recovered, if thou considerest full subtly, by any way, without
passing by one of these fords:--either that God alone by His
courtesy should forgive, or that man by himself
should make satisfaction for his folly. Fix now thine eye within
the abyss of the eternal counsel, fixed as closely on my speech
as thou art able. Man within his own limits could never make
satisfaction, through not being able to descend so far with
humility in subsequent obedience, as disobeying he intended to
ascend; and this is the reason why man was excluded from power
to make satisfaction by himself. Therefore it behoved God by His
own paths[5] to restore man to his entire life, I mean by one, or
else by both. But because the work of the workman is so much the
more pleasing, the more it represents of the goodness of the
heart whence it issues, the Divine Goodness which imprints the
world was content to proceed by all Its paths to lift you up
again; nor between the last night and the first day has there
been or will there be so lofty and so magnificent a procedure
either by one or by the other; for God was more liberal in giving
Himself to make man sufficient to lift himself up again, than if
only of Himself He had pardoned him. And all the other modes were
scanty in respect to justice, if the Son of God had not humbled
himself to become incarnate.

[1] Without the intervention of a second cause.

[2] That is, of the heavens, new as compared with the First
Cause.

[3] That is, with immediate creation, with immortality, with free
will, with likeness to God, and the love of God for it.