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This sickliness, that is to say, that disobedience of which we spoke
in the fourteenth book, is the punishment of the first disobedience.
It is therefore not nature, but vice; and therefore it is said to the
good who are growing in grace, and living in this pilgrimage by faith,
"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of
Christ." In like manner it is said elsewhere, "Warn them that are
unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, sup port the weak, be patient
toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man."
And in another place, "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which
are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." And elsewhere,
"Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." And in the Gospel,
"If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his
fault between thee and him alone." So too of sins which may create
scandal the apostle says, "Them that sin rebuke before all, that
others also may fear." For this purpose, and that we may keep that
peace without which no man can see the Lord, many precepts are given
which carefully inculcate mutual forgiveness; among which we may number
that terrible word in which the servant is ordered to pay his formerly
remitted debt of ten thousand talents, because he did not remit to his
fellow-servant his debt of two hundred pence. To which parable the
Lord Jesus added the words, "So likewise shall my heavenly Father
do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his
brother." It is thus the citizens of the city of God are healed
while still they sojourn in this earth and sigh for the peace of their
heavenly country. The Holy Spirit, too, works within, that the
medicine externally applied may have some good result.
Otherwise, even though God Himself make use of the creatures that
are subject to Him, and in some human form address our human senses,
whether we receive those impressions in sleep or in some external
appearance, still, if He does not by His own inward grace sway and
act upon the mind, no preaching of the truth is of any avail. But
this God does, distinguishing between the vessels of wrath and the
vessels of mercy, by His own very secret but very just providence.
When He Himself aids the soul in His own hidden and wonderful ways,
and the sin which dwells in our members, and is, as the apostle
teaches, rather the punishment of sin, does not reign in our mortal
body to obey the lusts of it, and when we no longer yield our members
as instruments of unrighteousness, then the soul is converted from its
own evil and selfish desires, and, God possessing it, it possesses
itself in peace even in this life, and afterwards, with perfected
health and endowed with im mortality, will reign without sin in peace
everlasting.
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