Letter 29. To a certain Lady
THE grace and peace of the holy ghost, be in your hart, and assist you in this holy time; that you may prepare your soul, for that Infant who is now to be borne. For he hath no house, but in those souls which are well disposed to receive him. He comes as a stranger, and in great poverty, Give him your hart, that so he may say in the last day, I was a stranger and you received me. But yet consider withal, that as there is nothing so much to be desired by you as to lodge this Infant in your soul, so is there nothing which requires more care and diligence, then to prepare, the lodging ready, in such sort as he desires. He comes in humility, and poverty; and they who receive him must be humble, and poor. He comes to undertake great labours, and with labour that house must be adorned, wherein he voutchafes to dwell. He is chaste, and he love's such as are chaste. And though he be very little, and a very Infant; yet withal, he is very great, and he is God; and so it must be no little thing to prepare a lodging for a great God. Our lord is choice and nice, and by reason of someone mortal sin which some man makes little difficulty to commit, he refuses to enter into the soul. And if he be there already, one mortal sin, sends him away. And when he is gone, he comes not back again so soon; but makes it plain, by the difficulty which he hath to return, with how great diligence he is to be kept, by us; when we have him there.1
O my good lady, and how rich is he who possesses God, and how often in the day were he to look down upon his hart, ask our Lord if he be there? What chains should he cast about him of humble petitions and tears, begging of him as David did, in these words, O lord depart not from me. How full of caution ought a man to walk, lest he should do somewhat, which might offend our Lord, & least being offended, he should be gone. For, if he be all good, what shall it be to lose him, but to fall into the Abyss of all miseries? They are sad things, which a soul feels, when it hath lost God; and such, as will hardly be believed, though all the world should speak of them. This appears well in our first parents Adam and Eue. For Eve, looking upon the fruit of the forbidden, tree, it seemed very beautiful to her eye, and that if she might eat thereof, it would prove very pleasing to her, and give her great contentment. But as soon hast she had eaten, her eyes were opened, to behold those great miseries, which came upon her by that means, & experience taught her, that the bitterness of breaking the commandment of God, was greater, than the pleasure to have eaten the fruit. And then she saw, that the appearance which the forbidden fruit had, of being so very fair, and full of gust, was but a deceit of the devil, who made a false glass, for her to look through. And he also gave her a loathing, of those other fruits which God commanded her to eat. So as they seemed unsavoury to her, and she thought that all the gust, and hidden good, had consisted in that which God forbade.2
O how many have been deceived by the devil, through false imagination; he promising them contentment, & gust; & they afterwards, making bitter lamentation, for giving credit to him, whom even before they knew to be a liar, & the father of lies: and some, after the end of many labours, and tears, have sweat hard, to return into the freindshipp of God, though, through all their life, they continued with this dagger in their hart, of, How have I offended God, having vouchsafed me so many blessings! And it seemed to them, as if they enjoyed not the benefit of his pardon, through the continual grief and shame, which they had for committing the offence. Others there are, who being once gone away; never turn again; like ill made hawks, who flying from the fist of their Lord, fall to feed upon carrion; and being so fleshed, return no more; and having formerly tasted the food of Angels, grow to take delight in the husks of swine. Of these S. Peter saith, That it had been better for them, not to have known the way of our lord, then to leave it after it was known. And it happens to them as to the dog who returns to eat, what he had vomited, & as to the hogg who wallows in his mire from side to side. And our Lord himself said, That he who puts his hand to the plough, and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of heaven; but returns to be worldly again, and is both made an object of scorn to the devil, and is also placed as a mark to fright others from offending God.345
In this sort did the wife of Loth undo herself.
For God having vouchsafed her so great a favour, as to deliver her from the fire, which came from heaven, upon Sodam and Gomorrah, where she dwelled, and commanding her not to look back again, she obeyed not his voice; but turning her head back, was transformed into a pillar of salt, which beasts lick up. And here it is to be considered, that if God punished her so severely, who had not been a sinner in that City, but only because she obeyed not his commandment of not looking back for what can the sinner hope, who is delivered from the punishment of God, through his great mercy; if yet despising that excessive goodness, he turn back his hart, towards the flesh pots of Egypt, and his sins past.6
I beseech God even for God's own sake, to deliver every soul, from falling down into so great a misery as this. For as S. Paul affirms, it is a fearful and horrible thing, to fall into the hands of the living God, and what is man, that he should be able to endure the wrath and fury, of Almighty God? For as any huge fire, is able to devour some little woeful straw, so doth the mighty wrath of God, swallow up the souls & bodies of all such persons as departed from him. And as when some wife, who had been dearly beloved by her husband, commits the fowl sin of adultery, that husband is enraged so much the more against her, at she had been more beloved by him; so that wrath of God is very unsufferable, which he expresses against that soul, which he had formerly drawn out of the captivity of sin, and of bound had made free, and being naked and void of grace, had made rich and rarely adorned with the same grace, and of a wicked slave, had exalted to be his most honoured & beloved wife. What would such a woman deserve, who being ungrateful for so great favours; I say not should commit adultery, against such a generous and pious husband, but through whose hart, any such thought should once pass, though she were a thousand mile off, from the fact.7
Who could ever think of giving a buffet, to one that had endured so many for him; and to put fresh dishonours, & to crucify a second time that person, whose former wounds, it were much more fit for him to bathe & dress and assuage, then to add new ones to the old? What kind of wickedness shall we call it, (which is able even to amaze, and astonish the world) for one to leave God for the devil, and having been walking in the way to heaven, to go thrust his very feet into hell; and to like better to have to do with God enraged, then with God all gentle and appeased?
Madam, I have not written this, as thinking that this misery will lay hold on you. For my confidence is not in you, but in him, whoe, with so much mercy, and pity, redeemed you, out of the captivity wherein you were, and taught you so well, what belongs to his love, as to have given you clearly to understand thereby that he meant not to undertake the business in jest, neither will he, that either you, or I, shall make a jest thereof. In this lord who love's with so great fidelity, do I place my confidence; and not in you, who have kept so ill correspondance with his true love. But I have written this, to the end, that of yourself, you may hunt out a little sent, of the danger wherein you are; & that you may recommend yourself more and more, to our Lord, and in fine, that you may be so discreet as not to cast away your time, in the admitting of unprofitable thoughts. Our lord will clear up these things, and will finish that which he hath begun, and will not take this Crown from me, and therefore am I in patience and hope, that you shall not deprive me of that which God hath given me. You have here many servants of God, both men and women, who recommend you to his mercy, with much care, and I beseech him to grant it most completely to you. Amen.
Footnotes
Chapter 12 of 57