Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/157

from, and union with God, which at first sight would seem to be incompatible, are in reality in all respects reconcilable; so much so that all separation resolves itself into a special mode of union, and all union into a special mode of separation. The creature is not united to God through grace, but because he has been separated from Him as regards His justice and mercy. The creature that falls into the hands of His justice only does so because he has withdrawn himself from His grace and mercy; and in the same way, if he is the object of God's mercy, he is so only inasmuch as he has separated himself from Him as regards grace, at the same time being separated from Him as regards His justice. The liberty of the creature consists, then, in the faculty of designating the kind of union that he prefers by the manner of separation that he chooses; as also the sovereignty of God consists in this, that whatever manner of separation the creature may adopt, he effects a union with the latter by every mode of separation and by every way. Creation resembles a circle. God is, in a certain point of view, its circumference, and in another its center; as the center he attracts, as the circumference he includes all. Nothing can exist beyond this circle that contains all, and everything obeys this irresistible attraction. The liberty of intelligent and free beings consists in their being able to fly from the circumference, which is God, and going to God, who is the center; and in flying from the center, which is God, to give themselves to God, who is the circumference. Nothing is more capable of expansion than the circumference, and nothing more contracting of itself than the center. What angel has the power, what man dare attempt, to break through this great circle that God has traced?