Thus he did not abide in the truth,(1) but could not escape the judgment of the Truth; he did not abide in the tranquillity of order, but did not therefore escape the power of the Ordainer.The good imparted by God to his nature did not screen him from the justice of God by which order was preserved in his punishment;neither did God punish the good which He had created, but the evil which the devil had committed.God did not take back all He had imparted to his nature, but something He took and something He left, that there might remain enough to be sensible of the loss of what was taken.And this very sensibility to pain is evidence of the good which has been taken away and the good which has been left.For, were nothing good left, there could be no pain on account of the good which had been lost.For he who sins is still worse if he rejoices in his loss of righteousness.But he who is in pain, if he derives no benefit from it, mourns at least the loss of health.And as righteousness and health are both good things, and as the loss of any good thing is matter of grief, not of joy,--if, at least, there is no compensation, as spiritual righteousness may compensate for the loss of bodily health,--certainly it is more suitable for a wicked man to grieve in punishment than to rejoice in his fault.As, then, the joy of a sinner who has abandoned what is good is evidence of a bad will, so his grief for the good he has lost when he is punished is evidence of a good nature.For he who laments the peace his nature has lost is stirred to do so by some relics of peace which make his nature friendly to itself.And it is very just that in the final punishment the wicked and godless should in anguish bewail the loss of the natural advantages they enjoyed, and should perceive that they were most justly taken from them by that God whose benign liberality they had despised.God, then, the most wise Creator and most just Ordainer of all natures, who placed the human race upon earth as its greatest ornament, imparted to men some good things adapted to this life, to wit, temporal peace, such as we can enjoy in this life from health and safety and human fellowship, and all things needful for the preservation and recovery of this peace, such as the objects which are accommodated to our outward senses, light, night, the air, and waters suitable for us, and everything the body requires to sustain, shelter, heal, or beautify it: and all under this most equitable condition.that every man who made a good use of these advantages suited to the peace of this mortal condition, should receive ampler and better blessings, namely, the peace of immortality, accompanied by glory and honor in an endless life made fit for the enjoyment of God and of one another in God; but that he who used the present blessings badly should both lose them and should not receive the others.
CHAP.14.--OF THE ORDER AND LAW WHICH OBTAIN IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, WHEREBYIT
COMES TO PASS THAT HUMANSOCIETY ISSERVED BY THOSE WHO RULE IT.
The whole use, then, of things temporal has a reference to this result of earthly peace in the earthly community, while in the city of God it is connected with eternal peace.And therefore, if we were irrational animals, we should desire nothing beyond the proper arrangement of the parts of the body and the satisfaction of the appetites,--nothing, therefore, but bodily comfort and abundance of pleasures, that the peace of the body might contribute to the peace of the soul.For if bodily peace be awanting, a bar is put to the peace even of the irrational soul, since it cannot obtain the gratification of its appetites.And these two together help out the mutual peace of soul and body, the peace of harmonious life and health.For as animals, by shunning pain, show that they love bodily peace, and, by pursuing pleasure to gratify their appetites, show that they love peace of soul, so their shrinking from death is a sufficient indication of their intense love of that peace which binds soul and body in close alliance.
But, as man has a rational soul, he subordinates all this which he has in common with the beasts to the peace of his rational soul, that his intellect may have free play and may regulate his actions, and that he may thus enjoy the well-ordered harmony of knowledge and action which constitutes, as we have said, the peace of the rational soul.And for this purpose he must desire to be neither molested by pain, nor disturbed by desire, nor extinguished by death, that he may arrive at some useful knowledge by which he may regulate his life and manners.But, owing to the liability of the human mind to fall into mistakes, this very pursuit of knowledge may be a snare to him unless he has a divine Master, whom he may obey without misgiving, and who may at the same time give him such help as to preserve his own freedom.
