the flesh seem unsavoury to him. And (as David says) " My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God" [1] and in all His works; and by the experience of this sweetness and of the marvellous effects of it come to know the greatness of God, the excellence of His law, of His virtues and celestial rewards. Upon which David said, "Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet;" [2] that is to say, if you taste what God is and the works that He does within you, by this taste you shall know how sweet He is, how good, how wise, how potent, how liberal and how merciful. And after the same manner may we say, Taste and see how sweet is His yoke and His law, how sweet His obedience and humility, patience, temperance, chastity and charity. For every virtue has its proper sweetness, upon which the same David said, "How great is the multitude of thy sweetness, O Lord, which thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee!" [3] He calls it great and manifold, to signify that as in meat there is variety of savours, so God has in His mysteries and virtues much variety and greatness of consolations. For if manna, being but one meat, had the savour of all meats to cherish the just with its corporal sweetness, [4] with how much more eminence has God the sweetness of all things for the consolation of those that converse with Him by the means of prayer? For to some He gives it meditating His perfections;—to some, meditating His benefits;— and to others, meditating His holy law, which David said was sweeter unto him "than honey and the honeycomb." [5] But this sweetness is hidden for those that fear God and reverence Him, for they only taste it with most abundance, but having once tasted it, they have (says Cassian) no tongue to declare it, for it far surpasses all whatsoever our sense attains to. [6]
