BOOK I. CONTAINING A PREPARATION FOR THE WHOLE TREATISE.
Chapter II. How the Will Variously Governs the Powers of the Soul.
Chapter III. How the Will Governs the Sensual Appetite.
Chapter V. Of the Affections of the Will.
Chapter VI. How the Love of God Has Dominion over Other Loves. 29
Chapter VII. Description of Love in General.
Chapter VIII. What Kind of Affinity (Convenance) It Is Which Excites Love.
Chapter IX. That Love Tends to Union.
Chapter X. That the Union to Which Love Aspires Is Spiritual.
Chapter XI. That There Are Two Portions in the Soul, and How. 45
Chapter XII. That in These Two Portions of the Soul There Are Four Different Degrees of Reason.
Chapter XIII. On the Difference of Loves.
Chapter XIV. That Charity May Be Named Love.
Chapter XV. Of The Affinity There Is between God and Man. 54
Chapter XVI. That We Have a Natural Inclination to Love God above All Things
Chapter XVII. That We Have not Naturally the Power to Love God above All Things.
Chapter XVIII. That the Natural Inclination Which We Have to Love God Is not Useless.
THE SECOND BOOK. THE HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND HEAVENLY BIRTH OF DIVINE LOVE.
Chapter I. That the Divine Perfections Are Only a Single But Infinite Perfection.
Chapter II. That in God There Is But One Only Act, Which Is His Own Divinity. 66
Chapter III. Of the Divine Providence in General.
Chapter IV. Of the Supernatural Providence Which God Uses towards Reasonable Creatures.
Chapter V. That Heavenly Providence Has Provided Men with a Most Abundant Redemption.
Chapter VI. Of Certain Special Favours Exercised by the Divine Providence in the Redemption of Man.
Chapter VII. How Admirable the Divine Providence Is in the Diversity of Graces Given to Men.
Chapter VIII. How Much God Desires We Should Love Him.
Chapter X. How We Oftentimes Repulse the Inspiration and Refuse to Love God.
Chapter XI. That It Is no Fault of the Divine Goodness if We Have not a Most Excellent Love.
Chapter XII. That Divine Inspirations Leave Us in Full Liberty to Follow or Repulse Them
Chapter XIV. Of the Sentiment of Divine Love Which Is Had by Faith.
Chapter XV. Of the Great Sentiment of Love Which We Receive by Holy Hope.
Chapter XVI. How Love Is Practised in Hope.
Chapter XVII. That the Love Which Is in Hope Is Very Good, Though Imperfect. 109
Chapter XIX. That Penitence Without Love Is Imperfect.
Chapter XX. How the Mingling of Love and Sorrow Takes Place in Contrition. 117
Chapter XXI. How Our Saviour's Loving Attractions Assist and Accompany Us to Faith and Charity.
Chapter XXII. A Short Description of Charity.
BOOK III. OF THE PROGRESS AND PERFECTION OF LOVE.
Chapter I. That Holy Love May Be Augmented Still More and More in Every One of Us.
Chapter II. How Easy Our Saviour Has Made the Increase of Love.
Chapter III. How a Soul in Charity Makes Progress in It.
Chapter IV. Of Holy Perseverance in Sacred Love. 138
Chapter V. That the Happiness of Dying in Heavenly Charity Is a Special Gift of God. 141
Chapter VI. That We Cannot Attain to Perfect Union with God in This Mortal Life.
Chapter VIII. Of the Incomparable Love Which the Mother of God, Our Blessed Lady, Had.
Chapter IX. A Preparation for the Discourse on the Union of the Blessed with God.
Chapter X. That the Preceding Desire Will Much Increase the Union of the Blessed with God.
Chapter XI. Of the Union of the Blessed Spirits with God, in the Vision of the Divinity.
Chapter XIV. That the Holy Light of Glory Will Serve for the Union of the Blessed Spirits with God.
Chapter XV. That There Shall Be Different Degrees of the Union of the Blessed with God. 163
Chapter I. That as Long as We Are in This Mortal Life We May Lose the Love of God.
Chapter II. How the Soul Grows Cold in Holy Love.
Chapter III. How We Forsake Divine Love for That of Creatures. 171
Chapter IV. That Heavenly Love Is Lost in a Moment. 174
Chapter V. That the Sole Cause of the Decay and Cooling of Charity Is in the Creature's Will. 176
Chapter VI. That We Ought to Acknowledge All the Love We Bear to God to Be from God.
Chapter VII. That We Must Avoid All Curiosity, and Humbly Acquiesce in God's Most Wise Providence.
Chapter X. How Dangerous This Imperfect Love Is.
Chapter XI. A Means to Discern This Imperfect Love.
BOOK V. OF THE TWO PRINCIPAL EXERCISES OF HOLY LOVE WHICH CONSIST IN COMPLACENCY AND BENEVOLENCE.
Chapter I. Of the Sacred Complacency of Love and First of What It Consists.
Chapter II. How by Holy Complacency We Are Made as Little Infants at Our Saviour's Breasts.
Chapter IV. Of the Loving Condolence by Which the Complacency of Love Is Still Better Declared. 207
Chapter V. Of the Condolence and Complacency of Love in the Passion of Our Lord.
Chapter VI. Of the Love of Benevolence Which We Exercise towards Our Saviour by Way of Desire.
Chapter VIII. How Holy Benevolence Produces the Praise of the Divine Well-Beloved. 217
Chapter IX. How Benevolence Makes Us Call All Creatures to the Praise of God.
Chapter X. How the Desire to Praise God Makes Us Aspire to Heaven.
BOOK VI. OF THE EXERCISES OF HOLY LOVE IN PRAYER.
Chapter I. A Description of Mystical Theology, Which Is No Other Thing Than Prayer.
Chapter II. Of Meditation the First Degree of Prayer or Mystical Theology.
Chapter V. The Second Difference between Meditation and Contemplation.
Chapter VII. Of the Loving Recollection of the Soul in Contemplation. 251
Chapter VIII. Of the Repose of a Soul Recollected in Her Well-Beloved.
Chapter IX. How This Sacred Repose Is Practised. 257
Chapter X. Of Various Degrees of This Repose, and How It Is to Be Preserved. 259
Chapter XII. Of the Outflowing (escoulement) or Liquefaction of the Soul in God 265
Chapter XIII. Of the Wound of Love.
Chapter XIV. Of Some Other Means by Which Holy Love Wounds the Heart. 272
Chapter XV. Of the Affectionate Languishing of the Heart Wounded with Love.
BOOK VII. OF THE UNION OF THE SOUL WITH HER GOD, WHICH IS PERFECTED IN PRAYER.
Chapter I. How Love Effects the Union of the Soul with God in Prayer.
Chapter II. Of the Various Degrees of the Holy Union Which Is Made in Prayer. 286
Chapter III. Of the Sovereign Degree of Union by Suspension and Ravishment.
Chapter IV. Of Rapture, and of the First Species of It. 294
Chapter V. Of the Second Species of Rapture.
Chapter VIII. An Admirable Exhortation of S. Paul to the Ecstatic and Superhuman Life. 304
Chapter X. Of Those Who Died by and for Divine Love.
Chapter XI. How Some of the Heavenly Lovers Died Also of Love.
Chapter XII. Marvellous History of the Death of a Gentleman Who Died of Love on Mount Olivet.
Chapter XIII. That the Most Sacred Virgin Mother of God Died of Love for Her Son.
Chapter XIV. That the Glorious Virgin Died by and Extremely Sweet and Tranquil Death.
Chapter I. Of the Love of Conformity Proceeding from Sacred Complacency.
Chapter III. How We Are to Conform Ourselves to That Divine Will Which Is Called the Signified Will.
Chapter IV. Of the Conformity of Our Will to the Will Which God Has to Save Us. 332
Chapter VIII. That the Contempt of the Evangelical Counsels Is a Great Sin.
Chapter XIII. Third Mark of Inspiration, Which Is Holy Obedience to the Church and Superiors. 359
Chapter XIV. A Short Method to Know God's Will. 362
Chapter I. Of the Union of Our Will to That Divine Will Which Is Called the Will of Good-Pleasure.
Chapter IV. Of the Union of Our Will to the Good-Pleasure of God by Indifference. 373
Chapter V. That Holy Indifference Extends to All Things.
Chapter VI. Of the Practice of Loving Indifference, in Things Belonging to the Service of God.
Chapter VII. Of the Indifference Which We Are to Have As to Our Advancement in Virtues.
Chapter VIII. How We Are to Unite Our Will with God's in the Permission of Sins.
Chapter IX. How the Purity of Indifference is to Be Practised in the Actions of Sacred Love. 388
Chapter X. Means to Discover When We Change in the Matter of This Holy Love. 390
Chapter XI. Of the Perplexity of a Heart Which Loves Without Knowing Whether It Pleases the Beloved.
Chapter XIII. How the Will Being Dead to Itself Lives Entirely in God's Will. 398
Chapter XIV. An Explanation of What Has Been Said Touching the Decease of Our Will.
Chapter XVI. Of the Perfect Stripping of the Soul Which Is United to God's Will.
BOOK X. OF THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVING GOD ABOVE ALL THINGS.
Chapter V. Of Two Other Degrees of Greater Perfection, by Which We May Love God Above All Things.
Chapter VI. That the Love of God Above All Things Is Common to All Lovers.
Chapter VII. Explanation of the Preceding Chapter.
EXPLANATION OF THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.
Chapter XI. How Holy Charity Produces the Love of Our Neighbour. 440
Chapter XIII. How God Is Jealous of Us.
Chapter XV. Advice for the Direction of Holy Zeal.
Chapter XVII. How Our Lord Practised All the Most Excellent Acts of Love.
Chapter I. How Agreeable All Virtues Are to God.
Chapter VII. That Perfect Virtues Are Never One without the Other.
Chapter VIII. How Charity Comprehends All the Virtues.
Chapter IX. That the Virtues Have Their Perfection from Divine Love. 489
Chapter X. A Digression upon the Imperfection of the Virtues of the Pagans.
Chapter XI. How Human Actions Are Without Worth When They Are Done without Divine Love.
Chapter XIII. How We Are to Reduce All the Exercise of Virtues, and All Our Actions to Holy Love.
Chapter XIV. The Practice of What Has Been Said in the Preceding Chapter.
THE PRACTICE OF WHAT HAS BEEN SAID IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.
Chapter XV. How Charity Contains in It the Gifts of the Holy Ghost. 509
Chapter XVI. Of the Loving Fear of Spouses a Continuation of the Same Subject.
Chapter XVII. How Servile Fear Remains Together with Holy Love. 514
Chapter XVIII. How Love Makes Use of Natural, Servile and Mercenary Fear.
BOOK XII. CONTAINING CERTAIN COUNSELS FOR THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL IN HOLY LOVE.
Chapter I. That Our Progress in Holy Love Does Not Depend on Our Natural Temperament.
Chapter II. That We Are to Have a Continual Desire to Love.
Chapter III. That to Have the Desire of Sacred Love We Are to Cut Off All Other Desires.
Chapter IV. That Our Lawful Occupations Do Not Hinder Us from Practicising Divine Love. 538
Chapter V. A Very Sweet Example on This Subject.
Chapter VII. That We Must Take Pains to Do Our Actions Very Perfectly. 542
Chapter VIII. A General Means for Applying Our Works to God's Service. 543
Chapter X. An Exhortation to the Sacrifice Which We Are to Make to God of Our Free-Will.
Chapter XI. The Motives We Have of Holy Love.
Chapter XII. A Most Useful Method of Employing These Motives.
Chapter XIII. That Mount Calvary Is the Academy of Love. 554
OF THE PRACTICE OF LOVING INDIFFERENCE, IN THINGS BELONGING TO THE SERVICE OF GOD.
The divine good-pleasure is scarcely known otherwise than by events, and as long as it is unknown to us, we must keep as close as possible to the will of God which is already declared or signified to us: but as soon as the Divine Majesty's pleasure appears, we must at once lovingly yield ourselves to its obedience. 378
My mother (or it would be the same of myself) is ill in bed how do I know whether God intends death to follow or not? Of course I cannot know; but I know well that while awaiting the event from his good-pleasure, he wills, by his declared will, that I use remedies proper to effect a cure. But if it be the Divine pleasure that the disease, victorious over the remedies, should at last bring death—as soon as ever I am certain of this by the actual event, I will amorously acquiesce, in the point of my spirit, in spite of all the opposition of the inferior powers of my soul. Yes, Lord, I will say, it is my will because thy good-pleasure is such; thus it has pleased thee, and so it shall please me, who am the most humble servant of thy will.
But if the Divine pleasure were declared to me before the event took place, as was to the great S. Peter the manner of his death, to the great S. Paul his chains and prisons, to Jeremias the destruction of his dear Jerusalem, to David the death of his son,—then we should have at the same instant to unite our will to God's in imitation of the great Abraham, and, like him, if we had such a command, we should have to undertake the execution of the eternal decree even in the slaying of our children: Oh admirable union of this patriarch's will to the will of God, when, believing that it was the Divine pleasure that he should sacrifice his child, he willed and undertook it so courageously! admirable that of the child, who so meekly submitted himself to his father's sword, to have God's good-pleasure performed at the price of his own death!
But note here, Theotimus, a mark of the perfect union of an indifferent heart with the Divine pleasure. Behold Abraham with the sword in his hand, his arm extended ready to give the deathblow to his dear only son: he is doing this to please the Divine will; and see at the same time an angel, who, on the part of this same will, suddenly stops him, and immediately he holds his stroke, equally ready to sacrifice or not to sacrifice his son; whose life and whose death are indifferent to him in the presence of God's will. When God gives him an order to sacrifice his son he does not grow sad, when God dispenses with the order given he does not rejoice, all is one to this great heart, so that God's will be fulfilled. 379
Yes, Theotimus, for God oftentimes to exercise us in this holy Indifference, inspires us with very high designs, which yet he will not have accomplished, and as then we are boldly, courageously and constantly to commence and to pursue the work as far as we can, so are we sweetly and quietly to acquiesce in such result of our enterprise as it pleases God to send us. S. Louis by inspiration passed the sea to conquer the Holy Land; the event answered not his expectation, he sweetly acquiesces. I more esteem the tranquillity of this submission than the magnanimity of his enterprise. S. Francis went into Egypt to convert the infidels, or amongst the infidels to die a martyr; such was the will of God: yet he returned without performing either, and that was also God's will. It was equally the will of God that S. Anthony of Padua desired martyrdom and that he obtained it not. Blessed (S.) Ignatius of Loyola having with such pains put on foot the Company of the name of Jesus, from which he saw so many fair fruits and foresaw many more in the time to come, had yet the nobility of soul to promise himself that though he should see it dissolved (which would be the bitterest pain that could befal him), within half an hour afterwards he would be stayed and tranquil in the will of God. John of Avila, that holy and learned preacher of Andalusia, having a design to form a company of reformed priests for the advancement of God's glory, and having already made good progress in the matter, as soon as he saw the Jesuits in the field, thinking they were enough for that time, immediately stopped his own undertaking, with an incomparable meekness and humility. Oh how blessed are such souls, bold and strong in the undertakings God proposes to them, and withal tractable and facile in giving them over when God so disposes! These are marks of a most perfect Indifference, to leave off doing a good when God pleases, and to return from half way when God's will, which is our guide, ordains it. Jonas was much to blame in being angry because God, as he considered, did not fulfil his prophecy upon Ninive. Jonas did God's will in announcing the destruction of Ninive; but he mingled his own interest and will with that of God; whence, seeing that God did not fulfil his prediction according to the rigour of the words he had used in announcing it, he was offended and shamefully 380murmured. Whereas if God's will had been the only motive of his actions, he would have been as well content to have seen it accomplished in remission of the penalty which Ninive had merited, as in punishment of the fault which Ninive had committed. We desire that what we undertake or manage should succeed, but it is not reasonable that God should do all after our liking. If God wills Ninive to be threatened, and yet not overthrown (since the threat is sufficient to correct it), why should Jonas think himself aggrieved?
But if this be so, we are then to care for (affectionner) nothing, but abandon our affairs to the mercy of events? Pardon me, Theotimus, we are to omit nothing which is requisite to bring the work which God has put into our hands to a happy issue, yet upon condition that, if the event be contrary, we should lovingly and peaceably embrace it. For we are commanded to have great care in what appertains to God's glory and to our charge, but we are not bound to, or responsible for, the event, because it is not in our power. Take care of him, was it said to the innkeeper, in the parable of the poor man who lay half-dead between Jerusalem and Jericho. It is not said, as St. Bernard remarks, cure him, but, take care of him. So the Apostles with most earnest affection preached first to the Jews, though they foresaw that in the end they would be forced to leave them as an unfruitful soil, and betake themselves to the Gentiles. It is our part to plant and water carefully, but to give increase—that belongs only to God.
The great Psalmist makes this prayer to our Saviour as by an exclamation of joy and with presage of victory: O Lord in thy comeliness and thy beauty, bend thy bow, proceed prosperously and mount thy horse.[1] As though he would say that by the arrows of his heavenly love shot into human hearts, he made himself master of men, and then handled them at his pleasure, not unlike to a horse well trained. O Lord thou art the royal rider, who turnest the hearts of thy faithful lovers every way about: sometimes thou givest them the rein, and they run at full speed in the courses to which thou impellest them: and then, when it seems 381good to thee, thou makest them stop in the midst of their career and at the height of their speed.
But further, if the enterprise begun by inspiration fail by the fault of those to whom it was committed, how can it then be said that a man is to acquiesce in God's will? For, some one will say to me, it is not God's will that hinders the success, but my fault. This is not caused by God's will, for God is not author of sin; but yet for all that, it is God's will that your fault should be followed by the overthrow and failure of your design, in punishment of your fault; for though his goodness cannot permit him to will your fault, yet does his justice make him will the punishment you suffer for it. So God was not the cause that David offended, yet it was God that inflicted upon him the pain due to his sin. He was not the cause of Saul's sin, but he was the cause that in punishment of it the victory fell from his hands.
When therefore it happens that in punishment of our fault our holy designs have not good success, we must equally detest the fault by a solid repentance, and accept its punishment; for as the sin is against the will of God, so the punishment is according to his will.