upon our heads but we are always loath to employ that in your love which we receive from your liberality though this is the only way to have them continued and increased This degree of love is very high and heroick For as the soul here seeks her Lord so seriously and adheres to him so sincerely that she is ready willing and desirous to suffer any thing for him So his divine Majesty often ordinarily rewards thiâ— her fidelity with putting her in possession of joy and giving her many secret sugred and delicious visits For the immense love of the Word incarnate Christ Jesus permits him not to see his loving Spouse suffer purely for his sake without hastning to her comfort and succour Hence she speedily gets up to The Fifth Degree of Love WHich moves the inflamed soul to a certain holy impatience In the 5. she is impatient in her desires of love in her desires of being joyned to her beloved She is seiz'd with such a vehement ardour to overtake him and to be united to him that all stay and tarriance seems to her tedious and insupportable She thinks often to have found him caught him in her arms clasp'd him in her bosom but perceiving her self still frustrated of her desired object faints through her eagerness of spirit as he did who cry'd out My soul covets and decays after the Courts of Psa 83. 1. my Lord. She cannot subsist long in this And must either obtain it or dy for it condition She must either obtain her love or cease to live she is as eager in her desires as Rachel was to see her self a mother when she said to Jacob Give me children or Gen. 30. 1 else I dy Here the soul feeds altogether on love as she only hungers and thirsts after love So that she quickly raises her self up to The Sixth Degree WHere she runs lightly swftly and nimbly after her beloved In the 6. she runs lightly swiftly sweetly after love Isai 40. 32 being fortified with Faith lifted up with Hope and quickned with Charity Of which degree the Prophet speaks They who hope in our Lord shall exchange their strength shall take Eagles wings and fly without fainting The reason of this lightness is the overspreading and dilatation of these three Theological vertues in the soul whereby it becomes so elevated that it wants but little of a totall purification Wherupon that enlarged soul said I have Ps 118. 32 run over the way of your commandments when you dilated my heart Hence she grows hardy in love grows bold and confident in love and putting on a confident boldness is piously amorously and strongly transported beyond the ordinary limits of reason So that she stays not according to judgement retreates not according to counsel nor governs and represses her impetuosity violence and forwardness by the rules of modesty and shame-fastness because the peculiar favor which her best beloved shews her communicates to her a holy and heavenly audacity In this state was that hardy spouse which beg'd a Cant. 1. 1. kiss of her beloveds mouth And Moses when he peremptorily said Exo. 32. 32 to God Either pardon this people or blot my name out of the book of life wherein thou hast registred it And then burning sweetly in and becomes united to her beloved pure and perfect union with her beloved she cryes out I have found the long desired object of my affections I will not let go my hold nor permit him to escape out of my embraces c. Here her holy thirst and hunger is satisfied and she enjoys such unexplicable treasures of delicious love that were whole volumes fill'd up with the description thereof the greater part would still be left uncomprised And from thâ— estate the amorous Soul passeth â— to the last Degree which belong not to this mortall life The Seventh and last Degree WHich likens her totally to her well-beloved Creator by In the 7. she enjoys her beloved perfectly c. the clear vision of divine essence This she enjoys as soon as being here in this world arrived at the Sixth degree of this divine ladder of love she departs hence to her happy eternity These blessed Souls which are very few in number are sufficiently purged and purified by Love which hath done that in them here which Purgatory doth in others elswhere so that to them belongs that Beatitude Blessed are the clean-hearted Matt. 5. 8. for they shall see God Now we say this divine vision causeth a totall resemblance of the soul with God following that sentence of S. John We know that when he shall appear we shall be like 1 Joh. 3. 2. him because we shall see him as he â—â— So that all that which the soul â—s and hath shall be like God by â—articipation Here nothing at al can â—e concealed from her according â—o our Saviours words In that day Joh. 16. 23 you shall ask me nothing Because â—he eyes the clear glass of the God-head wherein her self and all things are most plainly and perfectly contained But untill that day comes though the soul be perched never so high yet God is alwayes hid from her in some manner as far forth as there wants in her somthing of this totall resemblance with the Divinâ—â—y Thus ô amourous souls by climbing this mysticall ladder of divine love upon which God himself leaneth you get out of your selves and all things and fly up into the divine being for love like fire tends alwayes upwards with a perpetual desire to be plunged and ingulphed in the Centre of its proper Sphere Apply your selves therfore seriously to this holy and inward exercise that you may attain to these heavenly effects Embrace with open heart and arms your good great and gracious Lord and love and resolve with that holy Spouse I have laid hold on him and I will never leave him Draw near Cant. 3. 4. Psal 33. 6. this divine Sun and be illuminated he will clear your darkness errours and ignorances dissipate all your dulness in devotion dry up the dirt of your concupiscences encourage you in the carrying of your Cross give you a general alacrity in the performance of all your actions and undertakings and replenish your souls with unspeakable sweetnesses comforts and contents Come I say and only bring with you these three companions Faith Love and Resignation and leave all other things to the divine disposition Represent to your thoughts a wofull and bedridden creature lying grievously tormented with a burning feaver his Physician prescribing abstinence from drink as the only and assured way for his cure and recovery his compassionate friends visiting him seeking to divert his pains with their pleasant discourses and to charm his disease with the delight of musick c. Ah! what unwellcome comforts are all these things to him who can fix his mind on nothing but drink who thinks on nothing talks of nothing demands
into the divine light shee may confidently rely and repose And without this prop the higher shee ascends the lower will be her fall back again The tenth Maxim That in this high Exercise of Recollection the three Theological vertues Faith Hope and Charity must perfect and possess the three powers of our souls Vnderstanding Memory and Will IT is in the first place to be observ'd as an undoubted truth that a foul cannot in this life bee united to God immediatly by her understanding memory will imagination or any other sense power or faculty whatsoever but only by the means of Faith in her Understanding by Hope in her Memory and by Love in her Will. These three vertues must therefore Read F. Cisnerius ch 65. be introduced by our cooperation with the divine grace into the said three powers of our souls in the purest and perfectest manner that is possible if we will arrive at the height of divine Union 1. Faith must so possess our Understanding as to deprive it for that present of all other knowledge than that of God only 2. Hope must blot out of our memory all images and thoughts of possessing any thing but God only 3. Charity must uncloath our Wills of all affections joys contents satisfactions in any thing that is not God only For Faith tels us of things which cannot be understood by naturall light and reason Hope looks upon such things as we have not hold not possesse not and Charity retires our love from all creatures to employ it all on our Creator The three powers therfore of our soul must bee perfected by these three vertues our Understandings must bee informed with this pure Faith our Memories uncloath'd of all possession by this pure Hope and our Wils fill'd with divine affections by this pure Charity Thus refusing denying and emptying our whole souls of all that is not this perfect Faith hope and charity In this divine practice is found an absolute assurance against all the subtle snares of the devill and self-love for a soul which is thus entirely denuded and stripp'd of all active knowledge possâ—ssion and love of things created must needs remain in God in a certain tranquillity passivenesse cessation sleep annihilation absorption so that there can nothing be found out of God for Satan sin or sensuality to attempt against But to facilitate the intelligence and practice of this high matter upon which foundation stands the whole edifice of this holy Recollection and divine Union let us particularly deduce and exemplify how the Understanding is to bee placed in pure faith the Memory in pure hope and the Will in purâ— charity The eleventh Maxim That our Vnderstandings muâ— be setled in pure Faith THe practice of this point is thuâ— F. Cisnerius ch 28. Having conceived some mysterâ— of our Saviours Passion or the like for the subject of our prayer we ruminate a while upon it not â— much to admire our Lord Jesus aâ— imitate him and we desire to know his vertues that wee may practiâ—e them in our own particular by hiâ— perfect example Then we make an Act of Faith An act of Faith saying I firmly beleeve that this my suffering Saviour is not only a man but also my Soveraign Lord God I beleeve that he being Almighty submitted himself to Pilat being the creator became a creature being immortal became mortal and that in as much as he iâ— God he is with me within me without me about me above me beneath me and so in all creatures which have a being Afterwards we speak further to our Saviour O my dearest Lord and lover Teach me now my lesson that in requitall of what thou hast done for me I may keep thee company in thy sufferings And then we quit all discourses thinking we have no understanding at all left and looking on our sweet Saviour only by Faith which hath this property says S. Thomas to S. Tho. of Aquin. elevate the soul to God and free it from all creatures For so long as there are discourses in our Understanding images in our Memory joys or tenderness in our Will these powers have not pure God but sensible things for their object because God being above all sensibility must bee found without all creatures and consequently if we can be totally abstracted from all things created we shall infallibly lay hold on our Creator 'T is therefore impossible say's St. Denys the divine S. Denys to be truly united to God unlesse we leave all materiall operations both in sense and in spirit that is unlesse wee lay aside all senses all discourses all imaginations and all waies of humane wisdome Till wee can doe this let us not think to become perfect Contemplatives The twelfth Maxim That our Memories must bee setled in pure Hope WHich is done by forgetting all things created heaven earth our selves all being wholly taken up with God and absorpt in the Divinity So that by a simple remembrance that we are with God without looking back to reiterate the same reflexion we repose and slumber sweetly in him staying upon no image whatsoever even of our Saviour himself for as he in as much as concerns his humanity call'd Joh. 14. 6. himself the way so he thereby insinuated that we were not to remain in the way but to march on to our ways end which is his Divinity No mervail then if we find in The doctrine of mystâ—call Divines explicated the prescripts of mysticall Divines this doctrine That to arrive at the height of Contemplation we must leave off all sort of Meditation though it be on the life and death of our Lord and Saviour because in all Meditation there is ever something that is sensible to which nature applying it self hinders our souls from soaring up to the fineness and quintessence of Contemplation which is and can be only a pure spirituall and insensible thing 'T is true that the consideration of the life and death of our loving Saviour is a most powerfull means to mount up to this contemplation of his Divinity but let us not make that the end which is but the means and way to it The thirteenth Maxim That our Wills must be setled in pure Charity THis is done by withdrawing it from all sort of Joy proceeding from any natural supernatural or moral good Joy is a certain content which our wils take in somthing we prize How all Joy is to be quitted and this Joy is either Active when we may leave it or Passive when it is not in our power to quit it Now to take Joy and content in naturall goods as health wealth friends c. Or wit sagacity discretion c. Is a plain vanity To joy in moral goods as in the exercise of vertue c. Is to imitate the Pagan Philosophers who lov'd vertue for vertu's sake and made that their end which is only our way to it Supernaturall goods are either the gratuite gifts of God
militant and triumphant as far as God shall please and we need Next that we intend to pray for all and especially for them who have desired it or to whom we stand any way ingaged as we do for our selves And this without any personall reflexion is more profitable to our friends and less prejudiciall to our selves All which is to be understood when no peculiar promise occasion or circumstance induceth a speciall obligation and performance The eighteenth Maxim That all vertues are best practised by addicting our selves to Contemplation or this internal Exercise of Recollection THe chief way to practise vertue and prevent temptations is not by a direct and formall reflexion upon them which imprints images in the soul and averts her from attending purely to God in her interiour But by a vertuous and vigorous The practice of all vertues in contemplation binding of her will to God for being thus seriously and sweetly intent to him only she can by a happy disdain forget and pass over or through all occurring dâ—fficulties and so behave her self orderly and discreetly as to content both God and man Now that all vertues in particular are thus most excellently practised it appears first in Faith Whereof Of Faâ—th we are taught to make a lively Act in the entrance to this exercise And what way can this vertue be more heroically put in use than to have our souls lifted above all sensible objects all discourse all humane wisdom Hope is here practised for we Hope ly prostrate at Gods feet as poor beggers hoping to obtain his grace in order to the performance of his Will and expecting all good from his meer mercy Here also our Love is exercised Charity because our Will covets nothing but to content our Creator and rests separated from all that is not himself for the sole love of him Here is the practâ—ce of perfect Resignation Resignation for we wish neither quiet nor disquiet glory nor infamy pleasure nor pain but only the fulfilling of Gods Will and a desire to be left in what state he best likes Patience must be here necessaâ—ily Patience practised in respect of the crosses and contradictions suggested by So called by Thaulerus sensuality in this afflicting exercise All sin is here destroyed For that is an aversion from our Creator and a conversion to creatures but Destruction of sin here by means of perfect Faith we remain as it were agglutinated to God and governed by his inward grace which stills all outward motions stifles all concupiscences and makes us unknowing and forgetfull of our selves and all things created As for Mortification it is here Mortification S. Greg. the great practised in a high degree For he that tasts the sweets of the Spirit growes soon disgusted with all carnal delights here the flesh is totally supplanted and the senses quieted for the eyes see no outward object rhe ears attend to no noyse rhe tongue remains silent the understanding contemns all curiosities the memory drawes a curtain over all images the will is disingag'd from willing or nilling any thing finally here is an entire destruction of all sensuality Obedience is perfectly practised Obedience because the wings of discourse are clip'd and the understanding captivated by Faith Humility can no where more Humility appear than when a soul is so annihilated as to trust neither little nor much to her-self O Rich nothing What spirituall mines what Masses of treasures doth a soul find that hath thus happily lost her self in her loving Lord Adoration sacrifice devotion and Adoration and al acts of Religion all acts of Religion are here effectually practised in a word if we wil be perfect sayes Thaulerus we must learn this abstraction that is this suspension of discourse and silencing all the workings of Fancie understanding memory will leaving our souls to the absolute conduct of our Loving Lord according to the doctrine here delivered which is the short and secure way to make all our actions divine and celestiall Some examples for the practice of this divine way of Prayer 1. Receiving the Blessed Sacrament Examples How to communicate I say to my heavenly guest My God make me partaker of these sacred mysteries that my soul may enjoy the effects for which they were by you instituted Then being secured by my act of Faith that I have received his body blood soul divinity c. I settle my self in this holy idlenesse and abstraction before described and remain silent and recollected hearkning what my dear Lord will speak within me 2. So when I have taken some point of my Saviours Passion for How to pray the subject of my prayer I say O my Lord communicate to my soul what you endured in this mystery to the end she may enjoy those effects for which you suffer'd it c. 3. In like manner when I goe to How to take our rest take my rest I say Silence my soul for our God is here present with us and within us and in this verity Recollecting my self in him I rest all night in prayer or at least my Lord allows it me as if I did because my soul covets to continue in the same happy abstraction recollection and annihilation during the whole time of sleep 4. Thus a vertuous introverted And doe all things to God's glory 1 Thessal 5. 17. and recollected soul doing what lys in her to rest alwaies in her Centre which is God may follow and fulfill the Apostles counsel which is to pray continually and doe all things even her naturall and necessary actions of eating drinking sleeping c. to Gods glory and these pure desires and intentions render them all meritorious Some further advices for the practice of this pure Prayer 1. Before we thus recollect our selves in God we may make what The first advâ—ce acts we please but after wee are entred into it we are to remain still quiet silent insensible unmoveable as a stock to be fashioned or a stone to be carved according to the heavenly workmans design we must leave our selves entirely to be moved and managed as best likes our great Master who both knows what bee our necessities and how and when to supply them 2. We must take speciall notice The second advâ—ce That as all Arts have their proper tearms So this sacred science of Mystical Divinity hath its peculiar phrases and expressions Divine matters may not bee handled according to the manner and method of School subtilties but are to be represented only with simplicity piety and a holy liberty of words which Contemplatives make use of without metaphysicall questions and arguments When therefore we find in St. How to understand mysticall writers Bonaventure Eschius Thaulerus Rusbrochius Blosius and others That a soul divinely and intimately united to God doth clearly see and experience what shee obscurely beleeved by faith we are not to infer Read
Cisnâ—rius ch 29. that shee therefore loseth her faith in this life for this Mysticall experience takes not away our faith but fortifies comforts anâ— clears it So when it is usually said bâ— these spirituall writers That sucâ— a degree of Contemplation of vertue or of pure love is the very tâ— of perfection It is not meant thaâ— a soul which is ascended thither can climb no higher in this heâ— exile for that highest degree oâ— perfection hath a latitude of many degrees of grace whereby a soul may still encrease in sanctity and ascend each moment to a nearer vicinity with her Creator When likewise we meet with this doctrine A soul arrived at Union and Transformation carries her self passively she acts not but suffers God doth all within her c. We are to understand that such a soul doth very little or nothing in comparison of what she did in her former discoursive exercises because she here in this state finds all done in an instant and therefore leaves those painfull employments to repose sweetly in a kind of holy idlenesse of Contemplation and Union with God which pacifies all her senses silences all discourses and lulls all her powers asleep with his charning love and ravishing presence All which notwithstanding she remains still here actually loving and looking on her Lord and consequently is not totally idle but is in cooperation with his grace In this sense St. Denys said The S. Denys Ch. 7. de div nom Soul of Blessed Hierotheus was heightned to such a Union with God that it sufferd more than it acted because in this passive contemplation the soul follows not her accustomed operations as wee see our Understanding works not so much when it receives its aliment from a higher knowledge as when it gets it by constrained and laborious discourse nor our Will in like sort which commonly follows the motives proposed by the Understanding to which it is united The 3. advice of the practice of â—aith Hope and Charity 3. That which is most important in this exercise of Recollection is the practice of Faith Hopâ— and Charity For by the Act of Faith all our knowledge is annihilated by the act of Hope all ouâ— worth is evacuated in denying ouâ— own forces and relying meerly oâ— Gods assistance by the act of Charity all our wills and affections which are not God in God for God are abandoned So that by these three Acts the whole maâ— is drowned suppressed stifled and consequently our enemy the Devil finds nothing at all to lay hold on nor any way open for his entrance into our annihilated hearts but is constrained to return alwaies foiled and ashamed of his ineffectuall efforts 4. Beginners in this exercise The fourth advice For Beginners must vigorously apply themselves unto it for some time till use and experience fashion them into a habit of recollection they must therefore in the first place carefully cleanse their interiour from all objects whatsoever and then lock up themselves wiâ—h God in this inward retreat for as in vain wee shut our dores and windows if the thief bee already hid in our house so the closing of our senses from exteriour objects furthers little or nothing if in our interiour there lurks any thing which is not God 5. In all our vocall and mentall The fifth advice of our attention to God devotions our chief aym must be Attention to God There are three sorts of attentions 1. To the words which is good 2. To the sense which is better 3. To God who is the only end of all our prayer which is best of all Let our S. Tho. 2. 2. q. 83. a. 13. thoughts therefore abstract from all created objects though never so good and fix stedfastly upon the increated and essentiall goodness This is the main thing wee must aspire to during the whole course of our life not only in our prayers but in all our practices To bee more attentive to our Lord and love than to the action we have in hand This is the Philosophy of perfect lovers to live more truly where they love than where they breath 6. It is not here intended by The sixt advice the precedent doctrine that a soul should not at all meditate upon the That from Meditation we must rise to Contemplation subject or theame of her prayer nor chew it first by attentively considering it No this is not disswaded but counselled Only we add thâ— assoon as affections are sufficientâ— kindled and that our elevated souâ— can procure to put themselves upon the aforesaid abstraction recollection and contemplation they presently embrace it and leave off all discourses which are proper for Schools Sermons not for Prayer and Contemplation It sufficeth us therefore to remember the mystery apprehend it throughly imprint it deeply in our hearts and then to observe the prescribed order For when one hath sufficiently heard and understood what can be said for his good he needs neither hear nor speak more of it but presently fall to practise In this case to hearken after new things seems more tending to satisfy curiosity than to the increase of inward vertue as he that eats before he hath disgested his former meals nourisheth bad humours but nothing betters his own bodily strength 7. When therefore any distinct The 7. advice That we must stay upon no objects or images notions forms or images intrude themselves into our memories let us not stay in them but return amorously to our Lord present within us think no more of all those varieties than is absolutely necessary for the knowledge and performance of our duties The best way therefore to increase our inward strength of spirit is to work couragiously and suffer patiently in silence and solitude forgetting all creatures unkowing all objects transcending all humane events and accidents What though the whole world perished though the frame of heaven and earth were dissolved What is that to tâ—ee follow thou thy Lord and love For indeed he that hath his mind diverted and The 8. advice How God is to be proposed to our understanding in an eminent and Negatâ—ve way distracted with such fancies in prayer is little attentive to Gods presence 8. As concerning our Vnderstanding and Will We are to take notice that when the Vnderstanding proposeth God to the Will as just wise powerfull or under anâ— particular attribute the Will is elevated by that sight alone and so that act of love is limited lock'â— up and less perfect than if God were proposed under a most eminent way and as the supream being surpassing infinitly all that can fall within the verge of humane conceptions in this life Though therefore the Vnderstanding may and can propose some positive and particular conception of God to the Will yet it is far better and of higher perfection to do it in common confusedly and negatively for our truest knowledge of God S. Greg. the great l. 5. moral