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
nevertheless without Limits And there is reason sometimes which persuades them to dispence therewith There needs also often but a little provocation to noise abroad on a suddain what we had kept secret for a long time And moreover we have not been reserved in this manner but in speaking to the persons themselves whose faults were known to us But that which we dissembled in their presence we speak ordinarily more freely in their absence as we have had then more trouble to refrain It is true we govern our selves a little more reservedly in respect of those who can hurt us and we use more precaution to discover what men think of them But as it is an unsufferable Constraint to hide always these our sentiments the desire which we have to free our selves from them makes us easily put on Confidence enough to trust those to whom we speak and that there wants little or no reasons to incline us to declare our selves with freedom Now although these wicked Prodigalities which happen so often in the discourses men make are in themselves a very great evil seeing that whereas Charity doth oblige to tell Persons themselves of their faults to give them thereby means to Correct them and to hide them from others to favour them we do ordinarily quite contrary and speak of these faults to all the world except to those to whom it should be necessary to speak of them There might happen nevertheless from thence some good if we had a care to profit thereby Because these particular discourses spreading themselves by little and little and forming a publick Clamour there returns often thereby something to the ears of them it concerns because there are many found who having not Charity or Force enough to tell themselves what they think are glad to be discharged thereof by attributing it to others It would be then a means for those to whom it is discovered to draw them out of that Delusion wherein they live But we have such deceitful hearts and so full of aversion from any thing of Truth that we abuse very often this means and render it useless to our selves For instead of judging of these discourses and these opinions by which we are detracted as we ought they are spread abroad amongst an infinite number of persons and so we have not right to complain thereof to any particular body the inclination we have to deceive ourselves causeth us to turn all our malice against him who is charged therewith We persuade our selves that he is single in his opinion that he hath not entred thereupon but through hate or interest and that there is no man of sense and reason who does not condemn it We attribute to him likewise some Imprudence or some excess for pretending more right to reject those advices and by the means of this voluntary delusions we stifle the impression which these discourses might imprint in us we conserve our selves in the esteem we have of our selves and we avoid in some sort seeing what the world disapproved because it is an object or spectacle which vanity is not able to suffer 20. I have said that we shunt it in some sort because we do not shun it absolutely Truth always makes it self a little light through all those Clouds wherewith men strive to obscure it there pass always some rayes which incommode Pride and which trouble this false quiet which it endeavors to procure it self These opinions which are grounded only upon a voluntary error are never firm and sure They are always mixed with Mistrust and consequently with melancholy trouble and molestation So instead of this pure Joy and this full and entire satisfaction which self-love aimeth at all it can do with all its wiles is to suspend for some time the sentiments of sadness which are nourished at the bottom of the heart and which are always ready to seize thereon 21. These are the natural sentiments of Self-love and the addresses it makes use of to conceal our faults and to hinder people from telling us of them And it is remarkable that as it is in it self a very great fault not to see the truth so Self-love does not allow it no more than others Self-love does not use less artifice to disguise it to others then to our selves And therefore we see few or none who do not esteem it an honour to love truth and who do grant sincerely that they are not at quiet until it be discovered to them We are offended with this reproach as much as with any other and in a word we would have the glory to love Truth and the satisfaction never to hear it But as these two Passions in some sort do not hold together we endeavor to accord them in giving something to the one and to the other It is true that as it is Self-love which causeth this difference so it makes it very unequal For it brings it about that we are never told of those essential faults to which we are inclined by a quick and active Passion that we dissemble to those which get us ill will from men and which would give occasion to despise our selves and to believe that 't is with reason that others do slight us All the liberty therefore that we give to others upon this subject is to mind us of some small faults which do not disfigure the Image we have of our selves and which suffers the whole beauty thereof to remain Velut si egregio Impressos reprehendas Corpore naevos So we suffer men to declare their opinions of a Discourse or of a Writing which we have made to find fault therein with some expressions not very Just some bad Cadence some place neglected conditionally nevertheless that they esteem the design of it the Judgment the Oeconomy and the other more essential parts We pardon likewise those who advertise us of some want of respect of management and other trifles of this nature provided they do not touch upon our principal Passions and that all they observe in us may subsist with the esteem and approbation of the generality 'T is on these Conditions and at this rate we resolve with our selves sometimes to purchase glory love truth and give it some entrance yet it must be Self-love which opens it to it and that it be accompanied with testimonies of esteem and affection not to be slighted 22. In the second Part we shall speak more particularly of the ways men use to hinder that truth trouble them not in the esteem and love of themselves But what we have already said may suffice to shew that we extend too much those common Maxims that men naturally love truth that they have a natural aversion for what is false and that there being an Infinite of persons who would deceive others there are none at all who would be deceived seeing that it appears on the contrary that the world is almost composed of nothing but wilful blind people who hate and fly the light and
without so much as ever examining whether this example be satisfactory or not or whether they may be freed from it before God in alledging to him that they have followed the common tract and at last they know so well how to stop in this point their curiosity that they apprehend nothing more then to see it too clearly It is not my design to decide here any of these points which I have called Contested because there may be found persons in the Church who oppose them either as their opinions or a practicing them I say only that the quiet wherein those live who follow some base opinions without ever having examined them seriously is visibly unreasonable and cannot come except from the corruption of the heart from a hatred for Truth and from a desire which they have to satisfie their Passions not being troubled for it by remorse of Conscience and lastly from a fear of being obliged to Condemn themselves in respect of the time past and to change their manner of living for the time to come 'T is that which stifles their fear and hinders them from having in regard of their Salvation the same Sentiments which they approved in regard of all other things If some able Phisicians did tell them that such certain meats were poisoned they would willingly abstain from eating of them before they were assured that these Phisicians were mistaken If they had notice given them That there was a Design of taking away their lives that the houses were on Fire they would give little or no belief to those who should tell them the contrary without bringing them very good proof they would not be wanting to dive into the bottom of these advices nor could they be at quiet with themselves until they should be absolutely cleared of the truth thereof From whence happens it then that when they hear that rational and understanding persons are convinced That some things they practice are not permitted that they are capable to destroy them that they are Condemned by the Law of God as being Crimes they are nevertheless so little moved thereat that all seems to assure them From whence comes it that they take so little pains to examin to the bottom the occasion of this Judgment or Opinion which is against them or to discourse any of those who are perswaded of it but that they stop at certain superficial reasons and that provided they see themselves Authorized by a Rabble whom other times they esteem very little either for Judgment or Piety they think they have nothing to fear Who sees not that 't is their Passion that suspends their Reason and hides from them the most common rules of Sense which they cannot hinder themselves from seeing if they were not as it were tyed by their heart which fears to be disturbed in its Inclinations That which we ought to do to avoid this disorder so visible and so proper to cast us into and keep us in blindness is to establish for an inviolable Principle of our Conduct never to follow in the practical any of those opinions favourable to the inclination of Nature and which are condemned by able men unless we be fully assured that these men be deceived and in an excess of security Otherwise we shall not be able to free our selves from rashness and the unadvised Acts which we commit by following a Rule so preposterous ought to be a warning for us that we deceive not our selves even in the bottom and that 't is the aversion we have for Truth that hinders us from acknowledging it 17. It would not be sufficient to advance in the knowledge of ones self to be only instructed in the Principles of Truth by which we ought to judge of our Actions and of our State and Condition Because provided that we had never so little Sincerity to make the application of it 't would not be possible at least that our gross faults should remain absolutely unknown to us But to form to our selves the Idea which ought to be had thereof there must be added to the knowledge of Gods Laws that of his Grandeur of his Bounty the infinite obligations we have to him the Right which he hath over men in quality of Creator and Redeemer There must be added the necessary Consequences of Sin and we must look upon our selves as Sinners reduced to the last degree of unworthiness and annihilation Vide Domine considera quoniam sum vilis As deserving that all Creatures rise up against us as being unworthy of all the Consolations and Comforts of all the Assistance which we receive of him and lastly as having no right to complain of any bad usage because there is none which we do not deserve â—ut if we compare afterward those opinions which our Condition requires of us with those we really have with this violent inclination for greatness will this niceness and sensibility even in small and trivial things with this Tiranical propensity to be obnoxious to all men and to relate all to our selves it is impossible that we should not be amazed at so strange a Deposition and so opposite to Reason and Justice 18. Although these Considerations may be useful to all the World they are nevertheless proper particularly to those who return to God after great Strayings But there is another study of ones self much more tedious and difficult and which makes the exercise of the Just even during their whole life It consists in knowing those Passions Humors weaknesses defects deceits which self-love makes use of to hide them both from our selves and others and the secret Injustices wherein this Self-love engages us 'T is to what each one is obliged to apply himself unto with Care as to the chief means to advance himself therein for all the faults of the Just as well the small ones as the important ones do happen ordinarily only because they do not know themselves enough that they do not themselves justice enough and that they dissemble and keep close a great part of their faults from themselves 19. The perswasion wherein one ought to be as to the importance of this Duty and the application to practise it which ought to spring from it will make one presently discover a great number of faults For it is certain that that which ordinarily causes that the most part of our faults are unknown to us is because as soon as we perceive any of them we look another way taking them for objects which incommode us and so they make little or no impression upon our Minds Likewise we look upon them only separately as if we had only the fault which we are forced to see at that very moment All those we have observed in passing by remain as it were annihilated in regard of us The inclinations and customs which remain we reckon as nothing and stopping also only at simple actions and yet as slightly as possibly we can we never have time to form an Idea
because there is nothing in the world which destroys the Soul more which renders it more incapable of applying it self to God or which fills it more with vain fancies They are strange Prayers which are made coming from these Sights or from these lectures having the head filled with all the fooleries which they saw there Man is not able to procure to himself the Spirit of Prayer nor this Holy zeal which excites him when God pleaseth by meditation Et in meditatione mea exardescit ignis but the least that can be done is to put no obstacle by doing voluntarily what is directly opposite to this Spirit 27. God easily pardons the distractions which spring from the frailty of nature but he does not so with those which are voluntary in their sources such are those which Plays produce therefore there is reason to fear that all the Prayers of them who go to Plays being full of these kind of distractions are more capable to irritate God than to appease him and that they are of the number of those which the Prophet speaks of Et oratio ejus fiat in peccatum Let his Prayer be imputed to sin Now if their Prayers which ought to invite the Spirit of God over all the body of their Works are themselves defiled what ought men to judge of the rest of their actions Si lumen quod in te est tenebrae sunt ipsae tenebrae quantae erunt 28. One of these principal parts of Piety and one of the chief means to conserve it is to love the word of God and to place our Consolation therein 'T is by the sentiment of sweetness which the Prophet had tasted in this spiritual nutriment that he said to God Inventi sunt sermoneâ— tui Comedi eos factum est verbum tuum in gaudium in laetitiam Cordis mei I have found thy words and I have fed my self with them and they have fill'd my heart with joy and delight 'T is this Consolation so Divine which entertains our hopes according to St. Paul and which maintains us in the crosses of this life Now experience may make known to all the world that nothing doth destroy this spiritual Joy that men resent in the reading the word of God more than worldly and sensual joys and principally those of Plays These two joys are absolutely incompatible Those who please themselves with Plays are not so with Truth and those who take pleasure in Truth have nothing of satisfaction in those sorts of pleasures Therefore the same Prophet to whom God hath given this spiritual tast for his Word witnesseth presently after that he could not suffer assemblies of Games and Divertisements and that he put all his Glory and Joy to consider the wonderfulness of Gods handy-work Nonsedi cum concilio ludentium gloriolus sum à facie manus tuae And the Holy King David who had also tasted the sweetness of the Divine Law doth witness likewise the contempt it made him conceive of all vain discourses of worldly men Narraverunt mihi Iniqui fabulationes sed non lex tua 'T is the sentiment which the Holy Ghost inspires into all those to whom he gives a love for his Holy word All those Divertisements which are so agreeable to those who love the world are to them an unsavory meat which they cannot eat because they see nothing therein but emptiness naughtiness vanity and foolishness and find therein a want of the salt of Truth and Wisdom which causeth them to say with Job that they cannot taste it An poterit Comedi Insulsum quod non est sale Conditum Whâ—ther he could eat of this meat which was not seasoned with Salt But on the contrary if the Soul addict it self to these false pleasures she presently looses the pleasure of Spiritual ones and finds only the word of God unsavoury These are those sower Grapes whereof the Prophet speaks which set the Childrens Teeth on edge Omnis homo qui Comedit uvam acerbam obstupescent dentes ejus That is to say according to the explication of St. Gregory That when men feed of the vain joys of the World the spiritual sences become incapable of tasting and understanding Heavenly things Qui praesentis mundi delectatione pascitur Interni ejus sensus ligantur ut jam spiritualia mandere intelligere non valeant Now amongst the Delights which extinguish the love of Gods word It may be said that Plays and Romances are of the first magnitude because there is nothing more opposite to Truth and the Spirit of God as St. Bernard saith being a Spirit of Truth cannot take part with the vanity of this World Sed nec erit ei unquam pars cum mundi vanitate cum veritatis sit spiritus 29. God imputes not to us the coldness which comes from the substraction of his Lights or simply from the heaviness of the body but doubtless he imputes to us those which by our neglect we have contributed unto He wills that we esteem nothing so much as the precious gift he hath made us of his Love and that we be careful to embrace it in giving it nourishment 'T is the Command which he hath given to all Christians in the persons of the Priests of the antient Law to whom he orders to maintain always the fire upon the Altar and to be careful to add every day in the morning wood to it Ignis in Altari semper ardebit quem nutriet sacerdos subjiciens mane ligna per singulos dies This Altar is the heart of Man and every Christian is the Priest who ought to have a care to nourish upon the Altar of his heart the fire of Charity by putting thereto every day some wood that is to say in entertaining it by meditating of Holy things and by exercises of Piety Now if those who go to Plays have yet any sense of Piety they must necessarily grant that they absolutely extinguish and slay Devotion And thus they ought not to question but God will judge them culpable for having made so little account of his Love that instead of nourishing and of endeavouring to augment it they have not feared to extinguish it by their vain and foolish divertisements and that he will impute to them as a great sin this coldness or the loss of their Charity For if the dissipation of worldly Goods and of terrestrial Gold by Play and by Excess be not a small sin what ought men to think of the dissipation of the Goods of Grace and of this inflamed Gold the Scripture speaks of which we ought to buy at the loss of all the Goods and all the pleasures of this life 30. The Fathers blame as a dangerous rashness the conduct of those who being not as yet grounded in the love of God employ themselves with too much eagerness in outward good Works under pretence of Charity because it is difficult that the mind be not much dissipated in these exercises In
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