alliance he hath contracted with us in Jesus Christ This knowledge produceth in me as much astonishment as love And to tell you my sense of it a man possessed with these verities remains no more a man but becomes annihilated and all his desire is to be lost and melted on purpose to change his nature and enter into this Spirit of Jesus to act no less in him than by him I have conceived such great things of our Saviours Humanity united to the Divinity as cannot be uttered How hath this alliance of the Divinity most deeply abased the sacred Humanity into a self-annihilation and a sacrifice of love upon the sight of the greatness of God What an honour is this to the Humane Nature to be thus predestinated and What a glory to us to be chosen and called to an entrance into his favour and a rising to God and the everlasting enjoyment thereof through him It would spend me this whole day to write to you the view that I have had of the wisdom and bounty of God touching this mysterie of Love which he hath opened unto us in his Son And though he was truly devoted to all the mysteries of our Lord yet in a most special manner to that of his Infancy The occasion whereof was thus Being constrained to make a journey to Dâ—jon by reason of a suit of Law beforementioned he heard much talk of Sister Margaret of the blessed Sacrament a Religious Carmeline of the Covent of Beaulne on whom our Saviour had conferred particular favours who led a life very extraordinary grounded upon true and solid vertue And as our Lord hath several ways to sanctifie a soul and fit it for his sacred purposes so he was pleased to exercise this choice woman absoluâ—ely in the mysterie of our Saviours Infancy and through that pipe to convey into her soul a torrent of grace and extraordinary gifts not onely for herself but others as may be seen in her life now in writing by a person most worthy of such a work Monsieur Renty had a desire to go to Beaulne being but seven leagues from Dijon to recommend himself to the prayers of this holy Virgin And though when he came thither he neither spake to her nor saw her she having by a particular conduct of our Saviour been retired for thirteen years from the speech of any secular person yet notwithstanding he received much benefit from his journey as he expressed in a Letter writ back from Dijon to the Prioress of that place I want words to express the mercies I received by my journey to Beaulne Sister Margaret hath marked me out in the holy Infant Jesus such a divesting of my self of all worldly things that it appears to me my rendezouz where I must strip my self naked of all things else The year after he made a second journey where God having altered her resolution for speech and converse with others he had the happiness to discourse with her and contracted at that time a very intimate alliance of grace receiving great gifts by means thereof The chiefest and source of all the rest being that our Saviour engaged him as he had done her in a more particular devotion to the mysterie of his Infancy and imprinted in him the lineaments of the like Graces and Spirit This holy man whose judgement may be highly esteemed by us considering his extraordinary insight into spiritual matters greatly valued this Religious woman approving exceedingly her directions and testifying how great a blessing he reckoned her acquaintance and what benefit he had reaped from her even after her death To which purpose he writ thus to me the eighteenth of June 1648. the year of her death The holy Infant sweet Jesus hath taken to himself our good Sister Margaret whose death was consonant to the dispositions of her life and miraculous graces I have received from her since her death great comfort That grace I reâ—eived according to my present estate and weakness to enter into the Infancy of our Saviour hath since been renewed to me and I have understood it more solidly About a moneth after I received these lines from him I had yesterday by the singular bounty of God a view of his Divine Majestie of S. John Baptist and Sister Margaret of the B. Sacrament so clearly represented to me in my spirit that I cannot suspect the truth of it O what effects were produced by their presence and what love by these sights I am wholly renewed in my respects to that great Saint my Patron and to that glorious servant of God who honoured him very much whilst she was living and from whom without doubt since her death she hath beggâ—d to be my Protector It is mâ—st certain that the work of God in her was one continued prodigie of grace and a master-piece of his hand But let us return to his application made to the Infancy of our Saviour chiefly begun in his second journey to Beaulne Of which we may understand something from this Letter written to a Father of the Oratory Confessor to the Carmelines there I must needs tell you that upon my first journey which I made to you above a year agoâ— I brought back with me a great esteem and devotion to the Infancy of our Saviour but I was not yet well settled in it I attempted it from time to time but could not yet make it my principal food Since which the holy Infant by a supernatural grace hath manifested and opened himself to me and now I finde every thing in him and am remitted thither for all And to the Prioress he writ thus I must acquaint you that the holy Infant Jesus will grant me the favour to apply my self pâ—rticularly to his honour to give my self to him and to his holy dispositâ—ons ordering my life and the sacrifice of my self by the conduct of his Spirit In order hereunto he cousecrated and gave up himself thereto in these terms a copy whereof written with his own hand and in his own blood he sent to Sister Margaret which is kept with great devotion in that Covent And another something more inlarged to his Ghostly Father to which he wrote his name onely in blood in these words To the honour of my King the Holy Infant Jesus I Have consecrated my self this Christmass-Day 1643. to the holy Infant Jesus offering up to him my whole Being my Soul my Body my Free-will my Wife my Children my Family the Estate which he hath given me and finally all that I am concerned in having beseeched him to enter into full Possession Property Jurisdiction of all that I am That I may live no more but in and to him in the quality of a Victim separate from every thing of this world and challenging no more share thereof than according to the applications which he shall give and shall allow me Insomuch that from henceforward I shall look at my self meerly as an instrument in the hand of the holy Infant
not its worth from doing this or that but from an exactness in doing that which he requireth of us giving up our selves wholly to his good pleasure I see there is need of a great death to our selves and a great depth of Self-annihilation to follow so purely the conduct of grace and not to be for own forms but those of God In another of the 12. of August thus he saith I daily continue my toiling here which takes up much of my time and almost all but I dare not look aside but onely abase and submit my self to the Divine Ordinance It was a work very gross and mean for Jesus Christ to converse with men who had more of rudeness than these stones I deal with and more of opposition to his purity than they have to my workmens hands And yet he suffered all he bore all and in fine converted but a few I beseech you obtain for me a part in his obedience and his patience to the orders of God his Father And writing to one of his friends he spake to him in this sort I am here in this Countrey in the midst of four or five companies of workmen to repair a Mansion House on the Demesn of my Family which was ready to fall What can our spirit act in this work which following the Spirit of Faith ought to be a Pilgrime and Stranger upon earth without doubt it groans much not at the order of God but after its own Countrey in the midst of its occupations as things opposite to its liberty We must do penance by labouring it is so decreed by God upon the first transgression These were the Meditations which this excellent man had while he was building and which all Christians who are made to settle not on earth but in Heaven in an Eternal Mansion ought to be enlivened with when they are about the like works CHAP. 3. His Humility POverty followed the Austerities and Mortification of the body as having much connexion with them and Humility follows Poverty yet considering withal that according to S. Austine the poverty in spirit spoken of by our Lord in the first Beatitude is nothing else but humility in very deed there is no people in the world more poor in spirit than the truly humble because they account themselves to be nothing to have nothing to be able to do nothing and to be worth nothing to be the refuse and off-scourings of the earth and to have need of every thing not assuming any praise to themselves for any thing whatsoever Monsieur de Renty came to this pitch and possessed this Vertue in a most Eminent degree And in truth if Humility as the all Saints tell us be the foundation of Vertue God having a design to raise up in him a magnificent and sublime Palace for Vertues and Perfection it was necessary the foundation should be laid very low and his humility be very profound He was rooted in this vertue so solidly that it was a thing wonderful and therein performed a number of so remarkable actions that those persons who lived many years with him and singularly well knew him have assured us that it were impossible to relate them all He had in an excessive esteem this important vertue he loved it with all his heart desired it with extream ardor prayed urgently and conjured his friends to beg of God and obtain it for him And as we see the stone descend with violence and the waters fall down impetuously the same motion made he towards Humility as to his centre Out of this Sentiment he wrote thus to one of his Confidents Have pitty on me I am more unfaithful than any creature of the world Upon my knees I beg of you to believe it If our Lord did not shew me what I am Lucifer would not be a little rich but this benign Lord shews me daily through his mercy my Nothingness it is thither his grace leads me To another he wrote thus All my resolution is in these words of David Elegi abjectus esse in domo dei mei I have chosen to be little and abject in the house of God To another also thus I am carried to demand of God a life much humbled suffering and unknown to men I finde a great attraction thither And I have a Paper written with his own hand and all of it with his blood which contain these words I give you my Liberty O my God and beg of you that Nothing which every Christian must arrive at to rise purely towards you Gaston Jean Baptiste Dominus Jesus semetipsum exinanivit usque ad mortem crucis propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum This 3 of December 1644. Amen Our Lord Jesus emptied himself to death even the death of the cross wherefore God also hath exalted him You see here his inclination and attractive and not without good reason for considering first that he had propounded to himself our Lord as a pattern for his life with a determinate resolution to follow him in whatsoever he could And that secondly Humility is the proper Vertue of Jesus Christ as S. Bernard after S. Paul calls it he therefore embraced this Humility with his whole affection gave himself up to it with all his forces and practised it in its urmost latitude as we are going now to see by that which follows But before we behold him in the actions of this Vertue let us listen to what he teaches and the light he gives us concerning it Humility said he he is the Basis which carries and upholds the whole work of God in us it makes the creature so naked and so separated from it self that it leaves it not the power to make any cast of an eye upon it self but renders it so taken up in the greatness of God that it becomes lost in reverence of him in self-abasement and annihilation This is the grace of Christians in their Pilgrimage who divested and spoiled of all esteem themselves but a Nothing and very puff of being which haivng nothing but what it received from God hath no instinct or inclination but for God It s a brave humility to see nothing in ones self but Nothingness and he that sees not there nothing sees not there any thing at all So the soul which sees nothing in it self findes nothing in it self to bottom on and by this means always points towards God like a needle touched with a Loadstone that having been encombred with all sorts of trash and trifles and afterward disingaged of them would forthwith turn towards her North and thitherward remain always fixt although the tempest of the sea and winds should turn upside down the Vessel Thus have we his disposition and the aspect of ae soul truly humble beholding nothing in it self and God in his Majestie SECT 1. His Humbleness of Heart HUmility may be divided into three sorts The Humility of the heart of the words and of the works And seeing the humility of the heart
things which is to cast dirt upon the Chrystal whereby that which is clear in it self by reason of that filth that invirons it is no more capable of light than is the dirt upon it And if we will restore it to its former transparency and penetrability we must wash it well I mean our polluted souls in the clear waters of repentance Let as finally â—ffer up our selves to our blessed Saviour that we be not defective in the right use of his graces which he bestows upon us neither for our selves nor for others that we bury not his talents Imitating likewise herein the Chrystal which is first penetrated by light onely and then seattereth it abroad Let us appear without a Mask before the face of all the world speaking aloud both by the mouth of our actions with the Spouse in the Canticles My Beloved is mine and I am my Beloveds and by our example and diligence encrease the number of those souls that thus love opening and making plain the way of love For ever blessed be the God of love in whom I am c. By this Letter we may perceive that notwithstanding the design of his Humility to hide those gifts and graces he had received yet his zeal often caused him to bring them to light when the glory of God and good of his neighbour might be promoted thereby And yet this he managed with admirable prudence that though his zeal was free yet not so indiscreet as to be its own Herald upon every appearance of doing good but was very circumspect weighing all circumstances of time place persons and necessity Wherefore in the same Letter he gave this sage advice to that Lady touching the order and measure which are necessary to be observed in this communication To some we must lay open our hearts more freely and exactly to others more reservedly keeping aloof off and beating about the bush to others altogether lockt up concealing those secrets from them in whom we see no disposition at all to make good use of them One of the most necessary qualities of this zeal whereby to render it profitable and prevent many miscarriages is that it be well seasoned with discretion and prudence to consider things well and execute them in the best manner To foresee and prevent mischiefs and redress them in time when they have hapned applying such efficacious remedies as may have as much of sweetness and as little of acrimony as may be And in desperate cases or where the cure would prove worse than the disease to suffer and dissemble them as we do in those of the body viz. blindeness lameness and crookedness souls having sometimes some certain defects which are as it were incorrigible which God suffers often thereby to save and perfect through humility those that are infected therewith and others likewise who deal with them by their patience and charity Thus was Monsieur Renty both by grace and nature very prudent and advised His zeal made up with all these perfections and guided its self every where with these illuminations One writing to him to procure a pardon for a young Gentleman who had committed murder his mother promising in lieu of that favour eight hundred pound Sterling to be imployed in works of Piety and Alms. In his first answer he desired to be informed whether the party was truly penitent for his fault In the second he writ thus I cannot perswade my self to stir in this business because it would seem that under the pretence of Alms impunity is aimed at I am not willing to foul my hands with the price of blood In a word although others undertake the business without scuuple and I see very considerable Alms that would come of it yet for all that I cannot afford my assistance The Divine Providence will never forget his holy poor ones One great point of prudence requisite in a zealous man is not to overthrow his body with excessive travel nor overcharge his minde with too much business which by their number and weight may choak his devotions but so to have a care of the salvation of others as not thereby to neglect his own but according to his strength to proportion what ought to be both to the one and other Concerning the first of these he exprest himself thus to a Clergy man upon occasion of some distemper he had contracted with extraordinary pains in his Mission Give me leave Sir to deal plainly with you in telling you that amongst those many cares I have for you this is not the least that I would not have you impose too much upon your self and for want of moderation to render your self altogether unserviceable The enemy usually takes no small advantage of such free and well disposed natures You are not herein your own but a man for the whole world and with St. Paul a debter to all men preserve yoer self therefore not so much I mean by making much of but by forbearing to destroy your self by labours and travel I am told how greatly your endeavours are blessed give me leave from that interest my self challengeth therein with all humility and respect to admonish you thus much Concerning the second touching our own salvation he had a special regard hereto managing those affairs which belonged to the good of his neighbour by the rules of a well ordered Charity which in this case begins at home indispensably performing all his Exercises of Devotion and reserving a considerable part both of the day and night for his conversing with God and prayer yea as he passed to and fro in the day time in the streets he often went into the Churches remaining there whole hours together before the B. Sacrament when his occasions would any way permit and especially toward his latter end as his imployments increased so was he in continual recollection from which neither his business nor any exterior objects did distract him Whereupon a most familiar friend asking him whether in that great throng of business he observed his usual two hours of prayer He answered when I can I keep three hours sometimes four or five but when occasion is offered to serve my neighbour I easily quit them for God of his mercy hath given me the grace to be inseparably with him even in the crowd of business SECT 9. The success which God gave to his zeal GOd indued this his servant with such a powerful vertue for the good of his neighbour that not onely his words and actions but even his very presence made impression upon others for their eternal good So that one familiarly acquainted with him said that he believed him to be indued with an Apostolick spirit for as the Apostles received the grace to inkindle the life of Faith and fire of Charity and set up the Kingdom of God in all Countreys and places where the Divine Majestie sent them in like manner was Monsieur Renty even far beyond the bounds of his condition filled with grace and assisted
that we may be all one in him and experimentally feel what the love of God is toward us In all that I read in the Scripture I neither understand nor find any thing else but this Love and perceive clearly that the very design and end of Christianity is nothing but it Finis autem praecepti est charitas de corde puro The end of the Law is love out of a sincere heart And this is acquired by Faith in Christ Jesus as the Apostle saith in the following words Fide non ficta by faith unfeigned Which uniteth and bindeth us to him whereby we sacrifice unto the Divinity our souls and our bodies through his Spirit which conducteth us to the compleat end of the Law to deliver us up to God and bring down him to us in charity and a gracious inexplicable union to whom be praise for ever Amen My heart was this morâ—ing enlightned with a great Charity upon these words That we are set in this world to know and love and serve God Which gave me to understand that the true effect of the knowledge of God is to annihilate our selves before him for this knowledge coming to discover unto us that infinite Majestie the soul abaseth and emptieth it self through the deep sense of fear and reverence according to the measure of this discovery And this is the first step of the soul in this estate Next he love of God manifested to us in the giving us his Son begins to affect us with love And as the former view of his greatness contracted us in fear so this his love in Christ Jesus enlargeth and elevateth us to love God in him and to conceive some good desires according as his spirit breathes in us And this is the second step The third is to serve him that is by putting this love into practice by good works For these desires are but blossoms and these good works the fruit I could say much on this subject if I could express my own feeling of it For here we finde all in all that is God revealed by Jesus Christ loved and served by his Spirit This Divine Lord sets up a blessed Society and a Kingdom in our souls wherein he rules and reigns there by love unspeakable and eternal Writing to another person he expresseth himself thus I give thanks to our Lord for that he hath disposed you to a perfect Abnegation of your self This is done to lead you into the pure estate of love which without that cannot be pure in that our love to God consisteth not in receiving gifts and graces from him but in renouncing all things for him in an Oblivion of our selvee in suffering constantly and couragiously for him Thus did he express the nature of Love not to consist in taking but giving and the more and greater matters we give the more we manifest our Love This Love carries up the Lover according to the measure of its flame continually to think upon his Beloved to will what may please him to study his interest to procure his glory to do every thing that may work his contentment and to be extreamly apprehensive of any thing that may offend him Accordingly he being all on fire with the love of God was perfectly sinsible of these effects All his thoughts words and works were the productions of this love for notwithstanding he practised other vertues yet they drew their original from this Furnace of Charity which in him was the beginning and motive and end of all which he testified to his Confidents frequently and in words so enkindled with it as were sufficient to warm the most frozen hearts I have observed saith one of his Confidents this Divine fire so ardent in his blessed soul that the flames thereof have burst forth into his Exteriour and he hath told me that when ever he proncunced the name of God he tasted such a sweetness upon his lips as could not be expressed and that he was even pierced thorow with a hâ—avenly suavity To another he write about 9. or 10. years agoe that he could nor conceal from him how he felt a fire in his heart which burnt and consumed without ceasing Another of them assures that he hath often seen him enflamed with this Love of God that he appeared even like one besides himself and how he told him when these transportings were upon him that he was ready to cast himself into thefire to testifie his Love to God and in one of his Letters to a friend he concludes thus I must now hold my peace yet when I cease to speak the fire within that consumes me will not let me rest Let us burn then and burn wholly and in every part for God since we have no being but by him why then do we not live to him I speak it aloud and it would be my crown of glory to seal it with my blood and this I utter to you with great freedom In a Letter to another thus I know not what your intent was to put into your Letter these words Deus meus omnia my God and my all Onely you invite thereby to return the same to you and to all creatures My God and my all my God and my all my God and my all If perhaps you take this for your motto and use it to express how full your heart is of it think you it possible I should be silent upon such an invitation and not express my sense thereof Likewise be it known to you therefore that he is my God and my all And if you doubt of it I shall speak it a hundred times over I shall adde no more for any thing else is superfluous to him that is truly penetrated with my God and my all I leave you therefore in this happy state of Jubilation and conjure you to beg for me of God the solid sense of these words Being transported with this Love of God it wrought in him an incredible zeal of his honour which he procured and advanced a thousand ways Which may be understood partly by what we have already writ and several other which are unknown because either they were wholly spiritual or concealed by him even from his most intimate friends The 12 of March in the year 1645. he writ thus to his Director upon this subject One day being transported with an earnest desire to be all to God and all consumed for him I offered up to him all I could yea and all that I could not I would willingly have made a Deed of Gift to him of Heaven and Earth if they had been mine And in another way I would willingly have been the underling of all mankinde and in the basest estate possible yea and if supported by his grace I could have been content to have suffered eternal pains with the damned if any glory might have accrew'd to him thereby In this disposition of a calm zeal there is no sort of Martyrdome no degree of greatness or littleness of