries of our faith be undervalued where decency is neglected 9. Let her shew great recverence to the Clergy not regarding the meanness of their birth but the dignity to which Jesus Christ hath advanced them Hereby both putting them in minde of their honourable function and the people by her example of their duty 10. Let her entertain Visitants with the spirit of Hospitality great Charity and Christian Civility taking opportunity thereby to do some good not losing precious time in frivolous discourses 11. Let her keep no obscene or immodest pictures in her house much less permit her danghters or herself to appear such by going naked Avoiding likewise all curious and phantasticul fashions which are evident signs of impenitent hearts and breed nothing else but the nourishing the soul in its corruption and the averting it from God These are the Directions he left under his own hand for Ladies and Gentlewomen Moreover he studied for a long time how to reform Trades and free them from those abuses and corruptions which in process of time they had contracted and so to sanctifie them that some at least in each profession might live like the Primitive Christians in such sort as to make all their gain common deducting onely sufficient for their own necessary maintenance and bestowing the rest upon the poor And at length God so blessed his endeavours that he found some Tradesmen of the same minde and spirit so that at this present there be two companies in Paris one of Taylors the other of Shoo-makers and of these in two several quarters of the City and the like at Tolose who live and do all in Community They rise they go to bed they eat and work together morning and evening they say their prayers together and at the beginning of every hour in the day exercise some act of Devotion as singing a Psalm reciting their Chaplet reading in some book of Devotion discoursing of some head of the Catechism They call Brothers and live accordingly in very great unity and concord Monsieur Renty was the chief Agent in establishing this business and with the help and assistance of some Religious persons drew up Rules for the ordering of their Spiritual Exercises They chose him their first Superior in which Office he had a very particular care of them visiting them frequently and when he found them upon their knees at any of their Spiritual Exercises joyned with them not permitting them to rise to salute him or interrupt so good a work making himself as it were one of the Brotherhood Moreover besides these Tradesmen living in Community there were a great number of others of all Professions that came to him for advice instruction and assistance Whom he treated with wonderful respect and Charity most affectionately discoursing with them answering their quaeries resolving their doubts and instructing them what they should pursue and what avoid in their Vocations for the saying of their souls SECT 6. The Continuation of the same subject HIs zeal carried him on to endeavour the good of all sorts of persons He had a particular inclination to prevent the danger that threatned young Maids who wanted subsistence and to reclaim such as were faln And indeed it would be too great a task to recount all his actions of this nature and the number of those Maids whom he placed forth and contributed towards their maintenance some in houses erected for such purpose others in the Monastry of St. Mary Magdalen and others with devout Ladies who addicted themselves to this kinde of Charity Which is so highly commendable as that which doth not onely save such women as are in peril of shipwrack of their honour and vertue and retrive such as have already lost both But likewise doth prevent the destruction of many men and the committing of many enormous sins and disorders We mentioned before what is recorded of his Charity in instructing the poor at the great Hospital in Paris And now I shall relate how he behaved himself in that of St. Gervaise where passing by one day in the year 1641. he enquired to what Charities that place was devoted To which answer was made that they lodged poor Travellers He was much pleased with this Institution and perceiving withal that so great a number of poot that lodged there every night wanted instruction he found himself moved from God to perform that Office And shortly after came to beg of the Superiour with great humility and submission leave to Catechize them in the evening when they were assembled together To which the Superiour willingly assented without any knowledge of him who would not tell his name but concealed himself for the space of six-Moneths He undertook the imployment and performed it with great content because every night he found there new comers whom he duly Catechized and instructed coming thither commonly alone and on foot both Summer and Winter in â—ain and snow without light in the dark After Chatechism ended he caused them to kneel down with him to examine their Conscience saâ— their Prayers then sung the Commandments with them and distributed some Alms. This 〈◊〉 he continued for many years till some Eccle 〈◊〉 persons moved by his example undertook 〈…〉 and continued it to this day with great 〈◊〉 〈…〉 and renderness of heart was exceeding 〈…〉 poor people whom he had never seen 〈…〉 also with such humility as cannot not easily be expressed When he met any one at the Hospital he saluted them with great respect and put them before him talked with them bareheaded and very reverently If at any time they kneeled to him he did the like to them and continued on his knees till they rose first One of them observing him diligently and knowing him to be Lord of the place where himself lived was
soul matters joyned with extraordinary graces that many Ecclesiastical persons and many Superiors of Religious Orders and well governed Communities thought themselves very happy in communicating with him and following his advice in matters of great weight being assured by undoubted signs that he was replenished by the Spirit of God And very many both Ecclesiasticks and Seculars of each Sex and quality even such as were arrived to great perfection sent to receive his instruction and assistance in the conduct of their spiritual affairs In the year 1641. he began particularly to apply himself to this way But of all the imployments our Saviour call'd him to for his service there was none wherein he met with more pain or more contradiction of his Spirit than in this judging himself most unworthy and uncapable resolving to proceed no further in it notwithstanding his several impulses thereunto without asking counsel Which counsel after good examination of the business was this that he ought to undertake it and that it was the will of God To which he submitted with exceeding great confusion and shame in himself manifested by his countenance words and behaviour in his communication with the parties that asked his advice yielding to their requests with very great humility and reverence as all those can witness who knew him And they likewise assuring themselves that God resided spake and acted in him and by him remained in his presence with great respect and relied most confidently upon his conduct And God made it evident by his blessing and wonderful success upon his endeavours that his actings herein were perfectly agreeable to his will Teaching us hereby that he hath no need of us for the execution of his designs and that he serves himself of whom he thinks good and many times of such a one whom he findes well disposed passing by those whom their vices render uncapable And the best preparation to be imployed by God in great affairs is to abandon our selves wholly to his designs and become very little in his own esteem as this holy man was CHAP. 2. His outward behaviour and Conversation UNdoubtedly a mans outward composure and the whole oeconomy of his conversation is of great consequence in the service of our neighbours either to further or hinder our design for their salvation being that which onely lies open to the eye and makes the first and strongest impression upon their spirits and either wins or alienates them according as it is well or ill ordered Whence it came to pass that Monsieur Renty who had an ardent desire to assist his neighbour and to procure to that purpose at any rate whatever might be requisite thereto did whatever he could for the well composing of his exterior keeping his demeanor gestures motions looks words silence and other parts of his Conversation in such a harmony as he conceived most suitable to draw his neighbor to God which he managed with such advantage that we may say with truth and the allowance of all that knew him that in this point of good outward comportment he was admirable and that no man of long time hath been seen to go beyond him He was very modest always calm and inviolably equal Amongst all the things which I have observed in the deceased Monsieur de Renty saith a sufficient witness who was iutimately acquainted with him his rare modesty and great equality in his behavior and deportment gave me the first and most pregnant Idea's of his Sanctity There was something in his looks that carried so much reverence in it that one might easily judge thereby that he was always actually in the presence of God In every place condition employment whatsoever the same in his looks gesture words and actions whether alone or in company with friends or strangers rich or poor before his children or servants yea even before his Lacquey in the field or town at the table and every where We may freely avouch that compleatly Master of himself he must be that possesseth such an immutability At which it is impossible for any to arrive who applieth not himself continually to the presence of God and hath not absolutely conquered his passions and interiour motions For easie it is amongst so many encounters which daily present themselves from without to have our spirit discomposed put out of frame and be transported and disâ—over its irregularities by cholar word or gesture or some other sign And such a constant equality is more admirable when it is found in such a person as Monsieur de Renty who was not Phlegmatick by Complexion but Cholerick hot and of an active spirit but the exact and perpetual care force and watch that he had over himself held and preserved him in this Exteriour deportment so excellent and divine and so suitable to one that is to work good upon others That which pleaseth me most in him saith another very credible person in a Memorial was the great recollection and intimate union with God attended with such a marvellous peace and trancuillity of minde that it shined forth in his countenance and begat a kinde of devotion in the beholders This union methought was ever in him without any sign of distraction any levity any word not necessary no complacency in company or any humane respect ever forced him to scatter his spirit or to quit his union with God not but that he was most full of civility but so as to look more within himself than without And indeed this continual presence of God saith the same person did so take him up that no accident object or any thing rare or extraordinary could divert him I never saw him admire those things the world usually doth nor fix his eyes upon any curiosities whatsoever His gate in the streets was in a recollected modest and equal manner without gazing here and there that a man might see Jesus Christ was his way his employment his all and nothing else Being one day importuned by a friend out of curiosity to go see a great Personage esteemed for a Saint and to have the gift of miracles He replied with his wonted sweetness Our Saviour is in all Churches in the B. Sacrament and him we may visit And seeing the business of speech and silence make up a great part in a good or bad conversation let us see how this holy man so zealous of his neighbours salvation behaved himself in both He was very reserved in his speech and that both from nature and grace and indeed he could not have been so prudent a man had he been a much speaker since the Scripture makes it the proper character of prudence to speak little and that in the multitude of words there shall not want sin In the entercourse of visits and all Assemblies of Devotion where it concerned him to speak he did it in his course with a minde and demeanour intent and â—ecollected with words short but material He was never seen forward or eager to speak or
in speaking or to do it with a higher tone than ordinary whatsoever was his haste if he made any report or gave account of business he did it so briefly and in words onely necessary and pertinent that a very hard matter it would be as one said of him to finde one that spake better and yet less than he Things that were vain or unprofitable or the news of the times were never the subject of his discourse but always something good and the Kingdom of God in imitation of our Saviour and where this discourse was diverted to worldly business or trifles he either took leave of the company or stole away without saying any thing And when he talk'd even of good things it was with moderation saying that there was much need of sparingness and sobriety when we speak of God and good things and that it was one of the greatest amusements that troubled him when he was amongst spiritual persons to hear them often spend precious time in talking of vertue at large and without sâ—uit departing from such Conferences with dry empty and dissipated spirits Whereas the secret of Christian vertue consists not in speaking but in doing and that substantial word of God is onely one and this sufficiently efficacious to produce the holy Spirit and in its unity to work marvellous things His conversation moreover was in a true and high manner humble respective affable officious obliging and cordial Patient he was in suffering the ignorances rudenesses imperfections cross humors and other faults of his neighbours prudent in applying himself to their dispositions and passing by many small matters without seeming to take notice of them at all And so profitable and edifying was his demeanour that wherever he came his very looks and modesty his words his silence and all his Exterior comportment cast forth a fragrancy and sweet persume of Vertue Devotion and Piety and made a good impression upon the spirits of others His very presence charmed many into recollection the very sight of him was enough to bridle any and his acquaintance have confest that their knowing that he was in the Church hath wrought more attention in them at their prayers and some of them eight days after their having enjoyed his company have felt in themselves the effects of grace in an extraordinary attraction and devotion towards God Wheresoever he came he was flock'd unto from all parts out of that reverend esteem they had of him and the desire of those consolations they were sensible of in his presence Notwithstanding when he perceived any value set upon himself or any applause of what he did or said he was deeply humbled in spirit testifying by his carriage the discontent of his soul hanging down his head casting down his eyes with deep silence during such commendations with a grave and set demeanor expressing his inward affliction which begot respect and edification in the beholders For conclusion I shall adde one thing very remarkable and which shews how perfect and accomplished he was in his conversation namely this that his extraordinary way and fashion of converse of dealing and treating with others and of his devotion was not check'd blamed or condemned by any but approv'd priz'd and commended so that generally all had him in esteem reverence and love and said of him in proportion as was said of his Master Christ He hath done all things well Such a general approbation as this and in one that dealt in so many and difficult businesses must needs be very rare and argue a most prudent and advised spirit And as these things got approbation so his humility his honesty his respect to each one even the lowest his affability charity patience and other vertues gained him the hearts of all yet as it is a perilous thing to be so much esteemed praised and approved by all so God by a wise and divine counterpois to secure his vertue and keep him from tripping in so slippery a way did permit that from whence he should have received the most esteem approbation and satisfaction to wit from the Lady his Mother he found the quite contrary and that in a way most strange and afflictive to him as we have seen before CHAP. 3. His conduct of his business IT is without contradiction that few men in Paris or in all France were so much imployed as he in the affairs that concerned the service of God For which he was furnished with great strength of body and minde to manage so great and several businesses without difficulty with great tranquility order and content husbanding his time to the best advantage disparching one speedily after another and sometimes many together He hath been seen to do three things together without trouble or mistake And at other times when pressed with many dispatches at once to read Letters give Audience and write Answers to different persons all at the same time of which he hath quitted himself handsomely and well In one of his Letters he wrote thus It is very true that business findes me out from all parts insomuch that I am often inforced to read write and do business all at a time A little assistance would do well though I have many sharers however let not that trouble you for I dispatch as much at present as I can the rest in due time without encombring my self therewith Our Saviour doth gratiously bestow on me a peace of minde in all this so that I am not at all distracted with it His order was seriously to consider of things before any resolution and if after his own sense given to which he was not at all espoused he found anothers reason to be better he quitted his own A thing very necessary to men of business yet rare to be found since if we take not heed we all idolize our own judgement and falling in love with our private light are dsirous to be leading men affecting to see our own opinions crowned Having composed rules for a Society of Pious persons and digested them thorowly he presented them to be examined by some vertuous persons from whom he admitted with great humility some corrections cancelling them with his own hand requesting that they might be put in other terms more proper than his own After he had resolved on any thing he shewed himself prompt firm and constant for the execution not quitting it till he had brought it to the end it should be Not like those who hot at first grow presently cold and begin many things well but finish nothing Sometime when he had brought a thing into a fair way to perfection he committed it to a friend to finish not out of any inconstancy of spirit but to gain time for the undertaking and doing of more And withal that herein he might avoid the honour of it Out of his great humility passing that to another which would exercise his humility in letting another have the praise which redounds more to him that happily ends a good thing
and not taken notice of applied himself to such poor as were in a forlorn condition believing that herein there was less of nature and more of grace And never thrust himself into a business without the will of God and when it did consist with that he was not hasty or precipitant but let things go on kindly and sweetly according to the pace of his Providence and the course of his good pleasure The like we have of him in Memorials from divers places It was not his way to begin or finish any thing according to the motion of his own will but of the Spirit of God as far as he knew it If after he had undertaken any thing he felt his inward motion to cease he ceased also the pursuit He had no private design or project wherby he steer'd although he knew the things he had to do but attended on the express order from above which he received either by a light in his understanding or by an impression in his will or by some other way that gave him as great a certitude as any can have in the like occurrences wher upon a familiar friend asked him one day whether he would do such a thing at such a time He answered Know you not that to morrow is not mine And at another time he said I see five or six things which of necessity must be done but I cannot tell you which I would dispatch the first nor when nor how for through the mercy of God I am indifferent to all things He writ thus to his Director I hope to be at Paris about the end of September where I shall receive your orders to come to you when I may be lest troublesome Where I shall be ready for what my Saviour shall appoint by you I forecast nothing but onely to obey and follow his conduct by your appointment and in every thing the best I can I finde by experience that when I think to do most in any place there I do nothing at all This hath taught me to go divested of all design and when I think least thereof and abandon my self to God then he doth the more wherefore I will leave the doing to him and to you in him Going one day in the holy Week accompanied with a friend to receive a most royal and liberal sum of money given by the Queen of France in behalf of the Church of Canada and passing by a Church where they were singing the Divine Service Let us saith he dispatch the will of God it would be a great comfort to be present at the Church to hear the praises of God but let us pass on since this is more in concurrence with his holy will The same party reported of him that he had observed several persons wondring at his extraordinary recollection and such an intimate union with God in one man who had so great imployments but he was above them all affixed onely to God and to the execution of his will He gave this counsel to a certain friend who had great designs for the service of God but such as at that time were not seasonable Let us not apply the days business but to the day Your intentions are pious but you must resign the future to God and be willing for the present to love and follow what he makes appear to be his will and to keep your self still before him as a ready Sacrifice together with our Lord Jesus Christ For the conclusion of this Chapter I shall produce a Letter to his Director upon the same subject in the year 1648. full of light I will tell you said he what passed yesterday within me by which you may understand my present condition Hearing the Gospel of the Assumption of our Lady which speaketh of Martha and Mary most of the sentâ—ments I formerly had upon that subject came presently into my minde to wit that prayer and converse with God are much to be preferred before all Exterior exercises though never so holy seeing that Martha bufied about so holy and excellent a service was reprehended for her trouble and Mary commended for her recose This word Turbaris erga plurima Thou art troubled about many things hath besteaded me along time to draw me off from outward things and also from inward though good if not absolutely necessary as visiting and instructing the poor or reading or writing something of devotion and the like And I understood it expedient at that time to quit them the better to betake my self to Interaloperations and arrive at the laying down of our own will and vivacity to attend wholly to the Divine appointment following it in prudent simplicity by the Spirit of Christ which enlivens and lives in those that hearken to it with respect But you must know that for these three or four moneths which I have spent in Low-Normandy I have been as it were continually imployed in Exteriour works as conferring with all sorts of people taking care of the sick that found me out removing from place to place reconciling differences new building a great Church which was to be pluck'd down and enlarged For which I was forced to draw out several platforms and make the very models in which formerly I have had some insight by reason of the want of Architects in that place calling to minde my old notions and busying my self wholly in it Yesterday after my mornings work hearing the same Gospel read and these words in particular Turbaris erga plurima Thou art troubled about many things a certain Interiour light came upon me and it was said unto me Non turbaris erga plurima Thou art not troubled about many things giving me to understand and that in a very evident manner that the things we are employed upon according to the Divine order whatsoever they be do not create us any such trouble and I discovered clearly at least as I thought that Martha was not reproved for doing a good work but for doing it too solicitously Our Saviour intimating to her by these words Turbaris erga plurima that her business was done in trouble and inordinate agitation of spirit though the end was very laudable That the priucipal business consists in hearing the Eternal Word even as his own humanity whether in working or preaching or any other imployment received its motions from the Divinity A me ipso facio nihil sicut audio hoec loquor I do nothing of my self as I hear that I speak said he In like manner ought we to take our directions from Jesus Christ who is the Word of Eternal Life and act nothing with disturbance but all in peace by his Spirit I received hereby a great support in the performance of these petty Exterior offices to which my duty obliged me and made no difficulty at all to yield up my self to this holily-disordered Divine Order In which I perceived that it was Gods will I should perform these petty things which could not be done without me
For these three moneths I have not it may be spent three or four hours at my prayers upon my knees together out of the Church and should I perform them at all no otherwise than on this fashion I should but very ill discharge my â—uâ—y It is certain that I have discharged it ill enough yet I understand that God is pleased in the midst of these imployments to which he hath appointed me to make me sensible of his presence and power in uniting my soul to himself by certain intimate ways and that the outward work may be performed by the hand whilst the soul solaceth herself in that real alliance of Sons with their Father by the Spirit of the Son who admitteth us into his communion together with that of the blessed Virgin the Angels and Saints yea and of the whole Heaven if you will Such a wonderful expansion of soul can our Lord give when and how he pleaseth I enjoyed at the same time such a sensible impression of God yet excelling all sense as being acted in the more noble part of the Soul viz. the Spirit that if I had been thrown like a boul I could never have lost the sight of my God All things are here transitory for our Lord turns this boul in a strange manner when it pleaseth him And these dâ—verse turnings are done for the souls advantage whereby she is fashioned for every occasion that she may do nothing for or by herself but all for God and according to him Moreover I evidently see that a person whom God employeth in these low affairs if he follow them with the same fidelity as if they were greater keeping his station by obedâ—ence and self-denial is as acceptable to him as he that is occupied in the noblest functions The work it self making not the difference but the faithful execution of it by submitting to his good pleasure Will nothing please you but to convert a thousand worlds and bring all souls to God you shall be content to carry stones and sometime to sit still and do nothing The Sâ—crifice of Patience is both well pleasing to God and comfortable to our selves And I believe it is without comparison more rare to finde a soul faithful in patience and content to do no more than God would have him than faithful in actions which appear abroad I know well that God doth all in all but this Sacrifice of Patience and of Câ—ssation is more commendable in a heart who hath the love and zeal of his honour and in pursuit hereof is hurried on to action and hath need of greater force to withhold it from doing than to incite it This kinde of Cessation seems to be nothing at all available for the nourishment of such zeal and this hunger and thirst after righteousness which would devour the four quarters of the world is reverberated like the fire pent in which circles and works about until it finde a vent by this consideration that God is all-sufficient in himself and hath no need of us for advancing of his glory that we receive more honour from our imployments than he service being so impure that we blemish every thing we meddle with and rob it of some lustre and prove often not onely unprofitable but endamaging servants I have one word more to tell you that you may direct me in it which is that I am really ashamed and confounded in my self that I do no more for God considering his dignity hâ—s love his gifts and communications by the alliance of Jesus Christ and his Spirit Which indeed together with the sense of my great imbecility for any thing that is good of my sins and miseries would work my extream torment did I not bethink my self of his all-sufficiency in himself and that he doth with us as he pleaseth in keeping us in obedience and profound annihilation Thus far his Letter wherein are many good things to be learnt CHAP. 4. The excellent use he made of all things and his application to the Infancy of our Lord for that purpose IT must needs be that Monsieur Renty made excellen use of all accidents that occurr'd to him and generally of all creatures to attain to such a height of perfection whereof this usage of them as muâ—h as is in man is undonbredly the prinâ—ipal means to which all others are subordinate otherwise and without it unpâ—ofitable and meer hinderâ—nâ—es True it is that God hath placed in the bosom of each thing as in riches poverty honours disgrace health sickness good and evil a secret vertue and moral capâ—city to advantage us in our salvation and to be instruments of perfection even as so many cords to draw and unite us to himself but all this according to our usâ—ge of them For bâ—ing well used they produce good effects but contrarily abused instead of uniting us to God they estrange us further from him rendring us more imperfect and vicious and instead of advantages prove the instruments of our ruine Wherefore he being well instructed in this grand secret of Spiritual life imployed all his care to practise it perfectly Which that we may better understand it will not be amiss to follow it to the Spring-head The holy man had continually in his heart making it the principal conduct of his devotions as we have mentioned and may be easily deduced from the series of this History to unite himself to our Lord Jesus Christ and that upon good grounds Since out of him as saith S. Peter there is no salvation God having chosen him the sole Mediator of Redemption and the repairer of our miseties loving no creature in the world but him with a love of perfect amity Whereupon by S. Paul he is stiled the Son of his love and good pleasure and we alone are accepted in and thâ—ough him who are found beautiful and shining with glory when we are united to him and out of him we appear deformed hideous and most abominable being indeed without him filled with sin and his enemies Wherefore every man is so far dear and amiable to him as he stands united to his Son which is manifested in the Blessed Viâ—gin and his Apostles all our actions pleasing him so far as they are united to him even as each member of our body participates of life according as it is animated by our soul Having therefore perfectly learn'd this fundamental truth of Christianity his study was to unite himself to our Lord Jesus Christ and to copy him forth as his Rule and Law for the regulating of his Exterior and Interior adoring him daily under this notion applying himself with great reslection to his words actions designs and the several mysteries receiving from each of them great enlightnings Thus he writ to me one day upon the mysterie of his Incarnation I have had the grace divers times very intimately to understand that ineffable mysterie hidden with God from all ages and manifested now to the Saints according to S. Paul which is the
his Faith mounting far above these sensible signs Whereupon he is honoured with the name of a true believer and so propounded to us for a pattern Monsieur Renty being animated by this spirit of Faith made no reliance upon any thing that came to him by an extraordinary way resting neither upon Visions Revelations inward Motions or Miracles but soully upon a pure and naked Faith to carry him to God These following lines he writ to his Director touching a business of great importance I send you a Paper which I received three moneths since from a person of great vertue whom you know which she had kept for me not daring to trust it ith any others That which confirmeth me in the opinion I had of her solid vertue is that she never told me any thing to which I did not finde my self predisposed Interiourly This is as a seal to confirm my former resolutions concerning this without building any certainty upon the thing it self for we should be emptied of all reliance upon any thing and of all reflections following in simplicity of Faith without dispute that which our Saviour doth to the soul for the time present be it concerning this or that Going to Beaulne where Sister Margaret of the B. Sacrament resided famous for many miracles which God had wrought in her and a person very worthy to be visited he said That he would neither desire to see her nor speak with her onely if our Saviour should make known unto him that such was his will he would endeavour it otherwise he would not seek any occasion for it Another time being at Dijon when the blessed Sacrament was exposed some friends inviting him to draw near to the Altar he replyed That he had no need of sight for to believe and that his Faith went further than what his eyes could shew him Hereby we may understand the great Faith of this man of God and undoubtedly it was with her eyes that he beheld every thing and by her hands that he accomplished all his actions and ascended to such a perfection of all Vertues from whose example we may learn the directest way to attain thereto which is stedfastly to believe the verities of Christian Religion and be perfectly perswaded thereof As on the contrary the very source of all our sins and vices and generally of all the mischiefs in Christianity is the weakness of Faith whereby we are neither thorowly convinced of those sacred Mysteries nor guided in our affairs by the Rule of Faith It was our Saviours advice Noli timere tantummodo crede Fear not onely believe If thou believest firmly thou shalt be delivered from all evils and be accomplished in all vertue CHAP. 3. His Hope A Strong Faith by a moral necessity produceth a firm Hope and Charity A true belief in God what he is in himself and what he is to us will work in us a strong affiance in him and ardent charity towards him As appeared in Monsieur Renty who being well grounded upon a firm Faith in God had likewise an undaunted confidence in him and an inflamed affection to him This confidence was built upon the knowledge and experience of the Power Goodness Mercy and Bounty of God and of the infinite Merits of our Saviour And being grounded upon these two Pillars he hoped all things and believed that he could accomplish every thing He used to say that when he look'd at himself there was nothing so little wherein he apprehended not difficulty but when he look'd upon God he could think nothing impossible to himself And this distrust of himself was not a disheartned and Lazy Humility but couragious and magnanimous as is requisite in those who undertake things necessary though not conscious of any ability of their own for the performance He writ to a person concerning these two grand points which indeed ought to hold the ballance of all our actions even before God The diffidence you have in your self makes me very intent upon the good of such a condition and upon the sure foundation thereof which the Church desires we should ever conserve placing at the beginning of every hour of the Divine Office this Virsicle Deus in Adjutorium meum intende Domine ad adjuvandum me festina O Lord attend unto my help O Lord make haste to assist me Whereby we learn that the soul is in continual danger of a Precipice if not sustained by that infinite mercy which he is daily to invoke for her preservation from ruine And really we should continually fall if we were not continually supported therefore the Church hath divided her Office for the seaven parts of the day in that the number of seven comprehends all time the world being created under this number to teach us that we should at all times retain this Diffidence of our selves and Confidence in Gods assistance This Hope of his was so great that in all affairs he relyed not upon his own prudence conduct care credit providence or any humane contrivancies but on God alone saying That after we have done our duty with great Diffidence in our selves we ought to attend wholly on him and wait his time without pressing the business or entrenching upon his Prerogative And thus he writ to a friend As for my children I leave them in the hands of the Holy Infant Jesus without determining any thing concerning them not knowing what will befal to morrow He giveth me great confidence in his protection which renders me altogether blinde without wishing any thing but being ready for his will in every thing Guarded with this perfect confidence he feared nothing but remained firm and resolute against all accidents and encounters He walked securely in all places at all times in the streets in the fields by day and night travelling thorow Woods and Forrests that were bruted to be dangerous and frequented by Robbers without fear without other defensive weapons than what his confidence in God did arm him with carrying about him so much goodness he was above all those frights which nature is subject to not moved with sudden alarms or accidents so that we may call him The Christian without fear And to say the truth there is nothing deserves 〈◊〉 fear but sin since nothing else can hurt us all other things prove in fine advantagious if we make good use of them One day a scaffold on which he stood with the workmen erected about his building fell down and hurt some of them with which he was not amazed or moved at all for his own particular His spirit remained unmoveable and in the same constancy being firmly settled upon him that is not subject to a change or alteration A friend told him one day that he was fearful to walk in the evening without a sword in the streets of Paris and that he desired to be quit of that timerousness yet could not satisfie himself to be found unarmed in case of an assault intreating his advice in the business Who
told him that of a long time he had left off the use of a sword and that after he had commended the business to God by prayer he should follow his inspiration assuring himself that his protection over us is much according to our relying upon him These words were found in one of his Letters to his Director My soul being armed with Confidence Faith and Love fears neither the Devil nor Hell nor all the stratagems of man neither think I at all on Heaven or Earth but onely how to fulfil the will of God in every thing He hath been noted to do very notable things through the strength of this Vertue even at such times when he hath been afflicted with great aridities in his Interiour In our aridities and privation of the sense and feeling of grace saith he in a Letter to a friend is manifested an heroick abnegation of our selves to the will of God when under Hope believing against Hope we shew our selves to be true sons of Abraham Isaac shall not dye though the knife be at his throat and in case the true Isaac should in fine be crucified it is but to make us conformable to the Cross and cut of our ashes to raise us to a true and better life Thus likewise he writ to his Director I have a very clear insight into the great want I have of my Saviour him I behold in his riches and my self in my deep poverty him I look upon invironed iâ— power and my self in weakness whereby my spirit being filled with content by the impression of these words Quid est homo quod memor es ejus What is man that thou art mindeful of him doth rest upon a total abandoning of its self into his bounty These words Longanimiter ferens bearing patiently have dwelt longe upon my spirit though I did not at first remember whence they were taken or what they meant onely this that I must wait with patience for the commands and approach of my Saviour without putting my self forward by my own inquest or endeavours but rest with faith and reverence begging his grace and hope in him But a few days ago taking up the New Testament in opening the Book I did light upon the sixth Chapter to the Hebrews where the Apostle speaks of Faith and Patience whereby we obtain the promises qui fide patientia haereditabit promissiones who by faith and patience shall inheret the promises and to prove this brings in the example of Abraham sic longanimiter ferens adeptus est repromissionem and so waiting patiently obtained the promise This passage touched me to the very heart and relieved my languishing together with another passage of S. James which presented it self to my eye at the same time Patientes igitur estore fratres usque ad adventum Domini ecce agricola expectat preciosum fructum terrae patienter ferens Be patient therefore my brethren till the coming of our Lord behold the husbandman waiteth patiently till he receive the fruit of the earth Hereby I was settled in peace upon the solid foundation of Hope and Abnegation As this incomparable Vertue enricheth the soul that is perfectly stated in it with a profound repose a solid joy a wonderful courage and sets it aloft above all Terrestrial things with a generous contempt of whatsoever the world esteems and desires giving it a taste of the pleasures that are Eternal as it is not difficult for him that hath assured hopes of a glorious Kingdom to set at nought a Pad of straw so did it communicate to this holy man all these excellent treasures and imprinted in his soul all these noble reflections Whereby he was incited with all his strength to encourage others in the pursuit of this Vertue knowing by his own experience the inestimable benefits thereof understanding it to be our Lenitive in all disasters our staff and stay in all weaknesses and our secure haven in all tempests instructing them continually how that God to the end that he might drive us into this Port and cause us to rest in it doth frequently permit us to be assaulted with temptations and tryals the deeplier to engage us to have recourse to him begging his aid and succour and relying upon him with confidence The like instruction he gave to a certain person upon occasion of the Apostles amazement when they beheld our Saviour walking upon the waters and took him for a Chost Think you this was without a special providence that our Saviour suffered his Disciples to go alone into that ship and permitted a contrary winde to arise Who knows not that in the same manner he fashions the souls of the faithful by his absences and by their tryals that he may afterwards manifest his power upon the seas and tempests quickning thereby our Faith and shewing himself to be the Messias and true Deliverer of the world But observe we how many Christians in their sufferings are affrighted with the Apostles seeing our Saviour marching on the waters Every thing makes them afraid the winds the waves yea even Christ himself that is the anxiteies of their spirit their own disputings and also those good coursels that others give them for their establishment upon Christ Jesus before God All this appears but as a Ghost to amaze them unless Christ himself graciously appear yet more unto them to comfort and strengthen them Shall we always want confidence thus to think Christ a Phantasm Shall we not address our selves to him in all our necessities as to our Lord and Deliverer The Jews brought all their sick folks to him and he cured them What is he become a greater Physician of the body than of the soul No no our little Faith our little Love our little Confidence is the cause of our languishings and unfruitful anxieties of spirit Let us go strait to him and all will be cured CHAP. 4. His Love of God SEeing the Love of God is without contradiction the most excellent and perfect of all vertues and that which principally and above all the rest makes a man a Saint we cannot doubt that this holy man was possessed thereof in a very eminent degree and that he loved God with all his heart This Love he founded upon his infinite perfections and favours which may be perceived by what he writ to his Director in the year 1648. concerning this Queen of all Vertues Our Glorious Lord hath from time to time with his resplendent beams shone upon my soul quickning her therewith which have appeared in such several manners and have wrought such great things in a short time as would take up far more to write them which really I am afraid to undertake or begin They all concenter in this one point the love of God through Jesus Christ his communication of himself to us by the Incarnation of his Eternal Word and ours to him through the same Word becoming our brother conversing with us and erecting as it were a mutual society
that we may be all one in him and experimentally feel what the love of God is toward us In all that I read in the Scripture I neither understand nor find any thing else but this Love and perceive clearly that the very design and end of Christianity is nothing but it Finis autem praecepti est charitas de corde puro The end of the Law is love out of a sincere heart And this is acquired by Faith in Christ Jesus as the Apostle saith in the following words Fide non ficta by faith unfeigned Which uniteth and bindeth us to him whereby we sacrifice unto the Divinity our souls and our bodies through his Spirit which conducteth us to the compleat end of the Law to deliver us up to God and bring down him to us in charity and a gracious inexplicable union to whom be praise for ever Amen My heart was this morâ—ing enlightned with a great Charity upon these words That we are set in this world to know and love and serve God Which gave me to understand that the true effect of the knowledge of God is to annihilate our selves before him for this knowledge coming to discover unto us that infinite Majestie the soul abaseth and emptieth it self through the deep sense of fear and reverence according to the measure of this discovery And this is the first step of the soul in this estate Next he love of God manifested to us in the giving us his Son begins to affect us with love And as the former view of his greatness contracted us in fear so this his love in Christ Jesus enlargeth and elevateth us to love God in him and to conceive some good desires according as his spirit breathes in us And this is the second step The third is to serve him that is by putting this love into practice by good works For these desires are but blossoms and these good works the fruit I could say much on this subject if I could express my own feeling of it For here we finde all in all that is God revealed by Jesus Christ loved and served by his Spirit This Divine Lord sets up a blessed Society and a Kingdom in our souls wherein he rules and reigns there by love unspeakable and eternal Writing to another person he expresseth himself thus I give thanks to our Lord for that he hath disposed you to a perfect Abnegation of your self This is done to lead you into the pure estate of love which without that cannot be pure in that our love to God consisteth not in receiving gifts and graces from him but in renouncing all things for him in an Oblivion of our selvee in suffering constantly and couragiously for him Thus did he express the nature of Love not to consist in taking but giving and the more and greater matters we give the more we manifest our Love This Love carries up the Lover according to the measure of its flame continually to think upon his Beloved to will what may please him to study his interest to procure his glory to do every thing that may work his contentment and to be extreamly apprehensive of any thing that may offend him Accordingly he being all on fire with the love of God was perfectly sinsible of these effects All his thoughts words and works were the productions of this love for notwithstanding he practised other vertues yet they drew their original from this Furnace of Charity which in him was the beginning and motive and end of all which he testified to his Confidents frequently and in words so enkindled with it as were sufficient to warm the most frozen hearts I have observed saith one of his Confidents this Divine fire so ardent in his blessed soul that the flames thereof have burst forth into his Exteriour and he hath told me that when ever he proncunced the name of God he tasted such a sweetness upon his lips as could not be expressed and that he was even pierced thorow with a hâ—avenly suavity To another he write about 9. or 10. years agoe that he could nor conceal from him how he felt a fire in his heart which burnt and consumed without ceasing Another of them assures that he hath often seen him enflamed with this Love of God that he appeared even like one besides himself and how he told him when these transportings were upon him that he was ready to cast himself into thefire to testifie his Love to God and in one of his Letters to a friend he concludes thus I must now hold my peace yet when I cease to speak the fire within that consumes me will not let me rest Let us burn then and burn wholly and in every part for God since we have no being but by him why then do we not live to him I speak it aloud and it would be my crown of glory to seal it with my blood and this I utter to you with great freedom In a Letter to another thus I know not what your intent was to put into your Letter these words Deus meus omnia my God and my all Onely you invite thereby to return the same to you and to all creatures My God and my all my God and my all my God and my all If perhaps you take this for your motto and use it to express how full your heart is of it think you it possible I should be silent upon such an invitation and not express my sense thereof Likewise be it known to you therefore that he is my God and my all And if you doubt of it I shall speak it a hundred times over I shall adde no more for any thing else is superfluous to him that is truly penetrated with my God and my all I leave you therefore in this happy state of Jubilation and conjure you to beg for me of God the solid sense of these words Being transported with this Love of God it wrought in him an incredible zeal of his honour which he procured and advanced a thousand ways Which may be understood partly by what we have already writ and several other which are unknown because either they were wholly spiritual or concealed by him even from his most intimate friends The 12 of March in the year 1645. he writ thus to his Director upon this subject One day being transported with an earnest desire to be all to God and all consumed for him I offered up to him all I could yea and all that I could not I would willingly have made a Deed of Gift to him of Heaven and Earth if they had been mine And in another way I would willingly have been the underling of all mankinde and in the basest estate possible yea and if supported by his grace I could have been content to have suffered eternal pains with the damned if any glory might have accrew'd to him thereby In this disposition of a calm zeal there is no sort of Martyrdome no degree of greatness or littleness of
herself may arrive Seeing a Gentleman of his birth and age in a Secular life and the throng of so great employments attained hereto onely if we use the like diligence and be faithful to the Spirit of God the onely means to attain to this perfection CHAP. 6. His great Reverence to Holy Things MOnsieur Renty did not onely carry a great Reverence to God but likewise to all things belonging to his Service and to all Holy things which sprang from that sense of Vertue and Religion imprinted in his soul producing the like fruits Exteriourly In the first place he had a singular respect to all Holy places and it will be very hard to recoâ—n with what Respect and Devotion he behâ—ved himself in Churches At his entrance his demeanour was exceeding modest and religiously grave He never sare down there nor put on his hat not so muâ—h as in Sermon time he would abide there as long as possibly he could and hath been observed upon great Festivals to remain there upon his knees for seven or eight hours He was very silent in the Church and if any person of any condition spoke to him his answer was short and in case the business required longer time he would carry him forth or some other way free himself thereof Secondly he used great veneration to all Ecclesiastical persons even to the meanest but the Reverence he gave to Priests was wonderful He would never take the upper hand of them without extream violence as appears by that passage in the former Chapter Whensoever he met them he saluted them with profound humility and in his travel would light off his horse to do it and render them all honour possible When they came to visit him he entertained them cordially with exceeding great respect at their departure waiting on them to the gate and if any dined at his table gave them the upper place which civility he observed to his own Chaplain When any Mission was in any of his Lordships he entertained the Missioners apart where they were served in plate when other Gentlemen and persons of quality that visited him were onely in pewter waving herein all humane respects A Nobleman and his Lady came one day to him upon a visit accompanied with a Priest that was Tutor to their children After he had received them observing the Priest at the lower end of his Hall with some of their Retinue quitting civilly the Nobleman and his Lady he went down to the Priest shewing great respect to him as to the most honoatable person of the company In fine his opinion of the Priesthood was so venerable looking upon it as the most potent means for procuring the glory of God that he said to a friend That he had a design to enter into that Order if God should ever bring him into a condition capable of it And as he had this singular Reverence toward them so likewise had he an earnest desire that they and generally all Ecclesiastical persons should understand the excellency of the condition to whiâ—h God had call'd them leading a life agreeable to their Dignity He writ to his Director in the year 1645. upon occasion of several Ecclesiasticks of his acquaintance who correspond not to their Profession and Obligation that his heart melted into sorrow for them and that he prostrated himself before his Saviour and begged with tears for some Apostolike Spirits to be sent amongst us our poor Fishermen Give us O Lord our poor Fishermen I often repeated I meant the Apostles But this word ran much in my minde not being able to use any other and my spirit wronght much upon these words Pescheurs Pecheurs Fishermen and Sinners I look upon these men simple indeed in their Exteriour but great Princes in their Interiour whose life and outward appearance vile in the eyes of men and estranged from the pomp of the world converted souls by their Sanctity by their Prayers by their Vâ—gilance and restless Labours And herein I discover a great mistake ordinary in the world which believes that outward greatness and pomp is the way to keep up ones credit and render him more capable to do good to his neigbours But we are foully mistaken for it is grace that hath power upon souls and an holy and humble life that gaineth hearts With the same spirit he bewailed much the hasty and irreverent reciting of their Office in many places Being this day present at Divine Service saith he in a Letter to me many words therein put me in minde of the holiness thereof and yet I could not without much grief take notice of some chanting it hastily without devotion or spirit and others hearing it accordingly Good God what pitty is this where is our faith My eyes were ready to run over with tears but I forced my self to refrain them In the third place he had a great respect and love to Religious Persons and all such as dedicated themselves to the Service of God encouraging and assisting them with all his might This Letter he writ to one that was assaulted with great combats I must needs let you know the tender resentment I have of those tempests and present storms that you endure I know no reason why men should alarum you thus nor that you have done any thing against the Gospel which is the onely thing they should condemn you for I believe it will be very hard for them to gather a just cause of reproach from your design For my own part I do not wonder at these crosses its sufficient to know that you belong to Jesus Christ and do desire to follow him reckoning contradiction to be your portion in these days of your flesh Be you onely firm in your confidence upon our Lord suffering no storms from without to trouble you or obscure that light that hath guided and pressed you to this business I pray God deliver you from the reasonings of flesh and blood which often multiply upon us in such matters assuring you that if you give not car to them God will manifest himself unto you that is he will comfort and fortifie you in faith and in experience of the gifts of his Holy Spirit To another he writ thus Blessed for ever be the Blessed Infant Jesus for the happy entrance of those two devout souls into Religion which you mention I shall rejoyce exceedingly in their perseverance the best argument of their effectual calling If the other party you know of had a little more confidence and courage to break her fetters it would be a great step for her And surâ—ly there is not need of so much prudence and deliberation to give up our selves to him who to the Gentiles is foolishness and to the Jews a stumbling block This world is a strange cheat and amusement insinuating into and infecting every thing God hath no need of our good parts nor of our rare qualities who commonly confounds the wisdom of the wise by little things which he chuseth
so powerfully supported in it and it made so easie to her by that Divine assistance and fall upon another that is likely to prove difficult for want of the same assistance Whence we may conclude that we ought not to change our exercise of Piety so long as God supplies us with sufficient grace to attend it The second is that we should reiterate many actof the same vertue as of Faith Hope Love or which is better continue and hold on the same act thus to acquire a rooting and establishment of these vertues which is not gotten but by vigoâ—ous and effectual reiteration of their acts as a nail is not driven up to the head with one blow but must be strucken hard and often And so it is with vertues whose force and sound profit consists in their having a well-rooted and grounded possession of the soul whereas they are worth little or nothing till they are habituated therein even as the tree brings forth neither leaves nor fruits until it hath taken deep rooting The same thing is to be done for any moral conclusions which are drawn from these acts that is to double and redouble them till they be fixed and made effectual as for example after some repeated acts of Faith that God is your first Principle and that of your self you are nothing and that all your hope is in him and our Saviour say with your self once twice and twenty times over with affection and a quiet but vigorous application if I believe this great truth of God and my self why do I attribute any thing to my self why do I not humble and abase my self under him why do I not love him upon whom all my good depends why do I not look upon my self and all creatures in the world as nothing If I hope in God and my Saviour why then do I fear any thing else is not here ground enough to live with confidence and joy what is he that can molest or trouble me Live then O my soul in tranquillity and repose as this same hope doth oblige thee These acts thus redoubled and repeated with constancy and vigour will without doubt produce great effects in the soul which is the fruit that this Prayer of Affection should bring forth Herein did Monsieur Renty exercise himself for many years reaping thereby an inestimable treasure of spiritual riches This Prayer saith he in one of his Papers is not by discourse and reasoning but by a loyal love tending always to give more than to receive The obscurity of Faith is of greater evidence to the soul than all the illuminations she can procureâ— which faith she ought to use with Reverence and Thanksgiving not with Complacency or Affectation Here needs no stretch of the Spirit this Prayer never offends the brain this is a state of modest deportment in which the soul keeps herself in the presence of God expecting what his spirit shall please to infuse into us which we receive in simplicity and in considence as if himself spake to us The ordinary dispositions with which he entred into this Prayer were first A profound Reverence and an abasing of himself in Gods presence whose infinite Majeste held him in a deep sense of his own meanness saying that we ought to consider our selves before it as little and less than the smallest Atomes Secondly A strong and absolute Confidence in his Infinite Goodness and Mercy which bearing up his Humility and the sense he had of his own vileness made him still hope all things He exhorted all of his acquaintance that were capable of it to use this kinde of Prayer as the most excellent profitable and easie of all others since it puts not a man to the labor to consider nor penetrate into or discourse of any subject but is easie for all sorts but chiefly for the unlearned who herein have need of no more but a simple belief applying themselves thereto with Affection He counselled men to give themselves more to the operations of the will than the speculations of the understanding and that place of S Paul to Titus where he exhorts us to live in sobriety he expounded of the sobriety of the senses and chiefly of that of the Spirit to cut off in our prayers multiplicity of notions and discourse and to proceed therein by Faith In effect the mysterie of faith is incomparably transcendent above all the Science and Discourse of the most quaint and sublime wits for as every thing is but visible by his own light a Torch by his and the Sun by the Sun things of glory by the light of glory so those of grace by the light of grace whereof the most perfect without doubt is that of Faith Reason is bestowed upon us for the discovery of natuâ—al things and Faith for Supernatural and Divine With men we discourse by Reason and with God by Faith and since God is at an infinite distance above man and Grace above Nature we may well conclude that Humane discourse of the finest thâ—ed is too heavy for that high pitch which can soar no further than natural Reason can conduct it Moreover whatsoever notions we have in this world of God and things spiritual they are in some degree deceitful and false not representing things as they are really since our spirit conceives nothing here below but what hath passed thorow the senses where spiritual things are refracted and receive much earth and come to us distorted and disguised But it is Faith alone that represents them in their real entities There are but two indubitable lights on which we may relie and which surpass all others in excellency which sanctifie and deifie our understanding elevating it to its first principle and oâ—iginal of all verity which is the Divine Intellect that is to say the light of Faith here and the light of glory hereafter These two being participations of that knowledge which God himself hath which demonstrates the dignity and perfection of Affective Prayer which quitting Discourse proceeds by Faith Neither did he make long stay upon the former way of Prayer but passed on further ascending to that of Union and Contemplation which was bestowed upon him in a very high degree Holy men speaking of this Contemplation the sublimest degree of Prayer here upon earth make thereof two sorts Acquisite and Infused The latter is that which God alone produceth in the soul to which she contributes nothing but a simple consent to receive his operation which is also called Contemplation Passive The former is that which man assisted by Gods grace may acquire by his own labour and exercise by his own industry and is therefore called Active The Infused hath so absolute a dependence upon God that it s given when and to whom he pleaseth who also takes it away which we cannot hinder no more than all the men in the world with all their strength put together can stay the Sun from rising and setting But all are in some measure capable of
that he neither desired noâ— feared any thing in this world And in fine enjoyed such a sweet tranquillity of spirit and repose which nothing could disturb or alter that from thence arose a wonderful and invariable equality shining forth in his Exterior at all times in all places upon all occasions One of his intimate friends desirous to try one day whether he had an affection to any thing questioned with him about every thing he could think of to put him to the rest and among other things asked him whether he desired not that these works which he had undertaken for the glory of God might succeed and take effect To whom â—he replied that he had no other aim in all his actions and enterprizes than the accomplishing of the will of God and that although he used his utmost endeavour that such things might succeed yet notwithstanding he was perfectly resigned in all things to his Majesties good pleasure adding many other expressions testifying his Mortification to all desires and a perfect transformation of his will into that of Gods This discourse was not quite finished but there hapned an occasion to put it to the tryal for one came running in crying that all the Heaven was on fire which news usually very frightful made no alteration in him at all who most calmly and composedly looking up to the heavens said the fire is here in Paris without any further distance though he understood presently that it was so violent that the street he lived in was in danger to be burnt down and his neighbours said it was necessary to quite forsake their quatters by reason that the fire was not far off and was likely in a very short space to reach them In this publique fright he keeping his ordinary equality and referring all to the will of God went into his Chappel where he continued long time in prayer offering up himself in sacrifice to God and resigning up his own will unto him some persons looking upon him with great admiration in this posture whilst so many hundreds were at their wits end and preparing for a speedy flight He professed to another secret and familiar friend that he felt himself through the mercy of God in such an absolute state of death to every thing that neither Angels nor men the loss of all he had the subversion of his family nor any other accident could remove him from his settled tranquillity And this he said not hyperbolically or by way of ostentation but out of a solid experimental establishment in that fortitude common with him to all great Saints Such was the mystical death and annihilation of this man of God by which his soul was enriched with a vast treasure of spiritual wealth causing him to lead a most perfect life and uniting him most intimately to God to which this death is absolutely necessary because no being can arrive to that which it was not formerly without ceasing first to be what it was as wood cannot pass into the nature of fire as long as it keeps its former nature this must be quitted and the matter be divested of all the form of wood both in substance and accidents and reduced into a state of privation to be made capable of the fires unitement to it And this is a general rule in nature admitting no exception that each subject must be predisposed to receive a new form and so much more as this form is more noble and this disposition consists in the privation of the subject and loss of other forms to gain a new one So also to make a spiritual man he must no more live according to nature but that he may be capable to be united to God must necessarily dye and be annihilated to himself And if fire require this total privation in the matter to communicate it self thereto with greater reason doth God who is altogether a spirit infinitely pure the first and soveraign entity require of a man this universal nakedness and privation this death and annihilation to himself and all created beings before he give and unite himself with him for in giving himself he giveth also the fruition of himself of his beauty goodness wisdom and his other perfections and by this union renders the receiver happy Hence also may be gathered what admirable purity is requisite in a soul for this union with God in Heaven in the state of glory that for this we must either conserve our Baptismal Innocence or if that hath been lost or fullied we must be purged here or in Purgatory by severe penances notwithstanding our other good works and the high degrees of sanctity to which we have attained And the same in proportion may be averred of the soul here in this estate of grace where it must be very pure to prepare it well for its union with God here in this life And seeing her pollution ariseth from her love to the creature and to herself and from the life of the first Adam according to the lusts and appetites of our own spirit it must dye to all these creatures and likewise to its self just as the body to be made perfect and to partake the true life of immortality and bliss must necessarily dye first so likewise must our souls if we will have them arrive to perfection consisting in this union with God to lead a holy and Divine life which alone can truly be called life To this purpose he writ thus to his Director I see clearly that the onely way to a Divine Union is to be perfectly divested of every thing that is not God and dead to our selves and every creature O that I well understood the importance of this nakedness and death and what is it that hinders the bonds of this Celestial love and union with his Divine Majestie and that Soveraign Beauty but a certain shew of and light adherence to some creature and shall we suffer that a thing so small and so unworthy should possess in the room of God and that Holy Spirit which is an all-consuming fire of love invirancing us on all sides should not have the power to work upon us the same effect which this elementary fire worketh upon wood Why should not I vicious and discontented creature in the midst of these my wretched plenitudes acquire happiness in the possession of God which I may do by his grace in separating my self gently from the creature by a single and affectionate application to the Creator To another person he writ thus When S. Paul saith You are dead and your life is hid with God in Christ Jesus He layeth death as the necessary foundation of a Christian whereby to remove from him all affection and inclination to the creature As we see that a dead man hath no more any motion or sense of any thing for though we are frequently sensible of the rebellious motions of corrupted nature yet they onely spring to be choaked and stifled in their birth To this purpose the