and the reverence we should bear to this estate for the Sonne of God having chosen the Crosse and sufferings and having united to his divine person by his incarnation meanness and infirmities and adversities of humane life he hath made them divine and ennobled them So that we must regard them much more for the dignity which they receive from Iesus Christ and to speak properly they are the sufferings of Iesus Christ for we are united to him we are members of his body flesh of his flesh bone of his bone and by reason of this unity they are no more our sufferings then the sufferings of Iesus seeing they are more to Iesus then to our selves Whence Saint Paul saith as the sufferings of Christ abound in you so our consolation abounds by Iesus Christ. The Apostle highly advancing the sufferings of Christianity calls them the sufferings of Iesus St. Peter speaks in the same manner Rejoyce in as much as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings And therefore when we see all that is in this World all the adversities and vicissitudes we must not passe them over indifferently or as men without grace and vertue stop at our own resentments and loose our selves in our weakness and naturall passions but we must lift up our eyes and thoughts to the consideration of Catholick truths and making use of the light of Faith endeavour to use all things according to the manner God requires and to the power he hath given us If we suffer let us not suffer as slaves and criminalls but as the Children and true Servants of God Let us suffer with esteem and in the spirit of Christianity a spirit holy and divine a spirit powerfull and couragious and which onely belongs to the chosen of God and to his greatest friends Hence the Apostle summing up the graces that the new Christians had received of God puts sufferings in the first place and accounts them as a singular favour He hath given you saith he not onely to believe on him but to suffer for him thereby shewing that it is a benefit of God to be called to the state of sufferings and to know how to make use thereof In the view of these truths let us beg of the Sonne of God part of his spirit of the Crosse and sufferings and his grace to support us under them that we may bear them with the spirit with joy and the grace of Christianity let us say with Saint Paul and often repeat this Prayer in our heart That the Lord would prepare our hearts to the love of God and to the patience of Iesus Christ. CHAP. XIV That we must suffer out of a zeal to the Iustice of God WE suffer in the wayes of sinners and for the zeal of Iustice which is the third Disposition that we have proposed when we enter into the zeal of God which brings him to do justice upon sin and that in all things we exercise upon our selves the judgement that God exerciseth therein in bearing in our hearts a true desire and an effectuall will to submit to the justice of God before whom we are sinners before whom we have offended so many ways By this Disposition the perfect Christian must undergo all sorts of pains and sufferings and regard the adversities and inconveniencies of humane life as effects of God's Iustice on him as a sinner whereby he would destroy sin in him and root out imperfections With this spirit and Disposition he must endure all naturall incommodities as cold heat poverty sickness afflictions and such accidents which are the attendants of our life regarding and bearing them with this zeal to the Iustice of God upon sin This thought if it be solid and well settled in the soul of a perfect Christian will make all pain sweet and easie For what can we suffer but we deserve much more if we weigh our afflictions our sufferings travails and adversities with the number of our sins Who will not see the deformity and weight of our sins and how much they surpass the rigour and weight of our sufferings If we consider the hate God bears to sin and to sinners by reason of sin who will not confess that our crimes are much greater then our pains that amongst our afflictions and sufferings even the greatest and most insupportable the mercy of God appears more then his justice What more manifest example of Gods hatred against a sinner then the rigour wherewith the divine justice which is alwayes equitable punished sin in Iesus Christ And if the eternall Father as the Prophet saith so rigorously chastised his Son for the sins of his people what should he not do to us If the Son of God who is holiness it self sanctity uncreated and incarnate becoming a pledge and offering for our sins was subjected not onely to our miseries and naturall infirmities which are great but to adversities afflictions poverty contempt accusations ignominy even to the rigour of the cross what ought we to suffer who are sinners and objects of the hatred and justice of God If this be done to the green wood what will be done to the dry If the Sonne of God who is the eternall and true wisdom chose this estate voluntarily subjected himself to all miseries incited by zeal to the glory of his Father and to satisfie divine Iustice what ought not we to do what pains and rigours should not we embrace who are the guilty to appease this angry God to satisfie and allay his provoked wrath to restore to glory what we have ravish'd from him Let us enter into this disposition and zeal of submitting our selves to the stroke of Gods Iustice and we shall see all things will be easie to indure we shall not complain whatever befalls us whatsoever is done unto us we shall not take it as a wrong nothing will appear harsh unto us nothing insupportable the quality of sinners and multitude of our offences will tell us that we deserve more we shall bless God for the favour he does us in giving us the meanes to honour him by our sufferings The Christian therefore must have a care to bear all adversities all changes of this life all sorts of afflictions losses and misfortunes yea all incommodities and naturall vexations of humane life with an intention to glorifie God to submit to divine Iustice against sin O how great must be the courage of a Christian how invincible his constancy in all changes and misfortunes if he professeth this zeal of God if he be animated with the hatred God beares to sin How easie would all things appear if in them we had no intent but to act and suffer onely to please God with a full resignation of our selves in all things to his divine conduct To facilitate this disposition and make it more generall we must remember that the Wisdom of God rules all this great World and hath a generall and particular superintendency over all things Nothing
worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing The Earth and all the creatures of the Universe do the like and present themselves before Iesus declare him their Soveraign and protest obedience and service to him I heard saith Saint Iohn every creature which is in Heaven and on the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever Let us do the same and from the bottom of our hearts say Amen let us adore Iesus Christ in his greatness and acknowledging his Soveraignty live in true subjection to his divine conduct The Continuation CHAP. V. Of the Motives which oblige us to belong to Jesus and to serve him by true piety OF all the Mysteries of our salvation that which ought most humbly to subject us to the will and power of Iesus Christ is the work of our Redemption for in this Mystery of love and mercy Iesus is our Redeemer we are his Purchase and have no longer Right either to our selves or to any creature Ye are not your own saith St. Paul for ye are bought with a price meaning we are Christ's who hath bought us with his most ineffably precious blood But the better to understand this sublime mystery let us derive it from its very source We are then to consider that by the sin of our first parents we should all have perished in him as guilty with him all nature should have been extinct by his sin for from his first offence he ought to bear the execution of the Decree pronounced against him by the mouth of God in these words In the day that thou shalt eat thereof thou shalt surely die And doubtless divine Iustice had annihilated him and in him humane nature and all creatures had perished with the Sinner if the eternall Father beholding his Son designed for the reparation of this offence had not repress'd the rigour of his Iustice. The Father out of the love he bore his Son suspended the execution of this Decree he saved the offender mercy triumphed over justice he granted this sinful man life and the world to live in and consequently humane nature and the world it self which for this sin should have been destroyed were preserved onely in consideration of Iesus Christ for his sake the eternall Father took compassion on us From this first Consideration is easily inferr'd that we owe unto the Son of God all that we are and all that we have and therefore we are as often his as there are moments in our life and as often as we receive any benefit from this bountifull hand of God and therefore all these rights which are innumerable ought to be so many tyes to unite us indissolubly to Iesus Christ. But if we dive further into the contemplation of these truths we shall find that by sin we belong to the Devil we have granted him that right which God by Creation gave us over the creatures we have as it were by sin made over our selves to him Thus by voluntary offence Man who should have commanded the World becomes a slave to the Devill and sels himself to sin I am carnall sold under sin saith St. Paul in the name of all sinners In this quality the Devill hath all manner of right and power over us and assuredly would exercise his malice against us if the divine goodness did not restrain him He would make us even now feel the same rigours which he exerciseth over the damned and dispose of us at his pleasure as he doth of souls eternally cursed of God were it not that Iesus Christ by his death hath forc'd us out of this captivity and devested the Devill of all right and power over us He hath blotted out the hand-writing of Ordinances against us saith St. Paul and taken it out of the way nailing it to the Crosse. Thus the Sonne of God delivering us from this captivity makes us his Captives acquiring by his blood and death a new right and power over us which he will use not with rigour and justice but with love and mercy the state of grace and spirit of piety having nothing but sweetness and indulgence He hath delivered us saith the Apostle from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son For the power of Iesus is all in love and dissolves it self into dearness What Christian seeing so much sweetness will not resign himself to the excess of this goodness to the power of this love To conceive more fully the effects of the grace of the Sonne of God and his rights to us by redemption observe that by the conduct of God and according to the merit of our offences so soon as man is in sin and withdrawes himself from the order and end that God hath prefix'd and proposed to him he is nothing but the object of divine justice unworthy of any favour from Heaven Heaven Earth and Hell bandy against him God is obliged onely to promote the punishment of sin by malediction blasphemy damnation and hell If God stay the stroke of his Iustice if he hath yet some reserve of mercy for this miserable sinner if he suffer him to live and preserve him out of an expectation of his penitence that so he may escape hell it is by Iesus Christ and onely for his sake We must then acknowledge that a sinner owes to Iesus Christ all the motions of his life all the happiness of his soul all the good which may befall him in Heaven or Earth O how many obligations have we then even as many as there are moments as many as we have thoughts as many as we have received benefits from time to time so many rights hath Iesus Christ to our souls so many times do we belong to him Who can number these wonders Can there be any thing in nature able to break these bonds and separate us from Iesus Let us dive yet a little further into this consideration by an examination of particulars let us see how by daily sins we separate our selves from God and shaking off the obedience we owe him become slaves to sin He that sins is a slave to sin saith Iesus Christ so that the sinner by a deplorable blindness withdrawing himself from the sweetness of the Kingdom of the Sonne of God subjects himself to the power of sin which would infallibly exercise its rigour and Tyranny over him if Iesus Christ by his mercy did not suppress its malignity For as sin ruling over the rebellious Angels subjected them to its malice and rigour causing those Angels of light to be to all eternity Angels of darkness and malediction So the sinner from the time he offended should be abandoned to the same Tyranny and left to the fury of sinne which would precipitate him into
knows the power of God over her who can advance her to what degree of communications it shall please him and do in her and by her all that he pleases In this consideration man must adore the secret Iudgements will and designes of God over his Creature he must humble himself in his nothing annihilate himself in his humility and by his knowledge see into the little he is the need he hath of God and the misery of a Soul without grace He must not content himselfe with the bare Knowledge of these truthes without making use thereof the spirit of God can furnish him with severall ways to do it Behold here three Acts very profitable and necessary to be done as often as we can with serious application 1. The soul must resign it self to grace to all the designes and counsels of God over it with a desire to depend efficaciously upon the spirit and conduct of God to follow all the ways to undergo all the effects of the grace and dispensations of God 2. The soul must produce an act whereby offering her consent to God as much as is required she must protest that she consents then and alwayes to all the operations of Iesus Christ in her and to all the designes that he hath upon her of what kind estate and manner soever they be 3. She must renounce within her self fervently all her right over her self her inclinations interest obstruction and imperfections within her imploring the bounty of Jesus and the power of his spirit to annihilate in her all her imperfections to take from her all hindrances opposite to the spirit grace and conduct of God Lastly she must study the practice of vertues when occasion shall present them after the manner proposed whereof we now begin to treat CHAP. III. Of the practise and means whereby we may arrive to the possession of God of his grace and spirit IT much imports souls that seek after God and would live in the perfection of Christianity that they endeavour to enter and settle themselves in good and solid dispositions for that God chiefly regards in us and we are not ignorant that the operations of Grace are alwayes proportioned to the disposition she puts or finds in the soul. Now amongst all dispositions the most solid and necessary the chief path of the soul to true vertue is Love and knowledge of truth We must love truth and strongly adhere to it we must wholly study to fill our spirits with the knowledge of this Truth that it may be unto us a foundation to Christian life a light in the direction and conduct of our actions Therefore before I propose any practise I alwayes put Truth for a foundation of Exercises necessary to our subject Let us then consider as a certain Principle that the more we act for our selves and for the Principles of our being and nature to conduct our selves or our own spirit the more we estrange our selves from God and by consequence from the end for which we are created from the perfection whereto we are obliged The spirit which is in us is the spirit of Adam our nature the nature of Adam therefore is it a nature become damnable by sins a spirit infused into us by the Serpent possessing us in the consent of Adam This spirit and nature is subject to the power and malice of the Devill and sinne and consequently cannot act but according to the power and malice whereto it is a slave for operation followes essence As this being therefore is estranged from God and enemy to him for by nature we are born the children of wrath saith St. Paul so it cannot act but against God Now by this reducement man is drawn out of this Captivity freed from this bondage and made a new subject to Grace he acts no more according to the Principle of his own being but by the Principle of Grace which gives him a new being making him a new Creature in Iesus Christ. To arrive to this Liberty which we call the Liberty of Grace and of the children of God two things are requisite the mercy or grace of God and the consent and co-operation of the soul. The Christian therefore that will live vertuously must first give himself to God offer him his will and intire consent to all the designes he hath upon him and to all the effects which he will by his grace operate in him Then he must study and labour to withdraw himself from this bondage to shake off the yoak of sin which oppresses and drags him whither it will to free himself he must quit himself that is his imperfections his passions inclinations and much more sinne he must kill this spirit of Adam and pluck it up by the root that it may the better make room for the spirit of God that this holy spirit may live in him and act by him otherwise he can no way possess the true christian vertue nor attain the perfection whereto he is obliged nor the end whereto he is created the possession of God Whence it follows that the first exercises whereto the soul must apply it self is to place it self in the liberty of grace to draw it self out of the bondage of sin and to annihilate in it self the spirit of Adam which it carries in the very marrow of its bones Here it must begin all other exercises are but unprofitable without this and all it does will be to no purpose unless it arrive to this point For we must remember that the vertue to be truly Christian is the spirit of Iesus who acts in us and that the perfection of a Christian consists in love a love that is never without the possession of God it is easie then to conclude and believe that he that will be vertuous and a perfect Christian must make room for God in his heart there establish God there cause his spirit to rule and live He must root out and expel all that is contrary and in enmity to God even all that is not God for he that is not with me saith Jesus Christ is against me The true exercise and principall care of a Christian consists herein all others that abut not upon this we must despise saying with St. Paul in Iesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but faith which is by love Now the onely question is how we may arrive to this happiness herein is the difficulty We say it is by inward and outward mortification by the senses and by the spirit by vigilancy in all things that we neither receive consult nor do any thing contrary to God or that may displease him by prayer by discourse In fine it is by the grace of God for it belongs to God alone and Iesus Christ to make us free and draw us out of the captivity of our selves and sin If the Sonne shall make you free you shall be free indeed saith Iesus Christ. It is an effect onely of the
Spouse when she runs after her God crying to him Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions This holy Lover knows that as long as she is separated from her God she shall be subjected to error and to the tyrannicall usurpation of sin she knows by experience that he that is not with God in the pessession of his spirit shall alway be overwhelmed with all sorts of misfortunes led captive and dragged by his own lusts deceived and betrayed by the foolish love of the creatures and therefore she seeks her God with so much ardor and affection They that will withdraw themselves from these evils and assure repose to their consciences peace to their spirits and quiet to their passions must do the like they must seek God purely sincerely and with perseverance they must endeavour to possess him that they may find in him a perfect liberty and assured peace Saint Austin says all this in two words O Lord our heart is always unsettled and uquiet untill the time it shall repose in thee Then again addressing his speech to men Wherefore saith he O men of nothing do you wander in the search of many things Wherefore doth your covetousness make you unconstant vagabonds in your thoughts and desires seek seek him who is all things in him you shall have all there you shall find rest and remedy for your miseries This care we must have which cannot be sufficiently recommended to you therefore as it is of consequence we must proceed in discourse of it CHAP. VI. Of the state of Man after the Sin of Adam and of the need he hath of his God ALl the duties of the soul are comprised in these words of David Eschew evil and do good words that contain all Laws divine and humane for they onely forbid evil and command good words so absolute and generally true that he who keeps this Commandment shall certainly be perfect It is not needfull to explicate this Proposition it is a naturall Precept a Law God hath graven in the bottom of Reason that none might be ignorant of it that all might be without excuse before the Tribunall of God Notwithstanding O unhappiness of humane nature since the sin of Adam we are become so unworthy so criminall that we cannot without the favour of God either eschew evil or do good so evident is it that man hath need of God As children of Adam we are children of malediction begotten in a generall condemnation conceived in sin born children of wrath Adam indeed gave us nature and life but subject to the power and malice of sin which subjects us to the Devil confining us to his will and conduct From the womb we bear the yoke of sin as the Scripture saith we are in the Kingdom of death so far impotent and evil that without the grace of God we can do nothing but works of death and captivity wherein we see the need we have of God to avoid this misery For if from our birth we are subjected to the tyranny of sin doubtless we should be drawn to all sorts of vice there is no sin which man would not commit if God did not withold him Every imagination of the thought of his heart is onely evil continually sayes God of man so evil that he would lose and incessantly precipitate himself in desires of sins and abominations if God by his power did not with-hold him so true is it that we cannot fly evil without Gods help we are so much slaves to it that only God can free and draw us out of this captivity This it is Saint Austin means in his Confessions when he thanks God not onely for delivering him from the sins he committed but also for restraining him from all others I ascribe it unto thy grace saith he that thou hast dissolved my sins as the Sun doth Ice I refer to thy mercy all the sins which I have not committed I confess that all hath been forgiven me as well that which I did of my own will as that which I did not commit being prevented and aided by thy grace Where he teacheth us that without the grace of God we cannot shun evill thus is manifest the need we have of God If the Lord of Sabboth saith St. Paul out of the Prophet had left us a seed we had been as Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah This is not hard to conceive if by the way we consider that man as the Sonne of Adam is degraded from the justice and holiness of God deprived of grace despoyl'd of all his gifts cruelly wounded in his nature is separated from God hath wholly converted himself to the Creature and being reduced to and plunged in this deplorable condition is so impotent that he cannot raise himself according to his end and perfection up to God unless assisted by the grace of Iesus Christ who onely can draw us out of the abysse of sinne reinvest us in holiness and mercy as with new gifts merited by his death and sufferings he alone can lead us to God and as without him we separate our selves continually from God so with his assistance we approach unto him and by his grace we who were children of cursing are made children of God and of blessing Wherein on one side appeareth the miserable estate whereunto we are reduced as children of Adam on the other the great need we have of God and his assistance Now in considering these truths if we have any sense of salvation will we not immediately say that we are obliged to seek God to implore the power of his spirit and strongly to renounce the power of sinne the spirit of Adam and to resign our selves wholly to the grace and conduct of God protesting and acknowledging before the throne of his mercies the need we have of him to eschew evill which is man's first duty If we examine the need we have of God to do good and practise vertue we shall find our selves in the like indigence Faith teaches us that we cannot do any work of salvation if we be not joyned to God by grace and as Iesus Christ saith as the branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me We can do nothing of our selves as our selves because sinne hath brought us into such a condition that being dispoiled of the gifts of God and made unworthy of his grace we are reduced to such impotence that we can neither serve nor love God nor do any good work if we have not of him grace strength and merit to do it He alone gives us the thought of good nor is that sufficient he must give us also the will and resolution to accomplish it which when we have also received if God himself give us not the accomplishment of it it
have said we are God's without whom we can neither honour God nor be acceptable to him It follows that the foundation of true piety consisteth in Iesus Christ that is in the adherence and relation of our souls to Iesus Christ and in the submission of our being and life to the conduct of his spirit and grace for by that adhering to him and being subjected to him we are pleasing to God and receive in him and by him the capacity of honouring and serving God which is the proper effect and chief duty of piety and devotion The truth would need no proof but that few persons think thereof and that many are ignorant of it therefore it seems to be to purpose to speak thereof more at large in the Principles of Christianity Without out going any further let us consider that to be a Christian we must put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man Iesus Christ it is the Doctrine of the Apostle whereon we must found our Discourse If to be a Christian we must crucify and put off the old man to put on the new with much more reason to be a good and devout Christian we must crucify and put off the first to invest us with the second When we say that we must be clothed with Iesus Christ it is to shew we must be united to him adhere to him and as a garment adheres to the body and is united to it so must we be Iesus Christ's but much more perfectly then this comparison expresses Reason and Faith will easily convince us of this truth if we doubt of it for faith teaches us that it belongs to Iesus Christ to give us grace and strength to put off the old man that is to draw us from our imperfections to deliver us from our sins and annihilate our evil inclinations It is the same that Iesus Christ invests us with the new gives us his spirit grace and vertue for and according to Saint Paul Iesus Christ hath been to us wisdom and righteousness sanctification and redemption In a word Iesus Christ is all in all to us Now that the Son of God may operate in us all that we have said it is necessary that we be united to him adhere to him and be subjected to his designes his will and divine operations Who can deny so manifest a truth If Iesus annihilate our evill inclinations and root sin out of our hearts ought not we to be subject to his conduct and spirit and so receive his operations of mercy If we participate of his grace and vertue and live according to his Commandements is it not necessary we should be united to him And how should we be united to him but by a true relation and faithful adherence to him This deduction is easie and clearly shewes how true it is that the foundation of true piety consisteth in unity and in the adherence and dependance of the soul on Iesus Christ it is acknowledg'd by all that devotion cannot be true if we be not exempted from our vices and imperfections and filled with the spirit of Iesus Christ and assisted with his grace to make us worthy to honour and serve God We cannot perceive in that devotion nor practise the exercises thereof if the same Iesus Christ be not operating in us the will and perfecting according to his will This Iesus Christ said to his Apostles and in them to all Christians Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me adding he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing O words of love words spoken the eve of his death to shew us the excess of his love that proceeded from his heart wholly divine and full of tenderness whereby being moved he further said unto them Abide in my love So infinitely was he desirous to possess our hearts and to triumph over us by his love whence he often repeats the same words to engrave and imprint this care in our souls and by the proceedings of his love oblige us to love him again This indeed is a thing we ought to have continually in our thoughts for all the happiness of a Christian consisteth in this relation and this amorous dwelling of our souls in Iesus All our good is in this union since that by it and the adherence we have to Iesus we become his and by him we receive a power and capacity to bear the fruits of good works to practise vertue and to passe our life in the exercises of true piety and Christian devotion which make us hope for the reward which God promises to those that serve him Without this relation and union we shall continue in our weakness and incapacity our life is unprofitable barren unfruitfull and in evident perill If any man abide not in me saith Jesus Christ he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire If we will come to the experience of what we have said let us examine God's conduct of such souls as he will save and we shall find that the first knowledge he gives them is that of Iesus Christ proposing to them his Crosse or some Mystery of his life the first motions the first thoughts of piety that he inspires them with are those of a certain compassion and sympathy with his Crosse and sufferings or those of love and tenderness in consideration of his benefits If on the other side we intentively consider souls even the most ignorant we shall easily know they have a secret resentment and an inclination to Iesus Christ though they know him not But God alwayes begins these divine Communications and effects of his mercy by this first grace The reason is manifest in Divinity which teaches us that the eternall Father doth nothing but by Iesus Christ operates nothing in our souls nor in the state of grace no more then in nature but by his Sonne The first favour therefore the elect soul chooses to receive of God is that the eternall Father hath given it to his Sonne and there Iesus Christ accepts of it and appropriates it to himself Now as God demands our co-operation which yet we cannot give without his grace and therefore inspires the soul with a resentment of Iesus Christ gently insinuating into it a certain attraction which sweetly drawes it to a knowledge and piety towards Iesus Christ so our soul begins to be Iesus Christs perfecting her self in the state of christianity according to the measure that he advances in this affection and in this relation to Iesus Christ. The Sonne of God speaking to the Iewes obstinate in their errours saith None can come unto me if the Father who hath sent me doth not draw him And to shew the manner that the eternall Father uses to lead our
all manner of violence abhomination and misery had not Iesus Christ sustained the yoak of sin and stayd the power of its malevolence So that we are as many times Christ's as he hath preserved us by his divine mercy from severall sins and abhominations If on the other side we consider our actuall sins we must acknowledge that they also serve to bind us to I. Christ for as many sins as we commit so many times do we deprive our souls of the favours and grace which we have received of God by the only merit of Ie. Christ and when Ie. Christ shewes mercy to us or washes us with his blood and withdrawes us from our sins to restore us the graces which we have lost at the same time he takes a new power and acquires as many new rights over us as he pardons sinnes in us By this meanes the sins which God pardons in us oblige and bring us to Iesus Christ. Thus on what side soever we look on our selves we wholly belong to Iesus and consequently are obliged to live in a totall dependance and perpetuall subjection to the conduct spirit and power of Iesus Christ. But if now to what we have said should be added the merits of the Sonne of God we should find our selves infinitely obliged to be united and to appertain to the same Iesus Christ. For his merits being infinite in dignity acquire to him infinite rights over us nay if we consider them particularly we must needs nevertheless acknowledge that Iesus Christ acquires as many rights over us as there are moments in his life since in Iesus all is of infinite merit We are his by his Incarnation by his birth by his teares by his sufferings by his Crosse in a word we are as many times his as he lived moments upon earth as often as he did actions in the world during his life here But if we lift up our eyes to behold him in his glory we shall see him incessantly offering up himself for us to his Father he is entered into Heaven now to appear in the presence of God for us as Saint Paul saith where he by continuall benefits shed upon us forces our acknowledgements that there are so many rights and obligations to appropriate and unite us to him as there are moments in Eternity What remains then but that we consider by what meanes we may satisfie so many obligations to the Sonne of God It is a decree pronounced by him That of him to whom much hath been given much shall be required All our life then must be employ'd in true piety a piety which shall establish us in a supreme honour in a most powerful love and an intire and absolute dependance on Jesus Christ. We must continually begg that as the Sonne of God changed his condition and became man to testifie his love to us and to deliver us from the captivity of sinne and put us into the state of salvation so we may change our condition and disposition to be happily converted into a pure regard of honour and of imitation of his life who is all love all goodnesse If you would desire some practises upon this occasion I would advise the perfect Christian 1. To adore the power of Iesus Christ and all his rights to us accept them by a voluntary subjection and rejoyce therein praysing the Sonne of God in that he hath vouchsafed to assume those powers and rights over us 2. To offer himself to Iesus Christ to bear the effects of this power over us submitting our selves by a true resignation to all that it shall please him to operate in us and by us for his will and glory 3. To pray to Iesus Christ to use his right and power over us and over all that which is ours notwithstanding the opposition that we may have thereto as well by the inclinations and imperfections of our nature as by the effects of our proper malice 4. Being transported by a desire to be Christ's often and continually to implore if it may be done the power of his spirit to annihilate in us and to root out of our souls and from the bottom of our being whatever opposes his right over us and may hinder the effects of his divine will In fine if we have not a sense of the power of Iesus Christ let us at least have in our hearts a violent desire to be his a firm purpose never to be separated from him and a vigilancy to receive with faithfulness what he shall vouchsafe to operate by the influence of his infinite mercy All this reaches no further then the beginnings of piety to Jesus Christ we now proceed to the use and practise of it CHAP. VI. Of the state of Subjection to Iesus Christ considered as the principle of Christian piety IF we make application of what hath been said we shall find that as the Son of God hath infinite rights to us so we are infinitly his we depend on him we have infinite obligations to him which the shortness of our dayes will not give us leave sufficiently to admire nor the weakness of our spirits to comprehend Yet speaking suitably to our meanness we may reduce them to two principles the foundation and prop of all exercises of piety interiour and exteriour The first is an acknowledgement of the soveraignty of Iesus over all creatures and over us in particular confessing that he is our King and Soveraign The first use of piety to Iesus is to acknowledge and adore his supreme authority it is life and happiness to know and to serve Iesus Christ. Therefore the Apostle desires that the Ephesians should know the love of Iesus Christ which passeth all knowledge to the end that they might be filled with all the fulness of God teaching how profitable and necessary this knowledge is The other foundation of piety is a continuation of the first the Christian acknowledging the soveraignty of Iesus Christ enters into a state of relation to and a dependance on him and adoring his soveraignty submits to his power not out of constraint or necessity as Rebells but out of choice love and fidelity which he renders to him as his Prince and Iesus This dependance must not be indifferent but the lowest and most submiss that is possible so that a Christian in this state looks upon himself only as a servant to Iesus and acts in all things only in the spirit of subjection and humility This subjection is an effect of our knowledge of Iesus and that knowledge a fruit of the light of faith and a gift of grace This state of service is proper and essentiall to the creature in regard of God the creature is essentially dependant and subject to the Creator It is an indispensable estate the creature may as soon cease to be as cease to depend on the Creator It is a primitive estate in grace and essential to all Christians the first step of our entry into the Church into faith
you cease to be all that you are Have a great desire to loose your self and to go out of your self and that your being be annihilated and consummated in that of Iesus who is in you This is the point whereto you must arrive if you will that God should possess you Thirdy Desire and require that Iesus Christ destroy in you all that is contrary to God that he establish in you the Kingdom of God that he take from you the dominion which self-love the vanity of your nature and your inclination usurp over you and the creatures Fourthly Resign your self to the will of Iesus Christ who by this adorable sacrament of Love will receive you into himself and place you in his life and his being Abandon then your self to the desire that he hath to possess you a desire as great and perfect as the Love wherewith he gives himself to you is infinite Pray him to destroy in this present life the being that you use and abuse that by the power of his spirit and love and by the vertue of this ineffable sacrament he may make you what he is that is to say Love Life and Truth Behold what God requires of you if we regard intentively the essence and the excellency of this mysterie if by the spirit of Faith we weigh the effects it produces in us it will be easie to acknowledge them and soon shall we be constrained to confess that this sacrament of Love doth appropriate us wholly to God draws us from our selves and the world and separates us from the commerce of creatures that we may be knit in heart and spirit to Iesus Christ despising all things for his love and glory so shall be verified the word of the Son of God to his Father in the excess of his Love speaking to him not onely of his Apostles but of all good Christians They are not of the world even as I am not of the world This is the spirit of Christianity the excellency of this divine estate That we may the better remember this you shall see in a little Picture First the grace and spirit of Christianity consecrates us to God and imprints in us a character of the power of Iesus Christ to whose Empire we must be subject for ever and must undergo to all eternity both in heaven and earth the state of service and subjection to the spirit grace and conduct of Iesus Secondly The grace of Christianity makes us the children of God by mercy and gives us right of inheritance to the greatness and true glory of Iesus Christ. By this grace we have no more part in the world because it is the heritage of the true children of Adam but we have right to the Possession of God who is himself the heritage of his children Thirdly This grace draws our spirits our hearts and our affections from our selves and all creatures to unite us to God it gives us right to enter into familiarity and alliance with the Son of God who making himself man by the Incarnation would be amongst us to the end that we might be with him He enters into society with men invests himself with our miseries infirmities to communicate to us his life his spirit and greatness Thus by the grace of this mysterie we go out of our own Interests to enter into the Interest of Jesus Christ whereof the Apostle speaking of the things of the world he saith I count them but dung that I may win Christ. Fourthly In brief by the state of Christianity we are advanced to the participation of God who will be all in us that we may be in him and Jesus Christ by his body and blood which he giveth us in the Eucharist doth elevate and unite us to God makes us live by his life communicates to us all that he is that he may be all things to us that the world may be nothing to us Thus the grace of Christianity unites us to Jesus Christ replenishes us with his life and spirit makes us another himself and therefore obliges us to go out of our selves and the world to be in Christ Jesus I know we must be in the world and make use of the world so long as it shall please God to continue us in this place of captivity but we must not be of the world we must live here as in a place of passage and make use of all in the world as of a winter garment ready to put it off when the Sun of righteousness shall come to his meridian when it shall please God Let us use all the creatures as a necessary medicine to the present state of our infirmities and occasions but let it be withall loathsom unto us as violating our Love which desires nothing but God which takes delight in nothing but God which aspires to nothing and hopes in nothing but God The conclusion of the first Part What the life of a Christian ought to be Behold here the Excellencies of Christianity which we have proposed in few words as having no further design nor intention in this volume then to shew that the life of a Christian ought to be conformable to the state of grace and dignity whereto he is advanced by Iesus Christ. Now to enter into this knowledge it suffices that we see what we are This is that which I design'd to demonstrate in this first part proposing as in a little Tablet the essence dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity which I have done briefly expressing onely the principal Truth of this subject leaving the rest to the piety and consideration of those that would profit thereby Now if we look back with the eye of Faith upon that which hath been said we shall clearly see what a Christian life ought to be and shall know that the design of Iesus Christ informing his Church hath been to consecrate to appropriate to himself and to unite himself divinely to our souls and to separate them from themselves and from all creatures that by a happy revolution he may be in us and we in him we may live in him and of him as he lives in his Father of the life of his Father that so he may restore us to his Father and re-unite us to himself from whom we were separated by him by being our own and having relation to the Creature Herein is comprised the perfection of a Christian life whereof we cannot speak more then in the words of St. Paul ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God a passage which contains an apparent contradiction If we are dead how can our life be hid in God who is the true life If we are in God who is the life of our souls how are we dead The Apostle meanes that our life is life and death our life is a life of grace which is the true life of souls and much better then the soul is the life of our bodies and the proper
to such a point that it was necessary the Son of God should be made man that God immortall should be clothed with our mortality to purchase for us by his blood and death a power to serve him to merit for us by his life and sufferings the graces necessary for us to produce good thoughts to obtain for us permission to present our selves to God and before him to re-instate us with a hope of pardon and trust in his Grace Man as a Sinner is so unprofitable and uncapable that without Gods particular grace without an effect of his divine mercy he can do no good work nor hope for any blessing or favour and if he receive any if he find himself replenished with love and hope or capable of any good it is onely by the bounty of God who though justly provoked stayes the effects of his Iustice that we might tast the fruits of his inexhaustible goodness Considering these motives and truths let us stand here before God as guilty of divinae Magistatis laesae Let us look upon our selves as sinners and we shall clearly see that by this estate we are left to Gods Iustice that we must of necessity leave our selves to his conduct and divine will For if for civil crimes men worthy of death are left to the Lawes of Iustice and the will of their Prince who will dispose of their life and goods as pleases him certainly man as a sinner worthy of death ought to be left to the will of his God to do with him according to the rigour of his Iustice or effects of his mercy This is the first practick to be learned from this Motive for the soul in the consideration of these truths ought to do that in love humility and choyce which she cannot avoid upon constraint A Christian as the child of Adam and so a sinner must put himself before God resign himself wholly to him and with an humble submission and contentment of spirit receive from his most wise hand all the effects of his divine conduct and accept with a resignation good and evill privation and enjoyment all that may happen unto him Above all he must be careful to continue in a profound humility before God exposing himself to the raies of his divine mercy to move him to pardon From this Principle we draw a second practise seeing the need we have of God For considering our selves to be so wretched and miserable we are obliged to seek a remedy for our evills Now as this cannot be found but in God the repairer of our faults the freer of our souls it will follow that by the knowledge of our miseries and the weight of the iniquities which oppress us we are driven to have recourse unto God even by the same exigence whereunto sinne hath reduced us and are obliged to seek out God Every way that man considers himself he finds himself in a want of God and consequently obliged to seek God as the onely happiness of his soul the onely remedy of his evils The better to understand this we must remember that by sinne man is equally miserable in two considerations the rigour and violence of sinne which oppress him and the evills and disorders whereinto sinne precipitates him from which two states he cannot get but by possessing of God For the first faith teaches us that man cannot get out of sin do whatsoever he can if God himself come not to relieve and deliver him Man of himself may lose himself may plunge himself may sell himself may enslave himself but he cannot free himself nor bestow himself but by the mercy of God who gave us his Son to re-establish all things in us as the Apostle affirms Now this re-establishment is done only by the spirit of love and charity which is the spirit of God in us given to us From whence we see that he that will avoid his miseries and shake off the yoke of sin must necessarily possess God who onely can free him Hence we may observe what a work the conversion of a soul to God is and the freeing of a sinner by what way soever it is wrought in man To apprehend properly the importance of this work of grace we must say that he that would be converted and delivered from sin must not onely go out of his sin but must also possess God and consequently by the same Motive that he desires to go out of his sin he is obliged to dispose himself to possess God and to become worthy of so holy an heritage for to confess his sin to turn to God to be delivered from his sin and to possess God is all one thing wherein appears the need we have to seek God and how seriously a Christian ought to labour in an affaire wherein his eternal safety doth consist The second state of our miseries doth no lesse oblige us to seek God then the former for by the effect of sinne and the Tyranny it exercises over us we are continually tossed about disorder'd made vagabonds and precipitated from imperfection to imperfection from sin to sin from trouble to trouble This evil hath no remedy what resolution soever the soul takes what diligence soever it useth what habit soever it assumes it will never find calme rest or deliverance till it hath found and possesses God and be possessed of him Never shall she be in true liberty Christian liberty the liberty of the children of God until she possesses the spirit of God wherein they deceive themselves who to acquire the peace of the soul and true liberty of the spirit use a thousand practises and a multitude of exercises peace and true Christian liberty being not to be found but in the possession of God Many things indeed that we speak and do serve to lessen our trouble and thraldom but not one can give true liberty or the peace of the spirit but the possession of God The reason is demonstrative nothing can have peace liberty and repose but in its proper Centre God is the Centre of the soul therefore in God alone is her peace liberty and repose and as long as she is with God and possesses him she is in liberty and repose no longer Whence we evidently conclude that while the soul is separated from God she is tyrannized over by the malice of sin continually drawn into circumstances terms and subversions And souls that make shew to search after the truth and to live in the purity of Christianity if they seek not God purely and seriously if he dwelleth not in the bottom of their hearts shall never live but in disquiet and in trouble in scruples and in Pannick terrours For it 's an infallible maxime That man can never rest but in the possession of God the contre of his soul. In this we see the strict Obligation that we have to seek God and to study Christian perfection which consists in the possession of God This is the resentment the desire and demand of the
is nothing For notwithstanding all the good will and resolutions in the World we shall never put them in practise without grace and after all this perseverance in good is necessary for he onely shall be crowned who continues to the end Yet we cannot have nor merit it it is the gift onely of the mercy of God a pure effect of his bounty Herein appears the extream need that we have of God how necessary this grace is to us not onely to do well but also to persevere From these truths we learn that a Christian that will be saved must not onely have a good will or entertain a good intention but further he must seriously seek God adhere to him and possess him since in him alone consisteth the grace that is necessary to do well and to end well in a holy perseverance Salvation is not a thing so easie as we conceive for we have nothing at all in our selves as our selves that can help to save us On the contrary all that is in us is in opposition to grace and by sinne conspires our ruine He that will save himself must seek from without himself the way of his salvation the power to do works worthy of Paradise the power to serve God which he cannot find but in Iesus Christ there he must seek it of him alone he must have the power to serve God the merit of his good works the grace of perseverance and the conduct of his life consequently he must possess and adhere to him if he will attain his happiness nothing else is of advantage seeing Iesus Christ saith himself Without me ye can do nothing Rules and Constitutions may be given us Vses and Documents may be prescribed to practise Vertue and to attain to Christian perfection but all will be without profit and stability if we go not out of our selves to possess Iesus his spirit and grace to receive in him and of him true Vertue stability and perseverance For the grace of Iesus is wholly to have true Vertue and Christianity and perfectly to accomplish the actions and practises that are proposed to us If we examine these principles of truth we shall immediately find from whence arriveth an evill commonly observable in the Church of God that many souls live in a good observance labour much and exercise themselves in the practise of the number of the Vertues yet make little or no progress towards the perfection that they desire and never arrive at the end which they propose to themselves If a reason may be given for a misfortune so generall it appeareth that this cannot proceed from any thing but that such souls seek not God purely nor resign themselves to his conduct to follow with simplicity and fidelity the order which God hath established on them but with a respect to themselves desirous to rise and arrive to an estate whereunto God doth not call them or they refuse to labour with fidelity to attain that whereunto God calls them They regard not God they work not by grace nor seek it where it is but trust in their own strength and work not with submission to grace it self They seek not in Iesus Christ strength and power to work for they think not of it being so blind that they rely upon themselves and by secret esteem of their own actions and Labours easily perswade themselves that there is Vertue where none is and that they are in some estate of perfection when they are very far from it confiding in their own good will or in a simple intention which they think good Believing this enough for them they neglect or despise all the rest which is of greater importance Now to remedy this evil which is not to be neglected you must practise what I shall tell you 1. We must be in will and perpetuall desire of God in a resolution not to love or act but by grace and by the spirit of Iesus this desire is a disposition little known yet more important then it seems for God will be desired and takes pleasure to see a soul thirst and run after him We see that he deferred his great mercies and gave not his sonne to the world till 4000 years after man had desired him 2. We must demand his spirit with earnestness crying from the bottom of our hearts after Iesus the onely freer of our souls the true principle of grace 3. All our recourse must be to Iesus not relying or confiding in any thing but his power vertue and grace to love and act by his dispositions This is properly that we call acting by the spirit and by submission to grace Let us proceed to the consideration of truth to give our selves light and to let those that would be saved know the need they have of God and the rule they ought to observe in their actions to render themselves worthy of God Faith teacheth us that every good guift and every perfect guift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights that the eternal Father giveth us all by his Sonne and in his Sonne and consequently the Sonne of God is made all things to us in him we have all out of him we have nothing whence he is called the gift of God And St. Paul speaking of the eternall Father who gives us his Sonne saith that he is made all things unto us by him we are in Iesus Christ who becomes unto us by God Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption These words represent unto us two truths First That we are in Iesus which shews us the adherence we ought to have to Iesus Christ. The other that we have all in him as having the Sonne of God in whom is true love true wisdom and assured salvation By those truths we learn that Iesus Christ being the true gift of God we have nothing if we possess not him We must therefore labour to become fit to possess him with the effects that he will operate in us Herein consists the practise of Christian life to receive Iesus as a gift of God to possess him as a great treasure to offer him to God to refer him to his Father and with him our Being our life and actions Our soul must be continually employ'd in this double practise in these two continuall motions towards God one to receive Iesus Christ who is the grace of graces the other to offer him to his Father he being the gift of gifts and with him to refer our selves intirely to the glory of his Father and accomplishment of his holy will The third Motive CHAP. VII That a Christian is a Member of Jesus Christ and as such he must be ruled by the Spirit and live the life of Jesus Christ. THe most noble Quality man can have on earth the most happy condition whereto he may be advanced is that of a Christian. By this state God alwayes good and full of mercy relieves him in his faults repairs his
Gospel with such high and divine words words not of counsel as many think but of command in cleer and express terms testifying his will words addressed not onely to the Religious but to all Christians Be ye perfect saith he even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect What can be said more or spoke in more express terms How would we have more cleerly expressed what this perfection ought to be then to say you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect This perfection consists in the union of the soul with God and this union is made and accomplished by pure and perfect love the love of God coming from God above which alone hath power to give God to us and to unite us to God All Christians in generall are called to the union which is made on earth by grace and in heaven by glory Whence I first infer that as all christians are called to this union of the soul with God so are all obliged to that love which makes this union that is to say to a love pure holy and worthy of God a love express'd and lively represented by the mouth of God in these words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart his words so express it that they speak all the perfection of love so generall that they oblige all to this love I infer secondly that the perfection whereunto the Religious are called is not different from that whereto all christians are obliged wherein many deceive themselves The reason is clear and the deduction of it is easie For if perfection consists in the unity of the soul with God an union wrought by true love and all christians as well as the Religious are called to this union made by grace upon earth and in Heaven by his glory Finally if it be commanded to all christians and to all men as well as the Religious to love God with all their heart that is perfectly and as much as they can in this mortall life by the ayd of grace it followeth evidently that these two estates which appear so unlike are alike in the same obligation of seeking perfection though by different wayes In fine who can doubt so manifest a truth no man can be ignorant that the Commandement of Love is common to all men of what estate soever they be No man can deny but that Love is the bond of perfection so St. Paul calleth it There is no difference then but in the way and means that we are to take to arrive to this perfection There are divers and we must esteem all and regard them with respect But if it be a question to make choice of some way to arrive to this love and if we must have Lawes and Maxims to conduct us thereunto and to conserve us therein it is certain we cannot find them more pure more divine and more assured then in the Gospel where the Son of God himself as Authour of Christianity showes us the way gives us the rule and proposes to us the maxims which we ought to keep to guide us to this love which he commandeth to live in this union and to arrive to this perfection whereto we are called and therefore Christians living according to the rules of the Gospel shall infallibly arrive to this high perfection and enjoy this most desirable union So St. Paul speaking of Christianity In Iesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor incircumcision but a new Creature and as many as follow this rule grace be unto them and mercy Under the name of Circumcision he teacheth us that nothing in the World no estate is worthy to be esteemed but that of a new Creature Christianity onely giveth us the grace and power thereof wherefore that is the rule whereof the Apostle here speaks Whence we learn the eminency of the state of christianity above all others We see then how true it is that we are all without exception obliged and called of God to love and to perfection This and more which might be said on this subject is true and yet notwithstanding it is certain that christian perfection is as the Sun proposed to all christians in generall the Precept of Love is equally given to all men and consequently all are obliged to the same perfection which is all the Argument wherewith I would undeceive such christians as would exempt themselves from both This granted it rests onely to consider the qualities of love it must be pure perfect and indissoluble the three properties of love in Christianity Pure for it regards nothing but God if it regard any thing else it is not for God nor according to God whence it comes that that which regards pure love doth separate us from our selves from all our interests and alienates us from all creatures as far as they obstruct our love to God This love makes us regard nothing but in the belief that God is there present by his immensity we neither tast nor feel them further then as they bear the presence of God for God being in all things the soul that loveth him enclines to him seeks him and finds him every where This love must also be perfect God saith so expresly We must love him with all our soul and with all our strength There is no need of explicating these words they are too cleer and evidently shew us that God will have us love him with all that which we are that is perfectly This love must lastly be indissoluble no force must separate us from God no violence must tear this love from our hearts no creature in heaven or earth no fear of death or of the loss of all we enjoy no good either present or future must separate us from this love which must be in us more powerfull then death more indissoluble then unity Now making use of all that we have said and reducing to practise all the proposed truths we shall find what we sought in this tract we shall see that by a necessary consequence we are all obliged to divorce and separate our selves truly and strongly from all that hinders us from loving God perfectly We are obliged to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect this perfection is not without the true love of God this love cannot be in us but in as much as we are separated from our selves the world and all Creatures Whence we learn that a Christian obliged to the love of God and to perfection cannot arrive to this estate which he seeks and is commanded him if on the one side he be not wholly subjected to God and on the other altogether separated in spirit conduct and love from all the Creatures Therefore he must apply himself earnestly to this exercise of subjecting himself to God and devesting himself of himself for it is certain the soul can never acquire this divine spirit nor arrive to Evangelicall perfection if she stay in her selfe obey her own will and follow
conduct of God THe Creature by the condition of it's being subsisteth only in resigning it self to the conduct and will of God for as it belongs to God alone to give being to all things so is he alone the preserver and governour of them Whence as the creature bears God in its depth and its centre so it bears in the same depth a capacity all that he operates in and by it which capacity the Philosopher calls obedientiall power whereby all that is created is left to the power of its Creator and resigned to his conduct Man must be subject to this indispensable Law he cannot exempt himself from this subjection whereto he is bound by the necessity of being created a necessity so absolute in what estate soever he be in this world or the other in time or eternity that he must be subject to the power of his Creator whether in the rigour of his Iustice or in the sweetness of his Mercy and though his depraved nature cause him sometimes to separate himself from his God to live in the disorder of his own will contrary to the order of God yet he cannot absolutely withdraw himself from the order of his divine providence nor avoid the arm of God who comprehends all things disposes them and causes them to arrive to the end that he hath proposed them for this order and power is so generall that the malice of men cannot be exempted from it so much is the creature subject to the conduct of the Creator Necessity exacts it of us the Laws of love and acknowledgement oblige us thereto and that very strictly For God who hath a particular providence and an extraordinary care of man conducts him also and loving him excessively becomes his Father King and Prince his All that being all things to man man may the more willingly resigne himself to his loving conduct not by constraint or necessity but through a spirit of freedom by an esteem of his love by a holy and loving election These truths no man can be ignorant of yet we make no use of them for man despiseth the conduct of his God shuts his eyes to the light of grace neglects his most wholsome Laws his certain counsels his divine motions withdraws himself from the disposall and conduct of God to adhere wholly to himself to his own thoughts and inclinations to the suggestion of his own spirit to follow the false maximes of humane prudence the motions of his passions the alurement of self-love The perfect Christian must take heed that he do nothing inwardly or outwardly but according to the order and conduct of God Man in all his actions and motions must necessarily be either in the conduct of God or of himself if he adhere to one he is opposite to the other for those he conducts are in themselves absolutely contrary The conduct that man takes of himself is a turning from God a way that separates us from God and quite loseth us The reason of this is the state of man after his fall whose spirit is turned from God subject to the Law of sin bearing the seed of all faults and errors He is so engulfed in this state of misery that he cannot get out of it though he endeavour all he can if Iesus Christ draw him not out of it he cannot return to God if the Son of God do not lead him No man cometh unto the Father but by me Now man who follows his own conduct his own inclinations motions and will withdraws himself from the conduct of Iesus Christ and as his spirit is turned from his God by the law of sin so he withdraws himself from the conduct of Iesus Christ by his own will and actions How can he but turn from God and separate himself more and more from him and that so powerfully that so long as he remains in his humane condition he shall never be able to return to God nor do any thing that may lead him to God if he do not resigne himself to the conduct of Iesus Christ to be aided by his grace and mercy This is the meaning of the words of Saint Paul when he said The carnall mind is enmity with God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be and that to be carnall minded is death since he loses himself who governs himself by his own spirit and onely follows his own conduct All the divine Oracles cry out to us and experience teacheth us that the greatest evil that can happen to man is to be left of God and abandoned to humane prudence to his own motions naturall inclinations and will For a man so abandoned of God lives a dangerous life and must expect a miserable fall Wo saith God to them when I shall be separated from them wo indeed yea a threefold wo seeing that when God leaves a soul to its own counsels motions inclinations and will she is at the same instant made captive dragg'd and led in triumph to her passions and appetite for the passions will and inclinations of men are rebellious and hurried by the Law of sin Now from the time that man is abandoned and the conduct of Gods grace withdrawn from him he can be no other then rebellious falling into a thousand errors and will infallibly lose himself if God have not pity on him and call him home Therefore for God to abandon us thus to our own conduct and will is the greatest evill that can arrive to man the greatest punishment whereby God can revenge himself of the sins of men My people would not hear my voyce saith God being angry and Israel would not obey me so I gave them up unto their own hearts lust and let them follow their own imaginations And St. Paul assures us that Gods most rigorous punishment of the ingratitude of men hath been to leave them to their own desires and appetites God gave them up saith the holy Apostle to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts It imports him therefore who would be a good Christian and make his salvation sure to forsake his own conduct to annihilate his inclinations passions appetites to confound his own will to withdraw himself from the conduct of humane prudence and from his own reason to follow the conduct of grace which is above reason and illuminates and guides that he do nothing but according to the spirit law and will of God To be guided by the spirit of God we must separate our selves renounce the conduct of humane prudence and annihilate our own wills Our prudence and reason is faulty in every point for in as much as it comes from us it separates us from God as much as it can Humane nature and the will of man in the corruption of sin regards onely it self not God its supernaturall end the will inclines to self-love and cannot advance it self to a true love of God if it be not guided and aided by
displease him and as much as she hath displeased him by her offences she desires to glorifie him and this desire bears her to a zeal of Gods justice and finally this zeal animates her to support all things patiently and to embrace them freely Hence we learn that the true spirit of Repentance consisteth not onely in sorrow for sins committed and a hatred of all sins but also it contains a desire to glorifie God for we can no more enter into Paradise without this then without repentance Herein they must have a care who perform indeed some acts of mortification and suffer many things but with certain dissemblings or out of some private considerations or concernments and many times out of curiosity Let them take heed they build not with straw for true repentance hath no eyes but for God no other regard but to content God and to glorifie his divine justice The more love the soul hath the more ardent is her zeal so that if she love much she desires to sorrow much and believes she hath never done enough for true love is never satisfied Such a soul esteemeth all pains sweet injuries truth contempt honour and labours the enjoyments of her spirit O how good it is to suffer thus for who knows how to love knows how to suffer and transported with the love of sufferings cryes out with the penitent King Lord prove me and try me search my reins and heart To be throughly acquainted with true repentance we must further consider the effects of it for if it be true the effects of it shall be as certain and will be great and true True repentance annihilates us and destroys sin in us and the fountains of sin as also our evil inclinations and vicious habits it roots out of our hearts all that divides us from God all that displeaseth him it converts us to God it drawes us neer to him it gives us God and separates us from the creatures and our selves For the true penitent is crucified in all things and dead to himself of a death to sin which giveth him life in God and makes him lead a new life altered in himself and in his actions This is the true meaning of Saint Paul where he saith As you have yeilded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity even so now yeild your members servants to righteousness unto holiness Which shews the great change and conversion which repentance must operate in us seeing our members which have been servants to sin must now be onely servants to righteousness and to serve God after a manner which operates in us sanctification and serves as an instrument to our glory Further true repentance unites us to God and puts us into a new and particular relation to Iesus Christ. He acquires a new right over us when we participate of his mercies and applies to us the merits of his death and sufferings pardoning our sin He acquires a new right over us because he applies to us the price of his blood by the merits of his death He withdraws us from the empire of sin whereto we had subjected and sold our selves he delivers us from the captivity and slavery of vice to put us into the liberty of his children into the possession of his spirit so that from the time that he delivered us from the tyranny of sin we belong unto him and are his children his captives his heritage we are so many times his as he pardons our sins as many sins as he pardons so many times he offers himself to his eternall Father to pay the price of our misdeeds and offereth him the merit and satisfaction of his death for the redemption of offences Thus he purchaseth us anew as often as he pardoneth our sins Repentance if it be true gives the Son of God a new right in us and draws us from the right we have of our selves to put us into new propriety as to him whence it follows that the sins which separated us from God by our own default serve by the bands of repentance to unite us to God by the new right Iesus Christ hath to us by the band of love which we have to him Many sins are forgiven her for she loved much and he to whom less is pardoned loved less saith Iesus Christ. True repentance produceth two admirable effects one in relation to Iesus Christ which comprehends an abnegation from the creature and our selves to be God's and Iesus Christ's to whom we must be the more united the more he hath pardoned us The Father is an effect of love which issues from this union adherence He that is most united loves most and the more he loves the faster he ties himself Mary Magdalen is an example hereof who was no sooner converted but she fastened her self to Iesus Christ to crucifie her self in his love and to live no longer then with him and for him If we will examine what hath been said it will be easie to see that many persons deceive themselves in this business of so great concernment I mean Repentance who go so negligently and indifferently to this Sacrament that being they are sensible neither of the effect nor advantage of it and it is much to be feared lest they find at the hour of death rather the penitence of a perfidious Iudas of an impious Antiochus of a sensuall Esau then of a Saint Peter or a Mary Magdalen However if be let him apprehend the menaces of the Son of God If ye do not repent ye shall likewise perish He speaks of the true repentance which cannot be true if it have not the true effects else it is not repentance Herein the Christian must take heed as the most important thing of his salvation If we apply these principles of truth we shall find that it hath been no digression to speak of Repentance but that by the same principles which oblige us to bear the spirit of true penitence we have the grace and faculty to live patiently and Christianly amidst all contrarieties and disturbances of this life and in pursuit of that we may make use with profit of all accidents we meet with in the world He that lives in the spirit of repentance as a perfect Christian ought not onely to suffer with ease and cheerfulness but also to subject himself to the divine will and honour of God wherein consists the spirit of repentance In brief he makes his profit of all as a faithfull steward of God's gifts I say he makes profit knowing it is a favour received of Iesus Christ that all sufferings and adversities in this world are profitable to us being sanctified by the pretious sufferings of the Son of God and may serve to satisfie the justice of God which must be looked upon as a particular mercy and favour which Iesus the Son of God hath obtain'd for us by his incarnation and death For if we consider naturally the sufferings and afflictions of mans life they
prone to evil being taken out of nothing it hath an inclination to that nothing whence it came to re-enter thereinto and would infallibly return thereto if the arm of God who created it did not withhold and sustain it Nay this evill inclination of our being would not onely return to nothing but to a nothing that is rebellious against God that is to sin which hath no other Originall but if we may so express it the meanness of our being which annihilateth all that God puts into us The creature being drawn from nothing inclines to evill if grace stay him not saith St. Gregory This is evident in the fall of Angels and the first man which can onely be attributed to this nothing whence they were drawn and which by a secret power attracts them to it self For before sin there was not in these two natures any perverse inclination But if this were in two natures so perfectly accomplish'd what ought not we to fear who are not onely in this nothing but after a manner much more miserable without light without grace in a depraved nature by the evill inclinations of our being we have in us the source of all evills The senses and thoughts of the heart of man as the holy Text saith are inclined to evill continually which ought continually to humble us at the feet of the Sonne of God calling upon him to sustain and preserve us and never to suffer us to be separated from him The inclinations and evill habits that are in us the effects and estates of originall sinne which are fixt to our nature and self-love therein are the second enemies which continually endeavour our ruine and separation from God The reason is that our own inclinations and nature are easily fix'd on created things as being of the same order and condition These applications are defective and divide us from God but the greatest evill proceeds from this that our nature is subject to the Law of sin and tyrannicall concupiscence as long as we live upon earth it is subject to the curse and power of sin as being the nature of Adam a cursed rebellious nature wholly opposite to Iesus Christ. What therefore proceeds from so bad a beginning which of itself can produce no good is not onely to be suspected such but partaking of the quality of its fountain separates us from God so that those who follow the motions and inclinations of the flesh are immediately divided from God Those that are in the flesh saith St. Paul cannot please God and doubtless the more they follow their own inclinations and desires the more they are separated The Christian therefore who would be perfect and begins to live in the exercises of true Christian piety must oppose and annihilate his motions and inclinations or at least not follow them for they are the inclinations of the man Adam but must comply with the inclinations of Iesus Christ that is resign himself to his divine conduct who rules us by his providence assists us with his grace and acts in us by his spirit Where the best remedy against this danger is to preserve our selves in an adherence and dependance upon Iesus Christ who by the mercy and power of his spirit can suppress the tyranny of sin and preserve us from the dominion it usurpeth over us as over a nature it hath a right unto Hence the holy Scriptures call the Son of God him that easily taketh off the yoke of sin he alone by his grace fortifies our souls making them able to resist without being engaged therein the power of sin to defend them from its violence By this it appeares how much it concerns those who exercise themselves in true Christian actions to acquire solid piety that they may depend on and adhere to Iesus Christ seeing that if they do not they are the slaves of sin and chain'd to their own inclinations which separate them from God The third of our enemies is the World which conspires our ruine and by the hate it beares to Iesus Christ continually endeavours to separate us from him either deceiving us by its allurements or discouraging us by derision and opposition or forcing us from our duties by persecution for hating Iesus Christ it consequently persecutes all his The World hateth me sayes the Son of God because I testifie of it that the works thereof are evill And if the World hate him with an irreconcileable hatred it can do nothing lesse then separate us from him and disswade us from all that may be pleasing to him The Apostle assures us that all who will live godly in Christ Iesus must suffer persecution This they must all look for who desire to serve God and exercise themselves in true piety assuredly the World will arm it self against them using all manner of insinuations allurements and importunities that may be and practising all the artifices it can to separate them from Iesus Christ. This persecution can never cease for the hate shall endure for ever which should engage the Christian to look upon himself in this World as exposed to the malice and surprises of his mortall enemies He must therefore prepare himself for danger wherever he is or shall be while he lives and following the Counsel of the Son of God he must watch and pray least he be overcome by these assaults and surprised by those many dangerous temptations When we speak of the World we include all the creatures whereof it consists they all separate us from Iesus Christ not onely by the ill use we may make of them but in some manner by the lawfull This is manifest for the more the soul is united to and employed in the Creature the greater distance is there between her and her Creator The creature hath an attractive power to withdraw us and we have an inclination which carries us thereto whence we may easily be deceived by it even in the lawfull use thereof either by adherence or engagement by complacency or satisfaction and a thousand other wayes Besides that every Creature being subject to change and vanity they are the words of the Apostle himself it must necessarily imprint in our souls inconstancy and vanity which is much to be considered especially by those who seek perfection We must therefore hold it a certain Maxime that the more commerce we have with the World and the Creatures the more we are separated from Iesus Christ the more we are taken up with the creatures and our selves the lesse we are with Iesus Christ. Which if it be so may we not justly say the Earth is covered with our enemies and that we are in a place of combat and temptations and that every where is danger It concerns us then to walk with great vigilancy and continuall humility for on every side we see nothing but ambushes to surprise us every where snares to entrap us Adam was tempted even by an Apple we have all objects of temptation his was
resist To obtain this favour the Apostle particularly recommends Prayer to us saying Pray alwayes with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watch with all perseverance These words are to shew with what importunity devotion and fervour we are to pray And truly we have need when the perills are so great our enemies so powerfull and our forces so small In the time of temptation it is not requisite to fight hand to hand much less to dispute with it to reason with or examine it or to force it away by violence this were to attribute too much to our selves for many times to examine it is to entertain it and to strive to oppose it too neerly is to become fastened to it and by disputing with it we are overcome It is more to purpose that as soon as we see the temptation we turn our thought some other way and look upon it with contempt and derision We must neither hearken to the Devil nor speak to him nothing puts him into greater fury then to see himself slighted nothing pleases him more then to heed and regard him for so we give him access and in a manner enter into acquaintance with him This is one of his ordinary subtilties whereby he deceives even the most wary yet we take no heed of it The devils intention in all this is to amuse and entertain us the objects he lays before us are not always evil it is sufficient for him if he but see us hearken to him that he may by little and little enter into discourse with us which once done he will soon instill his poyson into us Which way sover it is his drift is to turn us from God that he may have the disposall of our hearts and spirits that is enough to deceive even those who make profession of solid piety and much faithfulness in the ways of God It is no small evil to turn away from God to regard and examine a suggestion and conference that the devil would have with our spirits although we should do it to a good end with an intent to drive him away For it is to heed the devil to hearken to him and by a strict examination of his suggestions to conferre with him it is to withdraw our hearts and thoughts from God to employ them in what the devil proposes To avoyd all these impurities and to keep our selves from danger we must bear the temptation without enclining to it we must spit at the devil slight all his assaults and above all withdraw our eyes and thoughts from all he proposes This is the shortest and most easie way in all kinds of temptations For we shall find that temptations stay in us because we entertain them under pretence of driving them away and examining them It is enough we be watchfull and as soon as we have discovered the temptation or suggestion of the devil to renounce and despise it But there are some temptations that arise from objects or occasions in which case we must onely avoyd them and from all that may divide us from God There are others that are urgent and make lively impressions upon our spirits upon divers matters which would be long to explain In these cases we must not regard the temptation but God in it as Iob did when he was most tempted and afflicted The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away so we when pressed must cast our selves at the feet of Iesus Christ and offer our selves to him that he may annihilate the temptation in us if it be for his glory or keep us from consenting thereto We must implore his mercy for there are such pressing temptatirns that there is need of the greatest mercy of God to deliver us from them We must therefore cry out with humility and as much as we can enter into some conference and application of spirit with the Son of God acording to the state and strength of our soul. CHAP. XVII Of Resignations in Temptation BUT if we have not the power to elevate our selves to God if the soul be so bound by his secret conduct that we are sensible of our being forsaken to a generall impotency we must cast our selves upon God and having done what we can though ever so little employ the rest of our forces in offering our selves to the designes of God over us resigning our selves absolutely to his conduct and with a spirit of confidence be content to bear and patiently suffer the estate wherein we are Or if our soul can apply her self to any object she shall honour the weaknesses and temptations that the Sonne of God vouchsafed to sustain upon earth and shall implore his spirit and grace that she do nothing in this estate of weakness and temptation that may displease him But if our souls be reduc'd to an absolute impotency she must remain therein with dependance and humility of spirit there is nothing else required then to take care that we never regard the temptation but bear it with humility and patience Observe that it must be born with humility for though we consent not to the evill or temptation though assisted by the grace of God we bear it with much patience and with a spirit of sufferance yet we ought to annihilate and humble our selves because the evill is in us and we are joyned to the temptation This point is the more to be considered because herein the Devill deceives many and by a malicious dangerous deceit runs them out of patience and brings them into much evill whence they cannot withdraw themselves without a particular mercy of God To comprehend this secret we must note that the spirit of sufferance and temptation is an Evangelicall and Divine Estate and we say ordinarily that it is a mark of God's Elect an effect of the residence of Iesus Christ in us an infallible fruit of love the last draught of Christian perfection Hence the soul that is arrived at this estate is looked on as a chief work of Grace Now the Devill who watcheth us every where and circumvents even the best fails not to spit his poyson here if he can and will if such souls do not annihilate themselves by profound humility infallibly deceive them He makes them easily enter into an esteem of the estate wherein they are and insinuateth a vain confidence thereof he applies them to a regard of themselves makes them believe they are well advanced in Vertue and much in Gods favour since he numbers them among his friends and treats them as those he loveth best Thus by degrees he brings them into an esteem of themselves and their vertue and having infused this poyson into the heart and put the soul into this belief it is easie for him to ruine it to do what he will with it to deceive it as he pleases The Devill hath another sleight more dangerous and lesse known which is when he changes himself into an Angel of comfort and spirit of consolation even he who
mercy of God who alone can give us a new estate and reestablish all in us Wherefore when we have laboured and done all that we are able we must think that we have done nothing we must have recourse to grace we must enter into an humble resentment of our misery we must cry after Iesus Christ for our relief Herein it is good to forme often these following acts or rather to carry them continually in the bottom of our hearts we must desire with a desire full of efficacy to be filled and possessed by Iesus Christ to submit all to him to require this grace of him with humility to offer and present our selves to him for it giving him from this time and alwayes the consent that he requires of us and when we find that he gives us the first fruits of his spirit that he begins to live and move in us then we must be faithful in correspondence thereunto and preserve a great attention to his motions and divine and inward operations 2. We must often renounce our selves our self-love and our spirit to sacrifice our selves before God that is to renounce our own Intentions inclinations and dispositions to live no longer then in the holy will intentions divine and adorable dispositions of Iesus Christ. For as anciently the victime was not onely killed but also consumed before God so we must offer our selves after the same manner that God may annihilate and consume in us all that is of us we must aske it of God not out of self-interest profit but for his glory out of a desire that his holy will may be fulfilled in us 3. We must pray Iesus Christ to work in us an effect of his power and love and not to wait after our infirmites to establish in us his Kingdom his glory and the power of his grace and spirit 4. We must by little and little with care mortifie our nature all that is in us and of us and with the same care effect a continuall annihilation of our spirit of our judgement and of our own motions for they are contrary to God and repugnant to our good This being granted we shall see how much we are obliged to alienate defie our selves seeing that all that is of us as being of us strives to separate us from God and therefore this that is of us must be mightly humbled when we see that the source of all our evils is in our selves and that we have a continuall inclination to evil Let us weigh these truths and endeavour to bear these dispositions seeing they are necessary to perfection and to establish us in the Kingdom of Grace that so placing our selves under the conduct of God we may be enabled to live in a perfect conformity to his holy Will That we may be the more encouraged in this labour let us speak of the Motives that oblige us to seek this perfection The first Motive CHAP. IV. That by Creation man is obliged to tend to this perfection and to resign himself to God WHen we say that man is obliged to tend to perfection we impose not a new Law but propose the indispensible duty he oweth to his Creator For as a creature he belongs to God his Creator he depends on him and though he would not yet must he subsist onely by him In this quality he must live not only subject to his government and conduct but is obliged by the Law of all created beings according to the intention of his Authour and the end prescribed him For as the creature hath no other being then what he received of his Creator so his being hath no other power nor end then what he who gave him that being giveth and prescribes to him By the same Principle that he received his being from God he is obliged to act conformable to the power and end prescribed to him All creatures employ themselves according to the capacity of their being in that for which God created them they tend directly if they go not aside to the end for which they were created and ordained Man above all the rest ought to do the same to live according to the capacity he hath received of God incessantly to tend to the end which the divine wisdome hath proposed to him For God in the creation of the Vniverse seemed to have regard to nothing but man he stayd not till he had made him thought onely of perfecting him he made the world saith Saint Basil as if he applyed not himself unto it he spake but a word and the World was made but man the work of his hands to which he applies his care he polisheth him with the touches of divine perfection makes him the Master-piece of his work the last draught of his created perfection framing him after his own Image and designing him for Heaven In what respect soever then we consider man we shall see by the condition of his being and favour of his Creator that he is obliged to great perfection since the capacity and end of his being regards nothing but God He is in a capacity to love him and is created to possess him O man why dost thou not see the dignity of thy being the happiness which thou mayst possess the eminency of the condition whereto thou art created Thou onely of all creatures bearest the effects the favour and love of thy Creator thou onely art capable to love him that which he hath refused all other creatures he hath in abundance bestowed on thee After so great a favour darest thou appear without love Canst thou live without loving him who created thee onely to love him When we say that man by the condition of his being hath a capacity to love God we mention the highest benefit the most signall favour that he hath received of his Creator for the capacity to love him giveth him power to possess him All creatures indeed even the most insensible feel the Majesty and Power of their Creator they are left to the conduct and government of their God but not one hath power to love him but man who was created only for this end being made capable to love his Creator Therewith God hath not only given him this capacity and the advantage of so noble and divine a quality but wills also that all that he hath created should further him in this love and serve as motives to teach him to love Is not man then obliged to love so good so kind so liberall a Creator and if he be obliged to love him is he not as much obliged to perfection seeing this perfection consists in love which gives us God God in creating man useth another meanes to oblige him to him and to seek perfection in that besides making him capable to love his Creator he hath assigned as the end and perfection of his being the possession of his Creator This resentment the Father of nature giveth us Faith teaches us that the end of man is supernatural that this
can no way profit us because as men and sinners and the children of Adam we are subject to all the miseries of nature we are condemned to eat our bread in the sweat of our brows and undergo all the maledictions of God and we know that all the evils incident to nature and that happen to us in the course of our life are but the guerdon of our crimes the portion of man and the effect of sin wherein we are born So that these evills deserve not that God should regard them of themselves as being incapable to satisfie God's Iustice were it not that the Sonne of God making himself man and charging himself with our nature with all our infirmities hath sanctified them in his person and in his use of them So that bearing them in his spirit we bear them with blessing and happiness since that when he was made a sacrifice for our sins and became a propitiation to appease the wrath of God for our offences he suffered the pain of death due to sin whereby it was blessed and sanctified and by an effect worthy his bounty he would that the sufferings of men which were but the effects and punishments of sin should merit grace and find acceptation when we support them in his spirit and in his divine dispositions This St. Paul teaches saying Ye know the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ that though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor that you through his poverty might be made rich For the Sonne of God making himself man is subject to our necessities and labours that in our labours and necessities we might be made rich in good works in patience and in the spirit of Repentance When therefore we consider the sufferrings of this life and all the humiliations and disgraces that may befall us we must look upon them two wayes First As an effect and punishment of sin Secondly As the spirit of Iesus and as sanctified and made divine in his sacred person The first are not profitable nor are they proper but for the wicked who are in chastisements and sufferings by way of Iustice suffering what they have merited But the second are full of blessedness and happiness for it is in them and by them that Iesus Christ sanctifies us that he dwells in us and establishes in our souls the works of grace If ye be reproached for the name of Christ happy are ye for the spirit of glory and of God resteth on you Words which tell us the spirit of Iesus Christ his grace and glory inhabit in souls who suffer for love of him The Christian therefore that suffers must take heed to this vertue that he suffer not as a criminall that is by necessity and force but as a Christian and in necessary dispositions For since God hath given a blessing to sufferings and by a mercy spring from these sufferings of Iesus Christ we may profit by the disadvantages of this World we must not unprofitably let slip the occasions nor indifferently passe over the necessity pains and severall estates of this life but make profit thereof seeing God will have it so and that he gives us power to do so For this reason must we endeavour to bear them in the spirit and in the blessing that Iesus Christ hath given them and according to the use he would have us to make of them The Christian that lives in this care and vigilance may hope for the recompence of Heaven and having gone through the combate of this life which to the good is but a continuall Martyrdom may say with Saint Paul I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Iudge shall give me at that day In fine the most assured mark we have of the perfection of a soul is sufferings which are continual and abundant to the just and if it be lawfull to take any Argument of our salvation or any sign of our election it is in sufferings and in the manner of bearing them So the Sonne of God calls those happy that suffer for his sake and for his glory and we may say of such souls as Saul said of David when seeing him so patient in the greatest violence of his afflictions he cryed out with teares Now I know for certain that thou shalt be surely King and that the Kingdom of Israel shall be established in thy hand We may say the same of a patient Christian but let us leave him in this hope and propose to him some entertainments of Piety CHAP. XVI The Abridgement of the fourth part teaching of Christian grace CHrist saith we are all ingraffed in him as the scien is in the Vine-stock we are bone of his bone flesh of his flesh as the Apostle sayes for we are his body we are in him and with him This truth alone shews how much we are obliged to live holily and perfectly to be regulated in our actions in our exteriour modest and holy being united to Iesus Christ our life must be an expression of the life of Iesus and as Iesus being the Son of God by nature is the Image of his Father so a Christian being the child of God by grace must be the Image of the same Iesus Christ an Image so perfect and divine as cannot be fully expressed For on the one side the life of a perfect Christian is a life hid from the eyes of man spirituall and invisible and therefore infinitely remov'd from the capacity of the children of Adam who are materiall and as the Apostle saith carnall and animal On the other side this life is a life of grace a divine life a life of God in man a life full of secrets operated by God in the depth of the soul. Our weak nature hath not termes proportionable to the greatness and Majesty of divine things and therefore all that we can say of the state of Christianity of grace and of the life of a perfect Christian doth but derogate from and deface the value of this work which cannot appear in its lustre but to their eyes who have the true light of Heaven nor can be conceived or comprehended but by souls that are chosen of God We must notwithstanding draw the last lines of our Christian image and lightly passing over what hath been said to sweeten that which appeares either too high or too harsh that so we may benefit those who will see things in perspective and superficially we must also fix our eyes and thoughts upon Christian grace which will make us apprehend the truth of what hath been proposed and if we can understand it will cause us to admire the indulgence and communications of God who out of the excess of his love the more advanceth men and sinners the more they were debased by the greatness of their ingratitude that grace might superabound