Two great evils of the desires: negative and positive. Proofs from Scripture.

To make this matter clear, it is advisable here to explain how the desires inflict these two great evils on the soul. These evils are, the privation of the Spirit of God, and the fatigue, torture, darkness, defilement, and weakness of that soul which indulges them. ‘My people have done two evils, saith God, ‘They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.’ { These two evils flow from one single act of desire; for it is clear that the instant we

- set our affections upon any one created thing, our capacity

for union with God is diminished in proportion to the intensity of that act of affection. For, as I said before,§ two contrary qualities cannot coexist in the same subject; the love of God and the love of the creature are contrary, the one to the other, and so cannot dwell together in the same heart. What connection is there between the creature and the Creator? Between the sensual and the spiritual? The seen and the unseen? The temporal and the eternal?

* Deut. xxxi. 26; Ex. xvi. 33. + Numb. xvii. 10. t Jerem, ii, 13, § Ch. IV,

Between the heavenly food, pure and spiritual, and the food of the flesh, simply sensual? Between the poverty of Christ and selfish attachments? As in natural generation, no new form results without the corruption of the one previously existing—for this obstructs the former by reason of the contrariety between them — so while our souls are under the dominion of the sensual and animal spirit, the pure and heavenly spirit can never enter within them. This explains those words of our Lord, ‘ It is not good to take the bread of children, and to cast it to the dogs;’* and ‘Give not that which is holy to dogs. t Our Lord compares those who, renouncing all earthly desires, prepare themselves in simplicity for the graces of the Holy Ghost, with children, and those who satisfy their desires in earthly things, with dogs: children are admitted to the Father’s table, and nourished by the Spirit, but only the crumbs which fall from it are given to the dogs. All created things are but the crumbs which fall from the table of God. Thus they who go about feeding on the creature are rightly called dogs; the children’s bread is withheld from such, because they will not rise from the crumbs of the creature to the table of the uncreated Spirit of their Father. These are always hungry like dogs, and justly so, because crumbs excite the appetite rather than appease hunger. These are they of whom it is written, ‘They shall suffer hunger like dogs; and shall go round about the city—and shall murmur if they be not filled.’ They who gratify their desires are always morose and discontented, like hungry persons: for what is there in common between the hunger which the creature occasions, and the fulness which proceeds from the Spirit of God? The fulness of God cannot enter into the soul before we drive away the hunger of desire, for two

contrary qualities, such as hunger and fulness, cannot dwell

* S. Matt. xv. 26. + Ib. vii. 6. t Ps. lili. 15, 16.

together in the same subject. We may see from this how much greater is the work of God in purifying the soul from these contrarieties, than it was when He first created it out of nothing. For these rebellious desires and opposing affections seem to resist God more than nothing: that which is not, cannot resist His Majesty, but not so the love of the creature. Let this suffice for the first great evil which

~ desires inflict on the soul, namely, resistance to the Spirit of

‘

God.

Let us now proceed to the second, which is manifold in its operations. The desires fatigue, torment, darken, defile and weaken the soul. Of these five forms of evil, I shall discuss each separately. As to the first, it is evident that the desires weary the soul, because they resemble little children, restless and dissatisfied, who always begging of their mother, now one thing, now another, are never content. As one given to covetousness fatigues himself digging for gold, so the soul wearies itself in the pursuit of those things which the desires demand, and though we may obtain them, yet the end is weariness, because we are never satisfied. We have recourse to broken cisterns, which can hold no water to

- quench our thirst, as it is written, ‘ Faint with thirst and his

soul is empty.’* The soul which yields to its desires, is weary and faint, like one ill of'a burning fever, never at rest, and whose thirst increases while the fever lasts. It is written in the book of Job, ‘When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall upon him.’ Thus is it with the soul, wearied and afflicted by the desires: they wound it, agitate and disturb it, as wind does water, harassing it, so that it can never repose on anything, or in any place.

Of such souls is it written, ‘The wicked are like the

f)

* Ts. xxix. 8. 7 7) re t Job xx. 22. * i le a nek wt Ge \ A Hoh pie wee

raging sea which cannot rest.’* The heart of the wicked is

like the raging sea, and he is wicked who does not subdue

his desires. That soul which seeks to satisfy them wearies and torments itself, and is like one who, in the pains of hunger, opens his mouth to be filled with the wind, and who, instead of being satisfied therewith, becomes still more hungry, for wind is not his meat and drink. Of such it is written, ‘In the desire of his heart, he snuffed up the wind of his love,’}+ and again warning the soul against the increasing dryness towards which it tends: ‘ Keep thy foot,’ that is thy thoughts, ‘from being bare, and thy throat from thirst,’ {—that is, thy will from the gratification of the desire which is the occasion of greater dryness. As the ambitious man is wearied in the day of disappointed expectations, so the soul with its desires and their fulfilment, for they make it more empty and hungry than it was before. The desires are, as it is commonly said, like fire which burns when supplied with fuel, but which, when the fuel is consumed, immediately dies away. In truth, the desire is in a much worse condition: the fire is quenched when the fuel fails, but the desire ceases not with the matter on which it fed while it raged, even though that be utterly consumed; for instead of ceasing, like fire when the fuel is burnt out, the desire pines away in weariness, for hunger is increased, and food diminished.

A soul in this condition is thus described by the prophet, ‘He shall turn to the right hand, and shall be hungry, and shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be filled.§ They who mortify not their desires are justly punished with hunger when they ‘turn to the right hand,’ that is, when they swerve from the way of God; for they do not deserve the fulness of

* Ts. lvii. 20. + Jerem. ii, 24, $ Jerem. ii. 25, § Is. ix. 20.

His sweet Spirit, and justly also shall they ‘not be filled,’ when they ‘eat on the left hand,’ that is, when they satisfy their desire with created things; for then abandoning that which can alone satisfy them they feed on that which is the source of greater hunger. Thus, then, is it clear that the desires weary and fatigue the soul.