THE STAGES OF THE BATTLE
The spiritual masters in every age are at agreement concerning the
process by which the soul passes from a state of grace into a state of
sin. They express it in various ways, and in varying degrees of
elaboration, but when analysed it can be brought down to three steps
given us by St. Gregory, _Suggestion, Pleasure, Consent_.[1] Thomas a
Kempis presents it somewhat more fully, and it is with his statement of
the process that we purpose engaging ourselves.
"First," he says, "a bare thought comes to the mind; then a strong
imagination; afterwards pleasure, and evil motion, and consent."[2]
I. _The Satanic Suggestion_
First of all, then, "the bare thought,"--_simplex cogitatio_,--"comes
to the mind"; or more literally _runs upon_ (_occurit_), the mind. The
word {110} is full of action. The suggestion of evil does not drift
into the mind in any merely accidental way. It is propelled from
without by a strong, alert intelligence,--none other than the
Tempter,--and under just the conditions and circumstances that his
experience shows him are the most advantageous for his uses. A Kempis
doubtless had here in mind St. Paul's thought, expressed to the
Corinthians, "There hath no temptation _taken_ you, but such as is
common to man";[3] the idea being that of the temptation laying hold of
the soul as a warrior might take hold upon his adversary in battle.
He proposes the evil thing, not perhaps as a thing sinful in itself,
for, as we have already seen, his experience has taught him that few
souls, even of the most depraved, can be induced to accept evil for
evil's sake. He presents it sometimes under the guise of that which is
positively good; or perhaps, with an assumption of great virtue, he
acknowledges it to be wrong in itself, but seeks to persuade us that it
would be right for us to make an exception of ourselves under the
peculiar circumstances that are present.
It is necessary for us to study with care the subject of suggestion of
sin, lest either through Satan's wiles, or our own ignorance, we be
deceived, to our soul's hurt. It is at this point {111} that we must
understand the difference between temptation and sin. The failure to
grasp this difference has been the cause of great distress to many
faithful souls; it has been the root of fatal discouragement in
numberless cases, and, in not a few, of downfall and final wreck.
The suggestion may often be the result of our past unfaithfulness. It
is not always easy to trace the pedigree of a temptation, but in most
cases it is highly likely that it is to be traced back to some failure
of our own in the past. Men indulge themselves; they whet the
imagination with evil thought and conversation and reading. They
develop their passions by giving rein to them. By continued failure to
resist, they go on in the same sin under many varying conditions, until
a hundred commonplace, every-day happenings, entirely innocent in
themselves, become charged with sinful suggestions, recalling the old
sin whenever they occur. It is as though a commander should plant
powerful batteries about his own fortress, preparing them to be used by
the enemy. Thus learning from our past, we know how to guard ourselves
for the future. Present faithfulness is the pledge, and the only
pledge, of future security.[4]
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Or it may be that Satan, accustomed to success in leading us astray in
certain things, is encouraged to suggest like evil to our minds again.
However this may be, whether the suggestion arises from the evil bent
that our minds have received through former yielding, or whether it be
Satan's device and unprovoked solicitation, _there is no sin in the
mere fact that evil is suggested to our minds, however persistently or
strongly_.[5]
In any case it had its origin outside of us, and unless we have
deliberately run into the occasion of sin, or in some culpable way
invited it, we are in the immediate case not responsible for the
suggestion.
Therefore, the suggestion can in no way be regarded as sin, for unless
our wills have brought it about, or consciously encouraged it, our
souls are unstained. Without the action of the will, no sin can enter
the heart. "What is done without, or against, our will, rather takes
place in us, than is done _by_ us."[6]
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"No risings, then, of any passion, yea, though it should rise again and
again, against thee, and by rising weary thee, and almost wear thee
out: no thought by night when thou hast not power over thy soul, and
thy will is not conscious: no thoughts by day, which come to thee again
and again, and besiege thee and torment thee, and would claim thee for
their own: no distractions in prayer, even if they carry thee away, and
thou lose thyself and awake, as it were, out of a dream, and thy prayer
be gone,--none of these things are thine. Nothing without thy will is
thine, or will be imputed to thee. It is not the mere presence with
thee of what thou hatest: it is not the recurrence, again and again, of
what thou loathest, which will hurt thee: not even if it seems to come
from thy inmost self, unless thy will consent to it."[7]
II. _The Response of the Natural Heart_
Following upon the suggestion, a Kempis tells us there comes "a strong
imagination." The undisciplined soul does not instantly turn from the
suggestion. It allows a vivid picture of it to attract and hold the
attention. This may be quite involuntary, and, if so, is not in itself
sin, but unless the attention be speedily withdrawn {114} there follows
the second stage of temptation, namely, Pleasure. _Deletatio_ is the
word a Kempis uses, which has the sense of a pleasure which entices one
from the right way.
Here again, however, we must make the careful distinction between
temptation and sin, if we would not be entangled in a fatal network of
scruples. Though there may spring up in our hearts a distinct sense of
delight at the thought of committing the sin suggested, yet in this
delight itself there is no sin, unless the will enters in to confirm it.
This is not the kind of delight that St. Paul speaks of in his terrible
condemnation of those "who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness";[8] for if the will comes in promptly to resist the
sense of delight, we are free from blame. The pleasure which often
follows the suggestion of sin to a faithful soul, while definite, and
perhaps even long continued, has its seat in our lower nature, in what
spiritual writers call the "inferior will" of which we shall speak
presently. So long as it does not capture the higher will, no sin has
been committed.
A simple illustration will suffice to show what is here meant. One is
walking with a companion on the street. Some one appears in sight who
{115} has recently wronged him. All the memory of the wrong surges up
in the heart instantly, and there comes a sharp suggestion to say some
unkind, revengeful thing. The heart responds to the suggestion, and it
would be a real pleasure to speak this unloving thought. But,
realizing the sin of it, we refrain; we even say to ourselves, "It
would be an intense satisfaction to speak, nothing would give me so
much pleasure; but I know it is not the will of God, and therefore
nothing will induce me to do it."
Here is the Satanic suggestion, followed by a definite sense of
pleasure therein, and yet so met and disposed of that no sin, but
rather the blessing of a victory, results. And this victory is more to
God's honour than it would have been had we rejected the temptation
with disgust, having found no sort of pleasure in it. When we found
pleasure in it, but refused it, there was a greater victory over self
and Satan.
III. _The "Inferior" and "Superior" Wills_
The existence of the two operations of will in man is proved from Holy
Scripture. St. Paul, writing to the Roman Christians, lifts the veil
from his own spiritual experience and shows us how they operated in
him. His experience we all recognize as our own.
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"I find then a law," he says, "that when I would do good"--that is when
I will to do good,--"evil is present with me. For I delight in the law
of God after the inner man, but I see another law in my members warring
against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of
sin which is in my members."[9]
It is well before going further to inquire what is this "inferior will"
that manifests itself in the great Saints, as well as in us sinners,
and in which this delight at the thought of sin is said to have its
place. How is it to be distinguished from the higher will, which,
while acknowledging the sense of pleasure, yet refuses to yield to it?
And what relation have these two wills to the act of consent, which
constitutes the sin? Let us find the answer to our question in one of
the best of spiritual masters, the author of "The Spiritual Combat":
"Although we may be said in this combat to have within us two wills,
the one of the reason, which is thence called reasonable and higher,
the other of the senses, thence called sensual and lower, and commonly
described by the words 'appetite,' 'flesh,' 'sense,' and 'passion'; yet
as it is through the reason that we are men, we cannot truly be said to
will anything which is willed {117} by the senses, unless we are
inclined thereto by the higher will.
"And herein does our spiritual conflict principally consist. The
reasonable will being placed, as it were, midway between the Divine
Will which is above it, and the inferior will or the will of the
senses, which is beneath it, is continually warring against both, each
seeking in turn to draw it, and bring it under obedience."[10]
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It is the inferior will that runs forward with delight to act upon
Satan's suggestion; it is the higher will that checks this
precipitation and says, "I know it is not the will of God, and
therefore nothing will induce me to do it." This higher will is what
is commonly meant when we speak of the human will being conformed to,
or arrayed against, the Divine Will. It has to act before man becomes
responsible.[11]
It is this higher will that enjoys its freedom, and therefore
constitutes in us a part of the {119} divine image. There is no power
that can compel it until, by its own free action, it yields itself to
that power. God, reverencing His image, as He sees it in us, will not
force a reluctant will to serve Him; and Satan cannot.[12] Scupoli
says again:
"God has, in truth, endowed our will with such freedom and such
strength, that were all the senses, all the evil spirits, nay, the
whole world itself, to arm and conspire against her, assaulting and
oppressing her with all their might, she could still, in spite of them,
will or not will, most freely all that she wills or wills not, and that
how often soever, whensoever, howsoever, and to what end soever, best
pleases her."[13]
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It is on these grounds that the "superior will" has been called the
"Royal Faculty," because like a king it sits enthroned over all other
faculties, guiding and ruling them. No matter what dispositions we may
have, they are inoperative until the will commands; and according as
the will dictates, so is our whole life. We, and all that pertains to
us, are good or bad according as the will operates for good or evil.
Let us understand clearly, however, what is meant by the freedom of the
human will, lest we fall into error. As we have seen, the will is
indeed free. Satan cannot force it; God will not. But this does not
mean that the will is free to stand alone. It means simply that the
_will is free to choose_. Man was made for service. It has been said
that the dream of mankind has ever been of liberty, but the one
practical question that faces us every moment from the cradle to the
grave is, Whom shall I serve? Furthermore, there are but two
alternatives of service,--God or Satan. Man, from his very nature,
cannot choose to serve himself. Brought down to its final analysis,
all service is that of God or Satan, heaven or hell.
Nor is man and his life, so organized that the will can choose once for
all, and have done with it. We may choose once for all, but that same
{121} choice must every day and hour be repeated and ratified, else it
will not stand.[14]
It is a thought that must give us pause, that in every waking moment of
our lives, consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, the
will is choosing, and that each several choice is making for our
eternal weal or our eternal woe; is gathering material for an immortal
crown, or for our accusation and possible condemnation at the end.
Nor is it possible, as we have just seen, for the will to refrain from
choosing. It is free to choose what it will, but choose it must. Some
have thought it possible to stand neutral, but not so. "Not to choose
is to choose amiss." Not to choose the service of God is to choose the
service of Satan.
The will, like our other faculties, does most readily that which it is
accustomed to do. The law of habit holds good here as elsewhere, and
habit is mostly acquired by the repeated performance of little acts.
We do not ordinarily perform great deeds of love as a means of
training; {122} rather do we perform them because we are already
trained. Some great act of love may confirm the will in its tendency
Godward, but it is not in high and lofty things that we are to seek our
training. Therefore in training the will so that it may acquire the
habit of spontaneously choosing God in all things, it must be taught to
acquiesce constantly in the little hourly leadings towards Him. If we
make a habit of consenting to another person, after a time it is
difficult to refuse consent. This holds equally good with the sweet
and happy rule of the Holy Spirit when we have aligned our wills with
His, and with the horrid slavery of hell when we have committed our
wills to Satan.
In fitting the will for the great warfare, it must be taught little by
little, in numberless minor things, to consent to God's Will. So after
a time the habit will be formed; God's Voice will become the signal for
prompt action, and the voice of Satan will be as the voice of a
stranger whom the will, like the sheep in the parable, will not follow.
Surely then it will be worthy to be called the Royal Faculty, for as a
king indeed will it reign, one with the Will of Him Who is the King of
kings.
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IV. _The Fatal Consent_
We see that there is no power that can compel the will, unless it be
that the will has, by its own act, delivered itself to be bound by
Satan. This brings us to the third stage--Consent. The suggestion to
evil may be strong, the pleasure that follows may be keen; and yet
there is no sin until the will has yielded consent; until its denial,
its hesitation, have been beaten down, and it has cried, "I yield."
It is around this point that the conflict centres. The suggestion may
count for nothing; it is often but a random shot that the enemy fires
on the chance of striking a vital point, "just as a besieging army
sends rockets here and there into a city to try for the powder
magazines."[15] The pleasure that follows, great as it may be, is not
in itself sinful, and may be the occasion of greater merit and grace to
the soul that feels it and, instead of yielding, beats it down
ruthlessly. But if Satan can induce the will to give consent, the deed
is done, the evil has entered, and, in proportion to the seriousness of
the matter, the divine love is quenched, and the power of the devil
quickened and strengthened.
A distinction, too, must be made between {124} deliberate and
indeliberate consent. St. Francis de Sales refers to what he calls
inclinations to sin,[16] when the mind, not being thoroughly aroused,
may amuse itself for some time with a thought or imagination, without
reflecting that it is a temptation to sin.
Father Augustine Baker says likewise, "The simple passing of such
thoughts or imaginations in the mind is no sin at all, though they
should rest there never so long without advertence, but only the giving
of deliberate consent to them"; and to constitute this deliberate
consent he requires that the mind must be "fully awake,"--that is, to
the fact that these were of the nature of sin,--"and had reflected on
them."[17]
Our only hope lies in a stubborn refusal of consent. Our safety lies
in fixing the will on this one thing. Never mind how fiercely the
enemy may assault. He may deliver charge after charge with a rapidity
that bewilders the soul, and makes it grow sick and dizzy. We may seem
to be beaten down under his feet, and all the storms and billows of a
fierce and terrible temptation may sweep over us, and yet so long as
from the {125} midst of the confusion we cry, "I will it not," the soul
is safe.[18]
The refusal of consent should be instant upon the first consciousness
of temptation. It is of great peril to dally even for a moment with
the sinful suggestion. Not only does it encourage the tempter on the
one hand, and weaken our powers of resistance on the other, but
deliberate dallying with evil is a sin in itself. It means that an
outpost has been surrendered, and even though in the end we reject the
main suggestion, yet we have by no means come off unscathed. We are
less capable of resisting the next attack than we were before; for "the
imagination of sin, the {126} dallying with it, the indulgence of the
senses, short of what the soul must own to itself to be a grave fall,
steeps and drags the soul more thoroughly in sin, immerses it in a
thicker and more blinding mist, interpenetrates more the whole moral
texture of the soul with evil, than, at an earlier stage, does the
actual sin itself."[19]
It is not always, however, with confusion and noise of battle that
Satan seeks to force our consent. Often the hardest temptations to
endure are those in which he comes very gently, and with long continued
pressure seeks to weary, and discourage, and break down the will.
It is a fatal error into which scrupulous souls are not infrequently
led, to think that the long continuance of the suggestion, or even of
the delight with which our lower nature responds, constitutes consent.
The devils have a mysterious power, allowed them by God, of holding a
temptation before the soul continuously or repeatedly, and we are often
as powerless to put it away as we are to refuse to see an object which
is actually reflected on the retina of the eye.
How many times have loving hearts that would choose death a thousand
times rather than dishonour our Lord become sick with terror when in
the midst of such prolonged temptation there {127} comes a dread
whisper within, "You have consented, though you knew it not." It is
the voice of the tempter, and the ruse is a favourite one in his
warfare against the soul, for he knows that for us to think we have
sinned is almost as fatal in its effects on the _morale_ of the soul as
to have actually yielded consent.
So when the lying whisper comes, let us cry out against him, charge him
with his lie; and then turning swiftly to our Lord, renew our
allegiance to Him with such strong, passionate acts of love, that the
evil spirit, filled with despair, will take his flight, departing from
us "for a season."
[1] S. Greg. Mag., _Regulae Pastoralis_, III, xxx. See also the
opening paragraph of Dr. Pusey's sermon on "Victory over Besetting
Sin," _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II.
[2] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[3] 1 Cor. x, 13.
[4] "Our trial, by God's appointment and mercy, lies mostly in some few
things. We bring trials upon ourselves which God did not intend for
us. We increase manifoldly our own trials by every consent to
sin."--Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II, p. 121.
[5] "Past sin involves present trial, not present sin. When a man has
once turned to God his past sin will not be imputed to him either in
itself, _or in its effects_. One who has given way would by God's just
appointment, visiting for sin, have trials. He need not, if he wills
not by God's grace, have sin." _Ibid._, p. 335.
[6] _Ibid._, p. 334.
[7] _Ibid._, p. 338.
[8] 2 Thess. ii, 12.
[9] Rom. vii, 21-23.
[10] Scupoli, _The Spiritual Combat_ (Pusey's Trans.), chap. xii.
St. Francis de Sales, in a letter to the Mere de Chastel, has a
delightfully characteristic passage, full of paternal tenderness
combined with playful and reverent humour, in which he sets forth the
mode of action of the two wills. "Indeed, my dear daughter Marie," he
writes, "you say truly that there are two beings in you. The one is a
Marie who, like St. Peter, is tender, sensitive, ready to be irritated
by a touch. This Marie is a daughter of Eve, and so her temper is
frail. The other Marie wills to be wholly God's; and in order so to
be, she wills in all simplicity to be humble and gentle towards
everyone, and she would fain imitate St. Peter after he was converted.
This Marie is the child of the Blessed Virgin. These two diverse
Maries come into collision, and the bad one is so bad that often the
other scarce knows how to defend herself, and then perforce she fancies
herself beaten, and believes the bad Marie to be stronger. But not so,
my poor, dear child; the bad one is not stronger than you. She is more
perverse, more enterprising, more obstinate, and when you lose heart
and sit down to cry, she is pleased because it is so much time lost for
you; and if she cannot make you lose eternity, at all events she will
try to make you lose time. My dear daughter, rouse your courage ... be
watchful of your enemy; tread cautiously for fear of the foe; if you
are not on your guard against her she will be too much for you. Even
if she should take you by surprise, and make you totter, or give you a
slight wound, do not be put out.... Now do not be ashamed of all this,
my daughter, any more than St. Paul was when he confessed that there
were two beings in him, one rebellious against God, the other obedient
to Him."--St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, lvii.
[11] "It is impossible," says the Abbot Moses, "for the mind not to be
approached by thoughts, but it is in the power of every earnest man
either to admit them or reject them. Their rising does not depend upon
ourselves, but their admission or rejection is in our own power....
The movement of the mind may well be illustrated by the comparison of a
mill-wheel. The headlong rush of water whirls it round, and it can
never stop its work so long as it is driven by the water. Yet it is in
the power of the man who directs it to decide whether he will have
wheat, or barley, or darnel ground by it. For it must certainly crush
that which the man in charge of it puts in. So the mind is driven by
the torrents of temptation which pour in on it from every side and
cannot be free from the flow of thoughts, but we control the character
of the thoughts by the efforts of our own earnestness."--Cassian,
_Conferences_, I, 17, 18.
[12] "The power of divine grace, like that of the Adversary, is
impulsive, not compulsive, that the free power of our will may be
entirely preserved. Wherefore, for the evil things which a man does by
the influence of Satan, it is not Satan that receives the punishment,
but the man himself; forasmuch as he was not involuntarily forced into
those things, but was consenting in his own will. In the same manner
also with respect to what is good, Grace does not ascribe it to itself,
but to the man, and it therefore assigns to him glory, as the cause of
good to himself. For grace does not so constrain by compulsive force
as to render a man's will incapable of altering; but though it be
present to him, it gives way to his free and arbitrary power, that his
will may be manifested how it is disposed to good or to evil. For the
law is not applied to our nature, but to our free-will, which is able
to convert itself either to good or to evil."--Macarius, _Institutes of
Christian Perfection_, Bk. VII, chap. iii. (Penn's Trans., London,
1816.)
[13] Scupoli, _The Spiritual Combat_, chap. xiv.
[14] "I shall fulfil Thy Will if, for Thy Love, I contradict my own,
which Thou wilt not in any way constrain, but dost leave it perfectly
free that I, _by voluntarily and constantly subjecting it to Thine_,
may become dearer and more full in Thy sight."--St. Catherine of Siena,
_Dialogue on Consummated Perfection_, in Drane's History of St.
Catherine, Vol. II, p. 348.
[15] Faber, _Growth in Holiness_, chap. xvi.
[16] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, cxiv.
[17] Baker, _Sancta Sophia_, pp. 284-286. See also Hilton, _The Scale
of Perfection_, Bk. 2, Sec. 1, chap. viii.
[18] Using anger as an illustration, Father Baker enters into a
detailed description of what may happen, and yet the soul be free from
sin. Perhaps there is not one of us who can read the following words
without a sense of deep gratitude and relief concerning not infrequent
experiences of our own. He says: "A person being moved to anger,
though he find an unquiet representation in the imagination, and a
violent heat and motions about the heart, as likewise an aversion in
sensitive nature against the person that hath given the provocation;
yet if, notwithstanding, he refrains himself from breaking forth into
words of impatience to which his passion would urge him, and withal
contradicts designs of revenge suggested by passion, such an one,
practicing internal prayer and mortification, is to esteem himself not
to have consented to the motions of corrupt nature, although besides
the inward motion of the appetite [i.e., the inferior will], he could
not hinder marks of his passion from appearing in his eyes and the
colour of his countenance."--_Sancta Sophia_, pp. 237-238.
[19] Pusey, _Lenten Sermons_, p. 264.
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