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The desire which God has to make us observe his
commandments is extreme, as the whole Scripture
witnesses. And how could he better express it, than
by the great rewards which he proposes to the
observers of his law, and the awful punishments with
which he threatens those who shall violate the same!
This made David cry out: O Lord, thou hast commanded
thy Commandments to be kept most diligently.(1)Now
the love of complacency, beholding this divine
desire, wills to please God by observing it; the love
of benevolence which submits all to God, consequently
submits our desires and wills to that will which God
has signified to us; and hence springs not only the
observance, but also the love of the commandments,
which David extraordinarily extols in Psalm cxviii.,
which he seems only to have composed for this object:
O how have I loved thy law, 0 Lord! It is my
meditation all the day . . . . . Therefore have I
loved thy commandments above gold and the topaz . . .
. . How sweet are thy words to my palate, more than
honey to my mouth.(2)
But to stir up in us this holy and salutary love of
the commandments, we must contemplate their admirable
beauty: for, as there are works which are bad because
they are prohibited, and others which are prohibited
because they are bad; so there are some that are
good, because they are commanded, and others that are
commanded because they are good and very useful. So
that all of them are exceeding good and worthy of
love, because the commandment gives goodness to such
as were not otherwise good, and gives an increase of
goodness to those others which even if not commanded
would not cease to be good.
We do not take good in good part, when it is
presented by an enemy's hand. The Lacedaemonians
would not follow solid and wholesome advice coming
from a wicked person, till it was repeated to them by
a good man. On the contrary, a friend's present is
always grateful. The sweetest commandments become
bitter when they are imposed by a tyrannical and
cruel heart; and they become most amiable when
ordained by love. Jacob's service seemed a royalty
unto him, because it proceeded from love. O how sweet
and how much to be desired is the yoke of the
heavenly law, established by so amiable a king!
Many keep the commandments as sick men take
medicines, more from fear of dying in a state of
damnation, than from love of living according to our
Saviour's pleasure. But as some persons have an
aversion for physic, be it never, so agreeable, only
because it bears the name of physic, so there are
some souls who abhor things commanded simply because
they are commanded: and there was a certain man, 'tis
said, who, having lived quietly in the great city of
Paris for the space of fourscore years without ever
going out of it, as soon as it was enjoined him by
the king that he should remain there the rest of his
days, went abroad to see the country, which in his
whole lifetime before he had not desired.
On the contrary, the loving heart loves the
commandments; and the harder they are, the more sweet
and agreeable it finds them, because it more
perfectly pleases the beloved, and gives him more
honour. It pours forth and sings hymns of joy when
God teaches it his commandments and justifications.
And as the pilgrim who merrily sings on his way adds
indeed the exertion of singing to that of walking,
and yet actually, by this increase of labour,
unwearies himself, and lightens the hardship of the
way; even so the sacred lover finds such sweetness in
the commandments, that nothing so much eases and
refreshes him, as the gracious load of the precepts
of his God.
Whereupon the holy Psalmist cries out; O Lord, thy
justifications, or commandments, were the subject of
my song in the place of my pilgrimage.(3) It is said
that mules and horses laden with figs presently fall
under their burden and lose all their strength: more
sweet than figs is the law of our Lord, but brutal
man who is become as the horse and the mule which
have no understanding, loses courage and finds not
strength to bear this dear burden.
But as a branch of Agnus Castus keeps the
traveller that bears it about him from being weary,
so the cross, the mortification, the yoke, the law of
our Saviour, who is the true Chaste Lamb, is a burden
which unwearies, refreshes and recreates the hearts
that love his divine Majesty. There is no labour
where love is, or if there be any, it is a beloved
labour. Labour mixed with love is a certain
bitter-sweet, more pleasant to the palate than a
thing purely sweet.
Thus then does heavenly love conform us to the will
of God, and make us carefully observe his
commandments, as being the absolute desire of his
divine Majesty whom we will to please. So that this
complacency with its sweet and amiable violence,
foreruns that necessity of obeying which the law
imposes upon us, converting this necessity into the
virtue of love, and every difficulty into delight.
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