89. Слово в день восшествия на Всероссийский престол Благочестивейшаго Государя Императора Николая Павловича

(Spoken in the cathedral church of the Chudov Monastery, November 20; printed separately and in collections of 1835, 1844 and 1848) All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to those who seek His covenant and His testimony. (Psalm 24:10). The Lord has created this day for us, the sons of Russia, so that we may rejoice in the Tsar given to us: and thanks be to God that this joyful day is rather respectfully given way to the days of sorrow that suddenly came to this city. The city of Tsarev is recovering so as not to spend Tsarev’s day in untimely despondency. I leave it to the experts of nature, either by position or by pleasure, to work on finding the reasons for this favorable change: they will probably find more than one and will have the opportunity to compete about which of them is true, or which is stronger than the other. As for me, I have no difficulty in finding one reason that explains what is happening more satisfactorily and pleasantly than many elegant ones. This beneficial reason is the mercy of God towards the King and the Kingdom. So, according to the expression of the Prophet, “day and day the verb vomits” (Ps. 18:3), one day speaks to another, all events every day tell people what is written by the Prophet: “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to those who seek His covenant and His testimony.” What is “the way of the Lord”? The Unlimited cannot determine its paths; The omnipresent has nowhere to go. He is already present everywhere. The combination of the concepts of “mercy and truth” with the concept of “paths” makes it clear that the Prophet used this last word in a moral sense. “The Way of the Lord” is the action of God’s Providence in relation to moral beings, the direction of means controlled by God to goals worthy of the Divine. In what “paths of the Lord,” or in what actions of Providence, does the Prophet show us “mercy and truth”? The good one is prosperous: it is obvious that there is truth here for those who seek the covenant of God. And the sinner is not deprived of temporary well-being: it is obvious that this is mercy. But mercy and truth in these cases are so visible that, it seems, the Prophet would not have had any trouble pointing out these phenomena, which were quite understandable even without the Prophet. The prophet says emphatically: “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.” There is a noticeable fear here that some undiscerning people might doubt some of the ways of the Lord. What actions of Providence can the undiscerning doubt? Poverty, illness, hunger, death come to people: is this the way of the Lord? Where is the mercy? These calamities befall many, evil and good, without discernible distinction: is this the way of the Lord? Where is the truth here? Natural evil is born from natural causes, but it is often averted by natural means: where is the way of God here? Don’t we notice how perplexities of this kind are readily invented and preached by the people of this century, as if they were new discoveries, as if they were knowledge of the laws of nature? Truly, the pure, sublime gaze of the Prophet is not superfluous here, in order to discern the path of God in the affairs of nature, in order to reveal the mercy and truth of the Lord through the confusion of human innocence and guilt. And David sees this; and long warns our later wise men so that they do not make inappropriate exceptions from the laws and power of the all-good and all-encompassing Providence. “All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.” Since God is infinite, omnipresent and omnipotent: there is no state of creatures in the universe that would be inaccessible to Him, through which some path of the Lord would not lie: there is no event that would not be led by the path of the Lord, however, in such a way that the path of the Lord never restricts the paths of freedom for moral beings. Since God, who is omnipresent and governs everything, is also a wise, righteous and all-good God: then all the actions of His Providence, all the events of the world concerning moral beings, are conducted in such a way that everything is a means to good and against evil; so that what is called evil because of its unpleasant sensation and destructive actions in visible nature, this, so to speak, superficial manifestation of evil, is a medicine or antidote against a deeper and more genuine evil, which, born from the abuse of the freedom of moral beings, damages them internally and becomes the source of countless and endless evil consequences, internal and external, if its paths are not stopped by the 462 ways of the Lord. “All the ways of the Lord,” including the so-called “paths of wrath” (Psalm 77:50), or the punitive actions of Providence, and disasters, apparently randomly found, apparently indiscriminately striking, are “mercy and truth,” referring primarily to “those who seek His covenant and His testimony”; – the truth when a sinner is struck and the multiplication of sins and the spread of sinful infection is prevented; - the truth when a righteous person is saved in a common disaster; - mercy, when a sinner is spared, in whom repentance has either already been initiated, or is foreseen to be initiated; - mercy and truth together, when by a disaster that threatened many and befell few, many were brought to the knowledge of their sinful state and aroused to correction. Those who were “heard” by Job, and who are still heard today, “comforters of evil” (Job 16:2), (that is, those comforters who, thinking to console in evil, produce new evil with false consolation) say: be calm: the disease of destruction is not at all the wrath and punishment of God. So what is she, my friends? Is favor and reward from God? It is likely that such a comforter would not wish for such a reward; but it is true that philanthropy will not allow us to wish it for him. When a rod appears in the church of a good father, the one who sees it will immediately think: apparently there is a guilty party among the children. The universe is the house of the Heavenly Father. He protects people, especially children of faith, more than the mother of her children (Is. 49:15). Social disaster is, without a doubt, not a wreath, but a rod. So, when I see this rod, I cannot think otherwise than that the children of earth, apparently, deserve punishment from the Heavenly Father. They object: how can a disease, for example, from which, among others, an innocent baby dies, be a punishment? - Many centuries have already passed since the Wise One decided this objection: “he was caught up, lest malice change his mind, or flattery deceive his soul” (Wisdom 4:11). Another is to kill the innocent; – one cannot be sufficiently horrified by the cruel injustice of a person who takes away the gift of God from an innocent neighbor, which the one who takes it away cannot return or replace; - another to die innocently, under the dominion of Providence, which, through a temporary life, short or long, leads to the blissful peace of eternal life; he who dies innocently does not lose anything, but gains a safe and better life, and in it there is bliss, or preparation for bliss, according to ability, a reward according to its worth; consequently the person is not offended; Providence is right. Thus, late or early, light or heavy, the death of His saints is always honorable before the Lord (Psalm 116:6) and salutary: but also always “the death of sinners is cruel” (Psalm 33:22) and punitive. And since from the beginning of the world “sin brought death to all men” (Rom. 5:12), as punishment: even now, an increase in its power over people in general means an increase in their punishment. And the Lord of life usually threatens with death as a punishment for sins and iniquities: “Thou shalt commit iniquities; he will die by death” (Ezek. 18:13)! Therefore, just as the death of “those who have not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s crime” did not prevent the universal death of people from being a consequence of universal condemnation (Rom. 5:14-18): so the death of an innocent baby from a destructive disease does not prevent this disease from remaining a public punishment of God, and, perhaps, moreover, in particular, a punishment, or a means of spiritual excitement, for those who have lost this baby, and will mourn him. If they think that disaster did not come through the path of truth and the mercy of the Lord, punishing evil and turning to good, then I ask: how did disaster come into the world? Stealthily? - It is forbidden. God is omniscient. Forcibly? - It is forbidden. God is omnipotent. By the blind movement of the forces of nature? - It is forbidden. They are ruled by the all-wise and all-good God. Wherever you turn with conjectures, you will be forced to return to one indisputable truth, that if disaster is somehow allowed into the world, then it was allowed in no other way than as a means of Providence, punitive and corrective, and sometimes testing and perfecting, as the truth and mercy of the ways of the Lord. But they also say: if illness were a punishment from God; then it would be impermissible to get rid of it by healing: for when the Sovereign determines a punishment for a criminal, then an attempt to get rid of this punishment is considered a new crime. Wrong comparison, and therefore a false conclusion! In the very case where illness is truly God’s punishment, healing from illness should in no way be compared with escaping punishment. It is possible for a guilty person to escape from the hands of human justice; and thereby commit a new crime, all the more serious because it paves the way for other crimes: escaping from the justice of the all-seeing and all-powerful God is impossible; By this justice one can only be forgiven and released; and trying to do this is not a crime. He who runs away from the human punishment assigned to him is a rebel: he is not at all the same as one who is cured of an illness: he does this by the gift and power of the same Lord who punishes him: for “The Lord was created from the land of healing” (Sir. 38:4); “There is healing from the Most High” (Sir. 38:2). He who runs away from punishment determined by human power violates the definition of that power; This is not something anyone who is recovering from an illness does; The success of healing reveals only that he was diagnosed with a non-mortal disease. Let's correct the similarity and end the dispute. Fetters are one of those instruments of human justice that are not intended for the innocent, although, however, Joseph’s stay in them should not be explained through his fault. Likewise, bodily illness is one of the instruments of God’s justice, although the illness of Job, Hezekiah and many others came and comes in the special ways of the Lord, in which, however, upon careful examination, mercy and truth are always revealed. The cases of the sons of men, which the manifold wisdom of God leads along the paths of a righteous and good Providence, are so numerous, so varied, so intertwined with mutual relationships, so deeply hidden by their beginnings in the hearts, which only the Knower of the Heart tests, so far extended by their consequences throughout the mortal and immortal existence of people, that one would like to understand everything dark in them, everything difficult to explain would be to want to count the sand, or to scoop up the sea by the handful. Know how to philosophize, and voluntarily set a limit to your wisdom, a necessarily limited person! Believe the common-sense concepts of God the Provider, which, according to you, inspire both reason and revelation; be satisfied with the undoubted examples of people over whom, both naturally and miraculously, not all equally, over each surely, the truth and goodness of God appeared; agree, not only with your mind, but also with your heart, with the word of the Prophet, and with the innumerable testimonies of the word of God, that “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to those who seek His covenant and His testimony.” Confidence, as satisfying to the mind as it is to the heart, is as beneficial to life! One wise in the elements of the world will say: “the air was contaminated; “The air is freed from infection.” - The first is bitter; and the second one doesn’t have much taste. But when they say that the Heavenly Father has mercy on us, and when they listen to this with faith, a person receives such feelings that at the same time he becomes happier and morally better than before. “It is good to confess to the Lord, and to sing to Your name, O Most High, to proclaim Your mercy and Your truth every night in the morning” (Psalm 92:2-3). Let us never change this, as sacred as it is a blessed duty. We confess the truth of God, which punishes sinners with disasters and sanctifies the righteous with them; let us confess the mercy of God shown to us now; Let us invoke the gracious mercy and truth of the Lord in the days to come, to our Most Pious Sovereign and His Most August House, to this reigning City, Russia, and finally to every soul, by faith and seeking the covenant of God, capable of partaking of the mercy of God. Amen. In the department ed. and in collection 1835: would not have been stopped... You might be interested in: