The Love of God Demands and Merits That We Practise Solid Virtue

2. The characteristics of self-love

In vain should we endeavour to discover and even acquire the marks of divine love, unless we generously and perseveringly combat our self-love. This unhappy vice is the rival, adversary, and sworn foe of the love of God. The one cannot triumph without causing the downfall of the other, neither can it be victorious without the other being vanquished: it reduces it to servitude in order to gain the ascendancy. ‘For,’ says St. Augustine, ‘it is only by self-hatred that the soul advances in the love of God. We love God, therefore, in proportion as we hate ourselves, and divine love cannot enter our heart unless self-love be banished thence.’

The reason is evident: for it is abuse of grace, tepidity and above all mortal sin, that oppose, weaken, and p. 376completely extinguish divine charity. Now self-love is the great obstacle to grace, the ruin of fervour, the origin of our sins, the source of all the evils of our soul, the nutriment of all the vices which pervade the universe; it is the chief of our bad passions, the principal foundation and stay of all our crimes. It is the most bitter opponent of God, whom it robs of the affections which are His due, and the most dangerous and formidable enemy of man, whose ruin it causes; a crafty, skilful, obstinate, and indomitable enemy which may be weakened but never entirely destroyed; a domestic enemy which enthrones itself in our heart, which identifies itself in some sort with our nature, which we carry about us without our being able to divest ourselves of it; which knows how to dazzle our mind by its illusions, and to deceive our will by its flatteries; which, uniting its efforts with those of Satan, contrives to keep up a secret understanding with our senses and our flesh in order to subject our soul. What a misfortune, therefore, have we not to apprehend should it succeed in enslaving us! Consequently, how true is this beautiful saying of St. Augustine: ‘As all the welfare of man consists in loving God, so all the evil of man consists in loving himself!’ ‘And,’ adds this saint, ‘we should dread above all things this pernicious vice whence such great evils flow.’

It is, then, most important to indicate its distinctive characteristics, and the more so that it frequently assumes the mask of virtue to conceal its deformity. Now, as the avoidance of sin, purity of intention, conformity of our will with that of God, and the accomplishment of great things for Him, are the four chief characteristics and the natural consequences of divine p. 377love, so in like manner relapses into sin, caused by blindness of mind; a vitiated intention produced by an inordinate desire of the honours and pleasures of life, the revolt of our free will against the Will of God, and in fine, the apathy and cowardice in doing good which arise from the fear of the difficulties we should have to overcome in the road to virtue, are at once the certain indications and sad results of self-love.

The first characteristic of self-love consists in blindness of mind, which is the source of an infinite number of faults. This the great apostle St. Paul teaches us. Writing to his disciple, Timothy, he predicts to him that ‘men shall come, lovers of themselves,’ then he enumerates the multitude of iniquities which shall be the fruit of this self-love: ‘these men,’ says he, ‘shall be covetous, haughty, slanderers, ungrateful, blasphemers, without peace, incontinent, unmerciful.’¹⁶⁶1662 Tim. iii. 2. Now, as the apostle, by these introductory words ‘men shall come, lovers of themselves,’ shows us that self-love is the only source of all these sins, it follows that a soul by the mere fact of its being tainted by this spiritual disease is at the same time the victim and slave of numberless other vices.

St. Thomas positively certifies to this doctrine when he says: ‘it cannot be doubted that inordinate self-love is the cause of all other sins.’¹⁶⁷1671. 2, q. 77, a. 4. What do I say? This unhappy vice is itself the universal iniquity, because all other sins proceed from it, as streams flow from their source, and there is no prevarication of which it is not the principle. Therefore, whoever fosters this infernal monster in his bosom, is the receptacle of all sins; not always, it is true, realised by acts, but at least contained in this as in their germ, and susceptible of developing themselves. We do not commit them all, but they all menace us incessantly as a tempest ready to burst upon our soul.

Self-love, this evil which resides in the innermost depths of our being, multiplies the strength of our evil inclinations; it is, as it were, the partisan of the devil, it permits everything to the senses, it acts in connivance with the flesh. No; it cannot be denied that it is the mainspring of all our vices.

The learned Pontiff, St. Gregory the Great, explains this by saying that ‘self-love casts a thick veil over the eye of our heart, which it obscures. Thus deprived of the true light, we precipitate ourselves into all kinds of evils without perceiving the abyss into which we fall.’ We follow blindly the perilous path on which we have entered; in our imprudent course, we incessantly strike our foot against some rock of scandal and are guilty of innumerable faults.

This blindness of mind, which is the fruit of self-love, produces, according to Tertullian, two deplorable effects, 1, we do not see what we are; 2, we believe ourselves to be what we are not.

In the first place worshippers of self, we do not see ourselves as we are; we do not see the errors which mislead us, the passions which inflame us, the number and enormity of the faults with which our soul is stained: our vices themselves we name virtues. In the second place we believe ourselves to be what we are not: we complacently esteem ourselves as altogether different from what we are; we flatter ourselves that we are conspicuous for qualities of which we are absolutely destitute; that we are rich in merits which we have not p. 378really acquired, that we possess an ability and tact of which we are utterly devoid. In a word, we do not perceive in ourselves the stains which dishonour us, while, on the contrary, we observe gifts and advantages of which we do not even possess the shadow, and which, nevertheless, we imagine entitle us to the highest esteem and respect.

If by a similar illusion of mind, we are of the number of those men so well characterised by St. Paul, who are enemies of ‘peace, without kindness, unmerciful, stubborn, puffed-up lovers of pleasure,’¹⁶⁸1682 Tim. iii. 3. addicted to different other vices, let us acknowledge that we love ourselves inordinately, that the blindness to which we are subjected, and which is the cause of so many evil inclinations, is also the fruit and indicator of self-love in our soul: let us seek a remedy for this evil by applying to ourselves these memorable words of the Gospel: ‘He who loves his soul shall lose it, and he who hates his life in this world shall find life everlasting;’¹⁶⁹169John xii. 25. ‘he who hates not his own life cannot be my disciple.’¹⁷⁰170Luke xiv. 26. A second characteristic of self-love is that it vitiates our intention. This disorder which turns us away from our last end arises from an innate desire of honour and of sensual gratification. As self-love seeks the pomp of renown and the gratification of the flesh in all things, it necessarily injures the purity of our intention, impedes our spiritual progress, and sears and blights the beautiful flower of charity. This baneful vice, like the ‘great dragon’ of the Apocalypse, whose ‘tail’ dragged ‘the third part of the stars of heaven into the abyss,’¹⁷¹171Apoc. xiv. 4. infects the greater part of our actions with the corruption of its venom and empoisons the principle of their merit. Like Lucifer, this p. 379haughty passion ambitions the ‘equalling itself to the Most High.’¹⁷²172Isaias xiv. 14. It possesses an inconceivable dexterity in seeking itself in all things and in constituting itself the last end of all its actions. No less than God ‘who has made all things for Himself,’¹⁷³173Prov. xvi. 4. who proposes to Himself His own pleasure and glory in all His works, it also has but self in view, it seeks only its own glory and advantage everywhere. Imitating the impiety of Nabuchodonosor, who caused a statue to be erected in order to be adored by the Babylonians, self-love elevates itself as an odious idol; it exacts that all men bend the knee before it, that they erect an altar to it in the midst of their heart, bearing this infamous inscription: ‘All for me.’ The desire of honour and that of sensual enjoyments are the two poles on which this perfidious domestic enemy would have all our actions revolve, and towards which it directs our intention. Thus these two kinds of concupiscence reveal the presence of self-love within us, just as smoke is the indication of fire. But as this dangerous adversary always acts with infinite craft and dissimulation, we need a very clear-sighted and experienced eye to discern all the subtlety of its wiles.

Behold some of the distinctive features by which we may recognise it. When we perform either in public or only in presence of a few, some good which we would have omitted had we been alone or unseen by men; when we apply ourselves more willingly to acts of our own choice than to those prescribed by our rule, or commanded by our superiors, and when we accomplish these last with indifference, reluctance, or sloth, or else apply ourselves to them only in proportion as we have something to hope or fear; the acting, on the contrary, with negligence, if not stimulated by either of these two motives; when we yield to an anxious solicitude in our enterprises; when in fine, we exult too much in our success and are too much dejected by our mistakes and failures, in this case we may be convinced that self-love is the actuating principle of our life: such dispositions are the certain marks of its presence, and so many effects of its malice. Do we desire that our intention may never be vitiated and spoiled, but that, always pure and upright, it may ascend from the ‘desert’ of this life to the throne of God, ‘as a pillar of smoke, exhaling myrrh and incense,’¹⁷⁴174Cant. iii. 6. let us frequently examine the principle and end of our actions, let us weigh them in the scales of the sanctuary: let us not allow ourselves to be deceived by their mere appearance, let us entertain a prudent distrust of them all, let us strictly investigate even the most secret emotions of our soul. Let us know how to profit by this admonition of St. Magdalen de Pazzi, that ‘self-love has two eyes, the one to covet honours and the esteem of men, and the other the satisfaction of the senses. If we succeed in plucking them both out, we shall have little to fear from this odious vice and the vitiated intention which is the effect and sign of it.’ ‘We shall even win a complete victory,’ says a pious author, ‘and we shall be actuated by a pure intention in all our works, if we are humble and mortified.’

The third characteristic of self-love is the opposition of our will to that of God. Too often our criminal will, yielding to the solicitations of its depraved appetites, wishes only for what can flatter its sensual affections and rejects what can mortify them; it delivers itself up p. 380without restraint to all the disorder of its desires. Become the wretched tool of self-love, it accepts with ardour all that it presents to it, it is tyrannized over by it, it does what it wishes, it omits all that displeases it, and as it is the counsellor and author of all the evils that happen it, becomes itself its accomplice in operating them. Let us prove it by some examples: The self-love which predominates over Lucifer inspires him with the criminal desire of equalling himself to the Most High, and immediately the will of this faithless archangel begins the revolt. Self-love flatters our first parents with the proud thought that they shall become as gods, and their vanquished will plucks the forbidden fruit. Delivered up to this same passion, Nabuchodonosor persuades himself that he is God, and on the instant his will urges him to cause himself to be adored. Let God intimate this command to our soul: ‘Lust shall be under thee, and thou shalt have dominion over it;’¹⁷⁵175Gen. iv. 7. let Jesus Christ propose His example: ‘Learn of me that I am meek and humble of heart;’¹⁷⁶176Matt. xi. 29. so perfect a doctrine displeases our domestic enemy, which the will, impatient of bearing the yoke of God, and burning with a desire of resisting His orders, applauds. Thus it is that our will is the auxiliary and faithful minister of self-love: it is the bad fruit of a bad tree, and the mark by which we may recognise its accursed nature.

Let us bemoan the opposition and rebellion which we see between the human will and that of God; ‘thinking itself free like the wild ass’s colt,’¹⁷⁷177Job xi. 12. it dares in its pride to ask with Pharao: ‘who is the Lord that I should hearken to His voice? I know not the Lord:’¹⁷⁸178Exod. v. 2. ‘I will p. 381not become the slave of any one;’¹⁷⁹1791 Cor. vi. 12. ‘I will not serve.’¹⁸⁰180Jerem. ii. 20. Is it astonishing, then, that the exasperated justice of God should clothe itself in the armour of the strong, ‘sharpen its terrible wrath as a lance,’¹⁸¹181Wisd. v. 21. and let loose the tempest of its rage against this single foe, and that it should condemn and punish but this vice alone; I say this vice alone, because when the sovereign avenger of crime ‘chained the rebel angels and precipitated them from heaven into the abyss to be tormented;’¹⁸²1822 Pet. ii. 4. when, in the time of Noe, ‘He caused it to rain upon the earth for forty days and forty nights, and destroyed all that was on the earth, from man even to the beast,’¹⁸³183Gen. vii. 4, 23. when, in fine, He ‘cast Pharao’s chariots and army into the sea,’¹⁸⁴184Exod. xv. 4. and at His command, ‘the earth opened to swallow up Dathan and Abiron;’¹⁸⁵185Numb. xvi. 32. when, I repeat, the inexorable justice of God electrified the world by these tremendous chastisements, what else did it wish to punish, asks St. Bernard, if not self-will? ‘Let’ man’s ‘will cease to sin, and God will no longer manifest His vengeance; let it expire, and there shall be no longer hell. For against what shall the everlasting fire exercise its fury, if not against self-will? And even here below, when we endure cold, hunger, or any other suffering, what is affected except our self-will?’¹⁸⁶186Serm. on Ascen.

Since it is the chief or rather the only end of the avenging arrows of Divine Justice, we cannot but believe that God sovereignly abhors it. Another great evil of self-love, and one well calculated to make us understand its perniciousness, is that it despoils us of all our merits, and, by a deplorable metamorphosis, changes good into evil, pure gold into vile dross. Let us then conceive a deep horror of this dangerous vice, and studiously examine whether it has not taken up its abode in our soul. For it is a monster cunning as it is cruel, which, by artifice and disguise, contrives to penetrate even into the sanctuary. ‘Do we not follow our own will even in our fasts?’¹⁸⁷187Isaias lviii. 3. Do we not confide overmuch in our own judgment, and are we not too tenacious of our own opinion? Do we faithfully follow the wise advice of a pious author, to prefer the opinion of others to our own? Do we yield a blind and prompt obedience to our superiors in all things? or, on the contrary, do we not listen too readily to the murmurs of our self-will? Did we thoroughly understand its nature, we would not entertain so absorbing an affection for it. ‘Our will,’ says St. Prosper, ‘vitiated by the prevarication of the first man, is volatile, uncertain, inexperienced, weak in action, blind in its passions, arrogant in honour, wholly preoccupied with the business of which it treats; it is restless and suspicious, esteems glory more than virtue, is more solicitous for its reputation than for its instruction.’¹⁸⁸188Book I. of Vocat. of Gentiles. And we would refuse to make the sacrifice of this rebellious, disorderly, criminal will to the love of God! it would appear to us too painful to attach it as a trophy to the foot of that Cross on which the Man-God, renouncing His own will for love of us, ‘became obedient even unto death.’¹⁸⁹189Philip. ii. 8.

Ah, let us beware of so shameful a weakness! but let these words of Jesus Christ: ‘Father, let Thy will, not mine, be done;’¹⁹⁰190Luke xxii. 42. ‘he who does the will of my Father, he is my brother, and my sister, and my p. 382mother;’¹⁹¹191Matt. xii. 50. excite and stimulate us to associate ourselves to those true faithful of whom St. Augustine says, that ‘they conform their will to the will of God, and endeavour to follow the Divine Will and not their own.’¹⁹²192Manual. Let us hearken to the advice of St. Bernard: ‘Let us fly self-will and we shall be detached from all things, for it is a vampire which attracts everything to itself: let us cast it from us and we shall have rid ourselves of a yoke which presses upon us incessantly.’¹⁹³193Serm. on Cant. Thus it is that we shall destroy the third characteristic of self-love, which consists in the opposition of our will to the will of God.

The fourth feature of self-love is a cowardice and an indifference for good which arise from the apprehension of the difficulties we should have to surmount in the way of virtue. These two words: forbear, bear—forbear from all that flatters the senses, bear all that mortifies them—are the device, the war-cry which sustains us in the spiritual combat. To do and to suffer; to do good, to suffer evil, behold the buckler of a soldier of Jesus Christ. To conquer self, to renounce all things, to carry one’s cross, such are the language and practice of the disciples of Eternal Truth.

But to self-love such maxims appear harsh, arbitrary, impracticable, impossible. It knows, it feels that they apply the axe to the root of the tree, that they plunge the sword into the innermost depths of its being, that they threaten it with utter annihilation. It is terrified, it trembles, it is seized with horror, and dreading the violence it should have to undergo, it insinuates a spirit of languor and diffidence as deep as possible into the heart. If the will, incited by the urgent solicitations of p. 383grace, sometimes essays to enter the path of virtue, self-love shudderingly cries out to it: ‘The lion is in the way, the lioness occupies the avenues.’¹⁹⁴194Prov. xxvi. 13. At this cry all the senses are thrown into a panic, all the movements of the soul tend to resist the heavenly inspiration. The explanation of these disastrous results is as follows: that horror of humiliation and mortification which then makes itself felt, that antipathy for spiritual exercises and that discouragement under difficulties, are the pernicious fruits of self-love; by them we may recognise the presence of this insidious serpent, though it seeks to glide furtively into the most secret windings of our heart. The most effectual remedy against so great an evil is, the moment we perceive ourselves attacked by it, to take a firm resolution to wage an undying war against it, to aspire to the pinnacle of perfection despite the efforts of its fury. For, whatever self-love may assert to the contrary, solid virtue ‘is neither above us nor far off from us’ that we may excuse ourselves, saying: ‘which of us can cross the sea?’ but, on the contrary, ‘this commandment is very nigh to us;’¹⁹⁵195Deut. xxx. 11–14. all the means of practising it are at our disposal; we have the time for it, the opportunity is favourable, and grace urges us. It only remains for us to ‘put our hand’ courageously ‘to the plough’ and not ‘to look back;’¹⁹⁶196Luke ix. 62. in other words, not to allow ourselves to be deceived by self-love, of which this indifference and this sloth in well-doing are but too evident marks.

When these four characteristics, which we have just described, unite in a soul, it is easy to perceive the presence of self-love there; but this pernicious disease is also productive of many other baneful effects which serve to reveal its intrinsic nature and malice, I will even say its passion to injure us.

A distinctive mark of self-love is not only to love self, but to love self alone; to love self without end or measure, to desire that honours, riches, and pleasures concentrate on self, to regret when others obtain them, to regard self as the centre of everything, to refer all to self as to another divinity, to wish, like fire, to transmute all into itself, and, like air, to penetrate everywhere, to aspire to rule over all and in all things. But since self-love, the moment it manifests itself in us, can but excite the hatred, or at least the contempt, of our fellow-creatures (for in proportion as we foster it in our hearts, in so much do others detest and abhor it there); since, I say, this artful Proteus knows that it can never obtain what it desires if it allows itself to be detected, it assumes the mask of abnegation, it ceases to be itself, and always presents itself under a different aspect. Were we to credit it, it is anything but self-love. To conceal itself the more effectually, it disguises itself under the mask of virtue, assumes the mantle of probity, adorns itself with the appearance of affability. Its levity is politeness, its anger a just reprimand, its craving for fame zeal for the glory of God; its ambition to command is love for the public welfare; its unsocial disposition an attraction for solitude, its adulations and servile officiousness are a prudent precaution for the future, and the legitimate testimony of the respect due to others.

It is almost inconceivable how far the artifices of this crafty serpent extend. Though it is the author of all misfortunes, its guilt is always indiscernible; it has a thousand ways of justifying itself, a thousand interstices through which to insinuate itself. Its deceits are as p. 384dexterously concealed as they are continual; we can neither imagine nor express all its activity and subtlety; it is an abyss of darkness which we cannot fathom; it is a perfect labyrinth; if you discover an opening into it a thousand paths present themselves and, at the first step, cast you back into uncertainty. The preservation of our health, the glory of God, the care of our reputation, are so many defensive weapons of self-love to repulse the efforts of grace.

It even simulates holy operations with so much skill, that it persuades us we are only obeying the divine inspirations, when we are but the dupes of its treachery. Not content with such perfidious cruelty, it renders all our virtues null and void by proposing to us either human glory or the gratification of the senses as their recompense, or else by attributing to piety what is but the effect of our temperament and natural disposition. Very often it even causes us to avoid one passion only in order to gratify another. Thus, if it inspires us to combat gluttony, licentiousness, avarice, it is with the arms of pride with which it takes care to invest us; so that we practise virtue only with a view to our reputation, which would be compromised by the opposite vices.

Self-love, above all, wages an implacable war on divine love, endeavouring incessantly to annihilate its heroic efforts. This beautiful virtue neglects nothing to detach man from self, that it may unite him to God: ‘I am come,’ it says, ‘not to bring peace on earth, but division,’¹⁹⁷197Luke xii. 51. the separation of man from itself. Self-love, on the contrary, through very different motives, strives incessantly to separate man from God, and to attach him to himself and creatures. Alas! it is the ferocious p. 385enemy which attacks Christianity with the most success, which overthrows its foundations, the principal basis of which is a holy hatred of self; for Jesus Christ has declared that no one shall ever be reckoned amongst His disciples, save on the condition of changing self-love into self-hatred.

Not only the inordinate lover of self cannot be a disciple of Jesus Christ, but he cannot even be a virtuous man or a good citizen: for to possess these two qualities it is necessary to live according to justice. Now justice, whose attribute is to render to each one what is his due, cannot subsist with this propensity to refer all to one’s self; reason and equity demand that the virtuous and upright man shall never do anything capable of offending his fellow creature, or seek his own interest to the detriment of others: it also exacts of a good citizen that he prefer the public good to his own advantage. Self-love subverts all these laws; whether its conduct give pain to others, injure its neighbour, be useful or prejudicial, pleasing or displeasing to others, never costs it a thought. It makes no account of the interests of the state, or of the advantage of individuals, it is solely occupied about self; its own glory and pleasure engross all its thoughts. Let others suffer provided I be well, that is their affair; I only concern myself about myself and my own interests. It is certain, therefore, that the slave of self-love can neither be a true servant of God nor a disciple of Jesus Christ, nor a virtuous man, nor even a good citizen, and that this vice is the most dangerous enemy of our salvation. It is also the most universal: it attacks us in all states, in all circumstances, and in all the stages of our existence; it is ubiquitous—everything, even nothingness itself, serves it as nutriment. If it is vanquished, if we flatter ourselves that it is destroyed, it survives its own ruin; it ignores the decrepitude of old age: years but add new strength to its power; it commands the young with passion and vehemence; it holds the old captive beneath its tyranny. The saints themselves groan under its cruel yoke, and invoke death against the rage of this potent foe. As they are not ignorant that they shall have to dread its pursuits so long as their soul shall be detained in the prison of the body, their most ardent desires are to be delivered from it.

But since self-love is the empoisoned source whence all other vices flow upon the world as from a torrent; since it is the soul and the head of all the evil passions which assemble under its rebellious flag to combat against God, against Jesus Christ and the holy laws of His morality; since it is the ruin of grace, the destruction of virtue, the tomb of our merits; since, in fine, it contrives by its artful subtlety to glide in everywhere and to insinuate its deadly venom into our holiest actions, what more can be wanting to inspire us with an eternal hatred of this implacable adversary? What! we find it impossible to abhor this, our most ruthless, most relentless enemy? an enemy which caresses in order to wound us, which fawns upon us in order to insinuate into us its deadly poison, which kills whilst embracing us! Blind that we are! we are unable to hate this traitor which, under the guise of friendship, dogs our steps, seats itself at our table, and watches near our pillow; but whose treachery, combined with the flesh, the world, and the devil, continually lays snares for us? We are unable to detest a rapacious robber which has so often despoiled us of grace? a p. 386tyrant which has so repeatedly cast us under the slavery of Satan? a parricide which, by its criminal caresses, has caused us to consent to nail anew Jesus Christ, our brother, to the cross? to inflict as many wounds on our heavenly Father as we have committed sins? Once more, is it so difficult to detest this plunderer, this despot, this parricide?

‘Oh, earth, earth, earth! listen to the word of the Lord;’ man formed of clay, who art oblivious of thy last end, and subjectest thyself to the degrading bondage of thy domestic enemy, listen to the word of the Lord, which cries out to thee: ‘If any one wishes to follow Me, let him renounce himself;’¹⁹⁸198Luke ix. 23. ‘he who wishes to save his life shall lose it;’¹⁹⁹199Matt. xvi. 25. ‘he who hates not his own life cannot be My disciple;’²⁰⁰200Luke xiv. 26. ‘no one can serve two masters.’²⁰¹201Matt. vi. 4. No one can follow Jesus Christ and Belial, grace and nature, self-love and divine love: either must be renounced. Either my self-love must perish, or I must perish myself. One or the other must be given up. Its defeat or mine; its destruction or mine is inevitable. I confess this truth, and yet I still deliberate as to the resolution I should take!

Oh, heavens! we know that self-love precipitates us into the greatest evils; we know that it robs us of the principal and choicest part of the graces which were destined for us; and when we obey some holy inspiration, we feel that it strives to infect our works with the desire of vain glory and self-seeking; consequently to corrupt our best actions, to injure our acts of virtue; we are aware of all this, we admit it, we bewail it. And yet, far from entertaining for this perfidious foe the hatred that it merits, we encourage its treachery. Alas! it is because a blind self-love has fascinated our sight! Let us then, at length, form generous resolutions; and inflamed with a holy anger, let us, with St. Bernard, pronounce sentence of death against our enemy: ‘Let God arise, let the flesh perish, let the enemy, man, be destroyed, this contemner of God, this lover of self, this friend of the world, this slave of the devil is guilty of death: let it be crucified.’ In order that it may never revive, let us place the virtue of self-abnegation as a perpetual guardian at its tomb; this virtue will diffuse into our heart the salutary oil calculated to inflame the fire of hatred against this detestable monster. If not, it is all over with our perfection, never shall we attain to that solid virtue to which the love of God so powerfully encourages us, and which God exacts and merits from us under so many titles.