«Prepare to meet your God, O Israel» (Amos 4:12). Paul the Apostle indeed says, where he describes the coming of the Redeemer (1 Thess. 4:15-17), how «we shall be caught up to the clouds to meet Christ in the air.» Here I think that meeting pertains to another one on the threshold. For here too, while living, we as it were meet God, if we embrace the precept that is held out to us; and because He is ready to pardon, let correction unto repentance meet Him. But also whoever, for the love of eternal life, not only abstains from unlawful things but even restrains himself from lawful ones, is to be judged to have met Him willingly. For, to take any one instance by way of example, when adultery is generally forbidden, simple marriage is permitted by law;
yet to it the splendor of virginity is preferred beyond all comparison: whence «he who gives his virgin in marriage does well, and he who gives her not does better» (1 Cor. 7:38). This, then, we ought to feel concerning every observance. He who does ill, flees; he who does well, waits; he who does better, goes to meet Him.