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| That Human Life is a Distraction But that Through the Mercy of God He Was Intent on the Prize of His Heavenly Calling.
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Chapter XXIX.—That Human Life is
a Distraction But that Through the Mercy of God He Was Intent on
the Prize of His Heavenly Calling.
39. But “because Thy loving-kindness is
better than life,”1054
behold, my life is but a
distraction,1055
| 1055 Distentio. It will be observed that there
is a play on the word throughout the section. | and Thy
right hand upheld me1056
in my Lord, the Son of man, the
Mediator between Thee,1057
The One, and us the many,—in
many distractions amid many things,—that through Him I may
apprehend in whom I have been apprehended, and may be recollected
from my old days, following The One, forgetting the things that are
past; and not distracted, but drawn on,1058
| 1058 Non distentus sed extentus. So in
Serm. cclv. 6, we have: “Unum nos extendat, ne multa
distendant, et abrumpant ab uno.” | not to those things which shall be
and shall pass away, but to those things which are before,1059
not
distractedly, but intently, I follow on for the prize of my
heavenly calling,1060
| 1060 Phil. iii. 14. Many wish to attain the prize
who never earnestly pursue it. And it may be said here in view of
the subject of this book, that there is no stranger delusion than
that which possesses the idle and the worldly as to the influence
of time in ameliorating their condition. They have “good
intentions,” and hope that time in the future may do for them
what it has not in the past. But in truth, time merely affords an
opportunity for energy and life to work. To quote that lucid and
nervous thinker, Bishop Copleston (Remains, p. 123): “One
of the commonest errors is to regard time as agent.
But in reality time does nothing and is nothing. We
use it as a compendious expression for all those causes which
operate slowly and imperceptibly; but, unless some positive cause
is in action, no change takes place in the lapse of one thousand
years; e. g., a drop of water encased in a cavity of
silex.” | where I may hear the voice of Thy
praise, and contemplate Thy delights,1061
neither coming nor passing away.
But now are my years spent in mourning.1062
And Thou, O Lord, art my comfort,
my Father everlasting. But I have been divided amid times, the
order of which I know not; and my thoughts, even the inmost bowels
of my soul, are mangled with tumultuous varieties, until I flow
together unto Thee, purged and molten in the fire of Thy love.1063
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