Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 36

(Admonition 19.) The obstinate are to be admonished in one way, the inconstant in another. To the former it is to be said that they think more of themselves than they are, and therefore do not acquiesce in others' counsels; to the latter it is to be intimated that they greatly neglect themselves by despising themselves, and therefore are turned from their own judgment through the moments of time by the levity of their thoughts. To the former it is to be said that unless they esteemed themselves better than the rest, they would by no means subordinate the counsels of all to their own deliberation; to the latter it is to be said that if they at all attended to what they are, the breeze of mutability would by no means turn them through so many sides of variety. To the former it is said through Paul: 'Be not wise in your own conceits' (Rom. 12:16); but on the contrary the latter hear:

'Let us not be carried about with every wind of doctrine' (Eph. 4:14). Of the former it is said through Solomon: 'They shall eat the fruits of their own way, and shall be filled with their own counsels' (Prov. 1:31); of the latter, again, it is written by him: 'The heart of fools shall be unlike' (ibid. 15:7). For the heart of the wise is ever like itself, because while it acquiesces in right persuasions, it constantly directs itself in good work. But the heart of fools is unlike, because while it shows itself variable by mutability, it never remains what it had been. And since certain vices, just as they are begotten of themselves, so also arise from others, it must above all be known that we then better wipe them away by correction when we dry them up from the very fountain of their bitterness.

For obstinacy is begotten of pride, and inconstancy of levity. The obstinate, therefore, are to be admonished to recognize the haughtiness of their own thought, and to strive to conquer themselves; lest, while they scorn to be outwardly overcome by the right persuasions of others, they be inwardly held captive by pride. They are to be admonished to look carefully how the Son of Man, whose will is ever one with the Father's, that he might give us an example of breaking our own will, says: 'I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father' (John 5:30). And that he might still further commend the grace of this virtue, he foretold that he would keep this in the last judgment, saying:

'I can of my own self do nothing; but as I hear, I judge' (ibid.). With what conscience, then, does man disdain to acquiesce in another's will, when the Son of God and man, coming to display the glory of his own power, testifies that he does not judge of himself? But on the contrary the inconstant are to be admonished to strengthen their mind with gravity. For then do they dry up in themselves the offshoots of mutability, when they first cut away from the heart the root of levity; because a strong structure too is then built up, when first a solid place is provided in which the foundation ought to be laid. Unless, therefore, the levity of the mind is first guarded against, the inconstancy of thoughts is by no means overcome. From which Paul professed himself to have been a stranger, when he says:

'Did I use levity? Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea and nay?' (2 Cor. 1:17). As if he plainly said: For this reason I am not moved by the breeze of mutability, because I do not succumb to the vice of levity.