OF THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD, WHICH WATCHES OVER ALL THINGS
Wouldst thou draw nigh unto God without let or hindrance, freely and in
peace, as we have described? Desirest thou to be united and drawn to Him
in a union so close that it will endure in prosperity and adversity, in
life and in death? Delay not to commit all things with trustful
confidence into the hands of His sure and infallible Providence.
Is it not most fitting that thou shouldst trust Him Who gives to all
creatures, in the first place, their existence, power, and movement,
and, secondly, their species and nature, ordering in all their number,
weight, and measure?
Just as Art presupposes the operations of Nature, so Nature presupposes
the work of God, the Creator, Preserver, Organizer, and Administrator.
To Him alone belong infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, essential
mercy, justice, truth, and charity, immutable eternity, and immensity.
Nothing can exist and act of its own power, but every creature acts of
necessity by the power of God, the first moving cause, the first
principle and origin of every action, Who acts in every active being.
If we consider the ordered harmony of the universe, it is the Providence
of God which must arrange all things, even to the smallest details.
From the infinitely great to the infinitely small nothing can escape His
eternal Providence; nothing has been drawn from His control, either in
the acts of free-will, in events we ascribe to chance or fate, or in
what has been designed by Him. We may go further: it is as impossible
for God to make anything which does not fall within the dominion of His
Providence as it is for Him to create anything which is not subject to
His action. Divine Providence, therefore, extends over all things, even
the thoughts of man.
This is the teaching of Holy Scripture, for in the Epistle of St. Peter
it is written: "Casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of
you."[77]
And, again, the Prophet says: "Cast thy care upon the Lord and He shall
sustain thee."[78] Also in Ecclesiasticus we read: "My children, behold
the generations of men; and know ye that no one hath hoped in the Lord,
and hath been confounded. For who hath continued in His commandment, and
hath been forsaken?"[79] And the Lord says: "Be not solicitous,
therefore, saying, What shall we eat?"[80] All that thou canst hope for
from God, however great it may be, thou shalt without doubt receive,
according to the promise in Deuteronomy: "Every place that your foot
shall tread upon shall be yours."[81] As much as thou canst desire thou
shalt receive, and as far as the foot of thy confidence reaches, so far
thou shalt possess.
Hence St. Bernard says: "God, the Creator of all things, is so full of
mercy and compassion that whatever may be the grace for which we stretch
out our hands, we shall not fail to receive it."[82]
It is written in St. Mark: "Whatsoever ye shall ask when ye pray,
believe that you shall receive, and they shall come unto you."[83]
The greater and more persistent thy confidence in God, and the more
earnestly thou turnest to Him in lowly reverence, the more abundantly
and certainly shalt thou receive all thou dost hope and ask.
But if, on account of the number and magnitude of his sins, the
confidence of any should languish, let him who feels this torpor
remember that all is possible to God, that what He wills must
infallibly happen, and what He wills not cannot come to pass, and,
finally, that it is as easy for Him to forgive and blot out innumerable
and heinous sins as to forgive one.
On the other hand, it is just as impossible for a sinner to deliver
himself from a single sin as it would be for him to raise and cleanse
himself from many sins; for, not only are we unable to accomplish this,
but of ourselves we cannot even think what is right.[84] All comes to us
from God. It is, however, far more dangerous, other things being equal,
to be entangled in many sins than to be held only by one.
In truth, no evil remains unpunished, and for every mortal sin is due,
in strict justice, an infinite punishment, because a mortal sin is
committed against God, to Whom belong infinite greatness, dignity, and
glory.
Moreover, according to the Apostle, "the Lord knoweth who are His,"[85]
and it is impossible that one of them should perish, no matter how
violently the tempests and waves of error rage, how great the scandal,
schisms and persecutions, how grievous the adversities, discords,
heresies, tribulations, or temptations of every kind.
The number of the elect and the measure of their merit is eternally and
unalterably predestined. So true is this that all the good and evil
which can happen to them or to others, all prosperity and adversity,
serve only to their advantage.
Nay more, adversity does but render them more glorious, and proves their
fidelity more surely.
Delay not, therefore, to commit all things without fear to the
Providence of God, by Whose permission all evil of whatever kind
happens, and ever for some good end. It could not be except He permitted
it; its form and measure are allowed by Him Who can and will by His
wisdom turn all to good.
Just as it is by His action that all good is wrought, so is it by His
permission that all evil happens.[86]
But from the evil He draws good, and thus marvellously shows forth His
power, wisdom, and clemency by our Lord Jesus Christ. So also He
manifests His mercy and His justice, the power of grace, the weakness of
nature, and the beauty of the universe. So He shows by the force of
contrast the glory of the good, and the malice and punishment of the
wicked.
In like manner, in the conversion of a sinner we behold contrition,
confession, and penance; and, on the other hand, the tenderness of God,
His mercy and charity, His glory and His goodness.
Yet sin does not always turn to the good of those who commit it; but it
is usually the greatest of perils and worst of ills, for it causes the
loss of grace and glory. It stains the soul and provokes chastisement
and even eternal punishment. From so great an evil may our Lord Jesus
vouchsafe to preserve us! Amen.
R. AND T. WASHBOURNE, LTD., PRINTERS, LONDON.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Following the general tradition, we attribute this work to Albert
the Great, but not all critics are agreed as to its authenticity.
[2] Albert the Great is speaking here in a special manner of religious
perfection, although what he says is also true of Christian perfection
in general.
[3] He speaks here of the obligation laid upon all Christians.
[4] Religious bind themselves to observe as a duty that which was only
of counsel. To them, therefore, the practice of the counsels becomes an
obligation.
[5] The vows of religion have as their immediate object the removal of
obstacles to perfection, but they do not in themselves constitute
perfection. Perfection consists in charity. Albert the Great speaks of
only one vow, because in his day the formulas of religious profession
mentioned only the vow of obedience, which includes the other two vows.
[6] John iv. 24.
[7] Matt. vi. 6.
[8] When Albert the Great and the other mystics warn us against
solicitude with regard to creatures, they refer to that solicitude which
is felt for creatures in themselves; they do not mean that we ought not
to occupy ourselves with them in any way for God's sake. The great
doctor explains his meaning in clear terms later on in this work.
[9] 1 Pet. v. 7.
[10] Phil. iv. 6.
[11] Ps. liv. 23.
[12] Ps. lxxii. 28.
[13] Ps. xv. 8.
[14] Cant. iii. 4.
[15] Wis. vii. 11.
[16] Matt. xvi. 26.
[17] Luke xvii. 21.
[18] Albert the Great supposes here that we give ourselves equally to
God and to creatures, which would be wrong, and not that creatures are
subordinated to God, which would be a virtue.
[19] This must be understood to mean that God is the principal and
supreme end of all created activities.
[20] The perfect image of God in man does not consist merely in the
possession of those faculties by which we resemble Him, but rather in
performing by faith and love, as far as is in our power, acts like those
which He performs, in knowing Him as He knows Himself, in loving Him as
He loves Himself.
[21] In scholastic theology the term "form" is used of that which gives
to anything its accidental or substantial being. God is the "accidental
form" of the soul, because in giving it its activity He bestows upon it
something of His own activity, by means of sanctifying grace. Yet more
truly may it be said that God is also the "form" of the soul in the
sense that it is destined by the ordinary workings of Providence to
participate by sanctifying grace in the Being of God, enjoying thus a
participation real, though created, in the Divine nature.
[22] We must avoid these things in so far as they separate us from God,
but they may also serve to draw us nearer to Him if we regard them in
God and for God.
[23] It is by the intelligence and will that man actually attains to
this, but the use of the sensitive faculties is presupposed.
[24] The sensitive faculties, if used as a means, often help us to draw
near to God, but when used as an end, their activity becomes an
obstacle.
[25] This teaching is the Christian rendering of the axiom formulated by
the Philosopher: "Homo sedendo fit sapiens"--"It is in quiet that man
gains wisdom."
[26] This is especially true for religious.
[27] By this is meant that the Holy Scriptures, though always
presupposed as the foundation of our belief, of themselves give only an
objective knowledge of God, while that which the Holy Ghost gives is
experimental.
[28] God knows and loves Himself in Himself by His own nature, while we
know and love Him in Himself by grace.
[29] A very striking feature in the doctrine of this book is that it
requires first the perfection of the soul and the faculties, whence
proceeds that of our actions. Some modern authors, confining themselves
to casuistry, speak almost exclusively of the perfection of actions, a
method less logical and less thorough.
[30] Prov. viii. 31.
[31] The exterior powers of a man are the imagination and passions; the
interior his intelligence and will, which sometimes find themselves
deprived of all the aids of sensible devotion.
[32] In truth, all the designs of God in our regard are full of mercy,
and tend especially to our sanctification; the obstacles to these
designs come only from our evil passions.
[33] The book "De Spiritu et Anima" is of uncertain authorship. It is
printed after the works of St. Augustine in Migne's "Patrologia Latina,"
vol. xl., 779.
[34] This darkness is the silence of the imagination, which no longer
gains a hearing, and that of the intellect, which is sufficiently
enlightened to understand that we can in reality understand nothing of
the Divinity in itself, and that the best thing we can do is to remove
from our conception of God all those limitations which we observe in
creatures. The reason of this is that we can only know God naturally by
means of what we see in creatures, and these are always utterly
insufficient to give us an adequate idea of the Creator.
[35] Ps. lxxxiii. 8.
[36] We only lose God, the uncreated Good, by an unlawful attachment to
created good; if we are free from this attachment, we tend to Him
without effort.
[37] The subsequent condemnation, in 1687, of this doctrine, as taught
by Molino, could not, of course, be foreseen by Blessed Albertus writing
in the thirteenth century.
[38] John xiv. 6.
[39] And this she does because creatures no longer occupy her, except
for God's sake.
[40] This is so because, according to true philosophy, the essence of a
thing is distinct from its existence.
[41] Every actual cause is more intimately present to its accomplished
work than the work itself, which it necessarily precedes.
[42] John i. 3, 4.
[43] We cannot always experience Divine things, and at first we can only
compare them to the things which we experience here below.
[44] We deny that there is in God anything which is a mere potentiality,
or an imperfection. We deny in Him also the process of reasoning which
is the special work of the faculty of reason, because this implies the
absence of the vision of truth. We deny "being as it is found in
creatures," because in creatures it is necessarily limited, and subject
to accident.
[45] "Nom. Div.," i.
[46] Exod. xxxiii. 11; Num. xii. 8; Heb. iii. 2.
[47] It would be well to quote St. Thomas, the disciple of Albert the
Great, upon this important doctrine: "A thing may be said to belong to
the contemplative life in two senses, either as an essential part of it,
or as a preliminary disposition. The moral virtues do not belong to the
essence of contemplation, whose sole end is the contemplation of
truth.... But they belong to it as a necessary predisposition ...
because they calm the passions and the tumult of exterior
preoccupations, and so facilitate contemplation" ("Sum.," 2, 2{ae}, q.
180, a. 2).
This distinction should never be lost sight of in reading the mystic
books of the scholastics.
[48] John xvii. 3.
[49] Ps. xvi. 15.
[50] This admirable doctrine condemns a whole mass of insipid, shallow,
affected and sensual books and ideas, which have in modern times flooded
the world of piety, have banished from souls more wholesome thoughts,
and filled them with a questionable and injurious sentimentality.
[51] Matt. xi. 6; xiii. 57, etc.
[52] This shows an excellent grasp of the meaning of the celebrated
maxim "Perinde ac cadaver."
[53] Luke x. 42.
[54] _Ibid._
[55] Luke ii. 14.
[56] Nothing could be more conformable to the teaching of the Gospel
than this doctrine.
At His birth Jesus bids the Angels sing that peace belongs to men of
good will (Luke ii. 14); later He will declare that His meat is to do
the will of His Father (John iv. 34); that He seeks not His own will,
but the will of Him Who sent Him (John v. 30); that He came down from
heaven to accomplish it (John vi. 38); and when face to face with death
He will still pray that the Father's will be done, not His (Matt. xxvi.
39; Luke xxii. 42). Over and over again, in the Gospel, do we find Him
using the same language.
He would have His disciples act in the same manner. It is not the man,
He tells us, who repeats the words: "My Father, my Father," who shall
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of God (Matt.
vii. 21; Rom. ii. 13; Jas. i. 22); and in the prayer which He dictates
to us He bids us ask for the accomplishment of this will as the means of
glorifying God, and of sanctifying our souls (Matt. vi. 10).
Finally, He tells us that if we conform ourselves to this sovereign
will, we shall be His brethren (Matt. xii. 50; Mark iii. 35).
When certain persons, pious or otherwise, confusing sentiment with true
love, ask themselves if they love God, or if they will be able to love
Him always, we have only to ask them the same question in other words:
Are they doing the will of God? can they do it?--_i.e._, can they
perform their duty for God's sake? Put thus, the question resolves
itself.
The reason for such a doctrine is very simple: to love anyone is to wish
him well; that, in the case of God, is to desire His beneficent will
towards us. Our Lord and Master recalled this principle when He said to
His disciples, "You are My friends, if you do the things that I command
you" (John xv. 14).
[57] We must, in virtue of the same principle, keep a firm hold of the
truth, as indisputable as it is frequently forgotten, that we have the
merit of the good which we will to carry out and are unable to
accomplish, as we have also the demerit of the evil we should have done
and could not.
[58] "Upon the will depends our future of Heaven or hell," because,
given the knowledge of God, the will attaches itself to Him by love, or
hates Him with obstinacy.
[59] We may notice, in particular, a three-fold benefit: first,
temptation calls for conflict, and so strengthens virtue; then it
obliges a man to adhere deliberately to that virtue which is assailed by
the temptation, and so gain a further perfection; finally, there are
necessarily included in both the conflict and the adherence to good
numerous virtuous, and therefore meritorious, acts. Thus we may reap
advantage from temptation both in our dispositions and our acts.
[60] Job vii. 1.
[61] 1 John iv. 8.
[62] Cant. viii. 6.
[63] The author is speaking here of the soul in so far as it is human,
and it is as such that it is more where it loves than where it gives
life.
[64] Without charity there is no perfect virtue, since without it no
virtue can lead man to his final end, which is God, although it may lead
him to some lower end. It is in this sense that, according to the older
theologians, charity is the "form" of the other virtues, since by it the
acts of all the other virtues are supernaturalized and directed to their
true end--_i.e._, to God. _Cf._ St. Th. "Sum.," 2, 2{ae}, q. 23, aa. 7,
8.
[65] Matt. xxii. 40.
[66] Rom. xiii. 10.
[67] 1 Tim. i. 5.
[68] God can only love Himself or creatures for His own sake; if we have
this love within our souls we shall be in a certain sense one being with
Him.
[69] This teaching is based on the definition that prayer is essentially
"an elevation of the soul to God."
[70] 1 Thess. v. 17.
[71] 1 Tim. ii. 8.
[72] Remission may be obtained in this way of the fault in the case of
venial sins, of the punishment due in all sins.
[73] Ps. ix. 24.
[74] Isa. iii. 12.
[75] Luke vi. 26.
[76] St. Thomas explains as follows both the possibility and the
correctness of this opinion of ourselves: "A man can, without falsehood,
believe and declare himself viler than all others, both on account of
the secret faults which he knows to exist within him, and on account of
the gifts of God hidden in the souls of others."
St. Augustine, in his work "De Virginit.," ch. lii., says: "Believe that
others are better than you in the depths of their souls, although
outwardly you may appear better than they."
In the same way one may truthfully both say and believe that one is
altogether useless and unworthy in his own strength. The Apostle says (2
Cor. iii. 5): "Not that we are sufficient to think anything of
ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God" ("Sum.," 2,
2{ae}, q. 161, a. 6, 1{m}).
[77] 1 Pet. v. 7.
[78] Ps. liv. 23.
[79] Ecclus. ii. 11, 12.
[80] Matt. vi. 31.
[81] Deut. xi. 24.
[82] _Cf._ Serm. I. in Pent.
[83] Mark xi. 24.
[84] 2 Cor. iii. 5.
[85] 2 Tim. ii. 19.
[86] The teaching of Albert the Great on Divine Providence is truly
admirable. It is based upon the axiom that the actions of the creature
do not depend partly upon itself and partly upon God, but wholly upon
itself and wholly upon God (_cf._ St. Thomas "Cont. Gent.," iii. 70).
Human causality is not parallel with the Divine, but subordinate to it,
as the scholastics teach. This doctrine alone safeguards the action of
God and of that of the creature. The doctrine of parallelism derogates
from both, and leads to fatalism by attributing to God things which He
has not done, and suppressing for man the necessary principle of all
good, especially that of liberty.
It is the doctrine of subordinated causes also which explains how things
decreed by God are determined by the supreme authority, and infallibly
come to pass, without prejudice to the freedom of action of secondary
causes. All this belongs to the highest theology. Unhappily, certain
modern authors have forgotten it.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics or underlined are indicated by _italics_.
Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.
Superscripted letters are indicated by {superscript}.