me forthwith to set upon the practice of this life hidden crucified despised which you have taught us by your example that I may truly say with St. Paul Absit mihi gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri Your Cross dear Jesus is my Glory and I will glory in nothing else Honours Pleasures Riches I declare my mortal enemies seeing your property is to incline me perpetually to deviate from those ways to which Jesus calls me I abhor you as enemies of my Perfection Ah dear Saviour make me partaker of your life humble poor despised or let me live no longer in this life of mortality When Heaven shall be my Habitation I shall be content to be in Glory because there you are also in Tryumph but seeing that on Earth you would not be but in an abject condition I desire there to be with you also Alas I march but slowly to arrive at Perfection however in reality I would fain be wholly humbled both interiourly and exteriourly as your Divine wisdom sees best for me If it was your will I would search after external humiliations for I find no better food for a Christian Soul Perhaps they will prove hard of digestion to me yet for all that they may become by use profitable and delicious O dear Saviour seeing it is said of you by the Evangelical Prophet Saturabitur opprobriis Give me my fill of opprobies and abjections Ravish with your sweetness and consolations those who know well how to use such favours As for me let my repast be with Gall and Vinegar because by their relish I shall be rendred more like unto you O Jesus why was you circumcised O Mary why was you purified Your hearts were not sullied and yet you submit your selves to the abjections of sinners because to be despised was the object of your most tender affections There were never two hearts more full of the love of God and never more inflamed desires after humiliations Seeing then that one is the measure of the other if we will testifie that we love God we must also love to suffer for him How unjust are our complaints against those who undervalue us and how unreasonably are we disquieted when we are scorn'd by others We ought rather to be troubled because we are not despised enough and thus it would be with us if we had a heart entirely Christian 'T is true Grace can only infuse such inclinations into our Souls Nature eggs us on to the contrary And 't is my unhappiness that I who write this shall I fear fall short hereof in time of trial For I am altogether frail and good for nothing and for ought I know what I have said or done which appears so beautiful may be rotten within witness my often relapses which sufficiently tell me what a poor abject Creature I am and how much I deserve to be despised CHAP. II. The foundation of true Christian Humility WHen I consider that God is all in all that he possesses in himself incomprehensible perfections that he has created and provided for us infinite good things I cannot but acknowledge that all Honour all Glory all Praise all Adoration is due unto him O how just a debt is all this from us to the Divine Majesty When I consider O God that I am a pure Nothing that I have in my self an inexhaustible Mine of imperfections and miseries that I have committed great offences and am yet liable to more unless prevented by Grace I acknowledge that I deserve to be the scorn of men all sorts of opprobries and disgraces all maladies of Soul and Body Darkness punishments Temporal and Eternal to be afflicted mocked persecuted by all creatures as Executioners of Divine Justice And I look upon my self as the Mark whereat should be aimed these Arrows of deserved indignation God can never be sufficiently honoured loved exalted glorified and I can never be enough debased hated despised and persecuted I ought to have not only this humility of Spirit but likewise a will and affection to suffer for God always esteeming my self worthy of all scorn and contempt though never so publick if it may conduce to God's glory and the good of others For if I be honour'd as my condition requires if I do not debase my self below the meanest Vassals 't is because the Order of government forbids it and would not be expedient for those who might abuse this condescension However as for me I ought to have this will and inclination and believe 't is the place is due unto me Alas dear Saviour I cannot be acceptable in your sight unless I have an humble heart and this I cannot have but by your grace For if all natural good proceeds from your bounty much more must all supernatural grace flow from the pure Fountain of your Mercy and if you are the Giver of all grace doubtless principally of true humility which is so repugnant to nature that there 's nothing she more abhors than Humiliation Seeing dear Saviour all good proceeds from you the glory thereof ought solely to be rendred to you I ought to take no complacence but in you rejoycing in that you glorifie your self enriching my poverty with your abundance When I see persons afflicted poor distressed lame deformed I confess dear Saviour these humiliations are my due and if you should inflict any of them on me I would adore and love your Justice and for what you have bestowed upon me I adore and love your mercy I will never complain because no Creature can do me an injury I ought not to look on the designs of men whose intentions oftentimes are only to hurt to revenge and solace themselves with others miseries but to have an eye to the purposes of God which are to chastise me to better me and to humble me The Jews put Jesus Christ to death out of revenge and envy and God the Father had a design thereby to save Mankind I will not hereafter hunt after Applause and Honour for I am resolved not to follow the inclination of depraved Nature but following the example of Jesus Christ who suffered for me I will desire poverty contempts pains and uniting them to his sufferings I will earnestly beseech him according to the multitude of his mercies to have pity on me If we would once seriously endeavour to know our selves the beams of Divine Grace would make wonderful discoveries in our Souls without which 't is impossible for us to see the depth of our miseries In this Dungeon lies a prolifical Seed of Treason ready on all occasions to conceive and bring forth all sorts of iniquity O that 't is not sufficient to be without the black tincture of actual sin We have the source thereof within us and certain vitious inclinations deeply rooted even as we find some Weeds in Gardens so fixed that their roots seem to reach the very centre which will never hardly be entirely pluck'd up but daily they appear a-new and keep us in
and miserable I had so little strength that my sufferings did stifle the enjoyment of Gods presence in me and the sensibility of them did eclipse the other And because I thought that this enjoyment of God could not be found but in a Soul exempt from all sorts of Sufferings when Sadness or Pains or Troubles did seize upon me I got free as soon as possible to regain my former state of enjoyment But I see my error for now these sufferings shall become the means to unite me more strictly to God I am content with them and will offer them a sacrifice to that hidden Majesty who is really present in my Soul For I conceive that the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Hypostatically united to the Word had God most intimately present remaining in this union in a state of enjoyment and suffering also As Man he offer'd up to the Divinity a continual Sacrifice of his Humiliations Poverty and Sufferings and the Divinity imparted to him a wonderful enjoyment of sweetness by his presence And in this manner God is yet glorified in a Soul He bestows upon her a profound Peace in the Superiour faculties by being sensible of the Divine Presence And in the mean time being mortified in the inferiour part she makes a perpetual homage of Sacrifice to God by offering up her Suffering to him A Soul in this state is an excellent Image of Jesus as both Traveller and Comprehensour God does not always manifest his presence to a Soul by abundance of Divine Irradiations but sometimes by a sensible Peacefulness which gently touches the heart and unites it to God In this the Intellectual Faculties do nothing but barely eye God and now and then the heart breaths forth some amorous Aspirations As O what a Happiness is it to have God present without a possibility of Separation What can I desire more then to have the possession of God O my God be my Portion and my Heritage for ever Sometimes also the Soul receives a certain prospect of the Grandeurs of God present which works in her Adorations and Humiliations Sometimes the Soul is mov'd with such sensible touches that she experimentally finds God present in her whereby she melts into affections respect and love and praises to the Divine Majesty and thereupon enjoys a Peace that passes our understanding Crosses and Sufferings may bring a Soul in time to a more union with God though not to the pleasures of enjoyment A union so much the more excellent by how much the more 't is imperceptible to the Soul who seeking her own satisfaction has some mixture of self-love in the sweets of enjoyment but cannot happen in the Crucified union which joyns the Soul to God in such a manner as is hardly perceptible That state is most perfect which brings us to the greatest Interiour Purity but this cannot take up a mansion in our heart without an entire death to all Creatures Now in the Crucified union the Soul being only attached to the will of God and not reflecting on her own operations and so taking no self-satisfaction from them she thinks all is lost and that she has no part in the love of God which is the only thing she passionately desires What great pity is it to love and not to know it Nevertheless this Soul that seems to her self in so sad a condition is a delightful Object in the eyes of God who sees in her the love only of his interests in that she is content with a total denudation and confessing she is not worthy of Gods Graces wherewith she beholds others adorned and admiring their beauty perceives not all this while what she is her self And this ignorance of her own state possessing her Spirit by a true sense of her own indignity she easily concludes that she is a miserable Creature And 't is no wonder if discouragment and sadness set upon a Soul in this disposition at least to affect the Inferiour part I clearly see that this union Crucified does advance us in the participation of the states of Christ Suffering which is the greatest advantage a Soul can pretend to in this Life of Mortality seeing this puts us in a condition of most expressing our love to God This great Truth well consider'd will wonderfully comfort a Soul that desires to be conform to the Image of Jesus Crucified The Crucified union carries Mortification to the marrow of the Soul making it die to whatsoever is not God seeing that she lives by the privation of all Creatures But the sensible union does nourish it self by reflections upon such a state which will indeed purifie a Soul from worldly affections however she will go on but slowly to the purity of Perfection if God be not very merciful unto her O my God how ought we to give up our selves wholly though in the dark to the conduct of your Divine Providence 'T is your wisdom to lead us through Obscurities to the end we may deny our own judgment which is no lover of Mortification O how this insensibility does purifie the operations of the Will which cannot relish in this state of denudation any thing but only your good pleasure The Soul in this Crucified union has the advantage to know how tenderly Jesus Christ loved her in his abandonments and humiliations He makes us to suffer this that we may know the greatness of that and this experimental knowledge discovers to us how much Jesus suffer'd in the state of his Humiliations and puts the Soul in a disposition to follow him in his Humiliations And seeing the greatness of the love of Jesus to us was most manifested by his Sufferings for us so our love to him is greatest by our Sufferings for him 'T is to be observ'd that the highest degree of this Crucified union is to have no sight of the excellency of this state which once being perceived begins to lessen our Holy Sufferings CHAP. VII That the Divine Presence makes us to love Prayer or Action as best pleases God I find the Life of Man to be poor and miserable we see not God unless surrounded with Clouds Our true Life consists in a Holy Converse with God present whereby a Soul enjoys a delightful repose and is fill'd with Peace unspeakable And being ravish'd with such lovely sweets does melt into enjoyments which transcend infinitely all earthly pleasures In this disposition a Soul does not relish the affairs of this World Ordinary Discourses though never so harmless are troublesome to her Yea the occasions to help our Neighbour though Good and Holy are not then convenient nor pleasing to her She is all for to be at the feet of Jesus with Mary Magdalen in a perfect repose and let Martha go about her business Notwithstanding God makes us to understand that sometimes we must go out from this in time presence and undertake Exteriour Actions in the Affairs of his Glory Ingredi egredi And this is the Life of a Holy Soul She goes out by
that Purity wherewith I ought to love him who is essentially good and perfect I know God is a jealous God who will admit no Rival in his love and that with great reason because he is only truly amiable as our Soveraign good O that he was loved according to his Beauty My Soul is inflamed with a great desire to disengage her self from all Creatures that I might wholly be busied about God alone I see clearly that this is my principal concern and not to meddle with other affairs without necessity For a Soul whom God attracts to a sublime union with himself must cut off abundance of superfluous thoughts discourses and occupations or else she will be lyable to a thousand amusements For my part I often say to my self Come my Soul let us to our principal work and let the rest alone that does but estrange us from our happiness We must live a life more retired than ordinary with greater silence and attention to God and Holy Duties This life will seem a little abject and will not be so pleasing to many who are for unprofitable recreations But will be amiable to such who are wholly taken up with the exercises of Divine love in a beloved retirement For they have tltogether given themselves up to the good pleasure of God and love nothing but the accomplishment of his holy will This perfect abandon is wrought in us by pure love and this pure love cannot raign in our hearts without a generous mortification to all Creatures and a freedom from an attach to imperfections This death doth work but according to the measure of our love to sufferings which sufferings for God wonderfully unites us to him with the bond of Perfection Purity love suffering God what would we more If Providence so order I shall freely forsake my solitude though most dear to me I will endeavour to die to all things to apply my self wholly to Gods pleasure and sacrifice my self and whatever I have to his holy Will Has he a mind to reduce me to my first nothing If he will have it so I am content Will he have me in a suffering condition His will be done neither will I complain but have recourse to Jesus Suffering for me on the Cross and rest contented with his good pleasure A Soul that loves God and his Will more than the Creature is content and peaceable in all events seeing Faith assures her that the will of God is accomplish'd therein She embraces miseries and afflictions as proper means for her sanctification and discovers more clearly therein the good pleasure of God then in prosperity O my Soul we must now give our selves to God in good earnest indeed by embracing contempt and poverty forsaking the vain respects of the World and sensual delights to expose a Penitent poor hidden abject life so contrary to worldly men Methinks hitherto I have had but Idaeas now I desire to fall to the practice of Perfection after the example of St. Elizabeth While she was a Princess how did she abhor the life of Worldlings and what love had she for a poor abject life O my God when shall I give you the practice of so many excellent truths whereof you have given me the knowledge by heavenly illuminations O my God speak powerfull to my heart and make me faithful in my obedience take from me all other things and attach me entirely to your good pleasure CHAP. XII We ought to comport our selves with a respectful reverence in God's presence A Soul that sees God present with her by the light of Faith will often times feel in her self the great veneration she has for so infinite a Majesty and Benefactor She cannot but have a respectful regard for all the inspirations and secret advices conducing to perfection all good desires which come from God yea she has a reverence and love for Crosses that come from the hand of her Soveraign good The Soul in this state is peaceable and may so continue a long time O my Soul remember this well and when any thing comes into thy thoughts which thou believest to be an inspiration cherish it with great respect and be faithful to the designs of God upon thee according to the measure of their manifestation O what irreverence wilt thou be guilty of not to be Faithful in such cases Above all be content to look upon crosses and humiliations with respect and love and hold thy self happy to be accounted worthy to suffer for Christs sake Vobis datum est ut in Jesum credatis pro eo patiamini God is pleas'd to manifest to me with what dispositions I ought to walk in his presence and in his ways namely humility patience longanimity simplicity and purity When we find our selves in good disposition of heart humility makes a Soul to esteem it highly be it never so small and thinks her self happy to have it because she deserves nothing yea is rather worthy of eternal punishment This will free us from sadness and discouragements when we see others glittering with greater Graces and pulls down our pride from exalting our selves higher than God will have us to be Moreover by patience the Soul is well composed and labours after perfection with courage and perseverance be the time never so long before God bestow on her the gift of Prayer By longanimity the Soul suffers and supports her self in her defects and imperfections so that self-love shall not discourage her in her endeavours Simplicity makes her still to have an eye to God and to follow his conduct whereby at length she arrives to Purity Our chief work must be to do Penance with all humility and if God gives us not the gift of sublime Prayer and eminent virtues to abide peaceable in that little we have and we shall find favour in the eyes of God What we ordinarily want is a noble generosity to support crosses and surmount the contradictions we meet with from nature in the occasions of Fidelity These difficulties make us timerous and fearful but we must be content to be feeble that the Power of the Grace of Jesus Christ may be glorified in us When I am weak then am I strong says St. Paul Virtus in infirmitate perficitur This acknowledgment of our weakness does wonderfully humble us and opens our eyes to see our own poverty and the great need we have to relie on the Grace of Jesus Christ I find that God requires of me to be Faithful in these following practices 1. First I must be very indifferent to whatsoever it shall please God to do with me and to be content either with action or suffering being attent wholly to his good pleasure Why therefore should I long after the Graces of others because great and glorious 'T is enough for me to bless God for them and be faithful to my own with peace and contentedness seeing our happiness consists in serving God in what manner he pleases 2. When I find my self in
things else are but deceit and vanity 3. They considering the Mysteries of Jesus begin to discover the beauty of his Humiliations and Sufferings which yet is shadowed with some obscurity 4. Their eyes being more open'd they behold distinctly the Beauty of the Sufferings Contempts and Poverty of the Word Incarnate and thereupon conceives a great contempt of the World 5. In persuance hereof they contemplate the Divine Mysteries and if they be Faithful to imitate Christ Crucified they will arrive to a great knowledge of the Divinity 6. Then if they keep close to Purity of Heart they are wholly in a manner taken up with the Divine and Humane Mysteries of Jesus being very sensible what an Infinite Mercy it is to be deliver'd from the darkness of that ignorance which is in carnal men who have no feeling in the things of God or their Salvation 7. Their Light increasing they more and more discover the Perfections of God in the Creatures more clearly without comparison in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus but yet more transcendently in their Source the Divinity sweetly applying themselves thereto with much Felicity Behold this is what God gave me to know â—n a little time and this Light will increase if I be Faithful to practice the Virtues of Jesus Crucified who is the True Way to the Divinity the center of the Soul and her perfect repose In my third Prayer I found my self in a disposition to admire the operations of the Holy Spirit in our Souls God our Creator works in them what he pleases he having endowed them with a certain capacity extraordinary to receive his extraordinary Divine operations This must needs be extraordinary to our Faculties which before had great difficulty in believing the Mysteries of Faith and with great obscurity and with little or no gust But no sooner is this Light darted into our Souls but we see and tast them with great delight not as in Glory but in a very sublime and extraordinary manner The Meditations of many years cannot attain to this 't is a special gift we must receive from the Father of Lights to which we can only dispose our selves by Humility and Mortification O what Happiness is it for a Mortal man to be thus elevated and Spiritualiz'd by the Holy Ghost Let us therefore O my Soul humble our selves profoundly for the Spirit of God takes not up his Mansion but in a humble heart I know we ought to go whither God is pleas'd to Call us and not refuse his Gifts under the pretence of a counterfeit Humility But I know also that 't is not displeasing to God for us to be careful how we entertain extraordinary attracts least we be too ready by innate Pride of heart to walk in ways above our capacity In my fourth Prayer I consider'd the admirable preventions of the Holy Spirit in the conduct of Souls How he awakes us from the sleep of sin and draws us from the love of the World to unite us to himself by undeserved preventing Graces What wonders are there unknown to Carnal men which pass in these preventions I know nothing that may work in us more Love or more Humility For would any but a God of Infinite Goodness look with an eye of Mercy upon a Soul all black with Sin Ingratitude and Infidelity This miserable Creature is beloved of God having nothing to invite him but on the contrary to avert him from us and if his exceeding love had not surmounted the Infinite hatred God has of sin we had perish'd for ever without a Saviour To Love us Redeem us and prevent us with such Mercies does only proceed from his incomprehensible Goodness I am astonish'd to see that any Soul believing these admirable preventions should not be enflam'd with Divine Love What can more humble a poor Creature than to consider that we are nothing but Misery from which we can never free our selves unless God prevent us with his Grace and Favour What can more enflame us with Divine Love than to consider that God then loved us and prevented us with his unspeakable Mercies when we were just objects of his Eternal Hatred O my God who can comprehend the riches of your Infinite Goodness O my Soul acknowledge with thankfulness the great obligations thou hast to Love God with all thy Powers and Loving him to Praise him to all Eternity Eighth Day IN my first Prayer this thought presently possess'd my mind that all Power is attributed to the Father all Wisdom to the Son and all Goodness to the Holy Ghost And seeing these three Divine Persons are in each other by a Communication of the same Substance and Infinite Perfections the Eternal Father is the Power of the Son and Holy Ghost the Son is the Wisdom of the Father and Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the Goodness of the Father and the Son A pure Soul that lives in the sublime exercises of a Supernatural Life becomes a Mansion for the Divine Persons and receives from them the impressions of Power Wisdom and Goodness The Power of the Eternal Father dwelling in her gives her strength and a Christian generosity to conquer all the obstacles of Perfection and she discovers that many difficulties are rather imaginary than real insomuch as the Principal and the most difficult of Christian actions is to believe that they are possible and that nature shall not suffer so much thereby as is imagin'd The Wisdom of the Son cummunicated to her affords her Light and Overtures to defend her self against the apparent reasons of sensual nature which damp many excellent Spirits that they can make no great advancement in the ways of God because they have too much of humane consideration and too little of this Divine wisdom which discovers to us the Beauty of Contempts and Sufferings in following Jesus The Goodness of the Holy Spirit imprinted on her makes her conquer the Inclinations of corrupted nature which is more or less according to the degrees of Grace in us He that is Holy let him be Holy still but we shall never rise to the heighth 'till we come to Glory In my second Prayer I considered that the adorable Trinity is the Treasury of all Beings Increated and Created That in respect to the Divine and Uncreated Beeing the Eternal Father is a Treasury that is exhausted by communicating all his Infinite Perfections to the Son and Holy Ghost But in respect of Created Beings the Sacred Trinity is an inexhaustible Treasury because all the whole World or ten thousand more cannot exhaust or diminish the least drop of his Infinite Power and Goodness I was almost equally taken up with both these wonders That a Million of Worlds drawn out of the Treasury of Gods Omnipotency should not make the least diminution of his Power is certainly matter of admiration But much more that the Grandeurs of the Eternal Son should be so elevated above the World as to exhaust the whole Substance and Perfections of
of Joy and Peace and It then seems to her that heretofore she was wandring in darkness In effect it seems to her that she now lives in another World with other Lights and other Principles and other Proceeding and another tast of Spiritual things She now seeks occasions to mortifie her Senses obedience dependance contempts losses do relish with her and she 's pleas'd only to live a Life of Faith making no matter of the mockeries of Worldly men who judge not but by Sense or at best but according Humane Reason Second Day Jesus an Infant BEginning my Morning Prayer these words of the Prophet were presented to my Thoughts Consideravi opera tua expavi I have considered your Works O my Saviour and stand amazed with admiration And how could I be otherwise affected to see the Eternal God an Infant To see that Immensity which the Heavens cannot contain lie Swadled in a Manger Eternity but one day old Omnipotency become weakness The joy of Angels in a suffering condition O God of Love who can but fall into an Extasie to see these wonders this excess of Goodness above the comprehension of Men and Angels But Blessed Saviour 't is your Glory to have nothing and do nothing but what is altogether incomprehensible I observ'd a great silence in Heaven and Earth where the whole Creation seem'd to be struck dumb with admiration of the great Mysteries then brought to pass I beheld how the Virgin Mary and good Joseph fixing their Eyes on the Infant God-man lying in a Manger spake not one Word being transported with Love and Admiration and wholly astonish'd at an Humiliation so Prodigious and I wonder'd all Creatures did not stand immoveable for a whole Age at the sight of so incomprehensible a Mystery All Expressions are below this excess of Love and Condescention Let us O my Soul be silent with a respectful attention loveing adoring admiring these great things God has done for us Methinks I have a desire to stand always in silence at the feet of Infant Jesus I apply'd my self in my second Prayer to consider the universal denudation of all things that seem'd most necessary at his coming into the World To be born as an Exile out of his Mothers House to have no lodging usual for men but a Stable which is prepar'd for Beasts to be his Bed-chamber and a Manger for his Cradle to suffer the rigours of Winter for want of Fire what poor miserable Creature could be reduced to a greater denudation Notwithstanding this is that which ravish'd both Heaven and Earth and the Glorious Angels found nothing in Heaven of equal admiration and therefore hither they came to contemplate these wonders and to bring the glad tidings thereof to men making the Air to eccho with their joyful Melody and without any mention of the Divinity declare only to them that they shall find an Infant wrapt in swadling Cloaths lying in a Manger And hither the Shepherds ran transported with Joy and the World has followed them When the Wise men demanded of Herod Where he was born who was King of the Jews This Idaea of Royalty did much afright him and in rage he design'd a Cruelty more Barbarous than what as yet the Sun did ever behold 'T is a great Truth that Grandeur and an elevated condition though in the Person of God himself made man is attended with many evils and commotions but abjection and Humiliations in the Infant Jesus has force enough to win our hearts And yet we will not understand this In my third Prayer I discover'd that since the Mystery of the Incarnation which is the wonderful union of the Creator with the Creature then Sons of men are called to a higher degree of Prayer and Converse with God then formerly The gift of sublime Prayer is one effect of this Divine Mystery and we ought to value and preserve it as a Treasure The heart of Jesus is the center of men and when a poor Soul is distracted she must gently lead her self to the heart of Jesus to offer to the Eternal Father the holy dispositions of that adorable heart to unite that little we do with that Infinite service Jesus renders to his Eternal Father Thus our little will be made great by Jesus Christ O my Soul let this Divine heart of Jesus for the future be thy Oratory 'T is in him and by him thou must offer all thy Prayers to God to make them acceptable to the Divine Majesty Make this thy School to learn there the supereminent knowledge of the Love of God which is quite contrary to that of the World Thou wilt find there Principles sublime and pure a Treasure which will enrich thee with Purity Love and Fidelity and what is very plentiful in this Treasury Humiliations Poverty and Sufferings The love and esteem of these things is a precious Jewel which principally and originally is found in the heart of Jesus Other hearts how noble soever have more or less of it according to the measure they receive from this exhaustible Treasury In my fourth Prayer I had a strong Idaea of the dispositions which the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph had towards the Infant Jesus 'T was revealed to a Holy Soul that the Blessed Virgin passed all the time in Prayer while her Sacred Womb was the Tabernacle of the Son of God and never ceas'd to adore the Word made Flesh That St. Joseph entring with the Holy Virgin into the Stable at Bethlehem was elevated in high contemplation upon the Mysteries there to be Accomplish'd and in this Prayer was so replenished with the Holy Spirit that his desires for the coming of the Messias were more pure and more ardent then of all the Holy Patriarchs before And that next to the Holy Virgin he was enlightned with the wonders of the Mystery of the Incarnation At the moment of the wonderful Nativity of the Infant Jesus such Rayes of Glory and admirable Splendors were darted from his Soul as pierced the Spirit of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph and discover'd to them the Infinite Grandeurs of that Babe through all the weaknesses their eyes were witness of And in deep silence and contemplation they offer'd to him a pure and amorous offering of their whole Being as to their God O who can comprehend the wonderful effects that his presence caus'd in their Hearts These considerations did sweetly possess my Soul during my Prayer and I found my self in a disposition of great Love for Internal Prayer in Silence and Solitude with Infant-Jesus Third Day Jesus Poor and Abject IN my Morning Prayer I found in my self a great esteem and love for Poverty seeing Jesus had so esteem'd and lov'd it and we have an obligation to be conform to him And I said within my self O Poverty of Spirit what riches dost thou bring to a Soul Thou givest her possession of a Kingdom of Peace Thou dost purifie her to unite her to Jesus in his Humiliations which
another as I have loved you which was the subject of my second Prayer I then found that when a Soul has made a good entrance into the heart of Jesus Christ and by the light of Prayer sees the infinite love of God towards men Grace then discovers how this divine charity is free generous and magnificent Free having a love for us when objects of his just displeasure Generous surmounting all difficulties and conquering all resistances Magnificent in giving his own life for our Redemption This is a Zeal truly Divine for the Salvation of Souls Now his pleasure is that the charity we have for our Neighbour be regulated by this divine Model that we love them to do the will of God and obey his Commands That we love them generously without any regard to natural aversions or injuries they have done us or any temporal advantages we may receive from them but after the example of Jesus to love and do good even to our greatest enemies O how many great Saints considering the ardent love of Christ to us have burn'd with the flames of a holy Zeal and spent themselves in labours to do good to those Souls for whom Christ died But alas we have little zeal for God for our Neighbour or our selves My third Prayer passed in considerations of the prodigious goodness of Jesus to men who seem'd to forget himself and depose the grandeurs of his Majesty to debase himself in the search of our Souls to indulge and love them with as much affection as if they did contribute to his felicity He prevents them with wonderful mercies and though they be unworthy of his love he gives them sensible feelings thereof by speaking to the heart in this or such-like manner My Sister my Spouse my love takes a delight in thee knowest thou well who I am 'T is I that am thy God thy Creator thy Saviour 'T is I who came from the bosom of my Father into this world to find thee being lost and tell thee how I love thee and I demand nothing but love again My Soul thus prevented with the blessings of this sweetness and powerfully touched with a sense thereof wanted words to express my thankfulness However I said O my God! You are my love I love you and will love you eternally with all my heart for what else have I to return but love for love 'T is a wonderful love for you to debase the grandeurs of your Divinity to search after poor sinful Souls Nor is it less wonderful for you to draw these Souls out of themselves to free them from their miseries and advance them to your embraces and place them in your heart as some rich Treasure This is the wonderful excess of the love of Jesus Zelator of Souls This love that so humbled Jesus does elevate a Soul to these amorous exercises and makes her see her own unworthiness and the incomparable beauty of her well-beloved In my fourth Prayer I had a deep impression of Jesus humbled and doing Penance for us I beheld him as it were annihilated in the presence of his eternal Father to honour his eternal Beeing by sacrificing his humanity which he continued his whole life and consummated on the Cross I beheld also how being charged with our sins he did continual Penance for us to satisfie the divine Justice and give content to that infinite love he has for our Souls Let us love then O my Soul our Jesus as he has loved us and imitate his sufferings by a spirit of penance and annihilation I am a great sinner and therefore ought to entertain a spirit of penance and thereby make advantage of all evils and infirmities which happen to me My principal affair in this world ought to be to annihilate my self and to suffer to annihilate my self to pay homage to the infinite grandeurs of God and to suffer as a just punishment of my sins After Confession having but one Gloria Patri for my penance it came into my thoughts that no penance is little when 't is united to the sufferings of Jesus Christ who by them has done penance for our sins It seemed to me that one only Ave Maria united to the sufferings of the Son of God which are of infinite merit and did infinitely satisfie his eternal Father becomes a penance which wonderfully satisfies for our sins My Soul was comforted with this truth and I had no more to do than to unite my little Crosses to the Cross of Jesus Sixth Day Jesus contemplating and enjoying OUr blessed Saviour did fill my Soul with such super-abundant consolation in my morning Prayer that I seem'd to have some part of that state of enjoyment which is reserv'd for the Saints in Glory O amorous enjoyment how wonderfully dost thou purifie our Souls Thou takest our hearts off from the World thou dost Crucifie us with a delightful Martyrdom thou dost enlighten thou dost purifie thou dost inflame thou dost mortifie thou dost fortifie thou makest us live and die together A small tast of this Ocean of delights will inebriate the Souls of men and the Angels in Glory This is that Blessed Life which is granted to some Servants of God honouring him by continual enjoyments which he pours into their Souls 'T is a great secret of the Interiour Life to be passive to the operations of God in us whether he visits us with dolorous and crucifying or joyful and beatifying impressions Our fidelity consists in a pure correspondence to his designs without reluctance If he please to make our Soul a Garden of Delights embrace his Favours All the ways of God are good in themselves but that which he puts us in is best for us O how the state of Jesus suffering is adorable O how his state of enjoying is admirable We must apply our selves to one or other according to the designs of the Divine Wisdom I found an Image of Jesus in Contemplation his Look and Posture ravish'd me and this took up my second Prayer I was not satisfied with beholding his Divine Aspect I admir'd and ador'd him Considering the profound attention he had to the Grandeurs of his Eternal Father and how he was absorp'd in the Divinity I made it my work to contemplate also by him and in him uniting my self to the utmost of my Power to his Divine entertainments O Jesus contemplating Jesus taken up with your Father with whom you pass in Prayer whole nights made as bright as the days of Eternity Jesus living a retir'd life in the Divine Essence You are the object of my Love I see nothing so beautiful as you are in this state My Soul hath no greater delight upon Earth than to have an eye to Jesus to think of him to speak of him to sigh after him O how happy is that Soul which Jesus makes his Mansion I know not how Jesus comes into a Soul but he 's there sometimes sooner then perceiv'd filling her with Blessings and making her to find that
and Redeemer to lay out thy self upon the Creature and not correspond to his Inspirations who calls thee to himself What a horrible Infidelity would this be Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are Sealed to the day of Redemption The subject of my third Prayer was the admirable Oeconomy of the Incarnation in that by the excess of Love and Goodness God was made Man and Man became God I had profound veneration for the adorable Humanity absorpt in the Divinity and with an amorous confidence beheld the Divinity as it were annihilated in the Humanity which seem'd to me as a Tabernacle of Honour where God dwelt with Infinite Delight This Humanity also in a manner diviniz'd takes Infinite Delight in the Divinity from whence it receives wonderful Impressions of Annihilation to be poor abject and despis'd Crucified For after God was made man he inspir'd the Humanity with ardent desires and love of Sufferings for us Men and our Salvation O Jesus when you communicate your self to a Soul she receives impressions from you which incline her to a love of Contempts and Sufferings And when a Soul feels in her self the greatest propension to Sufferings and Self-denyal 't is then she most participates of your communications and has the greatest assurance of them For O good Jesus your Spirit is full of such impressions from the Divinity and the Soul where you reign as King does Infallibly receive the like impressions from your presence In my fourth Prayer I was touch'd with a great desire to leave this Mortal Life so full of Sin and Misery and depriv'd of the Beatifical Vision of God my Saviour Oh how irksom is it not to be in a capacity to contemplate at leasure this Infinite Beauty this Essence full of Infinite Perfections this only true Object of the Loves of Heaven and Earth O when shall I be deliver'd from this Prison of Flesh that I may behold Jesus the Light of my Eyes and Joy of my Heart Must I yet continue longer in this banishment What a cross is it to live here What a punishment is the delay Death how welcom wilt thou be in my embraces We must languish with Love after the Infinite Beauty of Jesus Christ and sigh to enjoy him O my Soul do not amuse thy self with Creatures love the Cross which is the high-way to Happiness Is it possible to believe in Jesus Christ and Love him and to languish with Desires to enjoy Him To stand much in fear of Death is a sign we have little desire to see the Infinite Beauties of God seeing Death only opens the gate of Paradice O Death thou art desirable come and put me in possession of the Object of my Love that I may live with Jesus who is the source of Life and the joy of the Blessed In the interim O my Soul let us have neither Love nor Life nor operation but what is in him and for him our Soveraign Happiness Vivit in me Christus Eighth Day Jesus our Light JEsus was present to me in my first Prayer as the Light of the World which discover'd to me such a Beauty in the Mysteries of our Religion with rayes of a new Light that I saw more then ever the vanity of the World and the strange Sottishness of such men who preferr'd the Darkness of Falsehood before the Light of Truth Insanias falsas The beams of this Light works wonders in a Soul for it leaves such impressions as bring her to know Truth in another manner then by the sole Light of Reason or Faith either If we be in the Closet of some great King in the dark we know well there be excellent pieces there we may know their number bigness and value of the Precious Stones the rareness of the Painting and what else we see not But when once the least light of day appears then we begin to have a view of all their Riches Beauties and Excellencies and the whole order of the Closet salutes our eyes and in admiration thereof we are taken with it in an extraordinary manner When it pleases God to give us a sight of his Divine Beauties discovering them to a Soul by the least Ray of his Heavenly Light then the Soul is wonderfully affected and being more then ever transported with admiration looks upon all things of the World as nothing Faith indeed gives us a certain assurance of her Objects but leaves in obscurity But one sole Ray from the Eyes of Jesus when he is pleas'd to dart it into a Soul doth confirm fortifie encourage and refresh her with Illustrations extraordinary and Soveraign consolations Accedite ad eum illuminamini We cannot approach to Jesus and not be enlightned I came to know in my second Prayer that when Jesus is pleas'd to manifest himself to a Soul he infuses a Light into her which gives her a marvellous Facility to believe the Verities of the Word Incarnate She has a certainty and as it were experience that his Thoughts his Words his Actions his Proceedings his Doctrine his Sufferings were Divine and brought a Soveraign Honour to the Divinity O Science of Jesus how art thou sweet and admirable All other knowledge in respect of thee is but ignorance and vanity I have by the great goodness of God had some little experience to know Jesus in this manner but I cannot express it The more this knowledge increases the less is it explicable The profound attention to Jesus does so take up my Spirit that it takes away my Speech It calls me from all Creatures to converse with him alone and draws me out of my self to be ravish'd with him O World how blind art thou not to see the Beauty of the Poor and abject states of Jesus His Doctrine and his Maxims are the only true Light All that thou hast O ignorant World seduced by the Prince of Darkness is but meer Darkness thy opinions thy imployments thy hopes thy fears thy desires thy entertainments are but Darkness and disorder thou stumblest almost at every step because thou walkest in Darkness out of which thou canst never get but by Jesus Christ For as the Sun is the principle of Corporal Light to the World so Christ the Sun of Righteousness is the source of all Spiritual Light and whom his Grace and Doctrine do not enlighten they wander in Darkness Ego sum Lux mundi qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris My third Prayer pass'd in continual astonishment in that I had so little known Jesus Christ and of that extreme blindness wherein I had liv'd At present I had almost a continual sight and a sweet and forceable inclination to regard this admirable Object so that I thought every moment lost which was not so imployed To behold him with amorous affections is a Cure for all my evils For when my Soul is afflicted with fears of loosing Gods favour or with experience of her Miseries or with difficulties about Perfection one
gracious look from Jesus does easily scatter these clouds appease this storm and brings a calm and serenity to my Soul Methinks I see clearly that diffidence in our selves and confidence in Jesus to keep our selves at his feet in Prayer or any other manner near him as Grace shall suggest is an excellent means to Pray well and to receive from the Father of Lights what is necessary to advance us in our way to Perfection We must well observe that what Light and motions we have from Grace do more unite us to God by proficiency in Virtue but Natural Lights and Sentiments do not produce the like effect For example I may see my frailty and weakness by knowledge acquired by experience of the Miseries of this Life I may know the same also by the Light of Grace Grace with knowledge gives me also strength and courage to humble my self to confess my frailty to have recourse to God for his assistance A natural light has not the like effect but leaves a man in his pride and miseries or what is worse in sadness and disconsolations Our blessed Saviour in my fourth Prayer gave me a sight and sentiment of his adorable Person above all expression The eyes of my Soul being fix'd to behold the Beauty the Goodness the Grandeurs and Perfections of that admirable Compositum my Will could not be satisfied with those pleasures and contentments she then received O what great happiness does an enlarged Soul receive when the Veil is a little drawn from these Divine Mysteries Methinks I could have stood beholding this Divine Object all the days of my life I consider'd chiefly that the holy Soul of Jesus was enlightened with the Divinity to know what measures he ought to take during his mortal life to fulfil the Decrees of his eternal Father his wonderful Wisdom in choosing an humble poor and suffering life to instruct us Men and give Us Example and that worldly Wisdom is but meer Folly false and pernicious to her followers In this view of Jesus every thing in him seemed to me charming and admirable not the least glance from his eye or word from his mouth or sigh or tear from him but at present was to me an object of infinite delight and seemed to me sufficient to take up a Soul for ever with contemplation But the contemplation of God must be accompanied with imitation and by the conduct of his Grace we must enter into his states poor abject and suffering 't is in vain to think to attain to perfection any other way The only imitation and conformity to Jesus makes the Soul capable of pure contemplation and contemplation will preserve her in this conformity Ninth Day Jesus Suffering and Dying JEsus in the Idaea of Ecce homo crown'd with Thorns clad with a Purple Robe in derision buffeted mock'd spit upon and scourg'd was the object and subject of my morning Prayer I took great gust though full of compassion to see him in this posture because he himself was never more satisfied in that he could never better satisfie his Father And presently I said O my Jesus you were never thus array'd before now all the Glory of Mount Tabor did not cloath you with such Beauties doubtless the eternal Father takes infinite complacency to behold you in this state for you are a Holocaust all surrounded with dolours and deaths with contempts and annihilations In this entertainment I communicated and receiv'd my Jesus in this state who spoke in this manner to my Soul I come to thee to make thee like my self Thou wilt be never wholly acceptable to me or my Divine Father till thou become like me I then found in my self a great desire to be so and that I might take contentedly all disgraces and losses that any accidents brought upon me as so many advantages to make me like to my Saviour Ecce homo I then remain'd much comforted and fortified and very devout to Jesus in this state In my second Prayer I found my Soul attracted with a wonderful gust to behold Jesus crucified a spectacle pleasing to the eternal Father the comfort of Heaven and the terror of Hell I discover'd a certain way of beauty which cloathed the horrors of Calvary with wonderful comliness O my God! said I what pleasure is it to see the God of Beauty die for man upon a Cross This beauty is not in his visage now all disfigur'd but in the goodness of God which is here all in splendours and in the tryumphs of an incomparable love which sacrificed his most precious life for our Redemption The eternal Father was much delighted with this Beauty The Bruises and Wounds and Blood upon his sacred Head and Face did not make him disfigur'd in my eyes because the beauty of Divine Justice which was thereby infinitely glorified gave him a grace which is unspeakable Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum In this state Jesus appeared to me the most beautiful of men And my heart was so taken with Jesus crucified that I could not but love him in the state of his annihilations The Grace which this view left in my Soul was a particular esteem and love for sufferings I saw nothing more beautiful seeing they were a kind of Ornament to God himself and rendred him an object of singular complacency to his eternal Father Jesus hath sanctified the states of poverty contempt and sufferings through which he passed to make them sources of grace to such Souls as love them for his sake If the holy places where Christ was on Earth are in singular veneration much more ought the states of Jesus Christ If the men of the world think it a great honour to participate of the grandeurs of their Prince how happy and Honourable ought a true Christian to think himself to be if he be partaker of the humiliations of the King of Glory The Crown and Scepter are the glory of a King Poverty Contempts and Sufferings are the glory of a Servant of Jesus Christ In my third Prayer I was pierced with a wonderful feeling at the sight of Jesus suffering and dying on the Cross Being not able to comprehend how the infinite Majesty of a God should condescend so low I said O my Jesus why did you not rather let all men perish for 't is more just beyond comparison that men should be lost being Guilty than you suffer being most Innocent But in this tryumph of your love you have no regard to your self but to satisfie Divine Justice and that Infinite Charity you have for your poor Brethren in their miserable condition Suffer then even the death of the Cross seeing dear Jesus it is your pleasure I consider'd the eternal obligations we have to Jesus Christ in that he died for our Salvation It seem'd to me that hitherto I had been as in darkness in regard to this incomparable benefit Jesus Christ is our true and faithful Friend indeed and yet alas he is neither known nor regarded as
he ought nor lov'd with thankfulness He loves us so as to die for us and we make no reciprocal returns O the prodigious insensibility of men Is then Jesus Christ a stranger to us and not our God and Saviour Does the History of his holy Passion pass with us as a profane or indifferent thing Ought not the bloody Tragedy of Calvary fill all Christian hearts with love and sorrow For my part I could hide my head with shame that I have so little compassion and love for Jesus dying on the Cross for our Salvation O my Jesus I confess my fault in that I have so little known my infinite obligations to you But seeing your Grace discovers now to me more clear than heretofore what you are I will never more lose sight of you I will love nothing more than You and esteem nothing more than to do you honour You are my true Father my true Brother true Friend true King true Redeemer O how great a truth is it that you are all in all unto me O that I have been so long without knowing you aright O Jesus how Happy am I that I have found you O let me never so much loose my self as to forsake you For my fourth Prayer I stood at the Sepulcher of Jesus and seeing his precious Body dead and covered with Wounds I made this Epitaph Here lyes Love Yes yes here lyes Love indeed for his excessive Love to us brought him to this state and condition A state full of horror and wounds Blood and Infamy But a state well pleasing to God as satisfying his Justice for mans Redemption I embraced his precious Body and kiss'd his Sacred Wounds I adored Jesus in this state and said O my Soul we must either cease to Love Jesus or die with him seeing Love equalizes Lovers and makes them alike My Soul then chose to die with Jesus and after many sighs and desires to please her Beloved she died with Jesus never willing more to live a Natural and Humane Life but a Life Divine and Supernatural as that of Jesus And I made for her this Epitaph Here lyes a Soul dead of Love Behold in what consists the death of my Soul 't is to live no longer according to the natural Inclinations but according to the motions of Grace which are the Love of Poverty Contempt and Sufferings While these dispositions live in a Soul she is dead to Sensual desires and lives a Life of Grace a Life Supernatural Therefore for the future I will never hunt after Honours or Pleasures or Riches willingly and by Election but I will either heartily forsake them or if I use them it shall be upon Divine Motives for the good of my Neighbour or for pure necessity seeing That is the Will of God the surest rule of all our Actions Tenth Day Jesus risen from Death and Glorious IN my Morning Prayer I consider'd the Glory of Jesus Christ in the state of his triumphant Resurrection O Jesus how Glorious are you How well does this become you Verily 't was a strange state whither your Love had brought you A state of Misery Shame and Sorrow This was well for us Criminals but in no sort agreeing to you who are Innocence it self For what belongs to you is Majesty and Glory What joy did swell my heart to see Jesus Glorious My Tongue cannot express what my Heart feels This great Feast of the Resurrection is to be celebrated by all Creatures seeing 't is the day wherein Jesus appears as God O Feast of the Glory of Jesus O Feast of the Glory of Mary 'T was a Miracle she did not die of Sorrow at the Death of her Son and 't is another Miracle she did not die of Joy at his Glorious Resurrection O my heart be thou enlarged with Joy for 't is a general rule without exception that the Interest of the Creator is to be preferr'd before all Creatures And therefore O triumphant Jesus I more rejoyce that you are Glorious then that I hope to be Glorified with you Yea though I should never be raised your Glory does ravish me It glads me when I consider that damnation only concerns the Creature for the Interest of Jesus suffers not thereby seeing God is Glorified by the Reprobates as well as by the Saints in Glory 'T is also a certain rule that the Elect O Divine Jesus are Images of you and so necessarily must resemble you in your Sufferings if with you they will be Glorified 'T is a folly to think not to suffer here some way or other more or less seeing the way to Glory is by Sufferings O my Soul be thou united to Jesus Crucified and then thou shalt have part with Jesus Glorified To this end thou must love the Cross and desire of Jesus to die or suffer O World thy way is meer folly and nothing else In my second Prayer I was taken up with these words of Divine Jesus Ought not Christ first to suffer and so to enter into Glory I discover'd how all the Divine Perfections did wonderfully shine forth therein But above all the Wisdom of God doth ravish those hearts which contemplate the works of Grace and Mercy O Divine Wisdom how well is the Oeconomy of your Mysteries order'd to work our Salvation and bring us to Glory Every Mystery which I consider'd did raise a new Fire in my breast to inflame my affections with the Love of Jesus Sometimes they altogether did as with so many arrows pierce my heart and made me languish with Divine Love For seeing my self so Belov'd of good Jesus how could I but Love him again O Infinite Love of Jesus for whom shall I have a heart if not for thee O Love 't is for thee my heart is reserved Thy attracts are powerful enough do not redouble them so sweet and charming 't is enough my heart is for thee O Love except thou wilt have me die do not wound me any more Yet I will die willingly if thou wilt have it so on the Cross of Interiour and Exteriour Suffering that I may be conform to my Loving Saviour My third Prayer was a continuation of the Sentiments of the Love of Jesus I made use of the words of great St. Austin in his Confessions O my Jesus you have wounded my heart with the arrows of your Charity and I have devoted it to your Love Since that you have scatter'd my Darkness and made your self known unto me I have not forgot you Since I had the Happiness to know you I have imprinted you in my memory there I find you and I tast perfect Delights and receive extreme Joy and Contentment when I remember you My Soul feeling Divine Fires within her which did fill her with Pleasures I did sing extempore Canticles to my Beloved and though not methodical yet they better express'd her amorous languishings Though alone in my Chamber I spake of Jesus aloud as if I had had many Auditors to be partakers of my
Happiness I make Colloquies among many Lovers of Jesus I think I hear St. Romuald say My dear Jesus my sweet Love the inestimable Object of my Desires the Delight of Saints the Joy of Angels who will give me to Love you as much by my Self as they do altogether Another answered Seeing your Perfections O good Jesus have no limits the Love which all hearts have for you ought to be Infinite Another said O Saviour the Fruits are Testimonies of true Love your appear to me admirable in the effects of your Sufferings and that bloody Death you endured for me But what have I done as yet to testify my Love or make you Love me Another concluded and said Let us Love and Suffer and let us die by the hands of the same Love which made Jesus die upon the Cross O Sacred Love how kindly cruel art thou to those who fall into thy hands For thou dost cut and mortifie and humble and annihilate All thy Servants more or less carry the marks of thy Severity St. Philip Nereus in his Ribbs St. Francis in his Hands and Feet and very Heart But O Divine Love I fear not thy Cruelty Mortifie me Crucifie me Burn me Alive I desire to die by no other hand The conclusion of all the Prayers of my Solitude was an absolute abandon of my self to Jesus Christ to whom I gave my self up in a new manner irrevocably to live or die to act or suffer to be in such a state as best pleases him Ardently desiring that his Sacred Love would make me die to all things but himself The Martyrdom of Love is longer then that of Tyrants and sometimes more tormenting fighting against all our natural Inclinations breaking through all oppositions whatsoever to practice the virtues of the Word Incarnate Without doubt we suffer much to follow that Grace which calls us to die on a Cross poor contemned and abandoned But he that Loves finds sweetness in these Sufferings 'T is a great wonder to make a Creature of nothing But 't is a far greater to make a sinner a Saint And this O Jesus is the only work of your Grace 'T is you that are victorious and triumphant in all your Elect over the corruption and malignity of Sin O Jesus how great is the Power of your Grace How is your right Hand glorified by working wonders O Jesus the Infinite source of Power and Virtue of Grace and Sanctity of Beauty and Perfection O that I have as yet so little known you In Heaven they only see you clearly but yet 't is a Favour and Happiness beyond expression to have some knowledge of you in this Life When I behold Jesus my Soul wants words and can say nothing but Jesus and in saying Jesus it says all it would though it be ineffable O Jesus vouchsafe me some little sight of you in this banishment that my Soul may be comforted Jesus God and Man the eternal Splendour and Crown of Saints be you hereafter the only Object of my Desires and Love that I may be so united to you as never to suffer a separation When Jesus once possesses a Soul her Thoughts are on him her Words are to him and her Love is for him She then lives in a region of Light Beautiful beyond all expression and in her ardours of Love she seems wholly Passive to the operations of Jesus in her Jesus is enlightning enflaming Piercing and Consummating Jesus is more in the Soul then her self and lives more in her then her self all is converted into Jesus by a co-operation of Love which she feels but cannot explicate It seems to my Soul that hitherto she has been but in continual amusements How many vain Idaeas have taken up her Thoughts But at the sight of Jesus all Creatures appear'd but as Dreams and they fled before him as Owls at Sun-rising I know you then O amiable Jesus I see that you are Verity and all the World but Vanity O Divine Jesus reign for ever in my Soul establish your Empire in my heart and be absolute King there for it is yours Let all the Blessed Angels and Saints in Heaven and all Creatures Bless you and Praise you and help me to return you Thanks for all the Favours your Infinite Goodness has vouchsased me in this Retreat Add this also O most Merciful Jesus to your other Graces that I may have a perpetual dependance on your Holy Will and live in you and for you who lives and reigns World without end Amen The End of the Fourth BOOK BOOK V. Of Communion and its Effects CHAP. I. Of Preparation before Communion A Person that often receives his God in the Holy Communion ought to direct all the Actions of his Life to that end and render them a Preparation to it And as those Acts whereby we prepare our selves ought to be most Holy most replenished with Grace so by consequence the Life of one that does often frequent the Sacrament ought to be a continued exercise of Holy and Supernatural Acts. We ought to lead a Life worthy of the Divine Bread which is given us in this adorable Sacrament A common and material Bread supports the Life of Nature But he who is himself the Bread of Graces bestows on us a Life of Grace a Life Holy and Divine and Infinitely rais'd above the Humane Life And therefore is little known little sought by such as lead a common Life and are unwilling to leave themselves and their Temporal concerns to live to Jesus Christ who to that end gives himself to them that he may be their Life O my God how Ignorant and Earthly has my past Life been since I am so little acquainted with this Life more than Humane But now out of your Mercy you vouchsafe to bestow on me such Sentiments as incline me to enter upon this Life For I plainly see that a Soul well settled in the state of Grace ought to live no longer according to Nature but according to Grace The Motions Maxims and Designs of the Supernatural Life take their Original from Grace and are of a very different relish from such as affect Souls which move only by the impressions of Nature For the Soul actuated by this Life embraces Contempts Sufferings Abjection and her delight is to be annihilated in the esteem and love of Creatures so far it is from seeking those things never so little To live this Life is to live the Life of Jesus and to become one and the same with him and it is an excellent Disposition to live by him while the Soul receives him as its proper nourishment Qui manducat me vivet propter me Your Delights O Lord are to be with the Children of Men But these Delights ought to be Reciprocal that is to say That Souls ought to take their Delights in you in your state of Poverty and Abjection that so you may take your Delights in them What an excess of Goodness is this O Lord that being so
Blessed in Heaven is Enjoyment but we Travellers on earth ought to desire nothing more then to suffer for Jesus This Suffering does mortifie Old Adam in us by Holy Violence makes us die to the World and separates from us whatever is Impure and Earthy as Gold is purified in a burning Furnace Our Corruption cannot be ruin'd but either by Fire or the Sword of Afflictions which should induce us to embrace them with Contentment seeing the more we Suffer the more we are Purified Let us have an Honourable esteem for the greatest Crosses because they work in us the profoundest Purity and the purest Love of God which is the Life of our Soul and the end of our Creation I am much pleas'd with my present state of affliction seeing it is the readiest way to form Jesus Christ in me and make me a Perfect Christian which is the work of works the highest Honour the richest Treasure and the Soveraign Happiness of this Life While we are Pilgrims on Earth we are exiles from Gods presence Which must needs be a Cross to Souls that sigh after the Beatifical vision I know not how it is but methinks I see more Purity of Love of resignation of Perfection in my present Suffering condition then what I have found in the joyes of union which puts my heart in repose and quiet It seems to me that I can say more truely than at other times O my God what do I desire in Heaven or on Earth but you who are my Portion and my Heritage for ever My Life is Crucified with Jesus Christ and altogether hid with him in the good Pleasure of God To send us Crosses and make us content with a Suffering condition is one of the choicest effects of the Providence of God Seeing he has an Infinite Love for himself his will is that all Creatures capable of his Love should love him also To dispose them thereto the better he sends them Crosses which purifie our corrupted Nature and produce in us dispositions fit for Divine Impressions O Infinite Goodness O merciful Justice I return you Thanks with all my Heart that you have afflicted me to make me love you Losses Contempts Poverty Sufferings come you are welcome my heart is open to give you entertainment Behold I receive you with open arms because you bring with you Divine Love CHAP. IV. God is pleas'd to send us Crosses in the place of Persecutions that our Life may be a continual Martyrdom I Am much taken with this Saying of St. Clement of Alexandria That seeing our Love and Fidelity to God does not at present appear by shedding our Blood for our Faith the Persecutions of Tyrants being ceas'd we must now manifest them by making our Faith visible in all our Actions To do the will of God is a great testimony of our Love to him but 't is a far greater to suffer for him Souls loving God and beloved of him are careful to correspond to Divine Graces whether by acting or Suffering and are so couragious in their Resolutions that no humane fears though of loss of Life it self is able to stop the torrent of their Affections Witness that good Religious man who askt his Spiritual Guide whether it was not better to die than complain of the Infirmarian who provided Diet not proper for him We now suffer more notably in some things than the Martyrs of Old by Bloody Persecutors For our Crosses Interiour or Exteriour being impressions of the Divine Holiness though they separate not the Soul from the Body yet they separate the Soul from the Love of all Creatures to unite us to God alone This Holiness of God having an Infinite abhorrence of whatsoever is not Pure and Holy Delights to purifie the Elect by Tribulations as Gold in the Fire When therefore the Soul feels her self as it were nail'd to the Cross by Derelictions Aridities and Interiour Sufferings let her not strive to free her self but continue in this Suffering contentedly as long as pleases God because hereby she Glorifies him and Purifies her self Seeing 't is certain that the Cross is the Source of Graces and Purity we are inconsiderate to complain and shun Afflictions for we flee from our advancement in Spirituality and the Purity of Love neither will we permit God to accomplish in us his good pleasure To die naked on the Cross is the ultimate disposition of pure Love 'T is in vain to pretend to the Perfection of Divine Love unless with St. Teresa We desire either to die or suffer The Holy Martyrs could not attain it but by dying for God nor we except by Suffering for him When I am in Prayer in the Presence of God I am much ashamed of my self to suffer so little and with so much Imperfection in a manner so different from the Saints I am in such confusion hereat that I dare hardly stay in Gods Presence were it not that to repair my Miseries and make him satisfaction I offer up to him Jesus suffering poor and abject for us sinners And thereupon I make resolutions to endure whatsoever Crosses happen to me with all the Fidelity that Grace requires It seems to me that a Soul can hardly be content without some Suffering or other I have had experience hereof in some little tempest that now is over And which is more I cannot believe so much content may be taken in limiting our sufferings as desiring greater if God thinks good because the Peace and Content of the Soul consists in Loving and Love is best satisfied with what most pleases God and therefore in suffering for him From these words of our Blessed Saviour If any one will come after me he must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me I learn that the state of this present corrupt Life requires that we must live in a continual dying to the World seeing the enjoyment of Creatures does too much work upon our weakness to bring us off from God Our Corruption and the long habit of taking Pleasure in the things of this World makes it very difficult for us to live this dying Life which is a great Cross and a long Martyrdom It cannot be denyed but we must suffer much to arrive to the possession of God in a Super-natural Life however to taste the sweetness of God for one moment does Infinitely transcend the pains of gaining him And when he hides himself and tryes us with Derelictions what a Cross is it 'T is a state of great Perfection indeed to be content without Comforts both Divine and Humane Many Martyrs have suffered less in dying for God then the Soul does sometimes in this condition Patience a little and God e'er long will sufficiently recompense us with abundance of his Graces and Consolations Sometimes God seems to abandon his most Faithful Servants as he dealt with Holy Job permitting Satan to assault them with several Temptations sometimes against Charity sometimes against Chastity and sometimes against Faith 'T is
nothing as if I had been able to bestow much on pious uses The love of Jesus poor and despised did deeply pierce my heart and to satisfie my self therein I made them bring to me a poor Infant in whom methought I saw the Poverty of little Jesus and kissing his Hand I rendred what homage I could desiring to love poor Jesus to my last breath I acknowledge dear Jesus that I am very unworthy of your Divine states But alas must I die without entring effectually into the Poverty and Abjection of your Mortal Life At least O good Jesus I die with that Love and Respect I ought to have for them and be pleas'd to accept of that Conformity I desire to have for them I remember that Praying on Sunday in the Evening the day before I fell Sick at the Carmes Church where I was at Vespers our Blessed Saviour put these words into my mind Christo confixus sum Cruci I am fastned to Christ on the Cross Whereupon I felt an ardent desire to have not one moment of my Life without being able to say I am Crucified with Jesus Christ I think this Divine Love did then dispose me to be nailed on the Cross And in effect my Sickness beginning with a grievous Head-ach which made my eyes to be swoln with pain it came into my mind that I might on this occasion Honour the crowning of our Saviour with Thorns And it was some Contentment to me to have any conformity to this dolorous state of Jesus And as my pain did extend to all parts of my Body I imagin'd it had some little resemblance to the state of a Body Crucified Thus you have an account of my dispositions in this Sickness which I have done in obedience to the command imposed on me Perhaps they are explicated with too much advantage but the relation is true as to the substance Bless therefore with me the God of Mercies who has been pleas'd to be so bountiful to his most ungrateful Creature but it be-seem'd his Goodness to glorifie his Mercies by the greatness of my Miseries This then is my comfort and I cannot but declare his bounties to me and say Venite videte omnes qui timetis Deum quanta fecit Dominus animae meae Come all ye that fear God and see what great things he hath done for my Soul CHAP. VII Other Dispositions in the time of Sickness where both Body and Soul are on the Cross I Began to go out of that state wherein I had been more than five Weeks My corruptible Body did bring down the Soul as it were to nothing so that I had much ado either to know or love God of whom methought my Soul had little or no remembrance Seeing my self in this state of Incapacity I remain'd without any other prospect but of my own nothing and depth of my Miseries being amazed at the strange weakness of a Soul when left to her self This thought which wholly took up my Soul proceeded from a certain experience rather than any Light in the understanding 'Till God brought my Soul to this point she did not well know her own weakness but now she discover'd a thousand false Opinions and vain esteems she had of her self of her Lights Sentiments and Devotions She saw now she had some secret relyance on something besides God which she did not perceive till this state of privation What thus passed in me were the effects of a Natural Malady which nevertheless brought me to nothing and much humbled me For I was in so great a forgetfulness of God that you may be astonish'd at it and I would have hardly believ'd that a Soul having received so many sensible testimonies of the Love of God could ever have so long a privation of actual Love by reason of her former negligence and Infidelity What vast difference is there between my former and this Sickness In that my Soul was all inflamed with Divine Love luminous vigorous far above any disturbance from the Body In this she was cold and dark yea darkness it self feeble infirm depress'd and over-burden'd with mortal flesh We discover our Nothing and Frailties in Prayer but the Lights and Gusts that we receive therein hinder us from being sensible of them what makes us feel them to the quick must be some extraordinary affliction It seem'd to me that nothing was then prevalent in me but Sentiments of Impatience and inclinations to Peevishness but by the Grace of God I did not always consent to them though they often molested me I was somewhat encouraged by the Relation of the Happy Death of two Fathers of the Society who ended their days in the exercises of Charity after they had assisted the Souldiers many years attending them in their Maladies and dolorous Necessities to help them to live well and die Happily At last they died of the Plague and desiring passionately to suffer one of them gave great Stroaks with his Fist upon his Soar to endure something more for Jesu Christ whom they both lov'd with most ardent Affections 'T is said our Blessed Saviour appear'd to them at the point of Death to Crown them and make them Happy with his Presence after which they died Smiling full of Joy and Consolations This did much comfort me extremely rejoycing at their Happiness in that they died in the Service of the Hospital for Souldiers after they had continually endanger'd their Lives by exposing them to the Mouths of Musquets and Canons and a thousand Incommodities of Soul and Body by the cares and solicitudes incumbent on them O how glorious was their Death O the amiable Sufferings that brought them to it What are my little Sufferings in comparison of these What a shame is it for me to feel so much repugnance to endure them Alas I consider that there 's not a day in the year wherein the Church does not make particular Commemoration of many Martyrs who have had the zeal and courage to give up their Lives for Jesus Christ who died for them that they might Honour his Sufferings by the Torments they endured for his sake Some have been expos'd to be devour'd by Beasts others broke upon the Wheel others burned Alive others nailed to Crosses and all have been Miraculous by embracing with joy and cheerfulness the cruellest of Deaths that most barbarous Tyrants could invent to make them miserable O good Jesus I see all these go by the way of the Cross to come to the Perfection of Divine Love and I stay behind as one abandon'd and unworthy to suffer for you What can I then do O blessed Saviour For you have said That he who will not take up his Cross to follow you is not worthy to be your Disciple O Love Crucifie me Burn me Martyr me Si non per Martyrium carnis saltem per incendium cordis If not by Sacrificing my Body yet by Sacrificing my Heart And let my affectionate desire to suffer make my Life and
produce in her admirable effects To have tasted of them once or twice is sufficient to make her rich by infusing into her Understanding a certitude of the Mysteries of our holy Faith and inflaming the Will with ardent and solid affections to practise Virtue And thus she knows more of God in a Moment than before she did in many Months By these extraordinary Graces a Soul is more convinc'd and dispos'd to suffer Contempt and Poverty and leave all things to follow Christ than by a thousand discursive Meditations However God does not cease to communicate these effects by other wayes as by spiritual Lectures holy Conferences Meditations c. But when God is pleas'd to work all by himself in a Soul he does much for her in a little time One of the principal Virtues that this state imprints in the Soul is To draw her to God and keep her with him so that she 's more in Him than her self Divine Love being a weight that alwayes carries her to her Well-beloved Amor meus pondus meum If a great Prince should send some magnificent Present to one of his poor Subjects this would give him more Knowledge of his Prince's Royal Grandeurs and Bounty than to send him all the Oratours of his Realm to set forth his Greatness by their Eloquence So a Soul knows more of God by the aforesaid Favours than by the large Discourses of Famous Preachers These extraordinary Favours are not necessary to Salvation nor yet to Perfection but very advantagious to confirm us in Grace For these more special Communications work in the Soul this admirable Repose and sweet Calmness to dispose her for the Receipt of great Graces which bring her to a more intimate Union wherein she sucks from the Bosom of the Divinity a Sweetness ineffable Strengthening Purifying and Comforting When the Soul is not in this Quiet let her do what she can no endeavours of her can procure it If God sends it let us receive it if he send it not we must be patient and prepare our selves thereto by the exercise of Mortificacation and pure Virtue according to the Grace betstow'd upon us Having been in this Prayer of Quiet many days it seem'd to me to be taken from me for contesting a little with my Friend to perswade him to prevent another with a charitable courtesie O my God how nice and delicate a thing is Grace and the greater the Grace it is the more delicate I learn by this Substraction how poor a thing a Creature is how unable we are of our selves to retain Your Graces and to see that this also proceeds from Grace I will hereafter make it my work to love pure Virtue and practise perfect Mortification CHAP. XVII Of the intimate Vnion of the Love of the Soul with God in Prayer THe wonderful Secrets of this Disposition of the Soul in Prayer can hardly be expressed only we may call it The Prayer of Vnity of Love because herein the Will feels no other Love in her Affections than that which God has for Himself One only Love seems sufficient for God and the loving Soul it being enough for her to adhere to him with great Simplicity and Unity with this only Love which God has for his infinite Beauties and Perfections The particular Love of the Soul is absorpt like a Drop of Water in the infinite Ocean of his Love by a Union inexplicable and being so lost is found more perfect as a Spark of Fire in a little Coal cast into a Furnace gives a heat infinitely greater than what it had of it self alone It seems to the Soul that she does not love but God loves himself in her and in this manner her Will having such Impressions of the Divine Love has no other Sentiments nor Interiour Dispositions than those which God has for Himself When she loves God in this manner as he loves Himself she also hates Sin in the same manner as God hates it by this ineffable Union In this state of Prayer the Soul receives wonderful Discoveries of the admirable Wisdom of God in his Proceedings about the Redemption of Mankind by the Life and Death of his Son so full of Sufferings and Abjection God loving Himself cannot but love the Cross which satisfied his Justice and the Soul cannot but have a Will to suffer seeing she is in the Unity of Love with God which Unity must needs elevate the Soul above Nature And as the Soul of Jesus wholly absorpt in the Love of his Father did rejoyce in his Sufferings and Humiliations so if we be in the Unity of this Love Contempts and Mortifications Dolours and Death it self will be lovely and desireable though quite contrary to our Natural Inclinations This Vnity of Love does so powerfully constrain us to love Sufferings that I make little difference between Love and the Cross and I see so clearly that all the Counsels of Jesus Christ do so wonderfully advance the Purity of Love that no natural Aversion shall deterr me from them I find in my Heart a tacit Consent of Love to abandon my self to Divine Providence and not to disquiet my self about Perfection For I must pacify all the Emotions of my Heart as well good as bad to be in so profound a Peace as to attain this Union When God is pleased to communicate to a Soul this Purity of Love he disposes her to so great a Favour by some Sufferings Crosses and Humiliations He that knows the Riches of true Love knows these also for they are inseparable so that he who will not suffer cannot arrive to Purity of Love My Prayer then tends to unite me intimately and continually to the only Love wherewith God loves himself and my Soul has at present Attracts to nothing else In this Love it seems to her she finds the Practice of all Virtues in a more excellent manner than in themselves I know very well that Love is a weight that continually carries the Soul towards her beloved Object and my Will bending always towards God it moves thither by a longing Inclination full of Love and Sweetness It seems to me that my Understanding herein does not with its Lights assist my Will for I find my Affections all on fire and panting after God without any previous Illustrations I found me thought Divine Love immediately working on my heart by such most secret Touches as put me in a state of perfect Union I find nothing to explicate this better than a Needle touched by the Adamant which then turns continually by a secret Virtue to the Pole and is unquiet till there it fix Thus it stands with my Soul being touched I know not how by Divine Love having no repose but by fixing on God and parting with all Creatures she gently tends to her Divine Center without any Violence being sweetly attracted to a perfect Union My Understanding in this state sees well enough what passes in my Will and Affections but it seems to me to contribute
the Will of God If I have not a great care the Devil will deceive me and make me delay to my own ruine CHAP. XX. Of the different Caresses God vouchsafes a Soul in Prayer THose who practise Prayer know by Experience that God unites Himself to the Soul in different manners all most intimate most pure and full of Sweetness Oftentimes by the pleasing Attractions of his Goodness and Mercy so delightful to the Soul that for the time she in a manner enjoys a Heaven upon Earth Sometimes God unites Himself to the Soul by the Rigours of his Justice trying her with interiour and exteriour Sufferings so that only the supreme part of the Soul remains united to God the inferiour part being in a Suffering condition Sometimes God unites himself to the Soul by his Sanctity his Bounty Power and other Perfections and to the end all these Unions may be pure it suffices that the Soul render her self passive to the Operations of God in her whether sweet or bitter comforting or afflicting with Respect and Affection 'T is observable that to live this Divine Life it is not necessary to find no Repugnance from sensual Nature it suffices if we continue firm in this state by the Superiour part whether Grace could only advance us and where we cannot subsist but by being dead to all Creatures He that will live this life must resolve to suffer All the Interiour Commerce between God and the Soul passes principally in the Will the Understanding is not so capable thereof but the Will receives the more intimate more pure and more perfect Communications being more proper for it The Understanding herein is more lyable to Illusions the Will is more assured in her way and the Devil cannot counterfeit what passes in her in the feelings of pure Love For the Soul that has experience of the effects of pure Love cannot easily be deceived From hence it comes that the Purity of the Will is the principal Disposition for the Prayer of Vnion be it ordinary or more sublime by the powerful influences of preventing Grace This Purity is altogether necessary God being not pleased to work these Wonders but in a purified Soul And this Purity consists in willing nothing but Gods good pleasure being dead to all other things contenting her self with the orders of Providence God finding the Soul thus purified especially in her Will takes up his mansion in her Interiour where he exercises his Divine Operations putting her into divers states acording to the different Designs he has upon her Sometimes he is pleased to inflame her Affections with Divine Love and to kindle this holy fire in her Breast manifests to her his Divine Perfections Other times he puts her upon the Cross and exercises his Justice for her greater good Sometimes he hides himself the more to purify her and make her dye to whatever is not God Otherwhile he gives her Councels to advance her in Perfection and then if she has not been faithful to his motions he gives her interiour Checks of Conscience Sometimes he enlightens her Understanding to enflame her Will and the Soul being retired within her self finds her Divine Bridegroom working something in her to which she is to be purely passive and adhere in all simplicity of heart to his gracious Operations Being thus retired into the Cabinet of her Heart she is elevated above her self and all Creatures and being united to God though he send her Sufferings she is not taken up with them but Divine Love she feels his Caresses is inricht with his Gifts and imploys all her Intellectual Powers to Love and Glorify her Well-beloved Here is her ordinary abode from whence she descends not to her inferiour part but for necessity and enjoying the Embraces of her Divine Bridegroom she adheres to him by pure Faith and Love without being diverted by her Imagination in intellectual Contemplation I cannot but think that a Mistress of a House that had a King and Queen in her Closet willing to converse with her would have a care not to divert her self by other matters and quit them to wash dishes in the Kitchen What strange Incivility would this be yea what Infidelity would it be in a Soul that is honoured with the Presence of God in the Cabinet of her Heart to have her near himself to converse with her and to ravish her with these Spiritual Delights which are ineffable Souls that are thus favour'd of God if they quit him for exteriour Imployments and temporal affairs neglecting the Presence of the King of Glory for some inconsiderable Business by this strange Neglect or Contempt of his special Favours must needs be guilty of deep Ingratitude O my Soul be thou faithful to the Divine Calls thou art too much favour'd of God considering thy too frequent not complying with his Graces He calls thee to himself his Attracts are powerful and sweet let us quit Temporal things and leave them to who will take them fear not we shall want nothing having God in possession If Divine Providence dispense to us with so liberal a hand the great Favours of God's Spiritual Graces let us not think he will deny us his lesser blessings which concern the Body and are as nothing in comparison Let us betake our selves to Prayer and never leave it for that is our great and sole Affair The End of the Seventh Book BOOK VIII Some Maxims of great Importance to conduct us in a Spiritual Life CHAP. I. To have above all things an extreme Horrour of Sin THere is nothing of greater Concern to us in this World than to manage well our Love and Hatred to which Passions our Will principally owes her Motions Our Love ought wholly to be fixt on God who is an infinite Good and our final Happiness Our hatred ought to have no other Object but Sin which is an infinite evil and utter ruine of our Souls Love makes all things easie and what is done with great Love is of great value in the sight of God Who knows to love cordially knows how to do whatever God requires of him seeing Love includes in it all Perfection Hatred also makes all things easy for from a torrent of Hatred commonly flows an inundation of evils He who really and from his heart hates an infinite Evil that is Sin will be reveng'd on himself by severe Penance and fly from it with such a Horrour and Detestation that he would sooner cast himself alive into Hell than commit a Sin that breaks Friendship with God A Soul that sees clearly the enormous Malignity of Sin and how it fights against the great God of Heaven and Earth to annihilate Him if it was possible will easily conceive an implacable Hatred against Sin and abhorr it to the utmost with an irreconcileable Enmity knowing well that Sin can only separate her from God her final Happiness This hatred ought to possess the Soul with permanency and such extensions as not only to preserve her from
the Courts of Emperours Armogastus liv'd amongst Beasts as if good for nothing he deserv'd not the company of men O Armogastus where is the generous spirit of a Cavalier where is the courage of a Gentle-man why do you not quit this employment at least that you may shine bright in the grand exercises of Christianity Free your self by flight and in some other Countrey preach the Gospel do marvels in helping the poor and miserable but continuing thus miserable in your self you cannot arrive to any excellency in Christian Virtue Let me alone says this great Saint in my abject condition this suffices me and I am content to be thus thought as a thing of no worth O how well am I pleas'd to be thus scorn'd and forgotten Happy are those who preach the Gospel happy are those who are merciful to others I have as great an esteem of them as you but likewise happy are those who are as nothing in their own eyes To be poor despised annihilated and miserable shall be the only matter of my discourse as long as I live by this means I am emptied of my self and of all Creatures and made capable to be filled with Divine graces O that these things did touch our hearts with a sensible Devotion CHAP. V. That we have only so much of the true Spirit of Jesus Christ as we have an inclination to abjection IF the purity of love be on Earth it is in the heart of those who love abjection seeing they desire nothing but the interest of God his glory purely being in a manner wholly absorpt in self-oblivion To behold God advancing others to states sublime and glorious that they are but as atoms in comparison and to rest content in their abjections is a matter of greatest difficulty because herein they quit even their own spiritual interests being satisfied with whatever God does for them and with that measure of glory he will have us bring unto him though never so little 'T is true that this sort of abjection was not in Jesus Christ because being God the fulness of all grandeurs belong unto him But this is altogether proper to us because we are Creatures poor and abject and that little God gives us is more than we deserve seeing we of our selves can merit nothing 'T is to be feared there are but few who follow Jesus Christ in the practice of that abjection he loved for our sakes In our thoughts and words we may do it but when any occasion of humiliation or suffering happens we make the bravest pretensions possible to be freed from it Even such who make a profession of Devotion will suffer the want of nothing nor any injury from others they are for governing affairs as they please without any subjection or dependance shunning abjection because they think they can more glorifie God by Grandeur and Reputation in the world This is a meer illusion of self-love and a vanity of nature which in every thing affects to be exalted and not to be humbled Not with standing let us think and say what we please what measure we have of the Spirit of Jesus Christ is according to the degree of true mortification and self-denyal we find in us He expects we should honour his voluntary humiliations with the sacrifice of our pride Now in a Sacrifice the Host immolated is destroy'd and depriv'd of its former being so that we must make a continual Sacrifice of our reason and understanding of our will and inclinations to the judgments and commands of others of our reputation by a love to abjection of our goods by poverty of our health and corporal satisfactions by pains and austerities In a word we must sacrifice all our natural inclinations to the honour of God being as well content with adverse accidents as prosperous successes because the good use of humiliations is better for us than prosperity It is an excellent Lesson we learn by the love of abjection but 't is very hard to take out and without a continual looking over is soon forgotten The virtues which consist in action are more easily practised less troublesom to us and more satisfactory to others But those that consist purely in suffering as Humiliation Patience Abnegation are very difficult O Jesus abject and humble infuse into my Soul the Science of Saints and a relish of contempt of the world and I shall learn perfectly the Lesson of true humility which is above the apprehension of human reason Our blessed Saviour sometimes puts us upon the undertaking of certain good designs whereof he wills not the Execution but the Practice of many Virtues which arise in their pursuance and failing of the desired issue Nature is much disturb'd at ill successes but God by the wonderful contrivance of his wisdom oftentimes more glorifies himself by adverse than favourable events For the dispositions of humiliation resignation and contentedness which he sees in a Soul are more pleasing than what she designed St Lewis earnestly desired to re-establish the glory of God in Palestine all fell out contrary to his good designs but the purposes which God had to advance his glory took good effect For this great King was humbled and made abject in the eyes of the world falling into the hands of his Enemies his Army being destroyed either by the Sword or Pestilence O how these grand humiliations in the midst of which the invincible Soul of this holy King rested more content than in a Trpumph did render a marvelous homage to the Son of God in the self-same place where he suffered for us Perhaps this glory was greater in his sight than if the Sword of St. Lewis had sacrificed all the Infidels in Palestine Our weaknesses and imperfections are as ill Trees because they cannot of themselves bring things to maturity however they do not fail of bringing forth fruit in the worst successes by abjection humiliation and self-denial When we cannot do the good we would 't is no small good to acknowledge our insufficiency and unworthiness When we are hindred from our usual recollection by some incommodity we may hope that one good hour of suffering and abjection with a contented mind will prove better to us than an hour of Prayer wherein perhaps we should take more self-satisfaction When we think the Soul is not in fit temper to converse with God because we are disturb'd with many importunities let us remember that this may proceed from Nature but the repose of grace is that which is only necessary for recollection Now the repose of grace finds her self better in crosses and pains and abjections than otherwise In tribulatione dilatasti mihi My heart was enlarged towards God in tribulation CHAP. VI. That the sight of our own Nothing inspires us with self-contempt and the love of God THe principal reason of our little or no amendment is because we do not sufficiently depend upon grace we are not so frequent as we ought in our recourse to God we
and of little understanding by worldly persons thou ought'st not to be discourag'd at bad successes and thereupon drink deep of the Cup of humiliations whether thou be in fault or not to be content to see others advanced and willingly embrace a low condition O my Soul this engagement may terrifie thee but take courage thou canst do all things through Christ strengthening thee Jesus Christ was praedestinated from all Eternity to sufferings and abjections by the Decree of his Heavenly Father to satisfie for our sins And 't is certain that all the Friends of God are praedestinated to be conformable to Jesus Christ and so are praedestinated to sufferings to satisfie God offended and repair his Glory Whosoever therefore refuses sufferings and humiliations forsakes the way of the Praedestinate for doubtless by how much the more a Soul participates of the states of the life of Jesus so much the more is she in God's favour being more conform to the great Exemplar of those who are praedestinated to Life eternal Crosses and humiliations are best for Christians and nothing does them more hurt than temporal Prosperity O my God! burn kill mortifie disgrace debase crucifie me otherwise I shall not have your face and favour nor be numbred among your Friends Make me wise in good earnest to the end I may walk in your ways that I may have a love for crosses and humiliations that my heart may not be at rest till it rest there as in a Centre I should never have believed if experience did not make it evident that a Soul can be brought to such a state by the conduct of Grace as to rejoyce exceedingly to be plung'd in all sorts of miseries But these joys are so pleasant and so sweet that after a relish of their goodness all things upon Earth seem nothing to them A Soul then much wonders at her self to be terrified so much with the sight of abjections seeing now they seem to her a Coelestial Paradice and next to Heaven she desires no other for she knows that Jesus Christ enjoy'd on Earth both these Paradices that of Glory in Heaven and this of Humiliations on Earth She knows that in the Paradice of Glory she shall be glorified of God she knows that in the Paradice she conceives to be in Crosses and Abjections God is glorified by Her This is that which makes her have such an esteem and love for sufferings She thinks it a punishment to part with this Paradice and she cannot sufficiently lament the blindness of men who hunt after Honours and Preferments of which she has no small abhorrency She sees clearly that those advanced to Honours commonly seek their own Glory but by self-denial and abjections we aim at the Glory of God And therefore laying most to heart the Glory of God she falls in love with humiliations A Soul once enlightned with these irradiations if she refuse abjections and sufferings is very faithless and deserves to be in the world without crosses and humiliations which is the most formidable chastisement that can happen to us upon Earth CHAP. XV. That the experience of God's goodness to us does annihilate us powerfully LEt us not imagine we have the Spirit of suffering and true humility because we are affected with the thoughts and sentiments thereof for we can only know it assuredly in the effective occasions O how rare a thing is it to be wholly crucified to the things of this life Nature must pay dear to purchase this Jewel 'T is not because the fruits are not sweet which are indeed so ravishing that no other sweetness in the world may be compared to it insomuch that those Souls who have once tasted thereof are as I may say daily mounted on the Cross as a Tree of Life Search for sweetness where you please you will never find it so full as in the bosom of the Cross all other sweetness is but superficial and fleeting this is solid permanent and efficacious But this a Soul cannot know by thoughts only and sentiments thereof but by the real effects of suffering Some Souls are as St Cordula in whom the weakness of Nature was so strong that she hid her self to escape Martyrdom but the power of Jesus Christ made her a little after discover her self and lay down her life for his sake There 's a wonderful frailty in human Nature but the power of Grace in man is marvellous the sight of One makes us tremble for fear but beholding the Other we are encourag'd by hope Humility and confidence in God are two Virtues very necessary to man who left to himself is all weakness and is not strong but by the Grace of Jesus Christ in whom poor humble Souls arrive to their Crowns of Glory and he is also crowned by them for they cannot conquer the World and Nature but by Him and this puts eternal Crowns upon his Head The Crowns which the Saints wear on their heads belong not to them as if they had gain'd them by their own abilites but to Jesus Christ the Crown of the Blessed in Heaven Jesus Corona Sanctorum omnium O dear Jesus I am well pleas'd with your sweetness and consolations and with the moderation you use towards me in trying me only with small afflictions as well knowing my weakness would be over-whelm'd with a torrent of sufferings I am pleas'd with those sensible influences you infuse into my Soul in Devotions for though they be evident signs of my weakness yet they are assured effects of your amiable Providence to strengthen my frailty against temptations Glorifie then in the depth of my Misery the riches of your Mercy When a Soul calls to mind her imperfections and inclination to evil God thinks upon her and supplies her with his assisting Graces When she forgets her miseries and corruptions God also forgets her for he loves not Vanity but Verity For this reason the most usual exercise of a Soul ought to be to endeavour for a perfect sight of her imperfections This is an Altar on which we sacrifice all self-conceits and desire of our proper excellence to do homage to the sovereign Perfection and infinite Majesty of God This Altar ought to be every day prepared What corrections and reproofs we may receive from others are not to be thought full of passion and exaggeration yea they come from our greatest Enemies for they are less than our sins and corruption the source whereof is so profound that no Creature can fathom it but God alone O what a blindness is it then to complain CHAP. XVI To be content with abjection after our faults repairs the injury to God and makes up our ruins YOu know my last inconsideration This fault has made me see very well my extreme misery and the little strength my Soul hath on such occasions I see methinks the depth of my weakness and know how little I am mortified and how active my passions are yet in me God of his mercy grant that
by this fault I may see my Nothing my weakness my inclinations to evil more clearly than formerly I was miserable and I did not know it I was frailty it self and I did not perceive it but 〈…〉 acknowledge my vileness tho' I cannot 〈◊〉 â—athom the depth thereof 〈…〉 I am well-pleas'd that this fault happen'd 〈◊〉 presence of my Friends who will thereâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 â—ow what I am It much displeases me to 〈◊〉 offended God by being so faithless to his â—â—â—ces but I joy in this that I am well-pleas'd â—â—th my humiliation 'T is a good hap to be deâ—â—â—sed in the esteem of others and does relish â—weet to such who desire to repair the injury â—hey have done to God by sinning against him To be powerfully convinced of our pure Nothing and great Frailty is the profit we ought to make of our imperfections How profitable is the discovery of my misery to me seeing it makes clear unto me all these verities This is the truth of it I am nothing but infirmity and corruption and more than I can comprehend And for the love I ought to have for Truth by a voluntary acquiescence I love and adore Divine Providence which has brought me to the sight of my own Nothing I acknowledge my self to be miserable and am pleas'd the world should know it and use me according to this verity 'T is true also that we ought not to complain of whatsoever injury is done us by word or deed for 't is always less than we deserve 'T is the Law of Christianity and a great truth that we ought to love abjection Jesus having loved it by his Father's order and he is the grand exemplar we must imitate 'T is true also that after our failings we ought to comfort our selves with the love of abjection and make use of our infirmity to please 〈◊〉 Just as when a Ship is broken by a Temâ—â—â— we get some shatter'd Plank to save us 〈◊〉 perishing 'T is true also that since this lapse I perceâ—â—â— better than ever the Bounty the Power anâ— Mercy of God towards me and all the Divine Perfections appear unto me beaming forth more splendors of Glory Just as the Moon never makes more evident the dependance she has upon the Sun than in Eclipses 'T is true also that a Soul sensible of her infirmities is content with her Talent without disquieting her self to attain the perfections of great Saints whereoâ— she acknowledges her self unworthy And if God be pleased to communicate unto her great Graces she will not grow proud as well knowing her own weakness but rejoyce in this that God thereby may be more honour'd 'T is true also that being convinced of her own unworthiness she has no confidence in her self but in God alone to whom entirely she gives up her self to deal with her as he pleases in Mercy or Justice She wonders not to see her self left and abandon'd to sin because she knows she deserves no better and then blesses the Divine Mercy for not dealing with her according to her Merits 'T is true also that a Soul grieving to have displeas'd God would be content to be really reduc'd to her first Nothing iâ— such was the Divine pleasure For though she knows being so brought to Nothing she cannot be capable to please God or enjoy him notwithstanding such is the love she has for the Divine Will that she would have that done though she perish To acknowledge and be content with our own baseness is one of the greatest mercies God can do for a Soul For hereby she draws Salvation from Perdition as God knows how to advance his Glory by our sins A Soul thus enlightned is content to be set on the Dunghil of her miseries surrounded with humiliations for her faults as Job was with afflictions and beholding her self as it were the Queen of Infirmities and Abjections she 's pleas'd therewith seeing she may thereby honour and magnifie the Divine Goodness If a Soul be miserable by falling into sin she is rich in possessing the Treasure of humiliation after her failings But this is a truth hidden to most men who do not discover this advanrage They are poor and yet have a Treasure in their Field which they may have for digging Jesus poor and abject for love of me leave me not to my self lift up my Soul after her fall and gâ—ve her some of that Cordial Water which is call'd the love of Abjection that chases away the vain vapours of self-love by which the Soul is darken'd and loses courage Glorifie your power in my infirmities be pleas'd to condescend so far as to receive me returning into the arms of your Mercy and grant I may die unto my self that I may live in your Embraces Methinks dear Jesus I already feel your tenderness unto me your divine love vouchsafes me a relish of the sweets of Paradice my eyes are bath'd in tears of contentment my heart is dilated and love does firmly unite me to you Wherefore do you vouchsafe the kiss of Peace so soon to such a Wretch as I am Why do you not leave me in bitterness of Soul and trouble of Spirit as a just chastisement for my sins Your Mercy will not so deal with me but by wonderful preventions of love in the midst of my infirmities you redouble your favours and consolations O that I was all love to serve you wholly by way of gratitude I would have all the world to see my Infidelities to the end your mercy may shine more glorious I know that the sight of my sin had so frozen my heart as in a manner to make me liveless but O my Jesus you have provided an excellent remedy seeing the flames of divine love have set me all on fire to do your will 'T is a great favour to be in this temper of Soul but dear Jesus stay not here visit my heart again with the feelings of your humiliations that your inscrutable abjections may be its centre and render it in some sort conformable to yours and do this miracle of your Grace that this faithless heart may become a divine heart by the infinite merit of your most precious Blood CHAP. XVII Considerations upon the vileness of this corruptible body HOw is a Soul pleased to know that her body must return to dust This humiliation is the object of her complacency When the illustrations of a Divine Light clear up the understanding then she knows that perfection consists in a tendence to humiliation wherein she meets with the exaltation of God by the admirable contrivance of the Divine Wisdom O dust and ashes you may be terrible to worldly Souls but I am sure you bring joy to those who walking by the light of Faith and conduct of Grace love dearly the interests of God and life eternal The loss of worldly Interests Honour Contentment is painful to Nature too much attached to her self but a Soul elevated by Grace rejoyces at the loss of her own
interests to advance God's glory A Soul ought to be well-pleas'd that her body shall be crumbled to dust and as it were reduced to nothing to exalt the Glory of God and glorifie his Justice A holy person much wondred how the Saints who are powerful with God kept their bodies so long entire not obtaining that they might be humbled by putrefaction because they knowing the inestimable value of humiliation which most glorifies God ought as it seems to have procur'd it to their bodies But if God think best to glorifie himself by preserving them from corruption his Divine Will is and must be the Rule of their desires Sometimes I have desired death as amiable because it would give me free access to enjoy God but at present I have the spirit of annihilation This annihilation is a state above that of death and by it we offer a perfect Sacrifice A Soul which seeks the Glory of God desires death to enter into this perfect annihilation What is most horrible in Death paleness deformity noisomness putrefaction pleases her best for these are companions of a perfect annihilation to humble her as much as possible O death how lovely art thou to such a Soul 'T is a strange thing that the fire of Divine Love burns no brighter in our hearts upon the frequenting of the Sacraments Oftentimes we exercise our selves twice a day in mental Prayer sometimes by holy Conferences daily Lectures and Considerations Now I think the cause of this is that we are sad dejected with abjections which so chills the heart that the fire of Divine Love is stifled thereby but when once humiliation is a joy unto us the heart presently becomes enflamed My Soul having a great degust of this life feels a wonderful desire of death she never was more sensible than now of her Captivity and Prison in this mortal body She sighs after the liberty to see God and enjoy him without any disturbance whatsoever for all created things do divert this happy exercise in which consists her felicity Being a Prisoner in this Body she is yet in darkness and distractions by eating sleeping several affairs and accidents O how is she crucified in being deprived of the full Embraces of her Beloved Quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus This made St. Paul earnestly desire to be freed from the Prison of this mortal body I admire the happiness of those who die in our Lord and do wonder at the blindness of of such who passionately desire this present life and are taken up so much with the care of the Body Goods Employments which are so many impediments of our converse with God and Christian Perfection O how importunate is sensuality with us and yet how contemptible is every thing that is not God! We ought not to be discomforted at the loss of temporal things because thereby some chains of our Captivity are broken Much less ought we to be troubl'd to see our Body the Prison of our Soul to weaken by degrees and threaten death Take courage we shall soon see our desires accomplish'd and shortly we shall enjoy God in full possession This state of desires and languishings after God is a state whereby we honour him as our final happiness and being so he deserves by reason of his excellence that we should continually sigh after him Such as have no love for their final end make no matter of it and give too much evidence that they find their repose in something else which is a most dreadful disorder But considering our happiness by death methinks I see nothing more lovely than crosses and abjections which can only refresh a Soul panting after the full possession of God and sometimes so content with it that she forgets the pain of her banishment seeing her self in a state wherein she may glorifie God in so transcendent in a manner which is what she chiefly desires aspiring to enjoyment without having regard to her proper satisfaction CHAP. XVIII Considerations upon the natural inclinations we have to evil A Stone held in the Air if let go falls naturally to the ground by its own weight and 't is no more matter of wonder when we fall into imperfections If God leave us to our selves we are presently in our own nothing weakness and infirmity And if the Grace of God was not very great unto us we should fall more often They may be thought valiant who bear up stoutly against the blast of strong temptations Alas take us at the best we are as frail as Glasses on a Cupboard If some are sooner broken 't is because they are more used and found in the hand of an ill manager Those that stand still on the Cupboard if they had reason would not brag of their strength but only acknowledg that they have not been tryed by occasions When the Grace of God keeps us from falling we ought not to take complacence therein as if we were better than others by reason of such Divine Favours but our content ought to be in the good pleasure of God who is so munificent to his Creatures yea the most unworthy To be thus pleas'd only with God's will is also very necessary when it is God's pleasure to leave a Soul to combat with some singular imperfection a long time without victory For it being the will of God to leave a Soul thus to fight it out she ought to be as well content as if she was more elevated by Grace seeing in this state she meets with the Divine pleasure which is the object of her complacency Insomuch that the Soul has no more inclination for one Grace than another but indifferent to all being content to have her faults made known to glorifie God by the love of abjection Secret faults do us the greatest hurt when manifested if we make good use of it they may bring no small advantage to us I have at present a wonderful distast of this Life which is hardly a Life but a continual Death because it deprives us of knowledg and and love in perfection O how this mortal life is a great punishment and full of Crosses Here we sin here we forget God and run a hazard to lose him eternally Love here finds little nourishment being fed with slender knowledg sometimes much clouded and continual propensions to evil Dear Saviour when will you deliver me from the body of this death This was the desire of St. Paul which I take the courage to make being so much out of love with this miserable life The End of the first BOOK BOOK II. Of the Supernatural Life which is the Life of all true Christians CHAP. I. The Idaea or description of the Supernatural Life WE can never attain Perfection by the sole conduct of human reason which is the light of Philosophers Faith is the light of Christians which teacheth us to renounce the ratiocinations of carnal prudence to follow in simplicity a Jesus Crucified To observe the Commandments of God as
the Treasures of the Earth We ought daily according to our abilities to examine our selves to the end to purifie our hearts from all affections that tend not to this supernatural Life It resides in the superiour part of the Soul and therefore we must not wonder if the inferiour part has degusts and aversions from it We must expect that Nature Sense Friends the World and ordinary Christians will keep a noise and trouble our ears with many Arguments against it But to all this it is enough to answer in few words with St. Blandina Christiana sum Christiana sum I am a Christian Let us say to such who endeavour to divert us I have undertaken to lead this supernatural Life I will never abandon it maugre all the contradictions of worldly Maxims and the repugnances of sensual Nature I know to become a perfect Christian I must be turn'd up-side down destroy'd annihilated according to my natural inclinations hate in a manner all that the world naturally loves Riches Honours Pleasures yea though innocent and love what the world naturally hates Poverty Contempt and Sufferings This is a great attempt but we have powerful helps for we can do all things through Christ strengthening us CHAP. III. That we ought with St. Paul to convert our selves wholly to God I Am now resolv'd in good earnest to convert my self wholly to God to be taken solely with his Divine Beauty and Infinite Goodness forsaking all Creatures which heretofore have too much taken up my time and affections O my God! deal with me as you did with your Apostle strike me down to the ground humble me make me blind to all things but to You who are in the interiour of my heart beaming forth Lights which discover sufficiently your Divine presence This makes me ask you O my God what you will have me to do And methinks you answer That this manifestation of your presence in me should make such an extraordinary impression on me as to change my life and conform my self wholly to your Divine will and pleasure Behold it seems to me this is what you would have me to do First Not to persecute the sentiments and inclinations I have to a Christian Life by taking part with the struglings of old Adam in me St. Paul persecuted Jesus Christ in persecuting the Primitive Christians and I also persecute the same Jesus when I stifle the motions of Grace in me and will not suffer my Soul to live his life which he did lead here for me to follow Pardon me good Jesus I will no longer persecute you by stifling your holy Inspirations I desire to be a Christian and your Disciple I will profess Christianity in the face of the Sun and only be asham'd to live after the Law of old Adam To be a Christian this is my Glory this is my Life this is my Delight Poverty Contempts Pains Humiliations I will no more be affraid of you but make much of you seeing Jesus hath loved you even to death To live this Life we must become blind and have no other light than what the rays of Faith afford us For Nature cannot teach us the Grandeur Excellence and Eminency of Christianity St Paul after his Conversion suffered a thousand hardships He was whipt banish'd despis'd mock'd imprison'd tormented us'd as if he was the filth and off-scouring of the world which is as much as to say St. Paul after his Conversion was a Christian to death nothing could deter him from living the life of Jesus Christ Let us then O my Soul be true Christians that is let us be content to live in Sufferings Persecutions Mortifications and the Ignominies of the Cross of Jesus Christ Let us embrace the wisdom of the Word Incarnate and become as Fools in the eyes of the world who persecute true Christians that is those who die to themselves and all things else to live to Jesus Poor Christian Life little art thou known how ill art thou treated in the world Thou dwell'st in the lips of many but few afford thee a place in their heart I am fully persuaded that a Soul truly converted loves God entirely that this entire love of God is a perfect union with his goodness that such a union implies a universal detachment from the Creature that such a detachment cannot be got without the profession of Virtues and among the rest Poverty and Self-denial by which we are interiourly disengaged from earthly things and exteriourly when God pleases contentedly suffer miseries sickness loss of Goods and whatever the world naturally abhors as evil but by the work of Grace are for our greater good because they advance our union with God When we abound with Riches and Honours we live in a continual fear of having too great an affection for them but in sufferings a Soul possesses a stronger assurance of Divine Love Nothing but Grace can teach us these verities and a greater Grace can only make us relish and practice them the weight of our natural inclinations still hindring us from rising to so great Perfection When we give up our selves to God with resolutions daily to advance in Virtue we can more easily conceive what this perfection is than practice it However let us take courage nothing is impossible to God and we shall find doubtless this Jewel by a perfect abnegation that is possessing nothing not the very means of serving God but with a spirit of resignation To follow Jesus naked on the Cross we must divest our selves of all Creatures that we may be solely united to him Yea dear Jesus my desire is only to be for you my resolution is to serve you and in what manner you please be it by action or by suffering or contemplation I will be attached to nothing but You my desire is to be dis-engag'd from all Creatures to find You and possess You as my only happiness CHAP. XV. Of the Alliance we must make with the holy Folly of the Cross AFter many illustrations of Grace which have cleared up to me the beauty of the sacred Folly of the Cross after many proposals and reviews I have at last espous'd it saying with fervour the same words which Christ us'd to his Spouse in the Canticles Sponsabo te in aeternum My Friend my Spouse my Sister I have espoused thee for ever Methinks I say these words for ever but yet faintly my infinite frailties making me fearful I may become an inconstant Lover Notwithstanding I say for ever with a real heart in hope that by virtue of that immense Love whereby the Divinity hath for ever espoused our human Nature and this same Humanity hath espoused the Cross sufferings and abjections our blessed Saviour will vouchsafe me some part of the Grace of this Divine Alliance to enable me to walk his way and live his life in annihilation humiliations and self-denial Let us then O my Soul live this life of the Son of God any other life is but a real death Jesus
which the World would take from you against my will O how miserable am I if I set my affections on any thing beside you knowing that this is my duty and my Happiness O my God from this moment I for ever forbid any Creature to possess my heart Hark hither my will I now give thee this express command that thou open not the door of my heart but to my Well-beloved whose infinite love has prevented us from all eternity The sixth Day The Justice of God TO take a prospect of the Divine Justice is not less pleasing to good men nor less admirable Thou wilt see it O my Soul governing the whole universe The throne of this Divine Justice is establish'd in Heaven the arrests are pronounc'd on earth and the execution thereof in the regions of darkness 'T is Divine Justice that sets a Crown upon heir heads who have fought the battles of the Lord of Hosts with courage and fidelity And for these momentary and light afflictions rewards them with an eternal weight of Glory O Justice crowning and glorifying us how lovely art thou 'T is Divine Justice that thunders Comminations against sinners on earth to bring them to repentance by the terrours of everlasting sufferings and sometimes chastises them with temporal afflictions that they may not be tormented to all eternity O amiable Justice that treats so here poor sinners as to make them Penitents and not miserable But O how terrible is the Divine Justice which in hatred of sin does punish eternally those who will not be brought to any amendment O how does a severe but just Sentence condemn such to everlasting flames always devouring and never consuming them which the breath of Gods anger has kindled and shall never be extinguished O my God you did not spare your own Son taking our sins upon him to show us the better how to detest sin O who can but tremble considering your severity O who dare provoke the Almighty to anger Quis novit potestatem irae tuae O my God I do consider this and flie for refuge to your Mercy The seventh Day The Mercy of God O Divine Mercy how dost thou ravish my heart 'T is to thee my Soul will sing eternally Miserecordias Domini in aeternum cantabo In my retired thoughts I look upon this World as a great Hospital fill'd with some sick some maimed some lame some blind some languishing some incurable and Divine Mercy goes a visiting of them These she encourages those she comforts binds up the wounds of others and offers remedies proper to each misery not absolutely abandoning any one though never in so desperate a condition O amiable Mercy of our God into what corner of the World dost not thou go to exercise thy goodness Are there any miserable Sons of Adam who have not tasted the sweets of comforts Who ever made his addresses to thee that hath not found most tender compassions in thy bosom O my Soul what must we pant after but the more then material embraces of this adorable Mercy In what canst thou put thy hope and confidence except in the source of this inexhaustible goodness The whole World is full of the Mercy of God and wilt thou O my Soul afflict thy self and be discourag'd with temporal miseries and momentary sufferings It is the work of Mercy thus to punish thee Do not the Sufferings of this life work for us a far more eternal weight of Glory Art thou O my Soul terrified with the remembrance of thy sins Consider God is a God of infinite Mercy and desires not the death of a sinner He who refuses to throw himself into the arms of Gods Mercy is ignorant or else layes not to heart that Mercy attends the greatest sinners to the last moment of Life for their Conversion Miserecordia tua subsequetur me omnibus diebus vitae meae O my God as your Mercy has prevented me so grant that it may follow me all the days of my Life Soli Deo sit Gloria The End of the Third BOOK BOOK IV. Of Solitude and the practice of two excellent Retreats of ten Days CHAP. I. Of the Beauty of Christian Solitude WE ought to have an esteem of all sorts of Professions whereof God is the Author who though he be but one doth nevertheless afford to his Church different states of living It concerns us therefore to think very honourably of them all and manifest as much by our words but to betake our selves only to what God calls us The excellency of other ways ought not to withdraw us from our proper Vocation A Soul then may delight her self in beholding the Church as a most beautiful Medow replenish'd with great variety of Flowers of singular virtue and so taking complacency in all states of Life to apply her self only to that which she has a call from Heaven and this also because God requires it from her A Solitary retired life is so beautiful and has such charming attractives that when the Soul has once experience of it she finds there her Heaven upon earth Being to take a farewell of one of my Friends who was returning home and having parted with him this thought forthwith strongly ceaz'd my imagination Alas my God! when shall I return home to my self that is to you Seeing your goodness is more manifest in affording me a place in the Idaeas of your understanding from all eternity before time gave me an existence among created entities now I am your Creature let me consider my self daily as in you who are my inheritance and everlasting possession To be be at home O my Soul is not to be with thy self but with God thy Creator O how great is the blindness of men not to understand that they have no other Country but the Divinity from whence they proceeded by their Creation Inconsiderate Creatures whether are you going For my part I will return home to the Fountain of my Being my true home who is great beautiful admirable eternal and incomprehensible O what joy is it to consider that my true home is such as he is Is it possible O my God that you are the home and center of my Soul Why do we not readily go out from the clogging crouds of Creatures where we are in perpetual banishment to return to our home the bosome of our Creatour What can I desire in Heaven or in Earth besides you my portion and Inheritance for ever Comfort thy self O my Soul considering that thou shalt return to the Divinity thy glorious home and in the interim rest content with Jesus thy crucified home and repose O how amiable also how great and admirable is Jesus crucified My Soul can find no Peace but by resting in him where nature tasts a bitterness a thousand times more sweet than all Worldly delicacies Without him all other pleasures are but dreaming fancies O Jesus crucified the World knows not your sweets the beauty of your sufferings is hid from their sight they
have inflamed affections for you is my greatest work but to bring my heart to such a temper it must become like dry wood being emptyed of humidity by a seperation from all Creatures This desire of inflamed affections puts me upon purifying my heart and the expectation of enjoyment makes me eager in the practice of Mortification by embracing Evangelical Councels and maxims of Christianity Seeing poverty contempt and crosses increase the flames of Divine Love they are welcom to me for I ardently desire to see them arise to their highest elevation I know a good Religious man who in his Solitudes is in continual Prayer not only by the elevation of his Spirit but by union with God in a wonderful manner My Soul finds great contentment in his discourse and conversation In sickness his enjoyment of God is not so vigorous nor his Peace of Soul so savorous though always great Worldly conversations seem but as dreams to him and when past they did only leave confus'd Idaeas in his memory A blessed man doubtless while here on earth And conversing with me in simplicity of heart by obedience he declar'd to me what wonderful enjoyments God was pleas'd to vouchsafe unto him He told me that to attain Purity of Heart we must divest our selves of all affections to Creatures and not satisfie our natural desires which is a great Mortification when 't is continual In sickness we must stand very much upon our guard for we easily relax and yield too much to nature Not to correspond to a known inspiration is gross infidelity and much retards our advancement in a Spiritual Life A principal point of Devotion is by a punctual fidelity to omit no occasion to practice virtue whether of humility patience abjection or any other This Contemplative told me that the choicest effect wrought in us by Revelations or Visions is this punctual fidelity to Gods calls 'T is an affair will take up the whole Soul to free her self from any engagement with Creatures and conquer her own natural Inclinations that she may enter into the states of Jesus crucified and into his ways with his Spirit that is with his intentions and dispositions Let us O my Soul in the profound silence of our Solitude often say to Jesus O Divine Jesus despised for me contemptible poor for me a poor Creature annihilated for me a meer nothing Terms which in some sort express the perfect union that the Soul ought to have with Jesus Crucified And this union is the grand occupation of Solitaries In the Court of Kings the Cooks and Bakers and other meaner Officers labour more than a Gentleman of the Chamber who has little to do but to attend his Majesty as a Companion rathen then a Servant A Favourite has yet less employ being admitted into his Prince's Closet to converse freely with him and entertain each other with mutual caresses In the House of God they who are appointed most for action are not the greatest Favourites those to whom God vouchsases extraordinary visits in Contemplation labour less and yet are more accepted by him T is not for us to apply our selves too much to Exteriour actions of Charity but to correspond to Gods Holy Inspirations if he call us to Solitude to attend on himself alone out of the noise of Creatures Is it not great pity that Temporal affairs should take up the best days of our years and the choicest hours of our days leaving us little time in comparison to apply our selves to the one thing necessary the work of our Eternal Salvation 'T would be better for us if we would allot more time to our Holy retirements to converse with God by Prayer and Contemplation and begin on earth what we must continue without end in ever Blessed Eternity CHAP. V. How we may put our Soul and Senses into a Solitude LEt us not deceive our selves in being content to receive the seed of Divine Inspirations without bringing forth any fruit according to the designs of God If we have a discerning Spirit in the ways of Grace we shall soon discover that this our only affair and all the rest is but amusement and folly To nourish this Divine Seed in us we must shun the conversation of Worldly wisemen who are guided only by Carnal Prudence and so being strangers to the Procedings of Grace leave in us more or less by their Discourse some Impression of their ill opinions which will retard our advancement in the ways of God To put the Soul into Solitude we must retire from all Creatures and put our selves absolutely in the hands of God to do with us what he pleases and apply our selves to him alone with all possible endeavours To be faithful herein we must resolve to suffer much for we cannot abide Peaceably in this Divine Hermitage without leaving Parents Friends Worldly Entertainments Affairs and to suffer almost a continual Persecution on every side For one tells you that it is an Hypocritical and unprofitable Life Another that so much Solitude cannot be good in that we ought to have some Charity for our Neighbour But let them talk on every one is to follow his own work and the will of God according to their vocation The best and most noble imployment in the World is to converse with God and do that on Earth which the Saints and Angels do in Heaven How the Devil persecutes a Soul in this state under fair pretences But she must stop her ears and quit all to adhere to her Soveraign good when he vouchsafes to call her to attend on him alone When God says he will lead a Soul into a Solitude Ducam eam in Solitudinem 'T is a singular Mercy For we shall find but few in the World prepar'd for the Cross and resolv'd to go through all the difficulties of a Life so supernatural A Soul that is in such a happy disposition will live Solitary not troubling her self with the cryes of others When God once speaks Powerfully to the heart 't will make more impression on us than all the noise of the World It comes into my mind that to be Faithful to the Call of God which I have to Solitude requires of me to spend six hours a day in Prayer and to comply therewith to retire my self about five in the Afternoon and eat little at night Methinks also I ought to observe a general Solitude not only in relation to my Soul but to my Interiour and Exteriour Senses yea when I shall converse with my Friends and behold her I conceive this may be done Sacred Solitude consists in being alone with God in a vacancy from Creatures and whatevet is not God It seems to me then when we discourse of God and his affairs we make our tongue Solitary and so speak like a Hermit When we will not give ear to any but Divine Discourses our ears turn Hermits When we will not allow our eyes any Objects but such as are pleasing to God we put them into
the Father as that he cannot beget another like him O my Jesus how this Verity discover'd to me the Riches the Glory the Grandeurs of your Person What Prodigious blindness has seis'd on men as not to see this and not to esteem you above ten thousand Worlds You appear poor humble and abject in their eyes and nevertheless 't is true the whole World is less than an Atomn in your presence I took for the subject of my third Prayer this admirable Truth That the Eternal Father is the source of the whole Divinity which he Communicates to his Son begotten of his substance yet without any Superiority or Authority over him by his Paternity And the Son who receives all from his Father owes him nothing of thanks of service or obedience Not but that he knows his Father well deserves all these returns But being of the same Substance and Authority with him he is not capable to render these Submissions But the Infinite love he has for his Father made him go out of himself and put himself into an Inferiour state by his Incarnation that he might render those thanks praises and services which he merited descending to those wonderful Humiliations and profound annihilations whereby he might do homage to the Infinite Grandeurs of his Father Teaching us by his example that as the Son of God had no other means to honour his Father than by Humiliations and Sufferings so we should take up our Cross and follow him that God may be Glorified My last Prayer this day was a profound consideration of this verity That all the works of the adorable Trinity in relation to the Creatures are common to the three Divine Persons The Father Son and Holy Spirit did concur in the same design of Creation and Conservation of the World though the Father alone begets the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both But all three united imploy'd their Power to do us good as if We had been the object of their Beatitude Is it then true O my God that all the Orders of your Providence by your united forces tend to our good and shall we not have an eye to you Alas we little think on you although the most serious Affairs of the World are nothing in comparison of our concern to consider your Infinite Perfections and love your incomprehensible Goodness St. Arsenius saw this very well when he quitted the Emperour and would not so much as write to him Those who are thus nobly imploy'd cannot be taken up with Worldly Vanities You see a poor Hermit in the Desarts of Thebais ill Clad abject and unknown who seems to the eyes of Flesh the scorn of men however his Soul is wholly taken up with God which is of more worth than the whole Universe You see a great Prince glittering with Gold and precious Stones with a great Train of Courtiers Honoured and Respected of all and in the Interim his Life being only taken up with Worldly concerns is guilty of the greatest Folly and of no esteem in the eyes of God Ninth Day IN my Morning Prayer our Blessed Saviour plung'd me into the Abiss of our own Nothing and Vileness insomuch that this exercise was wholly taken up with my own annihilation Thereupon I said None but the Eternal Father can give to his Son none but the Father and the Son can give to the Holy Ghost and these Presents made to each other are Infinite There pass among them Communications Ineffable and proportion'd to their Grandeurs I consider'd them in my Thoughts and rejoyced plunging my self in the Abiss of my own Weakness in that I could do nothing for God nor give him any thing The best present I can make him is to acknowledge I can give him nothing worth acceptance and this acknowledgment I receive also from the hand of his bounty 't is the effect of his Grace for of my self I cannot do it O the depth of the Nothing of a Creature If I should give my Life for God 't is less then if a Pismire should give hers for a King there being an Infinite distance between God and a Creature All the Angels and Saints that ever shall raign in Glory can add nothing to the Divine Grandeurs The Abiss of my Nothing is beyond expression God only knows it and I see nothing of it but by his Grace O my God if all the Angels and Saints are as nothing before you I that am infinitely below them what I can give is less than nothing My second Prayer went on in the same Thoughts and Considerations And I was much astonish'd in that being acquainted with many Persons and seeing their examples I was so far behind them in Virtue But looking narrowly into my self I must needs acknowledge that the least pittance of Grace the least degree of Prayer the least part I can have in the states of Jesus is infinitely above my deserts 'T is true that a Soul inflamed with Divine love is confounded at the sight of her own unworthiness and suffers a kind of Martyrdom For in that she loves she would do something for her Beloved and being conscious what a Nothing she is of her self and that she can do nothing being in suspense between will and weakness seeing in effect she can do nothing of her self she breaths sorth her desires in such like amorous expressions If I was God and you my God a Creature I would willingly be a Creature that you might be God But seeing this is an imagination of a thing not possible her Martyrdom of love increases and she languishes in that she loves and can do nothing for her Beloved That which comforts her is that being able to do nothing for God she sees that he is all and wants nothing and taking a complacency in this she reposes her self quietly in the bosom of the Divinity with full resolutions to abide there for ever In my third Prayer I apply'd my self to consider the Divinity it self without forming any distinct thoughts thereof but though so I saw nothing yet I knew God more then when I see him in his Creatures They are always finite and limited and therefore the knowledge they afford of God is narrower than that which I have of him beheld in himself Oftentimes when we apply our selves to God to know him we become stupid and as it were without understanding 'T is our duty then to give our selves up into the hands of God who does justly chastise us for our sins by withdrawing himself from us God is very merciful unto us to give us patience in this state During which we must continue our Exercises of Prayer and Retirement and rest as well content with these Insensibilities and dryness as with illustrations from Heaven and gustful Devotion seeing a Soul in either state is well pleasing to God A suffering Life is our Portion on Earth that we may be conform to Jesus Crucified For the union with Jesus Glorified is a Life more proper
for ever-Blessed Eternity O my Soul let us not follow our own Fancy but serve God in what manner he will have us by a perfect resignation of our selves to his good pleasure The Eternal Song of the Saints in Heaven was the subject of my fourth Prayer I consider'd with great delight that all the Angels and Glorious Saints shall Eternally Glorifie the adorable Trinity with this Sacred Trisagion Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbath Me-thought the first of the Seraphins began this Anthem with an admirable Air and all the Choirs of Angels joyn'd their Voices all Singing with a Tone more or less elevated proportion'd to the degree they possess in Glory And this innumerable multitude of Angelical Voices made a most Melodious and admirable Harmony wherewith the Divine Persons were much delighted It came into my thoughts that the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ the noblest of all created Entities the Sacred Virgin Mother of God and Queen of Angels with all the multitude of Holy Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and Virgins did bear a part in this Sacred Harmony with great contentment And my Soul being much delighted therewith desir'd to Glorifie God as much as possible I saw that the Church Militant in a Holy emulation of the Church Triumphant did use to the Glory of the most Sacred Trinity a like Canticle repeating in her Divine Offices on all occasions Gloria Patri Filio Spiritui Sancto Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost And so Heaven and Earth did Eccho forth incessantly the Glory of the adorable Trinity I heartily wish'd that all Creatures had Voices to Praise God continually and with much affection I often repeated Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost Tribus honor unus Amen Tenth Day THis day beginning my Prayer I felt my Soul prevented with an extraordinary Sweetness I represented my God in the fund of my Heart as my Beloved and I return'd him Thanks for his manifold Visits My Disposition was then as a Spiritual Spring-time I scented the Odour of the Flowers of Virtue perfuming my Interiour and I made thereof a Crown for the Bridegroom of my Soul and set it on his Head and he seem'd to be much pleas'd with it and my Soul took great complacency therein I observ'd that when the Spiritual Bridegroom comes to Visit his Spouse whether it be in the Holy Communion or by any Visit extraordinary 't is with different effects Sometimes the Soul is as it were inebriated with Divine Love at other times she has a feeling of great variety of Virtues wherewith the Interiour is Beautified as a Garden with Flowers The Soul is is not then taken up solely with the Sweets of Love but being adorned with variety of Virtues sometimes she presents this sometimes that sometimes altogether to her Beloved My second Prayer was a continuation of the same Thoughts And I perceived that every step the Divine Bridegroom of our Souls made in the Garden of his Spouse gave a new Birth to different Flowers This is no small contentment to the Soul but what ought most to affect her herein is that her Beloved is pleas'd to take with her his recreation who delights to be sometimes with the Children of men Then 't is He refreshes us with the Perfumes and Odours of his Graces as Glorified and we must give our selves up to his Divine Will Other times he Visits a Soul in this Crucified state bringing with him nothing but Thorns and Nails and Bitterness and Sufferings But a Soul must not think that her Beloved is not then well pleas'd with her because of this rough usage for this is his Will and 't is best for her I was much astonish'd to see the excess of Gods goodness to me who deserv'd to have been treated as an enemy But he was pleas'd to unite me to himself with such ravishing transports as transcend expression O that I had a heart so full of love as might be answerable to the greatness of his Mercies vouchsafed unto me O Jesus the Love of my Heart if you continue thus I shall die of Love for you O amorous flames consume my heart to ashes that nothing may be found there but Love and Humility O my Friends come and see what great things God has done for my Soul My third Prayer was taken up with the amiable Communications that the most Sacred Trinity is pleas'd to have with our Souls The Divine Nature unites the three adorable Persons in the Sacred Trinity The Person of the Son unites two Natures in Jesus And Grace unites Jesus to purified Souls And this unions of Grace and Love is perfected by exercises of Prayer and wonderful communication in contemplation This union sometimes is so high and elevated that Jesus and the Soul seem to be but one thing one Spirit one Knowledge one Love and is in a manner the Soul of our Soul And in this state she Glorifies God in a transcendent way being wonderfully united to that Love and Glory Jesus renders to the Divinity and the Divinity to it self The design of the Son of God by communicating himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament is to augment this gracious union that as he Prayed to his Father we may be one as they are one By which wonderful union he gives unto us a fulness of Grace and Divine Love imprinting on us unless we be refractory the like inclinations he received from his Father to keep us continually united to him by Love and Honour him with the grateful Sacrifice of our Humiliations My last Prayer was an amorous repose of my self in Jesus Finding my self in this disposition I dwelt upon it knowing well that a Soul united to Jesus is transformed into him by amorous affections and so Glorifying God does Love and Honour and Adore the Divinity by the Love and Adoration of Jesus Christ The Soul in this amorous repose finds all her wants supply'd As Courage in Adversity Humility in Successes Perseverance in Good Actions and Grace to practice all those Virtues which God commands on all occasions By how much the more the Soul is thus amorously united to Jesus in Prayer by so much the more does she participate of his Spirit and Dispositions and consequently is more in love with the Cross and Sufferings To have union with Jesus Christ in Prayer and to be divided from him in our Life and Actions is an illusion for one principal effect of pure Prayer is to imprint in us a love to follow the Life of Jesus There now comes into my mind an excellent Observation of a Father of the Church That the Holy Spirit having visibly descended to us as well as the Son did not as the Son visibly return to Heaven but takes up his Mansion with us here on Earth to unite our hearts with our Heavenly Father as in the Divinity he is the union of the Father and the Son
with me after Communion are 1. Jesus entring into my Mouth vailed with the Sacramental Species I Sacrifice to him all my Being my Faculties and Operations in Homage to his Grandeur And after this Act I remain quite annihilated and passive to Jesus operating towards his Heavenly Father Love Respect and Praise towards my Self Death Annihilation and Alliance with his Divine Life 2. A second Disposition after the Holy Communion is that Jesus entring into me presently operates a streight Vnion At that time I have no sight of any that may annihilate me only at first he unites me to the state of his Humanity in its Poverty and Abjections the Contempt Labours and Sufferings of his Mortal Life and being hereby purified next he draws me to a Vnion with the state of his Divinity that is to say to render to his Eternal Father Love Praises and complacency in his Grandeurs 3. Another time after Holy Communion these great words of our Lord presented themselves to my mind to serve for my Entertainment Rogo Pater ut sint consummati in unum Father I beseech you that they may be consummated in one They disclose to me a little of that perfect Vnity or consummated Vnion that ought to be contracted between Jesus and us His Love requiring that our Souls should be confirmed in that Vnion by the frequent use of the Holy Communion and that they act continually according to the conditions of this Alliance from whence they fall by the least Infidelity and very much offend God who sees himself neglected and as it were contemned and post-poned to Creatures after he has called them to so perfect a Vnion and come expresly to work it in them Wherefore a perfect Vnion requires that our heart be united the most continually that possibly it can and that it tend incessantly to a Vnity of Love with Jesus Christ to a Vnity of Instinct of Inclinations of Desires and to a great conformity with the condition of his Mortal Life which is that whereby we are to walk during our present Life if we desire to arrive to the enjoyment of his Divine Life 4. Sometimes after Communicating I have had this representation in my mind that Jesus giving himself to me seemed to speak to me but without any kind of words For the sole manifestation of his Love imparted to the Soul is in lieu of speaking and the Soul answers by Acquiescence and Admiration that cannot be expressed In effect the Soul in this state does not understand any Interiour words after the manner that Mystique Divines explain them in their Writings But the lively and clear representation that is made to her of the state of Jesus in each Mystery without any thing else serves her for Discourse While she is in this condition it seems to her that Jesus says Hear Daughter and see and forget your People and the House of your Father to enter into an imitation of me To which words the Soul makes answer by acquiessing and without any noise in her Interiour she signifies her acceptance by a most efficatious consent She hears by seeing and Jesus speaks by manifesting himself Another while at the Communion I had a general view of the multitude of the great wonders that Jesus operates in these Mysteries of Faith in favour of Men with whom he takes his Delight This general view raised me to a high admiration which nevertheless terminated in a sense of a most profound acknowledgment of the Goodness of God seeing that all these wonders tend to no other end than to manifest unto us the intenseness of the Love he bears us and import that he expects Love for Love That is your only design my good Jesu in bestowing on me this Divine Food to bestow on me the Life of your Love but this Life may very well cause my Death O Love Love Love was all that I could then say being struck dumb with admiration CHAP. VI. Another Method of Thanksgiving after Communion I Find a great gust in the understanding of these words Fortis est ut mors dilectio Love is strong as Death Methinks I see them practically verified in the Holy Communion where I see that Love has reduced Jesus to the state of Death and of a Sacrifice immolated as Death reduced him upon Mount Calvary I consider that while his Love severs him from the Splendours of his Glory to unite himself to me it excites me at the same time to separate my self from Creatures from my Self and from all other things thereby to unite my self to him alone My Soul thoroughly penetrated with a desire to correspond with this design of her Beloved Jesus and clearly discerning that the love of Crosses and Contempt is necessary to dispose and prepare her for this great Favour she looks on them with affection and delight as so many Springs whence flows her Happiness Another wonder which sometimes my mind has been intent upon and received great Comfort from it is the Infinite desire that God has to Communicate himself and to lift us up to a full participation of his Divinity This view well penetrated into discovers so many wonders of the Love of God towards Men of the Felicities to which they are destined after the Miseries of this World of the Dignity of their Creation since the end for which they were made is to possess God of the Infinite desire God has to unite himself to them and of the perfect corresponding and complyance they are from thence oblig'd to especially such Souls as are chosen and in a particular manner called to this state that after all this it is scarce possible to resist such cogent impulses and attractives of God They make one desire to die to all things the better to prepare for so great a work of Love the hurries and business of the World is not to be any longer endured and one becomes passionately in Love with Solitude My Soul reflect diligently upon the Grace is given thee and correspond to the Love of God towards thee which thou art now so thoroughly acquainted with Thou hast no other business but this for thou must never betake thy self to any other imployment unless thou receive express orders from God for it The more one is estranged from Creatures the better a Soul is disposed to this Divine Union wherefore Disgraces ought to be our Felicity because they are the means to obtain it The Cross Purity of Love Union God alone These are the degrees that Grace leads us through and our Fidelity calls us to There is also another good method of giving Thanks after Communion which consists in abandoning and resigning our selves absolutely and without reserve to the power and dependance of Jesus Christ who coming into our hearts ought to be master there and command as Soveraign When it pleases him to continue with a Soul to entertain her and to unite her to him by a most delightful feeling of his presence we must not think that
elevate his Heart by frequent Prayer to God and Contemplation of his Divine Perfections or that dissipates his Spirit abroad by the impulses of Nature engaging himself in Temporal Affairs without being called thereto by the Inspiration and guidance of Grace though something of zeal appear in the thing and as one thinks a good intention I say this Interiour Fire in such a Person is to be compared to these Meteors or Lambent Fires which are carried about with every motion of the Air and shine but do not burn CHAP. XII The fifth Effect of Communion is to give Strength and Perseverance in the Service of God ONe day as I entred into a Church I heard them sing these words in Honour of the Blessed Sacrament Ambulavit in fortitudine cibi illius usque ad montem Dei He walked in the strength of this Bread even to the Mount of God These words affected me and made me Hope that notwithstanding my Miseries and continual weakness I might be so strengthned by receiving this Divine Bread that at last I might arrive to the Mount of God might raise my self above the low inclinations of Nature and mount to the participation of the Spirit of Jesus and Perfection of a Super-natural Life which Life is a high Mountain which no body can climb by the meer strength of Nature I observed before that the peculiar intention of Jesus in Instituting the Holy Sacrament was to give us a foundation to Life and Strength and for that reason 't is the only Sacrament that is given in the form of Nourishment The rest are prescribed by way of Remedy to purge the Soul from Sin or conferr'd by Ceremony of Cousecration to dedicate the Person to the peculiar Duties of Religion and Holy Things and so others respectively But this is the only one given by way of Heavenly nurture to enable us to live by the Life of Grace a perpetual Life over which the death of Sin has no power For Jesus Christ among other effects of this Divine Food assures us that it bestows Eternal Life Qui manducat hunc panem vivet in aeternum And it seems very reasonable and conform to the Infinite Goodness of God that the most excellent of Sacraments should confer the most excellent of Graces which is that of Perseverance A Grace so Sublime so Divine so precious that we cannot merit it by any or all the good Actions we can do But how rare and how noble soever it be we have much subject to hope that the Father of Mercies and God of all Consolations will grant us it since he has already enriched us with that which is Infinitely more than this Grace the Prefence of his only Son in the Blessed Sacrament Corporal Nutriment is Elementary and Material and therefore no better than Corruption Yet if the Body could take it always in a just proportion and were perfectly well disposed to draw the strength it affords it would continue our Natural Life and we should never die How much more would the Heavenly Bread the Living Bread which contains in it self the ever-flowing sources of Life confer a perpetuity and infectibility of Spiritual Life by Grace if the Soul duly used and were disposed to receive the abundance of Graces Virtues and Super-natural strength that this adorable Food brings with it When we Communicate we drink of the same Fountain the Blessed do in Heaven But to them it is the Water of Life Everlasting and what else can it be to us but that of the Life of never failing Grace which is the pledge and assurance of the Eternity of Glory O my Soul dost thou think that any of the Blessed in Heaven after they have tasted the Delights of that Torrent of Pleasures can be oloy'd with them or be contented to be deprived of that Divine and Happy Life How then canst thou be so unconstant and irresolute in the way of Grace and unfaithful in the Union thou hast contracted with God who hast drank the Waters of Joy from the same Fountains of thy Saviour When he presents himself really and in Person and demands to be admitted into thy Heart say not to him as St. Peter did Retire from me O Lord But breath out the Sentiments of perfect Love saying with the Spouse Tenui eum nec dimittam I will never abandon him O what a pleasant Society how profound a Peace does the enjoyment of the Soveraign Good bring to the Soul But both imperfect till they are finished in Heaven The fullest possession thereof she can acquire on Earth serves only to inflame her thirst more the more she tasts God the more she desires him and since there is no possibility of satisfying her desire in this Life she suffers a continual Martyrdom that makes her both die and live together Her pain is full of sweetness and that sweetness begets a languishing and longing after her Beloved She is disgusted with all created things and forceably drawn off from them Nothing pleaseth her in this condition but that which augments her flame She cannot read with satisfaction unless there be some mention of her Beloved All Conversation and Discourse are burthen some and tedious unless the subject be his Love My God you see the bottom of my Heart I conceive things that I cannot utter 'T is true I suffer but I would not but suffer I can do nothing but aspire to a fuller possession of your Infinite Goodness 'T is very much that you vouchsafe to give your self unto me in the adorable Sacrament with such an immense Love but still you give me only a hidden Treasure I possess you indeed but do not enjoy you to my hearts desire I am in the condition of Holy Simeon who held you in his Arms in the Temple and yet dyed with a desire to see you It is time O Lord now permit my Soul to depart in Peace and quit this Mortal Life because I receive within me the Spring and Source of Immortality I know for certain that in Paradice I shall obtain the perfect accomplishment of all my Desires yet I do not desire it till it be your good will and Pleasure Your Love makes me press forward and tend incessantly to the Beatifical Union but 't is your Love too that stops my course that draws me back inspiring me with the highest indifference and absolute dependance on your Divine Will O Jesus how admirable is your Providence you open my eyes to see the comfortable and Blessed sight of the Power and Purity of Love which ought to possess the Soul that has the Happiness to receive you often in the Holy Communion I relinquish and resign my self more than ever into your Divine Hands guide me as it shall best please you There is nothing left to ask you more since you have unasked bestowed your self upon me and crowned me with Mercies even beyond all my Hopes My business is to remain annihilated in your presence and quietly receive your Divine
true these are Crosses and Cruel Persecutions but if we bear them Faithfully with Love 't is a Martyrdom pleasing to God and profitable to us The Persecuting Tyrants tempted the Primitive Christians sometimes against their Faith sometimes against their Chastity which were Glorious Tryals of their Fidelity O how Blessed a thing is it to fight for that Faith and Fidelity we owe to God O what lovely Charms are there in this Martyrdom to those who behold them with the eye of Faith CHAP. V. Of Exteriour Crosses by the loss of Goods BEing in a Friends House who served God truly news was brought me that the Soldiers had ceas'd upon all my Goods at home and Blessed be God it little troubled me But rather I rejoyc'd and put my self into the Hands of God to do what he pleas'd with me preparing my Heart to undergo greater Losses contentedly I was much comforted by my Friend and I went home full of Joy and Cheerfulness accounting my self Happy that Divine Providence had brought me to Poverty and Abjection And I said with my self Courage my Soul our Blessed Saviour continues his Mercies Poverty and Abjection will afford us wings to flee to Perfection Behold now is the opportunity to make great Progress in Virtue if we be but Faithful It seem'd to me that at this time few Persons pityed me and yet they talk'd of my Affliction as no ordinary Tryal They blam'd me in some sort of Proceedings and after all I found my self an Abject and little considered I could never consent to the Councel of those who would have me either yield to anger or discontent For I always thought I ought not to part with that Meekness and Humility which becomes a Christian for the greatest Temporal loss that can happen to me I considered with my self that these little Crosses were hardly to be named with those that they suffer who are tormented with anguishes of Spirit or those who are Slaves under the Turk or such who are put to Death with grievous Tortures That which I suffer is nothing in comparison of those poor Creatures For I instead of being contristated by Suffering found a certain joy to possess my heart and a greater desire to suffer more Hereupon one told me That our Saviour sent me Crosses adorn'd with Flowers which though they took not away their heaviness yet their Odours did refresh and strengthen me to bear them This Persecution continuing I found my self always disposed to suffer it with great Interiour Peace and I kept my Soul from harbouring any thoughts of Bitterness against those who assisted my Plunderers I Saluted them with a Cordial Love although Nature had a repugnance to their Proceedings I beheld with contentment the Fall of our Family how our Friends did forsake us and some treat us very unworthily and yet I could not think it a misfortune but a signal favour from the hand of Providence And I did not complain but digest all this bitter Cup with Interiour joy O bona crux O good Cross The words of St. Andrew seem'd to me very true O how Crosses are good though full of Bitterness We ought to love what is good and make much of it In reality there 's an exquisite goodness in Sufferings and the Fruit of the Cross is wonderful Savorous For at last we shall find that the degrees of Glory shall be according to the measure of our Sufferings and degrees of Love I was then told some means how to get out of this Suffering condition Nature began to resent this with some joy but Grace repress'd it stifling this emotion of Nature that I might have no joy but in God alone and in the accomplishment of his good Pleasure CHAP. VI. Dispositions during Sickness where the Body suffer'd and the Soul rejoyced GOd has been pleas'd to make me enjoy during my Sickness an Interiour Peace so profound and great that I was altogether astonish'd at it considering my Miseries and former Transgressions I said within my self What is this that I find within me How comes it to pass that so miserable a Creature should be thus content and satisfied For my Soul was in a perfect calm from all her Passions feeling nothing but a pure and total union to the good pleasure of God and an absolute abandon of my self to the conduct of Divine Love It seemed to me that some dayes before this Sickness I was in a disposition of extraordinary Peace and Tranquility and one day after Dinner I was taken with a continual Feaver accompanied with much Head ach and Pains throughout all my Body But Divine Love methoughts continued his operations and set me all a flame with Holy Fires So that I often cryed out O Love O Love O Love And could say nothing else When I seem'd as a dying man my Friends weeping about me and every one saying I could hardly Recover my Soul beheld all this without being touched with any Sentiments of regret or tenderness for my Friends being wholly taken up with Divine Love which did so entirely unite me to the good Pleasure of God that methought I could never be seperated from it 'T was no part of my care to beg for my Life and one of my Friends proposing to send me some Reliques of Saints which had done Miraculous Cures I only thank'd him for though I have no small veneration for them yet I had no mind to make use of them for my Recovery but I would wholly put my self into the hands of Divine Love and leaving my self entirely to the conduct thereof whether for Life or Death for Time or Eternity In this extreme weakness of Body my Soul found her self Victorious and Triumphant to see that fall of Pain and her self full of Love and instead of being compassionate seem'd to me to smile at these Sufferings This was an extraordinary effect of Love that in this great weakness of Body my Soul kept up her strength and especially that the great Pains of my Head did not hinder her Interiour occupations This disposition of Love continued as long as my Sickness and I entertain'd my Friends with little consideration and I believe with too much talking fearing now to have discover'd then too much those Holy Fires that inflam'd my heart and that self-Self-love made me declare too freely my inward feelings My thoughts now make me suspect this defect but being inebriated with Love I said I know not what being like a drunken man that for a time forgets his Poverty and Miseries So in this disposition I forgot my Sins and extreme Frailties and cast my self into the Arms of Love that I might be united with my Well-beloved and enjoy his Reciprocal embraces I had a care to examine my conscience and confess my sins as a dying man and set in order my Temporal Affairs to pass to Eternity Finding my self not able to give much to the Poor it was a joy to me to die in Poverty and I was as well content to give
this Interiour Poverty and Dereliction finds that she has a call to Interiour Sufferings she ought not to seek after sensible things to raise her to God but couragiously bear this Interiour Cross as long as it pleases her Divine Bridegroom to continue her Tryal This state is bitter indeed but withall purifying and makes a Soul capable of more intimate union with God CHAP. X. Of the Sacred Darkness of Prayer ON St. Mary Magdalen's day it seem'd to me that my Prayer chang'd and became more simple more strong and elevated My Spirit went on knowing God not by Lights or Gusts of Devotion but by a certain Darkness wherewith God is surrounded as with a Cloud This Darkness made me see that God cannot be known but is Infinitely above our understanding which cannot better know him then by acknowledging we cannot know him as he is At other times Gusts and Lights were instrumental to unite me to God but now this Darkness only was my Guide and my Soul finding her self lost in a profound Ignorance of God yet seem'd to me to know him better than ever and I had no difficulty to Contemplate God in this manner which leaving in me deep impressions of the Divinity did also augment my Interiour dispositions of the Love of God hatred of sin and such like matters It seem'd to me that at this time my Prayer became more continual And I was much encourag'd with that saying of St. Denis That this ignorance is the best and highest knowledge we have here of God I therefore readily made my Addresses to God in the aforesaid manner understanding well that the knowledge we have of God by this way is greater than that we learn by discourse or Lights or Gusts in Prayer To know we cannot know God is to know him as much as he can be known in this Life his Grandeurs being Infinitely above our Understanding And that our Understanding may live wholly to God it must die to whatsoever is not God whom we see by naked Faith in a Luminous obscurity By this way God is more known and lov'd than by many Lights and Affections all which are lost in the obscurity of this Sacred Darkness which makes a Soul see that the Perfections of God are incomprehensible Many good effects arise from hence As a profound Joy and Peace of Conscience a firmness in our good Resolutions and practice of Virtues a great love of Self-denyal in imitation of the unspeakable Humiliations of Jesus Christ One of the surest marks to know whether this Prayer of Darkness comes from God is to see whether it leave in the Soul the knowledge of our Miseries and Infidelities For the more we possess God the better we see the least Imperfections As for example whether our intention be pure or Nature has some Interest with Grace Whether we too easily leave the presence of God for other things Whether we comply with Gods Inspirations or commit Infidelities These and such like being clearly seen by this means do much humble us and make us careful to amend them The Soul in this disposition knows nothing of God but that he is Incomprehensible and looses her self in this Darkness that surrounds his Grandeurs This view with a view sees nothing distinctly of God in particalar but is a knowing Ignorance of what God is in himself For though the excessive Glory of this Divine Sun makes his Light inaccessable to our weak eyes yet this Darkness pierces our Interiour and we know God in a transcendent manner by strong impressions of the Divinity and are rais'd to a most intimate union with him God requires of a Soul great Purity in this state This then is an excellent manner to take up our Thoughts with God in our Addresses to him by annihilating all our Lights and Knowledge to get into this Sacred Darkness that surrounds his Glory that being thus dead to our own Abilities we may confess that God is as much above our Understanding as he is amiable above our Affections Thus to know God and confess he is above our Understanding and to love God and acknowledge we cannot Love him according to his Perfections is to live dead to our Selves and our Abilities and such God Loves best and knows with Approbation CHAP. XI Of the Lights of Prayer GOd sometimes in Prayer discovers himself to a Soul as the Sun filling her with Light by which and in which he is known and all other things she stands in need of or which the Omniscient is pleas'd to manifest to her We see well enough this Light by which we know God but God himself is inaccessable As we behold the Light of the Natural Sun and not the Body thereof which blinds our Eyes and by the benefit of its Beams the things of this World are made visible to us One born Blind imagins that if he could see the Light he might see the Sun But he would find by experience that this Light would only serve to make him clearly see that he cannot behold the Sun by reason of its excessive Brightness In the same manner when we are in Interiour Darkness we think we can know God better in the Light and when this Light comes it only serves to let us see that God cannot be known by us in Mortal Bodies When in Prayer I have a view of God or some of his Perfections of Jesus or some of his Dispositions or Maxims it seems to me that all these Objects have a particular Light in them which serves much to discover their excellency to the Soul But it seems to me that these Verities namely We must slee from Evil and do Good hate Sin and embrace Virtue and such like as considered barely in themselves have no particular Light in them to manifest their Goodness But their Beauty and Excellency are discover'd to us by help of the Light of Faith As those Bodies which are out of the Sun see not themselves but by the Light thereof For this reason I believe 't is best for a Soul to take up her Thoughts with God and those Verities that regard him or with Jesus and Christian Truths as resident in this Sacred Breast By this means the Heart and Affections will be much inflam'd with the Love of God to adore and serve him and imitate the Perfections of Jesus Christ This sort of Prayer is simple and does not put the Soul to the labour of much Discourse For any Divine Perfection and the Exteriour effects thereof are seen by her at once by a singular act of the understanding As she may consider the Omnipotency by its self or together with the Creation of the World she may behold and adore the Divine Providence by it self together with its admirable effects in the Government of the Universe The Soul herein needs not multiply Discourses but may behold all this at one prospect When we meditate on any Christian Verity as for example the Excellency of Poverty without the Relation it
Light into the Understanding sometimes more Love into the Will so that one Faculty seems to be lost in the other The Soul must be content with either as God pleases and cease her own Operations to be passive to the Actings of God in her by his gracious Motions A great deal of Work is done for us by this means in a little time towards Christian Perfection The Soul that is in this state must carefully shun two things the Activity of her own Spirit and the Impurity of her Affection As for the first our Spirit is very unwilling to dy to it self but will be acting and discoursing we loving much our own Operations so that we have much ado to conquer our selves that we may enter into an entire Passivity as to be only susceptible of Divine Motions The long Habitudes of acting with Liberty hinders this Annihilation but we must fight for the Victory and Grace at last will make it easy As for the second the Impurity of Affection we must be perfectly dead to whatsoever is not God so as to seek nothing but him and his good Pleasure without any mixture of Self-interests The infinite Love of God to us obliges us to be faithful to him and the Love we ought to have for our own good obliges us to spare no pains to attain to Perfection CHAP. XIII Of Pure and Perfect Prayer IT much disposes a Soul to attain to pure and perfect Prayer to give her self up into the hands of God with an entire Submission to his holy Will touching this Exercise to bestow upon her what state he pleases A Soul that finds Attracts from God to depend on his Providence the Matter and Manner of her Prayer must receive thankfully what comes from God whether it be Contemplatio or Meditation be it with Delight or Difficulty with Sweetness or Aridities A Soul so purely united to the Divine Will and dead to all things else possesses God in a wonderful manner not only in Consolations but Interiour Crosses Purity of Prayer as the present Light I have tells me consists in a simple View of God by the Light of Faith without Discourse or Imagination Reason and Imagination have their part in Meditation but not in pure Prayer It seems to me that the Soul ought to be absorpt in God and remain there in repose being dead as it were to her own Operations This Repose in God is by Knowledge and Love whereof sometimes this sometimes that is more abundant and affects the Soul as God pleases When God elevates a Soul above ordinary Prayer to converse with him alone she must make it her business to comply with him The Virtues and Dispositions which another time would be the Life of the Soul are not now when she must live no Life but the Life of God that is of his sole Knowledge and Love without any Reflection on her self God then takes the Care himself of such a Soul furnishing her with all necessary Dispositions Think on me and I will think on thee said Jesus Christ to St. Catherine In Prayer God infuses into her practical Lights of no long Durance but efficacious and out of Prayer she receives the same to be applyed to the Practice of most excellent Virtues on all occasions Pure and Perfect Prayer does not consist in Gusts of Devotion but in the supreme part of the Spirit in a peculiar manner that is ineffable For this supreme Region of the Soul is the sacred Temple where God is pleas'd to dwell where she feels and tasts a Sweetness above all created Entities The Soul conducted by Faith and attracted by these Divine Perfumes finds God in this his Sanctuary and converses with him with such a Familiarity as astonishes the Angels to behold it 'T is here where she makes pure Prayer seeing there 's nothing but God and the Soul without any Creature to interrupt this sacred Interview God working all that passes by Himself without Representations or Discourses or Gusts of Devotion This supreme part of the Soul being not capable of sensible Objects God alone takes Possession thereof communicating his Illustrations and Sentiments which are necessary for a pure Union with him Perfect Prayer then is a certain experimental Manifestation which God gives of Himself of his Goodness Peace and Sweetness An admirable Gift that is not imparted but to the purest Souls and ordinarily is but of small Continuance But the Condition of Mortality will not permit of more where we must live in Humility Patience and Sufferings The Soul returning from these Divine Embraces carries away with her great Love and a high Esteem of God a profound Knowledge of her own Imperfections and finds her self altogether disposed to act and suffer and practise pure Virtues on all occasions Few persons arrive to this Purity of perfect Prayer because few make themselves susceptible of those Divine Motions by an entire Annihilation of their own Powers These great Favours would be more frequently bestow'd if we had Hearts prepared to recive them Favours which are of more worth than the whole World and cannot be known but by Experience For my part I know nothing I only have heard say that in this pure and perfect Prayer there are admirable Unions most intimate Embraces Ardours of Love so Pure as may almost compare with the Flames of Seraphims We come to a perfect Union with God by a perfect Denudation of all Creatures and this Denudation is acquir'd by continual Mortification and sometimes by Divine Infusion We must therefore pray much and dye daily to our selves and all Creatures Since that Original Sin hath depraved our Nature we cannot live a Life of Grace without dying a continual Death When God acts with us in the Practice of Mortification we shall soon dye to our selves for he breaks us all to pieces on a sudden with wonderful Contrition of Heart and kills our Corruptions unknown to us so that a Soul dies more in one day by the loving Stroaks of his powerful Hand than she would in some years by ordinary Mortifications Let us therefore adore this Divine and loving Hand which kills us to make us live and never complain but of the little Returns we make for his gracious Favours The Loss of Goods of Friends of Honours of Consolations do much conduce to bring a Soul to this living Death for commonly we quit such allurement when we lose the materials of those Fetters In this Divine Exercise the Soul is wholly taken up with God without diverting her Thoughts on any other Object And though then to reflect on the effects of Prayer would be a kind of Distraction yet without her thinking God leaves powerful Impressions in her and pregnant Dispositions to practise great Virtues and above all a love of the Cross and Humiliations seeing he cannot possibly please God more than by suffering for Him CHAP. XIV Of the Hungring of the Soul after GOD and of her being Satiated with Him I Sometimes find my self in
THE Interiour Christian OR THE Interiour Conformity WHICH CHRISTIANS Ought to have with JESUS CHRIST Divided into Eight BOOKS which contain most Divine Meditations Extracted out of the Writings of a great Servant of God of this Age. Non magna loquimur sed vivimus St. Cyprian Not our Tongues but our lives speak the Excellency of Christianity Translated out of the 12th Edition in French Antwerp Printed in the year 1684. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Christian Reader IN this unhappy Age of Contentions about Religion wherein the heat of Controversy hath so much cooled the fervour of true Devotion among us that even some great Pretenders to Piety have only an outward form of Godliness without the inward Power like guilded Sepulchers full of dead-mens Bones it cannot but be very seasonable to teach all those who believe in Jesus how to be real and Interiour Christians Now in my Judgment this Book written in French and often Printed for its Excellency has so well presented to the eye this Heavenly Lesson that I would not let so precious a Treasure lie hid to the greatest part of our Nation in an unknown Language but have taken Pains to expose it to the publick view for a publick Good and God give a Blessing to my Endeavours If you ask me What is it to be an Interiour Christian I 'le briefly tell you An Interiour Christian is one who being well grounded in Faith walks with God in simplicity of Heart and Purity of Intention loves him above all things serves him Faithfully endeavours to please him constantly and had rather die than willfully by mortal Sin break friendship with him There 's no Devil he hates worse than Hypocricy his chiefest care being to be really in the sight of God what he appears to be in the eyes of Men Yea he is more inwardly then he seems outwardly as well considering that God who sees our hearts will reward us accordingly We may say of the Interiour Christian what our Blessed Saviour said of Nathanael Ecce verè Israelita in quo non est dolus Behold Joh. 1. a true Israelite in whom is no deceit And he may truly say of himself with good Hezekiah O Lord I have walked before thee in Truth and with a Perfect Isa 38. Heart and have done that which is good in thy sight And he may say also with St. Paul Herein do I exercise my self to have a Conscience Acts 24. void of Offence towards God and towards Men. And therefore may safely say with the same Saint else-where Vivo ego jam non ego vivit verò in me Christus 'T is not so mueh I that live as Gal. 2. Christ who lives in me Making me a new Creature by Internal Sanctification whereby I become Crucified to my Lusts and dead to the World that I may live to him who died for me Now we must know that there are infinite degrees of Internal Sanctification and the least degree is sufficient to put us in Gods favour and the state of Salvation and make us really Interiour Christians As the least Pigmy is as much essentially a man as the greatest Gyant This I mention least some timerous and well-meaning Souls who really endeavour to please God in sincerity of Heart reading in this Book and other Spiritual Authors more sublime and elevated wayes of advancing our union with God then they experience in themselves or perhaps ever shall in this Life should he discourag'd and tortur'd with scruples as if they did not serve God as they ought and were not truly Interiour Christians I must put such Souls in mind of what St. Paul tells us That there are diversities of Gifts but the 1 Cor. 12. same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will and pleases Some indeed are wonderfully elevated Saints rapt with St. Paul into the third Heaven ravish'd in an extatical manner with the Glimmerings of Glory and those joyes which may be felt but are inexpressible Such Contemplations and Unions with God are rare and admirable Others in their Re-collections and mental Prayer receive from Heaven Divine Visits and wonderful Illuminations which direct them how to purifie their Hearts more and more and to advance in Piety and Godliness These are great Proficients and walk in a region of Light above ordinary Christians But if Gods Holy Spirit has not vouchsaf'd us these special Gifts and Graces we ought not to be discourag'd in our Pious Endeavours but rest contented with our present state in the course of our Devotions if upon severe examination of our Conscience we find that with Zakariah and Elizabeth we really endeavour to walk in all the Commandments of God blameless and dayly make it our work to conquer our selves to mortifie our Passions to kill our Inordinate Desires and to make a progress in the wayes of Holiness This is sufficient to entitle us to Heaven and make us Interiour Christians though without raptures and extasies without visions and unions extraordinary without wonderful irradiations in mental Prayer which God only vouchsafes to some special Favourites Think upon this and be content with what measure of Grace Heaven bestows upon thee walking with God in true Humility of Soul and Spirit 'T is not much material good Reader in what order thou readest these excellent Instructions every Treatise containing a Compleat Subject independent on each other But my advice is to make those more familiar to thee wherein thou findest most gust and Spiritual profit to thy Soul This I am sure of whatever order thou observest they will highly conduce to the end they were written namely to withdraw our hearts from the Love of the World and to advance our Union with God by taking up our Cross to follow Jesus This is the Spirit and Soul of this Book and I heartily wish it may work these effects in every Reader In the perusal whereof Remember in thy Prayers Thine in Christ Jesus A. L. ADVERTISEMENTS I Thought good Courteous Reader to explain some terms frequently occurring in this Treatise to prevent mistakes in such who are not accustomed to such expressions The word Annihilation is not to be taken Physically but Morally Now a Moral Annihilation is to acknowledge our selves as St. Paul tells us Not able so much as to think a good thought as of our selves But that all our sufficiency is of God for whom is both the Will and the Work in Meritorious Actions Gratia Deisum id quod sum By Grace we are saved Our nothing our ruine self-destruction Poverty of Spirit are terms which for the most part signifie the same thing as Annihilation So that to ruine or destroy our selves is to bring our selves to this Annihilation Annihilation in some places signifies to be content to be thought of by others as of no worth or good for nothing an unworthy person of reputation And in this Sense 't is often applyed to our Blessed Saviour But that the Reader may the better
action CHAP. III. That the Centre of the Creature is his own Nothing OUr blessed Saviour gives me so clear a sight of my own Nothing and Unworthiness that I am convinc'd this is the place of my abode which I neither can nor ought to abandon When it pleases God to vouchsafe me no Heavenly influences in my Prayers and Recollections I have no cause to complain if the Dews of Heaven mollifie my heart they only flow from his pure mercy O how well-pleas'd am I with this view of my own weakness and unworthiness In this I acquiesce as in my Centre If it be your will my God to leave me in this place I am content for this is only belonging to me Provided you be in your place O my God it is enough that is to say in your own Being your Power your Grandeur your Glory Soli Deo honor gloria O how well are you in your place and I in mine Rest there then O my God and if you vouchsafe to prevent me with any of your graces I will abide contentedly in my place because I shall be surrounded with your mercy remaining in my Nothing my Weakness and Unworthiness Seeing I know it is God's pleasure that I continue in my place 't is evident I cannot forsake it without displeasing him 'T is my duty to abide fixed in my Nothing by a free acknowledgment that I can do nothing and can merit nothing for this is truth To forsake this and pretend to what I am not is but to live in deceit and vanity Vt quid diligitis vanitatem quaeritis mendacium Truth commands to shrink into our Nothing and rest there contentedly to please God who is Truth it self God to bring man back into his place and guide his feet into the way of truth did leave his own that is the grandeur and splendor of his Majesty and came to us in weakness in poverty in annihilation to shew us the way we ought to walk in out of which all is but deceit and vanity Man then must imitate the life of Jesus in the ways of annihilation and abjections O Jesus despised persecuted crucified do you vouchsafe to put your self in my place Alas this only belongs to Me a wretched sinner and 't is for You to live in Glory What is man become since the fall of Adam A very Nothing infirmity and frailty it self What is man in his sinful condition An Abyss of pride of blindness of aversion from God and conversion to the Creatures a mass of corruption of poverty and inability to good What then ought he to do He must humble himself annihilate himself plunge himself into the Abyss of his own Nothing and live in perpetual fear of his own frailty We shall never find God unless we lose our selves in self-contempt and abjections If in our retreats we profit so far as to rest convinced that the true way to come to God is to follow Jesus Christ in poverty and abjections and abnegation we gain what can be got by recollection When I see God affords me no great occasions to suffer contempt or pains or poverty I ought to be humbled in my own eyes because this is a sign I am but little in the sight of God who sees here nothing of grandeur which has not a great conformity with Christ crucified God has not design'd me for any great example of Virtue because he gives me so small a part in the profound abjections of his only Son which is all the portion he gave him here upon Earth having reserved for him in Heaven the full possession of his infinite Grandeurs and Perfections CHAP. IV. That the greatest Saints have attain'd to Perfection by a singular love of self-contempt and abjection COntempts and abjections are the dearest delights of the Friends of God Although exteriourly they may possess Riches yet their heart is well advanced in the esteem and love of Poverty If they live in Honours 't is but in appearance their hearts having an affection to be despised Nature indeed does not relish this kind of life because it fights continually against our sensual inclinations Human reason finds little or no gust herein seeking God only by her own light but Grace elevates a Soul above sense and reason pushing us on to supernatural actions Jesus Christ himself having resolv'd to embrace the folly of the Cross did not do it but by a supernatural impulse as is manifest by his combat with the inferiour part of his Soul in the Garden Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me Those who seem to us most wonderful Saints are such who have been super-eminent in self-contempt and abnegation Who does not admire the generous Spirit of holy Paula that Roman Lady who being enamour'd on the poverty and humiliations of Jesus forsook Rome and all her Relations to embrace a poor and abject life She that could have done very much for others with her Riches in that capital City did prefer the Stable at Bethlehem before sumptuous Palaces Elegi abjectus esse in domo Dei Alexius might have done God good service in a marriage life yet he was so ravish'd with the beauty of a life hidden and despicaple that he forsook Father Mother Wife Friends Possessions Honours which may be kept with a good conscience but having a Divine call to the eminency of an abject life by a wonderful miracle of grace he amidst his dear Relations would not suffer natural though lawful affection to take a lodging in his heart he afflicts himself with hunger in a House which belong'd to him he becomes the scorn and sport of those Servants to whom he was Master his heart continued constant and faithful to desire nothing but abjections and no batteries of human reason could conquer or weaken his resolutions O how this way is elevated above the low designs of our nature which is too much enamour'd on flattering vanities Many fly from abjections and sufferings thinking to glorifie God in a more noble manner by actions more glorious and profitable to others but this is rather to follow our own inclination than the example of Jesus Christ For we ought to serve him after his model and not according to our fancy and we see his life was a life of sufferings and humiliations 'T is wonderful to consider the elevated Soul of St. Armogastus a Count and great Seigneur condemned by the King a Persecuter of Religion to keep Beasts all his life and die by miseries and poverty in this employment 'T is wonderful to consider what a Kingdom and Sovereignty abjection had erected in the heart of this great Saint manifesting it self daily by supernatural actions For he loved nothing more dearly than to see himself buried in deep Oblivion and to be despised by all Creatures and the miseries he suffered in this low condition were the delights of his Soul Whilst other Nobles his Countrey-men and Contemporaries liv'd glorious with their Tryumphs in
too much rely on the Creatures that is on the means we use for our proficiency as the reading of good Books Conferences Sermons Meditation c. All these are very good when they are done with great confidence in God and fervent Prayer for nothing but an Almighty hand can pluck us out of the depth of our Miseries and crown us with Glory God is an infinite good in whom all fulness dwells and whatever good is in the Creature are but emenations from Him the Creature of it self being but a meer Vacuum and privation of goodness As we cannot conceive a greater fulness than is in God so we cannot imagine a more extreme indigency than is in the Creature 'T is the same thing to be God and all Goodness and to be a Creature and Nothing the One is all Abundance the Other all Poverty Every one grants this truth but without serious reflection which is the cause we have no true self-denial and diffidence in our own abilities and as much as we rely on our selves we hinder the operation of grace in us O my God! I am content with my Poverty because it brings me to the knowledge of your Riches I should forget what I am if I were not full of wants and imperfections I am well pleased that you are All and I am Nothing but what you vouchsafe to bestow on me The three Divine Persons can only proportionally communicate to each other their infinite Perfections I poor Creature can give nothing to God nor do any thing for him The best I can do is to acknowledge my inability and weakness neither can I do this without his grace which also he gives unto me There is so infinite a disproportion between God and a Creature that if I should lay down my life for God's sake it would be less than if a Pismire should die for the greatest Monarch Whatever the glorious Angels or Saints in Heaven or his Servants on Earth can do for God adds nothing to him We cannot dive into the full depth of our Nothing God only knows it and what we discover by it is by the illuminating Rays of his Grace and Mercy To understand this well we must know that God is not glorified by our good actions but inasmuch as they are agreeable to his will from whence they receive the tincture of goodness and he magnifies his bounty and mercy by accepting and rewarding our small performances So that the graces and favours he bestows upon us in this life and the glory of the other are the effects of his pure goodness 'T is very advantagious for a Soul thus to know her own Nothing for it makes her a Martyr of Love and loving God will do any thing for him and by this knowledge sees that of her self she can do nothing So that hanging as it were between will and weakness she breaths forth such desires as did St. Austin If I was God and you a Creature I would willingly become a Creature that you might be God But perceiving this to be an impossible imagination this poor Soul increases her Martyrdom and dies of love because not able to do any thing for her Beloved Yet this one consolation does revive her in that though she can do nothing her well-beloved can do all and taking delight in what he is and that he hath no need of any thing she reposes quietly in the bosom of God who is her all and final happiness CHAP. VII That God is glorified by our annihilation NOthing but Divine Faith can teach us to love mortification and the annihilation of our selves Natural and worldly wisdom cannot relish it and therefore are not to be consulted or hearkened to being but blind guides in the practice thereof The sin of pride has ruin'd the Glory and Kingdom of God in our Souls and that cannot be re-established but by our ruine and by how much the more we are mortified and dead to our selves by so much the more God is revived in us Poor Creatures as we are we afflict our selves because we are so weak and good for nothing without talents without knowledge that left to our selves all things go wrong with us O that we would learn to be content with these miseries that we might thereby arrive to the happy state of annihilation we might then bring as much glory to God as by great performances for in all these privations the Soul finds no relyance or consolation in her self or in any other Creature but in God alone Holy Job never brought more glory to God than when he was plung'd in the Abyss of humiliations on a Dunghil God glorifies himself in Heaven by the exaltation of his Creatures here on Earth by their humiliation Do we not see that the Wisdom of the eternal Father did prescribe to his Son this way of honouring him on Earth Hath not our blessed Saviour taught us by his words and actions in the constant practice of self-denial And think we to find out a better way to glorifie God than what our Divine Master hath set before us There 's nothing wherein a Creature can more purely glorifie the Creator than by a willing submission to that self-destruction which God works in us for where there is the least of the Creature there 's most of God But in this God does in a manner work all and the Creature yields obedience to his operations To bear patiently the deprivation of light and sweetness and sensible influences in Heaven in our recollections may do us more good than the most illuminated and gustful Prayer To be abandon'd and forsaken by our Friends and bear it with patience and resignation may more profit us than their friendship and services And so it is in the loss of other things because in derelictions and deprivations we seek God with a more purified intention there being less of self in it having not the satisfaction to act but only to receive the loss of what is dear to us meerly because it pleases God thus to deal with us for his greater glory 'T is a sad thing to consider the blindness wherein I have lived O how hard a thing it is for human reason to apprehend the Doctrine of the Son of God! 'T is true it teaches us to crucifie and deny our selves which is what naturally we fear and dread The measure of God's love to a Soul is to be judged by its degree of humiliation which is a way without all exception seeing the Gospel tells us that whosoever does not deny himself and all worldly things cannot be the Disciple of Jesus Christ O dear Jesus humbled for us I see the way wherein you have walked and that I must take up my Cross to follow you I am content to accept it and am willing to be your Disciple Be it then that my Body be afflicted with sickness my Goods lost my Honour in the dust and I become as I deserve of little or no esteem and repute Be it
let him but heap up his own miseries and lay himself thereon as Isaac was on the Altar and then sacrifice himself by a voluntary annihilation with the fire of Divine Love and God will be glorified thereby When a Soul is left to her self in Prayer so that aridities and desolations do darken her wonted light and deprive her of the usual feelings she had of God and Goodness she may make her address in these or such-like words My God! I am nothing and I am contented with all my heart with this dealing with me it is your pleasure thus to mortifie me and I have no other will but yours You have sometimes vouchsafed unto me illuminations and consolations which were dear unto me but now you are pleas'd to deprive me of them blessed be your name I am contented with your pleasure If poverty or ill success or sickness afflict us let us apply our selves to God with these or such-like words My God! I can do nothing of my self but I am well pleased with what you do unto me sacrifice me wholly to the grandeur of your Majesty whatever reluctance I find in Nature upon the Altar of my miseries and imperfections Little Isaac ready to be sacrificed by his Father's hand might have said these or such-like words I had hopes that in after-times I might have been signally instrumental for the glory of God and that according to his promise out of my Loins by continued Generations should come the Messias but I sacrifice all this before-hand and reflect on nothing but the Burnt-offering God is pleased to make of me by my Father's hand St. Lewis had hopes to establish the glory of Jesus Christ in Palestine but seeing his Army defeated he might comfort himself in saying O my God! seeing 't is not your pleasure to have it so but have humbled me and my Army by the Pestilence and Sword of your Enemies your will be done I submit unto it I behold the generous Enterprises of your Servants and their great Attempts and bless you for them but my comfort is in the consideration of my objections which have brought me to a state wherein I see God alone and possess Him in the denudation of all Creatures after the example of Jesus Christ Christus non sibi placuit whose work was only to do your will Let us not then so much disquiet our selves with our imperfections They are indeed but an ill brood and deserve not to be loved but we must bear them with patience seeing they serve to debase our selves in our own eyes and to conform us in some sort to the infinite humiliations of Jesus Christ crucified for us Man was created in the state of innocency now he is born in a sinful condition He has then had two opposite ways to conduct him to Glory The first was a state of Exaltation happy and enjoying all Creatures freely but the second is a state of Abjection in misery and denudation of all Creatures He that will walk a third way attempts above the condition of that from whence he is fallen and that provided for us after this life CHAP. X. The way how to arrive to perfect humiliation I Conceive three deprivations necessary to effect this First the deprivation of all exteriour things as Riches Honours Pleasures This is the first advance a Soul must make to draw near to God for as long as there remains the least inordinate affection to these things she can never make any great progress in finding God being fetter'd as it were by other affections and so cannot have perfect possession of God being excluded by the Creatures which more or less take up the heart When necessity or charity require it we may have the real possession of these things and live only in disposition of spirit and affective poverty However it will be matter of joy to be freed from them because for the most part they rather hinder than advance us towards union with God And if we have not a great care Nature will cheat us with a pretext of Charity and helping others which is but a good illusion for sometimes they who have the less Riches have the more charitable hearts 'T is good counsel to forsake Riches and Honours when it may be done conveniently but when by secret tracts of Divine Providence they forsake us 't is our duty to possess our Souls in patience and be contented which is in a manner better than if we our selves had left them especially when we believe these losses happen'd by our own fault and imbecility for this brings us to a greater abjection and self-contempt which is the centre whither we ought to tend If there was nothing else good in poverty but this that it mortifies our liberty and independance whereof naturally we are so amorous 't is a great happiness to be enrich'd therewith When we are out of Employment and Honour in the world we are look'd upon as unprofitable and easily forgotten and forsaken by our best Friends 't is so much the better for our humiliation This is the second deprivation that we must suffer O the great Grace that is necessary to carry on a Soul to God when we are despised by our Friends whereby they become rather the subject of affliction than affection to us Without doubt we have a strong inclination to them to whom we are so glew'd that without some great and special grace we can never mortifie our selves therein without some attach to conserve such friendship They are happy occasions whereby we are depriv'd of our Friends without sin in losing them we lose a great upholder of self-love in us St John Baptist when very young left his Father's house to live in a Desart with God alone Great Saint they are Saints whom you forsake I know that very well says he but they are my Relations that have an affection for me O what a violence is this to nature For when an attach to Friends especially if virtuous seems more spiritual and reasonable than any other affection to mortifie our selves in this is an extraordinary Sacrifice to God and only granted to such Souls whom he carries on to great perfection But we must pass further yet For there 's a third deprivation to lose our selves which is to be esteem'd as Fools for Christ's sake according to that of St. Paul Nos stulti propter Christum To love to obey and be in subjection to have no reason and yet to renounce our own reason and to enthrone Faith in our Souls for direction O how the pure light of Faith discovers to us that we ought to be well pleased to have no great natural parts but to be as it were good for nothing For the view thereof if it come to the heart does powerfully annihilate the natural inclination we have to be esteemed To consent willingly to be abject and despised is a great means to empty us of this self-self-love and according to the measure of this evacuation
is the degree of perfection O my God! how hard a thing is it for us not to seek our selves and not at all to pretend to esteem and excellence The desire we have thereof is as intime to us as the marrow of our bones and in a manner in all our actions whether for our selves or our Neighbours we seek more or less our own excellence The greatest Saints have had little esteem of their own Talents in their own eyes when they have been obliged to make them glorious in the sight of others And unless they did cause them to appear for the good of others they did tend to humiliation plunging themselves in their own Nothing to bring down thereby all Pride of heart CHAP. XI That we ought to leave our selves wholly to God to become annihilated IF we put our selves into the hands of Jesus Christ he will treat us as his Father treated him for Divine Love has severity as well as Divine Justice Happy is that Soul which all on fire with Divine Love is not content nor satisfied till she has so wholly sacrifie'd her self to God that the love of the Creature is burn'd to nothing This Love is a Sun full of fire and light which by little and little draws up the vapours from the Earth that is the Creatures and drinks them up I have a business in hand which puts me to hard labour namely to mortifie my self in spirit and affection to all Creatures if I can bring it about I shall be happy All that I have done hitherto is but a preparation to take up my Cross and entirely to follow Christ in his humiliations I see him born in a poor abject manner in the eyes of men and thus like a Gyant he begins the course of his abjections Why do we delay to follow him by annihilation poverty and self-contempt Let 's never leave him whatsoever we suffer For my part I have made a solemn protestation that I will follow him so close by being crucified to the world that every moment of my life I shall be able to say 'T is not I that live but Jesus crucified who lives in me Let us not wonder at the proceedings of Jesus Christ who preaches to us nothing but death and annihilation the Cross and abnegation 'T is because our Soul infected with sin wherein we are conceived is so strongly corrupted that all her operations are impure Jesus Christ is come by his grace to cleanse this impurity which is so deeply fixed and in grain that except we resolutely correspond to the workings of grace in us we shall still remain in our imperfections which grace tends to bring us to self-contempt and annihilation Having this day received my Saviour in the blessed Sacrament I kept my self as it were wholly annihilated while he continued in me and permitted him to in me and for me what he pleased both in relation to his Father and my poor Soul and those persons for whom I had interceded in the dreadful Sacrifice It seems to me I ought not to mingle the operations of an impure Creature with those of Jesus O that Jesus would alone work in me what is my duty I ought to plunge my self in my own Nothing in his presence If I must love God Jesus will work this in me if I must pray Jesus will be my Advocate if I must glorifie his Father he will glorifie him and I will sweetly consent to all his operations O Jesus be you All that I may be Nothing work your will in me I will remain in my Nothing to let you work all in me without resistance Many good Souls honour the abjections of Jesus Christ but few will practice them or imitate his poverty and humiliations Shall we think that it did not beseem you to be so debased and thus to suffer O Jesus is not this to make no account of your example and condemn you of Folly who are the Wisdom of the Father 'T is a great folly to be thus censorious and certainly the more we participate of your poverty and humiliations the more we participate of your wisdom Come then O my Soul let us follow Jesus poor and abject and live poor with him and thereby testifie our love to him and our fidelity CHAP. XII That we must renounce our sense and human reason to love humiliations THe impediments that our sensitive part brings to perfection are easie to be discovered but the interpositions of human reason are nice and delicate and few discover them They are hard to conquer and many cannot be persuaded of their badness for reason is ingenious to seduce by a thousand fair pretences which we dare hardly condemn appearing so reasonable but the example of Jesus Christ is above all reason and human prudence What reason was there that the Roman Emperours should live in tryumphs that cruel Herods should shine with Honours and melt in Pleasures that the hard-hearted Jews should enjoy all worldly contents and abundance and in the interim the Son of God should be born in a Stable should fly by night into Aegypt live a poor life in a shop with a Carpenter overwhelm'd with pains and disgraces However these are the proceedings of the eternal Father to confound thereby our human prudence and teach us to renounce our selves if we will be good followers of Jesus Christ As long as we give more ear to the persuasions of human reason than to the light of Faith we shall never make any great progress in Piety If one be in a poor and abject condition human prudence is for Advancement and Riches when any occasion presents it self If one be born to Honours and Possessions reason says Leave them not to become poor and abject How can we draw our selves out of Nature to imitate Divine Jesus if we will always follow the Maxims of men We are very busie to live in the world according to our condition but we do not remember sufficiently that our chiefest care ought to be to live the life of Jesus Christ and let all other obligations give place unto it Jesus Christ executing the eternal purposes of his Father in a poor despised painful life did infinitely glorifie him thereby Before the Incarnation God was not infinitely lov'd and glorified out of himself but only in himself inasmuch as the humiliations of one that is God brings an infinite glory to God which before he had not A Christian Soul likewise executing the divine Will of the eternal Father by following his Son in a life of humiliations and self-contempt does glorifie him with sovereign Honour For 't was decreed from all Eternity that the Members should live the life of the Head Quos praedestinavit conformes fieri and first suffer with him that they may at last with him be glorified All human reason must yield to this divine determination O Jesus how strange are the foundations of that perfection to which you call us They are nothing but Deaths Renunciations
to their substance is to keep our selves in the bounds of human reason to which they are conformable but to observe them in an elevated manner so as our obedience may be meritorious to follow Divine Inspirations in loving Contempts Poverty Mortifications and embrace Evangelical Counsels To do this we must be elevated above our selves and live a Supernatural Life See then what I understand by a Supernatural and Christian Life To live Christianly is to live according to the Spirit of Jesus according to the Grace of Jesus the New Man A Grace far different from the Grace given to old Adam in the state of Innocency A Life more holy and more eminent and which carries along with it different effects and contrary proceedings The Grace of Adam did enable him to use the Creatures virtuously and by the holy use of Pleasures Honours and Riches to arrive to his final happiness This was the way of the state of Innocency from whence being fallen the infinite Wisdom hath found out another way quite different which is the way of privations of the Cross of sufferings of humiliations in which Jesus Christ marched from the first moment of his Incarnation to his last breath on the Cross This is the true foundation of the Christian Life this is the true Principle this is the only way out of which there is no Salvation or Perfection Worldly men and too many Christians are ignorant of it and not knowing supereminentem Scientiam Jesu Christi this supereminent Science of Jesus Christ they know nothing as they ought because they know not Jesus crucified This Doctrine is harsh to flesh and blood and wholly contrary to the Spirit of the World But the Saints have practis'd it and I must walk the same way except I will be very faithless and renonnce the Spirit of Jesus Christ O my God! I will become a New Man in my Understanding Will Life Proceedings and to this end I will change my Doctrine my Principles and Maxims I will deny my self and take up my Cross to follow Jesus I will be content with Poverty Contempt and Mortifications my inclinations shall tend this way for the future and sufferings for your sake shall be delights unto me And if I do otherwise it shall not be through wilfulness but human weakness O good Jesus give me to live with you a crucified Life on Earth that you may make me partaker of your glorified Life in Heaven There is a time for all things This is a life of Sufferings the other of Enjoyments O blindness of Christians not to see the excellency of the Christian Life Some are busie to make themselves fit for worldly Employments some are all for Science others for War c. but few make it their chief work to become good Christians as being of little value with them O the ignorance of Christians not to see that all things besides are pure vanity CHAP. II. Of the high esteem we ought to have of the Christian Life JESUS on the day of his Ascension was elevated to the highest Heavens where he sits at the right hand of God upon which my Soul rejoyc'd with her Saviour in admiration of his Tryumphs and breathing out after him a thousand Praises and Benedictions with all Saints and Angels found motions in my self to follow him not to Heaven but to Mount Calvary not in his Tryumphs but Humiliations O my Jesus said she that I was elevated above my self that I could so keep Nature under as to live a supernatural Life and tryumphing over human Reason and natural Maxims I may repose quietly in the Bosom of your Cross and there live happily in that content the world knows not with that peace which passeth all understanding I know that all the Patriarchs which you led in tryumph were justly ravished with joys unspeakable But if you please to raise me by Grace to a supernatural Life I will not envy their happiness They are elevated to Enjoyment but as for me I am for Privation for Contempt and Miseries which seem to me being suffered for your sake dear Jesus more delicious than Paradice If I persevere with Fidelity in a crucified Life I will not trouble my self about the life of Glory But alas my frequent falls and failings by reason of my weakness and inconstancy make me desire that Life where is no fault or imperfection The ascension of a Soul to Heaven O how delightful is it the ascension of a Soul to a supernatural Life O 't is admirable How happy are they who are acquainted with it O my God! clear up the eye of Faith in me that I may behold the wonders you work in Souls in this valley of tears What if I say That a Soul is as happy and tryumphant in going out of her self for the love of the Cross to embrace abjection as in going out of the World to possess Heaven So many sallies as she makes out of her self for the love of the Cross are so many glorious ascensions which delight even God himself the Saints and Angels beholding it with admiration The same Faith which opens my eyes to see Jesus poor and abject does assure me that the triumph of a Soul in humiliations is no less admirable than in Glory What can be done more to make us have the highest esteem of this supernatural Life when we see God the Father among so many possible ways hath from all eternity chosen this for his Son while he liv'd upon Earth How did his well-beloved Son who is infinitely wise leave the bosom of his Father with joy to embrace this life with love and affection How did the holy Spirit who reposed in his breast as the centre of his more noble sentiments carry him on by most powerful inspirations to the Cross Contempts Poverty Humiliations during the whole course of this mortal life What other way can those who belong unto Christ take to make themselves conformable to him but by treading in his steps But when our blessed Saviour liv'd in the world this wonderful life Mundus eum non cognovit the world knew him not because he lay hid in poverty pains and sufferings In like manner those who live a life most conformable to him the world knows them not for we must have eyes cleared by Divine Irradiations to discover the excellency of this state And yet so much Glory and Grandeur is enveloped in the shadows of this Life that they who live it do most glorifie God and exalt his Honour Take courage then and let us tend to the perfection of Divine Love which we shall find in the solid practice of this supernatural Life Let others do what they please we will follow the conduct of God's holy Spirit and march stoutly after Jesus Christ abject and crucified O what happy advantages enjoys that Soul to whom God is pleas'd to give a view of this supernatural Life a Life hidden and unknown to worldly men 'T is of more worth than all
hath espoused the folly of the Cross and 't is his will I shall do so likewise and shall not I do his will O my God! I am content to be depriv'd of what the world loves and desires leave but me the folly of the Cross I shall be rich enough O amiable folly he who knows thee cannot but love thee What a fool have I been to embrace thee no sooner Behold my Soul thou art engaged and this engagement makes thee fearful Quare tristis es anima mea quare conturbas me But why O my Soul art thou disquieted 'T is true for the future thou must suffer injuries affronts pains of body troubles of mind be content with annihilations and abjections be pleas'd with disgraces be the play-game of Worldlings and esteemed as a Fool yea to be ill spoken of by some Devotes Thou must not be cast down with ill successes whether thou be in fault or no Thou must drink deep of the Cup of humiliations see others exalted and love to be humbled yea though by spiritual Desolations Take courage O my Soul we can do all things through Christ strengthening us I confess the greatness of my engagement would have quite cast me down being sensible of my own wonderful weakness if I had not been supported by the infinite mercy and goodness of God Wherefore I must love the Cross which I have espoused for ever I shall find my self well enough in this alliance if I do but continue faithful for the more I converse with it I shall the more discover its Beauty my fears will vanish my passions will be appeas'd and being in peace my Soul will be enlarged and melt in love towards this Spouse which tho' black is wonderful comely If I love the Cross it must needs be an effect of pure Grace my own frailties bearing witness but at present I find my self in great disposition of love O how weak is my Soul when left to her self O how strong is she when supported by Grace O my Jesus 't is your love and your example that makes me love the sacred folly of the Cross which you have so dearly loved as to die in its embraces When I consider a God crucified methinks I discover certain rays of Beauty which make the horror of Mount Calvary seem wonderful amiable and I can hardly be satisfied with looking on this lovely object and say O my Jesus how delightful is it to see the beauty of a God dying for men This beauty indeed is not in his sacred visage for that was all disfigured with blood and buffettings but in that God was pleased to die on the Cross for men and the eternal Father took complacence in this beauty I cannot explicate what is this beauty unless by the effect it produces in me for verily my Soul sees nothing besides this to captivate my sight Jesus only in his humiliations and sufferings on the Cross commands my eyes and my heart When I consider the other states of the life of Jesus his Incarnation Nativity Solitude Conversation and the like I find in them a beauty invites me to behold them with delight because I discover certain irradiations to beam from the obscurities and humiliations of these states which are very ravishing I often say with my self How lovely is the abjection of this state How is the poverty of that admirable And in all I perceive the beauties of a sacred Folly which the infinite Wisdom would make use of to confound the false Maxims of worldly Prudence O what a favour have you in mercy done for me O my God to discover to me the beauty of this Divine Folly which to worldly men seems nothing but deformity But what abundance of Grace do you vouchsafe me by enabling me to make so strict an alliance with it I have espous'd it I will live with it I will die with it and nothing shall ever divorce me from it CHAP. V. How we ought to conform our Interiour to that of Jesus Christ. OUr Interiour ought to be conformable to that of Jesus Christ that as his Members we may be governed and animated by his Spirit that having part of his Grace as Christians part of his light from his Doctrine part of his inclinations to put us upon practice we may be so transformed into Jesus as to have a perfect union with him And this is that wherein lies the excellency of a Christian this is that which makes Christians indeed and to do and suffer as becomes Christians 'T is a strange thing to see what little knowledge we have of the Christian life Some who have left Nature to follow Grace suppose it consists in doing much for God and for the good of our Neighbour by preaching instructing giving Alms and such-like charitable exercises This is good indeed but we must form the Interiour Christian and then we shall do best for others what God calls us to undertake The Interiour consists in Illustrations inward Teachings Sentiments and affections of the Soul If those be high and elevated the Interiour is so likewise But the Soul of Jesus had the most elevated illustrations possible of the excellency of Self-denial Poverty Pains Abjections and the Cross and from thence a singular love and esteem for them These irradiations and affections were infus'd into his most beautiful Soul the first moment of his Incarnation and continued to his last breath on the Cross The eternal Father who by this New Adam would repair his Glory which was obscur'd by Old Adam's fall amongst the infinity of means which lay treasur'd up in the bosom of his Omniscience and Omnipotency chose this of the Cross which his Son made Flesh embraced cherished loved and put in execution all his life-time esteeming Contempts Crosses Sufferings as things great and excellent preferring the interest of the Glory of his Father before the satisfactions of his sacred Humanity which had a natural repugnance to them By how much the more then that a Soul is partaker of the Divine Spirit and Interiour of the Son of God by so much the more she esteems and loves the Cross and consequently does more glorifie God the Father For to suffer is to make a continual Sacrifice of our Pleasures and Interests uniting our selves to the design the Son of God had by suffering to repair the Glory of his Father Wherefore when a Soul ceases to value and love the Cross and Humiliations she is no more conform to the Soul of Jesus and so does not glorifie God the Father in a high manner but when she feels in her self a high esteem and love of the Cross she highly glorifies the eternal Father who takes great delight in her in that she resembles his well-beloved Son When a Soul is enlightned with these irradiations she sees her Glory is to be despised because her Glory is to procure the Glory of God which she does most by humiliations She finds her delight to be in suffering because her
up with the super-eminent knowledge of Jesus Christ she cannot understand why she should dread crosses mortifications nor how 't is possible for men to apply themselves so much to the affairs of the world and so little to the concerns of Eternity Carnal prudence believes these Maxims to be Chimaera's but in reality they are solid Verities She thinks the contrary Maxims to be Truths which in effect are but meer Illusions and Vanities What more convincing evidence can be given hereof than the example of the Son of God The sacred Humanity of Jesus entred into the highest and most eminent alliance with God that ever was or can be by being united hypostatically to the Divinity And so being united to an infinite Verity without doubt by this alliance entred into the possession of all real good But what was the consequence of this alliance The greatest humiliation that ever was What profit arrived to Jesus Christ thereby He became the most abject persecuted despised of all Creatures And why all this Because being so strictly allied to Verity he could not but have the possession of all veritable goods belonging to his mortality and being so intimately united to the Divinity he entred into a strict obligation to procure the interests of his Father But the best means to repair the Glory of God offended by the pride of sinners was humiliations sufferings annihilation The sacred Humanity therefore would suffer and die to repair the injuries done to God and to purchase Souls for him that might adore and love him to all Eternity This being considered let men tell me that Honours Pleasures and Riches are true goods to be desired and I will answer with the Psalmist Omnis homo mendax that every man 's a Lyar. I will hold close to the eternal Verity who hath taught me by his words and example That pains poverty humiliations are the true goods that a Christian ought to esteem and love above all things But 't is a very hard matter to dive into the bottom of this Verity it must be a great and powerful supernatural illumination can only do it O how happy is that Soul which sees sufficiently to disern Verity from Vanity A great number of Christian Verities lie hidden to us because we acquiesce in only human appearances which are vanities and cloak real truths from our eyes Jesus was born in a poor Stable under the appearance of the Edict of Augustus Caesar nevertheless this was in verity the design of the eternal Father hidden under this Edict The Emperour executed his vanity and the eternal Father at the same time executed the verity of his Divine Decrees Herod made Jesus flie into Aegypt we judge he did it for fear he should take his Crown from him And 't was in effect the eternal Father who crown'd himself in bringing about his sacred Ordinations by such mysterious proceedings O how the exercise of a Christian Life and the study of its mysteries discovers to a Soul admirable Verities And besides this all is but vanity CHAP. XII There are many ways in Christianity all which are according to the Life of Jesus Christ. 'T Is a great pity to see how we trouble our Brains with nice subtleties and daily find out some pretence or other to excuse us from the practice of this supernatural life as having not proper qualifications for it Now there is no condition for which Jesus hath not formed a Model for a supernatural life 1. For he himself hath led divers lives on Earth One was a life of a sufferings chiefly at the time of his passion 2. Another was a hidden unknown despised life almost all his days except the last years when the Glory of his Father and the Salvation of Mankind did necessitate his manifestation 3. Another was an illuminative life by his Divine Sermons when he preach'd as our Doctor to instruct the People 4. Another was a liberal and charitable life as when he fed his Auditors miraculously in the Wilderness and healed all manner of Diseases 4. Another was a life of converse as when he treated with the Jews to bring them to Faith and Repentance 6. Another was a life all of sweetness and extraordinary illuminations as on Mount Tabor 7. Another was a life of Contemplation as when he passed whole nights in prayer 8. Another was a life of mortification and fasting as when tempted by Satan in the Desart Now Jesus led all these lives so different to instruct Christians who are his Members and in them shall live to the worlds end so as they may truly say with St. Paul Vivo ego jam non ego c. I live yet not I but Jesus who lives in me Jesus hath honoured all these states of his life in his Church on Earth Some hath chosen to honour his suffering life and in a manner it seems they are proper for nothing else Others he chooses to honour his abject life and in this they are excellent never ceasing to glorifie highly the abjections of Jesus Christ by being well-pleased with their humiliations for the love of God God hath in his House those sorts of Servants who are thought by some to be unprofitable being neither proper to suffer much nor procure the good of others spiritual or temporal and so are despis'd and of no repute but judg'd a charge to Religion and nothing serviceable and 't is thought a mighty matter to endure them O Divine Light of Abjection descend from Heaven and enlighten poor Souls What changes wilt thou make in them What glory will they return to God O the blindness of some who are spiritual not to know how to be content with the portion that Jesus gives them and live the life which he assigns them 'T is decreed in Eternity that I shall live a life of abjection and I will needs live an active life not proper for me O Christian whoever thou art it matters not what life thou livest provided thou dost honour the life of Jesus If thou desirest nothing but the will of God any one of his ways will content thee If thou beest well mortified and annihilated in thy self thou wilt be content to glorifie God so much and in that manner as best pleases him A hidden life glorifies God as well as an active have a care in desiring one for the other under a false zeal to do more for God Perhaps herein thou secretly seekest after Fame and Splendor but this is rather to desire the Honour of the life of Jesus than purely the life of Jesus Christ A purity where Nature cannot find what she desires O the happy state of denudation which ravishes the Angels with admiration A Soul that has mounted to this point hath left all Creatures below her and can truly say with holy David Quid mihi est in Caelo aut à te quid volui super Terram God is the only object of my desires To be plung'd in abjection is to find God purely
Behold whither a Soul is conducted whom many think good for nothing O how the judgments of men are different from the thoughts of God! Let then every one honour God by the way and life that is proper for them otherwise they will fall into perturbations of spirit and being disquieted will become troublesom to themselves and others But this is not the work of a day we shall find it a hard task to become dead to the world and our selves Every state is good yea the most abject All Grace is excellent yea the least and meanest There are many sorts of Graces which we perhaps do not much value and yet are really to be more esteemed than Visions Rapts or Revelations To labour and suffer for God is of greater worth than Extasies 'T is a truth well enough known by many though practis'd but by few that a little matter hinders the operation of God's grace in us One only small natural inclination unmortified suffices to retard our progress to perfection For this reason we must exactly die to all Creatures annihilate in us every motion that tends not to God some way or other As for example To give no refreshment to the body by meat drink or sleep c but for necessity We must also mortifie in us the desire of Honour and temporal Commodities yea love abjection pains and poverty willing nothing but what may conduce to advance God's glory I more value the union of a Soul with God in humiliations and sufferings than in consolations CHAP. XIII Some Maxims concerning a Supernatural Life O God! what a poor Christian am I in occasions of tryal I have imprinted in me some Idaea's and Sentiments of a supernatural Life but when it comes to put them in practice my timerous Nature shrinks and makes excuses to shun sufferings and then the occasion being over I have great regreat for not being couragious and come to know thereby my little Virtue and small Perfection I then see that the rule of Perfection is the conformity which we have with Jesus crucified poor and abject When that is great our Perfection is great also But that I find I have little or no affective conformity with Jesus crucified Behold here those lights and directions I have learnt by conference with a holy person and are good for my practice and solid establishment in a supernatural life 1. We must accustom our body to austerities exercising it with loving chastisements for our own transgressions and the sins of others 2. We can never attain to contemplation and a perfect love of the Divinity but by passing first by Jesus crucified poor and abject We see him poor and despised attended with few followers because we refuse to walk in those rough paths he hath set before us 3. We must have an ardent love for solitude and recollection to the end we may be wholly for God and correspond faithfully to the inspirations of his holy Spirit And although we ought to have a general indifferency to all states and calls of God yet 't is better to incline rather to retirement and solitude not meerly to enjoy the sweetness thereof but that we may not be wanting to co-operate with the Grace of God vouchsaf'd unto us Holy solitude is the region of Divine Communications Ducam eam in solitudinem loquar ad cor ejus saith God by the Prophet I will lead a Soul into solitude and speak interiourly to her heart 4. The reason why we see so few even devout Christians make progress in perfection is because they limit the Grace they have received hindring its enlargement by natural arguments and human prudence They say 'T is enough for me to do this or that I ought not to aspire to so high perfection those who live in the world cannot be so elevated in the ways of God These and such-like excuses they make which hinder the Grace of God from working fully what he intended If we did but consider the ardent desire that Jesus hath to advance Souls in the ways of Divine love and how ready he is to bestow on us new Graces upon our faithful corresponding with the former we would be both ravished and ashamed also to be so backward in giving our selves up to the conduct of God who desires nothing so much as that we may love him perfectly and enjoy him eternally But as while Jesus was on Earth 't is said of him That the world knew him not and his own received him not for seeing him born in a Stable circumcis'd as a sinner live poorly as a Carpenter persecuted accused condemned to die an infamous death on the Cross they wou'd not take him for the promised Messias so as yet he is not well known and many Christians themselves do not receive him nor let his Spirit and Maxims reign in their hearts Yea some who profess the way of perfection do not as they ought esteem and embrace his humiliations and abjections For we too much desire Honour and Preferment and too much fear abjection and suffering O my Soul what hast thou done hitherto not to have as yet begun this life crucified and annihilated I confess my folly and blindness O my God! make me presently to set upon it and let not any day pass over without the happiness of suffering something for your love CHAP. XIV What content a Soul receives in a Supernatural Life WE have oftentimes no need of any other care than to be faithful to an ordinary way of Devotion without pretending to what is extraordinary and we have reason to fear that motions now and then to undertake a life of greater perfection may proceed rather from a seeking of our own excellency than a true desire of pleasing God Among these dangers blindness and obscurities we stand in great need of the light of Grace and conduct of some holy Person who is able to discern what is best for us However putting our confidence in God and living in an entire dependence on him we shall find peace and quiet of mind If we have desires for any thing let it be for such things as Jesus crucified desired for they are contrary to our natural inclinations And though there may possibly occur some self-seeking yet this is the way of Grace inasmuch as the Found of our Soul is agreeable to the Interiour of Jesus and not to that of Adam Let us have a desire to be mortified daily with good St. Paul Mortificamur tota die We must endeavour to draw profit from incommodities and ill successes by using them for the advancement of Grace in us By this means we shall purifie our selves and the Interiour of our Souls will empty it self and make room for the spirit of Jesus Christ bringing with him joy and peace unspeakable When we shall have found out the corruption of our heart our inability to any good yea to the least good thought as of our selves 't is not for us to aspire after the most
eminent ways but judging our selves unworthy thereof and content with little our Saviour shall please to give us we must co-operate humbly and faithfully with that small portion of Grace we have already and not grow idle wishing for those eminent Graces wherewith perhaps our Souls shall never be beautified This is one of the chiefest points of humility to be content with that little portion we have in the state of Grace and judge our selves unworthy of God's favour 'T is true there 's nothing we ought so highly esteem as Grace and its increase in us and desire it of God with incessant prayers but this must be with perfect submission to his Divine will and pleasure that we may not disturb the peace of our Souls On one side I behold my extreme misery and I find my self so depressed that all my natural strength and endeavours do what they can to the utmost can never bring me out of my self On the other side I burn with desire to be wholly for God by living a supernatural and spiritual life It is to you O Divine Spirit I address my sighs the infinite source of all Graces you know I have a longing to live this spiritual life in the exercise whereof I shall find the true practice of Divine Love by which I shall satisfie my ardent desires to be wholly for Jesus and shall live no more after my natural inclinations and the Maxims of human Prudence But I see how impossible it is for me to attain this unless you vouchsafe to assist me with your illuminations against my darkness with your strength against my weakness with your continual supplies against my relapses For how often O Divine Spirit have I begun this supernatural life and fallen from it conquer'd by my Nature and worldly temptations Draw me after you so powerfully and continually that I may no more return into my self but may follow your attracts with perseverance I will follow you dear Jesus in the states of your mortal life in annihilations contempts poverty and sufferings And if I lose the sight of you in those obscurities which sometimes cloud my Soul yet let me not lose courage Provided I continue in your ways that is in the esteem and love of the true Christian Life you will not be far from me it being impossible that Jesus annihilated and suffering should not be near to a Soul suffering and annihilated Well then though we may lose the sight of Jesus the light we have in Prayer leaving us though we feel him not by sensible influences yet we are assured that he is near us if we be in his ways by self-denial and a love of humiliations for his sake O how happy is a Soul to be content to follow the annihilations of Jesus without the feeling of his persumes and sweetnesses She does practice the purity of love in this condition For to be deprived of light and consolations which is very harsh to Nature and suffer it contentedly is one of the most excellent acts of a spiritual life which consists chiefly in a perfect resignation to suffer as well inwardly as outwardly when God pleases I am very sensible by experience that there 's a vast difference between thinking and doing talking and living this true Christian life When we meet with no repugnance we find it not difficult to practice Virtue whereof the Idaea's are as sweet as the Acts are bitter of such as consist in privations and sufferings I am in a state wherein I feel repugnances and am resolved thereby to humble my self the more and keep the peace of my Soul by an entire confidence of the succours which the Grace of God will vouchsafe unto me I consider that nothing was more seeble than the Apostles before Pentecost They hid themselves abandon'd their Master in his sufferings and Peter deny'd him but after they had received the Holy Ghost he infus'd such strength into their Souls that they became powerful and couragious to admiration CHAP. XV. That 't is impossible to live this Supernatural Life by Human Prudence THe supernatural Life is a continual mortification of depraved Nature 1. For 't is certain First That we cannot live this excellent life but by annihilating our sense and reason 2. Secondly That this life is wholly according to the Spirit which cannot be but the Spirit of God which inspires the Soul with his influences and sacred motions 3. Thirdly That the Soul which lives this life must be elevated above sense und reason whether it be in Prayer or the practice of Virtue which cannot be done but by offering up her self to God as a continual Sacrifice That though oftentimes w must do things sensual as to eat and drink yet these must be done as Grace directs us And other things according to reason as to love our Relations and Friends yet this must be only in God and as his Oracles do dictate to us O life of Grace how art thou a continual death and mortification Who lives Christianly lives a Martyrdom Tota vita Christiana Crux est Martyrium However 't is a joyful Martyrdom for solid joy cannot but make glad the Soul where Grace inhabits O that this fundamental truth of our Salvation did once well sink into our hearts The Son of God and eternal King of Glory leaves the bosom of his Father and becomes man to live and die in infinite humiliations Jesus gives us life by his death He puts us in a state of Grace by ruining himself according to Nature He purchases Eternity for us by yielding up his temporal life And the Evangelist expressing his death doth on set purpose use these words Emisit Spiritum He sent forth his Spirit Without doubt he sent it into the hearts of his faithful Servants to the end they may learn to live by his Spirit to him who died for them So says St. Paul Misit Deus Spiritum Filii sui in corda nostra ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est What remains then but that we banish our carnal Spirit which carries us on to sensual delights although sometimes not sinful Let us love the Spirit of penance of suffering of self-denial and humiliations Gerson hath an excellent saying By how much the more Nature is mortified by so much the more Grace is infused We must often call to mind that the Grain of Wheat cast into the Earth except it die cannot bring forth fruit If we do not die to our selves and the World and the Spirit of Nature we can never become perfect Christians nor bring forth the fruits of Divine Love We must be as nothing before men that we may be something in the sight of God Why should the Disciple be above his Master The Spirit of Grace and the Spirit of Nature do continually jar and war one against the other The exercise of the spiritual life will afford us light to discern their different motions but when
of God and his Divine perfections Let such a Soul be in light or darkness in peace or war elevated or dejected she is still the same because God's will is hers and she desires nothing but what pleases him Her chief care is to give her self up wholly to Gods will in so great variety of Interiour states And why should a Soul be concern'd at this variety For if I purely desire to please God 't will be all one to me whether I do it by suffering or enjoying CHAP. X. That we ought to give our selves up with confidence to Divine Providence DEar Lord draw the passions and affections of my heart wholly after you O that I could go out of my self to abide only in you Oh that I had no love but for you no fear no desire no joy but in you and that my affections were only for you O that your Grace would mortifie in me the fears hopes sadness and desires of nature that you might be the sole Object of my love This is the purity we must aim at or else we possess our Soul in vain Our blessed Saviour saith in the Gospel That one Sparrow shall not be forgotten of God Why then have we such fears to want who are chiefly call'd upon to rely on Providence If God permits us to be in want 't is to bring us to perfection by sufferings God is pleas'd to give us daily his precious Body and will he deny us Bread I cannot believe it All thoughts to to the contrary are from the Enemy or nature sollicitous for the things of this Life My confidence ought to be in God alone Though it happen that we fall into troubles temptations or sickness which seem to deprive us of the good temper of Soul to attend to our devotions we ought to abandon our selves to the good pleasure of God and say God only and his holy Will If the Idaea of some state of perfection presents it self to the understanding if we make some resolutions upon the feelings of an actual favour we ought the more entirely abandon our selves to God and say I desire God only and his holy Will This abandon makes a Soul peaceable and content and dead to the World to which though she may feel some motions of affection yet they are troublesom and gain no consent In this state she is wholly absorpt in God finding her repose in him alone and out of him is no contentment It seems to her that whatever accidents may happen they shall not disturb her quiet she is grounded in God her Soveraign peace And though she may feel some emotions in the inferiour part they do not reach the Superiour Faculties We must be perfect as God will have us not as we will have it the ways of God are far different from the judgments of men The World believ'd that King Lewis must be Sainted by conquering the Holy Land God made him him a Saint indeed but not by his Victories but his Captivity not by his Triumphs but his Sufferings We intend to Sanctity our selves by actions and God will do it by afflictions We must give our selves up to his conduct absolutely abandon our selves to his Will and only love his designs When shall I be so mortified to my own endeavours as to abandon my self wholly to Divine Providence I must follow purely the designs of God love only his good pleasure put my confidence in him and he will have a care of me in such a way as shall be best to advance his Glory Doubtless 't is an effect of Grace in us not to rely on our own Providence but to depend chiefly on Gods assistance We must therefore elevate our selves above nature which relies on Creatures and fears wants and abhors sufferings that we may put our sole confidence in God Whoever trusted in him and was confounded There be as well Martyrs of Providence as Martyrs for Faith They are more hidden and sometimes suffer little less than the other being content with all occurrences of Providence which deprive them of their Goods or Honours or call their Lives in question for Conscience sake And sometimes to enjoy God in a more perfect way they despise and forsake the accommodations of this life that they may Sacrifice themselves to God with the flames of Divine Love in Pious Exercises Or if Providence has so order'd that they should be born subject to Deseases and Miseries they bear them with perfect resignation There be also Spiritual Martyrs whom Providence has order'd to suffer much by Interiour pains O how advantagious is it for such Souls to have an eye to Gods designs upon them and be faithful therein As for me the love of Gods will shall hereafter be the rule of my actions and undertakings I will abandon my self and all Creatures and put my confidence in God alone If our imperfections disturb our inward Peace and union with God we must repair it without too much disquieting our selves for our pass'd faults Union with God is never without love and love will blot out our Offences and bring the Soul to repose in her wonted center CHAP. XI To be indifferent to all things but Gods good Pleasure ONe excellent effect of the Presence of God in the Soul is to make us as it were insensible of all things but Gods will A Soul that is enrich'd with this indifferency can desire nothing else yea not Virtues themselves except in order to Gods pleasure We must strictly examine our selves concerning this general disengagement from Creatures and not easily believe we have it except on several occasions we find so by experience Our blessed Saviour vouchsafes me extraordinary attracts to be wholly his He puts me into a state of wonderful Interiour peace and quiet so that it cost me little to do Virtuously I aspire after dear Solitude and holy Poverty My Health is but feeble and in probability my Life here cannot be long and therefore I endeavour to live so disengag'd as if in effect I was already dead My dear Jesus infuses into my Soul a Spirit of denudation and I do cherish it that I may live no more in my self but my continuance in this Pilgrimage may be beneath me and I without any gust or affection to it So that at present I suffer not a little to see my self so far from God amidst the distractions and necessities of the body and other affairs incumbent on me For when God manifests himself to a Soul experimentally tasting his infinite goodness to live here below is a pain unto her However she continues in great Peace because in her Interiour she is purely resign'd to Gods good pleasure I am so habituated to have an eye to God alone and not to please my self but in him and to have no joy but for him that I cannot rejoyce to see my self perfect nor be sad at my Imperfections God is my all his will his pleasure and nothing else All reflections on my self seem to fully
to require it of us My third Prayer pass'd on in these Thoughts that the most Sacred Trinity being Eternally Knowledge and Love Substantial my Soul ought to endeavour to produce in her self an actual knowledge and love of God the better to resemble this adorable Trinity A Soul in the state of Contemplation renders this honour to God in a more peculiar manner enjoying God by the guift of Prayer in as transcendent a manner as Mortality permits 'T is true the prospect I have of this Divine Life here below draws my Soul Powerfully after it and I love it better than formerly But I see that to persevere therein we must be very poor in Spirit that is not only free from exorbitant Passions but all distracting Images which pass by the senses that are not Mortified News attended with curiosity or the eyes attached to sensible objects or such like immortifications fill the Soul with unprofitable Images which make her uncapable of Divine impressions by corresponding to which we most benefit our selves and most glorifie God In my fourth Prayer I was taken up with a view of those amorous complacencies and those Infinite joyes wherewith the three Divine Persons replenish the Souls of the blessed in Heaven It seem'd to me that the Happiness of the Saints was the clear vision of the Ineffable Mystery of the most Sacred Trinity and to be made partakers of that knowledge and love which is reciprocal among the Divine Persons To see God clearly is the Beatifical Vision Alas how ought we to be humbled to consider how Infinitely we fall short in our Devotions of the continual Hallelujahs of the Saints in Glory Yet this is the end of our Creation and our hope is at last to bear them company O how this life is poor and miserable where all is vanity and vexation of Spirit The view of my own weakness making me sensible that all I do for God is as nothing what shall I say at the sight of my sins and unworthiness I have nothing to say dear Lord but that I merit Eternal Confusion which must needs fall upon me unless your goodness have pity on me according to the greatness of your Mercies Can we imagine we can do any thing too much for God 'T is for the glory of his Bounty and Goodness that he is pleas'd to accept of our small service and endeavours and reward them eternally O how great a Truth is it that Grace and Glory are the effects of his pure Goodness and Mercy vouchsafed to us Blessed be his Name to all Eternity Third Day IN my first Prayer of this day I consider'd that the three Divine Persons were Happy in Contemplation of themselves from all Eternity When they created the World the Preservation and Government thereof does not at disturb their repose and Felicity The Father is the center of the Son and the Father and the Son is the center of the Holy Ghost Three in One and one in Three Infinitely Happy in each other before all Time and shall be to all Eternity O what ravishing Beauties do they behold in each other and what unspeakable Delights do they take in ther Infinite Perfections Nothing without them can interrupt their Joys or add to their Happiness Tho true Solitaries who live the Life of God in like manner repose only in him and being dead to themselves and all Creatures live only in him to him and for him O Divine Life of Solitude Thou art here begun on Earth and canst not be perfected but in Heaven A true Hermits life is not a Sensual but Divine Life God calling me to Contemplation I will repare to Church as to a Hermitage where I may live this Divine Life The Psalmody there much rejoyces my heart and lifts up my Soul to Contemplation Through Natural Considerations I have condescended to please others against my own inclination but now I have the Happiness to converse with the three Divine Persons I can no more relish the Company of my Friends and Relations except rarely to maintain Peace and Union or for some great necessity and if they be displeas'd I must not value it My second Prayer was an amorous attention upon what past Eternally among the three Divine Persons How the Father knowing his Divine Perfections did beget his Son and how the Father and the Son by an Infinite Love did produce the Holy Ghost The Father is an Infinite Ocean of Perfections by an Infinite Fecundity begetting his Son and they being absorpt in each other produce the Holy Spirit by an everlasting flux and reflux of Love This I did contemplate with great repose of Soul and yielded up the Intellectual Powers thereof to the obedience of Faith to receive some Rayes of Divine Light about such great and Incomprehensible Mysteries God then working in my Soul I became passive contenting my self to behold simply and sweetly the Infinite operations of the Sacred Trinity and said within my self Blessed Trinity know your selves for I can do nothing towards it 't is enough for me to contemplate that mutual Love which is among you which I believe and admire with adoration It seems to me that no other Mystery of our Faith can so take up and content my Soul nothing being more Divine than the Divinity No other practice is so charming to me we being created to know that Knowledge and to love that Love which God has to himself to all Eternity In my third Prayer I consider'd the Souls of Just Men and Blessed Spirits are as so many Sacred Vessels into whom God infuses his love and knowledge by a continual emanation Which love and knowledge returns to God its source as the water of a running Fountain rises as high as the Spring from whence it had its Origen This love and knowledge does establish God in us and also does firmly establish us in God So that God takes a delight and repose in the Soul and the Soul finds her center and rest in him Thereby faintly representing how the Divine Persons have a mutual repose in each other Empty Vessels are most capable to be fill'd And by how much the more our Souls are empty of Self-love and Nature by so much the more are they capable of Divine Love and Knowledge A Soul in such a state delights in Solitude and cares not to live in the thoughts and affections of men What most saddens our Spirits and retards us in the ways of God is a natural aversion we have from a hidden life For man naturally desires to be known and lov'd and thinks life is as nothing without repute And as long as we are full of this liquor we are not vessels proper to receive the influences of Divine Love and Knowledge Let us O my Soul empty our selves of Self-love that Divine Love may take place in us In my fourth Prayer I found an amorous complacency in my Soul in that God being but One doth subsist in three Persons knowing and loving themselves
wherein consists their Felicity The Father is the source of Being the the Son the term of his Knowledge and the Holy Spirit of his Love The Son and Holy Ghost are from the Father The Father and the Holy Spirit know the Son The Father and the Son love the Holy Ghost These are the wonders that make Heaven Happy Firmly to believe them is our Blessedness on Earth and to Contemplate them continually brings solid consolation to the Soul I saw clearly that to dispose my self for this incomparable Happiness I was to purifie my Interiour and to mortifie some natural resentments which yet live in me As namely too great a fear about the loss of Worldly things or to be despis'd by others or ill success of Affairs besides too great a sense of humane respects and a backwardness to follow the instincts of Grace for worldly considerations I know God sometimes suffers these Imperfections to live in us for the exercise of Virtue and the Tryal of our Fidelity However his will is that we strive to be dead to the World and our selves having our affections so fix'd on Heavenly things as to live a Divine Life in Mortal Bodies Believe me 'till our Interiour be throughly purified we shall not not be capable of high contemplation nor arrive to much knowledge in the secrets of God Fourth Day IN my first Prayer I was principally taken up with the adorable Person of the Eternal Father Methought I saw how he was ravish'd with Infinite Joy in Himself with the Son and the Holy Spirit And what complacency he also took in the Suffering of the Humanity of Jesus Christ though he loves him with the same love wherewith he loves himself And because these sufferings were pleasing to his Divine Father as satisfactory for our sins he did thirst to suffer more to fulfill his will And therefore after such variety of dolorous sufferings dying on the Cross he cryed out Sitio I Thirst It much rejoyc'd my heart to see what Infinite Complacency the three Divine Persons took in the Divinity and said within my self O Sacred Trinity enjoy eternally these Infinite delights But I desire as much as I can to add to your Exteriour Contentments by imitating the suffering of my Blessed Saviour And herein I will not have so much an eye to the reward to please the Sacred Trinity whom I adore Behold then what hereupon it seems to me God put into my mind 1. To eat neither Fish nor Flesh but in case of Sickness 2. To Discipline every day 3. To be pleas'd with occasions of Contempt 4. To despise all Temporal things to follow the attracts of Divine Love 5. To lie down upon a hard Bed 6. To cut off all Worldly Visits and retire my self into a Solitude where the World may despise me I consider'd in my second Prayer that the Son of God in the bosom of his Divine Father in possession of Infinite Delights and Joys unspeakable out of love to his Father did quit his bosom and cloath himself with Mortal Flesh to plunge himself in the depth of Miseries abjection and sufferings that he might glorifie his Divine Father by his humane and suffering Life and teach us Men his Brethren that the way to enter into the Love and Glory of his Father is by the gate of Sufferings Is it You O only begotten Son of the Eternal Father is it You born in a Stable working in a Shop dying on a Cross You that are all Splendor and Glory the Light of the World and the Delight of Heaven Is it You that are so poor and abject so void of Friends so full of Disgraces so scorn'd and despis'd Is it You whom they esteem as the out-cast of men and not worthy to live on the face of the Earth O the Love of the Son towards his Father O the strange invention of the Son to advance the Glory of his Father O my Jesus how admirable are you in your Divinity But how amiable are you in your Humanity I desire O dear Jesus to follow you all the days of my life and seek no other Glory than in your Cross and Poverty your Humiliations and Sufferings Absit mihi gloriari nisi in Cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi The Cross of Christ is my Crown and Glory We ought not to possess Honours Riches and Worldly Preferments without Fear and Humility Have we not cause to fear that in a state of Worldly greatness Nature will seek her self and not follow Jesus poor and humble which ought to be done either effectively or in affection A state of Suffering under the Cross is truly Glorious and full of Interiour Consolation In my third Prayer I consider'd that the union of the Father with the Son and of the Son with the Father is by the Holy Ghost a union Infinite and adorable O Holy Spirit seeing 't is your property to unite unite my heart so intimately to the adorable Trinity present in me that I may never suffer a seperation and that this adorable union may be frequent in my Thoughts and Meditations Blessed be your Holy Name my God that you are pleas'd to be so merciful unto me as to take up my thoughts with this incomprehensible Mystery O how do I begin too late having been too long amuz'd with vain trifles My past Life displeases me and the course of the World is troublesome unto me seeing it hinders me from conversing with you as I desire Natural Necessities as to Eat to Sleep to Recreat are burdensom unto a Soul quickened with your Spirit strongly inclining us to live here on Earth as in Heaven in a perfect and perpetual union with your Goodness The consideration which took up my thoughts in my fourth Prayer was that the Eternal Son and Holy Spirit seem'd to have more commerce with men then the Eternal Father because they appeared to us by external Missions the Son being made Man for to die for us and the Holy Spirit taking divers forms for the Service of man and to enflame our hearts with Divine Love The Eternal Father seem'd always to remain in himself ravish'd with his own Infinite Beauties and Perfections O adorable Mansion of the Eternal Father within himself O wonderful Missions of the Son and Holy Spirit towards us Men and for our Salvation eternal matter of Adoration O my God when shall I go out of my self to elevate my heart to you and converse with you I see very well that to enter into a Spirit of Prayer Retirement is requisite Abstinence and Spiritual Exercises And to conserve the same temper of Soul we must practice silence as much as our condition and affairs will permit If the Son of God and Holy Spirit did appear here upon Earth only for our good certainly we ought to endeavour to have our Conversation in Heaven and adore the most Sacred Trinity for these Infinite Mercies Fifth Day MY first Prayer past in acknowledgment and admiration of the Fulness of
sufficiently and fewer that practice it in Purity and really aspire to form the true image of Jesus in them In my second Prayer I did apply my self to consider how the Son of God being eternally in the midst between the Father and the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven to be a Mediator between his Eternal Father and us Sinners He tells us that no man can come to Father but by him and that he is the way which leads to Happiness And is it not a sad case that men should so much go astray This is a low and humble way and they puff'd up with Pride will march over mountains in ways above them This is a poor penitential suffering way and they are for a way easie delicious rich and commodious Is it possible to come to the bosom of the Eternal Father except we will march by the way of his Son There 's no other way to come to him and if we take our own way at every step we go farther from him O my God how long shall my Soul lag behind meerly in a way of nature When shall we O my Soul enter into Dispositions truly Christian and conform to the Dictates of a supernatural Life O Jesus my Saviour Redeemer my Exemplar my Way my Light 't is only by following you and your Divine Maxims that we can enter into the light of Life Of necessity then we must pass by Jesus Crucified to come to the Divinity of the Father and enjoy Jesus Glorified We must take up our Cross and follow him if we will enter into Glory My third Prayer was a continuation of like Thoughts I then understood that there 's no entring into Society with the three Divine Persons or arriving to such a height of Prayer as thereby we may live in them a Divine Life but by entring into communication with Jesus Christ and conforming our Life to his example This is a general Rule without exception The Life of Jesus was a severe self-denying Life and ours ought to be of such an austerity as may not ruine our health or dull the Spirit but humble the Body to elevate the Soul In a word we must daily endeavour to humble and annihilate our selves having only in our eye the Will of God The Eternal Father cannot take delight in any Soul that does not endeavour to resemble his Son It concerns us therefore to examine our hearts to see how they stand affected to Sufferings on all occasions If we cannot relish them but flie and complain 't is to be fear'd nature does possess us and not the Spirit of Jesus Christ Water in a glass remains quiet but if it finds the least passage it tends to its own element from whence it can only be kept by force In like manner a Soul that has overtures of Sufferings afforded her will find an inclination to embrace them if Jesus Crucified be her center It matters not by what means these occasions to suffer happen whether by the imprudence of Friends or the malice of Enemies Or her own neglect or any other accident she layes hold on the occasion to unite her self to the abjections of Jesus as to her center Happy is that Soul which is in this temper Grace and the Spirit of Jesus has wrought it in her In my fourth Prayer I went on to entertain my self with the wonders of the Son of God I admir'd that being in the Glory of his Father he descended to our Miseries that he might glorifie his Father in a new manner by purchasing for him such holy Souls who being animated with his Spirit after his example would be in love with Sufferings for Gods sake I saw clearly how the Son of God by his Eternal Birth is most glorious with Infinite Perfections and how he became Man to be capable of Sufferings for our sake And that we must follow Jesus in his Humiliations if we will be partakers of his Glory O what dark Souls have they who see not these Glorious Truths We live here a sensualor worldly life or at most do follow the light of reason rarely do we live a Christian and very rarely a Divine Life A thousand times happy are they who dear Jesus are enlightned by you the true Light of the World Jesus Christ cloath'd himself with a Mortal Body that he might suffer and be Sacrific'd upon the Cross and we ought to bear part with him The Saints who have known and tasted of his Spirit have Martyr'd their Bodies by a thousand Austerities Others have wasted away by degrees in the flames of Divine Love All have been desirous to suffer more or less But we are afraid to hurt our selves and are too apprehensive to endamage our Health For whom do we keep our embraces or for what is it that we are so desirous to live long upon Earth 'T is a vain fear to think we shall shorten our days by our endeavouring to live a Divine Life in our Mortal Bodies Seventh Day I Began my first Prayer by a peculiar instinct of the Holy Spirit bringing often to my mind those precious words of St. Paul God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our Hearts crying Abba Father And then I found that a Soul assisted with the extraordinary infusions of the Holy Spirit is elevated above her self which is the effect of the gift of Wisdom freely communicated whereby she sees and tasts the ineffable Mysteries of our Religion O what a gracious gift is this What a great favour is it when God is pleas'd thus to communicate himself unto us It then seem'd to me that the faculties of my Soul ceas'd their ordinary operations and the obscurity of Faith as it were vanish'd this Divine Wisdom elevating them in such a manner which they cannot conceive who know not by experience to a very sublime way of working much above their ordinary proceedings The Soul stands wondring at it and can hardly believe she could arrive to such a point of Perfection Then a Divine Light gave me to see at once my unworthiness to receive the Graces of God his Goodness and Mercy to bestow them on me and the merits of Christ whereby they were purchas'd I was much amaz'd that God should vouchsafe so great favours to so wretched a sinner And I did melt in acknowledgements being humbled in my self with an entire confidence in the merits of Jesus I continued my second Prayer and this Divine Light increas'd in my Soul and discovered the favours God vouchsafes to Souls of which there are many degrees according to the proportion of their Purity of heart 1. They see the Deformity of Sin clear enough to conceive a horrour and detestation of it and know confusedly the Christian Virtues the Mysteries of the Sacred Humanity and Divinity 2. They see more clearly some Christian Principles as an Eternity of a Happy or Miserable condition after this Life that our Salvation is our Principal concern and the one thing necessary aend that all
O Sacred Spirit of Love and Union what consolation is it to my Soul and what encouragement for my weakness that you will vouchsafe to unite my heart to God from whom you proceed from all Eternity O Divine Spirit so unite me to your self that I may never forsake you but depend absolutely on your conduct In You and by You I adore I love and return all possible Thanks to the most Sacred Trinity for all Graces and Favours received in this retreat Amen CHAP. VI. Another Retreat of Ten Days upon the Adorable Person of Jesus Christ First Day Of the Mystery of the Incarnation I Entred into this retreat being greatly desirous to know Jesus Christ and my first Prayer pass'd in view of the Incarnation a Mystery to be admir'd by Men and Angels to all Eternity the source of all our Happiness A Mystery brighter then the morning Star which ushers in the day to Mortal eyes by shewing to us the Sun of Grace to enlighten the darkness of our Hearts and Cloath us with Immortality and Glory A Mystery of Mercies an evidence of the greatness of Gods goodness to us Christ manifested in our flesh to die for us A Mystery big with wonders where God is made Man and Man becomes God by an Hypostatical union O unspeakable Mystery what Grandeurs and secrets are contain'd in Thee above our understanding O Mystery that brings Heaven upon Earth that scatters our darkness that cures all our evils that teaches me to know and love God thus debased and annihilated for love of me O what sweetness do I tast in this consideration What wonders do I discover of the goodness of God herein beyond all expression O happy those who know it by experience Hereafter I will not trouble my self how I may Love God according to his Goodness or do him Homage according to his Greatness or Praise and Adore him according to his Excellency seeing the only begotten Son of the Father was born of a Virgin-Mother and gave himself to me to discharge these Infinite obligations for me O my Jesus seeing you have wholly given your self to me that I might by you acquit my Obligations my care shall be to Love God by your Love to Obey by your Obedience and to Adore by your Adorations Be you my Light my Strength and my Conductor to find you to know you to be perfectly united to you in this retreat In my second Prayer I consider'd the great Happiness of the Blessed Virgin in being chosen from all Eternity to be the Mother of the only begotten Son of God And I said within my self Doubtless this is the greatest Favourite of God among all Creatures enabled with more eminent Graces than any other for there can be no greater Priviledge or Prerogative Communicated to a meer Creature then to be the Mother of God How are your Thoughts O my God above the Thoughts of Men You bring your Designs about in ways most admirable This most excellent of all Creatures the greatest Favourite of Heaven Mother of God must be Espoused to a Carpenter a poor Tradesman working for his Living She brings forth her Son the King of Glory in a Stable flies into Egypt lives but poorly and suffers Infinite shame and dolours to see her Beloved Jesus Crucified Behold the Designs of the Eternal Father about this Blessed Virgin whom he had chosen to be the Mother of his only Son The weakness of Humane Reason cannot fathom this But this is to teach us to have an esteem for Poverty Sufferings and Abjections seeing God deals thus with his dearest Friends He is pleas'd to put them in this condition that they may be able to render him the greatest Love and Service is possible upon Earth To Love God Supernaturally is to love him at our own expence and being content with Sufferings for his sake A Creature having nothing more to do for God then to offer to him what he most values namely his own Interest and Satisfactions O my Soul do not now complain that thou canst do nothing for God 't is enough that thou canst suffer for him 'T is no easie thing to sound the depth of this verity In my third Prayer I was much taken up with the Grandeurs of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus being elevated to the Divinity in the Mystery of the Incarnation where by a Personal Union it entred into a state of Purity and Love towards the Divinity in so transcendent a manner and surpassing the understanding of Men and Angels that we are fit for nothing but Adoration O what Grandeurs were communicated to the most Sacred Humanity in the first Blessed moment of the Incarnation My understanding though enlightned by Faith found it self lost in this Ocean of Wonders and my Will was actuated with an esteem and Love of Jesus beyond all expression Hence such a Joy possessed my Soul in knowing Jesus with such content and satisfaction that all other knowledges seem'd nothing to it and with St. Paul Non aestimavi me scire aliquid nisi Jesum I esteem'd my self to know nothing but Jesus and Him Crucified I perceived that an amorous union with Jesus Christ does elevate a Soul to a wonderful excellency because it puts us in possession of whole Jesus his Divinity his Humanity his Mysteries and Verities For this union is accompanied with a perfect amity and that makes all things common among Friends O my Jesus although I am of my self nothing but Weakness and Misery being a sinful Creature nevertheles I love you with all my heart and having my part in you I can supply my wants with your Perfections as belonging to me and among my Inabilities present them to the most Sacred Trinity to acquit my manifold obligations O how admirable is this union with Jesus Christ What wonderful benefits does it bring to a Soul who having nothing of her self hath all things in him and by this means becomes Infinitely rich These Thoughts continued yet with me in my fourth Prayer and I admired Jesus from the first moment of his Birth in his applications towards his Divine Father to whom he then offer'd himself a Sacrifice to do him Homage And in his amiable Communications towards us his poor Brethren little worms of the Earth In these Discoveries I was much troubled that I could not serve him by reason of my Inabilities and could not please him by reason of my Infidelities O that I was so happy as to spend my self in his Service and die with Love This is a favour granted but to some special Favourites And alas I am a most unworthy and ungrateful wretch At this time methought I heard our Saviour speaking to me and giving me a strong impression of his Presence O what Happiness is it to know Jesus O what favour is it to find him What sweet repose finds that Soul who has a feeling knowledge of Jesus in her When this Science of Jesus appears in her Interiour all is sweet and lovely full
gives her a right to the riches of Glory for Truth hath said it Blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven O how a Soul which once hath beheld the Beauties of Holy Poverty is ready to follow Jesus poor and abject and conform her self to his example She finds her self freed of her Fetters which keep men Captives and Slaves to the World and it seems to her to be depriv'd of all Creatures is the greatest Treasure upon Earth She growes rich by her losses and when God will have her to possess Goods and Honours 't is yet with a disposition to quit them and possess God alone She therefore only keeps them by a pure dependance on the Divine Will without an esteem or love for them but loves in them solely the Will of God These were the impressions my first Prayer made in me In my second Prayer I continued to consider the poor and abject states of Jesus Christ God in his Eternal Decrees had a love for the humane ways of the Word Incarnate Those Souls who are favour'd with Illustrations from Heaven are strongly carried the same way discerning clearly that they can do nothing better upon Earth than to tread the footsteps of God himself To this end the Divine Wisdom elevates them above themselves and their natural inclinations to conduct them solely by the instincts of Grace whereby they make a glorious conquest over the weakness of Nature Self-love and Carnal Prudence which stand in the way to Christian Perfection and hinder us from following Jesus in his Abjections It highly concerns us to die daily to the World that we may attain to the Purity of Divine Love that is Possess and Love God alone The Pride of Adam will not die in us unless we be content to follow Jesus in his Abjections O my Soul let us fall in Love with this state of Jesus Christ which is little known to the World and take it for a Soveraign favour from Heaven to become so contemptible for Gods sake as to pass for one hardly good for any thing O Jesus how few Companions have you of your extreme Poverty Many Honour this Virtue in you but few practice it They must be Faithful Friends indeed who follow you in these ways so bitter and distastful to Flesh and Blood O Jesus be Merciful unto me and grant me this Fidelity that I may never forsake you in Life nor Death My third Prayer was taken up with a general view of the Humiliations of the Son of God for which I felt my Soul had much Love and Respect These Divine Humiliations did ravish me beyond comparison and I discover'd such wonderful Beauty in them that I could not be satisfied with beholding them I was deeply possess'd with a desire to conform my self to Jesus in his Humiliations and to spend my days in his imitation and I was much troubled I could not yet quit all things to live a poor abject retir'd life 'T is no less the work of Grace to bring us to relish the Abjections of Jesus Christ as to be taken with his Grandeurs His Grandeurs are incomprehensible but nothing in my eyes seem more great and rich and precious than his Humiliations The unspeakable Love that Jesus Christ has for Souls does manifest it self by making them partakers of his Humiliations Be content O my Soul with what part he shall give thee For it seems to me a punishment to abound with Riches and Honours whereby we become unlike to Jesus and march on in ways contrary to his practice and example When I reflect upon my sins I cannot sufficiently admire the great Graces God is pleas'd to vouchsafe me A strong argument to convince of his Infinite goodness and affords much matter of Humiliation considering how unworthy I am of the least favours But for me a poor wretch to have a call to solitude to converse only with God and his Holy Angels what a Mercy is this It came into my mind that Moses who had been a Captain of Thieves was afterwards a Holy Hermit and I had a special Devotion to him desiring him to help me by his Prayers O the wonderful effects of Grace that a Robber should become a Hermit I have a Devotion to Saints that have been great sinners methinks they are Powerful with God to help sinners to be converted This view of the extreme humiliations of Jesus yet continuing was the subject of my fourth Prayer And I found in my self great desires to begin a new kind of life to give my self absolutely to God as a Sacrifice by dying to all things of the world by a vow of Poverty But I being not yet in a condition to forsake my temporal affairs I resolv'd to make such a Vow when all things were settled and I took care that my affairs might be so regulated as to put me in a condition to comply with the call of God Having taken this resolution I found my heart inflamed with desires to be wholly for God and to conform my self as much as possible to Jesus in his humiliations Nature felt some afflicting resentment hereat and furnish'd me with arguments to divert me from it But the light of Grace scatter'd these thoughts and taught me to neglect the help of Creatures by casting my self wholly into the arms of his Providence O my Jesus the only love of my Soul though the most despised of men your Divine attracts and inspirations do so powerfully invite me to follow you in your ways of poverty that I shall never soon enough see the happy moment to engage my self thereto by a Vow never to be recalled Fourth Day Jesus the Fountain of Grace and Piety IN my first Prayer God gave me to see the infinite grandeurs of the Sacred Humanity united to the Divinity in the same person This ineffable union was the general and amorous object of my regard which wrought in my Soul a very great esteem and singular love and union with Jesus Christ This state of Jesus rejoyced my heart and I dwelt upon it my Soul being satisfied with wonderful contentment I had interiour assurances and very great certitudes of the Divinity of Jesus nothing in him seemed dark unto me though all surpassed the strength of reason I beheld him as the Principal of Grace and Glory This manifestation was in me by a Divine light and I found it filled my heart with most pleasing impressions The small conviction we have of the Divinity of Jesus makes us such cold Christians and that we walk so slowly in the ways of Grace For who firmly believes that Jesus is God will have a singular esteem of his Doctrine of his Counsels of his Proceedings and think it his Glory for to follow him The perfect belief of the Divinity of Jesus carries a Soul to real endeavours after perfection to despise the world to take up the Cross and follow Jesus in his abjections This is to be the Image of Jesus Christ
he is her repose and true Felicity Alas when shall it be that Jesus possesses my Soul so as never to leave me This is what I sigh after and I will purchase it at any rate So to possess Jesus is a Heaven upon earth and all we have is too little to gain it Come O dear Jesus and make my Heart your Mansion for ever Of all your Graces and Favours I only desire you to be always present with me and that I make it my business so to serve you as in some sort to be made partaker of those admirable disposition of your contemplative Life I then had a sight of the Infinite difference between the service of Jesus between the Sensual and a Spiritual Life This cannot be discerned unless Jesus imprint his Maxims his Spirit and Sentiments in our hearts which will enable us to Crucifie our Sensuality and obey his motions I observ'd that my Devotion to the Sacred Humanity increas'd daily and felt in my Soul such Powerful attracts that no sooner was I in a Praying posture but Jesus possess'd my heart and discover'd something of his Grandeurs to me This Grace I received from his goodness in my third Prayer After which me thought I knew Jesus Christ in a new manner who though inaccessable to the Creature by reason of his Divine and Infinite Perfections yet sometimes he does most clearly manifest himself to special Favourites Such a view of Jesus is more to be valued than the whole World and a Soul that once has been vouchsafed this Grace esteems her self so rich that she looks upon all Worldly things as dross and dung adhering close to Jesus as her only Treasure We can never know what admirable effects this sight of Jesus works in a Soul but by experience 'T is true there 's a great deal of difference between the Visions of Jesus A Soul in the beginning of a Spiritual Life is taken up with the sensible part of the Sacred Humanity but in the progress she receives such pure discoveries of Jesus that she only relishes Jesus wholly Divinized but cannot express what she sees in him Souls thus dispos'd receive much of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and his humane states seem to them so elevated and transcendent that they find nothing more beautiful more precious or more charming to win their Affections O that we did know Jesus as he ought to be known O that we could see the inestimable riches the rare and precious Treasures contained in him My fourth Prayer was only to open the eyes of my Soul to see Jesus Christ as we behold any Object with the eyes of our Body to consider it attentively He was pleas'd so to manifest himself to my Soul as my joy was superabundant and I was dead to all things and my self to live in Jesus and love his Beauties I found my self in a manner like a drunken man who is not himself but as a dead man he knows not what he says nor is capable of any business nor can govern himself his drunkenness has possess'd him and made him fit for nothing else Enjoyment for the time it continues has the like effects in a Soul she is then capable of nothing but this enjoyment which is all in all unto her Such Souls are now and then put upon the rack by themselves or their directors fearing least this may savour of idleness They think it may be better to suffer and more profitable to help their Neighbour and that self-love may creep into this enjoyment This sometimes brings a Soul to quit this enjoyment so as to put her self out of the way where God has plac'd her except some particular Grace preserve her in the performance of Gods will A Soul capable of this Grace must be in a state of great Purity disengaged and dead to all things Exteriour and Interiour indifferent to all Divine Ordinations whatever and be in a perfect disposition to adhere to God and his Divine operations in what manner he pleases O how great is our humane weakness O how often do we resist the Designs of God by our Imperfections Seventh Day Jesus our Exemplar and Guide IN my first Prayer I consider'd how Jesus was a scandal to the Jews and to the Gentiles foolishness that the same Person should be God and Man and die upon a Cross to save the World the belief of this seem'd a pure extravagancy to poor blinded Creatures I consider'd also how a true Supernatural Christian Life seems but as folly to Worldly-wise-men who cannot understand it being elevated above sense and humane reason wholly Spiritual and repugnant to the Inclinations of depriv'd nature Alas how the practice of the true Christian Life is rare To love crosses and contempts and poverty and humiliations and to rejoyce in Persecutions by preferring the Maxims of Faith before humane Wisdom is a proceeding very extraordinary to Carnal men who in a manner are wholly guided by their Senses If Grace do not open the eyes of Faith in us our poor Soul has no director but Reason which casts a mist before us to hinder our sight from Christian Verities The same Grace also discover'd to me that as Jesus lived a Suffering Life we likewise should conform to his states and be content with crosses and contrarieties pains and deprivations and be pleas'd with whatsoever comes from the hand of God The poor retir'd abject Life I resolv'd to lead answerable to my Vocation without doubt will be accounted a folly by Worldly men and may sometimes so seem to my self But take courage O my Soul a lively Faith will discover the deceit by a Light from Heaven The Proceedings of a Spiritual Life are not govern'd by Humane Arguments but Divine and Supereminent Motives For we must suffer to do Penance and we must love Poverty to advance pure Love which despises all things to have God in possession In my second Prayer I clearly saw that Jesus took no pleasure without necessity to prescribe such rough Maxims to us He knew that the corruption of our Nature was great our inclination to things of this World was continual and therefore to live in his Love requir'd constant Mortifications and Contradictions to Nature And the degree of Love is according to the degree of Self-denyal and Mortification Jesus hath founded Christian Perfection upon two high Mountains Calvary and Tabor on the one we learn Perfection and Mortification on the other the Perfection of Prayer and on both the Sublimity of Divine Love To follow Jesus Christ upon one or th' other mountain we must die to the World and never let the love of the Cross and Mortification to languish in us Solitude must be dear to such Souls and they must take no imploy but what God will have them least interessing themselves and spending their Spirits in other matters they make themselves unable to follow vigorously the works of their Vocation My Soul would it not be a sad thing to quit thy Creator
refuse the most charming and most tender embraces to the most unworthy and most perfidious of all his Enemies Judas whom Envy had already poisoned even to the heart whom Avarice had perverted and made a Thief Insensibleness had blinded and made ungrateful whom Malice had corrupted and made an Apostate a Traytor a very Devil yet this Judas in this condition that he was and in which Jesus saw him at the bottom of his heart is not excluded from the eminent Grandeurs of the Love of our Saviour which feeds this Demon with the Manna of Angels O Love how thou art admirable O Love how thou art invincible an abundance of waters cannot extinguish thy flames And now my Soul is it possible thou shouldst continue tepid and insensible while thou art near so great a Fire Hadst thou all the Ardours of the Seraphins thou wouldst still be too little on Fire to answer and reflect the Fires of that incomparable Love which inflames his heart when he comes to give himself to thee A good Religious Capuchin called Br. Bonaventure felt his Soul so inflamed with this Sacred Fire when he approached to the Holy Table that one day among others finding himself more than ordinary replenished with an Ardent desire to unite himself with God and seeing the most Blessed Sacrament in the Priests hand ready to Communicate him his heart seem'd to make strong efforts to leap out of his Breast and meet the only Object of its desires which also broke forth into words For the abundance of his Love forced out their amorous Aspirations My Jesu My Jesu My Jesu But to let both him and us know that the Love of Jesus in this unspeakable Mystery surpasses all ours in an Infinite measure the Holy Host quitted the Priest's hand and as it were all on a flame and encircled with Glorious Rayes of Light of its own accord flew into the Mouth of this worthy Servant of God CHAP. IV. Interiour Entertainments during Communion SOme times when I was Communicating it came into my mind to think that my heart was an Altar and that Jesus Christ came to continue upon it the same operations that he had performed on that Altar where the Holy Mass is Celebrated Wherefore my heart received him lovingly and simply united it self to all his Divine Operations relating both to his Heavenly Father and to Creatures And my Soul adhering to all his Adorations all his Sacrifices all his Love that he bears his Eternal Father became wholly passive like an Altar upon which Jesus does all that he pleases as well in regard of the Divinity as in regard of Men to whom he distributes and dispenses his Mercies It seemed to me that in the first place he apply'd himself to honour his Divine Father to annihilate himself before his greatness to love his Goodness and other Divine Perfections and then he turned himself to succour my weakness and shew his Mercies upon me by giving me a glimpse of what he is and a fight of the strick and close alliance whereby I ought to be united to him that I ought not to subsist a moment but by his Life that his Holy Spirit ought to animate my Soul and be the first spring of all its motion as my Soul moves my Body and is the Principal of all its operations That to live a Life purely Humane is a state wherein though a Soul does not offend God yet she cannot please him which is a thing Love cannot suffer nor will it endure that a Soul wherein it reigns should cease any one moment from pleasing her Beloved O Jesus enter into so absolute a possession of my Soul that she may be wholly yours and that she may never have any other motion than what your Grace gives her 'T is the great desire of my Soul which would not live to you partly and partly to Creatures but that all the actions of my Life be Consecrated to your Love I have need of a Powerful Grace O Jesu to continue thus elevated above my self in all sort of occasions But vouchsafe to magnifie your Omnipotence in my weakness your Mercies in my Miseries Another time after Communion I had represented to me the manner how all the Interiour Faculties of Jesus Christ in his Mortal Life did most worthily Glorifie his Eternal Father All the parts of his Holy Soul were taken up in this imployment the Intellectual Powers of the Superiour part the Beatifical Vision and Fruition the Inferiour part and his Body by a most perfect Suffering I saw the admirable connexion which was between these so different states and their joynt accord to Glorifie the Eternal Father And the wonderful Oeconomy of this Sacred Interiour charmed my Soul I continually offered it up to God in the pressures I lay under in the midst of my troubles I entred into these Holy Dispositions and united my Sufferigs with his my Actions with his Divine ones This disposition remains deeply imprinted in me and serves me for a comfort and support upon all occasion of our contempt pains or any other affliction Another time my Interiour entertainment during Communion was after this manner I consider'd that a Christian has but two concerns in this Life how to maintain the Life of Nature and that of Grace thereby to arrive to that of Glory Generally men think of nothing but the first though it be of no consequence and but for a moment besides that is full of Miseries and they forget the second which is Eternal and Infinite importance yet scarce any body minds it for every one lives in the darkness of Imperfection and the blindness of Sense O what a Misery And on the contrary how Happy are they who set no value but upon the Life of Grace and consequently love those Exercise which nourish and improve it as Mortifications Prayer frequent Communion O how clearly do I see that I ought to disingage my self from Temporal Affairs to apply my self more fully to the Exercises of the Life of Grace and to pure Prayer I made another time my Action of Grace after this manner An attention to the Presence of God before Communion had raised in me a great and awful respect towards that most Sacred Majesty before whom the highest Seraphins in Heaven do tremble The like impression continued in me also after Communion My Soul was all adoration seeing the adorable Jesus was become her Guest His Presence heightned my respect as being the source of all Graces and of all good Dispositions I saw himself also sometimes paying a profound respect to God the Father and then I plunged my self deeper and even lost my self in those Divine Respects unwilling to come out of them And fearing least some persons should come to visit me and interrupt my Devotion I hid my self that I might remain thus wholly plunged in this Sentiment of Reverence which Perfumed my Soul CHAP. V. Other Interiour Entertainments to give Thanks after Communion THe Dispositions most frequent
to remain thus united is to do nothing for 't is the doing of all that God demands of us and the co-operating with him in the greatest work of Grace which is the Union of a Soul with the Divinity This Union is a repose of the Soul and it is found in several and different manners Sometimes it is diffus'd through all the Soul sometimes 't is only in the Superiour part thereof other while it restrains it self to the supream point of the Will and if the Soul be Faithful she does not considerably interrupt this Union For the trouble of the Interiour part or distractions of the imagination may indeed lessen the tranquility thereof but cannot destroy it The thing that weakens it the most and as it were smothers it are the Passions when violent Cares that touch one to the quick Troubles of mind Pleasures of Sense Wherefore one must be dead to all these and endeavour to die perpetually to them Another time Jesus entring into my Soul in Communion did not impart to it this Union so desirable but deprived it of it whether it were in punishment for her Imperfections or that he designed her at that time for other Imployments and required Exteriour Duties from her for the good of her Neighbour Her business was then to remain in Peace and to make a free offering of the most noble thing in the World to wit the enjoyment of God to God himself who takes an Infinite delight to see himself thus Honoured by his Creature And he is often pleas'd to be Glorified in this manner by perfect Souls and the Souls find themselves raised to a very sublime Purity by these sorts of Sacrifice wherein they renounce the most dear Caresses of God to abandon themselves more purely to God and to adhere to him only O how true is it that in the fund of the heart the most noble operations of Love are performed hidden from all the World and known to God alone Even the Soul it self does not know the Interiour Communications of God till after long experience which renders her self skilful in the secrets of the Super-natural Life whether neither Sense nor Reason can penetrate CHAP. VII The first Effect of Communion is to beget in us the Love of Crosses and Humiliations GOd in Himself and in his Eternity does nothing but Love Himself in contemplating his Divine Perfections For 't is his Essential occupation and he cannot but Love Himself and desire to be Beloved Wherefore since by the Hypostatical Union man is become God he takes upon him the same Sentiments the same Inclinations as God And by consequence Jesus Loves God as God Loves Himself and as he clearly saw that there is no way whereby God can be more Loved or more Honoured out of Himself than by Crosses and Annihilations which pay homage to the Grandeur of his Infinite Being he apply'd Himself to Love Crosses Sufferings and Contempt with all the Powers of his Soul Never man so passionately in Love with these things as Jesus Christ because never any one was transported with such Zeal as he to Love and Glorifie God his Father When therefore Jesus enters into us by the Holy Communion he brings with him all his Sentiments all his Inclinations particularly those which he affects most and desires to imprint them in our Souls for which purpose he gives himself to us under the form of nourishment because as the meat we take communicates to the Body all its principal qualities so he inspires the Soul withall its principal motions and operations And this is the reason that the oftner one Communicates the more one ought to be penetrated with the Sentiments and Inclinations of Jesus that is to say so much more one ought to Love Sufferings and Humiliations The property of the Communion which is the Living Bread which descended from Heaven is not to be changed into us as the inanimate Bread that comes from the Earth is but to change us into Himself And the Holy Communion should raise man above his Natural Love to lift him up to the Love of God and to a perfect union with his Will by Mortification and Destruction of Himself The most inward and most Perfect of all the Unions that a Creature can have with his God is the Personal or Hypostratical one which produced in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus a Love of the Cross and of the Poverty Insomuch that it was no sooner Divinely assumed but it was inflamed with the Love of Suffering and esteemed nothing next to the Divinity so worthy an bbject of Love as the Cross Now it is evident that we cannot arrive to any Union with God so much resembling the Hypostatical Union as that which we obtain by the Holy Communion Whence it follows that it ought to produce in us such Inclinations as very much resemble those which the Union Hypostatical produced in the Sacred Humanity that is to say it should incline us to Love the Cross Poverty Humiliations and all other manner of Sufferings O my Soul where are we How comes it about that we Communicate so often and feel still such repugnance to suffer Jesus Christ coming into us and as I may say again Incarnate in us would not he confer the most signal Grace of Love of the Cross if he found us well disposed to receive it He that Communicates often and yet is unwilling to suffer without doubt Communicates but imperfectly For he does not receive the principal effects of the Divine union which are to make us love what Jesus loved the most of any thing in the World O my God how long shall we live in the low Sentiments of Nature Give me to suffer or to die O my Soul be ashamed to live without Suffering for That methinks is to live without Love The Fruit which we gather from the Holy Communion is not discerned by abundance of sensible sweetness or by reception of much Light in the understanding but by a firm and vigorous resolution of the Will to suffer and to mortifie it self and the more one advances in Mortification the more one also increases in purity of Love Jesus who is the nourishment of our Love in Heaven where Love will be Infinitely pure is likewise the nourishment of our Love upon Earth in the Blessed Sacrament which by consequence ought to be Soveraignly pure I mean without any mixture of any thing that is not God But this cannot be without dying to all Creatures and even to our Selves and this Death is not compassed but by Mortification and all that which Crucifies Nature CHAP. VIII Continuation of the same Subject AFter Holy Communion it seemed to me that as Jesus received of his Divine Father the Fullness of Light and true Love in the Hypostatical Union so he makes his Friends partakers thereof in the Sacramental Union and thereby lays an obligation upon them to live by the same Life to guide themselves by the Light and to enter into a
Divinity O how great is the dignity of pure Souls when they Communicate O how low and abject are all the Grandeurs of the World They are a meer Nothing compared with this For what Glory is comparable to that of a Soul intimately united with the Supream Being My God how delightful and transporting is the sight of the Wonders and profound Secrets wrapt up in your Mysteries how they penetrate the Soul you disclose them to This Union with Jesus in Communion is inessable For as the Father and the Son are one in Unity of Essence the Word and Humane Nature one in Unity of Person so the Soul that is one in Jesus partakes of both the Unions Divine and Humane Jesus is in her according to both his Natures and she is All in Jesus and while she does all things in him he works all in her he Prayes Adores Loves Suffers Labours insomuch that this perfect Union produces a certain Unity between God Jesus and the Soul and between all their operations It settles a kind of Partnership and Community of Goods and Possessions between them In a word it imports more than can be expressed Now this condition must needs be most Holy and Divine where God works in the Soul and the Soul in God In me manet ego in eo And the Alliance between them grows continually streighter and closer proportionably to her increasings in Virtue in this Life and receives its ultimate Perfection only in Heaven O amiable Jesus with what a profusion of Goodness and Love you entertain our Souls in this Sacrament You conceal your Presence under the External Species to give us occasion and advantage to exercise our Faith which beholds you so much more clearly as you are more secretly and obscurely present Again on the other side you manifest and shew your self by innumerable effects of your Grace and Divine Sentiments which you breath in the Soul to excite and exercise our Love What can a Soul do when she sees her self so prevented so convinced so pressed by evident instances and experimental proofs of your endless and unwearied Bounty What can she do but Love Love without stint render Love for Love how many excellent things might be said upon this Subject But how can those Sentiments be expressed that can hardly be conceived CHAP. XI The fourth Effect of Communion is to Confer the highest Love OFtentimes before and after Communion I was taken up with Contemplating the Perfections of God Which being one and the same in themselves yet they are different in our manner of conception and the verity of their effects Now when any one of them discovers it self it appears in full Beauty and Majesty and all the other seem to sink in to it and lend all their Ornaments and Excellence to increase its Lustre An instance hereof we have in the Blessed Sacrament where the Divine Love displayes all its Magnificence and the other Attributes contribute to that design the brightest of their Charms and Perfections Eternity Immensity Wisdom Omnipotence Justice Mercy and whatsoever is most eminent and adorable in the Divine Nature are present there and attend upon the triumph of Love Each of these Perfections espouse the Interests and put on the Inclinations of Love which are Liberality and Magnificence and accordingly operate in a Soul when Love makes his triumphant entry at the time of Communion For Love as its proper effect produceth in the Soul a reciprocal Love Eternity imprints continuance and perseverance Immensity spreads the Affection and gives it an unbounded extent wisdom sheds round about a Super-natural Light to guide its good purposes and illustrate the ways of Virtue Omnipotence inspires an invincible strength to surmount all difficulties and obstacles Thus in Communion a Soul does not only receive the impressions of Love but of Love attended with the Lustre and Excellencies of all the Divine Perfections It is observable that Jesus Christ together with his Eternal Father sent the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles to replenish them with Love in the same place where he had given them Himself in the Sacrament So that this Divine Sanctuary was chosen two several times to be the Theater where the two greatest Actions of Love were represented that ever the goodness of God exhibited out of himself The first in giving us his Son to reside in our Hearts who from all Eternity rests in his own Bosom and thereby enabling us to live Divinely by him as he lives by his Father The second in sending on us the adorable Spirit of the Father and the Son to be the knot of the Eternal Espousals of the Soul with her God to Beautify her with his In created Light to warm her with his Sacred Flames to animate her with his Heavenly Force and Virtue and in a word to render her entirely Spiritual And both these Actions are perpetuated in the Holy Church when at the same time we are Feasted with the precious Body of the Son of God and inebriated with the Spirit of his Love O who can conceive the admirable Commerce and Caresses that are interchanged between Jesus Christ and pure Souls in this Divine Sacrament The World which discerns nothing but by meditation of the Senses is too gross and stupid to comprehend them It thinks that Souls which are escaped from its snares and dis-engaged from its business lead an idle and unprofitable Life it fancies they do nothing because their Actions are not seen that their Fire is extinguished because it does not blaze in the eyes of Men. But on the contrary they resemble those Mountains full of Sulpher which carry vast Globes of Fire in their Bosomes though they break out but at certain times and then they are not only seen but whole Provinces feel the Conflagrations Towns and Villages are Burned and Fields covered with Ashes In like manner those retired Souls which burn inwardly with Divine Love and for the most part shine only to God and themselves yet when the command and service of the Lord excite them to External Duties they produce such extraordinary Effects that numbers of Souls are set on fire with their Virtues Example and Instructions In this kind we have had many great Servants of God who having conceived a thousand good desires in their retirement and inflamed with Heavenly fire by the frequent use of the most Holy Communion issue from their retreat and this Sacred Table like Lyons breathing nothing but flames and setting all on fire about them Such have made the great Conversions of Sinners changed the face of whole Provinces and Kingdoms and all this performed only by one or a small number of such Servants of God who appeared so powerful in Works and Words that all their Actions seemed to be so many Miracles Here we must observe that this Interiour Fire in a person not sufficiently retired within himself or that from time to time is not careful to lay on more Fewel to nourish it I mean to
In-actions and fulfilling your merciful intentions upon me which are very great and above the comprehension of him that receives them For who can comprehend how the Infinite Majesty of God should lodge and be received in so vile so streight so unworthy a place as the Heart of Man The coming of the Kingdom of God into a Soul Sounds very delightfully and seems sweet I but the poor heart must first prepare to suffer the violent pains of a continual Agony The heart where God Almighty reigns must bid adieu to all Humane Life She dies to all Pleasures to all Consolations even Divine She has no more support no more relyance upon Creatures even the most Holy The bent of Nature and all Humane Inclinations are extinguished in her she has no more a mind for one thing than for another unless it be for a Supream Indifference nothing but Abjections Annihilations Poverty De-reliction are her Portion She is not capable of any other knowledge than that of Jesus Crucified and her Wisdom is Folly to this World This is the manner I ought to depend on your Grace O Blessed Jesus and have continual recourse unto you For you are my Father who nourish me with your own Substance you are my strength and support my weakness You are my Center where all my Agitations and Inquietudes rest and are at an end You are my End and utmost term of all my Desires At present I have no clear sight of the Purity of your Love but only feel in my self forceable Instincts that incline me to desire the Purity of Love and make me frequently break out into such Expressions as these O pure Love O durable Love Happy is he that seeks thee more Happy he that has found and possesseth thee But ah incomparably most Happy Happy beyond measure he that Perseveres with thee and Dies in thy embraces The End of the Fifth BOOK BOOK VI. Of Interiour and Exteriour Crosses CHAP. I. That we must have a high esteem for Crosses I Esteem it a great Happiness when we suffer any thing for Gods sake there being nothing on Earth whereby we can better testifie the Honour and Love we have for him 'T is in this state we are in a capacity to offer up to the Divine Majesty excellent Sacrifices and render to him most signal Services We cannot do more for a Friend than to procure his Glory by our own Destruction and make our selves nothing to make him All. Hence it is that Saints have set up a higher value upon their Sufferings in Prisons and Chains for the Name of Jesus than to be wrapt up with St. Paul into the third Heaven by Contemplation Be comforted then O my Soul in the different states wherein thou findest thy self so it be that thou dost suffer something for God it is enough If thou hast not the gift of Prayer but art in in aridity of Spirit suffer and be content there is more merit in this than in the most ravishing Contemplation Art thou afflicted with Sickness and so deprived of hearing Mass and receiving the Blessed Sacrament Suffer and be content for 't is better to be in the rigours of the Cross than in the sweets of Spiritual Exercises If thou canst do nothing for the good of thy Neighbour suffer and be content for 't is less meritorious to act for God than suffer for him If thy Exercises of Devotion and good Designs do not succeed as thou expectest suffer and be content for 't is better to suffer then to have all things according to thy desires If thou hast any deformity of Body or no great Parts of Mind provided thou suffer this Patience no Person can do better for this pleaseth God Believe me the best Science in the World the best Prayer the greatest Happiness is to know how to suffer for Gods sake We have a very great esteem for the Wood of the Cross of Christ we search after it with no small diligence no person can present us with a more precious Relique We Enchese it in Gold we keep it near our Heart we have a Veneration for it and preserve it Religiously and not without reason because 't is a small Relique of the true Cross of Christ In like manner true Christians the Children of Light do highly esteem those little Mortifications whether active or passive they undergo finding nothing more precious upon Earth and a greater guift cannot be presented to them then the occasions to suffer and mortifie themselves which they embrace with Joy and Love and with great respect cherish them not near but in their Heart considering that the state of Suffering is most agreeable to the dispositions of Jesus Christ and some small participation of his Sufferings 'T is as a little Parcel of the true Cross and the most precious Relique they can carry about them Let 's never be without having with us some of the true Cross let us make much of what afflicts us and we have Reliques thereof before we think on 't When we examine our Conscience let us ask our selves this question Hast thou O my Soul any parcel of the true Cross Any Reliques of the Sufferings of Jesus Christ Happy are those who have some part of them for they enjoy the occasions of the great tryals and proofs of their Love to Christ as can possibly happen The flames of Divine Love burn brightest in the furnace of Affliction St. Paul had a good piece of the true Cross when he said He carried in his Body the Marks of the Lord Jesus Christ for his Sufferings were indeed for Jesus's sake The most noble and glorious thing that Christ did upon Earth was his Dying for us on the Cross a Death most Painful and Ignominious that his Heavenly Father might thereby be Infinitely Glorified and he being thus exalted might draw the hearts of Believers after him and more powerfully engage their Affections to love and adore him A Soul that beholds Jesus on this Throne of his Ignominies which indeed is the Throne of his Grandeurs desires here on Earth to be united to Jesus Crucified as the Saints in Heaven enjoy him Glorified And thus she breaths forth her Desires True it is I cannot have a full Fruition of my Well-beloved in this Life however this is my comfort I can suffer for him Enjoyment is more sweet to the Creature but suffering is more lovely to the Creator and so I find enjoyment of the Miseries of my Banishment When a Soul has no mind to suffer in this World she has no mind to belong to God For seeing in this exile we cannot be his by enjoyment or but very little and being not willing to appertain to him by Suffering we cannot possess God And being without God we adhere to Creatures and loose our selves in disorder and vanity God finds not out of himself a more pleasing Mansion than in a Soul and Body Mortified with Sufferings there it is he takes his complacency and delight The
in Corporal Infirmities I have a mind to call my Hermitage the Hospital of the Incurable and only to lodge with me such poor Spiritual Christians who have a good will to heal their Imperfections but yet still fall into relapses At Paris there 's an Hospital for those who are Incurable in Body But mine shall be for such in Soul The end of the Sixth BOOK BOOK VII Of Ordinary Prayer and Contemplation CHAP. I. What Esteem we ought to have for Prayer WE must have a great care not to place Perfection where it is not for this will much retard us in the path of Virtue We must not therefore have too great an esteem for the Unitive Mystick way not but that it is good and very good for a Soul that God conducts to Perfection by such extraordinary Elevations But we may safely believe the Unitive Practical way to be as excellent and more necessary seeing 't is nothing else but the practice of a Christian Life and the other consists in Elevations and Unions of Spirit with God by Contemplation 'T is observable that our Blessed Saviour says Whosoever will come after me must take up his Cross and follow me He says not he must be Elevated in Prayer but he must take up his Cross that is he must practice the Maxims of the Gospel Happy then are those who suffer although they be not elevated in Spirit And those who are elevated in Spirit are not happy but inasmuch as they are conform to Jesus Christ Crucified and by such Unions are more disposed to the Cross and Sufferings The Crucified Life is in a manner the end of the Mystick Life whose Gusts and Lights conduce to fortifie the Soul to carry her Cross the better St. Teresa says That 't is a good sign after a Soul has been in an extasie if she find in her self extraordinary desires to suffer in that she cannot return from those Holy Communications with God but well instructed For the Perfection of Love here consists in Suffering for the Love of Jesus and not enjoying him Let us not complain then if we be not elevated by Mystick Unions but rather rejoyce too see our poor Soul in Prayer among the Thorns of dryness and aridities than the Roses of a sweet and gustful Devotion Interiour as well as Exteriour Sufferings must be pleasing to us seeing a true Christian ought to Glory in nothing but the Cross of Christ But that did extend it self as well to his Soul as Body for his Divine Soul was deprived of sensible succours in this Dereliction on the Cross and we must Love to be conform to him and rest content Happy are those Souls that love Sufferings rather than Enjoyments and complain of nothing sooner than not to suffer A Soul which receives no great Light from God in Prayer but is left in darkness and Interiour Sufferings carries in reality a heavy Cross But a Soul illuminated in Prayer by illustrations from Heaven endures another Cross more intime and burdensom For this Light discovering to her the great merit of pure Suffering 't is a pain to her not to suffer and so she remains without all sort of consolation seeing the state of Light and Sweetness appear to her not preferrable to that of obscurity And so tasting of those Sweets they are not now so pleasant having discover'd that the bitterness of Aridities is more acceptable to a Soul that desires nothing but the pure Love of Jesus Christ Crucified and that thereby may be more firmly united to her Saviour When I am in Darkness and Aridities I stand in need of an indifferency in every state that I may bear with Patience my Abjection and Poverty I have more need of Indifferency when my Soul is enlightned which irradiations God vouchsafes us to strengthen our weakness and not as I have thought heretofore to advance us in the practice of Divine Love which is more eminent in the contrary condition I have stood in need of comfort in my Sufferings and I have stood more in need of it in a state of Joy and Sweetness I said heretofore when I abounded with Consolations that I should never suffer again At present I think I shall suffer as long as I live seeing I find Crosses in every state and I frame my self to an Indifferency to Gods will and Pleasure in his dealings with me Heretofore inebriated with Consolations I said Fulcite me floribus stipate me malis quia amore langueo Surround me with Flowers and Aples to augment my Comforts and increase my Love But now I say surround me with Crosses Contempts and Sufferings for languishing with Love I desire to Love Jesus better than ever 'T is a wonderful thing that I should be more poor now then when I was deprived of all Consolation I will not then too greedily seek after Light and Sweetness seeing methinks they make me poorer I stand amaz'd to see a Soul to find her self desolate by Consolation In Desolations the Inferiour part of the Soul suffers but in Consolations the Superiour part and more elevated but little known I perceive that the Supreme part of the Soul cannot be content and comforted but by the Death of the sensual part and a seperation from all inordinate Affections to the Creature I should therefore rather desire a state of Desolation and Fidelity therein than all the Delicious gusts of Prayer though so elevated as to bring the Soul to ravishing extasies CHAP. II. Of the different sorts of Mental Prayer I Find a comparison which explicates very well the difference of ordinary Prayer and Prayer Passive A man may see well enough the Furniture of a chamber and the riches of a Cabinet by striking Fire and lighting a Candle to view the particulars Or by the lighting of the Sun when we have nothing to do but to open our eyes to behold those Objects Meditation much resembles the first way of seeing with a Candle Perfect Contemplation the second way of seeing by the Sun because 't is done not only without labour but all at once and with delight When the Light of the Sun fails us we must supply it with a Lamp or Candle When God does not Communicate himself by Contemplation we must seek after him by Meditation and be content with Gods Gifts whatever they be with Peace and Humility When God withdraws his Passive Light 't is in vain to strive to retain it We must acquiess in his Pleasure 'till it return again as he thinks good If God please to leave us in darkness without Sun or Candle 't is an opportunity to practice Humility and Patience for we must desire nothing but God alone and in what manner he thinks best Let a Soul be never so perfect she is never continually elevated to a high degree of Contemplation but more or less as it pleases God she must descend to the practice of Virtue and exercises of Charity or to discursive Meditation by Applications to God in the
to the least degree of Prayer or Dereliction if so he pleases It happens oftentimes that in a state of Privations a Soul is so surrounded with darkness that she sees nothing of God who seems entirely to be hid from her and that which augments this Cross she is so wholly taken up with her Loss that she thinks not of the means to recover her happiness If in this state a Soul be content with this rigorous usage with all humble submission to the good pleasure of God though she apprehends it not at present she is united to God in a transcendent manner and possesses her soveraign-Good when she fears she has lost him This is the preheminence of a Soul which is not wedded to one manner of Prayer more than another but holds her self in an indifferency to receive of God whatever he pleases And let her Prayer be what it will she will be sure not to perform the Work of God negligently CHAP. IV. That above all things 't is necessary to practise Prayer VVE must understand aright that all our Perfection and all the Glory we can bring to God lyes in our Interiour and not so much in our Exteriour Actions Alas we pass away our time vainly and unprofitably both to God and our selves There 's nothing so precious as his Interiour nothing is to be preferred before it seeing thereby God is most glorified And therefore of all our Sacrifices the Heart is the principal and none of our Offerings are acceptable without it Fili mi da mihi cor tuum 'T is from the Interiour proceeds the pure Love of God and of our Neighbour the Purity of Intention the Zeal of the Glory of God and whatever Riches the Soul possesses And yet we too often neglect this to make a fair outward show in exteriour actions which are ordinarily sullied with impurity by a mixture with the Interests of corrupted Nature Too many pass away the greatest part of their Life in Impurity and Imperfections for want of Light and they want Light because it is not ordinarily obtained but by Prayer and they neglect Prayer under specious pretences of gaining time to do good to others and advance the glory of God and so want this Light and thereupon fail in their corresponding to the Grace of God A Soul must be constant to her Times of Prayer if she intend to nourish the Life of Grace in her and not to pray only then when she has nothing else to do that is good and commendable which is but an artifice of Satan by other Exercises of Charity to withdraw well-meaning Souls from Prayer and this we must have a gseat care of being a subtile Temptation If hereby he can weaken the vigour of the Soul 't is that he lookt for and then he will soon induce us to fall into such Defects and Imperfections which will bring great Prejudice to a spiritual Life How many Souls are there who endanger their Ruine even by Works of Charity either by over-doing or not doing them according to the order of God and Grace We must have a generous Fidelity to the Exercise of holy Prayer by means whereof we approach to the Divine Source from whence the Soul rceives all Strength and Vertue Prayer is a holy fire to which who draws near has warm affections for God who shuns it must of necessity fall into Tepedity and Lukewarmness Whatever our condition be whether in Sickness or Health in Abjection or Honour in Poverty or Abundance let us never fail of our Duty to God by Prayer in the best manner we can being the Powerful means to procure and advance our union with God our only Happiness I canot possibly wish a greater Good to any person I love than the Gift of Prayer knowing that thereby we enter into the Cabinet of the Secrets of God and are made partakers of his Graces Prayer then is the Source of all Grace in the Soul without which by degrees she tends to ruine No affairs whatsoever could ever hinder the Saints from their constant Devotions Jesus Christ himself has shew'd us this by his example spending whole Nights in Prayer and Contemplation Our Disorders proceed much by too lightly engaging our selves for want of Circumspection in humane affairs to which we have no Call from God and therefore are not favoured by him with Success whereby we fall into many Defects and become too often indispos'd to Prayer and Prayer failing us we want all things The first Wheel that must set all a going in our Spiritual Life is this Maxim That our perfection consists principally in our Interiour But it cannot go well with our Interiour without Fidelity to Grace which works in us a Love of Mortification and Austerities an Inclination to Solitude and a kind of Abhorrence of Sensual Pleasures and such Vanity as the World admires Now this Grace that brings forth these good Fruits in us is not obtained but by Prayer nor ordinarily augmented but by Prayer nor well known so as to correspond to its motions but by Prayer But 't is very difficult and in a manner impossible to preserve the Spirit of Prayer in the Multiplicity of Affairs which for the most part are instrumental to divert our Thoughts from God and so few Souls attain to Perfection because few dispose themselves to pure Prayer neglecting it too much under a pretence of gaining Time to do good to others A Soul that would be wholly for God must discreetly shun the Obstacles of Perfections though never so specious with Courage and Fidelity Who is weak in Prayer must not lay out himself too much in Action for then he will profit little in the wayes of God and his Interiour will not advance in Vertue When we see many great Servants of God to do glorious things for the Love and Service and Honour of their great Master with high Commendation this sometimes raises an emulation in us to follow their Examples but our Fidelity does not consist herein it being our Duty to make the best we can of the Grace we have received and admire without envy the Gifts of others Methinks I have a Desire to be but as God will have me neither more nor less either interiourly or exteriourly in Nature or Grace I see others Perfect and my self Imperfect without discouragement I behold even with Content others commanding their Passions and my self fighting for Victory others doing much for God and I in a manner doing nothing others Strong and Couragious in the Service of God and my self nothing but Weakness and Misery I am comforted in considering the Designs of God concerning me and acquiesce in his good Pleasure For God refuses us not sometimes to take unprofitable Servants into his house who only serve to set forth his Bounty and Magnificence as we see with us some great Persons do show their Grandeurs When we have nothing to do but only to pray we seem to some to be but unprofitable and do God but
by Jesus Christ there being no other Means to attain Salvation 6. That the Sacred Trinity which consists in the perfect Knowledge and pure Love of the Divine Persons is the true Model of Perfect Prayer These deeply consider'd are very instrumental to elevate a Contemplative Soul to so high a pitch that sometimos she in a wonderful manner participates of that Life Eternal which is in God himself I have made a Resolution to desire of God that my Prayer may be altogether Intellectual to the end I may not feel such sensible Gusts of Heavenly Consolations which prejudice Nature These are but sweet Baiâ—s for self-Love which sullies the Purity of Prayer and diminishes the Contemplative Attention which continues more strong and vigorous when kept on the point of the Spirit whereby the Fire of Divine Love burns brighter and with more constant Flames This is that continual Union which is the Object of Perfection and whatever hinders this ought to be suspected as are sensible Gusts of Devotion in Inferiour Nature O my Soul let us therefore entirely give up our selves to God in Prayer to receive from him such impressions as he thinks best let our chief care be fully to submit our selves to him and to be disingag'd from all worldly things and accept with Thankfulness whatever he gives us If he gives us nothing let nothing content us and peaceably acquiesce in Union with his Divine Will A Soul faithful in the state of Privations will sooner or later as God sees best be raised to pure Union and Enjoyments on the lofty Wings of Contemplation CHAP. IX Of the Prayer of Faith THis Prayer is a bare reflection or simple remembrance of God who is believed by naked Faith as he is seen and known by the Light of Glory 'T is the same Object here and there but known by the Soul in a different manner The way of knowing God here is but learned Ignorance Earth is the Land of Believing Heaven of Seeing To see God as we are seen of Him and understand all Divine Mysteries is reserv'd for the Light of Glory here we must walk by the obscurities of Faith This Faith must be naked without Images or Representations simple and without Discourse universal without a distinct consideration of particulars The operation of the Will is conform to that of the Understanding Naked Simple Universal Spiritual Independant on the Senses We must expect great Combats in this way from our Spirit which will still be working and rely on Creatures But though it be much distasted by the understanding part of the Soul yet she must strive to die to her own operations and willingly entertain what helps her in this Combat as Aridities Privations Desolations which at last leave the Soul in exercise of pure Faith whereby God is known in a higher manner than those Lights which serve as a Medium between God and the Soul for this Union of our Spirit with God by pure Faith is immediate and so more elevated The Will also must die to what ever is not God To live only in Him and to him by pure Love For the Life of the Will is this Death and this Death is not ordinarily wrought but by Privations This kind of Prayer is uniform and not much lyable to alterations nor brings any damage to the Body For Nature has nothing to do in it being not procurable by greatest endeavours of Humane Industry but depending purely on the Will of God who alone gives it when and to whom he pleases 'T is true this pure and naked Contemplation of God by Faith is given but rarely and to those who have past through many Purgatories and states of Penance to fit them for it In the beginning it darts into the Soul but Transient Irradiations like flashes of Lightning if at any time they continue about half an hour 't is very much However they work in the Soul very great Effects One of the principal is that this Light of Faith discovers to us the verity of Divine Mysteries Imperfections and the Perfections we want and practical Virtues And all this at once not successively one after another by discourse which could never arrive to produce a knowledge so clear and universal But indeed the understanding has much ado to die to its own operations and not act by Humane Lights by being wholly given up to the obscurity of Faith However this must be done to be rightly disposed for Divine Operations There are divers degrees of Contemplations but what God is pleas'd to give us must be received with submissive Thankfulness While we live in Mortal Bodies we shall have always something to purifie and therefore always something to suffer Three parts of our Life pass away in a Suffering condition In a state of obscurity the Soul is intimately united to God although she be not sensible thereof I am much taken with the way of pure Faith in Prayer whereby the Soul knows God as much as she can do in this Life and though it be obscure it matters not being sure and certain For my part take as much as you will of my Light of Reason if the Light of Faith increase thereby O how Beautiful is pure and naked Faith It much conduces to Spiritualize a Soul to live continually by Faith to esteem and love nothing but what we ought to esteem and love Man rarely will relinquish his Reason and nevertheless he must raise himself above it or drag on the Earth with Imperfections Faith is a participation of the Eternal Wisdom she only conducts us with true assurance for her Lights though dark are certain and their obscurity does incomparably transcend the clearest evidence of Natural Reason Moreover to make Prayer more Intellectual and that Nature may have no hand in it we must leave off some things which usually did raise our hearts to God with a sensible Devotion As Musick Rich Ornaments Devout Pictures in Churches and the like This is good and profitable in the beginning of a Spiritual Life and some time after but when a Soul has attained purity of Prayer there 's no need to take her nourishment that is her Knowledge and Love but from pure Faith and Supernatural Lights infused into her When we take not good heed we keep not our selves sufficiently passive to the Operations of God but we go a beging for the Life of the Soul to sensible Objects when God himself would nourish her with more purified Knowledge and Diviner Love Why should we hanker after sensible Gusts of Devotion seeing Nature is commonly too much taken with them to the damage of naked Faith and the hindrance of our pure Union with God which requires a total denudation of all Creatures Notwithstanding when God tryes us with Derelictions and gives us not admittance into his presence but by things sensible and Discoursive Prayer we must humbly comply with this state and not pretend to higher elevations in our Addresses to him Yet if a Soul in
The Soul thus conducted into the Cabinet of her Heart receives a great discovery of the motions of Nature and Grace not only ordinary but those which are most hard to be discerned Knowing very well that God Communicates himself unto her by Infusion she corresponds to his motions and becomes passive to his operations The Truths she sees by this infused Light makes deeper impressions then when discover'd by Meditation And the Soul conceives far otherwise of Virtues of Reformation of Manners and how to Act and Suffer for God It seems to her that now she begins to quit her Natural Inclinations wherein she continued with much Imperfection and becomes more strong and generous and more resolv'd to act for God Except I deceive my self God has been pleas'd to put me in this state by his actings in me But withall he makes me know that more Purity and Fidelity is required than ever by dying to our selves and the World to do his Will and more Humility by acknowledging our selves unworthy of his Graces and to return to ordinary Prayer when he leaves us in Aridities and to bear them with content and resignation I have seen but a small glimmering of this elevated Prayer to make me the more to aspire after a fuller view to abandon all to possess this entirely to enjoy this Happy hour one moment whereof is worth a thousand Worlds Seeing God is pleas'd thus to favour us why should we refuse his Mercies by detaining our selves in lower Exercises I have now no more difficulty to understand how the knowledge of many Verities are imprinted in a Soul that is unlearned and not verst in acquir'd Sciences And how by an Interiour Light she sees things without her a far off And how she can know the Perfections of God and her own Imperfections Here is the Cabinet of God all the World does not enter into it neither is the door always open Come my Soul let us knock at the door thereof with an humble confidence if God is not pleas'd to open it let us wait there with content and quiet and practice Patience The times of Gods Visits depend only on his good pleasure If the Interiour of the heart be not well purified it will not be disposed to receive these Infusions and Divine Communications for Purity and Impurity cannot agree I was never so convinced as now that all things are to be forsaken to attend to God alone and for this end to love Contempts Poverty and Sufferings and that Grace requires of me to obey this Divine Call with Fidelity not fearing the Inconveniencies of Poverty but depending confidently on the support of Providence After that a Soul has received the impression of the Divinity in Infused Prayer she sees and finds God every where by a secret of Love only known to them who have experience thereof Love has wonderful piercing Eyes which rests not on the outside of Creatures but passes through to the Divinity that lyes there hidden In like manner when the Soul has impressions of Jesus in Infused Prayer she sees and finds him every where For that intimate Communication which Jesus makes of himself to the Interiour Powers of the Soul so takes them up that the Soul sees Jesus in all things who is the only Object of her Love to whom she is so united as never to suffer a separation O how great is the Grace of Infused Prayer and how Happy is that Soul who is partaker thereof CHAP. XVI Of Prayer of quiet BEhold what our Blessed Saviour has made me understand by Experience of this manner of Prayer In my Prayer I found all my Powers in a Calm and fill'd with great Peace and Sweetness which proceeded from the Presence of God in my Interiour whom there I beheld residing and working many Graces Whilst this holds the Soul as it were asleep in quiet she rejoyces and this Joy is infus'd into her and hardly knows how she rejoyces feeling only in her Interiour a Sweetness and delightful Tranquillity yet well perceiving God works this in her by his Presence God likewise gives her great Assurance of his Presence and experimental Knowledge that he is infinitely Good Powerful Merciful her only Soveraign and final Happiness The Soul perceives well enough that she now conceives these things in a more eminent manner than by Discourse being in a Region of Light above her Reason The sacred Repose she takes in God now present gives her such an Interiour way of knowing and loving God that she tasts his Sweetness and so finds by Experience what he is A taste of honey teaches better to know what honey is than the most learned Discourses of its Nature and Properties so the Relish we have of God in this sacred Repose makes us know better what he is than any Discourse in Meditation A Soul that has tasted the Sweetness of God does not find a Relish in Creatures as formerly Whilst the Soul tastes the Creature she ceases to taste God and this Cessation is troublsome to a loving Soul In this sacred Repose the Soul is taught efficaciously how to mortifie her Passions and practise Virtues for the good of her Neighbour when Charity requires it And 't is no small Mortification to her to quit this admirable Enjoyment to go about exteriour Acts of Charity The Soul that does not taste the Sweetness of God knows not this kind of Mortification In this state where the Will is taken Captive as St. Teresa says the Soul fears nothing more than to return to her Liberty And I can truly say I know it is a Punishment that does not a little affright the Soul In the Sweetness of this Prayer of quiet the Soul learns a sublime way to embrace the Bitterness of Sufferings to become indifferent to Peace or War to Action or Contemplation in a word to desire nothing but God alone So that other things though good and convenient at other times now are troublesome unto her She conceives that these words in the Canticles Do not awake my Spouse till she please do signify thus much as spoken by Jesus Christ to a loving Soul Do not put my Spouse out of this sacred Slumber into which she is cast by my Presence And though she much desires the Continuance of this sacred Quiet yet it is with a perfect Resignation to the Will of God to do with her what he pleases What she fears most is least for her Infidelity God should leave her for another Lover When thou feelest O my Soul God thus working in thee infusing his Sweetness in a plentiful manner dilate thy heart to receive it and be respectfully attentive to his Operations in thee for 't is then he is pleased to treat thee magnificently and of thy Miseries to make a Throne for his Goodness and Mercies The sensual man has no Experience of these Mercies he may indeed have some Idea of them in his Fancy but they are real things in a well disposed Soul and
God to deal with her as seems best pleasing to him For ought she knows 't is best for her to be afflicted and therefore she willingly submits to Gods chastisements rejoycing thereat and Blessing him for them Yea if she may but bring Glory to God thereby she is content to be cast into Hell In this state her Love is wholly centred in God and she gives her self up to the rigours of Justice that she may be entirly Sacrific'd to Gods Glory which is an Intention pure from all Self-interest An indifferency to any state does possess that Soul which has a well purified Intention with a perfect resignation to the good pleasure of God to remain content with her present condition being satisfied with whatsoever portion of Grace she has received with profound Humility and Mortification Being thus disposed she has no mind to any thing but what pleases God and does that Faithfully and by this means obtains wonderful Peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost To Will nothing but what God Wills requires a great degree of Mortification and being dead to all Greatures for this is the highway to the Purity of Divine Love What did the Ancient Hermits search for in the Deserts but by a perfect denudation of all Creatures to arrive to the Perfection of Divine Love Let us fear and sigh to see our selves so engaged and beset with several Temptations in the World 'T is a hard matter but some or other may cease upon us and rob us of that perfect poverty of Spirit which puts us in full possession of God alone 'T is a special favour of God to have a vocation to the Poor and Abject states of Jesus Christ And 't is no small Grace when God conducts us to them by a Happy necessity with little noise or stir to call the eyes of others upon us 'T is well enough if the Soul consent purely to the Ordinations and events of Divine Providence CHAP. VIII A Conference clearing many difficulties touching Prayer Qu IN what consists precisely good mental Prayer I find many sorts thereof in Books The Saints have practic'd it with much difference and yet all so good that I am taken with them To which of them shall I betake my self Ans The ways of Souls in Mental Prayer are so wonderful various that 't is best for every one to hold to that which they find most proper for them Or else they will loose their time in a wilderness of Thoughts without Spiritual profit Hence it is that in Mystical Authors we seldom meet with what is proper for every Soul And though we find very sublime and solid Verities concerning Prayer in the Writings of St. Teresa Blessed John de la Croix and others yet they have but described their own experiences and not how the case stands with other Souls unless a light discovery in some things agreeable to their illuminations Such Instructions are good to read but not exactly to be followed so as to conform our selves entirely to their manner of Prayer We shall find in such Books matter very profitable and 't is time well spent in Spiritual Lectures and not without delight to Virtuous Souls Qu. From whence proceeds these different manners of Prayer seeing there 's but one Soveraign and single Verity in God to be known one Soveraign good to be Loved and Charity being of the self-same Nature in all Souls one would think there ought to be a great conformity among all those who know and love God Ans That which makes so many different manners of Prayer arises from the different manner of knowing God Some conversing with him by Meditation and humane Ratiocination Others receive from God Heavenly irradiations above the Powers of Reason by which he manifests himself immediately to the Soul as the Sun by his Beams Others contemplate God by the obscure Light of Faith in an ineffable manner which is a kind of feeing him without seeing him These different manners of treating with God make not only different manners of Prayer but cause also much diversity in every manner For example in the Prayer of Faith which seems more simple than the other there are many degrees which represent to the Soul different views of God and Divine matters When Faith is seated in an understanding well purified from Images and alien Representations she then discovers God more sublimely as he is in himself though but in a manner negative general and confus'd yet efficacious to work in the heart a great esteem of God and ardent Charity All Books and Sermons and Conferences will not satisfy a Soul advanced to this kind of knowing God For those manners of speaking and conceiving God seem to her too full of Imperfection Faith wholly purified contents her self with having an eye to the Light of Glory which discovers God in his Infinity although but obscurely and according to the measure that Faith is more or less pure and simple these discoveries are more or less perfect Qu. Are all sort of People capable of these sublime manners of Prayer and if any one desire to attain them by what means must he go about it Ans The gift of Prayer is not proper for all People yea some great Saints have never had it as some good Servants of God who have become Holy in the Exercises of an Active Life which would not afford them much time for Contemplation and accustom'd themselves to the ordinary method of Meditation which is good and advantagious for such Souls whom God calls not to a more sublime way Those whom God favours with the extraordinary gift of Prayer do possess an inestimable Treasure and with this only Grace which is the source of many more they are rich enough though never so poor in things of this Life But seeing 't is the meer gift of God I account it Folly and Rashness to think we can bring our selves to the sublime state of Contemplation unless God elevate us by his immediate work and special favour All that we can do therein is to dispose our selves by corresponding Faithfully to the motions of Grace by dying daily to our Natural Inclinations in the practice of Mortification and leave God to do the rest Except God build the House they labour in vain who think to raise the Edifice by their own Abilities Qu. A Soul establish'd in a sublime manner of Prayer and that hath a long time practic'd it can she easily fall from this state Ans If such a Soul gives her self over to her Sensual Inclinations and commit gross Imperfections becoming Faithless to Gods Holy Inspirations she may fall from it But 't is very credible she will return to it For she cannot long endure the loss of so great a Happiness without forcing her self by her Humiliations and Penitences to recover her former state And as much as she dies to all Creatures so much she advances to God But she can never attain it without Practice a Fidelity and therefore it highly concerns her to free her self from too many Worldly Affairs and love Retirement Notwithstanding those which God requires of us as belonging to our Duty will not hinder us from arising to such a degree of Prayer as God hath prepared for us from all Eternity Qu. The most elevated and perfect Prayer is not without Darkness and Privations and sometimes perplex'd with Interiour Crosses and Desolations But is there not a state of Light and enjoyment to be attained here wherein the Soul may possess God clearly and peaceably without any disturbance Ans No the permanent state of Enjoyment is reserv'd for Heaven In this Life indeed we are visited without Divine Irradiations and Glimmerings of Glory but they are only now and then and transient The term of this Life is working Time and not of Rest for acquisition not possession where the Soul may daily purchase new Graces and advance her self in Prayer according to her progress in Virtue and Purity by being Faithful to the Calls of God on all occasions Gods usual way is to make Souls pass through Darkness Temptations Derelictions Desolations Exteriour and Interiour Sufferings to come to a good Stock of Virtue and a higher degree of Purity which raises them to a more sublime state of Prayer And being exercised some way or other to raise them nearer to Heaven by Spiritual Ascensions they at length leave Time to meet with Eternity Neither must we wonder to see the wayes of the Just thus beset with Thorns and Bryars for this is expedient to advance them in Perfection and Divine Love Qu. How much time must we imploy daily in Prayer if we mean to Profit thereby so as to attain Perfection Ans We cannot much advance in Prayer without a long and constant usuage of this Divine Exercise 't is not enough to do good Works but we must spend some Hours in our daily Devotions 'T is by Prayer we advance in the ways of God and not otherwise We must be careful to imploy much time in the Exercise thereof if God calls us to it and not apply our selves to the Active way Let us not be too Sollicitous to discharge our other Obligations for a Soul in the state of continual Prayer performs readily what she ought on all occasions When the time comes for Confession she is presently all dolorous Love Contrition When she Communicates she is all Humility all Desire and flaming Affection When she is to correct she is all Sweetness and Charity When she is to help her Neighbour she is all Zeal and Love When she must act for God she has an intention purified from all Self-Interest And all this she performs in Virtue of Prayer as it were without distinct Acts but habitually and in an excellent sublime manner by the special operation of Gods Holy Spirit and not by Meditations or Considerations which are means only to find God A Soul that thus once hath laid hold on God does take her repose and rest in him making it her only business to Love and Worship him in Spirit and Truth FINIS
according to Nature and must employ all means and Motives to this effect I will set down some of them 'T is a good Motive or means to renounce all Creatures and our selves by a spirit of denudation saying with great fervour and affection Away Creatures get hence from me and leave a place in my heart for God alone 2. 'T is a good Motive to do this by a spirit of Poverty for it is not possible to follow Jesus poor and abject unless in due circumstances we be willing to leave all things for Jesus sake and become poor to follow him Let us therefore be content to quit all things joyfully and be glad to have nothing to possess God himself alone 3. ' Tisae good Motive to die to all things by a spirit of abjection What greater happiness is there O my Soul than to live in humiliation seeing this was the life of God upon Earth To be despised with Jesus is a state of beatitude Worldly Prosperity is a hindrance to our happiness 4. 'T is a good Motive to abandon all things by a spirit of oblation sacrificing and annihilating our selves sincerely to pay homage to the Infinite Majesty of God with such a confidence in him so as to rely never more on any Creature Quid enim mihi est in Caelo aut à te quid volui super Terram Deus cordis mei O my God! shall any Creature take part of my heart with you when all is yours If it was possible to love you too much I might give place to something else but seeing I am infinitely below my duty in that particular what Creature can pretend to have the least part with you CHAP. IX Of the liberty we enjoy by the exercise of the Supernatural Life 'T Is wonderful to see the great liberty which a Soul enjoys by the exercises of a supernatural life When the illuminations of this state irradiate a Soul throughly she enters into a new region of light full of Peace and Love marvelous large and spatious in which she lives in high union with God A union which is not so liable to vicissitudes and disturbances as formerly because accidental occurrences as sickness disgraces c. do not hurt such a Soul by reason they make no strong impression in her and by consequence being become less sensible she is not easily diverted from the supernatural Object of her love Yea such a Soul improves hindrances and divertisements to her greater recollection and increase of Divine Love because in this state she is dis-engag'd from the Creature and so freed from fear of miseries which she can chearfully embrace as the occasions of her happiness whereby she enters into a perfect liberty and great purity of Virtue I could never well understand what that is which is called Purity of Virtue but now I see 't is the state of a supernatural life wherein the Soul lives no more in her self and of her self and for her self but in God and of God and for God being wholly separated from the Creatures and united to God Alas how is this poor Soul afflicted to do things so much below her self in this high condition For oftentimes she must act according to her natural inclinations and the dictates of pure reason which affords her matter of sighs and languishings after her Beloved This is that which kindles in her breast an ardent desire to be dissolved and leave this earthly Tabernacle wherein by the common misery of mankind she lives a life displeasing to her self for being not wholly for God as she desires it seems to her a kind of death And seeing she cannot continually live this supernatural life without vicissitudes it is as it were a death unto her A Death unknown to sensual men but such that are spiritual are very sensible thereof O Jesus deliver me from this life of mortality seeing here I cannot live your life of purity in comparison of which all other lives are but death and corruption To see so clearly the excellencies of a life so lovely and not to be able to live but little of it considering my frailty makes me resent my misery and acknowledge dear Jesus how necessary your Grace is for me O how great is the dependence which my Soul hath on your mercy 't is so mighty and essential dependence that words cannot sufficiently express it However this comforts me herein that it gives you all the Glory of the Interiour beauty in the Soul which is a work more magnifies your Power Bounty and Wisdom than the whole outward work of the Creation Your greatest wonders dear Saviour are secret and hidden A Soul that lives this supernatural life above her inclinations does more set forth the great power of God than to elevate the Heavens above the Earth for this is as miraculous as to elevate the Earth above the Heavens This makes me O my God desire to live this blessed life that I may thereby bring greater Glory to your Name Assist me powerfully with your Grace for if I be once left to my self I shall relapse into my natural weakness which is but a meer Nothing and Infirmity Some trouble themselves too much in philosophising on this spiritual life which is needless it being enough to say The Spirit of Jesus must be the Spirit of my Interiour 't is He by whom I must live this life and act accordingly and so free our selves from other considerations which may hinder our liberty to follow this light and fall faithfully to practice on the occasions of Crosses Contempts and Disgraces which happen to us in this life I ought daily to endeavour after purity although I cannot attain the highest practice because the course of my life wherein God has placed me will not permit it nor does exact of me to attempt of my self the grand effects of purity lest I should be discourag'd by failing in the enterprize This is only the perfection of the greatest Saints and herein we must give our selves up to the conduct of the Spirit of Jesus Christ who being infinitely wise we need not fear having him for our Leader But as we ought not to be too rigorous so we must not be too faint-hearted in the ways of perfection but apply our selves with love and resolution to all occasions by suffering peaceably and with contentation whatever injuries we may receive from others in seeking too much their own interest All sufferings are to be entertain'd with love but especially what we suffer by Injustice For is not this that which the Son of God hath done principally upon Earth by suffering innocently Do not therefore say I would suffer this injury if he that does it had the least reason for it for this proceeds from self-self-love and passion It may well be that he has no reason to do you this injury but Divine Reason and the spirit of Christianity teach you to bear it patiently 'T is good to suffer thus and in this to imitate Jesus is
pleasing to him And seeing this exercise of the supernatural life does bring with it a universal Peace and this Peace cannot be preserved without suffering contentedly all injuries whatsoever this excellent life does teach us holy Patience Now this Patience preserves this Peace and this Peace brings with it an admirable Liberty and Resolution to mind principally the One thing necessary which is to give up our selves to God and his direction CHAP. X. Our greatest happiness on Earth is to profess the way of Christianity I Have a great resentment of joy and thankfulness to see my self a Member of Christ's Church and in the number of the Faithful I have a sensible taste of this happiness which is incomparable O my God! what shall I return unto you for having prevented me with this signal mercy why have you chosen me out among so many thousands Alas this is the excess of your sole bounty to me To be a Child of the Church O what a happiness is this 'T is of more worth than to be Monarch of the whole world The Church is the Congregation of the Faithful that is of those who believe and confess Jesus Christ and have no other Maxims nor Sentiments than his O my Soul let us then live as becomes our Profession that Jesusmay live in us according to his holy will and inclinations To be a Member of Christ's Church is to be a person who ought to have an affection for humiliations and crosses to be well content not to thrive in the world and to advance in Virtue by opprobrious usage and contradictions What a misery is it to see us live so little in the exercise of Christianity We account it an honour to be in authority to be well descended to have a generous spirit but to be a Christian we are affraid to own it by our actions O the beauty that adorns our Christian Profession How wonderful is it and yet how little esteemed by us I shall be very honourable and happy to keep that with me when other things are gone and vanish'd O how amiable are the Maxims of a supernatural life in what an excellent order do they put all things They give to every one what is their due to God all Honour and Glory and to me a wretched sinner Contempt and Confusion For I ought to consider my self as a centre of all miseries and deserved punishments God is the Centre and Object of all the adorations of Men and Angels Glory is his just tribute but to me belongs confusion If I should be beaten disgracefully I ought to take it with contentation to see Justice so well done to me on this occasion And if I was truly animated with the spirit of Christianity I ought as much desire to be humbled as worldings thirst after Honours Praises and Preferments 'T is a supernatural disorder not to love Ignominies and not to endeavour the destruction of our corrupted Nature Jesus hath built his Mystical Body on the ruins of our Natural Body and we cannot form in us the same life of Jesus without the ruin of ours that is to say our natural life according to our depraved inclinations Poverty Pains Contempts your dear Companions good Jesus make sometimes my heart ake and then again they refresh me breathing forth such sweet Perfumes as chear my spirits A Perfume that purifies and calms my Soul into a fit temper to converse with you I will now wonder no more that your Spouses run after you in the Odour of your Perfumes A Perfume that doth strengthen me to accomplish the desires I have to be conformable to you My heart dilates it self with hope to see that happy day in this life when I shall be free from all molestation of Creatures and have some participation of the poverty and abjections of Jesus crucified We cannot live here without some Director or other for either the Humanity of Jesus will direct us or the Humanity of Adam will govern us If we live the life of Christianity the First will conduct us and impart to us such directions as his holy Soul receiv'd from the Divinity which are all for the Cross and humiliations If we love only a human life the Other will guide us in the ways of self-love 'T is as great a miracle for a Soul to live a supernatural life as for a stone to elevate it self into the air because the corruption of sin hath made the Soul so heavy that of her self she cannot but tend downward to sin and misery This is that which magnifies the power of Grace in us So that it is a prodigious vanity to boast of our good actions when being done by the supernatural power of Grace they are not the fruits of human Nature If a Soul loses the sight of the light of Faith she will soon lose her self in the Mist of self-love If she does not live in a continual mortification by curbing her natural appetites she must needs fall into superfluities and imperfections The sweetness and joy that a Soul receives from austerities crosses poverty denudation of Creatures makes her spiritual peaceful chearful and affords her solid content and satisfaction The content and delights she receives from sensual pleasures though lawful as Meat and Drink temporal successes Reputation c. make her carnal and afford her but a false peace and vain joy and instead of elevating her to contemplation do more or less depress her to sensuality CHAP. XI That Truth is only found in the Spirit of Christianity the rest is Vanity WHen the beams of the light of Faith are darted into a Soul they discover to her that there 's nothing true indeed but the verities of Christianity which Jesus came from Heaven to teach us and all the rest but deceit and vanity O what happiness is it for a Soul to be thus irradiated Then she begins to know how she hath been enveloped with darkness and dwelt in obscurity O what joys do now refresh her How rich and glorious is she in perceiving that what she thought to be true Riches Glory and Joy is false and counterfeited and in reality but poverty infamy and sorrow These heavenly Illustrations do open her eyes to see perfectly the vanities of this world which now she values not but Jesus is her only joy her life and verity Whatsoever is not Christian that is to say according to the Maxims of Christianity she esteems now as folly death and perdition and what to the world and the flesh is folly death and perdition she accounts to be wisdom life and the greatest gain O when the rays of this light do pierce a Soul how on a sudden becomes she knowing content and elevated 'T is hardly credible how much such a Soul is alienated from her self and whatsoever is not God She sees so much wisdom in the folly of Saints and so much beauty in their miseries that all the allurements of the world cannot win her affections For having been taken
The poorer we are in Spirit the richer we are in Grace the more a Soul is nothing in her self the more God is all in her and is pleased to work great things for her Jesus presented himself to my spirit in my second Prayer discovering to me in general the different states of his life passive in his Sufferings active in Virtues and how he is the Origen and Source of all purity to which we aspire by a spiritual life I conceiv'd first That there 's a purity of suffering which is great indeed when we suffer without seeking relief carrying this Cross for God's sake as long as he pleases There is a purity of action when we act not whether interiourly or exteriourly but by the motion of God's spirit with pure intentions Here arguments of humane reason are cut off and we stir not without some impressions of Grace working only for God by his working in us We must labour hard and be perfectly dead to the world before we can come to this state of purity There 's a purity of intention when we have only an eye to the will of God to do what pleases him without acting upon other Motives though good and laudable wherein seems to be some self-interest as fear to offend to be faithful to God's call to be more loved and rewarded A Soul in this state has no regard to her self but solely to the will of God her End and Object There 's a purity of imployment when a Soul will not divert her thoughts from God but by Order from God himself by some motion of his holy Spirit Hence we shun unnecessary visits unprofitable words superfluous occupations and that is superfluous to one Soul which is not to another by reason of the different degrees of Grace imparted to them We must suffer many mortifications to attain this purity and such a Soul must fear nothing more than Infidelity This is but a branch of the purity of action There 's a purity of Virtue when we practice only what God will have us to do There 's a purity of spiritual delight when the superiour part of the Soul receives no consolations willingly from any Creature or sensual things but stands upon her guard to keep them out And there 's a purity of Prayer when the Soul elevated above her self by the workings of God in her is in extasie of spirit and united to God alone by contemplation A Soul that once has had a feeling of God in her sees an infinite difference between Him and the holiest Creatures and entring into a great interiour solitude converses with God alone All these sorts of purity appeared to me in the Interiour of Jesus as in their Source In my third Prayer I came to know that the mysteries or states of Jesus Christ are not only the exemplar but also the efficient of our states so that we suffer not only to imitate Jesus in his sufferings but because Jesus by his sufferings imprints on us the virtue of his spirit to give us the grace to suffer for him When we pray 't is not only to imitate Jesus in contemplation but because he infuses into our hearts the gift of Prayer by his holy Spirit And if a Soul arrive to that heighth as to possess Jesus Christ in an extraordinary manner he then does all in her and for her she being only pliable to his Divine Operations We cannot continue in this state without wonderful purity the least sally of immortified Nature will much endamage it How often has God been pleas'd to give me experience of this when Jesus uniting himself unto me in the holy Communion annihilates all my thoughts words and affections to become to me all things in me He is my Thankfulness my Offering my Humility my Charity my Prayers and I do nothing but remain united to him who works all for my Soul as it were annihilated in his presence Words as well as thoughts fail us in the presence of the WORD who pleads to his Fathers for those Souls he possesses in such a mysterious manner What marvels are there hidden beyond expression In my fourth Prayer I consider'd that being a Christian I had a strict obligation to follow Christ but besides that general tie I had a special vocation to imitate Jesus in his humiliations To follow him in this way with purity I must forsake all grandeur and be content with poverty and objection and labour stoutly for a perfect abnegation of my self Since God has given me a generous resolution to sacrifice my self wholly to his service I will follow his call though I die for 't Methinks I am enabl'd to do it with great peace and liberty of Spirit What evil can happen to me if I die for God who died for Me Those who choose to be poor out of desire to follow Jesus are peculiar Objects of God's care and providence which extends it self to all men but especially to those who are the lively Images of his Son He is their Father in a peculiar manner and sets a watch about them more than others For is it possible he should not give Bread to them who leave all their Temporals to serve him better and love him purer Let us stifle all humane reasonings on this subject let us go whither Grace calls us and fear nothing If we die in the service 't will be happy for us 'T is a great favour from God when we breath out our Souls in the flames of Divine Love Fifth Day Jesus Zelator of Souls IN my first Prayer I apply'd my self to Jesus as Zelator of Souls for whom he gave his most precious Blood I beheld what I could not comprehend that this Zeal of Jesus for the good of Souls was infinite It seemed to me that my Soul receiv'd some small portion of this holy Zeal and I was powerfully inclin'd to lay out my self for my Neighbours good offering my self to God to do and suffer what he pleased But I perceiv'd this Zeal for Souls must be infused into us we must not run before we be sent otherwise we shall neither do good for others nor our selves but disturb our Interiour and commit many disorders When this Zeal is kindled in our Souls by the breathing of God's holy Spirit it puts nothing out of order but we go in Perfection and advance in Prayer However all must be regulated by Prudence lest we out-run our call and hurt our selves while we would do good to others For our care must be to procure the good of others according to the grace conferred upon us Some in an active life by Preaching and Instructing some by works of corporal Charity others by offering up to God their contemplative life their Solitudes their Austerities their Sufferings their Prayers There are many ways to be instrumental for the good of others Let every one imploy his proper talent Our blessed Saviour being near his Passion left us as a Legacy this divine Commandment Love ye one