distinct perceptions. Each soul knows all things confusedly, as when walking on the sea-shore, and hearing the great sound which it makes, I hear the noises made by each wave, of which the whole sound is composed, but without being able to distinguish them. Upon the whole," he concludes, "nature leads to grace, and grace partly even making use of nature, brings nature to perfection." Catholicism, we are told, turns to advantage every thing in nature. With all its severity and spirituality, it recognizes the truth of what a poet says, that "Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds Of high resolve, on fancy's boldest wing The keenest pangs to peacefulness, and taste The joys which mingled sense and spirit yield." "Man," says St. Bonaventura, "must work both corporally and spiritually, since, according to both natures, he is capable of beatitude *." Passion without virtue leads to evil; corrected by virtue, it conducts to God. The best are often men of strong, but controlled passions. St. Bonaventura cites the example of the senses, to show the office of the mind. "If we consider," he says, "the army of the senses, we shall behold the order of living; for each sense exercises itself on its proper object, flies what is hurtful to itself, and refrains from usurping what belongs to another. So the sense of the heart lives orderly, exercising itself on its proper object, which is against negligence, avoiding what would injure it, as concupiscence, and not usurping what is alien to it against pride. For, whatever is inordinate comes either from negligence or from concupiscence, or from pride; and as each sense seeks its own gratification, without being satiated, so should the heart desire what is its peculiar object, namely, God, and the union of the soul with Him. Thus, the five spiritual have conformity with the five corporal senses." Catholicism is never heard protesting against the popular judgment, which pronounces some persons to be more than others naturally good. St. Pius V. used to say, "that those who are peculiarly endowed with gifts of nature are most easily led to the light of truth." Hear St. AugustinDespise your own spirit. Take the Spirit of God. But let not your spirit, in consequence, fear lest when the Spirit of God begins to dwell in you, it should suffer straits in your body. When the Spirit of God begins to dwell in your body, it does not therefore exclude your spirit. Fear not. If you receive 66 * De Sept. Itin. Æter. + De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam. any rich man into your house you suffer straits. You cannot find where you can remain, where a bed can be prepared, where you can place your wife, your sons, your servants. What shall I do?' you say: 'whither shall I go? whither shall I migrate ?' Receive the rich Spirit of God. You will be enlarged; you will not be straitened. You have enlarged my steps under me. When you were not here I suffered straits; you have filled my. cell, and you have excluded not me, but my straits. For when He saith, Charitas Dei diffusa est,' that diffusion signifies breadth. Fear not, therefore, straits; receive that guest, and let it not be as a passing guest.-Recipe hospitem istum, et non sit hospes quasi de transeuntibus *." Catholicism allows no one to suppose that they express virtue best, who in their lives run on every side farthest from nature. On the contrary, it says, with Alanus de Insulis, "Dupliciter justus appropinquat saluti æternæ; per dietam vitæ naturalis, per dietam vitæ spiritualis +;" which conviction he expresses in his great poem, saying, of the youth whom he instructs "Ut vitium fugiat, naturam diligat, illud Quod facinus peperit damnans, quod prava voluntas On an ancient triptych we see our Lord instructing His apostles. On one wing of the picture Moses is receiving the law; on the other, the good Samaritan is exercising charity; and below the whole these words are inscribed "Hæc quaque prome, quibus vis ignea spirat Amoris What, in fact, does mother Church command? Nothing but what nature orders, or what has become necessary to secure fidelity to her original prescript; of which we may say, in the words of the ancient moralist, that, "though it were to be praised by no one, it is eminently worthy of praise, nature itself being the judge-quod dicimus, etiam si a nullo laudetur, natura esse laudabile ." These rules, prescribed by Catholicity, are nature's still; for, as our poet says "Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd By the same laws which first herself ordain'd." So Antonius de Guevara, writing to the Count of Miranda, says, "Whatever we are obliged to be as Christians, we are obliged *St. August. de Verb. Apost. Serm. xv. + Sum. de Arte Prædicat. c. 48. Cicero, de Off. i. 4. to be as men; and hence it is, that the yoke of Christ is said to be light*." Therefore, though Catholicism sees realized what the patriarchs only foresaw and hoped for "Yet were not they who clomb the older heights Of sanctity unlike throughout to those Of Christian days?" Catholicism is xarà qúow, to use Pindar's words. It is founded in nature. Its morals, its legislation, its thoughts-are all in harmony with nature; and, therefore, natural law is said to be "a link which connects ecclesiastical with temporal jurisprudence, being an integral part of both." The Roman jurisconsult Paulus says, "that theft, for instance, is forbidden by natural law;" and Ulpian says, "that it is a thing naturally wrong." The institution of property is grounded on natural law, as being necessary for the welfare of society. So, in the sphere of religious duties, all that Catholicism requires is naturally just; and if an idea or an action be not naturally just, or conducive to justice, it is a proof that Catholicism does not require it. Accordingly, when the profound Alanus describes the vices that are opposed to prescriptions of religion, it is nature which he represents as lamenting human degeneracy. Following it through least as greatest things, he says "Hos casus natura videt, lapsusque cadentis Hos gemit excessus, errores luget, abusus In cujus speculo locat omnis gratia sedem : Totum componit hominem, contemperat actus, Epêt. Dorées. Encyclopæd. lib. vi. c. 6. ‡ Id. vi. 7. Demonstrat quæ verba, quibus, vel quando tacenda, Et ne degeneres scurrili more lacertos Ne cultu nimio crinis lascivus adæquet But let us observe how nature itself, speaking by the universal traditions and common sense inseparable from them of mankind, recognizes the supernatural virtues of Catholicism, with more or less perspicuity inculcating them one by one. What is there, in the first place, more natural and more conformable to every knowledge by which man regulates his actions, than that very love of God, springing from a sense of the Divine goodness, which is the animating principle of this morality? "Quod loquor et spiro, cœlumque et lumina solis Respicio (possumne ingratus et immemor esse ?) Ille dedit +." That these words might be applied with more justice to our Creator than to a human parent, some even of the heathens would acknowledge. Reason must subscribe to every syllable that the mystic guides of Catholicity lay down respecting this obligation, as when St. Paulinus of Aquileia says, "whatever benefit we derived even from our dearest parents, is to be ascribed to God, who provided them for us, and made them for us; and after all His grace of creation and redemption, He seeks from us nothing else but that we should love and serve Him, that He may dwell in us, and we remain in Him; for He does not ask from us gold or silver, or precious vestments, or + Met. xiv. * Id. vii. 3. lands, or other such things; but He asks only for ourselves, that He may rest in us. Let us approach Him, therefore, that we may have life eternal *." We must remember that Catholicism comprises no idea of the Divinity that is not in accordance with that which is conveyed in the parable of the two debtors. It follows, therefore, if the Catholic doctrine be once heard, that men cannot turn from the love of God without turning from humanity, and ceasing to have a human heart. "What else have we to do in the dark night of this world," reason itself will then demand, in the words of the same patriarch, "excepting to fly from the devil, and to introduce Christ, to capture the captivator, and to follow the Liberator, to dispel diabolic darkness from our heart, and to inhale the true light +?" As Pope Alexander said in his epistle to the Sultan of Iconium, addressing an infidel, alien to faith, "he is an obdurate being, and unworthy of the name of man, who does not venerate the mercy of Jesus, who does not love such a clement Lord, and who is not ready, if necessary, to die for Him." Catholicism demands nothing in this respect but what is reasonable, and by the universal judgment of men pronounced amiable; for all that it asks, is, that a man should act towards God as a generous youth would act towards his friend or master who forgave him on earth, and then it assures him he will be like David, one after God's own heart; and besides, how evident to reason is the truth of what St. Augustin says, that in this life all virtue consists in loving what ought to be loved! To choose that is prudence; to be moved from it by no troubles is fortitude; to be enticed from it by no seductions, is temperance; to be led from it by no pride, is justice. What is this object, then, but God, whom, if we do not love, we do not love even ourselves. To Him we proceed not by walking, but by loving. Ad eum ergo qui ubique præsens est et ubique totus, non pedibus ire licet sed moribus §." My heart," says the Italian poet, "tells me that it cannot live by itself for a single day." What more natural partner than He who knows it best ; and who requires even that, while loving Him, we should love our fellow-creatures also? for be it never forgotten, that after all our supposed predilection for humanity and natural goodness, the most natural, the most human, the most condescending word, the word most smelling of woods and violet banks, the most redolent of youth and spring, the most indulgent and delicious word that ever was addressed to ears of flesh and blood, has been pronounced by revelation, by supernatural truth, by truth 66 *Lib. Exhort. ad Henric. c. 21. Ap. Mat. Paris ad An. 1169. 66 + Id. c. 59. § Ess. lii. |