Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/186

 168 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. words and doeth them, I will liken Mm unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock. Behold, for the correction of sins, the day of this life is accorded unto us, as the kind Lord says, I desire not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live. Therefore, let our hearts and bodies be prepared to carry on the warfare of obedience ; and what to our nature is impossible, we must ask of the grace of God. > The fourth chapter is a statement of the rules of the Christian life (instrumenta artis spiritualis) — 171 primis to love the Lord God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself. Then, not to kill or steal or commit adultery, and what we would not have done to us not to do to others ; to deny ourselves and fol- low Christ ; to chasten the body and love fasting ; to refresh the poor, clothe the naked, comfort the sorrowing; to keep oneself a stranger to temporal affairs {saeculi actibus sefacere alienum)) to set nothing before the love of Christ ; to hold no anger, nor false- ness ; not to return evil for evil, to suffer injury with patience ; to love enemies ; to bless those who revile ; not to be proud or drunken, or gluttonous, or sleepy or sluggish, or a grumbler or backbiter; to hope in God; to attribute the good in us to God, knowing that our acts are always evil; to fear the day of judgment, tremble at Hell (gehennam), s^Ydentlj de- sire eternal life, with the expectation of death daily with us; to know that God sees us everywhere; to bring to Christ the evil thoughts coming to our hearts and disclose them to our spiritual superior ; to keep our mouths from evil or foolish speech, and not love