COROLLARY LIII.
It is the token and necessary κριτήριον, criterion, of true and genuine doctrine that there be nothing disjoined in it, nothing torn away, nothing gaping, and nothing which does not suitably and elegantly harmonize no less with itself than with the rest. For truth accords with truth, and whatever is discordant can have no commerce with truth. If, therefore, the things which we have embraced thus far and reduced as it were to a certain summary are not counterfeit and adulterated but simple and sincere, they will certainly shine with that harmony and display a concord and consonance both with themselves and with the rest. And indeed they do display them, and with that splendor which strikes and smites even eyes not very acute—
—For what in them, I ask, is not harmonious? What does not answer to itself exactly? Or what is not so constituted that, together with manifold variety, it presents an eminent unity? The last things accord with the first, and both the latter and the former cohere with the middle and intervening things. There is nothing which you can move from its place without overturning the whole; nothing which you can disturb without the whole being endangered. Make the trial, and either deny one or another of the corollaries or cast it from its proper place. Immediately the rest are disturbed, spring apart, and fall away. Therefore, the doctrine which we have given is of such a kind that it cannot be considered in itself without the account and dignity of a system being vindicated for it. Indeed, neither can it be considered in comparison with the rest without being found to agree most beautifully with them. For it agrees most beautifully: 1) with those things which we believe and profess concerning God and the divine perfections; 2) with those things which we indubitably hold concerning redemption through Christ; and finally, 3) with those things which most especially pertain to human nature. For this doctrine is so constituted that: a) it fosters hope and repels security; b) it arouses to duty, sharpens solicitude, and precludes a place for sloth; c) it provides for liberty and aids the moral sense; and shows d) that the eudaimonic order is joined by the most intimate bonds with the ethical order; and consequently, e) that happiness is so a gift of divine benignity that it is at the same time a reward of labor and striving.