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| Chapter XXIV. Why the Lord's yoke is felt grievous and His burden heavy.
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Chapter XXIV.
Why the Lord’s yoke is felt grievous and His
burden heavy.
But the fact that to us
on the contrary the yoke of Christ seems neither light nor easy, must
be rightly ascribed to our perverseness, as we are cast down by
unbelief and want of faith, and fight with foolish obstinacy against
His command, or rather advice, who says: “If thou wilt be
perfect, go sell (or get rid of) all that thou hast, and come follow
Me,”2333
for we keep
the substance of our worldly goods. And as the devil holds our soul
fast in the toils of these, what remains but that, when he wants to
sever us from spiritual delights, he should vex us by diminishing these
and depriving us of them, contriving by his crafty wiles that when the
sweetness of His yoke and lightness of His burden have become grievous
to us through the evil of a corrupt desire, and when we are caught in
the chains of that very property and substance, which we kept for our
comfort and solace, he may
always torment us with the scourges of
worldly cares, extorting from us ourselves that wherewith we are
tortured? For “Each one is bound by the cords of his own
sins,” and hears from the prophet: “Behold all you that
kindle a fire, encompassed with flames, walk in the light of your fire,
and in the flames which you have kindled.” Since, as Solomon is
witness, “Each man shall thereby be punished, whereby he has
sinned.”2334
| 2334 Prov. v. 22; Isa. l. 11; Wisd. xi.
17. | For the very
pleasures which we enjoy become a torment to us, and the delights and
enjoyments of this flesh, turn like executioners upon their originator,
because one who is supported by his former wealth and property is sure
not to admit perfect humility of heart, not entire mortification of
dangerous pleasures. But where all these implements of goodness give
their aid, there all the trials of this present life, and whatever
losses the enemy can contrive, are endured not only with the utmost
patience, but with real pleasure, and again when they are wanting so
dangerous a pride springs up that we are actually wounded by the deadly
strokes of impatience at the slightest reproach, and it may be said to
us by the prophet Jeremiah: “And now what hast thou to do in the
way of Egypt, to drink the troubled water? And what hast thou to do
with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river? Thy own
wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know
thou and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have
left the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not with thee, saith the
Lord.”2335
How then is it
that the wondrous sweetness of the Lord’s yoke is felt to be
bitter, but because the bitterness of our dislike injures it? How is it
that the exceeding lightness of the Divine burden becomes heavy, but
because in our obstinate presumption we despise Him by whom it was
borne, especially as Scripture itself plainly testifies to this very
thing saying: “For if they would walk in right paths, they would
certainly have found the paths of righteousness smooth”?2336
It is plain, I say, that it is we, who
make rough with the nasty and hard stones of our desires the right and
smooth paths of the Lord; who most foolishly forsake the royal road
made stony with the flints of apostles and prophets, and trodden down
by the footsteps of all the saints and of the Lord Himself, and seek
trackless and thorny places, and, blinded by the allurements of present
delights, tear our way with torn legs and our wedding garment rent,
through dark paths, overrun with the briars of sins, so as not only to
be pierced by the sharp thorns of the brambles but actually laid low by
the bites of deadly serpents and scorpions lurking there. For
“there are thorns and thistles in wrong ways, but he that feareth
the Lord shall keep himself from them.”2337
Of such also the Lord says elsewhere
by the prophet: “My people have forgotten, sacrificing in vain,
and stumbling in their ways, in ancient paths, to walk in them in a way
not trodden.”2338
For
according to Solomon’s saying: “The ways of those who do
not work are strewn with thorns, but the ways of the lusty are trodden
down.”2339
And thus
wandering from the king’s highway, they can never arrive at that
metropolis, whither our course should ever be directed without
swerving. And this also Ecclesiastes has pretty significantly expressed
saying: “The labour of fools wearies those who know not how to go
to the city;” viz., that “heavenly Jerusalem, which is the
mother of us all.”2340
But whoever
truly gives up this world and takes upon him Christ’s yoke and
learns of Him, and is trained in the daily practice of suffering wrong,
for He is “meek and lowly of heart,”2341
will ever remain undisturbed by all
temptations, and “all things will work together for good to
him.”2342
For as the
prophet Obadiah says the words of God are “good to him that
walketh uprightly;” and again: “For the ways of the Lord
are right, and the just shall walk in them; but the transgressors shall
fall in them.”2343
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