God is at times displeased with certain prayers, though He answers them. Illustrations of His anger with such prayers.

Some spiritual persons persuade themselves—not reflecting 1

on the great curiosity which they often display when they seek knowledge from God in supernatural ways—because their prayers are sometimes answered, that their conduct in the matter is good and pleasing unto God. Nevertheless the truth is, notwithstanding the answers they receive, that God is offended, and not pleased. And more than this, they provoke Him to anger, and displease Him greatly. The reason is this—no creature may transgress the limits which God hath appointed in the order of its being for its rule and guidance. He has ordained for man’s governance certain natural and reasonable laws, the transgression of which is therefore not right: now, to seek anything by supernatural ways is to transgress these laws, and therefore an unholy and unbecoming thing, and displeasing unto God.

You will object, and say, Why then does God, if He is displeased, answer such prayers at all? I reply, the answer occasionally comes from the devil. But when God answers, it is out of condescension to the human weakness of him who will walk in that way, that he may not become disconsolate, and go back; or that he may not think that God is angry with him, or that he may not be tempted overmuch; or it may be for other ends known to God, founded on his weakness, in consideration of which God is pleased to answer him, and condescend to him in that way. He deals in the same

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way with many weak and delicate souls, giving them a sensible sweetness in their converse with Himself, not because He delights in this, or because this way is according to His will; but because He deals with everyone according to his capacity.

God is a well from which everyone may draw water according to the measure of his vessel, and He sometimes permits us to draw it through extraordinary channels, but it is not therefore necessarily right to make use of them. It belongs to God alone to determine this, Who gives how, when, to whom, and why He wills, without respect of persons. He sometimes inclines His ear to the prayer of those who cry to Him, and because of their goodness and simplicity succours them, that they may not be made sad, and not because He is pleased with their prayer. The following illustration will make this more clear. A father covers his table with divers meats, some better than others. One of his children asks for one kind, not the best, but the first that presents itself to him: he asks for it because he likes it better than any other. His father seeing that he will not take of the best, even if he offered it, and that he would not have any satisfaction in it, gives him that he asked for. He gives it to him that he might not be left without food and disconsolate, but he gives it sorrowfully. Such was God’s dealing with the people of Israel when they demanded a king. He gave them a king unwillingly, for that-was not for their good. ‘Hearken to the voice of the people,’ saith He to Samuel: ‘ they have not rejected thee but Me, that I should not reign over them.’* He condescends in the same way to certain souls, giving them that which is not for their greater good, either because they will not, or because they cannot, walk with Him in the better way. And if at times these souls have a

* 1 Kings viii, 7.

tenderness and sweetness, spiritual or sensible, He gives it them because they are not disposed to feed on the strong and substantial meat, the sufferings of the Cross of His Son. It is His will that we should cleave thereto rather than to aught else. It is, in my opinion, much worse to seek for the knowledge of events through supernatural ways, than to seek spiritual sweetness in those of sense.

I do not see how I can excuse from sin, at least venial, those persons who do this, however good their intentions and great their progress in perfection. I say the same of those who bid them persevere in this way, or who consent to it. There is no necessity for their acting thus, because natural reason, the law and teaching of the Gospel are sufficient for our guidance, and there are no wants or difficulties which cannot be supplied or remedied by them, and that more in accordance with the will of God, and more to the profit of souls, Such is our obligation to make use of our reason and of the teaching of the Gospel, that, whether with or without our concurrence, if anything be revealed to us supernaturally, we may receive that only which is consistent with reason and the evangelical law. And we are bound to examine such things much more carefully than we should do, if no revelation had been made; for the devil, in order to deceive us, utters many things which are true and in conformity with reason.

There is no better or safer remedy for all our necessities and troubles than prayer and hope, by which God is moved to provide for us by such means as are pleasing unto Him. This is the counsel which the Holy Scriptures furnish us. When King Josaphat was in deepest affliction, hemmed in by his enemies on all sides, he betook himself to prayer, and said, ‘As we know not what to do, we can only turn our eyes to Thee.’* When everything fails us, when reason is power-

* 2 Paral. xx. 12.

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less to suggest relief, we can then lift up our eyes to Thee only, that Thou mayest provide for us, as it shall seem best to Thee.

God too, though He sends answers to prayers thus offered, is angry. But, notwithstanding the certainty of this, I think it will be well to show it from certain passages of Holy Writ. When Saul desired to consult the prophet Samuel, then dead, the Prophet came at his request; God, however, was angry with Saul, for the Prophet rebuked him, saying, ‘ Why hast thou disturbed my rest, that I should be brought up?’?* We know, too, that God was angry with the people of Israel when they asked Him for meat. He gave them meat, but He also sent fire from heaven to chastise them: ‘As yet the meat was in their mouth, and the wrath of God came upon them.’ f He was angry also with Balaam, when, at the bidding of Balac, he went to the Madianites, though God had said, ‘ Arise and go.’ Balaam was bent on going, and had asked permission of God; but an Angel stood before him in the way with a drawn sword in his hand, and sought to kill him, and said, ‘ Thy way is perverse and contrary to Me.’t In this, and in many other ways, God condescends, but in anger, to our desires. And the Holy Writings furnish us many other instances of this truth, but on which we have no need to enlarge in a matter so plain.

I have only to add that, it is a most perilous thing, and much more so than I can tell, to converse with God by these supernatural ways, and that whosoever is thus disposed cannot but fall into many shameful delusions. He who shall apply himself to these’ ways will learn by experience the truth of the matter. For over and above the difficulty of not being deceived by the Divine visions and locutions, there is usually the further danger of the devil thrusting himself

* 1 Kings xxviii. 15, + Num, xi. 4, 33; Ps. Lxxvii, 30, 31. t Num, xxii. 20, 32,

in among them. Satan, in general, comes to the soul in the ways and methods of God, suggesting to it communications so much resembling those of God, insinuating himself

as a wolf in sheep’s clothing among the flock, so that he can

scarcely be detected. For as the evil spirit announces many things that are true, conformable with reason, and certain, men may be most easily deluded, thinking that, as the prophecy corresponded with the event, it could be none other than God who had spoken. They do not reflect how very easy it is for one, endowed with clear natural light, to understand in their causes many matters, which have been or may be done. Such an one will accurately guess at many things to come. And as the devil is endowed with so clear a light, he is able to infer such results from such causes; though they are not always such as he describes them, because all things depend on the will of God.

Let us make this clear by an illustration: The devil knows that the condition of the earth and the atmosphere, and the position of the sun are such, that at a given time, the combination of the elements must, of necessity, occasion a pestilence. He will also know where the pestilence will be most violent and where least so. He perceives the pestilence in its causes. Is it a great matter for the devil, in this case, to reveal to a particular person that within a year or six months a plague will come, which does come? Yet the prediction is diabolic. He may also foretell earthquakes in the same way. When he sees the caverns of the earth filled with air, he may say an earthquake will come at such atime. This knowledge is natural. Extraordinary events in the providence of God may also be detected in their sources. Seeing that He is most just in His dealings with men, we may be able to see, in the ordinary way, that a given individual, city, or place is come to such a state or difficulty that God, in His providence and justice, must deal

therewith as the cause demands: either in the way of punish~ ment or of reward, according to the nature of the case. Under these circumstances, we may say, at such a time, God will visit, or such things will happen, most certainly. We have an instance of this in holy Judith, who, when she would persuade Holofernes that the people of Israel must certainly perish, told him of their many sins and the calamities they suffered, and added, ‘therefore because they do these things, it is certain they will be given to destruction.’ *

Here Judith saw the punishment in its cause. It is as if she had said, it is certain that such sins will draw down the chastisements of God, Who is most just. The same principle is taught in the book of Wisdom where it is written, ‘By what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented.’ f The devil may perceive this not only naturally, but also by his experience of the like dealings of God. He may also announce it certainly beforehand.

Holy Tobias also knew in its causes the chastisement about to fall upon Ninive, for he warned his son thereof, saying, ‘ Now, children, hear me, and do not stay here; but as soon as you shall bury your mother by me in one sepulchre, without delay direct your steps to depart hence. For I see that its iniquity will bring it to destruction.” f It is as if he had said, I see clearly that its iniquity must bring on punishment, and that its punishment will be its utter ruin..This might have been foreseen by the devil and Tobias, not only because of the evil deeds of Ninive, but also from their experience of the past, knowing that God had destroyed the old world, on account of the sins of men, by the deluge, and the people of Sodom by fire. But Tobias knew also the ruin of Ninive by the Holy Ghost.

The evil spirit may know that a given individual will die

* Judith xi, 12. t+ Wisd, xi. 17. } Tob. xiy. 12, 13.

within a certain time in the course of nature, and may announce the fact beforehand. He may also know many other events in divers ways, which I am unable to describe, because they are exceedingly intricate and subtle. There is no escape here, therefore, but in fleeing revelations, visions, and locutions, because God is most justly offended with whosoever seeks them; He sees that it is rashness to expose oneself to so great a risk, and that to seek these things is presumption, curiosity, the fruit of pride, the source and root of vain-glory, contempt of the things | of God, and many other evils into which so many have fallen. Such persons have so offended God, that He has deliberately abandoned them to errors and delusions and mental blindness; and has suffered them to go astray from the ordinary course of a well-regulated life, giving way to vanity and imaginations, as the Prophet saith: ‘ The Lord hath mingled in the midst thereof the spirit of giddiness,’ * that is, in common speech, the spirit of understanding things the wrong way. The words of the Prophet are to the point, for he is speaking of those who attempted to know future events by supernatural ways. He says, therefore, that God had mingled in the midst of them the spirit of understanding things the wrong way; not that God willed or sent, in fact, this spirit of delusion, but that they thrust themselves into those things, the knowledge of which is naturally a secret. God, therefore, in His anger allowed them to utter foolish things, giving them no light where it was not His will they should enter. It is therefore said that He mingled, permissively, the spirit of giddiness in the midst of them.

This is the way in which God is the cause of this evil; namely, as the privative cause, which is the withdrawal of His light and grace, the result of which is inevitable error. It

* Ts, xix, 14,

is in this way, too, that He permits the devil to blind and deceive many, whose sins and whose frowardness deserve it. The devil is then able to deceive them, and does deceive them; men believing and accounting him a good spirit, and this to such a degree, that, though convinced that they are under the influence of the evil one, they cannot get rid of their delusions; because, by the permission of God, the spirit of contradiction is so strong within them. This was the case with the prophets of Achab, who, by the permission of God, was deceived by them; for He had allowed the evil spirit to do so, saying, ‘Thou shalt deceive him and shalt prevail; go forth and do so.’* So strong was the delusion of the king and the prophets, that they refused to believe Micheas, who prophesied truly in opposition to the lying words of those prophets. They were all deceived, God having permitted their blindness, because they were bent on what they liked themselves, desiring that the event and the answer of God should correspond with their own wishes and desires. This disposition of mind is the most certain road towards being abandoned of God to error and delusions. Ezechiel in the name of God prophesies to the same effect; for speaking against such as seek knowledge, in the way of God, out of vanity of mind and curiosity, he says: ‘If he... come to the prophet to enquire of Me by him, I the Lord will answer him by Myself, and I will set My face against that man.... And when the prophet shall err.... I the Lord have deceived’ him.t We are to understand this of the non-concurrence of God’s grace, so that delusion follows. God says, ‘I will answer him by Myself, in My anger, that is, I withdraw My grace and protection; then man falls infallibly into delusions, because God has abandoned him. Then, too, the devil comes forward and makes answer ac-

* 3 Kings xxii, 22, + Ezech. xiv. 7, 8, 9.

cording to that man’s wishes and desires, who, taking pleasure therein, the answers and suggestions of the evil one being in unison with his will, falls into many delusions.

I seem to have strayed in some measure from the subject, | as I described it in the beginning of this chapter. I undertook to show that God was offended, even though He answered our prayers. Yet, if what I have said be carefully considered, it will be found to prove what I intended: it being clear throughout, that God is not pleased that men should seek after such visions, because they are in so many ways occasions of delusions.