the desert; and, in a word, that he should not chastise the delights, if I may venture to say so, of guilt, but by those of virtue?
Secondly. You have so long refused yourself to God, in spite of the most lively inspirations of his grace, which recalled you to the truth and to the light; you have so long suffered him to knock at the gate of your heart before you have opened it to him; you have disputed, struggled against, wavered, deferred so much, before you gave yourself to him; is it not just that he leave you to solicit for some time before he give himself to you with all the consolations of his grace? The delays and the tarryings of the Lord are the just punishment of your own.
But, even admitting these reasons to be less weighty, how do you know if the Lord thereby mean not to render this exilement and this separation in which we live from him, more hateful to you, and to increase the fervency of your longings for that immortal country where truth, seen in open day, will always appear lovely, because we shall see it as it is? How do you know if he thereby mean not to inspire you with new compunction for your past crimes, by making you sensible, at every moment, of the contrariety and disgust which they have left in your heart to the truth and to righteousness? Lastly, how do you know, if the Lord mean not, by these disgusts, to perfect the purification of what may as yet be too human in your piety; — if he mean not to establish your virtue upon that truth which is always the same, and not upon inclination and fancy, which incessantly change; upon rules which are eternal, and not upon consolations which are transitory; upon faith which never fails to sacrifice the visible for the invisible riches, and not upon feeling, which leaves to the world almost the same empire that grace hath over your heart? A piety wholly of fancy goes a short way, if not sustained and confirmed by the truth. It is dangerous to let our fidelity depend upon the feeling dispositions of a heart which is never an instant the same, and upon which every object makes new impressions. The duties which only please when they console, do not please long; and that virtue which is solely founded on fancy can never sustain itself, because it rests only upon ourselves.
For, after all, if you seek only the Lord in your prayers, provided that the way by which he leads you conduct to him, it ought to matter little to you whether it be by that of disgusts or of consolations, for, being the surest, it ought always to appear preferable to all others. If you pray only to attract more aids from heaven in relief of your wants, or in support of your weakness, faith teaching you that prayer, even when accompanied with those disgusts and those drynesses, obtains the same favours, produces the same effects, and is equally acceptable to God as that in which sensible consolations are found. What do I say? — that it may become even more agreeable to the Lord, through your acceptance of the difficulties which you there encounter; faith teaching you this, you ought to be equally faithful to prayer as if it held out the most sensible attractions, otherwise it would not be God whom
