Book 3 · Section 162

LVI. (162) But that the food of the soul is not earthly but heavenly the Holy Scriptures will testify in many passages, "Behold I will rain upon you bread from heaven, and the people shall come forth, and shall collect from day to day, when I will try them, whether they will walk according to my law or Not." You see that the soul is nourished not on earthly and corruptible food, but on the reasons which God rains down out of his sublime and pure nature, which he calls heaven. (163) "Let the people indeed go forth and the whole system of the soul likewise, and let it collect science and begin knowledge, not in large quantities but from day to day." For, in the first place, in that way it will not exhaust all at once the abundant riches of the grace of God: but it will overflow like a torrent with their superfluity. Secondly, it will happen that when they have taken such good things as are sufficient for them and duly measured, they will think God the dispenser of the rest. (164) But he who endeavours to collect everything at once is only acquiring for himself despair with great sorrow, for he becomes full of despair if he expects that God will only rain good things upon him at the present moment, and that he will not do so hereafter. And he becomes inclined to infidelity if he does not believe that the graces of God will be both at present and in all time abundantly poured upon those who are worthy of them. And he is foolish, moreover, if he thinks that he shall be a competent guardian of what he has collected contrary to God's will. For a very slight inclination is sufficient to make the mind, which in its boastfulness attributes safety and stability to itself, an impotent and unsure keeper of those things of which it fancied itself a safe guardian.