sinners, and yet abounding in the world, they have obtained riches. And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent: and I have been scourged all the day, and my chastisement hath been in the mornings. I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labor in my sight.”[1]
And the heathens were scandalized at it. This was the very thing that the heathens of old upbraided the Christians with. What sort of a God have you? said they. Where are His justice and goodness towards you? You are poor and despised; hunted from one city to another, tortured and persecuted and crucified alive. Is your God blind that He does not see those things? Or has He forgotten you, that He takes such little interest in you? He must be either unwilling or unable to help you; if He is unable, He is no God; if He is unwilling, it is to no purpose you serve such a merciless Lord. But enough of such blasphemous talk! It is fit only for blind heathens, who know nothing of the inscrutable decrees of divine Providence.
But we Christians look on that inequality as just, because God so wills it. Far from the Christian be such thoughts and complaints! Sufficient for us to keep us resigned should be the words in which the Prophet David speaks of his doubts in this matter: I studied that I might know this thing/ I tried to find out the reason of it, but in vain; therefore I determined to suspend my judgment, to submit humbly to the divine decrees, and to wait “until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.”[2] One thing I believe, and that is enough for me, that Thou, O Lord, hast so willed and ordained; for it is Thou alone who exaltest and humblest man as Thou pleasest; Thou castest him down and liftest him up again: from Thy hand comes adversity as well as prosperity; and Thou givest to every one as seems good in Thy sight. Therefore whatever Thou dost must be right and just; but what Thy reasons are we must not be too anxious to discover. We shall find them out hereafter, when we shall appear in Thy sanctuary, “and understand concerning their last ends.” Then shall we see and know everything clearly in Thee as in a beautiful mirror; we shall un-
- ↑ Mei autem pene moti sunt pedes, pene effusi sunt gressus mei. Quia zelavi super iniquos, pacem peccatorum videns. In labore hominum non sunt, et cum hominibus non flagellabuntur. Ecce ipsi peccatores, et abundantes in’sæculo; obtinuerunt divitias. Et dixi: Ergo sine causa justificavi cor meum, et lavi inter innocentes manus meas, et fui flagellatus tota die, et castigatio mea in matutinis. Existimabam ut cognoscerem hoc; labor est ante me.—Ps. lxxii. 2, 3, 5, 12, 13, 14, 16.
- ↑ Donec intrem in sauctuarium Dei, et intelligam in novissimis eorum.—Ibid. 17.
