end of all good. Yet, when thou wert such and so great, thou hast vouchsafed so to exalt our human nature, by uniting it to thyself, that it may truly be said, that God is man, and man is God; God by nature, man by condescension and grace. Besides this, thou hast also further promised me eternal happiness and bliss; and confirmed it by innumerable evidences and signs, both in the Old and New Testament. Oh, the condescension, the boundless goodness of God and our Lord!
2. I therefore earnestly wish and desire, O my Lord, that, for the future, all the happiness of my soul, by the help of thy grace, may be in and from thee alone, and from the things that are thine, and which attract me to thee. Well was it said of thee, My God and my all.
Thou only art the goodness, the treasure, the paradise of the rational creature, in this world and in the next.
3. But this world, and all that belongs to it, I utterly loathe and abhor. It is as painful to me to see, to hear, and to think of, as the filthiest sewer, a putrid corpse, or a dunghill. For I count all things, in comparison of thee, as dung; I detest them as a plague.
4. I desire, too, to taste thy sweetness only, and to feel joy and pleasure only from what is thine; but to reject, hate, and abhor all worldly things, and whatever turns my heart away from thee. Help me to do this of thy goodness, O Lord, that, by joyfully and perfectly serving thee in this life, I may see and enjoy thee for ever with the blessed in the next. Amen.
XI.
Zeal for the Honor of God and the Salvation of Souls
The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.[1]
1. My most jealous God, who givest not thy glory to another, and alone hast created all the souls that exist; and wouldst, therefore, among thy other names, be called a jealous Lord, and a jealous God; I am grieved and exceedingly tormented in behalf of all those who, in their actions, have left thee, the only true and right end of their existence, the highest and only good; who seek and love more than thee the frail and transitory things of this world; and, by sinning continually, deliver themselves into the power of their most
- ↑ Psal. lxviii. 10.
