II.
Therefore you ought to strive to the utmost of
your power not to fall into a base or dishonourable, not to say an
absolutely flagitious way of thinking, lest the name of Christ be thus
blasphemed even by you. Be it far from you that you should sell
the privilege of access to the emperor to any one for money, or that
you should by any means place a dishonest account of any affair before
your prince, won over either by prayers or by bribes. Let all the
lust of avarice be put from you, which serves the cause of idolatry
rather than the religion of Christ.1291
No
filthy lucre, no duplicity, can
befit the
Christian who embraces the simple and unadorned
1292
Christ.
Let no scurrilous or base talk have place among you. Let all
things be done with modesty, courteousness, affability, and
uprightness, so that the name of our
God and
Lord Jesus Christ may be
glorified in all.
Discharge the official duties to which you are
severally appointed with the utmost fear of God and affection to your
prince, and perfect carefulness. Consider that every command of
the emperor which does not offend God has proceeded from God
Himself;1293
| 1293 [See
note 1, p. 108, supra.] |
and
execute it
in
love as well as in
fear, and with all cheerfulness. For there
is nothing which so well refreshes a man who is wearied out with
weighty cares as the seasonable cheerfulness and benign
patience of an
intimate
servant; nor, again, on the other
hand, does anything so much
annoy and
vex him as the moroseness and impatience and grumbling of his
servant. Be such things
far from you
Christians, whose
walk is in
zeal for the
faith.
1294
| 1294
Qui zelo fidei inceditis. |
But in order that
God may be
honoured
1295
in yourselves,
suppress ye and tread down all your vices of
mind and body. Be
clothed with
patience and courtesy; be replenished with the
virtues and
the
hope of
Christ. Bear all things for the sake of your Creator
Himself;
endure all things; overcome and get above all things, that ye
may win
Christ the Lord. Great are these duties, and full of
painstaking. But he that striveth for the mastery
1296
is temperate in
all things; and they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an
incorruptible.
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