1) that the present time for Christians is a time of labor, podvig, sorrows and the cross; and the age to come is a time of rest, retribution, joy and rejoicing, for through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God, according to the Apostle's word (Acts 14:22).

2) See how blinded the spiritually poor person is! What do people not do for the sake of a temporary and soon perishing profit? What labors and troubles do they accept? But nothing is burdensome or inconvenient for them to get what they want. Thus strongly does the undoubted hope of the desired good impel them, encourage them, and approve them, although they are often deceived. For man does not receive all that he desires and hopes to receive, since in God's power lies our temporal well-being, and not in human power, and to whom he wills, He gives it. However, people, even without perfect hope, still seek, and carefully, the good that they see with their bodily eyes. But eternal bliss, before which all glory, wealth, honor, and the earthly kingdom are as nothing, either carelessly sought, or have completely ceased to seek. Oh, if the inner eye of man were opened, and saw in the twinkling of an eye the future glory prepared for God's chosen ones, he would strive for it as if he were thirsty for a spring of water, and nothing could turn him away from it.

Believe me, Christian, that honor, wealth, glory, sweetness and the pleasures of this world, like stinking corpses, will abhor him, and even suffering and torment will not be able to stop and restrain his strivings. Christ's saving incarnation and suffering teaches us everything. In Adam we lost that future blessedness and fell into eternal calamity, but Christ, the Son of God, being so great and lofty that there is no one greater and higher than Him, for God exists, – for this reason He came into the world and suffered, in order to deliver him from eternal calamity and to return to eternal bliss man who had fallen away. From this alone, Christians, we can know that great and unspeakable is the calamity from which Christ, desiring to deliver us, poured out His Blood; and great and incomprehensible is the blessedness of the future, which by His death He interceded for us who have lost it. Glory to His incomprehensible love for us and mercy! Incomprehensible is both the evil of eternal torment and the good of eternal bliss, for the sake of which the Son of God and true God did not spare Himself, in order to deliver us from the first and return the second to us. But such is our common blindness and wretchedness, that we either believe little or do not believe at all, although God has revealed this blessedness in various ways in His holy word for our benefit and consolation.

3) Those Christians who do not want to fight, to labor in the matter of the Christian calling, but desire to receive eternal life, do senselessly; they want to rejoice in the sweets, luxury, honor, glory and riches of this world – and they want to reign with Christ in the age to come; they refuse to bear the cross with Christ, they are ashamed and horrified of it and avoid it – but they want to be glorified with Him. They are like those people who want to gather fruit, but do not want to plow, sow and work the land; who want to have the glory of victory and triumph, but do not want to fight; they want to receive mercy from the king, but they do not want to serve him faithfully; who desire to reach a certain city, but do not want to go the way leading to that city, but go another way.

Narrow is the path to eternal life, Christian; but he who is long leads to eternal perdition, according to the true word of Christ our Lord (Matt. 7:13-14). Faith, which indicates eternal life and leads to it, is subject to temptation in many ways. The devil, the world with vanity, and the flesh with passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24) try to violate and destroy its integrity. Against all these adversaries we must fight and preserve our faith more than our lives. What follows from this if not unceasing bitterness, sorrow and distress for the soul of the fighter? First one, then another, then a third enemy attacks and wants to take away from the soul an invaluable treasure – eternal salvation. He will not have time to think about the honor, glory, wealth and luxury of this world, about the revenge of the offense inflicted by man, and about other things that belong to the world, who wants to enter into battle with those enemies. He will have only one effort – not to be defeated by them.

Thus, from every case and from every visible creature to the invisible, it is possible to turn reasoning. For example, from the visible world to the invisible, from the visible light to the invisible and eternal, that is, to God, from visible darkness to the invisible, that is, to the devil and sin, from visible sight to the invisible, from bodily blindness to spiritual blindness, from bodily health to spiritual health, from bodily weakness to spiritual weakness, and so on, and by this they bring spiritual benefit to themselves. For what we see in visible things is also present in invisible things, and what we feel in the body is also noticeable in the soul, although in an unequal way, as we read in the Holy Scriptures, in which the state of our soul, good or bad, is described.

Our body has life, death, health, infirmity, poverty, wealth, decorum, ugliness, sorrow, consolation, captivity, freedom, darkness, light, hunger, thirst, food, drink, clothing, work, rest, and so on. The same thing is noticed in our souls. The body is quickened by the soul, it dies when the soul leaves it – the soul lives by the grace of God, it dies when grace leaves it. The sun, the moon, and the lamp shine on our body, but the light by which our soul is enlightened is Christ, Who enlightens every man that cometh into the world (John 1:9), and its lamp is the law of God, according to what is written: "Thy law is a lamp unto my feet for ever" (Psalm 118:105).

Our body is blind if it does not have open eyes, deaf if it has no ears – the soul is blind if it does not have the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, and deaf if it does not have a proper hearing of the voice of God, which is stretched out in the Holy Scriptures. Our body has riches: gold, silver, and other things, according to the opinion of this world, are expensive; poor and miserable, if he does not have. The soul also has its riches – the spiritual gifts of God: faith, justification, sanctification, wisdom, and so on; poor, wretched and naked, if he does not have them. Scabs, wounds, pus, wrinkles, and so on make our body ugly, but sin and disorderly passions make our soul ugly. Our body hungers and thirsts without food or drink, and endures nakedness without clothing – the soul hungers and thirsts without hearing the word of God, and remains naked without His grace. The body is comforted and strengthened by food and covered with clothing – the soul is comforted by the word of God and His grace that dwells in it, and its nakedness is covered with Christ's righteousness.

Our body is taken captive when it is taken captive by the enemy, or imprisoned, or bound with chains; He receives freedom when he is delivered from these calamities. The soul also has its bitter captivity, when a person falls under the power of the devil, serves sin and disorderly passions, commits fornication, drunkenness, kidnaps, steals, gets angry, and commits other passions; but he is freed by Christ when he turns from his sins to God and believes in Christ, the Deliverer of all.

Так и в прочем примечается сходство невидимого с видимым и души с телом, о чем Святое Писание научит тебя, христианин, если с прилежанием и желанием спасения своего будешь его читать или слушать. А как нам от бедствий духовных освободиться и блаженство духовное получить, представляется в том же Писании образ, то есть вера во Христа, Который верующих в Него избавляет и блаженными делает, как Он Сам говорит: Если Сын освободит вас, то истинно свободны будете (Ин. 8:36). И еще: Христос Иисус сделался для нас премудростью от Бога, праведностью и освящением и искуплением, – написал апостол Павел (1 Кор. 1:30).

Примечай здесь, христианин:

1) Эти пункты служат для разъяснения следующих моих предложений и рассуждений.

2) Эти подобия, взятые от различных вещей, чувствам подлежащих, и приложенные к невидимым, более полагаются ради простого народа, который не может понять учения о духовных вещах. Ничем же так не разъясняется, и понятным не делается, и в памяти не углубляется учение, как подобиями тех вещей, которые чувствам нашим подлежат и перед глазами нашими находятся. Поэтому видим, что и в священных книгах премного таких подобий имеется, которыми спасительное учение разъясняется, и небесные и духовные вещи земными и видимыми доказываются, как-то: слово Божие уподобляется семени, грешники – болящим, непросвещенные благодатью Божией – слепым, неизвестный день второго Христова пришествия – вору, в ночи приходящему, и прочее.

3) Вещь одна другой подобна бывает не во всем, а только в некоторых свойствах: поэтому и о подобиях, как здесь, в этом параграфе, так и в прочих приведенных местах, разуметь должно то же, что и они только в неких свойствах сходны с теми вещами, которые разъясняют.