61. BRIEF ANALYSIS. Who does not know that God is mercy and clemency itself, because He is love itself, and good itself, and that these are His esse or essence? And who does not thence see, that it is a contradiction to say, that mercy itself, or good itself, can look at man from anger, become his enemy, turn Himself away from him, and determine on his damnation, and still continue to be the same Divine esse or God? Such things can scarcely be attributed to an upright man, but only to a wicked man, nor to an angel of heaven, but only to an angel of hell; wherefore it is heinous to ascribe them to God. That they have been ascribed to Him, appears evident from the declarations of many fathers, councils, and churches, from the first ages to the present day; and also from the inferences which have necessarily followed from first principles into their derivatives, or from causes into their effects, as from a head into the members; such as, that He wishes to be reconciled; that He is reconciled through love to the Son, and through His intercession and mediation; that He wishes to be appeased by the view of the extreme sufferings of His Son, and so to be brought back and as it were compelled to mercy, and thus from an enemy to be made a friend, and to adopt those who were the sons of wrath as the sons of grace. That to impute the justice and merits of His Son to an unjust man, who supplicates it from faith alone, is also merely human, will be seen in the last analysis of this little work.