Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

^8. For this cause does God mingle bitternesses with the felicities of earth, that another felicity may be sought, in whose sweetness there is no deceit; yet by these very bitternesses does the world endeavour to turn you away from your longing pursuit after the things “which are before,” and to turn you back. For these bitternesses, for these tribulations do you murmur and say, “See, all things are perishing in Christian times.” What complaint is this! God has not promised me that these things shall not perish; Christ has not promised me this. The Eternal has promised things eternal: if I believe, from a mortal, I shall be made eternal. What noise is this, O world impure! What murmuring is this! Why are you trying to turn me back? Perishing as you are, you wish to detain me; what would you do, if you had any permanence? Whom would you not beguile by your sweetness, if with all your bitternesses you impose your false nourishment upon us? For me, if I have hope, if I hold fast my hope, my “egg” has not been wounded by the “scorpion.” “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be ever in my mouth.” Be the world prosperous, or be the world turned upside down; “I will bless the Lord,” who made the world. Yes, verily, I will bless Him. Be it well with me according to the flesh, or be it ill according to the flesh, “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be ever in my mouth.” For if I bless when it is well, and blaspheme when it is ill with me; I have received the “scorpion's” sting, being pricked “I have looked back;” which be far from us. “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: it is done, as the Lord pleased; blessed be the name of the Lord.”