To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
THe time of lent is a time of sanctity and devotion, these are the days of salvation as the scripture stiles them: so that we ought to apply our selves, more at this time then at any other of the year, with an exact fidelity, to our perfection, tha•• is to say:
1. To perform our exercises of de∣votion
with more fervour & frit, & our exteriour exercise with a grea∣ter interiour.
To be more upon our guard, to resist all the sallys of our humour, all the unprofitable reflections or re∣lapses of our minds upon creatures, & all the extravagancies of our senses.
3. To use violence to ones self, to overcome ones naturall repu∣gnances, & to act no longer accor∣ding to custome or inclination, but according to the interiour spirit of grace.
4. To entertain ones self more frequently in the presence of God, either ones mind, by a frequent re∣course to him, or ones heart, by a constant desire to please him.
5. To apply ones self with greater zeal to the practise of some vertue every month, and in the day to make some interiour or exteriour acts of it.
6. To make it o••es study to keep ones self i•• time of prayer, peaceable, humble, submissive, & respectfull before God, ••ithout disquieting or
troubling ones felf for all the di∣stractions, distasts, & sterilitys that may happen in it, seeking nothing else but to please God, without minding to please ones self; Re∣membring the advice our Lord gives us, not to discourse too much in it, & with peace of mind, to be satisfied with the state of privation & insensibility, when God puts us therein.
To labour by means of our exami∣tion, to know all that is bad or ill in us, to correct it; that which is hu∣man, to purifie it, & that which is unprofitable to elevate it.
8. Not to content ones self with an affective devotion, which consists onely in good thoughts, desires, & resolutions, which one may have to do well: but to perswade ones self that true devotion and solid vertue consist in doing what God will have us, in spite of all our naturall repug∣nances.
9. In ones spirituall reading, to relish well what one reads, & as in all ones other actions to expect
therefrom, all the fruit of gods grace
10 To make ones conf••ssions with more sorrow for what is past, mor•• confusion for the present, more re¦solution for the future, & more cir∣cumspection ouer ones self, the day one has confessed.
11. To make ones communion•• with more faith▪ confidence, & loue, with a more ardent desire to unite ones self to Iesus Christ, with a more profound respect, with a greater re∣collection & union to the sacrifice which Christ makes in our hearts, to his eternall Father, more fervency in our demands, more reservedness, the rest of the day.
PEnance is either interiour, which consists in an efficacious sorrow for our sins, or exteriour, which com∣prehe••ds satisfactory works. For the first one, ought all the lent long
to have ones heart continually con∣trite & humble before God, & so perform out of this stock of sorrow, & state of compunction, a conti∣nuall mortification during this holy time consecrated intirely to penance. So that every hour, it were good to make an act of contrition for ones sins, rather by a sigh of our heart, then by Formall words: my God, forgive me, I'le sin no more, my God, I'le do no∣thing more to displease thee. For the second, one ought to observe, when at age, the fast of the Church. But (1.) we must perform it with such joy, as our saviour instructs us to do, as may be so much the greater, the more pain we have to do it, for then the merit is also greater. 2. We must perform it in union with the fast of Iesus Christ, for to honour it. 3. In the exact privation of all things that may flatter our senses I mean, of the curiosity of our eyes, our ears, or the satisfactions or nice choice of words, for we ought to joyn the abstinence of our other sences, with our mouths.
2. We ought to augment our ordi∣nary austeritys according to the ad¦vice of our directour.
3. We ought to distribute greate almes then ordinary, yet not without our directours advice, because w•• ought to do penance at this time fo•• our whole years sins.
TIs at this time the better to ho¦nour the solitude of Jesus Christ that we ought to form to our selve•• an interiour & exteriour solitude The first consists in removing from our memorys all ill, human, & un¦profit••ble thoughts, & to let it b•• taken up with nothing but God pre∣sent; or his holy will; to blot out o•• ones understanding, all esteem of va∣nitys, honours, & reputation before men, & to admit thereinto no othe esteem but that which may render u•• great before God; and by a simpl••
returne towards him, to repress in our hearts, all naturall motions, desires, or tyes & inclinations to any creature, and to entertain continually therein an ardent desire to please God & to overcome ones self. In fine, to cut of all the ill & unprofitable satisfactions of the senses. This watching ouer ones heart, & ouer ones senses, is called interiour solitude. To perform the exteriour one, we ought to cut off all visits which are not made either out of charity, or necessity.
2. To visit every week the poor in the Hospitall, or in prisons, to sa∣ti••fie for so many unprofitable or worldly visits made all the year.
3. To keep, if possible, an hour of silence every day, to honour that which our Saviour kept this holy time.
4. To avoid in conversation, that licencious ness in laughter, & dis∣courses, that tend to excess.
5. To interdict ones self, aboue all things, the speaking ill of our neigh∣bour.