Book II, Part 2, Chapter 7. Of four necessary Instructions that follow upon this Doctrine

1. From what has been said may be drawn four important instructions for the spiritual life. The first is, that he who serves God as he ought to do, is not to content himself with seeking after spiritual virtues only, though they are the most excellent, but must add the others to them ; and this as well for the preserving of the first, as for the arriving at the height and perfection of all justice. To this purpose he is to consider, that as a man consists not of either soul alone or of body alone, but of both together, because the soul alone, without the body, is not a complete man, and the body, without the soul, is nothing but a lump of earth ; true and perfect Christianity is neither only interior nor only exterior, hut both at once ; because there is no preserving the interior without something at least, if not a great deal, of the exterior, according to every one's state and condition, nor is it enough for the performing of perfect justice. And as to the exterior without the interior, it goes no farther towards making a virtuous man, than the body without the soul does to the making of a natural man. So that, as the body receives its whole life and being from the soul, so the exterior depends, after the same manner, upon the interior, and most of all upon charity, for all the esteem and value it has.

2. He, therefore, that would be undeceived, must no more separate the corporal from the spiritual, in order to make a perfect Christian, than he is to divide the body from the soul, for the making a complete man. Let him take the body and soul together, the treasure and the chest, the fence and the vine ; let him take all his supports and props along with it, for they are all to go together, or he will lose both ; for he will not be able to obtain the one part, and the other without it will not avail him. Let him consider, that since neither nature, nor art which copies after nature, produce any work without giving it an outside and clothing, and without giving it a defence and stay, both for its preservation and beauty ; it is repugnant to reason to think that grace, which is a much more perfect form than the others are, and which operates much better, should not do as much as they do. Let him reflect on the sentence, "He that fears God, despises nothing; and he that contemns little things, will fall by degrees into great ones ;" Eccl. vii. 19. Let him consider the danger he runs in not taking notice of small things, because it is the ready way for him not to mind the greater. Let him but think on the flies that succeeded the gnats in the plagues of Egypt ; that this may teach him how the neglect of lesser things makes way for that of greater ; Exod. viii. For he who does not regard the stinging of gnats shall be soon troubled with flies, that will overrun him with filth and nastiness.

§ I. The second Instruction. — 3. By this it will appear about what virtues we are to be most solicitous, and which require less care, For as men will do more for a piece of gold than for a piece of silver, and more for an eye than for a finger, so it is convenient we should take most care to purchase and keep those virtues that are the most excellent. For if w7e are diligent in that which is of least moment, and careless in that which is of most, all our spiritual affairs will be disorderly. It is, therefore, a great piece of prudence in superiors, in their chapters and public assemblies, to recommend to their religious the observance of silence, fasting, solitude, ceremonies, modesty and the choir ; 48 2H2 and to be much more zealous in advising them to charity, humility, prayer, devotion, meditation, the fear of God, the love of their neighbors, and the like. And this latter part is so much the more necessary than the other, by how much the inward failings are more private than the outward, and, therefore, the more dangerous. For as men are more apt to remedy the defects they see than those they do not see, it is a hazard they may thus come to make no account of the inward failings, because they are not seen, though they may take much notice of the outward, because they appear ; besides, the exterior virtues, as abstinence, watching, disciplines, corporal austerities and mortifications, are more visible to others, and, therefore, more familiar to, and more esteemed by them ; whilst hope, charity, humility, discretion, the fear of God, the contempt of the world, and the rest of the interior virtues, are less in credit with the world, because they appear less outwardly, though, at the same time, they are much more acceptable to God, than the others. Our Saviour himself gave us the reason of this difference of opinions, when he said, "You justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts" (Luke xvi. 15) ; and the apostle tells us to the same purpose, " He is not a Jew that is a Jew outwardly, nor is that circumcision which appears outwardly in the flesh ; but he is a Jew, who is one inwardly ; and the circumcision of the heart, which consists in the spirit, and not in the letter, is true circumcision, whose praise comes not from men, but from God" (Rom. ii. 28, 29) ; for men have not eyes to see this spiritual circumcision. Since, then, these outward things are so manifest, and so much in view, and the desire of honor and praise is one of the cunningest and most powerful passions a man has, there is more danger of being carried away by this passion, to the consideration and pursuit of those virtues which are most in esteem amongst men, than of being wrought on to the desire of those that appear less honorable, because it is the spirit that calls us to the love of these ; but the spirit and flesh together invite us to search after those, and the flesh is eager and subtle in pursuing all its appetites. This being so, we have all the reason in the world to fear, that two such powerful passions as these will easily prevail against one, and force it to quit the field. This disorder may be remedied by the light of this doctrine, which always pleads for the juster side, and stands up for maintaining of its right, notwithstanding all these obstructions, and is most zealous in recommending that to us, which we cannot but see to be of the greater importance.

§ II. The third Instruction. — 4. Another thing to be learned hence is the obligation we have of following the rule of God's commandments in the concurrence of two virtues, which cannot possibly be both embraced ; for this will happen sometimes, and in such a case we must give the preference to the most worthy of the two, to avoid confusion and trouble. This is what St. Bernard teaches us, in his Book of Dispensation. " There are," says he, " a great many laws enacted, not because men could not have lived without them, but because they served much more for the obtaining and preserving of charity. Therefore, they are to remain in their force and vigor, without change, as long as they answer this end ; nor can they themselves, who have the power to do it, make any innovation in this kind, without giving offence. But if, at any time, they should prove destructive to charity, who can think it would not be consonant to justice, and most for the increase of charity too, to omit, defer, change for the better or abolish, with the consent of those persons who have the authority in their hands, such laws as were instituted for the maintaining of charity, when once they are perceived to be prejudicial to it ? For it would certainly be a point of injustice to observe those laws, which were made in the behalf of charity, if ever they happen to prove otherwise. It is requisite, therefore, that those who are in command should look on these things as unchangeable and irrevocable, as long as they are useful for the keeping up of this virtue, and no longer." Orat. de Praecepto et Dispens. c. 4. These are St. Bernard's own words, who produces two decrees, one of pope Gelasius, and the other of pope Leo, in proof of what he here asserts.

§ III. The fourth Instruction. — 5. We may gather from what has been said, that there are two sorts of justice, a true and a false one. The true one is that which embraces the interior virtues, and with them the exterior, that are necessary for the keeping of them. The false one is that which lays hold of some of the exterior virtues, without meddling with the interior, that is, without the love of God, without fear, humility, devotion, and the like. The Pharisees were just as this comes to, and no more ; and, therefore, our Saviour says to them, " Wo unto you, hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, who pay the tithes of your mint, your aniseed and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith ;" Matt, xxiii. 23. He upbraids them again soon after, with these words : " Wo unto you, hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, who make the outside of your cups and dishes clean, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanliness ;" Ibid. ver. 25. And immediately again " Wo unto you, hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you are like unto painted sepulchres, which appear beautiful outward, but wTithin are full of dead men's bones, and all sorts of filthiness ;" Ibid. ver. 27.

6. Such justice as this is we find frequently condemned by God himself, in the writings of the prophets. In one of them he says, " This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me ; and they fear me, because of the laws and institutions of men ;" Isa. xxix. 14. And in another place he says, " Why do you offer me so many sacrifices ? I am quite tired with them. I have no pleasure in the burnt-offerings of rams, and in the fattening of beasts, in the blood of calves, of lambs and of goats. Offer me no more oblations, for it is but lost labor ; your incense is an abomination to me ; I will not bear with your new moons, and sabbaths, and solemn meetings ; your public assemblies are wicked ; they are troublesome to me ; I cannot abide them." Isa. i. 11, 13, 14.

7. What ! does God find fault with what he himself so strictly commanded ; nay, even when they are acts of religion, which of all virtues is the noblest, since its business is to worship God with works of adoration and piety ? Certainly, it cannot be the virtue he condemns, but the men that content themselves with outward obligations, and neglect true justice and the fear of God. For he himself declares, immediately after, that it is nothing else that displeases him. " Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away your evil thoughts out of my sight, and cease from doing of evil, and learn to do well ; and then, though your sins were as red as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; and though they were like purple, they shall be as white as wool ;" Ibid. ver. 16, 17, 18.

8. He expresses the same thing again with much more vehemence elsewhere : " He that sacrifices an ox to me is like him that kills a man ; he that sacrifices a sheep is like him that tears a dog in pieces } he that makes an offering to me is like him that offers up swine's blood ; and he that offers me incense is like him that sacrifice* to an idol;" Isa. lxvi. 3. WThat can be the meaning of this, O Lord ? what kind of prodigy is here ? Why are those things, which you yourself have commanded, so abominable to you? He gives us the reason of it, when he says, " They have made choice of all these things in their ways, and their soul is delighted in their abominations ;" Ibid. You see here, then, what small account God makes of exterior things, when they are not grounded on interior. To give us a proof of this, he says, by another prophet, " Take away from me the noise of your songs ; for I will not hear the melody of your harps" (Amos v. 23.) ; and in another place he says, expressing his displeasure in more lively terms, " I will fling the dung of your solemn feasts into your faces ;" Mai. iii. What need is there, after all this, of saying any more, to show how little all exterior things amount to, let them be ever so noble and great in themselves, if the love and fear of God, and a horror of sin, which are the foundations of justice, be wanting.

9. Should you ask me, what can be the reason of God's disliking these kinds of service, of his comparing sacrifice with manslaughter, and incense with idolatry ; of his calling the singing of psalms a noise, and solemn feast and meeting dung ; I answer, because these things, for want of the foundations we have spoken of, besides their being of no worth or esteem, give occasion to many to be proud and haughty, to presume on themselves, and to contemn every body else, that does not do as they do ; and, what is worst of all, this false justice settles them in a false security in the way they are in, which is one of the greatest dangers they can fall into; because they are so satisfied with what they have, that they aim at nothing further. Do but consider the Pharisee's prayer in the gospel : " I thank you, O God, that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or as this publican is ; I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess ;" Luke xviii. 11, 12. You may easily discover in this prayer, the three dangerous rocks we have spoken of; you may plainly see his presumption, when he says, J am not like other men; his contempt of others, in these words, J am not as this 'publican; and his false security, in his thanking God for the life he led, whilst he imagined all was safe, and that he had nothing to be afraid of.

10. Hence springs a dangerous kind of hypocrisy, which these false just men run into. For the understanding of this, you are to know that there are two sorts of hypocrisy : the one is base and palpable, and is of those who know they are wicked, and outwardly appear good, to deceive the world. The other sort is more nice and subtle, which makes a man even deceive himself as well as others, like the Pharisee, who really cheated himself, and not others only, under the cover of justice, by imagining himself to be a holy man, though at the same time he was a very great sinner. This kind of hypocrisy the wise man points at, in these words : " There is a way that seems just to man, but the end of it leads to death;" Prov. xiv. 12. And in another place, speaking of four kinds of evils there are in the world, he reckons this for one of them : " There is a generation that curses their father, and that does not bless their mother. There is a generation that think themselves clean, and yet is not cleansed from their filthiness. There is a generation that has a proud look, and that turn up their eyelids. There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and who devour the poor from the earth with their jaws." Prov. xxx. 11^ 12, 13, 14. The wise man looks on these four sorts of persons as the most infamous and dangerous in the world ; and amongst them he puts those that are hypocrites in regard of themselves, who fancy they are clean, when they are as far from being so as the Pharisee was.

11. This condition is so dangerous, that, to speak the truth, it is not half so bad for a man to be a sinner, and to know he is such, as it is to be just after this manner, and to live in a false security. Because, let a man be ever so sick, the knowing of his distemper is a fair way to his recovery ; but when a man fancies himself to be well, though he is much out of order, there will be no persuading him to take any medicine to cure him. For this reason our Saviour told the Pharisees, " that publicans and harlots should go before them into the kingdom of heaven ;" Matt, xxi. 31. The Greek translation, instead of " shall go before," reads "do go before," which is a stronger proof of what we affirm. This is what we are told much more plainly by our Saviour himself, in those obscure -but terrible words, in the Apocalypse : " I wish you were either cold or hot ; but because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth ;" Apoc. hi. 15, 16. How is it possible God should wish a man were cold ? And how is it possible that a man that is cold should be in a better condition than one that is lukewarm, since the latter is nearer being warm than the other ? The reason is this : — He that is hot is the man that has got the fire of charity, and with it all those virtues, both interior and exterior, that we have spoken of; the cold man is he who has neither the one sort nor the other, because he has no charity. And the lukewarm is he that has some of the exterior virtues, but wTants the interior, or at least charity. Now our Saviour would have us know that this man's condition is more dangerous than his is that is quite cold, not because he has more sins than the other, but because his evil is much more incurable ; for the greater security he imagines himself to be in, the further he is from applying any remedies. So that this superficial and outside justice of his makes him believe he is something, whereas in reality he is nothing at all. We need but read what follows to know it is the genuine and literal sense of the text. - For our Saviour, speaking more clearly to him wrhom he had called lukewarm before, says, " You shall say, that you are rich and wealthy, and want nothing ; and you know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;" Ibid. xvii. Is not this the Pharisee drawn to life, who said, " God, I thank you that I am not like other men ?" Luke xvii. 11. This, without doubt, was he that thought himself rich in spiritual treasures, because he thanked God as if he was so ; and yet he was poor, naked and blind, because he wTas empty of all interior justice, full of pride, and so blind that h§ could not see his own failings.

12. We have made it appear thus far that there are two sorts of justice, a true and a false one ; we have discovered the dangers of this, and showed the excellence and dignity of that. And let no one think we have lost our time in treating of these things so largely; for since the gospel itself, which of all sacred writ is of most authority, and which has been left us as the rule to square ow lives by, condemns this kind of justice so often ; since the prophets, as we have proved, do the same, it would have been very ill done if we should have passed Over this matter slightly, which the Holy Scriptures so often repeat and inculcate. If the dangers a man is exposed to lay as open to every one as rocks that appear above the water in the midst of the seas, there would be no great need of advising persons against them ; but when they are quite hid from us, it is convenient we should have some instructions to know how to avoid them, as mariners have their charts to show them whereabouts those shelves lie that are quite under water, that they may steer their course so as not to run upon them.

13. Let no man deceive himself saying, such precepts were very necessary in former times when this vice was so frequent, but that there is not so much need of them now-a-days. I am of opinion the world is as bad now as it was then, and that it has almost always been of the same condition, because, when men are the same, when human nature is the same, when there are the same inclinations, and the same original sin, which we have all of us been conceived in, and from whence all other sins draw their rise, there must needs be the same offences. For where there is so great a proportion between the causes of sin, it is impossible there should not be as great a one between the sins themselves. So that there are the same crimes now in such and such kind of persons as there were then ; the only difference is, the names are not the same ; just as Plautus or Terence's comedies are the same now they were a thousand years ago, though the players are changed.

14. So that, as those ignorant and carnal people thought God was very much obliged to them for their sacrifices, for their fasts and solemnities, observed according to the letter only, not according to the spirit ; there are a great, many Christians at present who hear mass every Sunday, say the Office of our blessed Lady or the Rosary every day, fast every Saturday in honor of her, are always present at sermons, and assist at the office of the church ; and yet, after all, notwithstanding so many actions which are really good, they are as eager m their pursuit of honors, as fully bent upon satisfying their lusts, and as subject to anger, as other men are that never do any of these things. They forget the obligations of their states ; they are not at all concerned about the salvation of their servants and family ; they are full of hatred and malice, and will abate nothing of their haughtiness; they never exercise the least degree of humility or patience. Nay, some of them go so far, and that upon very trivial matters, that they will not so much as speak to their neighbor upon any account whatsoever. Others are very backward in paying servants their wTages, and in discharging their debts. And if a man should happen to do or say any thing that touches their honor or interest, adieu then to all the virtues they had. You will meet wTith some that are very generous and profuse of their prayers ; but they will never put their hands into their pockets to give an alms to the poor. You may find others, that will not for all the world eat flesh upon Wednesdays ; but they will make no scruple of detracting from their neighbor, and will never stop at any kind of slander or scandal when a man's reputation is at a stake ; so that, whilst they are so scrupulously afraid of eating the flesh of beasts, they have no horror of preying upon that of man, which God has so strictly forbidden them. For there is scarce any thing that a Christian should be so much concerned for as the credit or honor of his neighbor ; and yet it is but what few take any notice of, though there are many things that are not half so important, which they are much more solicitous about.

15. That these and many other such failings are the commt/n practice, not only of the worldly men, but even of those that are retired out of it, is a truth unquestionable. And, therefore, we thought it necessary, this mistake being so genera), to undeceive such as are fallen into it, especially when those persons, whose particular business it is to take notice of it, neglect their duty entirely in this point. What I have said will, I hope, supply this defect, and serve as a direction to those that desire to keep in the right way.

16. And that what we have said may be more profitable to the reader, and he may not grow worse upon the medicine, it is good to advise him, in the first place, to inquire into his own spiritual state and condition, that he may see what it is he is most inclined to. For as there are some general instructions that serve for all sorts of persons, as those upon charity, humility, patience, obedience, and the like, there are others, again, more particular, which are good for some, but not so for others. As, for example, a scrupulous person should have his conscience enlarged a little ; whereas his, on the contrary, that is too large already, is to be confined and straitened. A man that is subject to diffidence, and apt to be discouraged, must be put in mind of mercy ; whereas the presumptuous should be frightened with the remembrance of justice. The same rule is to be observed proportionably in other cases. This is no more than the author of Ecclesiasticus advises us to, when he says, " Talk to the unjust man of justice, of war to the coward, of gratitude to the ungrateful, of piety to the wicked, and of labor to the idle ;" Eccl. xxxviii. 12.

17. Since, according to this, there are two sorts of persons, the one that apply themselves wholly to interior virtues, and the other that concern themselves about none but the exterior, it would do well to recommend the exterior virtues to the first sort, and the interior to the second, that so every one may be brought to a due measure and proportion. We have endeavored all along here to treat every thing with such moderation, that nothing might want the place that is due to it ; we have spoken in commendation of greater things without any prejudice to the lesser, nor have we, in extolling these, lessened them ; and by this means we have avoided those two dangerous rocks, which we have advised others not to split upon, the one which they run upon who practise interior acts, and never mind the exterior, the other they dash against who are so bent upon exterior, as to have no concern at all for the interior, and, above all, the fear of God, and a hatred of sin.

18. The main point of all this business is to ground ourselves so in the fear of God as to tremble at the very name of sin. Happy is he that has this virtue deeply rooted in his soul ; he may build what he pleases upon this foundation ; but as for him, on the contrary, who is easily wrought upon by sin, let him have all the appearances that can be, he is to look upon himself as miserable, blind and unhappy.