1. That although God is always judging, it is nevertheless reasonable to confine our attention in this book [The City of God] to His last judgment.
Intending to speak, in dependence on God's grace, of the day of His final judgment and to affirm it against the ungodly and incredulous, we must first of all lay, as it were, in the foundation of the edifice the divine declarations. Those persons who do not believe such declarations do their best to oppose to them false and illusive sophisms of their own either contending that what is adduced from Scripture has another meaning or altogether denying that it is an utterance of God's. For I suppose no man who understands what is written and believes it to be communicated by the supreme and true God through holy men, refuses to yield and consent to these declarations whether he orally confesses his consent or is from some evil influence ashamed or afraid to do so; or even, with an opinionativeness closely resembling madness, makes strenuous efforts to defend what he knows and believes to be false against what he knows and believes to be true.
That, therefore, which the whole Church of the true God holds and professes as its creed that Christ shall come from heaven to judge quick and dead, this we call the last day or last time, of the divine judgment. For we do not know how many days this judgment occupy; but no one who reads the Scriptures, however negligently, need be told that in them "day" is customarily used for "time". And when we speak of the day of God's judgment, we add the word last or final for this reason because even now God judges and has judged from the beginning of human history, banishing from paradise, and excluding from the tree of life, those first men who perpetrated so great a sin. Yes, He was certainly exercising judgment also when He did not spare the angels who sinned, whose prince, overcome by envy, seduced men after being himself seduced. Neither is it without God's profound and just judgment that the life of demons and men, the one in the air, the other on earth, is filled with misery, calamities and mistakes. And even though no one had sinned, it could only have been by the good and right judgment of God that the whole rational creation could have been maintained in eternal blessedness by a persevering adherence to its Lord. He judges, too, not only in the mass, condemning the race of devils and the race of men to be miserable on account of the original sin of these races but He also judges the voluntary and personal acts of individuals.
For even the devils pray that they may not be tormented - Matt. 8:29 - which proves that without injustice they might either be spared or tormented according to their deserts. And men are punished by God for their sins often visibly, always secretly, either in this life or after death, although no man acts rightly save by the assistance of divine aid; and no man or devil acts unrighteously save by the permission of the divine and most just judgment. For, as the apostle says, "There is no unrighteousness with God" - Rom. 9:14 - and as he elsewhere says, "His judgments are inscrutable and His ways past finding out". - Rom. 11:33 - In this book [The City of God] then, I shall speak, as God permits, not of those first judgment, nor of these intervening judgments of God but of the last judgment when Christ is to come from heaven to judge the quick and the dead. For that day is properly called the day of judgment because in it there shall be no room left for the ignorant questioning why this wicked person is happy and that righteous man unhappy. In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked and of them all.
2. That in the mingled web of human affairs God's judgment is present, though it cannot be discerned.
In this present time we learn to bear with equanimity the ills to which even good men are subject and to hold cheap the blessings which even the wicked enjoy. And consequently, even in those conditions of life in which the justice of God is not apparent, His teaching is salutary. For we do not know by what judgment of God this good man is poor and that bad man rich; why he who, in our opinion, ought to suffer acutely for his abandoned life enjoys himself, while sorrow pursues him whose praiseworthy life leads us to suppose he should be happy; why the innocent man is dismissed from the bar not only unavenged but even condemned, being either wronged by the iniquity of the judge or overwhelmed by false evidence while his guilty adversary, on the other hand, is not only discharged with impunity but even has his claims admitted; why the ungodly enjoys good health while the godly pines in sickness; why ruffians are of the soundest constitution while they who could not hurt any one even with a word are from infancy afflicted with complicated disorders; why he who is useful to society is cut off by premature death while those who, as it might seem, ought never to have been so much as born have lives of unusual length; why he who is full of crimes is crowned with honours while the blameless man is buried in the darkness of neglect. But who can collect or enumerate all the contrasts of this kind? But if this anomalous state of things were uniform in this life, in which, as the sacred Psalmist says, "Man is like to vanity, his days as a shadow that passeth away" so uniform that none but wicked men won the transitory prosperity of earth while only the good suffered its ill - this could be referred to the just and benign judgment of God.
We might suppose that they who were not destined to obtain those everlasting benefits which constitute human blessedness were either deluded by transitory blessings as the just reward of their wickedness or were, in God's mercy, consoled by them and that they who were not destined to suffer eternal torments were afflicted with temporal chastisement for thier sins or were stimulated to greater attainment in virtue. But now, as it is, since we not only see good men involved in the ills of life and bad men enjoying the good of it which seems unjust but also that evil often overtakes evil men and good surprises the good, the rather on this account are God's judgments unsearchable and His ways past finding out. Although, therefore, we do not know by what judgment these things are done or permitted to be done by God, with whom is the highest virtue, the highest wisdom, the highest justice, no infirmity, no rashness, no unrighteousness, yet it is salutary for us to learn to hold cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those things which belong only to good men and flee those evils which belong only to evil men.
But when we shall have come to that judgment, the date of which is called peculiarly the day of judgment and sometimes the day of the Lord, we shall then recognise the justice of all God's judgments, not only of such as shall then be pronounced but of all which take effect from the beginning or may take effect before that time. And in that day we shall also recognise with what justice so many or almost all, the just judgments of God in the present life defy the scrutiny of human sense or insight, though in this matter it is not concealed from pious minds that what is concealed is just.
BY SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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