Chapter 95.—God’s
Judgments Shall Then Be Explained.
Then shall be made clear much that
is now dark. For example, when of two infants, whose cases seem in
all respects alike, one by the mercy of God chosen to Himself, and
the other is by His justice abandoned (wherein the one who is
chosen may recognize what was of justice due to himself, had not
mercy intervened); why, of these two, the one should have been
chosen rather than the other, is to us an insoluble problem. And
again, why miracles were not wrought in the presence of men who
would have repented at the working of the miracles, while they were
wrought in the presence of others who, it was known, would not
repent. For our Lord says most distinctly: “Woe unto thee,
Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which
were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have
repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
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And assuredly there was no
injustice in God’s not willing that they should be saved, though
they could have been saved had He so willed it. Then shall be seen
in the clearest light of wisdom what with the pious is now a faith,
though it is not yet a matter of certain knowledge, how sure, how
unchangeable, and how effectual is the will of God; how many things
He can do which He does not will to do, though willing nothing
which He cannot perform; and how true is the song of the psalmist,
“But our God is in the heavens; He hath done whatsoever He hath
pleased.”
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And this
certainly is not true, if God has ever willed anything that He has
not performed; and, still worse, if it was the will of man that
hindered the Omnipotent from doing what He pleased. Nothing,
therefore, happens but by the will of the Omnipotent, He either
permitting it to be done, or Himself doing it.
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Matt. xi. 21
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Ps. cxv. 3