Book II, Chapter VII

Simplicity doth tend towards God; Purity doth apprehend and, as it were, taste Him

(On these words) — u Simplicity doth tend towards God; Purity doth apprehend and, as it were, taste Him.” B. ii. c. 4..

Question. — What are the motions of the soul which desires to be united with God?

Answer. — Those three noted by the bride in i Solomon’s Song. I sought Him whom my soul loveth. She says, I found Himf I held Him, and would not let Him go. Can. iii. 1. 4. The soul strongly attached to her Beloved, who is her Divine Spouse, begins I then by seeking Him, by seeking finds, and having ] at length found Him, holds Him fast, and so clings to Him, that nothing can separate them more. She seeks Him by simplicity, and finds and possesses Him by purity.

WHAT IT IS TO SEEK GOD. 83

Question. — What is it then to seek God?

Answer. — It is to try in all things to lift up our heart to heaven, and to fulfil the Divine Will, which consists in three things.

1. The first is, to walk as in the presence of God, without ever losing sight of Him, as the Holy Spirit says by the mouth of His prophets: Seek ye the Lord while He may he found seek His face evermore. Isa. lv. 6. Ps. cv. 4. That man seeks the Lord who remembers Him in all his actions, forgetful of himself, and of all creatures. Cowardly souls love not the remembrance of God; they dread His inspirations and enlightening, because they fear lest they should be obliged to alter their life. Those, on the contrary, who desire to he faithful to grace, have God always present to their mind; they constantly implore His government, His support, His assistance in the practice of virtue; and directly this help fails them, directly they begin to lose their joy in God, they are in constant disquietude till they have regained it; their whole care, their utmost efforts, are directed to recal to their memory the sweet idea of Him, Who alone was their happiness, and Who alone can lead them to perfection. They are unlike the lukewarm and imperfect, who calmly suffer the privation of the Divine Light, without feeling their misfortune. They cry, they groan, they cease not to call on the Lord, till at length they find Him once more. Such is the fruit of a holy simplicity, which looks to God

‘ 2. The second means of seeking God, is to have a i simple and direct intention, to strive to the uttermost to find Him, to do in all circumstances what pleases Him best, to crush in our hearts all which inspires human respect and vain-glory; in a word, it is to think of nothing hut honouring and serving God. Whosoever does otherwise, seeks himself, and not

WHAT IT IS TO SEEK GOD.

Christ Jesus*. Simplicity acts thus, because it has but one object, and turns away its eyes from all things; beside. There is in fact but one path for the simple [ soul, while there are a thousand for the deceitful and wayward. The straight road is the only one, and they who follow it have nothing in view, but to do I what God requires of them. Those who have but little love for God, and little zeal for His service, become attached to all things that please the senses; but those who truly love Him, desire only what pleases Him, and this is rightly called seeking God; this is what our Lord recommends, when He desires us to seek first the kingdom of God. Matt, vi. 33. Ps. xiv. 2. But God justly complains in many places of Scripture, that there is none that seeketh Him, Ps. liii. 3. and that goeth to Him with a simple and efficacious intention of pleasing Him.

3. The third means of seeking Him, is to do the utmost in our power to return to the good path directly we discover that we have quitted it. If you perceive then that you have discovered too freely your hidden life, have been too wandering, too much carried away by the diversions and the conversation of the world; if you feel your soul weighed down by I the pursuit of perishing things, or relaxed by indolence I and lukewarmness, retire immediately within your- self; fortify yourself by prayer; regulate your interior carefully; for those who place their supreme happiness in sensual delights and worldly pleasures, at length \ find in them their extreme misery. As for pure and faithful souls, nothing can be more painful to I them than the coldness into which they think they have fallen. They are impatient to rekindle the first i fire of their devotion, to unite themselves more strongly than ever to our Lord, to renew their

I a Phil. ii. 21.

WHEN MAY WE SAY WE HAYE FOUND GOD. 85 vigilance and fervour, both in their prayers and in their works. Thus they seek God, and continue till at length they find Him.

Question. — When may we say that we have found God?

Answer. — When the soul which has sought Him faithfully, atlength arrives at a state in which God unites Himself to her, and she unites herself to Him so closely, that she feels Him in her heart, from which she has banished sin, and in which she enjoys a serenity, a peace, an inward joy, which the presence of God alone can bring. Serenity is the effect of the great illuminings which chase away all darkness from her peace springs from the removal of all that might trouble her joy from the Grace with which she is wholly imbued, and which fills all her powers. Then may we say truly that she has found what she sought, and gathered the fruit of her long perseverance.

God hides Himself from some, either to punish their unfaithfulness or to try their virtue; the good feel this trial bitterly, because, when God withdraws Himself, life becomes to them more insupportable than death. They say weeping, I sought Him whom my soul loveth, but I found Him not. Can. iii. 1. But if after an absence of many days, sometimes of many years, He shows Himself to them once more, if by their prayers and sighs, their penances and voluntary mortifications, they at length constrain Him to return, their joy is beyond conception, and they are well assured that they have found Him, because they feel an inward calm, a strength, a happiness which can proceed from Him alone.

Holy Scripture and the masters of the inward life exhort all people in general never to weary of seeking God; and it was in this sense that Christ said, Ask, and it shall he given you; knock, and it shall he opened 86 WHAT IS IT TO HOLD GOD FAST? unto you. Luke xi. 9. The proper means to recover • Him when He is lost, are prayer and patience. Seek,

said our Lord, and ye shall find. Ibid. We seek by prayer, by humiliation, by self-mortification, and then God reveals Himself to the soul, of which we have a figure in the woman in the Gospel, who found her piece of silver a. The diligence with which we should seek the Lord is simply expressed by the eager carefulness of this woman. She sweeps her own house, lights her candle, moves every thing, searches everywhere; and the extreme joy which she shows when the piece of silver is found, represents the state of the soul on recovering the Grace which she had lost.

Question. — What is it to hold God fast, and retain Him within ourselves?

Answer. — It is to possess Him, to enjoy Him, not to suffer any thing whatsoever to separate us from Him. This takes place when, after much seeking, having found our supreme good, and enjoying that in- I ward peace in which we taste and see how gracious the; Lord isb, we attach ourselves to Him, and obtain by our fidelity, that He shall leave us no more. Thus to possess God is the privilege of the pure in heart®, for when once they have succeeded in casting away their vices, and washing themselves from their sins, when they have uprooted their evil habits, the Holy Spirit, who desires nothing so much as to find abodes worthy of receiving Him, communicates Himself and unites Himself to them.

Purity, then, is the virtue which has the advantage not only of knowing the Supreme Good, but of feeling and tasting His sweetness, and binding itself for ever to Him. As its ardent love for God makes it seek in all things what is most pleasing to Him, it causes

WHAT IS IT TO HOLD GOD FAST? 87 it also to feel a horror of all that may displease Him; thus the soul; purged from her sins, and with her natural inclination to evil diminished, the soul, I say, has then reason to hope that the Heavenly Spouse will come to dwell within her. Two things in consequence must be her whole occupation.

The first is, to attach herself inseparably to that Supreme Goodness Which alone can give her the succour both of light and strength which she needs rightly to perform her duties. The other is, to live in a state of great fervour, and to be always faithful to Grace. For as the good of the soul is to possess Christ, so the good thing which Christ requires of the soul is, that she be always most faithful to Him, and that by extreme vigilance she avoid even the smallest faults, and the slightest imperfections, and labour for nothing but to satisfy and please Him. This is the only way to render oneself worthy of possessing Him.

When one who loves his own interest has acquired some perishable good, he says in himself, as Pharaoh said when he was pressed to suffer the people of God to go out of Egypt, I will not let it go, (Ex. v. 2,) it shall not escape me, I will keep it to the last. One who is attached to God by the bonds of pure love, also protests that he will never leave Him, but abide eternally united with Him; that he will rather lose life than His love, will be always faithful, and will thereby constrain Him to fulfil him continually with His favours.

The conclusion of the whole matter is this, that the happiness of the enjoyment of God is the recompence of purity; that constant fidelity retains and preserves it; and that finally, by means of these two virtues, we abide in that Divine Union which makes all the sweetness of this present life, and is the reward of past labours.

WHO CAN BEST TELL HOW TO SUFFER