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.  

24. God's Love For Creatures

I. God does not stand apart from His creation, indifferent to it and neglecting it. “Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made” (Wisd. xi. 25). The propension of the divine will is one of complacency and benevolence towards all that is good. The first object of this love is the Supreme Good, the Divine Essence; the second object is created good. All creatures are good, as deriving from God, and as being reflections, and in some sort images of the divine perfections. The love of God for the Godhead is communicated to that which is so closely connected with the Godhead as are its productions, its creatures. On every single creature, then, God dwells with pleasure and love. On every one of them does He bestow His favours; natural favours on those that are of the natural order, and much more abundant supernatural ones on those that are supernatural. “Thou openest Thy hand and fillest every creature with blessing” (Wisd. xi. 25). The love of God for men is far in excess of what He bestows on the lower creation; and among men He lavishes a far more intense love on those who are members of the mystical body of His Son, and who serve Him with all their ability. Your love should be given first of all to the most worthy object, i.e. God, and then should extend in due order to all creatures of God for His sake, because they are His and are loved by Him.

II. Consider the qualities of the love of God for you and all His creatures.

1. It is eternal. Your image has always been present to the consciousness of God, and He has always taken delight in it. “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee” (Jer. xxxi. 3).

2. It is constant; it remains unchanged even when we have turned against God by sin. He still goes on bestowing favors and calling us to His grace.

3. It is gratuitous. God has nothing to gain from us in return. We have nothing and can do nothing. There is no attractiveness in us that He should desire us, except what He Himself has imparted to us.

4. It is individual. God loves each one as fully as if that creature were the only object of His infinite love. No one need be jealous lest the love given to others be so much taken from him. Be faithful for ever to the love of God who has first loved you. “Forsake not an old friend, for the new will not be like him” (Eccli. ix. 14). Strive to love God, 

1. perpetually, 

2. without wavering or weariness, 

3. for His own sake and not your own, 

4. as the sole object of your love, loving all others in Him.

III. Consider the efficacy of God’s love. Created love is for the most part selfish, useless, noxious even: it is changeable, inconstant, and is seldom able to do such good as it desires. The love of God produces every good in its object; it gratifies, enriches, ennobles, glorifies. Human love is drawn forth by some good quality in its object; God’s love is the cause of all goodness; it creates and diffuses the goodness which attracts it. If God were to withdraw His love momentarily from us, we should at once lose all excellence, all our virtues, all happiness, hope, existence even. God’s love then is the sum of all good to you here, and more especially hereafter. Do not barter it for any transient pleasure or advantage of this world. If you possess it, what does all else matter to you? And you have it, for Our Lord Himself has assured you of it, and has proved it by His deeds. Let this be your delight, your support, your consolation, your compensation under all circumstances. Try to love Him as well as you can, and you need have no fear as to the rest.

23. The Liberty of God

I. Liberty is a great and magnificent prerogative. God possesses it in perfection, in a manner beyond our conception. We delight in it, and are continually extending and safeguarding it; but how imperfect it is with us! Our liberty consists to a considerable extent in restraints on liberty, so that each may be protected against the inevitable encroachments of others. As our liberties increase, so do our laws. The most autocratic monarch is restrained in his freedom by international law, by public opinion, by etiquette and custom, by neighbouring countries and by his subjects. Above all, the freest of mankind are subject to God, bound to accept His revelation and obey His laws; they can indeed disobey, but by so doing they become subject to penal consequences here and hereafter. There are other limitations of our freedom imposed by God, which we are not able to transgress; we are bound down to a narrow corner of the universe, we are limited to a few years of life, we are checked continually by the weakness of our faculties. God is absolutely independent and sovereign, and can dispose of infinite powers. Such liberty, united to such power, would be terrible in any being not possessed of infinite wisdom and goodness. In God all these faculties are one. We, too, require goodness in proportion to our share of liberty. Otherwise, liberty becomes a mere instrument of oppression in the hands of the strong and the few. The machinery of law is a mere makeshift to supply the want of moral goodness as a check on the abuses of individual liberty.

II. God is absolutely free in the determinations of His will towards creatures. This is not the liberty of caprice and continual change, but a free determination, immutable and eternal nevertheless, because founded on perfect knowledge of all things present and future. As towards Himself, the determination of God’s will is fully voluntary, but it is a necessity of His perfect nature. It is impossible for God to do otherwise than delight in the perfection and beauty and the operations of His Divine Essence. But God was not necessitated in creating this world. He freely chose to act and accordingly called into being this universe with all its series of creatures, instead of an indefinite number of others which He might have made. Now that God has created the present universe, its material elements go on necessarily in the path of life and growth appointed for them, and they cannot now be other than they are; but this necessity is created by the fact of God’s action, and did not exist anteriorly to compel Him to make things as they are. Pay homage to God’s liberty by dedicating yours to His service. Thus only will you find true liberty of action and success in your works.

III. Further, in the execution of His will God is free from all interference and obstruction. There is none to question His liberty or His actions. “Who shall say to Thee, What hast Thou done; or who shall withstand Thy judgments?” (Wisd. xii. 12). No difficulty deters God. The whole universe is no more strain on His power than the creation of a particle of dust. One act of volition is sufficient to call into existence all the substances, all the enormous forces, all the varied life and intricate arrangements of the world. Our liberty is not complete, because we are liable to fall into sin; our best resolutions fail, and we are but broken reeds. “To will good is present with me, but to accomplish that which is good I find not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do” (Rom. vii. 18, 19). Not so with God. Sin and injustice can find no place in Him, nor can they force Him to compromise with them. Keep yourself free from sin. This is the truest liberty here, and the greatest exercise of human strength and determination. This gives you the true liberty of God.