The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-06-02
BY ARCHBISHOP IRELAND.

good. And so throughout the Sh14i
Scripture we are requested, enITedteu
to practice righteousness, to save oul
souls Is not this, we may ask, a mys-
tery, that God the Almighty, and his
ministers in His name, should Conde-
scend to ask us, to entreat US 10 uT
what is right? What are we but iran
creatures of a day. and what is He Dut
the Infinite. the Omn1potent. why
does He not use His power IL he
why does He not compel us to be
righteous? Is it not, we may ask, De
meath His dignity and grandeur to De
requesting us, begging us TO 90 our
duty toward Him, toward our IelloW
beings, towards ourselves? Ihefe Is
here a mystery; there is here a most
practical significant lesson. III is d
mystery that God has made us morally
free SO free that we may, II we
may, if we choose, set at defiance HIS
own law, subvert His own counSelS IN
our regard, be unrighteouS when He
commands us to be righteous, and lead
our souls to perditiOn when u is Ills
supreme will that all men 3e saved.
mo wonder, we might say, that
some, not guided by the teachings OF
the Holy Church, have been led to so
eXaggerate the power and the dignity
of God as to leave, so to speak, no room
to man himselS in the decision for his
own salvation. There are Creeds made
by men which state that God in Great
ing us does of his own choice, indie
pendently of anything thar we would
have to say or do, elect so many of us
to eternal glory and sends so many
others into perdition. asserting his own
power and his own dignity whether in
the election of some or the reprObatiOn
of others.
GODS LOVE SUPREME.
"The makers of such creeds forget
| the supreme love of God for men, and
the supreme respect which God has for
His own work in His own creatures.
| Through mysterious dispensation, if
! you will, but as fact, God created us
! free, and has made us the arbiterS of
| our eternal destiny. We shall be judged
! one day by Him; and some will be call
| ed to Heaven, others viii be rejected,
| but in either case God will be rendering
as the apostle says, to every man ac-
cording to his own works. This the
| dignity of the human soul that it is
free. And so when by its own choice
it enters Heaven it can say this great
reward is mine 1t has passed over
the battle ground; it is victorious; a
crown belongs to it as a reward to its
triumph.
mo doubt the soul left to itself
could not morally speaking, have over
come all the Derils with which it was
COnLTOuleQ. II COulO without Goa
elevating grace have reached up into
the supernatural regions to which we
are called through the merits of Christ.
Divine grace is needed. Without grace
we co not save our souls: but when
grace is given we are allowed to reject
it or to correspond with it.
There are two elements in Paurs
moral triumph; Gods grace and him
self; and so it is with each and every
one of us. On the last day it will be
seen that two beings are at work, God
and the individual soul. God for His
own mysterious purposes, distributes
His gracesc here and there as He wills,
giving, however, to all a suffleiency
for He wills all men to be saved So
that at the last day every soul will say
If am lost it is through my own
fault.
SOUL IS FREE.
But, whatever the measure of those
graces, so much does God respect the
individual will, the freedom of men
that the soul may still say of it I will
not serve. God having made the soul
free, if the soul enters a positive pro-
test what can God do, unless He de-
stroy His own work and enslave what
he had declared to be free: but to re-
tire, as it were, and abandon the soul
to pursue its own course? This is a
mystery-this freedom of the soul in
presence of Gods beseechings and
Gods own graces. But this much is
evident, the grandeur of the soul, the
dignity of the human being the sweet |
ness of the reward when it does come
Great as is the reward of the high |
heavens, the soul crossing the threh- |
old of paradise can say, it is my own |
individual work; l have earned it; |
Gods grace aiding me, Gods grace !
worked with me and l worked with |
Gods grace.
This truth of the human freedom of |
the will and of the personal response /
bility of the soul established, we under |
stand how contrary to Gods love and /
to Gods justice are the statements of |
certain creeds, to which have already
alluded, that God elects of His own /
simple volition certain souls to glory
and drives others back into perdition.
There would be there no justice Why
should soul be punished and punished
during the eternity unless the cause of
punishment came from itself. unless
the fault was the souls own? And
what would mean a reward which had
been decreed before any thought of
what the soul would be or would do in
the use of liberty? And where in such
conditions would be that divine good
ness, that sweetness of mercy of which
the Scriptures so frequently assures us.
the erring soul and tenderly invites it
back to embraces of His eternal
bosom? There were no goodness. no
greatness If we were to imagine an in
finite God above us distributing re-
wards and punishments as it might
satisfy His own glory, without any
consideration of the individual merit
OF eacn and every soul. No wonder is
IL That some who take such creeds as
the creeds of the Christian church. as
the teachings of Christ, would be re-
PEELED from Christ's gospel.
THE INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE
NO, such creeds are not creeds of
Gods Holy Church, and they are not
the teachings of Christ's holy gospel.
The teachings of the gospel and the
creed of Christ's church are this: that
man is free agent. and that while God
gives MN in profusion graces; the soul
decides for itself what shall be the des-
f>glory or one of punishment
and darkness. There is always the
mystery that God from eternity knows
what happens until the end of time. but
in His provision the acts of the soul I
precede the decree of justice. In this
mystery of Gods omniscience. as the !
divine glance passes down ages it sees
the action of each soul, its cooperation
with divine grace or it's repulsion of {
that grace, and then as a consequence /
0t mans merits or dement's it sees the I
degree of predestination marking out t
the final destiny of each and every
soul. Whatever the mystery of the d.
vine presence may be this truth re-
mains, that Gods sentence follows 6
mans personal actions, and whatever ;
he mysteriousness of divine grace this
ruth remains that the ultimate respon-
i1bil1ty Of correspondence or of refusal )
u correspondence rests with the indi-
yidual soul. {