If someone hands a small cup of cold water to a thirsty traveller, he does indeed somewhat refresh the spirit of the parched man, and plainly answers to humanity, yet does not wholly quench his thirst: so too our discourse does not suffice for those who long to know the secret of divine knowledge, since it serves only the present haste and time. For if the brief life of man is too short for learning human things thoroughly, what time do we believe can suffice for grasping things divine?
Grant pardon therefore, brethren, if within a point of time and scarcely a moment of a single hour I cannot in every way lay open and utter the unspeakable mystery of so many ages — to illumine obscurities, to unlock what is closed, to make firm what is doubtful, to touch the depths — if we are not able to do so warily before rivals, securely before sons, confidently before believers, steadfastly before the unbelieving. But since today the apostolic word has poured itself wholly with clear light into the senses of the hearers, and has left nothing ambiguous to catholic minds, when it says: 'For if by one man's offence death reigned through one' (Rom. 5); setting aside all zeal for declamation, we shall lean with total simplicity upon the apostolic words themselves, so that no obscurity may be engendered by our discourse for those who desire to know the truth.
For if, as he says, by one man's offence death reigned through one, why does evangelical authority labour to insinuate and prove that death was acquired for posterity from one and the first man? And although that sentence would suffice which says: 'God did not make death' (Wisd. 1);
why some wish death to have been created by God — so grim, so cruel, so pitiless — I cannot know. No one without sacrilege supposes that God, so holy, so good, could have created death, whose author the whole world, with continual grief, groaning, and tears, accuses and detests. If death is even among men the penalty of crimes, with what audacity is it believed to have been created together with man, and instilled by God, who is innocent, into man who is innocent, even before life? But let us hear the Apostle: 'For if by one man's offence death reigned through one, much more they who receive the abundance of grace, and of the gift, and of justice, shall reign in life through one, Christ Jesus our Lord.' Behold, one and one — Adam and Christ.
Through the one, sin reigned unto death; through the other, grace reigned unto life. Finally, these two principles — of life and death, of absolution and punishment, of the liberty desired and of the utmost damnation — the word of the Apostle that follows lays open and declares: 'Therefore as by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life.' Through one and one, either death reigns, or life is granted. What here, then, could the word of an interpreter add? For if you join silence to these, all the effort of rivals succumbs. 'By the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life.'
As the river serves its source, as the fruit its seed, so posterity serves its origin, being either bound to it or snatched from it, as is more fully proved from what the Apostle added: 'For as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made just.' Let man be the sinner, that God may be just, for the guilt redounds upon the judge if the penalty strikes the innocent. And therefore he said: 'As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners' — that they might know themselves to have been partakers of his fault, whose punishment they perceive themselves to be companions of. But now let the lovers of the law hear, on the Apostle's testimony, what the law profited. 'But the law,' he says, 'entered in, that the offence might abound.'
Behold, as the Apostle says, the law made offences to be not fewer but more abundant — not of itself, brethren, but through him who through weakness could not bear the law. It is not the greatness of light that dulls the eyes, which was created by God for the eyes, but the infirmity of the eyes that cannot sustain the whole of the light nor bear its brightness: so too the law, brethren, which of itself was just enough and holy enough, while it exacts a severe discipline from frail man, more and more burdened and betrayed the transgressor. And why this, brethren? That through the grace and pardon of the Creator he might return to life, who through swelling pride and ignorance — while, wickedly, he gloried in his innocence — was being led into the debt and penalty of his parent.
The disease, therefore, lay hidden and concealed, through which the secrets of all the marrow and the channels of the veins were tending toward the destruction of the vital parts themselves, and were breeding a certain corruption in all the inward things. The law came, which would both disclose the wound and at last announce the approach of a heavenly physician for the ancient languor. The law came, which by the poultices of its commandments would draw forth to the surface what was raging lethally in the depths. The law came, that with the sword of its precepts it might open, as it were, an abscess of long standing, and that a salutary outpouring might presently dry up the corruption long gathered. Yet the law of itself, brethren, could neither close the wound nor bring perfect health to the sick.
When the sick man saw this, and at last, pitiable, acknowledged his own condition, he began to hasten eagerly to the physician, that what had been disclosed through the law, and through it long enlarged, might be cured by the skill and grace of so great a physician. We say the wound was enlarged, brethren, because after the incision, rottenness, stench, horror, and torment are engendered in the wound itself by the cutting, and through the treatment the very appearance of the pitiable languor becomes worse than the danger had been while it lay hidden and unknown. The physician came therefore; and to one now wearied with cares and worn out by the torments of treatments, He came to the aid by the authority of a word alone — as that centurion confesses when he says: 'Speak the word, and my servant shall be healed' (Matt. 8). And that prophetic saying might be fulfilled:
'He sent His word, and healed them' (Ps. 106). And therefore it follows: 'Where sin abounded, grace did more abound.' As if he said: Where the wound was widened, health was poured over it in overflowing measure. Let no one, then, be ungrateful to the law, because it lifted up, cherished, and led the very man whom it had found sick and lying prostrate, all the way to the physician with a salutary exultation, that it might deliver him unto salvation; so that, as the Apostle said: 'As sin reigned unto death, so grace might reign unto life eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' Grace unto life, sin reigns unto death. Right faith does not impute death, nor the destruction of man, to God the author, but salvation. Let death be of man, be of sin, that life created and restored may be believed to be solely through Christ.