To be near unto God - pagina 269

is so sharp, that for the moment takes a violent effort on the part of the soul to understand that a deep way of sin can be one that leads to richer knowledge of God. And it behooves us to treat this aspect of the subject in hand the more humbl}', because of those who, even in our land, in a satanic way have misapplied this word of Jesus, at times shamelessly confessing in private: "I gloriously sinned again, after which I had a blessed time of finding." Such satanic sayings are nothing else than a slander on the mercies of our God. But though this horrible

and holiness

it

abuse of Jesus' word compels utmost carefulness, the heavenly gold that glitters in this word, must not be dimmed. It is and remains true, that greater sin with greater forgiveness can lead to greater love and thereby to a richer knowledge of God. This word alone offers us the key to the beatitude of the murderer on the cross, and to the promise of Jesus, that presently with himself he would be in Paradise. Fundamentally it is the same as what David wrote in Ps. 130:4. "But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." From the forgiveness of sin springs tender attachment in the service of the Lord. Sin, forgiveness, love, and from this love knowledge of God, are the four beads in the one sacred string.

The whole Gospel rests in fact upon this recognition, and the saying of one of the heroes of the faith in earlier days: "Felix culpa," which means that there was something

glorious in the never be entirely ignored. The angels of God have no knowledge of sin, hence fall,

can

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