Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
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A40047
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Essays suppos'd to be written by Monsieur Fouquet being reflections upon such maxims of Solomon as are most proper to guide us to the felicity of both the present and the future life / translated out of French.
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Fouquet, Nicolas, 1615-1680.; Gage, E.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing F1650; ESTC R36469
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80,413
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228
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that Security is the Mother of Negligence and that you run the danger of having your Fervour abate and to grow cold in the Exercises of a Devout Life when you become too sure of your Recompence Mater è negligentiae solet esse securitas St. Gregory you will tell me said very well but that desirable Favour I would pretend to say you if I durst were to have God at the same time he lets me know I am marked out for Paradise bestow the Gift upon me out of his Goodness that I should never abuse this Knowledge This would be an extraordinary Favor say you but not without Example It was granted to Abraham as I have read to whom God formally declared That he was in the first Rank of the Elect Abraham said he to him I know thee because thou dost belong to me and that thou shalt everlastingly belong to me Something to this effect he said also to Isaac to Jacob to Moses upon the Mountain and to the Prophet Jeremiah in his Mothers Womb that happy Infant knew he was elected before he was born all the Apostles besides knew certainly that they were of this number Rejoice ye said our Saviour to them for your names are written in Heaven Our Blessed Lady St. Mary Magdalen St. John the Evangelist St. Paul and many others in times following have learnt from his own Mouth or by the means of his Angels that they were expected in Heaven and that their Crowns were there ready prepared for them St. Theresia after having seen the place was destin'd for her in Hell had she not been drawn out of the World by the most powerful Grace of the Holy Ghost had the Comfort and Happiness to see the place she was to possess in Paradise What a Joy what a Blessing is this and which way say you further can a Man be at a moments quiet in the time of this Mortal Life unless we could know from God by some miraculous means that he to whom we have consecrated our selves and who possesses us now as the Purchase of his Blood and the Inheritance of his Love will not suffer any Power of the World or Hell to ravish us out of his Hands to our Eternal Misery You are in a Mistake O Christian we may receive this Heavenly Comfort and Joy without the help of Revelation or any miraculous Apparition it is not at all requisite that God should speak or appear to you it will be sufficient if you can love him as the Saints have done before you This Love will produce an interiour Voice within you or a supernatural Instinct St. Paul calls it a Testimony of the Holy Ghost imprinted on our Hearts St. Augustin a Ray of the Glory of Paradise which breaks forth in elected Souls during the height and transports of their Fervor Give it what name you please I say it is a Divine Help which disperses and drives away all the black Clouds all the Fears and monstrous Disquiets of your Imagination and like the dawning of a bright day brings a Serenity and begets in you a Certitude of your Salvation independent of any Revelation or Prophecy True it is that you will not say formally what the Hereticks do and what cannot be said without the highest Pride and Blasphemy My Name I am certain is written and set down amongst the names of the Saints But you may say that which true Love made St. Paul and other blessed Persons say who loved in perfection My Certainty is that neither Death nor Life Poverty nor Riches nor the Torments and Cruelties of Tyrants the Promises and Flatteries of the World nor in fine all the force of Hell shall ever separate me from the Charity of Jesus Christ Certus sum I am certain of it and am not more assured that I am alive at this present than I am assured by the help of Grace to continue faithful to my God as long as ever my Heart can breath Donec superest halitus in me Spiritus Dei in Naribus meis It is a most horrible and sinful Presumption which makes the proudly-conceited of their Piety say I know certainly that God has been pleased to write me down in the number of his Elect and that I cannot fail to go to Heaven But it is a holy love that speaks when you say I will love my God even to Death Death Time nor Eternity shall not part me from him Etiam si me occiderit Sperabo in eum What Pride utters in a most horrid Boldness and Blasphemy since it undertakes to tell that which lies the most hidden in the Breast of God To be able to say without the help of Revelation whose Names He has written secretly and eternally in his Heart by a gratuite Election is to be no less than God The Saying of Love is a holy Truth and an humble Adoration of the Mercy and Grace of Jesus Christ inasmuch as this speaks only of the Vow you have made to love God and of the perpetual and irrevocable Resolutions and Decrees of Holiness which your self has written within your Conscience Look altogether upon these Vows which your Love has created and do not amuse your self in reasoning upon Circumstances as those do who first begin to love and who by making comparisons and scrupulous Reflections entertain such Disquiets as drive them into a dark Labyrinth out of which they can find no issue When you are arrived at the degree of a fervent Love you will be far from examining what the Success of that Love may be and from hearkening to the Fears and Anxieties of your blind and timerous Fancy Being in this state you will know the News of your Happiness without your saying I know it you will not answer for any thing but your Constancy and Perseverance in making good the Promises of which Grace and Humility have been the inspiring Authors and not Presumption You will rejoice holily within without questioning or informing your self which way you come to know you shall be constant and although in reality no Voice shall tell you this yet you will be as secure and as much at ease in the midst of all the dangers that shall surround you as if Prophets and Angels had told it you You will not hear any Voice that will declare this to you but you will become sensible that the Instinct or secret Testimony of which St. Paul speaks is a kind of thing more certain than Visions clearer than Revelations and Prophecies sweeter than the Consolations and Assurances you can receive from your spiritual Directors and in fine more strong and powerful than all your Fears Amongst all the Examples you see of such as fall from their Virtue and in the heighth of the Reports of so many reprobated Persons as are sounded in your Ears from all parts able to make the Boldest tremble you shall enjoy the Peace of the Elect. Your Solicitude will not be to question or make Doubts whether you shall go
because you abound in Wealth or that they therefore may be spared deceive not your selves ye great ones of the World the higher and more powerful you are the more need have you of such Seconds to support your Power and support your Spirit which must droop and sink when it is left alone It is true according to Plato's Opinion that our Soul is immortal independently of other Souls but not impassible nor invulnerable Man's Soul though divine and come from Heaven finds it self entangled in strange occasions during the days of its mortal life a Traveller lost in the Night in a Desart without a Guide a Prisoner in the Dungeon without Comforter Credit or Counsel a Sick-man in the Straw without Physician a Dying one on the Ground without Priest or Sacrament a dead Corps on the Dunghill abandoned unburied and deprived of the Due of being covered with a little Earth and of the Tribute of a few Tears Illamentatus atque insepultus quasi Cadaver putridum All this is the Image of out Spirit when it is left to it self alone so that it may say with Job Strangers persecute me Servants fly from me my Brothers know me not and I can see no Friend that I have left the Best looks on me with horrow Et quem maxime diligebam aversatus est à me In a word it concerns you to make your self be beloved the Helps you may expect from those that love you are little less in number than the days you have to live Of these days says the Wise-man some will be painful and some will be days of rest Some will be days of Fears of Dangers Misfortunes and Despairs others will bring Hope Prosperity and Success but all these days without distinction will be days of Affliction if you be left alone whereas if you enjoy your Friends they will be days of Happiness and Comfort What had happened to our Forefathers and happens yet every day will befal you At times of Adversity we feel not half our Pain when others share in the sense of it and are afflicted with us at times of Prosperity our Joy is never perfect until it be communicated and that we see it conveyed into the Looks and Hearts of those that love us It is even more satisfying to noble Minds to weep in a time of mourning whilst Friends mingle their Tears with ours than to rejoice at a happy Success when we have no body to impart it to that can be touched with the same sense and be unfeignedly pleased with what we tell them Value those Persons infinitely who feel your Sorrows and your Joys who interest themselves as much as you do in all your Affairs and in all your Dangers value them for the World affords not any thing so rare common it is enough to have Friends each man has a quantity of them but for what are they good will they not prove in the day of Battel a company of Deserters and Fugitives and be like a flock of Pigeons At the least noise of Affliction coming upon you where is that faithful and inseparable one that will stick fast by you where is the Eagle that dreads no Thunder In such Conjunctures a Man may be said to forsake even himself you are a great and an able Man you have much insight into the Affairs and Dangers of the State and into those of your Neighbours yet are you blind in Matters that touch your self no sooner are you left alone in what nearly concerns you and that you have no person to consult with except your self but your Understanding is quite at a loss all your Reasonings prove Errors and Mistakes and like a sick Physician what you do for your Cure helps you only to perish the sooner In a word Multi Amici sint tibi consiliarius sit tibi unus de mille Have a thousand Friends says the Wise-man and out of them one Confident MAXIM XVI Facta sum Coram eo quasi pacem reperiens Cant. viii PARAPHRASE I have met with Peace when I was brought to contemplate my Spouse in the condition he was in on Mount Calvary bathed in his Blood and in the condition he now is lodged in the Bosom of God his Father whilst he produces a Love as ancient as himself and no less lasting By the one I know that he loves me infinitely by the other that he will ever love me and that I have reason to begin to enjoy an inviolable Peace in this low World since I expect to enjoy one in Heaven above that shall last as long as God's Eternity REFLECTIONS Although my Conscience gives me no great Reproaches say you I have not yet that Peace you speak of my Fears are in the same measure they were before when I lived in disorder all my Devotions Austerities and Alms change not the Decree of God Almighty's Justice nor the Purposes of his Providence How can I tell but that I am one in the number of the Reprobate It would be requisite to make me enjoy a perfect Quiet you could bring me the News That my Name is written in the Book of Life and an Eternal Place marked out for me amongst the Blessed In a word Shall I go to Heaven God knows this already I would fain know it too I wish some one might tell it me certainly by the appointment of Him whose Mercy and Justice have written all these Truths in his Mind before the Creation of the World The Answer I can give you to this is only the same that the great St. Gregory gave to a Lady very eminent in quality and devotion this Lady disquieted with Care that ordinarily befals Holy Souls writ to that illustrious Prelate who was her Director and desired to know of him Whether her Sins were forgiven her and whether she might be at quiet touching her Salvation What St. Gregory answer'd her with great Respect and Sincerity was this Quod vero Duicedo tua suis in Epistolis subjunxit se mihi importuam fore c. You threaten me Madam said he that you will never leave writing to me till such time as God shall have revealed to me that you Sins are pardoned and that the Divine Mercy has pronounced the Decree of your Predestination the Trouble you should give your self in writing to this end would prove altogether ineffectual to prevent it and give you Comfort I am ready to send you a present Answer There are two Truths relating to your Question of which I can give you my assurance they are these the first That I am too great a Sinner to be one of those to whom God lays open the Books of his Eternal Science or to whom he sends his Angels and Prophets with Orders to declare the Secrets of his Providence The second That the Account which you would have of the Certainty of your Salvation must conduce more to your Harm than to your Comfort Perpende quaeso ducissima filia Consider I pray my dear Daughter