Chapter 1. Grace the Work of a Person
The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world: and that whicL containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice. WISDOM i. 7
THE Spirit of the Lord is God the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost fills the whole world. There is no place where He is not; because, being God, He ia boundless and omnipresent. He contains all things in Himself. He " hath knowledge of the voice," that is, He understands the voice of the whole creation of God; for " the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork;" and the earth and the waters lift up their voices. The fowls of the air cry to their Maker, and He f eedeth them; and the abyss calls to the abyss, and the hearts of men are perpetually putting up their cry. There is a cry of worship and a cry of wickedness, a cry of piety and a cry of blasphemy, a cry of joy and a cry of sorrow; and all these voices are heard in the ears of the Lord of hosts. Such is the plain meaning of the text.
My purpose is to trace in outline the work of the Holy Ghost in the souls of men, one by one. The ever-blessed Trinity, whether in creation, or in redemption, or in sanctification, works in all things with a unity of will and power. There is one God, and all the acts of omnipotence are the acts of that one God; nevertheless there are special offices which have been assumed and are exercised by the three Persons distinctly. God the Father is the Creator, God the Son is the Kedeemer, God the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier; and yet not so that the Son and the Holy Ghost are excluded from creation, or the Father and the Holy Ghost from redemption, or the Father and the Son from our sanctification. But each of these three Persons has assumed to Himself, by an economy of His own supreme wisdom, the special discharge of one of these three offices.
Now God the Holy Ghost has the office of our sanctification; and the office of Sanctifier is twofold. There is the work of the Holy Ghost in every individual soul from the beginning of the world; and that work of sanctification in each individual soul will continue to the end of the world. There is also the work of the Holy Ghost in the mystical Body of Christ, that is His Church, which office began from the day of Pentecost, and will continue to the second advent of the Son of God. Its fruit will be eternal; but of this latter, or corporate office of the Holy Ghost, it is not my purpose now to speak. At other times, and as I could, I have spoken on this matter, and I have pointed out how the Church or the mystical Body of Christ is in its structure imperishable, and in its life indefectible, because it is indissolubly united to the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Life-giver; I have shown also how, because it is indissolubly united to the Spirit cf Truth, it can never fail in the knowledge of the perfect revelation o* God; and how, because its knowledge can never fail, its voice also is always guided by the continual light and assistance of the Spirit of Truth. It can therefore never err in enunciating or declaring the revealed knowledge which it possesses. But these are not the points on which I have now to speak. We are speaking of the office of the Sanctifier. It is because the Holy Ghost is united to the mystical Body of Christ, that the mystical Body is also holy. Sanctity is one of its notes. God the Holy Ghost dwells in it. The Fountain of holiness is open in the unity of that Body. The streams of holiness flow into it from His presence, and the fruits of holiness are to be seen in its members. This is the point of which I have now to apeak: and yet not of the sanctity of the church as a whole, but of the sanctification of individuals one by one; that is to say, of the work and the operation of the Holy Ghost in the individual soul, not of saints only, but of penitents, and of us all, even such as we are.
- First, then, we must distinguish between the gen eral work of the Holy Ghost which began with the beginning of the world, and the special work of the Holy Ghost which began with the Incarnation and the day of Pentecost. The general work of the Holj Ghost, as the Sanctifier of the soul in man, began before the Fall in the creation of man; for Adam when created was constituted in the state of grace. He was not created in, but constituted in the state of original justice. The distinction between created and constituted is this: original justice was no part of the nature of man; it was a superadded gift, a supernatural perfection over and above the perfection or integrity of human nature. It was not due to man that he should have the gift of original justice: his perfection consisted in the body and the soul, the faculties and the powers — intellectual and moral — which constitute human nature. But original justice is more than this: namely, the gift of a supernatural grace and state, by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul, illuminating it by the infusion of His light in the form of truth; and sanctifying it by the infusion of His grace in the form of sanctity. This was original justice, and therefore Adam was in two ways the son of God. He was a son of God by nature, because be was created by God; and a son of God by grace, because the Holy Ghost dwelt in him; because he had this original justice, he had also two other gifts. He had immortality in the body, because he was without sin; and he had perfect harmony and integrity, or order, in thie soul, because the soul was under the direction and guidance of the Spirit of God. Therefore in Adam there were three perfections: there was the perfection of nature, the body and the soul; there was the supernatural perfection, or the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and of sanctifying grace; there was the preternatural perfection of immortality in the body and of harmony in the soul, in and with itself. Such was the work of the Holy Ghost. We do not indeed certainly know, but many theologians of the Church teach as probable, that in Adam there was by the light of faith an anticipation of the mysteries of the kingdom of God, so that he knew, at least in outline, the ever-blessed Trinity and the Incarnation of God. This at least is certain, that the fullness of light which was in him ex eluded all ignorance, for ignorance signifies the not knowing that which we ought to know. Now Adam had all knowledge which belonged to his state. There was in Adam a nescience of many tilings. There was much that he did not know; but he was not bound to know, he had no obligation to know, that which was beyond his state. And as his illumination was more perfect than ours, so in like manner the sanctification of the soul of the first man was the most perfect, the most profuse, save only the highest sanctification in the order of grace, of which we will speak hereafter: namely, that of the Second Adam and of HIB Immaculate Mother.
Such was the work of the Holy Spirit before the fall of man. By an act of disobedience that first creation was shattered, the presence of the Holy Ghos was forfeited, and the soul and the body of man wen left in the substantial integrity which belongs to ou> nature; but it was wounded with the three wounds of ignorance, of weakness, and of passion.
Since the Fall, the Spirit of God has assisted from the beginning every man that has come into the world born of Adam; so that there never yet was any soul which had not sufficient grace, if it had sufficient fidelity to correspond with it, to escape eternal death. Keep ever in mind this great truth; (or it is the foundation of the whole doctrine of grace. There are men so narrow as to say, that no soul among the heathen can be saved. The perfections of God, the attributes of mercy, love, tenderness, justice, equity — all rise up in array against so dark -i the ology. The word of God declares, first of all, that the Son of God is " the true Light that enlighteueth every man that corneth into the world."* Every soul created to the likeness of God is illuminated by the light of God even in his creation. There never yet was a soul born into the world that had not the light of reason, and the light of conscience, that is, the light of God, shining in the soul. The whole world is the reflection of the presence and of the perfection of God. The reason and the conscience, rightly exercised, can see and read His existence, His glory, and His Godhead, in the works of His hands. Again, the Psalmist says, speaking of God: "He hath set His tabernacle in the sun;" and again, " He cometh forth out of the ends of heaven, and His circuit goeth to the end thereof again. There is no one that can hide himself from the heat thereof."f That is> the glory, and the majesty, and the love of God, fill the whole world, pervade all things, all men are encompassed by it. JSTo man can hide himself from the love and from the glory of God. Go where he may — if he walk upon the earth, God is there; if he ascend into heaven, He is there also; if he go down into the deep, God is there before Him. Every living soul therefore has an illumination of God in the order of nature, by the light of conscience, and by the light of reason, and by the working of the Spirit of God in his head and in his heart, leading him to believe in God, and to obey Him. Once more: Saint Paul says that " God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth:":(: that is, without any exception, Jew or • 8. John i. 9. f Ps. xviii. 6, 7. t 1 Tim. ii. 4.
Gentile. And once more: " We hope in the living God, "Who is the Saviour of all men, and especially of the faithful;"1 that is, of those who believe, therefore of all men without exception. And two Pontiffs have condemned as heresy the two following assertions. That the heathen, and the Jews, and heretics, receive no influence from Jesus Christ, but that their will is without help, that is without grace, was condemned as a heresy by Alexander VIII. Again, that there is no grace given outside the Church, was also condemned as heresy by Clement XLf The work, therefore, of the Holy Ghost, even in the order of nature, so to say, that is, outside of the Church of God and of the revealed knowledge of Jesus Christ among the heathen — that working is universal in the soul of every individual human being; and if they who receive the assistance of the Holy Ghost are faithful in corresponding with it, God in His unrevealed mercies will deal with them in ways secret from us. His mercies unknown to us are over all His works; and the infinite merits of the Eedeemer of the world are before the mercy-seat of our Heavenly Father, for the salvation of those that follow even the little light which in the order of nature they receive.
Any gift of God given freely is a grace. Our very existence is a grace; every gift in nature is a grace; every light we receive from the world leading us to the knowledge of God — much more every doctrine we receive from revelation — is a grace; but this is not the2 sense in which we are speaking now. When •**, talk of the grace of the Holy Ghost we mean something interior dwelling in the soul; and therefore the grace of the Holy Spirit working in the soul may be thus defined. It is a gift of God infused into the soul, not due to nature, but something superadded to nature, a perfection above nature elevating the soul to the supernatural order, and leading it to justification and eterna* life. Or, to put it shortly, it is the sanctifying power and the influx of the Holy Ghost; it is the presence of the Holy Ghost entering into the soul, and infusing sanctity into the soul. When grace takes possession of the soul, in the reason it assumes the form of faith; in the will it takes the form of hope; and in the heart it takes the form of love: faith, hope, and charity are the three primary workings of the Holy Ghost in the soul. Again, grace may be described as the breath of the supernatural life, which God breathes into the soul of man. A breath of life as necessary to the soul as the natural breath of life is to the body. Therefore it hasan operation universal, gratuitous, derived from the sovereign love of God, necessary, vital to man, and sufficient to eternal life. This, then, is the first working of the Holy Spirit from the beginning of the world; and is at this moment even among those nations that have never received the faith.
- But, secondly, the special office of the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifier, of which we now speak, is within the bounds of the revelation of faith. From the beginning of the world there has always been a certain line of elect souls, wh) form a chain of the saints of God. God from all eternity foreknew who would be saved, and He
GRACE THE WORK OF A PEBSOK. 2J predestinated them, first to grace in this world, and, tlirough the faithful use of that grace, to glory in the world to come. God knows the number of His elect, and the world will go on until the last of that number has been gathered out and made perfect for the kingdom of God. Do not misunderstand me for a moment, as if that predestination of God in any way conflicts with the perfect freedom of the human will. All those who are saved eternally will be saved by the sovereign grace of God, and by the free co-operation of their own will; and all those who are lost eternally will be lost because, by the free resistance of their will, they have refused to co-operate with the grace of God. The predestination of God in no way violates or takes away the perfect liberty of the human will. God created the will of man with liberty, and He respects the work of His own hands; but from the beginning there has been a line of His elect multiplying perpetually from Abel the just, continuing to expand in number from Abel to Enoch, from Enoch to Noe, from Noe to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses. In the twelve tribes of Israel the saints of God were multiplying continually; and to them God continually gave more and more of His graces, visions, revelations, promises, inspirations, vocations, and special calls: like that which called Abraham out from Ur of the Ohaldees; inspirations like that which made Moses to be the Law-giver of His people, and made Aaron to be the Priest to minister before H'*m — graces which constituted the Prophets of Israel as the teachers, the rebukers, and the admonishers of the people of God. All those were special graces bestowed by the Holy Ghost for the illumination and eanctificati >n of the people of God; but over aud above these there were special interior workings and graces oi the Holy Ghost, increasing continually in their measure until the coming of Jesus Christ. Every saint before the coining of Jesus Christ was sanctified by the Holy Ghost in virtue of the foreseen redemption upon Cal vary. The merits of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world obtained graces for the sanctification of God's elect from the beginning; and the sanctity of every saint like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of every penitent like David, the special graces of Saint Joseph and the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, were all purchased by the same most Precious Blood shed by the Sou of God.
And now what is the nature of that grace? " The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace."3 The first Adam, of whom we are born by nat ure, was constituted in grace, but, by sin-ning, fell and died; " and that which is born of the flesh is flesh."f We are born flesh and blood, and the Holy Ghost is not in us. The Second Adam is the Son oi God Incarnate, the Fountain and Well-spring of all grace; and in Him the Holy Ghost dwells, and from Him the graces of the Holy Ghost are poured out on us. This was the promise which He made when He was going away: " It is expedient for you that I go. For if I go not, the Paraclete will not come; but if I go, 1 will send Him to you." J "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to yon." § On the day of Pentefib. rvi. 7. glb.xiv. 18.
cost, the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, came to take up His office through the Incarnation of the Son. Our Lord had said: u My Father worketli hitherto, and now I work;* that is, the Father, the Creator, in the early dawn of the world manifested Himself by His power as the Maker of all things; next, the Son manifested Himself by His Incarnation. Now we live under the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. We are at this time committed to the care and guidance of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity; so that the dispensation under which we are is the dispensation of the Spirit of God, the Sanetifier. It is wonderful, then, how men with the page of the New Testament before them can fail to see this — that the one great evangelical gift, the one great gift of the Gospel, is the gift of the Holy Ghost. " For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba, Father."..." And if we be sons, we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ."t Our whole state is elevated. Because we are the children of the Second Adam, His Father is our Father; because we are the sons of God by grace, He is our elder Brother. The Holy Ghost dwells in us, because He descends from our Head upon all His members. We are born again through Christ into a new and supernatural state. We are not restored to the state of original justice, but we are placed in a state of union with God through the Holy Ghost, like, though distinct from, that which the first man received. There is this further difference — he was in original justice, but it was poa • 8. John v. 17 f Rom. via. 15, 17.
s»ble for Lira to fall; we are united to a divine Head sinless and immortal, Who therefore can never fall, for He is God. We, who are united with Him, receive from Him, by our regeneration, a special indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Not only every grace that was ever given to man before, all the graces that were evei granted under the law to the saints and to the penitents of Israel — not only all those are still given in fullness now to members of the Church, but there are superadded othei graces which were never before given. IB Israel there were no proper sacraments. There were shadows of sacraments, but the substance was not come. There was circumcision, and there were sacrifices of bulls and of goats, and ceremonial actions, and washings, and purifications, which were the types and shadows of things to come; but those were not proper sacraments, and they did not convey grace. There was no grace in them. They were external actions, like the taking of holy water, and they depended for their sanctifying power upon the internal state of the heart of those who used them. According to the measure of faith and piety in the heart of those who received them, was the measure of the grace received by their use. The grace did not spring from them, nor come through them, for they were not fountains or channels of grace. But the sacraments of the Church are fountains of grace — that is, grace is lodged in them; and they who receive them, if they put no bar of mortal sin in the way, infallibly receive that grace. Every soul that is baptized, if it put no bar, receives infallibly the grace of regeneration. Every soul that receives the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, if it put no bar of mortal sin, infal-
GBACE THE WOBK OP A PERSON.
libly receives it; and so of all the other sacraments. There is this also to be borne in mind. Every sacrament of the Church has two kinds of grace to bestow: there is the grace of the sacrament, and there is the sacramental grace. The grace of the sacrament is that which is in fallibly communicated to every soul that does not pu the bar of mortal sin. For instance, as I have said, Baptism confers a new birth; the Sacrament of the Altar confers the Body and Blood of our Lord; but every sacrament confers, over and above this, a sacramental grace; and this is a special and peculiar privilege of the new law of Jesus Christ, and of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, whereby God has sanctified every state of man, and has given to every such state a special and proportionate grace, to enable those who are in it to discharge its duties. Together with the gift of regeneration in Baptism is given the sacramental grace, which enables the regenerate to fulfill the duties of love, piety, and obedience — that is, all the duties of a son of God. In the Sacrament of Penance, over and above Absolution, is given the sacramental grace to raise our sorrow from attrition to contrition, to inspire the will of mortification, and to fulfill all the duties of a penitent. In Confirmation, over and above the special and singular grace of strength, is given a sacramental grace, which abides in the soul, enabling it to fulfill all the duties of a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and to endure the whole warfare of the world, the flesh, and the devil. In the Sacrament of the Altar, over and above the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, is given the sacramental grace of piety, devotion, tenderness, love, generosity, self-denial, conformity to the Sacred Heart of our Lord, 2
GRACE THE WORK OF A PERSOtf.
according to the measure of the devotion and of the capacity of the heart. In the Sacrament of Matrimony there is given sacramental grace to fulfill all the duties, bear all the burdens, and to discharge all the offices belonging to the state in which those enter who make that life-long contract. In the Sacrament of Orders there is given a grace, whereby a priest will always have a perpetual assistance for the discharge of his office in all its difficulties, whether in guiding others, or of preaching the Word of God, or in the administration of sacraments, or in the warfare that comes, first and above all, upon the priest in our conflict with the world. Lastly, to those who upon a dying bed receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, there is given all that is necessary to strengthen and prepare the soul to meet its Judge. It goes forth, cleansed and absolved, glad to expiate the last remaining debt, if need be, in waiting and in suffering the loving chastisements of purgatory.
Now here we must observe that, over and above all the graces that have ever been given by the Holy Spirit of God before the day of Pentecost, we have received the special grace of a new dispensation. We who are bom again, and are members of the mystical Body of Christ, are under a dispensation of the Holy Ghost, so full, and of such manifold grace, that there is no state of man which is not embraced by it, and in which there is not given an abundance of grace, exceeding all measure that we can conceive, and meted out according to the necessities of each individual soul. Our Lord intended this when He said: u I am come that they may hare life, and that they may have it more abundantly/'* *8t. John i. 10.
Uj»on all this spiritual grace comes the sonship which we have received. 'We are made sons of God by adoption. The glory of the sons of God is already upon us. We are united with God as children of our Heavenly Father by a bond the most intimate that is possible between the Creator and a creature. There is one only union higher and more intimate, and that is incommunicable; namely, the consubstantial unity of the Eternal Son with our manhood, after the likeness of which we, by adoption and grace, are made the sons of God. Therefore it is that Saint Paul, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, draws out the contrast between the Law and the Gospel in this way: " We are made," he says, " fit ministers, not of the letter but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, the spirit giveth life." * He adds, that upon our hearts is written the law of God, " not with ink, but by the Spirit of God on the fleshy tables of the heart," f according to the promise God made before: " This is the testament I will make with them: after those days, saith the Lord, I will write My laws in their minds, and in their hearts I will place them.":): Lastly, Saint Paul says, glorious as was the law, and glorious as was the face of Moses after he had spoken with God, so that the people could not look upon his countenance, and Moses had need to cover his face with a veil because they could not endure its splendor, nevertheless we are under a dispensation of the Holj Ghost which is yet more glorious, because, " we, with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord."4
SS GRACE THE WOBK OF A PERSCfl.
My purpose has been to draw out this truth, in order to show that the state of grace in which we are, by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in our hearts, and by the exuberant assistance of grace in every state of the Christian life, lifts and elevates us to a supernatural order, higher than all that the world has ever known from the beginning. This elevation of man was specially reserved to these last times — that is, until the Incarnation of the Son of God. The state of a Christian child transcends, in supernatural grace and dignity, all that God has ever before bestowed upon His creatures. If, then, this be so, there are some plain practical les sons for us to learn.
- And first, we ought to be habitually conscious that we are in a supernatural order. Dear brethren, if there be one thing that is to our shame, one thing which ought to cast us down with our faces in the dust, it is this: that we live all the day long as if there were no Holy Ghost, as if we were like the Ephesians who, when the Apostle asked them if they had received the Holy Ghost since they believed, said, " We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost."5 We live in the world and are worldly; we live on the earth and of the earth are earthy; we live for pleasure, we live for trade, for money, for levities, for frivolities, for the indulgence of our own will. Many live for worse; for they live in pride, in covetousness, in jealousies, in envies, in animosities, in malice one with another. Many live in worse still, if it were possible so to say. They spend tteir years in revelling, wallowing in gross •ins of sensual ty; and yet they have been made tern- •Acuxix. 2, pies of the Holy Ghost. They have been born again, they are regenerate, they have been made eons of God, heirs of His Kingdom: and to all eternity they will }>ear the mark of their regeneration, the indelible character stamped upon them at the font, and they will bear also the mark of their confirmation — two terrible and divine witnesses against them: the evidence of their disobedience, because they have grieved the Holy Ghost until they quenched His light, and died in their sin. Is it not true that if you look round the world you see men on every side living as if they had never been born again? They live as if they were born of the flesh, and of the flesh only. They li ve for the world, and for nothing else. The words of the Apostle are terrible: " The sensual man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, because they are foolishness unto him; neither can he understand them, because they are spiritually examined;"* that is, spiritually discerned, spiritually known, spiritually tasted. I would ask you whether the traders, and the merchants, and the profligates, and the worldlings, and the ambitious, and the proud, and the covetous, and the violent, and the unjust, are not living all the day long, and all the year round, and all their life through, in this blindness of the sensual man? The word " sensual man," in the original, neans the animal man, the man of flesh and blood, of he fleshly reason, and of the carnal will without the Spirit of God. Such, because they have fallen from baptismal grace, is the state of multitudes of baptized Christians.
I ask you, then, to examine yourselves as in God's * 1 Cor. ii. 14 eight. Have you any of these marks upon you? li you ^have, then you are grieving the Spirit of your baptism. Perhaps you may have already lost its grace. If you are insensible of these things, it maybe that you cannot discern that your baptismal innocence exists no longer, that you have even now the character of your baptism marked upon you for your condemnation, that the grace of the Spirit of God is departed; for "the Holy Spirit of discipline fleeth from the deceitful, and withdraweth Himself from the thoughts that are without understanding, and will not abide when iniquity enters in."* " The spiritual man judgeth all things, and himself is judged of no man."f Now who is the spiritual man? It is the man who follows the Spirit of his baptism, who has either kept hie baptismal innocence, or, if he had lost it, has received it again by penance; and, living in the holy fear of God, purifies himself, asking daily of the Holy Ghost to sanctify him altogether, in every thought and affection and passion, to illuminate his understanding with a knowledge of truth, to sanctify and cleanse his heart from every taint of sin, to inspire his will with a generous obedience. A man that lives such a life, and is conscious of the supernatural help that is in him, and is faithful to the duties of his state in the world, and discharges them with an exact fidelity, because he does them not for man but for God — a man who remembers continually that he is predestined to eternal life, but that yet he may fall from grace, that this world is not his resting-place, that his he me is in eternity, that he is but a stranger, wayfaring upon eartb, who keeps himself de- * Wisdom i. 5. t Cor. U. 15.
taclied from the world and unspotted by it— cuch a man lives a supernatural life. Ask yourselves, dear brethren, which of these two lives are you leading? Are you conscious that there is a supernatural life in you? If you are, then you are taking care to feed and sustain It with supernatural grace, with holy sacraments, with prayer, with meditation. You avoid all things which are contrary to that life. And just as you would avoid a pestilent atmosphere, or as you would not drink of a poisoned well, or risk anything which would be hurtful to your bodily life, so do you with constant vigilance avoid the occasions of sin, and all things which are hurtful to your spiritual life and health. Saint John writing by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, s&jd this: " Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be, the sons of God. Therefore, the world knoweth us not because it knows Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is; and every man that hath this hope in him sanctifieth himself, even as He also is holy."* If you realize this, your supernatural state, it will be the motive of your daily life.
- Secondly, we ought to co-operate generously and faitlif ully with the will of the Holy Spirit that is working in us. You remember that, when the Lord called Samuel in his childhood, at first he did not know the divine voice; but when Eli bade him to answer: " Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth;"f he obeyed, * 1 8. John iii. 1-3. f 1 Kings Hi. 10.
. J from that time he understood the will of God. The voice of the Lord is always calling to you: " Behold, 1 stand at the gate and knock. If any man will hear M) voice, and will open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me."* All the day long the Spirit of God is in your hearts; all hours of the day He is calling on you to correspond with the will of God, that by it you may be sanctified. But do you correspond with it? You know that if you strike a note of music, all the octave notes will vibrate. Does your heart vibrate in correspondence and harmony with the voice of the Holy Ghost, prompting you to holy thoughts, good works, charitable actions, peace with all men, prayer and piety towards God? No grace that God gives ever fails of its effect, except through our fault. The seed that falls upon the barren sand can bear no fruit; that which is cast upon the sea cannot strike a root; that which falls upon a mind which is like the troubled sea, or upon a heart which is like the barren sand, will bear no spiritual fruit. Nevertheless, the grace of God in itself is always fruitful; it never fails, of its effect, unless we mar it. Are you, then, correnponding with the exuberant graces which God is always bestowing upon you? Think of what you have received from your childhood. The lights that have come down on you from heaven all your life long are not more abundant than the graces of the Holy Spirit, which have been bestowed upon you to impart the knowledge of self and the knowledge of God. The showers that water the earth are not more exuberant than the gracei of sanctity which God has poured out into your heart* » Apoc. iii. 20.
How have you corresponded with them? Lea n, then, brethren; let us all learn, for we all alike have need— and what I say to you I say first to myself — let us lean to have a delicate conscience, to understand promptly, and to correspond, if we can, proportionately; not to receive great graces languidly, and squander one half of them, and correspond faintly with the rest. Try with your whole soul and strength to rise up and to obey, when the grace of God calls you to any higher state or to any better action.
- Lastly, I will but touch on one other lesson, which is so vital to our salvation, that I would most earnestly pray you to learn it well. Let it be the lasting fruit of all I have attempted hitherto to say. Resolve from this time, with all your spiritual power, to be devout to the Holy Ghost. Fray to have a devotion, personal, constant, daily, to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. In your baptism you were committed to His care. He is your Guide, your Foster-Father, your Friend, your Counsellor, your Guardian. When the Patriarch Jacob had seen in a vision the ladder which reached up from earth to heaven, and the angels ascending and descending upon it, he woke up filled with a supernatural terror, and said: u Indeed, God is in this place and I knew it not; this is no other than the house of God, and this the gate of heaven.6 So would it be with us, if we were to wake up and be conscious that God the Holy Ghost is about us, that He encompasses us behind and before, that He is within us, that He pervades us as the Uncreated Spirit of God alone can do, that our very soul is net so intimately united to our body as He is to our soul; that He is all ear to hear every breathing of our heart, that He is all eye to see every thought which flits across our imagination; that our whole being is open before Him, that " the Word of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; neither is there any creature that J'H not manifest in His sight3 for all things are open and naked to the eyes of Him to Whom we must account."7 If we only felt this, we should wake up and saj: ''Indeed, God is in this place and I knew it not: r\Jl my life long I have been unconscious. Now I knov that my own soul is the house of God, and my own heart is to me the gate of heaven."
Let us then resolve, dear brethren, all we can, to love the Spirit of God, to ccnibira ourselves to His will, to worship Him day by day, tc pray to Him personally, to place ourselves under His guidance, to beware of disobedience — of those three do^rees of disobedience of which He Himself has warned us: " Grieve not the Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption;"-f " Eesist not the Spirit;"t " Quench not the Spirit "§ These are three degrees by which we may fall from His love and from His presence. Beware also not of actual disobedience only, but of that tardy, slothful negligence by you may provoke Him to a just impatience. " Ee. thon art neither cold nor hct, but lukewarm, i v
$ Acts vii. 51. § 1 Theps. r H thou wert either cold or hot."8 Nothing provokes the Holy Spirit of God, Who is the fire of the love of God, more than the lukewarmness with which we allow His graces and mercies to pass by us, and to pass by us nnperceived. Ask, then, of the Holy Spirit of God to give you light to know Him, to know His presence, to be conscious of His indwelling in your hearts. Say to Him: " O my God, I give myself to Thee with all my liberty, all my intellect and heart and will. I desire to be bound to Thee; for ' where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,' no other liberty is true; I desire to be free from the servitude of my own false freedom, which is the worst bondage of the human soul. To be Thy servant is to be in the liberty of the sons of God. They that are led by the Spirit of God, are the sons of God. O Holy Spirit of God, take me as Thy disciple, guide me, illuminate me, sanctify me, bind my hands that I may not do evil, cover my eyes that I may see it no more, sanctify my heart that evil may not rest within me. Be Thou my God, be Thou my Guide: wheresoever Thou leadest me I will go; whatsoever Thcu forbiddest I will renounce; and whatsoever Thou commandest, in Thy strength I will do."
Footnotes
Chapter 2 of 18