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Man is the perfection of the universe; the spirit is
the perfection of an; love, that of the spirit; and
charity, that of love. Wherefore the love of God is
the end, the perfection and the excellence of the
universe.
In this, Theotimus, consists the greatness and the
primacy of the commandment of divine love, which the
Saviour calls the, first and greatest commandment.
This commandment is as a sun which gives lustre and
dignity to all the sacred laws, to all the divine
ordinances, and to all the Holy Scriptures. All is
done for this heavenly love, and all has reference to
it.
From the sacred tree of this commandment grow all
the counsels, exhortations, inspirations, and the
other commandments, as its flowers, and eternal life
as its fruit; and all that does not tend to eternal
love tends to eternal death. Grand Commandment, the
perfect fulfilment of which lasts through eternal
life, yea, is no other thing but eternal life!
But look, Theotimus, how amiable is this law of
love. Ah! Lord God, was it not enough for thee to
permit us this divine love, as Laban permitted Jacob
that of Rachel, without the necessity of inviting us
to it by exhortations, or driving us to it by
commandments? But no, divine goodness, in order that
neither thy greatness, nor our vileness, nor any
pretext whatever should keep us from loving thee,
thou dost command it to us.
The poor Apelles, not able to keep from loving the
beautiful Campaspe, yet dared not love her because
she belonged to the great Alexander; but when he had
leave to love her, how greatly obliged did he
consider himself to him who gave this leave to him!
He knew not whether he should more love that
beautiful Campaspe whom so great an emperor had given
up to him, or that great emperor who had given him so
beautiful a Campaspe.
Oh! if we were able to comprehend it, my dear
Theotimus, what obligation should we have to this
sovereign good, who not only permits but even
commands us to love him! Ah! my God, I know not
whether I ought more to love thine infinite beauty
which so great a goodness orders me to love, or thy
divine goodness which orders me to love so infinite a
beauty! O beauty, how amiable thou art, being
bestowed upon me by a goodness so immense! O
goodness, how amiable thou art, in communicating unto
me so eminent a beauty!
God at the Day of Judgment will imprint in the souls
of the damned the knowledge of their loss, in a
wondrous manner: for the divine majesty will make
them clearly see the sovereign beauty of his face,
and the treasures of his goodness; and at the sight
of this abyss of infinite delights, the will with an
extreme effort will desire to cast itself upon him,
to be united unto him and enjoy his love. But all in
vain, for it shall be as a woman, who in the pangs of
childbirth, after having endured violent pains, cruel
convulsions, and intolerable pangs, dies in the end
without being delivered.
For as soon as the clear and fair knowledge of the
divine beauty shall have penetrated the
understandings of those unhappy spirits, the divine
justice shall in such sort deprive the will of its
strength that it will be in no wise able to love this
object which the understanding purposes to it, and
represents to be so amiable; and the sight which
should beget in the will so great a love, instead
thereof shall engender an infinite sadness. This
shall be made eternal by the memory of the sovereign
beauty they saw, which shall for ever live in these
lost souls; a memory void of all good, yea full of
trouble, pains, torments and undying despair, because
at the same time there shall be found in the will an
impossibility of loving, yea a frightful and
everlasting aversion and repugnance to loving this
excellence so desirable.
Thus the miserable damned shall live for ever in
despairing rage - to know so sovereignly amiable a
perfection, without being able ever to have the
enjoyment or the love of it, because while they might
have loved it they would not: they shall burn with a
thirst so much the more violent as the remembrance of
this fountain of waters of eternal life shall more
inflame their ardour: they shall die immortally, as
dogs,(1) of a famine as much more vehement, as their
memory shall more sharpen its insatiable cruelty by
the remembrance of the banquet of which they are
deprived. The wicked shall see, and shall be angry,
he shall gnash with his teeth and pine away: the
desire of the wicked shall perish.(2)
I would not indeed affirm for certain, that the
view of God's beauty which the damned shall have,
like a flash of lightning, will be as bright as that
of the Blessed; but still it will be clear enough to
let them see the Son of man in his majesty.(3) They
shall look on him whom they pierced;(4) and by the
view of this glory shall learn the greatness of their
loss.
Ah! if God had forbidden man to love him, what a
torment would that have been to generous hearts! What
efforts would they not make to obtain permission to
love him? David braved the hazard of a most severe
combat to gain the King's daughter, - and what did
not Jacob do to espouse Rachel, and the Prince of
Sichem to have Dina in marriage? The damned would
repute themselves blessed if they could entertain a
hope of ever loving God: and the Blessed would esteem
themselves damned, if they thought they could ever be
deprived of this sacred love.
O good God! Theotimus, how delicious is the sweetness
of this commandment, seeing that if it pleased the
divine will to give it to the damned, they would in a
moment be delivered from their greatest misery, and
seeing that the Blessed are only blessed by the
practice of it!
O heavenly love, how lovely art thou to our souls!
And blessed be the goodness of God for ever, who so
earnestly commands us to love him, though this love
is so desirable and so necessary to our happiness
that without it we can but be miserable!
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