Volume II, Treatise IV, Chapter XX

How We Ought to Behave Ourselves, in Temptations Against Faith and Purity; and What Remedies We Ought to Make Use of

THERE are some inexperienced souls, who by thoughts against faith and purity, are cast into such disquiet, as if what then passed in them, were a sign that God had forsaken them. It is proper then to begin by informing them that this is a great error and illusion. Gerson relates to this purpose, that a certain hermit, being afflicted with these thoughts, remained for twenty years together, without daring to speak of them to any body, imagining that it was a most horrible and unheard of crime, and that it would scandalize the person to whom he should mention it. At the end of this time, he resolved to address himself to an ancient father of the desert, but even then he durst not do it by word of mouth, but by a letter which he gave him to read. The holy old man having read it, began to smile, saying to him; son, lay your hand upon my head. The hermit having obeyed him, I take upon me, says he, your sin; for the future be not at allin pain about it. How! father, replied the hermit, astonished at his answer, it seems to me that I have one foot already in hell, and do you bid me be out of pain? Son, said the ancient father, do you take any pleasure im such thoughts as these? The hermit having answered no; but that they always caused a great deal of sorrow and trouble to him. Since it is so, replied the man of God, it is sign you have nothing to do with them, and that it is the devil that raises them in your mind, to draw you thereby to despair; wherefore, son, follow my advice, which is, that if ever any such thoughts as these come again to you, tell the devil that he is the author of them; say, wo to you, foul spirit; let these impurities and blasphemies light upon yourself, I will have nothing to do with them; I will adhere and stick fast to what the church believes, and will rather die a thousand times than ever offend God. These words of the holy old man, so comforted and strengthened the hermit, that for the future, he was never set upon, nor tormented with the like thoughts. And here it is proper to observe, for the instruction of those who have a difficulty to reveal their thoughts and temptations to their directors, that it gives them a great deal more disquiet to conceal them than to mention them. The example I have just now proposed, proves this truth’: this hermit suffered a continual disquiet of mind for twenty years together, because he did not discover the state of his soul, But as soon as he made it known, he was entirely comforted. How many disquiets would he have avoided, had he done in the beginning, what he did after twenty years? I shall treat this matter more at large hereafter; however, by what has been here said, we see that this kind of temptation is no new thing, and therefore we ought not to wonder at all at it.

We are now to see what we are to do in the like occasions. There are some whose conduct therein is blameable: for when attacked by temptations, they press their temples very hard with their hands, knit their brows, shut their eyes, and shake their head, as if they would say hereby that they will give them no entrance; and sometimes, if they do not actually speak, they think they have done nothing, and that they have consented to the improper thoughts. Now they do themselves more hurt by these contentions and efforts, than the temptation itself could have done them; and herein resemble Abner, who, when Saul was asleep, lay by him, and hearing a voice call him afar off, he began to cry our with all his strength to him that called him, ‘‘ who are you that cry out so loud, and hinder the repose of the king?” So these complaining of the noise that the temptation makes without, and the trouble it gives them, disquiet and trouble themselves within far more than the temptation could have done. Take good notice of this, because it is a thing which disturbs and turns the head of many persons, and chiefly of such as are scrupulous. It is not prayer or spiritual exercises, that injure their health, or affect their head; but it is scruples that hurt them; and it is this the devil aims at, in order to disgust them with devotion. He sees these persons far from consenting to the detestable thoughts he presents them with; all he aims at is thereby to disquiet and trouble them, and so he can but do this he is content. Lastly, take notice, that it is not with shaking the head, that we shake off temptations.

What therefore must we do to overcome them? It is not, as the saints and masters of a spiritual life say, by forcing our imagination, and by breaking our head to resist them. No! but we must contemn them and not dwell at all upon them. They are, say they, like little dogs that bark after a man that passes by; if he stops to drive them away, they bark more fiercely than they did before; we must therefore do like him who walks in a street, where the wind blows the dust in his face—he covers his eyes and walks on his way, without troubling himself either with the wind or the dust. In a word, the remedy against all these thoughts, and the means to be quickly delivered from them, is not to torment ourselves with them. But what ought to move those who are thus attacked, to make use of this remedy, and to keep their souls in peace, is, what the saints moreover add, that the more terrible and detestable they seem to be, the less account they ought to make of them; because, at the same time they are less dangerous. What thoughts, for example, can be more horrible, than such as are against God and religion? Notwithstanding these ‘are less dangerous than others, because the more horrible they are, the farther also we are by God’s mercy from consenting to them; wherefore we must not afflict ourselves when they pass in our minds; because that is not our fault, nor is it in our power to hinder them, as they come not from ourselves, but from the devil, who frames them against our will, that he may either cast us into despair, or into great disquiet of mind.

It is related of St. Catherine of Sienna, that one day, as she was extremely tormented with these thoughts, our Saviour appeared to her, and by his presence dissipated them all. She tenderly complained to him, saying, where wert thou, 0 Lord, when such horrible thoughts rose in my heart? Daughter, replied our Savour, I was in the midst of thy heart. Ah! sweet Lord, replied she, couldst thou remain amidst such filthy and shameful thoughts as those were? Daughter, said he, wert thou pleased in beholding them? No, Lord, replied the saint, I was pierced to the very heart with sorrow, and I know not what torment! should not rather have chosen them to have suffered them. What then, said he, could give thee such horror, but myself, who was in the midst of thy heart? So that how wicked, and how shameful soever the thoughts may be, that arise within us, if instead of entertaining them, we are troubled at having them, so far from believing that God has forsaken us, we should consider it an infallible sign that he remains within us; because it is he alone, who is able to ‘give us this horror of sin, and this fear of losing his grace. “It is in time of affliction that he is with us,” (Psal. xc. 15), as he himself assures us by the mouth of the prophet, and it is from the midst of the flames and thorns of the burning bush, that he speaks to you as he did to Moses.

“The combat against temptation,” says St. Bernard, “is 8 painfal, but profitable one, because the recompense is proportionable to the pain; and the thoughts they occasion cannot hurt us, unless we consent to them. But, on the contrary, the harder the resistance is, the greater will be the crown.”—(De inter. domo. c. 19.) Blosius is of. the same opinion, and says, that a thought of vain complacency in ourselves, with which, we only once permit ourselves to be carried away, is more displeasing to God, than all the foul and shameful thoughts that can be imagined, to which we give no consent. We must, then, no more afflict ourselves, nor be in any more pain, than if all this happened without us, as in effect it does; because, says a saint, these bad thoughts are not properly within us, but when we give consent to them; wherefore, so long as we consent not, they cannot enter into us—they only knock at _ the door to no purpose.

The masters of a spiritual life inform us further, that it is very dangerous to be much afraid of these temptations, and to make too much account of them; because this helps only to increase them, and to give them more strength. The reason hereof is very natural, and daily experience confirms it; for fear weakens ’ the imagination, and frequent reflections upon the same thing, cause it to make deeper impressions upon the mind, and to work more powerfully upon it. We see, for example, that a man easily passes over a narrow plank that lies upon the ground; but if we raise it very high, he cannot do so; because being then seized with fear, the blood and spirits returning to the heart, he cannot keep himself so freely upon his legs as he did before; and so he will be in great danger of falling. The same thing happens in temptations of impurity, when we are so weak as to be too much afraid of them; and therefore to free ourselves the more easily from them, we must not at all fear them, lest this makes us fix our imagination too long upon those objects of which we ought not to think at all, but only how to cast them away. But if upon this account it is advantageous not to have too great a fear of them, yet, on the other hand, says Gerson, we cannot have too great a horror of sin in general. Viewing them with fear, and withdrawing our mind from the particular thoughts of impurity with which we are attacked, we must continually beg of God, that he permits nothing to separate us from him; and make a firm resolution, rather to die a thousand times, than to commit one mortal sin. I add one thing more, which the saints extremely recommend to us, and which may serve for a general remedy against all interior temptations— it is, that when any bad thought occurs, we must endeavour to turn our mind from it, by applying it to something else; for example, by thinking on the death and passion of our Saviour, or some such object. Now, this must be done, not by any violent effort of the imagination, but only by endeavouring dexterously to avoid the stroke the devil aims at us, warding off the blow by some good thought or holy occupation. It is in this manner that a man, who wishes to prevent another from introducing a particular subject, quickly passes from matter to matter, that the other may have no leisure to introduce the subject. It is thus a prudent man, who hears injuries against himself turns his head aside, without taking the trouble of answering, or even lending his ear to them. This way of resisting temptations is very easy and secure, because while we have our mind filled with good thoughts, we have no leisure to consent to bad ones; and we will be very much assisted in this, if at prayer we penetrate deeply the meditations which touch us most; if we thus render them familiar, we will in time of temptations find in them a remedy and secure refuge. For this purpose, some make an asylum of the wounds of Jesus Christ, and chiefly of the wound in his sacred side; retiring ‘into the holes of this rock, and into the ruins of this wall.”— (Canticle of Canticles 2:14) Others have recourse to thoughts of death and hell; saying with Job, “who will grant me, O Lord, thy protection, against the attacks of hell, and who will hide me till thy fury be past?”— (Job 14:13) Each must betake himself to what he knows to be most profitable for him, and best adapted to excite him to fervour; and when he shall be in any necessity, he will find therein a secure retreat against all the attacks of the enemy.

The Abbot Smaragdus relates one thing upon this subject, which may be very profitable to us, though it is neither very important nor authentic. He says that a religious saw one day two devils discoursing together, and that they asked one another an account of what progress they had made against two religious, whom they were employed to tempt. I find myself very well, says the one, with him that I have to do with—I need only present a thought unto him, and presently he takes hold of it, entertains himself with it, and immediately detecting himself in this thought, he repasses in his mind the whole series thereof—he thinks how long he dwelled on it; whether it came by his fault; whether he resisted it, or consented to it; whence and how it came to him, whether he gave occasion to it, or did all he should to give none; and lastly, as often as I will, I put him upon this rack, and almost even beside himself. For my part, says the other, I lose all the pains and measures I take with him whom I tempt, for as soon as I suggest a bad thought he has presently recourse to God, or to some pious meditation, or he thinks of something else, to hinder him from thinking uf what I proposed to him, and thus I know not how todeal with him. Hence we see that the devil is pleased when we amuse ourselves in disputing with him upon any bad thought he suggests; for then he neither wants will, nor craft, to make it pass from the head to the heart: and on the other hand we see, that a very good means to resist it, is, not at all to give ear to it, or oppose it, but only to turn our mind presently from it, without giving any attention thereunto. Now if we can compass this, by applying ourselves to some good thought, it is assuredly the best way; but if this be not sufficient, it is good also to have recourse to some exterior employment.

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