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There are others, again, with whose opinions I have become
acquainted in conversation, who, though they seem to reverence the
holy Scriptures, are yet of reprehensible life, and who accordingly,
in their own interest, attribute to God a still greater compassion
towards men. For they acknowledge that it is truly predicted in the
divine word that the wicked and unbelieving are worthy of punishment,
but they assert that, when the judgment comes, mercy will prevail.
For, say they, God, having compassion on them, will give them up
to the prayers and intercessions of His saints. For if the saints
used to pray for them when they suffered from their cruel hatred, how
much more will they do so when they see them prostrate and humble
suppliants? For we cannot, they say, believe that the saints shall
lose their bowels of compassion when they have attained the most perfect
and complete holiness; so that they who, when still sinners, prayed
for their enemies, should now, when they are freed from sin, withhold
from interceding for their suppliants. Or shall God refuse to listen
to so many of His beloved children, when their holiness has purged
their prayers of all hindrance to His answering them? And the passage
of the psalm which is cited by those who admit that wicked men and
infidels shall be punished for a long time, though in the end delivered
from all sufferings, is claimed also by the persons we are now speaking
of as making much more for them. The verse runs: "Shall God forget
to be gracious? Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies?"
His anger, they say, would condemn all that are unworthy of
everlasting happiness to endless punishment. But if He suffer them to
be punished for a long time, or even at all, must He not shut up His
tender mercies, which the Psalmist implies He will not do? For he
does not say, Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies for a
long period? but he implies that He will not shut them up at all.
And they deny that thus God's threat of judgment is proved to be
false even though He condemn no man, any more than we can say that
His threat to overthrow Nineveh was false, though the destruction
which was absolutely predicted was not accomplished. For He did not
say, "Nineveh shall be overthrown if they do not repent and amend
their ways," but without any such condition He foretold that the city
should be overthrown. And this prediction, they maintain, was true
because God predicted the punishment which they deserved, although He
was not to inflict it. For though He spared them on their repentance
yet He was certainly aware that they would repent, and,
notwithstanding, absolutely and definitely predicted that the city
should be overthrown. This was true, they say, in the truth of
severity, because they were worthy of it; but in respect of the
compassion which checked His anger, so that He spared the suppliants
from the punishment with which He had threatened the rebellious, it
was not true. If, then, He spared those whom His own holy prophet
was provoked at His sparing, how much more shall He spare those more
wretched suppliants for whom all His saints shall intercede? And they
suppose that this conjecture of theirs is not hinted at in Scripture,
for the sake of stimulating many to reformation of life through fear of
very protracted or eternal sufferings, and of stimulating others to
pray for those who have not reformed. However, they think that the
divine oracles are not altogether silent on this point; for they ask to
what purpose is it said, "How great is Thy goodness which Thou hast
hidden for them that fear Thee," if it be not to teach us that the
great and hidden sweetness of God's mercy is concealed in order that
men may fear? To the same purpose they think the apostle said, "For
God hath concluded all men in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon
all," signifying that no one should be condemned by God. And yet
they who hold this opinion do not extend it to the acquittal or
liberation of the devil and his angels. Their human tenderness is
moved only towards men, and they plead chiefly their own cause,
holding out false hopes of impunity to their own depraved lives by means
of this quasi compassion of God to the whole race. Consequently they
who promise this impunity even to the prince of the devils and his
satellites make a still fuller exhibition of the mercy of God.
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