In Which Two Fundamental Principles Are Laid Down

NOT as I will, but as thou willest (Matt. xxvi. 39). For two ends, the saints tell us, the Son of God descended from heaven and clothed Himself with our flesh, making Himself true man. The one end was to redeem us by His precious blood, the other to teach us by His doctrine the way to heaven and instruct us by His example. For, as it would profit us nothing to know the way if we remained shut up in the prison, so, says St. Bernard, it would not profit us to deliver us from prison if we did not know the way. And as God was invisible, that we might see Him and be able to follow and imitate Him, it was necessary that He should make Himself man and clothe Himself in our human nature, as the shepherd clothes himself with the shepherd’s smock frock, which is the skin of a sheep, that the sheep may follow him, seeing their own likeness. St. Leo says: “If He were not true God, He would bring us no remedy; if He were not true man, He would give us no example.” He did the one and the other in all completeness for the excess of love that He bore tomen. As His redemption was copious (Psalm cxxix. 7), so also was His teaching; for it was not only given by words, but much more abundantly by the example of His deeds. Jesus began to do and to teach (Actsi.1). He first began to do, and that all His life long, and afterwards to preach for the last three years of His life, or two and a half.

Now, among the things that Christ our Redeemer taught us, one of the chiefest was that we should have an entire conformity with the will of God in all things. He taught us that, not only in words—instructing us how to pray, He set down for one of our principal petitions, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. vi. 10)—but He also confirmed this doctrine by His example: I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me (John vi. 38). And at the time of accomplishing the work of our redemption, that Thursday of the Supper, in that prayer in the Garden, though His body and sensible appetite naturally shrank from death—and so to show that He was true man He said: Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me (Matt. xxvi. 42)—yet His will ever remained quite ready and desirous to drink the chalice which His Father was sending Him, and therefore He added at once: Yet not my will, but thine be done.

To go to the root of the matter and establish ourselves well in this conformity, we must suppose two brief but very substantial fundamental principles on which all this matter must turn as upon two hinges. The first is that our advancement and perfection consist in conformity to the will of God; and the greater and more perfect this conformity, the greater will be our perfection. This foundation lends itself to being readily understood, for it is certain that perfection consists essentially in charity and love of God, and a man will be more perfect the more he loves God. Full of this doctrine is the holy Gospel, full the epistles of St. Paul, full the writings of the saints. This is the greatest and first commandment (Matt. xxii. 38). Charity is the bond of perfection (Col. iii. 14). The greatest of these virtues ts charity (I Cor. xiii. 13). The highest and most perfect is charity and the love of God. But the highest and most exalted and purest point of this love, and what we may call the acme of it, is conformity in all to the will of God, so as to have one will of acceptance and one will of refusal with His Divine Majesty in all things. St. Jerome says, and he has it from a pagan philosopher: “To have the same I will and I will not with him whom you love; that is true friendship’—EKadem velle et eadem nolle,-ea demum firma amicitia est. It follows that, the more conformable and the more united to the will of God a man is, the better will he be. Further, it is clear that there is nothing better or more perfect than the will of God. Therefore, the more a man seeks and conforms himself to the will of God, the better and more perfect will he be. So that other philosopher argued: “If God is the most perfect being there is, the more perfect any other being will be, the more it is assimilated and made like to God.”

The second fundamental principle is this, that nothing can happen or come about in this world but by the will and ordinance of God—always understanding, except fault and sin, for of that God is not cause nor author, nor can He be; for as it is repugnant to the nature of fire to freeze and to that of water to warm and to that of the sun to darken, so it is infinitely more against the goodness of God to love evil. So said the Prophet Habacuc: Lord, thine eyes are too pure to bear the sight of evil, and thou canst not give countenance to iniquity (Hab. i. 13). As we say here on earth, ‘“FJe cannot bear the sight,” to give to understand the abhorrence that one has for a thing, so he says that God cannot bear the sight of evil for the great hatred and abhorrence that He has for it. Thou art not a God that willest iniquity (Psalm v. 5). Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity (Psalm xliv. 8). All Holy Writ is full of the abhorrence that God has for sin, and so He cannot be cause or author of it. But apart from this, all other things and all penal evils and afflictions come of the will and ordinance of God. This foundation, also, is quite sure. There is no such thing as fortune in the world; that was a fiction and error of the heathen. The goods that the world calls goods of fortune are not given by fortune—there is no such thing—but by God alone. So says the Holy Spirit by the Wise Man: Good things and evil things, life and death, poverty and riches, God gives them all (Ecclus. xi. 14).

And though these things come by means of secondary causes, still it is certain that nothing is done in this great commonwealth of the world but by the will and ordinance of that sovereign Emperor Who governs it. Nothing comes by chance in respect of God; all is registered and sorted out by His hand. He counts all the bones of your body and all the hairs of your head; not one of them shall fall but by His ordinance and will. Why doI speak of men? Not a sparrow falls into the net, says Christ our Redeemer, but by the dispensation and will of God. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? and not one of them shall fall to the ground without the providence of your Father (Matt. x. 29). There is not a leaf that stirs on a tree but by His will. So the Wise Man says of lots: Lots are thrown into the urn, but God it is that directs them (Prov. xvi. 33). Although the lots are drawn from the caddy or urn, think not that they come out by chance; they come out only by the ordinance of divine providence, which disposes and wills it so. The lot fell upon Matthias (Acts i. 26). It was not by chance that the lot fell on Matthias, but by a particular case and providence of God Who was pleased to choose him for His apostle by that way.

Good philosophers attained to this truth even by the sole light of nature and said that, although in respect of natural causes many things happen by chance, yet in respect of the First Cause they are not by chance, but intended quite on purpose. They give this example. A master sends a servant in some direction on business and sends another servant by a different way to the same place on other business, without the knowledge of either of them, but meaning them to meet there. The meeting of the servants is by chance in respect of themselves, but in respect of their master, who intended it, it is not by chance, but thought out and intended of set purpose. So here, though in respect of men some things fall out by chance because they neither intended nor thought of them; yet in respect of God it is not by chance, but by His knowledge and will, He having so ordained it for secret and hidden ends known to Himself.

What we have to draw from these two fundamental principles is the conclusion and thesis which we proposed—that since all that befalls us comes from the hand of God and all our perfection lies in conforming ourselves to His will, we should take all things as coming from His hand and conform ourselves therein to His most holy and divine will. You must not take anything as coming by chance or by the industry and contrivance of men, for that is what generally gives so much pain and annoyance. You must not think that this or that came upon you because So-and-So managed it, and if it had not been for this or that thing, things would have gone otherwise. You must make no account of that, but take all things as coming from the hand of God, by whatsoever way or whatsoever roundabout process they come, since it is He Who sends them by those means. One of those famous Fathers of the Desert used to say that a man could not find true repose or satisfaction in this life unless he reckoned that there is only God and himself in the world. And St. Dorotheus says that those ancient Fathers made a great point of taking all things as coming from the hand of God, however small they were and in whatever manner they came about, and thereby kept themselves in great peace and quiet and lived a heavenly life.