it is the most prone to sin. When a wound in thy head needs a remedy, to what purpose wouldst thou apply a plaister to thy feet? Even so there are remedies proper for every vice, as for every disease. Nothing insures true penitence but hatred of sin. When thy repentance is such, that what was heretofore sweet to thy body tastes bitter to thy soul, then thou truly repentest, and makest me really thy friend.
Perhaps my counsel seems hard to thee; but that is harder from which I would have my counsel preserve thee. But tell me, hast thou hot heretofore suffered harder things than these for the world and the flesh? Thou hast promptly and cheerfully complied with their pleasure and the suggestions of Satan, but hast rejected with disgust my precepts, my counsels, nay, my entreaties, that, for the sake of my love and of my blood, thou wouldst carry about in thy body my mortification. Is it not so?
Behold, I will reprove thee, and set it before thy face. If any hope of gain, honour, or preferment, had gleamed upon thee, wouldst thou not, to gain it, at once have turned every stone, and undertaken the longest journeys by land and sea? If attacked by disease, thou wouldst have endured cutting and burning, and have spent all thy substance on physicians, rather than risk thy life. If another had inflicted on thee injury, loss, or insult, what wouldst thou not have done to defend thy property, reputation, or honour? But, to please me, how little hast thou done! True it is, that a very little pains would have gained thee much repose; for, hadst thou done for heaven the tenth part of what thou hast done for the world, thy life would indeed be secure and happy, for my yoke is sweet, and my burden light.
But is it, then, wonderful, if this almost surpassed thy belief? Thou hadst not tasted how sweet the Lord is, nor relished the things that are above, for thou wert fed only upon those which are upon the earth. What fruit hadst thou, then, in those things of which thou art now ashamed, the end of which is death? But now, being made free from sin, thou art become the servant of justice. Therefore, as thou hast yielded thy members to serve uncleanness and iniquity, to iniquity; so now yield them to serve justice, to sanctification. Then shalt thou know how sweet and good I am to those that are of an upright heart.
Man. It is true, O Lord, that when I turn myself to all the labours in which I have hitherto laboured in vain, I see nothing in them all but vanity and vexation of
