You ask me the meaning of the Apostle's saying that _the law is not made
for the just man_.[1] Can any man be just unless he accommodate his actions
to the rule of the law? Is it not in the observance of the law that true
justice consists?
Our Blessed Father explains this passage so clearly and delicately in his
Theotimus that I will quote his words for you. He says: "In truth the just
man is not just, save inasmuch as he has love. And if he have love, there
is no need to threaten him by the rigour of the law, love being the most
insistent of all teachers, and ever urging the heart which it possesses to
obey the will and the intention of the beloved. Love is a magistrate who
exercises his authority without noise and without police. Its instrument is
mutual complacency, by which, as we find pleasure in God, so also we desire
to please Him."[2]
Permit me to add to these excellent words a reminder which ought not, I
think, to be unprofitable to you. Some imagine that it is enough to observe
the law of God in order to save our souls, obeying the command of our
Lord: _Do this_, that is to say, the law, _and you shall live_,[3] without
attempting to determine the motive which impels them to observe the law.
Now the truth is that some observe the law of God from a servile spirit,
and only for fear of losing their souls. Others chiefly from a mercenary
spirit for the sake of the reward promised to those who keep it, and,
as our Blessed Father says very happily: "Many keep the Commandments as
medicines are taken, rather that they may escape eternal death than that
they may live so as to please our Saviour." One of his favourite sayings
was: "It is better to fear God from love than to love Him from fear."
He says also: "There are people who, however pleasant a medicament may
be, feel a repugnance when required to take it, simply from the fact of
its being medicine. So also there are souls which conceive an absolute
antipathy to anything they are commanded to do, only because they are so
commanded." As soon, however, as the love of God is shed forth in the heart
by the Holy Spirit, then the burden of the law becomes sweet, and its yoke
light, because of the extreme desire of that heart to please God by the
observance of His precepts. "There is no labour," he goes on to say, "where
love is, or if there be any, it is a labour of love. Labour mingled with
love is a certain _bitter-sweet_, more pleasant to the palate than that
which is merely sweet. Thus then does heavenly love conform us to the will
of God and make us carefully observe His commandments, this being the will
of His Divine Majesty, Whom we desire to please. So that this complacency
with its sweet and amiable violence anticipates the necessity of obeying
which the law imposes upon us, converting that necessity into the virtue of
love, and every difficulty into delight."[4]
[Footnote 1: Tim. i. 9.]
[Footnote 2: Book viii. c. 1.]
[Footnote 3: Luke x. 28.]
[Footnote 4: Cf. _Treatise on the Love of God_. Book viii. c. 5.]