Chapter XX. How Divine Love Makes Use of All the Passions and Affections of the Soul, and Reduces Them to Its Obedience.

HOW DIVINE LOVE MAKES USE OF ALL THE PASSIONS AND AFFECTIONS OF THE SOUL, AND REDUCES THEM TO ITS OBEDIENCE.

Love is the life of our heart, and as the weights give movement to all the movable parts of a clock, so love gives to the soul all the movements it has. All our affections follow our love, and according to it we desire, we rejoice, we hope, we despair, we fear, we take heart, we hate, we avoid things, we grieve, we get angry, we triumph. Do not we see that men who have given up their heart as a prey to the base and abject love of women have no desires but according to this love, take no pleasure but in it, neither hope nor despair but on this account, neither dread nor undertake anything but for it, are neither disgusted nor fly from anything save what diverts them from it, are only troubled at what deprives them of it, are never angry but from jealousy, never glory but in this infamy. The like may be said of those who love riches or are ambitious of honours; for they become slaves to that which they love, and have neither heart in their breasts, nor soul in their hearts, nor affections in their souls, save only for that. 525

When therefore divine love reigns in our hearts, it royally brings to its empire all the other loves of the will, and consequently all its affections, because they naturally follow love; this done, it tames sensual love, and bringing it to obedience, brings also after it all the sensual passions. For, in a word, this sacred love is the sovereign water, of which our Saviour said: He that shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall not thirst for ever.[1] No truly, Theotimus, he that has love in any abundance, he shall neither have desire, fear, hope, courage, nor joy but for God, and all his movements shall be at rest in this one celestial love.

Divine love and self-love are in our hearts as Jacob and Esau in the womb of Rebecca: they have a very great antipathy and opposition to one another, and continually struggle in the heart; whence the poor soul cries out: Alas! wretched that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death, that the sole love of my God may peaceably reign in me? However, we must take courage, putting our trust in our Saviour's word, who, commanding us to fight, by his command promises victory to his love; and he seems to say to the soul that which he caused to be said to Rebecca: Two nations are in thy womb, and two people shall be divided out of thy womb, and one people shall overcome the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.[1] For as Rebecca had only two children in her womb, but because two peoples were to descend from these was said to have two nations in her womb, so the soul having two loves in her heart, has consequently two great troops of motions, affections and passions; and as the two children of Rebecca by the contrariety of their movements made her suffer great convulsions and pains, so the two loves of our soul cause great travails to our heart. And as it was said of her two children that the elder should serve the younger, so has it been ordained that of these two loves of our heart the sensual shall serve the spiritual, that is, self-love shall serve the love of God.

But when was it that the elder of those peoples which were in Rebecca's womb served the younger? Surely it was only 526when David overcame the Idumeans in war, and Solomon ruled over them in peace. Oh! when therefore shall it be that sensual love shall serve Divine love? It shall then be, Theotimus, when armed love, having become zeal, shall by mortification subject our passions; and far better then, when in heaven above, beatified love shall possess our whole soul in peace.

Now the method by which Divine love is to subject the sensual appetite is like to that which Jacob used when, for a good presage and beginning of what was afterwards to come to pass, he at the birth of Esau held him by the foot, as it were to seize Esau's right, supplant him and keep him down, or, as it were, to keep him tied up after the manner of a bird of prey, such as Esau was, being a hunter and a terrible man. For so holy love perceiving some passion or natural affection rising in us, must presently take it by the foot and bring it to its service. But what is meant by taking by the foot? To bind and reduce it to the service of God. Do you not see how Moses transformed the serpent into a rod, simply taking it by the tail? Even so, when we give a good end to our passions they turn into virtues.

But what method are we then to observe in order to bring our affections and passions into the service of Divine love. The Methodic physicians have always this aphorism in their mouths,—that contraries are cured by their contraries; the Spagyrists have another famous sentence opposed to this—that likes are cured by their likes. Howsoever it be, we know that two things make the light of the stars disappear,—the obscurity of the mists of night, and the light of the sun which is stronger than theirs; and in like manner we fight against passions, either by opposing to them contrary passions, or by opposing stronger affections of their own kind. If some vain hope present itself unto me, my way of resistance may be to oppose to it this just discouragement: O foolish man! upon what foundation do you build this hope? Do you not see that this great man in whom you trust is as near to his grave as thyself? Do you not know the instability, weakness and imbecillity of the spirit of man? Today this heart from which you expect something is thine, tomorrow 527another will carry it away for himself: on what then is this hope grounded? I can also resist this hope by opposing to it a more solid one. Hope in God, O my soul! for it is he who delivers thy feet out of the snare; no man ever hoped in him, and was confounded: fix thy designs upon eternal and imperishable things. In like manner one may combat the desire of riches and temporal delights, either by the contempt they merit or by the desire of immortal ones; and by this means sensual and earthly love will be destroyed by heavenly love, either as fire is extinguished by water on account of the contrary qualities of water, or as it is extinguished by fire from heaven, on account of the stronger and overpowering qualities of this.

Our Saviour makes use of both these methods in his spiritual cures. He cures his disciples of worldly fear by imprinting in their hearts a higher fear: Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body into hell.[1] When he would another time cure them of a lower joy, he assigned them a nobler one: Rejoice not, said he, in this, that spirits are subject unto you: but rejoice in this, that your names are written in heaven:[1] and he himself casts out joy by grief: Woe to you that now laugh: for you shall mourn and weep.[1] Thus does Divine love supplant and bring into subjection the affections and passions, turning them from the end to which self-love would sway them, and applying them to its spiritual intentions. And as the rainbow touching the herb aspalathus deprives it of its own smell and gives it another far more excellent, so sacred love touching our passions takes from them their earthly end, and bestows a heavenly one in its place. The appetite for food is made very spiritual if before gratifying it we give it the motive of love:—Ah! no, Lord! it is not to content this wretched stomach, nor to allay this appetite that I go to table, but according to thy Providence to sustain this body which thou hast given me subject to this misery: yes, Lord! because it hath so pleased thee. If I hope for a friend's assistance can I not say: O Lord, thou hast so appointed our life, that we should have to take help, 528comfort and consolation from one another; and because so it pleases thee, I will use this or that man whose friendship thou hast given me to this end. Is there some just occasion for fear? It is thy will, O Lord, that I should fear, in order that I may use fit means to avoid this trouble; I will do so, O Lord, since such is thy good pleasure. If the fear be excessive: Ah! O God, my eternal Father! what is it that thy children, or the chickens which live under thy wings can fear? so then, I will take the means necessary to avoid the evil which I fear, but that done,—Lord, I am thine, save thou me, if it be thy pleasure, and what may befall me I will accept, because such will be thy good pleasure. O holy and sacred alchemy! O heavenly projection-powder! by which all the metals of our passions, affections and actions are converted into the most pure gold of heavenly love.

That Sadness Is Almost Always Useless, Yea Contrary to the Service of Holy Love.

THAT SADNESS IS ALMOST ALWAYS USELESS, YEA CONTRARY TO THE SERVICE OF HOLY LOVE.

One cannot graft an oak upon a pear tree, of so contrary a humour are those two trees: nor can anger or despair be grafted on charity, at least it would be very difficult. As for anger, we have seen this in the discourse upon zeal; as for despair, unless it be reduced to the legitimate distrust of ourselves, or to a sense of the vanity, weakness and inconstancy of worldly favours, helps and promises, I see not what service Divine love can draw from it.

And as for sadness, how can it be profitable to holy charity, seeing that joy is ranked amongst the fruits of the Holy Ghost, coming next to charity? Still, the great apostle says: The sorrow that is according to God worketh penance unto salvation which is lasting: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.[1] There is then a sorrow or sadness according to God, which is employed either by sinners in penance, or by the good in compassion 529for the temporal miseries of their neighbours, or by the perfect in deploring, bemoaning and condoling the spiritual calamities of souls. For David, S. Peter, Magdalen, wept for their sins; Agar wept when she saw her son almost dead of thirst; Jeremias over the ruin of Jerusalem; Our Saviour over the Jews; and his great Apostle sighing says these words: Many walk of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping) that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.[1]

There is then also a sadness of this world, which likewise proceeds from three causes. For—1°. It comes sometimes from the infernal enemy, who by a thousand sad, melancholy and disturbing suggestions obscures the understanding, weakens the will, and troubles the whole soul: and as a thick mist fills the head and breast with rheum, and by this means makes respiration difficult, and greatly incommodes the traveller; so the evil spirit, filling man's mind with sad thoughts, deprives it of facility in aspiring to God, and possesses it with an extreme tedium and discouragement, in order to bring it to despair and perdition. They say there is a fish called the sea-toad, surnamed the sea-devil, which stirring and spreading the mud troubles the water round about it so as to hide itself therein as in an ambush, from whence, as soon as it perceives poor little fishes, it darts upon them, kills and devours them: whence perhaps has come the common expression—fishing in troubled waters. Now it is the same with the devil of hell as with the devil of the sea; for he makes his ambush in sadness, and then, having troubled the soul with a multitude of sad thoughts cast hither and thither in the understanding, he makes a charge upon the affections, bearing them down with distrust, jealousies, aversions, envies, superfluous apprehensions of past sins, adding withal a number of vain, sour and melancholy subtleties of the imagination, that all reasons and consolations may be rejected.

2°. Sadness sometimes also proceeds from one's natural disposition, when the melancholy humour predominates in us: and this is not vicious in itself, yet our enemy makes great use of it to weave and prepare a thousand temptations in our souls. 530For as spiders scarcely ever spin their webs save when the weather is dull and the sky cloudy; so this malign spirit never finds as much facility in spreading the nets of his suggestions in sweet, kindly and bright souls, as he has with the gloomy, sad and melancholy; for these he easily disturbs with vexations, suspicions, hatreds, murmurings, censures, envies, sloth and spiritual numbness.

3°. Lastly, there is a sadness which the various accidents of life bring upon us. What manner of joy shall be to me, said Tobias, who sit in darkness, and see not the light of heaven[1] Thus was Jacob sad on the news of the death of his Joseph, and David for that of his Absalom. Now this sadness is common to the good and the bad; but to the good it is moderated by acquiescence in and resignation to the will of God: as we see in Tobias, who gave thanks to the Divine Majesty for all the adversities which came upon him, and in Job, who blessed the name of the Lord for them, and in Daniel, who turned his griefs into songs of joy. As to worldlings, on the contrary, this sadness is an ordinary thing with them, and spreads out into regrets, despair, and deadness of soul: for they are like apes and monkeys, which are always sullen, sad and peevish at the waning of the moon, as, on the contrary, at the new moon, they leap, dance and play their apish tricks. The worldling is out of temper, uncivil, bitter and gloomy when temporal prosperity fails him; and in abundance he is almost always boastful, foolishly elated and insolent.

Indeed the sadness of true penitence is not so much to be named sadness as displeasure, or the sense and detestation of evil; a sadness which is never troubled nor vexed; a sadness which does not dull the spirit, but makes it active, ready and diligent; a sadness which does not weigh the heart down, but raises it by prayer and hope, and causes in it the movements of the fervour of devotion; a sadness which in the heaviest of its bitternesses ever produces the sweetness of an incomparable consolation, according to the precept of the great S. Augustine: "Let the penitent sorrow always, yet always rejoice for his 531sorrow." "The sadness," says Cassian, "which works solid penitence, and that desirable repentance of which one never repents, is obedient, affable, humble, mild, sweet, patient,—as being a child and scion of charity: so that spreading over every pain of body and contrition of spirit, and being in a certain way joyous, courageous, and strengthened by the hope of doing better, it retains all the sweetness of gentleness and longanimity, having in itself the Fruits of the Holy Spirit, which the holy Apostle recounts: Now the Fruits of the Spirit are charity, joy, peace, longanimity, goodness, benignity, faith, mildness, continency." Such is true penitence, and such is right sadness, which in good sooth is not really sad or melancholy, but only attentive and earnest to detest, reject and hinder the evil of sin for past and for future. And indeed we often see repentances which are very eager, troubled, impatient, wet-eyed, bitter, given to groans, very crabbed and melancholy, which at last turn out fruitless and lack all true amendment, because they do not proceed from the true motives of the virtue of penitence, but from selfish and natural love.

The sorrow of the world worketh death,[1] says the Apostle; we must, therefore, Theotimus, carefully avoid and banish it as much as we can. If it be from nature, we must repulse it by contradicting its movements, turning it aside by the practices suitable to that purpose, and using the remedies and way of life which physicians themselves may judge best. If it come from temptation, we must clearly open our mind to our spiritual father, who, will prescribe for us the method of overcoming it, according as we have said in Part IV. of the Introduction to the Devout Life. If it arise from circumstances, we will have recourse to the teaching of Book VIII., in order to see how grateful tribulations are to the children of God, and how the greatness of our hopes for eternal life ought to make all the passing events of the temporal almost unworthy of thinking about.

At last, in all the sadness which may come upon us, we must employ the authority of the superior will to do all that should be done in favour of divine love. There are indeed actions 532which so depend upon the corporal disposition and constitution that we have not the power to do them just as we please: for the melancholy-disposed cannot keep their eyes, or their words, or their faces, in the same good grace and sweetness as they would do if they were relieved from this bad humour; but they are quite able, though without this good grace, to say gracious, kind, and civil words, and, in spite of inclination, to do what reason requires as to words and works of charity, gentleness and condescension. We may be excused for not being always bright, for one is not master of cheerfulness to have it when one will; but we are not excusable for not being always gracious, yielding and considerate; for this is always in the power of our will, and we have only to determine to keep down the contrary humour and inclination.