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IMMENSE IS THIS REWARD. HOW SHALL WE OBTAIN IT? - A. Cleveland Coxe, Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 9: The Gospel of Peter, Apocalypses and Romances, Commentaries of Origen [1896]

Edition used:

Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 9: The Gospel of Peter, the Diatessaron of Tatian, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Vision of Paul, the Apocalypse of the Virgin and Sedrach, the Testament of Abraham, the Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena, the Narrative of Zosimus, the Apology of Aristides, the Epistles of Clement (complete text), Origen’s Commentary of John, Books 1-10, and Commentary on Matthew, Books 1, 2, and 10-14, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Revised and Chronologically arranged with brief prefaces and occasional notes by A. Cleveland Coxe (New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1896-97).

Part of: Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, 10 vols.

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IMMENSE IS THIS REWARD. HOW SHALL WE OBTAIN IT?

How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in perfect confidence,16 faith in assurance, self-control in holiness! And all these fall under the cognizance of our understandings [now]; what then shall those things be which are prepared for such as wait for Him? The Creator and Father of all worlds,17 the Most Holy,18 alone knows their amount and their beauty. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts. But how, beloved, shall this be done? If our understanding be fixed by faith towards God; if we earnestly seek the things19 which are pleasing and acceptable to Him; if we do the things which are in harmony with His blameless will; and if we follow the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and inquity,20 along with all covetousness,21 strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vainglory and ambition.22 For they that do such things are hateful to God: and not only they that do them, but also those that take pleasure in them that do them.23 For the Scripture saith, “But to the sinner God said, Wherefore dost thou declare my statutes, and take my covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst with24 him, and didst make thy portion with adulterers. Thy mouth has abounded with wickedness, and thy tongue contrived1 deceit. Thou sittest, and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest2 thine own mother’s son. These things thou hast done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest, wicked one, that I should be like to thyself. But I will reprove thee, and set thyself before thee. Consider now these things, ye that forget God, lest He tear you in pieces, like a lion, and there be none to deliver.3 The sacrifice of praise will glorify me, and a way is there by which I will show him the salvation of God.”4