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SECOND LETTER
To the Reverend
Not finding my manner of life in books, although 1
nave no difficulty about it, yet, for greater security, I
shall be glad to know your thoughts concerning it.
In a conversation some days since with a person of
piety, he told me the spiritual life was a life of grace,
which begins with servile fear, which is increased by
hope of eternal life, and which is consummated by
pure love; that each of these states had its different
stages, by which one arrives at last at that blessed consummation.
I have not followed all these methods. On the contrary, from I know not what instincts, I found they discouraged me. This was the reason why, at my entrance
into religion, I took a resolution to give myself up to
GOD, as the best return I could make for His love, and,
for the love of Him, to renounce all besides.
For the first year I commonly employed myself during the time set apart for devotion with the thought of
death, judgment, heaven, hell, and my sins. Thus I
continued some years, applying my mind carefully the
rest of the day, and even in the midst of my business, to the presence of GOD, whom I considered always as with me, often as in me.
At length I came insensibly to do the same thing
during my set time of prayer, which caused in me great
delight and consolation. This practice produced in me
so high an esteem for GOD that faith alone was capable
to satisfy me in that point.*
* I suppose he means that all distinct notions he could form of
GOD were unsatisfactory, because he perceived them to be unworthy of GOD; and therefore his mind was not to be satisfied
but by the views of faith, which apprehend GOD as infinite and
incomprehensible, as He is in Himself, and not as He can be
conceived by human ideas.
