Volume I, Treatise I, Chapter XII

In Order to Attain Perfection, We Should Never Deliberately Commit Any Fault, Nor be Remiss in Our Endeavours to Become Perfect

In order to attain perfection, to which during life we should continually aspire, it is of the utmost importance never to commit any fault deliberately. This being premised, we must understand that there are two sorts of venial sins: one, into which those who fear God most, often fall, through frailty, ignorance, and inadvertence; although there is generally a little negligence mixed with these frailties. They who serve God faithfully and with an upright heart, should find in these faults rather a subject of humiliation than of affliction: for God will not on that account abandon them, but on the contrary, will afford them his divine grace, and animate them with fresh courage, when upon these occasions they humbly address themselves to him. There is another species of venial sins, into which they who are cold and remiss in the service of God wilfully and deliberately fall. These faults are avery great obstacle to those graces which God in his infinite goodness would have bestowed on us, if we had not committed them. These are also the cause why we find no comfort or satisfaction in prayer, and that God ceasesto impart to us those spiritual consolations and favours, which he was accustomed to bestow. So that if we intend to advance in Christian perfection, and to engage Almighty God to continue his favours towards us, we must be very careful never to commit a wilful or deliberate fault. Those we daily commit, through ignorance or inadvertence, are but too many, and therefore we should not multiply greater faults. Our distractions in prayer, springing from the natural -inconstancy and wanderings of the imagination, are but too great, without voluntarily diverting our minds to other objects: and the faults which through frailty we often commit, contrary to what is required by the strictness of our rule and profession, are such, as we need not aggravate by consent.

St. Basil prescribes another means, which, he says, will in a short time contribute very much to our advancement in perfection. ‘This is never to stop in the pursuit of virtue. There are men, who are sometimes seized with certain fits of zeal and devotion, but stop short on a sudden, and go no farther. Be sure not to imitate these, but advance constantly on your way, and remember that, in your spiritual career, you will become more weary by halting than if you continue your journey. It is not the same in spiritual as in corporal exercises: the body is weakened and exhausted by continual labour; but the more the soul acts, the more strong and vigorous she becomes, according to the Latin proverb: ‘The bow is broken by being too much bent, and the mind is corrupted by too much relaxation.” (Arcum frangit intensio, animum remissio.)

St. Ambrose says, that as it is far easier to preserve our innocence, than to repent truly: so it is easier to persevere in the fervour of devotion, than to recover it after a short discontinuance. When a smith has taken a bar of iron from the fire, to forge it to the shape he desires, he never permits it to grow quite cold, but puts it into the fire again as soon as possible, that it may grow hot and fit for the hammer to work upon as before. In like manner ought we to be cautious never to suffer the fire of our devotion to be extinguished: for if the heart once grows cold, and begins to harden, we shall find it extremely difficult to warm and soften it again. We find by experience, that though men be very far advanced in virtue, if they once begin to grow remiss, and discontinue their exercises of piety, they lose, in a few days, what they had been a long time acquiring; and when they endeavonr to recover it again, they find so many difficulties and contradictions in the attempt, that they can seldom rise to that degree of perfection from which they had fallen. They, on the contrary, who persevere with fervour in their devotions and spiritual exercises, not only remain with ease in that degree of perfection they had already attained, but in a little time ascend much higher. ‘Lhus they never lose time, nor diminish what they have once acquired. They are not like the tepid and negligent, who spend their whole life in alternate fits of tepidity and devotion, destroying by their negligence what they have acquired by their fervour, doing and undoing, building up and pulling down, without ever bringing any of their projects to perfection. But the fervent labour incessantly without repose; and acquiring new strength by continual exercise, they perform

with great facility the most difficult undertakings, and daily advance more and more in virtue. Thus both the one and the other verify in themselves that saying of the Wise Man: “The slothful hand hath wrought poverty; but the hand of the industrious getteth riches.” (Proverbs 10:4) ‘ The soul of those that labour shall grow fat.” (Proverbs 13:4)

A great servant of God was wont to compare the tepid and fervent religious to two sorts of courtiers. He said that the lukewarm who think themselves entitled on account of their seniority to ease and indulgence, and who labour to advance no farther in perfection, were like those old domestics, who, from their former services, were allowed a place in court, but on account of their present inactivity, receive no further preferment from their prince, or are hardly admitted into his presence; but the fervent he compares to those wise and active young courtiers, who continually waited upon, and applied all their thoughts to discover what was most pleasing to their prince, and by their diligence and assiduity, insinuated themselves so far into his good graces, that they were at length raised to very high honours and dignities.

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