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Now when saying, Theotimus, that God had seen and
willed first one thing and then secondly another,
observing an order in his wills: I meant this in the
sense I declared before, namely, that though all this
passed in a most singular and simple act, yet in that
act the order, distinction and dependence of things
were no less observed than if there had been indeed
several acts in the understanding and will of God.
And since every wellordered will which determines
itself to love several objects equally present, loves
better and above all the rest that which is most
lovable; it follows that the sovereign Providence,
making his eternal purpose and design of all that he
would produce, first willed and preferred by
excellence the most amiable object of his love which
is Our Saviour; and then other creatures in order,
according as they more or less belong to the service,
honours and glory of him.
Thus were all things made for that divine man, who
for this cause is called the first-born of every
creature:(1) possessed by the divine majesty in the
beginning of his ways, before he made anything from
the beginning.(2) For in him were all things created
in heaven, and on earth, visible, and invisible,
whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities,
or powers: all things were created by him and in him:
And he is the head of the body, the church, who is
the beginning, the first-born from among the dead:
that in all things he may hold the primacy.(3)
The principal reason of planting the vine is the
fruit, and therefore the fruit is the first thing
desired and aimed at, though the leaves and the buds
are first produced. So our great Saviour was the
first in the divine intention, and in that eternal
project which the divine providence made of the
production of creatures, and in view of this desired
fruit the vine of the universe was planted, and the
succession of many generations established, which as
leaves or blossoms proceed from it as forerunners and
fit preparatives for the production of that grape
which the sacred spouse so much praises in the
Canticles, and the juice of which rejoices God and
men.
But now, my Theotimus, who can doubt of the abundance
of the means of salvation, since we have so great a
Saviour, in consideration of whom we have been made,
and by whose merits we have been ransomed. For he
died for all because all were dead, and his mercy was
more salutary to buy back the race of men than Adam's
misery was to ruin it.
Indeed Adam's sin was so far from overwhelming the
divine benignity that on the contrary it excited and
provoked it. So that by a most sweet and most loving
reaction and struggle, it received vigour from its
adversary's presence, and as if re-collecting its
forces for victory, it made grace to superabound
where sin had abounded.(4) Whence the holy Church by
a pious excess of admiration cries out upon
Easter-eve: "O truly necessary sin of Adam which was
blotted out by the death of Jesus Christ! O blessed
fault, which merited to have such and so great a
Redeemer!"
Truly, Theotimus, we may say as did he of old, "
we were ruined had we not been undone:" that is, ruin
brought us profit, since in effect human nature has
received more graces by its Saviour redeeming, than
ever it would have received by Adam's innocence, if
he had persevered therein.
For though the divine Providence has left in man
deep marks of his severity, yea, even amidst the very
grace of his mercy, as for example the necessity of
dying, diseases, labours, the rebellion of
sensuality, yet the divine favour floating as it were
over all this, takes pleasure in turning these
miseries to the greater profit of those who love him,
making patience spring from labours, contempt of the
world from the necessity of death, a thousand
victories from out of concupiscence; and, as the
rainbow touching the thorn aspalathus makes it more
odoriferous than the lily, so Our Saviour's
Redemption touching our miseries, makes them more
beneficial and worthy of love than original innocence
could ever have been.
I say to you, says Our Saviour, there shall be joy
in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more
than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance,(5)
and so the state of redemption is a hundred times
better than that of innocence. Verily by the watering
of Our Saviour's blood made with the hyssop of the
cross, we have been replaced in a whiteness
incomparably more excellent than the snow of
innocence. We come out, like Naaman, from the stream
of salvation more pure and clean than if we had never
been leprous, to the end that the divine Majesty, as
he has ordained also for us, should not be overcome
by evil, but overcome evil by good,(6) that mercy (as
a sacred oil) should keep itself above judgment,(7)
and his tender mercies be over all his works.(8)
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