is in the law of the Lord who make it his delights entertainments for that man wil yeeld the fruit of good works like a tree which is planted by the River side CHAP. XVII Of some means for the obtaining of this second degree of Humility and particularly of the example of Christ our Lord. THey ordinarily use to assign two several wayes or means for the obtaining of moral vertues The one is of reasons and considerations which may convince and animate us thereunto and the other is exercise of the acts of that vertue whereby we may acquire the habits thereof To begin with the first kind of means one of the most principal and efficatious considerations whereof we may help our selves towards being humble or rather the most principal and most efficatious of them all is the example of Christ our Lord our Master and our Redeemer whereof though we have already said somewhat there will ever be enough to add The whole life of Christ our Lord was a most perfect Original of Humility from the very time of his birth to that other of his expiring upon the Crosse But yet to this purpose St Augustine doth particularly ponder the example which he gave us by washing the feet of his Disciples upon that Thursday of the last supper when he was even upon the very brim of his passion and death Christ our Lord saith Saint Augustine was not content with having given us the examples of his whole life past nor yet with them also which he was shortly to give in his passion the same being then so close at hand and wherein he was to appear according to the Prophet Isaiah the very last or lowest of men and as the royal Prophet David saith the very reproach and scorn of men yea the very outcast of the world But our Lord Jesus knowing that his hour was now at hand wherein he was to passe out of this World to his Father he carried a great love to his Disciples was resolved that he would expresse it now towards the end of his life And supper being ended he rises from the Table he puts off his upper garment he girds a towel to himself he puts water into a basen he prostrates himself at the feet of his Disciples yea and of Judas too he washes them with those divine hands of his and he wipes them with the towel wherewith he was girt O unspeakable mistery What is this O Lord which thou art doing saith the Apostle Saint Peter Thou O Lord to wash my feet The Disciples undestood not then what he did saith our Lord You understand not now what I am doing but yet ere long I will declare it to you He returns to the Table and declares the mistery thus at large You cal me Master and Lord and you say well for so I am If then I being your Master and your Lord have humbled my self and have washed your feet you are also to do the like to one another I have given you an example to the end that you may learn of me and do as I have done This is the mistery that you learn to humble your selves as I have humbled my self The importance of this vertue of humility is on the one side so great and so is the difficulty also on the other that our Lord was not content with so many examples as he had already given us and haâ—â— then so neer at hand to give but that as onâ— who wel knew our weaknes and who perfectly understood the malignity of that peccant humor wherof our nature was sick he would needs give us this strong Physick against it and put it amongst the chief Legacies of his last Will and Testament that so it might remain the more deeply imprinted in all our hearts Upon those words of Christ our Lord Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart Saint Augustine exclaims thus O soveraign Doctrine O Master Lord of all men into whom death entred by means of pride what is it O Lord which thou wilt have us come and learn of thee That I am meek and humble of heart This is that which you are to learn of me In this are the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of the Father summed up which have been hidden in thee that thou tell us for the highest point that we must come and learn of thee that Thou art meek and humble of heart it is so high and great a thing for a man to make himself little that unlesse thou who art so great hadst made thy self little no man could have learnt it of thee yea saith Saint Augustine so great and so hard a thing it is for a man to humble himself and make himself little that if God himself had not humbled himself and become little men would never have been brought to humble themselves For there is nothing so deeply conveyed into their very bowels and so incorporated as it were into their hearts as this desire of being honored and esteemed and therefore was all this necessary to the end that we might grow to be humble for such Physick did the infirmity of our pride require and such a wound such a cure But if such a receipt as this for God to have made himself man and to have humbled himself so much for our sakes will not recover us and cure our pride I know not saith Saint Augustine what will ever be able to do it If to see the Majesty of our Lord so abased and humbled will not suffice to make us ashamed of desiring to be honored and esteemed and that hereupon we yet will not grow to a thirst of being despised and abased with him and for the love of him I know not what will ever serve the turn Holy Guericus being amazed and convinced by the great example of our Lords humility exclaims and expresses that which it is reason that we should also say and draw from hence Thou hast overcome O Lord thou hast overcome my pride thine example hath bound me hand and foot behold I render and deliver up my self into thy hands for an everlasting slave It is also an admirable conceit which the glorious Saint Bernard brings to this purpose The Son of God saith he saw two creatures and both were generous noble and capable of that blessed state to which they had been created by Almighty God and they both lost themselves because they would needs be like him God created the Angels and instantly Lucifer had a mind to be like Almighty God And then he carried others after him and God cast them instantly down to Hell and so of Angels they became devils God also created man instantly the devil struck him with his own leaprosie and poyson They fell gluttonoully upon what he told them namely that they should be as God and then they broke the divine commandment and so became like the devil The Prophet Elisus said to his servant Giezi after he took the
have brought against the opinion and estimation of the World are good true they convince that all is but meer vanity and Wind but yet with all this I cannot by any means Win so much of my self as not to make some account thereof I would fain do it if I could but me thinks I know not how those kind of things transports and disquiers me strangely Wel then as no reasons and considerations are sufficient to free the fearful man from fear but that besides this we must entreat him to put his hand to work and bid him draw neer to feel touch those things which seemed to him to be bugbears sprights advise him to go sometime by night and alone to the same places where he thought he saw them that so he might find by experience that there was nothing indeed but that all was his imagination and apprehension that so by this means he may loose his fear so also for the making us give over the desire of opinion and estimation of the World the Saints affirm that no reasons or considerations are sufficient but that we must also use the means of action and of the exercise of Humility for this is the principal and most efficatious means which we for our parts can imploy towards the obtaining of this vertue Saint Basil saith that as Sciences and arts are acquired by practise so also are the moral vertues That a man may be a good Musitian a good Rethorition a good Philosopher and a good Workman in any kind let him exercise himself herein and he wil grow perfect And so also for obtaining the habit of Humility and all the rest of the moral vertues we must exercise our selves in the acts thereof and by this means we shall possesse them And if any man will tell me that for the composing and moderating our passions and the affections of the mind and for the obtaining also of vertue the considerations and reasons the documents and counsels of holy Scripture are sufficient he is deceived as Saint Basil saith This would be like him who should learn to build a house or coyn money and would never exercise himself therein but that all should passe in hearing the documents and rules of art in which case it is certain that he would never prove a good Workman And as little will he grow to possesse humility or any other vertue who will not exercise himself therein And in confirmation hereof the Saint brings that of the Apostle Saint Paul For not the hearers of the Law are just before God but the doers of the Law shall be justified Rom 2.13 It is not enough for this purpose to hear many documents and reasons but they must be put in execution For practise conduces more to this busines then all the speculation in the World And though it be most true that al vertue and every thing which is good must come to us from the hand of God and that we cannot compasse it by our own strength yet the same Lord who is to give it is pleased that we should help our selves by our own endeavours Saint Augustine upon those words of Christ our Lord. If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye also ought to wash one anothers feet Joh 13.14 saith that this is that which Christ our Lord intended to teach us by this example of washing his Disciples feet This is that O blessed Peter which thou didst not know when thou wouldst not consent that Christ should wash thy feet He promised that thou shouldst know it afterward and now that afterward is come and now thou shalt understand it And it is that if we will obtain the vertue of humility we must exercise our selves in the exterior acts thereof For I have given you an example to the end that you may do as I have done Since the omnipotent and soveraign Lord humbled himself since the Son of God abased and imployed himself in mean and lowly exercises washing the feet of his Disciples serving his blessed Mother and the holy Joseph and being subject and obedient to them in whatsoever they commanded let us learn of them and exercise our selves in humble and mean imployments and thus we shall come to obtain the vertue of Humility This is also that which Saint Bernard saith The humiliation of the extericur man is the way and means to obtain the vertue of Humility as patience is for the obtaining peace and reading or study for the obtaining knowledge And therefore if you will obtain the vertue of Humility donot fly from the exercise of humiliation for if you say that either you cannot or will not humble or abase your selves as little have you a mind to obtain the vertue of humility St. Augustine proves it very wel gives the reason why this exercise of humiliation is so useful important and necessary for the obtaining of true humility of heart The interiour and exteriour man are so interlaced and united together and the one depends so much upon the other that when the heart is humbled and abased the heart is stirred up towards the love of humility That humbling my self before my Brother and kissing his feet hath somewhat in it that poor and mean coat that low and base Office hath I know not what which goes ingenering and breeding Humility in the heart and if it be there already it conserves and increases it And thus Saint Dorotheus answers this question how a man with a poor and mean coat which belongs to the body may come to obtain the vertue of humility which inhabits the soul It is certain saith he that the body in many cases gives a good or ill disposition to the soul And so we see the soul hath one kind of disposition when the body is well and another when it is sick one when it is full fed and another when it is very hungry Now in the self same manner the soul vests it self with one kind of inclination when a man is seated upon a throne or upon a Horse richly adorned and with another when he sits upon the ground or is riding upon a jade and one kind of inclination it hath when he is set out in sumptuous cloaths and another when he is but covered with a poor coat Saint Basil also noted this very well and saith that as a gallant and shining attire lists up the hearts of Worldly men and ingenders in them certain sumes of vanity of proper estimation and pride so doth a poor and mean habit awake in the heart of religious men and of the servants of God an inclination to Humility and it breeds a disesteem of ones self and it makes men endure better to be despised And the Saint adds further That as Worldly men desire rich and glorious cloaths that so they may be the better known and the more honored and esteemed thereby so the good servants of God and such as are truly humble desire to be poor
on with desire to be honoured he who flies from being contemned and if he be is troubled at it is far from perfection though be should work wonders for in fine his vertue hath no foundation CHAP. III. Wherein it is declared more partieularly how humility is the foundation of all vertues and this is done by discoursing of the cheif of them TO the end that it may the better be seen how true this sentence of the Saints is That humility is the foundation of all the vertues and how necessary this foundation is for them all we will breifly discourse upon the cheif of them And to begin with the Theologicall vertues Humility is necessary towards faith For faith supposeth a submisse and humble understanding subduing as the Apostle Saint Paul saith our understanding to the obedience of the faith of Christ our Lord. And so a proud understanding gives difficulty and impediment against the receiving of the saith and Christ our redeemer declared as much to the Pharises in this manner How will you be able to believe who receive glory â—rom one another and seek not for that glory which is of God alone Joh 5.44 And not only is humility necessary for the first receiving of faith but for the conservation also thereof And it is generally the Doctrine of the Doctors and Saints that pride is the beginning of all heresies when a man esteems his opinion and judgment so much that he prefers it before the common voice of the Saints and of the Church and so he comes to fall upon heresies And so the Apostle saith 2 Tim 3. I give you to understand that in the latter dayes there will be dangerous times for men will be great lâ—vers of themselves covetous puffed up and proud and he imputes heresies to puffing up and pride as St Augustine declares very well The vertue also of hope is conserved and maintained by humility because the humble man finds and feels his necessity and knows that of himself he can do nothing and so he resorts to God more earnestly and places all his hope in him Charity also and the love of God is quickened and kindled by humility because the humble man knows that whatsoever he hath comes to him from the hand of God and that himself is very far from deserving it and by this consideration he is much inflamed towards the love of God What is man said the holy Job that thou shouldest remember him and set thy heart upon him and vouchsafe him so many benefits and favours I to be so wicked towards thee and thou to be so good towards me I to be so carnest in offending thee day by day and thou in doing me favours every hour This is one of the most principall motives whereof the Saints have ever been wont to serve themselves that so they might be much inflamed with the love of God For when they most considered their own indignity and misery they found themselves most obliged to serve God who was pleased to place his eyes upon so great basenes so said the blessed Virgin My soul doth magnifie our Lord because he vouch safed to look upon the basenes of his slave or handmaid As for the charity of men towards their neighbours it is casily to be seen how necessary humility is For one of those things which is most wont to cool and lessen our love to our Neighbours is to judge of their faults and to hold them to be full of imperfections and defects But the humble man is very far from this for his eyes are ever cast in upon his own errors and he never considers any thing in others but their vertues and so he holds all other men to be good and himself only to be imperfect and faulty and unworthy to live amongst his brethren And from hence is wont to grow a great estimation respect and love to them all Besides the humble man is not troubled that all men should be preferred before him and that much accompt is made of them and so himself alone is forgotten or that things of greater moment are recommended to the care of others and the least and meanest to him No envy hath any place amongst humble men for envy springs from pride and therefore if there be humility there will be no envy or contention or any thing which may weaken a mans love to his neighbors From humility also grows patience which is necessary to all men in this life For the humble man acknowledges his faults and sins and considers himself to be worthy of any punishment and no affliction comes to him which he esteems to be lesse than it should have been in respect of his faults and so he holds his peace and knows not how to complain but rather saith with the Prophet Micha I will suffer willingly that punishment which God shall send me because I have sinned against him And so as the proud man is ever complaining and still thinks that men do him wrong though they do him right and that they treat him not as he deserves so the man who is humble though indeed you do him wrong perceives it not and judges it not to be such nor doth he imagine that you ever give him any offence nay rather it seems to him that you let him live at a great ease and howsoever you proceed with him he is very well satisfied that you treat him better then he deserves Humility is also a mighty means towards patience And therefore the wise man advising him who means to serve Almighty God to prepare himself to suffer temptations and disgusts and to arm himself with patience assigns him for the means thereof that he should be humble Carry thy heart abased and then suffer Receive all that in good part which comes upon thee though it be very contrary to thy sense and indure it though it put thee to pain But how shall this be done What kind of armour is that which you mean to put upon me to the end that I may not feel affliction or if I feel it that I may be able to support it Possesse humility and so you shall have patience From humility doth also spring that kind of peace which is so much desired by all and which is so necessary for such as are Religious So saith Christ our Saviour Be meek and humble and you shall possesse great rest and peace both within your selves and with your brethren And as amongst the proud there are ever contentions and disputes and brauls saith the wise man so amongst such as are humble there can be no contention or strife except only that holy strife and contention who may be the inseriour and may give all kind of honour and advantage to his Neighbour These are good contentions and strifes which as they grow from true humility and fraternal charity so they also strengthen and conserve the same That Humility is also necessary for the preserving of chastity we have many examples in the histories
de Borgia that no one thing troubled him so much as when he found himself to be honoed for a Saint and servant of God And being asked once why he afflicted himself so much for this himself not desiring it nor procuring it he made answer that he feared the account which he was to give to God When he found himself to be so far another man from that which he was conceived to be which is that which we said before of Saint Gregory After this manner are we to be very deeply grounded in the knowledge of our selves that so the wind of praise and estimation of men may not blow us up and draw us out of our nothing But we must rather be the more ashamed thereof and confounded thereby considering how false those praises are and that we have no such vertue in us as may deserve them and that we be not such as the world conceives and publishes and as indeed we ought to be CHAP. XV. Of the fourth step which is to desire to be disesteemed and despised and to be glad thereof THe fourth step for arriving to the perfection of humility is for a man to desire to be despised and disesteemed and be glad of dishonors injuries and contempt Saint Bernard saith The man who is truly humble desireth to be held by others in smal account and not to be accounted humble but unworthy and mean and to be glad thereof This is the perfection of the second degree of humility And for this reason humility is compared to Nard which is a smal and odoriferous hearb according to that of the Canticles My spikenard sendeth forth the smel thereof Cant 1.12 For then doth the Odour of this Nard of humility extend and impart itself to others when not only you put little esteem upon your self but when you also desire and like wel that you be despised and disesteemed by others Saint Bernard notes that there are two kinds of humility One is when a man considering himself and perceiving his misery and basenes is convinced by the truth and holds himself in no esteem and resolves that he is worthy to be despised and dishonored by all men He saith that the former humility namely that of the understanding was not in Christ our Lord for it was not possible for him to think that he deserved to be held in mean account and much lesse to be dishonored and despised Because he understood himself perfectly wel and knew that he was true God and equal to his Father But the second kind of humility was in him namely that of the heart and wil. For in regard of the great love which he bare us he was pleased to abuse and disauthorise himself and to seem vile and contemptible in the eyes of men And he saith Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart But as for us we are to have both these humilities because the first without the second is deceitful and false To desire to seem and to be held for other then that which really you are is falshood and deceit He who really is humble and indeed thinks basely and disesteems and despises himself is also to be glad that others may despise and disesteem him This is that which we are to learn of Christ our Lord. Consider how cordially and with how ardent desire and will he embraced dishonor and contempt for love of us For he was not satisfied with abasing and emptying himself by making himself man and taking the form of a servant upon him he who was is the Lord of Heaven and earth but he would needs assume the form and habit of a sinner As saith the Apostle God sent his Son in the habit and similitude of a sinful man He took not sin because sin could not be in him but he took the mark and sign of sinners for he would be circumcised as a sinner and baptized amongst Publicans and sinners as if he had been one of them and would be lesse esteemed then Barrabas and judged to be a worse man and more unworthy of life then he To conclude the desire which he had to suffer affronts and scorns and reproach for love of us was so very great that he thought the hour to stay very long wherin al inebriated and sick with love he might remain naked like another Noah to be scorned by men With baptism saith he am I to be baptised which was a baptism of blood and how am I in pain till I may be able to put it in execution with desire have I desired that the hour may once arrive wherein there shal be nothing for me but buffets and spurns as to any slave For he knew that they would spit upon his face as a blasphemer and cloath him with white as a fool and with purple as a counterfeit King and above all that they would load him with scourges which was the punishment of malefactors and murdering theeves and finally with the torment of the Crosse in the company of murderers which then was the most ignominious reproachful manner of death that could be found in the world This is that which Christ our Redeemer desired with so great desire As saith the Prophet in his name I was expecting reproach and affronts as one would expect somewhat which were very pleasing to him and were to give him much delight And the Prophet Jeremy saith he desired and thirsted after this hour that he might as a man may say even have his belly ful of reproaches and affronts and scorns as of things to which he carried an extreme appetite and of which he was very greedy and indeed they were most savory to him for the love of us But now if the Son of God desired dishonor and contempt with so great appetite and received them with so much contentment and gust for the love of us he having no way deserved them me thinks it should be no such strange matter for us who have so wel deserved all kind of dishonor and contempt to desire for love of him to be held for no other then what we are and to rejoyce in suffering those disgraces and affronts which we deserve as Saint Paul did when he said For which reason I rejoyce in my infirmities and injuries and affronts and necessities and persecutions and all kind of difficulties for Christ our Lord. And writing to the Philippians and treating of his imprisonment he desires them to bear him company in the joy he had to see himself in chains for Christ our Lord. He had such an abundance of joy in the persecutions and afflictions which he suffered that he had to spare for his friends and therefore he invited them to partake thereof with him This is that milk which the blessed Apostles sucked from the brest of Christ And so we read thus of them They were ful of joy rejoycing when they were carried Prisoners before their Presidents and into their Synagogues and esteemed it for a great
is abominable to thee in them who have it through opinion of their own excellent beauty so as had Absalom whom thou sufferedst to be hanged up by the hair of which he went so proud It is detestable to thee in them who lift up themselves by reason of their great Riches and Dominions as did Nebuchadnezzar whom therefore thou dravest out to live feed among bruit Beasts It is odious to thee in them who are opinionated of their own wisdome as was manifested in Achitophel whom thou sufferedst to become his own executioner by a shamefull death because his counsell was not followed Thou hatest it in words thou hatest it in Vertue and Goodnesse it self knowing it to be the moth and canker thereof as thou taughtest us in the presumptuous Pharisee sending him away despised and rejected onely because he vaunted before thee his own worth and set forth his own Praises And therefore did thy servant Tobit counsel Let not Pride entet at any time into thy understanding nor into any thing thou thinkest sayest or doest To consider this O Lord by so many examples evinced that Pride is so much abominable to thee and so surely and sharply punished in them in whom thou findest it were more then sufficient if I had not lesse then no understanding to breed an abhorring of it in my heart and an utter restraint thereof not onely in deeds and words but the inwardest thoughts of my heart For though I were Valiant yet should I not be like Goliah if I had Command yet it would be much less then Holophernes though a Favourite yet could I not match Haman and also if I might passe others yet how far must I fall short of Absalom in Beauty in Majesty and Power of Nebuchadnezzar in Wisdome of Achitophel in Holiness and all other Excellency of the Angels before their fall and yet all these in their several kinds wherein their hearts were lifte up were by thee brought down to the lowest of shame and confusion and to the height of misery and calamity to the proportion of their Pride and vanity But if to this I shall add the consideration of mine own frame and the condition of the things themselves for which I am lifted up in mine own conceit either I must leave all Pride or else clean quit all claim to the Understanding of a man For my being is but earth and a clod thereof so frail so poor and beggarly that I can neither cloath my self without stripping others nor maintain mine own without taking the lives from Birds Beasts or Fishes Nor can I breath without air nor see without light nor hear without sound nor live at all without the help of thy meanest creatures And besides all this so encompassed with necessity so environed with wants of hunger of thirst of sleep so tired with labour so beset with dangers so overwhelmed with miseries as if I rightly take the estimate of my self I must adjudge my self of all thy other works the most wretched and contemptible And what alas if I truly weigh them are those things which make me swel but lighter and less worth then vanity it self Every injury of weather distempers my health the lightest sickness abates my strength the least pains overthrow my contents but a few hours want of sustenance enfeebles me a few dayes kils me Riches slip away like water from between my fingers and if not rightly used they a here to sorrows and increase torments here after in Hel. Honour vanisheth like smoak Nobility is baseness except it be set in virtue Applause of the world passeth like a dream in them that give and take it Favour of Princes lasteth no longer then themselves and they perish when they least think it Friendship is flattery and private Interest Love is unsound in substance â—and fickle in durance Wisdome is folly and Learning is weariness And if the account be right cast our Knowledge amounts to no more then what we do So that on all hands if I rightly consider there is no ground but for Humility no colour but for Lowliness and in their several kinds all things cry out that I have in me infinite matter of confusion and shame nothing at all to glory or prise my self for onely my folly which as I am is more then all the rest in me the cause to puff me up That it is and onely that that makes me lofty presumptuous self-conceited vain Lord heal me of this frenzy and restore me again to a right understanding that with that Humility of spirit which I ought I may henceforth serve thee esteeming my self of all others the least towards thee nothing Amen FINIS