Volume II, Treatise IV, Chapter VII

That Temptations Serve to Make Us More Careful and Fervent

ANOTHER advantage which temptation brings with it, is, that it makes us more attentive to our duties of obligation, hinders us from being remiss in them, and causes us to stand more upon our guard; like men, who are every hour on the point of engaging. As a long peace makes men negligent, takes away their strength, and softens their courage; so the exercise of war makes them valiant, robust, and bold. Cato therefore asserted in the senate, “that Carthage was not to be demolished, for fear the Romans should then lose themselves in the idleness of peace. For wo to Rome,” says he, “if once Carthage is no more!” The same thoughts the Lacedemonians had as to their enemies. For one of their kings having proposed, utterly to destroy a city, which they were continually at. war with, the Ephori opposed it, saying, they would not suffer the breaking of a whetstone,” which served to sharpen the virtue and courage of their citizens; for so they call their enemy’s city, which kept them still on the alert, and alarmed them every hour: and thus they believed, that nothing was more prejudicial to them, than the want of occasions to fight, and signalize themselves. Just so, it is in things regarding our salvation; the want of temptation makes us careless and remiss, whilst to be tempted renders us more careful and vigilant, and stirs up our fervour and courage.

A religious, for example, lets himself fall into a state of carelessness, which makes him negligent in all his duties and exercises. He will wear no more haircloths, take no more disciplines; he sleeps at prayer; obeys but coldly, and seeks only pastime and conversation. Thereupon a violent temptation steals upon him, wherein he has need of remedies, and of recourse to God; and then he starts out of his slumber, resumes new vigour and fervour for mortification and prayer. It is even a proverb amongst worldly people, that to learn to pray to God, one must, as it were, turn seaman: and what does that signify, but that necessity and danger are great means, to oblige us to have recourse to God. Upon this account it is, and in order to our spiritual advancement, says St. Chrysostom, that God permits temptations. “For when he sees us fall into carelessness and lukewarmness; when he finds that we leave off the communication we have with him in prayer, and make no more so great an account of spiritual things; he withdraws himself a little from us, to oblige us thereby to return to him with more fervour. When the devil,” says the same saint, possesses our soul with fear and terror, then we become more faithful,we are more sensible of our own weakness, and we throw ourselves wholly into the arms of God.’’—(Hom. iv. ad Pop. Antioch.) So that temptations so are far from being an obstacle to us in the way of virtue, that they, on the contrary, forward us therein. St. Paul therefore, speaking of temptation, and intending to describe it by a figurative expression, borrows not any term from the sword or lance, but uses that of the goad. The “goad or thorn of the flesh,” says he, “was given to me;” (2 Corinthians 12:7), to shew, that as the goad is not made to hurt or kill, but to quicken the pace, so temptation is not given us for our destruction, but to advance us, and to stir up our fervour; and so it is profitable even to those, who have already made the greatest progress in virtue. For let a horse be ever so good and mettlesome, yet he goes always better when he feels the spur; so, let the servants of God be ever so perfect, they run more swiftly in the path of the Lord, when they find themselves urged on by the goad of temptation.

The intention of the devil in temptation is bad, says St. Gregory, but God’s design is good. Thus the leeches which are applied to a sick person, would suck out all the blood to the last drop, if they could; but the physician uses them only to draw away that which is corrupted. In like manner, when fire is applied to a wound, the activity of the fire tends to burn the sound flesh as well as the other; but the intention of the surgeon being to heal, hinders it from acting any where, but where it should. The design of the devil in temptation is, indeed, to destroy virtue in our heart, and to rob us of the merit and reward of our good works; but God’s design therein is quite opposite. The stones which the devil throws to overwhelm us, are turned by God into precious ones, to make up a crown of glory for us. The Jews stone St. Stephen, and seek nothing but his death; and then it is, that he sees the heavens open, and the Son of God calling him to him.

Upon this subject, Gerson observes, what ought to be of great consolation to us. He says, that it is the opinion of the holy fathers, that though in time of temptation we commit some little faults, and believe that we have been in some measure the cause thereof, through our own negligence; yet the patience and resignation nevertheless, with which we may have suffered this trial; the resistance we may have made to the assaults of the temptation, and our endeavours to overcome it, do not only blot out all these faults and negligences, but make us increase in grace and merit in the eyes of God, according to the words of the apostle, “God will make you draw advantage out of the temptation.” (1 Corinthians 10:18) When a mother or a nurse has a mind to teach a child to walk, she retire’ a little from it, and then calls it to her; yet it is still afraid, and dares not to come forward; she nevertheless lets it alone, nay, sometimes exposes it to the hazard of falling, knowing that it is better it should have a little fall, than not learn to walk. After the same manner God deals with us. “I am,” says he, “as the nursing father of Ephraim.” (Osee 11:3) Those light faults which you believe you have committed, he makes no account of, in comparison of the profit, which you reap from temptations by resisting them.

Blosius tells us that one day St. Gertrude, bewailing bitterly s fault she was subject to, and begging of God most earnestly to free her from it; our Lord, with great bounty, answered her thus: Why wouldst thou, my dear daughter, deprive: me of great glory, and thyself of great reward? Every time that thou art sensible of thy fault, and dost purpose to amend it for the future, it is a new merit thou acquireat; and as often as one endeavours to overcome any fault for the love of me, he does me the same honour, as a brave soldier does his king, in fighting courageously against his enemies, and endeavouring to conquer them.

About ReligiousBookshelf.com · A Supernerd Media project