Therefore let your sermons be flowing, let them be clear and lucid so that by suitable disputation you may pour sweetness into the ears of the people and by the grace of your words may persuade the crowd to follow willingly where you lead. But if in the people, or in some persons, there is any stubbornness or any fault, let your sermons be such as to goad the listener, to sting the person with a guilty conscience. The words of the wise are as goads. Even the Lord Jesus goaded Saul when he was a persecutor. Consider how salutary was the goad that made of a persecutor an apostle, saying, It is hard for you to kick against the goad.^[1]

Holy preachers are also accustomed to reprove their hearers with sharp words and to rage with strict severity against their sins. As it is written, The words of the wise are goads, and as nails fastened deep. But their words are properly called nails, since they do not know how to handle the sins of offenders gently, but only how to pierce them. Were not the words of John nails when he said, O generation of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come?^[1] Were not the words of Stephen nails when he said, You have always resisted the Holy Spirit?^[2] Were not the words of Paul nails when he said, O senseless Galatians, who has bewitched you?^[3] and again when saying to the Corinthians, For while there is among you envying and strife, are you not carnal, and do you not walk according to man?^[4]

All the Scriptures are words of the wise like goads, and as nails firmly fixed which were given by agreement from one shepherd, and there is nothing superfluous in them. But the Word is the one Shepherd of things rational which may have an appearance of discord to those who have not ears to hear but are truly at perfect concord.

And likewise it is a pleasant thing to endeavor to understand and exhibit the fact of the concord of the two covenants—of the one before the bodily advent of the Savior and of the new covenant. For among those things in which the two covenants are at concord so that there is no discord between them would be found prayers, to the effect that about anything whatever they shall ask it shall be done to them from the Father in heaven. And if also you desire the third that unites the two, do not hesitate to say that it is the Holy Spirit. For the words of the wise, whether they be those before the advent, or at the time of the advent, or after it, are as goads, and as nails firmly fixed, which were given by agreement from one shepherd.

I, for my part, am inclined to shrink from toil and to avoid that danger which threatens from God those who give themselves to writing on divinity; thus I would take shelter in Scripture in refraining from making many books. For Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, My son, beware of making many books; there is no end of it, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. For we, except that text have some hidden meaning which we do not yet perceive, have directly transgressed the injunction; we have not guarded ourselves against making many books.

First of all, we set forth the command from Ecclesiastes: My son, beware of making many books. I juxtapose for comparison with this the saying from the Proverbs of the same Solomon, who says, In a multitude of words you will not escape sins, but you will be wise if you restrain your lips.^[1] And I inquire, therefore, if speaking many words, regardless of what they are, is being loquacious, even if the many words are holy and pertain to salvation? For if this is the way things are, and if he who expounds many beneficial things is loquacious, Solomon himself has not escaped the sin.

Fear the Lord and keep his commandments, he said. So, by keeping God’s commandments you will be powerful in every action, and your action will be beyond criticism. Fear the Lord, then, and you will do everything well; this is the fear you must have to be saved.

If fear of God comes from knowledge but knowledge is going to pass away, as Paul says,^[1] then we shall be completely destroyed when there is no knowledge. All that we are will be gone, and we shall be in a state no better but much worse than irrational beings. For in knowledge we have the advantage over them, whereas in all other things pertaining to the body they surpass us by far.

What could be briefer, truer, better for the soul to know? For this is all a person is—a keeper of God’s commandments. Not being such, he is, so to say, nothing at all, because instead of being constantly reshaped to the image of the truth, he remains bogged down in the likeness of shadow.

Let us indeed fear God and obey his commandments, for each person was born for this purpose, that knowing his Creator, he might venerate him with fear, honor and observance of the commandments. When the time of judgment arrives, whatever we have done will stand under judgment and await the double sentence that each person will receive for his work, whether he has done evil or good. We will be held accountable on the day of judgment for what we were able to do, for every hidden deed, whether good or evil, as Symmachus and the Septuagint translated it, that is, for every contempt, or at least every negligence, but also for every idle word offered even unknowingly, not willfully. But because fear belongs to slaves and perfect love drives fear away,^[1] fear has a double meaning in divine Scripture, for beginners and for the perfect. The fear of him who has been perfected in virtue, I believe, is expressed here: They who fear the Lord lack nothing.^[2] Or at least because he is still a man and has not taken God’s name, he knows his own nature, that he might fear God while placed in the body. For God will bring each creature, that is, each person, to judgment for every decision he or she made contrary to that which God has arranged and said. Woe indeed to those who call evil good and good evil.^[3]

Of those who are proud and at the same time treacherous it is said, The foxes have dens and the birds of the air have nests.^[1] And of all people in general it is said, And man, when he was held in esteem (that is, made in the image of God), did not understand; he was like foolish cattle.^[2] Solomon, however, shows humanity as it truly is, that is, uncorrupted, when he says, Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is all there is to man.

They have been appointed to this, that is, to this made human beings by nature, that they may believe God and obey his will, as Solomon attests when he says, Fear God and obey his commandments, for this is [the duty of] every human being. That is, every human being has been naturally made for this purpose, that he may fear God and obey his commandments.

Solomon’s book in which these words appear is called Ecclesiastes. Translated, this name means Preacher. Now, in preaching one expresses sentiments that tend to quiet a noisy crowd. And when there are many people holding opinions of various kinds, they are brought into harmony by the reasoning of the speaker. This book, then, is called the Preacher because in it Solomon makes the feelings of the disorganized people his own in order to search into and give expression to the thoughts that come to their untutored minds perhaps by the way of temptation. For the sentiments he expresses in his search are as varied as the individuals he impersonates. But, like a true preacher, he stretches out his arms at the end of his address and calms the troubled sprits of the assembled people, calling them back to one way of thinking. This we see him do at the close of the book, where he says, Let us all hear together the conclusion of the discourse. Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Nor is a resurrection declared only for the martyrs, but for all persons, righteous and unrighteous, godly and ungodly, that everyone may receive according to his desert. For God, says the Scripture, will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

Consider how grave an error it is to call God’s Word a work. Solomon says in one place in Ecclesiastes that God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. If then the Word is a work, do you mean that he as well as others will be brought into judgment? And what room is there for judgment, when the Judge is on trial? Who will give to the just their blessing, who to the unworthy their punishment, the Lord, as you must suppose, standing on trial with the rest? By what law shall he, the Lawgiver, himself be judged?