, My God and my
all, if I possess you, I have all things in you alone: whatever happens
to me, with the treasure of your love I am rich and sovereignly happy.
This he repeats in poverty, disgraces, afflictions, and persecutions. He
rejoices in them, as by them he is more closely united to his God, gives
the strongest proof of his fidelity to him, and perfect submission to
his divine appointments, and adores the accomplishment of his will. If
it be the property of true love to receive crosses with content and joy,
to sustain great labors, and think them small, or rather not to think of
them at all, as they bear no proportion to the prize, to what we owe to
God, or to what his love deserves: to suffer much, and think all
nothing, and the longest and severest trials short: is it not a mark of
a want of this love, to complain of prayer, fasts, and every Christian
duty? How far is this disposition from the fervor and resolution of all
the saints, and from the heroin courage of the martyrs!

Footnotes:
1. Marcellus wrote a famous book against the Arians, which Eusebius of
Caesarea and all the Arians condemned, as reviving the exploded heresy
of Sabellius. But Sabellianism was a general slander with which they
aspersed all orthodox pastors. It is indeed true, that St. Hilary, St.
Basil, St. Chrysostom, and Sulpicius Severus charge Marcellus with
that error; but were deceived by the clamors of the Arians. For
Marcellus appealing to pope Julius, and repairing to Rome, was
acquitted, and his book declared orthodox by that pope in 341, and
also by the council of Sardica in 347; as St. Hilary (fragm. 3,
pp. 1308, 1311) and St. Athanasins (Apol. contra Arianos, p. 165)
testify. It was a calumny of the Arians, though believed by
St. Hilary, that St. Athanasius at length abandoned and condemned him.
It is demonstrated by Dom Montfaucon from the works of St. Athanasius,
that he ever defended the innocence of Marcellus, (t. 2 Collect Patr.)
Moreover, Marcellus being informed that St. Basil had suggested to St.
Athanasius certain suspicions of his faith, in 372, towards the end of
his life, sent St. Athanasius his most orthodox confession of faith,
in which he explicitly condemns Sabellianism; which authentic monument
was published by Montfaucon, (t. 2, Collect Patr. p. 55.) If Patavius,
Bull, and others, who censure Marcellus, had seen this confession,
they would have cleared him of the imputation of Sabellianism, and
expounded favorab