Volume II, Treatise III, Chapter XXXII

A More Ample Explanation of the Same Subject

WE have shewn that a man attains the third degree of humility, when, having received great gifts from God, and seeing himself honoured and esteemed, he is neither puffed up, nor does he attribute any thing to himeelf; but ascribes all to the fountain of all things, which is God; giving him the glory of every thing, and retaining as deep a sense of humility and lowliness, as if he did nothing, and were not endowed with any virtue at all. Our intention nevertheless is not to assert, that we should not act on our part; or that we have no share in the good works we do. For that would be a very erroneous proposition; since it is very certain,. that our free will concurs and operates jointly with God in every good work, by reason that the assent we give thereunto, whereby: we put ourselves upon acting, is a free consent; since all that we will, and all that we do, we do it by a free motion of our will; and‘ it is in our power to do, or not to do it. Onthe contrary, even that, which makes this third degree of humility so hard to attain,. is, that on the one hand, we must use all care and diligence imaginable to acquire virtue, to resist temptations, and to be successful in all our pious undertakings, as if our own strength were sufficient to ensure success; and on the other hand, that we may, after having done all that depended on us, be obliged to confide no more therein, than as if we had done nothing, we must look upon ourselves as unprofitable servants, and put our confidence in God alone, according to these words of our Saviour: “When ye shall have done all that is commanded ye, say still, ye are unprofitable servants, we have done nothing but what we ought to have done.” He does not say, “when ye shall have done part of what is commanded. ye, but when ye shall have done all that is commanded ye.” (Luke 17:10) Now to look upon one’s self as unprofitable after that,- there is very great need of a most profound humility. He that is sensible, that he is but an unprofitable servant, and that all he can do, is not sufficient to make him master of any virtue, but that virtue is a gift of God’s pure bounty, he, says Cassian, will not be puffed up, when he has acquired it; because he will be very sensible, that he gained it, not by his own care, but by an effect of the mercy of God to him, according to the words of the apostle, “what have you, which you have not received?” i St. Austin explains this by an excellent comparison, where he says, “that without the grace of God, we are like a body without a soul.” As a dead body is incapable of motion; so we, without the grace of God, are incapable of any meritorious action in his sight; and as life and motion are not to be attributed to the body, but to the soul that animates it; so the soul must not ascribe to itself the good actions which it does, but to God alone, who quickens it by his grace, and gives it the means to perform them. In another place he says further, ‘‘ that as the eyes of the body, let them be ever so well disposed, cannot see any thing, without the help of light; so, how righteous soever a man may be, he can do no good, without being assisted by the divine light of grace. If the Lord keeps not the city, the watchman wakes but in vain.”—(Ps. exxvi. 1). “0 what a happiness would it be for men,” the same St. Austin cries out, ‘if they did but know themselves, and if they who glory, did “glory in the Lord?”—(Confes, Lib. ix.) If God, by dissipating the clouds of their mind by a ray of his light, made them fully sensible, that whatever is created has its being from him, subsists only by him, and has no good in itself, but that which it pleases the divine mercy to shower down upon, and preserve in it. Now this is properly the third degree of humility; though after all we can say, to make it rightly understood, we must own that our words still fall short in expressing its perfection because the theory or specnlation thereof, is as sublime, as its practice is difficult.

We may add further, that it consists, “in the reckoning ourselves as nothing,” which is so much recommended by all masters of a spiritual life. It consists, according to St. Benedict, and other saints, in a deep sense of our own unworthiness in all things—in the continual diffidence of ourselves, and our entire confidence in God, of which the scripture so often speaks:—and in fine, in that real “contempt of one’s self, which it is to be wished, we had as often in our heart, as in our mouth; it being that which so palpably convinces us, that of ourselves, we share in nothing but sin and misery,, and that whatever good we have or do, we neither have it or do it as of ourselves, but hold it all from God, and to him we ought to ascribe all the glory.

If now, after all this, you do not yet comprehend well what this third degree of humility is, be not surprised: for the theory, as we have already said, is so very sublime, that it is not strange, if we do not easily conceive what it is. Thus it happens in all arts and sciences, that what is most common in every art and science, is easily understood by every body; but none but such as are masters in it, are well versed in the secrets and niceties thereof. So every one conceives easily what is most common and ordinary in virtue, but the perfect only are well acquainted with the whole excellence of it. Wherefore St. Laurence Justinian said, “that nobody knows well what humility is, but he who has received it from God;” and thence it comes, that the saints who were endowed with profound humility, said things of themselves, which we, who are not arrived at so high a degree of virtue, cannot well comprehend, and such as seem to us mere exaggerations; as for example, that they were the greatest sinners in the world, and several such like expressions. For so far are we from saying or thinking such things of ourselves, that we cannot so much as comprehend how others could say so; the reason is, because we are not endowed with so profound humility as they were, and so know not the excellence and secrets thereof. Wherefore endeavour to become humble, and to profit every day more and more in the science of humility, and you will then comprehend how things ‘of this kind, may be said with truth of one’s aelf.

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