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| Chapter I. We are taught by David and Solomon how to take counsel with our own heart. Scipio is not to be accounted prime author of the saying which is ascribed to him. The writer proves what glorious things the holy prophets accomplished in their time of quiet, and shows, by examples of their and others' leisure moments, that a just man is never alone in trouble.
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Chapter I.
We are taught by David and Solomon how to take counsel
with our own heart. Scipio is not to be accounted prime author of
the saying which is ascribed to him. The writer proves what
glorious things the holy prophets accomplished in their time of quiet,
and shows, by examples of their and others’ leisure moments, that
a just man is never alone in trouble.
1. The prophet
David taught us that we should go about in our heart as though in a
large house; that we should hold converse with it as with some trusty
companion. He spoke to himself, and conversed with himself, as
these words show: “I said, I will take heed to my
ways.”576
Solomon his
son also said: “Drink water out of thine own vessels, and
out of the springs of thy wells; ”577
that is: use thine own counsel. For: “Counsel
in the heart of a man is as deep waters.”578
“Let no stranger,” it
says, “share it with thee. Let the fountain of thy water be
thine own, and rejoice with thy wife who is thine from thy youth.
Let the loving hind and pleasant doe converse with
thee.”579
2. Scipio,580
| 580 Cic. de
Off. III. 1. Scipio, born b.c.
234. He was the greatest Roman of his time, a famous general and
the conqueror of Hannibal. His exploits in Africa won him the
surname of Africanus. Owing to jealous intrigues he in
b.c. 185 left Rome and retired to his estate,
where he passed the rest of his days in peaceful employments.
Cicero (de Off. III. 1) relates on Cato’s authority that
he used to say: “Nunquam se minus otiosum esse quam cum
otiosus, nec minsolum quam cum solus esset.” | therefore, was
not the first to know that he was not alone when he was alone, or that
he was least at leisure when he was at leisure. For Moses knew it
before him, who, when silent, was crying out;581
who, when he stood at ease, was fighting, nay, not merely fighting but
triumphing over enemies whom he had not come near. So much was he
at ease, that others held up his hands; yet he was no less active than
others, for he with his hands at ease was overcoming the enemy, whom
they that were in the battle could not conquer.582
Thus Moses in his silence spoke,
and in his ease laboured hard. And were his labours greater than
his times of quiet, who, being in the mount for forty days, received
the whole law?583
And in
that solitude there was One not far away to speak with him.
Whence also David says: “I will hear what the Lord God will
say within me.”584
How much
greater a thing is it for God to speak with any one, than for a man to
speak with himself!
3. The apostles passed by and their shadows
cured the sick.585
Their
garments were touched and health was granted.
4.
Elijah spoke the word, and the rain ceased and fell not on the earth
for three years and six months.586
Again he
spoke, and the barrel of meal failed not, and the cruse of oil wasted
not the whole time of that long famine.587
5. But—as many delight in
warfare—which is the most glorious, to bring a battle to an end
by the strength of a great army, or, by merits before God alone?
Elisha rested in one place while the king of Syria waged a great war
against the people of our fathers, and was adding to its terrors by
various treacherous plans, and was endeavouring to catch them in an
ambush. But the prophet found out all their preparations, and
being by the grace of God present everywhere in mental vigour, he told
the thoughts of their enemies to his countrymen, and warned them of
what places to beware. And when this was known to the king of
Syria, he sent an army and shut in the prophet. Elisha prayed and
caused all of them to be struck with blindness, and made those who had
come to besiege him enter Samaria as captives.588
6. Let us compare this leisure of his with
that of others.589
| 589 Cic. de
Off. III. 1, § 2. | Other men
for the sake of rest are wont to withdraw their minds from business,
and to retire from the company and companionship of men; to seek the
retirement of the country or the solitude of the fields, or in the city
to give their minds a rest and to enjoy peace and quietness. But
Elisha was ever active. In solitude he divided Jordan on passing
over it, so that the lower part flowed down, whilst the upper returned
to its source. On Carmel he promises the woman, who so far had
had no child, that a son now unhoped for should be born to
her.590
He raises the dead to life,591
he corrects the bitterness of the food, and
makes it to be sweet by mixing meal with it.592
Having distributed ten loaves to the
people for food, he gathered up the fragments that were left after they
had been filled.593
He makes the
iron head of the axe, which had fallen off and was sunk deep in the
river Jordan, to swim by putting the wooden handle in the
water.594
He changes leprosy for
cleanness,595
drought for
rain,596
famine for plenty.597
7. When can the upright man be alone, since
he is always with God? When is he left forsaken who is never
separated from Christ? “Who,” it says, “shall
separate us from the love of Christ? I am confident that neither
death nor life nor angel shall do so.”598
And when can he be deprived of his
labour who never can be deprived of his merits, wherein his labour
receives its crown? By what places is he limited to whom the
whole world of riches is a possession? By what judgment is he
confined who is never blamed by any one? For he is “as
unknown yet well known, as dying and behold he lives, as sorrowful yet
always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and
yet possessing all things.”599
For the
upright man regards nothing but what is consistent and virtuous.
And so although he seems poor to another, he is rich to himself, for
his worth is taken not at the value of the things which are temporal,
but of the things which are eternal.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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