nd priests; to
assemble, as often as possible, with them in public prayer, by which the
power of Satan is weakened: to oppose only meekness to anger, humility
to boasting, prayers to curses and reproaches, and to suffer all
injuries without murmuring. He says, that because they are spiritual,
and perform all they do in a spiritual manner, that all, even their
ordinary actions, are spiritualized, because they do all in Jesus
Christ. That he ought to have been admonished by them, but his charity
would not suffer him to be silent: wherefore he prevents them, by
admonishing first, that both might meet in the will of God. He bids them
not be solicitous to speak, but to live well, and to edify others by
their actions; and recommends himself and his widow-church of Antioch to
their prayers. Himself he calls their outcast, yet declares that he is
ready to be immolated for their sake, and says they were persons who had
found mercy, but he a condemned man: they were strengthening in grace,
but he struggling in the midst of dangers. He calls them
fellow-travellers in the road to God, which is charity, and says they
bore God and Christ in their breasts, and were his temples, embellished
with all virtues, and that he exulted exceedingly for the honor of being
made worthy to write to them, and rejoice in God with them: for setting
a true value on the life to come, they loved nothing but God alone.
Speaking of heretics, he says, that he who corrupts the faith for which
Christ died, will go into unquenchable fire, and also he who heareth
him. It is observed by him, that God concealed from the devil three
mysteries: the virginity of Mary, her bringing forth, and the death of
the Lord: and he calls the Eucharist the medicine of immortality, the
antidote against death, by which we always live in Christ. "Remember me,
as I pray that Jesus Christ be mindful of you. Pray for the church of
Syria, from whence I am carried in chains to Rome, being the last of the
faithful who are there. Farewell in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ,
our common hope." The like instructions he repeats with a new and most
moving turn of thought, in his letters to the churches of Magnesia, and
of the Trallians; inculcates the greatest abhorrence of schism and
heresy, and begs their prayers for himself and his church in Syria, of
which he is not worthy to be called a member, being the last of them.[5]
His {328} fourth letter was written to the Christians of Rome. Th