OF THE GREAT SENTIMENT OF LOVE WHICH WE RECEIVE BY HOLY HOPE.
As when exposed to the rays of the sun at mid-day, we hardly see the brightness before we suddenly feel the heat; so the light of faith has no sooner spread the splendour of its truths in our understanding, but immediately our will feels the holy heat of heavenly love. Faith makes us know by an infallible certitude that God is, that he is infinite in goodness, that he can communicate himself unto us, and not only that he can, but that he will; so that by an ineffable sweetness he has provided us with all things requisite to obtain the happiness of immortal glory. Now we have a natural inclination to the sovereign good, by reason of which our heart is touched with a certain inward anxious desire and continual uneasiness, not being able in any way to quiet itself, or to cease to testify that its perfect satisfaction and solid contentment are wanting to it. But when holy faith has represented to our understanding this lovely object of our natural inclinations Oh! Theotimus, what joy! what pleasure! how our whole soul is thrilled, and, all amazed at the sight of so excellent a beauty, it cries out with love: Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, behold thou art fair!1
Eliezer sought a wife for the son of his master Abraham;
how could he tell whether he should find her beautiful and
gracious as he desired? But when he had found her at the
fountain, and saw her so excellent in beauty and so perfect in
sweetness, and especially when he had obtained her, he adored
God, and blessed him with thanksgiving, full of incomparable
joy. Man's heart tends to God by its natural inclination, without
We sometimes experience in ourselves a certain joyousness
which comes as it were unexpectedly, without any apparent
reason, and this is often a presage of some greater joy; whence
many are of opinion that our good angels, foreseeing the good
which is coming unto us, give us by this means a foretaste
thereof, as on the contrary they give us certain fears and terrors
amidst dangers we are not aware of, to make us invoke God's
assistance and stand upon our guard. Now when the presaged
good arrives, we receive it with open arms, and reflecting upon
the joyousness we formerly felt without knowing its cause, we
only then begin to perceive that it was a forerunner of the
happiness we now enjoy. Even so, my dear Theotimus, our
heart having had for so long a time an inclination to its
sovereign good, knew not to what end this motion tended: but
so soon as faith has shown it, then man clearly discerns that this
was what his soul coveted, his understanding sought, and his
inclination tended towards. Certainly, whether we wish or wish
not, our soul tends towards the sovereign good. But what is
this sovereign good? We are like those good Athenians who
sacrificed unto the true God, although he was unknown to
them, till the great S. Paul taught them the knowledge of him.
For so our heart, by a deep and secret instinct, in all its actions
tends towards, and aims at, felicity, seeking it here and there, as
it were groping, without knowing where it resides, or in what it