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| That the Peace of Those Who Serve God Cannot in This Mortal Life Be Apprehended in Its Perfection.
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Chapter 27.—That the Peace of
Those Who Serve God Cannot in This Mortal Life Be Apprehended in
Its Perfection.
But the peace which is peculiar to
ourselves we enjoy now with God by faith, and shall hereafter enjoy
eternally with Him by sight. But the peace which we enjoy in this
life, whether common to all or peculiar to ourselves, is rather the
solace of our misery than the positive enjoyment of felicity. Our
very righteousness, too, though true in so far as it has respect to
the true good, is yet in this life of such a kind that it consists
rather in the remission of sins than in the perfecting of
virtues. Witness the prayer of the whole city of God in its
pilgrim state, for it cries to God by the mouth of all its members,
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”1306
And this
prayer is efficacious not for those whose faith is “without works
and dead,”1307
but for
those whose faith “worketh by love.”1308
For as reason, though subjected
to God, is yet “pressed down by the corruptible body,”1309
so long as
it is in this mortal condition, it has not perfect authority over
vice, and therefore this prayer is needed by the righteous. For
though it exercises authority, the vices do not submit without a
struggle. For however well one maintains the conflict, and
however thoroughly he has subdued these enemies, there steals in
some evil thing, which, if it does not find ready expression in
act, slips out by the lips, or insinuates itself into the thought;
and therefore his peace is not full so long as he is at war with
his vices. For it is a doubtful conflict he wages with those that
resist, and his victory over those that are defeated is not secure,
but full of anxiety and effort. Amidst these temptations,
therefore, of all which it has been summarily said in the divine
oracles, “Is not human life upon earth a temptation?”1310
who but a
proud man can presume that he so lives that he has no need to say
to God, “Forgive us our debts?” And such a man is not great,
but swollen and puffed up with vanity, and is justly resisted by
Him who abundantly gives grace to the humble. Whence it is said,
“God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”1311
In this,
then, consists the righteousness of a man, that he submit himself
to God, his body to his soul, and his vices, even when they rebel,
to his reason, which either defeats or at least resists them; and
also that he beg from God grace to do his duty,1312
and the pardon of his sins, and
that he render to God thanks for all the blessings he receives.
But, in that final peace to which all our righteousness has
reference, and for the sake of which it is maintained, as our
nature shall enjoy a sound immortality and incorruption, and shall
have no more vices, and as we shall experience no resistance either
from ourselves or from others, it will not be necessary that reason
should rule vices which no longer exist, but God shall rule the
man, and the soul shall rule the body, with a sweetness and
facility suitable to the felicity of a life which is done with
bondage. And this condition shall there
be eternal, and we shall
be assured of its eternity; and thus the peace of this blessedness
and the blessedness of this peace shall be the supreme
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