Shown by similes.
“No one,” says St. Augustine, “who wishes to strike you will cry out to you to be on your guard.”[1] I am about to draw my sword to kill you! A man who threatens in that way gives clear proof that he is not in earnest, but that he wishes the other to escape his sword by running away. If a judge were to send to a thief whom he has caught in the act, telling him that when he hears the clang of arms or a certain bell tolling, it is a sure sign that the soldiers are on their way to apprehend him, put him in prison, and when sentence has been passed on him to bring him out to the place of execution, what would you think of that? Would the judge appear to you to be in earnest about putting the thief to death? No; quite the contrary; the judge in such a case must be a good friend of the thief, and would be very glad to see him make his escape. For as the old saying has it, “the cat that mews too much will never make a good mouser.” So it is; he who intends to get hold of his enemy lets not a word of his purpose be known; he hides his weapons and does not draw them until he has the other completely in his power, so that he cannot escape. One of the first and most necessary qualities of a general is silence; he must know how to keep secret the plans he forms against the enemy; he should not reveal them even to his most intimate friends, much less to his own soldiers, that no one may betray them; and if sometimes he publishes that on a certain day, at a certain hour he shall make a sally to surprise the enemy, the latter think at once: “oh, that is only a blind! We need not fear that attack; but there is some other plan in his mind, and we must be on our guard not to be surprised by it.”
For His object is to warn sinners. Mark, says St. Augustine, and be amazed at the wonderful long-suffering and mercy of God, which He will show even on that day when He will with terrible portents arm all creatures against sinners: “if He really wished to condemn sinners to hell He would conceal His wrath against them,”[2] and would reserve His vengeance till the very last moment, when He might fall upon them unawares in the midst of their sins and vices. But as it is, He has already warned them long since by His prophets to be on their guard; for “there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of
