Chapter 26.--No Fruit Good Except It Grow from the Root of Love.
It is evident, then, that the oldness of the letter, in the absence of the newness of the spirit, instead of freeing us from sin, rather makes us guilty by the knowledge of sin. Whence it is written in another part of Scripture, "He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow," [820] --not that the law is itself evil, but because the commandment has its good in the demonstration of the letter, not in the assistance of the spirit; and if this commandment is kept from the fear of punishment and not from the love of righteousness, it is servilely kept, not freely, and therefore it is not kept at all. For no fruit is good which does not grow from the root of love. If, however, that faith be present which worketh by love, [821] then one begins to delight in the law of God after the inward man, [822] and this delight is the gift of the spirit, not of the letter; even though there is another law in our members still warring against the law of the mind, until the old state is changed, and passes into that newness which increases from day to day in the inward man, whilst the grace of God is liberating us from the body of this death through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[820] Eccles. i. 18.
[821] Gal. v. 6.
[822] Rom. vii. 22.
Chapter 27 [XV.]--Grace, Concealed in the Old Testament, is Revealed in the New.
This grace hid itself under a veil in the Old Testament, but it has been revealed in the New Testament according to the most perfectly ordered dispensation of the ages, forasmuch as God knew how to dispose all things. And perhaps it is a part of this hiding of grace, that in the Decalogue, which was given on Mount Sinai, only the portion which relates to the Sabbath was hidden under a prefiguring precept. The Sabbath is a day of sanctification; and it is not without significance that, among all the works which God accomplished, the first sound of sanctification was heard on the day when He rested from all His labours. On this, indeed, we must not now enlarge. But at the same time I deem it to be enough for the point now in question, that it was not for nothing that the nation was commanded on that day to abstain from all servile work, by which sin is signified; but because not to commit sin belongs to sanctification, that is, to God's gift through the Holy Spirit. And this precept alone among the others, was placed in the law, which was written on the two tables of stone, in a prefiguring shadow, under which the Jews observe the Sabbath, that by this very circumstance it might be signified that it was then the time for concealing the grace, which had to be revealed in the New Testament by the death of Christ,--the rending, as it were, of the veil. [823] "For when," says the apostle, "it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." [824]
[823] Matt. xxvii. 51.
[824] 2 Cor. iii. 16.
Chapter 28 [XVI]--Why the Holy Ghost is Called the Finger of God.
"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." [825] Now this Spirit of God, by whose gift we are justified, whence it comes to pass that we delight not to sin,--in which is liberty; even as, when we are without this Spirit, we delight to sin,--in which is slavery, from the works of which we must abstain;--this Holy Spirit, through whom love is shed abroad in our hearts, which is the fulfilment of the law, is designated in the gospel as "the finger of God." [826] Is it not because those very tables of the law were written by the finger of God, that the Spirit of God by whom we are sanctified is also the finger of God, in order that, living by faith, we may do good works through love? Who is not touched by this congruity, and at the same time diversity? For as fifty days are reckoned from the celebration of the Passover (which was ordered by Moses to be offered by slaying the typical lamb, [827] to signify, indeed, the future death of the Lord) to the day when Moses received the law written on the tables of stone by the finger of God, [828] so, in like manner, from the death and resurrection of Him who was led as a lamb to the slaughter, [829] there were fifty complete days up to the time when the finger of God--that is, the Holy Spirit--gathered together in one [830] perfect company those who believed.
[825] 2 Cor. iii. 17.
[826] Luke xi. 20.
[827] Ex. xii. 3.
[828] Ex. xxxi. 18.
[829] Isa. liii. 7.
[830] Acts ii. 2.