The Sermon on the Mount (Bossuet)/Day 15
Fifteenth Day
Delicacy of Chastity: the plucking out of one's eye, the cutting off of one's hand: the indissolubility of marriage. — Matt. v. 27-32.
IN all that concerns chastity we must fear even so much as a look, for by this it is that the poison enters. 'Take care,’ Moses said, 'not to let your eyes and your thoughts go astray after divers things.’ [1] Job also, with the same object, said, 'I made a covenant with my eyes ’; [2] i.e., that he would always keep them restrained, not wandering and aimless. The veil of consecrated virgins is the sign and the instrument of this restraint. Their life is a mystery whence profane eyes are banished; they wish neither to see nor be seen. Here is the first instruction of Jesus Christ on this subject.
The second treats of renunciation. This means that we must renounce not only ties of the pleasantest kind, but even those that seem positively necessary to our lives, rather than imperil our salvation. We must learn the secret of fleeing from every immediate occasion of sin: — that is, from all that has formerly brought us to shipwreck; whilst we must keep in fear of even the most distant, and be constantly on the watch. We must be violent in all that concerns this subject, going so far as to cut off our right hand or foot, or to pluck out our eyes. For — as far as it is possible — we should here even avoid having to fight with the temptation, as we are sure to be neither courageous nor firm with ourselves for long. ' If thy right eye... if thy right hand, scandalise thee ’ [3] — if those people who are so dear to you are a temptation to you to fall — separate yourself from them. Nay: — go further. Leave them if they will only cause you to 'scandalise' your fellow; for whatever you may do that brings about his sin, will be for you a fall such as would overtake that man who should 'have a mill-stone hanged about his neck, and be drowned in the depth of the sea.' [4]
The third point of instruction on this matter concerns the indissolubility of marriage. The teaching may induce us, however, to carry our thoughts higher than the mere permanence of the tie; for if this indissoluble bond symbolises the inseparable union of Jesus Christ with His Church, souls who have entered upon this blessed contract ought to keep their faith with Christ Himself, and never cause divorce between themselves and Him.
With this object, the smallest things that might displease the Heavenly Spouse must be avoided; for open ruptures are not the only things to be feared in marriage, but the least coldness. Without care, all such tend to divorce; and hence the smallest negligences should be promptly repaired, lest the delicacy of wedded love should be wounded, and so, being chilled, should soon die out.
Watch then, O Christian soul, over every little thing, for nothing so pleases one who loves as the evident desire to gratify him on all occasions; whilst, contrariwise, there can be nothing more terrible than that celebrated utterance of the Son of God: ' I would that thou wert cold or hot.' If you were one or the other, it might be possible to turn you towards good, and you would be capable of doing some work; but 'because thou art lukewarm,’ and inefficacious, nothing can be done with you — and ' I will begin and vomit thee out of my mouth.’[5]