CHAPTER XIX.

Of the Eighth Privilege of Virtue; namely, The Blessed Peace and Inward Quiet that the Righteous enjoy; and of the Miserable Strife and Restlessness that the Wicked suffer inwardly.

FROM the last mentioned privilege, the liberty of the sons

of GOD, follows another not inferior to it, namely, The inward Peace and Rest in which they live. To understand this, thou must know that there are three sorts of peace : peace with our neighbours, peace with GOD, and peace with ourselves. Peace with our neighbour consists in kindly feelings and friendship towards him, and in having no ill will to any. David had this, when he said, “My soul hath long dwelt among them that are enemies unto peace. I labour for peace: but when I speak unto them thereof, they make them ready to battle." (Ps. cxx. 5, 6.) This is the peace that S. Paul recommends to us, when he says, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” (Rom. xii. 18.) The second peace, that with GOD, consists in the favour and friendship of GOD, and is obtained by means of justification, which makes reconciliation between man and GOD, making GOD love man, and man love GOD, and taking away all strife and contradiction between them. Of this the Apostle said, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with GOD through our LORD JESUS CHRIST." (Rom. v. 1.) The third peace is that which a man has with himself, and this need not appear strange, for we know that in one man there are two contrary men, the interior and the exterior, the spirit and the flesh, passion and reason;

and that the passions not only carry on a cruel and continual warfare against the spirit, but disturb the whole man with their burning desires and lusts, and with their ravening hunger, and thus destroy his inward peace, the rest and quietness of his spirit.

In this continual strife and restlessness all carnal men live. For on one hand they are devoid of grace, which is the bridle to check the passions, and on the other their desires are so wild and uncontrolled that they hardly know what it is to resist them in anything, and therefore their lives are full of numberless desires after various things. One craves for distinction, another for some office, for the favour of the great, for dignities, for wealth, for some marriage, for all kinds of pleasures and amusements. For this appetite is like an insatiable fire that never says enough, or like a devouring beast that is never satisfied, or like the horseleech of which Agur says that it hath "two daughters, crying, Give, give." (Prov. xxx. 15.) This horseleech is the insatiable appetite of our heart the two daughters are want and greediness, which are like a real and an imaginary thirst, and one of which is as tormenting as the other. And this is why neither the poor nor the rich, if they are wicked, can rest, for the want of one and the greediness of the other, are always soliciting the heart, and crying, Give, give. What rest, what repose, what peace can a man have with these two incessant beggars always knocking at his door, and asking for innumerable things which it is not in his power to give? What rest could a mother's heart have if she had ten or twelve children round her crying aloud for bread, and she had none for them. This is one of the greatest miseries of the wicked. Hungry and thirsty, as the Psalmist says, their soul faints in them. (Ps. cvii. 5.) For self-love, the origin of these desires, has gained the mastery over them, and they seek their whole happiness in visible things, and this is the cause of their raging hunger and thirst after them. But as they cannot always obtain what they desire, because others greedier or stronger than they hinder them, they are troubled and distressed like a greedy spoilt child, who stamps and roars when he is refused what he asks. For, as the Wise Man saith, When the

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desire cometh, it is a tree of life," (Prov. xiii. 12); but nothing is more painful than to desire and not obtain our wishes, which is like dying of hunger, and having no food. And moreover, when what they desire is forbidden them, the very prohibition increases their desire, and the unfulfilled desire their torment, and thus they go on in a ceaseless whirl and never rest.

The SAVIOUR mystically signified this wretched state in the parable of the prodigal son, who left his father's house, and took his journey into a far country, and there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he was reduced to such want, that he, the son of so great a father, was employed in feeding swine. Nay, "he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat and no man gave unto him." (Luke xv. 13-16.) How could the whole course of a wicked man's life and its miseries be better painted? Who is the prodigal son who leaves his father's house, but the miserable sinner who departs from GOD, wanders into every vice, and misspends all GOD'S benefits? What is the famine-stricken land but this miserable world, full of worldlings, whose appetite is so insatiable that they are never content with what they have, but are like ravening wolves hungering after more? And what are the occupations in which they spend their lives but feeding swine; that is, seeking to satisfy their filthy and unclean lusts? Look at the life of a dissipated worldly man, from morning till night, and from night till morning; you will find that he passes the whole of it in feeding and satisfying some of these brutish senses, his sight, his taste, his hearing, his touch, or some such thing, like a mere disciple of Epicurus, and not of CHRIST; as if he had nothing but the body of a beast; as if he believed there was no object but sensual pleasure. These men care for nothing but to run hither and thither in chase of pleasures and amusements to gratify some of these senses. What are their pageants, their feasts, their banquetings, their festivals, their beds, their music, their conversations, their shows, and their excursions, but seeking after food for these swine? Give it any name thou wilt, call it fashion, or grandeur, or courtliness, in GOD'S vocabulary its name is feeding swine. For as swine are

animals that delight in dirt and mud, and feed on filthy and disgusting food, so do the hearts of these men delight in the filthy and unclean mud of carnal pleasures.

But what surpasses even this misery is that the son of so exalted a FATHER, made to feed at GOD'S table on Angels' food, cannot even fill himself with these husks, so scarce are they; for there are so many buyers of this merchandise that one hinders another, and all remain hungering. I mean that when so many go after the spoil there must be great contentions among them, and it is impossible for the swine under the oak to refrain from grunting and gashing each other, and fighting for the acorns.

This is the miserable state, this is the hunger and thirst which the Prophet describes, when he says, “They went astray in the wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in ; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them." (Ps. cvii. 4, 5.) What is this hunger and this thirst but the burning desire that the wicked have for worldly things, which rages more the more it is gratified, thirsts more the more it drinks, and burns more as more wood is thrown upon it? O miserable people, what is the cause of this burning thirst, but that ye have forsaken the Fountain of living waters, and hewn you out "cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water ?" (Jer. ii. 13.) When Holofernes besieged the city of Bethulia, he "came to the fountains of their waters, and took them, and destroyed the conduits whereby they entered into the city; so that the besieged had only some little springs near the walls, where they drank a few drops by stealth, enough merely to moisten their lips, but not to quench their thirst." (Judith vii. Vulg.) And what are ye doing, all ye that love pleasure, that seek after distinction, that delight in self-indulgence, but forsaking the Fountain of living waters, and drinking by stealth of the wretched little springs that ye find at hand, which only moisten the lips and awaken thirst, instead of quenching it? "O wretched being," says the Prophet, "what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink troubled and muddy waters?" (Jer. ii. 18, Vulg.) What water can be more muddy than sensual pleasure, which cannot be drunk without an ill smell and an ill savour? For what smell

is worse than the infamy of sin? and what savour is worse than re norse of conscience, both of which it produces, and both of which, as a philosopher truly says, are the perpetual companions of carnal pleasure?

But this is not all, for the appetite is blind, and makes no difference between attainable and unattainable things, and a vehement desire often makes the hardest things seem easy, and therefore men desire many things which they cannot obtain. For there is no very desirable thing that has not many seekers to desire and pursue it, and many possessors to fight and defend it: so that the appetite desires and cannot; covets, and obtains not; hungers, and no man gives it food; and often stretches out its arms in vain, and rises up early, and meets with no success; and sometimes when it is already mounting the ladder it is cast headlong from the walls, and what it already thought its own is taken out of its hands; and then men are ready to die of despair, or are torn with inward rage, at seeing themselves so far from what they desire. For the two chief powers of the soul, the irascible and the concupiscible, are so ordered and connected that one helps the other, and therefore when the concupiscible does not obtain its desire, the irascible immediately stands up for it, afflicted, infuriated, and rushing into every danger and every battle, to satisfy its sister when it sees her gloomy and discontented. From this confusion of desires arises the inward disquiet whereof we speak, which S. James the Apostle calls war, when he says, "From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not." (S. Jas. iv. 1, 2.) And with good reason he calls it war, because of the natural strife and opposition that exists between the spirit and the flesh, and their opposite desires.

And a yet sadder thing happens, which is this; that men often obtain what would seem enough to give them all the satisfaction that they desire, and when their circumstances allow them to live as they please, they take it into their heads that they ought to claim some honour, or title, or place, or precedence, or the like; and if they cannot get it they fret and worry themselves, and are more troubled about the trifle that