{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-3495","native_reference":{"book_number":580,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":2,"verse_to":2},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: The blessed Apostle, when he exhorted us about praying, at the same time also exhorted us about watching: \"Continue in prayer, and watch in the same.\" Unclean love, brothers, compels those it possesses to watch. The shameless one watches to corrupt; the wicked one, to harm; the drunkard, to drink; the robber, to kill; the extravagant one, to squander; the greedy one, to collect; the thief, to steal; the plunderer, to seize. How much more, therefore, should love in the holy and innocent watch, if iniquity extorts watches from the flagitious and criminal? But they are pressed by the deep sleep of the heart, so they are compelled to watch by the flesh. Against this sleep it is cried: \"Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.\" But in us, this voice has broken the sleep of this world if we have listened and arisen from the dead, of whom it has been said: \"Let the dead bury their dead.\" Meanwhile, let us render the watchfulness of the flesh to celebration; but let us hold perpetual watchfulness of the heart with Christ illuminating. Let us watch with the flesh as much as we can, so that we may pray; and let us pray, so we may come to where we also watch without end with the flesh. For the angels do not sleep, whose equality is promised to us on the day of resurrection, if now love watches in us.<br/><i>— Sermon 223J</i></p><p><b>Caesarius of Arles</b>: This seems to indicate that the people of God did not fight with the hand or weapons so much as with the voice and tongue, that is, they poured forth prayer to God, and thus overcame their adversaries. Therefore, you, too, if you want to be victorious, listen to the apostle say, \"Be assiduous in prayer, being wakeful.\" This is the most glorious fight of the Christian, not to presume upon his own strength but always to implore the assistance of God.</p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: \"Continue in prayer, watching thereunto with thanksgiving. Walk in wisdom towards them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.\"<br/><i>— The Instructor Book 3</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: Let us urgently pray and groan with continual petitions. For know, beloved brethren, that I was not long ago reproached with this also in a vision, that we were sleepy in our prayers, and did not pray with watchfulness; and undoubtedly God, who \"rebukes whom He loves, when He rebukes, rebukes that He may amend, amends that He may preserve. Let us therefore strike off and break away from the bonds of sleep, and pray with urgency and watchfulness, as the Apostle Paul bids us, saying, \"Continue in prayer, and watch in the same.\" For the apostles also ceased not to pray day and night; and the Lord also Himself, the teacher of our discipline, and the way of our example, frequently and watch-fully prayed, as we read in the Gospel: \"He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.\" And assuredly what He prayed for, He prayed for on our behalf, since He was not a sinner, but bore the sins of others. But He so prayed for us, that in another place we read, \"And the Lord said to Peter, Behold, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.\" But if for us and for our sins He both laboured and watched and prayed, how much more ought we to be instant in prayers; and, first of all, to pray and to entreat the Lord Himself, and then through Him, to make satisfaction to God the Father! We have an advocate and an intercessor for our sins, Jesus Christ the Lord and our God, if only we repent of our sins past, and confess and acknowledge our sins, whereby we now offend the Lord, and for the time to come engage to walk in His ways, and to fear His commandments. The Father corrects and protects us, if we still stand fast in the faith both in afflictions and perplexities, that is to say, cling closely to His Christ; as it is written, \"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness, or peril, or sword? None of these things can separate believers, nothing can tear away those who are clinging to His body and blood. Persecution of that kind is an examination and searching out of the heart. God wills us to be sifted and proved, as He has always proved His people; and yet in His trials help has never at any time been wanting to believers.<br/><i>— Epistle VII</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: That we are to be urgent in prayers. In the Epistle of Paul to the Colossians: \"Be instant in prayer, and watch therein.\" Also in the first Psalm: \"But in the law of the Lord is his will, and in His law will he meditate day and night.\"<br/><i>— Treatise XII. Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews.</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: For, since continuing in prayers frequently makes persons listless, therefore he saith, \"watching,\" that is, sober, not wandering. For the devil knoweth, he knoweth, how great a good prayer is; therefore he presseth heavily. And Paul also knoweth how careless many are when they pray, wherefore he saith, \"continue\" in prayer, as of somewhat laborious, \"watching therein with thanksgiving.\" For let this, he saith, be your work, to give thanks in your prayers both for the seen and the unseen, and for His benefits to the willing and unwilling, and for the kingdom, and for hell, and for tribulation, and for refreshment. For thus is the custom of the Saints to pray, and to give thanks for the common benefits of all.</p><p>I know a certain holy man who prayeth thus. He used to say nothing before these words, but thus, \"We give Thee thanks for all Thy benefits bestowed upon us the unworthy, from the first day until the present, for what we know, and what we know not, for the seen, for the unseen, for those in deed, those in word, those with our wills, those against our wills, for all that have been bestowed upon the unworthy, even us; for tribulations, for refreshments, for hell, for punishment, for the kingdom of heaven. We beseech Thee to keep our soul holy, having a pure conscience; an end worthy of thy lovingkindness. Thou that lovedst us so as to give Thy Only-Begotten for us, grant us to become worthy of Thy love; give us wisdom in Thy word, and in Thy fear. Only-Begotten Christ, inspire the strength that is from Thee. Thou that gavest The Only-Begotten for us, and hast sent Thy Holy Spirit for the remission of our sins, if in aught we have wilfully or unwillingly transgressed, pardon, and impute it not. Remember all that call upon Thy Name in truth; remember all that wish us well, or the contrary, for we are all men.\" Then having added the Prayer of the Faithful, he there ended; having made that prayer, as a certain crowning part, and a binding together for all. For many benefits doth God bestow upon us even against our wills; many also, yea more, without our knowledge even. For when we pray for one thing, and He doeth to us the reverse, it is plain that He doeth us good even when we know it not.<br/><i>— Homily on Colossians 10</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Further: since in the self-same commentary of Luke the third hour is demonstrated as an hour of prayer, about which hour it was that they who had received the initiatory gift of the Holy Spirit were held for drunkards; and the sixth, at which Peter went up on the roof; and the ninth, at which they entered the temple: why should we not understand that, with absolutely perfect indifference, we must pray always, and everywhere, and at every time; yet still that these three hours, as being more marked in things human-(hours) which divide the day, which distinguish businesses, which re-echo in the public ear-have likewise ever been of special solemnity in divine prayers? A persuasion which is sanctioned also by the corroborative fact of Daniel praying thrice in the day; of course, through exception of certain stated hours, no other, moreover, than the more marked and subsequently apostolic (hours)-the third, the sixth, the ninth.<br/><i>— On Fasting</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"fcfc71183584a55618baad8b48b00315a59c240e488a8171a4d7e61cbea5aa5d","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":3495,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"1f7396a68a60ac9c91226aca649f0fb45f13a358034ee9cfe729851b38940958","translator":null,"work":null}