16. t Tim. iv. 8.
POLITICAL WRITINGS 275 self-esteem is just. By means of these virtues which have been divinely imparted to us by the grace of the Man, Christ Jesus, the Mediator of God between the Father and us, through whom we are reconciled to God in the spirit of charity, after the hostility of our sin, by means of these virtues, I repeat, which are divinely imparted to us, we now live the good life, and afterward receive its reward, the life of happiness, which must necessarily be eternal. In this life these virtues are seen in action, in the next in their effect; here they are at work, there they are our reward; here, their function, there their final end. Therefore, all good and holy men, supported by divine help, in the midst of all kinds of sufferings hear the call of hope of that blessed end where they will be forever happy; but, if they were to remain forever in those same sufferings and most bitter pains, even if they had all possible virtue, no sane or reasonable being could doubt that they would be anything but wretched.
'Godliness,' then, 'which is the true worship of God, is profitable to all things,' ^* since it deflects or blunts the troubles of this life and leads to that other life, our salvation, where we shall suffer no evil and enjoy the supreme and everlasting good.
I exhort you as I do myself to pursue this happiness more earnestly and to hold to it with strong constancy. K you were not even now a sharer in it, if you did not judge that your earthly honors should be subordinate to it, you would not have said to the Donatist heretics in your edict designed to bring them back to the unity and peace of
Christ: 'This is enacted for your benefit; it is for you that the priests of the incorrupt faith labor, that the august emperor and we, his judges, also
16. t Tim. iv. 8.