this wherein the ignorance of our selves makes us to commit the greatest faults There is no man so disgraced by Nature who cannot find in the order of the world a place proportioned to the strength of his mind and body but the small knowledge which he hath of himself is the cause that most people make a bad choice Let us make reflection on those who take upon them the Charges and Employments of this World and the places that they enjoy and we shall scarcely find any one well placed How many are there who having Arms and no Head do chuse Employments which have need of a head and not of Arms How many are there who being born to obey and not to govern do possess Places where there is need of Commanding and not of obeying How many that ingage themselves in Offices which are above their Sphear their Power and above their Virtue and how few withdraw themselves from them by the knowledge of their Incapacities Every one thinks he is able and only limits his pretentions by the debility wherein he finds himself of being raised to a higher pitch This is the most common Source of worldly disorders and of the Evils that befall both Church and State and likewise of each particular For 't is not possible that a person ill placed and who wants necessary qualities to acquit himself of the Employment wherein he is engaged should not commit a world of faults and these faults which are the sequels of his temerity and presumption do render him ridiculous in this World and everlastingly miserable in the other 42. The sole knowledge of ones self may supply the defect of Talents and the sole defect of this knowledge on the contrary renders all these Talents useless dangerous and pernicious to him who hath them 'T is no great harm to have neither Memory Understanding Conduct Science Industry nor Ability provided that one know it Let him borrow of some other what he hath not and undertake nothing which requires those qualities which God hath not pleased to bestow upon him A man with all these Imperfections in applying himself only to that which is proportioned to his ability is Praise worthy seeing that he may become a Saint and that he is often more acceptable to God then those who have all the qualities which he wants He is only deprived of them for a Moment that is for this present life and he hath as much right as any man to hope he may be partaker of them in the other But let us suppose all these Talents in one man and as much light and understanding as we will if with these he does not know himself in his imperfections and in his weaknesses all these qualities with prove only his fall and ruin and often also in this world If he cannot measure his enterprises by his forces he will enter into rash engagements and presumption which hath no boundaries not being check'd by the Rains of the knowledge of ones self will carry him away to dangerous excesses 43. One may add to these particular reasons this general one which ought to make more Impression upon our minds and add thereto more horrour of this blindness That as the common punishment of the Condemned in the other life will be to see themselves Arguam te statuam contra faciem tuam the general Character of the Condemned in this here is not to see themselves so that it is equally true that we enter not into heaven unless we know our selves and into hell because we do not know our selves The death of sin which is the cause of eternal death is accompanied always with a kind of misfortunate drousiness which deprives us of the knowledge of our condition and therefore the Prophet earnestly beseeched God That he would enlighten his eyes to the end that he might not sleep in Death because he knew very well that this death was inseperable from that drowsiness and that provided he did not sleep he should not dye Illumina occulos meos ne unquam obdormiam in morte The State that sin reduceth man to is so horrible that he would not suffer it if he saw it but and so men whom Pleasure draws thereunto find means to hide it from themselves by a thousand Inventions which they are miserably ingenious to find out 44. One of the most criminal ones and yet the commonest is to stifle in ones self the sight which condemus these disorders in justifying them to their faceâ— by false Rules which authoriseth them 'T is the Origin of so many Errors in Morality and of so many bad Maxims which men have always endeavoured to introduce into the Church and principally in these latter times For men not being willing to render their actions conform to the Law of God have endeavoured to render the Laws of God conform to their actions In stead of redressing their corrupt Inclinations according to the exactness of this Divine rule they have endeavoured to strain this rule even to adjust it to their inclinations They will not only follow their own Interests and Passions but they will also be approved in their Interests and Passions nor will they permit that their Consciences reproach them of being unjust So that things not Answering their expectation in the Maxims which God hath given us for our guide if they did leave them in their Purity they have endeavoured to alter them to find therein this approbation which they seek and to appease by this means the trouble of their Conscience 'T is thus that by the favour of these false lights which they willingly take for true ones they settle themselves in thiâ— unfortunate Peace and Quiet which is properly the sleepiness which the Prophet beseeched God to be preserved from by the Rays of the true light 45. What if they cannot succeed to hide entirely this light which condemns them they have recourses to other means to weaken the effect of it and to hinder the Impression which it would be able to make upon them Sometimes in letting the Law subsist they are contented not to think of it never comparing their actions therewith nor ever looking on them unless with contrary faces which do not represent to them what they have defective If they cannot stop the sight of this opposition entirely which they have to the Laws of God they weaken and diminish the Idea of it in joyning themselves to an infinite of people which they condemn as well as themselves as if this croud of Criminals was capable to defend them against God Lastly if they do not disguise the Laws of God they disguise themselves to themselves They attribute to themselves motives and intentions which the have not and will not see those they have Thus in having a false judgment of their actions they justifie themselves during their whole life by the means of this voluntary delusion Behold the sleepiness we must desire to be preserved from and what every honest well-meaning
great Harm according to the good or bad use is made thereof 'T is one of the great means by which God exercises in the world his Mercy and Justice It hinders on the one part that the Just exalt not themselves nor loose themselves by the sight and knowledge of their proper excellence and it delivers them on the other part from the tentation which might be caused in them by the esteem and admiration of men who should know them It conserves them in the way of Faith in depriving them of the sight of onething which would draw them from it by motives too human For if St. Austin say Aug. de Civir l. 15. c. 4. that God hath not been willing that the renewing which Grace produceth in our Souls should extend it self even to the Body by conferring immortality to it lest the hope we ought to have in him should be too interressed If this same Saint ascertain that it is by the same reason that he permits the just to be afflicted in this world as well as the wicked for fear we should aim in the services which we render to God to exempt our selves from temporal evils We may likewise say That he permits us not to see the excellence of a just Souls beauty and the horrible deformity of a Soul in sin lest it should be through these interessed motives that we should desire justice and have an horror for sin 11. But if this obscurity produce some good in respect of some it may be said that it produces very great evils in respect of others and that 't is the principal cause of wicked mens blindess For 't is that makes worldly people believe that there is nothing in men worthy of esteem but what flatters their senses and contemn most part of honest and good men not seeing in them what they love What is told them of the good of the soul they look upon it as a meer imagination because they neither perceive nor see it Thus they distinguish men only by the outward qualities and by the relation they have to their passions and as virtuous men participate always of the Spirit of the World they participate also a little of this Illusion The too great tyes they have of outward qualities take from them the sentiment of the spiritual misery of many Souls and often also they have not the esteem they ought to have of the real Goods others possesse because they are covered with outward faults of which they are too sensible This is one of the most ordinary means whereby Jesus Chist is scandalized in his members For as the Jews would that their Messias should be environed with rayes of Glory we would also that honest men should have no defect neither inwardly nor outwardly and unless they have this agreeableness which strikes our senses we have a propensity to condemn them as seeing their faults and their miseries but not their Riches and their Goods 12. This scandal increases infinitely when these faults which we observe in them are not simple natural faults but faults of manners and true and absolute faults For if we only need to beg of God to preserve us from the tentation which springs from thence there is danger that these faults which we see in those who pass for pious men do humble and debase them so in our sight that we deprive our selves of the edification which we might draw from all the other virtues which we observe in them Oftentimes these virtues are suspected by us we begin to apprehend that we have been deceived We know not what to stick to and we enter into a certain despair of finding in the world solid virtues 13. This tentation is at the same time very dangerous and very ordinary For it is a hard thing to live long with pious people but we shall find in them many faults not only imaginary but true and real ones Human Wit never hides it self absolutely They suffer themselves to be cheated and beguiled They are carried away by unjust prejudices they are sometimes precipitate in their judgments We see some who are resolved in their thoughts others who are curious and delicate in what concerns them nearly Others who are tender and nice in small inconveniences There are some that their zeal carries to excesses Lastly There are almost none in whom nature shews not her self by many ways But if men thereupon are inclined to condemn them they come to condemn all the world and to pass from aversion for faults to aversion for men according to this saying of an antient person Qui vitia odit homines odit 14. 'T is good therefore to fortify our selves against this tentation by considerations which may be found in Faith Now Faith furnishes us with what may be able to dissipate this tentation if we apply our selves seriously to it For Faith shews us that the faults of the just are profitable to them in divers manners as hath already been said and likewise that oftentimes God permits them more for others than for themselves He darkens their splendor that those who deserve not to enjoy it may be deprived of it He takes from before our eyes their good examples to punish us for not having profited by them he holds back the odor of their Piety because the world hath not received it as it ought 15. We are scandalized then often at certain faults in just men which are not so much for them as for us They hurt them not but they hurt us they are Thorns which are good for them because they warrant their Piety from the danger it would be in of being withered by mens praises but these Thorns wounding us hinder us from approaching and from perceiving the good smell of them And thus there are none but we who loose thereby 16. Just mens faults enter into the order of Providence and often God makes use of them to execute his greatest designs against the wicked Possibly St. Chrysistome might have dealt better with Aroadia and Eudoxia and that if he had done so they had not abandoned him to the fury of Theophilus But because Theophilus and the wicked Bishops of that time deserved to be abandoned to their passions and blinded by a success conform to their designs God did permit this Saint to follow the heat of his zeal 17. There are virtuous men who examining the Life of St. Thomas of Canterbury were perswaded to believe that he might without violating the Laws of the Church have yielded to many things which King Henry the Second desired of him yet the heart of this Holy Bishop being right and the heart of King Henry corrupted the proceedings of this Saint being Humble and Just the Kings proceedings violent and unjust God rather judged of this difference by the purity of the Saints Heart and the wickedness of his adversary than by the bottom of the cause and did not omit to justify him by many miracles when the whole Church was divided
we scarcely flatter our selves with loving them without we love them truly These are those which all the Saints have known and 't is in practising them and loving them that they are become Saints Whereas it happens that those who are more knowing in these Truths less frequent and which serve only as Rules to great Actions apply themselves much less to these common Truths whose continual practice is the true source of the sanctification of Souls and of the edification we give to those who are witnesses of our actions 26. Neverthsless it happens some times that persons who appear very exact and very edifying in their common actions are sunk down in great businesses for having neglected to search the Lights which were necessary for them to march therein or through other secret reasons which God knows and that others on the contrary whose Lives indeed were less exact and stuft more with small faults shew great courage and force in those in those occasions of importance and shew also that they had at the bottom of the heart a solid and true love for God And that 's it which ought to humble in their turn those who are more outwardly and orderly and more composed because they know not for all that what their force is and that perchance they are with all this outward regularity weaker and more imperfect before God than those whose imperfections strike more upon the eyes of the world So great a care hath God to keep in this life all things in obscurity and uncertainty to take from us all right of magnifying our selves in our selves and contemning others The Eighth Treatise The means of profiting by bad Sermons 1. WE cannot avoid sometimes hearing bad Sermons For besides that we know not all the bad Preachers and that 't is not just to avoid them until we know them The Preachers themselves are not alike in Preaching either always good or always bad and that thus in seeking out a good Sermon we oftentimes find a very bad one Methinks a pious person cannot dispense with himself from hearing Preachers what ever they be Because Sermons in general being necessary for the Church and God having chosen this way for the instruction of his people it is requisite that they whose Piety serves for a Rule to others contribute to cause this ministry to subsist in giving the example to render themselves assiduous in publick instructions Otherwise if thro a judgment which they might make of the Preachers they did perswade the people to dispense with the hearing them this Ministry would by little and little be laid aside and the simple poor people would find themselves thereby deprived of the principal means which God hath given them to be instructed with the necessary Truths for their Salvation 2. But that they may not ordain only this action to the edification of others and that they may profit also thereby themselves their Piety ought to apply them to find some means whereby they may profit by all sorts of Sermons and seeing that 't is not in their power to cause that all those who engage themselves to preach acquit themselves of this ministry as they ought they ought to labour to acquit themselves as they should of that duty of hearing Sermons which is another function having likewise its obligations and by consequence its rules 3. We see at first that the seeking out of these means and of these rules ought to consist in finding out Holy inventions whereby to edify our selves by bad Sermons For there needs no method to gain by good ones Every one knows that he ought to open his heart to solid Truths which are declared to him therein that he ought to beg Grace of God that they increase as Divine Seed that he ought to conserve them in his memory as a precious Treasure that he must act in such sort that weighing them often in his mind they may take root and spread themselves there and that lastly he must seek occasions to reduce them into practice 4. We know yet that we ought not to place in the number of bad Sermons those wherein Truths otherwise solid and edifying should be proposed after a gross and unpleasing manner wherein the Preacher should have but a little Talent little of outward address little facility to express himself For provided that the Subject be good it is requisite that a judicious Auditor fix himself thereto and that he make use of it to cover the outward defects 5. It ought to be the same when that which stumbles us in a Preacher is nothing but the litle relation of his thoughts to the matter For provided that the Truths be good and profitable in themselves what imports it that the relation of it be so just But I would gladly says one that they had been proposed to us in another application Well separate them from this application which stumbles you and consider them in themselves or make you another application of them 'T is always to oblige you to have given you means to be attentive to these Truths They deserve very well to be attentively considered for themselves 6. But there are Sermons which are defective even at the botom and which are only made up of words which have more of sound than of sense in them There are some wherein are distributed only shallow speculations and unsolid thoughts which leave the Soul in want and hunger whereto we can add nothing for the correction of her manners and wherein the people comprehend as little as if they were made or preached in an unknown language There are some likewise wherein the Preachers dissemble or weaken the Truth by a criminal cowardise or baseness or alter it through Ignorance or Interest As t is impossible that those who have a little light should not acknowledge these faults we ought not to force them that they should dissemble them to themselves but only that they extol not and magnify them On the contrary it is good that they endeavour to comprize the greatness of the excesses which are committed in this point and that they lament before God for so unworthy a manner wherein Truth is handled by men For this Holy lamentation conducing to Piety all that excites it is profitable to them and contributes to their edification 7. In considering with this Spirit the outrages done to Jesus Christ in the dispensation of his word they will find that they are not less than those he received in the distributing of his Body and that it may be said likewise that they are greater and that thus they ought to be to us a greater cause of grief humiliation and terror For altho there may be many criminal and vitious Priests who insinuate themselves to the administration of the Sacraments and the distribution of the Body of Jesus Christ there is nothing more rare then to find of them impious enough to give to the faithful unconsecrated Hosts instead of the Body it self of Jesus Christ
of Paradice or Hell but makes great Impressions upon us if we have never heard speak thereof elsewhere That which takes away the thought of these things is then that they are already known to us and that we are accustomed thereunto But if we cannot avoid this cause of human Infirmity we may very well at least humble our selves thereby and make use of it to acknowledge that human Wit is of so little or no account seeing that the same objects which have justly touched it at one time doe not at another through this vain circumstance that it is accustomed therunto as though this custome did change the nature of those objects and took any thing from them of what they have either of terrible or great 19. 'T is one of the reffections which the Sermons called bad gives leave to make and many more may be added to it of this nature in making use of what shocks us therein to know our proper faults And in considering them in this prospect The more a Sermon is filled with human defects the more it would be proper for us to serve as a draught of what we are and the manner how we act For the lives of Christians ought to be a continual Preaching which should carry into the mind of others a lively Image of all Vertues St. Peter the Apostle recommends to us the insinuating of Humility in all things Humilitatem in omnibus insinuantes that is to say that he wills Christians to preach Humility in all their actions The same may be said of all other Vertues and we ought to do nothing which may not help to engrave them in the heart of others as a Preacher ought to say nothing which is not edifying to his Auditors Nevertheless how far are our actions from making this Impression upon the minds of those that see them On the contrary what do we most commonly bring thither but the Image of our Passions of our disorderly Motions of our secret Interests We preach almost by our actions as they preach by their words and we acquit our selves of the general Ministry of Christians as they acquit themselves of the particular Ministry of Preachers Let us not look upon their faults alone but upon our own in theirs and let us turn one part of that disgust we have for them against our selves 20. If we look narrowly thereunto we shall find that the particular faults into which they fall do much resemble ours and have almost the same causes These people follow generally their thoughts and phancies without reflecting whether they will be proportioned to the mind of those who hearken to them We follow also our Humours and Passions without any regard to proportion our Actions and Words to the minds of those with whom we live which is the reason that we startle them a thousand ways and that we do nothing that edifies them 21. There are some Preachers who startle understanding and judicious Hearers in crying out without reason upon small things in chaffing themselves about things which deserve it not and by making appear I know not how many false Motives which incommode strangely those who have the Idea of Justice as well for the Motives as the things But this defect is it not infinitely greater and more frequent in our Lives than in Sermons For how many motives slide into our actions and words which are false not according to Rhetorick but according to Faith Do we not often shew the inclination and esteme we have for some actions which ought to cause nothing but sentiments of horror Do we not receive oftentimes with scorn and disdain things which ought to excite only Piety How much do we extoll things which ought to appear mean and disdainful to us How much do we cry down some things which indeed are noble and worthy to be admired How cold do we speak of those we ought to have the greatest concern for They are so many false motives by so much more dangerous as they spring from the bad disposition of the heart whereas those of Preachers denote often only in them a simple and meer want of wit 22. The more one hath the Idea of justness be it for things or for motives the more one deserves defects in Preachers And hence one may say that the reputation of many of them who make a great shew in this employment is only grounded upon the little light of their Auditors If we had also understanding spectators and who had the Idea of the true motives that the objects ought to excite in us the manner whereby we act and speak would become almost insupportable to them They would only see in us depraved Inclinations unjust Impressions lack of sense and love for things which deserve most and they would find in respect of us something of that Holy Commotion which Jesus Christ shewed in regard of the Jews by these words O generatio incredula quousque vos patiar the meekness with which men bear with us is not then any thing but the effect of blindness of men We only surpass by the favour of their want of light and it is very just that we should suffer patiently in others what they suffer continually from us 23. What diverts Preachers from the right way and casts them upon false eloquence upon vain thoughts and of no edification is often because they have other prospects than they ought to have in acquitting themselves of their ministry They would appear Wise Eloquent and Able they would appear wits in a word they speak for themselves and not for their Auditors and in speaking in this manner they speak often neither for their Auditors nor themselves These are likewise those false Prospects which are mingled with our actions which destroy the edification of them if we had no other than to satisfy our obligation and to serve our neighbor they would spread an odour of Piety which would gain hearts insensibly but the passions and secret desires which are intermingled hinder this effect and produce ordinarily quite different impressions from those we pretend The desire we make appear of exalting our selves makes us dis-esteemed in the eyes of other men We please so much less by how much it appears that we have had a design to please and by a natural contradiction in men they conceive justly passions quite opposite to those which they observe in us 24. These Preachers whereof we speak are particularly proper to make known the wretchedness and the blindness of mens vanity They tire themselves in their Closets to bring forth brave thoughts they overcharge their memory with labour they distribute them with boldness and afterwards they rise from their Chair well satisfied with themselves imaging to have left a great Idea of themselves in their Auditors For men do not seek these pretended high thoughts for any thing else but to please and it is difficult that in thinking to please others men please not themselves Nevertheless there is very often nothing
of our selves which is very humble We can make no progress in the study of our selves but in correcting this fault and taking a quite contrary way which is to force the Mind to consider its faults and imperfections with a serious application to annex one to another according as they are discovered to endeavour to search to the bottom of it to examin the cause of the passions not to think they can be easily destroyed being sometime without action and to make use of this Image to humble our selves before God and Man In a word we must act in this Study almost as if we had undertaken to labour all our life time to draw our Portractures that is to say we must add every day some strokes with the Pencil but not put out what is already drawn therein so we shall observe sometimes one passion sometimes another To day we shall discover one delusion of Self-love tomorrow another And by that means we shall form by little and little a Portraiture so like that we shall see every moment even what we are so that we shall have reason to say continually to our selves behold what I am See here what I have loved so much and could wish that the whole World might be the object of its esteem and affection 20. We must not forget amongst the multitude of our faults those which being only outward and involuntary render us not properly guilty before God For those are they which oftentimes humble us the most in our own thoughts because we are so vain that we ordinarily judge of our selves rather according to the report of men than truth Moreover these Faults rendring us uncapable of certain actions and employments ought to have place in the deliberations which we make of entring or not entring into diverse engagements which might be proposed to us Lastly as they make commonly many Impressions upon the minds of others we are obliged to be very circumspect therein because we ought partly to regulate our behaviour concerning this Impression which opens to us or shuts the entrance to their Hearts and disposes them to stumble or not to stumble at our Actions 21. Faults and Vertues ought equally to be the object of this Examen because we must endeavour to know the extent and the greatness of these Faults and the limits and imperfections of these Vertues The one and the other is necessary to form a true Idea of our selves and we are equally deceived in the one and in the other by the inclination Self-love gives us to hide or lessen what we have that 's naught and to expose to view or to encrease what we have that 's good 22. We ought not to judge simply of the greatness and the extent of these faults in relation to the consequences and the effects they have had but in relation to the consequences and the effects they may have if God hinder them not because there is no passion but may be the cause of our utter ruin Inconstancy a little motion of choler a word of vanity an inordinate desire a want of circumspection may oftentimes be followed with consequences which may change the whole state of our life We shall know it clearly in the next world and God will let us see there that he hath made us escape a world of dangers into which the weight of our Concupiscence would have drawn us headlong if he had not stopped the course of it And we may likewise know some part thereof in this life if we reflect upon what might happen to us from all the faults which we have committed and on the excesses whereunto our passions might have carried us if they had been violently excited by the objects and favoured by occasions and not hindred by the obstacles which God placed there to keep them within certain boundaries which make us acknowledge that 't is not through our moderation and wisdom that we have escap'd these great inconveniences but meerly by Gods mercy 23. We must take away in the Examen of Vertues which we believe we have what there is purely natural and wherein Grace hath no share at all For God who ought to be the rule of all our judgments makes no account of what comes from Nature The effects of custome and habit which is nothing but another Nature must be taken away There must be an absolute depriving our selves from the desire we have to please Men and from other secret considerations from interests and passions because all that is very bad We must separate from it what we have destroyed by our ingratitude and our sins because that not subsisting in the eyes of God ought not to subsist in ours We must consider how many of these Vertues such as they are have little extent force and solidity with how small zeal we carry our selves therein and after all these separations we must ask our selves what we have yet remaining 24. Not only good Qualities and Virtues are nothing in the sight of God being destroyed by Crimes but without having committed any they become often useless and even render us culpable by the little use we make of them Because the gifts of God include always some new obligation He expects more from those to whom he hath given most We owe him for the interest of his Favours and Graces and if we fail to give it him he would rather we had not received them If he hath given us a favourable natural Condition if he hath preserved us from temptations which carry away most part of others if we have had little to contest within our selves if he hath given us some good qualities of mind some propensity and inclination to vertue Lastly if he hath bestowed on us vertue it self we ought to look upon all that as Talents from God yet only conditionall to encrease them so that if we know we have not performed it there is nothing ought to give us more confusion and fear 25. We ought above all to consider the ill use we have made of all the Truths God hath been pleased to discover to us be it in the elevating us thereby inwardly or outwardly be it in prophaning them by indiscreet entertainments or that we make use of them not to contemn or despise our selves but others For that is the use or rather the most common abuse that men make thereof 'T is impossible that those who know the Truths of the Gospel should not see at the same time how little they are observed by a great many who at other times make profession of Piety We may see that they want light in many points and that they commit divers considerable faults And malice placing it self on that side takes delight in busying it self about these defects It exaggerates them it stuffs it self with them and thereby disswades the Mind from whatever might be able to edifie it in those in whom we observe them Every thing wounds and shocks these so clear-sighted but little charitable Men If
driness and coldness If they see that after this confidence which they shall have shewn us we enter into a reservedness of mind that we find our selves entangled every time we are with them and that we act no more after a free and natural manner If they see that to have more right to reject the Advice which is given us we give an evil censure of it that we seek every where for People who condemn them by proposing them after an odious fashion if we seek in the persons of those who give them wherewith to decry their Judgments if in occasions which present themselves we speak of them with more sharpness then ordinarily Lastly if they be aware that that hath made a wound in our heart let us be mindfull of it and let us mingle on purpose in our Discourses certain affected Apologies relating to the things we have been advertised of If we do not avoid say I all those things which shew us to be inwardly grieved we must not hope that they will stop at words of Civility which are destroyed by so many marks of secret discontent and those real 44. 'T is the sentiment of a wise Pagan that he who is advertised of any fault ought not to do the same presently in respect of him from whom he doth receive this advertisement and that he ought to expect an other time to render him this office But this advice must be stretched much farther for we must not only not reprehend upon the place those who reprehend us but we must also avoid reprehending them when there is reason to suspect that any secret spite should have open'd our eyes to see their faults and made us attentive to observe them We ought to suppose they are in pain to know the effect of the Advices they have given and that they will perceive the least sign which we shall give of disapproving That they will refer to this cause all they shall remark in us of coldness and aversion to them which might render these advices unprofitable to them and give them leave to make a rash judgment of us And this is it which obliges us to stand upon our guards on that side and to testifie to them even more freedom and confidence than we would have done at another time 45. It is so much more important to preserve this conduct towards those who run the hazard of giving us this Advice because in acting otherwise we do not shut the mouth only of one or two Persons but almost generally to all the World Because there needs but two or three rencounters of this nature to get ones self the reputation of being very nice and to pass in the minds of those who know us for People who love not that we should speak freely to them Now after this impression is formed 't is a very strong barr against Truth Eeach man seeks pretences to free himself from the speaking to those Curious men We fear always to disturb and vex them Thus in doubt we ordinarily take the way of being silent and to say nothing to them that may be disagreeable 46. The Great ones and Princes complain and Reason shews that they are miserable in this that their greatness is the cause that Truth dare not approach them and that they pass thus all their life in Illusion But certainly we have not less cause to complain in this point of the most part of those who are in any esteem in the World For they are not Princes by Birth they are Princes by Humor in dispersing amongst all those who come near them certain terrors which hinder their most intimate Friends from speaking freely to them From whenc it happens that oftentimes they are not informed what is made use of for entertainment to all the World for they think to be approved in what is almost universally condemned and lastly take almost in all things false measures 47. It is much more important to avoid the appearing of this humor because when this self Impression is given even our Friends believe they are obliged by Charity to dissemble their Opinions and to leave us to our own wills Aug. Epist 250. St Austin complains as of one of the chief difficulties which is met with in the Commerce of this life that when Men approve not something in the words or writings of some one and that they discover to them this opinion in the belief that Christian liberty doth oblige us to make use of it thus it happens often that these Advices pass for effects of jealousie rather than of amity He represents these evil suspicions as a conconsiderable fault and at the same time very frequent and he says that oftentimes they cause divisions and enmities amongst Persons very well united Nevertheless he cannot tell himself any other remedy for this evil but by suppressing these Sentiments when we have business with Friends of this humor If I can said he to St. Jerome expose freely to you what appears defective in your Writings and that you cannot do the same in respect of mine without rendring our selves suspected of distrust for one another and of want of Friendship let us rather leave all that and not put our lives and Salvations in danger Let something of science rather be wanting which doth swell provided that we hurt not Charity which doth edifie And in another of his Letters Methinks saith he we ought to treat together not only with Charity but also with Liberty and Friendship and that thus we ought not to dissemble what may be displeasing in our Writings provided that we do it with a Spirit which God approves in Brotherly Charity But if you think that we cannot use this conduct one towards the other without the danger of hurting Charity we shall do better to abstain from it For altho this sort of Charity which I desired we might practice together be very excellent nevertheless it is better to entertain our selves in this other to which you have reduced me than to have none all Illa enim Charitas quam tecum habere vellem major est profecto sed melior haec minor quam nulla est If a Saint found himself obliged to do thus towards another Saint we see easily that we may well be reduced to do it towards others and thus even Charity demands sometimes that we live in this reserve with our Friends when they give no more overture to discover to them their Sentimenâ—s 48. Besides the reputation of delicateness there is yet another which strangely hinders even our Friends from speaking freely with us 't is that of being tyed to our own Sense and strongly opiniated of our thoughts Because having given this Idea of our selves hardly any body ventures to gainsay us especially if we have some consideratâ—on which perswades Men to deal wari y with us Thus every one is reserved and leaves us to believe what we have a mind mocking often at us inwardly But they will say Is it
trouble Therefore whatever may be said of this Portraiture which we must attempt to make of our selves if it happen nevertheless that we were so frighted at these Objects that the Soul might thereby be overwhelmed it would be better a great deal to turn it another way and to busie it only about Gods Mercies 57. Care yet ought to be had in the whole Examination of our actions and interior motions to do our selves the same justice that we think we are obliged to do to others that is to say not to condemn our selves without Evidence It is true that we are ignorant whether our better Actions are good and agreeable to God but yet we know much less whether they are disagreeable There are intermixt therewith many human and corrputed Considerations but we cannot tell whether they be voluntary and what part thereof we have whether they are not pure motives of Concupiscence which God doth not impute to us or temptations of the Enemy which render us yet less guilty We acknowledge in us a great stock of Corruption but this stock whatever it be doth not render us guilty when there is another stock of the Love of God and Justice which possesseth our hearts We have committed and we commit hourly an Infinity of faults but God pardons also hourly this infinity of faults when we return to him with a true and sincere humility And thus we cannot tell whether these faults do subsist before his eyes What therefore must be done in this Ignorance We must humble our selves under the Hand of God but not condemn our selves because that would be to attribute to our selves a Knowledge which we have not 58. Lastly The principal Precaution that ought to be had in the study of ones Self is not to apply ones self so absolutely to it but joyn it always with the infinite Mercies of God which surpass so much all our miseries that they are only as a drop of water in the Ocean 'T is therefore in this immense Sea that we must drown them with an entire confidence Considered in themselves they are great but compared to the infinite Greatness of Gods Love for us and the price he hath given to deliver us they are nothing They ought to humble us without casting us down as the Mercy of God to comfort us without elevating us God was willing to give us these two great objects of our misery and his Mercy to keep our Soul in Aequilibrio or even ballance There is always danger in considering the one without the other but the uinon of these two Considerations establish the Soul in the true state wherein she ought to be during this Life which is that of the wholsom fear grounded upon the consideration of our miseries and an humble confidence maintained by Gods Mercy The Second Treatise Of Charity and Self-love 1. Altho there is nothing so opposite to Charity which relates all to God as Self-love which relates all to it self yet there is nothing so resembling the effects of Charity as those of Self-love For it marches so by the same ways that one can hardly point out those better whereunto Charity ought to carry us than in proposing those which Self-love takes which knows its true Interests and inclines by reason to the end it proposes it self 2. This conformity of Effects in Principles so different will not appear strange to those who shall have well considered the nature of Self-love But to know it he must first consider Self-love in it self and in its first bent that he may see afterwards what carrieth him to disguise and hide it from the sight of the World 3. The name of Self-love is not sufficient to make us know its nature being we may love our selves divers ways We must add thereunto other qualities to form to our selves a true Idea of it These qualities are that Man doth not only love himself but he loves himself without limits and without measure loves only himself and refers all to himself He covets all sort of Riches Humors Pleasures and desires none but for or in relation to himself He makes himself the Center of all he would Lord it over all and could wish that all Creatures were only employed to content him to praise him and to admire him This tyrannical disposition being stamped in the bottom of all mens Hearts renders them violent unjust cruel ambitious flatterers envious insolent and quarrellous In a word it includes the seeds of all the crimes and of all the misdemeanors of men from the smallest even to the most detestable ones See here what a monster we harbour in our bosoms This monster lives and reigns in us absolutely except God destroy its empire by putting another love into our hearts It is the Principal of all our actions which have no other then corrupted Nature And so far is it from terrifying us that we love and hate all things which are out of us only as they are conform or contrary to our Inclinations 4. But if we love it in our selves we are far from using it so when we perceive it in others It appears then to us on the contrary under its natural form and we hate it by so much more as we love our selves because Self-love of other men opposes all the desires of ours We would that all others should love us admire us buckle under us and that they should be busied with the care of satisfying us And they have not only no desire thereto but they look upon us as ridiculous in pretending to it and they are ready to do all not only to hinder us from succeeding in our desires but to make us obnoxious to theirs and to require the same things of us Behold then by this means all men at difference one with another And if he who hath said that Men are born in a state and condition of War and that each man is naturally an enemy to all other men had a mind only to represent by these words the disposition of the Hearts of men one towards another without pretence of passing it for legitimate and just he would have said a thing as conform to Truth and Experience as that which is maintained is contrary to Reason and Justice 5. It cannot possibly be imagined how there can be formed Societies Common-wealths and Kingdoms out of this multitude of People full of passions so contrary to Union and who only endeavour the ruin of one another But Self-love which is the cause of this war will easily tell the way how to make them live in peace It loves Domination it loves to enslave all the World to it but it loves yet more life and convenientness and an easie life more than Domination and sees clearly that others are no ways disposed to suffer themselves to be domineered over and are sooner ready to take away from it the Goods it loves best Each man sees himself in an impossibility of succeeding by force in the designs which his
Idea thereof which represents them to us as hatefull and odious without troubling the mind why And this Idea sufficeth to stir up in the heart a motion of horror aversion and separation Now the confused Idea's and these motions which follow them come so near to the true considerations of Charity which make it hate the evil actions which they include that there is hardly any but God who can discern the difference betwixt them 46. The third is that even when we have Charity in the heart and that it carries us to objects which are proper for it nevertheless because cupidity marcheth many times the same ways and tends to the same objects tho by different motives it makes a Hotch-potch in the Mind and in the heart of these two considerations and motions without our knowing certainly which it is that carries it and which is the true principle of our Actions We seek God and the World at once the heart is very glad to please the one and the other and knows not whether 't is God he relates to the World or the World to God This difference cannot be discovered but by penetrating a certain Groundplot which is in the heart and which is not evidently known but by God alone 47. Behold what is the ordinary condition of Men in this life even when they love God Self-love acts more grosly in some than others but it lives and acts in all to such a degree and it is seldom that they are able to assure themselves of any one action in particular that it is exempt from all self-inquiring But tho this state and condition may be for them a great cause of grief and fear they may be able nevertheless to find therein some Consolation if they dive into the reasons for which God permits them to remain there and raises not them to a higher degree of Vertue 48. It is visible in the first place that the design which God hath to conceal the Kingdom of Heaven which he came to establish upon Earth requires that men of Honesty and uprightness be intermixt outwardly with wicked men and that they be not distinguished from them by clear and visible marks For if the faithfull whom he animates by his Spirit and in whom he resides as in his Temple were a certain kind of men separated from others and as a Nation apart which the World might distinguish by actions which could not be met with in others they would all be publick continual and subsisting miracles which would destroy the state of Faith by which God will save the World The wicked who would see themselves in an impossibility of imitating them would thereby clearly know that Nature cannot attain to the state of vertuous Men. Therefore there must be some actions purely Human which do so much resemble supernatural and divine Actions that the distinction cannot be perceived And as these well-meaning men do not commit any crimes and thus cannot be thereby intermixed together with the wicked It must necessarily follow that the wicked can imitate their vertuous Actions and do some which may be so like outwardly that they cannot be discovered from the others 49. But it is not only an effect of Gods Justice to withdraw from the sight of wicked men the treasures of Grace which he gives to the Just This is one of his Mercies also towards the Just themselves It is good for them not to know themselves nor to see their own proper Justice The sight would be capable to overwhelm them Man is so weak and feeble even in his force that he is not able to undergo the weight of it And by a strange disorder which hath its source in the corruption of the Heart altho its happiness consists in the possession of Vertue and its misfortune in being full of faults it is therefore more dangerous for him to know his vertues than his faults The knowledge of humility renders him proud and that of his pride humble He is strong and powerfull when he knows himself weak and weak when he thinks he is strong Thus this obscurity which impedes and hinders him from distinguishing clearly whether he acts by Charity or by Self-love is so far from hurting that 't is comfortable to him This obscurity does not take away Vertues from him but hinders him from loosing them by keeping him always in humility and fear and making him mistrust all his Works and to rely only on Gods Mercy 50. This is the great profit of this outward resemblance of the actions of Self-love with those of Charity But we may yet take notice of some others which are very material It happens oftentimes that Charity is weak in certain Souls and in this condition of weakness Charity would be easily extirpated by these violent tentations if God did not permit that these tentations were not enervated and as it were counterpoised by certain human motives which stop the violence of it and give means to the Soul to follow the instinct of Grace The fear of mens judgments is one of these motives and there is hardly any of them which make more impression upon the Mind Fear alone is not sufficient for Charity to surmount temptations in a Christian way seeing that this fear springs only from vanity but it suspends their force and if it be found that the Soul hath some spark of true Charity it puts her in a condition of following it and therefore we see that the Holy Legislators of Religious Orders have not been negligent in these human means and that they have fixed to certain faults penances which were dreadfull before men to the end that the fear of this Human confusion may render the Religious more diligent in avoiding them 'T is not that they would pretend to make them do them by this sole motive but their intention hath been that they should make use thereof to fortifie themselves against negligence and that this Human fear might serve as arms to Charity the better by this means to resist the inclination of Nature 51. It is not then unprofitable for Men in the state of weakness wherein they are to be far removed from vices not only by Charity but also by this kind of Self-love which is called Civility to the end that in the feebleness of charity Civility may be able to uphold the Mind and hinder it from falling into dangerous excesses And 't is this which makes us see often strange Revolutions in those who being little sensible of mens judgments and not thinking of pleasing or displeasing them are sometimes touched with some small motions of Piety Because when it happens that they want these motions not having then curb enough to stop them they let themselves be hurried away to all sorts of Extravagancies Thus when one relies upon Men it is good to consider if besides Conscience which keeps them from evil they have yet a certain Civility which makes them apprehend doing things which may be condemned by wise and
were natural and which being always exposed to view should not stir up their admiration that it might only be discovered by those whose eyes he should open by a Light which he gives to whom he shall think fit 13. But if it were necessary that God should conceal himself in this manner in the Order of Nature and in the outward effects he produceth on the body it were not less necessary that he should conceal himself in his inward Operations upon the Soul because the evidence of the Divine Operation in these kind of actions withdraws not the Soul less from the state of Faith by which he desires that she should work out her Salvation in this life And therefore he gives not ordinarily his greatest Graces but by a consequent of means which appear quite Human and ordinary and which seem humanly proportioned to the end for which they are ordained He wills us to desire Vertues to labour to acquire them to seek out means to practise them to separate our selves from things which may carry us to sin 'T is he who breathes these desires into us who operates in us these labours and pains and who makes us lop off these impediments It would be facile for him to give us Vertue without this consequent means but in giving them us in this order and by these means he hides himself from us and conserves us in humility 14. In the same manner he might advertise us every moment what we have to do but if he did in this manner it would be a Conduct visibly miraculous He wills us then that we foresee our actions and our words that we consider them before him that we may govern them according to his Laws and that we may employ all the care we possibly can to acknowledge what he wills us and requires of us in each rencounter He himself is the Author of these preparations of this Enquiry of this Care and he makes use of them as an ordinary means to communicate to us the Wisdom which we have need of for our Conduct 15. 'T is true that Jesus Christ said to his Disciples that they ought not to be troubled for what they shall say to Kings and Princes when they shall force them to appear before them because it shall be given to them even at the hour it self what they ought to answer them But Jesus Christ's design in this admonition was only to exclude the foreseeings and the reflections of despair and Self-love And he would rather dispose them not to be astonished when they are obliged to speak to Kings being unprepared then to forbid them to prepare themselves for it Likewise when Jesus Christ forbad his Disciples to be troubled at the want of food and clothes he did not forbid them according to the Fathers reasonable care and precautions nor obliged them to expect that God should procure them the one and the other by extraordinary ways he only commanded them to banish inquietudes and distrusts from their hearts which are hurtfull to his Providence and to his Bounty and Goodness which hinder them from seeking the Kingdom of God before all other things 16. Thus there be often apparent contrarieties in Christian Truths when we only look upon them with a superficial sight which disappears and vanisheth when penetrated to the bottom We may believe for example to follow only the first Light which springs from an imperfect knowledge of Truth that Christian Life being a Supernatural Life and which is above all human strength we ought not rather to choose one kind of life more than another nor to trouble our selves to avoid the occasions of sinning We can do all with God one will say but we can do nothing without his help Thus with the aid and help of God I can continue immoveable in the most dangerous occasions and without this aid I cannot uphold my self in the most sure retreats But those who speak in this manner comprehend not the secret of the Conduct of Grace 'T is true God is able to boye us up in the greatest perils and he does it sometimes when 't is he himself who ingages us therein but 't is but seldom that he gives his Grace in so conspicuous a manner Thus to make us resist temptations he inspires into us the care and means to avoid them This is the ordinary way and whoever neglects it hath no right to pretend that God upholds him after another manner 17. If one were ordinarily as recollected in business as in quiet and repose If one sunk down oftentimes no more in temptations living in the occasions of sin than in the way of avoiding them If one contracted no more spots in trading with the World than by living a retired life If great Employments swayed us not more to vanity that mean and base employments it would undoubtedly be a kind of visible miracle God acteth in this sort when he pleaseth for some chosen Souls But as he will not that his Conduct over us appear so visibly miraculous he does it not very often and he obliges us thereby to reduce our selves to the ordinary way and to prefer as much as we can repose before action a retired life before great Employs And lastly the flying all occasions before a confidence which leads us to expose our selves thereto Not that it not as facile for God to save as well in one manner as another but he hath taught us that ordinarily he saves us in the second manner because he is there more private and less known and by that means he obligeth us to reduce our selves thereunto 18. 'T is upon this method of Grace and this consequence of means under which God hides his Supernatural Operations that all the Rules and all the Spiritual Counsels are grounded which the Saints inspir'd by God have given to those whom they have conducted in these means These great Saints are not ignorant that 't is from him all Virtues must be expected and that he is the cause of all the good actions Christians perform They were perswaded that he is the Master of mens Hearts and that he operates in them what he will by an Invincible and an All-powerfull force Nevertheless they prescribe Rules and practises as Philosophers might do who would pretend to obtain Virtue by their own proper force They will have us to keep our minds always busied about holy thoughts that we apply our selves without intermission to the reading and to the studying the Word of God that we live as it were separate from the World that we reduce our bodies into bondage by labour and mortification that we avoid all that may weaken us or be an occasion of our fall that we make a continual tryal upon our selves to resist our passions that we lead a life uniform orderly and not idle passing by an infinite number of actions prescribed us as more conform to our condition and to our duty 'T is not that they did not know perfectly that God
of Shadows seeing that they are nothing but the vain Images of temporal things and oftentimes false things also 36. Sin hath open'd the eyes to make men see with pleasure the vanities of this world and Grace in opening the Eyes of the Soul for the things of God shuts them to worldly things through a blindness much more fortunate than that miserable sight which sin hath procured us 'T is this wholsome blindness saith St. Paulinus which the Prophet begg'd of God when he said Hinder my eyes from seeing vanity And which our Lord prefers before the clear seeing eyes of the Jews when he told them Si caeci essetis non haberetis peccatum If ye were blind ye should have no sin If then we are obliged in quality of Christians to beg of God that he will take away our Eyes from all worldly follies of which Plays are as it were a Compendium and imprint in us a hatred and an aversion for them in the Heart How can we think that we shall be able to satisfy our eyes with these vain sights and to place our Satisfaction and Content in what ought to be the object of our aversion and horror The Fifth Treatise Of Reports 1. WE scarcely see any one who does not complain of the Reports which are made of him and who pretends not that others violate in regard of him the Rules of Honesty and Justice And as these sorts of complaints have not only a place in the world but amongst persons of Piety and in Societies the most orderly It seems that we have right to conclude from thence that the Rules by which we ought to judge of the equity and necessity of Reports are not known well enought In the mean time we may say that there is hardly any thing more important than to clear them seeing that indiscreet reports are the most common cause of troubles and divisions which happen not only in particular Friendships but also in Societies and even in whole Kingdoms and that 't is difficult that we do not commit many Faults if we be not well instructed what ought to be done to avoid them 2. What is strange is that every man complaining of others upon this point no man thinks he gives cause to others to complain of him He saw enough thereof who said of others That they are people who Conster all things wrong who report them so who wast and poyson the most innocent and the most harmless Discourses who have neither Fidelity nor Secrecy But we see not therein who attribute these faults to themselves and who believe they want neither Sincerity nor Honesty Finally each would observe this Law willingly that it might be permitted him to tell all that he would of other mens Discourses and that it might not be allowed any one to report any thing of his But as all the World pretending to this Priviledge no man obtains it indeed it must make account that all things will go always almost alike and that the World will always follow its fancies and passions that there will always be found people who will suffer themselves to report what they shall thing fit and thus they need only to be mindful to rule themselves that they may observe in this point in respect of others what Honesty Charity and Justice demands of us 3. 'T is almost the sole real Interest which we may have therein For provided that we our selves commit not Faults the indiscretion and wickedness of others can hardly hurt us They are evil for them and sometimes for those who give ear to them and believe them but not for those whom these reports are made of if they bear them as they ought God oftentimes makes use of them to procure them considerable Benefits and thereby to make them prosper by the designs of his Mercy upon them Thus we have nothing to do but to stand upon our Guard against our seles and we shall be shelter'd from all the rest 4. We are so much more obliged thereunto because unless we be very attentive to our selves it is very hard to avoid committing these kind of faults because direction hath no certain and precise Rules and because we cannot establish upon this point general Maxims It is not true that we cannot at some time report what we have heard It is not true that 't is never permitted to tell what may be displeasing to those who have spoken it It is not true that it may be allowed to relate all that may be gainsaid without displeasing them And finally excepting the Maxim which commands that we relate nothing but Truth all the rest are not universal Truths and they must be restrain'd by divers Conditions to make them Just 5. But 't is not unprofitable nevertheless to know these Rules and to have them present because it behoves us to stick to them unless we clearly see that we are in the case of exception Particular reasons to observe the general Laws of secrecy are needless but there must be very clear and very pressing ones to dispense with them So that when the least doubt is started we must adhere to the Rule and not to the Exception This is the first Maxim which ought to be printed in the mind upon this Subject and will suffice also to mark out to us our Duty in the most part of occurrences For we are hardly wanting to secresy but through a fickleness which makes us pass by all doubts and reasonable scruples which we perceive formed of our understandings 6. The general Foundation of the tye which we commonly have to secrecy in regard of what men say to us in the way of discourse is that God having had in consideration in all his Laws the linking men together and making them live in a well grounded Society all that destroys this Society ought to be esteemed as wicked and pernicious Now it is manifest that 't would be impossible that this Society should subsist if men were in a continual defiance of one another if they looked upon one another as Enemies and if they thought they might not communicate their intentions to whomsoever it were with security 'T is a Torment the Common people cannot endure as being always upon the reserve to say nothing that may be ill taken This inconveniency cannot absolutely be avoided because minds being different what one man thinks good another oftentimes takes it in the contrary sense There are elsewhere a thousand things which have nothing of bad being said in particular and which we cannot nevertheless tell again without imprudence and danger so that if those to whom we speak think that they have reason to relate all that men tell them there is almost no entertainment from whence we ought not to fear bad effects 7. Also let us not presume to speak to people with confidence but in supposing them in another disposition and imagining that they have some fidelity and secrecy and as every one may judge what they expect
laborious which makes us rather judge at hap-hazard than take so much pains to judge well 27. It is enough to have some Idea and some love for equity to condemn this conduct But lest that taking the same resolution of judging advisedly of Reports which are made to us and not believing any which be not clad with circumstances which may make it entireâ—y certain we permit our selves nevertheless to be deceived thereby by taking that for certain which indeed is not so it is good to reflect upon the quantity of Reports which we daily observe which appearing certain and undoubtful are not yet at least found very false Who for example would not believe the testimony of a sincere man who saith that he hath learnt such and such a thing from such an ones proper mouth Nevertheless there happens daily differences amongst sincere persons wherein one maintains that he hath not said what the other affirms he hath heard without any reason of suspecting either the one or the other of falshood or knavery This may happen a thousand ways which might easily be discover'd if we would but give attention thereunto We correct at every turn the equivocations which slip from our pens in what we write for fear they should carry or bear false sense in other mens minds about what is proposed to them and the false consequences they may bring with them and by the help thereof we avoid always that what we write be not ill taken and misconstrued and that we be not obliged to long Illustrations What mistakes may then follow in transitory discourses made without any care application or precaution wherein we only express most things imperfectly oftentimes referring them to the Intelligence of those we speak unto And who can wonder if they be sometimes taken in a wrong sense so that the one thinks he understands what the other never pretended to have spoken 28. The sense and meaning of our expressions is not absolutely included in â—he terms which we make use of to express our selves it depends sometimes â—f the preceding discourses A Tone â—n Inflection a Behaviour an Air alters the signification and often it depends â—f thoughts which we imagine in those â—o whom speak so that if the want of â—ttention make them take less care of â—his Consequence this Tone and this â—ir or if we be deceived in attributing â—o them certain thoughts which they had â—ot and which yet made part of the â—â—se they deceive themselves almost necessarily in the understanding of what â—as said to them and conceive quite anâ—ther sense than that which we would â—ave them to conceive 29. There springs from thence yet â—nother mistake more surprising 'T is â—hat as the Soul is not accustomed to conceive these things by the help of words every time that men take what â—s told them in a contrary sense this false impression is painted in their false imagination with some certain terms whereby they borrow some part from those who speak and they themselves furnish the other part thereof But in the end the remembrance of what they have added slipping out of their minds and not distinguishing what they have heard from what came from them they attribute in good earnest to him who hath entertain'd them with all the words which denote the false impression they have conceived because they find it in their mind clad with those words 30. There are some likewise who reciting the discourses they have had with any one and not remembring exactly some things make them speak according to the remembrance which they have left them But if one asked them then if they be certain of what they relate they would say no and that they would not be vouchers But in the conclusion they come to quit their doubt and to be assured that they have none in a very pleasant manner For in making these rehearsals they imprint them strongly in their memories and on the contrary they forget this disposition of distrust and uncertainty with which they had made them at first so that they think in conclusion that this remembrance is an effect of the things themselves whereas they came from the frequent repetition they have made of them 31. It is therefore just when we accuse any one for having said something which may fall upon him or some other to inform our selves before hand that is before we give credit to this report whether those it concerns be agreed of if and when we know that they disallow it Judgement must be suspended and enquiry made into the circumstances of the Report how to determine on one side or another For it is sometimes more probable that he to whom we attribute the thing hath said it and sometimes that he hath not When for example one busieth himself about a discourse which notes something of an opinion if he who disavows it declares that not only he never held such a discourse but that he is not nor never hath been of this sentiment his testimony is infinitely more credible than the report of those who should pretend to have heard this discourse from him For a sentiment is a thing which remains in regard of which we can scarcely be deceived whereas it is very wrong easy to take other mens words in a wrong sence and to be perswaded in this manner to have heard what he hath never said 32. We should never have done if we should report by piece-meals all the ways whereby we may be deceived in the intelligence of what is told us 'T is sufficient that we be perswaded in general that there are many and that thus not only in the differences wherein the one affirms he hath not said what another lays to his charge but also in all reports which are made us which are not absolutely certain we must hinder the mind from resolving out of hand and stop the motives which are the consequences and marks of belief By this means we shall not participate at all of other mens faults We shall not enter into their passions If we apprehend some suspicion of the conduct of those whom we understand have drawn a Picture very disadvantagious we shall not form an express judgment thereof wherein the greatest ill that these discourses can do us consists Lastly we shall always be so much more disposed to clear them by how much we shall not have resolved concerning them 33. There remains only one passage by which Reports can hurt us 'T is when we our selves are the cause of it and that people whom we shall have entertained confidently attribute to us afterwards discourses either ridiculous or imprudent which of it self is able to exasperate us against them who make or believe these Reports It is much more necessary to be prepared to behave our selves like Christians in these rencounters than 't is to pretend that we can â—eave them absolutely For how circumspect soever we may be of those we â—alk with we are often deceived in the
quality of their minds and yet more in the disposition of their hearts 'T is likewise an effect of goodness to be deceived therein and not easily to conceive suspitions of mens fidelity It is moreover impossible to foresee all the ways whereby false Spirits may abuse our words and all the false Idea's which they may form by this strange mixture of their imaginations with our thoughts We should then renounce entirely mens company if we would not expose our selves to these inconveniences and as that is neither possible nor profitable to all the world we must be content to avoid them as much as we can and resolve to bear them with patience when we are not so happy as to avoid them 34. If it happens then that we fall thereinto however it be the first care and application we ought to have is to hinder that other mens faults be not to us an occasion of doing it on our side and to beware also that in complaining that they have done us some injustice it be not our selves who have offered it to them For we know not what is imputed to them for having said of us because others have reported it Now as they may have altered our words in relating them unto others we may also have altered theirs in relating them to our selves We must then at least be well assured of the fact before we complain thereof and 't is wherein we ordinarily miss because we rather follow the impressions of passion which is stirr'd by the meer Image of the offence whether true or false then the light of reason which is regulated by evidence and conviction 35. We owe them the same justice and the same reservedness when they endeavour to judge of the motives which they might have had in making these Reports Some are worse then others and it is not just to attribute without reason the worst to them It may be what our spite makes us take for an effect of hatred disdain and jealousie is nothing but the effect of Inconstancy Indiscretion Prevention and of a mistaken Conscience and of a desire of diverting our selves Let us have a care therefore that our passions go no further than our sight and let us not imagine without reason that we cannot be deceived in earnest to our disadvantage 36. Likewise we must not be unmindful upon these occasions to demand justice of our selves against our selves of all discourses of all rash inconstant indiscreet and of all wicked Judgments which we have made of others or pardon the mind for all evil effects that they may have produced in their heart whereof we may judge better at that time by our own proper judgment and as we know not what God imputes to us yet nor what remains thereof to pay to his Justice we ought to be ravish'd that he hath given us means to obtain pardon for them by suffering some small injustice upon the account of others 37. Afterwards we must consider closely these reports and these noises which incommode us being careful not to give them more substance and reality then they have For oftentimes giving them a Being which they have not and making them subsist by our imagination when they are annihilated in that of others we must not believe that men who busie themselves so little with the most important Objects yea and the most solid are of an humour to amuse themselves any long time at reports noised abroad without ground All these relations have only a transitory course and having served for discourse for some days to idle and lazy persons they are dissipated and vanish away when they are weary of speaking and talking of them We have nothing to do then but let them pass and to slight them as vain whimseys whereof nothing remains Although they should subsist for a long time and that they should make a very durable impression pitty must be had of those who should conserve it seeing that 't is to them rather then to us that 't is hurtful 38. But we must not only endeavour to preserve our selves from the evil that these reports may do us in swaying us to impatience We must attempt to make them effectively useful and they would be so doubtless if we knew how to profit by the instructions which we might draw from thence For what is there for example that can teach us better the vanity of that which men call reputation then the inconstancy which the Commonalty of the World shew upon these occasions What Proofs soever a man hath given of a good judgment we shall not for that be less ready to hearken with pleasure to a ridiculous story and without ground which it shall please any one to make of him provided there be found any cross mind which gives him liberty The World is naturally so wicked that it always seconds those who will destroy anothers reputation and if it hath sometimes an esteem for certain people 't is in some sort against its will and in spight of it so that the World is always glad to be assisted to get rid of this esteem as of a thing that incommodes it What is there then more ridiculous then to feed this vain Smoak and to make it the end of our actions and labours 39. As it is necessary that Worldly Goods be intermixed with bitterness least men should cleave too fast to them we ought to be glad also that Conversation which is none of the least of these Goods have its disgust because there is almost nothing to which it is more dangerous to adhere unto Men receive from it an Infinity of sensible and insensible Wounds Virtue is often quite lost by it and we gather together all the corruption which is spread into several minds All that witholds us then to oblidge us to a greater solitude and to have Communication with few people is very advantagious to us Now there is nothing more capable to make us loath the Commerce of this World then to find little Honesty and Faith in most people that we meet therein and to learn by experience how much it is necessary to be upon our Guard when we are to Treat with those whom we scarcely know It may be said also that 't is a happiness to be freed from an ill affected Spirit and which is capable to abuse what is told it that we ought to esteem our selves happy when we have notice by some indiscreet report which is raised of us that we had no more Commerce with it without great necessiâ—y 40. Nevertheless we ought not to â—â—etch that Commerce so far as frequently to break with our Friends when we â—ave cause to impute some indiscretion â—o them for we must suffer in them this â—ault as others But it ought to be a warning to us continually to behave our selves better in respect of them not to injure our selves and to be more upon 〈◊〉 Guard and by this means persons who are neither Trusty nor Faithful will â—ecome