exercise of piety that we ought to perswade all Christians to and is grounded upon the principles of Christianity which teach us that all the effects of grace be it of God towards men or of men towards God relate to Iesus as their principall support prop and foundation for it is by him that the eternall Father gives us all in as much as he hath chosen the holy humanity of his onely Sonne as an instrument conjoyned to the Divinity to operate his works of grace in Heaven and upon Earth By him he receives the homage and adorations of his people and of all men in Heaven and Earth Hence it may be inferr'd that all is grounded upon Iesus all subsists by him that all may be united to him and by him to the Father Iesus must be the onely object of our thoughts resentments and obligations Upon this truth we ought to make often reflections for God hath subjected the World to our use and given us his Sonne the Sonne I say out of an excess of incomparable love becomes wholly ours that by a mutuall right we may be wholly his and by him the Father's that we may say to him in piety as he said to his Father in love All that is mine is thine and all that is thine is mine Yea my Iesus thou art mine by thy Incarnation thou art mine by the Mysteries of thy life mine thou gavest me thy spirit in Baptisme thy body in the Eucharist thy glory I shall have in Paradise and thou mayst say truly that what is thine is mine So order it then that I may say to thee with as much truth and fidelity as thou hast expressed affection in giving thy self to me that whatever is mine is also thine my being my life my actions my love all thine but much more truly then my own for it is in me but by thee and for thee I will then from this present and to all eternity be wholly thine and my being my life and my actions all that I am shall be ever referred to thy glory Hence we are to conclude that the first design and intention we are to have in our devotions is to refer all our actions to the glory and honour of the Sonne of God to remember him before we think of our selves to seek his glory before we look upon our own Interests or necessities Herein the greatest part of Christians at this day are deceived not onely those who in the exercises of piety seek the honour and esteem of men and aspire onely to vanity and a fleshly spirit but even those who seem to follow the exercises of piety with most love and purity For they believe they do much in seeking the occasions of merit and employing themselves in what promotes their spirituall advancement and taking some relish and enjoyment therein whenever there is occasion they make it their onely businesse their principall employment it takes up their chiefest thoughts and what is worse they often place their end therein and are perswaded that they have attained a high and perfect degree of piety imagining themselves rich in merits and far advanced in the wayes of perfection and that they may serve God with delight He is blind who sees not the danger those are in who live thus for while they think they serve God they principally mind their own profit and if the business be well examin'd you will find they change the glory of God into their own particular satisfaction the end of their exercises being their own content and interests of whom we may say with the Apostle They love and seek themselves and make a gain of Piety To reform this universall and dangerous abuse we must consider that as the esteem and spirit of true piety consisteth in loving honouring and serving of God in order to an adherence to him and a dependance on his divine will so the motive object and end we are to have in our devotions must onely be the honour love and service of God and a complyance with his amorous conduct The Christian therefore who would live in the exercise of true piety must first by a voluntary subjection adhere to the power and conduct of the Sonne of God as we have already shewed and further refer himself wholly to the honour and glory of Iesus in as much as we are his and by him God's and render to God the honour and service we owe him According to this advice the perfect Christian must have a continuall and vigilant care so to order it that his life and actions may be accounted worthy of Iesus Christ as being such as shall contribute to his glory after the manner he would have it which is to be done thus CHAP. XI The Use and Practice of what hath been proposed WE have elsewhere taught what was to be done to render our actions worthy of Iesus Christ it is not necessary to speak any further of it We are therefore only to remember that all our actions must be Christian to be worthy of the Son of God and consequently must be holy and to be holy they must be accomplished in the spirit and by the principle of grace the Holy Ghost the spirit of Iesus our actions to be Christian must be done in the spirit and dispositions of Iesus It remains onely that we see how we may honour him by our life by our actions and in all things whereof we propose two ways One is in regard of our selves when we live and act in a disposition of will wholly submitted and directed towards God and by right and pure intention referre our selves and all our actions to the Son of God offering our selves so to him as not to live or act any thing but for his honour and glory The other is in regard of the Son of God when he vouchsafes to apply and honour himself in us after what manner he pleaseth causing us to live and act in the power of his spirit making us to bear the effects of divine will in continuing the designs he hath over us to take in us his pleasure and glory According to this later way the soul acteth not but accepts and keeps her self in the regard of the Son of God as the subject of his divine operations and therefore must onely be attentive and faithfull to that which he doth in her and by her obliging her self by a submissive acquiescence to all he doth be it enjoyment or privation rest or pain change or destruction accepting his conduct and consenting to all the effects of his works in her out of a confidence that he will establish all in her for his glory This advice to souls who endeavour to live in the grace of God and seek Christian perfection is of so great consequence that to fail in this point is to fail in all God is in us by grace he is there to operate not onely by himself but by us for he is the common principle of life and
as Princes of the Blood And as the Princes of this world do maintain themselves in their Estate and that greatness which their Birth allows them so do you couragiously maintain your selves in all rights due to you by this new divine Birth O how great and sublime is it if you behold it with the eye of Faith The rank you are to hold with the Creatures of heaven and earth is the same with Jesus Christ who accompanies you to his estate and greatness the grace of the Son of God which you receive as a Christian giveth you right to his heritage If children saith Saint Paul then heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ. Now the bosom of the eternall Father is the only heritage of Jesus Christ there is his eternall dwelling there his repose there the seat of his delight the Throne of his greatness Even this is the rank you ought to keep there ought to be your repose your delight in the fruition of this onely happiness Remember that the bosom of God is the place destin'd for your eternall dwelling a place of glory and permanent felicity God only is your heritage undervalue not him for transitory vanities of this world forsake him not for the whole world unless you would be for ever miserable Admit this truth farther into your heart believe it not an imagination of a new Piety 't is the foundation of Christianity the ground and principle of the state of Grace which considering intentively you will wonder to see Christians confess these truths and hope for so great a good yet become so blind as to suffer themselves to be deluded by deceitfull vanities and vain illusions of the creatures to sell their birth-right for a mess of pottage and whilest they pretend to be the children of God glorying in so divine a being to live like the children of men thinking of nothing but the earth The second benefit is a great desire of Paradise sighing daily thousands of times after our heritage Heaven bewailing the want of and demanding the liberty promised and due to the children of God In this thought of our Celestiall Sion our sweet Countrey we grieve to see our selves so long in a strange Land It is hard to attend with so great impatience a happy day a good hour an honour which we are made to hope for yet we are without sense in attaining it the true and ineffable joyes of Paradise Great God! can it be that the Manna of Heaven should not cause us to loath the Onyons of AEgypt How long children of men how long shall we have hearts of Adamant insensible toward the things of Heaven yet open for the transitory goods of this cursed earth to love lying to follow vanity to despise eternall truths There cannot be a folly more condemnable Let us open our eyes and grieve to see our selves so fastened to the creature so confident in vanity so little relishing and esteeming heavenly things Let us be ashamed to see the children of heaven eat the food of Swine in a strange land not remembering the abundance of all things in their Fathers House Thirdly we learn that we must live nobly like the children of God Let us take heed we dishonour not our extraction and degenerate from the place whence we came Let us keep the rank we have received in the House of God The Emperor was derided for it who past his time and life away in catching Flyes let not us do so amusing our selves about the creatures and only labouring here for earth since we know all in the world is of less value then a Fly and that in the sight of God the universe is less then the least Atome Let us rather imitate that other Prince who invited by honour and the greatness of his birth would never run nor play but among Kings his equalls Applying this to our Subject let us say that a Christian being the child of God and consequently Prince of Heaven ought to expect no heritage but Paradise to seek no other company but Saints and Angels to take no content but in Iesus Christ endeavouring to follow him in all to imitate him in all since he hopeth to raign with him These Truths deserve to be deliberately considered Saint Cyprian in a Discourse upon the Ascension raises them higher saying That Christians as children of God are obliged to be like God The same is the Doctrine of Saint Paul Be ye followers of God as dear children The reason of this Precept is evident for if as children of God we will enjoy his glory to eternity the possession and the heritage of Iesus Christ and become one with him must we not necessarily be like him in purity in perfection in sanctity If we will possess God in God and live eternally in the bosom of God must not our life be wonderfull our actions holy if we will merit an estate so perfect and holy Nothing is more just Herein appears the Christian estate so great divine and perfect in that making us children of God it gives us right to the heritage of God obliges us to lead a life worthy such an heritage By this principle we see how much they are deceived who think and speak meanly of Christianity or living a life common to the children of the world promise themselves the heritage of the children of Heaven Let us teach them how they ought to live and shew what the actions of their life ought to be who call themselves Christians CHAP. V. What the Actions of Christians ought to be SEeing the state of Christianity is so eminent that it advances the soul to a filiall being so divine it follows that the actions of Christians ought to be eminently devout and perfect This truth is proved not only by the common principles that the life and operations of every thing ought to be conformable to their being but likewise by another maxime of Christianity that a Christian receive all by Christ and in Christ and as the Apostle sayes of him and though him and to him In pursuit of this Principle all the actions of a Christian ought to be done in the Spirit of Iesus and in respect to God which makes them high perfect and holy High as proceeding from Christ its principle Holy as being wrought in him perfect and pure as being wrought for him such actions we truly call Christian. To explicate this more particularly we must observe that a true Christian action must be done in grace in the spirit in the dispositions wherewith Iesus Christ performed his actions during his wayfaring life yet in a different way for the son of God as God and man did act after a divine manner proportioned to the eminence of his estate To work after this manner is proper only to him to this we cannot arrive neither must we aspire unto it but we are obliged to act after a manner very near this and the highest that can be excepting this For the
is supernaturall because in it there is nothing singular For the grace given to Angels and to man before his fall was also supernatural We must say that the grace of Christianity is a grace made for the Sonne of God and consequently worthy of the greatness of the Sanctity and divinity of the incarnate word this makes it the raiser of an Order and gives it a being much different from the first and from the order meerly supernaturall This gives it a being and order as different from the grace of the Angels as they are from Iesus Christ as the sonne from the servant Now applying what we have said that Actions ought to be conformable to their Principle we conclude that the actions of a Christian being sanctified and enlivened by the grace and spirit of Iesus ought also to be wholly conformable to Iesus Christ their principle being more then humane more then angelicall conformable to the purity and sanctity of the grace of the Sonne of God worthy the Labours of his Crosse and death To this end St. Paul adviseth that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called words that deserve to be considered since that God will demand an account of us of his favours and benefits and will judge our actions and lives according to the dignity of our vocation according to the perfection and sanctity of his Grace in brief according to the life of Iesus Christ which alone ought to be the rule and Law of Christians Furthermore we must consider the rule of God over our Soules wherin we may admire the wayes and meanes whereby the divine bounty and infinite wisdome of God uses to give us graces necessary to accomplish our actions in that perfection and sanctity that he requires I intend not to speak of the secret and unknowne means of the graces inspirations motions and speedy succours wherewith God is pleased to illuminate our Spirits to enflame our wills and to direct all the motions and actions of our life But I desire only to insist upon the consideration of the Sacraments that the sonne of God hath left in his Church as channells by which he continually powers out this grace into us Baptisme consecrates us to the most holy Trinity makes us the children of God members of Iesus Christ Temples of the Holy Ghost and holy Vessells which bear Iesus Christ who dwells in us And the Eucharist which is among the Sacraments as the Sun among the Stars gives God to us and with him all the greatness of heaven elevates us and unites us to God changes and makes us little gods What would ye more Why is God think you so profuse of his gifts of his graces of himself but to operate in you all that I have said to give you a life and actions conformable to the being whereto he hath elected you Let us weigh these truths at our leisure and study to attain to the perfection that God requires of us Let us take care that all our actions be holy and worthy of God and let us not be carryed away by the humour or rather by the infidelity of such as ignorantly despise these important truths and necessary exercises The third Prerogative CHAP. VI. Of the happy Commerce and Society that Iesus Christ will have with Christians by the Mystery of the Incarnation THe holy Trinity having consecrated the Christian by Baptisme adopted and received him as a son enters into a particular society with him and by divers Mysteries which the eternall Word hath operated upon earth God enters into a Communication with men lives and converses with them So Saint Paul speaking to new Christians Ye are no more strangers and forreigners but fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God Let us stay here to contemplate this benefit Adam being fallen from the happy estate of grace by his rebellion against God no sooner tasted the Apple of disobedience but he felt the punishment of his sin and was at the same time driven out of Paradise and banished the happy commerce and holy familiarity which he had with God This exile was the greatest rigour wherewith the divine Iustice could take vengeance on his sin This separation made his estate miserable and the condition of his children most unhappy We should in this malediction and just divorse for ever have continued if the Son of God had not come to re-establish all things to return us to God and to restore us with much advantage all other happiness that we lost by sin So that as the Apostle saith where sin abounded grace did much more abound for we enter into a familiarity and communion with God far more holy and divine then that of Adam by Iesus Christ we converse with God go to him are with him worthy the Spirit and Grace of Christianity Few value this truth men who only follow their own wayes nourished with earth onely to whom the delicates of heaven are unsavory can never relish this grace nor be sensible how much the presence of God is necessary Therein appears the corrupt estate of this Age all creatures resent the presence of their Creator Nature it self hath engraven in the bottom of our essence a desire of the presence of God The most barbarous Nations forced only by this instinct in the blindness of their false Religion sought esteemed and desired some visible mark of the presence of those they call their gods None but those of this Age have an indifference to these truths forget God mind onely their own actions in this world and are ignorant of the happiness of Heaven and despise it To awaken and draw us forth of this darkness consider that Faith teaches us that the happiness of the Saints consists in seeing themselves to be in the company of God and the greatest recompense God promises to our travels is to make us partakers of his glory to raise us to his greatness to enter into an eternall communion with us I will saith Christ to his Father that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am implying the society and communion of God with us and promising that eternity shall never separate him from him that serves him Now if the happiness of the blessed in their estate of glory consists in the presence and familiarity of God we cannot doubt but the happiness of the just upon earth consists in knowing how to preserve themselves in this desireable familiarity and presence of God The intent of the Son of God at his coming into the world and becoming an Inhabitant thereof was to sanctifie it by his presence and establish his power therein and dwell with us to the end of the world as he promised at his death This is it that he wrought by the mysterie of the Incarnation making himself man to live among men For this cause in the Sacrament of the Eucharist he becomes the food of man communicates to his abundant graces inriches
us with his gifts that by all these endearments and singular favours he might separate us from the creatures and reduce us to a divine society and communication with him Let us consider these two mysteries of our Faith and Love mysteries which give God to us and cause us to dwell with God The last is the mysterie of the Incarnation a mysterie of Love an eternall mysterie for God shall be man and man God for ever a mysterie causing God to live the life of man and man the life of God which between God and man effects an union and society so divine and intimate that he could not do any thing more holy nor desire any more intimate since it is substantiall and personall and shall subsist eternally Entring further into the consideration of this Mystery we shall see evident signs of this holy Communion God makes here a new World as the Scripture calls it a World of Grace and of holiness a World which he governs by a new conduct and providence For whereas before God confining himself within himself spoke not to the World but by his Prophets now by the accomplishment of this Mystery he comes out of himself speaks to us and instructs us by his Sonne Four thousand years he guided the World and his Church onely by his Angels the Interpreters and Oracles of his divine will Now Iesus guides his Church by himself he infuses holy motions into our souls by his spirit alwayes holy he governs all is present with all and is found by all What presence or commerce with God would you desire greater what greater society then that of the word by the Mystery of the incarnation To know it more particularly consider these Circumstances First in this Mystery God lives the life of man and man the life of God a life of society a life humanely divine and divinely humane for Iesus is God and man in Iesus we adore and acknowledge two lives one of God in man another of man in God Secondly by this ineffable union God communicates himself to man and by this communication appropriates to himself all that is of man with such wonderful wisdom that not dishonouring his divine greatness he takes upon him all the lowness of man and subjects himself so really to our infirmities that we say God is dead God is born c. and man by a happy exchange is lifted up to all the greatness of God inthron'd in the bosom of the eternal Father where he eternally enjoyes the proper glory of God Let every tongue confess that in Iesus Christ by that hypostaticall union accomplished in the Mystery of the incarnation man enjoyes the glory of God his greatness light and life Thirdly As for the life and divine mysteries of the Sonne of God we see he presented it to us the space of thirty three years conversing with us as one of us was an Infant in his first appearing laboured in his youth did live and eat with sinners in his wayfaring life He disdained not to succour the infirm in his miraculous life In a word he resigned himself into the hands of sinners a Sacrifice and was offered a holy offering on the Crosse for the sins of the World O wonderfull he died between two Thieves in the company of men so much pleased with the society and commerce of men What Religion ever had the presence of its God so visible what being was ever advanced to so great an honour To none but the Christian is this great favour granted a Commerce so sacred that it makes man God and God man By the ineffable mystery of the incarnation God unites the Earth to Heaven and Heaven to Earth The God of Heaven dwells upon the Earth according to that of St. Iohn The word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us all nature rejoyced at this happiness St. Iohn transported with love and joy representing to the world the truth and excellency of this benefit saith It is the same God that we have heard that we have seen with our eyes which we have looked on and our hands have handled So true is it that God by the mystery of the incarnation is with us and converses amongst us after a society wholly divine and onely proper to the state of a Christian. CHAP. VII Of the uses Christians ought to make of Grace proceeding from the Mystery of the Incarnation IN pursuit of these proposed Truths what may we judge to be the intentions of God but that his will is that we should enter into a holy and divine society with him and that we should separate our selves from all that may hinder or prophane this holy conversation with him since that Iesus Christ thinks of us converses with us by his divine mysteries unites himself unto us and abaseth himself to be as one of us to be among us we ought likewise to think of none but him to love none but him to converse with none but him and like the Apostle dwelling upon Earth to have our Conversation in Heaven Iustin Martyr shewing what Christians ought to be saith Christians are in the body but they live not according to the body they dwell upon the Earth but their Conversation is in Heaven This God requires of us this we ought to be in the state of Christianity this is the use we ought to make of the spirit and grace flowing from the Mystery of the incarnation But alass it is pitty that Iesus being now revealed unto us living with us and amongst us we apply thereto so little of our selves of our thoughts and of our love and busie our selves in things so small prophane and mean even such as are unworthy of man Let us do like him Love made him forget himself to converse with us let us come out of our selves and forget all things that we may raise our selves to him that all our content may be in him Moreover the state of the Grace of this Mystery obliges us to be holy seeing Iesus Christ with whom we converse is holy The Apostle says as he that hath called you is holy be ye also holy in all manner of conversation speaking walking working and whatsoever you do He that lives after any other manner saith St. Cyprian then holily dishonours the title of a Christian and is a reproach to Iesus Christ. Let such as believe not sanctity necessary for all Christians as well as those who live included in Cloysters consider these words We see in the Mystery of the incarnation that the Sonne of God enters into Commerce and society with us dwells with us is cloathed with our humanity God is made man that man might be made God not by simple denomination as God said to Moses I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and Kings in the Scripture are stiled Gods but really and by a being which deifies them For as they are true Children of God by Grace and as truly children by Grace as Christ is
saw him but did not enjoy him few persons knew him he was not then seen but in his lowness as sayes the Apostle in the likeness of sinfull flesh In the Eucharist we see him by Faith a light as true and more infallible then that of the Sunne it self we do adore him in his greatness in the state of that glory which he hath in the bosom of his Father we handle him we touch him we eat him After this manner he is ours he will have us to be his he is in us and we in him we live of him and for him as he lives for us and the life that he lives in us is so divine that he composes it to the life that he leads in the bosom of his Father Now what more solid union what more intimate society what more divine commerce can be imagin'd what greater can we require of God Secondly During his life here he taught and redeemed Man-kind he dyed and merited for them but he gave nothing or if he gave it was little in comparison of the liberal profusions which he makes of himself in this ineffable Sacrament where he merits no more for it is not the time but gives himself to Christians and with himself all the treasures of grace and holiness This is a Sacrament of Communion and communication whereby the Sonne of God communicates to every one of us a life of grace the seed of glory In a word he communicates himself here as he communicates himself to the Saints in the state of Glory yet after a different manner and conformable to the diversity of the states of the Church militant and Tryumphant Add to this that in the time of the Incarnation Iesus Christ was upon the earth without power covered with our infirmities living in our weakness subject to the empire of death Now we possess and enjoy him in the bosom of his Father in the extent of his power having in his hand the conduct of Heaven and Earth Then he was in the World in poverty and privation but in this Sacrament of Love and communication he enjoyes the fulness of his greatness and is onely here that he may communicate them Thirdly Here on earth during his mortality he was seen but sometimes and that successively for some saw him in his infancy and no more others in his youth some felt the effects of his power in working of miracles many were witnesses of his death and sufferings All this past and was seen but in a small part of the World in Palestine in Ierusalem all the rest of the World was in darkness and saw not this beautiful Sun nor enjoy'd this agreeable light But in the Mystery and Sacrament of the Eucharist Iesus as given to all the World all the people of the Earth enjoy him from the East to the West from the North to the South there is no Nation where the Christians possess not Iesus Christ and in him all the estates and severall Mysteries of his life all that he is and shall be eternally Iesus in his life on Earth was in the quality of a servant as he saith of himself He came not into the World to be ministred unto but to minister also he was subject to Angels to men even to the very devills when he gave them power over his life in the time of his sufferings But in this divine Sacrament he is as in his Empire and in his Paradise we there adore him as our spouse governing his Church like the Sun enlightening our souls like a Prince establishing the Kingdom of his grace and the power of God in our spirits we there acknowledge him as a propitiation for humane kind rendring to the eternal Father the honour that is due to him In brief in this Mystery of Love we behold Iesus Christ as in the throne of his greatness where he receives throughout the World the adoration of his people and the duties of our souls In this manner the Earth is made a Heaven and we have our God with us and in us Let us consider these truths that so we may profit thereby and let us see what this divine bounty will work in us which makes such an abundant communication of it self in this Sacrament CHAP. IX The Design of Iesus Christ upon Christians in this most high Sacrament of the Eucharist WHat think we God requires of us for so powerfull a work of his Love What design can he have upon Christians in so divine a communication so generall a profusion of his gifts First he will change us a happy change for us for he changeth us into himself according to Saint Austin I shall be changed into thee but thou shalt not be changed into me Secondly he does thus change us not so much by a gift or created grace as by his holy humanity and the power of his divinity Thirdly the Son of God effecting this change out of the excess of love make use of this means to unite himself to us and to assume a new power over us as of a thing that belongs to him For having by his body taken possession of our member as his and made us members of his body flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone by his divine sacrament of union love and unity he assumes power over us by a right to him for ever When we shall consider these three Circumstances what can we think or say but that God will have us no longer men but gods He will have us to go out of our selves to be in him and cease to be that which we are to be what he is O how great is this How cleerly doth the holiness of the Christian estate appear seeing then this benefit is so heavenly and the communication so divine and wonderful in this ineffable sacrament we are by consequence obliged to make uses conformable to the thing it self and to the designs of God of which I shall propose some First That your sole contentment be to be with God who takes such pleasure to be with you that all things be unsavory to you that all the pleasures of the world be contrary to your heart renounce all lying and vanity Let even your smallest entertainments and ordinary actions be in him who is in the bottom of your heart who testifies such a singular love unto you This practice and affection will not be difficult if you be truly disposed to vertue for being vertuous it will be hard to take recreation in any created thing not in the least unprofitable word because a perfect Christian takes no pleasure but in God and that which is of God for being a member of Iesus Christ as such he is to act holily he must live of the spirit of Iesus Christ no way recreate himself but in him and in holy and vertuous things Secondly Recollect and form often in your soul a great and continuall desire that God be in you all that he ought to be and that
this is the design of God Or else if by humiliations and interiour or exteriour eversions God will annihilate us let us consent to this annihilation and applying our selves thereto co-operate with the work of God with all the extent and power of our soul and so let us do in all and according to the diversity of the objects This advice is not contrary to the pure regard of God which we must have in all sufferings for in the works of God and in all that he permits we must consider the end for which God does it and the cause that moves him either to permit it or do it The end of the works of God is his honour and glory but the cause that moves him in his operations and divine permissions is the salvation of our souls the establishment and communication of his spirit his graces and his vertues We must here do as before we must suffer having no end but the pure regard of God and of his glory But because God requires fidelity and will establish his Kingdom and power in our souls it is also our duty to co-operate with his intentions and to receive all things not onely because such is his good pleasure but also in the manner that he will and to make use thereof according to his pleasure The perfection therefore of the spirit of sufferance consisteth not in receiving all things indifferently a soul is not perfect though it be insensible of all accidents be they never so sad and miserable Perfection consists not in a Stoicall apathy but if there be a perfection and purity in suffering it is when we receive all things in the spirit and in the holy divine dispositions of Iesus and that we bear them after that manner that God wills and according to the designs and intentions of God And herein consists the first and noblest Disposition which must accompany our sufferings We come now to the second CHAP. XIII How we ought to suffer in the spirit of Christianity IF when you do well and suffer for it you take it patiently it is acceptable to God for hereunto were you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps In these words full of efficacy and truth the Prince of the Apostles proposes the motives which obliege us to suffer patiently all adversities and afflictions which occur in all conditions of this life He saith that we are called thereto and that by consequence the proper condition and quality of a Christian binds us to the Crosse. It is not necessary to alledge proofs of this seeing we have said enough already For the spirit grace and conduct of God whereby he uses to save us is no other then that of annihilations and humiliations and afflictions God hath try'd them and found them worthy of him The Crosse and sufferings is then the lot of Christians it is their portion and they must make such use of it as to bear it Christianly But the most powerfull motive the Apostle makes use of to teach us patience is when he sayes that Iesus Christ suffered for us and that we must imitate him and follow his steps after this we cannot in reason find any thing hard If Iesus Christ from his birth to his death hath espoused the sufferings and embraced the Cross wherefore should we refuse being his Children to live and dye as he did we know that the Son of God came from Heaven to Earth to suffer the humiliations and pains due to sins and sinners and that He would by this low estate honour his Father but withall he left upon the Earth the same spirit to honour God that as in Heaven God is honoured by exaltation he might be honoured upon Earth by humiliation In pursuance of this design of Iesus Christ we must as Christians honour God by our lowness and annihilation On the other side seeing the Sonne of God dyed for us we must dye for him if he be the example of our life as the Apostle sayes we must imitate him and if he be born our head according to St. Paul we must as his members bear his spirit and follow his motions In a word if we raign with Iesus Christ we must suffer with him There remains then no more then to know the spirit and dispositions where with we must receive and bear sufferings We have said that the 2 d. Disposition necessary to a perfect Christian to live faithfully in the adversities of humane life is to bear them in a Christian way and according to the spirit of Christianity Now we suffer in Christan ways when we suffer what befalls us as an order of God and as an estate prepared for Christians and by which God will conduct us to the heritage of Christians so that according to this Disposition we make no reflection at all on our sufferings nor upon the estates and overturnings wherein we are our spirit onely remains settled and fastened upon the thought of this truth I am a Christian and as such I belong to Iesus Christ who puts me into what estate he pleases and because I am oblig'd to do his good pleasure I will have no other thought then to resign my self to Iesus Christ to do with me according to his good pleasure By adhering to this truth by this Disposition and interiour estate the soul is united to Iesus Christ as the members are to their head and she remains subject to his conduct without further care or thought then that she is God's because God wills it Herein consisteth the spirit of Christianity and the duty of a perfect Christian. This Disposition is pure and simple and produceth in the soul a perfect peace calm and repose the reason of it consisteth in that the sufferings humiliations and contempts are the centre of the Christian soul as things created have no repose but in their centre so the perfect Christian cannot have the true repose of the soul but in sufferings and in this Disposition they are the centre of Christianity because the eternall Word was pleased to place his estate and whole life in humiliation He was born in poverty he lived in contempt he died upon the cross all the passages of his way-faring life were in continuall sufferings and lowness and also when he was in Heaven in the bosom of the Father in the throne of the greatness of the Divinity he entertain'd thoughts of the cross he consents to death and prepares himself for sufferings when that from all eternity he resolv'd to be made man and to invest himself with the infirmities of our nature so true is it that all the conditions of the Son of God were in sufferings and lowness This also the centre repose and life of a perfect Christian ought to be in the estate and life of Iesus Christ and as the life of Iesus Christ and his estates are contained in adversities in lowness and in the thoughts of the cross it
consequently follows that the centre the repose of a Christian cannot be but in this estate of sufferings and in the same condition of suffering that Iesus Christ was here upon earth When we say that the centre and spirit of Christianity is no other then the cross annihilations and adversities we must conceive it in the highest and consider that the Son of God came into the World for the glory of his Father to satisfie his divine Iustice and for the sanctification of our souls These were his designes desires and thoughts Now the thoughts and intentions of the Son of God are eternall and permanent for they are divine and it is the property of the essence and of divine actions to be immutable and permanent Seeing then that the Son of God hath chosen the cross from all eternity lived upon earth in the spirit of sufferance he remains alwayes in the thoughts of the cross in the desires of humiliation and the rigour of death the zeal of the glory of his Father goes not from his heart but he preserves this spirit and offers himself to his Father to bear it eternally and to suffer the effects of it if it be his good pleasure This zeal ought not to be unfruitfull this offer is not to be refused and yet the estate of his greatness and the condition of his glory cannot permit it What remedy Love alwayes wise and inventive hath found out a means to satisfie the equity of his desires and divine affection and the Majesty of his glory for the eternall Father hath given his Son a mysticall body which is his Church he hath appointed him Head over all his Church which is his body all Christians are members of this body true members as the body is a true body though a mysticall body We are saith the Apostle members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Now to this body and these members the spirit and zeal of Iesus Christ communicates it self by the designe and speciall counsel of the blessed Trinity In pursuit of this divine counsel the Son of God pours into his Church and upon Christians the zeal of the glory of God the spirit of the cross and the love of justice he pours it out as he pleases distributing his gifts according to his holy will To some he communicates his spirit of sufferance and crosses to others that of death and to speak more generally he communicates his estates and spirit to whom he pleases and as he pleases So Saint Paul I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh Reflecting on this truth we shall cleerly see that the spirit of Christianity is no other then the spirit of Iesus which he communicates to his Church being the head and to Christians his members And as this spirit is no other then a desire of the glory of God love of the cross and zeal of justice it follows they who will be good Christians must necessarily bear this spirit and be in this estate of annihilation and the cross and embrace all adversities that they meet with yea embrace them couragiously as an order of God established upon them and as an estate which is singularly proper for them In this Disposition they shall find the centre and repose of their souls and in this subjection to the cross they shall obtain the peace that Iesus Christ hath acquired for us by his cross We may also say that to suffer Christianly is to bear all things with cheerfulness of spirit doing like the Apostles who departed rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for his Names sake and like the first Christians who took joyfully the spoyling of their goods defied torments and the cruelty of beasts like Saint Ignatius the burning of fire as Saint Lawrence the violence of torments as Saint Agnes and in the Churches first beginning their zeal to suffer was so great that it made the Apostle Saint Iames to say Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations This advice will seem hard for the rigours of the cross and pains of this life are too piercing but if we love all will be easie for where love is saith Saint Bernard there is nothing but sweetness and nothing is difficult to him that loves though thornes guard and encompass the Rose we gather it notwithstanding and enjoy its beauty and odour Iacob sayes he served seven years for Rachel and they seemed unto him but a few dayes because he loved her so much that he was insensible of the travail He also that will suffer Christianly must love for he that cannot love cannot suffer and he that can neither suffer nor love is no Christian seeing that love is the spirit of Christianity and sufferance the spirit of love This principle considered no rigours that we find in humane life can appear difficult and misfortunes and pains are onely irk some to us for want of love Let us then but love and they will all be easie by love the sufferings of Christians are distinguished from those of others For it is common to all men to suffer it is the condition of their being and portion of their life and the more they think themselves secure the more they are surprised with misfortunes but it belongs onely to Christians to suffer with love The sinner is drawn by the neck like a slave to do the will of God the good man willingly followes him and findes no pain in any thing but on the contrary he finds comfort in travail and repose in displeasure In this sense the Apostle cryes out upon sight of the wounds and scarrs he endured for Iesus Christ Henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Iesus And elsewhere I will glory willingly in my infirmities that the power of Iesus Christ may dwell in me To suffer in this disposition is to suffer Christianly or else let us say that to suffer Christianly is to suffer with an esteem of sufferings There are divers reasons why we should take and well esteem them but the principall consisteth in that Iesus Christ hath chosen this manner of life as a way that honoureth more divinely the Majesty of God then any other estate and he hath chosen this way from all eternity and by consequence from all eternity he beares the thoughts and love of the Cross. He hath chosen the Cross saith St. Paul he hath embraced it from the first moment of his incarnation and by an excess of love he began to suffer as soon as he was born And that which is to be observed is that by the election of his divine wisdom which never fails he hath made choyce of confusion and contempt rather then greatness and contentment So saith the Apostle of him and we find it in his divine Mysteries And from hence comes the esteem that we ought to have thereof
and heart of man which are great and worthy himself as being a creature he hath consecrated by his precious blood and redeemed by his death and Crosse. If there are intentions and designes upon us as we must not doubt but there are and such as are of great importance yet unknown to us is it not reason we follow them and consequently are we not obliged to annihilate all our own desires and intentions to bind and subject our selves solely to the desires and intentions of the Son of God who vouchsafes to think of us and entertain himself in forming designes upon us our actions and all the motions of our life This is it we endeavour to satisfie when we form this act of purity or unity of intention This also shewes how unprofitable and superfluous their employment is who fill their hearts with variety of intentions and perplex themselves with multiplicity of thoughts who conceive desires and form designes sometimes one way sometimes another though upon occasions in appearance good and profitable since they do onely what pleases themselves But according to the Principles of Christianity it were better they kept themselves to this unity and annihilated all that is of themselves to be onely in the intentions and designes of Iesus Christ. The Christian therefore ought often to renew this purity of intention he ought to adore all the designes of Iesus Christ upon him and all his divine intentions he must resign himself thereto and protest never to follow any other holding it for a maxime that we shall not arrive at perfection nor go to God by the strength of humane reason or following our own desires and inclinations but by submitting our spirit to the conduct of Iesus by a faithfull and sincere adherence to his designes and loving dispositions This considered we shall know more and more the truth of what was proposed from the beginning that true piety consisteth in adherence to and a resignation of the soul to Iesus But we are now to examine the effects of this adherence CHAP. VIII That an adherence to Jesus Christ by true Piety makes us partakers of the severall conditions of his life THe adherence and dependance of Christians upon the Sonne of God by the first grounds and principles of Christianity and by the first duty which they profess in the state of grace obliges them to a holy and pure life since that as the Apostle saith He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit that is to say he must be of the same spirit with God and doubtless if they oppose not the designes of Iesus Christ upon them this adherence will advance them to a solid permanent estate of perfect piety and establish them in a true Christian perfection This may be reduced to three heads The first is a subjection of the soul to the designes spirit and operations of Iesus Christ a subjection that amounts to a capacity and amplitude and such as makes the soul capable to receive the communications of God to bear the effects of his grace and to enter into a participation of the Estates and Mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. The second effect puts the soul into a purity of regard and love which makes her vigilant and faithfull to do and desire nothing but the honour of Iesus Christ to regard nothing but his pleasure and glory so as to have no eyes but for Iesus no more life but what is consecrated to the honour of his Soveraignty and divine actions This adherence to and dependance on the Sonne of God raiseth in a Christian a true imitation of his life and divine vertues to such a degree of perfection that he becomes a lively representation and image of Iesus Of these three effects we must speak particularly for herein consisteth the perfection of true and Christian piety We begin with the first The subjection which by this adherence to the Son of God is begotten in us represents two things the power he hath over us and the capacity we are in to bear the effects of his power The power which Iesus Christ hath over us is a particular power which he acquires by the mystery of the Incarnation and by all the states moments of his life a power that gives him a double right to do in us and with us what ever he pleases a power from which he imprints in the centre of our souls the time that we were first made Christians an eternall and indispensable power In a word it is a power which he establish'd by the Sacraments and left to the Church For if we consider them we shall find that besides the graces which they communicate to us they have other extraordinary effects expressing the power Christ assumes over us For instance Baptisme gives us grace and blots out all sin in us but withall put us into a condition of service to the Son of God and imprints in our souls a character of subjection to the divine power a character never to be defaced in honour of the estate of subjection and service which the Son of God underwent by the incarnation becoming man and a servant subjecting himself to the Father he was always and shall be for ever equal and coeternal with the Father and in honour of the gift which the eternall Father makes us of his Son by the incarnation and union of the Word with humanity and the life of God in man and of man in God The same Son of God instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist wherein he gives and unites himself to us that he may live in us and we in him By this way of love and union he takes power over us to live and operate in us all that he pleases and shews the power that he hath over our souls to establish therein continually his designs to glorify himself thereby and please himself in them In pursuit of this power he puts us into an estate of subjection yet such as gives us a capacity to rceive and to bear in us the force of his love and of all the effects of the life grace and mysteries of Iesus Christ and to receive them according to what manner and time he shall please to communicate them The Son of God desireth nothing so much as to communicate to us liberally his graces and the many favours he hath obtained for us and merited by his life and sufferings his principall design being to advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life All he did on earth all his operations in the world were for our sakes referring also to our good and advancement all the greatness of his being the power of his spirit and merits of his life so good is he and so full of mercy Now if the goodness and designs of the Son of God towards Christians be such is it not reason they continue in this subjection and be faithfull and vigilant to receive and bear the effects and estates of
example If God put us into an estate of suffering we must accept it and continue therein with patience and submission of spirit not struggling with the good will and pleasure of God but act therein and persist with courage and fidelity We must do the same in privation barrenness and all other estates wherein the Son of God shall please to put us which if we do we shall remain in a true adherence and union with Iesus Christ depending upon him with fidelity which is all that piety aims at CHAP. X. That Christian piety obliges us to submit our life and actions to the honour of Christ. THere cannot any be ignorant that true piety consists in rendring honour to God it is our first exercise the duties of Religion and Love are of such a nature that they must necessarily be referred to God but that of piety obliges us to honour God and to referr our selves to him and consequently to the Son of God For he that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father but by an obligation more particular greater and more speciall in as much as by the grace of Christianity and Principles of true piety we are united to the Son of God and adhere to him as members to the Head This adherence doth not onely put us into a subjection to the power of Iesus but also produces in our souls a regard of love and honour a regard that purifies and directs our intentions and actions not to love or honour any thing but Iesus the Son of God by him to love honour and serve the Father Thus the first estate of piety which consisteth in this adherence obliges us to referr all to him and to honur him in all things This truly is clear in what manner soever we consider it whether in the Oeconomy of our salvation or in the regency of the Church all things invite and oblige us to honour the Son of God The first thing that the eternal Father requires of us in giving his Son to the world the first designe he hath upon his creature is to oblige them to render to his Son the same honour which we render to his infinite supreme Majesty This Obligation is so strict that even at his birth he would have the Angels acknowledge and adore him he sent them from Heaven to Bethlehem to reverence him not onely in the greatness of his divinity but in the lowness of our humanity when conceal'd in a stable and laid in a manger He called thither the Shepherds and the Kings that it might be as David sayes All kings shall fall before him and all nations shall serve him He was no sooner born in the world but the kings of the world came from the East to do him homage to lay their Crowns and Scepters at his feet confessing that all the greatness of the earth ought to serve and honour him The eternall Father sent Angels and men to render honour to his Son to adore his divinity humanized and his humanity deify'd All nations of the world shall assemble and all men shall come to judgement that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father This the Son demands of the Father as part of that fruit he expects of his labours it is one of the richest Iewells of that Crown which he received upon his triumph by the cross over the world sin and death Many think it was the meaning of that Prayer to his Father in the day of his sufferings Father glorifie thy Son to the end that thy Son may glorify thee We owe him this honour for if he humbled himself to our infirmities and the shame and ignominy due to our offences is it not reason that we render him the honour whereof he deprives himself for our sakes and that we serve and honour him in a manner wholly particular seeing he onely of the persons of the most holy Trinity suffered our contempts and confusions This exercise of piety which we here propose as the first obligation we have in the estate of Christianity holds forth one of the noblest most eminent vertues of the Catholique Religion and one of the highest actions of our soul. For if according to Thomas Aquinas we are obliged as soon as we arrive to the use of Reason to some acknowledgements of God and a submission to him as the Author of our nature and our good with much more reason ought we to say that the first thought we ought to have of the Son of God in relation to piety is to referr our selves to him as the principle of our being in the state of grace And if we would make use as we ought of the spirit of Christianity and of the gifts we receive of the Sonne of God we must employ them wholly to his honour and service in such sort that as Iesus is the Authour of our being life and actions he may also be their object and end This is an inseparable obligation and an indispensable duty For if the Christian and all that is in him proceed from the Sonne of God and is consecrated to him by his death it followes that he can neither make use of himself or any thing else but the Sonne of God otherwise he might refer his actions to some other then him to whom they are due and for whom they are consecrated which were to prophane the most holy things and to enjoy the gifts of Iesus Christ against his intentions which is a sacrilegious treason against the divine Majesty For as amongst men he is guilty of theft and deserves death who converts the treasure of his Prince to his private use to passe away his life in vanities and sports so is that Christian criminall who abuses the gifts of the Sonne of God and is prodigall of the Treasures of his bounty That we receive all from the Sonne of God no man can doubt for of him and for him life is given us as also motions sense reason repose health and sleep and in a word the use of all things These are the Treasures of his Court for he hath by his travels and sufferings acquired and by the price of his blood and life purchased our lives our actions our thoughts nay even the time which we enjoy Which having done his intention is that we acknowledging his love and liberality therein should love him serve him and in all things mind his honour and glory This being so what have we to do but to follow his intentions to refer our selves wholly to him to honour him in all things since we have all from him and that for this end he gives us also his speciall graces In what therefore ought we to employ our time our life our health our repose and all that we have but for the honour of the Sonne of God of whom we have received them and who continues them for that very purpose This manner of rendring honour and homage to the Sonne of God is an
true piety is obliged to imitate Jesus Christ. 481 CHAP. XIII The Practice of what hath been proposed in the imitation of Iesus Christ 489 CHAP. XIV Of Temptations and Oppositions happening in the way to perfection and the exercises of Piety 498 CHAP. XV. In what Disposition the Christian ought to be that he yield not to such temptations as occurr in the exercises of piety 507 CHAP. XVI Of Temptations and the advantages a Christian ought to make of them 512 CHAP. XVII Of Resignations in Temptation 519 CHAP. XVIII Divers Uses that may be made of Temptation 525 The End SPIRITUALL TREASURE The first Part. Of the Divine Prerogatives whereunto man is raised by the State and Grace of Christianity The first Prerogative CHAP. I. How by Baptisme Man is appropriated to God and consecrated by the blessed Trinity BE ye perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect These are holy words words of truth pronunced by the Holy of holies the God of Truth words that import the beginning and eminency of the estate which we are to attain words worthy to be engraved not upon the fronts of our house as a celebrious Sentence of the Ancients nor printed in our foreheads in great Characters like the Law of the Iews But in the centre of our souls and bottom of our spirits For in these divine words we behold as in a table brought from heaven what we are and what we ought to be We see that we are the image of God by creation and ought to be his resemblance by sanctification Our soul bearing the image of God is capable of God himself and hath an essence so noble and divine that nothing can satisfie nothing can fill her but an infinite essence Besides we learn that our soul being called to the resemblance of God nothing can ennoble her nothing can perfect her but the greatness and very perfections of the Divinity And to this it is that Jesus Christ invites us when he says Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect This only is the subject of this little Work I would to God that they who are transported with the wonders in Nature who can admire her greatness rare varieties and perfections who willingly confine themselves to the contemplation of the motions of the heavens of the extent of the earth of the depth of the sea of the admirable secret properties of every thing would turn back their sight into themselves to take notice what they are and what they ought to be to contemplate the singular perfection inclosed within their own souls the greatness whereto God will raise them and eminency of that state to which they are called If other Creatures are objects able to ravish our spirits and oblige them to contemplation and admiration with how much more reason ought we to employ our selves in the consideration of our own soul for which all things were created If vertue saith Plato be so beautifull as that her luster is able to transform our hearts and force us to love her what then is the soul of which vertue is but the ornament O soul saith one of the Fathers thou lovest the world yet thou thy self art of more value then all the world Thou admirest the Sun and yet art more beautifull then all the Stars Thou dost contemplate heaven yet art exalted above the firmament Thy God onely is above thee all creatures are under thy feet Let us begin to prepare our hearts to these thoughts let us call back our distracted spirits from so many objects let us withdraw our wandering eyes from so many curiosities and undeceive our hearts charmed by so many vanities that we may apply or selves to the acquisition of this knowledge for in being ignorant of these truths man is estranged from God and himself serves the creatures who were made to serve him makes his vanity an ornament and advances above himself that which ought to be under his feet and farther loosing himself in the curious pursuit of creatures or pernicious affection to the world he no more thinks of himself and which is worse seems no longer to know his God Hence spring all evils which overflow the earth all vices and disorders in the life of man Nor is it strange for how can a Christian serve his God if he esteem not his greatness and be ignorant of his divine adorable perfections and how shall he know them if he seldome or never consider them Beside how is it possible for a Christian to render unto God what he ought and to live as God requires if he take no time to reflect upon himself if he know not what he is whence he comes whither he goes how he lives In this it is he ought to employ his thoughts and time The highest employment of man says Heraclitus is to seek himself and we say the most necessary yet we are not with Democritus to put out our eyes and deprive our selves of the sight of all creatures thereby with more ease and attention to apply our selves to the study of this high philosophy the knowledge of God and our selves we need not go to such an extremity On the contrary let us preserve our eyes and attention to contemplate at leisure the image which I am going to describe unto you It is the pourtracture of a true Christian in which shall be drawn in lively colours the Christian vertues and represented the dispositions actions and piety wherein all Christians ought to live To speak after this manner is proportionable to this subject He that would make a man to see what he ought to be must draw his picture that he may see and contemplate himself therein The soul like the eye sees all things yet not it self unlesse by reflection To make her know her selfe a glasse must be set before her wherein are represented the true beauties of the state of grace the excellencies of Christianity her obligation to perfection her capacity to possesse God that considering all these she may see what she is and what she ought to be to her God Thus seeing her selfe she knows her self knowing her helf she esteems accordingly of her own being life and condition and by these degrees arriving to this esteem she faithfully endeavours to render God the honour love and service due to him careful to lead a life suitable to the condition and dignity whereto God hath called her To represent to the life so great perfection and to acknowlege what the soul is before God to whom she is called and may arrive by the assistance of a supernaturall power We must consider the essence and grace of the Mysteries wrought by the Son of God upon the Earth and what he hath accomplished in Heaven because they are the beginning and source of all Graces wherewith we are inriched they make us know what God requires of us what he will operate in us and by us These then we must propose Behold three which we
Christians have a new being a new life which honoureth and imitates the new life of Iesus in his holy humanity springing from this as its source and principle For as the word unites it self to our nature in the Mystery of the Incarnation replenisheth and dwells in it as in his proper body consecrates and elevates it to all the Grandeurs of his divine Filiation so the same Iesus unites himself not personally but by a new Grace and after a singular manner proper to the state of Christianity consecrates us dwels in us and advanceth us to the communication of the rights goods and greatnesse of his filiation and would have us O excesse of love to be that by grace which he is by nature which he would have not onely to be accomplished in glory but in grace not onely in Heaven but upon Earth where we are truly Sons of God and in that quality henceforward we enter into alliance with him we have right to his heritage and which is more O that we would consider it he gives us power to call God our Father to look up to him as such to relate to him in this quality in further assurance whereof he gives us his spirit This St. Paul teacheth when he saith Ye have received the spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father the same spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God It is an effect of the mystery of the Incarnation and priviledge and excellency of Christianity Let us deliberate further upon it St. Iohn summing up the graces received from God in the Mystery of the Incarnation ranks this the first for it is the foundation of the rest saying To them he gave power to become sons of God If you would comprehend some part of this great favour think that as there is nothing in Divinity greater then to be the Son of God by Nature so but to be God himselfe nothing is greater then to be the Son of God by grace St. Cyprian admiring in God the title of Father sayes It is an ineffable name containing the Mysteries and Secrets hid from our spirits incomprehensible by our understanding If then to be Father in the Deity be a thing the most mysterious and ineffable that our souls can imagine by consequence to be son of such a Father is a favour and dignity incomprehensible The beloved Disciple causeth us to admire at this great benefit when he says Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God and be such in effect St. Iohn Damascene speaks to this purpose That the eternall Father sent his Son into the world to produce Children that should be such to him by Grace as Christ is unto him by Nature and therefore in pursuit of this Commission the Son of God from the time that he became the son of man hath created by his power begotten by his love and acquired by his merits and given by his Spirit many children to his Father who can breath nothing but glory to his Father and no longer live then by his Spirit and Life But to search with greater admiration into this Truth we must consider the manner by which he creates in us so divine a work We must observe that in Baptisme we not only receive grace and faith by the habituall vertues and gifts of the holy Spirt but are also marked with the Character of God received and owned as his children The manner whereby God effects this is admirable for as the Father hath sealed Jesus Christ with his Seal and made him his Son communicating to him his Essence and making him altogether equall to himself so Jesus Christ doth comunicate to us what he himself is marketh us with his seal makes us and owns us as children and makes us as it were another himself Wonder saith Saint Augustine and rejoyce brethren we are made of Christ. In pursuite of this benefit the eternall Father hath given us the Spirit of his Son which dwels in us according to the Apostle What can we think to be greater If we go further herein we shall find that we are not advanced to this admirable estate of being the children of God by any simple acceptation or by bare ceremonies but by something more reall that passeth into our souls as Saint Paul implies by these mysticall terms Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us It is not for our works saith he that the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost that the spirit is given us by Jesus Christ and that Jesus is sent upon this design by the eternall Father three circumstances worthy great consideration To conclude the greatness of this benefit let us observe with Dionysius the Areopagite that we are advanced to this divine estate by a new birth and divine regeneration which the Son of God operates in us in the bosom of the Church our Mother to the honour of God and in imitation of his eternall generation in the bosom of God the Father CHAP. IV. Of the uses the Christians ought to make of filiall adoption whereto they are advanced by Baptism THe Truths that we have treated of are high and would require a large Discourse but that our designe being to prescribe the practice of filiall Piety we will only represent as much as is necessary to manifest what we are and what our life ought to be in conformity to so eminent an estate First then we must take notice that in the Language of the Scripture a Christian is a new Creature in Iesus and according to the word of the Son of God a man if he be a Christian must be born again of God and consequently must have a new being worthy such a birth Now according to the order that God hath established in all things we say that the action and operation must be conformable to the being Whence it follows that the state of a Christian being a holy divine estate that makes him the Son of God as truly by Grace as Jesus Christ is by Nature his actions also and life ought to be wholly divine and conformable to the state of the Son of God This is the Doctrine of the Apostle who saith Be ye followers of God as dear children This Principle granted we must see what benefits we can derive from thence The first is a contempt of this World for it is the heritage of the children of Adam condemned by a determined sentence and a day of execution appointed when by the Justice of God it shall perish in a generall Conflagration Let us then despise this heritage of Adam and seek that of the children of God Heaven or to say better God himself Say with Jesus Christ with a sound heart My Kingdom is not of this world Remember that you must keep the rank of the Sons of God
by Nature so they are Gods by Grace as Iesus is God by Nature And if there be any who find this Truth difficult let him consider with St. Augustin that it is no harder for God to make a man truly God by Grace then it was for him to cause the Son of God to become truly man neither is there less repugnance in making man God by Grace then in making God man by the Mystery of the Incarnation Since then by this Mystery of Love God is made man why by an emanation of the same Mystery may not man be God And as by this society union and life which the Sonne of God hath undertaken the nature of man is the highest most divine and greatest communication that God could give so hath it effects wholly conformable to what it is for as the Mystery was onely operated for God's glory and mans advancement so it produceth infallibly the effects of glorifying God in a manner worthy of God seeing man that is God adores God and advances men to such a dignity as to be able to be Gods and Children of God by Grace Reflecting upon so eminent a truth do we not see clearly how holy and perfect the life of a Christian ought to be being called to so high a dignity a Prerogative onely proper to a Christian if a Christian must with all his power lay hold of this estate whereto God hath advanced him he ought also to have a particular care to become worthy to entertain this grace and to dwell with Iesus Christ in a great union and dependance that he may receive of him all the effects of this divine Mystery by whom all must operate in our souls and he must particularly dispose himself to receive the effects and Graces which uncessantly flow from this Mystery of Love and Communications for on this fidelity of our souls and on our union with Iesus Christ depends the foundation of all Good we can hope for And as all the happiness of the Creature consists in his being confirmed to his God and dependant on him more then the beames on the Sun so all the happiness of a Christian is to be bound and united in a most intimate society with Iesus Christ from whom being separated he becomes unworthy of the estate whereto God hath destin'd him deprives himself of all good and can hope for nothing lesse then a world of mischiefs The greatest pain of the damned is to see themselves separated from God banished his company for ever and the happy communion of the Saints In like manner the greatest evil that can arrive to Christians is to feel themselves far from Iesus Christ separated from him from whom they have all and deprived of the desired effects which they might receive by his conversation Let us take heed we fall not into this mischief and since nothing can separate us from Iesus Christ but sin let us shun sin more then hell it self And since nothing deprives us of the fruits and happy effects which we ought to receive of the society and commerce with Iesus Christ by his divine Mysteries but the Love of the World business and commerce with the Creatures Let us strongly endeavour to separate our selves from it and couragiously quit it at least in our affection if we cannot otherwise for the Love of Iesus Christ and let us quit that for the love of Vertue which we shall one day be constrained to do by the necessity of Death The fourth Prerogative CHAP. VIII Of another kind of Society and Vnion of Jesus Christ with Christians by the Sacrament of the Eucharist NExt the ineffable Mystery of the Incarnation we have nothing more worthy consideration in Christianity then the Sacrament of the Eucharist in which God shewes the last touches of his love and makes us most clearly see the designs he hath on our souls Faith teaches us that by the Sacrament of the Eucharist Love transports Iesus out of himself from the throne of his greatness to our baseness causing him to live with us and in us such is the purpose of Iesus Christ as he himself said as the institution of this divine Sacrament to establish between him and us a mutuall cohabitation that by this Mystery of Love he may enter into a true society with us be united to us and continue his life of conversation among us men to the end of the world He doth perform this promise of dwelling with us and in us by this high Sacrament which according to the Doctrine of the Church is an imitation and extension of the mystery of the Incarnacion to every Christian. This mysterie shews the commerce communion and particular residence which God hath in every one of us For as the communication which the Son of God hath made of himself to our nature united to his divine Person by the mysterie of the Incarnation is an imitation and extension of the supreme communication adorable and sacred society in the holy Trinity among the Persons and consequently is the most high and divine communication that God could do out of himself so the Eucharist which is an extension of the Incarnation in every one of us in the most divine and abundant communication that God can do in the order of grace For Iesus Christ in this ineffable sacrament gives himself wholly to every one of us and advances us and by his vertue draws us wholly to him by his power transforms us into his qualities makes us heavenly and eternall like himself establishes his Throne and dwelling in us by this divine mysterie Moreover by this Sacrament of union God is present with us is amongst us and united to every one of us after a manner so admirable and divine that we being not able to give it a name call it Sacramentall as an Union wholly hid from our eyes and covered under the shadow of Faith neverthelesse a true Vnion an Vnion that contains in it self and settles in us the presence of God makes us to be in God and God in us Thus God is altogether upon the earth in the midst of his People by the Eucharist and he is in Heaven in the midst of the Angells and Saints in the throne of his Majesty filling at the same time both Heaven and Earth with his glory presence and grace Briefly this Sacrament of Love gives us God causes us to live with him and of him puts us into a commerce and society with him and that with so much priviledge and advantage as we say that in this Sacrament of the love and fulnesse of God we enjoy Iesus more happily and more perfectly then the world did heretofore in the time of his Incarnation during his mortall life upon Earth I will more clearly demonstrate it that we may the more esteem so great a benefit and the excellency of the state of Christianity whereto we are called by the mercy of God First They who lived in the time that Iesus conversed visibly upon Earth
you cease to be all that you are Have a great desire to loose your self and to go out of your self and that your being be annihilated and consummated in that of Iesus who is in you This is the point whereto you must arrive if you will that God should possess you Thirdy Desire and require that Iesus Christ destroy in you all that is contrary to God that he establish in you the Kingdom of God that he take from you the dominion which self-love the vanity of your nature and your inclination usurp over you and the creatures Fourthly Resign your self to the will of Iesus Christ who by this adorable sacrament of Love will receive you into himself and place you in his life and his being Abandon then your self to the desire that he hath to possess you a desire as great and perfect as the Love wherewith he gives himself to you is infinite Pray him to destroy in this present life the being that you use and abuse that by the power of his spirit and love and by the vertue of this ineffable sacrament he may make you what he is that is to say Love Life and Truth Behold what God requires of you if we regard intentively the essence and the excellency of this mysterie if by the spirit of Faith we weigh the effects it produces in us it will be easie to acknowledge them and soon shall we be constrained to confess that this sacrament of Love doth appropriate us wholly to God draws us from our selves and the world and separates us from the commerce of creatures that we may be knit in heart and spirit to Iesus Christ despising all things for his love and glory so shall be verified the word of the Son of God to his Father in the excess of his Love speaking to him not onely of his Apostles but of all good Christians They are not of the world even as I am not of the world This is the spirit of Christianity the excellency of this divine estate That we may the better remember this you shall see in a little Picture First the grace and spirit of Christianity consecrates us to God and imprints in us a character of the power of Iesus Christ to whose Empire we must be subject for ever and must undergo to all eternity both in heaven and earth the state of service and subjection to the spirit grace and conduct of Iesus Secondly The grace of Christianity makes us the children of God by mercy and gives us right of inheritance to the greatness and true glory of Iesus Christ. By this grace we have no more part in the world because it is the heritage of the true children of Adam but we have right to the Possession of God who is himself the heritage of his children Thirdly This grace draws our spirits our hearts and our affections from our selves and all creatures to unite us to God it gives us right to enter into familiarity and alliance with the Son of God who making himself man by the Incarnation would be amongst us to the end that we might be with him He enters into society with men invests himself with our miseries infirmities to communicate to us his life his spirit and greatness Thus by the grace of this mysterie we go out of our own Interests to enter into the Interest of Jesus Christ whereof the Apostle speaking of the things of the world he saith I count them but dung that I may win Christ. Fourthly In brief by the state of Christianity we are advanced to the participation of God who will be all in us that we may be in him and Jesus Christ by his body and blood which he giveth us in the Eucharist doth elevate and unite us to God makes us live by his life communicates to us all that he is that he may be all things to us that the world may be nothing to us Thus the grace of Christianity unites us to Jesus Christ replenishes us with his life and spirit makes us another himself and therefore obliges us to go out of our selves and the world to be in Christ Jesus I know we must be in the world and make use of the world so long as it shall please God to continue us in this place of captivity but we must not be of the world we must live here as in a place of passage and make use of all in the world as of a winter garment ready to put it off when the Sun of righteousness shall come to his meridian when it shall please God Let us use all the creatures as a necessary medicine to the present state of our infirmities and occasions but let it be withall loathsom unto us as violating our Love which desires nothing but God which takes delight in nothing but God which aspires to nothing and hopes in nothing but God The conclusion of the first Part What the life of a Christian ought to be Behold here the Excellencies of Christianity which we have proposed in few words as having no further design nor intention in this volume then to shew that the life of a Christian ought to be conformable to the state of grace and dignity whereto he is advanced by Iesus Christ. Now to enter into this knowledge it suffices that we see what we are This is that which I design'd to demonstrate in this first part proposing as in a little Tablet the essence dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity which I have done briefly expressing onely the principal Truth of this subject leaving the rest to the piety and consideration of those that would profit thereby Now if we look back with the eye of Faith upon that which hath been said we shall clearly see what a Christian life ought to be and shall know that the design of Iesus Christ informing his Church hath been to consecrate to appropriate to himself and to unite himself divinely to our souls and to separate them from themselves and from all creatures that by a happy revolution he may be in us and we in him we may live in him and of him as he lives in his Father of the life of his Father that so he may restore us to his Father and re-unite us to himself from whom we were separated by him by being our own and having relation to the Creature Herein is comprised the perfection of a Christian life whereof we cannot speak more then in the words of St. Paul ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God a passage which contains an apparent contradiction If we are dead how can our life be hid in God who is the true life If we are in God who is the life of our souls how are we dead The Apostle meanes that our life is life and death our life is a life of grace which is the true life of souls and much better then the soul is the life of our bodies and the proper
effect of the grace of Christianity is to operate in us that which natural death doth By death the soul is separated from the body and all things in the world So grace should separate us from our selves from all things from sin that being wholly so separated we may be dead to our selves and to all things that we may live in God and of God This expression of the Apostle further shews all the properties of a Christian life the end whereof is that being separated from all we may be in Iesus Christ that is to say united by an indissoluble Vnion to Iesus Christ life of his life and be referred with him to the glory of the most holy Trinity The life of a Christian St. Paul saith is hid because it is indeed hid from the sight of the World which neither sees it as it is nor esteems it and because it is little humble and abject disdains to behold to take notice of it as unworthy the name and society of men They that will live Christianly will not subject themselves to the corruption of the men of this age so this life is hid from the sight and more from the power of this world for the soul that liveth christianly is above all humane power and insensible to all contempt and confusion and as the Diamond continues entire and strengthened by the violence of blowes so the perfect christian remains more content in the violence of Temptation more assured in the motions of disgrace more firm amidst the batteries of afflictions even Prosperity changeth not his spirit he is alike in all things for by grace and true Christian vertues the soul is raised above all things and lives in God Ye are dead and yet your life is hid with Iesus Christ in God Such is the life of a christian according to St. Paul a life that imitates that of Iesus Christ upon earth who according to the Oracles of the Prophets was despised and rejected of men a Man of sorrow and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not When Hell the World Devill sinners thought to triumph over him and ravish both his honour and life at the same time he triumphs over them shewing that he hath power as he saith to lay down his life and he hath power to take it again at his pleasure Thus the life of Iesus Christ is hid from the eyes of men who know him not and from their power seeing he triumphs over his Enemies over death and sin Such ought to be the life of a Christian. St. Paul saith the same in other termes when he exhorts the Ephesians that they put off concerning the former conversation the old Man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirits of their mind and that they put on the new Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness This is the first Protestation we make in Baptisme in which solemn action before that we are consecrated to the holy Trinity received and made the children of God we make a particular protestation to renounce Adam and the World and adhere to Iesus Christ to separate our selves from the one to unite our selves to the other So in this action so holy and happy we uncloath our selves of the one to cloath us again with the other that is the first step we make into the state of Christianity according to St. Paul And if we believe his Doctrine we see that the perfection of a Christian and all his happinesse consists in adhering to Iesus Christ to be united to him and cloathed with him For as all the grandeur of humane nature which was chosen in the Mysterie of the Incarnation to be the nature of God consists in being united to the word which subsisteth in him and operates by him so all the perfection of a christian soul consists in dwelling in Iesus Christ in adhering to him and operating by him all the perfection of a christian soul consists in that it dwells in Christ that it adheares to him that it lives of his life and operates not but by his spirit Now this cannot be but when the Soul is divided from it self and from all creatures for according to St. Paul We are to put off the old man with his deeds and to put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Whence it followeth that abnegation and uncloathing is the principal point of christian perfection so necessary that St. Bernard saith It had been better for us never to have been then to dwell in our selves and to our selves for the greatest misfortune of the soul is to see it self separated from God But God comes not into neither dwells in the soul till such time as it goeth out of it self uncloathes and annihilates it self And the greater its annihilation is the more it makes place for God If it take but little away God fills it with little if it deprive it self of much God fills it much and without doubt he will take it up and dwell wholly in it if the soul do annihilate and wholly uncloath it self We see and adore this proceeding of God in the Mysterie of the Incarnation the cause and example of the life of our souls For the eternall word choosing humane nature to unite himself unto it and to operate in and by it our redemptions would uncloath it of its own substance and humane person to shew us that we are not acceptable to God if we do not abandon our selves and that if we divest our selves of our selves and deprive our selves of all created things God will fill us with divine things for Grace as well as Nature abhorres vacuity Let us learn then to deprive our selves of humane things that we may be inriched with divine Let us go out of our selves and quit the commerce that we have with the creatures to be in Iesus Christ to enter into society and communion with God Let us renounce our own spirits and government to leave our selves to that of Iesus Christ and suffer him to live and raign in us according to what he truly designed of us In brief let us divest our selves of our selves to re-invest our selves with the Sonne of God Herein consists the happiness of our souls and that Christian perfection that we ought to search for here upon earth The necessity and practise whereof are in the following Treatises THE SECOND PART Wherein are proposed the sundry Motives which oblige Christians to Perfection CHAP. I. The Obligation that we have to acquire true Vertues wherein consists the life of the Soul and the inward life of a Christian. MAN being in honour abideth not but is compared unto the Beasts that perish Thus David describing the deplorable estate of man after sin a sad condition a miserable fall which hath deprived man
end is no other then God whom man must possess Thus by Creation man is not onely in a capacity to love God a most singular favour but hath also for his end the possession of God himself Whence we must conclude that as every thing seeketh its perfection and by a naturall and necessary instinct runs to its last end to enjoy it and repose there so man being created to possess God his ultimate end carries an instinct that drawes him to God and by the same Law whereby he is naturally obliged to seek perfection he is obliged to love and seek God in love and possession in whom consists his perfection This instinct is naturall and proper to him as it is naturall to a stone to tend downward and to fire to mount upward whereby it is evident that we must promise our selves not onely in Heaven the fulfilling of this Law but we must begin it upon earth and from the first use of our reason observe this precept Indeed this capacity of Love is fulfilled and perfected in Heaven onely in the state of glory but we must begin to love here We must resign to God who is our end if in the end we will possess him for whatsoever a Man soweth that shall he also reap saith the Apostle To this God invited us by the benefit of Creation to this he obliges us by an eternall Law a Law which he hath engraved in the Center of our being a Law which can by no meanes be defaced during our life a Law indispenceable For man was onely created to love God and hath no capacity more naturall then that of Love his onely business both in Earth and Heaven is to love God and possess him wherein consisteth perfection Considering these truths it is impossible to conceive to what blindness the corruption of times have reduced the spirits of men who being born for Heaven onely spend all their thoughts on Earth and separating themselves from their God are so strongly fetter'd to the Creature that they know not what perfection is believing they have power to dispence with so holy a Law But can this Law of Love be blotted out of our hearts Can we despise it notwithstanding the many reasons that oblige us to it Is there any thing more reasonable then to love them that love us what greater love could God testifie to us then to make us capable to love him and to create us to possess him even nature obliges us hereto this benefit is an act of Love God loving us to be beloved again we can do no lesse in acknowledgement of this benefit of love but perfectly love him we can never deny we are obliged to this acknowledgement if we would not be convinced of ingratitude nor can we acknowledge it but by loving him God who is all fulness and self-sufficiency can receive nothing of us but love and therefore by the same Law whereby we are obliged to acknowledge him our Creator we are obliged to love and consequently to be perfect since perfection cannot be without love God himself hath engraved this design imprinted this Law of Love in the Center of our souls and bottom of our hearts Therefore as Thomas of Aquin observes the form of our heart beares the image of this Love it is large at the top and pointed at the bottom open to Heaven shut to Earth to shew us that we live onely for Heaven that our heart the seat of Love is open onely to receive and bear the influences of Heaven and not capable to have any besides him who reignes in the Heavens and the form of our body straight and tall tells us that Heaven onely is the object of our sight the subject of ous love The soul by its most sensible inclinations is carried on to this love By the same necessity that the part loves the whole the sonne his Father man is obliged to love his God by Creation his Father his all and were it not that the soul ruines these motions by strange love whereto she tyes her self she would feel her self so powerfully attracted thereby that she would not be able to restrain the violence or to stop the course thereof This is so true that do she what she can though she do suffer her self to be transported with the love of Creatures to the prejudice of the love of God yet can she not root out these resentments of God so deep this Law of acknowledging her God is engraved in her being For when she hath loved all but God she sees that she hath loved nothing she knowes that there is neither firm content assured repose nor true perfection but in the love of her Creator Now though we would disingage our selves from this Obligation yet is it impossible for God who wills that we love him maketh use of all things yea even of our self-love to attract us to his love In loving our selves we love naturally what is good our own good Now God is not onely the true Soveraign good but by creation he would be the onely good of our souls that we might love him in this quality for what is more to man then God The Lord is my heritage and my portion saith David If naturally every thing loves his particular good why should not a man be obliged to love his God who is his true his onely good and if he be obliged to love him he is by consequence obliged to possess him and in possessing him to be perfect which is the scope of this first Motive The second Motive CHAP. V. That Man in as much as he is a Sinner and the child of Adam is obliged to seek God as the only remedy to his evils WE are Criminals the children of death guilty Laesae Majstatis Divinae the World understood aright is but a Prison where we are detained during the excution of the Sentence pronounced against the children of Adam the Offender we being such have forfeited our right we are deprived and made unworthy of all sorts of graces forfeited our priviledges for as children of Adam as sinners as culpable before God we have no more any right our selves to our life to our actions to the world or to any creature but having lost all by Sin we are left wholly to the Iustice of God who by reason of our offence hath reason to dispoyl us of all the gifts of grace and nature and to do with us as pleases him according to the rigour of his equitable Iustice. Moreover as children of Adam we are so miserable that we may truly say there is nothing more unworthy more unprofitable more uncapable then man his unworthiness is so great that he cannot think one thought of God be it never so little if God of his mercy doth not infuse it into him he is unworthy to present himself before his Creator to appear before the Throne of his soveraign Majesty even to demand grace and pardon for his sins This unworthiness arrived
Gospel with such high and divine words words not of counsel as many think but of command in cleer and express terms testifying his will words addressed not onely to the Religious but to all Christians Be ye perfect saith he even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect What can be said more or spoke in more express terms How would we have more cleerly expressed what this perfection ought to be then to say you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect This perfection consists in the union of the soul with God and this union is made and accomplished by pure and perfect love the love of God coming from God above which alone hath power to give God to us and to unite us to God All Christians in generall are called to the union which is made on earth by grace and in heaven by glory Whence I first infer that as all christians are called to this union of the soul with God so are all obliged to that love which makes this union that is to say to a love pure holy and worthy of God a love express'd and lively represented by the mouth of God in these words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart his words so express it that they speak all the perfection of love so generall that they oblige all to this love I infer secondly that the perfection whereunto the Religious are called is not different from that whereto all christians are obliged wherein many deceive themselves The reason is clear and the deduction of it is easie For if perfection consists in the unity of the soul with God an union wrought by true love and all christians as well as the Religious are called to this union made by grace upon earth and in Heaven by his glory Finally if it be commanded to all christians and to all men as well as the Religious to love God with all their heart that is perfectly and as much as they can in this mortall life by the ayd of grace it followeth evidently that these two estates which appear so unlike are alike in the same obligation of seeking perfection though by different wayes In fine who can doubt so manifest a truth no man can be ignorant that the Commandement of Love is common to all men of what estate soever they be No man can deny but that Love is the bond of perfection so St. Paul calleth it There is no difference then but in the way and means that we are to take to arrive to this perfection There are divers and we must esteem all and regard them with respect But if it be a question to make choice of some way to arrive to this love and if we must have Lawes and Maxims to conduct us thereunto and to conserve us therein it is certain we cannot find them more pure more divine and more assured then in the Gospel where the Son of God himself as Authour of Christianity showes us the way gives us the rule and proposes to us the maxims which we ought to keep to guide us to this love which he commandeth to live in this union and to arrive to this perfection whereto we are called and therefore Christians living according to the rules of the Gospel shall infallibly arrive to this high perfection and enjoy this most desirable union So St. Paul speaking of Christianity In Iesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor incircumcision but a new Creature and as many as follow this rule grace be unto them and mercy Under the name of Circumcision he teacheth us that nothing in the World no estate is worthy to be esteemed but that of a new Creature Christianity onely giveth us the grace and power thereof wherefore that is the rule whereof the Apostle here speaks Whence we learn the eminency of the state of christianity above all others We see then how true it is that we are all without exception obliged and called of God to love and to perfection This and more which might be said on this subject is true and yet notwithstanding it is certain that christian perfection is as the Sun proposed to all christians in generall the Precept of Love is equally given to all men and consequently all are obliged to the same perfection which is all the Argument wherewith I would undeceive such christians as would exempt themselves from both This granted it rests onely to consider the qualities of love it must be pure perfect and indissoluble the three properties of love in Christianity Pure for it regards nothing but God if it regard any thing else it is not for God nor according to God whence it comes that that which regards pure love doth separate us from our selves from all our interests and alienates us from all creatures as far as they obstruct our love to God This love makes us regard nothing but in the belief that God is there present by his immensity we neither tast nor feel them further then as they bear the presence of God for God being in all things the soul that loveth him enclines to him seeks him and finds him every where This love must also be perfect God saith so expresly We must love him with all our soul and with all our strength There is no need of explicating these words they are too cleer and evidently shew us that God will have us love him with all that which we are that is perfectly This love must lastly be indissoluble no force must separate us from God no violence must tear this love from our hearts no creature in heaven or earth no fear of death or of the loss of all we enjoy no good either present or future must separate us from this love which must be in us more powerfull then death more indissoluble then unity Now making use of all that we have said and reducing to practise all the proposed truths we shall find what we sought in this tract we shall see that by a necessary consequence we are all obliged to divorce and separate our selves truly and strongly from all that hinders us from loving God perfectly We are obliged to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect this perfection is not without the true love of God this love cannot be in us but in as much as we are separated from our selves the world and all Creatures Whence we learn that a Christian obliged to the love of God and to perfection cannot arrive to this estate which he seeks and is commanded him if on the one side he be not wholly subjected to God and on the other altogether separated in spirit conduct and love from all the Creatures Therefore he must apply himself earnestly to this exercise of subjecting himself to God and devesting himself of himself for it is certain the soul can never acquire this divine spirit nor arrive to Evangelicall perfection if she stay in her selfe obey her own will and follow
her own motions To dwell in our selves is to think of our selves to take care of our selves to have a continuall regard to our selves and our self-Interests to use the powers of our souls for our selves and our own satisfaction and not purely to please God To love thus is to wear the maske and false appearance of vertue but not to have the reality By these Principles of piety it is easie to see how dangerously they deceive themselves who speaking of Religious souls who are in a most pure and perfect estate and according to the eminency of their vocation say they ought to be night Christians as Stars in the Firmament and perswade others that they are not obliged to the perfection of inward vertues and that it is enough for them to become punctuall and to live with order and fidelity in their exteriour conduct making them believe that they are capable of no more that this self-desertion is above their strength nay that it were folly so to leave themselves to live in such a general manner of abandoning themselves This is a manifest errour for not onely the religious estate but even that of Christianity obligeth all Christians to the practise of these vertues seeing they are obliged to be perfect according to the Commandement of Iesus Christ as doth easily appear by all the Motives handled in this second Part. Now if all they who aim at perfection in any profession whatsoever must enter into this conduct of grace and subjection if they must live devesting themselves to obey God more perfectly and to live the life of God which is the life of a true christian the true life of grace what ought those souls to do who by particular graces and allurements of speciall favour are called by God cherished and inriched with his gifts O how great will these obligations appeare to those that consider them O how ought such souls to take care and be vigilant to co-operate with the designs of God upon them and to become faithful according to the estate and fulness of grace communicated to them This would require a long deduction for nothing is of more importance or needs a more ample discourse to content our spirits and satisfie our piety But it shall suffice that we shew the fundation and principles thereof of which we shall now speak The conclusion of the second Part. The care and vigilancy which a Soul must have which seeks perfection and would live in true subjection to the grace and conduct of Iesus Christ. WE have cleerly enough deduced and demonstrated by divers motives the obligation all Christans have to seek perfection and wholly to subject themselves to the spirit and conduct of God yet must we not understand this Doctrine so generally but that there is something more to be done and that we fail not in our care and vigilancy to cooporate with the work of God in us and to become faithfull to his conduct and here we will shew what this care and vigilancy ought to be Let us first enter into consideration of the excellencies of our soul that knowing it we may be ravished with its beauty elevated and excited to conserve it carefully in perfection according to the designe of God upon us This knowledge is not easie for the soul is such a lively Image of the Divinity and God hath invested her with so many lights that our spirits are too feeble to sustain the beams thereof and to penetrate the splendor of this beauty If we will speak of her we must say that she so perfectly represents her Prototype God that as we cannot better comprehend God then in averring he is incomprehensible so we cannot enter better into this knowledge of the perfect beauties of our soul then in saying she cannot be known For all that we can say of her is below her so neer doth she approach to the infinite greatness and ineffable perfections of her Creator The highest that we can say of her that seems to imply the last draught of her perfection is that she is a capacity of God an Image wherein the perfections of the Divinity are engraved so as we may compare it to a Seal wherein the Image of a Prince is perfectly and artificially cut As the Seal is capable of receiving the soft wax applied to it and imprints thereon a second Image so our soul which is the Image of God is capable of receiving God and receiving him once she bears a continuall Image of him his true resemblance The soul therefore in as much as she is the Image is also a capacity of God since as the Image she is capable of receiving God And this capacity is the ground of her being and containing in it all her perfections and beauty comprehending all that can be said of her It is not hard to penetrate this truth if we consider the designs of God in the creation of the soul for Faith teaches us that God alone is the end of our soul her fulness that he hath created her to enjoy his greatness to associate her into his glory to communicate to her his divine perfections In pursuit of this designe it was that he gave her so great an amplitude and capacity that she cannot be filled but with God which caused Saint Bernard to say that our soul may be occupated by all things in the world but that she cannot be filled with any but God who created her for himself alone to fill to live in her and to advance her to the enjoyment not of gifts not of grace onely but of glory and of the essence of Divinity All this begins upon earth and is consummated and perfected in heaven indeed it cannot be in heaven if it begin not upon earth since the soul after death enjoyes but what she hath merited in her life for we see that here below the soul receives her God by grace she receives him in his loving communication and she is filled of God by his Spirit which dwelleth in her and in Heaven she possesseth him fully by glory By this possession all her capacity is filled according to all Gods designes upon her Thus Saint Iohn We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him we shall see him as he is Now we cannot see God and be like to him in glory which is a pemanent estate without possessing him and we cannot possess him but in this capacity which is given us by God which is the foundation of our being and all the perfection of our soul so great a perfection that we conceive it farther then we know the greatness of God For as God is great this capacity is great ample and admirable This deserves profound consideration and may serve to all men as a powerfull motive to sever themselves from all upon the earth and to seek God only for whom alone we are created who alone is our fulness This truth discovers the favour we receive from this infinite
goodness the soul being a capacity of God as also continually regarded by him who sees her yea he sees her and he regards her to raise her to himself to fill her and fully and perfectly to possess her in a manner worthy of God and conformable to his love He will be all things in this soul he will be her life her love her good her confidence her heart her spirit her power and her conduct briefly he will be her All her fulness upon earth by his graces and in heaven by his glory Hence therefore may we take occasion to admire and eternally adore this infinite and inexhaustible bounty which deigns to communicate himself with such an exstreme profusion of himself who by an incomprehensible counsell of his eternall Wisdom hath created man upon the earth onely capable of his divine communications who only is a pure capacity of God who gives him power to receive the abundance of his gifts and to bear the greatness of his Divinity Assoon as we reflect hereupon we shall see the duties of our soul what our care and vigilancy must be For the soul being a capacity of God what remains for her to do but to render her self worthy to possess him and to be filled with him and altogether to abandon her self to his conduct and grace She is obliged to esteem nothing but him to live onely for him being created onely for him and this being the end of her being and life she must have no care upon earth but to suffer her self to be filled with God to be possessed and ruled by his spirit and by his power Thus we are obliged to two things one to have a care and vigilancy to take all away that may separate us from God and make us unworthy of his divine and loving communications The other to have a like vigilancy over our selves over our motions over our desires over our intentions and over our actions that they depend on God and be wholly submitted to his loving conduct Let us yet say this more cleerly if it be possible in two words The soul ought to have no care but that God be in her repose in her dwell in the bottom of her heart fill and possess her according to all the designes that he hath on her This done and the soul living in this care with fidelity God reposing in her as in the Throne of his love will communicate to her what gifts and enrich her with what graces he pleaseth and in fine conduct her in the wayes that he desires the soul having no other desire then that God may be in her and she in God that is after the manner that God ought and will be according to the greatness and excess of his love This is the One thing that is necessary whereof Iesus speaks to Saint Martha the source of all happiness the top of all perfection which Iesus calleth in Magdalen the better part Let us pray to God to place us in this happy estate to make us penetrate his truths Let us give our selves to him to enter therein and banishing all care all thoughts all love let us onely regard Iesus Let us require nothing but Iesus Let us love none but him who loves us above his life Let us cast our selves at his feet like Mary Magdalen and there melt our hearts and consume the poyson that is in them with the beams of this Sun of love that he may replenish us with his grace with his love and with his spirit that we may live onely by Iesus and as another Magdalen seek nothing but Iesus Let us now propose the dispositions necessary to attain so happy and desireable a Being THE THIRD PART Proposing divers DISPOSITIONS and VERTUES necessary for a Christian to arrive to that perfection whereto he is obliged by Christianity CHAP. I. What those DISPOSITIONS are and how necessary they are to the practise of VERTVE IT is now time to enter into the practise of that vertue whereof we treat and that we set our selves on work to acquire the spirit to live the life that God requires of us whereto we were called from the first time that we became Christians To attain this happy estate there is need of continuall Application and travail for we must not think to arrive thereto at one leap but we must bring dispositions suitable to so worthy a subject and labour not onely to attain hereto but also to persevere therein which we must do the more willingly and couragiously in that we are certain this way is the foundation of all our happiness the true way to Christian perfection and makes us live the life of grace whereto we are called The first thing whereto we must bend our study is to know and acquire the inward dispositions necessary to lead us to Christian perfection and to make us live the life of grace which is the true life of a Christian this we are to learn in this third Part. And for as much as this Doctrine is proper for all sorts of vertues we will speak first of it in generall as well that we may the more easily come to the knowledge of the particular as because many seem to seek vertue and frequent the exercises of Christian piety yet think not upon a thing so necessary nor know what this disposition is or wherein the spirit of vertue doth consist which is the soul and form of action So that laying hold onely on the outside of vertue and considering it but as a body without a soul they are deceived in their imaginations and believing they do much they promise to themselves great profit rendring themselves punctuall and taking a great heed to some exteriour practises of vertues which they propose to themselves We see many with much vigilancy every day or week take some vertue to practice they watch if they are wanting to emergent occasions and carefully mark their defaults to accuse and if it be possible to amend themselves but after long practise we see they make small profit because they forget the interiour and put not themselves into the spirit of vertue to practise it with necessary and convenient dispositions To prevent therefore the inconveniences which occur in this subject we must observe that in a Christian life all estates wherein the Christian soul may find it self and all the vertues that she can practise have ordinarily the Dispositions which ought to accompany or precede her and vertue hath a spirit which is as its essence or rather as its soul which as a form doth enliven and perfectionate her The soul that will live the life of grace and will acquire solid and Christian vertues must carefully have regard to such dispositions that she may possess them to do the action which she doth perfectly seeing that in her vertue is exteriour and superficiall She must further acknowledge and seek out what is the spirit of vertue or as some say what is her essence that
they are by grace that which Iesus Christ is by nature This truth granted it is easie to comprehend the necessity of mortification If to be christians we must be re-invested in Iesus Christ that is live of his spirit and follow his motions and inclinations then to arrive to this happiness we must uncloath our selves of the spirit and inclinations of Adam and we must to speak in the words of the Apostle Put off the old man and put on the new man this cannot be done but by mortification which is the more necessary in that the inclinations and spirit of Adam are as much different from those of Iesus Christ as the Heaven is distant from the Earth These two spirits are as contrary one to the other as the animal is to the spirituall according to the Apostle who saith The first man is of the earth earthy the second man is from Heaven and cannot accord together Now to argue by the rule of contraries we must say that to establish the one it is necessary to annihilate the other to plant good we must root out evill so he that would love christianity that is according to the spirit and vertue of Iesus Christ must take away and mortifie the spirit and inclinations of Adam which are in all alwayes contrary to Iesus Christ. The Son of God came into the world as Saint Iohn saith to destroy the works of the Devill The spirit of Adam is a sinner and his inclinations are but concupiscences works of the flesh therefore is the Sonne of God come to destroy them We must also labour and co-operate with him to destroy in us and to root out of us all that sin hath put in us wherein mortification assists us This that Divinity which we call mysticall teaches us which requires that a christian to arrive to that perfection whereto God calleth him passeth through the purgative life in the wayes of mortification annihilation and resignation that by this exercise the soul may purge and cleanse it self from all that is in her opposite to grace and the true possession of God This Doctrine is founded on a Truth which most know but consider not sufficiently That the whole nature and being of man is corrupt all his inclinations turned to evill carrying the centre the source and seed of all vice and imperfection in it Now to order it so as that this nature of Adam this being may be possessed of God replenished with vertuous inclinations and that he may have in himself true charity the seed and principle of all Christian vertues he must necessarily take from it the evill that is in it for the good and perfection cannot be there but in taking away and rooting out the corruption and imperfection which cannot be done without a serious and continuall mortification inward or outward Whence we learn that to acquire christian vertues it is not enough to demand them of God by prayer which we call a demand nor to consider them in mentall prayers and to make good resolutions thereon it is not enough to know them and desire them nor to do acts of them and to produce many practises of them but we must also root out of the foundation of our soul all that which is contrary to vertue The man who desires to live a good christian and aspires to true vertue as the onely way to Heaven must not so much busie himself in the acquisition of vertues by the practise of them as he must labour to root out of his heart and pull out of the foundation of his being all oppositions inclinations and customs contrary to true vertue For as soon as he hath emptied his heart of all that is displeasing to God and contrary to him God will from that moment replenish and possess his heart and liberally extend to him the graces and vertues necessary for him but withall according to the measure in which God gives them to him he must be faithfull on one side to correspond with the grace given him on the other he must labour to render himself more and more capable of the spirit and possession of God he endeavouring to cleanse and purify his heart and God continually replenishing and consecrating it for his own dwelling and sanctifying it by his grace By this amorous combate God always gives and is always augmenting his gifts man receives and in receiving disposes himself more and more to receive more abundantly the sweet bounties of God all which is done in the soul proportionably to her purifying and mortifying her self from all that is disagreeable and contrary to the spirit of God By mortification and the purgative life we not onely understand corporall austerities such as affect the sense as macerations fastings and other exercises which rob the sense of what is most agreeable to it which although they be good and profitable and sometimes necessary yet are they not principall but we apply this Doctrine first to interiour mortifications whereby the soul purifies her heart annihilates her sources therein and pulls away the roots of imperfections and of all that is displeasing to God By this exercise she stifles as much as she can the seeds of self-love though hid in every thing she strives to gain a perfect victory over her self her principall care is to annihilate her will her intentions her desires her thoughts and inclinations to those of God choosing in all things that which is most pure most conformable to the spirit of Iesus most opposite and contrary to her own inclinations and unruly affections Hereunto she wholly addicts her self herein she is very vigilant she knows it generally a maxime that the more the heart of man is filled with the creatures and the love and regard of himself the more she is separated from God voyd of his spirit and true vertue Therefore she endeavours to exercise her self in this interiour mortification Another Reason which obligeth us to the spirit and exercise of mortification is that the Devil makes use of our inclinations of our habits of our desires and of our self-love yea he makes use of our selves against our selves and of our nature subjected as well by the sin of Adam as our actuall sins he makes use I say thereof to cast us away and to separate us from God even in things most holy and the most interiour and therefore to avoid the perils and to take the weapons from the hands of our enemie whereof he makes use to undo us we must necessarily pass through the purgative life we must go out of our selves out of the life of Adam to be in Iesus Christ and to live of his life and we must mortifie our selves to make place for God and take from our heart all that may displease him that is opposite to his grace and by this exercise we shall easily arrive to the acquisition of Christian vertues CHAP. III. That the adherence of a Soul to Iesus Christ is the most perfect
means to possess all Christian vertue THat vertue which we call Christian is a hidden treasure hid in God the very life of a Christian according to the Doctrine of the Apostle is such it is the Pearl in the Gospel which he who would obtain heaven must seek and buy he must seek it in God with all diligence and buy it at the price of all the world Nothing is more precious then true vertue which alone renders us like to God and worthy of Paradise all things else are nothing but vanity amuzement of spirit and unprofitable travell Of known and ordinary means to arrive at the possession of so rich a treasure there is one to be preferred before all others which though little considered and perhaps little known is most important without which all others are ineffectuall This is the adherence of our soul to Iesus Christ This puts us into possession of vertues He who adheres to Iesus Christ is one spirit with him possesses him and in him all vertues To comprehend this truth we must remember that we said that Iesus Christ is our All whence it followeth he is our humility our love our patience our vertue and he that shall possess him shall possess all in him He is the foundation the treasure and riches of the soul He is made unto us saith Saint Paul wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption Who then would have wisdom righteousness and other vertues let him adhere to Iesus He that would acquire and possess perfection let him possess Iesus for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge The Apostle explains this further saying The eternall Father giveth us his Son and with him freely giveth us all things by which words he not onely implies that by his merits by his grace and for his love we have all but moreover that with Iesus Christ note the energy of this word with Iesus we have all possessing him we possess all we must add that if we do not possess nor adhere to Iesus Christ we cannot have true christian vertue This truth is not hard to conceive if we consider the essence of christian vertue and perfection which is the spirit of Iesus or Iesus himself living in us and working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight saith the Apostle Our ordinary manner of speaking teacheth us as much for we say vertue and christian perfection have their beginning in grace from whence they spring and what goes out of a just soul that we call grace Now the soul cannot be in grace nor just but by the habitation of the holy spirit living and acting in her So the Apostle The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us whence we infer that if to live in christian vertue we must be in grace and if grace be no other then the holy spirit living in us and there acting seeing the holy spirit is no other then the very spirit of Iesus it followeth evidently that to live christianly we must possess true vertues and to possess them we must possess Iesus and adhere to him for grace and righteousness consists in this possession Let us rise higher and come to the source hereof Faith teaches us that in Adam we are devested of innocence fallen from the state of grace and perfection whereto we were destined by Creation and by the first designes of God By this fall we have lost for ever the vertues graces and supernaturall gifts wherewith the infinite goodness of God had inriched and cloathed the first man At the sight of this misfortune God being moved onely by his own goodness to be merciful to us would raise us from this fall and inrich us more then ever with his graces and heavenly favours where sinne abounded saith the Apostle grace did much more abound To raise us to this happiness he would give us a new beginning of life and grace his onely Sonne Iesus Christ who being made man by the mystery of the Incarnation is established Father and principle of that being and life of grace which should be in man As we participate in sin of the evil of Adam and are with him despoiled of all vertues and grace adhering to him as to our naturall principle and have with him his being and his nature So adhering to Iesus Christ as to our Head our new Principle we participate of his being of his spirit of his grace and of his vertues This witnesseth the Forerunner of the Messiah who saith Of his fulness we have all received and grace for grace From this being deliberately considered we may derive worthy documents to our subject First we see how much we ought to adhere to Iesus if we will live his life and participate his vertues which are the onely Christian vertues for in as much as we adhere to Adam we are not capable of any thing but to live the life of sinners we have no right to the life of grace to practise or possess any Chrstian vertue If we will live the life of grace and obtain power to practise and possess vertue we must lay hold of Iesus Christ and to receive it of him we must adhere to him for we cannot possess him but in adhering to him wherein appeareth also the necessity of this adherence From this truth we draw a second document how much they deceive themselves who speak meanly and indifferently of true Christans or of a thing proportioned to our reason and being For according to the Principles of Christianity and words of Saint Paul as Christians we must put on the Lord Iesus Christ that is the gifts of the graces and vertues of Iesus in such manner that we may be like unto him in such a degree of perfection that we may bear in us an expression and a lively image of the life and vertues of Iesus Christian vertue is not animitation of the life and vertues of a perfect man not of Adam considered in his Innocency and originall Iustice to have vertues after this manner were not much it is a lively Image of the vertues of Iesus Man-God or to say better it is the life and vertue it self of Iesus in man As men are distinguished by their habits so are true Christians from others by these vertues and these vertues are distinguished from all others if there be any by the spirit of Iesus Here then appears the divinity and perfection of Christian vertues they are the vertues of Iesus himself according to which the Apostle saith we are new creatures As creatures of Iesus we must bear his Image which is divine and celestiall not that of Adam which is humane and terrestriall that is our life and vertues must not be of a man but of God life and vertues as different according to the Doctrine of the Apostle as heaven is distant from the earth as unlike as Iesus is
believe little doubt of all things live a life more like Philosophers then Christians and make no great account of a thousand good things which are usefull in Christianity To remedy this they must learn that faith the spirit of truth and the life of Christ must be the onely rule and guide of our actions and life in such manner that to go out of this rule and conduct either on the right hand or left is alwayes to erre from the right way 2. Considering what we have now said of truth we cleerly see how necessary it is to be established in the spirit of faith and to take truth for our object and conduct All other spirits are deceitfull and lying whence it followeth that souls that will live in Christian perfection must commence by this exercise and must necessarily lay the spirit of faith as the foundation of vertue if they would obtain any As faith is the door whereby we enter into the house of God and are made children of the Church so must she be the beginning of the life of a Christian and the spirit wherewith he lives and endeavours to acquire vertue Where we must mark in the conduct of souls how necessary it is to establish them in the spirit of faith and to accustom them to walk in the light of truth This is the first Lesson we must propose to them in this point wherein we must keep and exercise them as that which is onely profitable and without which nothing is stable or true not to entertain and amuse I dare not say to deceive them by so much prudence by the consideration of so many humane reasons and by the example and actions of men a hard case that the devout of this age take so much care to recommend and obtain morall and civil Vertues and mention not nor consider but superficially the divine and necessary Let us learn and say with Iesus Christ that Truth alone shall save us and that truth must be the foundation establishment of our life if we will live true Christians Hence the soul that will arrive to christian perfection must shut her eares divert her thoughts from all that the humane spirit reason and self-love can inwardly represent and must not hearken to them who regard not God purely but measure the greatness of Heaven with the eyes of flesh by the smallness of the earth and speak of vertues and christian perfection according to their own sense more like Philosophers then Christians Such persons by their discourse and conference study to destroy the maxims of Iesus Christ to establish humane prudence and use their uttermost to abase vertue and make it humane In a word they onely labour to make man reasonable not to make him a perfect christian Upon such occasions the soul that seeketh true perfection and will follow Iesus Christ must stand upon her guard and avoid such persons and with great care must prevent humane prudence from annihilating in her the spirit of faith and the esteem of the things of God If it happen that a soul see her self among such persons and shall understand their discourse to be such it will be good at that instant by a sweet elevation of spirit to give her self to God and renew if she can her esteem of Truth in a thought of God renouncing the perswasions of the humane spirit and protesting that she will receive no other conduct or light then that of Faith nor other interiour dispositions then those of Jesus Christ according to the truths that he hath left to his Church If notwithstanding all this the soul remain in fear or trouble of spirit or feel the spirit of faith to diminish in her then she shall give her self more strongly to God and recollecting her self she shall with an humble spirit stir up in the bottom of the heart a confidence in God alone and a diffidence of all things In fine she shall divert her self from all thoughts which trouble the repose of her spirit and captivate her judgement her reason and humane essence to the spirit of faith she shall undergo with an humble patience the pains which she feels contenting her self by an act of her will to subject her spirit to all that Iesus hath said without regarding any other thing and in this manner she shall keep her self united with Iesus Christ and in a secret silence shall imploy her self in him not about the business in question This act is heroick because his disposition is hard and strikes our senses rudely and sometimes it is painfull but it is withall certain and pleasing to God It is not painfull otherwise then as our reason our judgement and the love of our own interests is living in us If we would annihilate all that it would be easie for to overcome and to believe rather in Iesus Christ then in men and our own sense yet must we not whatsoever difficulty we meet with neglect this labour for as the soul hath nothing more assured then faith nothing more profitable or more powerfull then truth so the Devil fails not also all the wayes that he can to draw us from the conduct of faith and to annihilate in us the light and to force us from the adherence to truth if not all at once yet at least by little and little The soul therefore must take heed she be not here deceived seeing all her happiness consists in walking in the spirit of faith and with the light of the truth This exercise is important let us see how we are to behave our selves therein CHAP. VI. Of the use of Faith and how we may practise it THe soul may be guided two wayes by the naturall light of reason which is weak and deceitful ever fallible and by the light of faith which is infallible powerful certain proportioned to that state of glory whereat we aim it is a supernaturall light given by God to guide us to Heaven The first is common to the souls of the World by St. Paul stiled children of the flesh the second proper to souls which live perfect christians who resign themselves to the spirit of God and to his conduct who trust onely in God adhere to nothing but to the faith which they have in the words of Iesus Christ and the Maxims of the Gospel It is the property of a christian to live and guide himself according to the light and truths of Faith lights much above the naturall light of Reason to this end is he made a Christian. 'T is true the way of faith is hard because it captivates the judgement it is above our sense it combates humane reason it is hidden and very spirituall yet must we nevertheless follow and embrace it because Iesus Christ gives it because it is certain and infallible because it is suitable to the wayes of God who leads men in this world through obscurity having reserved knowledge and light for heaven There are who will think that the soul may
be deceived by this way our spirits being too feeble this way too eminent and that it occasions a perpetuall combate in the spirit As it is troublesome to a man to walk in darkness so it is hard for the soul to go this way of Faith which is obscure and hidden But if we would learn it well we must say the contrary all other wayes are uncertain and deceitfull vertue alone is infallible we shall never be deceived if we stick to it It were to have a mean esteem of Gods graces and to be ignorant of the Principles of our salvation to believe that the faith God hath given us to conduct us is capable of loosing us Let us remember that God hath given us the light of faith to guide our reason and that our reason must submit thereunto and in respect of Faith be annihilated as Saint Paul saith We walk by faith not by sight meaning that to live Christianly we must let our reason be guided by faith not faith by reason wherein we see the designes of God in the rule of our souls the necessity of our walking by the light of this torch or according to the ordinary manner of speech see how necessary it is for him that will live a perfect Christian to follow onely the light of faith and to learn to make use of Evangelicall truth If at any time the souls who take this way are deceived it is in that they go out of it and being perswaded by the Devil or self-love or the vanity of the humane spirit which esteems it self in every thing withdraw themselves from the conduct of faith to follow that of humane prudence choosing to be guided by the rules of the flesh and the spirit of worldly vanity rather then by the maxims of Iesus Christ and the spirit of heavenly truth Thus indeed they find themselves deceived and fall into misfortunes not for having taken this way of faith but for having quitted it and adhered to humane prudence and the light of reason which like an ignis fatuus will lead us out of the way unless we be aided by a supernaturall force and guided by a more sure light such as is this of faith But to the soul that is faithfull applying her self to the truths of Faith and Maxims of Christianity that seeks God with simplicity and humility there must necessarily arrive great profit and advantage in christian perfection We must not therefore condemn this way and reject it as too high too difficult and too painfull for it is the way that the Sonne of God himself hath left to his Church and commanded all his children But on the contrary we must teach it every one accommodating our selves to their several capacities and giving them all the means to pursue it without going out of it least they be deceived If we find here any difficulty it is in our selves There are two things in man which hinder his progress this way one is esteem of himself and of his own spirit the other is the Love that he bears himself and for his own sake to the Creatures To pursue this way and to make use of Faith he must go out of himself and renounce his own spirit and raise himself above all Creatures to adhere to truth to believe and to make use of what he did believe he must renounce his judgement his reason and his sense and annihilate them If our reason sense and judgement repugne the truth proposed to our belief we must quit our reason and our sense to unite our selves to the truth If for instance it is proposed that the uncreated eternall word become man that God died reason and sense oppose this truth Reason cannot comprehend that the eternall God should make himself subject to Time the immortall submit himself to Death yet to believe this our Will moved by grace notwithstanding the opposition of reason and sense must say I will believe and adhere to the truth proposed The will adhering hereto commands reason and judgement which obeying her believe what she proposes the understanding which useth to command and be free renders it self captive and obedient annihilating its own thoughts and reason that so it may adhere to the truth proposed and form an act of Faith Thus we are to understand that of Saint Paul bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. By faith the understanding which useth to command is made captive and obedient to the Will therefore the soul in the practise of Faith goes out of her selfe and no more obeys her judgement or sense she no more regards her self but the truth onely which she embraces as her object adhering and uniting her self thereto Thus by Faith the soul is elevated above her self to be tyed and united to the eternall and infallible truth revealed and proposed to her This well considered will shew us the excellency and dignity of faith by which knowledge we shall learn how much we are to esteem the state of christianity in generall and the life of a christian in particular seeing that according to Gods designes and the grace of Iesus Christ the christian as christian must live and be guided onely by the spirit of truth and light of faith which being divine and supernaturall drawes us out of our selves to unite and tye us to God who is truth We shall moreover see by what hath been said that faith is not what we think it consists not in great learning in many reasons and severall Arguments on the contrary it is for the simple and for those who can go out of themselves who can annihilate themselves in their reason and quitting the regard of themselves and other creatures adhere and follow the truth of faith Therefore it is said commonly that the learned and wise of the world who have most prudence most reason the most solid judgement and capacity of spirit have likewise most opposition to faith for they are lesse able to go out of themselves to annihilate their own spirits and judgements Thus Iesus Christ after he had summed up the truths of Heaven and described the contentments of the glory of the just concludes with an Enthusiasme of truth I thank thee O Father saith he Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things these truths from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes to the humble and meek Which shews that the knowledge of truth and of the spirit of faith is a gift of God that God gives it to the humble and little ones that to adhere to it we must humble and abase our selves In a word to make use of the truth and faith conceived we must go out of our selves and out of esteem of our selves Let us practise this for it is our principall design To make use of faith and truths conceived we must first consider what faith proposes but we must consider it barely and simply without any discourse upon it we
as in the Church he is fed with the body and drinks the blood of Iesus Christ. Among the true vertus which we must possess that which is as the gold and enamel of all the rest is purity a vertue altogether necessary yet either despised or little known If we would see the necessity thereof let us onely consider what is the end of a Christian and wherein consists the perfection of the state of Christianity The perfect Christian must live the life of grace which is the life of Iesus Christ he must carry God he must possess God If any man love me saith Christ he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come into him and make our abode with him which we must not onely understand of justifying and inherent grace a gift created and given of God but of the reall true habitation and presence of God in our souls The soul of the just saith the Wise man is the Throne of God and the Apostle sayes often that our souls and bodies are Temples of God Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the holy Ghost Reflecting on this so manifest a truth we must say that to receive and possess God in our soul we must have the purity of God and in a word without flattering our selves with vain hopes and disguizing or covering the truth let us consider a little seriously what the place ought to be where the Majesty of a God will dwell for ever what ought his dwelling to be of whom David saith Thou dwelst in the sanctuary and in the holy of holies What ought the heart of a man to be where God hath made himself a seat which he hath chosen and consecrated to be the throne of his love We must believe God will require in us a purity worthy of God seeing he who is purity it self will dwell eternally in us This purity that God demands and whereof he is worthy is so divine that our strength cannot arrive unto it he must give it he must assist our importance there is nothing but the fire of his love the lightning of his light the force of his grace and the power of his spirit that can purge expiate and consume all in us that is contrary to this purity In brief it belongs to God alone to place us in the purity that he requires of us This shews how much those souls are deceived who think to possess God and be well with him yet are more remote from him then heaven is from earth We need not but to behold and judge by the effects what its cause is Now as this purity is altogether necessary to possess God so it is our part to desire and to demand it of him and our principall care must be to purify our heart to make it to bear God we must offer it to him that we may bring to our selves the effect of this saying of God to his Spouse and to all others My son give me thy heart we must give and resigne it to him alone it is his desire it is our duty and our happiness if he will vouchsafe to accept it it will be his when he pleaseth to make it such as he requires it This is not all we must co-operate herein and labour with care and vigilancy that we may employ our selves herein with courage and labour with profit let us therefore see wherein this purity consists The purity of the heart may be understood two wayes one that we must purifie our heart from all sorts of sins and voluntary imperfections God enters not into a malicious soul nor inhabits in a body enslav'd to sin we mean not only gross sins but ordinary failings even all faults be they never so little For God being purity it self cannot inhabit in a heart if he find not or put not therein this purity and being infinitely good he infinitly hates evil whatsoever it be and though the least faults drive not God out of our souls yet they make a division and unsettle the soul from God they make great spoil in the heart they undermine it they brand it they indispose it and being so it is disagreeable to God and becomes the object of his Iustice. The soul that knowes how to esteem of God and bears any impression of his purity will think more then I say and never consent to the least imperfection all is insupportable to her that she knows to be disacceptable to God she hath no consideration of estate honour her own good or of men where she sees there is any thing capable to offend the eyes and heart of her God all her care is to detest and extirpate not onely the least faults but to quit renounce and separate her self from whatsoever she knowes to be displeasing to God It is the chief advice of St. Augustine Before any work saith he be sure to purify the heart and take from it all that you observe displeasing to God When he would have us take from our hearts all that is displeasing to God he discovers a great secret he would have us go out of our selves and take out of us all that is of Adam he would have us annihilate our inclinations because whatsoever is of Adam is impure and opposite to Iesus Christ and ever contrary to him whence we conclude that he who would possess Iesus must do all he can possible to dispossess himself of and to drive away Adam this spirit of Adam and his inclinations can no more subsist in the soul with the spirit of God then the Idol Dagon could stand before the Ark of the Covenant All that is in us and is not of God is impure and unworthy of God and all that is out of God can produce no good nor any thing worthy of God these are great truths such as might transport our spirits yet let us not be astonish'd at this Proposition as too high and impossible and we shall see that therein is nothing too much but rather far less then so worthy a subject merits if we consider how pure that soul must be that would please God be in God and possess God and what purity it must have to be one with God for thereon the life of a Christian happily terminates O great God how many deceive themselves O God of adorable purity how few are fit to possess Thee By the light of these truths we may discover the abuse and deceits in christian devotion Some think that they hold God by the hand already and believe themselves well advanced in perfection in that they communicate in that they fast and pray every day and a thousand such like things wherein they exercise themselves they have the taste and sense of devotion they speak well of God and if you will believe them they say they are ravished in God But consider them well you shall find they live wholly according to their own inclinations they mind onely their own
hope must sow in the spirit as the Apostle sayes and do actions worthy so great a recompence This is the way that this third part sheweth where are deduced and advanced those dispositions and vertues which lead us to this estate and to make us perfect Indeed many other vertues might be proposed but these contain all and infallibly guide to the estate God requires of us Faith makes us know and esteem of God it shews us the way to God and leads us to the knowledge of our selves this knowledge draws us to humility that humbles us and disposes us to receive God the good desire if it be efficacious draws us to God purity makes us worthy of God and self-deniall brings to the fulness of God He that hath God hath all he is perfect and he that hath not God is nothing and hath nothing Do what he can though he should do miracles as Iudas probably did he can do nothing that is perfect no work worthy of heaven for it is God onely that works in us the works of grace and who is the principle of our merits which must be well noted therefore he that will be saved and become a perfect Christian must aim only at this point All that we have proposed serve hereunto The first thing demanded is to endeavour to have a good foundation and a sincere uncorrupted interiour to conduct us according to the principles of Faith and the maximes of Christianity to regard God in all things to please him or at least not to displease him with particular care to annihilate the spirit of Adam and the spirit of the world for they are enemies to God they can no more dwell together then Iacob and Esau. After all these dispositions the soul must depend upon God and be wholly left to his operations and conduct and be very vigilant to shew her self faithfull to correspond with the graces and operations of God and not to withdraw her self from his conduct and the order he would take with her This last point is of great consequence and deserves to be a little more insisted upon for it is the last touch we shall give to the Image of a perfect Christian. We must observe that in the order of grace it is not as in the order of Nature In nature that which is most dependant on it's cause is the most imperfect as the sound and voice which is so dependant on its cause that it ceases to be when it ceases to be produced In nature that is esteemed most perfect which hath the least dependance It is otherwise in the state of grace that is most perfect which is neerest and the most dependant on its cause and principle God so that he that tends to perfection must be in a great dependance on God and not act but in this disposition and by a generall resignation of himself to God To put and establish himself in this estate he must have a pure regard of God that is he must hold all of God and have no other object but God in his thoughts or actions When he perceives any care desire motion c. arising in him which he believes not to be of God he must annihilate and renounce it protesting to will nothing but him and the accomplishment of his divine will A soul that would live in resignation and in a true dependance on God must live in the unity of the object that is having regard only to God herein consists the true dependance whereof we speak she must not go out of this disposition to regard what she doth or what she shall do not so much as what may happen to her upon any manner of occasion she shall have all care possibly that she enter not into these thoughts contradictions and afflictions wherein she is or which may happen to her but she must receive all from the hand of God with gentleness and patience regarding him as the Authour of all things and submiting her self in all and by all to his most amiable will saying with a fervent spirit What have I in heaven or what have I desired in the earth besides thee my Iesus It is not sufficient for her to be in this interiour disposition nor that in prayer or her good desire she remain in this nakedness but she must also walk in the spirit of simplicity by an exteriour conduct abandoning and remitting her actions and affairs and all manner of success to the good pleasure of God with a perfect confidence in the love and divine providence of Iesus not seeking in any thing either satisfaction or profit much less cansolation but desiring purely to please God and to be wholly to him according as he hath ordained her To make this disposition more perfect she must not onely submit her actions to the pure will of God but also all her secret and smallest motions as well of nature as of grace that so she may be wholly resigned to God and in a bare and simple dependance It is not necessary that she regard her progress and advantage nor that she desire to be perfect but onely that by esteem respect and confiding in the love of Iesus she abandon her self entirely and purely to the care and prudence that he hath for her To conclude as the soul most purely walks in the wayes wherein God will lead her so must she also endeavovr to follow the light of Faith and maximes of Iesus Christ which shall serve her as a guide thus shall her heart become pure and neat having no other intention nor other hope but to be to God and to please God caring for nothing else she shall fill her spirit with a great esteem of God and respect to his greatness and the infinite power of the divinity and sense of her own meanness and in the spirit of humility abandon her self to Iesus Christ to be wholly to him and to live altogether in a dependance on his holy will and divine Ordinances The soul living in these dispositions it will be easie to avoyd all sorts of disquiets she shall remain in a holy indifferency she shall not trouble her self with her ordinary imperfections neither take care to change or not to change to converse hold or be conducted by this or that She shall be so little sensible of parents her friends her desires yea the supernaturall graces and all things that her onely regard being to God on whom she depends and to whom she is wholly abandoned her only solace end and contentment shall be to please him and to leave her self to the perfect and pure submission of her will to the conduct of God and his divine wisdome For want of this disposition there are many alas too many who live in disquiet perplexity and agitations of spirit The want of this vertue causing so many complaints and repinings so many inward and outward difficulties among souls who follow devotion so many cares doubts desires and propositions which proceed not from the
be accomplished in every point Now our Question is not only of an action good and just but which is more of a Christian action suitable to the eminence and purity of the state of Christianity of an action worthy heaven and God If it be reall it must have circumstances onely pure and perfect and chiefly it is requisite they have a proportionate object for as actions are specified by their objects so is it necessary that the doing and denomination of a true Christian action be to consider what is it's object which must be proportioned to the dignity sanctity and purity of an action worthy God which being supposed this object can be no other then God himself and therefore we must say that as all the actions of Christians must be conformable to their state all worthy of God so must they have God only for their object and consequently a Christian to live Christianly must have respect onely to God in all his actions and to do nothing but with intention to please him This is the wish of Saint Paul when he prayed to God for the new Christians to whom he writ That you might walk saith he worthy of the Lord as unto all pleasing This counsell ought to be engraven in the memory of men for either they think not of it or are ignorant of it yet is it altogether necessary Let us then suppose this to our perfect Christian that to do acts truly Christian and worthy of God we must regard nothing but God and have no other intent then to please him The reason is from the commandment of love for by the same principle that we are oblieged to love God in all and above all we are obliged also to please him in all and to seek onely his honour glory and pleasure He that knows how to love will easily comprehend the truth of this counsell For love if it be true makes us quit our own Interests and respects to engage us in the interests and respects of the thing beloved Again to love according to the Angelical Doctor is to wish well Now what good what interest can God have in our action but the accomplishment of his will and pleasure God hath no need of us for he is all-sufficient of himself As by our sins we cannot diminish his glory or pleasure so neither can we augment them by the vertue of our actions and that he makes them meritorious worthy the possession of heaven that he receives them as acceptable to the eyes of his divine Majesty it is the effect of his bounty not the power of necessity it is by dignifying not by duty or obligation by love not by interest it is because he vouchsafes to regard them and to be pleased with them it is only because we do in them what his will is we employ our selves in his Ordinances and accomplish his designes This Deduction and Principle being considered we must say that seeing God receives nothing of us or of our actions but the accomplishment of his divine Will it follows that a Christian who will love his God cannot express this love but in performing the works of God in respect to God and employing himself in the duties that God proposes to him He that hath my commandments saith our Saviour and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him which shews that the duty of a Christian consists in doing the works which God proposes and puts into his hand according to his condition and estate to do it according to the good pleasure of God and with an intent to do the will of God In this the Christian shews his love to God this is the means whereby his actions become worthy to possess God To comprehend this truth we must observe that all the creatures are nothing in themselves they are as but a drop of water drawn up by the Sun Now if all creatures are nothing man is yet less and man being so small a thing his action can be no more but if the creatures if man and his actions are any thing before God it is onely in as much as they regard God and have relation to him For nothing is worthy of God but what is of God and for God Heaven the world the earth are nothing yet are they esteemed worthy of honour because heaven is the throne of God earth is his footstool We may say as much of man although he be nothing in himself or in his actions yet they are most worthy by this relation to God and regard of God For as mean and prophane things are respected being consecrated and dedicated to God so our actions though they be mean and unworthy of God yet being referred and dedicated to his honour and the accomplishment of his will they are raised up and become pleasing to God Whence we acknowledge that all is nothing not our actions if they regard not God in this purity and though they regard God yet they conferre nothing to God they are onely pleasing to him because he vouchsafes to regard them and to take pleasure in them he advanceth and sanctifieth them by this relation such is his good pleasure Herein appears the abuse of those who fill their hearts and perplex their thoughts with severall intentions By this Principle we see how much they separate themselves from their duty who in their actions and devotions seek any thing else but to please God for all our actions are onely worthy of God because they are onely pleasing to him and nothing is worthy of him nor pleasing to his divine eyes but what is of him and for him Therefore one of the greatest faults to be observed in piety which makes us most unworthy of God is want of this regard of God Many instead of referring all things to God seek nothing but themselves labour onely for themselves and in all that they do think onely of themselves and if they should examine themselves as they ought they would find that the end of their life and actions is nothing but their own Interest and going on in the Labyrinth of these confusions they will find that seeking to do their own will they do what God requires not and fail to do that which he commands By this abuse it appeares that such souls design their own health and profit to be their end and the object of their actions By so doing God is no more their ultimate end nor the centre of their life and actions but their own interests and profit take the place of God an errour so manifest that it is easie to perceive and necessary to condemn the same Let us remember a principle very common that teacheth us if there were neither Heaven nor Hell to recompence or punish yet we were obliged to devote our selves wholly to God to fulfill his designes and to render him honour in
the satisfaction of their own spirit You shall find their hearts void of God full of self-love their actions inconstant their thoughts in continuall changings In fine they are nothing but disquiets complaints and murmurings Look upon their life and actions it is but a pastime unprofitableness and the vanities of the age and having considered it all it will not be hard for you to know whether those souls have the fear of God and the knowledge of vertue yet in appearance they make a great shew we know not whether is to blame those who are conducted and directed or the Directors But how ever it be the Christian who would be saved must labour herein seriously and neither fear pains nor mortifications but seek to be conducted by the wayes that God hath ordained and passing above all considerations and all sorts of difficulties prove constant and complyant with the order that God hath established over him he must every day renew his good resolutions and pray to God to let him know and be acquainted with the designes he hath upon him and give him grace in every point to follow them and with fidelity to accomplish them And seeing that his fidelity is now in question and that it is altogether necessary to all Christians it were but necessary we made some discourse of it CHAP. VII Of the fidelity of the soul and of its necessity in the wayes of grace and the actions of a Christian. TO speak of Fidelity and to see how much it is necessary to all Christians we must reflect upon the truths already proposed and remember that man was created for God who is his end that God alone can conduct him to this end and that it is the same God who onely operates in him all the good works which are necessary to make him Gods and to arrive at this end which is God From these principles of truth we enter into our subject and presently see that we have not any thing more important in this World then to go to God to co-operate with the works which God does in us to save us and to accomplish with fidelity that which he requires of us and in the spirit and disposition that he desires every one applying himself faithfully to the way that God proposes and the works of his vocation that the Priest live according to the perfection of his estate the Christian as Christian in brief that all men live so as at the houre of death they may say with Iesus Christ My Father I have glorified thee upon the Earth I have finish'd the work thou hast ordained me to do This fidelity which is absolutely necessary must be in our soul from the time we were born Though there were neither Heaven nor Hell we are obliged to live according to the will of our Creator what aversness soever the creature may have it shall be allwayes subject to the order of God either in the way of justice or mercy If we would be saved it cannot be unless we co-operate with the works that God will do in us unless we become faithfull to his graces and follow the order that God hath prescrib'd wherein he will conduct us to salvation and therefore it concerns us more then we think to take heed to the designes that God hath over us and to the vocation whereto he hath called us to the motions and inspirations he gives us to make use with fidelity of the graces he offers least drawing our selves from the order and offer of his mercy we enter into that of his Iustice and one day he say to us in the rigour of his determined Decree as he said to his people I will choose their delusions and bring their feares upon them because when I called none did answer when I spake they did not hear but they did evill in my sight and chose that in which I delighted not Isa. 66.4 When we speak of the vocation and use we are to make of the graces and benefits of God we speak of Paradise to despise them is to neglect salvation Therefore the Christian must consider what he does as well in that which concerns the vocation he must choose as in the use of the graces and favours he receives of God seeing thereon depends all his happiness or misery we must take heed we chuse not what God would not have us nor despise what he would have us to embrace This point is the most important of all in a Christian life yet is it a mystery the most secret of any in Christianity The vocation of a soul is as much hidden as her election which none can know or easily discern by her conduct The wayes of God are as much elevated above ours as Heaven above Earth and yet O wonderfull God wills that we follow his wayes and none shall be saved but according to the vocation whereto God from all time hath called him What remedy seeing on the one side necessity constrains us and on the other the incertainty and obscurity deters us O just God God of all bounty who shall enlighten us in this darkness who shall resolve us in an affaire so doubtfull who shall assure us amidst so many doubts nothing but thy light O God the onely refuge of our souls can conduct us nothing but thy spirit can teach us but thy truth can assure us and but thy infinite mercy can protect us This lets us see in what danger they put themselves who so long neglect the motions graces and favours of God and make such ill use of his benefits From these truths we learn the esteem we ought to have of our vocation and with what circumspection we must make choice thereof and if we will make our selves worthy to receive of God the light and conduct necessary in an affaire of so great consequence for our salvation it will be very profitable to enter into these following dispositions First The Christian must have a pure desire of God and a resolution to do in every thing his divine will being from the bottom of his Heart wholly resigned to his will and conduct Secondly He must have a great sence of his weakness he must be in an estate of humility before God not esteeming himself worthy or capable of any thing for the humble shall never perish and as Esay saith God looketh to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at his word Thirdly He must renounce his own interests and all his particular concernments he must not regard his own safety that he may have no object but the pure will of God yet in such manner that he who resolves to remain so faithfully and constantly in the order and designes of God and proposes to make hereafter use of Gods gifts graces and benefits and regards not perfection advancement vertue not Heaven it self must not content himself with a thought to please God for alas who is worthy thereof but cleansing and purifying his intentions
then of grace The Christian therefore if he seek perfection must take heed hereto and in all things observe as a maxime in Catholique vertues that Christian vertue and true piety consist not in being conformable to reason and to a humane spirit but to the spirit and intention of Iesus Christ who is the infallible rule of our actions This advice is of importance We shall speak of it elswhere when we have convinced the more difficult spirits and made them see the right Iesus Christ hath to us CHAP. IV. The right which the Sonne of God hath to us Motives obliging us to be his and to adhere to him by true piety WHich way soever we consider our selves we belong unto the Sonne of God this is our happiness We belong unto him after a singular manner in the state of nature he hath a right to us all things being as the Evangelist saith made by him In the being of grace we belong to him in the being of glory we are his by him all are raised to glory by a grace springing from the Mystery of the Incarnation and proper to the state of Christianity he is our Head we his Members he is the Father we his Children he our spouse we his heart and delight he our Doctor we his Disciples he our Pastor we his sheep he our Redeemer we his Captives he our King we his subjects he the Sacrificer we his sacrifices in a word he is our All the way the life and the salvation of the World and as St. Paul saith he is our fulness and we are his by the price of his blood and possession of his spirit We are so much the Son 's that we cannot be God's without being first Iesus's who refers us to his Father If the Father accept us and behold us with the eyes of mercy it is in the Sonne in as much as we are his Members and united unto him This union whereby we belong to the Sonne of God is so necessary that as the eternall Father loves us not but for his Sonne 's sake nor regards us but in him so cannot our actions be acceptable to him nor all our exercises of piety please him if they be not done by the conduct of the spirit of his Sonne and by adherence and union to Iesus though they may otherwise seem good and perfect He that is not with me saith Christ is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth This property is grounded upon the principles of Faith which teach us that the Sonne of God onely became man not the Father nor the holy Ghost he alone performs the office of Mediator in the redemption of humane nature he alone is our Redeemer our Mediator and our Head In this quality we are his Captives and Members he is the Father of the Ages to come and we are his children for he alone begot us by his blood and death and as a Pelican he gives us life by the effusion of his blood and animates us by the spirit of his Crosse in the Crosse he begot us by his death he giveth us that life we lost by the envy of the Serpent Thus in all the Mysteries of Faith we adore the Sonne of God being of the divine persons the onely incarnate living and dying for us he onely redeeming us from the captivity of our sins being God became man that men might become Gods all the Mysteries of his life accomplished upon Earth were onely to sanctifie us his dying upon the crosse makes him the onely victime and holocaust of our propitiation Are not these motives sufficient to shew us that we are his in a singular manner belonging to him by extraordinary relations Is it not reason we should acknowledge him and by a particular fidelity profess our selves his and carefully endeavour to adhere to him and by true piety to render him the honour love and service that his benefits obliege us to This the greatest part of Christians think not of as being by reason of their impiety ignorant of their benefactor as the Ancients were through their Idolatry of their Creator It is a strange ingratitude that man should be so blind in these dayes as not know his Iesus and passing his life away carelesly neglect to acknowledge him in his greatness to adore him in his works and to honour him in his humane divine life Our business then must be to reform this ignorance and therefore we will propose the principall rights which he hath to us that we may learn with what piety and devotion we ought to follow and serve him and that those souls who neglect or despise this piety may re-enter into themselves and endeavour from henceforth to render to Jesus Christ the honour love and service whereto they are by so many just relations obliged The first right that Jesus Christ hath to man is derived from his Quality of being God-man for such is the Sonne of God not onely in regard of his Divinity but also according to his humanity In this quality Jesus Christ by a power of excellency ought to rule and command all that is and shall be created a power that the eternal Father gave him at the first minute of his Incarnation besides that by this Mystery the Son changing his condition for the glory of his Father and abasing himself to honour him the Father also will needs honour him constituting him from thenceforward the principle of life grace and glory proclaiming him Soveraign of the universe and replenishing his humane nature with all the effects of the Divinity and all the states of glory possibly communicable to him as God and man that as the Sonne honoured his Father in debasing himself so did the Father honour the Sonne in exalting him For this cause he makes him his equall in power greatness and Majesty and invests him from this first moment for evermore with all the power that he hath over his creatures This the beloved Apostle teaches when he saith The Father hath given him all things into his hand and St. Paul beginning to write the greatness of Iesus saith expresly speaking of his mission That the eternall Father appointed him Heire of all things by whom also he made the World Thus by this first Right and by the Mystery of the Incarnation Jesus hath the same power over souls that the Creator hath over his creatures and in relation to this power we give him all that we owe to God and consequently acknowledge in this Mystery Jesus to have a double power over us as God and man This consideration obliges us to adore and serve him acknowledging this power must doubly subject us to his conduct and divine will Heaven and Earth pay this duty and fidelity to this Iesus God and Man Let us hear with a resentment of love how St. Iohn describes the triumphs of our Iesus he tells us that he heard the Angels crying aloud The Lamb who hath been slain is
worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing The Earth and all the creatures of the Universe do the like and present themselves before Iesus declare him their Soveraign and protest obedience and service to him I heard saith Saint Iohn every creature which is in Heaven and on the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever Let us do the same and from the bottom of our hearts say Amen let us adore Iesus Christ in his greatness and acknowledging his Soveraignty live in true subjection to his divine conduct The Continuation CHAP. V. Of the Motives which oblige us to belong to Jesus and to serve him by true piety OF all the Mysteries of our salvation that which ought most humbly to subject us to the will and power of Iesus Christ is the work of our Redemption for in this Mystery of love and mercy Iesus is our Redeemer we are his Purchase and have no longer Right either to our selves or to any creature Ye are not your own saith St. Paul for ye are bought with a price meaning we are Christ's who hath bought us with his most ineffably precious blood But the better to understand this sublime mystery let us derive it from its very source We are then to consider that by the sin of our first parents we should all have perished in him as guilty with him all nature should have been extinct by his sin for from his first offence he ought to bear the execution of the Decree pronounced against him by the mouth of God in these words In the day that thou shalt eat thereof thou shalt surely die And doubtless divine Iustice had annihilated him and in him humane nature and all creatures had perished with the Sinner if the eternall Father beholding his Son designed for the reparation of this offence had not repress'd the rigour of his Iustice. The Father out of the love he bore his Son suspended the execution of this Decree he saved the offender mercy triumphed over justice he granted this sinful man life and the world to live in and consequently humane nature and the world it self which for this sin should have been destroyed were preserved onely in consideration of Iesus Christ for his sake the eternall Father took compassion on us From this first Consideration is easily inferr'd that we owe unto the Son of God all that we are and all that we have and therefore we are as often his as there are moments in our life and as often as we receive any benefit from this bountifull hand of God and therefore all these rights which are innumerable ought to be so many tyes to unite us indissolubly to Iesus Christ. But if we dive further into the contemplation of these truths we shall find that by sin we belong to the Devil we have granted him that right which God by Creation gave us over the creatures we have as it were by sin made over our selves to him Thus by voluntary offence Man who should have commanded the World becomes a slave to the Devill and sels himself to sin I am carnall sold under sin saith St. Paul in the name of all sinners In this quality the Devill hath all manner of right and power over us and assuredly would exercise his malice against us if the divine goodness did not restrain him He would make us even now feel the same rigours which he exerciseth over the damned and dispose of us at his pleasure as he doth of souls eternally cursed of God were it not that Iesus Christ by his death hath forc'd us out of this captivity and devested the Devill of all right and power over us He hath blotted out the hand-writing of Ordinances against us saith St. Paul and taken it out of the way nailing it to the Crosse. Thus the Sonne of God delivering us from this captivity makes us his Captives acquiring by his blood and death a new right and power over us which he will use not with rigour and justice but with love and mercy the state of grace and spirit of piety having nothing but sweetness and indulgence He hath delivered us saith the Apostle from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son For the power of Iesus is all in love and dissolves it self into dearness What Christian seeing so much sweetness will not resign himself to the excess of this goodness to the power of this love To conceive more fully the effects of the grace of the Sonne of God and his rights to us by redemption observe that by the conduct of God and according to the merit of our offences so soon as man is in sin and withdrawes himself from the order and end that God hath prefix'd and proposed to him he is nothing but the object of divine justice unworthy of any favour from Heaven Heaven Earth and Hell bandy against him God is obliged onely to promote the punishment of sin by malediction blasphemy damnation and hell If God stay the stroke of his Iustice if he hath yet some reserve of mercy for this miserable sinner if he suffer him to live and preserve him out of an expectation of his penitence that so he may escape hell it is by Iesus Christ and onely for his sake We must then acknowledge that a sinner owes to Iesus Christ all the motions of his life all the happiness of his soul all the good which may befall him in Heaven or Earth O how many obligations have we then even as many as there are moments as many as we have thoughts as many as we have received benefits from time to time so many rights hath Iesus Christ to our souls so many times do we belong to him Who can number these wonders Can there be any thing in nature able to break these bonds and separate us from Iesus Let us dive yet a little further into this consideration by an examination of particulars let us see how by daily sins we separate our selves from God and shaking off the obedience we owe him become slaves to sin He that sins is a slave to sin saith Iesus Christ so that the sinner by a deplorable blindness withdrawing himself from the sweetness of the Kingdom of the Sonne of God subjects himself to the power of sin which would infallibly exercise its rigour and Tyranny over him if Iesus Christ by his mercy did not suppress its malignity For as sin ruling over the rebellious Angels subjected them to its malice and rigour causing those Angels of light to be to all eternity Angels of darkness and malediction So the sinner from the time he offended should be abandoned to the same Tyranny and left to the fury of sinne which would precipitate him into
all manner of violence abhomination and misery had not Iesus Christ sustained the yoak of sin and stayd the power of its malevolence So that we are as many times Christ's as he hath preserved us by his divine mercy from severall sins and abhominations If on the other side we consider our actuall sins we must acknowledge that they also serve to bind us to I. Christ for as many sins as we commit so many times do we deprive our souls of the favours and grace which we have received of God by the only merit of Ie. Christ and when Ie. Christ shewes mercy to us or washes us with his blood and withdrawes us from our sins to restore us the graces which we have lost at the same time he takes a new power and acquires as many new rights over us as he pardons sinnes in us By this meanes the sins which God pardons in us oblige and bring us to Iesus Christ. Thus on what side soever we look on our selves we wholly belong to Iesus and consequently are obliged to live in a totall dependance and perpetuall subjection to the conduct spirit and power of Iesus Christ. But if now to what we have said should be added the merits of the Sonne of God we should find our selves infinitely obliged to be united and to appertain to the same Iesus Christ. For his merits being infinite in dignity acquire to him infinite rights over us nay if we consider them particularly we must needs nevertheless acknowledge that Iesus Christ acquires as many rights over us as there are moments in his life since in Iesus all is of infinite merit We are his by his Incarnation by his birth by his teares by his sufferings by his Crosse in a word we are as many times his as he lived moments upon earth as often as he did actions in the world during his life here But if we lift up our eyes to behold him in his glory we shall see him incessantly offering up himself for us to his Father he is entered into Heaven now to appear in the presence of God for us as Saint Paul saith where he by continuall benefits shed upon us forces our acknowledgements that there are so many rights and obligations to appropriate and unite us to him as there are moments in Eternity What remains then but that we consider by what meanes we may satisfie so many obligations to the Sonne of God It is a decree pronounced by him That of him to whom much hath been given much shall be required All our life then must be employ'd in true piety a piety which shall establish us in a supreme honour in a most powerful love and an intire and absolute dependance on Jesus Christ. We must continually begg that as the Sonne of God changed his condition and became man to testifie his love to us and to deliver us from the captivity of sinne and put us into the state of salvation so we may change our condition and disposition to be happily converted into a pure regard of honour and of imitation of his life who is all love all goodnesse If you would desire some practises upon this occasion I would advise the perfect Christian 1. To adore the power of Iesus Christ and all his rights to us accept them by a voluntary subjection and rejoyce therein praysing the Sonne of God in that he hath vouchsafed to assume those powers and rights over us 2. To offer himself to Iesus Christ to bear the effects of this power over us submitting our selves by a true resignation to all that it shall please him to operate in us and by us for his will and glory 3. To pray to Iesus Christ to use his right and power over us and over all that which is ours notwithstanding the opposition that we may have thereto as well by the inclinations and imperfections of our nature as by the effects of our proper malice 4. Being transported by a desire to be Christ's often and continually to implore if it may be done the power of his spirit to annihilate in us and to root out of our souls and from the bottom of our being whatever opposes his right over us and may hinder the effects of his divine will In fine if we have not a sense of the power of Iesus Christ let us at least have in our hearts a violent desire to be his a firm purpose never to be separated from him and a vigilancy to receive with faithfulness what he shall vouchsafe to operate by the influence of his infinite mercy All this reaches no further then the beginnings of piety to Jesus Christ we now proceed to the use and practise of it CHAP. VI. Of the state of Subjection to Iesus Christ considered as the principle of Christian piety IF we make application of what hath been said we shall find that as the Son of God hath infinite rights to us so we are infinitly his we depend on him we have infinite obligations to him which the shortness of our dayes will not give us leave sufficiently to admire nor the weakness of our spirits to comprehend Yet speaking suitably to our meanness we may reduce them to two principles the foundation and prop of all exercises of piety interiour and exteriour The first is an acknowledgement of the soveraignty of Iesus over all creatures and over us in particular confessing that he is our King and Soveraign The first use of piety to Iesus is to acknowledge and adore his supreme authority it is life and happiness to know and to serve Iesus Christ. Therefore the Apostle desires that the Ephesians should know the love of Iesus Christ which passeth all knowledge to the end that they might be filled with all the fulness of God teaching how profitable and necessary this knowledge is The other foundation of piety is a continuation of the first the Christian acknowledging the soveraignty of Iesus Christ enters into a state of relation to and a dependance on him and adoring his soveraignty submits to his power not out of constraint or necessity as Rebells but out of choice love and fidelity which he renders to him as his Prince and Iesus This dependance must not be indifferent but the lowest and most submiss that is possible so that a Christian in this state looks upon himself only as a servant to Iesus and acts in all things only in the spirit of subjection and humility This subjection is an effect of our knowledge of Iesus and that knowledge a fruit of the light of faith and a gift of grace This state of service is proper and essentiall to the creature in regard of God the creature is essentially dependant and subject to the Creator It is an indispensable estate the creature may as soon cease to be as cease to depend on the Creator It is a primitive estate in grace and essential to all Christians the first step of our entry into the Church into faith
the life of Iesus after what manner he pleaseth This is a principall point of Christian piety The very mysteries of our faith acquaint us with this truth and discover unto us the designes whereby the Son of God would advance us to a participation of his Mysteries and the severall estates of his life The Son of God becoming man by incarnation takes possession of the nature of man of our bodies and of our souls by which he acquires a right to his nature to advance and appropriate it to himself after what manner he pleases as by this work of love he took humane nature upon him assuming body and soul which he appropriated to himself and elevated to all the greatness of the divinity communicating to it for ever the person being life and nature of God In like manner in the works of grace whereby his divine mysteries are honoured Iesus chooseth such souls as he may dwell in by love or after what manner he pleaseth otherwise he appropriates them to himself by his grace he advances them to adherence and union of spirit with him and by a particular indulgence establisheth them in a communication of his greatness To this end he applies and employes his power to which a Christian ought to be most vigilant and attentive that he may alwayes continue in the subjection he owes to Iesus Christ to accept receive and bear the effects of his power This Principle of truth and piety is grounded upon the common doctrine that all that Iesus Christ did he did for us and all that he is he is for us He saith the Apostle became poor for our sakes although he were rich that by his poverty we might be made rich meaning that Iesus being God became man and took upon him our meanness infirmities sufferings death the severall conditions of our life to withdraw us from our meanness enrich us with his divine graces and advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life blessedness sanctification and salvation Hence we may take occasion to consider the greatness of Iesus he is our fulness in his annihilation in his poverty he sufficeth all for God gathereth together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth It is the greatness of his mysteries that they are capable of communication to us and can admit the sanctification of our souls as it is our glory and happiness to be able to participate of the grace estate and mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. This is the first designe God hath upon us when the Son of God living an immortal and eternal life in the bosome of his Father took a new and mortall life in the womb of the Virgin his Mother He desired nothing so much as to give us his immortall life and to abase himself to our estate to elevate us to a participation of his greatness and the rather because as he honoured his Father by the several estates of his new life his hidden life his suffering poverty death cross obedience subjection in all the estates and mysteries of his life so he will have us to honour him in participating of the estate spirit and grace of the same mysteries For this reason in his Church and of all qualities and vocations he chooses souls and calls them to an establishment in the participation of his spirit and a communication of his new life a life of grace such as is wholly singular and proportioned to the eminence dignity and sanctity of a Christian calling All this is an effect of his divine mercies the fruit of his sufferings it is our glory to be called and elevated to this happiness as it is our duty to keep our selves in a disposition and capacity to receive and bear them according to the designes and intentions of the Son of God All those then who are desirous to live according to Christian piety must make it their main business to continue faithfull and humble in this subjection that they may be ready to go when they are called and to receive when they shall be rewarded We come now to the Dispositions whereby this estate may be attâ—ined CHAP. IX Certain dispositions necessary for the devout soul that would participate of the grace and estates of the life of Jesus Christ. THis estate of interiour piety which puts the soul into a subjection to the power of Iesus Christ and a capacity to receive and bear the graces and estates of the life of Iesus is altogether suitable and necessary for those who seek perfection as being proportioned and conformable to the designes and order that God hath established in his creatures In the creation of the visible World adorned and embellished with so many severall creatures God hath created Angels and man to contemplate so perfect a work to admire the excellencies and to honour the Authour of such miraculous productions He hath done the like in the creation of the new World that is the establishment of his Church wherein Iesus Christ chooseth souls and formeth spirits who are employed in considering the works of love operated by him upon the Earth for the salvation of mankind and honouring the Authour of so many Graces As God hath created a great number of Angels different in perfection and order and as some conceive in species also to whom he hath given severall gifts and graces as well as severall ranks in Heaven that they may honour by these diversities of estates perfections the divine qualities and severall perfections of God for the Seraphims as Thomas Aquinas affirmeth adore by estate and by grace and contemplate by the light of glory the uncreated love of God the Cherubims his wisdom the Thrones his Stability and so of the rest The eternall Word having accomplished the ineffable and adorable work of his Incarnation having finished that of our Redemption and created in this naturall World a new World that is the Church puts souls into it who by the conduct of grace are employed in consideration of the works which Iesus Christ operated on Earth And amongst the rest he hath chosen many who by their severall estates and perfections continually honour the severall estates of his life and adore his actions and perfections humanely-divine and divinely-humane This must needs be an undeniable truth for if the Angels and the Church triumphant are continually and eternally employed in admiring and adoring the life estates and Mysteries of Iesus Christ shall not her Sister in the Church Militant have the same rights employments and duties It is not to be doubted and certainly seeing that love hath obliged the Sonne of God to these lownesses and makes him ours for ever for he shall be man eternally and eternally our Iesus our head and our All it is but reason that we be alwayes his and render him perpetuall honour and homage This is he that operates in our souls this is the estate whereto many are called It
and accomplish them Besides we cannot doubt at all but that the Sonne of God hath his great designs and intentions worthy himself over our actions even to the smalled nay over all the moments of our life Which if it be so how we can say that our actions are indifferent On the contrary they belong all to Iesus Christ they must proceed from his spirit God will be honoured in all that is of man We shall render an account as well of the least as the greatest things and assuredly God will exercise his judgement as well for a moment of time and the least of our actions as for all the rest of our life We must therefore acknowledge there is nothing little nothing to be neglected in the state of Christianity but all therein ought to be worthy the blood and cross of the Son of God we must make use of all things conformably to the designs and spirit of Iesus who as he is always great even in the least things so also must we have great intentions even in the meanest of our actions and our first and principall must be to referr those to the glory and honour of the Son of God Iesus Christ in the time of his life upon earth did so living among us as one of us he made use of all things with a zeal to the honour of his Father and referred them to him as to his Father his principall being and life Let us do the like and by a zeal to the honour of Iesus out of a respect and homage to his greatness let us offer to him all our actions accomplish them all even to the least with a desire that they may be referred to him as to the principle of our being and life in the state of grace This he taught us by his death this disposition he inspires us with by grace this spirit he infuseth into us by the Sacraments which he hath left to his Church as himself said As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me which include in two words all that we would perswade that Christian to who seeks true piety CHAP. XII How the Christian that seeks true piety is obliged to imitate Jesus Christ. AS we are obliged to honour Iesus Christ by our life and all our actions so with much more reason are we obliged to imitate him as far as lies in our power The greatest honour we can give him is to conform our selves to his life and intentions This is the third effect which produces adherence to Iesus Christ and as this adherence is the first estate whereinto we are put when we are made Christians and the first foundation we must lay to acquire true piety so from this adherence as its centre and generall principle must be derived all the effects of grace which we bear in our souls Now that which remains to be treated of is this Imitation for our life ought to be a lively Image of the life of Iesus Christ and the first use a Christian is to make is to look upon the Son of God as the Prototype and exemplar of his life and actions not onely to imitate but to express and represent him as it were to the life As the Son of God is the Image and resemblance of his Father so must the Christian be of the Son Hence the Apostle assures us that none shall be saved or received into heaven in the number of the elect if he be not conformed to the Image of Iesus Christ. He predestined them says he to be made conformable to the Image of his Son In a word we must be by grace what Iesus is by nature It is a maxime in Christian piety that the Son of God is the true life and true model of our life it is the example shew'd us in the mountain as well as to Moses according to which we are commanded to operate Our interiour and exteriour life then must imitate and regard the exercises of the soul of Iesus Christ and the occupations of his sacred life For this reason the eternall Father gives us his Son in the mystery of the incarnation for giving his Son a new life in the mystery of love and giving it to be communicated to us he makes him thereby the principle of a new life in us and wils that as he is the principle of the life of his Son in eternall generation so his Son should be the principle of our life in the new temporall generation of our souls by Baptisme and Grace Saint Paul also teaches this when speaking of the reformation of Adam he says As we have born the image of the earthly so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly as if exhorting us to an imitation of the Son of God he should advise us that as we have born the image of Adam imitating him by sin and following him by our own inclinations we should also bear the image of Iesus Christ imitating his life and actions This Doctrine is wholly conformable to the Principles of Christianity The life of a Christian honours and regards God and imitates his life Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect saith Iesus Christ or to say better it is the life of God himself who lives in us by his Son Whence it follows that as the Father lives in the Son and the Son in the Father so we live in Iesus and Iesus in us according to that Prayer of the same Son of God to his Father full of love and affection I am in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one But how can we be one with the Son of God How can we adhere to him and be incorporated with him How can we conceive this reciprocall life of Iesus in us but in imitating him and not only imitating him but expressing and perfectly representing him since he lives in us and we in him in the mystery of the incarnation For the eternall Father giving us his Son to be man and to live with men a life common and conformable to the nature and condition of men he gives us in him a law rule and form of life and shews us in him the manner of conversation that we must follow to live Christianly that is to live a new life which the eternall Father gives us in his Son and by his Son a life singularly proper to the estate and perfection of Christianity We are then to look on the Son of God as our Law imitate and follow him as our rule which is to speak properly as the sacred Oracles foretold when speaking of the Messias and the time of his coming they said that God will make a Word abbridged upon the earth This Word is the Son of God who descending to the vile and mean estate of humane nature gives us his words and actions a model for ours This also
Saint Paul explains where he says that God spoke to the world four thousand years and conducted and taught men after divers manners and sent Angels he gave a Law writ with his own hand he prescribed many Ceremonies and in all ages caused Prophets to speak But in the Law of Grace he speaks to us by his Sonne who teacheth us supernaturall truths till then unknown to the World and reserved for the Excellency of the state of Christianity The Angels now guide us no more but attend us the written Law doth not oblige us the Ceremonies are now limited and the Prophets speak no longer It is Iesus the Word and the Sonne of the eternall Father who becoming man and conversing among men speaks to us and teaches us He is our Angel to inlighten us our Law to direct us our Prophet to speak to us and our Master to teach us He is the abridg'd word and by the condition that he hath made with his Father he conducts us by his spirit he illuminates us by his grace he directs us by his providence and he is the word of the Father so he teaches us not onely by his words but also by the holy and adorable actions of his life the rule the Law and modell of our life Now if Iesus be the rule and law of our life it is manifest that we ought to imitate him if we would live Christianly and if by the exercises of a solid piety we desire to attain a perfection suitable to the vocation and estate we profess we must choose none but those which imitate the Sonne of God holding it a maxime in all kindes of exercises that the Christian is so much the more devout and perfect the more conformable his life and actions are to those of Iesus Christ and that he is neither devout nor perfect but as far as he imitates the life and actions of Iesus Christ for true piety and Christian perfection if rightly understood consisteth onely in this point This Principle and Precept we have also from Iesus Christ where he sayes If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there my servant shall be also the servant of God must imitate Iesus Christ. To serve is nothing else but to follow to follow according to St. Austine is to imitate so that the devotion whereby we should serve God is not devotion but illusion if it be not in the exercises which cause us to follow and imitate the life of Iesus Christ. Here we may see how much they are deceived who dare call him rash and accuse him of presumption that would imitate Iesus Christ who say it is to soar too high and that it is impossible man should imitate his God and blinded with this ignorance are content to employ themselves in some good morall exercises The Apostle condemns this errour saying Iesus Christ suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps St. Paul confesses that his study and principall care was to imitate Iesus Christ to which end he writ to the Corinthians Be ye followers of me as I am of Iesus Christ. In a word we are not made Christians nor participate of the graces of the Sonne of God but to be put into a capacity and obligation to imitate him This is his intention when he sayes who doth not follow him is not worthy of him To say the contrary is to oppose the opinions of the Fathers a truth more manifest then day By these Principles we discover another blindness greater then the other a deceit more dangerous in many Christians who onely study to perfect their reason and think they do much to follow that in every point wherein they are much deceived For they believe it sufficient to live reasonably and Christianly and in this belief forget or neglect the rest thinking they are arrived to an estate perfect enough But is quite contrary for by the use of reason onely we live as perfect men or at most but as good Philosophers but if we would live and operate as good Christians and Children of God we must advance our selves above Reason to live not a humane but a divine life that is the life that the Sonne of God liv'd upon Earth and communicated to true Christians the life of the new man To live this life we make use not of reason but of grace which is farre above reason and must be the principle of Christian actions For onely grace can bring us to God and render us worthy of God that is of God considered as the object of our Faith and Religion The foundation of all consisteth in this that a humane spirit and reason is not our conduct nor the rule of our life as Christians Iesus Christ is the onely rule law and principle thereof wherefore in our exercises of piety we must have this continually before our eyes if we would be devout viz. we must follow him if we would be saved and we must imitate him if we will follow him Which we are now to consider how it is to be done CHAP. XIII The Practise of what hath been proposed in the imitation of Jesus Christ. WHen we speak of imitating the Sonne of God we mean not doing of miracles as he did we are not commanded to walk upon the Sea to raise up the dead to life and to give sight to the blind We mean not the being elevated to an intuitive knowledge of the secrets of the Divinity this is onely for Iesus these are the effects of his almighty power and the marks of his Mission We are not called to come into competition with him but as he was humbled to our meanness and was cloathed with our nature becoming man and taking a new being and estate so he takes also a new manner of life conformable to ours which we ought to imitate after which we are to form the interiour of our Consciences and the procedure of our actions He annihilated himself in the Incarnation saith the Apostle he humbled himself in all the Mysteries of his life he made himself poor in all his estates he was obedient even to the Crosse he suffered even to death he hath shewed his love in all his works In a word he practised all manner of vertues in the progress of his life Let us do the like he was born for our sakes and all that he did was onely that he might imitate him as the modell of our life For this reason he chose a kind of life full of various estates and practised severall actions that all sorts of persons in all manner of estates should find in him the Idaea of their actions and the prototype of their life Thus to imitate Iesus Christ is an Obligation belonging to the state of Christianity When we receive Baptisme we are incorporated into him as members this incorporation doth not onely bind us to adhere to him as members to their head but to be like