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| Duty of Imitating Our Master Taught Us by Slaves. Even by Beasts. Obedient Imitation is Founded on Patience.
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Chapter IV.—Duty of Imitating Our Master Taught Us by
Slaves. Even by Beasts. Obedient Imitation is Founded on
Patience.
Therefore, if we see all servants of probity and
right feeling shaping their conduct suitably to the disposition of
their lord; if, that is, the art of deserving favour is
obedience,9031
| 9031
“Obsequium,” distinguished by Döderlein from
“obedientia,” as a more voluntary and spontaneous thing,
founded less on authority than respect and love. | while the rule of
obedience is a compliant subjection: how much more does it behove
us to be found with a character in accordance with our
Lord,—servants as we are of the living God, whose judgment on His
servants turns not on a fetter or a cap of freedom, but on an eternity
either of penalty or of salvation; for the shunning of which severity
or the courting of which liberality there needs a diligence in
obedience9032
as great as are the
comminations themselves which the severity utters, or the promises
which the liberality freely makes.9033
| 9033
“Pollicetur,” not “promittit.” | And yet we
exact obedience9034
not from men
only, who have the bond of their slavery under their chin,9035
| 9035
“Subnixis.” Perhaps this may be the meaning, as in
Virg. Æn. iv. 217. But Oehler notices
“subnexis” as a conjecture of Jos. Scaliger, which
is very plausible, and would mean nearly the same. Mr. Dodgson renders
“supported by their slavery;” and Oehler makes
“subnixis” ="præditis,”
“instructis.” [Elucidation II.] | or in any other legal way are debtors to
obedience,9036
but even from
cattle,9037
| 9037 Pecudibus,” i.e.
tame domestic cattle. | even from
brutes;9038
| 9038 “Bestiis,”
irrational creatures, as opposed to “homines,” here
apparently wild beasts. | understanding that
they have been provided and delivered for our uses by the Lord. Shall,
then, creatures which God makes subject to us be better than we
in the discipline of obedience?9039
| 9039 Obsequii. For the
sentiment, compare Isa. i.
3. | Finally, (the
creatures) which obey, acknowledge their masters. Do we hesitate
to listen diligently to Him to whom alone we are subjected—that
is, the Lord? But how unjust is it, how ungrateful likewise, not
to repay from yourself the same which, through the indulgence of your
neighbour, you obtain from others, to him through whom you obtain
it! Nor needs there more words on the exhibition of
obedience9040
due from us to the
Lord God; for the acknowledgment9041
| 9041 See above,
“the creatures…acknowledge their
masters.” | of God
understands what is incumbent on it. Lest, however, we seem to
have inserted remarks on obedience9042
as
something irrelevant, (let us remember) that obedience9043
itself is drawn from patience. Never does an
impatient man render it, or a patient fail to find
pleasure9044
| 9044
“Oblectatur” Oehler reads with the mss. The editors, as he says, have emended
“Obluctatur,” which Mr. Dodgson reads. | in it. Who, then,
could treat largely (enough) of the good of that patience which
the Lord God, the Demonstrator and Acceptor of all good things, carried
about in His own self?9045
| 9045 See the previous
chapter. | To whom, again,
would it be doubtful that every good thing ought, because it
pertains9046
| 9046 See the previous
chapter. | to God, to be
earnestly pursued with the whole mind by such as pertain to God? By
means of which (considerations) both commendation and
exhortation9047
on the subject of
patience are briefly, and as it were in the compendium of a
prescriptive rule, established.9048
| 9048 [All our
author’s instances of this principle of the
Præscriptio are noteworthy, as interpreting its use in the
Advs. Hæreses.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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