HOMILY VII.] HOMILIES ON EPHESIANS. 79 horrors. He would find persons who practise j augury, who make use of charms, and omens, ( and incantations, and who have committed for nication, adulterers, drunkards, and revilers, covetous, I am unwilling to add, lest I should hurt the feelings of any of those who are stand ing here. What more ? Suppose any one should make scrutiny into all the communicants in the world, what kind of transgression is there which he would not detect? and what if he examined those in authority ? Would he not find them eagerly bent upon gain? making traffic of high places? envious, malignant; vain glorious, gluttonous, and slaves to money ? Where then there is such impiety as this going on, what dreadful calamity must we not expect ? And to be assured how sore vengeance they incur who are guilty of such sins as these, consider the examples of old. One single man, a common soldier, stole the sacred property, and all were smitten. Ye know, doubtless, the history I mean ? I am speaking of Acham the son of Carmi, the man who stole the conse crated spoil. (Joshua vii : 1-26.) The time too when the Prophet spoke, was a time when their country was full of soothsayers, like that of the Philistines. (Isa. ii : 6.) Whereas now there are evils out of number at the full, and not one fears. Oh, henceforth let us take the alarm. God is accustomed to punish the righteous also with the wicked ; such was the case with Daniel, and with the three holy Children, such has been the case with ten thousand others, such is the case in the wars that are taking place even at the present day. For the one indeed, whatever burden of sins they have upon them, by this means lay aside even that ; but not so the other. On account of all these things, let us take heed to ourselves. Do ye not see these wars ? Do ye not hear of these disasters ? Do ye learn no lesson from these things? Nations and whole cities are swallowed up and destroyed, and myriads as many again are enslaved to the barbarians. If hell bring us not to our senses, yet let these things. What, are these too mere threats, are they not facts that have already taken place ? Great is the punishment they have suffered, yet a greater still shall we suffer, who are not brought to our senses even by their fate. Is this discourse wearing ? 2 I am aware it is my self, but ifwe attend to it, it has its advantage ; because this it has not, the quality of an address to please, nay more, nor ever shall have, but ever those topics which may avail to humble and to chasten the soul. For these will be to us the ground-work of those blessings to come hereafter, to which God grant that we may all attain, in Jesus Christ our Lord, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Ghost be glcry and might and honor, now and henceforth, and forever and ever. Amen. HOMILY VII CHAPTER m. VERSES 8 n. " Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery, which from all ages hath been hid in God, who created all things : 1 to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the Church the manifold wis dom of God, according to the eternal purpose, which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." THEY who go to the physician s have not merely to go there and nothing further ; they have to learn how to treat themselves, and to 1 [The words through Jesus Christ (Sia 1 IrjcroO XptaroC) which are here [found in Chrysostom s text have gotten into the textus receptus from the few late and mostly cursive MSS. which present the Byzantine or -Constantinopolitan text and from which th textus receptus was made. Chrysostom is the chief witness of this Byzantine text. Schaff. Companion to Greek Testament, pp. 2056. The words are omitted by Aleph A B C D, most Versions and Editors. G. A.] apply remedies. And so with us then who come here, we must not do this and nothing else, we must learn our lesson., the surpassing lowliness of Paul. What ? when he was about to speak of the vastness of the grace of God, hear what he saith, "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given." Lowliness indeed it was even to be wail his former sins, although blotted out, and to make mention of them, and to hold himself within his true measure as where he calls him self "a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and in jurious;" (i Tim. i: 13.) yet nothing was 9 S. Chrysostom complains that his rich hearers, when the choice lay between theatre or race and Church, preferred the for mer; alleging the heat and crowd of the latter, vid. t. 3. Horn. iii. xii. and xv. (Ed. Ben.) / Cor. Horn. v. fin. We see his care to consult for the tastes and capacities of his hearers in his preach ing, in Ps. 41. init. and t. 3. Horn. vii. n. J. (Ed. Ben.)