{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/208/2080363.htm","path":"chr/ecf/208/2080363.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/208/2080363.htm","text":"May many blessings rest on those who encourage your excellency in maintaining a constant correspondence with me! And regard not such a wish as conventional merely, but as expressing my sincere conviction of the value of your utterances. Whom could I honour above Nectarius\u2014known to me from his earliest days as a child of fairest promise, who now through the exercise of every virtue has reached a position of the highest eminence?\u2014So much so, that of all my friends the dearest is the bearer of your letter.\nTouching the election of those set over districts, 3254 God forbid that I should do anything for the gratification of man, through listening to importunities or yielding to fear. In that case I should be not a steward, but a huckster, battering the gift of God for the favour of man. But seeing that votes are given but by mortals, who can only bear such testimony as they do from outward appearances, while the choice of fit persons is committed in all humility to Him Who knows the secrets of the heart, haply it is best for everybody, when he has tendered the evidence of his vote, to abstain from all heat and contention, as though some self-interest were involved in the testimony, and to pray to God that what is advantageous may not remain unknown. Thus the result is no longer attributable to man, but a cause for thankfulness to God. For these things, if they be of man, cannot be said to be; but are pretence only, altogether void of reality.\nConsider also, that when a man strives with might and main to gain his end, there is no small danger of his drawing even sinners to his side; and there is much sinfulness, such is the weakness of man\u2019s nature, even where we should least expect it.\nAgain, in private consultation we often offer our friends good advice, and, though we do not find them taking it, yet we are not angry. Where then it is not man that counsels, but God that determines, shall we feel indignation at not being preferred before the determination of God?\nAnd if these things were given to man by man, what need were there for us to ask them of ourselves? Were it not better for each to take them from himself? But if they are the gift of God, we ought to pray and not to grieve. And in our prayer we should not seek our own will, but leave it to God who disposes for the best.\nNow may the holy God keep from your home all taste of sorrow; and grant to you and to your family a life exempt from harm and sickness.\nOn the word \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 the Ben. note is: \u201cHac voce non designatur tota diocesis, sed certos quidam pagorum numerus chorepiscopo commissus, ut patet ex epist. cxlii.,\u201d q.v., \u201cerat autem chorepiscoporum sedes insigni alicui affixa pago, cui alii pagi attribuebantur. Unde Basilius in epist. clxxxviii. \u00a7 10. Auctor est Amphilochio ut agrum Mesti\u00e6 subjectum Vasodis subjiciat.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. VIII: The Letters.: To Nectarius.","type":"page"}