Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A28387
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A mirrour for monkes written by Lewis Blosius.
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Blois, Louis de, 1506-1566.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing B3203; ESTC R24660
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36,136
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205
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be prepared But you are happy if by grace you have proceeded soe farre that all greife and affliction whatsoever become truly pleasing to you for Gods sake what thinke you brother is my glasse bige nough or is not this yet sufficient for you but you yet desire to heare in more expresse tearmes more abundantly and fully howe to compose your selfe within and without or howe according to reason you ought to order every day before God CHAPTER II Howe wee ought to bestowne our time from our first rising to mattins in the moring AS soon as you are wake and ready to rise to mattens devoutly arme your selfe with the signe of the crosse and breifly pray to God that he will vouchsafe to blot out the staynes of sinne in you and be pleased to helpe you Then casting all vayne imaginations out of your mynde thinke upon some other thing that is spirituall and conceave asmuch puritye of heart as you can rejoysing in your selfe that you are called up to the prayse and worship up of your creatour But if frailty of body if heavinesse of sleepe if conturbation of spirit depresse you be not out of heart but be comforted and force your selfe overcominge all impediments with reason and willingnesse for the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent beare it away certainely according to the labour with you undergoe for the love of God such shal be your recompense and reward being come of from your bed commend and offer your selfe both body and soule to the most high make haste to the quire as to a place of refuge and the garden of spiritual delights untill devine office begin study to keep your mynde in peace and simplicity free from troubles and the multiplicity of uncertaine thoughts collecting a godly and sweete affection towards your God by sincere meditation or prayer In the perfourmance of the devine office have a care to pronounce and heare the holy wordes reverently perfectly thankefully and attentively that you may taste that your lord is sweete and may feele that the word of God hath incomprehēsible sweetnesse and power for whatsoever the holy Ghost hath dictated is indeed the life procureing foode and the delightfull solace of a chast sober and humble soule remember therfore to be there faythfully attentive but avoide too vehement cogitations and motions of mynde especially if your head be weake least being hurt or wearyed confounded and streightened internally you shutt the sanctuary of God against your selfe reject likewise too troublesome care which commonly bringeth with it pusillanimity and restlesnesse and persever with a gentle quiet and watchfull spirit in the praises of God without singularity But if you cannot keepe your heart from evagations be not dejected in mynde but patiently endevour patiently doe what lyeth in your power committing the rest to the divine will Persever in your godly affection towards God and even your very defects which you are noe way able to exclude will in a manner beget you consolation For as the earth which is of a convenient nature doth by the casting of dunge ostentimes more fruitfully send forth her seeds soe a mynde of good will out of the defects which by constraint it susteyneth shall in due time receave the moste sweet fruit of divine visitation if it endure them with patience And what profitt do you reape by being impatient doe you not heape callamity upon calamity doe you not shew your wante of true humility and bewray in your selfe a pernitions propriety As long as you do reverently assist and are ready with a prompt desire of will to attende you have satified God neyther will he impute the inordinatenesse of this instability to you if soe be by your negligence you give not consent unto it and before the time of prayer you sett a garde over your sences if you cannot offer a perfect dutifulnesse offer at least a goodwill offer a right intent in the spirit of humility and soe the devill shall not finde anie occasion to cavill against you Although you have nothing else to offer but a readinesse in body and spirit to serve our lord in holy feare be sure of it that you shall not loose your reward But woe to your soule if you be negligent and remisse and care not to give attendance for it is writte Cursed is the man that doth the worke of God negligently Be diligent that you may perfourme what you are able if you be not able to perfourme what you desire upon this security be not troubled when impediments happen and you be not able to perfourme asmuch as you would when I say distraction of your sences dejection of mynde drynesse of heart greife of head or any other misery and temptation afflicted you beware you say not I am left our lord hath cast me away my duty pleaseth him not these are words befitting the children of distrust endure therefore with a patient and joyfull mynde all things for his sake that hath called and chosen you firmely beleeving that he is neare to those that are of a contrite heart For if you humbly without murmering carry this burden layde on you not by mortall tongue to be uttered what a deale of glory you heape up for your selfe in the life to come You may truly say unto God As a beast am I become with thee Beleeve me Brother if being repleat with interne all sweetnesse and lifted up abone your selfe you fly up to the third heaven and there converse with angells you shall not doe soe great a deed as if for Gods sake you shall affectually endure greife and banishment of heart and be conformeable to our saviour when in extreame sorrowe auginsh feare and adversity crying unto his father lett thy will be done who also being thrust through his hands and feete hanging on the crosse had not wheron to leane his head who also most lovingly endured for thee all the griefes and disgraces of his most bitter passion Therefore in holy longanimity conteine your selfe and expect in silence untill it shall please the most high to dispose otherwise And certainly in that day it shall not be demanded of you hove much intetnall sweetnesse you have heere felt But howe faith full you have bin in the love and service of God CHAPTER III. God hath too sorts of servants and the description of both AMonge those that are called the servants of God many serve him unfaythfully few faithfully indeed unfaithfull servants as long as they have sensible devotion and present grace of teares doe serve God with alacrity they pray willingly joyfully goe about good workes and seeme to live in deepe peace of heart But assone as God hath thought it good to with drawe that devotion you shall see them troubled chafe become malicious and impatient and at last neyther willing to be att theyr prayers nor amy other divine exercises And because they feele not internall consolations as they desire they perniciously betake themselves to those that
forward themselfes to greater violence and desist not from this indiscreet forcing themselfes untill being hurt and confounded they fall and faynte in themselfes and are thenceforth made unapt to receave the sweetnesse of grace Wherefore the internall heate and violence is alwayes soe to be moderated that the spirit be not extinguished but comforted by it They whose heads are of a good temper may more fervently and strougly insist in fervent aspirations but they that have weake heads especially if the weaknesse growe by indiscretion are not able to exercise themselfes otherwise then very gently and moderatly And such can scarrely somtimes admitt a simple compunction of mynde or meditation or reading wihout hurt yea although they leave their heade on some place So great is the calamity that proceedeth of the vice of indiscretions But lett them not dispaire that are brought to that passe But lett them diligently asmuch as in them lyeth avoide the discommodity of this hurte or confusion and humbly pray to God for the restoring of that which they have spoiled themselfes If God be pleased to heare them lett them be thankfull if not lett them blesse our lord and for his love learne according to his pleasure patiently to endure this misery which they have done on themselfes Lett our internall practitioner beware also of all lightnesse of inconstancy and instability Lett him take in hand those exercises that are good and lett him goe on with what he hath once begunne although they like him not but soe that the pleasure of the holy Ghost be followed in all the decree of his owne will and appointment being rejected For the holy Ghost doth diverse wayes as it were invite us and use to as bring us by diverse pathes to that wyne celler and bedchamber of divine love whose instinct we must still obsearve and most readily followe laying aside all propriety wherefore this our spirituall scoller shall often present himselfe to the holy Ghost as a prepared instrument and which way soever the holy Ghost shall bend and apply lett him presently followe if att any time he shall be drawne or elevated up to the soaring contemplation and embracements of the cheifest good lett him freely offer up himselfe and if the passion of Christ or any holy meditation and imagination occurre lett him not stay at it but with all expedition fly thither whether he is called by the spirit When he dout fully staggereth in his purpose not knowing how he ought to proceede in his begun enterprise lett him use the counsell of men that are prudent expert and humble for soe he shall be a greater proficient then if relying uppon himselfe he proceede according to his owe inventions But in the meane time lett him not forget carefully to have recourse to the remedy of prayer humbly beseeching in all things to be directed and illuminated by our lord least at any time being deceaved he followe error insteed of truth And let him alwayes remembet that he can never perfectly be at leasure for God vnlesse his heart be free and cleane from all things besids God you have nowe heard Brother after a manner howe he shold begin and howe he should goe forward in externall exercises that desireth to attayne to any excellent degree of a pure life It shall be your parte not only to heare and reade these things bu also to put them in practise Which if you doe and have helpe from above and that you beginne to be cleare with in and that psalmodis and other offices of divine praise wax sweet unto you search not to high but be afraide For although your heart being inlarged you doe awhile runne the way of Gods commandements you have not of your selfe inlarged your hearte but God hath done it And he that enlarged it can permitt it his grace being with drawne to be agayne coupled up and inprisoned The sunne of justice hath shined on you and certaine scales being taken of hath illuminated your mynde but who can hinder him from hiding himselfe of he be soe pleased We you therefore ready for he will hide himselfe and his amiable brightnesse being once departed your sences shall againe be darkned and hindred Moreover certaine immistions by evill angells will tosse the shiop of your brest yea peradventure the temptation will be soe strong that you will thinke all to oppose it selfe against you You will seeme to your selfe to be wholy given over to satan and will not have list to open your mouth in Gods praise Neyther shall this calamity endure a little while Neyther shall you only once or thrice or six or ten times be layed hold on by it but very often sometimes more vehemently then at others But be not dejected att this Neyther thinke any thing sinnisterly of your faulte For he hath permitted you to be tempted that it may be manifest if you truly love him and that you may learne to pitty others that are oppressed by temptations He scourgeth and bruseth you that he may purge you from vice and prepare you for more grace He seemeth to leave you as it were for a time that you wax not prond but may alwayes acknowledge that you can do nothing without him yet neverthelesse he doth not forsake you He exerciseth you in these and the like adversities out of the unspeakable charity where with he loveth you For the heavenly spouse useth this kinde of dispensation with a fervent soule converted unto him He visiteth her solemnly in the beginning of her new purpose doth comfort and illustrat her and after he hath recreated and allured her with his sweete smell he draweth her after him and lovingly meeteth her almost every where with his mille feeding his new friud Afterwards he beginneth to administer to her the solid foode of affliction and playnly sheweth her howe much she ought to endure for his name Nowe she beginneth to be in a sea of troubles men molest her without passions trouble her with in punishments afflict her externally internally she becommeth dejected by pusillanimity externally she is greived with infirmities internally darknesse overcasteth and clowdeth her the externall parts are oppressed the internall dried up one while the bridgroome hideth himselfe from the soule another while he discovereth himselfe unto her Nowe he leaveth her as it were in the darknesse and horrour of death and presently recalleth her to the sweetnesse of light insomuch that it may be truly said of him that he leadeth downe to hell and bringeth backe againe By such meanes he tryeth purifieth humbleth teacheth weanes draws adorns the soule if he finde her faithfull in all things and to be of a good will and holy patience and that by long exercise and his grace she doth mildly and affectionately endure all tribulations and temptations then doth he more perfectly joyne her to himselfe and familiarly make her partaker of his secrets and binde her farre otherwise to him then he did at the beginning of her conversion Be