XI. 1. It has been objected to our author's work on the Lives of the
Saints, _that the system of devotion which is recommended by it, is, at
best, suited to the cloister_. But no work has ever appeared, in which
the difference between the duties of a man of the world and the duties
of a religious is more strongly pointed out. Whenever the author has
occasion to mention any action of any saint, which is extraordinary or
singular in its nature he always observes, that it is of a kind rather
to be admired than imitated.
XI. 2. It has been objected, _that the piety which it inculcates is of
the ascetic kind_, and that the spirit of penance, voluntary
mortification, and contempt of the world, which it breathes everywhere,
is neither required nor recommended by the gospel. But no difference can
be found between the spirit of piety inculcated by our author, and that
inculcated by the most approved authors of the Roman Catholic church.
Less of penance, of voluntary mortification, or of contempt of the
world, is not recommended by Rodriguez, by Thomas of Kempis, by St.
Francis of Sales, by Bourdaloue, or Massillon, than is recommended by
our author. Speaking of those "who confound nature with grace, and who
look on the cross of Jesus Christ as an object foreign to faith and
piety;--It was not thus," says Massillon, in his sermon on the
Incarnation, "it was not thus that the apostles announced the gospel to
our ancestors. _The spirit of the gospel is a holy eagerness of
suffering, an incessant attention to mortify self-love, to do violence
to the will, to restrain the desires, to deprive the senses of useless
gratifications; this is the essence of Christianity, the soul of piety_.
If you have not this spirit, you belong not, says the apostle, to Jesus
Christ; it is of no consequence that you are not of the number of the
impure or sacrilegious of whom the apostle speaks, and who will not be
admitted into the kingdom of Christ. You are equally strangers to him;
your sentiments are not his; you still live according to nature; you
belong not to the grace of our Saviour; you will therefore perish, for
it is on him alone, says the apostle, that the Father has placed our
salvation. A complaint is sometimes made that we render piety disgusting
and impracticable, by prohibiting many pleasures which the world
authorizes. But, my brethren, what is it we tell you? allow yourselves
all the pleasures which Christ would have allowed himself; faith allows
you no other; mix with your piety all the gratifications which Jesus
Christ would have mixed in his; the gospel allows no greater
indulgence--O my God, how the decisions of the world will one day be
strangely reversed! when worldly probity and worldly regularity, which,
by a false appearance of virtue, give a deceitful confidence to so many
souls, will be placed by the side of the crucified Jesus, and will be
judged by that model! To be always renouncing yourselves, rejecting what
pleases, regulating the most innocent wishes of the heart by the
rigorous rules of the spirit of the gospel, is difficult, is a state of
violence. But if the pleasures of the senses leave the soul sorrowful,
empty, and uneasy, the rigors of the cross make her happy. Penance heals
the wounds made by herself; like the mysterious bush in the scripture,
while man sees only its thorns and briers, the glory of the Lord is
within it, and the soul that possesses him possesses all. Sweet tears
of penance! divine secret of grace! O that you were better known to the
sinner!" "The pretended esprits forts," says Bourdaloue, in his sermon
on the scandal of the cross, and the humiliations of Jesus Christ, the
noblest of all his sermons, in the opinion of the cardinal de Maury, "do
not relish the rigorous doctrines announced by the Son of God in his
gospel; self-hatred, self-denial, severity to one's self. But when
Christ established a religion for men, who were to acknowledge
themselves sinners and criminals, ought he, as St. Jerome asks, to have
published other laws? What is so proper for sin as penance? what is more
of the nature of penance, than the sinner's harshness and severity to
himself? Is there any thing in this contrary to reason? They are
astonished at his ranking poverty among the beatitudes; that he held up
the cross as an attraction to his disciples to follow him; that he
declared a love of {032} contempt was preferable to the honors of the
world. In all this I see the depth of his divine counsels." Such is the
language of Bourdaloue and Massillon, preaching before a luxurious
court, to the best-informed and most polished audience in the Christian
world. It is apprehended that no other language is found in our author's
Lives of the Saints.
XI. 3. Some (but their number is small) have imputed to our author _too
much credulity respecting miracles_. A chain of agiographists might be
supposed: on the first link of it we might place Surius, as possessing
the utmost degree of the belief of miracles, consistent with any degree
of judgment; on the last we might place Baillet and Launoy, as
possessing the utmost degree of the belief of miracles, consistent with
any degree of deference to the general opinions of pious Catholics.
Between them we might place in succession, according to their respective
degrees of supposed belief, Ribadeneira, Baronius, the Bollandists,
Tillemont, and Fleury. With which of these writers shall we class our
author? certainly neither with Surius, nor with Baillet or Launoy. The
middle links represent those to whom the most liberal Roman Catholic
will not impute too much credulity, or the most credulous too much
freedom. Perhaps our author should rank with the Bollandists, the first
of this middle class; and generally he who thinks with father Papebroke
on any subject of ecclesiastical literature, may be sure of thinking
right. To those who wholly deny the existence of miracles these sheets
are not addressed; but the Roman Catholic may be asked on what principle
he admits the evidence for the miracles of the three first centuries,
and rejects the evidence for the miracles of the middle age; why he
denies to St. Austin, St. Gregory, the venerable Bede, or St. Bernard,
the confidence he places in St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, or Eusebius.