I. Particulars for a Person Who Lacks Grace.
That is the general characteristic. Here
are the particulars for a person who lacks grace: Once he has turned
away from God, the person dwells on himself, and makes self the main
goal of his life and activity. This is because at this point, after God,
there is for him nothing higher than self, especially because, having
previously received every abundance from God and having now forgotten
Him, he hurries and takes care to fill himself up with something. The
emptiness that has formed inside him because of his falling away from
God causes an unquenchable thirst inside him that is vague but constant.
The person has become a bottomless abyss. He makes every effort to fill
this abyss, but he cannot see or feel it getting full. Thus, he spends
his entire life in sweat, toil and great labors; he busies himself with
various occupations in which he hopes to find a way to quench his
unquenchable thirst. These occupations take up all his attention, all
his time and all his activity. They are the highest good, in which he
lives with his whole heart. Thus, it is clear why a person who makes
self his exclusive goal is never himself; instead, everything is outside
him, in things either created or acquired by vanity. He has fallen away
from God, Who is the fullness of everything. He himself is empty; it
remains for him to seemingly pour himself out into an endless variety of
things and live in them. Thus, the sinner thirsts, fusses, and troubles
himself with occupations and numerous things outside himself and God.
This is why a characteristic trait of sinful life is, in its disregard
for salvation, the care and trouble about many things (cf. Lk 10:41).
2. The Care and Trouble about Many Things.
The nuances and distinctions of this care
and trouble about many things depends on the kinds of emptiness that
have formed in the soul. There is the emptiness of the mind that has
forgotten the One Who is everything; this gives rise to care and trouble
about learnedness, inquisitiveness, questioning and curiosity. There is
the emptiness of the will that has been deprived of possession by the
One Who is everything; this creates desire for many things, the longing
to possess many things, so that everything is in our control, in our
hands; this is self-interest. There is the emptiness of the heart that
has been deprived of the enjoyment of the One Who is everything; this
forms a thirst for the satisfaction of many and various things, or a
search for an infinite number of objects in which we hope to find
pleasure for our senses, both internal and external. Thus, the sinner is
continually troubled about learnedness, the possession of many things,
and the desire for many pleasures. He amuses himself, he possesses, he
questions. He goes around in circles his entire life. Curiosity beckons,
the heart hopes to taste sweet things, and he is enticed by the will.
Anyone can convince himself of this if he observes the movements of his
soul over the course of only a single day.
If left alone, the sinner will continue going in
circles, because this is our nature when it is enslaved to sin. However,
when the sinner is in the company of others, the circles he goes around
increase in number a thousandfold and become more convoluted. There is
an entire world full of people who are continually doing things,
questioning, amusing themselves, and scrounging about, whose every way
in all of this has led to a system, placed everyone under its laws, and
made these laws a necessity for everyone who belongs to this sphere. In
this common alliance, they inevitably come into contact, rub up against
each other, and in this rubbing succeed in elevating inquisitiveness,
self-interest, and self-pleasure to the tenth, hundredth and thousandth
degree, thereby placing all happiness, joy and life in this frenzy. This
is the world of vanity, in which occupations, ways, rule, connections,
language, diversions, amusements, concepts — everything, from the
smallest to the greatest thing — are permeated by the spirit of these
three fiends of many cares and trouble mentioned above. It is what
constitutes the dreary going around in circles by the spirits of worldly
people. Being in living communion with this entire world, each sinner
is caught up in its thousandfold net, and is so deeply entangled in it
that it is invisible to him. Such a heavy burden lies on each worldly
person and each of his parts, that he does not have the strength to be
stirred in the smallest way by anything that is not worldly, because
this would seem like raising a thousand-pound weight to him. Thus, no
one undertakes such an unmanageable task, and no one thinks to undertake
it; instead, everyone lives on, moving in the rut into which they have
fallen.
3. The Seductions of the Prince of this World.
Even worse is the prince of this world
who is unparalleled in his cunning, spitefulness and experience in
seduction. It is through the flesh and materialism with which the soul
became mingled at the fall that he has free access to the soul. In his
approach, he kindles curiosity, self-interest, and pleasure-loving
self-comfort in various ways. Through various enticements, he holds the
soul in these things with no escape; through various suggestions he
suggests plans for satisfying them and then either aids in fulfilling
them, or thwarts them through instruction of other more ambitious plans.
All this is accomplished with one purpose: to prolong and deepen a
person's involvement in them. This is what constitutes the change of
worldly misfortune and fortune, unblessed by God.
The prince of this world has an entire horde of
servile spirits of malice that are subordinate to him. At each instant
they scurry along every boundary of the inhabited world to sow various
things in different places, deepen entanglement in the net of sin,
repair traps that have become weak and broken, and especially to guard
against anyone who might take it into his mind to rid himself of his
bonds and escape to freedom. In the latter case, they hurriedly gather
around the self-willed person. First they come one by one, then by
detachments and legions until finally, the entire horde is there. This
happens in various ways and forms so as to block all exits and mend the
strands and nets, and, using the other analogy, to push back into the
abyss any person who has begun to crawl out along its steep slopes.
4. The Invisible Kingdom of Spirits in which Each Sinner Is Immersed.
This invisible kingdom of spirits has
special places. There are the throne rooms, where plans are drawn up,
instructions arrive and reports are received with the approval or
reproaches of the chiefs. These are the inner sanctums of satan, as St.
John the Theologian expressed it. On earth, in the middle kingdom of
people, there are leagues of evil-doers, profligates, and especially
nonbelievers and blasphemers, whose deeds, words and writings pour out
sinful gloom everywhere and block out the divine light. The aggregate of
worldly ways, pervaded with sinful elements that stupefy and draw one
away from God, is the organ through which they express their will and
power here.
This is the structure of the sinful sphere! Each
sinner is immersed in it, but is kept there largely on account of some
particular thing. This thing, perhaps, is in appearance tolerable, even
laudable. Satan has a single concern; that is, where a person is
completely occupied in his consciousness, attention, and heart, that God
not be the sole occupier, but that something outside Him be attached to
his mind, will, and heart, so the person has something in place of God
and only cares about what he knows and what he enjoys and possesses.
Here there are not only carnal and mental passions, but also specious
things such as learnedness, artistry, and worldliness that can serve as
the bonds of satan for keeping blinded sinners in his power and not
allowing them to come to their senses.
5. The Inner Mood and Condition of the Sinner.
If one looks at the sinner in his inner
mood and condition, it happens sometimes that he is knowledgeable, but
is blind with regard to divine things and the matter of his own
salvation. Even if he constantly takes care and troubles over things, he
is idle and careless in regard to arranging his own salvation; even if
he continually experiences anxieties or pleasures of the heart, he is
completely insensitive to everything spiritual. In this regard, all
forces of being are afflicted by sin; and there is blindness, negligence
and insensitivity in the sinner. He does not see his own condition, and
therefore does not sense the danger of his situation. He does not sense
his danger and therefore does not take the trouble and care to be
delivered from it. The necessity to change and be saved does not even
enter his mind. He has complete, unshakable confidence that he is at his
proper station in life, wants for nothing and must therefore leave
everything the way it is. Therefore, he considers any reminder about
another kind of life to be superfluous for himself; he does not listen,
and cannot even understand what it is for. He avoids and shuns it.
