We must press on and persevere in faith and virtue and in completion of heavenly and spiritual grace, that we may attain to the palm and the crown. In the book of Chronicles [we read], The Lord is with you so long as you also are with him; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.

When we have been baptized we are told, Behold, you are made whole; sin no more lest a worse thing happen to you.^[1] And again, Don’t you know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone profanes the temple of God, God shall destroy him.^[2] And in another place, The Lord is with you so long as you are with him: if you forsake him, he will also forsake you. Where is the person, do you suppose, in whom as in a shrine and sanctuary the purity of Christ is permanent and in whose case the serenity of the temple is saddened by no cloud of sin? We cannot always have the same countenance, though the philosophers falsely boast that this was the experience of Socrates; how much less can our minds be always the same! As people have many facial expressions, so also do the feelings of their hearts vary. If it were possible for us to be always immersed in the waters of bap-tism, sins would fly over our heads and leave us untouched. The Holy Spirit would protect us. But the enemy assails us, and when conquered he does not depart but is ever lying in ambush, that he may secretly shoot the upright in heart.

The passage shows the impiety of the ten tribes: For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law; but when in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them. Do not imitate, the Scripture says, the impiety of your brothers. They do not preach the true God but pursue false idols. For this reason they have been deprived of the priests and the teachers, who could teach them the law of God. Experience, therefore, becomes our guide in showing the damages of impiety. For after being afflicted by any kind of calamity they implore now the help of God, giving themselves entirely to the ineffable goodness of the Lord.