called elsewhere by obedience, cannot assist with the test at the common exercises of devotion, and to teach us, not, through our own fault, to absent ourselves from them.
CHAPTER II.
What a Love and ardent Desire of Perfection we ought to have.
" Blessed are they," says the gospel, " who hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall be filled." (Matt. v. 6.) Though the word "justice" is particularly applied to one of the four cardinal virtues as distinct from the rest; nevertheless, it is very applicable to all the virtues, and to sanctity in general. We give the name of justice to righteousness and to holiness of life, and we call those just, who are holy and virtuous. The Wise Man says, " That the justice of the righteous shall deliver them" (Prov. xi. 6), that is, they shall be saved by their holiness of life. This word is taken in the same sense in several passages of Scripture. " Unless your justice," says our Saviour, " exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. v. 20); i.e., you will not be saved unless you have more virtue, more religion, and more sanctity, than they have. In the same manner, must be understood what our Saviour said to St. John, when he refused to baptize him: — "For so it becometh us to fulfil all justice (Matt. iii. 15) ; as if he bad said, I must do this to set an example of obedience, of humility, and of all manner of perfection. We must then take in the same sense, those words I have cited in the beginning of this chapter, and believe that Jesus Christ called those blessed, who have so great a love, and so ardent a desire of virtue, as to feel the same pain from it as is felt from hunger and violent thirst. St. Jerom writing on this passage, says, it is not enough for us to have a weak desire of virtue and perfection, but we must hunger and thirst after it; so as to cry out with the Royal Prophet: — " As the hart panteth after the fountains of waters, so my soul panteth after thee, O God!" (Ps. xli. 2.)
This ardent desire is so necessary to us, that, as I have said in the foregoing chapter, all our spiritual advancement depends upon it. It is the first principle which disposes us to it, and
