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Although our Saviour's redemption is applied to us in
as many different manners as there are souls, yet
still, love is the universal means of salvation which
mingles with everything, and without which nothing is
profitable, as we shall show elsewhere.
The Cherubim were placed at the gate of the
earthly paradise with their flaming sword, to teach
us that no one shall enter into the heavenly paradise
who is not pierced through with the sword of love.
For this cause, Theotimus, the sweet Jesus who bought
us with his blood, is infinitely desirous that we
should love him that we may eternally be saved, and
desires we may be saved that we may love him
eternally, his love tending to our salvation and our
salvation to his love. Ah! said he: I am come to cast
fire on the earth; and what will I but that it be
kindled?(1)
But to set out more to the life the ardour of this
desire, he in admirable terms requires this love from
us. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole
heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole
mind. This is the greatest and the first
commandment.(2) Good God! Theotimus, how amorous the
divine heart is of our love. Would it not have
sufficed to publish a permission giving us leave to
love him, as Laban permitted Jacob to love his fair
Rachel, and to gain her by services? Ah no! he makes
a stronger declaration of his passionate love of us,
and commands us to love him with all our power, lest
the consideration of his majesty and our misery,
which make so great a distance and inequality between
us, or some other pretext, might divert us from his
love.
In this, Theotimus, he well shows that he did not
leave in us for nothing the natural inclination to
love him, for to the end it may not be idle, he urges
us by this general commandment to employ it, and that
this commandment may be effected, he leaves no living
man without furnishing him abundantly with all means
requisite thereto. The visible sun touches everything
with its vivifying heat, and as the universal lover
of inferior things, imparts to them the vigour
requisite to produce, and even so the divine goodness
animates all souls and encourages all hearts to its
love, none being excluded from its heat.
Eternal wisdom, says Solomon, preacheth abroad,
she uttereth her voice in the streets: At the head of
multitudes she crieth out, in the entrance of the
gates of the city she uttereth her words, saying: O
children, how long will you love childishness, and
fools covet those things which are hurtful to
themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge? Turn ye at
my reproof behold I will utter my spirit to you, and
will show you my words.(3) And the same wisdom
continues in Ezechiel saying: Our iniquities and our
sins are upon us, and we pine away in them: how then
can we live? Say to them: As I live, saith the Lord
God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that
the wicked turn from his way, and live.(4) Now to
live according to God is to love, and he that loveth
not abideth in death.(5) See now, Theotimus, whether
God does not desire we should love him!
But he is not content with announcing thus publicly
his extreme desire to be loved, so that every one may
have a share in his sweet invitation, but he goes
even from door to door, knocking and protesting that,
if any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him,
and he with me:(6) that is, he will testify all sorts
of good will towards him.
Now what does all this mean, Theotimus, except
that God does not only give us a simple sufficiency
of means to love him, and in loving him to save
ourselves, but also a rich, ample and magnificent
sufficiency, and such as ought to be expected from so
great a bounty as his. The great Apostle speaking to
obstinate sinners: Despisest thou, says he, the
riches of his goodness, and patience, and
long-suffering? Knowest thou not that the benignity
of God leadeth thee to penance? But according to thy
hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up to
thyself wrath, against the day of wrath and
revelation of the just judgment of God.(7)
My dear Theotimus, God does not therefore employ a
simple sufficiency of remedies to convert the
obstinate, but uses to this end the riches of his
goodness. The Apostle, as you see, opposes the riches
of God's goodness against the treasures of the
impenitent heart's malice, and says that the
malicious heart is so rich in iniquity that he
despises even the riches of the mildness by which God
leads him to repentance; and mark that the obstinate
man not only contemns the riches of God's goodness,
but also the riches which lead to penance, riches
whereof one can scarcely be ignorant.
Verily this rich, full and plenteous sufficiency
of means which God freely bestows upon sinners to
love him appears almost everywhere in the Scriptures.
Behold this divine lover at the gate, he does not
simply knock, but stands knocking; he calls the soul,
come, arise, make haste, my love,(8) and puts his
hand into the lock to try whether he cannot open it.
If he uttereth his voice in the streets he does not
simply utter it, but he goes crying out, that is, he
continues to cry out. When he proclaims that every
one must be converted, he thinks he has never
repeated it sufficiently. Be converted, do penance,
return to me, live, why dost thou die, 0 house of
Israel?(9)
In a word this heavenly Saviour forgets nothing to
show that his mercies are above all his works, that
his mercy surpasses his judgment, that his redemption
is copious, that his love is infinite, and, as the
Apostle says, that he is rich in mercy, and
consequently he will have all men to be saved; not
willing that any should perish.(10)
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