Of the Evils resulting from Joy in Temporal goods.

If I were to describe all the evils that environ the soul when the affections of the Will are set upon Temporal Goods, paper and ink would fail me, and time itself would be too short.

* Eccles, vii. 4. + Ib. vii. 3. t 1 Cor. vii. 27. § 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30,

Slight beginnings issue in great evils, and in the ruin of great

prosperity. A spark, unquenched, kindles a great fire, which

in

may burn up the whole world. All these evils have their root and origin in one principal evil of a negative character involved in this joy, namely, a departure from God.

For, as the drawing near of the soul unto God with the affection of the will is the source of all good, so the going away from Him, through love of created things, issues in all evils and calamities, in proportion to the joy and affection which unite us to the creature. This is the departure from God. In proportion, therefore, to our departure from God, more or less, will be the evils resulting from it in greater or less extent and gravity; and for the most part they are at once most extensive and most grave.

There are four degrees, one worse than the other, in this negative evil, from which all the other evils, negative and positive, proceed. And when the fourth degree is reached, all the evils involved in this case will have fallen upon the ~ soul. These four degrees are described in the following | words of Moses:—‘ The beloved grew fat and kicked; he grew fat, and thick, and gross; he forsook God, who made him, and departed from God his Saviour.’ *

This growing fat of the soul, once beloved, is its absorption in the joy of created things. Hence the first degree of evil, going backwards; if is a certain obtuseness of mind with regard to God, which obscures His blessings, as a cloud darkens the sky, hiding the light of the sun. For the moment the spiritual man rejoices in anything, and gives the reins to his foolish desires, he becomes blind to God, and overshadows with a cloud the pure perceptions of his judgment. ‘For the bewitching of vanity,’ saith the Holy Ghost, ‘obscureth good things, and the wandering of con-

* Deuter, xxxii. 15,

cupiscence overturneth the innocent mind.’* The Holy Spirit teaches here that concupiscence alone, and joy in

created things, even when the soul is without previous malice,

are sufficient to precipitate it into the first degree of evil; into that obtuseness of mind and obscurity of judgment which destroy the perception of truth and a right judgment in all things. If a man gives way to concupiscence, or rejoices in temporal things, neither his sanctity nor his prudence can prevent his fall.

This explains those words of God: ‘ Neither shalt thou take bribes, which even blind the wise.’ This is especially addressed unto judges who have need of a clear and vigilant judgment, which cannot coexist with avarice and joy in gifts. Hence God commanded Moses to appoint men for judges who hated avarice: ‘ Provide out of all the people able men.... that hate avarice, who may judge the people at all times, { men who would not blind their judgment by the lust of possession. God does not say men that avoid avarice, but men that hate avarice. For if we would defend ourselves completely against a particular affection we must hold it in abhorrence, and guard ourselves against it by the contrary feeling. The reason why Samuel was always so upright and enlightened a judge was, as he tells us himself, his abstinence from gifts: ‘If I have taken a bribe at any man’s hand.’ §

The second degree grows out of the first, as the text shows: ‘he grew fat, and thick, and gross.’ Thus the Will becomes gross and distracted, by greater liberty in worldly things. It has no further scruples about the pleasures of sense, and abandons itself to created things. This state grows out of a previous indulgence in joy, for when the soul of man is

* Wisd. iv. 12. ¢ Exod. xxiii. 8. t Ib. xviii. 21, 22. § 1 Kings xii. 3.

2. de

engrossed therein it is the result of yielding to it; and this engrossing of it by joy and desire causes the will to dilate and expand itself on created things. Great evils result from this, because this second degree leads us away from the things of God, and from holy practices, and robs us of all pleasure in them, because we take pleasure in other matters, and abandon ourselves to many follies, to empty joys and pleasures. When the second degree is completely reached, it destroys utterly habitual devotions, and the mind and desire are given up to secularities. Those who have fallen to this second degree, not only have their judgment and understanding blinded as to truth and justice, like those who have fallen into the first; but they are also remiss and tepid in recognising and doing their duty, according to the words of the Prophet: ‘They all love bribes, they run after rewards. They judge not for the fatherless; and the widow’s cause cometh not unto them.’ * This implicates them in sin, especially if such duties are incumbent upon them, for those who have fallen to this depth are not free from malice, like those of the first degree. These, therefore, withdraw more and more from justice and virtue, because they inflame the will more and more by this their affection for created things. The characteristics of those who are in this second state are great tepidity in spiritual things, and a careless observance of them; they perform their highest duties rather as if they were ceremonies, or from compulsion, -or from habit, and not from love.

ot The third degree of this negative evil is the utter forsaking of God, neglect of His law, because men will not deny themselves in the merest trifle of this world, and, finally, mortal sin committed through concupiscence. This degree is described in the text by the words, ‘ He forsook God who made him.’ This degree includes all those the faculties of whose souls are so immersed in the things of the world —

* Ts, i, 23,

in riches and the commerce thereof — that they are utterly

regardless of the obligations of the Divine Law. In that

which concerns their salvation they are forgetful and dull, but quick and clear in the things of the world, so much so that our Lord calls them ‘ children of this world,’ saying of them, that they ‘ are wiser in their generation than the children of light;’* that is, more prudent in the management of their own affairs than the children of light in their own. Such persons are nothing in the things of God, but everything in the things of the world. These persons are the truly avaricious; they have so profusely wasted their affections and desires upon created things that they can never be satisfied; their desire and thirst increase the more, the more they depart from the Fountain which alone can satisfy them, namely, God. It is of these that God speaks by the mouth of the Prophet, saying, ‘ They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns,

-broken cisterns, that can hold no water.’f The covetous

man cannot quench his thirst by created things; but he increases it. These persons fall into innumerable sins through temporal goods; of whom the Psalmist hath said, ‘ They have passed into the affection of the heart.’ }

The fourth degree of this negative evil is described in the same text thus: ‘departed from God his Saviour.’ This is the issue of the third degree, of which I have just spoken.

The avaricious man, because he makes light of his want of affection for the Law of God, on account of temporal goods, departs from Him in Memory, Intellect, and Will. He forgets Him as if He existed not, because he has made money and temporal prosperity his god; for avarice is, according to the Apostle, ‘ the service of idols.’§ This fourth degree extends

to forgetfulness of God, to the setting of the heart formally

on money which ought to be set formally upon God; as if

* S. Luke xvi. 8, + Jerem. ii. 18. } Ps. lxxii. 7. § Coloss, iii. 5,

men had no other god than money. ‘They have fallen into ‘218 fourth degree who scruple not to subject Divine and Supernatural things to temporal, as if the latter were God;

their duty being to act on the contrary rule, subjecting temporal things to God, as Reason requires. Such was the impious Balaam, who sold for money the gift of God,* and Simon Magus, who ‘thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money,’f and attempted to buy it. They thought more of money; they seemed to think that others did so too, and that they would sell the gift of God.

There are many who, in various ways, have fallen into this fourth degree of evil, their Reason is blinded by avarice, and they are the servants of money and not of God; they labour for it and not for Him; they propose to themselves a human and not the Divine reward; making money in divers ways their principal end and god, and preferring it to God, their ultimate end.

This class, too, comprises all those miserable men who so Jove their earthly goods as to esteem them their god; and who therefore shrink not from the sacrifice of their own lives whenever their god suffers the slightest injury; they fall into despair, and for wretched objects inflict death upon themselves; thereby exhibiting, in the work of their own hands, the miserable reward which their god bestows upon them. When their expectations fail them they despair and die, and those who escape this final calamity live in the torments of continual anxiety and misery; no joy enters into their soul, and no temporal happiness attends them; they pay tribute to their god in sorrow of heart, gathering money for the final misery of their just perdition: as it is written, ‘ Riches kept to the hurt of the owner.’ t Those also of whom it is said, ‘God delivered them up to

* Num. xxii. 7. + Acts viii, 20. t Eccles. y. 12,

a reprobate sense,’* are of this class, for joy, when it makes possessions its end, drags men down to this. Those who do not fall so low are objects of deep commiseration, because they turn back from the way of God. ‘ Be not thou afraid when a man shall be made rich, and when the glory of his house shall be increased. For when he shall die he shall take nothing away, nor shall his glory descend with him.’ ft ‘Be not afraid when a man shall be made rich;’ that is, be not envious of him, thinking him superior to thyself, for when he shall die he shall take nothing away with him, neither shall his glory nor his joy descend with him.