6. That, being redeemed
and quickened by the blood of Christ, we ought to prefer nothing to
Christ.
3734
In the Gospel the Lord speaks, and says:
“He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of
me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of
me; and he that taketh not his cross and followeth me, is not worthy of
me.”
3735
So
also it is written in Deuteronomy: “They who say to their
father and their mother, I have not known thee, and have not
acknowledged their own children, these have kept Thy precepts, and have
observed Thy covenant.”
3736
Moreover, the Apostle Paul
says: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword? As it is written, Because for Thy sake we are
killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we overcome on account of Him
who hath loved us.”
3737
And again: “Ye are
not your own, for ye are bought with a great price. Glorify and
bear God in your body.”
3738
And again: “Christ
died for all, that both they which live may not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose
again.”
3739
3734
The Oxford edition adds, “because neither did He account of
anything before us.”
3735
Matt. x. 37, 38
.
3736
Deut. xxxiii. 9
.
3737
Rom. viii.
35–37
.
3738
1 Cor. vi. 20
.
3739
2 Cor. v. 15
.