all pollution from them like as the Sun shineth upon a dunghil without taint or imperfection Simplicity quitted him from all multiplicity engagements reflections upon his own Interest Complacencies Vanity passion of Joy or Sadness from any of his own Performances or Speeches from Praise or Dispraise or from the Vices of the Times Places or Persons he conversed with to receive any pollution from them no otherwise than a new-born childe beholdeth a Pageantry which passeth before it which is forgotten as soon as removed Lastly Purity directed his eye in a straight line to God pretending to nothing but his glory in any thing that man had a hand in And this proceeding of his all ought to imitate if they desire to make progress in Vertue and arrive to perfection and particularly those that treat much with their neighbour in the negotiation of his salvation that they may do it with more advantage to him and with no damage to themselves PART IV. His Vertues whereby he was elevated and united to God CHAP. 1. His Interiour and his Application to the Sacred Trinity ALthough what we have hitherto said of the Heroick Vertues and famous Actions of Monsieur Renty which had respect either to his own perfection or the good of his neighbour is very remarkable Yet the principal and more admirable is that which remains viz. The state of his Interiour and his communication with God So David saith that the Kings-daughter is all glorious within and the Holy Ghost setteth forth in lofty expressions the Spouse in the Canticles for the beauty of her face and of her whole body But it addes that nothing could sufficiently be uttered concerning the hidden graces of her Soul and Interiour which were far more charming and attractive even as the chief excellencies of our B. Saviour consisted not in his Exteriour or in those things he did either for himself or for men but in the intimate union he had with God and those actions he produced in the profundity of his Spirit towards him In like manner our perfection consists not in our good works which appear outwardly nor in the exercises of Charity Humility Poverty and the like Vertues open to the eye but in the application of our spirit to God and our union with him by the acts of vertue and chiefly of the three Theological ones It consisteth I say in honouring and adoring him in the Temple of our souls in performing to him there the Sacrifices of a lively Faith upon the Altar of our Understanding in offering up the Holocausts of perfect Hope and ardent Charity upon the Altar of our Will and in a total subjection of our spirits to his and an union of all our faculties with him whereby we become purified sanctified and deified proportionably as the blessed Saints are in heaven where this perfection is compleated This was Monsieur Renties practice whereby he had a true feeling of S. Pauls words Your life is hid with God through Jesus Christ concerning which he expressed his thoughts thus to a friend There is nothing in this world so separate from the world as God and the greater the Saints are the greater is their retirement into him This our Saviour taught us whilst he lived on earth being in all his visible employments united to God and retired into the bosom of his Father His principal care was incessantly to cultivate and adorn his soul to unite it intimately to God by the operations of his understanding and will to give up himself with all his strength to this hidden and divine life of Faith Hope and Charity of Religion of a mystical Death and entire Abnegation of himself Some years before his death his particular attractive was the contemplation of the B. Trinity being the last end in which all must terminate Whereof he gave this account to his Spiritual Guide in the year 1645. I carry about with me ordinarily an experimental verity and a plenitude of the presence of the Holy Trinity And in another Letter thus All things vanish out of my fancy as soon as they appear nothing is permanent in me but God through a naked faith which causing me to resign my self up to my Saviour affordeth me strength and confidence in God the Trinity in that the operation of the three Divine persons is manifested to me in a distinct manner viz. The love of the Father which reconcileth us by his Son the Father and the Son who give us life through the Holy Spirit the H. Spirit which causeth us to live in in Communion with Jesus Christ which worketh in us a marvellous alliance with the Sacred Trinity and produceth often in our hearts by faith such inward feelings as cannot be expressed He writ also to a confident friend and one that was much devoted to this Sacred Mysterie How that the proper and special effect of Christian grace is to make us know God in the Trinity uniting us to the Son who causeth us to work by his Spirit And to say the truth we are consecrated by our Baptism to the worship of the B. Trinity Therein we are consecrated to his Glory receive its Seal and put on its Badge and Livery to manifest to us and to all the world that we are perfectly and absolutely its own He writ to the same party in the year 1648. on the same subject The Feast of the blessed Trinity giveth me this occasion to write that we may renew our selves in the honour and dependance we have upon this incomparable Mysterie I desire to joyn hearts with you to adore that which we are not able to express Let us melt into an acknowledgement thereof and foâ—tifie our selves by the grace of Faith through Christ to be perfected in this adorable Mysterie Infinite things might be spoken which my heart resenteth of the latitude of this grace but I cannot utter them I beseech you let us adore God let us adore Jesus Christ let us adore the holy Spirit which Spirit discovereth unto us the operations of love and mercy of these Divine Persons in us and let us make good use thereof The same year he clearly expressed his condition and the manner of wholly applying himself â—oâ—th Sacred Trinity how that his soul was most entirele united to the three Divine Persons from whence he received illuminations that surpassed all humane understanding how he lived perpetually retired and locked up as it were with the Son of God in the bosom of his Father Where this Son became his Light his Life and Love and the holy Spirit his Guide his Sanctification and Perfection how he did bear within himself the Kingdom of God which he explained by a resemblance of what the Blessed enjoy in heaven by vertue of that view and transcendent knowledge of the sacred Trinity which was communicated to him and that pure Love by which he felt his heart inflamed and as it were transformed into God in whom he possessed a joy and repose beyond all expression That
the more he may make you grow in the holy use of your suffering to accomplish perfectly in your person what S. Paul saith Absit mihi gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi God forbid that I should glory in any thing save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ I assure you it is a great shame to a Christian to pass his days in this world more at ease than Jesus Christ here passed his Ah! had we but a little faith what repose could we take out of the Cross But if all have not this grace how much ought they to whom it is given to cherish it seeing it is a mark of the high degree of glory that they one day shall possess for who doubts but that in proportion as we shall be conformed to the death of the Son of God and to his pain we shall in the same degree be to his glory and receive the recompence thereof in bliss And afterwards teaching him the way of well-suffering he gives him this advice which contains all the secret But the beauty of suffering is in the interior in the holy dispositions of Jesus Christ who is and it is a thing to be well marked and always studied as well the model as the head of all sufferers And to another out of the same thought he said It is a great favour to suffer All the worlds deceiv'd supposing this a common favour it is very rare It is true we may say that many suffer but of them there are very few that suffer in the dispositions of Jesus Christ very few which suffer with a perfect resignment to what God ordains concerning them very few without some inquietude and dwelling in their thoughts upon their pressures few that give up all events to the conduct of God without making reflection thereupon for to employ themselves entirely in his praise and to give way by our acquiescence and submission for him to exercise all his rights and power over us He fortifies and encourageth in this sort a Lady much in pain Few understand the secret of Christianity many call themselves Christians and few have the spirit thereof many in their prayers and ordinary affairs look up to heaven but in their important actions they are children of nature not looking but on the earth whence if they life up their eyes to heaven it is but to complain and pray him to condescend to their desires and not to shew their acceptance of his They give some small things to God but will retain those which their love ties them to and if he separate them from them it is a violence and a dismembring which he must make and to which they cannot consent as though the life of Christians were not a life of sacrifice and an Imitation of Jesus Christ crucified God who knows our wretchedness takes from us for our greater good the cause of our evil a Parent a Childe a Husband that he may by another evil which is affliction draw us to himself and make us see that all these alliances and connexions to whatsoever it be that separates us from him are so many obstacles of so great importance that one day in the face of all the creatures we shall confess that the greatest mercy that he ever did us was to free us of them It is a wormwood-bitter onely to the mouth and taste but wholesome to the heart kills the old Adam to make alive in us Jesus Christ it is a great winter which is the assurance of the beauty of the other seasons But we must beware that what is given us out of favour we take not as a thing by chance or a misfortune for this would be to turn the remedy into poyson and to receive the grace to chase it away Let us enter into the holy and adorable disposition which was always in Jesus Christ to suffer willingly for the honour of his Father and for our salvation Is not this a strange thing that men knowing that the way which Jesus Christ past thorow to glory was ignominy pain and the cross yet they that call themselves his disciples and followers should expect and beg of him for themselves another way to walk in Is the Disciple greater than the Master and if the head willingly passed that way what remains for the members ought not they to follow him Let us therefore go after him and suffer after his model Blessed be sickness the loss of honour of riches of goods and of the nearest things and the separation from all creatures which hold us bowed towards the earth if it set us streight and make us lift up our eyes to heaven and to enter into the designs that God hath over us Blessed be the plague the war and the famine and generally all the scourges of God which produce these effects of grace and salvation in us I conclude in these words which he sent to another person While we live here it is our season of patience where faith and hope would be unprofitable if all were clear and nothing caused us to suffer It is in the obscurity of this desertion and in all the sorts of tryals as well from within as without that those vertues are established in our souls and that they make us hope wall of our salvation SECT 2. His Domestick crosses THe greatest exercise of patience that Monsieur Renty ever had in all his life was that which was given him by the Lady his Mother who whether she were angry that he was so forward in devotion always among Prisons always among Hospitals always employed in actions low and abject in the eyes of the world far beneath as she thought his birth and that she should have been glad to see him in glistering and glorious employments wherein his Ancestors had appeared or were it that she was pushed thereto by some evil counsel or otherways So it was that she gave him and for a long time matter of suffering and one may say that as she contributed much to the making him man so she contributed much to the making him a perfect Christian The case was thus The Lady pretending to great rights in the goods which her deceased husband had bequeathed to her Son did demand the same of him who with great submission and respect gave her all that he believed was her due and over and above but she not content therewith demanded more which her son finding by advice of learned Counsel that it could not be done without wrong to his children did remit the business to Arbitrators and agreed for the satisfaction of his mother that she should chose them all as she pleased persons of ability and honesty of her acquaintance and such as he knew not at all to determine what he might give her without prejudice to his conscience When they were chosen he went to finde them out and prayed them to content the Lady his mother in every thing that might lawfully be done without having
so powerfully supported in it and it made so easie to her by that Divine assistance and fall upon another that is likely to prove difficult for want of the same assistance Whence we may conclude that we ought not to change our exercise of Piety so long as God supplies us with sufficient grace to attend it The second is that we should reiterate many actof the same vertue as of Faith Hope Love or which is better continue and hold on the same act thus to acquire a rooting and establishment of these vertues which is not gotten but by vigoâ—ous and effectual reiteration of their acts as a nail is not driven up to the head with one blow but must be strucken hard and often And so it is with vertues whose force and sound profit consists in their having a well-rooted and grounded possession of the soul whereas they are worth little or nothing till they are habituated therein even as the tree brings forth neither leaves nor fruits until it hath taken deep rooting The same thing is to be done for any moral conclusions which are drawn from these acts that is to double and redouble them till they be fixed and made effectual as for example after some repeated acts of Faith that God is your first Principle and that of your self you are nothing and that all your hope is in him and our Saviour say with your self once twice and twenty times over with affection and a quiet but vigorous application if I believe this great truth of God and my self why do I attribute any thing to my self why do I not humble and abase my self under him why do I not love him upon whom all my good depends why do I not look upon my self and all creatures in the world as nothing If I hope in God and my Saviour why then do I fear any thing else is not here ground enough to live with confidence and joy what is he that can molest or trouble me Live then O my soul in tranquillity and repose as this same hope doth oblige thee These acts thus redoubled and repeated with constancy and vigour will without doubt produce great effects in the soul which is the fruit that this Prayer of Affection should bring forth Herein did Monsieur Renty exercise himself for many years reaping thereby an inestimable treasure of spiritual riches This Prayer saith he in one of his Papers is not by discourse and reasoning but by a loyal love tending always to give more than to receive The obscurity of Faith is of greater evidence to the soul than all the illuminations she can procureâ— which faith she ought to use with Reverence and Thanksgiving not with Complacency or Affectation Here needs no stretch of the Spirit this Prayer never offends the brain this is a state of modest deportment in which the soul keeps herself in the presence of God expecting what his spirit shall please to infuse into us which we receive in simplicity and in considence as if himself spake to us The ordinary dispositions with which he entred into this Prayer were first A profound Reverence and an abasing of himself in Gods presence whose infinite Majeste held him in a deep sense of his own meanness saying that we ought to consider our selves before it as little and less than the smallest Atomes Secondly A strong and absolute Confidence in his Infinite Goodness and Mercy which bearing up his Humility and the sense he had of his own vileness made him still hope all things He exhorted all of his acquaintance that were capable of it to use this kinde of Prayer as the most excellent profitable and easie of all others since it puts not a man to the labor to consider nor penetrate into or discourse of any subject but is easie for all sorts but chiefly for the unlearned who herein have need of no more but a simple belief applying themselves thereto with Affection He counselled men to give themselves more to the operations of the will than the speculations of the understanding and that place of S Paul to Titus where he exhorts us to live in sobriety he expounded of the sobriety of the senses and chiefly of that of the Spirit to cut off in our prayers multiplicity of notions and discourse and to proceed therein by Faith In effect the mysterie of faith is incomparably transcendent above all the Science and Discourse of the most quaint and sublime wits for as every thing is but visible by his own light a Torch by his and the Sun by the Sun things of glory by the light of glory so those of grace by the light of grace whereof the most perfect without doubt is that of Faith Reason is bestowed upon us for the discovery of natuâ—al things and Faith for Supernatural and Divine With men we discourse by Reason and with God by Faith and since God is at an infinite distance above man and Grace above Nature we may well conclude that Humane discourse of the finest thâ—ed is too heavy for that high pitch which can soar no further than natural Reason can conduct it Moreover whatsoever notions we have in this world of God and things spiritual they are in some degree deceitful and false not representing things as they are really since our spirit conceives nothing here below but what hath passed thorow the senses where spiritual things are refracted and receive much earth and come to us distorted and disguised But it is Faith alone that represents them in their real entities There are but two indubitable lights on which we may relie and which surpass all others in excellency which sanctifie and deifie our understanding elevating it to its first principle and oâ—iginal of all verity which is the Divine Intellect that is to say the light of Faith here and the light of glory hereafter These two being participations of that knowledge which God himself hath which demonstrates the dignity and perfection of Affective Prayer which quitting Discourse proceeds by Faith Neither did he make long stay upon the former way of Prayer but passed on further ascending to that of Union and Contemplation which was bestowed upon him in a very high degree Holy men speaking of this Contemplation the sublimest degree of Prayer here upon earth make thereof two sorts Acquisite and Infused The latter is that which God alone produceth in the soul to which she contributes nothing but a simple consent to receive his operation which is also called Contemplation Passive The former is that which man assisted by Gods grace may acquire by his own labour and exercise by his own industry and is therefore called Active The Infused hath so absolute a dependence upon God that it s given when and to whom he pleaseth who also takes it away which we cannot hinder no more than all the men in the world with all their strength put together can stay the Sun from rising and setting But all are in some measure capable of
these are the very slaves of the Devil and enemies of God even the greatest Kings and Monarchs of the Universe according to the estimate that truth it self makes of them ignoble and infamous whereas the other is a servant friend and child of God whose service is perfect freedom how much more honourable and glorious are the Saints and the Persons of such heroick Vertue because they possess such justice and vertue in a more high degree have a greater abundance of gifts and graces partake more fully the perfections of God are more lively images of him and enjoy a neerer alliance and resemblance with our Saviour Jesus Christ and are his richest conquests and his choicest workmanship Tertullian considering Job in the thickest of his bad news posting from all quarters in the height of his afflictions and most sensible pains free from all impatience and murmuring not opposing the least word or repining thought against Gods sacred counsels but continually blessing God for all and looking upon him fallen from the height of happiness upon his dunghill where he lay stripped of all but sores and scabs spread from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot enduring all this extremity with invincible patience he breaks forth into this expression Quale in illo viro feretrum Deus de Diabolo extruxit quale vexillum de in mico gloriae suae extulit cum ille homo ad omnem acerbum nuncium nihil ex ore promeret nisi Deo gratias What a Trophie hath God erected to his own honour in the person of Job by his patience able to encounter the Devil what a Banner hath he set up what a Victory hath he obtained by him over that enemy of his glory These words and considerations are applicable to all his Saints of whom we may say that they are the great procurers of his honour and by their Faith Hope Charity Patience Fortitude Humility Obedience Chastity and other Vertues like so many high-sounding Trumpets do make the earth echo with his praises We ought therefore to have a high esteem of all the Saints and persons of signal Vertue we are obliged to a particular veneration of them praising and loving and honouring them and our Saviour Christ in them and for them for undoubtedly Mirabilis in Sanctis Deus as David saith God is most admirable and to be praised loved and feared in his Saints We ought to admire his power in their miracles the might of his grace in their heroick actions we ought to hope in his mercy on the consideration of those happy changes he wrought in them and to fear his justice when we consider those severe chastisements which he inflicted upon their smallest faults and love his bounty and goodness in those demonstrations of his mercy and benignity which he hath shewed to them Where it is to be observed that as we are not to credit lightly all that is said or written of their Visions Revelations and extraordinary graces and favours which God hath bestowed on his Saints when not approved and authorized by the judgement of his Churâ—h because herein a man may easily be deceived and the Devil much craftier than we knowing our cuâ—ious and ambitious nature apt to be taken with sublime novelties can disguise himself in several shapes and be transformed as saith S. Paul into an Angel of light So neither on the other side ought we to be too incredulous or rash to condemn since it is certain that there ever have been and ever will be true miracles nor is it just for us to measure the power and goodness of God by our reason nor limit his bounty by the narrowness of our hearts Since the great mysteries of the Incarnation and of the H. Eucharist together with what God hath wrought in the beginning and continues working every day for man whereof we can raise no doubt there is nothing that can seem incredible in the Graces and favours of God communicated to a soul since nothing herein can be paralell'd with the former Our Saviour testifies greater love to weak man giving himself to him more miraculously and in a more transcendent manner in one Communion than he ever manifested to all his Saints in those extraordinary Communications of his graces and favours to them Moreover what bounty what compassion and tenderness did he exercise towards men whilst he lived amongst them What did he not for them in his life what did he not suffer for them at his Death after his glorious Resurrection when he was in a condition so far above them what familarity and intimacy did he shew to his Disciples visiting them frequently disguised in divers shapes appearing visibly to them appointing several meetings with them talking lovingly with them suffering them to touch him and eating with them These familiarities are very wonderful and withal very certain we may truly affirm that the love of God to mankinde and particularly to pure and innocent souls is unconceiveable Cum simplicibus sermocinatâ—o ejus His Secret is with the righteous We see how Fathers though never so grave and ancient delight themselves in their children even often to play with them insomuch that that renowned great Captain and King of Sparta Agesilaâ—s surprized by a friend riding upon a stick with his little son and observing him astonished at the action asked Whether he had any children Who answered No. Then said Agesilaus wonder not at what I do you must be a father to be capable of these tendernesses and to come to these forgettings of your self We must not therefore think it strange if God who is truly a Father to mankinde and so far transcends in paternal affection all others that in comparison of him they deserve not the name of Fathers hath such tender bowels and amorous affections to the Saints who are his dearest children which he expressed often with unconceiveable intimacies and caresses that whoso will judge of the reality of them must first be possessed with the same love that God bears in his eternal bosom some glimpse whereof we may conceive by considering the embraces and kisses and welcomes that passed betwixt the Prodigal Son and his Father in the Gospel Luke 15.20 Here therefore according to the observation of the Ancients Ne quid nimus let there be nothing done too much let there be neither too much facility nor too much difficulty to believe what is said of the graces done by God to holy souls But let us balance our selves equally between the one and the other weighing and examining things in the scales of Divine Prudence not of Humane Reason And thus much for the first consideration as they relate to God Concerning the second as they relate to us Saint Gregory the great hath an excellent Note Homil. 34. in Evang where he saith That God hath not lighted more Torches in the heavens to guide and direct our steps on earth than he hath set us here below to conduct and shew us
do nourish our Humility suppress our Pride and inviteour Imitation But their faults divulged advance our Self-Conceit and breed Security Though for this Honourable Person you may presume no great faults or blemishes could dwell with so great Mortifications so many good Works such excessive Devotions and his Exteriour Holy Practises do sufficiently testifie a great purity of minde Amongst which Practises though perhaps some things may occur that to some Readers may give offence according to mens several Principles and Perswasion in Religion yet I thought it better doing the business onely of a Translator to let them alone than by cutting them out both to give occasion to those who allow such things to blame the omission and to those who disallow such things to suspect them to be more or of worse consequence than they are Especially when these may serve to provoke you whoever think your selves more illuminated to a Pious jealousie Whilst you consider that if he arrived to so high Christian Graces and Perfection supposed by you to be darkned with some Errours how much you ought sooner to attain the same as enjoying more truth and so proceed to employ your self not in scanning and disputing the things here disliked but in imitating those approved Lest perhaps Errour be said to bring forth more Piety than Truth and whilst you say you see your Sinne remain to you more unexcuseable THE AUTHOURS ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER MY dear Reader I am in a word or two to give you notice of three things concerning the Contents of this Book The first is that whereas truth is the principal part of History you may be confident that it is here exactly observed because whatsoever you shall finde here is almost all of it extracted out of the Originals and the rest out of Authentick Copies there where things were attested by such as were eye-witnesses and persons beyond exception The second is that though we often make use of Monsieur de Renty his own Letters as witnesses of what he was yet ought ye not at all therefore to suspect the truth of what they relate Because first his eminent vertue hath rendred him most creditable in every thing he said though it were of himself besides these his Letters are for the most part directed to his spiritual Guide to whom he did with much confidence unbosom the things belonging to his conscience and gave account as he was obliged of each thing that past in the interiour of his soul And God who best knows to chuse the fittest means to bring his ends about having designed the publishing of this life whereby to leave to all faithful men a patern of perfect a Christian did so dispose of things that this his Director dwelling for several years out of Paris he was obliged to acquaint him by Letters with his interiour dispositions they becoming by this means much more perfectly discovered unto us than any otherway they could And lastly we are indeed uncapable of knowing any thing of a mans interiour but by his own declaration and that which we understandin Saints of this nature which yet makes up the principal of their sanctity comes by no other way than their discovering and opening it to some one and he afterwards to the publike And therefore either Monsieur de Renty himself must have manifested the secrets of his heart and revealed what was hidden in his soul or he must have remained for ever lock'd up and unknown to us although assuredly neither thus hath all of him been by himself manifested or related The third thing is that being willing to obey the decree of our holy Father Urban the 8. dated the 1â— of March 1625. and that other in explanation of the former dated June 5. 1631. where it is ordered that those that publish the lives of any person of great vertue do declare and make protestations upon several heads I therefore protest that my intent and design in setting forth this work is that the matter thereof should be no otherwise understood than as grounded upon the testimony and faith of men and not upon the Authority of H. Church and that by the name of Saint which I several times attribute to Monsieur Renty I mean onely that he was endued with vertue far exceeding the common sort and do use this word onely in that sense that S. Paul gives it to all the faithful and not to put him in the number of Saints canonized which to do belongs onely to the Holy Sea A TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS AND SECTIONS PART I. CHAP. 1. HIs Birth Infancy and youth page 1. Chap. 2. His marriage and course of life to the age of 27 years page 10 Chap. 3. His entire change and call to high perfection page 17 Chap. 4. His vertues in general page 24 Chap. 5. The source from whence those vertues flowed page 30 PART II. Chap. 1. HIs Penances and Austerities 37 Chap. 2. His Poverty of spirit 47 Sect. 1. His outward Poverty 48 Chap. 3. His Humility 54 Sect. 1. His Humility of heart 58 Sect. 2. The pursuit of his Humility of heart 67 Sect. 3. His Humility in his words 77 Sect. 4. His Humility in his actions 75 Sect. 5. His love of a private and retired Life 84 Chap. 4. The disesteem he made of the world 88 Chap. 5. His partience 94 Sect. 1. A pursuit of the same subject 100 Sect. 2. His Domestick crosses 107 Chap. 6. His Mortification 112 PART III. Chap. 1. HIs application to our Saviour Jesus Christ in regard of his neighbour 121 Chap. 2. His Charitie to his Neighbours in generall 126 Sect. 1. His charity to the poor 133 Sect. 2. His charity to poor sick men 140 Sect. 3. More concerning the same charity and the success thereof 145 Sect. 4. His zeal for the salvation of his neighbour 150 Sect. 5. More of the same subject 154 Sect. 6. A continuation of the same subject 167 Sect. 7. Certain other qualities of his zeal 173 Sect. 8. Two other qualities of his zeal 179 Sect. 9. The success which God gave to his zeal 186 Sect. 10. His grace in assisting particularly certain choice souls 193 Sect. 11. His great skill in Interiour matters of the soul 199 Chap. 2. His outward behaviour and conversation 209 Chap. 3. The conduct of his business 215 Chap. 4. The excellent use he made of all things and the application he made to the Infancy of our Saviour for that purpose 228 Sect. 1. A pursuit of the same subject 235 PART IV. Chap. 1. HIs Interiour and his application to the Sacred Trinity 244 Chap. 2. His Faith 250 Chap. 3. His Hope 255 Chap. 4. His Love to God 259 Chap. 5. His great reverence and fear of God which wrought in him a wonderful purity of Conscience 271 Chap. 6. His great reverence to Holy things 276 Chap. 7. His Devotion to the Holy Sacrament 267 Chap. 8. His Prayer and Contemplation 292 Chap. 9. The state of his Mystical Death
Since God gave us a heart thereto we have brought others to have a hand in it and my Wife with two others bear their part in it imitating herein St. Mary Magdalen Joanna and Susanna of whom St. Luke saith that they followed our Saviour and his Disciples ministring with their substance for the preaching of the Kingdom of God We shall endeavour to perform this without noise or shew taking a private lodging apart for the purpose Be pleased my dear Father to be our Father and Guide and assist us in Autumne if you can to break the bread of life to those who with great humility desire it of you I beg of your Reverence with tears to give ear to our request who are touched with the necessities of our poor brethren and the love of Christ who desires to unite us together in one heart even his own that therein we may live in the presence of God My dear Father I commit this charge to your care it being onely in the power of his holy Spirit to render yours and the endeavours of other Fathers successful I trust he will hear us and that we shall see abundance of his mercies I attend your sense both for the thing and the time and in the mean time you may if you please keep the thing secret between us SECT 5. Of the same Subject WE have already declared how he kept correspondence all over France and elsewhere concerning great undertakings and important affairs for the glory of God and good of his neighbour He further obliged in all places as much as he could several persons to joyn together and assist one another in the work of their own and others salvation And procured Assemblies of Piety for divers uses of which he wrote thus in one of his Letters 1648. I am now returned from Burgundy where my journey hath been full of imployment in helping the setting up of several companies of men and women also who have a great zeal for Gods service In a Memorial from Caen we have these words Monsieur Renty hath settled here many Assemblies of devout persons whom he advertised to meet once a week and consult about relief of the poor and the preventing of offences against God which hath succeeded marvellously Moreover he advised divers Gentlemen of the Countrey to meet together from time to time to encourage one another in the way of Christianity and make a Profession against Duels He writ to a Superiour of one of the Missions in these words I was united in Spirit to you on Sunday last which I conceived to be the time of opening your Mission If you think I may be any way useful in forming some little body of Gentlemen and Societies in that City as we have already performed in little Villages and Towns I most humbly intreat you to believe that I shall imploy my utmost in it though haply I may do more hurt than good When he came to Amiens where I was the precious odour of his vertue and sanctity perfumed the whole City for in less than a fortnights space he performed so many and so great things in visiting Hospitals Prisons and poor people that were ashamed to beg with several other acts of Piety as were wonderful In two onely journeys which he made to that place parly as well by his example as by his Conversation and Advice he ingaged several considerable Citizens in these Exercises of Charity which they embraced with good courage and alacrity and have continued in the same inviolably It was his earnest desire and design to plant the Spirit of Christianity in all Families and to engage people of all conditions to serve God in good earnest having special care of their Conscience He desired to be able to instruct Fathers Mothers Children Masters Mistresses and Servants in their respective duries aiming herein at their mutual benefit seeing we can put little confidence in such who truly fear not God For he that once comes to falsifie his faith to his Soveraign Lord and Saviour will not stick as we may well believe where the interest of Honour Pleasure or Profit doth byass him to do as much to one who is but that Lords Servant Wherefore he endeavoured the planting of vertue in all as the best Promoter of the Service of God the Salvation of our souls and the common utility of all relations To which purpose he drew certain rules for Gentle men and persons of quality and likewise for Ladie and Gentlewomen Since those that are above others in place and dignity are seen at a further distance and their example makes a deeper impression of good or evil than that of the vulgar These I met with written by his own hand which deserve to be inserted here as a testimony of his zeal to do good to the Publique Certain Articles to minde all persons of quality of their Obligations to their Families their Tenants and in their †Lordships †For the better understanding of these Rules the Reader must know that the Lords in France have in several Mannors the power of Justice as well Criminal as Civil and for that purpose have their Judges and Subordinate Officers in their Courts THe first and most important obligation for the conduct of a family is good example without which the blessing of God cannot be expected It is therefore meet that all the Domesticks from the highest to the lowest give good example of modesty as well in the Church as in their particular Places and Offices that by the excellent harmony of their outward behaviour it may appear that God is the primum mobile within them For Officers 1. The Lord of the Mannor ought to inform himself Whether his Judges and other Subordinate Officers belonging to his Courts behave themselves well in their places and he ought to procure for this information and redress of what is amiss persons of known ability and integrity 2. He ought to examine with prudence and privacy what complaints shall be made by the people of injustice or bribery 3. Whether they observe the Rules and Laws of his Court. 4. Whether they frequent Taverns on Sundays and Holidays or in time of Divine Service 5. Whether they observe the Precepts of the Church in forbearing to travel and work on those days without real necessity 6. Whether they punish publique crimes as Blasphemy Usury c. and whether the Laws be put in execution against Drunkards Fornicators and Oppressors of the poor Whether they banish lewd women who procure manies ruine and cause so much mischief 7. Whether there be any such Libertines who scoff at Religion and Priests or eat flesh on days prohibited 8. If some notoriously wicked person be found in the Lordship it will be convenient to begin with him if it may be that the rest may understand that no quarter is to be given to vice and that it may appear to all the world with what firm resolution you proceed in what opposition to Libertines
in this estate he had a conformity with the Son of God by a participation and fellowship both in his Beatitude and Sufferings which he endured here below and that by his holy Spirit were accomplished in him the mysteries of the whole Pilgrimage of our Saviour in this world rendring him as a daily sacrifice to the B. Trinity breathing after the Resurrection and his perfect Consummation in Glory Suâ—h was the disposition of this holy man towards the B. Trinity in which he passed his latter years and in which he dyed finishing his sacrifice and was often wont to say That when a man is call'd up hither he must abide there without any changing Being guided this way and treading these pathes he made an admirable progress to the highest pitch of perfection attainable in this life each Person in the sacred Trinity working in his soul wonderful impressions of grace sealing him with their particular characters and sanctifying him in an extraordinary manner The Father kept him alway retired and recollected in his own bosom where he bestowed upon him a large share of his own infinite inclination to communicate himself to others and of this blessed Celestial Fecundity in begetting children not of flesh and blood but of the Spirit enflaming his heart with a paternal and maternal love towards mankinde from whence did flow that unparalell'd charity whereof we have spoken The Son transformed him into a lively image of God through the resemblance of his own perfections bestowing on him a filial spirit to acquit himself towards him in all his endeavors with that singular reverence saith confidence love obedience as is required from a Son to a Father bringing him into such a condition as that God spake to him Interiourly producing in him his word accompanied with such power and strength as was able to touch mens souls and work in them the blessed fruits of salvation The Holy Ghost that infinite pure and reciprocal love of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father cleansed him from all the impurities of self-love and self-seeking enflamed him with a perfect love towards God taught him the way of spiritualizing all material things of sanctifying all indifferent things of extracting good out of all evil and finally of leading a life truly spiritual after the grand pattern of our Saviour This he expressed in brief in a Letter to his Director writ in the year 1647. The Divine goodness worketh in me that which I am not able to express I possess even the B. Trinity and finde distinctly in my self the operations of the three Divine Persons CHAP. 2. His Faith THe better to take this Spiritual Life in pieces we will begin with his Faith the prime Theological Vertue which Gulielmus Parisiensis calls the Primum Vivens of the soul and S. Paul the first step we make in our advance towards God This blessed man studied with particular care a solid foundation in this vertue knowing the incredible consequence thereof for a spiritual life and how all other vertues depend on it as on their Root their Rule and Measure O how good a thing saith he in one of his Letters is it to live of Faith I seem to understand this Vertue every day better and better Those that are established in this the life by which the just live according to S. Paul are at length compleated to Perfection and enjoy here the first fruits of glory He possessed this grace in so high a degree that he was more ascertained of the presence of God of the verity of the mysteries of our Faith than of the shining of the Sun He truly lived by Faith this was the path in which he walked working all by the spirit thereof Hereby he looked upon things not onely with his corporal eyes but with those that pierced deeper considering them not according to their present or past condition or the order of nature but their future and eternal according to their relation to grace and glory regarding nothing but as it was or might be a means of â—â—s own or others salvation All his works were performed by the hand of Faith which proves strong and effectual which more willingly handles Ulcers and the loathsome soars of poor people than gallants do Sattins or Velvets The pure and vigorous Faith of the primitive Christians said he caused them to act without those conveniences and necessaries which we stand upon which indeed argue the decay and weakness of Faith such heroick actions as we onely now admire these assuredly lived by Faith without any form and composition of their own proper spirit in great Simplicity Efficacy and Verity Being fortified by this Faith he was wont to say that he felt no difficulty at all when our Saviour sensibly deserted him for a time and sent him great aridities attributing all those inquietudes impatience and anxities which we labour under in this estate of privation to the want of this grace I have taken out of one of his Letters what he writ to this purpose We seldom meet with persons addicted to prayer that can behave themselves prudently under Interior derelictions or that can have patience to wait for some time at the door of sensible consolations and enlightnings without making a forcible entry that do not chafe themselves and cast this way and that way and seek by their own means to procure them seeking for another support than that of Faith which alone should suffice any spiritual man These sensible gusts are but sent as supplements of the littleness and cordials for the faintings of faith But the just should live by faith and upon that foundation rest himself in expectation of our Saviour with patience Our inconveniences arise from hence that we are a people of little faith to discern things by its light although we often pretend to know more than really we do To another he writ concerning this point upon the subject of the Centurions faith thus Where shall we meet with a Faith comparable to that of the Centurion Alas what a shame is this to our Spiritual persons who talk much of Faith but indeed have little more than the sound scarce any thing of the truth and effect thereof how few are there that can bear the afflictions of spirit or body with a naked Faith and such a simplicity as sooketh remedy onely from God and maketh use of patience when comfort doth not appear so soon as expected We all covet to enjoy Jesus Christ sensibly and that he would come to our houses to cure our anxieties And for want of these sensible comforts the Spirit runs and wanders on all hands seeking repose but findes it not because indeed it is not to be found in her action but onely in her sacrifice made in Faith which brings down the Spirit of Christ which is our strength and life in the midst of troubles and of death The Centurien was ashamed and confounded that Christ would come to his house
his Faith mounting far above these sensible signs Whereupon he is honoured with the name of a true believer and so propounded to us for a pattern Monsieur Renty being animated by this spirit of Faith made no reliance upon any thing that came to him by an extraordinary way resting neither upon Visions Revelations inward Motions or Miracles but soully upon a pure and naked Faith to carry him to God These following lines he writ to his Director touching a business of great importance I send you a Paper which I received three moneths since from a person of great vertue whom you know which she had kept for me not daring to trust it ith any others That which confirmeth me in the opinion I had of her solid vertue is that she never told me any thing to which I did not finde my self predisposed Interiourly This is as a seal to confirm my former resolutions concerning this without building any certainty upon the thing it self for we should be emptied of all reliance upon any thing and of all reflections following in simplicity of Faith without dispute that which our Saviour doth to the soul for the time present be it concerning this or that Going to Beaulne where Sister Margaret of the B. Sacrament resided famous for many miracles which God had wrought in her and a person very worthy to be visited he said That he would neither desire to see her nor speak with her onely if our Saviour should make known unto him that such was his will he would endeavour it otherwise he would not seek any occasion for it Another time being at Dijon when the blessed Sacrament was exposed some friends inviting him to draw near to the Altar he replyed That he had no need of sight for to believe and that his Faith went further than what his eyes could shew him Hereby we may understand the great Faith of this man of God and undoubtedly it was with her eyes that he beheld every thing and by her hands that he accomplished all his actions and ascended to such a perfection of all Vertues from whose example we may learn the directest way to attain thereto which is stedfastly to believe the verities of Christian Religion and be perfectly perswaded thereof As on the contrary the very source of all our sins and vices and generally of all the mischiefs in Christianity is the weakness of Faith whereby we are neither thorowly convinced of those sacred Mysteries nor guided in our affairs by the Rule of Faith It was our Saviours advice Noli timere tantummodo crede Fear not onely believe If thou believest firmly thou shalt be delivered from all evils and be accomplished in all vertue CHAP. 3. His Hope A Strong Faith by a moral necessity produceth a firm Hope and Charity A true belief in God what he is in himself and what he is to us will work in us a strong affiance in him and ardent charity towards him As appeared in Monsieur Renty who being well grounded upon a firm Faith in God had likewise an undaunted confidence in him and an inflamed affection to him This confidence was built upon the knowledge and experience of the Power Goodness Mercy and Bounty of God and of the infinite Merits of our Saviour And being grounded upon these two Pillars he hoped all things and believed that he could accomplish every thing He used to say that when he look'd at himself there was nothing so little wherein he apprehended not difficulty but when he look'd upon God he could think nothing impossible to himself And this distrust of himself was not a disheartned and Lazy Humility but couragious and magnanimous as is requisite in those who undertake things necessary though not conscious of any ability of their own for the performance He writ to a person concerning these two grand points which indeed ought to hold the ballance of all our actions even before God The diffidence you have in your self makes me very intent upon the good of such a condition and upon the sure foundation thereof which the Church desires we should ever conserve placing at the beginning of every hour of the Divine Office this Virsicle Deus in Adjutorium meum intende Domine ad adjuvandum me festina O Lord attend unto my help O Lord make haste to assist me Whereby we learn that the soul is in continual danger of a Precipice if not sustained by that infinite mercy which he is daily to invoke for her preservation from ruine And really we should continually fall if we were not continually supported therefore the Church hath divided her Office for the seaven parts of the day in that the number of seven comprehends all time the world being created under this number to teach us that we should at all times retain this Diffidence of our selves and Confidence in Gods assistance This Hope of his was so great that in all affairs he relyed not upon his own prudence conduct care credit providence or any humane contrivancies but on God alone saying That after we have done our duty with great Diffidence in our selves we ought to attend wholly on him and wait his time without pressing the business or entrenching upon his Prerogative And thus he writ to a friend As for my children I leave them in the hands of the Holy Infant Jesus without determining any thing concerning them not knowing what will befal to morrow He giveth me great confidence in his protection which renders me altogether blinde without wishing any thing but being ready for his will in every thing Guarded with this perfect confidence he feared nothing but remained firm and resolute against all accidents and encounters He walked securely in all places at all times in the streets in the fields by day and night travelling thorow Woods and Forrests that were bruted to be dangerous and frequented by Robbers without fear without other defensive weapons than what his confidence in God did arm him with carrying about him so much goodness he was above all those frights which nature is subject to not moved with sudden alarms or accidents so that we may call him The Christian without fear And to say the truth there is nothing deserves 〈◊〉 fear but sin since nothing else can hurt us all other things prove in fine advantagious if we make good use of them One day a scaffold on which he stood with the workmen erected about his building fell down and hurt some of them with which he was not amazed or moved at all for his own particular His spirit remained unmoveable and in the same constancy being firmly settled upon him that is not subject to a change or alteration A friend told him one day that he was fearful to walk in the evening without a sword in the streets of Paris and that he desired to be quit of that timerousness yet could not satisfie himself to be found unarmed in case of an assault intreating his advice in the business Who
told him that of a long time he had left off the use of a sword and that after he had commended the business to God by prayer he should follow his inspiration assuring himself that his protection over us is much according to our relying upon him These words were found in one of his Letters to his Director My soul being armed with Confidence Faith and Love fears neither the Devil nor Hell nor all the stratagems of man neither think I at all on Heaven or Earth but onely how to fulfil the will of God in every thing He hath been noted to do very notable things through the strength of this Vertue even at such times when he hath been afflicted with great aridities in his Interiour In our aridities and privation of the sense and feeling of grace saith he in a Letter to a friend is manifested an heroick abnegation of our selves to the will of God when under Hope believing against Hope we shew our selves to be true sons of Abraham Isaac shall not dye though the knife be at his throat and in case the true Isaac should in fine be crucified it is but to make us conformable to the Cross and cut of our ashes to raise us to a true and better life Thus likewise he writ to his Director I have a very clear insight into the great want I have of my Saviour him I behold in his riches and my self in my deep poverty him I look upon invironed iâ— power and my self in weakness whereby my spirit being filled with content by the impression of these words Quid est homo quod memor es ejus What is man that thou art mindeful of him doth rest upon a total abandoning of its self into his bounty These words Longanimiter ferens bearing patiently have dwelt longe upon my spirit though I did not at first remember whence they were taken or what they meant onely this that I must wait with patience for the commands and approach of my Saviour without putting my self forward by my own inquest or endeavours but rest with faith and reverence begging his grace and hope in him But a few days ago taking up the New Testament in opening the Book I did light upon the sixth Chapter to the Hebrews where the Apostle speaks of Faith and Patience whereby we obtain the promises qui fide patientia haereditabit promissiones who by faith and patience shall inheret the promises and to prove this brings in the example of Abraham sic longanimiter ferens adeptus est repromissionem and so waiting patiently obtained the promise This passage touched me to the very heart and relieved my languishing together with another passage of S. James which presented it self to my eye at the same time Patientes igitur estore fratres usque ad adventum Domini ecce agricola expectat preciosum fructum terrae patienter ferens Be patient therefore my brethren till the coming of our Lord behold the husbandman waiteth patiently till he receive the fruit of the earth Hereby I was settled in peace upon the solid foundation of Hope and Abnegation As this incomparable Vertue enricheth the soul that is perfectly stated in it with a profound repose a solid joy a wonderful courage and sets it aloft above all Terrestrial things with a generous contempt of whatsoever the world esteems and desires giving it a taste of the pleasures that are Eternal as it is not difficult for him that hath assured hopes of a glorious Kingdom to set at nought a Pad of straw so did it communicate to this holy man all these excellent treasures and imprinted in his soul all these noble reflections Whereby he was incited with all his strength to encourage others in the pursuit of this Vertue knowing by his own experience the inestimable benefits thereof understanding it to be our Lenitive in all disasters our staff and stay in all weaknesses and our secure haven in all tempests instructing them continually how that God to the end that he might drive us into this Port and cause us to rest in it doth frequently permit us to be assaulted with temptations and tryals the deeplier to engage us to have recourse to him begging his aid and succour and relying upon him with confidence The like instruction he gave to a certain person upon occasion of the Apostles amazement when they beheld our Saviour walking upon the waters and took him for a Chost Think you this was without a special providence that our Saviour suffered his Disciples to go alone into that ship and permitted a contrary winde to arise Who knows not that in the same manner he fashions the souls of the faithful by his absences and by their tryals that he may afterwards manifest his power upon the seas and tempests quickning thereby our Faith and shewing himself to be the Messias and true Deliverer of the world But observe we how many Christians in their sufferings are affrighted with the Apostles seeing our Saviour marching on the waters Every thing makes them afraid the winds the waves yea even Christ himself that is the anxiteies of their spirit their own disputings and also those good coursels that others give them for their establishment upon Christ Jesus before God All this appears but as a Ghost to amaze them unless Christ himself graciously appear yet more unto them to comfort and strengthen them Shall we always want confidence thus to think Christ a Phantasm Shall we not address our selves to him in all our necessities as to our Lord and Deliverer The Jews brought all their sick folks to him and he cured them What is he become a greater Physician of the body than of the soul No no our little Faith our little Love our little Confidence is the cause of our languishings and unfruitful anxieties of spirit Let us go strait to him and all will be cured CHAP. 4. His Love of God SEeing the Love of God is without contradiction the most excellent and perfect of all vertues and that which principally and above all the rest makes a man a Saint we cannot doubt that this holy man was possessed thereof in a very eminent degree and that he loved God with all his heart This Love he founded upon his infinite perfections and favours which may be perceived by what he writ to his Director in the year 1648. concerning this Queen of all Vertues Our Glorious Lord hath from time to time with his resplendent beams shone upon my soul quickning her therewith which have appeared in such several manners and have wrought such great things in a short time as would take up far more to write them which really I am afraid to undertake or begin They all concenter in this one point the love of God through Jesus Christ his communication of himself to us by the Incarnation of his Eternal Word and ours to him through the same Word becoming our brother conversing with us and erecting as it were a mutual society