Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/300

This page needs to be proofread.

the three faculties of my soul. In my memory, to be always mindful of it; in my understanding, to meditate continually upon it; and in my will, to love it, and, if need were, to lay down my life for it, saying, as Moses to his people, I will " meditate upon them sitting in my house, and walking on" my "journey, sleeping and rising." [1] I will " bind them as a sign on " my " hand," to work after their pattern, and they shall be and move " between " my " eyes," by which to guide myself, saying with David, " Oh, how have I loved thy law, O Lord, it is my meditation all the day." [2]

Colloquy. — O most sweet lawgiver, who, when Thou becamest man, didst forthwith put this "law " in "the midst of" Thy heart, " and by Thy grace " dost write it "in" the "heart" [3] of Thy elect, write it also in my heart, in such a manner as it may never be blotted out, that I may be worthy to be written in the book of life, without ever being blotted out of it, world without end! Amen.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE FOREGOING.

Of all that has been said in this meditation I will collect a brief summary of the chief motives in it, as well to procure great contrition for having broken the law of Almighty God as to animate myself to keep it with perfection.

i. Because it is just and holy, and with great excellence embraces all kind of good. ii. To deliver myself from the maledictions and plagues, both temporal and eternal, which it threatens, iii. To enjoy the innumerable benedictions which it promises in this life and in that to come. iv. And principally for the sake of the Lawgiver who gave it, viz., Almighty God, infinitely good, wise, and powerful; and

  1. Deut.vi. 7.
  2. Ps. cxviii. 97.
  3. Ps. xxxvi. 31; Jer. xxxi. 33.