Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter VIII.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
VIII.
Hold fast in the meantime this persuasion, while I
examine a question which comes in our way. For I already hear it is
said, that many other things as well as crowns have been invented by
those whom the world believes to be gods, and that they are
notwithstanding to be met with both in our present usages and in those
of early saints, and in the service of God, and in Christ Himself, who
did His work as man by no other than these ordinary instrumentalities
of human life. Well, let it be so; nor shall I inquire any further back
into the origin of this things. Let Mercury have been the first who
taught the knowledge of letters; I will own that they are requisite
both for the business and commerce of life, and for performing our
devotion to God. Nay, if he also first strung the chord to give forth
melody, I will not deny, when listening to David, that this invention
has been in use with the saints, and has ministered to God. Let
Æsculapius have been the first who sought and discovered cures:
Esaias403
mentions that he ordered Hezekiah medicine
when he was sick. Paul, too, knows that a little wine does the stomach
good.404
Let Minerva have been the first who built a
ship: I shall see Jonah and the apostles sailing. Nay, there is more
than this: for even Christ, we shall find, has ordinary
raiment; Paul, too,
has his cloak.405
| 405 2 Tim. iv. 13. [This is a useful comment as showing
what this φαιλόνη was. Our
author translates it by pænula. Of which more when we reach
the De Pallio.] | If at once, of every
article of furniture and each household vessel, you name some god of
the world as the originator, well, I must recognise Christ, both as He
reclines on a couch, and when He presents a basin for the feet of His
disciples, and when He pours water into it from a ewer, and when He is
girt about with a linen towel406
—a garment
specially sacred to Osiris. It is thus in general I reply upon the
point, admitting indeed that we use along with others these articles,
but challenging that this be judged in the light of the distinction
between things agreeable and things opposed to reason, because the
promiscuous employment of them is deceptive, concealing the corruption
of the creature, by which it has been made subject to vanity. For we
affirm that those things only are proper to be used, whether by
ourselves or by those who lived before us, and alone befit the service
of God and Christ Himself, which to meet the necessities of human life
supply what is simply; useful and affords real assistance and
honourable comfort, so that they may be well believed to have come from
God’s own inspiration, who first of all no doubt provided for and
taught and ministered to the enjoyment, I should suppose, of His own
man. As for the things which are out of this class, they are not fit to
be used among us, especially those which on that account indeed are not
to be found either with the world, or in the ways of
Christ.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
