A PRAYER

IMPLORING OF GOD THE RIGHT USE OF SICKNESS.

I. O LORD, whose spirit is so good and gracious in all things, and who art so merciful, that not only the prosperities, but even the distresses which happen to thine elect, are the effects of thy mercy, grant me grace not to act like an heathen in the state to which thy justice has brought me; but that, like a true Christian, I may acknowledge thee for my Father and my God, in whatsoever circumstances I am placed. For the altering of my condition can no way influence thine. Thou art ever the same, though I am subject to change: thou art no less God, when thou art afflicting and punishing, than when thou art consoling and shewing compassion.

II. THOU gavest me health to be spent in serving thee; and I perverted it to a use altogether profane. Now thou hast sent a sickness for my correction: O suffer me not to use this likewise to provoke thee by my impatience. I abused my health, and thou hast justly punished me for it: O keep me from abusing thy punishment. And since the corruption of my

nature is such that it renders thy favours pernicious to me; grant, O my God, that thy all-powerful grace may render thy chastisements beneficial. If my heart has been filled with the love of the world, while I was in possession of strength, destroy my vigour to promote my salvation; and either by weakness of body, or the zeal of charity, render me incapable of enjoying the world, that my delight may be only in thee.

III. O God, to whom I must render an exact account of all my actions at the end of my life, and at the end of the world: O God, who only sufferest the world, and all things in the world, to subsist for the trial of thine elect, and for the punishment of the wicked: O God, who leavest hardened sinners in the delicious but criminal enjoyment of this world: 0 God, who causest our bodies to die, and at the hour of death removest the soul from all that it loved in the world: O God, who at the last moment of my life wilt separate me from all things to which I am attached, and on which my heart has been set: 0 God, who wilt at the last day consume the heavens and the earth, and all the creatures they contain, to shew to all mankind that nothing subsists but thyself, and that nothing is worthy of love but thee, since nothing is durable but thee: O God, who wilt destroy all these vain idols, and all these fatal objects of our affections; I praise thee, O God, and I will bless thee all the days of my life, that thou hast been pleased, in thy mercy toward me, to anticipate that awful day, by already destroying all things with regard to me, by this state of weakness to which thou hast reduced me. I praise thee, O my God, and I will bless thee all the days of my life, that thou hast been pleased to make me incapable of enjoying the delights of health and the pleasures of the world, and that thou hast, for my good, in a manner destroyed those deceitful idols, which thou wilt effectu

ally annihilate, to the confusion of the wicked, in the day of thy wrath. Grant, O Lord, that I may in future judge myself by this destruction, which thou hast wrought in my behalf; that thou mayest not hereafter condemn me to that utter destruction which thou wilt make of my present life, and of the world. For, O Lord, as at the instant of my death, I shall find myself separated from the world, stripped of all things, and standing alone in thy presence, to answer to thy justice for all the movements of my heart: grant that I may consider myself in this disease as in a kind of death, separated from the world, stripped of all the objects of my affections, placed alone in thy presence, to implore of thy mercy the conversion of my heart; and that thus I may enjoy great consolation in knowing that thou art now sending me a sort of death, for the display of thy mercy, before thou sendest me death in reality, for the display of thy justice. Grant then, O my God, that as thou hast anticipated my death, so I may anticipate the justice of thy sentence; and that I may so examine myself before thy judgment, that I may find mercy hereafter in thy sight.

IV. Grant, O Lord, that I may in silence adore the order of thine adorable providence, in the disposal of my life; that thy rod may comfort me; and that having lived in the bitterness of my sins, while I was in peace, I may taste the heavenly sweetness of thy grace, during the salutary afflictions with which thou hast visited me. But I confess, O my God, that my heart is so hardened, so full of worldly ideas, cares, inquietudes, and attachments, that neither health, nor sickness, nor discourses, nor books, nor thy holy Scriptures, nor thy Gospel, nor thy most holy mysteries, nor alms, nor fastings, nor mortifications, nor miracles, nor the use of the saeraments, nor the sacrifice of thy body, nor all my endeavours, nor those of the whole world together,

can do any thing at all even to begin my conversion, ex cept thou accompany them all with the extraordinary assistance of thy grace. I look up, therefore, O my God, unto thee, who art God Almighty, to implore a gift, which all creatures together could never bestow. I should not dare to direct my cries unto thee, were there any other that could hear them. But, O my God, as the conversion of my heart, which I ask of thee, is a work exceeding all the powers of nature, I can only apply to the Almighty Author and Master of nature. To whom, O Lord, shall I cry; to whom shall I have recourse, but unto thee? Every thing that is not God is unable to fulfil my desires. It is God himself that I ask and that I seek; it is to thee alone, O my God, whom I seek, that I may obtain thyself. O Lord, open my heart; enter into this rebellious place, that my sins have possessed. They hold it in subjection; do thou enter, as into the strong man's house; but first bind the strong and powerful enemy, who is the tyrant over it; and take to thyself the treasures which are there. Lord, take my affections, which the world has robbed me of: spoil thou the world of this treasure; or rather resume it to thyself, for to thee it belongs; it is a tribute I owe thee, for thine own image is stamped upon it. Thou didst form it there, O Lord, at the moment of my baptism, which was my second birth; but now it is wholly defaced: the image of the world is so strongly engraven on it, that thine own is no longer discernible. Thou alone wast able to create my soul; thou alone art able to create it anew. Thou alone couldst form it in thine image; thou alone canst reproduce it, and re-impress that defaced image; that is to say, Jesus Christ, my Saviour, the express image and character of thine

essence.

V. O my God, how happy is the heart which can love so charming an object, where the affection is

so honourable, the attachment so beneficial! I feel that I cannot love the world, without displeasing thee, without hurting and dishonouring myself; and yet the world is still the object of my delight. O my God, how happy are the souls whose delight thou art; for they may give themselves wholly up to the love of thee, not only without scruple, but even with commendation! How firm and lasting is their happiness! Their expectation can never be defeated; because thou failest not, and neither life nor death can ever separate them from the object of their desires. The very moment which shall involve the wicked, and their idols, in one common ruin, shall unite the just to thee in one common glory; and as the one shall perish with the perishable objects, to which they had given their affections; the latter shall subsist for ever, in that eternal and self-existing object to whom they were so intimately joined. O how happy are those, who with the perfect liberty, and yet with the invincible inclination of their will, love perfectly and freely, what they are necessarily under obligation to love.

VI. Perfect, O my God, the good desires thou hast given me. Be thou their end, as thou art their beginning. Crown thy own gifts; for thy gifts I acknowledge them to be. I acknowledge them, O my God; and so far from presuming that my prayers have that merit that should oblige thee to grant them, I most humbly confess, that having given up to the creatures this heart which thou only formedst for thyself, and not either for the world or myself, I can expect no favour but from thy mercy; since I have nothing in me that can oblige thee to it; and all the natural movements of my heart, being directed either toward creatures, or toward myself, can only be provoking to thee. I thank thee, therefore, O my God, for the good desires thou hast inspired; and also that thou enablest me to thank thee for them.