23. If, therefore, you had
not as yet vowed unto God widowed continence, we would assuredly
exhort you to vow it; but, in that you have already vowed it, we
exhort you to persevere. And yet I see that I must so speak as to
lead those also who had as yet thought of marriage to love it and
to seize on it. Therefore let us give ear unto the Apostle, “She
who is unmarried,” saith he, “is
careful about the things
of the Lord, to be holy both in body and spirit; but she who is
married is careful about the things of the world, how to please her
husband.”2278
He saith
not, is careful about the things of the
world, so as not to be
holy; but certainly that that
marriage holiness2279
is less, in regard of that portion
of cares, which hath thought of the
pleasure of the
world.
Whatever, therefore, I of earnest purpose of
mind would be expended
also on these things whereby she would have to please a
husband,
the
unmarried Christian woman ought in a certain way to
gather and
bring together unto that earnest purpose whereby she is to please
the
Lord. And consider, Whom she pleases, who pleases the
Lord; and
assuredly she is by so much the more
blessed by how much the more
she pleases Him; but by how much the more her thoughts are of the
things of the
world, by so much the less does she please Him.
Therefore do ye with all earnest purpose please Him, Who is
“’fair of form above the sons of men.”
2280
For that ye please Him, it is by
His
grace which is “shed abroad on His
lips.” Please ye Him in
that portion of thought also, which would be occupied by the
world,
in order to please a
husband. Please ye Him, Who displeased the
world, in order that such as please Him might be set free from the
world. For This One, fair of form above the sons of men, men saw on
the
Cross of the Passion; “and He had not form or
beauty, but His
face cast down, and His posture unseemly.”
2281
Yet from this unseemliness of your
Redeemer flowed the
price of your
beauty, but of a
beauty within,
for “all the
beauty of the King’s
daughter is within.”
2282
By this
beauty please ye Him, this
beauty order ye with studious care and
anxious thought. He
loves not dyes of deceits; the
Truth delighteth
in things that are true, and He, if you recognize what you have
read, is called the
Truth. “I am,” saith He, “the Way, and
the
Truth, and the
Life.”
2283
Run ye to Him through Him, please
ye Him of Him; live ye with Him, in Him, of Him. With true
affections and holiest chastity love ye to be loved by such a
Husband.
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