he ought nor lov'd with thankfulness He loves us so as to die for us and we make no reciprocal returns O the prodigious insensibility of men Is then Jesus Christ a stranger to us and not our God and Saviour Does the History of his holy Passion pass with us as a profane or indifferent thing Ought not the bloody Tragedy of Calvary fill all Christian hearts with love and sorrow For my part I could hide my head with shame that I have so little compassion and love for Jesus dying on the Cross for our Salvation O my Jesus I confess my fault in that I have so little known my infinite obligations to you But seeing your Grace discovers now to me more clear than heretofore what you are I will never more lose sight of you I will love nothing more than You and esteem nothing more than to do you honour You are my true Father my true Brother true Friend true King true Redeemer O how great a truth is it that you are all in all unto me O that I have been so long without knowing you aright O Jesus how Happy am I that I have found you O let me never so much loose my self as to forsake you For my fourth Prayer I stood at the Sepulcher of Jesus and seeing his precious Body dead and covered with Wounds I made this Epitaph Here lyes Love Yes yes here lyes Love indeed for his excessive Love to us brought him to this state and condition A state full of horror and wounds Blood and Infamy But a state well pleasing to God as satisfying his Justice for mans Redemption I embraced his precious Body and kiss'd his Sacred Wounds I adored Jesus in this state and said O my Soul we must either cease to Love Jesus or die with him seeing Love equalizes Lovers and makes them alike My Soul then chose to die with Jesus and after many sighs and desires to please her Beloved she died with Jesus never willing more to live a Natural and Humane Life but a Life Divine and Supernatural as that of Jesus And I made for her this Epitaph Here lyes a Soul dead of Love Behold in what consists the death of my Soul 't is to live no longer according to the natural Inclinations but according to the motions of Grace which are the Love of Poverty Contempt and Sufferings While these dispositions live in a Soul she is dead to Sensual desires and lives a Life of Grace a Life Supernatural Therefore for the future I will never hunt after Honours or Pleasures or Riches willingly and by Election but I will either heartily forsake them or if I use them it shall be upon Divine Motives for the good of my Neighbour or for pure necessity seeing That is the Will of God the surest rule of all our Actions Tenth Day Jesus risen from Death and Glorious IN my Morning Prayer I consider'd the Glory of Jesus Christ in the state of his triumphant Resurrection O Jesus how Glorious are you How well does this become you Verily 't was a strange state whither your Love had brought you A state of Misery Shame and Sorrow This was well for us Criminals but in no sort agreeing to you who are Innocence it self For what belongs to you is Majesty and Glory What joy did swell my heart to see Jesus Glorious My Tongue cannot express what my Heart feels This great Feast of the Resurrection is to be celebrated by all Creatures seeing 't is the day wherein Jesus appears as God O Feast of the Glory of Jesus O Feast of the Glory of Mary 'T was a Miracle she did not die of Sorrow at the Death of her Son and 't is another Miracle she did not die of Joy at his Glorious Resurrection O my heart be thou enlarged with Joy for 't is a general rule without exception that the Interest of the Creator is to be preferr'd before all Creatures And therefore O triumphant Jesus I more rejoyce that you are Glorious then that I hope to be Glorified with you Yea though I should never be raised your Glory does ravish me It glads me when I consider that damnation only concerns the Creature for the Interest of Jesus suffers not thereby seeing God is Glorified by the Reprobates as well as by the Saints in Glory 'T is also a certain rule that the Elect O Divine Jesus are Images of you and so necessarily must resemble you in your Sufferings if with you they will be Glorified 'T is a folly to think not to suffer here some way or other more or less seeing the way to Glory is by Sufferings O my Soul be thou united to Jesus Crucified and then thou shalt have part with Jesus Glorified To this end thou must love the Cross and desire of Jesus to die or suffer O World thy way is meer folly and nothing else In my second Prayer I was taken up with these words of Divine Jesus Ought not Christ first to suffer and so to enter into Glory I discover'd how all the Divine Perfections did wonderfully shine forth therein But above all the Wisdom of God doth ravish those hearts which contemplate the works of Grace and Mercy O Divine Wisdom how well is the Oeconomy of your Mysteries order'd to work our Salvation and bring us to Glory Every Mystery which I consider'd did raise a new Fire in my breast to inflame my affections with the Love of Jesus Sometimes they altogether did as with so many arrows pierce my heart and made me languish with Divine Love For seeing my self so Belov'd of good Jesus how could I but Love him again O Infinite Love of Jesus for whom shall I have a heart if not for thee O Love 't is for thee my heart is reserved Thy attracts are powerful enough do not redouble them so sweet and charming 't is enough my heart is for thee O Love except thou wilt have me die do not wound me any more Yet I will die willingly if thou wilt have it so on the Cross of Interiour and Exteriour Suffering that I may be conform to my Loving Saviour My third Prayer was a continuation of the Sentiments of the Love of Jesus I made use of the words of great St. Austin in his Confessions O my Jesus you have wounded my heart with the arrows of your Charity and I have devoted it to your Love Since that you have scatter'd my Darkness and made your self known unto me I have not forgot you Since I had the Happiness to know you I have imprinted you in my memory there I find you and I tast perfect Delights and receive extreme Joy and Contentment when I remember you My Soul feeling Divine Fires within her which did fill her with Pleasures I did sing extempore Canticles to my Beloved and though not methodical yet they better express'd her amorous languishings Though alone in my Chamber I spake of Jesus aloud as if I had had many Auditors to be partakers of my
nothing as if I had been able to bestow much on pious uses The love of Jesus poor and despised did deeply pierce my heart and to satisfie my self therein I made them bring to me a poor Infant in whom methought I saw the Poverty of little Jesus and kissing his Hand I rendred what homage I could desiring to love poor Jesus to my last breath I acknowledge dear Jesus that I am very unworthy of your Divine states But alas must I die without entring effectually into the Poverty and Abjection of your Mortal Life At least O good Jesus I die with that Love and Respect I ought to have for them and be pleas'd to accept of that Conformity I desire to have for them I remember that Praying on Sunday in the Evening the day before I fell Sick at the Carmes Church where I was at Vespers our Blessed Saviour put these words into my mind Christo confixus sum Cruci I am fastned to Christ on the Cross Whereupon I felt an ardent desire to have not one moment of my Life without being able to say I am Crucified with Jesus Christ I think this Divine Love did then dispose me to be nailed on the Cross And in effect my Sickness beginning with a grievous Head-ach which made my eyes to be swoln with pain it came into my mind that I might on this occasion Honour the crowning of our Saviour with Thorns And it was some Contentment to me to have any conformity to this dolorous state of Jesus And as my pain did extend to all parts of my Body I imagin'd it had some little resemblance to the state of a Body Crucified Thus you have an account of my dispositions in this Sickness which I have done in obedience to the command imposed on me Perhaps they are explicated with too much advantage but the relation is true as to the substance Bless therefore with me the God of Mercies who has been pleas'd to be so bountiful to his most ungrateful Creature but it be-seem'd his Goodness to glorifie his Mercies by the greatness of my Miseries This then is my comfort and I cannot but declare his bounties to me and say Venite videte omnes qui timetis Deum quanta fecit Dominus animae meae Come all ye that fear God and see what great things he hath done for my Soul CHAP. VII Other Dispositions in the time of Sickness where both Body and Soul are on the Cross I Began to go out of that state wherein I had been more than five Weeks My corruptible Body did bring down the Soul as it were to nothing so that I had much ado either to know or love God of whom methought my Soul had little or no remembrance Seeing my self in this state of Incapacity I remain'd without any other prospect but of my own nothing and depth of my Miseries being amazed at the strange weakness of a Soul when left to her self This thought which wholly took up my Soul proceeded from a certain experience rather than any Light in the understanding 'Till God brought my Soul to this point she did not well know her own weakness but now she discover'd a thousand false Opinions and vain esteems she had of her self of her Lights Sentiments and Devotions She saw now she had some secret relyance on something besides God which she did not perceive till this state of privation What thus passed in me were the effects of a Natural Malady which nevertheless brought me to nothing and much humbled me For I was in so great a forgetfulness of God that you may be astonish'd at it and I would have hardly believ'd that a Soul having received so many sensible testimonies of the Love of God could ever have so long a privation of actual Love by reason of her former negligence and Infidelity What vast difference is there between my former and this Sickness In that my Soul was all inflamed with Divine Love luminous vigorous far above any disturbance from the Body In this she was cold and dark yea darkness it self feeble infirm depress'd and over-burden'd with mortal flesh We discover our Nothing and Frailties in Prayer but the Lights and Gusts that we receive therein hinder us from being sensible of them what makes us feel them to the quick must be some extraordinary affliction It seem'd to me that nothing was then prevalent in me but Sentiments of Impatience and inclinations to Peevishness but by the Grace of God I did not always consent to them though they often molested me I was somewhat encouraged by the Relation of the Happy Death of two Fathers of the Society who ended their days in the exercises of Charity after they had assisted the Souldiers many years attending them in their Maladies and dolorous Necessities to help them to live well and die Happily At last they died of the Plague and desiring passionately to suffer one of them gave great Stroaks with his Fist upon his Soar to endure something more for Jesu Christ whom they both lov'd with most ardent Affections 'T is said our Blessed Saviour appear'd to them at the point of Death to Crown them and make them Happy with his Presence after which they died Smiling full of Joy and Consolations This did much comfort me extremely rejoycing at their Happiness in that they died in the Service of the Hospital for Souldiers after they had continually endanger'd their Lives by exposing them to the Mouths of Musquets and Canons and a thousand Incommodities of Soul and Body by the cares and solicitudes incumbent on them O how glorious was their Death O the amiable Sufferings that brought them to it What are my little Sufferings in comparison of these What a shame is it for me to feel so much repugnance to endure them Alas I consider that there 's not a day in the year wherein the Church does not make particular Commemoration of many Martyrs who have had the zeal and courage to give up their Lives for Jesus Christ who died for them that they might Honour his Sufferings by the Torments they endured for his sake Some have been expos'd to be devour'd by Beasts others broke upon the Wheel others burned Alive others nailed to Crosses and all have been Miraculous by embracing with joy and cheerfulness the cruellest of Deaths that most barbarous Tyrants could invent to make them miserable O good Jesus I see all these go by the way of the Cross to come to the Perfection of Divine Love and I stay behind as one abandon'd and unworthy to suffer for you What can I then do O blessed Saviour For you have said That he who will not take up his Cross to follow you is not worthy to be your Disciple O Love Crucifie me Burn me Martyr me Si non per Martyrium carnis saltem per incendium cordis If not by Sacrificing my Body yet by Sacrificing my Heart And let my affectionate desire to suffer make my Life and
in Corporal Infirmities I have a mind to call my Hermitage the Hospital of the Incurable and only to lodge with me such poor Spiritual Christians who have a good will to heal their Imperfections but yet still fall into relapses At Paris there 's an Hospital for those who are Incurable in Body But mine shall be for such in Soul The end of the Sixth BOOK BOOK VII Of Ordinary Prayer and Contemplation CHAP. I. What Esteem we ought to have for Prayer WE must have a great care not to place Perfection where it is not for this will much retard us in the path of Virtue We must not therefore have too great an esteem for the Unitive Mystick way not but that it is good and very good for a Soul that God conducts to Perfection by such extraordinary Elevations But we may safely believe the Unitive Practical way to be as excellent and more necessary seeing 't is nothing else but the practice of a Christian Life and the other consists in Elevations and Unions of Spirit with God by Contemplation 'T is observable that our Blessed Saviour says Whosoever will come after me must take up his Cross and follow me He says not he must be Elevated in Prayer but he must take up his Cross that is he must practice the Maxims of the Gospel Happy then are those who suffer although they be not elevated in Spirit And those who are elevated in Spirit are not happy but inasmuch as they are conform to Jesus Christ Crucified and by such Unions are more disposed to the Cross and Sufferings The Crucified Life is in a manner the end of the Mystick Life whose Gusts and Lights conduce to fortifie the Soul to carry her Cross the better St. Teresa says That 't is a good sign after a Soul has been in an extasie if she find in her self extraordinary desires to suffer in that she cannot return from those Holy Communications with God but well instructed For the Perfection of Love here consists in Suffering for the Love of Jesus and not enjoying him Let us not complain then if we be not elevated by Mystick Unions but rather rejoyce too see our poor Soul in Prayer among the Thorns of dryness and aridities than the Roses of a sweet and gustful Devotion Interiour as well as Exteriour Sufferings must be pleasing to us seeing a true Christian ought to Glory in nothing but the Cross of Christ But that did extend it self as well to his Soul as Body for his Divine Soul was deprived of sensible succours in this Dereliction on the Cross and we must Love to be conform to him and rest content Happy are those Souls that love Sufferings rather than Enjoyments and complain of nothing sooner than not to suffer A Soul which receives no great Light from God in Prayer but is left in darkness and Interiour Sufferings carries in reality a heavy Cross But a Soul illuminated in Prayer by illustrations from Heaven endures another Cross more intime and burdensom For this Light discovering to her the great merit of pure Suffering 't is a pain to her not to suffer and so she remains without all sort of consolation seeing the state of Light and Sweetness appear to her not preferrable to that of obscurity And so tasting of those Sweets they are not now so pleasant having discover'd that the bitterness of Aridities is more acceptable to a Soul that desires nothing but the pure Love of Jesus Christ Crucified and that thereby may be more firmly united to her Saviour When I am in Darkness and Aridities I stand in need of an indifferency in every state that I may bear with Patience my Abjection and Poverty I have more need of Indifferency when my Soul is enlightned which irradiations God vouchsafes us to strengthen our weakness and not as I have thought heretofore to advance us in the practice of Divine Love which is more eminent in the contrary condition I have stood in need of comfort in my Sufferings and I have stood more in need of it in a state of Joy and Sweetness I said heretofore when I abounded with Consolations that I should never suffer again At present I think I shall suffer as long as I live seeing I find Crosses in every state and I frame my self to an Indifferency to Gods will and Pleasure in his dealings with me Heretofore inebriated with Consolations I said Fulcite me floribus stipate me malis quia amore langueo Surround me with Flowers and Aples to augment my Comforts and increase my Love But now I say surround me with Crosses Contempts and Sufferings for languishing with Love I desire to Love Jesus better than ever 'T is a wonderful thing that I should be more poor now then when I was deprived of all Consolation I will not then too greedily seek after Light and Sweetness seeing methinks they make me poorer I stand amaz'd to see a Soul to find her self desolate by Consolation In Desolations the Inferiour part of the Soul suffers but in Consolations the Superiour part and more elevated but little known I perceive that the Supreme part of the Soul cannot be content and comforted but by the Death of the sensual part and a seperation from all inordinate Affections to the Creature I should therefore rather desire a state of Desolation and Fidelity therein than all the Delicious gusts of Prayer though so elevated as to bring the Soul to ravishing extasies CHAP. II. Of the different sorts of Mental Prayer I Find a comparison which explicates very well the difference of ordinary Prayer and Prayer Passive A man may see well enough the Furniture of a chamber and the riches of a Cabinet by striking Fire and lighting a Candle to view the particulars Or by the lighting of the Sun when we have nothing to do but to open our eyes to behold those Objects Meditation much resembles the first way of seeing with a Candle Perfect Contemplation the second way of seeing by the Sun because 't is done not only without labour but all at once and with delight When the Light of the Sun fails us we must supply it with a Lamp or Candle When God does not Communicate himself by Contemplation we must seek after him by Meditation and be content with Gods Gifts whatever they be with Peace and Humility When God withdraws his Passive Light 't is in vain to strive to retain it We must acquiess in his Pleasure 'till it return again as he thinks good If God please to leave us in darkness without Sun or Candle 't is an opportunity to practice Humility and Patience for we must desire nothing but God alone and in what manner he thinks best Let a Soul be never so perfect she is never continually elevated to a high degree of Contemplation but more or less as it pleases God she must descend to the practice of Virtue and exercises of Charity or to discursive Meditation by Applications to God in the
interests to advance God's glory A Soul ought to be well-pleas'd that her body shall be crumbled to dust and as it were reduced to nothing to exalt the Glory of God and glorifie his Justice A holy person much wondred how the Saints who are powerful with God kept their bodies so long entire not obtaining that they might be humbled by putrefaction because they knowing the inestimable value of humiliation which most glorifies God ought as it seems to have procur'd it to their bodies But if God think best to glorifie himself by preserving them from corruption his Divine Will is and must be the Rule of their desires Sometimes I have desired death as amiable because it would give me free access to enjoy God but at present I have the spirit of annihilation This annihilation is a state above that of death and by it we offer a perfect Sacrifice A Soul which seeks the Glory of God desires death to enter into this perfect annihilation What is most horrible in Death paleness deformity noisomness putrefaction pleases her best for these are companions of a perfect annihilation to humble her as much as possible O death how lovely art thou to such a Soul 'T is a strange thing that the fire of Divine Love burns no brighter in our hearts upon the frequenting of the Sacraments Oftentimes we exercise our selves twice a day in mental Prayer sometimes by holy Conferences daily Lectures and Considerations Now I think the cause of this is that we are sad dejected with abjections which so chills the heart that the fire of Divine Love is stifled thereby but when once humiliation is a joy unto us the heart presently becomes enflamed My Soul having a great degust of this life feels a wonderful desire of death she never was more sensible than now of her Captivity and Prison in this mortal body She sighs after the liberty to see God and enjoy him without any disturbance whatsoever for all created things do divert this happy exercise in which consists her felicity Being a Prisoner in this Body she is yet in darkness and distractions by eating sleeping several affairs and accidents O how is she crucified in being deprived of the full Embraces of her Beloved Quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus This made St. Paul earnestly desire to be freed from the Prison of this mortal body I admire the happiness of those who die in our Lord and do wonder at the blindness of of such who passionately desire this present life and are taken up so much with the care of the Body Goods Employments which are so many impediments of our converse with God and Christian Perfection O how importunate is sensuality with us and yet how contemptible is every thing that is not God! We ought not to be discomforted at the loss of temporal things because thereby some chains of our Captivity are broken Much less ought we to be troubl'd to see our Body the Prison of our Soul to weaken by degrees and threaten death Take courage we shall soon see our desires accomplish'd and shortly we shall enjoy God in full possession This state of desires and languishings after God is a state whereby we honour him as our final happiness and being so he deserves by reason of his excellence that we should continually sigh after him Such as have no love for their final end make no matter of it and give too much evidence that they find their repose in something else which is a most dreadful disorder But considering our happiness by death methinks I see nothing more lovely than crosses and abjections which can only refresh a Soul panting after the full possession of God and sometimes so content with it that she forgets the pain of her banishment seeing her self in a state wherein she may glorifie God in so transcendent in a manner which is what she chiefly desires aspiring to enjoyment without having regard to her proper satisfaction CHAP. XVIII Considerations upon the natural inclinations we have to evil A Stone held in the Air if let go falls naturally to the ground by its own weight and 't is no more matter of wonder when we fall into imperfections If God leave us to our selves we are presently in our own nothing weakness and infirmity And if the Grace of God was not very great unto us we should fall more often They may be thought valiant who bear up stoutly against the blast of strong temptations Alas take us at the best we are as frail as Glasses on a Cupboard If some are sooner broken 't is because they are more used and found in the hand of an ill manager Those that stand still on the Cupboard if they had reason would not brag of their strength but only acknowledg that they have not been tryed by occasions When the Grace of God keeps us from falling we ought not to take complacence therein as if we were better than others by reason of such Divine Favours but our content ought to be in the good pleasure of God who is so munificent to his Creatures yea the most unworthy To be thus pleas'd only with God's will is also very necessary when it is God's pleasure to leave a Soul to combat with some singular imperfection a long time without victory For it being the will of God to leave a Soul thus to fight it out she ought to be as well content as if she was more elevated by Grace seeing in this state she meets with the Divine pleasure which is the object of her complacency Insomuch that the Soul has no more inclination for one Grace than another but indifferent to all being content to have her faults made known to glorifie God by the love of abjection Secret faults do us the greatest hurt when manifested if we make good use of it they may bring no small advantage to us I have at present a wonderful distast of this Life which is hardly a Life but a continual Death because it deprives us of knowledg and and love in perfection O how this mortal life is a great punishment and full of Crosses Here we sin here we forget God and run a hazard to lose him eternally Love here finds little nourishment being fed with slender knowledg sometimes much clouded and continual propensions to evil Dear Saviour when will you deliver me from the body of this death This was the desire of St. Paul which I take the courage to make being so much out of love with this miserable life The End of the first BOOK BOOK II. Of the Supernatural Life which is the Life of all true Christians CHAP. I. The Idaea or description of the Supernatural Life WE can never attain Perfection by the sole conduct of human reason which is the light of Philosophers Faith is the light of Christians which teacheth us to renounce the ratiocinations of carnal prudence to follow in simplicity a Jesus Crucified To observe the Commandments of God as
and miserable I had so little strength that my sufferings did stifle the enjoyment of Gods presence in me and the sensibility of them did eclipse the other And because I thought that this enjoyment of God could not be found but in a Soul exempt from all sorts of Sufferings when Sadness or Pains or Troubles did seize upon me I got free as soon as possible to regain my former state of enjoyment But I see my error for now these sufferings shall become the means to unite me more strictly to God I am content with them and will offer them a sacrifice to that hidden Majesty who is really present in my Soul For I conceive that the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Hypostatically united to the Word had God most intimately present remaining in this union in a state of enjoyment and suffering also As Man he offer'd up to the Divinity a continual Sacrifice of his Humiliations Poverty and Sufferings and the Divinity imparted to him a wonderful enjoyment of sweetness by his presence And in this manner God is yet glorified in a Soul He bestows upon her a profound Peace in the Superiour faculties by being sensible of the Divine Presence And in the mean time being mortified in the inferiour part she makes a perpetual homage of Sacrifice to God by offering up her Suffering to him A Soul in this state is an excellent Image of Jesus as both Traveller and Comprehensour God does not always manifest his presence to a Soul by abundance of Divine Irradiations but sometimes by a sensible Peacefulness which gently touches the heart and unites it to God In this the Intellectual Faculties do nothing but barely eye God and now and then the heart breaths forth some amorous Aspirations As O what a Happiness is it to have God present without a possibility of Separation What can I desire more then to have the possession of God O my God be my Portion and my Heritage for ever Sometimes also the Soul receives a certain prospect of the Grandeurs of God present which works in her Adorations and Humiliations Sometimes the Soul is mov'd with such sensible touches that she experimentally finds God present in her whereby she melts into affections respect and love and praises to the Divine Majesty and thereupon enjoys a Peace that passes our understanding Crosses and Sufferings may bring a Soul in time to a more union with God though not to the pleasures of enjoyment A union so much the more excellent by how much the more 't is imperceptible to the Soul who seeking her own satisfaction has some mixture of self-love in the sweets of enjoyment but cannot happen in the Crucified union which joyns the Soul to God in such a manner as is hardly perceptible That state is most perfect which brings us to the greatest Interiour Purity but this cannot take up a mansion in our heart without an entire death to all Creatures Now in the Crucified union the Soul being only attached to the will of God and not reflecting on her own operations and so taking no self-satisfaction from them she thinks all is lost and that she has no part in the love of God which is the only thing she passionately desires What great pity is it to love and not to know it Nevertheless this Soul that seems to her self in so sad a condition is a delightful Object in the eyes of God who sees in her the love only of his interests in that she is content with a total denudation and confessing she is not worthy of Gods Graces wherewith she beholds others adorned and admiring their beauty perceives not all this while what she is her self And this ignorance of her own state possessing her Spirit by a true sense of her own indignity she easily concludes that she is a miserable Creature And 't is no wonder if discouragment and sadness set upon a Soul in this disposition at least to affect the Inferiour part I clearly see that this union Crucified does advance us in the participation of the states of Christ Suffering which is the greatest advantage a Soul can pretend to in this Life of Mortality seeing this puts us in a condition of most expressing our love to God This great Truth well consider'd will wonderfully comfort a Soul that desires to be conform to the Image of Jesus Crucified The Crucified union carries Mortification to the marrow of the Soul making it die to whatsoever is not God seeing that she lives by the privation of all Creatures But the sensible union does nourish it self by reflections upon such a state which will indeed purifie a Soul from worldly affections however she will go on but slowly to the purity of Perfection if God be not very merciful unto her O my God how ought we to give up our selves wholly though in the dark to the conduct of your Divine Providence 'T is your wisdom to lead us through Obscurities to the end we may deny our own judgment which is no lover of Mortification O how this insensibility does purifie the operations of the Will which cannot relish in this state of denudation any thing but only your good pleasure The Soul in this Crucified union has the advantage to know how tenderly Jesus Christ loved her in his abandonments and humiliations He makes us to suffer this that we may know the greatness of that and this experimental knowledge discovers to us how much Jesus suffer'd in the state of his Humiliations and puts the Soul in a disposition to follow him in his Humiliations And seeing the greatness of the love of Jesus to us was most manifested by his Sufferings for us so our love to him is greatest by our Sufferings for him 'T is to be observ'd that the highest degree of this Crucified union is to have no sight of the excellency of this state which once being perceived begins to lessen our Holy Sufferings CHAP. VII That the Divine Presence makes us to love Prayer or Action as best pleases God I find the Life of Man to be poor and miserable we see not God unless surrounded with Clouds Our true Life consists in a Holy Converse with God present whereby a Soul enjoys a delightful repose and is fill'd with Peace unspeakable And being ravish'd with such lovely sweets does melt into enjoyments which transcend infinitely all earthly pleasures In this disposition a Soul does not relish the affairs of this World Ordinary Discourses though never so harmless are troublesome to her Yea the occasions to help our Neighbour though Good and Holy are not then convenient nor pleasing to her She is all for to be at the feet of Jesus with Mary Magdalen in a perfect repose and let Martha go about her business Notwithstanding God makes us to understand that sometimes we must go out from this in time presence and undertake Exteriour Actions in the Affairs of his Glory Ingredi egredi And this is the Life of a Holy Soul She goes out by
indisposition of Health I ought to value it and not forsake my usual Devotions nor have recourse to such refreshments as satisfie sensuality But to take pleasure for once to make bold with my body that hath often made bold with my Soul Notwithstanding this must be done with discretion 3. I must rejoyce at crosses and difficulties which I meet withall as affording matter to practice many great virtues which prepare the Soul for great graces and make her worthy of great love What God pleases to give oftentimes to his best Friends in this life are fair occasions to suffer for Christs sake by a generous renunciation of what the World most affects and nature most desires 4. I ought to be strongly perswaded that I shall be so far rich in virtue as I shall be poor in worldly goods provided I be faithful to the Grace of my vocation which invites me to be dead to all things but only God I must therefore have a care not to harken to the arguments of humane prudence which still finds pretensions enough to shun contempts and sufferings Our sensuality does much retardus in the way to perfection but humane reason more being more subtile and powerful to perswade The only remedy is to abandon our selves to the conduct of Grace and fall in love with the folly of the Cross CHAP. XIII To give our selves up to the conduct of Gods Spirit WE must not use violence in the practice of a Spiritual Life by binding our selves severely to this or that way but sweetly follow the motions of Gods Holy Spirit We must row against the stream of our corrupt nature but not strive against the wind that comes from Heaven Work we must but by following Gods holy Inspirations which are sensible enough to holy hearts a Soul accustomed to the conduct of God's Spirit does know his motions I cannot explicate this as I would but 't is an assured truth she knows them by experience I must wholly depend on Divine Providence without any dependance on Creatures though holy casting my self into the arms of God as an Infant that takes no care but to lye in the Mothers bosome to suck the teat and delighted therewith does love her dearly I confess our blessed Saviour treats me after this manner for without any sollicitude of mine to nourish my Soul with Spiritual food or without any searching into Books for that end but only in his Sacred heart I experience that I want nothing which sometimes does strike me with admiration and fear that I have been negligent to do my duty But this fear does presently vanish seeing God was pleased to provide for me before I thought on 't This makes me know experimentally that God will have me wholly depend upon him without any support from Creatures for if I seek to them his care diminishes and my Soul falls into indigence finding little succour from the Creatures she had recourse to which makes her soon retire to the Paps of Providence and this suffices A Mother sometimes has milk in one Pap and not in the other if the little Infant will change he is deceiv'd but finding little help from the left Pap he returns to the right and now will not quit it being grown wise by experience My Soul thus finding little help from the creature returns presently to the Pap of Providence and there abides I fear sometimes to have too many consolations in Prayer but this does satisfie me that God will have me live as an Infant that stands in need of such comforts He make choice of other Souls for great performances that regard his glory If an Infant should leave the bosome of his Mother to do her service he would fall and hurt himself and do no good He must then let others work and be content with his Mothers embraces Wherefore what I have to do is to stick close to God and let others travel in great affairs as more grown up in grace in comparison of whom a little Infant is nothing but weakness My perfection consists in my fidelity in a perfect abandon of my self to God which will increase as I advance in the ways of God and his designs I must therefore be in a manner passive and in my thoughts desires actions dispositions interiour and exteriour depend on the pure conduct of God and his pleasure A Soul well illuminated loves not the dispositions she finds in her self but God who gave them and his will is the sole object of her complacencies it being all one to her to be in this or that disposition as best pleases God and loving nothing more than a perfect abandon of her self to his Providence O dear abandon Thou art at present the object of my love which by thee is purified augmented and enflamed whosoever possesses thee does know and tast the amiable transports of great liberty of Spirit A Soul loses her self happily in thee after having lost all Creatures for the love of abjection and finds her self no where but in God being dead to all things besides him O dear abandon Thou art the disposition of dispositions and all other do refer to thee Happy are they that know thee being of more worth than all other graces A Soul in abandon hath a pure regard to God and is not concern'd but for his Interests yea desires not abjection nor any thing else but Gods good pleasure Few words cannot explicate the great effects that it works in the Interiour to establish a Soul perfectly in God 'T is abandon that makes her insensible in all kinds of accident and nothing but the loss of abandon can afflict her You are admirable O my God you are admirable in your holy operations and assentions that you make in Souls whom you conduct from light to light by your Divine Providence which is not known but by experience Sometimes it seem'd to me that the grace to love abjection was the highest pitch but now I see that abandon mounts the Soul to a more elevated state O dear abandon Thou doubtless wilt be the ultimate disposition I desire nothing but thee and death as the gate whereby to enter into an eternal abandon Dear death how pleasant and lovely dost thou seem unto me What allurements do I see in thee Deliver me from my captivity that I may fully enjoy my well-beloved However if thy coming will interrupt my abandon come not for thou art nothing in comparison and all thy delights will be bitter to me O dear abandon Thou art the beloved of my heart which ardently breaths after thee But when shall I know that I possess thee perfectly This shall be when the Divine will shall raign perfectly in me For my Soul shall be established in an intire indifferency to all events and means of perfection when she shall have no other joy then in God no other content no other felicity Our blessed Saviour sayes often to a Soul abandon'd to his will Think upon me and I will think upon
sufficiently and fewer that practice it in Purity and really aspire to form the true image of Jesus in them In my second Prayer I did apply my self to consider how the Son of God being eternally in the midst between the Father and the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven to be a Mediator between his Eternal Father and us Sinners He tells us that no man can come to Father but by him and that he is the way which leads to Happiness And is it not a sad case that men should so much go astray This is a low and humble way and they puff'd up with Pride will march over mountains in ways above them This is a poor penitential suffering way and they are for a way easie delicious rich and commodious Is it possible to come to the bosom of the Eternal Father except we will march by the way of his Son There 's no other way to come to him and if we take our own way at every step we go farther from him O my God how long shall my Soul lag behind meerly in a way of nature When shall we O my Soul enter into Dispositions truly Christian and conform to the Dictates of a supernatural Life O Jesus my Saviour Redeemer my Exemplar my Way my Light 't is only by following you and your Divine Maxims that we can enter into the light of Life Of necessity then we must pass by Jesus Crucified to come to the Divinity of the Father and enjoy Jesus Glorified We must take up our Cross and follow him if we will enter into Glory My third Prayer was a continuation of like Thoughts I then understood that there 's no entring into Society with the three Divine Persons or arriving to such a height of Prayer as thereby we may live in them a Divine Life but by entring into communication with Jesus Christ and conforming our Life to his example This is a general Rule without exception The Life of Jesus was a severe self-denying Life and ours ought to be of such an austerity as may not ruine our health or dull the Spirit but humble the Body to elevate the Soul In a word we must daily endeavour to humble and annihilate our selves having only in our eye the Will of God The Eternal Father cannot take delight in any Soul that does not endeavour to resemble his Son It concerns us therefore to examine our hearts to see how they stand affected to Sufferings on all occasions If we cannot relish them but flie and complain 't is to be fear'd nature does possess us and not the Spirit of Jesus Christ Water in a glass remains quiet but if it finds the least passage it tends to its own element from whence it can only be kept by force In like manner a Soul that has overtures of Sufferings afforded her will find an inclination to embrace them if Jesus Crucified be her center It matters not by what means these occasions to suffer happen whether by the imprudence of Friends or the malice of Enemies Or her own neglect or any other accident she layes hold on the occasion to unite her self to the abjections of Jesus as to her center Happy is that Soul which is in this temper Grace and the Spirit of Jesus has wrought it in her In my fourth Prayer I went on to entertain my self with the wonders of the Son of God I admir'd that being in the Glory of his Father he descended to our Miseries that he might glorifie his Father in a new manner by purchasing for him such holy Souls who being animated with his Spirit after his example would be in love with Sufferings for Gods sake I saw clearly how the Son of God by his Eternal Birth is most glorious with Infinite Perfections and how he became Man to be capable of Sufferings for our sake And that we must follow Jesus in his Humiliations if we will be partakers of his Glory O what dark Souls have they who see not these Glorious Truths We live here a sensualor worldly life or at most do follow the light of reason rarely do we live a Christian and very rarely a Divine Life A thousand times happy are they who dear Jesus are enlightned by you the true Light of the World Jesus Christ cloath'd himself with a Mortal Body that he might suffer and be Sacrific'd upon the Cross and we ought to bear part with him The Saints who have known and tasted of his Spirit have Martyr'd their Bodies by a thousand Austerities Others have wasted away by degrees in the flames of Divine Love All have been desirous to suffer more or less But we are afraid to hurt our selves and are too apprehensive to endamage our Health For whom do we keep our embraces or for what is it that we are so desirous to live long upon Earth 'T is a vain fear to think we shall shorten our days by our endeavouring to live a Divine Life in our Mortal Bodies Seventh Day I Began my first Prayer by a peculiar instinct of the Holy Spirit bringing often to my mind those precious words of St. Paul God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our Hearts crying Abba Father And then I found that a Soul assisted with the extraordinary infusions of the Holy Spirit is elevated above her self which is the effect of the gift of Wisdom freely communicated whereby she sees and tasts the ineffable Mysteries of our Religion O what a gracious gift is this What a great favour is it when God is pleas'd thus to communicate himself unto us It then seem'd to me that the faculties of my Soul ceas'd their ordinary operations and the obscurity of Faith as it were vanish'd this Divine Wisdom elevating them in such a manner which they cannot conceive who know not by experience to a very sublime way of working much above their ordinary proceedings The Soul stands wondring at it and can hardly believe she could arrive to such a point of Perfection Then a Divine Light gave me to see at once my unworthiness to receive the Graces of God his Goodness and Mercy to bestow them on me and the merits of Christ whereby they were purchas'd I was much amaz'd that God should vouchsafe so great favours to so wretched a sinner And I did melt in acknowledgements being humbled in my self with an entire confidence in the merits of Jesus I continued my second Prayer and this Divine Light increas'd in my Soul and discovered the favours God vouchsafes to Souls of which there are many degrees according to the proportion of their Purity of heart 1. They see the Deformity of Sin clear enough to conceive a horrour and detestation of it and know confusedly the Christian Virtues the Mysteries of the Sacred Humanity and Divinity 2. They see more clearly some Christian Principles as an Eternity of a Happy or Miserable condition after this Life that our Salvation is our Principal concern and the one thing necessary aend that all
great so full of Glory you come to humble your self and to annihilate your self in a Soul so Criminal so Unfaithful 'T is true Abjections were not inconsistent with the condition of your Mortal Life But since now you are in Glory methinks you ought to be exempt from them If my Soul had any Love for your Interests she would not procure you such Humiliations and therefore she would do better not to Communicate so often for then she would not be the occasion of humbling you so often This Sentiment joyned with the knowledge of my own unworthiness would make me abstain from Communicating if I did not know withall that your Delights are to be with such Souls as desire likewise to take their Delights in you and that you have said in St. John That if we do not eat your Adorable Flesh we shall not have Life in you When I consider my Indignity and yet present my self to Communicate with a Soul that is an ever-flowing source of Vices and Sins I should be very much afflicted to see Jesus Christ so ill lodged in the midst of my Imperfections not knowing in what part of my Soul I might place him Where he might not see things unworthy of his Presence This sight would doubtless cause me a great deal of pain if another regard did not encourage me I consider that when the Sun enters into a stinking and and offensive Dungeon he is received there more in his own Brightness and Lustre than in the Dungeon it self and that so he is there without prejudicing his Grandeur or Purity When I have this Idaea before my eyes I say to my Lord 'T is true you enter into me all miserable as I am But it is true also that you are more in your Self in your Glory and in your Brightness Be therefore received in your Self O Divine Jesus in your Beauty and in your Grandeurs I rejoyce that the offensiveness and streightness of my Dungeon cannot prejudice your Beauties or your Greatness Enter therefore into me without going out of your Self Be received in me but more in your Self O bright Sun of Glory Live for ever in the midst of your own Splendours and Magnificence but do not cease to live also in the middle of my Obscurities and Misery Convert me unto you wholly and without reserve CHAP. II. To Communicate worthily we must put our selves in a state conformable to that of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament JEsus Christ chose to give himself to us in this stupendious Mystery in the state of Death as to any thing that concerns the life of the Senses but as a Fountain of Life in regard of the Interiour Life a Divine Life a Life of Grace a Life of Contemplation and of continual application of the mind to adore the Majesty of God his Father A Life I say poor and nothing to the Exteriour but shining with the Divinest and most awful Lustre and Infinitely rich under the vails of the outward Species that hid it from the eyes of the World Thus and with these dispositions he presents himself to us requiring that we likewise present our selves unto him with dispositions conformable to his His Sacred Humanity that he gives us in the Holy Communion was rais'd to a Divine Life by the Hypostatical Union So also must we be by Grace viz. Our understanding must be elevated above it self by a high illustration of Faith and our Will inflamed by a sublime Sense of the Love of God and so in fine our whole Soul must be animated with the Life of Grace O the Sublimity of the Life of Grace How Admirable art thou how High how Ineffable Thou raisest man from Earth to Heaven thou makest him live in God I and of God too since thou dost prepare him to live in this World upon the same Substance which nourisheth the Blessed in Heaven O great Life of Grace thou art poor to the Exteriour but most rich to the Interiour Thou appearest low but art most high I am ravished with thy Beauties I cannot live a moment without Thee who makest us live with a Life Divine who placest the Soul in the heart of God and disposest her to see God placed in her own Heart When the Charms and Beauty of this Life have once discovered themselves to the Soul she willingly quits all other things to imbrace them and whatsoever else seems to her no better than Death and Corruption she renounces the World Pleasures and Riches she condemns her self to Pennances Mortifications and Poverty to obtain this Divine Life and feels a Sacred hunger after this adorable nourishment that is her only support O that I did throughly know that I did Faithfully pursue this Divine Life a Life so little known so little practis'd in the World where People do not thirst after the Living Waters of your Eternal Fountain O my God! O Jesus draw me after you through all the Actions and Duties of the Life of Grace which is at its greatest height among Injuries and Miseries Draw me O Lord and I will run after you in the Odour of your Perfumes What a pleasure is it O my Soul to see you march like a Gyant in the ways of Grace nourished and strengthened in your course with the Bread of Heaven Ambulavit in fortitudine cibi illius usque ad montem Dei To live in Death as Jesus seems to do in the Blessed Sacrament to change Glory for Contempt to be most delighted when one is annihilated and even Sacrificed is the true Character of the Life of Grace It makes all things die to the Exteriour and live only to the Interiour and above all things it confers the Spirit of Prayer keeping the Soul almost in a continual exercise and elevation by fixing its regard upon that Infinite and incomprehensible Being which she adores and is not able to understand and therefore annihilates her self in his presence suspended with admiration of those Divine Grandeurs which she sees annihilated in the Holy Eucharist O my Soul how great is thy Vileness how extream is thy Poverty What is man that thou O Lord art mindful of him Dost visit him and takest pleasure to come and dwell personally in him His Soul is drawn out of nothing his Body is but a piece of Clay and still you vouchsafe to set your eyes upon him How can a Creature so filthy so wretched so gross receive within it the Infinite Majesty of God Sink and humble your self to the very center of your Nothing and confess your Indignities O my Soul Cast down your eyes and acknowledge that you are unworthy so much as to lift them up towards this formidable Grandeur and more than all be penetrated with the deep sense of Admiration Gratitude and love of this excessive Goodness which condescends in this incomprehensible Mystery to annihilate it self to come and give it self to you even in the state of your own Nothing We must needs be very much in Love with our
little or no Service but I rest contented herein seeing God hereby does magnify his Goodness and Mercy to me I doubt not but there are many Souls in Heaven who have in the eyes of the World done little Service for God as Solitares in the Deserts and many Persons without Talents and yet have high Places in the Mansions of Eternity They spent all their Time to purify their Interiour by being faithful to the Graces they have received from the infinite Bounty of God and the Service they rendred him to the Glory of his Name is only written in his Omniscience but will be laid open to the World at the great Day of Manifestation CHAP. V. Of the Impediments of Prayer I Clearly see and know by Experience that the temporal Affairs of our Oeconomy does not a little take us off from God We do ill in it yea it being our Obligation 't is pleasing to God to manage our Temporals with a good Intention though it would be better if we can to lay aside these Worldly Distractions to spend our time only in God's Service And those who have a Call from God to attend on him alone in a state of Prayer and Contemplation cannot without being unfaithful to his Grace continue in the solicitous Distractions of worldly Affairs I must needs say that Worldly Business darkens and hinders my Soul in her Spiritual Exercises and I would never spend time therein upon Humane Considerations but purely because God has so order'd it However it must be our care not to spend more time therein than necessity requires Too delicate Dyet though it may strengthen Nature yet it weakens Grace When the Body is brought down by Abstinence the Soul is more vigorous in her Elevations to God I find this true in me by Experience A Soul must be very well grounded in Grace that among temporal Imployments and worldly Cares can keep her self up in Fervour and Purity She meets with a thousand Occasions to move her to Anger Impatience Sadness and vain Joy and though she do not give way to them yet she is sensible of them and this must needs more or less disturb her Interiour Peace whereby she is united to God her Happiness A little thing will hinder a Soul from raising her self to Contemplation and a less matter will somewhat darken her when elevated because the least emotion of Spirit will indispose her to receive Divine Impressions Therefore a man of Prayer must be a man dead and mortified for that is not pure Prayer which does not work in us a victory over our Passions and Vicious Inclinations and bring us to the practice of all Christian Virtues I see now more clearly than ever that the Spirit of Prayer does not persevere and gather strength but in those who are dead to Sensuality austere to themselves Penitent and disengaged from whatsoever is not God 'T is true as for Corporal Austerities a tender Complexion must follow the Councel of a Director But commonly we are too indulgent to our selves and far from the practice of great Penitents who were very severe to themselves and also great Contemplatives We deceive our selves if we think to enter into a state of Prayer and take delight in Worldly things Though in rigour this may in some sort be permitted to Candidates of Devotion yet not to Proficients in whom the Spirit of Prayer and Conformity to Jesus Christ Crucified ought to be wholly predominant For 't is our Duty to live Conformably to that state where God has put us Gerson says very well If we refuse Exteriour Consolations we shall receive Interiour The reason hereof seems to me to be this because Interiour Consolations participate of the Purity of their source which is the union of God with the Soul and will not permit any mixture with Impurity and Imperfection For sensual Joyes and Consolations are Earthly Impure and Imperfect and consequently are contrary to the Spirit of Grace which makes the Soul pure and Penitent and Mortified to the things of this Life Moreover Interiour Consolations are slender participations of those Infinite Delights which God has in himself of himself and he is jealous of such favours not communicating them but to a Soul entirely beloved that takes no delight but in him alone But when earthly consolations enter into a Soul they draw her partly from God and so God withdraws his favours from her For this reason the Saints who would be wholly for God mortified themselves without reserve as much as humane weakness would permit that no sensual or Worldly Pleasures might have any part in their Affections but God alone Take courage O my Soul let us embrace the Cross and follow Jesus Christ who will conduct us through the garden of his Delights Let us not trouble our selves with Worldly Affairs unless we know 't is the Will of God for otherwise we shall find affliction of Spirit and decay in Spirituality Thrice happy is he who shuns multiplicity for this will dispose him to pure Love Many things seem to us necessary which serve but to entertain the corruption of Nature still working in us If God should severely examine all our Actions perhaps he would hardly find one in all respects well pleasing to him We too much follow Nature and our Humane Inclinations if Grace sets us a working we hardly go through with it but Nature creeps in some way or other to sully our Actions What is purely Natural cannot be Meritorious all merit proceeding from a Principle of Grace and therefore no Actions but what have an influence from Grace can dispose us to a union with God O how rare a thing is pure Virtue That which seems best is not for the most part without some blemish Those who have Illustrations from Heaven discover these Impurities others in the dark see nothing but grosser Faults and Imperfections From all this we may conclude that there are principally four great Obstacles which hinder for the most part the exercise of Prayer 1. To engage our selves in Worldly Affairs more than the order of God requires 2. To be too delicate and use very little Corporal Austerity 3. To practice little either Interiour or Exteriour Retreats and to have no Love for Recollection and for Solitude 4. Want of zeal and Courage in the ways of God and so living a Life meerly Humane by following our Naetural Inclinations But he shall never be a Man of Prayer who does not live a Super-natural Life and practice all Christian Virtues with a Faithful and Generou Resolution And Blessed is he who by his constancy in Spiritual Exercises has brought his Soul to such a temper that 't is in a manner as easie for him to Pray as breath Hic accipiet Benedictionem à Domino Misericordiam à Deo Salutari suo quia haec est generatio quaerentium Dominum He that thus seeks God while he may be found shall enjoy him there where he can never be lost CHAP.
by Jesus Christ there being no other Means to attain Salvation 6. That the Sacred Trinity which consists in the perfect Knowledge and pure Love of the Divine Persons is the true Model of Perfect Prayer These deeply consider'd are very instrumental to elevate a Contemplative Soul to so high a pitch that sometimos she in a wonderful manner participates of that Life Eternal which is in God himself I have made a Resolution to desire of God that my Prayer may be altogether Intellectual to the end I may not feel such sensible Gusts of Heavenly Consolations which prejudice Nature These are but sweet Baiâ—s for self-Love which sullies the Purity of Prayer and diminishes the Contemplative Attention which continues more strong and vigorous when kept on the point of the Spirit whereby the Fire of Divine Love burns brighter and with more constant Flames This is that continual Union which is the Object of Perfection and whatever hinders this ought to be suspected as are sensible Gusts of Devotion in Inferiour Nature O my Soul let us therefore entirely give up our selves to God in Prayer to receive from him such impressions as he thinks best let our chief care be fully to submit our selves to him and to be disingag'd from all worldly things and accept with Thankfulness whatever he gives us If he gives us nothing let nothing content us and peaceably acquiesce in Union with his Divine Will A Soul faithful in the state of Privations will sooner or later as God sees best be raised to pure Union and Enjoyments on the lofty Wings of Contemplation CHAP. IX Of the Prayer of Faith THis Prayer is a bare reflection or simple remembrance of God who is believed by naked Faith as he is seen and known by the Light of Glory 'T is the same Object here and there but known by the Soul in a different manner The way of knowing God here is but learned Ignorance Earth is the Land of Believing Heaven of Seeing To see God as we are seen of Him and understand all Divine Mysteries is reserv'd for the Light of Glory here we must walk by the obscurities of Faith This Faith must be naked without Images or Representations simple and without Discourse universal without a distinct consideration of particulars The operation of the Will is conform to that of the Understanding Naked Simple Universal Spiritual Independant on the Senses We must expect great Combats in this way from our Spirit which will still be working and rely on Creatures But though it be much distasted by the understanding part of the Soul yet she must strive to die to her own operations and willingly entertain what helps her in this Combat as Aridities Privations Desolations which at last leave the Soul in exercise of pure Faith whereby God is known in a higher manner than those Lights which serve as a Medium between God and the Soul for this Union of our Spirit with God by pure Faith is immediate and so more elevated The Will also must die to what ever is not God To live only in Him and to him by pure Love For the Life of the Will is this Death and this Death is not ordinarily wrought but by Privations This kind of Prayer is uniform and not much lyable to alterations nor brings any damage to the Body For Nature has nothing to do in it being not procurable by greatest endeavours of Humane Industry but depending purely on the Will of God who alone gives it when and to whom he pleases 'T is true this pure and naked Contemplation of God by Faith is given but rarely and to those who have past through many Purgatories and states of Penance to fit them for it In the beginning it darts into the Soul but Transient Irradiations like flashes of Lightning if at any time they continue about half an hour 't is very much However they work in the Soul very great Effects One of the principal is that this Light of Faith discovers to us the verity of Divine Mysteries Imperfections and the Perfections we want and practical Virtues And all this at once not successively one after another by discourse which could never arrive to produce a knowledge so clear and universal But indeed the understanding has much ado to die to its own operations and not act by Humane Lights by being wholly given up to the obscurity of Faith However this must be done to be rightly disposed for Divine Operations There are divers degrees of Contemplations but what God is pleas'd to give us must be received with submissive Thankfulness While we live in Mortal Bodies we shall have always something to purifie and therefore always something to suffer Three parts of our Life pass away in a Suffering condition In a state of obscurity the Soul is intimately united to God although she be not sensible thereof I am much taken with the way of pure Faith in Prayer whereby the Soul knows God as much as she can do in this Life and though it be obscure it matters not being sure and certain For my part take as much as you will of my Light of Reason if the Light of Faith increase thereby O how Beautiful is pure and naked Faith It much conduces to Spiritualize a Soul to live continually by Faith to esteem and love nothing but what we ought to esteem and love Man rarely will relinquish his Reason and nevertheless he must raise himself above it or drag on the Earth with Imperfections Faith is a participation of the Eternal Wisdom she only conducts us with true assurance for her Lights though dark are certain and their obscurity does incomparably transcend the clearest evidence of Natural Reason Moreover to make Prayer more Intellectual and that Nature may have no hand in it we must leave off some things which usually did raise our hearts to God with a sensible Devotion As Musick Rich Ornaments Devout Pictures in Churches and the like This is good and profitable in the beginning of a Spiritual Life and some time after but when a Soul has attained purity of Prayer there 's no need to take her nourishment that is her Knowledge and Love but from pure Faith and Supernatural Lights infused into her When we take not good heed we keep not our selves sufficiently passive to the Operations of God but we go a beging for the Life of the Soul to sensible Objects when God himself would nourish her with more purified Knowledge and Diviner Love Why should we hanker after sensible Gusts of Devotion seeing Nature is commonly too much taken with them to the damage of naked Faith and the hindrance of our pure Union with God which requires a total denudation of all Creatures Notwithstanding when God tryes us with Derelictions and gives us not admittance into his presence but by things sensible and Discoursive Prayer we must humbly comply with this state and not pretend to higher elevations in our Addresses to him Yet if a Soul in
nothing to work this amourous Tendency towards God Not but that sometimes it presents some excellent Truths to quicken Love but yet that Truth was there without it I admire that after the Visits of Friends I alwayes find my will converted to God the only center of my Soul and I know not how this amourous Inclination is entertained and preserved in me I find by Experience that in this state my Soul is well dispos'd to practise all sorts of Virtues though she make thereof no formal Resolution After the Exercise of this Prayer the Soul is extreamly in love with Mortification and Self-denyal desiring nothing but God alone She understands also that she cannot persevere in this happy state without a constant Love of the Cross of which she daily becomes more amorous I begin this Exercise of Prayer without any other Preparation than Purity of heart as soon as I find my self in such a Disposition for God loving the Soul does sometimes prevent her before she perceives it I continue herein me thinks without any Industry or Trouble provided my Soul be but amorous of perfect Purity and faithful to the Practice of Mortification If I deeeive not my self God has been pleas'd to vouchsafe me this Mercy and it concerns me to be thankful and desire the Divine Goodness to assist me with his Grace that my Infidelities may not deprive me of this State and Favour CHAP. XVIII Of Interiour Silence where God speaks and is heard WE can never arrive to this Happy state of Interiour Silence where are the most secret Communications between God and the Soul except we pass through three tryals wherein we find much trouble and bitterness The first is the Death of the Exteriour Senses whereby all Sensible Objects become in a manner distastful to the Soul for as long as she does amuse her self with any Sensual Delights she can never arise to this Elevation This general Mortification is so difficult that the greatest part of Devotes suffer themselves to be conquer'd herein and pass no further The second is the Annihilation of the workings of their Interiour Senses wherein we have such difficulties to conquer that unless God who conducts Souls by his Divine Motions does strengthen them in this Combat and bring about this Interiour death by the secret workings of his Grace they will quickly loose courage in this attempt The third tryal is yet more laborious for we must mortifie the operations of our Spiritual Faculties the Memory Understanding and Will then which nothing is more difficult 'T is a long time before the Soul can understand how this must be done and longer before she can bring it about And except God be pleas'd to withdraw from the Soul those helps she receives from her own Lights and Affections she will never compass it In this Combat the Soul meets with a thousand Temptations As that we do but loose our time that 't is no better than pure idleness and much hinderance sometimes from Directors who having no experience of this way cannot understand it much less approve it Happy is the Soul that meets with a Director to strenghthen and encourage her in the difficulties of this passage otherwise she will never arrive to this Sacred Silence unless by some extraordinary Grace and Favour The Soul then thus dead and annihilated enters into this Sacred Silence the beginnings whereof are somewhat bitter though with a mixture of sweetness by a certain experience of the presence of God in the Soul Which being elevated above all natural Lights to behold God by the single Light of Faith is assisted by another Light that seems to participate of Faith and Glory For it has something of the Rayes of Glory Not that 't is really either this or that but a resemblance of them Wonderful are the effects which God produces in the Soul in this state of Interiour Silence For he deals with her as a Painter does with a Blank prepared for his Work where he draws divers lines as seems best to him God sometimes makes a silence in all the Powers of the Soul keeping them bound in the dark but in a disposition to do whatsoever he pleases with them The Spirit is a little busie to see what is doing but being check'd is quiet and the Soul having nothing to rely upon being annihilated in her self rests solely on God reposing her self in him with Patience and Humility Otherwhile God puts the Soul without any operation of her own in great repose and quiet neither willing nor applying her self to any thing in particular but in a readiness to do whatsoever God manifests to be his Will And this seems to me to be the most usual disposition of the Soul in the state of Interiour Silence At other times the Soul feels such a Fulness of God that she seems wholly to possess him insomuch that the Senses are partakers of the gusts and sweetness communicated to them the Soul in the Interim wholly Mortified by a constant readiness to be Sacrific'd to the Will of God At other times the Soul is wholly taken captive by Divine Love which giving her a relish of her Soveraign good all other things how excellent soever they may seem are but bitter to her The understanding here makes no use of the Light of Reason but God is pleas'd to infuse certain manifestations quick and suddain which work so secretly such changes in the Soul that she cannot perceive 'till they are done At other times when the Soul is in doubt or troubled with some disorder or discourag'd by her own weakness she finds God showing himself present with her to instruct to quicken to strengthen to succour her according to her present necessities The Soul in this state is disposed to whatsoever God pleases desires nothing required of her God works his will in her and she is Humble and Faithful and altogether submissive and plyable to his operations Thus the Soul must stand affected in respect of God but she can never come to this without great Combates continual Deaths and long Sufferings However all the Crosses can be endured in this World are but a cheap rate to purchase the enjoyment of God but for a moment In this state of Interiour silence the Soul cannot prescribe any Law to her self in her Spiritual Exercises but wait with all Humility to receive what God shall give her and be Faithful in corresponding thereto Sometimes she Suffers sometimes she Acts either in this or that manner according to the Nature of the Divine Impressions CHAP. XIII Of most Purified Contemplation ON St. Alexius's Day our Saviour gave me knowledge of a state of Prayer wherein at present I must constantly exercise my self as some Servants of God advise me but the reason they tell me I understand not My Prayer then is a denudation of all Creatures where the Soul as it seems to her does nothing but enter into possession of God in a peculiar manner who works in her what
understand the Spirit of the Book by the Spirit of the Author I have describ'd as much of the Qualifications of that Excellent Person as I could collect from the French Preface the perusal whereof I assure thee good Reader is worth thy pains and consideration THE Author's Life Extracted out of the French PREFACE THE worthy Author of this Excellent Treatise was a Person whose Life was answerable to his Writings a true Interiour Christian elevated by God's Holy Spirit to Sublime Contemplation making it his Business to have his Conversation in Heaven while he was upon Earth 'T is said of Moses that after he had Conversed familiarly with God and descended from the Mount that his Face did shine with an extraordinary Glory So this excellent Christian came from his Prayers as it were from Heaven all enflamed with Divine Love raising a holy Fire in their Breasts who enjoy'd the Happiness of his Conversation But his Goodness was more Diffusive for many of his absent Friends received wonderful Benefit and Advancement in a Spiritual Life by his Heavenly Instructions and Divine Letters Which were so many as that from those Writings was extracted this Interiour Christian not long after he had left men to live with Angels by a Person of Worth and Quality who was so touched to the heart by reading some of his Letters that he thought himself oblig'd in Charity to make them Publick for the Common Good Especially in this Corrupt Age wherein alas we find more Formal than Interiour Christians And doubtless it was the Will of Heaven this Treatise should not lie hid but be expos'd to the View of the World having in a short time enriched the Hearts of many with inestimable Good who entertain it with great Joy and Satisfaction He was in the right who said Loquere ut te videam If once I hear you speak I shall know what you are For 't is impossible to read this Book without some Knowledge of the eminent Perfection of the Authour for what Soul unless irradiated with extraordinary Beams of Heavenly Light could make such Discoveries or give such Directions in Spirituality It was from hence that the Humiliations and Dolorous Bloody Sufferings of Jesus Christ so terrible to Nature did appear to him with a Ravishing Beauty being taken with nothing more in his Devotions than Jesus Suffering For he had a singular Devotion to the Humiliations of Jesus and thought himself a Person cull'd out by Providence to honour his Sufferings He did much affect to lead his Life in Abjections and yet notwithstanding his profound Humility he was much esteemed and admired by all who had the Happiness to know his Virtues Though he lookt upon himself as an unprofitable Servant yet God was pleas'd to treat him as a faithful Friend Though he desir'd the Bitterness and Rigour of the Cross yet God did oftentimes so visit his Soul with extraordinary Consolations that sometimes he would cry out When then good Jesus shall I suffer for you Though he desired to follow Jesus on Mount Calvary yet God was pleased to lead him to Mount Tabor and vouchsafe him the Glimmerings of Glory on this side Heaven Though too many make it their Business to find out wayes to please their Sensuality he made his Body a Continual Victime of Mortification hardly abstaining from Austerities when his Weakness required a Relaxation He earnestly desired that after the Example of Jesus he might finish his Life on the Cross and on the day the Church celebrates the Invention of the Cross God was pleased to rob the World secretly of so great a Treasure lest if his Sickness had been known publickly the holy Importunity of many Prayers might have prevailed with Heaven to defer his Happiness He wanted no long Preparation for his Death by a Languishing Disease but being Fruit-ripe for the Harvest of Glory by the constant Dews of Heaven and Fervour of Charity upon short warning with wonderful Content commending his Soul into the hands of his Saviour he joyfully embraced Death to live Eternaly This shew'd the extraordinary Triumph he had made over the World and Himself by the Power of Grace For though some even Great Saints who had left the World for Christ's sake to avoid it's Contagion seem'd timorous at their Deaths yet He with an invincible Generosity contemning the World without forsaking it did conquer Satan in the midst of Temptations and smile on Death as a Friend to his Happiness Though he chang'd not his Secular Habit yet he had fully banisht the World from his heart and without engaging in any other Profession than that of a perfect Christian he spent his dayes in the Exercise of the most Austere Religious And this was more admirable in him than in those Fountains which conserve their Sweetness in the midst of Salt Waters because he did not only keep the Purity of the Spirit of Christianity among the Infections of a Corrupt Age but without any great noise he made notable Conquests over the Powers of Darkness seeing by his Pious Endeavours he chang'd many Carnal Men into Spiritual Christians We may say without Vanity that the World never had a more Dangerous Enemy He stay'd in it the better to discover its Designs and convert Worldlings exposing himself to combate its Allurements that their Weakness might be known and to testify to the World that one may be a Perfect Christian in despite of this great Enemy of God and Godliness His Example hath made it manifest to all Persons of Quality that one may live like a Hermit in the midst of a City and may love Evangelical Poverty though not practise it in the Possession of Riches and that true Self-contempt is not impossible to such whose Birth or Imployments have advanced them to Honour and that without being an Apostle or Preacher one may be an Evangelist And lastly that throughly to establish the Maxims of Christianity solid Practice is more efficacious than thundring Eloquence And though the Graces which beautifyed his Soul did most incline him to deep Retirements and Contemplation yet he was so wonderfully dexterous in the affairs of God's Service abroad that his Eyes fix'd on Heaven did not hinder him from affording a Helping hand to the good of his Neighbour neither was his Zeal herein confin'd to one onely Kingdom His Piety was so ingenious that he found out wayes to be at the same time one of the greatest Solitaries and yet much ingaged in the Labours of them who endeavour'd the enlargement of Christs Kingdom His way of expressing himself is conform to his Thoughts and both of them to the Gospel where such who chiefly hunt after Eloquence and vain Curiosities will find nothing that will please their Palate But a Soul which relishes Evangelical Truths cannot but find a Gust in the Expressions of this Book which breaths forth nothing but the Spirit of Christianity And God grant that they who take it into their hands may find it working
in their hearrs to engage them efficaciously in his Love and Service So be it Amen The Contents BOOK I. OF the Love of Humiliations which is the solid Foundation of all Christian Perfection Chap. 1. That we ought to endeavour to attain Christian Perfection with the spirit of Humility Pag. 1. Chap. 2. The foundation of Christian Humility 5 Chap. 3. That the Centre of the Creature is his own Nothing 8 Chap. 4. That the greatest Saints have attain'd to Perfection by a singular Love of Self-contempt and Abjection 11 Chap. 5. That we have only so much of the true Spirit of Jesus Christ as we have an inclination to abjection 14 Chap. 6. That the sight of our own Nothing inspire us with Self-contempt and the love of God 17 Chap. 7. That God is glorified by our annihilation 20 Chap. 8. That the Soul is rich when she possesses the Love of Self-contempt 23 Chap. 9. What profit we draw from Humiliations 26 Chap. 10. The way how to arrive to perfect Humiliation 29 Chap. 11. That we ought to leave our selves wholly to God to become annihilated 32 Chap. 12. That we must renounce our sense and humane reason to love humiliations 34 Chap. 13. That the experience of God's goodness to us does annihilate us powerfully 44 Chap. 14. That a Soul espousing Jesus Christ espouses his Cross and Sufferings 41 Chap. 15. That the experience of Gods goodness to us does annihilate us powerfully 44 Chap. 16. To be content with abjection after our faults repairs the injury to God and makes up our ruins 46 Chap. 17. Considerations upon tho vileness of this corruptible body 51 Chap. 18. Considerations upon the natural inclinations we have to evil 54 BOOK II. Of the Supernatural Life which is the Life of all true Christians Chap. 1. The Idaea or description of the Supernatural Life 75 Chap. 2. Of the high esteem we ought to have of the Christian Life 60 Chap. 3. That we ought with St. Paul to convert our selves wholly to God 63 Chap. 4. Of the Alliance we must make with the holy Folly of the Cross 67 Chap. 5. How we ought to conform our Interiour to that of Jesus Christ. 70 Chap. 6. The sublimity of the Christian Life 74 Chap. 7. There are divers degrees of this supertural Life 77 Chap. 8. The practice of a Supernatural Life 80 Chap. 9. Of the Liberty we enjoy by the exercise of the supernatural life 81 Chap. 10. Our greatest happiness on earth is to profess the way of Christianity 87 Chap. 11. That Truth is only found in the Spirit of Christianity the rest is Vanity 91 Chap. 12. There are many wayes in Christianity all which are according to the Life of Jesus Christ 94 Chap. 13 Some Maxims concerning a supernatural life 98 Chap. 14. What content a soul receives in a supernatural life 101 Chap. 15. That it 's impossible to live this supernatural life by humane prudence 105 Chap. 16. The Conclusion That we ought to apply our selves to the practice of a Supernatural Life 108 BOOK III. Of the Presence of God and giving our selves up to Divine Providence Chap. 1. Our first thought in the morning ought to be That God is present 111 Chap. 2. The presence of God in the soul makes us little value the absence of the Creatures 114 Chap. 3. That we can and ought to conserve the presence of God in occasions of Extroversions 118 Chap. 4. That the presence of God is clearly seen in a purified interiour 121 Chap. 5. That our union with the Presence of God ought to be the Rule of our Actions 125 Chap. 6. That the presence of God in us puts us in a state of suffering and enjoying 128 Chap. 7. That the Divine Presence makes us to love Prayer or Action as best pleases God 132 Chap. 8. The Presence of God brings us into a disesteem of other things 136 Chap. 9. Where we may best find the Presence of God 139 Chap. 10. That we ought to give our selves up with Divine Providence 143 Chap. 11. To be indifferent to all things but Gods good Pleasure 146 Chap. 12. We ought to comport our selves with a respectful reverence in God's presence 149 Chap. 13. To give our selves up to the conduct of Gods Spirit 153 Chap. 14. How the perfect abandon of our selves to God makes us find a Paradice upon Earth 157 Chap 15. How the Beauty that is in the Order of God contents a Soul 161 Chap. 16. The practice of the Presence of God for the seven days of the Week 163 The first Day The Beeing of God 164 The second Day The Omnipotency of God 166 The third Day Of the Wisdom of God 167 The fourth Day The Patience of God 169 The fifth Day Of the Love of God 174 The sixth Day The Justice of God 172 The seventh Day The Mercy of God 173 BOOK IV. Of Solitude and the Practice of two excellent Retreats of ten Days Chap. 1. Of the Beauty of Christian Solitude 175 Chap. 2. Of the necessity of Solitude 179 Chap. 3. The difficulties of Solitude 182 Chap. 4. The Occupations of Solitude 186 Chap. 5. How we may put our Soul and Senses into a Solitude 189 Chap. 6. A Solitude or Retreat of ten days upon the infallible Mystery of the Sacred Trinity 192 First Day 195 Second Day 199 Third Day 203 Fourth Day 207 Fifth Day 211 Sixth Day 215 Seventh Day 219 Eighth Day 224 Ninth Day 228 Tenth Day 232 Chap. 6. Another Retreat of ten Days upon the Adorable Person of Jesus Christ 236 First Day Of the Mystery of the Incarnation Ibid. Second Day Jesus an Infant 241 Third Day Jesus Poor and Abject 245 Fourth Day Jesus the Fountain of Grace and Piety 249 Fifth Day Jesus Zealator of souls 253 Sixth Day Jesus contemplating and enjoying 257 Seventh Day Jesus our Exemplar and Guide 262 Eighth Day Jesus our Light 266 Ninth Day Jesus suffering and dying 280 Tenth Day Jesus risen from Death and Gloririous 285 BOOK V. Of Communion and its Effects Chap. 1. Of Preparation before Communion 291 Chap. 2. To Communicate worthily we must put our selves in a state conformable to that of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament 294 Chap 3. To receive the Communion Worthily we must imitate those Actions which Jesus Christ practised when he Instituted it 298 Chap. 4. Interiour Entertainments during Communion 303 Chap. 5. Other Entertainments to give Thanks after Communion 306 Chap. 6. Another Method of Thanksgiving after Communion 309 Chap. 7. The first Effects of Communion is to beget in us the Love of Crosses and Humiliations 313 Chap. 8. Continuation of the same subject 316 Chap. 9. The second Effect of Communion is to Transform us 319 Chap. 10. The third Effect of Communion which is the perfect and consummate Vnion 323 Chap. 11. The fourth Effect of Communion is to confer the highest Love 327 Chap. 12. The fifth Effect of Communion is to give strength and perseverance in the service
of God 332 BOOK VI. Of Interiour and Exteriour Crosses Chap. 1. That we must have a high esteem for Crosses 337 Chap. 2. That we must have a Love for Crosses 341 Chap 3. That we must have a great Love for Crosses 444 Chap. 4. God is pleased to send us Crosses in the place of Persecutions that our Life may be a continual Martyrdom 347 Chap. 5. Of exteriour Crosses by the loss of Goods Chap. 6. Dispositions during Sickness where the Body suffer'd and the Soul rejoyced Chap. 7. Other Dispositions in the time of Sickness where Body and Soul are on the Cross 357 Chap. 8. The Interiour Crosses of the Soul in Obscurity 360 Chap. 9. Of the heaviness of interiour Crosses 364 Chap. 10. The great Fruit we may reap from interiour Crosses 368 Chap. 11. That we must bear patiently our Imperfections 371 BOOK VII Of Ordinary Prayer and Contemplation Chap. 1. What esteem we ought to have for Prayer 377 Chap. 2. Of the different sorts of Mental Prayer 380 Chap. 3. That we ought to be indifferent to what manner of Prayer God is pleased to give us 384 Chap. 4. That above all things 't is necessary to practise Prayer 387 Chap. 5. Of the impediments of Prayer 392 Chap. 6. Of the Means that facilitate the Exercise of Prayer 396 Chap. 7. That we must not presume of our selves to attempt any manner of Prayer but what is ordinary 400 Chap. 8. How to pass from Ordinary Prayer to Contemplation 404 Chap. 9. Of the Prayer of Faith 407 Chap. 10 Of the Sacred Darkness of Prayer 411 Chap. 11. Of the Lights of Prayer 414 Chap. 12. Of Passive Prayer 414 Chap. 13. Of pure and perfect Prayer 421 Chap. 14. Of the hungring of the Soul after God and of her being satiated with him 425 Chap. 15. Of infused Prayer 429 Chap. 16. Of Prayer of quiet 433 Chap. 17. Of the intimate Vnion of the Love of the Soul with God in Prayer 437 Chap. 18. Of interiour Silence where God speaks and is heard 441 Chap. 19. Of most purifyed Contemplation 444 Chap. 20. Of the different Caresses God vouchsafes a Soul in Prayer 448 BOOK VIII Some Maxims of Great Importance to conduct us in a Spiritual Life Chap. 1. To have above all things an extreme Horrour of Sin 453 Chap. 2. To keep an even pace with Grace neither out-running it nor following too slowly 456 Chap. 3. That a Soul must wholly give her self up to God 459 Chap. 4. We ought to make it our Business to be content to suffer 461 Chap. 5. To renounce or selves wholly and strive against our proper Inclinations 463 Chap. 6. How to comport our selves well in Superiority 466 Chap. 7. That we ought to have our intentions purified from all Self-interest 469 Chap. 8. A conference clearing many difficulties touching Prayer 471 THE Interiour Christian BOOK I. Of the Love of Humiliations which is the solid Foundation of all Christian Perfection CHAP. I. That we ought to endeavour to attain Christian Perfection with the spirit of Humility LEt us endeavour after Perfection not because it is a sublime and elevated condition but because it is the will of God We ought not to set upon the practice of Piety by a motive of grandeur and to become greater Saints but only to do what God wills and expects from us and rest therewith content and satisfied Our happiness consists in a constant dependence on his divine will and pleasure with a perfect submission and resignation thereunto I must be content with my condition whatever it be seeing it is what God expects from me and 't is no small presumption to assume to our selves what great Saints have found in the practice of Piety God calls some persons to glorious performances others he places in a lower rank in all this we must suffer him to work his will upon us and receive with thankfulness his Divine Impressions whether great or little 't is enough for us that they come from God This is the way God calls us to walk in a way sublime pleasant full of peace in which we desire nothing but to please God It concerns us to take whatever he gives with simplicity of heart be it never so little 't is certainly more than we deserve To be annihilated in God is to will nothing but what God wills and in what manner he pleases otherwise we seek our selves and our own satisfaction and not purely God and his good pleasure We must labour for Perfection with a Spirit wholly dis-engaged from all self-interest To suffer to live poor and despised being the only way among infinite other means the Eternal Father made choice of for us to attain to Glory and regain those Excellencies Adam lost for himself and us by sin This being his design from Eternity his Son in the fulness of time embraced the Cross with affection and was inflamed with the desire of suffering valuing the Cross as a thing of great excellency being the Altar chosen for the life-giving Sacrifice by his heavenly Father preferring the Glory and the Will of God before the natural inclinations of his Humanity which had a repugnancy in the sensitive part thereof to pains and sufferings This is evident from that of the Evangelist Pater si possibile est transe at c. Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me yet not my will but thine be fulfilled And that of the Psalmist Sacrificium Oblationem noluisti c. Thou would'st not have Sacrifice or Oblation but thou hast prepared a Body for me and behold I come to do thy will And so he did run his course with joy though full of sufferings because he knew it was the good pleasure of his Father Wherefore by how much the more welove and esteem the Cross by so much the more do we participate of the Spirit of Christ and please his heavenly Father For to suffer is to sacrifice to God our pleasures and interests uniting our selves to the design that Jesus had by suffering to repair his Father's Glory O my Soul if these Verities have made deep impression in thee thou ought'st from henceforth to glory in being despised seeing thy Glory is to procure the Glory of God which cannot be done more advantagiously than by imitating his only Son O good Jesus possess my heart with your divine Spirit that may enable me to live your life O how your humiliations seem great unto me your abjections honourable your poverty rich and your Cross pleasant My Soul doth languish to possess your Spirit and desires it most ardently whatever has not a relish of your Spirit is not grateful to me O that I had inflamed affections to embrace the Cross and that I could bear the greatest can happen to me In the interim it seems to me that I do nothing and when occasion presents it self I find difficulty to suffer the least afflictions Dear Saviour how is this life troublesome unto me Strengthen
that you withdraw from me your Divine Illuminations in Prayer and Recollection so as to be in a manner void of understanding sicut equus malus quibus non est intellectus Provided dear Jesus that I be but content with these humiliations it is sufficient I shall be happy Let others ask of you what they please as for me my desire is to be entirely annihilated and that my portion may be to honour your Divine humiliations We are not couragious enough to fight as we ought to destroy in us our sensual inclinations for we are too feeble against our selves and too indulgent to our defects in this spiritual combat But O my God put too your helping hand and work in us your will that we may be humbled and contentedly submit to your operation CHAP. VIII That the Soul is Rich when she possesses the love of self-contempt GOD has infus'd this thought into my Soul that the love of self-contempt and the desire of humiliation may be that hidden Treasure mention'd in the Gospel Thesauro abscondita in agro Matt. 13. 'T is really a great Treasure to love abjection yea a Treasure that contains abundance of inestimable Riches but they appear not outwardly being hid on purpose to preserve with more security And he only has this Treasure who keeps well hidden what he possesses 'T is a Treasure hidden and unknown to the world For who would imagine that there should be any thing so rich and precious in Sufferings and Humiliations Should our senses or carnal prudence or human reason make enquiry would they search here to enrich themselves and satisfie their desires We could never have thought that a hidden Treasure was here enshrin'd if Jesus Christ who put it there himself had not reveal'd this great secret to our Souls by his peculiar favour and merciful illuminations If we will have this Treasure we must buy it and give for it whatever we possess that is to say we must lay down our whole Patrimony the fatal Inheritance left us by our first Parents namely affection for Honours for Pleasures for Riches too much seeking our selves and our own interests the love of our own excellence and all the other wretched movables which we possess by being conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity If we will not be content to part with all yea the utmost farthing we cannot be enriched with this Treasure O how rich and happy is he who does possess it For it is a Treasure which as the world cannog give so it cannot take it from us and as long as we are in quiet possession thereof we find God in our Souls and such a profound peace as passeth all human understanding When one has purchas'd a good Estate in Land we are ready to say He is in a good condition what need he fear now having a sure foundation of subsistence If a War happen the Enemies can't carry that away with them they may indeed deprive him of his Money and Goods but for his Land that is fix'd and immovable 'T is the same case with this precious Treasure when once the Soul hath it in possession and will not part with it she need not fear she has sure hold of subsistence for her spiritual life Neither the World nor the Devil nor all the Enemies of our Salvation let them make never such furious on-sets can rob her of it it surpasses their power and belongs not to them 'T is true they may deprive her of some moveables as sensible consolations the love of austerities the desire to undertake brave actions for the Glory of God as to go to Canada or England for the conversion of Souls to the Catholick Faith in a word all the fair Idaea's of Spirituality The Devil the World Nature has a mind to these movables and a Soul that possesses only these has nothing but what may be taken from her but whosoever possesses this Treasure of the love of abjection and self-denial is rich for ever And when God is pleased to discover to a Soul the value thereof Prae gaudio illius vadit vendit universa quae habet emit agrum illum she joyfully parts with all she has to get it in possession We have a double right to pretend to the possession of this Divine Treasure The first is our natural inability to good the second is our criminal sinfulness These two lay upon us a continual obligation to endeavour after self-denial and annihilation and this endeavour is very pleasing to God who delights to see a Creature acknowledge what is due to it self and render to him his deserved Glory The Son of God began as a Gyant to run in this way of self-contempt by his Incarnation for 't is a wonderful humiliation for God to become Man and he finished this course by his Death on the Cross which was as low as humility could descend For God-Man to die an infamous death between two Thieves as a Malefactor and his whole life besides was but as one continued humiliation and yet alas we pass away our days in vanity calling our selves Christians tho' all for exaltation of our selves destitute of self-denial and true humility O wonderful blindness O Jesus poor and abject when will you draw me after you by the powerful attracts of your mercy Your ways are pure and pleasant and odoriferous to those whose Souls are enlightened with the Rays of Grace You O Jesus establish your Empire in humble hearts and reign there in peace as the Devil sets up his Kingdom in proud Souls and there domineers with intolerable Tyranny CHAP. V. What profit we draw from humiliations PAins and Miseries humble the body Poverty Riches Contempt Reputation and Honour Death Life aridities in Prayer spiritual Consolations all these conduce to purifie Virtue and sacrifice man wholly to God Some glorifie him by action some by suffering others by privations and humiliations and these last are the greatest Saints though here despis'd and known to God alone We ought to resign our selves to the conduct of God's spirit but if it was left to our own choice the way of abjections is best and safest Job did more glorifie God on the Dunghil than in his Palace Happy is he who in glorifying God follows the call of his holy inspirations in a way which the world neither does nor can well understand 'T is a great misery not to be willing to acknowledge that human wisdom is but folly before God which continually eggs us on to get out of the happy state of abjection upon the fairest pretences imaginable as the salvation of souls to help our Neighbours and the like Notwithstanding 't is safest to yield our selves up to the sole conduct of God's holy Spirit the order of whose providence we cannot shun God glorifies himself in Heaven by the exaltation of his Creatures on Earth by their Humiliation Let no person complain then that he cannot be instrumental to the glory of God for
Poverties Abandonments and Crosses so that whatsoever is agreeable to Nature seems wholly contrary to Grace Why do you not dear Saviour bring man to his Nothing in a moment by your Omnipotency to make him thereby a new Creature Why will you that he must annihilate himself and contribute to his own destruction O how the methods of your Wisdom are admirable Your design is hereby to bring man to love you But he can never do this more generously than by the strongest efforts of self-contempt and annihilation Human reason prompts us to self-love and self-esteem Divine reason inspires us with self-contempt and abnegation Abraham sacrificing his Son did foolishly in the judgment of human reason as being an enemy to Himself and his whole Family but this was an action of wonderful prudence in the judgment of Divine reason shewing thereby that he loved God more than himself and his dearest Relations Come then O my Soul let us strive to be dead to all things but God and to annihilate our selves for his sake I see an unspeakable beauty in the horror of mortifications and sufferings seeing they are the source from whence purity flows into the Soul CHAP. XIII That self denyal and annihilation is better learnt by practice than speculation I Know now better than ever that abjection is the way wherein we must march to advance assuredly to the perfection we aim at all other ways are liable to deceit but self-denial is without delusion O how few do consider the proceedings of Jesus Christ and fewer dive into and comprehend his holy dispositions But fewest set upon a perfect imitation of what they know Let us fall to work we know enough of it We are not ignorant how Jesus humbled himself in the Womb of his Virgin-Mother and there remained nine months and at his Nativity did increase his humiliation by being born in a Stable continued them all his life-time and finished them by his Death upon the Cross the grand Theatre of his humiliations We know all this it only remains to imitate him Grace will conduct us if we faithfully correspond to God's Inspirations To this end God permits that our Friends fall off from us that some little disgraces happen that we are somewhat despised and suffer by others that our imperfections are discovered and made known and that we are censur'd for undertaking to aim at perfection All this tending to humble us is good what way soever it come and no better thing can arrive unto us To be faithful on these occasions doth far transcend all speculations If you still complain of cross accidents if you don't hide your self from the eyes of men if you love not poverty and contempt and the things of this world have still some hold upon you thou art not annihilated and God hath not wrought the marvels of his love in thy heart Hearing sung in the Church these words of the Psalmist In toto corde meo exquisivi Te I have sought Thee O Lord with my whole heart it seemed to me that our blessed Saviour answer'd me interiourly Thou hast made a fair search after me every where but thou wilt not find me any where on Earth but there where I have been in the stations of my mortal life in solitude and silence in poverty and sufferings in persecution and reproaches in crosses and annihilation The Saints find me in Heaven in the splendors of Glory and Joys ineffable but this is after they have found me on Earth in Disgraces and Pains I am throughly convinc'd of this Truth and humbly thank our blessed Saviour for making it so clear unto me and I beseech his infinite goodness so to imprint it in my heart that I may practice it without delay Alas how long shall I behold the excellency of humiliations by Divine Irradiations darted into my Soul and practice them so little Divine Jesus take from me this rebellious heart if it refuse to be conformable to you in your annihilations open my breast and take it from me for I had rather have none at all and die than have a heart that has other Maxims and Affections than what you have taught me O my beloved Jesus I do not in this desire cruelty to my self but a signal favour The eternal Father who beheld you hanging on the Cross with complacency will not be offended with this bloody spectacle O my Jesus what a love have I for your Cross and humiliations The view of their beauty so well-pleasing to your eternal Father does at present so ravish and transport me that I shall become as it were a Fool I shall lose my senses and speak I know not what unless dear Jesus you put a stop to your Divine motions and eclipse those Heavenly Rays which present to my view sufferings and humiliations so amiable I have a particular Devotion to make a Litany of Jesus in all his humiliations and when I feel a repugnancy to the practice of annihilation and self-denial I find great encouragement by reciting it Have mercy upon me Jesus poor and abject Jesus unknown and despised Jesus hated calumniated and persecuted Jesus abandon'd by men and tempted by the Devil Jesus betray'd and sold at a vile price Jesus blamed accused and condemned unjustly Jesus array'd with a shameful Garment Jesus buffetted and mocked Jesus reputed a Fool and to have a Devil Jesus scourged in a bloody manner being bound with Cords Jesus thought worse of than Barrabas Jesus exposed naked with Infamy Jesus crowned with thorns and saluted with scoffs Jesus sorrowful to death Jesus oppressed with injuries pains and humiliations Jesus affronted spit upon and despightfully used Jesus charged with your Cross and our Sins Jesus crucified between two Thieves Jesus dishonoured before men and thought as nothing O good Jesus who hast suffered for the love of me an infinity of disgraces and humiliations above my comprehension imprint powerfully in my Soul an esteem and love of them that I may practise them by your example CHAP. XIV That a Soul espousing Jesus Christ espouses also his Cross and Sufferings THe infinite Wisdom of God has condescended to espouse the lowness of our human Nature by his Incarnation This same human Nature hath espous'd the Cross Sufferings Abjections Death and when a Soul espouses Jesus Christ she contracts an eternal Union with all these during her Pilgrimage O happy Alliance She is married to Jesus and Contempts and Sufferings are the Dowry O precious Riches If she love her Beloved indeed she ought to have a tender affection to the gifts she presents to him at the Espousals because she gives them and he much values them O my Soul being thus espoused to Jesus Christ behold then how strictly thou art bound and engaged to him for hereafter thou must suffer pains of body griefs of mind affronts and injuries thou must be well content with humiliations love disgraces and make sport for others thou must be content to be thought but unconstant by Devotes
by this fault I may see my Nothing my weakness my inclinations to evil more clearly than formerly I was miserable and I did not know it I was frailty it self and I did not perceive it but 〈…〉 acknowledge my vileness tho' I cannot 〈◊〉 â—athom the depth thereof 〈…〉 I am well-pleas'd that this fault happen'd 〈◊〉 presence of my Friends who will thereâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 â—ow what I am It much displeases me to 〈◊〉 offended God by being so faithless to his â—â—â—ces but I joy in this that I am well-pleas'd â—â—th my humiliation 'T is a good hap to be deâ—â—â—sed in the esteem of others and does relish â—weet to such who desire to repair the injury â—hey have done to God by sinning against him To be powerfully convinced of our pure Nothing and great Frailty is the profit we ought to make of our imperfections How profitable is the discovery of my misery to me seeing it makes clear unto me all these verities This is the truth of it I am nothing but infirmity and corruption and more than I can comprehend And for the love I ought to have for Truth by a voluntary acquiescence I love and adore Divine Providence which has brought me to the sight of my own Nothing I acknowledge my self to be miserable and am pleas'd the world should know it and use me according to this verity 'T is true also that we ought not to complain of whatsoever injury is done us by word or deed for 't is always less than we deserve 'T is the Law of Christianity and a great truth that we ought to love abjection Jesus having loved it by his Father's order and he is the grand exemplar we must imitate 'T is true also that after our failings we ought to comfort our selves with the love of abjection and make use of our infirmity to please 〈◊〉 Just as when a Ship is broken by a Temâ—â—â— we get some shatter'd Plank to save us 〈◊〉 perishing 'T is true also that since this lapse I perceâ—â—â— better than ever the Bounty the Power anâ— Mercy of God towards me and all the Divine Perfections appear unto me beaming forth more splendors of Glory Just as the Moon never makes more evident the dependance she has upon the Sun than in Eclipses 'T is true also that a Soul sensible of her infirmities is content with her Talent without disquieting her self to attain the perfections of great Saints whereoâ— she acknowledges her self unworthy And if God be pleased to communicate unto her great Graces she will not grow proud as well knowing her own weakness but rejoyce in this that God thereby may be more honour'd 'T is true also that being convinced of her own unworthiness she has no confidence in her self but in God alone to whom entirely she gives up her self to deal with her as he pleases in Mercy or Justice She wonders not to see her self left and abandon'd to sin because she knows she deserves no better and then blesses the Divine Mercy for not dealing with her according to her Merits 'T is true also that a Soul grieving to have displeas'd God would be content to be really reduc'd to her first Nothing iâ— such was the Divine pleasure For though she knows being so brought to Nothing she cannot be capable to please God or enjoy him notwithstanding such is the love she has for the Divine Will that she would have that done though she perish To acknowledge and be content with our own baseness is one of the greatest mercies God can do for a Soul For hereby she draws Salvation from Perdition as God knows how to advance his Glory by our sins A Soul thus enlightned is content to be set on the Dunghil of her miseries surrounded with humiliations for her faults as Job was with afflictions and beholding her self as it were the Queen of Infirmities and Abjections she 's pleas'd therewith seeing she may thereby honour and magnifie the Divine Goodness If a Soul be miserable by falling into sin she is rich in possessing the Treasure of humiliation after her failings But this is a truth hidden to most men who do not discover this advanrage They are poor and yet have a Treasure in their Field which they may have for digging Jesus poor and abject for love of me leave me not to my self lift up my Soul after her fall and gâ—ve her some of that Cordial Water which is call'd the love of Abjection that chases away the vain vapours of self-love by which the Soul is darken'd and loses courage Glorifie your power in my infirmities be pleas'd to condescend so far as to receive me returning into the arms of your Mercy and grant I may die unto my self that I may live in your Embraces Methinks dear Jesus I already feel your tenderness unto me your divine love vouchsafes me a relish of the sweets of Paradice my eyes are bath'd in tears of contentment my heart is dilated and love does firmly unite me to you Wherefore do you vouchsafe the kiss of Peace so soon to such a Wretch as I am Why do you not leave me in bitterness of Soul and trouble of Spirit as a just chastisement for my sins Your Mercy will not so deal with me but by wonderful preventions of love in the midst of my infirmities you redouble your favours and consolations O that I was all love to serve you wholly by way of gratitude I would have all the world to see my Infidelities to the end your mercy may shine more glorious I know that the sight of my sin had so frozen my heart as in a manner to make me liveless but O my Jesus you have provided an excellent remedy seeing the flames of divine love have set me all on fire to do your will 'T is a great favour to be in this temper of Soul but dear Jesus stay not here visit my heart again with the feelings of your humiliations that your inscrutable abjections may be its centre and render it in some sort conformable to yours and do this miracle of your Grace that this faithless heart may become a divine heart by the infinite merit of your most precious Blood CHAP. XVII Considerations upon the vileness of this corruptible body HOw is a Soul pleased to know that her body must return to dust This humiliation is the object of her complacency When the illustrations of a Divine Light clear up the understanding then she knows that perfection consists in a tendence to humiliation wherein she meets with the exaltation of God by the admirable contrivance of the Divine Wisdom O dust and ashes you may be terrible to worldly Souls but I am sure you bring joy to those who walking by the light of Faith and conduct of Grace love dearly the interests of God and life eternal The loss of worldly Interests Honour Contentment is painful to Nature too much attached to her self but a Soul elevated by Grace rejoyces at the loss of her own
the Treasures of the Earth We ought daily according to our abilities to examine our selves to the end to purifie our hearts from all affections that tend not to this supernatural Life It resides in the superiour part of the Soul and therefore we must not wonder if the inferiour part has degusts and aversions from it We must expect that Nature Sense Friends the World and ordinary Christians will keep a noise and trouble our ears with many Arguments against it But to all this it is enough to answer in few words with St. Blandina Christiana sum Christiana sum I am a Christian Let us say to such who endeavour to divert us I have undertaken to lead this supernatural Life I will never abandon it maugre all the contradictions of worldly Maxims and the repugnances of sensual Nature I know to become a perfect Christian I must be turn'd up-side down destroy'd annihilated according to my natural inclinations hate in a manner all that the world naturally loves Riches Honours Pleasures yea though innocent and love what the world naturally hates Poverty Contempt and Sufferings This is a great attempt but we have powerful helps for we can do all things through Christ strengthening us CHAP. III. That we ought with St. Paul to convert our selves wholly to God I Am now resolv'd in good earnest to convert my self wholly to God to be taken solely with his Divine Beauty and Infinite Goodness forsaking all Creatures which heretofore have too much taken up my time and affections O my God! deal with me as you did with your Apostle strike me down to the ground humble me make me blind to all things but to You who are in the interiour of my heart beaming forth Lights which discover sufficiently your Divine presence This makes me ask you O my God what you will have me to do And methinks you answer That this manifestation of your presence in me should make such an extraordinary impression on me as to change my life and conform my self wholly to your Divine will and pleasure Behold it seems to me this is what you would have me to do First Not to persecute the sentiments and inclinations I have to a Christian Life by taking part with the struglings of old Adam in me St. Paul persecuted Jesus Christ in persecuting the Primitive Christians and I also persecute the same Jesus when I stifle the motions of Grace in me and will not suffer my Soul to live his life which he did lead here for me to follow Pardon me good Jesus I will no longer persecute you by stifling your holy Inspirations I desire to be a Christian and your Disciple I will profess Christianity in the face of the Sun and only be asham'd to live after the Law of old Adam To be a Christian this is my Glory this is my Life this is my Delight Poverty Contempts Pains Humiliations I will no more be affraid of you but make much of you seeing Jesus hath loved you even to death To live this Life we must become blind and have no other light than what the rays of Faith afford us For Nature cannot teach us the Grandeur Excellence and Eminency of Christianity St Paul after his Conversion suffered a thousand hardships He was whipt banish'd despis'd mock'd imprison'd tormented us'd as if he was the filth and off-scouring of the world which is as much as to say St. Paul after his Conversion was a Christian to death nothing could deter him from living the life of Jesus Christ Let us then O my Soul be true Christians that is let us be content to live in Sufferings Persecutions Mortifications and the Ignominies of the Cross of Jesus Christ Let us embrace the wisdom of the Word Incarnate and become as Fools in the eyes of the world who persecute true Christians that is those who die to themselves and all things else to live to Jesus Poor Christian Life little art thou known how ill art thou treated in the world Thou dwell'st in the lips of many but few afford thee a place in their heart I am fully persuaded that a Soul truly converted loves God entirely that this entire love of God is a perfect union with his goodness that such a union implies a universal detachment from the Creature that such a detachment cannot be got without the profession of Virtues and among the rest Poverty and Self-denial by which we are interiourly disengaged from earthly things and exteriourly when God pleases contentedly suffer miseries sickness loss of Goods and whatever the world naturally abhors as evil but by the work of Grace are for our greater good because they advance our union with God When we abound with Riches and Honours we live in a continual fear of having too great an affection for them but in sufferings a Soul possesses a stronger assurance of Divine Love Nothing but Grace can teach us these verities and a greater Grace can only make us relish and practice them the weight of our natural inclinations still hindring us from rising to so great Perfection When we give up our selves to God with resolutions daily to advance in Virtue we can more easily conceive what this perfection is than practice it However let us take courage nothing is impossible to God and we shall find doubtless this Jewel by a perfect abnegation that is possessing nothing not the very means of serving God but with a spirit of resignation To follow Jesus naked on the Cross we must divest our selves of all Creatures that we may be solely united to him Yea dear Jesus my desire is only to be for you my resolution is to serve you and in what manner you please be it by action or by suffering or contemplation I will be attached to nothing but You my desire is to be dis-engag'd from all Creatures to find You and possess You as my only happiness CHAP. XV. Of the Alliance we must make with the holy Folly of the Cross AFter many illustrations of Grace which have cleared up to me the beauty of the sacred Folly of the Cross after many proposals and reviews I have at last espous'd it saying with fervour the same words which Christ us'd to his Spouse in the Canticles Sponsabo te in aeternum My Friend my Spouse my Sister I have espoused thee for ever Methinks I say these words for ever but yet faintly my infinite frailties making me fearful I may become an inconstant Lover Notwithstanding I say for ever with a real heart in hope that by virtue of that immense Love whereby the Divinity hath for ever espoused our human Nature and this same Humanity hath espoused the Cross sufferings and abjections our blessed Saviour will vouchsafe me some part of the Grace of this Divine Alliance to enable me to walk his way and live his life in annihilation humiliations and self-denial Let us then O my Soul live this life of the Son of God any other life is but a real death Jesus
Behold whither a Soul is conducted whom many think good for nothing O how the judgments of men are different from the thoughts of God! Let then every one honour God by the way and life that is proper for them otherwise they will fall into perturbations of spirit and being disquieted will become troublesom to themselves and others But this is not the work of a day we shall find it a hard task to become dead to the world and our selves Every state is good yea the most abject All Grace is excellent yea the least and meanest There are many sorts of Graces which we perhaps do not much value and yet are really to be more esteemed than Visions Rapts or Revelations To labour and suffer for God is of greater worth than Extasies 'T is a truth well enough known by many though practis'd but by few that a little matter hinders the operation of God's grace in us One only small natural inclination unmortified suffices to retard our progress to perfection For this reason we must exactly die to all Creatures annihilate in us every motion that tends not to God some way or other As for example To give no refreshment to the body by meat drink or sleep c but for necessity We must also mortifie in us the desire of Honour and temporal Commodities yea love abjection pains and poverty willing nothing but what may conduce to advance God's glory I more value the union of a Soul with God in humiliations and sufferings than in consolations CHAP. XIII Some Maxims concerning a Supernatural Life O God! what a poor Christian am I in occasions of tryal I have imprinted in me some Idaea's and Sentiments of a supernatural Life but when it comes to put them in practice my timerous Nature shrinks and makes excuses to shun sufferings and then the occasion being over I have great regreat for not being couragious and come to know thereby my little Virtue and small Perfection I then see that the rule of Perfection is the conformity which we have with Jesus crucified poor and abject When that is great our Perfection is great also But that I find I have little or no affective conformity with Jesus crucified Behold here those lights and directions I have learnt by conference with a holy person and are good for my practice and solid establishment in a supernatural life 1. We must accustom our body to austerities exercising it with loving chastisements for our own transgressions and the sins of others 2. We can never attain to contemplation and a perfect love of the Divinity but by passing first by Jesus crucified poor and abject We see him poor and despised attended with few followers because we refuse to walk in those rough paths he hath set before us 3. We must have an ardent love for solitude and recollection to the end we may be wholly for God and correspond faithfully to the inspirations of his holy Spirit And although we ought to have a general indifferency to all states and calls of God yet 't is better to incline rather to retirement and solitude not meerly to enjoy the sweetness thereof but that we may not be wanting to co-operate with the Grace of God vouchsaf'd unto us Holy solitude is the region of Divine Communications Ducam eam in solitudinem loquar ad cor ejus saith God by the Prophet I will lead a Soul into solitude and speak interiourly to her heart 4. The reason why we see so few even devout Christians make progress in perfection is because they limit the Grace they have received hindring its enlargement by natural arguments and human prudence They say 'T is enough for me to do this or that I ought not to aspire to so high perfection those who live in the world cannot be so elevated in the ways of God These and such-like excuses they make which hinder the Grace of God from working fully what he intended If we did but consider the ardent desire that Jesus hath to advance Souls in the ways of Divine love and how ready he is to bestow on us new Graces upon our faithful corresponding with the former we would be both ravished and ashamed also to be so backward in giving our selves up to the conduct of God who desires nothing so much as that we may love him perfectly and enjoy him eternally But as while Jesus was on Earth 't is said of him That the world knew him not and his own received him not for seeing him born in a Stable circumcis'd as a sinner live poorly as a Carpenter persecuted accused condemned to die an infamous death on the Cross they wou'd not take him for the promised Messias so as yet he is not well known and many Christians themselves do not receive him nor let his Spirit and Maxims reign in their hearts Yea some who profess the way of perfection do not as they ought esteem and embrace his humiliations and abjections For we too much desire Honour and Preferment and too much fear abjection and suffering O my Soul what hast thou done hitherto not to have as yet begun this life crucified and annihilated I confess my folly and blindness O my God! make me presently to set upon it and let not any day pass over without the happiness of suffering something for your love CHAP. XIV What content a Soul receives in a Supernatural Life WE have oftentimes no need of any other care than to be faithful to an ordinary way of Devotion without pretending to what is extraordinary and we have reason to fear that motions now and then to undertake a life of greater perfection may proceed rather from a seeking of our own excellency than a true desire of pleasing God Among these dangers blindness and obscurities we stand in great need of the light of Grace and conduct of some holy Person who is able to discern what is best for us However putting our confidence in God and living in an entire dependence on him we shall find peace and quiet of mind If we have desires for any thing let it be for such things as Jesus crucified desired for they are contrary to our natural inclinations And though there may possibly occur some self-seeking yet this is the way of Grace inasmuch as the Found of our Soul is agreeable to the Interiour of Jesus and not to that of Adam Let us have a desire to be mortified daily with good St. Paul Mortificamur tota die We must endeavour to draw profit from incommodities and ill successes by using them for the advancement of Grace in us By this means we shall purifie our selves and the Interiour of our Souls will empty it self and make room for the spirit of Jesus Christ bringing with him joy and peace unspeakable When we shall have found out the corruption of our heart our inability to any good yea to the least good thought as of our selves 't is not for us to aspire after the most
eminent ways but judging our selves unworthy thereof and content with little our Saviour shall please to give us we must co-operate humbly and faithfully with that small portion of Grace we have already and not grow idle wishing for those eminent Graces wherewith perhaps our Souls shall never be beautified This is one of the chiefest points of humility to be content with that little portion we have in the state of Grace and judge our selves unworthy of God's favour 'T is true there 's nothing we ought so highly esteem as Grace and its increase in us and desire it of God with incessant prayers but this must be with perfect submission to his Divine will and pleasure that we may not disturb the peace of our Souls On one side I behold my extreme misery and I find my self so depressed that all my natural strength and endeavours do what they can to the utmost can never bring me out of my self On the other side I burn with desire to be wholly for God by living a supernatural and spiritual life It is to you O Divine Spirit I address my sighs the infinite source of all Graces you know I have a longing to live this spiritual life in the exercise whereof I shall find the true practice of Divine Love by which I shall satisfie my ardent desires to be wholly for Jesus and shall live no more after my natural inclinations and the Maxims of human Prudence But I see how impossible it is for me to attain this unless you vouchsafe to assist me with your illuminations against my darkness with your strength against my weakness with your continual supplies against my relapses For how often O Divine Spirit have I begun this supernatural life and fallen from it conquer'd by my Nature and worldly temptations Draw me after you so powerfully and continually that I may no more return into my self but may follow your attracts with perseverance I will follow you dear Jesus in the states of your mortal life in annihilations contempts poverty and sufferings And if I lose the sight of you in those obscurities which sometimes cloud my Soul yet let me not lose courage Provided I continue in your ways that is in the esteem and love of the true Christian Life you will not be far from me it being impossible that Jesus annihilated and suffering should not be near to a Soul suffering and annihilated Well then though we may lose the sight of Jesus the light we have in Prayer leaving us though we feel him not by sensible influences yet we are assured that he is near us if we be in his ways by self-denial and a love of humiliations for his sake O how happy is a Soul to be content to follow the annihilations of Jesus without the feeling of his persumes and sweetnesses She does practice the purity of love in this condition For to be deprived of light and consolations which is very harsh to Nature and suffer it contentedly is one of the most excellent acts of a spiritual life which consists chiefly in a perfect resignation to suffer as well inwardly as outwardly when God pleases I am very sensible by experience that there 's a vast difference between thinking and doing talking and living this true Christian life When we meet with no repugnance we find it not difficult to practice Virtue whereof the Idaea's are as sweet as the Acts are bitter of such as consist in privations and sufferings I am in a state wherein I feel repugnances and am resolved thereby to humble my self the more and keep the peace of my Soul by an entire confidence of the succours which the Grace of God will vouchsafe unto me I consider that nothing was more seeble than the Apostles before Pentecost They hid themselves abandon'd their Master in his sufferings and Peter deny'd him but after they had received the Holy Ghost he infus'd such strength into their Souls that they became powerful and couragious to admiration CHAP. XV. That 't is impossible to live this Supernatural Life by Human Prudence THe supernatural Life is a continual mortification of depraved Nature 1. For 't is certain First That we cannot live this excellent life but by annihilating our sense and reason 2. Secondly That this life is wholly according to the Spirit which cannot be but the Spirit of God which inspires the Soul with his influences and sacred motions 3. Thirdly That the Soul which lives this life must be elevated above sense und reason whether it be in Prayer or the practice of Virtue which cannot be done but by offering up her self to God as a continual Sacrifice That though oftentimes w must do things sensual as to eat and drink yet these must be done as Grace directs us And other things according to reason as to love our Relations and Friends yet this must be only in God and as his Oracles do dictate to us O life of Grace how art thou a continual death and mortification Who lives Christianly lives a Martyrdom Tota vita Christiana Crux est Martyrium However 't is a joyful Martyrdom for solid joy cannot but make glad the Soul where Grace inhabits O that this fundamental truth of our Salvation did once well sink into our hearts The Son of God and eternal King of Glory leaves the bosom of his Father and becomes man to live and die in infinite humiliations Jesus gives us life by his death He puts us in a state of Grace by ruining himself according to Nature He purchases Eternity for us by yielding up his temporal life And the Evangelist expressing his death doth on set purpose use these words Emisit Spiritum He sent forth his Spirit Without doubt he sent it into the hearts of his faithful Servants to the end they may learn to live by his Spirit to him who died for them So says St. Paul Misit Deus Spiritum Filii sui in corda nostra ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est What remains then but that we banish our carnal Spirit which carries us on to sensual delights although sometimes not sinful Let us love the Spirit of penance of suffering of self-denial and humiliations Gerson hath an excellent saying By how much the more Nature is mortified by so much the more Grace is infused We must often call to mind that the Grain of Wheat cast into the Earth except it die cannot bring forth fruit If we do not die to our selves and the World and the Spirit of Nature we can never become perfect Christians nor bring forth the fruits of Divine Love We must be as nothing before men that we may be something in the sight of God Why should the Disciple be above his Master The Spirit of Grace and the Spirit of Nature do continually jar and war one against the other The exercise of the spiritual life will afford us light to discern their different motions but when
discerned it requires great courage to be faithful to the motions of Grace To yield to Nature weakens and darkens the Soul to follow Grace gives life and vigour It concerns us therefore to take part with God against our selves This practice is clear and efficacious to conquer our passions and carry us on to the purity of Virtue when this light is infus'd into us after the manifestation of God's goodness to us Reason may be serviceable to conquer our passions but this light must give place when the beams of Grace display their splendors For we ought as much as we can to stifle the Maxims of reason that we may become more capable of Divine Illuminations which elevate us above human reason In a word as no man can come unto the Son unless the Father draw him by preventing Grace so no man can come unto the Father but by the Son following his Maxims and Example and obeying the motions of his Spirit This is the order and way of Grace and 't is in vain for us to look for any other in a spiritual life CHAP. XVI The Conclusion That we ought to apply our selves to the practice of a Supernatural Life WE must have a special care that we place not Perfection amiss for this will much retard us in the way of Virtue Hence it will do well not to have too great an esteem of the Vnitive and Mystick way Not but 't is good yea excellent for a Soul to be so elevated by God's gracious conduct However we must acknowledge that the unitive way brought to practice is more excellent and necessary seeing this is the Christian life in action and the other is a mystick life consisting in extraordinary elevations of the Soul and wonderful unions with God in Prayer and Contemplation I observe that our blessed Saviour says Whosoever will be my Disciple must take up his Cross and follow me He does not say that he must be elevated in Prayer but that he must take up his Cross that is he must practice the Maxims of the Gospel Happy then are they who are crucified to the world though they be not elevated in Spirit and those elevated Souls are but happy in that they are conformable to Jesus crucified and by their unions more disposed to the Cross and Sufferings The crucified Life is as it were the end of the mystick life whose illuminations and sweet influences do much conduce to fortifie the Soul to bear the Cross S. Teresa observes That one of the best signs of a Divine Extasie is when it works in the Soul an extraordinary desire of suffering and that a Soul cannot return to her self from such holy communications with God but well instructed which must needs be that the perfection of love consists in suffering for Jesus and not in enjoying him Enjoyment in this life is not of so much worth as suffering This more than That advances our Glory Let us not then complain that we have not our part in the mystick life so that we be but crucified Christians and let us be content to feel our Spirit in Prayer among Thorns of aridities coldness and desolation as well as among the sweet perfumes of a sensible Devotion We must take up our Cross to follow Christ as well when we suffer in Soul as Body For 't is the property of a true Christian to glory in the Cross of Jesus Christ But this did extend as well to his Soul as to his body The Divine Soul of Jesus was left without sensible influences and succours from the superiour part and from his Father for some time We must love to be conformable to him herein and rest there with resignation and contentment Let our affections be more inflamed with the love of her sufferings here than of enjoyments And if we complain of any thing let it be when we do not suffer something for Jesus Christ The End of the Second BOOK BOOK III. Of the presence of God and giving our selves up to Divine Providence CHAP. I. Our first thought in the morning ought to be That God is present AS soon as I awake I ought to consider that I am in the bosom of God for in Him we live move and have our being We live and are indeed in his presence and yet hardly think of him I am surrounded with his Grandeurs his Mercies his Riches his Divine Perfections and yet am taken up with petty matters O what blindness what darkness is this I fall from one sleep into another my Soul being no more awake by day than by night my interiour senses being then bound up as before the exteriour I am like a blind man asleep doubly blind for sleep takes away his sight a second time When he awakes he sees not the light of the Sun nor the beauty of the Universe nor the variety of Creatures that are before him He walks in the world but beholds not the different parts thereof when he is asleep his blindness increases In like manner when we sleep we are in a profound forgetfulness of God But what is lamentable we continue this Oblivion when we are awake by reason we seldom think on God and his Perfections our Souls are so wholly taken up with worldly business Alas how dangerous is this sleep and forgetfulness We have no excuse seeing Nature does teach us better manners Tempus est de somno surgere When the Sun rises 't is time to walk as Children of light When natural sleep leaves me let me not dear Saviour lose my self in the crowd of Creatures but take up my thoughts with your Perfection with your Love with your Mercies that I may not sleep all day long by being unmindful of your presence Dear Jesus 't is not in my power to hinder this spiritual drowzyness and my misery will not permit me to think on you continually but be pleased to watch for me that I may be conversant with God by your divine and holy Occupations that I may know him by your knowledge that I may have an eye to him by your regards that I may love him by your loves and by this means I shall be strengthened in my weakness If we do not awake with Jesus Christ we sleep with the men of this world who sleep their sleep being wholly taken up with worldly matters To be awake with Jesus Christ is to be exercised in the operations of this life to do as he did and be content to take up our Cross and suffer with him Pains sufferings reproaches ought to be dear to us seeing they make us to be awake with Jesus Christ and live his life a life of sufferings On the contrary we must look on HOnours Pleasures and Worldly advantages with a suspicious eye because they are apt to make us forgetful of God When we see with the eye of Faith that God is every-where and is the first Mover we take delight therein and look upon God as the Soul of the world and
Purity in the Soul we find the presence of God in us and the following Instructions in my judgment may conduce to purifie the Soul and preserve her in Purity 1. An indifference to every condition to any employ whatsoever whereby God may be glorified 2. To be regular in our Exteriour Actions not to busie our selves too much and to do them with great attention 3. To be well rooted in the Spirit of Mortification to love Suffering and Humiliations a manifest sign of a purified Interiour 4. To have a great love for Jesus Christ dying on the Cross for us 5. To have a continual recourse to God for a supply of his Grace with a constant dependance on it 6. To be dead to the World and worldly things 'T is said That God is in the fond of the Soul and there is hidden so as to find him we must hide our selves there also by recollection and an internal Life which Spiritual Authors call The state of Introversion The night time is most conducing to advanee this disposition when all creatures are in a manner dead to us making no impression on our Senses whereby we better conserve that reverence we owe to the presence of God in us O how many Irreverences are we guilty of on this account We leave him alone when we perceive he is in the fond of our Soul to receive our homages and we turn our eyes from his Majesty though he regard us Just as if one by special favour admitted into the Closet of his Prince to converse with him should presently turn his head to look out of the Windows to behold the Passengers A Soul that is sensible of Gods presence is not guilty of such ordinary miscarriages The least word or action that tends not to God is troublesome to her because that being unwilling to leave that respect she owes to Gods presence she fears the least irreverences as death And seeing that all Creatures are nothing to the Creator she often cries out Quis ut Deus Deus meus omnia Who is like unto God My God is all in all unto my heart In this state the Soul has not only a great respect for God as God but for Jesus Christ God and Man and for his Doctrine and for his Maxims The privation of all Creatures does relish better with her than the possession knowing for certain that to enjoy God by such happy experience is of more worth than the World CHAP. V. That our union with the Presence of God ought to be the Rule of our Actions THat Soul has no small obligations to God who manifests his Presence in her Interiour and makes her sensible of this blessed union I know very well that this union is so full of sweetness and desirable that 't is of more worth than the enjoyment of all Creatures But 't is also full of extreme rigour separating a Soul without any pity from whatsoever nature loves most dearly She must then bid adieu to the most innocent Pleasures by being generally dead to all things but God or what relates to him O what a pain is it not to dare because God is present to be complacent to our Friends or be serviceable to them with a natural inclination but only upon a motive of Grace For such a Soul must not follow the order of Nature as from nature but as elevated by Grace If the World call upon us let us not regard it for it will withdraw us from the presence of God to please our selves or others by divertisements A Soul attracted to enjoy the presence of God has another rule Those who are not thus attracted nor have this enjoyment may do well to comply with their neighbours by charitable complacences The Fidelity which a Soul owes to God present requires of her not to charge her self with affairs but what are necessary and to manage them with the Spirit of indifferency aiming only to do Gods will which sometimes we meet with as well in ill as good successes She must be more taken up with God than those affairs knowing well no business is of greater importance than to conserve her union with God present It no less concerns her to be well resign'd to the Orders of Divine Providence to be content with Poverty with Miseries with Desolations never seeking deliverance upon natural motives but being pleas'd with abjection and humiliations to say with St. Paul Placeo mihi in infirmitatibus I am well pleas'd with my Infirmities Such a Soul will give her self up absolutely into the hands of God to let him work her into what form he pleases as soft wax and set what Impression he thinks best upon her receiving all with profound humility and if she be left naked she rests contented O how a Soul so dead to all Creatures is a pleasing Mansion for God to dwell in 'T is his delight to take there his habitation O how a Soul that finds God thus present with her is troubled to be obliged to quit the sweetness of his presence And when this is often makes life somewhat troublesom and she cries out O my God the well-beloved of my Soul when will you deliver me from this burdensom necessity This is the greatest of miseries to be depriv'd of all Creatures is no misery in comparison But to be depriv'd of you to enjoy whom I was created and without whom I cannot but be miserable makes me cry out Quando veniam apparebo ante faciem tuam O when shall I come to enjoy your presence It seems to me I am like a Traveller who sees a far off a high mountain and the way before him but being on foot he must sweat to get thither In like manner I have some prospect of Perfection and the obligations of a Soul longing after God but I cannot accomplish them However I have a desire and I stand in need of an abundance of Grace to mount to Perfection Holy Virgin Mother of God intercede for me that I may receive a participation of your Graces to enable and conduct me in the ways of God We must have a care that the Contentments we enjoy by this union with God present does not exclude a union with the Cross Contempts Poverty and Sufferings A strict tye to the Interiour of Jesus glorified does require also a strict conjunction to the Interiour of Jesus Crucified Those two unions go hand in hand here it being impossible to have part in the state of Jesus in Heaven without having part in the states of Jesus on Earth Let us take courage and love as yet rather to suffer than enjoy We have but this short life to suffer in but our enjoyment shall be to all Eternity CHAP. VI. That the presence of God in us puts us in a state of suffering and enjoying PErfection doth not consist in a general freedom from Interiour and Exteriour troubles Hitherto my weakness could not comprehend how a Soul at the same time might be happy
of God and his Divine perfections Let such a Soul be in light or darkness in peace or war elevated or dejected she is still the same because God's will is hers and she desires nothing but what pleases him Her chief care is to give her self up wholly to Gods will in so great variety of Interiour states And why should a Soul be concern'd at this variety For if I purely desire to please God 't will be all one to me whether I do it by suffering or enjoying CHAP. X. That we ought to give our selves up with confidence to Divine Providence DEar Lord draw the passions and affections of my heart wholly after you O that I could go out of my self to abide only in you Oh that I had no love but for you no fear no desire no joy but in you and that my affections were only for you O that your Grace would mortifie in me the fears hopes sadness and desires of nature that you might be the sole Object of my love This is the purity we must aim at or else we possess our Soul in vain Our blessed Saviour saith in the Gospel That one Sparrow shall not be forgotten of God Why then have we such fears to want who are chiefly call'd upon to rely on Providence If God permits us to be in want 't is to bring us to perfection by sufferings God is pleas'd to give us daily his precious Body and will he deny us Bread I cannot believe it All thoughts to to the contrary are from the Enemy or nature sollicitous for the things of this Life My confidence ought to be in God alone Though it happen that we fall into troubles temptations or sickness which seem to deprive us of the good temper of Soul to attend to our devotions we ought to abandon our selves to the good pleasure of God and say God only and his holy Will If the Idaea of some state of perfection presents it self to the understanding if we make some resolutions upon the feelings of an actual favour we ought the more entirely abandon our selves to God and say I desire God only and his holy Will This abandon makes a Soul peaceable and content and dead to the World to which though she may feel some motions of affection yet they are troublesom and gain no consent In this state she is wholly absorpt in God finding her repose in him alone and out of him is no contentment It seems to her that whatever accidents may happen they shall not disturb her quiet she is grounded in God her Soveraign peace And though she may feel some emotions in the inferiour part they do not reach the Superiour Faculties We must be perfect as God will have us not as we will have it the ways of God are far different from the judgments of men The World believ'd that King Lewis must be Sainted by conquering the Holy Land God made him him a Saint indeed but not by his Victories but his Captivity not by his Triumphs but his Sufferings We intend to Sanctity our selves by actions and God will do it by afflictions We must give our selves up to his conduct absolutely abandon our selves to his Will and only love his designs When shall I be so mortified to my own endeavours as to abandon my self wholly to Divine Providence I must follow purely the designs of God love only his good pleasure put my confidence in him and he will have a care of me in such a way as shall be best to advance his Glory Doubtless 't is an effect of Grace in us not to rely on our own Providence but to depend chiefly on Gods assistance We must therefore elevate our selves above nature which relies on Creatures and fears wants and abhors sufferings that we may put our sole confidence in God Whoever trusted in him and was confounded There be as well Martyrs of Providence as Martyrs for Faith They are more hidden and sometimes suffer little less than the other being content with all occurrences of Providence which deprive them of their Goods or Honours or call their Lives in question for Conscience sake And sometimes to enjoy God in a more perfect way they despise and forsake the accommodations of this life that they may Sacrifice themselves to God with the flames of Divine Love in Pious Exercises Or if Providence has so order'd that they should be born subject to Deseases and Miseries they bear them with perfect resignation There be also Spiritual Martyrs whom Providence has order'd to suffer much by Interiour pains O how advantagious is it for such Souls to have an eye to Gods designs upon them and be faithful therein As for me the love of Gods will shall hereafter be the rule of my actions and undertakings I will abandon my self and all Creatures and put my confidence in God alone If our imperfections disturb our inward Peace and union with God we must repair it without too much disquieting our selves for our pass'd faults Union with God is never without love and love will blot out our Offences and bring the Soul to repose in her wonted center CHAP. XI To be indifferent to all things but Gods good Pleasure ONe excellent effect of the Presence of God in the Soul is to make us as it were insensible of all things but Gods will A Soul that is enrich'd with this indifferency can desire nothing else yea not Virtues themselves except in order to Gods pleasure We must strictly examine our selves concerning this general disengagement from Creatures and not easily believe we have it except on several occasions we find so by experience Our blessed Saviour vouchsafes me extraordinary attracts to be wholly his He puts me into a state of wonderful Interiour peace and quiet so that it cost me little to do Virtuously I aspire after dear Solitude and holy Poverty My Health is but feeble and in probability my Life here cannot be long and therefore I endeavour to live so disengag'd as if in effect I was already dead My dear Jesus infuses into my Soul a Spirit of denudation and I do cherish it that I may live no more in my self but my continuance in this Pilgrimage may be beneath me and I without any gust or affection to it So that at present I suffer not a little to see my self so far from God amidst the distractions and necessities of the body and other affairs incumbent on me For when God manifests himself to a Soul experimentally tasting his infinite goodness to live here below is a pain unto her However she continues in great Peace because in her Interiour she is purely resign'd to Gods good pleasure I am so habituated to have an eye to God alone and not to please my self but in him and to have no joy but for him that I cannot rejoyce to see my self perfect nor be sad at my Imperfections God is my all his will his pleasure and nothing else All reflections on my self seem to fully
which the World would take from you against my will O how miserable am I if I set my affections on any thing beside you knowing that this is my duty and my Happiness O my God from this moment I for ever forbid any Creature to possess my heart Hark hither my will I now give thee this express command that thou open not the door of my heart but to my Well-beloved whose infinite love has prevented us from all eternity The sixth Day The Justice of God TO take a prospect of the Divine Justice is not less pleasing to good men nor less admirable Thou wilt see it O my Soul governing the whole universe The throne of this Divine Justice is establish'd in Heaven the arrests are pronounc'd on earth and the execution thereof in the regions of darkness 'T is Divine Justice that sets a Crown upon heir heads who have fought the battles of the Lord of Hosts with courage and fidelity And for these momentary and light afflictions rewards them with an eternal weight of Glory O Justice crowning and glorifying us how lovely art thou 'T is Divine Justice that thunders Comminations against sinners on earth to bring them to repentance by the terrours of everlasting sufferings and sometimes chastises them with temporal afflictions that they may not be tormented to all eternity O amiable Justice that treats so here poor sinners as to make them Penitents and not miserable But O how terrible is the Divine Justice which in hatred of sin does punish eternally those who will not be brought to any amendment O how does a severe but just Sentence condemn such to everlasting flames always devouring and never consuming them which the breath of Gods anger has kindled and shall never be extinguished O my God you did not spare your own Son taking our sins upon him to show us the better how to detest sin O who can but tremble considering your severity O who dare provoke the Almighty to anger Quis novit potestatem irae tuae O my God I do consider this and flie for refuge to your Mercy The seventh Day The Mercy of God O Divine Mercy how dost thou ravish my heart 'T is to thee my Soul will sing eternally Miserecordias Domini in aeternum cantabo In my retired thoughts I look upon this World as a great Hospital fill'd with some sick some maimed some lame some blind some languishing some incurable and Divine Mercy goes a visiting of them These she encourages those she comforts binds up the wounds of others and offers remedies proper to each misery not absolutely abandoning any one though never in so desperate a condition O amiable Mercy of our God into what corner of the World dost not thou go to exercise thy goodness Are there any miserable Sons of Adam who have not tasted the sweets of comforts Who ever made his addresses to thee that hath not found most tender compassions in thy bosom O my Soul what must we pant after but the more then material embraces of this adorable Mercy In what canst thou put thy hope and confidence except in the source of this inexhaustible goodness The whole World is full of the Mercy of God and wilt thou O my Soul afflict thy self and be discourag'd with temporal miseries and momentary sufferings It is the work of Mercy thus to punish thee Do not the Sufferings of this life work for us a far more eternal weight of Glory Art thou O my Soul terrified with the remembrance of thy sins Consider God is a God of infinite Mercy and desires not the death of a sinner He who refuses to throw himself into the arms of Gods Mercy is ignorant or else layes not to heart that Mercy attends the greatest sinners to the last moment of Life for their Conversion Miserecordia tua subsequetur me omnibus diebus vitae meae O my God as your Mercy has prevented me so grant that it may follow me all the days of my Life Soli Deo sit Gloria The End of the Third BOOK BOOK IV. Of Solitude and the practice of two excellent Retreats of ten Days CHAP. I. Of the Beauty of Christian Solitude WE ought to have an esteem of all sorts of Professions whereof God is the Author who though he be but one doth nevertheless afford to his Church different states of living It concerns us therefore to think very honourably of them all and manifest as much by our words but to betake our selves only to what God calls us The excellency of other ways ought not to withdraw us from our proper Vocation A Soul then may delight her self in beholding the Church as a most beautiful Medow replenish'd with great variety of Flowers of singular virtue and so taking complacency in all states of Life to apply her self only to that which she has a call from Heaven and this also because God requires it from her A Solitary retired life is so beautiful and has such charming attractives that when the Soul has once experience of it she finds there her Heaven upon earth Being to take a farewell of one of my Friends who was returning home and having parted with him this thought forthwith strongly ceaz'd my imagination Alas my God! when shall I return home to my self that is to you Seeing your goodness is more manifest in affording me a place in the Idaeas of your understanding from all eternity before time gave me an existence among created entities now I am your Creature let me consider my self daily as in you who are my inheritance and everlasting possession To be be at home O my Soul is not to be with thy self but with God thy Creator O how great is the blindness of men not to understand that they have no other Country but the Divinity from whence they proceeded by their Creation Inconsiderate Creatures whether are you going For my part I will return home to the Fountain of my Being my true home who is great beautiful admirable eternal and incomprehensible O what joy is it to consider that my true home is such as he is Is it possible O my God that you are the home and center of my Soul Why do we not readily go out from the clogging crouds of Creatures where we are in perpetual banishment to return to our home the bosome of our Creatour What can I desire in Heaven or in Earth besides you my portion and Inheritance for ever Comfort thy self O my Soul considering that thou shalt return to the Divinity thy glorious home and in the interim rest content with Jesus thy crucified home and repose O how amiable also how great and admirable is Jesus crucified My Soul can find no Peace but by resting in him where nature tasts a bitterness a thousand times more sweet than all Worldly delicacies Without him all other pleasures are but dreaming fancies O Jesus crucified the World knows not your sweets the beauty of your sufferings is hid from their sight they
behold you on the Cross with carnal eyes else next to the Divinity they would discover nothing more sweet and lovely Do not therefore stay me up with Flowers but with Thorns do not encompass me with Apples but with Nails because I languish with love The beauties and sweets of Jesus pierce my heart and I cannot suffer more than to be without suffering in the sight of my suffering and crucified Jesus But some say to suffer much is hurtful to us Alas do we find it hurtful to us to love much Wherefore will ye that love crucifying shall be more moderate then love-enjoying which too often weakens the Soul and sometimes wounds us to death A too great solicitude about corporal health is a sign we do not take up our abode in the wounds of Jesus crucified We are never better then when sighing under the burden of the Cross God beholding himself takes infinite delight in his own perfections out of himself he is alike pleased to see those Perfections crowned in his Creatures His mercy does triumph in the Blessed Saints and Angels and his Justice in Hell A Soul introverted in solitude with God alone finds sweetness unspeakable in considering these marvels She feels also an excessive joy to see that the travels and sighs and sufferings and blood of Jesus are crowned with a Glory by the Elect on earth whether it be by suffering or enjoying When they conquer a temptation the blood of Jesus is crowned When they practise heroick acts of Virtue the blood of Jesus is crowned All glory be to him both in Time and Eternity O Mortals come and see if there be any beauty goodness and perfection comparable to that of Jesus our God and Saviour O how lovely is he and yet how little is he beloved How great and yet how despised How infinite in his Perfections and yet how little known O the only desire of my Soul discover your self somewhat more clearly to me that being ravish'd with your Beauties I may be solely taken up with your Perfections Shall any creature after this oblige me to regard it No my eyes shall be fixed on God alone Farewell then poor Creatures I am above you you shall never more amuse me I leave you to place my thoughts on my Well-beloved Methinks I feel his powerful attracts drawing me out of my self to possess him alone My Friends do not molest me any more leave me in my self to possess my God and admire his Perfections You may serve him by helping others but leave me to serve him in himself I desire none but him nor to be taken up with any thing but him seeing he is pleas'd to let me know it is his pleasure Farewell Creatures farewell Friends farewell Devotes farewell World I am going to God to unite my self unto him by a constant retreat that shall never suffer a separation CHAP. II. Of the necessity of Solitude I am resolv'd on the Vigil of All Saints to mount up to Heaven to congratulate their Happiness and beg their Charity for surely they will be very liberal on their general Festival and my Soul hopes for great succours from them in her miseries However I will chiefly sollicit the Blessed Hermits and Solitary Monks whose habitation in this Life was in Desarts and Monasteries I have a call from Heaven to address my self to them to beg their Intercession for some part of their Spirit of Introversion retirement from the World and Interiour poverty which is the true life of Holy Recluses being in a profound solitude of Soul by a denudation of all Creatures while their Bodies inhabit the most secret Desarts Great Saints what do you here upon Earth You labour not to help others being far remov'd from the company of Men so that you seem to be but unprofitable servants Alas how ill do sensual men judge of the Interiour of Saints I tell you these are the great Servants of God who in their Desarts offer up continual Sacrifices to the Grandeurs of an incomprehensible Majesty by profound poverty of Spirit and annihilation of themselves And being in a denudation of all Creatures their desires are for God and him alone This is the Happy state this is the Paradice my Soul sighs after at present to live so sequestred from Creatures as if I were in the Desarts of Lybia Good Jesus there 's nothing impossible to your Grace grant me this poverty of Spirit and if Exteriour poverty be necessary to possess this Interiour whereof I speak make me as poor as Job if my Friends must leave me I will freely part with them and be content to be forgotten in their affections for ever O my God estrange me from all Creatures give me that profound poverty of Spirit which methinks I understand though I cannot express it Thus dead to the World I shall enter into the joy of my Saviour for there 's no enjoying of God without a perfect denudation of all Creatures But how shall I get this Treasure who have the dominion of Temporal Possessions I must either really quit them to gain this Jewel or possess them as if I possess'd nothing The examples of the Blessed in Heaven afford me both comfort and satisfaction The Saints are rich for they want nothing and notwithstanding they are poor in Spirit because they continually annihilate all the riches of their glory in the presence of the great God being ready to part with their Felicity and to be annihilated if such was the Will of God In this manner I must possess what I have being prepared to part with it when God will have it so I observe that for want of Solitude the Soul does not discern the more subtile workings of God in her interiour which afterwards she discovers by experience These are great Graces but come to no effect for want of introversion and attention I know well enough that Faith is sufficient to direct the Soul to attain to the knowledge and love of her Creator But 't is true also that the God of love has more secret and in-time ways wherewith the Divine Wisdom works the Soul into a temper to make her sensible of his amorous embraces O my God how are you hidden in the fund of our Souls And you do not discover your self to us except in a perfect Solitude when we are out of the noise of Creatures God and the Soul being alone together O poor Mortals how long shall your hearts hanker after the things of this World Turn your selves perfectly to God and see and taste how sweet he is Happy are those moments although but short wherein we have a taste of the Divine sweetness and partake of the effects of his sensible presence Such a Soul will find in her self a certain aversion and disgust of worldly Vanities a desire to leave them a love of Solitude and Silence to be the more at liberty to attend to Gods Service all other things now appearing to her but as dross and dung and
he is her repose and true Felicity Alas when shall it be that Jesus possesses my Soul so as never to leave me This is what I sigh after and I will purchase it at any rate So to possess Jesus is a Heaven upon earth and all we have is too little to gain it Come O dear Jesus and make my Heart your Mansion for ever Of all your Graces and Favours I only desire you to be always present with me and that I make it my business so to serve you as in some sort to be made partaker of those admirable disposition of your contemplative Life I then had a sight of the Infinite difference between the service of Jesus between the Sensual and a Spiritual Life This cannot be discerned unless Jesus imprint his Maxims his Spirit and Sentiments in our hearts which will enable us to Crucifie our Sensuality and obey his motions I observ'd that my Devotion to the Sacred Humanity increas'd daily and felt in my Soul such Powerful attracts that no sooner was I in a Praying posture but Jesus possess'd my heart and discover'd something of his Grandeurs to me This Grace I received from his goodness in my third Prayer After which me thought I knew Jesus Christ in a new manner who though inaccessable to the Creature by reason of his Divine and Infinite Perfections yet sometimes he does most clearly manifest himself to special Favourites Such a view of Jesus is more to be valued than the whole World and a Soul that once has been vouchsafed this Grace esteems her self so rich that she looks upon all Worldly things as dross and dung adhering close to Jesus as her only Treasure We can never know what admirable effects this sight of Jesus works in a Soul but by experience 'T is true there 's a great deal of difference between the Visions of Jesus A Soul in the beginning of a Spiritual Life is taken up with the sensible part of the Sacred Humanity but in the progress she receives such pure discoveries of Jesus that she only relishes Jesus wholly Divinized but cannot express what she sees in him Souls thus dispos'd receive much of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and his humane states seem to them so elevated and transcendent that they find nothing more beautiful more precious or more charming to win their Affections O that we did know Jesus as he ought to be known O that we could see the inestimable riches the rare and precious Treasures contained in him My fourth Prayer was only to open the eyes of my Soul to see Jesus Christ as we behold any Object with the eyes of our Body to consider it attentively He was pleas'd so to manifest himself to my Soul as my joy was superabundant and I was dead to all things and my self to live in Jesus and love his Beauties I found my self in a manner like a drunken man who is not himself but as a dead man he knows not what he says nor is capable of any business nor can govern himself his drunkenness has possess'd him and made him fit for nothing else Enjoyment for the time it continues has the like effects in a Soul she is then capable of nothing but this enjoyment which is all in all unto her Such Souls are now and then put upon the rack by themselves or their directors fearing least this may savour of idleness They think it may be better to suffer and more profitable to help their Neighbour and that self-love may creep into this enjoyment This sometimes brings a Soul to quit this enjoyment so as to put her self out of the way where God has plac'd her except some particular Grace preserve her in the performance of Gods will A Soul capable of this Grace must be in a state of great Purity disengaged and dead to all things Exteriour and Interiour indifferent to all Divine Ordinations whatever and be in a perfect disposition to adhere to God and his Divine operations in what manner he pleases O how great is our humane weakness O how often do we resist the Designs of God by our Imperfections Seventh Day Jesus our Exemplar and Guide IN my first Prayer I consider'd how Jesus was a scandal to the Jews and to the Gentiles foolishness that the same Person should be God and Man and die upon a Cross to save the World the belief of this seem'd a pure extravagancy to poor blinded Creatures I consider'd also how a true Supernatural Christian Life seems but as folly to Worldly-wise-men who cannot understand it being elevated above sense and humane reason wholly Spiritual and repugnant to the Inclinations of depriv'd nature Alas how the practice of the true Christian Life is rare To love crosses and contempts and poverty and humiliations and to rejoyce in Persecutions by preferring the Maxims of Faith before humane Wisdom is a proceeding very extraordinary to Carnal men who in a manner are wholly guided by their Senses If Grace do not open the eyes of Faith in us our poor Soul has no director but Reason which casts a mist before us to hinder our sight from Christian Verities The same Grace also discover'd to me that as Jesus lived a Suffering Life we likewise should conform to his states and be content with crosses and contrarieties pains and deprivations and be pleas'd with whatsoever comes from the hand of God The poor retir'd abject Life I resolv'd to lead answerable to my Vocation without doubt will be accounted a folly by Worldly men and may sometimes so seem to my self But take courage O my Soul a lively Faith will discover the deceit by a Light from Heaven The Proceedings of a Spiritual Life are not govern'd by Humane Arguments but Divine and Supereminent Motives For we must suffer to do Penance and we must love Poverty to advance pure Love which despises all things to have God in possession In my second Prayer I clearly saw that Jesus took no pleasure without necessity to prescribe such rough Maxims to us He knew that the corruption of our Nature was great our inclination to things of this World was continual and therefore to live in his Love requir'd constant Mortifications and Contradictions to Nature And the degree of Love is according to the degree of Self-denyal and Mortification Jesus hath founded Christian Perfection upon two high Mountains Calvary and Tabor on the one we learn Perfection and Mortification on the other the Perfection of Prayer and on both the Sublimity of Divine Love To follow Jesus Christ upon one or th' other mountain we must die to the World and never let the love of the Cross and Mortification to languish in us Solitude must be dear to such Souls and they must take no imploy but what God will have them least interessing themselves and spending their Spirits in other matters they make themselves unable to follow vigorously the works of their Vocation My Soul would it not be a sad thing to quit thy Creator
and Redeemer to lay out thy self upon the Creature and not correspond to his Inspirations who calls thee to himself What a horrible Infidelity would this be Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are Sealed to the day of Redemption The subject of my third Prayer was the admirable Oeconomy of the Incarnation in that by the excess of Love and Goodness God was made Man and Man became God I had profound veneration for the adorable Humanity absorpt in the Divinity and with an amorous confidence beheld the Divinity as it were annihilated in the Humanity which seem'd to me as a Tabernacle of Honour where God dwelt with Infinite Delight This Humanity also in a manner diviniz'd takes Infinite Delight in the Divinity from whence it receives wonderful Impressions of Annihilation to be poor abject and despis'd Crucified For after God was made man he inspir'd the Humanity with ardent desires and love of Sufferings for us Men and our Salvation O Jesus when you communicate your self to a Soul she receives impressions from you which incline her to a love of Contempts and Sufferings And when a Soul feels in her self the greatest propension to Sufferings and Self-denyal 't is then she most participates of your communications and has the greatest assurance of them For O good Jesus your Spirit is full of such impressions from the Divinity and the Soul where you reign as King does Infallibly receive the like impressions from your presence In my fourth Prayer I was touch'd with a great desire to leave this Mortal Life so full of Sin and Misery and depriv'd of the Beatifical Vision of God my Saviour Oh how irksom is it not to be in a capacity to contemplate at leasure this Infinite Beauty this Essence full of Infinite Perfections this only true Object of the Loves of Heaven and Earth O when shall I be deliver'd from this Prison of Flesh that I may behold Jesus the Light of my Eyes and Joy of my Heart Must I yet continue longer in this banishment What a cross is it to live here What a punishment is the delay Death how welcom wilt thou be in my embraces We must languish with Love after the Infinite Beauty of Jesus Christ and sigh to enjoy him O my Soul do not amuse thy self with Creatures love the Cross which is the high-way to Happiness Is it possible to believe in Jesus Christ and Love him and to languish with Desires to enjoy Him To stand much in fear of Death is a sign we have little desire to see the Infinite Beauties of God seeing Death only opens the gate of Paradice O Death thou art desirable come and put me in possession of the Object of my Love that I may live with Jesus who is the source of Life and the joy of the Blessed In the interim O my Soul let us have neither Love nor Life nor operation but what is in him and for him our Soveraign Happiness Vivit in me Christus Eighth Day Jesus our Light JEsus was present to me in my first Prayer as the Light of the World which discover'd to me such a Beauty in the Mysteries of our Religion with rayes of a new Light that I saw more then ever the vanity of the World and the strange Sottishness of such men who preferr'd the Darkness of Falsehood before the Light of Truth Insanias falsas The beams of this Light works wonders in a Soul for it leaves such impressions as bring her to know Truth in another manner then by the sole Light of Reason or Faith either If we be in the Closet of some great King in the dark we know well there be excellent pieces there we may know their number bigness and value of the Precious Stones the rareness of the Painting and what else we see not But when once the least light of day appears then we begin to have a view of all their Riches Beauties and Excellencies and the whole order of the Closet salutes our eyes and in admiration thereof we are taken with it in an extraordinary manner When it pleases God to give us a sight of his Divine Beauties discovering them to a Soul by the least Ray of his Heavenly Light then the Soul is wonderfully affected and being more then ever transported with admiration looks upon all things of the World as nothing Faith indeed gives us a certain assurance of her Objects but leaves in obscurity But one sole Ray from the Eyes of Jesus when he is pleas'd to dart it into a Soul doth confirm fortifie encourage and refresh her with Illustrations extraordinary and Soveraign consolations Accedite ad eum illuminamini We cannot approach to Jesus and not be enlightned I came to know in my second Prayer that when Jesus is pleas'd to manifest himself to a Soul he infuses a Light into her which gives her a marvellous Facility to believe the Verities of the Word Incarnate She has a certainty and as it were experience that his Thoughts his Words his Actions his Proceedings his Doctrine his Sufferings were Divine and brought a Soveraign Honour to the Divinity O Science of Jesus how art thou sweet and admirable All other knowledge in respect of thee is but ignorance and vanity I have by the great goodness of God had some little experience to know Jesus in this manner but I cannot express it The more this knowledge increases the less is it explicable The profound attention to Jesus does so take up my Spirit that it takes away my Speech It calls me from all Creatures to converse with him alone and draws me out of my self to be ravish'd with him O World how blind art thou not to see the Beauty of the Poor and abject states of Jesus His Doctrine and his Maxims are the only true Light All that thou hast O ignorant World seduced by the Prince of Darkness is but meer Darkness thy opinions thy imployments thy hopes thy fears thy desires thy entertainments are but Darkness and disorder thou stumblest almost at every step because thou walkest in Darkness out of which thou canst never get but by Jesus Christ For as the Sun is the principle of Corporal Light to the World so Christ the Sun of Righteousness is the source of all Spiritual Light and whom his Grace and Doctrine do not enlighten they wander in Darkness Ego sum Lux mundi qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris My third Prayer pass'd in continual astonishment in that I had so little known Jesus Christ and of that extreme blindness wherein I had liv'd At present I had almost a continual sight and a sweet and forceable inclination to regard this admirable Object so that I thought every moment lost which was not so imployed To behold him with amorous affections is a Cure for all my evils For when my Soul is afflicted with fears of loosing Gods favour or with experience of her Miseries or with difficulties about Perfection one
refuse the most charming and most tender embraces to the most unworthy and most perfidious of all his Enemies Judas whom Envy had already poisoned even to the heart whom Avarice had perverted and made a Thief Insensibleness had blinded and made ungrateful whom Malice had corrupted and made an Apostate a Traytor a very Devil yet this Judas in this condition that he was and in which Jesus saw him at the bottom of his heart is not excluded from the eminent Grandeurs of the Love of our Saviour which feeds this Demon with the Manna of Angels O Love how thou art admirable O Love how thou art invincible an abundance of waters cannot extinguish thy flames And now my Soul is it possible thou shouldst continue tepid and insensible while thou art near so great a Fire Hadst thou all the Ardours of the Seraphins thou wouldst still be too little on Fire to answer and reflect the Fires of that incomparable Love which inflames his heart when he comes to give himself to thee A good Religious Capuchin called Br. Bonaventure felt his Soul so inflamed with this Sacred Fire when he approached to the Holy Table that one day among others finding himself more than ordinary replenished with an Ardent desire to unite himself with God and seeing the most Blessed Sacrament in the Priests hand ready to Communicate him his heart seem'd to make strong efforts to leap out of his Breast and meet the only Object of its desires which also broke forth into words For the abundance of his Love forced out their amorous Aspirations My Jesu My Jesu My Jesu But to let both him and us know that the Love of Jesus in this unspeakable Mystery surpasses all ours in an Infinite measure the Holy Host quitted the Priest's hand and as it were all on a flame and encircled with Glorious Rayes of Light of its own accord flew into the Mouth of this worthy Servant of God CHAP. IV. Interiour Entertainments during Communion SOme times when I was Communicating it came into my mind to think that my heart was an Altar and that Jesus Christ came to continue upon it the same operations that he had performed on that Altar where the Holy Mass is Celebrated Wherefore my heart received him lovingly and simply united it self to all his Divine Operations relating both to his Heavenly Father and to Creatures And my Soul adhering to all his Adorations all his Sacrifices all his Love that he bears his Eternal Father became wholly passive like an Altar upon which Jesus does all that he pleases as well in regard of the Divinity as in regard of Men to whom he distributes and dispenses his Mercies It seemed to me that in the first place he apply'd himself to honour his Divine Father to annihilate himself before his greatness to love his Goodness and other Divine Perfections and then he turned himself to succour my weakness and shew his Mercies upon me by giving me a glimpse of what he is and a fight of the strick and close alliance whereby I ought to be united to him that I ought not to subsist a moment but by his Life that his Holy Spirit ought to animate my Soul and be the first spring of all its motion as my Soul moves my Body and is the Principal of all its operations That to live a Life purely Humane is a state wherein though a Soul does not offend God yet she cannot please him which is a thing Love cannot suffer nor will it endure that a Soul wherein it reigns should cease any one moment from pleasing her Beloved O Jesus enter into so absolute a possession of my Soul that she may be wholly yours and that she may never have any other motion than what your Grace gives her 'T is the great desire of my Soul which would not live to you partly and partly to Creatures but that all the actions of my Life be Consecrated to your Love I have need of a Powerful Grace O Jesu to continue thus elevated above my self in all sort of occasions But vouchsafe to magnifie your Omnipotence in my weakness your Mercies in my Miseries Another time after Communion I had represented to me the manner how all the Interiour Faculties of Jesus Christ in his Mortal Life did most worthily Glorifie his Eternal Father All the parts of his Holy Soul were taken up in this imployment the Intellectual Powers of the Superiour part the Beatifical Vision and Fruition the Inferiour part and his Body by a most perfect Suffering I saw the admirable connexion which was between these so different states and their joynt accord to Glorifie the Eternal Father And the wonderful Oeconomy of this Sacred Interiour charmed my Soul I continually offered it up to God in the pressures I lay under in the midst of my troubles I entred into these Holy Dispositions and united my Sufferigs with his my Actions with his Divine ones This disposition remains deeply imprinted in me and serves me for a comfort and support upon all occasion of our contempt pains or any other affliction Another time my Interiour entertainment during Communion was after this manner I consider'd that a Christian has but two concerns in this Life how to maintain the Life of Nature and that of Grace thereby to arrive to that of Glory Generally men think of nothing but the first though it be of no consequence and but for a moment besides that is full of Miseries and they forget the second which is Eternal and Infinite importance yet scarce any body minds it for every one lives in the darkness of Imperfection and the blindness of Sense O what a Misery And on the contrary how Happy are they who set no value but upon the Life of Grace and consequently love those Exercise which nourish and improve it as Mortifications Prayer frequent Communion O how clearly do I see that I ought to disingage my self from Temporal Affairs to apply my self more fully to the Exercises of the Life of Grace and to pure Prayer I made another time my Action of Grace after this manner An attention to the Presence of God before Communion had raised in me a great and awful respect towards that most Sacred Majesty before whom the highest Seraphins in Heaven do tremble The like impression continued in me also after Communion My Soul was all adoration seeing the adorable Jesus was become her Guest His Presence heightned my respect as being the source of all Graces and of all good Dispositions I saw himself also sometimes paying a profound respect to God the Father and then I plunged my self deeper and even lost my self in those Divine Respects unwilling to come out of them And fearing least some persons should come to visit me and interrupt my Devotion I hid my self that I might remain thus wholly plunged in this Sentiment of Reverence which Perfumed my Soul CHAP. V. Other Interiour Entertainments to give Thanks after Communion THe Dispositions most frequent
to remain thus united is to do nothing for 't is the doing of all that God demands of us and the co-operating with him in the greatest work of Grace which is the Union of a Soul with the Divinity This Union is a repose of the Soul and it is found in several and different manners Sometimes it is diffus'd through all the Soul sometimes 't is only in the Superiour part thereof other while it restrains it self to the supream point of the Will and if the Soul be Faithful she does not considerably interrupt this Union For the trouble of the Interiour part or distractions of the imagination may indeed lessen the tranquility thereof but cannot destroy it The thing that weakens it the most and as it were smothers it are the Passions when violent Cares that touch one to the quick Troubles of mind Pleasures of Sense Wherefore one must be dead to all these and endeavour to die perpetually to them Another time Jesus entring into my Soul in Communion did not impart to it this Union so desirable but deprived it of it whether it were in punishment for her Imperfections or that he designed her at that time for other Imployments and required Exteriour Duties from her for the good of her Neighbour Her business was then to remain in Peace and to make a free offering of the most noble thing in the World to wit the enjoyment of God to God himself who takes an Infinite delight to see himself thus Honoured by his Creature And he is often pleas'd to be Glorified in this manner by perfect Souls and the Souls find themselves raised to a very sublime Purity by these sorts of Sacrifice wherein they renounce the most dear Caresses of God to abandon themselves more purely to God and to adhere to him only O how true is it that in the fund of the heart the most noble operations of Love are performed hidden from all the World and known to God alone Even the Soul it self does not know the Interiour Communications of God till after long experience which renders her self skilful in the secrets of the Super-natural Life whether neither Sense nor Reason can penetrate CHAP. VII The first Effect of Communion is to beget in us the Love of Crosses and Humiliations GOd in Himself and in his Eternity does nothing but Love Himself in contemplating his Divine Perfections For 't is his Essential occupation and he cannot but Love Himself and desire to be Beloved Wherefore since by the Hypostatical Union man is become God he takes upon him the same Sentiments the same Inclinations as God And by consequence Jesus Loves God as God Loves Himself and as he clearly saw that there is no way whereby God can be more Loved or more Honoured out of Himself than by Crosses and Annihilations which pay homage to the Grandeur of his Infinite Being he apply'd Himself to Love Crosses Sufferings and Contempt with all the Powers of his Soul Never man so passionately in Love with these things as Jesus Christ because never any one was transported with such Zeal as he to Love and Glorifie God his Father When therefore Jesus enters into us by the Holy Communion he brings with him all his Sentiments all his Inclinations particularly those which he affects most and desires to imprint them in our Souls for which purpose he gives himself to us under the form of nourishment because as the meat we take communicates to the Body all its principal qualities so he inspires the Soul withall its principal motions and operations And this is the reason that the oftner one Communicates the more one ought to be penetrated with the Sentiments and Inclinations of Jesus that is to say so much more one ought to Love Sufferings and Humiliations The property of the Communion which is the Living Bread which descended from Heaven is not to be changed into us as the inanimate Bread that comes from the Earth is but to change us into Himself And the Holy Communion should raise man above his Natural Love to lift him up to the Love of God and to a perfect union with his Will by Mortification and Destruction of Himself The most inward and most Perfect of all the Unions that a Creature can have with his God is the Personal or Hypostratical one which produced in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus a Love of the Cross and of the Poverty Insomuch that it was no sooner Divinely assumed but it was inflamed with the Love of Suffering and esteemed nothing next to the Divinity so worthy an bbject of Love as the Cross Now it is evident that we cannot arrive to any Union with God so much resembling the Hypostatical Union as that which we obtain by the Holy Communion Whence it follows that it ought to produce in us such Inclinations as very much resemble those which the Union Hypostatical produced in the Sacred Humanity that is to say it should incline us to Love the Cross Poverty Humiliations and all other manner of Sufferings O my Soul where are we How comes it about that we Communicate so often and feel still such repugnance to suffer Jesus Christ coming into us and as I may say again Incarnate in us would not he confer the most signal Grace of Love of the Cross if he found us well disposed to receive it He that Communicates often and yet is unwilling to suffer without doubt Communicates but imperfectly For he does not receive the principal effects of the Divine union which are to make us love what Jesus loved the most of any thing in the World O my God how long shall we live in the low Sentiments of Nature Give me to suffer or to die O my Soul be ashamed to live without Suffering for That methinks is to live without Love The Fruit which we gather from the Holy Communion is not discerned by abundance of sensible sweetness or by reception of much Light in the understanding but by a firm and vigorous resolution of the Will to suffer and to mortifie it self and the more one advances in Mortification the more one also increases in purity of Love Jesus who is the nourishment of our Love in Heaven where Love will be Infinitely pure is likewise the nourishment of our Love upon Earth in the Blessed Sacrament which by consequence ought to be Soveraignly pure I mean without any mixture of any thing that is not God But this cannot be without dying to all Creatures and even to our Selves and this Death is not compassed but by Mortification and all that which Crucifies Nature CHAP. VIII Continuation of the same Subject AFter Holy Communion it seemed to me that as Jesus received of his Divine Father the Fullness of Light and true Love in the Hypostatical Union so he makes his Friends partakers thereof in the Sacramental Union and thereby lays an obligation upon them to live by the same Life to guide themselves by the Light and to enter into a
I quite forget my self and be no more and act only in you and you in me in me manet ego in eo and continue thus Absorped in you all the days of my Life Being thus united with you I shall learn your secrets discover your purposes and see with you and your Lights the ways that you take to Love Honour and Glorifie your Father which he revealed unto you at the instant of your Incarnation Ever since that Happy minute you are become the Light of the World he that will follow you shall not walk in Darkness Who can know the Secrets of the Father better than the Son or his Designs and Thoughts than he who being equal to his Father is privy to all the Sacred Councels of the Divinity These he teaches us by word of Mouth he opens them to us by the comportment and examples of his Life Let us see approve imitate Herein consists the right Transformation The Grace bestowed on us in the Holy Communion principally tends to annihilate in us all inclinations of Nature and in their place introduceth others most conformable to those of Jesus Christ according to the measure that a Soul conforms to Jesus Christ proportionally she becomes more capable of Divine Communications For a Soul grows not more pure but in as much as she participates of the Spirit of the word Incarnate whose whole aim is to Crucifie us to all that is meerly according to the Inclinations of Nature How different is the judgment and discernment of true Christians from those of Worldly men How quite another thing are the Thoughts and Convictions of an Illuminated person and those of one who lives only according to Reason There are Souls upon which Jesus entring into them by way of Communion makes such admirable impressions that Lead turned into the finest Gold by the Philosophers-Stone would not be more changed than they are For in effect this Sacrament is the Mystery of the Omnipotence of God where the words of Consecration by a Miraculous Power change the substance of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ By which mutation we are instructed that under the weak and common Species lyes a secret Virtue which is able to transform the most Imperfect Souls into the greatest Servants of God One of the things in the World that most astonisheth me is that when we receive Jesus in the Holy Communion we are so little changed and his Presence so un-active in us We experience none of his wondrous operations He ought to be to the Soul a grain of good Seed that makes very great productions Jesus ought to do admirable things Jesus ought to form Jesus in us and produce by his Grace all his own Sentiments and fill our Life with all the States of his Yet he makes no change in me he does not strip me of my Humane Inclinations that I may live the Life of Jesus A thing which frights me very much and gives me reason to fear that I do not approach unto him with all the preparation requisite Whereupon I flee to the Mercy of God and beg it with all instance for in that alone is my Hope CHAP. X. The third Effect of Communion which is the Perfect and Consummate Vnion THe design of our Lord in giving us the Blessed Sacrament is layd open to us in the Prayer he made to God the Father while he was actually Instituting it Rogo Pater ut sint unum I ask you That they may be made partakers of the Vnion that is between us Wherefore the Union he enjoys with God the Father is the model of that which he desires we should contract with him by means of this Divine Sacrament Now He is so much one with his Father that whosoever sees Him sees also His Father And if we were transformed into Jesus Christ according to his intention in the Communion whosoever should see us would at the same time see Christ But this Consummate Alliance with God is not discernable in the most of those that receive the Communion Because that Consummation pre-supposes another which fails in the greater part of Communicants viz. The Consummation of the Soul in Jesus Christ which is then obtained when by the attractions of Grace she is wholly annihilated as to her Natural Inclinations and the Super-natural succeed in their place being cleared from all dispositions but those of the word Incarnate A Soul in this state receiving the Holy Communion ought to remain simply united to Jesus present and receive in quietness and tranquility such effect of Grace as he works in her which are to live no longer to or in her self but to enter effectively into the poor and abject state of Jesus to live like Him to live by his Spirit to live no longer as the World nor by the Spirit of the World Moreover the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in the Person of Jesus Christ is another most expressive Image of the Union he assumes us to by the Virtue of this Sacrament For we assuredly believe that his Sacred Humanity is wholly absorpt and plung'd in the Divinity after such an unspeakable manner that there is no comparison which can be drawn from any Created thing may serve to illustrate it To compare it with the Stars which are lost and drowned in the Light of the Sun is a too weak and imperfect similitude and falls infinitely short for there is an immense distance and disproportion between Divine and Created things But the Soul needs not such allusions she is contented to behold it in God by the obscurer Light of Faith and thereupon falls into Acts of Admiration Adoration and Love and discerning that the intention of Jesus Christ by uniting himself to her in the Blessed Sacrament is to perfect her in himself she accepts of it joyfully and resigns her self entirely to the Divine operation and wishes she could say with St. Paul Vivo ego jam non ego vivit verò in me Christus I am no more I live no more but Jesus Christ is my Life and my Being Now it is evident that this high and Consummate Perfection is the effect of an eminent Love and that it cannot be raised to such a degree without destroying in the Lover every thing that is not God and by consequence it costs Nature dear and requires a firm and generous Soul and very Faithful to the impressions of Grace Light and Knowledge are ineffectual of themselves to this great work Nothing but the real and earnest practice of pure Virtue in the full extent of the Grace given us and as occasion shall afford the exercise can bring a Soul to this eminent Perfection Such a Soul cannot be more charmed and delighted than to observe the amorous inventions of the Wisdom and Mercy of God in deriving upon Christians the Fulness of his Divinity by means of the Blessed Sacrament where Jesus Christ presents us his Humanity to draw us into partake of his
Divinity O how great is the dignity of pure Souls when they Communicate O how low and abject are all the Grandeurs of the World They are a meer Nothing compared with this For what Glory is comparable to that of a Soul intimately united with the Supream Being My God how delightful and transporting is the sight of the Wonders and profound Secrets wrapt up in your Mysteries how they penetrate the Soul you disclose them to This Union with Jesus in Communion is inessable For as the Father and the Son are one in Unity of Essence the Word and Humane Nature one in Unity of Person so the Soul that is one in Jesus partakes of both the Unions Divine and Humane Jesus is in her according to both his Natures and she is All in Jesus and while she does all things in him he works all in her he Prayes Adores Loves Suffers Labours insomuch that this perfect Union produces a certain Unity between God Jesus and the Soul and between all their operations It settles a kind of Partnership and Community of Goods and Possessions between them In a word it imports more than can be expressed Now this condition must needs be most Holy and Divine where God works in the Soul and the Soul in God In me manet ego in eo And the Alliance between them grows continually streighter and closer proportionably to her increasings in Virtue in this Life and receives its ultimate Perfection only in Heaven O amiable Jesus with what a profusion of Goodness and Love you entertain our Souls in this Sacrament You conceal your Presence under the External Species to give us occasion and advantage to exercise our Faith which beholds you so much more clearly as you are more secretly and obscurely present Again on the other side you manifest and shew your self by innumerable effects of your Grace and Divine Sentiments which you breath in the Soul to excite and exercise our Love What can a Soul do when she sees her self so prevented so convinced so pressed by evident instances and experimental proofs of your endless and unwearied Bounty What can she do but Love Love without stint render Love for Love how many excellent things might be said upon this Subject But how can those Sentiments be expressed that can hardly be conceived CHAP. XI The fourth Effect of Communion is to Confer the highest Love OFtentimes before and after Communion I was taken up with Contemplating the Perfections of God Which being one and the same in themselves yet they are different in our manner of conception and the verity of their effects Now when any one of them discovers it self it appears in full Beauty and Majesty and all the other seem to sink in to it and lend all their Ornaments and Excellence to increase its Lustre An instance hereof we have in the Blessed Sacrament where the Divine Love displayes all its Magnificence and the other Attributes contribute to that design the brightest of their Charms and Perfections Eternity Immensity Wisdom Omnipotence Justice Mercy and whatsoever is most eminent and adorable in the Divine Nature are present there and attend upon the triumph of Love Each of these Perfections espouse the Interests and put on the Inclinations of Love which are Liberality and Magnificence and accordingly operate in a Soul when Love makes his triumphant entry at the time of Communion For Love as its proper effect produceth in the Soul a reciprocal Love Eternity imprints continuance and perseverance Immensity spreads the Affection and gives it an unbounded extent wisdom sheds round about a Super-natural Light to guide its good purposes and illustrate the ways of Virtue Omnipotence inspires an invincible strength to surmount all difficulties and obstacles Thus in Communion a Soul does not only receive the impressions of Love but of Love attended with the Lustre and Excellencies of all the Divine Perfections It is observable that Jesus Christ together with his Eternal Father sent the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles to replenish them with Love in the same place where he had given them Himself in the Sacrament So that this Divine Sanctuary was chosen two several times to be the Theater where the two greatest Actions of Love were represented that ever the goodness of God exhibited out of himself The first in giving us his Son to reside in our Hearts who from all Eternity rests in his own Bosom and thereby enabling us to live Divinely by him as he lives by his Father The second in sending on us the adorable Spirit of the Father and the Son to be the knot of the Eternal Espousals of the Soul with her God to Beautify her with his In created Light to warm her with his Sacred Flames to animate her with his Heavenly Force and Virtue and in a word to render her entirely Spiritual And both these Actions are perpetuated in the Holy Church when at the same time we are Feasted with the precious Body of the Son of God and inebriated with the Spirit of his Love O who can conceive the admirable Commerce and Caresses that are interchanged between Jesus Christ and pure Souls in this Divine Sacrament The World which discerns nothing but by meditation of the Senses is too gross and stupid to comprehend them It thinks that Souls which are escaped from its snares and dis-engaged from its business lead an idle and unprofitable Life it fancies they do nothing because their Actions are not seen that their Fire is extinguished because it does not blaze in the eyes of Men. But on the contrary they resemble those Mountains full of Sulpher which carry vast Globes of Fire in their Bosomes though they break out but at certain times and then they are not only seen but whole Provinces feel the Conflagrations Towns and Villages are Burned and Fields covered with Ashes In like manner those retired Souls which burn inwardly with Divine Love and for the most part shine only to God and themselves yet when the command and service of the Lord excite them to External Duties they produce such extraordinary Effects that numbers of Souls are set on fire with their Virtues Example and Instructions In this kind we have had many great Servants of God who having conceived a thousand good desires in their retirement and inflamed with Heavenly fire by the frequent use of the most Holy Communion issue from their retreat and this Sacred Table like Lyons breathing nothing but flames and setting all on fire about them Such have made the great Conversions of Sinners changed the face of whole Provinces and Kingdoms and all this performed only by one or a small number of such Servants of God who appeared so powerful in Works and Words that all their Actions seemed to be so many Miracles Here we must observe that this Interiour Fire in a person not sufficiently retired within himself or that from time to time is not careful to lay on more Fewel to nourish it I mean to
Blessed in Heaven is Enjoyment but we Travellers on earth ought to desire nothing more then to suffer for Jesus This Suffering does mortifie Old Adam in us by Holy Violence makes us die to the World and separates from us whatever is Impure and Earthy as Gold is purified in a burning Furnace Our Corruption cannot be ruin'd but either by Fire or the Sword of Afflictions which should induce us to embrace them with Contentment seeing the more we Suffer the more we are Purified Let us have an Honourable esteem for the greatest Crosses because they work in us the profoundest Purity and the purest Love of God which is the Life of our Soul and the end of our Creation I am much pleas'd with my present state of affliction seeing it is the readiest way to form Jesus Christ in me and make me a Perfect Christian which is the work of works the highest Honour the richest Treasure and the Soveraign Happiness of this Life While we are Pilgrims on Earth we are exiles from Gods presence Which must needs be a Cross to Souls that sigh after the Beatifical vision I know not how it is but methinks I see more Purity of Love of resignation of Perfection in my present Suffering condition then what I have found in the joyes of union which puts my heart in repose and quiet It seems to me that I can say more truely than at other times O my God what do I desire in Heaven or on Earth but you who are my Portion and my Heritage for ever My Life is Crucified with Jesus Christ and altogether hid with him in the good Pleasure of God To send us Crosses and make us content with a Suffering condition is one of the choicest effects of the Providence of God Seeing he has an Infinite Love for himself his will is that all Creatures capable of his Love should love him also To dispose them thereto the better he sends them Crosses which purifie our corrupted Nature and produce in us dispositions fit for Divine Impressions O Infinite Goodness O merciful Justice I return you Thanks with all my Heart that you have afflicted me to make me love you Losses Contempts Poverty Sufferings come you are welcome my heart is open to give you entertainment Behold I receive you with open arms because you bring with you Divine Love CHAP. IV. God is pleas'd to send us Crosses in the place of Persecutions that our Life may be a continual Martyrdom I Am much taken with this Saying of St. Clement of Alexandria That seeing our Love and Fidelity to God does not at present appear by shedding our Blood for our Faith the Persecutions of Tyrants being ceas'd we must now manifest them by making our Faith visible in all our Actions To do the will of God is a great testimony of our Love to him but 't is a far greater to suffer for him Souls loving God and beloved of him are careful to correspond to Divine Graces whether by acting or Suffering and are so couragious in their Resolutions that no humane fears though of loss of Life it self is able to stop the torrent of their Affections Witness that good Religious man who askt his Spiritual Guide whether it was not better to die than complain of the Infirmarian who provided Diet not proper for him We now suffer more notably in some things than the Martyrs of Old by Bloody Persecutors For our Crosses Interiour or Exteriour being impressions of the Divine Holiness though they separate not the Soul from the Body yet they separate the Soul from the Love of all Creatures to unite us to God alone This Holiness of God having an Infinite abhorrence of whatsoever is not Pure and Holy Delights to purifie the Elect by Tribulations as Gold in the Fire When therefore the Soul feels her self as it were nail'd to the Cross by Derelictions Aridities and Interiour Sufferings let her not strive to free her self but continue in this Suffering contentedly as long as pleases God because hereby she Glorifies him and Purifies her self Seeing 't is certain that the Cross is the Source of Graces and Purity we are inconsiderate to complain and shun Afflictions for we flee from our advancement in Spirituality and the Purity of Love neither will we permit God to accomplish in us his good pleasure To die naked on the Cross is the ultimate disposition of pure Love 'T is in vain to pretend to the Perfection of Divine Love unless with St. Teresa We desire either to die or suffer The Holy Martyrs could not attain it but by dying for God nor we except by Suffering for him When I am in Prayer in the Presence of God I am much ashamed of my self to suffer so little and with so much Imperfection in a manner so different from the Saints I am in such confusion hereat that I dare hardly stay in Gods Presence were it not that to repair my Miseries and make him satisfaction I offer up to him Jesus suffering poor and abject for us sinners And thereupon I make resolutions to endure whatsoever Crosses happen to me with all the Fidelity that Grace requires It seems to me that a Soul can hardly be content without some Suffering or other I have had experience hereof in some little tempest that now is over And which is more I cannot believe so much content may be taken in limiting our sufferings as desiring greater if God thinks good because the Peace and Content of the Soul consists in Loving and Love is best satisfied with what most pleases God and therefore in suffering for him From these words of our Blessed Saviour If any one will come after me he must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me I learn that the state of this present corrupt Life requires that we must live in a continual dying to the World seeing the enjoyment of Creatures does too much work upon our weakness to bring us off from God Our Corruption and the long habit of taking Pleasure in the things of this World makes it very difficult for us to live this dying Life which is a great Cross and a long Martyrdom It cannot be denyed but we must suffer much to arrive to the possession of God in a Super-natural Life however to taste the sweetness of God for one moment does Infinitely transcend the pains of gaining him And when he hides himself and tryes us with Derelictions what a Cross is it 'T is a state of great Perfection indeed to be content without Comforts both Divine and Humane Many Martyrs have suffered less in dying for God then the Soul does sometimes in this condition Patience a little and God e'er long will sufficiently recompense us with abundance of his Graces and Consolations Sometimes God seems to abandon his most Faithful Servants as he dealt with Holy Job permitting Satan to assault them with several Temptations sometimes against Charity sometimes against Chastity and sometimes against Faith 'T is
true these are Crosses and Cruel Persecutions but if we bear them Faithfully with Love 't is a Martyrdom pleasing to God and profitable to us The Persecuting Tyrants tempted the Primitive Christians sometimes against their Faith sometimes against their Chastity which were Glorious Tryals of their Fidelity O how Blessed a thing is it to fight for that Faith and Fidelity we owe to God O what lovely Charms are there in this Martyrdom to those who behold them with the eye of Faith CHAP. V. Of Exteriour Crosses by the loss of Goods BEing in a Friends House who served God truly news was brought me that the Soldiers had ceas'd upon all my Goods at home and Blessed be God it little troubled me But rather I rejoyc'd and put my self into the Hands of God to do what he pleas'd with me preparing my Heart to undergo greater Losses contentedly I was much comforted by my Friend and I went home full of Joy and Cheerfulness accounting my self Happy that Divine Providence had brought me to Poverty and Abjection And I said with my self Courage my Soul our Blessed Saviour continues his Mercies Poverty and Abjection will afford us wings to flee to Perfection Behold now is the opportunity to make great Progress in Virtue if we be but Faithful It seem'd to me that at this time few Persons pityed me and yet they talk'd of my Affliction as no ordinary Tryal They blam'd me in some sort of Proceedings and after all I found my self an Abject and little considered I could never consent to the Councel of those who would have me either yield to anger or discontent For I always thought I ought not to part with that Meekness and Humility which becomes a Christian for the greatest Temporal loss that can happen to me I considered with my self that these little Crosses were hardly to be named with those that they suffer who are tormented with anguishes of Spirit or those who are Slaves under the Turk or such who are put to Death with grievous Tortures That which I suffer is nothing in comparison of those poor Creatures For I instead of being contristated by Suffering found a certain joy to possess my heart and a greater desire to suffer more Hereupon one told me That our Saviour sent me Crosses adorn'd with Flowers which though they took not away their heaviness yet their Odours did refresh and strengthen me to bear them This Persecution continuing I found my self always disposed to suffer it with great Interiour Peace and I kept my Soul from harbouring any thoughts of Bitterness against those who assisted my Plunderers I Saluted them with a Cordial Love although Nature had a repugnance to their Proceedings I beheld with contentment the Fall of our Family how our Friends did forsake us and some treat us very unworthily and yet I could not think it a misfortune but a signal favour from the hand of Providence And I did not complain but digest all this bitter Cup with Interiour joy O bona crux O good Cross The words of St. Andrew seem'd to me very true O how Crosses are good though full of Bitterness We ought to love what is good and make much of it In reality there 's an exquisite goodness in Sufferings and the Fruit of the Cross is wonderful Savorous For at last we shall find that the degrees of Glory shall be according to the measure of our Sufferings and degrees of Love I was then told some means how to get out of this Suffering condition Nature began to resent this with some joy but Grace repress'd it stifling this emotion of Nature that I might have no joy but in God alone and in the accomplishment of his good Pleasure CHAP. VI. Dispositions during Sickness where the Body suffer'd and the Soul rejoyced GOd has been pleas'd to make me enjoy during my Sickness an Interiour Peace so profound and great that I was altogether astonish'd at it considering my Miseries and former Transgressions I said within my self What is this that I find within me How comes it to pass that so miserable a Creature should be thus content and satisfied For my Soul was in a perfect calm from all her Passions feeling nothing but a pure and total union to the good pleasure of God and an absolute abandon of my self to the conduct of Divine Love It seemed to me that some dayes before this Sickness I was in a disposition of extraordinary Peace and Tranquility and one day after Dinner I was taken with a continual Feaver accompanied with much Head ach and Pains throughout all my Body But Divine Love methoughts continued his operations and set me all a flame with Holy Fires So that I often cryed out O Love O Love O Love And could say nothing else When I seem'd as a dying man my Friends weeping about me and every one saying I could hardly Recover my Soul beheld all this without being touched with any Sentiments of regret or tenderness for my Friends being wholly taken up with Divine Love which did so entirely unite me to the good Pleasure of God that methought I could never be seperated from it 'T was no part of my care to beg for my Life and one of my Friends proposing to send me some Reliques of Saints which had done Miraculous Cures I only thank'd him for though I have no small veneration for them yet I had no mind to make use of them for my Recovery but I would wholly put my self into the hands of Divine Love and leaving my self entirely to the conduct thereof whether for Life or Death for Time or Eternity In this extreme weakness of Body my Soul found her self Victorious and Triumphant to see that fall of Pain and her self full of Love and instead of being compassionate seem'd to me to smile at these Sufferings This was an extraordinary effect of Love that in this great weakness of Body my Soul kept up her strength and especially that the great Pains of my Head did not hinder her Interiour occupations This disposition of Love continued as long as my Sickness and I entertain'd my Friends with little consideration and I believe with too much talking fearing now to have discover'd then too much those Holy Fires that inflam'd my heart and that Self-love made me declare too freely my inward feelings My thoughts now make me suspect this defect but being inebriated with Love I said I know not what being like a drunken man that for a time forgets his Poverty and Miseries So in this disposition I forgot my Sins and extreme Frailties and cast my self into the Arms of Love that I might be united with my Well-beloved and enjoy his Reciprocal embraces I had a care to examine my conscience and confess my sins as a dying man and set in order my Temporal Affairs to pass to Eternity Finding my self not able to give much to the Poor it was a joy to me to die in Poverty and I was as well content to give
so compleat a Sacrifice as on the Altar of interiour Crosses whether they come from the immediate hand of God from others or our selves It matters not much who makes the Cross on which we suffer be they friends or enemies God or our selves if we do but suffer 't is sufficient and we ought to be joyful or at least content to see our selves crucified some way or other And as long as we live Exiles here we shall hardly be without some Crosses A Soul that hath once tasted the sweetness of God finds it a cross to be taken up too much with worldly business yea even to satisfy necessities becomes troublesome to her She finds a cross when she is put to appease the sedition of her Passions when she perceives the eyes of Contemplation darkned by her Imperfections when she is over-burden'd with the weight of her mortal body tending to corruption all these miseries are crosses to her hindring her enjoyments of God But a saithful Soul to accomplish the will of God does bear them couragiously It much concerns us to desire of God a particular Light and Grace to see the beauty of the Cross that we may love to suffer We complain of the miseries of this life and the rigours of our banishment because we discern not that secret virtue which Privations and Crosses have to unite us to God It is great and powerful though little known and less sought after by reason it is not so sweet and pleasant as that force which ceases our Spirits in the Lights of enjoyment But it suffices me my God that I am united to you I desire not the pleasing Sentiments of Union because Purity there is not so eminent The Mercy of God does triumph in the state of Light and Sweetness and this is the time to glorifie his Goodness The Justice of God appears more visible in the state of Obscurity and Sufferings and this is the time to magnify his Greatness And what contentment is it to a Soul to know that let her condition be what it will the Divine Perfections may be glorified by her When God in a manner leaves us to our selves our weakness appears so great that the least stroke of Adversity quite casts us down at other times when we are supported by the Almighty an Army in battle aray can never daunt us Let us follow the conduct of Grace when she invites us to reflect on such like dispositions for the Soul will thereby know her extreme dependance upon God and her own infinite frailty her confidence in God will be re-doubled and her diffidence in her self will be augmented and she will know by experience that God mortifies and quickens when he pleases and that he is our only Supporter To be then in continual union with God the Soul must necessarily have a perfect indifferency to every state and a resolute will to be wholly for God Illustrations indeed make the Soul more attentive but not more united for a loving Soul in Sufferings adheres to God more closely than in the greatest Lights of Prayer Let us not then measure the Union by Enjoyment but by Suffering for the more the Soul suffers for God the more intimately is she united to him This is one of the Excellencies of the Supernatural Life and the only thing that can prevail with us to make Crosses the heavier they are to be the more acceptable I know a Soul that suffers extraordinary pains of all sorts but 't is with aridity of Spirit seeing only the Will of God therein without discovering the Beauty of Sufferings unless when they have left her God being not willing she should receive Consolations from such a sight which might much diminish the Purity of her Love CHAP. X. The great Fruit we may reap from Interiour Crosses I Thought that on this day of particular Devotion I should have been all on a flame with Divine Love But I have been in a manner always distracted in my Prayers though I had my Book in my hand my Spirit not being in a temper for Interiour Exercises To speak Truth I found my self much chang'd it pleasing God that having not corresponded to my state of Light and sweetness his Justice should put me into this rigour and obscurity and blessed be his Name for evermore What augments my sorrow is that I have not been Faithful to many opportunities of practising great Virtues At other times I have found all things helping me towards God now every thing diverts me insomuch that the fire of Love is in a manner wholly extinguished with the waves of Temptations Methinks I find my self in an abandonment so great as if I never enjoyed consolations Being to begin any good work I feel a tepidity and repugnance to it The very thoughts of Poverty did horribly afright me To be despised to want accomodations to suffer pains was terrible unto me It increas'd this bitterness in that the Servants of God did not comfort me as formerly so that it must go very ill with me if some powerful hand come not into my succour And what makes my condition more deplorable is that I am so sensible of the privation of earthly things For if it was the want of Gods presence and his Graces that did afflict me that methinks would afford some consolation I now in a manner make no Prayer that is my Prayer is as good as nothing I am full of Distractions when I Communicate I am apt to fall into passion on every occasion the least thing does much trouble me This day I had some good Intervals during which I was taken up with these thoughts What is man O my God when you cease to visit him How great is his Poverty his Wants and his Miseries I should never have believ d it if I had not known it by experience in this small time that you have left me to my self O my Soul how great is thy weakness How profound is thy own nothing and almost incredible Lay it up well now in thy memory and never forget it What can I do O my God without you My Spirit is nothing but a dark Dungeon and my heart is a recepticle of all sorts of evil Sentiments and extravagant Thoughts No inclinations to good but strong efforts to that which is evil Alas 't is now I find by experience the absolute dependance I have upon you more than a shaddow on the Body or the Light on the Sun I was never so annihilated and plunged in my own nothing as now I can see no stability either in my self or any Creature The whole World cannot uphold him whom you have forsaken O how vain is the consolation of Creatures when that of the Creator fails us Dare I hereafter think my self worthy of the least Sentiments of Grace that have had the experience of my excessive miseries Verily if God should plunge me into Hell I should not be astonish'd at it but rather admire his Mercies for bearing so long
this Interiour Poverty and Dereliction finds that she has a call to Interiour Sufferings she ought not to seek after sensible things to raise her to God but couragiously bear this Interiour Cross as long as it pleases her Divine Bridegroom to continue her Tryal This state is bitter indeed but withall purifying and makes a Soul capable of more intimate union with God CHAP. X. Of the Sacred Darkness of Prayer ON St. Mary Magdalen's day it seem'd to me that my Prayer chang'd and became more simple more strong and elevated My Spirit went on knowing God not by Lights or Gusts of Devotion but by a certain Darkness wherewith God is surrounded as with a Cloud This Darkness made me see that God cannot be known but is Infinitely above our understanding which cannot better know him then by acknowledging we cannot know him as he is At other times Gusts and Lights were instrumental to unite me to God but now this Darkness only was my Guide and my Soul finding her self lost in a profound Ignorance of God yet seem'd to me to know him better than ever and I had no difficulty to Contemplate God in this manner which leaving in me deep impressions of the Divinity did also augment my Interiour dispositions of the Love of God hatred of sin and such like matters It seem'd to me that at this time my Prayer became more continual And I was much encourag'd with that saying of St. Denis That this ignorance is the best and highest knowledge we have here of God I therefore readily made my Addresses to God in the aforesaid manner understanding well that the knowledge we have of God by this way is greater than that we learn by discourse or Lights or Gusts in Prayer To know we cannot know God is to know him as much as he can be known in this Life his Grandeurs being Infinitely above our Understanding And that our Understanding may live wholly to God it must die to whatsoever is not God whom we see by naked Faith in a Luminous obscurity By this way God is more known and lov'd than by many Lights and Affections all which are lost in the obscurity of this Sacred Darkness which makes a Soul see that the Perfections of God are incomprehensible Many good effects arise from hence As a profound Joy and Peace of Conscience a firmness in our good Resolutions and practice of Virtues a great love of Self-denyal in imitation of the unspeakable Humiliations of Jesus Christ One of the surest marks to know whether this Prayer of Darkness comes from God is to see whether it leave in the Soul the knowledge of our Miseries and Infidelities For the more we possess God the better we see the least Imperfections As for example whether our intention be pure or Nature has some Interest with Grace Whether we too easily leave the presence of God for other things Whether we comply with Gods Inspirations or commit Infidelities These and such like being clearly seen by this means do much humble us and make us careful to amend them The Soul in this disposition knows nothing of God but that he is Incomprehensible and looses her self in this Darkness that surrounds his Grandeurs This view with a view sees nothing distinctly of God in particalar but is a knowing Ignorance of what God is in himself For though the excessive Glory of this Divine Sun makes his Light inaccessable to our weak eyes yet this Darkness pierces our Interiour and we know God in a transcendent manner by strong impressions of the Divinity and are rais'd to a most intimate union with him God requires of a Soul great Purity in this state This then is an excellent manner to take up our Thoughts with God in our Addresses to him by annihilating all our Lights and Knowledge to get into this Sacred Darkness that surrounds his Glory that being thus dead to our own Abilities we may confess that God is as much above our Understanding as he is amiable above our Affections Thus to know God and confess he is above our Understanding and to love God and acknowledge we cannot Love him according to his Perfections is to live dead to our Selves and our Abilities and such God Loves best and knows with Approbation CHAP. XI Of the Lights of Prayer GOd sometimes in Prayer discovers himself to a Soul as the Sun filling her with Light by which and in which he is known and all other things she stands in need of or which the Omniscient is pleas'd to manifest to her We see well enough this Light by which we know God but God himself is inaccessable As we behold the Light of the Natural Sun and not the Body thereof which blinds our Eyes and by the benefit of its Beams the things of this World are made visible to us One born Blind imagins that if he could see the Light he might see the Sun But he would find by experience that this Light would only serve to make him clearly see that he cannot behold the Sun by reason of its excessive Brightness In the same manner when we are in Interiour Darkness we think we can know God better in the Light and when this Light comes it only serves to let us see that God cannot be known by us in Mortal Bodies When in Prayer I have a view of God or some of his Perfections of Jesus or some of his Dispositions or Maxims it seems to me that all these Objects have a particular Light in them which serves much to discover their excellency to the Soul But it seems to me that these Verities namely We must slee from Evil and do Good hate Sin and embrace Virtue and such like as considered barely in themselves have no particular Light in them to manifest their Goodness But their Beauty and Excellency are discover'd to us by help of the Light of Faith As those Bodies which are out of the Sun see not themselves but by the Light thereof For this reason I believe 't is best for a Soul to take up her Thoughts with God and those Verities that regard him or with Jesus and Christian Truths as resident in this Sacred Breast By this means the Heart and Affections will be much inflam'd with the Love of God to adore and serve him and imitate the Perfections of Jesus Christ This sort of Prayer is simple and does not put the Soul to the labour of much Discourse For any Divine Perfection and the Exteriour effects thereof are seen by her at once by a singular act of the understanding As she may consider the Omnipotency by its self or together with the Creation of the World she may behold and adore the Divine Providence by it self together with its admirable effects in the Government of the Universe The Soul herein needs not multiply Discourses but may behold all this at one prospect When we meditate on any Christian Verity as for example the Excellency of Poverty without the Relation it
Light into the Understanding sometimes more Love into the Will so that one Faculty seems to be lost in the other The Soul must be content with either as God pleases and cease her own Operations to be passive to the Actings of God in her by his gracious Motions A great deal of Work is done for us by this means in a little time towards Christian Perfection The Soul that is in this state must carefully shun two things the Activity of her own Spirit and the Impurity of her Affection As for the first our Spirit is very unwilling to dy to it self but will be acting and discoursing we loving much our own Operations so that we have much ado to conquer our selves that we may enter into an entire Passivity as to be only susceptible of Divine Motions The long Habitudes of acting with Liberty hinders this Annihilation but we must fight for the Victory and Grace at last will make it easy As for the second the Impurity of Affection we must be perfectly dead to whatsoever is not God so as to seek nothing but him and his good Pleasure without any mixture of Self-interests The infinite Love of God to us obliges us to be faithful to him and the Love we ought to have for our own good obliges us to spare no pains to attain to Perfection CHAP. XIII Of Pure and Perfect Prayer IT much disposes a Soul to attain to pure and perfect Prayer to give her self up into the hands of God with an entire Submission to his holy Will touching this Exercise to bestow upon her what state he pleases A Soul that finds Attracts from God to depend on his Providence the Matter and Manner of her Prayer must receive thankfully what comes from God whether it be Contemplatio or Meditation be it with Delight or Difficulty with Sweetness or Aridities A Soul so purely united to the Divine Will and dead to all things else possesses God in a wonderful manner not only in Consolations but Interiour Crosses Purity of Prayer as the present Light I have tells me consists in a simple View of God by the Light of Faith without Discourse or Imagination Reason and Imagination have their part in Meditation but not in pure Prayer It seems to me that the Soul ought to be absorpt in God and remain there in repose being dead as it were to her own Operations This Repose in God is by Knowledge and Love whereof sometimes this sometimes that is more abundant and affects the Soul as God pleases When God elevates a Soul above ordinary Prayer to converse with him alone she must make it her business to comply with him The Virtues and Dispositions which another time would be the Life of the Soul are not now when she must live no Life but the Life of God that is of his sole Knowledge and Love without any Reflection on her self God then takes the Care himself of such a Soul furnishing her with all necessary Dispositions Think on me and I will think on thee said Jesus Christ to St. Catherine In Prayer God infuses into her practical Lights of no long Durance but efficacious and out of Prayer she receives the same to be applyed to the Practice of most excellent Virtues on all occasions Pure and Perfect Prayer does not consist in Gusts of Devotion but in the supreme part of the Spirit in a peculiar manner that is ineffable For this supreme Region of the Soul is the sacred Temple where God is pleas'd to dwell where she feels and tasts a Sweetness above all created Entities The Soul conducted by Faith and attracted by these Divine Perfumes finds God in this his Sanctuary and converses with him with such a Familiarity as astonishes the Angels to behold it 'T is here where she makes pure Prayer seeing there 's nothing but God and the Soul without any Creature to interrupt this sacred Interview God working all that passes by Himself without Representations or Discourses or Gusts of Devotion This supreme part of the Soul being not capable of sensible Objects God alone takes Possession thereof communicating his Illustrations and Sentiments which are necessary for a pure Union with him Perfect Prayer then is a certain experimental Manifestation which God gives of Himself of his Goodness Peace and Sweetness An admirable Gift that is not imparted but to the purest Souls and ordinarily is but of small Continuance But the Condition of Mortality will not permit of more where we must live in Humility Patience and Sufferings The Soul returning from these Divine Embraces carries away with her great Love and a high Esteem of God a profound Knowledge of her own Imperfections and finds her self altogether disposed to act and suffer and practise pure Virtues on all occasions Few persons arrive to this Purity of perfect Prayer because few make themselves susceptible of those Divine Motions by an entire Annihilation of their own Powers These great Favours would be more frequently bestow'd if we had Hearts prepared to recive them Favours which are of more worth than the whole World and cannot be known but by Experience For my part I know nothing I only have heard say that in this pure and perfect Prayer there are admirable Unions most intimate Embraces Ardours of Love so Pure as may almost compare with the Flames of Seraphims We come to a perfect Union with God by a perfect Denudation of all Creatures and this Denudation is acquir'd by continual Mortification and sometimes by Divine Infusion We must therefore pray much and dye daily to our selves and all Creatures Since that Original Sin hath depraved our Nature we cannot live a Life of Grace without dying a continual Death When God acts with us in the Practice of Mortification we shall soon dye to our selves for he breaks us all to pieces on a sudden with wonderful Contrition of Heart and kills our Corruptions unknown to us so that a Soul dies more in one day by the loving Stroaks of his powerful Hand than she would in some years by ordinary Mortifications Let us therefore adore this Divine and loving Hand which kills us to make us live and never complain but of the little Returns we make for his gracious Favours The Loss of Goods of Friends of Honours of Consolations do much conduce to bring a Soul to this living Death for commonly we quit such allurement when we lose the materials of those Fetters In this Divine Exercise the Soul is wholly taken up with God without diverting her Thoughts on any other Object And though then to reflect on the effects of Prayer would be a kind of Distraction yet without her thinking God leaves powerful Impressions in her and pregnant Dispositions to practise great Virtues and above all a love of the Cross and Humiliations seeing he cannot possibly please God more than by suffering for Him CHAP. XIV Of the Hungring of the Soul after GOD and of her being Satiated with Him I Sometimes find my self in
produce in her admirable effects To have tasted of them once or twice is sufficient to make her rich by infusing into her Understanding a certitude of the Mysteries of our holy Faith and inflaming the Will with ardent and solid affections to practise Virtue And thus she knows more of God in a Moment than before she did in many Months By these extraordinary Graces a Soul is more convinc'd and dispos'd to suffer Contempt and Poverty and leave all things to follow Christ than by a thousand discursive Meditations However God does not cease to communicate these effects by other wayes as by spiritual Lectures holy Conferences Meditations c. But when God is pleas'd to work all by himself in a Soul he does much for her in a little time One of the principal Virtues that this state imprints in the Soul is To draw her to God and keep her with him so that she 's more in Him than her self Divine Love being a weight that alwayes carries her to her Well-beloved Amor meus pondus meum If a great Prince should send some magnificent Present to one of his poor Subjects this would give him more Knowledge of his Prince's Royal Grandeurs and Bounty than to send him all the Oratours of his Realm to set forth his Greatness by their Eloquence So a Soul knows more of God by the aforesaid Favours than by the large Discourses of Famous Preachers These extraordinary Favours are not necessary to Salvation nor yet to Perfection but very advantagious to confirm us in Grace For these more special Communications work in the Soul this admirable Repose and sweet Calmness to dispose her for the Receipt of great Graces which bring her to a more intimate Union wherein she sucks from the Bosom of the Divinity a Sweetness ineffable Strengthening Purifying and Comforting When the Soul is not in this Quiet let her do what she can no endeavours of her can procure it If God sends it let us receive it if he send it not we must be patient and prepare our selves thereto by the exercise of Mortificacation and pure Virtue according to the Grace betstow'd upon us Having been in this Prayer of Quiet many days it seem'd to me to be taken from me for contesting a little with my Friend to perswade him to prevent another with a charitable courtesie O my God how nice and delicate a thing is Grace and the greater the Grace it is the more delicate I learn by this Substraction how poor a thing a Creature is how unable we are of our selves to retain Your Graces and to see that this also proceeds from Grace I will hereafter make it my work to love pure Virtue and practise perfect Mortification CHAP. XVII Of the intimate Vnion of the Love of the Soul with God in Prayer THe wonderful Secrets of this Disposition of the Soul in Prayer can hardly be expressed only we may call it The Prayer of Vnity of Love because herein the Will feels no other Love in her Affections than that which God has for Himself One only Love seems sufficient for God and the loving Soul it being enough for her to adhere to him with great Simplicity and Unity with this only Love which God has for his infinite Beauties and Perfections The particular Love of the Soul is absorpt like a Drop of Water in the infinite Ocean of his Love by a Union inexplicable and being so lost is found more perfect as a Spark of Fire in a little Coal cast into a Furnace gives a heat infinitely greater than what it had of it self alone It seems to the Soul that she does not love but God loves himself in her and in this manner her Will having such Impressions of the Divine Love has no other Sentiments nor Interiour Dispositions than those which God has for Himself When she loves God in this manner as he loves Himself she also hates Sin in the same manner as God hates it by this ineffable Union In this state of Prayer the Soul receives wonderful Discoveries of the admirable Wisdom of God in his Proceedings about the Redemption of Mankind by the Life and Death of his Son so full of Sufferings and Abjection God loving Himself cannot but love the Cross which satisfied his Justice and the Soul cannot but have a Will to suffer seeing she is in the Unity of Love with God which Unity must needs elevate the Soul above Nature And as the Soul of Jesus wholly absorpt in the Love of his Father did rejoyce in his Sufferings and Humiliations so if we be in the Unity of this Love Contempts and Mortifications Dolours and Death it self will be lovely and desireable though quite contrary to our Natural Inclinations This Vnity of Love does so powerfully constrain us to love Sufferings that I make little difference between Love and the Cross and I see so clearly that all the Counsels of Jesus Christ do so wonderfully advance the Purity of Love that no natural Aversion shall deterr me from them I find in my Heart a tacit Consent of Love to abandon my self to Divine Providence and not to disquiet my self about Perfection For I must pacify all the Emotions of my Heart as well good as bad to be in so profound a Peace as to attain this Union When God is pleased to communicate to a Soul this Purity of Love he disposes her to so great a Favour by some Sufferings Crosses and Humiliations He that knows the Riches of true Love knows these also for they are inseparable so that he who will not suffer cannot arrive to Purity of Love My Prayer then tends to unite me intimately and continually to the only Love wherewith God loves himself and my Soul has at present Attracts to nothing else In this Love it seems to her she finds the Practice of all Virtues in a more excellent manner than in themselves I know very well that Love is a weight that continually carries the Soul towards her beloved Object and my Will bending always towards God it moves thither by a longing Inclination full of Love and Sweetness It seems to me that my Understanding herein does not with its Lights assist my Will for I find my Affections all on fire and panting after God without any previous Illustrations I found me thought Divine Love immediately working on my heart by such most secret Touches as put me in a state of perfect Union I find nothing to explicate this better than a Needle touched by the Adamant which then turns continually by a secret Virtue to the Pole and is unquiet till there it fix Thus it stands with my Soul being touched I know not how by Divine Love having no repose but by fixing on God and parting with all Creatures she gently tends to her Divine Center without any Violence being sweetly attracted to a perfect Union My Understanding in this state sees well enough what passes in my Will and Affections but it seems to me to contribute
Sin but even from Passions and occasions thereof and whatever may induce us to evil In a word we detest Sin above all things detestable in our selves and others also interiourly bewailing the Unhappiness of our mortal Condition in which we so often offend God and are in danger to lose him I knew a virtuous Soul whom God had made so sensible of the horrour of Sin because injurious to God that she perfectly detested it with ardent Desires never more to commit any She did with continual Prayers and Tears implore the Divine Majesty to preserve her from it offering her self to suffer any thing yea the pains of Purgatory or Hell it felf if it was necessary rather than commit a Mortal Sin to which no evil can be compared She understood that Sin is a Rebellion against God and injurious to him but that all the Pains we can endure either in Time or Eternity are but evil to the Creature and all Creatures being as nothing in comparison of God all the evil of Punishment they are capable to endure has less Malignity in it than one only Sin And seeing the Divine Justice has not ordained the pains of Purgatory or Hell but for the Chastisement of Sin committed she desired they might work in her this good effect as to serve her for a Remedy against Sin so as never to commit it saying to God Lord you justly punish Sinners because they have offended your infinite Majesty punish me in mercy that I may not offend you In others the pain is the Punishment of Sin preceding and the greater is the Sin the greater is the Punishment but dear God of your great Goodness grant me this singular Favour that the pain in me may prevent Sin so that the Chastisements which I should have deserved for my Offences if I had committed them I may suffer before hand not because I have committed them but to preserve me from offending your sacred Majesty By this means O my God your Interests are secured you shall receive neither Offence nor Injury the Creature only shall suffer something But what is all the Interest of the Creature in comparison of yours If the pains be too few which such Sin would have merited inflict on me what Punishments You please provided you preserve me from falling into Sin so injurious to You. This so noble and generous a Resolution could not proceed but from the pure Love of God and from the perfect hatred of Sin and in both respects must needs be in a high degree well pleasing to God and we may very well believe that God bestowed on such a Soul very wonderful Graces CHAP. II. To keep an even pace with Grace neither out-running it nor following too slowly IT is our Unhappiness that either we do not act answerably to the full power of what Grace we have received by the repugnance of our Sensuality or by our natural Levity and Inconstancy of Mind or on the contrary when the Heart is heated with the Fervour of Devotion we will force Grace beyond her strength by undertaking extraordinary Exercises and Austerities prejudicial to us 'T is our duty to shun both these Extremities to correspond faithfully to what the Grace we have can do and also to be humbled in consideration of that little we have received offering up to God those motions of natural Love which carries us to things extraordinary above our Abilities Not but that we ought daily to desire the Increase of Grace and Divine Love in us but it must be with Humility and Resignation without Interiour Disquiet well knowing that we can never advance in Grace by the strength of nature What hinders us from fully corresponding to the motions of Grace are some secret attaches to Creatures our affections being not throughly purifyed For when Grace acts in a Soul wholly dis-ingaged from the world she gives up her self fully to God's Conduct and moves towards him as her Center with more violence than a stone held in the Air being let go would descend to the Earth I say with more violence for God being a Center of Infinite Goodness has more powerful attractions than the finite Center of the Earth The nearer any thing approaches to its Center the faster it moves so the Soul hastens to the greatest Union with God by how much the more she approaches to him with inflamed Affections But we must have a care not to advance too speedily to the elevated states of Perfection whether as yet the Grace we have does not invite us Oftentimes we would rather regulate our selves by the Graces we see in others than our own for observing them do wonderfully well in perfecting themselves and profiting others we will needs follow their example and this may sooner proceed from a natural desire of our own excellence and esteem then from a motion of Grace and to please God And so we put our selves out of the way going rather back than advancing we will be following their wayes and not walk in that where Grace has put us It concerns us therefore every one to observe and follow faithfully the Attracts of that Gracethey have received for what have we to do with the Graces of others which make a glorious show and to which we have not a Call from God The Beauty of Christianity is not in the Outside for the greatest Saints seem sometimes more despicable than others but interiour Graces Omnis Gloria Filiae Regis ab Intus which working wonderfully in them makes them in love with Contempt and Poverty with Pains and Sufferings whereby they become like to Jesus poor despised suffering and forsaken Behold herein the Essence Life and Heart of Christianity For 't is in his Suffering Saints that God works the most admirable effects of Grace and he takes the greatest delights in them because they are so many Copies of his Well-beloved Son in small Characters But here lyes the mystery that a Soul suffer her self to be in the hand of Grace as soft Wax plyable to her Impressions and faithful to follow her Directions To be faithful I say to be faithful to the Motions of Grace is all in all in a Spiritual Life CHAP. III. That a Soul must wholly give her self up to God IT highly concerns us to keep close to the Conduct of God's holy Spirit and not confide in our own abilities which may quite destroy the work of God in us What can a poor creature do if the Soveraign Creatour work not his will in us All the Solicitudes and Contrivances on our part are not so prevalent as to abandon our selves wholly to God by whose Grace we are what we are and without which we are nothing but Frailty and Infirmity It is best with us when we have in our Prospect and Affection God alone and his good Pleasure being content with whatever he pleases to give either for Soul or Body In this state a Soul goes on very well in all affairs for an indifferency to
Graces and Gifts from God ought not to rejoyce in the abundance of such Favours but her whole content ought to be in the pleasure that God takes to be so bountiful to his Creatures so unworthy of his Blessings Wretched is that man who has less care of his Soul than his Body loving more to follow the Inclinations of Sensuality than the Inspirations of Grace Wretched is he who is all for the good things of this Life a good House good Apparel good Provision c. and is content to have a bad Soul Wretched is he who by his vitious Course of Life makes himself the most contemptible thing of his whole Family For he who forsakes God to follow his Sensuality is in worse state than the meanest Creature O sad condition Believe 't is far more easy to command our Passions than obey them to conquer our natural Inclinations than to satisfy them and therefore more pleasant to walk in the wayes of Salvation than Perdition 'T is a wonderful Punishment to suffer the continual Lashes of a guilty Conscience an unspeakable Torment to have our Hearts always terrified with the Judgement of God hanging over our Heads with the fears of Death which is uncertain and the horrours of Hell which cannot be avoided by such who neglect the Service of God and die in their sins To become slaves to the World and our passions and vicious Inclinations most cruel and ungrateful Tyrants and to have no repose nor contentment not one only moment of true solid joy is to suffer a Hell in time before that of Eternity We shall find nothing to be compared to the way of Heaven the yoak of our Blessed Saviour is Easie his Burden Light his Will is Lovely his Helps are Powerful and the Consolations wherewith he refreshes the Souls of his Servants so abundant that they are far more Happy with their Crosses than Carnal Men with all their Worldly Delights and Pleasures CHAP. VI. How to Comport our selves well in Superiority JEsus be your Light and your guide and your support in Superiority To be in this condition seems to some troublesome and insupportable because things do not succeed as they desire but believe themselves to be a hindrance to the increase of Grace in the Souls of their Subjects who might have been better govern'd by a Person more capable and advanc'd in Perfection 'T is indeed well said and the pretence is specious and yet notwithstanding all this may proceed from Self-love and desire of our own excellence Prostrate thy self at the feet of Jesus Christ and if he dart into thy Soul Divine Irradiations thou wilt discover the Truth of what I have said herein That little resignation we have to the Ordinations of God create these troubles in us God only expects from us such a certain measure of Glory and we are for rendring more than he requires of us 'T is our Happiness not to conform our wills to Gods good Pleasure touching the manner of Glorifying himself what pleases him does not content us He will have us glorifie Him by Suffering and we are for Action We are for giving Alms and He for receiving in a word we do not entirely conform our selves to the pure will of God We ought not to perplex and disquiet our selves with the Defects and Imperfections of those with whom we live and are under our charge They are Mortal and infirm Creatures and not Angels and to expect they should be faultless is to look for Impossibilities and flatter our Impatience which would have no occasion of displeasure This is but to afflict our selves for the loss of our own esteem which appears by our ill conduct in such small matters And yet we pretend only to seek Gods Honour and the good of Souls Those who truly seek the Glory of God sometimes are troubled but 't is a displeasure joyn'd with Peace and Tranquility yea abounding with influences of Heaven and Divine Love A displeasure that rather increases than takes away the Peace of the Soul and disposes her to a perfecter union with God and to the practice of all Christian Virtues I know no better means to be humbled in our own eyes and in the sight of others than the miscarriages that arrive by our manifold Imperfections If I do a good Action for which others think the worse of me I shall not seem so to my self But if I shall fall into a gross Imperfection which neither I nor others discover how shall I be ashamed and learn thereby a lesson of Mortification When Nature is surpriz'd and as it were amaz'd to see her own Frailties what prop can she find to uphold her Ambition She must needs be humbled by this means and so draws much good from evil Who are we that we should presume to think that out pains and industry can add any thing to augment God's Glory Know we not that he is Self-sufficient by reason of his Infinite Perfections and therefore so replenish'd with his own Glory that all the Glory Creatures can render to him is nothing in comparison Alas the greatest Saints in this respect can truly say they are unprofitable Servants All Creatures are oblig'd to serve their Creator 't is their Duty and not to do it makes them guilty but this brings no profit to God who is no less nor more Happy in Himself thereby but only from hence it proceeds that he bestows on his Servants great and glorious rewards For my part I would never afflict my self nor be discourag'd for not doing all the good I desire and ought to do in the charge incumbent on me but instead of being troubled with my own Insufficiency I would rejoyce in the All-sufficiency of God O my God what complacency do I take to see you so Rich and so All-sufficient I am well content with my weaknesses seeing they make it more evident that you stand not in need of your Creatures O beautiful Sun enrich'd with an Infinite Light live Happy in your self absorp'd in your own Beams nothing can alter your Felicity For all the Sins of Men or Devils though they offend you yet do not hurt you no more than dirt cast against the Sun would darken his Splendors in his High-noon Glory When I consider the defects in my self and the faults I have not hindred in others either for want of zeal or capacity I will exercise my mind in such Thoughts as these O my God your Beauty is not Sullied hereby nor your Glory darken'd nor your Mercies diminished I know 't is my Duty to be sorry for what Sins offend your Majesty But likewise I ought to rejoyce that you are immutable in your self and your Blessedness cannot be disturb'd by our Iniquities CHAP. VII That we ought to have our Intentions Purified from all Self-Interest THe Soul that seeks purely to please God ought to be content with all designs of Providence whatsoever whether of Mercy or Justice giving her self up wholly into the hands of
In-actions and fulfilling your merciful intentions upon me which are very great and above the comprehension of him that receives them For who can comprehend how the Infinite Majesty of God should lodge and be received in so vile so streight so unworthy a place as the Heart of Man The coming of the Kingdom of God into a Soul Sounds very delightfully and seems sweet I but the poor heart must first prepare to suffer the violent pains of a continual Agony The heart where God Almighty reigns must bid adieu to all Humane Life She dies to all Pleasures to all Consolations even Divine She has no more support no more relyance upon Creatures even the most Holy The bent of Nature and all Humane Inclinations are extinguished in her she has no more a mind for one thing than for another unless it be for a Supream Indifference nothing but Abjections Annihilations Poverty De-reliction are her Portion She is not capable of any other knowledge than that of Jesus Crucified and her Wisdom is Folly to this World This is the manner I ought to depend on your Grace O Blessed Jesus and have continual recourse unto you For you are my Father who nourish me with your own Substance you are my strength and support my weakness You are my Center where all my Agitations and Inquietudes rest and are at an end You are my End and utmost term of all my Desires At present I have no clear sight of the Purity of your Love but only feel in my self forceable Instincts that incline me to desire the Purity of Love and make me frequently break out into such Expressions as these O pure Love O durable Love Happy is he that seeks thee more Happy he that has found and possesseth thee But ah incomparably most Happy Happy beyond measure he that Perseveres with thee and Dies in thy embraces The End of the Fifth BOOK BOOK VI. Of Interiour and Exteriour Crosses CHAP. I. That we must have a high esteem for Crosses I Esteem it a great Happiness when we suffer any thing for Gods sake there being nothing on Earth whereby we can better testifie the Honour and Love we have for him 'T is in this state we are in a capacity to offer up to the Divine Majesty excellent Sacrifices and render to him most signal Services We cannot do more for a Friend than to procure his Glory by our own Destruction and make our selves nothing to make him All. Hence it is that Saints have set up a higher value upon their Sufferings in Prisons and Chains for the Name of Jesus than to be wrapt up with St. Paul into the third Heaven by Contemplation Be comforted then O my Soul in the different states wherein thou findest thy self so it be that thou dost suffer something for God it is enough If thou hast not the gift of Prayer but art in in aridity of Spirit suffer and be content there is more merit in this than in the most ravishing Contemplation Art thou afflicted with Sickness and so deprived of hearing Mass and receiving the Blessed Sacrament Suffer and be content for 't is better to be in the rigours of the Cross than in the sweets of Spiritual Exercises If thou canst do nothing for the good of thy Neighbour suffer and be content for 't is less meritorious to act for God than suffer for him If thy Exercises of Devotion and good Designs do not succeed as thou expectest suffer and be content for 't is better to suffer then to have all things according to thy desires If thou hast any deformity of Body or no great Parts of Mind provided thou suffer this Patience no Person can do better for this pleaseth God Believe me the best Science in the World the best Prayer the greatest Happiness is to know how to suffer for Gods sake We have a very great esteem for the Wood of the Cross of Christ we search after it with no small diligence no person can present us with a more precious Relique We Enchese it in Gold we keep it near our Heart we have a Veneration for it and preserve it Religiously and not without reason because 't is a small Relique of the true Cross of Christ In like manner true Christians the Children of Light do highly esteem those little Mortifications whether active or passive they undergo finding nothing more precious upon Earth and a greater guift cannot be presented to them then the occasions to suffer and mortifie themselves which they embrace with Joy and Love and with great respect cherish them not near but in their Heart considering that the state of Suffering is most agreeable to the dispositions of Jesus Christ and some small participation of his Sufferings 'T is as a little Parcel of the true Cross and the most precious Relique they can carry about them Let 's never be without having with us some of the true Cross let us make much of what afflicts us and we have Reliques thereof before we think on 't When we examine our Conscience let us ask our selves this question Hast thou O my Soul any parcel of the true Cross Any Reliques of the Sufferings of Jesus Christ Happy are those who have some part of them for they enjoy the occasions of the great tryals and proofs of their Love to Christ as can possibly happen The flames of Divine Love burn brightest in the furnace of Affliction St. Paul had a good piece of the true Cross when he said He carried in his Body the Marks of the Lord Jesus Christ for his Sufferings were indeed for Jesus's sake The most noble and glorious thing that Christ did upon Earth was his Dying for us on the Cross a Death most Painful and Ignominious that his Heavenly Father might thereby be Infinitely Glorified and he being thus exalted might draw the hearts of Believers after him and more powerfully engage their Affections to love and adore him A Soul that beholds Jesus on this Throne of his Ignominies which indeed is the Throne of his Grandeurs desires here on Earth to be united to Jesus Crucified as the Saints in Heaven enjoy him Glorified And thus she breaths forth her Desires True it is I cannot have a full Fruition of my Well-beloved in this Life however this is my comfort I can suffer for him Enjoyment is more sweet to the Creature but suffering is more lovely to the Creator and so I find enjoyment of the Miseries of my Banishment When a Soul has no mind to suffer in this World she has no mind to belong to God For seeing in this exile we cannot be his by enjoyment or but very little and being not willing to appertain to him by Suffering we cannot possess God And being without God we adhere to Creatures and loose our selves in disorder and vanity God finds not out of himself a more pleasing Mansion than in a Soul and Body Mortified with Sufferings there it is he takes his complacency and delight The
Divinity repos'd with Infinite joy in the Humanity of Jesus Christ in his Suffering state And a Soul never loves more nor renders a greater homage to the Divine Perfections than by the Cross and Sufferings Sacrificing her self to Gods Interests and Glory This then is the Motto of a loving Soul Aut pati aut mori Jesus let me suffer or let me die CHAP. II. That we must have a Love for Crosses A Life without a Cross is a Life without Love This Saying too common among us That we must live an easie Life does not become the Lips of a Christian for 't is all one as to say We must live a Natural Sordid Life Next to the Divinity nothing is more amiable than the Cross of Christ We must either enjoy with the Divinity or suffer with the Humanity and the more we suffer with the one the more we shall enjoy with the other A Soul conducted by enjoyments must also participate of great Sufferings for these make those more sweet and pleasant We find by experience that the least contentment taken in Creatures does diminish Divine enjoyment and therefore the Saints have been severe to themselves so as to allow Nature only what is purely necessary by a resolute denyal even of Lawful Pleasures We too often enlarge the Law of necessity and indulge our selves in our Refections and Recreations and Accomodations Nature is content with little but the clamours of others and the fear of prejudicing our Health does us no small hurt in our way towards Perfection 'T is a sign we march couragiously in the way of the Cross when we find in our Souls such a Peace and Serenity that does not indeed hinder Nature to feel the bitterness of Sufferings but inspires with a generous resolution to embrace and cherish them looking upon them as special favours from Heaven notwithstanding the regrets of Nature to prove our Fidelity and advance our Glory It comes into my mind that to take away the bitter tast of Crosses we must sweeten them with several Sauces that is with different confiderations Sometimes by accepting from Gods hand with a Spirit of Pennance Other times with a Spirit of Sacrifice And then again with the Spirit of pure Love Sometimes to be conformable to Jesus Christ in his suffering state and besides to do the Will of God and submit our selves with all Humility to the Orders of his Divine and Sacred Providence Thus the Soul may make use of several considerations to sweeten the bitterness of Sufferings and so preserve a Love of the Cross among all the repugnances of Humane Nature When God designs to advance Divine Love in a Soul he affords her great occasions of Suffering by the order of his Providence and she contentedly embraces them though very bitter to sensual Nature Such favours are precious and we ought to manage them with Prudence and Councel 'T is very true what our Blessed Saviour says in the Gospel Multi sunt vocati pauci verò electi Many have calls to Perfection by Inspirations Lights and Motions of Grace And yet they arrive not to it for want of Fidelity and overmuch sparing themselves by too tender a love of their Body Goods Friends and Relations giving an ear more to Humane reason than the voice of Grace Sometimes we perswade our selves that Devotion is a Life full of Peace without Crosses but we deceive our selves nor ought we to enter into the Service of God without a disposition of Indifferency to all states to be mortified there not as we would have it but after what manner best pleases God Crosses from the immediate hand of God do much conduce to Sanctifie us but what arise from our vanity or too much love of the World are for the most part unprofitable and rather a hindrance to the Soul in her way to Perfection Suffer we must more or less and what pleases God we must accept of with contentation O how rare is it to find Souls truly amorous of Crosses I am of Opinion that the little love we have for Sufferings is the only cause we so little advance in the ways of Grace and if we well examine our selves we shall acknowledge it The love of Sufferings is quite repugnant to our Natural Inclinations but God can make that easie by Grace which is impossible to Nature and if we ask this great Grace as we ought we shall receive it as God has promised Neither does the Love of the Cross so much consist in great Corporal Austerities as embracing with an amorous generosity all those little Contradictions Mortifications and Humiliations we dayly meet withall either from others or our selves or by the secret orders of Divine Providence and to make good use of them for our Spiritual advantage is not the work of Nature but of Grace The more perfect our Virtue is the more we have a love for the Cross that we may be more conformable to our Blessed Saviour Know we not that they who will live Piously in Christ Jesus must suffer Persecution They shall suffer indeed on all sides from the Flesh from the Spirit from the World and God himself will try them with Afflictions This on earth is the high way to Heaven wherein Love must walk to come to Perfection which can never be gain'd without a labourious and couragious resolution CHAP. III. That we must have a great Love for Crosses WE must have a great Intellectual thirst to suffer all sorts of Crosses This is the Character of true Christians this is the Mark to know that Jesus Crucified is establish'd in us And this thirst ought to continue in us whatever our condition be because it much augments our Enjoyments and Consolations The more the Soul enjoyes the more she becomes thirsty not only of a more Savorous Union but also of a more heavy Cross Jesus Christ did thirst after his Passion for us and Dying on the Cross his thirst Increased being not quenched with all his Sufferings We say we ought to have the Image of Jesus Christ Crucified imprinted on our Souls and what is this but to have a thirst for Sufferings as he had O how the cup of affliction is pleasant to a Soul athirst for Sufferings When some great Cross happens to such a Soul she finds comfort and satisfaction therein as one enflamed with heat is refresh'd with Drinking God has a strange thirst for our Sufferings he is a thirst in us by the Fire of his Divine Love wherewith he loves himself and his Divine Perfections why do we not refresh him with our Sufferings But alas this Divine thirst is little known to men O how is it hidden from sensual eyes O Jesus how little are you known How little are you loved These Proceeding of Jesus are not understood by those who only follow the Light of Sense and Reason Emitte lucem tuam Whence once the Spiritual man discovers this nothing is more desirable to him then Suffering The great desire of the
Martyrdom end both together CHAP. VIII The Interiour Crosses of the Soul in Obscurity THe Soul in the state of obscurity hardly knows her self she is so chang'd from what she was For in the state of enjoyment the Inferiour part of the Soul with all her repugnance to Sufferings is quite lost in her present Delights so that the Soul feels no pain at all nothing hinders her repose she tasts nothing but sweetness and has no Sentiments unless of Peace and Tranquility But on the contrary in the state of Interiour Suffering the supreme part of the Soul is as it were absorp'd in the repugnances and disgusts of Nature Her lights are so surrounded with Darkness that she is left in obscurity and all her joy is taken from her Although she may be very well resigned she imagines she is not for her Intellectual conformity is clouded from her But she has always before her eyes the revolts of Nature and the contradictions she finds to Gods good pleasure and in a manner believing she has no intellectual Resignation she becomes doubtful of her condition whereby she is much terrified and plung'd in a Sea of bitterness A Soul in this state of Miseries is well pleasing to God but she not knowing it remains full of Doubts and Sadness Yet if you ask this Soul if she be resigned to the will of God she will readily reply Yes and that she had rather dye than not will what pleases God However this act of Resignation does not free her from her Fears because she wills this in a manner without knowing it is her Will. Our Blessed Saviour by an admirable design of Providence to purify this Soul the more by her Sufferings hinders her reflection on this act of Conformity and Resignation so that she receives no Comfort by this Conformity being in the dark and yet is not altogether left in desolation But in this state she is pleasing to God though she be much displeased with her self It seems to me that a Soul in this state of Obscurity is more faithful to God than in abundance of Illuminations To be thus in the midst of thick Darkness and believe the Perfections of the Divinity and the Mysteries of our holy Faith as firmly as if they were clear'd up unto us by the greatest Lights and Illustrations do testify an extraordinary Fidelity in the Soul to God and an annihilation of our Judgment and a high esteem of Gods Veracity What wonder is it to see God and his Grandeurs in abundance of Light But to do this when the Soul is in Darkness this is admirable Happy are those Souls whom God conducts in this way let them not complain of their Privations seeing this is to the end they may more glorify God and best testify their Fidelity O my Soul let us be in an indifferency for any Condition for a state of Light or Darkness Benedicite lux tenebrae Domino And if Divine Providence tryes us with Obscurity let us be comforted and believe that God deals well with us esteeming this privation as a favour from heaven I confess it is a difficult matter to be as well satisfied in Darkness as in the Splendours of Paradice But if we make serious reflection that the Perfection of Christianity consists in a life of Privation and Poverty of Spirit it will be no matter of Admiration Behold S. John lives he not in a Desert depriv'd of all things his Delights are Austerities Hunger Poverty to be unknown to the world and to lose his Life by the hand of the Hang-man And which is more he was depriv'd of the Conversation of Jesus Christ One of the greatest interiour crosses is to lose the sight of our Eyes nevertheless there 's something in this Cross that makes it lovely in that it puts us in a more absolute dependance on God I have a devotion to be in the Spiritual Life what a blind man is in the Corporal He goes and comes he talks to his friends he does his little affairs he eats and drinks and all this without seeing his way or his friends or the rooms or Heaven or Earth only he gives himself up to the guidance of his Conductor 'T is true to do all these actions of our civil life in this sort is not so pleasing but they are as really done as in the Light So a Soul that is without light does the actions of a Spiritual Life not so pleasantly indeed but yet truly and perfectly seeing she performs them in the annihilation of her lights and proper satisfaction It seems to me that a Soul ought not to complain so much of the Lingrings of this our Pilgrimage where we live in the obscurity of Faith and not so earnestly desire the dissolution of this mortal body under pretence to see clearly and be united perfectly to the King of Glory For really I fear these complaints are not so innocent as we imaging seeing they may proceed from a disgust of Sufferings in a state of Privation and so we are more concerned for our own satisfaction than content with the good pleasure of God CHAP. IX Of the heaviness of interiour Crosses GOD sometimes treats a Soul in a manner as a Reprobate banishing her from his presence and depriving her of all enjoyments for more or less time as he thinks good During this state to preserve a perfect Resignation to Gods will is to practise pure virtue and those souls must be very faithful that are capable thereof The Soul in enjoyments is as if she was glorified she feels no trouble her Passions neither disturb her Peace nor darken her Lights she is full of contentment delighting in God the Creatures do not divert her from the Creator And if at any time they seem to stop her course she presently doubles her paces to hasten after her Well-beloved being a tracted with the odours of his Perfumes But in the state of Interiour Suffering the Soul becomes a Captive loaden with Irons buffeted with Temptations disturb'd with rebellious Passions lost in extravagant Thoughts so that she cannot draw near to God but like a poor Criminal lying in a dark dungeon is left to her self without any sensible Relief This is her sad conditition in this miserable Captivity without either Divine or Humane Consolations the influences of Heavenbeing withheld from her and the refreshments of Earth deny'd her crucified between them both without help from either In this state the Soul is in continual fears of offending God and falling from her Spiritual Exercises that she seeks Comforts from Creatures and is so injurious to her Divine Center from whom only she ought to receive Repose and Contentment However she may much honour God by these interiour Sufferings if she thereby does homage to the dereliction of the Son of God in his Torments on the Cross The eminency of a supernatural Life finds matter of Practice in all sorts of Sufferings interiour or exteriour but methinks the Soul can never be