believe the quite contrary what they say and contemn as much in their hearts those to whom they give them as they do testifie outwardly esteem for them The second is drawn from the nature of some Praises which they choose For they take ordinarily the substance of things truly Praise-worthy which they falsly attribute to those they desire to flatter Thus those to whom whom we give Praises ought not to conclude from thence neither That they have these qualities effectively which are attributed to them nor that there are people who believe it but only these qualities are Praisable in themselves and that it were to be wished that they had them that is to say that they might learn by that not what they are but what they ought to be 'T is a reflexion St. Augustine made upon the Praise Cicero gave to Caesar To forget nothing but Injuries Nihil oblivisci nisi Injurias Dicebat hoc said he tam magnus Laudator aut tam magnus Adulator sed si Laudator talem Caesarem noverat si autem Adulator talem esse debere ostendebat principem Civitatis qualem illum fallaciter praedicabat What Cicero said to Caesar said this Father was either a greas praise or a great Flattery If it was a Praise he ought to believe that Caesar was really such an one If it was a flattery he shewed always thereby that he who Commands an Estate ought to have these qualities which he attributed falsly to Caesar The third thing that Flattery teacheth us is of the same kind as the first 'T is that the Flatterer believes not only what he says but he imagins moreover that he whom he flatters is Fool enough to let himself be deceived by his flatteries and to take them for sincere Praises And as we cannot approve false Praises but by flattering our selves every Flatterer condemns in himself of illusion and vanity that man to whom he addresses his flatteries This is the Judgment of it Lastly as it is by Interest and not by inclination that we are inclined to flattery and that we make use thereof only as a means to obtain of the great ones what we pretend flatterers must judge That those to whom they give these false Praises are mightily in love with themselves to be gained by such gross deceits So that if all that is in the mind of a Flatterer were laid open and explicated it might he reduced to this strange Complement Sir I belive nothing of these Praises I give you I have for you all the just disdain you deserve but knowing that you are vain enough to believe that men have in their heart the Sentiments of Esteem which I shew you and that the excess of love you have for your selfe will be able to dispose you to do me the favours I desire I thought that to obtain them I ought to attempt a way which ought to bring the contrary Behold what the Great may see in the minds of most people who Praise them if they can add to the expression of these Flatterers what they are able to gather from their thoughts But as that would incommode them they had rather penetrate less and stick at the appearances of words And 't is by the knowledge men have of this disposition that they run the hazard to use this wicked means 54. The language of silence is what silence it self makes known in the minds of those who are silent for certain Considerations For Example when we avoid speaking of a certain fault before Great men that signifies we believe them subject to it and that we are afraid lest they should take to themselves what might be said of it In like manner when in their presence we omit to praise certain Persons it is interpreted that we imagin they love them not and that they have a prejudice against them Thus they need but to observe the Discourses that are forborn before them to know what prejudices and what faults are laid to their charge And as nothing is spoken of so much in mens absence as things which we dare not speak in their presence they may also judge by these Discourses which we never make before them what are those which are often discoursed of when we are far removed from them 55. The practice of these means is not only usefull to make us know many defects which we are ignorant of but it is very proper to obtain of God the assistance of his Lights in this study of our selves to which we apply our selves Nevertheless what progress we may make therein we must not pretend ever to arrive at that pitch of knowing our selves perfectly Man hath always in his heart so long as he is in this life some abuses impenetrable to all these diligent searches And it is likewise one part of the Knowledge we may have of our selves to comprehend that we do not know our selves with assurance in what even appears most Essential and most important For we never know certainly what is called the bottom of the Heart or that first propensity of the Soul which makes her either belong to God or the Creature I would say that we know not certainly that we belong to God altho we may know assuredly that we are not so We know not with an entire assurance the Habitation of God in the Soul as in his Temple because 't is an attendant of the first Propensity of the Heart We know not absolutely in the particular actions whether the Love of God is the Principle of them or whether Nature and Custom did not borrow the Form of the Love of God None knows absolutely if his sins be forgiven he knows not the precise degree of his weakness or force he knows not what God imputes or not imputes to us of the continual productions of our Concupiscences Lastly We know not evidently either the nearness or the remoteness of God For often we think we have Grace when the Mind is taken up only with thoughts and quite natural motimotions and often even we take for motives of Nature the Operations of Grace We ought therefore suppose that with all our Study and all our diligent Scrutinies we shall always remain unknown to our selves in this Life But as this necessary Ignorance is in the Order of God we bear it humbly and believe likewise that it is necessary for us to continue therein There is nothing but voluntary Ignorance that we ought to shun because it is contrary to this Order 56. In a word we ought not to desire to know our selves more than God pleaseth And God will not that we know our selves more than is necessary to make us humble and to govern our selves Thus every Application to dive to the bottom of the Heart which is not inclosed within its limits is not agreeable to God nor usefull to us We must not therefore busie our selves in such a manner about our faults lest that under pretence of avoiding Presumption we fall into despair and
renders us on the contrary clear-sighted in respect of those of others We see them such as they are we consider them as much as we will we hardly trouble our selves to lessen them by favourable excuses this effect comes doubtless from some bad causes But keeping them within their boundaries some profit may be drawn from thence and use made thereof to deceive in some sort Self-love For by considering thus the faults of others without this multiplicity of considerations and artificial excuses which deceive us in ours we may easily discover what is the false light which dazles them how they have engaged themselves in this Illusion what they ought to do to be delivered from it And afterwards in turning all these Considerations towards our selves we may easily apply them to our selves if we have never so little sincerity and desire to know our selves 32. Unless we make use of this cunning to profit by the fault of another which we cannot hinder our selves from seeing they only blind us more instead of helping us to know our selves For either we take occasion to slight those who fall therein by raising our selves above them as if we were exempt or if we acknowledge our selves guilty as well as they we comfort our selves that we alone are not subject to these Weaknesses We are glad that they have not this advantage over us We diminish the Idea we have of our own faults as looking upon them common to many and as being rather the consequences and infirmities of Nature than of our disorder And thus we free our selves in some sort secretly from the reproaches of our Consciences by hiding our selves in the throng of the Culpable 33. But besides the Instructions which may be drawn out of other mens faults which we perceive by our selves very important ones may likewise be drawn from the Iudgments which we hear made of them by those who entertain themselves with them For we may learn that 't is in vain to dissemble our own and be angry at those who speak of them we thereby only apply people more to do it Because whereas they are ordinarily very indulging to the Imperfections of those who seriously acknowledge them they do not suffer on the contrary patiently those which we would hide or canonize and of which they do not permit us to speak with freedom Although they be something reserved in speaking with those of whom they have some reason to be distrustful they may find always some one to whom they may speak freely so by this means things are dispersed in secret from one to another almost as if they did speak them publickly So that we must shew that the only way to hinder men from speaking of our faults is to Correct them our felves or to Testifie that we desire it seriously and that we are well pleased to be put in mind of them 34. We may learn by these Judgments that hardly any one knows what is thought of him nor what Impression his Actions make upon the minds of others from whence it happens that in forming to our selves false opinions of their disposition we take in conclusion false measures We do not the Good we ought nor prevent the Evil which we might we disturb others a thousand several ways without knowing it and we break thus by little and little all the tyes which knit the union we have with them We perceive it well at the end of some of these bad effects but that only increaseth the illusion we are in For the lack of knowing the causes which are given them we substitute false ones We cast all the Blame on others we attribute to them the Motives Intentions and Designs on which they never thought and upon that we form of them very disadvantageous Ideas which appearing without by some exterior marks do yet encrease the remoteness they have from us 35. 'T is true we must not absolutely rule our Conduct by the opinions and Impressions of others But these Opinions and Impressions being uniform they give us often means to acknowledge That this Conduct is not regulated according to Gods Laws others being ordinarily more subtil then we to discover what happens in us of Passion and Self-love Even often times when these Impressions are unjust they do not forbear to have some cause in us the which we may â—â—medy In fine how unreasonable they are as they may be either sharpen'd or sweeten'd by our Conduct they may serve for obstacles to certain enterprises and facilitate others and we may sometimes take other courses to avoid them It 's always good to know them provided we are able to undergo them 36. We might obtain this advantage and we might shun one part of the inconveniences if we did practice sincerely what is observed in St. Thomas of Canterbury's Life which was that one of his Friends should advertise him of all that he found fit to tell him again in his Carriage And it is what they had in Prospect who have ordered that in certain Religious Houses That there should be one Person Charged to receive the complaints that each should make of the Superiors Behavior to give him an account thereof without naming the Authors But as all the World cannot enjoy this Good we ought to endeavour to supply it by procuring a faithful and understanding Friend to whom an entire liberty should be given to advertise us of what should be said of us in the World and after what manner our actions might be taken therein 37. It seems at first that the most part of the World do follow these advices and that at least it is practiced by all persons who profess Piety For there are none who have not a Confessor and this Confessor ought to be that faithful friend who should advertise us of our faults of the scandal which we cause seeing that we give him that right in addressing our selves to him He may know them so much better as he joyns to the knowledge we give him of our selves that which he sometimes may get elsewhere and that thus he sees the limits of our light that is to say what we know of our selves and what we know not And as the practice of this Office of Charity makes one of the chief parts of his Ministry There is hardly any one who does not flatter himself That 't is that he seeks in submitting himself to the Conduct of a Director and who does not believe that he gives him in this point all the liberty which he can desire 38. Whosoever will unfold these secret windings of his own heart will find that although he think not to address himself to a Confessor except to draw from thence some help the better to know himself he hath at the bottom of his heart a quite contrary end and a secret design to make use thereof to Justifie himself in his faults which is properly not knowing himself This it is we do not take heed of to confess in our selves seeing
likewise many people in whom this inclination of making themselves be beloved is stronger then that of Domineering and Lording over men and who fear more mens hatred and aversion and the judgments which produceth it then they love to be rich and powerful Lastly whereas there are few great ones and few likewise who are able to aspire to greatness on the contrary there are none who cannot pretend to make himself be beloved 11. If the desire of being loved is not then the strongest Passion which springs from self-love at least it is the most general The considerations of Interest of Ambition of Pleasure stop many times the effects of it but they do it not effectively It is always active at the bottom of the Heart and so soon as it is at liberty it forbears not being active and to make us desire all that is able to procure us the love of Men as it makes us avoid all whatsoever we think may draw upon us their hatred It is true we are sometimes deceived in the distinction which we make of these things which draw love or hatred and that there are some who judge thereof much better and more nicely than others But be it that we are deceived therein or that we be not 't is always the same Passion which acts and which flies or seeks the same Objects There is also a common distinction for all Men even to a certain degree that is to say they know every one even to some point that certain actions excite hatred and others cause love 12. It is not needfull to dive further into the discription of the retreats of Self-love to comprehend how it imitates very much Charity It is sufficient to say that Self-love hindring us through fear of chastisement to violate the Laws doth remove us by this means outwardly from all the Crimes and so renders us like to those who avoid them through Charity That as Charity comforts the necessities of others in the sight of God who will that we acknowledge his Favours in helping our Neighbour Likewise Self-love comforts them in the sight of their proper Interest And that lastly there is hardly any action whereto we are carried by Charity that would please God whereunto Self-love cannot engage us to please Men. 13. But tho Self-love tend by these three motions to counterfeit Charity we must for all that allow that the last comes nearer to it and that it is much more extended than the two others For there are many occasions where neither fear nor interest have any place And we distinguish often easily enough what we do either through Human fear or through absolute Interest from what we do by a motive of Charity But it is not the same of Love and esteem for Men. This inclination is so nice and subtile and at the same time of such a latitude that there is nothing it cannot enter into and it knows so well how to trim it self up with the appearances of Charity that it is almost impossible to know exquisitly what distinguishes it from Charity Because marching in the same steps and producing the same effects it defaces with a marvellous subtilty all the signs and characters of Self-love from whence it springs because it sees very well that it could obtain nothing of what it pretends if they were taken notice of The reason of it is because nothing doth draw upon us so much the thing called Aversion as Self-love and because it cannot shew it self without exciting it We experience this our selves in regard of the Self-love of others We are not able to suffer it so soon as we discover it and it is easie for us to judge by that that they are not more favourable to ours when they discover it 'T is this which inclines those who are sensible of the hatred of men and who love not to expose themselves thereunto to endeavour to withdraw as much as in them lies their Self-love from the sight of others to disguise and counterfeit it never to shew it under its natural shape to imitate the behaviour of those who would be intirely exempt from it that is to say persons animated with the spirit of Charity and who would not act but through Charity 14. This suppression of Self-love is properly that which makes human Civility and shews in what it consisteth And 't is this which hath caused a learned Man of this Age to say that Christian virtue destroys anihilates Self-love and that human Civility hides and suppresses it Thus this Civility which hath been the Idol of the learned Pagans is nothing at the bottom but a Self-love more intelligent and exact than that of the generality of the World which knows how to shun what hurts its designs and which tends to its mark which is the esteem and love of Men by a more straight and reasonable way in shewing how Self-love doth imitate the principal actions of Charity 15. 'T is no hard matter to comprehend in what manner Charity renders us humble For making us love Justice which is God himself it makes us hate injustice which is contrary to him Now 't is an injustice very visible that being as we are full of faults and guilty of so many sins we would be honoured of Men and that we should pretend to deserve their Praises either by Human qualities and so consequently vain and frivolous or bygifts which we have received of God and which do not belong unto us It is not just that a sinner be honoured but it is just that he be humbled and brought low 'T is the eternal Law which ordains it Charity consents to this law Charity loves it and by the love which it bears to it embraces with joy all humiliations and humblings Charity makes us hate all that smells of pride and vanity and as it condemns these motions when they start up in our hearts it hinders them also from appearing without by words and actions which it reduces thus to an exact modesty 16. Yet there is nothing in this but what self-Self-love imitates perfectly For seeing the Heart of each man turned absolutely towards it self and naturally an enemy to the preferring any other It dares not expose it self to their thought and malignity Whoever praises himself and sets to sale what he thinks he hath thats good pretends thereby to bring others to him and 't is almost the same thing as if he beg'd of them to give him praises and to look upon him with esteem and love Now there is hardly any prayer which appears more uncivil and more incommodious to Self-love which men bear themselves than this It is angry and vexed at it and answers only by scoffing and disdain Thus those who are cunning enough to know these tricks and devices avoid making these kind of demands that is to say they keep themselves generally to a distance from all that seems vanity from all that tends to make them be taken notice of and to shew these
let any Current run out Nullum rivum duei extra patitur Therefore what goodness soever can be imagined in the love of a mortal Creature this Love is always vicious and illegitimate when springing from any other than the love of God and it cannot spring from thence when 't is a love of passion and self-interest which makes us find our joy and pleasure in this Creature A Christian who knows what he ows to God ought not to suffer any alteration in his heart nor any fixedness of this sort without condemning it without being sorry for it and without beseeching God to be delivered from it and he ought to have an extream horror that he himself should be the object of this passion and this inclination in any others and thus in some sort their Idol seeing that Love is a worship which is only due to God as God can be only honoured by Love Nec colitur nisi amando 'T is this which shews that there is a great number of Women who believing themselves innocent as having indeed some horror of gross vices are yet nevertheless criminal before God because they are very glad to hold in mens hearts a place which belongs only to God These Women take pleasure in being the object of their passion They are glad that people fix themselves to them that they look upon them with sentiments not only of esteem but of kindness and they suffer without trouble that they witness it to them by this prophane Language which is called cajolling Therefore what care soever we may take to separate Playes and Romances from these images of shameful disorders we shall never take away the danger because we see always therein a lively representation of this passionate tye of Men towards Women which cannot be innocent and which will never be hindred so long as Women are delighted with the pleasure of being loved and adored by Men which is no less dangerous nor less contagious for them than the Images of disorder which are both visible ard criminal 12. Plays and Romances do not only stir up the passions but they teach also the language of Passions that is to say the art of expressing it and making it appear agreeable and ingenious which is no small evil There are many who stuff them with bad designs because they want address to explicate themselves And it often happens that some persons without being touched with passion and desiring simply to shew their wit find themselves afterward insensibly ingaged in passions which they only counterfeited at the beginning 13. The pleasure of Plays is a hurtful Pleasure because ordinarily it comes from a corrupt bottom which is stirr'd up in us by things we see therein And to be convinced thereof we need but consider that when we have a great horror for an action we take no pleasure in seeing it represented and 't is that which obliges Poets to hide from the sight of the beholders all that may cause this horror in them When we feel not the same aversion for foolish Loves and other disorders represented in Plays and that we take delight in beholding them 'T is a Token that we hate them not and that they excite in us I know not what inclinations to vice which spring from the corruption of the heart If we had the Idea of Vice in its natural deformity we should not be able to suffer the Image of it therefore one of the greatest Poets of this age observes that one of his best pieces hath not pleased upon the Stage because it struck the minds of the spectator with the horrible Idea of a prostitution whereunto a Holy Woman had been condemned But what he drew from thence to justify his Play viz. That the Theater is now so t hast that men cannot suffer dishonest objects is what manifestly condemn'd it for we may learn by this example that men approve in some manner all that is suffered and all that men see with pleasure upon the Theatre seeing that they cannot suffer what men have a horror for And consequently there being so many corruptions and vicious passions in Plays the most innocent 't is observable that men hate not these disorders when they take delight to see them acted 14. 'T is yet a great abuse and which deceives very many to consider no other bad effects in these representations but that of giving contrary thoughts to purity and believing thus that they hurt us not when they do it not in this manner as if there were no other vices but that one and that we were not susceptible of them Nevertheless if we consider Plays made by those who have been the most affected to this honesty we shall find they have only forborn to represent some objects which are entirely dishonest to paint others as criminal and which are not less infective All their Works are nothing but lively representatives of passions of Pride Ambition of Jealousie and Vengeance and chiefly of this Romantick virtue which is indeed nothing but a furious love or ones self The more it colours these vices with the Image of greatness and generosity the more it renders them dangerous and capable of re-entring the best Souls and the imitation of these passions does not please us but because the bottom of our corruption doth excite at the same time a motion altogether like which transforms us in some manner and makes us embrace the passion which is represented to us 15. It is so true that Plays are almost always a representation of vicious passions that the most part of Christian virtues are incapable of appearing upon the Stage Silence Patience Moderation Wisdom Poverty Repentance are no Virtues the representation of which can divert the Spectators and above all we never hear Humility spoken of nor the bearing of Injuries It woul be strange to see a modest and silent Religious person represented There must be something of great and renown'd according to men or at least something of lively and animated which is not met withal in Christian Gravity and Wisdom and therefore those who have been desirous to introduce Holy Men and Women upon the Stage have been forced to make them appear proud and to make them utter discourses more proper for the antient Roman Heroes than for Saints and Martyrs Their Devotion upon the Stage ought also to be always a little extraordinary 16. Common Affections are not proper to give the pleasure which is sought for in Plays and there would be nothing more cold than Christian Marriage freed from passion on every side There must always be some transport that jealousie may enter that the consent of Parents may be found contrary and that Intrigues may be made use of to make their designs Proper Thus the way is laid open to those who shall be possessed with the same passion that they may make use of the same means to arrive at the same end 17. The drift of Plays engage Poets to represent nothing but vicious
upon his score 18. The Cardinal of Arles was Author of an enterprize which caused great troubles which was the deposing of Eugenius IV. This action was not followed in the Church It is no where observed that he repented the act and yet he hath done miracles after his death God having not laid to his charge what he did through zeal of Justice though in some circumstances which rendred his action imprudent St. Peter of Luxemburg St. Vincent Ferrier St. Catheriue of Siena were in divers and different times of Schisme and by consequence some of them for the Anti-Pope yet nevertheless this blemish hath not hindred their Sanctity 19. They who write the Lives of Saints think that 't is their Duty to set forth all their virtues and to hide all their faults But I do not know if they should not do as well to take notice of all their faults as of their virtues to hinder thereby that men be not scandalized at such as appear in some pious men which we know Whosoevor for example shall make reflections on the manner how Three Saints to wit St. Epiphanius St. Jerome and St. Cyril of Alexandria acted upon account of St. John Chrysostome will wonder no more that virtuous men be sometimes prevented and fall sometimes into excess and they will conceive that there is very great limitation in this passage Charitas operit multitudinem peceatorum 20. We see often in Saints some faults which God sees no more there whereas we see not in our selves those which are truly there If they commit faults through ignorance the heat of their charity purifies them even without their acknowledging them and thus they subsist no more If they commit some thro weakness or thro some passion they humble themselves and they rise again more strong than they were before their fall and by this means again they subsist no more But the faults of Souls grown cold altho more inconsiderable in appearance subsist always in the eyes of God because they want this fire of Charity to consume them and because they are not restor'd again absolutely 27. We must distinguish faults of passion from faults of darkness and faults of light the faults of understanding from faults of the heart Nor is there properly any but God who can judge of faults which spring from ignorance wherein Cupidity appears not to have any share at all Nor is it permitted for men to determine of the degree 22. All Saints have in their hearts a sincere disposition to love and follow every known Truth But they know not equally all Truths nether are they equally appropriated to all those they know God enlightens and touches them differently according to the several designs he hath upon them and by giving them an ardent Love for certain Truths by which he will sanctify them he suffers sometimes that in respect of others they remain in some kind of obscurity or in a want of judgment which comes not from the corruption of their hearts but from this that God applys them to other things 'T is this that makes these who love these Truths to be oftentimes troubled to see them so little concerned for them because they consider not that they themselves are in this deprivation of Light and Judgment in regard of many others and that the heart of man being limited and narrow in the condition it is in as to this life God doth not exact that it should love Truth Truth in all its extent but only that it be the love of Truth and not Cupidity which should be the principal of its actions 23. When God leaves the Saints thus in Ignorance as to many Truths or diverts and stops the occasions which might engage them to commit some faults thro ignorance or hides by the purity of their hearts and by the ardency of their Charity those which they commit it happens nevertheless from hence that we may easily make ill use of their examples whether it be in imagining that we ought to follow blindly all they have done or in behaving our selves so as to condemn these Saints because of these wants of Light But both the one and the other of these scandals must be remedied by the consideration of this various dispensation which God makes of the knowledge of this Truth For we see by this on the one side that there may remain darkness in the Saints in respect of certain points in which by consequence they ought not to be taken for guides and we have reason to conclude on the other that it follows not that those in whom we perceive the wants of Light in respect of certain Truths cannot be Saints by the application they have to others 24. We may add to this that perchance those who hurt in appearance certain Truths thro ignorance and lack of Light have before God more love and zeal for them than these who shew a great heat for those same Truths For God hath particularly regard to the bottom of the heart and when he sees there a sincere love for Truth and Justice a disposition to follow them at the cost of all things he hath less regard to the darkness which hinders this Love to spread it over certain particular points Whereas it happens sometimes that this Zeal so apparent for certain Truths is nothing but the effect of Self-love and a tye to its proper sense We maintain Truth as we should maintain what is false if we had the same engagements to do it and oftentimes God fees nothing that 's sincere at the bottom of the heart which leads directly to Truth 25. Those who by a more exact study of antiquity should have acquired knowledge and some light which very Holy persons should not have had should yet have occasion to humble themselves by this thought that those Truths tho great and important are not ordinarily those the practice whereof is most frequent and which are the principal of the common actions which compose our lives Thus as the occasion of practising them are not very ordinary they become often barren in these who know them and we may easily believe that men love them without any real or effective love for them It is altogether contrary with common Truths as with those which teach to converse with our neighbour in an edifying manner to have God present in all our actions and to do nothing but by his Motive and his Spirit to mortify all the inordinate excesses of Self-love to lop off all things useless to this life to correct the senses in all that we can to moderate our passions to govern all the motions of Mind and Body not to complain of little evils to receive favourably those who mind us of some defect not to be tyed to our own Sense and Light to be reserved in our judgments Those Truths which prescribe these actions are not less Truths than the others whereof we have spoken but they have this advantage that the practice is ordinary and that
who labour for nothing more than to deceive themselves and to entertain themselves in delusion Where is then this love of Truth wherewith we flatter our selves and what hatred for falsity may be found in men who according to Scripture seek nothing else 23. Nevertheless we may say that these Maxims have place in things Indifferent in which men taking no Interests at all do not in effect love to be deceived and prefer truth before falsity The which shews some natural love for Truth But it is seldom seen that this natural Inclination is free to act and that the mind is not prepossessed with some Passion which makes it incline more to one side than to another There needs scarcely any thing to make Self-love to deliberate It makes private and secret Interests even things wherein it seems to have none at all The least advance the least engagements the least inclination to please or to displease suffice to take away the ballance and to incline the minds to seek out reasons only on one side How many are there for example who have no reason to continue in an opinion but because there would be some trouble to examin the Contrary reasons They fly the pains of instructing themselves because it is laborious They will judge and decide because they will appear Learned and to satisfie at once these two inclinations they suppose without other examination that what they have formerly learn'd is true Taedio novae Curae semel placita pro aeternis servant 24. The chief and principal use we make of this love of truth is to persuade us that what we love is true For if we would do our selves Justice we should acknowledge that we love not things because they are true but that we believe them true because we love them Our minds are fixed to objects Independant of their truth and by the sole relation of these Inclinations But because they cannot enjoy them if they look upon them as false they endeavor in some sort to add thereto the Idea of truth that they may be fixed thereunto more firmly Quicunque aliud amant Aug. Con. l. 10.13 hoc quod amant volunt esse veritalem 25. We love truth in general as the common and general good For as we can love nothing which we do not think good likewise we can love nothing which we believe not to be true But Self-love knows very well how to conjoin these general Inclinations with particular Passions And as it makes us believe that what we love is good it makes us likewise believe that what we love is true that is to say we cannot love what is false under its proper and natural form and loving in effect many false and deceitful objects it finds means to represent them under the image of truth 26. This aversion so uniform and constant which is found amongst men for the truth which discovers them to themselves and this inclination so general of shunning the sight of their faults as their greatest misfortune gives way to believe that this common Maxim which calls them back to themselves and makes them to know themselves Nosce teipsum proceeds not from a common light persuading them that this knowledge is for their good and which makes them desire it but that it may well have its source in the knowledge of every mans heart who feeling himself incommodated with the vanity and the Injustice which he observes in others persuades him to seek and desire for them this knowledge which he neither seeks nor desires for himself 27. This thought is so much more likely as nothing shocks us more in the faults we observe in others then the blindness wherein we see they are in regard of themselves What is there more troublesome than a vain man who is taken up with nothing but himself and who would have men only to apply themselves to him who admires himself continually and who imagines that others do the same or that they are to blame if they do not And who is he who hath not a great inclination to tell persons of this opinion that they would do well to labor to know themselves to draw themselves out of those delusions wherein they are Nosoe teipsum 28. The World is full of people who observe other mens faults with an admirable Judgment who pardon them nothing and who being subject to the same or to greater faults themselves do not make the least reflection thereon The vainest persons most frequently laugh at other mens vanity Those who are Cheated most laugh at those whom they believe deceived The most unjust reproach others of their Injustice The sharpest men give sweet lessons The most prejudiced persons speak earnestly against prejudice The most opiniated are the first in accusing others of obstinacy It is very hard not to have a desire to advise these sort of people that they speak to themselves in speaking against others and not to tell them at least in their heart Nosce teipsum 29. When we see these ambitious men who heap enterprizes upon enterprizes who form designs to which many lives would not satisfie who trouble by their caprichios both their own and other mens quiet who never dream of death which threatens them every moment who imagine that others live only for them who devour with an insatiable Covetousness other mens Goods Who is it that does not find himself inclined to recal them to the knowledge of their mortal Conditions and to make them mindful that they are but men We feel the same motions in an infinite other rencounters as when we see people who for want of knowing themselves vndertake things infinitely above them and in which they cannot prosper who will do all because they judge and think themselves capable of all and who spoil all by their want of parts who glory in taking Counsels of no body who complain to others of their bad success that they have had by their imprudence In fine as the ignorance of ones self is found almost in all vices and is most what shocks us therein we should every moment endeavor to draw people out of their delusion in teaching them to know themselves if this motive were not witheld by others more powerful 30. We have right methinks to conclude from what I said but now that this Precept Know thou thy self in the mouth of those who have acted only by self-love was rather the effect of impatience and vexation stirred up by the faults that they see in others then by a clear sight of the necessity of this knowledge for every man in particular and for his proper good We would have others to know themselves to the end they might act in a less shocking manner in regard of us And yet we will not know our selves because we will not see in our selves what thwarts us therein nor think our selves obliged to labor to correct some faults in which we are very glad to continue We find means to foster our selves
the weight which we should undergo if Gods grace did not permit it Therefore the Apostle in recommending us to reprove with sweetness those who sin in spiritu lenitatis recals us to the knowledge of our weakness and the danger wherein we are of falling every moment Ne tu tenteris Behold the source of meekness and of humility towards ones neighbor 36. Man is so weak and so vain that he is equally carryed to pride by the sight of Virtue which he thinks he hath and by that of faults which he observes in others By the one he raiseth himself in his own opinion above them By the other he humbleth them and bringeth them under him But the knowledge of ones self preserves both the one and the other and in placing ones proper faults before ones eyes it stifles on one part the complacency that it may have in his virtue and it renders the other more Indulgent to anothers faults So it keeps him at least at a level with other men It teacheth him to bear them as he would be born with by them and it makes also in some manner a good use of Self-love 37. The forgetfulness of ones self produceth obdurateness and by a contrary effect the knowledge of ones self produceth Piety For there is in the sentiments of Compassion for others some secret reflections upon our selves by which we look upon our selves either as having suffered the same evils or as being liable to suffer them Non Ignara mali miseris succurrere disco And it is this which makes men who believe they are above others and who imagine the evils wherewith others are afflicted cannot happen to them are for the most part hard hearted because they make not upon themselves these kind of reflections which soften the heart in consideration of anothers evil It is the same with the most part of Injustices we do to others They come ordinarily from a blindness which makes us never blame our selves but think that we are exempt from all faults and misdemeanors we lay the blame all upon others So that nothing contributes so much to make us just and equitable towards others as the knowledge of our selves 'T is that makes us discover in the bottom of our hearts the impression of the Law of nature which forbids us to do to others what we would not they should do to us 'T is that which disperses all the Clouds wherewith Self-love doth observe this rule in the rencounters wherein it is concerned 'T is this which hinders us likewise from complaining with eagerness of the disadvantageous Judgments men form of us and of the injustices men may do us in convincing us that oftentimes we deal so with others without taking care thereof In fine 't is this which suppresseth mens insolence and haughtiness and placing a very lively Image of their miseries before their eyes destroys the most ordinary cause of injustices which they do to others 38. The sight of our faults in suppressing our pride suppresseth also the consequences of it and all the Passions wherewith it mingles it self and as there are few whereof it is not the source there also few whereof this sight is not the remedy A man who knows himself well is scarcely emulous because he is convinced that he deserves nothing and therefore he does not believe that the honor which is given to others is due to him He is neither sharp nor vindicative because the small esteem that he hath of himself doth not make him take or reckon the offences men do to him as things of moment He cannot hate any man because he cannot hate himself and sees nevertheless nothing in others that he does not acknowledge in himself in some degree He is not very ambitious and he cannot form designs to raise himself in the World because these designs spring from a belief we have that we deserve the rank whereto we aspire and do think that we have more cunning and industry than others to arrive thereunto Now a man who knows himself well doth not flatter himself with these thoughts He does not conceive moreover this elevation as a great good He perceives that these passions may render him very miserable in some condition That his Covetousness would exceed its limits more if it had more means to satisfie is self and in the uncertainty wherein he is whether it would be good or bad for him he easily concludes to keep himself in the places wherein he finds himself 39. That Poverty which Jesus Christ hath made the first of the Beatitudes and which is praised in so many places in Scripture is nothing else but an humble knowledge of ones self For to be poor in this manner one must know that he is so and able to say with the Prophet Ego vir videns paupertatem tuam That is to say that we ought to know in us either the lack of goods which we have not or the lack of all right to the goods which we hold from Gods liberality which includes an entire knowledge of our selves 40. It is easie to comprehend how this knowledge doth make us more patient in respect of the evils which are purely opinion as unfavourable judgments which are made of us calumnies and falsities For it is clear that knowledge ought to lessen the sense thereof by the sight it gives us of our effective misery which yet is much more great then all that man can say of it But we do not see at first how this knowledge of our miseries and faults may serve us to be more patient in outward evils in losses in disgraces in sickness in griefs We might also believe that it would be a new Charge which would only be proper to overwhelm the Soul by sadness and despair Yet it is not so for if this sight of our faults be a burthen 't is a burthen which comforts one in all other afflictions because it discovers to us that they are Just that they are proportioned to our Inward evils and that they may serve as a remedy thereunto that it convinces us that prosperity would not have been less dangerous then adversity and that giving us leave to reflect upon all that is arrived to us in our life of good and evil it makes us see that we have yet more abused our selves with good then evil and that we are charged more strictly therewith in the sight of God 41. It is yet easier to comprehend how much the knowledge of ones self doth contribute to Prudence For the most part of enterprises ill managed and designs rashly undertaken spring from the presumption of those who form them and this presumption comes from a blindness wherein they are in respect of themselves There is nothing more frequent then these indiscretions in particular actions and they all spring for the most part from the principal action of life which is the choice of the State and Employment wherein every one ought to pass his time For it is
man ought to resist all his life by endeavouring to know himself and by embracing all means which may help him therein and which we are going to shew in this second Part. Of the Knowledge of Ones self Second Part. Containing Means to Acquire it WE have endeavoured in the first Part of this Treatise only to make the knowledge of ones self desired We suppose in this here that desire quite formed and joined to a sincere resolution of labouring to acquire this knowledge There is nothing more to be done but to put those who are so well disposed into the way that leads to it and to open to them the most proper means to attain thereunto And we may first tell them that this desire is one of the Principallest of them and that it would suffice to produce this effect if it were full and entire For there is this difference betwixt this knowledge and that of objects which are out of us we may be ignorant of other things how desirous soever we may be to know them but we continue not in the ignorance of our selves but only because we do not desire absolutely to forsake it and we nourish in the bottom of our hearts a secret disowning of truth It is this which in us opposes the light of God and hinders it from penetrating our understandings Without that it would make us see clearly into all the foulds of our hearts it would advertise us of all our dangers and we should have need of no other thing to make us know our selvés perfectly but to expose our selves to these Divine beans 2. We have shewn in the first Part that this miserable Inclination was become natural to man since sin and we must add here that grace never destroys it absolutely and that whatsoever desire it inspires us with not to blind our selves there rests always as we may say in the bottom of the old man an inclination towards this voluntary blindness which is observed by these words of Jesus Christ That every man who does ill Omnis qui male agit odit lucem non venit ad lucem ut non manifestentur opera ejus hates the light and comes not to the light that his works may not be known For as there is no man who doth not incline to evil consequently there is none who hath not some aversion for the light which discovers it to him But also as that inclination to evil which sin hath imprinted in out Souls doth not hinder God from Imprinting therein by his grace a contrary Inclination which inclines us to Good and to Justice This natural disowning which we have of Truth hinders not God from breathing into us a contrary Inclination which makes us love and search Truth We are only obliged to acknowledge that our heart is divided That we love not absolutely truth that there are two opposite weights and inclinations in us so that if we have reason to give thanks to God because he hath given us some love for Truth we have also reason to humble our selves in beholding our selves according to this other inclination as Enemies to this same Truth 3. There is nothing that makes us better to comprehend the greatness of mans disorder then the sight of this miserable Propensity we feel in our selves For God being the Truth the Light the Justice to hate the Light the Truth the Justice is to hate God himself Nevertheless man hates them He would gladly that this Truth were not that this light were extinguished and that this Justice were abolisht that is to say he would that there were no God He wisheth that there were an annihilation of it and not being able to destroy it in his proper being he destroys it as much as he can for himself by shutting his eyes against the sight of Truth Behold that condition in which we are not only born but wherein yet we are partly engaged and from whence we ought to endeavour to free our selves by lessening as much as we shall be able this natural aversness we have for Truth and by labouring to encrease in us what God hath given us of love for it It is good to exercise our selves more about this work to convince our selves of the weakness of this love We may easily do it in considering how much a perfect and sincere love of which the heart is possessed as is that of an Usurer for his money is different from the love we have or that we flatter our selves to have for the Truth 4. An Usurer inclines continually towards gain the means that are given him thereof enter always without resistance they are alway received with a sincere Joy and without opposition There needs no studied management nor moderation to make them agreeable Every man is welcome to propose them Friends Enemies Acquaintances Strangers Inferiors Equals Superiors and he is far from conceiving any bitterness against those who make him any Overture to encrease his Wealth it would be a certain means to sweeten him if he were angry at them He does not amuse himself in finding out reasons to reject these advices nor ever takes occasion to examin the defects of those who give them He is not scrupulous in manners in the behaviour in the intentions He only seeks to assure himself of the truth of what hath been told him and examining it sincerely he fears nothing but being deceived therein Behold in what manner we ought to love Truth and the Model the Wise Man proposeth to us in ordering us to seek it as Money and we may see there that we love it so little and seek it so imperfectly that the contrary to what we have said of this Usurer may be said of us For our hearts are hardly ever open on that side Truth presents it self It finds there always resistance and never enters but by violence and force and if sometimes it be in appearance gratefully received it is always with some inward remorse of some superficial joy with which we distinguish it No man is proper to make us know it and self-love is almost never wanting to furnish us with Reproaches against those who undertake it Rhetorick hath neither Cunning nor delicateness enough to insinuate it without hurting us We allways find excess in the things defects in the Grace in the manner and in the time and in stead of applying our mind sincerely to the examination of what is proposed to us we apply it only in an unprofitable search of their defects who have given these Counsels This is the protraiture of the Spirit and the Conduct of the most part of men The lineaments are more observed in some then in others but there are very few in whom some foot-steps of them do not appear 5. At least let us not flatter our selves with a Virtue which we have not and let us beware of saying as many do That we desire nothing so much as to know our selves and that they can do us no greater
that on the contrary we know it not and that we have also on the outward appearance of the mind a quite different thought But Self-love which resides in the bottom of the Soul knows how to prosper there without our making any express reflections See here the Artifice self-love makes use of We have two sorts of faults the first which are the object of our Affection and which we will not acknowledge for faults for fear of being obliged to disanul them the others that we really condemn are those which we have no inclination to and from which we would very willingly be delivered Self-love makes us therefore first choose a Ghostly Father who ought to Judge of us almost as we would desire Afterwards it makes as it were a kind of Covenant and Bargain with him Self-love tells him the faults it loves not it is content that he find fault with them as it would it self But the Object of its principal Passions it scarcely puts under the Censure of the Confessor and only chooses him thinking that he will not concern himself with them Therefore first we justifie our Passions to our selves and at last we seek a Ghostly Father to justifie them In a word we would have one who might not outgo us in direction and who would conform in every thing that is we would he should approve and condemn what we our selves approve and condemn 39. 'T is that which is the cause that there being even amongst those who profess Piety so many strange and irregular Conducts there is hardly any one nevertheless who wants a Director if he will have one and this Director is of no use to those that would choose him in this manner but to stifle their remorses and to make them live more quietly in the condition out of which they have no desire to depart Thus we may define a Director in respect of the most part of the World a charitable Censurer of small faults and light defects and an Approver of passions which we will not remove We would not have a Director who would not find fault at all and we would not have one neither who touches upon our beloved passions These two Conditions are both equally essential because as it would be troublesome if he did pretend to contradict us in what we resolve absolutely to do he would serve our Self-love but ill if he did not contradict us in some thing our intention being to make use of his zeal against certain faults to authorise us in those we would not acknowledge for such 40. Therefore t is not sufficient to have a Director nor even to have one learned We must moreover abandon our selves to him without dissimulation and artifice and resolve to conform our selves to the judgment he makes of us and not to incline him to follow ours Lastly we must be ready to learn from him to know our selves better and be glad of his aid and assistance therein without prescribing him limits 'T is the disposition all the World ought to be in but 't is not necessary that it be perfect or rather it is impossible that it should be so Because there is no man upon Earth who hath humility enough and force to support without being discouraged and afraid of the sight of the least sin in its natural greatness and it is true to say of all our known sins in their greatest extent what the Scripture said of God Non videbit me homo vivet Thus to take a proportionable Conduct both of the necessity we all have of Truth and to the weakness which renders us incapable of undergoing it in all its force we must wish ardently to know it We must embrace with docility what is discovered of it to us we must believe that we are mightily spared and labour nevertheless to become more strong to the end we may be less obliged to spare our selves 41. We would doubtless advance hugely in this self-knowledge if we really had this disposition in the heart by treating with the Confessor we have chosen But we must however not grant only to this Confessor the right of discovering to us our faults and the evil consequences of our actions On the contrary It would be just to stretch this right as far as we can possible and to give it also in some sort to all the World seeing there is not any to whom we are not answerable and whom we are not able to hurt and scandalize How circumspect soever a Confessor may be he sees not always our actions he hears not all we say he knows not always the impressions our words and our actions make upon others and it is scarcely except from those who perceive them that they can be learnt One should therefore learn the custom of being less delicate in this point and give all the world an honest liberty Possibly we should receive oftentimes advertisements less censurable But if we will receive only those which shall appear altogether reasonable we shall receive none at all For men will never charge themselves with so severe an exactness and they will much sooner loose the Party by saying nothing at all to us than expose themselves to hurt us if what they should say did not appear to us absolutely just We must on the other side suppose that every one being prepossessed on the one part that he loves not to be admonished of his faults and on the other unwilling to show any aversion upon him is disposed by this means to free himself from rendring us this charitable office and to tell us nothing what he thinks of us nor what he knows others think of us Thus except we remove this obstacle and go as it were before Truth in exciting others to tell it us in testifying to them in an unsuspected manner that we think our selves in some sort obliged that they should do it and thus dispersing the fear they have of rendring themselves odious they will always observe with us this deceitfull reservedness which entertains and keeps us in ignorance of many things which would be very necessary to be known 42. We must not imagin that it is sufficient to receive without being moved the advices which are given us and to thank those who run the hazzard of giving us them For it is well enough known to all the World that as it is a shame to shew that one is offended at them so we endeavour to do our selves honour in being civil upon these occasions But we must persuade People that these civilities are sincere and it is that which cannot be without shunning many things which the World take for marks of a secret discontent and spite which we are afraid to discover 43. We must not pretend for example that they ever take the liberty to advise us of any thing if they see that we have no union and tye but with those who enter absolutely into all our Sentiments and that we testifie to all others nothing but
trouble Therefore whatever may be said of this Portraiture which we must attempt to make of our selves if it happen nevertheless that we were so frighted at these Objects that the Soul might thereby be overwhelmed it would be better a great deal to turn it another way and to busie it only about Gods Mercies 57. Care yet ought to be had in the whole Examination of our actions and interior motions to do our selves the same justice that we think we are obliged to do to others that is to say not to condemn our selves without Evidence It is true that we are ignorant whether our better Actions are good and agreeable to God but yet we know much less whether they are disagreeable There are intermixt therewith many human and corrputed Considerations but we cannot tell whether they be voluntary and what part thereof we have whether they are not pure motives of Concupiscence which God doth not impute to us or temptations of the Enemy which render us yet less guilty We acknowledge in us a great stock of Corruption but this stock whatever it be doth not render us guilty when there is another stock of the Love of God and Justice which possesseth our hearts We have committed and we commit hourly an Infinity of faults but God pardons also hourly this infinity of faults when we return to him with a true and sincere humility And thus we cannot tell whether these faults do subsist before his eyes What therefore must be done in this Ignorance We must humble our selves under the Hand of God but not condemn our selves because that would be to attribute to our selves a Knowledge which we have not 58. Lastly The principal Precaution that ought to be had in the study of ones Self is not to apply ones self so absolutely to it but joyn it always with the infinite Mercies of God which surpass so much all our miseries that they are only as a drop of water in the Ocean 'T is therefore in this immense Sea that we must drown them with an entire confidence Considered in themselves they are great but compared to the infinite Greatness of Gods Love for us and the price he hath given to deliver us they are nothing They ought to humble us without casting us down as the Mercy of God to comfort us without elevating us God was willing to give us these two great objects of our misery and his Mercy to keep our Soul in Aequilibrio or even ballance There is always danger in considering the one without the other but the uinon of these two Considerations establish the Soul in the true state wherein she ought to be during this Life which is that of the wholsom fear grounded upon the consideration of our miseries and an humble confidence maintained by Gods Mercy The Second Treatise Of Charity and Self-love 1. Altho there is nothing so opposite to Charity which relates all to God as Self-love which relates all to it self yet there is nothing so resembling the effects of Charity as those of Self-love For it marches so by the same ways that one can hardly point out those better whereunto Charity ought to carry us than in proposing those which Self-love takes which knows its true Interests and inclines by reason to the end it proposes it self 2. This conformity of Effects in Principles so different will not appear strange to those who shall have well considered the nature of Self-love But to know it he must first consider Self-love in it self and in its first bent that he may see afterwards what carrieth him to disguise and hide it from the sight of the World 3. The name of Self-love is not sufficient to make us know its nature being we may love our selves divers ways We must add thereunto other qualities to form to our selves a true Idea of it These qualities are that Man doth not only love himself but he loves himself without limits and without measure loves only himself and refers all to himself He covets all sort of Riches Humors Pleasures and desires none but for or in relation to himself He makes himself the Center of all he would Lord it over all and could wish that all Creatures were only employed to content him to praise him and to admire him This tyrannical disposition being stamped in the bottom of all mens Hearts renders them violent unjust cruel ambitious flatterers envious insolent and quarrellous In a word it includes the seeds of all the crimes and of all the misdemeanors of men from the smallest even to the most detestable ones See here what a monster we harbour in our bosoms This monster lives and reigns in us absolutely except God destroy its empire by putting another love into our hearts It is the Principal of all our actions which have no other then corrupted Nature And so far is it from terrifying us that we love and hate all things which are out of us only as they are conform or contrary to our Inclinations 4. But if we love it in our selves we are far from using it so when we perceive it in others It appears then to us on the contrary under its natural form and we hate it by so much more as we love our selves because Self-love of other men opposes all the desires of ours We would that all others should love us admire us buckle under us and that they should be busied with the care of satisfying us And they have not only no desire thereto but they look upon us as ridiculous in pretending to it and they are ready to do all not only to hinder us from succeeding in our desires but to make us obnoxious to theirs and to require the same things of us Behold then by this means all men at difference one with another And if he who hath said that Men are born in a state and condition of War and that each man is naturally an enemy to all other men had a mind only to represent by these words the disposition of the Hearts of men one towards another without pretence of passing it for legitimate and just he would have said a thing as conform to Truth and Experience as that which is maintained is contrary to Reason and Justice 5. It cannot possibly be imagined how there can be formed Societies Common-wealths and Kingdoms out of this multitude of People full of passions so contrary to Union and who only endeavour the ruin of one another But Self-love which is the cause of this war will easily tell the way how to make them live in peace It loves Domination it loves to enslave all the World to it but it loves yet more life and convenientness and an easie life more than Domination and sees clearly that others are no ways disposed to suffer themselves to be domineered over and are sooner ready to take away from it the Goods it loves best Each man sees himself in an impossibility of succeeding by force in the designs which his
Ambition suggests to him and apprehends likewise the loosing by that violence of others the essential Goods he possesseth 'T is that which obliges at first to submit ones self to the care of his own Preservation and there is no other way found for that but to unite ones self with others to beat back by force those who undertake to deprive us both of our lives and fortunes And to strengthen this Union laws are made and punishments ordered for those who violate them Thus by the means of tortures and gibbets set up in publick the thoughts and tyrannical designs of every particular mans Self-love are withheld 6. Fear of death is then the first tye of Civil society and the first check of Self-love 'T is that which forceth Men what aversion soever they may have to obey the Laws and which makes them in such a manner forget these vast thoughts of Domination that they hardly are raised any more in the thoughts of the most part of them so impossible they see it is for them to prosper therein Thus seeing themselves excluded from the open violence they are constrained to seek other ways and to substitute craft for force and they find therein no other means than to endeavour to content the Self-love of those whom they have need of instead of tyrannizing over them Some endeavour to make it fit for their Interests others employ flattery to gain it Gifts are bestowed to obtain it This is the source and foundation of all Commerce practised amongst men and which is varied a thousand ways For they do not truck merchandises for merchandises or for mony but they mutually traffick I mean they make a trade also of labours and toyls of services done of diligence and assiduity of civility and Men exchange all that either for things of the same nature or for real goods as when by vain complacencies we obtain Effective commodities 'T is thus that by the means and help of this Commerce all necessaries for this life are in some fort supplied without intermixing Charity with it So that in Estates where Charity hath no admittance because true Religion is banished from thence men do not cease to live with as much peace safety and commodiousness as if they were in a Republick of Saints 7. 'T is not that this tyrannical Inclination which makes us have a desire to rule and govern by force over others is not always lively in the hearts of Men. But as they see themselves unable to prosper therein they are forced to dissemble it untill they are strengthened by gaining others by sweet ways to have afterwards the means to bring others to their bent by force Every one therefote is mindfull at first to occupy the first Rank of the Society he is of and when he sees himself excluded he thinks of those which follow In a word he extolls himself the most he can and he humbles himself only by constraint In every state and in every condition he endeavors always to acquire to himself some Preheminence Authority Intendency Consideration Jurisdiction and to dilate his power as much as he can Princes wage war with their Neighbors that they may enlarge the limits of their Estates The Officers of several Companies in one and the same Country undertake and intrude upon one another They strive to supplant them and to humble each other in all their Employs and in all their Offices And if the wars which are made there are not so bloody as those which Princes make 'T is not because the passions are not as quick and sharp but 't is for the most part because they dread the punishment which the Laws threaten to those who have recourse to violent ways 8. I see nothing more proper to represent this Spiritual world formed by Concupiscence then the Idea which some Philosophers give us of the material World made by Nature that is to say of that Assembly of Bodies which compose the Universe Because we see there that every part of Matter tends naturally to move and to dilate it self and to issue out of its place but being pressed by other Bodies it is confin'd too kind of prison from whence it escapes so soon as it finds that it has more power and force than the matter wherewith it is environed Behold already the Picture of Constraint whereto the Self-love of each particular is reduced by that of others which does not permit it to set it self out at large so much as it would We are going to see all the motions in the sequel of this Comparison For these little confi'nd Bodies coming to muster up their forces and their motions do form great heaps of matter which Philosophers call Whirlwinds which are as States and Kingdoms And these Whirlwinds are themselves pressed and imprisoned by other Whirlwinds as it were by neighbouring Kingdoms They likewise will that in each Whirlwind there are formed other small ones which following the general motions of the great Bodies which draw them have nevertheless a particular motion which doth force yet other small Bodies to turn round about them which represents the Grandees of State who follow them in such a manner that they have their particular Interests and are as the Center of a quantity of People who fix themselves to their Fortune Lastly as these little Bodies drawn by the Whirlwinds do yet turn as much as they can upon their own Center so likewise the little ones which follow the fortune of the Grandees and that of the State do not forbear with all their endeavours and all their services which they render them to look upon themselves and to have always their own proper Interest in prospect 9. That which self-love covets particularly in Soveraignty is that we be regarded and looked upon by others as great and powerful and that we stir up in their hearts motions of respect and submission conform to these Ideas But however it may be the Impressions which are most agreeable to it are not yet the only ones wherewith self-love doth nourish it self It generally loves all those things which are favourable to it as admiration respect constancy and chiefly love There are many who scarcely do what they ought to make them beloved but there are none who do not desire to be loved and who do not behold with great pleasure this Propensity in others turned towards them which is that which is called love What if it appear that we labour not much to obtain this love 'T is because we had rather give sentiments of fear and submission under Greatness or because desiring too passionately to please certain persons we trouble our selves very little to please others 10. Yet this does not hinder but that even when we are canryed away by more strong Passions we behave our selves after a fashion very improper to make us be beloved yet would be beloved and do not perceive our selves incommoded when we see in the minds of others motions of hatred and aversion There are
terrenis quippe actibus saith St. Gregory valde frigescit animus si necdum fuerit per Intima dona solidatus If the Soul be not fortefied in the inward life by Grace she becomes very cold in terrestrial and worldly employments What judgment would he have made then of those who being yet weaker do nevertheless make no difficulty of going to Plays which dissipate the mind more than the greatest employments and can be excused neither by Charity nor by Zeal being that men seek therein only pleasure 31. No man doubtless would approve that a Carthusian should go to Plays because all the world sees the great disproportion of this divertisement with the Holy Life he professeth But we are not struck that many Christians make little or no difficulty of going thither because we know not the Holyness to which they are obliged by the vow of their Baptism We consider not as S. Paulinus saith that by the grace of this Sacrament they have been buried with Jesus Christ that they have promised to embrace his Cross to live no more for themselves nor the World but that Jesus Christ may live in them We consider that a Christian life ought not only to be an imitation but a continuation of the life of Jesus Christ since that 't is his Spirit which ought to act in them and by them by imprinting in their hearts the same sentiments which it hath in that of Jesus Christ If we did observe a Christian life by this means we should soon know how much Plays are opposite thereunto and there would need no reasons to convince those who would be perswaded of the Capital Truths of our Religion as there needs none to convince a Carthusian instructed in his Order that these diversions so prophane are forbidden him 32. All our actions are due to Jesus Christ not only as to our God but as to him who hath redeemed us at the price of his dearest Blood to oblige us to glorify him in all our works as St. Paul saith All our actions must relate to his Glory and must witness that we will imitate Jesus Christ crucified that we love what he hath loved and hate what he hath hated And as he is the beginning of all good Works and that the Grace by which we do them is the fruit of the Cross we ought to thank him for all those which his Spirit hath made us do Lastly we ought to say truly that we do them for him and by his Love Now would it not be to scoff at God and Man to say that we go to Plays for the love of Jesus Christ should we dare to offer him this action and tell him Lord 't is in obedience to thee that I will go to Plays it will be thy Spirit which will guide me thither it will be thee who shall be the principal of this action 't is by the Cross that thou hast made me deserve it Is there any one so blind or stubborn who can suffer without horror the impiety of this Language and even those who labour the most to justify Plays have they ever dared to offer this action to God Have they ever thought to give thanks to God for having assisted thereunto Is not this an evident proof that their Consciences belye their false Lights and that they themselves are convinced from the bottom of their hearts of the harm there is in Playes although they endeavour to dissemble it by the weak reasons which their wits furnish them with For every action which we should not dare to offer to God every action whereof Jesus Christ is not the principal every action which we cannot do to obey him every action which cannot be the fruit and effect of his Cross In Fine every action which we dare not not thank him for may not be good nor permitted a Christian 33. If a Christian consider himself as a sinner he ought to acknowledge that there is nothing more contrary to that state which obliges him to Penance Tears and to avoid unprofitable pleasures than the hunting after such vain and foolish recreations and so dangerous as Plays If he consider himself as a Child of God as a member of Jesus Christ illuminated by his Truth enriched by his Graces nourished with his Body Heir of his Kingdom he ought to judge that there is nothing more unworthy so high a quality as the taking delight in these foolish pleasures of the Children of the World 34. The Soul cannot conserve a true Piety without the assistance of a wholsome fear which she conceives at the sight of dangers wherewith she is environed She cannot be ignorant of the power and malice of her enemies who go round seeking how to devour her as the Scripture speaks She knows as St. Paulinus saith that all corporal creatures which draw our Hearts by the means of our Eyes are so many Nets which the Devil makes use of to catch us in so many Swords wherewith he endeavours to run us to the Heart She knows that she marches in the midst of her enemies and of a thousand snares and that she walks there without Light or Strength because she sees only darkness in her understanding only weakness in her Will and rebellion in her Sences The experience of so many Souls which loose themselves by their sight and the general disorder which reigns every where makes her know that there is nothing so rare as Christian virtue nothing so easy as to loose ones self nothing so difficult as to be saved How then can she joyn with so just a fear of terrible evils which threaten her the vain rejoycing of the world and feed her mind with Chimeras which Plays stuff it with all Is it not visible that as the natural effects of Plays are to stifle this so wholsom fear also the effect of this fear ought to be to stifle the desire of unprofitable and prophane recreations and to make her conclude that she hath many other things to think of in this world than going to Plays that the time God bestows on her is too precious to be lost unfortunately in these vain amusements so that when she gives her self over thereunto it must needs be that she is blind that she hath lost the remembrance of her dangers and that she hath stifled in this manner that disposition by which the Holy Spirit enters into the heart and is entertained there whilst it remains therein 35. One of the first effects of the light of Grace is to discover to the Soul the emptiness the meanness and the instability of all worldly things which slide and vanish away like fantomes and to make it see at the same time the grandeur and solidity of Eternal Goods And this disposition produceth of it self a peculiar aversion for Plays because it perceives therein an emptiness and meanness altogether peculiar For if all temporal things be nothing but Figures and Shadows in what rank ought Plays to be put which are only the Shadows
of Shadows seeing that they are nothing but the vain Images of temporal things and oftentimes false things also 36. Sin hath open'd the eyes to make men see with pleasure the vanities of this world and Grace in opening the Eyes of the Soul for the things of God shuts them to worldly things through a blindness much more fortunate than that miserable sight which sin hath procured us 'T is this wholsome blindness saith St. Paulinus which the Prophet begg'd of God when he said Hinder my eyes from seeing vanity And which our Lord prefers before the clear seeing eyes of the Jews when he told them Si caeci essetis non haberetis peccatum If ye were blind ye should have no sin If then we are obliged in quality of Christians to beg of God that he will take away our Eyes from all worldly follies of which Plays are as it were a Compendium and imprint in us a hatred and an aversion for them in the Heart How can we think that we shall be able to satisfy our eyes with these vain sights and to place our Satisfaction and Content in what ought to be the object of our aversion and horror The Fifth Treatise Of Reports 1. WE scarcely see any one who does not complain of the Reports which are made of him and who pretends not that others violate in regard of him the Rules of Honesty and Justice And as these sorts of complaints have not only a place in the world but amongst persons of Piety and in Societies the most orderly It seems that we have right to conclude from thence that the Rules by which we ought to judge of the equity and necessity of Reports are not known well enought In the mean time we may say that there is hardly any thing more important than to clear them seeing that indiscreet reports are the most common cause of troubles and divisions which happen not only in particular Friendships but also in Societies and even in whole Kingdoms and that 't is difficult that we do not commit many Faults if we be not well instructed what ought to be done to avoid them 2. What is strange is that every man complaining of others upon this point no man thinks he gives cause to others to complain of him He saw enough thereof who said of others That they are people who Conster all things wrong who report them so who wast and poyson the most innocent and the most harmless Discourses who have neither Fidelity nor Secrecy But we see not therein who attribute these faults to themselves and who believe they want neither Sincerity nor Honesty Finally each would observe this Law willingly that it might be permitted him to tell all that he would of other mens Discourses and that it might not be allowed any one to report any thing of his But as all the World pretending to this Priviledge no man obtains it indeed it must make account that all things will go always almost alike and that the World will always follow its fancies and passions that there will always be found people who will suffer themselves to report what they shall thing fit and thus they need only to be mindful to rule themselves that they may observe in this point in respect of others what Honesty Charity and Justice demands of us 3. 'T is almost the sole real Interest which we may have therein For provided that we our selves commit not Faults the indiscretion and wickedness of others can hardly hurt us They are evil for them and sometimes for those who give ear to them and believe them but not for those whom these reports are made of if they bear them as they ought God oftentimes makes use of them to procure them considerable Benefits and thereby to make them prosper by the designs of his Mercy upon them Thus we have nothing to do but to stand upon our Guard against our seles and we shall be shelter'd from all the rest 4. We are so much more obliged thereunto because unless we be very attentive to our selves it is very hard to avoid committing these kind of faults because direction hath no certain and precise Rules and because we cannot establish upon this point general Maxims It is not true that we cannot at some time report what we have heard It is not true that 't is never permitted to tell what may be displeasing to those who have spoken it It is not true that it may be allowed to relate all that may be gainsaid without displeasing them And finally excepting the Maxim which commands that we relate nothing but Truth all the rest are not universal Truths and they must be restrain'd by divers Conditions to make them Just 5. But 't is not unprofitable nevertheless to know these Rules and to have them present because it behoves us to stick to them unless we clearly see that we are in the case of exception Particular reasons to observe the general Laws of secrecy are needless but there must be very clear and very pressing ones to dispense with them So that when the least doubt is started we must adhere to the Rule and not to the Exception This is the first Maxim which ought to be printed in the mind upon this Subject and will suffice also to mark out to us our Duty in the most part of occurrences For we are hardly wanting to secresy but through a fickleness which makes us pass by all doubts and reasonable scruples which we perceive formed of our understandings 6. The general Foundation of the tye which we commonly have to secrecy in regard of what men say to us in the way of discourse is that God having had in consideration in all his Laws the linking men together and making them live in a well grounded Society all that destroys this Society ought to be esteemed as wicked and pernicious Now it is manifest that 't would be impossible that this Society should subsist if men were in a continual defiance of one another if they looked upon one another as Enemies and if they thought they might not communicate their intentions to whomsoever it were with security 'T is a Torment the Common people cannot endure as being always upon the reserve to say nothing that may be ill taken This inconveniency cannot absolutely be avoided because minds being different what one man thinks good another oftentimes takes it in the contrary sense There are elsewhere a thousand things which have nothing of bad being said in particular and which we cannot nevertheless tell again without imprudence and danger so that if those to whom we speak think that they have reason to relate all that men tell them there is almost no entertainment from whence we ought not to fear bad effects 7. Also let us not presume to speak to people with confidence but in supposing them in another disposition and imagining that they have some fidelity and secrecy and as every one may judge what they expect
oftentimes the most useful by â—bliging us to apply our selves to be more cautions of our words and to aâ—oid all that may give them occasion to abuse them The Sixth Treatise Of the Remedies against Suspicions 1. CHarity carries us not towards God and our Neighbour but in some manner towards it self I do this saith St. Austin By the love of your love Amore tui amoris facio istud And 't is in the same sense that the Kingly Prophet said in one of his Psalms My Soul hath earnestly coveted to desire your justifications Concupivit anima mea desiderare justificationes tuas He did not only desire to accomplish the Law of God which he understands by the word Justifications but he also desired the desire of it One desire produced another because 't is impossible that we love any one but we must love also the Love which we bear him desire to increase it and fear the diminution and decay of it 'T is then a necessary effect of a true and sincere Love for our neighbor to make us fear all that may slacken this Love All the Clouds which obscure never so little the luster of Charity are hurtful to it All that hinders it from publishing it self freely afflicts it and it tends always to have a free course to its motions and to dissipate all the obstacles which may hinder stop or trouble them Now there is nothing occasions this bad effect more than the disadvantagious impressions we conceive of our neighbors either upon Reports from others or from the Idea's we form of them our selves And consequently there 's nothing Charity ought to be more vigilant of 2. These Impressions are capable of weakening Charity many ways What care soever we take not to judge at all these Impressions nevertheless give us an inclination thereto for they are the effects of suspicions and suspicions dispose to Judgments and if these Judgments be rash they may not only hurt but even blot out Charity because rash Judgment s may be according to St. Thomas mortal sins Thus although these Impressions be not yet formed Diseases we ought nevertheless to take them for fore-runners and presages of a menacing sickness They are like the first Fits of a dangerous Fever which is like to follow except it be prevented by remedies which Christian prudence may furnish us with 3. These Impressions make us suspect the good it self which we see in others and hinder also from partaking of it both by the joy we ought to be sensible of and by the thanks which it is just we should render to God which is a very great evil For God distributing his Graces to divers members which compose the Body of his Son which is the Church and not giving it all to all he will nevertheless that they become all common to them by Joy and by Thanks which renders them all partakers of them No man can say that his proper Graces and Favours are sufficient without those of others which made David say Particeps ego sum omnium timentium te custodientium mandata tua 4. These Impressions dispose men insensibly to take ill some words or actions of themselves innocent and wherewith we should not have been troubled if the mind had not been already prepossessed with some suspicion One Impression becomes the source of another and what is worse we are almost never aware of it because we never ascend to the first foundation which is a rashness of the first impression 5. As they stop the course of our Charity towards those of whom we harbour these disadvantagious opinions they often produce the same effect in their hearts because we oftentimes suppress them not so clearly as that they perceive them not Our backwardness therein produces the like in them which God imputes to us in respect of the occasion we have given thereof Thus we are insensibly separated from one another and if there remain yet some Charity 't is so disguised and hid by the Clouds of suspicions that it remains without action 6. We must therefore shun these Impressions as much as we can This is the conclusion whereto Reason leads us But we cannot always For there are some Impressions grounded upon such evidence that 't is not possible to defend our selves from them Likewise we cannot establish for a Rule not to give ear to Reports disadvantagious to our neighbour For if they be true and if they be necessary or useful we ought to hearken to them Now there are some of this nature when Jesus Christ wills that we take two witnesses of the faults which we desire to correct in our Brethren he obliges these witnesses to see them and when he orders to tell them to the Church he wills the Church to hearken to them Seeing that he inclines us to lament for the mischiefs of the Church he pretends not that we should shut up our eyes that we may not see them seeing that he wills us to judge of false Prophets by their Works he supposes that we know them Finally seeing that he obliges us to treat with Men and to vary our Conduct according to their different dispositions he would gladly without doubt that we be not dim sighted as to what appears to us thereof without which it would be impossible but that we should fall into these snares men lay for us which he commands us to avoid in these following words Cavete autem ab hominibus 7. There is properly then none but false and rash Impressions which we are obliged to cast away and destroy It is enough in regard of the true ones when contrary or against our neighbors that we receive them with trouble and that God see in our hearts that we should be very glad they might be false that they serve not as a sustenance to our malignity but as an object of grief to our Charity and in a word if we look upon them in the same manner as our own the continuation and increase whereof we do not at all desire 8. But if this disposition be sincere it is absolutely necessary that it make us glad when we have means to expunge this Impression and that we know that we are deceived 'T is by this means that we may judge of the bottom of the heart Because if men on the contrary pluck not these opinions from us but with pains if we feel a secret spight against those who disabuse us if we have eyes only to see what favours our suspicions and that we have none for all that discover the uncertainty and falsity of them t is a sign that we have some connection or tye thereunto and that far from thinking them a burden which is troublesome to us and whereof we would willingly be delivered we take a particular pleasure therein which springs from the depravedness of the heart 9. Charity demands yet more than this It makes us not only receive willingly all that is able to deface or diminish our suspicions when
great Harm according to the good or bad use is made thereof 'T is one of the great means by which God exercises in the world his Mercy and Justice It hinders on the one part that the Just exalt not themselves nor loose themselves by the sight and knowledge of their proper excellence and it delivers them on the other part from the tentation which might be caused in them by the esteem and admiration of men who should know them It conserves them in the way of Faith in depriving them of the sight of onething which would draw them from it by motives too human For if St. Austin say Aug. de Civir l. 15. c. 4. that God hath not been willing that the renewing which Grace produceth in our Souls should extend it self even to the Body by conferring immortality to it lest the hope we ought to have in him should be too interressed If this same Saint ascertain that it is by the same reason that he permits the just to be afflicted in this world as well as the wicked for fear we should aim in the services which we render to God to exempt our selves from temporal evils We may likewise say That he permits us not to see the excellence of a just Souls beauty and the horrible deformity of a Soul in sin lest it should be through these interessed motives that we should desire justice and have an horror for sin 11. But if this obscurity produce some good in respect of some it may be said that it produces very great evils in respect of others and that 't is the principal cause of wicked mens blindess For 't is that makes worldly people believe that there is nothing in men worthy of esteem but what flatters their senses and contemn most part of honest and good men not seeing in them what they love What is told them of the good of the soul they look upon it as a meer imagination because they neither perceive nor see it Thus they distinguish men only by the outward qualities and by the relation they have to their passions and as virtuous men participate always of the Spirit of the World they participate also a little of this Illusion The too great tyes they have of outward qualities take from them the sentiment of the spiritual misery of many Souls and often also they have not the esteem they ought to have of the real Goods others possesse because they are covered with outward faults of which they are too sensible This is one of the most ordinary means whereby Jesus Chist is scandalized in his members For as the Jews would that their Messias should be environed with rayes of Glory we would also that honest men should have no defect neither inwardly nor outwardly and unless they have this agreeableness which strikes our senses we have a propensity to condemn them as seeing their faults and their miseries but not their Riches and their Goods 12. This scandal increases infinitely when these faults which we observe in them are not simple natural faults but faults of manners and true and absolute faults For if we only need to beg of God to preserve us from the tentation which springs from thence there is danger that these faults which we see in those who pass for pious men do humble and debase them so in our sight that we deprive our selves of the edification which we might draw from all the other virtues which we observe in them Oftentimes these virtues are suspected by us we begin to apprehend that we have been deceived We know not what to stick to and we enter into a certain despair of finding in the world solid virtues 13. This tentation is at the same time very dangerous and very ordinary For it is a hard thing to live long with pious people but we shall find in them many faults not only imaginary but true and real ones Human Wit never hides it self absolutely They suffer themselves to be cheated and beguiled They are carried away by unjust prejudices they are sometimes precipitate in their judgments We see some who are resolved in their thoughts others who are curious and delicate in what concerns them nearly Others who are tender and nice in small inconveniences There are some that their zeal carries to excesses Lastly There are almost none in whom nature shews not her self by many ways But if men thereupon are inclined to condemn them they come to condemn all the world and to pass from aversion for faults to aversion for men according to this saying of an antient person Qui vitia odit homines odit 14. 'T is good therefore to fortify our selves against this tentation by considerations which may be found in Faith Now Faith furnishes us with what may be able to dissipate this tentation if we apply our selves seriously to it For Faith shews us that the faults of the just are profitable to them in divers manners as hath already been said and likewise that oftentimes God permits them more for others than for themselves He darkens their splendor that those who deserve not to enjoy it may be deprived of it He takes from before our eyes their good examples to punish us for not having profited by them he holds back the odor of their Piety because the world hath not received it as it ought 15. We are scandalized then often at certain faults in just men which are not so much for them as for us They hurt them not but they hurt us they are Thorns which are good for them because they warrant their Piety from the danger it would be in of being withered by mens praises but these Thorns wounding us hinder us from approaching and from perceiving the good smell of them And thus there are none but we who loose thereby 16. Just mens faults enter into the order of Providence and often God makes use of them to execute his greatest designs against the wicked Possibly St. Chrysistome might have dealt better with Aroadia and Eudoxia and that if he had done so they had not abandoned him to the fury of Theophilus But because Theophilus and the wicked Bishops of that time deserved to be abandoned to their passions and blinded by a success conform to their designs God did permit this Saint to follow the heat of his zeal 17. There are virtuous men who examining the Life of St. Thomas of Canterbury were perswaded to believe that he might without violating the Laws of the Church have yielded to many things which King Henry the Second desired of him yet the heart of this Holy Bishop being right and the heart of King Henry corrupted the proceedings of this Saint being Humble and Just the Kings proceedings violent and unjust God rather judged of this difference by the purity of the Saints Heart and the wickedness of his adversary than by the bottom of the cause and did not omit to justify him by many miracles when the whole Church was divided
of Paradice or Hell but makes great Impressions upon us if we have never heard speak thereof elsewhere That which takes away the thought of these things is then that they are already known to us and that we are accustomed thereunto But if we cannot avoid this cause of human Infirmity we may very well at least humble our selves thereby and make use of it to acknowledge that human Wit is of so little or no account seeing that the same objects which have justly touched it at one time doe not at another through this vain circumstance that it is accustomed therunto as though this custome did change the nature of those objects and took any thing from them of what they have either of terrible or great 19. 'T is one of the reffections which the Sermons called bad gives leave to make and many more may be added to it of this nature in making use of what shocks us therein to know our proper faults And in considering them in this prospect The more a Sermon is filled with human defects the more it would be proper for us to serve as a draught of what we are and the manner how we act For the lives of Christians ought to be a continual Preaching which should carry into the mind of others a lively Image of all Vertues St. Peter the Apostle recommends to us the insinuating of Humility in all things Humilitatem in omnibus insinuantes that is to say that he wills Christians to preach Humility in all their actions The same may be said of all other Vertues and we ought to do nothing which may not help to engrave them in the heart of others as a Preacher ought to say nothing which is not edifying to his Auditors Nevertheless how far are our actions from making this Impression upon the minds of those that see them On the contrary what do we most commonly bring thither but the Image of our Passions of our disorderly Motions of our secret Interests We preach almost by our actions as they preach by their words and we acquit our selves of the general Ministry of Christians as they acquit themselves of the particular Ministry of Preachers Let us not look upon their faults alone but upon our own in theirs and let us turn one part of that disgust we have for them against our selves 20. If we look narrowly thereunto we shall find that the particular faults into which they fall do much resemble ours and have almost the same causes These people follow generally their thoughts and phancies without reflecting whether they will be proportioned to the mind of those who hearken to them We follow also our Humours and Passions without any regard to proportion our Actions and Words to the minds of those with whom we live which is the reason that we startle them a thousand ways and that we do nothing that edifies them 21. There are some Preachers who startle understanding and judicious Hearers in crying out without reason upon small things in chaffing themselves about things which deserve it not and by making appear I know not how many false Motives which incommode strangely those who have the Idea of Justice as well for the Motives as the things But this defect is it not infinitely greater and more frequent in our Lives than in Sermons For how many motives slide into our actions and words which are false not according to Rhetorick but according to Faith Do we not often shew the inclination and esteme we have for some actions which ought to cause nothing but sentiments of horror Do we not receive oftentimes with scorn and disdain things which ought to excite only Piety How much do we extoll things which ought to appear mean and disdainful to us How much do we cry down some things which indeed are noble and worthy to be admired How cold do we speak of those we ought to have the greatest concern for They are so many false motives by so much more dangerous as they spring from the bad disposition of the heart whereas those of Preachers denote often only in them a simple and meer want of wit 22. The more one hath the Idea of justness be it for things or for motives the more one deserves defects in Preachers And hence one may say that the reputation of many of them who make a great shew in this employment is only grounded upon the little light of their Auditors If we had also understanding spectators and who had the Idea of the true motives that the objects ought to excite in us the manner whereby we act and speak would become almost insupportable to them They would only see in us depraved Inclinations unjust Impressions lack of sense and love for things which deserve most and they would find in respect of us something of that Holy Commotion which Jesus Christ shewed in regard of the Jews by these words O generatio incredula quousque vos patiar the meekness with which men bear with us is not then any thing but the effect of blindness of men We only surpass by the favour of their want of light and it is very just that we should suffer patiently in others what they suffer continually from us 23. What diverts Preachers from the right way and casts them upon false eloquence upon vain thoughts and of no edification is often because they have other prospects than they ought to have in acquitting themselves of their ministry They would appear Wise Eloquent and Able they would appear wits in a word they speak for themselves and not for their Auditors and in speaking in this manner they speak often neither for their Auditors nor themselves These are likewise those false Prospects which are mingled with our actions which destroy the edification of them if we had no other than to satisfy our obligation and to serve our neighbor they would spread an odour of Piety which would gain hearts insensibly but the passions and secret desires which are intermingled hinder this effect and produce ordinarily quite different impressions from those we pretend The desire we make appear of exalting our selves makes us dis-esteemed in the eyes of other men We please so much less by how much it appears that we have had a design to please and by a natural contradiction in men they conceive justly passions quite opposite to those which they observe in us 24. These Preachers whereof we speak are particularly proper to make known the wretchedness and the blindness of mens vanity They tire themselves in their Closets to bring forth brave thoughts they overcharge their memory with labour they distribute them with boldness and afterwards they rise from their Chair well satisfied with themselves imaging to have left a great Idea of themselves in their Auditors For men do not seek these pretended high thoughts for any thing else but to please and it is difficult that in thinking to please others men please not themselves Nevertheless there is very often nothing