Disorderly Appetites

132. He who loves any creature out of the order of charity, becomes vile as that creature itself, and in one sense even viler ; for love not only levels but subjects also the lover to the object of his love.

133. The passions and desires, when under control and restrained, are sources of all virtue, and also, when they have broken loose, of all the vices and imperfections of the soul.

134. Every desire hurts the soul in five ways, beside robbing it of the Spirit of God : i. It fatigues it. 2. Torments it. 3. Blinds it. 4. Defiles it. 5. Weak ens it.

135. All created things are crumbs which fall from the table of God ; and for that reason, they who go about feeding on the creature are rightly called dogs ;

they are, therefore, always hungry like dogs, and justly so, because crumbs excite rather than appease, hunger.

136. The desires are like restless and dissatisfied children begging of their mother, now one thing, now another, never contented ; like one ill of a burning fever, never at rest, and whose thirst increases while the fever continues.

137. As a man dragging a cart up hill, so is that soul on its way to God, which does not throw aside the cares of this life, and does not deny itself.

138. As he is tormented who falls into the hands of his enemies, so is the soul afflicted and tormented which is carried away by its desires.

139. As a man is tormented and afflicted who lies down naked amid thorns and briars, so is the soul tormented and afflicted which lies down in the midst of its desires : they pierce, torture, and tear it painfully.

140. As vapours darken the air and hide the light of the sun, so the soul, captive to its desires, is, as to the understanding, in darkness, so that neither the sun of natural reason nor that of the supernatural wisdom of God can reach it or enlighten it.

141. He who feeds his desires is like a moth, or a fish dazzled by the light which the fishermen throw over the water, that it may not see the ruin which the fishermen have prepared for it.

142. Who can tell how impossible it is for the soul, subject to desires, to judge of the things of God ? for while the film of desire is over the eye of its judgment, it sees nothing but that film, now of one colour, now of another ; and so it comes to regard the things of God as not the things of God, and those which are not the things of God as the things of God.

143. A bird that has perched upon a twig covered with birdlime labours in a twofold way, in setting itself free, and in cleaning itself ; so a soul, that has given way to desires ; it has to set itself free in the first place, and then to clean itself of that which has clung to it.

144. As soot defiles the most beautiful and perfect face, so the unruly desires of the soul defile and pollute that soul which entertains them, and yet that soul in itself is the most beautiful and perfect image of God.

145. He that toucheth pitch, saith the Holy Ghost, shall be defiled with it.* A soul touches pitch when it satisfies the desires of the will in any created thing.

146. If my object were to describe the foul and corrupt condition to which the desires reduce the soul, I should not be able to find anything so full of cobwebs and worms, not even corruption itself wherewith to compare it.

147. The desires are like the suckers which grow on a tree, they sap its strength and destroy its fertility.

148. There are corrupt humours which so weaken a man's gait, and make him loathe his food, as the desire of the creature weakens the soul, indisposing it for the4 practice of virtue.

149. Many souls have no inclination for virtue, because their desires are not pure, and not for God.

150. As the young vipers, growing in the womb, feed on their mother and kill her, preserving their own lives at the cost of hers, so the unmortified desires prey on the soul and kill in it the life of God ; they at last are the only things that live in it, because the soul has not killed them first.

151. As it is necessary to till the earth that it may bring forth fruit — for otherwise it will produce nothing but weeds, — so also is it necessary to mortify our desires, that the soul may be clean.

152. As wood is never transformed into fire if but one degree of heat necessary for that end be wanting, so the soul that has one imperfection can never be perfectly transformed in God.

153. Whether it.be a strong wire rope, or a slender and delicate thread, that holds the bird, it matters not if it really detains it, for, until the cord be broken, the bird cannot fly ; so the soul, held in the bonds of human affections, however slight they may be, cannot, while they last, make its way to God.

154. The desires and attachments of the soul have the property attributed to the remora, which, though it be but a very little fish, yet it arrests the progress of the ship to which it clings.

155. O that spiritual men knew how they are losing the blessings and fulness of the Spirit, merely because they will not raise up their desires above trifles ! and how they might have the sweetness of all things in the pure food of the Spirit — of which the manna was a figure — if they would only abstain from tasting other food.

156. The children of Israel did not find in the manna all the sweetness and strength they might have found in it ; not because the manna did not contain them, but because they longed for other meat.

157. Of one spark cometh a great fire, and one imperfection is enough to beget others. We shall never see a soul negligent in resisting but one single desire, which has not many other desires, springing out of that weakness and imperfection from which the first proceeds.

158. Voluntary and perfectly deliberate desires, how ever slight they may be, if only habitual, are those which chiefly hinder our progress to perfection.

159. Any imperfection to which the soul is attached and accustomed, is a greater injury to virtue than a daily fall into many other and even greater imperfections, provided they do not result from the habitual indulgence of an evil inclination.

160. God is justly angry with certain souls whom He, by His mighty arm, has delivered from the world, and from the occasions of grievous sins, but who are weak and negligent in mortifying certain imperfections ; for this He permits them to fall through their desires from bad to worse.