[⁶] Canticles viii. 7.
[⁷] 2 Peter i. 19.
[⁸] Proverbs iv. 18.
[⁹] Psalms lxxxiv. 7.
3. Why should we think it impossible that true goodness and universal love should come to sway and prevail in our souls? Is not this their primitive condition, as they came out of the hands of their maker? Sin and corruption are but usurpers; and though they have long kept the possession, yet from the beginning it was not so. That inordinate self-love which one would think were interwoven with our nature, is nevertheless of foreign extraction, and had no place at all in the state of integrity. We have still so much reason left as to condemn it. Our understandings are easily convinced that we ought to be wholly devoted to him from whom we have our being, and to love him infinitely more than ourselves, who is infinitely better than we. And our wills would readily comply with this, if they were not disordered and out of tune. And is not he who made our souls able to mend them again? Shall we not be able, by his assistance, to vanquish and expel those violent intruders, and turn unto flight the armies of the aliens[¹].
[¹] Hebrews xi. 34.
4. No sooner shall we take up arms in this holy war, but we shall have all the saints on earth, and all the angels in heaven engaged on our side. The holy church throughout the world is daily interceding with God for the success of all such endeavours. And doubtless those heavenly hosts above, are nearly concerned in the interests of religion, and infinitely desirous to see the divine life prevailing in this inferior world, and that the will of God may be done by us on earth, as it is done by them in heaven. May we not then encourage ourselves, as the prophet did his servant, when he shewed him the horses and chariots of fire, Fear not, for they that be with us, are more than they that are against us[¹]?
[¹] 2 Kings vi. 16, 17.
We must do what we can, and depend on the divine assistance.
5. Away then with all desponding thoughts. To undertake vigorously, and rely confidently on the divine assistance, is more than half the conquest: Let us arise and be doing, and the Lord will be with us[¹]. It is true, religion in the souls of men is the immediate work of God, and all our natural endeavours can neither produce it alone, nor merit those supernatural aids by which it must be wrought. The Holy Ghost must come upon us, and the power of the Highest overshadow us, before that holy thing can be begotten, and Christ formed in us. But yet we must not expect that this work should be done without any endeavours of our own; we must not lie loitering in the ditch, and wait till omnipotence pull us thence; no, no, we must bestir ourselves, and actuate these powers which we have already received. We must put forth ourselves to our utmost capacities, and then our labour shall not be vain in the Lord[²]. All the art and industry of man cannot form the smallest herb, or make a stalk of corn to grow in the field. It is the energy of nature, and the influences of heaven, which produce this effect. It is God who causeth the grass to grow, and herb for the service of man[³]; and yet nobody will say that the labours of the husbandman are useless or unnecessary. So likewise the human soul is immediately created by God; it is he who both formeth and enliveneth the child, and yet he hath appointed the marriage-bed as the ordinary means for the propagation of mankind: and so, though there must intervene a stroke of omnipotence to effect this mighty change in our souls; yet ought we to do what we can, that we may be more ready to receive the seeds of grace and the dew of heaven. It is true, God hath been found of some who sought him not; he hath cast himself in their way who were quite out of his; he hath laid hold upon them, and stopt their course on a sudden; for so was St. Paul converted in his journey to Damascus. But certainly this is not God’s ordinary method of dealing with men: though he hath not tied himself to means, yet he hath tied us to the use of them; and we have never more reason to expect the divine assistance, than when we are doing our utmost endeavours. It shall therefore be my next work to shew what course we may take for attaining that blessed temper I have described.