p. 283Of the Fear of the Evils Which Will Befall Us If We Neglect to Acquire Solid Virtue

It is impossible to consider seriously the contrast that exists between our life and faith, without experiencing a religious dread of the evils which impend over us if we do not promptly correct such an unfortunate discrepancy, and labour to attain perfection with all that energy which the excellence of virtue merits. So salutary an influence does this fear exert over the resolutions of our will, that God Himself, in Scripture, frequently solicits us to good by the apprehension of evil: it also gives wings to the soul on which it rapidly ascends to the summit of perfection. Consequently, it is most important that we should excite and maintain it within our hearts. To attain this desirable end, let us reflect on the rigorous account we shall have to render after death, and the risk we run of losing our souls if we do not practise solid virtue.

Article I

Of the rigorous account we shall have to render after death

This account, which God shall one day demand of us, is already a subject of dread to the faithful soul who reflects—1, on the anguish which precedes the moment in which it shall have to quit this life; 2, on the examination it shall have to undergo; 3, on the unimpeachable authority of the witnesses that shall give evidence against it; 4, and lastly, on the severity of the irrevocable sentence which shall be pronounced.

1. The anguish which precedes judgment at the hour of death

Scripture offers us several instances of the overwhelming desolation of the sinner at the approach of death. The unjust steward who ‘had wasted his master’s goods,’¹1Luke xvi. 1. the foolish virgins ‘who did not take oil with them,’²2Matt. xxv. 3. the slothful servant ‘who hid in the earth the talent that had been confided to him,’³3Ibid. xxv. 25. symbolise a soul to whom God has granted the most powerful succours for the attainment of sanctity, but who, through a criminal sloth, has neglected to turn them to account, or has even completely abused them. What has not this disobedient and ungrateful soul to fear? ‘Thou canst be steward no longer,’⁴4Luke xvi. 1. ‘the door is shut, I know thee not,’⁵5Matt. xxv. 12. are the awful precursors, the dreadful harbingers of the sentence which shall one day be pronounced against it. The terror of the wicked steward, the anguish of the slothful servant, the desolation of the foolish virgins at the time of the terrible wrath of their master and spouse, are a striking picture of the fear and horror which shall seize upon and torment the culprit in punishment for having forgotten the care of his perfection. The horror of the impious Balthasar ‘when there appeared, as it were, the fingers of a hand writing on the wall,’ the sudden alteration of his countenance, the shuddering through all his limbs, the ‘loosening of the joints of his loins,’ the convulsive trembling of ‘his knees striking against each other,’⁶6Dan. v. 5, 6. the consternation of his soul, was but a shadow, a faint indication of the p. 284tremendous fear which shall secretly torment, shall rend in anticipation, the soul of the sinner when, on the point of appearing at the bar of divine justice, he recalls his criminal contempt of grace and virtue. I say secretly: because, in order that the figure might be more complete, Balthasar alone, according to the opinion of several doctors, saw the mysterious hand that traced the decree of his condemnation in unknown characters on the wall: this fearful vision was concealed from the courtiers who surrounded him: but they concluded from his terror, the deadly pallor of his countenance, and his cries, which resounded through the palace, that he had been struck by an awful apparition.

This is a close approximation to what occurs to those new prodigal children who squander grace, and concern themselves but little about their sanctification. They alone behold with the eye of their conscience the hand of divine justice writing ‘against them the decree of its wrath:’⁷7Job xiii. 26. the tempest which interiorly agitates their soul at that momentous crisis is invisible to those who surround their death-bed; but the fearful and haggard movement of the culprit’s eyes, the perspiration which covers his brow, the shuddering of his limbs, the contortion of his features, betray with silent eloquence the interior dismay, the horror and desolation which rack his soul.

A long catalogue might be given, of even religious persons who, for having resisted holy inspirations, and neglected their spiritual advancement, fell into such fearful anxiety at the hour of death on reflecting on the rigorous account they would soon have to render, that the assistants sometimes feared to see them become the p. 285victims of despair. The reason is that the time of retaliation is come, and the grace we have despised arms itself with remorse to avenge itself upon us.

St. Jerome relates that St. Hilarion, being on the point of death, and experiencing deep uneasiness concerning his eternal destiny, only encouraged himself to confidence with a kind of diffidence: ‘Go forth, my soul,’ said he, ‘what fearest thou? Go forth, do not hesitate. What! Thou hast served Jesus Christ for nearly seventy years and thou fearest death!’ My God! if the language of Hilarion, that man of consummate sanctity, who had spent seventy years in severe penance, is that of fear, what shall we sinners say? If this illustrious anchorite trembles for his salvation at the hour of death, if he is filled with apprehension at the approach of judgment, what shall not we have to dread, we who, called to perfection, have steeled our hearts; who, by the obstinate abuse of grace, have grovelled so long in the mire of our evil habits? Oh, how intimidated and anxious shall our soul be; how disturbed shall it be in our last moments! and how terrible a preparation are those first disquietudes for the account which remains for us to render!

2. The rigorous examination which our Judge will make

However, those anticipated fears of a soul in its last agony are but a faint picture of the consternation which shall take possession of it on its entrance into eternity, when it shall appear before the dread Tribunal to be judged. Then shall commence an awful scene, in which severity on the one side and anguish and dismay on the other shall predominate over every other sentiment. p. 286Justice alone, unmitigated by mercy, shall occupy the throne of vengeance, the Omnipotent shall brandish His sword, the Judge shall be the ‘God who is not a respecter of persons,’⁸8Acts x. 34. who does not allow Himself to be influenced by favour or moved by compassion, or bribed by money, or appeased by tardy satisfaction;⁹9St. Aug. on Creed. ‘the God to whom all secrets are laid open, all the mysteries of the soul revealed, by whom all darkness is enlightened, before whom silence itself gives evidence, and the soul gives testimony without the intervention of words.’¹⁰10St. Chrys. Homil. This infinitely wise, severe, inexorable Judge; this Judge, whose indignation will increase in proportion to our negligence in the practice of virtue, ‘will contend with thee in judgment.’¹¹11Jerem. ii. 35. Oh, faithless soul, ‘He will reprove thee, He will set before thy face,’¹²12Ps. xlix. 21. and ‘He will bring to judgment all the things that thou hast done.’¹³13Eccli. xii. 14. He will deduct what thou hast returned from what He has given thee, and will decide with strict justice what still remains for thee to pay. Withdrawing the thick veil which shrouds thy conscience, He will unite in one picture, irradiated by heavenly light, all the years of thy life with all the continuity of graces which thou hast abused, so that with a single glance thou wilt behold them clearly and distinctly.

‘The brightness of God,’ says the apostle, ‘will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of our hearts:’¹⁴141 Cor. iv. 5. ‘more piercing than any two-edged sword, it will reach into the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow.’ The divine eye which ‘discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart,’¹⁵15Heb. iv. 12. shall, as the apostle here insinuates, make, with the rapidity of lightning, a complete anatomy of our soul. As the skilful anatomist knows how to seek out with the scalpel even the minutest fibres which enter into the structure of the body, to distinguish the difference between them and understand the nature and properties of each, so ‘the God who searcheth the reins and hearts’¹⁶16Apoc. ii. 23. will bring to the scrutiny of our lives, the analysis of our acts, that vivid light which dissipates all shadows and mysteries. By the torch of His wisdom He will examine in detail all the faculties of our soul, and their operations with all the defects which have accompanied them. He will unfold to view the multitude and the malice of these defects. He will recall to our minds each separate opportunity which we have possessed of attaining perfection and practising virtue. He will manifest to us, without a possibility of our disowning it, all the holy inspirations and all the succours of grace that have been afforded us. What time has buried in oblivion, what the depravity of our nature has contemned as scruples, what the indulgence of our spiritual guides, the customs of the world, the hurry of business, the seductions of the heart, have extenuated, excused, even absolved in our own eyes, shall all be cited anew to the examen and weighed in a just balance. At present our conscience is as a paper written on, but folded and crumpled, which presents only illegible characters and some unconnected syllables, of which we cannot decipher the meaning; but then this book shall be opened, it shall be exposed to all eyes, and they shall be able to read there distinctly the whole history of our life and perceive all its p. 287circumstances in their minutest details. Oh, what a fearful picture shall then meet our gaze! our own sins and the sins of others of which we may have been the cause and which we have never confessed; our omissions in the discharge of our duties, our negligences, of which we did not even suspect ourselves guilty—what do I say? the very virtues and good works which we imagined we had performed, all shall combine to overwhelm us with confusion and dismay. In presence of the Sun of Justice ‘all our justices shall appear as soiled linen.’¹⁷17Isaias lxiv. 6. The fruits of virtue which we persuaded ourselves were worthy of being presented at the table of the Bridegroom, shall appear to us but as ‘bad figs, very bad;’¹⁸18Jerem. xxiv. 3. grapes of gall, and most bitter grapes,¹⁹19Deut. xxxii. 32. fit only to attract upon us the wrath of God instead of entitling us to His rewards.

Our actions, to be meritorious in the sight of God, must be good in their nature, their motive, their end, and the manner in which they are performed. The absence of a single one of these conditions suffices to render them defective and reprehensible. A commencement of tepidity, of inordinate attachment, of vain glory, increasing and gaining strength in our heart, will, perhaps, soon corrupt them in their basis, and, by a fatal transmutation, such an action, which might have won a title to glory for us, is liable to become the source of our shame and misfortune.

But, if we measure all our works by this rule, shall we find even one of them irreproachable? ‘Alas!’ cries out St. Gregory the Great, ‘subjected to the scrutiny of divine justice, our justice shall be but injustice, and the eye of the Judge will dim the splendour with which, we p. 288flattered ourselves, we had invested it while performing it.’ Oh, heavens! what we called zeal for the glory of God shall appear to have been but the desire of our own glory; what we regarded as the offspring of wisdom, fortitude, and temperance, shall be rejected as so many acts of dissimulation, obstinacy, and avarice; what we now adorn with the mantle of charity, discretion, renunciation, will reveal to every view, when the veil shall be withdrawn, nothing but immortification, revenge, and sensual gratification. In a word, we shall behold with mournful astonishment that those very actions on which we had plumed ourselves, and on which we had rested our hopes, have been worthless straw, which an expiatory fire will quickly consume: we shall see that when we might have exalted them to the rank of supernatural actions, their merit has been deteriorated by our negligence in tending to perfection, by our criminal resistance of countless graces, of which we shall then have to render an account so much the more severe for that we have taken so little care to profit by them.

Now, in our thoughtlessness, we feel no more regret for the irreparable loss of so many salutary inspirations which might have conducted us to sublime sanctity, than at the melting of a snowflake; we laugh at it as at a trifle; but what a revulsion of feelings we shall experience when, by the light of the mortuary candle and of the day of eternity which approaches, recognising our error, we shall see ourselves on the point of appearing before an exasperated Judge, and of rendering Him an account of our contempt of grace and virtue!

Oh, with what harrowing fear shall we be filled when these appalling words shall break upon our ear: count, weigh, separate. Count the graces which have been granted thee during thy life . . . . how great is their number! . . . . weigh their value in the scales of the sanctuary . . . . it is inestimable and infinite. Separate the good use from the abuse thou hast made of them . . . . Alas! how much the latter exceeds the former! Compare the numberless aids which have been lavished on thee, with the unpardonable indifference with which thou hast received them; compare their value with the little esteem thou hast set on them; consider the degree of virtue to which thou mightest have attained, and that at which thou hast stopped short. What shall we say to these reproaches which our Judge shall make to justify His wrath? Let us reflect: what reply shall we be able to make?

We must bear in mind that at that tremendous moment no excuse will be admitted. All those sophisms, specious motives, mendacious reasons, with which we palliated our culpable rejection of grace and our forgetfulness of perfection during life, shall vanish as a shadow in presence of the divine light. ‘Tears and prayers shall no longer avail us, for “the time of mercy shall be passed.”’²⁰20Ps. ci. 14. No place of refuge shall remain to us, for the divine justice, ‘high as the mountain and deep as the abyss,’²¹21Ibid. xxxv. 7. shall encompass us on all sides. At that terrible moment we would gladly give a thousand kingdoms and all the treasures of the world for one single inspiration of the Holy Ghost; but we shall not obtain it. We would consent to undergo the torments of purgatory for long years to purchase one ray of grace at that price; but our desire shall be unavailing. We shall cry out amid groans of anguish: ‘Oh! if one hour, one brief moment were granted to me!’ But that moment shall p. 289not be given, ‘time shall be no longer.’²²22Apoc. x. 6. When those graces were at our disposal we would not profit by them; now by a just retaliation they are withdrawn from us when we would fain be faithful to them. The abuse of so many graces, and the contempt of virtue which we might easily have carried to a high degree, is then the motive most calculated to aggravate the rigour of the judgment we shall have to undergo, and to render it more dreadful to us.

3. The unimpeachable authority of the witnesses

Two veracious witnesses shall depose against us at this judgment. We shall alone sustain their accusations. Their crushing testimony shall augment the severity of the account we shall have to render. These two witnesses are our faith and our conscience: they are ‘the books’ which shall be opened ‘in presence of the Throne, on the contents of which the dead shall be judged according to their works.’²³23Ibid. xx. 12. Yes, unfortunate soul! thy conscience, in concert with reason, shall accuse thee as man; thy faith shall testify against thee as a Christian: the latter will recall the dogmas thou hast believed, the former the helps of which thou hast been the recipient; the one will exclaim: thou shouldst have become a saint, and a great saint; the other will add, thou couldst have done so in consequence of the truths thou hast known; thou couldst have done so owing to the graces that have been lavished on thee. Thou shouldst have done so on account of thy vocation to the religious state and to the priesthood, on account of the important office which thou hast filled; thou couldst have done so on account of the numberless graces attached to thy state, the opportunities thou hast had of practising virtue, and the edifying example of many others, who, in the same condition, place, and even employment as thou, have attained to the perfection of justice. In a word, thou couldst and shouldst have aspired to high sanctity. Such shall be the testimony of thy faith, thy conscience and thy reason combined, a testimony confirmed by the irrevocable sentence which shall be pronounced by the eternal and thrice-holy God. What harrowing confusion shall we not experience at that moment when, fully convinced of the truth of these depositions, we shall be compelled to acknowledge that, notwithstanding the aids granted to us, we have lived only as indifferent Christians? That our heart has been ‘that field of the slothful man all covered with nettles;’²⁴24Prov. xxiv. 31. ‘that vineyard’ of the foolish man ‘from which they looked for good fruit, and which has only brought forth wild grapes;’²⁵25Isaias v. 24. that barren ‘fig-tree’²⁶26Luke xiii. 7. of the Gospel, which has so long disappointed the expectations of the father of the family.

Oh, my soul! how great shall be thy consternation when thou shalt behold thyself as an accursed vineyard about to be trampled under the feet of beasts: bereft of the hedge and wall, cut down and cast into devouring flames! When thou shalt find thyself repulsed by the saints, whose example thou hast disdained; by thy angel guardian, whose counsels thou hast despised; by the Mother of all goodness, whose protection thou hast slighted; and lastly, by thy own ‘conscience, whose testimony shall justify’²⁷27Rom. ii. 15. the indignation of ‘all creatures armed against thee for vengeance!’²⁸28Wisd. v. 13. What will become of thee when He who is mercy itself, who has so tenderly p. 290borne with thee till now, averting His face from thee, harshly repulses thee from His throne of clemency to deliver thee up to the tribunal of justice; when, reproaching thee with thy apathy in the practice of virtue, He pronounces an awful and irrevocable sentence against thee, and invokes all the rigours of divine wrath to avenge His outraged justice?

4. The severity of the sentence

With what awful consternation shall we not be seized when we behold the ‘Ancient of days seated on His throne of fire, and a swift stream of fire issuing forth from before Him!’²⁹29Dan. vii. 9, 10. When we hear this great God from the midst of thunder and lightning ‘pronouncing His judgments’³⁰30Jerem. i. 16. against us, and appealing to heaven and earth as arbiters of the equity of His decrees. ‘Judge between me and my vineyard, what is there that I could do’ more ‘for my vineyard that I have not done to it?’³¹31Isaias v. 4. Oh, ungrateful souls! ‘I have called you’ to great perfection, to a high degree of sanctity, and ‘you have refused me;’³²32Prov. i. 24. I have loaded you with numberless and infinitely precious graces purchased at the price of my blood, and you have despised them. ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love;’³³33Jerem. xxxi. 3. ‘I have protected you as the apple of my eye;’³⁴34Deut. xxxii. 6. ‘I have carried you in my bosom as the nurse is wont to carry the little infant,’³⁵35Numb. xi. 12. ‘and you have forsaken me;’³⁶36Judges x. 13. ‘you have repaid me evil for good and hatred for my love,’³⁷37Ps. cviii. 5. ‘these things you have done and I was silent;’³⁸38Ibid. xlix. 21. ‘I have kept silence, I have been patient,’³⁹39Isaias xlii. 14. for long years; but now ‘I will speak as a man p. 291in the extremity of pain, I will destroy and annihilate all.’⁴⁰40Isaias xlii. 14. ‘In the day of my revenge’⁴¹41Ibid. xxxiv. 8. ‘I will pour upon you my indignation and all my fierce anger.’⁴²42Sophon. iii. 8. I will say to the ministers of my justice: ‘take away from him his talent and cast the unprofitable servant into exterior darkness’⁴³43Matt. xxv. 28, 30. that he may expiate in devouring flames his culpable neglect of solid virtue.

What shall be our thoughts at this moment? ‘Oh, tepid soul,’ cries out St. Bernard, ‘if thou awakest not completely, if thou tremblest not at the sound of these awful denunciations, thou art buried, not in sleep but in death.’⁴⁴44Serm. on Cant. ‘For,’ continues the same saint, ‘what is there more to be feared, what is more calculated to fill us with anxiety and mortal terror, than the idea of presenting ourselves before the awful tribunal to be judged, and to await the irrevocable decree of so rigid a Judge?’⁴⁵45Serm. on Ps. xc.

‘O God! whose wrath none can resist,’⁴⁶46Job ix. 13. ‘to whose eyes all things are naked and open;’⁴⁷47Heb. iv. 13. ‘what shall I do when Thou shalt rise to judge, and when thou shalt examine what shall I answer Thee?’⁴⁸48Job xxxi. 14. ‘Who shall withstand Thy judgment!’⁴⁹49Wisd. xii. 12. ‘The Lord is wise in heart and mighty in strength: what am I then that I should answer Him or have words with Him?’⁵⁰50Job ix. 4, 14. ‘Alas! the heavens are not pure in His sight, and He has found stains in His angels’⁵¹51Imit. b. iii. ch. 44. since ‘no man living shall be justified in His presence,’⁵²52Ps. cxlii. 4. how should I not fear these withering reproaches: ‘I find not thy works full;’⁵³53Apoc. iii. 3. ‘thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting.’⁵⁴54Dan. v. 27. For this reason, Lord, ‘my bones have trembled with fear, and my soul is filled with terror when Thy judgments befall me.’⁵⁵55Imit. b. iii. ch. 14. p. 292Nevertheless, as the rigorous account I shall one day have to render should I have neglected my perfection is a powerful stimulus to labour strenuously for its attainment, ‘pierce my flesh’ more and more ‘with Thy fear, that I may fear Thy judgments still more,’⁵⁶56Ps. cxviii. 120. and soften its severity by leading a more holy life.

Article II

Of the danger of our being lost

1. There are some who will be lost if they do not attain to high sanctity

Whatever reason we may have to tremble in reflecting on the rigorous account they shall have to render who abuse grace, instead of making it tend to their sanctification, the danger to which the greater number of those who neglect to acquire solid virtue expose themselves is a motive no less calculated to inspire us with a salutary fear. Such a danger appears to us so much the more probable in that the Holy Ghost seems to wish to warn us of it in several places of Scripture, and that we may regard it as a certain truth that there are men who shall be damned if they do not become perfect: men for whom there is no medium, who if they do not attain a high degree of sanctity shall be lost. Let us explain our proposition.

God, the supreme Arbiter of our destiny, has determined that for certain souls, salvation can be attainable only on the condition of their rendering themselves worthy to occupy a more or less high place in heaven, if not of the first, at least of the second, third, or even the last rank. He does not call them absolutely and exclusively to such a special degree of more exalted p. 293glory, so that, according to His decree, they shall not be excluded from heaven for having neglected to acquire a superior merit: they may still be admitted there in a inferior, or even in the lowest rank which God destined for them; not, however, that God is resolved with an unlimited determination to save them, nor that they can authorise themselves to an indefinite imperfection in corresponding with grace; but the Divine Goodness deigns to allow them a certain latitude in this point within the limits of which they will work out their salvation.

I shall presume to say, suiting the counsels of Almighty Wisdom to the weak compass of human understanding, that the sovereign Master forms this resolution within Himself: I destine such a sublime throne in heaven for this soul should it correspond faithfully with all the graces which I will bestow upon it; should it, on the contrary, resist some of them and only correspond with the more considerable ones, I will still admit it to heaven, but to a lower place.

Let us see whether such are in effect the designs of God with regard to a great number of souls. The greater number of saints, had they corresponded with perfect fidelity to all the graces conferred on them, without ever resisting any, would now enjoy a more perfect felicity. But having through human frailty sometimes turned a deaf ear to the divine inspirations, they possess a less brilliant crown, and occupy a less resplendent throne; though it is certain that in the designs of God they were destined to a more sublime rank, had not their weakness and inconstancy occasionally rendered them unfaithful. It is true, therefore, that God, in predestining them from the commencement to a high degree of glory, did not wish to deprive them of an inferior one should they not fully correspond with their first election.

There are souls, on the contrary, whom God prevents with special graces, whom He loves with a more special love, ‘whom He bears graven on His hands and incessantly before His eyes,’⁵⁷57Isaias xlix. 16. souls whom He calls so absolutely to such a degree of eternal glory, that if they do not attain to it by a corresponding degree of perfection never shall they partake in the happiness of the saints, even in an inferior grade. Here again we shall take the liberty of portraying the Almighty to ourselves as issuing forth His irrevocable decree: I will grant to such a soul a determined number of the most precious graces; should it by the good use it makes of them arrive at such a degree of sanctity, I will also elevate it to a corresponding perfection of the intuitive vision. But should it ungratefully defeat the excess of My bounty by neglecting to practise such particular virtues in their perfection, not only will I not grant this sublime glory to which I have destined it, but I will even withdraw My efficacious graces from it; I will allow it to fall into and die in mortal sin, and thus perish eternally.

For such souls, then, there is no medium: if they are not perfect in sanctity, they shall be reprobates; if they are not first in the kingdom of heaven they shall occupy no place there; if they fail to become perfect they shall be lost. God has so absolutely attached their final perseverance to this degree of justice that, failing to attain it, they shall be deprived of victorious graces, and shall not gain any degree of sanctity; on the contrary, they shall fall into sin and forfeit their salvation. Scripture is replete with examples which prove that God in His p. 294adorable and inscrutable designs has from all eternity resolved to pursue this conduct in their regard. We read in the Gospel that Jesus Christ ‘calling unto Him a little child set him in the midst of His disciples and said to them: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted and become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’⁵⁸58Matt. xviii. 3. That is to say, as Lyranus interprets it, ‘unless you be converted from your ambition and become as little children by imitating their docility, unless you generously exert yourselves to acquire that sublime degree of submission which naturally characterises children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Here our Saviour threatens His disciples, not merely with being excluded from the rank of great saints and the first heralds of the Christian faith, but He likewise menaces them with a total exclusion from His kingdom.

We may reason thus: the apostles would have perished eternally had they not hearkened to the admonitions of Jesus Christ; this, without doubt, is the meaning of the decisive words ‘unless you become as children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Now, in all probability this exclusion would not have been the direct and immediate result of the ambition which then predominated over them and originated their dispute concerning the priority of rank, since it is a unanimous opinion of theologians that this reprehensible desire of superiority did not amount to mortal sin. And yet they would have been eternally exiled from heaven had they not observed, from the first, that degree of humility to which a special inspiration of grace, and the word of their divine Master incited them. Assuredly this one defect, as it then existed in the apostles, was not sufficient cause for their p. 295perdition; and nevertheless God had so attached their eternal happiness to a certain determinate degree of perfection, that a neglect of the acquisition of it would have led them into mortal sin, and finally into the irreparable ruin of their souls. It is certain, therefore, that there may be souls who shall be lost should they not arrive at the perfection to which God invites them, since the apostles themselves, our masters and doctors in the faith, were not exempted from this fearful alternative.

But the following is a still more striking proof of this truth. Our Lord, addressing St. Peter before the last supper, said to him: ‘If I wash thee not thou shalt have no part with Me.’⁵⁹59John xiii. 8. St. Peter’s opposition to the desire of our Saviour: ‘Thou shalt never wash my feet,’⁶⁰60Ibid. though blameworthy, has been always excused from mortal sin; however, several interpreters, particularly Salmeron, Lyranus, Simon of Cassia, after St. Augustine and St. Basil, believe that by these words: ‘Thou shalt have no part with Me,’ Jesus Christ threatened His apostle with the loss of his soul. Consequently, had not St. Peter removed the obstacle to his sanctification by overcoming the repugnance suggested by misplaced humility, and thus reached to the degree of blind obedience to which the will of his Master called him, instead of the eminent glory which he now enjoys, he would have been condemned to everlasting flames. Let us then a second time conclude that for some there is no medium: if they do not merit to be the first in heaven they will not even enjoy the last places.

A third example, also taken from the Gospel, gives new strength to our opinion. Our Lord wished to call a young man to high sanctity, and He deigned to do so in these terms: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give it to the poor, and come follow Me. And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples! Amen I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven; it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.’⁶¹61Matt. xix. 21 and fol.

Oh, fearful words! by which the eternal Wisdom teaches us that this young man, although he had preserved his innocence unspotted until then, had just exposed his salvation to imminent peril by refusing to tend to the perfection to which God called him.

This it was that was signified by the mournful glance which the Saviour then cast upon him and by the sigh with which He uttered the sad words: ‘How difficult it is for such men to enter the kingdom of heaven! it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.’ Alas! these words forcibly express how perilous is the position of the soul of that poor young man! And, according to several authors, there is reason to believe that he really incurred damnation.

O God! this young man entertained an ardent desire of salvation. ‘What good shall I do,’ said he, ‘that I may have life everlasting; what is yet wanting to me? He had kept all the commandments from his youth:’ he had never committed mortal sin, he had preserved his innocence intact: ‘Jesus Christ looking at him had loved him’ for his purity of heart. And yet it is considered with much probability that he afterwards fell into mortal sin and perished eternally for having resisted his vocation to great sanctity. The reason is, that for him also there was no medium between sublime holiness and perdition.

A similar fate awaited the Bishop of Ephesus, had he not hearkened to the admonition given him by St. John on the part of God: ‘These things saith He who holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them that are evil. Thou hast endured much for my name and hast not fainted, and thou hatest the actions of the Nicolaites; but I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first charity. Be mindful, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and do penance; or else I will come to thee and will move thy candlestick out of its place.’⁶²62Apoc. ii. 1 and fol. Such are the awful menaces which the Almighty commands St. John to make to this bishop. Cornelius à Lapide, and many other interpreters, believe this bishop to have been St. Timothy, the beloved disciple of St. Paul. His hatred of vice, his zeal and suffering for the glory of God, his patience in bearing adversity for the sake of the faith, were such as to merit the most magnificent eulogiums from Jesus Christ in this very place: on the contrary, the defect with which he is reproached does not amount to a venial sin: it was the commencement of tepidity, a slight diminution of the fervour with which he had first devoted himself to God and the salvation of souls.

And still had he not promptly divested himself of his apathy, and constantly tended to perfection, he was threatened on the part of God with the removal of his candlestick.⁶³63It seems that this bishop had relaxed in preaching the word of God in his zeal for the conversion of the Ephesians, owing to the resistance of the Jews and Gentiles, who paid idolatrous worship to Diana of Ephesus. Whether through weakness and tepidity, human prudence or the desire of peace, he began to labour less strenuously and lost a little of his first zeal for the promulgation of the Gospel: but this inconsiderable relaxation only amounted to a venial sin.—Cornelius a Lapide, ‘Commentary on the Apoc.’ Some commentators, it is true, think that the change of candlestick signifies degradation from the episcopate⁶⁴64I will remove your candlestick; that is to say, I will deprive you of your see, you shall no longer be its bishop.—Ibid. and other canonical penalties to which the tepid minister would have been subjected had he not done penance; but many believe with as much reason that this expression should be understood as referring to the loss of his soul if, instead of returning to his former fervour, he had continued to relax in perfection. But what reply shall those evangelical labourers make, who, notwithstanding the spiritual torpor in which they are plunged and the lamentable habit they have contracted of fulfilling their religious exercises with carelessness and sloth, still flatter themselves with the hope of an everlasting recompense, because they labour much for God, prevent disorders, and suffer many adversities. The Bishop of Ephesus had performed these and many still more excellent works, and yet he was not the less liable to lose his salvation had he not laboured with more fervour and constancy for the acquisition of very high perfection. The reason is, that ‘the judgments of God are a profound abyss,’⁶⁵65Ps. xxxv. 7. they are equally adorable and awful, but the more dreadful for that similar examples are of daily occurrence.

St. Teresa, that virgin so enlightened in the ways of God, so illustrious for her virtues and piety, understood by a vision accorded to her by the divine mercy, that hell would be her portion unless she broke off some over-familiar though innocent relations which existed between her and one of her friends, and if, content with p. 297the ordinary virtue she practised, she omitted to aspire higher. A new proof that there are some souls who must belong wholly to God, or they can have no part with Him.

Besides, if it is certain that there are many in the world who are called to the religious state and who imperil their salvation by disobeying their vocation, why should it not be equally credible that those who are called to a more exalted sanctity incur a similar risk when they close their ears to the pressing solicitations of the Divine voice? If infidelity to the religious vocation is not free from danger to salvation, how can infidelity to the particular grace which inspires us to practise solid virtue fail to terrify us? It is therefore quite consistent with the principles of reason, and is even proved by facts, that for many there is no medium: if they are not great saints, never shall they behold the face of God.

2. It is probable that we are of that number

The talents we have received, the precious and numberless graces that have been lavished on us; the continual and powerful aids that have been bestowed on us for the acquisition of virtue; finally, the special providence which has conducted us from our earliest youth through so many wonderful circumstances, and notwithstanding so many obstacles and such multiform dangers, to a kind of life in which our vocation expressly obliges us under the pain of mortal sin to tend to perfection, are so many conclusive arguments that we are probably of the number of those who shall be either great saints or reprobates. To so many proofs let us add the perpetual lights and inspirations which incite us to holiness, p. 298the remorse of conscience which accuses and condemns our tepidity. These are convincing proofs that God demands more of us than of many others, and that He likewise menaces our resistance with more rigorous chastisements.

Since ‘God ordereth all things sweetly, and reacheth from end to end mightily,’ ‘so, when He destines a man for anything great,’ says St. Bernardine of Siena, ‘He gives him all the means necessary for the attainment of that end: hence, we must conclude that when His adorable Providence has combined great qualifications for success in any individual, He intends without doubt to demand great and generous actions of him. When the Lord appointed Moses and Josue, the one the legislator, the other the leader of His people; Jeremias a prophet of Israel; John the precursor of the Messiah; Joseph the guardian and protector of Jesus, He bestowed abundantly upon them all the qualities and virtues that their exalted missions required; but He at the same time exacted from them a sublime sanctity, an heroic fidelity, an unalterable perseverance in well-doing. And who can tell but that they would have been deprived of eternal happiness had they failed to correspond sufficiently with the intentions of God?

But gratitude prohibits our ignoring the signal favours and powerful aids with which the Almighty ceases not to surround us. Edifying examples, religious instructions, pious books, retreats, charitable admonitions, daily meditation, examen of conscience, the frequentation of the sacraments, are so many evidences of God’s fidelity in enabling us to make solid progress in perfection. Now, as this adorable Author of all good cannot grant us the graces and helps necessary for any end whatsoever without proposing to Himself the accomplishing of that end, is it not clear that His object in bestowing so many graces on us is that He invites us to great sanctity? And have we not then reason to conclude also that God has perhaps destined us by such an express will for such a sublime degree of eternal felicity, that if we do not positively obtain this high place in heaven by the practice of great sanctity on earth, we shall not even be admitted to an inferior rank, but that, on the contrary, that efficacious grace shall be withdrawn from us, and we shall fall into mortal sin and be lost for ever. In a word, should we not fear to expose ourselves to the imminent danger of losing our salvation if we neglect to acquire solid virtue?

Reason forbids our leaving anything to chance in an affair of this importance: faith tells us that where there is question of eternity we should select the most secure means; and the charity we owe our souls earnestly implores us not to expose it to the danger of an irreparable ruin. It is not certain that a mediocre virtue will save us; on the contrary, we have every reason to believe that we are of the number of those who, if they are not great saints, shall be damned; we would therefore be guilty of an inexcusable imprudence, an utter insanity, did we not endeavour to secure interests of such momentous importance. ‘God,’ we say, ‘may not perhaps have resolved to act thus in our regard: perhaps He has not attached our salvation to such a precise degree of sanctity that wanting it we cannot be permitted to enter heaven in an inferior one.’ Perhaps . . . . Oh, what a lamentable word! perhaps God has not resolved, has not attached! . . . . But perhaps also He has resolved, perhaps he has attached . . . . Will p. 299we then stake our eternity on a perhaps? . . . will we risk heaven for an event so uncertain?

Oh, the madness of men! In our alliances, our transactions, in lending money, we take the greatest precautions, we require the amplest securities. But in the affair of salvation we are satisfied with uncertainty, the risk we run gives us no concern. Ah! I conjure thee who meditatest on these truths not to inflict on thyself an injury which may endure eternally: yield to my entreaties, choose the wiser part. For, although thou art ignorant whether thou be of those for whom there is no middle course, although possibly the mercy of God may have resolved to treat thee with more lenity; still thou wilt never repent of thy perseverance and the efforts thou hast made to tend to perfection: whereas thou mayest perhaps eternally bewail thy negligence. It is a positive fact that a similar sloth has ruined many and caused regret to thousands. For thy part engrave this salutary maxim indelibly in thy heart: ‘there are some who, if they are not great saints, shall be lost.’ Then add, ‘it is even probable that I am of that number owing to the precious and multiplied gifts that I have received both from nature and grace: I should apprehend the being damned should I not become perfect.’ Weigh these reflections, and see what thou art determined to do. Thy immortal soul is the stake; the means of ensuring salvation is solid virtue. Unless Thou labour courageously and generously for the acquisition of this virtue, thou art threatened with an eternal expatriation from heaven. From these premisses judge what resolution thou shouldst form. O God! ‘terrible in Thy counsels over the sons of men!’⁶⁶66Ps. lxv. 5. I fear Thy Judgments,⁶⁷67Ibid. cxviii. 120. p. 300because they are ‘a profound abyss.’⁶⁸68Ps. xxxv. 7. But I fear my malice still more. It is that which exposes me to the rigorous account I shall have to give and to the danger of losing my soul. But, my God, ‘the abyss’ of my malice ‘calls upon the abyss’⁶⁹69Ibid. xli. 8. of Thy mercy. Grant me grace ‘to work out my salvation with fear and trembling,’⁷⁰70Philipp. ii. 12. and by good works ‘to make my election sure.’⁷¹712 Pet. viii. 10. Grant that I may ‘walk circumspectly, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days’ of my past life ‘are evil.’⁷²72Ephes. iii. 15. Grant me the courage to apply myself as far as possible to the attainment of perfection, lest I hear this fearful decree issued against me: ‘Behold, I will stretch out my hand upon thee and will take away thy justification.’⁷³73Ezech. xvi. 27.

Article III

Of the means of mitigating the severity of the account we shall have to render, and of avoiding the danger of being lost.

The fear of the evils induced by the neglect of perfection can only be salutary and efficacious, in so far as it is a practical not a sterile fear, a fear which determines us to study the remedies of these evils in order that, by a judicious application of them, we may insure the cure of our soul and destroy the cause of the terror of which it might be the prey on leaving this world. It is with this object in view that I am about to point out some means of softening the rigour of the account we shall have to give and of averting the danger of perdition.

1. Means of mitigating the severity of the sentence we shall have to undergo

The first means of preventing the severe account we shall have to give, is to contract the habit of performing each of our actions with as much attention and care as if we were to die immediately afterwards, and be summoned before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, ‘where every one will receive the proper things of the body according as he hath done, whether good or evil.’⁷⁴742 Cor. v. 10. St. Cyprian formerly gave the same advice to his people: ‘Perform all your actions,’ says he, ‘as if you were about to appear before the Judge to render an account of them.’

St. Hilary likewise applauds this practice: ‘Happy shall he be,’ says he, ‘who shall perform all his actions with the thought of an immediate judgment.’⁷⁵75On Ps. cxviii. ‘There is nothing,’ adds St. Ambrose, ‘more conducive to a regular and holy life’ than the belief ‘of having one day for the judge of all our works, Him who beholds what is secret, who is displeased at our faults, and applauds a virtuous life.’ In effect, can we imagine a man so utterly devoid of reason as to sin knowingly and willingly at the very moment that he firmly believes that God will speedily judge his action and severely punish anything that may be defective in it? If sin is so common and universal, it is, says Isaias, because ‘there is no one that thinketh in his heart;’⁷⁶76Isaias lvii. 1. no one that meditates seriously on this oracle of Jesus Christ: ‘All men shall render an account for every idle word they shall speak.’⁷⁷77Matt. xii. 36. Animated with a holy fear, let us obey the counsels we have just received, and perform each of our actions as if it was to be the last.

St. Augustine teaches us a second method of appeasing the wrath of the awful Scrutator of our life. ‘Seat thyself,’ says he, ‘on the tribunal of thy conscience, and be thy own judge:’⁷⁸78On Ps. xlix. be at once the accuser and the accused. Enter into the interior of thy soul and pronounce an impartial sentence. The apostle had already insisted on this in writing to the Corinthians: ‘If we would judge ourselves,’ says he, ‘we should not be judged’⁷⁹791 Cor. xi. 31. by the Almighty. ‘Before the Judgment,’ interrogate yourself and ‘you will find favour with God,’⁸⁰80Eccli. xviii. 20. says Ecclesiasticus. Do we wish to practise these means befittingly, let us do now what an infinitely wise and equitable God shall one day do in His wrath. In that day He will investigate all our actions, He will punish all our faults. We shall fall into the hands of a God, light itself, who will know all, even to the minutest circumstances, an exasperated God who will punish all that He will find defective. Let us from this moment borrow the bright light of the infallible Judge to discover all our offences by a serious examination. Let us afterwards arm ourselves with the darts of this inexorable avenger, to punish ourselves voluntarily for our crimes and thus avert a second chastisement.

In the first place, let us examine our consciences with diligence and attention, in a place and time suitable to recollection: let us then by a sincere, candid, and entire confession, enable our director to understand all the intricacies of our heart, all that the interior voice reproaches us with, all that God sees there, all that the whole universe must behold there, on the great day of revelations. If we now make known all our sins to the minister of reconciliation in the same manner, with the p. 302same perspicuity and as far as possible with the same distinction of number and species, with which all shall then be manifested to the whole human race; if we employ the same expressions in the accusation of our faults as the devil shall then make use of to reproach us with them; if we accuse ourselves of all our sins without exception, these which disturb and cause us most uneasiness, our secret sins and the sins of others of which we are the cause, the good we have omitted and the duties we have neglected, we may rest assured that such an examination and confession will give us unspeakable consolation at the hour of death.

In the second place, we must endeavour to appease the divine justice by an anticipated satisfaction, so that having borne in this life the punishment due to our sins, none shall remain to be suffered in the other. For ‘divine vengeance,’ says St. Anselm, ‘has no longer anything whereon to exercise itself when it has been anticipated by the conversion and repentance of man.’ According to the doctrine of St. Augustine, ‘sin cannot remain unrequited, and it must be punished either by the sinner himself, or by an avenging God.’ Now, God is infinitely just, never will He inflict a second penalty on the same fault, and if we have done penance for our sins He will not exact any other satisfaction.

Let us then punish ourselves, let us inflict on ourselves all the chastisements our infidelities deserve; this is the advice of St. John Chrysostom. ‘Let us perform now a voluntary penance for our sins,’ says he, ‘and we shall not one day have to fear new torments.’ ‘It is better,’ says the ‘Imitation,’ ‘to purify ourselves from our sins now than to wait to expiate them in the other life.’⁸¹81Imit. b. i. ch. 24. For in this life penance is light and of short duration, in the other it shall be longer and more intolerable.

We possess three principal means of expiating our faults:—1, Frequently to elicit acts of perfect contrition; 2, to gain the indulgences granted by the Church; 3, to perform satisfactory works, such as almsgiving, patiently bearing our crosses, especially illness, afflicting our body by voluntary austerities, by the hair shirt, discipline, abstinence, fasts, and other corporeal mortifications.

Let us now consider what is our position with reference to all that we have just been meditating. Is our soul tortured by any remorse? Have we confessed all our sins with the proper dispositions? How are we resolved to act in future with regard to the means of satisfaction which have just been pointed out to us, for averting by a rigorous self-examination here below the tremendous account which shall be exacted of us hereafter, and of liquidating in this life by severe penance the debt we have contracted towards the divine justice? ‘It cannot be doubted,’ says St. Augustine, ‘that God treats us with great condescension when He constitutes us in some sort the arbiters of the judgment that awaits us;’ but should we not be our own most cruel enemies were we to neglect to profit by such wonderful clemency?

Since ‘it is only before judgment,’ says St. Gregory, ‘that we can escape the severity of the Judge; and that once He is seated on His tribunal to examine us without mercy, there shall be no longer time to appease Him;’ let us conclude with St. Bernard, ‘that we must judge ourselves beforehand, and by this judgment in time provide against this terrible judgment that awaits us after death.’⁸²82On Ps. xc. ‘For, to that judgment of God, at which,’ says p. 303St. Chrysostom, ‘we may be cited at any moment, we shall have neither the strength to resist, nor the time to defend ourselves, nor the means of escape, nor the opportunity of concealing ourselves, nor the courage to appear; all satisfaction shall be unavailing, there shall be no longer room for mercy: in this intolerable anguish nothing shall remain for the sinner but utter wretchedness, consternation, and dismay at the apprehension of that awful sentence which shall cause the earth to totter on its foundations, and the pillars of heaven, that is to say, the holiest and wisest of men, to tremble.’ Let us now, therefore, faithfully perform what we will then wish to have done: thus it is that we may diminish the rigour of the account we shall have to give.

2. Means of avoiding the loss of our salvation

Another means well calculated to inspire us with fear, is the danger of losing our salvation; and we have already stated that it is probable a great number incur this risk who, being called to perfection, resist the voice of God. To escape so awful a danger let us now seek out, for the purpose of destroying them, the chief obstacles which impede and frequently nullify the efforts of our will in the pursuit of good. They are of two kinds: it is either some object to which we are too much attached and which we must give up, or some duty to which we are bound, but which we cannot resolve to perform. It is in these two points ‘that the aversion to the difficulties and fatigue of combating which prevents many persons from advancing’⁸³83Imit. b. i. ch. 25. consists. This is the rock against which our good resolutions split; it is ‘the lion in the road’⁸⁴84Prov. xxvi. 15. of virtue, which not only scares away countless p. 304souls and deters them from entering or persevering in it, but even causes them to recoil.

The remedy for this twofold evil, according to the ‘Imitation,’ ‘is to tear ourselves violently from all that corrupt nature covets, and courageously strive to vanquish ourselves in all that is most painful and opposed to our inclinations.’⁸⁵85Imit. b. i. ch. 25. The severing of the chain which keeps us inordinately attached to a creature, the performance of an action to which we feel ourselves particularly solicited by the interior inspirations of grace, are as it were a triumphal arch through which we enter the royal road of sanctity after having shunned the perilous path that would have led us away from God. This important victory which we obtain over ourselves, this heroic action which we perform, are the foundation of a solid virtue, the prolific source of the most precious graces, the almost certain pledge of eternal felicity. A thousand instances of this truth occur in the lives of the saints, whose consummate virtue almost invariably originated in such beginnings. St. Martin, St. Walter, St. Francis Borgia, St. Francis Xavier, and countless others owed their conversion or their wonderful progress in virtue, the one to an alms of half his cloak given to a poor man, the other to a pardon granted to an enemy, this to the contempt of a court, that other to an act of mortification in sucking a loathsome ulcer. Yes; there is not a shadow of doubt that the heroic resolution to detach our heart from the love of creatures or to perform some very difficult action for the love of God may open for us the way to sanctity, and cause us to advance therein with rapid strides. These acts of virtue, particularly if persevered in generously, without ever looking back, free us from the danger to which we may have been previously exposed, of losing our souls.

Let us, then, dare to be courageous at length; let us arm ourselves with the strength of Abraham about to immolate Isaac, and seizing the sword of the Spirit to strike a decisive blow, let us ask ourselves what is the creature, the place, person, honour, gratification which fetters and enthrals our soul and of which God demands the sacrifice. Let us search the depths of our conscience to examine what is the desire of which the Holy Ghost demands the immolation, and the moment we recognise it, arming ourselves with a holy zeal, a salutary self-hatred, let us candidly acknowledge our secret attachment, and depositing it on the altar of the cross, allow divine love to sacrifice it without delay. If our holocaust has been perfect, if we frequently reiterate it with undeviating fervour, we may confidently hope that, like Abraham, we shall be loaded with benedictions, that we shall have the happiness to hear these words: ‘Because thou hast done this thing and hast not spared’ this affection ‘for my sake, I will bless thee and I will multiply’ my graces for thee ‘as the stars of heaven’ and as the sand on the seashore. ‘Thou shalt possess,’ thy soul, and thy labours ‘shall be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice.’⁸⁶86Gen. xxii. 16. Behold, then, the way in which we may ensure our eternal happiness, avert the rigorous account we should have to render, and the danger of forfeiting our salvation.