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BOOK I
CHAPTER I
A TWOFOLD FOUNDATION IS LAID, AND IT IS SHOWN
THAT ALL PUNISHMENTS PROCEED FROM THE
HAND OF GOD |
1. Of all the doctrine which Christ delivered in so many and such divine
discourses this was the sum,‑that man should absolutely and entirely
conform himself to the Divine Will, in particulars as well as in
generals. And this our Saviour most fully taught, both by precept and
example, and gave Himself as a Pattern for our imitation. In order the
more completely to set forth this teaching of our Lord, I propose,
according to the custom of Theologians, to lay a twofold foundation. The
first,‑that the entire measure of our spiritual growth lies in the
conformity and agreement of the human will with the Divine, so that in
proportion as the one is more genuine, the other will be more luxuriant.
Now that a Christian man's entire perfection consists in Love (charity)
is sufficiently evident, for the Scriptures are full of testimonies to
this. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy
whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This the greatest and the first
commandment." (Matt. xxII, 37.) "And now there remain faith, hope,
charity, these three; but the greater of these is charity (I Cor. xIII.
13.) "But above all these things charity, which is the bond of
perfection." (Col.14.) "Now the end of the commandment is charity.” (I
Tim. 1. 5‑)
But that exercise of charity which is by far the noblest, and the one to
be most often repeated, is this conformity with the Will of God in all
things. To have the same likes and dislikes is firm friendship,
according to the judgment of S. Jerome and all wise men.
The second foundation is,‑that nothing whatever is in the world (sin
only excepted) without the Will of God. No power belongs to Fortune,
whether smile or frown. These are but the dreams ‑of hen, who used to
feign that the changes of human were disposed by some goddess or other.
S. Augustine, ridiculing this idea, says (De Civit. IV.18):‑"How then is
the goddess Fortune sometimes good, and sometimes bad? Is it that when
she is bad is no longer a goddess, but is changed into some malignant
demon?"
Christian wisdom treats all idea of Fortune with contempt.
"Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from
God." (Ecclus. xi. 14.)
But this truth, which is most clearly witnessed to in the Sacred
Writings, must be unfolded a little more fully.
2. In this way Theologians teach that all evils in the world (sin
excepted) are from God. In all sin there are two things to be
considered,‑the guilt and the punishment. Now God is the Author of the
punishment which attaches to sin, but in no way of the guilt. So that,
if we take away the guilt, there is no evil belonging to the punishment
which is not caused by God, or is not pleasing to Him. The evils then of
punishment,, like the evils of nature, originate in the Divine Will. We
mean by evils of nature, hunger, thirst, disease, grief, and the like,
things which very often have no connection with sin. And so God truly
(and, as they say in the schools, effectively and positively) wills
all the evils of punishment and nature for reasons of perfect justice,
but only permits sin or guilt.
So that the latter is called His Permitting Will, the former His
Ordaining Will. All, therefore, that we call evil proceeds from the Will
of God. Thus Theologians teach; and this foundation must be laid as
deeply as possible in the soul, for it is of the utmost importance
humbly to receive, and ever to hold, as an infallible truth, that the
first cause of all punishments and evils is the Divine Will, always
excepting guilt, as I have said already.
Halving carefully laid this foundation' we arrive at following
conclusion:‑Since whatever is done in world happens through the
Permission or Command of God, it is our duty to receive everything as
from the Hand of God, so conforming our will to His most holy Will,
through all things, and in all things, as to ascribe nothing to
accident, chance, or fortune. These are but monstrous conceptions of the
ancients, are not for an instant to be endured among Christians. And it
is not only to fortune or chance that nothing is to be ascribed, but
neither to the negligence of persevering care of man, as prime causes.
Vain and idle are such complaints as,‑"This or that happened to me
because this or that man hated me, or managed my affairs badly, or did
my business carelessly. Things would certainly have turned out
differently if he had only been well disposed towards and had entered
into the business with all his heart, and had not spared his pains."
This kind of philosophy is vain and foolish. But true, wise, and holy is
this,‑"The Lord has done it all." For, as I have already said, good and
evil things are from God.
3. And here very many persons deceive themselves through miserable
ignorance, for they persuade themselves that only those evils which
arise from natural causes,‑such as floods, earthquakes,
landslips, barrenness, scarcity of corn, damage caused by the weather,
troubles arising from disease, death, and the like,‑are inflicted by
God, since in this case there very often is no sin which can be
connected with the punishment; but that those evils which derive their
origin from vice and human wickedness (as, for example, calumny,
deceit, theft, treachery, wrong, rapine, oppression, war, murder) are
not from God, and do not proceed from His Providence, but from the
wickedness and perverse will of those who devise such things as these
against others. And hence those complaints so frequently in people's
mouths of late years:‑"This scarcity of corn is not God's doing. It is
caused by men immoderately greedy of gain, and not by God." Such ways of
speaking are mad and impious; they are utterly unworthy of a Christian
man, and should be banished to the shades below the earth.
But in order to make my meaning as clear as possible, 1 will illustrate
it by an example. Take the case of a man who wishes his neighbour to be
stripped of all his goods, and who, in order to put this abominable
design into execution, creeps secretly into the house of the man he
hates, sets fire to it, and immediately hurries away. Presently, when
the house is in flames, he runs to the spot with others, as if with the
intention of helping to put out the fire, when all the while it is
quite different: for, if occasion serves, he does not try to keep the
flames under, but collects spoils for himself, and secretly removes from
the fire plunder to 'increase his own property. All such designs as
these, regarded by themselves, without perversity of will, and all such
actions as these, considered "in genere entis" (as the Schoolmen
say) have God as their Author. God brings these things about, just as He
brings it other things in creatures void of reason. For as these last
can neither move, nor do anything without God, so cannot the incendiary
either enter a house, or leave it again, or scatter fire in it, without
God. But it does not follow that these several acts are evil in
themselves, for they may also be compatible with virtue, but the will of
the incendiary is evil; it is a most wicked design which that abandoned
man has followed, and of this God is not the Author and Cause, although
He has permitted this design to be carried into execution. He
might indeed have hindered it, if it had so pleased Him. Since, however,
God by His Own just judgment did not hinder that wicked design, He
permitted it. The causes of His Permission I shall give further on.
4. The same line of reasoning holds good also in reference to other
sins; and this may, perhaps, appear the clearer from the following
example. Take the case of a man who is lame in consequence of a wound
which he has received; he attempts to walk, it is true, but he moves
over the ground with greater pain, and with a more awkward gait than a
sound man. Now the cause of motion in the foot is the natural
impelling force, but the cause of lameness is the wound, not the moving
power of the soul. And just in like manner God is the Cause of that act
which any one performs when sinning, but the cause of error and sin in
this act is man's free will. God supplies help to the act but not to
that wandering and departure from law and rectitude. Although,
therefore, God is not, and cannot be, the Author of sin‑for "Thy eyes
are too pure to behold evil, and thou canst not look on iniquity" (Hab.
1. 13);. . "Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity" (PS. XLIV.
8)‑yet it is, nevertheless, most certain that all the evil of
punishment arising from second causes, whether rational or irrational
(in whatever way, or for whatever reason it may happen), proceeds
entirely from the Hand of God, and from His most benign Disposal and
Providence. It is God, my good friend, it is God, I say, Who guided the
hand of him who struck you. It is God Who moved the tongue of him who
slandered you. It is God Who supplied strength to him who wickedly
trampled you under foot. God Himself, speaking of Himself by the mouth
of Isaias, declares (chap. XLV. 7) :‑"1 form the light, and create
darkness; I make peace, and create evil; 1, the Lord that do all
these things." And how completely does the Prophet Amos confirm this,
when he says (chap III. 6),‑"Shall there be evil in a city, which the
Lord hath not done?" just as if he had said, there is no evil which God
does not do, by permitting the evil of guilt, and by ordaining
and working out the evil of punishment.
Thus God, intending to punish the adultery and murder of king David by
the sin of his incestuous son Absalom, says (2 Kings xii. 11,
12):‑"Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house,
and I will take thy wives before thy eyes, and give them to thy
neighbour, and be shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For
thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing in the sight of all
Israel, and in the sight of the sun." Admirably has S. Augustine
said:‑"In this way God instructs good men by means of evil ones." Thus
it is that the Divine justice makes wicked kings and princes its
instruments, as well for exercising the patience of good men, as for
chastising the forwardness of bad. Examples of this are ready at hand
from every age, in cases where God works out His Own Good pleasure
through the wicked designs of others, and by means of the injustice of
others displays His Own just Judgments. And just as a father seizes a
rod, and strikes his child, but a little while afterwards throws the rod
into the fire, and becomes reconciled to the child, so God threatens by
Isaias, and says (chap. x, 5,6) :‑"Woe to the Assyrian, he is the rod
and the staff of My anger, and My indignation is in their hands. I will
send him to a deceitful nation, and I will give him a charge against the
people of My wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the
prey, to tread them down like the mire of the streets. But he shall not
take it so, and his heart shall not think so; but his heart shall be set
to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few." How plainly does God
declare Himself to be the Author of such great evils! “My indignation,"
He says, "is in their hands. The root of My fury is the king of Assyria,
for punishing abominable wickedness of the Jews. I have sent him that he
should carry away spoils, and should bring down the surpassingly
insolent and inflated minds of those who have cast aside their faith,
and worshipped the idols of the Gentiles with a mad service. But the
king of Assyria himself will have far different thoughts, and will not
come to chastise, but to slay, and utterly destroy them. But when I have
chastened My people by the Assyrians, then woe to this rod! woe to the
Assyrians! for as the instrument of My anger will I cast them into the
fire." The same may also be observed in other Divine chastisements.
Titus, the Roman Emperor, when he had shut up Jerusalem with the closest
siege, determined upon making the circuit of the walls, and examining
everything with his own eyes. When he saw the trenches full of dead
bodies, and a deep stream of corruption flowing from the decaying
corpses, he groaned aloud, and raising his hands and eyes towards
Heaven, called God to witness that it was not his work. (JOSEPH. de
Bell. Jud. 1. vi. c. 14.)
5. But it may be objected ‑if this is the case, if the Will of God is
the origin of all evils, why do we strive against it? Why do we attack
disease with medicines? Why do we 'oppose armed battalions to the enemy?
Why do we not at once open our gates and welcome destruction within our
walls? Why do we not follow the example of that most holy Bishop Lupus,
and address all our misfortunes in the same words as he did Attila,
"Welcome, thou flail of God?" It is good, my friend, not to be wiser
than we ought, but "to think soberly." (Rom. XII‑ 3.) That war and
deaths of all kinds are from God, it is clear enough. But the conclusion
drawn from this, viz., that therefore we must not resist an enemy, and
must not grapple with disease, is bad. For the will of sign (voluntas
signi), I use the language of Theologians, is one thing, and the
will of good‑pleasure (voluntas beneplaciti) is another.
Now concerning the will of sign, made known to us by laws, it is
sufficiently clear for the most part, but concerning the will of
good‑pleasure it is not so, and we cannot at once tell how far it
extends. But more of this further on. For the present let us take
disease as an example. From whatever cause it arises, without the
smallest doubt it proceeds from the Divine Will. Since, however, the
sick man does not know how long God wills that he should be afflicted
with sickness, he may very properly strive against it, and use any
lawful remedy for recovering health. But when he has tried all remedies,
and has made no progress, nor recovered, his health, let him feel fully
persuaded that it is the Divine Will that he should be afflicted with a
still more grievous and protracted sickness. This is the right way,
then, to reason. God wills that you, my sick friend, should be ill; but
because you know not whether He also wills that you should never be
cured, you may, for that reason, lawfully use remedies. If, however, He
wills that the disease should continue, He will withdraw all efficacy
from the medicines, so that you may not be cured.
And the same is to be said about enemies. God often willed that the
children of Israel should be attacked, lest they should fall into
sluggish ways; but as long as it did not appear that He willed that they
should also be overcome, so long might they resist the enemy. It would
have been otherwise if God had warned them, as He did by the Prophet
Jeremias, that they should surrender themselves as servants to King
Nabuchodonosor. In the same way, too, if a fire which has broken out
cannot be extinguished by any amount of labour, it is a plain proof that
God willed not merely that the house should catch fire, but that it
should be burnt down, either to try His friends, or punish His enemies.
And the same is to be observed in all other cases.
Then again, as it sometimes happens that a father puts a wooden sword
into his son's hand, and says:"Come, my boy, defend yourself against
me; let us see what progress you have made with your fencingmaster." In
this case it is not the son who is opposed to his father, but the fencer
to an adversary; and just in the same way when any one desires that a
fire should be extinguished, or an enemy destroyed, or a disease
subdued, he does not resist the Divine Will which approves the
punishment, but the guilt, which God hates. For a house is set on fire
either to inflict an injury, or from envy. To resist guilt of this kind
is permitted to every one. And so he who tries to drive away disease
constitutes himself an adversary, not of the Divine Will, but of human
offence; for there is scarcely any disease which has not been occasioned
by some intemperance in living. Whoever then grapples with disease does
not strive against God, but against intemperance, or certainly against
its result. So also he who resists an enemy with arms does make himself
an adversary of the Divine Will, but of him who has begun the unjust
war. In such cases as this it is by no means forbidden to defend oneself
and one's goods, unless on other grounds it appears that the defence
will be displeasing to God.
6. But why should it be thought strange that Divine Providence and
Justice should use wicked men as its instruments, when even devils
themselves fulfil this office? "It happens," says S. Gregory (Mor.
ii.,14), "by a wonderful dispensation of piety, that, through the very
means by which the malignant enemy tempts the heart in order to destroy
it, the merciful Creator disciplines it that it may live." It is said of
Saul,‑"the day after the evil spirit from God came upon Saul." (I Kings
xviii.10.) But how could that spirit be evil, if it was from God?
How could it be of God, if it was evil? And this the same history
explains, when it says‑"An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." (I
Kings xvi. 14.) It was an evil spirit in consequence of the desire of
his own perverse will, but it was a spirit of the Lord, because sent
from the Lord to torment him. S. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (in Ps. xxxi.
Exp. ii. 25), throws much light on this; nor will it be amiss to quote
his words at length. "What is right in heart?" he inquires. "Not
resisting God. Attend, my beloved, and understand the right heart. I
speak briefly, but yet a thing of all the most to be commended. Between
a heart right, and a heart not right, there is this difference:‑Whatever
man, let him suffer what he may against his will, afflictions, sorrows,
labours, humiliations, attributeth them not but to the just will of God
(let this be well observed), not charging him with foolishness, as
though He knoweth not what he doth, because he scourgeth such an one,
and spareth another; he indeed is right in heart. But perverse in heart,
and froward, and distorted are they, who, whatever evils they suffer,
say that they suffer them unjustly, charging Him with injustice through
Whose Will they suffer; or, because they dare not charge Him with
injustice, take from Him His government. Because God, saith one, cannot
do injustice, but it is unjust that I suffer, and such an one suffer
not; for I grant that I am a sinner, yet surely there are some worse,
who rejoice, while I suffer tribulation; because, then, this is unjust,
that even some worse than I should rejoice, while I suffer tribulation
who am either just, or less a sinner than they, and it is certain unto
me that this is unjust, and it is certain unto me that God doth not
injustice; therefore God governeth not the things of men, nor is there
any care for us with Him. They then who are not right in heart (that is,
who are distorted in heart) have three conclusions. Either there is no
God; for, 'the fool hath said in his heart there is no God.' (Ps. xiii.
I.) .Or God is unjust, Who is pleased at these things, and Who doeth
these things. Or, God governeth not human things, and there is no care
for all men with Him. In these three conclusions there is great
impiety." And 'then a little further on the same Father continues:‑"So
that is the right heart, brethren. Let every man to whomsoever anything
happens say, 'The Lor gave, and the Lord hath taken away.' (Job I. 21.)
Lo, this is a right heart, 'As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.' He said not, 'The Lord gave, and the
Devil hath taken away.' Attend, therefore, beloved, lest haply you
should say, the Devil did this for me. Unto thy God alone refer thy
scourge, for not even the Devil doth anything against thee, unless He
permit Who hath power above, either for punishment, or for discipline:
for the punishment of the ungodly, for the discipline of His sons. For
'He scourgeth every son whom, He receiveth.' (Heb. xii. 6.) Neither must
thou hope to be without a scourge, unless haply thou wish to be
disinherited; for 'He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.' What,
every son? Where then wouldest thou hide thyself? Every one; and
none will be excepted; none without a scourge. What? even to all? Would
you hear how truly He saith all? Even the Only‑Begotten, without sin,
was yet not without a scourge." This is, indeed, a noble piece of
instruction, and thoroughly worthy of Augustine. But since, according to
that Father's meaning, neither devil nor man has power against any one,
except by the Permission of God, I must now briefly mention what sort of
things God permits; for what reason, and on what grounds He permits
them.
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