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Aristotle was consistent in saying that good is
indeed amiable, but to each one his own good
principally, so that the love which we have for
others proceeds from the love of ourselves: - for how
could a philosopher say otherwise who not only did
not love God, but hardly ever even spoke of the love
of God? As a fact, however, this love of God precedes
all love of ourselves, even according to the natural
inclination of our will, as I have made clear in the
first book.
In truth, the will is so dedicated, and, if we may
say it, consecrated to goodness, that if an infinite
goodness be clearly proposed unto it, it must, unless
by miracle, sovereignly love this goodness: yea, the
Blessed are carried away and necessitated, though not
forced, to love God whose sovereign beauty they
clearly see; as the Scripture sufficiently shows in
comparing the contentment which fills the hearts of
the glorious inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem to
a torrent and impetuous flood, whose waters cannot be
kept from spreading over the plains it meets with.
But in this mortal life, Theotimus, we are not
necessitated to love him so sovereignly, because we
see him not so clearly. In heaven, where we shall see
him face to face, we shall love him heart to heart;
that is, as we shall all see the infinity of his
beauty, each in our measure, with a sovereignly clear
sight, so shall we be ravished, with the love of his
infinite goodness in a sovereignly strong rapture, to
which we shall neither desire, nor be able to desire,
to make any resistance.
But here below on earth, where we do not see this
sovereign goodness in its beauty, but only have a
half-sight of it amid our obscurities, we are indeed
inclined and allured to love him more than ourselves;
- yet we are not necessitated: on the contrary,
though we have this holy natural inclination to love
the divinity above all things, yet we have not the
strength to put it in execution, unless the same
divinity infuse its most holy charity supernaturally
into our hearts.
Yet true it is that as the clear view of the
divinity infallibly produces the necessity of loving
it more than ourselves, so the half-view, that is,
the natural knowledge, of the divinity, infallibly
produces the inclination and tendency to love it more
than ourselves; for, I pray you, Theotimus, since the
will is wholly ordained unto the love of good, how
can it know, ever so little, a sovereign good without
being so far inclined to love it sovereignty?
Of all goods which are not infinite, our will
always prefers in its love that which is nearest to
it, and chiefly its own; but there is so little
proportion between the infinite and the finite, that
our will having knowledge of an infinite good is
without doubt moved, inclined and excited to prefer
the friendship of this abyss of infinite goodness
before every other sort of love, yea even the love of
ourselves.
This inclination is strong principally because we
are more in God than in ourselves, we live more in
him than in ourselves, and are in such sort from him,
by him, for him and belonging to him, that we cannot
undistractedly consider what we are to him and he is
to us, without being forced to exclaim: I am thine,
Lord, and must belong to none but thee; my soul is
thine, and ought not to live but by thee, my will is
thine, and is only to tend to thee, I must love thee
as my first principle since I have my being from
thee, I must love thee as my end and centre since I
am for thee, I must love thee more than my own being,
since my being subsists by thee, I must love thee
more than myself, since I am wholly thine and in
thee.
And in case there were or could be some sovereign
good whereof we were independent, we should also,
supposing that we could unite ourselves unto it by
love, be excited to love this more than ourselves,
seeing that the infinity of its sweetness would be
still sovereignly more powerful to draw our will to
its love than all other goods, yea, even than our own
good.
But if, by imagination of a thing impossible,
there were an infinite goodness on which we had no
dependence whatever, and with which we could have no
kind of union or communication, we should indeed
esteem it more than ourselves, for we should know
that being infinite it would be more estimable and
lovable than we; and consequently we should be able
to make simple desires of being able to love it; yet,
properly speaking, we should not love it, since love
aims at union; and much less could we have charity
towards it, since charity is a friendship, and
friendship cannot be unless it be reciprocal, having
for its groundwork communication, and for its end
union: I speak thus for the benefit of certain
fantastic and empty spirits, who very often on
baseless imaginations revolve morbid thoughts to
their own great affliction.
But as for us, Theotimus, my dear friend, we see
plainly that we cannot be true men without putting
this inclination into effect. Let us love him more
than ourselves who is to us more than all and more
than ourselves. Amen, so it is.
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