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| Chapter VI. Of perseverance as regards care of the thoughts.
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Chapter VI.
Of perseverance as regards care of the thoughts.
But we shall find out by
our own experience that we can and ought to cling to the Lord if we
have our wills mortified and the desires of this world cut off, and we
shall be taught by the authority of those who in converse with the Lord
say in all confidence: “My soul hath stuck close to Thee;”
and: “I have stuck unto Thy testimonies, O Lord;” and:
“It is good for me to stick fast to God;” and: “He
who cleaveth to the Lord, is one spirit.”1459
| 1459 Ps. xlii. (lxiii.) 9; cxviii. (cxix.) 31; lxxi.
(lxxiii.) 28; 1 Cor. vi. 17. |
We ought not then to be wearied out by these wanderings of mind and
relax from our fervour: for “he that tilleth his ground shall be
filled with bread: but he that followeth idleness shall be filled with
poverty.”1460
Nor should we be
drawn away from being intent on this watchfulness through a dangerous
despair, for “in every one who is anxious there is abundance, for
he who is pleasant and free from grief will be in want;” and
again: “a man in grief labours for himself, and forcibly brings
about his own destruction.”1461
Moreover
also: “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent
take it by force,”1462
for no virtue is
acquired without effort, nor can anyone attain to that mental stability
which he desires without great sorrow of heart, for “man is born
to trouble,”1463
and in order
that he may be able to attain to “the perfect man, the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ”1464
he must ever be on the watch with still greater intentness, and toil
with ceaseless carefulness. But to the fulness of this measure no one
will ever attain, but one who has considered it beforehand and been
trained to it now and has had some foretaste of it while still in this
world, and being marked a most precious member of Christ, has possessed
in the flesh an earnest of that “joint”1465
by which he can be united to His body:
desiring one thing alone, thirsting for but one thing, ever bringing
not only his acts but even his thoughts to bear on one thing alone;
viz., that he may even now keep as an earnest that which is said of the
blessed life of the saints hereafter; viz., that “God may
be” to him “all in all.”1466
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