Ill will

“ Cannot my guilt be extenuated? Is there not a good that I can do thee? Must I perpetrate unmingled evil? Is the province assigned me that of an infernal emissary, whose efforts are concentred in a single purpose, and that purpose a malignant one? I am the author of thy calamities. Whatever misery is reserved for thee, I am the source whence it flows. Can I not set bounds to the stream? Cannot I prevent thee from returning to a consciousness which, till it ceases to exist, will not cease to be rent and mangled? ”

“ If then, brother or sister, thou hast that which would be hidden, make haste and drag the thing from its covert into the presence of thy God, thy Light, thy Saviour, that, if it be in itself good, it may be cleansed; if evil, it may be stung through and through with the burning arrows of truth, and perish in glad relief. For the one bliss of an evil thing is to perish and pass; the evil thing, and that alone, is the natural food of Death—nothing else will agree with the monster. ”

“ Thus the poor body, subject to these revulsions of unnatural action in overwork and stimulation and sedation, is goaded to abnormities and unnatural action, sending up to the soul no other influences but those which drive it to moral madness and vicious deeds.
Now, vice is a morbid exhibition of the will. The will is represented through the physical organ, the brain, and the brain is straightway affected by the condition of the body and the state of the blood. The will is that power of the mind by which we put forth volitions and perform actions. ”

“ Why then shouldst thou call anything that befalls thee a misfortune, and not the rather a blessing? Is that a "misfortune," in all cases, which does not defeat the purpose of man's nature? and does that defeat man's nature which his Will can accept? And what that Will can accept, thou knowest. Can this misadventure, then, prevent thy Will from being just, magnanimous, temperate, circumspect, free from rashness or error, considerate, independent? Can it prevent thy Will from being, in short, all that becomes a man? ”

“ In the most frightful circumstances and the most cruel moments of life, when I have felt that my reason was giving way under shocks that have been too great or too painful, my will has laid hold of my reason, just as one holds a bad-tempered little dog that wants to bite, and subjugating it, my will has said to my reason: “Enough, you can take up again to-morrow your suffering and your plans, your anxiety, your sorrow and your anguish. ”

“ I know, O God (blessed be thy infinite mercy for giving me this knowledge) that this is the root of all evil. I know, thou madest me, not to do my own will but thine. I know, the very corruption of the devil is, the having a will contrary to thine. O be thou my helper against this most dangerous of all idols, that I may both discern all its subtleties, and withstand all its force. O thou who hast commanded me to renounce myself, give me strength, and I will obey thy command. My choice and desire is, to love myself, as all other creatures, in and for thee. ”

“ These are the things to which the self will grow in its darkness. But there is hope, for in the sting is the cure. Through the evil—through the bitter pain and misery—the vision is born. The poison has a heart of healing. ”

“ I will celebrate thee, bodily sickness, when thou layest thy hand on the head and heart of man, and sayest to the sufferings of his spiritm 'Enough!' Thou art called on earth an evil; oh! how often art thou a good, a healing balsam, under whose benign influence the soul rests after its hard struggles, and its wild storms are still! More than once hast thou prevented suicide, and preserved from madness. The terrible, the bitter words which destroy the heart, are by degrees obliterated during the feverish dreams of illness ”

“ But when to mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill! ”

“ Again, "When any one revolves evil in his mind, and intends it, he should say to himself, 'I think of this, and I intend it; but because it is a sin, I will not do it' By this, the temptation injected from hell, is broken, and its further entrance prevented." [8] And again: "A man explores the intentions of his will, while he explores his thoughts, for the intentions manifest themselves in the thoughts. ”

“ They are generated by greed, envy, jealousy, covetousness, backbiting, amorous longings and other impure thoughts. With the soul filled with this conglomeration of virus and filth, why doubt a hell and its counterpart condition, or expect the day or night to bring happiness? If evil thoughts will infest the soul with ravenous microbes, good thoughts and deeds will starve and suppress their activity, and create a heaven to supplant them. ”

“ But is it not better to keep my thoughts to myself than to be called a fool? My wish will never then be known. Shall I then conceal the cause of my distress, and not dare to seek aid and healing for my wound? He is mad who feels himself afflicted, and seeks not what will bring him health, if perchance he may find it anywhere; but many a one seeks his welfare by striving for his heart's desire, who pursues only that which brings him woe instead. And why should one ask for advice, who does not expect to gain his health? ”

“ I have realised that my will, no matter how intelligent I am, is only another nuisance on the face of the earth, once I start exerting it. And other people’s wills are even worse.”
“Oh! isn’t human life horrible!” she cried. “Every human being exerting his will all the time—over other people, and over himself, and nearly always self-righteous!” ”

“ And yet to grasp the full meaning of any real pain, whether due to one's own unexpected intellectual or moral shortcomings—whether it arises from shrinking of will, or failure of faculty, or the sin which brings remorse, or simply from the unfaithfulness of others, or from death—is one of the most "depressing" of the duties of the inward life, and one from which the natural man usually turns away without the need of warning from the physiologist. ”

“ Mount to the source of your disgusts toward God, and every thing connected with him, and see if they shall not be found in the iniquitous attachments of your heart; see if you are not still a slave to yourself, to the vain cares of dress, to frivolous friendships, to dangerous animosities, to secret envies, to desires of rank, to every thing around you. These are the source of the evil: apply the remedy to it; take something every day upon yourself; labour seriously toward purifying your heart; you will then taste the comforts and the consolations of prayer ”

“ Let no one, therefore, look for an efficient cause of the evil will; for it is not efficient, but deficient, as the will itself is not an effecting of something, but a defect. For defection from that which supremely is, to that which has less of being,—this is to begin to have an evil will. Now, to seek to discover the causes of these defections,—causes, as I have said, not efficient, but deficient,—is as if some one sought to see darkness, or hear silence. ”

“ And to all the happiness sought seems to come, and the soul, for a time, is lulled into a sweet security, and an intoxicating forgetfulness of the existence of evil; but the day of disease comes at last, or some great sorrow, temptation, or misfortune breaks suddenly in on the unfortified soul, and the fabric of its fancied happiness is torn to shreds. ”

“ The will to live, of life conscious and unconscious, the physical instinct, cruel, wasteful, and careless—at times it seemed to her to make of human beings mere foolish puppets, without will or dignity. ”

“ One of the brethren this morning was complaining of sins rising in the heart, and of the self-will of fallen man, and the evil which the Devil had power to engender in the hearts of our parents, who have entailed it on their children. How shall we overcome this inclination to evil? Let the will of God predominate over the will of the creature. ”

“ My children—for I speak to the very youngest of you here, and do try to understand me if you can, or as much as you can—it is right —it is God's will—that you should resist, to the very last, any trial which is not inevitable. There are in this world countless sorrows, which, so far appears, we actually bring on ourselves and others by our own folly, wickedness, or weakness—which is often as fatal as wickedness ”

“ And therefore, if you will not do all that is in your power to alleviate the lot of these men, you will bring upon yourself an invisible but most heavy calamity in the consciousness of the evident transgression of the will of God, as known to you; the consciousness of an irreparable, cruel, evil deed. ”

“ They are freed from self-will, as desiring nothing but the holy and perfect will of God; not supplies in want, not ease in pain, [This is too strong. Our Lord himself desired ease in pain.' He asked' for it, only with resignation: "Not as I will," I desire, "but as thou wilt."] nor life, or death, or any creature; but continually crying in their Inmost soul, 'Father, thy will be done.' They are freed from evil thoughts, so that they cannot enter into them, no, not for a moment. ”

“ The guilt of sin committed by us is a burden, a heavy burden; it is a burden to God (he is pressed under it, Amos ii. 13) , a burden to the whole creation, which groans under it, Rom. viii. 21, 22. It will, first or last, be a burden to the sinner himself, either a burden of repentance when he is pricked to the heart for it, labours, and is heavy-laden, under it, or a burden of ruin when it sinks him to the lowest hell and will for ever detain him there; it will be a talent of lead upon him, Zech. v. 8. Sinners are said to bear their iniquity. Threatenings are burdens. ”

“ But to a spirit like hers, the illness of a loved one was a trial peculiarly severe; while her tenderness of conscience and dread of evil rendered her painfully anxious for her sons. "One may bear personal trials firmly," said the tender mother, sitting down and resting her head on her hand, "but to see those whom we love suffer, and not be able to relieve them—to see them in peril, and not be able to succour them." ”

“ The half kills, the whole gives life. Why canst thou not do any absolute evil? Because thy evil intent, which, in its separateness, would be unmixed evil, thy selfish will, thy struggle against the moral insight, this evil will of thine is no lonesome fact in the world, but is an element in the organic life of God. ”

“ Who can tell the countless temptations to evil which flow in from a neglected, disordered, deranged nervous system,—temptations to anger, to irritability, to selfishness, to every kind of sin of appetite and passion? ”

“ THE afflictions and constraints of the will are now very great likewise, and of such a kind that they sometimes transpierce the soul with a sudden remembrance of the evils in the midst of which it finds itself, and with the uncertainty of finding a remedy for them. ”

“ Fourthly, He comes on with a softer plea of infirmity, and endeavours to persuade men that they may yield under pretence of being forced, and that their strivings and reluctances will lessen the evil to an apparent sin of infirmity ”

“ You could face poverty, you could bear bodily pain; the sufferings of the heart were unknown to you; you were then dependent on nothing but your position as a human being; now you depend on all the ties you have formed for yourself; you have learnt to desire, and you are now the slave of your desires. Without any change in yourself, without any insult, any injury to yourself, what sorrows may attack your soul, what pains may you suffer without sickness, how many deaths may you die and yet live! A lie, an error, a suspicion, may plunge you in despair. ”

“ Resisting evil, you overcome it and prove its nothingness. Not human platitudes, but divine beatitudes, Iniquity overcome reflect the spiritual light and might which heal the sick. The exercise of will brings on a hypnotic state, detrimental to health and integrity of thought. ”

“ It behoved Him to suffer, as He Himself saith; and it behoves us to suffer, that the members may suffer with the Head, Who saith: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ”

“ Besides the suffering which has been described, and which is inseparable from wickedness, because it springs from the same root, excessive vehemence of will, another specific pain quite different from this is connected with wickedness, which is felt in the case of every bad action, whether it be merely injustice proceeding from egoism or pure wickedness, and according to the length of its duration is called the sting of conscience or remorse. ”

“ Above all, there was a miserable presentiment of coming evil—that expectation of ill which quickens the hearing, blinds the sight, and seems to clench the heart with a grasp that tightens at every strange sound, at every sudden silence. ”

“ In these cases the whole evil of the indulgences of course falls upon the mediums; and who would wish to assume personal relation with such a world, and be forced to bear in their own bodies the evils of the unhallowed indulgences of unseen spirits, against their will? ”

“ It has already been advanced in confirmation of this that every impression upon my body also affects my will at once and immediately, and in this respect is called pain or pleasure, or, in its lower degrees, agreeable or disagreeable sensation; and also, conversely, that every violent movement of the will, every emotion or passion, convulses the body and disturbs the course of its functions. ”

“ The writer of the book of Proverbs says, 'The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can [362] bear?' And if a deep wound be inflicted on the soul of man, which he is incapable of healing or of enduring, shall we turn round upon him and aggravate the intensity of his anguish, by employing the strong symptoms of his grief as evidences either of insanity or fanaticism? ”

“ All these conditions of mind are rightly called “evil,” for they are the efforts of the soul to subvert, in its ignorance, the law, an they, therefore, lead to chaos and confusion within, and are sooner or later actualized in the outward circumstances as disease, failure, and misfortune, coupled with grief, pain, and despair. ”

“ As soon as we come to a right understanding of our lost and guilty condition, we shall cry: "Be merciful to me a sinner; create within me a clean heart, O God." Without such an understanding,—such an intelligent perception of our sin and guilt,—we never shall, and we never can. ”