Therefore, also, does grace aid good men in the midst of present calamities, so that they are enabled to endure them with a constancy proportioned to their faith.The world's sages affirm that philosophy contributes something to this,--that philosophy which, according to Cicero, the gods have bestowed in its purity only on a few men.They have never given, he says, nor can ever give, a greater gift to men.So that even those against whom we are disputing have been compelled to acknowledge, in some fashion, that the grace of God is necessary for the acquisition, not, indeed, of any philosophy, but of the true philosophy.
And if the true philosophy--this sole support against the miseries of this life--has been given by Heaven only to a few, it sufficiently appears from this that the human race has been condemned to pay this penalty of wretchedness.And as, according to their acknowledgment, no greater gift has been bestowed by God, so it must be believed that it could be given only by that God whom they themselves recognize as greater than all the gods they worship.
CHAP.23.--OF THE MISERIES OF THIS LIFE WHICH ATTACH PECULIARLY TO THETOIL OF GOOD
MEN.IRRESPECTIVE OF THOSE WHICH ARE COMMON TO THE GOOD AND BAD.
But, irrespective of the miseries which in this life are common to the good and bad, the righteous undergo labors peculiar to themselves, in so far as they make war upon their vices, and are involved in the temptations and perils of such a contest.For though sometimes more violent and at other times slacker, yet without intermission does the flesh lust against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that we cannot do the things we would,(1)and extirpate all lust, but can only refuse consent to it, as God gives us ability, and so keep it under, vigilantly keeping watch lest a semblance of truth deceive us, lest a subtle discourse blind us, test error involve us in darkness, test we should take good for evil or evil for good, lest fear should hinder us from doing what we ought, or desire precipitate us into doing what we ought not, lest the sun go down upon our wrath, lest hatred provoke us to render evil for evil, lest unseemly or immoderate grief consume us, test an ungrateful disposition make us slow to recognize benefits received, lest calumnies fret our conscience, lest rash suspicion on our part deceive us regarding a friend, or false suspicion of us on the part of others give us too much uneasiness, lest sin reign in our mortal body to obey its desires, lest our members be used as the instruments of unrighteousness, lest the eye follow lust, test thirst for revenge carry us away, lest sight or thought dwell too long on some evil thing which gives us pleasure, lest wicked or indecent language be willingly listened to, lest we do what is pleasant but unlawful, and lest in this warfare, filled so abundantly with toil and peril, we either hope to secure victory by our own strength, or attribute it when secured to our own strength, and not to His grace of whom the apostle says, "Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ;"(2) and in another place he says, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."(3)But yet we are to know this, that however valorously we resist our vices, and however successful we are in overcoming them, yet as long as we are in this body we have always reason to say to God, Forgive us our debts."(4) But in that kingdom where we shall dwell for ever, clothed in immortal bodies, we shall no longer have either conflicts or debts,--as indeed we should not have had at any time or in any condition, had our nature continued upright as it was created.Consequently even this our conflict, in which we are exposed to peril, and from which we hope to be delivered by a final victory, belongs to the ills of this life, which is proved by the witness of so many grave evils to be a life under condemnation CHAP.24.--OF THE BLESSINGS WITH WHICH THE CREATOR HAS FILLED THIS LIFE, OBNOXIOUSTHOUGH IT BE TO THE CURSE.
But we must now contemplate the rich and countless blessings with which the goodness of God, who cares for all He has created, has filled this very misery of the human race, which reflects His retributive justice.That first blessing which He pronounced before the fall, when He said, "Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth,"(1) He did not inhibit after man had sinned, but the fecundity originally bestowed remained in the condemned stock; and the vice of sin, which has involved us in the necessity of dying, has yet not deprived us of that wonderful power of seed, or rather of that still more marvellous power by which seed is produced, and which seems to be as it were inwrought and inwoven in the human body.But in this river, as Imay call it, or torrent of the human race, both elements are carried along together,--both the evil which is derived from him who begets, and the good which is bestowed by Him who creates us.In the original evil there are two things, sin and punishment; in the original good, there are two other things, propagation and conformation.
But of the evils, of which the one, sin, arose from our audacity, and the other, punishment, from God's judgment, we have already said as much as suits our present purpose.Imean now to speak of the blessings which God has conferred or still confers upon our nature, vitiated and condemned as it is.
For in condemning it He did not withdraw all that He had given it, else it had been annihilated; neither did He, in penally subjecting it to the devil, remove it beyond His own power; for not even the devil himself is outside of God's government, since the devil's nature subsists only by the supreme Creator who gives being to all that in any form exists.