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| Chapter XI. The case of the thief and of David, and of our call in order to illustrate the grace of God.
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Chapter XI.
The case of the thief and of David, and of our call in
order to illustrate the grace of God.
For if we recall that
thief who was by reason of a single confession admitted into
paradise,1050
we shall feel that he
did not acquire such bliss by the merits of his life, but obtained it
by the gift of a merciful God. Or if we bear in mind those two grievous
and heinous sins of King David, blotted out by one word of
penitence,1051
we shall see that
neither here were the merits of his works sufficient to obtain pardon
for so great a sin, but that the grace of God superabounded, as, when
the opportunity for true penitence was taken, He removed the whole
weight of sins through the full confession of but one word. If we
consider also the beginning of the call and salvation of mankind, in
which, as the Apostle says, we are saved not of ourselves, nor of our
works, but by the gift and grace of God, we can clearly see how the
whole of perfection is “not of him that willeth nor of him that
runneth, but of God that hath mercy,” who makes us victorious
over our faults, without any merits of works and life on our part to
outweigh them, or any effort of our will availing to scale the
difficult heights of perfection, or to subdue the flesh which we have
to use: since no tortures of this body, and no contrition of
heart, can be sufficient for the acquisition of that true chastity of
the inner man so as to be able to gain that great virtue of purity
(which is innate in the angels alone and indigenous as it were to
heaven) merely by human efforts, i.e., without the aid of God: for the
performance of everything good flows from His grace, who by multiplying
His bounty has granted such lasting bliss, and vast glory to our feeble
will and short and petty course of life.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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