Chap. III. “I should like to know,” say I, “in what way I ought to serve good desire.” “Hear,” says he: “You will practice righteousness and virtue, truth and the fear of the Lord, faith and meekness, and whatsoever excellences are like to these. Practising these, you will be a well- pleasing servant of God,231 and you will live to Him; and every one who shall serve good desire, shall live to God.” He concluded the twelve commandments, and said to me, “You have now these com- mandments. Walk in them, and exhort your hearers that their repentance may be pure during the remainder of their life. Fulfil carefully this ministry which I now entrust to you, and you will accomplish much.232 For you will find favour among those who are to repent, and they will give heed to your words; for I will be with you, and will compel them to obey you.” I say to him, “Sir, these commandments are great, and good, and glorious, and fitted to gladden the heart of the man who can perform them. But I do not know if these com- mandments can be kept by man, because they are exceeding hard.” He answered and said to me, “If you lay it down as certain that they can be kept,233 then you will easily keep them, and they will not be hard. But if you come to imagine that they cannot be kept by man, then you will not keep them. Now I say to you, If you do not keep them, but neglect them, you will not be saved, nor your children, nor your house, since you have already determined for yourself that these commandments cannot be kept by man.” Chap. IV. These things he said to me in tones of the deepest anger, so that I was confounded and exceedingly afraid of him, for his figure was altered so that a man could not endure his anger. But seeing me altogether agitated and confused, he began to speak to me in more gentle tones; and he said: “O fool, senseless and doubting, do you not perceive how great is the glory of God, and how strong and marvellous, in that He created the world for the sake of man,234 and subjected all creation to him, and gave him power to rule over everything under heaven? If, then, man is lord of the creatures of God, and rules over all, is he not able to be lord also of these commandments? For,” says he, “the man who has the Lord in his heart can also be lord of all, and of every one of these commandments. But to those who have the 231 God. The Lord.—Vat. 232 [Here is the commission to be a prophet, and to speak prophesyings in the congregation. If the Montanists resisted these teachings, they were self-condemned. Such is the idea here conveyed. 1 Cor. xiv. 32, 37.] 233 If … kept, omitted in Vat. 234 [Boyle beautifully reconciles “those two current assertions, that (1) God made all things for His own glory, and that (2) He made all things for man.” See Usefulness of Nat. Philos., part i., essay 3, or Leighton’s Works, vol. iii. p. 235, London, 1870.] 58 Commandment Twelfth. On the Twofold Desire. The Commandments of God Can…