The divine life in three treatises

6. And it is a great encouragement to my converse with God, that no misunderstanding, no malice of enemies, no former sin or present frailty, no nor the infinite distance of the most Holy Glorious God, can hinder my access to him, or turn away his Ear or Love, or interrupt my leave and liberty of converse. If I converse with the poor, their wants afflict me, being greater than I can supply: Their complaints and expectations which I cannot satisfy, are my trouble. If I would converse with Great ones, it is not easy to get access: and less easy to have their favour, unless I would purchase it at too dear a rate: How strangely and contemptuously do they look at their inferiors! Great friends must be made for a word or smile: And if you be not quickly gone, they are aweary of you: And if you seek any thing of them, or would put them to any cost or trouble, you are as welcome to them as so many vermin or noisome creatures. They please them best that drive you away. With how much labour and difficulty must you clime, if you will see the top of one of these mountains? And when you are there, you are but in a place of barrenness, and have nothing to satisfy you for your pains, but a larger prospect and vertiginous despect of the lower grounds which are not your own: it is seldom that ⟨p. 363⟩these Great ones are to be spoken with: And perhaps their speech is but a denial of your requests, if not some snappish and contemptuous rejection, that makes you glad when you are got far enough from them, and makes you the better like and love the accessible, calm and fruitful plains.

6. And it is a great encouragement to my converse with God, that no misunderstanding, no malice of enemies, no former sin or present frailty, no nor the infinite distance of the most Holy Glorious God, can hinder my access to him, or turn away his Ear or Love, or interrupt my leave and liberty of converse. If I converse with the poor, their wants afflict me, being greater than I can supply: Their complaints and expectations which I cannot satisfie, are my trouble. If I would converse with Great ones, it is not easie to get access: and less easie to have their favout, unless I would purchase it at too dear a rate: How strangely and contemptuously do they look at their inferiours! Great friends must be made for a word or smile: And if you be not quickly gone, they are aweary of you: And if you seek any thing of them, or would put them to any cost or trouble, you are as welcome to them as so many vermine or noisome creatures. They please them best that drive you away. With how much labour and difficulty must you clime, if you will see the top of one of these mountains? And when you are there, you are but in a place of barrenness, and have nothing to satisfie you for your pains, but a larger prospect and vertiginous despect of the lower grounds which are not your own: it is seldome that