This king, free will, will also establish in his kingdom a judge,
who will be justice, which is a divine virtue when it is born from
love. And it is one of the highest moral virtues. This judge will
dwell in the conscience, in the middle of the kingdom in the
irascible faculty. And he will be adorned with a moral virtue called
prudence. For justice without prudence cannot be perfect. This
judge, justice, will traverse the kingdom with royal powers,
accompanied by wise counsel and his own prudence. He will promote
and dismiss, he will judge and condemn, will condemn to death and
acquit, will mutilate, blind, and restore to sight, will exalt and
abase and organise, will punish and chastise according to justice,
and will destroy all vices. The people of the kingdom--that is to
say, all the faculties of the soul, will be supported by humility
and the fear of God, submitting to Him in all the virtues, each
after its own manner. He who has thus occupied, preserved, and
ordered the kingdom of his soul, has gone forth, by love and the
virtues, towards God, towards himself, and towards his neighbour.
This is the third of the four principal points which Christ speaks
of when He says, Go forth.
ON THE THREEFOLD MEETING OF THE SOUL
WHEN a man has, by the grace of God, eyes to see, and a pure
conscience, and when he has considered the three comings of Christ,
our Bridegroom, and lastly when he has gone forth by the virtues,
then takes place the meeting with our Bridegroom, and this is the
fourth and last point. In this meeting consist all our blessedness,
and the beginning and the end of all the virtues, and without this
meeting no virtue can be practised.
He who wishes to meet Christ as his well-beloved Bridegroom, and to
possess in Him and with Him eternal life, must meet Christ, now in
time, in three points or in three manners. First, he must love God
in everything wherein we shall merit eternal life. Secondly, he must
attach himself to nothing which he might love as much as or more
than God. Thirdly, he must repose in God with all his might, above
all creatures and above all the gifts of God, and above all acts of
virtue and above all the sensible graces which God might spread
abroad in his soul and body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account