Volume II, Treatise IV, Chapter V

That Temptations Serve to Make Us the More Sensible of Our Weakness, and to Have Recourse to God

TEMPTATION brings yet another advantage with it, which is, that it makes us know ourselves. Many times we know not ourselves, but. temptation shews us what we are, as Thomas & Kempis says very well; “temptations are very profitable though uneasy and troublesome to man; because in them, he is humbled, purified and taught.” This knowledge of ourselves is the foundation-stone of the whole spiritual building; without which, nothing can be built that will last long; and by the means of it the soul lays its whole stress upon God, through whom it can do all things; and becomes capable of raising itself to the height of Christian perfection. The effect then of temptation is, that it shews us our weakness and ignorance. For before that, man is not sufficiently acquainted with his misery; and having not yet tried it, he has too good an opinion of himself. But when by experience he sees, that the least puff blows him down, that little or nothing puts him quite out of heart;

that a slight temptation confounds, and dangerously wounds him; that his resolution and judgment fail him in time of need; and that darkness encompasses him; then he begins to moderate his presumption and vanity, to be humbled, and to have no other thoughts of himself, but such as suit his own meanness. Were it not for temptation, says St. Gregory, we should have too good an opinion of our own courage and strength: but when temptation comes, when we see ourselves just falling, and as it were within an inch of shipwreck; then do we sincerely acknowledge our weakness, and enter into true thoughts of humility and lowliness. Wherefore the apostle, speaking of himself, says, “lest the multitude of revelations should exalt me, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, the messenger of Satan, to torment me.” (2 Corinthians 12:7)

From hence follows another advantage, which is, that the knowledge of our weakness, makes us know the need we have of God’s -assistance, of having recourse to him in prayer, and of cleaving fast to him only; according to these words of the Psalmist, “my soul cleaves unto thee; it is good for me to cleave unto God.”—(Ps. Ixii. 9.) As a mother who would have her child go to nobody but herself, makes it afraid of every one else, that so it may be forced to fly into her arms; so, the Lord permits the devil to frighten us with temptations, that so we may be obliged to run more readily to. our heavenly Father. ‘‘He withdraws himself a little while from us,” says Gerson, “as the eagle does from her little ones, to provoke them to fly after her. And as a mother that leaves her child for a moment, that it may cry the more after her, look about for her with greater care, embrace her the more heartily, after having found her; and that she herself may caress it with more than usual tenderness.”—(De Inst. Theol.) St. Bernard says, that when God seems sometimes to withdraw himself from us; it is that we should, as it were, call him back again with more earnestness, and endeavour more carefully to keep him when we have him. Thus it was, that being with his two disciples, who were going to Emaus, he pretended to leave them, and to be under a necessity of going on still farther, that they should the more press him to stay with them, and say as they did; ‘abide with us, O Lord, for it grows late; and the day is much spent.” (Luke 24:9)

By this means it happens also, that seeing the need we have of God’s assistance, we esteem it the more. It is also this which makes St. Gregory say, that it is for our advantage, God sometimes withdraws his hand from us; because if he should never leave us, we might perhaps esteem his protection the less, and think it not so necessary as it is. Whereas when he leaves us but for a time, and afterwards stretches out his hand to us, and that at the very moment we are ready to fall, we conceive much better the value of his favours. When we reflect with the Psalmist, that without him we had been lost: “had the Lord but deferred ever so little to help me, my soul had descended into hell;’’ (Psalms 93:17) we have then a more lively sense of his favours, and we enter into more deep reflections of his mercy and bounty. ‘‘ Whensoever I call upon thee, I forthwith know that thou art my God;” (Psalms 55:10) by the help that thou givest me, As soon as ever we have recourse to God in temptation, we receive succour from him; we find how faithful he isto assist usin time of necessity; and that proof makes us, by looking then more particularly upon him as our father and defender, to be the more inflamed with his love, and to sing his praises, as the chilren of Israel did, when they saw their enemies, that pursued them, perish in the Red Sea.

Another advantage that temptation causes, is, that it teaches us not to attribute any thing that is good to ourselves, but to give the glory of all to God; and this advantage is so much the greater, because it is also a very effectual remedy against temptations, and a very proper means to obtain of God new favours.

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