That Liberty Is Not Given Up or Diminished by Vows, but Rather Is Perfected

Bo someone will say: I quite see that the giving up of oneself to God by these vows is attended by all these blessings and advantages; but, after all, it seems that the man who takes vows loses his liberty, and deprives himself of what is so great a good that, as the poet says: val a8 is not to be purchased or compensated for by gold”—Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro. To this St. Thomas gives a very good answer. He says: You are mistaken; liberty is not given up by vows, but rather is perfected. And he enlarges on this point very well, showing that the effect of vows is to confirm and fix the will in good, so that it may be further removed from falling away; and this does not abolish, but rather perfects liberty in its own fashion. Thus in God and in the blessed in heaven their being unable to sin does not deprive them of liberty, but rather they possess it in the highest degree. And the apostles, who were confirmed in grace and could not sin mortally, did not lose their liberty by that, but rather it was perfected thereby, since it was confirmed and fixed more surely in the good for which it was created. And this is what our Father says in the Letter on Obedience: “Think it no little profit to your free will that you are able by obedience to give it back entirely to Him Who gave it, whereby you do not lose it, but perfect it, conforming your will entirely to that most gure rule of all rectitude, which is the divine will, the interpreter whereof is the superior who governs you in God’s stead.”

This is well borne out by what St. Anselm says: “The power of sinning, and the power of making ill use of your liberty, is not a perfection, but an imperfection and misery; not a power, but weakness and infirmity’—Peccare non est libertas nec pars libertatis, est potius non posse quam posse. “Would you see this clearly?” says St. Augustine. “God cannot do such a thing, although He is all-powerful. This is the one thing that the Almighty cannot do; He cannot lie or sin.” The power of sinning means that sin and malice and misery have a certain empire over us, and all the more, the greater is that power; consequently, the further we remove ourselves from that, and establish and fix our will in good, the more we perfect it; and that we do by our vows, binding ourselves thereby to the good and better course. “Happy necessity,” so St. Augustine cries, “that compels us to the better thing! Repent not of having bound yourself by vows; rather be glad that you are no longer allowed to do what, but for your vows, you would have been allowed to your sorrow.” If they told you that, going by this road or by that gate, you were sure to miss your way or break your neck, would you not be glad of their shutting that gate in your face or closing to you that road—would they not be rendering you a great service—so that, even though you would, you could not get lost, nor break your neck, by going that way? Now, if you are to go to perdition and condemnation, it must be by the way of making ill use of your will. Cesset voluntas propria et infernus non erit—“Let self-will cease and there will be no hell.” Therefore the more they block and close to you this road, that you may not make an ill use of your will, the greater good they do you. Thus to subject your will to the superior by the vow of obedience is not to lose liberty, but to perfect it, and enchase it in the fine gold of obedience and the will of God.

A grave doctor [Soto] adds a thing worthy of note. He says that, far from liberty’s being diminished by vows, he who binds himself to God by them and puts himself under obedience, has more liberty than he who dares not do that. And he supports this position very well by the argument that liberty consists in being master of oneself; but he is more master of himself who makes a vow and binds and subjects himself under obedience than he who does not dare todo so. Let us take an example from the vow of chastity. The reason why you make a vow of chastity is because you think that you shall be master of yourself, by the grace of God, sufficiently to observe chastity; and, the reason why your friend in the world does not dare to do that, is because he thinks he shal! not be master of himself to that extent. You see how you who make the vow are the one who has the more mastery over himself to do what he wishes, and what he sees is the right thing to do. But it is in this that liberty consists; the state of the other is not liberty, but subjection and servitude; he is not master, but the slave of his appetite and sensuality, which drags him and twists him about and makes him sin. This is what Holy Writ so often repeats: I see in my members a law taking me captive to the law of sin. A man is the slave and captive of that which overcometh him. Whoever committeth sin, is the slave of sin (Rom. vii. 23; II Pet. ii. 19; John viii. 34). It is the same with obedience. The reason why you put yourself under obedience by vow is because you trust, by the grace of God, that you shall be master of yourself sufficiently to follow the will of your superior and deny your own. Your friend does not feel master of himself to the extent of trusting his competence to bring himself to deny his own will, and go always by the will of another in the path of obedience, and therefore he is minded to stay in his own house, and has not the courage to enter religion and make a vow of obedience. Thus the putting of oneself under obedience and taking these vows is a sign of greater liberty and being more master of oneself. It is a noble and generous subjection, and to it the Wise Man counsels and exhorts us: Put thy feet into her fetters and thy neck into her collar; bow down thy shoulder and bear her, and be not weary of her bonds (Hcclus. vi. 25-26). O happy fetters, happy chains! which Holy Writ calls not chains, but a collar—And thy neck into her collar. These chains do not throttle the neck, but adorn it; for they are not chains of iron, but of gold; they are not chains of slaves, but of lords. They are collars of gold, that put no weight on them that wear them, but honor and dignity. It is very important to take these things, and things like them, in this way, because so taken they make the yoke of Christ sweet, as St. Ambrose observes. And the yoke of Christ is sweet if you take it as an ornament, and not as a burden.