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Chapter 17. The Law of Liberty

When the Son of God came into the world it was to do not His own will, but the will of His Father. He had said in prophecy, < Behold, I come to do Thy will, O God.'1 It was the oblation of Himself in life and in death that redeemed the world. He said, * My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me;'2 and in the hour of His agony

Heb. x. 9.

« 8. John iv. 34.

'i-HE HOLT GHOST, THE SANCTIFIER.

He said, < Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.'3 This was the free-will offering of the Son of God, in the liberty of His Divine Manhood. And in this He is our example.

S. James writes, * So speak ye, and so do as being to be judged by the law of liberty.'4 What, then, is this law? It is God who made the law of liberty; the law of bondage is the work of man.

  1. The free will of Adam was a law of liberty to itself. It was like the will of God, which is the most perfect liberty and the most perfect law.

  2. The law of bondage is the loss of liberty, by which man fell under the law of sin and death. And yet man had still a free will, though wounded and weak. He could serve God freely by the help of the Holy Ghost; and he could sin freely by refusing and quenching His grace. Such is the meaning of S. Paul when he says, 4 There is now, therefore, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, wno

3 S. Matt. xxvi. 39. « S. James ii. 12.

walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit; for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath delivered me from the law of sin and death.'5

Now this law of liberty has five degrees.

  1. First, it is the law of God written upon the heart by the Holy Ghost. It was written upon the heart of the first Adain: and he broke it. It was written twice on two tables of stone, and the tables and the law were both broken. It was written on the heart of the second Adam by the Holy Ghost, and by Him it is transcribed into the heart of the mystical Body, and of every member of the same. ' This is the testament which I will make the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give My laws into their mind, and in their hearts I will write them.'6

It is therefore an inward and spiritual law, written upon the intellect and governing the will. It is the knowledge of God and of His perfections, of His holiness, • Rom. viii. 1. 2. 6 Heb. viii. 10.

justice, and love as the Original to whose likeness we are made, and therefore as the law of our being in all our living powers of soul and spirit. Our sanctification is conformity to God. ' Walk before Me, and be perfect,'7 is the law of our perfection. The knowledge of God and the recollection of His presence guide, elevate, and assimilate the soul to Him; for the law written on the heart by the Sanctifier reigns over its affec tions, and draws it with all its freedom into conformity to His perfections both by light and by love.

  1. But next, when this law of liberty was written upon us in our regeneration, our will was made free from the law of sin and death. ' Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting.'8 By our spiritual resurrection we are made free from the eternal debt which we inherited by our original sin. Every regenerate soul is absolved and libe- 7 Gen. xvii. 1. • Rom. vi. 22.

rated from the second death. Bat by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost it is set free also from the power of sin, which cannot reign where He dwells; for by His sanctify ing power the fascination and the love of sin are destroyed. The power of sin is in the love we have to it. It has no power over those who hate it. ' Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty'9 from the guilt, the power, the fascination, and the love of sin, in which consists the law of bondage. * Being then freed from sin, we have been made servants of justice.'10

  1. There is yet a third and more perfect degree of liberty, and that is when our will is elevated by the love of God; that is to say, when 'the charity of God is poured forth into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.' (1) The love of God super omnia in that measure detaches the heart from creatures; and they who are detached from creatures are liberated from a manifold bondage. Every inordinate affection is a • 2 Cor. iii. 17, M Rom. vi. 18.

loss of liberty. We become dependent for peace and happiness on something which is unstable, uncertain, unsatisfying. The love of God does not destroy, but elevates and per fects all other love to kindred and to friends. But it subordinates every affection to Him. It makes us not indifferent but independent. (2) And this love of God makes us to love His law more than our own will; so that to give up our own will has in it a secret Bvveetness, making hard things easy. The thought of God, as our motive even in the least things, is both strength and joy. Therefore S. Augustine said, ' Love God, and do what you will;' because a will elevated by the love of God can will nothing that God hates, nothing that God does not will also. What liberty so perfect as theirs, who, being free from all bondage to creatures, offer their will freely to God, and desire nothing but what He wills for them?

  1. But we may go one degree higher still. This elevation of the will by love to God brings also a conformity of our will to the divine will: pondus voluntatis amor. The will is the love; when governed by reason it is the highest and noblest freedom of the soul; when ungoverned it is sensual or devilish, irrational and gross, or refined and malicious. The will of Satan is malice; it is in energetic and ceaseless variance with charity, reason, and God in all His perfections and in all the operations of His holy will. But a will elevated and inflamed with the love of God is so conformed to the will of God that, as the shadow follows the substance, so it follows every motion of God's will in all the manifold wisdom of His ways. It loves what God loves, it hates what God hates. It has the same thoughts, desires, and aims. It desires that His will should be done as in heaven so on earth, in every heart, especially in our own. It takes to itself, as a reproof and as a rule, the plaintive words of S. Paul, ' All men seek the things that are their own, and not the things that are Jesus Christ's.'11 It seeks the salva- " Phil. ii. 21.

tion of men, the sanctifi cation, of souls, the diffusion of the faith, the expansion of the Church, the gathering in of the elect, of the innocent, and of the penitent; the restoration of unity among the disciples of Jesus, the multiplication of all good upon earth in thought, word, and deed; the extirpation of all sin; the glory of God in all its extent. All His creatures were made for His glory. But ' of His own will He hath begotten us again by the word of truth, that we should be a beginning' and the firstfruits ' of His creatures;'12 that is, of the new creation, which is for His greater glory; and they who are conformed to the image of His Son by the love of the Holy Ghost are for His greatest glory.

  1. The last and highest degree of this law of liberty is when the will becomes a law to itself. When love is ruled by reason, and reason by faith, then the will with all its liberty freely unites itself with God in spontaneous obedience to His law. The instincts* '* S. James i. 18.

of the heart and the dictates of the will are all for God. They who reach this degree can say, ' 0, how have I loved Thy law, O Lord; it is my meditation all the day.'13

It is of such men that 8. Paul says, ' The law is not made for the just man, but for the unjust and disobedient.'19 That is to say, «s he that is skilled in reading has no need

» Ps. cxviii. 97. l7 Ps. cxviii. 165.

" Ibid. 72. » Ps. xviii. 10, 11.

« Ibid. 47, 48. » Tim. i. 9. »« Ibid. 127.12

to spell his words, and he that is skilled in harmony has no need to learn the octave, so they that love God do by the law of their own will all that He commands. The prohibitions of the law are needless. They that love their neighbour have no need to hear 'Thou shalt not kill;' and they that love God have no need to be commanded ' Thou shalt have no gods beside Me.'

But S. John goes beyond even these great words of S. Paul. He says, * Whosoever is born of God committeth not sin, for His seed abideth in him, and he cannot sin be cause he is born of God.'20 He does not commit sin because his life is holy. He cannot, because his heart is sanctified. The Sanctifier reigns over him. The seed of sanctifying grace and charity and wisdom and power abide in him. So sin is a moral, not an absolute, impossibility. Until confirmed in grace the will may abuse its liberty. But it can only do so by violating its whole new nature, and going against its highest » 1 S. John iii. 9.

and most constraining instincts, and passing from the law of liberty to the law of bond age.

S. Paul describes this law of liberty as a life of love and a life of the Cross.

He says, ' The charity of Christ urgeth us;S1 that is, presses upon our heart and will with the continuous and constraining sense of His love, generosity, fervour, self-sacrifice for us. ' The charity of Christ urgeth us* onward in love, generosity, fervour, and sacrifice of self, ' because we thus judge: that if one died for all, all were dead.' We were lost eternally, the Vision of God was hid den from us for ever, and the second death was our inevitable lot. But by His death we live eternally; and ' He so died that they who live should no more live unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again;'22 that is, they are not their own, and cannot live for their own end, or by their own will without robbery, ingratitude, and baseness. We owe Him love for love, « 2 Cor. v. 14. » Ibid. 16.

generosity for generosity, fervour for fer vour, sacrifice for sacrifice, oblation of self to Him for His self-oblation for us to the Father. What He freely did without price for us, we are bound by the law of liberty and of love freely to do in return for Him. As He has been to us, so are we bound to be to Him. * Let that mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus/ means, Let your heart and will, by their own free choice, be like His in all the liberty of obedience unto death. These are great words, yet they are the words of the Holy Ghost. They mark out the way and the motive of a Christian life. S. Paal goes even beyond this. He says, * With Christ I am nailed to the Cross; nevertheless I live, yet not T, but Christ liveth in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself for me.'23 He is our new life from the dead; by Him we live, and love, and freely serve Him.

» Phil. ii. 6.

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Lastly, as if lie had not said enough, he adds, * God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.'24 ' And I unto the world.' Who can dare say these words? And yet they have been said by all who have offered themselves to God by the law of liberty. All worldly affections have fallen off from them like withered leaves. Their eyes and ears and hearts are insensible to beauty and its sweetness, as if they were dead. The world itself is dead to them; like the fig-tree over which Jesus said, * May no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever.'25

This is a state high indeed, but to which all may ascend.

It is not a state in which temptation will not harass without, and the root of sin will not vex within. For S. Paul had attained it, and yet the messenger of Satan was still with him,26 and he still chastised himself lest

» Gal. vi. 14. 26 2 Cor. xii. 7.3

he should be a castaway.2? But he said in calm hope, ' There is laid up for me a crown of life which the just Judge shall render to me at that day.'28 It is not a state of perpetual peace or light or sweetness; for the closest union with God may be overcast and obscure, so that when it is surest it is least perceived. Of this the desolation of Jesus on the Cross is a divine revelation; and God's chief servants have walked in darkness, as S. Paul of the Cross, who said that in no day for fifty years was he free from desolation.

It is not always a state of special consolation or high state of prayer, such as we read in some lives of Saints; for many Saints seem to have lived and died in the way of pure faith, in great spiritual austerity, and intimate union with God. Of these things, too, it is not necessary to speak. They that know them need no words; they that do not know them cannot understand.

There is one thing in which all who reach "" 1 Cor. ix. 27. 28 2 Tim. iv. 8.

this law of liberty are alike. Their will never changes. It is one with the will of God. * He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. '*9 The Sanctifier dwells in them, and reigns over them in all their liberty; which is freely and continually given as an oblation to their Divine Master.

0 God the Holy Ghost, who hast re generated, renewed, and sanctified me to this hour, to Thee I give my will with all its liberty. Lead me, and I will follow Thee. If Thou wilt call me to any hard task, or to any heavy cross, make my will willing to bear it. Thou canst make the unwilling to will freely what Thou wilt. Inspire my will with the love of God, lift it and bind it to His will, that I may freely do and suffer all my days what His most holy, wise, just, and sweet will shall ordain for me.

Jesus, have mercy on me.

Holy Mary, pray for me. » ICor. vi. 17,

Footnotes

  1. The law of Thy mouth is good to me above thousands of gold and silver.'14 ' I meditated on Thy commandments which I loved. And I lifted up my hands to Thy command ments which I loved.'15 ' I have loved Thy commandments above gold and the topaz.'16 ↩

  2. Much peace have they that love Thy law, and to them there is no stumbling-block.'17 ' The judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves, more to be desired than gold and many precious stones, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.'18 ↩

  3. S. Matt. xxi. 19. ↩

Chapter 17 of 18