bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
An excerpt from one of his letters to Gregory of Nazianzus, around the year 358:
The discipline of piety nourishes the soul with divine thoughts. What, then, is more blessed than to imitate on earth the anthems of angels' choirs; to hasten to prayer at the very break of day, and to worship our Creator with hymns and songs; then, when the sun shines brightly and we turn to our tasks, prayer attending us wherever we go, to season our labors with sacred song, as food with salt? For that state of the soul in which there is joy and no sorrow is a boon bestowed by the consolation of hymns.
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A most important path to the discovery of duty is also the study of the divinely-inspired Scriptures. For, in them, are not only found the precepts of conduct, but also the lives of saintly men, recorded and handed down to us, [which] lie before us like living images of God's government, for our imitation of their good works. And so, in whatever respect each one perceives himself deficient, if he devote himself to such imitation, he will discover there, as in the shop of a public physician, the specific remedy for his infirmity.
The lover of chastity constantly peruses the story of Joseph, and from him learns what chaste conduct is, finding Joseph not only continent as regards carnal pleasures but also habitually inclined towards virtue.
Fortitude he learns from Job, who, when the conditions of his life were reversed and he became, in a moment of time, poor instead of rich and childless when he had been blessed with fair children, remained the same, and always preserved his proud spirit unhumbled; nay, even when his friends who came to comfort him trampled upon him and helped to make his sorrow more grievous, he was not provoked to wrath.
Again, if one considers how he may be, at once, meek and high-tempered, showing temper against sin, but meekness towards men, he will find David noble in the valiant exploits of war, but meek and dispassionate in the matters requiting his enemies.
Such, too, was Moses, who rose up in great wrath to oppose those who sinned against God, but endured, with meekness of spirit, all slanders against himself.
And, in general, just as painters, in working from models, constantly gaze at their exemplar, and, thus, strive to transfer the expression of the original to their own artistry, so, too, he who is anxious to make himself perfect in all the kinds of virtue must gaze upon the lives of the saints as upon statues, so to speak, that move and act, and must make their excellence his own, by imitation.
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Prayer, again, following such reading, finds the soul, stirred by yearning towards God, fresher and more vigorous. Prayer is to be commended, for it engenders in the soul a distinct conception of God. And the indwelling of God is this - to hold God ever in memory, His shrine established within us. We, thus, become temples of God whenever earthly cares cease to interrupt the continuity of our memory of Him, whenever unforeseen passions cease to disturb our minds, and the lover of God, escaping them all, retires to God, driving out the passions which tempt him to incontinence, and abides in the practices which conduce to virtue.
The discipline of piety nourishes the soul with divine thoughts. What, then, is more blessed than to imitate on earth the anthems of angels' choirs; to hasten to prayer at the very break of day, and to worship our Creator with hymns and songs; then, when the sun shines brightly and we turn to our tasks, prayer attending us wherever we go, to season our labors with sacred song, as food with salt? For that state of the soul in which there is joy and no sorrow is a boon bestowed by the consolation of hymns.
*********
A most important path to the discovery of duty is also the study of the divinely-inspired Scriptures. For, in them, are not only found the precepts of conduct, but also the lives of saintly men, recorded and handed down to us, [which] lie before us like living images of God's government, for our imitation of their good works. And so, in whatever respect each one perceives himself deficient, if he devote
The lover of chastity constantly peruses the story of Joseph, and from him learns what chaste conduct is, finding Joseph not only continent as regards carnal pleasures but also habitually inclined towards virtue.
Fortitude he learns from Job, who, when the conditions of his life were reversed and he became, in a moment of time, poor instead of rich and childless when he had been blessed with fair children, remained the same, and always preserved his proud spirit unhumbled; nay, even when his friends who came to comfort him trampled upon him and helped to make his sorrow more grievous, he was not provoked to wrath.
Again, if one considers how he may be, at once, meek and high-tempered, showing temper against sin, but meekness towards men, he will find David noble in the valiant exploits of war, but meek and dispassionate in the matters requiting his enemies.
Such, too, was Moses, who rose up in great wrath to oppose those who sinned against God, but endured, with meekness of spirit, all slanders against himself.
And, in general, just as painters, in working from models, constantly gaze at their exemplar, and, thus, strive to transfer the expression of the original to their own artistry, so, too, he who is anxious to make himself perfect in all the kinds of virtue must gaze upon the lives of the saints as upon statues, so to speak, that move and act, and must make their excellence his own, by imitation.
*********
Prayer, again, following such reading, finds the soul, stirred by yearning towards God, fresher and more vigorous. Prayer is to be commended, for it engenders in the soul a distinct conception of God. And the indwelling of God is this - to hold God ever in memory, His shrine established within us. We, thus, become temples of God whenever earthly cares cease to interrupt the continuity of our memory of Him, whenever unforeseen passions cease to disturb our minds, and the lover of God, escaping them all, retires to God, driving out the passions which tempt him to incontinence, and abides in the practices which conduce to virtue.