Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/160

way, but in an absolute separation from God. Therefore, true order always exists, and true disorder has no existence. Sin is so radical and absolute a negation that it not only denies order but also disorder; for, after having denied all affirmations, it denies its own negations, and even denies itself. Sin is the negation of negations, the shadow of a shadow, the appearance of an appearance.

If God permitted the prevarication of man, which was, as we have said, less radical and culpable than the angelical prevarication, it was because God knew, from all eternity, the perfect way of reconciling the divine order with the disorder created by man, even as man knew how to draw disorder out of order. Man changed order into disorder by separating that which God had united in a bond of love. God brought order out of disorder, reuniting what man had separated in bonds still more close and endearing. Man having rejected a union with God by the ties of original justice and sanctifying grace, found himself united to him through his infinite mercy. If God permitted man's prevarication, it was because he held, as in reserve, the Saviour of mankind, who was to come in the fullness of time. That sovereign evil was necessary to procure this supreme good; and for the reception of so great a blessing, that great catastrophe was requisite. Man sinned because God had resolved to become man, and because, having become man without ceasing to be God, his blood had a supreme virtue sufficient to wash away sin. Man vacillated because God had power to sustain the vacillating: he fell because God had power to raise him up again; he wept because he who had power to dry the earth when it was overflowed by the waves of