Chapter I. Of the Love of Conformity Proceeding from Sacred Complacency.

OF THE LOVE OF CONFORMITY PROCEEDING FROM SACRED COMPLACENCY.

As good ground having received the seed renders it back in its season a hundredfold, so the heart which has taken complacency in God cannot hinder itself from wishing to offer another complacency to God. No one pleases us but we desire to please him. Cool wine cools for a while those who drink it, but, as soon as it grows warm within the receiver, it reciprocally warms him, and the more heat is given to it, the more it gives back. True love is never ungrateful, but strives to please those in whom it finds its pleasure; and hence comes that loving conformity, which makes us such as those we love. The most devout and most wise King Solomon, became idolatrous and foolish when he loved women who were foolish and idolatrous, and served as many idols as his wives had. For this cause the Scripture terms those men effeminate who passionately love women as such, because love metamorphoses them from men into women, in manners and humours.

Now this transformation is made insensibly by complacency, which having got entry into our heart brings forth another complacency, 326to give to him of whom we have received it. They say there is a little land animal in the Indies, which finds such pleasure with fishes and in the sea, that by often swimming with them it becomes a fish, and of an animal of the land becomes entirely an animal of the sea. So by often delighting in God we become conformed to God, and our will is transformed into that of the Divine Majesty, by the complacency which it takes therein. The example of those we love has a sweet and unperceived empire and insensible authority over us: it is necessary either to imitate or forsake them. He who, drawn by the sweetness of perfumes, enters a perfumer's shop, while receiving the pleasure which he takes in the smell of those odours, perfumes himself, and going out, communicates to others the pleasure which he has received, spreading amongst them the scent of perfumes which he has contracted. Our heart, together with the pleasure which it takes in the thing beloved, draws unto itself the quality thereof, for delight opens the heart, as sorrow closes it, whence the sacred holy Scripture often uses the word, dilate, instead of, rejoice. Now the heart being opened by pleasure, the impressions of the qualities on which the pleasure depends find easy passage into the spirit; and together with them such others also as are in the same subject, though disagreeable to us, creep in amid the throng of pleasures, as he that lacked his marriage garment got into the banquet amongst those that were adorned with it. So Aristotle's scholars took pains to stammer like him, and Plato's walked bent-backed in imitation of their master. In fine the pleasure which we take in a thing has a certain communicative power which produces in the lover's heart the qualities of the thing which pleases. And hence it is that holy complacency transforms us into God whom we love, and by how much greater the complacency, by so much the transformation is more perfect: thus the saints that loved ardently were speedily and perfectly transformed, love transporting and translating the manners and disposition of the one heart into the other.

A strange yet a true thing! Place together two lutes which are in unison, that is, of the same sound and accord, and let one of them be played on:—the other though not touched will not 327fail to sound like that which is played on, the affinity which is between them, as by a natural love, causing this correspondence. We have a repugnance to imitate those we hate even in good things, nor would the Lacedæmonians follow the good counsel of a wicked man, unless some good man pronounced it after him. On the contrary, we cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love. In this sense, as I think, the great Apostle said that the law was not made for the just:[1] for in truth the just man is not just but insomuch as he has love, and if he have love there is no need to press him by the rigour of the law, love being the most pressing teacher and solicitor, to urge the heart which it possesses to obey the will and the intention of the beloved. Love is a magistrate who exercises his authority without noise, without pursuivants or sergeants, by that mutual complacency, by which, as we find pleasure in God, so also we desire to please him. Love is the abridgment of all theology; it made the ignorance of a Paul, an Antony, an Hilarion, a Simeon, a Francis, most holily learned, without books, masters or art. In virtue of this love, the spouse may say with assurance. My beloved is wholly mine, by the complacency wherewith he pleases and feeds me; and I, I am wholly his, by the benevolence wherewith I please and feed him again. My heart feeds on the pleasure it takes in him, and his on my taking pleasure in him for his own sake. As a holy shepherd he feeds me, his dear sheep, amidst the lilies of his perfections, in which I take pleasure; and I, as his dear sheep, feed him with the milk of my affections, by which I strive to please him. Whosoever truly takes pleasure in God desires faithfully to please God, and in order to please him, desires to conform himself to him.

Of the Conformity of Submission Which Proceeds from the Love of Benevolence.

OF THE CONFORMITY OF SUBMISSION WHICH PROCEEDS FROM THE LOVE OF BENEVOLENCE.

Complacency then draws into us the traits of the divine perfections according as we are capable of receiving them, as the 328mirror receives the sun's image, not according to the excellence and amplitude of that great and admirable luminary, but in proportion to the capacity and measure of its glass: so that we thus become conformed to God.

But besides this the love of benevolence brings us to this holy conformity by another way. The love of complacency draws God into our hearts, but the love of benevolence casts our hearts into God, and consequently all our actions and affections, most lovingly dedicating and consecrating them unto him: for benevolence desires to God all the honour, all the glory, and all the acknowledgment which it is possible to give him, as a certain exterior good which is due to his goodness.

Now this desire is practised according to the complacency which we take in God, as follows. We have had an extreme complacency in perceiving that God is sovereignly good, and therefore by the love of benevolence we desire that all the loves which we can possibly imagine be employed to love this goodness properly. We have taken delight in the sovereign excellency of God's perfection, and thereupon we desire that he be sovereignly loved, honoured and adored. We have rejoiced to consider how God is not only the first beginning but also the last end, author, preserver, and Lord of all things, for which reason we desire that all things be subject to him by a sovereign obedience. We see God's will sovereignly perfect, right, just and equitable; and upon this consideration our desire is that it be the rule and sovereign law of all things, and that it be observed, kept and obeyed by all other wills.

But note, Theotimus, that I treat not here of the obedience due unto God as he is our Lord and Master, our Father and Benefactor, for this kind of obedience belongs to the virtue of justice, not to love. No, it is not this I speak of at present, for though there were no hell to punish the rebellious, nor heaven to reward the good, and though we had no kind of obligation or duty to God (be this said by imagination of a thing impossible and scarce imaginable), yet would the love of benevolence move us to render all obedience and submission to God by election and inclination, yea by a sweet violence of love, in consideration of the sovereign goodness, justice and rectitude of his divine will. 329

Do not we see, Theotimus, that a maiden by a free choice, which proceeds from the love of benevolence, subjects herself to her husband, to whom otherwise she owed no duty; or that a gentleman submits himself to a foreign prince's command, or, perhaps, gives up his will into the hands of the superior of some religious order which he may join? Even so is our heart conformed to God's, when by holy benevolence we throw all our affections into the hands of the divine will, to be turned and directed as it chooses, to be moulded and formed to its good liking. And in this point consists the profoundest obedience of love, which has no need to be spurred by menaces or rewards, nor by any law or any commandment; for it foreruns all this, submitting itself to God solely for the most perfect goodness which is in God, whereby he deserves that all wills should be obedient, subject and submissive to him, conforming and uniting themselves for ever, in everything, and everywhere, to his divine intentions.