Book I. Dialogue XVI: The Ordinances continued: the views of the Bishop of Meaux on the same subject
I
Q. What are the salutary warnings of the Bishop of Chartres, in his Ordinance of the same year, 1695? In order to pass safely between the two equally dangerous extremes of which the Bishop of Chalons spoke, and in order not to fall, as he said, into the devil’s second trap while avoiding the first ?
A. He gives very much the same counsel, but more briefly, though with not less force: ‘ God forbid, 5 says this Prelate, c that because the exercises of prayer and contemplation are abused you should think them dangerous; the sacraments are profaned every day, the abuse of virtue is hypocrisy; we nevertheless do not cease to assist at the one and practise the other. 5 You see how, after the example of S. Augustine and the other Fathers, in reproving abuses he tries to preserve the good things which are abused. He well knew that a great Archbishop had said that the worst of all remedies was the destruction of perfect things to prevent their abuse. See too in what respectful terms he speaks of the prayer which the Quietists abused; what comparisons he uses to preserve the sacred exercise as those of the sacraments are preserved despite their profanation. But at what time (a remarkable circumstance) did he thus speak in favour of these prayers, scorn and contempt for which have succeeded the abuse of his days ? He speaks at the very time of Quietism, of its most outstanding abuses, at the time when only the extreme directly opposed to the present one had come into existence. What would he think and say, if, despite the change of times which would no doubt necessitate a very different remedy, or at least that the scorn in which these prayers are held to-day should be criticized as strongly as the abuses of that time; what would he think, I say, if he heard exactly the opposite ?
II
Q. What should be thought of such conduct ?
A. What you would think if, on certain occasions, somebody thought fit to speak only against the abuses of frequent communion or devotion to the Mother of God, without saying a single word in their favour? Would you not say that apart from any intention either good or bad, he was speaking indirectly against these holy practices which are approved in the Church, and trying to decry them under cover of their abuse ?
Q; But there is such a wide difference between speaking thus indirectly against frequent Communion, or against devotion to the Mother of God, and speaking indirectly against prayers which are no longer in use and are scarcely even known.
A. That is exactly why in speaking against the abuses of these prayers it is well to use greater discretion in order to avoid increasing the scorn and contempt which has become only too common.
Q. But regarding frequent communion or devotion to Mary, it would be signally presumptuous to talk against them, even indirectly, whereas with regard to the prayer of which we speak, it would be merely imprudence and indiscretion.
A. Our Bishops judged differently, as is shown by the words of Article XXI of Issy, signed by the prelates and inserted in all their Ordinances: 4 The prayer of simple presence of God, or of surrender or quiet, and the other extraordinary prayers, even passive, approved by S. Francis de Sales and other spirituals esteemed in the Church, cannot be rejected or held suspect except by a singular temerity.’1
Q. What conclusion would you draw from that ?
A. Can you not see ? To speak with precision only against the abuses of these holy forms of prayer while saying nothing in favour of them, without caring for the bad effects of such discourse, especially at the present time, is in a sense to do worse than those who, not daring to speak directly against frequent communion, speak against it only indirectly, speaking only of its abuses and profanations.
Q. But at least these indirect and equally presumptuous discourses are less odious and scandalous when they are only against prayer ?
A. True: but how is it you do not see the deplorable principle on which they are based ? That is, that, instead of regarding these kinds of prayer with our Bishops as one of the principal ways in which God leads many souls for their sanctification, we regard the exercise itself, in spite of their justification, as dangerous; this was what made them say in anticipation that such an attitude was one of the greatest advantages the devil would draw from these new opinions. It is this exactly that makes more deplorable and less pardonable whatever is said either directly or indirectly against the holy and ancient modes of prayer, the scorn and contempt for which we can increase, or contribute to make suspect, only with great presumption, as was said above in Article XXI of Issy, inserted in all the Ordinances.
Q. In spite of your arguments I doubt if you would convince certain minds that it is a great evil to regard the exercise of this prayer as dangerous or make it so regarded, considering, they would say, the great abuses which have been and might be committed in it.
A. I might tell them further that there is nothing so holy that it is not dangerous; for there is nothing so sacred that it is not abused. The sacraments are
H9 profaned, hypocrisy abuses virtue, says the Bishop of Chartres; does it then follow that assisting at the sacraments or practising virtue is dangerous ? But let us pass over a hundred similar examples, for I have an unanswerable argument to close the mouths of those you speak of. I know that it is mostly with learned and strong minds, or those that claim to be so, that the authority of the Bishop of Meaux is beginning to command veneration. For this profound theologian thought it so great an evil to cause these methods of prayer to be regarded as dangerous, and to expose them to the slightest peril, that of all the calumnies against his person this was one of those that he rebutted most strongly, though always with a moderation suitable to his character.
Ill
Q. But is it possible that he was accused of putting these methods of prayer in danger by causing them to be regarded as dangerous, he who has so well explained and defended them in his Instruction Pastorale ? This presumably was before this work appeared.
A. Not at all; on the contrary it was a short time after the publication of that learned work.
Q. This is a paradox requiring explanation.
A. Have we not said from the beginning that many people were able to read the Instruction Pastorale without realizing its twofold intention; or that they were so struck by the first that they paid hardly any attention to the second, which truly is less obvious, less well developed, as indeed the times required, and most of all more difficult to penetrate, because of the profundity of its subject, in which few readers are interested?
Q. Whatever these reasons were, I beg you to tell me both the calumny and the refutation.
A. ‘ Prayer is said to be in peril. What prayer, and in what way ? 5 replied Bossuet.... Then having shown that it is certainly not discursive or affective x 5° prayer, which he has defended against the Quietists, he comes to the methods in question, which were then so much talked of. These are his exact words i2 ' I repeat continually, what prayer is in danger ? Is it the prayer of the simple presence of God, or contemplation and of quiet, or is it perhaps extraordinary and even passive prayers that are attacked ? those to which an Article is expressly devoted in the Thirty four Articles of Issy, where they are put under the protection of the authority of S. Francis de Sales and other Spirituals approved in the Church. Moreover, Article XXIV also establishes contemplation, and lays down objects suited to it; it would therefore be a calumny to say that prayer was put in peril by the prelates who took so much care to preserve it in all its states and all its diversities
Q. But all this seems to concern him only in common with the other Bishops.
A. Wait a little, for having made a common defence as is fitting, he soon comes to his own views, ‘ If we must descend to particulars,’ he continues, c who are then these enemies of prayer against whom it must be defended ? Is it the Archbishop of Paris ? The Bishop of Chartres, who takes the same precautions ?... it must then be the Bishop of Meaux who is accused of putting prayer in peril, he who has so amply treated the matter in a special Instruction without reproof from anyone. Is it he who is to be declared the enemy of prayer, when he has tried to explain the beautif ul ejfects of contemplation ? When he has drawn from the most approved spiritual books the principles of that prayer which is called passive ? And when finally he has recalled with so much care the maxims and practices of both S. Francis de Sales and Mother de Chantal, his holy daughter, as well as those of S. Teresa and the other Saints ? Prayer will not be in peril where these great principles are set forth; and it is a strange idea to invent persecutors for it so that it may have its martyr si
Q. I understand that it is necessary in order to refute such a calumny that Bossuet should in a way recapitulate what he has said in his Instruction in favour of mystical prayer; but what I cannot understand is that such a calumny should have been made about such a work.
A. This will seem much less surprising if you note that even to-day there are numbers of people who take so perversely certain passages of his Instruction that some make it a similar subject of calumny, as if it were a book which had caused alarm everywhere, at the very name of prayer of repose or quiet or the passive state; while some declare that they find even there weapons to combat these prayers victoriously and to decry them. There are some (I know them) who have even gone so far as to challenge the doctrine of S. Francis de Sales, although the Bishop of Meaux has so often made clear what he said on this subject; though he has said that it is on the authority of this great saint that these methods of prayer are preserved from destruction, and though he said earlier that in this matter S. Francis was the greatest man of his age.
Q. Were there not other reasons for such a surprising dislike of an Instruction which seems to me so intelligible especially now ?
A. Some have said that it was disliked because the good doctrine seemed at times buried beneath a mountain of quotations and reasonings, which were necessary at that time for the better fighting of the abuse of the doctrine. Others have said it was because there happened to the Bishop of Meaux in combatting the Quietists what happened to S. Augustine in combatting the Pelagians: that is, that he occasionally seemed to go to the other extreme. This is because, carried away by the liveliness of his zeal and of his genius in the rapid course of the natural eloquence, he often used certain exaggerations, correctives of which, which he never failed to set forth, were not always perceived by certain minds. Others thought the reason was that, in order to understand completely the doctrine of his
N
Instruction, it was necessary to know some mystical theology, without which one could no more penetrate to its inner meaning than a philosopher without mathematics could understand fully a philosophy essentially connected with mathematics. Others, lastly, thought the reason was that during the course of so long a reading many lost sight of the precise point of Quietism, though he set it forth himself in saying that a summary of Quietism lies in attributing sublimity and perfection to things which are not, or at any rate are not in this life, which leads people to suppress in certain states many commanded acts; it is through forgetting this, they add, that many people think they have found Quietism where it does not exist, and think Bossuet condemns what he never condemned.
IV
Q. What precautions did he and the other Bishops take in their Ordinances, with regard both to acts commanded in every state and to the time for practising them, and the manner of their practice ?
A. As for commanded acts, they unanimously reduced them to acts of faith, hope and charity, contrition, thanksgiving and request, and the exercise of faith in the Trinity, the divine attributes and above all Our Lord; as for the time, they contented themselves with saying that they must be practised at a suitable time, for which each person must consult his director. As for the manner, as it is very different in gross spirits, in beginners, in the spiritual and in the perfect, they said in Article XII that, by these acts of obligation are not always meant methodical and arranged acts; still less acts reduced to a formula or in certain words, or hasty and anxious acts, but acts sincerely formed in the heart with all the sweetness and tranquillity which the spirit of God inspires. Moreover, in favour of holy souls, and to avoid in them and in their directors any cause for scruple in the obligation of these acts, they added Article XIII, which says: 4 In the most perfect prayer and life all these acts are united in love alone, inasmuch as it arouses all the virtues and commands their practice, according to S. Paul's words: “ Charity... beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all thingsmuch (they continue )— in perfect life and prayer—of the other Christian acts, the distinct exercise of which it rules and prescribes, though they are not always distinctly and sensibly perceived.’ These last words have a more profound and wider sense than one might at first think.
Q. I confess that there is nothing more consoling for persons given to prayer, and above all for directors, than to have learnt so surely what one may and should hold on matters so important and so little examined before the disputes which arose at the end of the last century. I admit further that I cannot marvel enough at divine Providence which could draw such great good from so unhappy a contagion, w r hich it was pleased to bring to an end with an almost unexampled promptitude and success. But there is still one thing I should like to ask, and this Instruction has only increased my desire; that is by what method would it be possible to reach however low a degree of these holy prayers, from which I see all the dangers most to be feared at present are banished ?
A. How is it to be done, for the Bishop of Meaux has already carried out his two-fold intention and done completely what he proposed to do in his Instruction on the various states of prayer; namely: to show the true and the false, in order to condemn the one and preserve the other: to which he so strictly confined himself that in the first lines of this Preface he declared his purpose in these words i3 ‘ If it were thought by one reading the title of this book that I wished to give rules for all states of prayer or the way to attain them and act properly, too wide an intention would be attributed to me, and one far removed from my thoughts; the occasion of my undertaking this work must be remembered.’ He has in fact treated it as he promised; you have therefore nothing more to ask him, and I have nothing to reply, speaking as his representative.
Q. But did he not just now open out a new and wide thesis concerning these states of prayer, when he said that he did not propose to indicate the means of attaining them and the best way of acting when they are attained ? This is just what seemed to me to be lacking in this work; would you not add these two new points, on which I ask you only for the fruit or the simple recollection of your reading ?
A. If this was all that was necessary to satisfy you, I might succeed with the aid of information drawn from this Instruction and of a fairly long study of the Spirituals approved by the Church, who are quoted and approved by Bossuet, and who will, I hope, furnish me with what I need for replying to your questions in some new Dialogues, which for my part will be accomplished with as little difficulty as the first.
But what does it matter in what way a little book is composed, so long as in it God is glorified and the neighbour edified....
Footnotes
Chapter 20 of 31