Chapter XVIII.—Of the Lights and
Stars of Heaven—Of Day and Night, Ver. 14.
22. Thus, O Lord, thus, I beseech Thee, let
there arise, as Thou makest, as Thou givest joy and ability,—let
“truth spring out of the earth, and righteousness look down from
heaven,” and let there be “lights in the firmament.” Let us
break our bread to the hungry, and let us bring the houseless poor
to our house. Let us
clothe the naked, and despise not those of our own flesh. The which
fruits having sprung forth from the earth, behold, because it is
good; and let
our temporary light burst forth; and let us, from this inferior
fruit of action, possessing the delights of contemplation and of
the Word of Life above, let us appear as lights in the world, clinging
to the firmament of Thy Scripture. For therein Thou makest it plain
unto us, that we may distinguish between things intelligible and
things of sense, as if between the day and the night; or between
souls, given, some to things intellectual, others to things of
sense; so that now not Thou only in the secret of Thy judgment, as
before the firmament was made, dividest between the light and the
darkness, but Thy spiritual children also, placed and ranked in the
same firmament (Thy grace being manifest throughout the world), may
give light upon the earth, and divide between the day and night, and be for signs of times; because “old things have passed away,” and “behold all things are become new;” and “because our salvation is nearer than when we believed;” and because “the night is far spent, the day is at hand;” and because Thou wilt crown Thy year with blessing, sending the labourers of Thy goodness into Thy harvest, in the sowing of which others have laboured, sending also into another field, whose harvest shall be in the end. Thus Thou grantest the prayers of him that asketh, and blessest the years of the just; but Thou art the same, and in Thy years which fail not Thou preparest a garner for our passing years. For by an eternal counsel Thou dost in their proper seasons bestow upon the earth heavenly blessings.
23. For, indeed, to one is given by the Spirit
the word of wisdom, as if the greater light, on account of those
who are delighted with the light of manifest truth, as in the
beginning of the day; but to another the word of knowledge by the
same Spirit, as if the lesser light; to another faith; to another the
gift of healing; to another the working of miracles; to another
prophecy; to another the discerning of spirits; to another divers
kinds of tongues. And all these as stars. For all these worketh the
one and self-same Spirit, dividing to every man his own as He
willeth; and making
stars appear manifestly, to profit withal. But the word of knowledge, wherein
are contained all sacraments, which are varied in their periods
like the moon, and the other conceptions of gifts, which are
successively reckoned up as stars, inasmuch as they come short of
that splendour of wisdom in which the fore-mentioned day rejoices, are only for the beginning of the night. For they are necessary to such as he Thy most prudent servant could not speak unto as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal—even he who speaketh wisdom among those that are perfect. But the natural man, as a babe in Christ,—and a drinker of milk,—until he be strengthened for solid meat, and his eye be enabled to look upon the Sun, let him not dwell in his own deserted night, but let him be contented with the light of the moon and the stars. Thou reasonest these things with us, our All-wise God, in Thy Book, Thy firmament, that we may discern all things in an admirable contemplation, although as yet in signs, and in times, and in days, and in years.