{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-80","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":10,"chapter_to":10,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":23,"verse_to":23},"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>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Let the mention we make for our present purpose suffice, as it is not unsuitable to the flowers of the Word; and we have often done this, drawing to the urgent point of the question the most beneficial fountain, in order to water those who have been planted by the Word. \"For if it is lawful for me to partake of all things, yet all things are not expedient.\" For those that do all that is lawful, quickly fall into doing what is unlawful. And just as righteousness is not attained by avarice, nor temperance by excess; so neither is the regimen of a Christian formed by indulgence.<br/><i>— The Instructor Book 2</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Truly, \"all things are lawful, but all things are not expedient,\" says the apostle: \"all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.\" And, \"Let no one seek his own advantage, but also that of his neighbour,\" so as to be able at once to do and to teach, building and building up.<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 4</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: You say that you are wealthy and rich. But not everything that can be done ought also to be done; nor ought the broad desires that arise out of the pride of the world to be extended beyond the honour and modesty of virginity; since it is written, \"All things are lawful, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful, but all things edify not.\" For the rest, if you dress your hair sumptuously, and walk so as to draw attention in public, and attract the eyes of youth upon you, and draw the sighs of young men after you, nourish the lust of concupiscence, and inflame the fuel of sighs, so that, although you yourself perish not, yet you cause others to perish, and offer yourself, as it were, a sword or poison to the spectators; you cannot be excused on the pretence that you are chaste and modest in mind. Your shameful dress and immodest ornament accuse you; nor can yon be counted now among Christ's maidens and virgins, since yon live in such a manner as to make yourselves objects of desire.<br/><i>— Treatise II On the Dress of Virgins</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: That not everything is to be done which is lawful. Paul, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: \"All things are lawful, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful, but all things edify not.\"<br/><i>— Treatise XII. Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but each his neighbor's good.\"</p><p>Seest thou his exact wisdom? Because it was likely that they might say, \"I am perfect and master of myself, and it does me no harm to partake of what is set before me;\" \"Even so,\" saith he, \"perfect thou art and master of thyself; do not however look to this, but whether the result involve not injury, nay subversion.\" For both these he mentioned, saying, \"All things are not expedient, all things edify not;\" and using the former with reference to one's self, the latter, to one's brother: since the clause, \"are not expedient,\" is a covert intimation of the ruin of the person to whom he speaks; but the clause, \"edify not,\" of the stumbling block to the brother.</p><p>Wherefore also he adds, \"Let no man seek his own;\" which he every where through the whole Epistle insists upon and in that to the Romans; when he says, \"For even Christ pleased not Himself:\" and again, \"Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit.\" And again in this place; he does not, however, fully work it out here. That is, since in what had gone before he had established it at length, and shown that he no where \"seeks his own,\" but both \"to the Jews became as a Jew and to them that are without law as without law,\" and used not his own \"liberty\" and \"right\" at random, but to the profit of all, serving all; he here broke off, content with a few words, by these few guiding them to the remembrance of all which had been said.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Corinthians 24</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: And that a free man is not fettered by a lust for anything he sheweth by his freedom, and in that he hath the power and doth not make use thereof, he doubleth readily the freedom thereof, and he preserveth it from being dissipated, even as Paul writeth concerning this freedom, saying, \"I have power to do everything, but not everything edifieth.\"<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 11 -- On Abstinence</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: It is much easier for one to dread what is forbidden if he has a reverential fear of what is permitted.<br/><i>— THE APPAREL OF WOMEN 10.6</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But how much more is the rule of reverence and modesty incumbent on laymen-seeing that these powers belong to their superiors-lest they assume to themselves the specific function of the bishop! Emulation of the episcopal office is the mother of schisms. The most holy apostle has said, that \"all things are lawful, but not all expedient.\" Let it suffice assuredly, in cases of necessity, to avail yourself (of that rule , if at any time circumstance either of place, or of time, or of person compels you (so to do); for then the stedfast courage of the succourer, when the situation of the endangered one is urgent, is exceptionally admissible; inasmuch as he will be guilty of a human creature's loss if he shall refrain from bestowing what he had free liberty to bestow.<br/><i>— On Baptism</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: For how far more usefully and cautiously shall we act, if we hazard the presumption that all these things were indeed provided at the beginning and placed in the world by God, in order that there should now be means of putting to the proof the discipline of His servants, in order that the licence of using should be the means whereby the experimental trials of continence should be conducted? Do not wise heads of families purposely offer and permit some things to their servants in order to try whether and how they will use the things thus permitted whether (they will do so) with honesty, or with moderation? But how far more praiseworthy (the servant) who abstains entirely; who has a wholesome fear even of his lord's indulgence! Thus, therefore, the apostle too: \"All things,\" says he, \"are lawful, but not all are expedient.\" How much more easily will he fear what is unlawful who has a reverent dread of what is lawful?<br/><i>— On the Apparel of Women Book II</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: To marry otherwise is, to believers, not \"lawful; \"is not \"expedient.\"<br/><i>— To His Wife Book II</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Let it now be granted that repetition of marriage is lawful, if everything which is lawful is good. The same apostle exclaims: \"All things are lawful, but all are not profitable.\" Pray, can what is \"not profitable\" be called good? If even things which do not make for salvation are \"lawful,\" it follows that even things which are not good are \"lawful.<br/><i>— On Exhortation to Chastity</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"308962e59f3a7fb8661b08f096a05e26e5ad1141978f58748c53566223040722","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":80,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"a176fe816adc9fc5f60b16002879f2b06709568230cc8ef0ced135c45630cfde","translator":null,"work":null}