[299] These and similar injunctions to piety are given in the law in the form of direct commands and prohibitions. Others which have now to be described are of the nature of homilies giving admonitions and exhortations. Addressing himself to the mind of man he says, “God asks nothing from thee that is heavy or complicated or difficult, but only something quite simple and easy.
[300] And this is just to love Him as a benefactor, or failing this to fear Him at least as a ruler and lord, and to tread in every way that will lead thee to please Him, to serve Him not half-heartedly but with thy whole soul filled with the determination to love Him and to cling to His commandments and to honour justice.”
[Among all these things God Himself remains with a nature which changes not. But of all else that is in the universe, what is there that changes for the better? Sun or moon or the multitude of the other stars or the whole heaven? And on earth do the mountains grow to a loftier height or the lowlands widen forth as liquids spread when poured out? Is the sea converted into fresh water or do the rivers become equal in magnitude to the seas? No, each remains firmly stayed in the same limits in which they were set at the very first when He made them. But thou, by living a blameless life, wilt change for the better.]
[301] Which of these is painful or laborious? You have not to cross great waters where no ship has sailed and in the heart of winter to brave the deep, tossed up and down by the surging of the waves and the violence of opposing winds, or to foot it over rough and untrodden wilds where no road is, in perpetual dread of assault from robbers or wild beasts, or to pass the night unsheltered as a sentry on the walls, threatened with the gravest perils from the enemy ever watchful for their chance. No, away with such thoughts. In good matters let there be no talk of discomfort, nothing but happy words to describe things so profitable.
[302] Only must the soul give its assent and everything is there ready to your hand. Do you not know that to God belongs both the heaven perceived by sense and that known to thought alone, which may quite properly be called the “heaven of heaven,” again the earth and its contents and all the universe, both the visible and the invisible and immaterial, the pattern of the visible?