The spiritual guide which disintangles the soul, and brings it by the inward way, to the getting of perfect contemplation, and the rich treasure of internal peace. / Written by Dr. Michael de Molinos, priest : with a short treatise concerning daily communion, by the same author. Translated from the Italian copy, printed at Venice, 1685.

CHAP. XIV. Pursues the same Matter.

133. GOD doth not always communicate himself with equal abundance in this sweetest and infused contemplation: Sometimes he grants this Grace more than he doth at o∣ther times; and sometimes he 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 any rate set to his Divine Greatness: nay, by means of this ve∣ry contemplation he comes to deny it to annihi∣late and dye.

134. Sometimes the Lord gives greater light to the understanding; sometimes greater love to the will. There is no need here for the Soul to take any pains or trouble; it must receive what God gives it, and rest united, as he will have it; because His Majesty is Lord, and in the ve∣ry time that he lays it asleep, he possesses and fills it, and works in it powerfully and sweetly, without any industry or knowledge of its own: insomuch, that before ever it is aware of this so great mercy, it is gained, convinced, and changed already.

135. The Soul which is in this happy state, hath two things to avoid, the activity of human spirit, and interestedness: Our humane spirit is unwilling to dye in it self, but loveth to be do∣ing and discoursing after its way, being in love with its own actions. A man had need to have a great fidelity, and devesting himself of self∣ishness, to get a perfect and passive capacity of the Divine Influences; the continual habits of operating freely, which it has, are a hindrance to its annihilation.

136. The second is interestedness in contem∣plation it self: Thou must therefore pro∣cure in thy 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, pas∣sive, 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 and dispo∣sition, receiving what he ordains thee, with an even and perfect resignation.

138. Thou must know, that few be the Souls which arrive at this infused and pas∣sive Prayer; because few of 'em are capable of these divine influences with a total nakedness and death of their own activity and powers: those onely which feel it, know it so, that this perfect nakedness is acquired (by the help of God's grace) by a continual and inward mor∣tification, dying to it all its own inclinations and desires.

139. At no time must thou look at the ef∣fects which are wrought in thy Soul, but espe∣cially herein; because it would be a hindrance to the divine operations, which inrich it, so to do: all that thou hast to do is to pant after in∣difference, resignation, forgetfulness, and, with∣out thy being sensible of it; the greatest good will leave in thy Soul a fit disposition for the practice of vertue, a true love of the cross of thy own contempt, of thy annihilation, and greater and stronger desires still of thy greater perfection and the most pure and affective union.