on adamantine tablets? And this inscription
the enemies of the Church shall never be able to erase by any device
whatever except by repentance. Manasseh was a terrible tyrant and a
most inhuman persecutor of the godly. And his banishment and captivity
would never have sufficed to blot out these sins. But when he
acknowledged his sin and repented in truth, then the Lord showed him
mercy.

So Paul had, and so the pope and the bishops have now, only one way
left them: to acknowledge their sin and to supplicate the forgiveness
of God. If they will not do this, God in his wrath will surely require
at their hands the blood of the godly. Let no one doubt this!

175. Abel is dead, but Cain is still alive. But, good God, what a
wretched life is that which he lives! He might wish never to have been
born, as he hears that he is excommunicated and must look for death
and retribution at any moment. And in due time this will be the lot of
our adversaries and of the oppressors of the Church.

B. Cain's Punishment In Detail.

V. 11. _And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened its
mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;_

176. We have heard, so far, of the disclosure of Cain's sin through
the voice of Abel's blood, of his conviction by Adam his father, and
of the decision rendered with reference to the two brothers, namely,
that the one should be canonized, or declared a saint--the first
fruits, as it were, of the blessed seed; but that the other, the
first-born, should be condemned and excommunicated, as shall presently
be shown. Now Moses mentions the penalties to be visited upon such
fratricide.

177. First of all, we should mark as particularly worthy of note the
discrimination exercised by the Holy Spirit. Previously, when the
penalty for his sin was inflicted upon Adam, a curse was placed not
upon the person of Adam, but only upon the earth; and even this curse
was not absolute but qualified. The expression is this: "Cursed is the
ground for thy sake"; and in the eighth chapter of the Romans, verse
twenty, we read: "The creature was made subject to vanity, not
willingly." The fact is, that the earth, inasmuch as it bore guilty
man, became involved in the curse as his instrument, just as also the
sword, gold, and other objects, are cursed for the reason that men
make them the instruments of their sin. With fine reasoning the Holy
Spirit discriminates between the earth and Adam. He diverts the cur