Page:Goldentreatiseof00pete.djvu/219

 sire. This is a great error, and many are plunged into it; for seeing to love and seek God should be the chiefest end of all our actions, these love and seek themselves; that is to say, their own gust and sensible delight rather than God, which was the scope of the contemplative philosophy of the gentiles; especially as a certain doctor saith, that this is a kind of avarice, luxury, and spiritual gluttony, no less pernicious than carnal. From this error springeth another branch; to wit, that many judge themselves and others, according to the ebbing and flowing of consolations, so far that they are persuaded that a man is more or less perfect, by how much more or less he is visited with divine consolations. This is a great mistake.

Against both these temptations, this general doctrine is a remedy: that every one must know that the scope of all these exercises, and the chief end of a spiritual life, is the observing of God's commandments, and a perfect fulfilling of his divine will: to this it is necessary that our own will be mortified, that the will of God may the better live and reign in us; seeing both these are directly contrary the one to the other. But this noble victory, seeing it cannot be obtained without special favor and allurements of God, therefore we ought to frequent the exercise of prayer, the better by it (and indeed the only means) to obtain this grace, and to bring this serious business of our soul's perfection to a good and de-