(Admonition 16.) Otherwise are they to be admonished who, though they are able to preach worthily, are afraid because of excessive humility; and otherwise are they to be admonished whom imperfection or age forbids to preach, and yet precipitancy urges on. For those are to be admonished who, though they can preach with profit, nevertheless draw back through immoderate humility; that from a lesser consideration they may gather how much they abandon in greater matters. For if they were themselves to hide the money they had from neighbours in need, they would without doubt prove abettors of their calamity. Let them therefore consider by what guilt they are bound, who, while they withhold the word of preaching from sinning brethren, hide from dying souls the remedies of life. Whence a certain wise man well says:
'Wisdom that is hidden, and treasure that is unseen: what profit is in them both?' (Sir. 20:32). If famine were wasting the people, and they kept the hidden grain to themselves, they would without doubt prove the authors of death. Let them therefore consider with what penalty they must be punished who, while souls perish for the hunger of the word, do not minister the bread of the grace they have received. Whence it is well said through Solomon: 'He that hideth up grain shall be cursed among the peoples' (Prov. 11:26). For to hide up grain is to keep to oneself the words of holy preaching. And such a one is cursed among the peoples, because in the guilt of silence alone he is condemned to the punishment due for the many whom he could have corrected.
If those not at all unskilled in the medical art should see a wound needing to be cut, and yet refuse to cut it, surely by their mere sloth they would commit the sin of a brother's death. Let them therefore consider by how great a fault they are entangled who, while they know the wounds of minds, neglect to cure them by the incision of words. Whence it is well said through the prophet: 'Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood' (Jer. 48:10). For to keep back the sword from blood is to withhold the word of preaching from the slaying of the carnal life. Of which sword again it is said: 'And my sword shall devour flesh' (Deut. 32:42).
These, therefore, when they conceal within themselves the word of preaching, let them terribly hear the divine sentences against themselves, so that fear may drive fear out of their hearts. Let them hear that he who would not pay out his talent lost it, with the sentence of damnation (Matt. 25:24ff.). Let them hear that Paul believed himself clean from the blood of his neighbours by striking at their vices: 'I am clean from the blood of all men; for I have not shrunk from declaring unto you all the counsel of God' (Acts 20:26-27). Let them hear that John is admonished by an angelic voice, when it is said: 'He that heareth, let him say, Come' (Rev. 22:17). So that assuredly he to whom the inner voice makes itself known may by his crying draw others thither also, whither he himself is caught up;
lest, though called, he find the doors shut, if he approaches the Caller empty. Let them hear that Isaiah, because he had been silent in the mystery of the word, being illumined by the light from above, reproached himself with a great voice of penitence, saying: 'Woe is me, because I have held my peace' (Isa. 6:5). Let them hear that through Solomon the knowledge of preaching is promised to be multiplied in him who is not held by the vice of sloth in that which he has already obtained. For he says: 'The soul that blesseth shall be made fat; and he that maketh drunk, he also shall be made drunk' (Prov. 11:25). For he who blesses by preaching outwardly receives the fatness of inner increase; and while he ceases not to make drunk the mind of his hearers with the wine of eloquence, he grows fat, made drunk himself with the draught of a multiplied gift.
Let them hear that David offered this to God as a gift, that he did not hide the grace of preaching which he had received, saying: 'Behold, I will not restrain my lips; O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy justice within my heart; I have declared thy truth and thy salvation' (Ps. 39:10-11). Let them hear that in the discourse of the Bridegroom it is said to the Bride: 'Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the friends hearken; make me to hear thy voice' (Cant. 8:13). For the Church dwells in gardens, who, cultivated unto inward verdure, keeps the plantings of the virtues. For her friends to hearken to her voice is for each of the elect to desire the word of her preaching: which voice indeed the Bridegroom desires to hear, because he pants for her preaching through the souls of his elect.
Let them hear that Moses, when he saw God angry with the people and bidding them be taken up with the sword for vengeance, declared those to be on God's side who would without delay strike the crimes of the offenders, saying: 'If any man be of the Lord, let him join himself to me; let every man put his sword upon his thigh; go and return from gate to gate through the midst of the camp, and let every one slay his brother, and his friend, and his neighbour' (Exod. 32:26-27). For to put the sword upon the thigh is to set the zeal of preaching before the pleasures of the flesh; so that whoever strives to speak holy things must needs take care to subdue unlawful promptings.
But to go from gate to gate is to run through, in rebuking, from vice to vice, through which death enters into the mind. And to pass through the midst of the camp is to live within the Church with such evenness that he who reproves the faults of offenders should incline to no man's favour. Whence it is rightly added: 'Let every man slay his brother, and his friend, and his neighbour.' For he slays brother and friend and neighbour who, when he finds things to be punished, spares not even those whom he loves by kinship from the sword of rebuke. If, then, he is called of God who is stirred by the zeal of divine love to strike at vices, surely he denies himself to be of God who, so far as he is able, refuses to rebuke the life of carnal men.
But on the contrary, they are to be admonished whom either imperfection or age forbids from the office of preaching, and yet precipitancy urges on, lest, while by their haste they arrogate to themselves the burden of so great an office, they cut off from themselves the way of subsequent improvement; and while they seize untimely upon what they are not able for, they lose also what they might sometime have fulfilled in due season; and while they attempt unfittingly to display their knowledge, they be shown justly to have lost it. They are to be admonished to consider that the young of birds, if they seek to fly before the perfecting of their wings, sink into the depths from whence they desire to go on high.
They are to be admonished to consider that, if upon new buildings not yet consolidated the weight of beams is set, not a habitation but a ruin is fashioned. They are to be admonished to consider that if women bring forth the offspring conceived before it is fully formed, they fill not houses but tombs. Hence it is that Truth itself, who could suddenly have strengthened whomsoever he willed, in order to give an example to those who should follow, that the imperfect might not presume to preach, after he had fully instructed his disciples in the power of preaching, straightway added: 'But tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power from on high' (Luke 24:49).
For we sit in the city if we confine ourselves within the enclosures of our minds, lest by speaking we wander abroad; so that when we are perfectly clothed with the divine power, we may then go forth, as it were out of ourselves, to instruct others also. Hence it is said through a certain wise man: 'Young man, speak scarcely in thine own cause; and if thou be asked twice, let thine answer have a beginning' (Sir. 32:10). Hence it is that our same Redeemer, though he be the Creator in the heavens, and by the showing forth of his power ever the teacher of the angels, would not become on earth the master of men before his thirtieth year;
namely, that he might instil into the precipitate the force of a most wholesome fear, since he himself also, who could not fall, would not preach the grace of the perfect life save at a perfect age. For it is written: 'When he was twelve years old, the boy Jesus remained in Jerusalem' (Luke 2:42). Concerning whom, when he was sought by his parents, a little after it is added: 'They found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions' (ibid., 46). It is therefore to be weighed with vigilant consideration, that when Jesus at twelve years old is said to sit in the midst of the doctors, he is found not teaching, but asking questions.
By which example it is surely shown that the weak should not dare to teach, if that boy willed to be taught by asking questions, who through the power of the Godhead ministered the word of knowledge to his very teachers. But when it is said through Paul to a disciple, 'Command these things and teach: let no man despise thy youth' (1 Tim. 4:11-12), we must know that in sacred speech sometimes youth is called adolescence. Which is more quickly shown, if the words of Solomon be brought into the midst, who says: 'Rejoice, O young man, in thy adolescence' (Eccl. 11:9). For if the two were not decreed to be one, he whom he was admonishing in adolescence he would not call a young man. (Admonition 27.) Otherwise are they to be admonished who prosper in that which they temporally desire;
and otherwise those who indeed covet the things that are of the world, but nevertheless are wearied by the labour of adversity. For those are to be admonished who prosper in that which they temporally desire, lest, when all things are supplied to their wish, they neglect to seek the Giver; but let them fix their mind upon these things which are given, lest they love their pilgrimage instead of their homeland, lest they turn the supports of the journey into obstacles to their arrival, lest, delighted by the nocturnal light of the moon, they shrink from beholding the brightness of the sun. They are therefore to be admonished that they should believe whatever they attain in this world to be solaces of their calamity, and not rewards of retribution; but against the favours of the world let them raise up their mind, lest in them they succumb with the whole delight of their heart.
For whoever does not, in the judgment of his heart, restrain by the love of a better life the prosperity he enjoys, turns the favour of a passing life into an occasion of everlasting death. For hence it is that under the figure of the Idumaeans, who left those to be conquered by their own prosperity, rejoicing in the successes of this world, they are rebuked when it is said: 'They gave my land to thee for an inheritance, with joy, and with the whole heart, and with the mind' (Ezek. 36:5). By which words it is weighed that not only because they rejoice, but because they rejoice with the whole heart and with the mind, they are struck with a stern reproof. Hence Solomon says: 'The turning away of the little ones shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them' (Prov. 1:32). Hence Paul admonishes, saying:
'They that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as though they used it not' (1 Cor. 7:30-31). So that indeed the things which are supplied to us may serve us outwardly, in such wise that they do not turn our mind away from the zeal of the heavenly delight, lest they temper for us the mourning of our inner pilgrimage; yet let them furnish support to us set in exile; and let us, as it were happy in things transitory, rejoice as those who meanwhile see ourselves wretched, being kept back from things eternal. For hence it is that the Church says in the voice of the elect: 'His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me' (Cant. 2:6). She set, as it were under her head, the left hand of God, that is, the prosperity of the present life, which she presses down with the intention of the highest love. But the right hand of God embraces her;
because she is held with all devotion under his eternal blessedness. Hence again it is said through Solomon: 'Length of days is in his right hand, and in his left hand riches and glory' (Prov. 3:16). He therefore taught in what manner riches and glory are to be held, which he recorded as placed in the left hand. Hence the Psalmist says: 'Save me by thy right hand' (Ps. 107:7). For he says not 'by thy hand,' but 'by thy right hand'; that indeed, when he said 'right hand,' he might indicate that he sought eternal salvation. Hence again it is written: 'Thy right hand, O Lord, hath broken the enemies in pieces' (Exod. 15:6, according to the LXX).
For the enemies of God, even if they advance in his left hand, are broken by the right; because for the most part the present life exalts the wicked, but the coming of eternal blessedness condemns them. They are to be admonished who prosper in this world, to consider skilfully that the prosperity of the present life is sometimes given for this end, that it may summon to a better life, but sometimes that it may more fully condemn unto eternity. For hence it is that the land of Canaan is promised to the Israelite people, that they might sometime be summoned to hope for things eternal. For that rude people would not believe the promises of God for the far distance, if from their Promiser they had not received something also near at hand.
Therefore, that he may be more surely strengthened unto faith in things eternal, he is drawn not only by hope to things, but also by things to hope. Which the Psalmist plainly testifies, saying: 'He gave them the lands of the nations, and they possessed the labours of the peoples: that they might keep his justifications, and seek out his law' (Ps. 104:44-45). But when the human mind does not follow God who bestows with the response of a good work, it is the more justly condemned from that whence it was piously believed to be nourished. For hence it is again said through the Psalmist: 'Thou didst cast them down when they were lifted up' (Ps. 72:18). Because indeed the reprobate, when they do not repay right works to the divine gifts, when here they wholly desert themselves and let themselves go amid abounding prosperities, from that whence they advance outwardly, thence they fall from their inmost parts.
Hence it is that in hell it is said to the tormented rich man: 'Thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime' (Luke 16:25). For therefore did the wicked man here receive good things, that there he might more fully receive evil things, because here he had not been converted even by good things. But on the contrary, they are to be admonished who indeed covet the things that are of the world, but nevertheless are wearied by the labour of adversity, that with anxious consideration they may weigh how great a grace of the Creator and Disposer of all things watches over them, whom he does not relax into their own desires. For to a sick man whom the physician despairs of, he grants that he receive all things he covets. For he who is believed able to be healed is forbidden many things he desires: and we withdraw coins from children, for whom we reserve whole patrimonies at once as heirs.
Hence, therefore, let them take joy from the hope of the eternal inheritance, whom the adversity of temporal life humbles; because unless the divine dispensation saw them to be saved unto perpetuity, it would not curb them, to be instructed under the governance of discipline. They are therefore to be admonished who are wearied by the labour of adversity in the things they temporally covet, to consider carefully that for the most part temporal power, when it exalts even the just, seizes upon them by fault as though in a snare. For as we have already said in the former part of this volume (Part 1, ch. 3), David, dear to God, was more upright in servitude than when he came to the kingdom (1 Sam. 24:18). For as a servant, out of love of justice, he feared to strike the adversary caught in his hand;
but as a prince, by the persuasion of lust, he even extinguished a devoted soldier under the pursuit of fraud (2 Sam. 11:17). Who then may seek wealth, who power, who glory, without harm, if these proved harmful even to him who had them unsought? Who among these shall be saved without the labour of great peril, if he was troubled amid them by the intervention of fault, who had been prepared for them by God's choosing? They are to be admonished to consider that Solomon, who after so great wisdom is described to have fallen even unto idolatry, is recorded to have had no adversity in this world before he fell; but wisdom being granted, that utterly deserted his heart which no discipline, even the least, of tribulation had guarded (1 Kings 11:4).
(Admonition 28.) Otherwise are they to be admonished who are bound by marriages, and otherwise those free from the bonds of marriage. For those are to be admonished who are bound by marriages, that while they in turn take thought for the things that are the other's, each of them should so study to please the spouse as not to displease the Creator; that they so conduct the things that are of this world as yet not to omit to seek the things that are of God; that they so rejoice in present goods as yet with anxious intention to fear eternal evils; that they so mourn over temporal evils as yet with full consolation to fix their hope in things eternal; so that, while they know that what they do is in transit, but what they seek is in an abiding dwelling; neither may the evils of the world break their heart, since the hope of heavenly goods strengthens it;
nor may the goods of the present life deceive them, since the suspected evils of the ensuing judgment sadden them. And so the mind of Christian spouses is both weak and faithful, which is neither able fully to despise all temporal things, and yet is able to join itself to things eternal through desire; and although it meanwhile lies in the delight of the flesh, it recovers by the heavenly refreshment of hope. And if it has the things that are of the world in the use of the journey, it hopes for the things that are of God in the fruit of the arrival; nor does it wholly give itself to that which it does, lest it fall utterly from that which it ought robustly to have hoped for. Which Paul well and briefly expresses, saying: 'They that have wives, let them be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not' (1 Cor.
7:29-30). For he has a wife as though not having her, who so uses carnal consolation through her that yet he is never by love of her bent from the rectitude of a better intention to depraved works. He has a wife as though not having her, who, seeing all things to be transitory, endures the care of the flesh out of necessity, but awaits eternal joys out of desire of the spirit. But to weep without weeping is so to lament outward adversities as yet to know how to rejoice in the consolation of eternal hope. And again, to rejoice without rejoicing is so to raise the mind from the lowest things as yet never to cease to fear the highest. Where fitly also a little after he adds: 'For the fashion of this world passeth away' (ibid., 31). As if he openly said:
Do not steadfastly love the world, since it too cannot stand, which you love. In vain do you fix your heart as upon abiding things, while that very thing which you love flees away. Spouses are to be admonished that in those matters wherein they sometimes displease each other, they should both patiently bear with one another, and by exhorting one another save one another. For it is written: 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so shall ye fulfil the law of Christ' (Gal. 6:2). For the law of Christ is charity; because from it he both bountifully bestowed his good things upon us, and evenly bore our evils. Then therefore do we fulfil the law of Christ by imitation, when we both kindly confer our own good things, and piously endure the evils of our neighbours.
They are also to be admonished that each of them attend not so much to what he bears from the other, as to what is borne from himself. For if he considers his own things which are borne, he more lightly bears those which he endures from the other. Spouses are to be admonished that they remember themselves joined for the cause of receiving offspring, and when, being enslaved to immoderate intercourse, they transfer the moment of procreation into the use of pleasure, let them weigh that, although they do not go outside, yet in the very marriage they transgress the rights of marriage. Whence it is necessary that by frequent prayers they blot out that whereby they defile the fair form of the union with pleasures mingled in.
For hence it is that the Apostle, skilled in the heavenly medicine, instructed not so much the sound as showed remedies to the weak, saying: 'Concerning the things whereof ye wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman; but because of fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband' (1 Cor. 7:1ff., etc.). For he who set the fear of fornication before it, surely conferred a precept not upon those who stand; but lest perhaps they should fall to the earth, he showed a bed to those falling. Whence to those still weak he added: 'Let the husband render the debt to the wife, and likewise also the wife to the husband' (ibid., 3). To whom, while in the great honourableness of marriage he bestowed something of pleasure, he added:
'But this I say by way of indulgence, not by way of command' (ibid., 6). For that is intimated to be a fault which is declared to be indulged; but which is so much the more quickly relaxed, the more it is not something unlawful done through it, but rather that which is lawful is not held under moderation. Which Lot well expresses in himself, who fled the burning Sodom; but yet, finding Zoar, did not straightway ascend the mountains (Gen. 19:20). For to flee the burning Sodom is to shun the unlawful fires of the flesh. But the height of the mountains is the purity of the continent. Or certainly they are as though on the mountain who even cleave to carnal union, but yet, apart from the intercourse due for the receiving of offspring, are loosed by no pleasure of the flesh.
For to stand on the mountain is to seek nothing in the flesh but the fruit of propagation. To stand on the mountain is not to cleave carnally to the flesh. But because there are many who indeed forsake the crimes of the flesh, yet, being placed in marriage, keep only the rights of the debt due, Lot went out of Sodom, but yet did not straightway come to the mountains, because a damnable life is now left behind, but the loftiness of conjugal continence is not yet subtly held. There is, however, in the midst, the city of Zoar, which may save the weak one fleeing, because indeed, when spouses mingle with each other through incontinence, they both flee the lapses of crimes, and yet are saved by pardon.
For they find, as it were, a small city in which they may be defended from the fires, because this conjugal life is not indeed wonderful in virtues, but yet secure from punishments. Whence the same Lot says to the angel: 'There is this city near, to which I can flee, a little one; and I shall be saved in it. Is it not a small one, and my soul shall live in it?' (Gen. 19:20). It is therefore called 'near,' and yet is declared safe unto salvation, because the conjugal life is neither far divided from the world, nor yet alien from the joy of salvation. But then in this action do spouses guard their life, as it were in a small city, when they intercede for themselves by assiduous supplications. Whence it is rightly said through the angel to the same Lot:
'Behold, in this also have I received thy prayers, that I overthrow not the city for which thou hast spoken' (ibid., 21). Namely, since when supplication is poured out to God, such a conjugal life is by no means condemned. Of which supplication Paul also admonishes, saying: 'Defraud not one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that ye may be at leisure for prayer' (1 Cor. 7:5). But on the contrary, they are to be admonished who are not bound by marriages, that they may the more rightly serve the heavenly precepts, in that the yoke of carnal union in no way inclines them to the cares of the world; that those whom the lawful burden of marriage does not weigh down, the unlawful weight of earthly solicitude may in no way press; but that the last day may find them so much the readier, as it finds them also the more unencumbered;
lest, where they can do better things being at leisure, but yet neglect them, they thereby merit worse punishments. Let them hear that the Apostle, when he was instructing certain ones unto the grace of celibacy, did not spurn marriage, but repelled the cares of the world arising from marriage, saying: 'This I say for your profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you; but for that which is honourable, and which may furnish the power of serving the Lord without impediment' (ibid., 35). For from marriages proceed earthly solicitudes; and therefore the teacher of the Gentiles persuaded his hearers unto better things, lest they be bound by earthly care.
Whomsoever, therefore, the impediment of secular cares hinders as a celibate, and who has by no means subjected himself to marriage, yet has not escaped the burdens of marriage. Celibates are to be admonished, lest they think that without the judgment of damnation they may mingle with women being at leisure. For when Paul inserted the vice of fornication among so many crimes to be execrated, he indicated of what guilt it is, saying: 'Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God' (1 Cor. 6:9-10). And again: 'But fornicators and adulterers God will judge' (Heb. 13:4).
They are therefore to be admonished that, if they endure the storms of temptations with difficulty to their salvation, they should seek the harbour of marriage. For it is written: 'It is better to marry than to burn' (1 Cor. 7:9). Without fault indeed do they come to marriage, provided nevertheless they have not yet vowed better things. For whoever has proposed to undertake a greater good, has made the lesser good, which was lawful, unlawful. For it is written: 'No man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven' (Luke 9:62). He therefore who had striven with stronger zeal is convicted of looking back, if, the greater goods being left, he twists back to the least.