Chapter 11

§ 1.

Moreover, the Lord hath made it manifest that¹ many Prophets and righteous men, foreknowing His Advent by the Holy Spirit,² prayed that they might come to that time wherein they might see their Lord face to face, and hear His discourses: where He tells His Disciples,³ Many Prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things which ye see and have not seen them, and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard them. How then did they desire both to hear and to see, if they had not foreknown His future coming? And how could they foreknow without first receiving that foreknowledge from Himself? And how do the Scriptures testify of Him, except it were one and the same God Who at all times had by His Word revealed and shewn all things to them that believe? who at one time discourses with His creature, at another time gives the law, Who sometimes again upbraids, sometimes exhorts, and so eventually frees the slave and adopts him as Son, and in due time bestows the inheritance of incorruption to the perfecting of mankind. Because He formed him for augmentation and growth:⁴ as saith the Scripture, Increase and multiply.

§ 2.

And herein God differs from man,⁵ that God indeed maketh, but man is made: and while He that maketh is always the Same, that which is made must be capable of a beginning and of a middle, of addition and of growth. And God indeed doeth good, but to man good is done. And whereas God is perfect in all things, Himself equal and like unto Himself,⁶ being all Light, and all Mind, and all Substance, and the Source of all good things: man on the other hand receives improvement and growth towards God. For just as God is always the Same, so man also, being found in God, will continually get on towards God: since neither doth God ever grow slack in benefitting and enriching man, nor doth man cease to receive the benefit and to be enriched by God. For the receptacle of His Goodness, and the instrument of His glorification⁷ is man grateful to his Maker: and again the receptacle of His just judgement is man unthankful, and scorning his Creator, and not submitting himself to His Word: Who hath promised that He will give always most abundantly to those who bear fruit and have more of their Lord’s money.⁸ Well done, is His word, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful in a little I will set thee over many things: enter into the joy of thy Lord: the Lord Himself making most abundant promises.

§ 3.

As therefore to such as now bear fruit He hath promised to give abundantly,⁹ in the way of multiplying His Grace, not in the way of changing His instruction (for the Lord Himself abideth, and the same Father is revealed): so accordingly to the people of the later times also did one and the same Lord by His coming vouchsafe¹⁰ a larger gift of grace than that which was in the Old Testament. For they too by the servants used to hear of a King Who should come, and to rejoice moderately in their hope of His coming: but those who have seen Him before them, and obtained liberty, and have won His Bounty:—these have greater Grace and more overflowing triumph, rejoicing in the coming of their King;¹¹ as David also saith, My soul shall triumph in the Lord, it shall delight itself in His Salvation.

And therefore when He was entering Jerusalem,¹² all that were in the way of David, in grief of soul, recognised their King and spread under Him garments, and adorned the way with green boughs, with great joy and exultation crying out, Hosanna to the Son of David;¹³ blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. And when the bad stewards, whose way was to defraud their inferiors, and domineer over them—when they were moved with jealousy, their account not being such as would stand, and they therefore unwilling that their King should have come, on their saying to Him, Hearest thou what these say?¹⁴ the Lord said, Have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? pointing out that what David had said of the Son of God was fulfilled in Himself and implying,¹⁵ that they knew not the force of Scripture, nor the ordained way of God, but that He was Himself the person announced by the Prophets as Christ,¹⁶ Whose Name is praised in all the earth as perfecting¹⁷ praise to His Father out of the mouth of babes and sucklings:¹⁸ wherefore also His Glory is lifted above the Heavens.

§ 4.

If therefore He is present,¹⁹ the very same who is announced by the Prophets, our Lord God Jesus Christ, and if His coming bestow on those who have received Him fuller grace and more abundant bounty: plainly the Father too is the very same whom the Prophets had announced; neither did the Son when He came give knowledge of another Father, but of the Same who was declared from the beginning: from Whom also He brought down liberty to those who serve Him lawfully, and with a prostrate mind, and with all their heart. But to despisers, and such as are not subject unto God, but follow after outward cleanness, to have glory of men: (which outward cleanness was delivered to us for a figure of things to come, the Law forming a sort of shadowy outline, and by temporal things delineating eternal, by earthly, heavenly): to such as pretend that they themselves observe more than is commanded, as though they set their own care higher even than God Himself, while they are within full of hypocrisy,²⁰ and covetousness, and all wickedness:—to such He brought perdition for ever, severing them from life.