Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter III. What is really the good which the Apostle testifies that he could not perform.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter III.
What is really the good which the Apostle testifies that
he could not perform.
What then is that one
thing which is so incomparably above those great and innumerable good
things, that, while they are all scorned and rejected, it alone should
be acquired? Doubtless it is that truly good part, the grand and
lasting character of which is thus described by the Lord, when Mary
disregarded the duties of hospitality and courtesy and chose it:
“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
but there is but need of but few things or even of one only. Mary hath
chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from
her.”2235
Contemplation
then, i.e., meditation on God, is the one thing, the value of which all
the merits of our righteous acts, all our aims at virtue, come short
of. And all those things which we said existed in the Apostle Paul,
were not only good and useful, but even great and splendid. But as, for
example, the metal of alloy which is considered of some use and worth,
becomes worthless when silver is taken into account, and again the
value of silver disappears in comparison with gold, and gold itself is
disregarded when compared with precious stones, and yet a quantity of
precious stones however splendid are outdone by the brightness of a
single pearl, so all those merits of holiness, although they are not
merely good and useful for the present life, but also secure the gift
of eternity, yet if they are compared with the merit of Divine
contemplation, will be considered trifling and so to speak, fit to be
sold. And to support this illustration by the authority of Scripture,
does not Scripture declare of all things in general which were created
by God, and say: “And behold everything that God had made was
very good;” and again: “And things that
God hath made are all good in their
season”?2236
These things
then which in the present time are termed not simply and solely good,
but emphatically “very good” (for they are really
convenient for us while living in this world, either for purposes of
life, or for remedies for the body, or by reason of some unknown
usefulness, or else they are indeed “very good,” because
they enable us “to see the invisible things of God from the
creatures of the world, being understood by the things that are made,
even His eternal power and Godhead,”2237
from this great and orderly
arrangement of the fabric of the world; and to contemplate them from
the existence of everything in it), yet none of these things will keep
the name of good if they are regarded in the light of that world to
come, where no variation of good things, and no loss of true
blessedness need be feared. The bliss of which world is thus described:
“The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the
light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of seven
days.”2238
These things
then which are great and wondrous to be gazed on, and marvellous, will
at once appear as vanity if they are compared with the future promises
from faith; as David says: “They all shall wax old as a garment,
and as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed. But
Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”2239
Because then there is nothing of itself
enduring, nothing unchangeable, nothing good but Deity alone, while
every creature, to obtain the blessing of eternity and immutability,
aims at this not by its own nature but by participation of its Creator,
and His grace, they cannot maintain their character for goodness when
compared with their Creator.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
