Once in a despairing mood because of the many failures I noticed in myself, and others, I poured forth my lamentations and self-accusations to our Blessed Father, who said: "What a masterful spirit you have! You want to walk upon the wings of the wind. You let yourself be carried away by your zeal, which, like a will-of-the-wisp, will surely lead you over a precipice. Have you forgotten the warning of your patron, St. Peter, _not to think you can walk in burning heat?_[4] Would you do more than God, and restrain the liberty of the creatures whom God has made free? You decide matters, as if the wills of your subjects were all in your own hands. God, Who holds all hearts in His and Who searches the reins and the hearts, does not act thus. He puts up with resistance, rebellion against His light, kicking against the goad, opposition to His inspirations, even though His Spirit be grieved thereby. He does, indeed, suffer those to perish who through the hardness of their impenitent hearts have heaped to themselves wrath in the day of vengeance. Yet He never wearies of calling them to Him, however often they reject His offers and say to Him, _Depart from us, we will not follow Thy ways_.[5] "In this our Angel Guardians follow His example, and although we may forsake God by our iniquities, they will not forsake us as long as there is breath in our body, even though we may have fallen into sin. Do you want better examples for regulating your conduct?" [Footnote 1: Book i. 6.] [Footnote 2: Book ii. 13.] [Footnote 3: Peter v. 2, 3.] [Footnote 4: 1 Peter iv. 12.] [Footnote 5: Job xxi. 14.] UPON THE LOVE OF GOD, CALLED LOVE OF BENEVOLENCE. You ask me what I have to say as regards the love of benevolence towards God. What good thing can we possibly wish for God which He has not already, What can we desire for Him which He does not possess far more fully than we can desire Him to have it? What good can we do to Him to Whom all our goods belong, and Who has all good in Himself; or, rather, Who is Himself all good? I reply to this question as I have done to others, that there are many spiritual persons, and some even of the most gifted, who are greatly mistaken in their view of this matter. We must distinguish in God two sorts of good, the one interior, the other exterior. The first is Himself; for His goodness, like His other attributes, is one and the same thing with His essence or being. Now this good, being infinite, can neither be augmented by our serving God and by our honouring Him, nor can it be diminished by our rebelling against Him and by our working against Him. It is of it that the Psalmist speaks when he says that our goods are nothing unto Him. But there is another kind of good which is exterior; and this, though it belongs to God, is not in Him, but in His creatures, just as the moneys of the king are, indeed, his, but they are in the coffers of his treasurers and officials.