4.

I delayed for a little while the production of proofs from the Old Testament, because, wherever the Old Testament is against them they are accustomed to cry out that ¹ the Law and the Prophets were until John. But who does not know that under the other dispensation of God all the saints of past times were of equal merit with Christians at the present day? As Abraham in days gone by pleased God in wedlock, so virgins now please him in perpetual virginity. He served the Law and his own times; let us now serve the Gospel and our times, ² upon whom the ends of the ages have come. David the chosen one, the man after God’s own heart, who had performed all His pleasure, and who in a certain psalm had said, ³“Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the Lord and shall not slide. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart,” even he was afterwards tempted by the devil; and repenting of his sin said, ⁴“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness.” He would have a great sin blotted out by great loving-kindness. Solomon, beloved of the Lord, and to whom God had twice revealed Himself, because he loved women forsook the love of God. It is related in the ⁵ Book of Days that Manasses the wicked king was restored after the Babylonish captivity to his former rank. And P. 391 Josiah, a holy man, ⁶ was slain by the king of Egypt on the plain of Megiddo. ⁷ Joshua also, the son of Josedech and high-priest, although he was a type of our Saviour Who bore our sins, and united to Himself a church of alien birth from among the Gentiles, is nevertheless, according to the letter of Scripture, represented in filthy garments after he attained to the priesthood, and with the devil standing at his right hand; and white raiment is afterwards restored to him. It is needless to tell how Moses and Aaron ⁸ offended God at the water of strife, and did not enter the land of promise. For the blessed Job relates that even the angels and every creature can sin. ⁹“Shall mortal man,” he says, “be just before God? Shall a man be spotless in his works? If he putteth no trust in his servants, and chargeth his angels with folly, how much more them that dwell in houses of clay,” amongst whom are we, and made of the same clay too. ¹⁰“The life of man is a warfare upon earth.” ¹¹ Lucifer fell who was sending to all nations, and he who was nurtured in a paradise of delight as one of the twelve precious stones, was wounded and went down to hell from the mount of God. Hence the Saviour says in the Gospel: ¹²“I beheld Satan falling as lightning from heaven.” If he fell who stood on so sublime a height, who may not fall? If there are falls in heaven, how much more on earth! And yet though Lucifer be fallen (the old serpent after his fall) , ¹³“his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the muscles of his belly. The great trees are overshadowed by him, and he sleepeth beside the reed, the rush, and the sedge.” ¹⁴ He is king over all things that are in the waters—that is to say in the seat of pleasure and luxury, of propagation of children, and of the fertilisation of the marriage bed. ¹⁵“For who can strip off his outer garment? Who can open the doors of his face? Nations fatten upon him, and the tribes of Phenicia divide him.” And lest haply the reader in his secret thought might imagine that those tribes of Phenicia and peoples of Ethiopia only are meant by those to whom the dragon was given for food, we immediately find a reference to those who are crossing the sea of this world, and are hastening to reach the haven of salvation: ¹⁶“His head stands in the ships of the fishermen like an anvil that cannot be wearied: ¹⁷ he counteth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. And all the gold of the sea under him is as mire. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he values the sea like a pot of ointment, and the blackness of the deep as a captive. He beholdeth everything that is high.” And my friend Jovinianus thinks he can gain an easy mastery over him. Why speak of holy men and angels, who, being creatures of God, are of course capable of sin? He dared to tempt the Son of God, and though smitten through and through with our Lord’s first and second answer, nevertheless raised his head, and when thrice wounded, withdrew only for a time, and deferred rather than removed the temptation. And we flatter ourselves on the ground of our baptism, which though it put away the sins of the past, cannot keep us for the time to come, unless the baptized keep their hearts with all diligence.