Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Further Description of the Divine Justice; Since the Fall of Man It Has Regulated the Divine Goodness. God's Claims on Our Love and Our Fear Reconciled.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
XIII.—Further Description of the Divine Justice; Since the Fall
of Man It Has Regulated the Divine Goodness. God’s Claims on Our
Love and Our Fear Reconciled.
But yet, when evil afterwards broke out, and the
goodness of God began now to have an adversary to contend against,
God’s justice also acquired another function, even that of
directing His goodness according to men’s application for
it.2857
| 2857 Secundum
adversionem. | And this is the result: the divine goodness,
being interrupted in that free course whereby God was spontaneously
good, is now dispensed according to the deserts of every man; it is
offered to the worthy, denied to the unworthy, taken away from the
unthankful, and also avenged on all its enemies. Thus the entire office
of justice in this respect becomes an agency2858
for goodness: whatever it condemns by its judgment, whatever it
chastises by its condemnation, whatever (to use your phrase) it
ruthlessly pursues,2859
it, in fact,
benefits with good instead of injuring. Indeed, the fear of judgment
contributes to good, not to evil. For good, now contending with an
enemy, was not strong enough to recommend itself2860
by itself alone. At all events, if it could
do so much, it could not keep its ground; for it had lost its
impregnability through the foe, unless some power of fear supervened,
such as might compel the very unwilling to seek after good, and take
care of it. But who, when so many incentives to evil were assailing
him, would desire that good, which he could despise with impunity? Who,
again, would take care of what he could lose without danger? You read
how broad is the road to evil,2861
how thronged in
comparison with the opposite: would not all glide down that road
were there nothing in it to fear? We dread the Creator’s
tremendous threats, and yet scarcely turn away from evil. What, if He threatened not? Will
you call this justice an evil, when it is all unfavourable to evil?
Will you deny it to be a good, when it has its eye towards2862
good? What sort of being ought you to wish
God to be? Would it be right to prefer that He should be such, that
sins might flourish under Him, and the devil make mock at Him? Would
you suppose Him to be a good God, who should be able to make a man
worse by security in sin? Who is the author of good, but He who also
requires it? In like manner who is a stranger to evil, except Him who
is its enemy? Who its enemy, besides Him who is its conqueror? Who else
its conqueror, than He who is its punisher? Thus God is wholly good,
because in all things He is on the side of good. In fact, He is
omnipotent, because able both to help and to hurt. Merely to profit is
a comparatively small matter, because it can do nothing else than a
good turn. From such a conduct2863
with what
confidence can I hope for good, if this is its only ability? How can I
follow after the reward of innocence, if I have no regard to the
requital of wrong-doing? I must needs have my doubts whether he might
not fail in recompensing one or other alternative, who was unequal in
his resources to meet both. Thus far, then, justice is the very fulness
of the Deity Himself, manifesting God as both a perfect father and a
perfect master: a father in His mercy, a master in His discipline; a
father in the mildness of His power, a master in its severity; a father
who must be loved with dutiful affection, a master who must needs be
feared; be loved, because He prefers mercy to sacrifice;2864
be feared because He dislikes sin; be loved,
because He prefers the sinner’s repentance to his death;2865
be feared, because He dislikes the sinners
who do not repent. Accordingly, the divine law enjoins duties in
respect of both these attributes: Thou shalt love God, and,
Thou shalt fear God. It proposed one for the obedient man, the
other for the transgressor.2866
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
