Chapter XV.—The Severity of God Compatible with Reason and Justice. When Inflicted, Not Meant to Be Arbitrary, But Remedial.

Consider well,552    Dispice. then, before all things the justice of the Judge; and if its purpose553    Ratio. be clear, then the severity thereof, and the operations of the severity in its course, will appear compatible with reason and justice. Now, that we may not linger too long on the point, (I would challenge you to) assert the other reasons also, that you may condemn the Judge’s sentences; extenuate the delinquencies of the sinner, that you may blame his judicial conviction. Never mind censuring the Judge; rather prove Him to be an unjust one.  Well, then, even though554    Nam et si. He required the sins of the fathers at the hands of the children, the hardness of the people made such remedial measures necessary555    Compulerat. for them, in order that, having their posterity in view, they might obey the divine law. For who is there that feels not a greater care for his children than for himself? Again, if the blessing of the fathers was destined likewise for their offspring, previous to556    Sine adhuc. any merit on the part of these, why might not the guilt of the fathers also redound to their children? As was the grace, so was the offence; so that the grace and the offence equally ran down through the whole race, with the reservation, indeed, of that subsequent ordinance by which it became possible to refrain from saying, that “the fathers had eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth were set on edge:”557    Jer. xxxi. 29. in other words, that the father should not bear the iniquity of the son, nor the son the iniquity of the father, but that every man should be chargeable with his own sin; so that the harshness of the law having been reduced558    Edomita, cf. chap. xix. sub init. and xxix. after the hardness of the people, justice was no longer to judge the race, but individuals. If, however, you accept the gospel of truth, you will discover on whom recoils the sentence of the Judge, when requiting on sons the sins of their fathers, even on those who had been (hardened enough) to imprecate spontaneously on themselves this condemnation: “His blood be on us, and on our children.”559    Matt. xxvii. 25.This, therefore, the providence of God has ordered throughout its course,560    Omnis providentia. even as it had heard it.

CAPUT XV.

Justitiam ergo primo judicis dispice : cujus si ratio constiterit, tunc et severitas; et per quae severitas decurrit, rationi et justitiae reputabuntur. Ac ne pluribus immoremur, asserite caussas caeteras quoque, ut sententias condemnetis: excusate delicta, ut judicia reprobetis. Nolite reprehendere judicem, sed revincite malum judicem. Nam et si patrum delicta ex filiis exigebat, duritia populi talia remedia compulerat, ut vel posteritatibus suis prospicientes legi divinae obedirent. Quis enim non magis 0302B filiorum salutem, quam suam curet? Sed etsi benedictio patrum semini quoque eorum destinabatur, sine ullo adhuc merito ejus; cur non et reatus patrum in filios quoque redundaret? Sicut gratia, ita et offensa; ut per totum genus et gratia decurreret, et offensa. Salvo eo quod postea decerni habeat: non dicturos acidam uvam patres manducasse, et filiorum dentes obstupuisse (Jerem., XXXI, 29); id est, non sumpturum patrem delictum filii, nec filium delictum patris; sed unumquemque delicti sui reum futurum, ut post duritiam populi, duritia legis edomita, justitia jam non genus, sed personas judicaret. Quanquam si evangelium veritatis accipias, ad quos pertineat sententia reddentis in filios patrum delicta cognosces; ad illos scilicet qui hanc ultro sibi sententiam 0302C fuerant irrogaturi: Sanguis illius super capita nostra et filiorum nostrorum (Matth., XXVII, 25). Hoc itaque omnis providentia Dei censuit, quod jam audierat.