15. Behold another effect of his humility, of which he writ to his director, December 26, 1646.
“The other day my Lord Chancellor’s lady sent me a packet of letters, in which were some from the king, wherein I was made counsellor of state. I sent her word, that I received what had the mark of the king with all respect. But I most humbly begged she would be pleased to take it in good part, if I did not accept those letters, but desired that the business might sleep without noise. My disposition towards affairs of this nature is, to have nothing at all to do with them. If they come upon me perforce, without my seeking, our Lord will give me strength to bear them.”
16. To the same person on another occasion, he wrote as follows:
“Walking one day through the streets of Paris, in a mean dress, I deeply reflected on that of the apostle, We are become as the filth and off-scowering of the world. I considered how much neatness and new things, even in the most trifling instances, do hurt (if one take not good heed) the simplicity and lowliness of a Christian spirit. And I saw it was a great temptation for any, to think to preserve his outward grandeur, in hopes thereby to have more weight and authority for the service of God. This is a pretence, indeed, that the infirmity of most Christians makes use of in the beginning: but experience draws them at last to Jesus Christ, who was made the lowest of men.”
17. A further proof of his humility, was his carriage to the director. He did nothing that concerned himself, without his conduct: to him he proposed whatever he designed, either by speaking or writing, clearly and punctually, desiring “his advice, his pleasure, and blessing upon it;” and that with the utmost respect and submission: and without reply or disputing, he simply and exactly followed his order. His director having written to him, he answered in these terms; “I beseech you to believe, that although I am most imperfect and a great sinner, yet if you do me the favour to send me a word of what you know to be necessary for me, I hope with God’s help to profit thereby. I pant not after any thing but to find God and Jesus Christ, in simplicity and truth. I pretend to nothing in this world but this; and beside this I desire nothing.”
18. The last effect of his humility we shall mention, was his extreme contempt of the world. He despised all which it could give or promise; all its goods, pleasures, honours, dignities; counted all its allurements as dung and dross, trampled under foot all its glories. He beheld for this end our Lord for his pattern, who, from his very first entrance into it, made an open profession of an absolute contempt of it, “Because he was not of the world.”
*19. To animate a lady with the same spirit, he wrote to her thus: “I wonder how a thing so little as man, drawn out of nothing in his original, infected with his first parent’s sin, and the addition of his own: when he is raised to so high a degree of honour, as to be one with Christ the Son of God; can continue to esteem the world, or make any account of its vanities! Shall the things of the earth waste the little time we have to secure the treasures of heaven; things that will all pass away like a dream: as we see our fathers are gone already, and there is no more remembrance of them: their joys and griefs, their pleasures and pains, are they not all vanished away? And are we not sure they were out of their senses, if they considered any thing but God in their ways? The same will befall us: Every thing else will pass away, and God alone will abide.”
*The same lady, in another letter, he encourages thus: “Courage, all is well! We must die to the world, and search out the hindrances it brings to our perfection. We must live in the world as not living there; possess it, as not possessing it. Let us drive out of our minds the affection to our fine houses; let us ruin the delights of our gardens; let us burn our groves; let us banish these vain images which we have of our children; approving in them what we condemn in ourselves, the show and glitter of the world.”
*I know there is a difference of conditions; but all ought to reject those intailments on noble blood, (as men account them) those principles of aspiring to the highest, and of bearing nothing. Let us take from them this vanity of mind, this stateliness of behaviour. Let us arm them against the pernicious examples of those grandees in story, whose punishments are as eminent in hell, as their presumption was upon earth.
*“My design is not, that you should demolish your walk, or let your gardens run into a wilderness. The ruins I speak of must be made in our own minds, not executed on things insensible. When I say, we must set all on fire, my thoughts were, to follow that admirable spirit of the apostle, who would that we have poverty amidst our riches, and divestment in the midst of our possessions: he means, that our spirit be thoroughly purified and separated from all creatures; because a Christian does himself great wrong, if he entertains in his heart any other inclinations than those of Jesus Christ, who saw all the world without destroying it, but withal without cleaving to it.”