discovered that to transgress was quite a different thing now from
what it had been. Seeing the law proclaimed, and the Abbot in earnest
to enforce it, they too reformed themselves: the few who would not
reform had to leave. The subsequent holy lives of those monks do not
enter into this history.

9. Now, we might fancy God our Lord like the Abbot of that monastery
in the early years of his rule. We might fancy the Supreme Reason,
displeased indeed, as Reason must be, at the excesses and follies of
mankind, but not otherwise commanding men to avoid those evil courses.
Were God to be thus quiescent, what we have called (n. 6)
_philosophical sin_, would indeed carry this additional malice, beyond
what was there set down, of being an offence against God, but it would
not be a grievous offence: for it would not be a sin in the proper
sense of the term, not being a transgression of the law of God,
inasmuch as God, by the supposition, would have given no law. But the
supposition itself is absurd. God could not so withhold His command.
He is free indeed not to command, but that only by not creating. If He
wills to have creatures, He must likewise will to bind them to certain
lines of action: which will to bind in God is a law to the creature.

10. This assertion, that _God cannot but will to bind His creatures to
certain lines of action_, must be proved, though in the ascent we have
to mount to high regions, and breathe those subtle airs that are
wafted round the throne of the Eternal. As God is the one source of
all reality and of all power, not only can there be no being which He
has not created and does not still preserve, but no action either can
take place without His concurrence. God must go with His every
creature in its every act: otherwise, on the creature's part, nothing
could be done. Now, God cannot be indifferent what manner of act He