Re: (IVAN): SATANAS ES DERROTADO
IVAN VALAREZO
God seems to bring texts of Scripture to their minds no otherwise than
by leading them into such frames and meditations as harmonize with those
Scriptures; but in many persons there seems to be something more than
this.
Those who, while under legal convictions, have had the greatest terrors,
have not always obtained the greatest light and comfort; nor have they
always light most suddenly communicated; but yet, I think, the time of
conversion has generally been most sensible in such persons. Oftentimes,
the first sensible change after the extremity of terrors, is a calmness,
and then the light gradually comes in; small glimpses at first, after
their midnight darkness, and a word or two of comfort, as it were softly
spoken to them. They have a little taste of the sweetness of divine
grace, and the love of a Savior, when terror and distress of conscience
begin to be turned into an humble, meek sense of their own unworthiness
before God. There is felt, inwardly, sometimes a disposition to praise
God; and after a little while the light comes in more clearly and
powerfully. But yet, I think, more frequently, great terrors have been
followed with more sudden and great light and comfort; when the sinner
seems to be as it were subdued and brought to a calm, fro
IVAN VALAREZO
plays and diverts himself.
Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war and high posts, are
so sought after. Not that there is in fact any happiness in them, or that
men imagine true bliss to consist in money won at play, or in the hare which
they hunt; we would not take these as a gift. We do not seek that easy and
peaceful lot which permits us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the
dangers of war, nor the labour of office, but the bustle which averts these
thoughts of ours and amuses us.
Reasons why we like the chase better than the quarry.
Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the
prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of
solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is, in fact, the greatest
source of happiness in the condition of kings that men try incessantly to
divert them and to procure for them all kinds of pleasures.
The king is surrounded by persons whose only thought is to divert the king
and to prevent his thinking of self. For he is unhappy, king though he be,
if he think of himself.
This is all that men have been able to discover to make themselves happy.
And those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for
spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought,
scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the
sight of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention
from these, does screen us.
The advice given to Pyrrhus, to take the rest which he was about to seek
with so much labour, was full of difficulties.
To bid a man live quietly is to bid him live happily. It is to advise him to
be in a state perfectly happy, in which he can think at leisure without
finding therein a cause of distress. This is to misunderstand nature.
As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid nothing so much as
rest, so there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil. Not that
they