I have made thee My friend? Why, by thy wicked prayers dost thou teach Me to do, what I did not in thine own case?” Yea rather God saith to thee, “Let me teach thee to imitate Me. When I was hanging on the Cross, I said, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do.’3029 This lesson I taught My brave soldier. Be thou My recruit against the devil. In no other way wilt thou fight at all unconquerably, unless thou dost pray for thine enemies. Yet by all means ask this, yea ask this very thing, ask that thou mayest persecute thine enemy; but ask it with discernment; distinguish well what thou askest. See, a man is thine enemy; answer me, what is it in him which is at enmity with thee? Is it in this, that he is a man, that he is at enmity with thee? No. What then? That he is evil. In that he is a man, in that he is that I made him, he is not at enmity with thee.” He saith to thee, “I did not make man evil; he became evil by disobedience, who obeyed the devil3030 rather than God. What he has made himself, is at enmity with thee; in that he is evil, he is thine enemy; not in that he is a man. For I hear the word “man,” and “evil;” the one is the name of nature, the other of sin; the sin I cure; and the nature I preserve.” And so thy God saith to thee, “See, I do avenge thee, I do slay thine enemy; I take away that which makes him evil, I preserve that which constitutes him a man: now if I shall have made him a good man, have I not slain thine enemy, and made him thy friend?” So ask on what thou art asking, not that the men may perish, but that these their enmities may perish. For if thou pray for this, that the man may die; it is the prayer of one wicked man against another; and when thou dost say, “Slay the wicked one,” God answereth thee, “Which of you?” 10. Extend your love then, and limit it not to your wives and children. Such love is found even in beasts and sparrows. Ye know the sparrows and the swallows how they love their mates, how together they hatch their eggs, and nourish their young together, by a sort of free3031 and natural kindliness, and with no thought of a return. For the sparrow does not say, “I will nourish my young, that when I am grown old, they may feed me.” He has no such thought; he loves and feeds them, for the love of them; displays the affection of a parent, and looks for no return. And so, I know, I am sure, do ye love your children. “For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.”3032 Yea upon this plea it is that many of you excuse your covetousness, that ye are getting for your children, and are laying by for them.3033 But I say, extend your love, let this love grow; for to love wives and children, is not yet that “wedding garment.” Have faith to Godward. First love God. Extend yourselves out to God; and whomsoever ye shall be able, draw on to God. There is 3029 Luke xxiii. 34. 3030 Zabulo; Lactant. De Mort. Pers. 16. 3031 Grata. 3032 2 Cor. xii. 14. 3033 Vid. Serm. xxxvi. (lxxxvi. Ben.) 11 (ix., x.). 826 On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xxii. 2, etc., about the marriage of the…