CHAPTER II.

ON THE CONSIDERATION OF THE GOODNESS AND JUSTICE OF GOD.

ACCORDING to the admonition of Scripture, think of the Lord in goodness (Wisdom i. 1); thou must not suspect Him to be cruel or inexorable; but believe Him to be pious, clement, sweet, and liberal towards those who are of good will and who repent with all their hearts. For He knows what He hath fashioned, He contemplates His own image, He considers our frailty, our wanderings, our blindness. When He is said to be terrible, or to rebuke the wicker! in His wrath, it is said not as if He were terrible in Himself, but only towards those who, having cast away holy shame, persist in the defilements of their sins: He repels and punishes their sins, as most foreign to His sweetness and purity, remaining all the while sweet 4and tranquil in Himself. Do thou, therefore, when thou dost meditate on Him, exclude every thought of terror or bitterness; and be persuaded that He looks with most merciful and benignant eyes on those things which He has created; that He also watches over then and ever keeps thee, as if thou wert the only living creature on the earth. Let those fear the justice and the anger of God, who turn not to God, who heap sins upon sins, and say, What have I done? who will not understand that they might do well (Ps. xxxv. 4): for these indeed justly fall under His anger, while they remain as they are. But the sinners who, repenting within themselves, arise, and, turning with their whole hearts to the Father of mercies, say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee” (St. Luke, xv. 18), have mercy on me: let these sinners, I say, trust in the Lord; for He will doubtless receive them, and being received He will justify them, and being justified He will at length admit them into His kingdom.

It is beyond comprehension with what charity, with what bowels of paternal love, He everywhere desires and procures our salvation. No mother ever delighted in the son of her womb so tenderly as He delights in us. A huge fire does not so quickly consume a bundle of tow cast into it as God, through His ineffable pity and mercy, pardons our sins, if we truly repent of our ill-spent life and, humbly turning to Him, seek forgiveness, resolving with our whole will to lead henceforth a better life. Nor doth He desire the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from 5his way and live (Ezech. xviii. 21, and xxxiii. 11). “If we confess our sins,” saith the Scripture, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity” (1 St. John i. 9). The more numerous and grievous are the sins which He forgives, and the more unworthy and miserable are we whom He pardons, the more doth His glory shine forth.

And who can worthily praise His unspeakable goodness, who can worthily give Him thanks for it? For since no one can attain to salvation who has not even so little charity as to repent for the love of God, at least in the last moments of his life, and to turn from his sins; be hold, God, the most merciful lover of mankind, often shows himself in the hour of death benignant and amiable even to desperate sinners, (whom he knows to be distinguished by the merits of some virtue), in order that they may grieve from their inmost hearts for having offended so gracious a Creator and Redeemer.

By this repentance they are rendered capable of being saved, and having passed through such purgation from their sins as the divine justice may require, they are admitted to the eternal joy of the heavenly kingdom. For in the deepest and most secret abyss lies hidden that inexhaustible fountain from which so much pity flows out to us, from which so much mercy is poured forth upon us; and whosoever despairs of this mercy denies that God is good and true, and blasphemes the Holy Spirit.

The devil in his malignity is accustomed to make use of this deceit; to one who intends to sin he promises that God is most clement and merciful; but 6when anyone having sinned wishes to repent, he uses every art to persuade him that He is implacable and most severe. But we must not listen to the crafty impostor. Wherefore be of good courage, and how ever much them mayest have sinned, let nothing cast thee down from holy hope,

See, however, that thou dost not deceive thyself, and promising thyself certain forgiveness, dost not persevere in thy evil courses and put off thy conversion: for many perish through this delusion. Remission of sins is promised thee indeed, if even in the last extremity of life thou truly repentest, that is for love of God rather than for fear of punishment; but thou art not promised that thou wilt then truly repent. This sort of repentance which is deferred to the end of life is very doubtful, very perilous, and it is not always true. Therefore, in order that at the hour of death thou mayest safely pass hence, do penance, and amend thy life while thou art in health and hast still the power to sin. For if thou ceasest to sin when thou canst sin no longer, thou dost not abandon sin, but sin abandons thee.