Righteousness: From “The City of God” by Saint Augustine of Hippo (vegetarian), Part 2 of 2

Let’s continue with excerpts from Saint Augustine’s “The City of God,” Book 21, reminding the followers of Christ to continue diligently to follow the Savior’s virtuous teachings, as well as be repentant and faithful to God Almighty, if we would like to earn a place in Heaven.

“For what means, ‘Thou has hidden it for them that fear Thee,’ ‘Thou has perfected it for them that hope in Thee,’ unless this, that to those who through fear of punishment seek to establish their own righteousness by the law, the righteousness of God is not sweet, because they are ignorant of it? They have not tasted it. For they hope in themselves, not in Him; and therefore God's abundant sweetness is hidden from them. They fear God, indeed, but it is with that servile fear ‘which is not in love; for perfect love cast out fear.’”

“This righteousness of God, which is the gift of grace without merits, is not known by those who go about to establish their own righteousness, and are therefore not subject to the righteousness of God, which is Christ. But it is in this righteousness that we find the great abundance of God's sweetness, of which the psalm says, ‘Taste and see how sweet the Lord is.’”

“And therefore neither ought such persons as lead an abandoned and damnable life to be confident of salvation, though they persevere to the end in the communion of the Church. By the iniquity of their life they abandon that very righteousness of life which Christ is to them, whether it be by fornication, or by perpetrating in their body the other uncleannesses which the apostle would not so much as mention, or by a dissolute luxury, or by doing any one of those things of which he says, ‘They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’”

“Consequently, they who do such things shall not exist anywhere but in eternal punishment, since they cannot be in the kingdom of God. For, while they continue in such things to the very end of life, they cannot be said to abide in Christ to the end; for to abide in Him is to abide in the faith of Christ. And this faith, according to the apostle's definition of it, ‘works by love.’ And ‘love,’ as he elsewhere says, ‘works no evil.’”