Treatise on the Love of God

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.⁵⁷⁵ 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:⁵⁷⁶ and he himself casts out joy by grief: Woe to you that now laugh: for you shall mourn and weep.⁵⁷⁷ 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, comfort 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.

575. Matt. x. 28.

576. Luke x. 20.

577. Luke vi. 25.