Of Other Benefits and Advantages That Temptations Bring with Them

BLESSED is the man that suffereth temptation, and was well approved therein, because he shall receive the crown of life (James i. 12). On these words St. Bernard says: “Temptations needs must come; for who shall be crowned but he who hath lawfully fought? (II Tim. ii. 5). And if there are no temptations, who shall fight, having no adversary to fight with?” All the benefits and advantages which Holy Writ and the saints tell us of in their sermons on trials and adversities, and they are innumerable—all these advantages temptations bring in their train. One of them, and a chief one of all, is that which the words above quoted say. The Lord sends us them that we may afterwards win a greater reward and crown in the glory of heaven, since through many tribulations must we enter into the kingdom of God (Acts xiv. 21). This is the royal road to heaven—temptations, tribulations, and adversities. And so in the Apocalypse one of those ancients, showing St. John the great glory of the saints, said to him: These are they that are come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb (Apoc. vii. 14). By the way, St. Bernard asks, how does he say that they have washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb, seeing that blood is not apt to whiten but to color? They came out white, he says, because along with the blood from the side there issued forth also water, and that whitened them. Or if we do not say that, he says that they changed to white, because the blood of that tender and spotless Lamb was like a white and ruddy milk, according to the saying of the spouse in the Canticles: My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen among a thousand (Cant. v. 10).

Thus it is that through blood in tribulations entrance is gained into the kingdom of heaven. Stones here are hewn, cut, and finished off to get them to lie flat in their place in the temple of the heavenly Jerusalem, since there is neither hammer nor blow of hammer (III Kings vi. 7). And the better and more conspicuous the place where the stones are to be laid, the more do they pick and shape them. And as the stone over the doorway is usually most elaborately picked and finished off because the entrance is what most strikes the eye, so Christ our Lord, becoming the new gate of heaven, which hitherto had been closed, would be most of all beaten with blows of the hammer—as also to the end that we sinners should feel ashamed to enter by a gate cut and shaped with so many tribulations and afflictions, without first suffering some blows ourselves, that we may be knocked into shape.

Stone that is to be thrown into the foundation is not usually cut stone; so those who are to be thrown below into the depth of hell have no need of being wrought and hammered. Let them make merry here in this life; let them gratify their whims and appetites; let them do their own will; let them give themselves up to good cheer, since with that they will be paid all their due. But they who are destined to go and repair the ruins of the evil angels and to fill those seats that they lost by their pride, must be hewn into shape by afflictions and temptations. St. Paul says: If we are sons, we shall be heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, yet so that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him (Rom. viii. 17). And the angel said to Toby: Because thou wert acceptable to God, and He wished thee well, therefore he wished to try thee with temptation (Tob. xii. 13), that so thy recompense and reward might be greater. And of Abraham, the Wise Man says that God tried him and found him faithful (Ecclus. xliv. 21) ; and because He found him faithful, constant, and brave under temptation, therefore He offered him reward and promised him under oath to multiply his generation like the stars in heaven and the sands on the seashore. It is for this, then, that the Lord sends us trials and temptations, to give us a greater reward and a richer crown. And so the saints say that God does us a greater favor in sending us temptations, giving us at the same time grace to overcome them, than if He were entirely to deliver us from them, because at that rate we should miss the reward and glory that we merit thereby.

St. Bonaventure adds to this another reason, that the Lord, loving us so much, is not satisfied with our gaining glory, and great glory, in heaven, but wishes us to gain it quickly, and not to have to detain us in purgatory; and therefore He sends us here afflictions and temptations, which are His hammer and forge whereby the rust and dross is cleared off our soul and it is cleansed and purified so as to be able to enter at once into enjoyment of God. Take away the dross from the silver, and a most pure vessel will come forth (Prov. xxv. 4). And this is no small favor and benefit, to say nothing of the gain that we make by commuting so great and severe a punishment as we should otherwise have to suffer there into the little or nothing, comparatively speaking, that we suffer in this life.

Moreover, Holy Scripture is full of the fact that the prosperities of this life separate the soul from God, whereas adversities and afflictions are the occasion of drawing her to God. What but prosperity made Pharaoh’s cupbearer so quickly forget his interpreter Joseph (Gen. xl. 23) ? What but prosperity made King Ozias proud, after such fair beginnings (II Chron. xxvi. 16) ? What made Nabuchodonosor, or Solomon, or David vain enough to number the people? And when the children of Israel saw themselves in high power, thanks to the great favors and benefits that the Lord had done them, then they deteriorated and forgot God the more (Deut. xxxii. 15).

On the other hand, the prophet says that in trouble men return to God. Cover, O Lord, their face with ignominy, and straightway they will seek thy protection (Psalm Ixxxiil. 17). They cried to the Lord in their affliction (Psalm cvi. 13). When the Lord sent them the pestilence, then they sought him and were converted to him, and rose early in the morning to meet him (Psalm lxxvii. 34). When Nabuchodonosor was changed into a beast—whether it were in sober reality or in imagination—then he knew God (Dan. iv. 31). What a much better man David was under the persecution of Saul, Absalom, and Semei than in his walk in the public place and covered way! So afterwards, like one who has been well under the knife, he says: We have rejoiced for the days in which thou didst humble us, for the years in which we suffered hardships (Psalm |xxxix. 15). It is good for me that thou didst humble me (Psalm cxviii. 71). Oh, what a good thing it has been for me, O Lord, to have been humbled and afflicted! How many have been cured by this treatment who otherwise would have perished! When the thorn of tribulation and temptation pricks, then one enters into oneself, is converted, and returns to God (Psalm xxxi. 4). Even in the world they say that the fool is made a wise man by punishment. And it is the pronouncement of the Holy Ghost by Isaias (xxviii. 19): It is only suffering that openeth the eyes of understanding. And more clearly by the Wise Man: A severe illness maketh the soul sober (Ecclus. xxxi. 2). Severe illness, afflictions, and adversities bring a man to reason. A man is living in prosperity free and unbroken, like a young bull that is to be tamed—quasi iuvenculus indomitus (Jerem. xxxi. 18) ; God flings over him the yoke of tribulation and temptation to quieten him down. The angel cured Toby with the gall of the fish (Tob. xi. 13), and with clay Christ gave sight to the blind (John ix. 6). For this, then, the Lord sends us temptations, which count among the number of really great trials and are most sensibly felt by spiritual men. As for those other material trials, such as losses of property, illnesses, and the like, for the servants of God, who are bent upon spiritual things, they are a very light matter, falling well outside their concern; for all that sort of thing only touches the body, and so they do not take much account of it. But when the trouble is interior and reaches the soul, as temptation does, which goes to separate them from God and seems to put them in danger and risk of losing Him, that is a thing they feel much, and makes them cry out with a cry as loud as that of the Apostle St. Paul when he felt this war and contradiction of the flesh, seeking to drag the spirit away with it: Woe is me, that evil carries me away with it; and the good I fain would do, I do not succeed in putting into execution! Who will deliver me from this captivity and servitude! (Rom. vii. 24).