WORKS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [HOMILY III, ishment, since mercy is for such. And again in another place he says of the Jews, " Blindness in part is happened to Israel." (Rom. xi. 25.) Ver. 14. " And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." This is added, lest hearing that he obtained mercy, we should understand by it only, that being deserving of punishment, as a persecutor and blasphemer, nevertheless he was not pun ished. But mercy was not confined to this, that punishment was not inflicted ; many other great favors are implied by it. For not only has God released us from the impending punishment, but He has made us "righteous" too, and "sons," and " brethren," and " heirs," and "joint-heirs." Therefore it is he says, that " grace was exceed ing abundant." For the gifts bestowed were beyond mercy, since they are not such as would come of mercy only, but of affection and exces sive love. Having thus enlarged upon the love of God which, not content with showing mercy to a blasphemer and persecutor, conferred upon him other blessings in abundance, he has guarded against that error of the unbelievers which takes away free will, by adding, " with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." Thus.much only, he says, did we contribute. We have believed that He is able to save us. MORAL. Let us then love God through Christ. What means " through Christ " ? That it is He, and not the Law, who has enabled us to do this. Observe what blessings we owe to Christ, and what to the Law. And he says not merely that grace has abounded, but "abounded exceed ingly," in bringing at once to the adoption those who deserved infinite punishment. And observe again that " in " 1 is used for " through." l For not only faith is necessary, but love. Since there are many still who believe that Christ is God, who yet love Him not, nor act like those who love Him. For how is it when they prefer everything to Him, money, nativity, fate, augury, divinations, omens ? When we live in defiance of Him, pray, where is our love? Has any one a warm and affectionate friend ? Let him love Christ but equally. So, if no more, let him love Him who gave His Son for us His enemies, who had no merits of our own. Merits did I say? who had committed numberless sins, who had dared Him beyond all daring, and without cause ! yet He, after num berless instances of goodness and care, did not even then cast us off. At the very time when we did Him the greatest wrong, then did He give His Son for us. And still we, after so great benefits, after being made His friends, and counted worthy through Him of all blessings, fita see Horn. i. have not loved Him as our friend ! z What hope then can be ours? You shudder perhaps at the word, but I would that you shuddered at the fact ! What? How shall it appear that we do not love God even as our friends, you say? I will endeavor to show you and would that my words were groundless, and to no purpose ! but I am afraid they are borne out by facts. For consider : friends, that are truly friends, will often surfer loss for those they love. But for Christ, no one will suffer loss, or even be con tent with his present state. For a friend we can readily submit to insults, and undertake quarrels ; but for Christ, no one can endure enmity : and the saying is, " Be loved for noth ing but be not hated for nothing." None of us would fail to relieve a friend who was hungering, but when Christ comes to us from day to day, and asks no great matter, but only bread, we do not even regard him, yea though we are nauseously over full, and swollen with gluttony : though our breath betrays the wine of yesterday, and we live in luxury, and waste our substance on harlots and parasites and flatterers, and even on monsters, idiots, and dwarfs ; for men convert the natural defects of such into matter for amusement. Again, friends, that are truly such, we do not envy, nor are mortified at their success, yet we feel this toward (the minister of) 3 Christ, and our friend ship for men is seen to be more powerful than the fear of God, for the envious and the insin- cere plainly respect men more than God. And how is this? God sees the heart, yet man does not forbear to practice deceit in His sight ; yet if the same man were detected in deceit by men, he thinks himself undone, and blushes for shame. And why speak of this? If a friend be in distress, we visit him, and should fear to be condemned, if we deferred it for a little time. But we do not visit Christ, though He die again and again in prison ; nay, if we have friends among the faithful, we visit them, not because they are Christians, but because they are our friends. Thus we do nothing from the fear or the love of God, but some things from friend ship, some from custom. When we see a friend depart on travel, we weep and are troubled, and if we see his death, we bewail him, though we know that we shall not be long separated, that he will be restored to us at the Resurrection. But though Christ departs from us, or rather we reject Him daily, we do not grieve, nor think it strange, to injure, to offend, to provoke Him by doing what is displeasing to Him ; and the fear ful thing is not that we do not treat Him as a friend ; for I will show that we even treat Him as 2 See next paragraph, and Horn, on Stat. XX. and Herbert s Poems, No. LXVIII. a See on Rom. Horn.