©I VINE- ©RACE
REV DR. M.Jos. SCHEEBEN
THE GLORIES
or
DIVINE GRACE,
A FREE RENDERING OF The Original Treatise of P. Eusebius Niereinberg, S. J.
Dr. M. JOS. SCHEEBEN,
fessor in the Archiepiscopal Seminary at Cologne.
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A BENEDICTINE MONK OF ST. MEINRAD'S ABBEY, IND
/it/i the consent of the Author and the permission of the Superior.
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BENZIGER BROTHERS,
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Coloniae die 25 Aprilis 1SG4.
Vicarius Archiepiscopi m spir. gen. de niandut
DR. Buoix.
FOR THE TRANSLATION.
ion of the
RKV. DEAR FATHER:
.... I very cheerfully add my approbation to that of the lit. llc-v. I-1. Abbot, and pi-ay that the blessing- of Ood may descend upon your lovinu labors.
Believe me, etc.,
i|i FRANCIS SILAS,
Bp of Vincenne*. Indianapolis, Ind.. Dec. .'iOtli, 1885.
CoPYinniiT. ISSO, BMEXZIGKR BROTH KRi
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
" Of making many books there is no end." True, but if the world multiplies books without number for indiffer ent and evil purposes, why should the children of Holy Church be less zealous in propagating books, which are written for the noblest of ends, and upon subjects of the highest interest and utility ? If learned men of the present age make such great endeavors to popularize theories of natural science, why should not ministers of religion ply the pen in explaining and inculcating the supernatural truths of Divine revelation ? Among the teachings of Revelation there is one particularly of supreme importance and beauty ; that, namely, on Divine Grace. Yet in the English, no less than in the German language, there exist but few works on this subject, and fewer still that are suited to the capacity of the people ! The work, which is hereby offered to the English community, has for its au thor a very prominent Catholic theologian of Germany. It is written with his habitual depth and fertility of thought, thoroughness of method, aptness of illustration, and extensive erudite learning. Its style breathes the au thor's own warm admiration for the subject he treats, and thus lends an additional charm and value to his ex position. All these reasons have determined the transla tor, though little confident in his own ability, to venture to place the book into the hands of English-speaking Chris tians. He has throughout confined himself, as much as possible, to the letter of the text. The author, when kind ly giving his permission for the translation, asked to be
1 Eccl. xii. 12.
4 Translator s Preface.
recommended to the prayers of the reader. The translator humbly joins in this request, and hopes that this prayer may draw down some blessing of God upon his imperfect attempt.
ST. MEIXRAD, IXD., Feast of St. Francis Xavier? 1885.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
To THE FIRST EDITION.
The present work follows close upon two other similar works, which I have recently published, because it is in timately connected with them and is their essential com plement.
In " Nature and Grace " I have endeavored to develop the doctrine of grace in a speculative manner, and by the publication of Casini's " Quid est homo " I wished to furnish the positive basis and support for the speculative treatise. It only remained then to issue also a popular treatise on the doctrine of grace and to explain its practical import ance. The material for this was given in the two works mentioned.
In an article of the Katliolik (Mayence, Dec., 1860), I have already called attention to the immense practical importance of the doctrine of grace, especially of the su pernatural element in this doctrine. I have, at the same time, pointed out how in the pulpit and in literature this subject had not received the consideration due to it. It is, indeed, a matter of much surprise that, in the whole range of our literature, there is scarcely one popular dog matical or ascetical work, which treats ex professo, or even with some thoroughness and completeness, of grace ; and yet there is scarcely any subject more important, more beautiful and fruitful than that of grace. I will dwell no longer on this point, as I hope that the reading of this little work may at least prove that my undertaking has been both thankful and timely.
Perhaps many have been deterred from a similar under-
6 Author's Preface.
taking by the difficulties attending it, and I should also have been so deterred, had I not considered the present ur gent want of such a work to indicate a call of God and the assurance of His assistance. Furthermore, I found an able preparatory work, which I could take for a basis, the book, namely, of the well-known P. Eusebius Nieremberg, " Pe pretio inestimabili divinae gratia?. "
To my regret I could not find the original or even a com plete translation, though I sought it for years. I found only a very imperfect abridgment of the work with the title, k< Cogitationes solidae de pretio inestimabili divinae gratis," which was published at Wiirzburg as a New Years gift of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. I therefore could not think of translating Nieremberg, especially since the original, too, which I had seen many years ago, did not carry out the dogmatical explanation, from a supernatural point of view, as carefully and thoroughly as I should have wished.
Nevertheless, I supposed I could do nothing better than to follow Nieremberg as closely as possible ; I have there fore, on the whole, retained the division of the work, trans - placed but few chapters, and also added but few, viz.: Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, in the third book. Chapter 5, in the fourth book, Chapters 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, in the fifth book. Much matter, however, which was not so pertinent to the subject, I have omitted. Furthermore, I have taken over much material, sometimes entire, in free translation, par ticularly in the first and fourth book.
The dogmatic exposition in most, as well as the practical application in many of the chapters, is either entirely or in great part my own work. I have also added nearly all the longer passages from the Fathers. The second and fifth book I have recast almost entirely from new material, and thus I may call two-thirds of the book my own production.
If I, nevertheless, place Nieremberg's name at the head of the work, it is out of gratitude for this great and
Author's Preface. 7
holy man, to whom I am indebted for the leading ideas in the work, and to whose prayers I consider all the blessing attributable which Clod has bestowed upon it, or may in future bestow upon it. At the same time it may serve to re-introduce this man into Germany (to which he belonged by descent, though he lived and labored in distant Spain), and to call attention to his other ascetical writings, which are unduly neglected and ignored.
Many readers will consider the teachings here proposed either too novel or too disputable to be used for the instruc tion of the people. But the principles from which we proceed are principles of faith, and all our propositions are at least the teachings of many holy Fathers, or the ap proved opinions of great theologians. In many places, where it was convenient, we have expressly demonstrated this, though generally we have omitted to do so, lest the book might receive too learned an appearance. He who desires a more complete demonstration, will find it partly in Casini's '•'Quid est homo," in Habert's " Theologia Grsecornm Patrum de gratia," and especially in Suarez'^De gratia," whose approved teaching I followed in nearly all points.
My general endeavor has been to render method and style as popular as possible, so that the book might be ac cessible not only to theological circles, but also to those of the people who are qualified to understand the supernat ural glories of grace, not so much by learning and science, as by the light of Divine grace and the docility of an ardent faith. This was required also by the practical end which I had in view, in common with Nieremberg, namely, to withdraw the hearts of men from the vanities of this world and to direct them to a higher, heavenly, supernat ural world, to inspire them with love for the Author of grace and His institution of it, to lead them to an ever closer attachment to the Church of Christ, to foster and cultivate Christian life, and especially to exhibit to Chris tians the abundant cause they have for rejoicing in tJieir hob/ religion. For the beauty and pride of the Catholic
8 Authors Preface.
faith consists precisely in this, that in the mysteries of grace it proposes to us an inestimably high elevation of our nature and an unspeakably intimate union with God.
I should consider myself happy if I had contributed any thing toward the attainment of this end. I have at least the confidence that in this work pastors and teachers of the people may find a new and rich mine for the instruc tion of the people, which is scarcely yet opened, and that they may thus turn it to very profitable account, notwith standing its defects. A number of my friends, competent judges, who had formerly read the work, have confirmed me in this hope. May the Author of grace realize it through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin, the first-born daughter and Mother of grace, and especially, al so, through the intercession of the venerable P. Nieremberg, who in his time has defended and glorified the Immaculate Conception of Mary in as brilliant and magnificent a man ner as he has praised and proclaimed the glories of Divine . grace.
COLOGNE, Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, 1862.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
To THE FOURTH EDITION.
I have only to remark, that I have again subjected this work, which is especially dear to me, to a careful revision. In point of matter I found little to change, but the ex pression has in many places been rendered more clear and precise.
May the book, with the blessing of God, lead many read ers, in these troubled times, to be consoled and edified by the consideration of the glories and the blessedness of Di vine grace.
COLOGNE, Feast of the Epiphany, 1885.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Translator's Preface, . . 3
Author's Preface to First Edition, . . 5
Author's Preface to Fourth Edition, . . .9
Introduction, . . . . 15
FIIIST BOOK. — Of the Nature of Grace. CHAPTER
I. How deplorable it is that men should have so little re gard for grace, . .. . - . • . 23
II. Grace should be prized very highly, because it is infi nitely superior to all natural things, . .28 III. Grace is still more sublime than miracles, . .32 T V. We are elevated far above our nature by grace, . 37 " V. Grace is a participation in the uncreated Divine nature, 41 /- VI. The participation in the Divine nature is a supernatural
similarity to it, . . . . ' . 47 Y
VII. With the participation in the Divine nature grace con fers upon us the highest perfection, . .51 VIII. Grace elevates man to the participation in the Divine
cognition, to the immediate vision of Divine glory, 55 v IX. Grace makes us partakers of the sanctity of the Divine
nature, . . . . . .61
X. Grace gives us a new, higher nature, . . .65^
XT. Grace is in a certain sense infinite, :. . .70
XII. Grace and the Incarnation of the Son of God, . 74
XIII. Grace and the dignity of the Mother of God, . 81
XIV. How much God Himself esteems Grace, 8(5
1 2 Contents.
SECOND BOOK. — Of the Sublime and Incomprehensible Union
uith God to which Grace introduces us.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. By grace we receive the person of the Holy Spirit into
our soul, . . . . . .94
II. The whole Blessed Trinity is introduced into our soul
by grace, ...... 105
III. By grace the Holy Ghost communicates to us His own
life, 110
IV. Grace makes us children of God, first by adoption, 118
V. The Divine sonship — Regeneration, . . . 127
VI. The wonderful nourishment of the children of God, 136
VII. Grace establishes the relation of a true friendship be
tween God and ourselves, . ". . 146
VIII. The ineffable love which God bears us, when we are
in the state of grace, . . . .157
IX. The heavenly beauty which grace confers upon the
soul, . . . . . .163
X. Grace makes our soul a true spouse of God, . .173
XI. By grace we participate in the empire of God and His
dominion over all things, . . .184
XII. The exceedingly intimate union with God w^hich grace
effects in us, . .. . . .190
THIRD BOOK. — Of the Effects and Fruits of Grace. I. Light, a symbol of grace, . . . . 203
II. The wonderful power which grace has to destroy mortal
sin in us, . . . . . 214
III. Grace infuses into our hearts the supernatural Divine
virtues, ...... 220
IV. Supernatural Divine Faith, .... 226 V. Supernatural Divine Hope, . . . . 234
VI. Supernatural Divine Charity, .... 239 VII. The supernatural moral virtues, . . . 247
VIII. By grace we receive the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost,
which are accompanied by the Eight Beatitudes of Christ and the Fruits of the Holy Ghost, . 253
IX. Sanctifying grace brings with it the supernatural actual
graces of the Holy Ghost, . . . 263
X. The infinite value which grace communicates to our
works for meriting eternal glory, . . 272
Contents. 1 3
CHAPTER PAGE
XL The inestimable privilege of grace, that by the works performed in it, we may render satisfaction for the punishment of sin deserved, . .. . . 284
XII. By grace we enter into a wonderful communion of
goods with Christ and the saints, . . 287
XIII. The wronderf ul power which grace manifests in the
weakness of our nature, .... 293
FOURTH BOOK. — Of some other Effects and Prerogatives
of Divine Grace.
I. Grace makes us worthy in every respect of a special
Divine Providence, . . . - . 301
II. Grace enjoys the company of numerous hosts of angels, 307
III. Outside of grace there is no true happiness in this world, 312
IV. The grace of God makes us far happier than does the
grace of man, ..... 320
V. In grace we find the highest enlightenment, the truest
liberty, and the greatest progress, . . 324
VI. How much the angels esteem grace, . . . 332
VII. We must have a greater esteem for grace in us than the
angels and the saints of the Old Law, . . 338
VIII. How the saints of the New Law valued grace, and how
much they did for its sake, . . .341
FIFTH BOOK. — Of the Acquisition, Exercise, Increase and Preservation of Grace.
I. The acquisition of grace, . . . .347
II. Supernatural faith, the first preparation for the reception
of grace, . . . . . .353
III. The fear of God, the second preparation for the reception
of grace, . . . . . .362
IV. Supernatural hope in God, the third preparation for
grace, . . . . . . 367
V. Contrition, the fourth and last preparation for grace, 372 VI. The supernatural life, which we must lead in the state
of grace, . . . . .378
VII. The exercise of supernatural love of God, . . 388
VIII. The exercise of supernatural love of our neighbor, . 397
IX. The exercise of supernatural humility and chastity, . 401
Contents.
CHAPTER
X. Faith, the food of the life of grace, XI. The continual progress we must make in the supernatural
life of grace, and the facility of such progress, 424 XII. How careful we should be, not to stain and dishonor
grace by venial sin, . • 437
XIII. The preservation of grace until the end.
INTRODUCTION.
1. "All good things came to me together with her, and in numerable riches through her hands. She is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use, become the friends of God, being commended for the gifts of discipline.'' 1
These beautiful words which the Book of Wisdom speaks in praise of the wisdom that comes from God, may also be applied to Divine grace. The true and heavenly wis dom of which Holy Scripture speaks, is, indeed, that super natural enlightenment which the sun of eternal wisdom infuses into our souls from the bosom of Divine light. This wisdom is itself a grace, or rather the most beautiful and glorious fruit of grace in our soul.
When, therefore, St. John, in the beginning of his Gospel, wishes to express in a word the whole plenitude of the treas ures and gifts which the Son of God brought into this world at His Incarnation, he says : " We saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. " 2 Grace again it is which the Apostle Paul, at the beginning and at the end of his Epistles, wishes the faith ful : " Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." We do not hesitate, then, to say that grace is the most precious, and, since it contains all other gifts, is the only great good, which is the subject of the Gospel, that joyful heavenly message brought to this earth by the Son of God. By grace we are made true children of God and acquire the right to the possession of the highest gifts that God can bestow upon His creatures, even to the possession of God Himself, who wishes to be-
1 Wisdom vii. 11, 14. 2 John i. 14.
1 6 Introduction.
come the inheritance of His children, with all His infinite glory and happiness.
" Most great and precious promises" St. Peter tells us, " liatli God given us by Him; that by these yon may be made partakers of tlie Divine nature" They are most great, because they surpass all created things, be these ever so good and noble, and. precious, because they contain the best that God, in His omnipotence, can give us ; they are infinitely precious, as is the price paid for them, the blood of the Son of God. The prince of the Apostles indicates himself the reason of this greatness, when he adds : " that by these you may be made partakers of the Divine nature.'' Can there be anything greater for a creature than to be elevated from its natural lowliness and nothingness, to participate in the nature of the Creator and be associated with Him ?
This one word expresses the whole greatness and glory of grace, and tells what a great and sublime mystery grace must be. Grace is that " mystery of Christ," of which the Apostle says : " Wliicli in oilier generations was not lenoivn to the sons of men, as it is now revealed to His holy Apostles and Prophets in the Spirit. That the Gentiles shou Id ~be fellow-lieirs, and of the same body, and co-partners of His promise in Christ Jesus ly the Gospel."* Grace is that mystery of which the same Apostle says, it hath not entered into the heart of man, but could be revealed to us by the Spirit of God, who searcheth all things, even the profound things of God.3 The more grace is a mystery, the more concealed it is from our natural eye, the more incomprehen sible and ineffable it is ; the greater must appear to us its value, the higher its glory, and the more comprehensive its riches.
2. This sweet and sublime mystery is too little known even among Christians, although the teachings of Holy Scripture and the Holy Church sufficiently enlighten us about it, and the lack of this knowledge is the more lam-
1 II. Peter i. 4. 2 Eph. ill. 4-6. 3 I. Cor. ii. 9, 10.
Introduction. 1 7
entable, as the knowledge of the doctrine of grace alone can lead us to understand and appreciate our exalted dignity, our great hopes, and the inexhaustible wealth of the merits of Christ.
At the mention of the grace of God, we often represent to ourselves nothing but the restoration of God's favor, lost by sin, or such gifts of Divine love as will assist our weak nature in avoiding sin and in the practice of virtue. Certainly, forgiveness of sins and this protection and assistance must also be accounted effects of God's grace, but these effects alone do not constitute its highest value and its innermost nature.
Forgiveness of sin is a grace on the part of God and re stores to us that benevolent love which God bestowed up on us before sin. But we must ask : Wliicli love did God bear us previous to our sin ; was it a love equal only to the worth of our human nature, or was it a greater, an ampler love, that gave additional beauty to our nature, and elevated it to the heart of God unto a fraternal union with His Divine Son ?
Grace strengthens our weakened nature against the temptation to evil and in the performance of good works ; it facilitates the fulfilment of our duties and the attain ment of our last end. But here again the question pre sents itself : Does grace unite itself with man in his natu ral condition, and, by co-operating with his inborn virtue, assist and strengthen nature, does grace only temper na ture — or does it elevate and transform it, and communi cate to it a new nature, a new force, a new life, and new laws of life ?
A correct solution to these questions is of primary im portance, and we can arrive at it easily by a clear and dis tinct definition of the term i( Christian Grace : "
3. Grace means, in the first place, that benevolent love which a superior entertains for an inferior, for instance, a master for his servant, a sovereign for his subject, and in our condition, God for His rational creature, especially
1 8 Introduction.
\vlion this love is united to the pleasure and complacency -'which the former takes in the good qualities and good deeds of the latter.
At the same time, however, we apply the word grace also to the effect of that love and to the object or the cause of that pleasure. Thus we ppy that we ask a grace of God or of man when we ask Him to grant us a favor on account of the condescending, benevolent love He bears us. Holy Scrip ture, likewise, applies the name grace to that beauty, good ness, and loveliness which render us worthy of the pleas ure and love of God : " Grace is poured abroad in thy lips : therefore hath God blessed tliee for ever."
But we must add another distinction of importance, viz., that we receive a twofold favor and grace from a superior person ; first, a certain general, ordinary., merited, and nec essary grace ; and then, a very special, extraordinary, unde served, and gratuitous grace ; and this latter alone is, strictly and properly speaking, grace. Let us illustrate this by the conduct of a good and noble sovereign. He will truly love all his subjects, though they are inferior to him, or rather on that very account, because they are his subjects, and all will share his favor and goodness according to their relative position and merit. If he does no more than this, he fulfils only his duty and obligation, and he may be called gracious and kind, but he will not be said to receive any one unto special favor. This will be the case, then, only when he loves all or some of his subjects in a greater degree and bestows upon them greater gifts than he is in duty obliged, and their position or services are entitled to claim. Es pecially, then, will he be gracious, when of his own free will he embraces his subjects with the full love that he bears his own children and himself ; when in his kindness he condescends to associate with them as with his friends, thereby elevating them from their lowliness and surround ing them with royal honors ; when he, in consequence,
1 Ps. xliv. 3.
Introduction. 1 9
raises them above their original condition and makes them, as far as possible, equal to himself and his children.
Let us apply this example to the grace of God, of which royal favor is but a faint shadow. God is the highest King of Heaven and of earth, because He has created all, be cause all things are His and are destined for His service and glory. As He has created all things out of love, so He loves all His creatures ineffably and with most gracious con descension, but He naturally loves the rational more than the irrational, because they are His image and are capable of knowing and loving Him. His Divine complacency rests upon them, because He has created them good, as long as they do not offend Him by mortal sin and remain worthy of His first love by faithful observance of His command ments. In a certain sense, then, the rational creature can, by its nature already and its natural good works, merit the favor and love of God. For the same reason we may, according to the opinion of St. Augustine, call every nat ural good and gift of God a grace, since God was not obliged to create us and has given us all these natural goods out of gratuitous love.
But ivlien once He has created us, He must, as a good and wise Creator, love us as His creatures, and grant us all those things that are indispensably necessary to attain to our natural destiny. That favor and grace, then, which we have just mentioned, is grace not in a particular and strict sense, but only in a general sense of the word. Nor is it the Christian grace, which Christ has brought into this world and which His Gospel, His Apostles, the holy Fathers, and Holy Church proclaim. This is grace in the highest and strictest sense of the word : a very par ticular, gratuitous, condescending, and full grace of God, which makes us His particular favorites.
By the first kind of grace God loves us, as we deserve it on account of our nature and our natural good works. By the latter grace, however, He loves us in a very par ticular manner, in a supernatural manner, infinitely more
2o Introduction.
than we would deserve according to our nature. From pure and spontaneous love He descends from the height of His royal throne to our lowliness, in order to elevate us in finitely above our nature. He loves us with an unbounded and overflowing love, as much, so to speak, as is in His power ; He loves us as Himself and as His only begotten Son ; He assumes, therefore, our soul as His child, His friend, His spouse, makes it the associate of His own glory and happiness, and gives Himself to the soul for eternal pos session and enjoyment.
As we now, in a perfect and in the Christian sense, call only this supernatural love of God for us grace, so we in the same sense designate only those gifts of God as graces, that are entirely supernatural and precious above others and proceed from that supernatural love of God. In the same manner, not every pleasure that God may take in His rational creature is .grace in the Christian sense, but that pleasure alone by which He delights in our soul on account of the supernatural beauty and loveliness it has received from Him by His supernatural love.
4. Here we must point out a very essential difference be tween the grace of man and the grace of God : man may love others more, and confer upon them greater gifts than they desire, but he is unable to make them more amiable and pleasing to himself than they are in them selves. God, however, by His supernatural love, confers a supernatural beauty and amiability on the soul, by which it becomes similar to Him in His Divine nature and reflects the image of His Divinity.
This internal, real, and supernatural amiability and pleasingness to God of our soul is also called grace, and that in an eminent sense, first, because it is the principal effect of God's supernatural love, and again, because it is the special object of His highest pleasure. It is that which we call habitual, sanctifying grace, the grace of sonship, or simply and directly grace, and which is described by the Roman Catechism in the following words : ' ' Grace, ac-
Introduction. 2 1
cording to the definition of the Council of Trent,1 a definition to which, nnder pain of anathema, we are bound to defer, not only remits sin, but is also a Divine quality inherent in the soul, and, as it were, a brilliant light that effaces all those stains which obscure the lustre of the soul, and invests, it ivitli increased brightness and beauty." *
We shall, then, in harmony with the use of the Church and the Council of Trent, speak of grace especially in the last sense, when we treat now of its glories and its inesti mable value. We must observe, however, that the so-called supernatural actual graces and the virtues of faith and hope, which may be separated from sanctifying grace, are not made to suffer by this distinction, but rather thereby appear in the full lustre of their glory and value. As they serve only to convey sanctifying grace to the soul, or to increase or preserve it, it is evident that their Divine power and great importance is rendered more prominent by portraying the full greatness and glory of the latter.
5. Ineffably great are the mysteries that we are about to reveal, and it is difficult to describe them in a manner worthy of their greatness and at the same time suitable to every capacity.
Yet we are consoled by the words of St. Leo, spoken with reference to the mystery of redemption, but equally applic able to the mystery of grace : * ' Although this is difficult, yet the priest is not free to withhold from the faithful the ministry of his word in this great mystery of Divine mercy, because the very ineffableness of the subject furnishes matter for speech, and when that which we say can never suffice, enough always remains to be said. May human weakness, therefore, always succuml) to the glory of God, and always find itself insufficient to explain the works of His mercy. May our sense be troubled, our understanding em barrassed, our expression deficient ; it is good that whatever knowledge concerning the Divine Majesty we do acquire, we find it less than we wish to possess." 3 Moreover, we may
1 Sess. 6, C. 7. De justif. '2 De bapt. N. 49. 3 Serm. 11, On the Passion of our Lord.
2 2 Introduction.
confidently hope that the grace whose glories we describe will, if ever, especially now enlighten us and our readers,, if we only approach its consideration with childlike sim plicity, with a pure heart and deep humility. For as God " resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble," so He will let the humble understand the greatness of this grace. To the mysteries of grace the words of Christ are aptly re ferred : " I confess to Thee, 0 Father, Lord of Heav en and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones." '
If, however, Christian reader, in the course of this expla nation, now and then something should appear to you alto gether singular, new and unintelligible, remember what St. Paul says of the riches of grace : 2 " God is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand," and rest assured that we shall advance nothing that is not supported by the clear teachings of Holy Writ, or the distinct utterances of the greatest Doctors of the Church.
The following is a synopsis of the contents and division of this work :
Theftr-st book explains the nature of sanctifying grace, and shows that it is a supernatural quality infused into our soul by God, by which we are elevated above our own na ture and participate in the Divine nature or become simi lar unto it.
The second book describes how our soul is united to God in a supernatural and wonderful manner by this elevation, and is made His child, friend, and spouse.
The third book continues to explain the effects which grace produces in our soul, especially the supernatural, heavenly, and Divine life it creates in us.
The fourth book adds some other effects and prerogatives which ought to lead us to prize grace very highly.
The fifth book finally indicates how we may acquire this grace, whose glories and prerogatives we have considered, and how, once having acquired it, we ought to guard and esteem it, and co-operate with it.
Matthew xi. 25. « Epb. iii. 20.
:irst Ibook.
Of the Nature of Grace.
FIRST CHAPTER.
How Deplorable it is that Men should have so Little Regard for Grace.
1.
I HE grace of God, which we consider, is a ray of Divine beauty, infused from Heaven into the soul of man, and penetrating its innermost nature with such a bright and beautiful light, that the soul de lights the eye of God, is most tenderly loved by Him, is adopted as His child and spouse, is elevated above all limits of nature from earth to Heaven. By grace the soul is re ceived into the bosom of the Eternal Father, and at the side of His Divine Son participates in His nature, His life and glory, and inherits the realm of His eternal happiness. But our intellect cannot keep pace with our tongue, whilst it proclaims new wonders at every word that it utters. And how should we be able to understand these sublime heavenly gifts, when even the blessed spirits, who already possess and enjoy these gifts, cannot fully compre hend and appreciate their value ? They, too, in beholding the throne of Divine mercy, can but admire in deepest reverence His unbounded grace and goodness. But they must likewise marvel at our incredible, miserable blind ness, when we esteem the grace of God so little, seek it so negligently, and lose it so easily. They sorrow over our un-
24 The Glories of Divine Grace.
speakable misfortune, when we by sin cast ourselves from the throne of that heavenly dignity, to which grace had raised us, and which exceeded the natural dignity of the highest angels, into the deepest abyss, into the company of the brute and the reprobate spirits. And we are not horri fied, we do not shudder, we scarce experience the slightest regret !
The Angel of the schools teaches * that the whole world, and all it contains, is of less value before God than the grace of a single man. Yea, St. Augustine maintains2 that the whole Heaven, together with all angels, cannot be compared with it. It would follow, then, that man ought to be more thankful to God for the smallest share of grace, than if he had received the perfections of the highest spirits and were made king of Heaven and the whole world, with full possession of all power and dominion. How in finitely superior in value, then, is grace to all the riches of this earth !
And yet the least of these is often blindly preferred to grace, and the most detestable of them induces us to cast away grace sacrilegiously, and that, as it were, in playful jest. There are always men who wantonly surrender to the enemy of their soul this whole plenitude of gifts, which includes God Himself, only that they may indulge one sinful, unchaste look at an impure object ! who, more inconsiderate than Esau, lose an inheritance greater than the whole world, for a miserable momentary enjoyment !
• 2. " Be astonished, 0 ye heavens, at this: and ye gates thereofbe very desolate."* Who would be so rash and in sane, if one brief sinful pleasure should cause the sun to disappear from the world, the stars to'fall from Heaven, and all the elements to be disturbed, who were so mad as to sacrifice the whole world to his lust ? But what is the de struction of the universe compared with the loss of grace ? Yet this loss occurs so easily and frequently with so many people, I will not say every day, but at every moment : and
1 Thorn. 1. 2. q. 113. a 9 ad 2. a Aug. 1. ad Bocif. c. 6- 3 Jerem. ii. 12.
Man has so Little Regard for Grace. 25
how few are there that seek to prevent this loss in them selves or others, or that at least mourn and weep over it !
We are awe-stricken at an eclipse of the sun, that lasts not even an hour, at an earthquake that buries a whole city, at a pestilential disease that swiftly carries off men and beasts in great number. Yet there is an occurrence far worse, far more terrible and deplorable, which we behold thousands of times everyday with tearless eye, without emo tion, when, namely, so many miserable men lose the grace of God every day and neglect the most convenient opportuni ties of acquiring it again or increasing it.
Elias could not witness the overthrow of a mountain;1 the prophet Jeremias was inconsolably grieved at the deso lation of the Holy City ; Job's friends mourned seven days in silence at his lost fortune. We, indeed, may then eter nally grieve and weep; our sorrow will not even in a slight degree equal the misfortune that befalls us when sin dev astates the heavenly garden in our soul, when we cast off the reflex of Divine nature, the queen of virtues, holy charity, with all her heavenly following, the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit Himself; the sonship of God, the prerogatives of His friendship, the claim to His rich inheritance, the price and fruit of the sacraments and our merits; when, in a word, we lose God and the whole Heaven, grace with all its innumerable, precious treasures.
The soul that loses grace may truly apply to itself the words of Jeremias in his Lamentations : 2 "How hath the Lord covered with obscurity the daughter of Sion in His wrath ? How hath He cast down from Heaven to the earth the glorious one of Israel, and hath not remembered His foot stool in the day of His anger. The Lord hath cast down headlong and hath not spared all that was beautiful in Jacob." But who considers this great misfortune, who grieves over it, and who is restrained from new sins by this grief ? " With desolation is all the land made desolate; because there is none that consider 'eth in the heart." 3
1 III. Kings xix. 2 Lament, ii. 1-2. 3 Jerem. xii. 11.
26 The Glories of Divine Grace.
Oh, how little do we love our true fortune, our true advan tage, how little do we understand the infinite love with which God comes to offer us His most precious treasures ! We act in the same manner as did the Israelites, whom God desired to lead out of the slavery of Egypt and the barren desert, into a land that flowed with milk and honey. They despised the undeserved, inestimable gift that God offered them, despised even the manna that God gave them on their journey, they abandoned Him and longed again after the fleshpots of Egypt. The promised land, however, was only a figure of Heaven and the manna a figure of grace, which is to nourish and strengthen us on the way to Heav en. If, now, " God lifted up His hand over them, who set at naught the desirable land, to overtliroiv them in the desert," ' how great a responsibility do we incur by a disregard for Heaven and grace, since the contempt for the prototype was already punished so severely !
We disregard grace, however, because we permit ourselves to be too deeply impressed by our senses with the tran sitory things, and have but a superficial knowledge of the true and heavenly things. We must, therefore, endeavor to correct our error by a deep and careful consideration of both, and the esteem for the eternal things will increase in us, in the same degree as that for the temporal dimin ishes. We must approach as near as possible to the over flowing and inexhaustible fountain of Divine grace, and the glory of its treasures will so delight us, that we henceforth will contemn the earthly things. Thus we learn to admire and esteem grace, and he who admires and praises grace, says vSt. John Chrysostom, will zealously and carefully guard it. Let us, then, with the Divine assistance, begin "the praise of the glory of His grace." 2
And then, great and good God, Father of Light and of Mercy, from whom cometh every perfect gift? who hast predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Thyself, according to the purpose of Thy
1 Ps. cv. 24-23. 3 Eph. I. 6. 3 James i. 17.
Man has so Little Regard for Grace. 27
will,1 wlio hast chosen us in Thee before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in Thy sight in charity, give us the spirit of wisdom and of revelation, enligJiten the eyes of our heart, that we may knoiv ivhat is the hope of our calling, and what are the riches of the glory of Thy inheritance in the saints."2 Give me light and strength that my words may not be prejudicial to the gift of Thy grace, by which Thou dost raise men from the dust of their mortal origin and receivest them into Thy heavenly court.
Christ Jesus, our Saviour, Son of the living God, by Thy precious Blood Thou hast shed for us poor creatures, and which Thou didst not consider too great a price for us, grant me that I may in some measure reveal the inestima ble value of grace to those whom Thou hast redeemed and restored to grace.
And Thou, Highest and Holiest Spirit, Pledge and Zeal of Divine love, Sanctifier of our soul, by whom the grace and love of God is infused into our hearts, by whose seven gifts this grace and love is developed, who givest us Thyself with grace, teach us what grace is and how precious it is.
Blessed Mother of God, and, therefore, Mother of His Divine grace, permit me to make known to those who have by grace become children of God and thy own children, the treasures to procure which thou hast offered thy Divine Son.
Holy angels, ye spirits filled and glorified by the light and fire of Divine grace, and ye holy souls who have already passed from this place of exile into the bosom of the heavenly "Father, and there enj.oy the sweet fruit of grace, assist me by your prayers, that I may for myself and others dispel the deceptive cloud before our eyes, re veal the sun of grace in brightest undimmed splendor, and by its transcendent beauty kindle in our hearts a living and everlasting love and desire for it.
1 Eph. i. 5. 2 Ibid. 4, 18.
SECOND CHAPTER.
Grace should be Prized very highly, because it is Infinitely Superior to all Natural Things.
1.
|E begin with the least prerogative of grace, namely, that it is infinitely above all natural things. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, according to the assurance of our Saviour," says St. Augustine, " but the salvation and justice of the elect will remain ; the former contains only the works of God, these latter the image of God." St. Thomas again teaches, 2 that it is a greater work to bring a sinner back to grace, than to create Heaven and earth. For the objects of the latter work are transitory and temporal things ; the former work is so much greater, because it leads to the participation in the immutable Divine nature. In creation God erects for Himself only a dwelling ; in giving man a rational nature, He places His servants and creatures in this dwelling ; but when He gives man His grace, He receives him unto His bosom, makes him His child, and communicates to him His own eternal life.
In a word, grace is altogether a supernatural gift, that is, a gift which no created nature can possess by itself, or even lay claim to, and which properly belongs only to the highest nature of God Himself. This is so true that the most prominent and the greatest number of theologians maintain that God cannot produce a created being that would, from its nature, already possess grace ; they even say, if we should suppose such a creature, this creature would not differ from God Himself.
Closely connected with this opinion is the oft-repeated and distinct decision of the Church, that neither man nor
1 Aug- tr. 72, iu Joannem. 2 I. 2 q. 113. a 9. in corp.
Grace should be Prized very highly. 29
any other creature bears in his nature even the least germ of grace, and that, as St. Augustine frequently remarks, nature is related similarly to grace, as inanimate matter is to the principle of its life. Matter in itself, without life, cannot give itself life, but must receive it from another living being. In like manner the rational creature has not of itself any grace, and cannot even acquire it by its own labor and merit ; God alone can, from pure love, give this grace, by opening the abyss of His omnipotence and pour ing out upon nature His Divine power.
How great, then, must that good be, which so eminently surpasses the nature, the power, and the merit of even the highest angels!
An equally learned and pious man J says, all visible things are far inferior to man, even if they were infinite in num ber, and St. Chrysostom holds that there is nothing in this world that may be compared to man. St. Augustine, how ever,2 adds that it is better to be just and holy than to be a man or an angel; and St. Thomas teaches that grace is worth more than the human soul.
Indeed, we may well say that grace surpasses all natural things in a manner similar to God Himself. Grace is noth ing but the heavenly light, which from the depths of the Divinity dilfuses itself over the rational creature. The sun and its light are inseparable, and as the sun is far more precious and perfect than the earth, which of itself has no such light, so is the light emitted by the sun.
Let us apply this to grace. Our nature is only the earth which receives the rays of the Divine Sun and by them is so elevated and glorified, that it becomes Divine itself. Now,, as God. whom we possess by grace, not only contains within Him the perfection of all things, but is infinitely more perfect than all things together, so grace is more precious than all created things. It is, as the Book of Proverbs says of wisdom,3 "better than all the most precious things; and lohatsoever may be desired cannot be compared to it."
1 Lessius, de div. perf. 1. 1. c. l. 2 Serm. 15, de verbis Apost. 3 Prov. viii. 11.
30 77:6' Glories of Divine Grace.
2. Let us, then,, raise our eyes to these treasures and decide whether they are to be despised or to be sought with all diligence. Were we ever so rich in natural goods, in gold and silver, in power and authority, in science and art, all this wealth vanishes into nothing before grace, as a heap of clay before a precious diamond. And if, on the other hand, we were ever so poor, by the grace of God alone we are richer than all the kings of the world ; we possess the best that the great God, in His infinite liberality, could give us.
How grateful ought we, therefore, to be to God for such a gift ! We thank Him, that He has called us into existence out of nothing, that, as the Psalmist says, ' He has subjected all things under our feet, the sheep and the oxen, the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea, and we must for that reason exclaim with the Psalmist : 2 " What is man that Thou art mindful of him 9 or the son of man, that Thou visitest him 9 " How much greater thanks must we render, then, for the supernatural treasures of grace, and how care fully must we preserve them!
A learned theologian, Cardinal Cajetan, therefore says, we must not for one moment lose sight of the value of grace, lest we might also forget the great punishment pre pared for those who despise the great gifts offered them gratuitously by God with such tender love. A similar pun ishment awaits them as awaited those men in the Gospel who were invited by the king to his banquet, but on ac count of another trifling gain or pleasure would not come. We frivolous and ungrateful men despise the invitation of God to His heavenly banquet, in order to follow the invita tion of the world and the devil, who delude us with their deceitful, miserable gifts and pleasures. The devil not on ly gives us nothing better than Clod, but something infinite ly inferior ; and even this he does not give us to make us happy, but to ruin us for all eternity. God gives us gra tuitously, with incredible love, a precious diamond; the devil very miserly and with implacable hatred gives us a bright
1 Ps. viii. 7. 2 Ibid. 5.
Grace should be Prized very highly. 3 1
but false coin. What a criminal folly is it to give up the precious diamond and purchase the counterfeit coin, only to perish miserably and cruelly.
But the immeasurable distance between grace and the natural gifts should not only prevent us from losing grace by a mortal sin, but urge us on to a fervent practice of the virtues that improve and increase it. Even if you lose no grace by omitting to assist at Holy Mass on week-days, or by neglecting an opportunity of prayer, or a work of mer cy, of mortification, and self-humiliation, you, nevertheless, suffer an immense loss if you do not increase your capital, when it is so easily possible, because the least degree of grace is worth more than all the riches of the world.
If a miser could, by a single day's fast, or a single prayer, secure a whole fleet laden with treasures from India, who could restrain him from the act or disturb him therein ? Who could impress him by representing the difficulty of his performance, or the danger of his health ? With what right, then, and prudence, or rather folly, do we pretend such a difficulty, when we are certain of a reward, the smallest share of which incomparably surpasses a thousand Indies, aye, a thousand worlds! Yet we remain idle and will not labor to cultivate a field that immediately yields a golden harvest! We are not required to shed our blood in this labor. One sigh is sufficient, one tear, one earnest resolution, one pious wish, the one word Jesus, by which we express our love for Him or invoke His assistance. Who would not gladly invoke Jesus a thousand times a day if he could thereby obtain as many coffers of gold ? And yet this is nothing in comparison with what we expect with unshaken faith to receive from God. Oh, could we impress these glorious riches of grace deeply upon our hearts, we would then repeat, not thoughtlessly, but with deep and vivid conviction, the words of a pious teacher : Grace is the mistress and queen of nature.1
1 Gerson., serin, de circumcis.
THIRD CHAPTER.
Grace is still more Sublime than Miracles.
1.
]T were not enough if grace surpassed only the natural things ; it also surpasses all miraculous works of God.
Thus St. Augustine ' understands that remarkable prom ise of our Saviour, that the faithful would do greater things yet than He Himself had performed on earth. He says we might indeed explain this promise by the fact that, for instance, St. Peter had healed the sick by his mere shadow, which we do not read of our Saviour. But it is more probable, he continues, that we are to understand here the work of justification, in which we can co-operate for ourselves and others. For, although we do not produce grace in ourselves, yet we can, with the Divine assistance, prepare ourselves for it and make ourselves worthy of it, and may encourage and induce others to do the same, and thus we shall perform greater works than Christ in His miracles.
The working of grace is more sublime and glorious than the working of miracles, for God as well as for man. God works miracles usually only in visible things, when in a supernatural manner He restores health to man or raises the dead to life. But grace He works in the soul, and by it, in a manner, creates the soul anew, elevates it above its nature, plants in it the germ of a supernatural life and re produces, so to speak, Himself in it, by the image of His own nature, which He impresses upon it. Thus the work of grace is the greatest wonder of God's omnipotence. It is greater than even the creation of the natural world out of nothing, and can only be compared with that unspeak-
Tract. 72, in Joannem.
Grace is still more Sublime than Miracles. 35
able act of God the Father, by which He produces from all eternity His own and equal Son, and in time unites with Him a human nature. As supernatural, sublime, and full of mystery as is the generation of Christ, so supernatural and mysterious is the infusion of grace into our soul, be cause, in the words of St. Leo, we thereby " participate in the generation of Christ."
However, we must co-operate in this work more than the saints could co-operate in the miracles God worked through them. They could only suffer God to act through their mediation, without being able, of their own power, to contribute anything. But in grace God wills that we our selves, with His assistance, prepare our soul for it, receive it from His hand, preserve, cultivate, and increase it.
2. 0 wonderful greatness which God has given us, taking our soul unto Himself as His spouse, that by the power re ceived from Him she may produce in herself the image of God and become the child of God ! 0 wonderful power which God has granted His Church, to communicate His grace to her children by her teaching and her sacraments ! Can man desire anything greater, co-operate in any greater work ? Will you perform a great, a wonderful work, not to be admired by foolish men, but by the angels of Heaven ? Will you be made a spectacle to the world and to the angels ? See, this is the greatest work : labor to acquire and increase grace for yourself and your fellow-men.
Oh, if men knew what a great deed it is, if by sincere contrition for their sins they abandon their past and be gin a new life ! They in reality perform a greater deed, than if they raised the dead to life or created a man out of nothing. "If God has made you man/' says St. Au gustine,1 "and you make yourself a just man (of course with God's help), your work is better than that of God."
If you could recall your deceased brother to life by con trition for your sins, would you be so full of hatred to wards God, or of cruelty towards your brother, as not to
1 Serm. 15. <le verbis Apost.
34 The Glories of Divine Grace.
do this ? Now you may easily, by one act of contrition, raise yourself from death, not that of the body, but that of the soul, and from an eternal death to an eternally bliss ful life. And yet you hesitate and refuse that wonderful assistance which God offers you.
St. Chrysostom ' also teaches that it is greater to revive a mortally wounded soul than a dead body. Who, in fact, that is not entirely blind, could esteem it greater to re-in state the body in a perishable life and the enjoyment of earthly, sensual, temporal pleasures, than to raise the soul to an eternal life, and the enjoyment of heavenly gifts, and to secure for it, as well as in and by it also for the flesh, an eternal happy life ? But if we ask miracles of God for the preservation of our corporal life, why do we not co-operate ourselves with that miracle that will restore to us the life of the soul ?
3. Not only contrition, however, which recovers the lost grace, but all good, supernatural actions, performed in a state of grace, are of great value and have a marvellous power. Every degree of grace that we acquire raises us high er above our nature, unites us more closely to God, and causes us to ascend ever more above all the heavens. Had we the power to work visible miracles, or at least to accom plish great things with ease, how zealously should we use this power, and what an honorable duty should we consider it, to turn this capital to profitable advantage ! With how much zeal do great artists and poets practise their art, and continually produce new and more beautiful works !
If we only considered what power every good work possesses for the increase of grace and the gain of eternal happiness, we should let no moment pass by without loving God, adoring Him, and praying to Him, and we should be ashamed to draw one breath without sighing to God ; we should even rejoice with the Apostles to suffer something for God's sake.2 If we knew how greatly we may enhance our dignity by a single act of virtue, we should purchase
1 Tom. 4, horn. *, antiq. ed. - Acts v. 41.
Grace is still more Sublime than Miracles. 35
the opportunity at any price and we could not bear to lose one occasion out of a hundred that .were offered us.
No man would be so cruel as not willingly to cure a sick person, or enrich a poor one, if he could do this by one small charity or a short prayer. But are we not much more cruel to ourselves, if we refuse to augment the heav enly beauty, glory, and treasures of our soul at an equally insignificant cost ? Why do we not season all our actions with the spirit of faith and charity, since then we should acquire by each action a higher degree of grace, which is nobler than all natural things and greater even than miracles ?
4. The infusion and communication of grace is itself a miracle of the highest order and greater than all other miracles. But why does it not excite our ivonder and ad miration ? Only, therefore, because it is invisible to our corporal sight, and does not occur rarely and exceptionally as other miracles, but universally and according to fixed laws. These two circumstances, however, should make it more precious in our eyes.
It is not visible because it is a miracle wrought in the soul and not in the body ; we cannot see it, because we cannot see God, with whom we are united by it ; and as God would not be the infinitely great God, if we could see Him with our natural sight, so grace would not be so great and wonderful, if it were visible to us.
If, moreover, grace is given according to a universal and fixed law, so that we may acquire it by our ordinary actions, this only reveals still more the infinite love and power of God, who is so liberal that He accomplishes this great work not at rare intervals, on extraordinary occasions, and through a few of His greatest servants only, as He does with other miracles, but connects it with our most ordinary actions and lets it disappear, as it were, in the circle of our own daily activity. Great God ! should we esteem Thy gift less for that reason, which makes us venerate Thee, the Donor, so much more, or should we appreciate it less, because Thou grant-
36 The Glories of Divine Grace.
est it to all, and at all times, and with the greatest facility, than if Thou didst grant it but once and to one man only? But if Thou would st grant it to one alone and only once, how could this one entertain the wicked thought of renounc ing the possession of this so singular gift ? Yes, 0 God, Thy bountiful liberality must induce us always to remem ber Thee, 0 most gracious Giver, and to exert all our power to preserve Thy gift in us and to hold it in highest honor.
FOURTH CHAPTER.
We Ourselves are Elevated far above our Nature by Grace.
1.
AVING shown that grace is infinitely superior to all natural things and even to miracles,, we might add, that in a certain sense it is more precious than even the heavenly glory, which appears to be the highest good that God is able to give us. For the glory of Heaven, in which the blessed see and enjoy God, is nothing else but the full development of the grace that we possess. Grace is the fountain, springing up unto ever lasting life; it is the root, of which the blossom and fruit is beatitude ; it has, then, the special privilege, that this beatitude depends upon it and is founded upon it. " TJie wages of sin is death, but the grace of God, life everlasting ," says the Apostle; l but if, according to the Apostle, grace is life eternal, then it must not only lead to that life, but al ready contain it in itself, and as sin is a greater evil than its punishment, death, so grace must be a greater good than eternal happiness considered in itself, for we merit it by grace.
But of this we shall speak later. Let us now consider how grace is such a precious and excellent gift that it com municates its qualities and greatness to its possessor, and is not only itself exalted above nature, but also elevates him who receives it far above his nature.
""Place me/7 says an old philosopher, 2 " in a very rich house that abounds with gold and silver; I shall not, on account of these things, admire myself; for though they
1 Rom. vi. 23. 2 Seneca.
38 The Glories of Divine Grace.
are with me, they are not within me. Such eternal treas ures do not touch the nature of man; and though they dazzle the eye by their great splendor, they improve him nei ther in health, nor in the form of his body, and least of all in the appointments of his mind/' That, however, is pre cisely the privilege of grace, that it raises its holder to its own exalted position; it penetrates the soul, — the true in terior man — and unites itself so closely with it that it com municates all its own prerogatives to the soul. It weaves all its treasures together into a golden vesture studded with diamonds, and surrounds the soul with it; and as it is itself the greatest work of God, so it makes the soul, which re ceives it in rich inheritance, appear as the greatest, noblest, and most glorious work of God. Therefore, St. Cyril of Alexandria says: ] "The grace of Christ clothes us, as it were, with beauteous purple and raises us to a dignity that surpasses all knowledge."
What an unheard-of honor and liberality is that, where man is lifted up from his native lowliness and obscurity and is placed, not only like another Adam, as lord over this vis ible earth and all the animals, but is so far elevated above all the heavens, that the natural nobility of the highest an gels does not reach thither ! For the angels themselves do not by nature possess the dignity that we acquire by grace ; they also receive it as a gift only from the gracious bounty of God and without it they would rank so far, and even farther beneath us, than we naturally are inferior to them.
2. Who, then, could sufficiently lament our blindness by which we exchange this pinnacle of greatness for a detest able servitude ! Meanwhile, we endeavor, by mutual quar rel, dispute, and envy, to ascend to a place blindly considered higher than the others ; and if at our birth we were given the choice, we would certainly always select the highest position and be inferior even to no angel. What witch craft, then, so blinds us, that when this honorable name and throne of grace is offered, aye, urged upon us by God, we
1 In Jo. c. 1, v, 14.
We are Elevated above Nature by Grace. 39
scarcely notice it, or if we have accepted it, so easily and at any price surrender it again !
Recognize, 0 man, the splendor which you receive from grace ; remain true in life to the high position which your soul occupies by grace. What have you in common with the laws of the world, when this world is so far beneath your feet? You, who by the dignity of your new condition have been transferred into Heaven and there erected your throne, why do you still wallow in the mire of this earth ?
The ancient heathen philosophers were by natural reason even led to understand that love for the* things of this earth is foolish if we think of Heaven and of the stars. "If," says one of them,1 "we should give human reason to ants, they would in the same manner divide their small fields into as many provinces, as kings do with their coun tries. Above us are infinite distances, before which earth ly space disappears as nothing." Another2 remarks: If one should look down from the sim or moon upon our earth, the whole earth would appear but as a small disc, and the largest kingdoms, and much more the acres and fields, would appear but as small, scarcely visible points.
How, then, shall we, who in reality and not only in word or thought have been elevated above the heavens by grace, bear ourselves ? What shall we think of ourselves, of grace and of these earthly things? The same, or rather a far greater distance and difference of greatness, than exists between the sun and the earth, exists between all earthly things and grace ; yet we will, after the man ner of very stupid people, be misled by external appear ances. As they imagine the sun to be only a very small surface in comparison with the earth, so we foolishlv can not understand the invisible greatness and sublimity of grace. But if we can disprove appearances by the certain calculations of astronomers, why should we not let the far more certain principles of faith remove our ignorance in regard to grace ?
1 Seneca, pnef. in qusest. nat. 2 Lucian in Incarom.
4o The Glories of Divine Grace.
Few men only, mindful of the high condition and dig nity they have received by grace, despise the lust and de sires of their inhorn nature, and as a peasant suddenly become king, are ashamed of the character, pleasures, and ways of their previous low condition. St. Isidor of Alex andria wept over the necessity to eat, because he was com pelled, like the animals, to take bodily food, whilst he was destined for the banquet of the blessed in Heaven. St. Paul considers it wrong to yield to flesh and blood and appreciate anything else in us than the new creation, which God has established in us by grace, and He exhorts us to find pleasure only in the things that are above, not the things that are on earth.1 Wl'iat madness, then, impels us to forget the delights of Heaven and to follow even brutish instincts and beastly pleasures ? Thither, thither let us direct our desires, whither our position has raised us, and if we desire anything upon earth, let us desire crosses, that thus crucified to nature and to the world, we may exhibit the conduct of beings belonging to another, higher world.
1 Coloss. iii. 2.
FIFTH CHAPTER.
Grace is a Participation in the Uncreated Divine Nature.1
1.
IT is certainly a great thing that man by grace should rise above all created nature ; but it is something greater still, that he should partici pate in the uncreated Divine nature ; or rather, to speak more precisely, man in the state of grace is so superior to all created things, because he is so near God. On account of this nearness he partakes of the prerogatives of God, as a body partakes of the light and heat of fire, in proportion to its proximity to the fire.
This excellent union with God is taught us, according to the unanimous explanation of the holy Fathers, by St. Peter,2 when he writes, that by the most great and precious promises God hath made us ~by Jesus Christ, we may be made partakers of the Divine nature, i. e., that the prerog atives which are, above all created nature, due to the Divine nature, are, as far as possible, communicated to our own nature.
The Saints cannot find expressions sufficiently worthy to describe this magnificent gift. The ecclesiastical writer, known by the name of St. Dionysius, says : " Sanctity or sanctifying grace is a Divine gift, an inexpressible copy of the highest Divinity and the highest goodness,3 by means of which we enter a Divine rank through a heavenly gen-
1 What is said in the following chapters of the deification of the soul by participa ting in the Divine nature will appear to many readers exaggerated, novel and dan gerous. Here, especially, there is question of a great mystery, which cannot be passed over in silence, but must be considered with reverence and faith.
2 II. Peter i. 4. * Epist. 2, ad Caium.
42 The Glories of Divine Grace.
eration."1 The holy martyr Maximus writes:2 ''The Divinity is given us when grace penetrates our. nature by a heavenly light and raises it above its natural condition by the greatness of glory." These and most of the other holy Fathers teach, with St. Thomas, that by grace we are, in a manner, deified, and they apply to this mystery the words of our Saviour : 3 " I have said : you are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High." In a word, we are by grace elevated in some measure to the highest order of things, to the throne which God alone occupies in virtue of His nature, and we thus ascend unto the highest Heaven.
"2. If we consider the various classes of beings known to us, we perceive that the one class differs in its nature from the others and is more perfect than others, so that they all together form a ladder of many rounds, whose summit is occupied by God. Some things enjoy existence only with out life, as the stones and metals ; others have a certain kind of life, as the plant, which by its own innate power from the root produces the blossom and the fruit ; the an imals have, besides, sensation and motion; man, finally, has even a spiritual life, so that he may know and love even immaterial things. But above him again there is an im measurable gradation of pure spirits, invisible to us, each of whom has his own peculiar high perfection. Infinitely above all these natures is the Divine nature; for none other is so purely spiritual ; none other has like it the power to behold God immediately or unite itself so intimately to His own nature by love. All other natures are darkness com pared to the Divine Sun and cannot of themselves adequate ly represent the peculiar perfections of this Sun.
This sublime Divine nature now, by the infinite power of its equally infinite love, draws our nature unto itself, re ceives it into its Divine bosom, immerses it into itself as iron is dipped into the furnace, and thus we belong to God's kind in the same manner as the palm-tree belongs to the class of plants, and the lion to that of animals.
1 Eccl. hier. c. 2. 2 Centur. oecon. I. 7G. 3 John x. 34 ; cf. Ps. Ixxxi. 6.
Participation in the Divine Nature. 43
If out of so many millions of men and angels, God se lected a single soul, and bestowed upon it this unheard-of dignity, this soul, if it were visible, would darken the beauty of the sun, of all nature, and of all heavenly spirits,' and would so amaze not only mortal men, but also the angels, that they would be inclined to adore it as they adore God Himself. How, then, is it possible that we de spise this same gift, when it is so profusely, we might say, extravagantly lavished upon all, and that our ingratitude increases in the proportion in which God will be more lib eral towards us ?
Our ambition makes us purchase, with immense trouble, and with large sums of money, the society of the great, and we despise the communion with the great God ! If any one is expelled from the council of a king, he cannot en dure the ignominy ; and should we not esteem it a bitter loss, an irreparable injury to our ambition, to be expelled by mortal sin not only from the society of God, but from God's family and relationship ? In fact, the man that despises this union with God's goodness and Divinity hates God Himself ; such a man is a deadly enemy to his own honor, his sound reason, his own person, and to God.
3. Other honors, moreover, consist in the opinion and esteem of men, rather than in the possession of intrinsic merit ; a person may, at the bidding of his sovereign, oc cupy the highest positions of honor, without being, on that account, more perfect and honorable in himself. But if grace communicates to us a Divine dignity, it grants us not only a high name, but in reality a perfection of the Di vine order, for it renders our soul, according to the teach ing of theologians, in a supernatural manner like unto God.
" By the union with the Son and the Holy Ghost," says St. Cyril of Alexandria,1 " we all who have believed and have been likened unto God, are partakers of the Divine nature, not only in name, l)ut in reality, because we have been glorified with a beauty surpassing all created beauty.
'De Triii. 1. 4.
44 The Glories of Divine Grace.
For Christ is informed in us in an indescribable manner, not as one creature in another, but as God in created na ture. Christ transforms us, the creature, by the Holy Ghost into His image, and elevates us to an uncreated dig nity."
"What is essential and substantial in God/' says St. Thomas,1 "exists in the soul, which partakes by grace in the Divine love, as a quality superadded to its nature/'
This beautiful and sublime mystery is explained by the holy Fathers in various illustrations. St. Athanasius2 compares the Divinity with ambergris 3 or balsam, which communicates its fragrance to the objects that come in contact with it ; also with a seal which leaves its own form impressed in the soft wax. St. Gregory Nazianzen says our nature is so intimately united to God, and par takes of His perfections, as a drop of water that falls into a cup of wine is absorbed by it and assumes the color, flavor, and taste of the wine. St. Thomas, following herein St. Basil, represents to us the iron, which is in it self raw, cold, black, hard, and without beauty, but when laid into the fire and penetrated by its heat, without los ing its own nature, appears bright, warm, flexible, and liquid. If we remember now that God is the purest spiritual light and the fire of eternal love itself, we can in some measure understand how God, descending with His full glory to His creature, or receiving it into His bosom, can, without destroying its nature, penetrate it with the full glow of His light and warmth, so that its natural lowliness and weakness disappear and it is seemingly al together absorbed in God.
4. If we could acquire the vivid mental activity of the angels as easily as we can increase grace, we should cer tainly not slothfully neglect the opportunity. But why do I speak of the perfection of angels ? Those of the lower nature even attract us : the swiftness of the deer, the
1 1. 2. q. 110, art. 2, ad 2. 2 Lih ,l(1 s,>rap. do Spir. S.
3 A precious, sweet-sceuted perfume, used in the East-
Participation in the Divine Nature 45
strength of the lion, the flight of the eagle., etc.; how gladly we should seize them, if they were within our easy reach ! But, 0 shame ! the perfection and glories of the Divine nature, that not only enrich our nature, but ennoble it throughout, and raise it up to the infinite, these per fections are not great enough in our eyes to call forth a little exertion on our part ! Where is our reason, our Christian faith ?
Let us suppose the case, that God had wonderfully united in a single man all the perfections to be found in creatures : that this man were stronger than the lion, more beautiful than the flowers of the fields or the dawn of day, brighter than the sun, more enlightened than the cherubs ; let us further suppose that this man hazarded all these gifts on one cast of the die ; who would not shud der at the folly and meanness of such criminal ingratitude ! Thus the folly of Samson was so much greater, the greater his strength was, which he betrayed to the hypocritical tears of a deceitful woman. And we surrender our re lationship with God, the splendor of the Divine Sun, the might of the Divine virtues, to our miserable flesh, which is the daughter of corruption, the sister and the mother of worms ! Here the pen itself is shocked at the sight of such a pitiable and yet common spectacle. Weep, 0 ye angels of peace, if ye may weep, over this cruel madness, that makes your brethren on earth turn against themselves and unworthily desecrate so many and such great gifts !
May those of us, however, whose eye is more clear, and condition of soul more normal, esteem and admire their own dignity, and embrace with the whole love of their heart its author,, the Father of all light. If the planets enjoyed the knowledge of their beauty, they would certain ly be inflamed with grateful love towards the sun, whose bounty bestows upon them their beauty, whose light gives them their brightness, and whose reflection makes them so lovely and wonderful ! The prince loves the founder of his pedigree, the son his father, if he be a true son, and
46 The Glories of Divine Grace.
everything loves its kind. Should not a similar sense of relationship and similitude draw us from this earth to God ? Would that we Christians were not less impressed with our dignity, than heathen philosophers, through the mere light of reason, were impressed with the dignity of man! They called man a miracle, the marrow and the heart of the world, the most beautiful being, the king of all creatures. But if he appears so great already in the light of reason, how much greater in the light of faith ! Let us open the eyes of our soul and heed the warning of St. Chrysostom : " I beg and beseech you, do not suffer that the extraordi nary gifts of God (which we have received through the grace of Christ), increase our guilt and the punishment of our negligence by their infinite greatness."
SIXTH CHAPTER.
The Participation in the Divine Nature Effects a Supernatural Similarity to this Nature.
1.
|HE participation in the Divine nature is so sub lime a mystery that we must more fully explain the manner in which it takes place. A certain participation in the Divine perfections is found, as theologians say, in all things that God has created. All things, more or less, resemble God, in their existence, in their life, in their force and activity ; in all things God reveals His glory, so that, according to the teach ing of the Apostles, the invisible glory of God may be seen and considered in created things. But their similarity is of a very different nature. In corporeal, visible things we find only a slight impression of God's glory, as it were, His footprint only, as a man leaves a print when walking over soft earth. The print shows where a man has been ; but it contains only an image of his foot, not of his whole form and nature. Now, since God is a spirit, corpore .il things reveal themselves as the work of His hands and be speak His wisdom and power, but they do not represent His nature. Our soul, however, and all pure spirits, are, by their very nature, a certain image of the Divine nature ; they are, like God, spiritual, rational, and of free will. Yet their nature is finite, created out of nothing, and therefore very different from the Divine nature. They are similar to the picture of a man which a painter has with different colors painted on canvas. This picture reveals to us the form, the features, and complexion of the person represented ; but it always remains far inferior to
48 The Glories of Divine Grace.
the likeness that a mirror reflects ; for in the mirror the person appears by his own light and not by that of another, in his whole natural beauty, freshness and life. In like manner, the rational creature, then only becomes perfectly similar to God when it has become a true mirror of the Divinity, which reflects the Divinity in its own peculiar beauty, when it has been penetrated and glorified by the Divine fire, and in a manner transformed into God, as, for instance, a bright crystal globe that collects the rays of the sun, or as the mock-sun, noticed occasionally in the sky, appears to be the sun itself.
The participation in the Divine nature, then, which we enjoy by grace, consists in this, that our nature assumes a condition peculiar to the Divine nature, and becomes so similar to the Deity, that according to the holy Fathers, we may truly say, it is deified or made deiform. ''Deifica tion," says St. Dionysius,1 '•' is tlie greatest possible likening and union witJl God." Likewise, St. Basil teaches:'" "From the Holy Spirit springs a never-ending joy, the liken ing unto God ; to be made God, however, is the highest that man can wish and desire." We do not speak, therefore, of a dissolution of our substance in the Divine substance, or even of a personal union with it as it is in Christ Jesus, but only of a glorification of our substance into the image of Divine nature. Neither shall we become new gods, in dependent of the true God, and therefore, false gods. But, in truth, we are made, by the power and grace of God, some thing which God alone is by nature ; we are made His supernatural likeness and our soul receives a reflex of that glory, which is peculiar to Him above all creatures.
2. If we will better understand this likeness with God, we must examine in order the different prerogatives which distinguish the Divinity from created natures.
Let us first consider the eternal existence and life of God. God alone exists by Himself, eternal and immutable, and rlepends upon no one. Creatures, however, are of themselves
1 Eccl. bier. c. 1. 2 I)e Spiritu. S, c. 9,
Effect of Participation in the Divine Nature. 49
nothing; they exist only because God has created them and permits them to exist. For that reason they are, even after their creation by God, as nothing compared with Him. "I am who am/' says the Lord, and "all nations are before Him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to Him as nothing and vanity. " ' For all creatures, even the immortal spirits, would, in virtue of their nature, again sink back into their nothingness, if God's goodness did not sustain them.
Grace, however, is, according to the Apostle Paul, a new creation and the foundation of a new immovable kingdom.2 By it we are received into the bosom of the Eternal God, into the side of the Eternal Word, by whose power the Father lias created all, and who is co-eternal with Him. We are called to a more than temporal, to an eternal life, and dwell in the tabernacle of God's eternity, immediately at the fountain of all being and of all life. Here our eternal existence is as secure as that of God Himself; here we need fear neither death nor destruction, and when Heaven and earth pass away, when the stars fall from Heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be moved, we shall not be affected, because we rest in the bosom of the Creator, far above all creatures.
Hence the Book of Wisdom says : 3 " The just shall live forevermore, and their reward is with the Lord; therefore shall they receive a kingdom of glory, and a crown of beauty at the hand of the Lord, for with His right hand He will cover them, and with His holy arm He will defend them." Of those, however, who separated themselves from God and esteemed the transitory goods higher than the treasures of His grace, the same Book says : " WJiat hath pride profited us, or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us 9 All those things are passed aw'ay Wee a shadow and like a post that runneth on, and as a ship that passeth through the waves ;
so we also being born, forthwith ceased to be and are
consumed in our wickedness." If, then, we wish really to
1 Is. xl. 17. 2 Eph> iL 10> Hebr xij ^ 3 Wis. v. 16-17.
50 The Glories of Divine Grace.
exist, to exist eternally and exist as something truly great, why do we not go to the fountain of all being ? Why do we rely upon our own nothingness and pursue other things as vain and transitory as we ourselves are ? Why will we be great in a tawdry garment ? Why will we immortalize our selves in the mouths of men, and not in ourselves and in the bosom of God ?
The sinner desires, as the first parents and the devil him self, "to be as God." Yea, God Himself wills, that we be as He, yet not Avithout Him, not outside of Him, not against Him ; He wills not that we should make ourselves as other gods, to adore ourselves and be adored. He wills that we be as He, but only in His bosom, at His heart ; He wills it through Himself and in union with Him as His own Divine Son, who is not another God, but the same God with the Father. How great, therefore, is the folly and the crime of the sinner, who instead of desiring to be one with God as His child, rejects this infinite love of God and will be His enemy independent of Him !
SEVENTH CHAPTER.
With the Participation in the Divine Nature Grace Confers upon us the Highest Perfection.
1.
WILL be like the Most High," said Lucifer,1 when he considered the beauty and glory with which God had adorned him. He blasphemed God by speaking thus, because he would possess this glory independ ently of God. But we cannot praise God more, and ren der Him more acceptable thanks, than by confessing that by His grace He will make us similar to Himself in His highest perfections. The Saviour Himself says: "Be you perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." This is to be understood primarily of moral perfection, but from all that we have said it may be interpreted to mean, also, that we shall partake of the other perfections of God.
Consider, then. Christian soul, who are called to the communion of God, the riches of His glory. Admire His infinite nature, which, for that very reason, because it is the purest being, and being itself, contains all imaginable glory and happiness, and before which all else disappears as smoke. Admire His infinite majesty, which like a sun emits so many rays, as we behold beauties and perfections within us, about us, over us. See how the great Architect has, with one word, created this wide world, so beautifully diversified, and not exhausted with this one labor, He might have created a thousand worlds besides with the same ease : how He called into existence, and ordered so harmoniously, the countless heavenly bodies, some of which are a thousand and a million times greater than this earth:
i Is. xiv. 14.
52 The Glories of Divine Grace.
how He, who moves all things, is not moved himself, how He ordains the different causes, arranges the elements, how He produces all perfections, forces, and treasures of metals, of springs, of plants and animals, of the science of men and angels from His treasuries. And if now, before such an immense multitude of riches and glories, you fall on your knees in adoring admiration and imagine yourself annihilated as a poor worm before the splendor of the sun, then, 0 Christian soul, be amazed also at yourself, who have been surrounded and clothed with beautiful gold and purple, by a wonderfully loving God in His grace.
All created natures have different perfections, and no one enjoys all those that are found in others. The ele phant has the strength of the lion, but not his swiftness, the lion the strength of the elephant, but not his size. Animals surpass plants in the possession of senses, but are not adorned by such beautiful blossoming. Man is infi nitely superior to animals because of his rational soul, yet these possess many corporal advantages, in which man is wanting. God, however, in the simplicity of His being, contains in an eminent manner all the perfections of crea tures together, as the sun in its simple light contains all the diversified beauty of the seven colors of the rainbow ; and the different natures of creatures are only as the dif ferent rays, are only the refractions by the clouds of the one ray of the sun. Thus, too, the nature of our soul and of the angel, being spiritual, is indeed incomparably more perfect than that of corporal things, yet it is only as one refracted ray of the Divine Sun, which does not contain the perfection of all others, though it be the most beauti- ul of them all. But in grace the light of Divine glory is reflected, pure and entire, by the soul, which thus is made so sublime an image of God, that all perfections of crea tures are gathered in it.
2. Though you were ever so poor in natural gifts, broth er, envy no one, and were you ever so rich in treasures, in power, in influence, in knowledge, see, the poorest of your
Grace Confers the Highest Perfection. 53
brethren is by grace infinitely more perfect and happy than you ; he possesses in his heart the most glorious and beau tiful of kingdoms, the kingdom of God, of which Christ says, " The kingdom of God is within you."
But you answer : Of all these glories I see nothing, and what doth a treasure profit me, if I cannot enjoy it ?
True, you do not see your glory, and yet it is within you. If you have an unpolished diamond, you do not yet see how precious and beautiful it is, though it has the same value now as when it is polished. When you hold the seed of a tree in your hand, you would not suspect what a great and beautiful tree is contained in it. Likewise, the beautiful and Divine perfection, which grace communi cates to you, is within you ; but it is yet hidden and con cealed. " We are now the sons of God," says St. John ; " but it hath not yet appeared what we shall be, when we shall see God as He is."
As long as you do not see God face to face, you cannot see the image of His Divine nature in you. Grace is, so to speak, the dawn of the light of the Divine Sun; wait only until this Sun itself rises, until it develops in you its whole splendor, until it penetrates and glorifies you with the glow of its heat, and your glory will delight you the more, the longer it has remained hidden from you. Until then, you must, after the words of the Apostle, walk by faith and not by sight, believing the unfailing promise of God. For, " by faith," says St. Peter,1 " we are kept unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time at the appearing of Jesus Christ," and by Him we have the lively hope of "an inheritance incorruptible, and undcfiled, and that can not fade, reserved in Heaven for us." 2
In grace you have the pledge, aye, the root of your future glorification in soul and body. If you still sigh in the servitude of the flesh, if you feel depressed by suffering and frailties, sigh with the Apostle after the freedom and glory of the children of God, where even your flesh will be spirit-
1 I. Peter i. 5. * Ibi(L 4.
54 The Glories of Divine Grace.
ualized, and, in the fulness of perfection,, free from all suffer ing and fear of death, beautiful as the sun and swift as the eagle, you will feel the power of grace and possess in the fullest abundance all those perfections which you perceive in visible things.
EIGHTH CHAPTER.
Grace Elevates Man to the Participation in the
Divine Cognition, to the Immediate Vision
of Divine Glory.
1.
| HAT you may learn at this point, my dear Christian, what glory and happiness is hidden in grace, I will now exhibit it to you in its entire greatness, in that condition wherein the light of grace passes over into the light of glory. From this you will under stand how truly and perfectly we partake of the Divine nature by grace. Every nature is best known by its pecu liar force and activity, for in every nature these are different. Thus, plants are distinguished from minerals by their growth, their blossom and fruit ; animals differ from plants by their sensation and motion ; man again from the animal by his reason and free will.
By his reason man is, in some degree, like unto God, but yet there is an infinite distance between the Divine and the human nature. . For the reason of man, and even that of the highest angels, can directly only know the creatures, finite and created beings ; but it cannot behold, face to face, the great and infinite G od. God, the Creator and Lord, may be known by rational creatures, but only from an im measurable distance ( " every one beholdeth Him afar off," ') as the glory of God is mere removed from the creature than the sun is from the earth. The creatures only see, as it were, the hem of His garment, the reflex of His own glory in His great and glorious creation. He Himself, however, "the invisible King of ages, whom no man hath seen, nor can
1 Job xxxvi. 25.
56 The Glories of Divine Grace.
see, inhabit M" as the Apostle says, " light inaccessible."1 His light is too bright, His glory too great, His greatness too infinite for creatures to fix their weak eyes upon Him, without being dazzled. Even the Cherubim cover their faces and sink into the dust before Him, to adore Him in deepest reverence. God Himself alone can by His nature behold His being ; only the " only -begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father," 2 and is of the same nature with Him, beholds Him face to face ; only the Holy Spirit, who is in God, penetrates and fathoms His innermost nature, as also in man only the spirit, that is in him, knows and penetrates his inner nature.3 To behold God, we must either be God or participate in the Divine nature.
Well, then, my good Christian, your spiritual eye must also become Divine, as it were, and your soul must partake of the Divine nature, if you will see God face to face. The veil which covers your weak eyes must be removed ; the light of the Divine Sun must transform your sight, must make it sun-like and glorify it, that you may boldly gaze at it. And this the Holy Spirit effects in you, when by grace He makes you partake of the Divine nature. The Apostle describes this in beautiful words : 4 " Behold ing the glory of the Lord with open face, we are trans formed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." St. John also teaches : 5 "We shall be like to God, because we shall see Him as He is." And the Son of God Himself says to His Father : * " Father, the glory which Thou hast given Me, which I had with Tliee, be fore the world was, I have given to them."
In Heaven we shall, moreover, know God as He knows Himself and as He knows us. " Then I shall know, even as I am known," says the Apostle.7 But it is again impossi ble that we should have knowledge like that which is pe culiar to the Divine nature, if we are not really made to participate in the Divine nature, as a holy Doctor of the
1 I. Tim. vi. 16. « John i. 18. 3 I. Cor. ii. 11. * II. Cor. iii. 18.
6 I. John iii. 2. 6 John xvii. 22. 7 I. Cor. xiii. 12.
Participation in the Divine Cognition. 57
Church l says ; the vision of God cannot be communicated to us, unless we are deified. And if, on the other hand, we in reality will partake of the Divine nature and be deified, that must be verified by our being called to partake in the Divine cognition.
2. What a miracle, my dear Christian, what grace ! Must we not exclaim here with St. Peter: "Into His mar vellous light God hath called us" ! 2 Have you ever reflected upon the sublime greatness of this grace ? We must thank God already for giving us our bodily sight, by which we may behold the whole visible creation, with all its beauty- and magnificence. But this we have in common with the brutes ; and it may and ought to be the subject of our pride and boast that we possess another infinitely superior light within us, the light of reason, by which we perceive not only the exterior qualities of visible things, their color, their odor, their taste, but also their substance, their beau ty, their harmony, and their mutual relations; by which we, moreover, know spiritual things, our immortal soul, truth, virtue, and justice, and finally, God Himself in the image of His creation. How proud we should be if we possessed all the science that has ever been and is being discovered by human genius and application, or if we enjoyed the natural knowledge of even the angels ! But all this would never give us an immediate knowledge of the infinite truth and beauty of God ; so that we may thence conclude how much inferior our nature is to the Divine, and how no created eye can peer into the depths of the mysteries of God. It were even a godless temerity to desire to ap proach the unapproachable light of God : His glory would overwhelm us and death would be the penalty for our rash ness. " Man shall not see God and live" says Holy Writ,3 and again : "He that is a searcher of ( God's) majesty, shall he ovenuhelmed by glory." 4
But, "the things that are impossible with men" says
1 Dionys. Areop. vulg. de eccl. hler. c. 1, § 3. » I. Peter ii. 9, s Exodus xxxiii. ~Q. ' Prov. xxv. 27,
58 The Glories of Divine Grace.
St. Irenseus J in explanation of this, "'are possible with God."2 He descends to us, in His infinite power and goodness, to elevate us unto Himself ; He Himself intro duces us into His admirable light ; He fills us with His own light, that we may behold His light. " In Thy light we shall see light," says the Psalmist.3 Only in Hits own light and not in our light can we see God.
What is all natural light of creatures compared with this Divine light ? It is as the weak, dim light of a lamp, which illumines but poorly the narrow space of a human dwelling, compared to the glorious, heavenly light of the sun, which fills the whole immense world ; and the eye of reason in the creature, compared to the Divinely glorified eye of the Saints, is as the eye of the bat at the side of the clear eagle eye, which fearlessly directs its gaze to the sun and is not dazzled by its light.
If, then, we experience in us a natural and inexpressible desire for the perception of truth and the enjoyment of the beautiful, why do we not seek to satisfy it where alone it can be entirely satisfied ? If we seek with s;) much labor to ac quire science, why do we not apply to the source of eternal light? All our natural knowledge is in the end only pitiably imperfect and we shall never be able to go beneath the sur face. But the light of grace will at once introduce us to the light of God, when we shall know not only the shadow but the substance and highest cause of truth, and in it shall know, in the most perfect manner, all that we now seek or already know. And, if created beauty already delights us so much, how should we not, with the royal poet, always seek His countenance, who is the fountain and infinite ideal of all transient beauty.
3. In beatific vision grace makes us share in the Di vine happiness, by raising us up to the immediate enjoy ment of the infinite and highest good. As much as the Divine nature is above ours, so much the Divine beatitude must surpass that which is attainable and suitable to our
1 Contra- baer. l. 4, c. 20, al. 37. 2 Luke xviii. 27. 3 Ps. xxxv. 10.
Participation in the Divine Cognition. 59
nature. The animal is not capable of the same enjoyment as man ; it can only delight in sensual things and percep tions. Man delights in spiritual things, in order, har mony, and beauty, in that, particularly, which is found in truth and virtue. In like manner the pleasure and beati tude of God has an object accessible only to Him, whose beauty and loveliness eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, and which hath not entered into the heart of man, but is evident only to his spirit — His own infinitely good, beauti ful, and glorious being. But whilst God makes us, through His Holy Spirit, partakers of His Divine nature, He opens through Him also the mystery of His happiness, calls us to the enjoyment thereof, and makes us His associates there in. As He possesses Himself by His nature, so He will give Himself to us by His wonderful grace ; as He, by our partici pation in His nature, places us upon His throne and intro duces us into His light, so He will let us feast at His table. According to our nature He might have left us standing at a respectful distance before His door ; there we might have admiringly contemplated the greatness of His works, the beauty of His mansion ; and this would have been for us a joy and honor, as great as our poor heart might desire. But He will manifest to us His own beauty, in the enjoy ment of which He, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, is happy forever and ever ; that beauty which unites in itself the real and possible beauties of His works with all their wonderful diversity, that beauty which angels desire to behold and one ray of which suffices to make all created spirits intoxicated with joy.
In truth, not the highest creature could have imagined or desired, much less claimed, such a happiness ! How much more should we be thankful to God for this inesti mable grace ! And what can the Lord demand less of our gratitude, than that we should have a great and burning desire for the gift which He dispenses so liberally ! Then we should always think and exclaim with the Psalmist : "My faceliatli sought Thee: Thy face, 0 Lord, will 1 still seek."
i PS. xxvi, 8,
60 The Glories of Divine Grace.
If we love Him as He loves us, then we shall, as the Apostle says, know Him as He knows us. '
" I cannot express, 0 my God," says St. Anselm,2 " how happy Thy elect will be ; certainly they will rejoice according to the measure of their love, and they will love after the measure of their knowledge. But how great will be their knowledge and how great their love ? Certainly no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered, in this life, into the heart of man, how much they will know and love you in the life to come. I beseech Thee, 0 God, that I may know Thee, love Thee, rejoice in Thee ; and if I cannot do so perfectly in this life, that I may at least progress from day to day, until I arrive at this perfection. Let my knowledge of Thee progress here and become per fect there ; let my love increase here and be perfect there ; that my joy may be great in hope here, and perfect in possession there. 0 Lord, through Thy Son Thou biddest and counselest us to ask, and dost promise to grant that our joy shall be complete. I beseech Thee, then, 0 true and faithful God, grant that my joy may be complete: may, in the meantime, my soul consider it, my tongue speak of it, my heart love it. May my spirit hunger for it, my flesh thirst for it, my whole being desire it, until I enter into the joy of the Lord, who, as the Triune God, be blessed forever. Amen."
I. Cor. xiii. IS. 2 Anselm, in proslog. sub flnem.
NINTH CHAPTER.
Grace makes us Partakers of the Sanctity of the Divine Nature.
1.
[LTHOTJGH the glories already mentioned are so exalted and Divine, yet it would seem that this one surpassed all others. It is, indeed, a great thing to behold all nature and all miracles far beneath our selves, to possess, next to God, and in virtue of His love, that same glory which He Himself possesses, to obtain the beginning and the root of heavenly happiness and im mortality. But, since nothing is more eminent in God Himself than His sanctity, it is a still greater privilege to participate in it.
Those two remarkable images, in which the prophet Isaias l and the Apostle St. John in his revelation,2 have represented the majesty of God, are thus explained by St. Cyril : The exalted throne of God signifies His highest glory, the jasper, His immutability, the rainbow, His eter nity, the seats of the twenty-four ancients, His wisdom, the seven lamps, His all-seeing and His all-governing Provi dence, the thunder and lightning, the omnipotence of His will, the crystal sea of glass, His immensity, the covering of His head and feet by the wings of the Seraphim, His incomprehensible infinity. But in this fulness of glor ies, nothing impresses the Seraphim, who look on with a thousand eyes, so much as the sanctity of God ; this fascinates their admiration, this they praise incessantly by the continual repetition of the song of glory : " Holy, holy, holy, art Thou, Lord God of Sabaoth." There-
1 Is. vi. 2 Apoc_ iv>
62 7 7ic Glories of Divine Grace.
fore God is so frequently called the "Holy One of Israel/' because this name includes all others. When the Psalmist describes the glorious, eternal generation of the Son of God, he says but this one word, that in the splen dor of His sanctity,1 He is begotten from the womb of the Father,2 for by this sanctity all other perfections are height, ened and hallowed.
Sanctity, indeed, signifies the highest quality of Divine goodness, namely, His singular and august eminence, pur ity, and rectitude. A creature may be good in virtue of its nature, and every creature is good as it proceeds from the hand of God. Thus the rational creatures also, for instance man, would be good in their nature even without supernatural grace, as long as they did not contradict this natural goodness by sin. But this is a very limited and finite goodness, connected with many imperfections, as with so many stains, a goodness which does not exclude sep aration from the highest good and may co-exist with sin. The Divine goodness, however, is the purest and most per fect that can be imagined, a light without any darkness or shadow of darkness, a light that never can be dimmed by the smallest spot. God is, Himself, essentially the highest good and can be separated from it as little as He can annihilate Himself. Hence we call God the alone Holy, the thrice Holy, thereby expressing the highest pre- jrogative of His nature.
We shall therefore be perfect partakers of the Divine nature only when, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we participate also in its sanctity, and the holy Fathers iden tify this partaking of Divine nature, with being holy, as God is holy. They compare the sanctity of God with a great and potent fire, which seizes our imperfect nature, penetrates it, transforms it and cleanses it from all dross and stain, so that our goodness be similarly pure and per fect, as is the Divine. " Even the princes and powers of Heaven," says St. Basil, " are not by nature holy. The
1 Especially the Hebrew text: In splendoribus sanctitatum. a Ps. cix. 3.
Participation in the Divine Sanctity. 63
iron, lying in the furnace, does not lose the nature of iron, and yet by its intimate union with the fire becomes fiery it self, and penetrated by the whole nature of the fire, assumes also its color, warmth, and efficiency. So the angels (and the souls of men) have, by their union with God, the essen tially Holy One, this sanctity inoculated and implanted in their whole being, with this difference only, that the Holy Ghost is by nature already holiness, whilst their holiness is a participation in His natural sanctity."
Do you now understand, my dear Christian, with what] deep significance we call grace sanctifying ? It not only signifies that by grace we obtain forgiveness of sin, and henceforth will observe the commandments of God and sin no more, but rather, that our soul is made a most beautiful image of the Divine goodness and holiness. It further sig nifies that grace is irreconcilable with sin, and cannot co exist with it in the same soul. If you commit a mortal sin, you do not annihilate your nature, your natural faculties, and the light of reason; but grace audits accompanying- supernatural faculties and virtues immediately depart from your soul. For grace, being of a Divine nature and kind, can co-exist with sin as little as God Himself. Aye, when grace has terminated in the light of glory and has perfectly united your soul with God and made it like to Him, then you will lose even the ability to commit sin, and by its in herent Divine virtue, you will be as incapable of commit-j ting sin as God Himself.
Yet how little do we consider the great preciousness of this gift and the superhuman dignity granted us by it ! ' f If man alone had received sanctity from the Holy Ghost," says St. Ambrose, 2 "we would, beyond doubt, be raised above all, even the highest angels; " and the Seraphim, who so solemn ly praise God as the thrice Holy, would very properly all re gard us with deepest reverence. Shall we alone, then, seek our honor in godlessness and impurity ?
Even the most wicked and impious of sinners, in the
1 Basil, contra Eunom. B. 3. 2 De Spir. S. 1. i, c. 7.
64 The Glories of Divine Grace.
depth of his degradation, cannot, in his innermost soul, re fuse admiration to that splendor of sanctity which shines forth in so many members of the holy Church of Christ, in whom God appears to live and act. But why have the Saints become so great and glorious, if not because they have co-operated with, and in their whole life expressed the image of that grace which we all may acquire ? All true Christians, who are in the state of grace, are called Saints by the Apostle, because they are sanctified in the waters of regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost, and possess, so to speak, the substance of holiness. We all may and must become saintly as they, if not in the same degree, yet not less really and truly, because we are brethren and chil dren of the Saints, yea, children of the thrice holy God. What criminal frivolity is it, then, to soil this garb of inno cence, which we have received in holy baptism, by volun tary venial sin ! But what detestable wickedness would it be to rend it, cast it away from us, and trample it under foot by mortal sin !
Our nature already, though not annihilated by mortal sin, is averse to this great injustice offered to God, because it has been created by Him for His service. But supernaturally considered, what a monster must sin be, when we commit it after God has estranged us from it and so equipped us against it by a new nature, that to become capable of sinning, we must divest ourselves of this new nature and destroy the seed of God in our soul! Have pity, 0 auda cious creature, have pity on your sublime condition and dignity, if you will not respect it. Be moved by the jubi lant chant of the Seraphim, singing " Hosanna," and if you esteem it little to offend the sanctity of God, which you cannot injure, spare at least your own sanctity, which you ruin by sin.
TENTH CHAPTER. Grace gives us a New, Higher Nature.
1.
|OU have seen, Christian reader, how high the grace of God elevates human nature. You ascend by it unto the bosom of God, to partake of His nature and the eminent prerogatives peculiar to Him, of His eternity and infinite perfection, of His knowledge and happiness, His goodness and holiness. But if you particT^ pate in the Divine nature, you receive a new nature yourself, and lay aside your former nature; you are changed and " transformed," as the Apostle says, " into the image of God from glory to glory ; " 1 you are, as it were, created anew, that you may receive a new being, not even the germ of j which your nature contained before.
St. Cyril of Alexandria teaches us this in the following words: 2 " If we have once quit the sensual life, is it not evi dent that we, by surrendering, as it were, our life and unit ing ourselves to the Holy Spirit, are changed into a heaven ly image and transformed, to a certain extent, into another nature, and that we are justly called not only men, but chil dren of God and heavenly men, having become participants in the Divine nature ? "
What we here say of a transformation of our nature does not mean that our natural substance is destroyed or ab sorbed in the Divine substance ; this would be an impious error. We speak here only of a transmutation, transforma- *- tion, and glorification of our nature. You would, however, esteem this change entirely too little, if you supposed that
1 II. Cor. iii. 18. 2 In Joannem, 1. 11. c. 12, al. 27.
66 The Glories of Divine Grace.
grace makes us new men only in the sense in which a change of disposition or the acquirement of new habits makes us new men.
The change wrought by grace comes from God, not from the will or power of the creature; it is a miracle of Divine Omnipotence, which lifts us up out of the limits of nature (as the holy Fathers teach), and so elevates and transforms us, that we are not only made other men, but more thanf men, that we appear as beings of a Divine nature and kind.
That we do not lose our natural substance in this trans formation the holy Fathers very often explain by that simile of fire already mentioned. Iron does not cease to be iron, when it is aglow with heat, as we may see from the fact that when it loses this heat it appears the same as it was before. But in its glowing condition it has no longer its natural hardness, inflexibleness, coldness, and dark color, it receives the brightness, warmth, and force of fire, and conse quently enters into a condition that is not natural to itself, but to the fire, and if we say that fire consumes iron, we do not mean that it destroys iron ; it consumes only its defects and imperfections. In a similar manner, as St. Cyril teaches, we do not put off the substance of our nature, but its lowliness and imperfection. " Those," he says, ' ' who are called by the faith of Christ to the sonship of God, have deposed the lowliness of their oivn nature and, glori fied ~by the grace of God and adorned with it as with a precious garment, are raised to a supernatural dignity." Our nature is not changed into another nature by grace, so that we lose what we already possess, but rather receives what it does not yet possess, as the Apostle well remarks : 2 " We ivould not be unclothed, ~but clothed upon; that that which is mortal may be siv allowed up by life."
The garb of grace, however, is not only superadded to the soul exteriorly as is the bodily raiment, it invests and pene trates the soul at the same time, as the glow of fire penetrates the iron. Grace communicates a new quality to the soul,
1 In Joannem, 1. 1. 14. a II. Cor. v. 4.
Grace gives us a New, Higher Nature. 67
by which it is transformed into the image of God. This new quality is called the new, higher nature of the soul. The nature of a being is nothing else but the innate quality, by which it is distinguished from other things, has its peculiar forces and activities, and occupies its peculiar place among other beings. Thus we say that plants have another nature than minerals, animals another than plants, and man again a nature different from that of the brutes, because he is distinguished from them by the rationality and spirituality of his soul. The soul now receives in grace a new, heaven^N ly, and Divine quality, which is as different and as superior as the human nature is above the nature of the brute. If man" is naturally a servant of God, by grace he becomes a child of God ; if originally he was only above the nature of the brute, he now rises above his own nature, aye, even above the an gels ; if before he possessed the light of reason, he now re ceives the light of God, at present in faith, but hereafter in glory ; if he by nature is a good creature, by grace he is made a holy creature. He ascends a new step on the ladder of beings, is placed in a new relation to God, to his fellow- men, and to corporal things, and finally enters a new sphere of life more heavenly than earthly.
This new quality of his nature is the germ and root of a higher life. As a tree of ordinary kind by the inoculation of a superior bud takes the nature of this bud, and brings forth its blossom and fruit, so our soul is in the highest manner ennobled by the communication of God's grace, which is called in Holy Writ ' the seed of God, and filled with the power of God, it assumes a Divine nature. It is raised from its natural abject position, is transplanted into the bosom of God as into a garden of Paradise, where in heavenly sunlight and in a paradisaic atmosphere it blossoms into a new life, which it never knew or imagined before. Or rather, to speak yet more appropriately witli the Apostle of the Gentiles and our Saviour Himself, the soul, as a wild olive branch, is ingrafted upon a good olive tree ; 2 it
1 I. John iii. 9. 2 Romans xi. 24.
68 The Glories of Divine Grace.
becomes a branch of the true vine/ the Incarnate Son of God, in order to partake of His Divine life,, which is watered and nourished by the dew of the Holy Spirit.
2. But if grace, in truth, confers upon us a new heavenly nature, what pains ought we, then, to take to acquire and preserve this nature, and live according to it ! How little esteem would he show for the dignity of human nature, who conducted himself as a brute and gave himself over to beast ly lusts and pleasures ! How utterly mean and abominable would that act be, by committing which he would cease to be a rational man, and would be lowered to the level of the brute ! That cannot happen, because the likeness of God in our soul is indelible. But man may, by the giddiness of in toxication and the still greater giddiness of impurity, reduce himself to a condition in which he is more similar to the brute than to man, and here we involuntarily shudder at such unnatural conduct. How much more should we shudder at every mortal sin, which not only casts a passing cloud over our heavenly nature, but altogether destroys and eradicates it !
Man in his natural state is composed, as it were, of two natures, a corporal and a spiritual ; in him there are two men, an outward and an inward man, says the Apostle,2 a mortal and an immortal man. Since we cannot serve both natures at the same time, we must subject the corporal to / the spiritual. But as the flesh should serve the spirit, so * should our spirit serve God and His grace ; for, as the spirit is superior to the flesh, so is grace superior to the spirit. If the spirit subjects itself to the flesh, it is drawn down from its eminence to the level of the flesh and becomes carnal it self ; but if it gives itself up to grace and is penetrated and moved by it, it is carried up to God and becomes itself Divine. " Who loves the earth," says St. Augustine, " is of the earth ; who loves the world, is of the world ; who loves God, what shall I say, brethren ? Not I, but the Word of God will tell you ! who loves God, becomes God : ' IJtave
1 John xv. 1. 2 II. Cor. iv. 1C.
Grace gives us a New, Higher Nature. 69
said: you are gods and sons of the Most High.'" 1 In the same measure,, in which we co-operate with grace and tend towards the Author of grace, the Father of Light, we are filled with His light and glory, we are carried up to Him by His grace and partake of His nature. How detestable it is, then,, to permit one's self to be dragged into the mire of sen sual lust, when we may elevate ourselves so high on the wings of heavenly love !
We have far more reason to glory in grace than to dis regard it. F<5r what enthusiasm must animate our heart, when we consider the heavenly race to which we belong ! As true as this is, so true is it, likewise, that the sublime nature, which we possess, is not ours in virtue of our human nature, that we are not originally of the Divine race, and that we can obtain this so sublime nature only by the condescending grace of God. Lucifer forgot this when he beheld himself in the splendor of his heavenly light; Eve, too, forgot this, when she was misled by him through that same temptation. That we may not forget it also, God has not again given us with sanctifying grace those gifts which made the life of our first parents so happy and peaceful in the flesh, as if they possessed no carnal nature. He lets us feel very plainly that we are made of the slime of the earth, that we may not become conceited. Because we have, so to say, been caught up with the Apostle in the third Heaven, He has given us the sting of the flesh for our chastisement, our confusion, and our wholesome humiliation. 2
But even this confusion shall not rob us of the sense of our heavenly dignity. For precisely therein the power of our higher nature of grace is manifested, that it descends to our weakness and poverty, and overcomes this weakness, and hereafter consumes it in the heavenly glory. There fore, we may say with the Apostle: "I glory in my infirm ities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in m,y infirmities ; . . .for when I am freak, then am I powerful." 3
1 Johnx. 24. 2 II. Cor. xii. 7. 3 II. Cor. xii. 9, 10.
ELEVENTH CHAPTER. Grace is in a Certain Sense Infinite.
1.
IHE new nature, which grace confers upon us, has above all other created natures that sublime pre rogative,, that, as a participation in the infinite, Divine nature, it is in a certain sense infinite.
In the first place, all other natures, as has been already explained, are only single rays of the Divine sun, refracted in different colors ; grace, however, is a pure, unbroken re flection of its infinite light.
Grace, moreover, enables the soul to raise itself above the limits of its nature and its surroundings, to behold the in finite God in His infinite nature, to possess and enjoy Him. How could it do this, if it did not contain something of tlie infinite power of God ? If it does this, however, must we not, then, attribute to it a merit and value corresponding in some degree to the greatness of that infinite good which we possess by grace ?
Besides this, all created natures have a circumscribed and distinctly definite limit of perfection, beyond which they cannot increase, unless they change their nature. If gold is pure from all foreign composite, it cannot become more perfect or purer gold than it is already. Every species of plants can attain a certain height and size, and beyond this it cannot extend. The different classes of animals grow only to a certain determined degree of corporal size and perfection, and if they have reached this, they can progress no farther. JP$£$:'^?*^e outlived themselves and necessarily succumb^^tnm^ant retrogression and final dissolution. Eveife/tioiml^rcaftrares, from their na-
Grace is in a Certain Sense Infinite. 7 1
ture, cannot improve in an infinite degree. Their pro gress lasts as long as the development of their natural fac ulties, and since these are finite, their development also must have a determined and limited end.
Grace alone knows no such restriction ; it alone is inclosed by no limits. Being a ray of the Divine nature glorifying our soul,, it has its measure and end only in the infinity of God ; it may increase daily and hourly, and incessantly grow richer, greater, and nobler ; it never trangresses its ap pointed limits, because it has none ; it always remains grace and is always a participation in the Divine nature ; yea, it always becomes more and more what it is destined to be. What thing would be able, says the angel of the schools,1 to place any limit to supernatural love (and the same may be said of grace, which grows in the same proportion), since it has its origin in the infinite and eternal power of God and is itself nothing else but a participation in the infinite sanctity of God ? Certainly the vessel of our nature, which receives it, is in itself narrow and limited. But grace, which is received, extends the capacity of our nature and every measure of grace received qualifies it for a still greater measure ; every degree of grace is the step leading to the next degree, so that one may ascend the higher, the farther one has already progressed.
Every degree of grace is in itself infinitely valuable, more precious than all created things in Heaven or on earth, a treasure for which we should, with the Apostle, count all things as loss, that we may gain Christ and His grace. But this treasure is a thousand times more precious, because it is, at the same time, a capital, which, if we understand how to invest it, may easily be increased and multiplied in an in finite degree. Every supernatural action, performed in the state of grace, every moment in which the given grace is utilized and made to bear fruit, merits another increase of grace from God, and it rests only with man to double this grace again in a short time. The greater this increased
1 Thorn. 2, 2. qu. 24. a. 7.
72 The Glories of Divine Grace.
grace is, ths greater is also the merit of our works, the easier and greater is a new increase and multiplying of our capital.
2. At the present day the world directs all its aims and endeavors, its whole speculation, as it says, to an easy and certain increase of fortune, especially by a shrewd manipu lation of stocks and bonds, and in a wonderfully short time the poorest man often becomes richer than a king. But if the children of the world are so shrewd in acquiring tem poral treasures, which do not render the possessor happy,and in the gain of paper, which the smallest spark may de stroy, must not the children of God feel ashamed, that they in their kind are not only not wiser, but incomparably more foolish? For with them there is question of acquiring still more easily true, eternal, and heavenly treasures and bonds, which no banker, no king, but the infinitely mighty God Himself will redeem with the whole fulness of His im mense wealth and His eternal happiness.
Grace gives such an immense scope to our aims and de sires, and leaves them the freest possible play. At the same time, it has that advantage, that we need only desire it to find it, and to love its Donor in order to receive it. By this ardent desire for grace and heavenly happiness, and by a sincere love for the Father, we acquire and merit all good gifts, and that according to the measure of our love and desire. Why do we not here manifest a holy greed iness and importunity ? Why do we not, like St. Paul, forget the things that are behind and stretch forth our hand to those that are before?1 We should measure the profit and advantage of our soul, not by the treasures already in our possession, but by those still to be acquired. The Apostle ran the course of perfection with rapid stride ; 2 but we not only do not hurry, but often pause in our course, as if the smallest part of the eternal and highest good were already sufficient. The Apostle considers himself not yet perfect, when he possesses in so many and such
1 Phil. iii. 13. "- Ibid. 12 seq.
Grace is in a Certain Sense Infinite. 73
great good works, in his countless sufferings and glorious miracles,, the best pledge and evidence of an extraordinary perfection ; he always seeks something higher and more perfect. That which we still want is infinite, that which we possess already is little and insignificant ; but our God, who is liberal in dispensing His gifts and Himself, will cease to increase our small fortune, only when we tire of our progress and of gratefully uniting our love with His. Why do we commit such an injustice against God, and His grace, and our own selves ? Let us remem ber the wife of Lot,1 who, instead of looking forward, looked behind her and was turned into a statue of salt. Let this example serve as a grain of salt to season our hearts with prudence and spur us on to a holy zeal.
The miser delights not so much in all his possessions as he is annoyed and troubled by the least thing he does not possess ; about the former he is quiet and secure, but the latter he pursues with a zeal that knows no bounds nor rest. "All other passions," says St. Isidore, "have a sea son of rise and decline; but the terrible love of gain knows no end, despises to be satisfied, permits no enjoyment; it al ways lives, or rather it revives from day to day, and seeks always to increase in strength and violence. "
Oh, that we were at least equally zealous in the pursuit of the heavenly treasures of grace ! How soon we should ob tain them in greatest abundance ! What can in this case ex cuse our indolence ? Perhaps the fear that we should also become unhappy as the miser by such restless activity ? The miser, indeed, becomes unhappy by his insatiable de sire, because he never enjoys his acquisition and must lose all in the end. A holy desire for grace, however, leads us to an eternal rest in God, who will satisfy us the more, the greater our desire and hunger have been on earth. Grace, moreover, permits us to enjoy our possessions on the way to that end, since our desire is to grow continually, precisely because at every step we more and more experience, how sweet and pleasant the Lord is to those who serve Him.
1 St. August, ad Ps Ixix.
TWELFTH CHAPTER. Grace and the Incarnation of the Son of God.
1.
| HE glories of grace,, hitherto described, are so great, so superb and Divine, that it would seem, outside of God and next to Him, there were noth ing more sublime in Heaven or on earth. Indeed, because they are in a certain sense infinite, we could not, without a special Divine revelation, either by the light of reason, or even by the light of faith, discover anything greater. Now, God has revealed to us two other mysteries, which are doubtless greater and more glorious than that of grace: the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, and the mys tery of the Divine maternity of Mary. But the more we consider these ineffable mysteries in the whole depth of their significance and importance, the more will we under stand that, although grace is not superior or equal to them, yet it is placed in its true light by these mysteries, and receives from them a very special beauty and glory.
By the Incarnation the human nature of Christ was united with the Divine Word in one and the same person, so that henceforth God is truly man and one Man is truly God'. The human nature is not changed into the Divine ; but it loses its individual independence, and is so implanted and ingrafted in the second Person of the Divinity that it belongs to this Divinity and enjoys a really Divine dignity. By grace, however, we are not made truly God ; we retain not only our nature, but also our personality, and are dei fied only in so far as we are made similar to the Divine na ture by a godlike quality. Thus the elevation of the human nature of Christ to the infinite dignity of the true God is
Grace and the Incarnation of the Son of God. 75
certainly infinitely superior to our union with God by grace.
But if we consider closely, we see that this elevation of the human nature of Christ is not an honor accorded a human person, because there is no such person in Christ. It is rather an infinite condescension of God, who descends from His eminence to appropriate to Himself a created na ture. Therefore, we do not say that a man was made God, but that God was made man. By grace, however, a created person, man, without being God or being made God, nevertheless partakes of the Divine nature, and this it is that makes us admire grace almost more than the In carnation.
" Which is the more adorable mystery," says St. Peter Chrysologus : x "that God gave Himself to the earth or that He gives you to Heaven ; that He Himself enters into such intimate union with our flesh, or that He introduces us to companionship with the Godhead ; that He is born, like us, to servitude, or that He generates us as His free- born children ; that He adopts our poverty, or that He makes us His heirs and the co-heirs of His only begotten Son ? Certainly it is more adorably wonderful, that earth should be transferred to Heaven, man should be transformed by the Deity, and the condition of slavery receive the rights of dominion." In another place2 the same Saint says: " So great is the Divine condescension towards us, that the creature knows not which to admire more, that God has descended to our servitude, or that He has transported us to His Divine dignity."
2. The elevation of man by grace balances, as it were, the condescension of God in the Incarnation ; as low as God descends, so high He elevates man. Between God and our selves a wonderful exchange takes place, since He adopts our nature to make us partake of His Divine nature. There fore, the Church makes the priest say at the Offertory in Holy Mass : " 0 God, let us partake of His Divinity, who has deigned to partake of our humanity."
1 Homil. 67.
76 The Glories of Divine Grace.
And this equalization, this balance between the humilia tion of God and the elevation of man by grace has so deep a reason, that the holy Fathers teach that the Son of God was made man on account of grace, to elevate us by grace. " God was made man, that man might be made God," says St. Augustine ; ' "the Son of God ivas made the son of man, that the children of men might be made children of God."' Many other Fathers teach the same as this Saint, thus only repeating the sublime saying of the Apostle : 3 "God sent His Son, made of a woman, .... that we might receive the adoption of sons."
St. Fulgentms gives a beautiful explanation of this pas sage: 4 " God was born of man that man might be born of God. The first birth of Christ, as the Son of God, was of God, the second of man ; our first birth is of man, our second of God. And because God, to be born of woman, adopted the reality of the flesh, He has given us, at our re generation in baptism, the spirit of sonship. What Christ was not by nature at His first birth, that He was made at His second birth by grace, that we might also be made, by the grace of the second birth, what we were not by nature of the first. God, however, has brought us grace when He was born of man ; we, on the other hand, receive grace gratuitously, that by the donation of the Incarnate God, we might partake of the Divine nature." As truly, then, as God is born of man in adopting our nature, so truly is the Divine nature communicated to us, with this differ ence only, that the Son of God not only adopted the quali ties, but the essence of human nature ; we, however, only partake of the Divine nature by a godlike quality.
If, then, the condescension and humiliation of God in His Incarnation are so infinitely great, as great as is the infinite distance between G od and the creature, must not the eleva tion of man to God, which is placed on the same scale with
1 S. Aug., Serm. 13, detemporeetal. pass. See Petavius, de Incarn. Verbi, 1. 2, c.i
2 St. Athanasius in Petav. 1. c. 3 Gal. iv. 4.
4 Ep. 17, sive lib. ad Petrura diacon , cap. 7. nn. 14-15.
Grace and the Incarnation of the Son of God. 77
God's condescension, aye, which is its cause and reason, must it not likewise appear infinitely and incomprehensibly great ?
3. But the humanity of Christ may be considered not only in its personal union with the Son of God, but also in the condition and qualities which it received on account of its Divine dignity ; and here again the inestimable great ness of grace is made manifest. God, in all His wisdom and power, could give the human soul of His Divine Son no more worthy condition than that which our soul receives by grace. This is the sublimest that can be found in a creature, for it deifies the creature and makes it, in the highest sense, a participant of the Divine nature. This difference only exists between the soul of Christ and our own : the soul of the Son of God has every claim and right to grace, and does not receive it as a gratuitous gift, but merits it ; it receives it directly and in exceeding abundance, and finally the soul of Christ can in nowise lose grace, whilst our soul receives grace as a gratuitous gift through Christ, in a limited measure, and may easily lose it again by sin.
It cannot, then, be denied that the Incarnation, in all its circumstances, is an infinitely greater and more sublime mystery than grace ; but since there exist between both such an intimate union and similarity, grace does not suffer from the comparison, but is rather placed in a still brighter light by it.
4. But besides this, grace, as we obtain it through Christ, receives from the Incarnation an additional and indescribable, a new and ineffable splendor.
The Divine dignity, which the humanity of Christ re ceives through the personal union with the Eternal Word, is reflected upon all the members of humankind. As that humanity was made the true body of Christ, so all regenerated mankind was made the mystical body of Christ. Christ is, indeed, as much and more than Adam, the Head of mankind, and we are His members. Inasmuch as v/n
7 8 The Glories of Divine Grace.
are one with Him, we enjoy before grace already a certain supernatural dignity, arid as He had a right to grace, so we acquire a right to it through Him. By Him mankind ap propriates grace and possesses it as something which is due to it on account of its Head. Christ is the heavenly vine, permeated by the fulness of Divine life, and we are the branches, into which this life is diffused.
" 0 Christian soul," St. Leo exclaims, " acknowledge your dignity ; know that as a Christian you surpass the angels not only in nature, but also in grace ! For the an gels are kindred to God only by one tie, because they par take of His Divine nature ; you, however, in a twofold man ner., because God has also adopted your nature. If, there fore, these pure and holy spirits were capable of envy, they would envy us, because God hath taken upon Himself the nature, not of angels, or archangels, but the seed of Abra ham"* We may, then, what is not permitted to the angels, account Him as one of our own, and call Him our brother. "Very foolish," says the venerable monk Job/ "are they who would rather be angels than men." For although the angels are not subject to pain, suffering, and death, yet they have not God as their Brother, and if we are exposed to so many sufferings and tribulations, we are consoled by that supreme honor, to see God Himself as sume this so direly punished nature, and share our misery with us. Oh, how wicked and foolish were the pride that would not appreciate and be satisfied with such an honor ! But if you are able, Christian soul, to appreciate in some measure this honor, then beware, too, of desecrating this your Divine dignity by any conduct unbecoming it, lest anything be said of a brother of Christ that were improper even for a man or an angel, and suitable only to the char acter of the devil. You ought to belong, in thought, word, and deed, to none but Him, who, entering into relationship with us, has adopted us unto His own. "Let us esteem our Head/' St. Chrysostom tells us,3 "and always remember of
1 Hcb. li. 1C. " Lib. 3. de Incarn. 3 Homily 3, ad Ephes. 1.
Grace and the Incarnation of the Son of God. 79
what an adorable Head we are members. It is certainly prop er that we should surpass even the angels and archangels in virtue, since God, by assuming the human nature, has placed all things beneath its feet." The Saint then continues to speak in this strain, and concludes with the sorrowful but just complaint : " Is it possible that the body of such a Head is cast before the devils, to be abused or trodden under foot by them, and that we do not shud der at such a horrible crime ? "
5. By holy baptism we are incorporated in the mystical body of Christ, and in token and pledge of this union with Christ, we receive the sacramental character. By this char acter we are Christ's and He is ours ; by it we are really Christians; we are, as it were, Christ Himself, in as far as we, the body, and the Head form one whole. The character is indelible in our soul and gives us, as long as we live, a right to the grace of God ; for the body of Christ must also be filled by Christ's life of glory. But it leaves us this right only so long as we live up to His command. If it is, then, a great crime to banish grace from our nature, because it is in itself such a great boon, how much greater is the sin, when we deprive a member of the body of Christ of its heav enly life! And if it is a criminal neglect to permit ourselves to be robbed of grace, how much more criminal is it to cast it away, now that it has become our entire property, that we have, in the character of our soul, Christ Himself as a pledge that no power in heaven or on earth can wrest it from us, now to dispose of this grace and of ourselves to the devil! Let us, therefore, hear how St. Gregory Nazianzen teaches us to meet the attacks of the devil : "If he tempts you to avarice, and at any time represents to your eye all the kingdoms of the world as belonging to him, and offers them as a reward to you, if you will adore him; then despise him as a poor beggar, and in view of the holy seal of your soul, say to him : I also am the image of God, and am not cast down from the glories of Heaven through pride, as yourself ; I have put on the Lord Jesus Christ ; it is meet, rather, that you should adore me.
8o Ths Glories of Divine Grace.
Believe me that these words will conquer him and make him retire with confusion into darkness." 1
Consider,, finally, Christian soul, that however high and exalted the dignity may be, which you possess as a member of the body of Christ, this dignity becomes truly precious for you by grace alone, and that without grace it will profit you nothing, but will, on the contrary, work your greater perdition. Only inasmuch as you partake also of the spirit and life of Christ, will it be profitable to you to belong to the body of Christ by the seal of baptism. To be a mem ber of Christ is certainly a great, an infinitely great honor; but the dishonor, too, is so much greater to be only a dead member ; as such, you will finally be utterly cut off from the body. Even then you do not lose the mark impressed upon you by it, but it will not be a mark of blessing for you, but one of malediction and damnation. Grace, however, makes you a living member of Christ, by par ticipation in His Divine nature. It can be a sign only of blessing, not of malediction. It effects that you not only take part in the sufferings and death of Christ, whilst on earth, but that you are also glorified with Him hereafter, to be united with Him for all eternity, a ad to live in Him and through Him the blessed life of Heaven. With grace you gain Christ entirely, without grace you entirely lose Him.
Say, then, what should you be unwilling to do, suffer, and sacrifice, that Christ the God-man, the King, Father, and Brother, the Head, the Crown, the Delight and Joy of mankind, were not taken from the world ? All this, how ever, is lost for us, if we lose grace. Let that be, then, our only fear, to be separated from Christ, and that our only desire, to be united with Christ by grace ; for all things, says St. Gregory Nazianzen, we should count as shadows, vanity, and dreams, because, when opposed to grace, they are pure nothings.
1 Or. 40 ID s. lumina.
THIRTEENTH CHAPTER. Grace and the Dignity of the Mother of God.
1.
the mystery of the Incarnation not a human person, but a human nature only, is elevated to a Divine dignity. The Divine maternity, however, is a supernatural dignity, which was communicated to a human person ; it is, therefore, more easily compared with the dignity granted us by grace.
To prevent any misunderstanding, we must, above all, faithfully hold that in Mary grace cannot be separated from her Divine maternity. That precisely is the deep meaning of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception so solemnly proclaimed but a few years ago by the Church amid the joyful applause of all her children, — that the Mother of God cannot be supposed to have been despoiled, for one moment even, of God's grace. "God is inseparably united with her," says the holy bishop and martyr Metho dius in the third century. Because she communicated her human nature to the Son of God, she has a right, as none other, to the participation in His Divine nature by grace. As Mother she forms one person, as it were* with her Son, who was conceived of her flesh, and dwelt nine months in her chaste bosom. His rights are her rights ; His gifts are her's ; His sanctity is her sanctity. She is that woman whom St. John beheld in his reve lation, who does not receive the light of the Divine Sun as if from afar, but is altogether surrounded and inclosed by this Sun. Therefore the grace, which fills her soul has this excellent prerogative above the grace of all other creatures, that it is especially due to her, as the grace of
82 The Glories of Divine Grace.
her Divine Son is due to Him, and so necessarily due, that she can never lose it or be without it, and so plentifully due, that we all may draw therefrom. As it is said of her Son, that He is full of grace and truth, so she is called by the angel, not only blessed with grace, but full of grace. As He is the own and only begotten Son of the Father, so is Mary His first-born daughter.
If we, therefore, consider the sublime dignity of Mary, as it unites in her grace with the Divine maternity, and this maternity with grace, then we may not venture to com pare with it our heavenly dignity, which we have received by grace. But if we, for a moment, abstract from this union, and consider the maternal dignity of Mary in it-self alone, then we may safely assert, without fear of prejudice to her, that grace is a greater gift and confers a higher dignity than the Divine maternity.
As Mother of God according to the flesh, Mary ranks high above all creatures ; she deserves the love and re spect of her Son, the reverence of the angels, the service of men, and beholds all things beneath her. But she would rather be without all this and without the sovereignty in Heaven and on earth ; she would gladly give up the privi leges and honors of the Mother of God, rather than lose grace. She would rather be a daughter of God by grace, than the Mother of God by nature ; for she well knows that Jesus, although He embraces her with an incomparable love, would nevertheless love another soul more if this soul were richer in grace.
Christ Himself wished to intimate this, when He spoke the memorable words to those who would, during His ser mon, introduce His Mother and His relatives : " Who is My Mother, and who are My brethren ? And stretching forth His hand towards His disciples, He said : Behold My mother and My brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of My Father, who is in Heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother." On another occasion, when a certain woman from the
1 Matth. xii. 18-:0.
Grace and the Dignity of the Mother of God. 8
people called His Mother blessed in the words : " Blessed is the womb that bore Thee and the breasts that gave Thee suck/" He answered with deep meaning : " Yea, rather, blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it." ' He certainly did not wish,, in these two places, to deny His Mother and do her injustice. He intended rather to say that His Mother is worthy of Him only for that reason, because she performs the will of His Father in the most perfect manner ; she hears His word and keeps it, and pos sesses in the fullest measure the grace of God, and that if another soul (which cannot for a moment be supposed) were more perfect in this respect than His Mother, He would honor such a soul more than His Mother.
Indeed, as Mother of our Saviour in the flesh, she had given birth to Him only according to the flesh ; she had received the Eternal Word into her bosom, to invest Him with a human nature, and she thus enjoyed a natural rela tionship with Him. But by receiving the Word of God into her soul, she conceived and brought forth her Son also spiritually, she was clothed with the splendor of His Divine nature, and thus entered also into a heavenly relationship with Him. Certainly this last relation cannot be sep arated from the first and is necessarily connected with it ; yet it remains true what St. Augustine says : " The mater nity would have profited the Virgin nothing, if she had not borne Christ still more happily in spirit than she bore Him in the flesh." From this it by no means follows, that the maternity of Mary according to the flesh is of little or no value to her. Its highest privilege and its sublimest significance rather consist in its being inseparable from grace and having it attached to it as a necessary consequence.
2. But if the Divine maternity of Mary would have been
profitless without grace, and if Mary had rather possessed
this than the former alone, how may we dare to compare
and prefer any other purely human dignity to grace !
1 Luke xi. -:7, £S.
84 The Glories of Divine Grace.
How may we love fame among men more than the honor to stand in grace with God ! How may we cherish rather to appear great in the eyes of men, than to know our names written in the Book of Life ! How may we boast of possessing a temporal advantage over our fellow-men, when they may surpass us in the grace of God, and our Saviour almost makes us the equals of His own Mother by this grace !
By grace we in reality are in a wonderful manner rendered similar to the Mother of God. Not only was it impossible for the Son of God to adorn the soul of His Mother, as little as His own, with a perfection of a higher kind than grace confers ; He, indeed, had to grant her this grace in a much larger measure and much higher degree ; but we imitate in ourselves the maternity of Mary by the reception of grace. The same Holy Spirit that descended into the bosom of Mary, to invest her with a holy fertility, also descends into our soul, to generate, in a spiritual manner, the Son of God. As the Blessed Virgin, by lending a willing ear to the word of the angel, and by fulfilling the will of her heavenly Father, was made the Mother of the Son of God in the flesh and in spirit, so must our soul give birth spiritually to the Son of God by faithfully re ceiving the Word of God and corresponding to the com mand of God, who will give it His grace. Yea, even accord ing to the flesh, the Son of God comes to us to dwell in us, as Mary bore Him in her bosom for nine months, and will be one with us in the flesh, as He is with His Mother. Can we be surprised, then, that our Saviour says : Whoso ever shall do the will of My Father, who is in Heaven, is My mother, brother, and sister ? And must not we, in thanksgiving for the similar grace that God has given us, intone the same hymn with Mary and exclaim : " My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour ; for He that is mighty, hath done great things to me."
But if it was necessary that, on account of her mater-
Grace and the Dignity of the Mother of God. 85
nity, Mary should be so pure and holy as never to suffer the stain of the slightest shadow of sin ; if we shudder at the thought that she should have been able to offend, even by the least fault, the Son,, whom she bore in her bosom, or perhaps even to lose His grace by a mortal sin ; must not we, also, in view of our intimate union with Christ, re gard the least sin as a terrible and atrocious crime ?
3, Another sweet consideration we must not pass over on this occasion. Mary is greater and more exalted than we, because she is the Mother of God and at the same time our mother. But how can the Mother of God be our mother also ? She is not our mother according to our human nature, as we have received this from Eve, and not from her. She is rather our mother in so far as we are the brethren of her only Son and the living members of His body. She is our mother according to grace, by which we have received anew, heavenly nature and partake of the Divine nature of her Son, and indeed, as only God alone can be our Father by grace, so our mother by grace can be no other than the Mother of God.
Oh, what delight must fill our soul at this thought, and how must our heart thrill with joy in the sublime con viction that we are so closely related to the Mother of God, and may rightly call the Queen of Heaven and earth our mother ! But how highly should we esteem, too, the in heritance she bequeaths to us, the pledge of her maternal love, the image she impresses upon our soul, to make it like to her and her Divine Son ! How tenderly should we love and honor her, and in token of our gratitude, endeavor to guard and protect the great gift of grace which she grants us through her Son ! How carefully should we be on our guard, lest by the loss of grace we show ourselves unworthy of such a great mother and lose the dignity of her children !
FOURTEENTH CHAPTER. How much God Himself Esteems Grace.
1.
IFTER all that has now been said, Christian soul, you will not only believe, but clearly see, that grace, which includes so many and such incom parable privileges and gifts, must be very, aye, infinitely precious. But if all this leaves no impression upon your heart, either because you do not see these glories with your corporal eyes, or because the visible and transitory riches of the world fascinate you too much with their charms, then learn the infinite value of grace from the infinite value of the price which God Himself lias paid for it. If you cannot estimate it yourself, see how much God has valued it, and if you cannot understand it, submit your intellect to the obedience of faith, by making the infalli ble judgment of God your own ; weigh the value of grace in the infallible balance of God.
And what do you behold ? What could the great God, with all His infinite wisdom, power, and goodness do more than He has done, to procure us grace ? What greater things could He sacrifice for it than He has really sacrificed ? He has not spared His own Son, His own blood, His own life of infinite value.
Even the human life of the Son of God is a Divine life on account of the infinite dignity of His person, and can only be sacrificed for the sake of another Divine life. Neither Heaven nor earth, with all the splendor and the countless number of beings they contain, was worthy to be bought and saved by the life of the Son of God, or even by a tear or a drop of His blood. On the
How much God Himself Esteems Grace. 87
other hand, theologians say that the Son of God, even if He should have to acquire grace for one soul only, would not have become man and died in vain. By sacrificing His life for us, then, the Son of God wished to indicate that He must purchase for us the life of the children of God, and that the grace that adorns our soul possesses an equally infinite value as the precious blood of His holy body. For if His corporal life is of infinite dignity, because it belongs to a Divine person, the life of grace is of infinite value, because it makes us partakers of the Divine nature. 2. A disgraceful treason had irrecoverably lost man the grace which God, in His infinite love, had originally be stowed upon him. Then God wished to acquire it again for him with equal or even greater love, and to that end made every effort that His infinite wisdom could invent and permit. He therefore conceived a plan, which by its unheard-of novelty amazed the whole heavenly host. He Himself would become man, to restore to mankind the dignity of His children and bring them back to His Divine paternal bosom. Behold the Son of God, as He leaves the throne of His Father, to seek one of His servants in the most remote corner of His kingdom, and to inclose Him self within the bosom of a human being, in a poor cot tage at Xazareth ! Behold, how low He descends, passing by the angels, and with what zeal He takes upon Himself all the trials and sufferings of human nature ! Would it not seem as if He intended to purchase His own salvation, His life, His happiness, His glory and Divinity at such a great, such an unprecedented price ? Oh, He desired and wished nothing else than to acquire grace, which the world estimates so lightly, and did not believe He purchased it too dearly with such great sacrifices and at such a high price ! He purchased it, moreover, not for Himself, but for us ; and if we must, with our own sacrifices, acquire a certain good for others, we certainly will not pay too dearly for it, and if we do give a great price for this good, it must be of indescribable value.
88 77ie Glories of Divine Grace.
If, then, the Son of God, who in His infinite wisdom estimates all things according to their true value, would purchase grace so dearly for us, how must we, then, be ashamed that we bear its loss so easily, and having lost it, do not even miss it ! Every moment that we are without grace ought to be more terrible for us than hell ; and we are able to let days, weeks, and months elapse in the state of sin, and all the while quietly and calmly sleep, eat, play, and enjoy ourselves ! The great God humbles and annihilates Himself to give us lost grace again ; and we, who are the special subjects of this grace, who stand in so great need of it, we faithless mortals destroy it by our sins and crimes, when we are deceived by the shadow of vain glory, or the gratification of a miserable indulgence ! How can we esteem that so lightly, which God considers of such great value !
3. It did not satisfy Christ merely to descend from Heav en upon earth ; for thirty-three years He would labor and suffer in His human nature. Because, even in His humanity, He was the true Son of God, all His actions had an infinite merit, and by one drop of His precious blood He might have obtained for us pardon of our sins, by one act of love to His Heavenly Father, by one act of glorifying God, He might have merited grace again for us. But no; to make us fully aware of the infinite value of grace, He would show that not even a God-man can do and suffer too much for it. Therefore, He has suffered all that man can suffer, so that His sufferings may be called infinite, not only in value, but also in their measure ; therefore, He fasted forty days, in order to satiate us with the bread of grace ; therefore, He had His body torn with scourges, in order to clothe us with the robe of grace ; therefore, His sacred head was crowned with thorns, to adorn us with the crown of His grace ; therefore, He had His hands and feet pierced by sharp nails and shed His precious blood, to pour out into our soul the heavenly waters of grace ; finally, He sac rificed His Divine life on the ignominious instrument of
How much God Himself Esteems Grace. 89
the cross,, to raise us to the throne of grace and to fill us with Divine life.
Consider,, Christian reader, and openly speak your opin ion : can that be so very unimportant, which the Son of God will acquire in such a laborious manner ? You so easily believe all men, who promise you liberty, blessing, and happiness, and proclaim themselves the true saviours of the world ; but as soon as it would become necessary to purchase your promised happiness by their own sacrifices, they are not in the least prepared to do this. From this you may learn how insincere their good wishes are, how little they really love you, and how little they themselves esteem the goods which they promise you. Why will you not believe your Saviour, who makes so many and such great sacrifices in your behalf ? If He should tell you to suffer all that He has suffered in order to merit grace, you would be obliged to believe Him, the Eternal Truth, that grace were worthy of such a price. How much more readily must you believe it now, when He has proven, by facts, that even the God-man of infinite dignity cannot suffer too much for grace. If you believe this, then you will understand, also, that all those little sufferings which poor man may undergo for the sake of grace, are noth ing compared to its infinite value. If you had all to suf fer what Christ has suffered, if you had to endure even all the torments of hell, you could not, with all this, merit the least degree of grace. Thank your Saviour, then, from your whole heart, for having suffered so much for your sake, and endeavor to be made conformable to Him in His suffer ings, as far as possible, and to show thereby how much you have learned to esteem grace.
4. Certainly that is a great good, which has cost thf Son of God His life. But even this Christ did not deem a sufficient recompense for grace. He went still farther, and to propogate grace amongst men, He instituted a sacra ment and a sacrifice, which contain nothing less than His own body and blood. It was not enough for Him to be
go The Glories of Divine Grace.
born once, to die once, to be buried once, only. In a mys terious manner, in the hands of the priest, He would be born again a thousand or a million times, at every hour and over the whole world ; Ho would renew the sacrifice of the cross upon the altars of the holy Church, and be buried again in the hearts of the faithful. Oh, how much insult and dishonor must He always suffer in this holy sacrament, when the defiled hands of a wicked priest come in contact with Him, when poor and unadorned al tars shelter Him, or when even a heart defiled with sin receives Him ! Why those countless steps and journeyings in which the Son of God untiringly descends every day from Heaven upon earth ? What impels Him is His infi nite zeal to give us grace, whilst we, in dreadful blind ness, scarcely move a step to obtain it, and on the contrary, pursue, with full sail, that which may despoil us of grace? God lias performed so many and such great works, and still acts and suffers for the sake of grace ; but what and how little do we labor and suffer, or even wish to do and / suffer ?
But if the intrinsic value of grace were not so great in itself, that it ought to be purchased at an immense price, the price that was actually rendered for it ought to give it an infinite value in our eyes. For we hold anything in higher honor already, because we have obtained it with great labor and many sacrifices ; its great cost enhances and multiplies its value. When David, in a military expedition, suffered much from thirst, and some of his brave warriors had, with great labor and danger, brought a drink of water, he considered the water, though in itself of no value, yet, on account of the danger it had cost his soldiers, too precious to bo drunk by him, and offered it to the Lord.1 And yet his soldiers had not really sacrificed their life, but only exposed it to danger. Must not the sacri fice, which Christ has made for grace, render this doubly precious to us ?
1 II. Kings xxiii. 14-17.
How muck God Himself Esteems Grace. 91
Yes, grace is as infinitely precious as its price, the blood and life of Christ, which was offered for it. Who despises it, despises not only the eternal and infinite treasures con tained in its bosom, but also the price with which Christ has purchased it. St. Eusebius of Emisa ' says very sig nificantly : " I feel that I am something great, that I am a work of God ; but I am conscious of being something far greater, aye, incomparably greater, because I am re deemed at such a rich, such a superabundant price, that I appear to equal God in value. " And, in another place, a the same Saint remarks : "Not gold, nor an angel, but the Author of our salvation Himself was laid in the balance, that man might, at least from the great price, learn the greatness of his dignity."
As often, then, as you exchange grace for sin, so often do yon, in the most insolent and shameful manner, trifle with the life, the blood and death of the great and terrible Lord and God ! All the labor of many years of His ardent love, a love that spared not itself, is destroyed in a moment, and the inheritance that He acquired with so much trouble is cast into the abyss of sin !
God had created light, the joy of the whole world, with two words ; with the same ease He had produced the stars, the plants, and animals. He gave life to the angels by a mere signification of His will and to man by a light breath of His nostrils. The greatest miracles He wrought, as it were, in passing, by one wrord, one touch, one sign, \)y His mere will. By those three words He spoke to Lazarus in the sepulchre He might have raised with him all the dead to life. But, to restore grace to you, who so auda ciously despise it and cast it away, Almighty God was obliged to undertake a work that cost Him labor, an unspeakable labor of so many years ; He was obliged to give up His own life, and He did so with joy, because He knew grace was worthy of such a struggle. You yourself, however, do not tire of the ways of sin ; you often remain in sin for weeks
1 Horn. 0. (ie Pasch. 2 Horn. 2. de symb.
92 The Glories of Divine Grace.
and months, and do not consider your conversion worth even a slight effort ! You think to redeem your sins by a hasty confession and soon after,, the day following, or, per haps, the same evening, you are as careless, gay, and merry as if nothing had happened, and perhaps even forget your good resolution ! Unhappy man ! Whither do your blind ness and the intoxicating habit of sin lead you ! Had you only, as the true servants of God do, considered atten tively the great price of your redemption, certainly you would, like them, approach the sacrament of reconciliation with bitter compunction and holy zeal ; you would shield yourself with a strong resolution of amendment and pre serve, with the greatest care, the grace recovered. You would henceforth ever be mindful of the words of the Apostle: " Knoiv you not that you are not your own ? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body."1
5. Finally, grace is held in such high regard by God, that He would rather all other evils would descend upon man, and the whole world would be thrown into confusion and dissolution, than to permit the loss of grace, because this loss is the greatest of all evils. Do you see the immense wars and the terrible epidemics, that in a short time convert whole flourishing countries into deserts ? Do you perceive the many mishaps that deprive whole families of their wealth and honor ? Do you see the many evils that befall individuals, the countless persecutions that sinners wage against the just and in which the sinners often seem to triumph ? All these evils are permitted by God because men are thereby induced to seek their salvation and happi ness, not upon earth, but in grace. All these evils, for which many men blame Divine Providence, are permitted by God because they are as nothing compared to grace, which they are intended to convey to man and to preserve for him. If God gave His only begotten Son for man,
1 I. Cor. vi. 20.
How much God Himself Esteems Grace. 93
why should He not rather destroy the whole creation than suffer mankind to be without His grace ?
Why should not we, also, learn from this Divine lesson to esteem grace and its price ? May we lose honor and a good name, if only grace does not fail us ; may we lose our rich es, our parents, children, friends, our health and our life ; may we lose all, .may Heaven and earth pass away, if we only retain grace ! Christ justly teaches us to sell, for its sake, all that we possess, and give it to the poor, to sever all, even the dearest human ties, to despise and sacrifice our own life, for which His bright and beautiful example has shown us the way ; for indeed, he who has found this pearl, possesses wherewith to purchase God, and Heaven, and all other things.
Of the Sublime and Incomprehensible Union with God to which Grace Introduces us.
FIRST CHAPTER.
By Grace we Receive the Person of the Holy Spirit into our Soul.
1.
N the first book we have considered the nature of sanctifying grace and found it to be a most sub lime, supernatural quality of our nature infused by God in a most wonderful manner. We have seen that this quality makes us partakers of the Divine nature, and like unto this nature in its glorious prerogatives. But if our nature is so greatly elevated, and glorified, and made similar to the Divine nature, then we must also enter into an exceedingly intimate, mysterious, and living union with God, and this fact must evidently raise and increase the glory and preciousness of grace. This mysterious union with God, which is effected by grace, will form the subject of the second book.
In the language of Holy Writ and of the holy Fathers, the Holy Spirit is generally designated as that Person with whom we are specially united by grace. For the Holy Spirit, as the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, stands, as it were, on the boundaries of the Blessed Trinity, and
Reception of tke Holy Spirit. 95
therefore the union of God with the creature, and of the creature with God,, is primarily and principally attributed to Him. Besides, He is the personal representative of the Divine love, from which He proceeds. But since the union of God with the creature is effected by His love, and on the other hand, our union with God in this life consists principally in our love for Him, it is evident why it is the Holy Spirit who represents in this respect the whole Blessed Trinity.
2. Of the Holy Spirit now we say, that He Himself comes to us with grace, He gives us Himself in grace, and that He really and essentially, in an unspeakably intimate manner, dwells in us by grace.
The Holy Spirit it is who, according to the words of the Apostle,1 transforms us by His power into the image of God. In this He does not act like the sun, which only from a distance transforms the crystal globe into its image by its rays ; no, because as God He must be present everywhere lie acts, He illumines our soul, as a light that is placed within a crystal globe, or as a fire that is most closely united to and penetrates the body, which it makes bright and glowing. He Himself is the seal by which God impresses upon our soul the image of His Divine nature and holiness. As the seal indeed only imprints its form in the wax, but in order to do this must be brought into most intimate connection with it ; so the Holy Spirit, by impressing us with the seal of His image, enters into most intimate union with our soul. Thus the Holy Spirit cannot give us His grace without giving us Himself, as the Apostle says :2 " The charily of God (which together with His grace is His highest gift) is poured forth into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to its."
But as the Holy Ghost must Himself come to us, to bring us grace, so conversely grace brings us to the Holy Spirit, unites us with Him, and effects that by it and with it we possess the Holy Spirit Himself. "By sanctifying
1 II. Cor. iii. 18. 2 Rom. v. 5.
96 The Glories of Divine Grace.
grace," says St. Thomas,1 "the rational creature is thus perfected, that it may not only -use with liberty the created good, but that it may also enjoy the uncreated good j/and therefore, the invisible sending of the Holy Ghost takes place in the gift of sanctifying grace, yet the Divine Per son Himself is given us."
By those words, St. Thomas will not maintain that we are qualified by grace only to enjoy the Holy Spirit by knowledge and love, in a manner, as we may know and love objects that do not belong to us, and that we do not pos sess in substance. He will rather say, that we possess and enjoy the Holy Spirit Himself in the same manner as ob jects that we not only see, but may also use ; that we not only love, but may also hold in close embrace. Or / rather, to express this mystery as far as possible in all/ its depth, by grace we are not only qualified to know, love, and enjoy God from afar, mediately by the beauty and goodness of His creatures, but to possess Him immediately in His substance. And this again not only means that the Divine substance is the object of our happy possession in any manner, but that it is truly and really present to us in a very special and intimate manner. For as theologians very generally teach with regard to the beatific vision of God in eternity, that it cannot be imagined without a true, real, and exceedingly intimate presence of God in our soul; so we must likewise hold that we cannot love God in this life with a supernatural love, unless the Divine object of our love be present in the most intimate manner in our soul. As the object of beatific vision, God 2 is truly the food of our soul and is as intimately united to it, as the natural food is to the body ; and in like manner the super natural love for God is at the same time a truly spiritual embrace of God, by which we receive Him, and hold Him in the innermost nature of our soul.
In a twofold manner, then, and from a twofold cause, we are truly and really united to the Holy Spirit by grace :
1 1. p. q. 33, art. 2. " Vide inf. c. G.
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first, as the Author of grace He comes to us with grace, and unites Himself with us, and again grace conducts us to Him and unites us with Him. The Holy Spirit approaches us in an unspeakably intimate manner, to communicate to us grace and love as a participation in the Divine nature and sanctity, as an outflow from the innermost bosom of Divinity ; and again, we approach wonderfully near to Him ,.by the same grace, which, as a participation in the Divine nature, qualifies us for the immediate possession and enjoy ment of the Divine substance and the Divine Persons.
3. The Holy Spirit, and the Divinity itself, is present also to natural things, and that not only by His activity, but because God acts by His substance, also substantially. But by grace His presence becomes incomparably more in timate and of a quite different nature. In the creatures He is present only as their Creator, without whom they cannot exist ; but in those possessed of grace lie is present as their sanctifier, who gives Himself to them and discloses to them the depths of His own being ; He is in them in a similar manner, us. God the Father is in His only-begotten Son. The Father is in the Son by the substantial and es sential communication of His nature, and so the Holy Spirit is in us by the gracious communication of the par ticipation in the Divine nature. As much, then, as the presence of the Eternal Father in His Son is different from His presence in the creatures, so different, too, is the pres ence of the Holy Spirit in the soul filled with grace, from His presence in mere creatures.
Although the Holy Spirit is present to all creatures, though He dwells in the whole created nature as in an im mense temple, and the Holy Scripture says of Him : " The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world;39 yet in the soul adorned with grace He dwells with a special and pe culiar presence. This is so true, that a great theologian ' does not hesitate to say : If God should cease to be present in the other creatures, He would not cease to be in the souls
1 Suarez, de Trinitate, lib. 1?, p. 5.
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that are in grace any more than He would thereby separate Himself from the humanity of Christ which is united with Him in one person. Therefore all creation can no longer be called a temple of God in comparison with the soul in grace; or if that is His temple, the soul is His altar; if that is His house this is His innermost chamber. Yea, we may more appropriately, and in accordance with Holy Writ, call the whole natural creation the footstool of God, upon which only the hem of His garment descends ; the soul in grace, however, we must call the throne of God, replete with all Divine glory. Shall I say even more ? In the soul, which is in the state of grace, the Holy Spirit is as intim ately present, as the soul itself is present in the heart, of which it is the principle of life and action.
4. And this holy presence of the Spirit of God lasts as long as we preserve grace. The Holy Spirit does not come to us as a transient guest, who will remain with us only for a short time and then leave us. Our Saviour has prayed for us to the Father, that He might send us the Para clete, the Spirit of truth, to abide with us forever.* For ever this great guest will dwell with us and not leave us unless we ourselves expel Him from our hearts.
0 wonderful greatness of grace that introduces such a great, sweet, and holy guest and unites Him so closely and inseparably with our soul ! If Zacheus called himself blessed because he could receive the Son of God in human form into his house for a short time, how much happier must we consider ourselves for being able to receive the Holy Spirit in His Divinity, not into our house, but into the innermost recesses of our heart ! Let others consider it a great honor to receive a temporal prince into their house ; we will gladly accept and account as nothing all shame and disgrace from our fellow-men, if we only keep the Holy Spirit in our heart. " If you be reproached for the name of Christ," says the Prince of the Apostles,2 "you shall be blessed ; for that which is of the honor, (/lory, and
1 John xiv- 1C. 2 I. Peter iv. 14.
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power of God, and that loliich is His Spirit, resteth upon you." We should oppose a holy pride to all the abuse and insult the world may heap upon us, confident that no one can deprive our soul of the presence of this great guest.
5. But this distinguished guest comes not only to honor us with His presence ; He brings us also a very rich treasure, and He Himself is this treasure ; or rather He Himself is not only a treasure, but the pledge of a still greater treasure. For as we now are to experience and enjoy the Holy Spirit in the sweetness of His love, so we shall taste and enjoy hereafter the Father and the Son in their whole Divine es sence and glory. " He is the pledge of our inheritance/' says the Apostle. ! As this inheritance is none other than God Himself, the pledge for it can be no other than God. For only a Divine pledge can secure us a Divine inheritance and give us a foretaste of the enjoyment of God.
Oh, how little are we sensible of the preciousness of this treasure and of the living hope which this pledge gives us, because we make so little endeavor to experience it ! The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Divine charity, can only be per ceived and enjoyed in the measure in which we receive His love. The more we love Him, the nearer He approaches us, the more deeply He is immersed in our soul, the more we experience His heavenly sweetness, the stronger grows our desire and confidence to possess and enjoy one day not only the pledge but the whole treasure of God. But if we do not nurse and cultivate this love in us, then we our selves are in fault if we do not experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in our soul, and we even deserve soon to lose it altogether.
But no; far be this from you, Christian soul, for when you no longer esteem the presence of the Holy Ghost in your soul, you not only bring the greatest misfortune upon yourself, but also offer Him the most shameful insult. What outrageous wrong were it not, if a poor man, into whose home a temporal prince entered, would not receive
1 Ephesians i. 14.
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him, or after receiving him, neglect him altogether or even expel him from his house ! But what if you told the Spirit of God, not expressly, but plainly enough by your indifferent and contemptuous conduct : " Depart from me! " like those men, of whom Job says that they "looked upon the Almighty as if He could do nothing, whereas He had filled their houses with good things"? 1
6. The Holy Ghost comes to you, to give you Himself and thus to render you happy; but at the same time He comes as your Lord and God, to take possession of you as of His temple. " Know you not" says the Apostle,2 " that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?" By receiving the Holy Ghost into your hearts, you are dedicated as His temple and belong to Him ; all your actions should tend to His honor and be worthy of Him. Before Him you shall serve no idol and thereby profane the temple of the true God. " For," says the same Apostle in another place,3 "what agreement hath the temple of God with idols 9 You are the temple of the living God, as God saith : I will dwell in them, and walk among them, and I will he their God, and they shall be my people."
What an abominable crime is it not to profane and dese crate the temple of God ! Learn this from the greatness of the punishment which the Apostle imposes upon it. " If any man violate the temple of God, him shall God de stroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are." * But by every mortal sin we not only violate this temple, but destroy and annihilate it ; for we destroy in us grace, by which this temple is built up. 0 terrible and pernicious deed, by which we, like Samson, in a moment tear away the pillars of this grand structure to bury ourselves under its ruins, to rob God at one stroke of the object of His sweetest pleasure, and cast ourselves into a fathomless abyss ! The wicked king Antiochus had not dared to de stroy the temple of Jerusalem ; he had only profaned it
1 Job xxii. 17, 18. 2 I. Cor. vi. 19. 3 II. Cor. vi. K;. 4 I. Cor. iiL 17.
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and robbed it of its treasures. Nevertheless, lie soon ex perienced the hand of Divine vengeance ; worms grew out of his body, the rotted flesh fell in pieces from his limbs, and he died in unspeakable pain and the most terrible de spair. And you, wicked blasphemer, who violate the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, destroy His temple, extinguish the stars that shine in your soul, you dare to hope for in dulgence ? Would that mortals could understand, says an eminent divine,1 how great, how cruel and terrible an evil is one mortal sin, by which grace is destroyed in our soul ! It were better that the whole world were destroyed, than that one mortal sin were committed.
7. As the soul lives in the body as in a house, so the Holy Ghost dwells not only in our soul ; with it and by it He also dwells in our 'body. Our body also is then a temple of the Holy Ghost, -blessed and sanctified by His presence, a holy vessel, holier than the ark of the covenant in the Old Law, because we hold not only the tables of the Law, but the Lawgiver Himself. Therefore the Apostle tells us : 2 " Tills is the will of God, your sanctification : that you should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess His vessel in sanctification and honor ; not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles, who know not God. . . . Therefore he that despiseth these tilings-, despiseth not man, hut God, who also hath given His holy Spirit in us." The members of our body are members of Christ, by whom we have received the Holy Ghost, and they are therefore instruments of the Holy Ghost dedicated to His service and glory. "Know you not," says the same Apostle, "that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I, then, take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid." " Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, so as to obey the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of iniquity unto sin, but present yourselves to God . . .
1 Philip Gamachicus in 1, 2, q. 113, c. 13. '2 I. Thess. iv. 3-H. :( I. Cor. vi. 15.
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and your members as instruments of justice unto God."
8. Still more grateful should we be to God for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and more respectful to the temple of God within us, when we compare the communication and send ing of the Holy Ghost with the communication and send ing of the Son of God. 'It was infinite evidence of God's love for us, already to give us, in the Incarnation, His only-begotten Son. Who are we, that the Son of God should,, on our account, descend from Heaven upon earth, adopt our nature, and walk and dwell among us ? The whole heavenly court was seized with deep wonder at hear ing of this condescension of its King. Yet the Son of God dwelt only a short time among us, only in one country and with one people. The Holy Spirit, however, equal to the Father and the Son in the Divinity, comes to each one of us, and not only comes to us, but enters our soul and makes it His throne and temple, and will always remain with us. And should we not know how to appreciate this great gift and this love ?
In Holy Communion the God-man enters our heart with His holy body, it is true, only for a few moments, as long as the species remain entire. The Divinity of the Holy Ghost is certainly something greater and more sublime than even the body of Christ, and instead of soon depart ing from us, lie is united to us the more intimately, the more we hold Him and approach Him ; for the possession of any good, says St. Albertus Magnus, is so much more secure and lasting, as it is itself more noble and sublime. Why should we not extend to the Holy Ghost in our heart at least the same reverence and honor that we give the body of our Lord on the altar or in the tabernacle, or when receiving it in Holy Communion ?
Your heart would shudder and tremble and be shocked at hearing that a fiendish hand had robbed the body of our Lord from the tabernacle and thrown it upon the street, or that an outrageous tongue had spit it out
1 Rom. vi. 12, 13.
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again after holy Communion ; and no punishment would appear to you great enough for such a crime. Well, then, 0 sinner, out of your own mouth judge yourself ! Do not you commit a similar act, when you expel the Holy Ghost from the temple of your soul by a mortal sin and exclude Him from your heart ?
Every heart that is not altogether depraved and void of feeling approaches the table of the Lord with a holy awe ; and even those who otherwise show little concern for their sins do not dare to receive the purest body of Christ into a heart defiled with sin. But do you believe that the Holy Ghost, who Himself formed that purest flesh in the chaste bosom of the Virgin, will more easily be reconciled to the filth and uncleanness of your carnal heart and live together with sin under the same shelter? Certainly not; even the angels in themselves are not pure enough in His eyes, and must first be cleansed and purified by His own Divine fire, that they may become worthy to receive Him. Is it not, then, reasonable that you at least strive after an angelic purity and live, as the Apostle teaches, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit ?
9. Finally, it is very significant, as St. Augustine ex plains,1 that our Lord sent the Holy Ghost twice : the first time, when after His resurrection, whilst yet sojourning on earth, He breathed upon His Apostles and said : " Re ceive ye the Holy Ghost"— and again after His ascension into Heaven on the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem. For the Holy Ghost is the Divine love and, when given, is to pour out this love into our hearts. But since we must love two objects with this love, God and our neighbor, our Saviour wished, as St. Augustine says, to give His spirit twice, that He might grant us the love of God and the love of our neighbor. The Holy Ghost inspires us with the love of God, when He gives us the power and in clination for this love, and gives us Himself as the pledge, that God will eternally love us, and with all that He
1 August., (leTrinit., lib. 15, cap. 26.
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possesses, will be ours. The love of our neighbor He works in us, by making Him also His temple, by giving Himself also to our neighbor and dwelling in him, that we may henceforth love in our neighbor, not a man, but God Himself, who lives in him. Oh, how few remember that they must honor and love their fellow-man as a sacred and venerable temple of the Holy Ghost ! Would they other- wise treat Him so contemptuously, so easily despise Him, and so inconsiderately offend Him ? Would they not rather consider themselves happy in being allowed to ap proach this sanctuary of the Holy Ghost and to serve it ? Were we as enlightened as the Saints, we should kneel down before the sick and helpless, and with the greatest rever ence render them the meanest services, knowing well that about the temple of God even the lowest service is infinite ly great and holy. Holy Writ ' says of God Himself, that He " disposest of us with great favor," as of a precious vessel, certainly from no other reason but because He be holds His own spirit within us.
The great Abbot Alcuin adds to this passage of St. Au gustine, that our Lord, while yet on earth, first sent the Holy Ghost, that we may love our neighbor and thus pre pare ourselves to receive the Holy Ghost from our Lord in Heaven, that we may embrace God Himself with heavenly love. " For," says St. John,2 " lie that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, hoiv can he love God, whom he seeth not?" Let us, then, in the Holy Ghost love the temple of God in our neighbor, that we may ourselves be made worthy to be true temples of God and forever to be filled with His Di vine glory !
1 Wis. xii. 18. 3 I. John iv. 20.
SECOND CHAPTER.
The Whole Blessed Trinity is Introduced into our Soul by Grace.
1.
| HE subject proposed here may be easily proven from what has already been stated ; for " in this," says the disciple and teacher of love, "we know that we abide in God, and He in us ; because He hath given us of His Spirit." The Holy Ghost is Him self God, and is one God with the Father and the Son : all three Persons are inseparably united with each other, on account of the unity of their essence, and hence, where one is present the two others must also be present. Therefore our Lord Himself says very distinctly : a " If any one love Me lie will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode ivith him." To this mystery, Origen applies that blessed "fellowship ivith the Father and His Son Jesus Christ," of which St. John writes to the faithful,3 " that they may rejoice, and their joy may be full." If, lastly, St. Augustine explains, in what sense we may, in the Lord^s prayer, address to God the Father the words, "who art in Heaven," though He is present everywhere, He teaches that the word Heaven signifies the just on earth, and the angels above, in whom, as in a magnificent royal palace, God the Father, the in separable companion of grace, dwells with the Son and the Holy Ghost. God always directly follows His grace, and whoever receives it, receives into his soul the Triune God, with incomparably greater happiness than Abraham once re ceived Him, before his tent, under the guise of the three men.
1 I. John iv- 13. 2 John xiv. Ms 3 I. John i. 3-4.
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0 thrice wonderful power of graces, which draws down the whole Blessed Trinity from Heaven into our soul, or rather converts this into a Heaven ! " How little appears to me/' St. Chrysostom exclaims, "the power which Josue possessed over the greatest heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon, so that he could command them to stand still or to resume their motion ! For this is an incomparably greater honor, that we may draw down the Lord of Heaven Himself upon earth." 0 holy grace, architectress of a neAv Heaven, a new temple, a new palace and throne for the King of Heaven and earth, who would not joyfully open to you the door of his heart, that you may prepare in it a worthy dwelling-place for the Triune God ! And who should dare to drive Thee, 0 great God, from this Thy newly elected resting-place ? He were certainly more impious than Herod, who drove the Infant Jesus from the stable at Bethlehem ; for in this stable God had a dwelling unworthy of Him ; but by grace our soul is so splendidly adorned, that God dwells in it with as much pleasure as He does in Heaven. Who then will dare to storm and seize upon this Heaven, this throne of God ? And if any one is so audacious, ought the ministers and servants of God to remain silent ? Ought not all creation to avenge the affront offered its Creator ? Ought not Heaven to destroy this insolent wretch by its lightnings and the earth open to devour him ?
2. This outrage is the more detestable, the more honor able and condescending is the coming of the Blessed Trin ity into the heart of man. " Wliat is a man/' we must exclaim with holy Job/ " that Thou sliouldst magnify Mm ? or why dost Thou set Thy heart upon him, 0 God 9 " since Thou dost not come to us as to servants, to accept the faithful services of a free and happy servitude from us, which were no small honor for us, but Thou comest to us, to live with us in the most intimate and familiar union.
Job vii. 17.
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Granted that it was a great honor for Joseph of Egypt, for Daniel and Mardochai to hold positions so near to temporal rulers, such an honor is not even a shadow of that honor accorded to us, when the great Almighty God approaches us so near by grace, and unites Himself so in timately to us, as no creature is able to do.
For this fellowship is so intimate, according to the lan guage of the pious and learned Carthusian monk Diony- sius, that we share, in common with God, intercourse, place of abode, mysteries, occupations, sentiments, desires, and interests. Who but the true Christian, united with His God, can speak those sublime words : "It is good for me to stick close to my God, my soul hath stood close to Thee " ? 1 He continually communes with God, and holds inter course with Him in meditation ; he lends an attentive ear to the sweet whisper of His voice ; he receives with eager desire all His holy inspirations and impulses ; to be separ ated from God appears to him harder than death ; and if it occasionally happens that he does not notice the loving expressions of an habitual familiarity, he sighs in sad fear, lest he may have caused this withdrawal of God by his own fault. But who could describe how loving the intercourse is on the part of God, how God also reveals His innermost nature, and discloses His heart to him, how he makes known to such a soul His holy mysteries, lets it experience His holy presence, and infuses into it a peace that tran scends all understanding ? God's own word, " My delight is to be with the children of men/' 2 tells us enough. Well, then, might this holy man Dionysius exclaim: " How great is the dignity of a rational creature, which partici pates in the Divine nature and obtains and holds fellow ship with its Creator ! But, ' Man, when he ivas in hon or, did not understand: he hath been compared to sense less beasts, and made like to them,.'3 By spiritual and carnal sins, many associate themselves Avith the devils and the beasts and are made like to them."
Ps. Ixxii. 28. 2 Prov. viii. 31. 3 Ps. xlviii. 21.
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3. That you,, my dear Christian, may not so easily cast aside the high position to which grace has raised you by similitude with God and fellowship with Him, consider the following :
The relics of holy bodies are deservedly the objects of our greatest veneration ; every one considers himself happy to be able to approach them, to see and touch them, and countless numbers often come from a great distance to pay their tribute of respect and love to these holy relics. But are not, in reality, we far more worthy of veneration, are not we a living shrine of the Divinity, in which is inclosed, not the dead ashes of saints, but all three Persons of the thrice-holy God ? Oh, if you could behold yourself, Christian soul, how would you esteem and honor yourself ! Oh, if you could behold yourself, holy soul, beloved and in habited by God, honored and admired by the angels ! Oh, if you could behold yourself, lovely paradise of your Creator, glorious dwelling of the Blessed Trinity, beautiful bridal- chamber of the heavenly King ! Oh, if you could behold yourself, golden ark of the covenant, not of the Old but of the New Law, altar of the Divine Majesty, treasury of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, temple of the living God ! Oh, if you could behold yourself, sublime throne of the Divinity, wide Heaven, in which shine resplendently not corporeal stars, but the Divine Persons themselves ! Oh, if you could behold yourself, daughter of God the Father, sister of God the Son, spouse of the Holy Ghost, associate and companion of the whole Blessed Trinity ! Oh, if you could behold yourself, how would you esteem yourself, not on account of what you possess of your own self, but on account of the dignity you receive from grace ! How much would you honor yourself and grace, and guard against losing it!
We are rightly delighted at the companionship of St. Frances of Rome, who always beheld an angel companion at her side. But how surprised we should be to see the Archangels and Thrones, yea, all blessed spirits, surround-
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ing man and standing at his side ! But what is this, or rather, how insignificant is all this, compared to the fellowship of God and all three Divine Persons, who are united to every soul that is in the state of grace ! If, now, it is scarcely imaginable that the soul, which knew itself sur rounded by angels, would dare to drive them away or abandon them by an improper act in order to associate with the devils and reprobates ; how terrible and incredible must it appear, that a soul should do this towards Almighty God ! Who could believe that this occurs frequently, aye, that nothing occurs more frequently and universally ? Oh, let us entertain a greater esteem for that high dignity which we may confidently believe to have obtained by just ification in the sacraments of baptism and penance, and that Divine Majesty which dwells in us ! Let our ways be worthy of God, pleasing to Him in all things ; let us despise the things that are of earth, occupy ourselves only with Him and with the things that are of Heaven. And as the Divine Persons descend so low