1 Corinthians 9:10

Let it now be granted that repetition of marriage is lawful, if everything which is lawful is good. The same apostle exclaims: “All things are lawful, but all are not profitable.” Pray, can what is “not profitable” be called good? If even things which do not make for salvation are “lawful,” it follows that even things which are not good are “lawful.” But what will it be your duty rather to choose; that which is good because it is “lawful,” or that which is so because it is “profitable?” A wide difference I take to exist between “licence” and salvation. Concerning the “good” it is not said “it is lawful;” inasmuch as “good” does not expect to be permitted, but to be assumed. …

2. It would be tedious to collect out of all the passages in the Gospels the proofs by which the God of the law and of the Gospels is shown to be one and the same. Let us touch briefly upon the Acts of the Apostles, where Stephen and the other apostles address their prayers to that God who made heaven and earth, and who spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, calling Him the “God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob;” the God who “brought forth His people out of the land of Egypt.” Which expressions undoubtedly clearly direct our understandings to faith in the Creator, and implant an affection for Him in those who have learned piously and faithfully thus to think of Him; according to the words of the Saviour Himself, who, when He was asked which was the greatest commandment in the law, replied, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy m …

Our present object, however, is to expose the ignorance of Celsus, who makes this Jew of his address his fellow-citizen and the Israelitish converts in the following manner: “What induced you to abandon the law of your fathers?” etc. Now, how should they have abandoned the law of their fathers, who are in the habit of rebuking those who do not listen to its commands, saying, “Tell me, ye who read the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons;” and so on, down to the place, “which things are an allegory,” etc.? And how have they abandoned the law of their fathers, who are ever speaking of the usages of their fathers in such words as these: “Or does not the law say these things also? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. …

And He called them, indeed, “an evil generation,” because of the quality arising from evil which had been produced in them, for wickedness is voluntary evil-doing, but “adulterous” because that when the Pharisees and Sadducees left that which is figuratively called man, the word of truth or the law, they were debauched by falsehood and the law of sin. For if there are two laws, the law in our members warring against the law of the mind, and the law of the mind, we must say that the law of the mind, that is, the spiritual, is man, to whom the soul was given by God as wife, that is, to the man who is law, according to what is written, “A wife is married to a man by God;” but the other is a paramour of the soul which is subject to it, which also on account of it is called an adulteress. …

6. Which thing whoso thinks cannot have been done by the Apostles, that with them women of holy conversation should go about wheresoever they preached the Gospel, that of their substance they might minister to their necessities, let him hear the Gospel, and learn how in this they did after the example of the Lord Himself. Our Lord, namely, according to the wont of His pity, sympathizing with the weak, albeit Angels might minister unto Him, had both a bag in which should be put the money which was bestowed doubtless by good and believing persons, as necessary for their living, (which bag He gave in charge to Judas, that even thieves, if we could not keep clear of such, we might learn to tolerate in the Church. …

22. There also is said at what work the Apostle wrought. “After these things,” it says, “he departed from Athens and came to Corinth; and having found a certain Jew, by name Aquila, of Pontus by birth, lately come from Italy, and Priscilla his wife, because that Claudius had ordered all Jews to depart from Rome, he came unto them, and because he was of the same craft he abode with them, doing work: for they were tent-makers.” This if they shall essay to interpret allegorically, they show what proficients they be in ecclesiastical learning, on which they glory that they bestow all their time. …

What was then a precept of Scripture is now a testimony. Formerly, not to keep the feast of tabernacles was a sin, which is not the case now. But not to form part of the building of God’s tabernacle, which is the Church, is always a sin. Formerly this was acted in a figure; now the record serves as testimony. The ancient tabernacle, indeed, would not have been called the tabernacle of the testimony, unless as an appropriate symbol it had borne testimony to some truth which was to be revealed in its own time. To patch linen garments with purple, or to wear a garment of woollen and linen together, is not a sin now. But to live intemperately, and to wish to combine opposite modes of life, as when a woman devoted to religion wears the ornaments of married women, or when one who has not abstained from marriage dresses like a virgin, is always sin. …

7. Well, who sell oxen? They who have dispensed to us the Holy Scriptures are understood to mean the oxen. The apostles were oxen, the prophets were oxen. Whence the apostle says: “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith He it for our sakes? Yea, for our sakes He saith it: that he who ploweth should plow in hope; and he that thresheth, in hope of partaking.” Those oxen, then, have left to us the narration of the Scriptures. For it was not of their own that they dispensed, because they sought the glory of the Lord. Now, what have ye heard in that psalm? “And let them say continually, The Lord be magnified, they that wish the peace of His servant.” God’s servant, God’s people, God’s Church. …