A Treatise On The Love Of God

TREATISE ON THE LOVE OF GOD SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES — A Catholic Classic! — Includes Over 600 Active Linked Endnotes — Includes an Active Index, Table of Contents and Layered NCX Navigation — Includes Illustrations by Gustave Dore Publisher: Available in Paperback: ISBN-13: 978-1-78379-449-2 This Treatise which I now present you, may be in some way serviceable to you, and that in it you will meet with many wholesome considerations which you would not elsewhere so easily find. We all look towards the glory of holy love. My intention is only to represent simply and naively, without art, still more without false colors, the history of the birth, progress, decay, operations, properties, advantages and excellences of divine love. PUBLISHER: CATHOLIC WAY PUBLISHING

A newly discovered treatise by a major European writer

Treatise on the Love of God is a manual intended to help believers strengthen their devotion to God. De Sales describes his project by saying, "it is truly my intention to represent simply and naïvely, without art, still more without false colours, the history of the birth, progress, decay, operations, properties, advantages and excellences of divine love." The Treatise is divided into twelve books. The first four books explain the nature of the human soul and provide the history of divine love. Book Five explores the two principle exercises of love, namely, sacred complacency and benevolence. Books Six and Seven discuss the importance of practicing love through prayer, while Books Eight and Nine express the importance of submitting to God's will. The final three books are devoted to exploring the practical importance of God's holy love in our lives. De Sales' Treatise is a captivating depiction of love.

THE following Treatise presents, at first sight, considerable difficulties. They do not arise from any defect in the Saint’s mode of expression, but are inherent in his subject and manner of treatment, “going deep down into the roots” of the Love of God. Thus he speaks in his Preface, and continues: “The first four books, and some chapters of the others might doubtless have been omitted without disadvantage to such souls as seek only the practice of holy love. . . . I have been forced to say many things which will appear more obscure than they are. The depths of science are always somewhat hard to sound.” But he tells us that the state of the minds of his age required this deeper treatment; and whatever may be thought as to the best way of presenting modern religious teaching to an age so ignorant, so shallow and so unthinking as is our own with regard to spiritual truths, there can be no question that this masterpiece of the chief doctor of ascetic theology must not be brought down to our level, but that we must raise ourselves towards it. Aeterna Press