How hast Thou suffered me so long a time? Who has withheld the rigour of Thy justice that it should not punish him that has deserved so terrible punishment? O my soul, how is it that thou dost not fear and tremble, considering the dreadful judgment of God against His angels? If with so great severity He punished creatures so noble, why should not so vile and miserable a creature as thou fear the like punishment? O most powerful Creator, seeing Thou hast showed Thyself to me not a God of vengeance but a Father of mercy, continue towards me this Thy mercy, pardoning my sins and delivering me from hell, which most justly for them I have deserved.
POINT II.
The second point shall be to call to memory the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, who, having been created in Paradise, and in original justice, broke the commandment of Almighty God, eating the fruit of the tree which, upon pain of death, He had prohibited them, for which they were cast forth of paradise, [1] and incurred the sentence of death, and other innumerable miseries, as well for themselves as for all their offspring.
1. Upon this verity of faith, I may reason as upon the former, considering how liberal Almighty God was to our first parents, creating them of His mere goodness according to His own image and likeness, and placing them in a paradise of delights, giving them His grace and original justice; subjecting their appetites to reason and the flesh to the spirit; freeing them from mortality and penalties to which by nature they were subject, and granting them a happy and most contented state. And all this He did of His pure grace and mercy, granting it them not only for
- ↑ Gen. iii. 1; S. Th. 2, q. clxiii., clxiv.
