{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020245.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020245.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020245.htm","text":"I could adduce ten thousand Scriptures of which not \u201cone tittle shall pass away,\u201d 957 without being fulfilled; for the mouth of the Lord the Holy Spirit hath spoken these things. \u201cDo not any longer,\u201d he says, \u201cmy son, despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him.\u201d 958 O surpassing love for man! Not as a teacher speaking to his pupils, not as a master to his domestics, nor as God to men, but as a father, does the Lord gently admonish his children. Thus Moses confesses that \u201che was filled with quaking and terror\u201d 959 while he listened to God speaking concerning the Word. And art not thou afraid as thou hearest the voice of the Divine Word? Art not thou distressed? Do you not fear, and hasten to learn of Him,\u2014that is, to salvation,\u2014dreading wrath, loving grace, eagerly striving after the hope set before us, that you may shun the judgment threatened? Come, come, O my young people! For if you become not again as little children, and be born again, as saith the Scripture, you shall not receive the truly existent Father, nor shall you ever enter into the kingdom of heaven. For in what way is a stranger permitted to enter? Well, as I take it, then, when he is enrolled and made a citizen, and receives one to stand to him in the relation of father, then will he be occupied with the Father\u2019s concerns, then shall he be deemed worthy to be made His heir, then will he share the kingdom of the Father with His own dear Son. For this is the first-born Church, composed of many good children; these are \u201cthe first-born enrolled in heaven, who hold high festival with so many myriads of angels.\u201d We, too, are first-born sons, who are reared by God, who are the genuine friends of the First-born, who first of all other men attained to the knowledge of God, who first were wrenched away from our sins, first severed from the devil. And now the more benevolent God is, the more impious men are; for He desires us from slaves to become sons, while they scorn to become sons. O the prodigious folly of being ashamed of the Lord! He offers freedom, you flee into bondage; He bestows salvation, you sink down into destruction; He confers everlasting life, you wait for punishment, and prefer the fire which the Lord \u201chas prepared for the devil and his angels.\u201d 960 Wherefore the blessed apostle says: \u201cI testify in the Lord, that ye walk no longer as the Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind; having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart: who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness and concupiscence.\u201d 961 After the accusation of such a witness, and his invocation of God, what else remains for the unbelieving than judgment and condemnation? And the Lord, with ceaseless assiduity, exhorts, terrifies, urges, rouses, p. 196 admonishes; He awakes from the sleep of darkness, and raises up those who have wandered in error. \u201cAwake,\u201d He says, \u201cthou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,\u201d 962 \u2014Christ, the Sun of the Resurrection, He \u201cwho was born before the morning star,\u201d 963 and with His beams bestows life. Let no one then despise the Word, lest he unwittingly despise himself. For the Scripture somewhere says, \u201cTo-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers proved Me by trial.\u201d 964 And what was the trial? If you wish to learn, the Holy Spirit will show you: \u201cAnd saw my works,\u201d He says, \u201cforty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in heart, and have not known My ways. So I sware in my wrath, they shall not enter into My rest.\u201d 965 Look to the threatening! Look to the exhortation! Look to the punishment! Why, then, should we any longer change grace into wrath, and not receive the word with open ears, and entertain God as a guest in pure spirits? For great is the grace of His promise, \u201cif to-day we hear His voice.\u201d 966 And that to-day is lengthened out day by day, while it is called to-day. And to the end the to-day and the instruction continue; and then the true to-day, the never-ending day of God, extends over eternity. Let us then ever obey the voice of the divine word. For the to-day signifies eternity. And day is the symbol of light; and the light of men is the Word, by whom we behold God. Rightly, then, to those that have believed and obey, grace will superabound; while with those that have been unbelieving, and err in heart, and have not known the Lord\u2019s ways, which John commanded to make straight and to prepare, God is incensed, and those He threatens.\nAnd, indeed, the old Hebrew wanderers in the desert received typically the end of the threatening; for they are said not to have entered into the rest, because of unbelief, till, having followed the successor of Moses, they learned by experience, though late, that they could not be saved otherwise than by believing on Jesus. But the Lord, in His love to man, invites all men to the knowledge of the truth, and for this end sends the Paraclete. What, then, is this knowledge? Godliness; and \u201cgodliness,\u201d according to Paul, \u201cis profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.\u201d 967 If eternal salvation were to be sold, for how much, O men, would you propose to purchase it? Were one to estimate the value of the whole of Pactolus, the fabulous river of gold, he would not have reckoned up a price equivalent to salvation.\nDo not, however, faint. You may, if you choose, purchase salvation, though of inestimable value, with your own resources, love and living faith, which will be reckoned a suitable price. This recompense God cheerfully accepts; \u201cfor we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe.\u201d 968\nBut the rest, round whom the world\u2019s growths have fastened, as the rocks on the sea-shore are covered over with sea-weed, make light of immortality, like the old man of Ithaca, eagerly longing to see, not the truth, not the fatherland in heaven, not the true light, but smoke. But godliness, that makes man as far as can be like God, designates God as our suitable teacher, who alone can worthily assimilate man to God. This teaching the apostle knows as truly divine. \u201cThou, O Timothy,\u201d he says, \u201cfrom a child hast known the holy letters, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus.\u201d 969 For truly holy are those letters that sanctify and deify; and the writings or volumes that consist of those holy letters and syllables, the same apostle consequently calls \u201cinspired of God, being profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good work.\u201d 970 No one will be so impressed by the exhortations of any of the saints, as he is by the words of the Lord Himself, the lover of man. For this, and nothing but this, is His only work\u2014the salvation of man. Therefore He Himself, urging them on to salvation, cries, \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u201d 971 Those men that draw near through fear, He converts. Thus also the apostle of the Lord, beseeching the Macedonians, becomes the interpreter of the divine voice, when he says, \u201cThe Lord is at hand; take care that ye be not apprehended empty.\u201d 972 But are ye so devoid of fear, or rather of faith, as not to believe the Lord Himself, or Paul, who in Christ\u2019s stead thus entreats: \u201cTaste and see that Christ is God?\u201d 973 Faith will lead you in; experience will teach you; Scripture will train you, for it says, \u201cCome hither, O children; listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.\u201d Then, as to those who already believe, it briefly adds, \u201cWhat man is he that desireth life, that loveth to see good days?\u201d 974 It is we, we shall p. 197 say\u2014we who are the devotees of good, we who eagerly desire good things. Hear, then, ye who are far off, hear ye who are near: the word has not been hidden from any; light is common, it shines \u201con all men.\u201d No one is a Cimmerian in respect to the word. Let us haste to salvation, to regeneration; let us who are many haste that we may be brought together into one love, according to the union of the essential unity; and let us, by being made good, conformably follow after union, seeking after the good Monad.\nThe union of many in one, issuing in the production of divine harmony out of a medley of sounds and division, becomes one symphony following one choir-leader and teacher, 975 the Word, reaching and resting in the same truth, and crying Abba, Father. This, the true utterance of His children, God accepts with gracious welcome\u2014the first-fruits He receives from them.\n2 Tim. 3:16, 17. [Here note the testimony of Clement to the universal diffusion and study of the Scriptures.]\n196:971 196:972 196:973\nPs. xxxiv. 8, where Clem. has read \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 for \u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2.\n196:974 197:975\n[Here seems to be a running allusion to the privileges of the Christian Church in its unity, and to the \u201cPsalms and hymns and spiritual songs,\u201d which were so charming a feature of Christian worship. Bunsen, Hippolytus, etc., vol. ii. p. 157.]","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Chapter IX.\u2014\u201cThat Those Grievously Sin Who Despise or Neglect God\u2019s Gracious Calling.\u201d","type":"page"}