Chapter 33.—In What Way Man
Should Be Enjoyed.
36. For if we find our happiness
complete in one another, we stop short upon the road, and place our
hope of happiness in man or angel. Now the proud man and the
proud angel arrogate this to themselves, and are glad to have the
hope of others fixed upon them. But, on the contrary, the holy
man and the holy angel, even when we are weary and anxious to stay
with them and rest in them, set themselves to recruit our energies
with the provision which they have received of God for us or for
themselves; and then urge us thus refreshed to go on our way
towards Him, in the enjoyment of whom we find our common
happiness. For even the apostle exclaims, “Was Paul crucified
for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”
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and
again: “Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that
watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”
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And the angel admonisheth the
man who is about to worship him, that he should rather worship Him
who is his Master, and under whom he himself is a fellow-servant.
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37. But when you have joy of a
man in God, it is God rather than man that you enjoy. For you
enjoy Him by whom you are made happy, and you rejoice to have come
to Him in whose presence you place your hope of joy. And
accordingly, Paul says to Philemon, “Yea, brother, let me have
joy of thee in the Lord.”
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For if he had not added “in
the Lord,” but had only said, “Let me have joy of thee,” he
would have implied that he fixed his hope of happiness upon him,
although even in the immediate context to “enjoy” is used in
the sense of to “use with delight.” For when the thing 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.
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1 Cor. i. 13
.
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1 Cor. iii. 7
.
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Rev. xix. 10
.
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Philem. 20
.