Section CLXIX

Of what kind, therefore, ought that order of providence to be judged which God has established for men fallen and infected by fault? It ought to be judged, namely, 1) an order in which God is long-suffering toward his creatures and beneficent toward all men. To this also pertain, not obscurely, the things which Isaac the Syrian, Bishop of the city of Nineveh, writes¹, saying:

The protection and providence of God is over all men, nor is it seen except by those who have purified themselves from sin and have their mind fixed upon God. But the providence of God is especially manifested to those who for God fall into a great temptation; then they perceive it, and it appears as though to the eyes of the body, by which they see it according to the magnitude and force of the temptation which has befallen them.

Then 2) it ought to be judged an order from which it comes to pass that the present world is a world of grace and is so administered divinely that in it a place for penance and the faculty of returning to one’s senses are never wholly denied. Hence Isaac’s exhortation² to all sinners:

O you who are condemned, be strengthened by hope; seek the face of the Lord through penance, and you will be sanctified by the sanctification of his countenance, and you will be cleansed from your sins. Run to God, O you who are guilty of sins, because he is able to remit sins and can blot out transgressions. With an oath he says through the prophet³, saying: “As I live, says the Lord, I do not will the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live.”

Finally, 3) it ought to be judged an order in which even temporal punishments are directed toward the salvation of men. For whether he adorns with benefits or chastises with punishments, God, for as long as we live, has proposed this: that he may amend us, lead us to better fruit, and bless us when corrected.—

But an order distinguished by these endowments is separated by an altogether infinite interval from the order of damnation, and plainly bears the force and countenance of the repaired order, and indeed of that reparation which is universal, efficacious, and active, and pours forth its offices upon absolutely all men.

Nowhere does James teach this more clearly than when he opens the σκοπός of the New Testament and explains the end and fruits of that economy which the Only-begotten discharged after assuming our mortality. And, opening the σκοπός of the New Testament⁴, he writes:

The covenant which was made through Moses was not yet sealed until this final covenant came, because that first one⁵ was announced from above, but this one was secured below by a seal. And he who established the covenant died, and thereafter the two covenants were confirmed; and he made the two one, and abrogated the law of precepts in the commandments of his precept, and the necessity of the law was abrogated in the advent of our Lord; and he offered himself for those sacrifices which were of the law; and he was handed over as a lamb to be immolated in place of the lambs of propitiation; and the fatted calf was immolated for us, lest we should need to offer calves of the field. He came and ascended the cross, lest victims and sacrifices should be required from us. He poured out his blood for all men, lest the blood of brute animals should be required from us.

But when he is engaged in proving⁶ that Christ taught nothing by words pertaining to love which he had not first fulfilled in deed, he says:

Our Savior first did what he taught his own, and he performed in deed what he afterward inculcated in words; for he reconciled our enmity with the Father and so loved us that he handed over his innocence for the guilty, and, beneficent, underwent insults for the impious; and, rich, became poor for us; and, although he was life, died for the dead, and by his death gave life to our mortality.—

And the Son of the Lord of all, the Lord, assumed for us the likeness of a servant⁷. And he to whom all things were subject was made subject⁸, that he might absolve us from the servitude of sin… And he repaired our terrestrial nature and made us the salt of truth⁹, and rescued us from the devouring of the serpent. And he called us the light of the world and saved us from the power of darkness. And from evil he made us good, and from abominable, lovable.

For “the Lord strengthened penitents”¹⁰, saying, “I have not come¹¹ to call the just, but sinners to penance.” And again saying¹², “There will be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance more than over ninety-nine just who do not need penance.” Therefore¹³ the shepherd exercised greater care over the sheep which had perished from his whole flock than over those which had not wandered. “Christ died for sinners, and not for the just.”

Lest this should ever fall from the mind, he inculcates it again¹⁴, writing: “Our Savior himself says¹⁵, ‘I have not come to call the just, but sinners to penance.’ Our Lord died for sinners, and his death was not in vain.” But when he compares Christ the Lord with Joshua¹⁶, he has these things among others:

Joshua slew the unclean nations, and Jesus our Savior overthrew the devil with his army. Joshua made the sun stand still in heaven, and Jesus our Savior darkened the sun at midday when he was crucified. Joshua the son of Nun was the savior of the people, and Jesus our Savior is the Savior of the world.—