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| Chapter XI. A question why he has called the feeling of fear and hope imperfect.
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Chapter XI.
A question why he has called the feeling of fear and
hope imperfect.
Germanus: You have indeed
spoken powerfully and grandly of the perfect love of God. But still
this fact disturbs us; viz., that while you were exalting it with such
praise, you said that the fear of God and the hope of eternal reward
were imperfect, though the prophet seems to have thought quite
differently about them, where he said: “Fear the Lord, all ye His
saints, for they that fear Him lack nothing.”1717
And again in the matter of observing
God’s righteous acts he admits that he has done them from
consideration of the reward, saying: “I have inclined my heart to
do thy righteous acts forever, for the reward.”1718
And the Apostle says: “By faith
Moses when he
was
grown up, denied himself to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;
choosing rather to be afflicted with the people of God than to have the
pleasure of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasure of the Egyptians; for he looked unto the
reward.”1719
How then can we
think that they are imperfect, if the blessed David boasted that he did
the righteous acts of God in hope of a recompense, and the giver of the
Law is said to have looked for a future reward and so to have despised
the adoption to royal dignity, and to have preferred the most terrible
affliction to the treasures of the Egyptians?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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