even in his dreams *. cognoscant te solum Deum verum, et quem misisti Jesum Christum +." "This sentence," says Lewis of Granada, "is a summary of the whole Christian philosophy ‡." And thus Gilles de Rome ends the fourth part of his Miroir, saying that the just Judge will give "Ceste coronne de vie perpetuelle, coronne de beaulte passant mesure, coronne de glorie, de haultesse, et d'honeur à nous que sommes indignes suppliants. Et ce non mye par le merite des œuvres de justice que nous avons faictes, mais par l'immensite de la bonte et misericorde benigne il nous vueille estre loyer et merite, le Dieu misericors qui en la trinite parfaicte vit et regne par les infinits siecles des siecles. Amen." We read in the Chronicles of the Minorites, that a novice of the order of St. Francis, being now almost out of himself, struggling with death, cried out with a terrible voice, saying, "Woe is me! O that I had never been born!" A little after he said, "I am heartily sorry ;" and not long after he added "but the merits of the passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Then he said, "Now 'tis well," and gave up the ghost. Certainly that invisible and strict inquisition was fearful and horrible to those who were present §. So then an eloquent modern has well expressed the sentiments of men in these ages, when he says, "This miraculous name of Jesus, which God hath exalted above every name, is above all the powers of magical enchantments, the nightly rites of sorcerers, the secrets of Memphis, the drugs of Thessaly, the silent and mysterious murmurs of the wise Chaldees, and the spells of Zoroastres. This is the name at which the devils did tremble, and pay their enforced and involuntary adoration, by confessing the divinity, and quitting their possessions and usurped habitations. If our prayers be made in this name, God opens the windows of heaven, and rains down benediction: at the mention of this name, the blessed apostles, and Hermione, the daughter of St. Philip, and Philotheus, the son of Theophila, and St. Hilarion, and St. Paul the Eremite, and innumerable other lights who followed hard "Hæc est autem vita æterna: ut In Vita St. Bernardi. + St. John, 17. Catechis. ii. 1. Vide etiam Holden Divinæ Fidei Analys. ii. 5. Chron. S. Franc. 2. p. lib. 4. c. 35. after the Sun' of righteousness, wrought great and prodigious miracles, "Signs and wonders, and healings were done by the name of the holy child Jesus." This is the name which we should engrave on our hearts, and write upon our foreheads, and pronounce with our most harmonious accents, and rest our faith upon, and place our hopes in, and love with the overflowings of charity, and joy, and adoration. 66 But then on the other hand, as Lewis of Granada says, and as indeed the preceding examples will serve to shew, men did not think they could be saved continuing in their vices, remaining, as it were, with arms crossed, solely by confidence in the Passion of Christ. This horrible error, so contrary to the Scriptures, to the goodness of God, to the light of reason, to the common consent of all nations, to all the examples of the saints, to all divine and human laws, had been formally condemned by the church. Let us pause then, and contemplate this humanized mind, which accompanied so much elevation, and such spirituality in divine things; preventing the rise of that crafty and insidious enemy of fanaticism, who attacks the noblest, as well as the most vulgar minds, and whose final triumph is in destroying the vital principles of virtue and veracity; "of which," as a modern says, "it behoveth wisdom to fear the sequels even beyond all apparent cause of fear." Saint Anselm quoting the great maxim, "Non debemus facere mala, ut veniant bona," begins with "quoniam," implying, that this is the well known recognized law of religion*. The saints and theologians weighing every word they utter, declare, as a learned Jesuit says, "That it is not lawful to lie, no not for the salvation of the whole world +." The great rule was 66 never to leave the works of justice for those of grace t." Essential domestic duties were not to be neglected under pretence of devotion §. "The good doctrine," says the same holy friar, "requires always that men prefer things of obligation to those of devotion, those of precept to those of counsel, necessary things to what are voluntary, and those which God com Epist. III. 90. + Rodriguez de la Perfection Chrét. II. 11. xi. § Luis Grenad. Sinner's Guide, ii. 8. mands to those which man prescribes to himself through piety. The contrary practice is owing to the deceit of the devil, who thus takes men on their weak side, and prompts them to follow their own will rather than their duty Hence the sublime expression in the prayer of the church, "Deus, quem diligere et amare justitia est † ;""Implying," as Clemens Alexandrinus said, that "from the true and only wisdom, virtue is never separated ‡." And, that "Piety is action, following God." So that the duke of Guise made a true and sublime answer to the Protestant who had attempted to assassinate him, and who declared he was actuated solely by a view to the interest of his religion. "Now then," said the duke, "I wish to shew you how my religion is more gentle than that which you profess. Yours has advised you to kill me, without hearing me, without my having even offended you; and mine commands me to pardon you." Here then we arrive at a most remarkable feature in the religion of chivalry. Every of fence against true honour is irreconcileable with it. However anxious men may be in a religious cause, a soldier who betrays his friend, a general who forsakes his king, a daughter who turns her own father out of doors, a legislator who establishes a premium to reward traitorous relations and undutiful children, all these persons are expressly condemned by the Catholic religion, besides being for ever the proper objects of contempt and detesta. tion and horror among all men who possess the sentiments of chivalry. A man of honour cannot express any other opinion, though he should be condemned to the quarries the next minute for uttering it. The same judgment awaits such persons as John Knox, who praised the murderer of Cardinal Beaton, and Beze, who extolled Poltrot, who assassinated the Duke of Guise, and the people who compared him to David, and who made the engravings which we still see, representing him raised in glory to heaven for this base murder; and Sir Edward Coke, who argued in praise of O'Donnel's innocent children being shut up all their lives in the tower, saying, "periissent nisi periissent," meaning that they would have been Catechism iii. 17. + For Palm Sunday. brought up Catholics, if set free. This lesson might indeed be drawn from the unperverted conscience and light of that ancient tradition which is ascribed to nature. The ancients knew it, although there was the policy of Numa and Sertorius, of Pisistratus and Lycurgus, who were said to have tampered with truth for a good end. There is a beautiful example in the first book of Herodotus. Pactyas, the Persian rebel, had fled as a supplicant to the Cymeans, who received and sheltered him, as they were bound to do, by their law of conscience. Upon receiving orders from the Persian monarch to deliver this person to his resentment, they were thrown into dismay. They dreaded the power of the tyrant, and while they were necessarily conscious of their duty, they obeyed the dictate of their fear by affecting to doubt it, and so they sent to consult the Oracle of Branchis, to learn the will of God, although they already knew what that required. The answer was instantly given, "to deliver up Pactyas." The messengers returned, and the Cymeans, thus confirmed, (the very word of the moderns on such occasions,) prepared to deliver up the victim. Aristodicus, a just and prudent man, entreated that nothing might be concluded until he should be sent with other messengers to the same oracle. His request was granted, and the new embassy departed for the oracle. They propose the former question, and the same answer is as quickly returned. But Aristodicus being now convinced of some mistake, proceeded to explore the temple, and to disturb the birds, to whom religion afforded that asylum: whereupon a voice cried out, "O most unholy man, why do you dare to commit such deeds? Do you venture to disturb my supplicants?" Aristodicus replied, "O king, are you resolved to protect your supplicants, and do you command the Cymeans to deliver up theirs?" Upon which the celebrated answer was returned, "Yea, I do command you this, seeking your destruction as impious men, that you may never again consult the oracle, and inquire whether you should abandon your supplicants." These words conveyed memorable instruction; they taught lessons of prudence and moderation to men, lessons of Val. Max. I. 2. fidelity and truth in the sacrifice of inclination to duty, of hasty passion to the unalterable laws of virtue and justice; they taught them to be just before they were generous, to obey before they sacrificed. A dramatic poet of Greece inculcated the same. When Strepsiades complains of the clouds for deceiving a silly clown like him, they reply: ἀεὶ ποιοῦμεν ταῦθ' ἑκάστοθ ̓, ὅταν τινα So far were the ancients from holding the immoral sophism of the moderns, that sincerity is an excuse which will always avail. A modern metaphysical writer of celebrity has shewn "how it comes to pass that a man may justly incur punishment, though it he certain that in all the particular actions that he wills, he does, and necessa rily does will that which he then judges to be good; for, though his will be always determined by that which is judged good by his understanding, yet it excuses him not; because, by a too hasty choice of his own making, he has imposed on himself wrong measures of good and evil; which, however false and fallacious, have the same influence on all his future conduct, as if they were true and right. He then vitiated his own palate, and must be answerable to himself for the sickness and death that follows from it. The eternal law and nature of things must not be altered, to comply with his ill-ordered choice. If the neglect or abuse of the liberty he had to examine what would really and truly make for his happiness, misleads him, the miscarriages that follow on it must be imputed to his own election. He had a power to suspend his determination; it was given him that he might examine, and take care of his own happiness, and look that he were not deceived: and he could never judge that it was better to be deceived than not, in a matter of so great and near concernment." All this is little more than what Aristotle lays down in his Ethics. But from all this it follows that the ancients were sensible, like the Christian chivalry, of the insurmountable obligations which they lay under, to follow the * Aristoph. Nubes. 1456. † III. 5. |