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

Article II

God merits that we should become holy

God merits that we should belong wholly to Him by the practice of solid virtue, for three reasons: 1. He gives Himself unreservedly to us, 2. Jesus Christ also gives Himself entirely to us; and 3, in giving ourselves wholly to Him, we give but little. From the development of these three points it will be easy for us to conclude that we should be holy; that is to say, to p. 355belong entirely to God, and that the love with which our Lord favours us is a powerful incentive to us to endeavour to repay Him by labouring for our sanctification.

1. Because God gives Himself to us without reserve

We should consecrate ourselves to the Divine Majesty without any exception or interruption in our sacrifice; because God not only gives us all that belongs to Him, but He also gives us Himself without reserve and in the most perfect manner. Would that a Cherub, taking a burning coal off the heavenly altar, would purify my lips as he formerly purified those of Isaias, that I might worthily relate ‘the wonders of the Lord.’⁵⁹59Exod. xiv. 13. For in truth, ‘He that is mighty hath done great things in us,’⁶⁰60Luke i. 49. when, according to His eternal and immutable designs, He hath given us temporal things to serve for our use, the angels to watch over us, grace to enable us to merit, and heaven as our reward. In reality, the earth, angels, grace, and heaven, are the four principal kinds of goods which the Sovereign Master seems to have created especially for us, and by which He has manifested to the universe the inexhaustible riches of His Omnipotence in our behalf. Like to the four fertile rivers ‘which went out of the place of pleasure to water all the surface of the earth,’⁶¹61Gen. ii. 10, 6. they flow from the bosom of Infinite Bounty and unite all their treasures upon man, who is, as it were, the centre whereon the effusion of God’s benefit terminates.

First. The Creator of the universe, ‘who stretcheth out the heavens like a pavilion, and hath founded the earth on its own basis,’⁶²62Wisd. vii. 16, 17. has destined and bestowed all the p. 356works of the creation for the necessities of man, with a providence and liberality which display His love. It is for us that the sun shines, that the stars glitter in the firmament, and that the planets pursue their course in the heavens. It is for us that the vine produces its fruit, that the fields are covered with harvests, that the meadows display their verdure and their flowers. The pearls which glisten beneath the waves, the gold entombed within the mountain’s side, the metals in the bosom of the earth, the fish in the waters, the flocks in the fields, the birds which people the air, have been created for us. The God ‘who holds in His hands the virtues of the elements,’⁶³63Ps. cxiii. 16. extinguishes our thirst with the water, refreshes us with the air, nourishes and sustains us with the food which He bestows upon us. Therefore it is true to say, according to the beautiful expression of the Royal Prophet, that ‘He has given the earth to the children of men,’⁶⁴64Ibid. viii. 7, 8. to inhabit it, possess it, and make it subservient to their wants, ‘that He has set them over the works of His hands, that He has subjected under their feet all sheep and oxen, the beasts of the fields, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea.’ Who can ever adequately extol such unbounded liberality and magnificence? ‘Lord! what is man that Thou art mindful of him?’ ‘and the son of man,’⁶⁵65Ibid. viii. 5. that Thou shouldst load him with so many benefits, notwithstanding his ingratitude?

The supreme Lord who reigns in the highest heavens, ‘sitting on His throne, and all the army of heaven standing by Him on the right and on the left,’⁶⁶662 Paralip. xviii. 18. has given us the angels as protectors; for says the apostle, ‘all the angels are ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation.’⁶⁷67Heb. i. 14.

These princes of the heavenly Court are given us for masters to teach us the paths of justice, for guides to conduct, and protectors to defend us from our enemies during our pilgrimage.

Oh, my soul! ‘the King of kings,’⁶⁸68Apoc. xix. 16. ‘that sitteth on the cherubim,’⁶⁹69Ps. xcviii. 1. ‘has given His angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.’⁷⁰70Ibid. xc. 11.

‘Oh, admirable condescension!’ cries out St. Bernard in his astonishment, ‘Oh, charity! Oh, unheard-of love! for, let us consider attentively, my brethren, who the deputies of God are, to whom He sends them, and what is the end of this mission. The Sovereign Majesty has deputed His angels, sublime and blessed spirits, the familiars and courtiers of the great King; He has deputed them to man, who is but a miserable worm of the earth, a little dust and ashes; He has sent them to guard us,’ enlighten us in our doubts, to arouse us from our tepidity, raise us in our falls, cure us of our weakness, not occasionally, or in some particular places only, but ‘to take care of us in all places, in all our ways, and in all our undertakings.’ Oh, children of Adam! I appeal to your own conscience, what is there that our God can bestow on us more excellent and useful? What have we to fear under such protectors, who are at once ‘faithful, prudent, and powerful,’⁷¹71Serm. on Ps. xc. who possess the power, the knowledge, and the will to defend us. Oh heavens! who can worthily thank the Almighty for such illustrious guardians? But since human frailty is incapable of adequately acknowledging so great a benefit, let us at least implore the heavenly intelligences to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise in our behalf, in order that ‘the smoke of incense shall ascend up before God from the hand of our angel guardian.’⁷²72Apoc. viii. 4. With what prodigality does not the Father of light pour out His grace on us? He enlightens our blindness, stimulates our weakness, terrifies us by His threats, allures us by His promises: a hundred times repulsed, a hundred times He returns to the charge, to renew His entreaties. And though His graces are of inestimable value, since they are the price of the blood of Jesus Christ and in some sort the emanations of divine love, still this Divine Lord, in the hope of gaining a soul, does not deign the less to bestow on it the boundless treasures of His merciful condescension.

Night and day the Good Shepherd pursues through rugged and impracticable paths the sheep that flies from Him; and though ungrateful man closes his ear to the sweetness of that loving voice, still the Saviour does not cease to call, to caress, and to seek to win him back. Man, all bruised as he is, repulses the hand that longs to heal him, and yet, notwithstanding his resistance, the charitable Samaritan never wearies of pouring wine and oil upon his wounds. He has communicated to us, says the prince of the apostles, the precious benefits contained in His promises, in making us become by habitual grace ‘partakers of the divine nature,’⁷³732 Pet. i. 4. so that the Beloved Disciple, transported with joy at such a prodigy, cries out: ‘Behold how great hath been the charity of God for us, that He hath called us, and we are in effect the children of God.’⁷⁴741 John iii. 2. How exalted is this prerogative which makes us the children of God! to understand its dignity, it would be necessary to be able to measure the infinite perfection of Him whom we have a right to name our Father. Finally, in His love, the divine remunerator of good works destines heaven for us—heaven—that is to say, a p. 358place of eternal happiness, where He Himself shall be our recompense, our crown, our joy, and our ‘reward exceeding great,’⁷⁵75Gen. xv. 1. where through pure beneficence and liberality He will communicate to us His beauty, ‘we shall be like to Him;’⁷⁶761 John iii. 2. His felicity, ‘we shall eat and drink at His table;’⁷⁷77Luke xxii. 30. His glory, ‘He shall make us sit with Him on His throne.’⁷⁸78Apoc. iii. 21. But what words could express the sublimity of such happiness, since the apostle assures us, that ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.’⁷⁹791 Cor. ii. 9. ‘Oh, how good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!’⁸⁰80Ps. lxxii. 1. He has bestowed on us the four principal kinds of created blessings: He has given us the earth for our use, the angels for our protectors, grace to enable us to merit, heaven to be our reward. ‘Let us praise the Lord, then, for He is good, let us sing to His name,’⁸¹81Ps. cxxxiv. 3. ‘for He hath covered us with His love as with a shield.’ He has crowned us with the multitude of His benefits. O Lord! since Thou placest all Thy goods at my disposal, I also desire that all that belongs to me should be Thine, that Thou become the absolute Master of my liberty, my understanding, my will, and my senses. Accursed be the drop of blood in my veins which flows not for Thee. Anathema to all that belongs to me without belonging to Thee!

Secondly. Not alone does this bountiful God grant us all that is His, but with an incomprehensible generosity He likewise gives us Himself without reserve. He admirably communicates to us His perfections which, from their identity with His nature, as the p. 359theologians express it, form but one and the same thing with Him.

He abandons His being and essence to us, by remaining constantly and intimately present in our body and in our soul as in a temple which He has consecrated to Himself: ‘as He Himself saith, I will dwell in them;’⁸²822 Cor. vi. 16. and according to this doctrine of the apostle: ‘You are the temple of the living God:’ and elsewhere: ‘it is in Him we live, move, and be.’

He lavishes His power on us in creating and preserving us and in concurring incessantly in all our actions, according as it suits us to perform them: ‘for God worketh all in all;’⁸³831 Cor. xii. 6. so that ‘without Him we can do nothing.’⁸⁴84John xv. 5.

He places His providence at our disposal by the singular affection with which He preserves us from evil, procures our good, and ‘makes even temptation itself turn to our advancement.’⁸⁵851 Cor. x. 13.

He has even utilized for us the severity of His justice, ‘which spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them drawn down by ropes to the lower hell unto torments, that their punishment might be an example to the impious.’⁸⁶862 Pet. ii. 4, 6. He encompasses us with His mercy, ‘in overlooking our sins’ so often and for such a length of time, in order to await ‘our repentance;’ so that the prophet does not hesitate to exalt ‘His mercy above all His works.’

It is true, therefore, that this great God gives Himself wholly to us, since He so liberally communicates His attributes to us, and so constantly makes them subservient to our wants. Above all, He communicates to us His boundless charity and purely gratuitous predilection, in choosing us, despite our unworthiness and His foreknowledge of the countless sins we should commit, in order to call us to the perfection conformable to our state, and to destine us to a corresponding degree of glory, in preference to so many others who would have corresponded more faithfully with His grace. In His ardent zeal for our souls, He has diffused a salutary bitterness into our evil passions, He has purposely subjected us to the trials of adversity, He has rendered our falls more painful, He has caused us to experience the perfidy of creatures in order to inspire us with disgust for them, He has, in a word, attracted us by the bonds of love when we were straying away from Him. But the ‘charity of God,’ says St. John, ‘has’ especially ‘appeared,’⁸⁷87John iv. 9. in that ‘He has so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son’⁸⁸88Ibid. iii. 16. ‘that He might redeem us from all iniquity and might cleanse to Himself a people acceptable;’ and in His sending us the Holy Ghost ‘that He might teach us all truth.’⁸⁹89Titus ii. 14. Thus it is that this great God, in virtue of the unity of nature of the three august Persons, has given, delivered, and lavished Himself wholly and in His entire Being for us. For, since ‘He spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him for us all,’⁹⁰90John xvi. 13. ‘how hath He not also given us all things?’ and with the Holy Ghost how could He have failed to fill us with the plenitude of the seven gifts of which this Divine Spirit is the Author? O infinite goodness! O merciful charity, which all the choirs of angels ‘adore in silence.’⁹¹91Apoc. viii. 1. Yes; these are so many striking proofs p. 360that God gives Himself with all that belongs to Him, wholly to us, and consequently that He has an indisputable right to demand the absolute consecration of all we possess to Him by the practice of solid virtue.

Thirdly. But these rights become still more incontestable when we consider the manner in which He gives all these favours, and in which He gives Himself wholly to us; for these three qualities of His love exceedingly enhance the value of so great a gift.

The first is that His tenderness for us is eternal: ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love.’⁹²92Jerem. xxxi. 3. Words which contain this pithy meaning: ‘My love for thee is coexistent with that which I bear myself, and shall endure as long, since from all eternity I resolved to bestow, to lavish myself and all that I possess on thee.’

The second is that His bounty is purely gratuitous:

God has manifested His bounty for us in that it is not we that have loved, but it is He hath first loved us;’⁹³931 John iv. 10. and when we were ‘His enemies.’⁹⁴94Numb. xxiv. 8. ‘He has loved us of Himself,’⁹⁵95Osee xiv. 5. without having any need of us, without His deriving any benefit therefrom, for ‘He stands in no need of our goods.’⁹⁶96Ps. xv. 2. He finds nothing in us that belongs to us save nothingness and sin, that is to say, nothing but what is calculated to excite His hatred rather than to win His love.

Finally, the third quality of this generous love is that it is infinite. Considered in its nature, it is identical with that with which this Omnipotent Being loves Himself, with which He loves the adorable Trinity, with which He loves Jesus Christ and the saints. For He loves thee, oh, my soul, with His whole self, with p. 361all the infinitude of His nature; so that there is no perfection in His Divinity, no Person in the Trinity, that does not love thee with all the boundless extent of His charity! The benefits of His providence extend to all men, but without any diminution in thy regard; for this tender Father ‘maketh His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and unjust;’⁹⁷97Matt. v. 45. He ‘heaps the coals’ of His burning love ‘on the heads of His enemies;’⁹⁸98Prov. xxv. 22. He excludes no one, how guilty soever he may be, from the gifts of His universal munificence.

Since God gives Himself and all that belongs to Him so unreservedly to us, what conclusion should we come to? What resolution should we form? Is it not just that we should live wholly for Him who desires to belong wholly to us? Does not He who has been so infinitely liberal to us in His donation of Himself, merit that we endeavour to become holy by the sacrifice of the created object which opposes the greatest obstacle to our perfection? We are unworthy the name of man if we presume to refuse anything to so munificent a benefactor. But if we love, we will refuse nothing: and ‘we will love’ if we impress deeply on our minds the truths we have just been meditating. What! can we not repay by a return of love Him who has first loved us? Are our hearts incapable of expanding in devoted affection for Him who, from all eternity, has loved us with an infinite love?

This Omnipotent God, who has no need of anyone, has encompassed us with His benefits as with a strong army, to overcome the obduracy of our heart; He ‘hath crowned us with mercy and compassion’⁹⁹99Ps. cii. 4. in order to conquer us and to obtain of us a reciprocity of love. This exalted Majesty loves us with an ineffable love; He places His perfections, His Son and Holy Spirit at our disposal, solely that we may return Him love for love, and yet we remain plunged in icy indifference!

Wretched that we are! We love a fellow-creature who loves us; nay, we appreciate the caresses of a vile animal, and we love not that God who loads us with benefits and who loves us sovereignly! A fellow-creature needs but to speak to us kindly to win our affections. Well! God embraces us, resuscitates us in His Bosom, cherishes us, enriches us, and lavishes favours on us, and we make Him no return of love! This all-gracious God exhausts His wisdom and omnipotence to testify His tenderness towards us by the effusion of His benefits, insomuch that were His happiness dependent on our love, were we the god of God, He could not love us more ardently, or be more prodigal of His favours, and yet we languish in an ungrateful tepidity! Our cowardice deems the least act of generosity in His service too painful, it shrinks from the least sacrifice that would evince our fidelity and gratitude to Him, it fears to enter the path of perfection.

Far from us be so great, so shameful an ingratitude! Let us rather cast our eyes on the multiplied favours with which the divine bounty has loaded us; let us hearken to the voice of the Beloved crying out to us in Ecclesiasticus: ‘Give and receive to justify your soul;’ or else, according to another lesson: ‘receive and render, receive benefits and render obedience, receive kindness and render gratitude, in order to justify thy soul and make it increase daily in sanctity.’ The love of God which gives itself entirely to us with all His gifts, and p. 362which merits by this liberality that we should labour for our sanctification, is then truly a powerful spur to advance incessantly in the paths of virtue.

2. Because Jesus Christ has also given Himself unreservedly to us

A second motive for loving God, an infinitely powerful reason for labouring for our perfection, is that Jesus Christ has also given Himself wholly to us on the Cross and in the Eucharist. In order the better to appreciate, oh my soul! the magnitude of the stupendous sacrifice by which He immolated Himself completely for us, in order the better to measure its immense extent, ‘let us go to the mountain of myrrh,’¹⁰⁰100Cant. iv. 6. that is to say, to Calvary; and with hearts burning with love, ‘let us look on the face of our Christ’¹⁰¹101Ps. lxxxiii. 10. offered by a voluntary sacrifice as a victim on the altar of the Cross; there we shall behold Him sacrificing for love of us, to the thirst of poverty, humiliation, and suffering, the gifts which are dearest and most precious to man; we shall see Him despoiled of His clothes, wounded in His honour, and deprived of life, and all for love of us!

1. To restore to us the robe of innocence which we lost, this Divine ‘Jonathan, who loved us as His own soul, stripped Himself of the coat with which He was clothed,’¹⁰²1021 Kings xviii. 3, 4. and on the day ‘of His’ spiritual ‘nuptials’¹⁰³103Cant. i. 11. which was that of His death, this heavenly ‘Bridegroom’ showed Himself covered with His ‘blood’¹⁰⁴104Exod. iv. 25. as with the royal purple; He expired naked on an infamous gibbet, to teach us to present to Him a heart divested of all attachment to earth and creatures.

This absolute self-abnegation has, more than every other mystery, revealed to us the immense depth of His love for us. For in preferring a stable to a palace, the vesture of the poor to the purple of kings, indigence to opulence, He did but reduce to practice the doctrine by which He declares the poor of spirit blessed: and in despising the kingdoms of the world which the devil offered Him, He upheld the dignity befitting Him who is the Omnipotent Lord of heaven. Consequently, it is not surprising that He loved to be surrounded by the poor, since His ‘kingdom is not of this world.’¹⁰⁵105John xviii. 36. But that through love of us He should consent to carry His Cross before an entire people who loaded Him with opprobrium and insults, that He should bear the humiliations of nudity so painful to His incomparable innocence, behold the prodigy, behold the excess of His tenderness and devotedness to men.

Thou knowest all this, O my soul! and yet thou still findest it difficult to consent to the least self-renunciation; thou incessantly deferrest to divest thyself of the old man and of thy affection for trifles, in order to clothe thyself with Jesus Christ; thou attachest to creatures that heart which was born for heaven, thou holdest it enslaved by earthly bonds! Ah! if thou wilt not follow thy Saviour in His absolute spoliation, remember the threats of the prophet, beware of exchanging ‘the vesture of glory’ for the ‘mantle of malediction.’¹⁰⁶106Ps. cviii. 18.

2. But, not satisfied with this first sacrifice of His love for man, Jesus Christ allows His reputation to be outrageously attacked; and though, according to St. Thomas, ‘honour be the most excellent of exterior goods, on account of its affinity to virtue,’¹⁰⁷1072. 2, q. 129, a. 1. of which it is the legitimate reward; still this charitable Saviour abandons His completely, by selecting the kind of death which was at that time the most vile and infamous. The Lord of the universe, fastened to an ignominious gibbet, suffered on a mountain, suspended between heaven and earth, that He might be exposed to the view, the railleries, and the insults of the entire people, that the calumnies of the pharisees and the blasphemies of the scribes might be the more audible to Him. He suffered during the Paschal solemnity, during which the Jews assembled in Jerusalem from all parts of the universe; He suffered at the gates of this capital, and at noon-day, that His dishonour might be the more public, and that all His enemies might be present; He suffered between two thieves, that He might pass for the vilest of men. Yes; His love seems to have been ingenious in combining every circumstance capable of completing His dishonour, and thus enhancing the value of His sacrifice. And yet, reckoning all these opprobriums as nothing, our humble Redeemer generously sacrificed His reputation solely to induce us to immolate to Him the punctiliousness in points of honour, which is the origin of the greater number of our quarrels and enmities. If, after such an example, we still dare to yield to pride, to dread contempt, to avenge injuries, to be perpetually hankering after self-aggrandisement, do we not richly deserve that ‘we should be clothed with confusion as with a cloak?’¹⁰⁸108Ps. cviii. 29.

3. The charity of our Divine Master carries Him to a still greater excess. He offers His body as a victim in our place, He abandons it to the most bitter anguish, to the scourging, to unheard-of tortures, in order to appease the justice of God offended by our sins, and to undergo the punishment which we have merited. Let us gaze for a moment with mournful tenderness on this spectacle of sorrow and of love!

Behold, oh, my soul! the hands and feet of thy Redeemer cruelly transfixed with nails, His veins broken, His sinews violently extended, His head pierced with sharp thorns, His lips saturated with gall, His side pitilessly opened with a spear. In the midst of these intolerable bodily sufferings, and the overwhelming anguish of His soul, the all-amiable Son is abandoned by His Father; in a word, it is amid the mourning of all nature that the innocent Jesus, delivered up by an iniquitous judge to the barbarity of His executioners, expires for the salvation of the world!

In all His Body there is not one member, in all His members not one bone, not one artery, not one vein, not one nerve, not even a fibre which He has not delivered up to suffering for us, to maintain the rights of Divine Justice, and to teach us to cease to be the slaves of sensuality. For love of us and to free us from carnal affections, He has contrived to find particular torments for all the members of His body and all the faculties of His soul. As a pledge of His boundless tenderness, He has made us an irrevocable donation of His own life, asking nothing of us in return except ‘that we no longer live to ourselves, but to Him who has died for us.’¹⁰⁹1092 Cor. v. 15.

Oh, truly inconceivable prodigy of the charity of a God! The Gospel assures us that ‘greater love than this no man hath, to lay down his life for his friends;’¹¹⁰110John x. 13. but did not Jesus Christ evidently carry His still farther, when He gave up His beautiful life, His divine p. 365life; when He terminated it by so cruel a death, sacrificing it to the interests of His enemies and His rebellious slaves? Can we deny that He gave Himself entirely to us on the Cross, when for our sake He consented to be despoiled of His clothes in order to have no other covering than His blood, when He so utterly relinquished to us His honour and His life? consequently, can we deny that He merits under every title that we imitate His sanctity and belong unreservedly to Him?

4. In the Eucharist, by a permanent miracle, He continues, perfects, completes this donation. There it is that the amiable Jesus gives us, not that seamless garment wrought by a human hand, but those Eucharistic shades under which He so lovingly veils Himself: there it is that He sacrifices to us not merely the reputation of the Son of man, but even the dignity of the Man God, by concealing His Majesty under the weak appearances of the sacred species and by publicly exposing it to so many insults.

He delivers to us His body, no longer subject to sufferings and death, but impassible, immortal and glorious. His flesh and blood are not only a sacrifice and salutary bath for us, they are likewise our food and our drink, He is Himself at once our exemplar and our remedy in all our evils. Finally, He reduces Himself to the state of victim to such a degree as to lose in His Sacrament the use of His natural faculties, so that He can neither see, nor hear, nor speak, nor feel, nor move; and this prodigy, by which He sacrifices the exercise of His senses to us without any requital, He will continue to the end of time. There is absolutely nothing in Him which does not belong to us with a perfect right, and not even the highest intelligence of the angels could imagine a more perfect manner in which He could give Himself to us.

Since Jesus Christ, oh, heavenly spirits, envy not our happiness! since Jesus Christ, I say, has given Himself to us, since He has left Himself completely at our disposal, who could carry his insensibility and ingratitude so far as to pretend that we do not owe Him a return, that we are not obliged to repay Him love for love? The law of retaliation formerly authorised ‘tooth for tooth, eye for eye,’¹¹¹111Job ii. 4. and the law of charity would only require heart for heart; especially, when our Beloved so frequently condescends to the entreaty, ‘My child, give me thy heart!’¹¹²112Prov. xxiii. 26. Weigh, O man, the value of these words! There is nothing in Jesus Christ which does not belong to us: His body is ours, It has been wounded for us; His blood is ours, It has been shed for us; His life is ours, It has been delivered up to death for us; His merits are ours, they have been bequeathed to us in His dying testament. In a word, He has given Himself unreservedly on the Cross, He has given Himself wholly in the Eucharist. ‘He has been prodigal of His love towards men,’¹¹³113Sess. xiii. ch. ii. says the Council of Trent; and all powerful and all wise as He is, He knows nothing, He can give us nothing better; ‘for what could He offer us more precious than Himself?’¹¹⁴114St. Bern. on Cant. Since such is the case, since our Saviour so ardently desires, and merits by so many titles, a mutual love on our part which powerfully incites us to sanctity, let us see what remains for us to do. But let us, in the first place, consider and firmly believe that even in giving Him all that we are, we give but little.

3. Because in giving everything to God we give Him but little

This truth is the third motive which should determine us to serve God by the practice of solid virtue. Mark well, therefore, the exposition we are about to make of this subject. I say that in giving everything to God we give Him but little. This is proved as follows: We give but little if we consider the vileness of him who gives: for what is man but ‘the least grain in the balance, and as a drop of the morning dew?’¹¹⁵115Wisd. xi. 23. little, if we reflect on the majesty of Him to whom we give, who is sovereignly independent, and who suffices to Himself without standing in need of any one, for, ‘what doth it profit God if we be just? or what do we give Him if our way be unspotted?’¹¹⁶116Job xxii. 2. little, if we compare what we give with the magnitude and multiplicity of the blessings which Heaven has bestowed upon us, and at the same time the number and grievousness of the sins we have committed. Yes, ‘all our justices shall appear as soiled linen,’¹¹⁷117Isaias lxiv. 6. they shall vanish as a deceitful shadow in sight of the infinite liberality; little, or rather nothing, if we contrast it with what seculars do for the world, what the saints have done for God, and with what Heaven deserves, since, ‘the sufferings of the present life bear no proportion to that weight of glory that is prepared for us.’¹¹⁸118Rom. viii. 18. We are forced, therefore, to bewail our absolute indigence, and to own that in giving all we give but little, or rather that we give nothing. But if it is true that in giving all we give nothing; that in doing all we do nothing; if ‘we are unprofitable servants,’¹¹⁹119Luke xvii. 10. what must it be to refuse p. 367this little, or to divide it between God and creatures, and not to be willing to immolate it to His Divine Majesty? Oh heavens! ‘if the Lord rejected Saul, so that He was no longer King of Israel because he spared Agag;’¹²⁰1201 Kings xv. 9, 26. ‘if Achan was stoned, if all that belonged to him was consumed by fire, because he appropriated something that had been cursed,’¹²¹121Josue vii. 20, 25. and which should have been sacrificed without reserve before the Ark; if Ophni and Phineas perished by the sword for having reserved a part of the victim instead of immolating the entire of it, what will befall us who have ‘a double heart,’¹²²122Eccli. ii. 14. who ‘halt between two sides,’¹²³1233 Kings xviii. 21. who spare now one passion, now another, as the faithless Israelite spared the Ammonites?

What! shall we alone present an imperfect and maimed offering to the King of kings with impunity? Shall we alone be permitted to steal with sacrilegious hand a portion of the sacrifice, the entire of which belongs to God? Shall we possess the privilege of making a compact between nature and grace, to assign to our actions a part to piety and at the same time allow our evil propensities to exercise their empire over our soul? We, I say, whom the sanctity of our state, the sublimity of our vocation, the obligations contracted by our vows, oblige so strictly and by such just titles to belong wholly to God? Oh, how forcibly does the mute eloquence of Ananias and Sapphira preach to us from the depths of the tomb of the dangers of such rashness! Let us therefore speedily detest all division of our soul, if we would avert the chastisement of Divine Justice. Since we cannot effect great things, let us at least do the little that we can; since we have nothing precious to offer, let us at least give the little that we possess: but let us give that little unreservedly; let us give it, 1, because God gives Himself entirely to us; 2, because Jesus Christ has likewise given Himself to us; and 3, because in giving Him all, we give but little. It is by these three motives as by a triple bond that divine love will enchain and attract us to the practice of solid virtue. O Divine Lover of souls! Thou who givest Thyself wholly to us, but who acceptest not a divided heart, who absolutely renouncest it the moment we wish to admit a rival with thee in it, what shall I render to Thee if I give Thee not myself? Yes, I promise to do so, and all the blessed in heaven are witnesses of it; I will henceforward belong wholly to Thee, Thou shalt be the sole master of my heart; neither the world nor self-love shall any longer have any part in it. Let this predominant passion cease to reign over me; let this depraved desire die, which has till now enthralled my soul; let the flesh rebel; let hell, shuddering with rage, oppose it; let my senses vent themselves in murmurs: it matters not, I am resolved; let this depraved desire die; let God alone reign in my soul; let Jesus Christ alone live in me, and let the divine love triumph; let the love of God, which deserves that I should practise sanctity, remove all the obstacles thereto; let it overcome all difficulties; let it level all heights; let my perfection be henceforth my one and only important occupation. Why delayest thou, oh, my soul? What! dost thou still deliberate upon it? Why continuest thou undecided? Is it then so great a misfortune to belong wholly to God? Thou sufficest for God, and God would not suffice for Thee! But what fellowship ‘hath light p. 368with darkness, what concord hath Christ with Belial?’¹²⁴1242 Cor. vi. 14, 15. In a word, what comparison can exist between that creature whom thou lovest, between that object of thy human respect and the Supreme Majesty, that thou shouldest consent to reserve a place for them in thy heart, to the prejudice of thy God? If thou bestowest thyself entirely, dost thou give an equivalent for what thou hast received? Alas! all that thou possessest is nothing, and this nothing thou hesitatest to consecrate to Him? Hadst thou a thousand hearts they would not be sufficient to love God as He deserves; thou possessest but one, and that so narrow! and still thou darest to divide it? Where then is thy justice, where thy gratitude?

Thou hast conquered, O most amiable God! I yield myself up the willing captive of Thy love, my heart is due to Thee alone. Henceforth sin, tepidity, my predominant passion shall be expelled thence for ever; self-love shall be irrevocably excluded from it. I will suffer no movement therein which shall not tend to Thee alone. This device, ‘God wills, God merits, that I become holy,’ shall be the spur which shall compel me to hasten with rapid strides in the paths of virtue. In order that my deeds may correspond with my promises, I will, from this very day, begin a more regular life by such an heroic action. I only implore of Thy infinite goodness with all the humility and earnestness of my soul that Thou deign to accept the holocaust of my heart and to bless as a sacrifice of an agreeable odour the resolution which I take of labouring to acquire virtue; and since Thou hast inspired me with the will to offer Thee this promise, grant me also the grace necessary for its accomplishment.