If we act otherwise our
ingratitude is insupportable.
Were God to deal with us according to our desserts, would He not have
just cause to chastise us daily in a thousand ways? Nay more, a hundred
thousand deaths would not suffice for a small portion of our misdeeds!
Now, if in His infinite goodness He puts all our faults under His foot
and abolishes them, and instead of punishing us according to our
demerit, devises an admirable means to convert our afflictions into
honor and a special privilege, inasmuch as through them we are taken
into partnership with His Son, must it not be said, when we disdain such
a happy state, that we have indeed made little progress in Christian
doctrine?
Accordingly, St. Peter, after exhorting us (I Peter iv., 15) to walk so
purely in the fear of God, as not to suffer as thieves, adulterers, and
murderers, immediately adds, that if we must suffer as Christians, let
us glorify God for the blessing which He thus bestows upon us. It is
not without cause he speaks thus. For who are we, I pray, to be
witnesses of the truth of God, and advocates to maintain His cause? Here
we are poor worms of the earth, creatures full of vanity, full of lies,
and yet God employs us to defend His truth--an honor which pertains not
even to the angels of heaven! May not this consideration alone well
inflame us to offer ourselves to God to be employed in any way in such
honorable service?
Many persons, however, can not refrain from pleading against God, or, at
least, from complaining against Him for not better supporting their
weakness.
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