s almost the only martyr.

666

_Typical._--The expressions, sword, shield. _Potentissime._

667

We are estranged, only by departing from charity. Our prayers and our
virtues are abominable before God, if they are not the prayers and the
virtues of Jesus Christ. And our sins will never be the object of
[_mercy_], but of the justice of God, if they are not [_those of_] Jesus
Christ. He has adopted our sins, and has [_admitted_] us into union
[_with Him_], for virtues are [_His own, and_] sins are foreign to Him;
while virtues _[are]_ foreign to us, and our sins are our own.

Let us change the rule which we have hitherto chosen for judging what is
good. We had our own will as our rule. Let us now take the will of
[_God_]; all that He wills is good and right to us, all that He does not
will is [_bad_].

All that God does not permit is forbidden. Sins are forbidden by the
general declaration that God has made, that He did not allow them. Other
things which He has left without general prohibition, and which for that
reason are said to be permitted, are nevertheless not always permitted.
For when God removed some one of them from us, and when, by the event,
which is a manifestation of the will of God, it appears that God does
not will that we should have a thing, that is then forbidden to us as
sin; since the will of God is that we should not have one more than
another. There is this sole difference between these two things, that it
is certain that God will never allow sin, while it is not certain that
He will never allow the other. But so long as God does not permit it, we
ought to regard it as sin; so long as the absence of God's will, which
alone is all goodness and all justice, renders it unjust and wrong.

668

To change the type, because of our weakness.

669

_Types._--The Jews had grown old in these earthly thoughts, that God
loved their father Abraham, his flesh and what sprung from it; that on
account of this He had multiplied them, and distinguished them from all
other nations, without allowing them to intermingle; that when they were
languishing in Egypt, He brought them out with all these great signs in
their favour; that He fed them with manna in the desert, and led them
into a very rich land; that He gave them kings and a well-built temple,
in order to offer up beasts before Him, by the shedding of whose blood
they should be purified; and that at last He was to send them the
Messiah to mak