Psalms 39:10

15. “I have well declared Thy righteousness in the great congregation” ( ver. 9 ). He now addresses His members. He is exhorting them to do what He has already done. He has “declared;” let us declare also. He has suffered; let us “suffer with Him.” He has been glorified; we shall be “glorified with Him.” “I have declared Thy righteousness in the great congregation.” How great an one is that? In all the world. How great is it? Even among all nations. Why among all nations? Because He is “the Seed of Abraham, in whom all nations shall be blessed.” Why among all nations? “Because their sound hath gone forth into all lands.” “Lo! I will not refrain my lips, O Lord, and that Thou knowest.” My lips speak; I will not “refrain” them from speaking. My lips indeed sound audibly in the ears of men; but “Thou knowest” mine heart. …

XLIV. What need have I any more of speech? It is the time for teaching, not for controversy. I protest before God and the elect Angels, be thou baptized in this faith. If thy heart is written upon in some other way than as my teaching demands, come and have the writing changed; I am no unskilled caligrapher of these truths. I write that which is written upon my own heart; and I teach that which I have been taught, and have kept from the beginning up to these hoar hairs. Mine is the risk; be mine also the reward of being the Director of your soul, and consecrating you by Baptism. But if you are already rightly disposed, and marked with the good inscription, see that you keep what is written, and remain unchanged in a changing time concerning an unchanging Thing. Follow Pilate’s example in the better sense; you who are rightly written on, imitate him who wrote wrongfully. …

These are made treasuries and pure habitations of God: For I will dwell in them, said God, and walk in them, and I will be their God . The divine Scripture likewise saith that the souls of the just are in God’s hand and death cannot lay hold of them. For death is rather the sleep of the saints than their death. For they travailed in this life and shall to the end , and Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints . What then, is more precious than to be in the hand of God? For God is Life and Light, and those who are in God’s hand are in life and light.

Isaac : That there are different reasons for prayer being heard in accordance with the varied and changing condition of souls the words of the gospels and of the prophets teach us. For you have the fruits of an answer pointed out by our Lord’s words in the case of the agreement of two persons; as it is said: “If two of you shall agree upon earth touching anything for which they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” You have another in the fulness of faith, which is compared to a grain of mustard-seed. …