he would have made him partaker of eternal felicity, and vested with his original justice? without death, or any passage by misery, would have associated him with the company of angels, if he had not, by his own default, violated the laws of his creator. Notwithstanding this act of malice, the divine clemency would not suffer the work of his powerful hands so to perish, but he, according to the diversity of times, always ordained opportune remedies, to reduce wandering man to the right way of his own salvation. Now manifesting his divine pleasure, by the means of angels, now sending the patriarchs replenished with his heavenly grace, who by their good example, might stir them up to piety; then sending the prophets illuminated with his holy spirit, not only to preach the present benefits exhibited to mankind, but also to foretell the future incarnation of the Son of God, with the mystery of his death and passion, by means of which, man should be loosed from the power of Satan, and eased of the heavy load of his transgressions.
