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If the law is not made for the just man,(1) because,
preventing the law and without the pressure of the
law, he performs God's will by the instinct of
charity which reigns in his soul; how free and exempt
from all commandments must we consider the Blessed in
Paradise to be, since from their enjoyment of the
sovereign beauty and goodness of the well-beloved, a
most sweet yet inevitable necessity in their spirits
of loving eternally the most holy divinity, flows and
proceeds.
We shall love God in heaven, Theotimus, not as
being tied and obliged by the law, but as being
allured and ravished by the joy which this object, so
perfectly worthy of love, shall yield to our hearts.
Then the force of the commandment will cease, in
order to give place to the force of contentment,
which shall be the fruit and crown of the observance
of the commandment.
We are therefore destined to the contentment which
is promised us in the immortal life, by this
commandment which is given unto us in this mortal
life, in which truly we are strictly bound to observe
it, because it is the fundamental law which the King
Jesus has given to the citizens of the militant
Jerusalem, to make them merit the citizenship and joy
of the triumphant Jerusalem.
There above in heaven we shall indeed have a heart
quite free from passions, a soul purified from all
distractions, a spirit liberated from contradictions,
and powers exempt from opposition, and therefore we
shall love God with a perpetual and never interrupted
affection, as it is said of those four living
creatures, which, representing the Evangelists,
continually praised the divinity, not resting day or
night.(2)
O God! what joy, when, established in those
eternal tabernacles, our spirits shall be in this
perpetual movement, in which they shall enjoy the so
much desired repose of their eternal loving. Blessed
are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord: they shall
praise thee for ever and ever.(3)
But we are not to expect this love so exceedingly
perfect in this mortal life: for as yet we have
neither the heart, nor the soul, nor the spirit, nor
the forces of the Blessed. It is sufficient for us to
love with all the heart and all the powers we have.
While we are little children, we are wise like little
children, we speak like little children, we love like
little children, but when we shall come to our
perfect growth, there above in heaven, we shall be
freed from our state of infancy, and love God
perfectly.
Yet are we not for all this, Theotimus, during
this infancy of our mortal life, to omit to do what
in us lies according as we are commanded, since this
is not only in our power, but is also very easy; the
whole commandment being of love, and of the love of
God, who as he is sovereignly good, so is he
sovereignly amiable.
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