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
Sin but even from Passions and occasions thereof and whatever may induce us to evil In a word we detest Sin above all things detestable in our selves and others also interiourly bewailing the Unhappiness of our mortal Condition in which we so often offend God and are in danger to lose him I knew a virtuous Soul whom God had made so sensible of the horrour of Sin because injurious to God that she perfectly detested it with ardent Desires never more to commit any She did with continual Prayers and Tears implore the Divine Majesty to preserve her from it offering her self to suffer any thing yea the pains of Purgatory or Hell it felf if it was necessary rather than commit a Mortal Sin to which no evil can be compared She understood that Sin is a Rebellion against God and injurious to him but that all the Pains we can endure either in Time or Eternity are but evil to the Creature and all Creatures being as nothing in comparison of God all the evil of Punishment they are capable to endure has less Malignity in it than one only Sin And seeing the Divine Justice has not ordained the pains of Purgatory or Hell but for the Chastisement of Sin committed she desired they might work in her this good effect as to serve her for a Remedy against Sin so as never to commit it saying to God Lord you justly punish Sinners because they have offended your infinite Majesty punish me in mercy that I may not offend you In others the pain is the Punishment of Sin preceding and the greater is the Sin the greater is the Punishment but dear God of your great Goodness grant me this singular Favour that the pain in me may prevent Sin so that the Chastisements which I should have deserved for my Offences if I had committed them I may suffer before hand not because I have committed them but to preserve me from offending your sacred Majesty By this means O my God your Interests are secured you shall receive neither Offence nor Injury the Creature only shall suffer something But what is all the Interest of the Creature in comparison of yours If the pains be too few which such Sin would have merited inflict on me what Punishments You please provided you preserve me from falling into Sin so injurious to You. This so noble and generous a Resolution could not proceed but from the pure Love of God and from the perfect hatred of Sin and in both respects must needs be in a high degree well pleasing to God and we may very well believe that God bestowed on such a Soul very wonderful Graces CHAP. II. To keep an even pace with Grace neither out-running it nor following too slowly IT is our Unhappiness that either we do not act answerably to the full power of what Grace we have received by the repugnance of our Sensuality or by our natural Levity and Inconstancy of Mind or on the contrary when the Heart is heated with the Fervour of Devotion we will force Grace beyond her strength by undertaking extraordinary Exercises and Austerities prejudicial to us 'T is our duty to shun both these Extremities to correspond faithfully to what the Grace we have can do and also to be humbled in consideration of that little we have received offering up to God those motions of natural Love which carries us to things extraordinary above our Abilities Not but that we ought daily to desire the Increase of Grace and Divine Love in us but it must be with Humility and Resignation without Interiour Disquiet well knowing that we can never advance in Grace by the strength of nature What hinders us from fully corresponding to the motions of Grace are some secret attaches to Creatures our affections being not throughly purifyed For when Grace acts in a Soul wholly dis-ingaged from the world she gives up her self fully to God's Conduct and moves towards him as her Center with more violence than a stone held in the Air being let go would descend to the Earth I say with more violence for God being a Center of Infinite Goodness has more powerful attractions than the finite Center of the Earth The nearer any thing approaches to its Center the faster it moves so the Soul hastens to the greatest Union with God by how much the more she approaches to him with inflamed Affections But we must have a care not to advance too speedily to the elevated states of Perfection whether as yet the Grace we have does not invite us Oftentimes we would rather regulate our selves by the Graces we see in others than our own for observing them do wonderfully well in perfecting themselves and profiting others we will needs follow their example and this may sooner proceed from a natural desire of our own excellence and esteem then from a motion of Grace and to please God And so we put our selves out of the way going rather back than advancing we will be following their wayes and not walk in that where Grace has put us It concerns us therefore every one to observe and follow faithfully the Attracts of that Gracethey have received for what have we to do with the Graces of others which make a glorious show and to which we have not a Call from God The Beauty of Christianity is not in the Outside for the greatest Saints seem sometimes more despicable than others but interiour Graces Omnis Gloria Filiae Regis ab Intus which working wonderfully in them makes them in love with Contempt and Poverty with Pains and Sufferings whereby they become like to Jesus poor despised suffering and forsaken Behold herein the Essence Life and Heart of Christianity For 't is in his Suffering Saints that God works the most admirable effects of Grace and he takes the greatest delights in them because they are so many Copies of his Well-beloved Son in small Characters But here lyes the mystery that a Soul suffer her self to be in the hand of Grace as soft Wax plyable to her Impressions and faithful to follow her Directions To be faithful I say to be faithful to the Motions of Grace is all in all in a Spiritual Life CHAP. III. That a Soul must wholly give her self up to God IT highly concerns us to keep close to the Conduct of God's holy Spirit and not confide in our own abilities which may quite destroy the work of God in us What can a poor creature do if the Soveraign Creatour work not his will in us All the Solicitudes and Contrivances on our part are not so prevalent as to abandon our selves wholly to God by whose Grace we are what we are and without which we are nothing but Frailty and Infirmity It is best with us when we have in our Prospect and Affection God alone and his good Pleasure being content with whatever he pleases to give either for Soul or Body In this state a Soul goes on very well in all affairs for an indifferency to
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
little or no Service but I rest contented herein seeing God hereby does magnify his Goodness and Mercy to me I doubt not but there are many Souls in Heaven who have in the eyes of the World done little Service for God as Solitares in the Deserts and many Persons without Talents and yet have high Places in the Mansions of Eternity They spent all their Time to purify their Interiour by being faithful to the Graces they have received from the infinite Bounty of God and the Service they rendred him to the Glory of his Name is only written in his Omniscience but will be laid open to the World at the great Day of Manifestation CHAP. V. Of the Impediments of Prayer I Clearly see and know by Experience that the temporal Affairs of our Oeconomy does not a little take us off from God We do ill in it yea it being our Obligation 't is pleasing to God to manage our Temporals with a good Intention though it would be better if we can to lay aside these Worldly Distractions to spend our time only in God's Service And those who have a Call from God to attend on him alone in a state of Prayer and Contemplation cannot without being unfaithful to his Grace continue in the solicitous Distractions of worldly Affairs I must needs say that Worldly Business darkens and hinders my Soul in her Spiritual Exercises and I would never spend time therein upon Humane Considerations but purely because God has so order'd it However it must be our care not to spend more time therein than necessity requires Too delicate Dyet though it may strengthen Nature yet it weakens Grace When the Body is brought down by Abstinence the Soul is more vigorous in her Elevations to God I find this true in me by Experience A Soul must be very well grounded in Grace that among temporal Imployments and worldly Cares can keep her self up in Fervour and Purity She meets with a thousand Occasions to move her to Anger Impatience Sadness and vain Joy and though she do not give way to them yet she is sensible of them and this must needs more or less disturb her Interiour Peace whereby she is united to God her Happiness A little thing will hinder a Soul from raising her self to Contemplation and a less matter will somewhat darken her when elevated because the least emotion of Spirit will indispose her to receive Divine Impressions Therefore a man of Prayer must be a man dead and mortified for that is not pure Prayer which does not work in us a victory over our Passions and Vicious Inclinations and bring us to the practice of all Christian Virtues I see now more clearly than ever that the Spirit of Prayer does not persevere and gather strength but in those who are dead to Sensuality austere to themselves Penitent and disengaged from whatsoever is not God 'T is true as for Corporal Austerities a tender Complexion must follow the Councel of a Director But commonly we are too indulgent to our selves and far from the practice of great Penitents who were very severe to themselves and also great Contemplatives We deceive our selves if we think to enter into a state of Prayer and take delight in Worldly things Though in rigour this may in some sort be permitted to Candidates of Devotion yet not to Proficients in whom the Spirit of Prayer and Conformity to Jesus Christ Crucified ought to be wholly predominant For 't is our Duty to live Conformably to that state where God has put us Gerson says very well If we refuse Exteriour Consolations we shall receive Interiour The reason hereof seems to me to be this because Interiour Consolations participate of the Purity of their source which is the union of God with the Soul and will not permit any mixture with Impurity and Imperfection For sensual Joyes and Consolations are Earthly Impure and Imperfect and consequently are contrary to the Spirit of Grace which makes the Soul pure and Penitent and Mortified to the things of this Life Moreover Interiour Consolations are slender participations of those Infinite Delights which God has in himself of himself and he is jealous of such favours not communicating them but to a Soul entirely beloved that takes no delight but in him alone But when earthly consolations enter into a Soul they draw her partly from God and so God withdraws his favours from her For this reason the Saints who would be wholly for God mortified themselves without reserve as much as humane weakness would permit that no sensual or Worldly Pleasures might have any part in their Affections but God alone Take courage O my Soul let us embrace the Cross and follow Jesus Christ who will conduct us through the garden of his Delights Let us not trouble our selves with Worldly Affairs unless we know 't is the Will of God for otherwise we shall find affliction of Spirit and decay in Spirituality Thrice happy is he who shuns multiplicity for this will dispose him to pure Love Many things seem to us necessary which serve but to entertain the corruption of Nature still working in us If God should severely examine all our Actions perhaps he would hardly find one in all respects well pleasing to him We too much follow Nature and our Humane Inclinations if Grace sets us a working we hardly go through with it but Nature creeps in some way or other to sully our Actions What is purely Natural cannot be Meritorious all merit proceeding from a Principle of Grace and therefore no Actions but what have an influence from Grace can dispose us to a union with God O how rare a thing is pure Virtue That which seems best is not for the most part without some blemish Those who have Illustrations from Heaven discover these Impurities others in the dark see nothing but grosser Faults and Imperfections From all this we may conclude that there are principally four great Obstacles which hinder for the most part the exercise of Prayer 1. To engage our selves in Worldly Affairs more than the order of God requires 2. To be too delicate and use very little Corporal Austerity 3. To practice little either Interiour or Exteriour Retreats and to have no Love for Recollection and for Solitude 4. Want of zeal and Courage in the ways of God and so living a Life meerly Humane by following our Naetural Inclinations But he shall never be a Man of Prayer who does not live a Super-natural Life and practice all Christian Virtues with a Faithful and Generou Resolution And Blessed is he who by his constancy in Spiritual Exercises has brought his Soul to such a temper that 't is in a manner as easie for him to Pray as breath Hic accipiet Benedictionem à Domino Misericordiam à Deo Salutari suo quia haec est generatio quaerentium Dominum He that thus seeks God while he may be found shall enjoy him there where he can never be lost CHAP.
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
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
Graces and Gifts from God ought not to rejoyce in the abundance of such Favours but her whole content ought to be in the pleasure that God takes to be so bountiful to his Creatures so unworthy of his Blessings Wretched is that man who has less care of his Soul than his Body loving more to follow the Inclinations of Sensuality than the Inspirations of Grace Wretched is he who is all for the good things of this Life a good House good Apparel good Provision c. and is content to have a bad Soul Wretched is he who by his vitious Course of Life makes himself the most contemptible thing of his whole Family For he who forsakes God to follow his Sensuality is in worse state than the meanest Creature O sad condition Believe 't is far more easy to command our Passions than obey them to conquer our natural Inclinations than to satisfy them and therefore more pleasant to walk in the wayes of Salvation than Perdition 'T is a wonderful Punishment to suffer the continual Lashes of a guilty Conscience an unspeakable Torment to have our Hearts always terrified with the Judgement of God hanging over our Heads with the fears of Death which is uncertain and the horrours of Hell which cannot be avoided by such who neglect the Service of God and die in their sins To become slaves to the World and our passions and vicious Inclinations most cruel and ungrateful Tyrants and to have no repose nor contentment not one only moment of true solid joy is to suffer a Hell in time before that of Eternity We shall find nothing to be compared to the way of Heaven the yoak of our Blessed Saviour is Easie his Burden Light his Will is Lovely his Helps are Powerful and the Consolations wherewith he refreshes the Souls of his Servants so abundant that they are far more Happy with their Crosses than Carnal Men with all their Worldly Delights and Pleasures CHAP. VI. How to Comport our selves well in Superiority JEsus be your Light and your guide and your support in Superiority To be in this condition seems to some troublesome and insupportable because things do not succeed as they desire but believe themselves to be a hindrance to the increase of Grace in the Souls of their Subjects who might have been better govern'd by a Person more capable and advanc'd in Perfection 'T is indeed well said and the pretence is specious and yet notwithstanding all this may proceed from Self-love and desire of our own excellence Prostrate thy self at the feet of Jesus Christ and if he dart into thy Soul Divine Irradiations thou wilt discover the Truth of what I have said herein That little resignation we have to the Ordinations of God create these troubles in us God only expects from us such a certain measure of Glory and we are for rendring more than he requires of us 'T is our Happiness not to conform our wills to Gods good Pleasure touching the manner of Glorifying himself what pleases him does not content us He will have us glorifie Him by Suffering and we are for Action We are for giving Alms and He for receiving in a word we do not entirely conform our selves to the pure will of God We ought not to perplex and disquiet our selves with the Defects and Imperfections of those with whom we live and are under our charge They are Mortal and infirm Creatures and not Angels and to expect they should be faultless is to look for Impossibilities and flatter our Impatience which would have no occasion of displeasure This is but to afflict our selves for the loss of our own esteem which appears by our ill conduct in such small matters And yet we pretend only to seek Gods Honour and the good of Souls Those who truly seek the Glory of God sometimes are troubled but 't is a displeasure joyn'd with Peace and Tranquility yea abounding with influences of Heaven and Divine Love A displeasure that rather increases than takes away the Peace of the Soul and disposes her to a perfecter union with God and to the practice of all Christian Virtues I know no better means to be humbled in our own eyes and in the sight of others than the miscarriages that arrive by our manifold Imperfections If I do a good Action for which others think the worse of me I shall not seem so to my self But if I shall fall into a gross Imperfection which neither I nor others discover how shall I be ashamed and learn thereby a lesson of Mortification When Nature is surpriz'd and as it were amaz'd to see her own Frailties what prop can she find to uphold her Ambition She must needs be humbled by this means and so draws much good from evil Who are we that we should presume to think that out pains and industry can add any thing to augment God's Glory Know we not that he is Self-sufficient by reason of his Infinite Perfections and therefore so replenish'd with his own Glory that all the Glory Creatures can render to him is nothing in comparison Alas the greatest Saints in this respect can truly say they are unprofitable Servants All Creatures are oblig'd to serve their Creator 't is their Duty and not to do it makes them guilty but this brings no profit to God who is no less nor more Happy in Himself thereby but only from hence it proceeds that he bestows on his Servants great and glorious rewards For my part I would never afflict my self nor be discourag'd for not doing all the good I desire and ought to do in the charge incumbent on me but instead of being troubled with my own Insufficiency I would rejoyce in the All-sufficiency of God O my God what complacency do I take to see you so Rich and so All-sufficient I am well content with my weaknesses seeing they make it more evident that you stand not in need of your Creatures O beautiful Sun enrich'd with an Infinite Light live Happy in your self absorp'd in your own Beams nothing can alter your Felicity For all the Sins of Men or Devils though they offend you yet do not hurt you no more than dirt cast against the Sun would darken his Splendors in his High-noon Glory When I consider the defects in my self and the faults I have not hindred in others either for want of zeal or capacity I will exercise my mind in such Thoughts as these O my God your Beauty is not Sullied hereby nor your Glory darken'd nor your Mercies diminished I know 't is my Duty to be sorry for what Sins offend your Majesty But likewise I ought to rejoyce that you are immutable in your self and your Blessedness cannot be disturb'd by our Iniquities CHAP. VII That we ought to have our Intentions Purified from all Self-Interest THe Soul that seeks purely to please God ought to be content with all designs of Providence whatsoever whether of Mercy or Justice giving her self up wholly into the hands of
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