Homilies on the First Epistle of John

^5. You have heard in the Psalm, “I have seen the end of all perfection.” He has said, I have seen the end of all perfection: what had he seen? Think we, had he ascended to the peak of some very high and pointed mountain, and looked out thence and seen the compass of the earth, and the circles of the round world, and therefore said, “I have seen the end of all perfection”? If this be a thing to be praised, let us ask of the Lord eyes of the flesh so sharp-sighted, that we shall but require some exceeding high mountain on earth, that from its summit we may see the end of all perfection. Go not far: lo, I say to you, it is here; ascend the mountain, and see the end. Christ is the Mountain; come to Christ: you see thence the end of all perfection. What is this end? Ask Paul: “But the end of the commandment is charity, from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned:” and in another place, “Charity is the fullness,” or fulfillment, “of the law.” What so finished and terminated as “fullness”? For, brethren, the apostle here uses end in a way of praise. Think not of consumption, but of consummation. For it is in one sense that one says, I have finished my bread, in another, I have finished my coat. I have finished the bread, by eating it: the coat, by making it. In both places the word is “end,” “finish:” but the bread is finished by its being consumed, the coat is finished by being made: the bread, so as to be no more; the coat, so as to be complete. Therefore in this sense take ye also this word, end, when the Psalm is read and you hear it said, “On the end, a Psalm of David.” You are for ever hearing this in the Psalms, and you should know what ye hear. What means, “On the end”?— “For Christ is the end of the law unto every one that believes.” And what means, “Christ is the end”? Because Christ is God, and “the end of the commandment is charity,” and “Charity is God:” because Father and Son and Holy Ghost are One. There is He the End to you; elsewhere He is the Way. Do not stick fast in the way, and so never come to the end. Whatever else you come to, pass beyond it, until you come to the end. What is the end? It is good for me to “hold me fast in God.” Have you laid fast hold on God? You have finished the way: you shall abide in your own country. Mark well! Some man seeks money: let not it be the end to you: pass on, as a traveller in a strange land. But if you love it, you are entangled by avarice; avarice will be shackles to your feet: you can make no more progress. Pass therefore this also: seek the end. You seek health of the body: still do not stop there. For what is it, this health of the body, which death makes an end of, which sickness debilitates, a feeble, mortal, fleeting thing? Seek that, indeed, lest haply ill-health hinder your good works: but for that very reason, the end is not there, for it is sought in order to something else. Whatever is sought in order to something else, the end is not there: whatever is loved for its own sake, and freely, the end is there. You seek honors; perchance seekest them in order to do something, that you may accomplish something, and so please God: love not the honor itself, lest you stop there. Do you seek praise? If you seek God's, you do well; if you seek your own, you do ill; you stop short in the way. But behold, you are loved, art praised: think it not joy when in yourself you are praised; be praised in the Lord, that you may sing, “In the Lord shall my soul be praised.” Thou deliverest some good discourse, and your discourse is praised. Let it not be praised as yours, the end is not there. If you set the end there, there is an end of you: but an end, not that you be perfected, but that you be consumed. Then let not your discourse be praised as coming from you, as being yours. But how praised? As the Psalm says, “In God will I praise the discourse, in God will I praise the word.” Hereby shall that which there follows come to pass in you: “In God have I hoped, I will not fear what man can do unto me.” For when all things that are yours are praised in God, no fear lest your praise be lost, since God fails not. Pass therefore this also.