this time of resignation of my self to sufferings is to make good use of my affliction and endeavour after solid vertue with a perfect abandoning of my self to the will of God Behold here the blessings of God upon his endeavours for the good of his neighbours which working such strong impressions upon their hearts to bring them to God almost always accompanied his labours At which indeed we ought not much to wonder if we consider him as a happy instrument fastened and united to the Lord of hearts and Saviour of souls singly aiming at the glory of God and good of others and sparing nothing he conceived necessary thereunto To which purpose his custom was before he undertook any such business to give himself up to our Lord they are his own words to speak by his Spirit and in his Power And this Lord who desireth infinitely the salvation of man finding him so well disposed and fitted to his hand used him for noble imployments and furnished him with suitable graces and favours even to work wonders Which may serve both for the instruction and shame of such who by their calling are designed for the procuring of the salvation of men and yet through their own fault do it with so little profit I finde moreover that God gave him sometimes beforehand knowledge and foresight into the affairs which he would have him do thereby to prepare him to undertake them without fear and to acquit himself well therein Being at his house in Citry at the latter end of the year 1642. he had a secret intimation from God that at his return to Paris he should finde a new imployment about the poor and should be much taken up therein Which fell out accordingly two days after his arrival there certain persons coming to advice with him about a course to relieve such poor as were ashamed to beg throughout that City intreating him to take it into his care which he did accordingly undertaking for his share to visit the fourth part and distribute there alms according to their necessities which was a sufficient employment for one man to take up his whole time though he had no other business which yet he performed notwithstanding the multitude of his other occupations so that we may say that according to humane reason and without a special assistance from God he could never have been able to have done and suffered such great matters But God who hath given us a limited strength of body and minde can as easily heighten them when and how he pleaseth One day he said to one of his great Confidents with much humility and devotion I have been this night bathed all over in tears by a view which our Lord hath given me At which words making a stand remaining sometime recollected in silence and transported with that grace he had received afterward he went on saying that whilst he was at prayer he understood that there was a great imployment assigned him for new France in the Indies Which afterward fell out and chiefly in the building of a Church in the Island of Mont-real In which noble design other pious persons whom God had chosen thereunto joyning with him He by his cares counsels credit and liberality both of his own and what he begg'd from others was highly serviceable Sometime he received beforehand not so great light of his business but onely a bare knowledge and present impulse of doing something without any further discovery As when he was much pressed in Spirit to go to Pontois without understanding any reason for it having at the same time much employment at Paris yet with obedience to the inspiration without debating he undertaketh the journey where unexpectedly he met with a Nobleman of great quality from a Province far distant who came thither conducted by God to ask of Monsieur Renty and receive from his mouth instructions for his souls health and how to serve God perfectly which he had little known and less practised Which thing Monsieur Renty then taught him professing at his return from thence that he could give no account what afterward became of the party or how he lost him SECT 10. His grace in assisting particularly some choice souls THough this great servant of God had an excellent faculty in assisting all men for the good of their souls yet was he more eminently happy in some particular choice persons to whom our Saviour had assigned him for the curing of their imperfections to make them march on apace and that thorow the narrow way of vertue and perfection But because the greatest number of these are yet living whose modesty I dare not offend I shall speak something onely of some who are dead and chiefly of one person which may serve as a taste of all the rest This was the Countess of Chastres who being deeply in the affections of this world according to the custom of most young Ladies of her quality it pleased God out of his infinite love to her to bring her before her death from those vanities and conduct her by the thorny strait-way to the paths of vertue and high perfection for which great work Monsieur Renty was assigned from God He inspiring the one to request assistance and counsel and the other to afford it and this with so happy success that within less than a years space her advancement herein was so notable that he himself was astonished at it For in that short time she became so perfectly disingaged from all those petty conveniences and accomodations which our Ladies flattering themselves pretend still to have need of that one presenting her with something of that nature wherein she had formetly taken delight she returned this answer which may serve for a good lesson to us all especially if we consider that she was well known to be of a very delicate tender complexion and very sickly how apt we are to multiply necessities I thank God I have quitted this and far more other things for the love of God and yet finde no want at all It is true that nature of her self is dainty and prone to flatter her self upon the pretence of necessities which she is willing to apprehend much greater than truly they are and often maketh them such by her imagination God indued him with great grace and light to discern her proper way and to perswade her to follow it to advance her in the pathes of solid vertue and to teach her by degrees to dye to herfelf to support her in great interior afflictions and to instruct her very effectually in what was most proper for her present condition he being accomplished with all the qualities of a fit Director and she on her part perfectly resigning up herself to believe what he said and force her self to put it in execution A thing very requisite in those that resolve to make use of the conduct of others to good purpose She received his counsel with all the resignation she could imagining our
aniting of our selves to this Son contiruing that life of his upon earth within this of ours by the direction of his Spirit Thus also in another Letter Let Jesus Christ be in each of us our bond our soul our life as he is our pattern Le ts take a nearer view of this Holy Original enter into his Principles lay hold on his desires execute his works and let men know that we are Christians Writing to another he spake thus I adore and bless with all my heart our Lord Jesus Christ for that he opens you his heart to possess wholly yours he will make it to dye and will reduce it to a Holy Poverty which shall cause you to taste the true Life and compleat Riches and to avow that it is a great mercy to belong to Jesus Christ I beseech him to bestow on you his most sanctifying graces and that we may beth dye well and live well by his Spirit Let us enter into this Spirit which will give us the Sentiments and the Energie of the Children of God All other presence and application to the Divine Majestie which is not by this union of the Soul to Jesus Christ is onely of the creature towards the Creator which carries indeed respect but gives not the life and approaches of children towards God their Father where being united to the Interior operations of Jesus Christ we finde there the affections of true children which we canâ— not have but by being united to the true Son Let us end with that which a person to whom he unbosom'd himself confidently in this matter reports of him This rare man said he appeared touched with a verie tender and fervent love towards our Lord Jesus Christ I have observed that his Conversations and Discourses did shoot alwaies at this mark to imprint in souls the knowledge and love of our Lord with true soliditie In discourse with him I had often from him these words I avow that I have no gust in any thing where I finde not Jesus Christ and for a soul that speaks not of him or in which we cannot taste any effect of grace flowing from his Spirit which is the principal of operations both inward and outward that are solidly Christians speak not to me at all of such a one Could I as I may so say behold both miracles and wonders there and yet not Jesus Christ nor hear any talk of him I count all but amusement of spirit loss of time and a very dangerous Precipice And at several other times he said Let us love Jesus Christ let us unite our selves to his Spirit and Grace miserable sinner as I am who love him not yet should I be much joy'd at least to see my defects supplied by others that love him fervently but I am too unworthy to obtain a matter so great and wherein my self do bear so small a part Seeing then this faithful servant and follower of Christ Jesus had so strong an application and intimate union with his Divine Lord as 't is easie to gather from what hath been spoken we cannot but ascribe to this application and union all his vertues which we are going now to speak of in several and to look upon them as effects of this cause streams of this Fountain and branches of this Stem PART II. His Vertues in particular and first the Vertues which did perfect him in regard of himself CHAP. 1. His Penances and Austerities AS our flesh and senses are by their nature and more by their corruption very opposite to a Spiritual Life and among the enemies of our weal and perfection none more importunate or more violent than they so God useth when he intends to elevate any to the accomplishment of vertue and to make them Saints to inspire in them at the beginning of their conversion a spirit of Penance and mortification of their bodies Monsieur de Renty being destin'd by God to this glory and quickned by this Spirit encounters his body with rigorous Austerities thereby to reduce it to its duty and hinder it from annoying him in his Interior Exercises He begins therefore to fast every day making but one meal which he continued divers years until he was enjoyned otherwise and to take more nourishment to be the better able to undergo the great labours he undertook for his neighbour Some days in the week he wore an iron Girdle set with a double rank of long prickles and a bracelet of the same on other days he disciplin'd himself rigorously at some times wore haircloath having continually on his breast a brass Crucifix reaching to the bottom of his stomack the nails whereof being very sharp entred into his flesh When he went into the Countrey and was come to his Inn he would go into the Kitchin to eat there if it might be among servants and other mean persons and that for two ends both there to morâ—ifie his body and to speak some good thing to those poor people and when night constrained him to take his chamber he dismissed his servants to lie in other rooms and himself past the night in a chair or cast himself on a bed in his cloathes and boots which was his custom till death Being come to Amiens where I was and a Lady one of the chief of the Town having prepared a stately bed in a brave Chamber for him in honour of his vertue and cuality he was much troubled and would not at all use it but laid him down upon a bench and the day after as being much asham'd complained to me of the Lady for it so that to enjoy the blessing of lodging him at her house she was fain to change his chamber and bed and to accommodate him after his own mode that is to say where he might not be so much at his ease His Mortification in diet was very great eating little and always of the worst as not forgetting that our misery came not but by eating of delicious fruit Dining in company on a Fish-day one of the guests that noted his actions observed that all he eat was some Pears onely and that with so great modesty and recollection that one might easily discern that his minde was on God and not upon his meat When one of his friends a man of piety at Caen entertain'd him one day at dinner with some little ceremony as a person of quality he ate very little became much mortified and ashamed as he declared afterwards that Christians should be Feasters adding that a little would suffice and what a torment it was to him to be where there was so muâ—h chear as a thing quite contrary to the poverty of Christ who notwithstanding should be to us for our rule He would tell his friends that a little bread a little lard and butter was sufficient Hereupon his friends acquainted with this grace of Mortification in him took no more thought concerning his diet knowing his best entertainment to be the meanest fare The perfection
For these three moneths I have not it may be spent three or four hours at my prayers upon my knees together out of the Church and should I perform them at all no otherwise than on this fashion I should but very ill discharge my â—uâ—y It is certain that I have discharged it ill enough yet I understand that God is pleased in the midst of these imployments to which he hath appointed me to make me sensible of his presence and power in uniting my soul to himself by certain intimate ways and that the outward work may be performed by the hand whilst the soul solaceth herself in that real alliance of Sons with their Father by the Spirit of the Son who admitteth us into his communion together with that of the blessed Virgin the Angels and Saints yea and of the whole Heaven if you will Such a wonderful expansion of soul can our Lord give when and how he pleaseth I enjoyed at the same time such a sensible impression of God yet excelling all sense as being acted in the more noble part of the Soul viz. the Spirit that if I had been thrown like a boul I could never have lost the sight of my God All things are here transitory for our Lord turns this boul in a strange manner when it pleaseth him And these dâ—verse turnings are done for the souls advantage whereby she is fashioned for every occasion that she may do nothing for or by herself but all for God and according to him Moreover I evidently see that a person whom God employeth in these low affairs if he follow them with the same fidelity as if they were greater keeping his station by obedâ—ence and self-denial is as acceptable to him as he that is occupied in the noblest functions The work it self making not the difference but the faithful execution of it by submitting to his good pleasure Will nothing please you but to convert a thousand worlds and bring all souls to God you shall be content to carry stones and sometime to sit still and do nothing The Sâ—crifice of Patience is both well pleasing to God and comfortable to our selves And I believe it is without comparison more rare to finde a soul faithful in patience and content to do no more than God would have him than faithful in actions which appear abroad I know well that God doth all in all but this Sacrifice of Patience and of Câ—ssation is more commendable in a heart who hath the love and zeal of his honour and in pursuit hereof is hurried on to action and hath need of greater force to withhold it from doing than to incite it This kinde of Cessation seems to be nothing at all available for the nourishment of such zeal and this hunger and thirst after righteousness which would devour the four quarters of the world is reverberated like the fire pent in which circles and works about until it finde a vent by this consideration that God is all-sufficient in himself and hath no need of us for advancing of his glory that we receive more honour from our imployments than he service being so impure that we blemish every thing we meddle with and rob it of some lustre and prove often not onely unprofitable but endamaging servants I have one word more to tell you that you may direct me in it which is that I am really ashamed and confounded in my self that I do no more for God considering his dignity hâ—s love his gifts and communications by the alliance of Jesus Christ and his Spirit Which indeed together with the sense of my great imbecility for any thing that is good of my sins and miseries would work my extream torment did I not bethink my self of his all-sufficiency in himself and that he doth with us as he pleaseth in keeping us in obedience and profound annihilation Thus far his Letter wherein are many good things to be learnt CHAP. 4. The excellent use he made of all things and his application to the Infancy of our Lord for that purpose IT must needs be that Monsieur Renty made excellen use of all accidents that occurr'd to him and generally of all creatures to attain to such a height of perfection whereof this usage of them as muâ—h as is in man is undonbredly the prinâ—ipal means to which all others are subordinate otherwise and without it unpâ—ofitable and meer hinderâ—nâ—es True it is that God hath placed in the bosom of each thing as in riches poverty honours disgrace health sickness good and evil a secret vertue and moral capâ—city to advantage us in our salvation and to be instruments of perfection even as so many cords to draw and unite us to himself but all this according to our usâ—ge of them For bâ—ing well used they produce good effects but contrarily abused instead of uniting us to God they estrange us further from him rendring us more imperfect and vicious and instead of advantages prove the instruments of our ruine Wherefore he being well instructed in this grand secret of Spiritual life imployed all his care to practise it perfectly Which that we may better understand it will not be amiss to follow it to the Spring-head The holy man had continually in his heart making it the principal conduct of his devotions as we have mentioned and may be easily deduced from the series of this History to unite himself to our Lord Jesus Christ and that upon good grounds Since out of him as saith S. Peter there is no salvation God having chosen him the sole Mediator of Redemption and the repairer of our miseties loving no creature in the world but him with a love of perfect amity Whereupon by S. Paul he is stiled the Son of his love and good pleasure and we alone are accepted in and thâ—ough him who are found beautiful and shining with glory when we are united to him and out of him we appear deformed hideous and most abominable being indeed without him filled with sin and his enemies Wherefore every man is so far dear and amiable to him as he stands united to his Son which is manifested in the Blessed Viâ—gin and his Apostles all our actions pleasing him so far as they are united to him even as each member of our body participates of life according as it is animated by our soul Having therefore perfectly learn'd this fundamental truth of Christianity his study was to unite himself to our Lord Jesus Christ and to copy him forth as his Rule and Law for the regulating of his Exterior and Interior adoring him daily under this notion applying himself with great reslection to his words actions designs and the several mysteries receiving from each of them great enlightnings Thus he writ to me one day upon the mysterie of his Incarnation I have had the grace divers times very intimately to understand that ineffable mysterie hidden with God from all ages and manifested now to the Saints according to S. Paul which is the
told him that of a long time he had left off the use of a sword and that after he had commended the business to God by prayer he should follow his inspiration assuring himself that his protection over us is much according to our relying upon him These words were found in one of his Letters to his Director My soul being armed with Confidence Faith and Love fears neither the Devil nor Hell nor all the stratagems of man neither think I at all on Heaven or Earth but onely how to fulfil the will of God in every thing He hath been noted to do very notable things through the strength of this Vertue even at such times when he hath been afflicted with great aridities in his Interiour In our aridities and privation of the sense and feeling of grace saith he in a Letter to a friend is manifested an heroick abnegation of our selves to the will of God when under Hope believing against Hope we shew our selves to be true sons of Abraham Isaac shall not dye though the knife be at his throat and in case the true Isaac should in fine be crucified it is but to make us conformable to the Cross and cut of our ashes to raise us to a true and better life Thus likewise he writ to his Director I have a very clear insight into the great want I have of my Saviour him I behold in his riches and my self in my deep poverty him I look upon invironed iâ— power and my self in weakness whereby my spirit being filled with content by the impression of these words Quid est homo quod memor es ejus What is man that thou art mindeful of him doth rest upon a total abandoning of its self into his bounty These words Longanimiter ferens bearing patiently have dwelt longe upon my spirit though I did not at first remember whence they were taken or what they meant onely this that I must wait with patience for the commands and approach of my Saviour without putting my self forward by my own inquest or endeavours but rest with faith and reverence begging his grace and hope in him But a few days ago taking up the New Testament in opening the Book I did light upon the sixth Chapter to the Hebrews where the Apostle speaks of Faith and Patience whereby we obtain the promises qui fide patientia haereditabit promissiones who by faith and patience shall inheret the promises and to prove this brings in the example of Abraham sic longanimiter ferens adeptus est repromissionem and so waiting patiently obtained the promise This passage touched me to the very heart and relieved my languishing together with another passage of S. James which presented it self to my eye at the same time Patientes igitur estore fratres usque ad adventum Domini ecce agricola expectat preciosum fructum terrae patienter ferens Be patient therefore my brethren till the coming of our Lord behold the husbandman waiteth patiently till he receive the fruit of the earth Hereby I was settled in peace upon the solid foundation of Hope and Abnegation As this incomparable Vertue enricheth the soul that is perfectly stated in it with a profound repose a solid joy a wonderful courage and sets it aloft above all Terrestrial things with a generous contempt of whatsoever the world esteems and desires giving it a taste of the pleasures that are Eternal as it is not difficult for him that hath assured hopes of a glorious Kingdom to set at nought a Pad of straw so did it communicate to this holy man all these excellent treasures and imprinted in his soul all these noble reflections Whereby he was incited with all his strength to encourage others in the pursuit of this Vertue knowing by his own experience the inestimable benefits thereof understanding it to be our Lenitive in all disasters our staff and stay in all weaknesses and our secure haven in all tempests instructing them continually how that God to the end that he might drive us into this Port and cause us to rest in it doth frequently permit us to be assaulted with temptations and tryals the deeplier to engage us to have recourse to him begging his aid and succour and relying upon him with confidence The like instruction he gave to a certain person upon occasion of the Apostles amazement when they beheld our Saviour walking upon the waters and took him for a Chost Think you this was without a special providence that our Saviour suffered his Disciples to go alone into that ship and permitted a contrary winde to arise Who knows not that in the same manner he fashions the souls of the faithful by his absences and by their tryals that he may afterwards manifest his power upon the seas and tempests quickning thereby our Faith and shewing himself to be the Messias and true Deliverer of the world But observe we how many Christians in their sufferings are affrighted with the Apostles seeing our Saviour marching on the waters Every thing makes them afraid the winds the waves yea even Christ himself that is the anxiteies of their spirit their own disputings and also those good coursels that others give them for their establishment upon Christ Jesus before God All this appears but as a Ghost to amaze them unless Christ himself graciously appear yet more unto them to comfort and strengthen them Shall we always want confidence thus to think Christ a Phantasm Shall we not address our selves to him in all our necessities as to our Lord and Deliverer The Jews brought all their sick folks to him and he cured them What is he become a greater Physician of the body than of the soul No no our little Faith our little Love our little Confidence is the cause of our languishings and unfruitful anxieties of spirit Let us go strait to him and all will be cured CHAP. 4. His Love of God SEeing the Love of God is without contradiction the most excellent and perfect of all vertues and that which principally and above all the rest makes a man a Saint we cannot doubt that this holy man was possessed thereof in a very eminent degree and that he loved God with all his heart This Love he founded upon his infinite perfections and favours which may be perceived by what he writ to his Director in the year 1648. concerning this Queen of all Vertues Our Glorious Lord hath from time to time with his resplendent beams shone upon my soul quickning her therewith which have appeared in such several manners and have wrought such great things in a short time as would take up far more to write them which really I am afraid to undertake or begin They all concenter in this one point the love of God through Jesus Christ his communication of himself to us by the Incarnation of his Eternal Word and ours to him through the same Word becoming our brother conversing with us and erecting as it were a mutual society
do nourish our Humility suppress our Pride and inviteour Imitation But their faults divulged advance our Self-Conceit and breed Security Though for this Honourable Person you may presume no great faults or blemishes could dwell with so great Mortifications so many good Works such excessive Devotions and his Exteriour Holy Practises do sufficiently testifie a great purity of minde Amongst which Practises though perhaps some things may occur that to some Readers may give offence according to mens several Principles and Perswasion in Religion yet I thought it better doing the business onely of a Translator to let them alone than by cutting them out both to give occasion to those who allow such things to blame the omission and to those who disallow such things to suspect them to be more or of worse consequence than they are Especially when these may serve to provoke you whoever think your selves more illuminated to a Pious jealousie Whilst you consider that if he arrived to so high Christian Graces and Perfection supposed by you to be darkned with some Errours how much you ought sooner to attain the same as enjoying more truth and so proceed to employ your self not in scanning and disputing the things here disliked but in imitating those approved Lest perhaps Errour be said to bring forth more Piety than Truth and whilst you say you see your Sinne remain to you more unexcuseable THE AUTHOURS ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER MY dear Reader I am in a word or two to give you notice of three things concerning the Contents of this Book The first is that whereas truth is the principal part of History you may be confident that it is here exactly observed because whatsoever you shall finde here is almost all of it extracted out of the Originals and the rest out of Authentick Copies there where things were attested by such as were eye-witnesses and persons beyond exception The second is that though we often make use of Monsieur de Renty his own Letters as witnesses of what he was yet ought ye not at all therefore to suspect the truth of what they relate Because first his eminent vertue hath rendred him most creditable in every thing he said though it were of himself besides these his Letters are for the most part directed to his spiritual Guide to whom he did with much confidence unbosom the things belonging to his conscience and gave account as he was obliged of each thing that past in the interiour of his soul And God who best knows to chuse the fittest means to bring his ends about having designed the publishing of this life whereby to leave to all faithful men a patern of perfect a Christian did so dispose of things that this his Director dwelling for several years out of Paris he was obliged to acquaint him by Letters with his interiour dispositions they becoming by this means much more perfectly discovered unto us than any otherway they could And lastly we are indeed uncapable of knowing any thing of a mans interiour but by his own declaration and that which we understandin Saints of this nature which yet makes up the principal of their sanctity comes by no other way than their discovering and opening it to some one and he afterwards to the publike And therefore either Monsieur de Renty himself must have manifested the secrets of his heart and revealed what was hidden in his soul or he must have remained for ever lock'd up and unknown to us although assuredly neither thus hath all of him been by himself manifested or related The third thing is that being willing to obey the decree of our holy Father Urban the 8. dated the 1â— of March 1625. and that other in explanation of the former dated June 5. 1631. where it is ordered that those that publish the lives of any person of great vertue do declare and make protestations upon several heads I therefore protest that my intent and design in setting forth this work is that the matter thereof should be no otherwise understood than as grounded upon the testimony and faith of men and not upon the Authority of H. Church and that by the name of Saint which I several times attribute to Monsieur Renty I mean onely that he was endued with vertue far exceeding the common sort and do use this word onely in that sense that S. Paul gives it to all the faithful and not to put him in the number of Saints canonized which to do belongs onely to the Holy Sea A TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS AND SECTIONS PART I. CHAP. 1. HIs Birth Infancy and youth page 1. Chap. 2. His marriage and course of life to the age of 27 years page 10 Chap. 3. His entire change and call to high perfection page 17 Chap. 4. His vertues in general page 24 Chap. 5. The source from whence those vertues flowed page 30 PART II. Chap. 1. HIs Penances and Austerities 37 Chap. 2. His Poverty of spirit 47 Sect. 1. His outward Poverty 48 Chap. 3. His Humility 54 Sect. 1. His Humility of heart 58 Sect. 2. The pursuit of his Humility of heart 67 Sect. 3. His Humility in his words 77 Sect. 4. His Humility in his actions 75 Sect. 5. His love of a private and retired Life 84 Chap. 4. The disesteem he made of the world 88 Chap. 5. His partience 94 Sect. 1. A pursuit of the same subject 100 Sect. 2. His Domestick crosses 107 Chap. 6. His Mortification 112 PART III. Chap. 1. HIs application to our Saviour Jesus Christ in regard of his neighbour 121 Chap. 2. His Charitie to his Neighbours in generall 126 Sect. 1. His charity to the poor 133 Sect. 2. His charity to poor sick men 140 Sect. 3. More concerning the same charity and the success thereof 145 Sect. 4. His zeal for the salvation of his neighbour 150 Sect. 5. More of the same subject 154 Sect. 6. A continuation of the same subject 167 Sect. 7. Certain other qualities of his zeal 173 Sect. 8. Two other qualities of his zeal 179 Sect. 9. The success which God gave to his zeal 186 Sect. 10. His grace in assisting particularly certain choice souls 193 Sect. 11. His great skill in Interiour matters of the soul 199 Chap. 2. His outward behaviour and conversation 209 Chap. 3. The conduct of his business 215 Chap. 4. The excellent use he made of all things and the application he made to the Infancy of our Saviour for that purpose 228 Sect. 1. A pursuit of the same subject 235 PART IV. Chap. 1. HIs Interiour and his application to the Sacred Trinity 244 Chap. 2. His Faith 250 Chap. 3. His Hope 255 Chap. 4. His Love to God 259 Chap. 5. His great reverence and fear of God which wrought in him a wonderful purity of Conscience 271 Chap. 6. His great reverence to Holy things 276 Chap. 7. His Devotion to the Holy Sacrament 267 Chap. 8. His Prayer and Contemplation 292 Chap. 9. The state of his Mystical Death
to God which kept him from any other diversion I cloath my self which is soon done and after pass to the Chappel through a little Parlour where over the Chimney I have set an Image of the Holy Virgin holding her Son as the Lady of the House I kiss the earth before her and say Monstra te esse matrem c. I devote my self to her service entirely with the offering up of my Family Wife Children Domesticks and I have practic'd this offering of them to her a long time that by her means they all may be perfected for God and rising up I say to her Mater incomparabilis or a pro nobis After that I enter into the Chappel where I cast my self down and adore God abasing me before him and making me the most little most naked most empty of my self that I can and I hold me there by faith having recourse to his Son and to his Holy Spirit that whatsoever is his pleasure may be done by me and so I abide If I have any Penance to do upon half an hour after six I do it and then I read two Chapters of the New Testament barcheaded and on my knees At seven a clock I go up to a Closet where there are three Stations the first to the Virgin the second to St. Joseph and the third to Teresa to all which I render my little Devoirs and afterwards I give place to my affairs but if there be no business urgent I prostrate my self before God till the time that I go to Mass staying at the Church till half an hour after eleven except on those days when we dine some poor people for then I return at eleven Before dinner I make the Examen of the morning and some Prayers for the Church for the Propagation of Faith and the Souls in Purgatory after that I say the Angelus I dine at twelve and in that while have something read half an hour after twelve I spend an hour with them that have business with me and that 's the time I appoint for that purpose Afterwards I go forth whither the order of God shall direct Some days ore order'd and assign'd for certain Exercises therest are reserv'd and unlimited from one week to another Now if it fall out that I have nothing to do I pray in a Church but happen what will I endeavour not to fail to visit every afternoon the Holy Sacrament and to spend about evening an hour in Devotion About seven a clock when I have made some vocal prayers we go to supper during which time one reads the Martyrologie and the life of the Saint for the day following Supper being done I talk to my children and tell them something for their instruction At nine a clock the bell rings to Prayer which all my Family is to be present at which done each one retires but I keep me in the Chappel in Meditation till ten and then I go to my Chamber recommending my self to my God according to my Bottom of Self-Annthtlation to the Holy Virgin my good Angel and other Saints I take holy water and lay me down in bed where I say the de Profundis for the dead and some other little Prayers and so endeavour to repose And so you have in some sort the order of the day as to my Exterior But for the order of my Interior I have not as I may say any for since I left it will be a yearâ— the Holy Week next my breviary all my forms have left me and now instead of serving meâ—â—s means to go to God they would become hinderance I bear in me ordinarily but with many infidelities so great in all this that I am about to speak of that I write it not without regret because I am nothing but vice and sin I bear I say in me ordinarily an experimental verity and a plenitude of the presence of the most Holy Trinity or indeed of some Mysterie which elevates me by a simple view to God and with that I do all that the Divine Providence enjoyns me regarding not any things for their greatness or littleness but onely the order of God and the glory which they may render him For the Examens and things done in Community which I mentioned before I often cannot rest my self there I perform indeed the Exterior for the keeping of order but I follow always my Interior without making any change there because when a man hath God there 's no need to search him elsewhere and when he holds us in one manner it is not for us to take hold of him in another and the soul knows well what it is which bottoms it more clearly what unites it and what multiplies and distracts it For the Interior therefore I follow this Attractive and for the Exterior I see the Divine Will which makes me to follow it and which carrieth me to govern my self according to it with the discernment of his Spirit in all simplicity and so I possess by his grace in all things a great silence Interior a profound Reverence and solid Peace I confess me usually on Thursdays according to the order that hath been given me and communicate almost every day as perceiving my self drawn thereto as also to stand in great need of it In a word the Bottom which hath been shewed me to stand on is to render my self to God through Jesus Christ with such a purity as hath in it operation to worship God in Spirit and Truth after a manner altogether stript and naked and of loving him with all my heart with all my soul and with all my power and of seeing in all things and adoring the conduct of God and following it And this onely abiding in my soul all other things in me are defaced and blotted out I have nothing of sensible in me unless now and then some transitory touches but if I may dare to say it when I sound my will I finde it sometime so quick and flaming that it would devour me if the same Lord who animates it though unworthy did not restrain it I enter into an heat and into a fire and even to my fingers ends feel that all within me speaks for its God and stretcheth it self forth in length and breadth in his Immensity that it may there dissolve and there lose it self to glorifie him I cannot express this thing as it is I do not make a stand upon any thing that passeth in me but fall always into my nothingness where I finde my act of purity towards God as above He concludes afterward in these terms I beg your pardon my Reverend Father if this thing here be so ill ordered I have set it down as it hath happened to me I should be very happy if you could know all my miseries for you would have them in great commiseration This was the writing he gave to his Director They that shall read it will judge without doubt if they understand it well and penetrate
to the bottom the sense of his words that very great were the Vertues and highly rais'd the perfection of this excellent servant of God and by so much the more ought they to judge so as they may assure themselves that he hath not a jot exceeded in the report of the things which concern him but rather that he hath diminished them being by grace and indeed by nature also extreamly reserved and most considerare in whatsoever he said and especially in speaking of himself SECT 2. The Source from whence these Vertues flowed IF now we will examine the Principal of those Vertues and Perfections and the Well-spring whence they issued we shall finde that it was from the intimate Union which he had with the Lord Jesus Christ whereunto he alwaies above all things gave up himself His sage and illuminated Director the Reverend Father de Condrien knowing that the Union with Jesus Christ is the foundation of our Predestination Justification and Sanctification of all the grace and glory which we can ever have that Jesus Christ being the way whatsoever is out of this way can be nothing else but wandring that he being the Truth whatsoever is nor conformable thereto is nothing but lying that he being the Life whatsoever lives not by this life nor is quickned by the Spirit of Jesus Christ is not alive but of necessitie dead he did therefore that which ought alwaies to be done with great care by all Directors of souls which was to make him to know the importance and the necessity of this Unon to fix him stronglie and constanâ—lie to Jesus Christ for the Government of his Interior and Exterior to put him this Way to binde him to this Truth and to Unite him to this Life Monsieur de Renty followed exactly this conduct and therein made a great progress which he went on in perfecting to his death with marvellous improvements so that as the last touches which the Painter gives to his Picture are far different from those of the first rude draughts or as the Sun hath more of heat and light as he advanceth higher in his carreer and approacheth to Mid-day than when he but newlie riseth In like manner the applications the ties and the unions which this excellent man in his latter years had with Jesus Christ and the actions which he either did for him or received of him were quite other from those at his beginning for he was then wholie consummate in Jesus Christ he had as it were passed into him and he carried him as it were in a livelie manner in his soul in his thoughts in his affections in his desires in his words and in his works Hence it was that he had no other object before his eies but Jesus Christ that he thought not but of him that he loved nothing but him that he spake not but of him that he wrought not but for him and alwaies after his sampler that he read not but the New Testament which he carried alwaies with him and endeavoured by all means possible to engrave the knowledge and love of it in all hearts Wriâ—ing to his Director the year 1646. concerning his dispositions he sent him these words among other To speak to you of my Interior I feel my self not to will but God and in union with our Lord Jesus Christ to yield him all my homages This is the fulness of my heart and I feel this well when I sound it He said this to him in another Letter I am in great necessity of Jesus Christ but I ought to tell you by an acknowledgement of the Mercy of God by a certitude of this truth that I feel that he is more ruling in me than my self I know for all that that of my self I am but sin but withal I experiment my Lord in me who is my streâ—gth my life my peace and my All I beseech him to become our plenitude Moreover in another thus I finde my self said he much troubled what to send you because all things become raz'd out of my minde as soon as passed and I cannot retain within me anything but God and this in a kinde of a hoodowink'd blinded manner with a naked faith which faith making me know the evil bottom which is in my self gives me notwithstanding great force and confidence by way of abandoning and Self-Rejection upon our Lord Jesus Christ in God I haue found this morning a possage in S. Paul which I believe our Lord hath put into my hand to express my self by seeing it is the very â—ruth of what I experiment Fiduciam â—urem talem habemus per Christum ad Deum non quod sufficientes simus cogitare aliquid a nobis quasi ex nobis sed sufficientia nostra ex Deo est This boasting we have by Christ to God-wards not as if we were sufficient to think any thing of our selves as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God It is about a fortnight since these words were put upon my spirit without any contribution on my part or of any thing that might renew the Idea's of them quaere venam aquarum viventium seck the vein of living water and just as they were exprest to me my spirit like as when one comes up a River to its Spring-head was to seek Jesus Christ from the beginning of his Pilgrimage to the point of his Glory when set down in his Throne at the right hand of his Father whence he sends his spirit to animate his Church and enliven those that are his I saw that there indeed was the Source whence the springs of living waters do flow to us and that thither we were to make our addresses I could report here more such touches with which his letters to his Director were besprinkled but I believe I have given enough for the present to evidence his disposition towards our Lord and his union with him When he wrote to other persons he always insened something of our Lord to excite them to binde themselves to him and to propose him to themselves in all things as a model of their actions One while he writes thus Let us forget all to think of this faith which makes alliance between God and us through Jesus Christ who is come to publish this truth which he hath sealed with his blood and which he will consummate in his glory at that time when we shall appear to have been faithful in following his Spirit Let us go after and with Jesus Christ to God for he is our way Another while thus 'T is a thing admirable that it hath pleased God to seud us his Son to the end that we may not look on him any more as our Creator onely but also through the alliance that we have with him we may call him Father He is therefore our Father from this time forward and it is certain that he considers us as his children in the person of his Son Incarnate But the thing of importance is a firm
with a Father to whom he had communicated his inclinations to leave all who told me that one day he desired of him with many tears and on his knees his advice in the matter and that he was never more surpriz'd than to see Monsieur de Renty at his feet and in these sentiments of poverty And I have heard him say that the touch from God to separate him from the creatures and to make him quit the manner of living suitable to his birth was so powerful over his soul that if another touch from the same hand had not kept him back at the same time he had abandoned all and according to the example of S. Alexis had gone to live a poor life as he did but that God that imprinted this desire of poverty in him did hinder the effecting of it to keep him in the state wherein he had placed him which was to him no small cross because the desire torments and afflicts the soul in proportion to its vehemency when it cannot arrive to the possession of the thing desired But because he was absolutely conformable as it was his duty in all things to the will of God he bare this cross as contrary as it was to his affection with great peace and a perfect submission to what God had ordered Another witness of like authority gives him this testimony He told me said he often in the confidence we had together that he was ashamed when he entred into his house to see himself so well lodged in this world and that it was one of his greatest afflictions to have so much wealth and to be so much at ease that he should be ravished to see himself reduced to bread and water and to get the same by labour and the sweat of his bâ—ows Having one day asked him how he could be so quiet amongst all the faâ—idious accidents and incommodities that he suffered He answered me upon condition that I would keep it secret that through Gods mercy he found himself in a disposition of peace and state of indifferency in affliction as well as in joy and that he had no sentiments any more of fear or desire of any thing And of this my self hath seen the experience in some difficulties where the better part of his estate ran a great hazard without any appearance of the least commotion in him and his words were Seeing God hath given me the management of this estate I will do to preserve it what shall behove me and then it is all one to me what success shall follow Another reports thus He had the Evangelical poverty in its perfection being inâ—irely estranged in spirit and thought in heart and affection from all the wealth of the world and he told me that he fealt no greater cross than to have riches and that he should be extreamly glad to be a beggar and unknown if it had been the will of God Hence it came that he bare a kinde of holy envy towards the poor that he deemed them very happy that in beholding them he said sometimes with sighing but with a sigh that one might see came from the bottom his heart Ah! that I am not as they that he honour'd lov'd caress'd and kneel'd before them not onely in humility but in esteem of their estare in its disposing us so much to the perfection of the new Law and resemblance it hath with Jesus Christ Being one day visiting the poor in the great Hospital of Caen he was seen bare headed and on his knees upon the floor of the great Hall beating in a Morter some Drugs for the use of the poor sick people such was the respect and honour that he bore to those for whom he laboured that it put him into that posture But for an end let us hear him tell us himself his sentiments upon this matter and although he speak of himself le ts make no scruple to believe him as being a person most worthy of credit Behold therefore what he wrote to the Nun abovementioned Sister Margaret of the Holy Sacrament my most holy Sister I have it in my heart that the Holy Childe Jesus the Infancy of Jesus was one of the Mysterieâ— to which more particularly and profitably he applyed himself as we shall see in its due place would have something of me which he hath a desire I should beg of him and dispose my self for the obtaining of it And I avow to you that the more there comes to me of the riches of this world the more do I discover the malignity the eto affixed and that they produce nothing but garboil and trouble and afford not much means of doing good My heart is most strongly carried to an effective stâ—ipping my self of all and to follow him alone seeing he is my way as being the most poor and depressed amongst all his followers But that I know that it would be a presumption to believe my self capable of this estate and a temptation to put my self upon it being at present related as I am I â—ould pant and sigh thither ward very much that which I will draw hence is this that being ignorant of the coursels of God I cannot tell how he will dispose of me for the future and I offer my self up to whatsoever it shall please him knowing that with him I can do every thâ—ng as without him I have neither the power nor will for any thing My most dear Sister I have great need of doing penance and to be humbled I am greatly ashamed of my condition and of what I am I have the commodity and abundance of all things of this world but my family and estate of things permits it not to be otherwise and I see the Churches and the poor upon whom I would bestow it all at least as much as I may in justice part with or else to be poor as the poor are so that I may be no more ashamed of being better provided than they Thus you have his thoughts which by Gods permission are come to light to make us see what grace can do in a heart well disposed and to what a pitch arrives this perfect Poverty of spirit SECT 2. His outward Poverty THe high esteem and affection which this great servant of God had of the forsaking the goods of this world being not able to contain it self within the Interior of his soul appear'd outward and visible in a thousand effects and carried him on to the poverty Exterior in all ways possible for not to speak of the great Alms he gave to the poor far different from the course of many who though full of riches yet never think of using them according to Gods rule he divested himself of very many things to be impoverished as much as he could for he parted with some books because richly bound wore no cloaâ—hes but plain and close together used no gloves what season soever or at least a rare thing it was to see him have any in effect
not its worth from doing this or that but from an exactness in doing that which he requireth of us giving up our selves wholly to his good pleasure I see there is need of a great death to our selves and a great depth of Self-annihilation to follow so purely the conduct of grace and not to be for own forms but those of God In another of the 12. of August thus he saith I daily continue my toiling here which takes up much of my time and almost all but I dare not look aside but onely abase and submit my self to the Divine Ordinance It was a work very gross and mean for Jesus Christ to converse with men who had more of rudeness than these stones I deal with and more of opposition to his purity than they have to my workmens hands And yet he suffered all he bore all and in fine converted but a few I beseech you obtain for me a part in his obedience and his patience to the orders of God his Father And writing to one of his friends he spake to him in this sort I am here in this Countrey in the midst of four or five companies of workmen to repair a Mansion House on the Demesn of my Family which was ready to fall What can our spirit act in this work which following the Spirit of Faith ought to be a Pilgrime and Stranger upon earth without doubt it groans much not at the order of God but after its own Countrey in the midst of its occupations as things opposite to its liberty We must do penance by labouring it is so decreed by God upon the first transgression These were the Meditations which this excellent man had while he was building and which all Christians who are made to settle not on earth but in Heaven in an Eternal Mansion ought to be enlivened with when they are about the like works CHAP. 3. His Humility POverty followed the Austerities and Mortification of the body as having much connexion with them and Humility follows Poverty yet considering withal that according to S. Austine the poverty in spirit spoken of by our Lord in the first Beatitude is nothing else but humility in very deed there is no people in the world more poor in spirit than the truly humble because they account themselves to be nothing to have nothing to be able to do nothing and to be worth nothing to be the refuse and off-scourings of the earth and to have need of every thing not assuming any praise to themselves for any thing whatsoever Monsieur de Renty came to this pitch and possessed this Vertue in a most Eminent degree And in truth if Humility as the all Saints tell us be the foundation of Vertue God having a design to raise up in him a magnificent and sublime Palace for Vertues and Perfection it was necessary the foundation should be laid very low and his humility be very profound He was rooted in this vertue so solidly that it was a thing wonderful and therein performed a number of so remarkable actions that those persons who lived many years with him and singularly well knew him have assured us that it were impossible to relate them all He had in an excessive esteem this important vertue he loved it with all his heart desired it with extream ardor prayed urgently and conjured his friends to beg of God and obtain it for him And as we see the stone descend with violence and the waters fall down impetuously the same motion made he towards Humility as to his centre Out of this Sentiment he wrote thus to one of his Confidents Have pitty on me I am more unfaithful than any creature of the world Upon my knees I beg of you to believe it If our Lord did not shew me what I am Lucifer would not be a little rich but this benign Lord shews me daily through his mercy my Nothingness it is thither his grace leads me To another he wrote thus All my resolution is in these words of David Elegi abjectus esse in domo dei mei I have chosen to be little and abject in the house of God To another also thus I am carried to demand of God a life much humbled suffering and unknown to men I finde a great attraction thither And I have a Paper written with his own hand and all of it with his blood which contain these words I give you my Liberty O my God and beg of you that Nothing which every Christian must arrive at to rise purely towards you Gaston Jean Baptiste Dominus Jesus semetipsum exinanivit usque ad mortem crucis propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum This 3 of December 1644. Amen Our Lord Jesus emptied himself to death even the death of the cross wherefore God also hath exalted him You see here his inclination and attractive and not without good reason for considering first that he had propounded to himself our Lord as a pattern for his life with a determinate resolution to follow him in whatsoever he could And that secondly Humility is the proper Vertue of Jesus Christ as S. Bernard after S. Paul calls it he therefore embraced this Humility with his whole affection gave himself up to it with all his forces and practised it in its urmost latitude as we are going now to see by that which follows But before we behold him in the actions of this Vertue let us listen to what he teaches and the light he gives us concerning it Humility said he he is the Basis which carries and upholds the whole work of God in us it makes the creature so naked and so separated from it self that it leaves it not the power to make any cast of an eye upon it self but renders it so taken up in the greatness of God that it becomes lost in reverence of him in self-abasement and annihilation This is the grace of Christians in their Pilgrimage who divested and spoiled of all esteem themselves but a Nothing and very puff of being which haivng nothing but what it received from God hath no instinct or inclination but for God It s a brave humility to see nothing in ones self but Nothingness and he that sees not there nothing sees not there any thing at all So the soul which sees nothing in it self findes nothing in it self to bottom on and by this means always points towards God like a needle touched with a Loadstone that having been encombred with all sorts of trash and trifles and afterward disingaged of them would forthwith turn towards her North and thitherward remain always fixt although the tempest of the sea and winds should turn upside down the Vessel Thus have we his disposition and the aspect of ae soul truly humble beholding nothing in it self and God in his Majestie SECT 1. His Humbleness of Heart HUmility may be divided into three sorts The Humility of the heart of the words and of the works And seeing the humility of the heart
that either by his sloth he was not answerable to their extent or that by the sole misery of nature he used them and made them lose some part of their force as it happens to Plants of the Levant which removed into a strange soil do not retain their vertue but degenerate and savour of the earth they are removed to And if the spiritual things of nature are allayed and corrupted in their passage through our senses how much more reason is there to think that the Divine and spiritual things of grace will there become enfeebled and altered These considerations rendred him most humble even in the greatest gifts of God and in things of most sublimity SECT 2. The pursuance of his Humility in heart AS the affections we bear to any thing are always founded upon the esteem we make of it so Monsieur de Renty esteeming himself so low so little and nothing in consequence thereof did extreamly abase and vilipend himself within his heart This he did in every thing and one of his strongest inclinations according to grace which is a great token of the Spirit of God in a soul was to be always condemning of himself He wrote to his Director I have at the same time two apprehensions quite contrary the one to avow to you with thankful acknowledgement to God that he fills me with effects of his goodness and impressions of his Kingdom and the other that I am more disposed to condemn than to regard my self for upon the whole what I do is pittiful Another time after some speech to him of many great enlightnings and excellent sentiments which God had communicated to him he told him I rest not upon all this I told you onely what is past to render you an account not making use of my judgement but to condemn my self for vices suspending it as to other things and committing it to God He wrote to another Confident I know not what will become of our business one must not speak a word in sweetness and patience but I shall lose my credit somewhat if this could be throughly lost it would be great justice Alas if no body endur'd me and all the world condemn'd me my pride perhaps would be humbled Carried on by this Spirit he had an ardent desire though always with his ordinary tranquillity and giving himself up to the orders of God to receive some disgrace If I were to wish any thing it should be to be much humbled and nullified and to be treated as an off-scouring by others This would be my joy but I believe I deserve not so great a favour This desire carried him to such a point that had he not been withheld with the consideration of greater good he had done strange things to be disesteemed and receive confusion Out of this sentiment and abundance of his heart he said thus to one I should have great pleasure if it were permitted me to go naked in my shirt through the streets of Paris to make my self disesteemed and taken for a fool Whence we must observe two things the first that God gives sometimes to holy souls some thoughts affections and desires so raised above the common pitch and humane reason that they may seem extravagant as this here which he gave to Monsieur de Renty and which was before him also in our founder S. Ignatius The second is that we must not at all put in execution such desires till before hand they have been well examined and justly weighed in the ballance of Charity and edification of our Neighbour This burning desire which he had to be diesteemed made him seek for and love his own abjection and when it came to take it not onely with patience but also which is the highest step that one can mount in humility with joy He gave an evident and notable testimony thereof in the first journey he made to Dijon whither a suit that he had with the Lady his Mother and which to him by an extraordinary dispensation of God was one of the greatest exercises of patience and humiliation that he underwent in all his life of which I shall speak more at large in the following Chapter had obliged him to go for thus he wrote to his Director the 24. of July 1643. I am at Dijon now seeing God is so pleased where I have learnt by the prejudicate opinions that were entertained concerning me what it is that God would draw from my journey which is that I lead a life secret and unknown to men in the spirit of penance The bruit which they had spread concerning me was that I was a Bigot and had nothing but artifices and shews of devotion for the colouring of my naughtiness that indeed I have kept my self much private in my closet out of fear to give by coming abroad rather scandal than any example of vertue I have found a generality that sollicited against me though such as from whom I had good cause methinks for divers good reasons to hope for a prop than from any other but have found the quite contrary But so also as God hereby hath done me many favours I have been to see them where I have received humiliation with great joy I have been very wary of opening my self in any thing that might recommend me unto them I have onely done in my business what truth required and for any thing else I made it matter of confusion and humiliation as I ought to do I shall be here I believe as one excommunicate and the Scape-Goat of the old Law chased into the wilderness for my enormous sins for which I am of opinion God would have me do penance not by meer pain onely but by such as withal brings shame and confusion with it I tell you this to render you some account not dwelling on it any longer my sole scope being to love God and to condemn my self SECT 3. His Humility in words THe Humility of heart in which Monsieur de Renty was deeply rooted produced in him the Humility of speech which hindred him ever from speaking any word that savoured of vaunting or that carryed the least tincture of arrogance and esteem of himself or which was uttered in a haughty manner or in a tone imperious or conceited but on the contrary they were all of them tempered with humility and modesty and as he deemed himself to be indeed a sinner lazy ungrateful perfidious ignorant so did he set forth and qualifie himself with these names and titles We have seen hereof already something before whereto we will adde also this which he writ to a certain person I am to speak the truth but an Idiot a poor Layick and a sinner Writing to a Priest he said What do I an unclean one and a Plebeian in grace and in condition in the Church who live in a state that Jesus Christ refused for himself I speak to a Priest and to the anointed of the Lord my God if I should make a reflection
his labour and vertue which had made this blessed work in him and had changed his nature for they that knew his youth report that naturally he was of a swelling hasty haughty and jeering disposition which he had so corrected or to say better annihilated that in truth it was admirable insomuch that he was become moderate staid patient humble and respectful in a degree of consummate perfection So that if we consider him well a man may say that he was of a disposition quite contrary and diametrically opposite to that which he brought from his mothers womb teaching us by an example so assured and illustrious that a man may prevail much over himself if he endeavour it sincerely and that whatever vice he hath he may at last rid himself of it if he force himself according to those words of our Lord The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force And therefore he recommended in a special manner this holy courage and the necessity of self-enforcement as being that by which we may measure what profit we have made in true vertue and a means also absolutely necessary for the gaining of perfection He wrote to a person that practised devotion thus O how much to be feared is it that we cheat our selves with the name and the appearances of devotion relying much on our exercises of piety which it may be are barely performed and in speculation onely never coming to the practise nor to the conquest over our selves In the morning we worship Jesus Christ as our Master and Director and yet our life all the day following is not directed by him we look upon him as our pattern and imitate him not we take him for our rule and guide of our affections and yet we do not sacrifice to him our appetites we make him the model of our conversation which yet is never the more holy we promise him to labour and get above our selves but it s no more than in imagination The truth is that if we know not our devotion rather by the violence and enforcement we make upon our selves and the amendment of our manners than by the multiplication and simple usage of spiritual exercises it is to be feared they will be rather practises of Condemnation than of Sanctification For after all to what purpose all this if the work follow not if we change not our selves and destroy not that which is vitious in our nature It is no otherwise but as if a builder should pile together many materials towards making of a brave Edifice and yet never begin it And yet we see the work of Jesus Christ is almost reduced to this pass amongst the spiritual persons of these times He said to another that the love which a Christian soul was obliged to bear to he vertues which Jesus Christ hath taught us ought not to end in the simple sentiments of esteem and respect toward them whereby souls of the common sort are easily perswaded that they have done their duty but therein they deceive themselves for that our Lords will is undoubtedly that they make a further entry into the solidity of his Divine practises specially in Mortification Patience Poverty and Renouncement of our selves and that is the cause why there are so few souls truly Christian and solidly spiritual yea even sometimes amongst the Religious was this that men contented themselves to make a stand at this first step I will end this Chapter and this Second Part with a Letter which he writ to his Director who had thought it fit for him to visit a person that had great need of succour and instruction for some spiritual dispositions which he performed with much success and benediction This Letter dated the 14 of May in the year 1647. will make us well see the great disengagement that he had from himself and his perfect Mortification attended with gifts inestimable and his great light whereby he clears and explicates matters of great subtilty The tenour is as followeth For the person whom you know and the visit I made him it is God and your direction that hath done all I am so much afraid to mingle therein any thing of mine that going to the place where he is yet I perceive I shall not visit him without a new order from you or that he much desire it I have not since that time so much as sent any commendations to him considering with my self that we must keep the man reserved and in great sobriety And I thought it fit to cast all this upon you as my guide in the business Ha Father the great imperfection of souls is the not waiting enough on God the natural disposition strugling and not brought into subjection comes in with fine pretexts and thinks to do wonders and in the mean while it is that which sullies the purity of the Soul that which troubles its silence and turns aside its sight from Faith from Affiance and from Love whence it hapneth that the Father of Lights expresseth not in us his Eternall Word nor produceth in us his Spirit of Love The Incarnation hath merited all not onely for the abolition of our faults but also for all the dispositions of grace whereunto Jesus Christ is minded to â—ssociate us of which this is the principal and was in him so far as he was man to do nothing our selves but to speak and act according as we receive knowing that we alone are not to do the work but that the holy Spirit which is the Spirit of Jesus and which governed him in all his ways is within us which would stamp upon us his impressions and give us the life the life real and experimental of our faith if ballasted and held back by patience we would but wait his operation This is it in which I feel my infirmity and yet whither I finde a great attractive I see that which I cannot utter for I possess that which I cannot express And the cause Father why I am so brief comes both from the imperfection of my natural disposition and from ignorance as also from a great largeness of the Divine goodness which works in me that which I cannot utter The effect of this is a fulness and a satiating of the truth and clearness of the magnificence of God of the greatness of Jesus Christ and of the riches which we have in him of the most Holy Virgin and of the Saints one sees here all praise and adoration and comtemplates them within I tell you here of many things me seems and yet all this is done with one draught so simple and so strong in the superiour part of the Spirit that I am nothing diverted from it by any exteriour employments I see all I understand all and I do though it be ill all that I have to do This is that I present you with to receive therein from you instruction and correction Thus we see the admirable benefits that come from perfect Mortification and
and pastimes and other vices 3. To prevent that their Servingmen haunt not Taverns and oppress not others 4. The Mistris of the house must provide that her servants be carefully treated and tended in their sickness that she visit them in her own person even being as our brethren and fellow-servants of the same God and Father of us all And at all other times make provision for their necessaries that they be not tempted to pilfer or murmure 5. Let her also endeavour not onely in her own house but also among her neighbours to bring in the custom of common prayers at night and if her husband be absent let her supply his place in calling them together and praying with them 6. Let her and her children be continnally in some imployment that their lives be not unprofitable or their family brought up in idleness remembring the Apostles rule that he that will not work shall not eat which thing prudently ordered will prevent many inconveniences 7. Let her often visit her poor neighbours to comfort and encourage them in vertuous living 8. Let her take into her eare the repairing of the Ornaments and Linnen of the Church lest the holy mysteries of our faith be undervalued where decency is neglected 9. Let her shew great recverence to the Clergy not regarding the meanness of their birth but the dignity to which Jesus Christ hath advanced them Hereby both putting them in minde of their honourable function and the people by her example of their duty 10. Let her entertain Visitants with the spirit of Hospitality great Charity and Christian Civility taking opportunity thereby to do some good not losing precious time in frivolous discourses 11. Let her keep no obscene or immodest pictures in her house much less permit her danghters or herself to appear such by going naked Avoiding likewise all curious and phantasticul fashions which are evident signs of impenitent hearts and breed nothing else but the nourishing the soul in its corruption and the averting it from God These are the Directions he left under his own hand for Ladies and Gentlewomen Moreover he studied for a long time how to reform Trades and free them from those abuses and corruptions which in process of time they had contracted and so to sanctifie them that some at least in each profession might live like the Primitive Christians in such sort as to make all their gain common deducting onely sufficient for their own necessary maintenance and bestowing the rest upon the poor And at length God so blessed his endeavours that he found some Tradesmen of the same minde and spirit so that at this present there be two companies in Paris one of Taylors the other of Shoo-makers and of these in two several quarters of the City and the like at Tolose who live and do all in Community They rise they go to bed they eat and work together morning and evening they say their prayers together and at the beginning of every hour in the day exercise some act of Devotion as singing a Psalm reciting their Chaplet reading in some book of Devotion discoursing of some head of the Catechism They call Brothers and live accordingly in very great unity and concord Monsieur Renty was the chief Agent in establishing this business and with the help and assistance of some Religious persons drew up Rules for the ordering of their Spiritual Exercises They chose him their first Superior in which Office he had a very particular care of them visiting them frequently and when he found them upon their knees at any of their Spiritual Exercises joyned with them not permitting them to rise to salute him or interrupt so good a work making himself as it were one of the Brotherhood Moreover besides these Tradesmen living in Community there were a great number of others of all Professions that came to him for advice instruction and assistance Whom he treated with wonderful respect and Charity most affectionately discoursing with them answering their quaeries resolving their doubts and instructing them what they should pursue and what avoid in their Vocations for the saying of their souls SECT 6. The Continuation of the same subject HIs zeal carried him on to endeavour the good of all sorts of persons He had a particular inclination to prevent the danger that threatned young Maids who wanted subsistence and to reclaim such as were faln And indeed it would be too great a task to recount all his actions of this nature and the number of those Maids whom he placed forth and contributed towards their maintenance some in houses erected for such purpose others in the Monastry of St. Mary Magdalen and others with devout Ladies who addicted themselves to this kinde of Charity Which is so highly commendable as that which doth not onely save such women as are in peril of shipwrack of their honour and vertue and retrive such as have already lost both But likewise doth prevent the destruction of many men and the committing of many enormous sins and disorders We mentioned before what is recorded of his Charity in instructing the poor at the great Hospital in Paris And now I shall relate how he behaved himself in that of St. Gervaise where passing by one day in the year 1641. he enquired to what Charities that place was devoted To which answer was made that they lodged poor Travellers He was much pleased with this Institution and perceiving withal that so great a number of poot that lodged there every night wanted instruction he found himself moved from God to perform that Office And shortly after came to beg of the Superiour with great humility and submission leave to Catechize them in the evening when they were assembled together To which the Superiour willingly assented without any knowledge of him who would not tell his name but concealed himself for the space of six-Moneths He undertook the imployment and performed it with great content because every night he found there new comers whom he duly Catechized and instructed coming thither commonly alone and on foot both Summer and Winter in â—ain and snow without light in the dark After Chatechism ended he caused them to kneel down with him to examine their Conscience saâ— their Prayers then sung the Commandments with them and distributed some Alms. This 〈◊〉 he continued for many years till some Eccle 〈◊〉 persons moved by his example undertook 〈…〉 and continued it to this day with great 〈◊〉 〈…〉 and renderness of heart was exceeding 〈…〉 poor people whom he had never seen 〈…〉 also with such humility as cannot not easily be expressed When he met any one at the Hospital he saluted them with great respect and put them before him talked with them bareheaded and very reverently If at any time they kneeled to him he did the like to them and continued on his knees till they rose first One of them observing him diligently and knowing him to be Lord of the place where himself lived was
truly Christian courage and magnanimity I never moved the Lady to bestow any of her estate this way but since her Piety hath prompted her thereunto I shal spare no pains therein nor be dismaid with any power that shall oppose it My care shall be to perform her will for other things I take no thought for if it come to a matter of Law I shall be ready to plead it both in behalf of the poor whose Solicitor I am and for her sake also in her state of sufferance if she be yet therein His zeal was ever still backed with courage without the least haesitancy where the honour of God and good of his neighbour were concerned Entring one day some Gentlemen ingaged in a quarrel with their swords drawn and in fight and to kill one another he resolutely threw himself in the midst of them laying hold on those who seemed most outragious They begun to quarrel with him but finding him resolutely bent to part the fray and to hazard his own life for the saving of theirs were suddenly pacified and listned to his sober counsel who took up the quarrel upon the place Meeting with a man whom some Huguenots had perverted and taken along with them to Charenton who was resolved likewise to force his wife to the same place and opinions He fell into discourse with him endeavouring at least to prevent any such violent course with his wife The man entertained him very rudely both with neglect of his advice and obloquy But this holy man suffering his cholar and fury to spend themselves brought him at length by his wonted sweet behavior to a calmer temper convinc'd him of his blindness and erours into which he had thrown himself headlong and after several visits confirmed him in the Catholick verity Finally meeting with the principal party that perverted him threatned him with the Law in case he persisted in his course having respect to others also whom he had dealt withal in the like kinde Thus his zeal frustrated the others designs and established this Family in their former Religion Secondly his zeal was accompanied with unparalled patience a vertue very requisite for him that would render himself capable to do good to others seeing he must endeavour to win their hearts at which he is to make his first entrance applying himself to their inclinations and humours which in very many prove difficult and untoward and not following his own but subduing his passions and renouncing his own will insinuating himself after a sort into their dispositions and being as it were changed and metamorphosed into them as St. Paul saith of himself waiting long and patiently for their conversion and attending without being tired or discouraged notwithstanding that he findes by all his travels he wins but little ground the times and the moments wherein they may profit and yield to his motives all which qualities are not acquirable without great violence offered to ones self without much suffering and great mortification To whom therefore may well be applied these words of our Saviour That grain which thou sowest if it dye not remaineth fruitless but if it dye it sprouteth and bringeth forth much fruit To the end therefore that we may bring forth fruit amongst men we must dye to our selves and with this holy man be indued with zeal and patience to bear with meakness and great pains of body and minde in those charitable imployments undergoing the importunities complaints passions the repulses the contempts and in juries which often are met with in the business One day he visited a person who out of jealousie and a groundless suspition had cruelly used his wife and given her a wound with a knife who understanding his business entertained him very coursly lifting up his hand to strike him belching out uncivil language and offering to thrust him out of doors Monsieur Renty took all this patiently not replying one word But after some time he drew near again and embraced him and accosted him with such soft language that he was perswaded by him at length to go to confession which he had not done in twelve years before and in sine reconciled him fully to his wife and so lived and dyed a good Christian Another time he went to see a poor old man that lay sick whom he boarded with his ordinary discourse of things concerning his salvation But the old man whom age sickness and want had rendred very crabbed instead of listning to him fell into passion telling him that he understood those things better than he and if he would hearken he would instruct him himself Monsieur Renty answered with all his heart and after a great deal of patience and attention prudently taking advantage from some things in that impertinent and weak discourse to convince and inform him better proceeded so happily that he brought him to go to Confession and the rest of his days to take great care of his souls health We may adde hereunto his wonderful discretion concerning the faults of others wherein he exercised great parience and courage Patience I say in bearing with them and courage in admonishing and correcting them A certain zealous Ecclesiastical person did by Letter request his advice and assistance in redressing some scandalous faults that were committed near him and remained unpunished To whom he answered he must have recourse to God by his prayers to procure of his goodness illumination for those sinners and grace to mend their lives adding withal how hard a thing it was to redress such evils for our Saviour himself whilst he was upon earth did not take away all sins and so must we be constrained to leave many behinde us which God permitteth sometime to be as well for the exercising and purging of the good as for the punishment of the bad The same party advertising him of two other things the one of some considerable faults he had noted in a Priest that took upon him the charge of souls The other how a Canon had struck one of the Fathers of the mission who had reproved him deservedly for a fault To him he wrote back thus I humbly thank you for your pains in informing me of what passed concerning the Missianers Ye are all fellow-servants of one God and know how to reverence those graces of God ye see in one another neither are ignorant how that St. Peter though an Apostle and full of graces was found culpable as St. Paul tells us We must therefore excuse the faults of our neighbour and lay them under our feet The work of God that acteth in the heart receiveth its testimony from a self-annihilation manifested by the Patience and Charity of the Saints in Exterior actions Beg ye the increase of these graces for those that want them It was very scandalous for one Priest to strike another but we know that Priests put our Saviour to death and we have too many in these days of that Function who hold more of the old Law
Saviour to speak to her by his mouth which really was not without cause if we duly consider the passage I shall now relate The Lady speaking to him one day about procuring some relief of a most pressing excessive pain with which her spirit was afflicted and not finding any comfort from whatsoever he said she was moved to cast herself down upon her knees to deliver up her own will to our Saviour and by a perfect resignation to enter into what designs his good pleasure had decreed concerning her which she did accordingly And after rising from her knees she no more beheld Monsieur Renty but in him our B. Saviour shining with a very great splendor saying to her do what my servant directs thee Which words at that very instant wrought such a wholesome and divine effect upon her that her pain vanished she remaning filled with God in joyning a perfect tranquillity of spirit accompanied with a lively repentance for her sins and an absolute contempt of the world and of herself Though this happy intercourse betwixt him and this Lady accompanied with such signal blessings from God had contracted a strict and perfect amity betwixt them yet he was very wary wise and reserved in his addresses visiting her onely when the work of God did require and making no longer stay nor discourse with her than what was precisely necessary Which the Lady thinking to be a little harsh bemoan'd to a friend whom she knew to have some power with this holy man in these words Monsieur Renty doth extreamly mortifie me with his civilities and reservedness I have great need to see him often and yet cannot obtain it yea when we are together he will not sit down except it be when I am sick or that I am not able to stand any longer and always with his hat in his hand I beseech you tell him what out of that great respect I owe him I dare not my self what pain and inquietude I suffer to see such his carriage toward me who ought be continually under his feet The party acquainted him with thus much and received this answer I proceed in this manner because my duty to God and to the Countess of Chastres require it and moreover since my Saviour doth oblige me to treat with her I must do no more than what is necessary and so retire to which this posture is most convenient If we sit down we should forget our selves and talk more than is needful and perhaps pass on to things unprofitable Wherefore we both ought to stand upon our guard I being a lay man and a sinner do not speak to her but with great confusion though I know it to be the will of God and am certified by several pious and judicious men that it is my duty Those that undertake the conduct of souls ought seriously to ponder this prudent answer and perswade themselves that the business consists not in speaking much to them but in disposing them to speak to God and in making them fit for God to speak to them to beget in their souls the substantial Word his Son And after wholesome counsel given consonant to their state and disposition in putting them upon its execution with good courage vertue consisting not in words but deeds Thus you have the course he took in directing this Lady who thereby arrived to great perfection making most excellent use of all her great sufferings of body and minde attaining to so great contempt of the world that she dyed with a design notwithstanding her great infirmities and sickness to become a Carmeline in the Monastery of Beaulne And that we may have a taste of his skill in conducting several other persons of great vertue let us consider these following Rules of great Perfection which he gave to them and which without doubt were drawn from his owne private observation I have protested in the presence of the blessed Sacrament that I will live according to the Maxims and Counsels of Jesus Christ and to that end 1. Never to desire or endeavour directly or indirectly to increase my fortune in riches or honour neither to consent to any advantages which my friends would procure for me unless in obedience to and advice of my Ghostly Father and Director of my Conscience 2. To study the contempt and hatred of worldly riches and honours to speak of them no longer according to the flesh but according to the spirit of Christianity and for the better establishing of its Maxims in my soul to avoid as much as I can the conversation of such as are guided by contrary Rules 3. To entertain no Suit in Law either as Plaintiff or Defendant until all possible ways have been used for an accommodation without any humane respect In which I will submit to advice 4. To cut off all superfluities as well in what concerneth my own person as my family that I may be the better enabled to assist the poor For the better execution whereof I will once every Moneth after Communion examine my self therein as strictly as if I were then to give an account to God 5. Never to contest but to yield to all the world as much as I can both in point of Honour Precedency and of Opinion Dispute and of another Will which I ought to prefer before my own 6. To shun all delicacies not to do or desire any thing upon the motive of pleasure nor to admit of any such thing unless it be joyned with necessity or condescention to my neighbour or the health of my body or the refreshment and relaxation of Spirit 7. To bear with patience Contempt Injuries Contradictions Losses Oppressions and Affronts 8. To do all that with discreet zeal I can to hinder others from offending God or blaspheming his Holy Name or detracting or slandering their neighbour 9. To avoid and reject all kinde of tenderness and delicacy for the ease of the body yea to diminish and cut off as much as I can such commodities and conveniences as may be forborn without danger of health 10. To receive with all readiness and charity the requests of my neighbour and to supply his necessities in what I can possibly by my self or by others 11. To perform the duty of Fraternal correption with all Charity and Humility in the most prudent manner I can and to receive it most willingly from others 12 Once every Moneth at least I will examine my self upon the faults I have committed against these present Resolutions And once a year many may meer together to renew this Protestation and advise together of the way and means to accomplish it SECT 11. The great skill he had in the Interior matters of the Soul WE must of necessity confess that the knowledge of Interior things is most difficult and that the discerning of Spirits is without contradiction the most obscure of all Sciences And to be acquainted therewith requires eminent grace from God and a light no less than what flows from the
estate of beginners and Penitents is to finde out all that inclineth to sin that obstructeth our salvation or withdraweth us from God to avoid it Their Cross or Sufferance is to bewail their offences to mortifie their passions and subdue their bodyâ—n any thing that makes it rebel against Reason and the Spirit and also to punish the irregular motions of Concupiscence Their prayer is to beg grace and strength for their performance of these things The work of the second namely of Believers is to study Jesus Christ his Life and Doctrine Their Cross is to bear the troubles that befal them in imitation of our Saviour to suffer contempt and persecutions which attend all such as follow him Their prayer is to beg his Life his Spirit and his frame of Soul to act interiorly and exteriorly after his model The work of the third and Perfect one is to do each thing by the Spirit of Christ through their union with God Their Cross is in bearing with as they ought ought the corruptions darkness and stupidity of this world as also persecution for righteousness which thing shall never be wanting Their prayer is to ask continually a more abundant participation of the Spirit of Christ a more intimate union with God a greater dying to themselves a more faithful improving of his grace and talents received with perseverance to the end Moreover in the first estate we must labour hard in resisting of sin in vanquishing our passions and renouncing vanities which young beginners cannot do without many repeated acts much violence to themselves But those to whom God hath given an entrance into the two other estates do it easily with a simple and facile guidance of their spirit not diminishing their acts of humiliation but hindering the oppression and trouble thereof In the second estate is requisite on our parts a vigorous correspondence in following Iesus Christ not acting any more from our selves but in him in singleness of heart and enduring with patience and longanimity the purging and purifying of our spirits by Iesus Christ In which work we must be content to suffer many secret tempests and inward tumults arising from the reluctancies of our old habits and our spirit stirred up by the motions of nature full of many images and impressions And finally be content to lose our very souls with much patience that we may receive them again cloathed with Christ Iesus In the third estate is contained a work of Passion that is of Prayer where the bounty of God doth all as it were the soul tasting a certain experimental satiety of the presence and truth of God and of his love in Iesus Christ in which she reposeth She findes herself often absorpt in the joy of the greatness the power the goodness and the infinite perfections of God of the alliance with his Son his love his manner of conversation and the admirable effects which the participation of his Spirit produceth joying in the possession of these good things with a tranquility content and vigour surpassing all sense and expression A good progress thorow the two former estates makes way for the third where we must be careful considering the uncertainty and mutableness of our natures to use great industry to be sure of going forward and of repeating also what we have done the better to ground our selves and repair our losses Thus we have his insight into spiritual things evidencing the great advancement of his illuminated Spirit which God had enlightned in more than an ordinary manner declaring unto him the designs he had upon souls Giving him to penetrate into the obscurest recesses of their Consciences and to discover what was most secret and hidden to speak with words not studied and premeditated but which were inspired and put into his mouth at that hour which proved most powerful and effectual In the year 1644. A maid whom God had indued with pious affections was desirous to become a Carmeline She communicated her intentions to Monsieur Renty begging his advice Who at first finding some difficulties in the business judged it fitting for her to think no more of it Notwithstanding afterwards God inspired him at his prayers with a very great certitude that it was his will she should proceed in the business maugre all difficulties pointing out to him the very place where the thing should be done He informed her thereof which she hearkned unto with due respect as if Christ himself had spoken unto her and commanded her to enter into that Monastery where she remains at this very day In the year 1647. having visited a person afflicted with great pains who had need of such a man as he he writ thus to his Director I have been with the party you know of and have told her what I thought convenient to her condition Our Saviour enlightned me to discover to her his good pleasure concerning her how that this sad and dark condition was not sent to bring her to a stand and trouble at it but to facilitate her way to perfection and carry her without amusement to our Saviour Christ Lesus who is our Sanctification I acquainted her how we ought to lay this sure foundation that our selves are nothing but infirmity and misery it self So that when any one tells us thereof he tells us no news And that God from this insufficiency of our selves to all good means to extract that excellent vertue of Humility and Diffidence of our selves obliging us thereby to go to his Son our Saviour to finde strength in him and remedy for all our miseries I was much enlarged upon each thing which she told me and God gave her so great a plenitude of light and grace that she spake marvellous things touching the operation of the Holy Trinity in her with other excellent notions manifesting a very particular assistance of his Divine Grace In this estate I left her Concerning himself he addes thus As concerning my self I have not much to say onely I finde within my self through the mercy of God a great tranquility in his presence through the Spirit of Christ Jesus and such an inward experience of Eternal Life as I am not able to express And this is that whither I am most bent and drawn Yet I finde my self so strangely naked and barren that I wonder at the condition I am in and by which I discourse For in my addresses to this party I begun my speech not knowing how to pursue it and after the second sentence I had not the least foresight of what should be the third and so of the rest Not but that I seem to have a perfect knowledge of the things I speak in such a manner as I am capable of it But I onely utter what is given me and in the same way as it is communicated I communicate it to others Which done there seems to remain nothing in me but the foundation from whence it springs He grew to so high a reputation in this knowledge of
that we may be all one in him and experimentally feel what the love of God is toward us In all that I read in the Scripture I neither understand nor find any thing else but this Love and perceive clearly that the very design and end of Christianity is nothing but it Finis autem praecepti est charitas de corde puro The end of the Law is love out of a sincere heart And this is acquired by Faith in Christ Jesus as the Apostle saith in the following words Fide non ficta by faith unfeigned Which uniteth and bindeth us to him whereby we sacrifice unto the Divinity our souls and our bodies through his Spirit which conducteth us to the compleat end of the Law to deliver us up to God and bring down him to us in charity and a gracious inexplicable union to whom be praise for ever Amen My heart was this morâ—ing enlightned with a great Charity upon these words That we are set in this world to know and love and serve God Which gave me to understand that the true effect of the knowledge of God is to annihilate our selves before him for this knowledge coming to discover unto us that infinite Majestie the soul abaseth and emptieth it self through the deep sense of fear and reverence according to the measure of this discovery And this is the first step of the soul in this estate Next he love of God manifested to us in the giving us his Son begins to affect us with love And as the former view of his greatness contracted us in fear so this his love in Christ Jesus enlargeth and elevateth us to love God in him and to conceive some good desires according as his spirit breathes in us And this is the second step The third is to serve him that is by putting this love into practice by good works For these desires are but blossoms and these good works the fruit I could say much on this subject if I could express my own feeling of it For here we finde all in all that is God revealed by Jesus Christ loved and served by his Spirit This Divine Lord sets up a blessed Society and a Kingdom in our souls wherein he rules and reigns there by love unspeakable and eternal Writing to another person he expresseth himself thus I give thanks to our Lord for that he hath disposed you to a perfect Abnegation of your self This is done to lead you into the pure estate of love which without that cannot be pure in that our love to God consisteth not in receiving gifts and graces from him but in renouncing all things for him in an Oblivion of our selvee in suffering constantly and couragiously for him Thus did he express the nature of Love not to consist in taking but giving and the more and greater matters we give the more we manifest our Love This Love carries up the Lover according to the measure of its flame continually to think upon his Beloved to will what may please him to study his interest to procure his glory to do every thing that may work his contentment and to be extreamly apprehensive of any thing that may offend him Accordingly he being all on fire with the love of God was perfectly sinsible of these effects All his thoughts words and works were the productions of this love for notwithstanding he practised other vertues yet they drew their original from this Furnace of Charity which in him was the beginning and motive and end of all which he testified to his Confidents frequently and in words so enkindled with it as were sufficient to warm the most frozen hearts I have observed saith one of his Confidents this Divine fire so ardent in his blessed soul that the flames thereof have burst forth into his Exteriour and he hath told me that when ever he proncunced the name of God he tasted such a sweetness upon his lips as could not be expressed and that he was even pierced thorow with a hâ—avenly suavity To another he write about 9. or 10. years agoe that he could nor conceal from him how he felt a fire in his heart which burnt and consumed without ceasing Another of them assures that he hath often seen him enflamed with this Love of God that he appeared even like one besides himself and how he told him when these transportings were upon him that he was ready to cast himself into thefire to testifie his Love to God and in one of his Letters to a friend he concludes thus I must now hold my peace yet when I cease to speak the fire within that consumes me will not let me rest Let us burn then and burn wholly and in every part for God since we have no being but by him why then do we not live to him I speak it aloud and it would be my crown of glory to seal it with my blood and this I utter to you with great freedom In a Letter to another thus I know not what your intent was to put into your Letter these words Deus meus omnia my God and my all Onely you invite thereby to return the same to you and to all creatures My God and my all my God and my all my God and my all If perhaps you take this for your motto and use it to express how full your heart is of it think you it possible I should be silent upon such an invitation and not express my sense thereof Likewise be it known to you therefore that he is my God and my all And if you doubt of it I shall speak it a hundred times over I shall adde no more for any thing else is superfluous to him that is truly penetrated with my God and my all I leave you therefore in this happy state of Jubilation and conjure you to beg for me of God the solid sense of these words Being transported with this Love of God it wrought in him an incredible zeal of his honour which he procured and advanced a thousand ways Which may be understood partly by what we have already writ and several other which are unknown because either they were wholly spiritual or concealed by him even from his most intimate friends The 12 of March in the year 1645. he writ thus to his Director upon this subject One day being transported with an earnest desire to be all to God and all consumed for him I offered up to him all I could yea and all that I could not I would willingly have made a Deed of Gift to him of Heaven and Earth if they had been mine And in another way I would willingly have been the underling of all mankinde and in the basest estate possible yea and if supported by his grace I could have been content to have suffered eternal pains with the damned if any glory might have accrew'd to him thereby In this disposition of a calm zeal there is no sort of Martyrdome no degree of greatness or littleness of
herself may arrive Seeing a Gentleman of his birth and age in a Secular life and the throng of so great employments attained hereto onely if we use the like diligence and be faithful to the Spirit of God the onely means to attain to this perfection CHAP. 6. His great Reverence to Holy Things MOnsieur Renty did not onely carry a great Reverence to God but likewise to all things belonging to his Service and to all Holy things which sprang from that sense of Vertue and Religion imprinted in his soul producing the like fruits Exteriourly In the first place he had a singular respect to all Holy places and it will be very hard to recoâ—n with what Respect and Devotion he behâ—ved himself in Churches At his entrance his demeanour was exceeding modest and religiously grave He never sare down there nor put on his hat not so muâ—h as in Sermon time he would abide there as long as possibly he could and hath been observed upon great Festivals to remain there upon his knees for seven or eight hours He was very silent in the Church and if any person of any condition spoke to him his answer was short and in case the business required longer time he would carry him forth or some other way free himself thereof Secondly he used great veneration to all Ecclesiastical persons even to the meanest but the Reverence he gave to Priests was wonderful He would never take the upper hand of them without extream violence as appears by that passage in the former Chapter Whensoever he met them he saluted them with profound humility and in his travel would light off his horse to do it and render them all honour possible When they came to visit him he entertained them cordially with exceeding great respect at their departure waiting on them to the gate and if any dined at his table gave them the upper place which civility he observed to his own Chaplain When any Mission was in any of his Lordships he entertained the Missioners apart where they were served in plate when other Gentlemen and persons of quality that visited him were onely in pewter waving herein all humane respects A Nobleman and his Lady came one day to him upon a visit accompanied with a Priest that was Tutor to their children After he had received them observing the Priest at the lower end of his Hall with some of their Retinue quitting civilly the Nobleman and his Lady he went down to the Priest shewing great respect to him as to the most honoatable person of the company In fine his opinion of the Priesthood was so venerable looking upon it as the most potent means for procuring the glory of God that he said to a friend That he had a design to enter into that Order if God should ever bring him into a condition capable of it And as he had this singular Reverence toward them so likewise had he an earnest desire that they and generally all Ecclesiastical persons should understand the excellency of the condition to whiâ—h God had call'd them leading a life agreeable to their Dignity He writ to his Director in the year 1645. upon occasion of several Ecclesiasticks of his acquaintance who correspond not to their Profession and Obligation that his heart melted into sorrow for them and that he prostrated himself before his Saviour and begged with tears for some Apostolike Spirits to be sent amongst us our poor Fishermen Give us O Lord our poor Fishermen I often repeated I meant the Apostles But this word ran much in my minde not being able to use any other and my spirit wronght much upon these words Pescheurs Pecheurs Fishermen and Sinners I look upon these men simple indeed in their Exteriour but great Princes in their Interiour whose life and outward appearance vile in the eyes of men and estranged from the pomp of the world converted souls by their Sanctity by their Prayers by their Vâ—gilance and restless Labours And herein I discover a great mistake ordinary in the world which believes that outward greatness and pomp is the way to keep up ones credit and render him more capable to do good to his neigbours But we are foully mistaken for it is grace that hath power upon souls and an holy and humble life that gaineth hearts With the same spirit he bewailed much the hasty and irreverent reciting of their Office in many places Being this day present at Divine Service saith he in a Letter to me many words therein put me in minde of the holiness thereof and yet I could not without much grief take notice of some chanting it hastily without devotion or spirit and others hearing it accordingly Good God what pitty is this where is our faith My eyes were ready to run over with tears but I forced my self to refrain them In the third place he had a great respect and love to Religious Persons and all such as dedicated themselves to the Service of God encouraging and assisting them with all his might This Letter he writ to one that was assaulted with great combats I must needs let you know the tender resentment I have of those tempests and present storms that you endure I know no reason why men should alarum you thus nor that you have done any thing against the Gospel which is the onely thing they should condemn you for I believe it will be very hard for them to gather a just cause of reproach from your design For my own part I do not wonder at these crosses its sufficient to know that you belong to Jesus Christ and do desire to follow him reckoning contradiction to be your portion in these days of your flesh Be you onely firm in your confidence upon our Lord suffering no storms from without to trouble you or obscure that light that hath guided and pressed you to this business I pray God deliver you from the reasonings of flesh and blood which often multiply upon us in such matters assuring you that if you give not car to them God will manifest himself unto you that is he will comfort and fortifie you in faith and in experience of the gifts of his Holy Spirit To another he writ thus Blessed for ever be the Blessed Infant Jesus for the happy entrance of those two devout souls into Religion which you mention I shall rejoyce exceedingly in their perseverance the best argument of their effectual calling If the other party you know of had a little more confidence and courage to break her fetters it would be a great step for her And surâ—ly there is not need of so much prudence and deliberation to give up our selves to him who to the Gentiles is foolishness and to the Jews a stumbling block This world is a strange cheat and amusement insinuating into and infecting every thing God hath no need of our good parts nor of our rare qualities who commonly confounds the wisdom of the wise by little things which he chuseth
finde experimentally a real union both in light and faith with the party I mentioned which is more than palpable giving me assurance that we are all one Upon this occasion I shall acquaint you in what manner my minde hath been busied these few last days and is yet full of it and to the end my relation may be more intelligible I shall take the matter somewhat higher The operation I have found in my self for these two or three years hath constantly held me fixed in the pursuit of our Saviour Christ to finde in him Eternal-Life before God the Father through the influence of his Spirit of which I have from time to time given you account And now I confess to you that though for that time I also honoured from the bottom of my heart our B. Lady the Saints and Angels and have been desirous to express it upon all occasions yet so it was that their presence and their commerce was obscured in and as it were very remote from my soul I assure you that those thoughts hath frequently run in my minde saying thus within my self I so much honour our Lady and some other Saints and Angels and I know not where they are I lifted up my heart easily towards them but there was no presence of them at all at least such as I now perceive it Some moneths ago I possessed an opening and a light in my soul accompanied with powerful effects concerning love and dear union with God making me to conceive inexplicable things of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost who is perfect Charity not by the reasonings and discourses of the understanding but by a single view most by one touch penetrating the heart with love And I beheld how the Son of God our Saviour came to advance us by his Incarnation into this love uniting himself to us whereby to reduce us all into this intimate and sweet union until he shall have compleated us all in himself to be made all of us one day all in God after he hath delivered up his Kingdom to his Father Ut sit Deus omnia in omnibus That God may be all in all And we enter into this blessed union with the Father Son and Holy Ghost Some ten or twelve days since being in my morning prayers on my knees to pray unto God I perceived in my self that I could findâ— no entrance unto him onely I kept my self there much humbled but the sight of the Father the access to him of the Son with whom I ordinarily converse with as much confidence as if he were yet upon earth and the assistance of the holy Ghost seemed at a strange distance withheld from me and I perceived an unworthiness in my self so great so real and so penetrating that I could no more lift up the eyes of my soul to heaven than these of my body Than was iâ— given me to understand that I had really that unworthiness which I felt But that I must seek my entry to God and to our Saviour in the Communion of Saints Whereupon I was on an instant possessed with a wonderful presence of the respect and love and union of the B. Virgin the Angels and Saints which I am not able to express nor to utter the greatness and solidity of this grace For this union is Life Eternal and the Ecclesiastical Paradise and this union is both for the Saints in Heaven and those on earth which I have almost always in full view and presence From thenceforward I understood that we were not made by God to be alone and separate from others but to be united unto them and to compose with them one divine total Even as a beautiful stone fitted for the head of a column is altogether unprofitable till it be settled in its place and cemented to the body of the building without which it hath neither its preservation its beauty nor its end This meditation left me in the love and in the true and experimental connexion of the communion and communication of Saints yet with a due order of those to whom I am more united which is my Life in God and in Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the contents of that Letter CHAP. 7. His devotion to the Holy Sacrament ONe of the greatest Devotions of this holy man was that to the H. Eucharist considered both as a Sacrifice and as a Sacrament of which he had ever an incredible esteem honouring it with all possible reverence and affecting it with tender love blessing and praising God for its institution and exciting both by his word and pen the whole world to do the same He was accustomed to say that it was instituted to stay and place our Saviour God and Man in the midst of us to obtain for us all the benefits of grace whereof we are capable here and to dispose us for those of glory That the great design of God in the Incarnation the Life Death and Resurrection of his Son was to convey unto us his Spirit to be unto us Life Eternal which Spirit he hath taught us by his Word merited for us by his Death doth more confer upon us from his estate of Glory And the better to convey this unto us to cause us to live thereby and dye in our selves he giveth himself to us in this most Holy Sacrament dead raised up and glorified to produce in us by the operation of his Spirit these two effects of death and life He was not onely present every day at Mass but took it for a great honour to serve the Priest himself He received every day if not hindred by very important business or some pressing occasion of Charity And as the honour we render to this B. Sacrament consists not in often receiving but in communicating well and perfectly he took all care thereof that could be expected from one of so holy life and eminent Piety He spent many hours in prayers upon his knees before the Blessed Sacrament And being once asked by a friend How he could remain there so long He answered That there he recreated his spirit receiving from thence refreshment and new forces and yet sometimes he encountred with some trouble in that Devotion which may be gathered from this Letter to his Director dated the 27 of June in the year 1647. I have been very poor all this moneth I know not whether I was ever so lumpish both in spirit and body as I was upon the Festival day of the Blessed Sacrament I was present at Service at Procession at Mass at Communion heard the Sermon at Vespers and Compline but like a very beast not knowing how to demean my self either kneeling or standing I was in a kinde of restless condition of body and very wandring and distracted in spirit onely I knew well that in the bottom of my soul I had a desire to honour God through his Son Christ Jesus After Compline I found my self so dull and heavy that seeing my self unable to remain
the other and it is a single contemplation of God or any other subject without discourse sweetly moving the will with holy affections and particularly with that of Love It is a quiet pleasant operation of the soul setting her in full view of her object a silent prospect of Faith accompanied with Reverence Esteem Gratitude Confidence and chiefly with Love When you visit a sick friend beholding him in bed suffering extreamly tossing and turning tormented and groaning and this fight of such a loving friend toucheth you deeply with the sense of compassion with an earnest desire to comfort him and a sympathizing in his suffering this is Contemplation for you behold all this without reasoning with one direct view which affects you and makes these impressions upon you So when you behold our Saviour praying in the Garden with his face to the earth all over in a bloody sweat or bound at the Pillar covered with stripes or nailed on the Cross dying betwixt the extremities of pain and infamy and this serious but simple attention without any formal discourse affects you with compassion and admiration with compunction for your sins with hope and love This is Contemplation Again when Mary Magdalene sits at our Saviours feet listening to his blessed words with the ear of faith or looking up to him upon the Cross and believes this to be the Son of God her Redeemer who pardoned her sins obliged her with so many favours testified so great good will to her and now suffereth so much for her and when from this spring there flows from her a torrent of tears out of the bowels of Love Gratitude and Contrition This is Contemplation The use then of this Contemplation Active and Acquisite consists in entring into the bortom of our souls and there in the presence of God quitting all sense and discourse applying our selves by faith and affections of the will to some one of the Divine perfections or some mysterie of our Saviour viewing it with attention and the eyes of Faith of Reverence Affiance and Love without reasoning and also without multiplying a quantity of different affections at one time fixing our selves upon this attentive and affectionate regard which also ought to be so naked and abstracted from all solicitude and reflexion upon any things else as wholly to forget them as much as is possible to be taken up wholly and busied in listening to our Saviour with Mary Magdalene who sitting at his feet spake not one word and though blamed by her sister answered nothing thinking onely upon hearing and attending on our Saviour The soul in Contemplation must be silent to all creatures and speak onely with God The soul useth to speak to the creatures four ways by her Undestanding in thinking of them by her Will in affecting them by her Imagination in forming images of them by her Passions in desiring them and all this she doth without language or the help of her Exteriour senses So that the words she utters are thoughts which she placeth upon them and affections which she conceiveth and Idaea's which she formeth and desires which she produceth towards them On the contrary the soul is silent and speaks not a word when she ceaseth to apply herself to them by these faculties and when she is not busied about them by those operations but ceaseth from all acts that relate to them insomuch that having no commerce with them she remains in such a state as if there were nothing else in the world but God and she to whom alone she speaketh in this mystical silence of which S. John is understood when he speaks of a silence in heaven that is in the soul when she converseth with God by her understanding and by her will producing acts of Faith Hope Love Adoration Blessing Glorifying Thanksgiving Union and the like And she is yet further silent from time to time neither speaking at all to him no not after this noble way and with this Divine language but is listening and attending to his speeches which sometime may be articulate but these intelligibly onely to herself but more frequently are illuminations by which he enlightneth her understanding and certain impressions and motions with which he teacheth her will saying with David andiam quid loquatur in me Dominus Deus will hearken what the Lord saith within me and praying with Samuel Loquere Domine quia audit servus tuus Speak Lord for thy servaut heareth Our Saviour teaching his Disciples to pray told them and us in their persons Orantes nolite multum loqui when you pray use not many words which he meant not onely of the words of the mouth but likewise of understanding and other faculties Speak not much but hearken diligently He likewise calls himself Verbum the Word because he must be listened unto and that deservedly wherefore he saith to the soul Audi Filia Hearken O my Daughter And Father Avila who hath writ an excellent Treatise upon those words gives this for a weighty advice that we should go to prayer to hear rather than to speak who also told Lewis of Granada that writ his Life how that when he went to his holy Exercise he used to binde and tye up his understanding like a fool to the end that it might not talk much We have certain souls which in their prayers talk all as conceiving that the mysterie consists in talking much to God and employing still their faculties in working without considering that what God shall speak to them will be far better and more profitable than what they can speak to him even as in our converse with other men we use not to talk continually but after a few words hearken to what they speak So in our prayers to our Saviour let us after our speaking to him attend with silence to what he shall say to us This is the course of active Contemplation and prayer of Union where we must mark its difference from prayer of Discourse and prayer of Affection in that these two faculties of the soul the Understanding and Will acting all these three sorts of prayer The Understanding acts more than the Will in prayer of Discourse the Will more in prayer of Affection where is to be noted that those who begin this prayer are not in the entrance thereof ordinarily without son discourse but yet such as goe on diminishing 〈◊〉 little and little till at last it quite ceaseth and no◠also that in the beginning they have great variety 〈◊〉 affectionate acts but toward the end but few In th◠prayer of Contemplation or Union the Will hath th◠mastery over the Understanding but with more sim plicity than in the prayer of Affection Besides i◠this God acts more and man less therefore the operation here is more spiritual more pure and divine therefore he ought to attend in peace and affiance the action of God without disturbing it Whereupon Monsieur Renty used to say That it was the great imperfection of many souls
not to attend sufficiently to God the natural faculties being too busie and not subjecting themselves to him upon specious pretences thinking to do wonders whereby indeed they hinder him from working in the soul whilst he findes it in a state of agitation and inquietude whereas it should be in tranquillity and silence to receive his operations But some may say to me that he conceives this cutting off Discourse and this using of a naked Faith and so great simplicity of operation can do little but rather loseth time To whom I reply that it is quite the contrary and time very well spent for whilst we quit the operations of sense and discourse we dismiss that which keep us at a distance from God who is infinitely above all discourse and much more above sense but going on by faith and the affections of the will we approach neer to him Monsieur Renty cleareth this doubt in one of his papers saying Some will say often there occurs nothing to me in such prayers and I fear to spend my time in idleness But know that you lose no time at all when by losing your self you are sound in a state of Reverence and Affiance in the presence of God to make your course towards him nor can he dislike such a behaviour Another will say but I have had many distractions and finde my self afflicted with great aridities and many other inconveniences I answer persevere still notwithstanding all these difficulties in your view of Faith and Reverence and in your Affections as much as you can and keep your self shut up in the cabinet of your heart Suffer the noise of all these tempests without without heeding them after the example of Noah who in the midst of his Ark was quiet as his very name imports whilst winds and waves beat upon him on every side Those things are but necessary and serve to purge and dispose the soul for the operation of God upon it even as green wood puffs and sweats out its humidity before it can burn So let these distractions and all sorts of imaginations assault us as it pleaseth God but let them not trouble or hinder us from this holy exercise onely let us diverting our minde from these miseries when we perceive any continue peaceably and without noise this our Sacrifice with assurance that we shall not wait long before our Lord come unto us And himself when finding himself in such sterile condition would cry to God out aloud when he was alone I am yours O my God in despite of all these distractions and aridities I am yours and will continue so without reserve you have created me and I will love you for ever Sometime he would write with his finger upon the ground and sometime upom his breast saying I am content with every thing that proceeds from the will of God and with what he appoints for me I ask nothing else I will never trouble my self to procure consolation or to be freed from aridities my resolution is to bless God at all times To this purpose he writ to his Director I am now and then an hour or two at prayer and nothing occurs to me Sometime I am troubled with distractions aridities and lassitude but however it comes to pass I never end but with a desire to begin again and often this lassitude of body is relieved and vanisheth by an inward strength which is given me and which disposeth me to continue my Devotion out of the time and place of prayer even in the midst of converse and business and I tell you sincerely that notwithstanding I perform every thing so ill yet I finde little difference of times for prayer being recollected continually To another intimate friend he writ thus I was the other day three or four hours in the Church with great aridities nothing occurring whereon to fix my self Behinde me I over-heard a good servant of God saying his prayers with the Gloria Patri I presently offered up to God that which I heard him say whereupon of a sudden it was discovered to me that when the soul is alone in the desart where she hath no creature to rest upon God casteth down from heaven his line of love to draw her up towards him and something to that effect I felt in my self and though nothing did occur to me yet when I end prayer I could willingly begin it afresh And thus much for active and acquisite Contemplation As for the passive and infused as it depends absolutely on God so hath it no other rule but his will and good pleasure to communicate himself to a soul illuminating the uderstanding with transcendent light and replenishing the will with strong affections especially that of love Even as Moses that perfect pattern of all Contemplation to make himself fit to ascend Mount Sinai there to converse with God quitted his heards and flocks his people both great and small his brother Aaron and even Joshua his servant who was continually with him and then went up alone to the point of the hill where he entred into the dark cloud in which God was as the Scripture saith and abode there fourty days in Contemplation and intimate converse with his Sacred Majestie So must we quit sense reasonings all sensible and intellectual things to be admitted into true Contemplation which is transacted within the clouds of faith where certainly God is and by faith in our illuminations and affections And here is to be noted that all these sublime contemplations and favours must terminate in a ready disposition of the soul to the will of God to render it carefully observant of his commandments even as all those of Moses were for the receiving of the Tables of the Law and the putting them into his hands which yet were afterwards broken to teach us by a figure that the soul notwithstanding all those dispositions and helps to sanctitie is subject to failings so feeble and neer to precipice are we with all these illuminations unless God sustain us The Spouse in the Canticles inviteth souls in these amorous words Comedite amici bibite inebriamini charissimi Eat and drink my friends and be inebriated you that are dearest to me Where by eating which breaketh and cheweth the food is meant meditation by drinking which swalloweth liquid things prayer of affection and by drunkenness active contemplation or rather passive which produceth the same effect in the soul as drunkenness in the body viz. loss of reason oblivion of all things and mirth Monsieur Renty was drawn up thither by God and elevated with Moses to the top of the Mountain of infused contemplation Thus he writ to his Director in the year 1645. I have not had this long time any use neither at prayer nor almost at other times of the understanding nor of memory I neither see nor feel any thing have neither gust nor disgust of any thing onely finde my will lively and ready for every thing that shall be shewed
the way to him Amongst these the Saints are undoubtedly the most considerable since there is not one amongst them whose life is not a bright shining light unto us to discover the pathes we are to walk in and like that famous Watch-Tower Pharos in Alexandria which by its fires and light served to guide the Marriners in the night how safely to steer their course The Saints saith S. Gregory Nyssen set forth their lives to men who direct their course towards God like a bright Lamp to conduct them securely And speaking of S. Ephrem he calls him a great Luminary In vita S. Ephrem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prefat in Job who had more enlightned the world by his life than the Sun had by his beams and a little after saith That God had fixed him as a stately living Pillar like the Mercurâ—es of the Ancients placed in Cross-ways to direct Passengers to declare to men the High-way to Sanctity and Perfection S. Gregory the great adviseth us moreover to consider how that as God the Creator by an admirable Providence a most beautiful Oeconomie and profound Wisdom hath so ordered the course and seasons of stars that every one keeps his time of rising and setting one after another to enlighten the darkness of the night and cast their influences upon us So in like manner he hath sent and disposed his Saints like so many stars to give us light in the darkness of this life Accordingly saith he he hath appointed Abel to rise to teach us Innocence Enoch purity of Intention in our Actions Noah to forrifie us with courage in expecting our long delayed hopes Abraham to set before us a model of an heroick obedience and so of the rest Ecce quam fulgentes stellas as that holy Pope goes on in coelo cernimus ut inoffâ—nso pedâ— operis iter nostrae noctis ambulemus Behold what bright Stars bespangle the firmament of the Church to guide our feet safely in the night of our journey And admirable are the examples they have left us and the influences of Vertue that these mysterious stars have conveyed to us Fuit in iis saith S. Augustine Continentâ—a usque ad tenuissimum victum panis aquae non quotidiana solum sed etiam per plures dâ—es perpetuata jeâ—unia Castitas usque ad conjugii prolisque contemptum patientia usque ad cruces flammasque neglectas liberalitas usque ad patrimonia distributa pauperibus denique tot us mundi aspernatio usque ad desiderum mortis Their temperance was extended even to the most slender diet of bread and water and to fasts not of a single day onely until the evening but continued for divers days together Chastity even to the contempt of Marriage and Progeny Patience to the slighting of Gibbets and Flames Liberality to the distributing of their whole Patrimonies to the poor In fine conâ—empt of the whole world even to to the desiring of death And all this to instruct us what we ought to do Sanctorum Vita as saith S. Ambrose cap. 1. de S. Ioseph caeteris norma Vivendi est The life of Saints is our rule to order our lives after them Since then God hath given these for a rule to guide our lives after and for Beacons to direct us in our sailing towards heaven let us mark them attentively and follow their steps in our journey thither To which undoubtedly we are obliged because God demands and expects it from us and also we shall finde it most prâ—fitable in that this attentive observing what they did is most likely to make the deepest impression upon our spirits Whereupon S. Anthony as Athanasius reports of him in e us v tâ— recommended earnestly to his Religious the lives of Saints to fashion themselves after their model And S. Basil writes in his first Epistle that as young Painters to make themselves skilful look often upon the pieces of curious and excellent Masters spâ—nding whole hours and days in the â—opying of suâ—h Works so they that would draw the Picture of Vertue in their souls to the life must diligently heed these most excellent Originals by which they shall in time become in some measure like unto them He addes moreover That as heat and light stream naturally from the fire and sweet sents exhâ—le from perfumes in like manner sacred Knowledge ariseth from the actions of Saints and the sweet odour of their vertues perfume such as are much conversant in them And as it is not possible that he that continues long in the Sun should not receive some heat and light from it and he that makes some stay in the Perfumers shop amongst Musk and Ambergrise should not smell at all thereof neither can such as have much commerce with Saints and study their vertues remain without some amendment and savour of holiness Those two renowned Courtiers of the Emperour which S. Austin mentions in his Confessions lib. 2 cap. 6. were so wrought upon by reading the life of S. Anthony that they presently took up a resolution to quit the world and all other thoughts save of their own salvation Legere coepâ—t unus eorum these are his own words mirari accendi inter legendum medâ—tari arrâ—pere talem vitam relict â militiâ saeculari servire tibi legebat mutabatur intus exuebatur mundi mens ejus One of them bâ—gan to read the life and as he read to admire and his heart burning within him conceived a resolution to imitate it to throw off his sword and the Emperours Service to become a servant of God Thus whilst he read he found his heart changed and his soul to disentagle herself from the affections of the world to put off the old man to be cloathed with the new And of himself he affirms that the examples of these holy servants of God were like hot coals cast into the bosom of his soul heating and warming and setting him all in a flame S. Columban oweth his conversion to the reading and the considering of the life of Mary of Egypt our Founder S. Ignatâ—us his to the lives of several Saints with innumerable others S. Eugendus Abbot of Claude read continually the lives of S. Anthony and S. Martin and having them constantly before his eyes and more within his heart fashioned his own after them Bonaventure saith of S. Francis that Ex recordatione Sanctorum omnium tanquam lapidum ignitorum in deificum recalescebat incendâ—um when he found his heart wax cold in the love of God he warmed and enkindled it by the frequent ruminating upon the Vertues of Saints as so many red hot stones To this purpose the examples of Saints are serviceble unto us and such benefit are we to extract from the reading of their Histories and as they are our patterns for our imitation so will they be witnesses against us at that great day if we fail herein and will sit then as Judges to condemn us