set Thy heart upon him? [7:17] What is man, who is so vile, and has proved so ungrateful to Thee, that Thou shouldst make him so great, by honoring and loving him to such an excess? Tell me (he goes on to say), why are the salvation and happiness of man of so much importance to Thee? Tell me why Thou lovest him so much, that it would seem as if Thy heart was set on nothing else but to love and to make man happy?
II.
Speed on, then, with gladness, O ye souls that love God and hope in God, speed on your way with gladness! What if Adam's sin, and still more our own sins, have wrought sad ruin on us? Let us understand that Jesus Christ, by the Redemption, has infinitely more than repaired our ruin: Where sin abounded, grace did more abound. [Rom. 5:20] Greater (says St. Leo) has been the acquisition which we have made by the grace of our Redeemer, than was the loss which we had suffered by the malice of the devil. Isaias had long ago prophesied that by means of Jesus Christ man should receive graces from God far surpassing the chastisement merited by his sins: He hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all his sins. [Isaiah 40:2] It is in this sense that Adam the commentator explains this text, as we find in Cornelius à Lapide: "God hath so given remission of sins to the Church through Christ, that she hath received double (that is manifold blessings) instead of the punishments of sin
