Chapter X

SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH {continued). THE PERFECTION OF THE EVANGELIC LIFE IS PRACTISED IN OUR CHURCH; IN THE PRETENDED, IT IS DESPISED AND GIVEN UP.

The Church which is now, following the voice of her Pastor and Saviour, and the track beaten by her ancestors, praises, approves, and greatly esteems the resolution of those who give themselves up to the practice of the Evangelical counsels, of whom she has a very great number. I have no doubt that if you had frequented the assemblies of the Chartreux, Camaldolese, Celestines, Minims, Capuchins, Jesuits, Theatines and numberless others, amongst whom religious discipline flourishes, you would be uncertain whether you should call them earthly angels or heavenly men, and that you would not know which to admire the more, whether in such blooming youth so perfect a chastity, or in such great knowledge so profound a humility, or in so much diversity so close a fraternity: and all, like heavenly bees, work in and compose, with the rest of Christianity, the honey of the Gospel, these by preachings, these by writings, these by meditations and prayers, these by teaching and disputations, these by the care of the sick, these by the administration of the Sacraments, under the authority of the pastors. Who should ever detract from the glory of so many religious of all orders, and of so many secular priests, who, leaving their country, or, to say it better, their own world, have exposed themselves to the mercy of wind and tide, to get to the nations of the New World, in order to lead them to the true faith, and to enlighten them with the light of the Gospel; who, without other equipment than a lively confidence in the Providence of God, without other expectation than of labours, miseries and martyrdom, without other aim than the honour of God and the salvation of souls, here hastened amongst the Cannibals, Canarians, Negroes, Brazilians, Malays, Japanese, and other foreign nations, and made themselves prisoners there, banishing themselves from their own earthly country in order that these poor people might not be banished from the heavenly Paradise? I know that some Ministers have been thither, but they went having their means of support from men, and when these failed they returned and did no more, because an ape is always an ape, but ours remained

ART. HI. 0. X.] The Rule of Faith. 201 there, in perpetual continency to fertilise the Church with these new plants, in extreme poverty to enrich these people with the Gospel, and died in bondage to place that world in Christian liberty.

But if, instead of making your profit of these examples, and refreshing your minds with the sweetness of so holy a perfume, you turn your eyes towards certain places where monastic discipline is altogether ruined, and where there remains nothing sound but the habit; — you will force me to say that you are looking for the sewers and dung heaps, not the gardens and orchards. All good Catholics regret the ill-behaviour of these people, and blame the negligence of the pastors and the uncontrollable ambition of certain persons who, being determined to have power and authority, hinder legitimate elections, and the order of discipline, in order to make the temporal goods of the Church their own. What can we do? The master has sown good seed, but the enemy has oversown cockle. The Church, at the Council of Trent, had looked to the good ordering of these things, but its ordinances are despised by those who ought to put them into execution; and so far are Catholic doctors from consenting to this evil that they consider it a great sin to enter into such disorderly monasteries as these. Judas prevented not the honour of the Apostolic order, nor Lucifer of the angelic, nor Nicholas of the diaconate; and in the same way these abominable men ou^jht not to tarnish the riohteousness of so many devout monasteries, which the Catholic Church has preserved amidst all the dissolution of this age of iron, in order that not one word of her Spouse should be in vain or fail to be put in practice.

On the contrary, gentlemen, your pretended church despises and contradicts all this as much as she can. Calvin in the 4th Book of his InstiUUions aims only at the abolition of the observance of the Evangelical counsels, and you cannot show me any effort or good will amongst your party, in which every one down to the ministers marries, every one labours to gather together riches, nobody acknowledges any other superior than force makes him submit to — an evident sign that this pretended church is not the one for which Our Lord has preached and draw the picture of so many excellent examples. For if everybody marries, what will become of the advice of S. Paul ( i Cor. vii.): It is good for a man not to touch a woman? If everybody runs after money and possessions, to whom will that word of Our Lord (Matt, vi.) be addressed: Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, or that other (lb. xix): Go, sell all, give to the poor? If every one will govern in his turn, where shall be found the practice of that most solemn senteuce (Luke ix): He rvho will come after me let him deny himself? If then your Church puts itself in comparison with ours, ours will be the true Spouse, who puts in practice all the words of her Beloved, and leaves not one talent of the Scripture idle; yours will be false, who hears not the voice of the Beloved, yea, despises it. For it is not reasonable that to keep yours in credit we should make vain the least syllable of the Scriptures, which being addressed only to the true Church, would be vain and useless if in the true Church all these parts are not made use of.

ART, III. c. XI.] The Riile of Faith. 20

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