but never to speak a sharp or peevish word, nor to murmur or repine. But be thoroughly willing, that God should treat you in the manner that pleases him. We are his lambs, and therefore ought to be ready to suffer, even to the death, without complaining. We are to bear with those we cannot amend, and to be content with offering them to God. This is true resignation. And since he has borne our infirmities, we may well bear those of each other for his sake. To abandon all, to strip one's self of all, in order to seek and to follow Jesus Christ, naked to Bethlehem, where he was born; naked to the hall, where he was scourged; and naked to Calvary, where he died on the cross, is so great a mercy, that neither the thing, nor the knowledge of it, is given to any, but through faith in the Son of God. 3. There is no love of God without patience, and no patience without Lowliness and sweetness of spirit. Humility and patience are the surest proofs of the increase of love. Humility alone unites patience with love, without which it is impossible to draw profit from suffering; or indeed to avoid complaint, especially when we think we have given no occasion for what men make us suffer. True humility is a kind of self-annihilation; and this is the centre of all virtues. A soul returning to God, ought to be attentive to every thing which is said to him on the head of salvation, with a desire to profit thereby. ..of the sins which God has pardoned, let nothing remain but a deeper humility in the heart, and a stricter regulation in our words, in our actions, and in our sufferings. 4. The bearing afflictions, and suffering evils in Meekness and silence, is the sum of a Christian's life. God is the first object of our love: its next office is, to bear with the defects of others, and we should begin the practice of this amidst our own household. We should chiefly exercise our love towards them who most shock either our way of thinking, or our temper, or our knowledge, or the desire we have that others should be as virtuous as we wish to be ourselves. 5. God only gives his Spirit even to those whom he has established in grace, if they do not pray for it on all occasions, not only once, but many times. God does nothing but in answer to prayer; and even they who have been converted to God, without praying for it themselves, (which is exceedingly rare,) were not without the prayers of others. Every new victory which a soul gains, is the effect of a new prayer. On every occasion of uneasiness we should retire to prayer, that we may give place to the grace and light of God, and then form our resolutions, without being in any pain about what success they may have. In the greatest temptations, a single look to Christ, and the barely pronouncing his name, suffices to overcome the wicked one, so it be done with confidence and calmness of spirit. God's command, to pray without ceasing, is founded on the necessity we have of his grace, to preserve the life of God in the soul, which can no more subsist one moment without it, than the body can without air. Whether we think of or speak to God, whether we act or suffer for him, all is prayer, when we have no other object than his love, and the desire of pleasing him. All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to the order of God, without either adding to, or diminishing from it by his own choice. Prayer continues in the desire of the heart, though the understanding be employed on outward things. In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is a continual prayer. As the furious hate which the devil bears us is termed the roaring of the lion, so our vehement love may be termed, crying after God. God only requires of his adult children, that their hearts R 1 be truly purified, and that they offer him continually the wishes and vows that naturally spring from perfect love. For these desires being the genuine fruits of love, are the most perfect prayers that can spring from it. 6. It is scarcely conceivable how strait the way is wherein God leads them that follow him: and how dependent on him we must be, unless we are wanting in our faithfulness to him. It is hardly credible of how great consequence before God the smallest things are; and what great inconveniences sometimes follow those which appear to be light faults. As a very little dust will disorder a clock, and the least grain of sand will obscure our sight, so the least grain of sin, which is upon the heart, will hinder its right motion towards God. We ought to be in the church as the saints are in heaven, and in the house as the holiest men are in the church: doing our work in the house, as we pray in the church, worshipping God from the ground of the heart. We should be continually labouring to cut off all the useless things that surround us. And God usually retrenches in the same proportion as we the superfluities of our souls do those of our bodies. The best means of resisting the devil is, to destroy whatever of the world remains in us, in order to raise for God upon its ruins a building all of love. in this fleeting life to love God as eternity. Then shall we begin we shall love him in We scarcely conceive how easy it is to rob God of his due, in our friendship with the most virtuous persons, until they are torn from us by death. But if this loss produce lasting sorrow, that is a clear proof that we had before two treasures between which we divided our heart. 7. If after having renounced all, we do not watch incessantly, and beseech God to accompany our vigilance with his, we shall be again entangled and overcome. ...As the most dangerous winds may enter at little openings, + so the devil never enters more dangerously than by little unobserved incidents, which seem to be nothing, yet insensibly open the heart to great temptations. It is good to renew ourselves from time to time, by closely examining the state of our souls, as if we had never done it before. For nothing tends more to the full assurance of faith, than to keep ourselves by this means in humility, and the exercise of all good works. To continual watchfulness and prayer, ought to be added continual employment. For grace flies a vacuum as well as nature, and the devil fills whatever God does not fill. There is no faithfulness like that, which ought to be between a guide of souls, and the person directed by him. They ought continually to regard each other, in God, and closely to examine themselves, whether all their thoughts are pure, and all their words directed with Christian discretion. Other affairs are only the things of men; but these are peculiarly the things of God. 8. The words of St. Paul, "No man can call Jesus, Lord, but by the Holy Ghost," shew us the necessity of eyeing God in our good works, and even in our minutest thoughts; knowing that none are pleasing to him, but those. which he forms in us and with us. From hence we learn, that we cannot serve him, unless he use our tongue, hands, and heart, to do by his Spirit whatever he would have us to do. If we were not utterly impotent, our good works would be our own property: whereas now they belong wholly to God, because they proceed from him and his grace; while raising our works, and making them all divine, he honours himself in us through them 1 One of the principal rules of religion is, To lose no occasion of serving God. And since he is invisible to our eyes, we are to serve him in our neighbour; which he receives as if done to himself in person, standing visibly before us. God does not love men that are inconstant, nor the good works that are intermitted. Nothing is pleasing to him, but what has a resemblance of his own immutability. A constant attention to the work which God entrusts us with, is a mark of solid piety. Love fasts when it can, and as much as it can. It leads to all the ordinances of God, and employs itself in all the outward works whereof it is capable. It flies, as it were, like Elijah over the plain, to find God upon his holy mountain. God is so great that he communicates greatness to the least thing that is done for his service. Happy are they who are sick; yea, or who lose their life for having done a good work. God frequently conceals the part which his children have in the conversion of other souls. Yet one may boldly say, that a person who long groans before him for the conversion of another, whenever that soul is converted to God, is one of the chief causes of it. Charity cannot be practised right, unless, first, we exercise it the moment God gives the occasion; and, secondly, retire the instant after, to offer it to God by humble thanksgiving. And this for three reasons. 1. To render himwhat we have received from him. 2. To avoid the dangerous temptation, which springs from the very goodness of these works. 3. To unite ourselves to God, in whom the soul expands itself in prayer, with all the graces we have received, and the good works we have done, to draw from him new strength against the bad effects which these very works may produce in us, if we do not make use of the antidotes which God has ordained against these poisons. The true means to be filled anew with the riches of grace, is thus to strip ourselves of it; and without this, it is extremely difficult not to grow faint in the practice of good works. Good works do not receive their last perfection, till they, as it were, lose themselves in God. This is a kind of death to them, resembling that of our bodies, which will not attain their highest life, their immortality, till they lose |