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I will not here speak, my dear Theotimus, of those
miraculous graces which have almost in an instant
transformed wolves into shepherds, rocks into waters,
persecutors into preachers. I leave on one side those
all-powerful vocations, and holily violent
attractions by which God has brought some elect souls
from the extremity of vice to the extremity of grace,
working as it were in them a certain moral and
spiritual transubstantiation: as it happened to the
great Apostle, who of Saul, vessel of persecution,
became suddenly Paul, vessel of election.(1)
We must give a particular rank to those privileged
souls in regard of whom it pleased God to make not
the mere outflowing, but the inundation - to
exercise, if one may so say, not the simple
liberality and effusion, but the prodigality and
profusion of his love. The divine justice chastises
us in this world with punishments which, as they are
ordinary, so they remain almost always unknown and
imperceptible; sometimes, however, he sends out
deluges and abysses of punishments, to make known and
dreaded the severity of his indignation.
In like manner his mercy ordinarily converts and
graces souls so sweetly, gently and delicately, that
its movement is scarcely perceived; and yet it
happens sometimes that this sovereign goodness,
overflowing its ordinary banks (as a flood swollen
and overcharged with the abundance of waters and
breaking out over the plain makes an outpouring of
his graces so impetuous, though loving, that in a
moment he steeps and covers the whole soul with
benedictions, in order that the riches of his love
may appear, and that as his justice proceeds commonly
by the ordinary way and sometimes by the
extraordinary, so his mercy may exercise liberality
upon the common sort of men in the ordinary way, and
on some also by extraordinary ways.
But what are then the ordinary cords whereby the
divine providence is accustomed to draw our hearts to
his love? Such truly as he himself marks, describing
the means which he used to draw the people of Israel
out of Egypt, and out of the desert, unto the land of
promise. I will draw them, says he by Osee, with the
cords of Adam, with the bands of love,(2) and of
friendship.
Doubtless, Theotimus, we are not drawn to God by
iron chains, as bulls and wild oxen, but by
enticements, sweet attractions, and holy
inspirations, which, in a word, are the cords of
Adam, and of humanity, that is, proportionate and
adapted to the human heart, to which liberty is
natural. The band of the human will is delight and
pleasure. We show nuts to a child, says S. Augustine,
and he is drawn by his love, he is drawn by the
cords, not of the body, but of the heart. Mark then
how the Eternal Father draws us: while teaching, he
delights us, not imposing upon us any necessity; he
casts into our hearts delectations and spiritual
pleasures as sacred baits, by which he sweetly draws
us to take and taste the sweetness of his doctrine.
In this way then, dearest Theotimus, our free-will is
in no way forced or necessitated by grace, but
notwithstanding the all-powerful force of God's
merciful hand, which touches, surrounds and ties the
soul with such a number of inspirations, invitations
and attractions, this human will remains perfectly
free, enfranchised and exempt from every sort of
constraint and necessity. Grace is so gracious, and
so graciously seizes our hearts to draw them, that
she noways offends the liberty of our will; she
touches powerfully but yet so delicately the springs
of our spirit that our free will suffers no violence
from it. Grace has power, not to force but to entice
the heart; she has a holy violence not to violate our
liberty but to make it full of love; she acts
strongly, yet so sweetly that our will is not
overwhelmed by so powerful an action; she presses us
but does not oppress our liberty; so that under the
very action of her power, we can consent to or resist
her movements as we list.
But what is as admirable as it is veritable is,
that when our will follows the attractions and
consents to the divine movement, she follows as
freely as she resists freely when she does resist,
although the consent to grace depends much more on
grace than on the will, while the resistance to grace
depends upon the will only. So sweet is God's hand in
the handling of our hearts! So dexterous is it in
communicating unto us its strength without depriving
us of liberty, and in imparting unto us the motion of
its power without hindering that of our will! He
adjusts his power to his sweetness in such sort, that
as in what regards good his might sweetly gives us
the power, so his sweetness mightily maintains the
freedom of the will.
If thou didst know the gift of God, said our
Saviour to the Samaritan woman, and who he is that
saith to thee, give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst
have asked of him, and he would have given thee
living water.(3) Note, I pray you, Theotimus, Our
Saviour's manner of speaking of his attractions. If
thou didst know, he means, the gift of God, thou
wouldst without doubt be moved and attracted to ask
the water of eternal life, and perhaps thou wouldst
ask it. As though he said: Thou wouldst have power
and wouldst be provoked to ask, yet in no wise be
forced or constrained; but only perhaps thou wouldst
have asked, for thy liberty would remain to ask it or
not to ask it. Such are our Saviour's words according
to the ordinary edition, and according to S.
Augustine upon S. John.
To conclude, if any one should say that our free-will
does not co-operate in consenting to the grace with
which God prevents it, or that it could not reject
and deny consent thereto, he would contradict the
whole Scripture, all the ancient Fathers, and
experience, and would be excommunicated by the sacred
Council of Trent. But when it is said that we have
power to reject the divine inspirations and motions,
it is of course not meant that we can hinder God from
inspiring us or touching our hearts, for as I have
already said, that is done in us and yet without us.
These are favours which God bestows upon us before
we have thought of them, he awakens us when we sleep,
and consequently we find ourselves awake before we
have thought of it; but it is in our power to rise,
or not to rise, and though he has awakened us without
us, he will not raise us without us. Now not to rise,
and to go to sleep again, is to resist the call,
seeing we are called only to the end we should rise.
We cannot hinder the inspiration from taking us, or
consequently from setting us in motion, but if as it
drives us forwards we repulse it by not yielding
ourselves to its motion, we then make resistance.
So the wind, having seized upon and raised our
apodes, will not bear them very far unless they
display their wings and co-operate, raising
themselves aloft and flying in the air, into which
they have been lifted. If, on the contrary, allured
may be by some verdure they see upon the ground, or
benumbed by their stay there, in lieu of seconding
the wind they keep their wings folded and cast
themselves again upon the earth, they have received
indeed the motion of the wind, but in vain, since
they did not help themselves thereby.
Theotimus, inspirations prevent us, and even
before they are thought of make themselves felt, but
after we have felt them it is ours either to consent
to them so as to second and follow their attractions,
or else to dissent and repulse them.
They make themselves felt by us without us, but
they do not make us consent without us.
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