Romans 16:26

The most of men have a disposition unstable and heedless, like the nature of storms. “Want of faith has done many good things, and faith evil things.” And Epicharmus says, “Don’t forget to exercise incredulity; for it is the sinews of the soul.” Now, to disbelieve truth brings death, as to believe, life; and again, to believe the lie and to disbelieve the truth hurries to destruction. The same is the case with self-restraint and licentiousness. To restrain one’s self from doing good is the work of vice; but to keep from wrong is the beginning of salvation. So the Sabbath, by abstinence from evils, seems to indicate self-restraint. …

The Jew, then, continues his address to converts from his own nation thus: “Yesterday and the day before, when we visited with punishment the man who deluded you, ye became apostates from the law of your fathers;” showing by such statements (as we have just demonstrated) anything but an exact knowledge of the truth. But what he advances afterwards seems to have some force, when he says: “How is it that you take the beginning of your system from our worship, and when you have made some progress you treat it with disrespect, although you have no other foundation to show for your doctrines than our law?” Now, certainly the introduction to Christianity is through the Mosaic worship and the prophetic writings; and after the introduction, it is in the interpretation and explanation of these that progress takes place, while those who are introduced prosecute their investigations into “the myste …

Not to participation in mysteries , then, and to fellowship in the wisdom hidden in a mystery , which God ordained before the world to the glory of His saints, do we invite the wicked man, and the thief , and the housebreaker , and the poisoner , and the committer of sacrilege , and the plunderer of the dead , and all those others whom Celsus may enumerate in his exaggerating style, but such as these we invite to be healed . For there are in the divinity of the word some helps towards the cure of those who are sick, respecting which the word says, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick;” others, again, which to the pure in soul and body exhibit “the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest by the Scriptures of the prophets,” and “by the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which “appearing” is manifested to …

Let us, then, not shun the name whereby we enjoy salvation, and whereby all things are made new, as says our teacher himself in his Epistle to the Ephesians, “According to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of time He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him.” Let us rather learn from this blessed language how we are bound to glorify our benefactor, by connecting the name of Christ with our God and Father. …

8. For they attempt, by praising the Godhead of the Father only, to deprive the Son of His Divinity, pleading that it is written, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One , and that the Lord repeats this in His answer to the doctor of the Law who asked Him what was the greatest commandment in the Law; Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One . Again, they say that Paul proclaims, For there is One God, and One Mediator between God and men . And furthermore, they insist that God alone is wise, in order to leave no wisdom for the Son, relying upon the words of the Apostle, Now to Him that is able to stablish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through age-long times, but now is manifested through the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God Who is made known u …