love, and who keeps a iirm hold upon these, does not need
32 ON CHKISTIAN DOCTHINE. [BOOK L begin to shake. And then, if faith totter, love itself will grow cold. For if a man has fallen from faith, he must necessarily also faU from love ; for he cannot love what he does not believe to exist. But if he both believes and loves, then through good works, and through diligent attention to the precepts of morality, he comes to hope also that he shall attain the object of his love. And so these are the three things to which all knowledge and all prophecy are subservient : faith, hope , love.
Chap, xxxviii.—Zore neverfallcth.
42. But sight shall displace faith ; and hope shall be swalljowed up in that perfect bliss to which we shall come : love, on the other hand, shall wax greater when these others fail. For if we love by faith that which as yet we see not, how much more shall we love it when we begin to see ! And if we love by hope that which as yet we have not reached, how much more shall we love it when we reach it ! For there is this great difference between things temporal and things eternal, that a temporal object is valued more before we possess it, and begins to prove worthless the moment we attain it, because it does not satisfy the soul, which has its only true and sure resting-place in eternity : an eternal object, on the other hand, is loved with greater ardour when it is in possession than while it is still an object of desire, for no one in his longing for it can set a higher value on it than really belongs to it, so as to think it comparatively wortliless when he finds it of less value than he thought; on the contrary, however high the value any man may set upon it when he is on his way to possess it, he will find it, when it comes into his po.ssession, of higher value still.
Chap, xxxix.—lie xcho is mature in faith, hope, and love, needs Scripture no lonijer,
43. And thus a man who is resting upon faith, hope, and love, and who keeps a iirm hold upon these, does not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others.
Accordingly, many live without copies of the Scriptures, even in solitude, on tlie strength of tliese throe graces. So that in their case, I think, the saying is already fuHilled :
CHAP. XL.] THE SPirJT IN WHICH WE SHOULD EEAD SCKIPTUEE. 33
'' Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail ; whetlier there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." ^ Yet by means of these instruments (as they may be called), so great an edifice of faith and love has been built up in them, that, holding to what is perfect, they do not seek for what is only in part perfect—of course, I mean, so far as is possible in this life ; for, in comparison with the future life, the life of no just and holy man is perfect here. Therefore the apostle says : " Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity:"^ because, when a man shall have reached the eternal world, while the other two graces will fail, love will remain greater and more assured.
Chap, xl.— JVJiat manner of reader Scripture demands.
44.' And, therefore, if a man fully understands that " the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned," ^ and is bent
making all his understanding of Scripture to bear upon these three graces, he may come to the interpretation of these books with an easy mind. I For while the apostle says " love," he adds " out of a pure heart," to provide against anything being loved but that which is worthy of love. And he joins with this " a good conscience," in reference to hope ; for, if a man has the burthen of a bad conscience, he despairs of ever reaching that which he believes in and loves. And in the third place he says : " and of faith unfeigned." Tor if our faith is free from all hypocrisy, then we both abstain from loving what is unworthy of our love, and by living uprightly we are able to indulge the hope that our hope shall not be in vain.
For these reasons I have been anxious to speak about the objects of faith, as far as I thought it necessary for my present purpose ; for much has already been said on this subject in other volumes, either by others or by myself. And so let this be the end of the present book. In the next I shall discuss, as far as God shall give me light, the subject of signs.
1 1 Cor. xiii. 8. ^ i q^j,. xiii. 13. ^l Tim. i. 5.
CHU. DOCT. C
34 ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. [BOOK II.
LOOK S E C X D.
ARGUMENT.
HAVING COMrLETED HIS EXPORITION OF THINGS, THE AUTHOn NOW TEOCEEDS TO
DISCUSS THE SUBJECT OF SIGNS. HE FIRST DEFINES WHAT A SIGN IS, AND
SHOWS THAT THERE ARE TWO CLASSES OF SIGNS, THE NATURAL AND THE CONVENTIONAL. OF CONVENTIONAL SIGNS (WHICH ARE THE ONLY
CLASS HERE NOTICED), WORDS ARE THE MOST NUMEROUS AND IMPORTANT,
AND ARE THOSE WITH WHICH THE INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE IS CHIEFLY
CONCERNED. THE DIFFICULTIES AND OBSCURITIES OF SCRIPTURE SPRING
CHIEFLY FROM TWO SOURCES, UNKNOWN AND AMBIGUOUS SIGNS.
THE PRESENT BOOK DEALS ONLY WITH UNKNOWN SIGNS, THE AMBIGUITIES
OF LANGUAGE BEING RESERVED FOR TREATMENT IN THE NEXT BOOK. THE
DIFFICULTY ARISING FROM IGNORANCE OF SIGNS IS TO BE REMOVED BY
LEARNING THE GREEK AND HEBREW LANGUAGES, IN WHICH SCRIPTURE IS
WRITTEN, BY COMPARING THE VARIOUS TRANSLATIONS, AND BY ATTENT)ING
TO THE CONTEXT. IN THE INTERPRETATION OF FIGURATIVE EXPRESSIONS, KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS IS AS NECESSARY AS KNOWLEDGE OF WORDS ; AND THE VARIOUS SCIENCES AND ARTS OF THE HEATHEN, SO FAR AS THEY ARE TRUE AND USEFUL, MAY BE TURNED TO ACCOUNT IN REMOVING OUIl IGNORANCE OF SIGNS, WHETHER THESE BE DIRECT OR FIGURATIVE. WHILST EX-
POSING THE FOLLY AND FUTILITY OF MANY HEATHEN SUPERSTITIONS AND
PRACTICES, THE AUTHOR POINTS OUT HOW ALL TI^AT IS SOUND ANT) USEFUL
IN THEIR SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY MAY BE TURNED TO A CHRISTIAN USE. AND IN CONCLUSION, HE SHOWS THE SPIRIT IN WHICH IT BEHOVES US TO ADDRESS OURSELVES TO THE STUDY AND INTERPRETATION OF THE SACRED
BOOKS.
Chap. i.—Signs, their nature and variety.
1. 4 S wlien I was writing about things, I introduced the X\. subject with a warning against attending to anything but what they are in themselves,^ even though they are signs of something else, so now, when I come|nJt^ turn to discuss the su1)ject of signs, I lay down this direction^ not to attend to what they are in themselves, but to the fact that they are signs, that is, to what they signify. For a sign is a thing wliicli, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as a consequence of itself as when we see a footprint, we conclude that an animal wliose footprint this is has passed by ; and when we see smoke, we
» See Book i. 2.