Again, let the fresh ripeness of the soul be “roasted,” that is tested by the might of reason, as gold is tested by the furnace. The sign that it has been tested and approved is its solidity. For as the grain in the full-grown ears is roasted, that it may no longer be soft and flaccid, and this result can only be attained by fire, so too young aspirations to the ripeness of virtue must be made solid and steadfast by the invincible power of reason. Reason indeed not only can harden within the soul the principles it has acquired and save them from looseness and dissolution, but it also has the vigour to reduce to weakness the impulses of unreasoning passion. Behold the Practiser Jacob “seething” these impulses, and then the next moment we find Esau “fainting” (Gen. 25:29). For the bad man is based on vice and passion and, when he sees the props on which he rests conquered and robbed of strength by the reason which convicts them, he must in natural consequence find the bonds loosened which knit his strength together. But again this reason must not be a confused mass, but divided into its proper sections. This is the meaning of “slicing” the offering. Order is better than disorder everywhere, but especially in that nature of swiftest outflow, reason.
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 24
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