this love which operates with great things in the souls of the Elect. Let us love him who loves us so much and let us live the life of him who lives in us If we reflect upon these truths justly may we be astonished at the obstinacy and blindness of those who make so many difficulties to resign themselves wholly both body and soul to the conduct of God and absolutely to abandon themselves to the providence love and wisdom of Iesus What can any man yet doubt of the bounty and love of God distrust his wisdom after so manifest a truth Is it possible a Christian can imagin that he is to take care of the creature that humane prudence is necessary where God vouchsafes by his bounty to apply and employ his care wisdom and infinite goodness But only to apply himself to the way of God that is to say with an application worthy of God perfect as God is perfect good as God is good accommodating himself notwithstanding to the commodity and feebleness of the creature If we adhere to these truths it is fit that as members of the Son of God we live subject to his will abandon our selves to his loving conduct endeavouring nothing so much as to please and satisfie him This God requires of us to this all Christians are obliged and therefore to profit by this third Motion let us go out of our selves let us quit the care of our selves a care that nourishes nothing but complacency and self-satisfaction which altogether confides in the disordinate love of our selves Let us resigne our selves wholly to his care and providence of him who uncessantly fixeth the eye of his infinite bounty upon us Let us trust in him who hath a heart all of love who onely thinks of us and be all to him and for him Let us endeavour to have no satisfaction nor complacency but in him seeing he alone according to the Prophet Loves us from eternity calls and draws us lovingly to come to him and to be his If you now require some forms for this Resignation I will propose them CHAP. VIII Practises to help a Christian to live in subjection to Grace and the spirit of Jesus THe Christian who would profit by the Motive we last proposed must weigh the quality he hath in being a member of Iesus Christ for Iesus being his head will unite himself to him appropriate himself to him possess him encline him infuse into him his own being and life guide him on the earth as well as redeem him on the Cross and by a particular bounty love him with the same love that he loves himself and as the head loveth his members 1. To make use of these thoughts the Christian seeing himself so chosen united and amorously drawn to Iesus Christ must make a particular profession and protestation to adhere to Iesus to renounce all humane prudence all care and conduct of himself leave himself wholly in all things to the power providence and conduct of Iesus Farther he must yeild up all the right that God his Creator hath given him to his liberty to his life to his actions and to all inferiour creatures putting it into the hands of Iesus Christ upon whom he must depend in all things protesting that he will use them no farther then as dependant on the conduct intentions and will of Iesus 2. The true Christian must make a strong resolution to rely onely on God all other things being indifferent unto him whence he will endeavour to follow and accept with tranquillity of spirit all that God ordains and to establish himself wholly in this confidence of God in this conformity and relyance on the conduct of Iesus He will study to bear in his heart and soul a contempt of all naturall prudence in making little account even of things that depend on his grace saying to himself that he will onely rely on Iesus who is his All and that whatever happen supernaturall grace which is the light of Heaven will never fail to give him as much knowledge and experience in all things as shall be necessary for him but far more profitably and more perfectly then humane prudence can do 3. As this manner of doing may have great and continuall oppositions so the Christian who desires to please God must endeavour to live with vigilancy over himself and particularly have a great care to mortifie the assaults of Nature the motions of the humane spirit and the applications and agitations of the wisdom of the flesh all which opposeth the spirit of God And because nature useth to insinuate amidst grace and disguising her self dissemble to be what she is not we not knowing it and even contrary to our own intentions to prevent this deceit and to assure our selves in a matter so dangerous yet hard to be discovered it is necessary that the Christian with a great humility and a desire full of efficacy renounce all the motions and effects of nature and give himself with all his heart to the spirit and grace of Iesus After all which he must yet have a great vigilancy upon the bottom and the dispositions of his soul that with a great fidelity he may live in the subjection he ought to the grace and conduct of Iesus To help us in this practise and to see how important it is we must consider that the effect of the grace of Christianity may be reduced to one point The designes of God upon our souls are reduced to one thing onely which it is their aim to effect in us This point which God will do in us is to establish his sanctification glory and Kingdom in our souls This is the end of his design whereto all the effects of his grace and divine operations tend Whence we may infer that if God requires nothing of us nor hath no other design on us but to establish in our souls his empire and the Kingdom of his spirit and grace we also must have no other care desire or application then to subject our selves to the Kingdom of God to live in the obedience and conduct of his spirit and grace And as all the designs of God unite themselves in this one point so the Christian must labour in this point that he may be in all even to the least of his thoughts and actions and smallest motions of his soul subjected to the Kingdom of God Hereby I mean that all the motions thoughts and actions of a Christian must be ruled and subjected to the love power will and conduct of God that with peace and inward content he must receive the effects of God and walk with fidelity in the wayes God requires that God may raign perfectly in him by his love and grace and that he may raign here in all those wayes and manners that is as gloriously as he raigns with the Saints in Heaven proportionably notwithstanding to our present estate and meanness I know not whether a true soul that hath true faith can
believe little doubt of all things live a life more like Philosophers then Christians and make no great account of a thousand good things which are usefull in Christianity To remedy this they must learn that faith the spirit of truth and the life of Christ must be the onely rule and guide of our actions and life in such manner that to go out of this rule and conduct either on the right hand or left is alwayes to erre from the right way 2. Considering what we have now said of truth we cleerly see how necessary it is to be established in the spirit of faith and to take truth for our object and conduct All other spirits are deceitfull and lying whence it followeth that souls that will live in Christian perfection must commence by this exercise and must necessarily lay the spirit of faith as the foundation of vertue if they would obtain any As faith is the door whereby we enter into the house of God and are made children of the Church so must she be the beginning of the life of a Christian and the spirit wherewith he lives and endeavours to acquire vertue Where we must mark in the conduct of souls how necessary it is to establish them in the spirit of faith and to accustom them to walk in the light of truth This is the first Lesson we must propose to them in this point wherein we must keep and exercise them as that which is onely profitable and without which nothing is stable or true not to entertain and amuse I dare not say to deceive them by so much prudence by the consideration of so many humane reasons and by the example and actions of men a hard case that the devout of this age take so much care to recommend and obtain morall and civil Vertues and mention not nor consider but superficially the divine and necessary Let us learn and say with Iesus Christ that Truth alone shall save us and that truth must be the foundation establishment of our life if we will live true Christians Hence the soul that will arrive to christian perfection must shut her eares divert her thoughts from all that the humane spirit reason and self-love can inwardly represent and must not hearken to them who regard not God purely but measure the greatness of Heaven with the eyes of flesh by the smallness of the earth and speak of vertues and christian perfection according to their own sense more like Philosophers then Christians Such persons by their discourse and conference study to destroy the maxims of Iesus Christ to establish humane prudence and use their uttermost to abase vertue and make it humane In a word they onely labour to make man reasonable not to make him a perfect christian Upon such occasions the soul that seeketh true perfection and will follow Iesus Christ must stand upon her guard and avoid such persons and with great care must prevent humane prudence from annihilating in her the spirit of faith and the esteem of the things of God If it happen that a soul see her self among such persons and shall understand their discourse to be such it will be good at that instant by a sweet elevation of spirit to give her self to God and renew if she can her esteem of Truth in a thought of God renouncing the perswasions of the humane spirit and protesting that she will receive no other conduct or light then that of Faith nor other interiour dispositions then those of Jesus Christ according to the truths that he hath left to his Church If notwithstanding all this the soul remain in fear or trouble of spirit or feel the spirit of faith to diminish in her then she shall give her self more strongly to God and recollecting her self she shall with an humble spirit stir up in the bottom of the heart a confidence in God alone and a diffidence of all things In fine she shall divert her self from all thoughts which trouble the repose of her spirit and captivate her judgement her reason and humane essence to the spirit of faith she shall undergo with an humble patience the pains which she feels contenting her self by an act of her will to subject her spirit to all that Iesus hath said without regarding any other thing and in this manner she shall keep her self united with Iesus Christ and in a secret silence shall imploy her self in him not about the business in question This act is heroick because his disposition is hard and strikes our senses rudely and sometimes it is painfull but it is withall certain and pleasing to God It is not painfull otherwise then as our reason our judgement and the love of our own interests is living in us If we would annihilate all that it would be easie for to overcome and to believe rather in Iesus Christ then in men and our own sense yet must we not whatsoever difficulty we meet with neglect this labour for as the soul hath nothing more assured then faith nothing more profitable or more powerfull then truth so the Devil fails not also all the wayes that he can to draw us from the conduct of faith and to annihilate in us the light and to force us from the adherence to truth if not all at once yet at least by little and little The soul therefore must take heed she be not here deceived seeing all her happiness consists in walking in the spirit of faith and with the light of the truth This exercise is important let us see how we are to behave our selves therein CHAP. VI. Of the use of Faith and how we may practise it THe soul may be guided two wayes by the naturall light of reason which is weak and deceitful ever fallible and by the light of faith which is infallible powerful certain proportioned to that state of glory whereat we aim it is a supernaturall light given by God to guide us to Heaven The first is common to the souls of the World by St. Paul stiled children of the flesh the second proper to souls which live perfect christians who resign themselves to the spirit of God and to his conduct who trust onely in God adhere to nothing but to the faith which they have in the words of Iesus Christ and the Maxims of the Gospel It is the property of a christian to live and guide himself according to the light and truths of Faith lights much above the naturall light of Reason to this end is he made a Christian. 'T is true the way of faith is hard because it captivates the judgement it is above our sense it combates humane reason it is hidden and very spirituall yet must we nevertheless follow and embrace it because Iesus Christ gives it because it is certain and infallible because it is suitable to the wayes of God who leads men in this world through obscurity having reserved knowledge and light for heaven There are who will think that the soul may
perfection that we possess nor from solid vertue whereof we have not one grain but from self-love from adhering to our own wills from wamt of mortification and most commonly from secret vanity We fall not into these evils but because we have not sought God purely but our selves and our own satisfactions and for not endeavouring the possession of solid and Christian vertues The remedy of all this you shall find in the Image of a perfect Christian which I here present to your view Consider the vertues which imbellish him labour to attain them see the dispositions wherein he is how pure and solid they are endeavour to enter into them and concern your self therein and I am confident that you shall find a stable peace you shall put a Paradise into your heart you shall find in all that hath been said the foundation of this pourtraict and the interiour of a perfect Christian. THE FOURTH PART Sheweth how we must guide our selves in all occurrences and in all estates of humane life CHAP. I. Of the care a Christian ought to have to perfect his exteriour TO draw the last lines of our perfect Christian we must present likewise his outward appearance for therein also consisteth his perfection The interiour and the exteriour are two estates so conjoyned and dependant one upon another that the perfection of a man cannot be intire if those two estates are not in all things conformable One is the image of the other and as the ancient divine Philosopher said Beauty is a flash of goodness as all flowers and leaves take their beauty from the root so all that is outwardly fair in man is but a beam of his inward goodness the fruits and leaves of his perfect and vertuous actions are but the effects of the root of inward perfection Inward perfection begets the outward one cannot be without the other Good if it be perfect must be such in all parts if one fail this defect takes away its vertue and makes it vicious Man is a whole composed of parts neither all soul nor all body but consisting of both To be good he must be perfect in both in the soul the interiour in the body the exteriour in the actions of the one as the faculties of the other St. Ambrose speaking of the Mother of God the pattern of vertue saith that her exteriour Beauty her demeanour and the actions of her life were images of the vertues and incomparable perfections of her soul and although Iesus Christ by the Mystery of the Incarnation meant to hide the greatness of his Divinity in the lowness of our nature and hid himself thirty years in an obscure life yet it alwayes appeared from time to time nor could he avoid it but that his face his body and actions discover'd what he was Nor indeed could it be otherwise for the exteriour can have no good but what it borrows of the interiour as of its root and the interiour cannot be perfect but the exteriour will bear and manifest the effects thereof Vertue if it be true hath a lustre like the Emerald which sparkles in the obscurest night it can no more be hid then fire can be retain'd in the bosom of the Earth which will force a way to its centre or the light of the Sun be clouded by any shade so thick but its beams will break through So likewise is it impossible for a man to have a good vertuous interiour and the splendor of his vertues not appear to the eyes of men through the most secret of his actions This is the intention of God and a sign that the vertue we have is heavenly for it tends alwayes to its centre And as the needle touched by the Loadstone is in perpetuall motion till it hath found her North So the soul touched by the vertue of Heaven is alwayes in action seeking every where till she have found her God Men light not a Candle to put it under a Bushel God gives not vertue to smother it he will glorifie himself in his Elect. If our vertue be of God it will manifest the effects thereof causing it self to be honour'd and acknowledg'd For this reason they who have any sense of Heaven who love the truth and walk sincerely never approve those who dissemble in the World and appear evill or lesse good not regarding the exteriour so they have a good intention let the rest go as it will It is sufficient they say that God knowes them they alwayes condemn those who out of reasons of state or private considerations outwardly appear either evil or indifferent hide themselves when they pray dare not communicate in publick or do any act of vertue in view of their Neighbours We must not indeed endeavour to be seen much lesse to be esteemed or affect the sight of men but on the other side we must not fear them We are oblig'd to have an exteriour as well as an interiour and we must please and honour God as well by the exteriour as by the interiour Every one will grant that it is not allowed any to be good and to appear evill it is scandalous nay further it is impossible to be good and commit evill actions for a good Tree cannot bring forth evill fruit If we live in the spirit saith St. Paul let us also walk in the spirit he meanes our life is a life of God for spirit with St. Paul signifies God and if our interiour be truly perfect according to Christian perfection whereof we have sufficiently spoken our exteriour actions must also be in spirit and in a divine spirit and must bear the image of God who lives in us This may be more clearly understood by the advice of the same St. Paul we walk not saith he speaking of good Christians after the flesh but after the spirit He then that will be a good Christian must order his outward actions according to the spirit of God who lives in us not after the flesh and the World enemies to the spirit of God To be vertuous and to do acts of vice to have light in the heart and to do actions of darkness to be in the Temple of God and to sacrifice to Baal can neither be comprehended by man nor approved by reason To desire to please the World and to be circumcised and worship the Moon is to be a Samaritan God loves simplicity sincerity and curses the double heart He then that will be a perfect Christian must have his heart in his hands and his hands in his heart if he esteem God truly in his heart he must shew it in his works if he fear God in his soul why doth he not testifie it in his actions what can we love thee well O God of our souls yet make shew to hate thee Can we have thee in our hearts and thy enemy the World in our hands and mouth No no a Christian if he fear God at home in his own house will fear
to love God and not to suffer is impossible The spirit and the proper grace of the state of Christianity puts us into this necessity for the first and most inseparable effect of the grace of Christianity is to destroy in us the old man and to crucifie him there to make the new man to live who according to the Doctrine of the Apostle is no other then Iesus Christ and we know that grace must necessarily destroy our evill inclinations and Iesus Christ will purifie and consume after the manner that he pleases and as much as he will the being and life of Adam who is in us there to establish a being and a life of God Now this cannot be but by sufferings by subversions and by a long and painfull death and therefore the Master of Christians said to the Galatians Those that are of Iesus Christ have crucify'd the flesh the sins the passions and concupiscenses shewing that those who are Gods and in the Kingdom of grace are crucify'd and must necessarily be in the state of sufferings and subversions And immediately after he tells us that we are Christians and Children of God not onely to live in this estate but withall by a necessity so absolute that we may say that those who are belonging to Iesus Christ are known to be such because they have crucified and mortified their flesh and passions more then those who have not mortification and who avoid and neglect it and therefore belong long not to Iesus Christ. The conclusion is manifest in St. Paul who said If any of you have not the spirit of Iesus Christ he is none of his Now this spirit is no other then the spirit of sufferings subversions contrarieties oppositions and the Crosse and therefore he that will be Iesus Christ must resolve to suffer and though he be not oblig'd to demand it of God yet he must embrace it with esteem and receive it with love and courage when it befalls him for that it is necessary to establish him in vertue Hence we may see what deceipt is crept into Christians who making profession of some piety instead of profiting by sufferings and receiving them with esteem have no greater care then to exempt themselves from them seeking nothing but their own inward and outward content and labouring to live in a satisfaction and repose of spirit they fly all sorts of pains and remove themselves as much as they can from all trouble be it never so little and renounce and avoid all occupations and occasions that may mortifie them and if they cannot help themselves nor find any remedy then there is nothing but vexation of spirit murmuring in their hearts impatient in their words and excessive in their plaints suffering themselves to fall into a dulness and weakness unworthy a Christian To live so as to become uncapable of any solid vertues is the mark of a heart which is not Gods and of a soul which loves but it self Let us then hearken to the decree of Iesus Christ He that loves his life shall lose it and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternall CHAP. XI How the fear of suffering drawes us from the way of perfection HAving in describing the way to perfection shewed the obstacles therein it will not be necessary to speak farther of it were it not that the subject of sufferings obliges us thereto Hitherto we have seen how all that is of Adam and of the life of Adam hinders us from pleasing God for man as the Child of Adam is the child of wrath the object of divine Iustice degraded from all favours his fall is so deplorable that he is uncapable of raising himself up to God his supernaturall end if not aided by grace and if he were not engrafted in Iesus Christ as the stock into the vine and lived not his life which is a life of grace a life that the Apostle calls the life of the spirit for they that are in the flesh cannot please God and the works of the flesh are called in the Scripture dead works Now if we contemplate this world in the curse of sin we shall find that all creatures have conspired against us that the aire is full of our enemies that all things may be the instruments of our ruine wherefore our obstructions in the way of perfection are infinite but the greatest are in us and of our selves One of the greatest is a fear to suffer pains an apprehension of shame and confusion For commonly we stand in fear of crosses and travails self-love causing us to shun all that humbles us making us to fly what ever is low and hindring us from embracing any thing that is difficult This fear is a great obstacle to vertue which cannot be attain'd but by travel nor preserv'd but by viglancy nor perfected but in humility and privation it is the common resentment of all men We see also by experience that he who fears labour and suffering often fails of goodness and willingly renounces it when he finds any trouble to conserve it He easily quits the rudder when he sees the least storm of temptation or opposite action arise and rather then suffer humiliation he will quit vertue and if there be occasion renounce his portion of Paradise rather then the pleasure and content he takes in doing his own will rather then his own quiet and repose We see the greatest part of Christians dare not enter into consideration of their lives past nor reflect seriously on their sins nor think of death or future estate of the soul meerly by reason of fear to suffer sorrow for their sins That they may not be sensible of the apprehension they ought to have of God's Iudgements they will not so much as think thereon Hereupon they persevere in their malice and remain finally obstinate in their sins living in ignorance of things necessary to salvation so true it is that the least fear of pains withdraws them from vertue To see how much this fear is prejudiciall let us consider that to the acquisition and conservation of vertues two things are necessary which require both travel and pain First we must destroy ill habits next we must acquire vertuous habits We cannot ruine the evil without mortification and consequently pains and sufferings we cannot root them out without privation and resignation wherein is both travel and the cross But if we will obtain good habits and practise Christian vertues and all in grace then we must have a great care vigilancy and strength of courage to resist all oppositions that nature inclinations or occasions present unto us And although vertue be beautifull sweet and acceptable yet she finds contrarieties and then she needs resolution to use violence and to come to the point whereof Iesus Christ spake when he said If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it behind thee if thy right hand offend thee cut if off
mercy of God who alone can give us a new estate and reestablish all in us Wherefore when we have laboured and done all that we are able we must think that we have done nothing we must have recourse to grace we must enter into an humble resentment of our misery we must cry after Iesus Christ for our relief Herein it is good to forme often these following acts or rather to carry them continually in the bottom of our hearts we must desire with a desire full of efficacy to be filled and possessed by Iesus Christ to submit all to him to require this grace of him with humility to offer and present our selves to him for it giving him from this time and alwayes the consent that he requires of us and when we find that he gives us the first fruits of his spirit that he begins to live and move in us then we must be faithful in correspondence thereunto and preserve a great attention to his motions and divine and inward operations 2. We must often renounce our selves our self-love and our spirit to sacrifice our selves before God that is to renounce our own Intentions inclinations and dispositions to live no longer then in the holy will intentions divine and adorable dispositions of Iesus Christ. For as anciently the victime was not onely killed but also consumed before God so we must offer our selves after the same manner that God may annihilate and consume in us all that is of us we must aske it of God not out of self-interest profit but for his glory out of a desire that his holy will may be fulfilled in us 3. We must pray Iesus Christ to work in us an effect of his power and love and not to wait after our infirmites to establish in us his Kingdom his glory and the power of his grace and spirit 4. We must by little and little with care mortifie our nature all that is in us and of us and with the same care effect a continuall annihilation of our spirit of our judgement and of our own motions for they are contrary to God and repugnant to our good This being granted we shall see how much we are obliged to alienate defie our selves seeing that all that is of us as being of us strives to separate us from God and therefore this that is of us must be mightly humbled when we see that the source of all our evils is in our selves and that we have a continuall inclination to evil Let us weigh these truths and endeavour to bear these dispositions seeing they are necessary to perfection and to establish us in the Kingdom of Grace that so placing our selves under the conduct of God we may be enabled to live in a perfect conformity to his holy Will That we may be the more encouraged in this labour let us speak of the Motives that oblige us to seek this perfection The first Motive CHAP. IV. That by Creation man is obliged to tend to this perfection and to resign himself to God WHen we say that man is obliged to tend to perfection we impose not a new Law but propose the indispensible duty he oweth to his Creator For as a creature he belongs to God his Creator he depends on him and though he would not yet must he subsist onely by him In this quality he must live not only subject to his government and conduct but is obliged by the Law of all created beings according to the intention of his Authour and the end prescribed him For as the creature hath no other being then what he received of his Creator so his being hath no other power nor end then what he who gave him that being giveth and prescribes to him By the same Principle that he received his being from God he is obliged to act conformable to the power and end prescribed to him All creatures employ themselves according to the capacity of their being in that for which God created them they tend directly if they go not aside to the end for which they were created and ordained Man above all the rest ought to do the same to live according to the capacity he hath received of God incessantly to tend to the end which the divine wisdome hath proposed to him For God in the creation of the Vniverse seemed to have regard to nothing but man he stayd not till he had made him thought onely of perfecting him he made the world saith Saint Basil as if he applyed not himself unto it he spake but a word and the World was made but man the work of his hands to which he applies his care he polisheth him with the touches of divine perfection makes him the Master-piece of his work the last draught of his created perfection framing him after his own Image and designing him for Heaven In what respect soever then we consider man we shall see by the condition of his being and favour of his Creator that he is obliged to great perfection since the capacity and end of his being regards nothing but God He is in a capacity to love him and is created to possess him O man why dost thou not see the dignity of thy being the happiness which thou mayst possess the eminency of the condition whereto thou art created Thou onely of all creatures bearest the effects the favour and love of thy Creator thou onely art capable to love him that which he hath refused all other creatures he hath in abundance bestowed on thee After so great a favour darest thou appear without love Canst thou live without loving him who created thee onely to love him When we say that man by the condition of his being hath a capacity to love God we mention the highest benefit the most signall favour that he hath received of his Creator for the capacity to love him giveth him power to possess him All creatures indeed even the most insensible feel the Majesty and Power of their Creator they are left to the conduct and government of their God but not one hath power to love him but man who was created only for this end being made capable to love his Creator Therewith God hath not only given him this capacity and the advantage of so noble and divine a quality but wills also that all that he hath created should further him in this love and serve as motives to teach him to love Is not man then obliged to love so good so kind so liberall a Creator and if he be obliged to love him is he not as much obliged to perfection seeing this perfection consists in love which gives us God God in creating man useth another meanes to oblige him to him and to seek perfection in that besides making him capable to love his Creator he hath assigned as the end and perfection of his being the possession of his Creator This resentment the Father of nature giveth us Faith teaches us that the end of man is supernatural that this
they are by grace that which Iesus Christ is by nature This truth granted it is easie to comprehend the necessity of mortification If to be christians we must be re-invested in Iesus Christ that is live of his spirit and follow his motions and inclinations then to arrive to this happiness we must uncloath our selves of the spirit and inclinations of Adam and we must to speak in the words of the Apostle Put off the old man and put on the new man this cannot be done but by mortification which is the more necessary in that the inclinations and spirit of Adam are as much different from those of Iesus Christ as the Heaven is distant from the Earth These two spirits are as contrary one to the other as the animal is to the spirituall according to the Apostle who saith The first man is of the earth earthy the second man is from Heaven and cannot accord together Now to argue by the rule of contraries we must say that to establish the one it is necessary to annihilate the other to plant good we must root out evill so he that would love christianity that is according to the spirit and vertue of Iesus Christ must take away and mortifie the spirit and inclinations of Adam which are in all alwayes contrary to Iesus Christ. The Son of God came into the world as Saint Iohn saith to destroy the works of the Devill The spirit of Adam is a sinner and his inclinations are but concupiscences works of the flesh therefore is the Sonne of God come to destroy them We must also labour and co-operate with him to destroy in us and to root out of us all that sin hath put in us wherein mortification assists us This that Divinity which we call mysticall teaches us which requires that a christian to arrive to that perfection whereto God calleth him passeth through the purgative life in the wayes of mortification annihilation and resignation that by this exercise the soul may purge and cleanse it self from all that is in her opposite to grace and the true possession of God This Doctrine is founded on a Truth which most know but consider not sufficiently That the whole nature and being of man is corrupt all his inclinations turned to evill carrying the centre the source and seed of all vice and imperfection in it Now to order it so as that this nature of Adam this being may be possessed of God replenished with vertuous inclinations and that he may have in himself true charity the seed and principle of all Christian vertues he must necessarily take from it the evill that is in it for the good and perfection cannot be there but in taking away and rooting out the corruption and imperfection which cannot be done without a serious and continuall mortification inward or outward Whence we learn that to acquire christian vertues it is not enough to demand them of God by prayer which we call a demand nor to consider them in mentall prayers and to make good resolutions thereon it is not enough to know them and desire them nor to do acts of them and to produce many practises of them but we must also root out of the foundation of our soul all that which is contrary to vertue The man who desires to live a good christian and aspires to true vertue as the onely way to Heaven must not so much busie himself in the acquisition of vertues by the practise of them as he must labour to root out of his heart and pull out of the foundation of his being all oppositions inclinations and customs contrary to true vertue For as soon as he hath emptied his heart of all that is displeasing to God and contrary to him God will from that moment replenish and possess his heart and liberally extend to him the graces and vertues necessary for him but withall according to the measure in which God gives them to him he must be faithfull on one side to correspond with the grace given him on the other he must labour to render himself more and more capable of the spirit and possession of God he endeavouring to cleanse and purify his heart and God continually replenishing and consecrating it for his own dwelling and sanctifying it by his grace By this amorous combate God always gives and is always augmenting his gifts man receives and in receiving disposes himself more and more to receive more abundantly the sweet bounties of God all which is done in the soul proportionably to her purifying and mortifying her self from all that is disagreeable and contrary to the spirit of God By mortification and the purgative life we not onely understand corporall austerities such as affect the sense as macerations fastings and other exercises which rob the sense of what is most agreeable to it which although they be good and profitable and sometimes necessary yet are they not principall but we apply this Doctrine first to interiour mortifications whereby the soul purifies her heart annihilates her sources therein and pulls away the roots of imperfections and of all that is displeasing to God By this exercise she stifles as much as she can the seeds of self-love though hid in every thing she strives to gain a perfect victory over her self her principall care is to annihilate her will her intentions her desires her thoughts and inclinations to those of God choosing in all things that which is most pure most conformable to the spirit of Iesus most opposite and contrary to her own inclinations and unruly affections Hereunto she wholly addicts her self herein she is very vigilant she knows it generally a maxime that the more the heart of man is filled with the creatures and the love and regard of himself the more she is separated from God voyd of his spirit and true vertue Therefore she endeavours to exercise her self in this interiour mortification Another Reason which obligeth us to the spirit and exercise of mortification is that the Devil makes use of our inclinations of our habits of our desires and of our self-love yea he makes use of our selves against our selves and of our nature subjected as well by the sin of Adam as our actuall sins he makes use I say thereof to cast us away and to separate us from God even in things most holy and the most interiour and therefore to avoid the perils and to take the weapons from the hands of our enemie whereof he makes use to undo us we must necessarily pass through the purgative life we must go out of our selves out of the life of Adam to be in Iesus Christ and to live of his life and we must mortifie our selves to make place for God and take from our heart all that may displease him that is opposite to his grace and by this exercise we shall easily arrive to the acquisition of Christian vertues CHAP. III. That the adherence of a Soul to Iesus Christ is the most perfect
unprofitable things which we meet with in the practise and ordinary exercises of Christians for want of taking hold of things in the beginning and not entring into the spirit of grace for want whereof do we not see many souls who keep most holy constitutions and very good rules others that do frequent actions of vertue many who follow and oblige themselves to spirituall exercises and practises yet nevertheless advance not towards perfection nor have any solid vertue They alwayes labour but never gain any they continually travail but never arrive at their journeys end Though all that they do seems to be done in grace and that as is believed they have not their conscience charged with any sinne yet they profit not in any manner all that can be said of such persons is that they are not the worst What is the cause of this evill whence comes it that they profit nothing amidst so much care and Travel The evill comes from this that such souls have not sufficient recourse nor submission to grace they are not tyed to Iesus Christ they scarce think that there is a Iesus Christ they have no distrust of themselves they seek not God but their self-satisfaction and their particular Interests and which is worse by a secret and dangerous consequence they rely upon their own courage upon their travel and exercises and promise to themselves too much of their own strength and tying themselves to divers practises whereof they make use they tye also their happiness thereto If you demand whence it comes that they have not solid vertues it is easily perceiv'd it is because they amuse themselves much in unprofitable things trifles and exteriour things they enter not into the practise of true and solid vertues they esteem them not and hardly know them if they do practise them it is but superficially they have but the appearance of vertue all that they possess thereof is like the grasse upon the house top which withers away of it self of which we must take heed and carefully remedy it least passing our life so we travel in vain and run without arriving to our end and that under those fair appearances in the most part of our actions we be not of the number of the foolish Virgins of them to whom God saith at the houre of death I know you not for God tells us not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And certainly there are an infinite number of christians who will find themselves deceived when God shall make manifest the secrets of hearts and judge the justice of men because that believing themselves rich in good works and charged with the fruits of christian penitence they shall find in their hands nothing but wind and shall see in their life nothing but appearances of Vertues And therefore in an affaire so important we must be vigilant to act christianly and to do works worthy of God which shall gain us the eternall possession of God This subject being of high enterprise I will propose the dispositions which seem to be most necessary The first Disposition CHAP. V. Of the spirit of Faith and the necessity thereof THE first and principall Disposition which the soul that will live Christianly must have is Faith He that cometh to God saith the Apostle must believe that he is and without Faith it is impossible to please him This Disposition is not onely the first but cause of all other what the root is to the tree the foundation to the building the mother to the infant the same is Faith to all vertues and to a Christian life Whence on the spirit of Faith depends all the happiness and perfection of a Christian soul or on the other side from littleness of Faith springs all the evil all the abominations in the life of man The soul that is guided by the spirit and light of faith knows what it is to love and what to detest for faith is nothing but truth the spirit of faith is properly the spirit of eternall truth wherein is seen the strength of faith He therefore that hath faith hath the spirit of truth and by this spirit of truth if he possess it and suffer it to guide him he easily discerns good from bad true from false the flesh from the spirit This faith this spirit of truth shews the soul what the God is that she adoreth from thence she is carried on to love him to fear him and to live in a continuall respect of his divine presence Faith saith God is the principle of all being the end and centre of all things that out of him all is but a dream that all creatures are vain that God is in all things that he gives life and being to all that all things depend on him This makes the soul know that she ought to esteem God alone and all that belongs to God that all the rest is nothing but vanity and lies This light and spirit of faith teacheth that God is eternall truth his works are truth his words and promises true and infallible This causes the soul which is guided by the spirit of faith constantly to adhere and strongly to relie on the truths and maxims of Christianity which are the works and the words of Iesus God and man she believes firmly that what he hath said will come to pass what he hath promised is certain the truth that the eternall Father hath revealed to us by his Son are infallible and eternally the Son of God who is the truth uncreated is a God which can neither deceive nor lye Hereupon the soul by this spirit of truth remains indissolubly tyed to all that God hath said and revealed by his Son so as she cannot taste nor understand any humane reason or object she will not hearken nor adhere to any thing but to the truth of faith she will only follow the maximes that Iesus Christ hath left us in his Gospel and imitate the example of his life divine vertues the rest she despises as unworthy a Christian soul which ought not to be guided by nor live but in the spirit of truth and certainly so the Christian must live All the world confesseth that God alone is truth that the onely spirit of God is the only spirit of truth whence it appears that all that is not God and according to the spirit of God is but vanity and lyes This granted how can they live who have any other object then God Here let us make reflection on the point we shall shew how much they are deceived who in matters of faith and in the conduct of their life separate themselves from this spirit of truth to seek humane reason wayes of prudence maximes of wise men who measure perfection and Christian vertues according to their proper sense according to their own spirits such souls cannot but fall into an abisse of errours and doubts or at least such persons
be deceived by this way our spirits being too feeble this way too eminent and that it occasions a perpetuall combate in the spirit As it is troublesome to a man to walk in darkness so it is hard for the soul to go this way of Faith which is obscure and hidden But if we would learn it well we must say the contrary all other wayes are uncertain and deceitfull vertue alone is infallible we shall never be deceived if we stick to it It were to have a mean esteem of Gods graces and to be ignorant of the Principles of our salvation to believe that the faith God hath given us to conduct us is capable of loosing us Let us remember that God hath given us the light of faith to guide our reason and that our reason must submit thereunto and in respect of Faith be annihilated as Saint Paul saith We walk by faith not by sight meaning that to live Christianly we must let our reason be guided by faith not faith by reason wherein we see the designes of God in the rule of our souls the necessity of our walking by the light of this torch or according to the ordinary manner of speech see how necessary it is for him that will live a perfect Christian to follow onely the light of faith and to learn to make use of Evangelicall truth If at any time the souls who take this way are deceived it is in that they go out of it and being perswaded by the Devil or self-love or the vanity of the humane spirit which esteems it self in every thing withdraw themselves from the conduct of faith to follow that of humane prudence choosing to be guided by the rules of the flesh and the spirit of worldly vanity rather then by the maxims of Iesus Christ and the spirit of heavenly truth Thus indeed they find themselves deceived and fall into misfortunes not for having taken this way of faith but for having quitted it and adhered to humane prudence and the light of reason which like an ignis fatuus will lead us out of the way unless we be aided by a supernaturall force and guided by a more sure light such as is this of faith But to the soul that is faithfull applying her self to the truths of Faith and Maxims of Christianity that seeks God with simplicity and humility there must necessarily arrive great profit and advantage in christian perfection We must not therefore condemn this way and reject it as too high too difficult and too painfull for it is the way that the Sonne of God himself hath left to his Church and commanded all his children But on the contrary we must teach it every one accommodating our selves to their several capacities and giving them all the means to pursue it without going out of it least they be deceived If we find here any difficulty it is in our selves There are two things in man which hinder his progress this way one is esteem of himself and of his own spirit the other is the Love that he bears himself and for his own sake to the Creatures To pursue this way and to make use of Faith he must go out of himself and renounce his own spirit and raise himself above all Creatures to adhere to truth to believe and to make use of what he did believe he must renounce his judgement his reason and his sense and annihilate them If our reason sense and judgement repugne the truth proposed to our belief we must quit our reason and our sense to unite our selves to the truth If for instance it is proposed that the uncreated eternall word become man that God died reason and sense oppose this truth Reason cannot comprehend that the eternall God should make himself subject to Time the immortall submit himself to Death yet to believe this our Will moved by grace notwithstanding the opposition of reason and sense must say I will believe and adhere to the truth proposed The will adhering hereto commands reason and judgement which obeying her believe what she proposes the understanding which useth to command and be free renders it self captive and obedient annihilating its own thoughts and reason that so it may adhere to the truth proposed and form an act of Faith Thus we are to understand that of Saint Paul bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. By faith the understanding which useth to command is made captive and obedient to the Will therefore the soul in the practise of Faith goes out of her selfe and no more obeys her judgement or sense she no more regards her self but the truth onely which she embraces as her object adhering and uniting her self thereto Thus by Faith the soul is elevated above her self to be tyed and united to the eternall and infallible truth revealed and proposed to her This well considered will shew us the excellency and dignity of faith by which knowledge we shall learn how much we are to esteem the state of christianity in generall and the life of a christian in particular seeing that according to Gods designes and the grace of Iesus Christ the christian as christian must live and be guided onely by the spirit of truth and light of faith which being divine and supernaturall drawes us out of our selves to unite and tye us to God who is truth We shall moreover see by what hath been said that faith is not what we think it consists not in great learning in many reasons and severall Arguments on the contrary it is for the simple and for those who can go out of themselves who can annihilate themselves in their reason and quitting the regard of themselves and other creatures adhere and follow the truth of faith Therefore it is said commonly that the learned and wise of the world who have most prudence most reason the most solid judgement and capacity of spirit have likewise most opposition to faith for they are lesse able to go out of themselves to annihilate their own spirits and judgements Thus Iesus Christ after he had summed up the truths of Heaven and described the contentments of the glory of the just concludes with an Enthusiasme of truth I thank thee O Father saith he Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things these truths from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes to the humble and meek Which shews that the knowledge of truth and of the spirit of faith is a gift of God that God gives it to the humble and little ones that to adhere to it we must humble and abase our selves In a word to make use of the truth and faith conceived we must go out of our selves and out of esteem of our selves Let us practise this for it is our principall design To make use of faith and truths conceived we must first consider what faith proposes but we must consider it barely and simply without any discourse upon it we
from all things without doubt if God operate you shall see all these effects and therefore the soul that will be perfect must narrowly look into all this and have an extraordinary vigilancy to become faithfull and attentive to the operations of God in her on one side to correspond thereto and to labour after the manner God inspires her with on the other to annihilate her self not the works of God for if we oppose not our selves to grace and the effects thereof if we do not annihilate the works of God in us God will certainly work great things in us But alas the wayes whereby we make use of devotion in this age are more capable to drive God away then to invite him into our hearts I shall describe them unto you The soul blinded with naturall love to her self desires to be brought up in the gifts of God she would enjoy him and would love what seems good and profitable to her she fills her self with divers desires she tyes her self thereto and will continually act and attain she puts her self into all employments and motions she seeks them she pleases her self with a satisfaction that her own love takes in things most holy and in the very operation of God she seeks her self therein she elevates her self thereto In this manner she opposes her self to the spirit of Iesus Christ and annihilateth the work of God who would onely live in her onely occupate her spirit onely possess her desiring by the power of his love to annihate in her all that is of her Iesus Christ would take away and this soul will add to God would dispossess and spoyl and she would acquire and possess Thus she hinders and destroyes the workes of God driving God out of her and out of her spirit to cause her own love to raign there her own satisfaction and will a vanity ordinary to such souls as are wholly consumed in the spirit of Adam They therefore who tend to perfection must go with all purity and simplicity they must seek nothing but God and to please God but above all they must be very circumspect and attentive to his inward operations having a great care and fidelity to leave the spirit to act by the grace of God in them As all this is very secret and interiour and often is in the very centre of the soul so must we take heed thereto and besides the vigilance necessary it is good from time to time to practise these ensuing acts First to give our selves to Iesus Christ to live in him and to bear the spirit and effects of this self-denyall after the manner that pleaseth him Secondly to renounce our selves our secret vanity and all that is in us opposite to grace and to the operations of God Thirdly to be attentive to the motions and operations of God in us especially when he acts by self-denyall and privation as well interiour as exteriour to co-operate therewith either by action if it be necessary or by consent of the soul giving her self to God to receive what God shall operate in her when the soul shall feel divers motions or meet several occasions to practise vertue she shall alwayes choose those where there shall be privation and self-denyall as the most assured way and the most acceptable to God most for the honour of Iesus Christ and most conformable to his humane life Fourthly she shall pray to Iesus Christ to vouchsafe to operate and put into her all that he wills and to annihilate in her all that he requireth to prevent in her by his light and love the time of death and judgement whereto he must annihilate the thoughts and judgements of men The abridgement of the third Part. CHAP. XIV Treating of the dependance of the Soul upon God IT is easie to see that amongst Christians even those who think they have vertue enough to fave them many deceive and altogether lose themselves taking the shadow of vertue for the substance apparence for truth like the Dog in the Fable who let go the good morsell he had hold of to catch a shadow these neglect the solid vertues and principall foundations of piety to insist on certain exteriour actions which have no substance but in the air of imagination they exercise themselves in morall vertues and despise the Christian they compose the exteriour and form their demeanour and neglect the interiour they fear to displease men and endeavour to satisfie their kindred and friends but care no more to please God then they fear to displease him they would seem good but care not to be so In a word in all things they choose the most beautifull and best and will have nothing but what is good but for their souls that which is least best contents them they seek but that which is necessary what gives them greatest liberty and satisfaction they embrace with all their heart God who is truth is not satisfied with these feignings and wills that we serve him in spirit and truth he detests a lye and curses those that serve him with the mouth onely if he love he will be beloved and as his love is most pure and perfect he will have ours to be such also Whence it is easie to comprehend that to be a perfect Christian and friend to God requires great qualities He must have a golden key that will enter into the Kings chamber he that will come to a royall feast must be clothed with a wedding garment lest he be bound hand and foot and cast into prison and utter darkness To be a perfect Christian is not so slight a business as some think it it belongs to God only to make a man just it is the work of his hand and greater then the creation of the world at least in this God shews himself more powerfull in his love and more admirable in his mercies Therefore when we speak of a good and perfect Christian we speak of Gods handy-work of a man worthy to be a Saint for to be saved and to be Saint is one and the same thing Now what ought the soul of a Saint to be who must one day see God live with God saith St. Bernard in his Meditations and be eternally in unity with God what must the perfection of a soul be that shall become worthy so infinite and incomprehensible a happiness whereto all aspire that would be saved I leave it to their thoughts who know how to esteem of the works of God and make account of the greatness of Paradise and shall onely tell those languishing and easie spirits with Saint Paul Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap also for he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting Whereupon we must reflect that Christians who are to reap the incorruption of the life everlasting if they will arrive to their
to advance them to perfection worthy of the purity and sanctity of Christianity and which may render them worthy of God and capable to enter into the glory that God hath prepared for them to all eternity This conduct must not be indifferent but the same with that of God The Director must not guide after one manner and God after another for so the poor soul were lost or tyranniz'd over He that giveth counsel must take heed that the matter he treats of have an immediate respect to the order and designs of God over our souls and consider that he is upon either the ruine or establishment of grace and works of God a point of great consequence which makes us see what they ought to be whom God hath established in so high an office and who enter into so sacred a ministry He that will conduct and counsel a soul must know the designes and conduct of God over this soul he must consider the order God keeps to govern it that it is great and hidden in God that it is a secret to us and that the soul cannot without much difficulty know it It is necessary that he who conducts and counsells be full of grace and light that he strongly adhere to God who is the Father of lights otherwise what knowledge or experience soever he may have he will be deceived in the conduct The more he shall be able and experienced the more he shall be in hazard to deceive souls for though knowledge and experience be necessary yet must we not confide therein much less presume thereupon for God abhors the presumptuous and forsakes those who are over-confident of themselves In the conduct of souls there must always be new succours from heaven and new lights He who would conduct or counsell another in that which concerns his conscience must remember himself that he is an Instrument of God that he must not either counsel or act in this soul but what God will establish therein Moreover he that conducts a soul and who giveth counsel must consider that in truth and in conscience he ought to have no other intention or desire then to follow the very truth to establish the Kingdom of God in the soul to lead the soul to God and to do in that soul the work of God according to the intention of God and to establish nothing therein but what God will For which reason he is obliged to labour much to the end that he may annihilate in the soul of any Christian whatsoever hinders the work of God and kingdom of grace and for his part he must have a right intention and pure regard of God not respecting or desiring any thing but his glory seeking neither honour nor esteem favour nor advantage of those whom he conducts And truly if we consider what it is to conduct a soul in the design of God and to conserve it in the order which God hath appointed it from all eternity we shall see that it is no indifferent business but the most noble and most important of all and that we must apply our selves thereto with exceeding great charity with purity of intentions and a zeal to Gods glory for it is for this that principally they who conduct shall render an account Hence proceed the evil which falls out when those who conduct lead and counsel souls negligently and with indifference without endeavouring to find out what God requires of them in what state or condition soever they be and without troubling themselves to establish therein the Kingdom of God and of his grace and we see in what danger souls are when they conduct them according to their own sense or lead them by those wayes give them the same exercises form them by their own spirit and which is worse mold them to their own humour We must proceed quite otherwise for souls have different wayes and are called to divers states of graces as they are predestinated to divers degrees of glory and consequently he must conduct them according to the designes of God which he must endeavour to know and according to their vocation and he must comport himself in the conduct of every soul in the same manner as if he did know from point to point the decrees which the eternall wisdom hath formed upon this soul and all the particular wayes whereby God leads them To know things so secret and so hidden it is needfull to have the spirit of God to use much prayer and to have a great purity of intention I say purity of intention For he who takes upon him the conduct of souls and will counsel and direct the consciences of men must take heed that he follow not his own spirit that he think not of his own interests that he seek not his own satisfaction and suffer not himself to be carried away with complacency and naturall motions and inclination For in such a case he may be assured that it is no longer God that conducts the soul nor the Spirit of God that governs it but it is the spirit of man and by this manner of conduct he shall not establish the grace or kingdom of God but the flesh the kingdom of sin He who conducts holds the place of God both in the soul and in the conduct so that this were to do great wrong to the grace power and Majesty of God If we say there is danger in the soul that conducts it self that follows her own spirit self-love inclinations humour and will which Saint Paul calls the desire of the flesh we must also affirm that the danger is greater when he who conducts suffers himself to be carried away with his own inclinations and onely follows his own will and spirit And if the Christian be obliged as we have shewed to seek nothing in all his actions but to please God if he must have a particular vigilancy to establish the Kingdom of God in his soul to cooperate with his work and to remain in the order wherein he conducts him with far greater reason he who conducts a Christian soul in any profession or condition is obliged to have the same vigilancy the same purity of intention and regard of God which he ought often to consider From all these truths we may easily comprehend how much they are deceived who are guided by their own nature according to the inclinations and motions of their own spirit without considering what Iesus Christ demands of them without any regard of the grace that God presents unto them yea without taking heed to the state whereto God hath called them As likewise their error who can bear nothing but what is pleasing to them nor agree with any but those that flatter them and suffer them to live at their own pleasure and who best accommodate them to their inclinations desires humours and such things which are but too too ordinary All this is dangerous and an evident mark that such souls seek not God nor true vertue but
consequently follows that the centre the repose of a Christian cannot be but in this estate of sufferings and in the same condition of suffering that Iesus Christ was here upon earth When we say that the centre and spirit of Christianity is no other then the cross annihilations and adversities we must conceive it in the highest and consider that the Son of God came into the World for the glory of his Father to satisfie his divine Iustice and for the sanctification of our souls These were his designes desires and thoughts Now the thoughts and intentions of the Son of God are eternall and permanent for they are divine and it is the property of the essence and of divine actions to be immutable and permanent Seeing then that the Son of God hath chosen the cross from all eternity lived upon earth in the spirit of sufferance he remains alwayes in the thoughts of the cross in the desires of humiliation and the rigour of death the zeal of the glory of his Father goes not from his heart but he preserves this spirit and offers himself to his Father to bear it eternally and to suffer the effects of it if it be his good pleasure This zeal ought not to be unfruitfull this offer is not to be refused and yet the estate of his greatness and the condition of his glory cannot permit it What remedy Love alwayes wise and inventive hath found out a means to satisfie the equity of his desires and divine affection and the Majesty of his glory for the eternall Father hath given his Son a mysticall body which is his Church he hath appointed him Head over all his Church which is his body all Christians are members of this body true members as the body is a true body though a mysticall body We are saith the Apostle members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Now to this body and these members the spirit and zeal of Iesus Christ communicates it self by the designe and speciall counsel of the blessed Trinity In pursuit of this divine counsel the Son of God pours into his Church and upon Christians the zeal of the glory of God the spirit of the cross and the love of justice he pours it out as he pleases distributing his gifts according to his holy will To some he communicates his spirit of sufferance and crosses to others that of death and to speak more generally he communicates his estates and spirit to whom he pleases and as he pleases So Saint Paul I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh Reflecting on this truth we shall cleerly see that the spirit of Christianity is no other then the spirit of Iesus which he communicates to his Church being the head and to Christians his members And as this spirit is no other then a desire of the glory of God love of the cross and zeal of justice it follows they who will be good Christians must necessarily bear this spirit and be in this estate of annihilation and the cross and embrace all adversities that they meet with yea embrace them couragiously as an order of God established upon them and as an estate which is singularly proper for them In this Disposition they shall find the centre and repose of their souls and in this subjection to the cross they shall obtain the peace that Iesus Christ hath acquired for us by his cross We may also say that to suffer Christianly is to bear all things with cheerfulness of spirit doing like the Apostles who departed rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for his Names sake and like the first Christians who took joyfully the spoyling of their goods defied torments and the cruelty of beasts like Saint Ignatius the burning of fire as Saint Lawrence the violence of torments as Saint Agnes and in the Churches first beginning their zeal to suffer was so great that it made the Apostle Saint Iames to say Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations This advice will seem hard for the rigours of the cross and pains of this life are too piercing but if we love all will be easie for where love is saith Saint Bernard there is nothing but sweetness and nothing is difficult to him that loves though thornes guard and encompass the Rose we gather it notwithstanding and enjoy its beauty and odour Iacob sayes he served seven years for Rachel and they seemed unto him but a few dayes because he loved her so much that he was insensible of the travail He also that will suffer Christianly must love for he that cannot love cannot suffer and he that can neither suffer nor love is no Christian seeing that love is the spirit of Christianity and sufferance the spirit of love This principle considered no rigours that we find in humane life can appear difficult and misfortunes and pains are onely irk some to us for want of love Let us then but love and they will all be easie by love the sufferings of Christians are distinguished from those of others For it is common to all men to suffer it is the condition of their being and portion of their life and the more they think themselves secure the more they are surprised with misfortunes but it belongs onely to Christians to suffer with love The sinner is drawn by the neck like a slave to do the will of God the good man willingly followes him and findes no pain in any thing but on the contrary he finds comfort in travail and repose in displeasure In this sense the Apostle cryes out upon sight of the wounds and scarrs he endured for Iesus Christ Henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Iesus And elsewhere I will glory willingly in my infirmities that the power of Iesus Christ may dwell in me To suffer in this disposition is to suffer Christianly or else let us say that to suffer Christianly is to suffer with an esteem of sufferings There are divers reasons why we should take and well esteem them but the principall consisteth in that Iesus Christ hath chosen this manner of life as a way that honoureth more divinely the Majesty of God then any other estate and he hath chosen this way from all eternity and by consequence from all eternity he beares the thoughts and love of the Cross. He hath chosen the Cross saith St. Paul he hath embraced it from the first moment of his incarnation and by an excess of love he began to suffer as soon as he was born And that which is to be observed is that by the election of his divine wisdom which never fails he hath made choyce of confusion and contempt rather then greatness and contentment So saith the Apostle of him and we find it in his divine Mysteries And from hence comes the esteem that we ought to have thereof