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| Chapter XII. Of this also: “But we know that the law is spiritual,” etc.
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Chapter XII.
Of this also: “But we know that the law is
spiritual,” etc.
And this law the Apostle
also calls spiritual saying: “But we know that the law is
spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”2269
For this law is spiritual which bids us
eat in the sweat of our brow that “true bread which cometh down
from heaven”2270
but that sale
under sin makes us carnal. What, I ask, or whose is that sin? Doubtless
Adam’s, by whose fall and, if I may so say, ruinous transaction
and fraudulent bargain we were sold. For when he was led astray by the
persuasion of the serpent he brought all his descendants under the yoke
of perpetual bondage, as they were alienated by taking the forbidden
food. For this custom is generally observed between the buyer and
seller, that one who wants to make himself over to the power of
another, receives from his buyer a price for the loss of his liberty,
and his consignment to perpetual slavery. And we can very plainly see
that this took place between Adam and the serpent. For by eating of the
forbidden tree he received from the serpent the price of his liberty,
and gave up his natural freedom and chose to give himself up to
perpetual slavery to him from whom he had obtained the deadly price of
the forbidden fruit; and thenceforth he was bound by this condition and
not without reason subjected all the offspring of his posterity to
perpetual service to him whose slave he had become. For what can any
marriage in slavery produce but slaves? What then? Did that cunning and
crafty buyer take away the rights of ownership from the true and lawful
lord? Not so. For neither did he overcome all God’s property by
the craft of a single act of deception so that the true lord lost his
rights of ownership, who though the buyer himself was a rebel and a
renegade, yet oppressed him with the yoke of slavery; but because the
Creator had endowed all reasonable creatures with free will, he would
not restore to their natural liberty against their will those who
contrary to right had sold themselves by the sin of greedy lust. Since
anything that is contrary to goodness and fairness is abhorrent to Him
who is the Author of justice and piety. For it would have been wrong
for Him to have recalled the blessing of freedom granted, unfair for
Him to have by His power oppressed man who was free, and by taking him
captive, not to have allowed him to exercise the prerogative of the
freedom he had received, as He was reserving his salvation for future
ages, that in due season the fulness of the appointed time might be
fulfilled. For it was right that his offspring should remain under the
ancient conditions for so long a time, until by the price of His own
blood the grace of the Lord redeemed them from their original chains
and set them free in the primeval state of liberty, though He was able
even then to save them, but would not, because equity forbade Him to
break the terms of His own decree. Would you know the reason for your
being sold? Hear thy Redeemer Himself proclaiming openly by Isaiah the
prophet: “What is this bill of the divorce of your mother with
which I have put her away? Or who is My creditor to whom I sold you?
Behold you are sold for your iniquities and for your wicked deeds have
I put your mother away.” Would you also plainly see why when you
were consigned to the yoke of slavery He would not redeem you by the
might of His own power? Hear what He added to the former passage, and
how He charges the same servants of sin with the reason for their
voluntary sale. “Is My hand shortened and become little that I
cannot redeem, or is there no strength in Me to
deliver?”2271
But what it is
which is always standing in the way of His most powerful pity the same
prophet shows when he says: “Behold the hand of the Lord is not
shortened that it cannot save, neither is His ear heavy that it cannot
hear: But your iniquities have divided between you and your God and
your sins have hid His face from you that He should not
hear.”2272
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