a greater price than health; rectitude of heart and the love of God, are as much above any temporal gifts, as the heavens are above the earth. If, therefore, without his help we cannot for one moment possess those favours so vile and gross, how much more certainly must he give us those sublime gifts of his love, a detachment from ourselves and even from all the virtues? O my God of my heart, God, not to know thee then is to regard thee as out of us, as an almighty being that gives laws to all nature, and has made all things visible; this is but to know one part of that which thou art, and to be ignorant of that which is most wonderful and most concerns thy reasonable creatures. That which elevates my soul and inspires me with hope is, that thou art the there thou dost all that pleaseth thee. it is thou that makest me so, thou not only turnest my heart as thou pleasest, but givest me one according to thine own; it is thou that lovest thyself in me; it is thou that animatest my soul, as my soul animates my body, thou art more present and intimate to me than I am to myself, this self, for which I have so much sensibility, and which I love so much, ought to be a stranger in comparison of thee, it is thou that gavest it to me, without thee it would be nothing, therefore thou requirest that I should love thee more than it. O incomprehensible power of my God! O extensive right of the Creator over his creatures, which the creature can never sufficiently comprehend! O prodigy of love, which God alone can effect! God puts himself, as I may say, between me and myself, to separate me from myself; he would be nearer to me by his pure love, than I am to myself; he wolud that I should look upon this self, as a strange being; he wonld that I should escape out of the territories of this self, that I should sacrifice it to him without return, and that I should offer it up totally, and without any conditions to him, from whom I hold it; what I am, ought to be less dear to me, than him by whom I am. He made me not for myself, but for himself; that is to say, to love him, to will that which he wills, and not to love myself in following my own will. If any one finds his heart revolt against this entire sacrifice of self to him who has created us, I bewail his blindness, I lament to see him so a slave to himself, and I pray God to deliver him from it, by teaching him to love without self interest. O my God, I see in those people who are offended at this doctrine of pure love, the darkness and rebellion caused by original sin. Thou didst not create the heart of man with this bias to a property so shocking. That rectitude, in which the scripture teaches us that thou didst create him, consists in not living to self, but to him who made us for himself. O Father, O Father, thy children have disfigured themselves and resemble thee no more, they are quite angry and discouraged when they are desired to be to thee as thou art to thyself. In reversing this just order, they would erect themselves into divinities, they would live to themselves, do all for themselves, or at least give nothing but with reserve, on certain conditions, and for their own interests. O monstrous property! O the unknown rights of God! O the insolence and ingratitude of the creatures! Miserable nothingness, what have you to take care of for yourself? What have you that belongs to you? What have you that comes not from above, and which ought not to return thither? All (even this unjust self that would divide with God his gifts) is a gift of God, made only for himself: all that is within you cries against you for the Creator. Be silent then, O creature, strip thyself of all that thou B hast, and give thyself entirely to thy Creator. What a comfort it is, O my God, to think that every thing is the work of thy hand, all within and all without me! thou art always with me. When do evil thou art with me, reproaching me for the evil I do, making me regret the good I have omitted, and shewing me a mercy which stretcheth forth its arms to receive me. When I do good, it is thou inspirest me with a desire of it, and effects it in me; it is thou that inclinest my heart to love the good, and detest the evil; it is thou that sufferest, that prayest, that edifiest my neighbour, that givest alms. I do all these things, but it is through thee, who causest me to do them. These good works, which are thy gifts, become thy works; but they are always thy gifts, and cease to be good works, when I regard them as my own, and when their being thy gift (which alone makes them valuable) escapes my sight. Thou art then (transporting thought) working incessantly in my heart, there thou workest invisibly, as the miner works in the bowels of the earth. Thou doest every thing, and the world sees thee not, it attributes nothing to thee; I myself have wandered in looking for thee, by vain efforts at a distance from me; I have collected in my mind all the wonders of nature, to frame an idea of thy greatness: I sought thee among thy creatures, and thought not of finding thee in my own heart, where thou art never absent. No, my God, we need not to discover thee, descend into the earth, nor go over the sea, nor ascend into heaven, as say the holy oracles; for thou art nearer to us, than we are to ourselves, O God, who art so great, and at the same time so familiar, so raised above the heavens, and yet so condescending to the lowest state of thy creature; so immense, and yet so intimately enclosed in the recesses of my heart, so terrible, and yet so amiable, so jealous, and yet so easy of access, to those who freely approach thee with pure love; when shall thy children cease to be ignorant of thee; who can give me a voice strong enough to reproach the whole world with its blindness, and to tell it with authority all that thou art? when men are desired to search for thee in their own hearts, it is as if they were directed to go to a distant and unknown land in quest of thee: for what is there more unknown to the generality of vain and dissipated men, than the bottom of their own hearts? do they know what it is, ever to look into themselves? have they ever sought the road? can they even imagine what is that interior sanctuary, that impenetrable centre of the soul, where thou wouldst be adored in spirit and in truth? they are always out of themselves, engrossed by the objects of their ambition or their amusements. Alas, how can they understand heavenly things, when, as Jesus Christ said, they understand not earthly things. They cannot conceive what it is to enter into themselves by serious reflections; what would they then say, if one was to propose to them to come out of themselves, and lose themselves in God? As for me, O my Creator, with eyes shut to all outward objects which are but "vanity and vexation of spirit," I would find in the most secret recesses of my heart, an intimate familiarity with thee, through Jesus Christ thy son, who is thy wisdom and eternal righteousness, who became a child, that by his infancy and the foolishness of his cross, he might humble our vain and false wisdom; there in the bottom of my own heart, I would, let it cost me ever so dear, in spite of all my forecast and reflections, become little, foolish, and more despicable in my own eyes, than in the eyes of all the false sages of the world, there I would willingly be inebriated by thy holy spirit, as were the Apostles; content to be also, with them, the scorn of the world. But who am I that I should think of such things? it is no longer I, sinful earthly creature, but thou, O Jesus, that thinkest those things in me, and wilt accomplish them, that the triumph of thy grace in such an unworthy instrument may be the greater. O God, we know thee not, we know not who thou art! "the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not:" it is by thee we live, we think, and enjoy all pleasures; and yet we forget thee by whom we do all these things: we see nothing but by thy universal light, O illuminator of souls, which shineth far brighter than the sun of this world, yet, seeing nothing but by thee, we see thee not; it is thou that givest all things; to stars their light, to fountains their water and their course, to the earth its plenty, to fruits their relish, to flowers their beauty and their scent, to all nature its riches and its charms, to men health, reason, and virtue; thou givest all, doest all, and regulatest all; I see nothing but thee, all the rest like a shadow disappears in the eyes of him who has once beheld thee; and yet the world sees thee not; but alas, he who has not seen thee, has never seen any thing, he has passed his life in the illusion of a dream, he is as if he was not, nay more unhappy, for it were better for him (as I learn from thy word) that he had never been born. For me, O my God, every thing within me discovers thee to me; all the good I do is thy performance, I have a thousand times been sensible that, of myself, I can neither conquer my tempers, destroy my habits, moderate my pride, follow the dictates of my reason, nor continue to will the good which I once willed. That very will is thy gift, and thou alone canst preserve it pure; without thee, I am but as a reed |