But because Your loving-kindness is better than life, behold, my life is but a distraction, and Your right hand upheld me in my Lord, the Son of man , the Mediator between You, 181 Timothy 2:5 The One, and us the many — in many distractions amid many things — that through Him I may apprehend in whom I have been apprehended, and may be recollected from my old days, following The One, forgetting the things that are past; and not distracted, but drawn on, not to those things which shall be and shall pass away, but to those things which are before, 19Philippians 3:13 not distractedly, but intently, I follow on for the prize of my heavenly calling, where I may hear the voice of Your praise, and contemplate Your delights, neither coming nor passing away. But now are my years spent in mourning. And You, O Lord, art my comfort, my Father everlasting. But I have been divided amid times, the order of which I know not; and my thoughts, even the inmost bowels of my soul , are mangled with tumultuous varieties, until I flow together unto You, purged and molten in the fire of Your love . Chapter 30. Again He Refutes the Empty Question, What Did God Before the Creation of the World? And I will be immoveable, and fixed in You, in my mould, Your truth ; nor will I endure the questions of men , who by a penal disease thirst for more than they can hold, and say, What did God make before He made heaven and earth? Or, How came it into His mind to make anything, when He never before made anything? Grant to them, O Lord, to think well what they say, and to see that where there is no time, they cannot say never. What, therefore, He is said never to have made, what else is it but to say, that in no time was it made? Let them therefore see that there could be no time without a created being, and let them cease to speak that vanity. Let them also be extended unto those things which are before, 20Philippians 3:13 and understand that you, the eternal Creator of all times, art before all times, and that no times are co-eternal with You, nor any creature, even if there be any creature beyond all times.
TheoFons