manner that we ought to observe in our actions springing from the son of God must by consequence be very like it So a Christian action should be that which is made in the spirit of God that Iesus Christ hath borne upon the Earth accomplished in the holy and perfect dispositions of the Son of God himself By this only Circumstance we may judge of the difference of our actions for all that we do without the spirit and without dispositions agreeable to an action worthy of God is to do nothing or very little such actions ordinarily proceed but from a naturrll inclination or which is worse from the instigation of our own Lusts and Love of our selves Let us farther consider this Truth which will seem hard or new to those who know not the excellency of Christianity who never regard the purposes of God who are ignorant of the mysteries of their salvation When the life and actions of a Christian are said to comprehend their perfection you must remember that the Sonne of God came into the world not onely to communicate to us his grace but to dwell in us and give us his spirit and life to give them to us not onely to justifie us and as we say to put us into the state of grace but to be in us to dwell there to be the beginning of a new life and new spirit in us and to give us dispositions proportionable to such an estate This the Apostle teaches when he sayes that the eternall Father hath put the spirit of his Sonne into our hearts and that the spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God whereby we see that being justified by the state and grace of filiation and divine adoption we live in the life and spirit of God which is made our life and spirit which is in us dwells in us governs us inlivens us and is the Principle of our Actions makes them pleasing to God supernatural and worthy of Paradise Thus the life of a Christian according to the determination of God is far above all lives a being above all beings I leave you to judge what the Actions of Christians ought to be proceeding from a principle so holy and divine You will find all the very reasonable and admire the bounty and wisdom of God in this Conduct of our souls if we will consider that the eternal word was made man that by debasing himself he might render to his Father an honour worthy of God he came upon the Earth to establish by the merit and by the spirit of his Crosse the Kingdom of God in our souls and to make us worthy to serve and honour God after a manner worthy of God For this cause he advances unto himself he consecrates our lives and actions by his Death and blood and that they may be referred worthily to the honour and glory of his Father he unites himself to us communicates to us his life his spirit and dispositions to make us capable to praise God according to his greatness which we could never do if we did not take of him and from him this power and disposition This he gives us when he dwells in us by the grace of filiation and divine adoption whereto we are advanced when we are made Christians Hence we see that Christian Actions ought to be holy perfect and divine that a Christian Life ought to be the very life of Jesus Christ living and working in him by his spirit His actions his inward dispositions must be a lively image and perfect expression of the actions and holy intention of Iesus Christ. But alas we think no more of these Truths Christians are become so blind that we may well complain and say with the ancient Philosopher That the life of man is spent either in doing evil or in doing nothing or in doing preposterously what he ought to do To undeceive our selves of these common abuses to enter farther into the knowledge of the state of the grace of Christianity and to see more evidently what we ought to be let us further remember that as Christians we are members of the Sonne of God he is our head a head that infuses life in us In this quality he hath right to live and act in us as our souls act and live in our bodies This consider'd we must say that as the essence and excellency of a Christian consisteth in his being a member of Iesus Christ so the perfection of Christian duties is that they are operated by Iesus Christ living and operating in us as his members I say not onely that we must imitate the Son of God and do all our actions in Grace that thereby they may be called Christian but also that they ought to be with the same intentions and spirit wherewith Iesus Christ did act on Earth which he communicated to his Church and to all his Our Actions ought not only to be good and reasonable but to be worthy of the Son of God our head whose members we are Therefore they must be animated by his life guided by his motions and regulated by his intentions seeing that to this end he giveth us his spirit and life to be our spirit and life and that he gives us freely abundant grace in him and by him to accomplish all our actions This is of great importance for which we shall one day render a strict account when God shall judge the uprightness of men by so extraordinary a favour Certainly he will examine and punish the ignorance the contempt and abuse of so many graces which he hath acquired for us by his travells and cross and offereth us with so much love and bounty This will appear yet more evident if we consider the common belief of all the faithfull who acknowledge that the life and actions of a perfect Christian ought to be actions of grace Let us therefore examine what the Essence and Dignity of this grace is for supposing that the life of a Christian is a life of grace we must necessarily grant that our actions by consequence ought to be conformable and correspondent to the sanctity and dignity of the grace which gives them life sanctifies them and advances them since they must be proportionable and semblable to the cause We know that the grace which sanctifies and gives life to our actions is a grace made for the Son of God that from him it flows into us that we are not replenished and enriched but from his bounty This granted our life and actions must be holy and perfect by the same sanctity and perfection which is in Iesus Christ which is lovingly communicated to and engrafted in our souls sanctifying enlivening and perfecting our life and actions When we say that this Grace comes from Iesus Christ we express in this alone the excellency and dignity of it For to know the dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity it suffices not to say as we commonly do that it
is supernaturall because in it there is nothing singular For the grace given to Angels and to man before his fall was also supernatural We must say that the grace of Christianity is a grace made for the Sonne of God and consequently worthy of the greatness of the Sanctity and divinity of the incarnate word this makes it the raiser of an Order and gives it a being much different from the first and from the order meerly supernaturall This gives it a being and order as different from the grace of the Angels as they are from Iesus Christ as the sonne from the servant Now applying what we have said that Actions ought to be conformable to their Principle we conclude that the actions of a Christian being sanctified and enlivened by the grace and spirit of Iesus ought also to be wholly conformable to Iesus Christ their principle being more then humane more then angelicall conformable to the purity and sanctity of the grace of the Sonne of God worthy the Labours of his Crosse and death To this end St. Paul adviseth that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called words that deserve to be considered since that God will demand an account of us of his favours and benefits and will judge our actions and lives according to the dignity of our vocation according to the perfection and sanctity of his Grace in brief according to the life of Iesus Christ which alone ought to be the rule and Law of Christians Furthermore we must consider the rule of God over our Soules wherin we may admire the wayes and meanes whereby the divine bounty and infinite wisdome of God uses to give us graces necessary to accomplish our actions in that perfection and sanctity that he requires I intend not to speak of the secret and unknowne means of the graces inspirations motions and speedy succours wherewith God is pleased to illuminate our Spirits to enflame our wills and to direct all the motions and actions of our life But I desire only to insist upon the consideration of the Sacraments that the sonne of God hath left in his Church as channells by which he continually powers out this grace into us Baptisme consecrates us to the most holy Trinity makes us the children of God members of Iesus Christ Temples of the Holy Ghost and holy Vessells which bear Iesus Christ who dwells in us And the Eucharist which is among the Sacraments as the Sun among the Stars gives God to us and with him all the greatness of heaven elevates us and unites us to God changes and makes us little gods What would ye more Why is God think you so profuse of his gifts of his graces of himself but to operate in you all that I have said to give you a life and actions conformable to the being whereto he hath elected you Let us weigh these truths at our leisure and study to attain to the perfection that God requires of us Let us take care that all our actions be holy and worthy of God and let us not be carryed away by the humour or rather by the infidelity of such as ignorantly despise these important truths and necessary exercises The third Prerogative CHAP. VI. Of the happy Commerce and Society that Iesus Christ will have with Christians by the Mystery of the Incarnation THe holy Trinity having consecrated the Christian by Baptisme adopted and received him as a son enters into a particular society with him and by divers Mysteries which the eternall Word hath operated upon earth God enters into a Communication with men lives and converses with them So Saint Paul speaking to new Christians Ye are no more strangers and forreigners but fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God Let us stay here to contemplate this benefit Adam being fallen from the happy estate of grace by his rebellion against God no sooner tasted the Apple of disobedience but he felt the punishment of his sin and was at the same time driven out of Paradise and banished the happy commerce and holy familiarity which he had with God This exile was the greatest rigour wherewith the divine Iustice could take vengeance on his sin This separation made his estate miserable and the condition of his children most unhappy We should in this malediction and just divorse for ever have continued if the Son of God had not come to re-establish all things to return us to God and to restore us with much advantage all other happiness that we lost by sin So that as the Apostle saith where sin abounded grace did much more abound for we enter into a familiarity and communion with God far more holy and divine then that of Adam by Iesus Christ we converse with God go to him are with him worthy the Spirit and Grace of Christianity Few value this truth men who only follow their own wayes nourished with earth onely to whom the delicates of heaven are unsavory can never relish this grace nor be sensible how much the presence of God is necessary Therein appears the corrupt estate of this Age all creatures resent the presence of their Creator Nature it self hath engraven in the bottom of our essence a desire of the presence of God The most barbarous Nations forced only by this instinct in the blindness of their false Religion sought esteemed and desired some visible mark of the presence of those they call their gods None but those of this Age have an indifference to these truths forget God mind onely their own actions in this world and are ignorant of the happiness of Heaven and despise it To awaken and draw us forth of this darkness consider that Faith teaches us that the happiness of the Saints consists in seeing themselves to be in the company of God and the greatest recompense God promises to our travels is to make us partakers of his glory to raise us to his greatness to enter into an eternall communion with us I will saith Christ to his Father that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am implying the society and communion of God with us and promising that eternity shall never separate him from him that serves him Now if the happiness of the blessed in their estate of glory consists in the presence and familiarity of God we cannot doubt but the happiness of the just upon earth consists in knowing how to preserve themselves in this desireable familiarity and presence of God The intent of the Son of God at his coming into the world and becoming an Inhabitant thereof was to sanctifie it by his presence and establish his power therein and dwell with us to the end of the world as he promised at his death This is it that he wrought by the mysterie of the Incarnation making himself man to live among men For this cause in the Sacrament of the Eucharist he becomes the food of man communicates to his abundant graces inriches
of the gifts of God and the favours wherewith the powerful hand of the Divinity had so liberally inriched him and degraded him of all honour and put him into a condition of meanness impotence and error This goodly spirit of man or rather this man all spirit is now nothing but flesh this beautiful Soul which breath'd for nothing but Heaven entertained it self so deliciously in the knowledge of infallible Truths and was inriched with contemplation of the greatness of God as with Divine Dew and heavenly Manna after so deplorable a fall obstinately links himself to the perishable goods of this World believes in lies seeks after vanities and can no more elevate himself to God so miserable and impotent hath sinne made him O unhappiness which cannot sufficiently be bewailed Man who by the happiness of his creation had eyes to contemplate onely his Creator and converting himself wholly to him had no heart but to love him no spirit but to adhere to him after so fatall a cast wholly turn'd away from God regards nothing but himself is wholly converted to the Creature lives as a Beast onely upon the Earth and like a Beast without judgement The Apostle goes further for describing the estate whereto the sinner is reduced he declares him uncapable of the knowledge of things which are of the Spirit of God The natural man saith he receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned Hence I doubt least the wayes I intend to propose which are according to the Spirit of God appear too high or above the capacity of our spirits I confess they are so if we look upon man in the state of sin impotency and the corruption of his Nature But we shall find the contrary if we consider that the Sonne of God came into the World to relieve man after his fall to restore him those gifts with advantage which he lost to render him capable of God In brief he was made man to teach man the true way to love and serve God he gives the power having setled in his Church an inexhaustible Treasure of Graces whence all souls may draw strength in their weakness succour in their necessity and ability in the very impotency of their nature Here of Iesus man and God we are to learn the way to love and adore and to serve God from him we must have the grace to do it We must in and by Iesus operate above our strength above our being and natural power and nothing ought to seem difficult to us or impossible for him seeing he gives us his grace and spirit in abundance to accomplish it To believe this we must look back upon the designs of the Son of God in the Profusion of his gifts and graces and leasurely examine with the eye of Faith what he will operate in us by his grace and divine communications At the first view we shall see that Grace draws from us our impotency advances us above our nature gives us a new being a new life a life intire and wholly hid in God a life proper to the state of Christianity according to which all Christians ought to live The Son of God speaking to the Samaritan and in her to all the faithful makes a Discourse hereof worthy to be consider'd expressing an intention to establish his Church The houre shall come sayes he and now is wherein the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him The reason he adds God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth What more powerful and clear testimony of the will of God who tries and elects Souls that worship him in spirit and truth If he himself doth choose them and call them to this new life is it not necessary that in pursuit of this election he give them grace necessary to arrive at such an estate Let us consider this passage and ponder all the words of it 1. Iesus Christ shews us that our life must be holy and severed from the creature seeing that we must serve God in Truth without amusing our selves with the vanities and things of the Earth which are nothing but lying In truth that is to say conformable to the Greatness of God and to that principle whence the Soul takes power to serve God the grace spirit and dispositions of Jesus Christ the spirit of Truth We learn further that if perfection of this life is inward pure holy and absolutely divine seeing it is and subsists in the adoration of God who as he is a Spirit pure and holy will be served and adored in Spirit 2. Iesus Christ teaches that we must wait upon him for this Grace necessary to accomplish his Commands who requiring of us a life so pure and perfect obliges himself to give us necessary Graces to arrive unto it since that without him we can do nothing of that which he teaches In brief we see how much we are obliged to require this grace to search after it to submit our selves unto it and to endeavour to become worthy of it We must not in a matter so important as this of our salvation demurre in consideration of our impotency or experience of our own incapacity but raising our selves above our selves by the spirit of Faith we must hope in him who commands nothing impossible who giveth grace abundantly to accomplish what he demands These are the first dispositions of a Christian and which those souls that have any desire to live Christianly ought first of all to learn But it happens quite contrary the understanding of men is so corrupt that they desire not these internal solid vertues nor require them of God and which is worse many think it unnecessary to possess them and that such a life as we call interiour is for few persons as if Jesus Christ speaking to the Samaritan had spoken onely to Her and not to the whole Church Others perswade themselves that it is impossible to attain them as not believing the Apostle who saith I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me a manifest error wherein many lose themselves in not sufficiently considering what they daily see by common experience set before their eyes If weakest Women Virgins and Children have had strength sufficient notwithstanding their young and tender bodies to embrace tortures almost insupportable and have by Grace been strengthned to overcome those difficulties why should not we believe also that abandoning our selves to the power and conduct of Grace and becoming faithful to the designs of God we may have sufficient grace and capacity to acquire these vertues If by the help of grace they can attain strength of body to support the rigours of a penitent life wherefore by favour of the same grace may not we arrive to the possession of that true vertue wherein a
Christian life doth consist What difficulty do we find in this kind of life all the obstacle if we neerly consider it proceeds from not understanding what is the interiour life of the Soul many believe it a kind of an abstract life and of the other World a life full of care a life which is an enemy to humane society Others consider it as a life of insupportable solitude and inaccessible contemplation every one speaks of it as he pleases Some condemn it others say it is impossible most believe it difficult Let us not insist upon words they are explicated to all sences let us onely say that the life we call interiour is no other then the life of the Soul the life of the Soul is God the grace of God the life of his grace the mother of all vertues Thus then the interior life is no other then a vertuous Christian life to which life all Christians are obliged An inward and spiritual man must fear God from the bottom of his soul must highly esteem of all that is in Christianity and in the Church of God must be vigilant to do nothing to displease God careful to preserve his Soul and Conscience in the purity of grace and as the Apostle saith having a good Conscience in all things to have an esteem of God from the bottom of his heart and of all that belongs to God and to carry a mean esteem of himself and all Creatures To live in this manner is that which I call an inward life the rest without this is nothing and to teach Souls any other life is to betray them Now who sees not that all Christians are obliged to this kind of life if they will be saved who findes not now how much this life is easier then it was represented and all together contrary to what was expected Let us then take a firm resolution to embrace it and to give our selves with all our Souls to him who hath given himself to us He hath right and power to live in us to do in us and of us all that he pleases Let us onely take care that we commit our selves to his conduct and to the operation of his holy Spirit and being assisted by his Grace Let us chearfully endeavour the acquisition of Christian vertues Let us so order that grace may reign in us according to the design of God that God may dwell in us as in a living tabernacle which Iesus Christ hath consecrated by his blood and we shall see by experience that with the Apostle We are able to do all things through Iesus Christ who strengtheneth us CHAP. II. That the possession of God is the end of a Christian life whereto we cannot arrive but by the grace of Iesus Christ. BEfore I proceed I must suppose that I speak to souls desirous to live vertuously and perfectly in the state of Christianity according to Jesus Christ the Law and Rule My address is to such who are faithfull Dispensators of the gifts and graces of God will make use thereof according to the designes and intentions of the Son of God endeavouring to profit a hundred fold The first thing that I ask of them is What is the end of the life and actions of a Christian For as in things naturall artificiall the first thought and knowledge of the workman is the end of his work so in Piety we must consider and know the end and the life of Christian actions that knowing them we may resolve couragiously to undertake them and promise our selves great fidelity in the practice of all that shall be proposed to us or is necessary for to arrive at so happy an estate We know the end of a Christian soul is nothing but God who is he that filleth all in all saith the Apostle whom it seeketh to and possesseth as its sole happiness and to enjoy him for ever None reject this truth though it appear high and extraordinary for they that discourse ordinarily of Christian perfection say all that it consists in the love of God and in perfect charity which is true But if we consider what this love means we shall find that it is nothing but the possession of God for the love of God hath priviledge and power to give God who is essentiall love Thus considering this truth we shall find that perfection consists in love which love gives us the possession of God therefore the perfection of our soul must be the love of God He that will comprehend the excellency of this must know the greatness and dignity of God from which knowledge he shall learn what the life of our souls must be what our entertainments and how holy our actions ought to be For if the means be proportionable to the end it must necessarily follow that the end of our souls being supernaturall and nothing less then God himself the means also that we must use to arrive to this end must be supernaturall and divine They therefore who seek perfection in the enjoyment of this end must have a particular care not only to embrace all actions and uses which may conduct them but shun and contemne all vain and superfluous things which serve not to attain to this end and must detest them We must remember that we cannot arrive at this end nor to the possession of God who is the perfection of a Christian his fulness and the consummation of his soul but by the conduct of God himself by grace alone and mercy and according to the testimony of Iesus none can arrive to the knowledge of God but by his divine Light and by a speciall Revelation No man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him And when a man shall come to this knowledge he can make no good use of it unless he be aided with a new favour he cannot go to God nor enjoy his grace or spirit unless he be aided and guided by him who saith I am the Way the Truth and the Life no man cometh to the Father but by me And that which shews our greatest impotency or need of Iesus Christ and his grace is that without him we can do nothing worthy and capable to approach unto God and enable us to possess him Without me saith he you can do nothing On the one side the soul sees and confesses that God is her perfection her happiness and heritage that in him she hath all that he alone is her sufficiency her life and consummation On the other side she finds that she cannot go to him nor enjoy him nor think of him but by him that is to say by his grace by his infinite mercy she feels that she bears in the bottom of her being not only incapacity impotency and feeblness but of opposition to grace to the gifts and work of God On the other side she carries the effects of Gods love she
is nothing For notwithstanding all the good will and resolutions in the World we shall never put them in practise without grace and after all this perseverance in good is necessary for he onely shall be crowned who continues to the end Yet we cannot have nor merit it it is the gift onely of the mercy of God a pure effect of his bounty Herein appears the extream need that we have of God how necessary this grace is to us not onely to do well but also to persevere From these truths we learn that a Christian that will be saved must not onely have a good will or entertain a good intention but further he must seriously seek God adhere to him and possess him since in him alone consisteth the grace that is necessary to do well and to end well in a holy perseverance Salvation is not a thing so easie as we conceive for we have nothing at all in our selves as our selves that can help to save us On the contrary all that is in us is in opposition to grace and by sinne conspires our ruine He that will save himself must seek from without himself the way of his salvation the power to do works worthy of Paradise the power to serve God which he cannot find but in Iesus Christ there he must seek it of him alone he must have the power to serve God the merit of his good works the grace of perseverance and the conduct of his life consequently he must possess and adhere to him if he will attain his happiness nothing else is of advantage seeing Iesus Christ saith himself Without me ye can do nothing Rules and Constitutions may be given us Vses and Documents may be prescribed to practise Vertue and to attain to Christian perfection but all will be without profit and stability if we go not out of our selves to possess Iesus his spirit and grace to receive in him and of him true Vertue stability and perseverance For the grace of Iesus is wholly to have true Vertue and Christianity and perfectly to accomplish the actions and practises that are proposed to us If we examine these principles of truth we shall immediately find from whence arriveth an evill commonly observable in the Church of God that many souls live in a good observance labour much and exercise themselves in the practise of the number of the Vertues yet make little or no progress towards the perfection that they desire and never arrive at the end which they propose to themselves If a reason may be given for a misfortune so generall it appeareth that this cannot proceed from any thing but that such souls seek not God purely nor resign themselves to his conduct to follow with simplicity and fidelity the order which God hath established on them but with a respect to themselves desirous to rise and arrive to an estate whereunto God doth not call them or they refuse to labour with fidelity to attain that whereunto God calls them They regard not God they work not by grace nor seek it where it is but trust in their own strength and work not with submission to grace it self They seek not in Iesus Christ strength and power to work for they think not of it being so blind that they rely upon themselves and by secret esteem of their own actions and Labours easily perswade themselves that there is Vertue where none is and that they are in some estate of perfection when they are very far from it confiding in their own good will or in a simple intention which they think good Believing this enough for them they neglect or despise all the rest which is of greater importance Now to remedy this evil which is not to be neglected you must practise what I shall tell you 1. We must be in will and perpetuall desire of God in a resolution not to love or act but by grace and by the spirit of Iesus this desire is a disposition little known yet more important then it seems for God will be desired and takes pleasure to see a soul thirst and run after him We see that he deferred his great mercies and gave not his sonne to the world till 4000 years after man had desired him 2. We must demand his spirit with earnestness crying from the bottom of our hearts after Iesus the onely freer of our souls the true principle of grace 3. All our recourse must be to Iesus not relying or confiding in any thing but his power vertue and grace to love and act by his dispositions This is properly that we call acting by the spirit and by submission to grace Let us proceed to the consideration of truth to give our selves light and to let those that would be saved know the need they have of God and the rule they ought to observe in their actions to render themselves worthy of God Faith teacheth us that every good guift and every perfect guift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights that the eternal Father giveth us all by his Sonne and in his Sonne and consequently the Sonne of God is made all things to us in him we have all out of him we have nothing whence he is called the gift of God And St. Paul speaking of the eternall Father who gives us his Sonne saith that he is made all things unto us by him we are in Iesus Christ who becomes unto us by God Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption These words represent unto us two truths First That we are in Iesus which shews us the adherence we ought to have to Iesus Christ. The other that we have all in him as having the Sonne of God in whom is true love true wisdom and assured salvation By those truths we learn that Iesus Christ being the true gift of God we have nothing if we possess not him We must therefore labour to become fit to possess him with the effects that he will operate in us Herein consists the practise of Christian life to receive Iesus as a gift of God to possess him as a great treasure to offer him to God to refer him to his Father and with him our Being our life and actions Our soul must be continually employ'd in this double practise in these two continuall motions towards God one to receive Iesus Christ who is the grace of graces the other to offer him to his Father he being the gift of gifts and with him to refer our selves intirely to the glory of his Father and accomplishment of his holy will The third Motive CHAP. VII That a Christian is a Member of Jesus Christ and as such he must be ruled by the Spirit and live the life of Jesus Christ. THe most noble Quality man can have on earth the most happy condition whereto he may be advanced is that of a Christian. By this state God alwayes good and full of mercy relieves him in his faults repairs his
make this point hard to it self I cannot believe that a Christian will oppugne this Truth and lesse imagine that a soul it cannot arrive to the possession of a solid and Christian vertue if she walk not by the way and light of the truths proposed if she do not found her self upon this spirit For if we consider and believe that we are members of Iesus Christ true not imaginary members not of a man or Saint but of Iesus Son of the living God and that in this quality we are truly and immediately united to him if I say we consider our selves as such do we not at the same time see that we are united to God and that by such an union we must be animated by his spirit live by his life and be governed by his conduct This is the first condition whereunto we are raised by Christianity the first grace we receive in Baptisme What vertue and perfection can that soul have which lives not conformable to this estate what doth that soul learn which knowes not his truth To what end is the rest of our practise and this great fabrick of devotion which we propose to our selves if we lay not this first foundation which is so necessary that without it all the rest cannot subsist If we have God for us if we are united to him as members to the head yet if we are not resigned as we ought to his infinite wisdom and loving conduct why do we trouble our selves with all the rest To what end so much care so much prudence and humane providence To what end so many desires He is too covetous whom God sufficeth not What can a soul desire to whom its God and Creator is made all things And if it cannot find rest in this where can it find rest What can content him who is not content with God saith St. Prosper Certainly that soul is very blind and miserable which is not content with providence and the love of Iesus I demand all that you would have of humane prudence in all things we shall find but two many reasons to invite us but a soul brought up in the knowledge of the truths of Christianity and nourish'd in the esteem of God will say with a holy person of our time that the poor Doves are more pleasing to God then the Serpents Let us then raise our selves up to God trust in him adhere to his spirit and beg light of him to penetrate into these truths to bear the effects of them and grace to live faithfully in his wayes There remains one motive more to see the obligations we have to belong to God and to adhere to him if we will arrive at perfection The fourth Motive CHAP. IX That this Precept to love God doth oblige us to perfection and makes us to go out of our selves to be God's COntinuing the designes we have undertaken in this second Part to shew by divers Motives the Obligations all men have to be perfect and to adhere to God and live in subjection and submission to his conduct and grace It remains that we consider in this last Motive the essentiall and indispensable Obligations that we all have to the Precept of Love and consequently to perfection to which end we must consider the two estates in the Church of God the estate of the ordinary Christian and that of the more Religious not to examine them but to behold the abuse of the former too lightly believing that perfection and solid vertue is not for them and losing themselves in this Errour perswade themselves that a Christian as Christian is not at all obliged to interiour life and vertue but that it is a work of supererogation and an unnecessary labour to be busied in acquisition of Christian vertue and possession of inward perfection a manifest Errour the more damageable in that it derogates from the honour of God gives license to the world and blinding their souls looses them and makes them slothfull in the search of the right way to salvation To undeceive our selves then in a matter so important and to secure our salvation which otherwise would remain very doubtfull we must intentively observe the obligations of these two estates that by this knowledge we may know what we ought to be Saint Thomas Aquinas teacheth us that the soul that professeth Religion enters into a stable and permanent estate wherein she seeks after true and solid perfection devesting her self of all that may hinder her arrivall to this perfection By this solemn profession she renounces all things taking in this manner of life as saith Moses the Abbot the wayes instruments and means to attain certainly to this perfection so much commended and recommended by Iesus Christ. For this Reason she makes vowes to separate her self from her self and all other creatures to appropriate her self to God and if she take heed to all the circumstances which accompany this action or if lifting up her eyes to Heaven she considers the will of God towards her in her vocation she knows that by the estate of Religion she enters into a profession which must sever her from the world and whatsoever is in the world to unite her to her God and to place her if we may so say in the bosom of God to live upon earth the life that the Angels live in heaven to lead in a holy communion the life that God leads in his holiness that is to say the life of God in God For as God is busied wholly in the knowledge and love of himself so the soul which desireth to perfectionate her self is not busied in Religion but in a pure and continuall contemplation of God and in acts of love which she doth with great care and vigilancy For for the soul to be as God would have her and arrive to the eminent and divine estate whereto God hath called her must be accidentally and by grace that which God is substantially and by nature This is much in few words to extoll the Religious estate and makes us see how holy it is whereto they are called But we are to understand that what is said extends to all Christians for the estate of Christianity is an estate stable and permanent which calls and leads us to the participation of a divine life an estate permanent and indispensable for it is marked with the character of Baptisme which according to the Principles of our Faith can never be defaced an estate holy and of a particular sanctity which only appertains to Christianity since it is consecrated by the unction of the most holy Trinity confirmed by the grace of adoption and enriched with the fulness of the holy Ghost who is given us by confirmation and conserved by the sacraments an estate permanent seeing it is indispensable for no Christian can go out of or have a dispensation from the obligation he hath to his perfection a perfection not indifferent but Evangelicall and Christian which the Son of God mentions in the
means to possess all Christian vertue THat vertue which we call Christian is a hidden treasure hid in God the very life of a Christian according to the Doctrine of the Apostle is such it is the Pearl in the Gospel which he who would obtain heaven must seek and buy he must seek it in God with all diligence and buy it at the price of all the world Nothing is more precious then true vertue which alone renders us like to God and worthy of Paradise all things else are nothing but vanity amuzement of spirit and unprofitable travell Of known and ordinary means to arrive at the possession of so rich a treasure there is one to be preferred before all others which though little considered and perhaps little known is most important without which all others are ineffectuall This is the adherence of our soul to Iesus Christ This puts us into possession of vertues He who adheres to Iesus Christ is one spirit with him possesses him and in him all vertues To comprehend this truth we must remember that we said that Iesus Christ is our All whence it followeth he is our humility our love our patience our vertue and he that shall possess him shall possess all in him He is the foundation the treasure and riches of the soul He is made unto us saith Saint Paul wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption Who then would have wisdom righteousness and other vertues let him adhere to Iesus He that would acquire and possess perfection let him possess Iesus for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge The Apostle explains this further saying The eternall Father giveth us his Son and with him freely giveth us all things by which words he not onely implies that by his merits by his grace and for his love we have all but moreover that with Iesus Christ note the energy of this word with Iesus we have all possessing him we possess all we must add that if we do not possess nor adhere to Iesus Christ we cannot have true christian vertue This truth is not hard to conceive if we consider the essence of christian vertue and perfection which is the spirit of Iesus or Iesus himself living in us and working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight saith the Apostle Our ordinary manner of speaking teacheth us as much for we say vertue and christian perfection have their beginning in grace from whence they spring and what goes out of a just soul that we call grace Now the soul cannot be in grace nor just but by the habitation of the holy spirit living and acting in her So the Apostle The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us whence we infer that if to live in christian vertue we must be in grace and if grace be no other then the holy spirit living in us and there acting seeing the holy spirit is no other then the very spirit of Iesus it followeth evidently that to live christianly we must possess true vertues and to possess them we must possess Iesus and adhere to him for grace and righteousness consists in this possession Let us rise higher and come to the source hereof Faith teaches us that in Adam we are devested of innocence fallen from the state of grace and perfection whereto we were destined by Creation and by the first designes of God By this fall we have lost for ever the vertues graces and supernaturall gifts wherewith the infinite goodness of God had inriched and cloathed the first man At the sight of this misfortune God being moved onely by his own goodness to be merciful to us would raise us from this fall and inrich us more then ever with his graces and heavenly favours where sinne abounded saith the Apostle grace did much more abound To raise us to this happiness he would give us a new beginning of life and grace his onely Sonne Iesus Christ who being made man by the mystery of the Incarnation is established Father and principle of that being and life of grace which should be in man As we participate in sin of the evil of Adam and are with him despoiled of all vertues and grace adhering to him as to our naturall principle and have with him his being and his nature So adhering to Iesus Christ as to our Head our new Principle we participate of his being of his spirit of his grace and of his vertues This witnesseth the Forerunner of the Messiah who saith Of his fulness we have all received and grace for grace From this being deliberately considered we may derive worthy documents to our subject First we see how much we ought to adhere to Iesus if we will live his life and participate his vertues which are the onely Christian vertues for in as much as we adhere to Adam we are not capable of any thing but to live the life of sinners we have no right to the life of grace to practise or possess any Chrstian vertue If we will live the life of grace and obtain power to practise and possess vertue we must lay hold of Iesus Christ and to receive it of him we must adhere to him for we cannot possess him but in adhering to him wherein appeareth also the necessity of this adherence From this truth we draw a second document how much they deceive themselves who speak meanly and indifferently of true Christans or of a thing proportioned to our reason and being For according to the Principles of Christianity and words of Saint Paul as Christians we must put on the Lord Iesus Christ that is the gifts of the graces and vertues of Iesus in such manner that we may be like unto him in such a degree of perfection that we may bear in us an expression and a lively image of the life and vertues of Iesus Christian vertue is not animitation of the life and vertues of a perfect man not of Adam considered in his Innocency and originall Iustice to have vertues after this manner were not much it is a lively Image of the vertues of Iesus Man-God or to say better it is the life and vertue it self of Iesus in man As men are distinguished by their habits so are true Christians from others by these vertues and these vertues are distinguished from all others if there be any by the spirit of Iesus Here then appears the divinity and perfection of Christian vertues they are the vertues of Iesus himself according to which the Apostle saith we are new creatures As creatures of Iesus we must bear his Image which is divine and celestiall not that of Adam which is humane and terrestriall that is our life and vertues must not be of a man but of God life and vertues as different according to the Doctrine of the Apostle as heaven is distant from the earth as unlike as Iesus is
the words as all good all wise all mighty this manner is sufficient Therefore we must accustom our selves to make use of that which Faith proposes and after excite in our selves the thought of God and entertain our selves therein not by speculation but by obedience and affection which is that we call an affective thought of God as if we should say in our hearts yea my God thou art wholly wise and wholly good I will leave my self to thy conduct I will submit my self to thy divine will By these frequent thoughts of God the soul unites it self to God adheres to his truths and by little and little ascends to the knowledge of God This manner is not hard neither requires it any rule we must onely be vigilant often to apply our selves thereto when any thing gives occasion thereof To arrive to the knowledge of our selves it suffices not to consider our own impotency our feebleness and our imperfections we see them and know them but too much we make a custom of it and this truth will never lead us to humility but we must elevate our thoughts and make use of the knowledge of God thus The soul must present it self before God and having conceived as well as she can the infinite being and soveraign Majesty of the Divinity before which she is she regards him she adores him then she begins to compare her being with that of God she entertains her self in this thought and in this regard and presently acknowledging the exaltation of the divine essence above her own she accounts her self as if she were not by reason of the infinite distance she sees betwixt God and her and in this view she regards her self rather in a not being and a nothing then in a being The soul filling her self with this thought and possessed with this truth humbles her self in the knowledge of her nothing and abases her self as much as she can For having conceived the greatness of God throughout she sees that she is a meer nothing This truth annihilates all creatures yea the most perfect upon earth and the Saints in Heaven forc'd by this principle humble themselves and make themselves as nothing before the supreme and incomprehensible Majesty of God in respect of whom all creatures together are not so much as one grain of Sand. The soul in the sight of this truth must say in her self If all creatures are nothing before God what am I who am the least And if I am nothing before God can I make my self any thing If before the Creator I find not my self by reason I am so much plung'd into nothing would I to the prejudice of truth appear to be something before the Creature In the consideration of this truth the spirit is vanquished the soul knowes what she is and is constrained to humble her self We must passe farther and enter into the consideration of the totall and absolute dependance wherein the soul is in regard of God a dependance so great that she holds onely of God she subsisteth not nor moveth but in God with so much necessity that the beames subsist not by nor depend more on the Sun then the soul doth on her God O happy dependance which gives us God and binds us to God! In considering this truth the soul finds that she is nothing and that she hath nothing either in the order of the essence created or in the order of grace for all is in God and depend on God in such manner that if God should wholly withdraw himself she should leave to be that which she is and should find her self in her nothing So that if she have any thing she sees that it is in God not in her self in him saith St. Paul we live and move and have our being Reflecting hereupon she saith in her heart If all that I have belong not to me nor is of me but of God and belongs to God then am I nothing nor have any thing Wherefore do I flatter my self and believe my self to be something when in truth I am nothing why do I glorifie my self and please my self in that which belongs not to me wherefore should I attribute to my self the honour contentment and glory which belongs onely to my Lord No no I will keep in my meanness I will hide my self in the abysse of my nothing and if God be merciful unto me and out of his bounty give me something I will hold it of him I will onely keep it for him and I resolve from this time and to all eternity I will live in the dependance that I owe to the regard of my Lord and God Let us not stay here but advance forward to the light of truth and let us cast our eyes upon the need we have of God and we shall find what we are and that we are nothing nor have nothing as having received all of God and we possess nothing either temporall or spirituall in nature or in grace but onely that which God reserves and if he should be pleased to withdraw his gifts or cease to preserve them we should find our selves like Adam naked and poor and should return to our nothing Let us behold our selves then so naked and devested and let us pause upon this thought and upon this consideration and we shall be ashamed to look upon our selves and we shall be forced whether we will or not to humble our selves but with a humility full of love and confidence which shall make us lift up our eyes to Heaven to behold him on whom we so absolutely depend from whose hands we have received all and must yet every moment receive influence conduct grace and stability and that so necessarily that if we happen to separate our selves from him and if he but stop his assistance and his concourse leaving us to our selves we assuredly shall fall and in an instant lose all in what state soever we are of Sanctity and grace O most powerful Truth to humble us if considered a truth that humbles the most holy and just upon earth and which annihilates the Angels and Seraphims in Heaven a truth which makes the glorious spirits Angels and Saints who enjoy God to acknowledge that they have nothing but of the mercy of God and that they have no stability but in God an acknowledgement so strong that it were able to pluck them and unite them to him indissolubly if otherwise they were not ty'd to him by the state of glory This is the very state of a soul of Iesus who knowing the greatness of God and seeing himself his Creature penetrating those truths by a light springing from the personall union of the word a light worthy of the glory of the Sonne of God humbles it self but with a humility that shall be eternall a humility more profound then that of all the Saints and Angels a humility which alone is worthy to honour and adore the infinite Essence and the supreme Majesty of God So that
from all things without doubt if God operate you shall see all these effects and therefore the soul that will be perfect must narrowly look into all this and have an extraordinary vigilancy to become faithfull and attentive to the operations of God in her on one side to correspond thereto and to labour after the manner God inspires her with on the other to annihilate her self not the works of God for if we oppose not our selves to grace and the effects thereof if we do not annihilate the works of God in us God will certainly work great things in us But alas the wayes whereby we make use of devotion in this age are more capable to drive God away then to invite him into our hearts I shall describe them unto you The soul blinded with naturall love to her self desires to be brought up in the gifts of God she would enjoy him and would love what seems good and profitable to her she fills her self with divers desires she tyes her self thereto and will continually act and attain she puts her self into all employments and motions she seeks them she pleases her self with a satisfaction that her own love takes in things most holy and in the very operation of God she seeks her self therein she elevates her self thereto In this manner she opposes her self to the spirit of Iesus Christ and annihilateth the work of God who would onely live in her onely occupate her spirit onely possess her desiring by the power of his love to annihate in her all that is of her Iesus Christ would take away and this soul will add to God would dispossess and spoyl and she would acquire and possess Thus she hinders and destroyes the workes of God driving God out of her and out of her spirit to cause her own love to raign there her own satisfaction and will a vanity ordinary to such souls as are wholly consumed in the spirit of Adam They therefore who tend to perfection must go with all purity and simplicity they must seek nothing but God and to please God but above all they must be very circumspect and attentive to his inward operations having a great care and fidelity to leave the spirit to act by the grace of God in them As all this is very secret and interiour and often is in the very centre of the soul so must we take heed thereto and besides the vigilance necessary it is good from time to time to practise these ensuing acts First to give our selves to Iesus Christ to live in him and to bear the spirit and effects of this self-denyall after the manner that pleaseth him Secondly to renounce our selves our secret vanity and all that is in us opposite to grace and to the operations of God Thirdly to be attentive to the motions and operations of God in us especially when he acts by self-denyall and privation as well interiour as exteriour to co-operate therewith either by action if it be necessary or by consent of the soul giving her self to God to receive what God shall operate in her when the soul shall feel divers motions or meet several occasions to practise vertue she shall alwayes choose those where there shall be privation and self-denyall as the most assured way and the most acceptable to God most for the honour of Iesus Christ and most conformable to his humane life Fourthly she shall pray to Iesus Christ to vouchsafe to operate and put into her all that he wills and to annihilate in her all that he requireth to prevent in her by his light and love the time of death and judgement whereto he must annihilate the thoughts and judgements of men The abridgement of the third Part. CHAP. XIV Treating of the dependance of the Soul upon God IT is easie to see that amongst Christians even those who think they have vertue enough to fave them many deceive and altogether lose themselves taking the shadow of vertue for the substance apparence for truth like the Dog in the Fable who let go the good morsell he had hold of to catch a shadow these neglect the solid vertues and principall foundations of piety to insist on certain exteriour actions which have no substance but in the air of imagination they exercise themselves in morall vertues and despise the Christian they compose the exteriour and form their demeanour and neglect the interiour they fear to displease men and endeavour to satisfie their kindred and friends but care no more to please God then they fear to displease him they would seem good but care not to be so In a word in all things they choose the most beautifull and best and will have nothing but what is good but for their souls that which is least best contents them they seek but that which is necessary what gives them greatest liberty and satisfaction they embrace with all their heart God who is truth is not satisfied with these feignings and wills that we serve him in spirit and truth he detests a lye and curses those that serve him with the mouth onely if he love he will be beloved and as his love is most pure and perfect he will have ours to be such also Whence it is easie to comprehend that to be a perfect Christian and friend to God requires great qualities He must have a golden key that will enter into the Kings chamber he that will come to a royall feast must be clothed with a wedding garment lest he be bound hand and foot and cast into prison and utter darkness To be a perfect Christian is not so slight a business as some think it it belongs to God only to make a man just it is the work of his hand and greater then the creation of the world at least in this God shews himself more powerfull in his love and more admirable in his mercies Therefore when we speak of a good and perfect Christian we speak of Gods handy-work of a man worthy to be a Saint for to be saved and to be Saint is one and the same thing Now what ought the soul of a Saint to be who must one day see God live with God saith St. Bernard in his Meditations and be eternally in unity with God what must the perfection of a soul be that shall become worthy so infinite and incomprehensible a happiness whereto all aspire that would be saved I leave it to their thoughts who know how to esteem of the works of God and make account of the greatness of Paradise and shall onely tell those languishing and easie spirits with Saint Paul Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap also for he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting Whereupon we must reflect that Christians who are to reap the incorruption of the life everlasting if they will arrive to their
consequently follows that the centre the repose of a Christian cannot be but in this estate of sufferings and in the same condition of suffering that Iesus Christ was here upon earth When we say that the centre and spirit of Christianity is no other then the cross annihilations and adversities we must conceive it in the highest and consider that the Son of God came into the World for the glory of his Father to satisfie his divine Iustice and for the sanctification of our souls These were his designes desires and thoughts Now the thoughts and intentions of the Son of God are eternall and permanent for they are divine and it is the property of the essence and of divine actions to be immutable and permanent Seeing then that the Son of God hath chosen the cross from all eternity lived upon earth in the spirit of sufferance he remains alwayes in the thoughts of the cross in the desires of humiliation and the rigour of death the zeal of the glory of his Father goes not from his heart but he preserves this spirit and offers himself to his Father to bear it eternally and to suffer the effects of it if it be his good pleasure This zeal ought not to be unfruitfull this offer is not to be refused and yet the estate of his greatness and the condition of his glory cannot permit it What remedy Love alwayes wise and inventive hath found out a means to satisfie the equity of his desires and divine affection and the Majesty of his glory for the eternall Father hath given his Son a mysticall body which is his Church he hath appointed him Head over all his Church which is his body all Christians are members of this body true members as the body is a true body though a mysticall body We are saith the Apostle members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Now to this body and these members the spirit and zeal of Iesus Christ communicates it self by the designe and speciall counsel of the blessed Trinity In pursuit of this divine counsel the Son of God pours into his Church and upon Christians the zeal of the glory of God the spirit of the cross and the love of justice he pours it out as he pleases distributing his gifts according to his holy will To some he communicates his spirit of sufferance and crosses to others that of death and to speak more generally he communicates his estates and spirit to whom he pleases and as he pleases So Saint Paul I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh Reflecting on this truth we shall cleerly see that the spirit of Christianity is no other then the spirit of Iesus which he communicates to his Church being the head and to Christians his members And as this spirit is no other then a desire of the glory of God love of the cross and zeal of justice it follows they who will be good Christians must necessarily bear this spirit and be in this estate of annihilation and the cross and embrace all adversities that they meet with yea embrace them couragiously as an order of God established upon them and as an estate which is singularly proper for them In this Disposition they shall find the centre and repose of their souls and in this subjection to the cross they shall obtain the peace that Iesus Christ hath acquired for us by his cross We may also say that to suffer Christianly is to bear all things with cheerfulness of spirit doing like the Apostles who departed rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for his Names sake and like the first Christians who took joyfully the spoyling of their goods defied torments and the cruelty of beasts like Saint Ignatius the burning of fire as Saint Lawrence the violence of torments as Saint Agnes and in the Churches first beginning their zeal to suffer was so great that it made the Apostle Saint Iames to say Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations This advice will seem hard for the rigours of the cross and pains of this life are too piercing but if we love all will be easie for where love is saith Saint Bernard there is nothing but sweetness and nothing is difficult to him that loves though thornes guard and encompass the Rose we gather it notwithstanding and enjoy its beauty and odour Iacob sayes he served seven years for Rachel and they seemed unto him but a few dayes because he loved her so much that he was insensible of the travail He also that will suffer Christianly must love for he that cannot love cannot suffer and he that can neither suffer nor love is no Christian seeing that love is the spirit of Christianity and sufferance the spirit of love This principle considered no rigours that we find in humane life can appear difficult and misfortunes and pains are onely irk some to us for want of love Let us then but love and they will all be easie by love the sufferings of Christians are distinguished from those of others For it is common to all men to suffer it is the condition of their being and portion of their life and the more they think themselves secure the more they are surprised with misfortunes but it belongs onely to Christians to suffer with love The sinner is drawn by the neck like a slave to do the will of God the good man willingly followes him and findes no pain in any thing but on the contrary he finds comfort in travail and repose in displeasure In this sense the Apostle cryes out upon sight of the wounds and scarrs he endured for Iesus Christ Henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Iesus And elsewhere I will glory willingly in my infirmities that the power of Iesus Christ may dwell in me To suffer in this disposition is to suffer Christianly or else let us say that to suffer Christianly is to suffer with an esteem of sufferings There are divers reasons why we should take and well esteem them but the principall consisteth in that Iesus Christ hath chosen this manner of life as a way that honoureth more divinely the Majesty of God then any other estate and he hath chosen this way from all eternity and by consequence from all eternity he beares the thoughts and love of the Cross. He hath chosen the Cross saith St. Paul he hath embraced it from the first moment of his incarnation and by an excess of love he began to suffer as soon as he was born And that which is to be observed is that by the election of his divine wisdom which never fails he hath made choyce of confusion and contempt rather then greatness and contentment So saith the Apostle of him and we find it in his divine Mysteries And from hence comes the esteem that we ought to have thereof
where sin had abounded that love might triumph over us Let us then descend to the particularities of grace and examine the properties and effects thereof The grace which we receive and sanctifies us is the grace of Iesus Christ which flowes from his fulness and communicates to our souls grace which is not onely supernaturall but was made for Iesus and is proportioned to his Soveraignty and infinite dignity whence we are called Christians It hath all its being dignity and residence in Iesus it is above our nature and in the rank of supernaturall things in an order soveraign and particular worthy of the soveraignty of Iesus and proportioned to his Filiation order and grace very different from the originall Iustice which was given to the first man For though the grace of Adam were supernatural yet was it an order very inferiour to Christian grace being proportioned to his nature and inclinations in the state of innocency All men as well as Adam had been sanctified in the order and according to the order of nature and in the naturall uses thereof But it is not so in Christian grace for that is not proportioned to the nature of man but above it wholly in Iesus wholly for him it issues out of him and by an effect proper and particular to it drawes us from our selves to unite us to him as members to the head and being united sanctifies us in Him in such a manner as that we are no more in the quality of men and Children of Adam but as Children of God and members of the Sonne of God and by a grace proper to the Sonne of God of whose fulness we have all received Whence we infer that he who would be sanctified and partake of Christian grace must be united to Iesus Christ as the branch to the Tree the graft to the stock the members to the head and if united must also be one with him as the head and members make up but one body and consequently by reason of that unity must not onely partake of his grace but also his spirit and life in the same manner as we say the members move not themselves nor live but by the life of their head This being considered we see that to live Christianly it is not enough to say that we must be in grace but we must live in the spirit and life of Iesus for grace produceth this effect for as much as by the same principle whereby we are united to Iesus as members to their head we must live his life and be guided by his spirit And as it is the property of Christian grace to unite us to the Sonne of God so is it the effect of the same grace to rule us by his spirit and to make us live his life wherein appeares how perfect the life of a Christian in grace should be how exemplary and holy his actions must be how regular his motions and how pure his intentions seeing it is a life of grace which unites us to the Son of God which making us one with him causes us to live in his spirit and life Let us enter further into the consideration of grace and we shall see that according to the Apostle Grace is a participation of the divine nature These words contain the excellency of Christianity and describe all that can be said of grace The Apostle implies that we are accidentally what God is substantially and that which agrees with God and is proper to him according to his divine nature is appropriated to us and may be convenient for us according to the spirit of grace so that by grace we are elevated from our own baseness to the fellowship of Iesus Christ and we are put out of our selves to receive a new being in God Can any thing be said more admirable or great If we reflect on this truth we must needs confess that to live according to Christian grace and bear it's effects in our souls we must go out of our selves and be no more our own nor in our selves When we say we must go out of our selves we would intimate that the Christian to live like a perfect Christian must regard nothing but God mind no Interest but that of the glory of God please none but God have no desire but to accomplish the will of God In brief he must renounce himself and the love of all things to love none but God To live so as to go out of ones self is in two words all that we have proposed in the fourth Part. This is a Point may be thought hard and too high yet the practice thereof is necessary according to those words of the Son of God He that will follow me let him deny himself where we see how much a Christian is obliged to renounce all and to go out of himself after the manner we have declared which will appear more cleer if we consider the essence of the Precept of love for the love of Christianity is a love says Dionysius the Areopagite extatick that is to say it raiseth us to a contempt of our selves and all things to unite us to God who is essentially love and charity so that by the perfection of Christianity which is in the love of God we are drawn from the love of our selves and the creature to be onely God's and not to enjoy our selves in any thing but in God Thus which way soever we consider Christianity we find that both love and Christian grace causes us to go out of our selves to unite us to God and make us partakers of his divine Nature The SEQUELE FRom the Principle of Truth last explained we learn the great difference between the state of Innocency in Adam and the Christian righteousness in Iesus Christ for Adam had a power over all things it was permitted him to enjoy the whole world and to rejoyce therein Original righteousness and the grace of the first man was in that and in the lawfull use of all things but Christian grace is quite contrary for God wills not any more that man rejoyce and content himself in any thing but in him that he live not but for him that he alone be his possession and heritage Besides the state of Adam was in exaltation in the possession in the satisfaction and pleasure that he might lawfully take in the creatures that were subjected to him during the time that he remained in obedience to God But the state of Christianity is wholly opposite it consists altogether in privations in humiliations in dejections and in summ it devests man of all power even that which he hath of himself that he may be wholly Iesus Christ's that separating himself from the creatures and from himself Iesus Christ might be his All and his Fulness that by Christian grace he might enter into society with Iesus Christ and by him with his Father according to what the beloved Apostle promised us when he said That your fellowship be with the Father
souls to his Sonne he adds Every man that hath heard of the Father cometh unto me These words include the secrets of grace and are full of Mystery They teach us that the eternall Father by his grace drawes us and guides us to his Sonne he speaks to us by his inspirations in the interiour of our souls he shewes us that we are Iesus Christ's Is not this to say all that we have proposed That the design of God to save us is no other then to give us his Sonne to unite us to him by the powerfull attractions of his grace and to cause us to adhere to him by love and the exercises of a life truly christian herein doth true piety consist We must therefore continually elevate our hearts and spirits to this Iesus the onely happiness of our souls we must entreat him to accomplish in us the designs of his Father and to take an absolute power over us We must so offer our selves to him as to have no other intention will nor conduct but his that we may by a true relation verifie what Saint Paul said All is yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods Let us so think of him and so do that from henceforth our hearts and mouths may neither speak nor think but of him that all things else may be of no savour to us that nothing enter our spirit which resenteth not the spirit and odor of Iesus Christ and respires not his honour and glory In a word let us adhere to him and by an indissoluble and eternall union dwell in him that he may dwell in us that we may eternally bear the effect of his holy word He that is joyned unto the Lord is the one spirit O how happy is the soul that is called to this happiness and that is truly in the power of Iesus in the possession of his spirit and direction of his grace This is the state whereto Christian perfection must arrive the foundation of piety and true devotion But because many think not of it and many know it not we must treat of it more at large and propose the motives that most oblige us to this Devotion CHAP. III. Of Piety to Iesus Christ and its principall effects WHAT we have already said of the Sonne of God is sufficient to make us know what we owe unto him but the importance of this subject requires that for our better information we explain particularly the principles of this piety and the meanes necessary to attain it But before we enter into this subject we must consider that devotion to the Sonne of God wherein we are to imitate all Christians is not so to limit our souls as to withdraw them from what they owe to God but on the contrary the exercise of this piety is necessary to conduct us more worthily and holily to God because by piety to the Sonne of God we attain a capacity and power to honour God Iesus Christ is our way by him alone we go to God he is our life by him we live the life of grace a life which onely makes us worthy to honour God He is our Truth in him alone as the spirit of truth we know God we adore him and serve him in truth according to the Apostle he is our All in him and by him we have all things by the Son the Father gives us all and by the Son we render all to the Father This is the gift we receive of God and the gift we give to God for all is operated and subsists in the unity of Iesus Christ. The Church offers nothing to demands nothing of the blessed Trinity but by Iesus Christ. We must imitate the Church in pious customs Piety to Iesus Christ requires not so much exteriour exercises as interiour and permanent estate doth in our souls nor demands it any novelty of affection but a newness of spirit a new disposition enclining our souls to employ themselves in the thought of Iesus Christ to regard him to love him to honour him as the object and end of our life actions and devotions It requires that the actions of the religious should be devout those of the ordinary Christians vertuous those of a private person familiar in this object without changing his spirit but directing his intentions and dispositions to the pure regard of the Son of God For example let us do all that we do by the spirit of honour and love to Iesus Christ if we suffer let it be to imitate and render honour to his sufferings what ever happens to us let us receive it by a dependance on and submission to his power and conduct If we will insist upon any good thoughts let it be of Iesus Christ to consider his greatness the mysteries of his life his vertues his benefits and the power he hath over us By these sweet entertainments by these regards of honour and love the perfect Christian advances himself is confirm'd in the piety we speak of To know what this piety is and how we must apply our selves thereto let us consider that Iesus Christ is the principle the centre the end of all Christian souls for as faith teaches us he is the cause of all the good that is in us the spring of all the graces we possess Author of the life which we live in Christianity and being the principle he is also consequently the end thereof For according to the order established in nature that which is the principle of a thing is also its end and nature follows invariably the order God hath prefixt and by his well ordered motions gently leads and if not diverted infallibly conducts all things to the principle whence she draws them So the waters saith the Wise man return to the ocean as to their mothers womb and according to the mysteries of faith we say all things return to God because they all came out of God It is the same in the estate of grace If then Iesus Christ be the principle of the being life and state of Christianity he must be also the end so that our being life and estate regard the same Iesus Christ and are referred to him as the end and if the end the centre also of a Christian life In him our souls find their repose and perfection in him by him and of him are all things saith Saint Paul This Principle alone considered shews us that Iesus Christ hath full power over us that we are his not only in respect of his divine greatness and supreme power over all as God Saviour and Redeemer as purchaser of us with his most precious blood and his of life-giving death but also because he is the principle centre and end of the life and state of Christianity In this relation he hath soveraign power over us having given us being and grace consecrated us to his glory and honour in such absolute manner that the Christian cannot make use either of himself or any
name and ineffable greatness of Iesus Christ if all our actions be full of our own will and it were to little purpose to subject our selves by words to the Soveraignty of Iesus Christ to the conduct of his spirit and motions if in the management of our life we follow the spirit of the World living in a continuall desire to satisfie our selves and our own inclinations This were to say much and do nothing This we must be carefull in since many deceive themselves in this kind of piety which they so easily profess contenting themselves with the superficies and neglecting the rest Remember that he who sayes we must adore God in spirit said also we must adore him in Truth The second act of this piety is an act of Oblation whereby the soul offers her self wholly to Iesus Christ and renouncing her self resignes into his hand all that she is all the power that she hath over her self over all her actions over all things and to make her self the more a servant to Iesus in a perfect condition she renounces her own liberty and all the use she can make thereof giving it up into the hands of the Son of God of whom she received it granting him all the right that she had to dispose thereof to order it as he pleases that being so resigned to Iesus she may not have any thing more nor be any thing more but that he may be all have all and operate all in her This Obligation thus conceived is of great importance For if it be done after the manner it ought if the Son of God vouchsafe to accept it it puts us in the perfection of Christianity in as much as it drawes the soul from her self and all creatures to be Christ's to adhere to him to depend on him in all things wherein consisteth true perfection Moreover this Obligation is an effect of the esteem and belief we have of Iesus Christ and contains the spirit of Christian subjection For as according to Law the slave is no more his own nor hath any right over any thing but is wholly left to the power and pleasure of his Master so by this Obligation the Christian puts himself as nothing before Iesus Christ he gives place to all his rights of nature and grace to be onely the subject of his power and divine will And though we are all servants to Iesus Christ by right and purchase as we said elsewhere yet we will be such also out of good will and affection giving him by this Oblation a new power over us that we may be the Captives to his love as well as to his power and submit to the designs of the eternall Father who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us to the Kingdom of his dear Son Thus examining this Oblation we find that it is necessary for all those who seek true piety as containing the essence and grounds of devotion it puts the soul into a perfect denudation and makes her entirely dependant and resigned to Iesus Christ to be led according to his will They therefore who in their exercises of piety make ordinary use of this principle of devotion must weigh well what they say and consider with what sincerity and faithfulness they proceed with the Son of God For seeing they leave themselves wholly to him in the quality of servants and make profession mark the word to have nothing which is not his and of him and that by this Oblation they yeild up all to him even to the use of their own life and naturall liberty what have they more to think of but sincerely and faithfully to accomplish what they profess What have they more to do but to take care that their life be conformable to what they say otherwise they shall be constrained to condemn themselves and to confess that they have no devotion any further then the mouth that they deal not sincerely w th God and their own consciences It concerns them to take heed that that is not justly to be attributed to them which the Prophet said Cursed are they that do the work of the Lord negligently To these Exercises of interiour piety we may add a third act Purity of Intention By this intention the Christian who offers himself to God in the manner we have described begins to refer himself actually to him and to his glory protesting that in all things even to the least and in all his actions he will have no other intention then the will of the Son of God and live no longer nor act any thing but according to the intention of Iesus Christ. Having made this protestation he demands of him participation of his holy spirit and prayes him to inspire him with holy and pure dispositions whereby he may accomplish his actions This practice of piety is little known and perhaps little understood yet it is necessary for a perfect Christian. To conceive and affect it he is to remember that as we have said true piety contains a resignation of the soul to the conduct of grace and to the spirit of Iesus and that this resignation is more then a bare simple resignation for it includes annihilation and unity annihilation of our own spirit and conduct and unity with the spirit and conduct of Iesus Christ to which we resigne our selves By this act of intention the Christian annihilates all his desires and intentions to unite and subject himself onely to the intentions and desires of Iesus Christ in such sort as to admit no other Hence it may be inferr'd how necessary this intention is to all those souls that thirst after true piety but to make a fuller discovery thereof we are to reflect on our own infirmity and incapacity which is so great that we know not what is lawfull for us to desire and are ignorant of what we ought to demand of God as not understanding what designes Iesus Christ may have upon us We must therefore wait till he enlighten us and inspire us Now that we may be in a disposition to receive this grace and in a capacity to submit to the conduct of the spirit of God we must annihilate our own desires and particular intentions and give our selves up to those of Iesus which is that the Christian endeavors to do by the act of intention here proposed It is the Doctrine of the Apostle who says We know not how to pray as we ought but the spirit makes intercession for us by groans that cannot be uttered He who searches the heart knows what is the desire of the spirit he sueth for the Saints according to the will of God Here we are taught this practice which shews us that our prayers desires and intentions must be inspired by the spirit of Iesus Christ who knows what God demands of us Moreover there is not any thing so certain as that the Sonne of God hath those intentions and designes upon the life actions
and heart of man which are great and worthy himself as being a creature he hath consecrated by his precious blood and redeemed by his death and Crosse. If there are intentions and designes upon us as we must not doubt but there are and such as are of great importance yet unknown to us is it not reason we follow them and consequently are we not obliged to annihilate all our own desires and intentions to bind and subject our selves solely to the desires and intentions of the Son of God who vouchsafes to think of us and entertain himself in forming designes upon us our actions and all the motions of our life This is it we endeavour to satisfie when we form this act of purity or unity of intention This also shewes how unprofitable and superfluous their employment is who fill their hearts with variety of intentions and perplex themselves with multiplicity of thoughts who conceive desires and form designes sometimes one way sometimes another though upon occasions in appearance good and profitable since they do onely what pleases themselves But according to the Principles of Christianity it were better they kept themselves to this unity and annihilated all that is of themselves to be onely in the intentions and designes of Iesus Christ. The Christian therefore ought often to renew this purity of intention he ought to adore all the designes of Iesus Christ upon him and all his divine intentions he must resign himself thereto and protest never to follow any other holding it for a maxime that we shall not arrive at perfection nor go to God by the strength of humane reason or following our own desires and inclinations but by submitting our spirit to the conduct of Iesus by a faithfull and sincere adherence to his designes and loving dispositions This considered we shall know more and more the truth of what was proposed from the beginning that true piety consisteth in adherence to and a resignation of the soul to Iesus But we are now to examine the effects of this adherence CHAP. VIII That an adherence to Jesus Christ by true Piety makes us partakers of the severall conditions of his life THe adherence and dependance of Christians upon the Sonne of God by the first grounds and principles of Christianity and by the first duty which they profess in the state of grace obliges them to a holy and pure life since that as the Apostle saith He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit that is to say he must be of the same spirit with God and doubtless if they oppose not the designes of Iesus Christ upon them this adherence will advance them to a solid permanent estate of perfect piety and establish them in a true Christian perfection This may be reduced to three heads The first is a subjection of the soul to the designes spirit and operations of Iesus Christ a subjection that amounts to a capacity and amplitude and such as makes the soul capable to receive the communications of God to bear the effects of his grace and to enter into a participation of the Estates and Mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. The second effect puts the soul into a purity of regard and love which makes her vigilant and faithfull to do and desire nothing but the honour of Iesus Christ to regard nothing but his pleasure and glory so as to have no eyes but for Iesus no more life but what is consecrated to the honour of his Soveraignty and divine actions This adherence to and dependance on the Sonne of God raiseth in a Christian a true imitation of his life and divine vertues to such a degree of perfection that he becomes a lively representation and image of Iesus Of these three effects we must speak particularly for herein consisteth the perfection of true and Christian piety We begin with the first The subjection which by this adherence to the Son of God is begotten in us represents two things the power he hath over us and the capacity we are in to bear the effects of his power The power which Iesus Christ hath over us is a particular power which he acquires by the mystery of the Incarnation and by all the states moments of his life a power that gives him a double right to do in us and with us what ever he pleases a power from which he imprints in the centre of our souls the time that we were first made Christians an eternall and indispensable power In a word it is a power which he establish'd by the Sacraments and left to the Church For if we consider them we shall find that besides the graces which they communicate to us they have other extraordinary effects expressing the power Christ assumes over us For instance Baptisme gives us grace and blots out all sin in us but withall put us into a condition of service to the Son of God and imprints in our souls a character of subjection to the divine power a character never to be defaced in honour of the estate of subjection and service which the Son of God underwent by the incarnation becoming man and a servant subjecting himself to the Father he was always and shall be for ever equal and coeternal with the Father and in honour of the gift which the eternall Father makes us of his Son by the incarnation and union of the Word with humanity and the life of God in man and of man in God The same Son of God instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist wherein he gives and unites himself to us that he may live in us and we in him By this way of love and union he takes power over us to live and operate in us all that he pleases and shews the power that he hath over our souls to establish therein continually his designs to glorify himself thereby and please himself in them In pursuit of this power he puts us into an estate of subjection yet such as gives us a capacity to rceive and to bear in us the force of his love and of all the effects of the life grace and mysteries of Iesus Christ and to receive them according to what manner and time he shall please to communicate them The Son of God desireth nothing so much as to communicate to us liberally his graces and the many favours he hath obtained for us and merited by his life and sufferings his principall design being to advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life All he did on earth all his operations in the world were for our sakes referring also to our good and advancement all the greatness of his being the power of his spirit and merits of his life so good is he and so full of mercy Now if the goodness and designs of the Son of God towards Christians be such is it not reason they continue in this subjection and be faithfull and vigilant to receive and bear the effects and estates of
is onely expected that Christians dispose themselves to participate of this happinesse and being called thereto endeavour to correspond faithfully therewith God doth the same in the regency of his Church the Sonne of God making use of his power hath established therein severall estates orders and societies separated from the common and from one another which he consecrates and appropriates to the severall estates and Mysteries of his life Some honour his solitude and hidden life others his penance others his poverty others his obedience all adorn and beautifie the body of his Church and in the diversity of their functions and estates honour adore and imitate the severall operations and Mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ who distributes his spirit and the grace of his Mysteries to all according to what manner he pleases He doth the same in the particular Government of souls he causes and calls them to elevate and establish them in such estate as pleaseth him sometimes by sufferings sometimes by privations one while by love another by simplicity and infancy In a word he estates them as he pleases to be honoured by them one and the same spirit according to St. Paul working all things dividing to every one severally as it pleaseth him The same Apostle represents this truth under the similitude of a humane body all are members of the same body animated enlivened with the same spirit and yet they have all their several offices and functions particular and different The case is the same saith this holy Apostle in the Government of the Church which is the body of Iesus Christ whereof all christians are members though all make up but one body and are the animated onely by the spirit of Iesus yet are they called and employed to particular estates and in all there is a difference of gifts and operations but it is but one spirit and one God who does all in all they are different effects of one and the same principall cause It is the same Iesus who chooseth the souls to communicate to them the graces and divers estates of his life How happy is that christian who is called to this happiness Herein consisteth the perfection of the soul as in things naturall we say that the Creature is most perfect when it most participates of the being life and perfections of God so in the state of graces that soul is most perfect which participates most of the graces of the divers estates and qualities of the Sonne of God This grace and favour is not for every one and farre above the ordinary The Sonne of God doth not call all souls to a participation of his life nor alwayes communicates to them the spirit and graces of his Mysteries Yet the christian who would live in a solid piety and adherence to Iesus Christ and would feel the effects of his divine communications must desire this favour and earnestly demand it He must often reverence and adore the life thoughts designes Mysteries and estates of the life of Iesus He must offer himself with all his heart to the power spirit and grace enclosed in those divine Mysteries In a word he must carefully remove from his soul all hinderances and inclinations opposite to the designes and operations of the Sonne of God But above all he must continue constant in subjecting his soul to the power and will of the Sonne of God He that will practise all this must make these uses following The first is that the soul always resigne her self to the power of the Son of God than he may make in her and by her all that he will for his glory This resignation to be perfect must be grounded upon a freedom of spirit a freedom which is the true spirit of the children of God and consisteth in an estate of indifferency and independency as to all things as well in the order of nature as of grace and being subject to God onely by this freedom all things in the world are indifferent the soul remaining in a pure capacity of submitting to whatsoever the Son of God will operate in her and by her giving her self up wholly to his divine power This liberty of spirit is the principall estate and first ground of Christianity for all Christians belong to the Son of God and are left to his power One died for all saith Saint Paul that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who died for them Teaching us that as the Son of God gave his life for us and by his excessive charity delivered himself to the ignominious death of the cross to do the will of his Father so he hath right and power to choose and consecrate us by his grace to offer us an Holocaust of sweetness and honour to the glory of his Father that as he hath been the victim of our sins we may be the victims of his love Hence it is evident that the Son of God hath power and right to put our souls into what estate it shall please him for his glory be it an estate of life or death of privation or abundance of confusion or honour and may choose out souls and advance them to the participation of the mysteries of his life to render to him particular homage and service We must then resigne our selves wholly in all things to Iesus Christ. To establish us in this disposition the liberty of spirit whereof we speak is absolutely necessary For when it hath separated us from all things nay even from our selves it puts us into an amplitude and capacity to be all that God will have us to be and to bear the effects of his grace and power And therefore the Christian who seeks to establish himself in true piety and live with fidelity must endeavour to conform himself in this liberty of spirit for it is difficult nay impossible to adhere to Iesus Christ to depend on him and faithfully to receive the operation of his grace if we are not in this liberty of spirit that is an independency as to all things This is the spirit and disposition that God requires in a Christian according to the Apostle That the spirit we have received be not a spirit of bondage but of liberty and adoption This first disposition leads us farther and advances us in the wayes of piety and puts us into a second disposition by which we accept with humility and submission all the estates and effects that the spirit of the grace of Iesus Christ shall operate in us and bear with patience and obedience whatsoever rigour and difficulty we meet with Having so received them we are also bound by this disposition to act according to the quality and extent of grace communicated to us and to live conformably to the estate whereinto the Son of God puts us We must remain firm in that subjection and liberty of spirit we speak of In this use consisteth the peace and liberty of the soul For
exercise of piety that we ought to perswade all Christians to and is grounded upon the principles of Christianity which teach us that all the effects of grace be it of God towards men or of men towards God relate to Iesus as their principall support prop and foundation for it is by him that the eternall Father gives us all in as much as he hath chosen the holy humanity of his onely Sonne as an instrument conjoyned to the Divinity to operate his works of grace in Heaven and upon Earth By him he receives the homage and adorations of his people and of all men in Heaven and Earth Hence it may be inferr'd that all is grounded upon Iesus all subsists by him that all may be united to him and by him to the Father Iesus must be the onely object of our thoughts resentments and obligations Upon this truth we ought to make often reflections for God hath subjected the World to our use and given us his Sonne the Sonne I say out of an excess of incomparable love becomes wholly ours that by a mutuall right we may be wholly his and by him the Father's that we may say to him in piety as he said to his Father in love All that is mine is thine and all that is thine is mine Yea my Iesus thou art mine by thy Incarnation thou art mine by the Mysteries of thy life mine thou gavest me thy spirit in Baptisme thy body in the Eucharist thy glory I shall have in Paradise and thou mayst say truly that what is thine is mine So order it then that I may say to thee with as much truth and fidelity as thou hast expressed affection in giving thy self to me that whatever is mine is also thine my being my life my actions my love all thine but much more truly then my own for it is in me but by thee and for thee I will then from this present and to all eternity be wholly thine and my being my life and my actions all that I am shall be ever referred to thy glory Hence we are to conclude that the first design and intention we are to have in our devotions is to refer all our actions to the glory and honour of the Sonne of God to remember him before we think of our selves to seek his glory before we look upon our own Interests or necessities Herein the greatest part of Christians at this day are deceived not onely those who in the exercises of piety seek the honour and esteem of men and aspire onely to vanity and a fleshly spirit but even those who seem to follow the exercises of piety with most love and purity For they believe they do much in seeking the occasions of merit and employing themselves in what promotes their spirituall advancement and taking some relish and enjoyment therein whenever there is occasion they make it their onely businesse their principall employment it takes up their chiefest thoughts and what is worse they often place their end therein and are perswaded that they have attained a high and perfect degree of piety imagining themselves rich in merits and far advanced in the wayes of perfection and that they may serve God with delight He is blind who sees not the danger those are in who live thus for while they think they serve God they principally mind their own profit and if the business be well examin'd you will find they change the glory of God into their own particular satisfaction the end of their exercises being their own content and interests of whom we may say with the Apostle They love and seek themselves and make a gain of Piety To reform this universall and dangerous abuse we must consider that as the esteem and spirit of true piety consisteth in loving honouring and serving of God in order to an adherence to him and a dependance on his divine will so the motive object and end we are to have in our devotions must onely be the honour love and service of God and a complyance with his amorous conduct The Christian therefore who would live in the exercise of true piety must first by a voluntary subjection adhere to the power and conduct of the Sonne of God as we have already shewed and further refer himself wholly to the honour and glory of Iesus in as much as we are his and by him God's and render to God the honour and service we owe him According to this advice the perfect Christian must have a continuall and vigilant care so to order it that his life and actions may be accounted worthy of Iesus Christ as being such as shall contribute to his glory after the manner he would have it which is to be done thus CHAP. XI The Use and Practice of what hath been proposed WE have elsewhere taught what was to be done to render our actions worthy of Iesus Christ it is not necessary to speak any further of it We are therefore only to remember that all our actions must be Christian to be worthy of the Son of God and consequently must be holy and to be holy they must be accomplished in the spirit and by the principle of grace the Holy Ghost the spirit of Iesus our actions to be Christian must be done in the spirit and dispositions of Iesus It remains onely that we see how we may honour him by our life by our actions and in all things whereof we propose two ways One is in regard of our selves when we live and act in a disposition of will wholly submitted and directed towards God and by right and pure intention referre our selves and all our actions to the Son of God offering our selves so to him as not to live or act any thing but for his honour and glory The other is in regard of the Son of God when he vouchsafes to apply and honour himself in us after what manner he pleaseth causing us to live and act in the power of his spirit making us to bear the effects of divine will in continuing the designs he hath over us to take in us his pleasure and glory According to this later way the soul acteth not but accepts and keeps her self in the regard of the Son of God as the subject of his divine operations and therefore must onely be attentive and faithfull to that which he doth in her and by her obliging her self by a submissive acquiescence to all he doth be it enjoyment or privation rest or pain change or destruction accepting his conduct and consenting to all the effects of his works in her out of a confidence that he will establish all in her for his glory This advice to souls who endeavour to live in the grace of God and seek Christian perfection is of so great consequence that to fail in this point is to fail in all God is in us by grace he is there to operate not onely by himself but by us for he is the common principle of life and
him and examine what it is that God demands of us for the benefit of this regeneration Baptism Being consecrated to God by Baptism after so divine a manner we are no more now our own but belong wholly to him nor ought we to make use of our selves but for him If any profane thing being offered to God consecrated by ceremonies or dedicated to celebration of the divine office is by this means abstracted from common use and its particular end to be wholly employed in sacred things much more a Christian consecrated to the holy Trinity by Baptisme solemnly dedicated to Gods service and referred to his glory ought to be withdrawn from himself and such profane customs as of himself he may commit in his life and actions to be referred in whatsoever he doth to the service and glory of God From these proposed Truths it followeth that the grace of Christianity communicated by Baptisme whereto we have right by this Sacrament doth advance man above all creatures and withdraw him from this world to associate with God and to become his Temple and Throne of rest that being separated from care and love of the creature he may cleave to God only The soul may be compared to the woman in the Apocalypse cloathed with the Sun and having the Moon under her feet to tell us that our soules being replenished with the true sunne of Righteousnesse ought to raise themselves above all Creatures and possessing God contemn all that is not God of God or for God The learned Origen sayes That we ought to esteem as beyond and above the world all that is consecrated to God meaning only those who by the Ceremonies and ancient Customs of the Church resign themselves to Gods service If this be true in bare Ceremonies how much more is he whom God himself consecrates in this Sacrament beyond the world and above all things This is the effect of the words of Iesus Christ when speaking of the spirit of Christianity which he had infused into his Apostles he says recommending them and with them all the Elect unto his Father The world hates you because you are not of the world I likewise am not of the world where we see evidently that according to the designs of Iesus Christ a Christian must be no longer of this world nor pretend further to the creature then the Son of God did when he became man and liv'd upon earth We learn further that by this consecration and the state whereunto we are advanc'd by Baptism God assumes a second interest in us besides that of creation and in complyance with this new right we ought to be more his and live onely for him For he hath right to make in us and of us all that he pleases for his glory and the accomplishment of his divine will I need give no other reason hereof then that of the Apostle Know yee not that your body is the Temple of the holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God And ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods Consider deliberately this Christian truth weigh all these words and ye shall see how much ye belong to God and ought to live for God Reject not this as a matter new or too high it much imports to your good If you cannot comprehend it at least admire it and since they are truths you ought to believe them by Faith you shall enter into an estimate of your estate and acknowledg it is so divine and eminent that you cannot comprehend it but can onely say that he that is all power will effect great things in you Now if you will endeavour to profit by these proposed verities First take heed you commit no sacriledge in serving any other but God since ye are consecrated for his glory be careful to refer your self unto him and to offer to him all your actions be they never so little for they all belong unto him and he knoweth how from the lowest meanest things to bring honour to himself Secondly seeing God hath separated you from the world consecrating you for his glory and that by Baptisme solemnly in the face of the Church you have renounced all its greatnesse and varieties Take heed you deceive not God or rather your selves adhering to the creature searching after and following the Vanities of the Time but see that in pursuit of this promise you have made to God you do disintangle your selfe all the days of your life as much as you can possible from these Creatures Thirdly take your affections off from them and if you will do well despise them all for God that your heart consecrated by an Vnction so holy may be only for God and love none but God The best foundation of Piety is to enter into a great esteem of God and what you are unto him so to contemn the world and all therein Fourthly Seeing you have no right to your selfe being marked with the character of Gods substance so Saint Cyprian calls the love of God and are wholly his let him make use of what is his go out of your self go out of your own Interest to God aim at nothing but the glory of God and therein place your principall care for there is nothing more important in the life of a Christian nothing more profitable or necessary then to leave wholly himself to God and to search diligently after God only This it is that God requires of you for this benefit whereunto you are obliged in the susception of Baptisme and by the state of Christianity The second Prerogative CHAP. III. Of the Filiall adoption of God whereto all Christians are called THe mystery of the Incarnation a work of Love and the Master-piece of God ought to be considered as the foundation of all the Mysteries of the Life of the Sonne of God From this they have their dignity and excellency from this they flow as from their source and principle this we ought to look upon and adore as the Cause of all our happinesse for in and by it we have all that we can-desire all the greatnesse all the priviledges and abundance of grace communicated to us in the state of Christianity flows from this ineffable Mystery as its spring It requires an eternity to consider so worthy an object to look into the excellencies and to contemplate the effects thereof Let us here make a pause to consider this grace the most advantageous of all we have received from the Son of God in this Mystery which gives us right and admission to all the rest the grace of Filiation which makes us children of God by adoption a grace given to men when the Son of God becoming man made men the sons of God By this benefit we are no longer the sons of Adam but of Iesus Christ who is God called by the Prophets The everlasting father By this grace
Christians have a new being a new life which honoureth and imitates the new life of Iesus in his holy humanity springing from this as its source and principle For as the word unites it self to our nature in the Mystery of the Incarnation replenisheth and dwells in it as in his proper body consecrates and elevates it to all the Grandeurs of his divine Filiation so the same Iesus unites himself not personally but by a new Grace and after a singular manner proper to the state of Christianity consecrates us dwels in us and advanceth us to the communication of the rights goods and greatnesse of his filiation and would have us O excesse of love to be that by grace which he is by nature which he would have not onely to be accomplished in glory but in grace not onely in Heaven but upon Earth where we are truly Sons of God and in that quality henceforward we enter into alliance with him we have right to his heritage and which is more O that we would consider it he gives us power to call God our Father to look up to him as such to relate to him in this quality in further assurance whereof he gives us his spirit This St. Paul teacheth when he saith Ye have received the spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father the same spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God It is an effect of the mystery of the Incarnation and priviledge and excellency of Christianity Let us deliberate further upon it St. Iohn summing up the graces received from God in the Mystery of the Incarnation ranks this the first for it is the foundation of the rest saying To them he gave power to become sons of God If you would comprehend some part of this great favour think that as there is nothing in Divinity greater then to be the Son of God by Nature so but to be God himselfe nothing is greater then to be the Son of God by grace St. Cyprian admiring in God the title of Father sayes It is an ineffable name containing the Mysteries and Secrets hid from our spirits incomprehensible by our understanding If then to be Father in the Deity be a thing the most mysterious and ineffable that our souls can imagine by consequence to be son of such a Father is a favour and dignity incomprehensible The beloved Disciple causeth us to admire at this great benefit when he says Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God and be such in effect St. Iohn Damascene speaks to this purpose That the eternall Father sent his Son into the world to produce Children that should be such to him by Grace as Christ is unto him by Nature and therefore in pursuit of this Commission the Son of God from the time that he became the son of man hath created by his power begotten by his love and acquired by his merits and given by his Spirit many children to his Father who can breath nothing but glory to his Father and no longer live then by his Spirit and Life But to search with greater admiration into this Truth we must consider the manner by which he creates in us so divine a work We must observe that in Baptisme we not only receive grace and faith by the habituall vertues and gifts of the holy Spirt but are also marked with the Character of God received and owned as his children The manner whereby God effects this is admirable for as the Father hath sealed Jesus Christ with his Seal and made him his Son communicating to him his Essence and making him altogether equall to himself so Jesus Christ doth comunicate to us what he himself is marketh us with his seal makes us and owns us as children and makes us as it were another himself Wonder saith Saint Augustine and rejoyce brethren we are made of Christ. In pursuite of this benefit the eternall Father hath given us the Spirit of his Son which dwels in us according to the Apostle What can we think to be greater If we go further herein we shall find that we are not advanced to this admirable estate of being the children of God by any simple acceptation or by bare ceremonies but by something more reall that passeth into our souls as Saint Paul implies by these mysticall terms Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us It is not for our works saith he that the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost that the spirit is given us by Jesus Christ and that Jesus is sent upon this design by the eternall Father three circumstances worthy great consideration To conclude the greatness of this benefit let us observe with Dionysius the Areopagite that we are advanced to this divine estate by a new birth and divine regeneration which the Son of God operates in us in the bosom of the Church our Mother to the honour of God and in imitation of his eternall generation in the bosom of God the Father CHAP. IV. Of the uses the Christians ought to make of filiall adoption whereto they are advanced by Baptism THe Truths that we have treated of are high and would require a large Discourse but that our designe being to prescribe the practice of filiall Piety we will only represent as much as is necessary to manifest what we are and what our life ought to be in conformity to so eminent an estate First then we must take notice that in the Language of the Scripture a Christian is a new Creature in Iesus and according to the word of the Son of God a man if he be a Christian must be born again of God and consequently must have a new being worthy such a birth Now according to the order that God hath established in all things we say that the action and operation must be conformable to the being Whence it follows that the state of a Christian being a holy divine estate that makes him the Son of God as truly by Grace as Jesus Christ is by Nature his actions also and life ought to be wholly divine and conformable to the state of the Son of God This is the Doctrine of the Apostle who saith Be ye followers of God as dear children This Principle granted we must see what benefits we can derive from thence The first is a contempt of this World for it is the heritage of the children of Adam condemned by a determined sentence and a day of execution appointed when by the Justice of God it shall perish in a generall Conflagration Let us then despise this heritage of Adam and seek that of the children of God Heaven or to say better God himself Say with Jesus Christ with a sound heart My Kingdom is not of this world Remember that you must keep the rank of the Sons of God
us with his gifts that by all these endearments and singular favours he might separate us from the creatures and reduce us to a divine society and communication with him Let us consider these two mysteries of our Faith and Love mysteries which give God to us and cause us to dwell with God The last is the mysterie of the Incarnation a mysterie of Love an eternall mysterie for God shall be man and man God for ever a mysterie causing God to live the life of man and man the life of God which between God and man effects an union and society so divine and intimate that he could not do any thing more holy nor desire any more intimate since it is substantiall and personall and shall subsist eternally Entring further into the consideration of this Mystery we shall see evident signs of this holy Communion God makes here a new World as the Scripture calls it a World of Grace and of holiness a World which he governs by a new conduct and providence For whereas before God confining himself within himself spoke not to the World but by his Prophets now by the accomplishment of this Mystery he comes out of himself speaks to us and instructs us by his Sonne Four thousand years he guided the World and his Church onely by his Angels the Interpreters and Oracles of his divine will Now Iesus guides his Church by himself he infuses holy motions into our souls by his spirit alwayes holy he governs all is present with all and is found by all What presence or commerce with God would you desire greater what greater society then that of the word by the Mystery of the incarnation To know it more particularly consider these Circumstances First in this Mystery God lives the life of man and man the life of God a life of society a life humanely divine and divinely humane for Iesus is God and man in Iesus we adore and acknowledge two lives one of God in man another of man in God Secondly by this ineffable union God communicates himself to man and by this communication appropriates to himself all that is of man with such wonderful wisdom that not dishonouring his divine greatness he takes upon him all the lowness of man and subjects himself so really to our infirmities that we say God is dead God is born c. and man by a happy exchange is lifted up to all the greatness of God inthron'd in the bosom of the eternal Father where he eternally enjoyes the proper glory of God Let every tongue confess that in Iesus Christ by that hypostaticall union accomplished in the Mystery of the incarnation man enjoyes the glory of God his greatness light and life Thirdly As for the life and divine mysteries of the Sonne of God we see he presented it to us the space of thirty three years conversing with us as one of us was an Infant in his first appearing laboured in his youth did live and eat with sinners in his wayfaring life He disdained not to succour the infirm in his miraculous life In a word he resigned himself into the hands of sinners a Sacrifice and was offered a holy offering on the Crosse for the sins of the World O wonderfull he died between two Thieves in the company of men so much pleased with the society and commerce of men What Religion ever had the presence of its God so visible what being was ever advanced to so great an honour To none but the Christian is this great favour granted a Commerce so sacred that it makes man God and God man By the ineffable mystery of the incarnation God unites the Earth to Heaven and Heaven to Earth The God of Heaven dwells upon the Earth according to that of St. Iohn The word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us all nature rejoyced at this happiness St. Iohn transported with love and joy representing to the world the truth and excellency of this benefit saith It is the same God that we have heard that we have seen with our eyes which we have looked on and our hands have handled So true is it that God by the mystery of the incarnation is with us and converses amongst us after a society wholly divine and onely proper to the state of a Christian. CHAP. VII Of the uses Christians ought to make of Grace proceeding from the Mystery of the Incarnation IN pursuit of these proposed Truths what may we judge to be the intentions of God but that his will is that we should enter into a holy and divine society with him and that we should separate our selves from all that may hinder or prophane this holy conversation with him since that Iesus Christ thinks of us converses with us by his divine mysteries unites himself unto us and abaseth himself to be as one of us to be among us we ought likewise to think of none but him to love none but him to converse with none but him and like the Apostle dwelling upon Earth to have our Conversation in Heaven Iustin Martyr shewing what Christians ought to be saith Christians are in the body but they live not according to the body they dwell upon the Earth but their Conversation is in Heaven This God requires of us this we ought to be in the state of Christianity this is the use we ought to make of the spirit and grace flowing from the Mystery of the incarnation But alass it is pitty that Iesus being now revealed unto us living with us and amongst us we apply thereto so little of our selves of our thoughts and of our love and busie our selves in things so small prophane and mean even such as are unworthy of man Let us do like him Love made him forget himself to converse with us let us come out of our selves and forget all things that we may raise our selves to him that all our content may be in him Moreover the state of the Grace of this Mystery obliges us to be holy seeing Iesus Christ with whom we converse is holy The Apostle says as he that hath called you is holy be ye also holy in all manner of conversation speaking walking working and whatsoever you do He that lives after any other manner saith St. Cyprian then holily dishonours the title of a Christian and is a reproach to Iesus Christ. Let such as believe not sanctity necessary for all Christians as well as those who live included in Cloysters consider these words We see in the Mystery of the incarnation that the Sonne of God enters into Commerce and society with us dwells with us is cloathed with our humanity God is made man that man might be made God not by simple denomination as God said to Moses I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and Kings in the Scripture are stiled Gods but really and by a being which deifies them For as they are true Children of God by Grace and as truly children by Grace as Christ is
knows the power of God over her who can advance her to what degree of communications it shall please him and do in her and by her all that he pleases In this consideration man must adore the secret Iudgements will and designes of God over his Creature he must humble himself in his nothing annihilate himself in his humility and by his knowledge see into the little he is the need he hath of God and the misery of a Soul without grace He must not content himselfe with the bare Knowledge of these truthes without making use thereof the spirit of God can furnish him with severall ways to do it Behold here three Acts very profitable and necessary to be done as often as we can with serious application 1. The soul must resign it self to grace to all the designes and counsels of God over it with a desire to depend efficaciously upon the spirit and conduct of God to follow all the ways to undergo all the effects of the grace and dispensations of God 2. The soul must produce an act whereby offering her consent to God as much as is required she must protest that she consents then and alwayes to all the operations of Iesus Christ in her and to all the designes that he hath upon her of what kind estate and manner soever they be 3. She must renounce within her self fervently all her right over her self her inclinations interest obstruction and imperfections within her imploring the bounty of Jesus and the power of his spirit to annihilate in her all her imperfections to take from her all hindrances opposite to the spirit grace and conduct of God Lastly she must study the practice of vertues when occasion shall present them after the manner proposed whereof we now begin to treat CHAP. III. Of the practise and means whereby we may arrive to the possession of God of his grace and spirit IT much imports souls that seek after God and would live in the perfection of Christianity that they endeavour to enter and settle themselves in good and solid dispositions for that God chiefly regards in us and we are not ignorant that the operations of Grace are alwayes proportioned to the disposition she puts or finds in the soul. Now amongst all dispositions the most solid and necessary the chief path of the soul to true vertue is Love and knowledge of truth We must love truth and strongly adhere to it we must wholly study to fill our spirits with the knowledge of this Truth that it may be unto us a foundation to Christian life a light in the direction and conduct of our actions Therefore before I propose any practise I alwayes put Truth for a foundation of Exercises necessary to our subject Let us then consider as a certain Principle that the more we act for our selves and for the Principles of our being and nature to conduct our selves or our own spirit the more we estrange our selves from God and by consequence from the end for which we are created from the perfection whereto we are obliged The spirit which is in us is the spirit of Adam our nature the nature of Adam therefore is it a nature become damnable by sins a spirit infused into us by the Serpent possessing us in the consent of Adam This spirit and nature is subject to the power and malice of the Devill and sinne and consequently cannot act but according to the power and malice whereto it is a slave for operation followes essence As this being therefore is estranged from God and enemy to him for by nature we are born the children of wrath saith St. Paul so it cannot act but against God Now by this reducement man is drawn out of this Captivity freed from this bondage and made a new subject to Grace he acts no more according to the Principle of his own being but by the Principle of Grace which gives him a new being making him a new Creature in Iesus Christ. To arrive to this Liberty which we call the Liberty of Grace and of the children of God two things are requisite the mercy or grace of God and the consent and co-operation of the soul. The Christian therefore that will live vertuously must first give himself to God offer him his will and intire consent to all the designes he hath upon him and to all the effects which he will by his grace operate in him Then he must study and labour to withdraw himself from this bondage to shake off the yoak of sin which oppresses and drags him whither it will to free himself he must quit himself that is his imperfections his passions inclinations and much more sinne he must kill this spirit of Adam and pluck it up by the root that it may the better make room for the spirit of God that this holy spirit may live in him and act by him otherwise he can no way possess the true christian vertue nor attain the perfection whereto he is obliged nor the end whereto he is created the possession of God Whence it follows that the first exercises whereto the soul must apply it self is to place it self in the liberty of grace to draw it self out of the bondage of sin and to annihilate in it self the spirit of Adam which it carries in the very marrow of its bones Here it must begin all other exercises are but unprofitable without this and all it does will be to no purpose unless it arrive to this point For we must remember that the vertue to be truly Christian is the spirit of Iesus who acts in us and that the perfection of a Christian consists in love a love that is never without the possession of God it is easie then to conclude and believe that he that will be vertuous and a perfect Christian must make room for God in his heart there establish God there cause his spirit to rule and live He must root out and expel all that is contrary and in enmity to God even all that is not God for he that is not with me saith Jesus Christ is against me The true exercise and principall care of a Christian consists herein all others that abut not upon this we must despise saying with St. Paul in Iesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but faith which is by love Now the onely question is how we may arrive to this happiness herein is the difficulty We say it is by inward and outward mortification by the senses and by the spirit by vigilancy in all things that we neither receive consult nor do any thing contrary to God or that may displease him by prayer by discourse In fine it is by the grace of God for it belongs to God alone and Iesus Christ to make us free and draw us out of the captivity of our selves and sin If the Sonne shall make you free you shall be free indeed saith Iesus Christ. It is an effect onely of the
mercy of God who alone can give us a new estate and reestablish all in us Wherefore when we have laboured and done all that we are able we must think that we have done nothing we must have recourse to grace we must enter into an humble resentment of our misery we must cry after Iesus Christ for our relief Herein it is good to forme often these following acts or rather to carry them continually in the bottom of our hearts we must desire with a desire full of efficacy to be filled and possessed by Iesus Christ to submit all to him to require this grace of him with humility to offer and present our selves to him for it giving him from this time and alwayes the consent that he requires of us and when we find that he gives us the first fruits of his spirit that he begins to live and move in us then we must be faithful in correspondence thereunto and preserve a great attention to his motions and divine and inward operations 2. We must often renounce our selves our self-love and our spirit to sacrifice our selves before God that is to renounce our own Intentions inclinations and dispositions to live no longer then in the holy will intentions divine and adorable dispositions of Iesus Christ. For as anciently the victime was not onely killed but also consumed before God so we must offer our selves after the same manner that God may annihilate and consume in us all that is of us we must aske it of God not out of self-interest profit but for his glory out of a desire that his holy will may be fulfilled in us 3. We must pray Iesus Christ to work in us an effect of his power and love and not to wait after our infirmites to establish in us his Kingdom his glory and the power of his grace and spirit 4. We must by little and little with care mortifie our nature all that is in us and of us and with the same care effect a continuall annihilation of our spirit of our judgement and of our own motions for they are contrary to God and repugnant to our good This being granted we shall see how much we are obliged to alienate defie our selves seeing that all that is of us as being of us strives to separate us from God and therefore this that is of us must be mightly humbled when we see that the source of all our evils is in our selves and that we have a continuall inclination to evil Let us weigh these truths and endeavour to bear these dispositions seeing they are necessary to perfection and to establish us in the Kingdom of Grace that so placing our selves under the conduct of God we may be enabled to live in a perfect conformity to his holy Will That we may be the more encouraged in this labour let us speak of the Motives that oblige us to seek this perfection The first Motive CHAP. IV. That by Creation man is obliged to tend to this perfection and to resign himself to God WHen we say that man is obliged to tend to perfection we impose not a new Law but propose the indispensible duty he oweth to his Creator For as a creature he belongs to God his Creator he depends on him and though he would not yet must he subsist onely by him In this quality he must live not only subject to his government and conduct but is obliged by the Law of all created beings according to the intention of his Authour and the end prescribed him For as the creature hath no other being then what he received of his Creator so his being hath no other power nor end then what he who gave him that being giveth and prescribes to him By the same Principle that he received his being from God he is obliged to act conformable to the power and end prescribed to him All creatures employ themselves according to the capacity of their being in that for which God created them they tend directly if they go not aside to the end for which they were created and ordained Man above all the rest ought to do the same to live according to the capacity he hath received of God incessantly to tend to the end which the divine wisdome hath proposed to him For God in the creation of the Vniverse seemed to have regard to nothing but man he stayd not till he had made him thought onely of perfecting him he made the world saith Saint Basil as if he applyed not himself unto it he spake but a word and the World was made but man the work of his hands to which he applies his care he polisheth him with the touches of divine perfection makes him the Master-piece of his work the last draught of his created perfection framing him after his own Image and designing him for Heaven In what respect soever then we consider man we shall see by the condition of his being and favour of his Creator that he is obliged to great perfection since the capacity and end of his being regards nothing but God He is in a capacity to love him and is created to possess him O man why dost thou not see the dignity of thy being the happiness which thou mayst possess the eminency of the condition whereto thou art created Thou onely of all creatures bearest the effects the favour and love of thy Creator thou onely art capable to love him that which he hath refused all other creatures he hath in abundance bestowed on thee After so great a favour darest thou appear without love Canst thou live without loving him who created thee onely to love him When we say that man by the condition of his being hath a capacity to love God we mention the highest benefit the most signall favour that he hath received of his Creator for the capacity to love him giveth him power to possess him All creatures indeed even the most insensible feel the Majesty and Power of their Creator they are left to the conduct and government of their God but not one hath power to love him but man who was created only for this end being made capable to love his Creator Therewith God hath not only given him this capacity and the advantage of so noble and divine a quality but wills also that all that he hath created should further him in this love and serve as motives to teach him to love Is not man then obliged to love so good so kind so liberall a Creator and if he be obliged to love him is he not as much obliged to perfection seeing this perfection consists in love which gives us God God in creating man useth another meanes to oblige him to him and to seek perfection in that besides making him capable to love his Creator he hath assigned as the end and perfection of his being the possession of his Creator This resentment the Father of nature giveth us Faith teaches us that the end of man is supernatural that this
losses calls and associates him to his divine greatness By the grace of Christianity he is the child of God and member of Iesus Christ and capable of the life of his own Son and by consequence he will fill him with the spirit and perfections of God Thus the Apostle speaking of the Eternall Father saith that he hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts assuring us that by this spirit we are sons of God and he frequently calls Christians the members of Iesus Christ. This quality and motive is the foundation of the state and spirit of Christianity that shews what a Christian ought to be and how eminent and accomplished the perfection is whereto he must arrive Saint Paul tells us we are members of Iesus Christ the Church is a body the mysticall body of the Son of God whereof Iesus is the head and Christians the members Ye are the body of Iesus Christ and members of his members saith the Apostle Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ This Text is cleer which if we consider intentively it will furnish us with rich thoughts and lift us up to the knowledge of the dignity of a Christian. I leave it to the piety of the reader to insist upon this subject If according to the Doctrine of the Apostle we are members of Iesus Christ it must follow that we wholly belong to Iesus Christ and are to him in truth and by grace that which by nature the members are to their head By the head the members are enlivened the head hath the care and guidance of them all so in Iesus and by Iesus we are enlivened guided and advanced of his fulness have we all received saith Saint Iohn he is our life the soul of our souls saith Saint Austin and much more then the soul is the life of our body Now if the head and soul enliven guide animate and make the body to subsist if the body have a continuall dependance on the conduct and motions of the soul is it not also agreeable that a Christian be animated with the spirit of the Son of God which he possesseth and whereof he is wholly possessed that he be wholly left to the care and conduct and motions of Iesus Christ of whom he is a member These are the two Estates wherein a perfect Christian must be he must possess God and be resigned to the conduct of the spirit of God We have already shewed how much he is obliged to seek God and to possess him if he will arrive to the perfection to which he is called It remains that we know how he must resigne himself wholly to God As members of the Son of God we are necessarily and essentially if I may so speak left to the love care and conduct of the heavenly Father which love is the same love which he hath for his Son the same conduct that he hath over him For we are part of his Son being his members and as the Apostle saith his fulness The Church saith he is the body of Iesus and the fulness of him that filleth all in all wherein we see the happy estate of a Christian who by the grace of Christianity being made a member of Iesus Christ in pursuit of his state is left to the same care the same conduct the same love that the eternall Father hath for his Son Being then arrived to this happiness what remains but to live with great vigilancy to put our selves to leave our selves and to maintain our selves in this love of the eternall Father to abandon our selves soul and body to divine conduct to remain in this union and unity with his Son for he looks on us in his Son as members and part of his Son and also being united to Iesus to submit our selves to the disposall of his spirit and to the motions of his grace as the members are to the head It was the request of Iesus to his Father the last day of his life the eve before his death for this he made that prayer full of love repeated at large by Saint Iohn wherein he begs of his Father that he would have the same love for us that he had for him from eternity and that he would be by grace to us what he is to him by nature that the same unity of love that binds them together may be in us that we may not live but in this love in this uion and unity that we may live in him by his spirit and love as he lives in the unity of the spirit and love of his Father Words of love and of truth words of efficacy words which cleerly shew the designs Iesus hath over us what he hath merited for us and what ought to be the life of a Christian and in whom consisteth the spirit of Christianity If we proceed a little further in the consideration of the lights of Faith we shall find a new light which discovers this truth The Oeconomy and the works of God in the Mysterie of the Incarnation teach us that the whole conduct of the Church all the regency of the world and by consequence the government of all souls in generall and every one in particular is left to Iesus who is the way the truth and the life of our souls He is saith the Apostle our Fulness he is our All and that which raises the conduct of Christ and renders it admirable is that it is accompanied with wisdom power and infinite love For he employs his power wholly to furnish us to assist us in all things his wisdom leads us to God and establishes us in the state and perfection God requires of us and he employs his love to enrich us with his treasures to enlighten us with his spirit to guide by his light and to communicate to us by the excess of his bounty his being his life and his greatness Thus the quality whereto we are advanced by Christianity being made members of Iesus renders us worthy of the care and conduct of the eternall Father and binding us to Iesus makes us by grace one with him partakers of his greatness This expresseth the perfection whereto God hath called us These truths considered will cause us highly to esteem the grace and state of Christianity These motives are so powerfull that they seem not only to invite but to constrain us by amorous allurements to resign our selves wholly to God Let us adde a common Doctrine of Saint Bernard as the last draught of this admirable conduct The conduct saith he of Iesus in us is admirable in that he hath as much care of one single soul as well as of all his wisdom is employed for one soul as well as for all and he loves one soul with the same infinite love wherewith he loves all yea he loves his elect and Christians with the same love wherewith he loveth himself Here let us stop for more cannot be said Let us adore
to sinfull Adam Finally by these Principles we learn and it is that I would most perswade that the way to obtain Christian vertues the most powerfull means to arrive to perfection is to adhere to Iesus to prostrate our selves frequently before the Throne of his greatness to subject our selves to his soveraignty to give our selves to him and to his vertues to endeavour to be replenished with his spirit to bear him in the bottom of our hearts that as the centre is in the midst of its circumference he may be in the midst of our hearts as the centre of our being and our souls We must look upon this practice as very important to the soul and adhering to Iesus and possessing him she shall possess all in him and easily obtain all from him a truth none can be ignorant of that do acquire vertues We must have them in Iesus and of Iesus their onely principle Object and Prototype upon whom we must mould our actions and form our life By him the eternall Father speaks to us by him he teacheth us In a word by him he giveth us this life the life of grace the life of perfection the life which is no other then Iesus living in us He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life saith the beloved Disciple What is there more cleer there onely remains to practise what we have said CHAP. IV. The means whereby we may arrive to the adherence of our souls with God and the obstacles which hinder it TO know truth and not practise it avails little God in the Gospel threatens many stripes to the servant that knoweth the will of his Lord and Master and doth not according to it To what purpose is it to love vertue and embrace vice to praise good and to follow evil is to be condemned out of our own mouths We say it is not enough to love to esteem and to know Christian vertues as others do but we must bear the effects of them and make use of them as God requires We are therefore now to shew how we must practise what hath bin already said To do a Christian action requireth not onely that it be good and done in grace but it must be done with the spirit of grace the spirit of Iesus Christ which he pours into us in such manner that all the vertue which is in us comes from him with such dependence that as the members receive of the Head so Iesus being our Head and we his members we can receive nothing but from him in the state of grace which is so true and necessary that he himself saith As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no no more can ye except ye abide with me our soul is barren and without the fruit of grace if she dwell not in Iesus Christ and take not from him all her juice life and true vertues To adhere to this holy spirit a man must be devested of himself severed from the creatures not onely by will and good intention but by effect also he must have a continuall recourse by grace with a spirit of submission and dependency upon grace that it may have power to act freely in him we must regard the vertue in Iesus Christ and imitate it especially those vertues which are most eminent in his life the bases and foundation of solid perfection as profound humility purity of heart contempt of the world and the like solid vertues onely appearing in the Son of God But we must take heed that in the practice and exercise of vertues we seek them not so much because of their excellency nor to become thereby better or more perfect nor for our own interests but chiefly and above all for the glory of God for the honour of Iesus Christ imitating him in our life and actions that we may live in a manner pleasing to him and since the end of our actions must be the glory of God it is convenient that we have no other design then to please and glorifie him If you desire a more express practise I propose it thus When we have formed some good resolution in prayer or that the doing of some act of vertue is in question we must presently give our selves up to the Sonne of God that we may accomplish this act of vertue according as he desires and according to the designs of his Crosse it not being necessary to form any particular intention or design as for example being to form a resolution to practise humility let us say in our heart I give my self to thee my Iesus to enter into thy spirit of humility I will passe with thee all the dayes of my life in this holy vertue I invoke the power of thy spirit upon me that it may abase my pride and I will keep my self with thee in humility I offer thee the opportunities of Humility which shall present themselves in my life blesse them if it so please thee I renounce my selfe and all things which may hinder me from having part in the grace of thy humility The like may be done in all other vertues or good intentions which we offer to God in this manner they shall be founded on Iesus Christ made in the spirit of grace not in our own spirit made truly christian Let us not contemn this practise neither as too much elevated nor as superfluous it is easie and necessary we speak not of humane action but a christian action perfect and worthy of God suitable to our condition and dignity whereto we are elevated by the grace of christianity which is so great that St. Peter calls us a chosen Generation a holy Nation a peculiar people and to crown all this St. Paul saith we are the members of Iesus Christ and as such we must live no other life then his not act but by his spirit and in his intentions Upon this foundation may be built all that can be said or thought of the perfections and excellencies of christianity all is said when we say Iesus is our head and we his members he is the principle of the grace necessary for us in all things we must take all of him he is the end of our life and actions we must refer them all to him and to his honour In fine he is the prototype and the exemplary cause we must all regard and continually contemplate him not onely to imitate him but to imprint his life and vertues in us This is the essence of christian perfection which St. Paul means in those words full of love My little children of whom I travel in birth again until Christ be formed in you He would have Iesus Christ formed in us great words which represent to the life the excellency of Christian vertues This it is which I demand of fouls and would cause it to be understood if possible as being of importance to remedy many abuses and
unprofitable things which we meet with in the practise and ordinary exercises of Christians for want of taking hold of things in the beginning and not entring into the spirit of grace for want whereof do we not see many souls who keep most holy constitutions and very good rules others that do frequent actions of vertue many who follow and oblige themselves to spirituall exercises and practises yet nevertheless advance not towards perfection nor have any solid vertue They alwayes labour but never gain any they continually travail but never arrive at their journeys end Though all that they do seems to be done in grace and that as is believed they have not their conscience charged with any sinne yet they profit not in any manner all that can be said of such persons is that they are not the worst What is the cause of this evill whence comes it that they profit nothing amidst so much care and Travel The evill comes from this that such souls have not sufficient recourse nor submission to grace they are not tyed to Iesus Christ they scarce think that there is a Iesus Christ they have no distrust of themselves they seek not God but their self-satisfaction and their particular Interests and which is worse by a secret and dangerous consequence they rely upon their own courage upon their travel and exercises and promise to themselves too much of their own strength and tying themselves to divers practises whereof they make use they tye also their happiness thereto If you demand whence it comes that they have not solid vertues it is easily perceiv'd it is because they amuse themselves much in unprofitable things trifles and exteriour things they enter not into the practise of true and solid vertues they esteem them not and hardly know them if they do practise them it is but superficially they have but the appearance of vertue all that they possess thereof is like the grasse upon the house top which withers away of it self of which we must take heed and carefully remedy it least passing our life so we travel in vain and run without arriving to our end and that under those fair appearances in the most part of our actions we be not of the number of the foolish Virgins of them to whom God saith at the houre of death I know you not for God tells us not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And certainly there are an infinite number of christians who will find themselves deceived when God shall make manifest the secrets of hearts and judge the justice of men because that believing themselves rich in good works and charged with the fruits of christian penitence they shall find in their hands nothing but wind and shall see in their life nothing but appearances of Vertues And therefore in an affaire so important we must be vigilant to act christianly and to do works worthy of God which shall gain us the eternall possession of God This subject being of high enterprise I will propose the dispositions which seem to be most necessary The first Disposition CHAP. V. Of the spirit of Faith and the necessity thereof THE first and principall Disposition which the soul that will live Christianly must have is Faith He that cometh to God saith the Apostle must believe that he is and without Faith it is impossible to please him This Disposition is not onely the first but cause of all other what the root is to the tree the foundation to the building the mother to the infant the same is Faith to all vertues and to a Christian life Whence on the spirit of Faith depends all the happiness and perfection of a Christian soul or on the other side from littleness of Faith springs all the evil all the abominations in the life of man The soul that is guided by the spirit and light of faith knows what it is to love and what to detest for faith is nothing but truth the spirit of faith is properly the spirit of eternall truth wherein is seen the strength of faith He therefore that hath faith hath the spirit of truth and by this spirit of truth if he possess it and suffer it to guide him he easily discerns good from bad true from false the flesh from the spirit This faith this spirit of truth shews the soul what the God is that she adoreth from thence she is carried on to love him to fear him and to live in a continuall respect of his divine presence Faith saith God is the principle of all being the end and centre of all things that out of him all is but a dream that all creatures are vain that God is in all things that he gives life and being to all that all things depend on him This makes the soul know that she ought to esteem God alone and all that belongs to God that all the rest is nothing but vanity and lies This light and spirit of faith teacheth that God is eternall truth his works are truth his words and promises true and infallible This causes the soul which is guided by the spirit of faith constantly to adhere and strongly to relie on the truths and maxims of Christianity which are the works and the words of Iesus God and man she believes firmly that what he hath said will come to pass what he hath promised is certain the truth that the eternall Father hath revealed to us by his Son are infallible and eternally the Son of God who is the truth uncreated is a God which can neither deceive nor lye Hereupon the soul by this spirit of truth remains indissolubly tyed to all that God hath said and revealed by his Son so as she cannot taste nor understand any humane reason or object she will not hearken nor adhere to any thing but to the truth of faith she will only follow the maximes that Iesus Christ hath left us in his Gospel and imitate the example of his life divine vertues the rest she despises as unworthy a Christian soul which ought not to be guided by nor live but in the spirit of truth and certainly so the Christian must live All the world confesseth that God alone is truth that the onely spirit of God is the only spirit of truth whence it appears that all that is not God and according to the spirit of God is but vanity and lyes This granted how can they live who have any other object then God Here let us make reflection on the point we shall shew how much they are deceived who in matters of faith and in the conduct of their life separate themselves from this spirit of truth to seek humane reason wayes of prudence maximes of wise men who measure perfection and Christian vertues according to their proper sense according to their own spirits such souls cannot but fall into an abisse of errours and doubts or at least such persons
believe little doubt of all things live a life more like Philosophers then Christians and make no great account of a thousand good things which are usefull in Christianity To remedy this they must learn that faith the spirit of truth and the life of Christ must be the onely rule and guide of our actions and life in such manner that to go out of this rule and conduct either on the right hand or left is alwayes to erre from the right way 2. Considering what we have now said of truth we cleerly see how necessary it is to be established in the spirit of faith and to take truth for our object and conduct All other spirits are deceitfull and lying whence it followeth that souls that will live in Christian perfection must commence by this exercise and must necessarily lay the spirit of faith as the foundation of vertue if they would obtain any As faith is the door whereby we enter into the house of God and are made children of the Church so must she be the beginning of the life of a Christian and the spirit wherewith he lives and endeavours to acquire vertue Where we must mark in the conduct of souls how necessary it is to establish them in the spirit of faith and to accustom them to walk in the light of truth This is the first Lesson we must propose to them in this point wherein we must keep and exercise them as that which is onely profitable and without which nothing is stable or true not to entertain and amuse I dare not say to deceive them by so much prudence by the consideration of so many humane reasons and by the example and actions of men a hard case that the devout of this age take so much care to recommend and obtain morall and civil Vertues and mention not nor consider but superficially the divine and necessary Let us learn and say with Iesus Christ that Truth alone shall save us and that truth must be the foundation establishment of our life if we will live true Christians Hence the soul that will arrive to christian perfection must shut her eares divert her thoughts from all that the humane spirit reason and self-love can inwardly represent and must not hearken to them who regard not God purely but measure the greatness of Heaven with the eyes of flesh by the smallness of the earth and speak of vertues and christian perfection according to their own sense more like Philosophers then Christians Such persons by their discourse and conference study to destroy the maxims of Iesus Christ to establish humane prudence and use their uttermost to abase vertue and make it humane In a word they onely labour to make man reasonable not to make him a perfect christian Upon such occasions the soul that seeketh true perfection and will follow Iesus Christ must stand upon her guard and avoid such persons and with great care must prevent humane prudence from annihilating in her the spirit of faith and the esteem of the things of God If it happen that a soul see her self among such persons and shall understand their discourse to be such it will be good at that instant by a sweet elevation of spirit to give her self to God and renew if she can her esteem of Truth in a thought of God renouncing the perswasions of the humane spirit and protesting that she will receive no other conduct or light then that of Faith nor other interiour dispositions then those of Jesus Christ according to the truths that he hath left to his Church If notwithstanding all this the soul remain in fear or trouble of spirit or feel the spirit of faith to diminish in her then she shall give her self more strongly to God and recollecting her self she shall with an humble spirit stir up in the bottom of the heart a confidence in God alone and a diffidence of all things In fine she shall divert her self from all thoughts which trouble the repose of her spirit and captivate her judgement her reason and humane essence to the spirit of faith she shall undergo with an humble patience the pains which she feels contenting her self by an act of her will to subject her spirit to all that Iesus hath said without regarding any other thing and in this manner she shall keep her self united with Iesus Christ and in a secret silence shall imploy her self in him not about the business in question This act is heroick because his disposition is hard and strikes our senses rudely and sometimes it is painfull but it is withall certain and pleasing to God It is not painfull otherwise then as our reason our judgement and the love of our own interests is living in us If we would annihilate all that it would be easie for to overcome and to believe rather in Iesus Christ then in men and our own sense yet must we not whatsoever difficulty we meet with neglect this labour for as the soul hath nothing more assured then faith nothing more profitable or more powerfull then truth so the Devil fails not also all the wayes that he can to draw us from the conduct of faith and to annihilate in us the light and to force us from the adherence to truth if not all at once yet at least by little and little The soul therefore must take heed she be not here deceived seeing all her happiness consists in walking in the spirit of faith and with the light of the truth This exercise is important let us see how we are to behave our selves therein CHAP. VI. Of the use of Faith and how we may practise it THe soul may be guided two wayes by the naturall light of reason which is weak and deceitful ever fallible and by the light of faith which is infallible powerful certain proportioned to that state of glory whereat we aim it is a supernaturall light given by God to guide us to Heaven The first is common to the souls of the World by St. Paul stiled children of the flesh the second proper to souls which live perfect christians who resign themselves to the spirit of God and to his conduct who trust onely in God adhere to nothing but to the faith which they have in the words of Iesus Christ and the Maxims of the Gospel It is the property of a christian to live and guide himself according to the light and truths of Faith lights much above the naturall light of Reason to this end is he made a Christian. 'T is true the way of faith is hard because it captivates the judgement it is above our sense it combates humane reason it is hidden and very spirituall yet must we nevertheless follow and embrace it because Iesus Christ gives it because it is certain and infallible because it is suitable to the wayes of God who leads men in this world through obscurity having reserved knowledge and light for heaven There are who will think that the soul may
be deceived by this way our spirits being too feeble this way too eminent and that it occasions a perpetuall combate in the spirit As it is troublesome to a man to walk in darkness so it is hard for the soul to go this way of Faith which is obscure and hidden But if we would learn it well we must say the contrary all other wayes are uncertain and deceitfull vertue alone is infallible we shall never be deceived if we stick to it It were to have a mean esteem of Gods graces and to be ignorant of the Principles of our salvation to believe that the faith God hath given us to conduct us is capable of loosing us Let us remember that God hath given us the light of faith to guide our reason and that our reason must submit thereunto and in respect of Faith be annihilated as Saint Paul saith We walk by faith not by sight meaning that to live Christianly we must let our reason be guided by faith not faith by reason wherein we see the designes of God in the rule of our souls the necessity of our walking by the light of this torch or according to the ordinary manner of speech see how necessary it is for him that will live a perfect Christian to follow onely the light of faith and to learn to make use of Evangelicall truth If at any time the souls who take this way are deceived it is in that they go out of it and being perswaded by the Devil or self-love or the vanity of the humane spirit which esteems it self in every thing withdraw themselves from the conduct of faith to follow that of humane prudence choosing to be guided by the rules of the flesh and the spirit of worldly vanity rather then by the maxims of Iesus Christ and the spirit of heavenly truth Thus indeed they find themselves deceived and fall into misfortunes not for having taken this way of faith but for having quitted it and adhered to humane prudence and the light of reason which like an ignis fatuus will lead us out of the way unless we be aided by a supernaturall force and guided by a more sure light such as is this of faith But to the soul that is faithfull applying her self to the truths of Faith and Maxims of Christianity that seeks God with simplicity and humility there must necessarily arrive great profit and advantage in christian perfection We must not therefore condemn this way and reject it as too high too difficult and too painfull for it is the way that the Sonne of God himself hath left to his Church and commanded all his children But on the contrary we must teach it every one accommodating our selves to their several capacities and giving them all the means to pursue it without going out of it least they be deceived If we find here any difficulty it is in our selves There are two things in man which hinder his progress this way one is esteem of himself and of his own spirit the other is the Love that he bears himself and for his own sake to the Creatures To pursue this way and to make use of Faith he must go out of himself and renounce his own spirit and raise himself above all Creatures to adhere to truth to believe and to make use of what he did believe he must renounce his judgement his reason and his sense and annihilate them If our reason sense and judgement repugne the truth proposed to our belief we must quit our reason and our sense to unite our selves to the truth If for instance it is proposed that the uncreated eternall word become man that God died reason and sense oppose this truth Reason cannot comprehend that the eternall God should make himself subject to Time the immortall submit himself to Death yet to believe this our Will moved by grace notwithstanding the opposition of reason and sense must say I will believe and adhere to the truth proposed The will adhering hereto commands reason and judgement which obeying her believe what she proposes the understanding which useth to command and be free renders it self captive and obedient annihilating its own thoughts and reason that so it may adhere to the truth proposed and form an act of Faith Thus we are to understand that of Saint Paul bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. By faith the understanding which useth to command is made captive and obedient to the Will therefore the soul in the practise of Faith goes out of her selfe and no more obeys her judgement or sense she no more regards her self but the truth onely which she embraces as her object adhering and uniting her self thereto Thus by Faith the soul is elevated above her self to be tyed and united to the eternall and infallible truth revealed and proposed to her This well considered will shew us the excellency and dignity of faith by which knowledge we shall learn how much we are to esteem the state of christianity in generall and the life of a christian in particular seeing that according to Gods designes and the grace of Iesus Christ the christian as christian must live and be guided onely by the spirit of truth and light of faith which being divine and supernaturall drawes us out of our selves to unite and tye us to God who is truth We shall moreover see by what hath been said that faith is not what we think it consists not in great learning in many reasons and severall Arguments on the contrary it is for the simple and for those who can go out of themselves who can annihilate themselves in their reason and quitting the regard of themselves and other creatures adhere and follow the truth of faith Therefore it is said commonly that the learned and wise of the world who have most prudence most reason the most solid judgement and capacity of spirit have likewise most opposition to faith for they are lesse able to go out of themselves to annihilate their own spirits and judgements Thus Iesus Christ after he had summed up the truths of Heaven and described the contentments of the glory of the just concludes with an Enthusiasme of truth I thank thee O Father saith he Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things these truths from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes to the humble and meek Which shews that the knowledge of truth and of the spirit of faith is a gift of God that God gives it to the humble and little ones that to adhere to it we must humble and abase our selves In a word to make use of the truth and faith conceived we must go out of our selves and out of esteem of our selves Let us practise this for it is our principall design To make use of faith and truths conceived we must first consider what faith proposes but we must consider it barely and simply without any discourse upon it we
must adhere thereto and having adhered to it we must act and do all things in pursuit of this adherence Let us propose an example in common things to facilitate the practice I look upon God I consider his infinite essence I see that in respect of his divine Majesty all creatures are as nothing Having taken and imprinted this thought in my spirit I believe and immediately adhere thereunto saying it is true Then making use of this truth which I believe I despise all that is not of God and that belongs not to God for the act of faith which I performed teacheth me that all the rest is nothing all creatures are nothing before God In like manner amidst my actions making use of the truth that I profess and believe sometimes I despise one thing sometimes another esteeming God onely but accounting all the rest as nothing Thus I act in the spirit of Truth and make use of Faith Let us give an example more common I would form in my self the presence of God by the principles of Faith Hereupon I will rouse up in my spirit the thought of that truth which teaches me God is present every where and thence infer that consequently he is in my heart with the same greatness and Majesty that he is in Heaven amidst the Cherubims and Saints for it is the same God Having conceived this truth I adhere to it and say it is true then making use of it I find my self in the presence of God who is in my heart I hold my self before him in great reverence I walk with recollection of spirit and a sweet application of my soul to God who is present Now I look on him with love next I adore him doing all these actions by the principle of truth This is to make use of Truth The thing is not hard we must onely apply our selves heartily hereunto For according to the measure that we advance and perfectionate our selves in this exercise shall our actions be perfect and performed in the spirit of truth This is a point of much importance I wish I could perswade all christians to it for it is the foundation of true piety and the cause root and source of all good actions CHAP. VII Of the effects that Faith produceth in our souls and of the esteem of God WHen the Apostle saith Faith is the substance of things hoped for he would compare faith to substance and say that as substance is the support of all Accidents so faith is the support and basis of all Vertues and Graces Faith is the first gift of heaven and the eldest of the graces of God she contains and substains all the vertues of Christianity according to the faith in us and the use we make thereof are we vertuous and advanced in Christian perfection As this is the first of Gods gifts so the first care of a Christian must be to compass so fruitfull and profitable a grace This is a talent whereof God will demand a most exact account when we shall appear before the tribunall of his divine justice God gives us not so great a grace but to profit thereby and make use of it It belongs to God alone to give faith to move our will to illuminate our understanding but it is in man to make use of it and to shew by his works the faith he hath received of God In fine what advantage is it to possess faith which is an infused habit and to let it sleep in us to possess truth and to keep it under restraint Faith we say is a supernaturall habit a light of grace we must therefore put it in action and make use of this light to walk forward in the wayes of grace and path of vertue This is the designe of God evident in the mysteries of Christianity the eternall Father sent and gave us his Son the uncreated and essentiall truth to speak to us conduct us in the spirit of truth the Son conversed among men to bear witness as he himself saith unto the truth the same Son of God ascending into heaven sent to us the Holy Ghost the spirit of truth to enlighten us and teach us the truth And why hath God so great a care that we should know the truth but because the knowledge of that might save us and make us free that is that the light of the truth which is the spirit of faith might draw us from vice and sin to lead and confirm us in the acquisition and possession of vertues Look upon a soul guided by the spirit of faith you shall see that immediately she detests ill and embraceth good it is the property of it to engender and form acts of vertue If the soul knows the greatness of God making use of the knowledge of this truth she will presently be carried to a great esteem of God From this esteem springs reverence reverence operates love love brings the soul to God the soul so united by love fears to displease him This fear which is an effect of love brings into the soul a vigilancy not to offend him she loveth but it is to please him in all things This vigilancy forms a purity in the soul this purity renders us worthy to possess God Thus faith summons al the vertues embraces them and binds them all together and as she is mother so is she also nurse of them In brief she is the foundation of the Christian life the nourishment of all good actions This is the meaning of Saint Paul who said The just shall live by faith the reason is plain Faith is a light of truth he then that walks in the light of faith walketh in the truth and to walk in truth is to hate sin which is a lyer This is to live in the practice and possession of true vertue and in the terms of the Scripture to live in Iesus who is the way the truth and the life It therefore greatly importeth souls which will live good Christians and obtain true vertue to establish themselves in the spirit and use of faith to demand it of God and to referre all their good exercises thereunto which is truly the foundation of all the rest the principle the entertainer and supporter of Christian perfection this exercise is very large Faith and truth have effects almost innumerable He who applies himself thereto shall taste the fruits more or less according to his care therein But if we would know the most important where we must begin I answer it is the esteem of God wherein the soul must entertain it self much and lay a good foundation to arrive at this esteem It is not necessary to enter into a high and extraordinary knowledge of God but to make use of the Principles of faith and a frequent loving and affectionate consideration of God we must never speake of God or of any thing that concerns him but in words worthy of the subject with a sense full of respect and reverence
grace There is another principle of misfortune in us which is the love of our souls which lives of the substance of our souls raigning in our hearts and commanding our actions This love acts for it self not for God it is so opposite to God that as another Antichrist it labours onely to destroy the works of grace in us and to ruine his divine love spirit and conduct Hence we see what a misery it is what danger there is in being withdrawn from the conduct of God to live according to our own inclinations according to humane conduct which the Apostle calls the wisdom of this world For what must his life be who submits himself to this sworn enemy of God what must his actions be who hath no other principle nor conduct then his own will onely confident in self-love who onely followes the motions inclinations and thoughts of his reason a reason deprav'd and dim falls irrecoverably I will appeal to man himself how often his prudence reason and conduct have deceived him Into how many errours have his inclinations and his passions precipitated him let him but consult his own Conscience I beseech him to see whither he goes and that in good time he renounce humane wisdom and his feeble reason as much as God requires it to follow the foolishness of the Crosse the conduct of grace for there is no other way of perfection nor meanes to arrive at God but by the power and humility of the Crosse and by the conduct of Iesus Christ our way and our life If we would know what this conduct of God is wherein it consists we must consider it two wayes The first generall and common to all when all that a Christian does is according to the rule of the Law of God Thus we say the actions of men are all submitted to the conduct of God when they are done according to the Law and conformable to his will and the maxims of the Gospel So David lived when he said Thy word is a Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my paths For the Law of God proposeth the right end the just meanes and measure of every action in particular and of all in generall The true Christian must have no other conduct of his actions then this divine Law given by God to be the rule of mans life and principle of his actions he must follow the knowledge and maxims which Iesus Christ taught upon earth as a watch-tower and light to the spirits of men who being left to themselves walk in darkness and ignorance Counsel is mine equity is mine wisdom is mine saith the spirit of God He then that will live according to prudence according to equity and justice that will follow good counsels must have them from God for true prudence and true justice belongs to God It is true there ought to be prudence in the World but it must be the prudence of God which we cannot have but by observing the Law of God Lord thou hast made me wise by thy word said David who had try'd it We must take counsel for the difficulty of affaires perplexeth all things but this counsel must come from God and be conformable to his divine Lawes So did David alwayes in his affaires of greatest importance Thy Testimonies are my delight and my Counsellors We ought indeed to uphold our selves but it must be by the justice of God not that of men but that which concurs with the law of God for all the Commandments of God are righteousness saith David So the Christian doing all things with this respect and doing nothing against the Law and Maxims of Iesus Christ shall live in the perfect conduct of God a happy estate whereto all Christians ought to aspire and wherein they ought to continue professing even to death they have no other rule or conduct of their actions then the Law of God and spirit of the Gospel a rule wherein they must maintain themselves so powerfully and so inseparably that no creature friend or Interest can make them desire or do any thing contrary to this heavenly conduct There is another conduct of God more hidden and invisible when God vouchsafes by the motions of his grace his inspirations and loving communications to conduct souls to perfection and takes a particular care of them Here the soul must take a great and vigilant care that she quench not in her these lights and resist not this divine and amorous conduct This way is for souls who give themselves to God who are wholly out of themselves devested of and severed from the Creature who have annihilated their desires inclinations and passions who are wholly abandon'd to God professing to live no longer then under the conduct of this divine spirit They who are thus happy must take great care to maintain their spirits in a neere alliance and unity with the spirit of God to do nothing but by his conduct they must take heed they admit not any thing nor receive any other spirit which may separate them from that of God In brief they must annihilate all that is of the conduct of the Creature if they will live in a perfect conduct and an intire resignation to the spirit of God which is that which is desired in a perfect Christian as being the meanes to arrive at perfection When we consider these truths we shall find it hard to comprehend and impossible to approve the method of those who would get perfection attain true Christian vertues and possess God yet in all their conducts study nothing but humane wisdom act nothing but by humane respects speak not without equivocation are nothing but outward ceremonies regard nothing but outward formality aim at nothing but advancement Let them speak what they please humane wisdom is but foolishness before God and the spirit of grace and of Iesus is a spirit of truth simplicity and sincerity Those then that guide themselves by the spirit of Iesus Christ must live and act in the spirit of truth simplicity and sincerity for no other conduct is the conduct of God Let no man abuse himself saith St. Paul if any among you think to be wise in this world let him become a fool that he may be wise for the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God 1 Cor. 3.18 19. CHAP. III. That a Christian must do all his actions for love of God and for God THe perfect Christian must not so much consider what he does as the manner of doing for men consider the face God the heart It is a maxime in Morality that it suffices not to do good actions but we must do them well as the Philosopher saith it is not enough to do just things but they must be done justly meaning that an action to be good and just must be accomplished with all these circumstances which are so necessary that if this fail all the rest will be deficient good if it be true good must
this is the design of God Or else if by humiliations and interiour or exteriour eversions God will annihilate us let us consent to this annihilation and applying our selves thereto co-operate with the work of God with all the extent and power of our soul and so let us do in all and according to the diversity of the objects This advice is not contrary to the pure regard of God which we must have in all sufferings for in the works of God and in all that he permits we must consider the end for which God does it and the cause that moves him either to permit it or do it The end of the works of God is his honour and glory but the cause that moves him in his operations and divine permissions is the salvation of our souls the establishment and communication of his spirit his graces and his vertues We must here do as before we must suffer having no end but the pure regard of God and of his glory But because God requires fidelity and will establish his Kingdom and power in our souls it is also our duty to co-operate with his intentions and to receive all things not onely because such is his good pleasure but also in the manner that he will and to make use thereof according to his pleasure The perfection therefore of the spirit of sufferance consisteth not in receiving all things indifferently a soul is not perfect though it be insensible of all accidents be they never so sad and miserable Perfection consists not in a Stoicall apathy but if there be a perfection and purity in suffering it is when we receive all things in the spirit and in the holy divine dispositions of Iesus and that we bear them after that manner that God wills and according to the designs and intentions of God And herein consists the first and noblest Disposition which must accompany our sufferings We come now to the second CHAP. XIII How we ought to suffer in the spirit of Christianity IF when you do well and suffer for it you take it patiently it is acceptable to God for hereunto were you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps In these words full of efficacy and truth the Prince of the Apostles proposes the motives which obliege us to suffer patiently all adversities and afflictions which occur in all conditions of this life He saith that we are called thereto and that by consequence the proper condition and quality of a Christian binds us to the Crosse. It is not necessary to alledge proofs of this seeing we have said enough already For the spirit grace and conduct of God whereby he uses to save us is no other then that of annihilations and humiliations and afflictions God hath try'd them and found them worthy of him The Crosse and sufferings is then the lot of Christians it is their portion and they must make such use of it as to bear it Christianly But the most powerfull motive the Apostle makes use of to teach us patience is when he sayes that Iesus Christ suffered for us and that we must imitate him and follow his steps after this we cannot in reason find any thing hard If Iesus Christ from his birth to his death hath espoused the sufferings and embraced the Cross wherefore should we refuse being his Children to live and dye as he did we know that the Son of God came from Heaven to Earth to suffer the humiliations and pains due to sins and sinners and that He would by this low estate honour his Father but withall he left upon the Earth the same spirit to honour God that as in Heaven God is honoured by exaltation he might be honoured upon Earth by humiliation In pursuance of this design of Iesus Christ we must as Christians honour God by our lowness and annihilation On the other side seeing the Sonne of God dyed for us we must dye for him if he be the example of our life as the Apostle sayes we must imitate him and if he be born our head according to St. Paul we must as his members bear his spirit and follow his motions In a word if we raign with Iesus Christ we must suffer with him There remains then no more then to know the spirit and dispositions where with we must receive and bear sufferings We have said that the 2 d. Disposition necessary to a perfect Christian to live faithfully in the adversities of humane life is to bear them in a Christian way and according to the spirit of Christianity Now we suffer in Christan ways when we suffer what befalls us as an order of God and as an estate prepared for Christians and by which God will conduct us to the heritage of Christians so that according to this Disposition we make no reflection at all on our sufferings nor upon the estates and overturnings wherein we are our spirit onely remains settled and fastened upon the thought of this truth I am a Christian and as such I belong to Iesus Christ who puts me into what estate he pleases and because I am oblig'd to do his good pleasure I will have no other thought then to resign my self to Iesus Christ to do with me according to his good pleasure By adhering to this truth by this Disposition and interiour estate the soul is united to Iesus Christ as the members are to their head and she remains subject to his conduct without further care or thought then that she is God's because God wills it Herein consisteth the spirit of Christianity and the duty of a perfect Christian. This Disposition is pure and simple and produceth in the soul a perfect peace calm and repose the reason of it consisteth in that the sufferings humiliations and contempts are the centre of the Christian soul as things created have no repose but in their centre so the perfect Christian cannot have the true repose of the soul but in sufferings and in this Disposition they are the centre of Christianity because the eternall Word was pleased to place his estate and whole life in humiliation He was born in poverty he lived in contempt he died upon the cross all the passages of his way-faring life were in continuall sufferings and lowness and also when he was in Heaven in the bosom of the Father in the throne of the greatness of the Divinity he entertain'd thoughts of the cross he consents to death and prepares himself for sufferings when that from all eternity he resolv'd to be made man and to invest himself with the infirmities of our nature so true is it that all the conditions of the Son of God were in sufferings and lowness This also the centre repose and life of a perfect Christian ought to be in the estate and life of Iesus Christ and as the life of Iesus Christ and his estates are contained in adversities in lowness and in the thoughts of the cross it
wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them and I in them Expound as you please these words you shall always find it most true that Christian love must be the same love with that of Iesus Christ and that what we say here of love we must judge the like of all other Christian vertues for as we have alwayes said Iesus is our vertue our strength our life and our All. To possess this vertue in an eminent degree as Christianity obliges us we must acknowledge that this favour is not for all and that it 's not enough to have grace in the manner we commonly speak but we must have Iesus Christ in us we must have his spirit and holy dispositions that we may imitate Christianity and express his vertues and life The Christian therefore who would acquire true devotion and do the exercises thereof must first of all purify his heart and conserve it in that purity and subject the motions and thoughts of his soul that Iesus may dwell and act in him To dispose him to this favour he must often elevate his thoughts and heart to the Son of God and demand of him part of his spirit and holy dispositions to accomplish Christianly and perfectly all things And because the actions of the Son of God are so many springs and principles of grace a grace which he merited and communicateth to us we must bind our selves to this grace we must adore it we must desire it and demand it of him in all things and in all our exercises that our actions may be done in him by him and for him according to his designes This advice is further to be observed that in the practice of vertues that we desire them not principally and onely for the love of them nor acquire them because they are conformable to Reason or because they bring some excellency or benefit to the soul. For though vertue be seemly and profitable and of it self much to be desired yet it it not enough to desire to be vertuous upon these grounds and principles since this seems to savour of the covetousness of Adam to live in his spirit which onely aimed at elevation and to make himself a little god or to fall into the corruption of self-love which follows only it 's own interests profit and satisfaction To act purely and live in the exercise of Christian piety all must be done in the regard of God for love of him and for his honour We must seek and practise every vertue and exercise of devotion chiefly to render our selves conformable to the Son of God to imitate and please him And as the first grace that God gives us in the Church by Baptisme is to make us his children to incorporate us in Iesus Christ as members and to put us into an adherence to him so the first principall care of a Christian must be to conserve and perfect himself in his adherence and to submit to the effects thereof Herein consists the happiness of our souls and essence of true piety which is all we have to propose in this subject But as all things have their contraries and man is in a land of hostility so he must expect to meet with great opposition in the way of vertue and encounter enemies on all sides and dangers at every step we shall direct how to defend himself against them CHAP. XIV Of Temptations and Oppositions happening in the way to perfection and the exercises of Piety WE belong unto God by the power of his divine essence we are obliged to him by reason of our indigence we depend on him by the condition of our being his omnipotency gives him an absolute power over us and the immensity of his divine essence makes him present in us more intimately then light in transparent bodies which it penetrates and illuminates more then the soul is in the body which it animates and governs Our wants oblige us to a dependance on him and union with him because we cannot be without his continuall influence and consequently we must more absolutely depend on his conduct then the beam doth on the Sun from whom if it be but a moment separated it loseth it's being So is our estate inseparable from God it must he always dependant on alwayes adhering to him according to Saint Paul In him we live move and have our being which words represent our intimate union with God In the like manner in the estate of grace we are obliged to be God's and depend on him we cannot operate any work of salvation but by him and unless he be united to our souls by grace that is unless his holy spirit dwell in us operating in us all the good works which may contribute to our salvation Without grace we can do nothing by Christian grace God dwells in us according to the promise of the Son of God we come to him and make our dwelling with him By grace God enforceth himself into the soul working an immediate union with her and dwelling in her as his sanctuary and empire whence he diffuseth amorous effects and operates in her according to his divine will with so much bounty as if the infinite love of Iesus had no other thing to do but to procure and further our salvation by infinite ways But besides this of grace there is yet another union whereby we are united to God and incorporated into Iesus Christ and by him have a relation to God namely that which is wrought by the Sacraments in which he preserves us by his love and by the power of his spirit For this reason he gave his life and shed his blood on the cross to give us a new generation in Baptisme he bestows on us his body in the Eucharist that by so many favours and obligations this union might remain perfect and solid and we by so powerfull and legitimate a Title might be his in an indispensable unalterable manner For when we are by so many graces and such divine and effectuall means united to God it should seem impossible that any thing could be strong enough to break so many tyes and divide that which the power and love of God had joyned together But O deplorable condition the creatures and the Devil are strong enough to separate us from Iesus Christ and to extinguish in us his holy spirit and grace and which is worse the malice and depraved will of man is of it self strong enough to obstruct the influences of this liberall love to frustrate it's works to make us retire from our dependance on this conduct The perfect Christian must therefore have a vigilant eye and not suffer himself to be deceived in an affair that concerns his eternall salvation which that he may do we will discover the snares laid for him that he may avoid them There are four things which continually separate us from the Son of God and force us to ruine if his grace prevent us not The first is our own nature
A SPIRITUAL TREASURE Containing Our OBLIGATIONS TO GOD AND THE VERTUES Necessary to A Perfect Christian. Author Written in French By Iohn Quarre Englished By Sir THOMAS STANLEY Kt. The Second Edition LONDON Printed by T. R. for Thomas Dring at the George in Fleet-street near Saint Dunstans Church 1664. To the LADY STANLEY MADAM WHAT You here receive is due onely to Your self it being the Product of that contemplative retirement to which my dear Father resign'd the two latest years of his life The Author is highly esteemed in his own Country and hath met with so good Reception in ours also that he already seeth a Second Impression which in this Age not a little commends a Treatise of this Nature Vpon this occasion I was sollicited by the Stationer to acquaint the Reader by whom it hath been so kindly entertained with the Name of the Person to whom he is indebted for the English Edition And having herein satisfied the Importunity of the One and the Curiosity of the Other it rests onely I present it to Your Ladiship together with the humble Duty of Madam Your Ladiships Obedient Son Thomas Stanley PREFACE UNder the name of Sprirituall Treasure behold the Image of a perfect Christian which I here present thee Devout Reader It hath taken the name of Treasure because it contains as in a hidden mine the highest divine truths of Christian Piety it is a Pourtract of Perfection the Image of a true Christian or all which the Sonne of God hath left to his Church And those which I propose to you in this Treasure represent a lively Image of that perfection whereto we are called and by the grace of Christianity conducted Perhaps you may remember that this Book hath heretofore appeared under the same name but it was upon another design For then it treated onely of some particular Vertues such onely as serve to subject the soul to the guidance of God and the spirit of grace It had then no other object but the resignation of the Creature to the will and work of the Creator Now it is universall and withdrawn from a limited subject speaks in generall explains the Principles of Christianity and describes the principall Vertues necessary for a perfect Christian. As for the stile it is concise confining it self to the truth which it exposes the most plainly that may be despising all Ornaments of words since truth hath so much lustre of it self as she need not borrow of others The World perhaps will not hearken to it or suffering it to speak will not understand it for its Doctrine is too divine its Principles too high That which it proposes is wholly contrary to what the World professeth And it is much to be feared that many will dispute it considering that falsehood and malice have taken such deep root in the greater part as loving nothing but vanity and unwilling to consent to truth We live in an age so corrupt that even Christians many times fear to be good least they should be persecuted and are ashamed to appear vertuous least they should be derided Hardly can it promise it self a better reception amongst them that make profession of Piety for there are many that seek nothing but their own satisfaction in the most holy things self-love hath such absolute power over souls that they flatter themselves in every thing believing all to be good which is agreeable to them and on the other side seeming Devotions have so much applause among men that it will be hard to perswade the contrary So that our perfect Christian who speaks here purely of Truth and truly of Piety cannot easily avoid the various censures of men For as he speaks Christianly for his stile is in the spirit so he condemns freely all that is not worthy of God in the purity of the spirit which may appear strange and those who confide too much in themselves esteeming nothing but their own actions will soon condemn this manner of Discourse But what remedy shall we therefore injure Truth no she will appear before the eyes of men in despight of the World and although she may meet with spirits little capable to receive her yet it is alwayes good to expose the Image to the view even of her greatest Enemies for by this meanes they will be forced seeing her to confess they have no vertue that they walk in the night of untruths and perhaps they will apprehend their own misery and be afraid to loose themselves And if there are any who think themselves already arrived at the highest point of perfection flattering themselves in their own esteem when they shall here consider the excellencies of Christianity the purity of the spirit of grace and admire the designs of God upon souls and see what is necessary for a perfect Christian they will open those eyes which self-love had bewitched and acknowledge that their actions come far short of their own esteem of them and then humbling themselves even to the centre of their nothing they will resolve to seek God to serve him in spirit and truth after a manner worthy of God However they who take the paines to read this little work will see that many deceive themselves to their great mischeif and will learn that it is not a small matter to gain Heaven for to such only is Paradise open and that there is required more purity and vertue then we ordinarily propose For if the life of a true Christian be a life of God in man if true perfection be an amorous possession of God what purity what vertue must there be in him who will possesse so rich a Treasure pretend to an estate of divine This is a point you must consider of friendly Reader as being that which ought to be the only object of your actions For if you will open your eyes to see what God requires of you if you will rest your thoughts upon the excellencies of the state of Christianity you will learn that your heart must be the Throne of the most holy Trinity who will establish his Kingdom therein your Soul a Heaven where God will glorifie himself your life the life of God who lives in you that you may raign with him To conclude you shall know that you are onely in the World to please God and to do his will in the purity of his spirit alwayes holy is not this an affaire of great importance If for your satisfaction and profit you desire to comprehend what I say and to know the motives and obligations that you have to love and serve God perfectly Read the two first parts of this Work the third and fourth shew you the way you must keep and the Truths that are necessary to live a good Christian the last gives you a pattern of true piety Read and you shall learn how to be a good Christian. A TABLE of the several Chapters treated of in this Book The FIRST PART Of the Divine Prerogatives whereunto man is
true piety is obliged to imitate Jesus Christ. 481 CHAP. XIII The Practice of what hath been proposed in the imitation of Iesus Christ 489 CHAP. XIV Of Temptations and Oppositions happening in the way to perfection and the exercises of Piety 498 CHAP. XV. In what Disposition the Christian ought to be that he yield not to such temptations as occurr in the exercises of piety 507 CHAP. XVI Of Temptations and the advantages a Christian ought to make of them 512 CHAP. XVII Of Resignations in Temptation 519 CHAP. XVIII Divers Uses that may be made of Temptation 525 The End SPIRITUALL TREASURE The first Part. Of the Divine Prerogatives whereunto man is raised by the State and Grace of Christianity The first Prerogative CHAP. I. How by Baptisme Man is appropriated to God and consecrated by the blessed Trinity BE ye perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect These are holy words words of truth pronunced by the Holy of holies the God of Truth words that import the beginning and eminency of the estate which we are to attain words worthy to be engraved not upon the fronts of our house as a celebrious Sentence of the Ancients nor printed in our foreheads in great Characters like the Law of the Iews But in the centre of our souls and bottom of our spirits For in these divine words we behold as in a table brought from heaven what we are and what we ought to be We see that we are the image of God by creation and ought to be his resemblance by sanctification Our soul bearing the image of God is capable of God himself and hath an essence so noble and divine that nothing can satisfie nothing can fill her but an infinite essence Besides we learn that our soul being called to the resemblance of God nothing can ennoble her nothing can perfect her but the greatness and very perfections of the Divinity And to this it is that Jesus Christ invites us when he says Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect This only is the subject of this little Work I would to God that they who are transported with the wonders in Nature who can admire her greatness rare varieties and perfections who willingly confine themselves to the contemplation of the motions of the heavens of the extent of the earth of the depth of the sea of the admirable secret properties of every thing would turn back their sight into themselves to take notice what they are and what they ought to be to contemplate the singular perfection inclosed within their own souls the greatness whereto God will raise them and eminency of that state to which they are called If other Creatures are objects able to ravish our spirits and oblige them to contemplation and admiration with how much more reason ought we to employ our selves in the consideration of our own soul for which all things were created If vertue saith Plato be so beautifull as that her luster is able to transform our hearts and force us to love her what then is the soul of which vertue is but the ornament O soul saith one of the Fathers thou lovest the world yet thou thy self art of more value then all the world Thou admirest the Sun and yet art more beautifull then all the Stars Thou dost contemplate heaven yet art exalted above the firmament Thy God onely is above thee all creatures are under thy feet Let us begin to prepare our hearts to these thoughts let us call back our distracted spirits from so many objects let us withdraw our wandering eyes from so many curiosities and undeceive our hearts charmed by so many vanities that we may apply or selves to the acquisition of this knowledge for in being ignorant of these truths man is estranged from God and himself serves the creatures who were made to serve him makes his vanity an ornament and advances above himself that which ought to be under his feet and farther loosing himself in the curious pursuit of creatures or pernicious affection to the world he no more thinks of himself and which is worse seems no longer to know his God Hence spring all evils which overflow the earth all vices and disorders in the life of man Nor is it strange for how can a Christian serve his God if he esteem not his greatness and be ignorant of his divine adorable perfections and how shall he know them if he seldome or never consider them Beside how is it possible for a Christian to render unto God what he ought and to live as God requires if he take no time to reflect upon himself if he know not what he is whence he comes whither he goes how he lives In this it is he ought to employ his thoughts and time The highest employment of man says Heraclitus is to seek himself and we say the most necessary yet we are not with Democritus to put out our eyes and deprive our selves of the sight of all creatures thereby with more ease and attention to apply our selves to the study of this high philosophy the knowledge of God and our selves we need not go to such an extremity On the contrary let us preserve our eyes and attention to contemplate at leisure the image which I am going to describe unto you It is the pourtracture of a true Christian in which shall be drawn in lively colours the Christian vertues and represented the dispositions actions and piety wherein all Christians ought to live To speak after this manner is proportionable to this subject He that would make a man to see what he ought to be must draw his picture that he may see and contemplate himself therein The soul like the eye sees all things yet not it self unlesse by reflection To make her know her selfe a glasse must be set before her wherein are represented the true beauties of the state of grace the excellencies of Christianity her obligation to perfection her capacity to possesse God that considering all these she may see what she is and what she ought to be to her God Thus seeing her selfe she knows her self knowing her helf she esteems accordingly of her own being life and condition and by these degrees arriving to this esteem she faithfully endeavours to render God the honour love and service due to him careful to lead a life suitable to the condition and dignity whereto God hath called her To represent to the life so great perfection and to acknowlege what the soul is before God to whom she is called and may arrive by the assistance of a supernaturall power We must consider the essence and grace of the Mysteries wrought by the Son of God upon the Earth and what he hath accomplished in Heaven because they are the beginning and source of all Graces wherewith we are inriched they make us know what God requires of us what he will operate in us and by us These then we must propose Behold three which we
must make choice of including all the Excellencies of Christianity whatsoever is to be said of the rest is to be deduced from these The first estate wherein we are established by the grace of Christianity is that which we receive in Baptism where we are consecrated to the most holy Trinity The excellency of this estate consists herein that the most holy Trinity by this Sacrament of Reconciliation giving us at once a new being and a new birth it sanctifies and consecrates us by an Unction altogether extraordinary and divine and by this extraordinary consecration draws us from our selves separates us from the common Tempests of the world to dedicate and refer us wholly to his honour and glory to call us to a holy conversation which we ought to have with divine persons as the beloved Apostle saith That our fellowship may be with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ that by this society we may become worthy and capable of the effects of grace and divine communications to be with God and possessed of God That which makes this favour most admirable is that the most holy Trinity doth vouchsafe to apply it selfe to the accomplishment of this work in a very particular manner it sanctifies and consecrates us not after that ordinary way wherewith it acts and performs all other works common to the three Persons but in this work of grace and sacrament of life it consecrates us in a manner wholly singular and full of mysteries altogether great and full of love The Father sanctifies us giving us his Son the Son becomes incarnate suffers and riseth again for us the holy Ghost works in us Iustification infusing into us the abundance of those Graces the Son merited for us Thus the three Persons by distinct operations proper to every person effects in us this work of graces and love in this manner Thus the most holy Trinity applies it selfe wholly to us after an extraordinary manner and proper to this Sacrament to consecrate us to their glory and honour a consecration so high and mysterious that it contains all the Truths of Faith whence the Fathers call Baptisme the Sacrament of Faith This is the first dignity whereto the Christian soul is advanced but this is not all Let us go on and penetrate further into this mystery of Love and we shall see that this consecration O miracle of the infinite bounty of God! places us in God and is the cause of Gods being in us not after the manner that he is in all other things nor by any gift or created grace but after a wholly extraordinary way which gives him to us and causes him to dwell in us Here God doth disclose his heart to us the Father shews and gives us his Son the Sonne gives and applies himselfe to us in the Spirit and in the grace of his Mysteries and both together making one profusion and communication of their love send and give us the holy spirit Thus the three divine persons dwell in us consecrate us and fill us with their presence and abundance of graces That which is admirable in the excesse of this divine Love making this grace and estate singularly eminent is that there is not any other Creature not the Angels themselves are advanced to this Dignity it is reserved only for Christians who are consecrated to the most Holy Trinity after so holy and mysticall a manner It would require a large Discourse to teach us to comprehend such rare advantages but let us content our selves to consider first that all creatures are referred to God but a Christian not onely referred but consecrated as if you should say that he belongs more to God and is more holy then all other creatures O how beautifull is this truth worthy to make us lift up our hearts to God! Secondly we know that both Angels and men in the state of Innocency were replenished with the graces and gifts of God but the Christian in the state of Christianity is not onely filled with divine gifts and benefits but with the most holy Trinity it self which dwels in him and consecrates him after the manner we have declared Thirdly all creatures even Angels themselves behold God in some of his divine qualities as the Seraphins in his love the Cherubims in his knowledge the Thrones in his stability and so the rest but the Christian by a happy advantage beholds and relates to him in the extent of all his greatness not onely as Creator but as Father Saviour and Sanctifier not only as God considered in his Nature and divine Essence common to the three Persons but by a happy reflection he distinctly beholds the three divine Persons and refers himself to God as the Father as the Son and as the holy Ghost Thus by one speciall and singular Grace communicated to him in Baptisme he is consecrated to the most holy Trinity and made the Temple Throne and Residence of the ineffable immense and adorable Trinity What can be more said CHAP. II. How holy the life of a Christian ought to be consecrated to God by Baptisme WE cannot say too much upon this Subject which contains so many excellencies of the soul and such extraordinary favors of God and when we have said all we can we must acknowledge it is far short of the Subject We know that God works great matters in the souls of his Elect that his love mercies and divine liberality are as incomprehensible as ineffable which being so what can be added to the love that God expresses to the world in the mysterie of the Incarnation What more can be hoped If according to the mysteries of our Faith we believe God gave his Son to the world making him like unto us to make himself more capable of being mercifull unto us we cannot doubt but that the same God of love will shew himself bountifull in all things else since he hath made such an extraordinary communication of his love and of himself in thus giving us his Son it cannot seem strange if now after so divine a gift he bestow on us his graces to exalt us to so holy a being an estate which consecrates us to make us capable of possessing God Nothing is impossible to him that can do all things we ought onely to consider a perfect knowledge of the truth of Christianity and a disposition to receive all that God will give us It were to be wished that all Christians did follow the light of Faith as they are obliged that being guided and illuminated by this heavenly Pharos they might know the dignity and excellency of these mysteries that knowing them they might adhere to them that adhering to them they might become capable of that grace which they include and God will communicate to us that we may thereby profit as Christ wills who offers his gifts desiring we should receive and use them according to his intentions This counsell we ought to follow in all these mysteries Let us begin by
as Princes of the Blood And as the Princes of this world do maintain themselves in their Estate and that greatness which their Birth allows them so do you couragiously maintain your selves in all rights due to you by this new divine Birth O how great and sublime is it if you behold it with the eye of Faith The rank you are to hold with the Creatures of heaven and earth is the same with Jesus Christ who accompanies you to his estate and greatness the grace of the Son of God which you receive as a Christian giveth you right to his heritage If children saith Saint Paul then heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ. Now the bosom of the eternall Father is the only heritage of Jesus Christ there is his eternall dwelling there his repose there the seat of his delight the Throne of his greatness Even this is the rank you ought to keep there ought to be your repose your delight in the fruition of this onely happiness Remember that the bosom of God is the place destin'd for your eternall dwelling a place of glory and permanent felicity God only is your heritage undervalue not him for transitory vanities of this world forsake him not for the whole world unless you would be for ever miserable Admit this truth farther into your heart believe it not an imagination of a new Piety 't is the foundation of Christianity the ground and principle of the state of Grace which considering intentively you will wonder to see Christians confess these truths and hope for so great a good yet become so blind as to suffer themselves to be deluded by deceitfull vanities and vain illusions of the creatures to sell their birth-right for a mess of pottage and whilest they pretend to be the children of God glorying in so divine a being to live like the children of men thinking of nothing but the earth The second benefit is a great desire of Paradise sighing daily thousands of times after our heritage Heaven bewailing the want of and demanding the liberty promised and due to the children of God In this thought of our Celestiall Sion our sweet Countrey we grieve to see our selves so long in a strange Land It is hard to attend with so great impatience a happy day a good hour an honour which we are made to hope for yet we are without sense in attaining it the true and ineffable joyes of Paradise Great God! can it be that the Manna of Heaven should not cause us to loath the Onyons of AEgypt How long children of men how long shall we have hearts of Adamant insensible toward the things of Heaven yet open for the transitory goods of this cursed earth to love lying to follow vanity to despise eternall truths There cannot be a folly more condemnable Let us open our eyes and grieve to see our selves so fastened to the creature so confident in vanity so little relishing and esteeming heavenly things Let us be ashamed to see the children of heaven eat the food of Swine in a strange land not remembering the abundance of all things in their Fathers House Thirdly we learn that we must live nobly like the children of God Let us take heed we dishonour not our extraction and degenerate from the place whence we came Let us keep the rank we have received in the House of God The Emperor was derided for it who past his time and life away in catching Flyes let not us do so amusing our selves about the creatures and only labouring here for earth since we know all in the world is of less value then a Fly and that in the sight of God the universe is less then the least Atome Let us rather imitate that other Prince who invited by honour and the greatness of his birth would never run nor play but among Kings his equalls Applying this to our Subject let us say that a Christian being the child of God and consequently Prince of Heaven ought to expect no heritage but Paradise to seek no other company but Saints and Angels to take no content but in Iesus Christ endeavouring to follow him in all to imitate him in all since he hopeth to raign with him These Truths deserve to be deliberately considered Saint Cyprian in a Discourse upon the Ascension raises them higher saying That Christians as children of God are obliged to be like God The same is the Doctrine of Saint Paul Be ye followers of God as dear children The reason of this Precept is evident for if as children of God we will enjoy his glory to eternity the possession and the heritage of Iesus Christ and become one with him must we not necessarily be like him in purity in perfection in sanctity If we will possess God in God and live eternally in the bosom of God must not our life be wonderfull our actions holy if we will merit an estate so perfect and holy Nothing is more just Herein appears the Christian estate so great divine and perfect in that making us children of God it gives us right to the heritage of God obliges us to lead a life worthy such an heritage By this principle we see how much they are deceived who think and speak meanly of Christianity or living a life common to the children of the world promise themselves the heritage of the children of Heaven Let us teach them how they ought to live and shew what the actions of their life ought to be who call themselves Christians CHAP. V. What the Actions of Christians ought to be SEeing the state of Christianity is so eminent that it advances the soul to a filiall being so divine it follows that the actions of Christians ought to be eminently devout and perfect This truth is proved not only by the common principles that the life and operations of every thing ought to be conformable to their being but likewise by another maxime of Christianity that a Christian receive all by Christ and in Christ and as the Apostle sayes of him and though him and to him In pursuit of this Principle all the actions of a Christian ought to be done in the Spirit of Iesus and in respect to God which makes them high perfect and holy High as proceeding from Christ its principle Holy as being wrought in him perfect and pure as being wrought for him such actions we truly call Christian. To explicate this more particularly we must observe that a true Christian action must be done in grace in the spirit in the dispositions wherewith Iesus Christ performed his actions during his wayfaring life yet in a different way for the son of God as God and man did act after a divine manner proportioned to the eminence of his estate To work after this manner is proper only to him to this we cannot arrive neither must we aspire unto it but we are obliged to act after a manner very near this and the highest that can be excepting this For the
you cease to be all that you are Have a great desire to loose your self and to go out of your self and that your being be annihilated and consummated in that of Iesus who is in you This is the point whereto you must arrive if you will that God should possess you Thirdy Desire and require that Iesus Christ destroy in you all that is contrary to God that he establish in you the Kingdom of God that he take from you the dominion which self-love the vanity of your nature and your inclination usurp over you and the creatures Fourthly Resign your self to the will of Iesus Christ who by this adorable sacrament of Love will receive you into himself and place you in his life and his being Abandon then your self to the desire that he hath to possess you a desire as great and perfect as the Love wherewith he gives himself to you is infinite Pray him to destroy in this present life the being that you use and abuse that by the power of his spirit and love and by the vertue of this ineffable sacrament he may make you what he is that is to say Love Life and Truth Behold what God requires of you if we regard intentively the essence and the excellency of this mysterie if by the spirit of Faith we weigh the effects it produces in us it will be easie to acknowledge them and soon shall we be constrained to confess that this sacrament of Love doth appropriate us wholly to God draws us from our selves and the world and separates us from the commerce of creatures that we may be knit in heart and spirit to Iesus Christ despising all things for his love and glory so shall be verified the word of the Son of God to his Father in the excess of his Love speaking to him not onely of his Apostles but of all good Christians They are not of the world even as I am not of the world This is the spirit of Christianity the excellency of this divine estate That we may the better remember this you shall see in a little Picture First the grace and spirit of Christianity consecrates us to God and imprints in us a character of the power of Iesus Christ to whose Empire we must be subject for ever and must undergo to all eternity both in heaven and earth the state of service and subjection to the spirit grace and conduct of Iesus Secondly The grace of Christianity makes us the children of God by mercy and gives us right of inheritance to the greatness and true glory of Iesus Christ. By this grace we have no more part in the world because it is the heritage of the true children of Adam but we have right to the Possession of God who is himself the heritage of his children Thirdly This grace draws our spirits our hearts and our affections from our selves and all creatures to unite us to God it gives us right to enter into familiarity and alliance with the Son of God who making himself man by the Incarnation would be amongst us to the end that we might be with him He enters into society with men invests himself with our miseries infirmities to communicate to us his life his spirit and greatness Thus by the grace of this mysterie we go out of our own Interests to enter into the Interest of Jesus Christ whereof the Apostle speaking of the things of the world he saith I count them but dung that I may win Christ. Fourthly In brief by the state of Christianity we are advanced to the participation of God who will be all in us that we may be in him and Jesus Christ by his body and blood which he giveth us in the Eucharist doth elevate and unite us to God makes us live by his life communicates to us all that he is that he may be all things to us that the world may be nothing to us Thus the grace of Christianity unites us to Jesus Christ replenishes us with his life and spirit makes us another himself and therefore obliges us to go out of our selves and the world to be in Christ Jesus I know we must be in the world and make use of the world so long as it shall please God to continue us in this place of captivity but we must not be of the world we must live here as in a place of passage and make use of all in the world as of a winter garment ready to put it off when the Sun of righteousness shall come to his meridian when it shall please God Let us use all the creatures as a necessary medicine to the present state of our infirmities and occasions but let it be withall loathsom unto us as violating our Love which desires nothing but God which takes delight in nothing but God which aspires to nothing and hopes in nothing but God The conclusion of the first Part What the life of a Christian ought to be Behold here the Excellencies of Christianity which we have proposed in few words as having no further design nor intention in this volume then to shew that the life of a Christian ought to be conformable to the state of grace and dignity whereto he is advanced by Iesus Christ. Now to enter into this knowledge it suffices that we see what we are This is that which I design'd to demonstrate in this first part proposing as in a little Tablet the essence dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity which I have done briefly expressing onely the principal Truth of this subject leaving the rest to the piety and consideration of those that would profit thereby Now if we look back with the eye of Faith upon that which hath been said we shall clearly see what a Christian life ought to be and shall know that the design of Iesus Christ informing his Church hath been to consecrate to appropriate to himself and to unite himself divinely to our souls and to separate them from themselves and from all creatures that by a happy revolution he may be in us and we in him we may live in him and of him as he lives in his Father of the life of his Father that so he may restore us to his Father and re-unite us to himself from whom we were separated by him by being our own and having relation to the Creature Herein is comprised the perfection of a Christian life whereof we cannot speak more then in the words of St. Paul ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God a passage which contains an apparent contradiction If we are dead how can our life be hid in God who is the true life If we are in God who is the life of our souls how are we dead The Apostle meanes that our life is life and death our life is a life of grace which is the true life of souls and much better then the soul is the life of our bodies and the proper
Spouse when she runs after her God crying to him Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions This holy Lover knows that as long as she is separated from her God she shall be subjected to error and to the tyrannicall usurpation of sin she knows by experience that he that is not with God in the pessession of his spirit shall alway be overwhelmed with all sorts of misfortunes led captive and dragged by his own lusts deceived and betrayed by the foolish love of the creatures and therefore she seeks her God with so much ardor and affection They that will withdraw themselves from these evils and assure repose to their consciences peace to their spirits and quiet to their passions must do the like they must seek God purely sincerely and with perseverance they must endeavour to possess him that they may find in him a perfect liberty and assured peace Saint Austin says all this in two words O Lord our heart is always unsettled and uquiet untill the time it shall repose in thee Then again addressing his speech to men Wherefore saith he O men of nothing do you wander in the search of many things Wherefore doth your covetousness make you unconstant vagabonds in your thoughts and desires seek seek him who is all things in him you shall have all there you shall find rest and remedy for your miseries This care we must have which cannot be sufficiently recommended to you therefore as it is of consequence we must proceed in discourse of it CHAP. VI. Of the state of Man after the Sin of Adam and of the need he hath of his God ALl the duties of the soul are comprised in these words of David Eschew evil and do good words that contain all Laws divine and humane for they onely forbid evil and command good words so absolute and generally true that he who keeps this Commandment shall certainly be perfect It is not needfull to explicate this Proposition it is a naturall Precept a Law God hath graven in the bottom of Reason that none might be ignorant of it that all might be without excuse before the Tribunall of God Notwithstanding O unhappiness of humane nature since the sin of Adam we are become so unworthy so criminall that we cannot without the favour of God either eschew evil or do good so evident is it that man hath need of God As children of Adam we are children of malediction begotten in a generall condemnation conceived in sin born children of wrath Adam indeed gave us nature and life but subject to the power and malice of sin which subjects us to the Devil confining us to his will and conduct From the womb we bear the yoke of sin as the Scripture saith we are in the Kingdom of death so far impotent and evil that without the grace of God we can do nothing but works of death and captivity wherein we see the need we have of God to avoid this misery For if from our birth we are subjected to the tyranny of sin doubtless we should be drawn to all sorts of vice there is no sin which man would not commit if God did not withold him Every imagination of the thought of his heart is onely evil continually sayes God of man so evil that he would lose and incessantly precipitate himself in desires of sins and abominations if God by his power did not with-hold him so true is it that we cannot fly evil without Gods help we are so much slaves to it that only God can free and draw us out of this captivity This it is Saint Austin means in his Confessions when he thanks God not onely for delivering him from the sins he committed but also for restraining him from all others I ascribe it unto thy grace saith he that thou hast dissolved my sins as the Sun doth Ice I refer to thy mercy all the sins which I have not committed I confess that all hath been forgiven me as well that which I did of my own will as that which I did not commit being prevented and aided by thy grace Where he teacheth us that without the grace of God we cannot shun evill thus is manifest the need we have of God If the Lord of Sabboth saith St. Paul out of the Prophet had left us a seed we had been as Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah This is not hard to conceive if by the way we consider that man as the Sonne of Adam is degraded from the justice and holiness of God deprived of grace despoyl'd of all his gifts cruelly wounded in his nature is separated from God hath wholly converted himself to the Creature and being reduced to and plunged in this deplorable condition is so impotent that he cannot raise himself according to his end and perfection up to God unless assisted by the grace of Iesus Christ who onely can draw us out of the abysse of sinne reinvest us in holiness and mercy as with new gifts merited by his death and sufferings he alone can lead us to God and as without him we separate our selves continually from God so with his assistance we approach unto him and by his grace we who were children of cursing are made children of God and of blessing Wherein on one side appeareth the miserable estate whereunto we are reduced as children of Adam on the other the great need we have of God and his assistance Now in considering these truths if we have any sense of salvation will we not immediately say that we are obliged to seek God to implore the power of his spirit and strongly to renounce the power of sinne the spirit of Adam and to resign our selves wholly to the grace and conduct of God protesting and acknowledging before the throne of his mercies the need we have of him to eschew evill which is man's first duty If we examine the need we have of God to do good and practise vertue we shall find our selves in the like indigence Faith teaches us that we cannot do any work of salvation if we be not joyned to God by grace and as Iesus Christ saith as the branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me We can do nothing of our selves as our selves because sinne hath brought us into such a condition that being dispoiled of the gifts of God and made unworthy of his grace we are reduced to such impotence that we can neither serve nor love God nor do any good work if we have not of him grace strength and merit to do it He alone gives us the thought of good nor is that sufficient he must give us also the will and resolution to accomplish it which when we have also received if God himself give us not the accomplishment of it it
when we speak or think of the things of heaven we must believe they are ineffahle far above all that we can think or speak We must not make small account of what concerns God but on the contrary we must have from the bottom of our souls a great esteem and belief of all that God hath done of all he hath said and of that which he hath left to his Church In God there is nothing little God is as adorable and estimable in the least as in the greatest Finally it is very profitable and necessary to the soul that giveth it self to this exercise to draw from all things and upon every subject an esteem of God and to form in heart solid and serious thoughts thereof To assist us in this practice and to advance us in this vertue we ordinarily make use of reading prayer and meditation But it is good to take heed how we are guided in this exercise of prayer how we make use of the thoughts the light and knowledge we receive herein Many seeking only their own satisfaction in it do nothing but busie their own spirit they seek and aim at nothing but relishes and resentments they leap from one subject to another they run from the first point to the second and apply themselves sometimes to one affection sometimes to another spending the whole time in a multiplicity and disturbance of thoughts To profit herein we must proceed otherwise for in these exercises and all other we must onely seek to know the will of God to esteem it and to make our selves worthy the graces necessary to accomplish his will and to please his divine Majesty and having put our selves in the presence of God by the Principle of faith we must lay hold upon truth we must rest therein nakedly and simply we must adhere thereunto and keep our selves firm in this first view with care quietly to leave our spirits to be replenished of God and bathing our selves as it were in this thought we must unite our selves to this knowledge imprinting by degrees in our hearts the light strength and knowledge of the proposed truth whether the knowledge be great or little we must always keep our heart and spirit open and free to receive the thoughts thereof These will put us into an esteem of God by this esteem we shall easily be carried to an humble respect and desire to serve and love so high a Majesty and we need not doubt but that many things will be done in the soul by Christ if she dispose her self thereto as she ought if she leave her self to be guided by his spirit and abandon her self to all the effects of grace attending them with an humble patience But Oh the misfortune of our self-love the soul seeking her self and her own satisfaction withdrawes and separates her self from God to follow her own inclinations to content her sense and to employ her self in what she pleases making her self hereby unworthy to feel the grace of the presence of God and to bear the effects of truth It were easie to deduce all into particulars if it were necessary but not to trouble my self with all the failings that happen in this exercise it suffices that I say that the first study of the soul must be to know God according to the lights and truths of faith to adhere strongly to this knowledge to enter into an esteem of his greatness and then to honour and adore him with an honour worthy of God These words express much and include the first duties of the soul and shew wherein she must employ her self with care before all things Hence we may learn that their practise is not good who as soon as they enter into some knowledge and esteem of God and receive some light in the consideration of the truths of faith whereby they feel themselves moved and as it were drawn by an humble respect and inward reverence before God instead of staying and receiving at leisure this little touch this sweet beam of Heaven following this little interiour light and annihilating themselves before the supreme Majesty of God they retire from it under pretence of a false humility to apply themselves to other thoughts and fearing evill on purpose to lose time and be deceived or to lose themselves in their estate they shut the eare to God and their eyes to the light to entertain themselves in their own conceptions and imaginations and in the consideration of themselves We see by experience that this way is ill we may easily observe that such souls never advance or if there appear some advancement it is but in appearance besides that it is alwayes in fear and in a spirit of self-love never in solid vertue the reason is manifest If prayer be an elevation and union of our heart a speaking of the soul to God it is hard to conceive how we may advise to quit this application of the soul to God to torment her imagination and cast her into the consideration of exteriour things into the examination of divers circumstances into a continual regard of what we are and what we ought to be But wherefore all this seeing it pertains to the matter of prayer let us leave it to them who treat thereof and content our selves to conclude with that which we would perswade that the first thing that he must practise who will live a perfect christian is to live in the spirit and to walk in the light of faith and by this light to enter into an esteem of God which is supported upon the knowledge of his greatness and of what he is What course we must take to obtain this knowledge we will proceed to speak of in the subject of Humility The second Disposition CHAP. VIII Of Humility and the meanes to obtain it THe design of this Discourse is to draw to the life the Picture of a true Christian describing one after another not all the vertues but those onely which are most necessary and the bases and foundations of Christianity the Mothers and Nurses of the rest Faith leads the way humility followeth for as much as we know and esteem of God so far are we humble Faith makes us know God humility leads us to God Faith disposes us and shews us true vertues humility acquires them and being acquired conserves them This is she that opens and makes plain the way to charity and who is as it were the Mistriss of Gods House she alone layes up and keeps safe the divine gifts St. Paul by way of excellency calls her the vertue of Iesus for besides that this vertue appertains to him more then to any and that the whole course of his life and the mysteries of his sufferings were ever accomplish'd in humility it is moreover his vertue in that he publish'd it and recommended it to the world and wills that his humility be the object and example of the life of men Learn of me saith he for I am meek and lowly
of heart It is he that hath thundred and pronounced this sentence Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted naturall and powerfull words pronounced by the mouth of Truth Why should we seek further evidence how acceptable this is to God and how he rewardeth this truth and how necessary it is for him that will be a perfect Christian Let us no further demurre upon this subject but examine wherein it consists let us learn what humility is that is it we are most ignorant of Humility is truth to be humble is to walk in the spirit of truth I say humility is truth because true humility consists in this that God by his infinite bounty by his operations of love and grace infuses into the soul a light which makes it see the truth in all things more or less as it pleases God This light which brings with it knowledge abaseth annihilateth the soul in her self and causes that in all things she annihilate her self because this truth teacheth her what God is and what the creature is so that this grace which I call the light of truth gives not onely knowledge but also actually annihilates the soul and detains her in her lowness in her nothing and being in her nothing she is truly where she ought to be for hereby she is in the truth and acting in this state she walks in the spirit of truth which is the same as to act with humility Many will wonder hereat who thinking they have humility have it not who thinking to attain it by certain exercises of humiliation do but deceive themselves not but that their exercises are good and conduce to humility but if we pass no further if we possess not the spirit of truth acting by the same spirit which is the spirit of God and of simplicity we may make many acts of humility but we shall not have humility for humility in its formality and essence consisteth in the spirit of truth and simplicity the spirit of truth and simplicity is God To be humble then we must act in this spirit I will explicate and make this more intelligible Humility is a supernaturall light which I call the light of truth because it maketh us know things as they are On one side it drawes and advances us to the knowledge of the infinite goodness of God and other his divine perfections and by this knowledge forms in us an esteem of the supreme Majesty of God On the other side the same light causes us to see what we are our own meanness unworthiness impotency indigence the truth of our nothing and by consequence before God she makes us see the truth which consisteth in the knowledge of God and of our selves This truth so conceived possessing our spirit and and acting in our soul annihilates and debases us in all things in all our actions with so much facility that the soul can do no otherwise for she cannot but act according to her knowledge so that acting wholly according to this light and taking all things as she conceives them she walks in humility and as we say humbles her self and in effect she doth humble her self not knowing it for she hath no eyes but to see the truth no power but to act according to truth I call here humility a light and a light of truth for so in effect she is whence it follows that by humility we arrive to the knowledge of truth as by the light of the Sun we see the Sun so by the light of the truth wherein consists humility we see truth Thus we understand it when we say that God revealeth his divine secrets and greatness and teacheth the truths to humble souls Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes that is to the humble saith Iesus Christ to his Father Whence we infer that to understand the Catholique and supernaturall truths and to possess them we must go to them with humility not sufficiency nor capacity much less curiosity God is pleased with little ones so much reading so much curiosity so many Questions so many Reasons wherein men take pains are unprofitable labours and rather separate us from Christian truth then bring us neerer to it for God dwels with the humble spirit saith the Oracle of heaven so that retyring our selves from the truth is to make us uncapable of humility and without humility we cannot come to heaven whence we may imagine what danger the spirits of this Age run into Further we may learn from what hath been said that they who will acquire Christian humility must not stop at exteriour actions of meanness and humiliations nor at words of confusion and abasement nor at some submissions and accommodations although they be frequent and profitable but we must pass further and penetrate the centre of the spirit there to establish the throne of truth and to make our heart the treasury of the light of God To be humble we must endavour to know the truth we must possess it we must act by the Principle of truth which being done it will be easie to come to the exteriour and to produce infinite acts of humility and annihilation for we cannot have humility without doing all these actions but a man may do all these actions without having humility But we must now know how we may acquire the knowledge of truth CHAP. IX Of the knowledge of God and our selves THe knowledge of truth consists in knowing God and our selves a man may arrive at this knowledge two wayes by infusion by acquisition The first comes from God alone who communicates and infuses into our soul a light springing from truth which we call the spirit and light of faith This light brings and gives the knowledge of God and of our selves and this knowledge as well as the light is an operation of God who by this divine light which he spreads in us annihilates our soul and in all things detains it wholly in this annihilation wherein consists humility Thus is humility a grace infused and a pure operation of God alone this operation is greater or lesser according as God pleases who by the communication of this divine light consummateth and annihilateth the soul more or less as he pleases for his glory This first manner is for few persons because few are advanced to this way few render themselves worthy of such grace The second and more ordinary is acquired We propose divers means to acquire the knowledge of God and of our selves the most common and easie whereof is consideration and application assisted by grace without which nothing can be done We arrive to the knowledge of God not by sublime penetration of the Attributes of Divinity that is not necessary and few are capable of it but by faith When the soul considers God as he is simple proposed in the Creed to us according to the bare and simple signification of
these truths annihilating all the spirits and humbling all the Seraphims nothing but man shuts his eyes against so great a light Iesus Christ and these Seraphims humble themselves in the throne of their glory and men glorifie themselves sitting on the Dunghill of their vices O hardness and obstinacy of humane spirits O the power of the blind ambition of men who see and confess these truths who bear the marks of them who feel the violence of them yet remain insensible triumph in their wickedness and refuse to act by love and vertue what they shall be constrained to do by Iustice and rigour for those who exalt themselves shall be humbled but humbled by the revengefull hand of Almighty God Let us open our eyes and acknowledge let us descend into our selves and from the bottom of our nothing cry to God that he would give us that light of truth Let us adore this truth of Iesus Christ and let us resign our selves over to his power and invoke the force and spirit of his humility that it may consume in us the vanity and ambition of the spirit of Adam that lives in us and communicate to us so necessary a vertue The third Disposition CHAP. X. Of an effectuall desire to be GOD'S AS the spirit of Faith is great in us so let us make use thereof and esteem God according to the same proportion and enter into this Disposition absolutely necessary to all souls who go the wayes of grace and abandon themselves wholly to our Lord. This Disposition is a pure and perfect desire to belong to God at any price whatsoever and to be his purely without any other regard then of the greatness and soveraign Majesty of God who deserves to be loved served and adored because he is God and shutting the eye to all considerations to all hopes and all profit we must say and bear in heart this truth I will be Gods for his own sake This desire will not be so difficult as it appeares if faith be living in us and if we bear a true esteem of God But we must proceed further this desire must not be in the mouth onely but in the heart to be pure it must regard nothing but God to be perfect it must be infinite without limitation or restriction as if we should say I will be Gods in all that he wills and in sign of the perfection whereinto I desire to enter I will know nothing of all that he desireth of me I content my self to be in a bare abandoning of my self to all the thoughts all the designes all the Counsels he hath formed of me in the Cabinet of his eternall wisdom to all the thoughts Iesus Christ had of me on the Altar of his Crosse sacrificing himself to the glory of his Father and offering vvith himself the souls of his Elect. I offer my self to him to be all that he vvill and to leave all the effects of his divine pleasure be it of Iustice or of love of abandoning or enjoying of abundance or privation of fervour or of drought In brief I will have no other desire but to be Gods to be all that he will that I should be This is the adorable estate into which the soul of Iesus Christ entred the first instant of the Mystery of the Incarnation as soon as it was united to the Word for in the same moment his soul produced an act of obligation of him to be wholly Gods wholly obedient to his divine decrees in all the wayes which he ordained upon him and upon his life in the wayes of humiliation of sufferings of privation cross and death This is also the estate and first disposition whereinto the soul must enter that seeks God and will live Christianly but she must remain herein with such stability and constancy that she may render her self immutable in regard of his disposition For in whatsoever change she finds her self she must never quit this disposition on the contrary it is herein that she must establish and settle her self more and more and all her care must be to bear it not in her mouth nor in her will but in the bottom of her heart and centre of her soul. We have said that this desire to be God's must be pure simple naked and absolute therefore to forme this desire and make it perfect we must not receive into our spirit any reason any consideration any interest but onely say and say it truly I will be Gods for Gods sake according as God will have me and in such manner as shall please him This Disposition thus explained teaches us that they who seek Christian perfection and faithfully resign themselves to Iesus Christ to live in the state that pleaseth him must not desire to know or understand what God will do with them nor what he will say to all the motions which they think or in all that they understand nor in all the diverse estates spirituall or temporall wherein they find themselves that is neither necessary nor profitable on the contrary to desire to know and understand all that passeth and examine whence it comes and whither it tends this were to draw her self out of resignation and to go out of the purity of this Disposition it is onely necessary that the soul have a great vigilancy to recive all of God and to receive it in the manner that God requires of her and to bear it with the spirit as he will and to make use of it with the purity that it merits In this point consists the fidelity of the soul and the perfection of this estate To facilitate this it is good for the soul to present her self often before God exciting in her self an efficacious desire to do the pure will of God and to do it in the disposition and manner that he requires without knowing what he will and she shall often offer her self to God for this end Moreover it is very profitable to offer our selves to God and to form a generall will to practise all sorts of good though we have no light nor feeling contenting our selves with a resignation to God and taking care to follow him and to co-operate faithfully with the graces and motions we receive from him It is a Maxime in Piety that the soul must not seek any sense any light nothing of particular but keep and conserve it self in a pure estate to be Gods to do his divine will and to render her self faithfull to his graces remembering that we have nothing to do in this world but to submit to the will of God to receive his gifts and to render them again unto him The fourth Disposition CHAP. XI Of the Purity of the Heart WE proceed in our designe of drawing the picture of a perfect Christian which consists in representing the principal vertues wherewith he must be invested and the dispositions wherein he must be to become fit to bear God and to live onely upon the spirit and grace of God
as in the Church he is fed with the body and drinks the blood of Iesus Christ. Among the true vertus which we must possess that which is as the gold and enamel of all the rest is purity a vertue altogether necessary yet either despised or little known If we would see the necessity thereof let us onely consider what is the end of a Christian and wherein consists the perfection of the state of Christianity The perfect Christian must live the life of grace which is the life of Iesus Christ he must carry God he must possess God If any man love me saith Christ he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come into him and make our abode with him which we must not onely understand of justifying and inherent grace a gift created and given of God but of the reall true habitation and presence of God in our souls The soul of the just saith the Wise man is the Throne of God and the Apostle sayes often that our souls and bodies are Temples of God Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the holy Ghost Reflecting on this so manifest a truth we must say that to receive and possess God in our soul we must have the purity of God and in a word without flattering our selves with vain hopes and disguizing or covering the truth let us consider a little seriously what the place ought to be where the Majesty of a God will dwell for ever what ought his dwelling to be of whom David saith Thou dwelst in the sanctuary and in the holy of holies What ought the heart of a man to be where God hath made himself a seat which he hath chosen and consecrated to be the throne of his love We must believe God will require in us a purity worthy of God seeing he who is purity it self will dwell eternally in us This purity that God demands and whereof he is worthy is so divine that our strength cannot arrive unto it he must give it he must assist our importance there is nothing but the fire of his love the lightning of his light the force of his grace and the power of his spirit that can purge expiate and consume all in us that is contrary to this purity In brief it belongs to God alone to place us in the purity that he requires of us This shews how much those souls are deceived who think to possess God and be well with him yet are more remote from him then heaven is from earth We need not but to behold and judge by the effects what its cause is Now as this purity is altogether necessary to possess God so it is our part to desire and to demand it of him and our principall care must be to purify our heart to make it to bear God we must offer it to him that we may bring to our selves the effect of this saying of God to his Spouse and to all others My son give me thy heart we must give and resigne it to him alone it is his desire it is our duty and our happiness if he will vouchsafe to accept it it will be his when he pleaseth to make it such as he requires it This is not all we must co-operate herein and labour with care and vigilancy that we may employ our selves herein with courage and labour with profit let us therefore see wherein this purity consists The purity of the heart may be understood two wayes one that we must purifie our heart from all sorts of sins and voluntary imperfections God enters not into a malicious soul nor inhabits in a body enslav'd to sin we mean not only gross sins but ordinary failings even all faults be they never so little For God being purity it self cannot inhabit in a heart if he find not or put not therein this purity and being infinitely good he infinitly hates evil whatsoever it be and though the least faults drive not God out of our souls yet they make a division and unsettle the soul from God they make great spoil in the heart they undermine it they brand it they indispose it and being so it is disagreeable to God and becomes the object of his Iustice. The soul that knowes how to esteem of God and bears any impression of his purity will think more then I say and never consent to the least imperfection all is insupportable to her that she knows to be disacceptable to God she hath no consideration of estate honour her own good or of men where she sees there is any thing capable to offend the eyes and heart of her God all her care is to detest and extirpate not onely the least faults but to quit renounce and separate her self from whatsoever she knowes to be displeasing to God It is the chief advice of St. Augustine Before any work saith he be sure to purify the heart and take from it all that you observe displeasing to God When he would have us take from our hearts all that is displeasing to God he discovers a great secret he would have us go out of our selves and take out of us all that is of Adam he would have us annihilate our inclinations because whatsoever is of Adam is impure and opposite to Iesus Christ and ever contrary to him whence we conclude that he who would possess Iesus must do all he can possible to dispossess himself of and to drive away Adam this spirit of Adam and his inclinations can no more subsist in the soul with the spirit of God then the Idol Dagon could stand before the Ark of the Covenant All that is in us and is not of God is impure and unworthy of God and all that is out of God can produce no good nor any thing worthy of God these are great truths such as might transport our spirits yet let us not be astonish'd at this Proposition as too high and impossible and we shall see that therein is nothing too much but rather far less then so worthy a subject merits if we consider how pure that soul must be that would please God be in God and possess God and what purity it must have to be one with God for thereon the life of a Christian happily terminates O great God how many deceive themselves O God of adorable purity how few are fit to possess Thee By the light of these truths we may discover the abuse and deceits in christian devotion Some think that they hold God by the hand already and believe themselves well advanced in perfection in that they communicate in that they fast and pray every day and a thousand such like things wherein they exercise themselves they have the taste and sense of devotion they speak well of God and if you will believe them they say they are ravished in God But consider them well you shall find they live wholly according to their own inclinations they mind onely their own
in them all that God intended It requires a very quick sight to perceive these snares and a great vigilancy to correspond with the work of God and to act with the purity of God for to this point it must arrive To this end will contribute much the second means we have proposed which makes us renounce our selves and annihilate in us all regard to the Creatures that God alone may be the object the hope the confidence and the whole of our soul. The brightness and beauty of this vertue will hurt their eyes who too much love themselves for they must quit all to possess it they must have neither heart nor eyes for themselves or the creatures and this they cannot digest who esteem themselves perfect enough and think they hold God inchain'd by the chains of their devotions which they love even to idolatry despising and neglecting this vertue which gives us God out of an opinion that they already possess him The sloathful will not regard it because it exacts two much care and vigilance it is for them who love God or who seriously desire to love him to esteem this vertue and to seek it fervently for where love is there the eyes are and we desire not to please but where we love Let us love and we shall find nothing difficult Is it not an intolerable blindness to see so many refusalls as we make to so great a happiness and to make difficulties when God will love our souls when he will replenish them with himself He will provide for them he will conduct them therefore he will separate them from themselves and the Creatures that the heart may be pure and fit to receive him who is purity it self O soul saith Saint Cyprian If thou suffice God let God suffice thee if God love thee love thou him if he regard thee do thou regard him The fifth Disposition CHAP. XII Of Self-deniall and the necessity thereof IT is impossible to be perfect if we be not God's we cannot be God's unless he possess us and replenish us with his spirit To attain this happiness we must necessarily go out of our selves and into a true denial of our selves for as much as we are emptied of our selves and the creature so much shall we be filled of God from whence this maxime so remarkable in Christian piety Abnegation and annihilation leads us to the fulness of God This vertue is almost unknown to the world and which is to be lamented even those that make it their business to follow Piety regard it not and yet there is no vertue more indispensable or more necessary Self-deniall is the first Disposition whereto the creature must put himself before the Majesty of his Creator it is an estate which the soul must be in if it will turn to God In brief it is the centre of Christianity for it is founded upon a true and pure annihilation We know the creatures before the Majesty of God are but as a grain of sand The Vniverse is but as a drop of morning dew and according to the saying of a Christian Philosopher The whole earth is but as a point of a point None but God can say I am that I am All creatures ought to annihilate themselves at his word and to account themselves before this infinite being as if they were not The first use hereof was made by the Angels when in the revolt that was in heaven Saint Michael the Archangel and all good Angels according to their duties re-doubled this Protestation of annihilation Who is like unto God words that made the Angels go out of themselves and annihilate themselves before the Majesty of God words shewing that self-deniall and annihilation is the first duty the Angels rendred to God It is likewise the first thing that man ought to do and the first use of his soul is to annihilate her self before the Majesty of God and to protest he will go out of his being and renounce himself to be what God will have him The Reverence and Religion which men have professed shew this annihilation of the creature before God for from the beginning of the World by an instinct inspired from heaven Altars have been erected Sacrifices and Holocausts offered wherein the being of the thing sacrificed is annihilated as in protestation made by the creature that its being is dependant on God and that he ought to annihilate himself at sight of the incomprehensible and adorable Majesty of his Creator What difficulty can there be in a thing so evident Can there be any creature or spirit so ambitious as to advance it self before God and esteem it self something before his infinite being If then before God man may not esteem himself any thing without losing himself with Lucifer he must necessarily annihilate himself his condition constrains him thereunto whether he will or not Herein appears the truth of what we said that Abnegation is a disposition which no creature no man neither can or must eternally go out of Self-deniall is the first estate wherein the soul that would turn to God and receive the grace of Iustification must be the reason is manifest Man by sin is turned and separated from God to turn unite and apply himself to the creature To go out of Sin and turn himself to God he must necessarily go out of himself renounce himself and all creatures and must separate and dis-unite himself from himself if he will be united to God and be perfectly converted This is to be done by self-deniall whereby the soul renounceth the creature and annihilateth in her self all that she is In a word she goes out of her self to return unto God which she does assisted by grace which draws her back and separates her from what diverts her from God Let us consider this first truth by the principle and light of faith Since the fall of Adam we are not sanctified but by and in Iesus Christ we cannot be sanctfied as children of Adam but as members of Iesus Christ and as the new creature in Iesus Christ. This Principle of faith granted it follows that if we will take part with grace and holiness and be sanctified in Iesus Christ we must necessarily renounce our selves and cease to be to our selves that we may be to Iesus Christ which cannot be but by self-deniall This was the state of Saint Paul at his conversion and the sense of his words when he sayes I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Thus we must understand these words of the Son of God directed to all Christians If any man will come after me let him deny himself wherein appears how necessary this vertue is to all souls that would follow Iesus Christ and turn to God Thirdly self-deniall is the centre of Christianity Let us consider it from it's birth and we shall find the Son of God founded his Church accomplished our Redemption and will save the World by the wayes of annihilation
him abroad in the Kings Palace The devout soul who beholds God in her heart and sees nothing but God there beholds him every where She knowes not that the World sees her she onely knowes her God beholds her and she her God that suffices her If a Christian love his God he will love him every where and not considering men he will say with the spouse my God is mine and I am his The Christian Master St. Paul gives us a good lesson upon this subject and in divers places furnishes us with reasons to perswade us to the care we ought to have of the outward man and of the actions that appear to the eyes of men he sayes that first we owe to God the care of perfecting our exteriour for God will be honoured by our actions This object we must have continually before our eyes this thought must never go out of our souls the reason that the Apostle gives is that we are not our own but Gods whether we live or die we are the Lords saith he and consequently in all our exteriour actions we must have a regard to God as if I should say whether at Court in publick or private in happiness or misfortune in what estate soever I am in of death or life what condition soever I live in I am Gods and therefore must so order my self that in all conditions and estates I may honour God by my actions that my exteriour may be as agreeable to him as my interiour Know you not saith the Apostle that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your Body By the first words he shewes the dignity of our bodies seeing that they possess the holy spirit by the rest the obligation we have to take care of our exteriour that it may give God the honour he expects This Doctrine stops the mouth of all the reasons or rather excuses of those who dissemble what they are and not esteeming the exteriour content themselves with good intentions We must say they live among the living we must accommodate our selves to men and a thousand such nicities to which there need no other answer then that of the Apostle you are not for your selves or your own Interests nor for your friends nor for the World give unto God what you owe unto God and to Caesar what you owe unto Caesar. If this reason be not sufficient Saint Paul gives you another taken from the condition of Christians and which they profess holy and perfect As a Gentleman is oblig'd to live like a Gentleman a Prince like a Prince every one according to his quality so a Christian must live according to the quality of a Christian his exteriour life must be conformable to the state of Christianity which he professeth I have shewed you saith St. Paul and prayed you to walk worthy of God who hath called you to his Kingdom and to his glory As the quality of a Christian is most noble that man can be advanced unto in which quality he must appear before the Tribunall of God to receive judgement and recompence of his actions it is but necessary his life and actions his government and conversation be conformable and worthy of so high and divine a quality whereto the same Apostle exhorts us I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called This is all that is required of a Christian that in what estate condition or manner of life soever he be he live after a manner worthy of Christianity Let this be his first design the subject of his examen let all his care be to profess what he is by his actions The first thing that a Christian must regard in his actions and exteriour is not to see if he be conformable to the rank he holds among men and to his condition in the World but rather to be conformable to the state he professes before God herein consists the fidelity and courage of a Christian. This care of our exteriour is not an indifferent instruction but a Law from Heaven pronounced by Iesus Christ Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven He will have us concerned in our neighbours and for love of them strive to live well to be unto them a mirror of vertue This is not therefore an advice but an obligation to give good example and by our good actions to shew others what they ought to do Example by sweetness of attraction wins the heart binds the will captivates the affections if vertuous it makes vertue to be deified it constrains us to love it and by the rule it bears over our hearts innsinuates and instills the vertue which it exerciseth For men said the Morall Philosopher give more credit to their eyes then to their ears From this principle is derived our obligation to let our light shine before men to preserve a vertuous and exemplary exteriour We are a sweet savour of Christ saith Saint Paul teaching us that our exteriour should have the odour of the vertue of Iesus Christ and not only have the savour but be the very savour it self so much God desires the perfection of our works words recreation conversation employments affairs In brief all our actions must savor of Iesus Christ and bear the odor of his vertues we must not pervert this counsel to formall affectation True vertue is masculine and noble every where it rules with modesty the spirit of God walketh with Majesty in humility all that we require is to profess vertue every where not to be ashamed to shew that we are God's that we respect his divine Majesty that we fear his Iudgements He that hath a good interiour let him shew it by the exteriour let him dissemble nothing but walk alwayes in sincerity remembering that he is in the sight of God Angels and men who behold him and shall one day be his Iudges By the same reason that we labour to perfect our interiour we must endeavour to perfect the exteriour for common sense teaches us that by our exteriour we must please God and render him as much honour as by the interiour To recollect and profit by what is said let us learn to perfect our exteriour and have regard to God onely to conform our actions to the state and dignity of Christianity Let us remember that the rule whereby God will judge us at the hour of death will not be that of honour nor of men of the world much less that of our Interests but of his will and his honour we are only in the world for his honour to do his holy will we are his and for him and it is reason we should render to God what we owe him CHAP. II. That in all our Actions we must follow the
conduct of God THe Creature by the condition of it's being subsisteth only in resigning it self to the conduct and will of God for as it belongs to God alone to give being to all things so is he alone the preserver and governour of them Whence as the creature bears God in its depth and its centre so it bears in the same depth a capacity all that he operates in and by it which capacity the Philosopher calls obedientiall power whereby all that is created is left to the power of its Creator and resigned to his conduct Man must be subject to this indispensable Law he cannot exempt himself from this subjection whereto he is bound by the necessity of being created a necessity so absolute in what estate soever he be in this world or the other in time or eternity that he must be subject to the power of his Creator whether in the rigour of his Iustice or in the sweetness of his Mercy and though his depraved nature cause him sometimes to separate himself from his God to live in the disorder of his own will contrary to the order of God yet he cannot absolutely withdraw himself from the order of his divine providence nor avoid the arm of God who comprehends all things disposes them and causes them to arrive to the end that he hath proposed them for this order and power is so generall that the malice of men cannot be exempted from it so much is the creature subject to the conduct of the Creator Necessity exacts it of us the Laws of love and acknowledgement oblige us thereto and that very strictly For God who hath a particular providence and an extraordinary care of man conducts him also and loving him excessively becomes his Father King and Prince his All that being all things to man man may the more willingly resigne himself to his loving conduct not by constraint or necessity but through a spirit of freedom by an esteem of his love by a holy and loving election These truths no man can be ignorant of yet we make no use of them for man despiseth the conduct of his God shuts his eyes to the light of grace neglects his most wholsome Laws his certain counsels his divine motions withdraws himself from the disposall and conduct of God to adhere wholly to himself to his own thoughts and inclinations to the suggestion of his own spirit to follow the false maximes of humane prudence the motions of his passions the alurement of self-love The perfect Christian must take heed that he do nothing inwardly or outwardly but according to the order and conduct of God Man in all his actions and motions must necessarily be either in the conduct of God or of himself if he adhere to one he is opposite to the other for those he conducts are in themselves absolutely contrary The conduct that man takes of himself is a turning from God a way that separates us from God and quite loseth us The reason of this is the state of man after his fall whose spirit is turned from God subject to the Law of sin bearing the seed of all faults and errors He is so engulfed in this state of misery that he cannot get out of it though he endeavour all he can if Iesus Christ draw him not out of it he cannot return to God if the Son of God do not lead him No man cometh unto the Father but by me Now man who follows his own conduct his own inclinations motions and will withdraws himself from the conduct of Iesus Christ and as his spirit is turned from his God by the law of sin so he withdraws himself from the conduct of Iesus Christ by his own will and actions How can he but turn from God and separate himself more and more from him and that so powerfully that so long as he remains in his humane condition he shall never be able to return to God nor do any thing that may lead him to God if he do not resigne himself to the conduct of Iesus Christ to be aided by his grace and mercy This is the meaning of the words of Saint Paul when he said The carnall mind is enmity with God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be and that to be carnall minded is death since he loses himself who governs himself by his own spirit and onely follows his own conduct All the divine Oracles cry out to us and experience teacheth us that the greatest evil that can happen to man is to be left of God and abandoned to humane prudence to his own motions naturall inclinations and will For a man so abandoned of God lives a dangerous life and must expect a miserable fall Wo saith God to them when I shall be separated from them wo indeed yea a threefold wo seeing that when God leaves a soul to its own counsels motions inclinations and will she is at the same instant made captive dragg'd and led in triumph to her passions and appetite for the passions will and inclinations of men are rebellious and hurried by the Law of sin Now from the time that man is abandoned and the conduct of Gods grace withdrawn from him he can be no other then rebellious falling into a thousand errors and will infallibly lose himself if God have not pity on him and call him home Therefore for God to abandon us thus to our own conduct and will is the greatest evill that can arrive to man the greatest punishment whereby God can revenge himself of the sins of men My people would not hear my voyce saith God being angry and Israel would not obey me so I gave them up unto their own hearts lust and let them follow their own imaginations And St. Paul assures us that Gods most rigorous punishment of the ingratitude of men hath been to leave them to their own desires and appetites God gave them up saith the holy Apostle to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts It imports him therefore who would be a good Christian and make his salvation sure to forsake his own conduct to annihilate his inclinations passions appetites to confound his own will to withdraw himself from the conduct of humane prudence and from his own reason to follow the conduct of grace which is above reason and illuminates and guides that he do nothing but according to the spirit law and will of God To be guided by the spirit of God we must separate our selves renounce the conduct of humane prudence and annihilate our own wills Our prudence and reason is faulty in every point for in as much as it comes from us it separates us from God as much as it can Humane nature and the will of man in the corruption of sin regards onely it self not God its supernaturall end the will inclines to self-love and cannot advance it self to a true love of God if it be not guided and aided by
glory and honour of a heart I say that God will possess and shall possess God to all eternity They are unworthy of God opposite to the purity of his love As God is pure in his entertainments and jealous in his love he never suffers such an evill seeing it is not becoming his greatness to divide his glory and contentment to mingle his honour with self-satisfaction and the complacency of the creature The law of love forbids this division we are obliged to love God with all our heart that is perfectly for as he that loves well cannot love two things so he that will satisfie himself and please the creature cannot satisfie God or conform himself to his divine will The state of Christianity teaches this purity for if we are Gods and love only for God why then all these satisfactions The soul that desires to be saved must onely seek perfection that is God for true perfection consists in the possession and seeking of God she must have no regard but that of God no other intention but to please him The Christian that pleaseth himself and seeketh complacency in any thing besides God does quite contrary he turns from the will of God to seek that of the creature or to satisfie himself and loses the regard to God the most pure employment of his soul to regard the creature to take pleasure in it and from that very time that he suffers himself to be transported with this imperfection he turns from God to turn to the creature which is the greatest misfortune that can befall a Christian. For turning to the creature he makes himself unworthy the favours of heaven and if he continue so it will never be possible for him to taste God or to possess the purity of vertue If I yet saith St. Paul pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ. The word complacency is of great extent it comprehends all that is not God nor of God and includes also the gifts of God naturall and supernaturall of capacity and of grace wherein it is never permitted to please our selves or to seek our own satisfaction The reason is because God dispenseth not his gifts that we should settle our selves upon them or make them the objects of our love or the subjects of our satisfaction and complacency He gives them only because he loves us and would make us worthy of his regard love and favour He gives them to make us capable to love and please him such is the desire of God in this his liberality whence we may thus argue If God gives nothing but to obliege us to love and please him it follows that to use his gifts otherwise be they naturall or supernaturall is to overthrow his intentions and to destroy his work and it is a kind of Idolatry to regard the gift more then the giver In brief it is to make us unworthy of his favours and to stop the course of his divine communications and if we consider well we shall confess that it is the chief reason that oblieges God to withdraw his gifts and graces and to turn away his eyes from us whence we cannot expect less then a miserable fall or to be abandoned of God either for ever or at least for a time So fell Lucifer so was the first man lost and with him all humane nature By the same fault many Christians are fallen from the state and capacity of grace whereto God had elected them The world is astonished when it sees some fall into great enormities others into afflictions intolerable agitations dangerous and insupportable desertions We demand whence these evils proceed who hath precipitated so many souls from the heighth of grace and perfection We may say what we please but assuredly this proceeds not from the ordinary course but onely because we regard nothing but our own satisfaction and quit the regard of God and pure desire to please him to regard the creature to satisfie our selves and take pleasure therein If we weigh this offence we shall find it a great undervaluing of God an injury to his gifts it is to hold unjustly the favours and graces of heaven it is to put God beneath himself and the creature Hence it happens to such souls as at other times it hapned to the wise of the world who when they knew God glorified him not as God neither were thankfull wherefore God also gave them up to uncleaness through the lusts of their own hearts He will do the same to Christians who after they have received so many gifts of God regard rather the gifts then him that gave them and convert them to their own satisfaction which is a greater crime before God then we imagine If it be not permitted to delight our selves in the gifts of God nor to seek satisfaction therein what shall we say of those who make use of them to enter into an esteem of themselves and who glorifie themselves in the endowments which God hath bestowed on them How shall we judge of those who so exceedingly please themselves and who glorifie themselves in the capacity that God hath given them therein in their exercises in their vocation in their happy estate who cannot entertain themselves with any thing else What piety can those souls have who are taken only with those that flatter and praise them and believe none but those that esteem them and study to give them all manner of satisfaction They have all cause to fear for assuredly continuing such they shall never taste God or possess the spirit of true piety Saint Augustine confesseth this with tears saying O Lord I was putrified whilest that I took contentment in my self and endeavoured to please the eyes of men Let us profit by these truths remedy our abuses and establish our selves in solid piety let us lift up our eyes to heaven and recollect what we have said Let us consider that God alone is the centre and end of our souls and that as the inclinations of all creatures tend to their centre and the end drives and moves us to action and is the rest and perfection of the work so let us direct all our inclinations to God and destroy all those that are contrary to him since he alone is our end let him be also our chief regard our first intention the only desire of our souls Let us do all our actions according to our estate and vocation as God shall give us the inspiration and means but in doing them let us regard nothing but God Let us endeavour to have no other intention but to do the work of God to accomplish his holy will to please and satisfie him in all things Let us learn that God regards not whether we do little or much so that what we do be conformable to his will and worthy of his love This is all can be required of those who seek Christian perfection and would make themselves worthy to possess God in heaven CHAP. V. Of
the satisfaction of their own spirit You shall find their hearts void of God full of self-love their actions inconstant their thoughts in continuall changings In fine they are nothing but disquiets complaints and murmurings Look upon their life and actions it is but a pastime unprofitableness and the vanities of the age and having considered it all it will not be hard for you to know whether those souls have the fear of God and the knowledge of vertue yet in appearance they make a great shew we know not whether is to blame those who are conducted and directed or the Directors But how ever it be the Christian who would be saved must labour herein seriously and neither fear pains nor mortifications but seek to be conducted by the wayes that God hath ordained and passing above all considerations and all sorts of difficulties prove constant and complyant with the order that God hath established over him he must every day renew his good resolutions and pray to God to let him know and be acquainted with the designes he hath upon him and give him grace in every point to follow them and with fidelity to accomplish them And seeing that his fidelity is now in question and that it is altogether necessary to all Christians it were but necessary we made some discourse of it CHAP. VII Of the fidelity of the soul and of its necessity in the wayes of grace and the actions of a Christian. TO speak of Fidelity and to see how much it is necessary to all Christians we must reflect upon the truths already proposed and remember that man was created for God who is his end that God alone can conduct him to this end and that it is the same God who onely operates in him all the good works which are necessary to make him Gods and to arrive at this end which is God From these principles of truth we enter into our subject and presently see that we have not any thing more important in this World then to go to God to co-operate with the works which God does in us to save us and to accomplish with fidelity that which he requires of us and in the spirit and disposition that he desires every one applying himself faithfully to the way that God proposes and the works of his vocation that the Priest live according to the perfection of his estate the Christian as Christian in brief that all men live so as at the houre of death they may say with Iesus Christ My Father I have glorified thee upon the Earth I have finish'd the work thou hast ordained me to do This fidelity which is absolutely necessary must be in our soul from the time we were born Though there were neither Heaven nor Hell we are obliged to live according to the will of our Creator what aversness soever the creature may have it shall be allwayes subject to the order of God either in the way of justice or mercy If we would be saved it cannot be unless we co-operate with the works that God will do in us unless we become faithfull to his graces and follow the order that God hath prescrib'd wherein he will conduct us to salvation and therefore it concerns us more then we think to take heed to the designes that God hath over us and to the vocation whereto he hath called us to the motions and inspirations he gives us to make use with fidelity of the graces he offers least drawing our selves from the order and offer of his mercy we enter into that of his Iustice and one day he say to us in the rigour of his determined Decree as he said to his people I will choose their delusions and bring their feares upon them because when I called none did answer when I spake they did not hear but they did evill in my sight and chose that in which I delighted not Isa. 66.4 When we speak of the vocation and use we are to make of the graces and benefits of God we speak of Paradise to despise them is to neglect salvation Therefore the Christian must consider what he does as well in that which concerns the vocation he must choose as in the use of the graces and favours he receives of God seeing thereon depends all his happiness or misery we must take heed we chuse not what God would not have us nor despise what he would have us to embrace This point is the most important of all in a Christian life yet is it a mystery the most secret of any in Christianity The vocation of a soul is as much hidden as her election which none can know or easily discern by her conduct The wayes of God are as much elevated above ours as Heaven above Earth and yet O wonderfull God wills that we follow his wayes and none shall be saved but according to the vocation whereto God from all time hath called him What remedy seeing on the one side necessity constrains us and on the other the incertainty and obscurity deters us O just God God of all bounty who shall enlighten us in this darkness who shall resolve us in an affaire so doubtfull who shall assure us amidst so many doubts nothing but thy light O God the onely refuge of our souls can conduct us nothing but thy spirit can teach us but thy truth can assure us and but thy infinite mercy can protect us This lets us see in what danger they put themselves who so long neglect the motions graces and favours of God and make such ill use of his benefits From these truths we learn the esteem we ought to have of our vocation and with what circumspection we must make choice thereof and if we will make our selves worthy to receive of God the light and conduct necessary in an affaire of so great consequence for our salvation it will be very profitable to enter into these following dispositions First The Christian must have a pure desire of God and a resolution to do in every thing his divine will being from the bottom of his Heart wholly resigned to his will and conduct Secondly He must have a great sence of his weakness he must be in an estate of humility before God not esteeming himself worthy or capable of any thing for the humble shall never perish and as Esay saith God looketh to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at his word Thirdly He must renounce his own interests and all his particular concernments he must not regard his own safety that he may have no object but the pure will of God yet in such manner that he who resolves to remain so faithfully and constantly in the order and designes of God and proposes to make hereafter use of Gods gifts graces and benefits and regards not perfection advancement vertue not Heaven it self must not content himself with a thought to please God for alas who is worthy thereof but cleansing and purifying his intentions
of any way but this that God hath ordained for her whereto she is called By this practise the soul remains in her unity of application and begins to be in the perfect adherence of the Spirit of God To live faithfully in those wayes wherein she believes God will conduct her she will be carefull to employ all her power to destroy and annihilate her self into God in those wayes wherein he governs her without thinking of any other resigning her self wholly to God that he by his divine power secretly and intimately operate in her a true annihilation which separating her from her self and all things shall perfect her and put her into a capacity of God that is shall render her worthy and capable to bear God and be filled with him who from thenceforth will be all in all in her by grace and love which is the condition of the Saints in the state of glory yet after a manner proportioned to the baseness of earth The Christian living in this faithfull application shall not want the favour of God and motions to draw him more and more to God and to make him perfect Let us now see how he must comport himself in the exteriour use of all things CHAP. IX How the Christian ought to comport himself in the exteriour use of all things IT is a point of great consequence in the life of a Christian to take heed to the use and seeking after of exteriour things for besides that he must shun as Hell whatsoever is of sin and abstain from all that displeases God it is also necessary to see how he comports himself in exteriour things though lawfull Every employment out of God diverts us from him if we be not ready and formed in the exercise of true piety and conducted by the spirit of truth All things are lawfull but all things are not expedient saith St. Paul signifying that all that is lawfull is not alwayes good to do and that for divers circumstances a man must retain and deprive himself of that which is permitted In the use and acquisition of exteriour things even of those that appear lawfull we may fail in divers manners for the employment diverts us from God the use and possession brings care upon us and the adhering to them divides us from our selves and makes us divide them with God and as it is in the Parable many refuse to go to the Marriage and to the heavenly Banquet whereto they are invited that is they refuse the graces and Heaven it self because they turn themselves to the Creature Some saith Iesus Christ go to their possessions and farms others employ themselves in their affaires some to buy others to sell and busying themselves in these occupations think no more of Heaven or if they have thoughts or desires of it they are stifled in the confusion of affaires So that if God offer them graces and cause them to feel good motions either they refuse them or think not seriously of them Thus they extinguish in themselves the resentments of their salvation the esteem of God and by little and little make themselves insensible of the graces and favours of Heaven This evill is whereinto they fall in employing themselves too much in things which appear lawfull and whereof they have not any fear But the Son of God adds these dreadful and menacing words that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my Supper words worthy to be weighed and examined by Christians which make us to know sufficiently what circumspection we must have in the use and exercise of exteriour things seeing they are capable to make us lose and neglect his graces and vocation There is no example more clearer to demonstrate this truth then the fall of Lucifer and Adam who fell from the heighth of perfection and grace to turn to themselves and the Creature and because they had a will to contemplate and employ themselves in their own perfection they were withdrawn from beholding God and lost themselves in searching into themselves and in the Creature that which they ought to lay hold of and seek in God alone And to this day sin is committed onely because the soul is diverted from God and converted to the Creature and seeks in the Creature for her own particular interest and satisfaction what she ought to seek onely in God and for God Hence we may easily conjecture the hazards which happen and the failings which they commit in the use and research of the Creatures and for as much as it is the snare wherein all souls are intrapped it is necessary to beware of it and cause all men to see it See then in particulars how a man ought to comport himself First The Christian who will live perfectly in any estate or profession must have a care above all things to do nothing that may displease God for this motive is the touchstone of true perfection the foundation and principle of solid vertue and consequently absolutely necessary for a Christian. For if as we have elsewhere said he must do all for the good pleasure of God he must also by the same consequence take need of doing any thing against the pleasure of God In this advice there are two things to be considered very important to Christian Piety one when it is said we must have a care to do nothing sin nor any thing which displeaseth God in these words we must learn that this care is absolutely necessary so necessary that it is the onely care wherein a Christian ought to live For the soul which must do nothing to displease God and detests all that may displease him shall never fail to be acceptable to his divine eyes who contemplating her in this purity will love her loving her will possess her possessing her will inrich her with his gifts and graces according to his divine will and designes Therefore in the acquisition of true and solid piety we must not study so much to do as to take away nor labour so much to acquire and act as to devest our selves and do nothing displeasing to God The other point is when we say that we must do nothing to displease God by this advice we shew what the duty of the soul is that will live in Christian purity which consisteth in that she is obliged to regard God and the good pleasure of God in all her actions The reason of this duty is grounded in that we are not for our selves neither our life nor actions but we are for God by consequence we must employ our life actions and selves for God For this reason God demands an account even to the least moment of our time unto the least thought of our heart the slightest word of our tongue and to the smallest action of our life In brief he will demand an account of our selves from our selves because that we being not our own but Gods we must employ our selves all for God for his good
inclination thereto It is a fault ordinary enough and which we must avoid because our soul must be free and not tyed but to God onely and to his pure will For as we ought to do nothing but for God and by the Spirit of Iesus Christ which is the true and onely spirit of Christianity so we must not act by our own inclinations or passions Whence they are deceived who employ themselves in those actions which they are most inclin'd to and shun those they fear and embrace most willingly the occupations and exercises whereto their inclination carrries them Thus we see some have an inclination to exterior penitence others to compassion and some to penance one is prone to the love of things regulated another is pleased with solitude and the like And we know that ordinarily every man follows the motions and most willingly chooses the manner to live according to his inclination It is a great advantage and gift of God to have received a good soul as the Wise man saith but to embrace the good and do it's actions because the inclination or passion carries us thereto though they be good this is not to act Christianly on the contrary this is to live bruitishly for beasts follow their passions or at best to act but humanely when the inclination is conformable to reason He therefore that wil do a Christian action must take a supernaturall principle which is grace and never do his actions because passions and his inclinations carry him thereto but onely because it is the will and order of God upon him and because such actions are acceptable to God Thus he that will live Christianly must never undertake any thing which he believes is not the will of God if he do any good action he must do it for God if he choose a manner of life he shall regard God onely and strive to do only what is most perfect in him most conformable to the life and actions of Iesus Christ and most contrary to his own inclinations and naturall affections But if he find himself in doubt or perplexity and if he desire to judge his actions his resentments and intentions to know if they be good and truly Christian then shall he have recourse to Iesus Christ who is the chief truth and rule of our lives and actions he shall demand light of him and taking Iesus Christ for the object of his life and the truth for his rule he shall consider whether his intentions and actions be conformable to the truth whether they be like to those of the Son of God whether he act in the perfection and purity that God demands of him according to his vocation and conformable to the sanctity of the estate of Christianity The Christian living in this manner shall become acceptable to God shall arrive at the perfection which God requires of him and shall do all his actions with the purity he ought which is the Principall point of a Christian life CHAP. X. Of Sufferings and the esteem we ought to have of them TO act and to suffer are the two estates of the life of man and like two Pillars sustain him He that will live perfectly must know the use of the one as well as the other as he must act Christianly so must he suffer Christianly that is holily and in a manner worthy the estate of Christianity This is that which we have left to examine and is the last draught of the Picture of a perfect Christian. We have already spoken of his foundation of his interiour of the purity of his actions it remains that we treat now of his sufferings This is a point which we must look upon as the most essentiall in Christianity for suffering is the first state which a Christian must expect and wherein he is to continue We are born in sufferings we live in solitude among temptations and shall die in pain It is the portion of humane life the most ordinary food of our souls It behooves us therefore to know how to make use and profit thereof He hath made a great progress in perfection who can suffer and bear couragiously all that can befall him such a one God owns as a friend Fire tries gold and silver but men are tried in the Furnace of humiliation Here the fidelity of our soul appears for the Christian ought to follow Christ as willingly to mount Calvary as to mount Thabor In brief here the purity of our actions and intentions do best appear what we do of our selves be it in penitence good works or otherwise is for the most part full of our own spirit and evil it follows our inclinations it is in regard of our selves and our own Interests proportioned to self-love and for the most part concerns our selves But in all that happens to us we shall find nothing but God if we know how to lay hold of him when he puts forth his hand unto us To learn so good and profitable a Doctrine we must propose these truths for a foundation First if we consider God as soon as his wife providence embraced all the world his divine eyes surveigh'd all things his infinite wisdom ordained the whole and his wisdom sayes the Wise man stayes in his force from one end to the other and sweetly disposes all things and he not onely ordains and disposes all but he makes all the good and the evil life and death poverty and riches come from God Now the works of God are holy his will is just his decrces equitable his ordinances amiable and above all things we must adore and seek his good pleasure What remains then but that we receive all things from the fatherly and loving hand of God that we kiss the hand that strikes since it is the hand of God that we bear with an humble and quiet submission all events be they painfull or easie good or bad prejudiciall or profitable and we must entertain them not onely with an equality of spirit and inward peace but with respect and essence as coming from God nothing being done but by his order It is just we should esteem this conduct as the conduct of God and subject our selves to it not onely with patience but with respect and honour for all that comes from God must be highly esteemed Souls that live enlightened by faith and walk with the spirit of truth hold it a great honour and much esteem sufferings as being the work of God and the effects of his will which we ought to honour and esteem as well in sufferings as in quiet in privation as well as fruition in evil as in good for in all it is the will of God a will adorable to be esteemed above all the world a will more worthy then the life and salvation of all mankind We must not regard the evils and sufferings in themselves but we must consider them in the will of God There we shall see what they are and the esteem that God
and the reverence we should bear to this estate for the Sonne of God having chosen the Crosse and sufferings and having united to his divine person by his incarnation meanness and infirmities and adversities of humane life he hath made them divine and ennobled them So that we must regard them much more for the dignity which they receive from Iesus Christ and to speak properly they are the sufferings of Iesus Christ for we are united to him we are members of his body flesh of his flesh bone of his bone and by reason of this unity they are no more our sufferings then the sufferings of Iesus seeing they are more to Iesus then to our selves Whence Saint Paul saith as the sufferings of Christ abound in you so our consolation abounds by Iesus Christ. The Apostle highly advancing the sufferings of Christianity calls them the sufferings of Iesus St. Peter speaks in the same manner Rejoyce in as much as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings And therefore when we see all that is in this World all the adversities and vicissitudes we must not passe them over indifferently or as men without grace and vertue stop at our own resentments and loose our selves in our weakness and naturall passions but we must lift up our eyes and thoughts to the consideration of Catholick truths and making use of the light of Faith endeavour to use all things according to the manner God requires and to the power he hath given us If we suffer let us not suffer as slaves and criminalls but as the Children and true Servants of God Let us suffer with esteem and in the spirit of Christianity a spirit holy and divine a spirit powerfull and couragious and which onely belongs to the chosen of God and to his greatest friends Hence the Apostle summing up the graces that the new Christians had received of God puts sufferings in the first place and accounts them as a singular favour He hath given you saith he not onely to believe on him but to suffer for him thereby shewing that it is a benefit of God to be called to the state of sufferings and to know how to make use thereof In the view of these truths let us beg of the Sonne of God part of his spirit of the Crosse and sufferings and his grace to support us under them that we may bear them with the spirit with joy and the grace of Christianity let us say with Saint Paul and often repeat this Prayer in our heart That the Lord would prepare our hearts to the love of God and to the patience of Iesus Christ. CHAP. XIV That we must suffer out of a zeal to the Iustice of God WE suffer in the wayes of sinners and for the zeal of Iustice which is the third Disposition that we have proposed when we enter into the zeal of God which brings him to do justice upon sin and that in all things we exercise upon our selves the judgement that God exerciseth therein in bearing in our hearts a true desire and an effectuall will to submit to the justice of God before whom we are sinners before whom we have offended so many ways By this Disposition the perfect Christian must undergo all sorts of pains and sufferings and regard the adversities and inconveniencies of humane life as effects of God's Iustice on him as a sinner whereby he would destroy sin in him and root out imperfections With this spirit and Disposition he must endure all naturall incommodities as cold heat poverty sickness afflictions and such accidents which are the attendants of our life regarding and bearing them with this zeal to the Iustice of God upon sin This thought if it be solid and well settled in the soul of a perfect Christian will make all pain sweet and easie For what can we suffer but we deserve much more if we weigh our afflictions our sufferings travails and adversities with the number of our sins Who will not see the deformity and weight of our sins and how much they surpass the rigour and weight of our sufferings If we consider the hate God bears to sin and to sinners by reason of sin who will not confess that our crimes are much greater then our pains that amongst our afflictions and sufferings even the greatest and most insupportable the mercy of God appears more then his justice What more manifest example of Gods hatred against a sinner then the rigour wherewith the divine justice which is alwayes equitable punished sin in Iesus Christ And if the eternall Father as the Prophet saith so rigorously chastised his Son for the sins of his people what should he not do to us If the Son of God who is holiness it self sanctity uncreated and incarnate becoming a pledge and offering for our sins was subjected not onely to our miseries and naturall infirmities which are great but to adversities afflictions poverty contempt accusations ignominy even to the rigour of the cross what ought we to suffer who are sinners and objects of the hatred and justice of God If this be done to the green wood what will be done to the dry If the Sonne of God who is the eternall and true wisdom chose this estate voluntarily subjected himself to all miseries incited by zeal to the glory of his Father and to satisfie divine Iustice what ought not we to do what pains and rigours should not we embrace who are the guilty to appease this angry God to satisfie and allay his provoked wrath to restore to glory what we have ravish'd from him Let us enter into this disposition and zeal of submitting our selves to the stroke of Gods Iustice and we shall see all things will be easie to indure we shall not complain whatever befalls us whatsoever is done unto us we shall not take it as a wrong nothing will appear harsh unto us nothing insupportable the quality of sinners and multitude of our offences will tell us that we deserve more we shall bless God for the favour he does us in giving us the meanes to honour him by our sufferings The Christian therefore must have a care to bear all adversities all changes of this life all sorts of afflictions losses and misfortunes yea all incommodities and naturall vexations of humane life with an intention to glorifie God to submit to divine Iustice against sin O how great must be the courage of a Christian how invincible his constancy in all changes and misfortunes if he professeth this zeal of God if he be animated with the hatred God beares to sin How easie would all things appear if in them we had no intent but to act and suffer onely to please God with a full resignation of our selves in all things to his divine conduct To facilitate this disposition and make it more generall we must remember that the Wisdom of God rules all this great World and hath a generall and particular superintendency over all things Nothing
have said we are God's without whom we can neither honour God nor be acceptable to him It follows that the foundation of true piety consisteth in Iesus Christ that is in the adherence and relation of our souls to Iesus Christ and in the submission of our being and life to the conduct of his spirit and grace for by that adhering to him and being subjected to him we are pleasing to God and receive in him and by him the capacity of honouring and serving God which is the proper effect and chief duty of piety and devotion The truth would need no proof but that few persons think thereof and that many are ignorant of it therefore it seems to be to purpose to speak thereof more at large in the Principles of Christianity Without out going any further let us consider that to be a Christian we must put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man Iesus Christ it is the Doctrine of the Apostle whereon we must found our Discourse If to be a Christian we must crucify and put off the old man to put on the new with much more reason to be a good and devout Christian we must crucify and put off the first to invest us with the second When we say that we must be clothed with Iesus Christ it is to shew we must be united to him adhere to him and as a garment adheres to the body and is united to it so must we be Iesus Christ's but much more perfectly then this comparison expresses Reason and Faith will easily convince us of this truth if we doubt of it for faith teaches us that it belongs to Iesus Christ to give us grace and strength to put off the old man that is to draw us from our imperfections to deliver us from our sins and annihilate our evil inclinations It is the same that Iesus Christ invests us with the new gives us his spirit grace and vertue for and according to Saint Paul Iesus Christ hath been to us wisdom and righteousness sanctification and redemption In a word Iesus Christ is all in all to us Now that the Son of God may operate in us all that we have said it is necessary that we be united to him adhere to him and be subjected to his designes his will and divine operations Who can deny so manifest a truth If Iesus annihilate our evill inclinations and root sin out of our hearts ought not we to be subject to his conduct and spirit and so receive his operations of mercy If we participate of his grace and vertue and live according to his Commandements is it not necessary we should be united to him And how should we be united to him but by a true relation and faithful adherence to him This deduction is easie and clearly shewes how true it is that the foundation of true piety consisteth in unity and in the adherence and dependance of the soul on Iesus Christ it is acknowledg'd by all that devotion cannot be true if we be not exempted from our vices and imperfections and filled with the spirit of Iesus Christ and assisted with his grace to make us worthy to honour and serve God We cannot perceive in that devotion nor practise the exercises thereof if the same Iesus Christ be not operating in us the will and perfecting according to his will This Iesus Christ said to his Apostles and in them to all Christians Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me adding he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing O words of love words spoken the eve of his death to shew us the excess of his love that proceeded from his heart wholly divine and full of tenderness whereby being moved he further said unto them Abide in my love So infinitely was he desirous to possess our hearts and to triumph over us by his love whence he often repeats the same words to engrave and imprint this care in our souls and by the proceedings of his love oblige us to love him again This indeed is a thing we ought to have continually in our thoughts for all the happiness of a Christian consisteth in this relation and this amorous dwelling of our souls in Iesus All our good is in this union since that by it and the adherence we have to Iesus we become his and by him we receive a power and capacity to bear the fruits of good works to practise vertue and to passe our life in the exercises of true piety and Christian devotion which make us hope for the reward which God promises to those that serve him Without this relation and union we shall continue in our weakness and incapacity our life is unprofitable barren unfruitfull and in evident perill If any man abide not in me saith Jesus Christ he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire If we will come to the experience of what we have said let us examine God's conduct of such souls as he will save and we shall find that the first knowledge he gives them is that of Iesus Christ proposing to them his Crosse or some Mystery of his life the first motions the first thoughts of piety that he inspires them with are those of a certain compassion and sympathy with his Crosse and sufferings or those of love and tenderness in consideration of his benefits If on the other side we intentively consider souls even the most ignorant we shall easily know they have a secret resentment and an inclination to Iesus Christ though they know him not But God alwayes begins these divine Communications and effects of his mercy by this first grace The reason is manifest in Divinity which teaches us that the eternall Father doth nothing but by Iesus Christ operates nothing in our souls nor in the state of grace no more then in nature but by his Sonne The first favour therefore the elect soul chooses to receive of God is that the eternall Father hath given it to his Sonne and there Iesus Christ accepts of it and appropriates it to himself Now as God demands our co-operation which yet we cannot give without his grace and therefore inspires the soul with a resentment of Iesus Christ gently insinuating into it a certain attraction which sweetly drawes it to a knowledge and piety towards Iesus Christ so our soul begins to be Iesus Christs perfecting her self in the state of christianity according to the measure that he advances in this affection and in this relation to Iesus Christ. The Sonne of God speaking to the Iewes obstinate in their errours saith None can come unto me if the Father who hath sent me doth not draw him And to shew the manner that the eternall Father uses to lead our
operation in us it is he that operates there incessantly things great and worthy of himself This granted it follows that the Christian who desires to live in the grace of God must on the one side shun all manner of sin especially such as may ruine this grace in him on the other become very attentive and faithful to receive the effects of his grace and the operations of the Son of God that so he may cooperate therewith according to his intentions otherwise it is to be feared he may lose it or at least hinder it's effects and so destroy the honour of God and all that the Son of God hath established in his soul. This is grounded upon the very principles of faith For we can do nothing of our selves as of our selves but Iesus Christ doth all in us acting and referring all our actions to the glory of his Father We must then let him act and as we know not his divine intentions and designes over us neither know the grace or degree of grace whereto he would elevate us for his greater glory for it belongs to him to do all when and how he pleases It remains then that we oppose not our selves to his intentions and destroy not his works The Christian therefore who desireth to be God's and to live in true piety must not amuse himself in these unprofitable and superficiall things nor regard so much these exercises but purifie himself and make himself worthy of the grace of God taking great care to preserve himself therein and have a continuall attention to all that the spirit of grace operates in him for the glory of God that he destroy it not by a contrary application and want of co-operation Hereby we shall see how many false devotions there are and how many deceive themselves in the exercise of vertues and piety These two wayes of honouring the Sonne of God may be understood after two manners whereby we may honour Iesus Christ and he may honour himself in us two wayes one by action the other by estate The action is transient and is but for a little time and perhaps is but in one part of the soul but estate is a thing permanent which dwells in the whole capacity of the creature and is imprinted in the bottom of its being having no dependance on the actions of the understanding and will We may act well in the first manner and it is good but we must also endeavour to establish our selves in an estate which perfectly honours the Sonne of God as the Sonne of God For as the Sonne of God himself hath not onely honoured his Father by the actions of his transitory life but hath been pleased to become man and take upon him a nature which essentially is in a condition of servitude and remain perpetually and inviolably therein in regard of his Divinity so we must endeavour to honour the Sonne of God not onely by transitory actions but also by a permanent estate and condition such as may render him honour and perpetuall homage This we are obliged to do for our part to the utmost of our power as being one of the most essentiall exercises of piety But our attempts are feeble and all we can do is little in comparison of what we owe God The Sonne of God therefore who is our supplyer doth it sometimes himself by his grace by his divine and amorous attractions he calls us and puts us into the estate which he himself operates in us by which he satisfies his Father to his honour and glory It is a singular happiness a favour to obtain which all we can do is to continue disposed attentive to whatever the Sonne of God operates in us and carefully to take heed thereto and to co-operate faithfully therein and with the best disposition may be proposed The meaning hereof is to keep our selves in a simple submission of our spirit to that of the Sonne of God and this submission consisteth in not resisting it but leaving our selves wholly to the power of and a dependance on his holy spirit and conduct giving up offering and disposing our selves to the work and designes which he hath in and upon us renouncing all our own contrary inclinations The soul that lives in this submission is capable to bear effectually the effects of grace and to honour God in all things Now when it is said that we ought to refer all our actions to the glory of the Sonne of God we mean not onely the good and vertuous but even the common and naturall actions even to a moment of time for all belongs to God and must be referred to his honour and glory This truth we learn of the Church our Mother who in her rites and ceremonies doth not onely represent the Mysteries and actions of the Sonne of God but honours them in representing them and as such is her intention whence it may be observed that in all her ceremonies even to the least she intends to honour and acknowledge him Iesus Christ himself may be also an example to us in this exercise of piety for in that he hath taken the nature of man upon him he hath honoured his Father in all things and by all the concernments of humane nature doing to that end and intention not onely those actions which we call Religious and vertuous but even those which are naturall and purely humane and referring to his honour all the moments of his life We must carry our selves in the same manner what he did being done by him as a Master for our imitation The devout Christian therefore must refer all his exercises and actions both naturall and common little and great to the honour and glory of Iesus Christ. By this relation our actions are ennobled for what he hath sanctified is neither common nor inconsiderable whatsoever is consecrated and referred by his honour cannot but be great when his honour is so great There are a many that judge this practise of Piety to be too difficult whereas they will indifferently receive some others But if we consider it we shall find that it is an Obligation proper to the state of Christianity which cannot by any meanes be dispenced with For if the life of a Christian be a lively Image of the life of Iesus Christ and a life derived and flowing from his it must of necessity follow that as all things are sanctified and made divine in Iesus Christ so are they such in us by the same spirit of Iesus which is given us which dwells in us and operates in us From which reason we may infer that as in Iesus there is nothing mean or vile but all in him is elevated and referred to the glory of his Father so in Christian souls there ought to be no actions mean and object no not indifferent seeing they all belong to the Sonne of God who hath sanctified them in his spirit and in the conduct and direction of him it is that we are to operate
we must hold our selves content if he will humble us we must annihilate our selves if by temptation he will use his justice and punish us why should we be troubled thereat Yea though he should leave us to be swallowed up by the temptation which can never fall out but through our own fault let us accept of his judgments and adore his justice saying with Eli when he heard from the mouth of little Samuel the decree of Gods justice against him Dominus est quod bonus est in oculis suis faciat Let us say the same let us receive all from the hand of God with great humility This is the first use we are to make of temptation Another is to receive it with subjection of soul to the Will of God Temptation is the conduct of God over us We must not therefore consider him that tempteth us nor yet the temptation we groan under but the order of God and the designs he hath upon us in that temptation Nothing can happen to us but by his permission though the Devil make it his constant business to hurt molest and destroy us if he could yet he hath no power but what he receives from God all his power is limited We must not therefore regard the Devil that tempteth us nor the temptation or malice of our enemies but the will and order of God in the temptation To comprehend this well we must remember that temptation is not onely a permission of God but one of his ordinary ways of proceeding over us to conduct us to him Whence it followes that it is not enough to suffer and to submit to temptations but we must do it purely and holily For seeing temptations and afflictions are the ordinary ways of God to conduct us to him we must not in temptation make any pause or think it sufficient to bear them patiently or to fight against them but we must pass further and go even to God to whom they will conduct us if we make such use of them as we ought Thus in temptation we must rather regard God then the temptation that binds us to God It is true we may fear to be overcome but if we be left to God he will not fail us in our necessity he promised to be with us in our agonies and temptations Let us be but faithfull in our duties and actions and without doubt he will be faithfull in his promises A third use of temptations is to refer them to the glory of God and to offer to him the state that we bear and all that passeth in us This is grounded both upon our duties and the designes of God who wills that we referr to him all the estates of our soul and all the actions and moments of our life that is all that is in us and all that we are This use is also grounded on the condition of all things which are opposite to honour and pay homage to God but principally the Christian who is called to the state of Christianity only to serve and honour God and particularly such as make profession of piety since true devotion requires much fidelity and wills us to make use of all things to unite us to God and to render to him the honours and homages due to his divine and supreme Majesty If we reflect upon all that hath been said from the beginning to this instant we shall see that we end where we began and that we have done nothing but shewn the Christian who would be perfect that true piety consists in purifying the heart and making it worthy to bear and possess God that he is truly devout who lives according to the spirit and grace of Christianity that to arrive at this happiness we must adhere to Iesus Christ our way and means to bring us to God that the principall care we ought to have in these exercises is to preserve our selves therein which indeed brings us to an adherence to the Son of God and to live with great fidelity and vigilancy subject to the conduct of Iesus and dependant upon his holy Ordinances These are the foundations we must lay if we would acquire true piety and when we come to the Consideration of Works and to express the externall worship love and service which we would render to God we have said that it is not enough to do good things but we must accomplish them by the conduct of his holy spirit according to his intentions and in holy dispositions We have already proposed the method it suffices to know that therein consists the essence and nature of a Christian for which we render to God the honour and service due to him This is all we mean to shew in this Discourse which we will conclude with the words and prayer of Saint Paul The God of peace make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is acceptable in his sight through Iesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS Books Printed for Tho. Dring and are to be sold at the George in Fleet-street neer Saint Dunstans Church THe Pleader containing perfect precedents and forms of Declarations pleadings issues judgements and proceedings in all kind of actions both reall and personall by Mr. Brownlow Mr. Moyle Mr. Gulston and Mr. Conye published by John Herne Gent. in folio The Law of Conveyances shewing the nature kinds and effects of all manner of Assurances also directions to issue out and prosecute all manner of Writs a Warrant to summon a Court of Survey and the Articles to be given in charge and inquired of in that Court by John Herne in octavo The Reports of that Reverend and Learned Iudge Sir Richard Hutton in folio The twelfth Part of the Reports of Sir Edward Coke in folio the second impression The Reports of the Reverend and Learned Iudge Owen in folio The Reading upon the Statute of the thirteenth of Elizabeth Chapt. 7. touching Bankrupts by John Stove of Grays-Inn Esquire An Abridgement of the Common Law with the Cases thereof drawn out of the old and new books of Law for the benefit of all Practisers and Students by William Hughs of Gray-Inn Esq. in quarto An excellent Abridgement of all the Acts and Ordinances of Parliament from 1640. to 1647. by William Hughs Esq. in quarto The Reports of Serjeant Bridgeman in folio The ground of the Laws of England extracted out of the fountains of all Learning and fitted for all Students and Practitioners in large octavo An exact Abridgement of that excellent Book called Doctor and Student in octavo A profitable Book of Mr. John Perkins treating of the Laws of England in octavo The Interpreter or Book containing the signification of all the words of the Law by Joh. 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