Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XII. What is our free will, which stands in between the lust of the flesh and the spirit.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XII.
What is our free will, which stands in between the lust
of the flesh and the spirit.
Between these two desires
then the free will of the soul stands in an intermediate position
somewhat worthy of blame, and neither delights in the excesses of sin,
nor acquiesces in the sorrows of virtue. Seeking to restrain itself
from carnal passions in such a way as not nevertheless to be willing to
undergo the requisite suffering, and wanting to secure bodily chastity
without chastising the flesh, and to acquire purity of heart without
the exertion of vigils, and to abound in spiritual virtues together
with carnal ease, and to attain the grace of patience without the
irritation of contradiction, and to practise the humility of Christ
without the loss of worldly honour, to aim at the simplicity of
religion in conjunction with worldly ambition, to serve Christ not
without the praise and favour of men, to profess the strictness which
truth demands without giving the slightest offence to anybody: in a
word, it is anxious to pursue future blessings in such a way as not to
lose present ones. And this free will would never lead us to attain
true perfection, but would plunge us into a most miserable condition of
lukewarmness, and make us like those who are rebuked by the
Lord’s remonstrance in the Apocalypse: “I know thy works,
that thou art neither hot nor cold. I would that thou wert hot or cold.
But now thou art lukewarm, and I will forthwith spue thee out of my
mouth;”1303
were it not that
these contentions which rise up on both sides disturb and destroy this
condition of lukewarmness. For when we give in to this free will of
ours and want to let ourselves go in the direction of this slackness,
at once the desires of the flesh start up, and injure us with their
sinful passions, and do not suffer us to continue in that state of
purity in which we delight, and allure us to that cold and thorny path
of pleasure which we have to dread. Again, if inflamed with fervour of
spirit, we want to root out the works of the flesh, and without any
regard to human weakness try to raise ourselves altogether to excessive
efforts after virtue, the frailty of the flesh comes in, and recalls us
and restrains us from that over excess of spirit which is bad for us:
and so the result is that as these two desires are contradicting each
other in a struggle of this kind, the soul’s free will, which
does not like either to give itself up entirely to carnal desires, nor
to throw itself into the exertions which virtue calls for, is tempered
as it were by a fair balance, while this struggle between the two
hinders that more dangerous free will of the soul, and makes a sort of
equitable balance in the scales of our body, which marks out the limits
of flesh and spirit most accurately, and does not allow the mind
inflamed with fervour of spirit to sway to the right hand, nor the
flesh to incline through the pricks of sin, to the left. And while this
struggle goes on day after day in us to our profit, we are driven most
beneficially to come to that fourth stage which we do not like, so as
to gain purity of heart not by ease and carelessness, but by constant
efforts and
contrition of
spirit; to retain our chastity of the flesh by prolonged fastings,
hunger, thirst, and watchfulness; to acquire purpose of heart by
reading, vigils, constant prayer and the wretchedness of solitude; to
preserve patience by the endurance of tribulation; to serve our Maker
in the midst of blasphemies and abounding insults; to follow after
truth if need be amid the hatred of the world and its enmity; and
while, with such a struggle going on in our body, we are secured from
slothful carelessness, and incited to that effort which is against the
grain, and to the desire for virtue, our proper balance is admirably
secured, and on one side the languid choice of our free will is
tempered by fervour of spirit, and on the other the frigid coldness of
the flesh is moderated by a gentle warmth, and while the desire of the
spirit does not allow the mind to be dragged into unbridled licence,
neither does the weakness of the flesh allow the spirit to be drawn on
to unreasonable aspirations after holiness, lest in the one case
incentives to all kinds of sins might arise, or in the other the
earliest of all sins might lift its head and wound us with a yet more
fatal dart of pride: but a due equilibrium will result from this
struggle, and open to us a safe and secure path of virtue between the
two, and teach the soldier of Christ ever to walk on the King’s
highway. And thus the result will be that when, in consequence of the
lukewarmness arising from this sluggish will of which we have spoken,
the mind has been more easily entangled in carnal desires, it is
checked by the desire of the spirit, which by no means acquiesces in
earthly sins; and again, if through over much feeling our spirit has
been carried in unbounded fervour and towards ill-considered and
impossible heights, it is recalled by the weakness of the flesh to
sounder considerations and rising above the lukewarm condition of our
free will with due proportion and even course proceeds along the way of
perfection. Something of this sort we hear that the Lord ordained in
the case of the building of that tower in the book of Genesis, where a
confusion of tongues suddenly sprang up, and put a stop to the
blasphemous and wicked attempts of men. For there would have remained
there in opposition to God, aye and against the interest of those who
had begun to assail His Divine Majesty, an agreement boding no good,
unless by God’s providence the difference of languages, raising
disturbances among them, had forced them because of the variations of
their words to go on to a better condition, and a happy and valuable
discord had recalled to salvation those whom a ruinous union had driven
to destruction, as when divisions arose they began to experience human
weakness of which when puffed up by their wicked plots they had
hitherto known nothing.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
