Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His LifeBaker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Religion
Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His Life
Baker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Baker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius), 1820-1865; Catholic Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American -- 19th century
in submission to reason. When Adam sinned, this grace was
withdrawn from him; and since it was no necessary part of our
nature, since it was given of mere grace, it was withdrawn from
the whole human race. Hence men now find in themselves an actual
conflict between the higher and lower parts of the soul. In a
complicated piece of machinery, if a bolt or belt is broken that
bound it together, the parts clash. Each part may in itself
remain unchanged, but it no longer acts harmoniously with the
other parts. So in fallen man, the bolt that braced the soul
together is broken, and the powers of the soul clash together.
The passions, the will, the reason, all, in themselves, remain as
they were, undepraved; but they are no longer in harmony
together, and man finds himself weakened by an intestine
conflict. This, together with the loss of supernatural grace and
a supernatural destiny, is the evil which, according to Catholic
theology, accrued to man by the fall.
This conflict, then, which we find within us; this clamor of the
lower nature against the higher; this propensity of the passions
to rebel against reason--in other words, this proneness to sin,
which is the universal experience of humanity, does not prove
that we have lost any constituent part of our nature, that there
is any thing positively vicious in us, nor does it prove that we
are hateful to God. It proves, indeed, that we are not divine,
that we are not angels, that we are not in the condition of human
nature before Adam's transgression; it proves that a source of
weakness, inherent in our nature, has been developed by the fall,
that we need grace; but it gives not the slightest reason for
supposing that our manhood has been wrecked, that the will is not
free, that the reason of man has been extinguished, or that the
passions are not in themselves good, and have not their
legitimate sphere and exercise.
{383}
So true is this, that this propensity to sin remains even in the
baptized. Baptism does a great deal for a man. It takes away
original sin, by supplying that justifying grace which our race
forfeited in Adam. It restores to man his supernatural destiny.
In the language of the Council of Trent, it renders the
newly-baptized "innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved
of God, an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ, so that
there is nothing whatever to retard his entrance into heaven."
But there is one thing it does not do. It does not remove the
propensity of the passions to rebel. And the Council uses this
fact--that concupiscence remains in the baptized--to prove that
concupiscence, or the propensity to evil, cannot itself be sin;
and enforces its conclusion by the seal of its infallibility and
the warrant of its censures, saying: "If anyone is of the
contrary sentiment" (that is, declares that the incentive to sin,
which remains in the baptized, hath in it the true and proper
nature of sin), "let him be anathema." [Footnote 129]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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