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 and 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
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
lie 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 re-
5. And surely, in a special manner, the disciples of St. Benedict, if they will cast a serious eye upon the frame of their 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 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,
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,
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
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 bath 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.