BOOK IV: OF THE DECAY AND RUIN OF CHARITY
Chapter 11: A means to discern this imperfect love
But, you will ask
me, what means is there to discern whether it be Rachel or Lia, charity or imperfect love, which gives me the feelings of devotion wherewith I am touched? If when you examine in particular the objects of the desires, affections and designs which you have at the time, you find any one for which you would go against the will and good-pleasure of God by sinning mortally, it is then beyond doubt that all the feeling, all the facility and promptitude which you have in God's service, issue from no
other source than human and imperfect love: for if perfect love reigned in us--Ah! it would break every affection, every desire, every design, the object of which was so pernicious, and it would not endure that your heart should behold it.
But note that I said this examination must be made upon the affections you have at the time, for it is not requisite that you should imagine to yourself such
as may arise hereafter, since it is sufficient that we be faithful in present occurrences, according to the diversity of times, and since each season has quite enough labour and pain of its own.
Yet if you were desirous to exercise your heart in spiritual valour, by the representation of divers encounters and assaults, you might profitably do so, provided that after the acts of this imaginary valour
which your heart may have made, you esteem not yourself more valiant: for the children of Ephraim, who did wonders with their bows and arrows in their warlike games at home, when it came indeed to the push upon the day of battle, turned their backs, and had not so much as the courage to lay their arrows on the string, or to face the points of those of their enemies. They have turned back in the day of
battle.
