did this, because men who had for their gods idols made with
CHAP. YII.] BONDAGE TO THE LETTER. 87 snch a "bondage they were doing tlie pleasure of the one invisible God of all. And the apostle describes this bondage as being like to that of boys under the guidance of a schoolmaster.^ And those who clung obstinately to such signs could not endure our Lord's neglect of them when the time for their revelation had come ; and lience their leaders brought it as a charge against Him that He healed on the Sabbath, and the people, clinging to these signs as if they were realities, could not believe that one who refused to observe them in the way the Jews did was God, or came from God. But those who did believe, from among whom the first Church at Jerusalem was formed, showed clearly how great an advantage it had been to be so guided by the schoolmaster that signs, which had been for a season imposed on the obedient, fixed the thoughts of those who observed them on the w^orship of the One God who made heaven and earth. These men, because they had been very near to spiritual things (for even in the temporal and carnal offerings and types, though they did not clearly apprehend their spiritual meaning, they had learnt to adore the One Eternal God), were filled with such a measure of the Holy
Spirit that they sold all their goods, and laid their price at the apostles' feet to be distributed among the needy,^ and consecrated themselves wholly to God as a new temple, of which the old temple they were serving was but the earthly type.
11. IsTow it is not recorded that any of the Gentile churches did this, because men who had for their gods idols made with hands had not been so near to spiritual things.
Chap. vii.—The useless homlage of the Gentiles. And if ever any of them endeavoured to make it out that their idols were only signs, yet still they used them in reference to the worship and adoration of the creature. What difference does it make to me, for instance, that the ima^e of Neptune is not itself to be considered a god, but only as representing the wide ocean, and all the other waters besides that spring out of fountains ? As it is described by a poet of theirs,'*^
Gal. iii. 24. The word Taitayuycs means strictly not a schoolmaster, bi;t a servant who takes children to schooL
2 Acts iv. 34, 35. 3 Claudian.
88 ox CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. [dOOK III.
who says, if I recollect aright, " Thou, Father Neptune, whose hoary temples are wreathed with the resounding sea, whose beard is the inii^dity ocean lluwini,^ forth unceasingly, and whose hair is the winding rivers." This liusk shakes its rattling stones within a sweet covering, and yet it is not food for men, but for swine^ He who knows the gospel knows what I mean.^ What profit is it to me, then, that the image of Neptune is used with a reference to this explanation of it, unless indeed the result be that I worship neither ? For any statue you like to take is as much god to me as the wide ocean. I gi-ant, however, that they who make gods of tlie works of man have sunk lower than they who make gods of the works of God. But the command is that we should love and serve the One God, who is the ]\Iaker of all those things, the images of which are w^orshipped by the heathen either as gods, or as signs and representations of gods. If, then, to take a sign which has been established for a useful end instead of the tiling itself which it was designed to signify, is bondage to the flesh, how much more so is it to take signs intended to represent useless things for the things themselves ! For even if you go back to the very things signified by such signs, and engage your mind in the worship of these, you will not be an}'thing the more free from the burden and the livery of bondage to the flesh.
Chap. viii.— The Jews liberatedfrom their bondage in one way, the Gentiles in another.
1 2. Accordingly the liberty that comes by Christ took those whom it found under bondage to useful signs, and who were
(so to speak) near to it, and, interpreting the signs to which they were in bondage, set _tliem free by raising tliem to the realities of wliich tliese were si^ns. And out of such were formed the churches of the saints of Israel. Those, on tho otlier liand, whom it found in bondage to useless signs, it not only freed from their slavery to such signs, but brought to nothing and cleared out of the way all these signs themselves, so that the Gentiles were turned from the corruption of a multitude of false gods, which Scripture frequently and justly speaks of as fornication, to the worship of the One God : not that they might now fall into bondage to signs of a useful kind,
> Luke XV. 16.