PRINCIPLES OF NATURE AND GRACE 423 



1 8. It may even be said that from this time forth the 

 love of God enables us to enjoy a foretaste of future 

 felicity. And although this love is disinterested, it con- 

 stitutes by itself our greatest good and interest, even 

 though we may not seek these in it and though we may 

 consider only the pleasure it gives without regard to the 

 advantage it brings ; for it gives us perfect confidence in 

 the goodness of our Author and Master, which produces 

 real tranquillity of mind, not as in the case of the Stoics, 

 who forcibly school themselves to patience, but through 

 a present content which also assures to us a future happi- 

 ness 65 . And besides the present pleasure it aifords, 

 nothing can be of more advantage for the future than this 

 love of God, for it fulfils our expectations also and leads 

 us in the way of supreme happiness, because in virtue 

 of the perfect order that is established in the universe, 



65 'There is as much difference between genuine morality 

 [morale'] and that of the Stoics and Epicureans, as there is between 

 joy and patience ; for their tranquillity was founded only upon 

 necessity, while ours should be founded upon the perfection and 

 the beauty of things, upon our own felicity.' The'odicee, 254 ; 

 E. 580 b ; G. vi. 268. < What is called Fatum Stoicum was not so 

 black as it is painted. It did not keep men from looking after 

 their affairs; but it tended to give them tranquillity as regard; 

 events, through the consideration of their necessity, which makes 

 our anxieties and regrets useless. . . . The teachings of the Stoics 

 (and perhaps also of some famous philosophers of our own time), 

 being confined to this supposed necessity, can only secure a forced 

 patience ; instead of which our Lord inspires us with more sublime 

 thoughts and teaches us even the way to have content, when He 

 assures us that as God is perfectly good and wise and takes all 

 under His care, so as not even to neglect a hair of our heads 

 our confidence in Him ought to be complete ; so that we should 

 see, if we were able to comprehend it, that it is impossible even 

 to desire anything better (either absolutely or for ourselves) than 

 what He does. It is as if we were to say to men : " Do your duty 

 and be content with what comes of it, not only because you 

 cannot resist Divine providence or the nature of things (which 

 would be enough to make us tranquil, but not to make us content) 

 but also because you have to do with a good Master." And this 

 might be called Fatum Christianum' Theodicee, Preface, E. 470 b; 

 G. vi. 30. 



