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By natural blessings we here understand beauty,
grace, comeliness, bodily constitution and all other
bodily endowments; and likewise, in the soul, good
understanding, discretion and other things that
pertain to reason.
Many a man sets his rejoicing upon all these
gifts, to the end that he himself, or those that
belong to him, may possess them, and for no other
reason, and gives no thanks to God Who bestows them
on him so that He may be better known and loved by
him because of them. But to rejoice for this cause
alone is vanity and deception, as Solomon says in
these words: 'Deceitful is grace and vain is beauty;
the woman who fears God, she shall be praised.'[584]
Here he teaches us that a man ought rather to be
fearful because of these natural gifts, since he may
easily be distracted by them from the love of God,
and, if he be attracted by them, he may fall into
vanity and be deceived.
For this reason bodily grace is said to be
deceptive because it deceives a man in the ways and
attracts him to that which beseems him not, through
vain joy and complacency, either in himself or in
others that have such grace. And it is said that
beauty is vain because it causes a man to fall in
many ways when he esteems it and rejoices in it, for
he should rejoice only if he serves God or others
through it.
But he ought rather to fear and harbour misgivings
lest perchance his natural graces and gifts should be
a cause of his offending God, either by his vain
presumption or by the extreme affection with which he
regards them. Wherefore he that has such gifts should
be cautious and live carefully, lest, by his vain
ostentation, he give cause to any man to withdraw his
heart in the smallest degree from God. For these
graces and gifts of nature are so full of provocation
and occasion of evil, both to him that possesses them
and to him that looks upon them, that there is hardly
any who entirely escapes from binding and entangling
his heart in them.
We have heard that many spiritual persons, who had
certain of these gifts, had such fear of this that
they prayed God to disfigure them, lest they should
be a cause and occasion of any vain joy or affection
to themselves or to others, and God granted their
prayer.
2. The spiritual man, then, must purge his will,
and make it to be blind to this vain rejoicing,
bearing in mind that beauty and all other natural
gifts are but earth, and that they come from the
earth and will return thither; and that grace and
beauty are the smoke and vapour belonging to this
same earth; and that they must be held and esteemed
as such by any man who desires not to fall into
vanity, but will direct his heart to God in these
matters, with rejoicing and gladness, because God is
in Himself all these beauties and graces in the most
eminent degree, and is infinitely high above all
created things.
And, as David says, they are all like a garment
and shall grow old and pass away, and He alone
remains immutable for ever.[585] Wherefore, if in all
these matters a man direct not his rejoicing to God,
it will ever be false and deceptive. For of such a
man is that saying of Solomon to be understood, where
he addresses joy in the creatures, saying: 'To joy I
said: "Why art thou vainly deceived?"'[586] That is,
when the heart allows itself to be attracted by the
creatures. |