of all those qualities For this Judgment may be ill-grounded There are some persons who preach very ill and who nevertheless have Piety and also Light and Judgment in other things and the reason thereof is that they preach ill because they have a false Idea and that they have at first proposed evil models They apprehend I know not how that Sermons ought to have something that 's excellent sublime and extraordinary and that common and popular thoughts are to be avoided therein Thus when they are to preach they neither consult the Heart nor the disposition of their Auditors they skip into a certain region of their mind where most commonly they inhabit not and where they have a magazine of false thoughts and shallow speculations which this false Idea wherewith they are pre-occupied makes them approve But as their Judgment is only spoiled in this place they forbear not to be judicious in other things when they leave the Pulpit where they are in some sort in a violent state and condition and are returned to their ordinary manner of speaking and thinking 13. After we shall have practised this equity towards the Preacher and resolved to manage him as well as we shall be ble in what shall be said before others for fear of hindring the fruit he might make upon those who should have other Considerations than we We shall be forced to consider all that he says and endeavour to find therein something which may be able to edify us and whereunto we may fix our minds and it is very hard if we prosper not therein if we do it faithfully or that we have not at least reason to be convinced that 't is our lack of Light and Virtue which hinders us from profiting thereby 14. We desire always that all Sermons should contain some brave principle of Morality well expressed and well explicated that they may make us observe some considerable defect in the lives of Christians that they may make us prone to practice some important obligation And indeed it were to be wished that they were such and 't is a defect when that is not because Preachers ought to imagine that the vulgar people are scarcely edified without these kind of Sermons which made St. Francis of Sales say That he did not find that a Sermon was good if the Preacher had not for his Mark the Building some Corner of the Walls of Jerusalem Nevertheless we ought to acknowledge that 't is also a fault to have so strict a Piety Christian Virtue has a larger extent It is not always busied with the correction of our manners nor with the care of instructing or teaching Christian Principles It is forgetful sometimes of it self that it may be raised absolutely to God to admire him to Praise him to consider his Mysteries in themselves without any reflection upon it self to Contemplate the works of his Mercy and Justice to rejoyce at the Graces he hath bestowed on the Saints Now there are no Sermons which are not able to stir up in us some of these Motives if we were disposed thereto and if our minds were not so limited as not to search occasions of edification but of a certain kind which makes that oftentimes we find as few to edifie themselves by certain Sermons of the Fathers as by those we hear now a days 15. We flatter our selves ordinarily with being of the number of those whom St. Austin calls non Verborum sed Rerum avidos greedy of Things but not of Words and we imagin that 't is this which displeases us in Sermons where there are more words then things Nevertheless we may say that this disgust comes rather from a contrary defect that is to say for that we are more fixed to the manners and ways then to the things themselves and that we love the rarity the excellency and the aptness of thoughts better then their Solidity and Truth For lastly there are no Sermons so bad where there is not something of Truth but they touch us not at all because they are either common or out of their place or ill expressed or that they are mingled with false thoughts or they miss the Subject So seeing all these faults joyned to Truth take the relish of it absolutely away we must needs have but little love for it A Diamond cast into the dirt looses not its luster nor its price in regard of us we take great care to dig it out when we discover it and often apply our selves thereto so much the more as we find it in a place that seems to dishonour it We should make as much of this Pittance of Christian Truths which is found in certain Sermons it would be just that we apply our selves thereunto with so much more attention that our Spirits might not be distracted by a great number of things which might deserve application Now there is no Christian Truth considered as it ought that is not capable to comfort us and likewise there is not any which will not appear to have a very large extent if we have light enough to penetrate what it includes 16. We ought to consider well that these common truths which we hear with disgust are infinitely above all that can be found in the Books of Paganism which men read with so much esteem and so much pleasure That 'T is a particular Grace that God has done us to have been pleased to discover them to us having kept them hid four thousand years from all men that the Prophets themselves and the Saints of the Old Testament have sighed to know them in this excellency with which they are revealed to us that they make up part of those Judgments which David spoke of with so much sense of acknowledgment Non fecit taliter omni Nationi Judicia sua non manifestavit eis And this may suffice to give us Confusion that some human defects with which they are enveroined may make us loose entirely the gust and love for them 17. As St. Augustin says That men discern Beauty and Justice better when they observe them in objects which have nothing but what gives horrour to the Senses such as the members of Martyrs were when covered over with Wounds may we not say also that they cannot acknowledge better that they love Truth for it self then when presented to us in discourses wherein we can love nothing but it and where we find also an infinite of displeasing things Thus these sorts of Sermons may be made good use of to honour Truth for it self without dividing the homage which we give to it And the least Truth honoured in this sort would be able to edifie us more then the most touching instructions which please the mind better 18. There are almost no Sermons so bad whereby a man may not be edified if what be said therein be new and that we know nothing what it contains by means of any other way There is not for Example any Discourse so cold either
who labour for nothing more than to deceive themselves and to entertain themselves in delusion Where is then this love of Truth wherewith we flatter our selves and what hatred for falsity may be found in men who according to Scripture seek nothing else 23. Nevertheless we may say that these Maxims have place in things Indifferent in which men taking no Interests at all do not in effect love to be deceived and prefer truth before falsity The which shews some natural love for Truth But it is seldom seen that this natural Inclination is free to act and that the mind is not prepossessed with some Passion which makes it incline more to one side than to another There needs scarcely any thing to make Self-love to deliberate It makes private and secret Interests even things wherein it seems to have none at all The least advance the least engagements the least inclination to please or to displease suffice to take away the ballance and to incline the minds to seek out reasons only on one side How many are there for example who have no reason to continue in an opinion but because there would be some trouble to examin the Contrary reasons They fly the pains of instructing themselves because it is laborious They will judge and decide because they will appear Learned and to satisfie at once these two inclinations they suppose without other examination that what they have formerly learn'd is true Taedio novae Curae semel placita pro aeternis servant 24. The chief and principal use we make of this love of truth is to persuade us that what we love is true For if we would do our selves Justice we should acknowledge that we love not things because they are true but that we believe them true because we love them Our minds are fixed to objects Independant of their truth and by the sole relation of these Inclinations But because they cannot enjoy them if they look upon them as false they endeavor in some sort to add thereto the Idea of truth that they may be fixed thereunto more firmly Quicunque aliud amant Aug. Con. l. 10.13 hoc quod amant volunt esse veritalem 25. We love truth in general as the common and general good For as we can love nothing which we do not think good likewise we can love nothing which we believe not to be true But Self-love knows very well how to conjoin these general Inclinations with particular Passions And as it makes us believe that what we love is good it makes us likewise believe that what we love is true that is to say we cannot love what is false under its proper and natural form and loving in effect many false and deceitful objects it finds means to represent them under the image of truth 26. This aversion so uniform and constant which is found amongst men for the truth which discovers them to themselves and this inclination so general of shunning the sight of their faults as their greatest misfortune gives way to believe that this common Maxim which calls them back to themselves and makes them to know themselves Nosce teipsum proceeds not from a common light persuading them that this knowledge is for their good and which makes them desire it but that it may well have its source in the knowledge of every mans heart who feeling himself incommodated with the vanity and the Injustice which he observes in others persuades him to seek and desire for them this knowledge which he neither seeks nor desires for himself 27. This thought is so much more likely as nothing shocks us more in the faults we observe in others then the blindness wherein we see they are in regard of themselves What is there more troublesome than a vain man who is taken up with nothing but himself and who would have men only to apply themselves to him who admires himself continually and who imagines that others do the same or that they are to blame if they do not And who is he who hath not a great inclination to tell persons of this opinion that they would do well to labor to know themselves to draw themselves out of those delusions wherein they are Nosoe teipsum 28. The World is full of people who observe other mens faults with an admirable Judgment who pardon them nothing and who being subject to the same or to greater faults themselves do not make the least reflection thereon The vainest persons most frequently laugh at other mens vanity Those who are Cheated most laugh at those whom they believe deceived The most unjust reproach others of their Injustice The sharpest men give sweet lessons The most prejudiced persons speak earnestly against prejudice The most opiniated are the first in accusing others of obstinacy It is very hard not to have a desire to advise these sort of people that they speak to themselves in speaking against others and not to tell them at least in their heart Nosce teipsum 29. When we see these ambitious men who heap enterprizes upon enterprizes who form designs to which many lives would not satisfie who trouble by their caprichios both their own and other mens quiet who never dream of death which threatens them every moment who imagine that others live only for them who devour with an insatiable Covetousness other mens Goods Who is it that does not find himself inclined to recal them to the knowledge of their mortal Conditions and to make them mindful that they are but men We feel the same motions in an infinite other rencounters as when we see people who for want of knowing themselves vndertake things infinitely above them and in which they cannot prosper who will do all because they judge and think themselves capable of all and who spoil all by their want of parts who glory in taking Counsels of no body who complain to others of their bad success that they have had by their imprudence In fine as the ignorance of ones self is found almost in all vices and is most what shocks us therein we should every moment endeavor to draw people out of their delusion in teaching them to know themselves if this motive were not witheld by others more powerful 30. We have right methinks to conclude from what I said but now that this Precept Know thou thy self in the mouth of those who have acted only by self-love was rather the effect of impatience and vexation stirred up by the faults that they see in others then by a clear sight of the necessity of this knowledge for every man in particular and for his proper good We would have others to know themselves to the end they might act in a less shocking manner in regard of us And yet we will not know our selves because we will not see in our selves what thwarts us therein nor think our selves obliged to labor to correct some faults in which we are very glad to continue We find means to foster our selves
these Objects which may be able to displease us in fixing our selves only to those which are pleasing to us in deceiving our selves willingly and in avoiding being deceived our vanity remains half satisfied and procures this fond Pleasure in which vain men place their false felicity 14. It is yet more easy that the great ones and generally all those whom it is our intent to please do entertain themselves in this Illusion because instead of making for our selves only one Portraiture of other men we may in some sort make two the one interiour which is true the other exteriour wherein we paint nothing but what we judge may please them and great care is taken afterwards to set before their eyes only this false Picture and to endeavour to make them take that for the true one Without doubt they would easily hinder themselves from being deceived therein and might convince themselves if they would that there is nothing so false and so vain as all these Testimonies of Esteem and Aflection which men shew them They know often what they think thimselves of those to whom they return the like and they have no reason to judge others more sincere then themselves But they are easily held back in this point and do not dive so deep into these things They content themselves therefore with this deceitful Surface they leave there these interiour portraitures which they fear to discover and they make a stop only at these flattering Pictures which are made purposely to draw from them what we pretend thereby 15. We make use of the same preparation to hinder that the faults and miseries of others and the Judgment which we see made of them and which we our selves make of them do not call us to our selves nor discover to us our own juglings Wit assisted by self-love doth cut off all the reflections it can make or applies it self so little thereunto that they make scarcely any Impression at all We hear every hour people who deceive themselves spoken of with scorn We see that they are the common objects of mens disdain because there is nothing more ridiculous then a man deceived and deceived by his own vanity Nevertheless we do not think that we are those ridiculous and deceived men let men say of us in our absence what is faid of others before us let us give therein as much Subject as they and let there be no appearance that they have more respect for us then for all the rest How frequent and how certain soever these objects may be they have not more force to oblige the mind to enter into it self and there to see the same faults and the same miseries then it sees in others Think we more on death for hearing or for seeing the death of those with whom we have lived We fly his Spectacle if we can if we cannot fly it yet we endeavour to fly the reflections it ought to produce If we cannot stifle them absolutely we turn away from them with what expedition possible What I have said of Death may be said of all the other Miseries and of all Human Frailties which may be able to represent ours to us These Images strike us at every moment but we endeavour as often to resist and not to be daunted We deceive our selves if we can and if we cannot do it absolutely at least we strive to turn our thoughts another way 16. What should we say of a man who seeing his Picture every day in a Looking glass and seeing it therein continually should not know it and would never say Behold I am here should we not accuse him of stupidity little different from folly This nevertheless is what all men do and it is likewise the only secret they have found to make themselves happy They see every moment the Image of their own selves I mean of their own proper faults in those of others and yet they will not acknowledge them To be full of Miseries and not to see them to be ignorant of our faults when no body else is to be the Subject of most peoples laughter and not willing to know any thing of it to feed our selves with vain Imaginations being unwilling to know that they are vain is a condition which doth not seem very desirable and yet it is this which is the delight of worldly men and chiefly of the great ones 17. 'T is by these means we are interrupted from seeing the Truth when we should use some care and application to find it But there are some rencounters wherein Truth shews it self to us and in which we should be forced to see it if we did not use Cunning to avoid it For some times we find men Charitable enough to try to free us from the delusions wherein we live in respect of our selves self-love therefore endeavours to banish this inconvenience wants not yet the way to prosper therein For it expresses so much Melancholy and evil humour to those who would do us this good Office it finds so many pretences not to believe what is discovered to us of our faults it is so ingenious to find out some greater in those who observe ours and to make the judgments which are made to our disadvantage pass for wicked that there is hardly any body will hazard to tell them us The general Principle that self-love inspires us with is That we condemn nothing in us by a motive of Equity and Justice So when any one shews that he does not approve of us in every thing we attribute to him the Idea of prevention of jealousie or some other less favourable And as no body loves to be looked so upon there is formed amongst men a kind of Conspiration to dissemble the opinions which they have one of another and there is no agreement which is better preserved then that because it is grounded upon the sentiment of self-love from which few or none are exempt 18. We must not think that men do not take care to hide the Truth only in respect of those whom they fear or from whom they hope something They do the same almost in respect of all the World Men apply themselves more to deceive great men but they do not apply themselves to undeceive those of meaner quality This is all the difference that 's made between the one and the other They love not to be hated by any body so they do not love to tell truth to any one They know on the contrary that to make it be received there should be many niceties moderations and many studied inventions Now men will not take this pains for people they do not value So we do not tell the Truth to Persons of Quality because it is not our interest to do it Nor to those of meaner degree because we have not Interest enough to tell it them 19. This reserve that men keep amongst themselves in avoiding the Communicating the thoughts they have to the disadvantage of one another is not
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
only that we may not pass for Opinators in the minds of those who would be believed in all they propose that we shall be forced to grant that we approve Opinions which in effect we do not and yeild to all the Advices the first comer shall think good to give us 'T is by this means that People justifie in themselves and flatter themselves that their stubborness and their inflexibility in their Sentiments proceed only from the love they have for Truth But it is easie to convince them that one may avoid the reputation of being tied to ones own sense without approving all the thoughts of others which would be a very great fault To do this 't is but to distinguish reasonable Certainty which is a Vertue from Self-opinion which is a vice 49. We cannot justly force whomsoever he be to yeeld to our Judgments not being convinced nor yet accuse him of being obstinate Because if it is through knowledge that he is not perswaded of it he is praise-worthy for not yeelding to what is false If it is lack of understanding and of light he may accused of these faults but not of that of being obstinate Also the world does not commit this injustice when we give it elsewhere what it hath a right to exact from us See here in what it consists Tho men in this life be not absolutely incapable of knowing any truth certainly yet there are so many things which they see but obscurely and they are so often deceived in taking that for a certainty which indeed is not so in considering objects confusedly and in not seeing therein all that is necessary to judge by that the least they ought to do is to have a general distrust of their sentiments and thoughts when they are not expresly confirmed by Faith and the Authority of the Church This distrust causes not them to be indetermined and that they do not take some part but it hinders them from proposing their thoughts with a determinative Air and to be troubled when they are contradicted This distrust makes them give ear and examin seriously the reasons alledged against their Opinions Lastly it makes them slight the Opinions they approve not of with so much Modesty that we remain perswaded that they should have disposed to embrace them if they had had light enough to penetrate into the Reasons This is the disposition the World doth force from us and with Reason because we ought to have it in effect And the contrary to this disposition that is to say that assurance which excludes even general distrust that determinative Air that manner of rejecting other mens Opinions without taking almost the pains to examin them as if they were incapable of finding out the Truth or of being deceived is that properly which men call being Opiniator 'T is that which repulses the World and hinders it from speaking freely to us because 't is always imagin'd that it would be in vain for when we have espous'd a cause we never forsake it but after having contested soundly we always think that we have Reason and that others have not Thus every one had rather leave all in that Condition and abandon us to our own light without proposing theirs to us 50. We produce almost the same bad Effects if without contesting and shewing wilfulness we remain nevertheless in a certain coldness without appearing either to approve or disapprove the liberty which our Friends take in telling us their opinions For as they are naturally inclin'd to believe that this liberty is not pleasing to us and that they are in distrust upon this point Whosoever destroys not this Impression by his Air and by his way of answering gives leave to beleeve that he would willingly that it may subsist or remain and his silence being taken with probability for a token of discontent the World thinks it self freed from making for the future the like attempts 51. If we be carefull to avoid these and such like faults we may engage our true Friends to tell us sometimes what they think of our Actions and to let us know after what manner the World takes them But to judge well of what they tell us we must observe this rule that as Natural Complacency fear of troubling and civility it self obliges those who speak to us of our faults to moderate themselves much in their expressions If we will know their Judgment exactly we must add of our selves what is wanting in their words and not imagin that these thoughts come into their mind with all these restrictions and these mollifications which they use in proposing them to us Let us endeavour therefore that they tell us only some small part of what is judged of us and that we must multiply in some sort all that is said of us to find out the Truth If they tell us that they have some little to contradict in some thing we have done that signifies that there is therein much to be gainsaid If they say they make some difficulty in some Argument that means that they beleeve it false and ridiculous If they tell us that they cannot without difficulty enter into any of our thoughts that is they disapprove and condemn them If they give us notice that there are some People who harm themselves by certain Actions that is to say there are a great number who are scandalized at them Lastly it must be supposed that the language of Advertisements is a particular Language that we do express our selves therein but by halves that they are nothing but perpetual silences and that unless we supply and understand it at half Sentences we are deceiv'd by those even who strive to undeceive us 52. If man had as much subtilty and craft for what relates to his Happiness as generally he hath for his Interests he would not only discover the Truth from under some little Clouds the goodness and Prudence whereof might serve to sweeten and temper it but he would even distinguish it in the most profound obscurity of Fiction and dissimulation We alter it by the fiction of flatteries we dissemble it by silence But very often it relies only on us to distinguish it in the one and the other Because there is always something of Truth in flattery it self and Silence hath also its Language which hath caused St. Jerom to call the silence of St. Aselle Hir. Ep. 3. Silentium loquens 53. To Comprehend what there may be of Truth in flattery we need only to distinguish the precise sense of expressions from the thoughts which they give us leave to read in the mind of those who make use of them There is no Truth at all in the precise sense of the expressions of Flatterers seeing that we take here the term of Flattery for a false Praise But they give leave to know many of their thoughts and to instruct us by these thoughts of many Truths which concern us The first is when they give these Praises they
upon his score 18. The Cardinal of Arles was Author of an enterprize which caused great troubles which was the deposing of Eugenius IV. This action was not followed in the Church It is no where observed that he repented the act and yet he hath done miracles after his death God having not laid to his charge what he did through zeal of Justice though in some circumstances which rendred his action imprudent St. Peter of Luxemburg St. Vincent Ferrier St. Catheriue of Siena were in divers and different times of Schisme and by consequence some of them for the Anti-Pope yet nevertheless this blemish hath not hindred their Sanctity 19. They who write the Lives of Saints think that 't is their Duty to set forth all their virtues and to hide all their faults But I do not know if they should not do as well to take notice of all their faults as of their virtues to hinder thereby that men be not scandalized at such as appear in some pious men which we know Whosoevor for example shall make reflections on the manner how Three Saints to wit St. Epiphanius St. Jerome and St. Cyril of Alexandria acted upon account of St. John Chrysostome will wonder no more that virtuous men be sometimes prevented and fall sometimes into excess and they will conceive that there is very great limitation in this passage Charitas operit multitudinem peceatorum 20. We see often in Saints some faults which God sees no more there whereas we see not in our selves those which are truly there If they commit faults through ignorance the heat of their charity purifies them even without their acknowledging them and thus they subsist no more If they commit some thro weakness or thro some passion they humble themselves and they rise again more strong than they were before their fall and by this means again they subsist no more But the faults of Souls grown cold altho more inconsiderable in appearance subsist always in the eyes of God because they want this fire of Charity to consume them and because they are not restor'd again absolutely 27. We must distinguish faults of passion from faults of darkness and faults of light the faults of understanding from faults of the heart Nor is there properly any but God who can judge of faults which spring from ignorance wherein Cupidity appears not to have any share at all Nor is it permitted for men to determine of the degree 22. All Saints have in their hearts a sincere disposition to love and follow every known Truth But they know not equally all Truths nether are they equally appropriated to all those they know God enlightens and touches them differently according to the several designs he hath upon them and by giving them an ardent Love for certain Truths by which he will sanctify them he suffers sometimes that in respect of others they remain in some kind of obscurity or in a want of judgment which comes not from the corruption of their hearts but from this that God applys them to other things 'T is this that makes these who love these Truths to be oftentimes troubled to see them so little concerned for them because they consider not that they themselves are in this deprivation of Light and Judgment in regard of many others and that the heart of man being limited and narrow in the condition it is in as to this life God doth not exact that it should love Truth Truth in all its extent but only that it be the love of Truth and not Cupidity which should be the principal of its actions 23. When God leaves the Saints thus in Ignorance as to many Truths or diverts and stops the occasions which might engage them to commit some faults thro ignorance or hides by the purity of their hearts and by the ardency of their Charity those which they commit it happens nevertheless from hence that we may easily make ill use of their examples whether it be in imagining that we ought to follow blindly all they have done or in behaving our selves so as to condemn these Saints because of these wants of Light But both the one and the other of these scandals must be remedied by the consideration of this various dispensation which God makes of the knowledge of this Truth For we see by this on the one side that there may remain darkness in the Saints in respect of certain points in which by consequence they ought not to be taken for guides and we have reason to conclude on the other that it follows not that those in whom we perceive the wants of Light in respect of certain Truths cannot be Saints by the application they have to others 24. We may add to this that perchance those who hurt in appearance certain Truths thro ignorance and lack of Light have before God more love and zeal for them than these who shew a great heat for those same Truths For God hath particularly regard to the bottom of the heart and when he sees there a sincere love for Truth and Justice a disposition to follow them at the cost of all things he hath less regard to the darkness which hinders this Love to spread it over certain particular points Whereas it happens sometimes that this Zeal so apparent for certain Truths is nothing but the effect of Self-love and a tye to its proper sense We maintain Truth as we should maintain what is false if we had the same engagements to do it and oftentimes God fees nothing that 's sincere at the bottom of the heart which leads directly to Truth 25. Those who by a more exact study of antiquity should have acquired knowledge and some light which very Holy persons should not have had should yet have occasion to humble themselves by this thought that those Truths tho great and important are not ordinarily those the practice whereof is most frequent and which are the principal of the common actions which compose our lives Thus as the occasion of practising them are not very ordinary they become often barren in these who know them and we may easily believe that men love them without any real or effective love for them It is altogether contrary with common Truths as with those which teach to converse with our neighbour in an edifying manner to have God present in all our actions and to do nothing but by his Motive and his Spirit to mortify all the inordinate excesses of Self-love to lop off all things useless to this life to correct the senses in all that we can to moderate our passions to govern all the motions of Mind and Body not to complain of little evils to receive favourably those who mind us of some defect not to be tyed to our own Sense and Light to be reserved in our judgments Those Truths which prescribe these actions are not less Truths than the others whereof we have spoken but they have this advantage that the practice is ordinary and that
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
or to mingle Poyson with Consecrated Hosts that thereby they may kill the Bodies of those who receive them Thus altho the wicked Priests commit a Sacriledge through the boldness they have of insinuating themselves into so Divine Functions those nevertheless who participate of the Body of Jesus Christ by their Ministry receive no prejudice thereby 'T is not the same with the Word of God For there are not only some Priests who dishonour it by presuming to Preach it when they ought to think of nothing more then doing Penance for their Crimes and who draw upon themselves thereby the Reproach which God makes them in these words of the Kingly Prophet Peccatori autem dâ—xit Deus quare tu enarras Justitias meaâ— assumis Testamentum meum per Os tuum But there are those who poyson it by their bad Maxims or by their Passions and they who do this instead of giving life to Souls bring often death And lastly there are some who instead of the true word of God distribute only their imaginations which is not hurtful only to the ignorant in depriving them of the nourishment they have need of but deceives them wickedly by suffering them to receive as the Word of God thoughts altogether human and profane 8. We need not only apply these considerations to the present State of the Church to acknowledge that there are a great number of Christians that suffer what the Scripture calls Famam Verbi The desire of God's Word because those who are charged with this instruction instead of solid Truths drawn from this word wherewith they ought to nourish them feed them only with their own proper thoughts and vain speculations and that thence it is that the Church experiences in many places this terrible Wound wherewith God has at other times threatned to strike the Jews which the same Scripture calls Vbera Arentia The Breasts giving no Milk that is to say Pastors without light and incapapable of nourishing their people with the Doctrine of Truth which at the same time ought to stir up in us sentiments of Compassion for the spiritual misery of so many Souls motives of acknowledgment that God hath treated us more fovourably than them in giving us the knowledge of his Truth which he suffers them to be deprived of and a wholsome fright through the consideration of the little use we have made of all these helps 9. If these Sermons which please us so little of themselves did make us enter into these Sentiments they would also become as profitable to us as those which fill our memories the most with edifying Truths There are hardly any of more importance than those which may be learnt by the chastisement which God exercises upon the Church For he shews that the knowledge of Truth is not due to us that we deserve to be deprived of it that this deprivation is the just punishment of our disorders that we ought to impute to our selves this want of Evangelical Preachers that thus the faults they commit in the exercise of their ministry are in some sort ours seeing that 't is to punish us that God permits them 10. We must not imagine that we have no reason to fear as to our selves the effects of Gods wrath under pretence that we are better instructed and that we have divers ways to supply the defects of Preachers For God hath also other sorts of blindnesses to spread over us which we ought not to apprehend less If he punish us not by depriving us of the knowledge of some particular Duty in some important occasions and this deprivation is enough to make us enter into some unlucky engagements and to render all our other knowledges unuseful We have not therefore less need of his light nor less obligation to seek it And as this Light is communicated in the ordinary way by the Ministry of men no man can say he hath not need of a Preacher that is of a man who makes him understand what God requires from him 11. But there is no need that this consideration of the disorders which are committed in the dispensation of Gods word as well as in the distributing the Body of Jesus Christ apply us only to the consideration of his Justice towards the wicked it ought to fill us yet more with the admiration of his bounty towards the Elect. For 't is for them that he suffers all those prophanations with an incomprehensible patience 'T is for them he commands that his Body reside even to the end of the world upon our Altars and that it enter into the mouths of all those who would receive him without having regard to the Sacriledges that so many impious people commit in receiving it to the end that his chosen may not be deprived of this Divine nourishment which is the ordinary means of their Salvation Hence it happens sometimes that the Body of Jesus Christ remains whole years in the Churches in the hands of wicked Priests who dishonour it every day by new Impieties and receives thereby abundance of outrages on the score of disorderly Christians to the end that some poor Woman may have the means to partake thereof or to come and adore it 'T is also sometimes not there for those who compass this particular Church because they may be all impious and wicked It is there for those who shall spring from them long after It is also in consideration of his Elect that he suffers that some wicked men corrupt and prophane his word in declaring it and that he permits that men preach it to people who draw no profit from it and who become only more criminal thereby to the end that some simple Souls who shall be there present may be instructed and edified with it or at least that the Ministry being conserved some of the chosen who perhaps shall be many years after may find in these places instructions they may have need of As Piety then ought to make us adore the infinite Charity of Jesus Christ residing upon our Altars and suffering for the good of his Elect all the outrages which he received there it ought not to incline us less to adore this same Charity which makes him endure the most scornful manner wherewith his Truth is Treated whether in pronouncing or in hearing it And it is very just to conclude that it would be the heighth of ingratitude not to expose our selves for the interest of Truth to receive some evil usage on the score of men seeing that God suffers every day that this Truth be exposed to so many disdains and to so many irreverences for our good 12. Nevertheless great care must be taken to keep this consideration of faults committed by those who pronounce the word of God within its just limits lest it should carry us too far and that as there appears little Light little Unction and often little Judgment in certain Sermons it make us not conclude that the Preacher is absolutely unprovided