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Man's understanding then, being property applied to
the consideration of that which faith represents to
it touching its sovereign good, the will instantly
conceives an extreme complacency in this divine
object, which, as yet absent, begets an ardent desire
of its presence, whence the soul holily cries out:
Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.(1) My
soul panteth after thee, O God.(2)And as the
unhooded falcon having her prey in view suddenly
launches herself upon the wing, and if held in her
leash struggles upon the hand with extreme ardour; so
faith, having drawn the veil of ignorance, and made
us see our sovereign goody whom nevertheless we
cannot yet possess, detained by the condition of this
mortal life, -- Ah! Theotimus, we then desire it in
such sort that, as the hart panteth after the
fountains of waters; so my soul panteth after thee, O
God! My soul hath thirsted after the strong living
God; when shall I come and appear before the face of
God?(3)
This desire is just, Theotimus, for who would not
desire so desirable a good? But it would be a useless
desire, and would be but a continual torment to our
heart if we had not assurance that we should at
length satiate it. He who on account of the delay of
this happiness, protests that his tears were his
ordinary bread day and night, so long as his God was
absent, and his enemies demanded: where is thy
God?(4) - Alas! what would he have done if he had not
had some hope of one day enjoying this good, after
which he sighed.
The divine spouse goes weeping and languishing
with love,(5) because she does not at once find the
well-beloved she is searching for. The love of the
well-beloved had bred in her a desire, that desire
begot an ardour to pursue it, and that ardour caused
in her a languishing which would have consumed and
annihilated her poor heart, unless she had hoped at
length to meet with what she sought after.
So then, lest the unrest and dolorous languor
which the efforts of desiring love cause in our souls
should make us fail in courage or reduce us to
despair, the same sovereign good which moves in us so
vehement a desire, also by a thousand thousand
promises made in his Word and his inspirations, gives
us assurance, that we may with ease obtain it,
provided always that we will to employ the means
which he has prepared for use and offers us to this
effect.
Now these divine promises and assurances, by a
particular marvel, increase the cause of our
disquiet, and yet, while they increase the cause,
they undo and destroy the effects. Yea, verily,
Theotimus; for the assurance which God gives us that
paradise is ours, infinitely strengthens the desire
we have to enjoy it, and yet weakens, yea altogether
destroys, the trouble and disquiet which this desire
brought unto us; so that our hearts by the promises
which the divine goodness has made us, remain quite
calmed, and this calm is the root of the most holy
virtue which we call hope. For the will, assured by
faith that she has power to enjoy the sovereign good
by using the means appointed makes two great acts of
virtue: by the one she expects from God the fruition
of his sovereign goodness, by the other she aspires
to that holy fruition.
And indeed, Theotimus, between hoping and aspiring
(esperer et aspirer) there is but this difference,
that we hope for those things which we expect to get
by another's assistance, and we aspire unto those
things which we think to reach by means that lie in
our own power. And since we attain the fruition of
our sovereign good, which is God, by his favour,
grace and mercy, and yet the same mercy will have us
co-operate with his favour, by contributing the
weakness of our consent to the strength of his grace;
our hope is thence in some sort mingled with
aspiring, so that we do not altogether hope without
aspiring, nor do we ever aspire without entirely
hoping.
Hope then keeps ever the principal place, as being
founded upon divine grace, without which, as we
cannot even so much as think of our sovereign good in
the way required to reach it, so can we never without
this grace aspire towards our sovereign God in the
way required to obtain it.
Aspiration then is a scion of hope, as our
co-operation is of grace: and as those that would
hope without aspiring, would be rejected as cowardly
and negligent; so those that should aspire without
hoping, would be rash, insolent and presumptuous. But
when hope is seconded with aspiration, when, hoping
we aspire and aspiring we hope, then dear Theotimus,
hope by aspiration becomes a courageous desire, and
aspiration is changed by hope into a humble claim,
and we hope and aspire as God inspires us.
But both are caused by that desiring love which
tends to our sovereign good, to that good which the
more surely it is hoped for, the more it is loved;
yea hope is no other thing than the loving
complacency we take in the expecting and seeking our
sovereign good. All that is there is love, Theotimus.
As soon as faith has shown me my sovereign good, I
have loved it; and because it was absent I have
desired it, and having understood that it would
bestow itself upon me, I have loved and desired it
yet more ardently; for indeed its goodness is so much
more to be beloved and desired by how much more it is
disposed to communicate itself.
Now by this progress love has turned its desire
into hope, seeking and expectation, so that hope is
an expectant and aspiring love; and because the
sovereign good which hope expects is God, and because
also she expects it from God himself, to whom and by
whom she hopes and aspires, this holy virtue of hope,
abutting everywhere on God, is by consequence a
divine or theological virtue.
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