Spiritual Guide

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.130.The Soul coming to it self again from these sweet and divine Embracings, becomesrich in light and love, and a mighty esteem of the divine Greatness, and the knowledge of its ownMisery, finding it self all changed divinely, and disposed to embrace, to suffer, and to practice80Lib.3.The Spiritual Guideperfect Vertue.131.A simple, pure, infused, and perfect Contemplation, therefore is a known and inwardmanifestation which God gives of himself, of his goodness, of his Peace, of his sweetness, whoseobject is God, pure, unspeakable, abstracted from all particular thoughts, within an inward silence:but it is God delights us, God that draws us, God that sweetly raises us in a spiritual and puremanner, an admirable gift, which the divine Majesty bestows to whom he will, as he will, andwhen he will, and for what time he will, though the state of this Life be rather a state of the crossof Patience, of humility, and of suffering, than of enjoying.132.Never wilt thou enjoy this divine Nectar, till thou art advanced in Vertue and inwardMortification; till thou doest heartily endeavour to fix in thy Soul a great Peace, silence,forgetfulness and internal solitude: How is it possible to hear the sweet, inward and powerfulVoice of God in the midst of the noise and tumults of the Creatures? And how can the pure spiritbe heard in the midst of Considerations and discourses of Artifice? If the Soul will not continuallydye in it self, denying it self to all these Materiallities and satisfactions, the Contemplation can beno more but a meer vanity, a vain complacency and Presumption.CHAP.XIV.Pursues the Same Matter.133.God doth not always communicate himself with equal abundance in this sweetest and infusedContemplation: sometimes he grants this Grace more than he doth at other times; and sometimeshe expects not that the Soul should be so dead and denied, because this Gift being his meer Grace,he gives it when he pleases, and as he pleases; so that no general rule can be made of it, nor anyrate set to his Divine greatness: nay, by means of this very Contemplation be comes to deny it toannihilate and dye.134.Sometimes the Lord gives greater light to the understanding; sometimes greater loveto the will.There is no need here for the Soul to take any pains or trouble; it must receive whatGod gives it, and rest united, as he will have it; because His Majesty is Lord, and in the very timethat he lays it asleep, he possesses and fills it, and works in it powerfully and sweetly, without anyindustry or knowledge of its own: insomuch, that before ever it is aware of this so great Mercy, itis gained, convinced, and changed already.135.The Soul which is in this happy state, hath two things to avoid, the activity of humanSpirit, and interestedness: Our humane Spirit is unwilling to dye in it self, but loveth to be doingand discoursing after its way, being in Love with its own Actions.A Man had need to have a greatfidelity, and devesting himself of selfishness, to get a perfect and passive Capacity of the DivineInfluences; the continual habits of operating freely, which it has, are a hindrance to its annihilation.136.The second is interestedness in contemplation it self: Thou must therefore procure inthy Soul a perfect devesting of all which is not God, without seeking any other end or interest,within or without, but the Divine Will.137.In a word, the manner that thou must use, on thy part, to fit thy self for this pure,81The Spiritual Guide Lib.3.passive, and perfect Prayer, is, a total and absolute consignment of thy self into the hands of God,with a perfect submission to his most holy Will, to be busied according to his Pleasure andDisposition, with a perfect resignation.138.Thou must know, that few be the Souls which arrive at this infused and passivePrayer; because few of em are capable of these divine influences with a total nakedness and deathof their own activity and Powers, those only which feel it, know it so, that this perfect nakednessis acquired (by the help of God s Grace) by a continual and inward mortification, dying to all itsown inclinations and desires.139.At no time must thou look at the effects which are wrought in thy Soul, butespecially herein; because it would be a hindrance to the divine operations, which enrich it, so todo: all that thou hast to do is to pant after indifference, resignation, forgetfulness, and, without thybeing sensible of it; the greatest good will leave in thy Soul a fit disposition for the practice ofvertue, an true love of the Cross of thy own contempt, of thy Annihilation, and greater andstronger desires still of thy greater Perfection, and the most pure and affective Union.CHAP.XV.Of the two means, whereby the Soul ascends up to infused Contemplation, with the Explication ofwhat and how many the steps of it are.140.The means whereby the Soul ascends to the felicity of Contemplation and Affective Love,are two; the Pleasure, and the Desires of it.God uses at first to fill the Soul with sensiblePleasures; because tis so frail and miserable, that, without this preventive Consolation, it cannottake wing towards the fruition of Heavenly things.In this first step it is disposed by Contrition,and is exercised in Repentance, meditating upon the Redeemer s Passion, rooting out diligently allworldly desires and vicious Courses of Life: because the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, andthe faint-heart, the delicate never conquer it, but those that use violence and force withthemselves.141.The second is the Desires.The more the things of Heaven are delighted in, the morethey are desired; and from thence there do ensue upon spiritual Pleasures, desires of enjoyingheavenly and divine Blessings, and contempt of worldly ones.From these desires arises theinclination of following Christ our Lord, who said, I am the way, (St.John 14.6) the steps of hisimitation, by which a Man must go up, are Charity, Humility, Meekness, Patience, Poverty, Self-contempt, the Cross, Prayer, and Mortification.142.The steps of infused Contemplation are three.The first is Satiety.When the soul isfill ed with God, it conceives a Hatred to all worldly things; then tis quiet and satisfied only withDivine Love.143.The second is intoxication [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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