|
21. And of this certainly it feels no doubt, that it is wretched,
and longs to be blessed nor can it hope for the possibility of this on
any other ground than its own changeableness for if it were not
changeable, then, as it could not become wretched after being
blessed, so neither could it become blessed after being wretched. And
what could have made it wretched under an omnipotent and good God,
except its own sin and the righteousness of its Lord? And what will
make it blessed, unless its own merit, and its Lord's reward? But
its merit, too, is His grace, whose reward will be its blessedness;
for it cannot give itself the righteousness it has lost, and so has
not. For this it received when man was created, and assuredly lost it
by sinning. Therefore it receives righteousness, that on account of
this it may deserve to receive blessedness; and hence the apostle truly
says to it, when beginning to be proud as it were of its own good,
"For what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst
receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? But
when it rightly remembers its own Lord, having received His Spirit,
then, because it is so taught by an inward teaching, it feels wholly
that it cannot rise save by His affection freely given, nor has been
able to fall save by its own defection freely chosen. Certainly it
does not remember its own blessedness; since that has been, but is
not, and it has utterly forgotten it, and therefore cannot even be
reminded of it. But it believes what the trustworthy Scriptures of
its God tell of that blessedness, which were written by His prophet,
and tell of the blessedness of Paradise,and hand down to us historical
information of that first both good and ill of man. And it remembers
the Lord its God; for He always is, nor has been and is not, nor
is but has not been; but as He never will not be, so He never was
not. And He is whole everywhere. And hence it both lives, and is
moved, and is in Him; had so it can remember Him. Not because it
recollects the having known Him in Adam or anywhere else before the
life of this present body, or when it was first made in order to be
implanted in this body; for it remembers nothing at all of all this.
Whatever there is of this, it has been blotted out by forgetfulness.
But it is reminded, that it may be turned to God, as though to that
light by which it was in some way touched, even when turned away from
Him. For hence it is that even the ungodly think of eternity, and
rightly blame and rightly praise many things in the morals of men. And
by what rules do they thus judge, except by those wherein they see how
men ought to live, even though they themselves do not so live? And
where do they see these rules? For they do not see them in their own
[moral] nature; since no doubt these things are to be seen by the
mind, and their minds are confessedly changeable, but these rules are
seen as unchangeable by him who can see them at all; nor yet in the
character of their own mind, since these rules are rules of
righteousness, and their minds are confessedly unrighteous. Where
indeed are these rules written, wherein even the unrighteous recognizes
what is righteous, wherein he discerns that he ought to have what he
himself has not? Where, then, are they written, unless in the book
of that Light which is called Truth? whence every righteous law is
copied and transferred (not by migrating to it, but by being as it
were impressed upon it) to the heart of the man that worketh
righteousness; as the impression from a ring passes into the wax, yet
does not leave the ring. But he who worketh not, and yet sees how he
ought to work, he is the man that is turned away from that light,
which yet touches him. But he who does not even see how he ought to
live, sins indeed with more excuse, because he is not a transgressor
of a law that he knows; but even he too is just touched sometimes by
the splendor of the everywhere present truth, when upon admonition he
confesses.
|
|