The aim of the first week, according to the same authority, “is the cleansing of the conscience from past sin, and of the affections from their future dangers.” And how is this mighty result to be accomplished? how is the conscience to be cleansed from the past, and the affections guaranteed for the future? How is the frail and wavering heart of man to be so purified in a single week, that it shall go out into a world of trial and temptation, “cleansed against future danger?” Really it makes the heart sad to read the miserable and mournful absence of all that the Gospel has provided for a sinner. Loyola knew what sin was, and had bitterly felt its sting, so that there are touching signs of the sincerity of the deep inward conflict which passed within his soul. But the melancholy part of the whole matter is, that there is no hint at the only remedy. There is not a single passage in which the troubled conscience is directed to the atonement, as God’s provision for man’s free pardon; not a single allusion to the Lord’s advocacy, and no mention of either the name or the office of the Holy Ghost. But in the place of all this, there are certain rules to be observed during the retreat. If the inquirer is in business, he must be satisfied with the devotion of an hour and a half daily to the work. [64a] If he has more leisure, he is directed “to migrate from his former habitation into some more secret house or cell;” [64b] being there, he is “to deprive himself of all the brightness of the light, shutting the doors and windows as long as he remains there, except while he has to read or take his food.” [65a] He is “to direct his eyes on no one, unless the occasion of saluting or taking leave require it;” [65b] “he is to do penance by fasting, by limiting the hours of his sleep, and by the use of hair-cloth, ropes, iron bars, and whips;” but, “in preference, whips of small cords, which hurt the outward parts, and not those within, so as to injure the health.” [65c] He is provided with a manual to assist him in meditation, and self-examination; and, above all, he places himself under the guidance and authority of a director, “for,” says Dr. Wiseman, “the life of a good retreat is a good director.” [65d]
With this apparatus complete, he sets to work, and is directed to draw a diagram, like the following, containing seven pairs of lines, one pair for each day. [65e]
These are to be employed for the measurement of his sins. He is to remember and enumerate the number of times he has been in fault, and twice every day mark the same number of points on the proper line of the series. Now what is the result of the first week’s discipline? The lines, the reader will observe, become shorter and shorter daily, till at length, at the end of one single week, according to Dr. Wiseman, “sin is [66a] abandoned, hated, loathed. At the conclusion of the painful task, the soul finds itself prostrate and full of anxieties. The past is remedied; but what is to be done for the future?” [66b]
Such is the description given by this high authority of this miserable, mechanical counterfeit of Christianity. What becomes of the deep-seated corruption of the human heart? Where is the work of the Spirit? And if the conscience could be cleansed, and the past remedied by such a paltry human artifice, where, Oh, where was the necessity for atonement? and what need was there that Emanuel should shed his precious blood upon the cross?
But does it not verify the charge which I brought against the system, of substituting man for God in the salvation of the sinner? What is it that conquers sin in the first two days and a half of the retreat? Is it the Saviour? Is it the Spirit? Or is it the man? Wiseman says,—“It is the work of each week, thoroughly done.” [66c]
To this one leading principle all Jesuitry may without any difficulty be traced; and if so, we may surely learn the one weapon by which it may be resisted and overcome. The evil originates in the substitution of man for God, and therefore the weapon by which it must be opposed is the exaltation of the Lord himself, as the only author of the soul’s salvation. “Be thou exalted, O God, in thine own strength, so will we sing and praise thy power.” There is a great conflict raging. There are swarms of these subtle adversaries filling the land; there is a vast power arrayed against us; the enemy is active, well combined, and unscrupulous; but they must not be met by their own weapons; for we had rather have all that is dear to us trodden under foot in the lowest dust, than gain the most brilliant triumphs through the use of a single weapon adopted from their armoury. We give them the exclusive use of all their probabilities, and are ready to meet them, without either subtlety or disguise, but with the plain, honest, frank, and open bearing of honest-minded servants of the Lord; we must be satisfied to struggle in the Lord’s strength, and to employ the Lord’s weapons. Nor need we be afraid in the conflict. Their human machinery, I freely grant, is superior to ours; their agency more complete, and their combination more perfect. “But the Egyptians are men, and not God, and their horses flesh, and not spirit.” They in all their system have been guilty of the substitution of man for God; but our joy is to exalt God on his own throne; and our certain expectation is to triumph through the might of his own right hand. It is true, indeed, that they can summon to their assistance the countless contrivances of human subtlety, but our weapon is far superior to all, for it is from the Lord himself, it is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. There is no denying that they can assume any guise, and worm their way into the unsuspecting family; but our hope is in the power of the Spirit, to whom the heart itself is open as the day. They can meet us, indeed, and perhaps over-match us, in their varied appliances for intellectual education, they may be powerful in the pulpit, and attractive in the confessional, but they have no message that has one thousandth part of the loveliness of ours, for, unless they are false to their own principles, they can never proclaim to anxious sinners a finished atonement, and free pardon through the blood of the Lamb. There is much, indeed, to be apprehended in their close combination under the able conduct of a well-appointed General; but no general upon earth is to be compared to the Captain of the Lord’s hosts, whom God himself has set apart from the beginning to be “the leader and commander of the people.” Only let us be faithful to that blessed Master, honouring his word, leaning on his Spirit, at all times setting forth his grace; and the time will come, as certainly as God’s word is true, when the whole fabric of Jesuitry shall be split into shivers; when the prophecy shall be fulfilled, “Associate yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces when the triumphant cry shall originate in heaven, and shall swell back in a vast echo from a regenerate world, ‘We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, because thou hast taken unto thee thy great power, and hast reigned.’”
Macintosh, Printer, Great New-street, London.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE ATONEMENT, AS TAUGHT BY THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A Sermon, preached before the Members of the Islington Protestant Institute. Price 6d.