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The whole use, then, of things temporal has a reference to this
result of earthly peace in the earthly community, while in the city of
God it is connected with eternal peace. And therefore, if we were
irrational animals, we should desire nothing beyond the proper
arrangement of the parts of the body and the satisfaction of the
appetites, nothing, therefore, but bodily comfort and abundance of
pleasures, that the peace of the body might contribute to the peace of
the soul. For if bodily peace be awanting, a bar is put to the peace
even of the irrational soul, since it cannot obtain the gratification
of its appetites. And these two together help out the mutual peace of
soul and body, the peace of harmonious life and health. For as
animals, by shunning pain, show that they love bodily peace, and, by
pursuing pleasure to gratify their appetites, show that they love peace
of soul, so their shrinking from death is a sufficient indication of
their intense love of that peace which binds soul and body in close
alliance. But, as man has a rational soul, he subordinates all this
which he has in common with the beasts to the peace of his rational
soul, that his intellect may have free play and may regulate his
actions, and that he may thus enjoy the well-ordered harmony of
knowledge and action which constitutes, as we have said, the peace of
the rational soul. And for this purpose he must desire to be neither
molested by pain, nor disturbed by desire, nor extinguished by death,
that he may arrive at some useful knowledge by which he may regulate his
life and manners. But, owing to the liability of the human mind to
fall into mistakes, this very pursuit of knowledge may be a snare to
him unless he has a divine Master, whom he may obey without
misgiving, and who may at the same time give him such help as to
preserve his own freedom. And because, so long as he is in this
mortal body, he is a stranger to God, he walks by faith, not by
sight; and he therefore refers all peace, bodily or spiritual or
both, to that peace which mortal man has with the immortal God, so
that he exhibits the well-ordered obedience of faith to eternal law.
But as this divine Master inculcates two precepts, the love of God
and the love of our neighbor, and as in these precepts a man finds
three things he has to love, God, himself, and his neighbor, and
that he who loves God loves himself thereby, it follows that he must
endeavor to get his neighbor to love God, since he is ordered to love
his neighbor as himself. He ought to make this endeavor in behalf of
his wife, his children, his household, all within his reach, even as
he would wish his neighbor to do the same for him if he needed it; and
consequently he will be at peace, or in well-ordered concord, with
all men, as far as in him lies. And this is the order of this
concord, that a man, in the first place, injure no one, and, in the
second, do good to every one he can reach. Primarily, therefore,
his own household are his care, for the law of nature and of society
gives him readier access to them and greater opportunity of serving
them. And hence the apostle says, "Now, if any provide not for his
own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the
faith, and is worse than an infidel." This is the origin of domestic
peace, or the well-ordered concord of those in the family who rule and
those who obey. For they who care for the rest rule, the husband the
wife, the parents the children, the masters the servants; and they
who are cared for obey, the women their husbands, the children their
parents, the servants their masters. But in the family of the just
man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying on to the
celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to
command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of
the duty they owe to others, not because they are proud of authority,
but because they love mercy.
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