in your ears—Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles.
SERMON 198
ON 1 JANUARY, AGAINST THE PAGANS
Date: 420-4251
The pagan celebration of New Year
1. I would urge your graces, brothers and sisters, since I observe that you have come together here today as if it were a feast, and have gathered for this particular day in greater numbers than usual, to remember what you sang just now. Don't let it be a case of noisy tongues and dumb minds; rather, what your voices have been shouting in one another's ears, let your feelings cry out in the ears of God. This, after all, is what you were saying: Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles,2 that we may confess your holy name (Ps 106:47).
And now, if the festival of the Gentiles which is taking place today in the joys of the world and the flesh,3 with the din of silly and disgraceful songs, with disgraceful junketing and dances, with the celebration of this false feast day4—if the things the Gentiles are doing today do not meet with your approval, you will be gathered from among the Gentiles,
Three sentiments of the soul: believing, hoping, loving
2. You certainly sang—and the sound of the divine song must still be echoing in your ears—Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles. Can you be gathered from among the Gentiles without being saved, made safe and sound? So those who mix with the Gentiles are not safe and sound; while those who are gathered from among the Gentiles are made safe with the sound¬ ness of faith, the soundness of hope, the soundness of the most genuine charity, a spiritual soundness, the utterly reliable soundness of the promises of God.
So if you believe, hope, and love, it doesn't mean that you are immediately to be declared safe and sound and saved. It makes a difference, you see, what you believe, what you hope, what you love. Nobody in fact can live any style of life without those three sentiments of the soul; of believing, hoping, loving. If you don't believe what the Gentiles believe, don't hope what the Gentiles hope, don't love what the Gentiles love; then you are gathered from among the