When as yet thou hadst no being, God created thee;
When through Adam's fall thou wast condemned to eternal death, He redeemed thee;
When out of the Church thou didst live in the world, He called thee;
When thou wast ignorant, He instructed thee;
When thou didst wander away, He led thee back again;
When thou didst sin, He corrected thee;
When thou stoodest, He held thee fast;
When thou didst fall, He raised thee up again;
When thou didst go forward, He led thee;
When thou camest to Him, He received thee;
In all this He showed His long-suffering in waiting for thee and His readiness to pardon thee.
--Johann Gerhard, *Sacred Meditations* XXIV
1 comment:
Beautiful!
These are examples of what the Orthodox would call Divine Justice. Not in the sense that we deserved any of this, obviously. But in the sense that Justice restores all things to what they were created and to be, to the way they were intended to be. God's justice makes everything right again. He instructs the ignorant, gives wisdom to the foolish, corrects sin, raises the dead, forgives the sinners, etc. Puts things that were amiss back to rights.
That makes God's justice not identical to. but synonymous with His mercy.
Anastasia
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