THAT DIVINE INSPIRATIONS LEAVE US IN FULL LIBERTY TO FOLLOW OR REPULSE THEM.
I WILL not here speak, my dear Theotimus, of those miraculous
graces which have almost in an instant transformed wolves into
shepherds, rocks into waters, persecutors into preachers. I leave
on one side those all-powerful vocations, and holily violent attractions by which God has brought some elect souls from the
extremity of vice to the extremity of grace, working as it were
in them a certain moral and spiritual transubstantiation: as it
happened to the great Apostle, who of Saul, vessel of persecution,
became suddenly Paul, vessel of election.1 We must give a particular rank to those privileged souls in regard of whom it
But what are then the ordinary cords whereby the divine
providence is accustomed to draw our hearts to his love? Such
truly as he himself marks, describing the means which he used
to draw the people of Israel out of Egypt, and out of the desert,
unto the land of promise. I will draw them, says he by Osee,
with the cords of Adam, with the bands of love,2 and of friendship. Doubtless, Theotimus, we are not drawn to God by iron
chains, as bulls and wild oxen, but by enticements, sweet attractions, and holy inspirations, which, in a word, are the cords of Adam, and of humanity, that is, proportionate and adapted to
the human heart, to which liberty is natural. The band of the
human will is delight and pleasure. We show nuts to a child,
says S. Augustine, and he is drawn by his love, he is drawn by
the cords, not of the body, but of the heart. Mark then how the
Eternal Father draws us: while teaching, he delights us, not
imposing upon us any necessity; he casts into our hearts delectations
In this way then, dearest Theotimus, our free-will is in no
way forced or necessitated by grace, but notwithstanding the
all-powerful force of God's merciful hand, which touches, surrounds and ties the soul with such a number of inspirations, invitations and attractions, this human will remains perfectly free,
enfranchised and exempt from every sort of constraint and
necessity. Grace is so gracious, and so graciously seizes our
hearts to draw them, that she noways offends the liberty of our
will; she touches powerfully but yet so delicately the springs
of our spirit that our free will suffers no violence from it.
Grace has power, not to force but to entice the heart; she has a
holy violence not to violate our liberty but to make it full of
love; she acts strongly, yet so sweetly that our will is not overwhelmed by so powerful an action; she presses us but does not
oppress our liberty; so that under the very action of her power,
we can consent to or resist her movements as we list. But
what is as admirable as it is veritable is, that when our will
follows the attractions and consents to the divine movement, she
follows as freely as she resists freely when she does resist,
although the consent to grace depends much more on grace than
on the will, while the resistance to grace depends upon the will
only. So sweet is God's hand in the handling of our hearts!
So dexterous is it in communicating unto us its strength without
depriving us of liberty, and in imparting unto us the motion of
its power without hindering that of our will! He adjusts his
power to his sweetness in such sort, that as in what regards good
his might sweetly gives us the power, so his sweetness mightily
maintains the freedom of the will. If thou didst know the gift
of God, said our Saviour to the Samaritan woman, and who
he is that saith to thee, give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have
asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.3 Note,
I pray you, Theotimus, Our Saviour's manner of speaking
of his attractions. If thou didst know, he means,
the gift of God, thou wouldst without doubt be moved and attracted to ask the
To conclude, if any one should say that our free-will does not
co-operate in consenting to the grace with which God prevents
it, or that it could not reject and deny consent thereto, he would
contradict the whole Scripture, all the ancient Fathers, and
experience, and would be excommunicated by the sacred Council
of Trent. But when it is said that we have power to reject the
divine inspirations and motions, it is of course not meant that we
can hinder God from inspiring us or touching our hearts, for as
I have already said, that is done in us and yet without us.
These are favours which God bestows upon us before we have
thought of them, he awakens us when we sleep, and consequently
we find ourselves awake before we have thought of it; but it is
in our power to rise, or not to rise, and though he has awakened
us without us, he will not raise us without us. Now not to rise,
and to go to sleep again, is to resist the call, seeing we are called
only to the end we should rise. We cannot hinder the inspiration from taking us, or consequently from setting us in motion,
but if as it drives us forwards we repulse it by not yielding ourselves to its motion, we then make resistance. So the wind, having
seized upon and raised our apodes, will not bear them very far
unless they display their wings and co-operate, raising themselves aloft and flying in the air, into which they have been
lifted. If, on the contrary, allured may be by some verdure
they see upon the ground, or benumbed by their stay there, in
lieu of seconding the wind they keep their wings folded and cast
themselves again upon the earth, they have received indeed the
motion of the wind, but in vain, since they did not help themselves thereby. Theotimus, inspirations prevent us, and even
before they are thought of make themselves felt, but after we
have felt them it is ours either to consent to them so as to second
and follow their attractions, or else to dissent and repulse them.
2