blood, and by His dolorous and disgraceful death.* In our Preservation, each hour and moment fighting our battles for us against our enemies, preventing and accompanying us with His heavenly grace, and leaving with us His dear Son, always ready for our support and nourishment in the Holy Sacrament of the altar. These, verily, and many more, are evident tokens of the high price He puts upon our meanness and misery, and of the love which our great Creator bears to us, His poor and wretched creatures; and are in themselves such inestimable benefits, that none but His own Divine understanding is capable of comprehending the least of them. How much therefore are we bound in exchange to do for so excellent a Majesty, Who hath done such things for us! For if worldly potentates, receiving honour from private persons of lowest rank, think themselves bound to return them reciprocal honour, what ought our vileness endeavour towards the supreme Monarch of the universe, Who as highly courts and cherisheth us.

* 'Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your father; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.' 1 Peter ii. 18, 19.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE TWO WILLS IN MAN; AND OF THE CONTINUAL STRIFE AND CONFLICT BETWEEN THEM.

rational and

1. THOU must take notice, my dearly beloved, of two Two wills, wills in man: the one of reason, which is theresensual. fore called the rational or superior will; the other of sense, and so named the sensual or inferior will, and sometimes sensuality, appetite, concupiscence, the flesh, passion, and the like. And though both one and the other are in man, nevertheless, since we are only rightly called men when we act as rational creatures, so neither are we said to will anything which the sensual appetite chooses, until the superior will or reason confirms the choice.

2. From this diversity, therefore, springs all our The rational spiritual conflict; for our superior will, being as it were midway between God's will, which

is seated be

tween God's grace and

the sensual will.

is above it, and our sensuality, which is beneath it, is perpetually invited, enticed, and pulled, first by the divine will and then by sensuality, each endeavouring to draw it to its own side, and subject it to its own control and command.

ous prompt

3. But this battle is of no great difficulty to those who The virtu- are either truly virtuous or downright vicious. ly yield to For they who are virtuous come no sooner to the knowledge of God's holy will, but they presently yield their consent, and bridle their brutish sensuality.

God's will,

4. The wicked, on the contrary, act straightway according to their appetite, checking the mo- the vicious tions of the Holy Spirit which contradict it.

to their sensuality;

but they

5. They, therefore, chiefly feel the brunt of this battle-especially at first-who have been great who of sinsinners, and are now resolved upon amend- come ment, and to this end sever themselves from the greatest

ners are becon

verts have

conflict.

worldly and fleshly delights the better to love and serve their Lord Jesus Christ for the future. For the inward feeling and strokes of God's will, which their reason receives from above, and the cruel contradictions and adverse motion of their sensuality, which it must necessarily suffer from below, are so powerful on either side, that between them the poor reason is brought into extreme straits and perplexities.

Such as

resolve to

ently the

6. Wherefore, let no one think to gain the victory who is not instructed, prepared, and resolved to these must support patiently all such pains as he shall en- bear patidure in leaving his past pleasures. For this loss of their surely seems one of the chief causes why so few attain to true perfection; because, feeling grief and trouble in the

*

pleasures.

* In his Confessions (lib. viii. cap. 7, 8, 11, 12), St. Augustine draws a picture of the terrible conflict he experienced within himself upon his conversion. What did I not say against myself in this conflict? How did I lash and scourge my own soul, to make it follow Thee, O Lord? But it held back, it refused and excused itself; and when all its arguments were confuted, it remained trembling and fearing, as though it were death to be restrained from that unbridled custom of sin whereby it was wasting to death.' After this he went into a garden with Alipius, his companion, and then cried out unto him in these words, 'What is this, Alipius? What is this we have been hearing? What suffer we under the tyranny of sin? Unlearned men, such

beginning of their conversion, and in the quieting of their depraved affections and desires, they stand not fast to their resolutions, but yield to their enemies, who treacherously invade them, not making a manly resistance with the sword of reason, but rather, like cowardly soldiers, they skulk away, throw down their arms, yield

as Anthony and others, take heaven by storm; and behold we, with all our learning, cowardly and heartlessly, still lie groveling in flesh and blood.' After this he went a little further into an orchard, and there he underwent a still greater conflict. For presently all his past pleasures presented themselves before his eyes, saying, 'What! wilt thou depart from us? And shall we never after this moment be with thee any more? And shall it never be lawful for thee to do this or that again?' Then, dismayed with the recollection of these foul thoughts, he exclaimed, 'Turn away, O Lord, the mind of Thy servant from thinking of what they presented to my soul.' What filthy, what shameful pleasures did they set before his eyes! Presently,' he says, 'these evil thoughts became much fainter, so that I only half heard them; they now not openly showing themselves and contradicting me, but muttering as it were behind my back, and furtively pulling me by the coat, as one does to those going away to make them look back upon him. But yet in spite of my efforts they retarded me, so that I hesitated to break loose and shake myself free from them, and to bound forth whither I was called; the violence of vicious custom still saying to me, "Thinkest thou that thou canst live without them?" At length, after enduring long and tedious combats, a marvellous tempest of weeping came over him, and being unable any longer to restrain his feelings, he ran away from Alipius, and casting himself on the ground under a fig-tree, gave free vent to his eyes, and poured forth an acceptable sacrifice in a torrent of tears. O, what strength and comfort may the sinner draw in his struggles against sin, by reflecting upon the savage assaults, fierce combats, and piercing anguish which the saints experienced upon their conversion to God! If even some of the greatest saints, such as St. Augustine, felt at times the iron hand of evil custom dragging them down from God to their former sinful life, and heard ever and anon the unclean whisperings of Satan in their ear, what right have miserable sinners, such as we, to hope that we shall escape the insidious attacks of the devil, when we turn from our wicked ways to serve the living God? Therefore it is written in the inspired Word: 'Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation. Humble thy heart and endure.' Ecclus. ii. 1, 2.

themselves to the mercy of their enemies, and become again their bondslaves, who will now more than heretofore tyrannise over them.

MENT.

sorts of unmortified

7. And amongst these one may pick out some who indeed neither take away nor detain their neigh- ENLARGEbours' goods wrongfully, but yet have their af- Divers fection fixed excessively upon those which they souls. possess justly; so likewise they will not purchase honours unlawfully, but they love and desire them passionately; they will keep the prescribed fastings punctually, but care not to mortify their gluttony; they will live continently, but are loath to leave pleasing company, which hinders their union with God and greatly retards them in their tendance to perfection. From these things, and the like petty affections, it follows that their good works are performed with a certain irksomeness of mind, and are accompanied with divers self-interests and secret imperfections; yea, with self-conceit and good liking of their own actions, and with a longing desire to be liked and loved by others. Such as these not only make no progress in the way of spirituality, but even return backwards, and are in imminent hazard of falling into their former follies, because they are neither enamoured with true virtue nor ungrateful to their loving Creator, Who hath freed them from the tyranny of the devil. They are, moreover, stricken with ignorance and blindness, since they neither understand nor see their own danger, but falsely and foolishly fancy themselves to be in a state of security.

D