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| Chapter XVI. Of the grace of God; to the effect that it transcends the narrow limits of human faith.
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Chapter XVI.
Of the grace of God; to the effect that it transcends
the narrow limits of human faith.
But let no one imagine
that we have brought forward these instances to try to make out that
the chief share in our salvation rests with our faith, according to the
profane notion of some who attribute everything to free will and lay
down that the grace of God is dispensed in accordance with the desert
of each man: but we plainly assert our unconditional opinion that the
grace of God is superabounding, and sometimes overflows the narrow
limits of man’s lack of faith. And this, as we remember, happened
in the case of the ruler in the gospel, who, as he believed that it was
an easier thing for his son to be cured when sick than to be raised
when dead, implored the Lord to come at once, saying: “Lord, come
down ere my child die;” and though Christ reproved his lack of
faith with these words: “Except ye see signs and wonders ye will
not believe,” yet He did not manifest the grace of His Divinity
in proportion to the weakness of his faith, nor did He expell the
deadly disease of the fever by His bodily presence, as the man believed
he would, but by the word of His power, saying: “Go thy way, thy
son liveth.”1856
And we read
also that the Lord poured forth this superabundance of grace in the
case of the cure of the paralytic, when, though he only asked for the
healing of the weakness by which his body was enervated, He first
brought health to the soul by saying: “Son, be of good cheer, thy
sins be forgiven thee.” After which, when the scribes did not
believe that He could forgive men’s sins, in order to confound
their incredulity, He set free by the power of His word the man’s
limb, and put an end to his disease of paralysis, by saying: “Why
think ye evil in your hearts? Whether is easier to say, thy sins be
forgiven thee, or to say, arise and walk? But that ye may know that the
Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, then saith He to the
sick of the palsy: Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine
house.”1857
And in the
same way in the case of the man who had been lying for thirty-eight
years near the edge of the pool, and hoping for a cure from the moving
of the water, He showed the princely character of His bounty unasked.
For when in His wish to arouse him for the saving remedy, He had said
to him: “willest thou to be made whole,” and when the man
complained of his lack of human assistance and said: “I have no
man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled,” the Lord
in His pity granted pardon to his unbelief and ignorance, and restored
him to his former health, not in the way which he expected, but in the
way which He Himself willed, saying: “Arise, take up thy bed and
go unto thine house.”1858
And what
wonder if these acts are told of the Lord’s power, when Divine
grace has actually wrought similar works by means of His servants! For
when Peter and John were entering the temple, when the man who was lame
from his mother’s womb and had no idea how to walk, asked an
alms, they gave him not the miserable coppers which the sick man asked
for, but the power to walk, and when he was only expecting the smallest
of gifts to console him, enriched him with the prize of unlooked for
health, as Peter said: “Silver and gold have I none: but such as
I have, give I unto thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise
up and walk.”1859
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