all pollution from them like as the Sun shineth upon a dunghil without taint or imperfection Simplicity quitted him from all multiplicity engagements reflections upon his own Interest Complacencies Vanity passion of Joy or Sadness from any of his own Performances or Speeches from Praise or Dispraise or from the Vices of the Times Places or Persons he conversed with to receive any pollution from them no otherwise than a new-born childe beholdeth a Pageantry which passeth before it which is forgotten as soon as removed Lastly Purity directed his eye in a straight line to God pretending to nothing but his glory in any thing that man had a hand in And this proceeding of his all ought to imitate if they desire to make progress in Vertue and arrive to perfection and particularly those that treat much with their neighbour in the negotiation of his salvation that they may do it with more advantage to him and with no damage to themselves PART IV. His Vertues whereby he was elevated and united to God CHAP. 1. His Interiour and his Application to the Sacred Trinity ALthough what we have hitherto said of the Heroick Vertues and famous Actions of Monsieur Renty which had respect either to his own perfection or the good of his neighbour is very remarkable Yet the principal and more admirable is that which remains viz. The state of his Interiour and his communication with God So David saith that the Kings-daughter is all glorious within and the Holy Ghost setteth forth in lofty expressions the Spouse in the Canticles for the beauty of her face and of her whole body But it addes that nothing could sufficiently be uttered concerning the hidden graces of her Soul and Interiour which were far more charming and attractive even as the chief excellencies of our B. Saviour consisted not in his Exteriour or in those things he did either for himself or for men but in the intimate union he had with God and those actions he produced in the profundity of his Spirit towards him In like manner our perfection consists not in our good works which appear outwardly nor in the exercises of Charity Humility Poverty and the like Vertues open to the eye but in the application of our spirit to God and our union with him by the acts of vertue and chiefly of the three Theological ones It consisteth I say in honouring and adoring him in the Temple of our souls in performing to him there the Sacrifices of a lively Faith upon the Altar of our Understanding in offering up the Holocausts of perfect Hope and ardent Charity upon the Altar of our Will and in a total subjection of our spirits to his and an union of all our faculties with him whereby we become purified sanctified and deified proportionably as the blessed Saints are in heaven where this perfection is compleated This was Monsieur Renties practice whereby he had a true feeling of S. Pauls words Your life is hid with God through Jesus Christ concerning which he expressed his thoughts thus to a friend There is nothing in this world so separate from the world as God and the greater the Saints are the greater is their retirement into him This our Saviour taught us whilst he lived on earth being in all his visible employments united to God and retired into the bosom of his Father His principal care was incessantly to cultivate and adorn his soul to unite it intimately to God by the operations of his understanding and will to give up himself with all his strength to this hidden and divine life of Faith Hope and Charity of Religion of a mystical Death and entire Abnegation of himself Some years before his death his particular attractive was the contemplation of the B. Trinity being the last end in which all must terminate Whereof he gave this account to his Spiritual Guide in the year 1645. I carry about with me ordinarily an experimental verity and a plenitude of the presence of the Holy Trinity And in another Letter thus All things vanish out of my fancy as soon as they appear nothing is permanent in me but God through a naked faith which causing me to resign my self up to my Saviour affordeth me strength and confidence in God the Trinity in that the operation of the three Divine persons is manifested to me in a distinct manner viz. The love of the Father which reconcileth us by his Son the Father and the Son who give us life through the Holy Spirit the H. Spirit which causeth us to live in in Communion with Jesus Christ which worketh in us a marvellous alliance with the Sacred Trinity and produceth often in our hearts by faith such inward feelings as cannot be expressed He writ also to a confident friend and one that was much devoted to this Sacred Mysterie How that the proper and special effect of Christian grace is to make us know God in the Trinity uniting us to the Son who causeth us to work by his Spirit And to say the truth we are consecrated by our Baptism to the worship of the B. Trinity Therein we are consecrated to his Glory receive its Seal and put on its Badge and Livery to manifest to us and to all the world that we are perfectly and absolutely its own He writ to the same party in the year 1648. on the same subject The Feast of the blessed Trinity giveth me this occasion to write that we may renew our selves in the honour and dependance we have upon this incomparable Mysterie I desire to joyn hearts with you to adore that which we are not able to express Let us melt into an acknowledgement thereof and foâ—tifie our selves by the grace of Faith through Christ to be perfected in this adorable Mysterie Infinite things might be spoken which my heart resenteth of the latitude of this grace but I cannot utter them I beseech you let us adore God let us adore Jesus Christ let us adore the holy Spirit which Spirit discovereth unto us the operations of love and mercy of these Divine Persons in us and let us make good use thereof The same year he clearly expressed his condition and the manner of wholly applying himself â—oâ—th Sacred Trinity how that his soul was most entirele united to the three Divine Persons from whence he received illuminations that surpassed all humane understanding how he lived perpetually retired and locked up as it were with the Son of God in the bosom of his Father Where this Son became his Light his Life and Love and the holy Spirit his Guide his Sanctification and Perfection how he did bear within himself the Kingdom of God which he explained by a resemblance of what the Blessed enjoy in heaven by vertue of that view and transcendent knowledge of the sacred Trinity which was communicated to him and that pure Love by which he felt his heart inflamed and as it were transformed into God in whom he possessed a joy and repose beyond all expression That
deeply affected to see these things and came and fell down at his feet Monsieur Renty did the like to him continuing in that posture for a long time resolving not to rise before the poor man He used to receive them in his arms and embrace them with tender affection These actions proceeding from a person of his birth and quality and produced by the holy Spirit of God wrought wonderful effects And that first in these poor Passengers who astonished at such ardent Charity joyned with suth profound humility were exceedlingy moved thereby insomuch that tears of Devotion were seen flowing from their eyes and themselves falling down at his feet with signs of repentance for their sins and a design of a better life begging his counsel and assistance therein and beginning it with going to Confession and the Sacrament the next day Secondly in those Religious women that belonged to this Hospital who taking fire at his example resolved to do the like in daily serving the poor teaching them their Prayers and Catechism with the ten Commandments which offices they had never done before Together with many other good things conducing to their own attaining to perfection and the better governing of their Hospital which he infused into them and they do still continue with great Devotion he having several times told them that he hoped in time to see God greatly glorified and served among them as we see it is come to pass at this day and may truly affirm that this gallant man hath contributed not a little to so much good done there both within doors and without and doubt not but he hath already received the reward thereof in Heaven But let us further consider some other effects of his zeal Going one day with a friend to visit the holy place of Mont-Matre to which he had great Devotion after his prayers said in the Church he retired into a desolate place of the Mountain near a little spring which as it is said St. Denis made use of where he kneeled down to his prayers which ended made his dinner of a piece of bread and draught of water Grace being said he took out the New Testament which he always carried in his pocket and read a Chapter upon his knees bareheaded with extraordinary reverence In this juncture of time came thither a poor man saying his Chaplet Monsieur Renty rose up to salute him and fell into a discourse with him concerning God and that so powerfully that the good man striking his breast fell down upon the ground to adore that great God making such evident appearances of the great impressions that were wrought upon his Spirit that struck Monsieur Rexty and his friend with much astonishment Immediately after this came a poor Maid to draw water at the well Whom he asked what she was She answered a Servant But do you know saith he that you are a Christian and to what end you were created Whereupon he took occasion to instruct her in what he conceived necessary for her to know and so to the purpose that she confessing her former ignorance told him ingenuously that before that hour she had never thought of her salvation but promised from thence forward to take it into serious consideration and go to Confession Let us still proceed a little higher on the same subject In his return from Dijon after his first journey thither accompanied with two noble pious persons about some four leagues He stopped three or four times by the way to Catechize poor Passengers and one time went far out of his way to do the same to some labourers in the field instructing them how to sanctifie their work they were about A young Maid in Paris having been very cruelly used by her Uncle fell into so great disorder and desperation that all in a fury she accused our blessed Saviour to be the cause of her misery in abondoning her to the barbarous usage of such a man without releiving her In this horrid plight of conscience she went to receive the Sacrament several times in a day at several Churches that she might not be discovered And this upon design to do despite to our Saviour to provoke him to finish her destruction as it was begun letting her to fall into the abyss of misery and hell for ever Monsieur Renty advertised of this sad accident and considering the great offence against God and mischief of this poor creature was transported with zeal speedily to finde her out Which after eight days pursuit from several Churches at length he did meeting with her in the very act of Communicating Taking witnesses he conveyed her to an Hospital for Mad-folks where he took so great care both of her soul and body that she returned to herself and gave ample testimonies of her conversion and repentance for those horrid enormities Neither did his zeal reach onely to those that were near him but such also as were absent and far remote to whom he had no other relation but what was contracted by his alliance to our blessed Saviour and his own Charity Understanding the news that was current some years since of a War the Turk designed against the Knights of Malta and to besiege the Island he so far interested himself in their danger that he recommended it twice by Letter to the prayers of Sister Margaret Carmelite of the B Sacrament at Beaulne whom he deemed to have great power with God His first Letter runs thus I commend to your prayers and of the holy Family the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem which is at this present in great danger and with them the whole Christian World What that common Potent enemy of our faith will do I know not one Our little Jesus who is all love and power knows how to vindicate his own glory please you therefore to commend it to him In the second Letter thus I beseech the Omnipotency of the holy Babe Jesus to preserve his children under the Cross and to purifie them for his own work This is it which I request for our Brethren of the Order of St. John Baptist of Jerusalem SECT 7. Certain other qualities of his zeal THe design of advancing the Salvation of mens souls is attended in this world with much doing and much suffering It is necessary therefore for him that undertakes the task to fortifie himself with courage and patience And both these were most eminently in Monsieur Renty being in the first place full of courage resolute and laborious imploying his body as if he had two more in reserve when that was spent dispatching more business in one half hour than others would have done in many days Very stout he was to undergo any difficulties and withal very quick and decisive A certain Lady of note made him her executor having disposed in her will very much to pious uses He was informed that her friends being persons of eminent power were displeased therewith To which he replyed with a
in this estate he had a conformity with the Son of God by a participation and fellowship both in his Beatitude and Sufferings which he endured here below and that by his holy Spirit were accomplished in him the mysteries of the whole Pilgrimage of our Saviour in this world rendring him as a daily sacrifice to the B. Trinity breathing after the Resurrection and his perfect Consummation in Glory Suâ—h was the disposition of this holy man towards the B. Trinity in which he passed his latter years and in which he dyed finishing his sacrifice and was often wont to say That when a man is call'd up hither he must abide there without any changing Being guided this way and treading these pathes he made an admirable progress to the highest pitch of perfection attainable in this life each Person in the sacred Trinity working in his soul wonderful impressions of grace sealing him with their particular characters and sanctifying him in an extraordinary manner The Father kept him alway retired and recollected in his own bosom where he bestowed upon him a large share of his own infinite inclination to communicate himself to others and of this blessed Celestial Fecundity in begetting children not of flesh and blood but of the Spirit enflaming his heart with a paternal and maternal love towards mankinde from whence did flow that unparalell'd charity whereof we have spoken The Son transformed him into a lively image of God through the resemblance of his own perfections bestowing on him a filial spirit to acquit himself towards him in all his endeavors with that singular reverence saith confidence love obedience as is required from a Son to a Father bringing him into such a condition as that God spake to him Interiourly producing in him his word accompanied with such power and strength as was able to touch mens souls and work in them the blessed fruits of salvation The Holy Ghost that infinite pure and reciprocal love of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father cleansed him from all the impurities of self-love and self-seeking enflamed him with a perfect love towards God taught him the way of spiritualizing all material things of sanctifying all indifferent things of extracting good out of all evil and finally of leading a life truly spiritual after the grand pattern of our Saviour This he expressed in brief in a Letter to his Director writ in the year 1647. The Divine goodness worketh in me that which I am not able to express I possess even the B. Trinity and finde distinctly in my self the operations of the three Divine Persons CHAP. 2. His Faith THe better to take this Spiritual Life in pieces we will begin with his Faith the prime Theological Vertue which Gulielmus Parisiensis calls the Primum Vivens of the soul and S. Paul the first step we make in our advance towards God This blessed man studied with particular care a solid foundation in this vertue knowing the incredible consequence thereof for a spiritual life and how all other vertues depend on it as on their Root their Rule and Measure O how good a thing saith he in one of his Letters is it to live of Faith I seem to understand this Vertue every day better and better Those that are established in this the life by which the just live according to S. Paul are at length compleated to Perfection and enjoy here the first fruits of glory He possessed this grace in so high a degree that he was more ascertained of the presence of God of the verity of the mysteries of our Faith than of the shining of the Sun He truly lived by Faith this was the path in which he walked working all by the spirit thereof Hereby he looked upon things not onely with his corporal eyes but with those that pierced deeper considering them not according to their present or past condition or the order of nature but their future and eternal according to their relation to grace and glory regarding nothing but as it was or might be a means of â—â—s own or others salvation All his works were performed by the hand of Faith which proves strong and effectual which more willingly handles Ulcers and the loathsome soars of poor people than gallants do Sattins or Velvets The pure and vigorous Faith of the primitive Christians said he caused them to act without those conveniences and necessaries which we stand upon which indeed argue the decay and weakness of Faith such heroick actions as we onely now admire these assuredly lived by Faith without any form and composition of their own proper spirit in great Simplicity Efficacy and Verity Being fortified by this Faith he was wont to say that he felt no difficulty at all when our Saviour sensibly deserted him for a time and sent him great aridities attributing all those inquietudes impatience and anxities which we labour under in this estate of privation to the want of this grace I have taken out of one of his Letters what he writ to this purpose We seldom meet with persons addicted to prayer that can behave themselves prudently under Interior derelictions or that can have patience to wait for some time at the door of sensible consolations and enlightnings without making a forcible entry that do not chafe themselves and cast this way and that way and seek by their own means to procure them seeking for another support than that of Faith which alone should suffice any spiritual man These sensible gusts are but sent as supplements of the littleness and cordials for the faintings of faith But the just should live by faith and upon that foundation rest himself in expectation of our Saviour with patience Our inconveniences arise from hence that we are a people of little faith to discern things by its light although we often pretend to know more than really we do To another he writ concerning this point upon the subject of the Centurions faith thus Where shall we meet with a Faith comparable to that of the Centurion Alas what a shame is this to our Spiritual persons who talk much of Faith but indeed have little more than the sound scarce any thing of the truth and effect thereof how few are there that can bear the afflictions of spirit or body with a naked Faith and such a simplicity as sooketh remedy onely from God and maketh use of patience when comfort doth not appear so soon as expected We all covet to enjoy Jesus Christ sensibly and that he would come to our houses to cure our anxieties And for want of these sensible comforts the Spirit runs and wanders on all hands seeking repose but findes it not because indeed it is not to be found in her action but onely in her sacrifice made in Faith which brings down the Spirit of Christ which is our strength and life in the midst of troubles and of death The Centurien was ashamed and confounded that Christ would come to his house
before the Blessed Sacrament for I fell all along I resolved to try whether upon retiring and refreshing my self a little I should be any better But for all that I found my self more tired and discomposed in body and minde than if I had had the courage to have lain there still all along upon the ground Hereupon I reflected upon what I had formerly read in a Paper you sent me concerning a certain vertuous person afflicted with the like stupefaction Whereupon I rose up and set my self under the Crucifix before the Holy Sacrament determining to honour my Saviour in all conditions and tempers Being thus upon my knees by the Divine assistance I got the victory over my self and my spirit was enlarged Whereupon I received from the Blessed Sacrament this illumination That to become Bread which hath relation to that Mysterie I must first be ground like the corn than kneâ—ded with water and lastly baked in the even And that this was the right way to be incorporated into that mystical Bread our Lord and Saviour and at the same instant that this was revealed unto me I felt in my self a vehement desire to be thus dealt with which hath remained in me ever since And now I understand that to enter into a Spiritual estate we must like the corn before we be sent to the mill be first threshed and winnowed from our earthly impurities and that the grain is not fit for use till it be pure and that it becomes not fruitful till it first dyeth in the ground The meditation upon this material Bread hath taught me great Mysteries during this Octave of the Heavenly Bread in the Sacrament viz. how that Jesus Christ being bruised and broken in his Passion giveth himself to us for food to the end that we might set forth and express his Death his Lnve and Vertues in our life And in this condition I now finde my self much in love with Jesus Christ desirous to be wholly to him and to render unto him in my affliction this which he hath given me and my goods and my body and my soul and my time and my eternity I have a great thirst upon me to serve him and other longings which I reserve to communicate until I have the happiness to see you This his singular affection to the B. Sacrament caused him to write in Capital Letters upon a Chimney piece in his Castle at Citry Blessed for ever be the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar This made him walk on foot to visit all Churches within two leagues round about him to see in what decency the B. Sacrament was reserved there and to bestow in several parts a great number of silver pixes to keep it in upon poor Parishes and Tabernacles likewise which he made gilded with his own hands having a great dexterity in all such Manual works Of which he writ something to me the 26 of September in the year 1646. Since Advent I began a work which I have designed this long time viz. at such times as my urgent occasions will give leave which commonly is after supper till prayer time to practice some handicraft work where having all my tools I make Tabernacles for the B. Sacrament and if I finish but one in a moneth my time will not be ill spent for they may be serviceabe to some poor Churches that want them Guided by the same zeal in the year 1641. he cast to set up in his Parish of S. Paul a company of devout Ladies every one in their turn to spend an hour in prayer every afternoon before the Sacrament He wrote a short Treatise of the conduct of this Devotion and the grounds of undertaking it the cheif whereof was upon the consideration that our Saviour being continually in this adored Mysterie to give himself to us it was therefore but reasonable that some persons should be present in the Church to render to him their homage and honour and correspondent to that his desire of giving himself to us This Treatise he presented with all humility and due respect to his Parish Priest for his consent and the putting it in practice if he thought it fitting which was done accordingly and continueth to this day with great edification and profit and succeedeth so happily that the like institution is taken up in several other Parishes and Towns as at Dijon where Monsieur Renty erected it at his first journey thither with great zeal and courage overcoming several difficulties and oppositions against it He likewise excited several persons in his Parish to accompany the Holy Sacrament when it was carried to the sick in such sort that a great company of men and women were seen to follow our Blessed Saviour with lighted torches where he attended likewise with great diligence notwithstanding his daily employments spending for a long while almost all the morning in this Holy Exercise in all seasons of heart and cold One day amongst other being very foul he much distempered with rheume he was wish'd to forbear that time being so very incommodious for him to walk bare-headed to the great prejudice of his health All which moved him not a jot but he went chearfully thorow these difficulties and which is very observable at his return was cured of his rheume Another time accompanying the H. Sacrament a coach with six horses passed by without stopping or saluting the same whereupon he suspecting them to be ill-affected persons and much offended with their impietie stirred up with zeal to defend the honour of his Master adventured to admonish them of their duty and casting himself before the horses with much hazard to his person stayed the coach in its career and engaged the persons to do reverence thereto by staying till it was past which heroick action caused great admiration in all the beholders CHAP. 8. His Prayer THis Chapter and the next contain some things in them that cannot so well be expressed by way of History by reason that things of such difficult nature must be dilated upon to make them intelligible In this Chapter we shall speak of his Prayer which we may fitly term the large channel which conveys the gifts of God into our soul the most certain means for procuring of help and all graces requisite to our salvation the most universal instrument whereof we serve our selves in our spiritual life to perform all the functions thereof for our advancement in the Purgative way for rooting out vices in the Illuminative way for the practice of vertue and in the Unitive for arriving unto an union with God in which consisteth our perfection All the Saints that ever were have set so high a value upon this Divine action that quitting as it were all other affairs they have passed their days and nights in prayer many having left their Crowns and Scepters and retired into Monasteries and Solitudes to have the honour to converse with God more secretly and for longer time Monsieur de Renty enlightned by their
Gaston Iean Baptiste de Renty Seig. r de Ciâ—â—â— Baron de â—â—nadâ—â—s Mourut à Paris le 24 d'Avril del'An 1649. 〈◊〉 de sonà ge THE HOLY LIFE OF MON r. DE RENTY A LATE NOBLEMAN OF FRANCE And sometimes COUNCELLOR TO KING LEWIS the 13th Written in French by John Baptist S. Jure And Faithfully translated into English By E. S. Gent. London Printed for John Crook at the Sign of the Ship in S. Pauls Church-yard 1658. TO THE READER Christian Reader SUch nourishment as the reading of vain Romances or the Lives of Secular-Love-Knights though these onely fained supply to the earthly principle in us our carnal lusts and ambitions set upon fading glories and beauties the same do the Histories of Saints and person enamoured of heaven administer to the other celestial principle in us the H. Spirit which more or less inhabites in every one who is more than in name Christian These books it is that set us all on fire and suddenly transform us into the same holy inclinations we read in those Christian Hero's so much would we love so much would we do so much would we suffer and if I may apply the Apostles words spoken of the Lord unto his holy followers We beholding as in a glass the glory of these Saints of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirits of the Lord whilst both the sweet consolations which such have found in Gods service sweeter than honey Psal 19. allure us to a vertuous life and their treading the way before us in the observance of the most difficult precepts of the Gospel and in the enduring all the hardship as our inexperience aâ—counts it of the Christian warfare both shews us it faifible what God commands and invites us to follow their conquering travels Yet notwithstanding the great effects such writings frequently produce many aspersions and exceptions intervene which to many Readers render them fruitless whilst either we question the truth of the relation as when the Historian living some ages perhaps after such holy men and no eye-witnesses of their actions is supposed to compose his relations much what out of some uncertain traditions and hear-says or being contemporary with them yet such pieces having run thorow the hands of some ages not so pure are imagined to be corrupted and many falsities interposed and mingled with truth Or allowing the truth thereof yet they being the Histories of such as lived long ago in times of a quite different complexion and in some as we phansie more holy age when the first fruits of Gods spirit in the early times of the Gospel were more vigorous and his favours in cherishing the infancy of Christianity more eminent and mens piety by mutual examples more inflamed we think them no pattern for us born in the worst and prophanest times Or yet further if they be modern histories of our own days yet they being ordinarily narrations of persons first cloistered and sequestred from the negotiations of secular affairs or also of such whom this world forsook before they applied themselves so intensively to the other in their being born of mean parent age or to small â—r no temporal fortunes we think them no fit pattern at least for our condition of life when born to the management of a fair estate the support of a noble family and engag'd perhaps also in the duties of a conjugal life For these causes deare Reader I have imployed some spare hours to present thee with the most pious and exemplary life of one who was no retired or cloistered person but who practised the rules of perfection in a secular and married condition with the ordinary worldly impediments of wife children and estate dependent on his care remaining all his days surrounded with the ordinary temptations that such a life affords without being engaged therewith walking in the midst of these flames which set on fire so many hearts without being singed at all or touched by them and holding this pitch that cleaves so fast to others fingers in his hands without being defiled one who abandoned secular inveiglements not in the ordinary and easier way by remâ—ving his person from them but only by removing them from his thoughts of whom I may say as the Apostle of himself the words a little inverted That he was possessing much and yet as having nothing well known and yet as unknown not using this world and yet as using it as living in the world and yet dying to it lastly one who had no advantage for this of any felicity of times beyond ourselves who though for eminency of Christian graces and communication of divine favors he may seem to contend with the ancient Saints yet lived but the other day and dyed not nine years ago April 24. 1649. lived in a neighbour Country France spent a good part of his life in the chief City thereof Paris and there no obscure person but by his birth of a very noble family see cap. 1. in it the heir to a flourishing estate and besides this honored with the dignity of being one of the Kings privy Councel so that all his carriage and actions are easily discoverable if any thing related here should be either feigned or amplified and the pen-man thereof a religious man of note is there yet living to bear the shame of publishing such lies who divulged within some years after his death this copy of his life in the same place where he acted it As for his Letters which the Author hath often inserted here to discover to the world the interior of his soul which cannot be known to others but onely from our selves know that in most of these his humility and that upon command disclosed such things onely to his Confessor and that he onely privately whispered in his ear what is now divulged abroad that he relates to his spiritual Father with much transport and ravishment as who can possess such a treasure and say nothing of it the great power of the present Grace of God in him much after the same manner and with the same modesty as one recovered of a great sicknesse for the state of Sin is a great Disease rejoycingly would tell his Physician of the present good Habit and Temper and Health of his body That his otherwares much evidenced Sanctity will sufficiently perswade his veracity in these relations Lastly That they are not his Letters entire but onely some pieces extracted out of them as best suiting to the Authours purpose His Letters doubtless containing also in them the Confessions of his Sins which in his Confessors absence he was necessitated to present for some time onely by Letter and many Complaints of his Infirmities and Defects with consults for a remedy thereof But it became not the secrecie of a Confessor nor the civility of a Friend to discover all these ner yet the Readers benefit to know them Since the Perfections of our Brethren set before us
wear a Sword must not without doubt be put into a Cloister for the fitting of him to it but so great corruption is now among us that all the principal Instructions that either we or any we set over them do give them serve for nothing but to kindle a fire infernal of vanity in their hearts where there is not but too much already pushing youth on by Paganish examples to put up and endure nothing to aspire always to that which is most aloft and for the climbing up thither to make use of such means as are most approved by the world although they be forbidden by God himself But if they go not thus far yet at least do they not quite choak in the heart of a young Gentleman all Christian Principles For example you know how these Duels infect the mindes of our youth Now tell me how many are there who would be content that their children being grown up and challenged should refuse to fight and much less would be content were they sure they should come off without harm and get the better but what will this come to at last that we never make to them any discourse expresly tending to the cordemning of Duels and shewing the mischievous effects of them which yet we ought to do so much the oftner and that to the bottom inasmuch as their inclination the example esteem and honour of the world doth engage and incite them to these quarrels if perhaps youth let fall any spark of this furious hot coal which is naturally in us some one will it may be in a kinde of smile and by the by Oh that 's not good God forbid such a thing yes but take notice I pray you whether you use no more earnestness than this to prevent your sons having crooked legs and a mishapen body you use no more earnestness than this to have him well taught to dance and fence Such were his Sentiments in this matter As for his Domesticks and Officers that he had under him he recommended to them in a special manner Justice Charity and Sweetness to do good to all and ill to none as far as they were able and to one of them who had been transported with cholar and committed some excess in a Church-yard he wrote as followeth I have heard with grief what you have done and although I cannot believe all the Circumstances that are told me yet I daily meet with enough to make me know that your passion hath got the mastery if I look'd upon you onely for my self and proper interest I should desire you might exterminate all those that would wrong me but so the case stands that both you and I must live like Christians or assuredly be damn'd if we have not this belief and desire le ts be Turks and Barbarians profess'd Knew you but how much such actions are displeasing to God what scandals and damage they bring to men your heart would be changed forthwith and God grant it may my Goods Blood and Life I offer to him to obtain you this Grace on which depends your Salvation but I pray you as a brother and command you as a Master to repair the wrong you have done to God to an Holy Place and to your Neighbour I had rather my house were ruin'd for me than you should fall again into such an extremity I must regulate my thoughts and desires of preserving my estate by my Conscience and the love of God who gave it me I assure you that our guidance in this world is difficult considering the wickednesses of the times and though one may sometime hinder the oppression of the weâ—k withstand injustice by courses extraordinary yet where there is a mixture of our own interest it behoves us to have recourse coordinâ—ry ways as first that of mildeness secondly that of Justice and Law and if that prosper not to employ our patience Then is the time that we ought to practice such a vertue I make no great account of certain Devotions for fashion but I respect the Maxims of the Gospel which teach us no other way than this CHAP. 4. SECT 1. His Vertues in general BEfore I speak of the Vertues of this man of God in particular I must say something of them in general as it were the Ground-work and I have two things to say The first that among all the Persons of Piety that I have known I have not seen any whose Vertues have been in my opinion all things considered more solid more strong and more accomplished than were his I speak thus much of him for that I have been intimately acquainted with him many years even to his death so that when I fancie and figure in my minde all the severals of his carriage both interior and exterior I cannot but conceive him as a most eminent Idea and Pattern and look upon him as a Model of a Perfection Consummate wherein all they that have had any thing to do with him who were not a few by reason of his many employments for the good of his neighbour will easily accord with me and witness assuredly that I say nothing too much The second is that we cannot better learn what we desire to know of him than from himself and that by an account which he gave to his second Director a Religious of the Society of Jesus who succeeded the Reverend Father de Condrien and who had told him it was necessary for him to know his dispositions and the course which he observed Behold here then what the Original gives us though somethings be left out because they are set down in the Chapter aforegoing I have delaid some days after the command I had to set down the employing of my time for the better discovering of some things therein but I finde nothing there of strict order or which can well be set down in writing because all consists in a kinde of self abandoning and following after the order of God which causeth in a manner continually diverse things but all upon the same bottom For my outward and more Corporal part of my carriage I usually rise at five a Clock we must remember what goes before that this was after he had spent part of the night in Prayer at my awakening I enter upon my bottom of Self-Annihilation before the Majestic of God I unite me to his Son and Spirit to render him my homages Being risen I take Holy water I cast down my self and adore the blessing of the Incarnation which gives us access and reconciles us to God I deliver up my self to the Holy Infant Jesus to be entred into his Spirit I salute sometimes my good Angel St. John Baptist St. Teresa with some other Saints and afterward I recite the Angelus He saith sometimes not that he fail'd out of oblivion or inconstancie being extremelie exact and faithful in the continuance of his Exercises of Devotion but out of the force of an active application and sometimes passive that he had
to God which kept him from any other diversion I cloath my self which is soon done and after pass to the Chappel through a little Parlour where over the Chimney I have set an Image of the Holy Virgin holding her Son as the Lady of the House I kiss the earth before her and say Monstra te esse matrem c. I devote my self to her service entirely with the offering up of my Family Wife Children Domesticks and I have practic'd this offering of them to her a long time that by her means they all may be perfected for God and rising up I say to her Mater incomparabilis or a pro nobis After that I enter into the Chappel where I cast my self down and adore God abasing me before him and making me the most little most naked most empty of my self that I can and I hold me there by faith having recourse to his Son and to his Holy Spirit that whatsoever is his pleasure may be done by me and so I abide If I have any Penance to do upon half an hour after six I do it and then I read two Chapters of the New Testament barcheaded and on my knees At seven a clock I go up to a Closet where there are three Stations the first to the Virgin the second to St. Joseph and the third to Teresa to all which I render my little Devoirs and afterwards I give place to my affairs but if there be no business urgent I prostrate my self before God till the time that I go to Mass staying at the Church till half an hour after eleven except on those days when we dine some poor people for then I return at eleven Before dinner I make the Examen of the morning and some Prayers for the Church for the Propagation of Faith and the Souls in Purgatory after that I say the Angelus I dine at twelve and in that while have something read half an hour after twelve I spend an hour with them that have business with me and that 's the time I appoint for that purpose Afterwards I go forth whither the order of God shall direct Some days ore order'd and assign'd for certain Exercises therest are reserv'd and unlimited from one week to another Now if it fall out that I have nothing to do I pray in a Church but happen what will I endeavour not to fail to visit every afternoon the Holy Sacrament and to spend about evening an hour in Devotion About seven a clock when I have made some vocal prayers we go to supper during which time one reads the Martyrologie and the life of the Saint for the day following Supper being done I talk to my children and tell them something for their instruction At nine a clock the bell rings to Prayer which all my Family is to be present at which done each one retires but I keep me in the Chappel in Meditation till ten and then I go to my Chamber recommending my self to my God according to my Bottom of Self-Annthtlation to the Holy Virgin my good Angel and other Saints I take holy water and lay me down in bed where I say the de Profundis for the dead and some other little Prayers and so endeavour to repose And so you have in some sort the order of the day as to my Exterior But for the order of my Interior I have not as I may say any for since I left it will be a yearâ— the Holy Week next my breviary all my forms have left me and now instead of serving meâ—â—s means to go to God they would become hinderance I bear in me ordinarily but with many infidelities so great in all this that I am about to speak of that I write it not without regret because I am nothing but vice and sin I bear I say in me ordinarily an experimental verity and a plenitude of the presence of the most Holy Trinity or indeed of some Mysterie which elevates me by a simple view to God and with that I do all that the Divine Providence enjoyns me regarding not any things for their greatness or littleness but onely the order of God and the glory which they may render him For the Examens and things done in Community which I mentioned before I often cannot rest my self there I perform indeed the Exterior for the keeping of order but I follow always my Interior without making any change there because when a man hath God there 's no need to search him elsewhere and when he holds us in one manner it is not for us to take hold of him in another and the soul knows well what it is which bottoms it more clearly what unites it and what multiplies and distracts it For the Interior therefore I follow this Attractive and for the Exterior I see the Divine Will which makes me to follow it and which carrieth me to govern my self according to it with the discernment of his Spirit in all simplicity and so I possess by his grace in all things a great silence Interior a profound Reverence and solid Peace I confess me usually on Thursdays according to the order that hath been given me and communicate almost every day as perceiving my self drawn thereto as also to stand in great need of it In a word the Bottom which hath been shewed me to stand on is to render my self to God through Jesus Christ with such a purity as hath in it operation to worship God in Spirit and Truth after a manner altogether stript and naked and of loving him with all my heart with all my soul and with all my power and of seeing in all things and adoring the conduct of God and following it And this onely abiding in my soul all other things in me are defaced and blotted out I have nothing of sensible in me unless now and then some transitory touches but if I may dare to say it when I sound my will I finde it sometime so quick and flaming that it would devour me if the same Lord who animates it though unworthy did not restrain it I enter into an heat and into a fire and even to my fingers ends feel that all within me speaks for its God and stretcheth it self forth in length and breadth in his Immensity that it may there dissolve and there lose it self to glorifie him I cannot express this thing as it is I do not make a stand upon any thing that passeth in me but fall always into my nothingness where I finde my act of purity towards God as above He concludes afterward in these terms I beg your pardon my Reverend Father if this thing here be so ill ordered I have set it down as it hath happened to me I should be very happy if you could know all my miseries for you would have them in great commiseration This was the writing he gave to his Director They that shall read it will judge without doubt if they understand it well and penetrate
aniting of our selves to this Son contiruing that life of his upon earth within this of ours by the direction of his Spirit Thus also in another Letter Let Jesus Christ be in each of us our bond our soul our life as he is our pattern Le ts take a nearer view of this Holy Original enter into his Principles lay hold on his desires execute his works and let men know that we are Christians Writing to another he spake thus I adore and bless with all my heart our Lord Jesus Christ for that he opens you his heart to possess wholly yours he will make it to dye and will reduce it to a Holy Poverty which shall cause you to taste the true Life and compleat Riches and to avow that it is a great mercy to belong to Jesus Christ I beseech him to bestow on you his most sanctifying graces and that we may beth dye well and live well by his Spirit Let us enter into this Spirit which will give us the Sentiments and the Energie of the Children of God All other presence and application to the Divine Majestie which is not by this union of the Soul to Jesus Christ is onely of the creature towards the Creator which carries indeed respect but gives not the life and approaches of children towards God their Father where being united to the Interior operations of Jesus Christ we finde there the affections of true children which we canâ— not have but by being united to the true Son Let us end with that which a person to whom he unbosom'd himself confidently in this matter reports of him This rare man said he appeared touched with a verie tender and fervent love towards our Lord Jesus Christ I have observed that his Conversations and Discourses did shoot alwaies at this mark to imprint in souls the knowledge and love of our Lord with true soliditie In discourse with him I had often from him these words I avow that I have no gust in any thing where I finde not Jesus Christ and for a soul that speaks not of him or in which we cannot taste any effect of grace flowing from his Spirit which is the principal of operations both inward and outward that are solidly Christians speak not to me at all of such a one Could I as I may so say behold both miracles and wonders there and yet not Jesus Christ nor hear any talk of him I count all but amusement of spirit loss of time and a very dangerous Precipice And at several other times he said Let us love Jesus Christ let us unite our selves to his Spirit and Grace miserable sinner as I am who love him not yet should I be much joy'd at least to see my defects supplied by others that love him fervently but I am too unworthy to obtain a matter so great and wherein my self do bear so small a part Seeing then this faithful servant and follower of Christ Jesus had so strong an application and intimate union with his Divine Lord as 't is easie to gather from what hath been spoken we cannot but ascribe to this application and union all his vertues which we are going now to speak of in several and to look upon them as effects of this cause streams of this Fountain and branches of this Stem PART II. His Vertues in particular and first the Vertues which did perfect him in regard of himself CHAP. 1. His Penances and Austerities AS our flesh and senses are by their nature and more by their corruption very opposite to a Spiritual Life and among the enemies of our weal and perfection none more importunate or more violent than they so God useth when he intends to elevate any to the accomplishment of vertue and to make them Saints to inspire in them at the beginning of their conversion a spirit of Penance and mortification of their bodies Monsieur de Renty being destin'd by God to this glory and quickned by this Spirit encounters his body with rigorous Austerities thereby to reduce it to its duty and hinder it from annoying him in his Interior Exercises He begins therefore to fast every day making but one meal which he continued divers years until he was enjoyned otherwise and to take more nourishment to be the better able to undergo the great labours he undertook for his neighbour Some days in the week he wore an iron Girdle set with a double rank of long prickles and a bracelet of the same on other days he disciplin'd himself rigorously at some times wore haircloath having continually on his breast a brass Crucifix reaching to the bottom of his stomack the nails whereof being very sharp entred into his flesh When he went into the Countrey and was come to his Inn he would go into the Kitchin to eat there if it might be among servants and other mean persons and that for two ends both there to morâ—ifie his body and to speak some good thing to those poor people and when night constrained him to take his chamber he dismissed his servants to lie in other rooms and himself past the night in a chair or cast himself on a bed in his cloathes and boots which was his custom till death Being come to Amiens where I was and a Lady one of the chief of the Town having prepared a stately bed in a brave Chamber for him in honour of his vertue and cuality he was much troubled and would not at all use it but laid him down upon a bench and the day after as being much asham'd complained to me of the Lady for it so that to enjoy the blessing of lodging him at her house she was fain to change his chamber and bed and to accommodate him after his own mode that is to say where he might not be so much at his ease His Mortification in diet was very great eating little and always of the worst as not forgetting that our misery came not but by eating of delicious fruit Dining in company on a Fish-day one of the guests that noted his actions observed that all he eat was some Pears onely and that with so great modesty and recollection that one might easily discern that his minde was on God and not upon his meat When one of his friends a man of piety at Caen entertain'd him one day at dinner with some little ceremony as a person of quality he ate very little became much mortified and ashamed as he declared afterwards that Christians should be Feasters adding that a little would suffice and what a torment it was to him to be where there was so muâ—h chear as a thing quite contrary to the poverty of Christ who notwithstanding should be to us for our rule He would tell his friends that a little bread a little lard and butter was sufficient Hereupon his friends acquainted with this grace of Mortification in him took no more thought concerning his diet knowing his best entertainment to be the meanest fare The perfection
upon my self what should I be before my own eyes What am I then before thine and those of thy servants He wrote to another person I thank you for those Devoirs of Devotion which you have tendred these 24 and 25 days last past for a thing so base as my self who deserve no room but among the children of Adam that deceive all the world and who have reason to fear the anger of all the children of God if the prayer of his son upon the cross had not implor'd forgiveness for his persecutors And to another also Seeing I am born with so willingly and that you persevere to desire this of me I beseech my Lord in the hand and disposing of whom I would be wholly that he make use if it please him of this miserable Rush for the giving you some consolation in the life of his children and the ways which may lead you to the inheritance He writ a great number of Letters and it is a wonderful thing that there is not among them so much as one wherein he doth not villifie himself and which carries not with it some touch of humility and he did the same too in all his conversation For although he had a design to annihilat himself the more to do that which generally speaking is conceived to be the best except in occurrences where vertue obligeth us to practice the contrary to speak nothing of himself at all neither good nor ill yet was to him almost impossible to retain himself from it in regard of that exceeding low opinion and disesteem he had of himself whereupon when a Confident of his said one day to him This was not well done to speak so ill of your self he presently smote his breast avowing He did ill It s true that a man may speak ill of himself through pride upon design to skim off to himself by this false humility a little glory and to get some reputation of an humble person but when all is done we finde not that the proud are much subject to this fault at least thus much we shall finde that it is very hard to speak of ones self from so great depth of humility as did this man of God Who indeed spake of himself very ill and in terms of great confusion and very often but yet notwithstanding without molestation or annoying of any one and in such a manner that we might evidently see that he spake from the bottom of his heart and as he thought And that which is yet more wonderful he had such a grace in speaking ill of himself and to his confusion that many have marked and experimented that the words of humility and confusion which he said of himself did imprint the same disposition in them that heard him bringing into their souls the same effects of self-lessening and sentiments of of humility When by the particular motion of the Holy Ghost he spake of such graces and mercies as God had shewed him it was always with an humbled and self-annulling spirit He wrote to a person thus I am no other than a sinner have pitty on me adoring for me the goodness of God and of our Lord who to speak in the tearms of the Gospel turns in sometimes among sinners I can tell some news of that with Zacheus but I am confounded for not producing in all my life that which his love and gratitude made him do in a moment And to another I beseech our Lord to keep me very low before him and before you for I ought to bear the shame of my crimes in all places seeing I am altogether miserable yet so as without ceasing to joyn with you in saying Misericordias Domini in aeternum Cantabo I will sing of the mercies of God for ever When he spake of pious persons joyned with him in exercises of Charity he used often these terms If I may be so bold I pray you salute them from me I esteem my self very happy to be the last of that company I am altogether uncapable and unworthy of it and yet notwithstanding he was the bringer about of it I shall be condemned by you all if you have not pitty on me and redeem me from my miseries SECT 4. His Humility in his actions AFter the humility of the heart and speech comes that of action which Monsieur de Renty practised in an excellent manner We have already seen it in divers passages we shall see it again in many other and particularly when we speak of his patience and of his charity towards the poor and the sick But besides all this I shall not doubt to say that he was continually attentive to all occasions of Humility so that none of them escaped him without being made use of Since his special vocation to the service of God he would not suffer they should carry him any more a cushion to the Church but to be there hid and disregarded he mingled himself among Mechanicks and mean persons where he was often crowded and incommoded as not being known which he endured with great delight He kept himself alway as much as he could with the humble Publican at the lower end of the Church And at Diâ—on in the Church of the Vesulines the Nuns that attend at the grate spied him at prayers at the lower end of the Church with his arms bent in form of a cross when the people were gone that stood there with him yea and often he said his prayers before the door when it was shut that he might not said he put any to the trouble of opening it to a poor sinner When he heard high Mass in his Parish he went always to the Offertory together with some poor man and was seen sometimes with the same to accompany the Holy Sacrament through the streets when no man of note was there but himself onely During the war at Paris he went himself to buy bread for the poor carrying it through the streets and as much of it too as his strength would permit As also at the same time when he did the charity to a Monastery of Nuns as to take in custody their Church plate he pressed them very much to let him carry to his lodging which was almost two miles thence and on foot as he was a piece very great and weighty but as he had the humility to desire it so had they the discretion not to permit it When they desired him at the same Monastery that when he was pleased to do them the favour to visit them he would come in his Coach by reason of the distance and incommodity he received in coming He answered pleasantly that he lov'd not to make use of a Coach because that smelt something of the Monsieur and that he must endeavour to make himself in every thing very little He went therefore thither on foot and returned the shortest days at five or six a clock at night all alone and sometimes in thawing weather when being told of the
great pains he took he made answer that our Lord humbled himself and took toilsome pains for the good of souls in a far other manner sure and that he was his pattern Being one day to go see a person of very great quality about a business which much concerned the glory of God he would not use his Coach although he were to traverse in a manner all Paris and that when it pour'd down with rain but go thither on foot one motioned that he would at least let a cloak be carried by a Lackey to take it when he came thither and not present himself before that person in a Cloak altogether wet and speak to him in such unseemliness but he yielded not yet to accommodate his humility with decency he cast that cloak above his own and past through the streets so far in this humble equipage and afterwards in the Noblemans house laid aside the wet cloak and appeared in the other ordinary one of his own But behold here another effect of this humility whereof he wrote to his Director the 20 of December 1646. It behoves me now saith he that I render you an account of a business that passed the other day Madam my Lord Chancellors Lady sent me a packet of letters wherein I found some from the King with all the Seals and formalities wherein I was made Councellor of State but my thoughts were not taken up at all with the business I sent her word that I would assume the honour to see her to thank her for that my Lord Chancellor vouchsafed to think of me that I honoured more than so that which had the mark of the King and which came from their hands than not to receive it with all respect But I most humbly begg'd one thing of her that living in a kinde of plain and vulgar manner as I did she would be pleased to take in good part if with all acknowledgement premised of my exceeding obligations to them I did not accept those letters and that the business might sleep without noise some represented it to me as a thing worth thinking on for that a Committimus might be very necessary for me in some sort of occurrences and that a pension of 2000 livers per ann about 200 l. Sterling would afford me ability for the giving of more alms To the first point I answered that by the goodness of God I had no need of it and that often the Committimusses prove a great vexation to those upon whom they are executed That this should be our work to bear our own little ordinary crosses without laying extraordinary ones upon others And for the second that God having given me more of riches than I had need of I thought I was not obliged to augment them but to keep me in my little way of living you see how we stand as to this business Whereupon let me tell you that this thing cannot be affected so but that I must take upon me also the quality of a Councellor of State and must have a dependence upon the State as a Pensioner of the King Now by the paper that some while ago I sent you you may see that I have given up my worldly Nobility to God and this thing here would derogate much from it and moreover it would be a step to an engaging of me I know not where which now I see not nor will see having other things to six my eyes on My disposition towards affairs of that nature is to have no share at all in them if per-force and without my seeking they come upon me I shall count it a real cross which our Lord will in such a case give me strength to bear To conclude Elegi abjectus esse in domo dei mei absit mihi gloriari nisii in cruce domini nostri Jesu Christi I have chosen to be a door-keeper in the house of my God and God forbid that I should rejoyce in any thing save in the Cross of Christ So have you the inclinations I finde in my self This was that he writ to him concluding with these words which carry with them another touch of humility and much wisdom I have been willing the business might be concealed for the avoiding of Ostentation which is found often in the refusal of things that have something of lustre and give occasion of talk And thus he carried himself in that conjuncture but notwithstanding sometime after he was constrained by good advice in consideration of a business that much concerned the glory of God and relief of the poor to accept of these letters and that quality and to make use of it In a paper he wrote to the same person I finde this that follows which makes much to our purpose Walking one day this Lent thorow the streets of Paris much be-dirted and very poor to look at I bore in me the resentment of the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.13 when he saith That he was as the scum and off-scouring of the world I returned in my minde blessing for reviling and the rest of that passage so much as fell under my passive obedience both actually receiving illumination to understand it and strength to execute it I know well how much neatness and new things even to a boot even to a glance and a look do hurt if one take not good heed the simplicity and dignity of this Christian self-vilifying And I saw that it was a great temptation for a man to think to preserve his estate of Grandeur and note in hopes to be thereby more exemplary and have more weight and authority for the service of God This is a pretext that our infirmity makes use of in the beginning but perfection draws off at last to Jesus Christ who was humbled upon the Cross and made the lowest of men What an honour is it to keep company with Jesus Christ so lovely and so little followed in his ignominies and his humiliations it is one of my errours that I have not yet well begun it The great knowledge and marvellous sense that he had of these truths and of the lowliness of Spirit whither ought to tend and come the true children of God and perfect followers of Jesus Christ made him often to say Let us be little and very little Oh this holy littleness it is a great matter From this Spirit it was that he loved low and mean things and shun'd whatsoever it was that outwardly carried splendor with it whither he knew that nature in a secret reflex upon it self is always carried and even in things most spiritual and holy as on the contrary Grace as being the grace of Jesus Christ carries to things of no reputation such as he embraced And he avoided out of the fame thought whatever it was that held of the extraordinary and said that in exercises wherein there appeared even most of perfection as in observing Fasts and other penances more than others there was not in them sometimes so much as in the
his labour and vertue which had made this blessed work in him and had changed his nature for they that knew his youth report that naturally he was of a swelling hasty haughty and jeering disposition which he had so corrected or to say better annihilated that in truth it was admirable insomuch that he was become moderate staid patient humble and respectful in a degree of consummate perfection So that if we consider him well a man may say that he was of a disposition quite contrary and diametrically opposite to that which he brought from his mothers womb teaching us by an example so assured and illustrious that a man may prevail much over himself if he endeavour it sincerely and that whatever vice he hath he may at last rid himself of it if he force himself according to those words of our Lord The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force And therefore he recommended in a special manner this holy courage and the necessity of self-enforcement as being that by which we may measure what profit we have made in true vertue and a means also absolutely necessary for the gaining of perfection He wrote to a person that practised devotion thus O how much to be feared is it that we cheat our selves with the name and the appearances of devotion relying much on our exercises of piety which it may be are barely performed and in speculation onely never coming to the practise nor to the conquest over our selves In the morning we worship Jesus Christ as our Master and Director and yet our life all the day following is not directed by him we look upon him as our pattern and imitate him not we take him for our rule and guide of our affections and yet we do not sacrifice to him our appetites we make him the model of our conversation which yet is never the more holy we promise him to labour and get above our selves but it s no more than in imagination The truth is that if we know not our devotion rather by the violence and enforcement we make upon our selves and the amendment of our manners than by the multiplication and simple usage of spiritual exercises it is to be feared they will be rather practises of Condemnation than of Sanctification For after all to what purpose all this if the work follow not if we change not our selves and destroy not that which is vitious in our nature It is no otherwise but as if a builder should pile together many materials towards making of a brave Edifice and yet never begin it And yet we see the work of Jesus Christ is almost reduced to this pass amongst the spiritual persons of these times He said to another that the love which a Christian soul was obliged to bear to he vertues which Jesus Christ hath taught us ought not to end in the simple sentiments of esteem and respect toward them whereby souls of the common sort are easily perswaded that they have done their duty but therein they deceive themselves for that our Lords will is undoubtedly that they make a further entry into the solidity of his Divine practises specially in Mortification Patience Poverty and Renouncement of our selves and that is the cause why there are so few souls truly Christian and solidly spiritual yea even sometimes amongst the Religious was this that men contented themselves to make a stand at this first step I will end this Chapter and this Second Part with a Letter which he writ to his Director who had thought it fit for him to visit a person that had great need of succour and instruction for some spiritual dispositions which he performed with much success and benediction This Letter dated the 14 of May in the year 1647. will make us well see the great disengagement that he had from himself and his perfect Mortification attended with gifts inestimable and his great light whereby he clears and explicates matters of great subtilty The tenour is as followeth For the person whom you know and the visit I made him it is God and your direction that hath done all I am so much afraid to mingle therein any thing of mine that going to the place where he is yet I perceive I shall not visit him without a new order from you or that he much desire it I have not since that time so much as sent any commendations to him considering with my self that we must keep the man reserved and in great sobriety And I thought it fit to cast all this upon you as my guide in the business Ha Father the great imperfection of souls is the not waiting enough on God the natural disposition strugling and not brought into subjection comes in with fine pretexts and thinks to do wonders and in the mean while it is that which sullies the purity of the Soul that which troubles its silence and turns aside its sight from Faith from Affiance and from Love whence it hapneth that the Father of Lights expresseth not in us his Eternall Word nor produceth in us his Spirit of Love The Incarnation hath merited all not onely for the abolition of our faults but also for all the dispositions of grace whereunto Jesus Christ is minded to â—ssociate us of which this is the principal and was in him so far as he was man to do nothing our selves but to speak and act according as we receive knowing that we alone are not to do the work but that the holy Spirit which is the Spirit of Jesus and which governed him in all his ways is within us which would stamp upon us his impressions and give us the life the life real and experimental of our faith if ballasted and held back by patience we would but wait his operation This is it in which I feel my infirmity and yet whither I finde a great attractive I see that which I cannot utter for I possess that which I cannot express And the cause Father why I am so brief comes both from the imperfection of my natural disposition and from ignorance as also from a great largeness of the Divine goodness which works in me that which I cannot utter The effect of this is a fulness and a satiating of the truth and clearness of the magnificence of God of the greatness of Jesus Christ and of the riches which we have in him of the most Holy Virgin and of the Saints one sees here all praise and adoration and comtemplates them within I tell you here of many things me seems and yet all this is done with one draught so simple and so strong in the superiour part of the Spirit that I am nothing diverted from it by any exteriour employments I see all I understand all and I do though it be ill all that I have to do This is that I present you with to receive therein from you instruction and correction Thus we see the admirable benefits that come from perfect Mortification and
Since God gave us a heart thereto we have brought others to have a hand in it and my Wife with two others bear their part in it imitating herein St. Mary Magdalen Joanna and Susanna of whom St. Luke saith that they followed our Saviour and his Disciples ministring with their substance for the preaching of the Kingdom of God We shall endeavour to perform this without noise or shew taking a private lodging apart for the purpose Be pleased my dear Father to be our Father and Guide and assist us in Autumne if you can to break the bread of life to those who with great humility desire it of you I beg of your Reverence with tears to give ear to our request who are touched with the necessities of our poor brethren and the love of Christ who desires to unite us together in one heart even his own that therein we may live in the presence of God My dear Father I commit this charge to your care it being onely in the power of his holy Spirit to render yours and the endeavours of other Fathers successful I trust he will hear us and that we shall see abundance of his mercies I attend your sense both for the thing and the time and in the mean time you may if you please keep the thing secret between us SECT 5. Of the same Subject WE have already declared how he kept correspondence all over France and elsewhere concerning great undertakings and important affairs for the glory of God and good of his neighbour He further obliged in all places as much as he could several persons to joyn together and assist one another in the work of their own and others salvation And procured Assemblies of Piety for divers uses of which he wrote thus in one of his Letters 1648. I am now returned from Burgundy where my journey hath been full of imployment in helping the setting up of several companies of men and women also who have a great zeal for Gods service In a Memorial from Caen we have these words Monsieur Renty hath settled here many Assemblies of devout persons whom he advertised to meet once a week and consult about relief of the poor and the preventing of offences against God which hath succeeded marvellously Moreover he advised divers Gentlemen of the Countrey to meet together from time to time to encourage one another in the way of Christianity and make a Profession against Duels He writ to a Superiour of one of the Missions in these words I was united in Spirit to you on Sunday last which I conceived to be the time of opening your Mission If you think I may be any way useful in forming some little body of Gentlemen and Societies in that City as we have already performed in little Villages and Towns I most humbly intreat you to believe that I shall imploy my utmost in it though haply I may do more hurt than good When he came to Amiens where I was the precious odour of his vertue and sanctity perfumed the whole City for in less than a fortnights space he performed so many and so great things in visiting Hospitals Prisons and poor people that were ashamed to beg with several other acts of Piety as were wonderful In two onely journeys which he made to that place parly as well by his example as by his Conversation and Advice he ingaged several considerable Citizens in these Exercises of Charity which they embraced with good courage and alacrity and have continued in the same inviolably It was his earnest desire and design to plant the Spirit of Christianity in all Families and to engage people of all conditions to serve God in good earnest having special care of their Conscience He desired to be able to instruct Fathers Mothers Children Masters Mistresses and Servants in their respective duries aiming herein at their mutual benefit seeing we can put little confidence in such who truly fear not God For he that once comes to falsifie his faith to his Soveraign Lord and Saviour will not stick as we may well believe where the interest of Honour Pleasure or Profit doth byass him to do as much to one who is but that Lords Servant Wherefore he endeavoured the planting of vertue in all as the best Promoter of the Service of God the Salvation of our souls and the common utility of all relations To which purpose he drew certain rules for Gentle men and persons of quality and likewise for Ladie and Gentlewomen Since those that are above others in place and dignity are seen at a further distance and their example makes a deeper impression of good or evil than that of the vulgar These I met with written by his own hand which deserve to be inserted here as a testimony of his zeal to do good to the Publique Certain Articles to minde all persons of quality of their Obligations to their Families their Tenants and in their †Lordships †For the better understanding of these Rules the Reader must know that the Lords in France have in several Mannors the power of Justice as well Criminal as Civil and for that purpose have their Judges and Subordinate Officers in their Courts THe first and most important obligation for the conduct of a family is good example without which the blessing of God cannot be expected It is therefore meet that all the Domesticks from the highest to the lowest give good example of modesty as well in the Church as in their particular Places and Offices that by the excellent harmony of their outward behaviour it may appear that God is the primum mobile within them For Officers 1. The Lord of the Mannor ought to inform himself Whether his Judges and other Subordinate Officers belonging to his Courts behave themselves well in their places and he ought to procure for this information and redress of what is amiss persons of known ability and integrity 2. He ought to examine with prudence and privacy what complaints shall be made by the people of injustice or bribery 3. Whether they observe the Rules and Laws of his Court. 4. Whether they frequent Taverns on Sundays and Holidays or in time of Divine Service 5. Whether they observe the Precepts of the Church in forbearing to travel and work on those days without real necessity 6. Whether they punish publique crimes as Blasphemy Usury c. and whether the Laws be put in execution against Drunkards Fornicators and Oppressors of the poor Whether they banish lewd women who procure manies ruine and cause so much mischief 7. Whether there be any such Libertines who scoff at Religion and Priests or eat flesh on days prohibited 8. If some notoriously wicked person be found in the Lordship it will be convenient to begin with him if it may be that the rest may understand that no quarter is to be given to vice and that it may appear to all the world with what firm resolution you proceed in what opposition to Libertines
than the new which consisteth in the alliance and union of Charity with Jesus Christ His patience likewise in bearing with the faults and imperfections of others was very exemplary still extennating them with some word of mitigation and excusing and covering them with Charity if it were possible Being told of one that had put a cheat upon him in a business of small concernment belonging to his Law-Suit at Dijon he straightway covered the fault and by an act of humility said it is I that continually cheat my God then changed the discourse to another business In this he looked upon the example of God and his Son our Saviour who infinitely hating of sin and shedding his blood for the destruction of it notwithstanding daily do suffer such an innumerable multitude of most enormous sinners with so great patience and forbearance Neither was this his patience and connivance at faults without the design to correct them as much as he could which he managed with great prudence and courage When ever he intended to reprove another he commonly in the first place accused himself the better to dispose their spirit by the example of his own humility and the setting forth of his weakness to receive his sayings and afterwards requested the same Christian office from them back again All which he performed in such a graceful way that there be many who received good and retain the memory of it to this day Having one day a design to admonish one he began a discourse of that unity of spirits and freedom of hearts that ought to be amongst Christians in telling one another the very truths For want of which we are ignorant of them and so grow gray in our vices and carry them along with us to our graves And therefore that he should hold himself extreamly obliged if any one would perform toward him this charity The other finding his heart exceedingly softned with this discourse besought him to deal freely and plainly with him in telling him whatsoever in him he saw amiss which thing then he did When he had to deal with stubborn sinners his language was sharp and severe knowing when it was fir to yield and when to reprove sharply And his counsel to a friend concerning a third party was this Take heed of humbling your self before that man such abasing of your self in this case will both prejudice him and the cause of God Reprove him severely and roundly He put a great difference betwixt Christian patience in our own concernments and fortitude requisite in the things of God and the good of our Neighbour and for the worthy preserving of our just Authority SECT 8. Two other qualities of his zeal THese two qualities likewise accompanied his zeal Freedom and prudence For although his great Humility of which we have formerly spoken hath robbed us of the knowledge of many and most profitable things he did and caused him to conceal many of his inward graces and outward actions yet did his zeal bring many of them to light and compel him to manifest them in a sincere charitable and holy simplicity where he saw it necessary for the glory of God and good of his neighbour as we may gather from some Memorials we have from him According to which necessity and that spirit of Charity sometime he spake directly of himself and sometime in a third person as S. Paul of his own Revelations To which purpose see how well and fitly he wrote in the year 1649. to a vertuous Lady Give me leave Madam to declare unto you my thoughts concerning that liberty we ought to use in communicating freely the gifts of God bestowed on us to such persons as may reap fruit from them not stifling within our selves what we receive from above whereby we obstruct a second fruit which God expects from his graces Which is after our receiving good from them to communicate them to others with charity and discretion Improving them like good seed sown in good ground bringing forth abundance of fruit I wish that we would consider our selves set in this world as a Chrystal which placed in the middle of the Vniverse would give free passage to all that light it receives from above And that by good example by a high estimate set of vertue by discountenancing of vice by comforting others by pious convease we would impart those talents we have received from heaven to all creatures and this without disguisement or the least claim of propriety Giving obedience and passage to them as the Chrystal to light Furthermore that all those honours and commendations which we receive from below should freely pass through us again up to God without making any stay with us No otherwise than the Chrystal transmits the beams of several torches set under it purifying and darting them more sparkling towards heaven for this indeed is our bounden duty to render unto God all that honor praise we receive from men who alone is worthy of all honor and glory And who hath therefore bestowed upon us such things as are praise-worthy not that the praise thereof should rest upon us but pass thorow us towards him that he may be blessed and praised in all things Moreover it is observable if nothing be opposed to the Chrystal to receive that light which passeth thorow it it appeareth not at all And though the Sun bestoweth his beams from above and the torches their flames from below yet these for want of a reflection remain onely imperceptible in the Chrystal In like manner though we receive the heavenly light and abundance of graces if we make no approaches to God and our neighbour by rendring to the one what is his due and to the other what is Charitable it may be we have a light but that 's onely in our selves and hidden under a bushel Which being so straitly confin'd cannot produce its effect of communication and is in danger in a short time to be choaked and extinct Consider also that when the Sun shineth upon a clear Chrystal there is not any corporeal thing more capable of that lustre or that receives its beams with so great splendour Moreover betwixt it and the Sun no light is seen but after it hath past thorow the Chrystal it becomes bright and glorious and also burns according to the figure to which it is disposed To shew us that what passeth betwixt God and us is a work onely of the Closet which ought not to appear abroad until it hath passed thorow us to others Let us then suffer our selves to be penetrated by the graces of God that after their beams have lightned and warmed us they may afford the like to all about us Let us imitate that clear Chrystal which composed of solid matter yet gives free passageonely to the light let us like it be impenetrable to all but what proceeds from God and returns to him Let us not as we commonly do descend to the appetites of sense and lust inordinately after earthly
Sun of Righteousness For if the skill of curing the body be difficult and onely conjectural by reason that we are guided therein by Exterior Signs which often prove ambiguous and equivocal whereupon the most expert Physicians finde themselves frequently mistaken and prescribe quite contrary remedies how much more must the skill of governing Souls in the matter of their salvation which are spiritual and remote from sense yea and supernatural be attended with great difficulties and involved in wonderful obscurity But Monsieur Renty proved very skillful herein having received a wonderful light from God to search out the mysterious secrets and understand the most abstruse windings of Souls in which his own experience was no small advantage to him His more than ordinary light served him to discern truth from falsehood the safe from dangerous the motions of a good spirit from those of the evil one to bring disquieted souls to their repose to fortifie and en ourage them to disengage them from all worldly things to unite them to our Saviour Jesus Christ and by him to the Divinity to be guided in all things by his holy Spirit I shall here present you with a taste of this excellent skill and some beams of this Divine light in these matters which I found amongst his Papers under his own hand which may give great insight into the mysteries of a Spiritual life There be saith he in those Papers three kindes of elevations and groanings of the Soul after God about which she ought constantly to be busied to enable her to accomplish the Precepts of our Saviour that is to pray always and never to slacke this holy Exercise lest she fall into oblivion of God and after that into sin The first is the elevation and groaning of the Penitents who begin at the Purgative way The second is of the Believers who have proceeded to and do practise the Illuminative And the third is of the Perfect who are arrived at the Unitive The first are exercised in the renouncing of sin and the vanities of the world in bewatilng their former life and seeking God sending forth from the depth of fear and revexence their groans and sighs to him which is the beginning of life eternal The Believers seek after the knowledge of his will by his Word which is his Son desiring to conform their lives after his example who is our Way our Life and Truth And this is the progress of this life The Perfect groan in the presence of God after an Union with him in imitation of our Saviour exercising it by acts of love and so fulfilling the first and great Commandment in which consisteth the perfection of our life here below There are some Souls in the first estate who renouncing sin and quitting the vanities of the world receive great sensible consolations from God and taste ravishing delights But if they endeavour not to pass on to the second to understand and practise the will of God in his Son the Devil will soon deceive them by this bait causing them to rest in the complacency of these gusts So that not making progress in Christ who is their way they will wander into by-paths to the danger of a precipice Their condition being a kinde of imperfect floating self-denial and desire to be for God to do his will and love him with a false Interior peace upon which they rest and whence afterwards they degenerate into a very dangerous condition because they are not truly grounded upon Jesus Christ whom God hath appointed for our sole Guide But if after they are thus purged from the gross affections of the world they be not likewise purified from themselves giving up all to Christ Jesus with a serious resolution to imitate him and enter into his Sacrifice of Self-annihilation Instead of receiving the Spirit of God they shall confirm themselves in their own and forming to themselves false illuminations shall be guided by their own sense and by what their own corrupt nature suggests to them as glittering and pleasing with great danger of falling headlong into the errours of the Enthusiasts who perswade themselves that every thing that occurs to their phansie comes from God Out of an opinion that they neither will nor seek nor love any thing but God and so become little or nothing at all sensible of the checks of their own Conscience If you observe those that begin their Spiritual life in this manner you will finde them to have little faith or dependance on Christ Jesus And if you ask them what they desire or whetherto they tend they will answer in general To whatsoever God will have It will be necessary to set these right and if they be not too far gone with these gusts and sensible consolations to carry them to desine indeed what God will have but desire it according to the model of our Saviour and the precepts of his Gospel which he hath left us as his Will and Testament and to be our Light and the Rule of our inlightnings We have many who rest in this first step being yet esteemed and admired even by persons who pass for spiritual and of on by their Ghostly Directors calling this the my stical way In which notwithstnading the decaitful spirit of Nature and the Devil play their game under the mask of these dark illuminations of these false peaces of these quaint terms high words and mysterious notions of these volumes of spiritual writings the fruits whereof are for the most part in the paper from whence it is seen so often that those who have begun well and with much purity do fall afterwards into gross faults whilst Property and Self-pleasing steal into the soul in the room of Christ Jesus We have others which heed no other thing than the preaching of John Baptist by their Austerities and Pennances setting up there rest here without proceeding on to Christ Jesus to receive his Spirit relying upon an inward satisfaction and confidence in their mortifications and sticking there Others so stay upon Jesus Christ onely as if he had no Father having affectionate devotions to his Humanity and much led by the sensible go no further They know Jesus Christ but not Jesus Christ God and man who is our Life Truth and Way Others build all their hopes upon the Blessed Virgine and other Saints and their particular Devotions to them which are very good when they are grounded upon repentance for their sins and a true conversion of the soul But these grosly deceive themselves by hoping of succour from the Blessed Virgin and the Saints or of having any communion in their merits when they quit not their own vicious courses These three estates thus understood and distinguished afford great light in the conduct of souls whereby to understand their beginning progress and perfection with the deviations they are subject unto And every one of these estates hath its proper work its sufferance and its prayer The work of the first
in speaking or to do it with a higher tone than ordinary whatsoever was his haste if he made any report or gave account of business he did it so briefly and in words onely necessary and pertinent that a very hard matter it would be as one said of him to finde one that spake better and yet less than he Things that were vain or unprofitable or the news of the times were never the subject of his discourse but always something good and the Kingdom of God in imitation of our Saviour and where this discourse was diverted to worldly business or trifles he either took leave of the company or stole away without saying any thing And when he talk'd even of good things it was with moderation saying that there was much need of sparingness and sobriety when we speak of God and good things and that it was one of the greatest amusements that troubled him when he was amongst spiritual persons to hear them often spend precious time in talking of vertue at large and without sâ—uit departing from such Conferences with dry empty and dissipated spirits Whereas the secret of Christian vertue consists not in speaking but in doing and that substantial word of God is onely one and this sufficiently efficacious to produce the holy Spirit and in its unity to work marvellous things His conversation moreover was in a true and high manner humble respective affable officious obliging and cordial Patient he was in suffering the ignorances rudenesses imperfections cross humors and other faults of his neighbours prudent in applying himself to their dispositions and passing by many small matters without seeming to take notice of them at all And so profitable and edifying was his demeanour that wherever he came his very looks and modesty his words his silence and all his Exterior comportment cast forth a fragrancy and sweet persume of Vertue Devotion and Piety and made a good impression upon the spirits of others His very presence charmed many into recollection the very sight of him was enough to bridle any and his acquaintance have confest that their knowing that he was in the Church hath wrought more attention in them at their prayers and some of them eight days after their having enjoyed his company have felt in themselves the effects of grace in an extraordinary attraction and devotion towards God Wheresoever he came he was flock'd unto from all parts out of that reverend esteem they had of him and the desire of those consolations they were sensible of in his presence Notwithstanding when he perceived any value set upon himself or any applause of what he did or said he was deeply humbled in spirit testifying by his carriage the discontent of his soul hanging down his head casting down his eyes with deep silence during such commendations with a grave and set demeanor expressing his inward affliction which begot respect and edification in the beholders For conclusion I shall adde one thing very remarkable and which shews how perfect and accomplished he was in his conversation namely this that his extraordinary way and fashion of converse of dealing and treating with others and of his devotion was not check'd blamed or condemned by any but approv'd priz'd and commended so that generally all had him in esteem reverence and love and said of him in proportion as was said of his Master Christ He hath done all things well Such a general approbation as this and in one that dealt in so many and difficult businesses must needs be very rare and argue a most prudent and advised spirit And as these things got approbation so his humility his honesty his respect to each one even the lowest his affability charity patience and other vertues gained him the hearts of all yet as it is a perilous thing to be so much esteemed praised and approved by all so God by a wise and divine counterpois to secure his vertue and keep him from tripping in so slippery a way did permit that from whence he should have received the most esteem approbation and satisfaction to wit from the Lady his Mother he found the quite contrary and that in a way most strange and afflictive to him as we have seen before CHAP. 3. His conduct of his business IT is without contradiction that few men in Paris or in all France were so much imployed as he in the affairs that concerned the service of God For which he was furnished with great strength of body and minde to manage so great and several businesses without difficulty with great tranquility order and content husbanding his time to the best advantage disparching one speedily after another and sometimes many together He hath been seen to do three things together without trouble or mistake And at other times when pressed with many dispatches at once to read Letters give Audience and write Answers to different persons all at the same time of which he hath quitted himself handsomely and well In one of his Letters he wrote thus It is very true that business findes me out from all parts insomuch that I am often inforced to read write and do business all at a time A little assistance would do well though I have many sharers however let not that trouble you for I dispatch as much at present as I can the rest in due time without encombring my self therewith Our Saviour doth gratiously bestow on me a peace of minde in all this so that I am not at all distracted with it His order was seriously to consider of things before any resolution and if after his own sense given to which he was not at all espoused he found anothers reason to be better he quitted his own A thing very necessary to men of business yet rare to be found since if we take not heed we all idolize our own judgement and falling in love with our private light are dsirous to be leading men affecting to see our own opinions crowned Having composed rules for a Society of Pious persons and digested them thorowly he presented them to be examined by some vertuous persons from whom he admitted with great humility some corrections cancelling them with his own hand requesting that they might be put in other terms more proper than his own After he had resolved on any thing he shewed himself prompt firm and constant for the execution not quitting it till he had brought it to the end it should be Not like those who hot at first grow presently cold and begin many things well but finish nothing Sometime when he had brought a thing into a fair way to perfection he committed it to a friend to finish not out of any inconstancy of spirit but to gain time for the undertaking and doing of more And withal that herein he might avoid the honour of it Out of his great humility passing that to another which would exercise his humility in letting another have the praise which redounds more to him that happily ends a good thing
than to him that begins it In all affairs that concerned the service of God he had an unmoveable constancy and undaunted courage never flagging or yielding up himself And besides the force of his words there appeared in his countenance an extraordinary assurance although his ordinary deportment was always sweet and quiet which particularly appeared in all meetings where he manifested so much spirit and God invested him with such a force that those that beheld him felt themselves struck with an awful respect When he spake and gave his opinion his proposals carried so much light in them his judgement so much solidity his reasons so great force he taking every thing in its due place and observing each juncture of time that all were constrained to acquiess in his determination But if any approved not of his advice or disputed his reasons he knew how to inforce them with such arguments especially where he had any authority in the Assembly that at length they yielded But if they chanced to make another reply he gave not one word more but his very silence and the steadiness of his countenance and his other carriage restrained any further dispute And the meeting ended he would go to that party and crave his pardon with great humility Sweetly informing him that what he aimed at was not to make good his own opinion but for the cause of God to which by duty he was obliged But in other things that he was most ready to yield to every one We meet daily with those spirits that are very inconstant in business doing and undoing every hour very indecisive and mutable But he was of another temper quick-sighted to penetrate into a business judicious to determine it and constant not to vary in a resolution well grounded so that his word was his law and was taken by others as current as an obligation When his presence was requested at any consult he would be punctual at the time appointed that none should stay for him Where taking his place and that the lowest if it were possible his demeaner was so modest and composed that all were edified by it Listening to others with great attention and seriousness as if he had no other business And after his opinion given very brief and material his presence being no further useful he would take leave being a great husband of his time since other business for Gods service still attended him else where And notwithstanding the throng of business and though never so important he quitted not for them his Exercises of Piety nor his care of perfection which he preferred before all other his affairs knowing that as wholesome meat taken immoderately doth hurt and instead of strengthening the stomach weakens and suffocates its natural heat So these Exterior employments even the most holy if a man surcharge himself bring much prejudice and extinguish the ardour of Devotion Wherefore he was careful not to over-burthen himself with them being very vigilant that they should not distract and dissipate him nor quench the Interiour motions of the Spirit nor secularize his soul but ferve onely as means to elevate and unite him more to God In the multitude of business he was still recollected and as much alone in great meetings as the Hermites in their solitudes which might be gathered from his modestie and composed countenance evidencing his application to his Interiour and his union to God from whom he drew light and strength for the managing and prudent ordering of these buâ—nesses One day he wrote thus to his Director My recollection hinders no business at all but rather furthers it For without it I should have a solicitous desire of doing all my self whereas I act now in a most serene way in which I have no share for it is our Lord that doth all In another Letter thus Finding my self one day much burthened with divers-business I had a desire to draw off my minde wholly and at the same instant I found it Since which time they create me no trouble and I dispatch them more readily without thinking of them This grace hath been often renewed to me although in several manners which I acknowledge to be very great because it preserves me disingaged even in the multiplicity of business And notwithstanding he never omitted any thing of prudence or industry for the effecting his business yet the success he expected much more from Gods benediction than from his industry or any humane endeavours knowing well that what was undertaken for the service of God and good of his neighbour was to be accomplished by his grace Wherefore in every thing he had a great recourse to prayer instantly commending all his exercises to God and in all imployments and choice of persons which he made use of his eye was more upon grace than nature or any Exterior abilities And knowing that the affairs of God are not without their difficulties but meet with great oppositions even sometimes to be overturned he was armed with patience in the undertaking to suffer with courage not starting at the greatest dangers but still hoping of the success If they miscarried at any time he rested well satisfied after all fair means attempted on his part Thus he writ to a friend It is a great infirmity in our humane nature that she needs applause in matters of grace Wherefore I look at it as a great favour from God when I have the honour of executing any enterprize solidly undertaken and well approved of and acknowledged to proceed from the Spirit of God by those to whom he hath committed in his Church the judgement of such things notwithstanding the accomplishment of it meets with many crosses and contradictions In another thus We may take up good and holy designs and God doth often inspire them yet when he is pleased to permit a contrary event we must adore his secret will which brings with it more of mercy in the crossing of them than if they had succeded to our comfort We should always be jealous over our own spirit that it fix not upon any thing And again thus The sweet Jesus hath his designs which he conducts by such means as we would not at all make choice of and the reason is because he would thwart our wills and abate our dependancies upon earth And therefore often thwarts he our just undertakings being more jeolous of the Sacrifice of our hearts than of any thing else how specious soever But the principal rule which this holy man observed in these affairs was never to look at them in themselves but in the will and design of God and to proceed in view of this Whence it came to pass that he applied himself to business not as appearing glorious pleasant or profitable but as agreeable to the will of God to which he submitted his own making poor and mean imployments equally considerable and sometime preferred before greater Hence he took up things cast aside by others undertook charities out of the road
alliance he hath contracted with us in Jesus Christ This knowledge produceth in me as much astonishment as love And to tell you my sense of it a man possessed with these verities remains no more a man but becomes annihilated and all his desire is to be lost and melted on purpose to change his nature and enter into this Spirit of Jesus to act no less in him than by him I have conceived such great things of our Saviours Humanity united to the Divinity as cannot be uttered How hath this alliance of the Divinity most deeply abased the sacred Humanity into a self-annihilation and a sacrifice of love upon the sight of the greatness of God What an honour is this to the Humane Nature to be thus predestinated and What a glory to us to be chosen and called to an entrance into his favour and a rising to God and the everlasting enjoyment thereof through him It would spend me this whole day to write to you the view that I have had of the wisdom and bounty of God touching this mysterie of Love which he hath opened unto us in his Son And though he was truly devoted to all the mysteries of our Lord yet in a most special manner to that of his Infancy The occasion whereof was thus Being constrained to make a journey to Dâ—jon by reason of a suit of Law beforementioned he heard much talk of Sister Margaret of the blessed Sacrament a Religious Carmeline of the Covent of Beaulne on whom our Saviour had conferred particular favours who led a life very extraordinary grounded upon true and solid vertue And as our Lord hath several ways to sanctifie a soul and fit it for his sacred purposes so he was pleased to exercise this choice woman absoluâ—ely in the mysterie of our Saviours Infancy and through that pipe to convey into her soul a torrent of grace and extraordinary gifts not onely for herself but others as may be seen in her life now in writing by a person most worthy of such a work Monsieur Renty had a desire to go to Beaulne being but seven leagues from Dijon to recommend himself to the prayers of this holy Virgin And though when he came thither he neither spake to her nor saw her she having by a particular conduct of our Saviour been retired for thirteen years from the speech of any secular person yet notwithstanding he received much benefit from his journey as he expressed in a Letter writ back from Dijon to the Prioress of that place I want words to express the mercies I received by my journey to Beaulne Sister Margaret hath marked me out in the holy Infant Jesus such a divesting of my self of all worldly things that it appears to me my rendezouz where I must strip my self naked of all things else The year after he made a second journey where God having altered her resolution for speech and converse with others he had the happiness to discourse with her and contracted at that time a very intimate alliance of grace receiving great gifts by means thereof The chiefest and source of all the rest being that our Saviour engaged him as he had done her in a more particular devotion to the mysterie of his Infancy and imprinted in him the lineaments of the like Graces and Spirit This holy man whose judgement may be highly esteemed by us considering his extraordinary insight into spiritual matters greatly valued this Religious woman approving exceedingly her directions and testifying how great a blessing he reckoned her acquaintance and what benefit he had reaped from her even after her death To which purpose he writ thus to me the eighteenth of June 1648. the year of her death The holy Infant sweet Jesus hath taken to himself our good Sister Margaret whose death was consonant to the dispositions of her life and miraculous graces I have received from her since her death great comfort That grace I reâ—eived according to my present estate and weakness to enter into the Infancy of our Saviour hath since been renewed to me and I have understood it more solidly About a moneth after I received these lines from him I had yesterday by the singular bounty of God a view of his Divine Majestie of S. John Baptist and Sister Margaret of the B. Sacrament so clearly represented to me in my spirit that I cannot suspect the truth of it O what effects were produced by their presence and what love by these sights I am wholly renewed in my respects to that great Saint my Patron and to that glorious servant of God who honoured him very much whilst she was living and from whom without doubt since her death she hath beggâ—d to be my Protector It is mâ—st certain that the work of God in her was one continued prodigie of grace and a master-piece of his hand But let us return to his application made to the Infancy of our Saviour chiefly begun in his second journey to Beaulne Of which we may understand something from this Letter written to a Father of the Oratory Confessor to the Carmelines there I must needs tell you that upon my first journey which I made to you above a year agoâ— I brought back with me a great esteem and devotion to the Infancy of our Saviour but I was not yet well settled in it I attempted it from time to time but could not yet make it my principal food Since which the holy Infant by a supernatural grace hath manifested and opened himself to me and now I finde every thing in him and am remitted thither for all And to the Prioress he writ thus I must acquaint you that the holy Infant Jesus will grant me the favour to apply my self pâ—rticularly to his honour to give my self to him and to his holy dispositâ—ons ordering my life and the sacrifice of my self by the conduct of his Spirit In order hereunto he cousecrated and gave up himself thereto in these terms a copy whereof written with his own hand and in his own blood he sent to Sister Margaret which is kept with great devotion in that Covent And another something more inlarged to his Ghostly Father to which he wrote his name onely in blood in these words To the honour of my King the Holy Infant Jesus I Have consecrated my self this Christmass-Day 1643. to the holy Infant Jesus offering up to him my whole Being my Soul my Body my Free-will my Wife my Children my Family the Estate which he hath given me and finally all that I am concerned in having beseeched him to enter into full Possession Property Jurisdiction of all that I am That I may live no more but in and to him in the quality of a Victim separate from every thing of this world and challenging no more share thereof than according to the applications which he shall give and shall allow me Insomuch that from henceforward I shall look at my self meerly as an instrument in the hand of the holy Infant
Jesus to do whatever pleaseth him in great Innocency Purity and Simplicity without reflection or return upon any thing whatsoever without taking share in any work without having joy or grief from any thing that arrives not looking upon things in themselves but in his will and conduct which we will endeavour to follow by the appearance and presence whiâ—h we shall render his Cratch and to the Divine States of his Infancy I therefore this day lose my own being to become wholly a slave subsisting upon the holy Infant Jesus to the glory of the Father and of the Holy Ghost This I signed into the hands of the most blessed Virgin my Mother my Patroness and my Protectress and in the presence of S. Joseph Gaston Jean Baptist And as he did with an intire heart consecrate himself to this holy Infant so did this bestow himself freely on him revealing it particularly to Sister Margaret of the B. Sacrament that he should from thenceforward be guided and animated by the Spirit of his Infancy and that he was descending to him to be his Master his Light and his Intelligence And shewing her one day his heart he said See here the habitation of my Servant Upon which she wrote to Monsieur Renty how the Infant Jesus had bestowed himself upon him to be a Spiritual and Celestial Ayr for him to breath constantly even as his body breathed this Material Ayr and that his Innocence Purity and Simplicity should subsist in him instead of himself destroying in him what his nature had corrupt and polluted And herein he made so large a progress that she often saw him within a beam of light so penetrated and filled with the grace of this holy Infancy like a spunge in the Ocean even absorpr in that abyss of infinite riches beyond his expression And he himself writ concerning it to a person in these words The Divine King of the Cratch the holy Infant Jesus doth so accumulate his favours upon me that I beseech you to thank him They are inexplicable From this time his custom was every Eve of the 25 day of each Moneth to enter into his Chappel at ten a clock at night and there to remain in pâ—ayer till midnight He adored the precious moment of our Saviours birth and entrance into this world performing certain acts of Devotion before the Image of his Sacred Infancy which further he honoured by inviting a poor childe to dinner entertaining him with wonderful great respect And during all that time that he celebrated the voyage of the Infant Jesus into Egypt and return to Nazareth he had to dinner every day three poor folks for the honour of Jesus Mary and Joseph during which time he would never ride in a Coach though his business often called him to painful and troublesome journeys afar off on foot and at length he quite gave over the use of a Coach After he had ingaged himself in this devout application to the Infancy of our Lord and being filled with his grace and animated by his Spirit had received thereby wonderful impressions and illuminations His Ghostly Father desired of him to write down his conceptions of that Divine Mysterie and wherein chiefly that grace consisted which begat this ensuing Letter in the year 1645. You have laid your commands upon me to set down in writing wherein consists the grace of the Infancy of our Saviour so far as I understand it This Adorable Lord hath renewed in me this morning two Conâ—eptions which he had given me a Moneth since three days one after another by which I shall be able to express what I conceive of it Being at my prayers in the Church about a Moneth ago I fell into some inward inquietude about my Devotion to this Infancy by reason that my Spirit was possessed with this thought That a Christian should regard our Saviour intirely from his Incarnation to his Glory where he sits at the right hand of his Father aâ—d from whence he sends us his Spirit And that we should make our addresses to all these mysteries according to our necessities and therefore to tie our selves to one particular were to send up maimed Devotions and to limit the extent of Verity and Grace After this I went to receive the B. Sacrament abandoning my self wholly to my God according to my usual custom A little while after the Communion I saw by an enlightning our Saviour entire that is all his mysteries from his Incarnation to his state of Glory where he resides at present governing us And in particular the Greatness and Dignity of this mysterie of his Infancy and withal I was instructed that this mysterie is our Port and our Address for to obtain our Consummation in glory That this is it to which we must direct our selves and here stay our thoughts and that it would be temerity to proceed to other mysteries on the same manner I saw it rashness to desire and demand orosses for our selves since it is the work of Gods grace to conduct us to them and uphold us under them I saw it rashnes to desire Mount Thabor that is high illuminations Finally that we ought not presently to address our selves to those other mysteries of our Saviour but onely to this of the Infancy which brings us into the ignorance the separation from and in applacation of things of this life making no further use of them than as they are given us for necessity which keeps us in great silence and produceth a Mortification of the Exteriour man whilst the Interiour is busied in contemplating the most holy Soul of our Saviour continually imploying it self in looking up toward his Father in his Love in zeal of his Glory in the Offering of himself and in the obedience to proceed forward in all innocence and purity and simplicity to all his other estates through which his Father had appointed him to pass I found then that for the happy conducting of our selves through all conditions whether of light or darkness of Thabor or Calvary we must for to receive and improve grace begin at the Infancy which teacheth us our first lesson of Abnegation to be taught of God of silence and innocence without any regard or pretensions to our selves but with the same spirit of submission and obedience that this blessed Babe Christ Jesus there practised and taught us This light and knowledge hath established me more than formerly in this mysterie finding there my bottom abiding there with attention and reverence to do what shall be commanded me afterward For the soul doth not raise it self by it self to any thing but on the contrary doth empty herself resting still in her own littleness with great recognition of what passeth and with the simplicity of a pure resigned aspect O Father how guilty shall I appear before God in answering so little to the greatness of his gifts It is my grief and a great one as he well knoweth Some three days after these words of S. Paul
herself may arrive Seeing a Gentleman of his birth and age in a Secular life and the throng of so great employments attained hereto onely if we use the like diligence and be faithful to the Spirit of God the onely means to attain to this perfection CHAP. 6. His great Reverence to Holy Things MOnsieur Renty did not onely carry a great Reverence to God but likewise to all things belonging to his Service and to all Holy things which sprang from that sense of Vertue and Religion imprinted in his soul producing the like fruits Exteriourly In the first place he had a singular respect to all Holy places and it will be very hard to recoâ—n with what Respect and Devotion he behâ—ved himself in Churches At his entrance his demeanour was exceeding modest and religiously grave He never sare down there nor put on his hat not so muâ—h as in Sermon time he would abide there as long as possibly he could and hath been observed upon great Festivals to remain there upon his knees for seven or eight hours He was very silent in the Church and if any person of any condition spoke to him his answer was short and in case the business required longer time he would carry him forth or some other way free himself thereof Secondly he used great veneration to all Ecclesiastical persons even to the meanest but the Reverence he gave to Priests was wonderful He would never take the upper hand of them without extream violence as appears by that passage in the former Chapter Whensoever he met them he saluted them with profound humility and in his travel would light off his horse to do it and render them all honour possible When they came to visit him he entertained them cordially with exceeding great respect at their departure waiting on them to the gate and if any dined at his table gave them the upper place which civility he observed to his own Chaplain When any Mission was in any of his Lordships he entertained the Missioners apart where they were served in plate when other Gentlemen and persons of quality that visited him were onely in pewter waving herein all humane respects A Nobleman and his Lady came one day to him upon a visit accompanied with a Priest that was Tutor to their children After he had received them observing the Priest at the lower end of his Hall with some of their Retinue quitting civilly the Nobleman and his Lady he went down to the Priest shewing great respect to him as to the most honoatable person of the company In fine his opinion of the Priesthood was so venerable looking upon it as the most potent means for procuring the glory of God that he said to a friend That he had a design to enter into that Order if God should ever bring him into a condition capable of it And as he had this singular Reverence toward them so likewise had he an earnest desire that they and generally all Ecclesiastical persons should understand the excellency of the condition to whiâ—h God had call'd them leading a life agreeable to their Dignity He writ to his Director in the year 1645. upon occasion of several Ecclesiasticks of his acquaintance who correspond not to their Profession and Obligation that his heart melted into sorrow for them and that he prostrated himself before his Saviour and begged with tears for some Apostolike Spirits to be sent amongst us our poor Fishermen Give us O Lord our poor Fishermen I often repeated I meant the Apostles But this word ran much in my minde not being able to use any other and my spirit wronght much upon these words Pescheurs Pecheurs Fishermen and Sinners I look upon these men simple indeed in their Exteriour but great Princes in their Interiour whose life and outward appearance vile in the eyes of men and estranged from the pomp of the world converted souls by their Sanctity by their Prayers by their Vâ—gilance and restless Labours And herein I discover a great mistake ordinary in the world which believes that outward greatness and pomp is the way to keep up ones credit and render him more capable to do good to his neigbours But we are foully mistaken for it is grace that hath power upon souls and an holy and humble life that gaineth hearts With the same spirit he bewailed much the hasty and irreverent reciting of their Office in many places Being this day present at Divine Service saith he in a Letter to me many words therein put me in minde of the holiness thereof and yet I could not without much grief take notice of some chanting it hastily without devotion or spirit and others hearing it accordingly Good God what pitty is this where is our faith My eyes were ready to run over with tears but I forced my self to refrain them In the third place he had a great respect and love to Religious Persons and all such as dedicated themselves to the Service of God encouraging and assisting them with all his might This Letter he writ to one that was assaulted with great combats I must needs let you know the tender resentment I have of those tempests and present storms that you endure I know no reason why men should alarum you thus nor that you have done any thing against the Gospel which is the onely thing they should condemn you for I believe it will be very hard for them to gather a just cause of reproach from your design For my own part I do not wonder at these crosses its sufficient to know that you belong to Jesus Christ and do desire to follow him reckoning contradiction to be your portion in these days of your flesh Be you onely firm in your confidence upon our Lord suffering no storms from without to trouble you or obscure that light that hath guided and pressed you to this business I pray God deliver you from the reasonings of flesh and blood which often multiply upon us in such matters assuring you that if you give not car to them God will manifest himself unto you that is he will comfort and fortifie you in faith and in experience of the gifts of his Holy Spirit To another he writ thus Blessed for ever be the Blessed Infant Jesus for the happy entrance of those two devout souls into Religion which you mention I shall rejoyce exceedingly in their perseverance the best argument of their effectual calling If the other party you know of had a little more confidence and courage to break her fetters it would be a great step for her And surâ—ly there is not need of so much prudence and deliberation to give up our selves to him who to the Gentiles is foolishness and to the Jews a stumbling block This world is a strange cheat and amusement insinuating into and infecting every thing God hath no need of our good parts nor of our rare qualities who commonly confounds the wisdom of the wise by little things which he chuseth
Blessed be that littleness which is held for weakness and yet overthroweth all the Power and Prudence of flesh Treating with some Religious Persons he seemed as it were rapt on a sudden with the consideration of their happy condition speaking to them thus O how happy are you my Sisters After which falling upon a discourse of their Vocation he spake so effectually as wrought in them an ample acknowledgement of their obligation to God and a courage to proceed in well doing This following Letter he writ to a Gentlewoman newly entred into Religion who next under God did owe her calling to him I thank my Saviour with all Reverence for those good dispositions to your Profession signified in your Letter I understand and am sensible of abundant grace wrought in you whereby I assure my self of a noble pregress I am to expect from the bounty of God who is to that soul that gives herself to him Merces magna nimis Her exceeding great reward You have made a leap which puts you in a new world Blessed and adored be God who in the fulness of time out of his wisdom and love to a soul sends his Son unto it to redeem â—t from the Law of Servitude and translates it into the Adoption of his Sons This hath he now wrought in you in a more special manner and the excellentest way that could be You was never united to Jesus Christ as you are now by your holy Profession You had heretofore something to give that was never before engaged and he something to receive that was not formerly in his possession But now all is given and all is received and the mutual donation is accomplished No more Self no more Life no more Inheritance but in Jesus Christ He is all in all things until the time that according to the Apostle he delevering us up all and wholly to his Father his Faâ—her also shall be iâ— Jesus and in all his members all in all for ever Amen Fourthly he had a very great Devotion to all the Saints in Heaven but more partifulatly to S. Joseph and S. Teresa whom in the year 1640. he chose for his Patroness and above all the rest to the Saint of Saints the B. Virgin in testimony whereof he dedicated himself to her Service at Ardilliers then when he designed himself for a Carthusian And in the year 1640. he desired to be admitted into the Society erected to her honour in the house of the professed of the Jesuits of S. Lewis and for many years he wore a seal upon his arm with her Image graven wherewith he sealed all his Letters We have likewise mentioned how he gave to an Image of Nostre-Dame de Grace a heart of Chrystal set in Gold to testifie to that Admirable Mother as he used often to stile her his love and that with this heart he resigned up to her his own Finally this man of God most entirely honoured and loved the Spouse of Christ his Holy Church reverencing every thing that came from her making great account of all her ceremonies saying That he found a certam grace and particular vertue in the prayers and customs of the Church conforming himself most readily to her practises Being present commonly at High-Mass in Paris he would go to the Offering amongst the people and ordinarily with some poor man He assisted at ceremonies where it was rare to finde not onely men of his quality but far meaner persons as the consecrating of the Fonts in the Holy Week at long Processions in all extremities of weather Upon which occasion he writ one day to a friend Our Procession goeth this day into the Suburbs and since our Saviour hath favoured us with this great mercy to be of this little flock we ought to follow his standard and I take it for a signal honour to follow the Cross which way our holy Mother the Church leads us there being nothing in her but what is glorious since she acts in every thing by the Spirit of Religion in the presence of God whereby she unfolds great mysteries to those that are humble and respective From which expressions actions we may infer that he being a man of such quality and taken up with such a multitude of business had a very reverend esteem of all the ceremonies of the Church otherwise he would never have rendred such Obedience and Honour to them And though it be most true that he highly honoured these ceremonies yet he desired likewise that by the Exteriour pomp that appeared to the eyes Christians might be led on to the Interiour and more Spiritual complaining that the outward Magnificence wherewith Churches are adorned do often stay and amuse them and instead of carrying them on to God their chief end diverts them from him To this purpose he writ thus to a friend We should take notice of that simplicity in which the Divine Mysteries were conveyed to us that we may not be held too long with the splendour in which at this day they are celebrated These thoughts came into my minde in hearing the Organs and Church Musick and beholding the rich Ornaments used in the Divine Office we must look thorow this state at that spirit of Simplicity Purity and Humility of their primitive Institution Not but that these are holy and useful but that we should pass thorow it to the Simplicity and Poverty of Bethlehem Nazareth Egypt the Wilderness and the Cross But above all he was singularly devoted to an union of spirit and affection and universal communion of all good things whith all the faithful in all places of the world and to be admitted into the communion of Saints being an Article of our Creed very dear unto him Wherefore he highly valued all of each Nation and Profession without espousing any particular spirit or interest to respect one above others to magnifie one and derogate from another He honoured all Ecclesiasticks Secular and communicated with them concerning all his Exercises of Charity for his Neighbour he gave great respect to all Parish Priests was very serviceable to him of his own Parish he frequented the Societies of the Religious loved and made use of them for direction of his conscience And notwithstanding the great variety and several orders of them in the Church yet was not his heart divided but affected with an equal esteem and approbation and a general affection to all according to their degree being guided herein by one Spirit viz. that of Christ Jesus which enliveneth all the faithful as members of his body in the same manner as out bodily members notwithstanding they be different in sight figure and offices are knit together and all perfectly agree because they are all quickned by the same soul All misintelligence and disagreeing is a sign of two spirits that rule there and division is the principle of death Concerning this communion of Saints he one day suffered some difficulty Whereupon he writ this excellent Letter to his Directoâ— I
finde experimentally a real union both in light and faith with the party I mentioned which is more than palpable giving me assurance that we are all one Upon this occasion I shall acquaint you in what manner my minde hath been busied these few last days and is yet full of it and to the end my relation may be more intelligible I shall take the matter somewhat higher The operation I have found in my self for these two or three years hath constantly held me fixed in the pursuit of our Saviour Christ to finde in him Eternal-Life before God the Father through the influence of his Spirit of which I have from time to time given you account And now I confess to you that though for that time I also honoured from the bottom of my heart our B. Lady the Saints and Angels and have been desirous to express it upon all occasions yet so it was that their presence and their commerce was obscured in and as it were very remote from my soul I assure you that those thoughts hath frequently run in my minde saying thus within my self I so much honour our Lady and some other Saints and Angels and I know not where they are I lifted up my heart easily towards them but there was no presence of them at all at least such as I now perceive it Some moneths ago I possessed an opening and a light in my soul accompanied with powerful effects concerning love and dear union with God making me to conceive inexplicable things of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost who is perfect Charity not by the reasonings and discourses of the understanding but by a single view most by one touch penetrating the heart with love And I beheld how the Son of God our Saviour came to advance us by his Incarnation into this love uniting himself to us whereby to reduce us all into this intimate and sweet union until he shall have compleated us all in himself to be made all of us one day all in God after he hath delivered up his Kingdom to his Father Ut sit Deus omnia in omnibus That God may be all in all And we enter into this blessed union with the Father Son and Holy Ghost Some ten or twelve days since being in my morning prayers on my knees to pray unto God I perceived in my self that I could findâ— no entrance unto him onely I kept my self there much humbled but the sight of the Father the access to him of the Son with whom I ordinarily converse with as much confidence as if he were yet upon earth and the assistance of the holy Ghost seemed at a strange distance withheld from me and I perceived an unworthiness in my self so great so real and so penetrating that I could no more lift up the eyes of my soul to heaven than these of my body Than was iâ— given me to understand that I had really that unworthiness which I felt But that I must seek my entry to God and to our Saviour in the Communion of Saints Whereupon I was on an instant possessed with a wonderful presence of the respect and love and union of the B. Virgin the Angels and Saints which I am not able to express nor to utter the greatness and solidity of this grace For this union is Life Eternal and the Ecclesiastical Paradise and this union is both for the Saints in Heaven and those on earth which I have almost always in full view and presence From thenceforward I understood that we were not made by God to be alone and separate from others but to be united unto them and to compose with them one divine total Even as a beautiful stone fitted for the head of a column is altogether unprofitable till it be settled in its place and cemented to the body of the building without which it hath neither its preservation its beauty nor its end This meditation left me in the love and in the true and experimental connexion of the communion and communication of Saints yet with a due order of those to whom I am more united which is my Life in God and in Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the contents of that Letter CHAP. 7. His devotion to the Holy Sacrament ONe of the greatest Devotions of this holy man was that to the H. Eucharist considered both as a Sacrifice and as a Sacrament of which he had ever an incredible esteem honouring it with all possible reverence and affecting it with tender love blessing and praising God for its institution and exciting both by his word and pen the whole world to do the same He was accustomed to say that it was instituted to stay and place our Saviour God and Man in the midst of us to obtain for us all the benefits of grace whereof we are capable here and to dispose us for those of glory That the great design of God in the Incarnation the Life Death and Resurrection of his Son was to convey unto us his Spirit to be unto us Life Eternal which Spirit he hath taught us by his Word merited for us by his Death doth more confer upon us from his estate of Glory And the better to convey this unto us to cause us to live thereby and dye in our selves he giveth himself to us in this most Holy Sacrament dead raised up and glorified to produce in us by the operation of his Spirit these two effects of death and life He was not onely present every day at Mass but took it for a great honour to serve the Priest himself He received every day if not hindred by very important business or some pressing occasion of Charity And as the honour we render to this B. Sacrament consists not in often receiving but in communicating well and perfectly he took all care thereof that could be expected from one of so holy life and eminent Piety He spent many hours in prayers upon his knees before the Blessed Sacrament And being once asked by a friend How he could remain there so long He answered That there he recreated his spirit receiving from thence refreshment and new forces and yet sometimes he encountred with some trouble in that Devotion which may be gathered from this Letter to his Director dated the 27 of June in the year 1647. I have been very poor all this moneth I know not whether I was ever so lumpish both in spirit and body as I was upon the Festival day of the Blessed Sacrament I was present at Service at Procession at Mass at Communion heard the Sermon at Vespers and Compline but like a very beast not knowing how to demean my self either kneeling or standing I was in a kinde of restless condition of body and very wandring and distracted in spirit onely I knew well that in the bottom of my soul I had a desire to honour God through his Son Christ Jesus After Compline I found my self so dull and heavy that seeing my self unable to remain
that he neither desired noâ— feared any thing in this world And in fine enjoyed such a sweet tranquillity of spirit and repose which nothing could disturb or alter that from thence arose a wonderful and invariable equality shining forth in his Exterior at all times in all places upon all occasions One of his intimate friends desirous to try one day whether he had an affection to any thing questioned with him about every thing he could think of to put him to the rest and among other things asked him whether he desired not that these works which he had undertaken for the glory of God might succeed and take effect To whom â—he replied that he had no other aim in all his actions and enterprizes than the accomplishing of the will of God and that although he used his utmost endeavour that such things might succeed yet notwithstanding he was perfectly resigned in all things to his Majesties good pleasure adding many other expressions testifying his Mortification to all desires and a perfect transformation of his will into that of Gods This discourse was not quite finished but there hapned an occasion to put it to the tryal for one came running in crying that all the Heaven was on fire which news usually very frightful made no alteration in him at all who most calmly and composedly looking up to the heavens said the fire is here in Paris without any further distance though he understood presently that it was so violent that the street he lived in was in danger to be burnt down and his neighbours said it was necessary to quite forsake their quatters by reason that the fire was not far off and was likely in a very short space to reach them In this publique fright he keeping his ordinary equality and referring all to the will of God went into his Chappel where he continued long time in prayer offering up himself in sacrifice to God and resigning up his own will unto him some persons looking upon him with great admiration in this posture whilst so many hundreds were at their wits end and preparing for a speedy flight He professed to another secret and familiar friend that he felt himself through the mercy of God in such an absolute state of death to every thing that neither Angels nor men the loss of all he had the subversion of his family nor any other accident could remove him from his settled tranquillity And this he said not hyperbolically or by way of ostentation but out of a solid experimental establishment in that fortitude common with him to all great Saints Such was the mystical death and annihilation of this man of God by which his soul was enriched with a vast treasure of spiritual wealth causing him to lead a most perfect life and uniting him most intimately to God to which this death is absolutely necessary because no being can arrive to that which it was not formerly without ceasing first to be what it was as wood cannot pass into the nature of fire as long as it keeps its former nature this must be quitted and the matter be divested of all the form of wood both in substance and accidents and reduced into a state of privation to be made capable of the fires unitement to it And this is a general rule in nature admitting no exception that each subject must be predisposed to receive a new form and so much more as this form is more noble and this disposition consists in the privation of the subject and loss of other forms to gain a new one So also to make a spiritual man he must no more live according to nature but that he may be capable to be united to God must necessarily dye and be annihilated to himself And if fire require this total privation in the matter to communicate it self thereto with greater reason doth God who is altogether a spirit infinitely pure the first and soveraign entity require of a man this universal nakedness and privation this death and annihilation to himself and all created beings before he give and unite himself with him for in giving himself he giveth also the fruition of himself of his beauty goodness wisdom and his other perfections and by this union renders the receiver happy Hence also may be gathered what admirable purity is requisite in a soul for this union with God in Heaven in the state of glory that for this we must either conserve our Baptismal Innocence or if that hath been lost or fullied we must be purged here or in Purgatory by severe penances notwithstanding our other good works and the high degrees of sanctity to which we have attained And the same in proportion may be averred of the soul here in this estate of grace where it must be very pure to prepare it well for its union with God here in this life And seeing her pollution ariseth from her love to the creature and to herself and from the life of the first Adam according to the lusts and appetites of our own spirit it must dye to all these creatures and likewise to its self just as the body to be made perfect and to partake the true life of immortality and bliss must necessarily dye first so likewise must our souls if we will have them arrive to perfection consisting in this union with God to lead a holy and Divine life which alone can truly be called life To this purpose he writ thus to his Director I see clearly that the onely way to a Divine Union is to be perfectly divested of every thing that is not God and dead to our selves and every creature O that I well understood the importance of this nakedness and death and what is it that hinders the bonds of this Celestial love and union with his Divine Majestie and that Soveraign Beauty but a certain shew of and light adherence to some creature and shall we suffer that a thing so small and so unworthy should possess in the room of God and that Holy Spirit which is an all-consuming fire of love invirancing us on all sides should not have the power to work upon us the same effect which this elementary fire worketh upon wood Why should not I vicious and discontented creature in the midst of these my wretched plenitudes acquire happiness in the possession of God which I may do by his grace in separating my self gently from the creature by a single and affectionate application to the Creator To another person he writ thus When S. Paul saith You are dead and your life is hid with God in Christ Jesus He layeth death as the necessary foundation of a Christian whereby to remove from him all affection and inclination to the creature As we see that a dead man hath no more any motion or sense of any thing for though we are frequently sensible of the rebellious motions of corrupted nature yet they onely spring to be choaked and stifled in their birth To this purpose the
Apostle sets our Saviour for our pattern of whom he said in the former part Exinanivir seipsum He emptied himself If you ask how long and to what degree I answer even from the instant of his conception to his death Behold this is our Rule our Patron and our general Rendezvouz from all sides And to a third If we understood truly how the real divesting our selves of all rendred us capable of union with God we would incessâ—ntly beg this grace offering great violence to our selves to arrive at this state of Death and Abnegation to which every Christian must endeavour that aims at union with God and ascend to perfection I received some years since great illumination upon this verity giving me to understand that the treasure hidden in the field mentioned in the Gospel is no other but this estate of Death and Annihilation taking away from us our selves to give us to God emptying us of all creatures to be replenished with the Creator the Fountain of all good Our Saviour tells us there that he that found it went and sold all to buy it If we understood the true value of this precious treasure we would freely part with our liberty with all we are and all we have to purchase it Really this should work in us great confusion that such precious things and such forcible motives obliging us to tend to this Abnegation we arrive at it so slowly and most men so seldom O how few truly annihilated persons are to be found few that do not live according to the corrupted life of the old man producing actions accordingly when ever occasions of honour or profit or pleasure are presented Few that attain to lose and renounce themselves in such points as tend to their perfection Let us therefore employ all our forces to arrive at this happy estate O the spirits that are thus dead what an admirable life do they live I and hereby become rare instruments in the hands of God capable to act great matters tending to his glory These are intimately united to him wholly transformed and annihilated in God and by this gainful loss and happy annihilation arrive t the height of perfection they enjoy a setled peace a pure and solid contentment incomparably surpassing all sensuall pleasures These are so far advanced above all earthly greatness above that Idol-Honour which the world so much admireth that these are become their contempt and scorn They make no difference betwixt the pomps of Emperors and Spiders-webs they value Diamonds and Precious Stones equal with common Pibbles they neither take health for happiness nor sickness for misery they think that poverty should not be termed a misfortune nor poor men be deemed miserable they weigh not Beatitude in silver scales nor measure it by the ell of Pleasure but repute that all these things do much resemble running waters which in their courve wash the roots of trees and plants as they pass but make no stay with any of them flowing continually towards the end and place appointed them Of these illustrious dead men and most divinely annihilated souls the Angel speaks in the Apocalypse Write blessed are they that dye in the Lord from henceforward for they rest from their labours And indeed this verity should be writ in Letters of Gold in Characters of Saphyrs and Rubies Blessed are the dead who dye thus to themselves and to all created things to live onely to their Redeemer The Holy Ghost hath said it and assured them that at the instant of this precious death they finde rest from all their labours because their former pains and troubles of spirit now have an end for that they have now rooted out the causes of them and dried up the fountain which according to S. James are our lusts and concupiscences Monsieur de Renty had arrived to this pitch as may be seen in what we have mentioned deserving to be put in the list of those truly happy I mean those happy ones of the state of grace and possessors as of the Paradise of this life CHAP. 10. Of his Corporal death MOnsieur de Renty having now finished his mystical death must now also look for to enter into the way of Glory to receive that recompence of the reward which God had prepared for him in the Heavens necessarily dye the death of the body and so he diâ—â— 't is this day that I writ this two years ago which fell out in that manner as I shall now relate One the 11 of Aprl 1649. he found himself very ill and having concealed his sickness for five days was constrained immediately after a journey he had taken about some acts of Charity to keep his bed where he endured great pains all over his body with which his spirit likewise was so much affected that he professed his fancy to be so much disturbed with absurd and raving imaginations that if Gods grace had not assisted him to undestand the ground of them and preserved him under them he should have spoken more extravagancies than any mad man that there was much therefore in such an evil to desert and humble him but it was the duty of a sinner to honour God in all conditions in which he should put him During these great pains and torments both of body and minde and during the whole course of his sickness his ordinary employment consisted in affectionate elevations of his minde to God in thoughts and words of blessing praise and submission to whatsoever was laid upon him of meekness and perfect obedience to all that attended and had the care of of him with such a humble and contented spirit that he thought all well done though sometimes it was otherwise He exprest a wonderful patience which ever gave a check to any complaint still saying that he suffered nothing although his pains were extraordinary And when his keeper which was a Sister of the Hospital of Charity with whom he had visited so many poor and sick solks did importune him to declare his grief O Sister said he how doth the love of God wipe away all pain The Servants of God-fuffer nothing Another friend demanding of him if his pain was not great He answered No. The other replied That he thought it was It s true saith he that I am much clogged with my disease but I feel it not because I do not think of it Being urged by their sister to take some sweet things he refused saying These conduce little either for life or death and are not at all needfull Yet he refused not Physick though it was very bitter which he took with a chearfull countenance and swallowed it with great difficulty without leaving any The day before his death one told him of an excellent medicine which had done great cures He answer'd Patience is a soveraign remedy intimating his unwillingness to try it yet when it was brought he took it without any reluctancy or once asking what it was evidencing his mystical death to any thing
world that you may have no part therein And above all my children that you may live in the fear and love of God and yield due obedience to your Mother On Saturday which was the day of his death about half an hour past ten in the forenoon being newly recovered out of a violent fit of a Convulsion which had like to have carried him away looking attentively on those that were present he made signs with his hands head and eyes with a pleasant countenance for a person of quality and his intimate friend to come neer him Which being done he spake thus to him Sir I have one word to say to you before I dye then pausing a little to recover his strength he testified his affection to him but in words that could not distinctly be understood at length raising his voyce and speaking more articulately and plainly he proceeded The perfection of Christian life is to be united unto God in the faith of the Church We ought not to entangle our selves in novelties let us adore his conduct over 〈◊〉 and continue faithful to him unto the end let us adhere to that one God crucified for our salvation let us unite all our actions and all that is in us to his merits hoping that if we continue faithful to him by his grace we shall be partakers of the glory of his Father I hope we shall there see one another one day which shall never have end The party ready to reply and give him thanks Monsieur Renty stopped his mouth saying Adieu this is all I have to say to you Pray for me Some time after this and a little before his death fixing his eyes stedfastly upon heaven as if he had discovered something extraordinary he said The Holy Infant Jesus where is he Thereupon they brought him his Picture which he kissed devoutly and asking for his Crucifix took it in his hands and kissed it most affectionately Then turning himself towards death presently entred into his last agony which held not above a quarter of an hour of which he spent the most part in pronouncing the Holy name of Jesus making as well as he could acts of Resignation and commending his spirit to God after which he expired sweetly and his holy soul as we have good cause to believe departed to its place of rest Thus lived and dyed Monsieur de Renty one of the most glorious lights that God hath bestowed upon his Church in this age and one of the greatest ornaments of true devotion that hath appeared this long time He died at Paris the 27 year of his age the 24 of April 1649. about noon neer the time of our Saviours elevation on the Cross of which a certain person having a particular knowledge in his prayers applied the merits of this passion to him at the instant of his death in such sort that this application together with his own acts of resignation and annihilation which he had made and with which he both honoured and embraced the Cross are piously believed to have perfectly purged his soul and put it into a condition of entring into its beatitude and enjoyment of God at the instant of its dissolution There are reports of several Revelations and Visions concerning his state of glory and how at the instant of his death a Globe of light was seen ascending from earth to heaven Certain miraâ—ulous cure are also related to be done by his intercessions and spiritual relief supernaturally afforded to several devout persons by his admonitions which things will not seem incredible when we consider his holy life and heroick vertues rendring him one of the miracles of our age Yet since I have not the like assurance of these as of what I have already written and that true Sanctity and Châ—istian perfection consists not in suâ—h things which are not at all imitable I shall not insist upon them I onely adde by way of conclusion that we have great reason to admire the secret counsels of God in taking out of the world a man so useful who being in his full strength and flower of his age and in such an eminent degree of credit reputation and capacity might wonderfully have advanced the honour of God and good of his neighbour But when I say it was the hand of God all things are therein concluded And hereby he is pleased to let us know that he hath no need of us for the advancing of his glory the execution of his designs which he can bring about without us and when he is pleased to make use of us his instruments therein we are to behave our selves with great humility in his presence He hath translated him to another place where he glorifies his Majestie with greater perfection to a place and state that truly deserves the name of glory and that not onely in consideration of what the Saints receive but of what they render to the King of glory Moreover we may affirm that these holy men great pillars of the Church and comforts of the faiâ—hful are frequently taken away before their time as a just punishment upon us for the little use and benefit we make of their conversation and example And truly when first I heard the news of his sickness and the danger that he was in I could not but make this reflection that considering so solid and compleat a vertue notwithstanding that great need the world had of him and the exceeding great good he might still have done in it it was very likely he might dye as being a fruit ripe for heaven even as fruit in its maturity is ready to be gathered and takes hurt by being plucked too soon or too late Thus did God gather this good man in the maturity of his graces and perfection of his vertues as a man perfect and compleated to place him in heaven there to receive his just reward where he waits for us to adore and glorifie and love together with him in all perfection God the Father the Son and H. Ghost to whom be Honour Praise Benediction and all sorts of Adoration and Service now and for ever Amen THE CONCLUTION OF THE WORK How we ought to read the Lives of Saints TO conclude this work and render it more useful to the Reader I think it will not be amiss to afford him some instructions how to read the Lives of Saints and Histories of persons eminent in vertue to the end that that fruit may be reaped by them for which they were compiled These eminent souls then are to be considered two several ways 1. As they have relation to God 2. As to our selves For the first as they relate to God it is certain that these Saints and Persons famous for Piety are the greatest Master-pieces the richest Ornaments the most precious Jewels the choicest Works and the greatest Instruments of Gods Glory that are upon earth For if the meanest righteous man is incomparably more noble and honourable than all sinners put together since