Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A85367
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Good thoughts for every day of the month. Translated out of French By Mrs. D.S.
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1656
(1656)
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Wing G1082; Thomason E1716_2; ESTC R209652
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20,927
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179
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GOOD THOUGHTS FOR EVERY DAY OF THE MONTH Translated out of French By M rs D. S. LONDON Printed for Thomas Dring at the George in Fleet-street neer Cliffords Inn 1656. DIRECTION for the READER THis short Collection includes the chief Heads of Christian life distributed into Weeks In the first the Motives that we have to go to God in the second and third the Vertues that lead us to him in the fourth the Exercise of those Vertues As for Method in using them I know that the two best and most certain Directours in prayer are the Holy Ghost and Practise That we cannot learn better how to pray then by praying That prayer is a good Method for it self Yet not to engage you without some direction let me advise you 1. To choose a convenient precise time the Morning before you enter into the trouble of businesse or at Night when your minde is at ease 2. In some retired place your spirit being setled and recollected First lift up your self by an act of faith to God who is present and attentive to the voice of your Heart My God I believe firmly that thou art here within my soul and that my soul is in thee c. Secondly adore him submisly humble your self to the utmost Lord I am but dust and ashes c. Thirdly ask pardon of him for any offence known or unknown that may render you unworthy to appear in his sight Lastly invoke the assistance and light of the Holy Spirit 3. Read the first thought of the day but stowly Though you should do nothing more then rest upon conceiving the truths therein yet will they work in you as it were without your help There is nothing in God that is not holy and sanctifying and his words are Spirit and Life Thoughts have the same operation upoÌ„ our Mind as a Seal upon Wax The Soul receives the impression even of simple notions if she stop there and concur with them But you shall do better if as soon as you have read the first thought you discourse a little to your self upon it and examine Is this true Is it reasonable Is it necessary Why How Did Jesus and the Saints practise it Doth God inspire me with it If I do it not What then c. This done proceed to the next thought and if your time be spent only reade the rest leasurely but above all pause upon the Conclusion and resolve on the performance of something conformable to your subject begging of God 〈◊〉 severance and Efficâ—â—â— 4. The little sentence at the end taken out of the Scripture or some Father is like a drop of Essence to be worn all that day it contains all the vertue of the good thoughts it concludes it is easie to cal to minde and to retain if you reflect often upon it it wil quicken and fortifie your light and instil it self into all occasions Thus we may with application and constancy raise our good thoughts to such a point of vigour that they may extirpate our ill or at least make them weak and ineffectual and exalt and magnifie them till they bring us to a pious immobility and some extraordinarie purity This S. August means Hom. 16. de 50. He cannot have ill deeds who hath good thoughts Good Thoughts FOR EVERY DAY of the MONETH The First Week The Frst Day of the Moneth Of the End of our Creation 1. WE are created for God God himself could create us for no other but himself and we should betray our selves if wee did not confesse this truth our heart tels it us and we cannot contradict it 2. It is fit that every one should have his own then let us be for God since we are his if not we bely our selves for if we are not his Children under the love of his Bounty we shall be his Slaves under the rigour of his Justice 3. As then Bread which is made to nourish the Sun to give light the fire to warm if they should refuse the office for which they were made would bee as if they were not or as Monsters in Nature because every thing must tend to that end for which it was made and cannot decline it without going to its own destruction So the Heart of Man which is only and essentially made for God if it stray from him or refuse to go to him belies its essence and becomes monstrous a scorn to the World and to all reason 4. Well then do I carry my self like a Creature that is for none but God Is my Heart and all my affections for him Ah how few things do I that I can say are truly and only doue for God! Ah how much time is lost how much reproach gotten in one day What do you do upon the Earth if you do not that for which you are there You must here renew your designe of seeking God onely and your resolution to rob him of nothing that appertaineth to him S. Aug. lib. 6. Confess cap. 6. Oh intricate wayes of the World Wo be to that audacious Soul which presumes to hope that by leaving Thee it may find any thing else which is better The II. Day Of Sin 1. O God what is it it to lose Thee To lose God an infinite good is it nothing Men that lose their goods by some accident as by Fire or by Law seeing themselves reduced to beggery are so troubled and afflicted therewith that they lose their sense and grow desperate Ah what then will a soul do that hath lost her God! 2. O Sin too familiar but unknown to Men in play and divertisement to make our selves the object of the infinite wrath of God! God so good an Ocean of goodness becometh to a sinner an infinite ill and cannot but hate him infinitely to hate â— little is to wish a little ill to a Man to hate to death is to wish death and there it ends but to hate to infinity O God what do we fear if wee do not fear the dreadful hate of God! 3. See the horror of Sin in the sufferings of JESUS What a spectacle is there Yet the state of a Soul in sin is much more horrible then that of a God dying on a Crosse since that JESUS died to destroy sin that he might no longer behold that which afflicts him more then Death But alas can I believe that God will spare mee who delivered his Son over to such horrid pains After this you must make an act of Contrition as well as you can upon al the sins of yhour life past We ought not to grieve for any thing else for nothing else can Grief remedy Jerem. 2.19 Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in Thee saith the Lord of Hosts The III. Day Of Death 1. HOw much must that soul apprehend Death which all its life time hath been an enemy to God! What regret for having for
complain that for one moment of pain I am made capable of an eternity of good without measure O most happy eternity O life eternal E cite in your self a very great desire of seeing God and suppress all the vain hopes of the World and all fears of ills in this life with the thoughts of Paradise S. Aug. in Psal 26. Let your heart transcend all things visible and let your intention transcend your usual carnal cogitations that arise out of corporeal sense and imagination Cast all this out of your minde whatsoever you meet with deny say it is not that it seems for if it had been that it had not been presented to me so shall you desire some good as good the best of al good c. That which is purely good whereby all things are good c. This is that wherein the Lord delighteth this is that we will contemplate The second week The VIII Day Of Faith 1. I Beleeve my God that I am of the true Church the greatest of my joy is that I hope by thy grace to dye therein I would dye willingly with all Martyrs for any one or the least of those truths she hath taught me because they all invariably rest upon the authority of a God who cannot lye 2. I make much more esteem of one truth of our faith then of all Sciences and Maxims in the world and that which it condemnes I condemn absolutely in despight of all the contradictions and repugnances that I meet with I wil oppose from hence forward upon all occasions where Faith instructs me what I shall do I will oppose this cursed world God saith thus God did say it so I shal quiet al the interiour murmurs that trouble me and I will follow faithfully this direction O the great secret 3. As for a particular instance the world saith this and that as that we must suffer nothing that we must set our selves out c. And what saith God what doth my faith teach me c. My God encrease my faith this is a prayer which thou wert wel pleased withal when thou wert upon Earth c. Say the Creed leasurely as to make a solemn profession of Faith Tertul. de praescr ad Haer. 14. Faith is appointed for a rule c. Let Curiosity give place to Faith To know nothing beyond this is to know all things The IX Day Of trust in God 1. SOoner shal Heaven and Earth pass away and be annihilitated then God wil leave to protect a heart that trusts in him 2. God nourisheth and defends to the very Snail and least root of Grass to Serpents to Crows and to his very Enemies what then will his infinite bounty do to those that hope in him 3. A Man will trust his health to a Physitian his Process to a Lawyer his life if he be blind to a Childe and sometimes to a Dog that leads him and a wise man sometimes to his Horse if he think that he knows the way c. And wee shall make a difficulty to trust our selves to the bounty conduct of God 4. The Crown of the Motives of our hopes is the example and love of Jesus Let us therefore with him repose our trust in the communications of his heart to his Father And since he is wholly with us and for us in this union and under this shelter what can we fear Examine here your heart to see if truly it conside in the bounty of God and in the merits of Jesus Christ and if wee have confidence worthy of two such strong upholds S. August Tract 49. in Joan. 11. Behold O Lord he whom thou lovest is become infirm it is enough that thou know it for thou doest not love and leave The X. Day Of love to God 1. IF God could have given us any thing more then his life and himself without doubt he would have given it us and is not our love dear enough that is bought at this price 2. To what end should I distract my heart in pursuit of so many created goods let us satisfie our selves once and for ever with the love and possession of God If it be just to love a mean finite goodness why should I not love a beauty goodness infinitely amiable For being infinite doth it cease to be amiable 3. Hee commands me to love him with al my heart do I comprehend this obligation rightly hee that saith al leaves nothing and whatsoever part I give if I give not all I give not that he asks and hee doth not hold himself loved think we that we should love him like a Husband like a wife like a child like a friend like our selves like the goods of the world which we love with so much passion O what comparison 4. If Eternity could have an end there could not be too much of Hel in the judgment of the Devils themselves to obtain this inestimable grace of loving God Ah of the damned there is not one but at the expence of dying eternally if he could or at the expence of suffering in time all he should suffer in all Eternity but would think after this that he obtained God at an easie rate and at present he is mine and I may love him what right and what power Apprehend rightly here the infinite merit of God and make it al your whole study to love him above al things and disavow al other love S. Aug. Confess 13.8 Thee it is that I love and if that love of mine be too little do thou make it more c. This I know that I am never well but in thee not onely in things without my self but even within my self and all that abundance which is not my God himself is to me but extream poverty The XI Day Of our acknowledgment to Christ 1. NEver was any thing bought so dearly as my soul and though I did not belong to God as my Creator yet I should to Jesus as my Redeemer Satan and all his Creatures clemand vēgeance for my crimes he rather harkened to the voice of his own heart that said unto him he should have pity of me and hath redeemed mee I am truly his his servant the use of all that I am belongs to him he is the King of my goods of my sense of my soul of all I avow with my whole heart this dependance 2. Then what a horrible deplorable shame will it be for him that appears before the tribunal of Iesus having lived threescore yeers in quality of his servant not to be able to produce one day nay perhaps not one good hour of faithful service not able to say that hee hath truly loved him what wil then become of me 3. I give a Dog a bone that to mee is worth nothing for this nothing he flatters me and keeps to me and doth mee a thousand services Iesus gives me his heart his blood his life and all his treasures and I am insensible of it Learn learn ingrateful see