[223] But indeed so vast in its excess is the stability of the Deity that He imparts to chosen natures a share of His steadfastness to be their richest possession. For instance, He says of His covenant filled with His bounties, the highest law and principle, that is, which rules existent things, that this God-like image shall be firmly planted with the just soul as its pedestal. For so He declares when he says to Noah, “I will establish My covenant on thee” (Gen. 9:11).
[224] And these words have two further meanings. First that justice and God’s covenant are identical; secondly that while the gifts bestowed by others are not the same as the recipients’, God gives not only the gifts, but in them gives the recipients to themselves. For He has given myself to me and everything that is to itself, since “I will establish my covenant with thee” is the same as “I will give thyself to thee.”
[225] And it is the earnest desire of all the God-beloved to fly from the stormy waters of engrossing business with its perpetual turmoil of surge and billow, and anchor in the calm safe shelter of virtue’s roadsteads.
[226] See what is said of wise Abraham, how he was “standing in front of God” (Gen. 18:22), for when should we expect a mind to stand and no longer sway as on the balance save when it is opposite God, seeing and being seen?
[227] For it gets its equipoise from these two sources: from seeing, because when it sees the Incomparable it does not yield to the counter-pull of things like itself; from being seen, because the mind which the Ruler judges worthy to come within His sight He claims for the solely best, that is for Himself.
To Moses, too, this divine command was given: “Stand thou here with Me” (Deut. 5:31), and this brings out both the points suggested above, namely the unswerving quality of the man of worth, and the absolute stability of Him that IS.