Volume II, Treatise IV, Chapter IV

Of Some Other Advantages Which Temptations Bring with Them

‘“‘ BrEsseD is the man that suffers temptation, for when he shall be proved, he shall receive the crown of life.’ (James 1:12) St. Bernard, explaining these words of St. James, says, “it is necessary that temptations should happen, for who shall be crowned but he that shall lawfully have fought, and how shall a man fight, if there be none to attack him?”—(Serm. Ixiv. sup: Cant.) ‘The scripture and holy writers shew us, that a world of advantages are annexed so sufferings and adversities; and the same are also annexed to temptations; among which advantages one of the most considerable, is that proposed to us in the words of St. James. God sends us temptations, that our merits may be the greater, and our reward the more eminent. ‘For through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:21) So when the glory of the blessed souls was revealed to St. John, one of the elders that stood before the throne, said to him: “These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Apocalypse 7:14) Hereupon St. Bernard asks, how is it that they are made white, in the blood of the Lamb? For blood uses not to make what it touches, white; but on the contrary, it makes it red. They are made white, says he, because with the blood that issued from the sacred side of Jesus Christ, there came forth water also, which made them white; or let us rather say that they are made white; because the blood of this spotless Lamb is white and ruddy, according to these words of the spouse in the Canticles: “‘ My beloved is white and ruddy, the chief of ten thousand.”—(Canticle of Canticles 5:10) So that it is through pains and sufferings, we must enter into the kingdom of God. Here we must hew and polish the stones that are to build the temple of the heavenly Jerusalem; for not one stroke of the hammer shall be given in that holy city. ‘¢ When the house of the Lord was building, there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any other tool of iron heard.” (3 Kings 6:7) Now the more considerable the place is where the stones are to be put, the more strokes of the hammer and chisel are requisite to polish them. Those, for example, that are to make up the frontispiece of the gate of a building, must be more polished than the others; that so they may make the entrauce of the building more beautiful. Nor is it for this only, that Jesus Christ, having made himself for us the gate of heaven, was pleased to be afflicted with so many sufferings and reproaches; but it is also, that being to pass through a door where sufferings and reproaches, if we may say so, had given so many strokes of the hammer and chisel to him, we ought to be ashamed at not having received some ourselves; that we might be made more fit for this heavenly building. The stones that are to be thrown into foundations, are not cut with any care; nor is it necessary, that they who are to be thrown headlong into hell, should be tried by afilictions and temptations. Let reprobates, therefore think of nothing else but diverting themselves—let them deny their sensuality nothing—let them in all things follow their inclinations: but for such as are designed to fill the places of the disobedient angels, they must be exercised with temptations and sufferings. ‘“‘ For if we are the children of God, we are consequently his heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs of Jesus Christ, that provided we suffer with him, we may with him also be glorified.”—( (Romans 8:17))

The necessity of being proved by temptations, is also manifested very well unto us, by these words of the angel to Toby: ‘‘ Because you were acceptable to God, it was necessary for you to have been proved by temptation.” (Tobias 12:13) And the wise man says, “that it was temptation that made the faith of Abraham appear.” (Ecclesiasticus 44:21) And because he was found steady in temptation, God forthwith lays before him the reward of his virtue, and swears to him, “that he would multiply his posterity as the stars of heaven, and as the sand upon the sea-shore.” (Ecclesiasticus 22:17,18) So that one of the reasons why God sends temptations, is to make us merit a greater reward, andaricher crown. Holy writers therefore tell us, that God shews us greater favours by sending us temptations, and giving us strength to overcome them, than if he should deliver us wholly from them; for so we should be deprived of the recompense of that glory which they give us an occasion to merit.

St. Bonaventure adds another reason, which is, that the love God has for us, is the cause, that he is not only pleased, that we should come to glory, and to a high degree thereof; but, that we should also quickly possess it, without being obliged to stay a long time in the place, he has appointed for the purifying us from our sins. With this view, he sends us here below temptations and sufferings, which cleanse our souls from the spots and rust of sin, and put them ina condition of enjoying ‘sooner the presence of God. ‘Take away the dross from the silver, and a most pure vessel will come forth.” (Proverbs 25:4) Thus it is, that our soul must be purified from its uncleanness, before it can be capable of glory; nor is it, indeed, an ordinary favour which God shews us, by thus putting usin a condition, the sooner to enter into glory; nay, it is a very great one that he is pleased, the torments which we ought to suffer in purgatory, should be changed into some slight pains wherewith he chastises us in this life.

The holy scripture is full of examples, which shew us, that prosperity does usually remove us far from God; and that adversity, on the contrary, brings us back again to him. Was it not prosperity that made Pharao’s butler forget Joseph so soon? “All things prospering with the chief butler,” says the scripture, “he remembered no more his interpreter.”—-(Genesis 40:23) Was it not prosperity which made king Osias, after so good a beginning, make so ill an end? ‘ When he found himself strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction, and he neglected the Lord his God.” (2 Paralipomenon 26:16) Was not prosperity in fine, the source of Nebuchodonosor’s misfortunes? Was it not that which made Solomon transgress—which made David number his people; and made the children of Israel forget the benefits they had received from the hand of God? ‘ My beloved waxed fat, and kicked, he is grown thick and blown up with fatness, and he has forsaken the Lord that made him, and gone far from the God who savel

him.” (Deuteronomy 32:15) Afflictions, on the contrary, brought them back again to God, and it is that which made the prophet say, “with shame, O Lord, cover their faces, and they will seek thy name.”—(Ps. Ixxxii.17.) “They cried unto the Lord, when they were in trouble” (Psalms 106:18); “they sought him, they returned to him, and came to him betimes.” (Psalms 27:34)

When Nebuchodonosor was turned into a beast, however real or imaginary that change might be, it was then that he acknowledged God. And was not David more faithful when Saul persecuted him, when Absalom rebelled against him, and when Semei reviled him, than when all things went prosperously with him? The experience also which he had of the advantages afflictions bring with them, made him thus address himself to God; “we rejoiced,” says he, ‘at the days wherein thou dost humble us, and the years when we were afflicted.”—(Ps. Ixxxix. 15.) “It was good for me that thou hast humbled me.”—-(Psalms 31:4) How many have been saved by adversity, who would have been lost by prosperity? “] turned to thee, O Lord, in my affliction,” says the Psalmist, ‘‘ when I felt most the thorns thereof.” When these thorns prick us, then it is that we enter into ourselves, and have recourse to God. It is a common maxim among the people of the world, “that chastisement makes fools wise.” The same thing the Holy Ghost teaches us, when he says by the mouth of the prophet Isaias, “that chastisement alone will give understanding” (Isa. xxviii. 19), and. explaining himself more clearly by the wise man, he says, that “a great sickness makes the mind sober, and that the rod and correction give wisdom.” (Ecclesiasticus 31:2) Prosperity makes a man vain and insolent, it makes him like a bullock, which has not yet suffered the yoke; and God to tame him, puts the yoke of afflictions and temptations upon him. “Thou hast chastised me; and I was tamed as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke.” (Jeremias 31:18) It was with gall that the angel cured Toby; and with clay that our Saviour restored the blind man to his sight. And it is with the same design to heal us, that God sends us temptations, which are the highest sufferings, that they who truly serve him can be exposed to. For the loss of goods, sickness, and other things of that nature, are not very sensible afflictions, to the true servants of God; because they affect only the body, and do but touch the outside; they are not therefore in great pain thereupon, but when they are attacked with what pierces to the very soul, as with temptation, which tends to separate them from God, and seems to put them in danger of losing his grace; then it is, that finding themselves touched to the quick, and agitated by the rebellion of the flesh, which would draw the spirit after it, they in the excess of their trouble cry out with the apostle, ““O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24) The corruption of the flesh draws me to evil; I am full of good designs, which I put not in execution; who will free me from the bonds of so deadly and dangerous a slavery?

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