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| Necessity of a return to the Word if our corrupt nature is to be restored.
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§47. Necessity of a return to the
Word if our corrupt nature is to be restored.
Who then, who can declare the Father by number,
so as to discover the powers of His Word? For like as He is the
Father’s Word and Wisdom, so too condescending to created things,
He becomes, to impart the knowledge and apprehension of Him that begot
Him, His very Brightness and very Life, and the Door, and the Shepherd,
and the Way, and King and Governor, and Saviour over all, and Light,
and Giver of Life, and Providence over all. Having then such a Son
begotten of Himself, good, and Creator, the Father did not hide Him out
of the sight of His creatures, but even day by day reveals Him to all
by means of the organisation and life of all things, which is His work.
2. But in and through Him He reveals Himself also, as the Saviour
says189
: “I in the Father and the Father in
Me:” so that it follows that the Word is in Him that begat Him,
and that He that is begotten lives eternally with the Father. But this
being so, and nothing being outside Him, but both heaven and earth and
all that in them is being dependent on Him, yet men in their folly have
set aside the knowledge and service of Him, and honoured things that
are not instead of things that are: and instead of the real and true
God deified things that were not, “serving the creature rather
than the Creator190
,” thus
involving themselves in foolishness and impiety. 3. For it is just as
if one were to admire the works more than the workman, and being
awestruck at the public works in the city, were to make light of their
builder, or as if one were to praise a musical instrument but to
despise the man who made and tuned it. Foolish and sadly disabled in
eyesight! For how else had they known the building, or ship, or lyre,
had not the ship-builder made it, the architect built it, or the
musician fashioned it? 4. As then he that reasons in such a way is mad,
and beyond all madness, even so affected in mind, I think, are those
who do not recognise God or worship His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ the
Saviour of all, through Whom the Father orders, and holds together all things, and exercises
providence over the Universe; having faith and piety towards Whom, my
Christ-loving friend, be of good cheer and of good hope, because
immortality and the kingdom of heaven is the fruit of faith and
devotion towards Him, if only the soul be adorned according to His
laws. For just as for them who walk after His example, the prize is
life everlasting, so for those who walk the opposite way, and not that
of virtue, there is great shame, and peril without pardon in the day of
judgment, because although they knew the way of truth their acts were
contrary to their knowledge.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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