_Greatness._--Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it, if it be obscure, should be deprived of it. Why, then, do any complain, if it be such as can be found by seeking?
574
All things work together for good to the elect, even the obscurities of Scripture; for they honour them because of what is divinely clear. And all things work together for evil to the rest of the world, even what is clear; for they revile such, because of the obscurities which they do not understand.
575
_The general conduct of the world towards the Church: G.o.d willing to blind and to enlighten._--The event having proved the divinity of these prophecies, the rest ought to be believed. And thereby we see the order of the world to be of this kind. The miracles of the Creation and the Deluge being forgotten, G.o.d sends the law and the miracles of Moses, the prophets who prophesied particular things; and to prepare a lasting miracle, He prepares prophecies and their fulfilment; but, as the prophecies could be suspected, He desires to make them above suspicion, etc.
576
G.o.d has made the blindness of this people subservient to the good of the elect.
577
There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient obscurity to humble them. There is sufficient obscurity to blind the reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them, and make them inexcusable.--Saint Augustine, Montaigne, Sebond.
The genealogy of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is intermingled with so many others that are useless, that it cannot be distinguished. If Moses had kept only the record of the ancestors of Christ, that might have been too plain. If he had not noted that of Jesus Christ, it might not have been sufficiently plain. But, after all, whoever looks closely sees that of Jesus Christ expressly traced through Tamar,[211]
Ruth,[212] etc.
Those who ordained these sacrifices, knew their uselessness; those who have declared their uselessness, have not ceased to practise them.
If G.o.d had permitted only one religion, it had been too easily known; but when we look at it closely, we clearly discern the truth amidst this confusion.
_The premiss._--Moses was a clever man. If, then, he ruled himself by his reason, he would say nothing clearly which was directly against reason.
Thus all the very apparent weaknesses are strength. Example; the two genealogies in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke. What can be clearer than that this was not concerted?
578
G.o.d (and the Apostles), foreseeing that the seeds of pride would make heresies spring up, and being unwilling to give them occasion to arise from correct expressions, has put in Scripture and the prayers of the Church contrary words and sentences to produce their fruit in time.
So in morals He gives charity, which produces fruits contrary to l.u.s.t.
579
Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of G.o.d, and some defects to show that she is only His image.
580
G.o.d prefers rather to incline the will than the intellect. Perfect clearness would be of use to the intellect, and would harm the will. To humble pride.
581
We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not G.o.d, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship; and still less must we love or worship its opposite, namely, falsehood.
I can easily love total darkness; but if G.o.d keeps me in a state of semi-darkness, such partial darkness displeases me, and, because I do not see therein the advantage of total darkness, it is unpleasant to me.
This is a fault, and a sign that I make for myself an idol of darkness, apart from the order of G.o.d. Now only His order must be worshipped.
582
The feeble-minded are people who know the truth, but only affirm it so far as consistent with their own interest. But, apart from that, they renounce it.
583
The world exists for the exercise of mercy and judgment, not as if men were placed in it out of the hands of G.o.d, but as hostile to G.o.d; and to them He grants by grace sufficient light, that they may return to Him, if they desire to seek and follow Him; and also that they may be punished, if they refuse to seek or follow Him.
584
_That G.o.d has willed to hide Himself._--If there were only one religion, G.o.d would indeed be manifest. The same would be the case, if there were no martyrs but in our religion.
G.o.d being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that G.o.d is hidden, is not true; and every religion which does not give the reason of it, is not instructive. Our religion does, all this: _Vere tu es Deus absconditus._
585
If there were no obscurity, man would not be sensible of his corruption; if there were no light, man would not hope for a remedy. Thus, it is not only fair, but advantageous to us, that G.o.d be partly hidden and partly revealed; since it is equally dangerous to man to know G.o.d without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without knowing G.o.d.
586
This religion, so great in miracles, saints, blameless Fathers, learned and great witnesses, martyrs, established kings as David, and Isaiah, a prince of the blood, and so great in science, after having displayed all her miracles and all her wisdom, rejects all this, and declares that she has neither wisdom nor signs, but only the cross and foolishness.
For those, who, by these signs and that wisdom, have deserved your belief, and who have proved to you their character, declare to you that nothing of all this can change you, and render you capable of knowing and loving G.o.d, but the power of the foolishness of the cross without wisdom and signs, and not the signs without this power. Thus our religion is foolish in respect to the effective cause, and wise in respect to the wisdom which prepares it.
587
Our religion is wise and foolish. Wise, because it is the most learned, and the most founded on miracles, prophecies, etc. Foolish, because it is not all this which makes us belong to it. This makes us indeed condemn those who do not belong to it; but it does not cause belief in those who do belong to it. It is the cross that makes them believe, _ne evacuata sit crux_. And so Saint Paul, who came with wisdom and signs, says that he has come neither with wisdom nor with signs; for he came to convert. But those who come only to convince, can say that they come with wisdom and with signs.
SECTION IX
PERPETUITY