of his Closet we may say he shuts the door to the World saying to himself Get ye gone ye worldly Thoughts retire ye Objects of Vanity and approach not near this place let me rejoyce in the quiet of this secure Sanctuary and suffer me to give my self wholly up to my God The pious Soul after this manner dies many times a day for Death does not more efface the Images of worldly things than Devotion when it takes a Christian out of the World This Soul may say at such a time The World is crucified unto me and I unto the World I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the Life which I now live in the Flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me We need not wonder if the World quits the place in this moment since I suppose that it before took up but very little Room in the Soul whereof I speak God comes to possess it wholly of which he had before the better for the devout Heart ventures to say The whole is in God and God is in every part In this state if by peradventure it casts its Eyes upon the World it looks down from on high and with an Eye of Contempt Alas What are these same Riches says the faithful Soul these Honours and Advantages which frequently terminate in eternal Death to compare with the Riches that God here bestows upon me But near to God himself whom I possess these earthly Goods will vanish and be lost but I will never lose him who holds me and whom I hold and Death which will disrobe the Living of their Pomp will invest me with new Glory The fourth Effect of Devotion is an Alacrity in running and advancing in the Practise of Piety A General flies to the Combat when he sees an assured Victory but the devout Person has other kind of wings which make him fly whither Devotion conducts him He knows not that 't is the drooping and weight of the Body that retains them who are call'd to Travel he has not the Sentiments of the Sluggard who rouls upon his Bed as a Gate upon its Hinges who fight Battles with his Boulster and wages Wars with Sleep and Idleness with a Design to be vanquished He is one of those Eagles of which some think our Saviour spoke Where the dead Body is thither will the Eagles be gathered together He knows that he shall find his Jesus once dead but now alive either in the Church or in his Closet he flies thither with the Swiftness of an hungry Eagle nothing is capable of stopping him Friends Enemies Employs Occupations Prayers Menaces Fears and Dangers all useless for in posting he can surmount all Obstaeles in the way Another Effect of Devotion is a certain Elevation of Soul which I cannot term otherwise than a sort of Extasie whereby the Soul is as it were ravish'd from its self 'T is so knit to the Contemplation of Coelestial Objects that not only it has no more intelligence of earthly things but it has no Sense no Ears no Eyes it sees not it understands not St. Peter while he prayed saw the Heavens opened and a certain Vessel descending to the Earth as it had been a great sheet knit at the four Corners St. Paul in Prayer was ravished even to the third Heaven and the Devout even at this time of day have their Extasie They see with Stephen the Heavens opened they are lifted up to Heaven with St. Paul for they enter into a secret Commerce with God The Soul inwardly is so taken up that it sees nothing at all of what passes without and contributing its whole force to the Contemplation of God no Wonder it has no more for other Objects Blessed are they says St. Basil who are fill'd with and infolded in the Contemplation of this true Beauty since being bound to it by the Cords of Charity and of an heavenly and divine Love they forget their Parents Friends Houses they forget even the necessity of eating and drinking And now why should it not be so in the Offices of Piety when ev'ry day this happens to us in the Affairs of the World While we are strongly fixt to Reading to disintangle a crabbed and knotty matter while we answer an Adversary a thousand Objects pass before our eyes whereof we do not take notice The devout Soul is so shut into it self so well gathered up and compacted that no external thing is able to move it If it prays it is intirely in Heaven if it hears it is wholly tyed up to the Tongue of him that speaks if it reads its heart is always where the eyes terminate themselves if it meditates it is all over plunged in it's subject and if a Flock of Birds of vain and light Thoughts come to soil its Sacrifice as that of Abraham it scares them away incontinently This is that which I understand by the Extasie of Devotion otherwise if you take this term for effectual Ravishments which were the Priviledges of the Prophets and Saints of the first Order I must take an infinite deal of pains to believe that the Holinesses of the Roman Cloyster do oblige God as some would fain perswade us so ordinarily to communicate such extraordinary Graces Now a days we do not see those Devotions which lift up not only the Souls but make the Body to lose its Earth and raise it to the very Clouds Nevertheless if we would believe some who call themselves good Authors there is nothing more common The last Effect of Devotion that I shall mention is a certain Fire that warms the Heart One cannot well conceive it unless one had felt it and I cannot express it otherwise than in the words of holy men Did not our Heart burn within us while he talked with us and while he opened to us the Scriptures My Heart was hot within me while I was meditating the Fire burned then spake I with my Tongue We are told how the Faces of the Saints have been oftentimes seen to be bright and inflamed in the midst of their Devotions which could not proceed but from the glowing and fiery affection of the Heart which manifests it self accordingly in the Countenance This Fire we may call a Fermentation of the Spirits of Piety which not seldom make Impressions even in the eyes And hence it may be came the shining of St. Stephen's Face of which it is said that his Enemies saw it as if it had been the Face of an Angel his Zeal and his Devotion were evident in his Eyes and render'd 'em sparkling Now this Lightning is not without its Rain I mean that this Fire is ordinarily accompanied with Tears The Heart is heated blows up that Heat makes it grow bigger then it self grows tender and at last the Eyes melt into Tears St. Austin represents himself in one of these Illuminations or rather Inflamations of Heart After says he that a strong Meditation
Dream which vanisheth away a Smoke which is consumed in its lifting up And as it speaks of it with contempt so it would also that we have little care of it Take no care of the Body saith St. Paul to obey the lusts thereof Take no thought for the morrow the morrow shall take thought for the things of its self be in litttle pain for what ye shall eat or wherewithal ye shall be clothed As for the Soul the holy Spirit would have us turn all our cares on that side He would have us vigilant and sober because the Devil watches about it as a roaring Lyon seeking to devour it He commands us to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling and that we be in a perpetual solicitude about it He Orders us to nourish it with the milk of the Word sincere and without deceit and that we furnish it with strong meats He wishes us to entertain it continually in an holy joy He would have us search after those sovereign pleasures that are to be found in the possession of God which are only for the Soul The Gospel requires of us to imbellish it and that we labour to adorn it that it may be found a glorious Spouse not having spot or wrinkle worthy to be presented to its head the Lord Jesus Christ Examine the conduct of Voluptuous men it is quite contrary to this they act as if they were all Flesh and as if their Soul were only Salt to keep the Body from corrupting All the Ideas they have of Pleasure derive from the Senses and the Imagination and without a metaphor they are as they call themselves Men of Sense and they conceive no more what we call spiritual pleasures than blind men do colours As therefore they never tasted other delights than bodily ones they believe themselves oblig'd to the Body for all their Happiness And in effect so it is For at the time when they taste carnal Pleasures we cannot say they are unhappy since happiness consists in Pleasure and Joy and they have them at that moment So that because we intirely love what we consider as the source of our felicity we cannot think it strange that these worldly People love their body perfectly which they look upon as the only Source of their Pleasures We see also that these men have the same Sentiments for their Body as holy men have for God who is their sovereign good and in whom they find their sovereign pleasure They adore this Body of theirs they cherish they perfume it they offer Incense and Sacrifice to it If one should give a blow or a gird to this same Body Oh! how jealous they are on 't as of a Divinity More Indignation they have against him that should hurt this Flesh than against a Blasphemer or a Sacrilegious Person In a word their Body holds so much of a Divinity that they Sacrifice unto it even their very Conscience nay and God himself But nothing is more opposite to the spirit of Christianity and Devotion than this Sentiment For the truly faithful ones are oblig'd to slight the Body to sacrifice it to God to see it torn in pieces for his name and to renounce all the pleasures of sense for his Glory The Spirit of the Gospel and of Devotion absolutely tends to the contempt of the World but the spirit of Voluptuousness and sensuality to the love of the World How must we love the World when it caresses us and is mighty kind and pleasurable to us if we love it when it persecutes us and steeps us in Gall The World is a mere Cheat and Gull and an undeniable Source of Delusions it masques it self and would be seen by us under the image of fleshly pleasure It imbraces us under the habit of Flowers but under these Flowers are a thousand Thorns We do not see these thorns we only smell the Flowers we are sensible of such pleasures and love that causes them But all the World knows nought is more contrary to Devotion than the love of the World and we have made it appear elsewhere so as by consequence nothing is more opposite to the spirit of Christianity and Devotion than sensual Pleasure The Spirit of Christian Religion would inspire a contempt of the present and a desire after the other Life Now certain it is that nothing tyes men so much to Life as the pleasures of Sense the Saints say and ought to say I desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better I know when this earthly house shall be dissolved we have an House eternal in the Heavens and therefore we desire to be clothed upon with our House which is from Heaven None of these things moving neither count I my Life dear unto my self As the hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God When shall I come and appear before God It 's impossible that men who live in a perpetual use of Voluptuousness should have these thoughts Every one wishes to be happy and when once he is or at least believes he is so he cannot renounce what he fancies the cause of his felicity these carnal-minded men think themselves happy at such time as they injoy their Pleasures they have no Idea of any other Beatitude but of that they injoy in this present life They can every day speak both about another life and another happiness But they have got an habit not to let themselves be touch'd but by sense and Imagination and so because this life and this happiness do not fall under their Senses nor can be imagined by them they cannot consider them but as imaginary Beings which have no relation to them because they have not any Idea of them in their minds Moreover their hearts meeting in this life with a fat Land that is much prosperity do take very deep rooting there Their affections being thoroughly ingaged in carnal pleasures bound themselves in the possession of Sensible Objects they wish for nothing more besides for that no body wishes for things which he does not know and whereof he has no clear and certain Ideas The Earth becomes their Country they naturalize themselves here every thing else is a strange and unknown Land Let people say what they please but questionless we have an ill preparation for Death in the continual use of those pleasures whose Innocence the World maintains O Death said a Wise Man how cruel is the remembrance of thee to him that lives quietly among his Possessions One lives indeed more commodiously in a Palace than in a Prison but one finds it more trouble to dye in that than in this How insupportable is the thought of Death his presence how affrightful to him who lives in the midst of Pleasures he looks upon Death as a Judge that comes to pronounce on him a dismal Sentence or an Executioner that seizes him to be lead to punishment But the faithful one who has ever held his Flesh
me out of this calamitous Estate this deplorable nothing Disengage me from under this Burthen of Mortality and corruption so as I may walk lightly and chearfully or rather I may fly swifth even to thee Pardon all my Sins that they may not terrifie me and banish me from thy Throne Stop the course of my Iniquities that they may not hinder my Prayers from mounting up before thee Let me not still continue to render my self unworthy of thy Favours by the ill usage I make of thee nor to grieve thy holy Spirit by the uncleanness of my Life that only can inspire me with the Ardour I seek after That only can render my Soul devout and it 's presence only can warm my Affections But will it be pleas'd to bring it's light into a Soul so polluted and so dark as mine Prepare for thy self O my God a lodging within me worthy so great a Guest and Stranger that it may come and enliven me that I may live and love-thee that I may burn with the Fire of thy Love and with that of Devotion CHAP II. Touching the love of the World the second Source of Indevotion BEhold one of the great reasons why there are so few Devout in the World It is because all are in love with the World and this Love is one of the most efficacious Temptations wherewith the Devil serves himself to distract and call us elsewhere This love has pierced our very marrow and entrails and seeing 't is the master of our Heart can the love of God dwell there can darkness and light can Fire and Water Life and Death be comparable together In him that loveth the World the love of the Father does not dwell Where there is no love of God how can there be any of Devotion which is nothing else but love what is it that makes up the fire and the zeal of Devout People but Love What is it that makes the desires spring up of union with God in Devout Souls but Love what makes us find a Gusto in the possession the same Love What does indue good Souls with a readiness and alacrity to serve God Is it not Love that renders every thing easie to him that loves But as much as the love of God succours and helps Devotion so much does the love of the World cruelly cross it It extinguishes heat it stifles the desires it estranges from God it takes away the taste of heavenly things it purloins the heart from it self and carries it elsewhere Lot's Wife advances towards the Mountain but hath her heart in Sodom she turns her Eyes thither The superiour part of the Soul which is in love with Heaven makes some efforts to lift it self up to God but this same lower part wherein the Passions reign turns its eyes towards the World and wheedles the heart out of the Commerce whereinto it entred with its God Rachel in craving her fathers house carries along with her his antick Images In quitting the World to enter into our Closets we bring with us its Idols that is its Ideas and vain Images and from thence proceed our distractions and those unhappy thoughts that traverse us in the midst of our Devotion These are the Idols of Gold Silver the Devils of Ambition and Covetousness which an hundred times pass and repass in our mind in a quarter of an hour to distract us When we come to Prayer our head is filled with a thousand I deas of good and evil of Desires and Fears of Dangers and distrust of hopes and despair of Joys and Divertise ments and a thousand other vain Objects A Soul at this rate taken up and imploy'd can it give place to the Ideas of God's greatness of his Majesty Goodness Mercy and Love Faith Repentance Charity Zeal Hopes Acknowledgments and a thousand other Vertues which compose or at least help Devotion can they agree well with these Emotions that the commerce of the World communicates to us We scarce ever think of things but such as possess our hearts if we lov'd â—â—e Worldless t would not come so often into ourminds We are hurried away with it it is a Demon we know â—ot how to lay we cannot find a Sanctuary against its â—ersecutions the solitude and affrightful Objects of the â—esert cannot banish it An Antient tells us that â—mid his Macerations his mind sometimes transported him out of his Solitude into the company of young Women a dancing I say then we ought to imploy 〈◊〉 our strength to dry up this second source if we â—ould be Devout My little children love not the World or the things that are in the World We should Crucifie â—he Old-Man if we would present our selves to God a â—ving holy and acceptable Sacrifice which is our reasoâ—able Service So that one of the most profitable Meâ—itations by which we can prepare our selves for â—rayer is that of the Worlds vanity It is good to enâ—er into our selves to consider the brevity of humane â—â—fe the inconstancy of the Worlds Glory which flouishes in the morning and fades and withers in the eveâ—ing It is good to repeat frequently to our heart â—hat the Holy Spirit has said heretofore All flesh 〈◊〉 as Grass and all the Glory of man as the flower of â—rass the Grass withereth and the flower thereof fadeth â—way As for man his days are as Grass as a flower of be field so he flourisheth for the wind passeth over it and 〈◊〉 is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more Man that is born of a Woman is of few Days and full of couble he cometh forth like a Flower and is cut down 〈◊〉 fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not His riches â—anish away and his Sins continue his honours abanâ—on him but his torments do not quit him Thus by â—rying with a loud voice Vanity of Vanities in an heart â—nfected by the bad Air of the World it may chase away those worldly thoughts and fright away those â—irds which come to spoil our Sacrifices and devoureth good seed of Piety which the Heavenly sower had 〈◊〉 into our hearts Meditation HOw miserable am I I can stouth cry Vanity of Vanities to my Heaâ—â— depraved and corrupted with the love 〈◊〉 the World and yet still it is never thâ— better I am sufficiently persuaded of aâ—â— that is told me I know mighty well thâ—â— the World is only made up of appearances I know it hath very much Gall anâ— Wormwood for a little Honey I knoâ— that Pleasures are Twists that snarl anâ— intangle the Soul and train it to Death But I am not yet acquainted how theâ— knowledges remain in my understanding and make no manner of Impression upoâ— my Will I believe I see and I do nothing I see a thousand and a thousand People which the World plunges into corruption and brings to Hell I see it is a great enâ— my of my Saviour and that the chief thinâ— which it compasses upon them that givâ— themselves
and which Death at least would have infallibly ravisht from thee Dost thou not know that the World and its Fortunes are all of Glass They shine but they are brittle The least blow shatters them and makes 'em to flye into a thousand pieces why then shouldest thou think it strange that Glass should break between thy Fingers Why art thou so sensible of Injuries and Offences And why dost thou make the malignity of another thy own misery why dost thou so bitterly lament the loss of some Persons that Death has taken up from thee they were not thine they were Gods who lent 'em thee and has retaken them In short Why art thou so prodigal of Tears whereof thou reapest no fruit that is to imploy ones Labour in that which profiteth not When thou bewailest O my Soul thy misfortunes thy tears do not make thy misfortunes to cease but mourn for thy Sins and thy Tears will destroy them They will whirl them away like a Torrent or a Deluge and they will be found no more Thy carnal anxieties trouble thy Devotion But the Grief which thou shalt have for thy Sins and Infirmities will augment it and God will comfort thee Prayer COme therefore thou Holy Ghost the Comforter who wert promised to us by the Son in behalf of the Father Come sweeten my bitter Anguishes by thy Delights and Mercies Come and recompence my losses by thy Riches Give me such joy as passes all understanding Give me Piety that I may have contentment of Mind and that the one and the other being joyned together may be great Gain to me and compose my soverign happiness Come and place my Soul in so firm a Seat and Posture that it may never be jogged or stagger'd even by the rudest blows Come and restore back to me what I have lost Goods Possessions Houses Husband Wife Children Kindred and my dearest Frinds Come my dear Saviour and let me possess thee perfectly instead of all things The World has taken away all it hath given me But it cannot ravish from me what thou shalt bestow upon me I make a Sacrifice to thee of all the Goods which I have lost If I have not lost 'em for thy Name yet at least I at present patiently suffer the loss of them for thy Name 's sake And therefore I hope thou wilt reward me as if I had lost them for thee In this Hope I banish my Cares and Troubles far from me to the end they may come no more to disturb and interrupt my Repose O my God make the Walls of my Closet impenetrable Ramparts such as cannot be pierced by the Darts of my persecuting Enemies So that I may be there in thy Presence as in a quiet and safe Haven against the Tempests wherein my Life is lost and that so the Commerce which my Soul would have with thee may not be interrupted by the remembrance of my Misfortunes but I may forget all my Griefs and Calamities in thy Presence CHAP. V. Of Excessive Business A fifth Source of Indevotion THIS is also another branch of the Love of the World and another let and hindrance to Devotion We love the World and give up our selves intirely to its Imployments One imploys himself in Traffique and thinks of nothing else Another he is oppressed with the Affairs of other men which he makes his own through interest He pleads as he saith for the defence of Justice but it is too often for iniquity and though he gains his Cause yet he loses his Conscience A physician Visits his Patients with a design to make 'em pay dear for his Services and Attendance The man of business is ever thumbing his Arithmetick The Mechanick exercising his Trade the Husband-man Agriculture And to these several ways goes the greatest and best part of their time And so much is the World corrupted as they think they deserve praises in that among the sundry ways of spending time this is the most innocent but it becomes criminal as soon as it robs us of our God and slackens our Piety The mind of man is so made as it cannot vigorously tend but to one Mark it cannot ardently will but one thing insomuch as if thou givest up the ardour and force of thy desires to thy Family and thy Occupations God will but partake of the Reliques of thy Soul and thy languishing motions I do not pretend here as if Persons of all conditions could give up themselves wholly to contemplation This contemplative Life is the Life of Angels and not of men and since that we are in part Body we must also live after a manner partly corporal A Bird let its wings be never so strong cannot always be flying A Soul has not strength enough to be evermore lifted up to Heaven I know moreover we ought to serve the necessities of Nature In a word I do not oppose the Order that man has received from God to eat his Bread by the sweat of his Brows and by his labour six days in the Week all I aim at is that the imployments of Martha may not hinder the work of Mary and that the Body being the worse Part of us may not carry away the better part of our time If there be any thing wherein we ought to laud and praise the great condescention of God to us it is in this all our time is his but he pleased to give us six parts in seven Six days shalt thou labour and on the seventh rest Seeing he has forgone so much we ought at least to be very exact to pay him this Tythe of our time one day in seven one hour in seven Six hours therefore should not slip by in a day without returning to God to give him the seventh Do more and imagine not you can do too much since you owe him all Why will you not have the same regard and consideration for the Soul as you have for the Body On it you bestow Refreshment and Rest and for this you intercept your most important Concerns that you may repair the decayed forces of Nature Take heed there be not made too great a dissipation of the Spirits of Grace call the Soul to its exercises of Devotion as to repasts which renders it vigorous and as to sleep during which it lyes in the Arms of its God labour often in this Divine Recollection and to withdraw the Soul from those wandring courses it makes in humane affairs Meals and repasts hastily taken are followed with a difficult digestion and very little nourishment and therefore we repose our selves while we eat let not any one tâ—en imagin he can serve God whilst he is doing something else These stirrings and turbulent Devotions are of ill consequence and instead of nourishing do load and clog the Conscience We must therefore in our ordinary imployments set aside some hour wherein our Souls may retire themselves as it were in an Haven to rejoyce over a Calm after a boysterous Tempest Whilst the Water
get rid of that we should gain all but if it continue the Master it 's in vain we strive to become devout And therefore I destin'd this third part to make such considerations therein as may if possible ruine that grand Enemy of Devotion Certain it is Man was born for Pleasure since he was created to be happy and happiness consists in the Possession of Good and the sense of that Possession makes Pleasure The sovereign good of man consists in the Sole possession and absolute fruition of God and in being united immediately and after a most intimate manner unto him And Pleasure ought to spring from this strict and close Union with the Divinity This Union is made by Knowledge and by Love and pleasure arises from thence that God applies himself to the Soul by infolding it in the Arms of his goodness and Beauty and that he fills it with the light and joy of his countenance Sin has so far infeebled this Union of our Soul with God that it hath no more sense of its pleasures Your Sins have put a seperation between you and your God and it is like a thick cloud that eclipses the Sun as to us Whose comfortable beams would raise so much joy within us The Soul has kept this sentiment that it was born for Joy and Pleasure insomuch as being disunited from its God it intirely turns its self to the Body and its Pleasures and the stricter it is united to these the farther off it is from them The ligament of this union o' th' Soul to the body is Corporal Pleasure and proportionably as this pleasure tyes the Soul to the Body so it disunites it from God so that sensual pleasures cause this Disunion and this Disunion is propperly Indevotion which we would destroy for most assuredly Devotion is that motion of the Soul whereby she returns to her Principle and to the fruition of those pleasures that spring from her union with God Let worldly people take the pains to consult their own heart and that will tell them what we are about to say They well perceive that the reason why they cannot dispose themselves to Prayer to the love and Service of God is because they are posses'd by their passions and inchanted by the delusions of Sense That is to say they are absolutely turned toward sensual pleasures and wholly taken up in them The Soul is pinch'd and contracted the mind is bounded when its full of the World and its vanities so that we need not wonder if God who will have the Soul intire find no room therein Indeed a very difficult work this is we undertake to persuade that those who would become Devout ought to renounce worldly pleasures Although the Corruption of them be extreme we do not place all pleasures in the same rank we distinguish them into two orders There are those which are call'd excesses enormities and crimes but these the World abandons and has not the face to defend There are others styled innocent Pleasures Dancing Play good Chear great Meals Feasts Play-houses Shows vain Conversations the commerce of Gallantry and Intrigues that are the guides to criminal Amours The Church distinguishes Pleasures as well as the World Both agree that there are Innocent ones But the Church puts the greatest part of those which the World upholds to be innocent into the number of criminal pleasures Voluptuosness is an Idol to which the World Sacrifices both young and old Men and Women Children and old Men great and small rich and poor all ages both Sexes all conditions have their Pleasures Insomuch much as if we go according to suffrages we should lose the Cause Especially Young men cannot indure one should takeaway the use of Pleasure they persuading themselves that youth is predestinately consecrated to it The Painters and Poets that contribute to marr and vitiate Mens minds represent Voluptuousness to us like a young Woman or Man laid upon a Bed of flowers environed with all the Objects which are bodily pleasures The Passions that are wholly carnal and have a strait Aliance and Correspondence with the Senses are in boiling youth The Flesh all brisk active and vigorous having received no manner of Mortification Hectors and Domineers with insolence Whereupon young men follow the furies of their Temper and Crasis The sentiments of Piety and the habits of Virtue are not to be found naturaly in them So that reason destitute of this Succour is easily vanquish'd by the Passions We may say also that Reason in this age conspires with the Passions and serves only to push on young people into the greatestexcess and extravagences After their own fashion they reason they are persuaded that wisdom and prudence doe not become them they say that these properly belong to old men and thus abuse the saying of the Wise-man To every thing under the Heaven there is a season If any one has more happy inclinations he is not so hardy as to follow them he is stricken with a criminal shame he would not have himself markt out for a singular Fop He cast himself into the crowd and lets himself be carrieds away with the stream And even those who are reputed Wise in the World if they dare not authorize these Irregularities at least they excuse them They are young say they they will come to it at length we must allow somwehat to Age we are not born wise we were such as they are they may be one day what we are But alas we do not stay there we do not renounce Pleasures as we leave our youthful years behind us the love of Voluptuousness is a malady we carry along with us thorough all Ages We go as slow as possibly or to speak better we go on not at all Old Age and Sickness pull men sometimes away by violence from Pleasure but we seldom view those that voluntarily divest themselves of worldly pleasures This is the most uncommon of all Sacrifices How many Women do we see that would hold out even against time and foreslow themselves from being carried off the Stage They forget nothing that may contribute to conserve the air of youthfulness They would deceive Men and I know not whether or no they hope to deceive Death it self They would evermore be the object of the Worlds care and have a part in all its Pleasures When old age is come and has lain its Characters open in their meen they draw a Skreen before it to render it invisible You see these Women Idolatresses of the World to bury their head under an heap of Powder that they may confound the whiteness of their gray hairs with this adulterated and strange whiteness They fill the dints and hollows of their countenances with cousening Ceruse they shadow the wrinkles of their forehead with false hair and paints and in which they are most prudent they imbalm their Bodies and cover them with Perfumes to corrupt the ill odours that arise from the Carkasses In this equipage
your selves to this present wicked World As Strangers and Pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts Have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of Darkeness Make â—â—t the Temples of the Holy Ghost the members of an Harlot The Mind of the Prophets was not different from that of the Apostles for they speak after this manner Go to now I said â—f Mirth it is vanity and of Laughter it is madness It â—s better for a young man to go to the House of mourning â—han to go to the House of feasting for that is the end of all â—hen and the living will lay it to Heart It is good for a man 〈◊〉 bear the yoke in his youth I said in my Heart I will â—reve thee with Mirth therefore enjoy pleasure And behold his also is vanity Rejoyce O young man in the days of thy south but know that for all these things God will bring hee unto Judgment And now in good earnest are all these â—â—aughts of the Character of us Christians now a dayes â—â—ese Crosses these Thorns these rough Wayes these â—rait Gates this Yoke this renouncing the World and â—s Vanities do they signifie that we can follow our Lord â—esus Christ in the equipage of Sensuality sometimes â—mong Feasts sometimes Dancings sometimes at Coâ—edies and sometimes at Play Those soft and effemiâ—ate Lives that are spent at Carde and Dice in vain â—â—d lewd Conversations in the intrigues of fleshly love â—ave they any resemblance with the combates the â—rastlings the races from which the H. Spirit takes his â—mblems to paint out to us the Life of the Faithful â—ight the good fight of Faith and so run that ye may obtain the prize Keep under your Body and bring it into subjectionâ— So fight not as one that breaketh the Air. Heaven and Earth Life and Death are not more opposite to one another than the Effiminate life of us Christians to this pourtraict of the Life of the Faithful which the holy Ghost hath given us But above all let us remember that the Spirit 〈◊〉 Christianity and of Devotion loves nothing so much aâ— Mortification to which sensible Pleasures are mortal enemies Mortifie your members which are upon the Earth St. Paul bids us do they mortifie their Members that entertain and imploy them in Volptuousness in lying upon Beds of Down in pillaging Sea and Land to furnish them with delicate Meats in joyning Aâ—â— to Nature to compose delicious Liquors for them and in running after all that may enchant their Senses Some will say that by these Member whereof the Gospel commnads the Mortification 〈◊〉 ought to understand Vices Very well But doe 〈◊〉 we know that the Members of the Body are the origâ—ne of the members of that Old Man which makes Viceâ— we cannot kill Vice but by mortifying our members The flesh is that unhappy Field accursed by Gâ—â— which produces Thorns and Thistles the more yeâ— fatten this Earth the more will it produce of theâ— venemous Plants So that we are obliged to keep it 〈◊〉 a great Privation of those Pleasures that fomention cupisence to the end it may continue mighty barrâ— in respect of those unhappy Products The Spirit of Christianity and of Devotion is a Spirit of strength but pleasure is soft It softens the Soâ— and effeminates the courage and the Church requiâ—â— a vigorous Soul and an heart of a Temper which caâ—â— not be wounded by the most weighty blows nor tâ—â— most edged and hacking gleaves of the Churches Eâ—emies We are to march thorough an hundred and â—â—â—dred sharp Swords He that would follow the Truth of Jesus Christ ought to resolve to suffer Persecution since we have alwayes in our head the Devil and the World But can a soft and voluptuous Life be proper to dispose us to Martyrdom In going out of a perfumed Bed in rising from a Table almost weigh'd down with delicious meats with an head fill'd with the furnes of a debauch are we in a good state to mount Scaffolds to enter into Flames and without quaking look upon Racks and Tortures whether is it more reasonable to look for the Heroes of Jesus Christ capable of facing Death it self among our Christians that overwhelm and as it were fuddle themselves in pleasures or among those whose austere and retired Life has declared War to all the pleasures of the World But says one we are not called to Martyrdom and according to all appearances we shall never be It may be so but still it is of great importance we should alwayes have the necessary Disposition to suffer Martyrdom For God will judge us not only according to what we do but also according to what we would do Furthermore does any one believe that the Sword and Fire of the Persecutors of the Church are the most dangerous of all Temptations we imagine we have need of strength and courage only to vanquish or undergo such torments But alas Some who have come off victorious from their bloody Bartels have yet fallen into the snares of the Devil and some that have born the marks and brands of the Lord Jesus have become children of Hell by letting ' emselves be surpriz'd by the Devil of Pride Covetousness Uncleanness or Heresie Such an one who had torn a young Lion to pieces in his strength broken the bands of the Philistines and pil'd heaps of dead bodies with the jaw-bone of an Ass falls into the â—racelets of a Dalilah and is lead in herchains to an Idol Temple This truth the World is not ignorant of It was well said that the Delights of Capua did more than the sword of the Romans and that they found out the way to soften and break those hard Africans that march'd after Hannibal and made victory to march after them So the Tranquillity God bestows on us ought not to make us sleep in the Arms of Voluptuousness Prosperity is a strong Temptation and pleasure it self is a Monster which we cannot overcome without a vigorous Resistance Meditation I Am reading a maxime that makes me tremble God will judg us both according to what we do and according to what we would have done if we had bin exposed to those Temptations which may fall out in the Providence of God True it is there is scarce room for doubt in this maxime And it 's certain that my God would have the highest purity of Heart that no one is innocent in his sight because he has committed no evil but because he has not the inclination to commit it He sounds the depths of the Heart and searcheth the Reins and he will judg according to what he knows and not to what men see In my heart he sees crimes in their very buds And if these sins have not shot forth by reason of want of Earth if they have not come forth for want of Occasion and Opportunity I am therefore the more innocent But on the other side also who can undergoe the Terrour and Amazment that such a thought inspires
quell and take our Heart lower till we have brought it to its Duty we are to read meditate pray let it be never so much against the Grain Although the Devil comes to fill your Mind with evil thoughts says St. Basil you ought not therefore to abandon the use of Prayer you are to make new and greater Endeavours You must pray to God he would be pleas'd to break this thick Wall of vain thoughts which separates you from him you must beseech him that your Soul may be able soon to get to him without being retarded by meeting vain and evil Objects And if the Enemy should come even with a plentiful supply of Distractions yet you are not to give back nor lose any Courage nor renounce Victory in the midst of the Combate You must persevere till God perceiving your Constancy come to fill you with the light of his Spirit put the Enemy to flight purifie your Understanding and furnish your Reason with a divine Light whereby your Soul being put into the Possession of a Tranquillity exempt from Troubles may serve God with a perfect Joy This holy Person insinuates a Reason to us which we ought to remember in the design of Perseverance which is That the Devil never leaves off tempting us therefore we are not to leave off resisting him our resistance doth not make him give back so that we must not be foiled by his Temptations God who is the Spectator of our Warfare and the Rewarder of our Labours will with Pleasure see the faithful Soul in conflict with it's Infirmities and Distractions and when it is well nigh being subdued will come at length and lend it his helping hand Perseverance is a vertue of such great use that we owe to it the best works of Nature of Art and of Grace If God had left the World imperfect instead of a Miracle he had made a Prodigy There are particularly certain works to which the last-hand is so essential that if we do not conclude them what had been begun doth intirely perish If you leave a Picture after its first rough-drawing and design these beginnings will not cease subsisting upon the cloath but if you carry a wheel half way upon an hill and then leave it to it self for a moment why presently it will get to the Valley's bottom again and your labour will not only be imperfect but will come just to nothing Devotion is of this last sort of things if you leave it half done what you had done will soon perish 'T is Penelope's web what is done by day is undone by night If thy life be not a perpetual day and if thou dost not incessantly toil to advance thy Piety by Practice one night only form'd by the darkness of Indevotion and the absence of Gods Grace will ruine the work of many years and one minute of laziness will destroy that which Courage upheld a long time had produced Thy Devotion O Christian Soul is no more than a spark Nourish this sacred fire preciously blow it without remission gather combustible matter to it from all sides make thee a treasure of good things turn oft towards Jesus Christ thy Sun and thy Star and this small sparkle will become a great fire and this fire will cause a kindling and that kindling will cast up flames and those flames will lift thee to Heaven But if thou neglect this spark it will go quite out Sampson delivers himself up into the arms of Dalilah he sleeps in her breast his hair is shav'd which is the seat of his strength and when the awakes he goes according to custom to take away the gates of Gath and break the cords of the Philistines but he doth not find himself the same Sampson So the Christian that is weakned by a non-assiduity to Devotion sleeps in the arms of Pleasure his Soul is enervated he thinks to return to his old wont of having commere with God but the Devil attacks and overthrows him by a load of evil thoughts under which his Devotion lyes bound as by so many Chains If the Heavens should stop only for a day perhaps there would follow a general slaughter and subversion of Nature and much more without doubt the inferior things would receive a considerable damage When the superior part of our Soul stops its divine motions we cannot question but that a great disorder arises in the lower part for the passions which would ever be the masters do manage wisely these moments of Relaxation to prepare a Revolt So that our Piety and Devotion must have the constancy swiftness and order of the heavenly motions so as this little World may be always in a good Estate Nothing should hinder or interrupt the course of Devotion You see Daniel all the terrours of Death could not stop him in his divine race He must be cast into the den of Lions if he invokes God yet this hinders him not from falling down at his set hours towards Jerusalem the holy City Above all let us be far from the way of the World that runs to its own affairs as if they were the most pressing Let us give to God preserably what belongs to him and let us be at no farther trouble for the rest 'T is said of the Serpent that he secures his head when he is pursued and exposes his body if he can't save it The hours consecrated to Devotion are the head of our life and 't is an holy prudence not to expose them but to draw them out of Danger least the Devil and the World devour them In short persevering is far better than violent Devotion 't is much better to go a little pace but to be going always that to run impetuous yet interrupted races Some are devout only by fits for a day nothing more ardent more humble more mov'd but on the morrow so well dryed up in the torrent of their Tears that you can't see so much as the tracks of ' em The ardency of this fever is so extremely well quench'd as the least heat is not to be found A constant mediocrity is preferable before these Excesses of a small Duration Not that I think it not very necessary that Devotion have its Festivals and labour extraordinarily to rewaken it self on certain dayes and times These are the Extraordinaries of Piety to which we are to return as frequently as we can and mainly never to want it at times destin'd to pious Uses and Works as the participation of the blessed Sacrament of our Lord's Body and Blood But beside these Extraordinaries I would have the Soul have it's ordinary course well regulated and if that cannot be done always with those great motions as it were to be wisht yet that it never fall in the least in the Respites and Intermissions Meditation HAve not I great reason to faint and despair of success in all my designs if I do but consider the greatness of the Undertakings the difficulties to be met withal therein and the
an hundred other Lessons But all this is nothing to compare with the Knowledge to be had from the reading of that other book which God hath dictated to his Prophets and Apostles 'T is there thou mayest see the Abysses of the Divine Wisdom the infinity of his Love and the depths of his Mercy Without engaging thy self very deep in these Abysses what Fruit canst thou not reap from the Death of my Saviour and the Contemplation of his Cross thou wilt learn there how thou art to love for that is the School of Love thou wilt view thy Divine Saviour eaten up with the zeal of God's House burnt with the Flames of Charity He so loved the World that he gave himself up to Death for the World and that to a shameful cruel and tormenting death even that of the Cross He expos'd himself to all the arrows of God's Wrath he suckt the venom and underwent the weight of his Indignation and for whom for his Enemies 'T is thus O my Soul thou must Love This is but a very small part of the things thou mayst learn in that heavenly Book Prayer BVT O Lord I read in vain I meditate without success O my Sun infuse thy Rayes into my Heart open mine Eyes that I may see the wond'rous things of thy Law Make thy Word to be in me like a two edged Sword piercing even to the dividing of my Soul my Joynts and Marrow Thy Word is truth sanctifie me by thy Truth Let my Heart burn within me when thou speakest and declarest to me the Scriptures Let me receive thy word with a thirsty Soul and let it become unto me a Spring of living Waters bubling up to Eternal Life that I may be conducted by the Rivers of thy Grace to the Ocean of Glory CHAP. IX The fourth particular help to Devotion The use of Prayer I Do not design here to make any Commendation of Prayer nor to display all it's Uses which both the Antients and Moderns have done very Amply I shall only say that 't is one of the surest means to purifie the Soul since there is no Action whereby we approach nearer to God no time wherein he communicates himself more to us He hath been very often observ'd to give his Extraordinary inspirations in Prayer In praying St Peter fell into an Extasie Paul was ravisht to the third Heaven Cornelius in his Prayers receiv'd the Vision of an Angel Monica St Austin's Mother after her Prayers and Tears for the Salvation of her Son had in her dream that excellent Revelation of his Conversion An Angel tells her Afflict not thy self thy Son is with thee As God is the Sun of our Soul and jets his beams perpendicularly into our Hearts he must necessarily clarifie and heat them he disperses the vapours of the Inferiour part and draws his own Image there Now this Communication of the Raies of Grace is never made more than in Prayer I shall not stay to examine any further the Conditions with which Prayers should be made to be Devout it 's already shown enough that they ought to be Attentive Persevering and Ardent I shall only give here two Advices the one to avoid Weariness the other to avoid Distraction First I say that few Souls are capable of long Prayers For to render a Prayer perfectly devout there 's need of an extreme Contention of Mind an extraordinary Elevation and an entire loosening ones self from the World Now these Actions do a kind of Violence to the Soul which naturally tends to a releasing of it self and therefore they cannot be of any long Continuance If we give no relaxation to the Heart it takes it and rambles some where or other in spite of our teeth so as I would have the exercises of Devotion to be long tho divided into little spaces of time that they have many parts and each of 'em be short Devotion is composed of three principal Acts Reading Meditation and Prayer each of these need not be done presently so as to follow one another but they may be mingled for we must allow some grains to the Souls Weakness and we must keep it from disgust by variety A little reading may be the first degree of it's Elevation a little meditation on that reading will lift it a degree higher and after the reading and meditation a short Prayer will lead it to the highest degree of forgetting the World after which it will return wholly new to reading and Meditation in the same order In Prayer it will fly through the Air by the force of its own Wings and at its return to reading it will do like those Birds that weary with flying come to repose themselves not on the Earth but some very high Tree of their own choice so our devout Soul will come to rest it self not by falling on the Earth for 't will never set foot there nor permit the mind to return to the World but it will continue elevated upon the Props of the holy Prophets and Apostles Vr and Aaron will sustain it lifted up towards the Heaven and from thence taking its flight it will by little and little rise upon the Wings of Meditation untill it return by Prayers whither it was first lifted up This method undoubtedly will give it time to renew its strength it cannot hold out long if its course be push'd on to the utmost of its vigour but by taking breath and marching fairly on from time to time it will make a very great advance in a day The other Direction I would give regards those who having not been busied about the operations of the Mind are less proper for the great Elevations These People ordinarily make their Devotions in Prayers pronounced by heart from which way Distractions are almost inseparable These I would counsel to endeavour to untye themselves from Words and hold only to the Sense I do not mean that in their Family-Prayers they should dispense themselves from their Forms I know very well that all the World has not the gift of forming their thoughts and putting them into an order which may edifie the Publick but for the Devotions of the Closet they are rather to be made by Heart than by the Tongue When the Imagination does not make some endeavour for the production of its Thoughts and the choice of its Words in following the beaten Road which it fears not to lose it never fails of going somewhither else as having nothing to do in the place where we would retain it but when it gives Attention to the manner in which is necessary to express the things which the Heart has conceiv'd the Heart and the Imagination uniting their Forces make up a compleat Attention I cannot endure to hear some say That all the World is not capable of composing all are not able to compose for Men but to compose for God they are able Let us make never such Efforts to speak well we stammer in the Mouth before the Lord and