Volume II, Treatise IV, Chapter XIV

That God Permits None to be Tempted Above Their Strength, and Therefore We Ought not to be Discouraged, How Long or Violent Soever the Temptation May Happen to be

‘Gop is faithful,” says the apostle, ‘ and will not permit you to be tempted above your strength, but that you may be able to resist temptation, he will give you help proportionable to the attacks you shall have to sustain.” (1 Corinthians 10:13) This ought to be a great subject of comfort, and confidence to us in temptations. We already know that on the one hand, the devil has no power but what God gives him, and can tempt us no farther than God permits; and on the other, as St. Paul assures us, that God will not permit the devil to tempt us above our strength. Who is there to whom this assurance ought not to give comfort and courage? There is no physician, that so proportions the drugs he prescribes according to the strength and need of a sick person, as this heavenly physician proportions those temptations and afflictions, with which he permits us to be tried. If the potter, says St. Ephrem, when he puts his vessels of clay which he has prepared, into the fire, knows precisely how long he must leave them there, to render them serviceable; and that if he leaves them too long in it, they will fly in pieces; or if too short, they will easily break only by touching them; with how far greater reason then, ought we to believe that God, whose wisdom and bounty are infinite, knows how to keep the same measures towards us in temptations.

St. Ambrose upon these words of St. Matthew, “Jesus having ascended into the ship, his disciples followed him, and presently there arose a great tempest in the sea, so that the ship was all covered with waves, but he in the mean time slept; (Mat. viii. 23); says, that the elect of our Lord, and those that accompany him, are tempted as well as others; nay, it even sometimes happens, adds the saint, that God feigns to sleep, thus industriously hiding the love he bears his children, that he may the more oblige them to have recourse to him. But he sleeps not, nor does he at all forget them. “If he makes any stay, expect him,” ‘says the prophet, “for he will soon come, and make no delay.” (Habacuc 2:3) It seems to a sick person, that the night is longer than ordinary, and that the day is very long coming, notwithstanding there is no such thing, for the day comes at the ordinary time; after the same manner, though God seems to you who are sick, to stay longer than he should do, yet there is nothing of this, he knows at what time precisely he ought to come, and will not fail to come when he should.

St. Austin explains to this purpose, our Saviour’s conduct, when the sisters of Lazarus sent him word, that their brother was sick. ‘‘ This sickness,” says he, “is not unto death, but has happened for the glory of God, and that thereby the Son of God should be glorified.” (John 11:4) After this he waited two days longer, to render the miracle, he designed to perform, the greater. It is after this manner, adds the saint, that God sometimes treats his servants. He leaves them for some time in temptations and sufferings, and seems as if he had forgot them; but the reason for which — he does this, is, thereby to procure greater advantages for them. After the same manner, he had a long time let Joseph remain in prison, but he afterwards drew him out of it, with greater glory, to make him governor of all Egypt; so if he leave you for a long time in temptations and suffering, it is to draw you out of them, after a manner more advantageous to his own glory and your salvation. St. Chrysostom makes the same remark upon these words of the psalmist: “thou who dost elevate me from the gates of death;” take notice, says he, that the prophet does not say, “thou who dost deliver me;” but ‘thou who dost elevate me from the gates of death;” because, in effect, God is not contented with delivering his servants from temptations, but he makes temptations serve to their greater elevation and glory. Wherefore, though you feel yourself overwhelmed, and imagine yourself to be already within the gates of death; yet you ought firmly confide that God will draw you from thence. ‘For the Lord gives death, and gives life, he conducts even to the gates of hell, and brings back again; (1 Reg. ii. 6 ) ‘“‘ and though he should kill me,” says Job, “I will always hope in him.” (Job 13:15)

St. Jerom, reflecting upon Jonas’s adventure—take notice, says he, that Jonas found his salvation, where he thought himself assuredly lost. They cast him into the sea, and presently he was devoured by “a whale that God had placed there ready,” not to devour him, “but to receive him into his belly,” (Jonas 2:8) as into a vessel to carry him ashore. It is after this manner, continues the saint, it often happens that we think that to be the occasion of our destruction, which procures our salvation: ‘ and that we there meet with life, where we thought we should certainly have found death.” Moreover the servants of God, who know by their own experience, what his conduct is over men; and that he humbles to exalt; that he wounds to cure; and that he kills to give life, do not lose courage in dangers and adversities, by the knowledge of their own weakness; but they entirely cast themselves into God’s hands, and are satisfied by knowing that they are in too good hands to fear or apprehend any thing from their own frailty.

It is related in ecclesiastical history, that the Abbot Isidore said, T am now forty years attacked by a violent temptation; and have never yet yielded to it. We see also a great many examples of divers fathers in the desert, who all their lives were attacked with violent temptations, which they always sustained, with a steady and equal confidence. “These were those giants,” according to the expression of the prophet, “who understood what belongs to war.” (Baruch 3:26) It is in this we ought to imitate them; and St. Cyprian desiring to inspire us with the same steadiness and confidence, makes use of the words of God in the prophet Isaias: ‘‘ Fear nothing, because I have redeemed thee, and have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine, when thou shalt pass through the midst of the waters, I will be with thee; and the waves shall not cover thee. When thou shalt walk in the fire, thou shalt not burn, and the flame shall not hurt thee; because I am the Lord thy God, the holy One of Israel thy Saviour?”— (Isaias 43:1,2,3) These other words also of the same prophet, are most proper to strengthen us, in the same holy confidence: ‘You shall be as suckling children, carried on the breast of their mother, who are caressed upon their lap. So I will comfort, you as a mother, that caresses and cherishes her child.”—(Isai. Ixvi. 12, 13.) Imagine with what marks of love, a mother receives her infant, when being frightened at anything, it casts itself into her arms; how she embraces it, how she presses it to her breast, how she kisses, flatters, and tenderly caresses it; but the tenderness of God, for those who have recourse to him in temptations and dangers is without comparison far greater. It was this that gave so much comfort to the psalmist, when he cried out to God, “be mindful of the promise which thou hast made to thy servant, which thou hast given me hopes of. This comforted me in my humiliation; because thy promise gave me life.” (Psalms 118:49) Let us animate ourselves with the same hope, and let us make it the subject of our comfort; because, as the apostle says, “it is imposane that Almighty God should lie,” (Hebrews 6:18), or violate his word.

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