and the Word, by whom all things were made, had been made
CHAP. XXXIV.] CHEIST THE WAY AND THE END. 29 tiling that we love is near us, it is a matter of course that it should bring delight with it. And if you pass beyond this delight, and make it a means to that which you are permanently to rest in, you are using it, and it is an abuse of language to say that you enjoy it. But if you cling to it, and rest in it, finding your happiness complete in it, then you may be truly and properly said to enjoy it. And this we must never do except in the case of the Blessed Trinity, who is the Supreme and Unchangeable Good.
Chap, xxxiv.—Christ the first ivoy to God.
38. And mark that even when He who is Himself the Truth and the Word, by whom all things were made, had been made llesh that He might dwell among us, the apostle yet says
" Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." ^ For Christ, desiring not only to give the possession to those' who had completed the journey, but also to be Himself the way to those who were just setting out, determined to take a fleshly body. Whence also that expression, "The Lord created ^ me in the beginning of His way," ^ that is, that those who wished to come might begin their journey in Him. The apostle, therefore, althougli still on the way, and following after God who called him to the reward of His heavenly calling, yet forgetting those things which were behind, and pressing on towards those things which were before,'^ had already passed over the beginning of the way,; yet by this way all must commence their journey who desire to attain to the truth, and and had now no further need of it to rest in eternal life. For He says : " I am the way, and the; " ^ that is, by me men come, to me they truth, and the life come, in me they rest. For when we come to Him, we come to the Father also, because through an equal an equal is known ; and the Holy Spirit binds, and as it were seals us, so that we are able to rest permanently in the supreme and unchangeable Good. And hence we may learn how essential it is that nothing should detain us on the way, when not even our
Lord Himself, so far as He has condescended to be our way,
1 2 Cor. V. 16. 2 A. V. jjossessed. ^ Pi'ov. viii. 22,
Comp. Phil. iii. 13. ^ John xiv. 6.