Seven Evils to which men are liable if the Will rejoices in Moral Goods.

THE principal evils to which men become exposed through

the rejoicing of the Will in good works and a virtuous life

are seven in number, and most fatal, because they are

spiritual; I shall now give a brief description of them:

1. The first is vanity, pride, vain glory, and presumption,

for no man can rejoice in his own works without attributing a great value to them. From this springs boasting and other faults; an instance of which we have in the Pharisce who in his prayer boasted of his fasts and the other good works he was doing.

2. The second evil is generally connected with the first,

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and it is this: we come to judge others, and to pronounce them to be comparatively wicked and imperfect, and that

their good works are inferior to ours; we despise them in

our hearts, and sometimes express ourselves contemptuously

about them. The Pharisee had fallen into this also, for in

his prayers, he said, ‘O God, I give Thee thanks, that I am ~

not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican; I fast twice in a week.’* Thus by one act he fell into these two evils, namely, self-esteem and contempt of others, as many Christians do daily, who say, I am not like such an one, neither is my life such as his, Yea, many of them are even worse than the Pharisee; he certainly despised others and pointed out the object of his contempt, saying ‘this publican:’ they, indeed, are not satisfied with this, but give way to anger and envy when they hear others praised, or that they are doing more, or are more useful men, than themselves.

3. The third evil is that, as they look for their own satisfaction in their good works, they will in general do only such as will furnish them with this satisfaction, or obtain

the commendation of others. They do all their works, as

our Saviour saith, ‘ for to be seen of men,’ f and not for God alone.

4. The fourth evil issues out of the third, and is this: God will not reward them for their good works, because they seek it here in this world in the joy, or the comfort, or the honourable advantages of their good works; of them our Saviour saith, ‘Amen. I say to you, they have received their reward.’ { They will therefore have nothing but their labour, and confusion of face without its reward. The children of men are so miserably involved in this evil that, in my opinion, the greater part of the good works, which are publicly

done, are either vicious or worthless, or they are imperfect and defective in God’s sight, because men do not detach themselves from self-interest and from human respect. What other opinion can we form of those good works, which men do, or of the monuments which they raise, but which,

* S. Luke xviii. 11, 12. + S. Matt, xxiii. 5. t Ib, vi. 2,

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“would have been undone and unbuilt, if their authors had

not been influenced by worldly honour, human respect, and the vanity of this life? Is not all this too often done in order to perpetuate a name or a pedigree, or to mark authority and lordship; and that to the extent of setting up armorial bearings in churches, as if they would establish themselves there as Images for the veneration of men? At the sight of these good works of some people, we may well say that men respect themselves more than God.

But passing from these who are the worst, how many are there who in their good works fall into these evils in many ways? Some expect their good works to be extolled, others expect gratitude for them, others enumerate them, and delight in the fact that such and such persons, and even the whole world are aware of them; sometimes they will employ a third person to convey their alms, or to do any other good

work, in order to make it the more known; some, too, look |

both for praise and reward. This is nothing else but to sound a trumpet in the streets, like vain men, but whom God for that reason will never reward.* If men wish to avoid this evil they must hide their good works so that God alone. shall see them, and they must not wish any one to think much of them. They must hide them not only from others, but from themselves also; that is, they must take no satisfaction in them nor regard them with complacency, as if they thought them of any value. This is the meaning of those words of our Saviour: ‘ Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth.’f That is, do not look with temporal and carnal eyes upon thy spiritual works. When this precept is observed, the ‘strength of the will is concentrated in God, and our good works become fruitful in His sight; but where it is not observed, we shall

* S. Matt. vi. 2.; + Ih, vi. 3.

not.only lose our labour, but, very frequently, because of our interior boasting and vanity, sin grievously against God. Those words of Job also are to be understood in this sense: nas as, MY heart in secret hath rejoiced, and I have kissed my hand with my mouth, which is a very great iniquity.’* Here the ‘hand’ means our good works, and ‘ mouth’ our will which regards them with complacency. This is selfcomplacency, for the words of Job are, if my ‘heart hath in secret rejoiced,’ and a ‘great iniquity, and a denial against the Most High God.’ To attribute our good works to ourselves isto deny them to be God’s, from whom all good works proceed, and to follow the example of Lucifer, who rejoiced in himself, denying to God what was His, and arrogating it to himself. |

5. The fifth evil is, that men of this kind make no progress in Perfection; for cleaving to the pleasure and comfort of their good works, when this pleasure and comfort cease — which is usually the case when God seeks their advancement,

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when He gives them dry bread, which is the bread of the

perfect, when He deprives them of the milk of babes, when He tries their strength, and purifies their delicate appetites, so that they may be able to taste the food of the strong — they become generally faint of heart, and fail to persevere, because their good works are no longer sources of pleasure. To this we may apply in a spiritual sense those words of the Wise Man: ‘Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment.’ t+ For when mortifications come in their way they die to their good works, abandon them, and lose perseverance, wherein spiritual sweetness and interior comfort consist.

6. The sixth evil is a general delusion under the influence of which men mistake the value of their good works,

* Job xxxi, 26-28, + Eccles, x. i,

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considering those wherein they find delight to be of greater

importance than those wherein they find none: they praise and esteem the former, but despise and reject the latter; yet those works, generally, in which a man is most mortified — especially when he is not advanced in Perfection — are more pleasing and precious in the eyes of God, by reason of that self-denial involved in their performance, than those good works in which he finds consolation, where self-seeking so easily intrudes. ‘ The evil of their hand,’ saith the Prophet, ‘they call good;’ * that is, what is evil in their work they say is good. And they come to this because they derive their joy from their good works, and not from pleasing God only. The extent of this evil, among spiritually minded men as well as ordinary Christians, baffles all description, for scarcely any one can be found who doeth good simply for the love of God, without relying on some advantage of joy or comfort, or of some other consideration.

7. The seventh evil is that man, so far as he does not

suppress all joy in moral good works, is the more incapable of listening to reasonable counsel and instruction with reference to his duties. The habitual weakness contracted by doing good works with an eye to this empty joy, so fetters him that he cannot accept the advice given him as the best, or if he does so accept it he cannot act upon it, through lack of resolution. The love of God and of our neighbour is greatly weakened in these persons, for their self-love, which they indulge in with reference to their own good works, makes charity cold.

* Mich, vii. 3,