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2. But since we are exiled from the unchangeable joy, yet neither
cut off nor torn away from it so that we should not seek eternity,
truth, blessedness, even in those changeable and temporal things (for
we wish neither to die, nor to be deceived, nor to be troubled);
visions have been sent to us from heaven suitable to our state of
pilgrimage, in order to remind us that what we seek is not here, but
that from this pilgrimage we must return thither, whence unless we
originated we should not here seek these things. And first we have had
to be persuaded how much God loved us, lest from despair we should not
dare to look up to Him. And we needed to be shown also what manner of
men we are whom He loved, test being proud, as if of our own merits,
we should recede the more from Him, and fail the more in our own
strength. And hence He so dealt with us, that we might the rather
profit by His strength, and that so in the weakness of humility the
virtue of charity might be perfected. And this is intimated in the
Psalm, where it is said, "Thou, O God, didst send a spontaneous
rain, whereby Thou didst make Thine inheritance perfect, when it was
weary." For by "spontaneous rain" nothing else is meant than
grace, not rendered to merit, but given freely, whence also it is
called grace; for He gave it, not because we were worthy, but
because He willed. And knowing this, we shall not trust in
ourselves; and this is to be made "weak." But He Himself makes us
perfect, who says also to the Apostle Paul, "My grace is
sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
Man, then, was to be persuaded how much God loved us, and what
manner of men we were whom He loved; the former, lest we should
despair; the latter, lest we should be proud. And this most
necessary topic the apostle thus explains: "But God commendeth,"
he says, "His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His
blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son;
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Also
in another place: "What," he says, "shall we then say to these
things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how has He not
with Him also freely given us all things?" Now that which is
declared to us as already done, was shown also to the ancient righteous
as about to be done; that through the same faith they themselves also
might be humbled, and so made weak; and might be made weak, and so
perfected.
3. Because therefore the Word of God is One, by which all things
were made, which is the unchangeable truth, all things are
simultaneously therein, potentially and unchangeably; not only those
things which are now in this whole creation, but also those which have
been and those which shall be. And therein they neither have been,
nor shall be, but only are; and all things are life, and all things
are one; or rather it is one being and one life. For all things were
so made by Him, that whatsoever was made in them was not made in
Him, but was life in Him. Since," in the beginning," the Word
was not made, but "the Word was with God, and the Word was God,
and all things were made by Him;" neither had all things been made by
Him, unless He had Himself been before all things and not made.
But in those things which were made by Him, even body, which is not
life, would not have been made by Him, except it had been life in
Him before it was made. For "that which was made was already life in
Him;" and not life of any kind soever: for the soul also is the life
of the body, but this too is made, for it is changeable; and by what
was it made, except by the unchangeable Word of God? For "all
things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that
was made." "What, therefore, was made was already life in Him;"
and not any kind of life, but "the life [which] was the light of
men;" the light certainly of rational minds, by which men differ from
beasts, and therefore are men. Therefore not corporeal light, which
is the light of the flesh, whether it shine from heaven, or whether it
be lighted by earthly fires; nor that of human flesh only, but also
that of beasts, and down even to the minutest of worms. For all these
things see that light: but that life was the light of men; nor is it
far from any one of us, for in it "we live, and move, and have our
being."
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