It is not enough to make a true solemnity of the heart. From this must follow good works. What value is there in partaking of his body and blood with our mouths if we oppose him with our wicked practices? And so Moses required that unleavened bread with wild herbs is to be eaten. One who eats bread without leaven does virtuous deeds without corrupting them with vainglory, and fulfills the precepts of mercy with no addition of sin, not perversely destroying what he properly accomplishes. In reproof of some who had mingled the leaven of sin with their good deeds, the Lord spoke by the voice of the prophet: Come to Bethel and behave wickedly, and shortly after, And make a sacrifice of praise of that which is unleavened. A person makes a sacrifice of praise of that which is unleavened when he makes ready a sacrifice for God of his misdeeds. Wild herbs are very bitter. The flesh of the lamb is to be eaten with wild herbs, so that when we receive our Redeemer’s body we humble ourselves with weeping for our sins. Thus the bitterness of repentance purges our heart’s stomach of all traces of a wicked life.

If we cannot gather spiritual fruits through our own labor, it is just that we dispense with holy zeal and most fervent charity those which have been collected by others. Since the Lord threatens that, because of the sins of the people, I will cause it to rain upon one city and cause it not to rain upon another city, we ought to strive with great care that we may not be that city upon which the rain of the Word of God either does not come at all or, at least, only late and rarely. Without any doubt, if the dew or rain of the Word of God is provided too late, the fruits of souls will be the same as earthly fruits which do not receive rain.

They [who refuse to repent] do not deserve to be saved by the Lord’s visitation or to be healed by temporal afflictions. They are like those who in despair have handed themselves over to lasciviousness in the working of every error, unto uncleanness.^[1] In their hardness of heart and with their frequent habit of sinning, they are beyond the purgation of this very brief age and the punishment of the present life. The divine Word reproves them too through the prophet: I have destroyed you as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and you have become like a firebrand snatched from the fire, and not even thus have you returned to me, says the Lord.

And that there might not remain any doubt that he [God the Son] had been the guest of Abraham, it is written regarding the destruction of the Sodomites that the Lord poured down on Sodom and Gomorrah fire and sulfur from the Lord out of heaven.^[1] In fact, the prophet also says in the person of God, I destroyed you as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord, therefore, destroyed Sodom; that is, God destroyed Sodom. In the destruction of the Sodomites, however, it was the Lord who rained fire from the Lord. This Lord was the God seen by Abraham.^[2] This God is Abraham’s guest^[3] and was undoubtedly seen because he was touched. Now, since the Father, inasmuch as he is invisible, was assuredly not seen at that time, he who was seen and who was hospitably received and taken in was he who was willing to be seen and touched. This one then is the Son of God, the Lord, who rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and sulfur from the Lord.^[4] But he is the Word of God, and the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us.^[5] This one then is Christ. Therefore it was not the Father who was the guest of Abraham but Christ. Nor was it the Father who was seen but the Son; therefore it was Christ who was seen. Consequently Christ is both Lord and God, who could be seen by Abraham only because he was God, the Word, begotten of God the Father before Abraham even existed.^[6]

Nor does it escape my notice that heretics have been prone to object that the Holy Spirit appears to be a creature, because many of them use as an argument for establishing their impiety that passage of Amos, where he spoke of the blowing of the wind, as the words of the prophet made clear. For you read thus: Behold, I am he that establishes the thunder and creates the wind and declare unto man his Christ, that make light and mist, and ascend upon high places, the Lord God Almighty is his name.

But if any one thinks that the word of the prophet is to be explained with reference to the Holy Spirit, because it is said, declaring unto men his Christ, he will explain it more easily of the Lord’s Sun of justice. For if it troubles you that he said Spirit, and therefore you think that this cannot well be explained of the mystery of the taking of human nature, read on in the Scriptures, and you will find that all agrees most excellently with Christ. Of [Christ] it is thoroughly fitting to think that he established the thunders by his coming, that is, the force and sound of the heavenly Scriptures, by the thunder, as it were, of which our minds are struck with astonishment, so that we learn to be afraid and pay respect to the heavenly oracles.

When Christ came, the people of the old covenant denied him,^[1] but the devils confessed him.^[2] His forefather David was not ignorant of him when he said, I will place a lamp for my anointed.^[3] Some have interpreted lamp as the splendor of prophecy; others have understood by the lamp the flesh he assumed of the Virgin, according to the words of the apostle: But we carry this treasure in vessels of clay.^[4] The prophet was not ignorant of him when he said, And declaring his Christ to men. Moses also knew him, and Isaiah and Jeremiah as well. None of the prophets was ignorant of him. Even the devils acknowledged him, for he rebuked them, and Scripture adds, Because they knew that he was the Christ.^[5]