Alas, I grieve, citizens, that you are thus blinded by the world. One runs to the lot; another gazes on the birds; another, having shed the blood of bleating animals, calls forth the manes, and credulously desires to hear vain responses. When so many leaders and kings have taken counsel concerning life, what benefit has it been to them to have known even its portents? Learn, I beg you, citizens, what is good; beware of idol fanes. Seek, indeed, all of you, in the law of the Omnipotent. Thus it has pleased the Lord of lords Himself in the heavens, that demons should wander in the world for our discipline. And yet, on the other hand, He has sent out His mandates, that they who forsake their altars shall become inhabitants of heaven. Whence I am not careful to argue this in a small treatise. The law teaches; it calls on you in your midst. Consider for yourselves. You have entered upon two roads; decide upon the right one. — Chapter XXII. The Dullness of the Age.

You reject, unhappy one, the advantage of heavenly discipline, and rushest into death while wishing to stray without a bridle. Luxury and the shortlived joys of the world are ruining you, whence you shall be tormented in hell for all time. They are vain joys with which you are foolishly delighted. Do not these make you to be a man dead? Cannot thirty years at length make you a wise man? Ignorant how you have first strayed, look upon ancient time, you think now to enjoy here a joyous life in the midst of wrongs. These are the ruins of your friends, wars, or wicked frauds, thefts with bloodshed: the body is vexed with sores, and groaning and wailing is indulged; whether a slight disease invade you, or you are held down by long sickness, or you are bereaved of your children, or you mourn over a lost wife. All is a wilderness: alas, dignities are hurried down from their height by vices and poverty; doubly so, assuredly, if you languish long. And do you call it life when this life of glass is mortal? Consider now at length that this time is of no avail, but in the future you have hope without the craft of living. Certainly the little children which have been snatched away desired to live. Moreover, the young men who have been deprived of life, perchance were preparing to grow old, and they themselves were making ready to enjoy joyful days; and yet we unwillingly lay aside all things in the world. I have delayed with a perverse mind, and I have thought that the life of this world was a true one; and I judged that death would come in like manner as you did —” that when once life had departed, the soul also was dead and perished. These things, however, are not so; but the Founder and Author of the world has certainly required the brother slain by a brother. Impious man, say, said He, where is your brother? And he denied. For the blood of your brother has cried aloud to Me to heaven. You are tormented, I see, when you thought to feel nothing; but he lives and occupies the place on the right hand. He enjoys delights which you, O wicked one, have lost; and when you have called back the world, he also has gone before, and will be immortal: for you shall wail in hell. Certainly God lives, who makes the dead to live, that He may give worthy rewards to the innocent and to the good; but to the fierce and impious, cruel hell. Commence, O you who are led away, to perceive the judgments of God. — Chapter XXVI. To Those Who Resist the Law of Christ the Living God.

Commerce in itself is not bad; indeed it is and intrinsic part of God’s order. What matters is how we conduct our commerce…each person specializes in the work for which God has ordained him; and by selling his skills or the goods he produces, he can obtain from others the goods which he needs. The problems arise because some people can obtain a far higher price for their work than others, or because some people employ others and do not pay a fair wage. The result is that some become rich and others poor. But in God’s eyes one skill is not superior to another; every form of honest labor is equal. So inequalities in what people receive for their labor undermine the divine order.

“And be not fashioned after this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

For the fashion of this world is grovelling and worthless, and but for a time, neither has ought of loftiness, or lastingness, or straightforwardness, but is wholly perverted. If then you would walk upright, figure not yourself after the fashion of this life present. For in it there is nought abiding or stable. And this is why he calls it a fashion; and so in another passage, “the fashion of this world passes away.” For it has no durability or fixedness, but all in it is but for a season; and so he calls it this age, hereby to indicate its liableness to misfortune, and by the word fashion its unsubstantialness. For speak of riches, or of glory, or beauty of person, or of luxury, or of whatever other of its seemingly great things you will, it is a fashion only, not reality, a show and a mask, not any abiding substance. But “be not thou fashioned after this, but be transformed,” he says, “by the renewing of your mind.” He says not change the fashion, but “be transformed“, to show that the world’s ways are a fashion, but virtue’s not a fashion, but a kind of real form, with a natural beauty of its own, lacking not the trickeries and fashions of outward things, which no sooner appear than they go to nought. For all these things, even before they come to light, are dissolving. If then you throw the fashion aside, you will speedily come to the form. For nothing is more strengthless than vice, nothing so easily wears old. Then since it is likely that being men they would sin every day, he consoles his hearer by saying, “renew yourself” from day to day. This is what we do with houses, we keep constantly repairing them as they wear old, and so do thou unto yourself. Have you sinned today? have you made your soul old? despair not, despond not, but renew it by repentance, and tears, and confession, and by doing of good things. And never fail of doing this. And how are we to do this? — On Romans 12:2.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

After discoursing at large upon the love of God toward man, and pointing out His unspeakable concern for us, and unutterable goodness, which cannot even be searched into, he next puts it forward with a view of persuading those who have received the benefit to exhibit a conversation worthy of the gift. And though he is so great and good a person , yet he does not decline beseeching them, and that not for any enjoyment he was likely to get himself, but for that they would have to gain. And why wonder that he does not decline beseeching, where he is even putting God’s mercies before them? For since, he means, it is from this you have those numberless blessings, from the mercies of God, reverence them, be moved to compassion by them. For they themselves take the attitude of suppliants, that you would show no conduct unworthy of them. I entreat you then, he means, by the very things through which you were saved. As if any one who wished to make a person, who had had great kindnesses done him, show regard, was to bring him the benefactor himself as a suppliant. And what do you beseech? let me hear. “That ye would present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” For when he had said sacrifice, to prevent any from thinking he bade them kill themselves, he forthwith added “living.” Then to distinguish it from the Jewish, he calls it “holy, acceptable to God, your reasonable service.” For theirs was a material one, and not very acceptable either. Since He says, “Who has required this at your hands?” And in sundry other passages He clearly throws them aside. For it was not this, but this with the other, that He looked to have presented. Wherefore he says, “The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me.” And again, “I will praise the name of my God with a song, and this shall please him better than a bullock that puts forth horns and hoofs.” And so in another place He rejects it, and says, “Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink goat’s blood?” and proceeds with, “Offer unto God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows unto the Most High.” So Paul also here bids us “present our bodies a living sacrifice.” And how is the body, it may be said, to become a sacrifice? Let the eye look upon no evil thing, and it has become a sacrifice; let your tongue speak nothing filthy, and it has become an offering; let your hand do no lawless deed, and it has become a whole burnt offering. Or rather this is not enough, but we must have good works also: let the hand do alms, the mouth bless them that cross one, and the hearing find leisure evermore for lections of Scripture. For sacrifice allows of no unclean thing: sacrifice is a first-fruit of the other actions. Let us then from our hands, and feet, and mouth, and all other members, yield a first-fruit unto God. Such a sacrifice is well pleasing, as that of the Jews was even unclean, for, “their sacrifices,” it says, “are unto them as the bread of mourning.” Not so ours. That presented the thing sacrificed dead: this makes the thing sacrificed to be living. For when we have mortified our members, then we shall be able to live. For the law of this sacrifice is new, and so the sort of fire is a marvelous one. For it needs no wood or matter under it; but our fire lives of itself, and does not burn up the victim, but rather quickens it. This was the sacrifice that God sought of old. Wherefore the Prophet says, “The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit.” And the three Children offer this when they say, “At this time there is neither prince, or prophet, or leader, or burnt offering, or place to sacrifice before You, and to find mercy. Nevertheless, in a contrite heart and an humble spirit let us be accepted.” And observe how great the exactness wherewith he uses each word. For he does not say, offer your bodies as a sacrifice, but “present” them, as if he had said, never more have any interest in them. You have given them up to another. For even they that furnish the war-horses have no further interest in them. And thou too hast presented your members for the war against the devil and for that dread battle-array. Do not let them down to selfish appliances. And he shows another thing also from this, that one must make them approved, if one means to present them. For it is not to any mortal being that we present them, but to God, the King of the universe; not to war only, but to have seated thereon the King Himself. For He does not refuse even to be seated upon our members, but even greatly desires it. And what no king who is but our fellow-servant would choose to do, that the Lord of Angels chooses. Since then it is both to be presented (i.e. as for a King’s use) and is a sacrifice, rid it of every spot, since if it have a spot, it will no longer be a sacrifice. For neither can the eye that looks lecherously be sacrificed, nor the hand be presented that is grasping and rapacious, nor the feet that go lame and go to play-houses, nor the belly that is the slave of self-indulgence, and kindles lusts after pleasures, nor the heart that has rage in it, and harlots’ love, nor the tongue that utters filthy things. Hence we must spy out the spots on our body upon every side. For if they that offered the sacrifices of old were bid to look on every side, and were not permitted to offer an animal “that has anything superfluous or lacking, or is scurvy, or scabbed“, much more must we, who offer not senseless animals, but ourselves, exhibit more strictness, and be pure in all respects, that we also may be able to say as did Paul, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.” For he was purer than any sacrifice, and so he speaks of himself as “ready to be offered.” But this will be brought about if we kill the old man, if we mortify our members that are upon the earth, if we crucify the world unto ourselves. In this way we shall not need the knife any more, nor altar, nor fire, or rather we shall want all these, but not made with the hands, but all of them will come to us from above, fire from above, and knife also, and our altar will the breadth of Heaven be. For if when Elijah offered the visible sacrifice, a flame, that came down from above consumed the whole water, wood, and stones, much more will this be done upon you. And if you have anything in you relaxed and secular, and yet offerest the sacrifice with a good intention, the fire of the Spirit will come down, and both wear away that worldliness, and perfect the whole sacrifice. But what is “reasonable service?” It means spiritual ministry, conversation according to Christ. As then he that ministers in the house of God, and officiates, of whatever sort he may be, then collects himself, and becomes more dignified; so we ought to be minded all our whole life as serving and ministering. And this will be so, if every day you bring Him sacrifices, and become the priest of your own body, and of the virtue of your soul; as, for example, when you offer soberness, when alms-giving, when goodness and forbearance. For in doing this you offer “a reasonable service“, that is, one without anything that is bodily, gross, visible. Having then raised the hearer by the names bestowed, and having shown that each man is a priest of his own flesh by his conversation, he mentions also the way whereby we may compass all this. What then is the way? — On Romans 12:1.

The saving nature of Baptism depends on three things; Prayer, Water, and Faith.
1. It is shown how Prayer secures the Divine Presence. God is a God of truth; and He has promised to come (as Miracles prove that He has come already) if invoked in a particular way.
2. It is shown how the Deity gives life from water. In human generation, even without prayer, He gives life from a small beginning. In a higher generation He transforms matter, not into soul, but into spirit.
3. Human freedom, as evinced in faith and repentance, is also necessary to Regeneration. Being thrice dipped in the water is our earliest mortification; coming out of it is a forecast of the ease with which the pure shall rise in a blessed resurrection: the whole process is an imitation of Christ. — From a summation of Chapters 33-36 on the Sacraments.

All the bishops said: If any presbyter shall have been corrected by his superior, he should ask the neighbouring bishops that his cause be heard by them and that through them he may be reconciled to his bishop: but if he shall not have done this, but, puffed up with pride, (which may God forbid!) he shall have thought it proper to separate himself from the communion of his bishop, and separately shall have offered the sacrifice to God, and made a schism with certain accomplices, let him be anathema, and let him lose his place; and if the complaint which he brought against his bishop shall [not] have been found to be well founded, an enquiry should be instituted. — Canon 11.