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
make this point hard to it self I cannot believe that a Christian will oppugne this Truth and lesse imagine that a soul it cannot arrive to the possession of a solid and Christian vertue if she walk not by the way and light of the truths proposed if she do not found her self upon this spirit For if we consider and believe that we are members of Iesus Christ true not imaginary members not of a man or Saint but of Iesus Son of the living God and that in this quality we are truly and immediately united to him if I say we consider our selves as such do we not at the same time see that we are united to God and that by such an union we must be animated by his spirit live by his life and be governed by his conduct This is the first condition whereunto we are raised by Christianity the first grace we receive in Baptisme What vertue and perfection can that soul have which lives not conformable to this estate what doth that soul learn which knowes not his truth To what end is the rest of our practise and this great fabrick of devotion which we propose to our selves if we lay not this first foundation which is so necessary that without it all the rest cannot subsist If we have God for us if we are united to him as members to the head yet if we are not resigned as we ought to his infinite wisdom and loving conduct why do we trouble our selves with all the rest To what end so much care so much prudence and humane providence To what end so many desires He is too covetous whom God sufficeth not What can a soul desire to whom its God and Creator is made all things And if it cannot find rest in this where can it find rest What can content him who is not content with God saith St. Prosper Certainly that soul is very blind and miserable which is not content with providence and the love of Iesus I demand all that you would have of humane prudence in all things we shall find but two many reasons to invite us but a soul brought up in the knowledge of the truths of Christianity and nourish'd in the esteem of God will say with a holy person of our time that the poor Doves are more pleasing to God then the Serpents Let us then raise our selves up to God trust in him adhere to his spirit and beg light of him to penetrate into these truths to bear the effects of them and grace to live faithfully in his wayes There remains one motive more to see the obligations we have to belong to God and to adhere to him if we will arrive at perfection The fourth Motive CHAP. IX That this Precept to love God doth oblige us to perfection and makes us to go out of our selves to be God's COntinuing the designes we have undertaken in this second Part to shew by divers Motives the Obligations all men have to be perfect and to adhere to God and live in subjection and submission to his conduct and grace It remains that we consider in this last Motive the essentiall and indispensable Obligations that we all have to the Precept of Love and consequently to perfection to which end we must consider the two estates in the Church of God the estate of the ordinary Christian and that of the more Religious not to examine them but to behold the abuse of the former too lightly believing that perfection and solid vertue is not for them and losing themselves in this Errour perswade themselves that a Christian as Christian is not at all obliged to interiour life and vertue but that it is a work of supererogation and an unnecessary labour to be busied in acquisition of Christian vertue and possession of inward perfection a manifest Errour the more damageable in that it derogates from the honour of God gives license to the world and blinding their souls looses them and makes them slothfull in the search of the right way to salvation To undeceive our selves then in a matter so important and to secure our salvation which otherwise would remain very doubtfull we must intentively observe the obligations of these two estates that by this knowledge we may know what we ought to be Saint Thomas Aquinas teacheth us that the soul that professeth Religion enters into a stable and permanent estate wherein she seeks after true and solid perfection devesting her self of all that may hinder her arrivall to this perfection By this solemn profession she renounces all things taking in this manner of life as saith Moses the Abbot the wayes instruments and means to attain certainly to this perfection so much commended and recommended by Iesus Christ. For this Reason she makes vowes to separate her self from her self and all other creatures to appropriate her self to God and if she take heed to all the circumstances which accompany this action or if lifting up her eyes to Heaven she considers the will of God towards her in her vocation she knows that by the estate of Religion she enters into a profession which must sever her from the world and whatsoever is in the world to unite her to her God and to place her if we may so say in the bosom of God to live upon earth the life that the Angels live in heaven to lead in a holy communion the life that God leads in his holiness that is to say the life of God in God For as God is busied wholly in the knowledge and love of himself so the soul which desireth to perfectionate her self is not busied in Religion but in a pure and continuall contemplation of God and in acts of love which she doth with great care and vigilancy For for the soul to be as God would have her and arrive to the eminent and divine estate whereto God hath called her must be accidentally and by grace that which God is substantially and by nature This is much in few words to extoll the Religious estate and makes us see how holy it is whereto they are called But we are to understand that what is said extends to all Christians for the estate of Christianity is an estate stable and permanent which calls and leads us to the participation of a divine life an estate permanent and indispensable for it is marked with the character of Baptisme which according to the Principles of our Faith can never be defaced an estate holy and of a particular sanctity which only appertains to Christianity since it is consecrated by the unction of the most holy Trinity confirmed by the grace of adoption and enriched with the fulness of the holy Ghost who is given us by confirmation and conserved by the sacraments an estate permanent seeing it is indispensable for no Christian can go out of or have a dispensation from the obligation he hath to his perfection a perfection not indifferent but Evangelicall and Christian which the Son of God mentions in the
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
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
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
of heart It is he that hath thundred and pronounced this sentence Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted naturall and powerfull words pronounced by the mouth of Truth Why should we seek further evidence how acceptable this is to God and how he rewardeth this truth and how necessary it is for him that will be a perfect Christian Let us no further demurre upon this subject but examine wherein it consists let us learn what humility is that is it we are most ignorant of Humility is truth to be humble is to walk in the spirit of truth I say humility is truth because true humility consists in this that God by his infinite bounty by his operations of love and grace infuses into the soul a light which makes it see the truth in all things more or less as it pleases God This light which brings with it knowledge abaseth annihilateth the soul in her self and causes that in all things she annihilate her self because this truth teacheth her what God is and what the creature is so that this grace which I call the light of truth gives not onely knowledge but also actually annihilates the soul and detains her in her lowness in her nothing and being in her nothing she is truly where she ought to be for hereby she is in the truth and acting in this state she walks in the spirit of truth which is the same as to act with humility Many will wonder hereat who thinking they have humility have it not who thinking to attain it by certain exercises of humiliation do but deceive themselves not but that their exercises are good and conduce to humility but if we pass no further if we possess not the spirit of truth acting by the same spirit which is the spirit of God and of simplicity we may make many acts of humility but we shall not have humility for humility in its formality and essence consisteth in the spirit of truth and simplicity the spirit of truth and simplicity is God To be humble then we must act in this spirit I will explicate and make this more intelligible Humility is a supernaturall light which I call the light of truth because it maketh us know things as they are On one side it drawes and advances us to the knowledge of the infinite goodness of God and other his divine perfections and by this knowledge forms in us an esteem of the supreme Majesty of God On the other side the same light causes us to see what we are our own meanness unworthiness impotency indigence the truth of our nothing and by consequence before God she makes us see the truth which consisteth in the knowledge of God and of our selves This truth so conceived possessing our spirit and and acting in our soul annihilates and debases us in all things in all our actions with so much facility that the soul can do no otherwise for she cannot but act according to her knowledge so that acting wholly according to this light and taking all things as she conceives them she walks in humility and as we say humbles her self and in effect she doth humble her self not knowing it for she hath no eyes but to see the truth no power but to act according to truth I call here humility a light and a light of truth for so in effect she is whence it follows that by humility we arrive to the knowledge of truth as by the light of the Sun we see the Sun so by the light of the truth wherein consists humility we see truth Thus we understand it when we say that God revealeth his divine secrets and greatness and teacheth the truths to humble souls Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes that is to the humble saith Iesus Christ to his Father Whence we infer that to understand the Catholique and supernaturall truths and to possess them we must go to them with humility not sufficiency nor capacity much less curiosity God is pleased with little ones so much reading so much curiosity so many Questions so many Reasons wherein men take pains are unprofitable labours and rather separate us from Christian truth then bring us neerer to it for God dwels with the humble spirit saith the Oracle of heaven so that retyring our selves from the truth is to make us uncapable of humility and without humility we cannot come to heaven whence we may imagine what danger the spirits of this Age run into Further we may learn from what hath been said that they who will acquire Christian humility must not stop at exteriour actions of meanness and humiliations nor at words of confusion and abasement nor at some submissions and accommodations although they be frequent and profitable but we must pass further and penetrate the centre of the spirit there to establish the throne of truth and to make our heart the treasury of the light of God To be humble we must endavour to know the truth we must possess it we must act by the Principle of truth which being done it will be easie to come to the exteriour and to produce infinite acts of humility and annihilation for we cannot have humility without doing all these actions but a man may do all these actions without having humility But we must now know how we may acquire the knowledge of truth CHAP. IX Of the knowledge of God and our selves THe knowledge of truth consists in knowing God and our selves a man may arrive at this knowledge two wayes by infusion by acquisition The first comes from God alone who communicates and infuses into our soul a light springing from truth which we call the spirit and light of faith This light brings and gives the knowledge of God and of our selves and this knowledge as well as the light is an operation of God who by this divine light which he spreads in us annihilates our soul and in all things detains it wholly in this annihilation wherein consists humility Thus is humility a grace infused and a pure operation of God alone this operation is greater or lesser according as God pleases who by the communication of this divine light consummateth and annihilateth the soul more or less as he pleases for his glory This first manner is for few persons because few are advanced to this way few render themselves worthy of such grace The second and more ordinary is acquired We propose divers means to acquire the knowledge of God and of our selves the most common and easie whereof is consideration and application assisted by grace without which nothing can be done We arrive to the knowledge of God not by sublime penetration of the Attributes of Divinity that is not necessary and few are capable of it but by faith When the soul considers God as he is simple proposed in the Creed to us according to the bare and simple signification of
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
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
A SPIRITUAL TREASURE Containing Our OBLIGATIONS TO GOD AND THE VERTUES Necessary to A Perfect Christian. Author Written in French By Iohn Quarre Englished By Sir THOMAS STANLEY Kt. The Second Edition LONDON Printed by T. R. for Thomas Dring at the George in Fleet-street near Saint Dunstans Church 1664. To the LADY STANLEY MADAM WHAT You here receive is due onely to Your self it being the Product of that contemplative retirement to which my dear Father resign'd the two latest years of his life The Author is highly esteemed in his own Country and hath met with so good Reception in ours also that he already seeth a Second Impression which in this Age not a little commends a Treatise of this Nature Vpon this occasion I was sollicited by the Stationer to acquaint the Reader by whom it hath been so kindly entertained with the Name of the Person to whom he is indebted for the English Edition And having herein satisfied the Importunity of the One and the Curiosity of the Other it rests onely I present it to Your Ladiship together with the humble Duty of Madam Your Ladiships Obedient Son Thomas Stanley PREFACE UNder the name of Sprirituall Treasure behold the Image of a perfect Christian which I here present thee Devout Reader It hath taken the name of Treasure because it contains as in a hidden mine the highest divine truths of Christian Piety it is a Pourtract of Perfection the Image of a true Christian or all which the Sonne of God hath left to his Church And those which I propose to you in this Treasure represent a lively Image of that perfection whereto we are called and by the grace of Christianity conducted Perhaps you may remember that this Book hath heretofore appeared under the same name but it was upon another design For then it treated onely of some particular Vertues such onely as serve to subject the soul to the guidance of God and the spirit of grace It had then no other object but the resignation of the Creature to the will and work of the Creator Now it is universall and withdrawn from a limited subject speaks in generall explains the Principles of Christianity and describes the principall Vertues necessary for a perfect Christian. As for the stile it is concise confining it self to the truth which it exposes the most plainly that may be despising all Ornaments of words since truth hath so much lustre of it self as she need not borrow of others The World perhaps will not hearken to it or suffering it to speak will not understand it for its Doctrine is too divine its Principles too high That which it proposes is wholly contrary to what the World professeth And it is much to be feared that many will dispute it considering that falsehood and malice have taken such deep root in the greater part as loving nothing but vanity and unwilling to consent to truth We live in an age so corrupt that even Christians many times fear to be good least they should be persecuted and are ashamed to appear vertuous least they should be derided Hardly can it promise it self a better reception amongst them that make profession of Piety for there are many that seek nothing but their own satisfaction in the most holy things self-love hath such absolute power over souls that they flatter themselves in every thing believing all to be good which is agreeable to them and on the other side seeming Devotions have so much applause among men that it will be hard to perswade the contrary So that our perfect Christian who speaks here purely of Truth and truly of Piety cannot easily avoid the various censures of men For as he speaks Christianly for his stile is in the spirit so he condemns freely all that is not worthy of God in the purity of the spirit which may appear strange and those who confide too much in themselves esteeming nothing but their own actions will soon condemn this manner of Discourse But what remedy shall we therefore injure Truth no she will appear before the eyes of men in despight of the World and although she may meet with spirits little capable to receive her yet it is alwayes good to expose the Image to the view even of her greatest Enemies for by this meanes they will be forced seeing her to confess they have no vertue that they walk in the night of untruths and perhaps they will apprehend their own misery and be afraid to loose themselves And if there are any who think themselves already arrived at the highest point of perfection flattering themselves in their own esteem when they shall here consider the excellencies of Christianity the purity of the spirit of grace and admire the designs of God upon souls and see what is necessary for a perfect Christian they will open those eyes which self-love had bewitched and acknowledge that their actions come far short of their own esteem of them and then humbling themselves even to the centre of their nothing they will resolve to seek God to serve him in spirit and truth after a manner worthy of God However they who take the paines to read this little work will see that many deceive themselves to their great mischeif and will learn that it is not a small matter to gain Heaven for to such only is Paradise open and that there is required more purity and vertue then we ordinarily propose For if the life of a true Christian be a life of God in man if true perfection be an amorous possession of God what purity what vertue must there be in him who will possesse so rich a Treasure pretend to an estate of divine This is a point you must consider of friendly Reader as being that which ought to be the only object of your actions For if you will open your eyes to see what God requires of you if you will rest your thoughts upon the excellencies of the state of Christianity you will learn that your heart must be the Throne of the most holy Trinity who will establish his Kingdom therein your Soul a Heaven where God will glorifie himself your life the life of God who lives in you that you may raign with him To conclude you shall know that you are onely in the World to please God and to do his will in the purity of his spirit alwayes holy is not this an affaire of great importance If for your satisfaction and profit you desire to comprehend what I say and to know the motives and obligations that you have to love and serve God perfectly Read the two first parts of this Work the third and fourth shew you the way you must keep and the Truths that are necessary to live a good Christian the last gives you a pattern of true piety Read and you shall learn how to be a good Christian. A TABLE of the several Chapters treated of in this Book The FIRST PART Of the Divine Prerogatives whereunto man is
Christian life doth consist What difficulty do we find in this kind of life all the obstacle if we neerly consider it proceeds from not understanding what is the interiour life of the Soul many believe it a kind of an abstract life and of the other World a life full of care a life which is an enemy to humane society Others consider it as a life of insupportable solitude and inaccessible contemplation every one speaks of it as he pleases Some condemn it others say it is impossible most believe it difficult Let us not insist upon words they are explicated to all sences let us onely say that the life we call interiour is no other then the life of the Soul the life of the Soul is God the grace of God the life of his grace the mother of all vertues Thus then the interior life is no other then a vertuous Christian life to which life all Christians are obliged An inward and spiritual man must fear God from the bottom of his soul must highly esteem of all that is in Christianity and in the Church of God must be vigilant to do nothing to displease God careful to preserve his Soul and Conscience in the purity of grace and as the Apostle saith having a good Conscience in all things to have an esteem of God from the bottom of his heart and of all that belongs to God and to carry a mean esteem of himself and all Creatures To live in this manner is that which I call an inward life the rest without this is nothing and to teach Souls any other life is to betray them Now who sees not that all Christians are obliged to this kind of life if they will be saved who findes not now how much this life is easier then it was represented and all together contrary to what was expected Let us then take a firm resolution to embrace it and to give our selves with all our Souls to him who hath given himself to us He hath right and power to live in us to do in us and of us all that he pleases Let us onely take care that we commit our selves to his conduct and to the operation of his holy Spirit and being assisted by his Grace Let us chearfully endeavour the acquisition of Christian vertues Let us so order that grace may reign in us according to the design of God that God may dwell in us as in a living tabernacle which Iesus Christ hath consecrated by his blood and we shall see by experience that with the Apostle We are able to do all things through Iesus Christ who strengtheneth us CHAP. II. That the possession of God is the end of a Christian life whereto we cannot arrive but by the grace of Iesus Christ. BEfore I proceed I must suppose that I speak to souls desirous to live vertuously and perfectly in the state of Christianity according to Jesus Christ the Law and Rule My address is to such who are faithfull Dispensators of the gifts and graces of God will make use thereof according to the designes and intentions of the Son of God endeavouring to profit a hundred fold The first thing that I ask of them is What is the end of the life and actions of a Christian For as in things naturall artificiall the first thought and knowledge of the workman is the end of his work so in Piety we must consider and know the end and the life of Christian actions that knowing them we may resolve couragiously to undertake them and promise our selves great fidelity in the practice of all that shall be proposed to us or is necessary for to arrive at so happy an estate We know the end of a Christian soul is nothing but God who is he that filleth all in all saith the Apostle whom it seeketh to and possesseth as its sole happiness and to enjoy him for ever None reject this truth though it appear high and extraordinary for they that discourse ordinarily of Christian perfection say all that it consists in the love of God and in perfect charity which is true But if we consider what this love means we shall find that it is nothing but the possession of God for the love of God hath priviledge and power to give God who is essentiall love Thus considering this truth we shall find that perfection consists in love which love gives us the possession of God therefore the perfection of our soul must be the love of God He that will comprehend the excellency of this must know the greatness and dignity of God from which knowledge he shall learn what the life of our souls must be what our entertainments and how holy our actions ought to be For if the means be proportionable to the end it must necessarily follow that the end of our souls being supernaturall and nothing less then God himself the means also that we must use to arrive to this end must be supernaturall and divine They therefore who seek perfection in the enjoyment of this end must have a particular care not only to embrace all actions and uses which may conduct them but shun and contemne all vain and superfluous things which serve not to attain to this end and must detest them We must remember that we cannot arrive at this end nor to the possession of God who is the perfection of a Christian his fulness and the consummation of his soul but by the conduct of God himself by grace alone and mercy and according to the testimony of Iesus none can arrive to the knowledge of God but by his divine Light and by a speciall Revelation No man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him And when a man shall come to this knowledge he can make no good use of it unless he be aided with a new favour he cannot go to God nor enjoy his grace or spirit unless he be aided and guided by him who saith I am the Way the Truth and the Life no man cometh to the Father but by me And that which shews our greatest impotency or need of Iesus Christ and his grace is that without him we can do nothing worthy and capable to approach unto God and enable us to possess him Without me saith he you can do nothing On the one side the soul sees and confesses that God is her perfection her happiness and heritage that in him she hath all that he alone is her sufficiency her life and consummation On the other side she finds that she cannot go to him nor enjoy him nor think of him but by him that is to say by his grace by his infinite mercy she feels that she bears in the bottom of her being not only incapacity impotency and feeblness but of opposition to grace to the gifts and work of God On the other side she carries the effects of Gods love she
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
when we speak or think of the things of heaven we must believe they are ineffahle far above all that we can think or speak We must not make small account of what concerns God but on the contrary we must have from the bottom of our souls a great esteem and belief of all that God hath done of all he hath said and of that which he hath left to his Church In God there is nothing little God is as adorable and estimable in the least as in the greatest Finally it is very profitable and necessary to the soul that giveth it self to this exercise to draw from all things and upon every subject an esteem of God and to form in heart solid and serious thoughts thereof To assist us in this practice and to advance us in this vertue we ordinarily make use of reading prayer and meditation But it is good to take heed how we are guided in this exercise of prayer how we make use of the thoughts the light and knowledge we receive herein Many seeking only their own satisfaction in it do nothing but busie their own spirit they seek and aim at nothing but relishes and resentments they leap from one subject to another they run from the first point to the second and apply themselves sometimes to one affection sometimes to another spending the whole time in a multiplicity and disturbance of thoughts To profit herein we must proceed otherwise for in these exercises and all other we must onely seek to know the will of God to esteem it and to make our selves worthy the graces necessary to accomplish his will and to please his divine Majesty and having put our selves in the presence of God by the Principle of faith we must lay hold upon truth we must rest therein nakedly and simply we must adhere thereunto and keep our selves firm in this first view with care quietly to leave our spirits to be replenished of God and bathing our selves as it were in this thought we must unite our selves to this knowledge imprinting by degrees in our hearts the light strength and knowledge of the proposed truth whether the knowledge be great or little we must always keep our heart and spirit open and free to receive the thoughts thereof These will put us into an esteem of God by this esteem we shall easily be carried to an humble respect and desire to serve and love so high a Majesty and we need not doubt but that many things will be done in the soul by Christ if she dispose her self thereto as she ought if she leave her self to be guided by his spirit and abandon her self to all the effects of grace attending them with an humble patience But Oh the misfortune of our self-love the soul seeking her self and her own satisfaction withdrawes and separates her self from God to follow her own inclinations to content her sense and to employ her self in what she pleases making her self hereby unworthy to feel the grace of the presence of God and to bear the effects of truth It were easie to deduce all into particulars if it were necessary but not to trouble my self with all the failings that happen in this exercise it suffices that I say that the first study of the soul must be to know God according to the lights and truths of faith to adhere strongly to this knowledge to enter into an esteem of his greatness and then to honour and adore him with an honour worthy of God These words express much and include the first duties of the soul and shew wherein she must employ her self with care before all things Hence we may learn that their practise is not good who as soon as they enter into some knowledge and esteem of God and receive some light in the consideration of the truths of faith whereby they feel themselves moved and as it were drawn by an humble respect and inward reverence before God instead of staying and receiving at leisure this little touch this sweet beam of Heaven following this little interiour light and annihilating themselves before the supreme Majesty of God they retire from it under pretence of a false humility to apply themselves to other thoughts and fearing evill on purpose to lose time and be deceived or to lose themselves in their estate they shut the eare to God and their eyes to the light to entertain themselves in their own conceptions and imaginations and in the consideration of themselves We see by experience that this way is ill we may easily observe that such souls never advance or if there appear some advancement it is but in appearance besides that it is alwayes in fear and in a spirit of self-love never in solid vertue the reason is manifest If prayer be an elevation and union of our heart a speaking of the soul to God it is hard to conceive how we may advise to quit this application of the soul to God to torment her imagination and cast her into the consideration of exteriour things into the examination of divers circumstances into a continual regard of what we are and what we ought to be But wherefore all this seeing it pertains to the matter of prayer let us leave it to them who treat thereof and content our selves to conclude with that which we would perswade that the first thing that he must practise who will live a perfect christian is to live in the spirit and to walk in the light of faith and by this light to enter into an esteem of God which is supported upon the knowledge of his greatness and of what he is What course we must take to obtain this knowledge we will proceed to speak of in the subject of Humility The second Disposition CHAP. VIII Of Humility and the meanes to obtain it THe design of this Discourse is to draw to the life the Picture of a true Christian describing one after another not all the vertues but those onely which are most necessary and the bases and foundations of Christianity the Mothers and Nurses of the rest Faith leads the way humility followeth for as much as we know and esteem of God so far are we humble Faith makes us know God humility leads us to God Faith disposes us and shews us true vertues humility acquires them and being acquired conserves them This is she that opens and makes plain the way to charity and who is as it were the Mistriss of Gods House she alone layes up and keeps safe the divine gifts St. Paul by way of excellency calls her the vertue of Iesus for besides that this vertue appertains to him more then to any and that the whole course of his life and the mysteries of his sufferings were ever accomplish'd in humility it is moreover his vertue in that he publish'd it and recommended it to the world and wills that his humility be the object and example of the life of men Learn of me saith he for I am meek and lowly
the words as all good all wise all mighty this manner is sufficient Therefore we must accustom our selves to make use of that which Faith proposes and after excite in our selves the thought of God and entertain our selves therein not by speculation but by obedience and affection which is that we call an affective thought of God as if we should say in our hearts yea my God thou art wholly wise and wholly good I will leave my self to thy conduct I will submit my self to thy divine will By these frequent thoughts of God the soul unites it self to God adheres to his truths and by little and little ascends to the knowledge of God This manner is not hard neither requires it any rule we must onely be vigilant often to apply our selves thereto when any thing gives occasion thereof To arrive to the knowledge of our selves it suffices not to consider our own impotency our feebleness and our imperfections we see them and know them but too much we make a custom of it and this truth will never lead us to humility but we must elevate our thoughts and make use of the knowledge of God thus The soul must present it self before God and having conceived as well as she can the infinite being and soveraign Majesty of the Divinity before which she is she regards him she adores him then she begins to compare her being with that of God she entertains her self in this thought and in this regard and presently acknowledging the exaltation of the divine essence above her own she accounts her self as if she were not by reason of the infinite distance she sees betwixt God and her and in this view she regards her self rather in a not being and a nothing then in a being The soul filling her self with this thought and possessed with this truth humbles her self in the knowledge of her nothing and abases her self as much as she can For having conceived the greatness of God throughout she sees that she is a meer nothing This truth annihilates all creatures yea the most perfect upon earth and the Saints in Heaven forc'd by this principle humble themselves and make themselves as nothing before the supreme and incomprehensible Majesty of God in respect of whom all creatures together are not so much as one grain of Sand. The soul in the sight of this truth must say in her self If all creatures are nothing before God what am I who am the least And if I am nothing before God can I make my self any thing If before the Creator I find not my self by reason I am so much plung'd into nothing would I to the prejudice of truth appear to be something before the Creature In the consideration of this truth the spirit is vanquished the soul knowes what she is and is constrained to humble her self We must passe farther and enter into the consideration of the totall and absolute dependance wherein the soul is in regard of God a dependance so great that she holds onely of God she subsisteth not nor moveth but in God with so much necessity that the beames subsist not by nor depend more on the Sun then the soul doth on her God O happy dependance which gives us God and binds us to God! In considering this truth the soul finds that she is nothing and that she hath nothing either in the order of the essence created or in the order of grace for all is in God and depend on God in such manner that if God should wholly withdraw himself she should leave to be that which she is and should find her self in her nothing So that if she have any thing she sees that it is in God not in her self in him saith St. Paul we live and move and have our being Reflecting hereupon she saith in her heart If all that I have belong not to me nor is of me but of God and belongs to God then am I nothing nor have any thing Wherefore do I flatter my self and believe my self to be something when in truth I am nothing why do I glorifie my self and please my self in that which belongs not to me wherefore should I attribute to my self the honour contentment and glory which belongs onely to my Lord No no I will keep in my meanness I will hide my self in the abysse of my nothing and if God be merciful unto me and out of his bounty give me something I will hold it of him I will onely keep it for him and I resolve from this time and to all eternity I will live in the dependance that I owe to the regard of my Lord and God Let us not stay here but advance forward to the light of truth and let us cast our eyes upon the need we have of God and we shall find what we are and that we are nothing nor have nothing as having received all of God and we possess nothing either temporall or spirituall in nature or in grace but onely that which God reserves and if he should be pleased to withdraw his gifts or cease to preserve them we should find our selves like Adam naked and poor and should return to our nothing Let us behold our selves then so naked and devested and let us pause upon this thought and upon this consideration and we shall be ashamed to look upon our selves and we shall be forced whether we will or not to humble our selves but with a humility full of love and confidence which shall make us lift up our eyes to Heaven to behold him on whom we so absolutely depend from whose hands we have received all and must yet every moment receive influence conduct grace and stability and that so necessarily that if we happen to separate our selves from him and if he but stop his assistance and his concourse leaving us to our selves we assuredly shall fall and in an instant lose all in what state soever we are of Sanctity and grace O most powerful Truth to humble us if considered a truth that humbles the most holy and just upon earth and which annihilates the Angels and Seraphims in Heaven a truth which makes the glorious spirits Angels and Saints who enjoy God to acknowledge that they have nothing but of the mercy of God and that they have no stability but in God an acknowledgement so strong that it were able to pluck them and unite them to him indissolubly if otherwise they were not ty'd to him by the state of glory This is the very state of a soul of Iesus who knowing the greatness of God and seeing himself his Creature penetrating those truths by a light springing from the personall union of the word a light worthy of the glory of the Sonne of God humbles it self but with a humility that shall be eternall a humility more profound then that of all the Saints and Angels a humility which alone is worthy to honour and adore the infinite Essence and the supreme Majesty of God So that
as in the Church he is fed with the body and drinks the blood of Iesus Christ. Among the true vertus which we must possess that which is as the gold and enamel of all the rest is purity a vertue altogether necessary yet either despised or little known If we would see the necessity thereof let us onely consider what is the end of a Christian and wherein consists the perfection of the state of Christianity The perfect Christian must live the life of grace which is the life of Iesus Christ he must carry God he must possess God If any man love me saith Christ he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come into him and make our abode with him which we must not onely understand of justifying and inherent grace a gift created and given of God but of the reall true habitation and presence of God in our souls The soul of the just saith the Wise man is the Throne of God and the Apostle sayes often that our souls and bodies are Temples of God Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the holy Ghost Reflecting on this so manifest a truth we must say that to receive and possess God in our soul we must have the purity of God and in a word without flattering our selves with vain hopes and disguizing or covering the truth let us consider a little seriously what the place ought to be where the Majesty of a God will dwell for ever what ought his dwelling to be of whom David saith Thou dwelst in the sanctuary and in the holy of holies What ought the heart of a man to be where God hath made himself a seat which he hath chosen and consecrated to be the throne of his love We must believe God will require in us a purity worthy of God seeing he who is purity it self will dwell eternally in us This purity that God demands and whereof he is worthy is so divine that our strength cannot arrive unto it he must give it he must assist our importance there is nothing but the fire of his love the lightning of his light the force of his grace and the power of his spirit that can purge expiate and consume all in us that is contrary to this purity In brief it belongs to God alone to place us in the purity that he requires of us This shews how much those souls are deceived who think to possess God and be well with him yet are more remote from him then heaven is from earth We need not but to behold and judge by the effects what its cause is Now as this purity is altogether necessary to possess God so it is our part to desire and to demand it of him and our principall care must be to purify our heart to make it to bear God we must offer it to him that we may bring to our selves the effect of this saying of God to his Spouse and to all others My son give me thy heart we must give and resigne it to him alone it is his desire it is our duty and our happiness if he will vouchsafe to accept it it will be his when he pleaseth to make it such as he requires it This is not all we must co-operate herein and labour with care and vigilancy that we may employ our selves herein with courage and labour with profit let us therefore see wherein this purity consists The purity of the heart may be understood two wayes one that we must purifie our heart from all sorts of sins and voluntary imperfections God enters not into a malicious soul nor inhabits in a body enslav'd to sin we mean not only gross sins but ordinary failings even all faults be they never so little For God being purity it self cannot inhabit in a heart if he find not or put not therein this purity and being infinitely good he infinitly hates evil whatsoever it be and though the least faults drive not God out of our souls yet they make a division and unsettle the soul from God they make great spoil in the heart they undermine it they brand it they indispose it and being so it is disagreeable to God and becomes the object of his Iustice. The soul that knowes how to esteem of God and bears any impression of his purity will think more then I say and never consent to the least imperfection all is insupportable to her that she knows to be disacceptable to God she hath no consideration of estate honour her own good or of men where she sees there is any thing capable to offend the eyes and heart of her God all her care is to detest and extirpate not onely the least faults but to quit renounce and separate her self from whatsoever she knowes to be displeasing to God It is the chief advice of St. Augustine Before any work saith he be sure to purify the heart and take from it all that you observe displeasing to God When he would have us take from our hearts all that is displeasing to God he discovers a great secret he would have us go out of our selves and take out of us all that is of Adam he would have us annihilate our inclinations because whatsoever is of Adam is impure and opposite to Iesus Christ and ever contrary to him whence we conclude that he who would possess Iesus must do all he can possible to dispossess himself of and to drive away Adam this spirit of Adam and his inclinations can no more subsist in the soul with the spirit of God then the Idol Dagon could stand before the Ark of the Covenant All that is in us and is not of God is impure and unworthy of God and all that is out of God can produce no good nor any thing worthy of God these are great truths such as might transport our spirits yet let us not be astonish'd at this Proposition as too high and impossible and we shall see that therein is nothing too much but rather far less then so worthy a subject merits if we consider how pure that soul must be that would please God be in God and possess God and what purity it must have to be one with God for thereon the life of a Christian happily terminates O great God how many deceive themselves O God of adorable purity how few are fit to possess Thee By the light of these truths we may discover the abuse and deceits in christian devotion Some think that they hold God by the hand already and believe themselves well advanced in perfection in that they communicate in that they fast and pray every day and a thousand such like things wherein they exercise themselves they have the taste and sense of devotion they speak well of God and if you will believe them they say they are ravished in God But consider them well you shall find they live wholly according to their own inclinations they mind onely their own
Interest they care onely to satisfie themselves in a word they are but themselves and full of self-love you shall know these Trees by their fruits and the end will let you see that do but touch these Mountains and nothing will come out but smoke God dwells not with Baal let us not go two wayes the soul who will possess God who is purity must be pure must purge and take from it self all that displeases God for flesh and blood possess not God There is another deceit whereto we must take heed which is of those that believe they do much and think that God is endebted to them when their Conscience troubles them not with any deadly sin that is when they themselves say they avoid them all for that according to the truth of this proposition simply taken it is certain he who dies without mortall sin shall be a Saint But laying aside many things that may be said against this abuse I will onely make it appeare that they support themselves upon a Reed for I advise all those souls that speak so to acquaint themselves with their own state because that to know the state of our Consciences and our faults as they are we must know what they are before God and by the light of God We cannot have this knowledge but in as much as we are filled with the light of truth and as we esteem God and his greatness But if we did esteem God and acknowledge his greatness and if we did live in the light of the truth we would never speak thus On the contrary we should not onely shun mortall sin but even the least faults for knowing God and esteeming his greatness we love him loving him we fear to do any thing that may displease him be it never so triviall and they therefore who onely regard and fear the grossest sins and care not for the rest assuredly neither know nor esteem God They know him not for they cannot know the state of their Consciences and consequently they deceive themselves when they ground their assurance on a pretence that they are not troubled with mortall sins and that so much the more in that they care not for all the rest believing they are well assur'd of their salvation Alass who is he that can be assured he is worthy of love or hate what presumption is it in men of this age to assure themselves amidst so many dangers Saint Paul the mirrour of Sanctity said of himself I know nothing by my self yet I am not hereby justified and elsewhere he sayes that he runs and labours alwayes because he is not arrived to that perfection God requires of him We must say the same in what state soever we are Whence I conclude that to live in the purity that God requires of a Christian he must not onely shun all sin but further have a generall care and particular vigilance to do nothing which may displease God whatsoever it be and must neglect nothing conducing thereto and herein consisteth purity in the first sense Purity taken in the second manner implies no other thing then a pure regard of man to God be it for the soul or for the body This purity is greatly important and altogether necessary to those who would live as perfect Christians by this purity the soul regards onely God she doth nothing but in the sight of God she seeks nothing but his Will if she love it is onely God if she affect any thing else it is onely for God and according to God in every thing she seeks his glory and satisfaction all creatures are before her as if they were not in this consists the essence of this vertue Perhaps we shall make it better known by proposing the wayes and meanes whereby we may arrive to the acquisition of so divine a vertue The first I place in purity and simplicity of intention when the soul in all that she does annihilates all her intentions her desires her motions her thoughts and admits none but the pure desire of complying with God I call this intention simple because it must be clear and naked without consulting Reason in any thing This intention is simple because it is one wholly and alwayes equall in all things it regards God onely and him continually in brief this intention and regard is simple because it onely rests upon God the soul that seeks this vertue seeks onely God O how desirable is this vertue how happy is this manner of life This is that which unites the soul to God that which pleaseth God and is fit to bear God The second meanes to arrive at the possession of this vertue is by denying our selves when we renounce our selves and admit no resentment that beares impurity and respect to our selves or the creature as the esteem of our own merit of our capacity of our vocation the content of a Neighbour the profit of Friends the acquisition of Vertue and such other things that cause us to stray from God We must annihilate all these resentments and thoughts to persist in the unity and bare simplicity of the pure regard of God the pleasure of God his glory and his content is a thing more important and infinitely of more worth then can be imagin'd yea then the salvation of all men The soul therefore that seeks God and perfection for that is all one must carefully take heed to this manner of purity for to regard any thing but God and to love out of God is to love unworthily and to love any other thing with God whatsoever it be to think thereon to seek it and to care for it is to make too little account of God it is to esteem his love too meanly Men addicted to this World will passe over this lightly and perhaps with contempt but I wish all that heartily seek God and are in the number of those whom God holds in his hand and regards to all eternity with a regard of love and good will that they think of what worth this eternall regard of God is who regards us without ceasing that they consider what God deserves and demand of God that which he pleases for this regard of his love I am confident that these thoughts would lead them to true piety The third meanes to attain this Vertue is vigilancy whereby we take heed to that which God does in us to correspond faithfully with the designes he hath to purifie us for by this vertue he is infused and God by his operations incessantly purifies us It is the duty of the soul to watch the occasions that God giveth her I say to watch for the love of our selves is very cunning to separate us from God and to apply us to our senses under pretence of vertue and necessity The devout soul must seriously take heed least she destroy in her self the works of God This is the design of Satan they are his ordinary subtleties that deceive the most fervent by this meanes destroying
our heart and form in our soul an alienation and displeasure of too great a love born to our selves and of that adherence and fastning which we have for the creature And for as much as one of the greatest hindrances to vertue is to think tacitely or actually that we have vertue we must believe that we are at a great distance from the purity and perfection God demands of us and are filled with our selves the affection of the creature and voyd of God Hence we proceed and raise in our selves a continuall hunger after God a desire and a firm purpose to approach unto him to love him to please him and to separate our selves from our selves and from all creatures We must think upon these words Thou sayest I am rich and encreased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked In fine as all Evangelick perfection practised and preached by Iesus Christ consisteth in two points in love of God only and in hate of our selves we must study to establish and advance our selves in these two Principles we must vigilantly seek God in all occurrences in all things at all times and annihilate our selves upon all occasions and objects presented to us The second Practise must be actuall abnegation we must study to annihilate and go out of our selves This may be done two wayes One when we seek occasions to practise self-deniall or choose some exercise upon this subject This is for those who have courage and a great desire to be God's and to live good Christians But many belive not that they ought to renounce and have not sufficient courage to seek occasions to annihilate themselves There is another manner whereby they may profit by this exercise which is to receive with a spirit of self-deniall whatever happens to them and to entertain it as from the hands of God without which nothing can happen unto us and to whom all the powers of the earth are subject Here the soul must have a care to be faithfull to God when any occasions occurre to practise the interiour or exteriour self-deniall to make good use of it as God shall give him power and according to the objects God shall cause them to be presented to him It is a Lesson that all Christians ought to learn that we are obliged and it must be our continuall endeavour to destroy in us the old man even in the least things if we will have the new Adam Iesus Christ to live in us If it be demanded what self-deniall is since it concerns us so much to practise it I answer to practise self-deniall is to go out of our selves and to sever our selves from the creature to employ our heart and make our selves fit to bear God for our heart is God's and he created it by his power he consecrated it by his grace to dwell there and be there as a Father in his family the Sun in the heavens a King in his kingdom Sin drives him from thence the love of our selves and the creature holds the place of God and hath the boldness and rashness to seat it self in the Throne of God This love of our selves and of the creature reignes tyrannically in us usurps the right of divinity does all there that God ought to do The duty of a Christian is to establish God in his Throne to re-place him in his heart and to let him raign in his soul. To do this we must necessarily drive away this love of our selves and extirpate our affection to the creature This is the office of self-denyall which annihilates us and makes us go out of our selves and clear our heart to replace therein the fulness of God To practise self-denyall and for a man to go out of himself is to have no other desire then purely to please God to have no other will then his to have nothing but God before his eyes and to quit all considerations of the World onely to seek the glory of God To go out of our selves is to lose the care of our selves either of the soul or body to commit our selves wholly to the will of God to abandon our selves wholly to his conduct and the order he hath established from all eternity over our life It is to think no more of that which concerns us and to desire no more that any love us or esteem us no more to seek our own interests or satisfaction but onely the pure will of God So to live is to go out of and to annihilate our selves for the soul by these practises renounces and annihilates in her self all affections all respects all care of the Creature all that is not God or of God and so renders her self capable to possess God To attain this practise of this vertue besides the meanes already supposed a third may be added which is when God himself operates in the soul the annihilation he would have there and there are two ordinary wayes that he makes use of herein one by christian and justifying grace which cannot be in the soul till he drive thence and annihilates what is contrary to him and as far as it reigns herein and possesses the heart it proportionably annihilates in us this love of our selves and of the Creature so truly that we may say there is as much of the one as there is little of the other for grace and the love of our selves cannot reign together one drives away the other Besides grace God makes use of divers favours and communications secret and interiour as lights motions and other divine and loving operations whereby he infallibly operates self-denyall and annihilation in us It is a true principle that God never operates any effects which bring not purity self-denyall and annihilation into the soule where these effects meet not it is a certain mark that it is not the work of God for God who is purity cannot operate but purely he is alwayes like himself If there be an operation of God there is purity and consequently annihilation for purity annihilates impurity If in the operation which the soul bears there is not the effect of purity and annihilation 't is not an operation of God or an effect of grace but an effect of proper or naturall love or else of the Devill who can transform himself into an Angel of light but he cannot give the soul the effects of light which is to be observed thereby to know how to discern naturall operations from those of grace This truth will appear most clear if we consider the designs of God in his divine and loving communications We know that God doth not communicate himself nor work in our souls but to prepare and render them worthy and capable to receive him being therein received he will possess and fill them with his fulness How can all this be done in the soul if God at first by his operations doth not purifie the soul and separate it
be accomplished in every point Now our Question is not only of an action good and just but which is more of a Christian action suitable to the eminence and purity of the state of Christianity of an action worthy heaven and God If it be reall it must have circumstances onely pure and perfect and chiefly it is requisite they have a proportionate object for as actions are specified by their objects so is it necessary that the doing and denomination of a true Christian action be to consider what is it's object which must be proportioned to the dignity sanctity and purity of an action worthy God which being supposed this object can be no other then God himself and therefore we must say that as all the actions of Christians must be conformable to their state all worthy of God so must they have God only for their object and consequently a Christian to live Christianly must have respect onely to God in all his actions and to do nothing but with intention to please him This is the wish of Saint Paul when he prayed to God for the new Christians to whom he writ That you might walk saith he worthy of the Lord as unto all pleasing This counsell ought to be engraven in the memory of men for either they think not of it or are ignorant of it yet is it altogether necessary Let us then suppose this to our perfect Christian that to do acts truly Christian and worthy of God we must regard nothing but God and have no other intent then to please him The reason is from the commandment of love for by the same principle that we are oblieged to love God in all and above all we are obliged also to please him in all and to seek onely his honour glory and pleasure He that knows how to love will easily comprehend the truth of this counsell For love if it be true makes us quit our own Interests and respects to engage us in the interests and respects of the thing beloved Again to love according to the Angelical Doctor is to wish well Now what good what interest can God have in our action but the accomplishment of his will and pleasure God hath no need of us for he is all-sufficient of himself As by our sins we cannot diminish his glory or pleasure so neither can we augment them by the vertue of our actions and that he makes them meritorious worthy the possession of heaven that he receives them as acceptable to the eyes of his divine Majesty it is the effect of his bounty not the power of necessity it is by dignifying not by duty or obligation by love not by interest it is because he vouchsafes to regard them and to be pleased with them it is only because we do in them what his will is we employ our selves in his Ordinances and accomplish his designes This Deduction and Principle being considered we must say that seeing God receives nothing of us or of our actions but the accomplishment of his divine Will it follows that a Christian who will love his God cannot express this love but in performing the works of God in respect to God and employing himself in the duties that God proposes to him He that hath my commandments saith our Saviour and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him which shews that the duty of a Christian consists in doing the works which God proposes and puts into his hand according to his condition and estate to do it according to the good pleasure of God and with an intent to do the will of God In this the Christian shews his love to God this is the means whereby his actions become worthy to possess God To comprehend this truth we must observe that all the creatures are nothing in themselves they are as but a drop of water drawn up by the Sun Now if all creatures are nothing man is yet less and man being so small a thing his action can be no more but if the creatures if man and his actions are any thing before God it is onely in as much as they regard God and have relation to him For nothing is worthy of God but what is of God and for God Heaven the world the earth are nothing yet are they esteemed worthy of honour because heaven is the throne of God earth is his footstool We may say as much of man although he be nothing in himself or in his actions yet they are most worthy by this relation to God and regard of God For as mean and prophane things are respected being consecrated and dedicated to God so our actions though they be mean and unworthy of God yet being referred and dedicated to his honour and the accomplishment of his will they are raised up and become pleasing to God Whence we acknowledge that all is nothing not our actions if they regard not God in this purity and though they regard God yet they conferre nothing to God they are onely pleasing to him because he vouchsafes to regard them and to take pleasure in them he advanceth and sanctifieth them by this relation such is his good pleasure Herein appears the abuse of those who fill their hearts and perplex their thoughts with severall intentions By this Principle we see how much they separate themselves from their duty who in their actions and devotions seek any thing else but to please God for all our actions are onely worthy of God because they are onely pleasing to him and nothing is worthy of him nor pleasing to his divine eyes but what is of him and for him Therefore one of the greatest faults to be observed in piety which makes us most unworthy of God is want of this regard of God Many instead of referring all things to God seek nothing but themselves labour onely for themselves and in all that they do think onely of themselves and if they should examine themselves as they ought they would find that the end of their life and actions is nothing but their own Interest and going on in the Labyrinth of these confusions they will find that seeking to do their own will they do what God requires not and fail to do that which he commands By this abuse it appeares that such souls design their own health and profit to be their end and the object of their actions By so doing God is no more their ultimate end nor the centre of their life and actions but their own interests and profit take the place of God an errour so manifest that it is easie to perceive and necessary to condemn the same Let us remember a principle very common that teacheth us if there were neither Heaven nor Hell to recompence or punish yet we were obliged to devote our selves wholly to God to fulfill his designes and to render him honour in
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
words which shew the pain and travel a Christian is obliged to undergo to root out of his heart and tear from his soul all that is contrary to the Law of God and vertue words which condemn our delicates and all that fear labour and sufferings excusing themselves by their weakness of nature To comprehend the importance of this advice Let us lift up our eyes to the contemplation of the truth and spirit of Christianity there we shall learn of the Son of God that the Kingdom of heaven is gained by violence that the grace of Christianity is grounded upon suffering that the perfection is in love in love crucifying that all the wayes of God and the operations of his spirit consist in privation and resignation and consequently in the cross Whence it necessarily follows that they who fly sufferings and humiliation seeking onely a sweet pleasant life fearing pains and travel do by this fear make themselves unworthy of God who reigneth on the cross and is onely found in the thorns of the fiery bush They withdraw themselves from the Kingdom of grace which agrees with annihilation they shut their heart against love and which is more to be lamented go out of the order of God and from the conformity they ought to have with Iesus Christ crucified who is the object the way and the life of perfect Christians and of Iesus Christ who cannot conduct our selves but in the way of annihilating of suffering and humiliation which is the way of Iesus Christ his life and essence Here may these delicate persons see how their faint-heartedness deceives them Let us then take heed and seriously consider the sentence that Iesus Christ pronounces against them He that takes not up his cross and follows me is not worthy of me To fear sufferings to fly humiliation to refuse the communication of God is to make our selves unworthy and uncapable of all his divine operations of grace for God cannot communicate himself to the soul in the wayes of grace but he will cause therein annihilation and humility All the operations of grace can have no effects in our souls but those of humility abnegation and death Grace must operate in the souls that which death doth in the body This is so known a truth that all that speak of grace unless that it 's proper and principall effect is to give us to God to make God live in us and to place therein his love and favour It is impossible for God to operate all that in us without annihilations subversions humiliations and death unless he pluck the love of our selves and the Creatures from our hearts he cannot plant his own therein If he kill not in us the old Adam never will Iesus Christ live in us God cannot dwell in us if he do not annihilate and consume the impurities and malice of our souls Thus Christian grace to produce its effects in us requires an estate of submission and death They therefore deceive themselves who think they are in grace yet bear no mark at all of this grace for if it be in a soul it will infallibly produce the effects proper to it if it produce nothing it is a sign it is not there Herein also appeares the wrong that the fear of suffering causeth to Christians How much do souls separate themselves from God who seek no other consolation satisfaction and enjoyment but their own and labour onely to put themselves into a certain repose thinking that perfection consists in this false rest and never to suffer any crosse affliction or temptation No no Earth is the place of combate Christian life is the death of man perfect love like the Phenix seeks death and findes life in the same flames the Crosse gave grace grace now giveth the crosse the sacred spouse saith she is fair but brown scorched with the burning beauty of divine love He that cannot suffer cannot love he that cannot love is not worthy of God or the name of a Christian. It is love that triumph'd over Iesus Christ annihilated him to the condition of our mortality it is love that humbled him even to our lowness and infirmities it is love that crucified him Christianity hath no other love or grace If then the Christian will love if he will be subject to the Kingdom of grace he must defie all sufferings and couragiously embrace all that shall befall him for love overthrowes all and triumphs over the soul. If she flatter it is to hurt if it hurt it is to kill so they who seek true and solid piety must not behold God but in the Crosse nor consider grace but in humility and sufferings My well-beloved saith the spouse in the Canticles is a bundle of myrrhe she confesses she fainted and dyed in the communications of love she received from her God For when the spouse had given her his love and ordained charity in her she instantly adds stay me with flaggons comfort me with apples for I am sick of love The greatness of God the infinity of his being his divine spirit are so powerful that if he never so little communicate himself to the soul by the purity of love and grace He is able to annihilate and consume her For if he apply himself to the Creature without proportioning himself to its capacity he cannot be supported for he overwhelms and ruines the created being by this power infinite and infinitely predominating over a being so small so subjected to his power In fine it would swallow up and consume it if he did not proportion his operation to our weakness and if he gave us not a capacity and force to bear it But whatsoever he doth if he communicate himself he alwayes annihilates if he giveth grace he changeth the man if he giveth light he humbles him if he make him to bear his love he wounds him Thus the soul that will love God must love sufferings he that will love the life of grace must lose himself and annihilate himself to receive divine operations He that will beare the light of truth must humble himself seeing God doth not manifest himself but to the humble of spirit and that all the works of God bear his Crosse in humility Hence we learn that it is necessary we esteem the Crosse and sufferings and embrace them with joy and fervour of spirit but we must further observe that sufferings subversions losses and humiliations and other misfortunes of humane life are necessary to a Christian to keep him steadfast amidst the deceits and blandishments of the World the subtleties and surprizes of the Devill By these wayes which we call rigorous God severs us from the world and takes us from kindness to the creatures he makes use of these losses and subversions as of gall and bitterness to mingle with the sweets that the creatures present to us He uses humiliation and affliction to abate our pride and if he do leave us for a time it is to
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
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
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