the Spirit is, there is liberty; for the Spirit of God is love, and where love is, there is liberty. There can be no liberty where love is not. Where the love of God is not, the love of creatures, and of the lowest of all creatures, the love of self, reigns. There can be no greater bondage than this. The love of creatures brings with it jealousies, disappointments, resentments, and manifold temptations. A priest who has lost his liberty by any unbalanced attachment is in bondage. He is dependent for his happiness and for his peace upon something below God, which is changeful, uncertain, and transient. S. Augustine describes his own state, before the supreme love of God set him free, as a bondage of iron chains, not forged by the hands of other men, but by his own iron will.
But afterwards, when he had been redeemed into the liberty of the sons of God, he said, "Love and do what you will;" for our will then is the will of God. We have no other will than His, and in doing His will we do our own. For love is the will, and the will is love. Pondus voluntatis amor. As we love so we will. Love inclines the will, and gives it motion and momentum. It is by love that we cleave to God. Qui adhæret Domino unus spiritus est.[1]
- ↑ 1 Cor. vi. 17.
