Deuteronomy 11

The authority of the one commanding ought to move us to observe the commandments of God, because by His great power He creates us. "Your eyes have seen all the great works of God, which He did, that you might keep His commandments."

Now Sacred Scripture is generous in that God conveys His influence to it, producing the most abundant multiplications. Hence, in Deuteronomy: "The land which you are to enter and occupy is not like the land of Egypt," which is irrigated, but "a land... that drinks in rain from the heavens." For it is not like the other sciences, since God visits it.

All this Abraham undergoes that he may dwell in a land of promise watered from above, and not like Egypt, from below, no producer of herbs for the weak and ailing but a land that looks for the early and the latter rain from heaven. It is a land of hills and valleys and stands high above the sea. The attractions of the world it entirely lacks, but its spiritual attractions are for this all the greater.

What do we understand here by rain, except the words of sacred preaching? We apply this passage to the holy teachers who were preachers in Judea. Of them it is written, "I will command the clouds not to pour down rain upon her." We are watered by the word of their holy preaching when we acknowledge the aridity of our hearts with true humility. Thus the psalmist says rightly, "My soul is like a land without water before you." The prophet urges us to be drenched with the flowing words of doctrine when he says, "You who thirst, come to the waters." We, in the late ages of the world, now receive the words of holy preaching. We are watered, as it were, with late rain. This preaching of the late rain went forth from his sacrifice to us. For he says through the psalmist, "The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice." Because our Redeemer suffered the attack of his persecutors in the last age of the world, he offered himself as an evening sacrifice for us. Early and late rains are promised as a gift to the people destined to enter the land of promise, and we now see this promise accomplished spiritually. He gave early rain, because he conferred understanding on his elect in the earlier time, the time of the law. He also gave late rain, because he allowed the mystery of his incarnation to be proclaimed in the last days.

Behold, the wondrous benefit of observance and the wondrous calamity of transgression. Whence the Lord through Moses: "Behold, I set before thee blessing and curse: blessing, if thou shalt keep My commandments: curse, if thou shalt not keep them." The Lord places us in the middle and works with us wonderfully.

When someone wishes to demonstrate something to another, he proceeds against him by a twofold way, namely by ostensive reasoning and by reasoning leading to an impossibility. Thus does the Lord: He places man in the middle between heaven and hell: in heaven is eternal glory, in hell are eternal punishments. And when the Lord shows man the glory of paradise, which he can merit by keeping the commandments, then He inclines him to the observance of the commandments by ostensive reasoning. But when He shows him the punishments of hell, into which he will fall if he transgresses the commandments, then He inclines him by reasoning leading to an impossibility.