View Volume II - In Today's Catholic World

200 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
made" (Wisdom, xi, 25) ;
"
Destruction is thy own, Israel ; thy
help is only in me" (Osee, xiii, 9) ;
"
Is it my will that a sinner
should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be con
verted from his ways, and live" (Ezcch. xviii, 23). And in
another place our Lord even swears that he does not wish the
" As I live, saith the Lord
death, but the life of the sinner :
God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked
"
For the Son
turn from his way and live" (Ezech. xxxiii, 11) ;
of man is come to save that which was lost" (Matt, xviii, 11) ;
" Who wishes all men to be saved"
(I. Tim. ii, 4); "Who gave
himself a redemption for all" (ver. 6).
69. Now, when our Lord declares in so many places that he
wishes the salvation of all, and even of the wicked, how can it
be said, that by a positive decree he excludes many from glory,
not because of their crimes, but merely for his own pleasure,
when this positive exclusion necessarily involves, at least necessi
tate coJisequentice, positive damnation ; for, according
to the
order established by God, there is no medium between exclusion
from eternal life and condemnation to everlasting death. Neither
will it serve to say, that all men, by original sin, have become a
condemned mass; and God, therefore, determines that some
should remain in their perdition, and others be saved ; for
although we know that all are born children of wrath, still we
are also aware that God, by an antecedent will, really wishes
that all should, through means of Jesus Christ, be saved. Those
who are baptized, and in a state of grace, have even a greater
claim, for in them, as St. Paul says, there is found nothing
worthy of damnation :
" There is now, therefore, no condemna
tion to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. viii, 1). And the
Council of Trent teaches, that in such God finds nothing to hate :
" In
renatis enim nihil odit Deus" (Sess. V., Decret. de Pec. Orig.
Those who die, then, after Baptism, free from actual sin,
n. 5).
go at once to the joys
of heaven :
"
Nihil prorsus eos ab ingressu
coeli removetur" (Ibid). Now, if God entirely remits original
sin to those who are baptized, how can it be asserted, that on
account of it he afterwards excludes some of them from eternal
life ? That God, however, may
wish to free from eternal and
deserved damnation some of those who voluntarily have lost
their baptismal Grace by mortal sin, and leave others to their