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This misery of quitting God for the creature happens
thus.
We do not love God without intermission, because
in this mortal life charity is in us as a simple
habit, which, as philosophers have remarked, we use
when we like and never against our liking. When then
we do not make use of the charity which is in us,
that is, when we are not applying our spirit to the
exercises of holy love, but, when (keeping it busied
in some other affair, or it being idle in itself) it
remains useless and negligent, then, Theotimus, it
may be assaulted by some bad object and surprised by
temptation.
And though the habit of charity be at that instant
in the bottom of our hearts and perform its office,
inclining us to reject the bad suggestion, yet it
only urges us or leads us to the action of resistance
according as we second it, as is the manner of
habits; and therefore charity leaving us in our
freedom, it happens often that the bad object having
cast its allurements deeply into our hearts, we
attach ourselves unto it by an excessive complacency,
which when it comes to grow, we can hardly get rid
of, and like thorns, according to the saying of Our
Saviour, it in the end stifles the seed of grace and
heavenly love.
So it fell out with our first mother Eve, whose
overthrow began by a certain amusement which she took
in discoursing with the serpent, receiving
complacency in hearing it talk of her advancement in
knowledge, and in seeing the beauty of the forbidden
fruit, so that the complacency growing with the
amusement and the amusement feeding itself in the
complacency, she found herself at length so
entangled, that giving away to consent, she committed
the accursed sin into which afterwards she drew her
husband.
We see that pigeons, touched with vanity, display
themselves (se pavonnent) sometimes in the air, and
sail about hither and thither, admiring the variety
of their plumage, and then the tercelets and falcons
that espy them fall upon them and seize them, which
they could never do if the pigeons had been flying
their proper flight, as they have a stronger wing
than have birds of prey.
Ah! Theotimus, if we did not amuse ourselves with
the vanity of fleeting pleasures, especially in the
complacency of self-love, but if having once got
charity we were careful to fly straight thither
whither it would carry us, suggestion and temptation
should never catch us, but because as doves seduced
and beguiled by self-esteem we look back upon
ourselves, and engage our spirits too much with
creatures, we often find ourselves seized by the
talons of our enemies, who bear away and devour us.
God does not will to hinder temptations from
attacking us, to the end that by resistance our
charity may be more exercised, that by fighting we
may gain the victory, and by victory obtain the
triumph. But for us to have any kind of inclination
to delight ourselves in the temptation - this rises
from the condition of our nature, which so earnestly
loves good that it is subject to be enticed by
anything that has a show of good, and temptation's
hook is ever baited with this kind of bait: for, as
holy Writ teaches, there is either some good
honourable in the world's sight to move us to the
pride of a worldly life, or a good delightful to
sense to carry us to concupiscence of the flesh, or a
good tending towards wealth, to incite us to the
concupiscence and avarice of the eyes.(1)
But if we kept our faith, which can discern
between the true good we are to pursue and the false
which we are to reject, sharply attentive to its
office, without doubt it would be a trusty sentinel
to charity, and would give intelligence of that evil
which approaches the heart vender pretext of good,
and charity would immediately repulse it.. But
because ordinarily we keep our faith either asleep or
less attentive than is requisite for the preservation
of our charity, we are often surprised by temptation,
which, seducing our senses, while our senses incite
the inferior part of our soul to rebellion often
brings to pass that the superior part of reason
yields to the violence of this revolt, and by
committing sin loses charity.
Such was the progress of the sedition which the
disloyal Absalom stirred up against his good father
David for he put forward propositions which were good
in appearance, which being once received by the poor
Israelites whose prudence was put to sleep and
smothered, he solicited them in such sort that he
wrought them to a complete rebellion; so that David
was constrained to depart from Jerusalem with all his
most faithful friends leaving there no men of
distinction save Sadoc and Abiathar, priests of the
Eternal, with their children: now Sadoc was a seer,
that is to say a prophet.(2)
For so, most dear Theotimus, self-love, finding our
faith without attention and drowsy, presents unto us
vain yet apparent goods, seduces our senses, our
imagination and the faculties of our souls, and lays
so hard at our free-wills that it brings them to an
entire revolt against the holy love of God, which
then, as another David, departs from our heart with
all its train, that is with the gifts of the Holy
Ghost and the other heavenly virtues, which are the
inseparable companions of charity, if not her
properties and faculties. Nor does there remain in
the Jerusalem of our soul any virtue of importance
saving Sadoc the seer, that is the gift of faith
which can make us see eternal truths, with the
exercise of it, and with him Abiathar, that is the
gift of hope with its action; both these remain much
afflicted and sorrowful, yet maintain in us the ark
of alliance, that is the quality and title of
Christian purchased by baptism.
Alas! Theotimus, what a pitiful spectacle it is to
the angels of peace to see the Holy Ghost and his
love depart in this manner out of our sinful souls!
Verily I think if they could weep they would pour out
infinite tears, and, with a mournful voice lamenting
our misery, would sing the sad canticle which
Jeremias took up, when sitting upon the threshold of
the desolate temple he contemplated the ruin of
Jerusalem in the time of Sedecias : How doth the city
sit solitary that was full of people! How is the
mistress of the Gentiles become as a widow: the
princess of provinces made tributary!(3)
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