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| Chapter XX. He tries by stronger and weightier arguments to destroy that notion.
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Chapter XX.
He tries by stronger and weightier arguments to destroy
that notion.
But why are we so long
dealing with your wild blasphemy, with arguments that are plain indeed
but still slight? Let us hear God Himself speaking to His disciples:
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out
devils.”2648
And again:
“In My name,” He says, “ye shall cast out
devils.”2649
Had He any need
of Another’s name for the exercise of His power, who made His own
name to be a power? But what is still added?
“Behold,” He says, “I have given you power to
tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the
enemy.”2650
He Himself says
that He was gentle, as indeed He was, and humble in heart. And how was
it that as regards the greatest possible power, He commanded others to
work in His own name, if He Himself worked in Another’s name? Or
did He give to others, as if it were His own, what He Himself,
according to you, did not possess, unless He received it from Another?
But tell me, which of the saints receiving power from God, so worked?
Or would not Peter have been thought a lunatic, or John a madman, or
Paul out of his mind, if they had said to any sick folk: “In our
name arise;” or to the lame: “In our name walk;” or
to the dead: “In our name live;” or this to some: “We
give you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the
power of the enemy”? You see then from this your madness: for
just as these words are mad if they spring from man’s assurance,
so are you utterly mad if you do not see that they come from Divine
power. For you must admit one of two alternatives; either that man
could possess and give Divine power, or at any rate if no man can do
this, that He who could do it, was God. For no one can grant of His
liberality Divine power, except Him who possesses it by
nature.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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