Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	apostle_n	love_n	love_v	3,124	5	6.7919	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76020	A treatise of adhering to God; written by Albert the Great, Bishop of Ratisbon. Put into English by Sir Kenelme Digby, Kt. Also a conference with a lady about choyce of religion.; De adhærendo Deo. English	Albertus, Magnus, Saint, 1193?-1280.; Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.	1653 (1653)	Wing A876; Thomason E1529_2; ESTC R25226	62,177	159

And by thus doing he is in a manner transformed into God so that he can neither think nor understand nor love nor remember any thing but God and of God and if he chanceth at any time to see either himselfe or any creature he seeth them not as they are in themselves but onely as they are in God Nor doth any share of his love rest in them but all of it passeth through them to God and resteth in him And this knowledge of truth alwaies rendreth a soul truely humble and maketh it severe to it selfe without ever judging others whereas worldly wisedome swelleth a soule with pride vanity and empty winde Take this then for the foundation of all spirituall doctrine that if you desire to arrive to the true knowledge service familiarity and full possession of God Almighty you must necessarily devest your heart of all sensible love not onely of all persons whatsoever but of all creatures whatsoever that so you may with a pure and entire heart and with all the powers of your soule apply your selfe freely without all doublenesse care and solicitude to your Creatour casting your selfe in all occasions with a full confidence upon his single providence CHAP. VII In what manner ones heart is to be recollected within ones selfe IT is very truely said in the book of the Spirit and the Soule Cap. 21. that to ascend up to God is to enter into ones selfe For without all doubt he who turning his operations inwards pierceth through himselfe and goeth beyond himselfe is really and truely raised up to God Wee must therefore have a care to recollect our heart from the dispersions and distractions of this world and to recall it to those joyes it will find within it selfe that so it may in time be enabled to keepe it selfe steady in the light of divine contemplation For the life and rest of our heart consisteth in fixing it by earnest desires upon the love of God and in tasting the sweetnesse of those consolations which with a liberall hand hee giveth to those who love him And the reason is obvious why we are so frequently frustrated of the experimentall enjoying of this happines and are not able to tast and savour it in the full sweetnesse of it For whiles our soule effuseth it selfe upon exterior objects and is choaked with the sollicitude of transitory things shee entreth not into her selfe by the setting before her eyes those solid considerations which her memory ought alwaies to be stored withall whilst she is pestered and overclouded with the images of creatures she returneth not into her selfe by the superiour part of her understanding into which no such object can have admittance and whiles shee is intangl'd with concupiscences she is hindred from reverting into her self by vehement desires of that interior sweetnesse and spirituall joy which belongeth onely to a purified and enflamed soule so lying groaning among these present materiall and fading objects she is not able to turne her selfe inwards and discerne the image of God that is formed there It is therefore absolutely necessary for him who aymeth at this noble and high pitch that with profound humility and yet withall with entire confidence he raise himselfe above himselfe and above the whole machine of creared beings by the abnegation of them all saying thus to himselfe he whom my heart hath chosen from among all things whom it seeketh above all things and whom it loveth and desireth beyond all things is not to be knowne by my senses nor comprised by my imagination but is above all that is Sensible above all that is Intelligble he is not perceptible to any faculty of mine but yet he is such as I may desire and love him with all the powers and faculties of my soule he is not representable by any shape yet I may thirst after him with the most enflamed affections that can be raised within mee nor can he be prised or valued neere his worth by all I can say or thinke of him and yet my heart if it be cleane from all drossie affections can seise upon him and unite it selfe to him by excesses of love For he is beautifull and delightfull infinitely beyond all things in the world is of infinite goodnesse perfection And then after such like discourses and considerations his soule entereth yet deeper into it selfe and raiseth it selfe yet higher above it selfe and looseth it selfe as I may say in the divine mist of incomprehensible light And this manner of ascending even to the aenigmaticall beholding of the most holy Trinity in Jesus Christ is by so much the more enflamed and vehement by how much those operations which carry the soule upwards are more interiour and is by so much the more profitable raiseth one so much higher as the love one soareth with is more vigorous and fervent For in spirituall operations the measure of their height and excellency is their interiournesse and recollectednesse from all outward dissipation Therefore you must not give over or sit you down to rest till you have gotten some tast as it were an earnest-penny of that fulnesse which will hereafter swell you up and till you have obtained some first fruits of that heavenly sweetnesse which will hereafter please beyond all measure the spirituall palate of your soule nor must you slacken your pace in running after that divine odour you begin to have the wind of till you come to see the God of Gods in Sion For you must settle this as a fundamentall rule in the progression of the soule and in the adhesion and union to God within you that you must never retire nor repose till you have obtained what you ayme at Consider those who travell up a mountaine and apply to your case what happeneth unto them If a soule engulfe her selfe by concupiscence among those things that slide along beneath her she presently loseth her way in a labyrinth of infinite distractions and of oblique and crooked waies and is as it were divided from her selfe and is torne into as many peeces as there are severall objects that she is glewed unto by her desires And from hence proceedeth the instability of mens actions without any fixednesse upon the resolutions they had once taken their toylsome running without arriving to the end of the course and their perpetuall labour without any rest But if a soule doe raise her selfe by divine affections and love from what is beneath her and would entangle her in a multitude of distractions and forsaking all creatures without her do recollect her selfe within her selfe unto that one immutable all-sufficient good whereof she will find the image within her selfe and doe learne to dwell and converse alwaies with it and doe cleave inseparably to it by enflamed desires and affections such a one will encrease daily in strength and perfection proportionably to the knowledge and desire that lifteth her up to that one supreame immutable good Till she herselfe become at the last

activity untill it have run through all things that lye between them and have seised upon him and have submersed it selfe in him For love hath an unitive and transformative power that changeth the lover into what hee loveth and againe the beloved into the lover so that each of them is in the other as intrinsecally as possibly can be Which how it is will the more plainely appeare if we consider severally the commerce that is between them in the two severall powers of the soule the understanding the will of him that loveth First in regard of the understanding and apprehensive faculties the beloved is in the lover by his continuall forming the image of the beloved in his thoughts where hee converseth intimately with him in a most sweet and delightfull manner and againe the lover is in the beloved not contenting himselfe with a superficiall knowledge of what belongeth to him but using his utmost indeavours to dive into the inmost secrets of him and to reach the bottom Secondly in regard of the will and of the affective desiring faculties the beloved is said to be in the lover by residing in his heart through an affectuous compleasance and joyous delectation in him and the lover is in the beloved by having the same desires which he hath by willing the same things which hee willeth by disliking the same things which he disliketh by rejoycing and grieveing for the same and by having an exact conformity with him in all things as though hee were not a distinct person from him but even he himselfe For love draweth the lover out of himselfe and planteth him in the beloved and setleth him most intimately there whereupon it is said in the Canticles Cant. 8. that love is as strong as death which carrieth the soule out of the body And it may well be said that the soule is more where it loveth then where it liveth For she is in the beloved according to her owne nature and as she hath an existence belonging to her selfe that is by her will understanding whereas her giving life to a body is an action of much lower degree and onely as she is the forme and part of a whole in which consideration she hath no prerogative above the formes of bruit beasts We may therefore conclude that to draw us from outward and sensible objects into our selves and from thence to carry us to our saviour Jesus Christ and in him to unite us to his divinity there is no other way no other meanes then the love of him and the ardent desire of his sweetnesse that through his humanity we may feele and perceive and tast the presence of his divinity So great is the power of love that it is able to raise the soule from the earth to the highest heaven Nor is it possible for any person to arrive to Beatitude but by the wings of love and desire Love is the life of the soule her wedding garment and her perfection In which is comprised the Law and the Prophets and the whole doctrine of our Saviour And therefore the Apostle saith to the Romans that love is the fulnesse of the law Rom. 3. and to Timothy that charity is the end of all that is comanded 1. Tim. 1. CHAP. XIII Of the quality and utility of prayer and how ones heart is to be recollected within it selfe BUt sithence we are not able of our selves either to love or to doe any other good worke nor can of our owne stocke offer any thing to God from whom alone floweth all that is good that is not already his the only thing which remaineth for us to doe is that according to the instructions which he hath vouchsafed to give us by his owne divine mouth and blessed example we have recourse to him by prayer in all our occurrences and that we prostrate our selves before him like poore needy beggers like wretched miserable bondslaves like feeble desolate children and so with deep groanes lay open our hearts before him representing our distressed condition with all ingenuity sincerity with feare and shame yet mingled with confidence and love and beseeching him with the utmost vehemence and fervour of our soule to protect and assist us in our imminent dangers and in the close admitting and abandoning ourselves entirely and securely into his hands without reserving any thing at all to our selves but acknowledging whatsoever we have or are to be absolutely his And then that will be fulfilled in us which the holy abbot Isack speaking of his manner of prayer saith in the following words Cassian Collect. 10. Chap. 6. Then we shall be one in God and our Lord and only he will be all in all to us when that perfect love of his with which he loved us first shall likewise on our side have passed and bee converted into the affection of our heart Which will be when all our love all our desire all our study all our endeavour all that we shall think imagine speak and hope will be God alone and that a like unity as is between the father and the sonne and againe betweene the sonne and the father shall be transfused into our soule and mind that as he loveth us with a sincere pure and indissolvable charity so we may be joyned also to him by a perpetuall and inseparable dilection whereby thus linked unto him all that we shall desire and hope for that we shall understand that we shall speake of and that we shall direct our prayers unto may be God only This therefore ought to be the intention the ayme and the end of a spirituall man that he may come to possesse herein his corruptible body an image of the next lifes beatitude and that he may begin in this world to receive a kind of earnest penny and tast some drops of that beatitude conversation and glory which we shall have in heaven This I say is the end of all perfection that our soule being purified from all carnall drosse it may dayly be refined and sublimed up to spirituall objects untill our conversation and all the motions and affections of our heart do become one continued prayer And when our soule free from all earthly alloy Cass Col. 9. cap. 5. shall thus breath and pant after God onely on whom alone the intention of a spirituall man ought to be fixed and so such an one the least separation from him will seem a present and cruel death and shall be in a manner sent beforehand to him by injoying so high a calme from all carnall passions which might inveigle and draw it to their objects that it may firmly and indissolubly adhere to that one supreame good then the direction of the Apostle will be fulfilled who biddeth us pray without intermission 1. Thes 5. and in another place lifting up pure hands every where without anger and contention 1. Tim. 2. For where the operation of the mind is absorbed if so I may say with such purity and

is transformed from a terrene and grosse nature to a spirituall and Angelicall shape then whatsoever she shall receive into her selfe whatsoever she shall employ her self about and whatsoever she shall doe will be a most pure and a most sincere prayer To conclude if you shall continue without interruption that course I have traced from the beginning of this discourse it will be as easie and ready for you in your introversion and recollection to contemplate and to injoy God as in nature it is to live CHAP. XIIII That in all judgments we ought to resort to the witnesse of our conscience IT is of no small availe for attaining spirituall perfection and the purity and tranquillity of the soule in God that upon whatsoever shall be spoken thought or done concerning us we presently recurre in silence to the inward secret of our heart and mind and there sequestred from all other objects and wholly recollected within our selves we call our selves to a strict account for discovery of the bare truth of what we make our inquiry about And there we shall find that it will be no advantage for us but rather much prejudice to be praised and honoured from without if in the mean time our heart within us reproacheth us of faultinesse and guilt And as it profiteth one nothing to be praised by men whiles his owne conscience accuseth him so on the other side he is never the worse for being contemned reproached and persecuted whiles in the tribunall of his owne heart he findeth himselfe innocent and irreprehensible Or rather upon such occasions he hath reason to rejoyce in our Lord with patience silence and tranquillity For no adversity can hurt him in whom iniquity raigneth not And since it is a certain truth that as no evill remaineth unpunished so no good passeth without reward let us beware of expecting or receiving ours like hypocrits from men but referr that wholly and soly to God to give it us not in this life but in Eternity that lasteth for ever It is then evident that no action we can doe can be nobler or better then alwaies in all our tribulations and accidents whatsoever to resort into the secret of our owne soule and there invocate our Lord Jesus Christ our helper in our temptations and tribulations and humble our selves through acknowledgment of our owne sinfulnesse and praise God our Father that correcteth and comforteth when he judgeth fit And let us be sure to receive all things either concerning our selves or others prosperous or adverse with equanimity and with a ready and confident resignation of our selves into the hand of his infallible and Fatherly providence And by doeing thus we shall obtaine the remission of our sinns the delivering us from all bitternesse the contemning of sweetnesse and security upon us the infusion of grace and mercy into us the setling and strengthening us in the familiarity of God our sucking abundant consolations from him and our firme adhesion and union with him Let us therefore beware of imitating those who through hypocrisie and after a Pharisaicall manner do strive to appear better and otherwise then they are and do labour to give men a better conceit of themselves then in their owne hearts they know they deserve and do hunt after outward humane prayse and glory whiles their soules within are full of impotent passions and desires and grievous sinns Certainly whosoever shall seek after such vanities which is the extremity of folly and madnesse the reall good we have formerly mentioned will fly from him and reproach and shame will in the end betide him Keep therefore continually before thine eyes the bad that is in thee and thy unaptnesse to all good Know thy self aright that thou mayest be humbled And considering thy great sinns and the excessive evills that are in thee repine not at being esteemed the most unworthy vile and abject creature in the world but repute thy selfe among other men like drosse mingled with gold like darnel growing among wheat like chaffe mingled with corn like a wolfe among sheep and like satan among the children of God and shunn all honour or preference from others fly with all might and maine from the infection of this pestilence from the poyson of praise and from the vanity of ostentation least according to the royall Prophet the sinner be praised in the desires of his owne soule Ps 9. For according to the other They who speake thee blessed doe deceive thee and doe destroy the way of thy stepps Isay 3. And our Saviour threateneth us with woe when men shall blesse us and speake well of us CHAP. XV. How the contempt of ones selfe may be caused in a man and how profitable that is IT is most certaine that the better a man is acquainted with his owne unworthynesse and basenesse and the deeper conceit he frameth thereof the further and the clearer he looketh into the Majesty of God and the meaner a man appeareth in his owne eyes through the valew he putteth upon God upon truth and upon justice the more worthy and pretious he is in the eyes of God Let us therefore continually busy our thoughts upon those considerations that may beget in us a contempt of our selves and a beliefe that we are unworthy of receiving any good turne Let us mortifie and displease our selves and seeke to please God onely And let us be content to be reputed as we are most unworthy and vile wretches When any tribulations afflictions or injuries do come upon us let us not be moved at them nor entertaine any unquiet thoughts or indignation or animosity against those that bring them upon us but with meeknesse and gentlenesse of spirit let us conclude within our selves that we deserve all the injuries scornes and mischiefs with abandonments that can arrive unto us For certainly he who is truly penitent and whose heart is full of compunctions abhorreth being honoured and loved by men and is content to be hated despised and trodden upon to the very last that so he may attaine to true humility and to a sincere firme adhesion unto God alone with a pure heart Which adhesion to God onely and loving of him onely together with the hating of our selves and thinking worse of ones selfe then of all creatures else and the deeming himselfe despisable and desiring to be despised and scorned by all men else requireth no outward labour or strength of body but rather the solitude and retirement of the body whilst the heart laboureth by affections and the mind is quiet from all worldly affaires to the end that setting your heart upon the right object and banishing the distracting multiplicity of creatures out of our mind and ritiring our senses from all conversation with mean intertainments our soule may then raise it selfe up to a familiarity with heavenly and divine things whiles our body is sequestred by solitude from earthly ones By doeing thus we shall change our selves after a sort into God To attaine unto the

whereby to give them yet further a supernaturall assurance and infallibility which they may with an humble confidence in his unlimited goodness expect and claim at his divine hand when they are reduced to that state as is convenient for the reception of such a supernaturall gift 14. Our fourteenth conclusion therefore shall be that God hath given to his Church thus composed the holy Ghost to confirm it in the true faith and to preserve it from error and to Illuminate the understanding of it in right discerning the true sense of those Mysteries of faith that are cōmitted to the custody of it and to worke supernaturall effects of devotion and sanctifie in that Church And this I prove thus Considering that the doctrine of Christ is practical and aymeth at the working of an effect which is the reduction of mankind to beatitude and that mankinde comprehendeth not onely those that lived in that age when he preached but also all others that ever were since or shall be till the end of the world It is apparent that to accomplish that end it was necessary Christ should so effectually imprint his doctrine in their hearts whom he delivered it unto as it might upon all occasions and at all times infallibly expresse it selfe in action and in the delivery of it over from hand to hand should in vertue and strength of the first operation produce ever after like effects in all others Now to have this compleatly performed it was to bee done both by exteriour and by interiour means proportionable to the senses without and to the soule within The outward means were the miracles that hee wrought of which himselfe saith If I had not wrought those workes that no man else ever did they were not guilty of sinne but now they have no excuse or to this purpose and he promised the Apostles they should do greater then those And that miracles are the proper instruments to plant a new doctrine and faith withall the Apostle witnesseth when he saith that miracles are wrought for the unfaithfull not for the faithful and God himselfe told Moses that hee would once do some prodigy in his favour that the people might for ever after beleive what he said to them But it is manifest by the fall of the Apostles themselves that onely this exteriour means of miracles is not sufficient to engraft supernatural faith deep enough in mens hearts when as they upon Christs Passion not onely for fear through human frailty denied their master but had even the very conceit and belief of his doctrine exiled out of their hearts and understanding notwithstanding all the miracles they had seen him work in almost four years time they continually conversed with him which appeareth plainly by the discourse of the Disciples going to Emaus when they said we hoped c. and expressed their sadnesse for the contrary successe to their expectation and by saint Thomas his saying that he would not believe his resurrection unless he saw him and put his fingers into his wounds c. And by the rest of the Apostles that were so long before they would believe his resurrection as having given over the thought of his divinity and after his death considered him but as a pure man like other men Therefore it was necessary that some inward light should bee given them so clear and so strong and so powerfull as the senses should not be able to prevail against it but that it should overflowingly possesse and fill all their understandings and their souls and make them break out in exteriour actions correspondent to the spirit that steered them within And the reason is evident for while on the one side the senses discerne apparantly miracles wrought in confirmation of a doctrine and on the other side the same senses doe stifly contradict the very possibility of the doctrine which those miracles testify the soul within having no assistance beyond the natural powers shee hath belonging originally unto her is in great debate and anxiety which way to give her assent and though reason doe prevail to give it to the party of the present miracles yet it is with great timidity But if it happen that the course of those miracles be stopped then the particular seeming impossibilities of the proposed faith remaining alwaies alike lively in their apprehension and the miracles wrought to confirme it residing but in the memory and the representations of them wearing out daily more and more and the present senses and fantasy growing proportionably stronger and stronger and withall objecting continually new doubts about the reality of those miracles it cannot be expected otherwise but that the assent of the soul should range it selfe on the side of the impossibilities appearing to the present senses and renounce the doctrine formerly confirmed by miracles unlesse some inward and supernaturall light be given her to disperse all the mists that the senses raise against the truth of the doctrine Now the infusion of this light and fervour we call the giving of the holy Ghost which Christ himselfe foreknowing how necessary it was promised them assuring them that he would procure his father to send them the holy Ghost the spirit of truth that should for ever remain among them and within them and suggest unto their memory and instruct them in the right understanding of the faith he had preached unto them And this was prophesied long before of the state of the law of grace by Hieremy whose authority S. Paul bringeth to prove that the law of the Gospel was to be written by the holy Ghost in mens hearts and in their mindes and accordingly he calleth the faithful of the Corinthians The faith of Christ not written with inke but with the spirit of God nor graven in stony tables but in the fleshy ones of their hearts And in performance of this prophesy of Christs promise the history telleth us that on the tenth day after the ascension of Christ when all his disciples who were then all his Church and were to preach and deliver it to all the world were assembled together the holy Ghost was given them and that in so full a measure as they not onely were confirmed so perfectly in their faith as they never after admitted the least vacillation therein but they immediately casting away all other desires and thoughts were inflamed with admirable love of God and broke out into his prayses and into a vehement ardor of teaching and converting others and when by reason of that zeal of theirs any thing happened to them contrary to flesh and blood humane nature as persecutions ignominies corporall punishments and even death it selfe they not only shunned it as before but greedily rann to meet and imbrace it and joyed and gloryed in it all which were effects of the holy Ghost residing in them and filling their minds and governing their soules Where upon by the way we may note that in what Church soever we find not a state of