Page:Goffinesdevoutin00goffuoft.djvu/94

 by the protection of the Doctor of the gentiles. Through Our Lord. Amen.

Brethren: You gladly suffer the foolish: whereas your selves are wise. For you suffer if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take from you, if a man be lifted up, if a man strike you on the face. I speak according to dishonor, as if we had been weak in this part. Wherein if any man dare (I speak foolishly) I dare also: they are Hebrews, so am I: they are Israelites, so am I: they are the seed of Abraham, so am I: they are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise), I am more: in many more labors: in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered ship wreck, a night and a day I w r as in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own nation, in perils from the gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren: in labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things which are without: my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity. The God and Farther of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is blessed forever, knoweth that I lie not. At Damascus, the governor of the nation under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes to apprehend me: and through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and so escaped his hands. If I must glory (it is not expedient indeed), but I will come to the visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not, or out of the body, I know not, God knoweth), such an one rapt even to the third heaven. And I know such a man (whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth) that he was caught up into paradise: and heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter. For such an one I will glory: but for myself I will glory nothing, but in my infirmi-