I called them by grace, I drew them by mercy, I led them safely through many temptations.
I have poured into them glorious consolations, I gave them perseverance, I crowned their patience.
4. I acknowledge both the first and the last; I embrace all with inestimable love.
I am to be praised in all My saints; I am to be blessed above all things, and to be honoured in everyone whom I have thus gloriously exalted and predestinated, without any merits of their own.
He therefore that despiseth one of the least of Mine, honoureth not the greatest; for that I made both the small and the great.
And he that disparageth any of My saints, disparageth Me also, and all the rest in the kingdom of heaven.
These all are one through the bond of love; their thought is the same, their will is the same, and they are in charity one with another.
5. But still, which is far higher, they love Me more than themselves or any merits of their own.
For being ravished above self and self-love, they are wholly carried out to love Me, in Whom also they rest in fall fruition.
Nothing can turn them back, nothing can press them down; for being full of the eternal truth, they burn with the fire of unquenchable charity.
Let therefore carnal and natural men who can love nothing but their own selfish joys, forbear to dispute of the state of God's saints. Such men add and take away according to their own fancies, not as it pleaseth the eternal truth.
