8. “Though I dare not chuse or bring sufferings upon myself, (says he in a letter to his director) yet having always before my eyes how little I render to God for his favours, I am inflamed to suffer with our Lord. In every other thing we are receivers from God. But in this though we receive the grace to suffer, yet the suffering is that which we can in a manner give to God, and which is the best gage and proof of our love.” But he very wisely adds, “although I know this, yet I cease not to know what I am: and amidst all my inclinations and desires, I dare not to beg to suffer the least thing: Or, if I happen to do so I revoke it afterwards, as having done foolishly. I have too much experience of my weakness. I give myself only to my God for every thing he pleases. By his order I will all: With him I can do all: and that which is ordered by him is always accompanied by grace.”
9. The same spirit he earnestly recommended to all who were studious of Christian perfection. To one of whom he said, “It is a great favour to suffer; that is if you suffer in the spirit of Jesus Christ. But there are very few that do so; very few that with a perfect resignment to what God ordains concerning them; very few without some inquietude, and dwelling in their thoughts upon their pressures: few that give all events to the conduct of God, to employ themselves entirely in his praise, and to give way by their acquiescence and submission, for him to exercise all his rights and power ever them.”
*10. One that was in great pain he encouraged thus: “Many are called Christians, but few have a Christian spirit. Many look up to heaven in their prayers, but in their lives they are children of nature, looking only upon the earth. If they do lift up their eyes to heaven, it is only to complain; to pray God to condescend to their desires, not to shew their acceptance of his. Or perhaps they will give some small things to God; but not those on which they have fixed their affection. If he separates them from them, it is a dismembring which he must make, and to which they cannot consent. As though the life of Christians were not a life of sacrifice, a continual imitation of a crucified Saviour.
*“God, who knows our wretchedness, takes from us for our good, the cause of our evil, a parent, a child, a husband, that he may by another evil, affliction, draw us to himself, and make us see that all these ties to whatsoever it be that separates us from him, are so many obstacles to our real happiness: and such obstacles that we shall one day own in the face of all the creation, the greatest mercy he ever did us was, to free us from them. But we must beware not to count this mercy a chance or misfortune; for this would be to turn the remedy into poison.
“Let us enter into the holy disposition which was in Christ, to suffer willingly for the glory of God, and our salvation. Is it not strange, that though the way he past through to glory, was ignominy, pain, and the cross, yet they who call themselves his followers, desire and expect another way for themselves to walk in? It is a shame for a [♦]Christian to pass his days more at ease than Jesus Christ did. Let us therefore go after him, and suffer with him. Blessed be sickness, the loss of honour, riches, goods of the nearest things, and the separation from all creatures, which hold us bowed towards the earth, if it set us straight, and make us lift up our eyes to heaven, and enter into the designs of God over us. Blessed be the plague, the war the famine, all the scourges of God, which produce in us these effects of grace and salvation!
[♦] “Chirstian” replaced with “Christian”
11. The greatest exercise of patience he ever had was that which was given to him by his mother. She had claimed a large share of what his father had bequeathed to him; who with great submission and respect gave her all that he believed her due, over and above. But she demanded still more. Being advised by council, it could not be given without wrong to his children; he [♦]referred the whole business to arbitrators, and agreed that his mother should choose them all. The day being come for their giving sentence, his mother was in one chamber of the house, and her son, with his lady and a friend in an other, where his employment was, to pray to God for such an issue as might be for his glory, and the procurement of peace. When the award was brought, although it was not advantageous to him, and there was a large penalty on whomsoever did not stand to it, he heard it with perfect calmness, and immediately signed it without objection or dispute.
[♦] “refered” replaced with “referred”
12. Believing now that his mother was fully satisfied, he was no sooner returned home, than he caused Te Deum to be sung, beginning it himself, in thanksgiving for this happy conclusion. But God, to refine and purify him the more, permitted the cross to continue upon him. For his mother, not satisfied yet, found means to appeal from the award, without incurring the penalty.
Her son did all that was possible for him to alter her design; after earnest prayer, and extraordinary fasting, he went to her, cast himself on his knees before her, and with the utmost reverence, humility and submission, begged of her over and over, with abundance of tears, “that she would please to take him and his family to herself; and after that she might dispose as she pleased of all the goods his father had left him.” But neither would she consent to this, but persisted in her resolution, of suing him at the parliament of Dijon. This he might have prevented, and never stirred out of Paris, but in respect to her, he declined it, and determined to go to Dijon.