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When some who had believed in the world in instantaneous salvation by direct mercy became spirits, they wanted their infernal enjoyment or enjoyment of evil changed by both divine omnipotence and divine mercy into heavenly enjoyment or enjoyment in the good. As they ardently desired this, permission was given for it to be done by angels, who proceeded to remove their infernal enjoyment.
Then the palace of Caligula followed, an enlargement of that of Tiberius, with arcades set up to increase its extent, and a bridge thrown over the Forum to the Capitol, in order that the prince might go thither at his ease to converse with Jove, whose son he claimed to be. And sovereignty also rendered this one ferocious a madman with omnipotence to do as he listed!
The victory of good is to come. Divine help is promised, that it may be secured in every soul. The conquest of evil by good is within that Christian omnipotence which Paul knew. "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me." It requires a Christ to show that the path to rest is through toil; that the way to ease is through suffering; that the highway to life passes through death.
Their omnipotence was no longer felt either at the Grotto or at the Basilica; they seemed to surrender every key together with every responsibility.
The change came very gradually, thank God; you may read of noble sayings and deeds here and there, for many centuries after Mohammed: but it came; and then their belief in God's omnipotence and absoluteness dwindled into the most dark, and slavish, and benumbing fatalism.
In the last century some divines advanced a modification of this ancient theory, naming it the Kenotic or Self-emptying Theory, from the Greek word used by St. Paul in the phrase, "He emptied Himself." The eternal Son of God is represented as laying aside whatever attributes of Deity omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, etc. could not be manifested in an entirely human life.
There is no truth, or means of good, or gift of God so holy and blessed that men will not turn it to evil ends. Afterward Herod, in blind but impotent rage, sent soldiers and thrust a sword through every cradle in Bethlehem; but the Child, sheathed in omnipotence, had escaped, and Herod could sooner have crushed the earth flat than have hurt a hair of his head.
It is the helping hand of Omnipotence to the weak will of man, the weak will even of Paul, when he exclaimed, "The evil that I would not, that I do." It is the unloosing, by His loving assistance, of the wings by which the emancipated soul would rise to the lofty regions of peace and contemplation.
If the Germans are triumphant, he added, force and falsehood will triumph with them, the State will acquire omnipotence, the individual sink into serfdom. Neutrality during a war with such issues is, therefore, the height of political unwisdom. La Roumanie, July 26, 1915.
Standing thus, with his emotions stirred to their profoundest depths, Jack Dudley took no note of the passage of time. Midnight came and passed, and still he held his post, wondering, admiring and worshipping, as must puny man when brought face to face with such exhibitions of Omnipotence.
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