thy self no power to act nor wisdome to invent nor wil to wish greater matters then what is already done for me for no remedy more noble and effectual could be invented to give redress to mankind then the Incarnation of the Son of God which was a mercy beyond expression O immense beneficence and excess of love to which the divine omnipotency submitted and yealded it self as it were overcome thou hast gone beyond all the stratagems of God and put a stint to these his sacred and unlimited desires why dost thou not make use of my infirmity suspend my thoughts bounding my desires in such sort that I may endeavour think and wish nothing besides thee we thy children o Lord whom thou hast nurturd up by creation dispised thee how can we whom thou hast honoured and exalted even to be sharers of thy majesty how can we I say contemn and rather not love thee who for love of us vilified thy self so far as to partake of our vilenes o Lord how comfortable is this benefit of our redemption to me when I behold thee groaning under a heavy burthen of afflictions joynt-sufferer in our miseries and all this out of mere love and affection to us couldst not thou contrive some other meanes of redeeming us with less lyablenes to the rigour of justice couldst not thou have created some nobly-qualifyed Angel who might undergo at least the paines of hel yea couldst not thou thy self even complying with the strict tenour of justice have accomplishd it without such a world of torments but thou didst it to take up and possess the whole extent of our love Perchance if our redeemer had been different from our Creator that is one redeemd us another created us we should have had more love for our Redeemer then Creator and for that reason thou wouldst be both the one and other so to become the object of all our love and that this thy love might be more conspicuous thou didst not ayme at a bare sufficiency or equality but at an over-abundance and inundation that in such a boundles sea we might see thy love which knowes no bound Thou who madest all things in number weight and measure thou who being Author of nature rejectest superfluities why wouldst thou as it were confound all in thy redemption transported besides thy self and thy ordinary manner of proceeding thou observedst no number of torments no weight of thy pretious blood no measure of necessary satisfaction but in an overmeasure of thy sufferings thou gavest us a superabundant redemption measuring out all without any measure at all Surely the reason was because an immense love was chief Architect in so great a work in which work thou intendedst to render thy love conspicuously visible we that are so incredulous not believing it out of other thy feats benefits But though thou proceededst with such a loving extravagancy thou art not changed from thy former principles what thou wast before thou keepest proportion in all thy works and here also didst thou observe a meane but it was to do all without meane because thy love is so otherwise there would be no exact equality In like manner I behold here thy infinity for as much as thou carryest thy self without any restriction or proportion at all This benefit forceth love from me because it convinceth thee to be a lover out of thy other benefits I conjecture thee to love in this I see it The rest hinder not but that one may judge them to proceed from some other motive then love of this none can suspect other but that it is done with immense love Although the rest excluded love nothing would be derogated from thy majesty nor the divine honour suffer detriment here would be a defect of congruency if we regard the autority of the divinity supposing they should flow from any other fountain The rest though done without love would yet be worthy of prayse and reverence but this if love interceded not would seem an eye-sore I wil not say in God but even in man a thing worthy of dispraise and contempt But because it implies an impossibility that thou do any thing less beseeming thy self I am ascertaind beyond all peradventure that thou lovest me It would be deemd a kingly busines to maintain uphold enrich and be each way beneficial even to those who deserved no love this I say would well become the highest majesty but if a great monarck should debase himself to mean drudgeries should consort with scullions cooks the grooms of his stable and dressing himself in their liveries should sit at their table who would not sleight him and account him no better then a mad man nothing could be pretended for his excuse but that he were transported with love yealded for a time to this transportment so to work upon the affection of the party beloved or used it as a stratagem to bring his desires to a happy issue The Philosophers themselves confess loue to be so priviledged that it can never be blemished with infamy yea that it wipes of all these staines which if contracted without love would be held undecent and ugly but love turns them all into merit and transformes infamy into glory Thou o Lord canst do nothing unbeseeming thy divinity wherfore whatsoever thou didst by evacuating thy autority and stooping to the condition of an abject creature all was done out of love to me Lock up in thy hart o my soul this illustrious pledg of divine love divine humility which by loves prerogative is the highest glory Love excuseth the majesty of God the same exalteth the humility of God This love forceth a reciprocal love from me fire enkindles fire and love provokes to love let thy love o Lord enflame me with love of thee thou who camest to send this fire but couldst thou not o Lord send it without coming thy self and becoming Incarnate why was it necessary that thou shouldst become man to enflame men was it because fire doth not operate but upon an approximated subject for fire in the purity of its nature and in its element is sayd not to be active nor enkindle any solid matter but it is requisite that it be in a foraign subject renderd visible so thou o Lord though in the refindnes of thy purest nature thou be love and a burning fire yet thou didst not enflame man but by becoming man like as elementary fire is not active upon wood unles it be first enkindled in wood or some other matter more gross and condense then is the firmament as then it wil enkindle other wood it becoming a conspicuous and visible flame Thy visible love thou being made man cannot but enflame and set man all on fire That benefit is much heightned which anticipates all intreaty and is conferd without any intercession and much more if it come unhoped for or unexpected for blessings unlookd for affect one more feelingly most of all if they prevent all
spirit he alone that is in grace is a living image of God quickned with his spirit and as it were the child and image of his parent by participation and communication of nature What a deal of difference is there and how far falls a material picture or statue of some king short of the kings own beloved Son the noblest essence and natural perfection of the highest Archangel falls much shorter of a soul that is in grace for there is no substance or nature but it represents God only after a dead manner no otherwise then an Emperour is represented by a piece of wood or marble or a painted tablet Among those that partake of the same nature there is not so much a similitude as an identity or selfsamenes therfore the H. Fathers stile one that is in grace the same with God like as the father and the Son in humane generations are accounted the same person The natural Son of God himself said let all be one as thou o father in me and I in thee that they may also be one in us For although each just man besides the just of justs IESVS becomes only such by adoption there is a greater tye unity betwixt him God then is found betwixt natural parents and their children The children of men have only a smal parcel of base matter and their parents flesh but he that is in the degree of grace receives the whole divine spirit within him Therfore the adoptive filiation of God is a more sublime manner of filiation then that which is naturally found among men O man rejoyce in this thy dignity and do not degenerate from the divine condition thou art raysd to have a care of Gods honour be zealous in his quarrel if not because he is thy God at least because he is thy father and all that he hath shal be thine Children because they hope to inherit their fathers patrimony follow their fathers busines thou being heir to God must not carry thy self like a stranger or alien Although God had not given us our creation yet for this only that he adopted us his children we owe him a cordial love and must discharge our duty in things appertaining to his service with a great deal of zeal O most loving father why am not I touched with a deep resentment for being enrolld into thy family and tasting so singularly of thy providence Wild beasts out of love to their yong ones expose themselves to a hazard of death and what wilt thou do who hast given such a remonstrance of love even for us who condemnd thy natural Son as to take us for thy children O what confidence ought a soul to have in this filiation although God were not a God of providence yet he would be watch fully careful sweetly sollicitous over him that is in grace no les then a mother in widowhood over her only and beloved child yea far greater then this is Gods affection and vigilancy in regard of the just To this we may add that by grace we become the friends of God IESVS himself utterd these words sweeter then honey drops ye are my friends For by grace there accrues a certain dignity betwixt God and man not of a disproportionable degree but so dignifying that it elevates him to the order of things divine and of a mortal man makes him a friend and favorite of the immortal king Although we did not become the children of God yet for this sole respect that grace entitles us his beloved its worth exceeds all valuation A friend is preferrd before a kins man and is held more trusty then nature it self allies are often neglected or become the objects of hatred friends are alwaies beloved men do more for their friend then for their brother what then shal we conceive of friendship with God There are two things which endear much alliance and love and both of them are found in grace To be loved by God is a rich mine of heavenly gold and a magazine of all divine blessings The love of God is not â—oytering and sluggish but most effectual and operative To love one is to wish him wel in God it is the self same to wil and to do and consequently whomsoever he loveth he enricheth him with the treasures of heaven The love of God is an ever flowing conduit or rather a river of celestial blessings If he exposd his life for his enemies what will he do for his friends There is no incongruity or inconsequence to be found in God wherfore if he did so much for those that hated him he wil do incredible things for those that love him carrying a special providence over them If he have so much care of our enemies as to command us to love them what wil he have of his own friends He loved us so affectionately when we were yet his foes that he seemd to love us more then himself and if he did this when we were his enemies wil he do les when he both stiles and accounts us his friends Thou wouldst be glad to have a friend as faithfull to thee as Ionathas was to David but all humane fidelity is a meer toy yea to be accounted but treachery in regard of that which God shewes on thy behalf Men hold it no smal favour to be taken notice of by a terrene king what wil it be to be loved so affectionately loved by God wilt thou know o my soul how signally remarkable Gods friendship fidelity is He is so enamourd upon his friends that he cannot endure to be separated from them If his immensity were confind only to heaven he would relinquish it to come to one that is in grace nor would he ever be from him but would make himself his coÌ„stant sejourner that our society may be with the father his Son Iesus Christ by the mediation of the H. Ghost who is diffusd in our harts Deer and lambs and pigeons are sociable creatures they willingly sort with one another love those whom they know to be of the same kind God is sociable the Son of God is a lamb the divine spirit is tame and affable it loves those that become divine affecting the fellowship of his nature and as it were of the same feather with him If the most sacred Humanity of Christ took such complacence in any one as to be alwaies present with him what should we think of such a singular priviledg and why do we not admire that the Dinity never departs from the just man but becomes his unseparable companion and not only dwels with him as his fellow sejourner but even in him in whom he placeth his tabernacle much more willingly then in the sun What parent so loves his child as with his good wil never to be from him but alwaies in his company yea such a one assignes him a tutour and commits him to his custody But God our parent and friend entrusts us to no body else he
Of evill many become good we must not disdain them this is to love all for goodnes this is to love all in God when we love for that which cannot be loved without God as goodnes justice vertue and the like If thou didst love the goodnes of God thou wouldst love all in God and covet that all loved him and wouldst put to a helping hand and be sollicitous in this behalf Of a much different strain is the zeal of humane and divine love Humane goodnes is finite and narrow bounded not suffising for all nay not even for many but les wil fall to each ones share therfore men endeavour what they can that none els love what 's dear to them but because the goodnes of God is infinite and more then abundantly sufficient for all and our love of such a limited condition that it cannot correspond to so great goodnes therfore Gods desire is that each one love it and approve our love and cooperate towards it to the end they may discharg and satisfy for that goodnes which we are not able with any love of ours to equalize Thou lovest God imprudently unles thy desire be that all love him for thou must love him more then thy self thy desire is that all love thee though thou be so very bad why are thy wishes on Gods behalf more barren and bounded he being so extremely good O infinite goodnes of God who loved me so much the meanest and very outcast of sinners that being not content to love me thou wouldst moreover that all should love me and commanded it too why shal not I covet that all love thee and procure it to the utmost of my power yea thou hast obliged all by thy precept blood that they should love me no less then thou lovedst me and every one loves himself Give me grace that I also may observe these examples of love that I may love all Thou saidst this is my precept that you love one another as I loved you And again thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Thou o Lord lovedst me eer I loved thee thou o Lord lovedst me not for any commodity redounding to thee but to me thou lovedst me with an immense love for none hath greater charity then this that one give his soul for his friends thou didst love me with a perseverant love thou art he who when he loved his who were in the world he loved them to the end These are the conditions with which thou lovedst me and must be the rule conformably to which I must love others O my soul learn love from the love of Christ love them as thy own life whom Christ loved more then his and wil in then be loved and worshipd If Christ lay sick in bed thou wilt not deem it indecency that he be supposed languishing for our good who for our salvation took really upon him our languours or pinchd with hunger and some other poor body lay also sick in another bed and were pressed with the same want and thou shouldst demand of Christ whether of the two he would have thee to relieve first himself or that other party I believe he would piously answere that other for Christ himself would defraud his own mouth of meat to asswage a poor mans hunger Serve then and reverence Christ in such a one if thou canst not do it in fact do it at least by prayer and compassion not only in corporal necessities but much more in spiritual God prizeth so highly an almes bestowd on the body that he promiseth heaven for its reward nor assignes any other cause of acquitting them in the dreadful day of doom how much more wil he esteem an almes bestowd on the soul for which he daignd to dye o the infinit charity of God o most loving Saviour who gavest thy soul for sinners grant that I may love their soules as thou lovedst them I wil take a pattern from thy love to know how I am to love those whom thou lovedst and not from my own neyther wil I love my neighbour as I loved my self for then I shal love him but untowardly I knew not how to love my self how can I love others How could I love my self who loved my own wil who loved iniquity but I wil love my neighbour as I ought to love my self desiring thy wil may be accomplishd in him and he more plentifully enrichd with thy grace that all may serve thee most fervently and adore thee in spirit and truth THE IV. BOOK The I. Chapter How ungratefull we are to God HOW unhappy is our hart in thy benefits o happines of Saints since a slender courtesy afforded us by some poor miscreant yea even by a savage creature stirs us up to an act of benevolence and yet we are not struck through love into an amazement of the immense beneficence of thy benefical nature how comes this to pass that if a man had done it we should deem it a huge favour and for this very reason that God does it though he do incomparably more we sleight the benefit and seek not to shew our selves grateful doth water loose its nature because it is in its center the sea and not in some sorry vessel shal it forfeit the nature of a benefit because God is the authour of it whose nature is to be beneficial we should rather argue thus it is water because it is drawn out of the sea Can heat because it is in the fire be thought not to becalefactive and that only to be so which is in a forraign and violent subject the ardour of fire is more effectual and warmes more intensely then heat in wood so the blessings from God are more benefical then those from men because God sourceth them It is the nature of gâ—â—â—nes to be benefical as it is of fire to heat â—â—neficence in men is nothing so vigorous or taking because it is not so proper to their nature indigence only being connatural to them Water is purer in the fountain then in the stream and benefits derived from God are more refined then those from men who for the most part mar the nature of a benefit Why then shal blessings loose their prerogative and respect because they are imparted by God which though much meaner if they proceeded from any contemptible man unles we expressed our gratitude for them we could not have the face to appear before men but should blush with confusion so far as to be ashamed of ourselves and become infamous in our own conceit and yet because they are from God we hold our selves priviledgd to be ungrateful and dare without blushing appear before him and his Angels Why are guifts les valuable and of an inferiour rank because they come from God since in them alone are verified all the conditions of being truly beneficial and giving us relief in our greatest distress is a benefit more unhappy for flowing from the fountain of all happines Why do we
wishes and desires for nothing befalls us more agreeably and to our harts-content then what is given without the expense of so much as a wish now what must that needs be which forestals all kind of expectancy what wil that be which could not so much as enter into our thought such a one is this benefit and unexpected Sacrament of our redemption which if any one before it was intimated to us had begd to be done after the manner it is done his prayers would have been thought blasphemy his hope a mad rashnes his wish a sacrilegious wil his fancy impiety An unexpected guift is most grateful what wil that be which was never so much as conceyted thy beneficence indulgently granted what our indigency fancyd impossible But above all the frontispice and inscription of love which this benefit carryes engraven that being the prizer and taxer of guifts doth most affect me all guifts are testimonials and credentials of love what more creditable then this Guifts are not rated according to their bulk but the remonstrance of love that accompanies them This is an immense favour which that it may stand in the rank of benefits not of disgraces it carryes in its front in capital letters the immense love of God O Lord if I be endebted to thee whatsoever I am for my creation what shal I owe thee for thy love I acknowledg my self to owe more then my self yea as much more as thy greatnes exceeds my nothing thou who gavest thy self to me in thy nativity in thy life in thy death in thy resurrection and lastly in that sacred banquet of thy most holy body Effect that whatsoever was thine by creation and thou repairedst by redemption I may make it all thine by love I were not able to make condigne recompense for the least of thy benefits though by way of thāksgiving I should endure all the paines of hell for all eternity the reason is because it proceeds from the infitude of thy love which infinitly exceeds any infinity of recompense from creatures what then shal I be able to do for so many those so signal and chiefly for this in which thy boundles charity reflects more perspicuously then do the sun-beames The IV. Chapter How deservedly God is to be loved and chiefly for himself I Wil sum up the titles by which thou most justly exacts my love and the delinquencies of my tepidity and ingratitude I ought with all ardency to love thee o most amiable Lord both because thou art good and because thou art loving both because thou art a benefactour and my benefactour both because thou art my maker a patient endurer of my imperfections God is so good and beautiful in himself that though he had not made us the object of his love nor the subject of his beneficence nor the issue of his creation yet he were to beloved above all lovers benefactours and Creators whatsoever yea although he should hate us and be injurious on our behalf for that bottomles Ocean of goodnes beauty would expiate any injury whatsoever and much more effectually then doth beneficence If God had beheld thee hereto fore as an object of hatred and being at enmity had offended and sought revenge wouldst thou not pardon and even love him he making so large satisfaction by so many benefits so far as not to spare his own son but give him up to death suffering a privation of that the absence whereof causeth the greatest grief one must pardon an injury in him who is beneficial for the force of a benefit ought to extinguish revenge and anger but Gods previous merits being so great he deserves more then pardon If then his beneficence would suffice to clear him of alinjuriousnes much more would his goodnes the cause of beneficence it being more noble and sufficiently effectual to make amends for all losses and injuries sustaind by him Gods goodnes is greater then his beneficence because this flowes from that and effects rather fall short of their cause then otherwise One said of an ill deserving man I have receivd no good from thee but much harm and yet for all that I cannot but love thee O true goodnes let me rather say of thee then thy image of clay I cannot but love thee although I should receive no good from thee but much evil what then shal I say now when thou lovest me without meane and art beneficial above measure We sometimes love men whom we never saw nor heard off nor they us nor do they rank us in the legend of their love but we affect them merely for the report of their honesty we could take content in their conversation rejoyce at their sight and honour the very memory of them can the goodnes of God be unworthy of that which a mere humane goodnes claymes as its due A mans honesty may be such as to deserve love without any obligation of piety he not being our parent without any obligation of thankfulnes he not being our benefactour without any obligation of love he not loving us at all and shal not the authority of the divine goodnes suffice of it self to the same effect who is not moved with some sense of benevolence towards Ionathas for the loyalty of his friendship notwithstanding the emulation of his Fathers kingdome or towards David for his clemency in sparing the life of his enemy Saul though it had purchased him no les then a good empyre who hath not some affection for Iudas Machabaeus for his singular love towards his law and country and it is not any allyance with them or other particular interest but mere vertue that gaines this good wil. Sum up into one man the perfections of all others and suppose him composed all of miracles let him have the wisdome of Salomon the fortitude of Sampson the beauty of Absolon the fidelity of Ionathas the meeknes of David the fortune of Iosue and as loving towards his people as Moyses who would not be ambitious of that mans friendship or covet once at least to treat and converse with him of how dul a rellish would that man be thought who did not take gust in his acquaintance even prescinding from all hopes of gain o immense God thou art an aggregate of all good things and the total sum of all goodnes why do not we love thee and aspire to thy familiarity o Lord he that loves not thee upon the mere score of thy goodnes how ill-rellished is he how baseminded how unwise he that admires not it alone to the full how ridiculous let us suppose our selves created independently of God and that we should hear of him as of one that ruld in another world what we now believe who would not covet to have such a God who would not admire and love his goodnes and carriage towards the men of that his world whose happines we might wel envy his goodnes then is not one whit the les for his being Creatour neyther ought
our admiration and love towards him to decrease upon that pretense A very forcible motive also to make us love God is because he is of a loving nature No ingredient is more operative in producing love then love it self we carry a good wil towards wicked men merely upon this score that they seem to love us and we take a kind of complacence in being loved by dogs although God were not good nor our benefactor nor Creator yet because he loves he were to be loved and chiefly because he is such an ardent lover The greatnes of which love is renderd perspicuous by the greatnes of its guifts what a love must that be by which he so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son for its redemption o men what can you admire if you do not admire this that God should love the meanest of creatures with such a tender and feeling hart But let us grant that God neyther had lov'd â—s nor made us nor been beneficial to us it is our part at least to love him because he was so to others If the vertuous actions of men deserve praise at the hands even of a stranger or Barbarian and force a kind of benevolence from them shal so many feats of Gods beneficence deserve les their excess both in number and quantity amounting to an infinitude an upright and beneficial man is loved by every one even those that have not tasted his beneficence but although God had left no great monument of his liberality to others yet because he hath towards us although it proceeded not from the motive of love which cannot be done without some love we were still bound to love him yea although he were neyther good nor loving nor beneficial to us or others which nevertheles implyes an impossibility for that sole reason that he made us he were worthy of all love and respect Our Parents although they be wicked though they themselves nursd us not up yet they are to be loved and reverenced souldiers spend their lives and blood for their lawful king though otherwise notoriously naughty God is Father of all things and the lawful head of the world Neyther is his patience a light shaft to wound us with love he tolerating and pardoning us by it while we play the impudent delinquents The patience of an offender and harmer in accepting punishment and standing in a preparation of mind to admit revenge and penalty for the wrong turnes the anger of the party offended into benevolence and how can the patience of an unjust offender force benevolence from one justly displeased and not the patience of the party offended obtain love of him that offends unjustly O Lord with how good title doth my ingratitude and thy pardon exact my love but if this alone be not weighty enough to sway the ballance add to it that he is our Father our benefactour yea and beneficial towards all how much am I bound to love thee whose merits on my behalf are innumerable and love boundles But these impulsives are not the most convincing though they be severe exacters of my love I am much more engaged to love thee for thy sole benevolence wherewith thou lovest me then for all thy other benefits besides for that is the source of them all and consequently more to be prizd and thy love is so far from being exhausted that it is forcible enough if need were to redouble thy benefits and multiply them without stint if they which already abound suffised not for my salvation Thy love is equivalent not only to thy benefits already conferd but even to those in possibility if any greater be possible and comprizeth them all in it self yea if we may use the manner of speech even impossible ones for true love is not confind to the limits of a real power but imaginary wishes which though they have no place in God by reason of the perfect fecundity and allpowerfulnes of his nature the excess of his love is not therfore any whit diminished but â—e are as much endebted to him as if they were The sole love then of God alone is a more convincing motive of love then his boundles beneficence for that comprehendeth all his benefits not only now actual but possible and impossible if any such were unfesible to God There is yet another more pregnant cause of loving him then all the precedent for if we owe him more love for his love to us then for his benefits because these are only its issue and so many sparks leaping from that glowing furnace of divine charity much more must we love him for his goodnes this being the cause of love How great must that goodnes be which is mother of so numerous a progeny of loves and the stock from whence sprout so many benefits yea we owe not only incredible love to the divine goodnes for the present affection he beares us but much greater on our parts for the love he would bear us if we would but dispose our selves better and become less ungrateful and consequently more capable of a more ample charity We are not only endebted to the goodnes of God one infinite love of God but as it were infinitudes of love to an infinite God Wherefore we must love him more ardently for that he is good in himself then for that he is good and beneficial to us O Lord I love thee for thy benefits because I read reverence and embrace in them thy love and I also love thee for thy love because in it I behold adore and love thy goodnes The love of God is one perfection in God but there are many more for which he is amiable all which are comprized in the infinite divine goodnes and perfection which is for infinite respects most worthy of love I see not o Lord how my hart can cease or suffer any interruption in loving thee since thou who art infinite purely out of thy own goodnes lovedst us so incessantly from all eternity The V. Chapter That we are not able to satisfy the goodnes of God HOw do I loose my self o Lord in the consideration of thy goodnes which neyther pen nor tongue nor thought is able to comprehend if all the spirits both of heaven and hell all soules created and creable should make it their task to describe it and if each one had a sea for their inkhorn and a heaven for their paper both the one and the other would be exhausted ere they could make a fit expression of its least parcel If each star and drop of rain were so many tongues their breath would fayl them and they grow mute eer they could utter a congruous elocution If all the minute sands of the sea were changd into so many intelligences all their conceptions would prove but shallow even in respect of its least particle But what am I doing while I dare declare thy goodnes by these similitudes I confess o infinite God that all these exaggerations are ridiculous
although they be ownd by most grave Doctours they are all ridiculous in order to express it and they destroy themselves and he will shew himself to be ridiculous who hopes to express himself competently by them I am afraid o Lord least while I go thus to work to prayse thy goodnes I may be thought to jeer and deride Would not one that took upon him to set forth in magnifying words the wisdome of Salomon be judged to scof if he should say so great is the wisdome of Salomon that the lame-handed can not describe it nor the dumb utter it nor the distracted make a true estimate of its greatnes if this commendatory be thought derision these other comparisons in respect of thy goodnes are much les to the purpose in order to whose expression each creature is lame dumb and senslesly foolish O Lord my desire is to love thee in the simplicity of my ignorance I will brook it patiently if I do not clearly understand how thou art which is not possible for me to do in this life and although I can conceive nothing worthy of thy goodnes for as much as my conceptions of it are obscure incongruous yet I solace my self in this that thy goodnes is too great ever to be equalized by love I solace my self o Lord that although thou hadst not created us nor been beneficial to us nor made us the object of thy love but hatred as my deserts at least exacted yea although it were impossible for thee to be beneficial and repugnant to thy nature to love us as thou dost nevertheles by reason of thy perfection and goodnes and its matchles worth no body could love thee to the ful Although all the leaves of the trees and piles of grass all the sands of the sea and motes of the sun were all harts yea although they were so many wils of burning Seraphins yea further though all these and all other possible creatures were each one a Hierarchy of Seraphins whose love at each instant redoubled it self through all eternity all this love of them all would be as nothing in recompense of thy goodnes nay it would blush to appear in its presence neyther is my meaning that it would love thee congruously for the whole extent of thy goodnes but not so much as for thy sole patience wherewith thou toleratest me not only while I so heynously offend thee but am so defectuously languid and remiss in loving thee so great a good But in this also I solace my self that though thou art not sufficiently loved neyther canst thou be sufficiently loved by creatures Accept o Lord for my share a smal pittance of love in wish and desire I offer up to thee all the love of all creatures even of those that are as yet but possible sumd up into one oblation I my self alone would for each instant have all that their love which wil actuate them through all eternity and though I were thus furnishd yet stil should I have cause of shame and confusion Pardon pardon me I most humbly beseech thee great Lord nor resent these my slender votes and desires as affronts put upon thee but let my infirmity and thy greatnes plead my excuse Accept of this my wish which cannot worthily be stild a love worthy of thee accept also of the payn I am put to in grieving that all creatures are not enamoured on thee I grieve that so many soules espoused to thee by the ring of fayth and so many harts of men fit to love thee most ardently who might make themselves kings of the world and overtop the heavens should lye wallowing in their own ordures and perish by loving themselves and the fraile and loathsome goods of this earth neglecting thee o beauty of creatures and love of the universe The VI. Chapter How great a benefit of glory we hope for GOd is so good and beneficial that he suffers us while we set a false rate upon his benefits our own good Men are vexed with toyling and moyling all their life long to purchase some temporal good and at length are frustrated of their expectation reaping little or no fruit at all of their labours how can they hope to gain eternal it being no part of their sollicitude they scarse ever admitting it into their thoughts the goods which they make their dayly busines are not obtaind with all their endeavours and those which are distant as far as heaven they hope the earth will afford them without any labour they are deeply afflicted for trifling goods and are not so much as shallowly affected for the most important How is it possible that one can proceed so ridiculously in a joy most serious so stupidly about a stupendious good o most humble majesty of God when I consider this last miracle of thy love I loose my self in a maze of amazement How great is that good whose greatnes made it an unseemly thing in God to be liberal but was to expect the additional worth of vertue and our services though they also be divine benefits In our creation and redemption thou wast munificent when we least expected it anticipating the wishes and intentions of man but to enter upon a state of glory thou expectest our joynt-concurrence with thy grace Good God! how vastly great must that good needs be which obstructs by its greatnes the full current of the divine benignity and requires our endeavour and labour And God sels it at a dear rate though he love otherwise to give all gratis he sold it to S. Laurence for a broyling to S. Paul for the price of his head to S. Felicitas for her children to S. Peter for the death of the cross Yea that he might sell it us so dear he himself would buy it at an intolerable rate to wit his own death and the ignominy of the cross God was pleased to bestow and confer his other benefits to make us covet and acquire this how great must that needs be for the coveting wherof his guifts deeds were so stupendious and yet for all this our harts dilate not themselves sufficiently nor are raised to a congruous strain of desire If God attempted so many meanes to make us covet it what ought we not to attempt to enjoy it if God did and sufferd so great things to legitimate us to a true title of such a guift what ought we to do and suffer to enter upon it it is plain non-sense to perswade our selves that we can attain glory without labour since God laboured so much to be able to give it Notwithstanding all this we incur here a double delinquency in this guift more then in others being lyable both to ingratitude and an action of contempt for as much as we endeavour not to acquire that for the acquiring wherof God was at such expense yea steerd to that end all his actions For his other benefits we are ungrateful for this comtemptuous while we pursue it not with
thou wilt daily perish in them without end Settle it upon things eternal that thou mayst live happily for all eternity and contentedly in this interim till it commence Quit thy self of all love of corruptible things and thou shalt quit thy self of al the miseries which befall man Thou who seekest to be happy by loving why dost thou love those things which by merely loving them render thee miserable love him rather who will make thee fortunate even among the misfortunes of this life Why dost thou love those goods whose fruition makes thee evil whose desire makes thee unhappy why dost thou love men whose non-correspondence makes thee angry whose correspondence ridiculous and effeminate Fix rather thy love upon God whose desire wil make thee good whose fruition wil make thee happy Love not those beauties which deforme thee but love him whose love wil render thee beautiful It is a great fondnes to love those goods the sole love wherof deprives thee worthily of their possession and not to love that good which is only to be enjoyd by love The goods which thou lovest are not thine but thou theirs wherfore thou art in want of them God being beloved by thee becomes thine whom if thou lovest thou canst not want only wantest him when thou dost not love him by not bestowing thy love upon other things God in himself bestowes them upon thee Why dost thou love a good which is needy of another good not that which abounds with all goods when a good is loved which needs another good the misery is augmented not the want diminished All the goods of this world are necessitous none of them is all-sufficient by it self but requires the adjunction of another love that good which is so good of himself as to be indigent of no other good All good things are good by goodnes and consequently all stand in need of it to make them good Goodnes sufficeth of it self and requires no additional consort if thou lovest it thou wilt both be good and happy love him alone who alone is all things Do not love those goods which covet not to be loved by thee but love him whom all things covet to love thy Creator who both loves thee and covets to be loved by thee and created all good things for thy sake It is a kind of absurd stolidity not to love God who covets to be loved by thee and to love a piece of clay which hath no such resentment Why art thou so inquisitive after what may please thy eye and delight thy pallat and art so insensible of what doth perfect thy wil Love is to be squard out only according to the rule of God and therfore it is to be regulated by no other line nor doth it acquiesce in any thing else The shoe of Golias wil never exactly fit the foot of Zacchaeus Love is the first guift to whom is it due but to the first good and prime benefactor love is a guift by it self on whom is it to be bestowd but on him who is good by himself love is a guift by its own nature to whom is it to be offerd but to him who is good by his own nature love is a guift which is the source of all other guifts to whom is it rather to be consecrated then to that essence of good which is the source of all essences Love of it self without the access of other guifts is acceptable and others without it are little pleasing to whom doth it square better then to God who of himself is amiable pleasing and without him nothing must be pleasing o Lord how can I love thee worthily since I cannot serve thee worthily I being not able to afford thee any competent service All things are thine and whatsoever I have it is from thee becoming as it were a servant to me Thou who lovest me as much as thou artable grant that I may love thee more then I am able The X. Chapter That self love must be rooted out TO the end thou mayst love and honour God as it behooves thee it is not enough not to love thy self and the world but thou must hate thy self and esteem thy self the meanest of creatures an obiect provoking all their hatred When a ship sayles too much on one side the mariners ballast it to the other Thou doatedst on thy self in an extremity of love now thou must change it into an extremity of hatred To be able to improve ones leap to the best he must go back some paces and take his race from a further distance to be able to approach God with a more impetuous love yea to be able to love thy self truly and rationally thou must gather force from self disdaign A racer is so much nigher the goal the further he leaves the stand behind him and thou shalt approach the nigher to God the further thou recedest from thy self Thou must depart from thy self to come to God the final end conclusion of all things Thou hast no greater opposite then thy self thou must be at a deadly enmity with thy self because thou art more then a deadly enemy to thy self thou art more offensive to thy self then all the world besides We resent an affront more feelingly at the hands of a friend then of a stranger because it happens beyond expectation and wil sound more ill-favourdly relish more rankly of hatred that thou shouldst be thy own undoer who oughtst to be furthest from any such thought We take it ill if we suffer any bodily hurt from an enemy worse if from a friend of whom we expected a protection how can we brook it patiently if our soul be endomaged and that by our selves and our own exorbitances it would vex us to the hart to have our bodies enslaved though to a great Prince or potentate and we have no difficulty at all to enslave our mind to a vulgar creature or base dung when we are passionately troubled for any affront or injury or other loss O what a burden and discredit are we to our selves shame and discred it follow those properly that do amiss trouble and burdensomenes those that suffer both these miseries attend our condition we are evil towards our selves and we suffer evil from our selves we are a misery to our selves and unmerciful violent and violated provd and base-minded O how pittifully pittiles mercifully merciles are we to our selves when we soothingly compassionate our follies and take not revenge upon them Commiseration and self love in such a case is all one as if out of compassion one should cherish a frozen snake in his bosome which being revived will kill the benefactour with its poysonous sting Most evident it is that in all reason we ought to carry a greater spite and deadlier feud to our selves then all our enemies for as much as concerns self-affection the les it makes thee regard the glory of God and comply with his holy wil and seek the advance
to aym at nothing more then mortification pennance fasting prayer carrying our cross this through the course of our whole life he wil soon discover him no sectarist who dares scarse so much as talk of these things much les teach or practise them but a Roman Catholique who alone owns them both in doctrin practise as the chief meanes to Christian perfection Nor wil any body think I be so inconsiderately over-byassd as to take any prejudice by these expressions o infirm spirit pusillanimous spirit which here and there he 'l meet with T is true by the abuse of this our age they sound not so wel with us through the default of those who have renderd both them and themselves ridiculous yet the words like wine are good enough nor any more then that for the sophistication or abuse of some to be mislikd consider also that the Authour is a forraigner with whom they carry no such note nor did I deem it necessary to change them His industry in the compilement of this work seems by his own confession to have been very extraordinary he not sticking to aver that it was the fruit of all his labours the hony-comb of al his studious endeavours while bee-like he suckd from each H. Father Master of Spirit as from so many delicious flowers what he found in them rare and exquisite with these truths maximes as with so many pretious stones he has paved the way to perfection digesting them into that triple path which according to its great masters leads therto to wit purgative illuminative unitive in the first after he has told us what it is to adore God in spirit truth without eyther fanaticisme or duplicity he gives us the lively resentments of a penitent hart while it rock-like struck with the rod of the cross dissolves into the waters of a profound compunction Amidst its sighs and teares he conducts us on towards the second by true fruits of pennance love of God contempt of the world through all the oppositions of self love worldly concerns contrary temptations By degrees he leads us out of the desert of sin into the land of promise and the darknes of Aegypt into the fair sun shine of divine grace and here that light offers himself for guid which illuminates every man coming into this world we know that who ever followes him walks not in darknes For what doth this path aym at but a perfect imitation of his life by a constant treading of those sacred footsteps of vertu which he left deeply imprinted by self-abnegation humility patience meeknes poverty persecution all those which compleat a totall fulfilling of Christian justice perfection That this may be the better accomplishd he spends no les then a whole book to wit the 3. in teaching us how to discharg our duty in order to the aforesaid imitation by a most perfect practical performance of our daily actions And not without good reason since the whole is but the result of all particulars which if perfect the other can scarse suffer any allay he that performes his daily actions perfectly treads a sure path to perfection whosoever aymes at it without this medium shoots at random like a blind archer All these are works of light this according to the Philosopher being productive of heat they dispose wonderfully to the 3. path which leads a soul thus affected to a strait union the true lovers knot with almighty God And whether should such a bird of Paradise so disdaigning earth so enamoured on heaven so wingd with charity fitted for the flight soare but up to the bosome of God himself where nestling as in its center it may say with H. Iob in nidulo meo moriar This is the last complement of a vertuous soul in this life the purchase of its labours and fruition of desires where its activity becomes passive and its task with little Samuel is only to say Loquere Domine quia audit servus tuus nor yet can it be said to be idle For he teaches not a lazy love but operative and masculin a love that loves to be in the sun and dust bearing the heat and weight of the day in carrying its cross and yet wel knowing even in these how still to enjoy its beloved And in this spiritual journey which certainly tends to a Vade in pace and arrives to that peace of God which passes all understanding directs the traveller not through any extraordinary paths or by new and uncouth lights but teaches him to take the roadway of the cross in the broad daylight therof following him who said I am the way and this by a profound contempt of himself as wel as all the things of this world by an entyre mortification of his passions subduement of his wil to the wil of God by a curbing of his appetites mastry over self love command over sense and much more over sensuality and by such steps the truest steps of love and to it assisted by a daily recognition of the divine benefits towards man so unparallelld and inestimable he leads him up the mount of perfection Which journey though it be not performd without great extente of time labour and contradiction yet having once surmounted the difficulty and its top raysd now above all wind and weather in what a peaceful calme doth he find himself few believe this besides those that experience it and therfore it is but lost labour to insist upon it yet I dare say its joyful contentivenes exceeds the gust of the most affecting pleasures the world affords But these are onely the entertainments of choyse soules the perfect I can say to the comfort of all that the work it self affords both effectual helps to perfection and a certaine redress for spiritual maladies in what kind soever they be For the peruser will discover in it a rich mine of heavenly treasures a new dispensatory of celestial recepts antidotes against all the poysons of sin and an Armory of defence to shield him from the assaulting enemy Which though it was writ for himself a Religious man and by its sublimity may seeme proper for that state yet it is of that latitude capacity that even seculars if they be but vertuously disposd to the service of God may plentifully reap benefit by it nor would I wish any body upon this score to harbour a prejudice against it Thus much being sayd of the matter weightynes of his discourse I must now in a word touch also the manner His way of arguing is solid and witty but he has no regard at all to evennes of stile or quaintnes of expression speaking as we say a la negligence as to both like one that study's more what to say then how and this it seems he doth on set purpose For in his Epistle Dedicatory which I omit as needles he gives account of it I write this memorial sayth he in a plain stile and without any
The same royal colour of purple recreates men and exasperates buls this purple truth of God this lustre of sanctity delights those that understand it what makes matter if it offend those that have neithet wit nor braines to conceave it yea this makes more for its commendation Nothing shewes the inestimable worth and comelines of truth more then that it seems worthles and deformed to the wicked Consider but the causes of this their aversion and thou shalt see that they render it much more amiable Of all crosses and afflictions truth seemes the most harsh and burdensome because particular afflictions impugne either one onely pleasure or at least but some few but truth fights them all together and proclames warr at once against all other kind of vices Therfore they hold it the saddest adversary they have and for the same reason think they can revenge themselves no wayes more upon their enemys nor sting them more picquantly then by speaking truth to their disadvantage the reason is because what harme soever one most dreads to himself his passion makes him wish the same to his enemy and because he dreads no kind of evil more then truth therfore he tels all he knowes to his adversarys prejudice and seeks thus to wound him as with so many poysonous darts But these causes of offence are arguments which ought to heighten our love and esteem of truth is not that worthy of all love which hath all vice in such hatred and detestation If thou hadst one potion which would cure thee of all diseases thou wouldst not contemne it for being bitter and distastfull nay thou wouldst prize nothing more highly so truth upon that same score is to be loved and adored although it be even nayld to a cross though voyd of beauty and unhandsome But it is comely of sight and pleasant of tast not deformed but deâ—forme not unwise but the wisdome of God the voyce of truth is sweet and its countenance amiable It hath God for its seasoning it cannot be unsavoury or disgustfull or tainting That which makes God happy must not be noysome neither can it make thee miserable What shall I say God is truth and can he be either more distastfull to thee then gal or not more lovely then light Go to then take the courage to look it in the face to affect it to put thy self under its tuition and patronage This is the main maxime of a spiritual life that as carnal people hate nothing more then truth so those that walk the paths of spirit have nothing in higher esteem or desire What is more dear or useful to an archer then his eyes and what ought to be more desirable to a reasonable man then truth which is the eye of his soule Archers and other creatures also made for the behoof of man if they want their eyes become altogether unserviceable so our whole life without truth proves but a fruitles busines No one of the senses is more delectable then the sight and truth surpasseth all the other facultys of the mind neither is it more pleasing a midst the smiles of prosperity then the frownes of adversity Let us therfore begâ—n with an upright conceit of truth to exclude falshood deeming nothing more delightful nothing more excellent then sincere truth of spirit Most men because they believe not this are apt to grant themselves now and then a little indulgence to nature and self love and the propensions of the flesh though but in petty matters mixing with a most subtle dissimulation and self cozenage forraign comforts that so they may mittigate the austerity which they conceive or fear accompagnies the spirit and not trusting sufficiently to it and God they reserve as yet some reliques of their flesh and will of which they are loath to dispoyle themselves that they may make their retreat thither in time of need not daring by a total self denyal to give themselves entirely to God and the spirit as if some corrosives did attend his intimate familiarity These people deceive themselves for this is not the spirit of truth This spirit is a most simple and transparent thing and therfore that will not be true and genuine which is so confounded and intoxicated The flesh and the spirit are two things so different that they cannot be combind into one simple The spirit of truth ought to be so refind and sincere that it is not enough to dread and abhor all the faigned soothings of the flesh all the pernicious dictamens of worldlings and the forciblest insinuations of self love but one must moreover dispoil ones self of himself and his own soul and renounce totally his own will and all created contentments yea even intellectual and otherwise lawful to seek God alone and in him possess all things The spirit is somewhat more sublime and refind then is the soul the understanding or nature Hear thy Iesus saying God is a spirit and those that adore him must do it in spirit and truth Wherfore that thou mayst adore God as thou oughtest and serve him perfectly in truth of spirit thou must reare thy self above all creatures and created affections and breath after and be enamourd upon the divine truth alone and as one ready to depart out of this world bid adieu to thy self and all creatures adhering by pure charity to our Lord becoming one spirit as S. Paul speaks with God who is truth it self Force thy self from thy self that is from thy vicious stock that thou mayst be engrafted in him sever thy self from thy self that thou mayst be united to thy Creatour loosen thy self from thy self that thou mayst be fastned to the cross of Iesus root thy self out of thy wicked self that thou mayst be implanted in all goodnes fly from thy own nature and thou shalt find a sanctuary in God loose thy self unfaignedly and thou shalt find thy self really The III. Chapter Of Purity of Spirit DO not in any thing o coheyre of Christ become like unto the beasts thou who mayst be one spirit with God thou must resemble them in nothing at all Thou oughtest to tread underfoot all the delights of flesh and nature not reserving any one from a total renunciation One alone is able to marr the rellish of truth one alone wil tarnish the lustre of the spirit Great things are oftentimes over powrd by little ones a smal quantity of vinegar spoyles a whole vessel of the strongest wine a little drop of ink infects and discolours a violl of the fairest water Why wilt thou blemish the candour of truth and noblenes of the spirit with a petty delight so triviall and momentary Why dost thou debase thy self so much below thy sublime condition why wilt thou leave the bosome of God and his sweet embracements to solace thy self with the silly dregs of creatures since thou ought not to descend from the cross of Christ for all the kingdoms of the world O miserly and base-minded man since thou hast already employed
if we believe the greatnes of the divine goodnes in it self and his immense charity and inestimable benefits towards us what is the reason I say that we doe not correspond in love fidelity and observance but rather dare offend him though but venialy and do not worship and love him indefatigably with all the extent of our strength who employd all the force of his omnipotency in creating and conserving us and loves us both perfectly and eternally and loves us even to the end yea even unto death what is the reason that we are alwayes senseles to our own good and shameles towards his majesty whether we believe or believe not truly while we remain so senslesly benumd If we have not a firm beliefe what greater folly since men give credit in all things to flatterers because they speak according to their pallat and profit then to disbelieve matters of faith so much importing us to be so and redounding so much to our credit and profit that they be true and undoubted What greater irreverence then to believe a man all men being obnoxious to lying and deceit and not believe God speaking things profitable to us and attesting them by so many miracles But if we believe these things and belye them with our actions what greater absurdity and derision of God then to reject his most amiable goodnes contemn his love his blood his benefits and either not dread the paines of Purgatory and hell or not hope for and most ardently desire the glory of heaven which God esteems matters of high concernment and as such eggs us on both by threats and promises to good works What greater madnes then to expose our selves by our own negligence to the hazard of forfeiting eternal glory or at leastwise enduring a long Purgatory We must be sure to make our works square in all exactly with our beliefe and adhere more tenaciously then if those objects were patent to the eye or any other sense or experiment Thou hast received the sacred body of Christ or art present at the dreadful Sacrifice of the Masse if thou believe that Christ is really there present with thee thou oughst to behave thy self with greater submission and veneration then if thou didst clearly behold him with thy eyes and to pray to him with a livelier confidence then if the heavens were opend to thee as they were to S. Stephen and thou beheldst the Hierachies of Angels accompanying Christ coming to thee to receive thy petitions for thou mayst be more infallibly ascertaind by faith that he is upon the Altar then if thou didst see him with thy corporal eyes Let every one procure after this manner to penetrate the truths of divine faith and strengthen himself in their certainty making his works consonant to his beliefe But how dost thou proceed consequently and not rather cozen thy self when thou sayst thou esteemst the least degree of glory more then the empyre of the whole world and nevertheles to gain heaven thou wilt not deny thy self the least pleasure and art so be sotted upon temporal things that thou toylest and moylest without respit for their purchase This certainly cannot stand good unles thou esteem earthly and perishable goods more then heavenly and eternal The V. Chapter Of the hope of pardon and zeal of pennance THe more vertuous one is the more he hates sin the more he hates it the more he desires its destruction and therfore God desires more to pardon sin then the Penitent himself who begs pardon God is most accomplished in all goodnes and therfore he of all others most hates sin If the sinner who is evill hates his own sin and desires its destruction how much more God who is supremely good Every one seeks his own ends and commodity God alone seeks thine and covets thy salvation doubt not then of pardon and the divine assistance We have a most sufficient suerty the Son of God if we would but resolve upon our conversion There is neither good nature wanting to the creditour nor ability in the bonds man do not then dispaire o sinner by reason of the vastnes of thy debt it is but a trifle in regard of the infinite mercy of God and endles merits of Christ IESVS crucified is our inexhaustible treasure It were a simple thing to think that the exchequer of a vast Empire if it were granted to thy use were not sufficient to defray thy petty debt of a few pounds and it is more simple to make delayes in discharging thy debt to Almighty God hoping he will be content to accept the merits of IESVS for thy payment It will be ridiculous if thou be unjust to thy self who seeks to be profitable and beneficial to others How much content would it cause thee if thou hadst occasiond the conversion of S. Austin or S. Mary Magdalen or S. Paul the Apostle or some other great sinner and drawn him to God and without all doubt thou wouldst endeavour that now if thou thought it lay in thy power to make any one become truly penitent and as holy as Magdalen Remember that it is in thy power mediating the grace of God to operate this in thy self that is to become truly penitent and hartily compunct for thy offences even small ones and very fervorous and devout Convert thy self and glory far more in thy own conversion then anothers What man that 's wel in his wits if he himself were at the point of starving would give a loafe of bread to another who were scarce pincht with hungar and stood but in small need of that merciless courtesy suffering himself in that utmost extremity to perish with famine Admonish thy self exhort thy self preach to thy self nothing is wanting to a remission of thy sins but thy desire thy sorrow thy disposal and this also by a special favour Behold God stands expecting thee ready to give greater supplies if necessary Thou hast already a pledge of his good will thy own will and desire of good which is from God I know not how it comes to pass that thou being compounded of a body like to brute beasts and a soul allied to God thou seeks all wayes and meanes to preserve thy body and sleights and neglects what may make for the health and integrity of thy soul Thy chiefe sollicitude ought to be placed upon the chiefest thing Let thy first care be concerning thy soul for which thy body was framd and moulded and if the first then for these reasons it must be the sole and only The diseases of the soul are greater and more in number and more pernicious its cure is certain and with out all peradventure since they are cured who onely have a real desire to be cured but the cure of the body is deceitful for those that are cured recover not presently but by degrees besides corporal medecines are harder bitterer and more costly not alwayes at hand but must be fetcht from beyond the seas and almost the worlds end but
she nevertheless kissd the pictures of him which stood engraven here and there in his pallace and reverened them exceedingly for their beauty which not withstanding in comparison of the king himself were ugly nor did they intirely resemble all his features but one his eyes only another his hands a third his countenance and they being both together if he desird to imbrace her she turnd her back disdaignfully and loathing his person sought after his image Iudge now o mortals The Lord liveth because the woman that doth this is a child of laughter O I wish I could intrap thee in the snare of Nathan and make thee relent with the penance of David Thou o my soul art this woman This saith the Lord God of Israel I have annoynted thee o man king over all the creatures of the world I have created all things for thy use I have deliverd thee out of the hands of Saul and robbers to wit Lucifer and the divels out of the filth in which thou didst wallow out of the flames of hel to which thou wert sentencd I cleansed thee with my own blood I gave thee the heavenly mansion-house of thy Lord and God and all the delights of heaven together with it I appointed thee the house of this world as a kingly pallace and all creatures to be thy attendants and if these benefits of thy creation redemption and glorification be but slender ones I will heap far greater upon thee for which of all these dost thou persecute and contemne me do my kindnesses seem crimes to thee thou art angry at me and punishes me as men do malefactours who are chastizd with the instruments by which they offended thou abusest my very guifts condemning me in them as if I became criminal by my wel doing Which of my favours deserves these thy injuries tel me and I will amend it I le be thy revenger upon my self because I desird nothing more then thy good wil nor do I desire nor shall I. To make thee love me Iam ready to destroy the world if it were injurious to thee that I made it If I were faulty in dying for thee I le dye again to make satisfaction and come to an attonement If it were a crime that I prepard my glory and heaven for thee upon condition thou wouldst pardon me I would relinquish it once again and evacuate my self depriving my self of my Majesty and glory Why dost thou think those things which if they were done betwixt man and man would be accounted vertues worthy of praise being now done to thee by God to be crimes deserving nothing lesthen disgrace and death But if thou esteem those things as benefits which I have heapd upon thee with all the extent of my omnipotency and purchase of my sufferings why dost thou seek to affront me stil more and more Perchance my offence was in this that my benefits were so many and great for in each particular I can acknowledg no fault and therfore thou wilt punish me with the greatnes and multitude of contempts and strive to out number my kindnesses by thy affronts Behold thou alone hast pickt up the most notorious debaucheryes of the lewdest woemen against me thy lover to cast them into my dish Thou didst take complacence in the impudency of Putiphars wife and thou itching to practise the same against me covetest to play the harlot with the servants which I assigned thee to witt creatures and thou compelst them to this nor wilt thou learn by their loyalty who run from thee like Ioseph and eyther pass away presently or perish they all are ful of a deep resentment and replenishd with sorrow for the throwes and pangs of those that being violated by thee are ready to be delivered it being much against their will that thou sinnest with them or art enamoured upon them to the prejudice of thy spouse and their Lord and Soveraign But thou heaping iniquity upon iniquity slanderst them for giving thee the slip and complainst of them for running away This is the common complaint of mortals that their Gods are mortal that creatures are fading and perishable Thou criminatest them for being the occasion of thy adultery when they as innocent faithfull to their God and thy wel wishers fly from thee that thou mayst not commit it by loving them with an inordinate affection But thou repliest saying if I were wealthy if I had riches if I enjoyd this or that commodity I would serve God peaceably nor desire more but because I have lost all and the goods of this would fly me I can not but doe thus want compels me to sin poverty puts me upon unlawful desires to the great prejudice of my own spirit Leave of complaining cease to blame them and rather give eare to creatures who teach thee thy duty better then Ioseph Behold say they our Lord forgetful of himself gives thee all neither is there any thing which he hath not subiected to thy power to doe with it what thou wilt this onely excepted not to love us how canst thou be so il-naturd as to offend thy God how can we admit of this thy love which thy Creatour hath reservd to himself He hath given us to thee that thou mightst give thy self to him we serve thee that thou mayst serve him learn of us to serve him to death and play not the adulterer We are destroyd that thou mayst subsist for we have neither scandalizd thee nor given thee il example we covet not to be loved by thee but rather wish thee to give him the best thing thou hast to wit thy love Love him and praise him as we doe Learn zeale of us for to the end thou mayst do so we willingly suffer our selves to be destroyed Learn to dye that the glory of God may live for to the end thou mayst live we dye Learn humility of us for being thy sisters equal in noblenes of parentage yea elder by birth we disdain not to serve thee even in abject things that thou mayst reign with thy spouse and love him That thou mayst live eternally with him we are turnd into filth and corruption nor do we detrect any the meanest offices for thy sake with manifest hazard of our destruction only we cannot brook that on the altar of God that is thy hart idols of us should be placed through a disorderly affection towards us thou thinking oftner upon us then him and sacrificing to us not beasts but thy own soul Fy fy be ashamd to make a celestial soul the victime of a piece of earthly mettal or vain honour or momentary pleasure in it divine grace by that eternal glory Thou tookst content moreover o soul in the treachery of Dalila and forthwith attemptedst to practise the like upon me thy God and thy lover Thou betraydst me into captivity like Samson to my greatest enemies and madest me a slave to the Philistians of thy sins for thou madest me serve thee in them thou madest
behold with my locks least my Lord be forced to fly from the horrour and nastines of my sins I behold them fetterd with sharp irons and that was my doing But if it were a grateful piece of service which Magdalen did to these feet the torment also which was occasiond by my sins could not be ungrateful I o Lord fastned them my malice was more prevalent towards this then the goodnes of all other creatures The Angels grieve and stand amazed creatures tremble and complain all law disavowes it all right cryes against it my sins alone exacted the death of thy onely begotten Son and compasd it I mâ—ke publique profession of this to the end â— mâ—y have some share in the prayer of IESVS He he it was that prayd for those who crucifyd him Behold me here present I was the chiefe Crucifyer the prime executioner I furnishd his hands putting a hammer in his right and a naile in his left I first of all others gave that hand the dint which transpiered those tender feet O how much more heynous was my offence then theirs who executed only Pilates sentence and the will of the Iewes They being commanded crucified him whom they held no more then a man and a malefactour and one so dis-figurd in his whole countenance by that hideous nights work I have again as much as in me lay crucified him being now glorious who for me was heretofore crucified Which of the Iewes beholding Christ as Saint Stephen beheld him at the right hand of God durst cry out aloud crucify him but I have bin so impudently bold as not only to say it but even more then do it I clear and quit the executioners of Christ they will be confounded in the latter day beholding him glorious whom they treated so ignomiously I seeing him that was crucified for my sake glorious am not confounded but have again crucified him What excuse then shal I be able to pretend O Father as often as I call this to mind considering thy infinite mercy by which thou didst patiently sustain my so great in gratitude I cannot but wish thy exemplary justice upon me I cannot detrect the paines of hell as due to my iniquity supposing the paine were voyd of guilt Shal divine love be les forcible then humane or charity more feeble then concupiscence the love of thee then the love of me If my self love could make me contemne God why cannot the love of God make me throughly dispise my self and debase my self even to hel Again again I imbracingly kiss thy justice punish and revenge upon me thy affronts and just indignation for I who prophaned and violated all thy attributes seeking to destroy them by sin as much as I could do now wish such a penance and remission as would make a ful restitution of all and leave them in their integrity They wil remaine so o Lord if out of thy mercy thou give me thy grace and out of thy justice my due punishment Thy servants Moyses and Paul desird to be anathemâ—tizd for their brethren and I wil become accursed and Anathema for my God and the justice of my God as Christ IESVS was for me That skinner of Alexandria wishd others the joys of paradise but allotted for himself the paines of helfire and surmounted in perfection the great S. Anthony S. Christina chose rather to undergo here unspeakable torments for the relief of the soules in Purgatory then to go immediately to heaven and I to render the justice of God which I have violated undamnifyd ought not to refuse the punishments of hel O if I could imitate my IESVS who when he was unseparable from his heavenly Father stoopt to our misery that he might be acure for us and I unseparable from thy charity would become also accursed and anathematizd to the very pit of hel and even there would â— embrace my IESVS I have two armes the one is humility which I would put under him and unite my self to his Humanity the other and that the right is love and by it I would embrace his Divinity O Father prostrate at the feet of IESVS I beg and beseech of thee for his sake that thou wilt cleanse me from the ordure of my sins I hope for his sake to obtain pardon for whose sake thou couldst not obtain of me to forbear sinning Thy goodnes is greater then my malice and thy crucifyd Christ is prevalently powerful to bend and incline thy goodnes though he prevaile not with me to avert and decline my malice The IX Chapter Of the ardent desire of those that desire God IT is not meet that thou o faintharted spirit have but a faint desire of that which is the chiefest good Grace and nature are sisters and they have the same Autour parent God If thou learnst not of thy IESVS how to frame thy desires who desird so earnestly to suffer for thee that thou mayst be ashamd not to desire most ardently to rejoyce with him learn at least of natural things how thou art to covet heavenly Nature affords no good to any creature unles a strong appetite therof did go before and if there be not such a precedent appetency arising from grace thou shalt never be guifted with any signal vertue Natural things ayme at more then they can attaine to fire when it mounts upward covets nothing more then to reach its element and yet it never can reach its home but yet that excess of desire was requisite to carry it to a higher region A stone when it fals covets to descend even to the hart or center of the earth and yet it remaines on the surface or superficies What a vehement affection is inbred to beasts towards their of spring A cow in the absence of her calf bellowes without end and hastens thither as fast as she can where she thinks to find it The same innate love armes other creatures which are of a more fearful and soft disposition and exasperates and renders them fierce and hardy and this strong desire was necessary to make them break through all difficulties in rearing their young ones Perfect vertue and union with God is a busines ful of opposition and how canst thou overcome this unles thou eagarly and earnestly intend it A natural appetite is a disposition to natural perfection and a great and supernatural appetite disposeth a soul to supernatural perfection and to receive the graces and guifts of God in greater plenty Christ compard those that traffique for the kingdome of heaven to marchants bankers and stiled them happy that hunger and thirst after justice combining in the self-same thing two most vehement appetites There is no stint in desiring to please God there is no other meane nor stint but that one alwayes without all meane and interruption wish and imbrace indefatigably the cross never be satiated with suffering So ought thou to serve God with the whole extent and intensenes of thy mind and all this is very
Men glory in those things of which they ought to be ashamd it lies against all experience in telling them that their riches wil be permanent since they pass through so many hands to come to them who now possess them It holds those things forth for good each one wherof is no less then a triple torment the number of evils and vexations are in such an excess that it affords more then two real afflictions for one seeming happines Ther 's no one thing of all we possess but rackd us with toile and sollicitude how we might compass it and having compasd it we are no les tormented with fear and iealousy of it and when it is lost with grief for its absence and privation O heavenly truth what great God a mercy if I do not covet this meer chaos of deceitfulnes and vexation if I contemn for thy sake a thing so contemptible which were to be contemnd if not for it self at least for my self many heathen Philosophers quitted the world for their own quiet and why shal not a Christian do it for his and thy glory They left it because despicable in it self and why shal not we do it because thou art inestimable and the glory which we hope for invaluable Although the world were good yet it were folly to prefer it before that which containes all good The XI Chapter How Peace is to be obtained THou canst not live wel unles thou dye forthwith and overcome thy nature Thou canst not enjoy peace unles thou make war upon thy self this is the way to purchase true liberty Be readier alwayes to comply with anothers will then thy own thou shalt not know what it is to be at jars love rather to have little then much and thou shalt have no occasion of complaint chuse alwayes the meanest place and to be every ones underling and thou shalt scarse ever be sad have a desire to suffer and undergo somthing for thy IESVS sake and thou shalt think no body burdensome seek God in all things that his will may be fulfilld in thee and thou shalt never be disquieted If thou ought to accommodate thy self rather to anothers wil then thy own why not to the divine wil and rejoyce that it is fulfilld by thee keep these things in thy hart that thou mayst enjoy an uninterrupted peace True tranquillity of mind cannot be obtaind but by a contempt of the world and conquest over our selves This may be done two manner of wayes either by forcing thy self contrary to what seems good and delectable in the world and nature or by knowing them to be nought and weighing all things in the ballance of truth this latter way is the sweeter and more permanent although it must alwayes be accompanyd with a fervorous contradiction of our appetite He nevertheles who in faith and spirit is convined of the verity and vanity that is in things shal with much facility overcome himself and dispise the world Nothing conduceth more to a happy progress then to frame an unbyazd judgment of things and to relish them according to the doctrine of IESVS What hearst thou pronouncd by that most holy mouth of truth it self blessed are the poor of spirit blessed are they that mourn blessed are they that suffer persecution Why wilt thou esteem those things harsh and burdensome which the truth of God held and deliverd for beatitudes how canst thou avoid being deceivd if thou account those things evil which faith teaches us to be good and to render us happy we believe the mystery of the most B. Trinity because Christ reveald it to us the same IESVS also reveald that those things which the world so much abhors poverty sorrow injuries are not bad but good neither is he to be ratherd is believd in this point by him that knowes he taught so then when be teacheth the unity and Trinity of almighty God Let us then make a true estimate of truth and frame our dictamens point blank opposite to worldly maxims O eternal truth grant me grace that according to thy doctrin I may judg all temporal things meer lyes and those far from containing great good which bring so much hurt Grant me that I may not live in an errour by prizing those things highly which I ought to have in hatred If it be a matter of faith that poverty humiliation affliction are not only good but beatifying why do not I rather chuse to have litle then much to be dispisd then praysd to be afflicted then swim in delights He that walks in faith and truth accounting those things truly good which CHRIST judgeth such ought to be so far from being contristated for any want or vexation that he should covet them with his utmost desires and rejoyce in them and abhor wholy and not in part only all things which the world loveth and embraceth and admit and desire with his whole hart with his whole soul with all his strength with all his mind what soever IESVS loved and embracd Like as worldlings who follow love and seek with great earnestnes those things which belong to the world to wit honours fame and the opinion of a great name upon earth as the world teacheth and deceives them so those that make a progress in spirit and truth doe seriously follow love and ardently desire whatsoever is altogether opposite to these that is to be clad with the same livery and ensignes of contempt which the Lord of glory wore Insomuch that if it could be done without any offence of the divine Majesty and sin of their neighbour they would suffer contumelies false witnes affronts and be thought and accounted fooles they giving nevertheles no occasion of it because they desire to resemble and imitate in some manner the Son of God For this purpose let thy chief aym and study be to seek thy own greater abnegation and continual mortification as much as thou canst in all things Why wilt thou live in guile and deceit making no reckning of those things which God prizd and honored so highly that he thought them worthy of his best beloved and only begotten Son Verily although they were not raâ—kd amoÌ„g good things yet for this sole reason that IESVS chose them for himself they are honored sufficiently and worthy to be sought by us with the whole extent of our hart and for this sole cause that he dispisd all worldly goods though men have them in so great esteem they are to be held base and infamous and deservedly to be abhord more then death it self IESVS overcome with love of us made choice of these things the world hateth and why shal not we for his sake at least accept them What do I say for love of IESVS we ought to do it for love of our selves He that loves his soul and his life let him love to dye even while he yet liveth If thou lovest life why wilt thou not rather love an eternal and happy one then this wretched and momentary
whosoever loves any thing as good to himself aymes alwayes at that which is more perfect and by good consequence he that loves life must not love a temporal but eternal life who loves good things must not love earthly but heavenly goods wherfore our very affection to things compels us to disaffect all worldly things Ther 's no body that loves any good thing but he wisheth it perpetual though the contrary be absurd yet we alwaies do it for through our love to life and goods we suffer great detriment both of life and goods Tel me o thou wretched of the world who art so forgetful of eternal life whether dost thou despise these transitory things or love them If thou dispisest them it must be for this reason because thou seekst after better if thou lovest them how much are greater things more worthy of love How ever the case stands it is convinced that we ought to love eternal things which will accrue to us so much more copiously by how much the more we are impoverishd disesteemd afflicted for God Notwithstanding all this the sufferings of this life are in no degree proportionable to the future glory for what is here but light and momentary works in us an eternal poize of the same Our provision for eternity may be prepard with much facility and ought to be kept with all carefulnes Each one furnisheth most plentifully the place he intends for his longest abode and where his residence is to be but for a short time that he regards but sleightly and provides it but superficially An eternity expects us in the other life we must lay up store of merits for it least we make our provisions preposterously bestowing great care on a short abode and little on a long But we ought to have transitory things in hatred not only in regard of the eternal life but even in respect of this temporal they disquiet and vex us with a thousand cares while we are procuring them and with a thousand feares and frights least we fal short of them we brook any loss but impatiently which happening so frequently as they do we are tossd in a continual sea of griefe anger and endles vexations He alone who goes contrary to the world lives without contrariety and in a holy repose How then do these things deserve the name of goods which are so noysome and tormenting to us rather the quite opposite ate to be stiled such which far sooner render us such by putting us in mind of our present condition by making us think upon God and have recourse to him by occasioning our greater merit and assimilating us to the only begotten Son of God The lover of men IESVS did most truly tearm those not only good but also beatifying Yea the choysest of the heathen Philosophers held not those things which the world so much adores good but their contrary Some of them hated and rejected temporal riches that at least in this life void of care and fear and perplexity of mind they might enjoy a temporal felicity It redounds to our great shame that heathens should do so who wanted the example of the Son of God who were out of hopes of other goods and this when the world was in its youth and verdure and abounded more with such allurements though false and counterfeyt But we have the glory of imitating IESVS and the incentive of a heavenly reward the world moreover is now grown worse and more deformed and wants not only solid goods but also fading Now it scarse hath where with all to bait a deceitful book its false varnish is washd of in so much that it cannot deceive us unles we deceive our selves The XII Chapter Of the excellency of one that is in the state of grace VVHy seekst thou any thing of the world if thou be above the world why lovest thou any earthly thing since thou art beloved of God How can he stick in the mud of nature who is elevated to the state of grace O good as little understood as much neglected God hath bestowd large and pretious promises upon us to make us sharers of his divine nature Why seeks he any thing besides God who hath found the grace of God which raiseth him above all nature yea even that of the highest Thrones Cherubins and Seraphins if therrs be considerd in it self though so far surpassing all other created substance by which we have God for our Father for our friend and unseparable Achates It 's accounted a matter of high concernment among men to have precedency of place or dignity before others and what wil it then be to have a preeminence above all the degrees of nature Although the world were never so estimable the things in it beyond our valuation yet they ought to be contemnd by one in the state of grace The divel is intolerably proud yet he regards not the opinions of men concerning him nor deems himself one iot the worse for being revild by them he seeks not popular applause he sleights material things he loaths what we relish so savourly he scofs at our affaires and all this for no other reason but because he is of a more sublime nature why then is man who is raisd to a participation of Gods nature who is rankd in the highest class of creatures so sollicitous about these base trifles certainly if he understood throughly the dignity that is conferd upon him by being rightly confessd and put in the state of grace nothing else would be requisite to make him contemne and deride these fopperies of creatures nor were any great store of vertue needful to move him to this but he would do it even by his vicious nature unles we should hold it impossible that grace could be the authour of a misdeed The wicked spirits without any vertue at all have a most mean conceit of these sublunary things and why but because they are of a Superiour nature and rank above them What then ought man to do with vertue who is elevated above all nature If a great king in his robes of state should find a spade or sickle lying in the way he would scorn to stoop to take it up as being of a more eminent condition then a peasant and why doth man when he hath once possessd his soul of Gods grace stoop and debase himself to earthly things since his dignity overtops the heavens O how great is the excellency of grace It lies conceald many times under a course and contemptible garment in a weak body feeble and sometimes loathsome to the eye Consider how much the noblest nature of a Seraphin surpasseth the basest of a silly worme yet ther is not the meanest slave and ugliest Lepar if he be in the state of grace but doth much more exceed the nature of a higher Angel If God should create a select nature in which all under-natures vegetative sensitive rational Angelical were comprehended in so much that these sublime intelligences of
body in the harshest manner he could both for apparrel and rigour of fare The austerities also of barbarous hethens destitute of our hopes may make us blush at our own tepidity they wore shirts of iron which goard their bodies on all sides with sharp pricks they shretchd themselves upon tenter hooks singing the whilst hymnes in praise of their God they cast themselves under the wheeles of the chariots which carried their Idols and sufferd themselves to be bruizd to pieces they abstaind from meat for many dayes together Let it confound us that superstition is more powerful then religion and the phantasticalnes of men then the love of God The XIV Chapter That too much love of our flesh hinders the spirit IF our flesh although it be born with us and the blood which enlivens us be such domestique enemies as to hinder the life of our spirit can flesh that 's only alli'd and consanguinity much avail The spirit ought to blush at the name of alliance how much more at the allies of a fond and disordinate love If the flesh be ashamd of its kindred of the same flesh if it disclaime from obscure kinsfolks and progenitours how much more ought the spirit to be ashamd of all flesh and blood and such like affinity The soul ought to renounce her own flesh which she animates and why doth she disordinately love anothers and that void of life which servd others and perchance serves now only for food and lodging for wormes The noblenes of grace and our alliance with Christ should in all reason be forcible enough to make us forget and blush at our nature without needing the incentives of its basenes corruption and loss of allies O divine truth thou commandest me to hate my kindred that I may become thy disciple If I love them more then thee how shal I become thy spirit adhering to thee one spirit with thee Grant me by thy blood that I may not love my blood but in thine let the blood of Christ obtain so much at our hands that we love not too much the blood of sinful men Christ by his sacred blood would redeem us and become our allie by blood for he was not ignorant of the taintures and defects of our blood and our allies by blood and therfore vouchsafed a reparation The spirit is not bound to follow the lawes and dictamens of the flesh see then o my soul that neernes of blood do not taint thy love God commands thee to hate thy self and thy own flesh and blood how canst thou then love thy friends and kinsfolks otherwise then for God and according to the prescript of vertue Thou mightst with as much reason love gnats or flies as thy allies which nevertheles thou seek'st to destroy Wormes are engenderd by the same carnal parents with thy brethren why adhor'st thou them with such a loathing of stomack more then all and lovest thy kindred with such affection of hart more then God If the ground of this extraordinary love beyond the dictamens of vertue be for that they are engendred of the same Parents wormes have more from them then thy brethren for they gave not these their soul nor are they totally producd by them as the others are Hence kinsfolks and parents love and regard only the bodies of their kindred being little sollicitous for what concerns the good of their soul it being Gods handywork not theirs Yea neither didst thou receive thy body from thy parents but by them from God What lovest thou thy allies because they are parts of thy common progenitours by the same reason thou oughtest to love any of their disseverd members yea though infected with a loathsome canker If thou lovest them for resemblance sake by the same consequence thou mightst love their statua or any other ordinary man What is it to descend from the same family but only to have drawn a litle stenchy matter and corruption out of the same stinking fountain and what is worse sin also Can two with any reason boast because they fel together into the same puddle and were bemird with the same dirt Thy parent begot nasty wormes of a purer nature then thee they being void of sin and thou staind with the filth of original neither wert thou sooner partaker of life then guilty of death He that vainly glories in the nobility of his carnal pedegree seeks to entitle to honour the disgrace of common nature What els is disordinate affection to kindred but a vaunting of that common basenes which we should be ashamd of and a complacence in the ignominy of sin The viciousnes of our nature takes growth and increase by flesh and blood and our misery prospers gaines ground thence the flesh is maximd in principles wholy repugnant to the spirit Our soul no sooner begins to be but by meanes of the flesh it is infected with sin and the contagiousnes spreading still more and more it is the prime cause of all our sinful mortalities We must renounce both blood and kindred that we may be freed from this death of sin by the eross of Christ which we must carry We shal not meet with such harsh encounters as many children and youths have done who by vertue of his cross trampled under foot all flesh blood S. Iohn Goto a Iaponian of our Society at the place of his martyrdome beholding at an equal distance on the one hand the teares and sighs sweet embracements of his weeping parents on the other crosses and gibbets bloody executioners nothing dismaid with such ensignes of cruelty chose rather to cast himself into the armes of the cross then those of his kindred and sleighting couragiously all their enticing allurements â—ann to that which stood prepard for him where dying he purchasd the kingdom of God which is not bought by flesh and blood The XV. Chapter Of the loss of temporal things THe spirit is not much troubled at the loss of temporalities for which it hath more reason to rejoyce One that lies groaning under a heavy waight would he lament if a friend should remove it That which is to be taken away it s much better that God take it then death If divested of all thou be pleasing to God and he pleasd with thee to what purpose seekest thou by the access of creatures and cares to become grateful to him Let himself alone content thee without his guifts and the assurances of temporal commodities God loves not what is thine but thee do not thou love so much what is Gods as God himself Christ dispoild of all mounted the cross dispoild of all he came out of his sepulcher there he left his shrowd behind him naked also he took the citty of heaven and enterd it triumphant For love of thee who art naked he dâ—â—d naked not for love of thy goods and fortuâ—es therfore he seeks thee not them and because he seeks thee he takes these things from thee expecting thee naked in heaven
be damnd are not turnd into roses so to mitigate the miseries they are to suffer But on the contrary it is more to be wonderd that under the feet of those who are to be saved they are not changd into thornes and leaping from thence upon their heads do not punish them for their offences such unspeakable fruit shal they reap of their so short labour What is the reason since Christs redemption is most copious that it took away sin and would not also take away those annoinances which in this life arise from sin but because afflictions are beneficially salâ—tiferous How should we ever aspire to eternal life if this momentary were pleasant and caseful since we now love it though ful of miseries and conceive but remiss desires of the others beatitude That blessed and elevated man F. Baltazar Alvarez said very well that tribulations are so many wingd horses to carry us a main pace towards heaven How much the more we debar our senses of their delights by suffering sorrowing or sicknes so much the more are we forced to fly to God and seek true goods in heaven The tops of trees if the under branches be cut away reare themselves much higher and our mind by depressing and keeping sense under flourisheth and taketh better growth After the lapse of Adam God found out the rare invention of suffering a heavenly devise against sin An invention worthy of God was labour and affliction that we might be in our body as if we were bodiles and by that meanes our rellish might be the purer our mind being disaffected to sense and the pleasures of the flesh that by suffering it might be preservd from all contagion by its passions and desires It is a heavenly devise to supply the commodity and prerogative of death that we may not be taken with these fading sensible things Patience was extolld by the Philosophers because they esteemd suffering which it mitigates an evil but because suffering is extreme good therfore I say that patience is good it making us not shun but persist in what is good God is neither ignorant nor unwise far be such a blasphemy from us but the refinedst wisdome nevertheles he chose afflictions for his best-beloved Son he chose them for his Mother for the Apostles companions of his Son and others his friends That zealous and devout Father Christopher Rodriguez was wont to say that he would have no body to compassionate him in his sorrowes and sufferings but rather congratulate and jointly with him give thanks to God for as one friend shakes hands with another and pressingly wrings them in token of friendship til they ake again so God with his hand presseth his friends and wrings them which is an argument of signal love Punishments many times are greater tokens of benevolence then guifts and benefits because in that case the punishments themselves are the greatest favours and most beneficial Reprehension and chastizement is a more pregnant signe of charity then indulgence and cockering One benevolous to foraigners and aliens wil be found more easily then a reprover and rebuker but chastizement is only usd towards friends and domestiques Indulgence and liberality extend themselves even to enemies correction only to children and familiars wherfore the punishments of this life are surer pledges of love then the favours of fortune Tribulations are not alwaies the penalty of delinquency although no fault precede they are good and do thou beare them patiently whether they be inflicted immediately by God or by men and take them so much more joyfully by how much less thou seemst to have deservd them Even as we ought to rejoyce much more if God afflict us and not for our sins so ought we also to be more patient and joyful when we are persecuted slanderd and revild by men if we be conscious of our own innocency and that we suffer without desert What cross wouldst thou rather chuse and with whome to dye with the theives on theirs or with Christ on his The thieves crosses had their merits they were punnishd for their sins but the cross of Christ was a cross of innocency it was not erected for delinquency that were horrid blasphemy therfore thou must glory in no cross but that of our Lord Iesus Christ Our nature fel in its fal it lost its rectitude and uprightnes it must be repaird renewd and rectifyd by hard and heavy duties The hammer is hard and heavy but it moulds and fashions pieces of plate which it makes beautiful to the eye and rectifies what was crooked and amiss Tribulation carries a kind of divine autority a long with it in so much that the H. Ghost breaths more effectually many-times by it then by the Prophets and H. Scriptures We are sometimes refractory to the word of God and the good admonitions of H. Fathers and Doctours but tribulations I know not how make God when he speaks be so applauded that without any more ado we yeald obey He that desires to be heard speaking by knocking with his fist or making a noise with his hand â—bids silence and gaines his auditory so God striking with his makes us attentive to what he sayes Pharao resisted him speaking by his servant Moyses he became plyable and obedient when he afflicted him by any contemptible creature The people would not hearken to Ieremy til captivity at length made them relent No body is deaf nor obstinate to tribulation it is Gods eloquence and the chaire of the H. Ghost it is a sacred thing and as it were the Altar and throne of God although harsh and repugnant to flesh and blood O how awfull and terrible is that place but in very deed it is no other then the house of God and gate of heaven the sanctuary of vertues whether we fly from vice as into a sacred place of refuge Go to then o soul dear to Christ fly not affliction as if it were venimous it cannot hurt thee thy IESVS hath already tasted it it is neither evil nor untoothsome when God is there to season it how can the bitternes of a drop of gal be perceivd in an Ocean of hony whatsoever God sends or howsoever he dispose of me I shall never want this comfort that it is pleasing to him Let this be a solid comfort to thee and yet if thou suffer without comfort do not shun it Let it confound us that we love God les then dogs do their masters Although a dog be chid away although beaten although ston'd yet he cannot be kept of but comes more and more he followes him he fawnes upon him so must we serve and approach to God by how much the more we are beaten and afflicted for if these should cease our chief occasion of meriting would cease nor could we give a sufficient proof that we truly love him and not serve him as mere hirelings OF ADORATION IN SPIRIT AND TRVTH THE II. BOOK THE FIRST CHAPTER Of diligence in Prayer I Am
Mother the intreaties of a Mother are as good as a command to towardly children and what child more towardly then Christ or what Mother better then Mary what greater obligation imaginable then that of the best of children to the best of mothers the obligation of CHRIST is not like that of other children to their parents but like that of creatures to their God It is not only such a one as interceeds betwixt the begetter and the begotten although this also is greater in Christ since it is not divided betwixt two like as other children owe their being both to father and mother for he took humane nature of his Mother alone he having according to it no father and therfore he owes solely to her his being a man but it is also a moral obligation Children owe duty and respect to their parents although they intend not this child in particular but any other yea although they beget him against their will and would indeed have begotten none nevertheles this tie of nature is so sacred that even Barbarians hethens were of opinion that parents were to be worshipped as second Gods that the debt which was owing them could never be dischargd O IESVS whose doctrine transcended the subtilest capacity of Philosophers whose example surpassd all humane opinion if Ethnicks deliverd such precepts about honouring parents what wilt thou o Son of God do in honouring thine that was the respect which Gentils afforded how much more perfect will thine be o IESVS thou who didst build upon the vertues of the ancients and added to their precepts thou who to the lawes of love superadded that of loving our enemies in the command of charity declard even concupiscence to be forbidden so also in the precept of reverencing parents thou didst excel in reverence towards thy mother wherin besides the debt due by nature thou owest another of free election Other parents have nothing of choise in the child they beget but with thy most holy Mother it fared much otherwise she not only bore thee but would only bear thee alone and no other but thee Her good will was expected and desird by God the father and his Angels therfore because thou art endebted to her for this elective will thou repayst it by denying her nothing which she wils Thou dost acknowledg a stricter obligation towards her then other children have to theirs one like to that which creatures have towards their Creatour This is the great debt of creation that God did not only create us but selected us in particular and producd us rather then others whom he left in that heap of things only possible and their own nothing O stupendious excellency of Mary seing God is in like manner obligd to her that creatures are to him which is infinite and then as there is an immense distance betwixt being and not being so the obligation of him that receives being and life infinitly surpasseth all other obligations arising from other common benefits which presuppose being and life If then o God worthy of all love thou art most liberal towards those that are most deeply endebted to thee and most indulgent to those that offend thee how canst thou be griping or hard harted to thy own Mother to whom alone thou art endebted and in such a manner endebted for the riches of thy mercy and goodnes How canst thou deny any favour where thou acknowledges so great a debt thou dost deservedly impart all by her who imparted life to thee for as children can by no goods whatsoever make recompense to their parents for the benefit of life because it is the foundation of all other benefits and all the actions natural endowments of children are properly belonging to parents because they gave them their first being in like manner thou wilt deny nothing to her who gave thee humane nature insomuch that giving all by thy Mother thou seemst to give all to thy Mother and moreover putst us upon a necessity of honouring her since thou wilt have us to obtain what we obtain by her and because thou hadst of her thy natural being that is humane nature so wilt thou also that we have from her a supernatural being that is grace that so by making us the children of Mary supernaturally thou mayst satisfy for thy humane filiation by her naturally True it is that all things are from God this very thing that he is a debter to his Mother is one of his benefits but this imports not much towards our right understanding how much he is ready to do for the most B. Virgin for this is the custome and fashion of God to regard his own favours no otherwise then if he had no hand in our merits though they proceed from his grace but is as bountiful in rewarding them as if they were wholly our own he will give as ful a recompense for our good works as if these good works were not his guifts nor he assisted us with his grace but we performd our services by our own strength and carried of our selves that proportion to glory after the same manner will he correspond with the duties of his Mother as if he had contributed nothing to them but will proceed as if he had receivd essence nature and life from her independently of any benefit and divine grace by which she was prevented and preelected to that stupendious work of the divine Conception If Christ acknowledg and esteem himself thus obligd will he perchance infringe the precept of honouring parents or rather seek to fulfil it with pressd heapt measure if the obligation wherewith other children are tied to their parents be so great that Philosophers judgd it indissoluble since Christ acknowledgeth a greater then any other can he possibly faile in gratitude if God recompense with glory the minute services of men even beyond their desert he will not be wanting in any kind to discharge and satisfy this debt to his Mother which exceeds all rewards and recompense Who can doubt but that Christs gratitude towards his Mother surpasseth the love and gratitude of all other men If then ethnicks were of opinion that children how obsequious soever cannot be gratefull enough to their parents can we imagine that Christ will let slip any occasion of gratitude to her in a word he was so grateful towards his dearest parent that not content with that reverence which he exhibited to her the while he lived in the exercise of infinite theandricall acts with which he honoured her in being subject to her he would have all us to honour her also and help him as it were to do the same For that end he would have all us become her children that for him we might love and honour her as our Mother For as there was an obligation due to her as Mother he would also have such satisfaction and gratitude as is proper to children Which filiation he dedicated on the altar of the Cross when he bequeathd all his
by the same instruments by these Christ ascended into heaven and the members must not think of going another way then by which the head leads them They are not poyson Christ himself sanctified them and tasted them first of all himself yea that a smal parcel of them might only pass to us he drunk up almost the whole chalice of sorrows and afflictions and yet for all that he lives eternally and sits at the right hand of God How canst thou but be confounded whilst seing Christ accursed by all thou seekest so much to be honoured and praisd beholding him prostrate at the feet of Iudas thou preferst thy self before thy betters seing him thirsty and in want of a little water thou covets plenty and delicate fare It is the greatest glory of a servant to follow his masters footsteps To imitate Christ is a busines not only of necessity but dignity and for this respect the main difficulty is removed and a sufficient reward allotted for others that occur If it be a credit to imitate Christ then it wil not be difficult to suffer contempt and the revilements of men for that wil be a high point of honour and there is no contempt where it is a credit to be contemned It wil be also no hard matter to debar ones self of pleasures and superfluous riches to obtaine true glory for worldlings even heathens did more then this when they abstaind even from necessaries for a seeming only apparent glory Let it confound us that some barbarians have bin found so loyal and loving to their soveraign that if he wanted eyes they would put out theirs if he wanted hands they in like manner would cut of theirs and gave this as a pledge of their fidelity and imitation in others why do not we that are calld the faithful imitate the king of glory in things of far les difficulty If Christ had only told us what we were to do though he had not held forth the torch of example we were to have done it how much more when he did it first himself and did it to the end we might do it after him and not only said so in a word but made large encomiums of the happines of afflictions If a Prophet had but intimated it we could pretend no excuse and how much les can we when the very wisdom of Prophets and Gods own mouth hath exaggeratively recommended it and made himself a model of it IESVS never let fal the least idle word and yet he lest so many prayses and magnifying speecheâ— of the happines of poverty and affliction if it behooud us not to suffer the examplary life of IESVS would be to no purpose and his austerity wholly unuseful to us who should be unsensible of his charity who payd such a vast and superabundant sum for our ransome neither should we be taught by so lively an example to love his imitation and detest all sin and sensual pleasures Would God have needlesly thrust his only begotten Son upon such thornes if it imported nothing at all to do what he did that those whom he preelected and predestinated might be made conforme to the image of his Son that he may be the first begotten among many brethren God is not a God of impiety as who could take complacence in being so cruel towards his only beloved child Fierce and savage creatures are most passionately tender over their young ones and how could God who is most meek and ful of mercy be so tyrannically cruel towards his Son if it were not needful for us to suffer The enormity of our sins exacted not such heavy penalties for their redemption one drop I will not say of IESVS blood but of his sweat was superabundant It was therfore our behoof of imitating Christ and suffering it being the road way to heaven that requird such outragious torments and rigour of life God is either cruel and impious or else it is altogether needful for us to be humble afflicted and needy to have a high esteem of divine charity and a meane one of our selves No body knowes the way to heaven who hath not gone it no body ascends up to heaven but he who descended from heaven Christ Iesus who treads the path which he chalkd forth It was a way wholly unknown nor could any give better directions then Iesus who knew it had gone it Iesus did not as some peasants do who with their fingar or speech point out the way to travellers while they themselves sit quietly at home no whit sollicitous whether afterwards they hit or miss for besides that by word he had taught the path that carries to heaven he goes himself before and leads the way that we may be secure from errour Tel me if we were certainly assurd as now we are that there were such a thing as heavenly joyes and that one were to go thither on foot and no more were requird to compass these joyes but only to know the way which he is wholly ignorant of and another good body should instruct him in that who would not buckle himself to this journey though crabbed and ruggy especially if he that shewd us the way would accompany us and go before why then do we not believe Christ and follow him do we feare the wisdome of God being our guide to go astray do we think we can miscarry our B. Saviour going before no certainly Christ shewd us a secure path and traced it out to us so secure that although we die in it the very danger and death breeds security yea if thou didst love Christ thou wouldst not stick to die with him He loves not Christ who doth not imitate him for the vertue of love is assimilation or resemblance O that one could truly say I live now not I but Christ liveth in me carrying the mortification of IESVS about in my body and implanting it in my soul If then thou lovest the Son of Mary wilt become his tabernacle as she was behold with accuratenes and do according to the pattern which is proposd to thee in the mount Calvary and take a view of the whole life of IESVS He chose to live and die in contempt he was derided and set with the wicked accounted not only an idiot but a fool he was beaten as one would not beat his slave he was punishd as if he had been the worst of criminals of his own accord he shund all temporal honour when it was exhibited ther was no miscalling or slanderous nickname that was not appropriated to him they calld him Samaritan idolater possessd person false Prophet seducer belly God devourer drinker of wine blasphemer and transgressour of the law he was thought to be a traitor and conspiratour against his country a friend and abettour of sinners What creature can be namd to which he did not humble himself He humbled himself to the Angels what need was there that an Angel should come to comfort him who was God
endeavouring conformity in all his proceedings O what a comfort it is to one that loves thee o IESVS to operate not only to please thee but because it is pleasing to thee this is the prerogative of obedience that so the obedient may not be frustrated of any part of the reward which he expects not only from the work but which he finds in it he obtaining his end in the beginning which is to please God and this depends not on any future thing it being anticipated by obeying O most welcome task of obedience why do any complain or seek to be excused from it for this reason that if they obey with humility and promptitude more is enjoind them for superiours are wont to be more forward in commanding them that are most prompt in complying with their commands It is a very fond complaint when we complain of what we ought to wish for A king is thought to do one a favour if he commit any businesses to his trust and the more and weightier they are the greater is the favour esteemd if God proceed after this manner with us why do we complain masters for the most part employ those servants about their commands who are most deare and intimate with them and of whose fidelity they have good proof why do we resent that God treats us as such o God of my hart if thou heldst this favorable manner of proceeding with thy own Son in this world who was obedient even unto the death of the cross shal I dare presume that any favour wil be shewed me of a higher strain o IESVS thou who becamest obedient in all grant that I may never refuse any compliance with obedience Thou atchievedst all by being obedient from thy nativity to thy very death thou wert no les subject to Caesar and Pilate then to it There was also a time when thou wouldst subject thy self to the powers of darknes giving way to the divels and permitting thy self with great obedience to the fury of hel in the executioners and malice of the Iewes and because thou couldst not become Incarnate by it thy Humanity being not as yet existent thy Mother supplied for this she conceiving thee by that rare act of obedience and submission of mind O most welcome task of obedience since it is most certain that nothing is better or more grateful to God Adam with drawing himself from it knew good and evil obedience is most innocent it not only knowes not good and evil but is also ignorant of good and better for all the works of obedience are in the superlative degree that is best in comparison of which the acts of other moral vertues carry no comparison in this that none of them is to be preferred before commands for though one practise all the rest but yet do against obedience they all avail nothing yea he does evil But if he omit them for it he shal have the merit of them all The obedient man knowes no such comparative discourses as it is better to do this then that but that it is best to do what is commanded He that hath obedience hath all other vertues in a compendious abridgment he that is obedient wil be both chast and a lover of poverty Adam after he became refractory felt presently the stings of the flesh and sought a garment to conceal them while he was obedient he was most chast and remained a Virgin being content with his own nakednes he stood in an exact poverty O most welcome obedience to him that is emulous of vertue and makes God the sole object of his love Comfort thy self o my soul who covetest longest so much to see his face which the Angels love to contemplate comfort thy self in the interim and reverence thy superiour whosoever he be as an apparent Christ and visible God God is not worshipped in himself only but in every superiour also Perswade thy self that the divine goodnes in its eternal love and providence hath ordained and decreed thee this Prelate that by him and no other he might communicate his grace and enrol thee one of the predestinate Gods autority resides in him enquire not why he commands this or that Gods wil stands for a reason and so it must be in him who is here his vice-gerent Why demandst thou a reason for putting thy self into the hands of God Tell me what was the reason he created not another man who perchance would have been better when he created thee and gave thee to thy self if thou canst not assigne any why demandest thou one for resigning thy self to God with all the latitude of thy will it is an unspeakable glory and content to the heavenly spirits to be alwaies praysing God but it is far more considerable that it is a property inherent to him inbred then if it proceeded only from their mouth The XIII Chapter How great harme proceeds from daily and light defects VVHy dost thou contemne in thy own soul what men affect so much in their bodies they providing not only for lifes maintenance but also for health and comelines It would be held an unsufferable misery to be alwaies sick and a horrid deformity to have ones body composed of man and beast Thou must not only stand in horrour of great sins but also dread the very desires and thoughts that are culpable yea any imperfection How unseemly an object would it be if a serpents mouth stood upon thy face and yet every smal word whether but lightly detractive or offensive or idle is far more deformed O truth o immense goodnes I beg of thee by the merits of Christ that thou wilt remove this veile from before my eys that I may throughly know how stupendious an evil is involved in the malice of the least default o man how monstrous a creature wouldst thou seeme to the eyes of men if thou shouldst at any time appeare with the head of an oxe or horse in thy humane body and yet it is far worse if before God and his Angels thou conceive in thy soul deified by divine grace disproportioned and idle thoughts of terrene things a brutish longing after thy own commodity nay there is more proportion betwixt a mans body and that of a beast which are in the same degree or order of things then there is betwixt grace and any sin even the smallest Wherfore the deformity of the least venial defect exceeds all monstruosity and corporal mishapednes whatsoever not only what is now extant but also imaginable or possible I beseech thee o zealot of Christ by his most sacred blood pause here a while and ponder what I say with an unbiazd judgment and thou who wouldst not have the least blemish in thy body permit not to thy utmost these monsters in thy soul the spouse of IESVS Employ all the faculties of thy mind set all the inventivenes of thy imagination on work and frame a deformity as ugly as thou canst such a mishapdnes as
he would be touched with a sense of compassion and how much more if he did see his own child in such a calamity o most mercyful Father how can that venial fault be tearmed little which it is unseemly for thee to compassionate though thou seest thy own children by grace whome thou affectest so tenderly so scorched and tortured in that piaculary fornace and yet for them it was thou gavest thy life pretious blood Neither paternal bowels replenished with pitty nor infinite wisdome was wanting in thee thou art not an ignorant God who can be deceived in the estimate of a fault nor a cruel one who takes content in punishing but against thy wil wherfore if thou tormentest him so rigorously whome thou lovest so tenderly it must needs be a vast evil towards which mercy it self is so unmerciful Let us imagin a man void of all knowledg of hel or purgatory and beholding only by revelation the state of some one soul pittifully afflicted by those flames for a venial sin but wholly ignorant what might occasion such a punishment what I beseech thee would he guess to cause it any smal or petty trifle or rather some huge exorbitancy which so benigne a God resolved to chastize with so much rigour Again shal that be tearmed little which he in this life punisheth with the greatest of all punishments death If God cannot err in inflicting penalties since he inflicts so dreadful ones how great must that needs be for which he inflicts them behold for one venial sin he punished his own servants Moyses and Aaron with death for one venial sin also as is probably thought Oza and lots wife were suddainly struck with the like disaster For one venial sin the Abbot Moyses was deliverd over to the divel and for a space possessed by him and in very deed it were a les evil to have a thousand legions of divels in ones body and be vext by them then to have the least venial sin in his soul and take complacence in it The divel laboured tooth and nail for 40 yeares together to make a certain servant of God commit but one venial trespass Is the divel such a fool that he would wait and lie in ambush so long to surprize him for a matter of smal moment why shal not we be watchful at least one day to avoid so great mischief o most pure truth purify my impure spirit from such an evil and illuminate me that I may not esteem it light because I regard it but lightly since the divels themselves take it so to hart but let me esteem that great which is done against a God so great nor let me repute that contemptible and sleight which I a contemptible sleight and inconstant creature commit by sinning upon all occasions and constantly but therfore let me hold it great because I who am vile and contemptible dare do it against a God the best and greatest How great must that needs be which rather then we must but once commit deliberately it is better to embrace a thousand deaths it is better that heaven and earth returned to their first nothing and all mankind were sentencd to damnation If choise were given to the Virgin Mother while she stands at the foot of the cross bewailing the torments and death of her beloved Son whether she would have him released from these paines and disgraces and behold him presently seated at the right hand of his Father and the salvation of a thousand worlds accomplished at that instant or consent to one sole venial sin she would chuse not to do this latter and would also perswade me to do so too nay rather then this she would chuse to see her Son and the Son of God once more naild to the cross yet without any default at all and if it were needful and lawful would strike in the nailes with her own pious hand and sacrifice him with greater charity then Abraham did his Tel me I pray would it be a slender courtesy and comfort to the Virgin her Iesus if some one man were found who would put himself upon the mount Calvary in the room of Christ and be crucified and suffer in his steed perswade thy self for all this that they would rather desire a greater comfort at thy hands which is to eschew all venial sin Consider now whether that would be little which should preponderate such a piece of service nor do thou deny this solace to thy suffering Christ and his compassionate Mother Let us then cancel and abolish this opinion that that evil can be light or little which the Virgin Christ God his Father deem so great and punish so exemplarly That is not little which hinders things orderd to a great and sublime end which lessens the love of God in this life and delaies his vision in the other It is no smal rub which puts as it were a stop and let to the most speedy and powerful mercy of God and his desires Would it be accounted a smal violence that should suspend a millstone falling from heaven in the aire while it were poasting to the earth its center it is therfore no smal sin which suspends the divine munificence and the ardent desires of an enamoured soul that they cannot reach their center God and the promisd holy land of beatitude but detaines it in the flames of purgatory That is not a little displeasing to God which hinders him from giving out of hand what he hath such a mind to give and we so willingly would receive That is not little which stops the current of Gods great favours and even in this life obstructs the outlets of his profuse liberality Let us tremble at such an evil and to the very utmost of our power use all possible diligence to avoid it not enduring to brook the shame and disgrace which the name of a fault imports How can that soul take complacence in the name of a servant or a child or a spouse which is not carefull to please God and comply in all things with his sacred will how naughty a servant would he be thought that would do nothing as he ought unles his master threatning death stood over him with a drawn sword and can upon no other tearms neither by faire meanes nor foul be brought to his duty how untoward a child who is allwaies crossing his parent and seeks to please him no further then meerly to keep himself from being disinherited for the rest is wholly wrechles in accomplishing his wil and desire and is lead in all with a spirit of contradiction how disloial a spouse who should only so far forth shew her self faithfull and loving to her fellow spouse as not to provoke him to take her life in other things perpetually crossing and vexing him and were she never so often corrected shewd no signes at all of amendment what argument of love would it be in a child or spouse to say I really love my parent or fellow spouse
but little regard notwithstanding what affront I put upon him besides death or a deadly wound I will uncontroulably do what I think good nor ever labour to humour him further then may serve to save my life and secure my inheritance Who could have patience with one that should speak thus do accordingly Iust thus proceeds he who contemnes venial sins and serves God meerly to avoid the death of his soul or forfeiture of heaven by a mortal Is there think you any master of a family to be found who would give house room to such a servant or Son or spouse this is the prodigious patience of God who tolerates us even while we abuse his toleration Let us then not misprize these faults as little which although they were so yet are they many and God is great and but one Grains of sand are smal yet they may be so multiplied that they wil overwhelme one sooner then a great stone One locust is an inconsiderable creature yet what greater destruction to the fields then their multitude great citties are delugd by smal drops of raine If we had so many little wounds or pricks in our body so many pushes or blisters in our face so many rends or holes in our garment as we commit venial sins we should be halfe dead loathsome to the eye and almost quite naked and why do we suffer those miseries in our soul but because we are less ressentive of its harmes then what concerns our body and apparrel O how dare we appear before God so replenished with confusion but why do I insist upon the number one sole fault is to be dreaded because one cannot think any thing little who thinks God to be infinite nor will he account it smal whose love is great what love resides in him who makes no reckning of displeasing God he that displeaseth him in a little really displeaseth him he that displeaseth him transgresseth the lawes of an ardent love The XIV Chapter Of exactnes in small things GOd is immensly great in his service thou must esteem nothing little he were not great enough unles he exceeded all littlenes If thou lovest him true friendship is tried in the least duties Art shewes it self in little things the perfection of vertue is no les polite and therfore it stands not altogether upon ample subjects Nature is most admirable in the least things it is most tender over the minutest creatures Grace is no whit more dul nor ought to be more backward Those things which seem more minute are to be more nighly regarded Since God is so great nothing is little which eyther pleaseth or displeaseth him In good evil there is no minutenes Whatsoever is good for that very respect is great whatsoever is bad upon that very score is not little An infinite goodnes exacts by claime all our forces he that owes all doth an injury if he deny any thing Vse not these manners of speech what makes matter for this this imports but little this is of no moment at all Yea this which thou deemst nothing is a busines of great concern because what thou thinkest much or of great moment is nothing in comparison of Gods greatnes and thy obligation O immense truth how can any thing be thought little or great if the measure of my obligation diligence be thy immensity where there is no little nor great but an excess of all meane How can I say this is little if whatsoever I do for thee is nothing It is not little which is held the least since perfection consists in the least Little things are not to be sleighted because greater are contemned If thou let a spark of fire fal into a pile of dry sticks which thou keepst under thy roof a great flame will be raisd which will consume the whole edifice Our corrupt nature is as apt to take the infection of malice as a little dry flax to take flame If thou sleightest smal things by little and little thou wilt be perverted Regard not the littlenes which appeares at first but by the beginning measure the end Seeds are allwaies extreme little and yet there is more vertue and efficacy in them then in any part of the whole plant The parting of two high waies insensibly protracted into length ends at last in a great interval of distance and may proceed to an infinitude though at first les then a step would have concluded the difference If thou once swarve from thy good purposes and remit that vigour of mind thou wilt by degrees find thy self very remote from thy former fervour Great things take their beginning from little wherfore a little is not the least if it be but the beginning The beginning of every thing is its chief and principal part yea it is not calld a part but the half of the whole Our H. Father S. Ignatius did with reason hold that it was more dangerous to contemne little things then greater the dammage of these latter is more patent and may forthwith be remedied but the prejudice we sustain by the former is not perceived but by length of time when being inveterated by custome it is scarse capable of redress The very nature and enormity of sin makes us abhor detest great ones but little defects because they seem little for this very reason are contemned and this being so our mind is not bent against them Our concupiscence is sharpend and set on edge by little things as thinking that it may wander in them without any great danger when it is not so venturous in great ones it being curbed and kept in by the apprehension of a patent ensuing harm but when our desire is once enkindled a little traind up how wil it then lash forth what wil it not encounter and for this reason we must sometimes proceed with more warines and sollicitude against smal defects then great Custome which gaines prescription upon vices breeds from little things not from great because they are less frequent nor shal we find it an easier task to resist custome then nature One shal sooner have an action in law against a publick invader and forcible seizure of our goods then one that hath had them by long prescription Those things which seem light take from us all remorse and shame of committing them that towards God being once cast of what good can be expected from us past shame past grace Be ashamd to refrain from great things and yeald to little for it is disgraceful and a sign of a coward to be foild by a dwarf or weak enemy That little is not to be sleighted in which great worth may be comprized A pearl is not contemned by reason of its littlenes nay for this respect it is valued the more as containing great worth in a little body why dost thou sleight that little wherin perchance thou maist do God a piece of better service then in greater Obsequiousnes and diligence in small things gaines greater
first fruits of life to the Authour of life presenting thy self in the morning before him We must prevent the sun to thy benediction and adore thee o Lord at the rising of the same in the midst of our sleep it being as yet night when the pulse of the bel or some inspiration calls us to rise and behold thou our spouse comest and it is requisite to go forth to meet thee To make this encounter fruitfully it conduceth not a little to prepare oyle over night least the lamp of thy love o my soul want fewel to feed its flame and thou like a foolish Virgin be shut out which is too terrible Premeditate what language shal deliver thy first salutes to thy spouse and what affaires thou art to negotiate in time of prayer this being done if thou betake thy self to rest with sorrow thou wilt rise with cheerfulnes if thou hast a loathing of sleep thou wilt covet watching with much alacrity How can a soul enamoured upon God chuse but grieve that it must cease to love him prayse him improve its stock of merits and that all advantages of increasing his glory and its love towards so dear a spouse must be suspended how can it endure to see it self sustained by God loved by him and regaled in this interim with innumerable benefits and not to be able to relove him or as much as be thankful for such high favors Wherfore it is requisite both before and after sleep to make amends for that suspension of love and merits with more ardent affections and celestial desires supplying that loss of life wherin we cannot power out our whole harts upon God and be absorpt in him We must procure by this very cessation of merit and love to merit as much if it were in our power as if we were awake Vsurers even while they sleep increase their mony and thou wilt do the same if conforming thy self to the disposals of heaven with obedience and resignation thou make an ardent oblation of thy self and beare with patience this misery and the incident necessities of mans life He that embraceth patiently a necessary death whether it proceed naturally from some disease or be violently caused by another man he merits by it and so shalt thou if it be harsh and noisome to thee to repose and sleep as it is to those that serve love God fervently if I say thou accept of this necessary burden with equanimity it being wisely so ordained by the author of all wisdome Perchance if thou consider things in themselves and how much more burdensome sleep is then death to a true lover of God thou maist merit by sleeping patiently for his sake as by dying for patience Merit resides amidst great patience and patience is there greatest where greatest aggrievances are born most patiently Among all the burdens of mans life and all the annoyances which besiege it so closely none is greater then that of sleep or more worthily to be repented sin being excepted Other calamities are only tormentours of life sleep for its interim bereaves us of it other calamities are only opposite to the commodities of life sleep for a time impugnes its substance other calamities are in such sort noisome to our temporal life that they exceedingly conduce to eternal by affording matter of merit by raysing our minds towards God and drawing our affections as by an attractive quality sleep in it self during its raign is an enemy both to corporal and eternal life for as much as it causeth a vacancy both from merit and all thought of heavenly things other calamities are most welcome to Gods zealot because in them he doubles his spiritual advantages love is put to the rest God is glorified but sleep hath nothing at all desirable a cessation both of loving and honouring God attending it step by step wherfore sleep is more noisome and for a two fold yea manifold reason more burdensome then death it self to one that is enamoured upon God Death tyrannizeth only over the body sleep over both body and soul sleep on this behalf seems so much worse then death by how much the soul is better then the body nay much more to wit as much as the whole man soul and body is better then the body alone for death only deprives thee of thy body but sleep of thy soul also as wel as of it Death aymes only at the destruction of our body a thing frail and corruptible sleep at the soul also a thing eternal immortal which gives life to the body it being wholly insensible but for it death destroies a man sleep doth as much for a space of time as annihilate him Death is not to be dreaded for it leaves the best part of man untouched to wit his soul which makes him a man by which he loves God and apprehends his mercy and goodnes which is the glory of a man and ought to be his sole content and joy yea it leaves it more refined without impediment that it may honour love God more expeditly sleep overwhelmes and enters the noblest part of man unsouling as it were the soul it self Tel me I pray which wouldst thou resent most to die or to be annihilated if thou give glory to God by dying because such is his B. wil wilt thou not do the same if thou covet upon the same motive to be annihilated therfore if a patient acceptance of death be meritorious so wil also a patient acceptance of sleep if thou relish it as an equal burden If thou merit by embracing with patience the vexatious incumbrances of this life why shalt thou not also merit by sleep if it be the greatest incumbrance of all yea it being the sole and only thing which living and dying we must deem cumbersome for neither in this life nor after death is there any thing sin being set aside more burdensome to one that is feelingly devoted to the service of God What are accounted the burdens which press so heavily upon this life but its sufferings and miseries but one should be so far from esteeming sufferance a burden that it ought to be the scope and but of his desires next after God there is nothing more expetible then to suffer for God exhibiting this as the credentials of our love for by so doing we perfect the knot of true charity being more straitly united to him we dilate the confined raies of his glory and merit to be partakers of the same No body knowes throughly how burdensome sleep is to us besides him who is able to make a true estimate of the immensity of Gods glory the invaluablenes of his love and the least degree of grace in order to all which for this interim there is a dead surcease a suspension of all traffique for new merits After the cloze of this life what is noisome to the just besides purgatory but if thou be then in a condition of suffering it ought not to be resentive at all
thou being therby refined and purified thy spouse trimming thee up in such a dress as may wel beseem his bedchamber If he leave it then wholly in thy power to love God what cause of tergiversatioÌ„ since he leaves arbitrary to thee what thou wishest and desirest where thou hast opportunity to suffer and love there is no just ground of complaint If it were put to thy choise whether thou wouldst sleep or die for half an houres space a soul truly inflamed with the ardours of charity would of it self prefer death that it might not be reduced to a cessation of love yea it would not thirst more after the resurrection of the body then after avoiding all unnecessary excess of sleep though but for a quarter of an hour as much as might be without impairing its corporal health For the mean of discretion is every where to be observed and we must take a necessary repose though against our will that the functions of our mind may be vigorous and masculine fitly disposed for all enterprizes to Gods glory as also for praier least if we indiscreetly deprive our selves of it we be heavy at our devotions too drowzy and languishing and so by little and little quite benumd and what then wil be the issue but that we perform them with little fruit But to be too indulgent to sleep beseems the dead rather then the living and a soul weighing things in themselves that is with an impartial ballance and siezd with the heat of divine love to avoid this inconvenience all acts of love and prayse surceasing for that interim it would perchance rather make choise of a perpetual death of the body because in that case one may love enjoy God which alone sufficeth and is the chief desire of an enamoured soul but being so charmed and stupifyd it cannot although one wil not easily conceive this who doth not experience in himself the avaricious incentives of divine love and its restles longings and motions nor how contemptibly an enflamd hart spurns at all self commodity But we must not measure the ardour of true love and a devoted affection by the ell of our lukewarmnes rather by what we behold in those that fondly doat even to madnes upon a perishable beauty we may guess at the feelings and flames of a pretender to an eternal and never fading one But if thy breast harbour not fuel for such a heat shun at least as much as thou canst the chilnes of tepidity and sleepines If it were intimated to thee that forthwith thou must be annihilated such tydings would fil thee with horrour why then wilt thou so joy in sleep it being all one as if for such a respit thou wert annihilated Apprehend the incommodities of sleep which is an evil manifold death it being very opposite to a 4. fold life for sleep deprives us of the chief life of our body in which it is equivalent to death it self it takes away the life of our soul which is then as if it were not at all in this it surpasseth death sleep is also in some sort injurious to the life of grace and the eternal life by causing such an interruption of merit What then can be more prejudicial to us wherfore one that burnes with the true flame of divine love and is siezd with an ardent desire of praysing so great a good is hugely covetous of the least advantages of time and deems any unnecessary expense in that kind an irreparable loss and consequently he goes to sleep with much regret accepting with patience this necessity imposed by God upon life and making to him an oblation of it taking in good part since his holy wil is such to be deprived for this interim of what he much more covets which is to love prayse God and be restles in his service and as much as in him lyes he covets not to sleep but rather busy himself in the former actuations thinking every hour a day til he return to his wonted employment Thou also must put on this disposition of wil and offer it to God compose thy self like one ready to give up the Ghost saying with Christ into thy hands o Lord I commend my spirit By thus behaving thy self thou shalt after a manner merit by that death and vacancy of sleep so untoothsome and distastful to thy rellish Conceive also ardent desires of that ever during life when without interruption thou shalt enjoy God and bewail the miseries of this life since thou must seek repose and relaxation for thy exhausted spirits in a thing of all others most burdensome to thee and prejudicial to all to wit sleep How can life it self chuse but be noysome its very rest being so restles and its advantages so disadvantageous it is a lamentable thing that life must be repaird at the very charges and expenses of life since the lover of God esteems somtimes a short sleep more dammageable then the loss of a long life When thou art laid to repose endeavour to seal up thy eyes and hart with the ferventest act of love which ever thou didst make in thy whole life and even before thou fallest a sleep desire to rise as soon as may be purposing at thy first waking to unseale thy hart and actuate it in more fervent eâ—aculations then hitherto thou hast done so to compass in that instant a new purchase of grace It wil not a little conduce to this to beg the concurrence of thy Angel Guardian as also to use a spare and frugal diet Strike up this bargain with thy body in the meane while repose take thy penny-worths but be sure to rise as soon as the bell calls thee to work Like as the soul for the good of the body dies as it were by night and is buried so must the body die by day for the good and benefit of the soul while it is awake let the body be dead to this world as when the soul is a sleep it is dead for that respit to heaven that is to meritorious actions and pious thoughts Procure in the meane while that thy body as much as may be supply the elevations and obsecrations of thy soul the which not being as then in a capacity to pray the body must do it by lying modestly in a be seeming posture and for more decency not right upward We compose coarses and embalm them against corruption though they must shortly be the food of wormes and spoile of time so let us compose and dispose our selves in this death of sleep that we may be fit for the chast embracements of Christ Lye with thy armes or fingars a cross such treasures as these must thou coffin up together with thy self till the morning revive thee for treasures were wont to be buried and deposited with the dead Be sure thou never desert the cross but whilst thy mind cannot cling to it thy body must carrying alwayes about with it the mortification of IESVS Christ when
he was dead would bequeath to us a pledg of his love by receiving a wound with a speare thou also in this short death must give such an earnest-penny of thy affection And by this meanes as Christ in his sleep of death merited at thy hands by shedding water and blood a special pledg of love at his harts wound so thou also in thy death of sleep shalt even then merit at the hands of Christ for such a precedent desire and disposition Let this be an argument that while thou sleepest thy hart wateheth not unlike cranes who while they sleep carry a stone in their tallon the fall wherof forthwith awakes them The IV. Chapter That we must rise fervorously to our morning prayer IF with loathing thou didst betake thy self to rest thou wouldst with a cheerful alacrity rise in the morning to thy task neither would it be necessary for the master of the family to hire so early his workmen Thou wilt shew thy self too effeminate if thou be not valiant against sleep but suffer thy self to be vanquishd by a thing of all others the most unmanly being chaind hand and foot like a captive without tye in such sort that thou canst neither help thy self nor others but must be content to sit in the shadow of death It would not be needfull that the voice of thy beloved knocking at the dore of thy hart should rouze thee conceive the sound and pulse to be the noise of thy spouse calling and inuiting thee with most sweet and amorous language to open the dore and he cals thee his sister his love his dove his unsported Open to me saith he o my sister my love my dove my unblemishd Love makes him call thee so often his neither can he be satiated with calling thee so O Lord what beholdst thou in me that can so transport and enamour thee can it be reasonable that I disgust thee for a little ease but if thou hasten not o my soul to open because thou art his and for love of him do it at least out of mere compassion To move thee more forcibly he presently adds because my haire is full of dew and my locks of the drops of the night Thou wouldst not demur to open even to a stranger and an enemy in this pitteous plight and why not to thy God thy lover who does it all for thy sake Beware he depart not if thou linger What can be imagind more attractive and comfortable then this voice of the spouse knocking so friendly that he may bannish all lazynes from a pious soul who will not be more confounded then was Vrias to lye in bed while Christ stands expecting not under a pavillon but in the open ayre exposed to the injuries of the night Robbers stick not to rise by night to make their booty and massacre others and wilt thou when the good of thy soul and Gods glory lyes at stake be so tardy the Angel caling Peter when he was a sleep said rise quickly Thou art more then dead when thou art buried in sleep imitate at least the dead in rising In the twinckling of an eye in a moment shall the dead bodies arise at the command of an Angel IESVS will not have thee be flower when he cals then when an Angel The heavenly spirits take it ill they being by nature most quick and agile to see any one whom they awake any whit sluggish or fearing themselves with stretchings and yawnings and they waken us most willingly beâ—â—use the very sight of this drowzines so opâ—osite to their agility is not a little offensive to â—hem A certain servant of Christ one of our society by name Iohn Carrera was every morning before day called by his good Angel to go to praier but this heavenly monitor once absented himself for many dayes till being appeased with continual praiers and long fasts he returned at length to his charitable office admonishing Iohn that for this reason he with drew his comfortable presence because being once overcome with the drowzy wearines of the precedent dayes labour he had not risen with such speed to his accustomed devotions So inconsiderable a fault if it were a fault so highly offended the Angel although it were not perceived by his conscience which was so tenderly nice and delicate They esteem the fervor and prayers of us miscreants so much that they deem not their own officiousnes to equalize the others worth and give us a gentle correction that there may not be so much as a false shadow of idlenes where we traffique in such real goods Therfore be not slow at the hour of rising labour with great speed to overtake any one that is before thee that thou maist be the first that our Lord coming loaden with his guifts shal light upon so to have the first choise and handsale of his graces he disburdening himself upon the first he meets Thou shouldst run towards Christ charged with his cross to ease him of it and be crucified in his place run to him fraught with grace to be enriched by him What soul can be so sensles and prodigal as not to rise with all speed to receive so many guifts and impart kisses to her spouse how can she be said to love God if she return not swifter then any thunderbold to love her beloved whom over night she desired so vehemently One must rise more expeditly then if the bed and bed clothes were all in a flame one will rise more expeditly if the fire of love be enkindled in his hart Procure at that instant to make amends for the vacancy of sleep wherin thou couldst not actuate thy self in the love of God by a most fervorous elevation of mind by a most flagrant charity and a total holocaust of thy self the perfectest that hitherto thou ever didst offer upon the altar of thy hart Suppose thy self in such a condition as if in that moment of thy awaking thou wert newly created by God to love and serve him for that day alone for that sole end is this daies life granted to thy use If one that is in a state of beatitude were annihilated by God and forth with created anew with all his qualities and former perfections with what impetuousnes of will in that very moment would he engulph himself in the abiss of the divinity do thou endeavour to put on a like fervour after this thy annihilation by sleep and resuscitation by awaking How deep a sense and profound reverence did Adam and the Angels conceive â—â—wards their Creator in the first instant of â—â—eir perceived creation imitate the B. Virâ—â—n who being in the first moment of her conâ—â—ption created in grace and priviledgd which â—e perfect use of reason with what intenâ—â—nes of affection did she cast her self into the â—â—mes of almighty God what thanks did Christ our Lord render to his heavenly Father â—â— the first instant of the hypostatical union yea with how great love did he then particuâ—arly think
attempt things both unknown and uncertain why can we for love of vertue and the honour of God sustain nothing with constancy he that hopes for a continual and eternal good unjustly shuns labours in its pursuance he that is to be alwayes happy must be alwayes good for Each day condemns mans irreligious facts All seasons open are to vertues acts as saith S. Prosper The greatest grace of all other is to preserve the grace which is given thee and thy chief work not to surcease from doing works As a creature would be very deformed without head and life such a monster is a good life without a corresponding end We have received grace without any paines but we must conserve it both by grace and paines The beginning of a thing is accounted half its accomplishment but unles it end wel all comes to nothing In the matter of perseverance the end is all in all for nothing is done so long as any thing remaines undone It imports little to have laboured hard all ones life long if he faulter in the end The sole last moment of perseverance is more available then all the years by past for all their fruit proves rotten if it did not borrow thence a preserving soundnes Thou wilt think it a hard task to persever but it is much harder to begin again and much more then that to begin often Wherfore it is both more easy and more conducible to persever once then to begin often Horses force themselves les in a continued course of drawing a chariot then after having stood stil when they are to move it again Water which hath been once heated being taken of the fire becomes more cold then at first If fervour be wanting in thy proceedings thou also perchance wilt be more tepid then in the beginning Many grow faint-harted in the course of perseverance because they find difficulty in doing good but they do not therfore evade that difficulty for it is only perseverance that makes all easy If thou hadst the courage to begin a hard task thou mayst wel continue it that being much more easy Thou hast found so long by experience that it is neyther disproportioned to thy strength nor grace why then contrary to so long proof art thou now diffident thinking thy self unable to bear it what is eyther past or to come is not burdensome for the present do not grasp the difficulty all at once for it comes not so but by piece meale cōmensurate to the parts of time As thou wast able before to support it so art thou now and wil be henceforth It wil not be more noysome then it was but the heat of the difficulty wil remit by length of time and custome Accustome thy self to do wel and thou wilt forget to do ill Custome overcomes difficulty because it overcomes nature and what then wil grace do if custome overcome nature much more wil a wel-orderd charity in thee overcome the deordinations of nature It is better many times to fulfil a good purpose or consummate a work already begun then to begin another though otherwise more perfect because by inuring thy self yealding to a ficklenes of mind neither wilt thou performe that other Seldome can any work occur which is better then constancy in fulfilling a good purpose Good purposes are to be kept although they be not of any great regard because albeit in themselves it imports but little whether they be kept or no yet it is extremely important to be constant no wayes changeable Who is more constant in making good purposes then he who least intends to keep them If thou learnst a firm perseverance in one good against another thou wilt learn it more firmly against evil wilt not vary like time in this time of serving God O eternal truth grant me grace to serve thee eternally help o Christ my weaknes thou who with such indefatigable love tookest upon thee all our infirmities thou who never art weary with tolerating my impudent negligences grant that I may never be negligent any more nor desist impudently from thy service but may learn to brook swallow all morsels of difficulty Let me learn o Lord perseverance by thy love who when thou lovedst thine thou didst love them even to the end thou who didst persever hanging upon the cross and wouldst not desert it though the Iewes promised upon that condidition to believe in thee the Son of God who being ful of irksomnes anguish and a bloody sweat didst persist nevertheles and seeke redress by red oubling thy prayers Go too o remiss spirit tel me what must thou covet to do for thy IESVS who persevered for thee amidst the sorrowes of death and the cross who when he loved thee loved thee even to death what I say must thou covet but to do good and suffer evil These are the chief ambition of a soul that loves IESVS that which makes most for perseverance A good work presents it self what hinders thee from doing it but the trouble which accompanies it but mark wel that here concurs a second commodity of suffering evil and attend now that the good is doubled ther is superadded to this work both to suffer evil and do good Thou canst pretend no excuse for thy non-perseverance because that only hinders thee which ought to be the sum of thy desire to suffer for thy beloved If the love of IESVS were enkindled in thee all backwardnes tribulation and extrinsecal impediments would no more oppress thee then fire is with wood which forthwith more inflames it But if thou be so coldly chil that the love of God finds no fewel to feed on let thy own advantage and hope of future joy incite thee Dispair of coming off with life is wont to add valour to souldiers make them way through the thickest dangers divine hope of eternal life is yet more forcible and wil make thee more valiant and daring With this hope attempt thy enterprizes and persever cheerfully A cheerfull acceptance feels neyther labours nor trouble though otherwise the thing be laborious enough He that exerciseth himself in military games or at ball is wont to take more paines then one that hires himself forth to day-task and yet he feels it not because he takes it by way of pleasure and content If thou wilt conclude happily in the last hour be sure to begin each hour if thou intend to persever begin alwayes a new Excuse not thy negligence by indisposition of body self love for the most part deceives thee and makes thee do thy actions remisly Thy body is able to do more then thou thinkst if thy fervour of mind were but vigorous its force infusing strength even into weak and feeble limbs A lunatique person though exhausted with sicknes can do more then 4. that are sound the vigour of our mind sometimes communicates it self to the body If the infirmity of a malady can make one strong how much more the strength of grace and
appearance of thy glory I reserve my self for it and wil refrain from these grosser meats of the earth Vpon hopes to feed more savourly at a wel furnishd table the guest is content to protract his fast it is but meet that upon hopes of the divine supper we at least keep abstinence Remember that Christ hath made thee equal with the Angels and wil it not then be a shame to do like a beast he that cannot wholly wipe off an infamy lessens and dissembles it as much as he can let it confound us to renew daily the brand we received by gluttony in our first fall from a state of happines and that with so much gust and savour If we had heaven eyther in esteem or hunger we should loath earth and earthly things where when we are to eat for as much as concerns gust we must carry our selves as if there were none at all God himself invites thee a guest to the supper of eternal glory in the interim sitting down to table let Christ be thy fellow-guest and thou wilt be abstemious if thou suppose thou art to divide with him What soever thou subtractest from thy necessary sustenance offer it to IESVS The Pharisees and Publicans invited IESVS thou being a Christian must not think much to do the same He that invites another labours not so much to please his own palat as his guests for whom he carves the best piece so when thou sittest down at table strive not to content thy own rellish but study how to pleasure Christ and the only way to please his gust is to take no gust at all Consider him where he refreshed those 3. dayes when his Mother lost him in the Temple prepare a banquet for him together with Saint Mathew Contemplate Christ his disciples when through want of necessaries they pulled cares of corne call him making him share of thy provisions prepare him a feast together with Zaccheus Behold him fasting 40. dayes for thy sake and if thou wilt not minister to him with the Angels invite him with Simon and he will be as much refreshed with thy abstinence as if a table were furnished for him by the Angels He begd a draught of water of the Samaritan do thou give him of thy cup. I thirst cryed he from the cross let him tast of thy Chalice O that any one would give me gall vinegar I would exchange cups with Christ relieving his thirst with my drink how could I chuse but relieve thee o Lord in such extreme necessity now I am able to do it and undoubtedly thou wilt rellish my good will and desire of abstinence more savourly then if I offerd thee a most delicious draught How unnatural were he that would not relieve thee now I may do it if I drink not more then is necessary Why shal I not refresh thy thirst behold o soul thy IESVS desirous to eat his Pasch with us accompany the Apostles that thou maist partake of so desired a table Carry thy self there with modesty and humility seek the lowest place but chuse not for all that the place of Iudas Thou art not worthy to sit at such a table place thy self at the feet of thy companion the betraier the most humble IESVS will even there also find thee out Contemplate how he fed so many yeares with his most H Mother and S. Ioseph she perchance sometimes eat very sparingly and defrauded her own mouth of many bits purposely to give them to her most loving Son their poverty not sufficing for both deprive thy self of some parcel give it as an almest to the Virgin wherewith to feed her dearest child Remember how this Mother of love gave suck to her Infant IESVS how the Son of God even then would fast for thy sake abstain sometimes from these sweet breasts do thou also for his sake refrain at least from some particle and offer it to Christ with a most ardent charity with such to wit as she nursed him imitate to thy utmost her love In this manner thou shalt stifle with pious meditations and forestail thy appetite by an affection to things divine One desire wil drive out another and one rellish drown another Perchance gluttony wil be no les extirpated and thy mind by ruminating what is read at table and such pious employments more purged then by fasting it self If the motive of doing a thing acceptable to Christ do not urge thee the dignity of abstinence the profit which redounds from it ought in all reason to prevail Nothing is more contrary to the spirit then an unmortified appetite Eat to refresh thy body not to overcharge it Many when they eat do rather oppress then nourish their bodies making that which ought to be the refection of life its oppression Is it not very absurd to load and stuff ones belly as one would do an asses pack since our flesh is elevated above the Cherubins if the kingdome of God and tabernacle of the H. Ghost be within us why are we so base-minded as to make our stomacks the charnel-house or Sepulcher of dead beasts he that ought to be the Temple of the living God cald to a divine life why doth he debase himself to the meanest of all lives to wit ' a dead life and the very dregs of all life Plants having only a nutritive life are void of all sense We loose so much of our mind as we bestow of it upon meat what more unworthy then the loss of an Angelical life mind if thou feedst too greedily sensually thou hast reason to fear least thou degenerate not so much into a beast as into a tree or a stock Adam being overcome with gluttony clad himself with leaves like a tree as if he meant to become one carrying its shape in his flight from God Gluttony and nutrition is not only a life proper to unreasonable creatures but to the very insensible plants nutrition being only peculiar to them Therfore a full belly obstructs all sense it evacuates the mind it disposeth one to insensibility by hindring the use of reason which after dinner is dull and sluggish it induceth sleep in which a man differs nothing at all from an elme or plain tree save only that this at set times affords the benefit of a shade but the life of gourmandizers is the life of sleepers and the life of sleepers the life of a gourd which is allwaies in a lying posture Hence it followes that he who is les abstemious is les obsequious to reason as being more insensible the sole life of trees is uncapable of command Nutrition it self is not in the power of a creature When we check our desires or curbe savage beasts they become tame and pliable to their keepers but plants which regard nothing as I may say but their belly that is to feed themselves they harken to no body nor regard reason This kind of life is the scum and refuse of all
nothing pass unpunished and he most faithful to thee will exhibite nothing but mercy Reduce first of all into thy mind the matter wherof thou art to give account to witt all the benefits heaven hath conferred upon thee next examen in what thou hast abused them together with thy ingratitude lastly humble thy self be sorry bewail even thy least defects and purpose firmly by Gods assistance never to fall into the same Strengthen this thy purpose as men are wont to strengthen their contracts first before witnesses renew it in the presence of the Angels and Saints and then security for performance being given call the B. Virgin and thy special Patrons and appoint them suerties adding also a penalty of forfeiture Impose upon thy self in case of relapse some voluntary affliction by way of pennance strive allwaies to advance in goodnes for if the Angels conceive joy for one sinner becoming repentant why will there not be much more jubily for the just in his progress from vertue to vertue wax not negligent in this search into thy self it being the key which unlocks all the treasures of fervour Many religious men become tepid by reason of their remissnes in this exercise hence many grow lukewarm hence diverse old souldiers in the service of piety have forsaken their colours after a lamentable manner because contenting themselves with a sleight and superficial search and sorrow what they seemd to bemoan this hour they committed the next Thou neglectest not daily to renew and reenforce the decayd spirits of thy body twice a day by corporal refection it imports thee to be no les industrious in recruiting the forces of thy soul and good purposes by sifting into thy actions yea not twice but at the end of each work whether thou hast performed it wel or no God who was no way obnoxious to errour considered examined all his works as soon as he had made them He created light and presently taking a view of it saw that that fair creature was good He made the luminary bodies and forthwith contemplating them perceived they also were good He daily entered into examen of each work in particular and then a general survey of them all and found that they were very good So must thou view each of thy actions apart then all of them together If thou hast not performed them well thou wilt by the line square of a due discussion of thy conscience discover what is amiss to amend it for the future Moyses in the bosome-retirement of his breast cleansd that hand which he found coverd over with leprosy This serious examen of ones self is the storehouse of vertues there the fear of God there humility self-knowledg compunction perseverance fervour there prudence is minted to a currant coyn Lay wait chiefly to intercept some one vice which thou must with importunity both prosecute and persecute till thou hast utterly vanquishd it and after this manner by little and little must thou endeavour to subdue them all The XIV Chapter How we must be affected towards others LET this be thy employment all the day long in all thy own actions even those that are commendable to accuse thy self and in thy neighbours though discommendable to excuse others It fares not with our conscience as it doth with our countenance we see other mens faces not our own but we behold our own conscience not anothers wherfore we ought and are only able to judg and condemn our selves If thou thy self who art only able to discerne thy own conscience findst it a difficult busines to pass verdict upon many of thy actions whether they be good or bad whether thou hast given consent or no how darest thou judg others whose harts are unfolded to none but God If thou canst not discover thy own mind why dost thou judge of anothers if thou art unable to discern thy own how darest thou pass sentence upon thy neighbours If thou weighest not thy own proceedings why dost thou draw others into thy ballance but for the most part those that stand idle in the market-place are the people which busy themselves in murmuring and slandering others so he that neglects his own soul spends his censure more freely upon his neighbours We might long ago have learnd by experience how lyable our judgments are to errour Even in corporal things and those which have but an extrinsecal appearance and colour our senses are very frequently deluded how much more obvious is it to err in judging the harts of men of which they have no perceivance at all whose motions are swaid by free will and in which Gods grace works secretly so many miracles Although one seem to have clear arguments to ground a sinistrous suspicion yet one ought not to judge sinistrously because he may easily judge amiss While the companions of S. Boniface were busy in his search they suspected not without ground according to the tenour of his former behaviour that he was in the company of some lewd harlot but he in the meane time burning with a far different flame of the love of God was suffering cruel torments for the faith of Christ So fallacious was a probable judgment how much then wilt thou miscarry in thy groundles and improbable suspicions he that is in superiority over another and is by office to judge must not condemn him unles he prove evidently faulty in things doubtful the criminal is absolved how darest thou of thy own uncertain and erroneous brain condemn him who is better then thy self by whom thou art to be judged If thou didst love others as Christ commands thee thou wouldst not judg them charity covers a multitude of sins â—or this reason thou forbearest to judg thy self because self love inclines thee to excuse thy self and if thy love towards thy brethren were such thou wouldst not censure but excuse them Christ being to judge mankind he himself became man and vested himself with our nature and thou also if thou wilt judg or reprehend another must put on his person and proceed with him as thou wouldst be proceeded with all Let this be the first feat of thy charity not to be scandalized or offended with thy brother the second not to offend him the third to help and assist him in what thou art able nevertheles because thy love is but lukewarm thou art often defective in thy duty and takest offence unjustly even at the innocent disdaining them many times that are acceptable to God Where is thy charity towards him where is thy love to IESVS if those be a displeasing eye sore to thee who are so pleasing to him so deep in his favour and do him better service then thou a sinner if thou lovedst God and his immense goodnes thou wouldst love all for his goodnes the good because they are good the bad because they may be good Not only an elaborate piece of workmanship but the very materials of which it is made are had in no smal request
it Where is our ambition our desire if it do not display and power it self forth upon this harvest of joyes and magazine of true riches I should take it for no smal dignity to be a sharer of Christs ignominy what then wil it be to partake of his glory if the ignominy of IESVS be glory the glory it self of God what wil that be if he so magnifyd the contumely of the cross as to exalt it upon the diadems of Emperors if he did so honour his torments what wil he do to his faithfull friends if he impart greater honour to the bones of Saints here among us then all the Monarchs of the world enjoy how much â—il he impart to their soules while they are reâ—â—dent with himself wilt thou make a rude â—ssay of the greatnes of glory how much it â—xceeds our labours Calculate how much â—he celestial globe exceeds in magnitude the â—errestrial this latter being but a point in regard of the first heaven and the first heaven another point or rather nothing in regard of the highest in whose circumference to one fingers breadth of earth so vast is the disproportion thousand thousands of miles are corresponding in that heaven The self-same God is author both of grace and nature and in point of bounty he would have his guifts in heaven much exceed our labours on earth Let the expectation of this so great a good be to thee alwaies a satiating repast Whatsoever thou seest good on earth contemn it as perswading thy self that thou shalt enjoy others in heaven excessively greater What evil soever annoyes thee fear it not as hoping to be out of its reach for all eternity Whatsoever is violently plunderd from thee grieve not as believing that all is depositated for thee to be made good out of the treasures of heaven Whatsoever thou dost contemn or relinquish for the love of God deem it not lost or cast away as supposing that it is not onely to be layd up but also restord with a hundred fold seek not to shun transitory labour thou who hopest for a permanent good Thou whose desire should animate thee to suffer in conformity with Christ upon the Mount Calvary without all hope of quitting cross be sure not to quit patience that thou mayst be conforme to God in glory with an assurd confidence of arriving to so great joy If we believe all this to be true why put we not hand to work but stand like people in a dream How is it possible to have terrene things in any esteem if we make heavenly things a part of our belief Perchance we believe not so rightly as we ought Wilt thou know how thy mouth belyes thy hart when thou affirmest that heavenly things are only great if thy fortunes amounted to the value of a thousand pounds wouldst thou not willingly give them all if thou wert perswaded that by so doing thou couldst enhance them to a hundred thousand but how doth it appear that we hold heavenly goods more valuable since we are loath even being put in mind of the advantage to give what men both joyfully and of their own accord give for the base trumpery of the earth a hireling toyles all day long for a poor salary a souldier exposeth himself to a thousand deaths for anothers kingdome and we for the glory of God and our own purchase of the Empyre of heaven cannot watch somtimes one hour pray with Christ as it behooveth Let us despise base petty trifles that we may receive immense rewards It is not so estimable in it self to receive litle as to expect great matters O lover and zealot of God be sure to thirst breath after so great a good but regard not so much thy own repose and commodity as that thou shalt there securely love God without fear of interruption and the greater thy glory is the more shalt thou love him I am bound to thank thee o God of truth for joyning the reward of our labours with the love of thee and the desire of my wil which is nothing els but thy love The VII Chapter Of suffering death HOW much o Lord doth thy beneficence transcend mans hope and expectation since those very things which he accounts the greatest of evils and natures penalty prove to thy faithfull an unparalleld benefit He esteems it the worst of evils to dye and it is a great good without which we shal never arrive to the fruition of all good Thou dost very fondly o man in declining death which is indeclinable and not declining tepidity and faultines which may be declind For death hath no evil it which life gave not the sin of Adam caused in death but was not so powerful as to make it evil this dammage only proceeds from thy sin Avoid sin culpable negligence death wil be a thing desirable Men fear little and regard les the death of the soul which only is evil and may be avoided but the death of the body which is not evil and cannot be avoided they seek to shun though it be rather to be desird then that we adhere to this wicked world O the madnes of men who abuse play as it were bopeep with that precept of Christ about loving our enemyes while they care for none but the world who hates us is our professd enemy why do we affect this fleeting life which flyes us and do not affect that permanent life which expects us Why are we so sollicitous for our temporal life which we cannot retain and neglect eternal which we may obtain we may have life everlasting if we wil we shal loose this transitory whether we wil or no and notwithstanding all this men wil not do profitably for eternal what they do unprofitably for this temporal they covet not the first and they dread the death of this second as one would do a mischief Death moreover is a rare invention of Gods mercy for it easeth us of all the molestations of this life and takes away an eternity of miseries What a pittiful thing would it be if we were for all eternity subject to the necessities of rising daily and going to bed of eating of cold and heat of toyl and sicknes of seeking our sustenance of carking caring of suffering affronts or spending our whole life in a sordid and laborious drudgery what a misery would it be if one were to be a â—orter another a husband man a third a smith a fourth a servant and this for tearm â—ithout all end or respit many that were â—otoriously wicked sought death and made away with themselves merely to avoid these inconveniencies at least let us not dread it that it may be a passage to future felicity and for both these respects let us patiently accept it When God beheld us involved by the sin of Adam in such a labyrinth of woes he in his most indulgent clemency invented for our good the devise of dying that our calamities might not
fully confide in thee Of my self o Lord I am able to do nothing neyther to live wel nor dye wel but by thee I can do both I hope for both and wil effect both and if I have not lived wel thou hast given me a desire o Lord to become truly penitent and I hope by thy meanes to amend henceforth my future life why then shal I not also hope to dye wel my hope wil not be entire nor my confidence sufficient if I hope the one and dispair of the other I both have been and am an enormous sinner but is it not perchance in thy power to dispose of thy creature as thou thinks best Thy desire is o Lord to save me thou wilt I know be merciful to me The VIII Chapter That man must give himself to God for his benefits AMong all the Gods there is none like thee o Lord there is none according to thy works Thy goodnes was sufficient to make me love thee why dost thou force me with works benefits thou createdst me when I had no being thou soughtest me when I was upon the point of perishing thou foundst me when I was lost thou redeemedst me when I groand vnder the curse of sin thou savedst me when I was condemnd thou hadst patience with me when I was obstinately refractory to thy commands thou chastizeth me when I offend thou art indulgent when I plead guilty thou instructest me when I do amiss thou feedest me when I am hungry thou givest me drink when I am thirsty thou warmest me when I am cold thou coolest me when I am too hot thou guardest me when I am awake thou preservest me when I am a sleep thou helpest me up when I arise thou rearest me when I fall thou supportest me when I sit thou holdest me when I stand thou carryest me when I walk thou entertainest me when I come to thee thou bringest me back when I recede from thee thou recalst me when I go astray on every side within and without the ocean of thy benefits surrounds me with a boundles inundation That very thing which I have not I account my benefit because thou o Lord art the giver who dividest according to each ones expedient and exigence and deniest nothing but for our good Whatsoever also thou conferst upon others all that I reckon as a benefit done to me Thou obligest me with so many good turnes that I cannot but love thee o fountain of Goodnes although thou wert not good yea although thou wert evil Thou o Lord art in very deed so good that although in lieu of so many benefits as thou hast conferd upon me thou hadst heapd so many injuries I could not chuse but love thee It is not need full to make me love thee to have bin so beneficial it is not needful to have loved me thou art so good that although thou didst hate me I were to love thee ought to love thee more then all my lovers and benefactours albeit thou hadst been injurious malevolous Why was it needful to overwhelm him with innumerable blessings whom by one thou extractedst out of nothing thou demandest nothing more of me then my self alone I owe my self now to thee for the first benefit because by it thou gavest me wholly to my self why then dost thou superadd so many more why after the giving of me to my self dost thou over and above give thy self to me I my self all that 's mine am no trifling debt of thine neyther have I any thing besides my self what I have I most willingly give to wit my self But why wilt thou enhaunce the debt which I am not able to defray by giving thy self Go too o infirm spirit find meanes to discharge this also Thou mayst restore God to God if thou hast God God seeks thee and whatsoever thou possessest lawfully neyther canst thou lawfully possess any thing but God Possess God and thou shalt possess thy self lawfully and so be able to discharge both these benefits God gave himself to thee for thou canst not give thy self to him unles thou be thy own and thou wilt not be thy own unles God be thine for by having him thou hast thy self so when thou givest thy self to God thou mayst also give God who becomes thine But thou shalt neyther have God nor thy self unles thou love God for by loving him thou possessest him and thou alienatest him by not defraying the debt by which thou owest thy self to him Christ gave himself to the end thou mightst labour to become Christs if thou wouldst pay thy debts by giving thy self For by so doing thou wilt give Christ crucifyd a thousand times the day while thou dyest daily so often to the world and all its pleasures The IX Chapter That God alone is to be loved THou committest injustice against thy self o miserable man if thou lovest those goods which cannot love thee or men who can at least not love thee and although they do thou mayst wel doubt of it or they cease to do so It is much better to love God who loves to his utmost and without any stint who cannot but love thee if thou lovest him O immense goodnes why dost thou love me whom all creatures have reason to detest Why dost thou covet to be loved by me picking me out from among so many lovers of thine me who am moreover unworthy to be rankd among the divels to whose service I mancipated my self in so much that a peculiar and more raging hel is due to me for contemning thee after so signal and shameles a manner who vouchsafedst to dye for me and not for the Angels It is but meet that I at length begin to love him who from the beginning loved me without beginning loves me to the end without end expecting from all eternity that I should love him I have loved some that love not me now I wil love him who loved me before I knew him who being loved never fayles to correspond in love and by loving forceth others to love him whom to love is the flower of vertue and by whom to be loved is the top of felicity Why doubtest thou o my soul to love him who is forced to love thee faithfully if thou love some who perchance wil love thee perfidiously Thou wilt have but a hard bargain in loving goods which if thou hast a rival do vex thee or men who if they love any other do make thee jealous The love of God is free from all sorrow and care that it loves others wil occasion thy joy that others love it wil be thy harts-desire This is the all sufficing goodnes of God that it both loves and is beloved by all without any ones prejudice eyther the lover or beloved but with the great content of all Other things are narrow-bounded and needy they suffice not to love two or be loved by two without detriment to one party Settle not thy affection upon things perishable for
love or hatred or zeal take severe punishment of thy self as being the ring-leader of all that crew Consider now out of this whether the sin of Iudas and those of Anti-christ deserve love yea or no if God had committed to thy charge the doing justice upon him who gave IESVS that injurious blow or him that spit first in that face on which the Angels love to gaze or on the accursed Arrius and Nestorius or the malignest of men Antichrist or the Father of lyes Lucifer to punish condignly their sins as justice and equity should dictate to thee how wouldst thou carry thy self towards them wouldst thou perchance sooth and flatter and seek to humour them to thy ability or rather strive to shew in the sight of all creatures how much the glory of God and his honour so often violated were prevalent to a just revenge thou oughtst to exercise no les severity against thy self for thou must needs hold thy self worse then any of them if thou makest not a counterfeyt estimate of thy own basenes and I suppose thou intendest not to cozen eyther God or thy self It behooves thee to be moved with a more severe and fruitful indignation against thy self then against the perversest of divels The divel committed one sole sin that in thought only for which he incurd eternal damnation thou hast committed innumerable and those of fact also He sind against God to whom his obligations were not so binding for an Angel did not become God nor did God suffer torments for them he did not at any time pardon them as he became man for thee shedding his most pretious blood for thy sake sealing thy pardon and ready to seal it for the future not seven times only but seventy seven more Consider now whether it would be accounted laudable to contract familiarity with that great Prince of divels seek his honour content in all why holdst thou too strict a friendship with thy self desiring thy honour procuring thy ease and seeking thy wil and pleasure in all I demand of thee once more if God should deliver into thy hands that malign spirit who hath so often deceived thee tempted thee and induced thee to sin misleading thee from the way of salvation then another who were les hurtful commanding thee to punish both according to the qualities of the losses wherewith they damnifyd thee against which wouldst thou be more cruel against him that were les noxious or the other who proved thy heavier enemy But how canst thou be so indulgent to thy self thou being more insolent towards thy self and more pernicious I do not say then the worst of these divels but then both since neyther of them could endammage thee in the least unles thou cooperatedst gavest consent thou hast often playd the seducer and enemy to thy self thou hast often tempted and proved a stumbling block of scandal to thy self I know not then with what eyes thou canst look upon thy self thou being more prejudicial and a greater undoing to thy self then Caiphas Arrius Antichrist or Lucifer O soul I conjure thee by the love of IESVS to consider these things whether they be not true if it be true that thou art a greater cross and loss to thy self then the accursed Lucifer could have been love not thy self disordinately if thou be touchd with any sense of promoting the honour of God or amplifying his glory for by how much thou swelst with the tyde of self esteem and self affection by so much in order to the effects of grace and vertues doth God flow in thee at a lower ebb and by how much thou drainest thy self of thy self by an humble self hatred so much the more wil God replenish thee with his waters of grace even to a great profundity Who then is a greater enemy to thy self then thou thy self who wilt not let God be exalted in thee But if thou wilt not hate thy self o unworthy man more then the rest of thy enemyes at least look upon thy self as upon an enemy and bear thy self as little good wil nor take too much complacence in that fit of self-prosperity and corporal delight When any adversity befals him whom thou owest a spite thou art not a little contented therewith and so must thou proceed with thy self when thy enemy is sleighted or derided it causeth joy and complacence in thee and so must it do when thou thy self art so treated One wil not make much of an enemy nor feast him at a table of delights neyther must thou do so with thy self One would alwayes be vexing and molesting an enemy sitting close upon his skirts and taking all occasions of revenge so must thou also do if thou wilt act that part for this is properly to be spiteful If thou dost not hold this tenour thou art pittifully seduced as thinking thy self not sick of self love Where Gods divine pleasure interposeth not it self thou must with a masculin courage for his greater glory kil all self affection in thee Yet out of the same motive in the practise of exteriour austerities one must permit himself to be guided by some discreet person zealous of the divine honour that so he may also offer in sacrifice an oblation both of his wil and judgment Yet thou must not frame such a conceit as if the life of self denying people and those that loath persecute themselves were harsh and insupportable yea of all others it partakes most of joy The love of God is much more light-harted then is self love If self hatred brought no other advantage besides loving God that were sufficient It is much more available that God love thee ardently then that thou love thy self God can be much more advantageous to thee and he takes content in communicating joyes to give us a fore-tast of his inebriating and beatifying sweetnes comforting us amidst the troubles of this life and recreating us by exhibiting an experiment of his deliciousnes The Apostles went rejoycing from before the face of the councel because they were made worthy to suffer a contumely for the name of IESVS Call to mind that admirable but true saying deem it all joy when ye fall into several remptations God could draw relief for the children of the Babilonian furnace from their very flames and turn their scorching heat into a refreshing dew he is also able to make adversities no wayes burdensome Further more if we rejoyce in their evils whom we hate thou wilt do no les in the miseries which befall thee and since thy crosses are much more numerous then thy crownes there must necessarily be more frequent occasions of joy then self love could ever minister Incommodities are allwayes ready and at hand commodities rare and long to be sought for wherfore he must needs have frequent occasions of rejoycing who rejoyceth in his adversities since he shal never want matter of suffering in this life Evil things are not so obnoxious to casualtyâ—s as good The
fruition of good things is sayd to be casual because they happen casually but seldome so doth not the multiplicity of evils wherfore his joy wil suffer les interruption who joyes least in wordly solaces O what a content is it to disburden ones self of himself and to live exempted from all importune and carking care of self seeking interest I conceive that he who hath quitted and relinquished himself hath evaded in greatest part the miseries and vexations of this life Neyther is it a mean fruit of a serious and sincere hatred of our selves that it causeth us to love others Consider how insolent and powerful an enemy self love is it hath so much of the tyrant that it intrencheth upon charity and outing it supplies its functions both towards man and God himself it alone consuming and devouring all the affection intended for both He that loves himself disordinately knowes neyther how to love God nor his neighbour he that truly hates himself will love even those that annoy and persecute him he wil rejoyce if any one do wrongfully oppress him knowing that to be depressed in him which is his main obstacle opponent and ought in all reason to be hated and persecuted by him and since no body takes it ill if one jointly together with him molest and infest his deadly enemy but rather holds him worthy of thanks so he that is a hater of himself wil rather love then be otherwise affected towards one that lends a helping hand to persecute him Another and no sorry fruit of self hatred is that it makes us detest sin all that viperous brood descends lineally from self love which is the parent and nurse of all vice and concupiscence and from it all the rest of that gang derive their pedegree He that rejoyceth at an injury wil not offend by being angry nor he that covets to be contemned by pride nor he by impatience who esteems himself worthy of all punishment It is no mean fruit that it removes all impediments in the love of God it is no smal benefit that it subdues thee to thy self and puts thee in a full and peaceable possession of thy self Lastly if thou wilt know what huge advantages arise from self hatred thou must consider how much grace surpasseth sin and vertue vice it is so much more excellent to hate ones self out of vertue then to love out of vice If men even to their utter undoing hate those that have much les endammagd them then thou thy self thou who of all others hast been thy saddest foe must out of the motive of vertue prayse recompense do no les The XI Chapter How we are to love our neighbour O Amiable Truth grant that I may love thee above all and all others for thee give thy self and not riches nor deceitful goods unworthy of love to my friends and all those whom I wish wel Learn o infirm spirit to love creatures without being injurious Many times the manner of loving stands parallel with that of hatred or contumely Thou wilt do a friend whom thou lovest a great injury if thou wish him riches as a real and solid good for by so doing thou shewest thy self to love them better then him for them thou lovest as being all sufficient him as needy wherefore thou wilt rather chuse to want him then them Hence fortune is the umpyre of friendships and its vicissitude is the death of love and birth of treachery Hence an equal danger ariseth to sincere fidelity whether thou lovest thy friend for riches or riches in thy friend As it is also a like tenour of true friendship when thou lovest all for God when thou lovest him alone in them because he alone is the object of thy love Thou wouldst love nothing els but God in all if thou lovedst nothing but him This must be the touch stone of thy love to try whether it be true charity or no. He that loves not riches at all cannot love them as good to another Let God be the common benefit which thou intendest to bestow upon all whom alone if thou give thou wilt make them rich enough And be sure to regard more such benefits in which thou lovest all then such by which thou shalt be loved by all for he that loves all truly as it behooveth shal be saved but he shall not therfore be saved because he is loved by all We must not be so base-conceyted of love as to hold it saleable at any rate it must allwayes be given gratis He sels God who bestowes a charity upon another out of any other motive then charity Cast thy courtesyes into no bodies dish but as thou esteemst whatsoever is conferd upon thee by others as so many blessings coming from God and thankfully attributest them to him alone so must thou esteem it Gods blessing not thine whatsoever thou impartest to others yea reckon this as the greatest of all that he would be pleased to use thee for his instrument and Almner in dividing his benefits Ground thy love towards others not upon temporal motives but spiritual for that foundation which is layd upon them and not upon the H. Ghost is covetousnes not charity not love towards man but list and lust of creatures In like manner be as forward in doing good offices to others as thou wouldst have God to be towards thee proceed upon no other tearmes with others then he doth with thee Grant o love of loves that I may love all as thou lovedst me and all grant that I may love all for thee and none love me for my self I could rather wish if it might be done without sin that each one should hate me rather then love me if they would love me for my self for if each one did hate me I should have but my due if they loved me for my self I should usurp what is thine All that love is impure which is not purely for God The sole love of God alone is onely sincere and refind from â—ll dregs since it neyther mixeth it self nor suffers mixture with contrary affections Other loves are wont to occasion eyther envy or anger or hatred against the party beloved or some other the love of God is immutable and eternal other loves are flitting â—â—eeting Therfore I shal reckon it among my gaines to be loved for thee my God not for my self The XII Chapter That nothing is to be covetted but what God willeth VVHich is more conforme to reason that thou by conformity subject thy wil to the divine or that it servant-like become conforme to thine wilt thou perchance be so self conceyted as to think that thou eyther art better then God in thy wishes or more sound in giving advise remember how often thou hast preferd evil before good how often thou hast stood in thy own light and on the contrary what a sure and certain proof hath God given of his good wil was it perchance a sinister wil to become
repose by reason of occurrent duties eyther of life or state of life even in that kind of violence it breaths with tacit but connatural aspirations after God and these employments being ended and she left to her self she hastens to her center recollecting her self in her closest retreats with God that to her utmost she may become like the Angels who see allwayes the face of their Father and covet to see it more and more which desire ought to be as connatural and recreative to our harts as is the ayre in which they breath The XV. Chapter That the incomprehensible goodnes of God is to be loved VVHAT am I who am but an abyss of malice in comparison of thee O ocean of goodnes that thou shouldst love me like loves its like why then dost thou who art the best love me who am the worst things more amiable are loved by others thou being most amiable covetest to beloved by me the vilest and loath somest of creatures O love of the world what am I in comparison of thee who deserve to be the hatred and horrour of the world what 's the reason that thou commandst me to love thee why was it needful to lay an injunction upon this what necessity to intreat and sollicit it by so many wayes o sollicitation o most sweet voyce child give me thy hart o petition iterated and reiterated to deaf â—areâ—â— thou makest an exhibition of thy self in each of thy creatures that thou maist be seen at all turnes through the cazements of nature melting away in this most amiable demand in thy search after me Thou accostest me in each creature that thou maist beg it by them all dividing out thy love in so many wayes to gain mine What window soever I open thou as a suiter occurrest to my eyes standing behind the wall looking through the windowes looking forth through the grates If I see if I hear if I smel if I tast lo thy lovely face presents it self thy sweet voyce the odour of my God a honey comb with its honey is forthwith at hand every where suit is made for love If fower or five grave men should avouch any thing or invite others to an enterprize each one would doe and believe what they said why give not I eare to so many creatures while they all invite me to the love of my God since he hath so many vouchers of his comelines why am I so backward in belief if men allurd with the beauty of things thought them endowed with a deity how much art thou the soveraign and aggregate of all beauties more beautiful then them for thou being the source and author of it al I thou allottest to each one the pittance it hath All creatures represent thy love and beauty with silent cryes and invisible colours but what voyce or pourtraiture wil bring us to thy knowledg creatures are not able to paint thee forth All the perfections they contain seem nothing else but so many blemishes Who art thou then or where o my beautifully faire who though thou be every where present with me yet I find thee no where and though thou comprizest all yet thou art none of that all Creatures object themselves to my view as if they carried a resemblance of thee but I look upon them as a riddle Thou art not that o Lord which they delineate thee to be who though they tel not a plain lye yet they chalk thee so forth that thou art not truly what they represent In this manner I sought whom my soul loveth I sought him but found him not I wil rise and make a turn about the citty through the lanes of nature the streets of the heavens I enquired of the formes of creatures of the consorts of musique of the fragrancy of parfumes the tasts of inebriating rellishes the embracements of lovers and they all said we are not thy beloved he shines in such sort that no place is capable of his splendour he sends forth a sound but such a one as no wind doth carry a long he yealds a sent but so as that no ayre disperseth it he gives such a rellish that no hunger can bite upon it he is so inherent that no satiety can cause a separation I enquired of the earth and it made answer I am not he if the heavens of beavens do not contain him why art thou so inquisitive of me I enquird of the sea and it trembling said I am not his abyss much exceeds mine and it is no wayes to be waded through I enquird of heaven and it said I am not thy God he mounts much above my sphere If none of all you creatures be he tel me where I may receive some â—ydings of him the watchful intelligences and guardian spirits of this world made reply he made us seek him above us When I had passed a litle beyond them I found the beloved of my soul whom I could not find among creatures In this respect only I behold and find thee o light placed in the midst of lights that I am able neyther to behold nor find thee for how can I comprehend what is incomprehensible fly fly my beloved in this respect I wil comprehend thee because thou fliest me I know so much the more of thee the more I know thee not to be knowable and I approach nigher to thy knowledg the more thou recedest from my comprehension I sought in my bed and the retirednes of my solitude night by night the beloved of my soul The splendour of things beautiful in respect of thee is a night the seemlines of the heavens is a night the very beauty of the sun its refulgency and any other I wil not say created but falsly imaginable comelines is a night If each star were more resplendent then the sun and the sun himself did by as many degrees exceed these stars as there are sands of the sea and motes illustrated by the sun he would be an eye sore in respect of thee nor would be more conspicuous then the stars now are in presence of the sun But to what purpose do I bring these deformed beauties of visible things these rustick forms even of the sun morish lights Let us draw into resemblance these spiritual and candid ones whose lovelines is such that an Angel appearing to the devout Father Iohn Fernandez of our society the sight so affected him that he fainted through excess of joy was not able to support himself affirming that all the beauties of this world were but blemishes and deformities in regard of this Imagin then that the comelines of that Angel were as much greater then it is as there are â—â—omes in the aire and that each Angel were endowed with such comelines there being millions of millions of them or in a manner a number numberles sum up all this comelines of them all into one it would be ill-favourd and ugly in comparison of the beauty of God and I say not
a forme the simplest of all others as being most refind and remote from matter there must needs intercede an infinite efficacy in the production of an infinite Person by the communication of an infinite substance from all eternity My soul stands amazd while it contemplates this simplicity and transported out of its self it adores this divine perfection in the equality eternity of the Persons for the more simple things are as they are more effectual so are they also more perfect in themselves Perfection is not taken from the matter but the forme wherfore the more any thing partakes of the forme the more it also partakes of perfection and by consequence being the simpler things are the more they have of the forme the more also they have of perfection and for this reason Angels are more perfect then sensitive creatures Seing then that the greatest simplicity is the chiefest sole and total forme or act it must by good sequele be the most perfect wherefore the Son of God is equal and Coeternal to his Father by reason of the immense simplicity of the divine nature Among men the Father is greater then the Son because to make a creature capable of engendring it is requisite that he be in a perfect state and since God from all eternity is immensly simple he is from all eternity perfect and consequently from all eternity generating and the Father is not greater then the Son Among men no body is born a Father God from all eternity is Father nor was he sooner God then a Father Among men it is highly prizd if the Son produced carry a resemblance with his Father in the lineaments and features of his face and that child which most resembles him is most in his love what a fecundity doth it intimate where the Son is produced not only like in accidents but the same in substance how great a subject of love where the Son so resembles his Father that the Father is not liker himself nor more himself and after so great similitude the Son is only one and begotten by him without intermixture where the Father is a Virgin and begets him a Virgin and the Son not an infant and born without a Mother wherfore the Son doth not lessen affection as dividing it with a Mother there being none here nor the Father with a spouse But the Father loves intimately his only Son the Son loves intimately his only Parent Where the Son is not begotten of a particle of his Father but of his whole paternal substance whatsoever the Father beholds in his Son is own of himself whatsoever the Son bebeholds in his Father he knowes him to have coÌ„municated without envy or partiality How can they chuse but infinitly love one another they being so infinitly one while these and such like are after an ineffable but intelligible manner by a profound silence thunderd forth to a soul and are made apparent to it how can it chuse but be all set on fire when in so great light and with all its powers it shal be enamoured upon that superessential and superexcellent perfection of Vnity and Trinity challenging all the Angels and Seraphins in that smoak which replenisheth the house arising from this furnace of ardent charity and crying Holy Holy Holy flying thither with the spread wings of its hart partly refrigerating this heat of love and partly raising new flames But there chiefly it remaines like one extasied wholly inebriated with divine love when it considers that Ocean of goodnes wherwith an infinite nature is communicated to the Son and those ardours of love in which is made the Procession of the H. Ghost Here a created Spirit is at a non-plus and through excess of affection perisheth as it were in it self becoming a prey both to fire and water it is drownd in an Ocean of so great goodnes it burnes in the pile of that stupendious love Nothing can be imagined more efficacious to convince and attract our harts to a pure and sincere love of God then that inconceptible goodnes wherewith the Father communicates himself to the Son and both of them to the H. Ghost Nothing can be imagined more devoutly more tenderly more sweetly affecting then that out-burst and excess of goodnes in the eternal emanations nothing more cheerful more pleasing more delectable to a soul then the Nativity of the eternal word For if it be goodnes in it self which is allective and the booty which wel-orderd love preys upon that towards which the wil is carried with all the poyze of its affection what greater goodnes imaginable then that the infinite goodnes it self which according to the nature of good is diffusive communicate not a part but all it self entirely not only what it hath but also what it is This prosutenes of communication is a greater subject of admiration then any other infinite perfection of the divine nature If a man had some new and out landish jewel or some other exquisite rarity for which all esteemd him hapâ—â— and had nothing at all but it that being the sum of his treasures verily though that pearl seemd strange to thee yet this would seem much stranger if he without any hopes of gain should give it gratis to another The divine nature is an object of wonder but wil not this seem a greater wonder that it should be gratis bestowd upon the Son by that admirable communication and yet a greater then this that it should be done after such a manner as stil to remain in the giver Besides if love be an argument of goodnes for diffusion and communication never proceed but from love where can greater love be imagind then where all that is is love Love seeks equality in the lover and beloved and here is so great love that the parties beloved carry not only a similitude but even an identity betwixt them in so much that both their loves are one and the self-same From whence necessarily followes the greatest fidelity and joy conceptible since they cannot chuse but love and be beloved equally This their love is so efficacious and legitimate that though the Father and the Son were not by their eternal generation one the same nature the H. Ghost would make them such This is the aym of charity this is the function of love to make the lover and beloved one and since that love is of a God most infinitly perfect towards him that is also God it must needs be most intense and wholly efficacious But if it wrought not an Vnity it would not be altogether perfect but like the love of a thing limited and towards a thing limited not towards an infinit only begotten equal to his infinit Father where both the lover and beloved are infinite Where there is such an excellent and genuine love how much goodnes must needs intercede so that the Trinity is a most pregnant argument of an infinite good and consequently of a divine perfection that being good
which is perfect as also of Gods simplicity wherfore the Trinity of Persons is an authentical testimony of the divine Vnity What complacence doth a soul take in knowing this not as I have rudely explicated it or as it can be explicated for this is only felt by an inexplicable manner for as there are no natural species which can bring us to this knowledg so neyther are there words significantly expressive of what is manifested to some pious soules concerning the word eternal Therfore the soul of a creature is so over joyd when the mutual proportion and harmony of the increated Trinity and Vnity and the necessity of both to the accomplishment of the divine perfection is communicated to it that it is all in jubily and exultation transported besides it self and quite spent through amorous desires and the languishments of true charity thirsting earnestly to discover in the other life this stupendious goodnes of the Trinity Why longst thou o my soul to see any thing else besides this great spectacle of the world for whose sight alone the Seraphins and all the Hierarchies of Angels and Saints were created and introduced into heaven as so many spectatours Where is thy curiosity where thy desire of knowledg if thou covet not to be dissolved and contemplate that mystery and to dive into this hidden secret but thy longing must remit thee to the other life and not put thee upon inquiry in this how he is three and one Thou must not search the cause why he is so since thou art not able to give the cause of what he is Thou seekst in vain a cause in him who hath no cause God were not to be stiled great if he were not greater then our capacity Thou must not â—nquire after what manner he can be so who never could be before he was so Philosophers could never sufficiently penetrate into the nature of divers wormes and no body knowes himself throughly how then canst thou hope to make a ful discovery of the divine nature thy Author wherfore thou must captivate thy reason to the simplicity of faith in this supernatural mystery for that perspicuity which the divine indulgence daignes sometimes to insinuate belongs not to all but only to whom God calls out of the number of those who dwel with his Son in the mount Calvary and in a totall ejurement of themselves who denying self wil have taken up their cross followed IESVS to that mount and wil have them follow him thence to the mount Olivet glory those he priviled geth somtimes in such sort as to make them partakers of his majesty Where I am saith IESVS there also shal my servant be He that shal partake with Christ in suffering shal also partake of this extraordinary light and joy So when our Holy Patriarch Saint Ignatius had wasted exhausted himself with corporal pennances and austerities it was more copiously and clearly imparted to him then one is able to express So that mirrour of fervour F. Didacus Martinus did almost allwayes behold himself environed with a glorious light of the Trinity or some one of the three Persons Nevertheles it appertains to all to covet with most ardent desires the sight of this ancient and eternal novelty in the life to come It was reveald to that holy servant of God F. Iohn Fernandius that a certain religious man of our society was long detaind in purgatory because he had omitted to wish with ardency the sight of the most B. Trinity O my soul why art not thou more enamoured upon the sight of this theatre of the blessed to whose spectacle all minds are summond allrational creatures are invited What a joy wil it be to behold that which now by reason of the narrownes of our thoughts or ignorance through an excess of jubily and love we are not able to comprize how exultingly shall we rejoice while we contemplate these first fruits of the divine perfection that fore-tast and new expression of the divine goodnes where it communicates it self to the Son and that primitive bounty of God what a pledg and assurance wil a soul receive of the divine benignity towards it self when it beholds this profusenes of benevolence if God without deliberation gave all that he is wil he not by the advise and vote of his goodnes grant that we may at least see what he is if he permit us not to be what he is he wil permit us to admire what he is if not to possess him at least to enjoy him if not to live by the same life at least by such another and that eternal of which a soul hath a pawn when it beholds a generation excluding death How can we chuse but love God with all our mind and strength considâ—ring that purple morning of ardent charity which he displaid where the first and Virgin dew of his guifts is the furnace it self of charity love it self in the same substance so that the love is as great as God in the same guift of love he gives his own infinite essence for love it self is the first guift and all that infinite being which is in God What assurances of benevolence wil a soul take hence beholding such a happy and ominous essay of Gods future bounty and such a promising beginning of his goodnes insomuch that it takes huge complacence in being loved by that unparalleld love and doth what it can to love him reciprocally by imitating so great goodnes by giving it self to God by leaving it self nothing since the Father leaves himself no parcel of his substance which he communicates not to the Son and both of them to the H. Ghost In the excess â—â— this consideration and the consideration of this excess by means of a mysterious darknes there passeth an ineffable communication and intimate union betwixt God and a soul The soul passeth into God by grace love which though she remain in herself by nature yet not by affection and God passeth into the soul by indulgence and charity though he still remain in his majesty O immense goodnes of the Father immense wisdome of the Son immense sweetnes of the H. Ghost grant that I may reverence thee in thy Vnity adore thee in thy Trinity admire thee in thy goodnes imitate thee in thy love grant that I may humble my self to thy â—uperexcellency that I may enjoy thy Vision â—dhering to thee through all eternity becoming one spirit with thee and in this interstice â—n adorer of thy majesty In spirit and truth â—et me desire truth spirit to contemplate face to face the more then most true the more then most spiritual and superessential excellency of thy Trinity and Vnity To the honour of the ever B. Trinity the word Incarnate and his V. Mother S. Ioseph and all Saints FINIS A TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS Contained in the I. Book 1. THe deceitfullnes of a secular life fol. 1. 2. Of the Truth of the Spirit fol. 8. 3. Of Purity
of Spirit fol. 13. 4. How Truth is made manifest by faith and of the fruit and practise of this vertue fol. 19. 5. Of the hope of pardon and zeal of pennance 25. 6. The model of a sinner is set before our eyes 30. 7. The â—â— part of the Parable and how we must use Creatures fol. 38. 8. The affections of a true Penitent fol. 45. 9. Of the ardent desire of those that serve God 55. 10. Of contemning relinquishing the world 58. 11. How peace is to be obtaind fol. 62. 12. Of the excellency of one that is in the state of grace fol. 69. 13. How penances and corporal afflictions help us f. 85. 14. That too much love of our flesh hinders the Spirit fol. 90. 15. Of the loss of temporal things fol. 94. 16. How profitable temptations are fol. 98. 17. That we must fear God and hope in him 102. 18. That we cannot but suffer something and of the good of patience fol. 108. In the II. Book 1. OF diligence in Prayer fol. 114. 2. That we must not intermit our practise of Prayer fol. 122. 3. How efficacious the grace and favours of Christ are fol. 127. 4. How devoutly we ought to be affected towards the most B. Virgin Mary fol. 142. 5. That we must imitate Christ and of the sorrow and suffering of his most B. Hart. fol. 156. 6. How farr we are to follow Christ fol. 166. 7. That necessities and afflictions sent by God are to be born patiently fol. 176. 8. How purity of body helps the Spirit fol. 183. 9. That our practise of mortification must be continual fol. 187. 10. Of the sufficiency and good of poverty fol. 193. 11. That Patience is necessary in all occasions fol. 201. 12 VVhat a great good it is to be subject to another 206. 13. How great harm proceeds from daily and light defects fol. 213. 14. Of exactnes in smal things fol. 225. 15. That self-praise is to be avoyded fol. 231. 16. Of the basenes of man fol. 235. 17. VVhat things ought to humble man and that he can have nothing besides God alone fol. 243. 18. How much we owe to the grace of God Christ fol. 248. 19. That man must not only esteem himself nothing but also a great sinner fol. 256. 20. VVhat it is to stile ones self a nothing a great sinner fol. 262. 21. That Gods glory is alwayes to be sought fol. 266. In the III. Book 1. HOw careful we must be to do our actions wet fol. 275. 2. That we must shake of all negligence fol. 280. 3. How incommodious a thing sleep is fol. 287. 4. That we must rise fervorously to our morning prayer fol. 297. 5. That our daily fervour must be retaind fol. 304. 6. Of maintaining our fervour fol. 310. 7. How constant one ought to be in the practise of good works fol. 315. 8. How sollicitous we must be to increase grace 321. 9. How God is to be praised fol. 328. 10. How great a dignity it is to offer the Sacrifice of Christ. fol. 335. 11. That God is to be desired and received with longing in the Eucharist fol. 343. 12. That in time of refection we must not be more indulgent to our bodyes then necessity requires fol. 354. 13. That one must take account of his proceedingâ— by a frequent examen of himself fol. 364. 14. How we must be affected towards others fol. 371. In the IV. Book 1. HOw ungrateful we are to God fol. 377. 2. That Gods benefits are without number 382. 3. That Gods love in our redemption appears infinite fol. 388. 4. How deservedly God is to be loved and chiefly for himself fol 395. 5. That we are not able to satisfy the goodnes of God fol. 402. 6. How great benefit of glory we hope for 405. 7. Of suffering death fol. 415. 8. That man must give himself to God for his benefits fol. 422. 9. That God alone is to be loved fol. 425. 10. That self love must be rooted out fol. 429. 11. How we are to love our neighbour fol. 442. 12. That nothing is to be coveted but what God willeth fol. 445. 13. That we must give no care to our own wil. 448. 14. That we must continually be mindful of God 456. 15. That the incomprehensible goodnes of God is to be loved fol. 463. 16. Of the superessential light of the most blessed Trinity fol. 469. FINIS