31. Reprobation.

 
I. Reprobation is the decree of exclusion from heaven passed by God on those who, as He sees, will be obstinate in sin and die impenitent. It is not that it pleases God to condemn the creatures whom He loves; it is not that He exercises a right of excluding creatures from that which they have no claim to. “God made not death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living” (Wis. i. 13). God is unable to do wrong, to be a source of evil, to be unjust, harsh, arbitrary. Only Calvinism has dared to assert such a thing. Reprobation is this, that God, who foresees all things, foresees also from eternity the wilful self-destruction of some of His creatures. He foresees their revolt, their turning from Him, and His turning from them which is involved in it. He permits this determination of the free-will; and the prevision and ratification of it is called the decree of God. He cannot do otherwise. He cannot but foresee according to facts, as we cannot see differently from the facts that occur before our eyes. God’s foresight no more necessitates the event than does our remembrance of a past event. Our remembrance is unalterable, but it is not that which makes the past event unalterable. This terrible secret God knows about you. He sees you at this moment as you will be a hundred years hence. Pray that it be a prevision of eternal life and not of death. “My lots are in Thy hands” (Ps. xxx. 16).

II. The decree of reprobation is not passed in consequence of our fall in Adam; for that we are not responsible and deserve no punishment. Nor is it decreed against us simply for our sins; for the present dispensation is a system for regenerating all sinners, whatever they may have done. God loves us for our very weakness; the quality of sinners is one that touches His heart more than that of innocence even; and He desires our salvation the more earnestly, if it be possible, as we deserve it less. We have the proof of this in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Judas might have found a place in heaven as well as St. Peter, the bad thief as well as the penitent. Reprobation is the consequence only of obduracy, hardness of heart, persistence in refusing the pardon which is offered even up to the last instant of life. In fact many a lost soul has enjoyed more abundant and greater graces than some now in heaven; and among the blessed are some who have been more grievous sinners than some of the lost. But “a hard heart shall fear evil at the last, and he that loveth the danger shall perish in it” (Eccli. iii. 27). Take care not to harden your heart; it may easily grow to a final and fatal hardening.

III. Why has God allowed the reprobate to come into existence? To prevent their existence would be to carry on the natural order by a series of supernatural interferences; and no one would object more to such a thing than the enemies of God themselves. Miracles are rare events; they too occur in accordance with law, and require an adequate cause to produce them, such as prayer, the merits of a holy life, the need of proving a word of God. The reprobate do not furnish an adequate cause for miracles. Fidelity to small graces induces greater ones; obstinate resistance to abundant grace and evidence tends to dry up the stream rather than to promote a more copious flow. It is surely enough for the obstinate sinner that he has the power of escaping from the sentence of reprobation, and that God is ready to help him if he only cares for help. It is for him to accommodate himself to the general laws of being, and not for the whole course of nature to be continually modified in deference to his perversity. The ways of God are inscrutable to your limited vision. Do not expect to penetrate them in this life. Wait with humble faith for the revelation of God’s secrets, and say, “I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear” (Ps. xvi. 15).

30. Predestination

 

I. Predestination is the eternal decree of God to bestow the glory of Paradise on certain souls who, He foresees, will correspond to the grace they receive and work out their salvation. These are God’s elect; He regards them with special favour, and promotes the result by His superabundant grace. “He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. i. 4). “Whom He foreknew He also predestinated … and whom He predestinated, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Rom. viii. 29, 30). How that decree is formed no man knoweth. How that result comes about through the interworking of the all-powerful grace of God with our complete liberty even we who are most concerned cannot know. No single soul can say that he is predestinate. “Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred” (Eccles. ix. 1).

Thus much we know, that God is infinitely just, and that His mercy is above all His works. He therefore does not select some arbitrarily for salvation and abandon others; but He has made every man to be saved. He has prepared a crown of glory for every sinner, upon his repentance, and has not made hell for them. Every man has it in his power to attain to heaven; he will attain it if he strives; and if he is lost, it will be entirely of his own free choice, and it will be in no measure due to God. It depends on you to make yourself predestinate. Resolve that you will be so, and God’s grace will certainly not be wanting.

II. The factors of God’s decree of predestination are these:

God loves infinitely Supreme Truth and Goodness as contained in the Divine Essence, and desires that they be known and loved by all His creatures.

He loves mankind with an infinite love, desires their happiness, and does everything that is possible, consistently with their liberty, to secure it to them.

The satisfaction and merits of Jesus Christ are communicated to mankind to withdraw them from perdition.

Through the promises of God man’s efforts accompanied by divine grace become meritorious of eternal life. Thus, although we cannot strictly merit predestination, it is granted nevertheless in consideration of our works. It is the absolutely free gift of God, and yet our personal co-operation is an essential condition of it. So you cannot save your soul by yourself, and God will not save you by Himself. God’s operation is like the tree, with root, trunk, branches; your co-operation is the foliage; both are necessary in order for the tree to blossom and bear fruit. What confidence this ought to give you in working for heaven! God has done so much for you; so little remains for you to do; and you can do all things in Him that strengtheneth you.

III. There are three chief classes of the predestinate:

Those who are not called upon to contribute any co-operation of their own to the work of God. Such are infants who die after Baptism. As they have incurred sin by the act of another, so the merits of Jesus Christ and the action of the Church are attributed to them by God for their justification.

The ordinary predestinate, who through many deficiencies and infidelities, through renewal unto penance and correspondence to grace, advance slowly, and by God’s mercy work out their salvation.

Those of special favour and distinction, of labour and suffering, who are predestinated for great work and great glory. Of these many have been notable sinners, like David, St. Paul, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Augustine. Thus no class is excluded by outward circumstances from even the highest dignity among the elect. Many of the saints of God have at some time been worse than you. Be faithful to God’s calls, seek that which is most perfect, and God will work wonderful things in you.

29. The Permission of Evil.

I. At an earlier time infidels endeavoured to discredit the Providence of God on account of the existence of noxious animals, natural catastrophes, and the thousand struggles for life that are always in progress. Certain beings they considered as too vile or insignificant to merit the attention of Providence; other things, as unmitigated evils. A fuller science has now taught us that everything has its uses, and is for the general weal although hurtful in some particular. We have learnt too that the lowliest creatures exhibit as fully as the noblest the ingenuities of God’s wisdom, the marvels of His power, the infinite range of His knowledge and prevision. Many mysteries still remain hidden from us; many difficulties will be a trial of faith till new discoveries shall solve them. Do not presume to criticize the inscrutable ways of God’s Providence because of being too ignorant to understand them. One day all things will be made clear to you.

II. A greater difficulty to many is the permission of moral evil, with all its tremendous consequences of physical evil here and the eternal loss of souls hereafter. The solution of this will be completed only at the general judgment, but we may attain to a partial comprehension of it here by the aid of faith and good-will. Man possesses liberty. It is his proudest prerogative. It is not for Providence to do violence to the natural order, to put a free man in moral chains, to exact from him the service of a slave in order to give him a reward that he does not wish for. Man knows the law, he knows the consequences of its violation, he has power to observe it if he will, he deliberately revolts against it and accepts the results. He would be the first to protest against the tyranny if God were to overcome his free will by force. The Providence of God acts on the principle which mankind has of late years arrived at, that the suppression of liberty is a greater evil than tolerating its abuse. The divine wisdom is able to draw a greater good from evil, and is therefore just and holy in permitting it. On this the great mysteries of God’s love are grounded, the Incarnation and Death of Our Lord, and the wonderful economy of redemption in the case of each individual. The goodness of God is shown in the pardon of sin and the rehabilitation of the soul after its fall and corruption. The precious virtue of repentance, the meritorious works of mortification, have been thrown open to the sinner, and the joy of the angels of God has been enhanced by the sight. The just are tried in the furnace and provided with opportunities of practising the noblest virtues. Thank God for all the good that has accrued to you from possessing liberty in all its fulness, and even, indirectly, from your abuse of it.

III. Another difficulty has been felt even by the sacred writers, viz., the afflictions of the just. “What profit is it,” they ask, “that we have kept His ordinances, and that we have walked sorrowful before the Lord of Hosts?” (Mal. iii. 14). We must know that God has two grades of Providence, the natural and the supernatural. It is under His supernatural Providence that He chastens those whom He loves. He deprives them of the good things of life in order that they may merit a greater abundance of the good things of grace and glory. All God’s friends have suffered except Solomon, and therefore, as St Jerome remarks, his heart became depraved and his salvation is uncertain. In the ordinary course no one enters heaven unless he has passed through the school of affliction. It makes men feel the nothingness of this life, it detaches them from possessions and pleasures, it teaches them patience, resignation, fortitude, trust in God; it shows them that nothing is of any value but the service of God on earth and the possession of Him in heaven. Endeavour to learn these lessons.

28. The Providence of God

I. God, having created the world, did not thenceforward leave it to itself. He still oversees and guides all things, according to the Scripture: “The eyes of all hope in Thee, O Lord, and Thou givest them meat in due season” (Ps. cxliv. 15). The world requires for its conservation and development a continuance of the same divine influx which created it. It is no more within the power of matter and force to go on in their due order without God than to create themselves without Him. Left to itself for a single instant the whole fabric of the universe would totter and collapse. So in the human order a building, a garden, an army, a social organization, require constant care, or they will go to ruin. Whether God’s sustaining influence is renewed from moment to moment immediately by Him, as source of the natural order, or whether it is contained in created forces which received a primordial impulse that will carry them on through the whole cycle of existence, is indifferent to our argument. These are but statements, differing in their degree of completeness, of the same fundamental truth that Providence rules all things. The Providence of God is manifested in these reflections of itself which exist in creatures; in the case of parents for their children, of animals for their young, of the artist for the productions of his hand or brain. These qualities in creatures are evidence of the existence in a supreme degree in God of a most complete, thoughtful and loving watchfulness over His creation. Never forget that God feels this supreme interest in your temporal and spiritual welfare.

II. One great characteristic of Divine Providence is that it “ordereth all things sweetly” (Wisd. viii. 1). There is in its rule nothing violent, arbitrary, or contrary to the nature of things and their due order. There is no irregular interference, no sudden afterthought, no forcing of all sorts of things into one mould. On the contrary, a marvellous diversity and freedom prevail within the limits of perfect harmony. In the natural order God works by natural means in accordance with the laws which He implanted in nature at the first. There are no breaks of continuity in His works, no need to supplement His natural arrangements by the introduction of miraculous effects, except for the supernatural purpose of forwarding our salvation, and in strict accordance with supernatural law. You must be content to take things as they have been arranged by God’s Providence, not expecting the feeble to be perfect, the free to be constrained, transient things to be permanent. All things cannot be accommodated to your fancies, but you must accommodate yourself sweetly to all things, bearing the defects of others, and accepting humbly the fact that you have still worse defects.

III. Because of the sweetness in the operations of Providence, therefore “it reacheth from end to end mightily” (Wisd. viii. 1), and never fails to accomplish its purposes. Note that there are two classes of objects proposed by God for every creature. One is its particular end or aim; such as for the tree to bear fruit, animals to subserve our utility, man to imitate God and attain to His possession; and this object of Providence often fails of accomplishment. But there is a general end or aim, viz., the progress of the universe, the justification of God’s action and His law, and the manifestation of His supremacy and glory. This object of divine Providence never fails. The storm which uproots the saplings is for the benefit of the forest. The punishment of malefactors is evidence of respect for law, efficiency of government, security for good citizens. Out of particular evils God draws some general good. The wicked supply by their perversity the opposition which elicits and strengthens virtue. Persecution purifies the Church. Sin becomes the means of manifesting God’s mercy and His justice. So all things are compelled to work together unto the good of the elect and the glory of God. 

27. The Justice of God.

 

I. There is in God a perfect distributive justice towards all His creatures. In virtue of this He awards to every being all that it requires according to its place in the divine scheme; He gives it the strength and the adaptability necessary for the duties He has appointed it to do. To man God assigns body and soul, reason and freedom, senses and faculties, the means of maintaining life, subduing the world, and making continual progress. Further, every one receives the graces of his state, adapted to his special work and special difficulties; and by means of these he can infallibly accomplish the natural and spiritual duties of his life, and at last attain to heaven. If we find ourselves deficient in such necessary grace, it is not because God is inequitable and seeks to reap what He did not sow, but either because we have not prepared and secured that grace, or because we have forced ourselves into a position not intended for us by God, where the requirements are beyond our capabilities. Religion is God’s great means of distribution; it will supply everything that our special circumstances demand. Never complain against the ordinances of God. You are not qualified to criticize them. Unless you know exactly what God has reserved for each man in the way of duty and future reward, you cannot judge whether his equipment is sufficient or not. Be persuaded that “God is faithful and without any iniquity, just and right” (Deut. xxxii. 4).
II. A second kind of justice—avenging justice—marks God’s dealings with unrepentant sinners. Terrible as their punishment is, they receive less than their due. They reap only that which they have sown, which they have brought on themselves with their eyes open and with full deliberation. “He loved cursing, and it shall come unto him; and he would not have blessing, and it shall be far from him” (Ps. cviii. 18). Sinners refuse to place their happiness in God, till at last they have so moulded their tastes and character that they have no longer the capacity for finding pleasure in Him. They introduce a permanent disorder into their being, and this necessarily produces permanent evils. The effect is strictly proportioned to the cause. The degree and the kind of the guilt is the exact measure of the punishment. “By what a man sinneth, by the same also is he tormented” (Wisd. xi. 17). “According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be” (Deut. xxv. 2). The sinner shall fall into the pit that he himself digged. Nothing can be more exactly just than this, and nothing more terrible. Let your love and trust in God’s mercy be always mingled with fear of His avenging justice. This is the beginning of wisdom.

III. Towards the just God exhibits remunerative justice. It is not that God has any obligations towards us, or owes any debt of justice for our services. We are unprofitable servants, we have given Him nothing that was not already His, our virtues are worthless before Him. But God has given us a claim by His promises, and through Jesus Christ, and so has made Himself our debtor. “Whosoever shall glorify Me, him will I glorify” (1 Kings ii. 30). God will render to us infinitely more than we have done for Him, but still there will be some proportion between our services and our reward. All the blessed will possess Him indeed, but it will be in greater or less measure according to the capacity which each one has created for himself by his goodness when on earth. Never repine at your lot, or be troubled about others receiving apparently less than they have merited. God’s accounts are not balanced till the next life. Trust in that infinite justice, which after a short delay will rectify all that is wrong, and give compensation for present inequalities.

26. The Mercy of God

  

 

I. God’s action in doing good to His creatures has different aspects and different names. Considering simply the good done we attribute it to God’s goodness; when the good is due to us we thank God’s justice; thinking of its abundance and gratuitousness we ascribe it to liberality: and we praise His mercy when He sympathizes with our miseries, and relieves them or saves us from them. God gives great prominence to this perfection. The Psalmist says, “The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Ps. cxliv. 8, 9). And the Apostle: “Mercy exalteth itself above judgment” (James ii. 13). God’s mercy, though not more infinite than His other perfections, commends itself more to our appreciation, because of the contrast between our miseries and the state to which He raises us. From our point of view God’s mercy seems to be more valuable than His power or His wisdom, and to have a wider range and more wonderful effects than His justice or His sanctity. We may see mercy in all God’s works. His creatures are all in a state of misery before Him; and when He calls us from the depths of nothingness, and raises us to a state superior to nature, and holds out Paradise as a place of deliverance from all evils, this is all the work of mercy. Thank God for His mercies, and be merciful in your own sphere.

II. The principal and only real misery is sin, with its consequences. The permission of sin has thus created the opportunity for the exercise of the divine mercy; for its chief manifestation is towards sinners. It has several forms. 

1. It is gentleness, in that God does not break forth into anger and crush the sinner with His vengeance. 

2. It is patience. We prolong our iniquities, refuse to repent, or make our repentance a mockery; and God holds back the consequences of our sins until we tire of them and return to Him. 

3. It is benignity, for God is always ready to receive us back, and even admit us after all our sins to the highest favor in His kingdom. 

4. It is clemency; that is, that even if a sinner persists in his obstinacy to the end, the punishment he incurs is always, and in hell even, less than his deserts. Hence the prophet said: “When Thou art angry Thou wilt remember mercy” (Hab. iii. 2); and St. John in the Apocalypse speaks of the anger and judgment of God as being that of the Lamb. Truly “it is the mercy of the Lord that we are not consumed” (Lam. iii. 22). What immense reason you have for being grateful to God for His repeated and unwearying mercy!

III. If God does so much for obstinate sinners, much more will He do for those who repent. He pours forth His mercy on those who reject and despise it, but for those who implore it and open their hearts for it, He “will show the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He hath prepared unto glory” (Rom. ix. 23). This mercy becomes adoption of the sinner as heir of the kingdom of heaven; special protection, against the temptations of hell and relapse into sin; affability, by which God delights to converse with the children of men (Prov. viii. 31); considerateness, which punishes venial sin with troubles in this life, so as to spare the more grievous pains of purgatory; sweetness, in the interior peace and joy that God gives; munificence, in the abundance of present and future blessings. Do not be downcast on account of your miseries, your weakness, your repeated failures. They are the very raison d’être of God’s mercies. They are rather ground for confidence than for despondency, provided you try to serve God and do not sin in presumption on His mercy. Your claim for mercy and salvation rests rather on your sins than on your justice.

25. God's Hatred of Sin

I. Sin is the only thing that God has not originated, the only thing not represented in those archetypal ideas of God which are the source of all positive being, the only thing in which there is no reflection of God or participation of His perfections. The state of sin, therefore, has no positive being; for all that has being has it as deriving from God. Sin is rather the state of privation of all that comes from Supreme Being; it is the contradictory of being, or, in the word of St. Augustine, it is nothingness. Being and nothingness, as mutually exclusive, are said to be, in tendency, destructive of one another. Equally, God and sin are diametrically opposed; they are incompatible one with the other. Hence the expression, “Sin, as far as in it lies, would destroy God.” Sin expels God necessarily from the soul; the presence of God in the soul is destructive of sin. We express this in human terms by saying that God hates sin infinitely. God’s love and tenderness do not make Him tolerant of sin; on the contrary, they are necessarily antipathetic to that evil which is their opposite. Our soi disant tolerance of sin and error is not Christian charity, as we would pretend; it is indifference to God’s sanctity and is covert sympathy with evil. Sin is further hateful to God for the destruction it has wrought in God’s best-beloved creatures. If you really love God you will hate and avoid the smallest sin as worse than all the material evils of life.

II. Consider the qualities of God’s hatred of sin in this life.

1. It is tranquil. It is not really the passion of hatred, and there is no disturbance, fury, vindictiveness in it. To express the intensity of God’s opposition to sin vividly we speak of it as having the attributes of intense opposition as we know it in men.

2. It is just and reasonable. There is no precipitation, no harshness, no excess of retribution; but the sin itself is allowed to be the measure and the automatic cause of its own punishment.

3. It is loving. It is caused by, and is identical with God’s love of good. It involves no personal enmity to the sinner. God, though expelled from the sinful soul, loves it for the natural good that He has implanted in it, and for its possibilities of supernatural good; and He uses every means to bring the sinner once more to grace.

4. It disappears as soon as sin is removed from the soul, however late in life this may be, and however enormous and multiplied the offences. Never be discouraged by your sins, and never despair of the most obstinate sinner. There is more tenderness in God’s hatred of sin than in the greatest mercifulness of men.

III. As soon as this life is over there is a change in the character of God’s hatred of sin; or rather in the relation of the sinner to God. Then indeed “to God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike” (Wisd. xiv. 9). The sinner has persevered in his obstinacy, has refused the last offer of reconciliation, and confirmed himself for ever in hostility to God. The time of grace, probation and merit, is at an end. The sinner knows infinite goodness sufficiently to hate it as he hated its finite manifestations on earth; as he resists the impulse which all nature has towards God, he has resisted the attraction and calls of God during life. Rejecting God, he rejects all kinds of good; and this is equivalent to incurring universal and infinite evil; for evil is simply the privation of good. Hence the overwhelming torrent of miseries in hell. These are spoken of as the burning torrent of God’s indignation; but they are, more really, the effect of sin itself, henceforth not checked by God, and allowed to work its own havoc in the soul. For “God made not death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living” (Wisd. i. 13). How horrible and unnatural is the state of sin as thus revealed! What madness and folly to rush headlong into it! Present sin is one and the same thing with the future hell.