Treatise on the Love of GodBook II. The origin of divine love

When the sun rises red and turbid, or sets pale and watery, we say there will be rain. Yet in truth the sun is not subject to any such changeableness, and its light is invariable and perpetual; the appearances which alter its brightness are but those mists and clouds of earth which rise up before our mortal sight.

Even so with God: we are wont to speak of Him not as He really is, but according as we behold Him through the mists of our earthly vision. We speak as though He possessed various qualities and characteristics; we talk of His Justice, His Mercy, His Omnipotence, His Truth, His Wisdom. Yet, verily, there is no variation in God, He is One sole, uniform Perfection; whatever is in Him is but Himself, and the many qualities which we define in Him are Unity. Just as the sun has but one clear brightness infinitely beyond all the colours we attribute to it, a brightness which in reality gives them their manifold hues, so God is One All-prevailing Excellence, far above all our notions of perfection, and imparting whatever perfectness is to be found in all such perfection. Nor is it within compass of anything created, whether human or angelic, fitly to name this Supreme Excellence; even as we are told in the Apocalypse that “He has a Name, which no man knew but He Himself.”*§ And so the Fathers have said that there is no real theologian save God, inasmuch as none can truly know the Infinite Greatness of His Divine Perfection nor fitly speak of it save Himself. So when Manoah asked the Angel of the Lord His Name, God answered, “Why askest thou thus after My Name, seeing it is secret?” as though He said, “My Name is to be worshipped, but it cannot be spoken of creatures, or comprehended save of Myself.” Our mental faculty is too frail to conceive such boundless Excellence, comprising as it does all possible excellences in a supreme eminence to which human thought cannot reach. Therefore, in speaking of God we are obliged to use many terms to convey any idea; we call Him Good, Wise, Powerful, Immortal, and the like. And so He is: He is indeed all that, because He is infinitely more; He is so Excellent above all excellence that all possible perfections are contained in Him.

The manna with which Israel was fed was “able to content every man’s delight, and agreeing to every taste,” combining the flavour of all other food; and yet it were truer to say that it was none of these, but a flavour essentially its own, containing whatever is pleasant and grateful in all else: or the herb Dodecatheos, which Pliny says can cure all maladies, and though it be none of the drugs we know, yet combines the virtues of all other medicaments. Even so the boundless measure of God’s Perfection, so perfect above all perfection that none save Himself can fathom it.

“When ye glorify the Lord, exalt Him as much as ye can; for even yet will He far exceed; and when ye exalt Him, put forth all your strength, and be not weary, for ye can never go far enough.”¹ “He is greater than our heart.”5 the Lord ;” our highest praise being the confession that we cannot duly praise Him, and that His Name is so far above all other names that we cannot worthily tell it out!

We possess sundry faculties, and hence proceed various actions and their results. We see, hear, taste, touch, move, will, understand; and so we walk, talk, sing, etc. But it is not so with God, His Perfection is Simple and Infinite, and it is one sole and purely simple Act—even His Own Divine Essence, Eternal, Unchanging. Yet by reason of our frail and feeble comprehension we are forced to speak of Him as though He were daily performing a multiplicity of actions; and that because we can only understand or speak according to the measure of what we ourselves experience. Among created things nought can be done save by a variety of action; and so, when we behold the innumerable results of Divine Power, we are unable to separate from them the idea of action, and we speak according to our own apprehension. Nor is this altogether wrong, for although God is but One supremely Divine Act, that Act is so perfect that it comprehends all whatsoever makes up the measure of perfection.

God spake one word, and sun, moon and stars, with all their countless varieties of motion and attraction, were made. One word plenished the air with birds, the sea with fish, and the earth with animal life and vegetation. The inspired historian, condescending to our weakness, gives the word “FIAT;” but David says that it was “the breath of His Mouth,” that is one act of His Divine Will, which produced the infinite variety of creation; so infinite that we are constrained to think of the Power Which created it as multiplied, although in reality it is One only. S. Chrysostom observes, that while Moses describes the creation at length, S. John expresses it in one word: “All things were made by Him,” v. 3., the Word, the Son of God.

This Word then, One only, produces all variety; Itself unvarying, effects all changes; Itself Eternal, gives order, succession, time, and season to all things.

A painter, undertaking to represent the Nativity, spends days and months upon his picture, elaborating it with countless touches; but watch the engraver taking impressions of that same picture,—how, laying his blank paper upon the plate, one stroke does the work, and the finished representation, however various the objects, is before you at once. Even so nature, like the painter, multiplies actions and efforts, and slowly produces the desired effect; but God gave being to all creation, past, present, and future, by one act of His Sovereign Will; all in perfect harmony and order amid the variety, for the Singleness of God’s Will is opposed to confusion and disorder. Thus all creation is called the Universe, because of the Unity of its conception, and because it is One in many, many in One.

Briefly, God’s Unity creates diversity, His unchanging Eternity calls forth the vicissitudes of creation; in token of which God having said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years ;”3 we yet experience this ceaseless round of seasons, which will endure to the end of the world, even as the Eternal Will of God abides from age to age, in all that has been or ever will be; for without that Will nothing was made that is made. To Him be all glory and honour. Amen.

We see, then, that God does not need multiplied action, since one single act of His Omnipotent Will can suffice for all the endless variety of His Works. But we are constrained to speak of that Power according to the measure which our puny minds are capable of apprehending; and therefore, in considering God’s Providence, we will take the reign of Solomon as an illustration of good government.

That great monarch, being taught of God that the commonwealth depends upon religion as the body on the soul, regulated alike all that was needful for the confirmation both of religion and the commonwealth. He determined to build a Temple of fixed dimensions, containing such and such courts and porches, served by so many sacrificers and officials; he planned a royal house for himself, placing therein certain officers, appointing judges and magistrates to secure the people’s welfare; and further regulated his powerful army, with its two hundred and fifty chieftains, forty thousand horses, and all the other details which we read of in Holy Scripture. Then, having planned all this, he began the work of providing, reckoning mentally all that would be needed to build the Temple, maintain its ministers, as also his court and army; proceeding to send to Hiram, King of Tyre, for timber of cedar and of fir, and trading with many far-off lands, Ophir, Tharshish, etc., so as to gather together all things needful for his undertaking. Neither did he stop there; for having duly considered what was required, he appointed all the necessary officials, and so well organised their work and their maintenance, that by wise ruling he carried out his intentions, And forasmuch as no arrangements are of avail without a sustained system, which is the very heart of all good government, we may fitly call Solomon’s government a continuous providence.

To turn to spiritual things. God in His Foreknowledge having designed to create the world, prepared all things fitly to His Own Glory; both angelic and human natures, the various orders of the hierarchy which Scripture speaks of, and the diverse characters we find among men. Further, He considered and disposed all those means required by the angels and men He was about to create to carry out the ends for which He destined them. Nor did He stop there; He created them, and supplied them with all needful for reasonable creatures to attain to glory; so that practically His Sovereign Providence is the Act by which God provides whatever men or angels need to reach their due aim. But because these means are various we speak of a natural and a supernatural Providence, and again we subdivide this last into general and special providence.

A word as to God's natural Providence. Through it He has provided man with the animal and vegetable creation, and for their benefit He has ordained the course of seasons, winds, and rain; and both for man’s good and that of the inferior creation He has ruled the heavenly planets, and ordained a system of reciprocal service between all creatures. Thus the horse serves us and we tend him, the sheep feeds and clothes us and we pasture it, the earth sends up mist and the clouds drop down fatness on the earth, the hand ministers to the foot, the foot to the hand. Who can contemplate the all-prevailing adaptation of all nature, each to each, and not cry out, “Thy Providence, O Father, governeth it!”² Thus God’s Providence reaches all things, reigns over and turns all things to His Glory. There may be casualties and unforeseen accidents, but they are unforeseen only to us, foreseen and foreordained of God to the welfare of the world He made. Such unforeseen accidents arise from the concurrence of sundry causes, which not having any natural connection, act separately, and so their combination results in something unexpected to our calculations, though each has borne its natural part in producing that result. Take as an illustration the poet Æschylus, who having been told by an augur that he would be killed by the fall of a house, remained all day in the open plain to escape his destiny, and who while abiding there was killed by the fall of a tortoise on his bald head, an eagle letting the reptile fall upon what doubtless it supposed to be a rock, in order to break the shell. Assuredly this was a fortuitous accident; the man went to the fields not to die, but to escape death; and the bird sought to break the tortoise’ shell, not the poet’s skull, yet it fell out the other way, the tortoise lived and poor Eschylus died. According to our views the thing was an unhappy chance, but in God’s Providence it was an act of justice by which the man’s superstition was avenged.

The history of Joseph is full of startling vicissitudes. His brethren who had sold him were afraid lest he should requite them all the evil they had done him; but he saw that what the world called chance or accident was God’s Providence, and said, “It was not you that sent me hither, but God ;” “Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good.” Even so with all things, even what the world esteems most noxious, which do but relieve and bring out that which is excellent, like the shadows in a picture.

We know that whatsoever God does is designed for the good of men and angels, but so far as our human weakness is able to understand the order of His Providence as revealed in Holy Scripture it seems to be this:

God proposed from all eternity to make countless creatures of various quality and perfection, to which He would impart Himself; and seeing that in no way could this be done so excellently as by uniting Himself to a created nature, and that it should be, so to say, grafted into the Divine Nature, and one with It, His Infinite Goodness saw good so to effect it, that as there is an essential communication in God, by which the Father imparts all His Infinite and Indivisible Godhead to the Son, and the Father and the Son together impart Their Godhead to the Holy Spirit, Who is of Them both, so this Sovereign Grace was communicated in such perfection to a creature, that created nature and Divine Nature, each retaining its specialty, were nevertheless so united as to be one Person.

And amid all creation it pleased Omnipotence to select that human nature which thereafter received the inconceivable dignity of being taken by God the Son, and which by union with God was admitted to share the riches of His Infinite Glory. Nor did the Creator limit His Goodness to the Person of His Son, but shed it forth upon other creatures, and formed men and angels, that they might share His Grace and Glory, and worship and adore Him forever. And inasmuch as it pertained to God to bring forth His Son’s Humanity after sundry fashions, calling it forth out of nothing, or out of some existing creation, as Adam and Eve, or by ordinary generation, or by extraordinary generation, He was pleased to choose the latter, and to choose from all created women the Blessed Virgin, by means of whom the Saviour of souls was to be not merely man, but a child of human race. Furthermore, God’s Providence was pleased to create all else, natural and supernatural, with respect to the Saviour, so that men and angels might share His Glory by serving Him; and thus He endowed them all with freewill, complete liberty to choose good or evil, making all in original righteousness, which was indeed but that sweet love which disposed and led all to eternal bliss.

But forasmuch as Infinite Wisdom was pleased so to commingle this original love with His creatures’ will, that it should be absolutely free, He foresaw that a part (though but a small one) of angelic nature would deliberately forsake holy love and lose their glory. And because this could not be save by deliberate malice, without any excusing reason or motive, and that by far the greater part would abide stedfast, God having set forth His Mercy in creating the angels, was pleased to set forth His Justice and the power of His wrath by forsaking those treacherous beings who departed from Him in their rebellion. God likewise foresaw that the first man would abuse his free-will, and, forsaking grace, would fall; but He was pleased to deal less severely with human nature than with the angels. He purposed to unite that human nature with His Own Divinity; He knew it to be “even as a wind that passeth away and cometh not again.” He considered the deceit and temptation with which Satan overthrew man, that all the human race would perish by the fault of one, and He had pity on our nature, and dealt mercifully with it. But that mercy might be tempered with justice, He saw fit to save man by a strict redemption; and as that could only be done by His Son, He ordained that He should redeem men, not merely by some act of love which might have sufficed to purchase the salvation of millions of worlds, but by countless acts of love and suffering in His Life, and by death upon the Cross; willing Him thus to share our weakness that so we might share His Glory, thus setting forth His “plenteous redemption,”³ overflowing, boundless as it is, which has restored to us all that is necessary to attain to glory, so that none can ever complain that Divine Mercy is lacking to any.

We are speaking of God’s willing one thing primarily and another after, I merely use human forms of speech, since whatever He does is by one all-powerful act, in which nevertheless are contained as much order and consecutive action as though His intention and will were manifold. And since out of several existing objects every reasonable will must prefer that which is most love able, it was in the natural order of things that the Sovereign Providence preferred above all else the chiefest object of love, our Saviour, and other creatures in their order after Him, according as they more or less nearly appertained to His Glory and Worship.

Thus all was done for the Son of God, of Whom it is said that He is “the Firstborn of every creature .. . all things were created by Him that are created ... and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. And He is the Head of the Body the Church. . . that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.”?

Men plant a vine for the sake of its fruit, and ‘although the leaves appear first the fruit is the real object. Even so the Great Saviour was first in the Divine Mind and the design of God’s Providence in creating the vine of the universe, and its succession of the generations of leaves and flowers which were to precede the Desired Fruit, whence comes that “wine that maketh glad the heart of man.”!

Who then could question the largeness of our salvation, considering this our Mighty Saviour, for Whom we are made, and by Whose merits we are redeemed? He died for all, because all were dead, and His Mercy was more effectual to redeem than Adam’s sin to lose mankind. So far from that sin repulsing Divine Pity, it did but kindle and excite it; the presence of a foe roused it up, and gathering itself for victory, so to say, there, “where sin abounded grace did much more abound ;”* in which spirit the Church cries out on Easter Eve: “O needful sin of Adam, which the death of Christ has atoned! O blessed fault, which merited such and so great a Redeemer !”3

Of a truth we might have said with one of old, “We were lost, had we not been lost ;” that is, our loss has turned to gain, in that human nature has received greater grace in the Redemption of the Saviour than it could ever have had by Adam, had he kept his innocence. For though Divine Providence has left traces of judgment mingled with mercy, as, e.g., death, sickness, labour, rebellious sensual impulses, yet God’s Love overrides all this, and turns these troubles to the greater good of those that love Him: patience is born of labour, contempt of the world from the inevitableness of death, victory from concupiscence. Even so as the rainbow touching the prickly aspalathus makes it sweeter than the lily, so our Lord’s Redemption, when it comes in contact with our infirmities, turns them to a value which original innocence could not have had. “There shall be joy in heaven over one”

* Ps. civ. 15. ? Rom. v. 20.

3 See the Breviary Office for the Benediction of the Easter torch: “O certe necessarium Adee peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est! O felix culpa, qui tale ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem |" sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance,” our Lord says.* Even so the state of redemption is a hundred times more precious than innocence. Washed by Christ’s Blood with the hyssop of the Cross, we have been cleansed to a whiteness far whiter than innocence, issuing, Naaman-like, from the healing river cleaner than if we had known no stain.” Thus God’s Grace fulfils the precept given us, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with us, His “Mercy rejoiceth against judgment,”* and “His Mercy is over all His works.”5

Mercy as God has displayed His boundless power and riches in nature, He has shown forth a yet more wondrous magnificence in His works of Grace towards us. Not content, in the abundance of His Mercy, with giving man a universal redemption, by means of which every one may be saved, He has yet further magnified His gifts by their endless variety. First of all in grace the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God, that King’s daughter whose “clothing is of gold wrought about with divers colours,”® foremost of those whom He will set on His right Hand in Glory. And then follow others to whom He imparted marvellous favour ;—S. John baptist, the Prophet Jeremiah, with many more, who at a time were left in danger of growing cold in love, Vet were favoured with special grace for their salvation: ¢.g., the Apostles, David, Magdalene, and others, who for a season were without the pale of God’s

* Luke xv. 7. ? 2 Kings v. 14. 3 Rom. xii. 21.

“James ii. 13. 5 Ps, cxlv. 9. 6 Ps, xlv. 14.

Love, but who, when once converted, were confirmed in grace to the end, so that, although subject to certain imperfections, they were yet free from all mortal sin, and consequently from the peril of losing Divine Love; who were as the friends of the Bridegroom, clothed with the wedding garment of His Love, but not crowned; for inasmuch as their early life had been given to earthly love, they were not capable of wearing the crown of heavenly love: nevertheless to them the wedding garment sufficed, rendering them meet for the bridal feast of the Divine Bridegroom, and for eternal blessedness with Him.

God’s Eternal Providence bestowed special favour on the Blessed Virgin, “the mother of fair love,”* and in a lesser degree on some others; and next, His Sovereign Goodness poured out a stream of graces and blessings on men and angels, who have all been refreshed with the rain He sends “upon the just and on the unjust,”? who have all been sharers of “the True Light Which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,”3 who have all received that seed which falls not only on good ground, but on stony places and thorns, so that none have any excuse if they fail to use the abounding riches of redemption to their own salvation.

Yet while this abundant outpouring of grace is given to all human nature, it is so various in kind that we scarce know which to admire most, its greatness or its variety. Who but must perceive how much more is given to Christians than to heathen, or how among

= Ecclus. xxiv. 18. 2 Matt. v. 45.

3 John i. 9. 4 Matt. xiii.

Christians some are more favoured in circumstance than others? and who but will grant that all such external means of grace come of God’s Mercy, and greatly promote internal progress? We never find any two men precisely similar in natural gifts, neither are any precisely alike in such as are supernatural. S. Augustine and the great Doctor S. Thomas tell us that the angels received varying degrees of grace,—each separate from the other according to their natural condition: and so with men,—God in the wealth of His creative power has made that endless variety which forms the rich enamel of which the Church sings on the festivals of her Confessor Bishops; “In glory was there none like unto him.”! And even -as in Heaven “no man knoweth the new name saving he that receiveth it,’¹—each one among the blessed having his own, according to the glory wherein he dwells ;—even so on earth each receives his own special grace, so special that no two are precisely similar. Thus our Lord compares His Grace to pearls,3 of which Pliny says that one of their choicest beauties is that each has so much its own characteristics that no two are perfectly alike. Again, even as “one star differeth from another star in glory,”4 so men will differ from each other in glory, just as they have differed in degrees of grace. And this variety in grace, and grace in variety, form a most holy and sweet harmony, making glad the Heavenly City of Jerusalem.

But we must beware of too closely inquiring wherefore God has imparted a grace to one rather than to another, or why He lavishes His favours on one side more than on another. Never indulge such curiosity; for since all have enough, nay, a superabundance for their salvation, what right has any man to murmur if God is pleased to bestow a larger measure of His grace on some than on others? We should count him foolish who should question why God makes

1 Ecclus. xliv. 19. 2 Rev. ii. 17.

the melon larger than the strawberry, the lily than the violet; why the rosemary is not a rose, the pink not a pansy, why the peacock has more beauty than the bat, or why the fig is sweet and the lemon sharp. We should tell him, that inasmuch as for beauty there must be variety in the world, it must needs be that perfections should vary, that one thing cannot be another, and that there must be little and great, bitter and sweet, more and less of shapeliness and grace. And just so it is in things supernatural: the Holy Spirit tells us that “every man hath his proper gift of God;”1 and it is mere childishness to ask why S. Paul had not S. Peter’s gifts; why Anthony was not Athanasius, or Athanasius Jerome. To all such questioning we can but reply that the Church is as a garden diapered with infinite variety of flowers, which must needs be of all colours, shapes, and scents; each possessed of its own intrinsic grace and beauty, and all combined into an enamel of very exquisite beauty and perfection.

While our Saviour's Redemption is applied to us in as many different ways as there are souls to be saved, still love is the one universal channel of redemption, without which it can never be applied. And so the gates of this earthly paradise were kept by the cherubim with the flaming sword, that we might learn how there is no entrance into the Heavenly Paradise save to him who is transfixed by the sword of Love. Therefore it is that the Dear Lord Who bought us with His Blood so greatly desires that we love Him in order to our eternal ’salvation; and that we attain that eternal salvation so as to love Him eternally; His Love effecting our salvation, that salvation His Love. “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled.”²

Again, He enjoins this love upon us, saying, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.”? See how the Heart of God craves our love! Surely it had been much had He suffered us to love Him, even as Laban suffered Jacob to love and labour for Rachel! But He goes much further, and bids us love Him with all our might, lest perchance the sight of His Majesty and our frailty should raise up a barrier, and keep us from Him; whereby He testifies that He has not given us for nought a natural inclination to love Him, urging us, as He thus does by universal precept, to foster that inclination, to which end He gives power to every living soul.

As the natural sunshine vivifies all things with its warmth, and with its universal love stimulates them to bring forth after their kind, so the sunshine of God’s Love kindles every soul, and draws it to Himself. “Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at My reproof: behold, I will pour out ‘My Spirit unto you, I will make known My words unto you.”3 “It goeth forth from the uttermost part of the heaven, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”³ And again that Wisdom speaks by the Prophet Ezekiel: “As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that he turn from his way and live.”5 And to live to God is to love; for he that loveth not abideth in death. How greatly then does God desire that we love Him!

Nor does He stop short in thus generally calling us to love Him; yet more, He stands at the door of each human heart and knocks, promising that “if any man hear My Voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him,”' that is, will admit him to the closest familiarity. What does all this prove but that God gives us not merely means sufficient to love Him and be saved, but that it is a rich, overflowing sufficiency, such as one might look for from such boundless Goodness as His.

S. Paul says, speaking to the persistent sinner, “Despisest thou the riches of His Goodness and forbearance and long-suffering; not knowing that the Goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath.”? Thus God is not content merely to provide wherewithal to convert the perverse, but lavishes the richness of His Goodness to that end. Observe the antithesis which the Apostle draws between the riches of God’s Goodness and the treasured stores of the impenitent heart, so rich in wrath (or sin) that it dares to despise the riches of compassion with which God would lead it to repentance. And those not merely His general riches of goodness, but such as lead to repentance, which cannot be ignored.

Throughout Holy Scripture this rich, creative abundance of means, whereby God draws sinners to love Him, continually appears. He is not content merely to knock: “My Beloved put His Hand in the hole of the door,”3 so as to leave no means of entrance untried: He does not only preach repentance; He cries aloud, He goes on crying, as though He could not repeat it often enough, “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways and live; why will ye die?”⁷ He leaves nothing undone to testify that “His Mercy is over all His works,” that His Mercy “rejoiceth against judgment,”® that “with Him is plenteous redemption,”¹² that His Love is Infinite, and that, as the Apostle says, “He is rich in Mercy,”? and therefore would have all men to be saved," “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” ‘4

How Gon’s Eternal Love Drams our Hearts to love Him. “T HAVE loved thee with an Everlasting Love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel :”5—words whereby God promised that the Coming Saviour should establish His new Kingdom in the Church, His virgin Bride, the “Israelite indeed.”® And it is clearly “not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His Mercy He saved us;”? by that Eternal Love and Pity which moved His Divine Providence to draw us to Himself; for no man can come to Christ the Son except the Father draw him.®

Aristotle tells us of certain birds which have such short and powerless legs and feet that they are as though they had none; and once on the ground, they cannot take flight of themselves, or rise up again into the air; but lie grovelling, and even die where they lie, unless some gust of wind chance to take them, in which case, if they make use thereof and spread their wings, it will raise them and speed their flight.

Now we may liken the angels to those rare birds of Paradise which are never seen on earth save dead; for these heavenly beings could not quit Divine Love to seek self without falling into endless death (for we read that even as death separates man for ever from this life, so their fall cut off the angels for ever from eternal life); but human beings such as we are more aptly represented by the other. So often as we dare to leave the upper air of holy love for earth and its attachments (as we do whensoever we displease God), we sink down to death; yet not such utter death but that some slender power of action remains, with which we may faintly struggle yet to love. Yet is this power so feeble that we have no strength ourselves to cast off sin, or to take wing again towards that holy blessedness which in our faithlessness we have voluntarily quitted. Surely we deserve to be forsaken of God after such disloyalty! but His Eternal Love restrains His Justice, and inspires His Pity to help us out of our misery; which He does by the Breath of His Holy Spirit, Which raises our heart from the dust and enables it to take flight once more in the atmosphere of Divine Love.

Now this first movement which God stirs in our heart is in us, but not of us; it comes without any effort or thought of ours, for “we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God ;”* Who not only loved us before we came into being, but willed us to become holy; to which end He “prevents us with the blessings of His Fatherly Goodness,”? and moves us to repentance and conversion. Think upon the Chief of the Apostles, heavy with his sin, in the sad night of his Master’s Passion :3 he had no more thought of repentance than if he had never known his Saviour, but had lain grovelling like a miserable wretch, never to rise, had not the shrill cry of that instrument of God’s Providence, the cock, pierced his dulled hearing.

At the same moment his Dear Lord, casting the healing glance of His Love upon him, pierced his hard heart, whence issued forth such torrents, even as

1 2 Cor. iii. 5. ? Ps. xxi. 3.

3 “Voyez le pauvre Prince des Apostles tout engourdy dans son péché, en la triste nuict de la Passion de son Maitre.” the rock of old, smitten by Moses in the desert.4 Or again, behold the same great Apostle sleeping in the prison, bound with chains. This time he is a martyr, yet nevertheless he may well be a type of man sleeping, bound by sin, Satan’s prisoner. Who then shall deliver him! Behold the Angel of the Lord smites him on the side, and calls him, saying, “Arise up quickly.”7, Even so the Spirit of God smites the sinner’s heart, and rouses him to come forth from his iniquity. Does not all such rousing and kindling of the soul to better things come of God? is it not all done in and for us? We are roused, but we did not rouse ourselves; the Spirit of God roused us, and to this end it moved us. “I sleep, but my Heart (i.e. the Bridegroom) waketh,”3 He calls me by His Love, and I know His Voice. God calls us suddenly, and as it were startles us, and in these first workings of grace we only feel the movement which, as S. Bernard says, God rouses in us, but without any action of ours.

“Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Simon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”¹ It is the Lord Himself Who says that these men, who were taught the true faith, and had received grace enough to have converted the uttermost heathen, yet persisted in rejecting it, and rebelling against that holy Light. He too has declared that in the Judgment Day the men of Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba shall rise up and condemn the Jews; since the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonas, and the Queen of Sheba came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, while they who heard the Divine Wisdom of One greater than Solomon, who saw His Miracles and received His tangible Gifts, hardened their hearts and resisted His Grace. They who had least to draw them came to repentance, they to whom most was given resisted; they who least need to learn hasten to the Teacher, they whose need is greatest abide in their foolishness. Nothing can be plainer than this our Lord’s teaching, i.e., that the Jews will be condemned as compared with the Ninevites, because with so much favour they showed no love, with so much leading no repentance; while those who had little favour and little leading abounded in love and penitence. S. Augustine throws great light upon our Lord’s teaching in his “City of God,’ for, although speaking more particularly of the angels, he applies the subject no less to man. Thus in chap. vi. he sets forth two men absolutely equal in all things pertaining to goodness, assaulted by a like temptation, one resisting, the other yielding to the enemy. Then in chap. ix., having proved that all the angels were created in love, and that probably grace and love were alike in all, he asks how it came to pass that some persevered until they attained to glory, while others fell away to condemnation. To which (he replies) there is no answer, save that while some have persevered through God’s Grace, in the pure love they received when created, the others fell therefrom by their own self-will.

But if, as S. Thomas has proved, grace was diversely bestowed upon the angels, and the Seraphim received a much higher degree than the lower angels, how was it that among them the chiefest (for so the Fathers held) should have fallen, while a countless multitude of other angels, inferior both in nature and grace, persevered admirably? Whence comes it that Lucifer, so high by nature, exalted yet higher by grace, fell, while less favoured angels remained stedfast? Doubtless they who persevered owe their perseverance to God, Who in His Mercy made and kept them good; while Lucifer and his tribe owe their fall, as S. Augustine says, to their own free-will, which forsook the Divine Grace upholding them. “How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” thou who didst begin “as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Grace was not lacking to thee, thou hadst it above all others; but thou wast lacking to grace. God did not withhold His Love from thee, but thou wouldest not co-operate with His Love: He would never have rejected thee, if thou hadst not rejected His kindness. O Loving Lord, Thou never leavest those who leave not Thee; Thou never takest away Thy Gifts save from those who withdraw their hearts from Thee.

We defraud God when we take to ourselves the credit of our salvation, but we offend His Mercy if we say that it has ever failed us. We sin against His liberality if we fail to acknowledge His Gifts; but we blaspheme His Goodness if we deny that it has succoured us. Briefly, God speaks clearly and loudly to us all, saying, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help.”

Ah! did we but receive the inspirations of Heaven in all their power, how great growth in holiness we should speedily make! Be the stream never so strong, its waters will only come into our garden according to the channels which convey it; and although the

' Isa, xiv. 12. ? Prove. iv. 18, 3 Hos. xiii. 9.

Holy Spirit, as a Fountain of Living Water, is ready to overflow our heart, yet as He comes only with the full consent of our own will, He will only pour Himself into us according to that will and our co-operation, as well as according to the abundance of His Good Pleasure; even as the Council [of Trent] calls the correspondence of our will with grace a voluntary reception thereof.

It is in this sense that S. Paul bids the Corinthians “not receive the Grace of God in vain ;”* for even as a sick man who should take his medicine into his hand, but refuse to swallow it, would indeed have received it after a bootless fashion, so fruitlessly do we receive God’s Grace if we leave it outside and accept it not within our heart. It is vain to feel God’s inspiration only, and not consent to it. Again, if the sick man takes a part only of his medicine, he can derive but a part of its benefit; and so if, when God inspires us with a hearty impulse to accept His Love, we do not fully receive it, we shall gain but a limited benefit. Those who are inspired to do great things, and yet accept but a part of God’s inspiration, are like the men we read of in the Gospel, who, when called by our Lord to follow Him, held back, asking to take leave of those at home, or to bury their dead.

Remember the widow whose vessels were miraculously filled by Elisha.? So long as she had an empty vessel the oil flowed into it, but when she had no more wherein to receive it, the oil stayed. So while our hearts expand, or more truly while we suffer them to be enlarged, and do not refuse the space made by our willing consent to Divine Mercy, that Mercy will not cease to pour in ever more and more Its holy inspirations, we meanwhile abounding more and more in love, But when there is no room, when we cease to accept, it is stayed. ;

What hinders that we be not as deeply versed in the Love of God as S. Augustine, S. Francis, S. Catherine of Genoa, or S. Frances? Because God has not given us such grace.

But why has He not given it us? Because we have not worthily corresponded to His inspirations.

Wherefore have we not so corresponded? Because, being free, we have abused our freedom. Wherefore? Nay, here we must halt; for, as says S. Augustine, the depravity of our will comes but from the fault of that cause which commits sin. And we must not imagine that we can give a reason for the fault which leads to sin, inasmuch as the fault would not be sin were it not without reason.

The pious Brother Rufinus, having seen a vision of the glory to which S. Francis was to attain through his humility, asked the Saint to tell him truly what he thought of himself. To which S. Francis replied: “Verily I think myself to be the greatest sinner on earth, and he who least serves our Lord.” “But how,” Rufinus asked, “can you say this in all truth and conscience, when we see so many who are openly guilty of great sins, from which, God be thanked, you are free?”

To which S. Francis replied: “Had God given to them such mercies as He has given to me, I question not, that, evil as they now seem, they had been more mindful of His Gifts, and served Him better than I; for were God to forsake me, surely I should sin more grievously than they all.”

So thought one, who was more seraphic than human. I know that it was from out his humility he thus spoke; but still he believed as a truth that an equal grace, equally bestowed, may be better used by one sinner than another; and I hearken to that great Master of the science of the Saints, as to an oracle, trained up as he was in the school of the Cross. Indeed all holy men since have treasured up his saying, believing that it was in this mind that S. Paul spoke of himself as the chiefest of sinners.’

S. Theresa, speaking of quiescent prayer, says that “many souls attain so far, but they who pass beyond are few, without knowing why? Surely the fault lies not with God, for if His Divine Majesty gives us grace to arrive so far, I think He would not fail to give us more, save for the hindrances we raise by our. own faults.” Be it ours then to strive diligently in the love we owe to God, assured that the love He bears to us will never fail.

I WILL not dwell here upon the miraculous grace which has in a moment turned the wolf to a lamb, the dry rock to a springing well, the persecutor to an Apostle; and I pass over those extraordinary calls, those holy violences, by which God has been pleased sometimes in one moment to transform some chosen soul from the depth of sin into the height of grace, producing a very moral and spiritual transubstantiation, as in the case of the great Apostle, who from Saul the persecutor became in a moment Paul the chosen vessel. Such privileged souls are a class apart; souls in which God has been pleased to exercise not merely the liberality, but the most prodigal profusion of His Love. God’s Justice punishes us in this world, generally by ordinary and imperceptible agents; but sometimes He pours forth a deluge of punishment to proclaim and make us fear the severity of His wrath. Even so ordinarily His Mercy guides souls so gently and tenderly that they scarce perceive its dealings; yet sometimes that Sovereign Mercy overflows its wonted brim, like a swollen river, and pours forth such an impetuous torrent of grace that in one moment the favoured soul is flooded with blessings, thereby testifying that as His Justice takes sometimes an

ordinary, sometimes an extraordinary channel, even so His Mercy is exercised in ordinary ways for the most part, but sometimes in those which are extraordinary.

But what are the ordinary cords by which Divine Providence is wont to draw our hearts to Himself? He tells us by His Prophet Hosea: “I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love.”¹ God does not draw us with chains of iron, as though we were beasts, but by loving attraction and holy inspirations; “human cords,” that is, adapted to the free heart of man. Pleasure and delight are the natural attractions to man. We offer fruit to a child, and he is drawn by what he likes; not by a physical, but a moral cord. And even so our Heavenly Father draws us; He leads us by attraction, not as of force, but shedding spiritual delights into our heart, so as to gently win us to taste the sweetness of His doctrine. In this way our free-will is nowise forced or constrained by grace; and notwithstanding the All-powerful strength of God’s Merciful Hand, which urges the soul with so many leadings and attractions, man’s will remains perfectly at large and unrestrained.

Grace draws the heart with so delicate as well as strong a touch that the freedom of our will remains unhindered: its strength does but employ a loving force which nowise interferes with our liberty; we can consent or resist as we choose. But it is as striking as true, that when our will obeys the Divine leading, it obeys as freely as it resists, although obedience depends more upon grace than resistance; so wondrously does God give us power to do what is right, even while He leaves us entire liberty and free-will. “If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.” The original words convey the meaning, “perchance thou wouldest have asked,” as though even to this Samaritan woman our Lord meant to say that it depended on her own free-will to ask or not ask."

He who should say that it does not depend upon our free-will to co-operate with God’s Grace or to reject it, would contradict Holy Scripture, the Fathers, and all experience. But in saying that we may reject God’s inspirations and drawings, it is not meant that we can hinder them from being sent: they are in and around us before we realise them; just as God wakens us out of sleep without any conscious intention on our part, but once awake, it depends on ourselves to rise up. He awakens us without any effort of our own, but He expects us to rise of ourselves; and if we will not rise, but fall asleep again, we resist His wakening. We cannot hinder God’s inspirations from moving us, but if we reject them, and will not follow, then we resist Him; even as those birds of which I was speaking, which will not be carried onwards by the breeze unless they spread their wings when once launched: but, if lured by some green spot on earth, or numb with having lain low, they do not second the wind’s motions, or expand their wings, the wind will be all in vain. Thus God’s inspirations prevent us even before we realise them, but so soon as we perceive them we must needs consent and cooperate, or reject them. They come independently of our will, but they depend upon that will for their results, ree, | . Thou perchance wouldest have asked of Him... . . He as yet speaketh to the woman covertly, and little by little entereth into her heart. . . . What more sweet and benign than that exhortation!"—S. Augustine on S. John iv. Horn. xv. 12, Lib. Fathers.

A theologian writes concerning this :—

“Av, a particle which cannot be exactly rendered by any word in our language, though in particular cases it answers to our Latin forte, ‘probably,’ ‘perchance.’ It always implies a condition, and therefore a verb. *Av cannot be joined with the present or perfect, because that which is or has been cannot be made conditional. With the future it expresses that which certainly will happen if something else happens first.” —

The breeze which uplifts the birds we spoke of first affects their feathers, as their most susceptible part, and when they move their wings in response, by degrees the bird is uplifted; and thus, as it cooperates with the wind’s action, it derives increasing assistance therefrom. Even so when the sacred gust of inspiration raises us into the atmosphere of holy love, it moves our will, and stimulates our natural inclination for what is good, that inclination in its turn serving as a lever. All this is worked in us without our help by God’s Grace, and if we co-operate ever so little, well for us! for then that same grace, uniting itself to our feeble efforts and vivifying our fulness with its powerful action, will lead us on from point to point, up to that holy faith we need.

Blessed be God for the grace with which His Holy Spirit sheds the first rays of His living light and warmth into our hearts! Blessed indeed it is to watch that heavenly sunshine gradually shedding its glow upon a soul, never staying till it has kindled it fully with the splendour of its presence, and gladdened it with perfect day! Joyful and glad dawn! Yet after all the dawn is but the beginning of day, and even so these kindlings of love which precede the act of faith needed for our justification are but the imperfect beginnings of love; they are as the first shoots of spring on the mystic tree rather than the ripened fruits. So

It is told of S. Pachomius, how as a young soldier of the army sent by Constantius against the tyrant Maxentius, and as yet unknowing of God, he came with his famishing troop to a village nigh to Thebes, where the inhabitants, being faithful followers of their Lord, and therefore charitable, ministered so lovingly to the soldiers’ needs, that Pachomius was amazed; and asking who these kindly hosts could be, and learning that they were Christians, who because of their belief in the Only Son of God did good to all men, hoping to receive their reward of Him, he was roused from heathenism, and the example of these Christians woke the first spark of love in him. And so, being told what was the law of Christ, and being filled with a new light and joy thereby, he went apart to reflect, and after awhile, lifting up his hands to heaven, he cried out, “Lord God, Who madest earth and heaven, if Thou vouchsafest to cast Thine eyes upon my weakness and misery, and to show me Thyself, I engage to serve and obey Thee all my days !”. And from the time of this prayer and this promise the love of true holiness grew so vehemently in him, that he went on from strength to strength. Even so the nightingale wakes at dawn of day, plumes its feathers, and by degrees launches forth its ever louder bursts of song. - Consider how God proceeds gradually increasing His gracious inspiration in consenting hearts, drawing them upward by heavenly steps, like to Jacob’s ladder. What then are these drawings? The first whereby God wakens us is His work in us, but without us; all the rest are His work in us, but not without us. “Draw me,” the Bride says,’ that is, Be it Thine to begin, for I cannot waken myself without Thy help, but when once Thou hast roused me, O Beloved, “we will run after Thee.” Thou wilt go first, drawing me onwards, and I shall follow joyfully. But let no one imagine that Thou drawest me as an unwilling slave or an inanimate object; it is “because of the savour of Thy good ointments.”? A sweet savour can have no power to draw save its sweetness, neither can sweetness draw us without delight.

When God gives us faith, He comes to us and speaks, not as it were in words, but by inspiration; offering that which He sets before the mind so lovingly that the will rejoices therein, and urges the understanding to accept the same. Thus God presents the mysteries of the faith to the soul amid shadows and darkness, so that we do but perceive them dimly; just as when in nature mists cover the earth we do not see the sun, but are conscious that where it is there is the most brightness, so that we perceive without really seeing it." Yet this clear shadow of faith having penetrated the mind by no force of words or argument, but solely by its own sweetness, it exercises so great an authority over the understanding, that it conveys a certainty beyond all else, and entirely enthrals the mind and its powers.

Yes, verily, faith is the mind’s best ally, and may well say to all boasted human knowledge with the Bride,“I am black but comely.”? “O ye earthly science and learning, I am black, for I lie in the shadows; but I am comely by reason of my absolute certainty, and could mortal eyes see me as I really am they would think so. Am I not indeed infinitely gracious, since not all the mists and darkness amid which I am not seen but dimly perceived, cannot hinder, but that prizing me above all else, the mind presses on to seek me, and enthrones me on its loftiest throne, whence I rule all knowledge and subdue all earthly wisdom.” Even as the chieftains of Israel enthroned Jehu, crying out, “Jehu is king !”3 so all the intellectual faculties

are fain to submit to faith and proclaim it monarch. Doubtless the Christian religion owes much to argument, to miracles and the like; but it is faith alone by which it is believed and confirmed, accepted for the beauty of its truth, and the truth of its beauty, for the calmness it imparts to the will, the certainty it gives to the understanding. The Jews saw our Lord’s miracles and heard His marvellous teaching; but not being willing to receive the faith, i.e. their will not being alive to its beauty because of the malice of their hearts, they remained in unbelief. They perceived the force of the argument, but did not appreciate the sweetness of its conclusion, and therefore did not accept its truth: yet the action of faith lies in that acceptance by which the mind, having received the welcome light of truth, cleaves to it with a calm but strong and powerful certainty and reliance on the authority of that which reveals it.

You know how in a General Council the matters in debate are discussed and argued, and finally the Fathers, that is to say the Bishops, and the Pope as Chief Bishop, decide, resolve, and pronounce; and their determination spoken, all accept it, not because of the reasonings alleged during the past discussion, but by virtue of the Holy Spirit’s authority, Who, presiding invisibly over the Council, has judged, decided and spoken by the mouth of those whom He has appointed His ministers. Thus the inquiry and discussion is made in the court of Priests and Doctors, but the decision and its acceptance takes place in the sanctuary, where the Holy Ghost, Which inspires the ‘Church, speaks by the mouth of Its Chief Pastor, as our Lord promised. So, like as the ostrich lays its eggs in the Libyan sands, but the sun alone hatches them, do the Doctors set forth the truth by their researches and discussions, but the sunshine of Eternal Wisdom certifies and accepts it. And finally, the conviction which man’s mind receives concerning the mysteries and revelations of the faith begins with the sense of satisfaction which the will derives from the beauty and acceptableness of the proposed truth; so that faith presupposes an impulse of love felt by our heart towards heavenly things.

Just as we are no sooner exposed to the light of the mid-day sun than we feel its warmth, so no sooner has the light of faith cast the brightness of its truth upon our mind than our will begins to feel the holy warmth of Heavenly Love.

Faith teaches us with infallible certainty that God is, that His Goodness is Infinite, that He not only can but will impart Himself to us, and that He has prepared all needful to enable us to attain everlasting glory. Now we possess a natural tendency to our Sovereign Good, by reason of which our heart knows no other rest, nor can refrain from ceaselessly testifying that its perfect contentment is lacking. But when holy faith makes plain the All-worthy Object of this natural craving, then how great is the thrilling delight which the soul experiences! and how fervently it cries out, “Behold, Thou art fair, my Beloved !”

Eliezer went to seek a bride for the son of his master Abraham: how could he tell that he would find her such as he desired? But when he had found her at the well, so perfect in beauty and grace, and above all when she was given to him, he blessed God with a thankful heart. So the heart of man seeks God by natural inclination, not really knowing what He is; but having found Him by the well of faith, and beholding Him Good, Gracious, and Loving to all, and ready to give Himself to those who seek Him, then indeed it seeks earnestly to be united for ever to that most gracious Love. And even as Jacob wept for very joy when he had found Rachel,’ so our frail heart, having found God and recéived that His most precious gift of faith, melts from exceeding love for the Infinite Good revealed to it in so much beauty.

There are times when we feel an unaccountable presentiment of gladness, which is often the presage of some great joy; whence men have fancied that our good angels impart such, knowing that which is about to happen; as, on the other hand, they send us warnings of coming danger, so that we may be watchful and call upon God. Now, when the joy thus foreshadowed arises, our hearts expand to meet it, and remembering that previously unaccountable sense of gladness, we then for the first time read it aright. And just so our heart has long vibrated towards its real Good without our knowing what the vibration meant; but so soon as faith points that out, we see at once what it was our soul craved and our mind sought after. Sure it is that whether we will or will not, our minds tend towards our Sovereign Good. But after all, what is that? We are like the Athenians who worshipped the One True God,? but as “Unknown,” until such time as S. Paul proclaimed Him to them. Even so our heart’s deep though secret instinct tends to its real bliss, and seeks on all sides, like one blindfold, for it; not knowing where it lies nor what it is until faith points it out and displays its marvels. And then, having found the hidden treasure, how boundless that poor heart’s joy and rest will be! “I have found Him Whom my soul loveth,”3 even while I knew Him not. I knew not what I sought or wherefore nothing satisfied me. I fancied I loved, yet knew not what to love; but now “I sit down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit is sweet to my taste.”4

The human understanding being thus addressed to. the contemplation of that which faith sets before it as its Sovereign Good, an exceeding attraction thereto is kindled in the will, which greatly desires the presence of that Divine Object, and causes the soul to cry out, “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His Mouth.”! And even as the hawk, when unhooded, darts upon its prey, and if restrained by its lures struggles vehemently against the hand which holds them, so when faith has torn asunder the veil of ignorance, and shown us our Sovereign Good, Which as yet we are unable fully to possess, by reason of the hindrances of mortality, then in the intensity of longing we cry out,

“As pants the hart for cooling streams,

When heated in the chase;

So longs my soul, O God, for Thee,

And Thy refreshing Grace.

For Thee, my God, the Living God,

My thirsty soul doth pine,

O when shall I behold Thy Face

Thou Majesty Divine!" 2

™ Cant. i. 2.

2 Ps, xlii. The old French “Tate and Brady” renders these lines:

Si fort les eaux ne desirent,

Due nos coeurs d’ennuis pressez,

Seigneur, aprés toy souspirent.

Nos ames en languissant

D’un desire tousjours croissant

'.- Crient: Helas! quand sera-ce,

O Seigneur Dieu tout-puissant

Due nos yeux verront ta face?”

It is a rightful longing, for who but must long for so great a good? But it were a fruitless longing, and one which would be a very martyrdom if we had no hope one day to satisfy it. What had he done who cried out, “My tears have been my meat day and night,” because his Lord had forgotten him, and his enemies said, “Where is now thy God?”? what had he done without some manner of hope, sooner or later, to obtain that Presence for Which he sighed? Or the Bride who was “sick of love”? because she could not find her Beloved; love kindled longing and eager pursuit, and her disappointed search caused her “soul to fail,” and she had altogether perished without some ray of hope. Thus, in order that we may not faint and fail under the anxiety and sorrow of unsatisfied longing, that same Sovereign Good Which kindles our desires certifies us of their satisfaction by countless promises given both by His Word and His daily inspirations, provided we will but make use of the means He offers us to that end.

Now these promises have a special and marvellous power at once to increase the cause of our anxiety, and, as they increase that, to put away its effects: for surely God’s promise of Paradise must infinitely quicken our desire to enter upon its enjoyment; and at the same time it altogether calms all anxious restlessness which accompanied that desire, because those blessed promises given by God soothe the heart, and that soothing calm is the foundation of the holy virtue which we call hope. And this because the will, convinced that it may attain the Sovereign Good by means of God’s offered means thereto, performs two main acts of grace, by the one expecting God to give it the fruition of His Sovereign Goodness, by the other eagerly aspiring to that holy fruition.

Of a truth the only difference between hoping and aspiring is, that we hope for things which are to come by means of another, and we aspire to things which we can obtain of ourselves. And since we attain to the enjoyment of our Sovereign Good, Which is God, by His Grace and Mercy above all, while yet that very Mercy requires the co-operation of our feeble will with His All-powerful Grace, so our hope must needs be mingled with aspiration, so that neither can be wholly apart from the other. But hope is ever the chiefest, being founded upon Divine Grace, without which, as we could not even think fitly of that Sovereign Good, so neither could we so aspire to it as to obtain the fulfilment of our aspiration.

Aspiration then is an offshoot of hope, as our cooperation is of grace; and just as those who think to hope without aspiring would be rejected as careless and cowardly, so they who would aspire without hoping are rash and presumptuous. But when hope is followed by aspiration, so that hoping we aspire, and aspiring we hope, then hope develops into a bold aim, and aspiration becomes a humble desire according to God’s inspiration; while both spring from that longing love for our Sovereign Good, which we shall ever love the better as we more confidently hope for it. Thus hope is nothing else than the loving delight we feel in expecting and claiming our Sovereign Good. All comes of love. Faith no sooner showed me my Sovereign Good than I loved Him, and being absent, I desired Him: so soon as I knew He willed to give Himself to me, I yet more eagerly loved and desired Him; and thus by degrees love’s longing was turned into hope and expectation; so that hope is an expectant, awaiting love. And because that Sovereign Good which hope expects is God, and because it hopes and expects in and through God Only, this holy virtue hope, finding as it does its sole end and satisfaction on all sides in God, is what we call a cardinal or theological virtue.’

That love which we exercise in hope goes out to

God, but it returns to us; it looks to His Divine Goodness, but it has a view to our profit; it tends to His Supreme Perfection, but it ministers to our satisfaction: that is to say, it does not lift us up to God because He is infinitely good in Himself, but because ‘He is infinitely good towards us. Thus ours is a self-interested love. Not that it is so entirely self-interested as to make us love God solely out of self-seeking. Surely no; for it. were sacrilege to love God merely with a view to our own selfish ease and gain. The soul which loves God only for love of self puts self in the place of God.

But there is a wide difference between loving God for that which I expect from Him and loving Him only for that cause, Just as it is one thing to say, “I love God for myself,” and “I love God for love of myself.” In the first case I love to possess Him as my own, to have Him as my Sovereign Good; and that is like the Heavenly Bride who is for ever repeating, “My Beloved is mine and I am His.” But to love God out of selfishness is to put myself as the end of my love, and thus to make the level of God’s Love below that of self, which is a manifest ‘impiety.

So then the love which we call hope is a longing, holy and systematic, by which we do not seek to adapt God to our purposes, but to unite ourselves to Him, as our final bliss. In such love we love both self and God, but not as equalling or preferring self to God; the love of self commingles with it is a motive, but not the chief end; we do not bring Him down to us, but raise ourselves to Him; we are not His End or Perfection, but He ours; we belong to Him, not He to us; and in the relation of our Sovereign Good He receives nought of us, we all of Him; He sets forth His Riches and Goodness, we our poverty and need; so that to love God as our Sovereign Good is an acknowledgment that He is our End, our Rest, and our Perfection, in the enjoyment of which all our happiness consists.

There are certain things which we prize solely because they are serviceable to us, e.g., our slave, our horse, our garment; and the affection we bear to these is simply selfish. Then there are our friends, whom we love because of the gratification they minister to us, but at the same time we reciprocate the gain, so that our affection is not purely selfish. Other affections there are of a dependent nature, as those for our princes, pastors, or parents, whom we love not merely because they are such, but because they hold that relative position towards ourselves individually. And this affection is one of reverence and respect, for we love, e.g., our parents, not because they belong to us, but because we belong to them. Even so we love and long after God through hope, not that He may be Good, for that He is; not because He is ours, but because we are His; not as though He were made for us, but because we are made for Him.

Observe, moreover, one feature of this love, namely, that while the reason which makes us cherish it is our own interest, the measure thereof depends upon the excellence and worth of that which we love. We love benefactors because they are such; but we love them more or less in proportion to the extent of their benefaction. Why then do we love God with this longing? Because He is our Good. But why do we love Him above all? Because He is our Sovereign Good.

Sovereign Love is found only in charity; the love of hope is imperfect, and consists more of feeling than fact, without charity; yet as a motive power nothing can exceed hope, and therefore we say that through hope we love God supremely.

Penitence, speaking generally, is that repentance by which we reject and abhor sin committed, resolving to repair as far as possible all injury towards him we have offended. I include reparation in my definition, because there is no real abhorrence of sin where its offence is voluntarily left unatoned. Putting aside the penitence of the heathen of whom Tertullian speaks, we will speak only of a righteous penitence, which also varies according to the motives whence it springs. There is a penitence altogether human and moral, such as that of Alexander the Great, of whom Cicero records, that having killed his friend Clitus, he sought to die of hunger; or that of Alcibiades, who, being convicted of error by Socrates, wept bitterly. Aristotle says that the intemperate man who gives himself up to voluptuousness is wholly incorrigible, because he cannot repent, and he who is without penitence is incurable.

Assuredly Seneca, Plutarch, and the Pythagoreans, who so strongly urge self-examination (especially the first, who dwells upon the pain of remorse), knew what repentance was; and Epictetus speaks forcibly of penitence.

There is another penitence which, albeit moral, has further a religious element in that it arises from a natural consciousness of having offended God by sin. Sundry philosophers realised that a virtuous life was acceptable to the Divinity, and per contra, that He was displeased by a vicious life. Epictetus desired to die a Christian death (as it seems probable he did), saying among other things that he should be content if in the hour of death he could lift his hands to God and say, “I have never voluntarily dishonoured Thee.” And he requires his ideal philosopher to swear never to disobey God or murmur at aught He does; teaching, moreover, that God and our guardian angels see all we do. Such repentance is an offshoot of moral religion. But forasmuch as all these philosophers had more knowledge than love, nature’s light enabled them rather to see how greatly sin offended God than to feel warmly eager to repent and atone for the offence. So little did they understand a really religious penitence that the most virtuous, the Stoics, affirmed that the wise man was never sad; a maxim as false as that on which it rested is contrary to experience, namely, that the wise man was not guilty of sin.

So we may fairly say that penitence is an altogether Christian virtue, for one main portion of Christian philosophy lies in it, teaching that he who should say he sinned not is a fool, and he who would think to condone his sins without repentance a criminal. Such is the point of our Lord’s teaching, “Repent ye.”

The course of penitence is this. We begin by fearing, because we have so greatly displeased God, Who abhors all that is evil; and from out this fear rise sundry motives, any or all of which bring us to repentance. We remember that our offended God has prepared the bitter pains of hell for sinners, casting them out from Paradise, the portion of the just. And this double fear, of incurring evil and losing the good, is a great motive to repentance. Or the thought of the hideousness of sin, of God’s Image marred, of the loss of Heaven and angelic companionship, kindles it: or the beauty of holiness, or the example of saints; for who can contemplate the repentance of the Magdalene, of S. Mary of Egypt, or the penitents of whom S. John Climacus bears record, without being moved? :

Such motives are taught by our Christian faith, and therefore the penitence they produce is praiseworthy, though imperfect, and that because Divine Love has no share therein. All such repentance is kindled by a desire for the welfare, happiness, or glory of our own soul, that is to say, by the love of self,—a lawful love; and far be it from me to say that such penitence rejects the Love of God: but still it does not embrace it; it is not opposed to that Love, but it is as yet without its pale. That will which simply accepts what is good does well, but rejecting what is better it fails therein. Thus my resolution to give alms to-day is good; but if I resolve only to give alms to-day that is bad, because it sets aside what is best, namely, to give to-day, and tomorrow, and always, as far as possible. It is well, doubtless, to repent in order to avoid hell and win Heaven, but were any one to resolve that he would have no other motive for his repentance, he would’ voluntarily exclude the best, namely, the Love of God, and therein he would greatly sin. What father but would be displeased if his son resolved indeed to serve him, yet never for or with love?

The beginning of a good thing is good, its advance is better, its end is best. But this must be progressive, and no one can begin by the end. Childhood is a lovely thing, but it were not desirable always to be a child: it is well to begin to learn, but he who so began intending never to finish were unreasonable. Fear and all such motives for repentance are good as

first steps towards Christian wisdom and penitence, but he who should deliberately reject love as the perfection of repentance would grievously offend Him Who has made His Love the end of all things.

Conclusion. That repentance which excludes the Love of God is of hell. Repentance which does not reject that Love, though as yet without it, is imperfect, and cannot win salvation until it attains to love. So that, as S. Paul says, he who gives his body to be burned, and all his goods to the poor, without charity, profiteth nothing; and we may re-echo his words and say, that though we should weep out our eyes in tears, and break our heart with grief, yet without the blessed Love of God it would all be of no avail for life eternal.

Hom Love and Grief are minglen in Contrition. NA aE has never yet turned fire into water, albeit certain waters are capable of taking fire. Yet God did this once miraculously. We read in the Maccabees' how the Israelites, when led into captivity in Babylon, hid the fire of the altar in a hollow pit without water; and how after many years their descendants, searching for it, found no fire, but “thick water,” which, when they had laid it on the altar, as though it had been fire, and sprinkled the wood and sacrifices therewith, the sun shone forth and there was a great fire kindled. Even so amid the tribulation and mourning of a hearty repentance God often hides the sacred fire of His Love in our heart; and that love first turns to the water of tears, and that again to a glowing fire. Thus it was that the penitent Magdalene loved her Lord, her love turning to tears, and her tears to so great ardour, that, as He said, her sins were forgiven, because “she loved much.”¹ And as - 7 * Bk ii c. ; Luke vii. 47. by the action of fire wine is reduced to a water (eax de vie) which contains so large a portion of fire that it is commonly called “ardent spirits,” so a thoughtful consideration of that Goodness Which we have so often offended by sin produces the water of holy penitence, whence again comes forth that sacred fire which may fitly be called ardent. It is truly water, for penitence is a very real sorrow; but it burns because it contains the very essence of love, whereby it imparts the life of grace. Therefore perfect penitence has two separate effects: through grief and abhorrence it severs us from the creature and from sin, to which we were bound by pleasure therein; and through that love whence it springs it reconciles and reunites us to God, from Whom we were estranged; so that it at once draws us from sin by repentance and unites us to God by love.

Nevertheless that perfect love of God above all things does not invariably precede such repentance, any more than such repentance invariably precedes this love. For though it may frequently be so in other cases, when God’s Love dawns in the heart penitence rises out of it; or again, penitence being roused, love springs forth from it. And as when Esau came to the birth his twin Jacob seized him by the foot,’ so that their entrance into the world might be bound up one with the other, even so repentance, with its hardness and pain, is first born, Esau-like, and then sweet love holds on to it like Jacob, and cleaves so tight that they seem to have but one source,—and the end of repentance is the beginning of perfect love. Esau came forth first, and penitence for the most part is perceived before love; but love, albeit like Jacob the youngest, yet rules over repentance, and turns it to joy.

Remember the sorrowing Magdalene: ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him ;”? but when she had found Him amid her tears she held Him fast in love. Imperfect love longs for Him; penitence seeks and finds Him; perfect love clasps Him tight, even like the Ethiopian ruby, the tint of which is pale until it be cast into vinegar, when it becomes bright and sparkling. Just so that love which precedes penitence is mostly imperfect, but once steeped in the bitterness of repentance it revives and becomes admirable. Yet sometimes repentance, though true, does not contain the full action, but only the essence or virtue of love. Do you ask how it can have that without action? Consider: the motive of perfect repentance is God’s Goodness, which we grieve to have sinned against. But a motive is such only in that it moves, and God’s Goodness can excite no movement save love, that is, union. Therefore true repentance, though we do not see the full action of love inherent in it, yet receives the impulse of that love, and thereby unites us to His Goodness; just as it is the magnet’s special property to attract iron and unite it to itself, but nevertheless we see iron which has merely touched the magnet become capable of attracting other iron in consequence. And so true repentance, when it is touched by the motive power of love, acquires its property, and stimulates the union of our heart to the Divine Will.

You will perhaps ask what difference there is between such an impulse of union and love’s own act? It is this: the action of love is one of union, but it springs forth from delight; whereas the union which arises from penitence is not caused by delight, but by grief, repentance, reparation, and reconciliation. In that it is a unitive process it is of the nature of love; in that it is bitter and painful it is of the nature of penitence; and to sum up, in its natural state it is a true movement of penitence, but one possessing the virtue and unitive grace of love. Wine of Theriacum is not so Called because it actually contains any actual Theriaca ;' but because the root of the vine has been: * Theriaca Andromachi, an antidote to all poison, especially venomous bites, invented by one Andromachus, Nero’s physician. watered with that decoction, so that the grapes it bears and the wine they produce have imbibed the virtue of the potent antidote. And even so we need not marvel that penitence should, as Holy Scripture says, efface sin, save the soul, and make it acceptable to God, all which are the results properly appertaining to love; love’s very choicest works being thus wrought by penitence through the motive power which has excited it.

Nor need we wonder if the strength of love be kindled amid repentance before love itself take shape. We have seen the sun’s rays reflected on a burning glass till they produce a consuming heat, even before we perceive any flame. So God’s Holy Spirit kindling a sense of sin against God’s Mercy, which our will receives; penitence grows, until that will so earnestly craves to return to God that a flame breaks out even before love is moulded, and thus the end of penitence is merged in the beginning of love, like Esau’s foot in Jacob’s hand, the birth of one bound up with the birth of the other. Thus the beginning of perfect love does not merely follow upon the end of penitence, but they are entirely commingled, and therefrom penitence and contrition acquire life eternal. —

And inasmuch as this loving repentance takes expression ordinarily in aspirations such as those of old: “I am Thine, O save me ;”³ “Be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in Thee ;”? “Save me, O God, for the waters are come in, even unto my soul ;”3 “Make me as one of Thy hired servants ;”4 “God be merciful to me a sinner ;”5—it is not untrue to speak of Theriaca was compounded of no less than seventy-two ingredients, one of which was the dried flesh of vipers, whence its name. Theriaca retained its place in the London Pharmacopoeia as late as 1771, and in the Parisian Pharmacopoeia it was to be found as late as 1837. S. Francis de Sales uses it as an illustration in the “Esprit” (p. 250). prayer justifying; for penitent prayer, or prayerful penitence, which lifts the soul to God and reunites it to His Mercy, does assuredly obtain pardon in virtue of that Holy Love with which it is inspired. And verily we all should be constant in such ejaculatory prayer, issuing from a loving penitence and a great longing after reconciliation with God; whereby we may “pour out our heart before God,”' pour it out before and into His All-pitying Heart, which will never fail to extend its Mercy to us.

How our Lorn’s Love Draft¹ us on to Faith anv Charity. BEtwEEN the first awakening from sin or unbelief and a final resolve to believe fully there often comes a period in which we can but pray with the father of the demoniac boy :. “Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief.”? I am no longer plunged in the darkness of total unbelief, yet is my belief faint and shadowy: Lord, help me! :

S. Augustine, in a very remarkable passage, very strikingly says, “Hear and understand,O man, Art thou not drawn? then pray that thou mayest be drawn ;” wherein he does not allude to the first motion God excites in us when He rouses us from the slumber of sin. No one can ask before he be awakened; but he is speaking of our resolve to be faithful, holding that to believe is to be drawn, and therefore he admonishes them that are drawn to believe in God, to ask the gift of faith. And assuredly none could better know the difficulties arising ordinarily between the first impulse stirred in us by God and the perfect resolution to believe; he who was so variously moved by the words of the great S. Ambrose, by the conversation of Pontilianus,3 and manifold other means, and yet hesitated so long ere he could decide; so that truly to none were more fitly said that which he said thereafter to others: “O Augustine, if thou be not drawn, if thou believest not, pray that thou mayest be drawn and believe !”

Our Dear Lord draws hearts by the attractions with which He sets forth His Heavenly Truths, but before they are altogether won to perfect submission the enemy likewise exercises his craft in temptation. Meanwhile we are fully free to accept or reject those Divine attractions, but if we do not repulse the grace of holy love, it will go on for ever swelling within our soul, until we be wholly converted, like to a mighty river overspreading a plain.

If that inspiration which has led us to believe be not resisted, it will lead us on further to penitence and love. S. Peter, like those birds we wot of, moved by the inspiration of his Master’s look, and letting himself be freely borne by the kindly breeze of the Holy Spirit, gazed into the life-giving Eyes which had stirred him, and reading there, as in a book of life, the blessed promise of pardon, he drew thence a lawful hope; and going forth, he realised and abhorred the greatness of his sin; he wept bitterly, and poured forth his sorrowful heart before the Merciful Heart of his Lord, asking pardon for his sin, and resolving perfect faithfulness for the future. So by this progressive course, fostered by continual grace, he attained remission of sin; going on from grace to grace, even as S. Prosper says, “Without grace we cannot follow after grace.”

In short, thus it is that the soul prevented by grace, experiencing its leadings and yielding to them, comes, so to say, to itself, and breaks forth: “Draw me, I will run after Thee.” Thy fruit is sweet to my taste, the savour of Thy ointment is refreshing. The Bride would not so cry out to her Beloved were she not moved thereto by His charms; but directly that she feels these, she prays Him to draw her, and being

See Council of Trent. 7 See p. 358. > "uke xxii: 617 -- drawn, she runs; but she would not so run were she not won and revived by the sweetness of those perfumes; and the closer she wins to her Heavenly Bridegroom the more delicious those perfumes become, until at last He Himself flows into her heart with the very fulness of all possible sweetness and perfection.

Thus it is that heavenly inspiration comes and prevents us, kindling our will to holy love. And if we reject it not, it envelops us, urging us ever onwards; if we fail it not, it will never fail us until it bring us to that haven of perfect love, fulfilling towards us the office of the Archangel Raphael to Tobias, guiding us through the journey of penitence, shielding us from the assaults of Satan, and comforting and strengthening us under all difficulty.

It is thus that by a gradual and most ineffable tenderness God leads the soul He brings up out of the Egypt of sin from step to step until He brings it to the promised land, by which I mean holy Charity, which is rather a friendship than a self-interested love, since by charity we love God for His Own Sake and His Gracious Goodness; and it is real friendship, being as it is reciprocal, and God’s Love is Eternal, man’s temporal. It is a recognised affection, for God, Who has Himself inspired this love, cannot but know it, neither can we fail to be aware of His Love for us, since He has published it abroad, and we know that whatever good we possess is the result of His Benevolence: while, moreover, He keeps up a perpetual intercourse with us through His inspirations and leadings. He is never weary of proving His Love by all manner of tokens, having revealed all His secrets to us as to trusted friends, and as the climax of His loving intercourse, He has given Himself to be our Food in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. On our side we can communicate with Him continually at will by prayer, our whole life being bound up in and of and by Him.

Now this affection is not simple friendship, but one of dilection, by which we choose God as the object of special love, “the Chiefest among ten thousand.”¹ It is a supreme dilection, for charity loves God with so exceeding and predominant an affection that all other love seems nought in comparison. Verily it is a love which no human or angelic power can create, nor aught save “the Holy Ghost Which is given unto us ;”? ‘and even as the soul, which is the life of our body, comes into that body through God’s natural Providence, so that charity which is the life of the heart, is not of us, but is poured into our heart by His Supernatural Providence.

Therefore we call it a supernatural affection, and ‘that the rather because it has reference to God, not according to our natural knowledge of His Goodness, ‘but through the supernatural knowledge which comes of faith. Therefore charity is the crowning grace of faith and hope, and queen-like sheds its sweetness ‘over the whole soul, making it to be beautiful and acceptable to Divine Goodness; so that if the soul be a kingdom of which the Holy Spirit is King, charity is there to be found as “a queen in a vesture of gold, wrought about with divers colours.”3 If the soul be the regal consort of our Heavenly King, charity is as the royal crown upon her head; or if the soul and body together are as a little world, charity is the sun which warms, vivifies, and embellishes the whole.

Blessed is he whose heart is filled with this most holy affection, for verily “all good things come together” therewith.