“I should have thought with you,” he replied; “and yet it seems this must not be the case, for the fathers of our College of Clermont have maintained (in their Theses of the 23rd May and 6th June 1644) ‘that attrition may be holy and sufficient for the sacrament, although it may not be supernatural:’ and (in that of August 1643) ‘that attrition, though merely natural, is sufficient for the sacrament, provided it is honest.’ I do not see what more could be said on the subject, unless we choose to subjoin an inference, which may be easily drawn from these principles, namely, that contrition, so far from being necessary to the sacrament, is rather prejudicial to it, inasmuch as, by washing away sins of itself, it would leave nothing for the sacrament to do at all. That is, indeed, exactly what the celebrated Jesuit Father Valencia remarks. (Tom. iv., disp. 7, q. 8, p. 4.) ‘Contrition,’ says he, ‘is by no means necessary in order to obtain the principal benefit of the sacrament; on the contrary, it is rather an obstacle in the way of it—imo obstat potius quominus effectus sequatur.’ Nobody could well desire more to be said in commendation of attrition.”[[224]]
“I believe that, father,” said I; “but you must allow me to tell you my opinion, and to show you to what a dreadful length this doctrine leads. When you say that ‘attrition, induced by the mere dread of punishment,’ is sufficient, with the sacrament, to justify sinners, does it not follow that a person may always expiate his sins in this way, and thus be saved without ever having loved God all his lifetime? Would your fathers venture to hold that?”
“I perceive,” replied the monk, “from the strain of your remarks, that you need some information on the doctrine of our fathers regarding the love of God. This is the last feature of their morality, and the most important of all. You must have learned something of it from the passages about contrition which I have quoted to you. But here are others still more definite on the point of love to God—Don’t interrupt me, now; for it is of importance to notice the connection. Attend to Escobar, who reports the different opinions of our authors, in his ‘Practice of the Love of God according to our Society.’ The question is: ‘When is one obliged to have an actual affection for God?’ Suarez says, it is enough if one loves him before being articulo mortis—at the point of death—without determining the exact time. Vasquez, that it is sufficient even at the very point of death. Others, when one has received baptism. Others, again, when one is bound to exercise contrition. And others, on festival days. But our father, Castro Palao, combats all these opinions, and with good reason—merito. Hurtado de Mendoza insists that we are obliged to love God once a-year; and that we ought to regard it as a great favor that we are not bound to do it oftener. But our Father Coninck thinks that we are bound to it only once in three or four years; Henriquez, once in five years; and Filiutius says that it is probable that we are not strictly bound to it even once in five years. How often, then, do you ask? Why, he refers it to the judgment of the judicious.”
I took no notice of all this badinage, in which the ingenuity of man seems to be sporting, in the height of insolence, with the love of God.
“But,” pursued the monk, “our Father Antony Sirmond surpasses all on this point, in his admirable book, ‘The Defence of Virtue,’[[225]] where, as he tells the reader, ‘he speaks French in France,’ as follows: ‘St. Thomas says that we are obliged to love God as soon as we come to the use of reason: that is rather too soon! Scotus says, every Sunday: pray, for what reason? Others say, when we are sorely tempted: yes, if there be no other way of escaping the temptation. Scotus says, when we have received a benefit from God: good, in the way of thanking him for it. Others say, at death: rather late! As little do I think it binding at the reception of any sacrament: attrition in such cases is quite enough, along with confession, if convenient. Suarez says that it is binding at some time or another; but at what time?—he leaves you to judge of that for yourself—he does not know; and what that doctor did not know I know not who should know.’ In short, he concludes that we are not strictly bound to more than to keep the other commandments, without any affection for God, and without giving him our hearts, provided that we do not hate him. To prove this is the sole object of his second treatise. You will find it in every page; more especially where he says: ‘God, in commanding us to love him, is satisfied with our obeying him in his other commandments. If God had said, Whatever obedience thou yieldest me, if thy heart is not given to me, I will destroy thee!—would such a motive, think you, be well fitted to promote the end which God must, and only can, have in view? Hence it is said that we shall love God by doing his will, as if we loved him with affection, as if the motive in this case was real charity. If that is really our motive, so much the better; if not, still we are strictly fulfilling the commandment of love, by having its works, so that (such is the goodness of God!) we are commanded, not so much to love him, as not to hate him.’
“Such is the way in which our doctors have discharged men from the ‘painful’ obligation of actually loving God. And this doctrine is so advantageous, that our Fathers Annat, Pintereau, Le Moine, and Antony Sirmond himself, have strenuously defended it when it has been attacked. You have only to consult their answers to the ‘Moral Theology.’ That of Father Pintereau, in particular, will enable you to form some idea of the value of this dispensation, from the price which he tells us that it cost, which is no less than the blood of Jesus Christ. This crowns the whole. It appears, that this dispensation from the ‘painful’ obligation to love God, is the privilege of the Evangelical law, in opposition to the Judaical. ‘It was reasonable,’ he says, ‘that, under the law of grace in the New Testament, God should relieve us from that troublesome and arduous obligation which existed under the law of bondage, to exercise an act of perfect contrition, in order to be justified; and that the place of this should be supplied by the sacraments, instituted in aid of an easier disposition. Otherwise, indeed, Christians, who are the children, would have no greater facility in gaining the good graces of their Father than the Jews, who were the slaves, had in obtaining the mercy of their Lord and Master.’”[[226]]
“O father!” cried I; “no patience can stand this any longer. It is impossible to listen without horror to the sentiments you have now been sporting.”
“They are not my sentiments,” said the monk.
“I grant it, sir,” said I; “but you feel no aversion to them; and, so far from detesting the authors of these maxims, you hold them in esteem. Are you not afraid that your consent may involve you in a participation of their guilt? and are you not aware that St. Paul judges worthy of death, not only the authors of evil things, but also ‘those who have pleasure in them that do them?’ Was it not enough to have permitted men to indulge in so many forbidden things, under the covert of your palliations? Was it necessary to go still further, and hold out a bribe to them to commit even those crimes which you found it impossible to excuse, by offering them an easy and certain absolution; and for this purpose nullifying the power of the priests, and obliging them, more as slaves than as judges, to absolve the most inveterate sinners—without any amendment of life—without any sign of contrition except promises a hundred times broken—without penance ‘unless they choose to accept of it’—and without abandoning the occasions of their vices, ‘if they should thereby be put to any inconvenience?’
“But your doctors have gone even beyond this; and the license which they have assumed to tamper with the most holy rules of Christian conduct amount to a total subversion of the law of God. They violate ‘the great commandment on which hang all the law and the prophets;’ they strike at the very heart of piety; they rob it of the spirit that giveth life; they hold that to love God is not necessary to salvation; and go so far as to maintain that ‘this dispensation from loving God is the privilege which Jesus Christ has introduced into the world!’ This, sir, is the very climax of impiety. The price of the blood of Jesus Christ paid to obtain us a dispensation from loving him! Before the incarnation, it seems men were obliged to love God: but since ‘God has so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son,’ the world, redeemed by him, is released from loving him! Strange divinity of our days—to dare to take off the ‘anathema’ which St. Paul denounces on those ‘that love not the Lord Jesus!’ To cancel the sentence of St. John: ‘He that loveth not, abideth in death!’ and that of Jesus Christ himself: ‘He that loveth me not keepeth not my precepts!’ and thus to render those worthy of enjoying God through eternity who never loved God all their life![[227]] Behold the Mystery of Iniquity fulfilled! Open your eyes at length, my dear father, and if the other aberrations of your casuists have made no impression on you, let these last, by their very extravagance, compel you to abandon them. This is what I desire from the bottom of my heart, for your own sake and for the sake of your doctors; and my prayer to God is, that he would vouchsafe to convince them how false the light must be that has guided them to such precipices; and that he would fill their hearts with that love of himself from which they have dared to give man a dispensation!”