|
|
|
|
 |
Meister Eckhart Home / Works by Meister Eckhart - Quotes / Inspired by Eckhart / Studies / The Papal Condemnation / Mail & Announcements / Links / Books |
MEISTER ECKHART
On sin & justice
Every creature must of necessity abide in God; if we fall out of the hands of his mercy, we fall into the hands of His justice. We must ever abide in Him. What madness then is it to wish not to be with Him, without whom thou canst not be!Now you might say, "Bad people have a good time, they get their way more than other people". Solomon says: "The evil man should not say, 'What harm will it do me if I do evil and it does not hurt me?', or, 'Who would do anything to me on that account?' ". The very fact that you do evil is to your great harm and causes you enough pain. Be assured of this by the eternal Truth, that this is a great sign of God's anger: He could do nothing worse to the sinner, neither with hell nor with anything else, than He does by permitting or allowing him to be sinful, and does not show him mercy by imposing such great distress on him that he cannot sin. And if God were to give him all the sorrow in the world, He could not afflict him more harshly than he is afflicted by being a sinner.
*
Deadly sin is a death of the soul. To die is to lose life. But God is the life of the soul; since then deadly sin separates us from God, it is a death of the soul. Deadly sin is also an unrest of the heart. Everything can rest only in its proper place. But the natural place of the soul is God; as St Augustine says, Lord, thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless till it finds rest in Thee. But deadly sin separates us from God; therefore it is an unrest of the heart. Deadly sin is also a sickness of the faculties, when a man can never stand up alone for the weight of his sins, nor ever resist falling into sin. Therefore deadly sin is a sickness of the faculties. Deadly sin is also a blindness of the sense, in that it suffers not a man to know the shortness of the pleasures of lust, nor the length of the punishment in hell, nor the eternity of joys in heaven. Deadly sin is also a death of all graces; for as soon as a deadly sin takes place, a man becomes bare of all graces.
