God's Right to Our Love

THOSE who have acknowledged what I have said must surely own our obligation to love God. But if there be infidels who will not do so much, God has wherewith to confound their ingratitude in the goods beyond number with which He enriches soul and body. Is it not from Him that man receives the bread which sustains, the light which enlightens him, the air which he breathes? If I mention these first, it is not that I account them chief, for they only concern the body, but they are the most necessary. For our chief goods we must look into the soul, the superior part of our being. Those goods are — excellence, intelligence, and virtue. When I speak of excellence in man, I mean the free will which is in him, it being this which lifts him above all other living beings and places them under his dominion. Intelligence proves to him his excellence, and at the same time proves that he owes it not to himself; and, lastly, virtue makes him seek ardently, and when he has found, embrace vehemently, Him whose work he is. These three goods present each of them two aspects. Excellence is seen as the prerogative proper to human nature, and also as causing that fear which man has always produced in every other living being. Intelligence perceives the dignity of man, but at the same time owns that though in him, yet it is not of him ; and, lastly, virtue in its double action provokes to an eager seeking for Him to whom we owe existence, and, when found, as eager a clinging to Him. Moreover, excellence without intelligence is worthless ; and intelligence without virtue can only harm ; as the following reasoning proves. No intelligence can take pride in its existence without knowing that it exists ; but if, knowing that it exists, it ignores that it does so, not by itself, but by some other, and glorifies itself in itself, not in God, it should consider the words of the Apostle : “ What hast thou that thou hast not received ? Why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” He says not merely, “why dost thou glory?” but he adds, “as if thou hadst not received it,” showing that it is not blameworthy to glory in having it, but to glory as not having received it. With good reason is such glorying termed vainglory, because it fails to rest upon the solid rock of truth. The Apostle distinguishes this from just glory by saying : “ He that glorieth may glory in the Lord, that is in the truth, for God is truth.”

We see then that there are two things to know : First, what we are ; then, that we are not such of ourselves. If we miss either of these two, we either shall not glory at all, or the glory that we take to ourselves will be “ vain.” Finally, “ if thou know not thyself, go forth and wander after the flocks of thy companions.” This is in truth what happens ; for when a man in honour knows not his own dignity, he is justly compared, by reason of such ignorance, to the animals that share with him in the corruption and perishing life of this world. Not knowing itself, the creature which reason dis tinguishes from the beasts confounds itself with them ; because, not knowing its own glory, which is all within, it gives way to vain curiosity and occupies itself with external and sensible beauty. It sinks into the likeness of lower creatures by not knowing that it has received a greater thing than they. And this is an ignorance we must sedulously guard against. We must by no means esteem ourselves to be less than God has made us. But with still greater care we must avoid that other ignorance which makes us attribute more to ourselves than we possess ; which we do when we mistakenly impute to ourselves the gifts we may be conscious of. Besides these two kinds of ignorance, there remains, to be still more detested and fled from, the presumption which would lead us know ingly to take pride in the good of which we may be conscious, without fear of robbing another of the glory due to Him for things which we well know do not come from ourselves. In the first case, we glory not at all. In the second, we glory, but not in God. In the third, we sin no longer ignorantly but deliberately by usurping that which belongs to God alone. This audacity, compared with the second fault, is greater in this : that it despises God, whereas the other did not know Him. Com pared with the first, it assimilates us to devils ; whereas the other made us like the beasts. Pride alone, the greatest of all evils, can make us guilty of using the gifts we have received as if they were ours by nature, and of robbing our Benefactor, for our own benefit, of the glory which is His by right. Therefore to .excellence and intelligence we must add virtue, their proper fruit. It is by virtue that we seek and attain to the generous Author of all things, Him to whom we ought in all things to render the glory which belongs to Him ; otherwise we shall suffer for having known that which was right, and neglected to do it. He that does so has io LOVE OF GOD.

not used His intelligence for good, but “hath devised iniquity on his bed ;” he has tried, like a wicked servant, to turn aside and appropriate the glory his good Master should have received, knowing well by the gift of intelligence that he himself had no claim to it. It is clear that excel lence without intelligence is useless, and that intelligence without virtue leads to ruin. But, to the man that possesses virtue, neither intelligence nor excellence can be hurtful ; he lifts up his voice and praises God eagerly, saying : “ Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name be the glory ; “ which is to say : “ Lord, we lay no claim to intelli gence, or excellence ; we refer all to Thee, for from Thee we have all that we have.”

But we are somewhat wandering, in our desire to prove that they who know not Christ, even they, are sufficiently taught by the natural law, and by the gifts they possess of body and soul, to love God for God's own sake. To repeat in few words what was said above : Where is the infidel who does not know that from Him alone who makes His sun to shine upon the just and unjust, and the rain to fall upon saints and sinners, from Him alone he has received all that is necessary for life ; light, air, and food ? What man, be he never so impious, refers the excellence peculiar to the human race to any other but to Him who says LOVE OF GOD. n in Genesis, “ Let us make man to Our Own image and likeness “ ? Who sees the author of intelligence in any but in Him who teacheth all men? From what other hand will any think to receive virtue, but from the God of virtue ? God then has good title to be loved for Himself, even on the know ledge of the infidel who is ignorant of Christ ; and he that loves not the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and strength is without excuse ; for his innate justice and reason cry out from the depth of his soul that he is bound to love Him wholly from whom he holds all things. But it is very difficult, nay, it is impossible by natural strength or the might of free will to refer all to God, instead of keeping back some to our own praise: it is written : “All seek their own ;” and elsewhere : “The imagination and thought of man's heart are prone to evil from his youth.”