and Iesus Christ his Son Thus all the fruition satisfaction pleasure and exaltation that man took in the creature by originall righteousness he takes in God making a happy change and possessing the Creator for the creature wherein is verified the word of Saint Paul where sin did abound grace did superabound By Christian grace we are drawn from the creature and from our selves to be in Iesus Christ to possess God and to take no content or satisfaction but in God The Christian by this grace takes all in God lives not but for God and lives the life of Iesus the Son of God In this sense the Apostle fill'd with this grace saith I live but it is no more I that live but Iesus Christ who liveth in me We should all say the same for Christian grace makes us to live of the life of Iesus which is so true that we see the life of a Christian hath for it's sole conservation and food the very body and blood of Iesus Christ for if according to the ordinary maximes of things naturall we say that every thing draws it's nutriment from whence it draws its being since the food of a Christian is no other then Iesus Christ it followes by a necessary consequence that his being and life must be the same Iesus Christ. A truth great and admirable which shewes us the excellencies of the state of Christianity and teaches us how holy and perfect the life of a Christian ought to be If we further consider the same grace we shall discover a new secret in Christian life for having said that grace makes us live the life of Iesus we ought to know what his life is The life of Iesus is divinely-humane and humanely-divine He is God and man and therefore lives a life divine and a life humane As God he lives the life of God in the bosom of his Father a life of Glory Power and Majesty as man he lives the life of man in lowness humiliation in impotence in sufferings So that at the same time he is living in the bosom of his Father and dying on the Arms of the Crosse. There he raigns and governs and judges all the World here he is accused condemned and crucified At the same instant he is in the exaltation and greatness of his Majesty and in the lowness and humiliation of our humanity Such also ought the Christian life to be on the one side it is great seeing grace makes us the Children of God elevates and unites us to God makes us partakers of the proprieties and qualities of God in a word deifies us and makes us as little gods On the other side the same life is obscured dejected wholly in the spirit of humiliation and privation for grace cannot reign in the soul without operating therein annihilation death and humility Moreover the life of a Christian is exposed to temptations derided by men condemned by the world and in the greatest cherishing of God it is agitated by the cross of love God enlightens the soul by grace it is granted but it is in annihilation he upholds her but it is in confounding her he unites her to him but it is in separating her and the love it self which she enjoys unites her to God she remains separated from God as long as she remains upon earth While we are in the body we are absent from the Lord so is she at once united and separated This is the conduct of God over his Church nay if we reflect upon the highest works we shall find he puts not the ornament of grace and the foundation of her estate but in lowness his grace his gifts his spirit and his communication we are but in humiliation when he established the Sacraments which are conduit pipes whereby he conveighs his graces to his Church and into our souls He hath chosen bread water and such things as are mean little or nothing esteemed among men In the birth of the Church he took the cross for the throne of his Empire a Calvary for his seat-royall he rejected an estate by poverty sufferings and martyrdom and at this day he does the same in the regency of his Church It is true that this littleness is not now known this martyrdom is within all this holiness is hidden it appears no more to the eyes of the world as it did of old by the triumphs of Saints who became victorious and glorious in the effusion of their blood and yet notwithwanding she cannot be exempted from undergoing her humiliations her heresies and persecutions According to the proceedings of God in the conduct of his Church is likewise his carriage in the sanctification and government of our souls he leads them by the cross he retires from them he hides himself he leaves them in privations he humbles them annihilates them smites them overthrows them The perfect Christian must resolve to fight with and bear his sufferings in such manner as we have said but sufferings that are hidden to men are known to God which do glorifie him only in the sight of Angels Wherin is discovered how they are deceived who in their devotions and exercises seek resentment enjoyments content and satisfaction and would know and feel the excellency and elevations of grace I call it a deceit for Christian grace consists chiefly in privations in lowness in rigours and that is it they stand most in fear of and avoid Now as the life of Iesus begun in poverty and ended on the cross so a perfect Christian who would live a life of grace must resolve to walk amongst thornes to bear privations and sustain desertions for the cross and thornes are things proper to Christian grace and to the love of Iesus To abridge therefore the life of a Christian and all that hath been proposed let us say that the Christian to live and walk worthily according to the vocation whereto he is called must go out of himself to live in Iesus Christ his centre must be the bosome of God his life a hidden martyrdom and all his actions and sufferings must be pure and referred to the glory of God his intentions must look onely upon God his desires must be onely to please God his care onely to follow God his contentment wholly in God In brief his thoughts his designes his works must bear the Image of Iesus Christ the foundation of his being must be onely of God all to God and all for God that he may say with the Master of Christians To me to live is Christ and to die is gain THE FIFTH PART Treating of true Piety and the more particular Duties of a Christian towards Jesus Christ our Lord. CHAP. I. What Devotion is and wherein true Piety consisteth SAINT Paul proposes to his young Timothy divers admonitions to be used in the particular conduct of himself and government of his Church The first which he most recommends is piety saying Exercise thy self unto godliness as if he should say
worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing The Earth and all the creatures of the Universe do the like and present themselves before Iesus declare him their Soveraign and protest obedience and service to him I heard saith Saint Iohn every creature which is in Heaven and on the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever Let us do the same and from the bottom of our hearts say Amen let us adore Iesus Christ in his greatness and acknowledging his Soveraignty live in true subjection to his divine conduct The Continuation CHAP. V. Of the Motives which oblige us to belong to Jesus and to serve him by true piety OF all the Mysteries of our salvation that which ought most humbly to subject us to the will and power of Iesus Christ is the work of our Redemption for in this Mystery of love and mercy Iesus is our Redeemer we are his Purchase and have no longer Right either to our selves or to any creature Ye are not your own saith St. Paul for ye are bought with a price meaning we are Christ's who hath bought us with his most ineffably precious blood But the better to understand this sublime mystery let us derive it from its very source We are then to consider that by the sin of our first parents we should all have perished in him as guilty with him all nature should have been extinct by his sin for from his first offence he ought to bear the execution of the Decree pronounced against him by the mouth of God in these words In the day that thou shalt eat thereof thou shalt surely die And doubtless divine Iustice had annihilated him and in him humane nature and all creatures had perished with the Sinner if the eternall Father beholding his Son designed for the reparation of this offence had not repress'd the rigour of his Iustice. The Father out of the love he bore his Son suspended the execution of this Decree he saved the offender mercy triumphed over justice he granted this sinful man life and the world to live in and consequently humane nature and the world it self which for this sin should have been destroyed were preserved onely in consideration of Iesus Christ for his sake the eternall Father took compassion on us From this first Consideration is easily inferr'd that we owe unto the Son of God all that we are and all that we have and therefore we are as often his as there are moments in our life and as often as we receive any benefit from this bountifull hand of God and therefore all these rights which are innumerable ought to be so many tyes to unite us indissolubly to Iesus Christ. But if we dive further into the contemplation of these truths we shall find that by sin we belong to the Devil we have granted him that right which God by Creation gave us over the creatures we have as it were by sin made over our selves to him Thus by voluntary offence Man who should have commanded the World becomes a slave to the Devill and sels himself to sin I am carnall sold under sin saith St. Paul in the name of all sinners In this quality the Devill hath all manner of right and power over us and assuredly would exercise his malice against us if the divine goodness did not restrain him He would make us even now feel the same rigours which he exerciseth over the damned and dispose of us at his pleasure as he doth of souls eternally cursed of God were it not that Iesus Christ by his death hath forc'd us out of this captivity and devested the Devill of all right and power over us He hath blotted out the hand-writing of Ordinances against us saith St. Paul and taken it out of the way nailing it to the Crosse. Thus the Sonne of God delivering us from this captivity makes us his Captives acquiring by his blood and death a new right and power over us which he will use not with rigour and justice but with love and mercy the state of grace and spirit of piety having nothing but sweetness and indulgence He hath delivered us saith the Apostle from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son For the power of Iesus is all in love and dissolves it self into dearness What Christian seeing so much sweetness will not resign himself to the excess of this goodness to the power of this love To conceive more fully the effects of the grace of the Sonne of God and his rights to us by redemption observe that by the conduct of God and according to the merit of our offences so soon as man is in sin and withdrawes himself from the order and end that God hath prefix'd and proposed to him he is nothing but the object of divine justice unworthy of any favour from Heaven Heaven Earth and Hell bandy against him God is obliged onely to promote the punishment of sin by malediction blasphemy damnation and hell If God stay the stroke of his Iustice if he hath yet some reserve of mercy for this miserable sinner if he suffer him to live and preserve him out of an expectation of his penitence that so he may escape hell it is by Iesus Christ and onely for his sake We must then acknowledge that a sinner owes to Iesus Christ all the motions of his life all the happiness of his soul all the good which may befall him in Heaven or Earth O how many obligations have we then even as many as there are moments as many as we have thoughts as many as we have received benefits from time to time so many rights hath Iesus Christ to our souls so many times do we belong to him Who can number these wonders Can there be any thing in nature able to break these bonds and separate us from Iesus Let us dive yet a little further into this consideration by an examination of particulars let us see how by daily sins we separate our selves from God and shaking off the obedience we owe him become slaves to sin He that sins is a slave to sin saith Iesus Christ so that the sinner by a deplorable blindness withdrawing himself from the sweetness of the Kingdom of the Sonne of God subjects himself to the power of sin which would infallibly exercise its rigour and Tyranny over him if Iesus Christ by his mercy did not suppress its malignity For as sin ruling over the rebellious Angels subjected them to its malice and rigour causing those Angels of light to be to all eternity Angels of darkness and malediction So the sinner from the time he offended should be abandoned to the same Tyranny and left to the fury of sinne which would precipitate him into
by Nature so they are Gods by Grace as Iesus is God by Nature And if there be any who find this Truth difficult let him consider with St. Augustin that it is no harder for God to make a man truly God by Grace then it was for him to cause the Son of God to become truly man neither is there less repugnance in making man God by Grace then in making God man by the Mystery of the Incarnation Since then by this Mystery of Love God is made man why by an emanation of the same Mystery may not man be God And as by this society union and life which the Sonne of God hath undertaken the nature of man is the highest most divine and greatest communication that God could give so hath it effects wholly conformable to what it is for as the Mystery was onely operated for God's glory and mans advancement so it produceth infallibly the effects of glorifying God in a manner worthy of God seeing man that is God adores God and advances men to such a dignity as to be able to be Gods and Children of God by Grace Reflecting upon so eminent a truth do we not see clearly how holy and perfect the life of a Christian ought to be being called to so high a dignity a Prerogative onely proper to a Christian if a Christian must with all his power lay hold of this estate whereto God hath advanced him he ought also to have a particular care to become worthy to entertain this grace and to dwell with Iesus Christ in a great union and dependance that he may receive of him all the effects of this divine Mystery by whom all must operate in our souls and he must particularly dispose himself to receive the effects and Graces which uncessantly flow from this Mystery of Love and Communications for on this fidelity of our souls and on our union with Iesus Christ depends the foundation of all Good we can hope for And as all the happiness of the Creature consists in his being confirmed to his God and dependant on him more then the beames on the Sun so all the happiness of a Christian is to be bound and united in a most intimate society with Iesus Christ from whom being separated he becomes unworthy of the estate whereto God hath destin'd him deprives himself of all good and can hope for nothing lesse then a world of mischiefs The greatest pain of the damned is to see themselves separated from God banished his company for ever and the happy communion of the Saints In like manner the greatest evil that can arrive to Christians is to feel themselves far from Iesus Christ separated from him from whom they have all and deprived of the desired effects which they might receive by his conversation Let us take heed we fall not into this mischief and since nothing can separate us from Iesus Christ but sin let us shun sin more then hell it self And since nothing deprives us of the fruits and happy effects which we ought to receive of the society and commerce with Iesus Christ by his divine Mysteries but the Love of the World business and commerce with the Creatures Let us strongly endeavour to separate our selves from it and couragiously quit it at least in our affection if we cannot otherwise for the Love of Iesus Christ and let us quit that for the love of Vertue which we shall one day be constrained to do by the necessity of Death The fourth Prerogative CHAP. VIII Of another kind of Society and Vnion of Jesus Christ with Christians by the Sacrament of the Eucharist NExt the ineffable Mystery of the Incarnation we have nothing more worthy consideration in Christianity then the Sacrament of the Eucharist in which God shewes the last touches of his love and makes us most clearly see the designs he hath on our souls Faith teaches us that by the Sacrament of the Eucharist Love transports Iesus out of himself from the throne of his greatness to our baseness causing him to live with us and in us such is the purpose of Iesus Christ as he himself said as the institution of this divine Sacrament to establish between him and us a mutuall cohabitation that by this Mystery of Love he may enter into a true society with us be united to us and continue his life of conversation among us men to the end of the world He doth perform this promise of dwelling with us and in us by this high Sacrament which according to the Doctrine of the Church is an imitation and extension of the mystery of the Incarnacion to every Christian. This mysterie shews the commerce communion and particular residence which God hath in every one of us For as the communication which the Son of God hath made of himself to our nature united to his divine Person by the mysterie of the Incarnation is an imitation and extension of the supreme communication adorable and sacred society in the holy Trinity among the Persons and consequently is the most high and divine communication that God could do out of himself so the Eucharist which is an extension of the Incarnation in every one of us in the most divine and abundant communication that God can do in the order of grace For Iesus Christ in this ineffable sacrament gives himself wholly to every one of us and advances us and by his vertue draws us wholly to him by his power transforms us into his qualities makes us heavenly and eternall like himself establishes his Throne and dwelling in us by this divine mysterie Moreover by this Sacrament of union God is present with us is amongst us and united to every one of us after a manner so admirable and divine that we being not able to give it a name call it Sacramentall as an Union wholly hid from our eyes and covered under the shadow of Faith neverthelesse a true Vnion an Vnion that contains in it self and settles in us the presence of God makes us to be in God and God in us Thus God is altogether upon the earth in the midst of his People by the Eucharist and he is in Heaven in the midst of the Angells and Saints in the throne of his Majesty filling at the same time both Heaven and Earth with his glory presence and grace Briefly this Sacrament of Love gives us God causes us to live with him and of him puts us into a commerce and society with him and that with so much priviledge and advantage as we say that in this Sacrament of the love and fulnesse of God we enjoy Iesus more happily and more perfectly then the world did heretofore in the time of his Incarnation during his mortall life upon Earth I will more clearly demonstrate it that we may the more esteem so great a benefit and the excellency of the state of Christianity whereto we are called by the mercy of God First They who lived in the time that Iesus conversed visibly upon Earth
saw him but did not enjoy him few persons knew him he was not then seen but in his lowness as sayes the Apostle in the likeness of sinfull flesh In the Eucharist we see him by Faith a light as true and more infallible then that of the Sunne it self we do adore him in his greatness in the state of that glory which he hath in the bosom of his Father we handle him we touch him we eat him After this manner he is ours he will have us to be his he is in us and we in him we live of him and for him as he lives for us and the life that he lives in us is so divine that he composes it to the life that he leads in the bosom of his Father Now what more solid union what more intimate society what more divine commerce can be imagin'd what greater can we require of God Secondly During his life here he taught and redeemed Man-kind he dyed and merited for them but he gave nothing or if he gave it was little in comparison of the liberal profusions which he makes of himself in this ineffable Sacrament where he merits no more for it is not the time but gives himself to Christians and with himself all the treasures of grace and holiness This is a Sacrament of Communion and communication whereby the Sonne of God communicates to every one of us a life of grace the seed of glory In a word he communicates himself here as he communicates himself to the Saints in the state of Glory yet after a different manner and conformable to the diversity of the states of the Church militant and Tryumphant Add to this that in the time of the Incarnation Iesus Christ was upon the earth without power covered with our infirmities living in our weakness subject to the empire of death Now we possess and enjoy him in the bosom of his Father in the extent of his power having in his hand the conduct of Heaven and Earth Then he was in the World in poverty and privation but in this Sacrament of Love and communication he enjoyes the fulness of his greatness and is onely here that he may communicate them Thirdly Here on earth during his mortality he was seen but sometimes and that successively for some saw him in his infancy and no more others in his youth some felt the effects of his power in working of miracles many were witnesses of his death and sufferings All this past and was seen but in a small part of the World in Palestine in Ierusalem all the rest of the World was in darkness and saw not this beautiful Sun nor enjoy'd this agreeable light But in the Mystery and Sacrament of the Eucharist Iesus as given to all the World all the people of the Earth enjoy him from the East to the West from the North to the South there is no Nation where the Christians possess not Iesus Christ and in him all the estates and severall Mysteries of his life all that he is and shall be eternally Iesus in his life on Earth was in the quality of a servant as he saith of himself He came not into the World to be ministred unto but to minister also he was subject to Angels to men even to the very devills when he gave them power over his life in the time of his sufferings But in this divine Sacrament he is as in his Empire and in his Paradise we there adore him as our spouse governing his Church like the Sun enlightening our souls like a Prince establishing the Kingdom of his grace and the power of God in our spirits we there acknowledge him as a propitiation for humane kind rendring to the eternal Father the honour that is due to him In brief in this Mystery of Love we behold Iesus Christ as in the throne of his greatness where he receives throughout the World the adoration of his people and the duties of our souls In this manner the Earth is made a Heaven and we have our God with us and in us Let us consider these truths that so we may profit thereby and let us see what this divine bounty will work in us which makes such an abundant communication of it self in this Sacrament CHAP. IX The Design of Iesus Christ upon Christians in this most high Sacrament of the Eucharist WHat think we God requires of us for so powerfull a work of his Love What design can he have upon Christians in so divine a communication so generall a profusion of his gifts First he will change us a happy change for us for he changeth us into himself according to Saint Austin I shall be changed into thee but thou shalt not be changed into me Secondly he does thus change us not so much by a gift or created grace as by his holy humanity and the power of his divinity Thirdly the Son of God effecting this change out of the excess of love make use of this means to unite himself to us and to assume a new power over us as of a thing that belongs to him For having by his body taken possession of our member as his and made us members of his body flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone by his divine sacrament of union love and unity he assumes power over us by a right to him for ever When we shall consider these three Circumstances what can we think or say but that God will have us no longer men but gods He will have us to go out of our selves to be in him and cease to be that which we are to be what he is O how great is this How cleerly doth the holiness of the Christian estate appear seeing then this benefit is so heavenly and the communication so divine and wonderful in this ineffable sacrament we are by consequence obliged to make uses conformable to the thing it self and to the designs of God of which I shall propose some First That your sole contentment be to be with God who takes such pleasure to be with you that all things be unsavory to you that all the pleasures of the world be contrary to your heart renounce all lying and vanity Let even your smallest entertainments and ordinary actions be in him who is in the bottom of your heart who testifies such a singular love unto you This practice and affection will not be difficult if you be truly disposed to vertue for being vertuous it will be hard to take recreation in any created thing not in the least unprofitable word because a perfect Christian takes no pleasure but in God and that which is of God for being a member of Iesus Christ as such he is to act holily he must live of the spirit of Iesus Christ no way recreate himself but in him and in holy and vertuous things Secondly Recollect and form often in your soul a great and continuall desire that God be in you all that he ought to be and that
losses calls and associates him to his divine greatness By the grace of Christianity he is the child of God and member of Iesus Christ and capable of the life of his own Son and by consequence he will fill him with the spirit and perfections of God Thus the Apostle speaking of the Eternall Father saith that he hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts assuring us that by this spirit we are sons of God and he frequently calls Christians the members of Iesus Christ. This quality and motive is the foundation of the state and spirit of Christianity that shews what a Christian ought to be and how eminent and accomplished the perfection is whereto he must arrive Saint Paul tells us we are members of Iesus Christ the Church is a body the mysticall body of the Son of God whereof Iesus is the head and Christians the members Ye are the body of Iesus Christ and members of his members saith the Apostle Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ This Text is cleer which if we consider intentively it will furnish us with rich thoughts and lift us up to the knowledge of the dignity of a Christian. I leave it to the piety of the reader to insist upon this subject If according to the Doctrine of the Apostle we are members of Iesus Christ it must follow that we wholly belong to Iesus Christ and are to him in truth and by grace that which by nature the members are to their head By the head the members are enlivened the head hath the care and guidance of them all so in Iesus and by Iesus we are enlivened guided and advanced of his fulness have we all received saith Saint Iohn he is our life the soul of our souls saith Saint Austin and much more then the soul is the life of our body Now if the head and soul enliven guide animate and make the body to subsist if the body have a continuall dependance on the conduct and motions of the soul is it not also agreeable that a Christian be animated with the spirit of the Son of God which he possesseth and whereof he is wholly possessed that he be wholly left to the care and conduct and motions of Iesus Christ of whom he is a member These are the two Estates wherein a perfect Christian must be he must possess God and be resigned to the conduct of the spirit of God We have already shewed how much he is obliged to seek God and to possess him if he will arrive to the perfection to which he is called It remains that we know how he must resigne himself wholly to God As members of the Son of God we are necessarily and essentially if I may so speak left to the love care and conduct of the heavenly Father which love is the same love which he hath for his Son the same conduct that he hath over him For we are part of his Son being his members and as the Apostle saith his fulness The Church saith he is the body of Iesus and the fulness of him that filleth all in all wherein we see the happy estate of a Christian who by the grace of Christianity being made a member of Iesus Christ in pursuit of his state is left to the same care the same conduct the same love that the eternall Father hath for his Son Being then arrived to this happiness what remains but to live with great vigilancy to put our selves to leave our selves and to maintain our selves in this love of the eternall Father to abandon our selves soul and body to divine conduct to remain in this union and unity with his Son for he looks on us in his Son as members and part of his Son and also being united to Iesus to submit our selves to the disposall of his spirit and to the motions of his grace as the members are to the head It was the request of Iesus to his Father the last day of his life the eve before his death for this he made that prayer full of love repeated at large by Saint Iohn wherein he begs of his Father that he would have the same love for us that he had for him from eternity and that he would be by grace to us what he is to him by nature that the same unity of love that binds them together may be in us that we may not live but in this love in this uion and unity that we may live in him by his spirit and love as he lives in the unity of the spirit and love of his Father Words of love and of truth words of efficacy words which cleerly shew the designs Iesus hath over us what he hath merited for us and what ought to be the life of a Christian and in whom consisteth the spirit of Christianity If we proceed a little further in the consideration of the lights of Faith we shall find a new light which discovers this truth The Oeconomy and the works of God in the Mysterie of the Incarnation teach us that the whole conduct of the Church all the regency of the world and by consequence the government of all souls in generall and every one in particular is left to Iesus who is the way the truth and the life of our souls He is saith the Apostle our Fulness he is our All and that which raises the conduct of Christ and renders it admirable is that it is accompanied with wisdom power and infinite love For he employs his power wholly to furnish us to assist us in all things his wisdom leads us to God and establishes us in the state and perfection God requires of us and he employs his love to enrich us with his treasures to enlighten us with his spirit to guide by his light and to communicate to us by the excess of his bounty his being his life and his greatness Thus the quality whereto we are advanced by Christianity being made members of Iesus renders us worthy of the care and conduct of the eternall Father and binding us to Iesus makes us by grace one with him partakers of his greatness This expresseth the perfection whereto God hath called us These truths considered will cause us highly to esteem the grace and state of Christianity These motives are so powerfull that they seem not only to invite but to constrain us by amorous allurements to resign our selves wholly to God Let us adde a common Doctrine of Saint Bernard as the last draught of this admirable conduct The conduct saith he of Iesus in us is admirable in that he hath as much care of one single soul as well as of all his wisdom is employed for one soul as well as for all and he loves one soul with the same infinite love wherewith he loves all yea he loves his elect and Christians with the same love wherewith he loveth himself Here let us stop for more cannot be said Let us adore
Gospel with such high and divine words words not of counsel as many think but of command in cleer and express terms testifying his will words addressed not onely to the Religious but to all Christians Be ye perfect saith he even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect What can be said more or spoke in more express terms How would we have more cleerly expressed what this perfection ought to be then to say you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect This perfection consists in the union of the soul with God and this union is made and accomplished by pure and perfect love the love of God coming from God above which alone hath power to give God to us and to unite us to God All Christians in generall are called to the union which is made on earth by grace and in heaven by glory Whence I first infer that as all christians are called to this union of the soul with God so are all obliged to that love which makes this union that is to say to a love pure holy and worthy of God a love express'd and lively represented by the mouth of God in these words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart his words so express it that they speak all the perfection of love so generall that they oblige all to this love I infer secondly that the perfection whereunto the Religious are called is not different from that whereto all christians are obliged wherein many deceive themselves The reason is clear and the deduction of it is easie For if perfection consists in the unity of the soul with God an union wrought by true love and all christians as well as the Religious are called to this union made by grace upon earth and in Heaven by his glory Finally if it be commanded to all christians and to all men as well as the Religious to love God with all their heart that is perfectly and as much as they can in this mortall life by the ayd of grace it followeth evidently that these two estates which appear so unlike are alike in the same obligation of seeking perfection though by different wayes In fine who can doubt so manifest a truth no man can be ignorant that the Commandement of Love is common to all men of what estate soever they be No man can deny but that Love is the bond of perfection so St. Paul calleth it There is no difference then but in the way and means that we are to take to arrive to this perfection There are divers and we must esteem all and regard them with respect But if it be a question to make choice of some way to arrive to this love and if we must have Lawes and Maxims to conduct us thereunto and to conserve us therein it is certain we cannot find them more pure more divine and more assured then in the Gospel where the Son of God himself as Authour of Christianity showes us the way gives us the rule and proposes to us the maxims which we ought to keep to guide us to this love which he commandeth to live in this union and to arrive to this perfection whereto we are called and therefore Christians living according to the rules of the Gospel shall infallibly arrive to this high perfection and enjoy this most desirable union So St. Paul speaking of Christianity In Iesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor incircumcision but a new Creature and as many as follow this rule grace be unto them and mercy Under the name of Circumcision he teacheth us that nothing in the World no estate is worthy to be esteemed but that of a new Creature Christianity onely giveth us the grace and power thereof wherefore that is the rule whereof the Apostle here speaks Whence we learn the eminency of the state of christianity above all others We see then how true it is that we are all without exception obliged and called of God to love and to perfection This and more which might be said on this subject is true and yet notwithstanding it is certain that christian perfection is as the Sun proposed to all christians in generall the Precept of Love is equally given to all men and consequently all are obliged to the same perfection which is all the Argument wherewith I would undeceive such christians as would exempt themselves from both This granted it rests onely to consider the qualities of love it must be pure perfect and indissoluble the three properties of love in Christianity Pure for it regards nothing but God if it regard any thing else it is not for God nor according to God whence it comes that that which regards pure love doth separate us from our selves from all our interests and alienates us from all creatures as far as they obstruct our love to God This love makes us regard nothing but in the belief that God is there present by his immensity we neither tast nor feel them further then as they bear the presence of God for God being in all things the soul that loveth him enclines to him seeks him and finds him every where This love must also be perfect God saith so expresly We must love him with all our soul and with all our strength There is no need of explicating these words they are too cleer and evidently shew us that God will have us love him with all that which we are that is perfectly This love must lastly be indissoluble no force must separate us from God no violence must tear this love from our hearts no creature in heaven or earth no fear of death or of the loss of all we enjoy no good either present or future must separate us from this love which must be in us more powerfull then death more indissoluble then unity Now making use of all that we have said and reducing to practise all the proposed truths we shall find what we sought in this tract we shall see that by a necessary consequence we are all obliged to divorce and separate our selves truly and strongly from all that hinders us from loving God perfectly We are obliged to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect this perfection is not without the true love of God this love cannot be in us but in as much as we are separated from our selves the world and all Creatures Whence we learn that a Christian obliged to the love of God and to perfection cannot arrive to this estate which he seeks and is commanded him if on the one side he be not wholly subjected to God and on the other altogether separated in spirit conduct and love from all the Creatures Therefore he must apply himself earnestly to this exercise of subjecting himself to God and devesting himself of himself for it is certain the soul can never acquire this divine spirit nor arrive to Evangelicall perfection if she stay in her selfe obey her own will and follow
grace There is another principle of misfortune in us which is the love of our souls which lives of the substance of our souls raigning in our hearts and commanding our actions This love acts for it self not for God it is so opposite to God that as another Antichrist it labours onely to destroy the works of grace in us and to ruine his divine love spirit and conduct Hence we see what a misery it is what danger there is in being withdrawn from the conduct of God to live according to our own inclinations according to humane conduct which the Apostle calls the wisdom of this world For what must his life be who submits himself to this sworn enemy of God what must his actions be who hath no other principle nor conduct then his own will onely confident in self-love who onely followes the motions inclinations and thoughts of his reason a reason deprav'd and dim falls irrecoverably I will appeal to man himself how often his prudence reason and conduct have deceived him Into how many errours have his inclinations and his passions precipitated him let him but consult his own Conscience I beseech him to see whither he goes and that in good time he renounce humane wisdom and his feeble reason as much as God requires it to follow the foolishness of the Crosse the conduct of grace for there is no other way of perfection nor meanes to arrive at God but by the power and humility of the Crosse and by the conduct of Iesus Christ our way and our life If we would know what this conduct of God is wherein it consists we must consider it two wayes The first generall and common to all when all that a Christian does is according to the rule of the Law of God Thus we say the actions of men are all submitted to the conduct of God when they are done according to the Law and conformable to his will and the maxims of the Gospel So David lived when he said Thy word is a Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my paths For the Law of God proposeth the right end the just meanes and measure of every action in particular and of all in generall The true Christian must have no other conduct of his actions then this divine Law given by God to be the rule of mans life and principle of his actions he must follow the knowledge and maxims which Iesus Christ taught upon earth as a watch-tower and light to the spirits of men who being left to themselves walk in darkness and ignorance Counsel is mine equity is mine wisdom is mine saith the spirit of God He then that will live according to prudence according to equity and justice that will follow good counsels must have them from God for true prudence and true justice belongs to God It is true there ought to be prudence in the World but it must be the prudence of God which we cannot have but by observing the Law of God Lord thou hast made me wise by thy word said David who had try'd it We must take counsel for the difficulty of affaires perplexeth all things but this counsel must come from God and be conformable to his divine Lawes So did David alwayes in his affaires of greatest importance Thy Testimonies are my delight and my Counsellors We ought indeed to uphold our selves but it must be by the justice of God not that of men but that which concurs with the law of God for all the Commandments of God are righteousness saith David So the Christian doing all things with this respect and doing nothing against the Law and Maxims of Iesus Christ shall live in the perfect conduct of God a happy estate whereto all Christians ought to aspire and wherein they ought to continue professing even to death they have no other rule or conduct of their actions then the Law of God and spirit of the Gospel a rule wherein they must maintain themselves so powerfully and so inseparably that no creature friend or Interest can make them desire or do any thing contrary to this heavenly conduct There is another conduct of God more hidden and invisible when God vouchsafes by the motions of his grace his inspirations and loving communications to conduct souls to perfection and takes a particular care of them Here the soul must take a great and vigilant care that she quench not in her these lights and resist not this divine and amorous conduct This way is for souls who give themselves to God who are wholly out of themselves devested of and severed from the Creature who have annihilated their desires inclinations and passions who are wholly abandon'd to God professing to live no longer then under the conduct of this divine spirit They who are thus happy must take great care to maintain their spirits in a neere alliance and unity with the spirit of God to do nothing but by his conduct they must take heed they admit not any thing nor receive any other spirit which may separate them from that of God In brief they must annihilate all that is of the conduct of the Creature if they will live in a perfect conduct and an intire resignation to the spirit of God which is that which is desired in a perfect Christian as being the meanes to arrive at perfection When we consider these truths we shall find it hard to comprehend and impossible to approve the method of those who would get perfection attain true Christian vertues and possess God yet in all their conducts study nothing but humane wisdom act nothing but by humane respects speak not without equivocation are nothing but outward ceremonies regard nothing but outward formality aim at nothing but advancement Let them speak what they please humane wisdom is but foolishness before God and the spirit of grace and of Iesus is a spirit of truth simplicity and sincerity Those then that guide themselves by the spirit of Iesus Christ must live and act in the spirit of truth simplicity and sincerity for no other conduct is the conduct of God Let no man abuse himself saith St. Paul if any among you think to be wise in this world let him become a fool that he may be wise for the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God 1 Cor. 3.18 19. CHAP. III. That a Christian must do all his actions for love of God and for God THe perfect Christian must not so much consider what he does as the manner of doing for men consider the face God the heart It is a maxime in Morality that it suffices not to do good actions but we must do them well as the Philosopher saith it is not enough to do just things but they must be done justly meaning that an action to be good and just must be accomplished with all these circumstances which are so necessary that if this fail all the rest will be deficient good if it be true good must
makes of them Iesus Christ wills his Apostles speaking to them of sufferings to receive them without fear and with esteem and wills that they be unto them sweet and pleasing Because saith he the hairs of your head are numbred and not one of them shall fall to the ground without the will of your Father He said that God is our Father to engrave in our hearts a respect confidence and love He sayes that our hairs are numbred and that he keeps an account of them to perswade us that Gods care of us is great and that he hath a care of us even to the least things In brief he saith that a hair shall not fall to the ground without his order to shew that all the losses privations sufferings all events loss of goods of honour of life happen not but by the order of God who is our Father What greater reason to esteem sufferings and to conduct our souls to peace and repose amidst the perplexities of the world then the assurance of Iesus Christ It is enough for a Christian if he be a Christian when Iesus Christ sayes to him Fear not for a hair shall not fall to the ground without your Father how full of love and consolation are the words of Saint Paul to the Ephesians I beseech you that you walk worthy the vocation wherewith ye are called The Reason he adds There is but one Lord one faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all These words are sufficient to establish us christianly in the spirit of suffering and to make us to bear all with sweetness peace and tranquillity of spirit even with esteem and respect We need no other object for our eyes nor other thought in our heart but there is but one Lord this Lord is God this God is our Father this Father is above all In these words we shall learn in what respect subjection and esteem we ought to be in all the contrarieties and sufferings of humane life Secondly We may look upon the state of Christianity and examine what is the essence of the true spirit of piety we shall find that sufferings is the principall its life and its continuance and its maintenance My Son sayes the wise man going to the service of God keep thy self just and in fear and prepare thy soul to temptation adding Take all that shall be imposed on thee suffer pain with patience and humility St. Paul more clearly describes this when speaking of the persecutions he had suffered he adds And all those also who will live godly in Iesus Christ shall suffer persecution which must be understood of all sorts of sufferings both inward and outward For the life of a Christian is no other then the life of Iesus Christ the spirit of Christianity This is the spirit of Iesus or in the common phrase the spirit of grace Jesus was alwayes in humiliation and sufferings he loved from all eternity seeing that from all eternity he was resolved to be man he is reinvested therein becoming man humiliation and sufferings were the centre of his life It is enough to honour pains humiliation and sufferings to say that Iesus Christ hath born them and as the Christian must be the image of Iesus Christ so must he bear with Iesus Christ all sorts of commotions pains humiliations and sufferings As we have born the earthly Image of the earthly Adam let us also bear the image of the heavenly saith the Apostle meaning that we must reinvest us with his Vertues that our life may be an express image of his life which appearing alwayes in desertions lowness and sufferings so ours must be but the same state of sufferings What honour is it to a Christian to weare the Livery of Iesus Christ what happiness to follow his steps we are his members he is our Head were it not a shame to see the body decked with flowers bathed in delights and the head crowned with Thorns we are his Brethren and must possess one heritage with him is it not reason then that we should be like him and imitate his conflicts if we would participate of his Triumphs We are co-heires with Iesus Christ saith the Apostle if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him Whatsoever it be the Sonne of God hath so ordered it in Christianity that he that will follow him must renounce himself and take up his Crosse. They are deceived who think to attain true piety with delights who refuse all sorts of pains and mortifications who take care for peace repose and health who onely study to frame to themselves an easie life and seek for ease in their labours and quiet in their spirits and think thereby to make a great progress in perfection No no! vertue walks onely amongst the thorns and amidst the travails of the spirit of flesh and the vices of the world She must tame her self by watchings and mortifications and the happiness of a Christian is onely in the Crosse. It is the Livery of the Children of God the mark of their election the Plummet of their fidelity and the onely way of Heaven for saith St. Paul We must enter into the Kingdom of God through many tribulations The third reason is that the grace of Christianity can operate no other effect then annihilation and suffering for to be in grace is to be subject to graces and to be in the Kingdom of grace that is to be in the Crosse. For so much as the soul hath of grace so much she must have of the Crosse. The Fathers of the Church call the life of a perfect Christian a hidden Martyrdom which is easie to conceive if we consider that the spirit of Christianity consisteth in a crucifying love a love like that of the spouse who cryes I charge you O ye Daughters of Ierusalem if you find my beloved that you tell him that I am sick of love love which pierceth the soul which transports and transforms it into its object Iesus love which combates sufferings and triumphs over death Behold this combate of love God loves us gives us his love makes us suffer to prove the faithfulness of our love the soul that suffereth because she loves willingly throwes her self into sufferings and defies all labours that in her sufferings she may express her love Iesus did so at the evening of his death when he went to sacrifice himself upon the Altar of the Crosse when he said to his Apostles To the end the World may know that I love my Father and do as he hath commanded me arise and let us go hence whence he went to the Garden of Olives to deliver himself willingly into the hands of his enemies where he shewed that love was the cause of his sufferings his sufferings the marks of his love Howsoever it be to be a Christian and not to love God cannot stand together and
words which shew the pain and travel a Christian is obliged to undergo to root out of his heart and tear from his soul all that is contrary to the Law of God and vertue words which condemn our delicates and all that fear labour and sufferings excusing themselves by their weakness of nature To comprehend the importance of this advice Let us lift up our eyes to the contemplation of the truth and spirit of Christianity there we shall learn of the Son of God that the Kingdom of heaven is gained by violence that the grace of Christianity is grounded upon suffering that the perfection is in love in love crucifying that all the wayes of God and the operations of his spirit consist in privation and resignation and consequently in the cross Whence it necessarily follows that they who fly sufferings and humiliation seeking onely a sweet pleasant life fearing pains and travel do by this fear make themselves unworthy of God who reigneth on the cross and is onely found in the thorns of the fiery bush They withdraw themselves from the Kingdom of grace which agrees with annihilation they shut their heart against love and which is more to be lamented go out of the order of God and from the conformity they ought to have with Iesus Christ crucified who is the object the way and the life of perfect Christians and of Iesus Christ who cannot conduct our selves but in the way of annihilating of suffering and humiliation which is the way of Iesus Christ his life and essence Here may these delicate persons see how their faint-heartedness deceives them Let us then take heed and seriously consider the sentence that Iesus Christ pronounces against them He that takes not up his cross and follows me is not worthy of me To fear sufferings to fly humiliation to refuse the communication of God is to make our selves unworthy and uncapable of all his divine operations of grace for God cannot communicate himself to the soul in the wayes of grace but he will cause therein annihilation and humility All the operations of grace can have no effects in our souls but those of humility abnegation and death Grace must operate in the souls that which death doth in the body This is so known a truth that all that speak of grace unless that it 's proper and principall effect is to give us to God to make God live in us and to place therein his love and favour It is impossible for God to operate all that in us without annihilations subversions humiliations and death unless he pluck the love of our selves and the Creatures from our hearts he cannot plant his own therein If he kill not in us the old Adam never will Iesus Christ live in us God cannot dwell in us if he do not annihilate and consume the impurities and malice of our souls Thus Christian grace to produce its effects in us requires an estate of submission and death They therefore deceive themselves who think they are in grace yet bear no mark at all of this grace for if it be in a soul it will infallibly produce the effects proper to it if it produce nothing it is a sign it is not there Herein also appeares the wrong that the fear of suffering causeth to Christians How much do souls separate themselves from God who seek no other consolation satisfaction and enjoyment but their own and labour onely to put themselves into a certain repose thinking that perfection consists in this false rest and never to suffer any crosse affliction or temptation No no Earth is the place of combate Christian life is the death of man perfect love like the Phenix seeks death and findes life in the same flames the Crosse gave grace grace now giveth the crosse the sacred spouse saith she is fair but brown scorched with the burning beauty of divine love He that cannot suffer cannot love he that cannot love is not worthy of God or the name of a Christian. It is love that triumph'd over Iesus Christ annihilated him to the condition of our mortality it is love that humbled him even to our lowness and infirmities it is love that crucified him Christianity hath no other love or grace If then the Christian will love if he will be subject to the Kingdom of grace he must defie all sufferings and couragiously embrace all that shall befall him for love overthrowes all and triumphs over the soul. If she flatter it is to hurt if it hurt it is to kill so they who seek true and solid piety must not behold God but in the Crosse nor consider grace but in humility and sufferings My well-beloved saith the spouse in the Canticles is a bundle of myrrhe she confesses she fainted and dyed in the communications of love she received from her God For when the spouse had given her his love and ordained charity in her she instantly adds stay me with flaggons comfort me with apples for I am sick of love The greatness of God the infinity of his being his divine spirit are so powerful that if he never so little communicate himself to the soul by the purity of love and grace He is able to annihilate and consume her For if he apply himself to the Creature without proportioning himself to its capacity he cannot be supported for he overwhelms and ruines the created being by this power infinite and infinitely predominating over a being so small so subjected to his power In fine it would swallow up and consume it if he did not proportion his operation to our weakness and if he gave us not a capacity and force to bear it But whatsoever he doth if he communicate himself he alwayes annihilates if he giveth grace he changeth the man if he giveth light he humbles him if he make him to bear his love he wounds him Thus the soul that will love God must love sufferings he that will love the life of grace must lose himself and annihilate himself to receive divine operations He that will beare the light of truth must humble himself seeing God doth not manifest himself but to the humble of spirit and that all the works of God bear his Crosse in humility Hence we learn that it is necessary we esteem the Crosse and sufferings and embrace them with joy and fervour of spirit but we must further observe that sufferings subversions losses and humiliations and other misfortunes of humane life are necessary to a Christian to keep him steadfast amidst the deceits and blandishments of the World the subtleties and surprizes of the Devill By these wayes which we call rigorous God severs us from the world and takes us from kindness to the creatures he makes use of these losses and subversions as of gall and bitterness to mingle with the sweets that the creatures present to us He uses humiliation and affliction to abate our pride and if he do leave us for a time it is to
have this Disposition perfect the soul in its sufferings eversions and humiliation and in all the contrarieties of humane life must have no other thought nor interiour state but to suffer because it is the pleasure of God she should suffer This I call a pure regard of God she suffers onely to praise God onely because God hath delight to see her suffer and wills that she should suffer This Dispositition is the state that the Wise man calls the Sacrifice of the Holocaust a sacrifice killed and layd whole on the Altar as the holocaust is all consumed and annihilated to the glory content and honour of God alone without the Creatures having any part therein so the soul suffering in this pure regard of God sacrifices her self wholly to God and is wholly consumed in the good pleasure of God without her bringing or receiving any other intention thought or state wherein her happiness doth consist For God seeing the soul suffer onely for his content and good pleasure gives her a sufficiency and capacity to suffer with so much liberty and amplitude that she no longer regards what she suffers nor thinks more of sufferings but only thinks to do the good pleasure of God So that she undergoes not sufferings with pain but with love and with a disposition that beares in it more of love then of sufferance in the suffering it self resigning her self wholly to God and to all the effects of his spirit and grace how vigorous soever they may be thinking no more of sufferings but believing and loving and in this disposition love is the life of sufferings and sufferings are the object of love of a love pure and perfect To suffer according to divine wayes may yet be understood in another manner when in sufferings mortifications and humiliations the soul is such to God and so firmly united that all things in the World are painfull to her all is unsupportable to her and her own body causes her to sigh and lament saying with the Apostle We groan within our selves waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body Every where she findes contrariety and the more she lives in Iesus Christ the more she feels the weight of the Creature all her repose is to be Gods she seeks not nor findes any thing but pain and contrariety for she findes all her pleasure all her repose and content to be in the good pleasure of God In this disposition the soul must be really lost in God for she no more beares all the adversities of humane life but according to the spirit of God with a divine patience that is in the same manner that God beares them or if you will in the spirit wherewith Iesus Christ suffered our nature our sins and the Worlds a patience which we must adore and imitate in Iesus Christ for he did not onely beare them but also which is admirable in the excess of his love gave his life a divine life for our sins and by the same patience bearing the contrariety that his divine and infinite essence hath to all impure and limited creatures he acted with the creature laboured and died for it This patience of Iesus Christ is the beginning and cause of our happiness this patience is the cause that all the just and holy that ever were in the Church militant have born all adversities with peace and meekness this patience must alwayes make us to suffer all the rigours of this life but after a manner so much more perfect and divine as the soul hath received of grace and is advanced in the way of perfection according to the measure that the soul is possessed of the life of Iesus Christ to the same measure the spirit of sufferance must be pure in her and she must remain more resign'd to the designes of God more divided from all Creatures In this point consisteth the principall subject to be examined whereby to know the fidelity of the soul. He that would know the way to make use of this divine spirit must learn it of Iesus Christ who is the rule and example of our life and actions all that he did all that he suffered had relation to the glory of his Father to the exaltation of his name to the establishment of the Kingdom of God in our souls In a word he lived in the World and dyed upon the Crosse onely to do the good pleasure and will of his Father My meat said he to his Apostles is to do the will of him that sent me This was the end of his coming and of his incarnation Let us do the same and remember that as we must have purity of intention in all our actions so must we in all our suffering have a pure regard to the will and good pleasure of God When we shall suffer whatsoever it be let us suffer it because God permits it or so appoints it or because he will shew his power over us and will be glorified in our subjection Let us not regard our own interest but undervalue all things in respect of the glory of God Let us endure them onely in regard of God since it is his will since he takes pleasure to see us in sufferings and in the Crosse and that he will shew his power in our submission Let us reduce all our intentions hither they may be good but this includes all the rest In this disposition Iesus Christ prepared himself for the Crosse and presented himself to his Father to be the offering and the sacrifice of the holocaust a propitiation for our sins Thy will be done said he and no more let us say the same in all events let us settle the foundation of our soul in this estate and disposition To this we must add a remarkable admonition for those who will profit by sufferings humiliations and other adversities of humane life and bear them with faithfulness And that is this that in all conditions of life in all that may happen to us we must endeavour to find out if it be possible the designes which God hath over us in all that he does or permits to be done and we are to be very carefull to receive them and co-operate faithfully with them For as God in all he does or permits hath alwayes some design worthy of his greatness and goodness so is it the duty of the soul to submit her self thereto to subject her self according to all her capacity that with an intire consent she may act with God if need be and receive with fidelity all things according to the designes and intentions of God as for instance There happens losses and ruines we are to see if God by these losses would separate and sever us from the Creatures If it be so we must accept them with this disposition and make it our endeavour to sever and deprive our selves of the love of all things created because that by the losses and disgraces which befall us we see that
Saint Paul explains where he says that God spoke to the world four thousand years and conducted and taught men after divers manners and sent Angels he gave a Law writ with his own hand he prescribed many Ceremonies and in all ages caused Prophets to speak But in the Law of Grace he speaks to us by his Sonne who teacheth us supernaturall truths till then unknown to the World and reserved for the Excellency of the state of Christianity The Angels now guide us no more but attend us the written Law doth not oblige us the Ceremonies are now limited and the Prophets speak no longer It is Iesus the Word and the Sonne of the eternall Father who becoming man and conversing among men speaks to us and teaches us He is our Angel to inlighten us our Law to direct us our Prophet to speak to us and our Master to teach us He is the abridg'd word and by the condition that he hath made with his Father he conducts us by his spirit he illuminates us by his grace he directs us by his providence and he is the word of the Father so he teaches us not onely by his words but also by the holy and adorable actions of his life the rule the Law and modell of our life Now if Iesus be the rule and law of our life it is manifest that we ought to imitate him if we would live Christianly and if by the exercises of a solid piety we desire to attain a perfection suitable to the vocation and estate we profess we must choose none but those which imitate the Sonne of God holding it a maxime in all kindes of exercises that the Christian is so much the more devout and perfect the more conformable his life and actions are to those of Iesus Christ and that he is neither devout nor perfect but as far as he imitates the life and actions of Iesus Christ for true piety and Christian perfection if rightly understood consisteth onely in this point This Principle and Precept we have also from Iesus Christ where he sayes If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there my servant shall be also the servant of God must imitate Iesus Christ. To serve is nothing else but to follow to follow according to St. Austine is to imitate so that the devotion whereby we should serve God is not devotion but illusion if it be not in the exercises which cause us to follow and imitate the life of Iesus Christ. Here we may see how much they are deceived who dare call him rash and accuse him of presumption that would imitate Iesus Christ who say it is to soar too high and that it is impossible man should imitate his God and blinded with this ignorance are content to employ themselves in some good morall exercises The Apostle condemns this errour saying Iesus Christ suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps St. Paul confesses that his study and principall care was to imitate Iesus Christ to which end he writ to the Corinthians Be ye followers of me as I am of Iesus Christ. In a word we are not made Christians nor participate of the graces of the Sonne of God but to be put into a capacity and obligation to imitate him This is his intention when he sayes who doth not follow him is not worthy of him To say the contrary is to oppose the opinions of the Fathers a truth more manifest then day By these Principles we discover another blindness greater then the other a deceit more dangerous in many Christians who onely study to perfect their reason and think they do much to follow that in every point wherein they are much deceived For they believe it sufficient to live reasonably and Christianly and in this belief forget or neglect the rest thinking they are arrived to an estate perfect enough But is quite contrary for by the use of reason onely we live as perfect men or at most but as good Philosophers but if we would live and operate as good Christians and Children of God we must advance our selves above Reason to live not a humane but a divine life that is the life that the Sonne of God liv'd upon Earth and communicated to true Christians the life of the new man To live this life we make use not of reason but of grace which is farre above reason and must be the principle of Christian actions For onely grace can bring us to God and render us worthy of God that is of God considered as the object of our Faith and Religion The foundation of all consisteth in this that a humane spirit and reason is not our conduct nor the rule of our life as Christians Iesus Christ is the onely rule law and principle thereof wherefore in our exercises of piety we must have this continually before our eyes if we would be devout viz. we must follow him if we would be saved and we must imitate him if we will follow him Which we are now to consider how it is to be done CHAP. XIII The Practise of what hath been proposed in the imitation of Jesus Christ. WHen we speak of imitating the Sonne of God we mean not doing of miracles as he did we are not commanded to walk upon the Sea to raise up the dead to life and to give sight to the blind We mean not the being elevated to an intuitive knowledge of the secrets of the Divinity this is onely for Iesus these are the effects of his almighty power and the marks of his Mission We are not called to come into competition with him but as he was humbled to our meanness and was cloathed with our nature becoming man and taking a new being and estate so he takes also a new manner of life conformable to ours which we ought to imitate after which we are to form the interiour of our Consciences and the procedure of our actions He annihilated himself in the Incarnation saith the Apostle he humbled himself in all the Mysteries of his life he made himself poor in all his estates he was obedient even to the Crosse he suffered even to death he hath shewed his love in all his works In a word he practised all manner of vertues in the progress of his life Let us do the like he was born for our sakes and all that he did was onely that he might imitate him as the modell of our life For this reason he chose a kind of life full of various estates and practised severall actions that all sorts of persons in all manner of estates should find in him the Idaea of their actions and the prototype of their life Thus to imitate Iesus Christ is an Obligation belonging to the state of Christianity When we receive Baptisme we are incorporated into him as members this incorporation doth not onely bind us to adhere to him as members to their head but to be like
onely exteriour ours interiour the source of all our sins is in the bottom of our cursed and rebellious nature Wherfore let us live in fear and have continuall recourse to him who can perfect us Iesus Christ the Redeemer of our souls who exposed himself to temptations saith the Apostle that he might succour those that are tempted Our fourth enemy is the Devil who endeavors nothing so much as to separate us from God and Iesus Christ he makes use of all creatures even our selves to ruine us The hate he bears to God the envie to our happiness and his obstinate malice makes him watch continually about us to make us sharers in his misery and torments and to separate us for ever from our only felicity Iesus Christ. The more we seek vertue and endeavour to do wel the more he strives to divert us When we are employ'd in good exercises he either withdraws us from them or disturbs us in them and incessantly makes use of all things even vertue if self to make us lose vertue Sometimes as Saint Peter saith he goes about like a roaring Lion to devour us sometimes he comes like a Fox to surprise us He follows us every where and with a malicious subtilty strives to vomit forth his poyson to infect our purest actions In fine he gives not over till he hath gain'd or overthrown us by his violence or enslav'd us by deceit or at the least wearied us out by continuall importunities In a word there is no Artifice he makes not use of no place or employment that he finds not out no sin or action where he is not present with us to ruine or torment us What shall we do then in the midst of so many perplexities Where shall we find a sanctuary and secure refuge How shall we avoyd such manifest dangers and defend our selves from the cruelties of so powerfull an enemy This we must needs know and therefore must not forsake our perfect Christian till we have given him directions how to behave himself in such a condition CHAP. XV. In what Disposition the Christian ought to be that he yeild not to such temptations as occur in the exercises of piety THey are deceiv'd who think piety grows among Lilies that the way to perfection is strew'd with flowers who imagine nothing but sweetness and that a good inclination or an easie nature can bring us thither that devotion is a land flowing with milk and hony and consequently that there is nothing difficult which yet they are the sooner peswaded to in regard that in all their exercises they onely seek certain self-satisfaction using no violence but fastening only upon this That it is sufficient for a man to do what he can There are others on the contrary who look on the exercises of piety as so rigorous painfull and strict that they will hardly hear them spoken of but say of devotion as the sensuall Iews did of the land of promise it is an ill countrey inhabited with giants that devour strangers See here two different sentiments in extremes and consequently faulty both deceive themselves To remedy this we may say that Devotion is indeed a Lily but growing among Thorns Piety hath it's thorns they prick it may be hurt us but these thorns are loden with Roses As Moses found God in the burning bush of thorns so the Christian finds God and piety in travells and conflicts as it is the life of Iesus so it is the life of our souls to believe otherwise were to flatter our selves Devotion hath great privileges piety hath a power to bring us neer to God to honour and serve him but it is with labour Sin sets us at so great a distance from God that we cannot return to him without much pain And yet it is certain there is much content in this travell for the grace and help of God is alwayes present which will never fail us as lang as we dispose our selves to recive it In this respect devotion is all sweetness seeing we are able to do all in him who comforts us St. Paul saw all this and knew the travels we must undergo and the hazard whereto we are exposed when he discovered to the Ephesians their enemies and arms them on every part to defend themselves Ye strive not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day It is to us he speaks the life of a Christian is a perpetuall warfare this world is a land of perpetuall hostility wherein we cannot be secure for Heaven it self was not free from contention in the fall of the Angels nor the Son of God when he dwelt in the wilderness Now to understand the dangers we are in on all sides let us reflect on what was said in the precedent Chapter and we shall find how we ought to stand in fear and are obliged to have a great vigilancy to foresee the designs and discover the sleights of the Devil and to shun the deceit of self-self-love In a word to overcome the difficulties and temptation which we continually meet with in all exercises of this life in few words thus Humility is the foundation of all vertues the sanctuary of the devout soul in all the hazards and difficulties of this world The first Disposition whereinto we must enter for covert in all dangerous encounters is to keep our selves in profound humility looking on our selves as subject unto all kinds of misery which separate us so powerfully and so continually from God To continue in this disposition of humility we are to consider on the one side the infirmity and inconstancy of our nature on the other the inclination we have to evil This consideration is enough to annihilate us This disposition to of humility keeps us in fear this fear puts us into a vigilancy that we may have an eye open to all things lest we should do any thing that might separate us from God or displease him and by humility we attract the protection of God for the truly humble cannot perish and obtain his grace and light which makes us know and avoyd the temptations and subtilties of our enemies as Saint Paul saith Take unto you the whole armour of God that ye may be able to withstand the deceits of the Devil This Disposition obtain'd which must be continuall in our souls we must demand of God that he would be pleased to annihilate in us the evil inclinations which separate us from him and place in their room a powerfull inclination towards him the centre of our being the life and perfection of our souls for our inclinations proceeding from the old man who is contrary and rebellious towards God can have no power to lead us to God nothing can bring us to him but he himself Now since
must make choice of including all the Excellencies of Christianity whatsoever is to be said of the rest is to be deduced from these The first estate wherein we are established by the grace of Christianity is that which we receive in Baptism where we are consecrated to the most holy Trinity The excellency of this estate consists herein that the most holy Trinity by this Sacrament of Reconciliation giving us at once a new being and a new birth it sanctifies and consecrates us by an Unction altogether extraordinary and divine and by this extraordinary consecration draws us from our selves separates us from the common Tempests of the world to dedicate and refer us wholly to his honour and glory to call us to a holy conversation which we ought to have with divine persons as the beloved Apostle saith That our fellowship may be with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ that by this society we may become worthy and capable of the effects of grace and divine communications to be with God and possessed of God That which makes this favour most admirable is that the most holy Trinity doth vouchsafe to apply it selfe to the accomplishment of this work in a very particular manner it sanctifies and consecrates us not after that ordinary way wherewith it acts and performs all other works common to the three Persons but in this work of grace and sacrament of life it consecrates us in a manner wholly singular and full of mysteries altogether great and full of love The Father sanctifies us giving us his Son the Son becomes incarnate suffers and riseth again for us the holy Ghost works in us Iustification infusing into us the abundance of those Graces the Son merited for us Thus the three Persons by distinct operations proper to every person effects in us this work of graces and love in this manner Thus the most holy Trinity applies it selfe wholly to us after an extraordinary manner and proper to this Sacrament to consecrate us to their glory and honour a consecration so high and mysterious that it contains all the Truths of Faith whence the Fathers call Baptisme the Sacrament of Faith This is the first dignity whereto the Christian soul is advanced but this is not all Let us go on and penetrate further into this mystery of Love and we shall see that this consecration O miracle of the infinite bounty of God! places us in God and is the cause of Gods being in us not after the manner that he is in all other things nor by any gift or created grace but after a wholly extraordinary way which gives him to us and causes him to dwell in us Here God doth disclose his heart to us the Father shews and gives us his Son the Sonne gives and applies himselfe to us in the Spirit and in the grace of his Mysteries and both together making one profusion and communication of their love send and give us the holy spirit Thus the three divine persons dwell in us consecrate us and fill us with their presence and abundance of graces That which is admirable in the excesse of this divine Love making this grace and estate singularly eminent is that there is not any other Creature not the Angels themselves are advanced to this Dignity it is reserved only for Christians who are consecrated to the most Holy Trinity after so holy and mysticall a manner It would require a large Discourse to teach us to comprehend such rare advantages but let us content our selves to consider first that all creatures are referred to God but a Christian not onely referred but consecrated as if you should say that he belongs more to God and is more holy then all other creatures O how beautifull is this truth worthy to make us lift up our hearts to God! Secondly we know that both Angels and men in the state of Innocency were replenished with the graces and gifts of God but the Christian in the state of Christianity is not onely filled with divine gifts and benefits but with the most holy Trinity it self which dwels in him and consecrates him after the manner we have declared Thirdly all creatures even Angels themselves behold God in some of his divine qualities as the Seraphins in his love the Cherubims in his knowledge the Thrones in his stability and so the rest but the Christian by a happy advantage beholds and relates to him in the extent of all his greatness not onely as Creator but as Father Saviour and Sanctifier not only as God considered in his Nature and divine Essence common to the three Persons but by a happy reflection he distinctly beholds the three divine Persons and refers himself to God as the Father as the Son and as the holy Ghost Thus by one speciall and singular Grace communicated to him in Baptisme he is consecrated to the most holy Trinity and made the Temple Throne and Residence of the ineffable immense and adorable Trinity What can be more said CHAP. II. How holy the life of a Christian ought to be consecrated to God by Baptisme WE cannot say too much upon this Subject which contains so many excellencies of the soul and such extraordinary favors of God and when we have said all we can we must acknowledge it is far short of the Subject We know that God works great matters in the souls of his Elect that his love mercies and divine liberality are as incomprehensible as ineffable which being so what can be added to the love that God expresses to the world in the mysterie of the Incarnation What more can be hoped If according to the mysteries of our Faith we believe God gave his Son to the world making him like unto us to make himself more capable of being mercifull unto us we cannot doubt but that the same God of love will shew himself bountifull in all things else since he hath made such an extraordinary communication of his love and of himself in thus giving us his Son it cannot seem strange if now after so divine a gift he bestow on us his graces to exalt us to so holy a being an estate which consecrates us to make us capable of possessing God Nothing is impossible to him that can do all things we ought onely to consider a perfect knowledge of the truth of Christianity and a disposition to receive all that God will give us It were to be wished that all Christians did follow the light of Faith as they are obliged that being guided and illuminated by this heavenly Pharos they might know the dignity and excellency of these mysteries that knowing them they might adhere to them that adhering to them they might become capable of that grace which they include and God will communicate to us that we may thereby profit as Christ wills who offers his gifts desiring we should receive and use them according to his intentions This counsell we ought to follow in all these mysteries Let us begin by
Christians have a new being a new life which honoureth and imitates the new life of Iesus in his holy humanity springing from this as its source and principle For as the word unites it self to our nature in the Mystery of the Incarnation replenisheth and dwells in it as in his proper body consecrates and elevates it to all the Grandeurs of his divine Filiation so the same Iesus unites himself not personally but by a new Grace and after a singular manner proper to the state of Christianity consecrates us dwels in us and advanceth us to the communication of the rights goods and greatnesse of his filiation and would have us O excesse of love to be that by grace which he is by nature which he would have not onely to be accomplished in glory but in grace not onely in Heaven but upon Earth where we are truly Sons of God and in that quality henceforward we enter into alliance with him we have right to his heritage and which is more O that we would consider it he gives us power to call God our Father to look up to him as such to relate to him in this quality in further assurance whereof he gives us his spirit This St. Paul teacheth when he saith Ye have received the spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father the same spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God It is an effect of the mystery of the Incarnation and priviledge and excellency of Christianity Let us deliberate further upon it St. Iohn summing up the graces received from God in the Mystery of the Incarnation ranks this the first for it is the foundation of the rest saying To them he gave power to become sons of God If you would comprehend some part of this great favour think that as there is nothing in Divinity greater then to be the Son of God by Nature so but to be God himselfe nothing is greater then to be the Son of God by grace St. Cyprian admiring in God the title of Father sayes It is an ineffable name containing the Mysteries and Secrets hid from our spirits incomprehensible by our understanding If then to be Father in the Deity be a thing the most mysterious and ineffable that our souls can imagine by consequence to be son of such a Father is a favour and dignity incomprehensible The beloved Disciple causeth us to admire at this great benefit when he says Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God and be such in effect St. Iohn Damascene speaks to this purpose That the eternall Father sent his Son into the world to produce Children that should be such to him by Grace as Christ is unto him by Nature and therefore in pursuit of this Commission the Son of God from the time that he became the son of man hath created by his power begotten by his love and acquired by his merits and given by his Spirit many children to his Father who can breath nothing but glory to his Father and no longer live then by his Spirit and Life But to search with greater admiration into this Truth we must consider the manner by which he creates in us so divine a work We must observe that in Baptisme we not only receive grace and faith by the habituall vertues and gifts of the holy Spirt but are also marked with the Character of God received and owned as his children The manner whereby God effects this is admirable for as the Father hath sealed Jesus Christ with his Seal and made him his Son communicating to him his Essence and making him altogether equall to himself so Jesus Christ doth comunicate to us what he himself is marketh us with his seal makes us and owns us as children and makes us as it were another himself Wonder saith Saint Augustine and rejoyce brethren we are made of Christ. In pursuite of this benefit the eternall Father hath given us the Spirit of his Son which dwels in us according to the Apostle What can we think to be greater If we go further herein we shall find that we are not advanced to this admirable estate of being the children of God by any simple acceptation or by bare ceremonies but by something more reall that passeth into our souls as Saint Paul implies by these mysticall terms Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us It is not for our works saith he that the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost that the spirit is given us by Jesus Christ and that Jesus is sent upon this design by the eternall Father three circumstances worthy great consideration To conclude the greatness of this benefit let us observe with Dionysius the Areopagite that we are advanced to this divine estate by a new birth and divine regeneration which the Son of God operates in us in the bosom of the Church our Mother to the honour of God and in imitation of his eternall generation in the bosom of God the Father CHAP. IV. Of the uses the Christians ought to make of filiall adoption whereto they are advanced by Baptism THe Truths that we have treated of are high and would require a large Discourse but that our designe being to prescribe the practice of filiall Piety we will only represent as much as is necessary to manifest what we are and what our life ought to be in conformity to so eminent an estate First then we must take notice that in the Language of the Scripture a Christian is a new Creature in Iesus and according to the word of the Son of God a man if he be a Christian must be born again of God and consequently must have a new being worthy such a birth Now according to the order that God hath established in all things we say that the action and operation must be conformable to the being Whence it follows that the state of a Christian being a holy divine estate that makes him the Son of God as truly by Grace as Jesus Christ is by Nature his actions also and life ought to be wholly divine and conformable to the state of the Son of God This is the Doctrine of the Apostle who saith Be ye followers of God as dear children This Principle granted we must see what benefits we can derive from thence The first is a contempt of this World for it is the heritage of the children of Adam condemned by a determined sentence and a day of execution appointed when by the Justice of God it shall perish in a generall Conflagration Let us then despise this heritage of Adam and seek that of the children of God Heaven or to say better God himself Say with Jesus Christ with a sound heart My Kingdom is not of this world Remember that you must keep the rank of the Sons of God
us with his gifts that by all these endearments and singular favours he might separate us from the creatures and reduce us to a divine society and communication with him Let us consider these two mysteries of our Faith and Love mysteries which give God to us and cause us to dwell with God The last is the mysterie of the Incarnation a mysterie of Love an eternall mysterie for God shall be man and man God for ever a mysterie causing God to live the life of man and man the life of God which between God and man effects an union and society so divine and intimate that he could not do any thing more holy nor desire any more intimate since it is substantiall and personall and shall subsist eternally Entring further into the consideration of this Mystery we shall see evident signs of this holy Communion God makes here a new World as the Scripture calls it a World of Grace and of holiness a World which he governs by a new conduct and providence For whereas before God confining himself within himself spoke not to the World but by his Prophets now by the accomplishment of this Mystery he comes out of himself speaks to us and instructs us by his Sonne Four thousand years he guided the World and his Church onely by his Angels the Interpreters and Oracles of his divine will Now Iesus guides his Church by himself he infuses holy motions into our souls by his spirit alwayes holy he governs all is present with all and is found by all What presence or commerce with God would you desire greater what greater society then that of the word by the Mystery of the incarnation To know it more particularly consider these Circumstances First in this Mystery God lives the life of man and man the life of God a life of society a life humanely divine and divinely humane for Iesus is God and man in Iesus we adore and acknowledge two lives one of God in man another of man in God Secondly by this ineffable union God communicates himself to man and by this communication appropriates to himself all that is of man with such wonderful wisdom that not dishonouring his divine greatness he takes upon him all the lowness of man and subjects himself so really to our infirmities that we say God is dead God is born c. and man by a happy exchange is lifted up to all the greatness of God inthron'd in the bosom of the eternal Father where he eternally enjoyes the proper glory of God Let every tongue confess that in Iesus Christ by that hypostaticall union accomplished in the Mystery of the incarnation man enjoyes the glory of God his greatness light and life Thirdly As for the life and divine mysteries of the Sonne of God we see he presented it to us the space of thirty three years conversing with us as one of us was an Infant in his first appearing laboured in his youth did live and eat with sinners in his wayfaring life He disdained not to succour the infirm in his miraculous life In a word he resigned himself into the hands of sinners a Sacrifice and was offered a holy offering on the Crosse for the sins of the World O wonderfull he died between two Thieves in the company of men so much pleased with the society and commerce of men What Religion ever had the presence of its God so visible what being was ever advanced to so great an honour To none but the Christian is this great favour granted a Commerce so sacred that it makes man God and God man By the ineffable mystery of the incarnation God unites the Earth to Heaven and Heaven to Earth The God of Heaven dwells upon the Earth according to that of St. Iohn The word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us all nature rejoyced at this happiness St. Iohn transported with love and joy representing to the world the truth and excellency of this benefit saith It is the same God that we have heard that we have seen with our eyes which we have looked on and our hands have handled So true is it that God by the mystery of the incarnation is with us and converses amongst us after a society wholly divine and onely proper to the state of a Christian. CHAP. VII Of the uses Christians ought to make of Grace proceeding from the Mystery of the Incarnation IN pursuit of these proposed Truths what may we judge to be the intentions of God but that his will is that we should enter into a holy and divine society with him and that we should separate our selves from all that may hinder or prophane this holy conversation with him since that Iesus Christ thinks of us converses with us by his divine mysteries unites himself unto us and abaseth himself to be as one of us to be among us we ought likewise to think of none but him to love none but him to converse with none but him and like the Apostle dwelling upon Earth to have our Conversation in Heaven Iustin Martyr shewing what Christians ought to be saith Christians are in the body but they live not according to the body they dwell upon the Earth but their Conversation is in Heaven This God requires of us this we ought to be in the state of Christianity this is the use we ought to make of the spirit and grace flowing from the Mystery of the incarnation But alass it is pitty that Iesus being now revealed unto us living with us and amongst us we apply thereto so little of our selves of our thoughts and of our love and busie our selves in things so small prophane and mean even such as are unworthy of man Let us do like him Love made him forget himself to converse with us let us come out of our selves and forget all things that we may raise our selves to him that all our content may be in him Moreover the state of the Grace of this Mystery obliges us to be holy seeing Iesus Christ with whom we converse is holy The Apostle says as he that hath called you is holy be ye also holy in all manner of conversation speaking walking working and whatsoever you do He that lives after any other manner saith St. Cyprian then holily dishonours the title of a Christian and is a reproach to Iesus Christ. Let such as believe not sanctity necessary for all Christians as well as those who live included in Cloysters consider these words We see in the Mystery of the incarnation that the Sonne of God enters into Commerce and society with us dwells with us is cloathed with our humanity God is made man that man might be made God not by simple denomination as God said to Moses I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and Kings in the Scripture are stiled Gods but really and by a being which deifies them For as they are true Children of God by Grace and as truly children by Grace as Christ is
you cease to be all that you are Have a great desire to loose your self and to go out of your self and that your being be annihilated and consummated in that of Iesus who is in you This is the point whereto you must arrive if you will that God should possess you Thirdy Desire and require that Iesus Christ destroy in you all that is contrary to God that he establish in you the Kingdom of God that he take from you the dominion which self-love the vanity of your nature and your inclination usurp over you and the creatures Fourthly Resign your self to the will of Iesus Christ who by this adorable sacrament of Love will receive you into himself and place you in his life and his being Abandon then your self to the desire that he hath to possess you a desire as great and perfect as the Love wherewith he gives himself to you is infinite Pray him to destroy in this present life the being that you use and abuse that by the power of his spirit and love and by the vertue of this ineffable sacrament he may make you what he is that is to say Love Life and Truth Behold what God requires of you if we regard intentively the essence and the excellency of this mysterie if by the spirit of Faith we weigh the effects it produces in us it will be easie to acknowledge them and soon shall we be constrained to confess that this sacrament of Love doth appropriate us wholly to God draws us from our selves and the world and separates us from the commerce of creatures that we may be knit in heart and spirit to Iesus Christ despising all things for his love and glory so shall be verified the word of the Son of God to his Father in the excess of his Love speaking to him not onely of his Apostles but of all good Christians They are not of the world even as I am not of the world This is the spirit of Christianity the excellency of this divine estate That we may the better remember this you shall see in a little Picture First the grace and spirit of Christianity consecrates us to God and imprints in us a character of the power of Iesus Christ to whose Empire we must be subject for ever and must undergo to all eternity both in heaven and earth the state of service and subjection to the spirit grace and conduct of Iesus Secondly The grace of Christianity makes us the children of God by mercy and gives us right of inheritance to the greatness and true glory of Iesus Christ. By this grace we have no more part in the world because it is the heritage of the true children of Adam but we have right to the Possession of God who is himself the heritage of his children Thirdly This grace draws our spirits our hearts and our affections from our selves and all creatures to unite us to God it gives us right to enter into familiarity and alliance with the Son of God who making himself man by the Incarnation would be amongst us to the end that we might be with him He enters into society with men invests himself with our miseries infirmities to communicate to us his life his spirit and greatness Thus by the grace of this mysterie we go out of our own Interests to enter into the Interest of Jesus Christ whereof the Apostle speaking of the things of the world he saith I count them but dung that I may win Christ. Fourthly In brief by the state of Christianity we are advanced to the participation of God who will be all in us that we may be in him and Jesus Christ by his body and blood which he giveth us in the Eucharist doth elevate and unite us to God makes us live by his life communicates to us all that he is that he may be all things to us that the world may be nothing to us Thus the grace of Christianity unites us to Jesus Christ replenishes us with his life and spirit makes us another himself and therefore obliges us to go out of our selves and the world to be in Christ Jesus I know we must be in the world and make use of the world so long as it shall please God to continue us in this place of captivity but we must not be of the world we must live here as in a place of passage and make use of all in the world as of a winter garment ready to put it off when the Sun of righteousness shall come to his meridian when it shall please God Let us use all the creatures as a necessary medicine to the present state of our infirmities and occasions but let it be withall loathsom unto us as violating our Love which desires nothing but God which takes delight in nothing but God which aspires to nothing and hopes in nothing but God The conclusion of the first Part What the life of a Christian ought to be Behold here the Excellencies of Christianity which we have proposed in few words as having no further design nor intention in this volume then to shew that the life of a Christian ought to be conformable to the state of grace and dignity whereto he is advanced by Iesus Christ. Now to enter into this knowledge it suffices that we see what we are This is that which I design'd to demonstrate in this first part proposing as in a little Tablet the essence dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity which I have done briefly expressing onely the principal Truth of this subject leaving the rest to the piety and consideration of those that would profit thereby Now if we look back with the eye of Faith upon that which hath been said we shall clearly see what a Christian life ought to be and shall know that the design of Iesus Christ informing his Church hath been to consecrate to appropriate to himself and to unite himself divinely to our souls and to separate them from themselves and from all creatures that by a happy revolution he may be in us and we in him we may live in him and of him as he lives in his Father of the life of his Father that so he may restore us to his Father and re-unite us to himself from whom we were separated by him by being our own and having relation to the Creature Herein is comprised the perfection of a Christian life whereof we cannot speak more then in the words of St. Paul ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God a passage which contains an apparent contradiction If we are dead how can our life be hid in God who is the true life If we are in God who is the life of our souls how are we dead The Apostle meanes that our life is life and death our life is a life of grace which is the true life of souls and much better then the soul is the life of our bodies and the proper
to such a point that it was necessary the Son of God should be made man that God immortall should be clothed with our mortality to purchase for us by his blood and death a power to serve him to merit for us by his life and sufferings the graces necessary for us to produce good thoughts to obtain for us permission to present our selves to God and before him to re-instate us with a hope of pardon and trust in his Grace Man as a Sinner is so unprofitable and uncapable that without Gods particular grace without an effect of his divine mercy he can do no good work nor hope for any blessing or favour and if he receive any if he find himself replenished with love and hope or capable of any good it is onely by the bounty of God who though justly provoked stayes the effects of his Iustice that we might tast the fruits of his inexhaustible goodness Considering these motives and truths let us stand here before God as guilty of divinae Magistatis laesae Let us look upon our selves as sinners and we shall clearly see that by this estate we are left to Gods Iustice that we must of necessity leave our selves to his conduct and divine will For if for civil crimes men worthy of death are left to the Lawes of Iustice and the will of their Prince who will dispose of their life and goods as pleases him certainly man as a sinner worthy of death ought to be left to the will of his God to do with him according to the rigour of his Iustice or effects of his mercy This is the first practick to be learned from this Motive for the soul in the consideration of these truths ought to do that in love humility and choyce which she cannot avoid upon constraint A Christian as the child of Adam and so a sinner must put himself before God resign himself wholly to him and with an humble submission and contentment of spirit receive from his most wise hand all the effects of his divine conduct and accept with a resignation good and evill privation and enjoyment all that may happen unto him Above all he must be careful to continue in a profound humility before God exposing himself to the raies of his divine mercy to move him to pardon From this Principle we draw a second practise seeing the need we have of God For considering our selves to be so wretched and miserable we are obliged to seek a remedy for our evills Now as this cannot be found but in God the repairer of our faults the freer of our souls it will follow that by the knowledge of our miseries and the weight of the iniquities which oppress us we are driven to have recourse unto God even by the same exigence whereunto sinne hath reduced us and are obliged to seek out God Every way that man considers himself he finds himself in a want of God and consequently obliged to seek God as the onely happiness of his soul the onely remedy of his evils The better to understand this we must remember that by sinne man is equally miserable in two considerations the rigour and violence of sinne which oppress him and the evills and disorders whereinto sinne precipitates him from which two states he cannot get but by possessing of God For the first faith teaches us that man cannot get out of sin do whatsoever he can if God himself come not to relieve and deliver him Man of himself may lose himself may plunge himself may sell himself may enslave himself but he cannot free himself nor bestow himself but by the mercy of God who gave us his Son to re-establish all things in us as the Apostle affirms Now this re-establishment is done only by the spirit of love and charity which is the spirit of God in us given to us From whence we see that he that will avoid his miseries and shake off the yoke of sin must necessarily possess God who onely can free him Hence we may observe what a work the conversion of a soul to God is and the freeing of a sinner by what way soever it is wrought in man To apprehend properly the importance of this work of grace we must say that he that would be converted and delivered from sin must not onely go out of his sin but must also possess God and consequently by the same Motive that he desires to go out of his sin he is obliged to dispose himself to possess God and to become worthy of so holy an heritage for to confess his sin to turn to God to be delivered from his sin and to possess God is all one thing wherein appears the need we have to seek God and how seriously a Christian ought to labour in an affaire wherein his eternal safety doth consist The second state of our miseries doth no lesse oblige us to seek God then the former for by the effect of sinne and the Tyranny it exercises over us we are continually tossed about disorder'd made vagabonds and precipitated from imperfection to imperfection from sin to sin from trouble to trouble This evil hath no remedy what resolution soever the soul takes what diligence soever it useth what habit soever it assumes it will never find calme rest or deliverance till it hath found and possesses God and be possessed of him Never shall she be in true liberty Christian liberty the liberty of the children of God until she possesses the spirit of God wherein they deceive themselves who to acquire the peace of the soul and true liberty of the spirit use a thousand practises and a multitude of exercises peace and true Christian liberty being not to be found but in the possession of God Many things indeed that we speak and do serve to lessen our trouble and thraldom but not one can give true liberty or the peace of the spirit but the possession of God The reason is demonstrative nothing can have peace liberty and repose but in its proper Centre God is the Centre of the soul therefore in God alone is her peace liberty and repose and as long as she is with God and possesses him she is in liberty and repose no longer Whence we evidently conclude that while the soul is separated from God she is tyrannized over by the malice of sin continually drawn into circumstances terms and subversions And souls that make shew to search after the truth and to live in the purity of Christianity if they seek not God purely and seriously if he dwelleth not in the bottom of their hearts shall never live but in disquiet and in trouble in scruples and in Pannick terrours For it 's an infallible maxime That man can never rest but in the possession of God the contre of his soul. In this we see the strict Obligation that we have to seek God and to study Christian perfection which consists in the possession of God This is the resentment the desire and demand of the
Interest they care onely to satisfie themselves in a word they are but themselves and full of self-love you shall know these Trees by their fruits and the end will let you see that do but touch these Mountains and nothing will come out but smoke God dwells not with Baal let us not go two wayes the soul who will possess God who is purity must be pure must purge and take from it self all that displeases God for flesh and blood possess not God There is another deceit whereto we must take heed which is of those that believe they do much and think that God is endebted to them when their Conscience troubles them not with any deadly sin that is when they themselves say they avoid them all for that according to the truth of this proposition simply taken it is certain he who dies without mortall sin shall be a Saint But laying aside many things that may be said against this abuse I will onely make it appeare that they support themselves upon a Reed for I advise all those souls that speak so to acquaint themselves with their own state because that to know the state of our Consciences and our faults as they are we must know what they are before God and by the light of God We cannot have this knowledge but in as much as we are filled with the light of truth and as we esteem God and his greatness But if we did esteem God and acknowledge his greatness and if we did live in the light of the truth we would never speak thus On the contrary we should not onely shun mortall sin but even the least faults for knowing God and esteeming his greatness we love him loving him we fear to do any thing that may displease him be it never so triviall and they therefore who onely regard and fear the grossest sins and care not for the rest assuredly neither know nor esteem God They know him not for they cannot know the state of their Consciences and consequently they deceive themselves when they ground their assurance on a pretence that they are not troubled with mortall sins and that so much the more in that they care not for all the rest believing they are well assur'd of their salvation Alass who is he that can be assured he is worthy of love or hate what presumption is it in men of this age to assure themselves amidst so many dangers Saint Paul the mirrour of Sanctity said of himself I know nothing by my self yet I am not hereby justified and elsewhere he sayes that he runs and labours alwayes because he is not arrived to that perfection God requires of him We must say the same in what state soever we are Whence I conclude that to live in the purity that God requires of a Christian he must not onely shun all sin but further have a generall care and particular vigilance to do nothing which may displease God whatsoever it be and must neglect nothing conducing thereto and herein consisteth purity in the first sense Purity taken in the second manner implies no other thing then a pure regard of man to God be it for the soul or for the body This purity is greatly important and altogether necessary to those who would live as perfect Christians by this purity the soul regards onely God she doth nothing but in the sight of God she seeks nothing but his Will if she love it is onely God if she affect any thing else it is onely for God and according to God in every thing she seeks his glory and satisfaction all creatures are before her as if they were not in this consists the essence of this vertue Perhaps we shall make it better known by proposing the wayes and meanes whereby we may arrive to the acquisition of so divine a vertue The first I place in purity and simplicity of intention when the soul in all that she does annihilates all her intentions her desires her motions her thoughts and admits none but the pure desire of complying with God I call this intention simple because it must be clear and naked without consulting Reason in any thing This intention is simple because it is one wholly and alwayes equall in all things it regards God onely and him continually in brief this intention and regard is simple because it onely rests upon God the soul that seeks this vertue seeks onely God O how desirable is this vertue how happy is this manner of life This is that which unites the soul to God that which pleaseth God and is fit to bear God The second meanes to arrive at the possession of this vertue is by denying our selves when we renounce our selves and admit no resentment that beares impurity and respect to our selves or the creature as the esteem of our own merit of our capacity of our vocation the content of a Neighbour the profit of Friends the acquisition of Vertue and such other things that cause us to stray from God We must annihilate all these resentments and thoughts to persist in the unity and bare simplicity of the pure regard of God the pleasure of God his glory and his content is a thing more important and infinitely of more worth then can be imagin'd yea then the salvation of all men The soul therefore that seeks God and perfection for that is all one must carefully take heed to this manner of purity for to regard any thing but God and to love out of God is to love unworthily and to love any other thing with God whatsoever it be to think thereon to seek it and to care for it is to make too little account of God it is to esteem his love too meanly Men addicted to this World will passe over this lightly and perhaps with contempt but I wish all that heartily seek God and are in the number of those whom God holds in his hand and regards to all eternity with a regard of love and good will that they think of what worth this eternall regard of God is who regards us without ceasing that they consider what God deserves and demand of God that which he pleases for this regard of his love I am confident that these thoughts would lead them to true piety The third meanes to attain this Vertue is vigilancy whereby we take heed to that which God does in us to correspond faithfully with the designes he hath to purifie us for by this vertue he is infused and God by his operations incessantly purifies us It is the duty of the soul to watch the occasions that God giveth her I say to watch for the love of our selves is very cunning to separate us from God and to apply us to our senses under pretence of vertue and necessity The devout soul must seriously take heed least she destroy in her self the works of God This is the design of Satan they are his ordinary subtleties that deceive the most fervent by this meanes destroying
we are divided from God the more we follow our own wills and inclinations and adhere to the creature the more we destroy in us the works of God and annihilate his gifts and graces This is an evil that cannot be sufficiently deplored since that for the regard of the creature we lose the regard of God to love a thing of nothing we ruine in us the love of God and for a wretched and miserable thing like our selves the brood of sin and the food of death we destroy in us the works of God and the effects of his love Briefly to adhere to our own wills inclinanations and sentiments Oh who can speak it without a torrent of tears we separate our selves from God and draw our selves from the order and designes of the eternall wisdom Truly we ought to weep and weep tears of blood when we consider the weak condition of man What this Man who is capable of God who hath right to possess God and to be by grace what God is by nature immortall eternall perfect and to possess an entire and eternall rest and a fulness of all good a true solid and permanent good for him I say O misfortune of humane nature and weakness of our spirits to renounce all his happiness and lose his God and in him all things to follow his own disorder'd inclinations to do his own corrupt will and to please and adhere to the creature which is nothing but vanity to enjoy a fleeting transitory good He must neither have heart nor faith that cannot grieve at this our blindness nor apprehend an evil so common and deplorable he must be more obstinate then Pharao that would not draw his soul out of this darkness and deliver it out of this captivity to set it at liberty to go to serve and adore the true God and quit the Leeks and Onions of AEgypt O that I had wings like a Dove for then would I fly away and be at rest lo then would I get me away afar off and remain in the wilderness O Iesus who art our Deliverer break these bonds that bind us and permit not the weakness of our wills and malice of our spirits to oppose the power of thy grace My Iesus the only light of our souls who camest into the world to enlighten those that walk in the shadow of death come and defer no longer to give life and liberty to those whom thou hast chosen to be thy children But let us put a stop to our zeal and not be transported with the motions and resentments of this just grief Let us rather remedy the evil and see what we must do to be faithfull to God and to do that which he would have us First the Christian must take his vocation of God and not of men for as we have formerly said God only hath power to ordain all things and it is the greatest mark of his Omnipotency for himself to choose and ordain the lives and actions of all men and principally to give to his Elect and to propose to them the way and light whereby he will perfect them in the state of grace and conduct them to the enjoyment of the glory he hath prepared for them So said Iesus Christ to his Apostles and Disciples Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain shewing it is he alone that calleth us and employs us in the actions for which we were created When therefore the Christan is at the point to make choice of his vocation he must ask it of God and regard only God in his desire and to render him capable of so important a grace he must make an entire true resignation and annihilation of his will and of the use of his liberty and neither have choice of liberty or will in any thing that concerns him as having no will but that of God leaving to God alone the power and care to choose ordain and establish all according to his holy wil considering nothing therein but the pure glory of God and reserving a desire to accomplish what God by his good pleasure hath ordained him proposing to do all that he should know to be the will of God Secondly when the Christian is in a settled estate and profession then he must live according to the spirit and grace of his estate and vocation and apply himself wholly to God in the use and wayes proportioned to his estate wherein consists the ground of the souls fidelity To comprehend this advice we must know that in the life of every one there are considerable two estates one generall which is common to all the state of Christianity the other particular which consists in the condition he professes in the world The perfect Christian who would be faithfull to God must first have a care to agree with the state and grace of Christianity the most noble of all professions of men and the ground whereon we must of necessity raise the whole edifice of Perfection in what condition soever a man be For what is a man the better for being a perfect and an accomplish'd Gentleman and a wicked Christian to what end serves it to be excellent in some condition and estate to seem good in some vocation to be esteemed of men and to satisfie ones own conscience if in truth and before God he be not perfect in the state of Christianity He must then be a perfect Christian before he seek or think to be perfect in any other condition or estate And therefore the first thing he ought to do who would be faithfull to God must be to live according to the Laws maxims and according to the grace of Christianity in such a manner that he may strive to accomplish and become faithfull in all that is taught and required in this estate with such purity and sincerity that he neglect nothing but make account of all that is in Christianity For as we say there is nothing little in Religion but all in it is great all is here to be esteemed and all is here of importance to him who will live perfectly in such an estate so in the state of Christiany we must esteem all and he that will be a perfect Christian must make account of all that is proposed in Christianity when he is in this estate he must study to perfect himself in the particular profession he takes upon himself be it in the world or out of the condition of seculars Thirdly the soul seeing her self in a profession and vocation must wholly apply her self thereto so as if there were no other and although she esteem of all other vocations of all the wayes whereby God guides his Church and Christians yet must she onely apply her self to her vocation and step onely in the way and conduct of God being without taste and voluntary knowledge of all others as not being willing to make use
pleasure and glory He that will examine the precept of love will ingeniously confess that which we say for we cannot love God with all our heart with all our soul and withall our strength but in seeking to please him in all things even the least much more in those which we call indifferent though in truth they are not so as we shall shew hereafter Secondly The Christian must avoid in his actions the multiplicity and confusion which occurs ordinarily in affaires even in those which are good and appear charitable and above all he must exempt himself from that which concerns him not and is not of his office nor suitable to his profession and vocation and especially those which are above his capacity and power This advice is to be weighed and cleared for the most serious may be deceived and the most zealous may lose themselves in their occupations by this way the Devill withdrawes away many souls from vertue and the purity of their vocation It is easie for us to be lost in this snare if we have not a pure regard of God and a continuall vigilancy we fall ordinarily into this evill Sometimes a false zeal of charity transports us sometimes we are seduced by complacency sometimes by curiosity and our own inclination which is much given to change and variety and takes pleasure in all that it employes it self in busies it self therein with much content fastens it self thereto insomuch that the soul becomes at last so disordered that she finds no more repose in her spirit no more attention in her self but feels her self wholly estranged from God even in the most holy exercises of her vocation Being in this condition she is disquieted and this disquiet causes a distaste and alienation from vertue whereupon losing the reins she more and more abandons her self to exteriour things and infallibly loseth her self if she have not a care to withdraw her self in good time and if God preserve her not and behold her with the eye of mercy The soul therefore that seeks perfection and the inward peace of the heart must be vigilant herein and not suffer her self to be inconsiderately transported under any pretence whatsoever for it concerns her salvation The state of true love and grace alwayes withdrawes the soul from all multiplicity and separates her from all things for so much as she hath of love and grace so far is she separated and estranged from the Creature and the more she is to God the more she flyes and detests all things else the more grace raigns in her the more it separates her from her self and the world Self-love drawes us to the Creature and involves us in a multiplicity on the contrary the love of God separates us from the Creature and puts us into unity This most true principle may serve us as a plummet to sound the depth and interiour of the soul He who is subject to grace and hath but any pure love needs not to be perswaded to this because the love of God and grace makes him hate fly and detest both the World and the affaires of it and assuredly he will shew it by the effects for he cannot do otherwise Whence it will be hard to approve the opinion of those who would be truly devout and perswade themselves they have true Christian piety yet charge themselves with cares with affaires and trouble perplexing themselves in thoughts desire and bringing about divers designes To convince and enlighten them if they be capable we must resume our principle and onely say to them that the love of God speaks unity and the love of our selves multiplicity Thirdly There are many actions necessary in many affaires wherewith we cannot dispense for that they are necessary and wherein our nature and spirit may be satisfied and content But we must renounce this pleasure and content for God must have all our actions and to do Christianly and purely we must do it onely for his good pleasure so that if we mingle with it other pretences or contentments it is not purely for God but we share with God and we rob him of all that part that we take therein But if the actions we do be naturall as to eat sleep and the like we must not fulfill them by the instinct and appetite of nature which forces us to satisfie both her necessity and pleasure but we must perform them out of a pure desire to do the will of God which obligeth us to this necessity this desire must be exclusive as to any other instinct and will For in actions naturall and necessary there is great difference between the rule and end of the action The rule is humane and naturall the end must alwayes be supernaturall as for example We do some necessary act as to eat sleep or the like the necessity is the rule but God must be the end of this action for he is the end of all the actions of man both free and necessary and we are obliged to direct all our actions to their supernaturall ends it is the advice of St. Paul Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do let all be done to the glory of God This truth is most evident for if God were not the end of such actions it must necessarily be that man himself is the end thereof which would be a kind of Idolatry and errour to affirm We must then conclude and say with the Apostle Whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Iesus giving thanks to God and the Father by him In all lawfull actions therefore we must regard the rule and the end of necessity which must be no other then the good pleasure and pure will of God But if in these actions there should happen some displeasure as if they should be contrary to our Honour or if they be full of bitterness then we must couragiously embrace them and with an affection and love ready for the displeasure which might happen offering our selves to God to be filled with bitterness as often and as long as it shall please his divine Majesty So in all the actions of man wherein he may take pleasure or displeasure in what manner soever they are we may frame three acts The first is an act of obedience making such an action very naturall and necessary by submission and obedience to the pure will of God who hath ordained all things after the best manner that best pleaseth him The second is of abnegation renouncing the pleasure or accepting the displeasure which may be therein The third of resignation giving our selves up to the will of God to be in a continuall suffering of displeasure if it shall so happen and that for as long and in what manner it shall please God For the soul must have no will but to accept the will of God Fourthly we may fail yet in the use and research of things not onely lawfull but also vertuous by adherence and
have said we are God's without whom we can neither honour God nor be acceptable to him It follows that the foundation of true piety consisteth in Iesus Christ that is in the adherence and relation of our souls to Iesus Christ and in the submission of our being and life to the conduct of his spirit and grace for by that adhering to him and being subjected to him we are pleasing to God and receive in him and by him the capacity of honouring and serving God which is the proper effect and chief duty of piety and devotion The truth would need no proof but that few persons think thereof and that many are ignorant of it therefore it seems to be to purpose to speak thereof more at large in the Principles of Christianity Without out going any further let us consider that to be a Christian we must put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man Iesus Christ it is the Doctrine of the Apostle whereon we must found our Discourse If to be a Christian we must crucify and put off the old man to put on the new with much more reason to be a good and devout Christian we must crucify and put off the first to invest us with the second When we say that we must be clothed with Iesus Christ it is to shew we must be united to him adhere to him and as a garment adheres to the body and is united to it so must we be Iesus Christ's but much more perfectly then this comparison expresses Reason and Faith will easily convince us of this truth if we doubt of it for faith teaches us that it belongs to Iesus Christ to give us grace and strength to put off the old man that is to draw us from our imperfections to deliver us from our sins and annihilate our evil inclinations It is the same that Iesus Christ invests us with the new gives us his spirit grace and vertue for and according to Saint Paul Iesus Christ hath been to us wisdom and righteousness sanctification and redemption In a word Iesus Christ is all in all to us Now that the Son of God may operate in us all that we have said it is necessary that we be united to him adhere to him and be subjected to his designes his will and divine operations Who can deny so manifest a truth If Iesus annihilate our evill inclinations and root sin out of our hearts ought not we to be subject to his conduct and spirit and so receive his operations of mercy If we participate of his grace and vertue and live according to his Commandements is it not necessary we should be united to him And how should we be united to him but by a true relation and faithful adherence to him This deduction is easie and clearly shewes how true it is that the foundation of true piety consisteth in unity and in the adherence and dependance of the soul on Iesus Christ it is acknowledg'd by all that devotion cannot be true if we be not exempted from our vices and imperfections and filled with the spirit of Iesus Christ and assisted with his grace to make us worthy to honour and serve God We cannot perceive in that devotion nor practise the exercises thereof if the same Iesus Christ be not operating in us the will and perfecting according to his will This Iesus Christ said to his Apostles and in them to all Christians Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me adding he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing O words of love words spoken the eve of his death to shew us the excess of his love that proceeded from his heart wholly divine and full of tenderness whereby being moved he further said unto them Abide in my love So infinitely was he desirous to possess our hearts and to triumph over us by his love whence he often repeats the same words to engrave and imprint this care in our souls and by the proceedings of his love oblige us to love him again This indeed is a thing we ought to have continually in our thoughts for all the happiness of a Christian consisteth in this relation and this amorous dwelling of our souls in Iesus All our good is in this union since that by it and the adherence we have to Iesus we become his and by him we receive a power and capacity to bear the fruits of good works to practise vertue and to passe our life in the exercises of true piety and Christian devotion which make us hope for the reward which God promises to those that serve him Without this relation and union we shall continue in our weakness and incapacity our life is unprofitable barren unfruitfull and in evident perill If any man abide not in me saith Jesus Christ he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire If we will come to the experience of what we have said let us examine God's conduct of such souls as he will save and we shall find that the first knowledge he gives them is that of Iesus Christ proposing to them his Crosse or some Mystery of his life the first motions the first thoughts of piety that he inspires them with are those of a certain compassion and sympathy with his Crosse and sufferings or those of love and tenderness in consideration of his benefits If on the other side we intentively consider souls even the most ignorant we shall easily know they have a secret resentment and an inclination to Iesus Christ though they know him not But God alwayes begins these divine Communications and effects of his mercy by this first grace The reason is manifest in Divinity which teaches us that the eternall Father doth nothing but by Iesus Christ operates nothing in our souls nor in the state of grace no more then in nature but by his Sonne The first favour therefore the elect soul chooses to receive of God is that the eternall Father hath given it to his Sonne and there Iesus Christ accepts of it and appropriates it to himself Now as God demands our co-operation which yet we cannot give without his grace and therefore inspires the soul with a resentment of Iesus Christ gently insinuating into it a certain attraction which sweetly drawes it to a knowledge and piety towards Iesus Christ so our soul begins to be Iesus Christs perfecting her self in the state of christianity according to the measure that he advances in this affection and in this relation to Iesus Christ. The Sonne of God speaking to the Iewes obstinate in their errours saith None can come unto me if the Father who hath sent me doth not draw him And to shew the manner that the eternall Father uses to lead our
the life of Iesus after what manner he pleaseth This is a principall point of Christian piety The very mysteries of our faith acquaint us with this truth and discover unto us the designes whereby the Son of God would advance us to a participation of his Mysteries and the severall estates of his life The Son of God becoming man by incarnation takes possession of the nature of man of our bodies and of our souls by which he acquires a right to his nature to advance and appropriate it to himself after what manner he pleases as by this work of love he took humane nature upon him assuming body and soul which he appropriated to himself and elevated to all the greatness of the divinity communicating to it for ever the person being life and nature of God In like manner in the works of grace whereby his divine mysteries are honoured Iesus chooseth such souls as he may dwell in by love or after what manner he pleaseth otherwise he appropriates them to himself by his grace he advances them to adherence and union of spirit with him and by a particular indulgence establisheth them in a communication of his greatness To this end he applies and employes his power to which a Christian ought to be most vigilant and attentive that he may alwayes continue in the subjection he owes to Iesus Christ to accept receive and bear the effects of his power This Principle of truth and piety is grounded upon the common doctrine that all that Iesus Christ did he did for us and all that he is he is for us He saith the Apostle became poor for our sakes although he were rich that by his poverty we might be made rich meaning that Iesus being God became man and took upon him our meanness infirmities sufferings death the severall conditions of our life to withdraw us from our meanness enrich us with his divine graces and advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life blessedness sanctification and salvation Hence we may take occasion to consider the greatness of Iesus he is our fulness in his annihilation in his poverty he sufficeth all for God gathereth together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth It is the greatness of his mysteries that they are capable of communication to us and can admit the sanctification of our souls as it is our glory and happiness to be able to participate of the grace estate and mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. This is the first designe God hath upon us when the Son of God living an immortal and eternal life in the bosome of his Father took a new and mortall life in the womb of the Virgin his Mother He desired nothing so much as to give us his immortall life and to abase himself to our estate to elevate us to a participation of his greatness and the rather because as he honoured his Father by the several estates of his new life his hidden life his suffering poverty death cross obedience subjection in all the estates and mysteries of his life so he will have us to honour him in participating of the estate spirit and grace of the same mysteries For this reason in his Church and of all qualities and vocations he chooses souls and calls them to an establishment in the participation of his spirit and a communication of his new life a life of grace such as is wholly singular and proportioned to the eminence dignity and sanctity of a Christian calling All this is an effect of his divine mercies the fruit of his sufferings it is our glory to be called and elevated to this happiness as it is our duty to keep our selves in a disposition and capacity to receive and bear them according to the designes and intentions of the Son of God All those then who are desirous to live according to Christian piety must make it their main business to continue faithfull and humble in this subjection that they may be ready to go when they are called and to receive when they shall be rewarded We come now to the Dispositions whereby this estate may be attâ—ined CHAP. IX Certain dispositions necessary for the devout soul that would participate of the grace and estates of the life of Jesus Christ. THis estate of interiour piety which puts the soul into a subjection to the power of Iesus Christ and a capacity to receive and bear the graces and estates of the life of Iesus is altogether suitable and necessary for those who seek perfection as being proportioned and conformable to the designes and order that God hath established in his creatures In the creation of the visible World adorned and embellished with so many severall creatures God hath created Angels and man to contemplate so perfect a work to admire the excellencies and to honour the Authour of such miraculous productions He hath done the like in the creation of the new World that is the establishment of his Church wherein Iesus Christ chooseth souls and formeth spirits who are employed in considering the works of love operated by him upon the Earth for the salvation of mankind and honouring the Authour of so many Graces As God hath created a great number of Angels different in perfection and order and as some conceive in species also to whom he hath given severall gifts and graces as well as severall ranks in Heaven that they may honour by these diversities of estates perfections the divine qualities and severall perfections of God for the Seraphims as Thomas Aquinas affirmeth adore by estate and by grace and contemplate by the light of glory the uncreated love of God the Cherubims his wisdom the Thrones his Stability and so of the rest The eternall Word having accomplished the ineffable and adorable work of his Incarnation having finished that of our Redemption and created in this naturall World a new World that is the Church puts souls into it who by the conduct of grace are employed in consideration of the works which Iesus Christ operated on Earth And amongst the rest he hath chosen many who by their severall estates and perfections continually honour the severall estates of his life and adore his actions and perfections humanely-divine and divinely-humane This must needs be an undeniable truth for if the Angels and the Church triumphant are continually and eternally employed in admiring and adoring the life estates and Mysteries of Iesus Christ shall not her Sister in the Church Militant have the same rights employments and duties It is not to be doubted and certainly seeing that love hath obliged the Sonne of God to these lownesses and makes him ours for ever for he shall be man eternally and eternally our Iesus our head and our All it is but reason that we be alwayes his and render him perpetuall honour and homage This is he that operates in our souls this is the estate whereto many are called It
him and to have as much conformity in our actions to those of Iesus as there is between the head and the members of the same body So that this imitation must not be indifferent but most holy and perfect All as many of you saith the Apostle as are baptized into Ie. Christ have put on Christ that is ye bear his Livery and as the Doctors interpret it ye are made like unto him ye imitate his vertues and are followers of his life and actions For it is but reason that where the head is there the members should also be and that there be a resemblance and conformity of the one to the other To imitate then the Sonne of God implies two things the one is that we do what he hath done the other that we do it with the same spirit and dispositions wherewith he did it He was humbled for us he shewed his love and clemency towards us Let us also learn of him to be gentle and humble of heart He was obedient even to death the death of the Crosse let us imitate his obedience preferring the accomplishment of his divine Ordinances and holy will before all things even our own life He was born in a stable layd in a manger he took poverty for the companion of his life he condemned the World and despised its pride shewing us that all is vanity and a meer nothing in the eyes of God Let us do the same and though we are in the World condemn its vanity in a word so use it that all our life interiour and exteriour may be a continuall imitation of the life of Iesus This is the true piety that a Christian must exercise the onely meanes to be perfect In this imitation and resemblance consisteth the perfection of the soul as well in the state of grace as of glory We know that when we appear we shall be like him we shall see him as he is saith Saint Iohn If then we shall be like him in glory we must also be like him in grace for glory is nothing but grace consummated grace glory commenced But we must not rest here it is not enough to do barely what the Son of God hath done we may deceive our selves herein believing we do much when we do nothing of value because Iesus Christ being man as we are and conversing amongst us no doubt but we may find some conformity and resemblance to him even among the wicked in the common states of men many suffer and are oppressed many poor and humbled many sequester themselves from the pomp of the Court and live in the obscurity of a solitary life many fast and pray and do almost all the exteriour actions that the Son of God exercised upon earth He was man as we are we are men as he was but this does not perfect us this is no imitation of him the reason is because it is not enough to do as he did but we must do it with the spirit in the dispositions and by the principle that he operates which few persons mind It is not enough to do but we must do it by a principle of grace not of generall grace comprised under the common and generall name we give to all the gifts of God which is an usuall way of speaking but of grace which giveth us Iesus Christ communicateth to us his spirit and puts us into the holy dispositions of his soul. So that doing all things by this principle we perfectly imitate the Son of God so far that our naturall common actions are withdrawn from their meanness and elevated and united to those of the Son of God after a particular manner as being operated by the same principle and with the same dispositions This manner of acting is peculiar to the state of Christianity and in all circumstances conformable to the state of grace for by Christian grace we are new creatures creatures in Iesus Christ as the Apostle saith and consequently we have a new being and life Which if we have we must also have new inclinations another goodness and all our actions must be conformable to this new estate seeing that according to the ordinary maxims the work is according to the being Now as the being we have by Christian grace is wholy divine elevated and entirely in Iesus Christ it followes that all our actions must be elevated and done in Iesus For this the Son of God humbled himself to all practices and exercises to ennoble and sanctify them for according to the Fathers Iesus entring into the waters in the day of his Baptisme by his touching them he sanctifies the waters of our Baptisme and as Saint Augustine saith he sanctified the world and blessed it by his conversation So by the use he hath made of humane nature wherewith he hath clothed himself and of all the exercises and functions proper thereto he sanctify'd ours shewing that we may imitate him seeing he became man to be the rule law and model of our actions and not onely imitate him but express and represent him to the life and be so many Christ's as members of the Son of God We must be one with him and consequently must not operate but with him and in his person not in our own For this cause he gives us his spirit whereby we act or to say better he acts all in us It follows that they are not so much our vertues as those of Iesus in us Herein appears the great difference between Christian vertues and morall or humane For instance The love God requires of a Christian must not be that of a Pagan who loves them that love him nor that of a Politician who loves according to his humour or interest much less that of a Iew who loves not but out of an hope of reward promised or a fear of Iudgments The love of a Christian must be the same with that of Iesus that is he must love with the same love wherewith Iesus loves he must love with the love of Iesus as he must live the life of Iesus Walk in charity saith Saint Paul as Iesus Christ hath loved you The Son of God himself in the Eve of his passion speaks thus to his Apostles I give you a new Commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you To love is no new Commandment this law was imprinted in our hearts from the beginning of the world but the manner of loving is new we must love by the same love wherewith Iesus loved us his love must be in us O how great is this love how pure how free from self-interest how strong and powerfull since according to the Apostle it is the same love which made Iesus to be born and die for us even then when we were his enemies and sin raigning in us The Son of God gives us a cleer testimony of this truth speaking to his Father I have declared to them thy Name and will declare it that the love