to require it of us My third Prayer pass'd on in these Thoughts that the most Sacred Trinity being Eternally Knowledge and Love Substantial my Soul ought to endeavour to produce in her self an actual knowledge and love of God the better to resemble this adorable Trinity A Soul in the state of Contemplation renders this honour to God in a more peculiar manner enjoying God by the guift of Prayer in as transcendent a manner as Mortality permits 'T is true the prospect I have of this Divine Life here below draws my Soul Powerfully after it and I love it better than formerly But I see that to persevere therein we must be very poor in Spirit that is not only free from exorbitant Passions but all distracting Images which pass by the senses that are not Mortified News attended with curiosity or the eyes attached to sensible objects or such like immortifications fill the Soul with unprofitable Images which make her uncapable of Divine impressions by corresponding to which we most benefit our selves and most glorifie God In my fourth Prayer I was taken up with a view of those amorous complacencies and those Infinite joyes wherewith the three Divine Persons replenish the Souls of the blessed in Heaven It seem'd to me that the Happiness of the Saints was the clear vision of the Ineffable Mystery of the most Sacred Trinity and to be made partakers of that knowledge and love which is reciprocal among the Divine Persons To see God clearly is the Beatifical Vision Alas how ought we to be humbled to consider how Infinitely we fall short in our Devotions of the continual Hallelujahs of the Saints in Glory Yet this is the end of our Creation and our hope is at last to bear them company O how this life is poor and miserable where all is vanity and vexation of Spirit The view of my own weakness making me sensible that all I do for God is as nothing what shall I say at the sight of my sins and unworthiness I have nothing to say dear Lord but that I merit Eternal Confusion which must needs fall upon me unless your goodness have pity on me according to the greatness of your Mercies Can we imagine we can do any thing too much for God 'T is for the glory of his Bounty and Goodness that he is pleas'd to accept of our small service and endeavours and reward them eternally O how great a Truth is it that Grace and Glory are the effects of his pure Goodness and Mercy vouchsafed to us Blessed be his Name to all Eternity Third Day IN my first Prayer of this day I consider'd that the three Divine Persons were Happy in Contemplation of themselves from all Eternity When they created the World the Preservation and Government thereof does not at disturb their repose and Felicity The Father is the center of the Son and the Father and the Son is the center of the Holy Ghost Three in One and one in Three Infinitely Happy in each other before all Time and shall be to all Eternity O what ravishing Beauties do they behold in each other and what unspeakable Delights do they take in ther Infinite Perfections Nothing without them can interrupt their Joys or add to their Happiness Tho true Solitaries who live the Life of God in like manner repose only in him and being dead to themselves and all Creatures live only in him to him and for him O Divine Life of Solitude Thou art here begun on Earth and canst not be perfected but in Heaven A true Hermits life is not a Sensual but Divine Life God calling me to Contemplation I will repare to Church as to a Hermitage where I may live this Divine Life The Psalmody there much rejoyces my heart and lifts up my Soul to Contemplation Through Natural Considerations I have condescended to please others against my own inclination but now I have the Happiness to converse with the three Divine Persons I can no more relish the Company of my Friends and Relations except rarely to maintain Peace and Union or for some great necessity and if they be displeas'd I must not value it My second Prayer was an amorous attention upon what past Eternally among the three Divine Persons How the Father knowing his Divine Perfections did beget his Son and how the Father and the Son by an Infinite Love did produce the Holy Ghost The Father is an Infinite Ocean of Perfections by an Infinite Fecundity begetting his Son and they being absorpt in each other produce the Holy Spirit by an everlasting flux and reflux of Love This I did contemplate with great repose of Soul and yielded up the Intellectual Powers thereof to the obedience of Faith to receive some Rayes of Divine Light about such great and Incomprehensible Mysteries God then working in my Soul I became passive contenting my self to behold simply and sweetly the Infinite operations of the Sacred Trinity and said within my self Blessed Trinity know your selves for I can do nothing towards it 't is enough for me to contemplate that mutual Love which is among you which I believe and admire with adoration It seems to me that no other Mystery of our Faith can so take up and content my Soul nothing being more Divine than the Divinity No other practice is so charming to me we being created to know that Knowledge and to love that Love which God has to himself to all Eternity In my third Prayer I consider'd the Souls of Just Men and Blessed Spirits are as so many Sacred Vessels into whom God infuses his love and knowledge by a continual emanation Which love and knowledge returns to God its source as the water of a running Fountain rises as high as the Spring from whence it had its Origen This love and knowledge does establish God in us and also does firmly establish us in God So that God takes a delight and repose in the Soul and the Soul finds her center and rest in him Thereby faintly representing how the Divine Persons have a mutual repose in each other Empty Vessels are most capable to be fill'd And by how much the more our Souls are empty of Self-love and Nature by so much the more are they capable of Divine Love and Knowledge A Soul in such a state delights in Solitude and cares not to live in the thoughts and affections of men What most saddens our Spirits and retards us in the ways of God is a natural aversion we have from a hidden life For man naturally desires to be known and lov'd and thinks life is as nothing without repute And as long as we are full of this liquor we are not vessels proper to receive the influences of Divine Love and Knowledge Let us O my Soul empty our selves of Self-love that Divine Love may take place in us In my fourth Prayer I found an amorous complacency in my Soul in that God being but One doth subsist in three Persons knowing and loving themselves
the Father as that he cannot beget another like him O my Jesus how this Verity discover'd to me the Riches the Glory the Grandeurs of your Person What Prodigious blindness has seis'd on men as not to see this and not to esteem you above ten thousand Worlds You appear poor humble and abject in their eyes and nevertheless 't is true the whole World is less than an Atomn in your presence I took for the subject of my third Prayer this admirable Truth That the Eternal Father is the source of the whole Divinity which he Communicates to his Son begotten of his substance yet without any Superiority or Authority over him by his Paternity And the Son who receives all from his Father owes him nothing of thanks of service or obedience Not but that he knows his Father well deserves all these returns But being of the same Substance and Authority with him he is not capable to render these Submissions But the Infinite love he has for his Father made him go out of himself and put himself into an Inferiour state by his Incarnation that he might render those thanks praises and services which he merited descending to those wonderful Humiliations and profound annihilations whereby he might do homage to the Infinite Grandeurs of his Father Teaching us by his example that as the Son of God had no other means to honour his Father than by Humiliations and Sufferings so we should take up our Cross and follow him that God may be Glorified My last Prayer this day was a profound consideration of this verity That all the works of the adorable Trinity in relation to the Creatures are common to the three Divine Persons The Father Son and Holy Spirit did concur in the same design of Creation and Conservation of the World though the Father alone begets the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both But all three united imploy'd their Power to do us good as if We had been the object of their Beatitude Is it then true O my God that all the Orders of your Providence by your united forces tend to our good and shall we not have an eye to you Alas we little think on you although the most serious Affairs of the World are nothing in comparison of our concern to consider your Infinite Perfections and love your incomprehensible Goodness St. Arsenius saw this very well when he quitted the Emperour and would not so much as write to him Those who are thus nobly imploy'd cannot be taken up with Worldly Vanities You see a poor Hermit in the Desarts of Thebais ill Clad abject and unknown who seems to the eyes of Flesh the scorn of men however his Soul is wholly taken up with God which is of more worth than the whole Universe You see a great Prince glittering with Gold and precious Stones with a great Train of Courtiers Honoured and Respected of all and in the Interim his Life being only taken up with Worldly concerns is guilty of the greatest Folly and of no esteem in the eyes of God Ninth Day IN my Morning Prayer our Blessed Saviour plung'd me into the Abiss of our own Nothing and Vileness insomuch that this exercise was wholly taken up with my own annihilation Thereupon I said None but the Eternal Father can give to his Son none but the Father and the Son can give to the Holy Ghost and these Presents made to each other are Infinite There pass among them Communications Ineffable and proportion'd to their Grandeurs I consider'd them in my Thoughts and rejoyced plunging my self in the Abiss of my own Weakness in that I could do nothing for God nor give him any thing The best present I can make him is to acknowledge I can give him nothing worth acceptance and this acknowledgment I receive also from the hand of his bounty 't is the effect of his Grace for of my self I cannot do it O the depth of the Nothing of a Creature If I should give my Life for God 't is less then if a Pismire should give hers for a King there being an Infinite distance between God and a Creature All the Angels and Saints that ever shall raign in Glory can add nothing to the Divine Grandeurs The Abiss of my Nothing is beyond expression God only knows it and I see nothing of it but by his Grace O my God if all the Angels and Saints are as nothing before you I that am infinitely below them what I can give is less than nothing My second Prayer went on in the same Thoughts and Considerations And I was much astonish'd in that being acquainted with many Persons and seeing their examples I was so far behind them in Virtue But looking narrowly into my self I must needs acknowledge that the least pittance of Grace the least degree of Prayer the least part I can have in the states of Jesus is infinitely above my deserts 'T is true that a Soul inflamed with Divine love is confounded at the sight of her own unworthiness and suffers a kind of Martyrdom For in that she loves she would do something for her Beloved and being conscious what a Nothing she is of her self and that she can do nothing being in suspense between will and weakness seeing in effect she can do nothing of her self she breaths sorth her desires in such like amorous expressions If I was God and you my God a Creature I would willingly be a Creature that you might be God But seeing this is an imagination of a thing not possible her Martyrdom of love increases and she languishes in that she loves and can do nothing for her Beloved That which comforts her is that being able to do nothing for God she sees that he is all and wants nothing and taking a complacency in this she reposes her self quietly in the bosom of the Divinity with full resolutions to abide there for ever In my third Prayer I apply'd my self to consider the Divinity it self without forming any distinct thoughts thereof but though so I saw nothing yet I knew God more then when I see him in his Creatures They are always finite and limited and therefore the knowledge they afford of God is narrower than that which I have of him beheld in himself Oftentimes when we apply our selves to God to know him we become stupid and as it were without understanding 'T is our duty then to give our selves up into the hands of God who does justly chastise us for our sins by withdrawing himself from us God is very merciful unto us to give us patience in this state During which we must continue our Exercises of Prayer and Retirement and rest as well content with these Insensibilities and dryness as with illustrations from Heaven and gustful Devotion seeing a Soul in either state is well pleasing to God A suffering Life is our Portion on Earth that we may be conform to Jesus Crucified For the union with Jesus Glorified is a Life more proper
wherein consists their Felicity The Father is the source of Being the the Son the term of his Knowledge and the Holy Spirit of his Love The Son and Holy Ghost are from the Father The Father and the Holy Spirit know the Son The Father and the Son love the Holy Ghost These are the wonders that make Heaven Happy Firmly to believe them is our Blessedness on Earth and to Contemplate them continually brings solid consolation to the Soul I saw clearly that to dispose my self for this incomparable Happiness I was to purifie my Interiour and to mortifie some natural resentments which yet live in me As namely too great a fear about the loss of Worldly things or to be despis'd by others or ill success of Affairs besides too great a sense of humane respects and a backwardness to follow the instincts of Grace for worldly considerations I know God sometimes suffers these Imperfections to live in us for the exercise of Virtue and the Tryal of our Fidelity However his will is that we strive to be dead to the World and our selves having our affections so fix'd on Heavenly things as to live a Divine Life in Mortal Bodies Believe me 'till our Interiour be throughly purified we shall not not be capable of high contemplation nor arrive to much knowledge in the secrets of God Fourth Day IN my first Prayer I was principally taken up with the adorable Person of the Eternal Father Methought I saw how he was ravish'd with Infinite Joy in Himself with the Son and the Holy Spirit And what complacency he also took in the Suffering of the Humanity of Jesus Christ though he loves him with the same love wherewith he loves himself And because these sufferings were pleasing to his Divine Father as satisfactory for our sins he did thirst to suffer more to fulfill his will And therefore after such variety of dolorous sufferings dying on the Cross he cryed out Sitio I Thirst It much rejoyc'd my heart to see what Infinite Complacency the three Divine Persons took in the Divinity and said within my self O Sacred Trinity enjoy eternally these Infinite delights But I desire as much as I can to add to your Exteriour Contentments by imitating the suffering of my Blessed Saviour And herein I will not have so much an eye to the reward to please the Sacred Trinity whom I adore Behold then what hereupon it seems to me God put into my mind 1. To eat neither Fish nor Flesh but in case of Sickness 2. To Discipline every day 3. To be pleas'd with occasions of Contempt 4. To despise all Temporal things to follow the attracts of Divine Love 5. To lie down upon a hard Bed 6. To cut off all Worldly Visits and retire my self into a Solitude where the World may despise me I consider'd in my second Prayer that the Son of God in the bosom of his Divine Father in possession of Infinite Delights and Joys unspeakable out of love to his Father did quit his bosom and cloath himself with Mortal Flesh to plunge himself in the depth of Miseries abjection and sufferings that he might glorifie his Divine Father by his humane and suffering Life and teach us Men his Brethren that the way to enter into the Love and Glory of his Father is by the gate of Sufferings Is it You O only begotten Son of the Eternal Father is it You born in a Stable working in a Shop dying on a Cross You that are all Splendor and Glory the Light of the World and the Delight of Heaven Is it You that are so poor and abject so void of Friends so full of Disgraces so scorn'd and despis'd Is it You whom they esteem as the out-cast of men and not worthy to live on the face of the Earth O the Love of the Son towards his Father O the strange invention of the Son to advance the Glory of his Father O my Jesus how admirable are you in your Divinity But how amiable are you in your Humanity I desire O dear Jesus to follow you all the days of my life and seek no other Glory than in your Cross and Poverty your Humiliations and Sufferings Absit mihi gloriari nisi in Cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi The Cross of Christ is my Crown and Glory We ought not to possess Honours Riches and Worldly Preferments without Fear and Humility Have we not cause to fear that in a state of Worldly greatness Nature will seek her self and not follow Jesus poor and humble which ought to be done either effectively or in affection A state of Suffering under the Cross is truly Glorious and full of Interiour Consolation In my third Prayer I consider'd that the union of the Father with the Son and of the Son with the Father is by the Holy Ghost a union Infinite and adorable O Holy Spirit seeing 't is your property to unite unite my heart so intimately to the adorable Trinity present in me that I may never suffer a seperation and that this adorable union may be frequent in my Thoughts and Meditations Blessed be your Holy Name my God that you are pleas'd to be so merciful unto me as to take up my thoughts with this incomprehensible Mystery O how do I begin too late having been too long amuz'd with vain trifles My past Life displeases me and the course of the World is troublesome unto me seeing it hinders me from conversing with you as I desire Natural Necessities as to Eat to Sleep to Recreat are burdensom unto a Soul quickened with your Spirit strongly inclining us to live here on Earth as in Heaven in a perfect and perpetual union with your Goodness The consideration which took up my thoughts in my fourth Prayer was that the Eternal Son and Holy Spirit seem'd to have more commerce with men then the Eternal Father because they appeared to us by external Missions the Son being made Man for to die for us and the Holy Spirit taking divers forms for the Service of man and to enflame our hearts with Divine Love The Eternal Father seem'd always to remain in himself ravish'd with his own Infinite Beauties and Perfections O adorable Mansion of the Eternal Father within himself O wonderful Missions of the Son and Holy Spirit towards us Men and for our Salvation eternal matter of Adoration O my God when shall I go out of my self to elevate my heart to you and converse with you I see very well that to enter into a Spirit of Prayer Retirement is requisite Abstinence and Spiritual Exercises And to conserve the same temper of Soul we must practice silence as much as our condition and affairs will permit If the Son of God and Holy Spirit did appear here upon Earth only for our good certainly we ought to endeavour to have our Conversation in Heaven and adore the most Sacred Trinity for these Infinite Mercies Fifth Day MY first Prayer past in acknowledgment and admiration of the Fulness of
sufficiently and fewer that practice it in Purity and really aspire to form the true image of Jesus in them In my second Prayer I did apply my self to consider how the Son of God being eternally in the midst between the Father and the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven to be a Mediator between his Eternal Father and us Sinners He tells us that no man can come to Father but by him and that he is the way which leads to Happiness And is it not a sad case that men should so much go astray This is a low and humble way and they puff'd up with Pride will march over mountains in ways above them This is a poor penitential suffering way and they are for a way easie delicious rich and commodious Is it possible to come to the bosom of the Eternal Father except we will march by the way of his Son There 's no other way to come to him and if we take our own way at every step we go farther from him O my God how long shall my Soul lag behind meerly in a way of nature When shall we O my Soul enter into Dispositions truly Christian and conform to the Dictates of a supernatural Life O Jesus my Saviour Redeemer my Exemplar my Way my Light 't is only by following you and your Divine Maxims that we can enter into the light of Life Of necessity then we must pass by Jesus Crucified to come to the Divinity of the Father and enjoy Jesus Glorified We must take up our Cross and follow him if we will enter into Glory My third Prayer was a continuation of like Thoughts I then understood that there 's no entring into Society with the three Divine Persons or arriving to such a height of Prayer as thereby we may live in them a Divine Life but by entring into communication with Jesus Christ and conforming our Life to his example This is a general Rule without exception The Life of Jesus was a severe self-denying Life and ours ought to be of such an austerity as may not ruine our health or dull the Spirit but humble the Body to elevate the Soul In a word we must daily endeavour to humble and annihilate our selves having only in our eye the Will of God The Eternal Father cannot take delight in any Soul that does not endeavour to resemble his Son It concerns us therefore to examine our hearts to see how they stand affected to Sufferings on all occasions If we cannot relish them but flie and complain 't is to be fear'd nature does possess us and not the Spirit of Jesus Christ Water in a glass remains quiet but if it finds the least passage it tends to its own element from whence it can only be kept by force In like manner a Soul that has overtures of Sufferings afforded her will find an inclination to embrace them if Jesus Crucified be her center It matters not by what means these occasions to suffer happen whether by the imprudence of Friends or the malice of Enemies Or her own neglect or any other accident she layes hold on the occasion to unite her self to the abjections of Jesus as to her center Happy is that Soul which is in this temper Grace and the Spirit of Jesus has wrought it in her In my fourth Prayer I went on to entertain my self with the wonders of the Son of God I admir'd that being in the Glory of his Father he descended to our Miseries that he might glorifie his Father in a new manner by purchasing for him such holy Souls who being animated with his Spirit after his example would be in love with Sufferings for Gods sake I saw clearly how the Son of God by his Eternal Birth is most glorious with Infinite Perfections and how he became Man to be capable of Sufferings for our sake And that we must follow Jesus in his Humiliations if we will be partakers of his Glory O what dark Souls have they who see not these Glorious Truths We live here a sensualor worldly life or at most do follow the light of reason rarely do we live a Christian and very rarely a Divine Life A thousand times happy are they who dear Jesus are enlightned by you the true Light of the World Jesus Christ cloath'd himself with a Mortal Body that he might suffer and be Sacrific'd upon the Cross and we ought to bear part with him The Saints who have known and tasted of his Spirit have Martyr'd their Bodies by a thousand Austerities Others have wasted away by degrees in the flames of Divine Love All have been desirous to suffer more or less But we are afraid to hurt our selves and are too apprehensive to endamage our Health For whom do we keep our embraces or for what is it that we are so desirous to live long upon Earth 'T is a vain fear to think we shall shorten our days by our endeavouring to live a Divine Life in our Mortal Bodies Seventh Day I Began my first Prayer by a peculiar instinct of the Holy Spirit bringing often to my mind those precious words of St. Paul God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our Hearts crying Abba Father And then I found that a Soul assisted with the extraordinary infusions of the Holy Spirit is elevated above her self which is the effect of the gift of Wisdom freely communicated whereby she sees and tasts the ineffable Mysteries of our Religion O what a gracious gift is this What a great favour is it when God is pleas'd thus to communicate himself unto us It then seem'd to me that the faculties of my Soul ceas'd their ordinary operations and the obscurity of Faith as it were vanish'd this Divine Wisdom elevating them in such a manner which they cannot conceive who know not by experience to a very sublime way of working much above their ordinary proceedings The Soul stands wondring at it and can hardly believe she could arrive to such a point of Perfection Then a Divine Light gave me to see at once my unworthiness to receive the Graces of God his Goodness and Mercy to bestow them on me and the merits of Christ whereby they were purchas'd I was much amaz'd that God should vouchsafe so great favours to so wretched a sinner And I did melt in acknowledgements being humbled in my self with an entire confidence in the merits of Jesus I continued my second Prayer and this Divine Light increas'd in my Soul and discovered the favours God vouchsafes to Souls of which there are many degrees according to the proportion of their Purity of heart 1. They see the Deformity of Sin clear enough to conceive a horrour and detestation of it and know confusedly the Christian Virtues the Mysteries of the Sacred Humanity and Divinity 2. They see more clearly some Christian Principles as an Eternity of a Happy or Miserable condition after this Life that our Salvation is our Principal concern and the one thing necessary aend that all
things else are but deceit and vanity 3. They considering the Mysteries of Jesus begin to discover the beauty of his Humiliations and Sufferings which yet is shadowed with some obscurity 4. Their eyes being more open'd they behold distinctly the Beauty of the Sufferings Contempts and Poverty of the Word Incarnate and thereupon conceives a great contempt of the World 5. In persuance hereof they contemplate the Divine Mysteries and if they be Faithful to imitate Christ Crucified they will arrive to a great knowledge of the Divinity 6. Then if they keep close to Purity of Heart they are wholly in a manner taken up with the Divine and Humane Mysteries of Jesus being very sensible what an Infinite Mercy it is to be deliver'd from the darkness of that ignorance which is in carnal men who have no feeling in the things of God or their Salvation 7. Their Light increasing they more and more discover the Perfections of God in the Creatures more clearly without comparison in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus but yet more transcendently in their Source the Divinity sweetly applying themselves thereto with much Felicity Behold this is what God gave me to know â—n a little time and this Light will increase if I be Faithful to practice the Virtues of Jesus Crucified who is the True Way to the Divinity the center of the Soul and her perfect repose In my third Prayer I found my self in a disposition to admire the operations of the Holy Spirit in our Souls God our Creator works in them what he pleases he having endowed them with a certain capacity extraordinary to receive his extraordinary Divine operations This must needs be extraordinary to our Faculties which before had great difficulty in believing the Mysteries of Faith and with great obscurity and with little or no gust But no sooner is this Light darted into our Souls but we see and tast them with great delight not as in Glory but in a very sublime and extraordinary manner The Meditations of many years cannot attain to this 't is a special gift we must receive from the Father of Lights to which we can only dispose our selves by Humility and Mortification O what Happiness is it for a Mortal man to be thus elevated and Spiritualiz'd by the Holy Ghost Let us therefore O my Soul humble our selves profoundly for the Spirit of God takes not up his Mansion but in a humble heart I know we ought to go whither God is pleas'd to Call us and not refuse his Gifts under the pretence of a counterfeit Humility But I know also that 't is not displeasing to God for us to be careful how we entertain extraordinary attracts least we be too ready by innate Pride of heart to walk in ways above our capacity In my fourth Prayer I consider'd the admirable preventions of the Holy Spirit in the conduct of Souls How he awakes us from the sleep of sin and draws us from the love of the World to unite us to himself by undeserved preventing Graces What wonders are there unknown to Carnal men which pass in these preventions I know nothing that may work in us more Love or more Humility For would any but a God of Infinite Goodness look with an eye of Mercy upon a Soul all black with Sin Ingratitude and Infidelity This miserable Creature is beloved of God having nothing to invite him but on the contrary to avert him from us and if his exceeding love had not surmounted the Infinite hatred God has of sin we had perish'd for ever without a Saviour To Love us Redeem us and prevent us with such Mercies does only proceed from his incomprehensible Goodness I am astonish'd to see that any Soul believing these admirable preventions should not be enflam'd with Divine Love What can more humble a poor Creature than to consider that we are nothing but Misery from which we can never free our selves unless God prevent us with his Grace and Favour What can more enflame us with Divine Love than to consider that God then loved us and prevented us with his unspeakable Mercies when we were just objects of his Eternal Hatred O my God who can comprehend the riches of your Infinite Goodness O my Soul acknowledge with thankfulness the great obligations thou hast to Love God with all thy Powers and Loving him to Praise him to all Eternity Eighth Day IN my first Prayer this thought presently possess'd my mind that all Power is attributed to the Father all Wisdom to the Son and all Goodness to the Holy Ghost And seeing these three Divine Persons are in each other by a Communication of the same Substance and Infinite Perfections the Eternal Father is the Power of the Son and Holy Ghost the Son is the Wisdom of the Father and Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the Goodness of the Father and the Son A pure Soul that lives in the sublime exercises of a Supernatural Life becomes a Mansion for the Divine Persons and receives from them the impressions of Power Wisdom and Goodness The Power of the Eternal Father dwelling in her gives her strength and a Christian generosity to conquer all the obstacles of Perfection and she discovers that many difficulties are rather imaginary than real insomuch as the Principal and the most difficult of Christian actions is to believe that they are possible and that nature shall not suffer so much thereby as is imagin'd The Wisdom of the Son cummunicated to her affords her Light and Overtures to defend her self against the apparent reasons of sensual nature which damp many excellent Spirits that they can make no great advancement in the ways of God because they have too much of humane consideration and too little of this Divine wisdom which discovers to us the Beauty of Contempts and Sufferings in following Jesus The Goodness of the Holy Spirit imprinted on her makes her conquer the Inclinations of corrupted nature which is more or less according to the degrees of Grace in us He that is Holy let him be Holy still but we shall never rise to the heighth 'till we come to Glory In my second Prayer I considered that the adorable Trinity is the Treasury of all Beings Increated and Created That in respect to the Divine and Uncreated Beeing the Eternal Father is a Treasury that is exhausted by communicating all his Infinite Perfections to the Son and Holy Ghost But in respect of Created Beings the Sacred Trinity is an inexhaustible Treasury because all the whole World or ten thousand more cannot exhaust or diminish the least drop of his Infinite Power and Goodness I was almost equally taken up with both these wonders That a Million of Worlds drawn out of the Treasury of Gods Omnipotency should not make the least diminution of his Power is certainly matter of admiration But much more that the Grandeurs of the Eternal Son should be so elevated above the World as to exhaust the whole Substance and Perfections of
by this fault I may see my Nothing my weakness my inclinations to evil more clearly than formerly I was miserable and I did not know it I was frailty it self and I did not perceive it but 〈…〉 acknowledge my vileness tho' I cannot 〈◊〉 â—athom the depth thereof 〈…〉 I am well-pleas'd that this fault happen'd 〈◊〉 presence of my Friends who will thereâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 â—ow what I am It much displeases me to 〈◊〉 offended God by being so faithless to his â—â—â—ces but I joy in this that I am well-pleas'd â—â—th my humiliation 'T is a good hap to be deâ—â—â—sed in the esteem of others and does relish â—weet to such who desire to repair the injury â—hey have done to God by sinning against him To be powerfully convinced of our pure Nothing and great Frailty is the profit we ought to make of our imperfections How profitable is the discovery of my misery to me seeing it makes clear unto me all these verities This is the truth of it I am nothing but infirmity and corruption and more than I can comprehend And for the love I ought to have for Truth by a voluntary acquiescence I love and adore Divine Providence which has brought me to the sight of my own Nothing I acknowledge my self to be miserable and am pleas'd the world should know it and use me according to this verity 'T is true also that we ought not to complain of whatsoever injury is done us by word or deed for 't is always less than we deserve 'T is the Law of Christianity and a great truth that we ought to love abjection Jesus having loved it by his Father's order and he is the grand exemplar we must imitate 'T is true also that after our failings we ought to comfort our selves with the love of abjection and make use of our infirmity to please 〈◊〉 Just as when a Ship is broken by a Temâ—â—â— we get some shatter'd Plank to save us 〈◊〉 perishing 'T is true also that since this lapse I perceâ—â—â— better than ever the Bounty the Power anâ— Mercy of God towards me and all the Divine Perfections appear unto me beaming forth more splendors of Glory Just as the Moon never makes more evident the dependance she has upon the Sun than in Eclipses 'T is true also that a Soul sensible of her infirmities is content with her Talent without disquieting her self to attain the perfections of great Saints whereoâ— she acknowledges her self unworthy And if God be pleased to communicate unto her great Graces she will not grow proud as well knowing her own weakness but rejoyce in this that God thereby may be more honour'd 'T is true also that being convinced of her own unworthiness she has no confidence in her self but in God alone to whom entirely she gives up her self to deal with her as he pleases in Mercy or Justice She wonders not to see her self left and abandon'd to sin because she knows she deserves no better and then blesses the Divine Mercy for not dealing with her according to her Merits 'T is true also that a Soul grieving to have displeas'd God would be content to be really reduc'd to her first Nothing iâ— such was the Divine pleasure For though she knows being so brought to Nothing she cannot be capable to please God or enjoy him notwithstanding such is the love she has for the Divine Will that she would have that done though she perish To acknowledge and be content with our own baseness is one of the greatest mercies God can do for a Soul For hereby she draws Salvation from Perdition as God knows how to advance his Glory by our sins A Soul thus enlightned is content to be set on the Dunghil of her miseries surrounded with humiliations for her faults as Job was with afflictions and beholding her self as it were the Queen of Infirmities and Abjections she 's pleas'd therewith seeing she may thereby honour and magnifie the Divine Goodness If a Soul be miserable by falling into sin she is rich in possessing the Treasure of humiliation after her failings But this is a truth hidden to most men who do not discover this advanrage They are poor and yet have a Treasure in their Field which they may have for digging Jesus poor and abject for love of me leave me not to my self lift up my Soul after her fall and gâ—ve her some of that Cordial Water which is call'd the love of Abjection that chases away the vain vapours of self-love by which the Soul is darken'd and loses courage Glorifie your power in my infirmities be pleas'd to condescend so far as to receive me returning into the arms of your Mercy and grant I may die unto my self that I may live in your Embraces Methinks dear Jesus I already feel your tenderness unto me your divine love vouchsafes me a relish of the sweets of Paradice my eyes are bath'd in tears of contentment my heart is dilated and love does firmly unite me to you Wherefore do you vouchsafe the kiss of Peace so soon to such a Wretch as I am Why do you not leave me in bitterness of Soul and trouble of Spirit as a just chastisement for my sins Your Mercy will not so deal with me but by wonderful preventions of love in the midst of my infirmities you redouble your favours and consolations O that I was all love to serve you wholly by way of gratitude I would have all the world to see my Infidelities to the end your mercy may shine more glorious I know that the sight of my sin had so frozen my heart as in a manner to make me liveless but O my Jesus you have provided an excellent remedy seeing the flames of divine love have set me all on fire to do your will 'T is a great favour to be in this temper of Soul but dear Jesus stay not here visit my heart again with the feelings of your humiliations that your inscrutable abjections may be its centre and render it in some sort conformable to yours and do this miracle of your Grace that this faithless heart may become a divine heart by the infinite merit of your most precious Blood CHAP. XVII Considerations upon the vileness of this corruptible body HOw is a Soul pleased to know that her body must return to dust This humiliation is the object of her complacency When the illustrations of a Divine Light clear up the understanding then she knows that perfection consists in a tendence to humiliation wherein she meets with the exaltation of God by the admirable contrivance of the Divine Wisdom O dust and ashes you may be terrible to worldly Souls but I am sure you bring joy to those who walking by the light of Faith and conduct of Grace love dearly the interests of God and life eternal The loss of worldly Interests Honour Contentment is painful to Nature too much attached to her self but a Soul elevated by Grace rejoyces at the loss of her own
ashamed to be so much attached to worldly things she is taken with the excellency of this admirable way and begins to be mortified to her self and the world aspiring after a profound oblivion and contempt of all Creatures and desiring to be in privations the better to curb her sensual inclinations and practice Virtue Thus the Soul proceeds in the purgative way of this supernatural Life The Soul thus purged advances to partake of the Divine Illuminations of this Life and becomes in a manner clear-sighted thereby her understanding receiving many illustrations and discoveries of its excellency and grandeur She sees the wonders couch'd in the mystery of Jesus poor suffering and annihilated She perceives the eminency of those sanctified Souls who have followed Jesus in his humiliations She begins to apprehend that a Soul which has no knowledge nor esteem of this life is buried in darkness She is amaz'd at the blindness of Christians in being besotted on empty vanities And lastly she perceives that there is enjoyment in suffering and that by crosses and privations we come to union with God The Soul thus illuminated enters into the Unitive state of this life and tends to a continual union with God whom she sees present in her Interiour Nothing can hinder this union as long as the Soul finds enjoyment in sufferings This proceeding of grace in a Soul is not extraordinary God behaves himself in a Soul as a King in a Kingdom newly conquer'd who kills and destroys all that oppose the establishment of his Dominion Notwithstanding the Prince hereby seems to put all things in disorder 't is but to procure peace and to rule without disturbance by the conquest of his Enemies God proceeds in like manner As soon as he enters into a Soul to set up his Kingdom he makes a havock of all his Enemies by penetential rigour to bring the Soul wholly to his Obedience Then he establishes the Maxims of his Policy and convinces the Soul how good and just they are by the following illustrations First That the greatest Treasure on Earth is to have part of the Poverty of Jesus Christ. Secondly That the greatest Glory is to be partaker of his abjections Thirdly That the greatest Joy is to suffer pains with him Fourthly That the Life of Christianity is to deny our selves take up our Cross and follow Jesus That when we cease to die to our selves and crucifie our Lusts we leave off to be Christians and die in a manner to Christianity because we lose the Spirit thereof Fifthly That there 's nothing more amiable more precious and more honourable in the world than to imitate Jesus poor and abject seeino this state was most precious in the eyes of God his Father Finally The Soul being persuaded of these verities which are in a manner evident unto her tho' by the obscure light of Faith has no love for any thing upon Earth nor any pretensions but those of Jesus Christ and these were only to suffer and be annihilated to perfect in his Person the designs of his eternal Father by dying on the Cross Then she absolutely forsakes her self to give her self up wholly to the Maxims and Spirit of Jesus Christ uniting and conforming her self as much as may be to his states and her thoughts are far different from others sentiments And this is not to be wondred at seeing St. Peter says of Christians that they are Gens sancta Genus electum regale Sacerdotium a holy Nation a chosen People a royal Priesthood to offer to God Sacrifices of good Odour which is by crucifying themselves with Jesus Christ who is a continual Sacrifice O the sublime state of a Soul in this supreme degree of a supernatural life Alas the sentiments of Nature do too much take up our hearts so that those of a supernatural life have little or no place in them What a misery is this CHAP. VIII The practice of a Supernatural Life WE without cause esteem our selves spiritual if we march not streight without reserve by the ways of Jesus Christ or pretend to any thing on Earth then to be conformable to him This does not consist in sole speculation for we can never do it better than when the occasions of abjection and contempt present themselves to embrace them heartily as the most necessary means to make us conformable to Jesus Christ God the Father cannot praedestinate us to be conform to the Image of his Son but he must prepare for us from all Eternity many occasions of contempt and abjection which time brings forth Our fidelity lies in complying with these occasions to follow Jesus without reserve by his Light and Power I will tell you how it must be done We ought before all things to have an eye to Jesus abject and despised repose our selves in his bosom abide there with delight and then make upon our selves some short and sharp reflections Reflections that may form in us the Image of Jesus Christ without any great trouble to our selves These when done to the purpose are as so many powerful Thunderbolts to beat down our natural inclinations and destroy the Maxims of human Prudence according to which we commonly square our actions Such Reflections breath into us a supernatural wisdom which gives us a relish of the proceedings of Jesus Christ crucified so little known by worldly men But perhaps it would be better to regard nothing but the infinite beauty of Jesus in the state of his abjections without making any reflections on our selves or busying our selves with our own miseries considering only the example of Jesus expos'd to our view and the power we receive from his grace to follow him It is enough if he vouchsafe to cast a glance of his Divine rays on our natural repugnances to quell and conquer them O my Jesus I will regard you in your humiliations and then you will look propitiously upon me and that is sufficient O Jesus annihilated in your sufferings make me as it were lost in my self by suffering with you that I may be absorpt in you and by you in God Shall the men of this world be more provident than the children of Light What shall they have a care of their affairs and I neglect my business I will enrich my self as well as they with my own ruins and from my humiliations I will draw great aids and succours to follow Jesus for my resolution is to march after him absolutely without reserve To do any great matters in the ways of the world we must have much Wealth many Friends and good success To do great matters in the ways of God it will suffice to be poor and despicable to have Enemies and ill successes For the more a Soul suffers the more she does great matters in God's service the more she is deprived of the Creatures the more is she enriched with the Creator Therefore she must work as hard for poverty of Spirit and Self-denial as worldly men do labour to enrich themselves
he ought nor lov'd with thankfulness He loves us so as to die for us and we make no reciprocal returns O the prodigious insensibility of men Is then Jesus Christ a stranger to us and not our God and Saviour Does the History of his holy Passion pass with us as a profane or indifferent thing Ought not the bloody Tragedy of Calvary fill all Christian hearts with love and sorrow For my part I could hide my head with shame that I have so little compassion and love for Jesus dying on the Cross for our Salvation O my Jesus I confess my fault in that I have so little known my infinite obligations to you But seeing your Grace discovers now to me more clear than heretofore what you are I will never more lose sight of you I will love nothing more than You and esteem nothing more than to do you honour You are my true Father my true Brother true Friend true King true Redeemer O how great a truth is it that you are all in all unto me O that I have been so long without knowing you aright O Jesus how Happy am I that I have found you O let me never so much loose my self as to forsake you For my fourth Prayer I stood at the Sepulcher of Jesus and seeing his precious Body dead and covered with Wounds I made this Epitaph Here lyes Love Yes yes here lyes Love indeed for his excessive Love to us brought him to this state and condition A state full of horror and wounds Blood and Infamy But a state well pleasing to God as satisfying his Justice for mans Redemption I embraced his precious Body and kiss'd his Sacred Wounds I adored Jesus in this state and said O my Soul we must either cease to Love Jesus or die with him seeing Love equalizes Lovers and makes them alike My Soul then chose to die with Jesus and after many sighs and desires to please her Beloved she died with Jesus never willing more to live a Natural and Humane Life but a Life Divine and Supernatural as that of Jesus And I made for her this Epitaph Here lyes a Soul dead of Love Behold in what consists the death of my Soul 't is to live no longer according to the natural Inclinations but according to the motions of Grace which are the Love of Poverty Contempt and Sufferings While these dispositions live in a Soul she is dead to Sensual desires and lives a Life of Grace a Life Supernatural Therefore for the future I will never hunt after Honours or Pleasures or Riches willingly and by Election but I will either heartily forsake them or if I use them it shall be upon Divine Motives for the good of my Neighbour or for pure necessity seeing That is the Will of God the surest rule of all our Actions Tenth Day Jesus risen from Death and Glorious IN my Morning Prayer I consider'd the Glory of Jesus Christ in the state of his triumphant Resurrection O Jesus how Glorious are you How well does this become you Verily 't was a strange state whither your Love had brought you A state of Misery Shame and Sorrow This was well for us Criminals but in no sort agreeing to you who are Innocence it self For what belongs to you is Majesty and Glory What joy did swell my heart to see Jesus Glorious My Tongue cannot express what my Heart feels This great Feast of the Resurrection is to be celebrated by all Creatures seeing 't is the day wherein Jesus appears as God O Feast of the Glory of Jesus O Feast of the Glory of Mary 'T was a Miracle she did not die of Sorrow at the Death of her Son and 't is another Miracle she did not die of Joy at his Glorious Resurrection O my heart be thou enlarged with Joy for 't is a general rule without exception that the Interest of the Creator is to be preferr'd before all Creatures And therefore O triumphant Jesus I more rejoyce that you are Glorious then that I hope to be Glorified with you Yea though I should never be raised your Glory does ravish me It glads me when I consider that damnation only concerns the Creature for the Interest of Jesus suffers not thereby seeing God is Glorified by the Reprobates as well as by the Saints in Glory 'T is also a certain rule that the Elect O Divine Jesus are Images of you and so necessarily must resemble you in your Sufferings if with you they will be Glorified 'T is a folly to think not to suffer here some way or other more or less seeing the way to Glory is by Sufferings O my Soul be thou united to Jesus Crucified and then thou shalt have part with Jesus Glorified To this end thou must love the Cross and desire of Jesus to die or suffer O World thy way is meer folly and nothing else In my second Prayer I was taken up with these words of Divine Jesus Ought not Christ first to suffer and so to enter into Glory I discover'd how all the Divine Perfections did wonderfully shine forth therein But above all the Wisdom of God doth ravish those hearts which contemplate the works of Grace and Mercy O Divine Wisdom how well is the Oeconomy of your Mysteries order'd to work our Salvation and bring us to Glory Every Mystery which I consider'd did raise a new Fire in my breast to inflame my affections with the Love of Jesus Sometimes they altogether did as with so many arrows pierce my heart and made me languish with Divine Love For seeing my self so Belov'd of good Jesus how could I but Love him again O Infinite Love of Jesus for whom shall I have a heart if not for thee O Love 't is for thee my heart is reserved Thy attracts are powerful enough do not redouble them so sweet and charming 't is enough my heart is for thee O Love except thou wilt have me die do not wound me any more Yet I will die willingly if thou wilt have it so on the Cross of Interiour and Exteriour Suffering that I may be conform to my Loving Saviour My third Prayer was a continuation of the Sentiments of the Love of Jesus I made use of the words of great St. Austin in his Confessions O my Jesus you have wounded my heart with the arrows of your Charity and I have devoted it to your Love Since that you have scatter'd my Darkness and made your self known unto me I have not forgot you Since I had the Happiness to know you I have imprinted you in my memory there I find you and I tast perfect Delights and receive extreme Joy and Contentment when I remember you My Soul feeling Divine Fires within her which did fill her with Pleasures I did sing extempore Canticles to my Beloved and though not methodical yet they better express'd her amorous languishings Though alone in my Chamber I spake of Jesus aloud as if I had had many Auditors to be partakers of my
to remain thus united is to do nothing for 't is the doing of all that God demands of us and the co-operating with him in the greatest work of Grace which is the Union of a Soul with the Divinity This Union is a repose of the Soul and it is found in several and different manners Sometimes it is diffus'd through all the Soul sometimes 't is only in the Superiour part thereof other while it restrains it self to the supream point of the Will and if the Soul be Faithful she does not considerably interrupt this Union For the trouble of the Interiour part or distractions of the imagination may indeed lessen the tranquility thereof but cannot destroy it The thing that weakens it the most and as it were smothers it are the Passions when violent Cares that touch one to the quick Troubles of mind Pleasures of Sense Wherefore one must be dead to all these and endeavour to die perpetually to them Another time Jesus entring into my Soul in Communion did not impart to it this Union so desirable but deprived it of it whether it were in punishment for her Imperfections or that he designed her at that time for other Imployments and required Exteriour Duties from her for the good of her Neighbour Her business was then to remain in Peace and to make a free offering of the most noble thing in the World to wit the enjoyment of God to God himself who takes an Infinite delight to see himself thus Honoured by his Creature And he is often pleas'd to be Glorified in this manner by perfect Souls and the Souls find themselves raised to a very sublime Purity by these sorts of Sacrifice wherein they renounce the most dear Caresses of God to abandon themselves more purely to God and to adhere to him only O how true is it that in the fund of the heart the most noble operations of Love are performed hidden from all the World and known to God alone Even the Soul it self does not know the Interiour Communications of God till after long experience which renders her self skilful in the secrets of the Super-natural Life whether neither Sense nor Reason can penetrate CHAP. VII The first Effect of Communion is to beget in us the Love of Crosses and Humiliations GOd in Himself and in his Eternity does nothing but Love Himself in contemplating his Divine Perfections For 't is his Essential occupation and he cannot but Love Himself and desire to be Beloved Wherefore since by the Hypostatical Union man is become God he takes upon him the same Sentiments the same Inclinations as God And by consequence Jesus Loves God as God Loves Himself and as he clearly saw that there is no way whereby God can be more Loved or more Honoured out of Himself than by Crosses and Annihilations which pay homage to the Grandeur of his Infinite Being he apply'd Himself to Love Crosses Sufferings and Contempt with all the Powers of his Soul Never man so passionately in Love with these things as Jesus Christ because never any one was transported with such Zeal as he to Love and Glorifie God his Father When therefore Jesus enters into us by the Holy Communion he brings with him all his Sentiments all his Inclinations particularly those which he affects most and desires to imprint them in our Souls for which purpose he gives himself to us under the form of nourishment because as the meat we take communicates to the Body all its principal qualities so he inspires the Soul withall its principal motions and operations And this is the reason that the oftner one Communicates the more one ought to be penetrated with the Sentiments and Inclinations of Jesus that is to say so much more one ought to Love Sufferings and Humiliations The property of the Communion which is the Living Bread which descended from Heaven is not to be changed into us as the inanimate Bread that comes from the Earth is but to change us into Himself And the Holy Communion should raise man above his Natural Love to lift him up to the Love of God and to a perfect union with his Will by Mortification and Destruction of Himself The most inward and most Perfect of all the Unions that a Creature can have with his God is the Personal or Hypostratical one which produced in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus a Love of the Cross and of the Poverty Insomuch that it was no sooner Divinely assumed but it was inflamed with the Love of Suffering and esteemed nothing next to the Divinity so worthy an bbject of Love as the Cross Now it is evident that we cannot arrive to any Union with God so much resembling the Hypostatical Union as that which we obtain by the Holy Communion Whence it follows that it ought to produce in us such Inclinations as very much resemble those which the Union Hypostatical produced in the Sacred Humanity that is to say it should incline us to Love the Cross Poverty Humiliations and all other manner of Sufferings O my Soul where are we How comes it about that we Communicate so often and feel still such repugnance to suffer Jesus Christ coming into us and as I may say again Incarnate in us would not he confer the most signal Grace of Love of the Cross if he found us well disposed to receive it He that Communicates often and yet is unwilling to suffer without doubt Communicates but imperfectly For he does not receive the principal effects of the Divine union which are to make us love what Jesus loved the most of any thing in the World O my God how long shall we live in the low Sentiments of Nature Give me to suffer or to die O my Soul be ashamed to live without Suffering for That methinks is to live without Love The Fruit which we gather from the Holy Communion is not discerned by abundance of sensible sweetness or by reception of much Light in the understanding but by a firm and vigorous resolution of the Will to suffer and to mortifie it self and the more one advances in Mortification the more one also increases in purity of Love Jesus who is the nourishment of our Love in Heaven where Love will be Infinitely pure is likewise the nourishment of our Love upon Earth in the Blessed Sacrament which by consequence ought to be Soveraignly pure I mean without any mixture of any thing that is not God But this cannot be without dying to all Creatures and even to our Selves and this Death is not compassed but by Mortification and all that which Crucifies Nature CHAP. VIII Continuation of the same Subject AFter Holy Communion it seemed to me that as Jesus received of his Divine Father the Fullness of Light and true Love in the Hypostatical Union so he makes his Friends partakers thereof in the Sacramental Union and thereby lays an obligation upon them to live by the same Life to guide themselves by the Light and to enter into a
God An Infinite Fulness containing an Infinity of Perfections each of which hath an Infinity of Excellencies incomprehensible A Fulness which is the Source of all good in the Creature we being of our selves but a meer privation and pure nothing full of imperfections and lyable to Infinite Miseries Alas O my God I now see more then ever that you are all good Omne bonum you are the Source of our Being and Existence and without your continual influx for our preservation we should in a moment return to our first nothing The general Idaea of this Truth is in every understanding but well to consider it and lodge it in our Heart is very rare We believe this as many other points of our Religion but without deep reflection or correspondent actions Hence it proceeds that we are without perfect self-denyal and abnegation being not sufficiently perswaded that of our selves we are nothing And therefore God leaves in us many Imperfections unconquer'd that we may know by experience that we are of our selves nothing but weakness O my God for ever Blessed be your Holy Name for discovering to me your Fulness and my Poverty I adore your Infinite Fulness with a cordial affection because it shews your Grandeurs and I am pleas'd with my Poverty because it humbles me in your presence I am well content O my God to be nothing that you may be all Kneeling down to make my second Prayer I desir'd our Blessed Saviour to take up my thoughts with what he pleas'd And it came into my mind to consider the three Divine Persons as they are to teach other the center of all Happiness repose and Glory I beheld this fixedly and with an amorous resentment and complacency of mind it seeming to me that the repose the joy and the Glory that the Divine Persons have in the Sacred Humanity is infinitely below that repose and Glory they have in themselves And that delight they have in the Saints is much below that which they have in the Sacred Humanity I sometimes adored this Divine center in it self and sometimes I adored the occupations of the Soul of Jesus towards this Divine center and I endeavour'd to fix my thoughts with a complacency therein God then gave me to see that accidental occasions of Charity are not repugnant to my Solitude and designs of extraordinary Devotion But to take upon me the care of a Family and to have a continual eye over them as I had formerly was inconsistant with it For that engag'd me to many Conferences many Letters much care and Extroversion and for the present God does not require that of me but calls me to a retreat to Solitude to Exteriour and Interiour Silence to Mortification to converse with Him alone This is my present affair upon Earth In my third Prayer I discover'd how just and reasonable it is not only to adore the Divine Life of the most Sacred Trinity but also to Honour the Service which the Soul of Jesus render'd to his Father on Earth by a continual and ineffable application I observ'd that all the Mysteries of the Life of Jesus are honour'd according to the various applications of devout Souls as inspir'd from Heaven Some have a special Devotion to Jesus as regarding Mary Magdalen with an eye of Mercy Others are much taken with his Divine Discourses with the Samaritan Woman and her Conversion And shall we forget to adore the Divine regards and converse the Soul of Jesus continually had with the Divine Persons There 's nothing in God made man more worthy of veneration this being his most noble employment while he was upon Earth Let us therefore O my Soul according to our Duty set upon this work without delay Let our greatest care be to please Jesus and then many Worldly affairs will become burdensom unto us Let us recollect our Spirits and Affections from other things and place them wholly on God our final Happiness A true Christian indeed will be so generous as to esteem all things besides God not worth his labour 'T is true while the Soul is imprison'd in the Walls of flesh she cannot always soar up to Heaven on the wings of Contemplation but this she must sigh after and considering her present condition on all occasions exercise her self in works of Humility In my fourth Prayer God and his Perfections did possess my Soul rejoycing in that he was perfect and happy I had a mind then to take up my thoughts wholly with the Perfections of God without any reflection on my own Interiour or requesting any thing to supply my wants for 't is not seasonable to do this when God calls us to contemplate his adorable Perfections The Soul then forgets his own Interests to mind only those of God I then was pressed with a vehement desire to forget my self entirely and have God only in my remembrance I was then much pleased with the multitude that followed Jesus in the Desart taking no care for Bodyly Provision Their Divine Master provided for them being well pleas'd with their affection in being only attentive to his words What content was it to me to remember how Mary Magdalen forgot her self yea in some sort our Blessed Saviour in not serving him in her Castle at Bethanie by reason she was so intent on his Divine words O my Soul let us not be too Solicitous for the things of this Life if we think on God he will think on us and nothing necessary shall be wanting to us Sixth Day IN my first Prayer my Soul found her self much taken with the Beauty of those excellent words in the Gospel Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect I consider'd how impossible it is for Mortals even to conceive the Idaea of an Infinite Perfection and if we cannot conceive it how can we imitate it But God the Father has provided against this inconvenience in sending to us the perfect Image of all his Infinite Perfections his Eternal Son and exposing him to our view says to us Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect open your eyes and behold this Model here is the Perfection you must imitate let it be your care to conform to this Exemplar and you will be perfect as I am perfect 'T is hard to say to what sublimity of Perfection we are call'd by a Christian Life and how glorious a thing it is even to pretend to imitate God himself But alas how far are we from the Spirit of this grand Exemplar Jesus would have us to be annihilated poor despis'd living a hidden life in Solitude by dayly converse with God But just contrary we desire to appear in the World to be esteemed to have all things according to our hearts desire and enjoy the Creatures Alas we do not sufficiently endeavour to dive into the inclinations of the Spirit of Jesus to conform our selves thereto and annihilate our own The Science of Jesus is not well known there are few persons that study it