Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A84588
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A guide to salvation, bequeathed to a person of honour, by his dying-friend the R.F. Br. Laurence Eason, Ord. S. Franc. S. Th. L.
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Eason, Laurence.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing E99aA; ESTC R230984
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39,971
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127
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a violence upon occasions presented if there be not a strong and vigilant guard set over them for which reason St. Gregory Nazianzen ascribes the destruction of Saul to one spark of his former passions stirred and blowed up by occasions In this we should imitate a cunning Pylot who shuns a tempest when he sees he cannot easily resist it Again one may Suppress these passions by combating generously against them not once or twice but as often as these assault us for this reiteration of resistance will moderate and debilitate their violence and forces according to that advice of St Augustine that we must frustrate by this means their attempts that they may not presume any more to rise having so often assaulted us in vain One may mortify and moderate passions and affections by yeilding something to them and by making use of them against themselves which is done by giving them supernaturall and right objects This course our Blessed Saviour took St. Paul was of a cholerrick-hot humour but our Saviour Jesus converted it he turned this fire into a flame of Apostolical Zeal he did not Suppress this passion but changed its object so that by the same arms with which he persecuted his Name he preached his Gospel St. Mary Magdalen's passion was Love he did not destroy it but converted it presenting himself to be the object of it this is an easy cure an admirable triumph to use passions themselves for an instrument whereby to gain a conquest over them St. Augustine teacheth us this Art councelling us to overcome fear by fear the fear of the evills of the world by fear of offending God of incurring hell and losing Heaven St. Isidore affirms the same explicating those words of the Psalmist Irascimini et nolite peccare be angry but Sin not overcome saith he choller by choller it self give somthing to this passion but to the end to delude it turn thy choller against thy brother to a hatred against your self and your passion this was the advice of St. Basil saying Turn thy anger against the devil the destroyer of Souls but have mercy upon thy Brother offending thee Some hold that the greatest expedient to mortify these passions is to Chastice the body by fasting and rigorous austerities for which reason many of the Saints treated their bodies very rudely that by this means they being debilitated their Souls might be more vigorous in their functions and the flesh less rebellious refractory to the decrees of reason From hence proceed the austere Vows of religious crucifying our carnal affections thereby to chastise the insolencies of the sensuall appetite and to render the body a slave to the spirit However not to condemn corporall mortifications if used with discretion according to the Custom of all antiquity and not takeing Christ down from the Cross In my judgment the best and most efficatious means is not to tame the spirit by the body but to subject the body by the spirit for the flesh is not the only and principal criminal to be thus handled wherefore it is more expedient to mortify these passions by the Superiour part of reason and the spirit which considering what is profitable and what hurtful to its salvation from generous resolutions of pursuing the former and declining the latter and so sweetly draws the sensitive appetite after it and forceth it to desist from following its vitious inclinations For example a man reflecting upon the motions of the sensitive appetite and perceiving it engaged in the desire of things superfluous and troubled about them disapprooving such a conduct flyes to interiour repressions considering that we were created for paradice not inordinatly to desire and pursue temporalls but covet and seek eternalls and that it is to little purpose to disquiet ones self for the transitory affairs of this world but that rather we ought to possess our souls in peace and patience After such considerations and interiour repressions the soul with a great resolution frames desires of spiritualls and forceth it self to remain in peace and silence by which it attracts after it the sensitive appetite and rationally orders the passions of it at least as long as it remains in that condition O my Soul thou hast a difficulty to Suffer a disgrace thy passions spur thee forward to reveng consider with thy self that it is far more reasonable for a Christian to imitate the clemency of his Saviour and benignity of the same God By the like considerations according to the diversity of passions a man will become more vigilant over them and more powerfull to suppress and mortify them This methode is more sweet and humane more generall and easie for a good regimen of life and is also a moderate chastisement for the body I will conclude this first means with that of the Apostle Rom ch 8. If you live according to the flesh you shall dye but if by Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh you shall live CHAP. II. Of Interiour and Affective Prayer BY speaking here of Interiour and Mental Prayer I intend not to exclude Vocal if it be performed with the attention of the mind and the affection of the heart for if these be wanting to it I esteem it not worthy the name of Prayer The necessity of Prayer to sustain this spiritual life of ours appears by this That in Sacred Writ there is not any precept so often repeated nor so seriously recommended to us as this Non impediaris orare semper Eccles 18. 22. Be not hindred from Praying alwayes It is the Councel of the Wise Man no business howsoever profitable or necessary should hinder thee from the assiduity in this exercise The Prophet David in many places of his Psalms commends to us not any thing more than the study of Prayer and praising God our B. Saviour often and carefully puts us in mind of this Oporter semper orare Luc. 18. Ye ought alwayes to Pray there is a necessity of it not some time not often but you must alwayes Pray And again Vigilate semper orantes Luc. 21. Watch alwayes Praying He did not only teach us the necessity of Prayer by words but also by his own example he often ascended Mountains and retyred into desert places to be more vacant to Prayer and as St. Luke testifies he often spent whole nights in Prayer not for his own necessities but for our instruction St. Paul seriously commends and commands this 1 Thes 1. Be instant in Prayer pray without intermission And again 1 Tim. 2. Volo vos orare c. I will that you pray in every place But some may scruple here how this precept of alwayes praying can be observed and practised some expound it that we ought to be always employed in some good to the honour of God every good work as they say being a kind of Prayer But this cannot be the true sence of it because Christ maketh a difference between prayer and good works and maketh Alms Prayer
The glorious name we carry obligeth us to this The name of Christians comes from Christ and by it we profess to be disciples and followers of him and he who belongs to Christ ought to live and walk as he did so the Apostle informs us Platonists and Epicurians were so called because they were disciples of Plato and of the school of Epicurus We say one is a Ciceronian because he imitates Cicero in writing and speaking St. Mathew called those souldiers Herodians who belonged to Herod we are called Christians and if we will be such in effect we must be true disciples of Christ enter into his school study his doctrine obey his commands practice his maxims so his heavenly Father commands Ipsum audite hear and obey him In my Judgment the best reason the rightest intention the holyest disposition we can have in our actions is to practice them because Christ taught them recommended and practiced the like for our example When the disciples of Pythagoras advanced any proposition they alleadged no proof for it nor gave any other reason then ipse dixit he said it ought not the word and the authority of Christ to prevail as much with us Christians sure it ought if we had but such an esteem and respect for him as they had for their Master If you ask a Schollar in paynting or writing having a modell before his eyes why he paints this visage so or frames that letter after such a manner he will answer you because his pattern and example is so If you demand of a Souldier why he goes on this side or that sometimes in the wing sometimes in the reer he will reply because his Ensign makes the like martches So he who is a true Christian a disciple and Souldier of Christ practiseth this or that Vertue not as Philosophers because it is excellent and befeeming a great courage but because Jesus Christ his pattern example and captain taught it commanded it practised it some are oftentimes in care to know what is the will of God what most pleasing to him and what to do most for his honour and glory no man knew better the will of God then Christ who obeyed it and fulfilled it in every thing no man knew so well as he what most conduced to the glory of God seeing as he testifieth of himself he did not seek his own glory but his Fathers in every thing we have then no more to do in this affair then to consider what Jesus Christ did teach command and practice for our example For God hath made him the pattern and example of all the predestinate as the Apostle informs us Rom. 8. in these words Whom he did foresee to be his he did predestinate them conformes fieri imagini filii sui to become conformable to the image of his Sonn God hath called us of his mercy to be Christians we are not such by generation but by regeneration nature by all its power cannot make a good Christian it is a work of grace let not a day pass without praising God for this benefit and let us often demand of him ardently and humbly his grace to become good Christians without which the benefitts of our creation conservation redemption and of the Sacraments will not profit us What profit to beleeve God and what he sayes if we do not do his Will to consent to his Word if we obey not his command to profess his verities if in practice we follow our vanities By this doctrine delivered we may discover the errour of many mistakes who speak of Christs humanity in the like manner as they do of other infirm creatures affirming that the consideration of it obscures the bright rayes of the Divinity in Contemplation and therefore to become a perfect contemplative a man must abstract from that and transcend it as he would do from that of other creatures This mistake of theirs they ground upon the doctrine of St. Denys not well understood by them that H. Father affirms it necessary to the perfect Contemplation of the Divinity to transcend all Creatures either by denying them or adding somthing to shew that they are not God and so that we ought not to rest in them if we seek God But this reason holds not good in Christ who is both God and Man and so as St. Augustine speaks by the same pace we go to him as Man we ascend to him as God And by the same act we love him as Man we love him too as God But it is not so in the love of other Creatures for here is necessary a reflection and an affirmation that I love them not for themselves but for God because they contain not God intimately in them and so in loving them my mind directly by this tends not God But when I love Christ who is personally God and Man that act tends to him as God and Man because he is both inseparably Hence saith St. Bernard The Divinity shadowed it self in a body the better to be seen So though the humanity of Christ is not a pure spirit yet it is not so flesh as to be an impediment to the spirit This is the Doctrine of St. Augustine Lib. 9. de civit c. 15. who says that God being made partaker of our humanity Compendium praebuit participandae divinitatis suae shewed a compendious way to become partakers of his Divinity is that by touching him man we touch also God what more compendious Christ inform'd us as much in his Transfiguration on the Mount where he did speak of his excess which he was to accomplish at Hierusalem Luc. 9. seeing in such a Splendour Majesty and Glory he would solemnly mention his Death and Passion Moses and Elias would not be amid'st the rayes of Divinity without the meditation of Christ Crucified glory became more pleasing to them by it and that most resplendant Vision was thereby the more easily supported without fear of being oppressed by the ravishing violence of its delightfulness And hence is that of St. Bernard Marcessit divinitatis contemplatio ubi languit passionis meditatio The contemplation of the Divinity will soon fail when the Meditation of the Passion languisheth and decays CHAP. III. The Lives of the Primitive Christians propounded as an Example in this kind of Life TErtullian affirms that the Christians in his time were of such an innocent Life that they had no other crime pretended against them by their Enemies than their Religion And he gives the Pagans the defiance if they say they have Christians in their Prisons amongst them for any thing else but for their Religion Athenagoras sayes in his Apology Nullus Christianus malus There is not any Christian bad unless he dissembles his Religion Eusebius relates that in the time of Dioclesian the Oracle of Apollo answered that the Just had hindered him from speaking Dioclesian demanding who these Just were the Idolatrous Priests replyed that they were the Christians who led an Innocent life Pliny Junior