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33. Now if any one says that we need not direct men how or what they
should teach, since the Holy Spirit makes them teachers, he may as
well say that we need not pray, since our Lord says, "Your Father
knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him;" or that the
Apostle Paul should not have given directions to Timothy and Titus
as to how or what they should teach others. And these three apostolic
epistles ought to be constantly before the eyes of every one who has
obtained the position of a teacher in the Church. In the First
Epistle to Timothy do we not read: "These things command and
teach?" What these things are, has been told previously. Do we not
read there: "Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father?"
Is it not said in the Second Epistle: "Hold fast the form of sound
words, which thou hast heard of me?" And is he not be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth?" And in the same place:
"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove,
rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine." And so in
the Epistle to Titus, does he not say that a bishop ought to "hold
fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by
sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers?"
There, too, he says: "But speak thou the things which become sound
doctrine: that the aged men be sober," and so on. And there, too:
"These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority.
Let no man despise thee. Put them in mind to be subject to
principalities and powers" and so on. What then are we to think?
Does the apostle in any way contradict himself, when, though he says
that men are made teachers by the operation of the Holy Spirit, he
yet himself gives them directions how and what they should teach? Or
are we to understand, that though the duty of men to teach even the
teachers does not cease when the Holy Spirit is given, yet that
neither is he who planteth anything, nor he who watereth, but God who
giveth the increase? Wherefore though holy men be our helpers, or
even holy angels assist us, no one learns aright the things that
pertain to life with God, until God makes him ready to learn from
Himself, that God who is thus addressed in the psalm: "Teach me to
do Thy will; for Thou art my God." And so the same apostle says
to Timothy himself, speaking, of course, as teacher to disciple:
"But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast
been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." For as the
medicines which men apply to the bodies of their fellow-men are of no
avail except God gives them virtue (who can heal without their aid,
though they cannot without His), and yet they are applied; and if it
be done from a sense of duty, it is esteemed a work of mercy or
benevolence; so the aids of teaching, applied through the
instrumentality of man, are of advantage to the soul only when God
works to make them of advantage, who could give the gospel to man even
without the help or agency of men.
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