François Fénelon (1651-1715) is one of those writers who can shake your tree and rattle your soul. Like this section, which I have edited slightly for clarity to the modern ear:

English: François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

English: François Fénelon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“God interposes himself as it were, between me and myself; He separates me from myself; He desires to be nearer to me by your pure love than I am to myself. He would have me look upon this ‘me’ as a stranger; He would have me escape from its walls, sacrifice it whole to Him, returning it absolutely and unconditionally to Him from whom I received it. What I am ought certainly to be less precious to me than He by whom I am. He made me for himself and not to be my own; that is, to love Him and to will what He wills, and not to seek my own will. Does any one feel your heart revolt at this total sacrifice of self to Him who has created us? I weep for your blindness…and pray God to deliver you from it, by teaching you to love Him above every other object.

“O my God! in these souls, offended at your pure love, I behold the darkness and rebellion resulting from the fall! You did not make the human heart to will this monstrous passion of appropriation. The uprightness wherein the scriptures teach us we were originally created consisted in this, that we have no claim upon ourselves but acknowledged that we belonged to our Creator. O Father! your children are sadly changed, and no longer bear your image! They are enraged, they are discouraged when they are told they should belong to You as You belong to Yourself! They desire to reverse this holy order, and would madly raise themselves into Gods; they desire to be their own, to do everything for self, or at least, to surrender themselves with certain reservations and conditions, and for their own advantage.”