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| The Same Subject Continued.
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Chapter
XV.—The Same Subject Continued.
If you hammer out the sequel of that Epistle to
illustrate the meaning of the apostle, neither will that sequel be
found to square with the obliteration of incest; lest even here the
apostle be put to the blush by the incongruity of his later
meanings. For what kind (of hypothesis) is it, that the very
moment after making a largess of restoration to the privileges of
ecclesiastical peace to an incestuous fornicator, he should forthwith
have proceeded to accumulate exhortations about turning away from
impurities, about pruning away of blemishes, about exhortations to
deeds of sanctity, as if he had decreed nothing of a contrary nature
just before? Compare, in short, (and see) whether it be his
province to say, “Wherefore, having this ministration, in
accordance with (the fact) that we have obtained mercy, we faint not;
but renounce the secret things of disgrace,”857
who has just released from condemnation one manifestly convicted of,
not “disgrace” merely, but crime too: whether it be
province, again, to excuse a conspicuous immodesty, who, among the
counts of his own labours, after “straits and pressures,”
after “fasts and vigils,” has named “chastity”
also:858
whether it be, once more, his province
to receive back into communion whatsoever reprobates, who writes,
“For what society (is there) between righteousness and iniquity?
what communion, moreover, between light and darkness? what consonance
between Christ and Belial? or what part for a believer with an
unbeliever? or what agreement between the temple of God and
idols?” Will he not deserve to hear constantly (the reply);
“And in what manner do you make a separation between things
which, in the former part of your Epistle, by restitution of the
incestuous one, you have joined? For by his restoration to
concorporate unity with the Church, righteousness is made to have
fellowship with iniquity, darkness has communion with light, Belial is
consonant with Christ, and believer shares the sacraments with
unbeliever. And idols may see to themselves: the very
vitiator of the temple of God is converted into a temple of God:
for here, too, he says, ‘For ye are a temple of the living
God. For He saith, That I will dwell in you, and will walk in
(you), and will be their God, and they shall be to Me a people.
Wherefore depart from the midst of them, be separate, and touch not the
unclean.’859
This (thread of
discourse) also you spin out, O apostle, when at the very moment you
yourself are offering your hand to so huge a whirlpool of impurities;
nay, you superadd yet further, ‘Having therefore this promise,
beloved, cleanse we ourselves out from every defilement of flesh and
spirit, perfecting chastity in God’s fear.’”860
I pray you, had he who fixes such
(exhortations) in our minds been recalling some notorious fornicator
into the Church? or is his reason for writing it, to prevent himself
from appearing to you in the present day to have so recalled him?
These (words of his) will be in duty bound alike to serve as a
prescriptive rule for the foregone, and a prejudgment for the
following, (parts of the Epistle). For in saying, toward the end
of the Epistle, “Lest, when I shall have come, God humble me, and
I bewail many of those who have formerly sinned, and have not repented
of the impurity which they have committed, the fornication, and the
vileness,”861
he did not, of
course, determine that they were to be received back (by him
into the Church) if they should have entered (the path of)
repentance, whom he was to find in the Church, but that they
were to be bewailed, and indubitably ejected, that they might lose (the
benefit of) repentance. And, besides, it is not congruous that
he, who had above asserted that there was no communion between light
and darkness, righteousness and iniquity, should in this place have
been indicating somewhat touching communion. But all such are
ignorant of the apostle as understand anything in a sense contrary to
the nature and design of the man himself, contrary to the norm and rule
of his doctrines; so as to presume that he, a teacher of every
sanctity, even by his own example, an execrator and expiator of every
impurity, and universally consistent with himself in these points,
restored ecclesiastical privileges to an incestuous person sooner than
to some more mild offender.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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