41. Or are we indeed to
believe that it is for any other reason, that God suffers to be
mixed up with the number of your profession, many, both men and
women, about to fall, than that by the fall of these your fear may
be increased, whereby to repress pride; which God so hates, as that
against this one thing The Highest humbled Himself? Unless haply,
in truth, thou shalt therefore fear less, and be more puffed up, so
as to love little Him, Who hath loved thee so much, as to give up
Himself for thee,2162
because He hath
forgiven thee
little, living, forsooth from childhood, religiously, piously, with
pious chastity, with inviolate
virginity. As though in
truth you
ought not to
love with much greater glow of affection Him, Who,
whatsoever things He hath
forgiven unto
sinners upon their being
turned to Him,
suffered you not to fall into them. Or indeed that
Pharisee,
2163
who
therefore
loved little, because he thought that little was
forgiven
him, was it for any other reason that he was
blinded by this error,
than because being ignorant of the
righteousness of
God, and
seeking to establish his own, he had not been made subject unto the
righteousness of
God?
2164
But you, an
elect race, and among
the
elect more
elect,
virgin choirs that follow the
Lamb, even you
“by
grace have been
saved through
faith; and this not of
yourselves, but it is the
gift of
God: not of works, lest haply any
be elated. For we are His workmanship,
created in
Jesus Christ in
good works, which
God hath prepared, that in them we may
walk.”
2165
What
therefore, by how much the more ye are
adorned by His
gifts, shall
ye by so much the less
love Him? May He Himself turn away so
dreadful madness! Wherefore forasmuch as the
Truth has spoken the
truth, that he, unto whom little is
forgiven, loveth little; do ye,
in order that ye may
love with full glow of affection Him, Whom ye
are free to
love, being loosened from ties of
marriage, account as
altogether
forgiven unto you, whatever of
evil, by His governance,
ye have not
committed. For “your
eyes ever unto the
Lord,
forasmuch as He shall pluck out of the net your
feet,”
2166
and,
“Except the
Lord shall have kept the city, in
vain hath he
watched who keepeth it.”
2167
And speaking of Continence itself
the
Apostle says, “But I would that all men were as I myself; but
each one hath his own proper
gift from
God; one in this way, and
another in that way.”
2168
Who therefore bestoweth these
gifts? Who distributeth his own proper
gifts unto each as He
will?
2169
Forsooth
God, with Whom there is not unrighteousness,
2170
and by this means with what equity
He makes some in this way, and others in that way, for man to know
is either impossible or altogether hard: but that with equity He
maketh, it is not lawful to doubt. “What,” therefore, “hast
thou, which thou hast not received?”
2171
And by what perversity dost thou
less love Him, of Whom thou hast received more?
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