(27.) Who May Be Said to Keep the Ways of the Lord; What It is to Decline and Depart from the Ways of the Lord.

Then again, as for what he says, “For I have kept His ways, and have not turned aside from His commandments, nor will I depart from them;”105    Job xxiii. 11, 12. he has kept God’s ways who does not so turn aside as to forsake them, but makes progress by running his course therein; although, weak as he is, he sometimes stumbles or falls, onward, however, he still goes, sinning less and less until he reaches the perfect state in which he will sin no more. For in no other way could he make progress, except by keeping His ways. The man, indeed, who declines from these and becomes an apostate at last, is certainly not he who, although he has sin, yet never ceases to persevere in fighting against it until he arrives at the home where there shall remain no more conflict with death. Well now, it is in our present struggle therewith that we are clothed with the righteousness in which we here live by faith,—clothed with it as it were with a breastplate.106    Eph. vi. 14. Judgment also we take on ourselves; and even when it is against us, we turn it round to our own behalf; for we become our own accusers and condemn our sins: whence that scripture which says, “The righteous man accuses himself at the beginning of his speech.”107    Prov. xviii. 17. Hence also he says: “I put on righteousness, and clothed myself with judgment like a mantle.”108    Job. xxix. 14. Our vesture at present no doubt is wont to be armour for war rather than garments of peace, while concupiscence has still to be subdued; it will be different by and by, when our last enemy death shall be destroyed,109    1 Cor. xv. 26. and our righteousness shall be full and complete, without an enemy to molest us more.

27. Item quod dicit, Vias enim ejus custodivi, et non declinavi a mandatis ejus, neque discedam (Id. XXIII, 11): custodivit vias Dei, qui non sic exorbitat, ut eas relinquat, sed in eis currendo proficit; etsi aliquando ut infirmus offendit aut titubat: proficit autem minuendo peccata, donec perveniat ubi sine peccato sit. Non enim aliter potest eo modo proficere, nisi custodiendo vias ejus. Declinat autem a mandatis Domini atque discedit apostata; non ille qui, etiamsi habeat peccatum, confligendi tamen cum eo perseverantiam non relinquit, donec eo perveniat ubi nulla cum morte contentio remanebit. In isto ergo conflictu induimur ea justitia, qua hic ex fide vivitur, et ea quodam modo loricamur. Assumimus quoque judicium, quod etiam contra nos pro nobis facimus, quando peccata nostra accusando damnamus: unde scriptum est, Justus ipse sui accusator est in primordio sermonis (Prov. XVIII, 17). Hinc item dicit, Justitia vestitus eram, et circumdedi mihi judicium sicut chlamydem (Job XXIX, 14). Nam et ista vestis belli magis solet esse quam pacis, ubi adhuc expugnatur concupiscentia, non ubi erit plena sine aliquo prorsus hoste justitia, novissima inimica morte destructa.