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.
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 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 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 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.