of the gifts of God and the favours wherewith the powerful hand of the Divinity had so liberally inriched him and degraded him of all honour and put him into a condition of meanness impotence and error This goodly spirit of man or rather this man all spirit is now nothing but flesh this beautiful Soul which breath'd for nothing but Heaven entertained it self so deliciously in the knowledge of infallible Truths and was inriched with contemplation of the greatness of God as with Divine Dew and heavenly Manna after so deplorable a fall obstinately links himself to the perishable goods of this World believes in lies seeks after vanities and can no more elevate himself to God so miserable and impotent hath sinne made him O unhappiness which cannot sufficiently be bewailed Man who by the happiness of his creation had eyes to contemplate onely his Creator and converting himself wholly to him had no heart but to love him no spirit but to adhere to him after so fatall a cast wholly turn'd away from God regards nothing but himself is wholly converted to the Creature lives as a Beast onely upon the Earth and like a Beast without judgement The Apostle goes further for describing the estate whereto the sinner is reduced he declares him uncapable of the knowledge of things which are of the Spirit of God The natural man saith he receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned Hence I doubt least the wayes I intend to propose which are according to the Spirit of God appear too high or above the capacity of our spirits I confess they are so if we look upon man in the state of sin impotency and the corruption of his Nature But we shall find the contrary if we consider that the Sonne of God came into the World to relieve man after his fall to restore him those gifts with advantage which he lost to render him capable of God In brief he was made man to teach man the true way to love and serve God he gives the power having setled in his Church an inexhaustible Treasure of Graces whence all souls may draw strength in their weakness succour in their necessity and ability in the very impotency of their nature Here of Iesus man and God we are to learn the way to love and adore and to serve God from him we must have the grace to do it We must in and by Iesus operate above our strength above our being and natural power and nothing ought to seem difficult to us or impossible for him seeing he gives us his grace and spirit in abundance to accomplish it To believe this we must look back upon the designs of the Son of God in the Profusion of his gifts and graces and leasurely examine with the eye of Faith what he will operate in us by his grace and divine communications At the first view we shall see that Grace draws from us our impotency advances us above our nature gives us a new being a new life a life intire and wholly hid in God a life proper to the state of Christianity according to which all Christians ought to live The Son of God speaking to the Samaritan and in her to all the faithful makes a Discourse hereof worthy to be consider'd expressing an intention to establish his Church The houre shall come sayes he and now is wherein the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him The reason he adds God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth What more powerful and clear testimony of the will of God who tries and elects Souls that worship him in spirit and truth If he himself doth choose them and call them to this new life is it not necessary that in pursuit of this election he give them grace necessary to arrive at such an estate Let us consider this passage and ponder all the words of it 1. Iesus Christ shews us that our life must be holy and severed from the creature seeing that we must serve God in Truth without amusing our selves with the vanities and things of the Earth which are nothing but lying In truth that is to say conformable to the Greatness of God and to that principle whence the Soul takes power to serve God the grace spirit and dispositions of Jesus Christ the spirit of Truth We learn further that if perfection of this life is inward pure holy and absolutely divine seeing it is and subsists in the adoration of God who as he is a Spirit pure and holy will be served and adored in Spirit 2. Iesus Christ teaches that we must wait upon him for this Grace necessary to accomplish his Commands who requiring of us a life so pure and perfect obliges himself to give us necessary Graces to arrive unto it since that without him we can do nothing of that which he teaches In brief we see how much we are obliged to require this grace to search after it to submit our selves unto it and to endeavour to become worthy of it We must not in a matter so important as this of our salvation demurre in consideration of our impotency or experience of our own incapacity but raising our selves above our selves by the spirit of Faith we must hope in him who commands nothing impossible who giveth grace abundantly to accomplish what he demands These are the first dispositions of a Christian and which those souls that have any desire to live Christianly ought first of all to learn But it happens quite contrary the understanding of men is so corrupt that they desire not these internal solid vertues nor require them of God and which is worse many think it unnecessary to possess them and that such a life as we call interiour is for few persons as if Jesus Christ speaking to the Samaritan had spoken onely to Her and not to the whole Church Others perswade themselves that it is impossible to attain them as not believing the Apostle who saith I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me a manifest error wherein many lose themselves in not sufficiently considering what they daily see by common experience set before their eyes If weakest Women Virgins and Children have had strength sufficient notwithstanding their young and tender bodies to embrace tortures almost insupportable and have by Grace been strengthned to overcome those difficulties why should not we believe also that abandoning our selves to the power and conduct of Grace and becoming faithful to the designs of God we may have sufficient grace and capacity to acquire these vertues If by the help of grace they can attain strength of body to support the rigours of a penitent life wherefore by favour of the same grace may not we arrive to the possession of that true vertue wherein a
him and examine what it is that God demands of us for the benefit of this regeneration Baptism Being consecrated to God by Baptism after so divine a manner we are no more now our own but belong wholly to him nor ought we to make use of our selves but for him If any profane thing being offered to God consecrated by ceremonies or dedicated to celebration of the divine office is by this means abstracted from common use and its particular end to be wholly employed in sacred things much more a Christian consecrated to the holy Trinity by Baptisme solemnly dedicated to Gods service and referred to his glory ought to be withdrawn from himself and such profane customs as of himself he may commit in his life and actions to be referred in whatsoever he doth to the service and glory of God From these proposed Truths it followeth that the grace of Christianity communicated by Baptisme whereto we have right by this Sacrament doth advance man above all creatures and withdraw him from this world to associate with God and to become his Temple and Throne of rest that being separated from care and love of the creature he may cleave to God only The soul may be compared to the woman in the Apocalypse cloathed with the Sun and having the Moon under her feet to tell us that our soules being replenished with the true sunne of Righteousnesse ought to raise themselves above all Creatures and possessing God contemn all that is not God of God or for God The learned Origen sayes That we ought to esteem as beyond and above the world all that is consecrated to God meaning only those who by the Ceremonies and ancient Customs of the Church resign themselves to Gods service If this be true in bare Ceremonies how much more is he whom God himself consecrates in this Sacrament beyond the world and above all things This is the effect of the words of Iesus Christ when speaking of the spirit of Christianity which he had infused into his Apostles he says recommending them and with them all the Elect unto his Father The world hates you because you are not of the world I likewise am not of the world where we see evidently that according to the designs of Iesus Christ a Christian must be no longer of this world nor pretend further to the creature then the Son of God did when he became man and liv'd upon earth We learn further that by this consecration and the state whereunto we are advanc'd by Baptism God assumes a second interest in us besides that of creation and in complyance with this new right we ought to be more his and live onely for him For he hath right to make in us and of us all that he pleases for his glory and the accomplishment of his divine will I need give no other reason hereof then that of the Apostle Know yee not that your body is the Temple of the holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God And ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods Consider deliberately this Christian truth weigh all these words and ye shall see how much ye belong to God and ought to live for God Reject not this as a matter new or too high it much imports to your good If you cannot comprehend it at least admire it and since they are truths you ought to believe them by Faith you shall enter into an estimate of your estate and acknowledg it is so divine and eminent that you cannot comprehend it but can onely say that he that is all power will effect great things in you Now if you will endeavour to profit by these proposed verities First take heed you commit no sacriledge in serving any other but God since ye are consecrated for his glory be careful to refer your self unto him and to offer to him all your actions be they never so little for they all belong unto him and he knoweth how from the lowest meanest things to bring honour to himself Secondly seeing God hath separated you from the world consecrating you for his glory and that by Baptisme solemnly in the face of the Church you have renounced all its greatnesse and varieties Take heed you deceive not God or rather your selves adhering to the creature searching after and following the Vanities of the Time but see that in pursuit of this promise you have made to God you do disintangle your selfe all the days of your life as much as you can possible from these Creatures Thirdly take your affections off from them and if you will do well despise them all for God that your heart consecrated by an Vnction so holy may be only for God and love none but God The best foundation of Piety is to enter into a great esteem of God and what you are unto him so to contemn the world and all therein Fourthly Seeing you have no right to your selfe being marked with the character of Gods substance so Saint Cyprian calls the love of God and are wholly his let him make use of what is his go out of your self go out of your own Interest to God aim at nothing but the glory of God and therein place your principall care for there is nothing more important in the life of a Christian nothing more profitable or necessary then to leave wholly himself to God and to search diligently after God only This it is that God requires of you for this benefit whereunto you are obliged in the susception of Baptisme and by the state of Christianity The second Prerogative CHAP. III. Of the Filiall adoption of God whereto all Christians are called THe mystery of the Incarnation a work of Love and the Master-piece of God ought to be considered as the foundation of all the Mysteries of the Life of the Sonne of God From this they have their dignity and excellency from this they flow as from their source and principle this we ought to look upon and adore as the Cause of all our happinesse for in and by it we have all that we can-desire all the greatnesse all the priviledges and abundance of grace communicated to us in the state of Christianity flows from this ineffable Mystery as its spring It requires an eternity to consider so worthy an object to look into the excellencies and to contemplate the effects thereof Let us here make a pause to consider this grace the most advantageous of all we have received from the Son of God in this Mystery which gives us right and admission to all the rest the grace of Filiation which makes us children of God by adoption a grace given to men when the Son of God becoming man made men the sons of God By this benefit we are no longer the sons of Adam but of Iesus Christ who is God called by the Prophets The everlasting father By this grace
as Princes of the Blood And as the Princes of this world do maintain themselves in their Estate and that greatness which their Birth allows them so do you couragiously maintain your selves in all rights due to you by this new divine Birth O how great and sublime is it if you behold it with the eye of Faith The rank you are to hold with the Creatures of heaven and earth is the same with Jesus Christ who accompanies you to his estate and greatness the grace of the Son of God which you receive as a Christian giveth you right to his heritage If children saith Saint Paul then heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ. Now the bosom of the eternall Father is the only heritage of Jesus Christ there is his eternall dwelling there his repose there the seat of his delight the Throne of his greatness Even this is the rank you ought to keep there ought to be your repose your delight in the fruition of this onely happiness Remember that the bosom of God is the place destin'd for your eternall dwelling a place of glory and permanent felicity God only is your heritage undervalue not him for transitory vanities of this world forsake him not for the whole world unless you would be for ever miserable Admit this truth farther into your heart believe it not an imagination of a new Piety 't is the foundation of Christianity the ground and principle of the state of Grace which considering intentively you will wonder to see Christians confess these truths and hope for so great a good yet become so blind as to suffer themselves to be deluded by deceitfull vanities and vain illusions of the creatures to sell their birth-right for a mess of pottage and whilest they pretend to be the children of God glorying in so divine a being to live like the children of men thinking of nothing but the earth The second benefit is a great desire of Paradise sighing daily thousands of times after our heritage Heaven bewailing the want of and demanding the liberty promised and due to the children of God In this thought of our Celestiall Sion our sweet Countrey we grieve to see our selves so long in a strange Land It is hard to attend with so great impatience a happy day a good hour an honour which we are made to hope for yet we are without sense in attaining it the true and ineffable joyes of Paradise Great God! can it be that the Manna of Heaven should not cause us to loath the Onyons of AEgypt How long children of men how long shall we have hearts of Adamant insensible toward the things of Heaven yet open for the transitory goods of this cursed earth to love lying to follow vanity to despise eternall truths There cannot be a folly more condemnable Let us open our eyes and grieve to see our selves so fastened to the creature so confident in vanity so little relishing and esteeming heavenly things Let us be ashamed to see the children of heaven eat the food of Swine in a strange land not remembering the abundance of all things in their Fathers House Thirdly we learn that we must live nobly like the children of God Let us take heed we dishonour not our extraction and degenerate from the place whence we came Let us keep the rank we have received in the House of God The Emperor was derided for it who past his time and life away in catching Flyes let not us do so amusing our selves about the creatures and only labouring here for earth since we know all in the world is of less value then a Fly and that in the sight of God the universe is less then the least Atome Let us rather imitate that other Prince who invited by honour and the greatness of his birth would never run nor play but among Kings his equalls Applying this to our Subject let us say that a Christian being the child of God and consequently Prince of Heaven ought to expect no heritage but Paradise to seek no other company but Saints and Angels to take no content but in Iesus Christ endeavouring to follow him in all to imitate him in all since he hopeth to raign with him These Truths deserve to be deliberately considered Saint Cyprian in a Discourse upon the Ascension raises them higher saying That Christians as children of God are obliged to be like God The same is the Doctrine of Saint Paul Be ye followers of God as dear children The reason of this Precept is evident for if as children of God we will enjoy his glory to eternity the possession and the heritage of Iesus Christ and become one with him must we not necessarily be like him in purity in perfection in sanctity If we will possess God in God and live eternally in the bosom of God must not our life be wonderfull our actions holy if we will merit an estate so perfect and holy Nothing is more just Herein appears the Christian estate so great divine and perfect in that making us children of God it gives us right to the heritage of God obliges us to lead a life worthy such an heritage By this principle we see how much they are deceived who think and speak meanly of Christianity or living a life common to the children of the world promise themselves the heritage of the children of Heaven Let us teach them how they ought to live and shew what the actions of their life ought to be who call themselves Christians CHAP. V. What the Actions of Christians ought to be SEeing the state of Christianity is so eminent that it advances the soul to a filiall being so divine it follows that the actions of Christians ought to be eminently devout and perfect This truth is proved not only by the common principles that the life and operations of every thing ought to be conformable to their being but likewise by another maxime of Christianity that a Christian receive all by Christ and in Christ and as the Apostle sayes of him and though him and to him In pursuit of this Principle all the actions of a Christian ought to be done in the Spirit of Iesus and in respect to God which makes them high perfect and holy High as proceeding from Christ its principle Holy as being wrought in him perfect and pure as being wrought for him such actions we truly call Christian. To explicate this more particularly we must observe that a true Christian action must be done in grace in the spirit in the dispositions wherewith Iesus Christ performed his actions during his wayfaring life yet in a different way for the son of God as God and man did act after a divine manner proportioned to the eminence of his estate To work after this manner is proper only to him to this we cannot arrive neither must we aspire unto it but we are obliged to act after a manner very near this and the highest that can be excepting this For the
you cease to be all that you are Have a great desire to loose your self and to go out of your self and that your being be annihilated and consummated in that of Iesus who is in you This is the point whereto you must arrive if you will that God should possess you Thirdy Desire and require that Iesus Christ destroy in you all that is contrary to God that he establish in you the Kingdom of God that he take from you the dominion which self-love the vanity of your nature and your inclination usurp over you and the creatures Fourthly Resign your self to the will of Iesus Christ who by this adorable sacrament of Love will receive you into himself and place you in his life and his being Abandon then your self to the desire that he hath to possess you a desire as great and perfect as the Love wherewith he gives himself to you is infinite Pray him to destroy in this present life the being that you use and abuse that by the power of his spirit and love and by the vertue of this ineffable sacrament he may make you what he is that is to say Love Life and Truth Behold what God requires of you if we regard intentively the essence and the excellency of this mysterie if by the spirit of Faith we weigh the effects it produces in us it will be easie to acknowledge them and soon shall we be constrained to confess that this sacrament of Love doth appropriate us wholly to God draws us from our selves and the world and separates us from the commerce of creatures that we may be knit in heart and spirit to Iesus Christ despising all things for his love and glory so shall be verified the word of the Son of God to his Father in the excess of his Love speaking to him not onely of his Apostles but of all good Christians They are not of the world even as I am not of the world This is the spirit of Christianity the excellency of this divine estate That we may the better remember this you shall see in a little Picture First the grace and spirit of Christianity consecrates us to God and imprints in us a character of the power of Iesus Christ to whose Empire we must be subject for ever and must undergo to all eternity both in heaven and earth the state of service and subjection to the spirit grace and conduct of Iesus Secondly The grace of Christianity makes us the children of God by mercy and gives us right of inheritance to the greatness and true glory of Iesus Christ. By this grace we have no more part in the world because it is the heritage of the true children of Adam but we have right to the Possession of God who is himself the heritage of his children Thirdly This grace draws our spirits our hearts and our affections from our selves and all creatures to unite us to God it gives us right to enter into familiarity and alliance with the Son of God who making himself man by the Incarnation would be amongst us to the end that we might be with him He enters into society with men invests himself with our miseries infirmities to communicate to us his life his spirit and greatness Thus by the grace of this mysterie we go out of our own Interests to enter into the Interest of Jesus Christ whereof the Apostle speaking of the things of the world he saith I count them but dung that I may win Christ. Fourthly In brief by the state of Christianity we are advanced to the participation of God who will be all in us that we may be in him and Jesus Christ by his body and blood which he giveth us in the Eucharist doth elevate and unite us to God makes us live by his life communicates to us all that he is that he may be all things to us that the world may be nothing to us Thus the grace of Christianity unites us to Jesus Christ replenishes us with his life and spirit makes us another himself and therefore obliges us to go out of our selves and the world to be in Christ Jesus I know we must be in the world and make use of the world so long as it shall please God to continue us in this place of captivity but we must not be of the world we must live here as in a place of passage and make use of all in the world as of a winter garment ready to put it off when the Sun of righteousness shall come to his meridian when it shall please God Let us use all the creatures as a necessary medicine to the present state of our infirmities and occasions but let it be withall loathsom unto us as violating our Love which desires nothing but God which takes delight in nothing but God which aspires to nothing and hopes in nothing but God The conclusion of the first Part What the life of a Christian ought to be Behold here the Excellencies of Christianity which we have proposed in few words as having no further design nor intention in this volume then to shew that the life of a Christian ought to be conformable to the state of grace and dignity whereto he is advanced by Iesus Christ. Now to enter into this knowledge it suffices that we see what we are This is that which I design'd to demonstrate in this first part proposing as in a little Tablet the essence dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity which I have done briefly expressing onely the principal Truth of this subject leaving the rest to the piety and consideration of those that would profit thereby Now if we look back with the eye of Faith upon that which hath been said we shall clearly see what a Christian life ought to be and shall know that the design of Iesus Christ informing his Church hath been to consecrate to appropriate to himself and to unite himself divinely to our souls and to separate them from themselves and from all creatures that by a happy revolution he may be in us and we in him we may live in him and of him as he lives in his Father of the life of his Father that so he may restore us to his Father and re-unite us to himself from whom we were separated by him by being our own and having relation to the Creature Herein is comprised the perfection of a Christian life whereof we cannot speak more then in the words of St. Paul ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God a passage which contains an apparent contradiction If we are dead how can our life be hid in God who is the true life If we are in God who is the life of our souls how are we dead The Apostle meanes that our life is life and death our life is a life of grace which is the true life of souls and much better then the soul is the life of our bodies and the proper
knows the power of God over her who can advance her to what degree of communications it shall please him and do in her and by her all that he pleases In this consideration man must adore the secret Iudgements will and designes of God over his Creature he must humble himself in his nothing annihilate himself in his humility and by his knowledge see into the little he is the need he hath of God and the misery of a Soul without grace He must not content himselfe with the bare Knowledge of these truthes without making use thereof the spirit of God can furnish him with severall ways to do it Behold here three Acts very profitable and necessary to be done as often as we can with serious application 1. The soul must resign it self to grace to all the designes and counsels of God over it with a desire to depend efficaciously upon the spirit and conduct of God to follow all the ways to undergo all the effects of the grace and dispensations of God 2. The soul must produce an act whereby offering her consent to God as much as is required she must protest that she consents then and alwayes to all the operations of Iesus Christ in her and to all the designes that he hath upon her of what kind estate and manner soever they be 3. She must renounce within her self fervently all her right over her self her inclinations interest obstruction and imperfections within her imploring the bounty of Jesus and the power of his spirit to annihilate in her all her imperfections to take from her all hindrances opposite to the spirit grace and conduct of God Lastly she must study the practice of vertues when occasion shall present them after the manner proposed whereof we now begin to treat CHAP. III. Of the practise and means whereby we may arrive to the possession of God of his grace and spirit IT much imports souls that seek after God and would live in the perfection of Christianity that they endeavour to enter and settle themselves in good and solid dispositions for that God chiefly regards in us and we are not ignorant that the operations of Grace are alwayes proportioned to the disposition she puts or finds in the soul. Now amongst all dispositions the most solid and necessary the chief path of the soul to true vertue is Love and knowledge of truth We must love truth and strongly adhere to it we must wholly study to fill our spirits with the knowledge of this Truth that it may be unto us a foundation to Christian life a light in the direction and conduct of our actions Therefore before I propose any practise I alwayes put Truth for a foundation of Exercises necessary to our subject Let us then consider as a certain Principle that the more we act for our selves and for the Principles of our being and nature to conduct our selves or our own spirit the more we estrange our selves from God and by consequence from the end for which we are created from the perfection whereto we are obliged The spirit which is in us is the spirit of Adam our nature the nature of Adam therefore is it a nature become damnable by sins a spirit infused into us by the Serpent possessing us in the consent of Adam This spirit and nature is subject to the power and malice of the Devill and sinne and consequently cannot act but according to the power and malice whereto it is a slave for operation followes essence As this being therefore is estranged from God and enemy to him for by nature we are born the children of wrath saith St. Paul so it cannot act but against God Now by this reducement man is drawn out of this Captivity freed from this bondage and made a new subject to Grace he acts no more according to the Principle of his own being but by the Principle of Grace which gives him a new being making him a new Creature in Iesus Christ. To arrive to this Liberty which we call the Liberty of Grace and of the children of God two things are requisite the mercy or grace of God and the consent and co-operation of the soul. The Christian therefore that will live vertuously must first give himself to God offer him his will and intire consent to all the designes he hath upon him and to all the effects which he will by his grace operate in him Then he must study and labour to withdraw himself from this bondage to shake off the yoak of sin which oppresses and drags him whither it will to free himself he must quit himself that is his imperfections his passions inclinations and much more sinne he must kill this spirit of Adam and pluck it up by the root that it may the better make room for the spirit of God that this holy spirit may live in him and act by him otherwise he can no way possess the true christian vertue nor attain the perfection whereto he is obliged nor the end whereto he is created the possession of God Whence it follows that the first exercises whereto the soul must apply it self is to place it self in the liberty of grace to draw it self out of the bondage of sin and to annihilate in it self the spirit of Adam which it carries in the very marrow of its bones Here it must begin all other exercises are but unprofitable without this and all it does will be to no purpose unless it arrive to this point For we must remember that the vertue to be truly Christian is the spirit of Iesus who acts in us and that the perfection of a Christian consists in love a love that is never without the possession of God it is easie then to conclude and believe that he that will be vertuous and a perfect Christian must make room for God in his heart there establish God there cause his spirit to rule and live He must root out and expel all that is contrary and in enmity to God even all that is not God for he that is not with me saith Jesus Christ is against me The true exercise and principall care of a Christian consists herein all others that abut not upon this we must despise saying with St. Paul in Iesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but faith which is by love Now the onely question is how we may arrive to this happiness herein is the difficulty We say it is by inward and outward mortification by the senses and by the spirit by vigilancy in all things that we neither receive consult nor do any thing contrary to God or that may displease him by prayer by discourse In fine it is by the grace of God for it belongs to God alone and Iesus Christ to make us free and draw us out of the captivity of our selves and sin If the Sonne shall make you free you shall be free indeed saith Iesus Christ. It is an effect onely of the
to such a point that it was necessary the Son of God should be made man that God immortall should be clothed with our mortality to purchase for us by his blood and death a power to serve him to merit for us by his life and sufferings the graces necessary for us to produce good thoughts to obtain for us permission to present our selves to God and before him to re-instate us with a hope of pardon and trust in his Grace Man as a Sinner is so unprofitable and uncapable that without Gods particular grace without an effect of his divine mercy he can do no good work nor hope for any blessing or favour and if he receive any if he find himself replenished with love and hope or capable of any good it is onely by the bounty of God who though justly provoked stayes the effects of his Iustice that we might tast the fruits of his inexhaustible goodness Considering these motives and truths let us stand here before God as guilty of divinae Magistatis laesae Let us look upon our selves as sinners and we shall clearly see that by this estate we are left to Gods Iustice that we must of necessity leave our selves to his conduct and divine will For if for civil crimes men worthy of death are left to the Lawes of Iustice and the will of their Prince who will dispose of their life and goods as pleases him certainly man as a sinner worthy of death ought to be left to the will of his God to do with him according to the rigour of his Iustice or effects of his mercy This is the first practick to be learned from this Motive for the soul in the consideration of these truths ought to do that in love humility and choyce which she cannot avoid upon constraint A Christian as the child of Adam and so a sinner must put himself before God resign himself wholly to him and with an humble submission and contentment of spirit receive from his most wise hand all the effects of his divine conduct and accept with a resignation good and evill privation and enjoyment all that may happen unto him Above all he must be careful to continue in a profound humility before God exposing himself to the raies of his divine mercy to move him to pardon From this Principle we draw a second practise seeing the need we have of God For considering our selves to be so wretched and miserable we are obliged to seek a remedy for our evills Now as this cannot be found but in God the repairer of our faults the freer of our souls it will follow that by the knowledge of our miseries and the weight of the iniquities which oppress us we are driven to have recourse unto God even by the same exigence whereunto sinne hath reduced us and are obliged to seek out God Every way that man considers himself he finds himself in a want of God and consequently obliged to seek God as the onely happiness of his soul the onely remedy of his evils The better to understand this we must remember that by sinne man is equally miserable in two considerations the rigour and violence of sinne which oppress him and the evills and disorders whereinto sinne precipitates him from which two states he cannot get but by possessing of God For the first faith teaches us that man cannot get out of sin do whatsoever he can if God himself come not to relieve and deliver him Man of himself may lose himself may plunge himself may sell himself may enslave himself but he cannot free himself nor bestow himself but by the mercy of God who gave us his Son to re-establish all things in us as the Apostle affirms Now this re-establishment is done only by the spirit of love and charity which is the spirit of God in us given to us From whence we see that he that will avoid his miseries and shake off the yoke of sin must necessarily possess God who onely can free him Hence we may observe what a work the conversion of a soul to God is and the freeing of a sinner by what way soever it is wrought in man To apprehend properly the importance of this work of grace we must say that he that would be converted and delivered from sin must not onely go out of his sin but must also possess God and consequently by the same Motive that he desires to go out of his sin he is obliged to dispose himself to possess God and to become worthy of so holy an heritage for to confess his sin to turn to God to be delivered from his sin and to possess God is all one thing wherein appears the need we have to seek God and how seriously a Christian ought to labour in an affaire wherein his eternal safety doth consist The second state of our miseries doth no lesse oblige us to seek God then the former for by the effect of sinne and the Tyranny it exercises over us we are continually tossed about disorder'd made vagabonds and precipitated from imperfection to imperfection from sin to sin from trouble to trouble This evil hath no remedy what resolution soever the soul takes what diligence soever it useth what habit soever it assumes it will never find calme rest or deliverance till it hath found and possesses God and be possessed of him Never shall she be in true liberty Christian liberty the liberty of the children of God until she possesses the spirit of God wherein they deceive themselves who to acquire the peace of the soul and true liberty of the spirit use a thousand practises and a multitude of exercises peace and true Christian liberty being not to be found but in the possession of God Many things indeed that we speak and do serve to lessen our trouble and thraldom but not one can give true liberty or the peace of the spirit but the possession of God The reason is demonstrative nothing can have peace liberty and repose but in its proper Centre God is the Centre of the soul therefore in God alone is her peace liberty and repose and as long as she is with God and possesses him she is in liberty and repose no longer Whence we evidently conclude that while the soul is separated from God she is tyrannized over by the malice of sin continually drawn into circumstances terms and subversions And souls that make shew to search after the truth and to live in the purity of Christianity if they seek not God purely and seriously if he dwelleth not in the bottom of their hearts shall never live but in disquiet and in trouble in scruples and in Pannick terrours For it 's an infallible maxime That man can never rest but in the possession of God the contre of his soul. In this we see the strict Obligation that we have to seek God and to study Christian perfection which consists in the possession of God This is the resentment the desire and demand of the
is nothing For notwithstanding all the good will and resolutions in the World we shall never put them in practise without grace and after all this perseverance in good is necessary for he onely shall be crowned who continues to the end Yet we cannot have nor merit it it is the gift onely of the mercy of God a pure effect of his bounty Herein appears the extream need that we have of God how necessary this grace is to us not onely to do well but also to persevere From these truths we learn that a Christian that will be saved must not onely have a good will or entertain a good intention but further he must seriously seek God adhere to him and possess him since in him alone consisteth the grace that is necessary to do well and to end well in a holy perseverance Salvation is not a thing so easie as we conceive for we have nothing at all in our selves as our selves that can help to save us On the contrary all that is in us is in opposition to grace and by sinne conspires our ruine He that will save himself must seek from without himself the way of his salvation the power to do works worthy of Paradise the power to serve God which he cannot find but in Iesus Christ there he must seek it of him alone he must have the power to serve God the merit of his good works the grace of perseverance and the conduct of his life consequently he must possess and adhere to him if he will attain his happiness nothing else is of advantage seeing Iesus Christ saith himself Without me ye can do nothing Rules and Constitutions may be given us Vses and Documents may be prescribed to practise Vertue and to attain to Christian perfection but all will be without profit and stability if we go not out of our selves to possess Iesus his spirit and grace to receive in him and of him true Vertue stability and perseverance For the grace of Iesus is wholly to have true Vertue and Christianity and perfectly to accomplish the actions and practises that are proposed to us If we examine these principles of truth we shall immediately find from whence arriveth an evill commonly observable in the Church of God that many souls live in a good observance labour much and exercise themselves in the practise of the number of the Vertues yet make little or no progress towards the perfection that they desire and never arrive at the end which they propose to themselves If a reason may be given for a misfortune so generall it appeareth that this cannot proceed from any thing but that such souls seek not God purely nor resign themselves to his conduct to follow with simplicity and fidelity the order which God hath established on them but with a respect to themselves desirous to rise and arrive to an estate whereunto God doth not call them or they refuse to labour with fidelity to attain that whereunto God calls them They regard not God they work not by grace nor seek it where it is but trust in their own strength and work not with submission to grace it self They seek not in Iesus Christ strength and power to work for they think not of it being so blind that they rely upon themselves and by secret esteem of their own actions and Labours easily perswade themselves that there is Vertue where none is and that they are in some estate of perfection when they are very far from it confiding in their own good will or in a simple intention which they think good Believing this enough for them they neglect or despise all the rest which is of greater importance Now to remedy this evil which is not to be neglected you must practise what I shall tell you 1. We must be in will and perpetuall desire of God in a resolution not to love or act but by grace and by the spirit of Iesus this desire is a disposition little known yet more important then it seems for God will be desired and takes pleasure to see a soul thirst and run after him We see that he deferred his great mercies and gave not his sonne to the world till 4000 years after man had desired him 2. We must demand his spirit with earnestness crying from the bottom of our hearts after Iesus the onely freer of our souls the true principle of grace 3. All our recourse must be to Iesus not relying or confiding in any thing but his power vertue and grace to love and act by his dispositions This is properly that we call acting by the spirit and by submission to grace Let us proceed to the consideration of truth to give our selves light and to let those that would be saved know the need they have of God and the rule they ought to observe in their actions to render themselves worthy of God Faith teacheth us that every good guift and every perfect guift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights that the eternal Father giveth us all by his Sonne and in his Sonne and consequently the Sonne of God is made all things to us in him we have all out of him we have nothing whence he is called the gift of God And St. Paul speaking of the eternall Father who gives us his Sonne saith that he is made all things unto us by him we are in Iesus Christ who becomes unto us by God Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption These words represent unto us two truths First That we are in Iesus which shews us the adherence we ought to have to Iesus Christ. The other that we have all in him as having the Sonne of God in whom is true love true wisdom and assured salvation By those truths we learn that Iesus Christ being the true gift of God we have nothing if we possess not him We must therefore labour to become fit to possess him with the effects that he will operate in us Herein consists the practise of Christian life to receive Iesus as a gift of God to possess him as a great treasure to offer him to God to refer him to his Father and with him our Being our life and actions Our soul must be continually employ'd in this double practise in these two continuall motions towards God one to receive Iesus Christ who is the grace of graces the other to offer him to his Father he being the gift of gifts and with him to refer our selves intirely to the glory of his Father and accomplishment of his holy will The third Motive CHAP. VII That a Christian is a Member of Jesus Christ and as such he must be ruled by the Spirit and live the life of Jesus Christ. THe most noble Quality man can have on earth the most happy condition whereto he may be advanced is that of a Christian. By this state God alwayes good and full of mercy relieves him in his faults repairs his
this love which operates with great things in the souls of the Elect. Let us love him who loves us so much and let us live the life of him who lives in us If we reflect upon these truths justly may we be astonished at the obstinacy and blindness of those who make so many difficulties to resign themselves wholly both body and soul to the conduct of God and absolutely to abandon themselves to the providence love and wisdom of Iesus What can any man yet doubt of the bounty and love of God distrust his wisdom after so manifest a truth Is it possible a Christian can imagin that he is to take care of the creature that humane prudence is necessary where God vouchsafes by his bounty to apply and employ his care wisdom and infinite goodness But only to apply himself to the way of God that is to say with an application worthy of God perfect as God is perfect good as God is good accommodating himself notwithstanding to the commodity and feebleness of the creature If we adhere to these truths it is fit that as members of the Son of God we live subject to his will abandon our selves to his loving conduct endeavouring nothing so much as to please and satisfie him This God requires of us to this all Christians are obliged and therefore to profit by this third Motion let us go out of our selves let us quit the care of our selves a care that nourishes nothing but complacency and self-satisfaction which altogether confides in the disordinate love of our selves Let us resigne our selves wholly to his care and providence of him who uncessantly fixeth the eye of his infinite bounty upon us Let us trust in him who hath a heart all of love who onely thinks of us and be all to him and for him Let us endeavour to have no satisfaction nor complacency but in him seeing he alone according to the Prophet Loves us from eternity calls and draws us lovingly to come to him and to be his If you now require some forms for this Resignation I will propose them CHAP. VIII Practises to help a Christian to live in subjection to Grace and the spirit of Jesus THe Christian who would profit by the Motive we last proposed must weigh the quality he hath in being a member of Iesus Christ for Iesus being his head will unite himself to him appropriate himself to him possess him encline him infuse into him his own being and life guide him on the earth as well as redeem him on the Cross and by a particular bounty love him with the same love that he loves himself and as the head loveth his members 1. To make use of these thoughts the Christian seeing himself so chosen united and amorously drawn to Iesus Christ must make a particular profession and protestation to adhere to Iesus to renounce all humane prudence all care and conduct of himself leave himself wholly in all things to the power providence and conduct of Iesus Farther he must yeild up all the right that God his Creator hath given him to his liberty to his life to his actions and to all inferiour creatures putting it into the hands of Iesus Christ upon whom he must depend in all things protesting that he will use them no farther then as dependant on the conduct intentions and will of Iesus 2. The true Christian must make a strong resolution to rely onely on God all other things being indifferent unto him whence he will endeavour to follow and accept with tranquillity of spirit all that God ordains and to establish himself wholly in this confidence of God in this conformity and relyance on the conduct of Iesus He will study to bear in his heart and soul a contempt of all naturall prudence in making little account even of things that depend on his grace saying to himself that he will onely rely on Iesus who is his All and that whatever happen supernaturall grace which is the light of Heaven will never fail to give him as much knowledge and experience in all things as shall be necessary for him but far more profitably and more perfectly then humane prudence can do 3. As this manner of doing may have great and continuall oppositions so the Christian who desires to please God must endeavour to live with vigilancy over himself and particularly have a great care to mortifie the assaults of Nature the motions of the humane spirit and the applications and agitations of the wisdom of the flesh all which opposeth the spirit of God And because nature useth to insinuate amidst grace and disguising her self dissemble to be what she is not we not knowing it and even contrary to our own intentions to prevent this deceit and to assure our selves in a matter so dangerous yet hard to be discovered it is necessary that the Christian with a great humility and a desire full of efficacy renounce all the motions and effects of nature and give himself with all his heart to the spirit and grace of Iesus After all which he must yet have a great vigilancy upon the bottom and the dispositions of his soul that with a great fidelity he may live in the subjection he ought to the grace and conduct of Iesus To help us in this practise and to see how important it is we must consider that the effect of the grace of Christianity may be reduced to one point The designes of God upon our souls are reduced to one thing onely which it is their aim to effect in us This point which God will do in us is to establish his sanctification glory and Kingdom in our souls This is the end of his design whereto all the effects of his grace and divine operations tend Whence we may infer that if God requires nothing of us nor hath no other design on us but to establish in our souls his empire and the Kingdom of his spirit and grace we also must have no other care desire or application then to subject our selves to the Kingdom of God to live in the obedience and conduct of his spirit and grace And as all the designs of God unite themselves in this one point so the Christian must labour in this point that he may be in all even to the least of his thoughts and actions and smallest motions of his soul subjected to the Kingdom of God Hereby I mean that all the motions thoughts and actions of a Christian must be ruled and subjected to the love power will and conduct of God that with peace and inward content he must receive the effects of God and walk with fidelity in the wayes God requires that God may raign perfectly in him by his love and grace and that he may raign here in all those wayes and manners that is as gloriously as he raigns with the Saints in Heaven proportionably notwithstanding to our present estate and meanness I know not whether a true soul that hath true faith can
her own motions To dwell in our selves is to think of our selves to take care of our selves to have a continuall regard to our selves and our self-Interests to use the powers of our souls for our selves and our own satisfaction and not purely to please God To love thus is to wear the maske and false appearance of vertue but not to have the reality By these Principles of piety it is easie to see how dangerously they deceive themselves who speaking of Religious souls who are in a most pure and perfect estate and according to the eminency of their vocation say they ought to be night Christians as Stars in the Firmament and perswade others that they are not obliged to the perfection of inward vertues and that it is enough for them to become punctuall and to live with order and fidelity in their exteriour conduct making them believe that they are capable of no more that this self-desertion is above their strength nay that it were folly so to leave themselves to live in such a general manner of abandoning themselves This is a manifest errour for not onely the religious estate but even that of Christianity obligeth all Christians to the practise of these vertues seeing they are obliged to be perfect according to the Commandement of Iesus Christ as doth easily appear by all the Motives handled in this second Part. Now if all they who aim at perfection in any profession whatsoever must enter into this conduct of grace and subjection if they must live devesting themselves to obey God more perfectly and to live the life of God which is the life of a true christian the true life of grace what ought those souls to do who by particular graces and allurements of speciall favour are called by God cherished and inriched with his gifts O how great will these obligations appeare to those that consider them O how ought such souls to take care and be vigilant to co-operate with the designs of God upon them and to become faithful according to the estate and fulness of grace communicated to them This would require a long deduction for nothing is of more importance or needs a more ample discourse to content our spirits and satisfie our piety But it shall suffice that we shew the fundation and principles thereof of which we shall now speak The conclusion of the second Part. The care and vigilancy which a Soul must have which seeks perfection and would live in true subjection to the grace and conduct of Iesus Christ. WE have cleerly enough deduced and demonstrated by divers motives the obligation all Christans have to seek perfection and wholly to subject themselves to the spirit and conduct of God yet must we not understand this Doctrine so generally but that there is something more to be done and that we fail not in our care and vigilancy to cooporate with the work of God in us and to become faithfull to his conduct and here we will shew what this care and vigilancy ought to be Let us first enter into consideration of the excellencies of our soul that knowing it we may be ravished with its beauty elevated and excited to conserve it carefully in perfection according to the designe of God upon us This knowledge is not easie for the soul is such a lively Image of the Divinity and God hath invested her with so many lights that our spirits are too feeble to sustain the beams thereof and to penetrate the splendor of this beauty If we will speak of her we must say that she so perfectly represents her Prototype God that as we cannot better comprehend God then in averring he is incomprehensible so we cannot enter better into this knowledge of the perfect beauties of our soul then in saying she cannot be known For all that we can say of her is below her so neer doth she approach to the infinite greatness and ineffable perfections of her Creator The highest that we can say of her that seems to imply the last draught of her perfection is that she is a capacity of God an Image wherein the perfections of the Divinity are engraved so as we may compare it to a Seal wherein the Image of a Prince is perfectly and artificially cut As the Seal is capable of receiving the soft wax applied to it and imprints thereon a second Image so our soul which is the Image of God is capable of receiving God and receiving him once she bears a continuall Image of him his true resemblance The soul therefore in as much as she is the Image is also a capacity of God since as the Image she is capable of receiving God And this capacity is the ground of her being and containing in it all her perfections and beauty comprehending all that can be said of her It is not hard to penetrate this truth if we consider the designs of God in the creation of the soul for Faith teaches us that God alone is the end of our soul her fulness that he hath created her to enjoy his greatness to associate her into his glory to communicate to her his divine perfections In pursuit of this designe it was that he gave her so great an amplitude and capacity that she cannot be filled but with God which caused Saint Bernard to say that our soul may be occupated by all things in the world but that she cannot be filled with any but God who created her for himself alone to fill to live in her and to advance her to the enjoyment not of gifts not of grace onely but of glory and of the essence of Divinity All this begins upon earth and is consummated and perfected in heaven indeed it cannot be in heaven if it begin not upon earth since the soul after death enjoyes but what she hath merited in her life for we see that here below the soul receives her God by grace she receives him in his loving communication and she is filled of God by his Spirit which dwelleth in her and in Heaven she possesseth him fully by glory By this possession all her capacity is filled according to all Gods designes upon her Thus Saint Iohn We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him we shall see him as he is Now we cannot see God and be like to him in glory which is a pemanent estate without possessing him and we cannot possess him but in this capacity which is given us by God which is the foundation of our being and all the perfection of our soul so great a perfection that we conceive it farther then we know the greatness of God For as God is great this capacity is great ample and admirable This deserves profound consideration and may serve to all men as a powerfull motive to sever themselves from all upon the earth and to seek God only for whom alone we are created who alone is our fulness This truth discovers the favour we receive from this infinite
practising that vertue she may effect it in her spirit that is beare inwardly the sense of that vertue as outwardly she produceth the action Thus shall she practise vertue in her heart inwardly as she does practise it by her hands outwardly This is founded upon generall principles that the exteriour is nothing without the interiour so that we must first labour to form and perfectionate our interiour which is to exteriour actions as the wheels of the Clock are to the weights or rather as the soul is to the body All the World holds this for truth yet we seem not to consider enough what the meaning of interiour is that onely the intention must be good as many think and believe that it suffices in all things to have a good intention and simple regard to the Action But when we speak of the interiour we mean the bottom of the soul which is to Christian actions life as the Earth is to the fruits she produceth and as the root is to the Tree which it nourisheth and enliveneth The bottom of the soul is the true principle and life of all our actions By the bottom of the soul we understand a true and reall goodness which is in the soul a pure intention that accompanies her grace that assists her necessary and suitable dispositions to the vertues which are in her all this I call the bottom of the soul. What will it profit a man to practise an action of outward humility and to do it with a good intention if in the bottom of his soul he hath a proud will what doth it serve for in a Christian to get the true vertue of charity outwardly to give alms and be liberall and in the bottom of his soul to bear a heart pitiless and covetous It is certain that after this manner he shall never acquire vertue though he had all the good intentions in the world because the foundation of his soul which is the true interiour is not good the first thing he must do is to perfectionate the bottom of his soul and to form his interiour after the manner proposed to know the essence and spirit of vertue Let us propose a particular example of some vertue as a rule for all the rest we will take humility which is necessary for all Christians If we would acquire this vertue and practise it we must first know wherein it consists that when we would produce the acts thereof we may form them in the interiour spirit of this vertue conformable to our knowledge of it For how can we practise a vertue if we know it not How shall we perform an act of humility if we know not what humility is We must then study to know the vertue that we would acquire unless God himself incited by his bounty give us the spirit of it without knowing it But speaking according to the ordinary wayes of the practise of vertues we must know them that when we would acquire them by practise we must endeavour to do the Acts and accompany them with a sense and thought of vertue We must further yet put our selves into dispositions interiour and convenient to the vertue we would acquire as in the vertue of humility it must be in an esteem of God alone in a mean opinion of our selves in a desire of confusion and contempt and to do this from the bottom of the soul. The soul being in these dispositions will endeavour to apply her thoughts thereto when it shall be time to do any outward actions thereof For example If she do an act of outward humility it will excite in her heart a thought and a sense of humility and awaken in her some disposition conformable to this vertue and so she will do this exteriour Act by an esteem and pure desire of humility with mean esteem of her self To do an action after this sort is that which I call to do it in the spirit and in the dispositions of vertue To see how necessary this is we need no other Witness then Experience no other Judge then Reason for how can we for example get the vertue of humility though we should perform infinite and extraordinary acts of it if we know not this vertue and if in practising it outwardly we reflect not upon it self How can we conceive that a man can attain this vertue by any extraordinary practice whatsoever if we bring contrary dispositions It is evidently impossible We must therefore take care to establish it in the dispositions of vertue and first labour to form her interiour for he that shall have an ill foundation in his soul cannot produce good fruits Can we acquire humility if at the same time that we produce exteriour acts of humility our soul is filled with esteem of our selves our spirit full of doubleness our sense given to curiosity our whole heart tyed to our proper interests It is cleer that in so doing it will be an impossible labour We must then confess that to attain true Christian vertues it is necessary to have inward care that is to say that the first thing we must study is to take care that the bottom of our souls be good If the root be holy so are the branches Then we must labour to acquire the dispositions necescessary to accompany vertue to do otherwise is to take the shadow and to leave the substance to bear the image of vertue and to have the reality of vice it is to pursue continually and to take nothing but flyes We see the experience in them who think only of the exteriour and have no care but of certain superficiall practices and rules that look not to the bottom of the interiour but very little or afar off such souls are void of God and without vertue having only a deceitful appearance like false pearls which are filled but with wind mountains in shew but touch them and you shall see come out of them nothing but smoke Vertue is an heritage too noble it must be bought with good money I mean it must be gain'd by practices suitable to her dignity Let us apply our particular subject to that we have said in generall We treat in the Discourse of the life of grace of Christian perfection and of the subjection wherein a soul ought to be towards God and it being proposed how to acquire true vertue it consequently treats of annihilating the spirit in our selves the care and conduct we have of our selves to resigne us to God and not to live but in subjection to his spirit onely and to his grace We have made the necessity of this estate sufficiently appear and the obligation that we have thereto there rests nothing but to shew the means whereby we may enter into these dispositions suitable to her without which we may truly say that the soul shall never attain the true and constant practice of vertue which yet is necessary to many who think not thereon For we may averr not without fears and
regret that a great number of souls shut the door of their hearts to God oppose themselves to Iesus Christ and his grace and by consequence will never arrive to perfection what pains soever they take because they neglect and disesteem the practices of true vertue and slight them to adhere too much to their own sense to love themselves too much and to seek too greedily their proper interests This is that to speak properly which hinders them from resigning themselves to the conduct of God Hence it proceeds that by too much seeking after their own satistaction their profit and the contentment of their spirit they grieve the spirit of God captivate grace and lose themselves in seeking themselves and in stead of uniting themselves to God they separate themselves from him and which is more to be feared they go out of the ordinances of heaven and from the counsels of God to follow their own will their own desires and their own conduct to tye themselves to their own flattering affections It is they must give remedy to their own mishap Let us leave them to speak to souls who will quit themselves wholly to acquire the happy possession of vertues CHAP. II. Severall practises whereof we may make use to attain Christian Vertues SInce the life of a Christian must be a life of grace a life representing the life of God expressing in man the perfections of Divinity it followeth that the actions of a Christian proceeding from such a Principle be great and suitable to such an estate and worthy the spirit of God which dwels in it by the grace of adoption And if the vertues of a Christian are so worthy and rare certainly the dispositions must be also great the way to obtain them singular and the practice extraordinary For as there is great difference between the morall vertues of Philosophy and the supernaturall of a Christian so must the practice hereof be different and extraordinary The wisest of the times past gave Precepts to form man and instate him in the most perfect use of reason they prescribed Laws to overcome and subject the passions to the reasonable will the most noble part of the soul. But all this considered is no more then to make us perfect men that is very reasonable but our business is to make our selves perfect Christians and as it is much more to be Christians then to be men there being a great difference between them so the practises imposed for attaining these two estates are different one as much advanced above the other as the state of a Christian is above that of a man as grace is above nature We must now build upon this foundation and advance the edifice of Christian perfection upon the principles we intend to propose Therefore we must speak and act as Christians not as Philosophers I say then to attain Christian vertues we must before all things have a great desire of Christian perfection and a resolution to labour in the acquisition of true vertues as much as is necessary and as God requires of us This desire must be efficacious and permanent from the bottom of our heart It is good also to awaken if often and to form acts thereof with application of spirit The first means to obtain vertue is prayer The soul that applies her self with perseverance to prayer cannot fail of the possession of vertue Prayer is understood two wayes first as a demand as if we should say that if we demand vertue of God he will give it us If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally This Proposition is true in this sense but this demand must be accompanyed with these considerations true desire of vertue perseverance in prayer a vigilancy to become faithful to the grace that God communicates to us otherwise our demand will be without effect our prayer without fruit It is not sufficient for the soul that would be said to arrive at Christian perfection to nourish in it self vertuous desires and to demand them of God if she be not also careful to demand them as she ought and if she doth not with vigilancy labour in the practise and exercise of these vertues God will have us co-operate with his grace and put to our hand to do with him what he will operate in us so that to obtain vertues we must demand them of God but in demanding them we must labour therein Thus we must understand the acquisition of vertues by prayer This Proposition is built upon this truth That we cannot have vertue unless God give it and God gives it not but with an intent that we should co-operate therein and that we should labour on our parts shewing in this co-operation the fidelity of our souls For this end hath God given us free will There is yet another way of obtaining vertues by prayer understanding by prayer meditation or as we say ordinarily mentall prayer The soul which applies it self to this exercise considering the greatness of the Divinity the verities of Faith the beauty and stability of eternall things the inconstancy of temporall the vanity of all in the World easily apprehends the love of Truth and a contempt of vanity two foundations necessary to the perfections of a Christian life the soul by this exercise remaining united and tyed to God receives the rayes of this divine light which is the life and way of our souls and if she persevere with fidelity must at last be wounded with this love which she so contemplates By this means entring into the enjoyment of divine love which is alwayes liberall of Communications she will infallibly receive the Vertues necessary for her and be inriched with most pure gifts agreeable to the greatness of God who will give her more then sufficiently graces convenient for living in the perfection of Christian Vertues wherein appeares the necessity and profit of this manner of prayer which elevates us to God causes us to enter into a conversation with God unites us to him enlightens us transforms us and disposes us to the life of grace and leads us to the acquisition and possession of true Vertues Food is not so necessary to the life of the body as this manner of prayer to the life of the soul and the acquisition of Vertues The second meanes to acquire Christian vertues is mortification which is absolutely necessary to the soul that will live the life of grace that is to say Christianly We must remember and intentively consider that we are all the Children of Adam living his life following the inclinations of the being of Adam to be christian is to be the Child of Iesus Christ to live his life wholly to follow the spirit motions and holy inclinations of Iesus Christ into this state and new-being we are put by Baptisme As many of you saith St. Paul as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ meaning they are made like the Son of God
they are by grace that which Iesus Christ is by nature This truth granted it is easie to comprehend the necessity of mortification If to be christians we must be re-invested in Iesus Christ that is live of his spirit and follow his motions and inclinations then to arrive to this happiness we must uncloath our selves of the spirit and inclinations of Adam and we must to speak in the words of the Apostle Put off the old man and put on the new man this cannot be done but by mortification which is the more necessary in that the inclinations and spirit of Adam are as much different from those of Iesus Christ as the Heaven is distant from the Earth These two spirits are as contrary one to the other as the animal is to the spirituall according to the Apostle who saith The first man is of the earth earthy the second man is from Heaven and cannot accord together Now to argue by the rule of contraries we must say that to establish the one it is necessary to annihilate the other to plant good we must root out evill so he that would love christianity that is according to the spirit and vertue of Iesus Christ must take away and mortifie the spirit and inclinations of Adam which are in all alwayes contrary to Iesus Christ. The Son of God came into the world as Saint Iohn saith to destroy the works of the Devill The spirit of Adam is a sinner and his inclinations are but concupiscences works of the flesh therefore is the Sonne of God come to destroy them We must also labour and co-operate with him to destroy in us and to root out of us all that sin hath put in us wherein mortification assists us This that Divinity which we call mysticall teaches us which requires that a christian to arrive to that perfection whereto God calleth him passeth through the purgative life in the wayes of mortification annihilation and resignation that by this exercise the soul may purge and cleanse it self from all that is in her opposite to grace and the true possession of God This Doctrine is founded on a Truth which most know but consider not sufficiently That the whole nature and being of man is corrupt all his inclinations turned to evill carrying the centre the source and seed of all vice and imperfection in it Now to order it so as that this nature of Adam this being may be possessed of God replenished with vertuous inclinations and that he may have in himself true charity the seed and principle of all Christian vertues he must necessarily take from it the evill that is in it for the good and perfection cannot be there but in taking away and rooting out the corruption and imperfection which cannot be done without a serious and continuall mortification inward or outward Whence we learn that to acquire christian vertues it is not enough to demand them of God by prayer which we call a demand nor to consider them in mentall prayers and to make good resolutions thereon it is not enough to know them and desire them nor to do acts of them and to produce many practises of them but we must also root out of the foundation of our soul all that which is contrary to vertue The man who desires to live a good christian and aspires to true vertue as the onely way to Heaven must not so much busie himself in the acquisition of vertues by the practise of them as he must labour to root out of his heart and pull out of the foundation of his being all oppositions inclinations and customs contrary to true vertue For as soon as he hath emptied his heart of all that is displeasing to God and contrary to him God will from that moment replenish and possess his heart and liberally extend to him the graces and vertues necessary for him but withall according to the measure in which God gives them to him he must be faithfull on one side to correspond with the grace given him on the other he must labour to render himself more and more capable of the spirit and possession of God he endeavouring to cleanse and purify his heart and God continually replenishing and consecrating it for his own dwelling and sanctifying it by his grace By this amorous combate God always gives and is always augmenting his gifts man receives and in receiving disposes himself more and more to receive more abundantly the sweet bounties of God all which is done in the soul proportionably to her purifying and mortifying her self from all that is disagreeable and contrary to the spirit of God By mortification and the purgative life we not onely understand corporall austerities such as affect the sense as macerations fastings and other exercises which rob the sense of what is most agreeable to it which although they be good and profitable and sometimes necessary yet are they not principall but we apply this Doctrine first to interiour mortifications whereby the soul purifies her heart annihilates her sources therein and pulls away the roots of imperfections and of all that is displeasing to God By this exercise she stifles as much as she can the seeds of self-love though hid in every thing she strives to gain a perfect victory over her self her principall care is to annihilate her will her intentions her desires her thoughts and inclinations to those of God choosing in all things that which is most pure most conformable to the spirit of Iesus most opposite and contrary to her own inclinations and unruly affections Hereunto she wholly addicts her self herein she is very vigilant she knows it generally a maxime that the more the heart of man is filled with the creatures and the love and regard of himself the more she is separated from God voyd of his spirit and true vertue Therefore she endeavours to exercise her self in this interiour mortification Another Reason which obligeth us to the spirit and exercise of mortification is that the Devil makes use of our inclinations of our habits of our desires and of our self-love yea he makes use of our selves against our selves and of our nature subjected as well by the sin of Adam as our actuall sins he makes use I say thereof to cast us away and to separate us from God even in things most holy and the most interiour and therefore to avoid the perils and to take the weapons from the hands of our enemie whereof he makes use to undo us we must necessarily pass through the purgative life we must go out of our selves out of the life of Adam to be in Iesus Christ and to live of his life and we must mortifie our selves to make place for God and take from our heart all that may displease him that is opposite to his grace and by this exercise we shall easily arrive to the acquisition of Christian vertues CHAP. III. That the adherence of a Soul to Iesus Christ is the most perfect
means to possess all Christian vertue THat vertue which we call Christian is a hidden treasure hid in God the very life of a Christian according to the Doctrine of the Apostle is such it is the Pearl in the Gospel which he who would obtain heaven must seek and buy he must seek it in God with all diligence and buy it at the price of all the world Nothing is more precious then true vertue which alone renders us like to God and worthy of Paradise all things else are nothing but vanity amuzement of spirit and unprofitable travell Of known and ordinary means to arrive at the possession of so rich a treasure there is one to be preferred before all others which though little considered and perhaps little known is most important without which all others are ineffectuall This is the adherence of our soul to Iesus Christ This puts us into possession of vertues He who adheres to Iesus Christ is one spirit with him possesses him and in him all vertues To comprehend this truth we must remember that we said that Iesus Christ is our All whence it followeth he is our humility our love our patience our vertue and he that shall possess him shall possess all in him He is the foundation the treasure and riches of the soul He is made unto us saith Saint Paul wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption Who then would have wisdom righteousness and other vertues let him adhere to Iesus He that would acquire and possess perfection let him possess Iesus for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge The Apostle explains this further saying The eternall Father giveth us his Son and with him freely giveth us all things by which words he not onely implies that by his merits by his grace and for his love we have all but moreover that with Iesus Christ note the energy of this word with Iesus we have all possessing him we possess all we must add that if we do not possess nor adhere to Iesus Christ we cannot have true christian vertue This truth is not hard to conceive if we consider the essence of christian vertue and perfection which is the spirit of Iesus or Iesus himself living in us and working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight saith the Apostle Our ordinary manner of speaking teacheth us as much for we say vertue and christian perfection have their beginning in grace from whence they spring and what goes out of a just soul that we call grace Now the soul cannot be in grace nor just but by the habitation of the holy spirit living and acting in her So the Apostle The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us whence we infer that if to live in christian vertue we must be in grace and if grace be no other then the holy spirit living in us and there acting seeing the holy spirit is no other then the very spirit of Iesus it followeth evidently that to live christianly we must possess true vertues and to possess them we must possess Iesus and adhere to him for grace and righteousness consists in this possession Let us rise higher and come to the source hereof Faith teaches us that in Adam we are devested of innocence fallen from the state of grace and perfection whereto we were destined by Creation and by the first designes of God By this fall we have lost for ever the vertues graces and supernaturall gifts wherewith the infinite goodness of God had inriched and cloathed the first man At the sight of this misfortune God being moved onely by his own goodness to be merciful to us would raise us from this fall and inrich us more then ever with his graces and heavenly favours where sinne abounded saith the Apostle grace did much more abound To raise us to this happiness he would give us a new beginning of life and grace his onely Sonne Iesus Christ who being made man by the mystery of the Incarnation is established Father and principle of that being and life of grace which should be in man As we participate in sin of the evil of Adam and are with him despoiled of all vertues and grace adhering to him as to our naturall principle and have with him his being and his nature So adhering to Iesus Christ as to our Head our new Principle we participate of his being of his spirit of his grace and of his vertues This witnesseth the Forerunner of the Messiah who saith Of his fulness we have all received and grace for grace From this being deliberately considered we may derive worthy documents to our subject First we see how much we ought to adhere to Iesus if we will live his life and participate his vertues which are the onely Christian vertues for in as much as we adhere to Adam we are not capable of any thing but to live the life of sinners we have no right to the life of grace to practise or possess any Chrstian vertue If we will live the life of grace and obtain power to practise and possess vertue we must lay hold of Iesus Christ and to receive it of him we must adhere to him for we cannot possess him but in adhering to him wherein appeareth also the necessity of this adherence From this truth we draw a second document how much they deceive themselves who speak meanly and indifferently of true Christans or of a thing proportioned to our reason and being For according to the Principles of Christianity and words of Saint Paul as Christians we must put on the Lord Iesus Christ that is the gifts of the graces and vertues of Iesus in such manner that we may be like unto him in such a degree of perfection that we may bear in us an expression and a lively image of the life and vertues of Iesus Christian vertue is not animitation of the life and vertues of a perfect man not of Adam considered in his Innocency and originall Iustice to have vertues after this manner were not much it is a lively Image of the vertues of Iesus Man-God or to say better it is the life and vertue it self of Iesus in man As men are distinguished by their habits so are true Christians from others by these vertues and these vertues are distinguished from all others if there be any by the spirit of Iesus Here then appears the divinity and perfection of Christian vertues they are the vertues of Iesus himself according to which the Apostle saith we are new creatures As creatures of Iesus we must bear his Image which is divine and celestiall not that of Adam which is humane and terrestriall that is our life and vertues must not be of a man but of God life and vertues as different according to the Doctrine of the Apostle as heaven is distant from the earth as unlike as Iesus is
to sinfull Adam Finally by these Principles we learn and it is that I would most perswade that the way to obtain Christian vertues the most powerfull means to arrive to perfection is to adhere to Iesus to prostrate our selves frequently before the Throne of his greatness to subject our selves to his soveraignty to give our selves to him and to his vertues to endeavour to be replenished with his spirit to bear him in the bottom of our hearts that as the centre is in the midst of its circumference he may be in the midst of our hearts as the centre of our being and our souls We must look upon this practice as very important to the soul and adhering to Iesus and possessing him she shall possess all in him and easily obtain all from him a truth none can be ignorant of that do acquire vertues We must have them in Iesus and of Iesus their onely principle Object and Prototype upon whom we must mould our actions and form our life By him the eternall Father speaks to us by him he teacheth us In a word by him he giveth us this life the life of grace the life of perfection the life which is no other then Iesus living in us He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life saith the beloved Disciple What is there more cleer there onely remains to practise what we have said CHAP. IV. The means whereby we may arrive to the adherence of our souls with God and the obstacles which hinder it TO know truth and not practise it avails little God in the Gospel threatens many stripes to the servant that knoweth the will of his Lord and Master and doth not according to it To what purpose is it to love vertue and embrace vice to praise good and to follow evil is to be condemned out of our own mouths We say it is not enough to love to esteem and to know Christian vertues as others do but we must bear the effects of them and make use of them as God requires We are therefore now to shew how we must practise what hath bin already said To do a Christian action requireth not onely that it be good and done in grace but it must be done with the spirit of grace the spirit of Iesus Christ which he pours into us in such manner that all the vertue which is in us comes from him with such dependence that as the members receive of the Head so Iesus being our Head and we his members we can receive nothing but from him in the state of grace which is so true and necessary that he himself saith As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no no more can ye except ye abide with me our soul is barren and without the fruit of grace if she dwell not in Iesus Christ and take not from him all her juice life and true vertues To adhere to this holy spirit a man must be devested of himself severed from the creatures not onely by will and good intention but by effect also he must have a continuall recourse by grace with a spirit of submission and dependency upon grace that it may have power to act freely in him we must regard the vertue in Iesus Christ and imitate it especially those vertues which are most eminent in his life the bases and foundation of solid perfection as profound humility purity of heart contempt of the world and the like solid vertues onely appearing in the Son of God But we must take heed that in the practice and exercise of vertues we seek them not so much because of their excellency nor to become thereby better or more perfect nor for our own interests but chiefly and above all for the glory of God for the honour of Iesus Christ imitating him in our life and actions that we may live in a manner pleasing to him and since the end of our actions must be the glory of God it is convenient that we have no other design then to please and glorifie him If you desire a more express practise I propose it thus When we have formed some good resolution in prayer or that the doing of some act of vertue is in question we must presently give our selves up to the Sonne of God that we may accomplish this act of vertue according as he desires and according to the designs of his Crosse it not being necessary to form any particular intention or design as for example being to form a resolution to practise humility let us say in our heart I give my self to thee my Iesus to enter into thy spirit of humility I will passe with thee all the dayes of my life in this holy vertue I invoke the power of thy spirit upon me that it may abase my pride and I will keep my self with thee in humility I offer thee the opportunities of Humility which shall present themselves in my life blesse them if it so please thee I renounce my selfe and all things which may hinder me from having part in the grace of thy humility The like may be done in all other vertues or good intentions which we offer to God in this manner they shall be founded on Iesus Christ made in the spirit of grace not in our own spirit made truly christian Let us not contemn this practise neither as too much elevated nor as superfluous it is easie and necessary we speak not of humane action but a christian action perfect and worthy of God suitable to our condition and dignity whereto we are elevated by the grace of christianity which is so great that St. Peter calls us a chosen Generation a holy Nation a peculiar people and to crown all this St. Paul saith we are the members of Iesus Christ and as such we must live no other life then his not act but by his spirit and in his intentions Upon this foundation may be built all that can be said or thought of the perfections and excellencies of christianity all is said when we say Iesus is our head and we his members he is the principle of the grace necessary for us in all things we must take all of him he is the end of our life and actions we must refer them all to him and to his honour In fine he is the prototype and the exemplary cause we must all regard and continually contemplate him not onely to imitate him but to imprint his life and vertues in us This is the essence of christian perfection which St. Paul means in those words full of love My little children of whom I travel in birth again until Christ be formed in you He would have Iesus Christ formed in us great words which represent to the life the excellency of Christian vertues This it is which I demand of fouls and would cause it to be understood if possible as being of importance to remedy many abuses and
unprofitable things which we meet with in the practise and ordinary exercises of Christians for want of taking hold of things in the beginning and not entring into the spirit of grace for want whereof do we not see many souls who keep most holy constitutions and very good rules others that do frequent actions of vertue many who follow and oblige themselves to spirituall exercises and practises yet nevertheless advance not towards perfection nor have any solid vertue They alwayes labour but never gain any they continually travail but never arrive at their journeys end Though all that they do seems to be done in grace and that as is believed they have not their conscience charged with any sinne yet they profit not in any manner all that can be said of such persons is that they are not the worst What is the cause of this evill whence comes it that they profit nothing amidst so much care and Travel The evill comes from this that such souls have not sufficient recourse nor submission to grace they are not tyed to Iesus Christ they scarce think that there is a Iesus Christ they have no distrust of themselves they seek not God but their self-satisfaction and their particular Interests and which is worse by a secret and dangerous consequence they rely upon their own courage upon their travel and exercises and promise to themselves too much of their own strength and tying themselves to divers practises whereof they make use they tye also their happiness thereto If you demand whence it comes that they have not solid vertues it is easily perceiv'd it is because they amuse themselves much in unprofitable things trifles and exteriour things they enter not into the practise of true and solid vertues they esteem them not and hardly know them if they do practise them it is but superficially they have but the appearance of vertue all that they possess thereof is like the grasse upon the house top which withers away of it self of which we must take heed and carefully remedy it least passing our life so we travel in vain and run without arriving to our end and that under those fair appearances in the most part of our actions we be not of the number of the foolish Virgins of them to whom God saith at the houre of death I know you not for God tells us not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And certainly there are an infinite number of christians who will find themselves deceived when God shall make manifest the secrets of hearts and judge the justice of men because that believing themselves rich in good works and charged with the fruits of christian penitence they shall find in their hands nothing but wind and shall see in their life nothing but appearances of Vertues And therefore in an affaire so important we must be vigilant to act christianly and to do works worthy of God which shall gain us the eternall possession of God This subject being of high enterprise I will propose the dispositions which seem to be most necessary The first Disposition CHAP. V. Of the spirit of Faith and the necessity thereof THE first and principall Disposition which the soul that will live Christianly must have is Faith He that cometh to God saith the Apostle must believe that he is and without Faith it is impossible to please him This Disposition is not onely the first but cause of all other what the root is to the tree the foundation to the building the mother to the infant the same is Faith to all vertues and to a Christian life Whence on the spirit of Faith depends all the happiness and perfection of a Christian soul or on the other side from littleness of Faith springs all the evil all the abominations in the life of man The soul that is guided by the spirit and light of faith knows what it is to love and what to detest for faith is nothing but truth the spirit of faith is properly the spirit of eternall truth wherein is seen the strength of faith He therefore that hath faith hath the spirit of truth and by this spirit of truth if he possess it and suffer it to guide him he easily discerns good from bad true from false the flesh from the spirit This faith this spirit of truth shews the soul what the God is that she adoreth from thence she is carried on to love him to fear him and to live in a continuall respect of his divine presence Faith saith God is the principle of all being the end and centre of all things that out of him all is but a dream that all creatures are vain that God is in all things that he gives life and being to all that all things depend on him This makes the soul know that she ought to esteem God alone and all that belongs to God that all the rest is nothing but vanity and lies This light and spirit of faith teacheth that God is eternall truth his works are truth his words and promises true and infallible This causes the soul which is guided by the spirit of faith constantly to adhere and strongly to relie on the truths and maxims of Christianity which are the works and the words of Iesus God and man she believes firmly that what he hath said will come to pass what he hath promised is certain the truth that the eternall Father hath revealed to us by his Son are infallible and eternally the Son of God who is the truth uncreated is a God which can neither deceive nor lye Hereupon the soul by this spirit of truth remains indissolubly tyed to all that God hath said and revealed by his Son so as she cannot taste nor understand any humane reason or object she will not hearken nor adhere to any thing but to the truth of faith she will only follow the maximes that Iesus Christ hath left us in his Gospel and imitate the example of his life divine vertues the rest she despises as unworthy a Christian soul which ought not to be guided by nor live but in the spirit of truth and certainly so the Christian must live All the world confesseth that God alone is truth that the onely spirit of God is the only spirit of truth whence it appears that all that is not God and according to the spirit of God is but vanity and lyes This granted how can they live who have any other object then God Here let us make reflection on the point we shall shew how much they are deceived who in matters of faith and in the conduct of their life separate themselves from this spirit of truth to seek humane reason wayes of prudence maximes of wise men who measure perfection and Christian vertues according to their proper sense according to their own spirits such souls cannot but fall into an abisse of errours and doubts or at least such persons
believe little doubt of all things live a life more like Philosophers then Christians and make no great account of a thousand good things which are usefull in Christianity To remedy this they must learn that faith the spirit of truth and the life of Christ must be the onely rule and guide of our actions and life in such manner that to go out of this rule and conduct either on the right hand or left is alwayes to erre from the right way 2. Considering what we have now said of truth we cleerly see how necessary it is to be established in the spirit of faith and to take truth for our object and conduct All other spirits are deceitfull and lying whence it followeth that souls that will live in Christian perfection must commence by this exercise and must necessarily lay the spirit of faith as the foundation of vertue if they would obtain any As faith is the door whereby we enter into the house of God and are made children of the Church so must she be the beginning of the life of a Christian and the spirit wherewith he lives and endeavours to acquire vertue Where we must mark in the conduct of souls how necessary it is to establish them in the spirit of faith and to accustom them to walk in the light of truth This is the first Lesson we must propose to them in this point wherein we must keep and exercise them as that which is onely profitable and without which nothing is stable or true not to entertain and amuse I dare not say to deceive them by so much prudence by the consideration of so many humane reasons and by the example and actions of men a hard case that the devout of this age take so much care to recommend and obtain morall and civil Vertues and mention not nor consider but superficially the divine and necessary Let us learn and say with Iesus Christ that Truth alone shall save us and that truth must be the foundation establishment of our life if we will live true Christians Hence the soul that will arrive to christian perfection must shut her eares divert her thoughts from all that the humane spirit reason and self-love can inwardly represent and must not hearken to them who regard not God purely but measure the greatness of Heaven with the eyes of flesh by the smallness of the earth and speak of vertues and christian perfection according to their own sense more like Philosophers then Christians Such persons by their discourse and conference study to destroy the maxims of Iesus Christ to establish humane prudence and use their uttermost to abase vertue and make it humane In a word they onely labour to make man reasonable not to make him a perfect christian Upon such occasions the soul that seeketh true perfection and will follow Iesus Christ must stand upon her guard and avoid such persons and with great care must prevent humane prudence from annihilating in her the spirit of faith and the esteem of the things of God If it happen that a soul see her self among such persons and shall understand their discourse to be such it will be good at that instant by a sweet elevation of spirit to give her self to God and renew if she can her esteem of Truth in a thought of God renouncing the perswasions of the humane spirit and protesting that she will receive no other conduct or light then that of Faith nor other interiour dispositions then those of Jesus Christ according to the truths that he hath left to his Church If notwithstanding all this the soul remain in fear or trouble of spirit or feel the spirit of faith to diminish in her then she shall give her self more strongly to God and recollecting her self she shall with an humble spirit stir up in the bottom of the heart a confidence in God alone and a diffidence of all things In fine she shall divert her self from all thoughts which trouble the repose of her spirit and captivate her judgement her reason and humane essence to the spirit of faith she shall undergo with an humble patience the pains which she feels contenting her self by an act of her will to subject her spirit to all that Iesus hath said without regarding any other thing and in this manner she shall keep her self united with Iesus Christ and in a secret silence shall imploy her self in him not about the business in question This act is heroick because his disposition is hard and strikes our senses rudely and sometimes it is painfull but it is withall certain and pleasing to God It is not painfull otherwise then as our reason our judgement and the love of our own interests is living in us If we would annihilate all that it would be easie for to overcome and to believe rather in Iesus Christ then in men and our own sense yet must we not whatsoever difficulty we meet with neglect this labour for as the soul hath nothing more assured then faith nothing more profitable or more powerfull then truth so the Devil fails not also all the wayes that he can to draw us from the conduct of faith and to annihilate in us the light and to force us from the adherence to truth if not all at once yet at least by little and little The soul therefore must take heed she be not here deceived seeing all her happiness consists in walking in the spirit of faith and with the light of the truth This exercise is important let us see how we are to behave our selves therein CHAP. VI. Of the use of Faith and how we may practise it THe soul may be guided two wayes by the naturall light of reason which is weak and deceitful ever fallible and by the light of faith which is infallible powerful certain proportioned to that state of glory whereat we aim it is a supernaturall light given by God to guide us to Heaven The first is common to the souls of the World by St. Paul stiled children of the flesh the second proper to souls which live perfect christians who resign themselves to the spirit of God and to his conduct who trust onely in God adhere to nothing but to the faith which they have in the words of Iesus Christ and the Maxims of the Gospel It is the property of a christian to live and guide himself according to the light and truths of Faith lights much above the naturall light of Reason to this end is he made a Christian. 'T is true the way of faith is hard because it captivates the judgement it is above our sense it combates humane reason it is hidden and very spirituall yet must we nevertheless follow and embrace it because Iesus Christ gives it because it is certain and infallible because it is suitable to the wayes of God who leads men in this world through obscurity having reserved knowledge and light for heaven There are who will think that the soul may
must adhere thereto and having adhered to it we must act and do all things in pursuit of this adherence Let us propose an example in common things to facilitate the practice I look upon God I consider his infinite essence I see that in respect of his divine Majesty all creatures are as nothing Having taken and imprinted this thought in my spirit I believe and immediately adhere thereunto saying it is true Then making use of this truth which I believe I despise all that is not of God and that belongs not to God for the act of faith which I performed teacheth me that all the rest is nothing all creatures are nothing before God In like manner amidst my actions making use of the truth that I profess and believe sometimes I despise one thing sometimes another esteeming God onely but accounting all the rest as nothing Thus I act in the spirit of Truth and make use of Faith Let us give an example more common I would form in my self the presence of God by the principles of Faith Hereupon I will rouse up in my spirit the thought of that truth which teaches me God is present every where and thence infer that consequently he is in my heart with the same greatness and Majesty that he is in Heaven amidst the Cherubims and Saints for it is the same God Having conceived this truth I adhere to it and say it is true then making use of it I find my self in the presence of God who is in my heart I hold my self before him in great reverence I walk with recollection of spirit and a sweet application of my soul to God who is present Now I look on him with love next I adore him doing all these actions by the principle of truth This is to make use of Truth The thing is not hard we must onely apply our selves heartily hereunto For according to the measure that we advance and perfectionate our selves in this exercise shall our actions be perfect and performed in the spirit of truth This is a point of much importance I wish I could perswade all christians to it for it is the foundation of true piety and the cause root and source of all good actions CHAP. VII Of the effects that Faith produceth in our souls and of the esteem of God WHen the Apostle saith Faith is the substance of things hoped for he would compare faith to substance and say that as substance is the support of all Accidents so faith is the support and basis of all Vertues and Graces Faith is the first gift of heaven and the eldest of the graces of God she contains and substains all the vertues of Christianity according to the faith in us and the use we make thereof are we vertuous and advanced in Christian perfection As this is the first of Gods gifts so the first care of a Christian must be to compass so fruitfull and profitable a grace This is a talent whereof God will demand a most exact account when we shall appear before the tribunall of his divine justice God gives us not so great a grace but to profit thereby and make use of it It belongs to God alone to give faith to move our will to illuminate our understanding but it is in man to make use of it and to shew by his works the faith he hath received of God In fine what advantage is it to possess faith which is an infused habit and to let it sleep in us to possess truth and to keep it under restraint Faith we say is a supernaturall habit a light of grace we must therefore put it in action and make use of this light to walk forward in the wayes of grace and path of vertue This is the designe of God evident in the mysteries of Christianity the eternall Father sent and gave us his Son the uncreated and essentiall truth to speak to us conduct us in the spirit of truth the Son conversed among men to bear witness as he himself saith unto the truth the same Son of God ascending into heaven sent to us the Holy Ghost the spirit of truth to enlighten us and teach us the truth And why hath God so great a care that we should know the truth but because the knowledge of that might save us and make us free that is that the light of the truth which is the spirit of faith might draw us from vice and sin to lead and confirm us in the acquisition and possession of vertues Look upon a soul guided by the spirit of faith you shall see that immediately she detests ill and embraceth good it is the property of it to engender and form acts of vertue If the soul knows the greatness of God making use of the knowledge of this truth she will presently be carried to a great esteem of God From this esteem springs reverence reverence operates love love brings the soul to God the soul so united by love fears to displease him This fear which is an effect of love brings into the soul a vigilancy not to offend him she loveth but it is to please him in all things This vigilancy forms a purity in the soul this purity renders us worthy to possess God Thus faith summons al the vertues embraces them and binds them all together and as she is mother so is she also nurse of them In brief she is the foundation of the Christian life the nourishment of all good actions This is the meaning of Saint Paul who said The just shall live by faith the reason is plain Faith is a light of truth he then that walks in the light of faith walketh in the truth and to walk in truth is to hate sin which is a lyer This is to live in the practice and possession of true vertue and in the terms of the Scripture to live in Iesus who is the way the truth and the life It therefore greatly importeth souls which will live good Christians and obtain true vertue to establish themselves in the spirit and use of faith to demand it of God and to referre all their good exercises thereunto which is truly the foundation of all the rest the principle the entertainer and supporter of Christian perfection this exercise is very large Faith and truth have effects almost innumerable He who applies himself thereto shall taste the fruits more or less according to his care therein But if we would know the most important where we must begin I answer it is the esteem of God wherein the soul must entertain it self much and lay a good foundation to arrive at this esteem It is not necessary to enter into a high and extraordinary knowledge of God but to make use of the Principles of faith and a frequent loving and affectionate consideration of God we must never speake of God or of any thing that concerns him but in words worthy of the subject with a sense full of respect and reverence
him abroad in the Kings Palace The devout soul who beholds God in her heart and sees nothing but God there beholds him every where She knowes not that the World sees her she onely knowes her God beholds her and she her God that suffices her If a Christian love his God he will love him every where and not considering men he will say with the spouse my God is mine and I am his The Christian Master St. Paul gives us a good lesson upon this subject and in divers places furnishes us with reasons to perswade us to the care we ought to have of the outward man and of the actions that appear to the eyes of men he sayes that first we owe to God the care of perfecting our exteriour for God will be honoured by our actions This object we must have continually before our eyes this thought must never go out of our souls the reason that the Apostle gives is that we are not our own but Gods whether we live or die we are the Lords saith he and consequently in all our exteriour actions we must have a regard to God as if I should say whether at Court in publick or private in happiness or misfortune in what estate soever I am in of death or life what condition soever I live in I am Gods and therefore must so order my self that in all conditions and estates I may honour God by my actions that my exteriour may be as agreeable to him as my interiour Know you not saith the Apostle that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your Body By the first words he shewes the dignity of our bodies seeing that they possess the holy spirit by the rest the obligation we have to take care of our exteriour that it may give God the honour he expects This Doctrine stops the mouth of all the reasons or rather excuses of those who dissemble what they are and not esteeming the exteriour content themselves with good intentions We must say they live among the living we must accommodate our selves to men and a thousand such nicities to which there need no other answer then that of the Apostle you are not for your selves or your own Interests nor for your friends nor for the World give unto God what you owe unto God and to Caesar what you owe unto Caesar. If this reason be not sufficient Saint Paul gives you another taken from the condition of Christians and which they profess holy and perfect As a Gentleman is oblig'd to live like a Gentleman a Prince like a Prince every one according to his quality so a Christian must live according to the quality of a Christian his exteriour life must be conformable to the state of Christianity which he professeth I have shewed you saith St. Paul and prayed you to walk worthy of God who hath called you to his Kingdom and to his glory As the quality of a Christian is most noble that man can be advanced unto in which quality he must appear before the Tribunall of God to receive judgement and recompence of his actions it is but necessary his life and actions his government and conversation be conformable and worthy of so high and divine a quality whereto the same Apostle exhorts us I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called This is all that is required of a Christian that in what estate condition or manner of life soever he be he live after a manner worthy of Christianity Let this be his first design the subject of his examen let all his care be to profess what he is by his actions The first thing that a Christian must regard in his actions and exteriour is not to see if he be conformable to the rank he holds among men and to his condition in the World but rather to be conformable to the state he professes before God herein consists the fidelity and courage of a Christian. This care of our exteriour is not an indifferent instruction but a Law from Heaven pronounced by Iesus Christ Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven He will have us concerned in our neighbours and for love of them strive to live well to be unto them a mirror of vertue This is not therefore an advice but an obligation to give good example and by our good actions to shew others what they ought to do Example by sweetness of attraction wins the heart binds the will captivates the affections if vertuous it makes vertue to be deified it constrains us to love it and by the rule it bears over our hearts innsinuates and instills the vertue which it exerciseth For men said the Morall Philosopher give more credit to their eyes then to their ears From this principle is derived our obligation to let our light shine before men to preserve a vertuous and exemplary exteriour We are a sweet savour of Christ saith Saint Paul teaching us that our exteriour should have the odour of the vertue of Iesus Christ and not only have the savour but be the very savour it self so much God desires the perfection of our works words recreation conversation employments affairs In brief all our actions must savor of Iesus Christ and bear the odor of his vertues we must not pervert this counsel to formall affectation True vertue is masculine and noble every where it rules with modesty the spirit of God walketh with Majesty in humility all that we require is to profess vertue every where not to be ashamed to shew that we are God's that we respect his divine Majesty that we fear his Iudgements He that hath a good interiour let him shew it by the exteriour let him dissemble nothing but walk alwayes in sincerity remembering that he is in the sight of God Angels and men who behold him and shall one day be his Iudges By the same reason that we labour to perfect our interiour we must endeavour to perfect the exteriour for common sense teaches us that by our exteriour we must please God and render him as much honour as by the interiour To recollect and profit by what is said let us learn to perfect our exteriour and have regard to God onely to conform our actions to the state and dignity of Christianity Let us remember that the rule whereby God will judge us at the hour of death will not be that of honour nor of men of the world much less that of our Interests but of his will and his honour we are only in the world for his honour to do his holy will we are his and for him and it is reason we should render to God what we owe him CHAP. II. That in all our Actions we must follow the
grace There is another principle of misfortune in us which is the love of our souls which lives of the substance of our souls raigning in our hearts and commanding our actions This love acts for it self not for God it is so opposite to God that as another Antichrist it labours onely to destroy the works of grace in us and to ruine his divine love spirit and conduct Hence we see what a misery it is what danger there is in being withdrawn from the conduct of God to live according to our own inclinations according to humane conduct which the Apostle calls the wisdom of this world For what must his life be who submits himself to this sworn enemy of God what must his actions be who hath no other principle nor conduct then his own will onely confident in self-love who onely followes the motions inclinations and thoughts of his reason a reason deprav'd and dim falls irrecoverably I will appeal to man himself how often his prudence reason and conduct have deceived him Into how many errours have his inclinations and his passions precipitated him let him but consult his own Conscience I beseech him to see whither he goes and that in good time he renounce humane wisdom and his feeble reason as much as God requires it to follow the foolishness of the Crosse the conduct of grace for there is no other way of perfection nor meanes to arrive at God but by the power and humility of the Crosse and by the conduct of Iesus Christ our way and our life If we would know what this conduct of God is wherein it consists we must consider it two wayes The first generall and common to all when all that a Christian does is according to the rule of the Law of God Thus we say the actions of men are all submitted to the conduct of God when they are done according to the Law and conformable to his will and the maxims of the Gospel So David lived when he said Thy word is a Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my paths For the Law of God proposeth the right end the just meanes and measure of every action in particular and of all in generall The true Christian must have no other conduct of his actions then this divine Law given by God to be the rule of mans life and principle of his actions he must follow the knowledge and maxims which Iesus Christ taught upon earth as a watch-tower and light to the spirits of men who being left to themselves walk in darkness and ignorance Counsel is mine equity is mine wisdom is mine saith the spirit of God He then that will live according to prudence according to equity and justice that will follow good counsels must have them from God for true prudence and true justice belongs to God It is true there ought to be prudence in the World but it must be the prudence of God which we cannot have but by observing the Law of God Lord thou hast made me wise by thy word said David who had try'd it We must take counsel for the difficulty of affaires perplexeth all things but this counsel must come from God and be conformable to his divine Lawes So did David alwayes in his affaires of greatest importance Thy Testimonies are my delight and my Counsellors We ought indeed to uphold our selves but it must be by the justice of God not that of men but that which concurs with the law of God for all the Commandments of God are righteousness saith David So the Christian doing all things with this respect and doing nothing against the Law and Maxims of Iesus Christ shall live in the perfect conduct of God a happy estate whereto all Christians ought to aspire and wherein they ought to continue professing even to death they have no other rule or conduct of their actions then the Law of God and spirit of the Gospel a rule wherein they must maintain themselves so powerfully and so inseparably that no creature friend or Interest can make them desire or do any thing contrary to this heavenly conduct There is another conduct of God more hidden and invisible when God vouchsafes by the motions of his grace his inspirations and loving communications to conduct souls to perfection and takes a particular care of them Here the soul must take a great and vigilant care that she quench not in her these lights and resist not this divine and amorous conduct This way is for souls who give themselves to God who are wholly out of themselves devested of and severed from the Creature who have annihilated their desires inclinations and passions who are wholly abandon'd to God professing to live no longer then under the conduct of this divine spirit They who are thus happy must take great care to maintain their spirits in a neere alliance and unity with the spirit of God to do nothing but by his conduct they must take heed they admit not any thing nor receive any other spirit which may separate them from that of God In brief they must annihilate all that is of the conduct of the Creature if they will live in a perfect conduct and an intire resignation to the spirit of God which is that which is desired in a perfect Christian as being the meanes to arrive at perfection When we consider these truths we shall find it hard to comprehend and impossible to approve the method of those who would get perfection attain true Christian vertues and possess God yet in all their conducts study nothing but humane wisdom act nothing but by humane respects speak not without equivocation are nothing but outward ceremonies regard nothing but outward formality aim at nothing but advancement Let them speak what they please humane wisdom is but foolishness before God and the spirit of grace and of Iesus is a spirit of truth simplicity and sincerity Those then that guide themselves by the spirit of Iesus Christ must live and act in the spirit of truth simplicity and sincerity for no other conduct is the conduct of God Let no man abuse himself saith St. Paul if any among you think to be wise in this world let him become a fool that he may be wise for the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God 1 Cor. 3.18 19. CHAP. III. That a Christian must do all his actions for love of God and for God THe perfect Christian must not so much consider what he does as the manner of doing for men consider the face God the heart It is a maxime in Morality that it suffices not to do good actions but we must do them well as the Philosopher saith it is not enough to do just things but they must be done justly meaning that an action to be good and just must be accomplished with all these circumstances which are so necessary that if this fail all the rest will be deficient good if it be true good must
we are divided from God the more we follow our own wills and inclinations and adhere to the creature the more we destroy in us the works of God and annihilate his gifts and graces This is an evil that cannot be sufficiently deplored since that for the regard of the creature we lose the regard of God to love a thing of nothing we ruine in us the love of God and for a wretched and miserable thing like our selves the brood of sin and the food of death we destroy in us the works of God and the effects of his love Briefly to adhere to our own wills inclinanations and sentiments Oh who can speak it without a torrent of tears we separate our selves from God and draw our selves from the order and designes of the eternall wisdom Truly we ought to weep and weep tears of blood when we consider the weak condition of man What this Man who is capable of God who hath right to possess God and to be by grace what God is by nature immortall eternall perfect and to possess an entire and eternall rest and a fulness of all good a true solid and permanent good for him I say O misfortune of humane nature and weakness of our spirits to renounce all his happiness and lose his God and in him all things to follow his own disorder'd inclinations to do his own corrupt will and to please and adhere to the creature which is nothing but vanity to enjoy a fleeting transitory good He must neither have heart nor faith that cannot grieve at this our blindness nor apprehend an evil so common and deplorable he must be more obstinate then Pharao that would not draw his soul out of this darkness and deliver it out of this captivity to set it at liberty to go to serve and adore the true God and quit the Leeks and Onions of AEgypt O that I had wings like a Dove for then would I fly away and be at rest lo then would I get me away afar off and remain in the wilderness O Iesus who art our Deliverer break these bonds that bind us and permit not the weakness of our wills and malice of our spirits to oppose the power of thy grace My Iesus the only light of our souls who camest into the world to enlighten those that walk in the shadow of death come and defer no longer to give life and liberty to those whom thou hast chosen to be thy children But let us put a stop to our zeal and not be transported with the motions and resentments of this just grief Let us rather remedy the evil and see what we must do to be faithfull to God and to do that which he would have us First the Christian must take his vocation of God and not of men for as we have formerly said God only hath power to ordain all things and it is the greatest mark of his Omnipotency for himself to choose and ordain the lives and actions of all men and principally to give to his Elect and to propose to them the way and light whereby he will perfect them in the state of grace and conduct them to the enjoyment of the glory he hath prepared for them So said Iesus Christ to his Apostles and Disciples Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain shewing it is he alone that calleth us and employs us in the actions for which we were created When therefore the Christan is at the point to make choice of his vocation he must ask it of God and regard only God in his desire and to render him capable of so important a grace he must make an entire true resignation and annihilation of his will and of the use of his liberty and neither have choice of liberty or will in any thing that concerns him as having no will but that of God leaving to God alone the power and care to choose ordain and establish all according to his holy wil considering nothing therein but the pure glory of God and reserving a desire to accomplish what God by his good pleasure hath ordained him proposing to do all that he should know to be the will of God Secondly when the Christian is in a settled estate and profession then he must live according to the spirit and grace of his estate and vocation and apply himself wholly to God in the use and wayes proportioned to his estate wherein consists the ground of the souls fidelity To comprehend this advice we must know that in the life of every one there are considerable two estates one generall which is common to all the state of Christianity the other particular which consists in the condition he professes in the world The perfect Christian who would be faithfull to God must first have a care to agree with the state and grace of Christianity the most noble of all professions of men and the ground whereon we must of necessity raise the whole edifice of Perfection in what condition soever a man be For what is a man the better for being a perfect and an accomplish'd Gentleman and a wicked Christian to what end serves it to be excellent in some condition and estate to seem good in some vocation to be esteemed of men and to satisfie ones own conscience if in truth and before God he be not perfect in the state of Christianity He must then be a perfect Christian before he seek or think to be perfect in any other condition or estate And therefore the first thing he ought to do who would be faithfull to God must be to live according to the Laws maxims and according to the grace of Christianity in such a manner that he may strive to accomplish and become faithfull in all that is taught and required in this estate with such purity and sincerity that he neglect nothing but make account of all that is in Christianity For as we say there is nothing little in Religion but all in it is great all is here to be esteemed and all is here of importance to him who will live perfectly in such an estate so in the state of Christiany we must esteem all and he that will be a perfect Christian must make account of all that is proposed in Christianity when he is in this estate he must study to perfect himself in the particular profession he takes upon himself be it in the world or out of the condition of seculars Thirdly the soul seeing her self in a profession and vocation must wholly apply her self thereto so as if there were no other and although she esteem of all other vocations of all the wayes whereby God guides his Church and Christians yet must she onely apply her self to her vocation and step onely in the way and conduct of God being without taste and voluntary knowledge of all others as not being willing to make use
of any way but this that God hath ordained for her whereto she is called By this practise the soul remains in her unity of application and begins to be in the perfect adherence of the Spirit of God To live faithfully in those wayes wherein she believes God will conduct her she will be carefull to employ all her power to destroy and annihilate her self into God in those wayes wherein he governs her without thinking of any other resigning her self wholly to God that he by his divine power secretly and intimately operate in her a true annihilation which separating her from her self and all things shall perfect her and put her into a capacity of God that is shall render her worthy and capable to bear God and be filled with him who from thenceforth will be all in all in her by grace and love which is the condition of the Saints in the state of glory yet after a manner proportioned to the baseness of earth The Christian living in this faithfull application shall not want the favour of God and motions to draw him more and more to God and to make him perfect Let us now see how he must comport himself in the exteriour use of all things CHAP. IX How the Christian ought to comport himself in the exteriour use of all things IT is a point of great consequence in the life of a Christian to take heed to the use and seeking after of exteriour things for besides that he must shun as Hell whatsoever is of sin and abstain from all that displeases God it is also necessary to see how he comports himself in exteriour things though lawfull Every employment out of God diverts us from him if we be not ready and formed in the exercise of true piety and conducted by the spirit of truth All things are lawfull but all things are not expedient saith St. Paul signifying that all that is lawfull is not alwayes good to do and that for divers circumstances a man must retain and deprive himself of that which is permitted In the use and acquisition of exteriour things even of those that appear lawfull we may fail in divers manners for the employment diverts us from God the use and possession brings care upon us and the adhering to them divides us from our selves and makes us divide them with God and as it is in the Parable many refuse to go to the Marriage and to the heavenly Banquet whereto they are invited that is they refuse the graces and Heaven it self because they turn themselves to the Creature Some saith Iesus Christ go to their possessions and farms others employ themselves in their affaires some to buy others to sell and busying themselves in these occupations think no more of Heaven or if they have thoughts or desires of it they are stifled in the confusion of affaires So that if God offer them graces and cause them to feel good motions either they refuse them or think not seriously of them Thus they extinguish in themselves the resentments of their salvation the esteem of God and by little and little make themselves insensible of the graces and favours of Heaven This evill is whereinto they fall in employing themselves too much in things which appear lawfull and whereof they have not any fear But the Son of God adds these dreadful and menacing words that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my Supper words worthy to be weighed and examined by Christians which make us to know sufficiently what circumspection we must have in the use and exercise of exteriour things seeing they are capable to make us lose and neglect his graces and vocation There is no example more clearer to demonstrate this truth then the fall of Lucifer and Adam who fell from the heighth of perfection and grace to turn to themselves and the Creature and because they had a will to contemplate and employ themselves in their own perfection they were withdrawn from beholding God and lost themselves in searching into themselves and in the Creature that which they ought to lay hold of and seek in God alone And to this day sin is committed onely because the soul is diverted from God and converted to the Creature and seeks in the Creature for her own particular interest and satisfaction what she ought to seek onely in God and for God Hence we may easily conjecture the hazards which happen and the failings which they commit in the use and research of the Creatures and for as much as it is the snare wherein all souls are intrapped it is necessary to beware of it and cause all men to see it See then in particulars how a man ought to comport himself First The Christian who will live perfectly in any estate or profession must have a care above all things to do nothing that may displease God for this motive is the touchstone of true perfection the foundation and principle of solid vertue and consequently absolutely necessary for a Christian. For if as we have elsewhere said he must do all for the good pleasure of God he must also by the same consequence take need of doing any thing against the pleasure of God In this advice there are two things to be considered very important to Christian Piety one when it is said we must have a care to do nothing sin nor any thing which displeaseth God in these words we must learn that this care is absolutely necessary so necessary that it is the onely care wherein a Christian ought to live For the soul which must do nothing to displease God and detests all that may displease him shall never fail to be acceptable to his divine eyes who contemplating her in this purity will love her loving her will possess her possessing her will inrich her with his gifts and graces according to his divine will and designes Therefore in the acquisition of true and solid piety we must not study so much to do as to take away nor labour so much to acquire and act as to devest our selves and do nothing displeasing to God The other point is when we say that we must do nothing to displease God by this advice we shew what the duty of the soul is that will live in Christian purity which consisteth in that she is obliged to regard God and the good pleasure of God in all her actions The reason of this duty is grounded in that we are not for our selves neither our life nor actions but we are for God by consequence we must employ our life actions and selves for God For this reason God demands an account even to the least moment of our time unto the least thought of our heart the slightest word of our tongue and to the smallest action of our life In brief he will demand an account of our selves from our selves because that we being not our own but Gods we must employ our selves all for God for his good
inclination thereto It is a fault ordinary enough and which we must avoid because our soul must be free and not tyed but to God onely and to his pure will For as we ought to do nothing but for God and by the Spirit of Iesus Christ which is the true and onely spirit of Christianity so we must not act by our own inclinations or passions Whence they are deceived who employ themselves in those actions which they are most inclin'd to and shun those they fear and embrace most willingly the occupations and exercises whereto their inclination carrries them Thus we see some have an inclination to exterior penitence others to compassion and some to penance one is prone to the love of things regulated another is pleased with solitude and the like And we know that ordinarily every man follows the motions and most willingly chooses the manner to live according to his inclination It is a great advantage and gift of God to have received a good soul as the Wise man saith but to embrace the good and do it's actions because the inclination or passion carries us thereto though they be good this is not to act Christianly on the contrary this is to live bruitishly for beasts follow their passions or at best to act but humanely when the inclination is conformable to reason He therefore that wil do a Christian action must take a supernaturall principle which is grace and never do his actions because passions and his inclinations carry him thereto but onely because it is the will and order of God upon him and because such actions are acceptable to God Thus he that will live Christianly must never undertake any thing which he believes is not the will of God if he do any good action he must do it for God if he choose a manner of life he shall regard God onely and strive to do only what is most perfect in him most conformable to the life and actions of Iesus Christ and most contrary to his own inclinations and naturall affections But if he find himself in doubt or perplexity and if he desire to judge his actions his resentments and intentions to know if they be good and truly Christian then shall he have recourse to Iesus Christ who is the chief truth and rule of our lives and actions he shall demand light of him and taking Iesus Christ for the object of his life and the truth for his rule he shall consider whether his intentions and actions be conformable to the truth whether they be like to those of the Son of God whether he act in the perfection and purity that God demands of him according to his vocation and conformable to the sanctity of the estate of Christianity The Christian living in this manner shall become acceptable to God shall arrive at the perfection which God requires of him and shall do all his actions with the purity he ought which is the Principall point of a Christian life CHAP. X. Of Sufferings and the esteem we ought to have of them TO act and to suffer are the two estates of the life of man and like two Pillars sustain him He that will live perfectly must know the use of the one as well as the other as he must act Christianly so must he suffer Christianly that is holily and in a manner worthy the estate of Christianity This is that which we have left to examine and is the last draught of the Picture of a perfect Christian. We have already spoken of his foundation of his interiour of the purity of his actions it remains that we treat now of his sufferings This is a point which we must look upon as the most essentiall in Christianity for suffering is the first state which a Christian must expect and wherein he is to continue We are born in sufferings we live in solitude among temptations and shall die in pain It is the portion of humane life the most ordinary food of our souls It behooves us therefore to know how to make use and profit thereof He hath made a great progress in perfection who can suffer and bear couragiously all that can befall him such a one God owns as a friend Fire tries gold and silver but men are tried in the Furnace of humiliation Here the fidelity of our soul appears for the Christian ought to follow Christ as willingly to mount Calvary as to mount Thabor In brief here the purity of our actions and intentions do best appear what we do of our selves be it in penitence good works or otherwise is for the most part full of our own spirit and evil it follows our inclinations it is in regard of our selves and our own Interests proportioned to self-love and for the most part concerns our selves But in all that happens to us we shall find nothing but God if we know how to lay hold of him when he puts forth his hand unto us To learn so good and profitable a Doctrine we must propose these truths for a foundation First if we consider God as soon as his wife providence embraced all the world his divine eyes surveigh'd all things his infinite wisdom ordained the whole and his wisdom sayes the Wise man stayes in his force from one end to the other and sweetly disposes all things and he not onely ordains and disposes all but he makes all the good and the evil life and death poverty and riches come from God Now the works of God are holy his will is just his decrces equitable his ordinances amiable and above all things we must adore and seek his good pleasure What remains then but that we receive all things from the fatherly and loving hand of God that we kiss the hand that strikes since it is the hand of God that we bear with an humble and quiet submission all events be they painfull or easie good or bad prejudiciall or profitable and we must entertain them not onely with an equality of spirit and inward peace but with respect and essence as coming from God nothing being done but by his order It is just we should esteem this conduct as the conduct of God and subject our selves to it not onely with patience but with respect and honour for all that comes from God must be highly esteemed Souls that live enlightened by faith and walk with the spirit of truth hold it a great honour and much esteem sufferings as being the work of God and the effects of his will which we ought to honour and esteem as well in sufferings as in quiet in privation as well as fruition in evil as in good for in all it is the will of God a will adorable to be esteemed above all the world a will more worthy then the life and salvation of all mankind We must not regard the evils and sufferings in themselves but we must consider them in the will of God There we shall see what they are and the esteem that God
makes of them Iesus Christ wills his Apostles speaking to them of sufferings to receive them without fear and with esteem and wills that they be unto them sweet and pleasing Because saith he the hairs of your head are numbred and not one of them shall fall to the ground without the will of your Father He said that God is our Father to engrave in our hearts a respect confidence and love He sayes that our hairs are numbred and that he keeps an account of them to perswade us that Gods care of us is great and that he hath a care of us even to the least things In brief he saith that a hair shall not fall to the ground without his order to shew that all the losses privations sufferings all events loss of goods of honour of life happen not but by the order of God who is our Father What greater reason to esteem sufferings and to conduct our souls to peace and repose amidst the perplexities of the world then the assurance of Iesus Christ It is enough for a Christian if he be a Christian when Iesus Christ sayes to him Fear not for a hair shall not fall to the ground without your Father how full of love and consolation are the words of Saint Paul to the Ephesians I beseech you that you walk worthy the vocation wherewith ye are called The Reason he adds There is but one Lord one faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all These words are sufficient to establish us christianly in the spirit of suffering and to make us to bear all with sweetness peace and tranquillity of spirit even with esteem and respect We need no other object for our eyes nor other thought in our heart but there is but one Lord this Lord is God this God is our Father this Father is above all In these words we shall learn in what respect subjection and esteem we ought to be in all the contrarieties and sufferings of humane life Secondly We may look upon the state of Christianity and examine what is the essence of the true spirit of piety we shall find that sufferings is the principall its life and its continuance and its maintenance My Son sayes the wise man going to the service of God keep thy self just and in fear and prepare thy soul to temptation adding Take all that shall be imposed on thee suffer pain with patience and humility St. Paul more clearly describes this when speaking of the persecutions he had suffered he adds And all those also who will live godly in Iesus Christ shall suffer persecution which must be understood of all sorts of sufferings both inward and outward For the life of a Christian is no other then the life of Iesus Christ the spirit of Christianity This is the spirit of Iesus or in the common phrase the spirit of grace Jesus was alwayes in humiliation and sufferings he loved from all eternity seeing that from all eternity he was resolved to be man he is reinvested therein becoming man humiliation and sufferings were the centre of his life It is enough to honour pains humiliation and sufferings to say that Iesus Christ hath born them and as the Christian must be the image of Iesus Christ so must he bear with Iesus Christ all sorts of commotions pains humiliations and sufferings As we have born the earthly Image of the earthly Adam let us also bear the image of the heavenly saith the Apostle meaning that we must reinvest us with his Vertues that our life may be an express image of his life which appearing alwayes in desertions lowness and sufferings so ours must be but the same state of sufferings What honour is it to a Christian to weare the Livery of Iesus Christ what happiness to follow his steps we are his members he is our Head were it not a shame to see the body decked with flowers bathed in delights and the head crowned with Thorns we are his Brethren and must possess one heritage with him is it not reason then that we should be like him and imitate his conflicts if we would participate of his Triumphs We are co-heires with Iesus Christ saith the Apostle if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him Whatsoever it be the Sonne of God hath so ordered it in Christianity that he that will follow him must renounce himself and take up his Crosse. They are deceived who think to attain true piety with delights who refuse all sorts of pains and mortifications who take care for peace repose and health who onely study to frame to themselves an easie life and seek for ease in their labours and quiet in their spirits and think thereby to make a great progress in perfection No no! vertue walks onely amongst the thorns and amidst the travails of the spirit of flesh and the vices of the world She must tame her self by watchings and mortifications and the happiness of a Christian is onely in the Crosse. It is the Livery of the Children of God the mark of their election the Plummet of their fidelity and the onely way of Heaven for saith St. Paul We must enter into the Kingdom of God through many tribulations The third reason is that the grace of Christianity can operate no other effect then annihilation and suffering for to be in grace is to be subject to graces and to be in the Kingdom of grace that is to be in the Crosse. For so much as the soul hath of grace so much she must have of the Crosse. The Fathers of the Church call the life of a perfect Christian a hidden Martyrdom which is easie to conceive if we consider that the spirit of Christianity consisteth in a crucifying love a love like that of the spouse who cryes I charge you O ye Daughters of Ierusalem if you find my beloved that you tell him that I am sick of love love which pierceth the soul which transports and transforms it into its object Iesus love which combates sufferings and triumphs over death Behold this combate of love God loves us gives us his love makes us suffer to prove the faithfulness of our love the soul that suffereth because she loves willingly throwes her self into sufferings and defies all labours that in her sufferings she may express her love Iesus did so at the evening of his death when he went to sacrifice himself upon the Altar of the Crosse when he said to his Apostles To the end the World may know that I love my Father and do as he hath commanded me arise and let us go hence whence he went to the Garden of Olives to deliver himself willingly into the hands of his enemies where he shewed that love was the cause of his sufferings his sufferings the marks of his love Howsoever it be to be a Christian and not to love God cannot stand together and
consequently follows that the centre the repose of a Christian cannot be but in this estate of sufferings and in the same condition of suffering that Iesus Christ was here upon earth When we say that the centre and spirit of Christianity is no other then the cross annihilations and adversities we must conceive it in the highest and consider that the Son of God came into the World for the glory of his Father to satisfie his divine Iustice and for the sanctification of our souls These were his designes desires and thoughts Now the thoughts and intentions of the Son of God are eternall and permanent for they are divine and it is the property of the essence and of divine actions to be immutable and permanent Seeing then that the Son of God hath chosen the cross from all eternity lived upon earth in the spirit of sufferance he remains alwayes in the thoughts of the cross in the desires of humiliation and the rigour of death the zeal of the glory of his Father goes not from his heart but he preserves this spirit and offers himself to his Father to bear it eternally and to suffer the effects of it if it be his good pleasure This zeal ought not to be unfruitfull this offer is not to be refused and yet the estate of his greatness and the condition of his glory cannot permit it What remedy Love alwayes wise and inventive hath found out a means to satisfie the equity of his desires and divine affection and the Majesty of his glory for the eternall Father hath given his Son a mysticall body which is his Church he hath appointed him Head over all his Church which is his body all Christians are members of this body true members as the body is a true body though a mysticall body We are saith the Apostle members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Now to this body and these members the spirit and zeal of Iesus Christ communicates it self by the designe and speciall counsel of the blessed Trinity In pursuit of this divine counsel the Son of God pours into his Church and upon Christians the zeal of the glory of God the spirit of the cross and the love of justice he pours it out as he pleases distributing his gifts according to his holy will To some he communicates his spirit of sufferance and crosses to others that of death and to speak more generally he communicates his estates and spirit to whom he pleases and as he pleases So Saint Paul I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh Reflecting on this truth we shall cleerly see that the spirit of Christianity is no other then the spirit of Iesus which he communicates to his Church being the head and to Christians his members And as this spirit is no other then a desire of the glory of God love of the cross and zeal of justice it follows they who will be good Christians must necessarily bear this spirit and be in this estate of annihilation and the cross and embrace all adversities that they meet with yea embrace them couragiously as an order of God established upon them and as an estate which is singularly proper for them In this Disposition they shall find the centre and repose of their souls and in this subjection to the cross they shall obtain the peace that Iesus Christ hath acquired for us by his cross We may also say that to suffer Christianly is to bear all things with cheerfulness of spirit doing like the Apostles who departed rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for his Names sake and like the first Christians who took joyfully the spoyling of their goods defied torments and the cruelty of beasts like Saint Ignatius the burning of fire as Saint Lawrence the violence of torments as Saint Agnes and in the Churches first beginning their zeal to suffer was so great that it made the Apostle Saint Iames to say Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations This advice will seem hard for the rigours of the cross and pains of this life are too piercing but if we love all will be easie for where love is saith Saint Bernard there is nothing but sweetness and nothing is difficult to him that loves though thornes guard and encompass the Rose we gather it notwithstanding and enjoy its beauty and odour Iacob sayes he served seven years for Rachel and they seemed unto him but a few dayes because he loved her so much that he was insensible of the travail He also that will suffer Christianly must love for he that cannot love cannot suffer and he that can neither suffer nor love is no Christian seeing that love is the spirit of Christianity and sufferance the spirit of love This principle considered no rigours that we find in humane life can appear difficult and misfortunes and pains are onely irk some to us for want of love Let us then but love and they will all be easie by love the sufferings of Christians are distinguished from those of others For it is common to all men to suffer it is the condition of their being and portion of their life and the more they think themselves secure the more they are surprised with misfortunes but it belongs onely to Christians to suffer with love The sinner is drawn by the neck like a slave to do the will of God the good man willingly followes him and findes no pain in any thing but on the contrary he finds comfort in travail and repose in displeasure In this sense the Apostle cryes out upon sight of the wounds and scarrs he endured for Iesus Christ Henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Iesus And elsewhere I will glory willingly in my infirmities that the power of Iesus Christ may dwell in me To suffer in this disposition is to suffer Christianly or else let us say that to suffer Christianly is to suffer with an esteem of sufferings There are divers reasons why we should take and well esteem them but the principall consisteth in that Iesus Christ hath chosen this manner of life as a way that honoureth more divinely the Majesty of God then any other estate and he hath chosen this way from all eternity and by consequence from all eternity he beares the thoughts and love of the Cross. He hath chosen the Cross saith St. Paul he hath embraced it from the first moment of his incarnation and by an excess of love he began to suffer as soon as he was born And that which is to be observed is that by the election of his divine wisdom which never fails he hath made choyce of confusion and contempt rather then greatness and contentment So saith the Apostle of him and we find it in his divine Mysteries And from hence comes the esteem that we ought to have thereof
and the reverence we should bear to this estate for the Sonne of God having chosen the Crosse and sufferings and having united to his divine person by his incarnation meanness and infirmities and adversities of humane life he hath made them divine and ennobled them So that we must regard them much more for the dignity which they receive from Iesus Christ and to speak properly they are the sufferings of Iesus Christ for we are united to him we are members of his body flesh of his flesh bone of his bone and by reason of this unity they are no more our sufferings then the sufferings of Iesus seeing they are more to Iesus then to our selves Whence Saint Paul saith as the sufferings of Christ abound in you so our consolation abounds by Iesus Christ. The Apostle highly advancing the sufferings of Christianity calls them the sufferings of Iesus St. Peter speaks in the same manner Rejoyce in as much as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings And therefore when we see all that is in this World all the adversities and vicissitudes we must not passe them over indifferently or as men without grace and vertue stop at our own resentments and loose our selves in our weakness and naturall passions but we must lift up our eyes and thoughts to the consideration of Catholick truths and making use of the light of Faith endeavour to use all things according to the manner God requires and to the power he hath given us If we suffer let us not suffer as slaves and criminalls but as the Children and true Servants of God Let us suffer with esteem and in the spirit of Christianity a spirit holy and divine a spirit powerfull and couragious and which onely belongs to the chosen of God and to his greatest friends Hence the Apostle summing up the graces that the new Christians had received of God puts sufferings in the first place and accounts them as a singular favour He hath given you saith he not onely to believe on him but to suffer for him thereby shewing that it is a benefit of God to be called to the state of sufferings and to know how to make use thereof In the view of these truths let us beg of the Sonne of God part of his spirit of the Crosse and sufferings and his grace to support us under them that we may bear them with the spirit with joy and the grace of Christianity let us say with Saint Paul and often repeat this Prayer in our heart That the Lord would prepare our hearts to the love of God and to the patience of Iesus Christ. CHAP. XIV That we must suffer out of a zeal to the Iustice of God WE suffer in the wayes of sinners and for the zeal of Iustice which is the third Disposition that we have proposed when we enter into the zeal of God which brings him to do justice upon sin and that in all things we exercise upon our selves the judgement that God exerciseth therein in bearing in our hearts a true desire and an effectuall will to submit to the justice of God before whom we are sinners before whom we have offended so many ways By this Disposition the perfect Christian must undergo all sorts of pains and sufferings and regard the adversities and inconveniencies of humane life as effects of God's Iustice on him as a sinner whereby he would destroy sin in him and root out imperfections With this spirit and Disposition he must endure all naturall incommodities as cold heat poverty sickness afflictions and such accidents which are the attendants of our life regarding and bearing them with this zeal to the Iustice of God upon sin This thought if it be solid and well settled in the soul of a perfect Christian will make all pain sweet and easie For what can we suffer but we deserve much more if we weigh our afflictions our sufferings travails and adversities with the number of our sins Who will not see the deformity and weight of our sins and how much they surpass the rigour and weight of our sufferings If we consider the hate God bears to sin and to sinners by reason of sin who will not confess that our crimes are much greater then our pains that amongst our afflictions and sufferings even the greatest and most insupportable the mercy of God appears more then his justice What more manifest example of Gods hatred against a sinner then the rigour wherewith the divine justice which is alwayes equitable punished sin in Iesus Christ And if the eternall Father as the Prophet saith so rigorously chastised his Son for the sins of his people what should he not do to us If the Son of God who is holiness it self sanctity uncreated and incarnate becoming a pledge and offering for our sins was subjected not onely to our miseries and naturall infirmities which are great but to adversities afflictions poverty contempt accusations ignominy even to the rigour of the cross what ought we to suffer who are sinners and objects of the hatred and justice of God If this be done to the green wood what will be done to the dry If the Sonne of God who is the eternall and true wisdom chose this estate voluntarily subjected himself to all miseries incited by zeal to the glory of his Father and to satisfie divine Iustice what ought not we to do what pains and rigours should not we embrace who are the guilty to appease this angry God to satisfie and allay his provoked wrath to restore to glory what we have ravish'd from him Let us enter into this disposition and zeal of submitting our selves to the stroke of Gods Iustice and we shall see all things will be easie to indure we shall not complain whatever befalls us whatsoever is done unto us we shall not take it as a wrong nothing will appear harsh unto us nothing insupportable the quality of sinners and multitude of our offences will tell us that we deserve more we shall bless God for the favour he does us in giving us the meanes to honour him by our sufferings The Christian therefore must have a care to bear all adversities all changes of this life all sorts of afflictions losses and misfortunes yea all incommodities and naturall vexations of humane life with an intention to glorifie God to submit to divine Iustice against sin O how great must be the courage of a Christian how invincible his constancy in all changes and misfortunes if he professeth this zeal of God if he be animated with the hatred God beares to sin How easie would all things appear if in them we had no intent but to act and suffer onely to please God with a full resignation of our selves in all things to his divine conduct To facilitate this disposition and make it more generall we must remember that the Wisdom of God rules all this great World and hath a generall and particular superintendency over all things Nothing
happens by chance to God all is foreseen by his praescience and ruled by his providence In this wise conduct he is Soveraign and meanes to shew his power and subject men to his will and as Soveraign he disposes all and as wise he ordains all it belongs to him to ruine or build up to advance or debase and to us to entertain So that in disgraces and misfortunes we must regard God as our Soveraign and Master and therefore must receive them with the greatest submission and zeal of Iustice which will that God dispose of all as he pleases and that we receive all according to his dispensation This is the zeal and submission that God requires of us whereby the most just and holy embrace all manner of accidents acknowledging the Soveraignty of God and confessing their dependance I call this disposition zeal to Iustice because it is just that God should do in us and with us all that he pleases and that we should be content in all things This is so essentiall to man so just in the disposall of the Universe that we shall easily see in the works of God that that Soveraign Majesty will be acknowledged and adored in afflictions with so much necessity that he never stops the course of his Iustice nor withholds sufferings and other pains till the soul submit and freely render her self to God and untill she do so submit her self she will still be under the rod. So said Daniel threatning the great Nebuchadnezar God will humble thee till thou know that the most high ruleth in the Kingdom of men The impious Antiochus made a publick confession which the chastisement of God as a Rack extorted from his guilty mouth That truly it was a just thing to submit himself to God The first disposition then wherein a Christian ought to be in all sufferings and adversities in all sorts of estates and chances is to subject himself to God because he is God Upon this subjection he must ground his desire and zeal to abandon himself wholly to the divine justice seeing all that is miserable and painful in this World is an effect of his justice and the reward of sin and we see that all the chances that happen in this World are the effects of his power and conduct This being supposed we are obliged to bear them and receive them with a zeal and desire to appease that Iustice which requires that we be subject to God and suffer for our sins Herein consists the disposition we speak of If we would practise this disposition it is thus First the Christian must accept of all adversities and afflictions which are or may be in the life of man as a mark of the will of God and an effect of his Iustice upon him he must them embrace and bear them in this sense and with a desire to please God and submit to his divine Iustice who vouchsafes to manifest himself in these painfull and laborious wayes he must regard them as naturall and necessary not considering whence they come and who is the immediate cause thereof but shutting his eyes to all considerations he must look up towards God and accept them of his fatherly hands If there happen any motion contrary to the disposition he must say with the penitent and afflicted King Righteous art thou O Lord and upright are thy Iudgements Nor must he content himself with this but passing farther he must offer himself to God to bear all his chastisements after the manner that God wills and as long as shall please him And since the true Christian always distrusts his own strength he must beg grace of the Sonne of God to sustain them according to the intention of God and fidelity to make such use of them as he requires For as it suffices not a perfect Christian to conform himself to the will of God and to do what God wills but he must accomplish it after the manner that God wills and according to the vocation and grace wherein God hath established him so in suffering which is an estate more noble and certain it is not sufficient to suffer patiently for Philosophy and generosity can produce this effect and make the greatest rigours embraceable but we must suffer Christianly after the manner that God wills according to his designes conformable to the grace the soul receives of him which ought to be seriously considered by those who are most advanced in the wayes of grace and who owe a great fidelity to God And since to discern this is difficult and that the soul may commit in it great impurities and much infidelity it suffices to be exempted of the miscarriages which may happen that he who seriously looks after Christian perfection and endeavours to please God above all things be carefull to preserve himself in an absolute resignation of himself to the power and will of God in which estate if it be firmly setled there is nothing to be feared but all these will prove easie in regard that patience in suffering and purity ought to be proportionable to the state of grace wherein the soul is and it must needs be of a great purity when the grace is singular and transcendent CHAP. XV. The continuance of the precedent Chapter and of the spirit of repentance TO suffer all things out of zeal to God's justice is not onely a Disposition but a spirit of penitence necessary to all since all have sinned and need the grace of God as profitable to a Christian as repentance is necessary True penitence hath no end but God no regard but to satisfie God To repent is to enter into a regard of our selves in zeal to God's justice who will punish sin in us We must take heed that the true spirit of repentance operate in us a resentment of the state whereto we are reduced by sin a state which displeases God and draws us from the amity presence and grace of God a state whereinto we put our selves through our own fault to satisfie our own inclinations and passions The soul seeing her self so estranged from God and being sensible of this misfortune is grieved extremely and enters into a desire to be reveng'd of her self and to please God whom she hath offended she doth protest to love him above all things for if she could not love him she could not desire to please him This love elevates her into an esteem by this esteem and love she finds it easie to bear all pains rigours or difficulties whatsoever she overcomes them couragiously she onely minds to please God whom she hath offended so that by this zeal to his justice all things are easie to her the contrarieties of this present life and the unexpected rigours and disgrace are light In brief animated with this zeal she willingly embraces all that may happen unto her and receives it as a speciall favour The reason is because such a soul loves God loving God she esteems him esteeming him she will not
displease him and as much as she hath displeased him by her offences she desires to glorifie him and this desire bears her to a zeal of Gods justice and finally this zeal animates her to support all things patiently and to embrace them freely Hence we learn that the true spirit of Repentance consisteth not onely in sorrow for sins committed and a hatred of all sins but also it contains a desire to glorifie God for we can no more enter into Paradise without this then without repentance Herein they must have a care who perform indeed some acts of mortification and suffer many things but with certain dissemblings or out of some private considerations or concernments and many times out of curiosity Let them take heed they build not with straw for true repentance hath no eyes but for God no other regard but to content God and to glorifie his divine justice The more love the soul hath the more ardent is her zeal so that if she love much she desires to sorrow much and believes she hath never done enough for true love is never satisfied Such a soul esteemeth all pains sweet injuries truth contempt honour and labours the enjoyments of her spirit O how good it is to suffer thus for who knows how to love knows how to suffer and transported with the love of sufferings cryes out with the penitent King Lord prove me and try me search my reins and heart To be throughly acquainted with true repentance we must further consider the effects of it for if it be true the effects of it shall be as certain and will be great and true True repentance annihilates us and destroys sin in us and the fountains of sin as also our evil inclinations and vicious habits it roots out of our hearts all that divides us from God all that displeaseth him it converts us to God it drawes us neer to him it gives us God and separates us from the creatures and our selves For the true penitent is crucified in all things and dead to himself of a death to sin which giveth him life in God and makes him lead a new life altered in himself and in his actions This is the true meaning of Saint Paul where he saith As you have yeilded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity even so now yeild your members servants to righteousness unto holiness Which shews the great change and conversion which repentance must operate in us seeing our members which have been servants to sin must now be onely servants to righteousness and to serve God after a manner which operates in us sanctification and serves as an instrument to our glory Further true repentance unites us to God and puts us into a new and particular relation to Iesus Christ. He acquires a new right over us when we participate of his mercies and applies to us the merits of his death and sufferings pardoning our sin He acquires a new right over us because he applies to us the price of his blood by the merits of his death He withdraws us from the empire of sin whereto we had subjected and sold our selves he delivers us from the captivity and slavery of vice to put us into the liberty of his children into the possession of his spirit so that from the time that he delivered us from the tyranny of sin we belong unto him and are his children his captives his heritage we are so many times his as he pardons our sins as many sins as he pardons so many times he offers himself to his eternall Father to pay the price of our misdeeds and offereth him the merit and satisfaction of his death for the redemption of offences Thus he purchaseth us anew as often as he pardoneth our sins Repentance if it be true gives the Son of God a new right in us and draws us from the right we have of our selves to put us into new propriety as to him whence it follows that the sins which separated us from God by our own default serve by the bands of repentance to unite us to God by the new right Iesus Christ hath to us by the band of love which we have to him Many sins are forgiven her for she loved much and he to whom less is pardoned loved less saith Iesus Christ. True repentance produceth two admirable effects one in relation to Iesus Christ which comprehends an abnegation from the creature and our selves to be God's and Iesus Christ's to whom we must be the more united the more he hath pardoned us The Father is an effect of love which issues from this union adherence He that is most united loves most and the more he loves the faster he ties himself Mary Magdalen is an example hereof who was no sooner converted but she fastened her self to Iesus Christ to crucifie her self in his love and to live no longer then with him and for him If we will examine what hath been said it will be easie to see that many persons deceive themselves in this business of so great concernment I mean Repentance who go so negligently and indifferently to this Sacrament that being they are sensible neither of the effect nor advantage of it and it is much to be feared lest they find at the hour of death rather the penitence of a perfidious Iudas of an impious Antiochus of a sensuall Esau then of a Saint Peter or a Mary Magdalen However if be let him apprehend the menaces of the Son of God If ye do not repent ye shall likewise perish He speaks of the true repentance which cannot be true if it have not the true effects else it is not repentance Herein the Christian must take heed as the most important thing of his salvation If we apply these principles of truth we shall find that it hath been no digression to speak of Repentance but that by the same principles which oblige us to bear the spirit of true penitence we have the grace and faculty to live patiently and Christianly amidst all contrarieties and disturbances of this life and in pursuit of that we may make use with profit of all accidents we meet with in the world He that lives in the spirit of repentance as a perfect Christian ought not onely to suffer with ease and cheerfulness but also to subject himself to the divine will and honour of God wherein consists the spirit of repentance In brief he makes his profit of all as a faithfull steward of God's gifts I say he makes profit knowing it is a favour received of Iesus Christ that all sufferings and adversities in this world are profitable to us being sanctified by the pretious sufferings of the Son of God and may serve to satisfie the justice of God which must be looked upon as a particular mercy and favour which Iesus the Son of God hath obtain'd for us by his incarnation and death For if we consider naturally the sufferings and afflictions of mans life they
Truly all vertues are good and suitable to the state of a perfect Christian the practise thereof profitable the acquisition usefull and necessary but his chief care and exercise must be piety for he adds godliness is profitable unto all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come The advice which the Apostle gives his Disciple we must here propose to our perfect Christian having already spoken of vertues the most profitable and necessary to the state of Christianity There remains then no more to commend unto him but a true and solid Christian Piety for this Piety is the Ornament or Mistriss of all other vertues I mean the Christian vertues dispose us assist us and put us into a capacity agreeable to God and to honour him they are necessary for us to make us worthy of God they shew us the way to God but Piety leads us to God and makes use of all vertues to conduct us thither and having no object but God teaches us the worship and honour that we must render to him and like a good Mistriss puts us into a ready and easie practise of true vertues and entertains us in the exercise of actions that honour God and are acceptable to him In brief she enables us to pay God what we owe him This Piety is the first use and exercise of a soul as the first motion the first instinct the first light we have from nature to know God so the first exercise she inspires us with is to honour the same God to render him that worship and service which the Creature owes its Creator This Piety teaches to this she incites us this she produces in us Whence we may apprehend how necessary it is to know wherein this true piety consisteth and to establish our selves therein For above all that we have said already which is very considerable it is evident that this true piety is one of the principall foundations whereby Christian perfection is supported In the conduct of men all actions and exercises of their life are ruled according to piety and as we commonly say according to the devotion they have If then their piety be not founded upon a solid foundation the rest of the Christian life will be unconstant and its exercises very uncertain superficiall and perhaps wholly unprofitable as we see in the devotions of many which is onely in the exteriour who as the Apostle saith having the form of godliness despise the power thereof In such souls we see nothing solid nothing but inconstancy in their lives imperfection in their actions disquiet disturbance and adherence to severall Creatures in their spirits a small blast of adversities overturns them If we consider all their life it is nothing but an appearance and shadow of piety counterfeit Pearls that make a fair glittering shew but are fully onely of wind Some fall into this evill by ignorance others by default it is our duty to direct both into the truth It concerns us therefore to examine wherein piety and true Christian devotion consists Severall persons speak of it severally every one adds to it and appropriates it to his own inclinations humour and particular affections But according to Catholick truth the foundation of solid and true Christian piety consisteth in the soul's being Iesus Christ's and belonging to him by a relation of love and charity True piety consisteth in the knowledge esteem adherence and subjection of our souls to Iesus Chrst from which esteem adherence and subjection all our exercises actions of devotion and piety must proceed as heat from the fire the effect from the cause This description of Piety may seem new but it will appear manifest if we weigh with patience the deduction thereof and consider that Iesus Christ is our Saviour our Mediator by whom we have access to God by whom we honour God render our duties to him and have a relation to the most high and most adorable Trinity and refer our life actions and our selves thereto Herein consisteth true piety for by Iesus Christ we are acceptable to him by him God who is all sufficient in himself vouchsafes to accept our wills to sanctifie our actions and recompense our good works St. Paul teacheth this when he sayes that Iesus Christ is all our glory It is by Iesus Christ and in him that we live in him we merit and satisfie by fruits worthy repentance it is in him that they are meritorious it is he that offers them to his Father consider these words and his Father accepts them and they are acceptable to him for his sake What more clear or more to our purpose Hence we conclude that devotion and Christian piety cannot be in a soul if that soul be not Iesus Christ's if it adhere not to him and be subject to his spirit For if we live not if we merit not nor can satisfie God but by Iesus Christ it necessarily follows we cannot live if we are not Iesus Christs He therefore saith Saint Iohn who hath not the Sonne hath not life implying he hath nothing and consequently he hath no capacity to honour and serve God wherein consisteth true piety Whence we may conclude that to acquire true devotion we must begin with this esteem of Iesus and by an adherence and subjection to his spirit and conduct Let us more particularly explain wherein this true piety consists To know it we must not stop at exteriour things or at actions which have nothing but appearance but we must enter into the bottom of the soul and regard true devotion onely in the centre of the heart The proper office and principall duty of true piety is to cause us to regard God to induce us to render to God what we owe him It is necessary that we enter into the knowledge of God not by speculation or sublime knowledge but by the light of Faith This knowledge leads us to esteem God by this esteem we enter into a propriety and a true and absolute subjection to his greatness and will all which is necessary to true devotion for as much as we cannot render to God the honour love and service we owe him but in as much as we esteem him and are subject to him Seeing then Piety consisteth in rendring to God the honour love and service we owe him and that we cannot otherwise honour or serve him then as we esteem him and depend of him and his divine will it followes that to be truly devout we must act according to the truths of faith and follow this supernaturall light we must conceive a great esteem of God and live in great subjection to his Law and divine conduct and so to live is to live in the true spirit of piety and to be truly devout But this is not all we must proceed further The Christian being in the bottom of his soul and heart disposed after the manner we mention feels a spirituall vivacity an
easiness and promptitude which drives him to the practise of all vertues and incites him to shew outwardly in all sorts of actions the worship reverence and love interiour which he beares his God This motion is so powerfull this vivacity so efficacious that he cannot but outwardly express what he carries in the centre of his heart and soul as fire that cannot be hid but will break forth in flames This inward true piety cannot be concealed but will appear by its effects by the exercises of devotion and by severall actions of vertue according as occasion and time permits We must observe that these exercises of devotion are the more pure sincere and perfect the more the soul esteems God her vertues are the more solid and Christian the more she is subject to the soveraignty of God and submits her self to his divine will as much as she encreases in the light of faith and esteem of her God and establishes her self in this submission and subjection to the will of God so much doth she receive capacity motion and facility to all sorts of exercises of piety and the practise of all vertues The more this inward estate is augmented and perfected in her the more her inward and outward actions are pure holy and perfect not that she believes Devotion to be in outward things on the contrary she esteems them nothing but feels her self driven to these exercises and believes that she owes all that to God to render him the honour and service whereto she is obliged she regards not what she does it is impossible for her to consider or esteem of it she onely regards God whom she ought to honour and love with all her strength and serve as much as she can with purity and infinite perfection This advice is much to be considered for it is in this case that we can easily discover by what spirit the soul is guided in her devotions by this a man may truly judge of his state and of the progress he makes in Christian perfection To summe what hath been said we see that in true piety there are two things to be considered one the interiour and bottom of the soul the other the exteriour which consisteth in its actions The interiour we look upon as the principalll root and cause of true piety the exteriour is but as the blossome and fruit as the actions of devotion which appear to men are but the mark of piety and makes shew of it but true piety consisteth in the interiour as we have said They therefore who study onely the exteriour and have no care but to produce actions fair in appearance have the image and shadow of piety and are able to deceive our eyes and to delude the judgements of men who see but the outside and perhaps before the eyes of that divine spirit which penetrates the centre of our souls they are neither devout nor acceptable to him for all their great performances unless these actions of piety which appeare outwardly proceed from the very bottome from a good foundation from an interiour such as we have described A Christian who would be devout to acquire a solid and Christian piety must before all things bear an esteem of God and if he truly esteem God he will make account of all that is of God he will honour all that is in the Church of God and in any condition or estate will accept all the effects of the providence and conduct of God he will resigne himself to his divine will and above all endeavour to enter into an indissoluble relation to God and having obtained this interiour he easily practises vertue and feels a promptitude to embrace all sorts of exercises of devotion By this we know true piety When all these qualifications we have mentioned do not meet in the soul she is then far from devotion For what piety can there be in a soul which is not God's what resentment of devotion can be found in a Christian who lives in a state unworthy of God and displeasing to his goodness shall we call them devout who flatter haply glorify themselves in their fair appearances and only study the exteriour despising all the rest who honour God with their hands in some exercises whereto they oblige themselves praising him with the mouth by selected prayers and often affected and yet dishonour him in their life and blaspheme him in their hearts God may say of most Christians and of his Israel what he once said of the Iews This people draw nigh unto me with their mouth and honour me with their lips but their heart is far from me For which reason we must fear what Christ immediately adds saying but in vain do they worship me for God vouchsafes not to look upon these devotions and cannot but detest these Christians who like the Samaritans will on the one side adore vanity and idolatrize their own lusts and on the other side profess the worship of the true God who appear like sepulchres painted without but have nothing within but ashes and rottenness These Christ severely reprehends these we advise by this Discourse out of a desire to propose the remedy and show them the truth CHAP. II. The necessity we have to be Jesus Christ's if we would attain true devotion NO man cometh to the Father saith Iesus Christ but by me to shew us that no man hath access to God but by his inttercession By these words he shews us the need we have of him and the impotence wherein we all are The impotence appears in that we can do nothing without him and cannot return to God but by him For sin hath not onely separated us from God but also taken from us the power and right to return to God and in effect we would never have access to his Majesty justly provoked by our sins if the Son of God by his divine mercy did not conduct and bring us to receive grace and favour The eternall Father receives us not accepts not of our actions is not pleased with our devotions and homage otherwise then by his Son in him and by him God triumphs over us By him we speak to God by him we see God by him we offer our selves to God so true is it that without him we can do nothing we cannot have access to the throne of divine mercy nor be acceptable to God but by him Hence we must confess that the Christian who would acquire true vertue and desireth to live in the perfection of his estate as he is obliged must necessarily be Iesus Christ's He must adhere to him appertain to him be subjected to his spirit and conduct and much more particularly if he would have true devotion For seeing true piety consisteth principally in being God's and rendring to his most sacred and soveraign Majesty the worship honour and service due to him and that otherwise we are unworthy and uncapable to do all that without Iesus Christ by whom as we
have said we are God's without whom we can neither honour God nor be acceptable to him It follows that the foundation of true piety consisteth in Iesus Christ that is in the adherence and relation of our souls to Iesus Christ and in the submission of our being and life to the conduct of his spirit and grace for by that adhering to him and being subjected to him we are pleasing to God and receive in him and by him the capacity of honouring and serving God which is the proper effect and chief duty of piety and devotion The truth would need no proof but that few persons think thereof and that many are ignorant of it therefore it seems to be to purpose to speak thereof more at large in the Principles of Christianity Without out going any further let us consider that to be a Christian we must put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man Iesus Christ it is the Doctrine of the Apostle whereon we must found our Discourse If to be a Christian we must crucify and put off the old man to put on the new with much more reason to be a good and devout Christian we must crucify and put off the first to invest us with the second When we say that we must be clothed with Iesus Christ it is to shew we must be united to him adhere to him and as a garment adheres to the body and is united to it so must we be Iesus Christ's but much more perfectly then this comparison expresses Reason and Faith will easily convince us of this truth if we doubt of it for faith teaches us that it belongs to Iesus Christ to give us grace and strength to put off the old man that is to draw us from our imperfections to deliver us from our sins and annihilate our evil inclinations It is the same that Iesus Christ invests us with the new gives us his spirit grace and vertue for and according to Saint Paul Iesus Christ hath been to us wisdom and righteousness sanctification and redemption In a word Iesus Christ is all in all to us Now that the Son of God may operate in us all that we have said it is necessary that we be united to him adhere to him and be subjected to his designes his will and divine operations Who can deny so manifest a truth If Iesus annihilate our evill inclinations and root sin out of our hearts ought not we to be subject to his conduct and spirit and so receive his operations of mercy If we participate of his grace and vertue and live according to his Commandements is it not necessary we should be united to him And how should we be united to him but by a true relation and faithful adherence to him This deduction is easie and clearly shewes how true it is that the foundation of true piety consisteth in unity and in the adherence and dependance of the soul on Iesus Christ it is acknowledg'd by all that devotion cannot be true if we be not exempted from our vices and imperfections and filled with the spirit of Iesus Christ and assisted with his grace to make us worthy to honour and serve God We cannot perceive in that devotion nor practise the exercises thereof if the same Iesus Christ be not operating in us the will and perfecting according to his will This Iesus Christ said to his Apostles and in them to all Christians Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me adding he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing O words of love words spoken the eve of his death to shew us the excess of his love that proceeded from his heart wholly divine and full of tenderness whereby being moved he further said unto them Abide in my love So infinitely was he desirous to possess our hearts and to triumph over us by his love whence he often repeats the same words to engrave and imprint this care in our souls and by the proceedings of his love oblige us to love him again This indeed is a thing we ought to have continually in our thoughts for all the happiness of a Christian consisteth in this relation and this amorous dwelling of our souls in Iesus All our good is in this union since that by it and the adherence we have to Iesus we become his and by him we receive a power and capacity to bear the fruits of good works to practise vertue and to passe our life in the exercises of true piety and Christian devotion which make us hope for the reward which God promises to those that serve him Without this relation and union we shall continue in our weakness and incapacity our life is unprofitable barren unfruitfull and in evident perill If any man abide not in me saith Jesus Christ he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire If we will come to the experience of what we have said let us examine God's conduct of such souls as he will save and we shall find that the first knowledge he gives them is that of Iesus Christ proposing to them his Crosse or some Mystery of his life the first motions the first thoughts of piety that he inspires them with are those of a certain compassion and sympathy with his Crosse and sufferings or those of love and tenderness in consideration of his benefits If on the other side we intentively consider souls even the most ignorant we shall easily know they have a secret resentment and an inclination to Iesus Christ though they know him not But God alwayes begins these divine Communications and effects of his mercy by this first grace The reason is manifest in Divinity which teaches us that the eternall Father doth nothing but by Iesus Christ operates nothing in our souls nor in the state of grace no more then in nature but by his Sonne The first favour therefore the elect soul chooses to receive of God is that the eternall Father hath given it to his Sonne and there Iesus Christ accepts of it and appropriates it to himself Now as God demands our co-operation which yet we cannot give without his grace and therefore inspires the soul with a resentment of Iesus Christ gently insinuating into it a certain attraction which sweetly drawes it to a knowledge and piety towards Iesus Christ so our soul begins to be Iesus Christs perfecting her self in the state of christianity according to the measure that he advances in this affection and in this relation to Iesus Christ. The Sonne of God speaking to the Iewes obstinate in their errours saith None can come unto me if the Father who hath sent me doth not draw him And to shew the manner that the eternall Father uses to lead our
souls to his Sonne he adds Every man that hath heard of the Father cometh unto me These words include the secrets of grace and are full of Mystery They teach us that the eternall Father by his grace drawes us and guides us to his Sonne he speaks to us by his inspirations in the interiour of our souls he shewes us that we are Iesus Christ's Is not this to say all that we have proposed That the design of God to save us is no other then to give us his Sonne to unite us to him by the powerfull attractions of his grace and to cause us to adhere to him by love and the exercises of a life truly christian herein doth true piety consist We must therefore continually elevate our hearts and spirits to this Iesus the onely happiness of our souls we must entreat him to accomplish in us the designs of his Father and to take an absolute power over us We must so offer our selves to him as to have no other intention will nor conduct but his that we may by a true relation verifie what Saint Paul said All is yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods Let us so think of him and so do that from henceforth our hearts and mouths may neither speak nor think but of him that all things else may be of no savour to us that nothing enter our spirit which resenteth not the spirit and odor of Iesus Christ and respires not his honour and glory In a word let us adhere to him and by an indissoluble and eternall union dwell in him that he may dwell in us that we may eternally bear the effect of his holy word He that is joyned unto the Lord is the one spirit O how happy is the soul that is called to this happiness and that is truly in the power of Iesus in the possession of his spirit and direction of his grace This is the state whereto Christian perfection must arrive the foundation of piety and true devotion But because many think not of it and many know it not we must treat of it more at large and propose the motives that most oblige us to this Devotion CHAP. III. Of Piety to Iesus Christ and its principall effects WHAT we have already said of the Sonne of God is sufficient to make us know what we owe unto him but the importance of this subject requires that for our better information we explain particularly the principles of this piety and the meanes necessary to attain it But before we enter into this subject we must consider that devotion to the Sonne of God wherein we are to imitate all Christians is not so to limit our souls as to withdraw them from what they owe to God but on the contrary the exercise of this piety is necessary to conduct us more worthily and holily to God because by piety to the Sonne of God we attain a capacity and power to honour God Iesus Christ is our way by him alone we go to God he is our life by him we live the life of grace a life which onely makes us worthy to honour God He is our Truth in him alone as the spirit of truth we know God we adore him and serve him in truth according to the Apostle he is our All in him and by him we have all things by the Son the Father gives us all and by the Son we render all to the Father This is the gift we receive of God and the gift we give to God for all is operated and subsists in the unity of Iesus Christ. The Church offers nothing to demands nothing of the blessed Trinity but by Iesus Christ. We must imitate the Church in pious customs Piety to Iesus Christ requires not so much exteriour exercises as interiour and permanent estate doth in our souls nor demands it any novelty of affection but a newness of spirit a new disposition enclining our souls to employ themselves in the thought of Iesus Christ to regard him to love him to honour him as the object and end of our life actions and devotions It requires that the actions of the religious should be devout those of the ordinary Christians vertuous those of a private person familiar in this object without changing his spirit but directing his intentions and dispositions to the pure regard of the Son of God For example let us do all that we do by the spirit of honour and love to Iesus Christ if we suffer let it be to imitate and render honour to his sufferings what ever happens to us let us receive it by a dependance on and submission to his power and conduct If we will insist upon any good thoughts let it be of Iesus Christ to consider his greatness the mysteries of his life his vertues his benefits and the power he hath over us By these sweet entertainments by these regards of honour and love the perfect Christian advances himself is confirm'd in the piety we speak of To know what this piety is and how we must apply our selves thereto let us consider that Iesus Christ is the principle the centre the end of all Christian souls for as faith teaches us he is the cause of all the good that is in us the spring of all the graces we possess Author of the life which we live in Christianity and being the principle he is also consequently the end thereof For according to the order established in nature that which is the principle of a thing is also its end and nature follows invariably the order God hath prefixt and by his well ordered motions gently leads and if not diverted infallibly conducts all things to the principle whence she draws them So the waters saith the Wise man return to the ocean as to their mothers womb and according to the mysteries of faith we say all things return to God because they all came out of God It is the same in the estate of grace If then Iesus Christ be the principle of the being life and state of Christianity he must be also the end so that our being life and estate regard the same Iesus Christ and are referred to him as the end and if the end the centre also of a Christian life In him our souls find their repose and perfection in him by him and of him are all things saith Saint Paul This Principle alone considered shews us that Iesus Christ hath full power over us that we are his not only in respect of his divine greatness and supreme power over all as God Saviour and Redeemer as purchaser of us with his most precious blood and his of life-giving death but also because he is the principle centre and end of the life and state of Christianity In this relation he hath soveraign power over us having given us being and grace consecrated us to his glory and honour in such absolute manner that the Christian cannot make use either of himself or any
other thing without abuse of the gifts of God if not for Iesus Christ and according to his designe and intentions This is St. Pauls meaning when he says You are not your own and again you have no power on your selves This power obliges us to refer our selves wholly to Iesus Christ the first thought and thing to be done in Christian piety being to believe we have no right to our selves but are wholly Christ's and having conceived in the depth of our souls this belief to have a vigilant care that in our life and actions we draw not our selves from the power of the Son of God to make use of our selves and the creatures to our own content and particular interests For according to the principle of Christianity we have no right to appropriate any thing to our selves This belief is the ground of true piety to Iesus Christ which Saint Paul teacheth saying The Son of God died that those that live might live no longer to themselves but to him who died for them On this truth we ought often to reflect For as the foundation of it consisteth in a true dependance and love to Iesus Christ in respect of his soveraign power over us so the principall care of him who seeks true piety must be to continue in this dependance to live with such fidelity that he appropriate nothing to himself either as to his life or actions or yet of the creatures and assuredly he must make great account of this care and fidelity But whereto serves it To bear in his heart a sensible desire to belong to the Son of God and every day to renew his resolutions and good purposes What doth it profit our soul to have the knowledge of so high a truth if in the actions of humane life and exercises of piety we withdraw our selves from this dependance on the Son of God to apply us to our selves and seek in our own business and exercises our content and satisfaction This were by our own actions to belie the resentments of our soul to profess piety and follow impiety to bear a double heart to have vertue only in the mouth For if we are truly devout we can not but be Iesus Christ's and if we are his our principall care will certainly be to continue our dependance on him not onely in that which concerns our condition but in all the dispositions intentions actions and circumstances of our life The same Principle operates in our souls a second effect of piety in that our life and actions belonging properly to the Son of God as their beginning and end ought accordingly to be submitted to his divine conduct to be ordered after what manner he pleases according to the power of his spirit and the light of his loving communications It is but reason that all good depend on him from whom it proceeds and that we be ruled not according to our own wills which are blind and transported with affection and self-love but according to the intentions of Iesus Christ who is the cause and ought necessarily to be the rule thereof Thus the second interiour estate whereto the Christian who seeks true piety must arrive is a Resignation of himself to the conduct and direction of the grace and spirit of Iesus Christ that being so subjected he may perform all his actions in a pure regard to the Son of God according to his divine intentions This Resignation if true makes us bear with patience and inward peace all estates we may possibly arrive to it gives us liberty of spirit capacity and strength to follow and embrace that only which is of God and according to God it puts us into a great fidelity to the motions of grace in such manner that according to the measure of our increase in this resignation we advance in Christian piety and live with greater liberty and fidelity of soul. This indeed appears something difficult and many believing it an estate onely for the most perfect pass by it as a thing impossible for them But if we consider well we shall find it easie and acknowledge it common to all souls who live in grace To do an action of piety we must be aided by the grace of Iesus Christ which encourages assists us in all good works so necessary that without this grace we can neither think nor act any good He then that will be devout and live in the exercise of true piety must have this grace whence it follows he must cooperate with it and give himself up to be conducted by the spirit of Iesus Christ who will operate that good woâ—k in him otherwise it will be impossible for him to live well since that without grace we can do no good No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost saith Saint Paul for it is grace that doth all in all and therefore we say he that will live according to true piety must take care to resigne himself to the conduct of this grace and with great circumspection become faithfull therein The Principle of devotion consists in being faithfull to the graces and motions that Iesus offers and inspires us with Herein we must take great care every one according to his state and vocation Whence we easily learn that true and essentiall piety to Iesus Christ doth not consist barely in actions of homage and honour or in giving our selves to him by certain practices and employing us in severall exercises though in it self all be profitable but the true essence and ground of this devotion consists in the dependance of our soul on Iesus Christ and in a true subjecting of our life to his conduct by a faithfull cooperation with his grace and motions this is the ground and state of true piety to comprehend which we must consider that all we do is acceptable to Iesus Christ onely because we are his all our actions and exercises as good being derived from his grace inspired and conducted by his spirit We may do a thing two wayes according to naturall motions and inclinations of the old man or according to the motions and holy inclinations of the new man Iesus Christ if what we do though it seem good be according to the motions and inclinations of the old man it is but of little value being at the most but naturall and humane actions But if it issue from motions of grace then is it truly Christian Hence we say the foundation of true piety consists in the subjection of the soul to grace and the conduct of Iesus Christ for if Iesus Christ do not conduct the soul by grace nor direct her by his spirit she can do nothing considerable Hence it is that many deceive and flatter themselves in their imperfections passing their lives in the practice of many exercises neglecting the principall and thinking they do wonders when they do nothing because all their actions are rather effects of their own inclinations humours or self-love
then of grace The Christian therefore if he seek perfection must take heed hereto and in all things observe as a maxime in Catholique vertues that Christian vertue and true piety consist not in being conformable to reason and to a humane spirit but to the spirit and intention of Iesus Christ who is the infallible rule of our actions This advice is of importance We shall speak of it elswhere when we have convinced the more difficult spirits and made them see the right Iesus Christ hath to us CHAP. IV. The right which the Sonne of God hath to us Motives obliging us to be his and to adhere to him by true piety WHich way soever we consider our selves we belong unto the Sonne of God this is our happiness We belong unto him after a singular manner in the state of nature he hath a right to us all things being as the Evangelist saith made by him In the being of grace we belong to him in the being of glory we are his by him all are raised to glory by a grace springing from the Mystery of the Incarnation and proper to the state of Christianity he is our Head we his Members he is the Father we his Children he our spouse we his heart and delight he our Doctor we his Disciples he our Pastor we his sheep he our Redeemer we his Captives he our King we his subjects he the Sacrificer we his sacrifices in a word he is our All the way the life and the salvation of the World and as St. Paul saith he is our fulness and we are his by the price of his blood and possession of his spirit We are so much the Son 's that we cannot be God's without being first Iesus's who refers us to his Father If the Father accept us and behold us with the eyes of mercy it is in the Sonne in as much as we are his Members and united unto him This union whereby we belong to the Sonne of God is so necessary that as the eternall Father loves us not but for his Sonne 's sake nor regards us but in him so cannot our actions be acceptable to him nor all our exercises of piety please him if they be not done by the conduct of the spirit of his Sonne and by adherence and union to Iesus though they may otherwise seem good and perfect He that is not with me saith Christ is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth This property is grounded upon the principles of Faith which teach us that the Sonne of God onely became man not the Father nor the holy Ghost he alone performs the office of Mediator in the redemption of humane nature he alone is our Redeemer our Mediator and our Head In this quality we are his Captives and Members he is the Father of the Ages to come and we are his children for he alone begot us by his blood and death and as a Pelican he gives us life by the effusion of his blood and animates us by the spirit of his Crosse in the Crosse he begot us by his death he giveth us that life we lost by the envy of the Serpent Thus in all the Mysteries of Faith we adore the Sonne of God being of the divine persons the onely incarnate living and dying for us he onely redeeming us from the captivity of our sins being God became man that men might become Gods all the Mysteries of his life accomplished upon Earth were onely to sanctifie us his dying upon the crosse makes him the onely victime and holocaust of our propitiation Are not these motives sufficient to shew us that we are his in a singular manner belonging to him by extraordinary relations Is it not reason we should acknowledge him and by a particular fidelity profess our selves his and carefully endeavour to adhere to him and by true piety to render him the honour love and service that his benefits obliege us to This the greatest part of Christians think not of as being by reason of their impiety ignorant of their benefactor as the Ancients were through their Idolatry of their Creator It is a strange ingratitude that man should be so blind in these dayes as not know his Iesus and passing his life away carelesly neglect to acknowledge him in his greatness to adore him in his works and to honour him in his humane divine life Our business then must be to reform this ignorance and therefore we will propose the principall rights which he hath to us that we may learn with what piety and devotion we ought to follow and serve him and that those souls who neglect or despise this piety may re-enter into themselves and endeavour from henceforth to render to Jesus Christ the honour love and service whereto they are by so many just relations obliged The first right that Jesus Christ hath to man is derived from his Quality of being God-man for such is the Sonne of God not onely in regard of his Divinity but also according to his humanity In this quality Jesus Christ by a power of excellency ought to rule and command all that is and shall be created a power that the eternal Father gave him at the first minute of his Incarnation besides that by this Mystery the Son changing his condition for the glory of his Father and abasing himself to honour him the Father also will needs honour him constituting him from thenceforward the principle of life grace and glory proclaiming him Soveraign of the universe and replenishing his humane nature with all the effects of the Divinity and all the states of glory possibly communicable to him as God and man that as the Sonne honoured his Father in debasing himself so did the Father honour the Sonne in exalting him For this cause he makes him his equall in power greatness and Majesty and invests him from this first moment for evermore with all the power that he hath over his creatures This the beloved Apostle teaches when he saith The Father hath given him all things into his hand and St. Paul beginning to write the greatness of Iesus saith expresly speaking of his mission That the eternall Father appointed him Heire of all things by whom also he made the World Thus by this first Right and by the Mystery of the Incarnation Jesus hath the same power over souls that the Creator hath over his creatures and in relation to this power we give him all that we owe to God and consequently acknowledge in this Mystery Jesus to have a double power over us as God and man This consideration obliges us to adore and serve him acknowledging this power must doubly subject us to his conduct and divine will Heaven and Earth pay this duty and fidelity to this Iesus God and Man Let us hear with a resentment of love how St. Iohn describes the triumphs of our Iesus he tells us that he heard the Angels crying aloud The Lamb who hath been slain is
the first operation of grace in our souls is to become servants to Iesus Christ. This service is the first estate of Christianity the first promise that we make to God by a solemn publike profession in the Church by Baptisme There we devote our selves to Iesus Christ to belong to him to depend on him and at the same time we receive and aknowledge him as our Soveraigne we adore and reverence him as our Redeemer we are united to him as to our Head Thus this state of service brings grace yea singular grace which is the first thing that God gives in his Church by Baptisme a grace which he gives with a mark and impression of his power so deeply imprinted in our souls that nothing can deface it not Hell it self Whence we see that at the same time that Iesus Christ conceives us by Baptisme and receives us into his Church as his children we enter into the state of servants and vow our selves to Iesus Christ as such So that by one and the same Sacrament we are made children of God and received his servants and consequently we are in the House of God both as sons and servants yet so as that we are his children by grace his servants by nature Now as we say that the state of subjection is essentiall to the creature and to the Christian so the same state is essentiall to the piety of Christians and therefore they who would establish themselves in piety must begin their establishment in this subjection for we must bear a relation of love and inclinations to Iesus Christ as we do of purchase and necessity To be convinced of this truth we are to observe that this state of subjection consisteth in taking Iesus Christ for the end and object of our actions we serve him we contemplate him as our Soveraign and Redeemer we do all things by a spirit of love honour and dependance on him So that this state of dependance and service is a generall Disposition wherein we perform all our actions By this Disposition they are truly Christian accomplished in the spirit of true piety and though there appear nothing outwardly either new or extraordinary in our life yet by this disposition and state of service we are more neerly Christ's who looks on us as his own raising and uniting us to himself by a reall dependance wherein consists the true spirit of piety For by the state of service we acknowledge Christ our Soveraign and King and our selves his vassals we adore him as our Redeemer and confess our selves his servants In this quality we adhere inviolably to all his will In a word we see that he is our Head and we united to him as his members In this union we live by his spirit and follow his motions in which three points consisteth solid piety and the perfection of Christianity So that we are so much the more God's and consequently the more perfect by how much we are the more abased and devested of our selves entirely depending and faithfully operating under the power and will of him who makes himself ours that we may be his and hath purchased us to himself at an inestimable rate For this cause they who exercise themselves seriously in piety begin at the same time to look upon the Son of God as the object of their life and resign themselves up to him Hence springs the daily practice of certain acts of interiour devotion which is ordinarily proposed to them that seek true piety recommended to them because they are profitable and necessary drawing the soul from it self to elevate and unite it to Iesus Christ. We shall further explain it in the ensuing Chapter But before we enter into that Discourse we are to know that we must not conceive these acts of interiour devotion to be actions meerly transcient or a simple operation of our spirit for that would be little in comparison of what God requires But we must pass further and bear in the bottom of our hearts the state wherein we propose these interior acts that must be our principall end and intention For though God onely hath power and authority to put us into this estate when and how he pleases yet because in the wayes of grace God doth ordinarily expect our consent and cooperation it is for that very reason that the soul exerciseth her self in this practice of devotion and it is upon this account that she forms to her self these interiour Acts whereby she resignes and offers up to God her heart and will So that in this exercise the christian must not content himself to form this Act and to pronounce the words but he must demand of God the grace to bear a permanent estate thereof and for his part must do his utmost endeavour to attain it In the next Chapter you have them particularly explain'd CHAP. VII Containing certain interiour acts for those souls who are desirous to be established and confirmed in true piety THE first act of interiour piety to Iesus Christ which we are to practise frequently every day is an act of honour and adoration This I place first because it is the first employment of our soul and the first duty of the creature who is obliged to honour and adore its God with so much necessity that the very Devills and damned are forced to do it it is the first act that christian Religion proposeth To form this act we must acknowledge Iesus Christ Sonne of God both God and man we must regard him as our Soveraign Lord and Redeemer as cause and principle of all our happiness We must annihilate our selves before him and humble our selves even to the bottom of our soul willingly submitting to all that he is This is called an act of adoration It contains two effects of the powers of the soul one of the understanding employ'd in considering and acknowledging Iesus Christ in his greatness and Soveraignty looking on him as the principle of all good and of all the being of nature and grace and esteeming and honouring him as such Then followes an effect of the will which humbles it self before him receives and accepts him as her God King and all and with all its strength submits wholly to his power and greatness in an act of adoration Hence we may perceive that adoration consists not onely in an esteem of God be it never so highly elevated but requires also a voluntary submission of the soul with expressions of honour interiour and exteriour He therefore who practiseth as he ought an act of adoration desireth alwayes to shew his respect by the effects As the Sonne of God is infinitely adorable he who would adore him strives daily to increase in adoration and consequently endeavours with great fidelity to subject himself more and more in will and deed to the greatness and Soveraignty of Iesus Christ. I say in will and deed for it would avail but little to say it onely with the mouth and to have in thought the
name and ineffable greatness of Iesus Christ if all our actions be full of our own will and it were to little purpose to subject our selves by words to the Soveraignty of Iesus Christ to the conduct of his spirit and motions if in the management of our life we follow the spirit of the World living in a continuall desire to satisfie our selves and our own inclinations This were to say much and do nothing This we must be carefull in since many deceive themselves in this kind of piety which they so easily profess contenting themselves with the superficies and neglecting the rest Remember that he who sayes we must adore God in spirit said also we must adore him in Truth The second act of this piety is an act of Oblation whereby the soul offers her self wholly to Iesus Christ and renouncing her self resignes into his hand all that she is all the power that she hath over her self over all her actions over all things and to make her self the more a servant to Iesus in a perfect condition she renounces her own liberty and all the use she can make thereof giving it up into the hands of the Son of God of whom she received it granting him all the right that she had to dispose thereof to order it as he pleases that being so resigned to Iesus she may not have any thing more nor be any thing more but that he may be all have all and operate all in her This Obligation thus conceived is of great importance For if it be done after the manner it ought if the Son of God vouchsafe to accept it it puts us in the perfection of Christianity in as much as it drawes the soul from her self and all creatures to be Christ's to adhere to him to depend on him in all things wherein consisteth true perfection Moreover this Obligation is an effect of the esteem and belief we have of Iesus Christ and contains the spirit of Christian subjection For as according to Law the slave is no more his own nor hath any right over any thing but is wholly left to the power and pleasure of his Master so by this Obligation the Christian puts himself as nothing before Iesus Christ he gives place to all his rights of nature and grace to be onely the subject of his power and divine will And though we are all servants to Iesus Christ by right and purchase as we said elsewhere yet we will be such also out of good will and affection giving him by this Oblation a new power over us that we may be the Captives to his love as well as to his power and submit to the designs of the eternall Father who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us to the Kingdom of his dear Son Thus examining this Oblation we find that it is necessary for all those who seek true piety as containing the essence and grounds of devotion it puts the soul into a perfect denudation and makes her entirely dependant and resigned to Iesus Christ to be led according to his will They therefore who in their exercises of piety make ordinary use of this principle of devotion must weigh well what they say and consider with what sincerity and faithfulness they proceed with the Son of God For seeing they leave themselves wholly to him in the quality of servants and make profession mark the word to have nothing which is not his and of him and that by this Oblation they yeild up all to him even to the use of their own life and naturall liberty what have they more to think of but sincerely and faithfully to accomplish what they profess What have they more to do but to take care that their life be conformable to what they say otherwise they shall be constrained to condemn themselves and to confess that they have no devotion any further then the mouth that they deal not sincerely w th God and their own consciences It concerns them to take heed that that is not justly to be attributed to them which the Prophet said Cursed are they that do the work of the Lord negligently To these Exercises of interiour piety we may add a third act Purity of Intention By this intention the Christian who offers himself to God in the manner we have described begins to refer himself actually to him and to his glory protesting that in all things even to the least and in all his actions he will have no other intention then the will of the Son of God and live no longer nor act any thing but according to the intention of Iesus Christ. Having made this protestation he demands of him participation of his holy spirit and prayes him to inspire him with holy and pure dispositions whereby he may accomplish his actions This practice of piety is little known and perhaps little understood yet it is necessary for a perfect Christian. To conceive and affect it he is to remember that as we have said true piety contains a resignation of the soul to the conduct of grace and to the spirit of Iesus and that this resignation is more then a bare simple resignation for it includes annihilation and unity annihilation of our own spirit and conduct and unity with the spirit and conduct of Iesus Christ to which we resigne our selves By this act of intention the Christian annihilates all his desires and intentions to unite and subject himself onely to the intentions and desires of Iesus Christ in such sort as to admit no other Hence it may be inferr'd how necessary this intention is to all those souls that thirst after true piety but to make a fuller discovery thereof we are to reflect on our own infirmity and incapacity which is so great that we know not what is lawfull for us to desire and are ignorant of what we ought to demand of God as not understanding what designes Iesus Christ may have upon us We must therefore wait till he enlighten us and inspire us Now that we may be in a disposition to receive this grace and in a capacity to submit to the conduct of the spirit of God we must annihilate our own desires and particular intentions and give our selves up to those of Iesus which is that the Christian endeavors to do by the act of intention here proposed It is the Doctrine of the Apostle who says We know not how to pray as we ought but the spirit makes intercession for us by groans that cannot be uttered He who searches the heart knows what is the desire of the spirit he sueth for the Saints according to the will of God Here we are taught this practice which shews us that our prayers desires and intentions must be inspired by the spirit of Iesus Christ who knows what God demands of us Moreover there is not any thing so certain as that the Sonne of God hath those intentions and designes upon the life actions
and heart of man which are great and worthy himself as being a creature he hath consecrated by his precious blood and redeemed by his death and Crosse. If there are intentions and designes upon us as we must not doubt but there are and such as are of great importance yet unknown to us is it not reason we follow them and consequently are we not obliged to annihilate all our own desires and intentions to bind and subject our selves solely to the desires and intentions of the Son of God who vouchsafes to think of us and entertain himself in forming designes upon us our actions and all the motions of our life This is it we endeavour to satisfie when we form this act of purity or unity of intention This also shewes how unprofitable and superfluous their employment is who fill their hearts with variety of intentions and perplex themselves with multiplicity of thoughts who conceive desires and form designes sometimes one way sometimes another though upon occasions in appearance good and profitable since they do onely what pleases themselves But according to the Principles of Christianity it were better they kept themselves to this unity and annihilated all that is of themselves to be onely in the intentions and designes of Iesus Christ. The Christian therefore ought often to renew this purity of intention he ought to adore all the designes of Iesus Christ upon him and all his divine intentions he must resign himself thereto and protest never to follow any other holding it for a maxime that we shall not arrive at perfection nor go to God by the strength of humane reason or following our own desires and inclinations but by submitting our spirit to the conduct of Iesus by a faithfull and sincere adherence to his designes and loving dispositions This considered we shall know more and more the truth of what was proposed from the beginning that true piety consisteth in adherence to and a resignation of the soul to Iesus But we are now to examine the effects of this adherence CHAP. VIII That an adherence to Jesus Christ by true Piety makes us partakers of the severall conditions of his life THe adherence and dependance of Christians upon the Sonne of God by the first grounds and principles of Christianity and by the first duty which they profess in the state of grace obliges them to a holy and pure life since that as the Apostle saith He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit that is to say he must be of the same spirit with God and doubtless if they oppose not the designes of Iesus Christ upon them this adherence will advance them to a solid permanent estate of perfect piety and establish them in a true Christian perfection This may be reduced to three heads The first is a subjection of the soul to the designes spirit and operations of Iesus Christ a subjection that amounts to a capacity and amplitude and such as makes the soul capable to receive the communications of God to bear the effects of his grace and to enter into a participation of the Estates and Mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. The second effect puts the soul into a purity of regard and love which makes her vigilant and faithfull to do and desire nothing but the honour of Iesus Christ to regard nothing but his pleasure and glory so as to have no eyes but for Iesus no more life but what is consecrated to the honour of his Soveraignty and divine actions This adherence to and dependance on the Sonne of God raiseth in a Christian a true imitation of his life and divine vertues to such a degree of perfection that he becomes a lively representation and image of Iesus Of these three effects we must speak particularly for herein consisteth the perfection of true and Christian piety We begin with the first The subjection which by this adherence to the Son of God is begotten in us represents two things the power he hath over us and the capacity we are in to bear the effects of his power The power which Iesus Christ hath over us is a particular power which he acquires by the mystery of the Incarnation and by all the states moments of his life a power that gives him a double right to do in us and with us what ever he pleases a power from which he imprints in the centre of our souls the time that we were first made Christians an eternall and indispensable power In a word it is a power which he establish'd by the Sacraments and left to the Church For if we consider them we shall find that besides the graces which they communicate to us they have other extraordinary effects expressing the power Christ assumes over us For instance Baptisme gives us grace and blots out all sin in us but withall put us into a condition of service to the Son of God and imprints in our souls a character of subjection to the divine power a character never to be defaced in honour of the estate of subjection and service which the Son of God underwent by the incarnation becoming man and a servant subjecting himself to the Father he was always and shall be for ever equal and coeternal with the Father and in honour of the gift which the eternall Father makes us of his Son by the incarnation and union of the Word with humanity and the life of God in man and of man in God The same Son of God instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist wherein he gives and unites himself to us that he may live in us and we in him By this way of love and union he takes power over us to live and operate in us all that he pleases and shews the power that he hath over our souls to establish therein continually his designs to glorify himself thereby and please himself in them In pursuit of this power he puts us into an estate of subjection yet such as gives us a capacity to rceive and to bear in us the force of his love and of all the effects of the life grace and mysteries of Iesus Christ and to receive them according to what manner and time he shall please to communicate them The Son of God desireth nothing so much as to communicate to us liberally his graces and the many favours he hath obtained for us and merited by his life and sufferings his principall design being to advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life All he did on earth all his operations in the world were for our sakes referring also to our good and advancement all the greatness of his being the power of his spirit and merits of his life so good is he and so full of mercy Now if the goodness and designs of the Son of God towards Christians be such is it not reason they continue in this subjection and be faithfull and vigilant to receive and bear the effects and estates of
is onely expected that Christians dispose themselves to participate of this happinesse and being called thereto endeavour to correspond faithfully therewith God doth the same in the regency of his Church the Sonne of God making use of his power hath established therein severall estates orders and societies separated from the common and from one another which he consecrates and appropriates to the severall estates and Mysteries of his life Some honour his solitude and hidden life others his penance others his poverty others his obedience all adorn and beautifie the body of his Church and in the diversity of their functions and estates honour adore and imitate the severall operations and Mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ who distributes his spirit and the grace of his Mysteries to all according to what manner he pleases He doth the same in the particular Government of souls he causes and calls them to elevate and establish them in such estate as pleaseth him sometimes by sufferings sometimes by privations one while by love another by simplicity and infancy In a word he estates them as he pleases to be honoured by them one and the same spirit according to St. Paul working all things dividing to every one severally as it pleaseth him The same Apostle represents this truth under the similitude of a humane body all are members of the same body animated enlivened with the same spirit and yet they have all their several offices and functions particular and different The case is the same saith this holy Apostle in the Government of the Church which is the body of Iesus Christ whereof all christians are members though all make up but one body and are the animated onely by the spirit of Iesus yet are they called and employed to particular estates and in all there is a difference of gifts and operations but it is but one spirit and one God who does all in all they are different effects of one and the same principall cause It is the same Iesus who chooseth the souls to communicate to them the graces and divers estates of his life How happy is that christian who is called to this happiness Herein consisteth the perfection of the soul as in things naturall we say that the Creature is most perfect when it most participates of the being life and perfections of God so in the state of graces that soul is most perfect which participates most of the graces of the divers estates and qualities of the Sonne of God This grace and favour is not for every one and farre above the ordinary The Sonne of God doth not call all souls to a participation of his life nor alwayes communicates to them the spirit and graces of his Mysteries Yet the christian who would live in a solid piety and adherence to Iesus Christ and would feel the effects of his divine communications must desire this favour and earnestly demand it He must often reverence and adore the life thoughts designes Mysteries and estates of the life of Iesus He must offer himself with all his heart to the power spirit and grace enclosed in those divine Mysteries In a word he must carefully remove from his soul all hinderances and inclinations opposite to the designes and operations of the Sonne of God But above all he must continue constant in subjecting his soul to the power and will of the Sonne of God He that will practise all this must make these uses following The first is that the soul always resigne her self to the power of the Son of God than he may make in her and by her all that he will for his glory This resignation to be perfect must be grounded upon a freedom of spirit a freedom which is the true spirit of the children of God and consisteth in an estate of indifferency and independency as to all things as well in the order of nature as of grace and being subject to God onely by this freedom all things in the world are indifferent the soul remaining in a pure capacity of submitting to whatsoever the Son of God will operate in her and by her giving her self up wholly to his divine power This liberty of spirit is the principall estate and first ground of Christianity for all Christians belong to the Son of God and are left to his power One died for all saith Saint Paul that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who died for them Teaching us that as the Son of God gave his life for us and by his excessive charity delivered himself to the ignominious death of the cross to do the will of his Father so he hath right and power to choose and consecrate us by his grace to offer us an Holocaust of sweetness and honour to the glory of his Father that as he hath been the victim of our sins we may be the victims of his love Hence it is evident that the Son of God hath power and right to put our souls into what estate it shall please him for his glory be it an estate of life or death of privation or abundance of confusion or honour and may choose out souls and advance them to the participation of the mysteries of his life to render to him particular homage and service We must then resigne our selves wholly in all things to Iesus Christ. To establish us in this disposition the liberty of spirit whereof we speak is absolutely necessary For when it hath separated us from all things nay even from our selves it puts us into an amplitude and capacity to be all that God will have us to be and to bear the effects of his grace and power And therefore the Christian who seeks to establish himself in true piety and live with fidelity must endeavour to conform himself in this liberty of spirit for it is difficult nay impossible to adhere to Iesus Christ to depend on him and faithfully to receive the operation of his grace if we are not in this liberty of spirit that is an independency as to all things This is the spirit and disposition that God requires in a Christian according to the Apostle That the spirit we have received be not a spirit of bondage but of liberty and adoption This first disposition leads us farther and advances us in the wayes of piety and puts us into a second disposition by which we accept with humility and submission all the estates and effects that the spirit of the grace of Iesus Christ shall operate in us and bear with patience and obedience whatsoever rigour and difficulty we meet with Having so received them we are also bound by this disposition to act according to the quality and extent of grace communicated to us and to live conformably to the estate whereinto the Son of God puts us We must remain firm in that subjection and liberty of spirit we speak of In this use consisteth the peace and liberty of the soul For
operation in us it is he that operates there incessantly things great and worthy of himself This granted it follows that the Christian who desires to live in the grace of God must on the one side shun all manner of sin especially such as may ruine this grace in him on the other become very attentive and faithful to receive the effects of his grace and the operations of the Son of God that so he may cooperate therewith according to his intentions otherwise it is to be feared he may lose it or at least hinder it's effects and so destroy the honour of God and all that the Son of God hath established in his soul. This is grounded upon the very principles of faith For we can do nothing of our selves as of our selves but Iesus Christ doth all in us acting and referring all our actions to the glory of his Father We must then let him act and as we know not his divine intentions and designes over us neither know the grace or degree of grace whereto he would elevate us for his greater glory for it belongs to him to do all when and how he pleases It remains then that we oppose not our selves to his intentions and destroy not his works The Christian therefore who desireth to be God's and to live in true piety must not amuse himself in these unprofitable and superficiall things nor regard so much these exercises but purifie himself and make himself worthy of the grace of God taking great care to preserve himself therein and have a continuall attention to all that the spirit of grace operates in him for the glory of God that he destroy it not by a contrary application and want of co-operation Hereby we shall see how many false devotions there are and how many deceive themselves in the exercise of vertues and piety These two wayes of honouring the Sonne of God may be understood after two manners whereby we may honour Iesus Christ and he may honour himself in us two wayes one by action the other by estate The action is transient and is but for a little time and perhaps is but in one part of the soul but estate is a thing permanent which dwells in the whole capacity of the creature and is imprinted in the bottom of its being having no dependance on the actions of the understanding and will We may act well in the first manner and it is good but we must also endeavour to establish our selves in an estate which perfectly honours the Sonne of God as the Sonne of God For as the Sonne of God himself hath not onely honoured his Father by the actions of his transitory life but hath been pleased to become man and take upon him a nature which essentially is in a condition of servitude and remain perpetually and inviolably therein in regard of his Divinity so we must endeavour to honour the Sonne of God not onely by transitory actions but also by a permanent estate and condition such as may render him honour and perpetuall homage This we are obliged to do for our part to the utmost of our power as being one of the most essentiall exercises of piety But our attempts are feeble and all we can do is little in comparison of what we owe God The Sonne of God therefore who is our supplyer doth it sometimes himself by his grace by his divine and amorous attractions he calls us and puts us into the estate which he himself operates in us by which he satisfies his Father to his honour and glory It is a singular happiness a favour to obtain which all we can do is to continue disposed attentive to whatever the Sonne of God operates in us and carefully to take heed thereto and to co-operate faithfully therein and with the best disposition may be proposed The meaning hereof is to keep our selves in a simple submission of our spirit to that of the Sonne of God and this submission consisteth in not resisting it but leaving our selves wholly to the power of and a dependance on his holy spirit and conduct giving up offering and disposing our selves to the work and designes which he hath in and upon us renouncing all our own contrary inclinations The soul that lives in this submission is capable to bear effectually the effects of grace and to honour God in all things Now when it is said that we ought to refer all our actions to the glory of the Sonne of God we mean not onely the good and vertuous but even the common and naturall actions even to a moment of time for all belongs to God and must be referred to his honour and glory This truth we learn of the Church our Mother who in her rites and ceremonies doth not onely represent the Mysteries and actions of the Sonne of God but honours them in representing them and as such is her intention whence it may be observed that in all her ceremonies even to the least she intends to honour and acknowledge him Iesus Christ himself may be also an example to us in this exercise of piety for in that he hath taken the nature of man upon him he hath honoured his Father in all things and by all the concernments of humane nature doing to that end and intention not onely those actions which we call Religious and vertuous but even those which are naturall and purely humane and referring to his honour all the moments of his life We must carry our selves in the same manner what he did being done by him as a Master for our imitation The devout Christian therefore must refer all his exercises and actions both naturall and common little and great to the honour and glory of Iesus Christ. By this relation our actions are ennobled for what he hath sanctified is neither common nor inconsiderable whatsoever is consecrated and referred by his honour cannot but be great when his honour is so great There are a many that judge this practise of Piety to be too difficult whereas they will indifferently receive some others But if we consider it we shall find that it is an Obligation proper to the state of Christianity which cannot by any meanes be dispenced with For if the life of a Christian be a lively Image of the life of Iesus Christ and a life derived and flowing from his it must of necessity follow that as all things are sanctified and made divine in Iesus Christ so are they such in us by the same spirit of Iesus which is given us which dwells in us and operates in us From which reason we may infer that as in Iesus there is nothing mean or vile but all in him is elevated and referred to the glory of his Father so in Christian souls there ought to be no actions mean and object no not indifferent seeing they all belong to the Sonne of God who hath sanctified them in his spirit and in the conduct and direction of him it is that we are to operate
giveth temptations and oppresses us with subversions gives us at the same time strength and address to defend our selves he suffers himself to be vanquished He who suggested the evill thought and deed inspires patience and an extraordinary resignation making us feel a courage and a desire to suffer Not that those effects are solid and permanent nor that he desires we should do well therein but to deceive us and put us into an esteem of our selves and our vertue and into a dangerous confidence that so God may leave us He knowes no estate is more hatefull to God or more opposite to his grace and conduct then the esteem of our self It is therefore expresly recommended to the Christian who would be saved from the subtilties of the Devill that he be alwayes in fear a filial fear and that in the temptation it self in his greatest patience and resignation he hides himself in his nothing and keep himself in a profound humility for that is the Sanctuary of the soul the Christians Buckler to quench as the Apostle sayes the subtle and fiery darts of the Devill But what if after all this the temptation remain is it not lawfull to endeavour to get out of it and to beseech God to deliver us from it The most perfect will never do so they having given up themselves wholly to God's divine conduct will here also leave themselves in the hands of God without saying any thing for they think of nothing but suffering seeing it is Gods pleasure and their practise to annihilate and humble themselves being assured he will never forsake those that are his in temptation The devout Christian who walks steadfastly in the way of vertue seeks no support or repose in any thing or troubles himself about it or omitteth the least of his exercises or looseth the peace of his soul or serenity of his look On the contrary he is animated in this combate he defies his enemie and derides him and all his works addressing himself wholly to God who is his love and trust He renders him thanks and absolutely resignes himself up to him to bear as long as and in what manner he pleases the temptation and suffering he is in There is a way to make a further progress in this estate Some souls there are which will haply seem incredible who have neither desire nor thought of imploring Gods assistance not but that they know the need they have thereof but they are so devoted to God so perfectly resigned to his divine will that if God would destroy them they would be content so great a thirst have they for the glory of God so great a desire to suffer that they are so far from receiving that they do not so much as think of demanding help their regard being barely and simply in God Besides they know the love and infallibility of God faithful in his promises never forsaking those that are his By this truth they are possessed and excited On the other side they so purely and absolutely resign themselves to the will of God that they never mind whether they suffer or are in danger it is enough for them that they do nothing to displease God and know that they are Gods and God wholly theirs But this resignation is onely in some few we will not say but it is permitted sometimes to demand help of God and man not to be absolutely freed that were haply to go beyond the conduct and designes of God but for strength and direction in Temptation For example If a Christian through want of light courage and strength find himself fail it will be very requisite that he speak with his director demanding his advice in an Affaire of so great consequence and so much danger In these anguishes he must elevate his heart to God call upon him and earnestly implore his assistance this is not forbidden On the contrary it is necessary so it be with this condition that the will of God be accomplished in him and his good pleasure fulfilled and that his recourse to God be not forced by any secret impatience or irresignation of his soul. In that case it were to yield to the temptation to commit an extraordinary impurity and prejudiciall infidelity But to run unto God to demand strength and conduct with resignation and patience is that which is promised to all Christians CHAP. XVIII Divers Uses that may be made of Temptation WE must observe well what hath been said upon this occasion The Christian who would live in the exercises of true piety must greatly esteem this way of combate and temptation for it is noble and works great effects in the soul which she may meet with in all the exercises of humane life since in all we are to fight against the imperfections failings impurities and malignities which secretly insinuate themselves into her But we must chiefly esteem thereof because the Son of God hath great designes upon our souls and operates great things in them by these wayes of temptation desertions and resignations Wherefore it concerns us to know how to make use thereof that we cooperate with the designes of God and receive as Saint Paul saith Cum tentatione proventum For the Son of God who is faithfull and permits us not to be tempted beyond our strength gives ordinarily with the temptation particular graces and communicates himself though in a hidden manner yet truly to the soul that receives them as she ought it being most certain that in the wayes of piety God communicates himself more ordinarily by these then any other wayes as we formerly said when we treated of sufferings The chief use we are to make of temptation is to receive it and look on it as the conduct of God over us we must accept it with a profound humility with a subjection and dependance of soul upon the conduct of God in the temptation it self I say with humility because the soul which follows the spirit of true Devotion must desire throughly to be humbled and embrace with readiness of spirit all the wayes of humiliation and all the occasions which present themselves therein It is a maxime in all estates and exercises of Devotion that the principall use we are to make of all the wayes of God over us is humility and therefore as temptation is a way of God a way of rigour and danger so must we humble our selves much therein the more we are tempted and abandoned For in effect the best and most profitable disposition that we can be in is to annihilate our selves before God and like Iob place our selves if it be requisite upon a dung-hill to attend and receive what punishment soever the hand of God shall vouchsafe to inflict upon us Is it not reason it should be so If God be so pleased as to annihilate us by pains and temptations what have we to say against it To what purpose so much fear so much reluctancy If God will punish us in this fire
we must hold our selves content if he will humble us we must annihilate our selves if by temptation he will use his justice and punish us why should we be troubled thereat Yea though he should leave us to be swallowed up by the temptation which can never fall out but through our own fault let us accept of his judgments and adore his justice saying with Eli when he heard from the mouth of little Samuel the decree of Gods justice against him Dominus est quod bonus est in oculis suis faciat Let us say the same let us receive all from the hand of God with great humility This is the first use we are to make of temptation Another is to receive it with subjection of soul to the Will of God Temptation is the conduct of God over us We must not therefore consider him that tempteth us nor yet the temptation we groan under but the order of God and the designs he hath upon us in that temptation Nothing can happen to us but by his permission though the Devil make it his constant business to hurt molest and destroy us if he could yet he hath no power but what he receives from God all his power is limited We must not therefore regard the Devil that tempteth us nor the temptation or malice of our enemies but the will and order of God in the temptation To comprehend this well we must remember that temptation is not onely a permission of God but one of his ordinary ways of proceeding over us to conduct us to him Whence it followes that it is not enough to suffer and to submit to temptations but we must do it purely and holily For seeing temptations and afflictions are the ordinary ways of God to conduct us to him we must not in temptation make any pause or think it sufficient to bear them patiently or to fight against them but we must pass further and go even to God to whom they will conduct us if we make such use of them as we ought Thus in temptation we must rather regard God then the temptation that binds us to God It is true we may fear to be overcome but if we be left to God he will not fail us in our necessity he promised to be with us in our agonies and temptations Let us be but faithfull in our duties and actions and without doubt he will be faithfull in his promises A third use of temptations is to refer them to the glory of God and to offer to him the state that we bear and all that passeth in us This is grounded both upon our duties and the designes of God who wills that we referr to him all the estates of our soul and all the actions and moments of our life that is all that is in us and all that we are This use is also grounded on the condition of all things which are opposite to honour and pay homage to God but principally the Christian who is called to the state of Christianity only to serve and honour God and particularly such as make profession of piety since true devotion requires much fidelity and wills us to make use of all things to unite us to God and to render to him the honours and homages due to his divine and supreme Majesty If we reflect upon all that hath been said from the beginning to this instant we shall see that we end where we began and that we have done nothing but shewn the Christian who would be perfect that true piety consists in purifying the heart and making it worthy to bear and possess God that he is truly devout who lives according to the spirit and grace of Christianity that to arrive at this happiness we must adhere to Iesus Christ our way and means to bring us to God that the principall care we ought to have in these exercises is to preserve our selves therein which indeed brings us to an adherence to the Son of God and to live with great fidelity and vigilancy subject to the conduct of Iesus and dependant upon his holy Ordinances These are the foundations we must lay if we would acquire true piety and when we come to the Consideration of Works and to express the externall worship love and service which we would render to God we have said that it is not enough to do good things but we must accomplish them by the conduct of his holy spirit according to his intentions and in holy dispositions We have already proposed the method it suffices to know that therein consists the essence and nature of a Christian for which we render to God the honour and service due to him This is all we mean to shew in this Discourse which we will conclude with the words and prayer of Saint Paul The God of peace make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is acceptable in his sight through Iesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS Books Printed for Tho. Dring and are to be sold at the George in Fleet-street neer Saint Dunstans Church THe Pleader containing perfect precedents and forms of Declarations pleadings issues judgements and proceedings in all kind of actions both reall and personall by Mr. Brownlow Mr. Moyle Mr. Gulston and Mr. Conye published by John Herne Gent. in folio The Law of Conveyances shewing the nature kinds and effects of all manner of Assurances also directions to issue out and prosecute all manner of Writs a Warrant to summon a Court of Survey and the Articles to be given in charge and inquired of in that Court by John Herne in octavo The Reports of that Reverend and Learned Iudge Sir Richard Hutton in folio The twelfth Part of the Reports of Sir Edward Coke in folio the second impression The Reports of the Reverend and Learned Iudge Owen in folio The Reading upon the Statute of the thirteenth of Elizabeth Chapt. 7. touching Bankrupts by John Stove of Grays-Inn Esquire An Abridgement of the Common Law with the Cases thereof drawn out of the old and new books of Law for the benefit of all Practisers and Students by William Hughs of Gray-Inn Esq. in quarto An excellent Abridgement of all the Acts and Ordinances of Parliament from 1640. to 1647. by William Hughs Esq. in quarto The Reports of Serjeant Bridgeman in folio The ground of the Laws of England extracted out of the fountains of all Learning and fitted for all Students and Practitioners in large octavo An exact Abridgement of that excellent Book called Doctor and Student in octavo A profitable Book of Mr. John Perkins treating of the Laws of England in octavo The Interpreter or Book containing the signification of all the words of the Law by Joh. Cowel in folio The Maximes of Reasons or the Rule of the Common Law by Edmond Wingate Esq. in folio An exact Abridgment of all the Statutes in force and use upon the fourth of Jan.
to advance them to perfection worthy of the purity and sanctity of Christianity and which may render them worthy of God and capable to enter into the glory that God hath prepared for them to all eternity This conduct must not be indifferent but the same with that of God The Director must not guide after one manner and God after another for so the poor soul were lost or tyranniz'd over He that giveth counsel must take heed that the matter he treats of have an immediate respect to the order and designs of God over our souls and consider that he is upon either the ruine or establishment of grace and works of God a point of great consequence which makes us see what they ought to be whom God hath established in so high an office and who enter into so sacred a ministry He that will conduct and counsel a soul must know the designes and conduct of God over this soul he must consider the order God keeps to govern it that it is great and hidden in God that it is a secret to us and that the soul cannot without much difficulty know it It is necessary that he who conducts and counsells be full of grace and light that he strongly adhere to God who is the Father of lights otherwise what knowledge or experience soever he may have he will be deceived in the conduct The more he shall be able and experienced the more he shall be in hazard to deceive souls for though knowledge and experience be necessary yet must we not confide therein much less presume thereupon for God abhors the presumptuous and forsakes those who are over-confident of themselves In the conduct of souls there must always be new succours from heaven and new lights He who would conduct or counsell another in that which concerns his conscience must remember himself that he is an Instrument of God that he must not either counsel or act in this soul but what God will establish therein Moreover he that conducts a soul and who giveth counsel must consider that in truth and in conscience he ought to have no other intention or desire then to follow the very truth to establish the Kingdom of God in the soul to lead the soul to God and to do in that soul the work of God according to the intention of God and to establish nothing therein but what God will For which reason he is obliged to labour much to the end that he may annihilate in the soul of any Christian whatsoever hinders the work of God and kingdom of grace and for his part he must have a right intention and pure regard of God not respecting or desiring any thing but his glory seeking neither honour nor esteem favour nor advantage of those whom he conducts And truly if we consider what it is to conduct a soul in the design of God and to conserve it in the order which God hath appointed it from all eternity we shall see that it is no indifferent business but the most noble and most important of all and that we must apply our selves thereto with exceeding great charity with purity of intentions and a zeal to Gods glory for it is for this that principally they who conduct shall render an account Hence proceed the evil which falls out when those who conduct lead and counsel souls negligently and with indifference without endeavouring to find out what God requires of them in what state or condition soever they be and without troubling themselves to establish therein the Kingdom of God and of his grace and we see in what danger souls are when they conduct them according to their own sense or lead them by those wayes give them the same exercises form them by their own spirit and which is worse mold them to their own humour We must proceed quite otherwise for souls have different wayes and are called to divers states of graces as they are predestinated to divers degrees of glory and consequently he must conduct them according to the designes of God which he must endeavour to know and according to their vocation and he must comport himself in the conduct of every soul in the same manner as if he did know from point to point the decrees which the eternall wisdom hath formed upon this soul and all the particular wayes whereby God leads them To know things so secret and so hidden it is needfull to have the spirit of God to use much prayer and to have a great purity of intention I say purity of intention For he who takes upon him the conduct of souls and will counsel and direct the consciences of men must take heed that he follow not his own spirit that he think not of his own interests that he seek not his own satisfaction and suffer not himself to be carried away with complacency and naturall motions and inclination For in such a case he may be assured that it is no longer God that conducts the soul nor the Spirit of God that governs it but it is the spirit of man and by this manner of conduct he shall not establish the grace or kingdom of God but the flesh the kingdom of sin He who conducts holds the place of God both in the soul and in the conduct so that this were to do great wrong to the grace power and Majesty of God If we say there is danger in the soul that conducts it self that follows her own spirit self-love inclinations humour and will which Saint Paul calls the desire of the flesh we must also affirm that the danger is greater when he who conducts suffers himself to be carried away with his own inclinations and onely follows his own will and spirit And if the Christian be obliged as we have shewed to seek nothing in all his actions but to please God if he must have a particular vigilancy to establish the Kingdom of God in his soul to cooperate with his work and to remain in the order wherein he conducts him with far greater reason he who conducts a Christian soul in any profession or condition is obliged to have the same vigilancy the same purity of intention and regard of God which he ought often to consider From all these truths we may easily comprehend how much they are deceived who are guided by their own nature according to the inclinations and motions of their own spirit without considering what Iesus Christ demands of them without any regard of the grace that God presents unto them yea without taking heed to the state whereto God hath called them As likewise their error who can bear nothing but what is pleasing to them nor agree with any but those that flatter them and suffer them to live at their own pleasure and who best accommodate them to their inclinations desires humours and such things which are but too too ordinary All this is dangerous and an evident mark that such souls seek not God nor true vertue but
the satisfaction of their own spirit You shall find their hearts void of God full of self-love their actions inconstant their thoughts in continuall changings In fine they are nothing but disquiets complaints and murmurings Look upon their life and actions it is but a pastime unprofitableness and the vanities of the age and having considered it all it will not be hard for you to know whether those souls have the fear of God and the knowledge of vertue yet in appearance they make a great shew we know not whether is to blame those who are conducted and directed or the Directors But how ever it be the Christian who would be saved must labour herein seriously and neither fear pains nor mortifications but seek to be conducted by the wayes that God hath ordained and passing above all considerations and all sorts of difficulties prove constant and complyant with the order that God hath established over him he must every day renew his good resolutions and pray to God to let him know and be acquainted with the designes he hath upon him and give him grace in every point to follow them and with fidelity to accomplish them And seeing that his fidelity is now in question and that it is altogether necessary to all Christians it were but necessary we made some discourse of it CHAP. VII Of the fidelity of the soul and of its necessity in the wayes of grace and the actions of a Christian. TO speak of Fidelity and to see how much it is necessary to all Christians we must reflect upon the truths already proposed and remember that man was created for God who is his end that God alone can conduct him to this end and that it is the same God who onely operates in him all the good works which are necessary to make him Gods and to arrive at this end which is God From these principles of truth we enter into our subject and presently see that we have not any thing more important in this World then to go to God to co-operate with the works which God does in us to save us and to accomplish with fidelity that which he requires of us and in the spirit and disposition that he desires every one applying himself faithfully to the way that God proposes and the works of his vocation that the Priest live according to the perfection of his estate the Christian as Christian in brief that all men live so as at the houre of death they may say with Iesus Christ My Father I have glorified thee upon the Earth I have finish'd the work thou hast ordained me to do This fidelity which is absolutely necessary must be in our soul from the time we were born Though there were neither Heaven nor Hell we are obliged to live according to the will of our Creator what aversness soever the creature may have it shall be allwayes subject to the order of God either in the way of justice or mercy If we would be saved it cannot be unless we co-operate with the works that God will do in us unless we become faithfull to his graces and follow the order that God hath prescrib'd wherein he will conduct us to salvation and therefore it concerns us more then we think to take heed to the designes that God hath over us and to the vocation whereto he hath called us to the motions and inspirations he gives us to make use with fidelity of the graces he offers least drawing our selves from the order and offer of his mercy we enter into that of his Iustice and one day he say to us in the rigour of his determined Decree as he said to his people I will choose their delusions and bring their feares upon them because when I called none did answer when I spake they did not hear but they did evill in my sight and chose that in which I delighted not Isa. 66.4 When we speak of the vocation and use we are to make of the graces and benefits of God we speak of Paradise to despise them is to neglect salvation Therefore the Christian must consider what he does as well in that which concerns the vocation he must choose as in the use of the graces and favours he receives of God seeing thereon depends all his happiness or misery we must take heed we chuse not what God would not have us nor despise what he would have us to embrace This point is the most important of all in a Christian life yet is it a mystery the most secret of any in Christianity The vocation of a soul is as much hidden as her election which none can know or easily discern by her conduct The wayes of God are as much elevated above ours as Heaven above Earth and yet O wonderfull God wills that we follow his wayes and none shall be saved but according to the vocation whereto God from all time hath called him What remedy seeing on the one side necessity constrains us and on the other the incertainty and obscurity deters us O just God God of all bounty who shall enlighten us in this darkness who shall resolve us in an affaire so doubtfull who shall assure us amidst so many doubts nothing but thy light O God the onely refuge of our souls can conduct us nothing but thy spirit can teach us but thy truth can assure us and but thy infinite mercy can protect us This lets us see in what danger they put themselves who so long neglect the motions graces and favours of God and make such ill use of his benefits From these truths we learn the esteem we ought to have of our vocation and with what circumspection we must make choice thereof and if we will make our selves worthy to receive of God the light and conduct necessary in an affaire of so great consequence for our salvation it will be very profitable to enter into these following dispositions First The Christian must have a pure desire of God and a resolution to do in every thing his divine will being from the bottom of his Heart wholly resigned to his will and conduct Secondly He must have a great sence of his weakness he must be in an estate of humility before God not esteeming himself worthy or capable of any thing for the humble shall never perish and as Esay saith God looketh to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at his word Thirdly He must renounce his own interests and all his particular concernments he must not regard his own safety that he may have no object but the pure will of God yet in such manner that he who resolves to remain so faithfully and constantly in the order and designes of God and proposes to make hereafter use of Gods gifts graces and benefits and regards not perfection advancement vertue not Heaven it self must not content himself with a thought to please God for alas who is worthy thereof but cleansing and purifying his intentions