SECT. VII.
XXXI. But let us scrutinize with the greatest exactness, the temporal conveniences of virtue. Health, honour, and property, which essentially contribute to temporal felicity, are of great importance in this matter, if the whole of it does not consist in the enjoyment of them; and considered with respect to these contingents, the virtuous man has much the advantage of the vicious one. No one is ignorant, that honour is the legitimate offspring of virtue; for which reason the Romans, when they built them, joined the temples together, that were appropriated to the adoration of those endowments, which they worshipped as deities; so that the only way by which you could enter the Temple of Honour, was through the Temple of Virtue. The very people who shun the practice of virtue, esteem and reverence it; and the blessings of health and long life, on account of the regularity with which he lives, are more likely to be attained by the virtuous man, than by the vicious one, who, by his debaucheries, ruins his health, and curtails his existence. Property finds a good steward in the œconomy of virtue, who takes care of and preserves it, by avoiding superfluities. Solomon expressed the whole, when he said, that the obedient to the divine mandates held long life in one hand, and in the other honour and property: Longitudo dierum in dextra ejus; & in sinistra illius, divitiæ & gloria. (Prov. 3.) Now, even supposing the just man to enjoy no other advantages over the vicious one, is not his condition much to be preferred?
XXXII. But it has others. The tranquillity, and sweetness, which is administered to the soul by a good conscience, places in a very eminent degree, the fortune of the just, superior to that of the sinner. This is a blessing of little bulk, but of great value: a precious stone, which, within small dimensions, contains great and rich qualities. The conscience is the mirror of the soul, and it happens to the just man, and to the sinner, when they look in the glass, as it happens to the handsome, and the ugly woman, when they view themselves in the crystal; the handsome is pleased, because she sees perfections, the other is sad, because she observes nothing but blemishes. The condition of the sinner is even worse than that of the ugly woman, for she, if she pleases, may run from the glass, but the sinner cannot do this; for although he should not present himself before the mirror, the mirror will present itself before him, and the understanding cannot shut its eyes, when the memory presents to it the images of a man’s evil deeds. In that state, the sinner is filled with horror instead of delight, for his desire forsakes him, and the blemish remains by itself. In addition to this, the sinner at such a conjuncture, is made unhappy by the reflection, that his infamies may be laid open to the world; at this thought, the inevitable torture of shame, and the punishment of the law, terrify him by turns. The just man, on the contrary, has nothing to fear. If he hides his actions from the world, it is not from the dread of their being observed, but to avoid the hazard of their being applauded. He contemplates them alone, and if he is so happy as to find that they are all good, he receives that pure pleasure, which the sacred Chronologer, even in God himself, paints as an accidental glory: Vidit Deus cuncta quæ fecerat, & erant valdè bona.
XXXIII. The difference between the just and the unjust man, is not less, when fortune in disgust sheds its reverses, or heaven is severe by visiting him with tribulations. The sinner loses his property, his beloved woman dies, he receives an injury from somebody, which it is out of his power to revenge. What relief does he find? None: he raves, he storms, he burns; he neither eats, drinks, nor rests; his symptoms are worse than the disease, and sometimes so violent, as to oblige him to take to his bed, and deprive him of life; and his passions often rise to such a degree of ferocity, as to excite him to lay violent hands on himself. On the contrary, the first thing the just man does, under similar circumstances, is to lift his eyes to Heaven; and whether he considers the tribulation as a just punishment for some crime he has been guilty of, or as a visitation for the exercise of his patience, he trusts, it will all turn out for his benefit; he knows the stroke comes from a friendly hand, and he knows also, that for his own good he is wounded; he not only is reconciled, but kisses the rod. Thus you see, by an admirable metamorphose, his heaviness is converted to satisfaction; and that what is poison to a wicked man, becomes balsam to a just one: for, Diligentibus Deum omnia co-operantur in bonum.
XXXIV. Who, upon a view of what we have enumerated and urged on this head, will not be convinced, that even in this life, the lot of the just man is incomparably better than that of the vicious one; that tranquillity and temporal convenience, are only to be met with in the paths of virtue, and that the field of vice, under the delusive appearance of flowers, produces nothing but thorns?
XXXV. There now remains but one argument for me to solve, and that is taken from the words of Christ in St. Matthew, where our great Master assures us, the road is broad, that is, easy, which leads to perdition; and that the path is narrow, that is, toilsome, which leads to life immortal.
XXXVI. I say then, that before we proceed further, it will be proper to reconcile this text with the one before quoted, where our Saviour invites sinners to pursue the paths of virtue, and propounds to them relief and ease, upon a supposition, that they are crippled and borne down by the weight of sin: Venite ad me, omnes qui laboratis, &c. and it is also necessary, to compound this with that sweet expression, used in another place, when he intimates to us, that his yoke is easy, and his burden light; and we should likewise harmonize with it, what David teaches us also, which is, that the road of the divine precepts is broad, and that the precepts themselves are so likewise: Latum mandatum tuum nimis. In fine, this text should be understood in a sense, that is not repugnant to reason, or experience.
XXXVII. The solution is easy, if we say, that grace reconciles and softens, that which is hard and difficult to nature; and the same yoke, which is heavy to be borne by mere natural powers, is made light, when the divine aid concurs and lends its assistance. And this is the manner, in which the fathers commonly reconcile those texts.
XXXVIII. It may also be said, by way of answer, that the Redeemer speaks only of the first passages or entrance into the one and the other path, so that the path of virtue, at its entrance, is toilsome and laborious, but afterwards becomes easy; on the contrary, the path of vice is easy at the beginning, and toilsome at the end. The context gives reason for this construction, for Christ, when he is exciting men to pursue the paths of virtue, describes all the difficulty as placed at the first passages: Intrare per angustam portam, says St. Matthew, which according to St. Luke, is, Contendite intrare per angustam portam; which amounts to the same thing, as if he had said, in the entrance lies all the difficulty; therefore take courage, press forward, fight, contendite: to conquer the obstruction, which you find in the narrowness of the door.
XXXIX. So it is, that this door is exceeding strait, and the newly converted is pressed by the power of its hinges, that the ill habits he has imbibed may be squeezed out, and not only the skin is grazed by the pressure, but sometimes pieces of flesh also are torn off, and left in the entrance. But the difficulty of this transit once conquered, the way by little and little grows wider, till at last, it is extended to a delightsome and a spacious valley;
Largior hic campos æther, & lumine vestit,
Purpure, solemque suum sua sidera morunt.
XL. The path of vice is very differently formed, and may be compared to a passage or cave, which, according to the naturalists, is fabricated as a place of safe retreat by the Rat of India. This sagacious animal, knowing the enmity the dragon bears him, and knowing also the insufficiency of his own strength to resist him, not only defends himself, but conquers his enemy by the following stratagem. He makes two entrances to his cave, the one small and proportioned to the bulk of his own body, the other wider at the surface, but which he draws narrower by degrees, till towards the other end it is but just wide enough to admit of his passing through. The use of this place is as follows: When the little animal finds himself pursued by that voracious beast, he flies to his cave, which he enters at the wide mouth, not doubting but the dragon will follow him, who eager for his prey, the large aperture being sufficiently wide to admit his whole body, plunges in, but as it insensibly becomes narrower and narrower, the dragon, who presses violently on, finds himself in the end so straitened, as not to be able either to retreat, or advance; the rat, as soon as he perceives this, sallies out of the narrow passage, and in the rear of the dragon, entering the wide one, revenges himself upon him much at his leisure, converting him into a regale for his appetite, and food for his resentment.
XLI. The stratagem of this little animal exactly resembles that which the devil practises upon men. He displays to him the road of vice, very broad and commodious at the entrance; the unhappy man, lured by this appearance, enters without suspicion, and in the consequence becomes a prey to his criminal pleasures. The road, by little and little, grows narrower; one care oppresses him on one side, and another on the other; sickness and old age, which are very nearly allied together, come on; his limbs begin to contract, and the use of them to forsake him; fear, solicitude, grief and heaviness, press upon him more and more every day, till he is put in such a strait, that even the soul with its spiritual nature is unable to ruminate or reflect on: by this progression, the sinner, in the end, arrives at the summit of anguish, and at that unhappy station, from whence it is impossible to recede, ubi nulla est redemptio, and where he will be eternally food for that ravenous serpent, whose voracity and thirst of blood is never satiated: Mors depascet eos; which Cardinal Hugo expounds, Diabolus depascet eos.
XLII. This remarkable difference and opposition between virtue and vice, was not hid from the antients, for the light of natural reason was sufficient to acquire this knowledge; and Virgil has painted beautifully, the distinction between the one and the other path, in the following verses:
Nam via virtutis dextrum petit ardua collem
Difficilemque aditum primum spectantibus offert,
Sed requiem præbet fessis in vertice summo.
Molle ostentat iter via lata; sed ultima meta
Præcipitat captos, volvitque per ardua saxa.