The Great Letter 1 part 4/4

and thus they remain apart from the blessed hope and calling of the Lord's perfection and the complete cleansing from the passions; and justifying themselves by a few certain virtues and regarding themselves as having laid hold and being something, they consequently do not receive daily advancement and spiritual increase, because they have no toil and struggle and affliction and contrition of heart;

for those who have no toil and struggle and affliction for the sake of the kingdom, and no hunger and thirst for righteousness, are unable to attain to perfection, even if they should be able to receive some increase or advancement.

Or let us also make use of another illustration.

Suppose it be said by the master to certain workers or servants that each should reap three plethra in a day; and the one worker, having received such a command from the master, gives himself wholly with all strength and power, striving and toiling and being anxious and zealous as to how he alone might reap three plethra;

but the other, supposing it impossible to fulfill what was enjoined, grew slack from the beginning, and thus the whole day, now reaping, now slackening and resting, is unable to work as much as the first, the diligent one;

and even if he is unable, because of the surpassing nature of the command, to accomplish what was enjoined to him, yet he by all means does much more work than the other worker who does not have that aim, nor strives and is anxious and zealous in like manner, because of the much and unceasing diligence and because of the anxiety and the struggle and the not slackening at all;

thus those aforementioned, who look to the perfect aim of the heavenly calling and believe according to the God-inspired Scriptures and strive for the good as far as is in their power, are by all means better and greater—in knowledge and faith and works—than those who do not believe nor practice the attaining to the calling of perfection and freedom and dispassion, but are assured by their own will alone and have their advancement in conceit;

for, not looking to the supreme aim of the evangelical words of the blessed calling, they are by no means yet able to regard themselves as being nothing, not having a contrite heart nor ever hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and being unable to run with all strength and eagerness and toil and struggle, since from the outset they do not believe the sacred injunctions of the holy commandments and the evangelical words, that through faith and good diligence, receiving spiritual advancement, they might become worthy of the eternal good things.

But in addition to all the aforesaid things, this also shall be fittingly said:

if indeed, relying on our own power and trusting in our own strength or understanding or righteous deeds, we were promising to do away with and uproot the working of the passions—which is impossible for human nature—rightly might each one have to say against us that we think presumptuous things out of vanity and promise things beyond human nature;

but if, following the word of God and being habituated to the understanding of the holy Scriptures and trusting in the power of God, we confess and believe that the things impossible with men are all possible with the God who has promised—why do you judge it incredible if God raises the dead, as it is said in the Acts? For if He raises the dead, He is also not unable to uproot the passions of wickedness in those who contend supremely in all virtues and believe sincerely and wholly;

for nothing is impossible with God.

For every word promised in the divine Scriptures by the Spirit shall not be cheated [of fulfillment], according to that which was said by the Lord:

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall by no means pass away," and elsewhere:

"But the word of the Lord abides forever."

For by human strength, through the utmost asceticism and zeal and struggle, to be checked so as not to carry out the foul passions that dwell in the soul and the body, is not possible;

but to have utterly cut out and uprooted the tares of the passions, sown into the nature of men by the enemy, is possible only to those who truly believe in the power of God.

"For behold," it says, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world;"

and, "If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

For those who regard it as impossible for this accomplishment to come about in men through the Spirit—which is the truly new creation of the pure heart—the apostle expressly shows in the Epistle to the Hebrews to be like those who, because of unbelief, were not counted worthy to enter the land of promise, for which reason their carcasses fell in the wilderness;

for what was there the land of promise and the destruction of seven nations in the visible realm, this here is the redemption from the passions and love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned in the hidden [man], which the apostle declared to be the end of every commandment;

which is the truly genuine land of promise, for the sake of which all those things were typically foreshown through Moses.

For even if we have not laid hold of the highest measures of Christianity because of our slackness or negligence, yet we ought nonetheless to confess and proclaim, as grateful servants, the immeasurable goodness of God toward men through the words promised by the Spirit, and to regard the things promised to those who have wholly given themselves to God as true and sure and faithful;

so that, even if through sluggishness of will or weakness we, having dedicated ourselves to God, fall far short of the great and perfect measures of Christianity, yet nevertheless we may be able to obtain some mercy because of the faith of right thinking, and not, being found as opposers of the Spirit's teachings and disobedient, end up cast out from eternal life.

For the blessed Paul, strengthening and securing his disciples, that none of them might be found in such a mindset, says:

"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God;"

and the "departing" he made known to be not the denial of the Name, but he showed it to be the disbelieving of His promises; whence, allegorizing into the truth of the Christians the typical things of the Jews, and showing their [the Jews'] disobedience for our security, he adds, saying:

"For some, when they had heard, did provoke—but not all who came out of Egypt through Moses."

"And with whom was He grieved forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter into His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief."

"Take heed, lest, while a promise remains of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to have come short of it;"

"for indeed we have had good tidings preached to us, even as they also had;"

"but the word of hearing did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it;"

"for we who have believed do enter into the rest."

For the rest of true Christians is the redemption from the passions of sin and the most complete and effectual indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a pure heart.

"Let us therefore be diligent to enter into that rest;"

that is, contending in all the virtues of the commandments, believing that we are perfectly counted worthy of the sanctification of the Spirit;

and, "Lest any fall after the same example of disobedience."

Therefore, encouraging and rekindling their resolves into faith, he says:

"Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need;" and again:

"Let us therefore draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled—that is, cleansed—from an evil conscience;" and again:

"How much more shall the blood of Jesus cleanse your conscience from dead works, to serve the living and true God;"

and gathering also the rest of the testimonies from the holy Scriptures, you would find very many spoken with this aim.

...persuaded by the Spirit, that he who has in truth come forward to God, believing with all his heart in His promises and contending with all his power in His commandments, and renewing his mind day by day, must perceive within himself the grace of spiritual advancement;

that so we may be able to arrive at the true rest of perfect sanctification—that is, to attain to the perfect love of the sonship of the adorable Spirit, through which we are also able to acquire the complete deliverance from the passions;

and thus, having been wholly sanctified from now on in soul and body, and made spotless and blameless through the Spirit, and having here received the heavenly treasure of perfect grace in the earthen vessels of our body in all assurance, and having become a pure dwelling-place of God, on the coming day of the resurrection of the kingdom, being perfectly glorified together with Christ and counted worthy to become conformed to the body of His glory, may we rest together with Him in unspeakable rest unto the endless ages of ages. Amen.