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   Title: Holy Wisdom: or, Directions for the prayer of contemplation:
   extracted out of more than forty treatises by the Ven. F. Augustine
   Baker
   Creator(s): Baker, Ven. F. Augustine (1575-1641)
   Print Basis: First published in this edition by London: Burns Oates &
   Washbourne Ltd.
   Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All; Classic; Mysticism; Christian Life; Proofed
   LC Call no: BV5030
   LC Subjects:

   Practical theology

   Practical religion. The Christian life

   Asceticism
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Holy Wisdom

Or

Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation

Extracted out of more than Forty Treatises

BY THE

VEN. FATHER F. AUGUSTINE BAKER

A MONK OF THE ENGLISH CONGREGATION OF THE
HOLY ORDER OF S. BENEDICT

METHODICALLY DIGESTED BY

R. F. SERENUS CRESSY

OF THE SAME ORDER AND CONGREGATION

AND NOW EDITED FROM THE DOUAY EDITION OF 1657 BY THE

RIGHT REV. ABBOT SWEENEY, D.D.

OF THE SAME ORDER AND CONGREGATION

LONDON
BURNS GATES & WASHBOURNE LTD

PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE
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   Title page facsimile
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  PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

   IF it is a duty to apply to holy books the practice which the Following
   of Christ bids us observe towards holy persons, not to dispute
   concerning the merits of the saints, as to who is more holy than
   another, or greater in the kingdom of heaven,' it will not be right to
   give the preference to the work which we are now offering in a new form
   to the public, over the many, spiritual books which have helped on
   souls in the way of perfection. But it will not be right either to give
   to other books a preference over this. Certainly Sancta Sophia has been
   of great service in instructing beginners, in guiding proficients, and
   in securing those that have arrived at some degree of perfection, in
   the way along which Almighty God has called and led souls that have
   been highly privileged; and the Holy Spirit, who breatheth where He
   will, has through the words of the Venerable Father Baker whispered to
   these souls, and has drawn them on to a closer and closer union with
   Himself. Ever since the time that I first became acquainted with the
   writings of Father Augustine Baker, either in the epitome of them in
   which Father Serenus Cressy has so successfully presented them in his
   compilation, to which he gave the appropriate name which this book
   bears, Sancta Sophia, Holy Wisdom, or in their extended and full form,
   as they exist in various portions in some of our convents, I felt the
   desire to enter upon the task, which by God's blessing I have at last
   completed, of republishing with necessary annotations this golden
   treasury. Why should it be kept in the dark when, by being set up
   aloft, it could shed such light around?

   Difficulties, which time has at last removed, have constantly been in
   my way. Duties of an imperative nature have ever attended me, and in
   the midst of them--though I have never lost sight of the task I had
   imposed upon myself--it has not been in my power to do more than a
   little at a time; and therefore the time has been long in proportion to
   the importance of the labour. In addition to reprinting the work, I
   felt that I ought to do two things,--to verify the quotations from the
   Fathers and spiritual writers, which are interspersed throughout the
   various treatises; and secondly to call attention to certain passages
   where explanation or even correction was demanded. The first of these
   tasks I have been compelled in great measure to abandon; the second,
   which is of greater importance, I have not neglected. But I must say a
   word upon both.

   The task of verifying quotations from the authors referred to in the
   writings of Father Baker has been, as is the case with regard to all
   similar works, an exceedingly difficult and a hopeless labour. I have
   spent hours upon hours and with very little success. I remember many
   years ago reading in a note in some edition of the Spiritual Exercises
   of St. Ignatius, [1] that the Scripture quotations of that holy Saint
   and great Master of the spiritual life are not always strictly correct;
   because it was evident the Saint quoted from memory, without referring
   on each occasion to the sacred text. Father Baker, in his reading of
   the Fathers and of spiritual writers, seems to have noted down at the
   time passages and words that struck him as bearing upon the subject on
   which he happened to be then engaged. And Father Cressy, in condensing
   the good Father's writings, cited the name, but without any reference
   to the special treatise; and thus in almost all instances no help is
   given towards a classical verification of the authority, upon which a
   truth or principle is confirmed by the writer. To verify passages,
   therefore, to which no reference whatever is given, is a very laborious
   task. But in cases in which it is important that the special reference
   should be pointed out, I have done my best with whatever assistance I
   have been able to command; and I trust that no question has been left
   unnoticed in which the authority has been really of importance. To
   verify every quotation would imply an expenditure of time which I have
   not, and never can expect to have, at my disposal. This difficulty I
   have especially felt in the case of the writings of Thaulerus, whose
   works, as far as I know them, are in very closely-printed volumes, with
   limited and imperfect indexes. However, I feel that this is not a
   matter of practical value, as the good persons into whose hands this
   edition of Sancta Sophia will fall, and who will make the most use of
   it, will probably have no opportunity or desire of referring to the
   original, even if every chapter and verse were carefully recorded.

   With regard to the second matter of explaining or even correcting
   certain passages, I hope I have not been negligent. The necessity of
   such explanations or corrections arises mainly from the circumstances
   of the period in which Father Baker wrote, and in which his writings
   were collected, condensed, and printed. Father Baker wrote his
   treatises and gave his instructions to the religious under his
   guidance, a short time before the Church was called on to pronounce on
   the doctrines of Quietism. The same difficulty, therefore, exists in
   regard to certain expressions of his, as exists with regard to the
   writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Before the time in which the
   Church in the Council of Nicaea found it necessary to enter more fully
   into the definition of the terms of Substance, Nature, and Person, as
   predicated of the Mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation,
   expressions may have been sometimes used by perfectly orthodox
   theological writers, which were capable of a wrong interpretation. But
   when, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church defined with
   careful and logical precision what these sacred Mysteries implied in
   reference to the various terms used and required, with regard to unity
   of Substance and plurality of operations, a more exact terminology was
   strictly observed, in order that orthodoxy might be professed, and that
   through the sound word that cannot be blamed, he who is on the contrary
   part might be afraid, having no evil to say (Titus ii.8). If even St.
   Paul's own words, notwithstanding the inspiration under which he wrote,
   were wrested to destruction, no wonder that the words of faithful and
   wise theologians and martyrs were sometimes misinterpreted and wrenched
   into a defense of heresy. Father Baker, I have said, lived and wrote
   just before Quietism was condemned. For it was in the year 1687 that
   Pope Innocent XI. censured and pronounced sentence against the
   sixty-eight propositions of Molinos; and in 1699 Innocent XII.
   condemned the semi-Quietism of Madame Guyon and the illustrious
   Fenelon. Father Baker had already completed his labours, having gone to
   his reward in 1641, and Father Cressy in 1674.

   Certainly some parts of Sancta Sophia would have been omitted or
   expressed otherwise, had these two holy Fathers lived to witness the
   controversy and its issue. Care has been taken to call attention to
   these points. I hesitated for a time whether I ought not altogether to
   omit such parts; but upon deliberation and after taking counsel, I
   thought it better not to interfere with the original, but to make the
   correction, or give a necessary explanation, in a note. An instance
   will be found in treat. iii. sect. iii. chap. vii. in reference to the
   prayer of silence of Don Antonio de Rojas, which has been condemned by
   the Church; though the censure was not affixed to it during Father
   Baker's lifetime. That Father Baker was no Quietist and had no sympathy
   with Quietism is especially evident from the prayer of Acts, which he
   so fully explains and so warmly recommends in the third section of the
   third treatise. [2] And the collection of Acts at the end of the work
   is of itself an evidence how averse he was to the teaching of those,
   who, after Molinos, considered Contemplation to be a state of perfect
   inaction, in which the soul exercised none of its powers, and elicited
   no acts whatever, not even of hope, love, or desire; in other words
   that it was doing nothing at all, and therefore not praying nor
   adoring.

   Although it may be safely said that there is no fear nowadays from
   Quietism in any general effect, for the active spirit of the time is so
   opposed to it, and even the prevalence and increase of vocations to
   active rather than contemplative orders in the Church render such a
   danger very unlikely, yet there may be a risk in individual cases of
   souls being misguided, unless they are on their guard, and receive
   caution from their directors against this possible evil. I trust that
   the danger signals which will be erected, where it seems necessary,
   will remove every objection which has been at any time felt, about
   allowing the free use in religious communities of this most useful and
   solid work on Mystical Theology.

   A brief biography of the two good Fathers who have been respectively
   the author and compiler of the work will be appropriate. Some years
   ago, when I first undertook the task of preparing an edition of Sancta
   Sophia, I published a Life of Father Baker, [3] and appended to it an
   essay on the Spiritual Life, mainly grounded on the venerable Father's
   teaching. As that work is accessible, though I believe it is not very
   easy to procure, I shall limit myself at present to but a few details.

   David, known in religion by the name of Augustine, Baker was born in
   Abergavenny on the 9th of December 1575, of Protestant parents. He
   received his early education at Christ's Hospital in London, and at the
   age of fifteen went to the University of Oxford, and entered as a
   commoner at Broadgates' Hall, now known as Pembroke College. He
   remained at Oxford but two years, and then returned home to enter upon
   the study of the law under the instruction of an elder brother. This
   study he afterwards prosecuted with great attention in London, until
   upon his brother's death he once more returned to his native town. Here
   he worked under his father, who managed the estates of the Earl of
   Abergavenny. His religious education had not been attended to, and for
   a long time he seems to have led a thoughtless, though, from his own
   testimony, not a wicked life. But having been rescued by an
   extraordinary intervention of Providence from a most perilous position,
   in which his life was likely to be sacrificed, he entered into himself,
   and began to think seriously upon the affairs of his soul. He sought
   instruction at the hands of a Catholic priest, the Rev. Richard Floyd,
   was received into the Church, and abandoning the law he resolved to
   devote himself to the sacred ministry. He became acquainted with a
   Benedictine Father of the Cassinese Congregation, sought and obtained
   admission into the novitiate, and was clothed in the Abbey of St.
   Justina at Padua. He went through his year's probation; but being very
   much broken down in health he left Padua before taking his vows, and
   returned to England, where, having recovered his strength, he made his
   profession at the hands of some Italian Benedictine Fathers of the same
   Cassinese Congregation. He was then in the thirty-second year of his
   age.

   For some years, before being promoted to the priesthood, he was
   employed by his superiors in various employments, in which his legal
   and historical knowledge was of great service. He devoted himself very
   earnestly also to prayer and the exercises of the spiritual life; and
   although he made such progress by his earnestness and
   perseverance--sometimes for six hours at a time in prayer--as to have
   been rewarded by ecstasies, yet in his case the course even of such
   love did not run over-smoothly, and from time to time he seemed to fall
   back again from his advancement. All this was the working of the Divine
   Spirit, both to ground him more perfectly in humility, and to give him
   an experience which he was to use afterwards in the guidance of others.
   After an interval of twelve years he went over to Rheims, where he was
   ordained priest in the year 1619, in his forty-fifth year; and in the
   following year he was appointed chaplain to the family of Mr. Philip
   Fursden, in Devonshire. Here, in a life of great retirement, he pursued
   with steady constancy the spiritual exercises, and by recommending to
   all inquirers into the Catholic faith the duty of prayer, in order to
   obtain light and strength, he succeeded in gaining many converts to the
   Church.

   At this time the venerable Father's life was so thoroughly one of
   prayer, that he used sometimes to devote as many as eleven hours in the
   day to this holy practice. His health, however, was extremely delicate,
   and as he was threatened with consumption, he was ordered by his
   superiors to move to London, where it was hoped that occupation of a
   somewhat more active nature might be of advantage to him. He laboured,
   conjointly with Father Clement Reyner, in compiling the well known
   Apostolatus Benedictinorum, and began at that same period to write some
   of his spiritual treatises. He had to travel about to various parts of
   England and the Continent to consult documents, and at the same time
   that this change of occupation benefited his bodily health, it did not
   in the least interfere with his spiritual progress. He had now so
   perfectly grounded himself in the ascetical life, that no distractive
   employments could withdraw him from his habits of recollection. His
   life was hidden with Christ in God, and was what he himself so aptly
   calls such a life, a life of introversion.'

   In Christmas of the year 1623, Father Rudesind Barlow,
   President-General of the English Benedictine Congregation, founded a
   community of Benedictine nuns at Cambray, and in the following summer
   Father Baker was ordered to go and assist in training the young
   community in the ways of the spiritual life. Here he was in his true
   element; and the solid progress made by his disciples was a proof of
   his skill and success as a guide in these high paths. The two most
   noted amongst these holy souls were Dames Catherine Gascoigne and
   Gertrude More. The former of these was the most faithful and constant
   follower of Father Baker's instructions, and became herself so skilled
   in the practice of the duties of the Religious Life, that she was
   employed for some time by the Archbishop of Cambray in forming a
   convent in his diocese after the model of her own. She held the office
   of Abbess of Cambray from the fifth year of her profession, almost
   uninterruptedly till her death in 1676, two years after her jubilee in
   Religion. Her letter to Father Cressy prefixed to Sancta Sophia, and
   his answer prefixed to the third treatise, show what interest she, took
   and what part she bore in the drawing up of the instructions contained
   in this work. The other holy nun, Dame Gertrude More, a direct
   descendant of the martyred Lord Chancellor, was of a character more
   difficult to bring into that subjection to a spiritual guide, which
   seemed so natural to Dame Catherine Gascoigne. At first she refused the
   direction of Father Baker, and pursued a spiritual course of her own.
   But being one day vividly struck by a passage which he read to her from
   an ascetical work upon the exceptional guidance of souls in a state of
   aridity, she placed herself completely under his direction, and quickly
   advanced so far as to arrive at a very close union with God. Many of
   the Acts and Affections at the end of Sancta Sophia were found among
   her writings, gathered, it would appear, from Father Baker's
   suggestions. Her little work, called An Idiot's Devotions by herself,
   but by Father Baker more properly called Confessiones Amantis,
   expresses the spirit by which she was animated. She died young, it is
   said in the odour of sanctity, in the twenty-seventh year of her age in
   the year 1633.

   During the nine years that the venerable Father remained at Cambray, he
   drew up many of his ascetical treatises at the earnest request of the
   community, who were anxious to perpetuate instructions which had been
   of such immense value to themselves. Many of them are lost, but several
   are preserved, and may be found in manuscript in the libraries of
   Downside, Ampleforth, Stanbrook, and St. Benedict's Priory at Colwich.
   They are best known, however, through the form in which Father Cressy
   drew them up in the work which is now presented once more to the
   public. Father Baker remained nine years at Cambray, and then was
   removed to the Monastery of St. Gregory at Douai, and became a
   conventual. There he continued his wonted exercises, and devoted
   himself also to his writings. After about five years' sojourn he was
   again sent on the mission into England, being then in the sixty-third
   year of his age, in the year of our Lord 1638. At that time a summons
   to the English Mission was a summons to go forth to martyrdom; and
   notwithstanding his love for conventual life, and his deep sense of the
   responsibility attending the career of a missioner, he at once set
   about preparing for his departure. He started--after a painful
   farewell--from his convent; and, on arriving in England, divided his
   labours between London and Bedfordshire. He was sought after by the
   pursuivants who were at that time particularly active in bringing
   Catholic priests to judgment and to execution; and was obliged, old and
   feeble as he was, to fly, according to our Divine Lord's advice, from
   place to place, in order to avoid the persecution. But nothing
   interfered with his devotedness to prayer.

   The struggle between sickness and persecution, as to which was to
   conquer in his regard, went on for three years, and at last it was to
   end in 1641 in favour of sickness. The year 1641 was a fatal one for
   priests, but a rich one for martyrs. In that year Bishop Challoner
   enumerates eighteen priests who were condemned to death, and were
   either savagely executed or harassed to death in prison. Among them
   were two of Father Baker's confreres, Fathers Ambrose Barlow and
   Bartholomew Roe. He himself was on the point of being seized, when he
   was struck by a contagious fever, which scared away his pursuers.
   Though he did not actually die upon the scaffold, to which he was on
   the very point of being led, he may well be considered as a martyr. In
   concealment, and under the solicitous and affectionate care of a good
   Catholic matron--Mrs. Watson, mother of one of the nuns of Cambray--in
   constant prayer and acts of resignation, he resigned his soul unto the
   hands of his Creator on the 9th of August 1641, in the sixty-sixth year
   of his age and the thirty-seventh of his religious profession.
   Defunctus adhuc loquitur. Though dead, he continued to live, and has
   continued living ever since, in his spiritual writings; and it is to be
   hoped that his voice will be made to sound again, and be heard by a
   more numerous circle of hearers, through the means of the work which is
   now again going forth into the world.

   It was in the year 1657, sixteen years after this holy Father's death,
   that his friend and disciple, Father Serenus Cressy, published the
   useful compilation of his writings, under the name of Sancta Sophia.
   This Father, called in baptism Hugh Paulin, and in religion Serenus,
   was born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, in the year 1605, the eventful
   year of Fawkes's Gunpowder Plot, and the same year in which Father
   Baker was clothed in the Abbey of St. Justina in Padua. He went to the
   University of Oxford at the early age of fourteen, and in the year
   1626, at the age of twenty-one, became Fellow of Merton. He received
   orders in the Church of England, and was appointed chaplain to Lord
   Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford of noted memory. A little later
   he was chaplain to Lord Falkland; then he became Canon of Windsor, and
   afterwards Dean of Leighlin, in Ireland. He travelled as tutor to a
   young English nobleman, and in the year 1646 became a convert, and was
   received into the Church in Rome, where he happened to be at the time.
   Next year, being in Paris, he published his Exomologesis, or Motives of
   his Conversion, which he dedicated to the Carthusian Fathers of
   Nieuport in Flanders, whom he at one time thought of joining. However,
   owing to their very secluded mode of life, he was directed to turn
   towards an Order in which his literary capacity might be of greater
   service, and he joined the Benedictine Community of St. Gregory's at
   Douai, where he took his vows in April 1649. He remained as a
   conventual for some eight years, having, however, spent about one year
   of that time in Paris, with an affiliation community from Cambray. This
   house in Paris, placed under the protection of our Lady of Good Hope,
   is now existing in its worthy successors at St. Benedict's Priory,
   Colwich, near Stafford. He was afterwards sent out on the mission into
   the South Province in England; and upon the marriage of Charles II.
   with the Infanta of Portugal in 1662, he became one of her chaplains,
   and resided for four years at Somerset House. Here, besides discharging
   zealously and edifyingly the duties of the sacred ministry, he devoted
   much time to writing several learned books on controversial subjects.
   [4] During this time he was also engaged upon his great work, the
   Church History of Britanny, which he published at Rouen in 1668.

   Father Cressy was greatly esteemed by his religious brethren, and held
   among them several offices of trust and responsibility, and was for
   many years a member of the General Chapter. His last missionary
   appointment was to the chaplaincy of Richard Caryl, Esq., of East
   Grinstead, in Sussex, where he died the death of the just on the 10th
   of August 1674, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. It was towards the
   end of the time of his residence as a conventual at Douai, that he drew
   up these instructions from the writings of Father Baker, which in a
   dedicatory letter to Father Laurence Reyner, President-General of the
   English Benedictine Congregation, he declares to have drawn up and
   published in obedience to his command. Not obedience only, however, he
   adds, but gratitude urged him on in his work of love; for to these
   instructions he, in that same letter, attributes the hastening of his
   conversion to the faith, and his call to join the Benedictine Order.
   May God in His infinite mercy grant that these same words of wisdom and
   piety may bring grace and inspire resolution into many a hesitating
   soul, and tend to enlighten those that are sitting in darkness and in
   the shadow of death! Any one who has had the opportunity of reading any
   of the Treatises of Father Baker in their original form, will be able
   to testify to the industry required for compiling them, as Father
   Cressy has done, and for the fidelity with which the more than forty
   different Treatises have here been preserved and interpreted.

   It remains to make two or three observations in connexion with the
   teaching conveyed in the treasury of wisdom here laid open. Let me most
   earnestly recommend the reading of Father Cressy's Preface to the
   Reader, herein prefixed to the first Treatise. Possible objections are
   here anticipated and answered. Also I must invite very particular
   attention to the case of the holy Jesuit, Father Balthasar Alvarez,
   recorded in the 7th Chapter of Section 1, Treatise III., where we find
   a full and striking and most telling apology for the method of prayer,
   so strongly recommended by Father Baker. One great reason why so many
   break down in their attempts at arriving at perfection in the spiritual
   life is, because they are tied down too stiffly to the formal method of
   Discursive Prayer, and are not allowed free enough scope for the
   exercise of Acts and Affections. It is quite proper that upon the first
   entrance into the spiritual life, the soul should be well exercised in
   the use of the powers of the soul, and that the Understanding
   especially should be called into play. But to insist upon working the
   Understanding, even when the Will is ready at once to work, is not
   unlike insisting on the spelling of every word, or the parsing of every
   sentence, each time that we read a book or a newspaper. All our
   proficiency and skill would avail us nothing, if we were to be thus
   tied down; and the reading of books would indeed be anything but
   instructive and entertaining. Father Balthasar Alvarez, in the chapter
   just referred to, will be found to say: All internal discoursing with
   the understanding was to cease, whensoever God enabled souls to actuate
   purely by the will. And that to do otherwise would be as if one should
   be always preparing somewhat to eat, and yet afterwards refuse to taste
   that which is prepared. By this divine Prayer of the Will, the Holy
   Spirit of Wisdom with all the excellencies of it described in the Book
   of Wisdom (chap. viii.) is obtained, and with it perfect liberty.'

   Undoubtedly, as we have said, on the first entrance into the spiritual
   life it is important to attend to the instructions given upon
   Discursive Prayer, or ordinary Meditation. [5] But it is not to be
   understood that this method is to be rigidly adhered to throughout.
   When Almighty God calls the soul to the Prayer of Acts, and afterwards
   of Aspirations, the soul ought to be allowed liberty to obey and follow
   the call. It is quite true that we should not attempt to run, until we
   have become steady enough upon our feet to stand or walk. But it is
   equally true that if we content ourselves with only standing or
   walking, when there is occasion for greater speed and activity, we
   shall be outstripped by others, who have learnt that where the Spirit
   of the Lord is, there is liberty: who have heard the summons to work in
   the words: Why stand you here all the day idle? and have obeyed the
   command of the energetic St. Paul: So run that you may receive. For a
   great truth which Father Baker always keeps before us is, that we are
   not simply to satisfy ourselves that we devote a certain period each
   day to our mental prayer, but that we must aim at progress in Prayer,
   and that by becoming more practised and more perfect in that holy
   exercise, we may make corresponding progress in holiness of life, and
   ascending from virtue to virtue, may at last by closer union be allowed
   to see the God of gods in Sion.

   In the same manner as Father Rothaan, S.J., in his most practical and
   excellent instruction on the Method of Meditation,' gives an example
   how to meditate on an eternal truth, and works out the meditation, in
   order that it may serve as a model on which to work out others, so will
   I submit an example, how the Prayer of Acts may be exercised, according
   to the instructions given in Sancta Sophia. We will take the truth
   suggested by Father Rothaan: What doth it profit a man, if he gain the
   whole world, and lose his own soul! We must divide our Prayer into the
   ordinary divisions observed in meditation: 1. the Beginning; 2. the
   Body; 3. the Conclusion. In the BEGINNING we must, as usual, make our
   act of recollection of the Presence of God, pray for light, and by an
   act of sorrow remove sin, which obscures the soul, and then quiet the
   imagination, by picturing our Divine Lord standing before us, and
   addressing directly to us those words, which are His own.

   Then passing on to the BODY of the Prayer, instead of arguing with
   myself, I address my words in the form of Acts to Almighty God, or to
   our Divine Lord; observing, usually, a method in the Acts, beginning
   with the lower ones grounded on Faith, and progressing towards the
   higher ones of Confidence and Love. Thus may I pray. Faith. O my God, I
   believe these words, and I accept in my soul the great truth they
   express. Thou hast made my soul eternal, and therefore I fully see its
   immense value. The world may try to convince and persuade me through
   its false principles to follow it, and forget Thee; but to whom shall I
   go but to Thee who hast the words of eternal life? &c. Sorrow. O my
   Divine Jesus, how sorry am I that I have not hitherto felt this truth
   and acted up to it! Every time I have sinned I have denied this truth
   by my own willful act and deed. Never let me sin again, &c. Humility.
   But who am I, that I should pretend to make such a promise? I am weak
   by nature, and have weakened myself still more by sin. I am Thy child:
   do Thou save me. Lord, save me, or I perish, and I shall never gain the
   end for which alone Thou hast made me, &c. Supplication. Give me grace,
   O my most powerful and generous God, that I may ever live up to what I
   now feel; and if this day any temptation come upon me, do Thou cry out
   in my ears, and make me hear Thy words: What doth it profit, &c. Hope.
   Now I feel that I have more courage, because Thou hast promised to
   assist me in my struggle. I rely on Thy power and Thy fidelity; and
   though I have a great work to do in striving to save my soul, Thou
   canst and wilt help me, and then we shall succeed, &c. Confidence. Nay,
   O my God, I have more than hope: Certus sum. I am sure that Thou canst
   conquer all my enemies, and that Thou, in saving my soul, wilt save
   what is already Thine. Tuus sum ego, salvum me fac, &c. Love and
   Desire. Since I belong to Thee, O God, I value Thee far beyond all the
   world, and all that the world can give me. I desire to be dissolved,
   and to be with Thee, Thou God of my heart and my portion for ever. Woe
   that my sojourning is prolonged! Draw me to Thee, and help me to run in
   the way of Thy commandments, &c. Thus, the soul speaks to God, and is
   continually actuated towards Him. The lower Acts of Faith, Sorrow, &c.,
   will at first be more numerous, and will suggest themselves more
   readily than the higher ones of Confidence, Love, Resignation, and such
   like; but after a time these latter ones will prevail. At the end a
   devout, colloquy or address is made to God, and His blessing is humbly
   and fervently besought in behalf of all that the soul has been inspired
   to promise and resolve. A slow and patient perusal of the Exercises
   appended to this volume will facilitate the making of these Acts. And
   as the higher Acts become more easy and familiar, the soul will advance
   further in its union with God, and Prayer will become more affective. I
   may be allowed to refer the reader to what is said in the short
   Treatise upon the Spiritual Life, which I have appended to the Life of
   Father Baker, pp. 141, &c.

   I feel that it is not necessary for me to say anything more by way of
   Preface. But, submitting everything to the judgment of the Holy See, I
   now commend the work which I have prepared, to the blessing of God; and
   beg that He, from whom comes down every good and perfect gift, will
   bestow, in behalf of those who make a good use of these holy
   instructions, a fresh harvest of the fruit which was gathered in such
   abundance when Sancta Sophia first made its appearance, and guided so
   many souls to Perfection.

   J. NORBERT SWEENEY, O.S.B.

   St. John's Priory, Bath,
   Ash Wednesday, A.D. 1876.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1] Seager's translation of Father Rothaan's Spiritual Exercises, p.
   142.

   [2] See especially treat. iii. sect. iii. chap. i. S: 19, where he
   cautions against cessation of prayer.

   [3] Life and Spirit of Father Augustine Baker, &c. London, 1861,
   Catholic Publishing Company.

   [4] See the list in Dodd. vol. iii. p. 308.

   [5] See Sancta Sophia, treat. iii. sect. ii. chap. ii.
     __________________________________________________________________

TO

OUR MOST REV. FATHER LAURENCE REYNER,

PRESIDENT GENERAL OF OUR HOLY CONGREGATION OF THE
ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT,

AND TO ALL OUR VERY REV. FATHER SUPERIORS IN THE SAME.

   VERY REV. FATHERS,

   Such being the distemper of this age, that only good books, and such as
   are most proper to cure in the very root its disorders, do stand in
   need of protection, you cannot in justice, as it seems to me, refuse
   yours to this, the composing and publishing whereof at this time was an
   effect of your V. R. Paternities' order and commands. Now those very
   commands, with so much advice and zeal unanimously made, are a very
   strong proof that this book (for as much as concerns the substantial
   doctrine therein contained) is such an one, so perfectly good and
   medicinal, as that I need not doubt, and indeed should be sorry, it
   should have any other fate than the hatred of all those who love
   darkness more than light. As for whatsoever faults may have happened
   through my want of skill in the compiling, I do not desire such patrons
   to them. Yet truly there hath not been wanting all the diligence and
   care that I was capable of, to provide that so excellent instructions
   should not be too much disparaged by the second copying and new fashion
   and dress upon them. The pains herein taken will appear to be not very
   ordinary to any one that shall consider how difficult a matter it is
   out of such a world of Treatises (written upon particular subjects for
   the special necessities and use of certain devout persons, without any
   eye or design in the author of affording materials for an entire body
   of spirituality) to frame such a body not at all defective, and with
   parts not unproportionable. Now I must confess that though conscience
   alone and duty to your VV. RR. Paternities would have had sufficient
   influence on me to prevent negligence, yet I had moreover one motive
   besides to heighten my diligence which was gratitude. For to the
   admiration and love of these excellent instructions I owe not only the
   hastening of my reconciliation to the Catholic Church (as on this very
   day, being the Vigil of the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, in the Office
   of the Holy Inquisition at Rome), but also the happiness of being a
   member (though unworthy) of your holy congregation. It may
   notwithstanding fall out, that with all my endeavours I may fail of
   giving satisfaction in the point of art; but that I have not been
   wanting in the principal condition of faithfulness, besides the
   testimony of my own conscience, I have that also of persons learned and
   pious, to whom the writings of the venerable author have been perfectly
   known and familiar.

   It will doubtless seem strange to others, but not to your Paternity (V.
   R. F. President) that so perfect instructions for contemplation should
   proceed from one that had spent almost his whole life in the laborious
   employment of the Apostolic Mission. But your V. R. Paternity by
   experience knows that those who sincerely give themselves to seek
   Almighty God by pure spiritual prayer, whatever their employments be,
   will, without any prejudice to them, never want opportunities to meet
   and converse with Him in solitude. Now from such conversations it is
   that there do proceed from the Father of Lights such illustrations as
   not only give a splendour to the persons themselves, but by reflection
   also serve to guide others.

   The solitude that our Venerable Author enjoyed was, by his own
   election, among friends, penitents, and disciples. But God's Holy
   Spirit led your V. R. Paternity into a desert far more full of horror
   indeed, but withal far more instructive: a solitude of prisons and
   dungeons, among enemies to religion and humanity, where yet by the
   light and force not only of your learning, but also your devotion, &c.,
   you could found churches of converts.

   A more sufficient and proper patron, therefore, and judge, could not be
   found than your V. R. Paternity of instructions of this nature. So that
   from you it is that all others, your religious subjects, receiving
   them, will through God's grace daily with their increasing fervour, by
   their good practice and example, recommend them to others also.

   VV. RR. Fathers,

   Your VV. RR. Paternities' in all duty and service in our Lord,

   Br. SERENUS CRESSY.

   From my cell in the Convent of St. Gregory's
   in Doway, this 21st of July 1657.



   Nos, .F LAURENTIUS REYNER, Congregationis Anglicanae Ordinis S.
   Benedicti Praeses Generalis, visis testimoniis et approbationibus RR.
   PP. Congregationis nostrae, BENEDICTI STAPLETONI, S. Theologiae
   Doctoris et Definitoris dictae Congregationis, &c., et LEANDRI a S.
   Augustino S. Theologiae Professoris, &c., quibus cura examinandi librum
   quemdam Spiritualem Anglice scriptum, cui Titulus, Sancta Sophia, or
   Directions, &c., a nobis demandata fuerat: ad Dei honorem et gloriam,
   Ecclesiae Sanctae Catholicae bonum, animarumque, uti speramus, in
   sancto Dei amore profectum notabilem, ut dictus liber praeli beneficio
   mundo publicetur per praesentes licentiam damus.

   In cujus rei testimonium his subscripsimus, et sigillum nostrum
   apposuimus.

   Parisiis in Monasterio nostro S. Edmundi Regis et Martyris, in
   suburbiis S. Jacobi, Maii 4, A.D. 1657.

   Fr. LAURENTIUS REYNER, Praeses qui supra licet indignus.

   De Mandato R. Adm. P. Praesidis,

   Fr. AUGUSTINUS CONSTABLE, Secretarius.

   Locus sigilli.


   Legi diligenter Librum cui titulus Sancta Sophia. or Directions, &c.:
   Anglice scriptum: in eoque nihil reperi quod orthodoxae Fidei aut bonis
   moribus adversetur: Testor etiam nihil in hoc libro contineri praeter
   regulas et praecepta ad vitae contemplativae perfectionem ducentia: Ea
   vero tame doctrinae soliditate, perspicuitate, tamque insigni methodo
   tractari, ut non solum piissimi Auctoris Sanctitas, et in conductu
   Animarum ad perfectionis apicem peritia, necnon ipsius collectoris
   diligentia et styli nitor abunde comprobentur; verum etiam summo cum
   perfectioris vitae studiosorum fructu in lucem emittendum nullo modo
   dubitem. Insuper Auctoris mentem videtur adeo assecutus praefatus
   collector, ut qui in Auctoris doctrine suet versati genuinum illius
   foetum necessario agnoscere debeant.

   Datum in Monasterio nostro S. Gregorii, Duaci, 21 April A.D. 1657.

   Fr. BENEDICTUS STAPLETON, Sac. Theol. Doctor.


   Perlegi librum cui titulus Sancta Sophia, &c., Anglice scriptum
   testorque in eo nihil reperiri, quod orthodoxae Fidei aut bonis moribus
   adversetur; Rut quod ad statum, regimen, vel negotia cujusvis
   Reipublicae quovis modo pertineat. Sed unaquaeque paging solam pietatem
   Theoricam spirat, quam sublimi quidem, modestissime tamen ac tutissime
   via accurate docet; et a SS. Patrum vestigiis nunquam recedit. Ita
   testor.

   In Conventu nostro S. Greg. Duaci, 20 Apr. A.D. 1657.

   Fr. LEANDER A S. AUGUSTINO, S. Theol Professor
   in Collegio Vedastino, Duaci.


   Cum liber hie cui titulus Sancta Sophia, &c., Anglice scriptus
   diligenter perlectus fuerit ab eximio et R. Patre Benedicto Stapleton,
   S. Theologiae Doctore, et R. P. Leandro a S. Augustino, S. Theologiae
   in Collegio Vedastino Duaci Professor: iidemque idiomatis Anglicani
   optime periti fidem faciant nihil in eodem hoc libro reperiri, quod
   orthodoxae fidei, aut bonis moribus adversetur, vel quod ad statum,
   regimen, aut negotia cujusvis regni aut reipublicea quovis modo
   pertinet: sed solummodo contineri sanctissimas regulas, et solidissima
   praecepta ad vitae contemplativae perfectionem conducentia: ideo eundem
   hunc librum praelo dignum esse, et publici boni causa, in lucem emitti
   posse censui.

   Duaci, 28 Aprilis A.D. 1657.

   MARTINUS DENYS, S. Theol. Doctor, ejusdemque regius
   et ordinarius Duaci Professor.

   Idem censeo.

   NICOLAUS LE LONG, S. Theologiae Doctor, ejusdemque,
   et regius et ordinarius Professor.


   Many grave authors have written of this subject, but in my opinion none
   more clearly (and with such brevity) than the R. Father Augustine
   Baker, of the holy Order of St. Benedict, sometime spiritual director
   to the English Benedictine Dames at Cambray. Who in his several
   treatises abridged in this book, entitled Sancta Sophia, probably out
   of his own experience, hath methodically, solidly, clearly, and piously
   set forth such efficacious instructions for the attaining of true
   perfection, that all devout souls aspiring thereto, especially
   religious persons (whose daily practice of meditation and continual
   exercises tending to that end will, if well applied, much advance
   them), by their practice with great facility, may attain great
   perfection. Let them, therefore, read diligently the preface and first
   treatise, and practise exactly what is contained in the second; and I
   dare promise them by God's grace a happy progress in the third.

   Wherefore I judge the work worthy to be published, as containing
   nothing opposite to the doctrine of the Church; but on the contrary,
   very profitable rules and rare instructions of piety and true devotion.

   Given at Doway, in the Convent of the English Recollects, this 2d of
   July 1657.

   Br. ANGELUS FRANCIS, Lector Jubilate, and Episcopal
   Censurer of Books.


   I have read three treatises of that V. F. A. Baker, of an Internal
   Life, Mortification, and Prayer; and do approve and esteem of it as of
   a work that may much promote the perfection of a religious state and
   lead others to a competent reasonable participation of it, though
   living in the world. And, reader, if thou art seriously resolved to
   attempt this principal and main work of thy salvation, thou wilt find
   nothing to displease thee; but very many advices and instructions to
   advance thee in the way to perfection. But if spiritual conversation
   internally with Almighty God be either insipid or unsavoury to thy
   ill-affected palate, thou wilt easily find little straws, motes, or
   hairs to pick quarrel with, and cast away such food as this; and I wish
   thee to take heed, thou dost not cast more away.

   Given this 21st of July, in our English College of Doway, A.D. 1657.

   T. PRODGER, Prof. of Divinity.


   To the foregoing approbations I esteemed it much for my advantage to
   adjoin the following testimony of my sincerity and faithfulness in
   delivering the doctrine of our V. Author. The excellent person from
   whom the letter came will, I hope, pardon this publishing, without a
   commission from herself, what she privately directed to me; since it is
   done for the better recommendation of the doctrine so worthily esteemed
   by her.


  TO THE REV. F. SERENUS CRESSY.

   REVEREND FATHER,

   I must acknowledge the particular obligation that our convent hath to
   your R. P., for the great diligence you have used, and the very much
   labour you have bestowed in compiling the abridgment of our Venerable
   and dear Father Baker's works, so exactly conformable to the sense and
   meaning of the Author; and as we well know the pains you have taken in
   perusing seriously all his books several times, and in collecting the
   substance of each, digesting and reducing them into a most convenient
   order and method; and that you refused not to undergo the labour to go
   through all this a second time, to give the most full satisfaction in
   rendering your abridgment more entirely conformable to his writings in
   the very expression as much as might be; so we may very well believe
   that it hath pleased God to assist very much your unwearied industry,
   since not any that hath read your book, and is versed in the Author's
   works, hath found any objections to make either of anything wanting or
   differing from him; but all acknowledge that you have most faithfully,
   clearly, and substantially delivered his doctrine. We cannot,
   therefore, but hope God will be the reward of your fidelity, care, and
   pains, in a work so acceptable to Him, as we shall not fail to pray;
   and none shall esteem themselves more obliged to testify their
   gratitude than,

   R. Father,
   Your unworthy sister and servant,

   S. CATHARINE DE S. MARIA, Abbess Unworthy.

   Cambray, July 7th, 1657.
     __________________________________________________________________

  A PREFACE TO THE READER.

    The Sum of the Preface.

   1-8. Objections before and since the author's death made against the
   publishing of this doctrine.

   9-10. The first objection: Because the knowledge and practice of it
   belongs to few: answered.

   11-15. A second objection, viz. Because suspicion may be given to
   Catholics of pretending to new illuminations, prejudicial to the
   doctrine of faith and rules of life established in the Church: answered
   largely, and the contrary demonstrated.

   16-20. What illuminations are here meant, and how divine love, above
   all other things, doth most enlighten the soul.

   21-22. A third objection, viz. That sectaries will here take advantage
   to justify their frenzies and disorders.

   23-30. Four preparatory grounds laid for the clearer answering this
   objection.

   31-32. The said objection answered. Where is contrarily proved the
   necessity of publishing such doctrines, as the only means to discover
   and disprove the false illumination of sectaries.

   33-38. An exhortation to sectaries to observe the strange difference
   between their spirits and that of Catholics.

   39-46. An explanation of certain passages in the following treatises.

   47. A just request to the reader.

   48. A submission of all to the See Apostolic, &c.


   BELOVED CHRISTIAN READER,

   Before thou proceedest to partake of what is promised thee in the
   frontispiece of this book, thou art entreated to permit thyself to be
   detained awhile in the entry. For perhaps a short delay here will make
   thy progress afterwards both more speedy and profitable.

   2. This is to acquaint thee that the immaculate doctrine contained in
   this book, though it never met with any that opposed, or so much as
   questioned, the verities thereof, speculatively considered, yet there
   have not wanted some that have judged them not fit to be thus exposed
   to thy view, much doubting thou wouldst prove such an one as would make
   an ill use and perverse advantage from them.

   3. Now the principal, yea only, point that gives some this jealousy is
   that which thou wilt find in the Second Section of the First Treatise,
   where is treated touching divine illuminations, inspirations, impulses,
   and other secret operations of God's Holy Spirit in the hearts of
   internal lives. Concerning which the constant teaching of our Venerable
   Author (in brief) is this, viz. That the Divine Spirit, by virtue of
   the said operations, is to be acknowledged our only secure Guide and
   Master in these secret paths of divine love, discovered in some measure
   in the following treatises. And consequently that the most essential,
   universal duty to be aspired unto by every one that pretends a desire
   or intention to walk in the same paths is, to give up his soul and all
   his faculties to God's internal guidance and direction only,
   relinquishing and renouncing all other instructors and instructions, as
   far as they are not subordinately cooeperating with this our Divine
   Master, for the receiving of whose celestial influences, the humble and
   devout scholar is obliged to prepare and dispose himself by prayer,
   abstraction of life, &c.; in solitude hearkening to His voice and call,
   and learning how to distinguish it clearly from the voice and
   solicitations of human reason or corrupt nature; till that by long
   familiarity and conversation with God, divine love alone will so clear
   his spiritual sight, that he will see at last no other light, nor
   receive motion from any other, but God only; and this in all actions,
   omissions, and sufferings, though in themselves of the smallest
   importance.'

   4. This is our Venerable Author's doctrine, everywhere in all his
   treatises (whatever the subject be) inculcated, and even to the
   wearying of the readers, continually repeated and asserted. Indeed a
   doctrine it is so fundamental to all his other instructions concerning
   prayer and mortification, &c., that the least weakening of its
   authority renders all the rest unprofitable.

   5. But little reason there is to fear that a doctrine, which is the
   very soul of Christianity, can be shaken by human opposition, or
   disparaged by jealousy. True it is, notwithstanding, that though this
   fundamental verity receives testimony abundantly both from Scripture
   and universal tradition, though it be constantly asserted in the
   schools, and sprinkled everywhere in almost all mystical writers, yet
   scarce hath any one since the ancient fathers' times (especially St.
   Augustine) so purposely, largely, and earnestly recommended it to
   practice. And, therefore, no great wonder it is, if such a way of
   delivering it hath seemed a novelty, even to those that speculatively
   and in theory acknowledge it to be the established doctrine of the
   Church; and whilst they willingly, and with applause, hear it asserted
   daily in the schools, yet meeting with it thus popularly spread, they
   are offended with it; I mean with the communicating it to the use and
   practice of the unlearned.

   6. Now what it was that troubled them will appear from the only
   objection in the Author's lifetime made against it, which was indeed a
   mere jealousy, lest this doctrine so delivered should prejudice the
   authority of superiors. The which objection he answered to the full
   satisfaction of all that were interested in the matter. The sum of
   which answer follows in the ninth chapter of the second section of the
   first treatise, and needs not to be here repeated.

   7. But since his death, and especially after that, by a general
   unanimous agreement of all superiors among us, it had been ordained
   that the sum of the Author's spiritual doctrine should, for the good of
   souls aspiring to contemplation, be published; but the same objection
   hath been renewed, and others moreover added thereto. And all of them
   have risen from the like ground of jealousy, not so much acknowledged
   to be rational by the objectors themselves (who readily subscribe to
   the doctrine as Catholically true and holy) as feared from others; to
   wit, partly from ordinary not learned Catholics, who, it is suspected,
   will be suspicious of a doctrine that will seem new and, however,
   unproper to them; but principally from strangers and enemies to the
   Church, especially the frantic enthusiasts of this age, who, as is
   feared, will conceive their frenzies and disorders justified here.

   8. These things considered, both zeal to truth, duty to superiors, and
   charity to thee, beloved reader, obliged me before all other things to
   beseech thee to abstain from reading the book, unless it can be
   demonstrated beforehand that it was fit to come into thy hands; that
   the suspected inconveniences and suspicions are evidently groundless;
   that it would be a greater frenzy in the enthusiasts of these days, or
   in any seduced or seducing spirits, to claim any right in this doctrine
   than that which already possesses them; and, in a word, that no
   objections, either against the doctrine or publishing of it, either
   have, or, as we suppose, can rationally be devised, to make us repent
   the printing, or thee the reading, of the following book.

   9. Among the said objections this one is scarce worthy to find place,
   which yet by some hath been urged against the publishing to all
   Christians' view instructions about prayer and mystical practices
   proper to a few contemplative persons (for whom alone the Author
   intended them, without the least thought of having them communicated
   and exposed so generally): especially considering that this treatise
   discourses of sublime mystic matters, above the reach of vulgar
   capacities; and also, that whereas to such tender well-minded souls (as
   those were for whom the said treatises were meant) just liberty and
   condescendence were allowed in many cases, not to be permitted to
   others that either in the world, or else in a religious life, do walk
   in other ways; these, notwithstanding, will be apt to their own
   prejudice to make use of such liberty.

   10. But surely, as it would be most unreasonable to forbid a physician
   to publish a book of remedies against some special diseases, for fear
   that some that are untouched of those diseases, or perhaps sick of the
   contrary, should hurt themselves with making use of medicines improper
   for them; or Molina the Carthusian to publish his excellent
   instructions for priests, lest lay persons should assume the privileges
   belonging to that sublime calling; or Alvarez de Paz to print his
   volumes about the duties and exercises of religious persons, because
   they are improper for seculars; so neither upon such grounds ought
   these instructions be hindered from being public. Neither ought any to
   fear lest ordinary Christians will foolishly apply to themselves the
   relaxations about confessions, &c., necessarily allowed to well-minded
   scrupulous souls that pursue contemplative ways in an abstracted life
   and solitude. Or that souls that live distracted, solicitous, active
   lives, as long as they live so, will judge themselves interested in the
   ways and exercises of internal contemplative livers. Or, in a word,
   that those who are yet but beginners, or have made but small
   proficiency in internal ways of the spirit, will be so foolishly
   presumptuous as to aspire to exercises more sublime than belong to
   them; the which they cannot do without receiving infinite prejudice by
   their indiscreet ambition. Add hereto, that on several occasions there
   have been used and inculcated in this book the best preventions,
   cautions, and provisions that possibly could be devised, against all
   misunderstanding and misapplication of any doctrines contained in it.
   To conclude, it may seem a sufficient safeguard for me to have herein
   the example of the V. R. F. A. C., [6] a person much esteemed for
   learning and piety, who hath not only published (in an additional
   treatise to The Conflict of the Soul) Instructions for Contemplation,
   but a great part of his Maxims (though brief) are very conformable to
   what is here expressed more largely.

   11. The special feared inconveniences that may arise from the
   publishing of this doctrine touching divine inspiration, do regard
   partly some that live in the communion of the Church; but principally
   such as are strangers and enemies thereto. As for the former, it is
   suspected, that by urging so seriously the duty of attending to and
   following divine inspirations, some even of the more sober Catholics
   will be apt to be jealous, that the teachers and practisers of such a
   doctrine will seem thereby to exempt themselves in many things from the
   ordinary jurisdiction of prelates and magistrates, pretending to
   extraordinary illuminations and commissions, and to walking in
   mirabilibus super se, &c., by which a prejudice and contempt also may
   be cast upon the common orders and rules concerning faith and good
   manners established in the Church.

   12. Now not to forestall what is copiously delivered in the second
   treatise (to wit, that due obedience to all kind of superiors is so far
   from being prejudiced by this doctrine, that it is only by this
   doctrine that it is perfectly established, and all possible suspicions,
   all imaginary cases to the contrary solved): hereto it is answered
   that, whereas it is said that by a pretending to divine illuminations,
   &c., a contempt may be cast upon the common doctrines and rules of
   faith and a good life, there is not the least ground for such an
   apprehension. For never did any spiritual mystic writer pretend to
   receive any new or formerly unknown lights or revelations in matters of
   faith, beyond what have been known and universally received in the
   Church. The lights which such persons by God's gracious visits receive
   being only a clearer sight of ordinary mysteries; the which produces in
   them a firmer assent unto them, a greater love of them, an abhorring of
   all novelties of doctrines, and a most fervent zeal to the unity and
   peace of the Church, and to the reducing of all unbelievers,
   misbelievers, and schismatics, into its bosom and communion.

   13. The like is to be said for the rules of practice, and a holy
   Christian conversation. They know no other but such as are common to
   all other Christians, which are revealed in the Gospel, and proposed by
   the pastors of God's Church in councils, and in the writings of the
   holy fathers. The only advantage that in this regard is pretended to,
   and acquired, by attending to divine inspirations, is a more perfect
   use and a more faithful application of the ordinary precepts of
   holiness, or of counsels of perfection, to those who profess the
   embracing of such counsels: an extending of them further, and to more
   particulars, than it is possible to be taught by books or attained by
   study.

   14. All Christians know that to blaspheme, to lie, to defraud, to be
   rebellious, unchaste, revengeful, &c., are sins odious to God; and that
   the contrary virtues are to be practised. Yea, moreover, they know that
   we are obliged to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and
   with all our strength; that we ought in all things to intend His love
   and honour, &c. Moreover, all know that besides the essentially
   necessary Christian duties, there are other counsels of perfection,
   which belong to those upon whom God hath bestowed an extraordinary
   vocation and grace, enabling them to cast from them all secular
   anxieties and other impediments to perfect charity, and to put
   themselves in a condition of solitude, obedience, &c.; the which
   affords them the best expedients and helps for the increasing of divine
   love and conformity to His will, even in the smallest matters. All this
   in gross is known to all Christians of any reasonable capacity and good
   education.

   15. But yet the wisest, the most subtle and learned Christians will
   never be able, by any human endeavours of study or meditation, to put
   in practice even those essential precepts after a perfect manner; that
   is, with an intention not only right, but also pure and deiform. And
   much less will they by such weak helps, be enabled to discern in a
   thousand particular cases and circumstances what is most perfect, most
   acceptable to God, and conformable to His divine will. As for example:
   1. How when two good or indifferent things are proposed, to make choice
   or preference of that which, in the present disposition of the soul,
   will prove most advantageous to perfection. 2. How to spiritualise even
   the ordinary indifferent occurrences of our life, daily and hourly. 3.
   How to perceive what manner and degree of prayer is most proper and
   profitable to the soul in her present state. 4. Or what mortifications
   are in the present circumstances most advantageous. 5. Or how to
   discern the state, inclinations, and spiritual necessities of other
   souls committed to our charge. 6. Or lastly, to discover a thousand
   secret subtleties, close interests, and reservations of our corrupt
   nature, which mingle themselves, more or less, almost in all our best
   actions, &c. In these and a thousand like cases, not all the reading or
   study in the world will enable souls to carry themselves perfectly in
   the execution of those precepts or counsels, which in gross all know to
   be necessary, at least to the attaining to perfection. But a distinct
   actual supernatural light and grace is necessary; and this not to teach
   us new precepts or furnish us with new counsels, but circumstantially
   to apply those which are common and universally known. For want of
   which light it is that the true way to perfection is almost unknown,
   even to those who profess the seeking of perfection, and fill the world
   with books and instructions about it.

   16. By what other means, then, is such light to be had? Surely by no
   other but by the exercise of divine love, which is most perfectly
   performed in internal prayer, in attention to and union with God in
   spirit. What an expert, persuading, and subtle master love is, beyond
   study or consideration, we see even in natural and secular businesses.
   One that is immersed in sensual love to any person, has no need of
   instructions or books to teach him the art of loving. We see how
   skilful on a sudden such an one becomes in the ways how to please the
   person beloved. He loses not, neither out of ignorance nor negligence,
   the least opportunity to ingratiate himself. He understands the mind
   and intention of the other by the least signs; the motion of a hand,
   the cast of an eye is sufficient to inform him, and set him on work to
   attempt anything, or procure anything that may content the party. The
   like subtlety and perspicacity we may see in those earthy souls which
   cleave with an earnest affection unto riches. What subtle ways do they
   find out to increase their wealth! Such trifling inconsiderable things
   they make use of for that purpose, as another would not take notice of,
   or could not see how to make profit by them. They have almost a
   prophetical spirit to foresee dangers where none are, and advantages
   probable or possible to happen many years after.

   17. Now how comes it to pass that the eyes of love are so
   quick-sighted? Surely by this: that where love to any particular object
   is predominant, it subdues all other affections to all other objects,
   which would distract the thoughts, and seduce the will from
   contemplating and adhering to the thing so beloved.

   18. Upon such grounds, therefore, as these it is, that St. Augustine
   calls Divine Love (Luminosissimam Charitatem) most full of light, and
   most enlightening. For a soul that truly loves God with a love worthy
   of Him, having the mind cleared from all strange images, and the will
   purified from all strange affections, is thereby enabled purely to
   contemplate God without any distraction at all. And being desirous in
   all things to please Him, knows how to make advantage of all
   occurrences. Light and darkness, consolations and desolations, pains
   and pleasures, all these contribute to the advancing of this love. Yea,
   there is nothing so indifferent, or, in its own nature, so
   inconsiderable, but that such a soul can perceive how use may be made
   of it to please God thereby.

   19. Now since pure love is exercised immediately to God only in pure
   prayer, by which alone the spirit is united to Him, hence it is that
   prayer is the only efficacious instrument to obtain supernatural light,
   according to the saying of David: Accedite ad Deum, et illuminamini:
   Approach unto God (by prayer), and (ye shall) be enlightened. [7] And
   hence also it is, that the same holy prophet so earnestly and
   frequently (above twenty times in one Psalm, 118) prays for such light
   to understand and discover the wonderful things of God's Law. And what
   were those wonderful things? Surely not to be informed that murder and
   adultery were sins; or generally that God was to be loved with the
   whole soul; for much more knowledge he had than this before he prayed.
   But being desirous to give himself wholly to God, and to perform His
   will alone in all things, he so often makes use of prayer for the
   obtaining an extraordinary light (to be had no other way but by prayer)
   that he might thereby be enabled to discover and find out the Divine
   Will in all manner of cases and doubtful circumstances.

   20. Now only such inspirations and such illuminations as these do
   spiritual persons pretend to by the means of prayer and attending to
   God. And if they do exercise prayer with a due fervour and constancy,
   these they shall most certainly enjoy, and that in such a measure that
   whereas the greatest part of ordinary good Christians are so
   dim-sighted as to see the Divine Will only in circumstances where there
   is a necessary obligation (so that they spend the far greatest part of
   their lives in actions that do no way advance them in Divine Love,
   being wrought chiefly in virtue of the principle of self-love and
   interests of nature), those that are perfectly internal livers, being
   clouded by no vain images, and distracted by no inferior affections, do
   see the Divine Will clearly in the minutest affairs, which they
   accordingly make advantage of to improve themselves in the love of God.
   And, according to the degrees of love, so proportionably are the
   degrees of light. And thus, I suppose, the pretended inconveniences
   suspected to flow from the publishing of this doctrine will appear to
   be only pretended and causelessly feared.

   21. But the other objection at first sight seems more considerable, as
   implying a far greater and more certain inconvenience and danger that
   may ensue upon the publishing of this doctrine concerning divine
   inspirations, illuminations, and calls. For thus they argue. It is to
   be feared that the fanatic sectaries which now swarm in England more
   than ever, will be ready to take advantage from hence to justify all
   their frenzies and disorders; all which they impute with all confidence
   to divine inspirations, illuminations, and impulses. For can we forbid
   them to practise what we ourselves teach to be a Christian duty? And
   yet it is apparent what fearful and execrable effects the practice of
   this pretended duty doth produce among them. It was by inspiration, say
   they, that their progenitors did break out of the Church; and by
   inspiration they do still introduce endlessly new fancies and
   practices. It is by inspiration that they endanger the ruin of
   Christianity itself by infinite schisms and pestilent reformations. It
   is by inspiration that they employ the Gospel to destroy the Gospel;
   from thence preaching heresies in churches and chambers, sedition in
   states, rebellion against princes and prelates; so destroying all
   order, unity, and peace everywhere. These things considered, what can
   be more reasonable than that we should take heed how we furnish them
   thus with arms to maintain themselves, and to fight against God and His
   Church?

   22. This is the objection which, though it have a fearful show, yet,
   being well examined, it will prove no less weakly grounded than the
   former. For the demonstrating, therefore, of the inconsequence of it, I
   will, by way of preparation, lay down these following undeniable
   principles, briefly mentioned before, viz.

   23. First, that divine inspirations are so absolutely necessary in
   precepts for the avoiding of sin, and in counsels for the gaining of
   perfection, that without them no action of ours can be good or
   meritorious. Yea, the duties of obligation which we perform, or
   counsels of perfection freely obeyed by us, are only so far acceptable
   to God as they proceed from His inspirations and motions of His Holy
   Spirit. This is not only an undoubted verity, but one of the most
   fundamental verities of the Christian religion, which attributes all
   good in us to the Divine Grace. And what is grace but the divine
   inspiration of love spread abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, as
   St. Augustine saith? To this verity give evident witness those
   expressions of the Church in her public devotions Da, Domine, famulis
   tuis, ut quae a te jussa agnovimus, implere coelesti inspiratione
   valeamus;' that is, Grant, O Lord, unto Thy servants, that those things
   which we acknowledge to have been commanded by Thee, we may, by Thy
   heavenly inspiration, accomplish.' And again: Auge populi tui vota
   placatus; quia in nullo fidelium nisi ex tua inspiratione proveniunt
   quarumlibet incrementa virtutum;' that is, Increase in mercy, O Lord,
   the desires of Thy servants; for not the least progress in any virtues
   can be made by any of Thy faithful servants by any other means, but
   only by Thy (divine) inspirations.'

   24. The second ground is consequent on the former, viz. that since such
   absolute necessity there is of divine inspirations, the necessity
   obliging us to correspond unto them is, and must needs be, equal. For,
   from no other root, but the neglect of this obligation, doth or can
   proceed all our mischief. The guilt of such neglect is so much the
   greater inasmuch as the gift of God's Holy Spirit imprinted in the
   hearts of His servants is of such an active nature that, were it not
   that the spirit of corrupt nature, cherished by us, doth deafen its
   call and weaken its efficacy, it would continually, being wakened by
   every occasion, incite us to love God only, and to raise up our souls
   to Him. Now by such neglect, we are said in Holy Scriptures to
   contristate the Holy Ghost; and by oft contristating Him we shall, in
   the end, come to quench Him. And the first indignation of God against
   such negligent despisers of His holy inspirations and calls is
   powerfully expressed in those words of his: Quia vocavi et renuistis,
   &c.: Because I have called, and ye refused, I stretched forth My hand,
   and there was none that regarded, I also will laugh at your
   destruction, and I will mock when that which ye did fear shall happen
   unto you, &c. Then shall they call on Me, and I will not hear: they
   shall rise early, and they shall not find Me (Prov. i. 24-28). Now
   though it be not indeed a mortal sin to resist the motion of the Divine
   Spirit inciting us to actions which are not of essential obligation,
   yet so doing we do contristate God's Spirit, and more indispose
   ourselves afterwards to observe and follow its directions. And mortal
   sins are seldom rushed into upon the sudden: they begin with lesser
   resistances, by which the mind is more obscured and less capable to
   obey it in greater matters. But as for perfect souls, they are in
   continual attendance and obedience thereto, being in continual prayer,
   or in good works and exercises begun and performed in virtue of prayer,
   and also accompanied by prayer.

   25. The third preparatory ground follows, which is this: that since
   these so necessary internal inspirations must necessarily be hearkened
   to and corresponded with, and since there may be false suggestions,
   either of the devil or of our corrupt nature, which may counterfeit or
   subtly pretend to a divine original, therefore it is necessary that
   some possible, yea satisfactory, means should be afforded how to
   distinguish between true and false inspirations. For otherwise we shall
   have an impossible obligation to obey we know not whom, nor what. We
   shall be in as much danger to be actuated by the devil, and used as
   instruments of his illusions, as of the saving influxes of God's Holy
   Spirit; and consequently shall not be able to distinguish the way
   between heaven and hell.

   26. Neither will it suffice to say, that we do sufficiently perform
   God's will when we perform the commands of God expressed clearly in
   Scripture, likewise the precepts of the Church, and of all our lawful
   superiors. For neither will the doing of these things without an
   interior influx of grace avail us, since the devil can be content, yea
   will suggest the exercise of the greatest virtues to hearts which he
   knows will intend only the satisfaction of natural pride, or the
   interests of self-love, in them. And, besides, neither can any of these
   external rules extend to all our actions, so as to regulate them in
   order to contemplation and perfection.

   27. The fourth and last ground to be premised is this: that since it is
   necessary to be enabled to distinguish the true inspirations of God
   from the false suggestions of our enemy, the only means imaginable that
   can be proper, natural, and efficacious to obtain such a supernatural
   light to discern God's will in all things is pure spiritual prayer
   exercised by a soul living an abstracted, internal, recollected life,
   spent in a continual attendance on God, &c.

   28. This is a way suitable to reason, conformable to Scriptures and the
   doctrine of the holy fathers, and delivered both by ancient and modern
   mystic authors, as might copiously be demonstrated if there were any
   cause to think, that to pray perfectly, and by prayer to obtain divine
   grace, were suspicious exercises to any. In a word, this is a way, the
   which practised according to the instructions here delivered, all
   manner of good and no possible inconvenience can flow from it.

   29. Here is no pretending to new or strange revelations: no walking in
   mirabilibus super se: no zealous seditious reformations, nor the least
   prejudice done or intended to peace, unity, humility, obedience, or any
   other divine virtue. Yea, on the contrary, all these heavenly graces
   are hereby not only fortified and increased, but by no other means can
   be perfectly obtained.

   30. And indeed, since in a world of passages in Holy Scriptures we find
   ourselves obliged to a double duty, the one whereof perhaps in popular
   judgments seems to entrench upon the other, and yet neither of them is
   in due place and circumstances to be omitted, namely, obedience both to
   God's Holy Spirit inwardly directing, and also to superior outwardly
   commanding; by what other way can we reconcile such seemingly different
   and, as it may fall out, contrary precepts, but by joining this
   doctrine to that concerning outward obedience? Which is here done, and
   done without the least prejudice to either; yea manifestly to the
   advantage of both in their due circumstances. If, then, for any outward
   carnal respects, we shall conceal or discountenance this most necessary
   duty of following the inspirations of God, we shall efface the proper
   character of God's servants, who are said to be such as are led by the
   Spirit of God, [8] and that by the unction are taught in all things.
   [9] Again, if, on pretence of following inspirations and internal
   lights which cannot be so absolutely certain, we shall transgress the
   most evident certain commands of lawful superiors, which are,
   therefore, God's also, there would quickly follow an end of all order,
   peace, and government. What other means, therefore, is left to comply
   with both these, but to obey God both ways; that is, commanding most
   certainly when His will is revealed by superiors; and also very
   securely when, in other internal things, or which tend to perfection,
   without the least wrong, yea to the great advantage of superiors, He
   doth communicate His light and directions to us? So as that saying of
   the Apostles with which they silenced the whole Jewish Sanhedrim,
   namely, that God is rather to be obeyed than man, [10] commanding
   contrary to God, holds only when it can evidently be demonstrated (as
   the Apostles then did by miracles) that such a command did indeed come
   from God, or that the thing commanded by man is certainly unlawful.

   31. These things considered, in all reason we ought to be so far from
   being deterred from publishing such instructions as these, because
   forsooth the frantic spirits of this age do falsely make pretended
   inspirations the cause and ground of all the miseries and mischiefs of
   late happening in our nation, &c., that for this very reason and motive
   every one ought to publish such wholesome doctrines, the which are the
   only possible means to undeceive them. For what other way does there
   remain to convince them of their errors and seductions, dangerous to
   all mankind, but most certainly pernicious to their own souls? Shall we
   tell them that there are no inspirations at all? We shall, in so doing,
   betray the Christian religion. Shall we say, though there be
   inspirations, yet they are never to be marked, never obeyed nor
   complied withal? Besides the ridiculous falseness of the assertion,
   which will expose us to their most just contempt and hatred, they will
   overwhelm us with unanswerable texts of Scripture and passages from the
   holy fathers. What other thing then can be done, but that
   (acknowledging both that there are inspirations, and that we are
   obliged to correspond unto them) we should inform those unhappy souls
   how to dispose themselves so as to be out of danger of diabolical
   illusions, and to be in a capacity of receiving inspirations truly
   divine? As likewise with what caution and prudence, but withal with
   what fidelity, they ought to comply with them. But especially we ought
   to demonstrate and inculcate this fundamental verity, that the general
   and most certain precepts of humility, obedience, unity, and peace must
   never receive any prejudice by any pretended inspirations or
   illuminations; since those which are truly from God do establish and
   increase all these virtues; yea, that the external order, authority,
   and subordination established by God in His Church (by which alone it
   becomes one body, and not a monstrous heap of unlike, unproportionable
   members, fighting with and devouring one another) must be the rule by
   which to examine, and the judge to pronounce sentence for or against
   all manner of inspirations.

   32. Therefore, instead of a human fruitless policy of hiding such
   divine fundamental practical truths as these, let us sincerely,
   faithfully, and plentifully teach them. And though it can never be
   prevented but that the devil will suggest to proud, ambitious,
   covetous, or sensual spirits to draw poison from the most perfect
   doctrines of Catholic Faith, yet then at least he and they will be the
   less able to seduce well-meaning souls to join with them; yea, by God's
   grace and benediction upon His truth faithfully taught, they will lose
   many such already seduced, when all their pretended lights being
   confronted before the Sun of divine verity and holiness, will either
   vanish quite away, or manifestly discover themselves to be the
   sulphurous gloomy lights of such wandering falling stars as are
   mentioned by St. Jude, to whom the tempest of darkness is reserved for
   ever. [11]

   33. Oh, therefore, that it were God's blessed will that they would be
   persuaded to examine themselves and their instincts by such characters,
   such signs so manifestly Christian, holy, perfect, and secure as are
   here contained in this treatise, and accordingly judge of their and our
   inspirations! 1. In the first place, here the only proper disposition
   towards the receiving of supernatural irradiations from God's Holy
   Spirit is an abstraction of life, a sequestration from all businesses
   that concern others, and an attendance to God alone in the depth of the
   spirit; whereas their lights never come more frequently than when
   either being alone they yield to discontented, unquiet passions and
   murmurings about the behaviour and actions of others; or, when in close
   meetings and conspiracies, they vent such passions by invectives
   against the governors of the Church or State. 2. The lights here
   desired and prayed for are such as do expel all images of creatures,
   and do calm all manner of passions, to the end that the soul, being in
   a vacuity, may be more capable of receiving and entertaining God in the
   pure fund of the spirit. Whereas their lights fill them with all
   tumultuous disquieting images and phantasms concerning the supposed
   miscarriages of all others but themselves: and not only heighten their
   passions, but urge them to most terrible desolating effects. 3. The
   prayer here acknowledged to be the most effectual instrument to procure
   divine light is a pure, recollected, intime prayer of the spirit.
   Whereas the prayer they glory in is only an acquired ability and
   sleight to talk earnestly to God before others, and oft thereby to
   communicate their passions and discontents to their brethren. 4. Here
   are no new speculative verities or revelations of mysteries pretended:
   no private newly-found-out interpretations of Scripture bragged of.
   Whereas amongst them every day produces a new fancy, which must gather
   new company. 5. Here the established order of God's Church, and the
   unity essential thereto, is not prejudiced. Yea, the inspirations
   expected and obtained by pure internal prayer do more firmly and
   unalterably fix souls under this obedience, and to this order and
   unity; insomuch as whatsoever pretended lights do endanger the
   dissolving of unity, or do cross lawful authority, or shall be rejected
   by it, they are presently suspected and extinguished. Whereas those
   men's lights teach them nothing so much as to contemn and oppose all
   external authority, and to dissipate unity, dispersing the body of
   Christianity into innumerable sects and conventicles. 6. Our lights
   teach us to attend only to God and our own souls, and never to interest
   ourselves in any care or employment about others, till evidently God's
   inspirations force us, and external authority obliges us thereto.
   Whereas their lights render them incapable of solitude, and thrust them
   abroad to be reformers of others, being themselves impatient of all
   reformation and contradiction. 7. Our lights make us to fear and avoid
   all supereminence and judicature, all sensual pleasures, desires of
   wealth, honours, &c. Whereas their lights engage them violently and
   deeply in all these carnal and secular ways, and (for the attaining to
   these) in tumults, sedition, bloodshed, and war; in a word, in all
   manner of actions and designs most contrary to the spirit of
   Christianity. 8. And, lastly, our lights, if they should chance
   sometimes to be mistaken by us, no harm at all would accrue to others,
   and not any considerable prejudice to ourselves; because, as hath been
   said, the matters in which they direct us are in their nature
   indifferent, and are ordered only towards a more perfect loving of God,
   and withdrawing us from creatures. Whereas all the miseries, and almost
   all the disorders and enormous vices, of the nations are the effects of
   their misleading lights.

   34. Thus stands the case between Catholic inspirations and the
   pretended inspirations of sectaries. Such is that spirit of charity and
   peace, and so divine are the effects of it directing the minds of good,
   humble, obedient, and devout Catholics; and such is the spirit of
   disorder, revenge, wrath, rebellion, &c., and so dismal are the effects
   of that spirit wherewith self-opinionated, presumptuous, frantic
   sectaries are agitated! What resemblance, what agreement can there be
   between these two? This evil spirit, though it sacrilegiously usurps
   the name, yet it does not so much as counterfeit the operations of the
   Good One. Or if with the name it do sometimes seem to counterfeit some
   outward resemblances, and to some persons show demure looks, &c., yet
   the equivocation and hypocrisy is so gross and palpable that they must
   put out their eyes that perceive it not.

   35. Shall we, then, extinguish, and in some sort exorcise, the good
   Divine Spirit, for fear it should raise up the evil one with it? Or
   rather shall we not confidently assure ourselves that, upon the
   appearing of the Good One, the evil one will either vanish, or the
   hideousness of it will affright all from hearkening to it? Shall we
   forbid the sun to rise, because in some unclean, rotten marshes some
   fogs will arise with it? We may as well annul the Sacraments, forbid
   prayer, extinguish the Scriptures, &c.; for from all these the devil
   has maliciously taken advantage to pervert and damn thousands of souls.

   36. No doubt it is but that among those seduced and seducing people
   great numbers there are who, if they were charitably instructed in such
   ways of discerning spirits, they would be surprised and would start to
   see to what kinds of directors and guides they have unwaringly
   committed their souls. If such as these could be persuaded (and I
   beseech God they may), even whilst they are yet out of the Church, for
   a while to suspend the pursuance of their busy designs and reforming of
   others, and retiring themselves into solitude, would allow themselves
   the leisure to turn their eyes inward into their own spirits, and
   practise as well as they can the humble, self-renouncing, resigned way
   of spiritual prayer taught in this book, thereby to procure from God
   such lights as then may be trusted to, neither they nor we should ever
   repent that the publishing such doctrines as these gave them a happy
   occasion to do so.

   37. And what greater satisfaction can Catholics have in their ways! And
   what greater advantage can they have over all those that are out of the
   Church than this proof made good by universal experience, viz. that
   whosoever sincerely and constantly gives himself to the practice of
   such perfect prayer as is here taught, if he be already a Catholic, he
   will most certainly ever remain so; and if he be not yet in the Church,
   he will be afraid of remaining his own pastor and guide? For never did
   any Catholic that exercised spiritual prayer cease to be a Catholic
   till he first ceased so to pray. And the spirit of such prayer, in any
   perfection, never rested upon any soul that was out of the Catholic
   Church.

   38. And this, I suppose, may suffice not only to justify the truth and
   innocency of this our doctrine concerning divine inspirations, &c., but
   also the lawfulness, yea conveniency, yea even the necessity of
   publishing it to the world; and this for those very reasons wherewith
   others would deter us. For the objectors are afraid of the publication
   of it, lest frantic sectaries should think themselves justified in
   their pretences; and, on the contrary, I conceive the publication
   necessary, lest they should think themselves justified in their
   pretences, which, till they see how unlike to true divine lights and
   inspirations theirs are, they may have some show for. I do not intend,
   when I call it our doctrine, to appropriate it to any person or
   community; for it is the very same that hath in all ages been taught by
   all saints experienced in internal ways, as will be demonstrated by
   infinite testimonies ancient and modern, if God shall engage us to such
   a labour by the opposition of any one. True it is, that the pious and
   sublime Author of the treatises here abridged hath (doubtless by the
   guidance and assistance of a supernatural light) spent more thoughts
   about this subject, and taken more pains in encouraging well-minded
   souls to fit themselves for the receiving of such light, in
   distinguishing it from false lights, and in showing the blessed effects
   of it, &c., than perhaps any other author formerly did. And that is
   all. For the doctrine in substance is as old as Christianity itself,
   and cannot seem strange or new but only to such to whom in these days
   antiquity seemeth the greatest novelty.

   39. Having thus, by declaring the insufficiency of these objections
   against the publishing of the following instructions, opened the
   barriers to give this book a free scope to range abroad at liberty; and
   my only intention being (for God's glory) to benefit thy soul, dear
   reader; for as for the mean or sinister ends of gaining credit or
   esteem with others thereby, the ambition is so unworthy of my
   profession, and withal so poor and unreasonable, considering that I can
   appropriate nothing to myself but a little pains in transcribing and
   digesting another man's labours, that I cannot think myself liable to
   any suspicion with thee in that regard; therefore, to the end I may,
   according to the utmost of my ability, facilitate the receiving good to
   thy spirit hereby, though I have no more objections to answer, yet by
   conversing with certain pious and learned persons to whose perusal and
   judgment this book was presented. having found that some few passages
   in it were not so very clearly expressed, but that even an uninterested
   and dispassionate reader might, perhaps, stop a little at them, I
   thought it expedient to let thee, good reader, be acquainted what
   satisfaction I gave to them.

   40. One point that seemed to require explanation is that (1st treat. 2d
   sec. 2d chap.) where is treated of what care a spiritual disciple ought
   to take in the choice of a fit director. For to leave a matter of such
   importance to the election of an inexperienced, and perhaps young and
   ignorant, soul, seemed to them neither convenient nor prudent. Besides
   that in religious communities such a permission would be an infringing
   of all due order and submission to superiors. But hereto was replied:
   1. That religious persons were expressly excepted in the book; 2. and
   as for others, this very same advice was long since given by the Bishop
   of Geneva, Avila, &c. True it is, notwithstanding, that there may oft
   be found in the world many good devout souls that yet are not very
   capable of making a good choice. However, even such, as far as is
   allowed, ought to use their best endeavours, hoping that God will bless
   such their care for the advancement of their spirits. Notwithstanding
   such ought withal to take heed that from too nice a curiosity in
   choosing, there do not follow any disquiet in the families where they
   live, if several persons should be zealous each for a particular
   director; as St. Jerome chides a mother and a daughter that upon such
   an occasion separated from one another. Therefore in such a case a good
   soul that will prefer peace before contenting her mind may, of all
   others, rely upon God, assuring herself that He will in a special
   manner assist and conduct her, supplying all other wants. And
   particularly such an extraordinary divine assistance may be most
   confidently expected by well-disposed souls in religious communities,
   where such freedom of choosing is not permitted. For, as Rusbrochius
   saith, God will rather send an Angel from heaven than that such humble,
   obedient, and sincere souls relying upon Him shall want due helps.
   Therefore, such as forbear a solicitous searching after a director,
   either for the preventing inconveniences, or out of an humble, sincere
   apprehension of the danger of erring in the choice, or a religious
   regard to the prejudice it might cause in a community to peace and good
   order, &c., such may well hope that God will not permit them to be
   losers thereby. Yea, moreover, such as in the fore-named cases think
   they have a true occasion, and that they may justly do it for the
   quieting of their consciences, resolving of their doubts, &c., had need
   be very wary that they proceed sincerely, and that they really seek
   their spiritual profit, and not natural contentment. For, as our
   Venerable Father Baker in a certain place adviseth, it is not
   sufficient to any souls, that it is permitted by the laws of the Church
   at certain times to require a special director (upon a consideration of
   the expedience and necessity that some souls in some circumstances may
   have), but they are to consider whether their case have these
   circumstances, and whether they do truly make use of the said
   permission for the right end.

   41. A second point in the same chapter supposed to require explanation
   was that assertion, that a devout soul once set in a good and proper
   way of prayer, after she has made some progress in it, ought not to
   have recourse ordinarily to a director, but that she should practise
   the following of God's directions, &c. On the contrary, it was supposed
   that until a soul have made some considerable progress in the prayer of
   the will, she would not be subject to illusions, and, therefore, had
   thenceforward most need of advice from a prudent guide. But this
   difficulty is cleared towards the latter end of the third treatise,
   where it is taught that in the case and peril of illusion upon an
   opinion of some extraordinary illuminations, &c., it is necessary that
   souls, though never so much advanced, should distrust their own
   judgment, and never presume to add belief unto, and much less put in
   execution anything suggested by, any illuminations (true or pretended)
   without the advice and consent of superiors and directors. But, as for
   the ordinary practices of an internal life, as prayer and
   mortification, &c., it is very requisite that souls should be taught,
   as soon as may be, to quit an assiduous dependence on external guides,
   from whence would follow nothing but solicitudes, distractions, &c.
   There is a parallel advice, though in somewhat a different case in the
   3d treat. 4th sec., 3d chap. S:S: 36, 37, where, in a discourse
   concerning rapts and the like extraordinary favours, it is said of
   perfect souls that they may judge of those matters by their own
   supernatural light, &c., and that they are not so absolutely obliged to
   resign their judgments and wills to others as utterly to neglect their
   own proper call received from God, &c. By which words it is not meant
   that any souls, though never so perfect, should be exempted from the
   obligation of submission to superiors, judging or ordaining, concerning
   such divine favours; but only that such perfect souls need not so often
   have recourse for advice about such matters, but may proceed by that
   divine light communicated to them; whereas the imperfect ought neither
   to yield belief nor execution further than they have advice and order
   for. Now who would find fault with [1]St. Teresa, St. Catherine of
   Sienna, &c., if they should forbear consultations after every rapt of
   revelation, having formerly been sufficiently warranted by superiors,
   &c.?

   42. In consequence to the story of V. R. F. Balthasar Alvarez's account
   given of his prayer to his general (mentioned in the 3d treatise, 1st
   sect. 7th chap. at the end), where a relation is made of the general's
   orders, requiring all superiors to direct and assist the younger
   religious among them, so as that they might highly esteem and in their
   practice follow the manner of prayer most suitable to their institute,
   and prescribed in their exercises, I think myself obliged to acquaint
   thee, dear reader, that by two books published of late by two Rev.
   Fathers of the Society, and perused by me since the writing and
   printing of that passage, I find that the said orders of the general
   are not, at least of late, so rigidly interpreted as formerly they
   were.

   43. The authors of the said books written in French are R. F. Ant.
   Civora and R. F. Andr. Baiole, in which the whole doctrine of this
   book, especially concerning the excellency of affective prayer beyond
   discoursive, is most copiously and strongly asserted. Yea and moreover
   the instructions concerning the necessity of attending to and following
   divine inspirations, as likewise ways prescribed to distinguish them
   from false suggestions of the devil or corrupt nature, are so largely,
   clearly, and even in the very phrases of this book delivered by the
   former of the two in his book called Les Secrets de la Science des
   Saints (tr. iii. cap. ix. from p. 402 to p. 486), that, it not being
   credible that he had seen our V. F. A. Baker's writings, we may
   rationally infer that what he writes with such extraordinary exactness
   proceeded from a deep and experimental knowledge of these internal and
   secret paths of contemplation.

   44. So that no doubt there are many devout persons in the society who,
   not being engaged in many external employments, and enjoying
   consequently both a solitude and liberty of spirit greater perhaps than
   will be afforded in many communities by profession purely
   contemplative, do permit themselves to the divine conduct, and make
   wonderful progress in these divine ways.

   45. True indeed it is that the other author (F. Andr. Baiole) seems to
   maintain that the spiritual exercises, according to the intention of
   St. Ignatius, will, by practice, become a prayer of contemplation and
   mystic union, an assertion in which I have not yet found any to join
   with him. But, however, he shows in his book (styled La Vie Intarieure
   ) that he had a true notion of the prayer of mystic union. And that
   being so, he may freely enjoy the contentment of the former
   supposition.

   48. Besides these, there may possibly be other passages that thou also,
   devout reader, if thou hadst had the perusal before the impression,
   wouldst perhaps have given us occasion to explain or interpret more at
   large. If it prove so, all we can do is to refer them to thine own
   candour and charity, promising upon a re-impression all satisfaction
   possible; and in the mean time requesting that our own good intention
   and the judgment of our superiors and approvers may be our safeguard.
   Only one suit we make unto thee (most reasonable and just), which is,
   that thou wouldst not proceed to the censure of any passage till thou
   hast read the whole book. The same points and matters do occasionally
   come in several places, and it would have been too great a tiring of
   thee to repeat in every place all the circumstances and phrases
   necessary for explanation or prevention of suspicions and objections.
   If it be for thine own good principally that thou art a reader, we
   shall stand in little need of preparing thee with apologies. And if it
   be for our hurt that thou art a reader, we thank God we are not guilty
   of the least ill design to make us fear, except only in thy behalf. All
   that we have to say is, God Almighty make thee (whosoever thou art) a
   practiser of the good that thou wilt certainly find in the following
   treatises; and then we shall have no cause to apprehend either for thee
   or ourselves.

   47. Thus, truly, for aught appears to me, devout reader, thou mayest
   freely, and without the least apprehension of any danger, peruse and
   make thy best benefit of these following instructions; the which,
   moreover, as thou seest, have passed the censure and deserved the
   approbations of several pious and learned persons. Whatever opinion
   thou shalt, after reading, have of them, at least I will oblige thee to
   acknowledge that here (in the treatises that follow) is no manner of
   covert indirect meaning or design (according to the fashion nowadays)
   to broach any bold new-fangled inventions, and much less of maintaining
   unduly what shall be duly found fault with, since they are exposed to
   the common view by one that (as he hitherto hath so) here he doth (and
   by God's grace ever will) submit himself and his writings to the
   authority and judgment of the See Apostolic in the first place, and
   next to all other his superiors. This I profess, as is the duty of an
   humble, obedient son of the Church. And this, if I did not moreover
   expressly signify with reference to the doctrines contained in the
   following treatises, I could not avoid some degree of guilt and
   imputation of not delivering candidly and faithfully our Venerable
   Author's sense, who in many places protesteth the like submission of
   all his writings to all lawful authority whatsoever.

   Farewell, dear reader. Oremus invicem, ut salvemur. AMEN
     __________________________________________________________________

   [6] Father Cressy here refers to Father Castaniza, a Spanish
   Benedictine, author of the Spiritual Conflict, which was the basis of
   that well known and most valuable work, the Spiritual Combat, drawn up
   by Father Scupoli, a Theatine. In addition to the Spiritual Conflict,
   Father Castaniza wrote five treatises entitled the Spiritual Conquest.
   This is a work of instructions for contemplatives. The fifth treatise
   contains the choicest Maxims of Mystical Divinity,' here also referred
   to. He died about the year 1599. Ziegelbauer says, claruit ad annum
   1599.' This work has been recently edited by Canon Vaughan,
   O.S.B.--J.N.S.

   [7] Ps. xxxiii. 6.

   [8] Rom. viii. 14.

   [9] 1 John ii. 27.

   [10] Acts iv. 19.

   [11] Jude 13.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

THE FIRST TREATISE AND THE FIRST SECTION

  OF A CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE IN GENERAL. THE NATURE AND END
  THEREOF, AND GENERAL DISPOSITION REQUIRED THERETO.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER I.

   S:S: 1-3. Continual union in spirit with God the end of man's creation,
   and practised by Adam in innocence.

   S:S: 4. 5. Man's fall and misery through sin.

   S:S: 6, 7. Which is transfused into us and all his posterity.

   S:S: 8, 9. The reparation of mankind by Christ.

   S:S: 10, 11. That all Christians are obliged to aspire to perfection in
   divine love by the ways of prayer, &c., as Adam did.

   1. It was only infinite goodness that moved Almighty God to create the
   world of nothing, and particularly in this inferior visible world, to
   create man after His own image and similitude, consisting of a frail
   earthly body, which is the prison of an immortal, intellectual spirit,
   to the end that by his understanding, which is capable of an unlimited
   knowledge, and by his will, which cannot be replenished with any object
   of goodness less than infinite, he might so govern and order himself,
   and all other visible creatures, as thereby to arrive unto the end for
   which he was made, to wit, eternal beatitude both in soul and body in
   heaven, the which consists in a returning to the divine principle from
   whom he flowed, and an inconceivably happy union with Him, both in
   mind, contemplating eternally His infinite perfections, and in will and
   affections eternally loving, admiring, and enjoying the said
   perfections.

   2. Now to the end that man might not (except by his own free and
   willful choice of misery) fail from attaining to the only universal end
   of his creation, God was pleased to the natural vast capacity of man's
   understanding and will to add a supernatural light, illustrating his
   mind to believe and know Him, and divine charity in the will, which was
   as it were a weight to incline and draw the soul, without any defect or
   interruption to love God, and Him only. So that by a continual presence
   of this light, and an uninterrupted exercise of this love, the soul of
   man would in time have attained to such a measure of perfection of
   union with God in this world, as without dying to merit a translation
   from hence to heaven, there eternally to enjoy a far more
   incomprehensibly perfect and beatifying union with God.

   3. Hence it appears that the means to happiness, and the end itself,
   are essentially the same thing, to wit, union of the spirit with God,
   and differ only in degrees. And the union which Adam during his state
   of innocence did and would always have practised was in a sort
   perpetual, never being interrupted (except perhaps in sleep). For,
   loving God only and purely for Himself, he had no strange affection to
   distract him, and the images of creatures, which either by his
   consideration of them, or operations about them, did adhere to his
   internal senses, did not at all divert his mind from God, because he
   contemplated them only in order to God; or rather he contemplated God
   alone in them, loving and serving Him only in all his reflections on
   them, or workings about them. So that creatures and all offices towards
   them served as steps to raise Adam to a more sublime and more intimate
   union with God; the which was both his duty and his present happiness,
   besides that it was a disposition to his future eternal beatitude.

   4. But our first parents by a willful contempt and transgression of
   that one most easy command, which God for a trial of their obedience
   had imposed on them, not only broke the foresaid union, and deprived
   themselves of the hope of enjoying God eternally in the future life,
   but moreover were utterly divested of all supernatural graces, and
   extremely weakened and disordered in all their natural gifts. So that
   having lost that divine light, by which their understandings had been
   illustrated, and that divine love by which their wills and affections
   adhered continually to God, they were rendered incapable either of
   contemplating God (except only as a severe judge and avenger), or
   consequently of affording Him any degree of love. On the contrary, both
   their minds and affections were only employed on themselves, or on
   creatures, for their own natural, carnal interests or pleasure; and
   this with such a violent obstinacy and firmness, that it was impossible
   for them by any force left in corrupt nature to raise their love
   towards God, being once so impetuously precipitated from Him towards
   themselves.

   5. All these miserable depravations having been caused in all the
   powers and faculties of their souls by the forbidden fruit, the which
   utterly and irreparably disordered that most healthful, exact temper of
   their bodily constitutions; insomuch as the spirits and humours, &c.,
   which before did nothing at all hinder their exercisings and operations
   towards God, but did much promote them, now did wholly dispose them to
   love and seek themselves only, with an utter aversion from God, and the
   accomplishing of His divine will; and all circumstant creatures,
   instead of being steps to raise them towards God, on the contrary more
   and more seduced their affections from Him, and raised all other
   inordinate passions displeasing to Him. Hereby in lieu of that
   peaceable and happy condition which they before enjoyed in this world
   by a continual union with God (the which was to be perfected eternally
   in the world to come), they became disquieted, distracted, and even
   torn asunder with a multitude of passions and designs, oft contrary to
   one another, but all of them much more opposite to God; so that by
   falling from unity to a miserable multiplicity, and from peace to an
   endless war, they were therein captived by the devil, readily yielding
   to all his suggestions, hateful to and hating God, and so contracted
   not only an unavoidable necessity of a corporal death, but also the
   guilt and right to an eternal separation from God after death in that
   lake of fire and brimstone burning for ever, and prepared for the devil
   and his angels.

   6. Now the whole stock of human nature being thus totally and
   universally depraved in our first parents, it could not by any possible
   natural means be avoided, but that all their posterity should be
   equally infected and poisoned with all these disorders, all which were
   increased and daily heightened by ill education and actual
   transgressions. And consequently the same guilt both of temporal and
   eternal death was withal transfused upon them.

   7. But Almighty God, the Father of mercies, pitying His own creatures
   thus ingulfed in utter misery by the fault of Adam, seduced by his and
   our common enemy, did in His most unspeakable mercy, freely and
   unasked, provide and ordain His own coeternal Son to be a Saviour unto
   mankind; who by His most bitter sufferings and death redeemed us from
   the guilt of eternal death; and by His glorious life and resurrection,
   having obtained a power of sending the Holy Ghost (communicated to us
   in His word and sacraments, &c.), He hath rectified all these
   disorders, shedding forth a new heavenly light to cure the blindness of
   our understandings, and divine charity in our hearts, the which abateth
   that inordinate self-love formerly reigning in us, and hereby He
   reinstates us (cooeperating with His divine grace, and persevering
   therein) to a new right unto eternal happiness, (perhaps) more sublime
   than man in innocency was destined to.

   8. Notwithstanding, it was not the good will and pleasure of God by
   this reparation to restore us to the same state of perfect holiness
   wherein Adam lived in paradise. And this we ought to ascribe to His
   infinite wisdom, and also to His unspeakable goodness towards us; for
   certainly, if we had been once more left, as Adam was, in the free
   power of our own wills, that is, in so casual an estate as Adam was,
   and assisted and fortified with no stronger an aid than the primitive
   grace, we should again have irreparably forfeited all our happiness,
   and plunged ourselves far more deeply in endless misery.

   9. Therefore, Almighty God thought fit for our humiliation, and to keep
   us in continual vigilance and fear, as also thereby daily to refresh
   the memory of our primitive guilt, and our thankfulness for His
   inestimable goodness, to leave us in a necessity of incurring temporal
   death, which we are not now to look on as a punishment of sin, so much
   as a freedom from sin, and a gate and entrance to eternal glory.
   Moreover, though by His grace He hath abolished the guilt of original
   sin, yet He hath suffered still to remain in us many bitter effects of
   it, the which shall never in this life be so wholly extinguished by
   grace, or our holy endeavours, but that some degrees of ignorance and
   inclinations to that pernicious love of ourselves will remain in us; by
   which means we are preserved from our greatest enemy, pride, and also
   forced to a continual watchfulness and combat against ourselves, and
   our spiritual enemies; always distrusting ourselves and relying upon
   the medicinal omnipotent regenerating grace of Christ, far more helpful
   to us than the grace of innocency was, in that it not only more
   powerfully inclines our wills and conquers the actual resistance of
   them, by making them freely cooeperate with it, whensoever they do
   cooeperate (for it takes not away our liberty to resist), but likewise
   after it hath been weakened by venial sins, and extinguished by mortal,
   it is again and again renewed by the means of the sacraments and
   prayer, &c.

   10. Our duty therefore in our present state, and the employment of our
   whole lives, must be constantly and fervently to cooeperate with divine
   grace, thereby endeavouring not only to get victory over self-love,
   pride, sensuality, &c., by humility, divine love, and all other
   virtues; but also not to content ourselves with any limited degrees of
   piety and holiness, but daily to aspire, according to our abilities
   assisted with grace by the same ways to the same perfection for which
   we were first created, and which was practised by Adam in innocence; to
   wit, an utter extinguishing of self-love and all affection to
   creatures, except in order to God, and as they may be instrumental to
   beget and increase divine love in us; and a continual uninterrupted
   union in spirit with God, by faith contemplating Him, and by love ever
   adhering to Him.

   11. This, I say, is the duty and indispensable obligation of all
   Christians, of what condition soever, not only seriously to aspire to
   the divine love, but also to the perfection thereof suitably to their
   several states and vocations, for it is morally impossible for a soul
   to love God, as He ought to be loved (that is, as the only object of
   her love, and as the only universal end of her being and life, for the
   procuring of an inseparable union with whom and for no other reason the
   use and comfort of creatures was permitted and given to her), I say, it
   is morally impossible for such a soul so loving God deliberately and
   habitually to yield to the love of anything but God only, and in order
   to Him; or to stop in any inferior degree of love to Him. The frailty
   of nature and many unavoidable distractions and temptations may and
   generally do hinder most souls from attaining or even approaching to
   such perfection, to such uninterrupted attention and union with God, as
   was practised by Adam in innocency, and by a few perfect souls in all
   ages; but nothing but the want of true sincere love will hinder the
   aspiring thereto, according to the measure and strength of grace that
   each soul in her order enjoys. And both reason and experience witness
   this truth in all manner of loves, lawful or unlawful; for we see that
   wheresoever the love to riches, honour, empire, or pleasure is the
   tyrannising affection, so as to cause the person to place his supposed
   happiness in any of these, such persons neither will nor can, being so
   disposed, willfully surcease a continual progress in pursuing their
   designs endlessly; neither can they admit an habitual and deliberate
   adherence with affection to any other object, though (not ruinous, but)
   in an inferior degree prejudicial to what they principally affect.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER II.

   S: 1. Commonly those only are said to aspire to perfection that
   consecrate themselves to God.

   S: 2. A natural devotion and propension to seek God, of which the
   degrees are infinitely various.

   S:S: 3, 4, 5. Yet all ranged under two states--Active and
   Contemplative.

   S:S: 6, 7. Generally most souls are of a mixed temper between both;
   hence comes the difficulty of the guiding of souls.

   S: 8. At the first entrance into internal ways all souls seem to be of
   an Active temper.

   1. Notwithstanding although all Christians are obliged to aspire to
   perfection, and to lead spiritual lives, sanctifying all their actions
   and employments by prayer, yet the effectual practice of this
   obligation is so very rare that in ordinary speech those only are said
   to aspire unto perfection who have been so highly favoured by God, as
   to have been called by Him from all solicitous engagement in worldly
   affairs, so as to make the only business and employment of their lives
   to be the serving, adoring, loving, meditating, and praying unto God,
   the attending to and following His divine inspirations, &c., in a state
   of competent abstraction and solitude; and this most ordinarily and
   perfectly in a religious profession, or if in the world, yet in a
   course of life divided and separated from the world.

   2. There seems indeed to remain even naturally in all souls a certain
   propension to seek God (though not at all for Himself, but merely for
   the satisfaction of nature, and self-ends), which is a kind of natural
   devotion, and is to be found even in heretics, yea, Jews and heathens;
   and this more or less according to their several dispositions and
   corporal complexions, the variety of which is wonderful and almost
   incredible. Now when divine grace adjoins itself to such good
   propensions, it promotes and increases them, rectifying what is amiss
   in them, especially by purifying the intention and making them to seek
   God only for God himself, and no unworthy inferior ends of nature; but
   it doth not at all alter the complexion itself, but conducts souls in
   spiritual ways suitably to their several dispositions by an almost
   infinite variety of paths and fashions, yet all tending to the same
   general end, which is the union of our spirits with God by perfect
   love.

   3. Notwithstanding all these varieties of dispositions and ways (of
   which we shall treat more fully when we come to speak of internal
   prayer) may commodiously enough be reduced in gross to two ranks, to
   wit, Active and Contemplative spirits: both which aspire to a
   perfection of union in spirit with God by perfect love; and for that
   purpose in gross practice make use of the same means necessary to that
   end, to wit, mortification and prayer. But yet the manner both of their
   union and prayer, and consequently of their mortification also is very
   different; and the root of such difference is the forementioned variety
   of propensions and natural dispositions to internal ways.

   4. For, first, the propension which is in some souls to devotion is of
   such a nature that it inclines them much to busy their imagination and
   to frame in their minds motives to the divine love by internal
   discourse, so as that without such reasoning and use of images they can
   seldom with any efficacy raise or fix their affections on God. Such
   dispositions are not patient of much solitude or recollection more than
   shall be necessary to enable them to produce and maintain a right
   intention in outward doings and works of charity, to the which they are
   powerfully inclined; and the mortifications most willingly practised by
   them are usually external, and oftentimes voluntarily assumed, the
   which make a great show and procure very great esteem from others. And
   proportionably hereto the divine love and union produced by such means
   is very vigorous, but less pure and spiritual, apt to express itself by
   much sensible devotion and tenderness. The state therefore and
   perfection of these souls is called the state and perfection of an
   Active life.

   5. Again, others are naturally of a propension to seek God in the
   obscurity of faith, with a more profound introversion of spirit, and
   with less activity and motion in sensitive nature, and without the use
   of grosser images, yet with far greater simplicity, purity, and
   efficacy. And consequently such souls are not of themselves much
   inclined to external works (except when God calls them thereto by
   secret inspirations, or engages them therein by command of superiors),
   but they seek rather to purify themselves and inflame their hearts in
   the love of God by internal, quiet, and pure actuations in spirit, by a
   total abstraction from creatures, by solitude, both external and
   especially internal, so disposing themselves to receive the influxes
   and inspirations of God, whose guidance chiefly they endeavour to
   follow in all things. And the mortifications practised by them, though
   less remarkable, yet are far more efficacious, being profound and
   penetrating even to the most secret deordinations of the spirit. By a
   constant pursuance of such exercises, their spirits becoming naked and
   empty of all strange affections, images, and distractions, the Divine
   Spirit only lives and operates in them, affording them light to
   perceive and strength to subdue self-love in its most secret and, to
   all others, imperceptible insinuations; and by consequence they attain
   unto an union with God far more strict and immediate than the former,
   by a love much more masculine, pure, and divine. And the state and
   perfection of these happy souls is called the state and perfection of a
   Contemplative life.

   6. Now, though all internal dispositions of souls (by which mankind is
   more diversified than by outward features) may conveniently enough be
   ranged under these two states, yet we are not to conceive that each
   soul is by its temper entirely and absolutely either contemplative or
   active; for, on the contrary, the most part are of a disposition mixed
   between both, and partaking somewhat, more or less, of each. But they
   receive the denomination from that whereto the propension is more
   strong.

   7. And from hence comes that great difficulty that there is in the
   conducting and managing of souls in these internal ways; for each
   several disposition must be put in a way suitable to the spirit of the
   party, otherwise small progress can be expected. Now, that wherein the
   diversity of spirits is principally discerned is their prayer. If
   therefore an active spirit should be obliged to that internal solitude,
   to that quiet affective prayer of the heart alone which is proper to
   contemplative souls; or if a contemplative spirit should be too long
   detained or fettered with the rules and busy methods of discursive
   meditation (which is a prayer chiefly of the head or imagination); or,
   lastly, if a spirit of a mixed disposition should be strictly confined
   to either of these sorts of prayer and not allowed to practise them
   interchangeably according as she finds profitable to her present temper
   of mind, &c., they would entangle themselves with insuperable
   difficulties, scrupulosities, and unsatisfaction, and be so far from
   any considerable advancement, that they would be in danger of giving
   over all thought of seeking God internally.

   8. Notwithstanding, although the propensions of some souls to internal
   operations of the spirit, and consequently to contemplation, were never
   so strong, yet at their first entrance into a spiritual course they
   will, ordinarily speaking, seem to be of an active, extroverted temper,
   and consequently will not be capable of a long-continued rigorous
   solitude, nor of operations purely spiritual. They will therefore be
   forced to begin with exercises of the imagination and discursive
   prayer. And the reason is, because by their former secular, negligent,
   and extroverted life, their mind is so filled and painted all over with
   the images of creatures, and their hearts so disordered and divided
   with inordinate affections and passions, that the will alone, with its
   actuations, purposes, and resolutions, has not power to expel the said
   images and to assuage the said passions; so that there is a necessity
   by meditation and consideration, of introducing good images to expel
   the vain and bad ones, and of inventing motives to quiet passions by
   diverting them upon God. But this being once done by the exercises
   proper to an active life (which to such souls will not need to last
   long), they thenceforwards are to betake themselves, and always to
   continue in such internal exercises as are suitable to their natural
   propensions, to wit, the quiet, solitary, spiritual exercises of a
   contemplative life.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER III.

   S: 1. The contemplative state more perfect.

   S: 2. And also more easy and secure.

   S: 3. Of which yet the most simple and ignorant are capable.

   S:S: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The end of a contemplative life
   supereminently excellent above that of the active, and the union with
   God more Divine.

   S: 11. Of passive unions therein, yet more supernatural.

   1. Of these two states, the contemplative is by all acknowledged to be
   the more sublime and perfect, inasmuch as the operations and exercises
   of it are more spiritual, more abstracted from the body and its sensual
   faculties, and consequently more angelical and divine. It is
   represented to us by our Lord in the person of Mary, who is therefore
   said to have chosen the best part, which shall never be taken from her,
   being the beginning and imperfect practice of that which shall be our
   eternal employment and beatitude in heaven. As on the other side the
   active life is typified by the other sister Martha, who turmoiled
   herself with many exterior businesses and solicitudes, which though
   they were in themselves good and laudable, yet Mary's vacancy and
   inward attention to our Lord is much preferred.

   2. And as the contemplative state is of the two the more perfect, so
   also is it far more easy, more simple, and more secure from all errors
   and illusions which may be occasioned by an indiscreet use of prayer.
   And the reason or ground of such security is evident, because a
   contemplative soul tending to God and working almost only with the
   heart and blind affections of the will pouring themselves upon God
   apprehended only in the obscure notion of faith, not inquiring what He
   is, but believing Him to be that incomprehensible Being which He is,
   and which can only be comprehended by Himself, rejecting and striving
   to forget all images and representations of Him, or anything else; yea,
   transcending all operations of the imagination, and all subtlety and
   curiosity of reasoning; and lastly, seeking an union with God only by
   the most pure and most intime affections of the spirit: what
   possibility of illusion or error can there be to such a soul? For if
   the devil should suggest an image (which is his only means and way to
   seduce a soul to error and a sinful curiosity of knowledge), she is
   taught and exercised to reject all manner of images, and to hold the
   internal senses almost wholly vacant during her spiritual actuations.
   Or, if by stirring up unclean or other unlawful affections in sensitive
   nature, he seek to assault her, what more secure remedy is there than
   with the whole bent and affections of the soul to adhere and be united
   to God, neglecting and scarce marking whatsoever disorders may
   unwillingly happen in inferior nature, above which she is exalted into
   a region of light and peace?

   3. Now, for a further proof of the excellency and security of
   contemplative prayer beyond active, experience demonstrates that all
   the most sublime exercises of contemplation may as purely and perfectly
   be performed by persons the most ignorant and unlearned (so they be
   sufficiently instructed in the fundamental doctrines of Catholic faith)
   as by the learnedst doctors, inasmuch as not any abilities in the brain
   are requisite thereto, but only a strong courageous affection of the
   heart. Hence it is that we see that simple unlearned women are more
   frequently graced by Almighty God with the gift of high contemplation
   than men, and especially such men as are much given to sublime
   speculations. A reason whereof may be (besides that God reveals Himself
   more willingly to humble and simple minds) because by means of that
   tenderness and compassionateness which abounds naturally in women, they
   are disposed to a greater fervour in charity, and their affections
   being once fixed on their only proper object, which is God, they do
   more vigorously and firmly adhere thereunto, and by consequence arrive
   both more easily and quickly to the perfection of contemplation, which
   consists (as shall hereafter be shown) in the fervour and constancy of
   the will united to God, and scarce at all in the operations of the
   understanding.

   Now this present treatise being intended only for encouraging and
   instructing of persons that aspire to perfection in a contemplative
   life, and more especially for the discovering of the several degrees of
   prayer proper for that state, reason requires that, since in all
   doctrines which tend to practice the end is principally to be regarded
   as being that which, if it can be approved worthy the taking pains for,
   will give life and courage in the use of the means conducing thereto,
   we should treat more precisely of the proper end of a contemplative
   life, the which indeed is of so supreme an excellence and divine
   profection above anything that can be designed or sought after in any
   other doctrine or profession, that those who have eyes to see it and
   palates capable of a spiritual tasting of it, will think no
   difficulties, no tediousnesses, no bitternesses or labours too great a
   price to purchase it.

   4. It was said before that the general end of man's creation, and which
   ought to be aspired unto by all Christians, and much more those whose
   more special profession is to tend to perfection, whether in an active
   or a contemplative state, is a perfect and constant union in spirit to
   God by love, which is uninterrupted perfect prayer. But the same end is
   differently sought and attained by active and by contemplative spirits;
   for in an active life the union is not so immediate, stable, sublime,
   and intime of the supreme portion of the spirit with God, as it is in a
   contemplative state. But as the exercises of the active livers are much
   in the imaginative and discursive faculties of the soul, so is likewise
   their union. The effects indeed of it are more perceptible, and
   therefore more apt to cause admiration in others; but withal, being
   much in sense, it is not so clear nor so peaceful, and by consequence
   not so stable nor immediate as is that of contemplatives. The charity
   of actives is strong and vigorous, and the outward effects of it
   dazzling the eyes of the beholders, and thereby causing great
   edification; they are withal frequently multiplied, for strong love is
   a passion that takes pleasure in labours. Whereas the deeds of
   contemplative souls (except when God by an extraordinary inspiration
   calls them to exterior employments) are but few, and in appearance but
   small, and little regarded or esteemed by others. Yet those mean
   actions of theirs in God's esteem may be preferred incomparably before
   the others, as being in a far more perfect degree supernatural and
   divine, as proceeding from an immediate and most certain impulse of
   God's Holy Spirit, whose conduct, light, and virtue such souls do far
   more clearly perceive, and more faithfully and constantly follow, even
   in their daily and ordinary practices, than active livers do or can in
   their actions of highest importance. Lastly, the charity of
   contemplatives, though it be less stirring and busy, yet is far more
   profoundly rooted in the centre of the spirit, causing an union much
   more spiritual and divine.

   5. [2]St. Bernard, perfectly experienced in the internal ways of a
   contemplative life, writing to certain religious Fathers of the
   Carthusian Order, professing the same, excellently expresses this union
   in these words: Aliorum est Deo servire; vestrum adhaerere. Aliorum est
   Deo credere, scire, amare, revereri; vestrum est sapere, intelligere,
   cognoscere, frui; that is, It is the duty of others (that live active
   lives either in the world or religion) to serve God; but it is yours to
   adhere inseparably unto Him. It belongs to others to believe, to know,
   to love, to adore God; but to you to taste, to understand, to be
   familiarly acquainted with, and to enjoy Him.

   6. Constantly to this expression of [3]St. Bernard, mystic writers do
   teach that the proper end of a contemplative life is the attaining unto
   an habitual and almost uninterrupted perfect union with God in the
   supreme point of the spirit; and such an union as gives the soul a
   fruitive possession of Him, and a real experimental perception of His
   divine presence in the depth and centre of the spirit, which is fully
   possessed and filled with Him alone; not only all deliberate affections
   to creatures being excluded, but in a manner all images of them also,
   at least so far as they may be distractive to the soul.

   7. The effects of this blessed, perceptible presence of God in perfect
   souls are unspeakable and divine; for He is in them both as a principle
   of all their actions internal and external, being the life of their
   life and spirit of their spirits; and also as the end of them,
   directing both the actions and persons to Himself only. He is all in
   all things unto them: a light to direct securely all their steps, and
   to order all their workings, even those also which seem the most
   indifferent, the which by the guidance of God's Holy Spirit do cause a
   farther advancement of them to a yet more immediate union. He is a
   shield to protect them in all temptations and dangers, an internal
   force and vigour within them, to make them do and suffer all things
   whatsoever His pleasure is they should do or suffer. They not only
   believe and know, but even feel and taste Him to be the universal,
   infinite Good. By means of a continual conversation with Him they are
   reduced to a blessed state of a perfect denudation of spirit, to an
   absolute, internal solitude, a transcendancy and forgetfulness of all
   created things, and especially of themselves, to an heavenly-mindedness
   and fixed attention to God only, and this even in the midst of
   employments to others never so distractive; and finally, to a gustful
   knowledge of all His infinite perfections, and a strict application of
   their spirits by love above knowledge, joined with a fruition and
   repose in Him with the whole extent of their wills; so that they become
   after an inexpressible manner partakers of the divine nature; yea, one
   spirit, one will, one love with Him, being in a sort deified, and
   enjoying as much of heaven here as mortality is capable of.

   8. To this purpose saith the same [4]St. Bernard: Amor Dei, vel amor
   Deus, Spiritus Sanctus amori hominis se infundens, afficit eum sibi, et
   amans semetipsum de homine Deus, secum unum efficit et spiritum ejus,
   et amorem ejus; that is, The love of God, or love which is God, to wit,
   the Holy Ghost pouring himself into the love of man (inclineth and)
   applieth man by love unto Himself; and thus God, loving Himself by man,
   maketh both his spirit and love one with Himself.

   9. A most blessed state this is certainly, being the portion chosen by
   Mary, which our Lord Himself calls optimam partem, the very best of all
   divine graces which God can bestow in this life; and wherewith He
   enriched in a singular manner those His two most highly favoured and
   most tenderly loved friends, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Mary
   Magdalen; but in a yet more supereminent degree His own most heavenly
   Virgin-Mother.

   10. Happy, therefore, are those souls upon which God bestows a desire
   and ambition so glorious as seriously and effectually to tend, aspire,
   and endeavour the compassing a design so heavenly: qualifying them not
   only with good natural propensions to those internal ways of love
   leading to this end, but also calling them to a state of life
   abstracted from the world, the vanities and solicitudes of it; and with
   all supernatural light to direct them in the secret paths of this love;
   and lastly, strong resolutions, and perseverance with courage to break
   through all discouragements, difficulties, persecutions, aridities, and
   whatsoever oppositions shall be made against them either from
   concupiscence within, or the world without, or the devil joining with
   both against a design of all others most hurtful to him and most
   destructive to his pretensions.

   11. And for a yet further and greater encouragement unto them to
   embrace and prosecute so glorious a design, they may take notice that,
   besides this (hitherto described) happy union of a contemplative soul
   with God by perfect charity, in the which the soul herself actively
   concurs, not only as to the fruition, but also in the disposing herself
   immediately thereto, there are other unions entirely supernatural, not
   at all procured, or so much as intended by the soul herself, but
   graciously and freely conferred by God upon some souls, in the which
   He, after a wonderful and inconceivable manner, affords them interior
   illuminations and touches, yet far more efficacious and divine: in all
   which the soul is a mere patient, and only suffers God to work His
   divine pleasure in her, being neither able to further nor hinder it;
   the which unions, though they last but even as it were a moment of
   time, yet do more illuminate and purify the soul than many years spent
   in active exercises of spiritual prayer or mortification could do.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER IV.

   S:S: 1, 2, 3, 4. A strong resolution necessary in the beginning.

   S:S: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Considering first the length and tediousness of the
   way to perfection in mortification,

   S:S: 10, 11. And also many degrees of prayer to be passed,

   S: 12. Therefore it is seldom attained, and not till a declining age,

   S: 13. Except by God's extraordinary favour to a few.

   S: 14. Yet old and young ought to enter into the way.

   S: 15. A motive to resolution are the difficulties in the way

   S:S: 16 &c. And those both from without and within.

   1. The end of a contemplative life, therefore, being so supereminently
   noble and divine that beatified souls do prosecute the same, and no
   other, in heaven, with this only difference, that the same beatifying
   object which is now obscurely seen by faith and imperfectly embraced by
   love shall hereafter be seen clearly and perfectly enjoyed, the primary
   and most general duty required in souls which by God's vocation do walk
   in the ways of the spirit, is to admire, love, and long after this
   union, and to fix an immovable resolution through God's grace and
   assistance to attempt and persevere in the prosecution of so glorious a
   design, in despite of all opposition, through light and darkness,
   through consolations and desolations, &c., as esteeming it to be
   cheaply purchased, though with the loss of all comforts that nature can
   find or expect in creatures.

   2. The fixing of such a courageous resolution is of so main importance
   and necessity that if it should happen to fail or yield to any, though
   the fiercest temptations, that may occur and are to be expected, so as
   not to be reassumed, the whole design will be ruined; and therefore
   devout souls are oftentimes to renew such a resolution, and especially
   when any difficulty presents itself; and for that purpose they will oft
   be put in mind thereof in these following instructions.

   3. It is not to be esteemed loftiness, presumption, or pride to tend to
   so sublime an end; but it is a good and laudable ambition, and most
   acceptable to God; yea, the root of it is true, solid humility joined
   with the love of God; for it proceeds from a vile esteem and some
   degrees of a holy hatred of ourselves, from whom we desire to fly; and
   a just esteem, obedience, and love of God, to whom only we desire to
   adhere and be inseparably united.

   4. Happy, therefore, is the soul that finds in herself an habitual
   thirst and longing after this union, if she will seek to assuage it by
   continual approaches to this Fountain of living waters, labouring
   thereto with daily external and internal workings. The very tendence to
   this union, in which our whole essential happiness consists, has in it
   some degrees of happiness, and is an imperfect union, disposing to a
   perfect one; for by such internal tendence and aspiring we get by
   little and little out of nature into God. And that without such an
   interior tendence and desire no exterior sufferances or observances
   will imprint any true virtue in the soul, or bring her nearer to God,
   we see in the example of Suso, who for the first five years of a
   religious profession found no satisfaction in soul at all,
   notwithstanding all his care and exactness in exterior regular
   observances and mortifications: he perceived plainly that still he
   wanted something, but what that was he could not tell, till God was
   pleased to discover it to him, and put him in the way to attain to his
   desire, which was in spirit to tend continually to this union, without
   which all his austerities and observances served little or nothing, as
   proceeding principally from self-love, self-judgment, and the
   satisfying of nature even by crossing it.

   Let nothing, therefore, deter a well-minded soul from persevering with
   fervour in this firm resolution. No, not the sight of her daily
   defects, imperfections, or sins, or remorses for them; but rather let
   her increase in courage even from her falls, and from the experience of
   her own impotency let her be incited to run more earnestly and adhere
   more firmly unto God, by whom she will be enabled to do all things and
   conquer all resistances.

   5. Now to the end that all sincerity may be used in the delivery of
   these instructions, and that all vain compliance and flattery may be
   avoided, the devout soul is to be informed that the way to perfection
   is, 1. both a very long, tedious way; and, 2. withal there are to be
   expected in it many grievous, painful, and bitter temptations and
   crosses to corrupt nature; as being a way that wholly and universally
   contradicts and destroys all the vain eases, contentments, interests,
   and designs of nature, teaching a soul to die unto self-love,
   self-judgment, and all propriety, and to raise herself out of nature,
   seeking to live in a region exalted above nature: to wit, the region of
   the spirit; into which being once come, she will find nothing but light
   and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. The which difficulties considered,
   instead of being discouraged, she will, if she be truly touched with
   God's Spirit, rather increase her fervour and courage to pursue a
   design so noble and divine, for which alone she was created;
   especially, 3. considering the infinite danger of a negligent, tepid,
   and spiritually slothful life, and likewise the security and benefit of
   being but truly in the way to perfection, though she should never
   attain to it in this life.

   6. First, therefore, to demonstrate that the way to perfection must
   needs be long and tedious, even to souls well-disposed thereto both by
   nature and education (for to others it is a way unpassable without
   extreme difficulty), this will easily be acknowledged by any
   well-minded soul that by her own experience will consider how
   obstinate, inflexible, and of how gluey and tenacious a nature corrupt
   self-love is in her; how long a time must pass before she can subdue
   any one habitual ill inclination and affection in herself. What
   fallings and risings again there are in our passions and corrupt
   desires, insomuch as when they seem to be quite mortified and almost
   forgotten, they will again raise themselves and combat us with as great
   or perhaps greater violence than before. Now till the poisonous root of
   self-love be withered, so as that we do not knowingly and deliberately
   suffer it to spring forth and bear fruit (for utterly killed it never
   will be in this life); till we have lost at least all affection to all
   our corrupt desires, even the most venial, which are almost infinite,
   perfect charity will never reign in our souls, and consequently perfect
   union in spirit with God cannot be expected; for charity lives and
   grows according to the measure that self-love is abated, and no
   further.

   7. Souls that first enter into the internal ways of the spirit, or that
   have made no great progress in them, are guided by a very dim light,
   being able to discover and discern only a few grosser defects and
   inordinations; but by persevering in the exercises of mortification and
   prayer, this light will be increased, and then they will proportionably
   every day more and more discover a thousand secret and formerly
   invisible impurities in their intentions, self-seekings, hypocrisies,
   and close designs of nature, pursuing her own corrupt designs in the
   very best actions, cherishing nature one way when she mortifies it
   another, and favouring pride even when she exercises humility. Now a
   clear light to discover all these almost infinite depravations not only
   in our sensitive nature, but also in the superior soul (which are far
   more secret, manifold, and dangerous), and a courage with success to
   combat and overcome them, must be the effect of a long-continued
   practice of prayer and mortification.

   8. The want of a due knowledge or consideration hereof is the cause
   that some good souls, after they have made some progress in internal
   ways, becomes disheartened, and in danger to stop or quite leave them;
   for though at the first, being (as usually they are) prevented by God
   with a tender sensible devotion (which our Holy Father calls fervorem
   novitium), they do with much zeal and, as it seems to them., with good
   effect begin the exercises of mortification and prayer; yet afterward,
   such sensible fervour and tenderness ceasing (as it seldom fails to do)
   by that new light which they have gotten, they discern a world of
   defects, formerly undiscovered, which they erroneously think were not
   in them before; whereupon, fearing that instead of making progress,
   they are in a worse state than when they began, they will be apt to
   suspect that they are in a wrong way. This proceeds from a preconceived
   mistake, that because in times of light and devotion the soul finds
   herself carried with much fervour to God, and perceives but small
   contradictions and rebellions in inferior nature, therefore she is very
   forward in the way to perfection. Whereas it is far otherwise; for
   nature is not so easily conquered as she imagines, neither is the way
   to perfection so easy and short. Many changes she must expect; many
   risings and fallings; sometimes light, and sometimes darkness;
   sometimes calmness of passions, and presently after, it may be, fiercer
   combats than before; and these successions of changes repeated, God
   knows how oft, before the end approacheth.

   9. Yea, it will likely happen to such souls, that even the formerly
   well-known grosser defects in them will seem to increase, and to grow
   more hard to be quelled after they have been competently advanced in
   internal ways; and the reason is, because, having set themselves to
   combat corrupt nature in all her perverse, crooked, and impure desires,
   and being sequestered from the vanities of the world, they find
   themselves in continual wrestlings and agonies, and want those pleasing
   diversions, conversations, and recreations, with which, whilst they
   lived a secular, negligent life, they could interrupt or put off their
   melancholic thoughts and unquietness. But if they would take courage
   and, instead of seeking ease from nature (further than discretion
   allows), have recourse for remedy by prayer to God, they would find
   that such violent temptations are an assured sign that they are in a
   secure and happy way, and that when God sees it is best for them, they
   shall come off from such combats with victory and comfort.

   10. Now, as from the consideration of the tediousness of a perfect
   universal mortification of the corrupt affections of nature, it does
   appear that hasty perfection is not ordinarily to be expected, and
   where there are appearances of extraordinary lights and supernatural
   visits in souls not thoroughly mortified, it is to be feared that there
   hath been some secret exorbitancy in the proceedings of such souls,
   some deeply rooted pride, &c., which hath exposed them to the devil's
   illusions, so that their state is very dangerous, the like will appear
   if we cast our eyes upon the nature and degrees of internal prayer, in
   the perfection of which the end of a contemplative life, which is
   perfect union in spirit with God, doth consist.

   11. For a soul must, 1. ordinarily speaking, pass through the way of
   external and imaginary exercises of prayer, in the which she must
   tarry, God knows how long; yea, without a discreet diligence and
   constancy in them, she may perhaps end her days therein. 2. Then when
   her affections do so abound, and are sufficiently ripe, so as that
   discourse is not needful or becomes of little efficacy, she is to
   betake herself to the exercise of the will, in the which a very long
   time must ordinarily be spent before she can chase away distracting
   grosser images, and before the heart be so replenished with the Divine
   Spirit that, without any election or deliberation, it will of itself
   almost continually break forth into aspirations and pure elevations of
   the superior will. 3. Being arrived to this happy state, only God knows
   for how long a time she is to continue therein, there being almost
   infinite degrees of aspirations, each one exceeding the former in
   purity, before she be ripe for the divine inaction. 4. And having
   gotten that, a very long time is like to be spent, very oft in most
   woeful obscurities and desolations, before she arrive, 5. to the state
   of perfection. Now all these degrees of prayer are to be attended with
   proportionable degrees of mortification; so that no wonder is it if so
   very few, even of those whose profession it is to aspire thereunto, do
   find or attain unto this end, partly out of ignorance and error, whilst
   they place perfection in an exact performance of outward observances
   and austerities, the which (though being well used they may be
   certainly very proper helps to perfection, and are accordingly to be
   duly esteemed, yet), if they be undertaken for any end of nature, and
   not for the purifying of the interior and disposing it for more perfect
   prayer, are of no value at all, but rather proceed from and nourish
   self-love, pride, &c., and partly out of want of courage and diligence
   to pursue constantly the way that they know leads thereto.

   12. Upon these grounds mystic authors do teach that, though it be a
   very great advantage to a soul to tread in these internal ways from her
   youth, before she be darkened and made sick with vicious habits, the
   combating against which will cause great difficulty, pain, and
   tediousness to her, yet she will hardly arrive unto the aforesaid
   active union and experimental perception of God's presence in her till
   almost a declining age; by reason that though her natural ill
   inclinations may be mortified in a reasonable perfection before that
   time, yet till such age there will remain too much vigour in corporal
   nature, and an unstableness in the inward senses, which will hinder
   that quietness and composedness of mind necessary to such an union.
   Whereas some persons of a well-disposed temper and virtuous education
   have in a few years arrived thereunto, though they did not begin an
   internal course till their ripe age, but yet supplying that delay by an
   heroical resolution and vigorous pursuit of the practices proper
   thereunto; but as for those that have been viciously bred, there will
   be necessary a wonderful measure of grace and very extraordinary
   mortifications before such souls can be fitted thereunto.

   13. Now what hath been said concerning the length of the way, and the
   multiplicity of conditions requisite to the attaining to the end of it,
   is to be understood with relation to the ordinary course of God's
   providence. But God, who is the free Master and Disposer of His own
   graces, may bestow them upon whom and when He pleases, either
   miraculously increasing His grace in some souls, or conferring His
   supernatural favours before the time that they are ripe for them, as He
   did to St. Catharine of Siena (and some others), who, in their younger
   years, have been favoured with a passive union. Mystic authors,
   likewise, except from the ordinary course, the case where God upon the
   death of well-willed and well-disposed souls happening before
   perfection attained, supplieth after some extraordinary manner what was
   wanting, and effects that in a moment which would otherwise have
   required a long space of time; and this, say they, God frequently doth
   in regard of the serious and fervent wills that He seeth in such souls,
   which were resolved to prosecute the way of His love for all their
   lives, though they should have lasted never so long.

   14. But be the way to perfection never so long, the design itself is so
   noble and the end so divine, that a soul cannot begin to aspire unto it
   too soon, nor take too much pains to procure it. Yea, the very desire
   and serious pursuance of so heavenly a design brings so great blessings
   to the soul, and puts her in so secure a way of salvation, though she
   should never perfectly attain unto it in this life, that there is none
   so old nor so overgrown with ill habits but ought to attempt, and with
   perseverance pursue it, being assured that at least after death he
   shall for his good desire and endeavours be rewarded with the crown due
   to contemplatives. For it is enough for a soul to be in the way, and to
   correspond to such enablements as she hath received; and then in what
   degree of spirit soever she dies, she dies according to the will and
   ordination of God, to whom she must be resigned, and consequently she
   will be very happy; whereas if, out of despair of attaining to
   perfection, she should rest and do as it were nothing, contenting
   herself with outward ceremonious observances, she will be accounted
   before God as having been wanting to perform that whereto her
   profession obliged her. Though the truth is, the soul being a pure
   spirit, consisting of mere activity, cannot cease doing and desiring
   something; so that if her desires and operations be not directed to the
   right end, they will go a wrong way; and if a soul do not continually
   strive to get out of nature, she will plunge herself deeper and deeper
   into it.

   15. The second motive to induce a soul to arm herself with a great
   courage and strong resolution in her tendence to perfection is because,
   as the wise man says, He that sets himself to serve our Lord
   (especially in so high and divine an employment as contemplation) must
   prepare his soul for temptations greater and more unusual than formerly
   he had experience of; the which temptations will come from all coasts,
   both from without and within.

   16. For an internal life, being not only a life hidden from the world,
   but likewise directly contrary to the ways of carnal reason, yea, even
   different from common notion of virtue and piety which ordinary
   Christians, yea, too many even in religion have also, who approve only
   of actions and ways which outwardly make a fair show, as solemn
   performance of divine offices, external formal regularities,
   mortifications, &c; hence it is that very sharp persecutions have
   almost always attended those whom God hath called to revive the true
   spirit of religion (too generally decayed, and in many religious
   communities utterly unknown), by teaching souls not to neglect, but on
   the contrary to be very careful in an exact performance and just esteem
   of such duties; but yet to place perfection in exercises of the spirit,
   and to esteem all other observances no further than as they serve to
   advance and increase perfection in spirit; since most certain it is,
   that if in and for themselves alone and without any interior direction
   for the purifying of the soul they be esteemed (and performed) as parts
   of real perfection, and not chiefly as helps of internal devotion and
   purity, they will rather become hindrances to contemplation, nourishing
   pride, contempt of others, &c., and be the ruin of true charity.
   Examples of such persecutions are obvious in stories, witness the
   sufferings of Thaulerus, Suso, [5]St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross,
   &c.

   17. Again, in the world, the lives of those that God hath called to the
   exercises of an internal life, being so different from and unlike to
   others, though ordinary, well-meaning Christians, by reason that they
   abstract themselves from secular businesses (except such as necessarily
   belong to their vocation), likewise from worldly conventions,
   correspondence, and vainly complying friendships; hence it is that the
   sight of them is unacceptable to their neighbors and acquaintance, as
   if they did silently condemn their liberties. For this reason, they are
   apt to raise and disperse evil reports of them, calling them
   illuminates, pretenders to extraordinary visits and lights, persons
   that walk in mirabilibus super se, &c.; or at least to deride them as
   silly, seduced, melancholy spirits, that follow unusual and dangerous
   ways.

   18. All these, and many others the like persecutions, calumnies, and
   contempts, a well-disposed soul that purely seeks God must expect and
   be armed against. And knowing that they do not come by chance, but by
   the most wise, holy, and merciful providence of God for her good, to
   exercise her courage in the beginning, and to give her an opportunity
   to testify her true esteem and love to God and spiritual things, let
   her hence not be affrighted, but rather pursue internal ways more
   vigorously, as knowing that there cannot be a better proof of the
   excellency of them than that they are displeasing to carnal or at least
   ignorant men unexperienced in such divine ways. Let her not with
   passion judge or condone those that are contrary to her, for many of
   them may have a good intention and zeal therein, though a zeal not
   directed by knowledge. If, therefore, she will attend God, following
   His divine inspirations, &c., she will see that God will give her light
   and courage, and much inward security in her way.

   19. But her greatest and more frequent persecutions will be from her
   own corrupt nature and vicious habits rooted in the soul, the which
   will assault her many times with temptations and inward bitternesses
   and agonies, sharper and stranger than she did expect, or could perhaps
   imagine. And no wonder, for her design and continual endeavours both in
   mortification and prayer being to raise herself out of, and above
   nature, to contradict nature in all its vain pleasures and interests,
   she can expect no other, but that nature will continually struggle
   against the spirit; especially being enflamed by the devil, who will
   not fail to employ all his arts, all his malice and fury, to disturb a
   design so utterly destructive to his infernal kingdom established in
   the souls of carnal men. The well-minded soul, therefore, must make a
   general strong resolution to bear all with as much quietness as may be,
   to distrust herself entirely, to rely only upon God, and to seek unto
   Him by prayer, and all will assuredly be well. She will find that the
   yoke of Christ, which at the first was burdensome, will, being borne
   with constancy, become easy and delightful; yea, though she should
   never be able to subdue the resistance of evil inclinations in her, yet
   as long as there remains in her a sincere endeavor after it, no such
   ill inclinations will hinder her happiness.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER V.

   S:S: 1, 2. A third motive to resolution is the danger of tepidity, of
   which the nature and root is discovered.

   S:S: 3, 4, 5. The miseries of a tepid religious person that is ignorant
   of internal ways.

   S:S: 6, 7. Or of one that knows them, but neglects to pursue them.

   S:S: 8, 9. How pestilent such are in a community.

   S: 10. On the other side, an indiscreet passionate fervour may be as
   dangerous as negligence.

   1. A third yet more pressing motive to a courageous resolution of
   prosecuting internal ways once begun, and a strong proof of the extreme
   necessity thereof, is the consideration of the extreme danger and
   miseries unexpressible of a negligent and tepid life, whether in
   religion or in the world; the which not only renders perfection
   impossible to be attained, but endangers the very root of essential
   sanctity and all pretension to eternal happiness, as among other mystic
   writers, Harphius in his twelve mortifications earnestly demonstrates.

   2. Tepidity is a bitter poisonous root fixed in the minds of negligent
   Christians, who though out of a servile fear they abstain from an
   habitual practice of acknowledged mortal actual sins, and therefore
   (groundlessly enough) think themselves secure from the danger of hell,
   yet they perform their external necessary obligations to God and their
   brethren sleepily and heartlessly, without any true affection,
   contenting themselves with the things however outwardly done; yea,
   perhaps knowing no perfection beyond this; but in the mean time remain
   full of self-love, inward pride, sensual desires, aversion from
   internal conversation with God, &c. And the ground and cause of this
   pernicious tepidity is want of affection and esteem of spiritual
   things, and a voluntary affection to venial sins (not as they are sins,
   but as the objects of them are easeful or delightful to nature), joined
   with a willfulness not to avoid the occasions of them, nor to do any
   more in God's service than what themselves judge to be necessary for
   the escaping of hell.

   3. Such persons, if they live in religion, must needs pass very
   uncomfortable and discontented lives, having excluded themselves from
   the vain entertainments and pleasures of the world, and yet retaining a
   strong affection to them in their hearts, with an incapacity of
   enjoying them. They must undergo all obligations, austerities, and
   crosses incident to a religious state without comfort, but only in
   having dispatched them, with very little benefit to their souls, and
   with extreme wearisomeness and unwillingness. Now, what a resemblance
   to hell hath such a life, where there is an impossibility freely to
   enjoy what the soul principally desires, and where she is forced
   continually to do and suffer such things as are extremely contrary to
   her inclinations!

   4. Whereas, if souls would courageously at once give themselves wholly
   to God, and with a discreet fervour combat against corrupt nature,
   pursuing their internal exercises, they would find that all things
   would cooeperate, not only to their eternal good, but even to their
   present contentment and joy. They would find pleasure even in their
   greatest mortifications and crosses, by considering the love with which
   God sends them, and the great benefit that their spirit reaps by them.
   What contentment can be greater to any soul than to become a true
   inward friend of God, chained unto Him with a love, the like whereto
   never was between any mortal creatures? to know and even feel that she
   belongs to God, and that God is continually watchful over her, and
   careful of her salvation? None of which comforts tepid souls can hope
   to taste; but, on the contrary, are not only continually tortured with
   present discontents, but much more with a fear and horror, considering
   their doubtfulness about their future state.

   5. If such tepid souls be ignorant of the internal ways of the spirit
   (which without some fault of their own they scarce can be), when they
   come to die, it is not conceivable what apprehensions and horrors they
   will feel; considering that a settled willful affection to venial sins
   brings a soul to an imminent danger of a frequent incurring actual
   mortal sins, the which, though they be not of the greater kind of
   enormous sins, yet they may be no less dangerous, because less
   corrigible, such as are those spiritual sins of pride, murmuring,
   factiousness, envy, ambition, &c.; besides which, how is it possible
   for them to give an account of sins of omission, of the want of
   perfecting their souls by prayer, &c., of the avoiding of which they
   never took any care, although their profession and vows obliged them
   thereto?

   6. Again, if tepidity (though not in so high a degree) be found in
   souls that are acquainted speculatively with the internal ways of the
   spirit, and their obligation to pursue them in order to perfection, but
   either for want of courage dare not apply themselves seriously to them,
   or do it very faintly, coldly, or with frequent interruptions, and only
   are not resolved to relinquish and abjure such ways, such as though
   they have not a willful affection to venial sins, yet are for the most
   part willfully negligent in resisting them,--such souls ought to
   consider that their case in all respects approaches near to the
   miserable condition of the former, and they will have guilt enough to
   take away all comfort almost in a religious state, and to give them
   just apprehensions for the future life, of which they have no security.

   7. For when such souls approach near unto death, they will then too
   late consider that for want of diligent prayer there may be, yea,
   assuredly are in them, a world of inordinations, impurities, and
   defects undiscovered by them, and therefore can neither be acknowledged
   nor bewailed; so that they cannot have any assurance of the state and
   inclinations of their souls; besides, they know themselves to have been
   guilty of a life spent in an uninterrupted ingratitude to God, who gave
   them light to see the ways to perfection which their profession obliged
   them to walk in, and yet willfully they neglected to make use of such
   light, or to make progress in those ways, &c. (and this is an
   aggravation of guilt beyond the former); they are conscious likewise of
   an unexcusable and long-continued unfaithfulness, never almost
   complying with the divine inspirations which daily urged them to put
   themselves resolutely into that only secure way of an internal life,
   nor ever vigorously resisting the sins and imperfections which they did
   discover in themselves, &c. Such sad thoughts as these pressing (as
   usually they do) one upon another near the approaches of death, what
   grievous apprehensions, what terrible uncertainties must they needs
   cause in tepid souls, then most sensible of dangers and fears! so that
   their lives will be full of anguish and continual remorse, and their
   deaths very uncomfortable.

   8. Lastly, to all these miseries of a tepid life, this also may be
   added as an increase of the guilt, and consequently an aggravation of
   the dangerous state of souls infected with that poison, which is, that
   they do not only themselves most ungratefully withdraw their own
   affections from God and divine things, but by their ill example, by
   misspending the time in vain extroverted conversations, by
   discountenancing those that are fervourous in internal ways, &c., they
   infect their companions, and so treacherously defraud Almighty God of
   the affections of others also. So that a tepid religious person, though
   given to no enormous excesses, is oft more harmful in a community than
   an open, scandalous liver; because none that hath any care of himself
   but will beware of such an one as this latter is; whereas a tepid soul
   unperceivably instills into others the poisonous infection wherewith
   herself is tainted.

   9. From the grounds and considerations here mentioned, it doth appear
   how necessary it is for a devout soul, both in the beginning and
   pursuance of a contemplative life, to excite and fortify her courageous
   resolution not to be daunted by discouragements either from within or
   without, but at what price soever, and with what labours and sufferings
   soever, with fervour to persevere in the exercises and duties belonging
   thereto, accounting tepidity and spiritual sloth as the very bane of
   her whole design, the which, if it be yielded unto, though but a
   little, it will gather more force, and at last grow irresistible.

   10. But withal she is to be advised that such her courage and fervour
   must be exercised, not impetuously out of passion, or such impulses as
   a fit of sensible devotion will sometimes produce in her; but this
   fervour and resolution must chiefly be seated in the superior will, and
   regulated by spiritual discretion, according to her present forces,
   both natural and supernatural, and the measure of grace bestowed on
   her, and no further; for there may be as much harm by outrunning grace,
   as by neglecting to correspond unto it. Hence, it oft comes to pass,
   that many well-minded souls, being either pushed forward by an
   indiscreet passionate zeal, or advised by unexperienced directors to
   undertake unnecessarily and voluntarily either rigorous mortifications
   or excessive tasks of devotions, and wanting strength to continue them,
   have become able to do nothing at all; so that affecting too hastily to
   attain unto perfection sooner than God did enable them thereto, they so
   overburden themselves that they are forced to give over quite all
   tendence to it. Therefore we must be contented to proceed in such a
   pace as may be lasting, and that will suffice.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VI.

   A confirmation of what hath been said, particularly of the necessity of
   a strong resolution and courage to persevere, shown by the parable of a
   pilgrim travelling to Jerusalem, out of [6]Scala Perfectionis.

   1. Now, for a further confirmation and more effectual recommendation of
   what hath hitherto been delivered touching the nature of a
   contemplative life in general, the supereminent nobleness of its end,
   the great difficulties to be expected in it, and the absolute necessity
   of a firm courage to persevere and continually to make progress in it,
   whatsoever it costs us (without which resolution it is in vain to set
   one step forward in these ways), I will here annex a passage extracted
   out of that excellent treatise called [7]Scala Perfectionis, written by
   that eminent contemplative, Dr. Walter Hilton, a Carthusian monk, in
   which, under the parable of a devout pilgrim desirous to travel to
   Jerusalem (which he interprets the vision of peace or contemplation),
   he delivers instructions very proper and efficacious touching the
   behaviour requisite in a devout soul for such a journey; the true sense
   of which advices I will take liberty so to deliver briefly as,
   notwithstanding, not to omit any important matter there more largely,
   and according to the old fashion, expressed.

   2. "There was a man," saith he, [12] "that had a great desire to go to
   Jerusalem; and because he knew not the right way, he addressed himself
   for advice to one that he hoped was not unskillful in it, and asked him
   whether there was any way passable thither. The other answered, that
   the way thither was both long and full of very great difficulties; yea,
   that there were many ways that seemed and promised to lead thither, but
   the dangers of them were too great. Nevertheless, one way he knew
   which, if he would diligently pursue according to the directions and
   marks that he would give him,--though, said he, I cannot promise thee a
   security from many frights, beatings, and other ill-usage and
   temptations of all kinds; but if thou canst have courage and patience
   enough to suffer them without quarrelling, or resisting, or troubling
   thyself, and so pass on, having this only in thy mind, and sometimes on
   thy tongue, I have nought, I am nought, I desire nought but to be at
   Jerusalem,--my life for thine, thou wilt escape safe with thy life and
   in a competent time arrive thither.

   3. "The pilgrim, overjoyed with these news, answered: So I may have my
   life safe, and may at last come to the place that I above all things
   only desire, I care not what miseries I suffer in the way. Therefore
   let me know only what course I am to take, and, God willing, I will not
   fail to observe carefully your directions. The guide replied: Since
   thou hast so good a will, though I myself never was so happy as to be
   in Jerusalem, notwithstanding, be confident that by the instructions
   that I shall give thee, if thou wilt follow them, thou shalt come safe
   to thy journey's end.

   4. "Now the advice that I am to give thee in brief is this: Before thou
   set the first step into the highway that leads thither, thou must be
   firmly grounded in the true Catholic faith; moreover, whatsoever sins
   thou findest in thy conscience, thou must seek to purge them away by
   hearty penance and absolution, according to the laws of the Church.
   This being done, begin thy journey in God's name, but be sure to go
   furnished with two necessary instruments, humility and charity, both
   which are contained in the forementioned speech, which must always be
   ready in thy mind: I am nought, I have nought, I desire but only one
   thing, and that is our Lord Jesus, and to be with him in peace at
   Jerusalem. The meaning and virtue of these words therefore thou must
   have continually, at least in thy thoughts, either expressly or
   virtually; humility says, I am nought, I have nought; love says, I
   desire nought but Jesus. These two companions thou must never part
   from; neither will they willingly be separated from one another, for
   they accord very lovingly together. And the deeper thou groundest
   thyself in humility, the higher thou raisest thyself in charity; for
   the more thou seest and feelest thyself to be nothing, with the more
   fervent love wilt thou desire Jesus, that by Him, who is all, thou
   mayest become something.

   5. "Now this same humility is to be exercised, not so much in
   considering thine own self, thy sinfulness, and misery (though to do
   thus at the first be very good and profitable), but rather in a quiet
   loving sight of the infinite endless being and goodness of Jesus; the
   which beholding of Jesus must be either through grace in a savourous
   feeling knowledge of him, or at least in a full and firm faith in Him.
   And such a beholding, when thou shalt attain to it, will work in thy
   mind a far more pure, spiritual, solid, and perfect humility, than the
   former way of beholding thyself, the which produces a humility more
   gross, boisterous, and unquiet. By that thou wilt see and feel thyself,
   not only to be the most wretched filthy creature in the world, but also
   in the very substance of thy soul (setting aside the foulness of sin)
   to be a mere nothing, for truly, in and of thyself and in regard to
   Jesus (who really and in truth is all), thou art a mere nothing; and
   till thou hast the love of Jesus, yea, and feelest that thou hast His
   love, although thou hast done to thy seeming never so many good deeds
   both outward and inward, yet in truth thou hast nothing at all, for
   nothing will abide in thy soul and fill it but the love of Jesus.
   Therefore, cast all other things behind thee, and forget them, that
   thou mayest have that which is best of all; and thus doing, thou wilt
   become a true pilgrim that leaves behind him houses, and wife, and
   children, and friends, and goods, and makes himself poor and bare of
   all things, that he may go on his journey lightly and merrily without
   hindrance.

   6. "Well, now thou art in thy way travelling towards Jerusalem; the
   which travelling consists in working inwardly, and (when need is)
   outwardly too, such works as are suitable to thy condition and state,
   and such as will help and increase in thee this gracious desire that
   thou hast to love Jesus only. Let thy works be what they will,
   thinking, or reading, or preaching, or labouring, &c.; if thou findest
   that they draw thy mind from worldly vanity, and confirm thy heart and
   will more to the love of Jesus, it is good and profitable for thee to
   use them. And if thou findest that through custom such works do in time
   lose their savour and virtue to increase this love, and that it seems
   to thee that thou feelest more grace and spiritual profit in some
   other, take these other and leave those, for though the inclination and
   desire of thy heart to Jesus must ever be unchangeable, nevertheless
   thy spiritual works thou shalt use in thy manner of praying, reading,
   &c., to the end to feed and strengthen this desire, may well be
   changed, according as thou feelest thyself by grace disposed in the
   applying of thy heart. Bind not thyself, therefore, unchangeably to
   voluntary customs, for that will hinder the freedom of thy heart to
   love Jesus, if grace would visit thee specially.

   7. "Before thou hast made many steps in the way, thou must expect a
   world of enemies of several kinds, that will beset thee round about,
   and all of them will endeavour busily to hinder thee from going
   forward; yea, and if they can by any means, they will, either by
   persuasions, flatteries, or violence, force thee to return home again
   to those vanities that thou hast forsaken. For there is nothing grieves
   them so much as to see a resolute desire in thy heart to love Jesus,
   and to travail to find Him. Therefore they will all conspire to put out
   of thy heart that good desire and love in which all virtues are
   comprised.

   8. "Thy first enemies that will assault thee will be fleshly desires
   and vain fears of thy corrupt heart; and with these there will join
   unclean spirits, that with sights and temptations will seek to allure
   thy heart to them, and to withdraw it from Jesus. But whatsoever they
   say, believe them not; but betake thyself to thy old only secure
   remedy, answering ever thus, I am nought, I have nought, and I desire
   nought, but only the love of Jesus, and so hold forth on thy way
   desiring Jesus only.

   9. "If they endeavour to put dreads and scruples into thy mind, and
   would make thee believe that thou hast not done penance enough, as thou
   oughtest for thy sins, but that some old sins remain in thy heart not
   yet confessed, or not sufficiently confessed and absolved, and that
   therefore thou must needs return home and do penance better before thou
   have the boldness to go to Jesus, do not believe a word of all that
   they say, for thou art sufficiently acquitted of thy sins, and there is
   no need at all that thou shouldst stay to ransack thy conscience, for
   this will now but do thee harm, and either put thee quite out of thy,
   way or at least unprofitably delay thy travailing in it.

   10. "If they shall tell thee that thou art not worthy to have the love
   of Jesus, or to see Jesus, and therefore that thou oughtest not to be
   so presumptuous to desire and seek after it, believe them not, but go
   on and say: It is not because I am worthy, but because I am unworthy,
   that I therefore desire to have the love of Jesus, for if once I had
   it, it would make me worthy. I will therefore never cease desiring it
   till I have obtained it. For, for it only was I created, therefore, say
   and do what you will, I will desire it continually, I will never cease
   to pray for it, and so doing I hope to obtain it.

   11. "If thou meetest with any that seem friends unto thee, and that in
   kindness would stop thy progress by entertaining thee, and seeking to
   draw thee to sensual mirth by vain discourses and carnal solaces,
   whereby thou wilt be in danger to forget thy pilgrimage, give a deaf
   ear to them, answer them not; think only on this, That thou wouldest
   fain be at Jerusalem. And if they proffer thee gifts and preferments,
   heed them not, but think ever on Jerusalem.

   12. "And if men despise thee, or lay any false calumnies to thy charge,
   giving thee ill names; if they go about to defraud thee or rob thee;
   yea, if they beat thee and use thee despitefully and cruelly, for thy
   life contend not with them, strive not against them, nor be angry with
   them, but content thyself with the harm received, and go on quietly as
   if nought were done, that thou take no further harm; think only on
   this, that to be at Jerusalem deserves to be purchased with all this
   ill-usage or more, and that there thou shalt be sufficiently repaired
   for all thy losses, and recompensed for all hard usages by the way.

   13. "If thine enemies see that thou growest courageous and bold, and
   that thou wilt neither be seduced by flatteries nor disheartened with
   the pains and troubles of thy journey, but rather well contented with
   them, then they will begin to be afraid of thee; yet for all that, they
   will never cease pursuing thee--they will follow thee all along the
   way, watching all advantages against thee; and ever and anon they will
   set upon thee, seeking either with flatteries or frights to stop thee,
   and drive thee back if they can. But fear them not; hold on thy way,
   and have nothing in thy mind but Jerusalem and Jesus, whom thou wilt
   find there.

   14. "If thy desire of Jesus still continues and grows more strong, so
   that it makes thee go on thy ways courageously, they will then tell
   thee that it may very well happen that thou wilt fall into corporal
   sickness, and perhaps such a sickness as will bring strange fancies
   into thy mind, and melancholic apprehensions; or perhaps thou wilt fall
   into great want, and no man will offer to help thee, by occasion of
   which misfortunes thou wilt be grievously tempted by thy ghostly
   enemies, the which will then insult over thee, and tell thee that thy
   folly and proud presumption have brought thee to this miserable pass,
   that thou canst neither help thyself, nor will any man help thee, but
   rather hinder those that would. And all this they will do to the end to
   increase thy melancholic and unquiet apprehensions, or to provoke thee
   to anger or malice against thy Christian brethren, or to murmur against
   Jesus, who, perhaps for thy trial, seems to hide His face from thee.
   But still neglect all these suggestions as though thou heardest them
   not. Be angry with nobody but thyself. And as for all thy diseases,
   poverty, and whatsoever other sufferings (for who can reckon all that
   may befall thee?), take Jesus in thy mind, think on the lesson that
   thou art taught, and say, I am nought, I have nought, I care for nought
   in this world, and I desire nought but the love of Jesus, that I may
   see him in peace at Jerusalem.

   15. "But if it shall happen sometimes, as likely it will, that through
   some of these temptations and thy own frailty, thou stumble and perhaps
   fall down, and get some harm thereby, or that thou for some time be
   turned a little out of the right way, as soon as possibly may be come
   again to thyself, get up again and return into the right way, using
   such remedies for thy hurt as the Church ordains; and do not trouble
   thyself over much or over long with thinking unquietly on thy past
   misfortune and pain--abide not in such thoughts, for that will do thee
   more harm, and give advantage to thine enemies. Therefore, make haste
   to go on in thy travail and working again, as if nothing had happened.
   Keep but Jesus in thy mind, and a desire to gain His love, and nothing
   shall be able to hurt thee.

   16. "At last, when thine enemies perceive that thy will to Jesus is so
   strong that thou wilt not spare neither for poverty nor mischief, for
   sickness nor fancies, for doubts nor fears, for life nor death, no, nor
   for sins neither, but ever forth thou wilt go on with that one thing of
   seeking the love of Jesus, and with nothing else; and that thou
   despisest and scarce markest anything that they say to the contrary,
   but holdest on in thy praying and other spiritual works (yet always
   with discretion and submission), then they grow even enraged, and will
   spare no manner of most cruel usage. They will come closer to thee than
   ever before, and betake themselves to their last and most dangerous
   assault, and that is, to bring into the sight of thy mind all thy good
   deeds and virtues, showing thee that all men praise thee, and love
   thee, and bear thee great veneration for thy sanctity, &c. And all this
   they do to the end to raise vain joy and pride in thy heart. But if
   thou tenderest thy life, thou wilt hold all this flattery and falsehood
   to be a deadly poison to thy soul, mingled with honey; therefore, away
   with it; cast it from thee, saying, thou wilt have none of it, but thou
   wouldest be at Jerusalem.

   17. "And to the end, to put thyself out of the danger and reach of all
   such temptations, suffer not thy thoughts willingly to run about the
   world, but draw them all inwards, fixing their upon one only thing,
   which is Jesus: set thyself to think only on Him, to know Him, to love
   Him; and after thou hast for a good time brought thyself to do thus,
   then whatsoever thou seest or feelest inwardly that is not He, will be
   unwelcome and painful to thee, because it will stand in thy way to the
   seeing and seeking of Him whom thou only desirest.

   18. "But yet, if there be any work or outward business which thou art
   obliged to do, or that charity or present necessity requires of thee,
   either concerning thyself or thy Christian brother, fail not to do it;
   dispatch it as well and as soon as well thou canst, and let it not
   tarry long in thy thoughts, for it will but hinder thee in thy
   principal business. But if it be any other matter of no necessity, or
   that concerns thee not in particular, trouble not thyself nor distract
   thy thoughts about it, but rid it quickly out of thy heart, saying
   still thus, I am nought, I can do nought, I have nought, and nought do
   I desire to have, but only Jesus and his love.

   19. "Thou wilt be forced, as all other pilgrims are, to take ofttimes,
   by the way, refreshments, meats and drink and sleep, yea, and sometimes
   innocent recreations; in all which things rise discretion, and take
   heed of foolish scrupulosity about them. Fear not that they will be
   much a hindrance to thee, for though they seem to stay thee for a
   while, they will further thee and give thee strength to walk on more
   courageously for a good long time after.

   20. "To conclude, remember that thy principal aim, and indeed only
   business, is to knit thy thoughts to the desire of Jesus--to strengthen
   this desire daily by prayer and other spiritual workings, to the end it
   may never go out of thy heart. And whatsoever thou findest proper to
   increase that desire, be it praying or reading, speaking or being
   silent, travailing or reposing, make use of it for the time, as long as
   thy soul finds savour in it, and as long as it increases this desire of
   having or enjoying nothing but the love of Jesus, and the blessed sight
   of Jesus in true peace in Jerusalem; and be assured that this good
   desire thus cherished and continually increased will bring thee safe
   unto the end of thy pilgrimage."

   21. This is the substance of the parable of the Spiritual Pilgrim
   travailing in the ways of contemplation; the which I have more largely
   set down because, by the contexture of it, not only we see confirmed
   what is already written before, but also we have a draught and scheme
   represented, according to which all the following instructions will be
   conformably answerable.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [12] Scala Perfect. par. 2, cap. 21, 22, 23. [A new edition of this
   most excellent spiritual work has been lately brought out by Father
   Ephrem Guy, O.S.B. Richardson, London and Derby.--J. N. S.]
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

  THE

SECOND SECTION OF THE FIRST TREATISE,

   IN WHICH IS DECLARED AND PROVED THAT GOD ONLY BY HIS HOLY INSPIRATIONS
   IS THE GUIDE AND DIRECTOR IN AN INTERNAL CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER I.

   S: 1. In internal contemplative ways a guide is necessary, and why?

   S:S: 2, 3, 4. All good Christians have within their souls two internal
   guides. 1. The spirit of corrupt nature, which is never wholly
   expelled. 2. The Spirit of God. And these teach contrarily, and for
   contrary ends.

   S:S: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Divine inspirations, beyond the light of common
   grace, are to be our light in internal ways.

   S:S: 10, 11. In what special things such inspirations do direct
   internal livers.

   S:S: 12, 13. They ordinarily teach rather cessation and not doing than
   much doing.

   S:S: 14, 15. Extraordinary inspirations, illuminations, &c., not
   pretended to.

   1. Having hitherto treated of a contemplative life in general, the
   nature and end of it, together with the necessary disposition required
   in souls that, according to their vocation or profession, are desirous
   to pursue the exercises belonging thereto, the next thing that in
   relation to the said state deserves our consideration is the guide
   whose directions we may and ought to follow therein; for certainly a
   guide must needs be had, since it is evident that in our present state
   of corrupt nature, we have no light so much as to discover that there
   is any such way, and much less to direct and enable us to walk in paths
   so much above, yea, so directly contrary to the designs and interests
   of nature.

   2. Now, since in every good, faithful, and true Christian (as truth and
   experience teach) there are two internal lights and teachers, to wit,
   1. the spirit of corrupt nature; 2. the Divine Spirit, both which, in
   all our deliberate actions, do offer themselves, and even strive for
   mastery, contending whether of them, with the exclusion of the other,
   shall lead us in the ways proper and pleasing to each, the which ways,
   as also the ends to which they conduct, are directly contrary to one
   another; for the spirit of corrupt nature only teaches us such things
   as are for the present pleasing or profitable to our carnal desires or
   sensual and secular designs, but pernicious to the soul or spirit; the
   which, following the light of nature, runs into endless errors and
   labyrinths, all which lead us from God and true happiness unto eternal
   misery. On the other side, the Spirit of God, discovering unto us the
   folly and danger of following so blind and pernicious a guide as nature
   is; teaches us that our happiness consists in forsaking such a
   wandering guide, and treading paths quite contrary; in renouncing
   present sensual pleasures and commodities so far as they are a
   hindrance (yea, not an advancement) to our knowing of God and spiritual
   things, the which only must be the object of all our desires and
   endeavours, and whereby only we shall arrive to eternal happiness and
   union with God.

   3. Besides these two guides, we neither have nor can have any other
   within us, and with both these good Christians are continually
   attended. Whatsoever, therefore, is not the teaching of the Divine
   Spirit is the suggestion of the false teacher, who is His and our
   enemy, the which took possession of the souls of men upon Adam's
   transgression, whose fault was the not attending to the teaching of
   God's Holy Spirit (which then was the only internal teacher), but
   instead thereof, hearkening to the flattering temptations of his wife,
   seduced by the devil. And from Adam this false light is communicated to
   all his posterity, so as naturally we have no other. But the new
   heavenly teacher, the Holy Spirit, is freely given us by means of the
   divine word and sacraments; it being a new divine principle imprinted
   in our spirits, raising them to God, and continually soliciting us to
   walk in His ways.

   4. Our misery is, that whereas by mortal sins the divine light is for
   the time wholly extinguished, so as to the producing of any
   considerable good effect upon the will, it is not so on the other side,
   that by grace the false teacher should be totally expelled or silenced,
   but it remains even in the most perfect, and God knows even the best
   are too much inclined often to hearken to it. Those that are less
   perfect, though in matters of necessary duty and obligation they follow
   the conduct of the Divine Spirit, yet in lesser matters they for the
   most part are moved with no other principle than that of corrupt
   nature, by which they incur defects, the which, though in themselves
   venial, yet do much obscure the divine light, and weaken its efficacy.
   Yea, even in those things wherein such imperfect souls do for the
   substance of the action and its essentials follow the direction of
   God's Spirit, yet, by mixing of sensual interests and ends, suggested
   by the false teacher, they do diminish its lustre, beauty, and value.
   And so subtle is the spirit of nature, that it oft makes its false
   suggestions pass for divine inspirations, and seldom misses the
   insinuating its poison in some degree, either into the beginning or
   continuation of our best actions.

   5. From these unquestionable grounds thus truly laid, it follows
   evidently that in all good actions, and especially in the internal ways
   of the spirit which conduct to contemplation and perfection, God alone
   is our only master and director; and creatures, when He is pleased to
   use them, are only His instruments. So that all other teachers
   whatsoever, whether the light of reason, or external directors, or
   rules prescribed in books, &c., are no further nor otherwise to be
   followed or hearkened to, than as they are subordinate and conformable
   to the internal directions and inspirations of God's Holy Spirit, or as
   God invites, instructs, and moves us to have recourse unto them, by
   them to be informed in His will, and by Him enabled to perform it; and
   that if they be made use of any other ways, they will certainly mislead
   us.

   6. This is by all mystical writers acknowledged so fundamental a truth,
   that without acknowledging it and working according to it, it is in
   vain to enter into the exercises of an internal contemplative life. So
   that to say (as too commonly it is said by authors who pretend to be
   spiritual, but have no taste of these mystic matters), take all your
   instructions from without, from external teachers or books, is all one
   as to say, have nothing at all to do with the ways of contemplation,
   which can be taught by no other but God, or by those whom God
   especially instructs and appoints determinately for the disciple's
   present exigency. So that it is God only that internally teaches both
   the teacher and disciple, and His inspirations are the only lesson for
   both. All our light, therefore, is from divine illumination, and all
   our strength as to these things is from the divine operation of the
   Holy Ghost on our wills and affections.

   7. Now, to the end that this so important a verity may more distinctly
   be declared and more firmly imprinted in the minds of all those that
   desire to be God's scholars in the internal ways of His divine love,
   they are to take notice that the inspirations which are here
   acknowledged to be the only safe rule of all our actions, though of the
   same nature, yet do extend further, and to more and other particular
   objects, than the divine light or grace, by which good Christians,
   living common lives in the world, are led, extends to; yea, than it
   does even in those that seek perfection by the exercises of an active
   life.

   8. The light and virtue of common grace afford generally, to all good
   Christians that seriously endeavour to save their souls, such internal
   illuminations and motions as are sufficient to direct them for the
   resisting of any sinful temptation, or to perform any necessary act of
   virtue, in circumstances wherein they are obliged, though this
   direction be oft obeyed with many circumstantial defects, and their
   actions are so far and no further meritorious and pleasing to God than
   as they proceed from such internal grace or inspiration. But as for
   other actions, which in their own nature are not absolutely of
   necessary obligation, the which, notwithstanding, might be made
   instrumental to the advancing and perfecting of holiness in their souls
   (such as are the ordinary and usually esteemed indifferent actions of
   their lives), to a due improvement of such actions, they have neither
   the light nor the strength, or very seldom, by reason that they live
   distracted lives, not using such solitude and recollection as are
   necessary for the disposing of souls to the receiving such an
   extraordinary light and virtue. And as for those that tend to
   perfection by active exercises, even the more perfect, although they
   attain thereby a far greater measure of light and grace, by which they
   perform their necessary duties of holiness more perfectly and with a
   more pure intention, and likewise make far greater benefit for their
   advancement by actions and occurrences more indifferent; yet they also,
   for want of habitual introversion and recollectedness of mind, do pass
   over without benefit the greatest part of their ordinary actions.

   9. But as for contemplative livers, those I mean that have made a
   sufficient progress towards perfection, besides the common grace,
   light, or inspirations necessary for a due performance of essential
   duties, the which they enjoy in a far more sublime manner and degree,
   so as to purify their actions from a world of secret impurities, and
   subtle mixture of the interests and ends of corrupt nature, invisible
   to all other souls--besides this light, I say (which is presupposed and
   prerequired), they walk in a continual supernatural light, and are
   guided by assiduous inspirations in regard of their most ordinary, and,
   in themselves, indifferent actions and occurrences, in all which they
   clearly see how they are to behave themselves, so as to do the will of
   God, and by them also to improve themselves in the divine love; the
   which extraordinary light is communicated unto them only by virtue of
   their almost continual recollectedness, introversion, and attention to
   God in their spirits.

   10. More particularly by this internal divine light an internal liver
   is or may be directed: 1. In the manner and circumstances, when, where,
   and how any virtue may most profitably and perfectly be exercised; for
   as for the substantial act of such a virtue, and the necessary obliging
   circumstances in which it cannot, without mortal sin, be omitted, the
   light of common sanctifying grace will suffice to direct. 2. In the
   manner, frequency, length, change, and other circumstances of internal
   prayer. 3. In actions or omissions, which, absolutely considered, may,
   seem in themselves indifferent, and at the present there may be, as to
   ordinary light, an uncertainty whether the doing or omission is the
   more perfect. This is discovered to the soul by these supernatural
   inspirations and light: such actions or omissions are, for example,
   reading, study of such or such matters, walking, conversing, staying in
   or quitting solitude in one's cell, taking a journey, undertaking or
   refusing an employment, accepting or refusing invitations, &c.; in all
   which things well-minded souls, by solitude and introversion disposing
   themselves, will not fail to have a supernatural light and impulse
   communicated to them, which will enable them to make choice of that
   side of the doubt, which, if they correspond thereto, will most advance
   them in spirit, and suit with the divine will; whereas, without such
   light, generally souls are directed by an obscure light and impulse of
   nature and carnal ends or interests, without the least benefit of their
   spirit, yea, to their greater distraction and dissipation.

   11. Generally and ordinarily speaking, when there is proposed the doing
   or not doing of any external work, and that both of them are in
   themselves lawful, the divine inspiration in contemplative souls moves
   to the not doing; because the abstaining from much external working,
   and the increasing in internal solitude of spirit, is more suitable to
   their present state, and to that abstraction of life which they
   profess--except when the doing may prove a more beneficial
   mortification to self-love, or other inordinate affection of corrupt
   nature.

   12. The special points and matters of omissions, which (among others)
   are usually the objects of such divine calls and inspirations, may be
   such as these, viz.: 1. To eschew unnecessary, though permitted,
   conversations and correspondences with others, either by speaking or
   writing. 2. To be very wary and sparing in the use of the tongue. 3.
   Not solicitously to avoid occasions of mortifications or afflictions 4.
   To avoid the encumbering ourselves with business not pertaining to us.
   5. To fly honours, offices, care over others, and the like. 6. Not to
   crave this or that unnecessary thing or commodity, but to be content
   without them. 7. Not to question or expostulate why such a thing was
   said or done, but to hold patience, and to let things be as they are.
   8. Not to complain of or accuse any. 9. In cases of supportable and not
   harmful oppressions, to abstain from appeals to higher superiors. 10.
   To avoid the voluntary causing or procuring a change in our present
   condition, employment, place, &c. 11. To quiet and compose all manner
   of passions rising in the heart, and all troubles in mind, and to
   preserve the soul in peace, tranquillity, and cheerfulness in God's
   service. 12. To avoid such things or doings as will distract our minds
   with dissipating images. 13. To forbear and break off all particular
   partial friendships and compliances. 14. To preserve convenient liberty
   of spirit, and to abstain from encumbering or ensnaring ourselves by
   any voluntary assumed tasks, obligations, &c., though in matters in
   themselves good, but which may, becoming obligatory, prove hindrances
   to better things. 15. In a word, the divine inspirations, of which we
   here treat, do ever tend to a simplicity in thoughts, words, and deeds,
   and to all things which may advance the more perfect exercise of
   obedience, humility, resignation, purity of prayer, purity of
   intention, &c., so that whatsoever is contrary to any of these is to be
   rejected as a diabolical suggestion.

   13. As for extraordinary supernatural inspirations, illuminations,
   apparitions, voices, conversations with spirits, messages from heaven,
   &c., a spiritual internal liver is forbidden to pretend to, or so much
   as desire them; yea, rather to pray against them, lest he should abuse
   them to vanity and pride; and, moreover, never to admit or esteem them
   for such, and much less to put in execution anything that seems to be
   such a way commanded, till they have been first examined, judged, and
   approved by superiors, &c. But of this particular we shall speak more
   hereafter.

   14. The divine inspirations, lights, impulses, or calls, of which we
   here speak, are: 1. either such as are immediately communicated to the
   soul alone; 2. or also mediately with the concurrence of some other
   person or thing, to wit, by the mean of an external director; or also
   by the use and reading or hearing read spiritual or other pious books.
   We will, in the first place, treat of this latter way of understanding
   the divine will, because it is both more easy to be discerned, and also
   it is the way by which commonly imperfect souls are first instructed.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER II.

   S:S: 1, 2. Why an external guide is necessary in the beginning.

   S:S: 3, 4, 5, 6. The conditions of such a guide; of which the principal
   is experience in the same ways beyond learning, &c.

   S:S: 7, 8. Active spirits cannot be fit guides for contemplative.

   S:S: 9, 10. Actual illumination oft necessary to external directors.

   S:S: 11, 12, 13. The office of a director may not be voluntarily
   assumed or sought.

   S:S: 14, 15. Lay persons may be spiritual guides to religious; yea,
   women.

   S: 16. That is no prejudice to the spirit of an order.

   S: 17. Conditions necessary in directors.

   S:S: 18, 19. Directors must teach their disciples to seek light from
   God.

   S: 20. Sincerity and obedience necessary in the disciple.

   S: 21. The gift of discerning spirits necessary in a director.

   S: 22. His instructions must be general.

   S:S: 23, 24. Frequent consultations harmful.

   S: 25. Two general remedies against difficulties: viz. 1. Riddance. 2.
   Patience.

   S:S: 26, 27. The director must not with unnecessary questions raise
   doubts.

   S: 28. Great danger from unnecessary conversation of directors with
   women.

   S: 29. More particular advices referred to other following places.

   1. A soul that comes out of the world to a religious contemplative
   life, or that living yet in the world is abstracted from the world and
   aspires to a state of perfection, at the first ordinarily will stand in
   need of an external instructor and guide for most matters that concern
   her in that way. The reason is because that such souls, although being
   supposed to be in the state of grace, have sufficient internal light to
   direct them in the ordinary duties of a Christian life, for the
   avoiding of sin and performing the necessary acts of virtues requisite;
   yet, as to the proper practices of internal ways, and to the ordering
   of common actions to the advancing of themselves towards contemplation,
   they are indeed penitus animales, governed by sense and the obscure
   deceitful light of natural reason, scarce knowing what an internal
   inspiration (with regard to such matters) is, and however very much
   disabled are they to discern or correspond to such an inspiration. And
   for this reason their natural light and general knowledge that they
   have of their own insufficiency to be their own directors in a new
   unknown state, will tell them that they must have recourse to other
   guides skilled in those things of which themselves have no experience.
   Yet even this seeking and submitting themselves unto external directors
   is not to be esteemed merely an act of nature, or guided only by a
   natural light; but of such inspirations and supernatural light which
   attends the actions of all good Christians, by which they are taught
   and moved to distrust themselves, and not knowing as yet how to dispose
   themselves for the receiving supernatural lights from God (much less to
   merit them), grace directs them to use the mediation of others, and to
   hear and obey God, speaking and ordaining by them.

   2. But the necessity of an external instructor is generally only at the
   beginning of a contemplative course. For after that souls, by the means
   of general directions given and a competent pursuit of internal
   exercises, have been once put and conveniently settled in a right way
   how to seek for more light from God alone, they must not afterwards,
   out of levity, curiosity, or a foolish proneness to discover their
   interior, nor without a just necessity, continue to seek instructions
   from without; nothing will excuse it but the want of internal light in
   some special doubtful cases, and then also, they having an internal
   inspiration and motion to seek it from others; in which case it is
   indeed their divine internal Master that they obey, who speak unto them
   by the external director appointed unto them by God. The devout reader
   may further see what the fore-mentioned excellent author of [8]Scala
   Perfectionis says to this purpose in the 2d part and 91st chapter, as
   likewise the author of the book called the [9]Cloud of Unknowing,chap.
   49 and 54.

   3. Now to the end to enable the soul to make a good choice (I mean such
   a soul as hath freedom to make her own choice), I will set down the
   qualities necessary to be found in a good director, by which title I do
   not mean simply a Confessarius, that is only to hear faults confessed,
   to give absolution, and there an end; for the ordinary qualities of
   learning and prudence are sufficient thereto. But by a spiritual
   director I intend one that, besides this, is to instruct the disciple
   in all the peculiar duties of an internal life; that is, to judge of
   her propension to contemplative ways, and that can at least teach her
   how she may fit herself with a degree of prayer proper for her; that
   knows all the degrees of internal prayer, and can determine how long
   she is to remain in such a degree, and when to change it for a higher;
   that can judge what employments, &c., are helpful or hindering to her
   progress in internal ways; but especially that can teach her how to
   dispose herself to hearken to and follow God's internal teaching, and
   to stand in no more need of consulting her external director, &c. Such
   are the proper offices of a guide, to enable him whereto there are
   generally by spiritual writers required three principal qualities: 1. a
   good natural judgment; 2. learning; 3. experience.

   4. But because it is scarce to be hoped for in all places and for all
   souls to find a director absolutely perfect and qualified with all
   manner of fitting conditions, therefore the said writers do dispute
   what quality is the most necessary to make a director capable of a
   sufficient discharge of his office. Now forasmuch as concerns the first
   condition, to wit, a good natural judgment, though by all it be
   acknowledged to be insufficient alone, yet is it so absolutely
   necessary that without it no considerable experience can be attained;
   and learning, if it be joined with an extravagant capricious spirit,
   will prove rather pernicious than advantageous; therefore, the question
   remains between learning and experience, whether of the two is the most
   necessary?

   5. But truly this scarce deserves to be a question. For though for the
   assoiling of ordinary doubts and cases of conscience, as about fasting,
   saying the divine office, confession, restitution, &c., learning be the
   principal condition to be looked after in one that is to be a guide for
   such purposes, notwithstanding, since the office of the spiritual
   director that now we seek after is to be exercised in such internal
   matters of the spirit as hath been said, to wit, contemplative prayer,
   attending to divine inspirations, &c., it is the resolute judgment of
   Gerson, Avila, [10]St. Teresa, B. John de Cruce, Seraphinus Firmanus,
   &c., that no trust is to be given to learning without experience, but
   much to experience though without learning. And to this purpose it is
   observable that for the most part the instruments that God hath been
   pleased, both in ancient and modern times, to employ in the instructing
   and guiding of souls to the perfection of contemplative prayer, have
   been persons of small learning but great experience, such as were St.
   Anthony, [11]St. Benedict, St. Francis, [12]St. Teresa, &c.

   6. No learning, therefore, that may be got by study and reading, though
   of all the contemplative books that now are extant, will alone serve to
   enable any one to be a competent director for internal livers. But
   there is necessary experience and practice in the same prayer, and
   other internal exercises that are to be taught; for never so many years
   spent in discursive prayer will little avail to qualify any one to be a
   proper and profitable director for souls tending to contemplation, as
   all enclosed religious men and women are obliged.

   7. Yea, it is much more safe for a well-meaning soul, the which, in
   solitude and abstraction, aspires to contemplation, to make use of
   that, though obscure, internal light which God has given her for the
   applying of such instructions as books which treat of effective prayer
   proper for her will afford her; or else to trust to the guidance of a
   virtuous humble-minded director, who, though he have but a very small
   proportion either of experience or learning, yet, out of humility, will
   not assume unto himself authority to judge of things above his reach,
   but will encourage the soul either to seek out one more intelligent, or
   to follow the directions of her own spirit illuminated by grace, than
   to confide in any directors, though never so learned, that would
   confine her all her lifetime to a form of discursive prayer, much
   busying the imagination, but not affording a scope free enough for the
   affections and holy desires, in which principally consists the good of
   prayer; and by consequence that will be apt to make her suspect all
   tracts and invitations wherewith God shall draw her to a more sublime,
   quiet, pure prayer in spirit, to the which, if she do not correspond,
   she will remain continually in multiplicity, distraction, and
   unquietness. The more learned that such improper directors are, the
   more incompetent are they for such an employment about souls whose
   profession is the aspiring to the prayer of contemplation; because, if
   either they be ignorant of such prayer, or unwilling to acknowledge any
   prayer more perfect than that which themselves practise and teach
   others, their learning will make them both more able and forward to
   keep souls under a certain captivity, chained with methods and forms,
   the which, though very profitable, even to these souls in the
   beginning, yet afterward become very painful and even insupportable to
   them living in solitude and a quiet abstraction of life.

   8. Truly it is not without some scruple and unwillingness that the
   present subject obliges me to deliver instructions, the which, perhaps,
   will to some appear displeasing and unwelcome. But the charitable
   reader is entreated to believe that here is not the least intention to
   reflect with censure upon any, or to inconciliate any directors to
   their disciples; our design being only to show what kind of prayer and
   practices we judge proper for internal livers; and this being so, we
   hope that, without offence to any, we may say that the most fit
   directors are such as are versed in the ways that they teach, as
   likewise that we may suggest to those that are of a contemplative
   profession that they would, in the exercise of prayer, abate, as much
   as may be, the busy work of the imagination, and enlarge that of
   affection. This is all we intend, both here and in whatsoever other
   passages of this book occasion is given to renew the like advices.

   9. I may truly say that neither natural judgment, learning, nor
   experience all together are absolutely sufficient to qualify a person
   for the employment of guiding souls in all cases in the internal ways
   of the spirit, but very oft an actual supernatural illumination will
   moreover be requisite and necessary; though true it is that experienced
   persons have great advantages beyond what wit or learning can afford.
   And such, for matters beyond their experience, no doubt, will often
   remit souls to God and their own observation; the which is a quality
   and office not to be expected from persons that bring no better
   endowments with them to the managing of contemplative souls, but only
   subtlety of wit and learning, or experience in a quite different and
   much inferior exercise of prayer (such experience being, as I said,
   rather a disadvantage), for such will resolve all cases; and though the
   directions they give must needs be improper, yet they will be very
   absolute in requiring obedience. Whereas, a person experienced in the
   same internal ways, being humble withal (for else, saith Avila, he also
   will probably be faulty too), though he be not in all cases able to
   give a resolute judgment, yet, finding his own deficiency, he will make
   a doubt of the matter, and thereupon, out of humility, will not scorn
   but rather be desirous to consult and take advice from others more able
   to resolve.

   10. Hereupon it is that [13]St. Teresa (as it is recorded in her life)
   much complains of the hurt that such resolute and insufficient teachers
   did to her and will do to others. And Thaulerus (worthily styled the
   illuminate doctor) professeth of himself in a certain sermon that
   unless he were specially illuminated by God for the solution of a doubt
   proposed to him, he would remit the party to God himself, to be
   instructed in prayer what to do. And let not such a one doubt, saith
   he, but that God will be his faithful counsellor. Moreover, he finds
   great fault with those arrogant persons that reprehend souls for
   suffering themselves to be guided by the instincts and internal lights
   and motions proceeding from God's Spirit, and for their calling such by
   the titles of new spirits, or pretenders to extraordinary
   illuminations; whereas, saith he, those that take all their
   instructions from persons and books will with very small success pursue
   the ways of the spirit.

   11. It is a miserable thing to see how this employment of directing
   souls (which above all other is most difficult, and exceedeth even the
   ability of an angel yet), out of an ambitious humour, is invaded by
   persons wholly unfitted for it, and that without any vocation from God
   voluntarily undertake it; so that no marvel it is if so little good
   come from such intruders. Not one of a thousand, saith Avila, is
   capable of so sublime a task. Nay, saith the holy Bishop of Geneva, not
   one of ten thousand. And most certain it is that those who so freely
   offer themselves to so divine an employment, do thereby show themselves
   to want the most necessary qualifications, to wit, humility and a true
   knowledge of its difficulty, and therefore their directions are most to
   be suspected.

   12. Hereupon Thaulerus saith, that a soul intending perfection ought to
   seek out an experienced servant of God, though it cost her a journey of
   many German miles. But, saith he, if such a friend cannot be found,
   then will a simple Confessarius serve, though never so ignorant; for
   even by such men doth the Holy Ghost speak by reason of their office;
   so that they may securely be submitted to and obeyed, even in things
   which they do not well understand.

   13. If a soul that is fearful and scrupulous be to choose a director,
   she ought to avoid one of the like temper, for passion which blinds the
   seeker will also blind the director, and so the blind will lead the
   blind.

   14. It is not necessary that the persons consulted with about
   difficulties concerning internal prayer should be learned, or in holy
   orders (except doubts concerning matters of faith or cases of
   conscience intervene), for though lay persons and women be not allowed
   by the Church to preach publicly, yet are they not forbidden to give
   private instructions in matters of that nature to any that shall have
   recourse to them. And of the good success of such instructors we have
   divers examples, as in the layman that converted Thaulerus, a learned
   doctor and a religious man, and likewise in St. Catharine of Siena,
   [14]St. Teresa, &c. And in a well-governed monastery of women, where a
   good course of internal prayer, approved by superiors and learned
   divines, is once well settled, it is very expedient that instructions
   concerning it should rather come from superiors within; because
   otherwise, by reason of the frequent change of directors, perhaps of
   contrary spirits, and many of them little practised in such prayer,
   souls will be governed uncertainly, and be in danger to be put out of
   their way.

   15. Though it seem evidently more reasonable and more proportionable to
   the spirits of persons professing a religious state to be conducted by
   others of the same profession (caeteris paribus) than by such as are
   strangers thereto, yet scarce any directors can be found more improper
   for such (supposing that they tend to contemplation) than are religious
   guides of active spirits, that know no further of prayer than
   meditation, and that show more zeal for an exact observance of
   ceremonies, or a multiplying of external voluntary austerities (the
   which of themselves, and unless they be guided by God's Spirit, have no
   special influence on the spirit, but only serve either for an outward
   show of rigour, or for keeping souls from misspending the time), than
   for the more essential internal duties of prayer, solitude of spirit,
   interior mortification, &c. Much more profitable to such souls would be
   a director, though not of any religious profession, that would impose
   on souls only such austerities as are essentially necessary to an
   internal life; such as are perfect abstraction, silence, solitude,
   convenient abstinence, &c. And for other matters not much necessary nor
   much effectual, leaving them in a due moderate liberty of spirit,
   especially such as will not impose on them any forms of mental prayer,
   however liked or practised by themselves, but for such matters rather
   leaving them to the conduct of God's Holy Spirit, and that will not
   torture them with painful, iterated customary confessions, &c.

   16. And whereas it will be perhaps objected that probably such
   directors, being strangers as to the special distinctive spirit of such
   an order or community, may endanger in their disciples a loss of the
   said spirit, I must profess that I understand not what is meant by that
   so-much-talked-of spirit of an order; nor how several orders, though
   never so much distinguished by habits or certain external practices, if
   their profession be to tend to contemplation, can have any more than
   one spirit, which directs them to make their principal design to be the
   seeking of God in His internal ways of divine love, and to that only
   end besides conformable prayer to practise such observances and
   mortifications as will best promote this design. And surely this good
   spirit of religion and contemplation, a good director, of what
   profession soever, will very studiously endeavour to advance, yea, and
   moreover will no doubt oblige his disciples to be very regular and
   zealous in the observance of all good ordinances of the community, and
   principally of the rule according to their profession made; instructing
   them withal how they may use such things for the advancing of their
   spirit and the service of God, although in the mean time, perhaps, he
   be not cunning in all the particular observances that belong to them,
   and little or nothing at all to him.

   17. All souls that live in contemplative orders are not naturally
   fitted for contemplative ways, nor the seeking of God in spirit. Those,
   therefore, that have not, and indeed are not capable of much light in
   their interior, and so are not so fit to be guided by divine
   inspirations, do the more need to have certain rules from without, at
   least for the exterior. And for such it is God's will and direction
   that they should more depend on external guides.

   18. He that takes upon hire the office of a spiritual director, saith
   Thaulerus, ought for some reasonable space of time to converse with his
   disciples, especially at the beginning; for a few transitory
   conferences will not suffice to give him light concerning their
   propensions and dispositions, that he may fit them with a degree of
   prayer proper for them, both for the present and future. And his
   principal care must be to set them in such a way as that they may not
   need to have much recourse unto him afterward, the which is done by
   giving them general directions about their prayer, and especially how
   thereby to dispose themselves to receive light from God, Whose
   inspirations ought for the future to be their principal rule,
   especially for the interior. And for the practising in particular
   according to the general directions given, the disciples must use their
   own judgment, and for a help they may also make use of such
   instructions as they may find in books, so far as they shall be proper
   for their spirit. But in cases when neither their own judgment nor
   books will help them, if the difficulty be of greater moment, they may
   again have recourse unto their director.

   19. And in this sort are writers that speak much of the necessity of an
   external director to be understood. For if such necessity were to last
   always, good souls should be obliged to spend their whole lives in
   conferring with directors, from whence would follow continual
   solicitudes, scrupulosities, and dangerous distractions, &c., most
   contrary to an internal spiritual life, which ought to be a state of
   much repose, cessation, introversion, and a continual attendance unto
   what God speaks within unto the soul; who, if souls will humbly and
   faithfully depend on Him, will clear and resolve difficulties, which
   external masters will never be able to penetrate into. But it is too
   general a humour in directors nowadays to make themselves seem
   necessary unto their disciples, whom they endeavour to keep in a
   continual dependence, to the great prejudice of their progress in
   spirit, besides many other inconveniences not needful to be mentioned
   particularly.

   20. A soul that has recourse to an instructor provided by God for her,
   or that, using her best advice, she hath made choice of, must deal
   freely, plainly, and candidly with him, concealing nothing necessary to
   be known by him; and his directions she must follow in all things,
   assuring herself that if she do so in the simplicity of her heart, and
   as in obedience to God himself, God will enlighten him so that she
   shall not be misled.

   21. The gift of discerning spirits is so necessary to a spiritual
   guide, that except thereby he be able to fit a soul with a sort and
   degree of prayer suitable to her natural disposition, not tying all
   souls to begin according to any general methods (for none such can be
   prescribed but will be prejudicial to some), and unless he teach how
   she may become illuminated without him, by God alone, by the means of
   prayer and abstraction of life (wherewith the mists of images and
   passions being dispelled, a light will spring forth in the soul far
   more clear and certain than any that can come from human instructions),
   not all the instructions of men and angels, joined with all
   mortifications imaginable, will be able to bring a soul to
   contemplation. For seldom or never doth God work contrary to our
   natural complexions; and till souls come to exercises in spirit and
   prayer, infused by God alone, they are far from contemplation.

   22. Now at the first it is very hard for any director to know exactly
   the secret inclinations of imperfect souls; which are so infinitely
   various; and therefore, for the most part, their instructions about
   prayer and attendance to divine inspirations must be general, the which
   the disciples themselves must make a particular use of by observing
   their own abilities and inclinations, and by marking what more
   particular forms of prayer, &c., suit best with them and do them most
   good. And this if they be not able in a reasonable manner to do, or if
   they have not the courage to abide in a way in which they are put, it
   will be in vain for them to proceed in those secret internal ways.

   23. If the way wherein a soul is put, and hath made a reasonable
   progress, be indeed proper for her, there will be little need of
   frequent recourse unto her director. Neither ought he to examine her
   about her internal exercises, of which he may judge well enough by her
   external comportment; for it is impossible for a soul to be in a wrong
   way interiorly, but of itself it will break out exteriorly, especially
   to the eyes of those who themselves are in a right way, as the
   spiritual director is supposed to be. And there is scarce any more
   certain sign that a soul is not interiorly in a good way, than is her
   being forward to trouble her director with a multiplicity of questions
   and doubts, and her readiness to discover her interior to others, whom
   she has heard or does believe to be skilful in spirituality.

   24. The images and internal distractions raised by impertinent
   consultations about the interior are, of all other, most pernicious;
   for distractions from without are but superficial, whereas those being
   hatched and bred within the soul from some secret ill qualities, as
   fear, scrupulosity, curiosity, &c., they are more profound and
   destructive to true recollection.

   25. The general remedies against almost all difficulties are these two:
   1. riddance; 2. patience. The former consists in affording to the soul
   some ease and latitude, as far as a good conscience will permit, in
   such things as are apt to perplex well-minded tender souls, as
   confession, saying of the office, obligation to the ordinances of the
   Church, and some kind of temptations; in all which things such souls
   are to be taught to neglect and transcend scrupulous nicety, and they
   are likewise to be prudently freed from the practice of customs not
   obligatory. And this remedy is proper against scrupulosity,
   disentangling the soul from many snares which otherwise would prove a
   great hindrance to her. The other remedy of patience and abiding is
   reasonable in case of aridities, desolations, and other such
   discouragements in an internal life; in which cases the devout soul is
   to be exhorted to behave herself as well as she can, and to be quietly
   resigned for what with all her industry she cannot help. Above all
   things, she is to be heartened to pursue courageously her appointed
   recollections in despite of all such oppositions raised by the devil or
   corrupt nature, and permitted by God for her good. The which if she do
   she will either disperse these temptations, or obtain a divine light to
   perceive that the way both most proper and most secure, by which God
   purposes to lead her to perfection, is the way of aridities and
   obscurities, as B. John de Cruce teaches in his treatise called
   [15]Mount Carmel. And when she once perceives this, then they will not
   only be supportable, but even acceptable to her. However, if a soul did
   know, or could be persuaded how much better it were for her to suffer a
   little bitterness arising from such difficulties or perplexities, than
   to hasten for a remedy by seeking help from others, or by turning
   herself to unnecessary solaces in creatures, and also with what
   confidence she might expect satisfaction from her internal master, if
   she would seriously, by prayer, seek Him, she would save both herself
   and her director much trouble and inconvenience.

   26. The instructor must use great wariness that he do not raise doubts
   and scruples in his scholars' minds by moving needless and indiscreet
   questions, or by impertinent discourses concerning spiritual matters,
   for thereby he may come to raise such doubts as himself shall not be
   able to resolve, and to put them so far out of their way as perhaps
   they will never be able to find it again. Therefore, in ordinary
   conversations, it is more fit that the subject of discourse should be
   some external and indifferent matters, wherein the parties are not much
   concerned, than such as regard the interior. Experience shows how much
   inconvenience doth come to souls by the conversations of such as are
   great pretenders to skill in spirituality, and therefore, out of vanity
   or a mistaken charity, are apt, when there is no need, to be offering
   instructions about spiritual matters.

   27. Some souls do see their way before them far better than others, and
   therefore do move fewer questions. The instructor therefore is to
   behave himself towards them all according to the quality and need of
   each spirit, always remembering that his office is not to teach his own
   way, nor indeed any determinate way of prayer, &c., but to instruct his
   disciples how they may themselves find out the way proper for them, by
   observing themselves what doeth good and what causeth harm to their
   spirits; in a word, that he is only God's usher, and must lead souls in
   God's way and not his own.

   28. Of all other spiritual persons, it concerns women especially to be
   very sparing in consultations, and, when necessity requires, to be
   brief in delivering their difficulties, for otherwise many
   inconveniences will follow; as: 1. loss of time both to the disciple
   and instructor; 2. distractions far more hurtful than if they were
   busied about the most encumbering employments of the community; 3.
   danger of multiplying new perplexities, by fearing that they have not
   given a full and a right account of themselves, &c. Besides, one
   difficulty will be apt to beget a new one, so that instead of seeking
   peace by disburdening of the conscience, by their indiscretions they
   may come both to trouble the peace of their instructors and to plunge
   themselves in incurable perplexities and obscurities of mind; 4. great
   cause there is to fear that there may, upon such occasion of
   unnecessary consultations, ensue dangerous familiarities and
   friendships with such as may prove very unfit counsellors. Thereupon
   St. Francis Xavier saith, that seldom was there so much good to be
   expected from the frequent treaties between persons of different sexes
   as there was peril in them to both.

   29. This may suffice concerning the qualities and office of an external
   director. As for more special duties belonging to him in more
   particular cases, as scrupulosities, mortifications, &c., it shall be
   treated when we come to speak of such particular subjects; as likewise
   of the obligation of superiors about the promoting the spiritual good
   of their subjects' souls (although they be not consulted with in the
   nature of spiritual guides), somewhat shall be said in the following
   discourse concerning the state of a religious profession.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER III.

   S: 1. Of reading, which is next to prayer.

   S: 2. Some books may be read for diversion.

   S: 3. But spiritual books only for the soul's profit.

   S:S: 4, 5. Books proper for contemplatives, &c.

   S: 6. Not to stop in obscure places.

   S: 7. Not to practise directions, but such as are suitable to the
   spirit.

   S:S: 9, 10. Extraordinary practices of saints in mortifications not to
   be imitated without great caution.

   S: 11. Why mystic authors seem to write diversely.

   S: 12. Some Authors indiscreetly require perfection at first.

   S: 13. Reading must give way to prayer.

   S: 14. How mortification is to be practised in reading.

   S:S: 15, 16. Divine inspirations to be observed in applying
   instructions; and particularly of those in this book.

   S: 17. A soul following God may without books or instructors be led to
   perfect contemplation.

   1. A second mean by which the Divine Spirit teacheth devout souls is
   the reading of pious books. And this exercise I esteem, for worth and
   spiritual profit, to be next unto prayer.

   2. As for ordinary books, as ecclesiastical history, &c., it may be
   permitted to souls even in religion to read them for an innocent
   diversion and recreation, so that be not the principal end, but that
   the intention further be by such diversion to dispose a weary soul the
   better afterwards to pursue her internal exercises. And this permission
   now is the more reasonable, since that in religious communities of men
   bodily labour is almost out of date, and in place thereof reading and
   study hath succeeded, as now the principal daily employment of
   religious persons, who, living much less abstracted from the world, are
   almost forced to comply with the customs of the present times, in which
   learning is so valued and so abounding.

   3. But as for spiritual books, the intention of an internal liver ought
   not to be such as is that of those who live extroverted lives, who read
   them out of a vain curiosity, or to be thereby enabled to discourse of
   such sublime matters, without any particular choice or consideration
   whether they be suitable to their spirit for practice or no. A
   contemplative soul in reading such books must not say, this is a good
   book or passage, but moreover, this is useful and proper for me, and by
   God's grace I will endeavour to put in execution, in due time and
   place, the good instructions contained in it, as far as they are good
   for me.

   4. For such souls the books most proper are these following: [16]Scala
   Perfectionis, written by F. Walter Hilton; the [17]Cloud of Unknowing,
   written by an unknown author; the Secret Paths of Divine Love; as
   likewise the Anatomy of the Soul, written by R. F. Constantin
   Barbanson, a Capuchin; the book entitled Of the Threefold Will of God,
   written by R. F. Benet Fitch (alias Canfield), a Capuchin likewise; the
   works of [18]St. Teresa, of [19]B. John de Cruce; likewise Harphius,
   Thaulerus, [20]Suso, [21]Rusbrochius, Richard de St. Victor, Gerson,
   &c. And of the ancients, the Lives of the Ancient Fathers living in the
   Desert, and Cassian's [22]Conferences of certain Ancient Hermits
   (recommended particularly unto us by our holy father), St. Basil's
   Rules, &c. Then for souls that tend to perfection in an active life,
   books most proper are, the works of Rodriguez, of Perfection; the Duke
   of Gandia, of Good Works; Mons. de Sales, Ludovicus de Puente, &c. And
   lastly, books of a mixed nature are Granada, Blosius, &c. Indeed, few
   spiritual books there are wherein there is not an intermingling of such
   instructions. Now I should advise souls in an active life not at all to
   meddle with instructions belonging to contemplation, but applying
   themselves to the precepts and exercises of an active life, to use them
   in order to the end thereof, the perfection of external Christian
   charity.

   5. In all spiritual books, as likewise in all that treat of Christian
   morality, such instructions as concern the essential qualities and
   practice of virtues are to be esteemed proper to all souls, yet not so
   the motives, manner, and circumstances of exercising the said virtues.

   6. In reading of spiritual books, if anything touching prayer, &c.,
   occur (as ofttimes it will happen) that the spiritual disciple
   understands not, let him pass it over and neither unnecessarily trouble
   his own brains, nor make it a business to trouble others about the
   understanding of it. Perhaps in time, after more reading, and
   especially more experience in prayer, he will come to understand it.

   7. And as for those things which he either does indeed, or thinks he
   understands them, let him not be hasty to apply them to himself by
   practice, out of his own natural judgment or liking, but let him
   observe his own spirit, way, and internal guidance by God, and
   accordingly make use of them; otherwise, instead of reaping benefit,
   such inconveniences may happen, that it would have been better he had
   never read, nor been able to read any books at all, but only to have
   followed his own internal light, as many good souls have done that
   never could read, and yet seeking God in simplicity of their hearts,
   and praying without any prescribed methods, practising likewise
   according to the invitation and impulse of the Divine Spirit, have
   attained to perfect contemplation.

   8. Generally mystic authors write according to their own experience in
   their own souls, when they treat of the several degrees of prayer and
   the several manners of divine operations in souls in such degrees, as
   if the same instructions would serve indefinitely for all others.
   Whereas such is the inexplicable variety of internal dispositions, that
   the same course and order in all things will scarce serve any two
   souls. Therefore, if the indiscreet readers, without considering their
   own spirits and enablements, shall upon the authority of any book
   either tarry too long in an inferior degree of prayer, when God has
   fitted them and does call them to a higher, or in a foolish ambition
   shall, being unprepared, presume to a degree of prayer too sublime and
   spiritual for them, there will be no end of difficulties, doubts, and
   consultations.

   9. But of all errors the greatest and most dangerous is the indiscreet
   imitating the examples and practices of saints in particular
   extraordinary corporal mortifications, voluntarily (yet by God's
   special direction) assumed by them, as labours, fastings, watchings,
   disciplines, &c. For such a forwardness in others not called thereto,
   to be extraordinary likewise, it is much to be feared proceeds merely
   from pride and self-love, and will produce no better effects than the
   nourishing of the same inordinate affections. And if such have not the
   courage and patience (as it cannot be expected they should have) to
   persevere in such exercises, this will cause infirmity of body,
   dejection of mind, and weariness, if not an utter casting off a
   spiritual course.

   10. The benefit that we ought and easily may reap from the reading of
   such extraordinary practices of others, is to admire God's ways in the
   conducting of his saints, and to take occasion from thence of humbling
   and despising of ourselves, seeing how short we come of them in the
   practice of their virtues; but no further to imitate them in such
   things than we may be assured that God directs us by a supernatural
   light, and enables us by an extraordinary grace, yea, and moreover,
   till we have obtained the leave and approbation of a prudent director.
   Till this be, let us supply with a good will what our forces will not
   reach unto. And above all things, we must take heed that we do not
   entangle ourselves by laying obligations or vows upon our souls about
   such matters, the which we shall have difficulty to discharge ourselves
   from when by trial we find the inconvenience.

   11. Mystic writers, in expressing the spiritual way in which they have
   been led, do oft seem to differ extremely from one another; the which
   difference, notwithstanding, if rightly understood, is merely in the
   phrase and manner of expression. And the ground hereof is, because the
   pure immaterial operations of perfect souls in prayer, and especially
   the operations of God in souls in which they are patients only, are so
   sublime that intelligible words and phrases cannot perfectly express
   them, and therefore they are forced to invent new words the best they
   can, or to borrow similitudes from corporal things, &c., to make their
   conceptions more intelligible; and thus does each one according to the
   mariner that he finds or conceives in himself, or according to his
   skill in language. No wonder, therefore, if there seem to be diversity
   among them. Hereupon the author of The Cloud observes, that great harm
   may come by understanding things literally, grossly, and sensibly,
   which, howsoever they be expressed, were intended and ought to be
   understood spiritually.

   12. Some good spiritual authors, intending to recommend certain duties
   necessary to be practised, forasmuch as concerns the substance of the
   duties (as an entire self-abnegation, purity of intention, &c.), do
   urge the said duties in the greatest perfection universally upon all,
   and with such phrases of absolute necessity as if upon any defect in
   practising that virtue (so by them extended to the full, to the end to
   prevent all the most secret ways and shifts in which nature is apt to
   seek her own satisfaction) all the whole design of an internal life
   were ruined; they do by this overmuch exactness and care, instead of
   exciting the courage of their readers to the serious practice of so
   necessary a duty, quite dishearten them; yea, perhaps they make them
   suspect the state of their souls, who being conscious of their present
   infirmity and imperfections, lose all heart to adventure upon an
   attempt so unproportionable to their weak abilities. Whereas, if
   instructions had been tempered with regard to the capacity of each
   practiser, they would have gone on with courage and good success.

   13. Voluntary reading must give place to prayer, whensoever the soul
   finds herself invited thereto.

   14. The virtue of mortification may, and sometimes ought, to be
   practised in reading in this manner. When any book or subject is very
   gustful to a soul, she must be watchful over herself not to pour
   herself wholly upon it with an intemperate greediness, nor to let
   curiosity or delight too much possess her, but let her now and then
   stop the pursuit of reading, lifting up her mind by interruptions to
   God, and afterwards continue at least in a virtual attention to Him, so
   mortifying and qualifying the impetuosity of nature. And by no means
   let her give way to an unwillingness to quit reading for performing her
   appointed recollections or other exercises of obligation.

   15. To conclude: whosoever in reading, &c., doth not chiefly observe
   his own spirit and divine call, and makes not the books, sayings, and
   examples of others to serve the said spirit and call, but, on the
   contrary, makes the divine inspirations subject to books, &c., it were
   better for him never to read such books, or receive human instructions,
   but that he should cleave only to God, who in case of necessity will
   most assuredly supply all other wants and defects.

   16. And the same liberty that I have recommended to souls in the
   reading of other books, I advise them to use in these instructions
   also, that is, to apply to their own practice only such directions as
   their spiritual instructor and their own experience and reason,
   enlightened by grace, shall show them to be proper for them. Indeed, in
   all this book I know scarce any one advice which I can confidently say
   to be properly belonging to all souls that lead an internal life
   generally, except this, that they who aspire to perfection in
   contemplation must not content themselves nor rest finally in any
   inferior degree of prayer, but following the divine light and
   invitation (without obliging themselves to any forms or methods) they
   must from the lowest degree of internal prayer (which is ordinarily
   meditation) proceed to a more sublime prayer of immediate affections
   and acts of the will, and from thence ascend to the infused prayer of
   aspirations.

   17. Yea, I dare with all confidence pronounce, that if all spiritual
   books in the world were lost, and there were no external directors at
   all, yet if a soul (sufficiently instructed in the essential grounds of
   Catholic faith) that has a natural aptness, though otherwise never so
   simple and unlearned (being only thus far well instructed at first),
   will prosecute prayer and abstraction of life, and will resignedly
   undergo such necessary mortifications as God shall provide for her,
   observing God and His call exteriorly and interiorly, and so forsake
   herself, and propose Almighty God, His will, love, honour, for her
   final intention (which she will certainly do if she attend unto His
   inspirations), such a soul would walk clearly in perfect light, and
   with all possible security, and would not fail in due time to arrive at
   perfect contemplation. These are the two external means by which God
   teaches souls, discovering to them His will, to wit, instructors and
   books. And to these we might add another, to wit, laws and precepts of
   superiors (for God teaches also this way, and never commands
   contrarily). But of these we shall speak hereafter.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER IV.

   S: 1. Of the third and principal way by which God teaches internal
   livers, viz. immediate divine inspirations; the order of particular
   considerations following touching them.

   S: 2. First, of the necessity of them, and the ground of such
   necessity.

   S:S: 3, 4, 5, 6. The said necessity proved by the testimony of St.
   Benedict in his [23]Rule, &c.; as also by his example.

   S: 7. A further demonstration of the said necessity.

   1. The third fore-mentioned, and of all other the most principal means
   by which God instructs and directs internal livers in the secret paths
   of His divine love, and upon which do depend the two former, are
   interior illuminations and inspirations of God's Holy Spirit, who is to
   be acknowledged the only supreme Master; concerning which inspirations
   it hath already been shown in general what they are, how distinguished
   from the lights and motions of common grace, and what are the objects
   about which principally they are exercised, &c. I will now treat more
   particularly of them in this following order, viz.: 1. there shall be
   further shown the necessity of them; 2. that souls are obliged to
   dispose themselves for the receiving of them, and how this is to be
   done, to wit, by removing the impediments; 3. how God communicates to
   the soul His light and grace for her instruction and direction; 4. that
   it is not hard to discern them, and very secure to rely upon them; 5.
   that by the use of them no prejudice at all comes to ecclesiastical or
   religious obedience.

   2. Touching the first point, to wit, the necessity of them in an
   internal contemplative life, there is none that will deny or doubt, but
   that divine inspirations are necessary forasmuch as concerns the proper
   and essential actions of Christian virtues, which receive all their
   meritoriousness from the said inspirations. But some there are that
   will not allow the same necessity of expecting inspirations and calls
   for actions or omissions of themselves indifferent or of less moment.
   But surely, since it is generally agreed upon by divines following St.
   Augustine, [24]St. Thomas, &c., that there are no actions done in
   particular circumstances which are simply to be esteemed indifferent,
   but since they must have some end, if the end be good they are to be
   esteemed good, and if evil they are evil (howsoever universally
   considered, they are in their own nature indifferent, because according
   to the intention and end wherewith they are done they may be good or
   evil): again, since there are no actions so inconsiderable but may,
   yea, ought to be performed out of the motive of divine love, and to the
   end to increase the said love in our souls, especially the ordinary
   actions and employments of a religious contemplative life; and lastly,
   since perfection in divine love cannot be attained by the simple
   exercise of charity in duties which are absolutely necessary, and
   without mortal sin cannot be omitted, the which duties do seldom occur,
   but it is moreover requisite for that end to multiply frequently and
   daily exercises of the said love in offices less necessary; yea, and to
   purify all our most ordinary actions from the stains of self-love which
   adhere unto them; hence, I say, appears the necessity of the influence
   of the Divine Spirit upon our actions which are not of such obligation,
   if we seriously tend to the perfection of divine love in our souls.

   3. To this purpose it is worth the observing how seriously our holy
   Father [25]St. Benedict enforces the necessity of hearkening to and
   obeying the inspirations of God's Holy Spirit, our only supreme Master,
   making this the foundation of all religious duties, in the prologue of
   his [26]Rule, where he saith that we must (nunquam discedere ab ejus
   magisterio) never depart from the institution and direction of God;
   that we must have our eyes open (ad Deificum lumen) to the divine
   light. On which grounds he calls a monastery (scholam Dominici
   servitii) the school wherein God's service is taught, and (officinam
   artis spiritualis) the workhouse wherein the art of the Divine Spirit
   is taught and practised; namely, because all things, all observances,
   even those of the least moment in a religious life, do tend to withdraw
   us from all other teachers and all other skill, and to bring us to be
   (Deo docibiles) taught by God only. And therefore it is that our said
   holy patriarch lays this as the foundation of all religious practices,
   that they be done in virtue of prayer; his words are, Inprimis ut
   quidquid agendum inchoas bonum, a Deo perfici instantissima orations
   deposcas. As if he should say, in the first and principal place, thou
   art to consider this to be the end why I invite thee to an abstracted
   religious life, that thou mayest thereby be brought to this happy and
   secure state, as to be enabled to obtain of God, by most earnest and
   assiduous prayer, to give a blessing and perfection to every action
   that in a religious state thou shalt apply thyself to. Now if according
   to our holy Father's principal intention prayer ought to prepare and
   accompany every action which we perform in religion, then surely it
   will follow that they ought all of them to be performed with relation
   to God, as upon His bidding and for His love and glory.

   4. Moreover, more particularly concerning divine inspirations, our holy
   Father makes mention of several ones in special, as in the point of
   internal prayer, though in common he ordains that it should be short
   (in the 20th chapter of his [27]Rule), yet so as that he leaves it to
   the liberty of any one to prolong it (ex affectu inspirationis Divinae
   gratiae) by an invitation and enablement from a divine inspiration and
   grace. And again, concerning abstinence, as also the measure of
   allowance for meat and drink, he professeth that he had a scruple how
   to proportion it, considering the variety of men's tempers and
   necessities. But, however, though he was willing to allow what might be
   sufficient for the strongest, yet he leaves every one in particular to
   the direction of grace, saying in the 40th chap. (Unusquisque proprium
   habet donum ex Deo; alias sic, alius vero sic), that is, every one hath
   a peculiar gift of God; one hath this, and another that (Quibus autem
   donat Deus tolerantiam abstinentiae, propriam se habituros mercedem
   sciant), that is, those unto whom God hath given the strength to endure
   a sparing abstinence, let them be assured that so doing God will give
   them a peculiar reward. Besides these, several other passages might be
   produced out of our holy Father's [28]Rule to the same purpose.

   5. Now in this last passage there is a document that well deserves to
   be considered. Every one, saith he, in St. Paul's words, hath his
   proper peculiar gift in the matter of refection. All good Christians
   have the gift to avoid therein a mortally sinful excess, but religious
   internal livers have moreover (or may have) a special gift to avoid
   even venial defects, and the perfect to advance themselves thereby
   towards perfection. Yet from thence we cannot conclude that God has
   obliged himself to discover unto every one, although seeking it by
   prayer, the exactly true state and complexion of his body. Whence it
   follows that if he, being mistaken in that which he is not bound to
   know, should demand more or less sustenance than is absolutely
   necessary, it is no sin, upon supposition that such desire did not
   proceed from a sensual affection to meat nor a faulty neglect of
   health, but from the best light that reason could afford him to judge
   of his own necessity, and from an intention to benefit his soul by a
   moderate refreshing of nature. And it is God's will that we should
   follow reason in all external things in which God doth not usually
   otherwise illuminate his servants. Though natural reason, therefore,
   may fail and be mistaken, yet the person does not offend, but rather
   follows God by following the light of his reason, this being all the
   light in such cases afforded him. So for example, if a hermit, being
   infirm, and having none to consult with, should doubt whether it were
   unlawful for him to break a commanded fast, and having by prayer
   desired God's direction, should remain persuaded that it was, and
   thereby should prejudice his health by fasting, this would be no sin at
   all in him, yea, on the contrary it would be meritorious. For he would
   fail indeed in that for which he had no light, neither was light
   necessary to him, to wit, the exact knowledge of what had been
   requisite for corporal health; but he would merit in that for which he
   had light, to wit, the advancement of his soul. And ordinarily
   speaking, the inspirations that God affords to the more perfect in such
   cases are rather to abstain even from the more expedient commodities,
   yea, ofttimes to some prejudice of health, for the greater good of the
   soul; because, too anxious a solicitude for health is unbecoming an
   internal liver. Yea, a robustious health uninterrupted is not
   convenient for such a one. But leaving this digression:

   6. Our holy Father teaches, as himself had been taught (for what other
   teacher had he from his infancy till the moment of his expiration but
   the Divine Spirit, by whose light and impulse alone he was directed
   into and in his solitude, and afterward enabled to direct all
   succeeding ages in a coenobitical life?) to have recourse to the same
   teacher. The like may be said of all the ancient hermits and anchorites
   who could have no other instructor but God, and had no other employment
   during their rigorous solitude and silence, but to attend to their
   internal teacher, and put in execution His inspirations in all their
   actions both internal and external. To this purpose, saith a holy
   hermit in Cassian, that as it was by God's inspiration that we begin,
   when we enter into religion, so likewise (magisterio et illuminatione
   Dei ad perfectionem pervenimus) by the discipline, instruction, and
   illumination of God we attain to perfection. Another says that a soul
   can do no good at all unless she be (quotidiana Domini illuminatione
   illustrata) enlightened by a daily illumination from God. These are
   expressions that our holy Father himself uses, and it seems borrowed
   them from the same authors. And for this reason it is that in his
   [29]Rule he contents himself with ordaining prescriptions for the
   exterior only, because he knew that the interior could only be directed
   by God. But withal, his ordinations are such as we may see his
   intention and only design was by them to dispose souls to be capable of
   observing and following the inspirations and inward instructions of
   God's Holy Spirit, without which all exterior observances would never
   bring us to perfection; such were very rigorous solitude and
   abstraction from all intercourse either with the business or news of
   the world, almost continual silence but when we speak to God, &c. And
   withal, in several places of his [30]Rule he signifies by the way that
   the reformation of the spirit ought to be the principal aim of a
   religious soul. So that in the conclusion of the [31]Rule, having
   regard to the external observances expressly commanded therein (as a
   preparation to the perfection to be learnt out of the lives and
   conferences of the fathers), he professeth with great humility, but
   with great truth also, that his intention thereby was that those which
   observed it be enabled to declare in some sort (honestatem morum, aut
   initium conversationis eos habere) that they had attained to a laudable
   exterior carriage and the beginning of a holy religious conversation.
   But, saith he, whosoever shall tend to perfection, Sunt doctrinae
   Sanctorum Patrum; as if he had said he must, according to the teaching
   of the holy Fathers, attend unto the divine Master by exercising,
   according to his instructions, that pure sublime prayer, &c., which
   they practised and discovered. And suitable hereto St. Francis likewise
   in his [32]Rule advises his disciples thus: Attendant fratres, quod
   super omnia desiderare debent habere spiritum Domini, et sanctam ejus
   operationem, that is, the religious brethren must attentively mark
   that, above all other things, they ought to desire to have the Spirit
   of our Lord and his Holy operation in their souls.

   7. To conclude: either it must be granted that perfection may be
   attained merely by avoiding mortal sins, and doing such actions of
   virtue as are absolutely necessary to all Christians (which to say were
   manifestly foolish and false), and likewise that actions more
   indifferent and not so universally obliging (such as are certain more
   profitable manners of prayer, external religious observances,
   refection, conversation with our brethren, &c.) cannot be rendered
   capable of a holy intention and of advancing us in the divine love
   (which is against experience); and moreover, that without internal
   grace actually operating (which is nothing else but divine
   illuminations and impulses) these ordinary inferior actions may be
   exalted to produce that effect which the greatest necessary virtues
   could not produce, which to say were impiety; or it must be granted
   that the teaching of God's Holy Spirit is the only principal necessary
   cause by whose virtue we are informed and enabled to improve and make
   use of these actions for the attaining of so sublime an end as
   perfection in contemplation is, and without which it is impossible to
   be attained. And indeed, so impossible to be brought under external
   rules, and so secret and undiscoverable are the internal dispositions
   of souls and their operations, that they cannot be clearly perceived
   nor consequently ordered, but by Him to whom alone (our figmentum) our
   hearts and all the secret inclinations and motions of them are naked
   and transparent.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER V.

   S: 1. All internal livers obliged to attend to God's inspirations.

   S: 2. Therefore the impediments to this duty are to be removed, which
   are two. First, distracting images, which are expelled by abstraction
   of life.

   S: 3. The second impediment is unruly passions, which are calmed by
   mortification and peace of mind.

   S:S: 4, 5. The end why a religious state, especially of St. Benedict's
   institution, is undertaken, is the removal of these impediments.

   S:S: 6, 7, 8, 9. A third more special impediment: to wit, want of due
   liberty of spirit to follow God's directions, caused by voluntary
   burdens and customs assumed.

   S:S: 10, 13. Several such are exemplified.

   1. The necessity of a divine internal teacher being established, there
   follows from thence an equal necessity for all those whose profession
   obliges them to walk in those ways towards the sublime end proposed, to
   attend unto and obey this only most necessary master. And because each
   one hath in his heart a false teacher that always urgeth us to hearken
   to his perverse teachings and to neglect the divine teacher, therefore,
   the way to become a diligent and obedient disciple to God's Holy Spirit
   will be: 1. to neglect, contradict, and, as much as lies in us, to
   silence the teachings and suggestions of corrupt nature; 2. and
   secondly, to be attentive to the voice of God's Spirit in our souls.

   2. For the first: there are two general impediments that nature lays in
   our way to hinder us from attending to God. The first is distracting
   images; the second, unquiet passions. Now the remedy against the former
   is abstraction of life, a not engaging ourselves in business that
   belongs not unto us; the mortifying of the curiosity of knowing or
   hearing strange or new things not pertinent to our profession; the
   tempering of our tongues from vain, unprofitable conversations; the
   reducing our thoughts, as much as may be, from multiplicity to unity,
   by fixing them continually on the divine love which is that unum
   necessarium, &c.

   3. Again, the only proper remedies against the other impediment, to
   wit, unquiet passions, are, first, mortification of all inordinate
   affection to creatures--of all vain encumbering friendships, all
   factious partialities, all thoughtful provision for the contenting of
   our sensual desires; but especially of that most dangerous, because
   most intimate and spiritual thirst of knowledge unnecessary, and of all
   ambition to get victory or glory by disputing, writing, &c., as
   likewise of all anger, impatience, melancholy, fear, scrupulosity, &c.;
   and, secondly, a studious care to preserve our souls in all the peace,
   tranquillity, and cheerfulness possible, not suffering any passions to
   be raised in our minds during our imperfect state, no, not although
   they should be directed upon good and holy objects, because they will
   obscure and disorder our spirits. And, therefore, we must avoid all
   violence and impetuous hastiness in performing our best and most
   necessary duties, which are discharged most efficaciously and purely
   when they are done with the greatest stillness, calmness, clearness of
   mind and resignation. It is sufficient in this place only to touch
   passingly upon these impediments, because in the following treatise we
   shall have occasion to treat more largely and purposely of them.

   4. Now to what end did we come into religion, but only to avoid all
   these impediments in the world, which withdraw us from attending to God
   and following His divine guidance? In this very point lies the
   difference between a secular and a religious state, that a secular
   person secularly minded, by reason of the noise, tumults, and
   unavoidable distractions, solicitudes, and temptations which are in the
   world, cannot without much ado find leisure to attend unto God and the
   gaining of His love even for a few minutes every day, or little oftener
   than the laws of the Church necessarily oblige him. And all the
   directions that he is capable of in God's service must come from
   without, for by reason that his soul is so filled with images vain or
   sinful, and so agitated with impetuous affections and designs, he
   cannot recollect himself to hear God speaking in him. Whereas, a
   religious person professes his only business to be attending to God's
   internal voice, for which purpose he renounceth all these impediments
   and distractions.

   5. And surely, in a special manner, the disciples of [33]St. Benedict,
   if they will cast a serious eye upon the frame of their [34]Rule, will
   find that as it is very moderate, and prudently condescending in all
   matters of outward corporal austerities afflicting to nature, but not
   immediately helpful to the spirit, so, on the contrary, it is very
   rigorous in the exacting of silence, solitude, a renouncing of all
   proprietary solicitude for corporal necessities and all other
   mortifications which will hinder the dissipating of our spirits and
   thoughts, and indispose the soul to recollection and attention to God;
   but especially prayer, which he calls Opus Dei (to which all other
   works and observances are to give place), is most seriously and
   incessantly enjoined, by the practice whereof we do, above all other
   exercises, transcend grosser and sensible images in the understanding,
   and subdue unruly passions in the heart. So that it is evident that our
   holy Father's principal care in all the observances enjoined by him was
   to free his disciples from these two general and most powerful
   hindrances to introversion, and a continual attention to and
   conversation with God: which may most properly be called the spirit of
   St. Benedict's [35]Rule.

   6. There is, moreover, one special impediment to the observing and
   obeying of divine inspirations which is not to be omitted, and the
   rather because it is less taken notice of in ordinary spiritual
   writers: this impediment consists in this, that many souls do
   indiscreetly prejudice, yea, oft take away quite, that indifference and
   liberty of spirit which is necessary to all that will seriously follow
   the divine guidance in all the ways that they then are led by it. For
   it were foolish to prescribe unto God the ways in which we would have
   Him to lead us: this were to oblige God to follow our ways and to do
   our wills, and not we to perform His. And this is done by those who
   obstinately adhere to preconceived opinions and fore-practised customs,
   whatsoever they be. For though such customs in themselves and to other
   souls may be never so good and profitable, yea, though formerly even to
   those persons themselves they have been never so proper and beneficial,
   yet this was only whilst they were in such a state and degree of
   spirituality; the which state altering (as in progress it needs must),
   then that which was formerly proper and conformable to the divine will
   and inspiration will become improper, inconvenient, and contrary to the
   present internal guidance of God.

   7. This impediment must necessarily be removed, and devout souls must
   continually keep themselves in a free indifferency and suppleness of
   spirit, for otherwise they will become, in many cases and
   circumstances, indisposed to believe, and incapable to execute that
   which God's Holy Spirit shall dictate unto them; yea, they will oft
   contristate and endanger to extinguish the said Spirit in them by an
   obstinate doing of the contrary to what It moves them.

   8. The reasonableness and necessity of this advice may be shown by this
   example: it may have been good and profitable for a soul when she
   entered into an internal life to appoint unto herself certain voluntary
   devotions and vocal prayers, &c., or afterwards to select certain
   peculiar subjects of meditation, as the four last things, the Mystery
   of the Passion, &c., or to prescribe unto herself certain times for
   some good external or internal practices, or to make frequent
   examinations of conscience, confessions, &c. All these things are good
   whilst the soul finds profit by them, and so long they are to be
   continued; but if God shall call her to a higher exercise, and to a
   more pure efficacious prayer, so that she begins to lose all gust in
   her former exercises, the which do not only abridge her of the time
   necessary for her more perfect recollections, but likewise dull the
   spirit and indispose it for such prayer and other more beneficial
   practices to which she is by a new, clearer, divine light directed or
   invited, and by divine grace enabled; in this case pertinaciously to
   adhere to former customs, because she finds them commended in books,
   &c., or because she did formerly reap profit by them, this is to
   entangle, fetter, and captivate the spirit, to renounce the divine
   guidance, and to obstruct all ways of advancement in the paths of
   contemplation. The soul, therefore, in such or the like cases, must
   necessarily use some violence upon herself to recover a true and most
   needful indifference and liberty of spirit, that so she may freely
   follow God whithersoever He shall by His inspirations invite her, being
   assured that she shall never by Him be persuaded or tempted to do
   anything contrary or prejudicial to her duty, obedience to lawful
   authority, or any other necessary obligations.

   9. This instruction reaches very far; yea, so far that even learned
   men, yea, some that pass for spiritual, if they be unexperienced in the
   true internal ways of God's Spirit leading to contemplation, would
   perhaps mislike the freedom which in many cases must and hath been
   allowed by the best and most sublime mystic authors to souls of some
   peculiar dispositions and in certain circumstances. And as for
   unlearned persons, they would be in danger almost to be scandalised.

   10. The special points, therefore, by which liberty of spirit in many
   souls is (or may be) much abridged to their great hindrance are such as
   these which follow, viz.: 1. A frequent scrupulous confession (and this
   merely to continue a custom) of certain venial sins causing a harmful
   anxiety to the person. 2. Customary solicitous examinations of
   conscience, and not contenting one's self sometimes with virtual
   examinations. 3. A needless anxious reviewing of general confessions.
   4. The forcing acts of sensible remorse, &c. 5. The overburdening one's
   self with a certain task of vocal prayers or other practices, to the
   prejudice of daily recollections. 6. Assuming and continuing voluntary
   mortifications when the soul finds no benefit by them, but rather
   becomes disheartened and dejected. 7. Practising what is found in
   books, though improper for the spirit. 8. Imitating unwarily the good
   practices of others, without a due consideration of one's own ability
   or weakness in regard of them. 9. Obliging one's self indifferently at
   all times, in all states and degrees of prayer, to a discursive
   exercise on the Passion, &c. 10. Doing things merely for edification.
   11. Tying one's self to nice methods and orders of prayer, and to a
   determinate number of succeeding acts in recollections. 12. Exercising
   corporal labours and austerities without due consideration and
   necessity. 13. Adhering with propriety to any kind of internal exercise
   when the soul is enabled and invited to a higher. 14. The obliging
   one's self in all circumstances to a determinate posture in private
   recollections. 15. And (which is worst of all) an entangling of the
   soul by hasty and indiscreet promises or vows made during some fit of
   sensible devotion or in a passion of remorse, fear, &c. Hereto other
   points may be added of a like nature, containing practices, though in
   themselves good, and to some persons very beneficial, yet, considering
   the state of abstraction proper (yea necessary) to a contemplative
   liver, which may prove very prejudicial by engaging such a one in
   duties and offices to be performed alone or in association with others,
   by which images and solicitudes may be multiplied, &c. By these, and
   other such practices as these, which are supposed not to be of
   obligation, many souls in desire tending to perfection may so
   overburden and entangle themselves that they either cannot observe the
   operations of the Divine Spirit in them, or have not the liberty to
   follow whither It would draw them; and thereby remain in their
   imperfect state without hope of making any progress, unless they will
   renounce their own preconceived judgment and preassumed self-imposed
   obligations.

   11. Hitherto it may suffice to have spoken of the impediments by which
   souls are hindered from attending to and obeying their internal divine
   teacher, who only knows what is best for every one in all
   circumstances, and will not fail to direct for the very best every soul
   that with humility and resignation hath recourse to Him.

   12. Now such is the nature of the reasonable soul (which is all
   activity, and will be continually thinking on and loving somewhat) that
   if these impediments, caused by impertinent images of creatures,
   inordinate affections to them, and by a voluntary shackling the soul
   with assumed opinions and customs, were once removed, she would see
   clearly what she ought to follow and love, which is God only; for
   creatures being removed and forgotten, nothing remains but God: no
   other light for our understanding, nor other object for our wills and
   affections, but He only.

   13. And the general, of all others most efficacious, means to remove
   all these impediments is, by abstraction and prayer in spirit, to
   aspire unto an habitual state of recollection and introversion; for
   such prayer, besides the virtue of impetration, by which God will be
   moved according to His so frequent and express promises to be a light
   to the meek and humble, it hath also a direct virtue to procure this
   illumination, inasmuch as therein our souls see Him and nothing else,
   so that they have no other guide to follow but Him; and especially
   inasmuch as by prayer in spirit divine charity is most firmly rooted in
   our hearts, which makes them insensible to all other things that would
   divert our attention or affection. And we see by experience that love
   (of what object soever) doth more clear the mind, and confers in a
   moment, as it were, more skill to find out the means by which the
   object beloved may be obtained, than never so much study or meditation.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VI.

   S:S: 1, 2. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the principle of all good
   actions in us.

   S:S: 3, 4, 5, 6. It doth not work of itself, unless excited by actual
   grace and our endeavours.

   S: 7. By the using and employment of this gift, there is raised in us a
   supernatural light of discretion, as prudence is increased by the
   practice of virtue.

   S: 8. How the exercise of love causes illumination.

   S:S: 9, 10. Supernatural light is, 1. actual; 2. permanent.

   S: 11, The effects of supernatural discretion.

   S:S: 12, 13, 14, 15. Contemplative and active livers, both guided by a
   supernatural light, but differently.

   S: 16. How imperfect souls may do their ordinary daily actions in
   light.

   1. The third point before proposed for our consideration in this matter
   of internal inspiration, is the manner how God communicates His light
   and grace to our understanding and wills for our instruction and
   directions, in the mystic ways of contemplation.

   2. Now for a clearer explication of this point we are to consider that
   that fundamental grace, which in Scripture is called donum Spiritus
   Sancti (the gift of the Holy Ghost), and which is conferred on all in
   baptism, and being afterward by actual sins smothered or extinguished,
   is renewed by penance, prayer, &c., and cherished or increased by the
   worthy use of the holy Eucharist and other virtuous practices of a
   Christian life: this grace, I say (whatever it be physically in its own
   nature, if it were examined scholastically, which is not my intent), is
   a certain divine principle or faculty, partaking somewhat of the nature
   of a permanent habit, infused into the spirit of man, by which he is
   enabled, whensoever the free will concurreth actually, both for
   knowing, believing, and practising to do the will of God in all things.
   For the virtue thereof extends itself through all the faculties of the
   soul, curing the distempers, wants, and deordinations that sin had
   caused in them.

   3. This new divine faculty therefore (which seems to be expressed by
   the prophet David, when he saith, signatum est super nos lumen vultus
   tui, Domine, that is, the light of thy countenance, O Lord, is like a
   seal stamped on our souls) doth not, neither is it sufficient of itself
   alone actually to produce any saving effects: as we see that a musician
   or a poet, though never so skilful, do not therefore ever actually sing
   or write verses until some certain occasions or circumstances do
   actually determine them thereto, as gain or requests of others, or
   praise, or a mind to please themselves, &c. For the actual employment
   and exercise of such grace there is, moreover, necessary an actual aid
   from God, who by a special divine providence doth often administer
   occasions, hints, and enablements, exciting the will to waken this
   grace in the soul, which otherwise would lie vacant and unuseful.

   4. And proofs of this daily experience shows us, both in ourselves and
   others, how a sermon or any other word reasonably spoken, or any object
   occurring with due circumstances, doth incite us to lift up our souls
   to God by prayer, to perform some acts of charity, to mortify some
   inordinate affection, &c., yea, sometimes from a desperate sinful
   state, to convert our souls to God. And this doing we (as St. Paul
   exhorts Timothy, anazopurein) raise and blow into a flame the grace
   which before lay in our hearts like coals of fire smothered in the
   ashes. And if this be frequently done, that Grace which at the first
   imparting was but weak, and needed strong endeavours to excite it,
   becomes the more active and more easy to be excited; so that upon any
   the least occasion offered it is ready to bestir itself and disperse
   its odours and virtue, till at last it gets so perfect a dominion in
   perfect souls that it quite subdues the contrary principle of corrupt
   nature; and is scarce ever idle, but the least hint being given, it
   turns the soul presently to God, and keeps it almost continually fixed
   on Him: insomuch as those things which formerly had no effect at all
   upon them, now presently and even violently inflame them.

   5. Yea, in some supereminently perfect souls this gift of God's Holy
   Spirit comes to be so vigorous that it subdues even reason itself, and
   leads it captive after itself, pushing the soul to heroical actions
   without any precedent act of reason or the least deliberation, though
   in the act the soul, by consenting, merits. Thus we read of the ancient
   martyrs, how they by an impetuous impulse of the divine spirit, rushed
   before the persecuting judges to confess the name of Christ. Yea, and
   St. Apollonia cast herself into the fire: the love of Christ burning in
   their hearts and constraining them, as St. Paul says. From the like
   efficacy of the Divine Spirit proceeded that spiritual gift of prayer
   by which the holy primitive Christians in their public meetings
   conceived and poured forth prayers without any concurrence thereto of
   their own invention, God's spirit itself (in St. Paul's expression)
   praying in them. And in this sense principally it is that, I suppose,
   the schools do understand the gifts of the spirit, although most
   certain it is that all holy actions, internal or external, are effects
   of the same Spirit, though in a less degree.

   6. This fundamental grace, therefore, is that talent or stock that has
   God's image on it, and not Caesar's, which God bestows upon every one
   in baptism, &c., to trade withal, which till the will cooeperates with
   the actual aid of God is, as it were, wrapped in a napkin and hid under
   ground, but, being well managed, multiplies into many talents. This is
   that very small but divine seed of which the Evangelist speaks, which,
   being cast in our hearts, by labour and cultivation produces many and
   precious fruits: this is that (Fermentum) leaven, which, being enclosed
   in the three faculties of our souls, as in three measures of meal, doth
   disperse its virtue throughout the whole mass.

   7. Now, to the end I may approach more close to the present matter, we
   may further consider, that as by the exercise of moral philosophical
   virtues there is generated and daily increased by perseverance in the
   same exercise, that most noble universal virtue of moral prudence which
   no study or speculative learning, how great soever, could have
   produced, the which prudence, as the philosopher says, is the skill
   most properly conversant about particular acts (not general notions or
   definitions of things), and enlightens the soul to judge and determine
   in what circumstances and with what concurring qualities an action of
   virtue ought and may with the best advantage and perfection be
   exercised: so that by the help of this virtue of prudence, when it is
   arrived to an excelling degree, a virtuous person will never omit a due
   occason to practise a virtue, nor will he ever do it unseasonably and
   indiscreetly (for then it would not be virtue); and when he exercises
   it he will not be deficient in anything requisite to give a lustre
   thereto. The very same in a due proportion is seen in the exercise of
   divine virtue or charity; for by a constant practice thereof, not only
   charity itself is exalted, multiplied, and increased, but there is
   likewise kindled in the soul by tho Spirit of God a light of spiritual
   prudence far more clear and more certain to conduct us in the divine
   ways than moral prudence is in the ways of moral honesty; which divine
   light has this great advantage above prudence, that whereas moral
   wisdom can only teach the exercise of virtue in those occasions (which
   do not every day happen) in which such virtues ought to be exercised,
   neglecting to give any rules to lesser indifferent actions, this divine
   light, which teaches us to love nothing at all but God, accounts no
   actions at all in particular indifferent, but teaches us to direct all
   to the service and love of God, and can discern how one may concur
   thereto more than another, and accordingly choose the best.

   8. Now the reason why, by the exercise of charity alone (and not by any
   study or speculative considerations), this divine light can be kindled,
   is because the blindness and darkness which is naturally in our
   understandings comes principally from the perverse deordination which
   self-love causes in our wills; by means of which we will not suffer the
   understanding to see what it does see; for even when by the light of
   faith we are in general instructed in the offices and rules of virtue
   and piety, yet, in many particulars, self-love adhering to that side
   which we ought to refuse, will either forbid and hinder the
   understanding from considering what is evil or defectuous in it, or if
   there be any the least ground of doubt, it will cast such fair glosses
   on it, and so seduce the understanding to find out motives and
   pretences for the preferring thereof that, in fine, the light itself
   which is in the understanding will mislead us. But when by perfect
   divine charity all these distortions of the will are rectified, and
   that all the subtle insinuations, false pretexts, close interests, and
   designs of self-love are discovered and banished, then the mind beholds
   all things with a clear light, and, proposing God as the end of all
   actions whatsoever, it sees where God is to be found in them, and may
   best be served and obeyed by them; then the will is so far from
   clouding or casting mists before the eyes of the understanding, that if
   there were any before, it alone dispels them; for it is only the
   now-sanctified fervent will that draws the soul in all its faculties
   from all other inferior seducing objects, and carries them in its own
   stream and swift course towards God: it will not suffer the soul to
   choose anything but what is good, yea, the best of all, because God
   would have that to be chosen alone. According, therefore, to the
   measure of charity, so is our measure of divine light. If charity be
   but warm and imperfect, our light in particulars is obscure, and can
   show us only such things as are necessarily to be practised under the
   penalty of being separated from God, the object of charity; but if
   charity be inflamed, how great is the light which that heavenly fire
   casts! not a step we set forward but we see the way perfectly before
   us, and can avoid all the uneven, rough, miry, or crooked steps in it,
   and so run apace without stumbling, delaying, or declining, so
   approaching daily nearer and nearer to the end of our heavenly race.

   9. Moreover, this divine light is either an habitual, permanent light,
   or actual and transitory. The permanent light is the virtue of
   spiritual discretion, without which the actions that to the world give
   the greatest lustre are of little or no profit. Such as are great
   voluntary austerities, performing of solemn offices, almsgiving, &c.,
   all which, unless they come from the principle of true charity, and are
   designed for the increasing and deeper rooting thereof in the spirit,
   are so far from being of any worth that they do rather prejudice and
   diminish that virtue. Both these conditions are requisite to make an
   action perfect and acceptable to God; it must both proceed from Him and
   also be directed to Him: He must not only be the end, but the principle
   also. It is not therefore sufficient for a soul (especially if she
   seriously tend to perfection in contemplation) that the action which
   she does now is in itself good and directed to a good end, unless her
   divine light inform her that in the present circumstances it is God's
   will that she should perform that determinate action rather than
   another, perhaps in itself and in other circumstances, better than it:
   for, as Thaulerus says, God will reward no actions but His own, that
   is, such as He gave order and commission for.

   10. This being a most certain truth, what a world of actions, in
   themselves of no ill aspect, are there done by imperfect, extroverted
   souls, which, having no other fountain, principle, or light from which
   they are at first derived but the light of human reason, they will find
   at God's hands no acceptance at all; such souls lose all benefit by all
   their doings but those which are of absolute necessity, and by many of
   those likewise. Nay, how many are there which, being driven to some
   actions by a violent unlawful passion for or against some person, yet,
   because before the action is ended they can cozen themselves with
   proposing some good end, do therefore think themselves excused? Whereas
   such a proposing of a good end to an action beginning only from corrupt
   nature rather aggravates the fault by adding hypocrisy to it; the which
   themselves might easily discover if they would at the same time
   consider that such objects and persons had been changed. How small a
   proportion of this spiritual light have such souls!

   11. This permanent light of supernatural discretion informs the soul
   generally in all things efficacious to her advancement towards
   contemplation. It teaches her in religious observances culpably to
   neglect none, and to perform them with a pure intention for her
   spiritual good: in mortifications, to support the necessary ones
   willingly and profitably, and assume only such voluntary ones as God
   directs her to, therein considering the infirmity of the body as well
   as the fervour of the will, lest by overburdening nature unnecessarily,
   she be rendered unable to bear even those which are of obligation: in
   prayer it teaches the soul what degree is proper for her, and how long
   she is to continue in it without change till God invite her to a
   higher, and then readily to accept of His invitation. Likewise, what
   proportion of time is requisite to be spent in prayer, so as to make a
   discreet and sufficient progress therein. It teaches her to suspect
   sensible devotion, and not to glut herself with the honey of it, nor to
   follow it too fast to designs of seeming perfection and extraordinary
   tasks, which, when such devotion ends, would be burdensome and harmful:
   in a word, it teaches the soul that due moderation in all things which
   makes them laudable and meritorious.

   12. Now whereas I have called this a permanent and habitual light, it
   is to be observed that, as it is habitual only, it does not direct;
   because, unless it be in action, it is as it were veiled over until
   God, by some occasion administered, do move the soul to reflect and
   consult Him, and hereupon the light is unveiled and shines forth,
   giving direction in the present action and necessity. So that it is
   God, or the gift of his Holy Spirit (very predominant in such souls)
   that is their actual director.

   13. There is none that hath a good will and seeks God in sincerity of
   heart but is capable of such a guidance by the light communicated to
   souls by the Holy Spirit; so that the duty of attending to and obeying
   it has place not only in a contemplative, but also in the exercises of
   a devout active life; for doubtless such likewise have a supernatural
   light answerable to their state, by which they are enabled to perform
   their actions with much purity of intention.

   14. Notwithstanding, in respect of the degrees of purity of intention,
   the doings of contemplative souls do much excel those of active livers,
   by reason of the deeper entry that they make into their interior in
   their more profound, pure, and imageless recollections, by which they
   discover the depth of their most secret intentions, and accordingly
   purify them from whatsoever is amiss in them. Besides, they, according
   to their state, dealing in fewer exterior, distractive employments, do
   both keep themselves in a better disposition to attend to the voice of
   their internal teacher, and also contract fewer blemishes; and those
   that they do contract, they do more easily discern and rectify; lastly,
   being exercised for the most part in internal operations, their
   continual task is to cleanse the very fountain, which is the spirit
   itself, the seat of divine light and grace.

   15. In a contemplative life, likewise, according to the degrees of
   proficiency, so is the attendance unto, and the performance of, the
   divine inspirations; for to perfect souls the divine voice and light is
   in a manner a continual guide, and they have a continual correspondence
   with it, even in their most ordinary smallest actions. Whereas the
   imperfect receive it seldom (forasmuch as concerns the purifying and
   supernaturalising their ordinary actions), except in their
   recollections, yea, perhaps only when they are in the height of their
   exercise. And the like may be said of devout souls in an active life.
   And they do at other times put in execution the directions received in
   prayer by virtue of the light remaining in their minds. But as for
   other actions, for which they have received no light at all in prayer,
   those they perform with the help of their natural reason, or at best by
   the general habitual light of grace only, by virtue of which they avoid
   grosser sinful defects; but yet their actions are stained with great
   impurity of intention, and a mixture of natural and sensual interests.
   The reason is, because imagination and passion being yet very
   predominant in them, do push them hastily to perform their actions
   without sufficient reflection and consulting their internal teacher;
   and if they do endeavour to adjoin a good intention, it comes late
   after the action is either begun or resolved upon for other motives; so
   that the divine love is but an accessory and attendant, not the prime
   mover or principle of the action.

   16. The best means, therefore, that imperfect souls have to cleanse
   their ordinary actions from the impurity of natural interests, is in a
   general manner to forethink daily of their employments of obligation,
   and to foreordain the future employments of the day (I mean such as are
   left to their own voluntary choice and judgment, and that are likely to
   take up any considerable part of their time and thoughts, as certain
   determinate studies, &c.), and thereupon, at their morning
   recollections begging the assistance of the Divine Spirit, let them
   make good purposes to perform them out of the motive of divine love and
   for God's glory; and let them take heed not to change the order
   resolved indiscreetly; yet withal, on the other side, let them avoid
   the entangling themselves with any such resolutions, so as that the
   transgressing of them should cause disturbance or remorse in them. Thus
   doing, and sometimes during the day quietly reflecting upon the promise
   made in the morning recollection, the divine light will grow more and
   more familiar to them, extinguishing by degrees the false light by
   which they were formerly for the most part misled.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VII.

   S:S: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. How a soul is to behave herself to obtain
   light in doubtful cases of moment.

   S: 8. She must not pretend to extraordinary matters.

   S: 9. God signifies His will two ways: first by clearing the
   understanding.

   S:S: 10, 11. Why and how prayer disposes thereto.

   S:S: 12, 13. The second way is by a blind reasonless moving of the
   will.

   S:S: 14, 15. The same confirmed out of [36]St. Thomas and Aristotle.

   S: 16. A confidenoce that these operations are of God.

   S: 17. In what faculties the said operations are wrought.

   S:S: 18, 19. What a soul, not perceiving either of these operations in
   her, is to do.

   S:S: 20, 21, 22. Constancy in a resolution once made requisite; but yet
   in some cases it may be altered.

   S:S: 23, 24. Purposes not to be made in the very time of prayer, except
   of resignation.

   S: 25. A soul must not be troubled if the issue be not as she expects.

   S: 26. Evident certainty not to be expected.

   S: 27. In known cases the declaration of God's will is not to be
   expected.

   1. But now, because, as I said, those that are imperfect have but a dim
   light, insufficient to direct them in many occurrent actions, and those
   that have attained to an habitual supernatural light of discretion do
   find that there are many cases to which their light doth not extend,
   yea, in the most perfect it will fail them in some, therefore, in such
   a case of uncertainty, wherein a well-minded soul has a considerable
   doubt about some matter of moment, either in the course of her prayer
   or in any other thing that concerns an internal life, and that she
   cannot find an experienced person to whom she can confidently propose
   her difficulty, or perhaps has not an interior invitation to seek for
   resolution from any one,--I will endeavour, by the best light that God
   has given me, to instruct such a soul how she is to behave herself in
   such circumstances that she may obtain from God an actual illumination
   or direction; and then I will declare in what manner such light is
   ordinarily conferred upon internal livers.

   2. The matter of the doubt is supposed to be of some weight; for as for
   ordinary inconsiderable difficulties, she may, in the name of God,
   despatch them the best she can with her natural judgment, doing with a
   good intention that which it shall dictate to be the best, troubling
   herself no further about them; because it would be more prejudice to a
   soul to lose time and disquiet herself with a curious and solicitous
   examination of every small difficulty, than if by determining quickly
   she should chance to choose that which in itself were the less perfect
   (it being supposed that sin lies on neither side of the doubt).

   3. Again, some cases there are of such a nature that they are to be
   resolved only by an external director or superior, so that a soul ought
   not, and will in vain expect a resolution from God, who sends her to
   His substitutes. Such are the cases which concern external observances,
   as fasting, saying the divine office, interpreting the [37]Rule, laws,
   or constitutions, &c. The office of the internal Master is chiefly
   about internal matters, or the not doing of external which are not of
   obligation.

   4. In such doubtful cases of moment, especially if they concern
   something to be done, or omitted, or suffered in the future, a devout
   soul is to avoid all sudden and unadvised resolutions; and this
   especially when she is in any kind of passion, whether it be fear,
   anger, grief, or else of tenderness, compassion, and kindness, &c.; and
   chiefly when herself has an interest of nature, or when persons are
   concerned to whom she bears a sensible affection, or from whom she has
   an aversion. In such cases it is good to defer the resolution as long
   as well may be, to the end that she may have the more space to consider
   of it with her natural reason, and to free herself from passion, and so
   with resignation to consult God in her recollections, thereby to obtain
   light from Him to discern His holy will. And another reason and motive
   to defer the matter may be, because it may happen that, before a
   determinate resolution be needful, some new circumstance may spring and
   intervene that will perhaps alter the state of the difficulty.

   5. In case the soul in her nature be inclined more to the one side of
   the doubt than the other, she must enforce herself, especially in
   prayer, to an indifference and resignation in the matter; rather
   forethinking (and accordingly preparing herself) that God will declare
   His will for the contrary to that to which her nature is more inclined.

   6. In seeking to know the divine will by prayer, let not the person
   make the subject and business of his recollection to be the framing a
   direct prayer about the matter; neither let him in his prayer entertain
   any discoursing, debating thoughts in his imagination or understanding
   about it, as if he had an intention to account that to be God's will
   which by such discourse seemed most probable. 1. Because, by such
   proceedings, our prayers, which should be pure and internal in spirit,
   will be turned into a distracting meditation upon all external affair,
   and so the mind comes to be filled with sensible images, and passions
   perhaps will be raised. 2. Because by so doing we incur the danger of
   being seduced, by mistaking our own imagination or perhaps natural
   inclination for the divine light and motion, whereas such divine light
   is most effectually and securely, yea, and seldom otherwise, obtained
   than when the imagination is quiet and the soul in a profound
   recollection in spirit. 3. Because such discoursing in time of prayer
   is anything else but prayer, being little more than human consideration
   and examination of the matter, the which, if at all, ought to be
   despatched before prayer.

   7. Let not the soul, therefore, that is desirous by prayer to obtain
   light from God in a doubtful matter, for that end alter anything in the
   order and manner of her accustomed recollections, but let her pursue
   them as she was wont before; only it may be permitted her secretly and
   briefly to wish that God would teach her His will about the said
   difficulty.

   8. But let her be sure to take great care she do not give way to any
   hope or desire that God should reconcile His will unto her by any
   extraordinary way, as by the ministry of angels, strange revelations,
   voices, &c.; for as nothing but pride can ordinarily nourish such
   foolish hopes or desires, so it is to be feared that if such desires
   should be granted, it would be to her prejudice, and would increase
   that pride from whence they flowed.

   9. Now there are two ordinary ways by which God intimates His will to
   his servants that, with humble and resigned prayers, address themselves
   unto Him. The first is by clearing of the understanding, thereto adding
   a supernatural light, by which natural reason comes to see something
   that it saw not before, or at least did not esteem before so
   considerable; for by this new light of supernatural discretion such
   obscurities as did before hinder reason from discerning truth are
   removed. The which obscurities are generally caused by sensible images
   which have prepossessed themselves of the fancy, or by interests of
   nature which have engaged the affections; by both which reason is
   precipitated to hasten a judgment and election before she have
   considered maturely and without partiality all circumstances fit to be
   considered in an action; so that reason wanting this supernatural light
   kindled by charity determines itself to choose that part to which
   passion inclines.

   10. Now since there are no means so efficacious to free the soul from
   both these impediments as pure spiritual prayer, in which the soul
   transcends all gross sensual images, and withal contradicts and
   renounces all motions and interests of nature, we may securely rely
   upon the light and dictamen which is suggested by our understanding so
   cleared, purified, and freed from all noise and distraction from the
   sensible faculties and appetite; and this being the best and safest
   light that man can have, we may and must acknowledge it to be
   supernatural, because it illuminates us in supernatural things,
   discovering the proportion between the present action and our
   supernatural end, and extinguishing the light of carnal reason, by
   which the things which are of God are either not seen at all, or
   esteemed foolishness. It is therefore to be accepted as the very light
   of God's Holy Spirit, a light that cannot be obtained by study, nor
   instilled into another by the most spiritual person in the world. Yea,
   moreover, it is a light that exceeds the efficacy of the ordinary light
   of faith which is permanently in us, by which we are only illuminated
   to perceive in a general manner supernatural objects, and the means
   leading to them; whereas, by this lamp newly kindled in our
   understandings by prayer and charity, we clearly discern in each
   particular actions and circumstances in what manner and how far they
   have relation and efficacy to dispose us to a perfect union by love
   with God.

   11. If a soul before her recollections hath advised and considered of
   the difficulty, and that afterward upon her prayer she do find herself
   inclined to do what before she, consulting with her own reason or with
   any other counsellor, had judged to be the best, I should esteem it now
   to be a divine inspiration: not for the former debating's sake, but for
   the subsequent confirmation of it in virtue of recollection.

   12. The second way by which God doth immediately signify His will to
   the intellective soul in virtue of prayer is by imprinting a blind,
   reasonless motion into the superior will, giving it a weight and
   propension to one side of the doubt rather than to the other, without
   representing actually and at the present to the understanding any
   special motive or reason sufficient to determine the will. This also,
   coming, in virtue of spiritual prayer, may confidently be esteemed the
   work of God, since no creature can immediately move the superior will.

   13. Pertinently hereto we read that the holy Abbot Nisteron (who was a
   familiar friend of St. Anthony), being asked by one what kind of work
   he would advise him to exercise for the good and advancement of his
   soul? answered, God only knows what is good for thee to do, and
   therefore look what thou findest that thy soul, according to God, would
   have thee to do, that do thou.

   14. Certainly, if ever God will show that He stands to His promise of
   granting the petitions of His children in all things which they ask
   according to His will, this promise is in no case so infallibly made
   good as when a sincere humble-minded soul, being urged merely out of
   spiritual necessity, doth with all resignation beg at His hands the
   light of his Holy Spirit for resolution of the difficulties that
   concern her purely in order to His service and honour, and for the
   perfecting her in His divine love. When can a soul be said to ask
   according to God's will, but when, withdrawing herself from all
   interests of nature and fixing her eyes and heart upon God only, she
   makes her requests known unto Him?

   15. The doctrine here delivered, and particularly touching this
   reasonless and indeliberate moving of the will to good, is excellently
   and fully confirmed by [38]St. Thomas (part 1, q. 1 a. 6), where to the
   third objection made against his position, that the doctrine of
   scholastic divinity is [Sapientia] wisdom, which objection was thus
   conceived: this doctrine is attained by study; but wisdom is had by
   infusion (and thereupon it is reckoned among the seven gifts of the
   Holy Ghost--Isa. xi.): therefore this doctrine is not wisdom. Hereto he
   answers thus: "Since judging pertains to a wise man, according to a
   twofold manner of judging, wisdom is understood in a twofold sense. For
   one may judge: 1. Either by way of inclination: as he that hath the
   habit of virtue doth rightly judge of those things which are to be done
   according to virtue, inasmuch as he is inclined unto such things.
   Whereupon it is said in the tenth Book of Aristotle's Ethics, that a
   virtuous man is the measure and rule of human actions. 2. By way of
   knowledge: as any one that is skilled in moral science can judge of the
   acts of virtue, although himself be void of virtue. The former way of
   judging of divine things pertains to wisdom, which is affirmed to be a
   gift of the Holy Ghost, according to that saying of St. Paul (1 Cor.
   ii. 15): "The spiritual man judgeth all things;" as likewise St. Denys
   saith in his 2d chap. De Div. Nom.: Hierothus is instructed, not only
   learning, but also suffering divine things. But the latter way of
   judging pertains to this doctrine, inasmuch as it is gotten by study,
   although indeed the principles thereof come from divine revelation.'
   Thus far are the words of [39]St. Thomas.

   16. Yea, even Aristotle himself, though a heathen, could observe (lib.
   ii. Magn. Moral. c. 7) that to that good which is honest (and virtuous)
   there is first required a certain reasonless impulse, and thereby the
   reason is enabled to discern and determine. But more pertinently and
   expressly in the following chapter he saith thus: Good fortune is
   without any precedent act of reason; for by nature he is indeed
   fortunate that, without the exercise of reason, is impelled to good or
   virtuous things and attains them. Now this is to be ascribed to nature;
   for such (an inclination) is naturally imprinted in our souls, by which
   we are impelled to such things as will render us happy without any
   exercise of reason: insomuch as if one should ask any person so
   disposed, Why doth it please thee to do so? he would answer, Truly I
   know not, but so it pleases me to do. The like happens to those that
   are divinely inspired and agitated, for such are impelled to the doing
   of some things without the exercise of reason. Lastly, the same
   philosopher, observing that sometimes there are suddenly injected into
   some souls certain good thoughts and desires, from which many following
   good actions do proceed; and hereupon inquiring from what principle
   such good thoughts may be judged to proceed, he resolves that the soul
   herself is not the cause of them, because they precede all exercise of
   reason; therefore the cause of them must be somewhat better than the
   soul, and that is only God.

   17. The forementioned illustration is supposed to be not in the
   imagination, but purely in the understanding; as likewise the motion
   and inclination to be in the spiritual will, and not in the sensitive
   appetite, for otherwise they would not deserve so much to be relied on,
   because the workings of the imagination are so inconstant and
   irregular, and the sensible motions of the inferior appetite (being in
   corporal nature, producing a warmth about the heart and a stirring of
   spirits and humours) are so disorderly, that they are very justly
   suspicious and scarce to be trusted to. Therefore, although in a
   fervent exercise of much sensible devotion the sensual nature do after
   her manner carry herself well towards God, yet the superior soul, being
   not in a state of due tranquillity and stillness, is less capable of
   divine illustrations and influxes; and therefore the soul's
   inclinations, resolutions, and designs at such times are less to be
   regarded.

   18. Now if it should happen that, after such trials by prayer made for
   the knowing of the divine will, the soul should yet perceive no
   sufficient light, nor any considerable inclination, propension, or
   preponderation towards one side more than another, in this case,
   according to Thaulerus's judgment, she may freely and confidently, as
   it were by lots, make choice indifferently of whether she thinks fit;
   and a choice so made, whenever it happens, she may and ought to believe
   to be according to God's will, since, having done her part to know His
   will, after all this is the result of her recollections, in which she
   has to her utmost power carried herself with resignation and
   indifference.

   19. Notwithstanding, in making a choice in such circumstances, she may
   do well to use, or at least to advise upon these cautions: 1. Generally
   speaking, when two things seem in all respects to be equal, it were
   better, at least safer, to choose that side on which lies the greater
   mortification to nature. 2. She may do well to make choice of not doing
   rather than doing, especially if the doing be likely to engage the soul
   in any distractions or solicitudes; for the election of not doing is
   more suitable to the perfection of a contemplative state and the spirit
   of our order and rule, that tends to God by abstraction, silence,
   solitude, &c. 3. Let her choose that side which she thinks would be
   more agreeable and better approved by virtuous and devout friends. 4.
   Let her follow the example of any one of whom she has a good opinion,
   in case the matter concerns others, as if the question be about giving
   a suffrage in the election of superiors, &c, 5. If the business concern
   herself and her own soul's good only, she is not always obliged to
   choose that which in itself is most perfect, but therein she is to
   consider her own present state and degree, and whether the choice will
   be likely to produce good or ill effects and inconveniences for the
   future as well as the present. For example, it is certainly in itself
   the most desirable perfection that a soul can aspire to, and to which
   she is also obliged to tend, to keep herself always in the divine
   presence, and in a constant state of recollectedness, or to renounce
   all manner of satisfactions to nature, &c. But if an imperfect soul
   should therefore attempt the exercise of internal prayer without
   interruption, or to practise so universal a mortification, she would
   overthrow corporal nature utterly, and in a short time, by indiscreet
   overdoing, come to an inability to do anything at all. To her,
   therefore, in such a state, that is to be esteemed most perfect which
   in itself is less perfect, to wit, a fervent but moderate exercise both
   of prayer and mortification, by which she will be enabled by little and
   little to get ground upon nature, and at last to do that which will be
   both in itself most perfect, and to her also.

   20. A soul having, after the manner aforesaid, made a resolution and
   election, it is the advice of Michael Constantiensis, a devout prior of
   the Carthusians, that she should persevere in it, yea, though
   afterwards something by some others should be suggested to her contrary
   to such a resolution; although also that which is so suggested should
   seem to be more profitable and of greater perfection. Just after the
   same manner that a soul, having once advisedly submitted herself to the
   direction of a spiritual guide, is not to hearken to nor accept from
   any other any reason contrary to his directions, nor any
   discouragements from obeying him. And surely, saith he, a much greater
   obligation hath a soul to follow the interior counsel of God sought by
   a resigned, persevering prayer, to which our Lord has given an express
   promise, saying, Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, believe that ye
   shall receive it, and it shall happen unto you. And such was the
   practice of B. Angela de Foligno, &c.

   21. To this purpose it is very observable, in the life of the same B.
   Angela, that God commanded her to set down in writing this passage
   (which is the only one for which she received such a command), to wit,
   that He would take away His light and grace from those who, being
   brought immediately to their internal master, would be so ungrateful as
   to forsake Him, and betake themselves to an external one; yea, and that
   moreover such should have a curse from Him, namely, if they did persist
   in receding from the divine conduct, constantly preferring human
   directions before God's.

   22. Yet this advice of being constant to a resolution so made is to
   give place. 1. In case a superior should command anything contrary
   thereto; for a superior must be obeyed, even against such an interior
   counsel; because a soul is not only counselled, but also commanded to
   obey her superiors. So that whensoever a superior does deliberately
   disapprove a counsel so received, a devout soul is to believe that now
   it is God's will that His former counsel should cease from being any
   further obliging. 2. In case that any other different circumstances
   shall occur, which may perhaps alter the state of the difficulty;
   notwithstanding such a change is not to be made upon this last ground,
   without new recurring to God for light. Yea, though the reasons for a
   change be never so clear, yet it is best it should be made in virtue of
   prayer, to the end it may be done with greater purity of intention.

   23. Now in all cases of such like nature, the purpose and resolution is
   seldom to be made in the very time of our recollections; both because
   (as hath been said) the thinking on such matters is not the proper
   subject of prayer, but is very distractive; and likewise because the
   internal illustrations and motions of God's Spirit are better perceived
   after prayer, when the soul, having been recollected, doth reflect on
   them.

   24. But it is otherwise in matters of resignation, or when we pray for
   patience and tranquillity of mind in crosses and difficulties. For in
   such cases we are to make our good purposes in our prayers themselves,
   and oft are to renew them afterwards; because such purposes do of
   themselves presently appear to be clear and obligatory, and besides,
   they are proper matter for prayer.

   25. After that a soul hath made a resolution in the cases, and after
   the manner aforesaid, and likewise hath put the same in practice, let
   the issue be what it will, whether profitable or harmful to nature, yet
   must she never esteem the election to have been amiss; nor must she
   hearken to any suggestions of nature, the which, finding in such
   practices something contrary to her inclinations, will be apt by subtle
   insinuations to move the soul to repent and to undo what she hath done.
   Such an erroneous judgment, procured by corrupt nature, is to be
   despised and deposed; for well may we happen to err in the manner of
   executing such counsel given us by God, and thereby, or by some other
   means, inconveniences or harms may sometimes befall us; but the
   election in itself, made in the manner aforesaid, was good, and it
   would be an act of immortification to blame it, or to be sorry for it.
   God for our good doth often turn our best deeds to our greatest
   mortification, and thereby we reap a double benefit.

   26. In such doubtful cases as have here been spoken of, a soul must not
   expect an apparent evident certitude, as spiritual writers say; for
   God, to keep the soul in humility, does not use to give an absolute
   assurance of the matter itself simply considered, but only a certainty
   of being directed and drawn more to one side of the difficulty than to
   the other; the which side, in the judgment of the said authors, is to
   be chosen and followed as the divine will. So that any advantage or
   preponderation, though never so little, towards one side more than
   another, maketh certitude enough of God's will as for standing to it.
   If there be no perceptible difference or leaning either way, the soul
   is either to take advice from some other, or to supply it with her
   natural impartial reason, or even, as it were, by lots to choose which
   she thinks good. And what she doth after this manner, she may
   equivalently be said to do as by the direction and impulse of the
   Divine Spirit; because it is God's will and appointment that, when
   Himself does not direct us immediately by His Spirit, we should make
   use of other inferior external ways the best we can for our direction:
   in all things always intending His glory and increase in His love only.

   27. It would be a vain, presumptuous, and dangerous tempting of God to
   go and pray to the end to know His will in things commanded by known
   laws and by lawful superiors, for they are appointed by Him as the most
   assured interpreters of His will; and to expect any more is to pretend
   to extraordinary illuminations and calls, which are neither to be
   desired nor trusted to, because there will be great danger of illusion
   by the devil's counterfeiting a good angel; and he that is so
   presumptuous in his practice, deserves that God permit such illusions.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VIII.

   S:S: 1, 2, 3. Sufficient assurance may be had that inspirations are
   from God.

   S:S: 4, 5, 6, 7. A soul, therefore, may securely commit herself to
   God's guidance; and why?

   S: 8. No danger if a soul should sometimes be mistaken, taking that for
   an inspiration which is not so.

   1. Now all these instructions and exhortations to attend unto and
   depend on the divine inspirations would be vain; yea, all the promises
   of God, that He would give His Holy Spirit to those that pray for it as
   they ought, would be as vain, if there were no means to be assured of
   such inspirations that they are from God--by an assurance, I mean, of
   hope: for a certainty of faith (without extraordinary revelation)
   cannot be had of such matters which necesssarily suppose the like
   assurance of being in the state of grace. Hence it is that Thaulerus,
   Blosius, Michael Constantiensis, &c., do teach us how we may discern,
   and with confidence judge resolutely what is a divine inspiration;
   saying, That the devout soul which proceeds with recollection and
   resignation in all doubtful matters of importance, may and ought to
   take that to be the divine will, to which she is interiorly moved in or
   after her recollection (when as passions do not prevail in her), so
   long as the matter is not otherwise contrary to external obedience, or
   other law of God or man.

   2. For it is certain, yea, and faith obliges us to believe, that in all
   the good actions we do, or good thoughts we entertain, we so do and
   think in virtue only of a precedent and concomitant illumination of our
   understanding and inclining of our will, both which are immediately
   caused by God. Reason, likewise, and experience tell us, that whilst
   vain or sinful distracting images or inordinate passions cloud the
   mind, God's illuminations are either unperceived or neglected by us,
   and His motions ineffectual. If ever, therefore, the soul be in a fit
   disposition to receive those blessed effects of God's Holy Spirit, and
   if ever God will make good His so serious and frequent promises, it is
   then when by a profound recollection, an humble soul withdraws all her
   affections from herself and all other creatures, yea, and endeavours to
   expel all the images of them, transcending all created things, and
   raising herself according to her power to a strict union with Him, and
   withal pours forth her desire to be informed in His will, only
   intending thereby His glory and the increase of His divine love.

   3. Now though imperfect souls, not being able as yet to drive away
   distracting images and to still all unruly passions, are forced to
   content themselves with their natural light in many matters of less
   importance, so that a great part of their ordinary actions do not at
   all contribute to their advancement in spirit, yet perfect souls walk
   almost continually in a supernatural light, perceiving and resisting
   the subtle insinuations of self-love, and not suffering themselves
   hastily to be pushed forwards to actions, before they have consulted
   their internal guide, and much less contrary to His directions.

   4. Most securely, therefore, may we, yea, with all confidence ought we
   to yield ourselves to be disposed of by God, and to follow Him in any
   ways that He will lead us, both for the exterior and interior, through
   light and darkness, through bitter and sweet. And what doubt can there
   be of erring, having such a guide, which always leads the soul through
   the paths of mortification and renunciation of self-will? although
   sometimes some special ways may to our or others' natural judgments
   seem strange and perhaps impertinent.

   5. The grounds of which duty and the security attending it are these:
   1. Because we, through the ignorance of our interior complexion and
   temper of soul, as likewise of our present wants (incomprehensible to
   human knowledge got by sense), can neither know the special ways either
   of prayer or mortification proper to us; nor can we be assured that
   others do sufficiently know them; whereas, of God's omniscience and
   equally infinite goodness, none can doubt. 2. Because, the end whereto
   we aspire being supernatural, consequently the ways leading thereunto,
   and the light directing in those ways, must likewise be supernatural.
   3. Because if we knew the most proper and most direct ways leading to
   contemplation and divine union, yet they being most contrary to our
   natural inclinations, without a divine impulse we should not choose the
   fittest, that is, those which are the most opposite to our nature.

   6. Yet we are to consider that there are degrees of security, according
   to the several manners by which God communicates unto us His
   inspirations. For, 1. Though in sensible devotion the good thoughts and
   affections given us are in themselves and according to their substance
   the effects of God's Spirit, and ought with all security to be complied
   withal (yet with discretion, so as that out of gluttonous pleasure
   conceived by them we do not yield unto them so far as thereby to weaken
   our heads or prejudice our healths), notwithstanding the resolutions of
   undertaking any practices for the future, grounded on such sensible
   devotion, are to be mistrusted, as having in them more of nature and
   self-love, and wanting sincerity or resignation. Besides that the
   senses being principal workers, the reason is rather obscured than
   illuminated thereby; yea, and by God's permission, the devil may have
   some influence in such devotion and subsequent resolutions. 2. Of the
   like uncertain nature may the seeming inspirations or lights be, which
   are gotten by the working of the imagination and discourse upon the
   matter, either in prayer or out of it; the person thereupon concluding
   this or that side to be more likely to be God's will. 3. But if without
   such working of the imagination, or if after it, the soul in
   recollected prayer made with resignation and submission of her natural
   judgment, and renouncing all interests of nature, comes, as it were,
   unexpectedly to have one part of the question presented to her mind as
   truth and as God's will, God then giving a clarity to the reason to see
   that which it saw not before, or otherwise than it saw it; or if the
   soul do find a blind and reasonless motion in the will to one side of
   the matter: in such cases the soul may most securely and confidently
   judge it to be a divine inspiration and motion, being wrought without
   any trouble in the exercise of the imagination, senses, or passions.

   7. Let not a soul, therefore, be discouraged from committing herself to
   God's internal direction, though it should happen that those who pass
   for the most spiritual persons, and that are most forward to usurp the
   conducting of souls to perfection (whilst themselves know no further
   than the exercises of the imagination), should declaim against it, and
   out of an apprehension that it would be a disparagement to them if God
   should be acknowledged the principal guide, they should accuse the
   doctrine here delivered as fantastical, unsafe, and pretending to
   enthusiasms. No wonder is it if such, being strangers to the
   contemplative ways of the spirit, should be ignorant of these secret
   paths by which God leads souls to perfection; in the which none can
   tread, or at least make any considerable progress, till, quitting a
   servile dependence on external teachers, they rely only upon the divine
   guidance. And for this purpose devout souls are seriously and oft to be
   exhorted to keep themselves in a disposition of as much abstraction
   both external and internal as may be, to the end they may be enabled to
   hear and discern the divine voice; to the directions of which if they
   will in practice faithfully correspond, God will be wanting to them in
   nothing.

   8. And for a further security that there can scarce happen any
   considerable danger to a soul proceeding this way for knowing the
   divine will, though she should sometimes mistake in the thing itself,
   both she and also the opposers of this doctrine are to consider that
   (as hath formerly been said) the only matters that are here supposed to
   be proposed for a resolution are, and must be, of the nature of those
   things which of themselves and in the general are indifferent, but yet
   which, being well chosen, may and will advance the soul; for in no
   other things but such can there be any doubt. And surely if we be
   capable of knowing God's will in such things (as who can question it?),
   certainly the proceeding thus with indifference and resignation, and
   without suddenness of resolution or motion of natural passions, or
   self-love, is the most secure and most assured way to come to that
   knowledge.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER IX.

   S: 1. Objections prevented.

   S:S: 2, 3. Difference between the terms Inspirations' (being only
   internal) and Calls,' which are also external.

   S:S: 4, 5. How inspirations direct us about external calls and
   obligations.

   S: 6. External calls are to overrule internal.

   S:S: 7, 8. Authority of superiors ought to overrule inspirations, even
   in things not of obligation.

   S: 9. Inconsiderate commands of superiors in such things to be obeyed,
   though superiors will be severely accountable to God.

   S: 10. Decay of true spirituality arises from the ignorance or neglect
   of this doctrine touching attending to divine inspirations.

   1. Lastly, to prevent all misunderstanding of this most holy and most
   necessary doctrine touching our obligation to attend unto (and to
   practise accordingly) the divine inspirations directing us to acts of
   perfection, as likewise to prevent all misapplication thereof by souls
   that ought and are willing to follow it, I will here take away the
   pretended grounds upon which some who, either out of ignorance,
   passion, or interest, have declared themselves to be enemies thereto,
   do declaim against it, supposing that they have a great advantage
   against it, whilst they pretend that by the teaching and practising of
   it great prejudice will come to the due authority of superiors, from
   which their subjects, following these instructions, will endeavour to
   exempt themselves, upon a pretext of divine inspirations to the
   contrary.

   2. For the clearing, therefore, and dissolving of this supposed
   difficulty and inconvenience, we are to consider that, though in this
   discourse we have promiscuously used the terms of inspirations, lights,
   impulses, divine calls, &c., yet the former are only such operations of
   God as are internal; whereas the term of divine calls imports both an
   external ordination of God, and also His internal operation in our
   souls suitable to the external call. And both these are properly termed
   calls, because by both of them God doth signify His will to souls; for
   by the external ordination and commission given by God to all in lawful
   authority under Him, God by them doth reveal His will unto us, which we
   obey whilst we submit unto and execute the commands and wills of His
   substitutes. And by His internal operation He directs us to perform
   such obedience, in a spiritual manner, for the good and advancement of
   our souls in His divine love.

   3. All laws, therefore, all constitutions, precepts, and commands of
   superiors, and all external or internal duties of obligation by virtue
   of our state of life as Christians, or moreover as religious or
   ecclesiastical persons, &c., are, indeed, and so to be esteemed by us,
   true divine calls, necessarily to be attended to, known, and performed
   by us.

   4. And as for internal inspirations which have regard unto those
   external calls, the end for which they are given us is not only simply
   to direct and incline us to perform all our Christian, regular, or
   other duties with readiness and cheerfulness but to do them with
   perfection and purity of intention, in and for God only, as if He had
   immediately and visibly imposed them upon us. And forasmuch as concerns
   the not doing (to which I said that in a contemplative life the divine
   inspirations do invite us), that is meant only in matters either
   indifferent, or at least to the which we have no obligation by virtue
   of any external law. Yea, on the contrary, we may say that our holy
   rule (the end whereof is to dispose and lead us to a perfect union with
   God by contemplation) doth in general oblige us to such abstraction and
   not doing, wheresoever it doth not require the doing of anything of us.

   5. Therefore, whatsoever internal suggestions, motions, or impulses we
   may find that shall be contrary or prejudicial to such external calls
   to obedience and regularity, we are to be so far from hearkening to
   them or esteeming them for divine, that we ought to despise and reject
   them, judging them to be no better than diabolical illusions. Yea, this
   is to hold, although the said external laws, commands, or observances
   be such as we in our private judgment cannot think to be very proper or
   convenient for us in particular.

   6. Now the reason why no internal suggestion ought to take place of
   external obligations is evident and convincing; because such external
   calls to obedience being of themselves both manifest and certainly
   unquestionable tokens and expressions of the divine will, they ought
   not to give place to any supposed internal significations of the same
   will whatsoever, which are not nor can be so manifest, but rather to
   prescribe rules unto them and overrule them. We know the former to be
   God's will, and to proceed from Him, and therefore we cannot rationally
   believe that those things that are opposite thereto can be acceptable
   to Him. Besides, God's will revealed to a subject by the mouth of his
   superior, or by established laws, has a kind of public authority, being
   derived by a public person and mean, and therefore must needs take
   place and be preferred before an inspiration or signification of the
   divine will to a private person alone.

   7. Yea, moreover, so indispensably careful and even scrupulous ought we
   to be that exterior order and due subordination appointed by God should
   not upon any pretence be prejudiced, that we are to regard the
   authority of superiors even in doing or omitting those things which are
   not within the compass of any special laws or commands, but are left to
   our own liberty and judgment. So that we ought not to put in execution
   anything to which we are by an internal inspiration invited or
   directed, without the approbation and leave (either express or
   interpretative) of our superior; and if the matter be of considerable
   moment, his express permission is requisite.

   8. Yea, I will add further, that if a religious subject shall have an
   inspiration which he confidently believes to be divine, by which he is
   invited to the doing of anything, yet if his superior shall declare
   such an inspiration not to be divine, and forbid the executing of what
   it directs, the subject ought not only to obey his superior by
   forbearing to do according to such an inspiration, but he is also
   obliged to submit his judgment and to believe his superior. And this he
   may sincerely and securely do; because though it were so that in truth
   the inspiration came from God, and did direct to the doing of a thing
   more perfect or to a more perfect omission, yet all this is to be
   understood only conditionally, that is, upon supposition that a lawful
   superior did not judge and command otherwise. For in such a case it
   would be an act of greater perfection in the subject to obey him
   forbidding the doing or forbearing of anything, though in itself (and
   such prohibition not considered) more perfect. Yea, and a divine light
   and a new inspiration will inform and direct the subject to obey and
   believe the superior declaring against the former inspiration. For
   though nothing that a superior in such circumstances can say will make
   the former inspiration not to have come from God, yet his declaring
   against it will show it not to be of force now, since that all such
   inspirations do and ought to suppose the consent, or at least the
   nonopposition, of the superior, before they be put in practice; and
   therefore they are to give place to an inspiration of obeying, which is
   absolute. True it is that in such a case it may happen that the
   superior may commit a great fault, and must expect to be accountable to
   God for it; but howsoever, the subject, in obeying such an undue
   command, shall not only be innocent, but also merit thereby; because in
   both cases he doth well--first, in being prepared to obey the former
   inspiration, which was conditional, and afterwards in contradicting
   that, to obey a second inspiration of submitting to his superior, which
   was absolute.

   9. As it concerns, therefore, particular souls to depend principally
   upon their internal director, so likewise are superiors and spiritual
   guides no less obliged to penetrate into the dispositions of their
   subjects and disciples, and to discover by what special ways the Spirit
   of God conducts them, and suitably thereto to conform themselves and to
   comply with the intention of the Divine Spirit. And this duty our holy
   patriarch, in the 64th chapter of his [40]Rule, requires from all
   abbots or superiors, forbidding them to use rigour in the correction of
   their subjects, or so rudely to scour the vessels as thereby to
   endanger the breaking of them. He would not have them likewise to be
   restlessly suspicious and jealous over their subjects, but in their
   impositions to use great discretion (which he calls the mother of
   virtues), considering each one's ability, and saying with Jacob, If I
   force my flocks to travel beyond their strength, they will all of them
   die at once,' &c. If the superior, therefore, in a humour of
   commanding, on his own head, should impose commands on his subjects
   without any regard to the divine will and guidance, such commands will
   probably prove unprosperous as to the subject, and certainly very
   dangerous to the superior. Yet so it may be, that the subject may reap
   spiritual profit by them; for then it may please God to give him an
   interior enablement to turn such undue commands to his own good and
   advancement, by increasing in him the habit of resignation and
   humility. It will, indeed, be very hard for imperfect souls to reap
   benefit by such inconsiderate superiors; but as for perfect ones, they
   have both light and spiritual strength to convert all the most
   unreasonable commands of superiors to the benefit and advancement of
   their own souls.

   10. In case a superior should forbid a subject to pray at this or that
   time, or should command him to spend no longer than such a small space
   of time in internal prayer as would not suffice for his advancement in
   the internal ways of the spirit, the Rule of Perfection requires the
   subject to obey his superior; yet he may with all humility remonstrate
   to him his spiritual necessities, acquainting him with the great
   benefit that his soul finds in a constant performance of his
   recollections, and in attending to divine inspirations, and what
   prejudice it might be to him to be forbidden or abridged of them. But
   if the superior do persist, he must be obeyed, and God will some other
   way supply the loss the subject finds in such particular obediences.
   Now though a superior can no more forbid in general the use of internal
   prayer and of observing divine inspirations than he can forbid the
   loving or obeying of God, yet whether prayer shall be exercised at such
   certain appointed times, or for such a determinate space of tune, that
   is within the limits of a superior's authority; and how he employs that
   authority, it will concern him to consider. For if he guides souls
   according to his own will and not God's (and surely God's internal
   inspirations are His will), besides the guilt that he shall contract by
   the abusing of his authority, he must expect that all the harm or
   prejudice that his subjects' souls, through his miscarriage, shall
   incur, will be heaped and multiplied upon his soul.

   11. But concerning the duties and obligations of superiors towards
   souls whose profession is to tread these internal ways of
   contemplation, more shall be said hereafter in its proper place; where
   it shall be demonstrated, that these instructions are so far from
   prejudicing their authority, that true cordial obedience will never,
   nor can be, perfectly performed to them but by such souls as are most
   zealous and constant in the essential duties of prayer and attending to
   the inspirations of God's Holy Spirit.

   12. To conclude this whole discourse concerning divine inspirations: As
   these advices are not curiously to be applied to the practice of
   fearful scrupulous souls, whose unquiet thoughts make them in a manner
   incapable of either light or impulses of God's spirit in matters about
   which their scrupulosity is exercised, so in those cases they are to
   follow instructions peculiarly proper to them. But forasmuch as
   concerns all other well-disposed souls that lead contemplative lives,
   this doctrine ought to be seriously recommended to them, and they are
   to be taught how to practise it. For by this and no other way can they
   assuredly understand or perform the divine will, in which alone
   consists spiritual perfection. By these inspirations alone the interior
   is regulated, without which all exterior good carriage is little
   available to perfection. No external director can order the interior
   operations of the soul, either in prayer or mortification; none but God
   alone, who knows and searches the hearts of men. And His principal way
   of directing is by His inspirations, which, by the acknowledgment of
   all good Christians, are necessary, to every action to make it good or
   meritorious. These inspirations, therefore, we must follow; therefore
   they may be known, for we cannot be obliged to follow an invisible and
   undiscernible light, we know not what. And if they may be known, surely
   the rules here prescribed for that purpose (to wit, abstraction of
   life, and pure, resigned prayer) are the most secure and most
   efficacious means to come to that knowledge, and to procure grace to
   work accordingly.

   13. And it may very reasonably be believed that the principal ground
   and reason why true spirituality is in these days so rare, and why
   matters go so amiss among souls that pretend to aspire to
   contemplation, is because this most necessary duty of observing and
   following divine inspirations is either unknown or wilfully
   misunderstood, and suspected (if not derided) by some who, in popular
   opinion, are held and desire to pass for chief masters in spirituality.
   And no wonder is it that such should be disaffected to this doctrine,
   of the perfect practice whereof themselves are incapable, by reason of
   their distractive employments and imperfect degree of prayer; and
   consequently, neither can they, nor perhaps if they could would they,
   teach it to others, since thereby many souls would quickly be
   discharged from any necessity of continuing in a dependence on their
   managing and directions.

   14. If any there be that, notwithstanding all that hath been here
   written touching divine inspirations and the necessity of attending to
   them, shall yet be unsatisfied, or at least suspect that the publishing
   of such doctrine may not be convenient--such a one, for further
   satisfaction, may consult the Appendix adjoined at the end of the
   treatises.


   [The Appendix here promised was not given. But, as will be seen at the
   end, Father Cressy partly supplies the omission in an Advertisement and
   a Postscript to the Reader.--J. N. S.]
     __________________________________________________________________

  THE

THIRD SECTION OF THE FIRST TREATISE,

    TOUCHING THE SCHOOL OF CONTEMPLATION, VIZ. SOLITUDE AND A RELIGIOUS
    PROFESSION.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER I.

   S:S: 1, 2. That the proper school of contemplation is solitude.

   S: 3. Which may be enjoyed in the world.

   S:S: 4, 5, 6. Contemplation is by God denied to no states. Yea, in some
   regards women are rather better disposed thereto than men. And why?

   S:S: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. The condition of ecclesiastics in the
   world is of great perfection. What dispositions are required to the
   undertaking and executing of that sublime charge.

   1. Having hitherto treated of the nature and end of an internal
   contemplative life in general, as likewise of the general quality and
   disposition requisite to all those who by a divine vocation do
   undertake that sublime course of life; and, in consequence thereto,
   having demonstrated that the only sufficient master and guide in such a
   life is God and His divine inspirations, by whom alone both disciples
   and also masters and guides must be directed, it remains, in the third
   place, that I should show what and where the school is, wherein
   ordinarily this Divine Master instructs His disciples in this so
   heavenly divine doctrine and science.

   2. Now, by the unanimous acknowledgment of all mystic writers, the only
   proper school of contemplation is solitude; that is, a condition of
   life both externally freed from the distracting incumbrances, tempting
   flatteries, and disquieting solicitudes of the world; and likewise,
   wherein the mind internally is in a good measure, at least in serious
   desire, freed also from inordinate affection to all worldly and carnal
   objects, that so the soul may be at leisure to attend unto God, who
   deserves all our thoughts and affections, and to practise such duties
   of mortification and prayer as dispose her for an immediate perfect
   union with Him.

   3. Now though this so necessary solitude be found both more perfectly
   and more permanently in a well-ordered religious state, which affords
   likewise many other advantages (scarce to be found elsewhere), for the
   better practising the exercises disposing to contemplation, yet is it
   not so confined to that state but that, in the world also, and in a
   secular course of life, God hath oft raised and guided many souls in
   these perfect ways, affording them even there as much solitude and as
   much internal freedom of spirit as He saw was necessary to bring them
   to a high degree of perfection.

   4. And indeed it is an illustrious proof of the abundant, most
   communicative, overflowing riches of the divine goodness to all His
   servants whatsoever that in truth of heart seek Him, that this state of
   contemplation (being the supremest and most divine that an intellectual
   soul is capable of either in this life or in heaven also) should
   neither be enclosed only in caverns, rocks, or deserts, nor fixed to
   solitary religious communities, nor appropriated to the subtlety of
   wit, profoundness of judgment, gifts of learning or study, &c.; but
   that the poorest, simplest soul living in the world, and following the
   common life of good Christians there, if she will faithfully correspond
   to the internal light and tracts afforded her by God's Spirit, may as
   securely, yea, and sometimes more speedily, arrive to the top of the
   mountain of vision than the most learned doctors, the most profoundly
   wise men, yea, the most abstracted confined hermits.

   5. Yea, both history and fresher experience do assure us that in these
   latter times God hath as freely (and perhaps more commonly)
   communicated the divine lights and graces proper to a contemplative
   life to simple women, endowed with lesser and more contemptible gifts
   of judgment, but yet enriched with stronger wills and more fervent
   affections to Him than the ablest men. And the reason hereof we may
   judge to be, partly because God thereby should, as is most due, reap
   all the glory of His most free graces, which if they did usually attend
   our natural endowments would be challenged as due to our own abilities
   and endeavours; and partly also, because as substantial holiness, so
   the perfection of it, which is contemplation, consists far more
   principally in the operation of the will than of the understanding (as
   shall be demonstrated in due place). And since women do far more
   abound, and are far more constant and fixed in affections and other
   operations of the will than men (though inferior in those of the
   understanding), no marvel if God doth oft find them fitter subjects for
   His graces than men.

   6. And for this reason it is (besides that women are less encumbered
   with solicitous businesses abroad, their secular employments being
   chiefly domestical within their own walls) that they do far more
   frequently repair to the churches, more assiduously perform their
   devotions both there and at home, and reap the blessings of the
   sacraments more plentifully (upon which grounds the Church calls them
   the devout sex); insomuch as a very spiritual and experienced author
   did not doubt to pronounce that (according to his best judgment, which
   was grounded on more than only outward appearances) for one man near
   ten women went to heaven. Notwithstanding true it is that the
   contemplations of men are more noble, sublime, and more exalted in
   spirit; that is, less partaking of sensible effects, as raptures,
   ecstasies, or imaginative representations, as likewise melting
   tendernesses of affection, than those of women.

   7. Now though the true and immediate motive of the writing of these
   spiritual instructions was the directing of certain devout religious
   souls in the way of contemplation, to the aspiring whereto their
   profession did oblige them--and for this reason most of the said
   instructions are intended to be most proper for such--yet being a
   debtor to all well-minded souls whatsoever that desire to tread in the
   said internal ways, I will here briefly show how they also may make use
   of my writings for the same end, from thence selecting such special
   directions as may also as well belong to them, and passing over those
   that are more peculiarly proper to souls in a religious state.

   8. In the world, therefore, there are two sorts of persons that do, or
   may, aspire unto contemplation or perfection in prayer, to wit: 1.
   Ecclesiastics; 2. Lay persons.

   9. First, as for ecclesiastics (I mean especially priests, to which all
   other inferior orders do tend), they not only may, but ought seriously
   to aspire thereunto, yea, perhaps more than simple religious; for their
   most sublime, and by all ancient saints deemed so formidable an office
   (by which they are empowered and obliged, with immaculate sacrifices
   and fervent prayers, to be daily intercessors with God for the whole
   Church), presupposeth them to have already attained to a good
   recollectedness in prayer. And if, moreover, they have a charge of
   souls, they will need a far greater stability therein, that their
   various employments may be performed purely for and in God, and not
   break their union with Him. Moreover, by their profession their
   obligations come near to the vows of religious persons, for: 1. They
   owe an obedience to superiors, though not in every ordinary action. 2.
   They profess the same chastity. 3. They ought to have little more
   propriety in their goods, for whatsoever is beyond their moderate
   necessity and obligation of hospitable charity, they can little more
   dispose of without wrong to the poor, &c, than religious. 4. Though
   their employments require from them more conversation with others than
   the state of religious does, yet they are as well obliged to disengage
   their affections from all love or solicitude about riches, &c., as the
   others are, and in like manner to free themselves from all distractive
   employments not belonging necessarily to their calling.

   l0. And upon these grounds it was, that in the ancient and best times
   of the Church, scarce any durst presume to undertake so high and
   perfect a calling as the charge of souls is, till after many years
   first spent in a kind of religious abstraction of life, solitude,
   silence, great mortification, and assiduous prayer, &c. Witness St.
   Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory Nyssen, St. Chrysostom, St.
   Augustine, St. John Damascene, &c. And yet after they had done all
   this, it is a wonder with what unwillingness and fear they suffered
   themselves to be forced to accept of such a charge; what excuses,
   prayers, flights into the deserts to avoid it! And when they were
   compelled by God or men thereto, they were far from thinking themselves
   disobliged from a continuation of their contemplative exercises of
   abstraction, mortification, and prayer, &c. But, on the contrary, they
   stole time even from their necessary refections and sleep to employ in
   their recollections, as knowing that nothing they could do would be
   acceptable to God further than it proceeded in virtue of grace obtained
   by prayer.

   11. But the best proof and example of the obligations of an
   ecclesiastical person is our blessed Saviour Himself, who, though by
   virtue of the hypostatical union He was replenished with all manner of
   graces without measure, and therefore had no need at all, as for
   Himself, to pray for more, yet to show an example most necessary to us,
   He took not on Him the employment of converting others till He had
   spent the former thirty years of His life in solitude, silence, and all
   the most holy internal exercises at home, where He lived unobserved and
   unknown unto the world. And during all the time of His most laborious
   execution of His prophetical office, besides much prayer exercised
   openly before others, the gospel expressly says that His custom was at
   night to retire Himself with His disciples to prayer; yea, and
   whensoever any great work was to be done, as before the mission of the
   disciples and apostles, that He spent whole nights alone in prayer. Add
   hereunto that He utterly refused to meddle in secular affairs or
   controversies, He frequented the deserts, &c.

   12. So that an ecclesiastical person, both for his own sake and out of
   a tender love for his flock, ought to think himself more obliged than
   before to the practice of all internal contemplative exercises, and
   above all others, of pure spiritual prayer, which alone will sanctify
   and make successful both to himself and others all other actions
   belonging to his profession. And hence it is that St. Florentius, an
   ancient holy bishop, first of Utrecht and afterwards of Muenster, when
   he was reprehended by some for spending so much time in prayer, as if
   thereby he was hindered from a more perfect discharge of his episcopal
   function, returned them an answer very becoming a perfect illuminated
   bishop, saying, Quid? Vobis insanire videor, si cum multas oves habeam,
   multum orem? that is, What, do you account me mad, because, having so
   many sheep under my charge, I bestow so much time in prayer?' implying
   that it was only by prayer that he could hope for enablement to perform
   his episcopal duty, and for a blessing after the performance of it.

   13. Such is the duty and such the obligations of ecclesiastical
   persons. But if there be any conscious to themselves of neglect in this
   matter, and desirous to repair past omissions by future diligence, they
   may, if they think good, make use of these simple instructions, which
   generally in the substance are proper enough for them, if they will
   only separate certain circumstances and respects in them which are
   peculiar to religious.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER II.

   S:S: 1, 2. How a secular person may make use of these instructions,
   some of which do equally belong to such an one as well as to religious.

   S: 3. What benefit such an one may also reap from instructions here
   peculiarly belonging to religious.

   S:S: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Such a soul needs not to apprehend want, if,
   consecrating herself to God, she shall relinquish worldly solicitudes.

   1. In the next place, as concerning a secular person not in holy
   orders, that lives a common life in the world, of what sex or condition
   soever (for with God there is no difference or acceptation of persons),
   to whom the Divine Spirit shall have given an effectual call to seek
   God in these internal ways of contemplation, yet so as that they do not
   find themselves obliged to forsake a secular profession and to embrace
   a religious life (of which state, the person perhaps being married or
   otherwise hindered, is not capable, or, however, finds no inclination
   thereto), such a soul may make benefit also of these instructions,
   though purposely written for religious, inasmuch as many of them do
   generally belong to all persons tending to perfection; and those that
   seem more peculiar to religious, yet with some qualifications and
   applications (such as ordinary discretion will teach), these
   instructions also may afford unto them some good help and useful
   benefit. And for that purpose they may do well to take into their
   consideration, and apply unto their own advantage in practice, these
   following advises:

   2. A devout soul, therefore, being inspired by God to such a course,
   and living in the world, ought to conceive herself obliged as truly and
   as properly (though not altogether equally) as any of a religious
   profession to the practice of these substantial and essential duties
   and instructions following, viz.: 1. A strong resolution,
   notwithstanding any contradictions and difficulties, to pursue, by the
   divine assistance, the ways tending to contemplation. 2. An equal care
   to observe, and faithfully to execute, all divine inspirations, and to
   dispose herself likewise (as is here taught) for the better receiving
   and discerning of them. 3. The practice both of external and internal
   mortifications (I mean those which through the divine providence are
   sent her, or do belong to her present state and condition of life. And
   as for voluntary mortifications, she is likewise to behave herself
   according to the following directions). 4. The exercise of internal
   prayer, according to the several degrees of it. In these general duties
   there is little or no difference between the obligation of religious
   from that of secular persons.

   3. But whereas, in the next place, there are in this book many
   instructions that seem peculiar to souls of a religious profession;
   such I mean as are grounded upon and referred unto a life abstracted
   from the world, confined unto solitude, and there limited with a strict
   enclosure of special laws, constitutions, observances, &c.; even in
   these also, a secular devout person tending to contemplation, may think
   himself in some proportion and degree concerned and interested; and
   from them he may reap much benefit, applying to his own use so much of
   the spirit of religion as discretion will show to be fruitful to him.
   Now, for a better application of this advice, I will exemplify certain
   peculiar duties of a religious life, and therein show in what sort a
   secular person may do well, yea, and in some proportion is obliged, to
   imitate them.

   4. First, therefore, such a soul, though she be not obliged really and
   personally to withdraw herself from worldly conversation, and to retire
   herself into a solitude as strict as that of religion, yet so much
   solitude and silence she must needs allow herself daily, as may be
   necessary for a due practice of internal prayer. Neither must she
   engage herself in any businesses of solicitude and distraction that do
   not necessarily belong to her vocation; and even those also must she
   perform with as much internal quietness and recollectedness as may be,
   carefully avoiding all anxiety of mind, care of multiplying riches, &c.
   And as for vain conversations, complimental visits, feastings, &c., she
   must not think to permit unto herself such a free scope as others do
   and as formerly herself did. But she must set a greater value upon her
   precious time, as much whereof as she can borrow from the necessary
   employments of her calling ought to be spent upon the advancing of her
   spirit in the way of contemplation. And she indeed will find the great
   inconveniences that do attend vain conversations, as dissipation of
   thoughts, engagements in new unnecessary affairs, sensual friendships,
   &c., all which she ought carefully to prevent and avoid.

   5. Secondly, such a soul is by virtue of her new divine vocation
   obliged studiously to imitate especially the internal solitude
   belonging to a religious person, abstracting her spirit as much as may
   be both from all affection to outward things, as riches, pleasures,
   &c., and likewise from the images of creatures and worldly objects. For
   which purpose she is to perform all the duties of her external vocation
   in order to God, and in subordination to her principal design, which is
   the perfectionating of her spirit in the divine love. She is therefore
   not to account herself as absolute mistress of the riches that God had
   given her, but only as His steward to manage them so as may be most to
   His glory. So that in the midst of them, she ought to exercise true
   poverty of spirit, renouncing all propriety joined with affection to
   them, so as not to be disquieted if God should take them from her, and
   making no more use of them for her own sensual contentment or for show
   in the world than shall in true discretion be necessary. This internal
   solitude, introversion, and nakedness of spirit she must increase, as
   much as may be, both in her affection to it and practice of it, so that
   it may become habitual to her. Because without it she will never be in
   a fit disposition to attend unto the divine inspirations, or to
   exercise the internal duties of prayer, &c., belonging to a state
   tending to contemplation.

   6. Thirdly, in conformity to religious obedience, she is to behave
   herself to all those in the world whom God hath set over her with a
   most profound submission of spirit, obeying them, or rather God in
   them, with all purity of intention. And moreover, she is, at the first
   especially, to put herself under the government of a spiritual
   director, if such an one be to be had, who is to teach her how she may
   discern the exercises of prayer and mortification proper for her. And
   in the choice of such an one she is to use the utmost of her prudence,
   recommending withal an affair of such importance in her prayers to God,
   that He would provide her one of sufficient abilities and virtue, and
   especially one that is experienced in those internal ways much exalted
   above the ordinary exercises of prayer commonly taught and practised.
   And when God has found out such an one for her, she is with all
   sincerity and humility to obey him, yet without prejudice to the duty
   which she principally owes to her divine internal Master, as hath been
   taught in the foregoing section, the doctrine and practice whereof doth
   as well belong to her as to any religious person.

   7. Fourthly, although such a soul be not by any vow or otherwise
   obliged to any rule, or restrained by any constitutions or regular
   observances, notwithstanding she is to reduce the whole course of her
   actions and behaviour to a certain order, regularity, and uniformity,
   observing in her retirements, reading, praying, as also her refection,
   sleep, &c., an orderly practice both for times and manner, according as
   prudence and her spiritual guide shall ordain. This order and
   uniformity observed discreetly (yet without any nice scrupulosity), is
   very requisite in an internal course; for otherwise, a soul being left
   at large will be unstable and uncertain in her most necessary duties.

   8. It will not be necessary to exemplify in any more particulars; for
   the same reflections and the like applications may a soul make from any
   other instructions and duties peculiarly designed for religious
   persons. Besides, if she pursue diligently and constantly her internal
   prayer, God will not be wanting to afford her sufficient internal
   light, and likewise strong impulses and spiritual force to follow such
   light; to which if she faithfully correspond, she will find that since
   God has not given her a vocation to religion, yet He has not deprived
   her of the means of enjoying in the world in a sufficient manner the
   principal advantages of a religious state (except the solemn vows
   themselves), yea, in this case she may, not altogether unprofitably,
   think that it was for her own particular good that God did not give her
   an opportunity to enter into religion.

   9. And whereas it was required of such souls that they should quit all
   solicitudes about temporal riches, let them not fear any great
   inconveniences by complying with this duty. For as the author of the
   Cloud of Unknowing observes, and confidently professeth, those whom God
   effectually calls from secular solicitudes to an internal abstracted
   life, may more than any others be confidently secure of His divine
   providence and special care over them and all that belong unto them,
   forasmuch as concerns a sufficient and contentful subsistence in this
   life. For though He should have called them into a wilderness, where no
   means of procuring corporal sustenance did appear, or if in the midst
   of a city He should call any one to lead an abstracted solitary life
   there, they are obliged to follow such a call, and may most securely do
   it, referring all care of their subsistence wholly to His divine
   providence, who infallibly, some way or other, either by ordinary or
   extraordinary means, will not be wanting to provide convenient
   maintenance for them, which, if it should happen to be with some
   scarcity, He will abundantly recompense that with feasting their
   spirits with far more desirable internal and celestial delicacies. And
   examples of God's wonderful care over such peculiar servants of His are
   plentifully afforded us in ecclesiastical history, both ancient and
   modern. So that to the end of the world that will appear to be a most
   approved truth, which the Psalmist so long since delivered. Divites
   equerunt, et esurierunt: inquirentes autem Dominum non minuentur omni
   bono, that is: the rich in the world have been brought to want and
   hunger; but such as truly seek our Lord shall not be unprovided of any
   kind of good things.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER III.

   S: 1. Of a religious state.

   S:S: 2, 3, 4, 5. How we are to understand and interpret, the great
   commendations and privileges given to a religious state by [41]St.
   Bernard, &c.

   S:S: 6, 7. A religious state is secure and happy, but yet to those only
   that are careful to reform and purify their interior.

   1. Hereafter the instructions following are most especially to be
   directed to souls living in a religious profession (I intend especially
   such an one as is, according to the rule of St. Benedict, St. Bruno,
   &c.,) the most proper school of contemplation. A state of life
   certainly the most happy, quiet, and secure (if rightly undertaken and
   accordingly pursued), of any in God's Church. Concerning which my
   purpose is in this place to treat, not in its whole latitude (for a
   great volume would scarce suffice for such a discourse), but only with
   relation to the end designed in it, to wit, contemplation, intending
   seriously to press the obligation that religious persons have to aspire
   thereto, and the great advantages afforded therein for that purpose.

   2. But as St. Augustine worthily finds fault with those that do too
   indiscreetly and excessively commend to secular persons living in the
   world, either a monastical or a clerical profession; yea, and to
   heretics or infidels, even the Church itself; taking notice only of the
   perfections of those who in each of these are the most perfect, and
   forgetting or purposely omitting to forewarn men that they are not to
   be scandalised if they meet with some also who have no part in those
   commendations and felicities; by which it comes to pass that, finding
   what they did not expect, they fall back, not only to a disesteem, but
   also to a hatred of that which was so excessively and unwarily
   commended to them: upon the same grounds I think myself obliged to
   forewarn my readers that they do not too inconsiderately read and
   attend to all that they find written in commendations of a religious
   state, lest being too much taken with what they read, imagining the
   outward habit and interior virtues inseparable companions, and
   thereupon, having undertaken such a profession, and there missing in
   some what they in all expected, they be in danger either of living
   discontented lives, or perhaps even of finding themselves in a worse
   estate for their souls (because improper for them and unproportionable
   to their forces), than if they had continued in the world.

   3. Moreover, devout souls when they read modern spiritual authors
   treating of a religious state, dilating much upon the great blessings
   attending it, and with choice passages out of the ancient holy Fathers,
   pleasing histories, and elegant characters describing: 1. the nobleness
   and excellency of that life, wherein honours, pleasure, empire, and
   whatsoever the world can tempt mankind withal, are trampled under foot;
   2. the great security that it affords unto souls, which thereby are
   exempted from the devil's snares, living continually in the presence,
   favour, and familiarity with God; 3. the inexpressible sweetness and
   consolations enjoyed by His conversation, &c.;--in reading such
   passages, I say, just and reasonable it is that well-meaning souls
   should thereby be encouraged to aspire to such eminent blessings truly
   attributed to the same state, if God by His divine providence shall
   give them a free way thereto. But yet they are withal to know that such
   privileges do not belong to the exterior profession of the said state;
   for the more noble and excellent it is when the obligations thereof are
   duly corresponded with, the more do they abase themselves that live
   negligently and unworthily in it. And though it be a great step to a
   happy security to be secluded from the world's temptations, yet unless
   in religion we fly from ourselves also, we will find but danger enough.
   And lastly, true it is that the consolations that attend an assiduous
   conversation with God in prayer are most desirable and admirable; but
   they are withal purely spiritual, and not to be expected till souls
   have lost the taste of sensual pleasures and ease.

   4. Hereupon it is observable how prudently, and withal how ingenuously,
   our holy patriarch [42]St. Benedict deals with souls newly coming to a
   religious conversion. He commands that his [43]Rule be several times
   read to them, that so they may be sufficiently informed what God and
   superiors expect from them through the whole following course of their
   lives. In the which [44]Rule, though the prologue does with winning
   promises invite the readers to a participation of the inestimable
   blessings of a religious life, yet (in the 58th chapter, where is set
   down the discipline and order to be observed in the admission and
   profession of new-comers) he ordains that such shall not without great
   difficulty be admitted; yea, that they shall be treated rudely, with
   contempt and opprobrious usage; all manner of unpleasant, harsh, and
   rough things must be inculcated to them, &c. And all this is done to
   the end to try whether they bring with them that courageous resolution
   and patience, by which alone the incomparable blessings of a religious
   state are to be purchased.

   5. In the same sense, and with the same conditions, we are to
   understand the nine privileges that [45]St. Bernard affirms are to be
   found in a religious state. For surely it was far from his meaning to
   apply the said privileges to any but industrious souls, whose principal
   care is to purify themselves interiorly, and not at all to tepid
   persons that neglect to correspond to their profession. For who but the
   industrious and vigilant: 1. do live more purely than men do in the
   world; 2. or fall more seldom; 3. or rise more speedily; 4. or walk
   more warily; 5. or rest more securely; 6. or are visited by God more
   frequently; 7. or die more confidently; 8. or pass their purgatory more
   speedily; 9. or are rewarded in heaven more abundantly? On the
   contrary, it is justly to be feared, yea, too certain it is, that
   habitually tepid and negligent souls in religion are in a far worse
   state, more immortified, more cold in devotion, more estranged from God
   every day than others, considering that, in the midst of the greatest
   advantages and helps to fervour and purity, they will continue their
   negligence; and therefore they must expect, for their obstinate
   ingratitude and for their offending against so great light, that they
   shall be more severely punished by Almighty God than others the like
   that live in the world.

   6. How ridiculous, therefore, would it be for any to boast and say, God
   be thanked, I have been so many years a professed religious person, in
   an Order that hath produced so many thousand saints; that hath had so
   many popes; that received so many emperors, kings, queens, and princes;
   that hath so flourished with riches, learning, piety, &c. As if those
   good successes to some were sufficient security to all, so that they
   should need no more than only to be of such an Order.

   7. For the undeceiving, therefore, of such as are strangers to a
   religious profession, and for the admonishing and encouraging of those
   that have already embraced it to comply with the obligations of it,
   that so they may enjoy all the incomparable privileges and perfections
   then indeed belonging to it--I will employ the following discourse,
   principally demonstrating that the principal thing to be intended in a
   religious profession is the incessant purifying of the interior, which
   is an attempt the most glorious, but withal the most difficult and most
   destructive to sensual ease and contentment of all other. This ought to
   be the motive of those that enter into it, and the principal, yea,
   almost the sole, employment of those that live in it. Whereto I will
   add a few instructions more especially belonging to superiors,
   officers, private religious, and novices respectively.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER IV.

   S:S: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Motives inducing to religion to be examined. False
   security of tepid religious persons. Of false and true motives.

   S: 6. An habitual state of introversion and recollectedness is the
   principal end of a religious life; wherein such recollectedness
   consists.

   S:S: 7, 8. Perfection in prayer is the perfection of a religious state.

   S:S: 9, 10, 11. The wonderful sublimity of prayer to which the ancient
   hermits attained.

   S: 12. Advantages thereto enjoyed by them beyond these times.

   S:S: 13, 14, 15, 16. That [46]St. Benedict chiefly intended by his rule
   to bring his disciples to purity of prayer.

   S:S: 17, 18, 19. False glosses and interpretations of [47]St.
   Benedict's rule in these days.

   S:S: 20, 21. [48]St. Bernard's excellent declaration of the design of
   St. Benedict's rule.

   S:S: 22, 23. That the only sure way of introducing reforms into
   contemplative orders is by the teaching of true contemplative prayer,
   and not multiplying of external forms and austerities.

   1. It concerns a soul very much to examine well the motives inducing
   her to enter into a religious state; for if they be not according to
   God, it is to be feared she will not find all the profit and
   satisfaction that she promises to herself. For: 1. If such a profession
   be undertaken merely out of worldly respects, as to gain a state of
   subsistence more secure (and perhaps more plentiful); 2. or to avoid
   suits, debates, or worldly dangers, &c. (unless such incommodities have
   given only occasion to a soul to reflect on the vanities and miseries
   of the world, and from thence to consider and love spiritual and
   celestial good things, which are permanent and without bitterness); 3.
   or if such a state be undertaken out of a general good desire of saving
   one's soul according to the fashion of ordinary good Christians, and no
   more, but without a special determinate resolution to labour after
   perfection in the divine love, either because such souls know nothing
   of it, or, if they do, have not the courage and will to attempt it, but
   resolve to content themselves with being freed from worldly temptations
   and dangers, and with a moderate care to practise the external
   observances of religion, yet without sufficient purity of intention or
   a consideration of the proper end of a religious contemplative life,
   &c. I cannot tell whether persons living and dying in religion, without
   further designs of purifying their souls, shall find so great cause to
   rejoice for the choice they have made; since their beginning and
   continuing is indeed no better than a stable course of most dangerous
   tepidity.

   2. However, as for souls that for external respects have embraced a
   religious life, let them not therefore in a desperate humour conclude
   that no good can come to them by it so unworthily undertaken; but
   rather hope that by a special providence of God they were, even against
   their own intentions and wills, brought into a course of life to which,
   if, however, afterward they will duly correspond, it will prove an
   infinite blessing unto them. For such ofttimes have proved great
   saints, after that God gave them light to see their perverse intentions
   and grace to rectify them, by which means they, beginning in the flesh,
   have ended in the spirit.

   3. And as for the third sort of tepid persons, it much concerns them,
   at least after their solemn profession, to search well into their
   souls, and there rectify what they find amiss, taking great heed how
   they rely upon external observances, obediences or austerities, the
   which, though they be necessarily to be performed, yet cannot, without
   great danger and harm, be rested in, but must needs be directed to a
   further and nobler end, to wit, the advancement of the spirit.

   4. Neither let them conclude the security of their condition and good
   disposition of soul from a certain composedness and quietness of
   nature, the which, unless it be caused by internal mortification and
   prayer, is but mere self-love. And much less let them rely upon the
   esteem and good opinion that others may have of them, nor likewise on
   their own abilities to discourse of spiritual matters and give
   directions to others; since no natural light nor acquired learning or
   study can be sufficient to enable any one to tread in contemplative
   ways without the serious practice of recollected prayer. A sufficient
   proof whereof we see in Thaulerus, who was able to make an excellent
   sermon of perfection, but not to direct himself in the way to it, till
   God sent him a poor ignorant layman for his instructor.

   5. What is it, therefore, that a soul truly called by God to enter into
   religion looks for? Surely not corporal labours; not the use of the
   sacraments; nor hearing of sermons, &c. For all these she might have
   enjoyed perhaps more plentifully in the world. It is, therefore, only
   the union of the spirit with God by recollected, constant prayer; to
   the attaining which divine end all things practised in religion do
   dispose, and to which alone so great impediments are found in the
   world.

   6. The best general proof, therefore, of a good call to religion is a
   love to prayer, either vocal or mental. For if at first it be only to
   vocal prayer, by reason that the soul is ignorant of the efficacy and
   excellency of internal contemplative prayer, or perhaps has received
   some prejudices against it; yet if she observe solitude carefully, and
   with attention and fervour practise vocal prayer, she will in time,
   either by a divine light perceive the necessity of joining mental
   prayer to her vocal, or be enabled to practise her vocal prayer
   mentally, which is a sublime perfection.

   It is a state, therefore, of recollectedness and introversion that
   every one entering into religion is to aspire unto, which consists in
   an habitual disposition of soul, whereby she transcends all creatures
   and their images, which thereby come to have little or no dominion over
   her, so that she remains apt for immediate cooeperation with God,
   receiving His inspirations, and by a return, and, as it were, a reflux,
   tending to Him and operating to His glory. It is called
   recollectedness, because the soul in such a state gathers her thoughts,
   naturally dispersed and fixed with multiplicity on creatures, and
   unites them upon God. And it is called introversion, both because the
   spirit and those things which concern it, being the only object that a
   devout soul considers and values, she turns all her solicitudes inwards
   to observe defects, wants, or inordinations there, to the end she may
   remedy, supply, and correct them; and likewise, because the proper
   seat, the throne and kingdom where God by His Holy Spirit dwells and
   reigns, is the purest summit of man's spirit. There it is that the soul
   most perfectly enjoys and contemplates God, though everywhere, as in
   regard of Himself, equally present, yet in regard of the communication
   of His perfections present there, after a far more noble manner than in
   any part of the world besides, inasmuch as He communicates to the
   spirit of man as much of His infinite perfections as any creature is
   capable of, being not only simple Being, as He is to inanimate bodies;
   or Life, as to living creatures; or Perception, as to sensitive; or
   Knowledge, as to other ordinary rational souls: but with and besides
   all these, He is a divine light, purity, and happiness, by
   communicating the supernatural graces of His Holy Spirit to the spirits
   of His servants. Hence it is that our Saviour says (Regnum Dei intra
   vos est), The kingdom of God is within you;' and therefore it is that
   religious, solitary, and abstracted souls do endeavour to turn all
   their thoughts inward, raising them to (apicem spiritus) the pure top
   of the spirit (far above all sensible phantasms or imaginative
   discoursings, or grosser affections), where God is most perfectly seen
   and most comfortably enjoyed.

   7. Now the actual practice of this introversion consists principally,
   if not only, in the exercise of pure internal spiritual prayer; the
   perfection of which, therefore, ought to be the chief aim to which a
   religious contemplative soul is obliged to aspire. So that surely it is
   a great mistake to think that the spirit of St. Benedict's Order and
   [49]Rule consists in a public, orderly, protracted, solemn singing of
   the Divine Office, which may be full as well--yea, and for the external
   is with more advantage--performed by secular ecclesiastics in cathedral
   churches; a motive to the introducing of which pompous solemnity might
   be, that it is full of edification to others to see and hear a
   conspiring of many singers and voices (and it is to be supposed of
   hearts too) to the praising of God. But it is not for edification of
   others that a monastical state was instituted or ought to be
   undertaken. Religious souls truly monastical fly the sight of the
   world, entering into deserts and solitudes to spend their lives alone
   in penance and recollection, and to purify their own souls, not to give
   example or instruction to others. Such solitudes are or ought to be
   sought by them, thereby to dispose themselves for another far more
   profitable internal solitude, in which, creatures being banished, the
   only conversation is between God and the soul herself in the depth of
   the spirit, as if besides them two no other thing were existent.

   8. To gain this happy state a devout soul enters into religion, where
   all imaginable advantages are to be found for this end--at least
   anciently they were so, and still ought to be. But yet, though all
   religious persons ought to aspire to the perfection of this state, it
   is really gained by very few in these times; for some, through
   ignorance or misinstruction by teachers that know no deeper nor a more
   perfect introversion than into the internal senses or imagination: and
   others, through negligence or else by reason of a voluntary pouring
   forth their affections and thoughts upon vanities, useless studies, or
   other sensual entertainments, are never able perfectly to enter into
   their spirits and to find God there.

   9. But it is wonderful to read of that depth of recollectedness and
   most profound introversion to which some ancient solitary religious
   persons by long exercise of spiritual prayer have come; insomuch as
   they have been so absorbed and even drowned in a deep contemplation of
   God, that they have not seen what their eyes looked on, nor felt what
   otherwise would grievously hurt them. Yea, to so habitual a state of
   attending only to God in their spirit did some of them attain, that
   they could not, though they had a mind thereto, ofttimes fix their
   thoughts upon any other object but God, their internal senses
   (according as themselves have described it) having been, in an
   inexpressible manner, drawn into their spirit, and therein so swallowed
   up as to lose in a sort all other use,--a most happy state, in which
   the devil cannot so much as fix a seducing temptation or image in their
   minds to distract them from God; but on the contrary, if he should
   attempt it, that would be an occasion to plunge them deeper and more
   intimately into God.

   10. And this was the effect of pure, spiritual, contemplative prayer;
   which was not only practised by the holy ancient hermits, &c., in the
   most sublime perfection, but the exercise thereof was their chief, most
   proper, and almost continual employment, insomuch as the perfection
   thereof was by them accounted the perfection of their state. A larger
   proof whereof shall be reserved till we come to speak of prayer. For
   the present, therefore, I will content myself with a testimony or two
   related by Cassian, out of the mouths of the two most sublime
   contemplatives. Thus, therefore, speaks one of them (in the ninth
   conference, chap. 7), Finis monachi et totius perfectionis culmen in
   orationis consummatione consistit, that is: The end of a monastical
   profession and the supreme degree of all perfection consists in the
   perfection of prayer. And (in the tenth conference, chap. 7) another
   saith: Hic finis totius perfectionis est, ut eo usque extenuata mens ab
   omni situ carnali ad spiritualia quotidie sublimetur, donec omnis ejus
   conversatio, omnisque volutatio cordis, una et jugis efficiatur oratio,
   that is: This is the end of all perfection, that the mind becomes so
   purified from all carnal defilement, that it may be raised up daily to
   spiritual things, till its whole employment and every motion of the
   heart may become one uninterrupted prayer.

   11. Now what a kind of prayer this was that they aspired to, how
   sublime in spirit (though ofttimes joined with their vocal prayers),
   may appear from that description given of it by a holy hermit in these
   words (in the tenth conference, chap. 20): Ita ad illam orationis
   purissimam pervenit qualitatem, quae non solum nullam deitatis effigiem
   in sua supplicatione miscebit, sed nec ullam quidem in se memoriam
   dicti cujusdam, vel facti speciem seu formam characteris admittet, that
   is: Thus by much practice the soul will arrive to that most sublime
   purity of prayer, wherein no image at all of the Divinity is mingled,
   and which will not admit the least memory, nor a character or
   representation of anything either spoken or done. The strange subtlety
   and spirituality of which prayer considered, there is applied unto it
   that saying of St. Anthony (in the ninth conference, chap. 31): Non est
   perfecta oratio, in qua se monachus, vel hoc ipsum quod orat,
   intelligit, that is: That prayer is not a perfect one, unless the
   religious person that exercises it, be not able to give an account of
   his own thoughts that passed in it (or does not perceive that he
   prays).

   12. What great advantages the ancient hermits and other religious
   persons enjoyed for the more certain and more speedy attaining to this
   internal purity of prayer and wonderful cleanness of spirit (the end of
   their profession), how much more able their bodily complexions were to
   support that most rigorous solitude, those long-continued attentions of
   mind, &c.; and how much more efficacious hereto were their manual
   labours beyond our employments in study; and lastly, how by such like
   means they, with the only exercise of vocal prayer, attained to perfect
   contemplation, shall be shown more fully when we come to the last
   treatise concerning internal prayer.

   13. In this place I will content myself with showing that, by the
   [50]Rule of our holy Father [51]St. Benedict, all his disciples are
   obliged to propose to themselves no other end of their religious
   profession, but only such purity both of soul and the operations of it
   in spiritual prayer; so that how exact soever they be in outward
   observances, unless they be referred unto, and efficacious also for the
   producing of, this internal purity in some reasonable measure, they
   shall not be esteemed by God to have complied with their vocation and
   profession.

   14. To this purpose we may observe that it is from those ancient holy
   hermits and religious that our holy Father borrowed the greatest part
   of his [52]Rule and ordinances, which, in the conclusion, he professes
   to be meant only by him as a disposition whereby we may be enabled to
   imitate them in their most perfect internal practices. It is from them
   that he borrows the phrase of (oratio pura) pure prayer (in the 20th
   chap.). The exercise whereof, besides the reciting of the office, he
   appointed daily, as appears both by the same chapter of the [53]Rule
   and also by the story related by St. Gregory, of one of his monks whom
   the devil in the shape of a blackamore, tempted out of the community in
   the time of such recollections. By which may be perceived the great
   fruit and efficacy of such prayer; for the devil could be contented he
   should be present at the office, because during that exercise he could
   more easily distract his mind; but knowing the force of internal
   prayer, how recollective it is, and what light it affords to discover
   the inward defects of the soul, and to obtain grace to correct them,
   his principal aim was to withdraw him from so profitable an exercise.
   And, therefore, to countermine the devil's malice, our holy Father
   thought it worth a journey expressly to cure the infirmity and prevent
   the danger of one of his seduced monks.

   15. For this end it is that our holy Father, in the 58th chap., ordains
   superiors in the examination of the spirits and dispositions of
   new-comers, that they should most especially have an eye to this most
   necessary condition (Si deum vere quaerit): If he be such an one as
   truly seeks God. And more particularly (Si solicitus est ad opus Dei):
   If he have a solicitous care duly to perform the work of God, which he
   interprets to be prayer; and this so principal a work that he ordains
   that (Nihil operi Dei praeponatur) Nothing must be preferred before it.

   16. For the advancing of this prayer, that it may become such as is
   suitable to a contemplative state, all other exterior observances are
   appointed. 1. By the twelve degrees of humility, by frequent
   prostrations, acknowledging of secret imperfections, &c., pride,
   self-love, and all other our corrupt affections, hindering our union in
   spirit with God, are subdued and expelled, and (as our holy Father says
   at the end of the last degree) that perfect charity which most
   immediately unites the soul to God is produced in the soul. 2. By
   perfect obedience, self-judgment and self-will are abated. 3. By
   fastings, watchings, and other austerities, sensuality is mortified. 4.
   By religious poverty, all distracting cares about temporal things are
   expelled. 5. And for the gaining of an habitual state of
   recollectedness and introversion, so great silence and solitude were so
   rigorously enjoined and practised, all objects of sensual affections
   removed, all conversation with the world, all relating or hearkening to
   news severely prohibited. All this surely for no other end but that
   souls might be brought to a fit disposition to imitate those solitary
   and devout saints (proposed by our holy Father for our examples), in
   their continual conversation with God, attending to His divine
   inspirations, and uninterrupted union of spirit with Him by pure
   spiritual contemplation.

   17. Therefore, though our holy lawgiver doth not in his [54]Rule give
   his disciples any special instructions for ordering their interior
   spiritual prayer (touching such matters referring them to the
   inspiration of the divine Spirit, as himself saith; as likewise to the
   advices of the ancient fathers and hermits professing contemplation),
   yet it is evident that His principal design was to dispose His
   disciples by His ordinances to aspire and attain to such internal
   perfection, without which the external observances would be of no
   value, but rather (being finally rested in without further application
   to the spirit) empty hypocritical formalities. And more particularly as
   touching the Conferences of the Fathers (written by Cassian, and
   expressly recommended to us by our holy Father), we reasonably may and
   ought to judge that his intention was, we should in a special manner
   make use of the instructions and examples there delivered by prudent,
   holy, and experienced contemplatives, as a rule and pattern to which we
   should conform ourselves, principally in our internal exercises, as
   being much more useful and proper for as than any instructions about
   such matters to be found in the writings of others, far more learned
   holy fathers of the Church, who generally direct their speeches to such
   as lead common lives in the world.

   18. This obligation being so manifest and unquestionable, how can those
   new interpreters of our holy [55]Rule be excused, that extend the
   profession of a religious person no further than to the performance of
   exterior obediences and observances literally expressed in the
   [56]Rule, or signified by the express commands of superiors? Surely
   they forget that it is to God only that we make our vows, and not to
   man, but only as His substitute, and as appointed by Him to take care
   of the purifying of our souls. For the destroying, therefore, of so
   unreasonable an interpretation (yet too likely to be embraced by the
   tepid spirits of this age), it will suffice only to look upon the form
   of a religious profession instituted by our holy father in the 58th
   chapter, in these words, Suscipiendus autem, in oratorio, &c., that is,
   Let him that is to be received to a religious profession promise in the
   presence of the whole community assembled in the church, before God and
   His saints: 1. a constant stability in that state; 2. a conversion of
   his manners; and 3. obedience. Now of the three things so solemnly and
   with such affrighting circumstances vowed, conversion of manners can
   signify no other thing but internal purity of the soul; obedience,
   indeed, seems to regard the outward observances of the rules, yet
   surely with an eye to the principal end of all external duties of all
   Christians, and much more of those that aspire to the perfection of
   divine love. And as for stability, it regards both these, adding to
   them a perseverance and a continual progress in both to the end.

   19. These things considered, if God so earnestly protested to the Jews,
   saying, My soul hates your new moons, your solemn feasts and sacrifices
   (which yet were observances ordained by Himself); and this, because
   those that practised them with all exactness rested in the outward
   actions, and neglected inward purity of the heart, typified by them;
   much more will God despise and hate an exact performance of regular
   observances commanded by man, when the practisers of them do not refer
   them to the only true end regarded by the Instituter, which was by them
   to dispose and fit souls to internal solitude, aptness to receive
   divine light and grace; and, lastly, to the practice of pure
   contemplative prayer, without which a religious state would be no
   better than a mere outward occupation or trade; and if only so
   considered, it is perhaps less perfect than one exercised in the world,
   by which much good commodity may be derived to others also.

   20. Again, when such condescending interpreters do further say that all
   our obligation by virtue of a religious profession is to be understood
   only (secundum regulam) according to the [57]Rule, we must know that
   this phrase (secundum regulam) is to be annexed to the vow of obedience
   only, importing that a religious superior hath not a vast unlimited
   authority, but confined to the [58]Rule; whereas, there are no limits
   prescribed to conversion of manners, to Christian holiness and
   perfection, in which we are obliged daily to make a further progress.
   To the which duty, as by becoming religious we have a greater
   obligation, so likewise have we a greater necessity. For though by
   entering into religion we do avoid many occasions and temptations to
   outward enormous sins, yet we can never be freed from our thoughts,
   which will pursue us wherever we are, and more impetuously and
   dangerously in solitude than in company, being indeed the greatest
   pleasure of man, whether they be good or bad. For in solitude the soul
   hath her whole free scope without interruption to pursue her thoughts.
   So that a religious person that can think himself not obliged, and that
   actually doth not restrain and order his thoughts, by diverting and
   fixing them on heavenly and divine objects, such an one, if, for want
   of opportunity, he guard himself from outward scandalous crimes, yet he
   will more and more deeply plunge himself in corrupt nature, contracting
   a greater obscurity and incapacity of divine grace daily; and such
   inward deordinations will become more dangerous and incurable than if
   he had lived in the world, where there are so frequent diversions. Now
   a poor and most ineffectual remedy against these will he find in an
   exact conformity to any external observances whatsoever, yea, perhaps
   they will serve to increase such ill habits of soul, by breeding pride
   and security in it.

   21. A much better and more profitable interpreter of our holy [59]Rule,
   therefore, is devout [60]St. Bernard, in many passages in his works,
   and particularly in those words of his in an epistle to William, an
   abbot of the same order: Attendite in regulam Dei, &c., that is, Be
   attentive to the rule of God. The kingdom of God is within you; that
   is, it consists not outwardly in the fashion of our clothes or manner
   of our corporal diet, but in the virtues of our inner man. But you will
   say: What? dost thou so enforce upon us spiritual duties as that thou
   condemnest a care of the external observances enjoined by the [61]Rule
   of St. Benedict? No, by no means. But my meaning is, that the former
   spiritual duties must necessarily and indispensably be done, and yet
   these latter must not be omitted. But otherwise, when it shall happen
   that one of these two must be omitted, in such case these are much
   rather to be omitted than those former. For by how much the spirit is
   more excellent and noble than the body, by so much are spiritual
   exercises more profitable than corporal.

   22. Neither will it avail the fore-mentioned interpreters to say that
   their meaning is not to prejudice the obligation of religious persons
   to internal duties, but only to show that such obligation is grounded
   on the divine law imposed on them as Christians, and not on an external
   law made by man and voluntarily undergone. For in opposition to this
   excuse, besides what hath been said concerning the making of our vows
   to God, and the express obligation therein to an internal conversion of
   manners, we are to know that, by virtue of our religious vows, we are
   obliged to a far greater perfection of internal purity than we were
   formerly as Christians, answerable to the greater helps and advantages
   thereto afforded in religion; and particularly we have an obligation to
   aspire to the perfection of internal contemplative prayer, the practice
   whereof is (at least) of extreme difficulty in an ordinary, distracted,
   solicitous secular state.

   23. And from what hath been said may be collected this most true and
   profitable observation, to wit, that whosoever would attempt the
   restoring of the true spirit of religion (which is contemplation),
   miserably decayed in these days, will labour in vain if he think to
   compass his holy design by multiplying of ceremonies, enlarging of
   offices, increasing of external austerities, rigorous regulating of
   diet and abstinences, &c. All which things will have little or no
   effect, unless the minds of religious persons be truly instructed in
   the doctrine of contemplative prayer, and obligation to attend and
   follow the internal guidance of God's Spirit, which is rather hindered
   than advanced by the excessive multiplication of outward observances.
   And for this reason [62]St. Benedict (who surely had a most perfect
   light and an equal zeal, at least, to advance the spirit of
   contemplation) was very moderate in these things, and, on the contrary,
   very severe in requiring the observation of silence, solitude, and
   abstraction of life, which do most directly and efficaciously beget an
   habitual introversion and recollectedness of spirit. The
   ineffectualness, therefore, of these new ways of reformation we see
   daily proofs of, by the short continuance of them. For minds that are
   not enlightened, nor enabled by the spirit of contemplative prayer
   suitable to their state to make a due use of such great austerities for
   the increasing of the said spirit, become in a short time, after that
   the first zeal (much caused by the novelty and reputation gained in the
   world) is cooled, to grow weary, not finding that inward satisfaction
   and profit which they expected, and so they return to their former
   tepidity and relaxation.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER V.

   S:S: 1, 2, 3. A religious person is not perfect by his profession.

   S:S: 4, 5, 6, 7. Whether, and how far, ignorance of the true end of
   religion will excuse.

   S:S: 8, 9. The danger of those that knowing, will not pursue internal
   ways of recollection, which are the true end of a religious state; and
   much more of those that discountenance it.

   S:S: 10, 11, 12. Vain pretences of those that discountenance internal
   prayer, &c.

   S: 13. A Description of an external and an internal monk out of
   Hesychius.

   1. Our obligation, therefore, to tend to perfect internal purity and
   simplicity being so great and so indispensable, what account, think we,
   will some religious persons be able to give to Almighty God for their
   miserable deficiency in this so essential a condition?

   2. Religion is by all acknowledged for a state of perfection, not that
   by the mere taking a religious profession or habit a person is thereby
   more perfect than he was before, but because by renouncing those
   distractive impediments which are in the world he puts himself into a
   condition in which he not only may far more easily aspire to the
   perfection of divine love, but moreover, by assuming such a state, he
   obliges himself to employ all those advantages which he finds in
   religion, as means to approach nearer to this perfection daily, more
   than if he had continued in the world he either could or was obliged.
   Which if he do not, he will be so far from enjoying any privilege in
   God's sight by the perfection of his state, as that he will be
   accountable to God so much the more for his ingratitude and negligence
   in making use of such advantages and talents given him.

   3. St. Paulinus excellently illustrates this truth by this similitude.
   He compares the world to a dry, scorched, and barren wilderness, and
   celestial happiness to a most delicious paradise, divided from this
   desert by a deep and tempestuous river, which must necessarily be
   passed by swimming. The securest way to pass over this river is by
   quitting one's clothes; but few there are that have the courage to
   expose themselves to the injuries of the weather for a while, and
   therefore adventure over clothes and all; and of them, God knows, a
   world miscarry by the way. Some few others (such are religious
   persons), seeing this danger, take a good resolution to divest
   themselves of their clothes, and to make themselves lighter and nimbler
   by casting away all impediments, how dear soever to flesh and blood.
   But yet, this being done, it remains that they should labour, naked as
   they are, with swimming, to pass the river. But this they neglect to
   do, or take so little pains or strive so negligently against the waves
   and stream, that all they do comes to nothing, they are in as much
   danger and as far from paradise as they were before. And whereas they
   glorify themselves because they are naked; that will rather aggravate
   their folly and make their negligence far more culpable, in that,
   having so great an advantage, they would not take a little pains to do
   that for which they cast off their clothes.

   4. Now the impediments either much delaying or quite hindering many
   souls that live in religion, and are naturally apt enough for the
   exercises of a contemplative life, from complying with this most
   necessary obligation, are partly in the understanding and partly in the
   will. Concerning this latter, which is self-love, a settled affection
   to creatures, negligence, &c., much hath already been said and more
   will hereafter be added. But concerning the other impediment seated in
   the understanding, which is ignorance of the true way leading to that
   perfection which is the proper end of a religious contemplative life, I
   will here take into consideration whether and how far such ignorance
   may excuse a religious person that does not aspire to that perfection
   to which his state obliges him.

   5. For the clearing of this doubt we may observe that there may in this
   case be a twofold ignorance. 1. An ignorance in gross that there is any
   such obligation. 2. On supposition that a soul is informed that she
   hath such an obligation, an ignorance of the means and ways proper and
   necessary for the acquiring of this perfection, which in the present
   case are Mortification and (principally) internal Prayer.

   6. First, therefore, for the former sort of ignorance, it is so gross
   and even wilful that there can scarce be imagined any excuse or
   qualification for it. For what other thought can a soul have, quitting
   the world and all the pleasures and commodities therein, to embrace
   poverty, obedience, solitude, &c., but thereby to consecrate herself
   entirely to God, shown by the solemn circumstances of her admission and
   profession, the questions proposed to her, and her answers, her habit,
   tonsure, representation of a death and burial, solemn benedictions of
   her habit, and prayers of the community, &c. All that are witnesses and
   spectators of such an action do no otherwise understand it; and indeed,
   except it were so, what difference is there between a secular and
   religious state?

   7. But in the next place, touching the second sort of ignorance, to
   wit, of the ways most proper and efficacious to bring a religious soul
   to perfection. It is to be feared that such an ignorance will be but a
   small excuse, and that but to very few. For since both faith and
   experience teach us with what great defects, what inordinate
   affections, &c. we enter into religion, with an intention there to
   abate and mortify them; and since even natural reason and daily
   experience likewise show us that perfection of the soul cannot consist
   in external observances, which do not penetrate into the interior; yea,
   without prayer and purity of intention (to be had only by prayer), they
   do rather nourish self-love and self-esteem; since, thirdly, the same
   experience convinces us that such vocal prayers as we use and join to
   our other observances do not produce in us a sufficient purification of
   soul; no, nor that any other painful methods of meditation (unknown to
   the ancient contemplatives) do afford us sufficient light and grace for
   such a purpose, because they pierce not deep enough into the spirit;
   what reasonable soul but will hence conclude that there must needs be
   some other efficacious means for the acquiring of the end which we
   propose to ourselves? And since God will infallibly give light and
   grace to all those that have recourse unto Him in spirit and truth, it
   must necessarily follow that the only culpable ground of such ignorance
   must needs be a neglect of such prayer, and the root of such neglect a
   sensual tepid disposition of the will, hating to raise itself to God.
   And let any one judge whether an ignorance so grounded can excuse us;
   especially considering that our holy Father requires the practice of
   such prayer in all our smallest undertakings, and teaches us that his
   [63]Rule is only a preparation to perfection; he refers us further to
   the examples of the ancient hermits, whose manner of prayer if we would
   imitate, we should make some approaches at least to that perfection--to
   the almost inconceivable sublimity and purity whereof they attained.

   8. Now if ignorance will not be a sufficient excuse to any religious
   person for either not endeavouring after interior purity of soul by
   prayer in spirit, or endeavouring after a wrong improper manner and
   way, how much less excusable, nay, how deeply culpable, before God will
   those be who are sufficiently instructed in the only true internal ways
   leading to contemplation, and withal are furnished with all helps,
   leisure, and advantages for that purpose, and yet out of a settled
   slothfulness and fixed love to sensual objects have not the courage or
   will to walk in them, yea, perhaps having once comfortably walked in
   them, do most ungratefully and perfidiously forsake and turn out of
   them? Reaping no other benefit by their knowledge, but perhaps an
   ability to talk of them to the help of others, it may be, but to the
   increasing of their own pride and self-love; so that their knowledge of
   their obligation and end of their profession helps to lead them further
   from it.

   9. But, above all, most miserable will their condition be who, living
   in contemplative orders and not having either sufficient knowledge or
   grace to practise themselves the exercises of true internal prayer and
   abstraction of life, shall deter others therefrom, and discountenance
   or perhaps persecute those whom God hath inspired to renew the only
   proper exercises of contemplation, the decay of which has been the
   decay of the true spirit of monastical religion.

   10. True it is that to justify such undue proceedings and to gain an
   esteem to their own inferior exercises, partiality has suggested to
   them certain seeming reasons and pretences against the practice of
   contemplative prayer, as if it were dangerous, and did expose the
   exercisers of it to illusions, or as if it were prejudicial to regular
   observances and obedience; or that perhaps it may diminish the credit
   which some religious orders have gained in the world by their long
   solemn offices laboriously celebrated. But (as I shall in due place in
   the last treatise demonstrate) all these accusations made against
   contemplative prayer are most unjust and groundless. On the contrary,
   those that practise such prayers as they ought are most careful of
   conformity to religious duties, and especially the Divine Office
   appointed by the Church; and this is out of conscience and with great
   purity of intention.

   11. Indeed, true internal livers are not very solicitous for gaining
   credit and esteem with the world, and much less would they make that an
   end of their religious observances. On the contrary, their cordial
   desire is to live unknown and excluded from the world, approving their
   souls to God only. Neither are they forward to usurp offices abroad not
   belonging to them, as of preaching, hearing confessions of seculars,
   &c., by which the most necessary solitude and recollectedness, which by
   their profession ought to be prized above all things, are interrupted
   and oft utterly destroyed. And the more confidently do they express a
   zeal for these essential things, as being assured that God will not be
   wanting to supply them sufficiently with all things necessary to their
   corporal sustenance, as long as they prefer the care of purifying their
   souls and complying with the obligations of their profession before
   such inferior things. St. Anthony was so careful of preserving this
   spirit of solitude and disengagement from all treating with the world,
   that he forbids his monks to enter into churches frequented by
   multitudes, and much less would he suffer them to invite and call
   seculars into their own churches. And St. Stephen, of Grammont, upon
   experience of what extreme prejudice the spirit of religion had
   received by neglecting a solitary abstracted life, forbids his
   disciples in his [64]Rule to have public churches or to admit into
   their oratories the presence of seculars, or so much as to let them
   take holy water home with them, or to quit their desert to preach to
   others. He commands them to avoid confraternities, &c.; and to prevent
   complaints and fears, lest by so rigorous a sequestration from the
   world they should be in danger of penury, be most assuredly protests
   unto them that it is impossible that God should neglect to provide for
   them that for His sake quit all pretensions to the world.

   12. But the true cause of bitterness shown by some against internal
   prayer (restored by several most illuminated and glorious saints in
   these latter times) may be feared to proceed partly from some kind of
   pride and an unwillingness to acknowledge any religious exercises to be
   more perfect than those practised so long by themselves, or to see that
   power which they had gained in the managing of the consciences of
   religious persons, &c., to be in danger of ceasing.

   13. To conclude this point. Those that place perfection of a religious
   profession in anything but in the purity and simplicity of spirit, such
   may call themselves monks and contemplatives, being yet able to show no
   signs of such a profession but the habit, and a certain outward,
   formal, solemn, and severe comportment, under which may be hidden a
   secret most profound self-love and pride. And they may do well to
   meditate seriously on that memorable saying of Hesychius, a holy
   illuminated monk: He that hath renounced the world, saith he, that is,
   marriage, possessions, and the like, such an one indeed hath made the
   exterior man a monk, but not as yet the interior; but he that hath
   renounced his own thoughts and affections, such an one hath made truly
   the interior man a monk also; and verily any one that hath never so
   small desire thereunto may easily make the outward man a monk, but it
   is a task of no small labour to make the interior man so too. Now a
   sign of an interior monk, saith he, is the having attained to the
   dignity of pure spiritual prayer.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VI.

   S: 1. That internal prayer was the practice of ancient hermits; what
   kind of prayer that was.

   S:S: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. How it came to pass that vocal prayer became to
   them internal, and brought many souls anciently to perfection. And why
   it will not now do so ordinarily.

   S:S: 7, 8, 9, 10. The great help that the ancients found by external
   labours to bring them to recollection.

   S:S: 11, 12, 13. How manual labour came to give place to studies; the
   which are defended.

   S:S: 14, 15. The late practice of internal prayer recompenses other
   defects.

   1. That internal spiritual prayer was seriously and almost continually
   practised by the ancients is apparent both out of the Lives and
   Conferences of the Ancient Fathers. But indeed there are but few proofs
   extant that appointed times were set for the exercising it
   conventually, except in the fore-mentioned story of the monk tempted by
   the devil to retire himself from his brethren when they were in such
   prayer. I suppose, therefore, that superiors and directors of souls
   tending to contemplation were in these latter days obliged to enjoin
   daily recollections, by reason that the daily, private, and continual
   employments of religious persons are not so helpful and advantageous to
   the procuring of that most necessary simplicity and purity of soul as
   anciently they were; and, therefore, they were forced to make some
   supply for this defect by such conventual recollections, the which they
   instituted to be performed in public, because they perceived or feared
   that religious souls, if they were left to themselves, would out of
   tepidity neglect a duty so necessary and so efficacious.

   2. Now to the end that, by comparing the manner of living observed
   anciently by religious persons with the modern in these days, it may
   appear what great advantages they enjoyed towards the attaining of
   perfection of prayer beyond us, we may consider: 1. their set
   devotions, what they were; and, 2. their daily employments during the
   remainder of the day.

   3. As concerning the first, their appointed devotions, either in public
   or private, was only reciting the psalter, to which they sometimes
   enjoined a little reading of other parts of scripture. For as for the
   fore-mentioned conventual mental exercise of prayer, it was very short,
   being only such short aspirations as God's Spirit did suggest unto them
   in particular, as it were the flower of their public vocal prayers.
   Yea, and in private, when they did purposely apply themselves to
   prayer, they seldom varied from the manner of their public devotions;
   for then they also used the psalter.

   4. Now how it came to pass that vocal prayers alone were in ancient
   times available to bring souls to perfect contemplation, which in these
   days it neither does nor, ordinarily speaking, can do, I shall declare
   more fully when I come hereafter to treat of prayer; and in this place
   I will content myself to point only at the reasons and grounds of
   difference, viz. 1. one reason was their incomparably more abstraction
   of life, more rigorous solitude, and almost perpetual silence, of the
   practice of which in these days, it is believed, we are not capable; 2.
   a second was their fasts, abstinences, and other austerities beyond the
   strength of our infirm corporal complexions; 3. a third was their
   external employments out of the set times of prayer, the which did far
   better dispose souls to recollection, to attendance on the divine
   inspirations, &c., than those ordinarily practised in these days.

   5. No wonder, then, if vocal prayer, exercised by such pure, resigned,
   humble, mortified, and undistracted souls, had the efficacy to produce
   in them an habitual state of recollected introversion, which doubtless
   in many of them was more profound, not only whilst they were busied in
   their vocal exercises, but also during their external business, than it
   is ordinarily with us in the height of our best recollections.

   6. But a more large handling of this matter I refer to the last
   treatise, where we speak purposely of prayer. And for this present I
   will only take into consideration the third fore-named advantage of
   corporal labours, which to the ancients proved a help to contemplation
   far more efficacious than the general employments of religious in these
   days.

   7. For the demonstrating whereof it is to be observed that anciently
   souls embracing a religious life were moved thereto merely out of the
   spirit of penance, without any regard at all to make use of their
   solitude for the getting of learning or for the disposing themselves to
   holy orders. Being likewise poor, unprovided of annual rents or
   foundations (the which they were so far from seeking or desiring that,
   in our holy Father's expression, chap. 48, they did then only account
   themselves to be vere monachi, si de labore manuum suarum
   viverent--true monks, whilst they lived by the labour of their hands),
   they were both by necessity and choice obliged to corporal labour.

   8. But their principal care above all other things being to attend unto
   God, and to aspire unto perfect union in spirit with Him, they
   ordinarily made choice of such labours as were not distractive, and
   such as might be performed in solitude and silence, so that during the
   said labours they kept their minds continually fixed on God. Such
   labours were the making of baskets, or some other works of the like
   nature, that required no solicitude and very small exactness and
   attention. And as ecclesiastical histories inform us, such was the
   charity of bishops and other good persons their neighbours, that to
   ease them of all care about the disposing or selling of their work, as
   likewise to hinder them from having recourse to markets for the sale
   thereof, order was taken that such works should be taken out of their
   hands, and a competent price allowed them for them.

   9. By this means it came to pass that their external labours, being
   exercised in order to the advancement of their spirits, proved a
   wonderful help thereto, disposing them to prayer and almost continual
   conversation with God. And indeed it was God Himself who, by the
   ministry of an angel, taught St. Anthony this art and most secure
   method of aspiring to contemplation, when, being unable to keep his
   mind continually bent in actual prayer, he grew weary of solitude, and
   in a near disposition to quit it; at which time an angel appearing to
   him busily employed in making baskets of the rinds of palms, signified
   to him that it was God's will that he should after the same manner
   intermit his devotions, so spending the time that he could not employ
   in prayer.

   10. Such were the external daily employments of the ancient
   contemplatives, and so great virtue did they find in them for the
   advancement of their spirit. By which means so many of them attained to
   so sublime a degree of contemplation; yea, and generally most of them
   arrived to very great simplicity of spirit and almost continual
   recollectedness.

   11. But when afterwards by the most plentifully flowing charity of
   devout Christians there was not only taken from religious all necessity
   of sustaining themselves by corporal labours, but they were moreover
   richly furnished, and enabled to supply the wants of many others, we
   may well judge that it would become a hard matter to persuade a
   continuance of much manual labour, purely and only for the greater good
   of the spirit, when otherwise it was both needless and afflicting to
   the body. Hence it came to pass that since necessarily some employment
   besides prayer must be found out for the entertaining of those solitary
   livers, learning as the most noble of all other, was made choice of,
   yet so that for many ages corporal labours were not wholly excluded.

   12. Yet this was not the sole, nor I suppose the principal, grounds of
   so great and almost universal a change as afterward followed in the
   manners and fashion of a coenobitical life. But we may reasonably
   impute the said exchange of labours for studies in a principal manner
   to the good providence of God over His Church, that stood in such
   extreme need of another sort of labourers in God's vineyard; and
   consequently to the charity of religious men themselves, who, during
   that most horrible ignorance and depravation reigning over all the
   world almost besides, thought themselves obliged to repay the wonderful
   charity of good Christians, by extending a greater charity, in
   communicating to them spiritual and heavenly things for their temporal.
   Hence came a necessity of engaging themselves in the cure of souls and
   government of the Church, the which indeed, for several ages, was in a
   sort wholly sustained by them; yea, moreover, by their zeal, labours,
   and wisdom the light of divine truth was spread abroad among heathens
   also, and many provinces and kingdoms adjoined to the Church. These
   things considered, no wonder is there if the introducing of reading and
   studies in the place of manual labours was unavoidably necessary.

   13. But perhaps some there may be not so well affected or pleased with
   the present reputation or commodities enjoyed by religious persons
   that, assenting to what hath been here said, will notwithstanding infer
   that, since learning is now become so much dilated in the world by the
   zeal and charity of ancient monastical religious, there is no longer
   any the like necessity of their interesting themselves in
   ecclesiastical affairs, and therefore that they ought to return to
   their old corporal employments and labours.

   14. Hereto it may be replied that even still there is much need of
   them, considering the far greater frequentation of sacraments in these
   days above the ancient times. But moreover, if in these times, wherein
   learning and knowledge is so exposed to all sorts of men, religious
   persons should quit studies, returning to their ancient employment of
   manual labours (from which, as hath been said, God Himself did
   doubtless withdraw them), besides that their ignorance would render
   them the universal objects of contempt through the whole Church, it
   would likewise expose them, as for their states, as a prey to all that
   either envied or coveted the scarce subsistence left them; and as to
   their souls, they would be obnoxious to be turned hither and thither by
   the variety of directors that would undertake to guide them; and by
   these means all men would be deterred from adjoining themselves unto
   them for continuing a succession.

   15. Now though, as hath been said, such a change hath been after this
   manner made in the external employments of religious persons, yet still
   the same essential indispensable obligation of aspiring to
   contemplation remains; for the attaining to which, although studies
   joined with prayer seem in some regards to be less advantageous than
   anciently such labours as the Egyptian monks, &c. undertook were, yet
   it hath pleased God in goodness to His servants in a good measure to
   recompense that disadvantage by raising up several holy persons to
   teach more accurately than formerly the knowledge and practice of pure
   internal contemplative prayer. For since it cannot be denied that to
   persons far more distracted by studies than anciently they were by
   labours, (which did not hinder a moderate quiet attention to God) vocal
   prayer, though never so much prolonged, has not ordinarily speaking
   sufficient force to recollect the mind habitually, or to suppress and
   cure the many inordinate affections of corrupt nature: hence it is that
   the use of appointed daily recollections hath seemed to be of absolute
   necessity, without which the spirit of contemplation would be quite
   lost. So that to such prayer we may most principally impute the great
   lights and helps for contemplation afforded by some later saints in
   religious orders, and in the world also, to the great benefit of God's
   Church; that sole exercise in a good measure making amends for all
   other defects in which we seem to come short of the ancients.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VII.

   S: 1. Of special duties of religious persons.

   S: 2. A religious person ought to desire to be always under obedience.

   S:S: 3. 4. Qualities necessary in a religious superior.

   S:S: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. That active spirits are very improper to govern
   such as are contemplative. The grounds of the difference.

   S: 10. A fearful example in Bernardinus Ochinus, showing how dangerous
   the neglect of internal prayer is in a religious superior.

   1. Having thus largely set down the proper and only end of a religious
   profession, to wit, purity and simplicity of soul, to be obtained by
   recollected contemplative prayer alone, I will further add some more
   special duties belonging to religious persons, according to their
   several relations and qualities, as superiors or other subordinate
   officers, subjects, &c. For as for the proper virtues of a religious
   state, as obedience, poverty, humility, &c., the handling of them is
   referred to the following treatise.

   2. Now with what mind a devout soul ought to embrace a religious
   profession is signified to us in that notable passage in our holy
   father's [65]Rule, where he saith, In coenobio degens desiderat sibi
   abbatem praeesse, that is, Whosoever lives in a religious community is
   desirous that an abbot should be set over him. From whence we ought
   that infer that the intention of a religious person ought ever to be to
   live in subjection to the will of another, and in such a mind to
   continue all his life. And, therefore, those that readily accept, and
   much more those that ambitiously seek, government and prelature may
   reasonably be judged to be led by a spirit directly opposite to the
   spirit of religion. And surely he that shall seriously consider of what
   difficulty and of what extreme danger the office of a superior is, what
   terrible threatenings our holy Father so often denounces from God
   against a negligent, partial, and unfaithful discharge of such an
   office, will think it far fitter to be the object of his fear and
   aversion than of his desire. Therefore that superior that does not find
   himself more willing to give up his place than to retain it, ought to
   suspect that he is scarce in a good state.

   3. Now to the end that both subjects may be informed what qualities
   they are to regard in the electing of superiors, and also superiors be
   put in mind what is expected from them in the discharge of such an
   office duly imposed on them, I will, from [66]St. Bernard, set down
   three necessary conditions or endowments by which superiors are to
   direct their subjects, the which are: 1. verbum; 2. exemplum; and 3.
   oratio; that is, exhortation, good example, and prayer; adding,
   moreover, Major autem horum est oratio. Nam etsi vocis virtus sit et
   operis; et operi tamen et voci gratiam efficaciamque promeretur oratio;
   that is, Of those three necessary qualities the greatest and most
   necessary is prayer; for although there be much virtue in exhortation
   and example, yet prayer is that which procures efficacy and success to
   both the other.

   4. From which testimony and authority, yea, even from the light of
   natural reason, we may firmly conclude that the spirit of prayer is so
   absolutely necessary to a religious superior, that without it he cannot
   exercise his charge profitably either to himself or to his subjects;
   and consequently that to a superior in an order whose spirit is
   contemplation, it is necessary that he have attained to a good
   established habit of contemplative prayer. For (as hath been said in
   the foregoing discourse concerning spiritual guides) how can such a
   superior, without knowledge gained by experience, inculcate the so
   necessary duties of recollection and prayer? Nay, rather will he not be
   more likely to discountenance those exercises in which he is not
   skilled, and from which perhaps he has an aversion?

   5. Therefore that too ordinarily maintained position of some, that
   active spirits are more fit for superiorities and external employments
   than contemplative, which are to be left to the solitude and
   sequestration to which their spirits incline them, is indeed most
   unreasonable and groundless.

   6. On the contrary, no doubt there is but that the decay of religion
   hath principally proceeded from this preposterous disorder, viz. that
   in most religious communities active spirits have got the advantage to
   possess themselves of prelatures and spiritual pastorships over the
   contemplative, though the state of religion was instituted only for
   contemplation. And this has happened even since contemplative prayer
   has been restored by persons extraordinarily raised by God, as
   Rusbrochius, Thaulerus, [67]St. Teresa, &c., so that religious
   communities have been ordered even in the point of spirituality by
   spirits of a quite different and contrary temper to that for which they
   were intended.

   7. Indeed, it is not to be wondered at that active spirits should so
   prevail, considering that those who are truly of a contemplative
   disposition and design, knowing well the difficulty and danger of
   superiority, how full of extroversion, distraction, and solicitude it
   is, and what occasions and temptations there are in it to raise,
   nourish, and satisfy sensual affections, pride, &c., to the peril of
   extinguishing the spirit of prayer (except in souls far advanced in
   prayer and mortification), such, I say, are therefore justly afraid of,
   and do use all lawful means to avoid, the care and government of
   others. Whereas active spirits that live in religion, not being capable
   of such prayer as will raise them much out of nature, have not the like
   apprehensions of such employments; but, on the contrary, being led by
   natural desires of preeminence and love of liberty, and believing that
   those who are true internal livers will not submit themselves to all
   the ways and policies used for the increasing the temporal good of
   their communities, do not fear to offer themselves, yea, and
   ambitiously to seek dominion over others, falsely in the mean time
   persuading themselves that their only motive is charity and a desire to
   promote the glory of God and the advancement, both temporal and
   spiritual, of their convents or congregations. But what the effect is
   experience shows.

   8. True it is that it cannot be avoided but that many unfit spirits
   will oft be admitted into religious orders, very different from the
   dispositions requisite (though it belongs to superiors to provide as
   well as may be against such an abuse): but such being admitted, of
   active dispositions, the best were to employ them in active exercises
   and external matters, as in the offices of procuration, dispense,
   building, and the like; but as for prelacies, the charge of instructing
   novices, or other offices pertaining to the directing of souls, it is
   to the destruction of the spirit of contemplation to employ active
   dispositions in such. For how can they, without light or experience,
   direct souls in ways unknown to themselves, yea, which through
   ignorance or mistake they perhaps disapprove?

   9. Besides, upon exact consideration it will be found that, in the
   point of government, contemplative spirits that have made a good
   progress in internal prayer have great advantages above the active. For
   such being careful themselves to use all due abstraction will less
   molest themselves and others with impertinent businesses; not prying
   too narrowly into all passages, as if they sought occasion of showing
   their authority and ability in making unnecessary reprehensions, to the
   disquieting of communities; but for peace sake they will sometimes even
   silere a bonis, passing over many things which do seem a little amiss,
   wherein they show great prudence and also cause much profit to
   subjects. 2. Such being diligent about their own recollections, do, out
   of a love for patience, silence, and peace, forbear the doing or
   imposing of a multitude of unnecessary tasks upon others. 3. By means
   of prayer they obtain light to order all things to the benefit of their
   subjects' souls; and in case they have erred or been defective in
   anything, they discover and amend it in their next recollection. 4. In
   the manner and fashion of their whole comportment a certain divine
   grace shines forth, which is of great efficacy to win their subjects'
   hearts to obedience and divine love. 5. Yea, if by corporal infirmity
   they be disabled to attend to many external observances, yet a view of
   the patience, quietness, and resignation shown by them is more edifying
   to souls under their care than all the most exact external regularities
   and severities of active spirits. 6. Yea, even in regard of temporal
   benefit to communities, contemplative spirits are more advantageous
   than active. Because they, not putting any confidence in their own
   industry, prudence, and activity, but only in the divine providence
   (which is never wanting to those that for temporal regards will not do
   anything unseemly or misbecoming their abstracted state), do enjoy the
   effects and blessings of God far more plentifully, whilst they prefer
   His love and service before any human distracting solicitudes for
   outward things. Memorable examples of great blessings attending such a
   confidence in God we find abundantly in the life of our holy Father and
   of the ancient monks, and more lately in the life of Suso, [68]St. John
   of the Cross, &c. Now the want of such confidence in active spirits
   proceeds merely from defect in divine love, and that from the want of
   internal prayer. And hence proceed hurtful and unseemly compliances
   with the world, a regard rather to wealth than good wills to serve God
   in the souls that enter into religion, &c.

   10. A fearful example of the mischief following the neglect of internal
   prayer in a superior, we find in Bernardine Ochinus, a superior in a
   most strict order, who was a famous zealous preacher, and, as might be
   judged by outward appearance, of more than ordinary sanctity; yet
   withal, to comply with those outward employments, a great neglecter of
   internal conventual recollections. And when he was sometimes charitably
   admonished of such his tepidity, his ordinary answer was: Do you not
   know that he who is always in a good action is always in prayer? Which
   saying of his had been true, if such good actions had been performed in
   virtue of prayer, and by grace obtained thereby, for then they had been
   virtually prayers; whereas actions, though in themselves never so good,
   if they want that purity of intention which is only to be had by pure
   prayer, are in God's esteem of little or no value,--the principal
   motives of them being no other than such as corrupt nature is likely to
   suggest. Ochinus, therefore, continuing in the same neglect, was by one
   of his brethren prophetically warned that he must expect some terrible
   issue thereof, in these words: Cave ne te ordo evomat, that is, Take
   heed that our order be not hereafter constrained to vomit thee out of
   it. The which unhappily fell out; for notwithstanding all his other
   specious qualities and endowments, he, first forsaking God, was
   afterwards forsaken by Him, and became a wretched Antitrinitarian
   apostate. And it is very probable that the greatest part of the
   apostates of these times (such I mean as have formerly lived in
   religious orders) do owe their apostasy and perdition to no other cause
   so much as to such neglect and apostasy first from prayer; the which
   holy exercise if they had continued, they would never have been weary
   of their habit first and afterward of their faith.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER VIII.

   S: 1. Superiors ought carefully to examine the dispositions of those
   that they admit to religion.

   S:S: 2, 3. Great danger to communities from loose spirit.

   S:S: 4, 5. Other ill qualities to be avoided.

   S:S: 6, 7, 8, 9. Of a good nature; what it is, and how to be prized.

   S:S: 10, 11. Inconveniences by admitting active spirits into
   contemplative religions.

   S:S: 12, 13, 14, 15. Sufficient time for recollection is to be allowed
   to all religious.

   S: 16. Superiors will be accountable for disorders in their flock.

   1. Now one of the principal points of a superior's care for the welfare
   of his community consists in providing or admitting into it only such
   spirits and dispositions as are likely to promote the good of it, by
   living according to the spirit of it. And in this all such officers and
   counsellors are concerned, to whom the laws have referred the
   examination and trial of such as offer themselves to a regular life,
   and are afterward, upon their approbation, to be professed; and a
   greater consideration of this point is more necessary in these days
   than anciently it was; for it is not now as in our holy Father's time,
   when incorrigible persons might be expelled the congregation.

   2. It is not, I suppose, needful to advise such as are in those offices
   to take care how they admit loose spirits into religion among them, who
   will not so much as intend God or His service--all whose actions have
   no other motive but either fear of penance or hope of gaining
   reputation, preferments, &c.; whose bodies are prisoners in religion,
   but their minds and desires wandering in the world; who must enjoy all
   privileges and corporal helps equally with the best, yea, and generally
   use them most wastefully, without consideration of others; who, finding
   no taste or contentment in spiritual matters, are even forced to seek
   satisfaction in sensual pleasures, and for the passing of time, to
   frame designs, to raise and maintain factions, and this especially
   against those that they see do most intend God, on whom they will cast
   from off themselves all the burdens of a regular life; who will think
   themselves excused from all duties for the least corporal incommodity;
   who will desire and endeavour to make others like themselves, that
   their party and power may be greater; lastly, who reap so little good
   to their own souls, and are likely to do so much prejudice to others,
   that probably it had been much better for them to have continued in the
   world, the state of religion only serving to increase their guilt and
   misery.

   3. Such loose spirits are worse in a community where the knowledge of
   true spirituality is common than in other places, because there they
   are wilfully nought, and do resist amendment. If by the severity of
   laws and constitutions they may come to be kept in some tolerable
   order, yet this reaches only to the exterior, and lasts no longer than
   the superior's eyes are upon them. And indeed the superiors themselves
   will in all probability feel the greatest smart from such undue
   admissions, being likely to find daily great bitterness from their
   obstinacy. Such loose spirits are the cause of such a burdensome
   multiplicity of laws, all which, notwithstanding, are little available
   for their amendment, and yet do abridge the due liberty of spirit
   necessary to devout well-minded souls, nourishing scrupulosity, &c., in
   them.

   4. Let the best care that is possible be used, notwithstanding some
   unfit persons will, through easiness, partial affection, or other
   respects in the examiners, slip in. If, therefore, those who are
   apparently bad be received, what a community will there be provided?
   Many that seem good will prove bad, but seldom or never will those that
   appear bad become good. God indeed can change the worst; but yet an
   uncertain hope in extraordinary grace is not to be relied upon,
   especially where public good is concerned.

   5. Generally there is great fervour in souls at their first entrance
   into religion. Therefore, if any show unruliness, obstinacy, and
   indevotion during their noviceship, small good is to be expected from
   them.

   6. A little devoutness will not serve to countervail ill inclinations
   to lying, dissembling, factiousness, a humour of calumniating, &c.; for
   a great and scarce-to-be-hoped-for measure of grace will be requisite
   to subdue such pernicious qualities. On the contrary, a good nature,
   even where there is not so much devotion, yet will bear up a soul, and
   make her a tolerable member of a community. It is likewise a great
   disposition for grace, which it may well be hoped will one day follow,
   and that such an one will become devout. Especially this may be hoped
   for in those that have naturally a good sound judgment, which is much
   to be considered.

   7. Now by a good nature I mean not such an one as is generally in the
   world styled so, to wit, a facility and easiness to grant a request or
   to comply with others. On the contrary, forasmuch as regards a
   coenobitical life, I account such to be an ill nature, being easily
   seduced and perverted. By a good nature, therefore, in this place, I
   mean such an one as is endued with modesty, gentleness, quietness,
   humility, patience, love of truth, and other such morally good
   qualities, which are good dispositions for Christian perfection. Now a
   person of an ill nature, that will make a good show out of hope to
   steal a profession, ought the rather for his dissimulation to be
   rejected.

   8. And indeed subtle natures are much to be taken heed of. Some novices
   will behave themselves so cunningly as at the end of their probation
   none can be able to produce any special accusation against them, and
   yet they may in their conscience believe them to be unfit. In this case
   every one is to follow his own judgment; and especial heed is to be
   taken of the judgment of the master or mistress of the novices, who are
   most to be credited, as having the opportunity and means to espy and
   penetrate more deeply into their interior dispositions.

   9. This goodness or virtuousness of natures is an essential point, and
   far more to be regarded than those accidental ones, as strength of
   bodily complexion, acuteness of wit, gracefulness of behaviour, skill
   in singing, nobility, portion, &c. And particularly for this last, how
   far religious souls ought to be from regarding riches or gain in
   matters of this nature, or for such carnal ends to admit those that are
   unfit, or whom God hath not sent, the General Decree of the Church in
   the first OEcumenical Council of Lateran (can. 64) will show; besides,
   the practice of antiquity, as we may read in an epistle of St.
   Augustine. Surely the only way of founding convents securely, even in
   regard of temporalities, is by making choice only of those to whom God
   hath given fitting dispositions, whereby we may engage His omnipotence
   in their preservation.

   10. Those, therefore, upon whose suffrages the admission and profession
   of new-comers do depend, are to consider that they are intrusted by the
   whole congregation with a matter of such consequence as not only the
   present but future welfare or ruin of convents is interested in their
   proceedings: all which trust they shall betray if any undue
   consideration of friendship, kindred, gain, &c., or a zeal of
   multiplying convents (which is but carnal), shall corrupt their
   judgments.

   11. Surely, therefore, in all reason none should be admitted into
   communities professing the aspiring to contemplation, but only such as
   are disposed thereto, and that are willing, yea, desirous, to spend
   their whole lives in solitude, prayer, and regular observances, without
   any designs or thoughts of ever being employed abroad (yet always with
   an entire submission to the ordinances of superiors).

   12. And indeed (as was said before concerning superiors, that active
   spirits being to direct the contemplative do endanger the extinguishing
   of the spirit of contemplation; so likewise) if such be without choice
   admitted, the same mischief will follow. Yea, I am persuaded that many
   active spirits, though of a good seemly outward carriage, are no less
   harmful to a community than a lesser number of loose spirits. And the
   reason is because by their good exterior show they will seem worthy of
   superiority, to which also their activity will incline them. And those
   are they indeed, saith Thaulerus, that are persecutors of
   contemplation; for having a good opinion of themselves and their own
   ways (which loose spirits have not), they think themselves even obliged
   to depress those other good souls that do not judge those external
   exercises and fashions suitable to their profession. And for this
   reason they will by faction seek to increase their number; yea, and to
   strengthen their own party, they will not spare to join, with loose
   spirits, for their own interests yielding to their disorders. Neither
   when they have compassed their ends by the ruin of the spirit of
   contemplation will unquietness cease; for in a community wholly
   consisting of active spirits factions and partialities for several ends
   and designs will never be wanting.

   13. Now the same care that superiors ought to have about the choice and
   admission of virtuous and fit souls into communities, must be continued
   in the managing and directing of them being admitted. Great care,
   therefore, is to be taken that the misbehaviour of novices do not
   proceed from want of knowledge and instruction in matters of the
   spirit; that so it may appear that, if they do not well, it is for want
   of good will, and not of light. Now it is not to be expected that
   novices should be perfect; it will suffice that they seriously tend to
   it by a constant pursuance of internal prayer and abstraction of life.

   14. Above all things, therefore, superiors ought to allow to their
   subjects a competent time daily for their recollections, which is the
   food of the soul, and to deny which would be a greater tyranny than to
   refuse corporal food to slaves after their travail. He deserves not the
   name of a religious man, saith Cajetan, no, nor of a Christian, saith
   Thaulerus, that doth not every day spend some reasonable space in his
   interior. [69]St. Bernard would not excuse even Pope Eugenius himself,
   in the midst of those continually most distractive weighty affairs of
   the popedom, from this duty; the want whereof is more harmful to the
   soul than that of corporal food is to the body. For he that fasts one
   day, besides the present pain he finds, will the next have a better and
   more eager appetite; but a soul that through neglect is deprived of her
   daily food of prayer will the next day have a less stomach and
   disposition to it, and so in time will come willingly and even with
   pleasure to starve in spirit; and to such neglect and loathing of
   prayer she will come, if superiors do hinder, or indeed not encourage
   her to a constant exercise of it.

   15. Now this care of superiors must extend itself as well to lay
   brethren or sisters as those of the choir. For they also have the same
   obligation to aspire to contemplation; and if the appointed vocal
   prayers of the Divine Office without the joining of daily recollections
   will not avail to procure in these the spirit of recollectedness, much
   less will those short prayers or offices to which the others are
   obliged.

   16. To conclude this point: It concerns most deeply superiors to take
   care that their subjects live according to their profession and
   obligation; for if it should be by their fault that they fail, it will
   be no excuse to the subjects, but a great part of the burden and
   punishment will light upon superiors. And it were far better they had
   never come under their direction, but stayed in the world, where, not
   having the like obligation to the perfection of Christian virtues,
   their guilt would have been the less. Hence St. Augustine saith that as
   he never saw better souls than those in religion, so likewise he never
   saw worse. And the reason is because it argues a most maliciously ill
   habit of soul when, in the midst of so great light and such helps to
   piety, spiritual sloth and tepidity reign. And where tepidity is in
   religion, although carnal open sins may be avoided, yet the more
   dangerous sins of the spirit, pride, factiousness, envy, &c., do find
   occasions of being raised and nourished, perhaps more than in the
   world. Add hereunto that irreverences and profaning of the sacraments
   are not so common in the world, where the obligations and commodity of
   participating are not so frequent. And lastly, which is most
   considerable, those who in religion are sluggish and indevout do grow
   continually worse and worse, being more and more hardened by the daily
   heartless exercise of prayer and tepid communions; for where the
   sacraments do not produce the good effects for which God gave them,
   they do occasionally increase hardness of heart and impenitency. Hence,
   saith Thaulerus, it were better to take into one's body a million of
   devils, than once to take the Body of our Lord, being in an unfit
   disposition. And so it is a very extraordinary and almost miraculous
   thing, if God give the grace of a new conversion to souls that in
   religion are become habitually tepid and stained with known impurity,
   for they, being insensible of their soul's good in the midst of all
   advantages possible to be had, cannot by any change to a better state
   be amended; and, therefore (it is to be feared), such do generally die
   in the state wherein they lived. Whereas, in the world, an ill liver
   may far more probably meet with helps of conversion by change of state,
   place, &c., or by sickness: whereupon [70]St. Bernard professed that he
   would not doubt to give a present absolution to the most enormous
   sinner living in the world, if he would promise to enter into a
   religious life; but what hopes can be of him that after he has left the
   world so habitually neglects God? What change, what new occasions, can
   be afforded to him for his conversion?
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER IX.

   S: 1. Advices to novices.

   S:S: 2, 3, 4, 5. Of the Fervor Novitius.' Why God gives it at the
   beginning of our conversion; and what use is to be made of it.

   S:S: 6, 7. How they are to behave themselves after their noviceship.

   S: 8. Superiors ought not to employ young religious in distractive
   employments.

   S: 9. How they are to be ordered about their studies.

   1. There will be occasion in the following treatises to speak of
   several special duties of religious persons, as how they are to behave
   themselves in exterior offices, in sickness, refections, &c. I will
   therefore content myself to adjoin here a few directions and cautions,
   addressed particularly to beginners or novices in religion.

   2. Daily experience confirms that which spiritual writers observe, that
   God in great goodness to souls does usually upon their first conversion
   bestow upon them a great fervour in divine and religious duties, which,
   therefore, our holy Father calls fervorem novitium. Yea, even naturally
   the inbred liking that our infirm nature has to all novelty and change
   causes a more than ordinary pleasure, diligence, and earnestness in any
   new begun employment.

   3. To this purpose there is, in the annals of the Franciscans, related
   a passage touching a devout brother called Michael Magothi, by which we
   may learn the ground and intention of Almighty God in bestowing such a
   fervour. The story is this: There was one of the religious brethren in
   his convent that observed of himself that, ordinarily when he was in
   any external employment of study, labour, &c., God did present his soul
   with His blessing of sweetness and an affection of tender sensible
   devotion; the which, whensoever he set himself purposely to prayer,
   forsook him; whereupon he addressed himself to this good brother
   Michael to demand his counsel; who answered him thus: When you are
   walking at leisure in the market-place thinking of nothing, there meets
   you a man with a vessel of wine to sell. He invites you to buy it, much
   commending the excellency of it; and the better to persuade you, he
   offers you gratis a small glass of it, to the end that, being delighted
   with the colour and fragrancy of it, you may be more tempted to buy the
   whole vessel, which, you must expect, will cost you very dear. Even so
   our Lord Jesus, whilst your thoughts are wandering upon other matters,
   either in reading, or hearing a sermon, or working, by a secret
   inspiration invites you powerfully (instilling a few drops of His
   sweetness into your heart) to taste how delicious He is. But this is
   but transitory, being offered, not to satiate or inebriate you, but
   only to allure you to His service. And therefore, if you expect any
   more, you must consider it is to be sold, and a dear price paid for it.
   For spiritual sweetness can be obtained in no other way but by corporal
   affliction, nor rest but by labour.

   4. Good souls, therefore, are often to be exhorted to make good use of
   this fervour, and to improve it diligently (yet with discretion),
   thereby to produce in their hearts an unshaken resolution to proceed in
   the ways of the divine love, notwithstanding any contradiction or pain
   that may happen. They must not expect that this fervour will be
   lasting; for, being seated in the inferior grosser part of the soul, it
   is not of long continuance, since it may easily be altered, even by any
   change made in the bodily humours, or by external occurrents. So that
   if it be not well managed, and good use made of it to fix holy and
   resolute desires in the spirit (which are more lasting, as not
   depending on the body or outward things), it is justly to be feared
   that God will not bestow the like afterward.

   5. A noviceship is a golden time for the learning and practising
   matters of the spirit. In that short space, therefore, a religious
   person is to raise a stock for his whole future life; so that if a
   noviceship be negligently and improvidently spent, he will scarce ever
   have the like opportunity to promote his spiritual good; for after his
   profession he will, besides liberty, have many more distractions, more
   freedom of conversation, and more intercourse with the news and affairs
   abroad. Besides, he will not utterly be out of danger of some offices
   and employments, for the discharge of which some, perhaps, will suppose
   him already fit and prepared in spirit.

   6. At the going out of the noviceship, the person is to be very careful
   with whom he converses, so as to become an inward acquaintance, lest,
   being so tender as he is yet, he happen quickly to be corrupted with
   the society of negligent tepid companions. For want of this care too
   often it happens that all the good gotten in a noviceship is clean lost
   in a short time, since usually things are no other way preserved but by
   the same means that they were first gotten. Therefore, since it was by
   prayer and abstraction of life that a novice procured all the little
   proportion of divine love that he is possessed of, he must expect that
   it will no other way be preserved. For this reason it is very requisite
   that the superior should appoint such an one his companion.

   7. A soul must consider that it is not a little diligence, nor yet the
   space of a year or two, that will, ordinarily speaking, suffice to get
   a habit and stability in mortification and prayer. And, therefore, a
   young beginner ought to imprint deeply in his heart this most important
   truth and advice, that his duty is never to abate or slacken, but
   rather continually to increase in firmness of mind and resolution, to
   proceed courageously during the whole course of his following life in
   the internal exercises of spirit. For he is to consider that his
   noviceship being once ended, he must never expect such advantages
   thereto afterward, such stillness, such want of interruptions and
   temptations, such clear light, and such calmness of passions, as he
   enjoyed before. Therefore, lest by a change of his state from a
   rigorous solitude and silence to ordinary conversings, and perhaps
   employments or studies, he should come to endanger a decay in spirit,
   and so be miserably reduced to his first natural state or worse (for,
   indeed, worse it will be if such a decay happen), let him be very
   vigilant and industrious to avoid all things that may hinder him from
   prosecuting internal prayer, and let him be careful to continue,
   according to the utmost of his ability, to use all abstraction
   possible, as if he were still in his noviceship.

   8. Indeed, superiors ought to be very careful not to put their young
   religious into distractive employments or studies, either sooner, or
   more than can well stand with their spirit, or before they be
   reasonably well grounded in prayer. For how is it possible for an
   imperfect beginner, having such hindrances, to make progress in spirit?
   Whereas, if a good foundation of spiritual prayer were once laid, such
   a soul, by being applied to his studies or external offices, will
   suffer no decay; yea, moreover, he will probably profit in studies
   above the proportion of his natural abilities, by reason that passions
   which must distract and darken even the natural understanding will be
   much abated by prayer; and, moreover, he will undertake his studies as
   a duty and matter of conscience, which will increase his attention and
   diligence. Yet perhaps, by reason of his abstinence and exercises in
   spirit, his bodily strength will not be vigorous enough to enable him
   to support very much study; and if it should prove so, the loss is not
   great, since the divine love will sufficiently recompense all other
   wants. So it fared with our holy Father, who, as St. Gregory says, was
   sapienter indoctus; his wisdom consisted in despising all learning
   which was not helpful or not necessary to his advancement in the divine
   love, which alone is the true wisdom and learning.

   9. Truly, so great harm comes to young religious after a noviceship
   well spent by being put immediately to schools, and for that purpose
   dispensed with in a great measure about their monastical duties of
   prayer, abstraction, silence, &c., that it were very good and fit when
   persons of tender age come to demand the habit to put them off; and in
   the first place to inform them well about prayer, and to endeavour to
   persuade them that before they undertake a religious state they should
   despatch their course of philosophy and divinity, and during such a
   course to use as much abstraction and recollection as well they can,
   for which they will then find more time than if they had been
   religious, because they shall not be interrupted by the choir and other
   regular observances. So that if studies be then a hindrance to prayer,
   how much more would they be so in case they had been religious? Having
   done all this, then in God's name let them demand the habit. By this
   means good souls would not be interrupted in their religious course,
   nor put in danger never again to recover the spirit of prayer. And if,
   following such directions, they should come to die before the time of
   taking the habit, they may assure themselves that in God's account they
   shall be esteemed as religious souls, wholly consecrated unto Him.
     __________________________________________________________________

  CHAPTER X.

   S:S: 1, 2. Of the obligation of the English Benedictines to the
   Mission. The sublime perfection of that employment.

   S:S: 3, 4. The care of it belongs only to religious superiors, and not
   at all to particular religious.

   S:S: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Great danger of seeking that employment,
   and false pretences to obtain it, &c.

   S: 12. How the said charge is to be performed.

   1. It will not be amiss to adjoin to this section concerning a
   religious state certain considerations and advices touching a subject
   which, though it pertain not to religious persons in general, yet is
   annexed to our profession in the English congregation of St. Benedict's
   Order, and that is the Apostolical Mission into England, which all the
   professed do by a particular vow oblige themselves to undertake
   whensoever they shall be commanded by superiors.

   2. An employment this is of high importance, and most sublime
   perfection, if duly undertaken and administered. But the care thereof
   only belongs to superiors; and indeed it is worthy both of their
   prudence and zeal,--by a right managing whereof they may procure great
   glory to God, and good to souls miserably misled by infinite and most
   pernicious errors.

   3. But as for particular religious, they are merely to be passive in
   the business--they are to submit themselves to the undergoing of all
   the pains, incommodities, and dangers of it, whensoever it shall be
   imposed on them. But this being only an accessory obligation and
   capacity, they are not to suppose that when God gives them a vocation
   to a religious life, this doth make any alteration at all in their
   essential design, most secure and profitable to their own souls, which
   is the leading a solitary, devout, and abstracted life, and therein
   aspiring to contemplation. This only must they aim at, and to this must
   they order all their thoughts and actions, as if they were all their
   lives long to be imprisoned in their cloisters. Therefore, neither
   entering nor afterwards, must they entertain any thoughts or designs
   about anything that is out of the limits of their convents, in which,
   forasmuch as concerns themselves, their desire and intention must be to
   live and die. Particularly they ought to banish out of their minds all
   meditations and inclinations to go in mission into EngIand. Yea, if
   they will indeed comply with their essential profession, they must
   resolve, as much as lies in them, and without offence to God or
   disobedience to their superiors, to prevent such an employment (of
   which they cannot without pride think themselves worthy, or able to
   encounter all the temptations and dangers accompanying it), simply and
   sincerely confining all their thoughts and affections to that life of
   solitude, abstraction, and prayer which they have vowed, and in which
   their souls will find truest comfort and security.

   4. Consequently, neither must they (with an intention to approve unto
   their superiors their fitness for that charge, thereby, as it were,
   inviting them to make use of them for it) apply themselves after such a
   manner to the studies proper for such an employment, as in any measure
   thereby to hinder or interrupt the reading of such books as are most
   beneficial to their souls, and much less to hinder their daily serious
   recollections. In case their superiors (who are only concerned in that
   business) shall require of them to apply themselves diligently to such
   studies as may fit them for the mission, they are obliged therein to
   submit themselves to obedience. Yet even in that case, if they find
   that much time cannot be spent in them without hurt to their spirit and
   a neglect or prejudice to their appointed recollections, they ought to
   acquaint their superiors with their ease, who no doubt will prefer the
   good and advancement of their souls by solitude, purity of spirit, and
   internal prayer, before any other considerations whatsover. Yea, they
   will judge prayer to be a better disposition, and to procure a greater
   enablement, even for such a calling than study, and will take heed how
   they send any abroad that for their studies neglect their prayer. For
   what blessing from God can such hope upon any endeavours of theirs? Is
   it not more likely that themselves will be perverted, than others by
   them converted?

   5. It cannot easily be imagined how mischievous to many souls the
   neglect of such advices may be. Some will perhaps have a mind to take
   the habit for that end and intent principally of going afterward into
   England. What miserable distractions would such a resolution cause
   during all the time of their abode in their convent! for all their
   thoughts, almost all their affections, hopes, and designs will be
   carried abroad into another country; so that the place of their
   profession will be esteemed a place of exile to them. And so far will
   they be from procuring a divine light and grace to enable them for so
   terrible an employment by the means of prayer, that prayer and solitude
   will be distasteful to them. Regular observances will be a burden, and
   anything that may delay their intention, which they say is of
   converting souls; but, alas! perhaps with the loss, or at least
   imminent danger, of their own.

   6. Nay, some that at the beginning have simply and with a good
   intention taken the habit, yielding afterward to the spirit of tepidity
   (which turns their happy solitude into a prison), will look upon the
   mission as a means to free themselves from their profession, and
   therefore will not fear to use all means, by friends and solicitations
   of their superiors, that they may be suffered to quit it and go in
   mission. God only knows into what dangers and temptations they wilfully
   thrust themselves, being utterly unprovided of light or grace to resist
   them. And what other issue can be expected but that God should give
   them up to such temptations, unto which (out of a sensual affection to
   the world, pride, and a weariness of prayer) they have exposed
   themselves, without any call from Him, yea, contrary to His will?

   7. Now it is not only particular religious, but much more superiors,
   that ought to think themselves concerned most deeply in these matters;
   for in case such unwary rash souls shall come thus to destroy
   themselves, they cannot but know that those souls shall be required at
   their hands. They ought, therefore, to root out of the hearts of their
   subjects all such pernicious designs, by showing that they esteem them
   least worthy that are most forward to offer themselves. And great care
   and wariness ought they to use how they send or permit any to go
   abroad, before they be sufficiently furnished, not so much with
   learning as with the spirit of mortification and prayer, and with zeal
   proceeding from an established charity, that so they may not, by
   undertaking and executing active employments, prejudice and perhaps
   ruin their contemplative state.

   8. Our examples ought to be our first holy converters of England, who
   did not undertake such a charge till they were grown old in the
   exercises of solitude and contemplation; and not then till an absolute
   command was imposed on them by the Supreme Pastor. And in the execution
   of their charge, they never suffered their labours and solicitudes to
   dispense with them for the continuing of their accustomed austerities
   and the exercise of prayer, but borrowed from their employments as much
   time as could possibly be allowed, to spend in abstraction, solitude,
   and contemplation. Yea, though they conversed only with pagans and
   barbarous souls, yet so zealous were they of their monastical life and
   profession that they would not so much as quit the habit; and when they
   were consecrated and exalted to the episcopal function, yet still they
   retained both the exercises and fashions of monastical contemplative
   persons, as St. Bede declareth.

   9. Moreover, in latter times, experience hath witnessed that some
   humble and devout, though not so learned, missioners have prospered
   better in converting souls than the most acute and cunning
   controvertists, and have by their humility, modesty, and edifying
   conversation, but especially by the practice and teaching of internal
   prayer, gained to Catholic unity those souls that many other, most
   skilful in disputes, and withal enabled with experience, have for long
   time in vain attempted.

   10. Notwithstanding all this, I do not deny but that to a religious
   soul an impulse and interior invitation may come from God to go into
   the mission. This is possible; but most certain it is that such an
   invitation will very rarely, if ever, come but to souls established in
   a spiritual life. And in this case it will be sufficient for the person
   to propose the matter humbly and modestly to his superiors; yet withal
   with an entire resignation, and almost a desire to be refused. If it be
   God's will actually to make use of such a religious person in an
   employment of that nature, He will no doubt facilitate the business,
   and in His own time incline the will of the superior, without the
   subject's solicitation, to permit him to go.

   11. But whatever pretences are made by others for going into England,
   whether it be converting of souls, and particularly of some special
   friends or kindred, or of recovery of bodily health, gaining of
   temporal commodity to the community, &c., the true motives indeed
   ordinarily proceed from tepidity; which tepidity ought to be corrected
   by prayer and perseverance in religious duties, and not further
   increased and perhaps changed into open libertinage and profaneness by
   such an exemption from all regularity and order, by which a poor,
   unprovided, sensual soul will become deeply engaged in the world,
   exposed to innumerable temptations without spiritual armour, and, as it
   were, cast headlong into a pit of darkness, and of a forgetfulness of
   all things that concern a holy religious life.

   12. As for their obligations in the discharge of that so terrible
   employment (when they are once engaged in it), it will suffice to put
   them in mind that the said charge doth not dispense with the essential
   obligations that lie upon them as religious. If in their convents they
   ought to be humble, abstinent, devout, &c., much more ought they, being
   still religious, but now exposed to innumerable temptations, to
   increase a vigilance over themselves, to avoid all unnecessary vain
   conversations, all solicitudes about external things, &c., and to
   practise all possible abstraction of life, solitude, both external and
   internal; but especially not to neglect the principal duty of all,
   which is pure spiritual prayer, which alone can procure security to
   their own souls and blessings upon others. For surely, if prayer be
   necessary in a convent, much more is it necessary to such persons
   living in the world.
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THE SECOND TREATISE.

  OF THE FIRST INSTRUMENT OF PERFECTION, VIZ. MORTIFICATION.

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THE FIRST SECTION.

    OF MORTIFICATION IN GENERAL; AND OF NECESSARY AND VOLUNTARY MORTIFICATIONS.
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  CHAPTER I.

   S:S: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. All the duties of a contemplative life reduced to
   two heads, viz. 1. Mortification; 2. Prayer. And the grounds of that
   division.

   S: 6. The necessity of each of these.

   S: 7. How they do advance each the other.

   S:S: 8, 9, 10. Of the two, Prayer is the more noble.

   1. Having so largely treated of the nature and end of a contemplative
   life in general, as likewise of the only Divine Master from whom it is
   to be learned, and the school of solitude in which He gives His
   directions, order requires that we now treat of the special
   instructions touching the means or instruments conducing to the
   obtaining of the supernatural end aspired to by us. Concerning which
   our discourse will not need to be so diffused, considering the large
   scope that we have allowed to ourselves in the first general treatise,
   in which mention also was made of much of that which is to follow.

   2. Several mystical authors, each one abounding in his own sense, and
   raising a frame of spirituality as suited best to his own imagination
   and design, have made several partitions of the duties of a spiritual
   life, and it is not a matter much considerable which of them should be
   preferred. But to the end the best ease and help may be afforded to the
   devout reader's memory, the division of them shall be the shortest that
   may be, yet sufficiently and clearly enough comprehending all necessary
   duties, namely, under these two heads of--1. Mortification; 2. Prayer.

   3. Now to the end that the grounds of the fitness of this division may
   be better understood, we are to remember that the glorious end of a
   contemplative life, to wit, union in spirit with God by love, is
   entirely supernatural and divine, so that it is impossible for man by
   any natural ability and strength, although he were free from sins, to
   attain unto it; and much more is this impossible to him in his present
   state, since he is naturally most averse from it, being wholly
   possessed and filled with nothing but self-love, propriety, and pride,
   absolutely inconsistent with such an union. Therefore, the foundation
   of all our spiritual duties must be a true knowledge--1. of ourselves,
   our own nothing, our unprofitableness, vileness, and misery, which is
   to be the object of our aversion and hatred; and 2. of the
   all-sufficiency, universal being, infinite perfections, and
   incomprehensible beauty and goodness of God, who is to be the only
   object of our contemplation and love; and, consequently, upon this
   knowledge all our endeavours towards this end (being directed by a
   Divine light and assisted by Divine grace) must be employed, first, in
   removing those impediments; and next, consequently, in approaching
   directly to God, an immediate union with whom is aspired to, as the
   only end of our creation and perfection of our intellective nature. We
   must renounce and fly from ourselves, that we may draw near unto God;
   we must destroy self-love in our souls, that so the Divine love may be
   raised and increased in them. Now, it is by Mortification that
   self-love and all other our natural deordinations, which hinder a
   divine union, are removed; and it is by Prayer that we directly tend to
   a divine union. By the former we exercise all duties and practise all
   virtues which regard ourselves (for virtues are so far only to be
   esteemed worthy of that name, inasmuch, and as far as they are
   mortificatory to our inordinate passions and affections, as humility of
   pride, patience of anger, temperance of sensual desires, &c.), and
   prayer (in the notion in which it is here understood) includes all our
   duties directly pertaining to God, as comprehending all manner of
   internal actuations and operations of the soul towards God, by the
   understanding, contemplating, and admiring Him; by the will and
   affections adoring, obeying, loving, and adhering to Him; and, in a
   word, the whole soul resigning and submitting itself, and the body
   also, with all things belonging to each of them, to be disposed
   according to His divine will, both for time and eternity.

   4. This division deserves the rather to be approved, because Hesychius,
   an ancient illuminated monk, in his treatise De Puritate Cordis, hath
   conformably reduced all spiritual duties to: 1. temperance; 2. and
   prayer. By temperance understanding the very same that is here meant by
   mortification; for, as he expresses his meaning, this temperance is a
   general abstaining from all things that would any way disorder the
   affections, or obscure the light of the soul. He calls it likewise
   Custodiam Cordis, a guard or watch set over the heart, forcing it to
   repel all vain and unprofitable thoughts, which, if they be too freely
   admitted, do hinder from observing the snares and suggestions of the
   devil or of our corrupt nature, and do withal disturb the tranquillity
   of the soul.

   5. In those two duties, therefore, of mortification and prayer, all
   good is comprehended; for by the exercise of mortification those two
   general most deadly enemies of our souls, self-love and pride, are
   combated and subdued, to wit, by the means of those two fundamental
   Christian virtues of divine charity and humility. And prayer, exercised
   in virtue of these two, will, both by way of impetration obtain, and
   also with a direct efficiency ingraft, a new divine principle and
   nature in us, which is the Divine Spirit; which will become a new life
   unto us, and the very soul of our souls, by degrees raising us higher
   and higher out of our corrupt nature, till at last we be made one with
   God, by an union as perfect, constant, and immediate as in this frail
   life an intellective soul is capable of.

   6. And both these duties of mortification and prayer are so absolutely
   necessary that they must neither of them ever cease, but continually
   increase in perfection and virtue to the end of our lives. For though
   self-love and pride may by mortification be subdued, yet as long as we
   are imprisoned in mortal bodies of flesh and blood, they will never be
   totally rooted out of us, but that even the most perfect souls will
   find in themselves matter enough for further mortification. And again,
   our union with God by prayer can never either be so constant but that
   it will be interrupted, so as that the soul will fall from her height
   back some degrees into nature again; nor is there any degree of it so
   perfect, pure, and spiritual, but that it may, and by exercise will,
   become yet more and more pure without all limits.

   7. The diligent exercise of each of these doth much advance the
   practice of the other. For as mortification is a good disposition to
   prayer, yea, so necessary that a sensual immortified soul cannot raise
   herself up so much as to look to God with any cordial desire to please
   Him, or to love and be resigned to Him, much less to be perfectly
   united to Him; so, likewise, by prayer the soul obtains light to
   discover whatsoever inordinate affections in her are to be mortified,
   and also strength of spiritual grace actually and effectually to subdue
   them.

   8. Hence it may easily appear that of these two prayer is much the more
   valuable and noble exercise. 1. Because in prayer of contemplation
   consists the essential happiness both of this life and that which is to
   come; so that mortification regards prayer as the means disposing to an
   end; for, therefore, a devout soul is obliged to mortify her inordinate
   affections, to the end she may thereby be disposed to a union with God.
   2. Because mortifications are never duly and profitably undergone but
   only in virtue of prayer. Whereas, possible it may be, that prayer
   alone may be considerably advanced without any other notable
   mortifications, in case that God hath provided none for the soul. 3.
   Because prayer is withal in itself the most excellent and effectual
   mortification; for in and by it the most secret risings of inordinate
   passions are contradicted, yea, the mind and superior will are wholly
   abstracted and elevated above nature, so that for the time all passions
   are quieted, and all creatures, especially ourselves, transcended,
   forgotten, and in a sort annihilated.

   9. Notwithstanding, in case that God, as He seldom fails, do provide
   for us occasions of mortification out of prayer, if we be negligent in
   making good use of them to the promoting of ourselves in spirit, we
   shall decrease both in grace and prayer; as, on the contrary, by a good
   use of them we shall both certainly and speedily be advanced in the
   ways of the Spirit. So that neither of them alone is to be relied on.
   Mortification without prayer will be but superficial, or, it is to be
   feared, hypocritical; and prayer, with a neglect of mortification, will
   be heartless, distracted, and of small virtue.

   10. The subject, therefore, of this and the following treatise being a
   recommendation of these two most necessary and most excellent
   instruments of contemplation, reason requires that of the two
   mortification should, in the first place, be treated of, inasmuch as it
   is not only the less perfect, but because, also, the proper use of it
   is to dispose and make even and plain the way to the other, by
   levelling the mountains of pride, raising the valleys of sloth, and
   smoothing the roughness and inequalities of our passions, but
   especially by removing out of the way that general impediment, which is
   propriety of our natural carnal wills.
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  CHAPTER II.

   S: 1. The mortifications here treated of in particular are not of such
   sinful deordinations of passions as are acknowledged to be sins, either
   mortal or venial.

   S:S: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. But of such deordinations as are commonly
   called imperfections, and which may occasion sins.

   S: 9. That sin consists in the enjoying of creatures instead of using
   them.

   S:S: 10, 11, 12. All venial sins cannot be avoided, but affection to
   them must.

   S:S: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Wherein such affection consists; and how it is
   inconsistent with perfection.

   1. Now intending to treat of Mortification, first in general, and
   afterwards of the special kinds of it, at least such as are more
   peculiar to internal livers, my design is not to discourse in
   particular of such deordinations as are generally acknowledged to be in
   themselves sinful, either mortally or, in a grosser manner, venially;
   that is, such as that the actions or omissions to which they adhere can
   in no circumstances be lawful or permitted; although the end or
   pretended intention of them were never so good. Such as are officious
   lies, smaller revenges, or calumniations. For it is supposed that the
   souls for whose benefit these instructions were intended are not in a
   state to stand in need of advices concerning such matters, but are
   supposed to be entered into a way of perfection; being desirous--yea,
   through God's grace resolved--to abandon all things, and to cast away
   all adhesions and affections whatsoever that are inordinate, not only
   such as will endanger to kill the soul, but also such as would make it
   sickly and infirm, or stain the lustre and brightness of it.

   2. The objects, therefore, of mortification which I shall chiefly
   handle, are such defects as though indeed in themselves they be sinful,
   yet are not acknowledged by all to be so, but are called only
   imperfections; being such sins as, considering the frailty of our
   nature, can hardly be avoided, and never totally rooted out; being
   conversant about objects which we may lawfully and most necessarily
   use, but the fault is, that we do with some deordination either adhere
   to or are averted from such objects. In a word, such sins they are
   that, except when they are more gross, it would be an endless and
   unprofitable labour to make them matters of confession, although the
   correcting and abating of them ought to be the object of our daily
   care.

   3. I will endeavour to explain my meaning more fully in this matter,
   because it is the ground of the whole following discourse. We must
   know, then, that the duty of a Christian (much more of a soul that
   aspires to perfection) is to love nothing at all but God, or in order
   to Him; that is, as a mean and instrument to beget and increase His
   divine love in our souls. All adhesion to creatures by affection,
   whether such affection be great or small, is accordingly sinful, more
   or less; so that, if being deprived of anything or persons whatsoever,
   or being pained by anything, we find a trouble and sorrow in our minds
   for the loss or suffering of the thing itself, such trouble, in what
   degree soever, argues that our affection was sinful, not only because
   the affection was excessive, but because it was an affection, the
   object whereof was not God.

   4. But yet withal this affection, which I say is unlawful, is not
   simply such an one as resides and is confined to sensitive nature, for
   that is impossible to be rooted out; neither is there any fault at all
   in it, considered as such. For to Adam in the state of innocency, yea,
   even to our Lord Himself, many objects were pleasing and delightful to
   sense: His sight and taste took contentment in pleasurable objects, and
   there was in nature an aversion from pain, and an earnest desire to
   prolong natural life; and in all this there was not the least
   imperfection. The affections to creatures, therefore, which we affirm
   to be sinful, are such as are seated in the superior soul or rational
   will, by which the mind and will consider and adhere unto creatures,
   and knowingly and willingly pursue the attaining and enjoying of them,
   as if they were the good, not of sense only (for so they are), but of
   the person, which indeed they are not; for the only good of an
   intellectual nature is God, who alone is exalted above it; whereas all
   other creatures are but equal or inferior to it. To the superior will,
   therefore, all things but God must be indifferent as in and for
   themselves, and only to be loved as they are serviceable to the spirit.
   So that if things which are unpleasant, yea, destructive to inferior
   nature, do yet advance the spirit in her tendence to God, or if by the
   will and providence of God they are presented to her to suffer, she
   must with all indifference and resignation accept of them, though
   sensitive nature do never so much struggle and contradict.

   5. A most perfect example hereof is given by our Saviour, which we are
   obliged, to the utmost of our capacity and enablement, to imitate.
   Though sensitive nature in Him took contentment in life, and in the
   actions and functions thereof, and above all things did abhor a
   dissolution by death, especially such a death accompanied with such
   inexpressible torments and shame; and though, for our instruction, He
   voluntarily gave way to inferior nature to express such her innocent
   inclination and aversion, yet, when the will of His Father opposed
   itself; and presented Him a cup in the highest degree mortal to nature
   and all the inclinations thereof, He most willingly, quietly, and
   cheerfully accepted it, then subduing all reluctances in nature; which
   reluctances in Him were to the thing itself considered in itself, and
   not at all to the dictates of the superior soul, the which had so
   absolute a dominion over sensitive nature that it never opposed itself,
   or expressed the least unwillingness to conform itself to the dictates
   of reason, though with its own destruction.

   6. Whereas, therefore, there are continually presented to our outward
   and inward senses infinite objects pleasing and displeasing to them,
   and that the functions of life, which we are bound to preserve, cannot
   be exercised without admitting the use of many things delightful to
   sensitive nature--meats, drinks, recreative conversations, and
   relaxations of mind, &c.--we are to consider and resolve that none of
   these things, pleasing to the appetite, are given to be possessed of
   any affection at all, or fruition, but the mere simple use of them is
   allowed us for the good of the soul, and the contentment that the
   appetite naturally takes in them is no further, nor with other
   intention to be admitted, than inasmuch as thereby the spirit, or
   rational will, is, or may be, enabled more cheerfully to pursue its
   supreme good. And with this end and intention, to admit sometimes with
   caution and discretion, of moderate comforts and contentments to
   inferior nature, is not in itself at all unlawful; on the contrary, it
   is fitting, requisite, and necessary.

   7. But withal, considering the most miserable and inexpressible
   corruption of our nature, the violent adhesion of our appetites to
   sensually pleasing objects, the uncertain and weak dominion that the
   superior faculties of the soul have over sensitive nature, it is our
   duty and obligation, not only to be watchful over the sensitive
   appetite, that it do not with too much greediness pursue the
   contentments proper and necessary to it, but also, as much as may be,
   to abridge the number of them, making as few necessary as may be, and
   not suffering it to accept all the lawful contentments offered to it,
   yea, oft to restrain and contradict the inclinations of it. In a word,
   to use all the industry we can, not to suffer it to run on blindly
   before, or without the conduct of reason, to things pleasing to it; and
   when we perceive it does so, to call it back, however, not to suffer
   reason to favour it and join with it in its desires, but to reserve all
   our rational inclinations and affections to God only.

   8. For the case with us is far different from that it was with Adam
   during his state of innocency. For then it was no inconvenience, but
   rather perhaps a help to him, freely to make use of the pleasures
   afforded him in paradise. Because, though sensual pleasures were to
   him, considering the exquisiteness of his temper, far more pleasurable
   than they can be to us, yet his appetite did not so much as desire or
   wish the least excess; and his spirit was so replenished with divine
   love that, by admitting of such innocent satisfactions to nature, it
   rather increased than diminished or interrupted its fervour in tending
   to God and expressing its gratitude, love, and obedience to Him;
   whereas, we find all the contrary effects, and therefore must take a
   quite contrary course.

   9. This is the ground of mortification, so proper and necessary in a
   spiritual life; and these are the venial sins or imperfections that we
   are continually to combat against. In this point of distinction,
   between the using of creatures for the good of the spirit, and the
   enjoying of creatures for the pleasure of sense, without regard to the
   soul's good and advancement, lies the difference between the children
   of God and the children of Belial. Yea, in the degrees of such using or
   enjoying, between perfect good Christians and imperfect; yea, moreover
   between those that are perfect in an active, and those in a
   contemplative state. For wicked men give way deliberately to an
   habitual enjoying of creatures, without regard to their souls or God,
   yea, contrary to His command. And imperfect good Christians have no
   care to root out of their souls an habitual love to creatures, except
   it be such a love as endangers the soul by expelling charity. And
   lastly, those that are perfect in an active life, for want of a
   constant state of recollection do not enjoy a sufficient light to
   discover how in many things of less importance they give way to sense,
   preventing reason, and enjoying outward contentments without that
   purity of intention which contemplatives, being far less distracted, do
   much more frequently and perfectly exercise.

   10. Now, having mentioned this diversity of venial sins and
   imperfections, before I come to speak further of the mortification here
   intended, I will add some few considerations touching venial sins, with
   relation to a contemplative state.

   11. If it were required to perfection in a contemplative life that a
   soul should be entirely free from venial defects, it would be
   impossible to attain unto it, considering the incurable frailty of our
   nature, the frequency of temptations, and the incapacity which is in a
   soul to be in a continual actual guard over herself. True it is that,
   by perseverance in spiritual prayer, accompanied with mortification,
   such defects become for number more rare, and for quality less
   considerable; but though prayer and mortification should continue never
   so long, a soul will find occasion and a necessity to be in continual
   resistances against her perverse inclinations, and in such combats will
   sometimes come off with loss.

   12. Venial sins, therefore, are not inconsistent with perfection,
   although they should be committed never so oft out of frailty,
   subreption, or ignorance. But if they be committed deliberately,
   advisedly, customarily, and with affection, they render the soul in an
   incapacity of attaining to perfection in prayer, &c. This is a point of
   great moment and consideration, and therefore, that we may distinguish
   aright between sinning out of frailty, surprise, or infirmity, and the
   sinning out of affection to the objects of venial sins, we must know:

   13. First, that those are said to fall into venial sins out of frailty,
   which commit them only when an occasion or temptation unwillingly
   presents itself, and then are surprised with a sudden passion, or
   deprived of sufficient vigilance and reflection, but upon an
   observation of their fault they presently return to themselves, and
   find a remorse and self-condemnation for it, and an aversion (at least
   in their superior will) from such things as hinder their approach unto
   God; or if this be not done presently, however, in their next
   recollection such offences, if they be of any moment, will be brought
   into their minds, and will procure a sorrow, and consequently a pardon
   for them. But when they are out of such occasions or temptations, they
   do not give way to a pleasure conceived in the objects of them, and
   much less do they voluntarily seek or intend such occasions.

   14. Those, in the second place, are said to sin venially out of
   affection, who both before and after such faults do deliberately
   neglect them, yea, and are so far from avoiding the occasions of them
   that they do oft procure them; and this out of affection, not to the
   fault, but to the things which they see do often occasion the fault.
   Such are those that love curiosity in apparel, delicacy of meats,
   hearing of vain discourses, and that contrive meetings of jollity, from
   whence they never escape without incurring many defects. Now such souls
   may perhaps have remorse for the sins so committed, and mention them
   with sorrow in confession; but yet such remorse and confession is not
   from the whole heart, not being sufficient to make them avoid the
   occasions, when this may be done without much inconvenience or trouble.
   Yea, they do not sufficiently consider that the very love unto those
   vanities which occasion greater defects, if it be a deliberate love, is
   in itself a sin, though no other defects were occasioned by it. Such
   can make no progress in spiritual prayer; yea, on the contrary, as long
   as such known voluntary affections, either to the sins or occasions,
   are not mortified, they do every day decline, and grow more and more
   indisposed to prayer; which thereby is so distracted, and so full of
   disquieting remorse, that it is almost impossible to persevere
   constantly in an exercise so very painful.

   15. A hundred imperfections, therefore, though of some more than
   ordinary moment, are not so contrary to perfection whilst they are
   incurred by surprise or infirmity, as is an affection retained to the
   least imperfection, though it be but an unprofitable thought. A
   well-minded and courageous soul, therefore, at her first entrance into
   the internal ways of the spirit, must and does in an instant, cut off
   this deliberate affection to all venial sins and their occasions, with
   discretion seeking to avoid them; although it may happen, without any
   great prejudice to her progress, that she may find herself very oft
   surprised and overcome by many and great faults.

   16. Neither ought any soul vainly to flatter herself with a hope of
   reserving this affection without prejudicing her pretensions to
   perfection, because one or two examples (almost miraculous) are found
   of some souls that, notwithstanding such affections, have been visited
   by God with supernatural favour and exalted to a very sublime prayer,
   as a late eminent saint writes of her own self. [13] For besides that
   there was perhaps some excusable ignorance in her of the unlawfulness
   of such affections, we may say that God was pleased to confer on her
   such extraordinary favours, not so much for her own sake, but rather
   for the good of others, inasmuch as she was destined by Him to be the
   mistress and teacher of true contemplative prayer, then almost unknown
   to the world.

   17. But most certain it is that, according to the ordinary established
   course of Divine Providence, perfection in prayer is accompanied with a
   proportionate perfection in mortification. And therefore such souls as,
   during a voluntary habitual affection to venial sins (as to the objects
   and occasions of them), do seem to have great lights and profound
   recollections in prayer, (if the said lights and recollections do not
   urge and incite them to quit such harmful affection), such ought to
   suspect that all goes not right with them, but may justly fear that the
   devil hath some influence into such devotions, so utterly destitute of
   true mortification.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [13] [St. Teresa makes this acknowledgment of herself in her Life,
   chap. viii.--J. N. S.]
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  CHAPTER III.

   S: 1. Naturally we love ourselves only.

   S: 2. Even the best and most composed tempers are deeply guilty of
   self-love.

   S: 3. The benefit of such good dispositions.

   S: 4. Self-love and propriety must universally be avoided.

   S:S: 5, 6. A state of afflictions and crosses alone is secure.

   S: 7. What use is to be made of prosperity.

   S: 8, 9. The great benefits of mortification.

   S: 10. A great courage is necessary to the due practice of
   mortification.

   S:S: 11, 12, 13, 14. The advice of some writers to raise passions, to
   the end afterwards to repress them, is dangerous.

   1. Naturally we love and seek nothing but ourselves in all things,
   whatsoever we love and seek. We are our own last end, referring all
   things, even supernatural--yea, God Himself--to our own interest and
   commodity. We seek things pleasing only to our senses, outward or
   inward, as if the felicity of our souls and persons consisted in
   sensual pleasures, opinion of honour, profit, or curiosity of
   knowledge, &c. Therefore there can be no merit in nature, or actions
   proceeding from nature.

   2. Yea, they who naturally have much interior composedness and
   stillness of passions, and seem not much to be troubled with rebellion
   in sensuality, and that moreover have in them a kind of natural
   devotion, yet even these, whatsoever they appear outwardly in show, are
   full of self-love, which is the principle of all their actions. If they
   love quietness, it is because nature takes a contentment in it; and
   their self-love is more abstruse and more deeply seated in the root of
   the spirit itself; and therefore ofttimes is hard to be cured because
   not so easily discovered. Neither indeed is there any hope of remedy,
   till by prayer they get a light to discover the said secret self-love,
   and grace by mortification to subdue it.

   3. It is true such good natural dispositions may be beneficial to souls
   in two respects especially: 1. in that by means thereof they fall into
   fewer sins than more passionate impetuous natures do, and consequently
   do not put so many impediments to grace. But yet it is to be feared,
   unless they practise prayer and mortification, they will increase in
   spiritual pride; for certain it is that nature not restrained will, one
   way or other, grow more and more inordinate. 2. A second benefit is,
   that such dispositions are better fitted for internal prayer, yea, to
   the perfectest kind of it, which is prayer of aspirations; so that they
   may with less labour get out of nature, elevating themselves to God.

   4. An absolute necessity, therefore, there is for all souls to mortify
   nature, and especially to rectify this general depravedness of
   propriety, by which we are to ourselves our last end, the which is done
   by the infusion of divine charity, by which ourselves are directed to
   God as our last end; and a necessary disposition thereto is the
   mortification of self-love. And thus far all Christians are obliged to
   mortify themselves, namely to cure the mortally sinful disorders of
   their souls. A necessity likewise there is (upon supposition of
   aspiring to perfection) to mortify all deliberate affections to any the
   least venial defects and deordinations of our souls. This duty of
   mortification requires of us that, deliberately and customarily, we
   neither admit into our minds internally vain thoughts, nor outwardly
   speak or exercise acts of vain love, vain hope, vain fear, or vain
   sorrow; and all is vain that is not referred to God, or is not done for
   Him.

   5. Mortification tends to subject the body to the spirit, and the
   spirit to God. And this it does by crossing the inclinations of sense,
   which are quite contrary to those of the Divine Spirit, which ought to
   be our chief and only principle; for by such crossing and afflicting of
   the body, self-love and self-will (the poison of our spirits) are
   abated, and in time in a sort destroyed; and instead of them, there
   enter into the soul the Divine love and Divine will, and take
   possession thereof; and therein consist our perfection and happiness.

   6. For this reason the soul is in a far more secure state when crosses
   and afflictions do exceed worldly contentment and sensual ease; for
   wonderful seldom it happens that a soul makes any progress in a
   spiritual course by means of outward prosperity. Some perfect souls may
   perhaps keep the station in which they are, notwithstanding an easeful,
   contented, and abounding condition in the world; but it is almost
   miraculous if they thereby advance themselves in spirit,--so naturally
   and almost necessarily doth ease of nature nourish self-love, pride,
   security, a spiritual sloth, and a distaste of spiritual things.

   7. Indeed, the only possible way for a soul to make prosperity an
   occasion of improvement in her, is by a voluntary crossing and
   diminishing of it; that is, by taking advantage even from thence to
   mortify nature: as, for example, in case of riches and honours, by
   carrying ourselves both exteriorly and interiorly to God and man with
   more humility and modesty, as if we were not at all in such plenty and
   eminency; also by suppressing vain joy and complacency in such things,
   by acknowledging that we are not lords and proprietaries, but only
   stewards and dispensers of such things, from whom a severe account
   shall be required for the talents intrusted to us for others' sakes,
   not our own. So that it is most true that all the security, solidity,
   and fulness of our souls' good consists in a right use of those things
   which are contrary and afflicting to our nature.

   8. In general, mortification includes the exercise of all virtues; for
   in every act of virtue we mortify some inordinate passion and
   inclination of nature or other; so that to attain to perfect
   mortification is to be possessed of all virtues.

   9. The benefit and blessings that come to our souls by exercising of
   mortification are many and most precious; as, 1. There is thereby
   avoided that sin which otherwise would have been committed. 2. It
   causes a degree of purity to the soul. 3. It procures greater grace and
   spiritual strength. 4. One act of mortification enableth to another;
   as, on the contrary, by yielding any time to our corrupt nature, we are
   enfeebled and less able to resist another time. 5. It diminisheth our
   suffering in purgatory, because so much of suffering is past, and a
   little pain for the present will countervail and prevent sharp and long
   pains for the future. 6. It procures internal light by dispelling and
   calming the unruliness of passions. 7. It produces great peace to the
   soul, the which is disturbed only by unquiet passions. 8. It helpeth
   the soul much in her advancement in spiritual prayer and
   contemplation--the end of all our religious and spiritual exercises. 9.
   It is of great edification to our brethren and neighbours. 10. It
   increaseth all these ways our future happiness and glory.

   10. The duty of mortification being so absolutely necessary and so
   infinitely beneficial, and moreover so largely extended as that it
   reaches to all manner of natural inclinations, insomuch as nothing does
   an imperfect soul any good, further than it is cross and mortifying to
   some inordination in her natural inclinations, it follows from hence
   that a soul that intends to walk in these ways of contemplation had
   need have a great courage, since her design must be to combat her own
   self in all manner of things to which she naturally bears an affection.
   For the maintaining of this courage, therefore, it will behove her both
   to use much prayer, and oft to think seriously on the blessings
   accompanying and following the due practice of it; remembering withal
   that custom will make that tolerable and even pleasant which at first
   seemed insupportable.

   11. More particularly, forasmuch as concerns those that are beginners
   in an internal course, they are to consider that in such a state their
   souls are so full of impurities and defects, that scarce in any actions
   of theirs at all they do intend God purely, no not even in those that
   they perform with most advice and preparation, and with the greatest
   calmness of spirit; much less in actions, though substantially good, in
   which their passions are engaged. Therefore it is best for them during
   such state of imperfection in all times and occasions, as much as lies
   in them, wholly to suppress all passions, not suffering them to rise
   and swell in them, though with an intention by them the better and more
   fervently to perform their duties and obligation. The reason is because
   such imperfect souls, being not as yet masters of their passions,
   cannot prevent them from causing a disorder even in the superior
   rational faculties also; so that though reason can raise them at
   pleasure, yet it cannot so calm them again, nor hinder them from
   pursuing those objects out of motives of corrupt nature, against which
   they were employed at first upon superior and spiritual motives.

   12. I do the more earnestly recommend the practice according to this
   advice, because I find that some good spiritual authors do counsel a
   quite contrary proceeding, as a remedy and means to subdue passions.
   For they would have souls willingly and purposely to raise them in
   sensitive nature, and when they are come to a certain height, then by
   the strength of reason and motives of religion to quiet and pacify them
   again. As for example in case of an injury received, they advise that
   we should call to mind all the circumstances and aggravations that are
   apt to kindle indignation and resentment; and as soon as the passion is
   inflamed, then to suppress it by considerations of the example of our
   Lord, and His precept of charity to enemies, of the dangerous effects
   of revenge, and the blessed rewards of patience, &c. The like they say
   concerning a sensual desire to any object, they would have it
   represented with all its allurements and charms, so as to move a strong
   inclination in sensitive nature, and this being done, presently to
   suppress such inclinations by strong resolutions and by contrary
   practices. Only they forbid this practice in the passion of sensual
   impurity, which must not be revived upon any pretence whatsoever.

   13. To perfect souls this advice may be proper, who have an established
   dominion over their passions; but as to the imperfect, if they should
   conform themselves to it, two great inconveniences could scarce be
   prevented, viz.: 1. that they would be in danger either to be unwilling
   or unable to restore peace unto their minds once much disquieted; 2. by
   an advised and earnest representation of such objects as do raise
   passions in their minds, they do thereby fix more firmly in the memory
   the images of them, and by that means do dispose the said images to
   return at other times against their wills, when perhaps the reasons and
   motives to repress them will either not be ready, or the soul in no
   disposition to make use of them; or if she should be willing it is to
   be doubted that then such motives will not prove efficacious. Therefore
   imperfect souls may