t is not permitted
to harm us very much, but is taken captive from the very
beginning, and set to be the punishment and death of sin.

This He signified when, after having in His commandment foretold
the death of Adam, [Gen. 2:17] He did not afterward hold His
peace, but imposed death anew, and tempered the severity of His
commandment, nay. He did not so much as mention death with a
single syllable, but said only, "Dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return" [Gen. 3:19]; and, "Until thou return unto the
ground, from whence thou wast taken"--as if He then so bitterly
hated death that He would not deign to call it by its name,
according to the word, "Wrath is in His indignation; and life in
His good will." [49] [Ps. 30:5] Thus He seemed to say that, unless
death had been necessary to the abolishing of sin, He would not
have been willing to know it nor to name it, much less to impose
it. And so, against sin, which wrought death, the zeal of God
arms none other than this very death again; so that you may here
see exemplified the poet's line,[50]

By his own art the artist perisheth.

Even so sin is destroyed by its own fruit, and is slain by the
death which it brought forth;[51] as a viper is slain by its own
offering. This is a brave spectacle, to see how death is
destroyed, not by another's work, but by its own; is stabbed with
its own weapon, and, like Goliath, is beheaded with its own
sword. [1 Sam. 17:51] For Goliath also was a type of sin, a giant
terrible to all save the young lad David--that is Christ,--who
single-handed laid him low, and having cut off his head with his
own sword, said afterward that there was no better sword than the
sword of Goliath (I. Samuel xxi). [1 Sam. 21:9]

Therefore, if we meditate on these joys of the power Christ, and
these gifts of His grace, how can any small evil distress us, the
while we see such blessings in this great evil that is to come!

CHAPTER III

THE THIRD IMAGE

THE PAST BLESSING, OR THE BLESSING BEHIND US

The consideration of this image is not difficult, in view of its
counterpart, of the past evils;[52] we would, however, aid him
who undertakes it. Here St. Augustine shows himself an excellent
master, in his Confessions, in which he gives a beautiful
rehearsal of the benefits of God toward him from his mother's
womb.[52] The same is done in that fine Psalm cxxxvii, 'Lord,
Thou hast searched me," [Ps. 139:2] where the Psalmist, marveled
among other t