Such people are often tripped by thoughts like this, and they say to themselves, “If it were possible to do this, God would not be threatening us, He would not say all those things through the prophets to discourage people, but He would have come to be indulgent to everybody and pardon everybody, and after He came He wouldn’t send anyone to hell.” Now because he is unjust he wants to make God unjust too. God wants to make you like Him, and you are trying to make God like you. Be satisfied with God as He is, not as you would like Him to be. You are all twisted, and you want God to be like what you are, not like what He is. But if you are satisfied with Him as He is, then you will correct yourself and align your heart along to that straight rule from which you are now all warped and twisted. Be satisfied with God as He is, love Him as He is.
He doesn’t love you as you are, He hates you as you are. That’s why He is sorry for you because He hates you as you are and wants to make you as you are not yet. Let Him make you, I said, the sort of person you are not yet. What He did not promise you, you know, is to make you what He is. Oh yes, you shall be what He is, after a fashion, that is to say, an imitator of God like an image, but not the kind of image that the Son is. After all, there are different kinds of images even among men. A man’s son bears the image of his father and is what his father is because he is a man like his father. But your image in a mirror is not what you are. Your image is in your son in one way, in quite a different way in the mirror. Your image is in your son by way of equality of nature, but in the mirror how far it is from your nature! And yet it is a kind of image of you, though not like the one in your son which is identical in nature.
HT: Roger Pearse
He doesn’t love you as you are, He hates you as you are. That’s why He is sorry for you because He hates you as you are and wants to make you as you are not yet. Let Him make you, I said, the sort of person you are not yet. What He did not promise you, you know, is to make you what He is. Oh yes, you shall be what He is, after a fashion, that is to say, an imitator of God like an image, but not the kind of image that the Son is. After all, there are different kinds of images even among men. A man’s son bears the image of his father and is what his father is because he is a man like his father. But your image in a mirror is not what you are. Your image is in your son in one way, in quite a different way in the mirror. Your image is in your son by way of equality of nature, but in the mirror how far it is from your nature! And yet it is a kind of image of you, though not like the one in your son which is identical in nature.
Augustine, “Discourse on the Ten Strings of the Harp”
HT: Roger Pearse
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