CHAPTER VIII
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 à 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 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. À 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 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]]