23. The Apostle has made
known to us certain three unions, Christ and the Church, husband
and wife, spirit and flesh. Of these the former consult for the
good of the latter, the latter wait upon the former. All the things
are good, when, in them, certain set over by way of pre-eminence,
certain made subject in a becoming manner, observe the beauty of
order. Husband and wife receive command and pattern how they ought
to be one with another. The command is, “Let wives be subject
unto their own husbands, as unto the Lord; because the husband is
the head of the wife;”1889
and, “
Husbands,
love your
wives.” But there is given a pattern, unto
wives from the
Church,
unto
husbands from
Christ: “As the
Church,” saith he, “is
subject unto
Christ, so also
wives unto their own
husbands in all
things.” In like manner also, having given command to
husbands to
love their own
wives, he added a pattern, “As
Christ loved the
Church.” But
husbands he exhorted to it from a lower matter also,
that is, from their own body: not only from a higher, that is, from
their
Lord. For he not only saith,
“
Husbands,
love your
wives, as
Christ also
loved the
Church,”
which is from an higher: but he said also, “
Husbands ought to
love their own
wives, as their own bodies,” which is from a
lower: because both higher and lower are all good. And yet the
woman received not pattern from the body, or
flesh, to be so
subject to the
husband as the
flesh to the spirit; but either the
Apostle would have understood by consequence, what he omitted to
state: or haply because the
flesh lusteth against the spirit in the
mortal and
sick estate of this
life, therefore he would not set the
woman a pattern of subjection from it. But the men he would for
this reason, because, although the spirit lusteth against the
flesh, even in this it
consults for the good of the
flesh: not like
as the
flesh lusting against the spirit, by such opposition
consulteth neither for the good of the spirit, nor for its own. Yet
the good spirit would not
consult for its good, whether by
nourishing and cherishing its
nature by forethought, or by
resisting its faults by continence, were it not that each substance
showeth
God to be the Creator of each, even by the seemliness of
this its order. What is it, therefore, that with true madness ye
both
boast yourselves to be
Christians, and with so great,
perverseness
contend against the
Christian Scriptures, with
eyes
closed, or rather put out, asserting both that
Christ hath appeared
unto
mortals in false
flesh, and that the
Church in the
soul
pertains to
Christ, in the body to the
devil, and that the male and
female sex are works of the devil, not of God, and that the flesh
is joined unto the spirit, as an evil substance unto a good
substance?
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
