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As it would be an impious effrontery to attribute the
works of holy love done by the Holy Ghost in and with
us to the strength of our will, it would be a
shameless impiety to lay the defect of love in
ungrateful men, on the failure of heavenly assistance
and grace.
For the Holy Ghost cries everywhere, on the
contrary, that our ruin is from ourselves:
Destruction is thine own, 0 Israel! thy help is only
in me:(1) that Our Saviour brought the fire of love,
and desires nothing but that it should be enkindled
in our hearts:(2) that salvation is prepared before
the face of all peoples: a light to the revelation of
the Gentiles and the glory of Israel:(3) that the
divine goodness is not willing that any should
perish,(4) but that all should come to the knowledge
of the truth: and will have all men to be saved,(5)
their Saviour being come into the world, that he
might redeem them who were under the law, that we
might receive the adoption of sons.(6)
And the wise man clearly warns us, Say not: it is
through God that she (wisdom) is not with me.(7) And
the sacred Council of Trent divinely inculcates upon
all the children of holy Church, that the Grace of
God is never wanting to such as do what they can,
invoking the divine assistance; that God never
abandons such as he has once justified unless they
abandon him first; so that, if they be not wanting to
grace they shall obtain glory.
In fine, Theotimus, Our Saviour is the true light
which enligteneth every man that cometh into this
world.(8) Some travellers, one summer's day about
noontide, lay down to repose under the shade of a
tree, but while their weariness and the coolness of
the shadow kept them asleep, the sun advancing on
them threw just upon their eyes his strongest light,
which by its glittering brightness gave glimpses of
itself like little flashes of lightning about the
pupils of these sleepers' eyes, and by the heat which
pierced their eyelids, forced them by a gentle
violence to awake.
Some of them being awakened get up, and making way
get happily to their lodging, the rest not only do
not rise, but turning their backs to the sun and
pressing their hats over their eyes, spend their day
there in sleeping, till surprised by night and yet
being desirous to make towards their lodging, they
stray, one here, one there, in the forest, at the
mercy of wolves, wild-boars, and other savage beasts.
Now tell me, I pray, Theotimus, those that
arrived, ought they not to give all their thanks for
their good success to the sun, or to speak like a
Christian, to the sun's Creator? Yes surely; for they
thought not of waking when it was time: the sun did
them this good office, and by the gentle invitation
of his light and heat came lovingly to call them up.
'Tis true they resisted not his call, but he also
helped them much even in that; for he spread his
light fairly upon them, giving them a half-sight of
himself through their eyelids, and by his heat as it
were by his love he unsealed their eyes, and urged
them to see his day.
On the contrary, those poor strangers, what right had
they to cry in that wood: Alas! what have we done to
the sun that he did not make us see his light, as he
did our companions, that we might have arrived at our
lodgings and not have wandered in this hideous
darkness?
For who would not undertake the sun's or rather
God's cause, my dear Theotimus, to answer these
wretches. What is there, miserable beings, that the
sun could really do for you and did not? His favours
were equal to all ye that slept: he approached you
all with the same light, touched you with the same
rays, spread over you a like heat, but unhappy ye,
although you saw your risen companions take their
pilgrim's staff to gain way, ye turned your backs to
the sun and would not make use of his light, nor be
conquered by his heat.
Now, Theotimus, see here what I would say. We are
all pilgrims in this mortal life; almost all of us
have voluntarily slept in sin; God the sun of justice
darts upon us most sufficiently, yea abundantly, the
beams of his inspirations, warms our hearts with his
benedictions, touching every one with the allurements
of his love.
Ah! how comes it then that these allurements
allure so few and draw yet fewer? Ah! certainly such
as, first allured, afterwards drawn, follow the
inspiration, have great occasion to rejoice, but not
to glorify themselves for it. Let them rejoice
because they enjoy a great good; yet let them not
glorify themselves therein, because it is by God's
pure goodness, who, leaving them the profit of their
good works, reserves to himself the glory of them.
But concerning them that remain in the sleep of
sin: Oh! what good reason they have to lament, groan,
weep, and say: woe the day! for they are in the most
lamentable of cases; yet have they no reason to
grieve or complain, save about themselves, who
despised, yea rebelled against, the light; who were
untractable to invitations, and obstinate against
inspirations; so that it is their own malice alone
they must ever curse and reproach, since they
themselves are the sole authors of their ruin, the
sole workers of their damnation.
So the Japanese, complaining to the Blessed
Francis Xavier, their Apostle, that God who had had
so much care of other nations, seemed to have
forgotten their predecessors, not having given them
the knowledge of himself, for want of which they must
have been lost: the man of God answered them that the
divine natural law was engraven in the hearts of all
mortals, and that if their forerunners had observed
it, the light of heaven would without doubt have
illuminated them, as, on the contrary, having
violated it, they deserved damnation.
An apostolic answer of an apostolic man, and
resembling the reason given by the great Apostle of
the loss of the ancient Gentiles, whom he calls
inexcusable, for that having known good they followed
evil; for it is in a word that which he inculcates in
the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans.
Misery upon misery to those who do not acknowledge
that their misery comes from their malice!
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