the spirit, who preferreth the present time before they u∣ture; who will do all which he will according to the rules of the will of God. He never slandereth; he never despi∣seth any man but himself; he knows not what it is to ma∣lign the prosperous, to persecute the miserable, to court the rich, to seek out his proper interests, to enlarge his estate by unjust practices, to sooth his senses, to content his curiosity, nor to entertain his pleasures.
He is neither puffed up with pride nor precipated by ambition, tickled by vain-glory, nor enflamed with desire of honour; not over born with delights nor gnawn by ha∣tred, not troubled with contentions, not terrified by force, nor softened by pleasure. Boldness makes him not impu∣dent, iniquity unjust, obstinacy of heart untractable, in∣constancy variable, rigour opinative; fury witless, gour∣mandize curious, disobedience rebellious, vanity a vaunt∣er, infidelity treacherous, easiness of nature fickle, cruelty harsh, perversness jealous, revenge cholerick, nor maligni∣ty injurious. His whole life is admirably enterlaced be∣tween action and contemplation, which make on earth a fi∣gure of Angels ascending and descending, giving us in this life already a tast of the benefits which we hope in the other.
Active life makes him profit in the world, contemplative sheweth him the way how he may surmount the world: The one goes to it by degrees, the other flies to the top: The one makes him holy, the other perfect; the one causeth him to pardon injuries, the other placeth him beyond the sense of an injury; the one teacheth him to mortifie passions, the other establisheth him in the empire over all passions; the one directeth him to cloth the nakedness of the poor, the other makes him to be dispoiled of himself; the one unloo∣seneth the fetters of prisoners by his hands, and the other enchaineth him to God; the one giveth succour to the af∣flicted by his means, and the other voluntarily makes him afflict himself in the imitation of the sufferings of Jesus Christ; the one hasteneth to a neighbour, and the other abideth in God; the one hath exercise, the other joy; the one conquereth, the other possesseth; the one knocketh at the door, the other entereth in; the one despiseth the world, the other enjoyeth God.
Finally, the spiritual man is a man covetous of eterni∣ty, prodigal of life, little careful of the present, certain of the future. A man who seems no longer to have any commerce with the world, and who hath nothing so fa∣miliar as a life that is as it were buried in death, and who flieth above sepulchers like an Angel, who holdeth not of the earth, but by the slender root of natural necessities, and already toucheth heaven with a finger. A man who is as yet in flesh; though he hath made an eternal divorce with flesh, who is under-foot to all the world by humility, and above all the greatness thereof by contempt of it: who binds himself, to be at liberty; who crucifieth himself, to combat; who mortifieth himself to be the more vigoroue, who withereth, to flourish again, and daily dieth, that he may never die.