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| Chapter V. How those who live under the grace of the Gospel ought to go beyond the requirement of the law.
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Chapter V.
How those who live under the grace of the Gospel ought
to go beyond the requirement of the law.
Wherefore we ought to
know that we from whom the requirements of the law are no longer
exacted, but in whose ears the word of the gospel daily sounds:
“If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast and give
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come follow
Me,”2169
when we offer to
God tithes of our substance, are still in a way ground down beneath the
burden of the law, and not able to rise to those heights of the gospel,
those who conform to which are recompensed not only by blessings in
this present life, but also by future rewards. For the law promises to
those who obey it no rewards of the kingdom of heaven, but only solaces
in this life, saying: “The man that doeth these things shall live
in them.”2170
But the Lord says
to His disciples: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven;” and: “Everyone that leaveth house
or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or field
for My name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall
inherit eternal life.”2171
And this with
good reason. For it is not so praiseworthy for us to abstain from
forbidden as from lawful things, and not to use these last out of
reverence for Him, Who has permitted us to use them because of our
weakness. And so if even those who, faithfully offering tithes of their
fruits, are obedient to the more ancient precepts of the Lord, cannot
yet climb the heights of the gospel, you can see very clearly how far
short of it those fall who do not even do this. For how can those men
be partakers of the grace of the gospel who disregard the
fulfilment even of the
lighter commands of the law, to the easy character of which the weighty
words of the giver of the law bear testimony, as a curse is actually
invoked on those who do not fulfil them; for it says: “Cursed is
everyone that does not continue in all things that are written in the
book of the law to do them.”2172
But here
on account of the superiority and excellence of the commandments it is
said: “He that can receive it, let him receive
it.”2173
There the
forcible compulsion of the lawgiver shows the easy character of the
precepts; for he says: “I call heaven and earth to record against
you this day, that if ye do not keep the commandments of the Lord your
God ye shall perish from off the face of the earth.”2174
Here the grandeur of sublime commands is
shown by the very fact that He does not order, but
exhorts, saying: “if thou wilt be perfect go” and do
this or that. There Moses lays a burden that cannot be refused on those
who are unwilling: here Paul meets with counsels those who are willing
and eager for perfection. For that was not to be enjoined as a general
charge, nor to be required, if I may so say, as a regular rule from
all, which could not be secured by all, owing to its wonderful and
lofty nature; but by counsels all are rather stimulated to grace, that
those who are great may deservedly be crowned by the perfection of
their virtues, while those who are small, and not able to come up to
“the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ,”2175
although they
seem to be lost to sight and hidden as it were by the brightness of
larger stars, may yet be free from the darkness of the curses which are
in the law, and not adjudged to suffer present evils or visited with
eternal punishment. Christ therefore does not constrain anyone, by the
compulsion of a command, to those lofty heights of goodness, but
stimulates them by the power of free will, and urges them on by wise
counsels and the desire of perfection. For where there is a command,
there is duty, and consequently punishment. But those who keep those
things to which they are driven by the severity of the law established
escape the punishment with which they were threatened, instead of
obtaining rewards and a recompense.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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