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| Chapter I. Happiness in life is to be gained by living virtuously, inasmuch as thus a Christian, whilst despising glory and the favour of men, desires to please God alone in what he does.
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Chapter I.
Happiness in life is to be gained by living virtuously,
inasmuch as thus a Christian, whilst despising glory and the favour of
men, desires to please God alone in what he does.
1. In the first
book we spoke of the duties369
which we thought
befitted a virtuous life, whereon no one has ever doubted but that a
blessed life, which the Scripture calls eternal life, depends. So
great is the splendour of a virtuous life that a peaceful conscience
and a calm innocence work out a happy life. And as the risen sun
hides the globe of the moon and the light of the stars, so the
brightness of a virtuous life, where it glitters in true pure glory,
casts into the shade all other things, which, according to the desires
of the body, are considered to be good, or are reckoned in the eyes of
the world to be great and noble.
2. Blessed, plainly, is that life which is
not valued at the estimation of outsiders, but is known, as judge of
itself, by its own inner feelings. It needs no popular opinion as
its reward in any way; nor has it any fear of punishments. Thus
the less it strives for glory, the more it rises above it. For to
those who seek for glory, that reward in the shape of present things is
but a shadow of future ones, and is a hindrance to eternal life, as it
is written in the Scriptures: “Verily, I say unto you, they
have received their reward.”370
This is
said of those who, as it were, with the sound of a trumpet desire to
make known to all the world the liberality they exercise towards the
poor. It is the same, too, in the case of fasting,
which is done but for outward
show. “They have,” he says, “their
reward.”
3. It therefore belongs to a virtuous life
to show mercy and to fast in secret; that thou mayest seem to be
seeking a reward from thy God alone, and not from men. For he who
seeks it from man has his reward, but he who seeks it from God has
eternal life, which none can give but the Lord of Eternity, as it is
said: “Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with
Me in Paradise.”371
Wherefore
the Scripture plainly has called that life which is blessed, eternal
life. It has not been left to be appraised according to
man’s ideas on the subject, but has been entrusted to the divine
judgment.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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