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The musician of whom I have spoken having become
deaf, had no delight in his singing, save only that
now and then he perceived his prince attentive to it
and enjoying it.
O how happy is the heart that loves God without
pretence of any other pleasure than what it takes in
pleasing God! For what more pure and perfect pleasure
can a soul ever take than that which is taken in
pleasing the Divinity? Yet this pleasure of pleasing
God is not properly Divine love, but the fruit
thereof; which may be separated from it as the lemon
from the lemon-tree. For, as I have said, our
musician always sang without reaping any contentment
from his song, because his deafness made him
incapable of it: and often also did he sing without
having the pleasure of pleasing his prince, who,
after he had given him order to begin, would
withdraw, or go hunting, neither taking leisure nor
pleasure to hear him.
While, O God, I see thy sweet face, which testifies
unto me that thou art pleased in the song of my love,
ah! how am I comforted. For is there any pleasure
comparable to the pleasure of truly pleasing our God?
But when thou turnest thine eyes from me, and I no
longer perceive the sweet savour of the complacency
which thou takest in my song - good God! what pangs
my soul endures! But it ceases not, for all that, to
love thee faithfully, or continually to sing the hymn
of its dilection, not for any delight it finds
therein, for it finds none at all, but for the pure
love of thy will.
One may have seen a sick child bravely eat what
his mother presents him (though with an incredible
loathing from the pure desire of giving her content.
In this case he eats without taking any pleasure in
his food, yet not without a pleasure of a higher
order and value, which is the pleasure of pleasing
his mother and of perceiving her content. But another
who, without seeing his mother, from the mere
knowledge he has of her desire, takes all that is,
sent him by her, eats without any pleasure at all.
For he has neither the pleasure of eating, nor yet
the contentment of seeing his mother pleased, but he
eats purely and simply to do her will.
The contentment of our prince present with us, or
of any one whom we love tenderly, makes watchings,
pains and labours delicious, and begets in us a love
of peril: but nothing is so grievous as to serve a
master who knows it not, or, if he know it, yet gives
no sign that he is satisfied: love must be strong in
such case, because it stands of itself, unsupported
by any pleasure or any expectation.
So it comes to pass sometimes that we have no
consolation in the exercises of holy love, because,
like deaf singers, we hear not our own voices, nor
enjoy the sweetness of our song; but on the contrary,
besides this privation, are oppressed with a thousand
fears, and frightened with a thousand false alarms
which the enemy raises round about our heart;
suggesting that perhaps we are not in grace with our
master, and that our love is fruitless, yea, that it
is false and vain, since it brings forth no comfort.
And then, Theotimus, we labour not only without
pleasure but with an exceeding distress, being
neither able to discover the profit of our labours,
nor the contentment of him for whom we labour.
But what in this case augments our trouble is that
even the spirit and highest point of the reason
cannot give any assuagement at all; for this poor
superior portion of reason being beset round about
with the suggestions of the enemy, is herself all
troubled, and is fully engaged in keeping the guard,
lest sin by surprise might get consent, so that she
can make no sally to disengage the inferior part of
her spirit, and although she has not lost heart, yet
is she so desperately set at, that though she be free
from fault yet is she not free from pain.
Because, that her distress may be complete, she is
deprived of the general consolation which ordinarily
accompanies us through all the other calamities of
this life, namely, the hope that they will not be of
long continuance, but will have an end: - so that the
heart in these spiritual distresses falls into a
certain inability of thinking of their end, and
consequently of being eased by hope. Faith indeed
which resides in the supreme point of the spirit
assures us that this trouble will have an end, and
that one day we shall enjoy a true repose: but the
loudness of the shouts and outcries which the enemy
makes in the rest of the soul in the inferior reason,
will scarcely permit the advice and remonstrances of
faith to be heaid; and there remains in the
imagination only this sorrowful presage: Alas! joy I
shall never have.
O God! my dear Theotimus, now it is that we are to
show an invincible courage towards our Saviour,
serving him purely for the love of his will, not only
without pleasure, but amid this deluge of sorrows,
horrors, distresses and assaults, as did his glorious
Mother and St. John upon the day of his Passion.
Amongst so many blasphemies, sorrows and deadly
distresses, they remained constant in love, yea, even
in that instant in which our Saviour, having
withdrawn all his holy joy into the very summit of
his spirit, left no joy or consolation at all in his
Divine countenance, and when his eyes, languishing
and covered with the dark veil of death, did only
cast looks of sorrow, as the sun also shot forth rays
of horror and frightful darkness.
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