A guide to salvation, bequeathed to a person of honour, by his dying-friend the R.F. Br. Laurence Eason, Ord. S. Franc. S. Th. L.

The first Manner or Condition.

We must labour in it seriously, accor∣ding to the example of our Blessed Savi∣our, who out of zeal to convert the Sa∣maritan Woman, travelled half a day in the heats of the Sun, with great wea∣riness

and thirst to be at the place whi∣ther she was to come, to meet with an opportune occasion for her Conversion: To make, of another Sinner, a Peni∣tent, he went to a banquet, and expected there her coming; and he travelled up and down, and frequented the company of sinners to effect this great business, which was the end of his coming into the world. St. Paul had the perfect knowledg and practice of this truth, and therefore travelled seriously with the whole application of his Spirit, for the Salvation of his Brethren. Hear how he speaks unto them, [2 Corinth. 12.] Ego autem libentissime impendam, & su∣perimpendar, pro animabus vestris; I will gladly spend, and be spent for your Souls sake: There is not any thing which I will not do, to advance your Salvati∣on, which is so dear and pretious to me, that I am ready to give my self to pro∣cure it. Upon which, is that of St. Am∣brose; Non solum sua, pro eis impendere paratum se dicit, sed etiam seipsum pro sa∣lute animarum: He is not only content to

give those things which are his, but also to expose and give himself for the salvation of their Souls. This Zeal of his, he more fully expressed in that to the Ro∣mans, [Cap. 9.] Optabam, ego ipse, Anathemaesse a Christo, pro fratribus meis. I did desire to be separated from Christ, for the Salvation of my Brethren. His own interests drew him to be with Christ as his Cupio dissolvi, I desire to be dissolved, sufficiently testifies; but for the Salvation of his Brethren, he was content for a time, to be separated from the glory of Christ, and to remain here on Earth, to labour in this work.

By this we may easily apprehend how we ought to employ the things of this world, and expose our life too, if it be necessary for our Salvation, our great af∣fair in this world. But this which con∣cerns us so much is so slightly passed o∣ver, that we may justly complain with those Prophets, [Jerem. Daniel. Osee.] Desolatione desolata est omnis terra, quia non est qui recogitet corde; The whole Earth is become desolate, because there is not any

one who seriously considers in his heart. We may find many who think of their Salvation, but it is only superficially, not with the heart, and so their thoughts are cold and barren; cold, because they produce not an ardent desire to execute what they think; they are barren, be∣cause they produce not holy motions and actions. The Devil and Reprobate have the like; the thought of their Beauti∣tude lost, is continually present to them, they know the excellency of it, by suf∣fering the privation thereof; but this is not with the heart, with a consideration which is affective, ardent, effective: When we Will a thing efficatiously, it doth not only busie our thoughts, but employs our hands, and industry, to la∣bour, our tongues frequently to speak of it; the heart, the hand, the tongue, are joyned in this work; the heart to medi∣tate, the hand to execute, the tongue to publish it. Ex abundantia cordis os lo∣quitur: Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.