Complete Works of Saint Cyprian

let it be held fast by a just way of life, lest the security once received should give birth to negligence and the old enemy should creep back again.
But if you hold to the path of innocence and justice with an unwavering firmness of step, if you are suspended in God with all your strength and with your whole heart, and if you are only that which you have begun to be, as much is given to you for liberty as the spiritual grace increases. For there is not, as is the custom with earthly benefits, any measure or limit in grasping the gift from God. The spirit flowing abundantly is not pressed by any boundaries, nor is it restrained by enclosing walls within the certain spaces of markers a metaphor from the turning posts of a chariot race. It flows continuously, it overflows in abundance: our breast need only be thirsty and open. As much of a capacious faith as we bring there, so much of the inundating grace do we draw. From there, the ability is now given, with sober chastity, an upright mind, and a pure voice, to be able to extinguish the virus of poisons for the healing of the suffering, to purge the stains of erring minds by restored health, to command peace to the hostile, rest to the violent, gentleness to the ferocious, and to compel the unclean and erratic spirits that have immersed themselves in the conquering of men to confess under the threats of those who rebuke them, to urge them with harsh lashes to depart, to extend those who are struggling, wailing, and groaning by the increase of their extending pain, to strike them with whips, to burn them with fire. The action is performed there and is not seen: the plague is hidden and the punishment is manifest. Thus, that which we have already begun to be, the received spirit enjoys its own liberty: because we have not yet changed this body and these limbs, the carnal vision is still blinded by the cloud of the age. How great is this power of the soul, how great is the force, not only to be oneself withdrawn from the pernicious contacts of the world, so that one, expiated and pure, may not be captured by any stain of an encroaching enemy, but to become even greater and stronger in powers, so that one may rule with imperial right over the entire army of the raging adversary.