Volume III, Treatise II, Chapter V

That the Obligation We Contract by the Vows of Religion, So Far from Diminishing Our Liberty, Renders It More Perfect

OnE may object and say, that he sees very well all the advantages I have spoken of, which are found in the sacrifice we make of ourselves to God by means of these vows; but the inconvenience of them is this, that they deprive a man of his liberty, ‘“‘ which is of inestimable price”. You are mistaken, answers St. Thomas, it rather perfects than destroys liberty: for the effect of these vows is to confirm and strengthen the will in what is good, and to hinder it from letting itself be drawn to what is evil, Now this no more destroys liberty in us, than the perfect, liberty which God and the saints enjoy in Heaven is destroyed in them by the impossibility of their committing sin. The apostles could not sin mortally after they were confirmed in grace, yet this grace did not destroy their liberty, but on the contrary perfected it; because it helped to confirm their will in the good for which they were created. Do not, says our holy founder, in his letter on obedience, believe it a small advantage for your free will to be able to restore it entirely into the hands of him who gave it; for by this means you do not destroy it, but render it far more perfect, by conforming it to the sovereign rule of all perfection, which is God, whose interpreter and substitute your superior is. This agrees very well with what St. Anselm says—“that liberty consists not in being able to sin; and that the power of sinning is no power at all, but is rather a mark of weakness and misery than perfection”—Ansel., c. 9, de Jortit. “Would you clearly see this?” says St. Austin. “He that can do all things, cannot sin, cannot lie’—Epist. 45 ad Armen. et Paul. It is to be under the power of sin, to have the power of sinning; and the power of sin, in regard of man, is more or less great, according as the power of man in regard of sin is less or greater. Hence the more we diminish in us the power of sinning, by determining our will to good, the more we perfect it; and this is precisely the effect produced by the vows by which we oblige ourselves to the practice of perfection. ‘“O happy necessity”, say St. Austin, “which continually forces us to do that which is best!” “Wherefore, do not repent your being bound by vows, but on the contrary rejoice; because hereby you are deprived of a liberty which you could not make use of without prejudice to yourself”. If any one saw you walk towards a precipice, would they not do you a very great favour by so stopping up the passage, that though you should be inclined to destroy yourself, yet you would not be able to do it? Now if you wish to destroy yourself, it is by the way of your own will; “for if there were no self-will”, says St. Bernard, ‘there would be no Hell”—Serm. 3, de Resur.,.—and consequently the more this way is stopped, by hindering you from making bad use of your liberty, the greater good is done you. So then it is not to lose our liberty, to subject our will to that of our superior by the vow of obedience; but, on the contrary, it is more strengthened and perfected by being thus perfected in the practice of obedience and of the will of God.

A celebrated doctor adds one thing more, which is deserving of attention. The vows, says he, are so far from lessening our liberty, that, on the contrary, he who binds himself to God by them, and submits himself to the joke of obedience, enjoys a more true and perfect liberty than any one else; for true liberty consists in being master of ourselves, and he who is thus bound and united to God, is without doubt more his own master than he who is not thus bound. But to show this more clearly by some instances. What engages you, for example, to make the vow of chastity is, because you hope that by the grace of- Gad you shall become so much master over yourself as to keep this virtue; and what hinders another from making this vow is, _ because he does not believe he is so sufficiently master of himself as to be able to keep it. Thus you see that you are the person that have the greatest power over yourself to do what you wish, and to do what you believe you ought to do. But it is properly in this that liberty consists; for the liberty which the other keeps to himself is not a true liberty, but a subjection, nay, a slavery, because in effect, like a slave, he obeys his appetite, which has got the mastery over him and makes him fall into sin. He is a slave to his appetite, “which leads him captive to the law of sin’ (Romans 7:23) ‘For he who is overcome is a slave to him who overcame him; and whosoever sins, is a slave to sin’ (John 7:34) It is the same in obedience. What moved you to make the vow of obedience was, because you believed by the assistance of God’s grace you should have so much power over yourself as always to follow the will of your superior, and always to mortify your own; and what hinders another from making the same vow is, because he finds he has not so much power over himself as to be able to renounce in this manner his own will, and to submit it to that of another; and consequently you see that we cannot but have more power over ourselves, and more real liberty, by subjecting ourselves to the yoke of obedience, than by not doing so. Nay, there is even a greatness and nobility in carrying this yoke; for it is to carry a yoke of this nature to which the wise man exhorts us when he says: “Thrust your feet into the shackles and your neck into. the collar: submit your shoulders to bear his yoke, and be not afraid of his chains” (Ecclesiasticus 6:25) Happy chains, happy fetters, that rather give liberty than restrain it to those that bear them! These are not the chains of a slave and the marks of captivity, but they are the ornaments which belong only to freemen—they are marks of greatness and dignity. At all events, it is of very great importance, and adds to our comfort and happiness, to view things properly in this manner; “for the Joke of Jesus Christ”, as St. Ambrose says very justly, “is sweet and easy to carry when it is viewed as an ornament and not as a burden”.

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