(Admonition 12.) The sincere are to be admonished in one way, and the insincere in another. The sincere are to be praised because they are zealous never to say what is false, but they are to be admonished to know that they must sometimes keep back what is true. For just as falsehood has always injured him who speaks it, so at times truths heard have harmed certain persons. Whence the Lord, tempering his speech with silence before his disciples, said: 'I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now' (John 16:12). The sincere, then, are to be admonished that, just as they always usefully avoid falsehood, so they should always usefully bring forth the truth.
They are to be admonished to join prudence to the good of simplicity, so that they may so possess security from simplicity as not to lose the circumspection of prudence. For hence it is said through the teacher of the Gentiles: 'I would have you wise unto good, and simple in evil' (Rom. 16:19). Hence the Truth admonishes his elect through himself, saying: 'Be prudent as serpents, and simple as doves' (Matt. 10:16). For surely in the hearts of the elect the cunning of the serpent ought both to sharpen the simplicity of the dove, and the simplicity of the dove to temper the cunning of the serpent, so that they may neither, being seduced, grow crafty through prudence, nor grow numb, out of simplicity, from the zeal of understanding.
But on the contrary the insincere are to be admonished to recognize how grievous is the labour of duplicity which they undergo along with guilt. For while they fear to be caught out, they always seek dishonest defenses, they are always agitated by fearful suspicions. But there is nothing safer for defending than purity, nothing easier for speaking than truth. For while a man is compelled to protect his falsehood, his heart is wearied with hard labour. For hence it is written: 'The labour of their own lips shall cover them' (Ps. 139:10). For that which now fills them, then covers them, because him whose mind it now lays bare through pleasing disquiet, it then presses down through harsh retribution. Hence it is said through Jeremiah: 'They have taught their tongue to speak lies; they have laboured to commit iniquity' (Jer. 9:5).
As if it were plainly said: Those who could have been friends of truth without labour, labour in order to sin; and while they refuse to live simply, they toil by their labours that they may die. For often, being caught in a fault, while they shrink from being known for what they are, they hide themselves under the veil of falsehood, and strive to excuse that which they commit, and which is already openly discerned; so that often he who is zealous to correct their faults, seduced by the mists of scattered falsehood, seems almost to have lost what he already held as certain concerning them. Whence rightly, under the figure of Judea, it is said through the prophet against a sinning and self-excusing soul: 'There the hedgehog had its hole' (Isa. 34:15).
For by the name of the hedgehog is designated the duplicity of the impure mind that cunningly defends itself; because indeed, when the hedgehog is seized, both its head is seen, and its feet are visible, and its whole body is beheld; but as soon as it has been seized, it collects itself into a ball, draws its feet inward, hides its head, and all at once within the hands of the one holding it there is lost the whole that all at once was before in view. So indeed, so are impure minds, when they are caught in their excesses. For the head of the hedgehog is seen, because it is perceived by what beginning the sinner approached the fault.
The feet of the hedgehog are beheld, because it is recognized by what tracks the wickedness was perpetrated; and yet, sudden excuses being brought forward, the impure mind draws its feet inward, because it hides all the traces of its iniquity. It withdraws its head, because by wondrous defenses it shows that it did not even conceive any evil. And it remains like a ball in the hand of the one holding it, because he who corrects, suddenly losing all that he had already recognized, holds the sinner wrapped up within his conscience; and he who by catching him out had already seen the whole, being deluded by the evasion of a depraved defense, at once knows nothing of the whole. The hedgehog, then, has its hole among the reprobate, because the duplicity of the malicious mind, collecting itself within itself, hides in the darkness of defense.
Let the impure hear what is written: 'He who walks in simplicity walks confidently' (Prov. 10:9). For the confidence of great security is simplicity of action. Let them hear what is said by the mouth of the wise man: 'The holy spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful' (Wisd. 1:5). Let them hear what Scripture again bears witness: 'His communication is with the simple' (Prov. 3:32). For God to hold communication is, through the illumination of his presence, to reveal secret things to human minds. He is said, therefore, to hold communication with the simple; because he illuminates with the ray of his visitation, concerning the heavenly mysteries, the minds of those whom no shadow of duplicity darkens.
But there is a special evil of the double-hearted, that while by perverse and double action they deceive others, they glory that they are, as it were, more excellently prudent than the rest; and because they do not consider the strictness of retribution, they wretchedly exult over their own losses. But let them hear how against them the prophet Zephaniah directs the force of the divine reproof, saying: 'Behold, the day of the Lord comes, great and terrible, the day of wrath, that day, a day of darkness and of gloom, a day of cloud and of whirlwind, a day of the trumpet and of alarm against all fortified cities, and against all high corners' (Zeph. 1:14-16).
For what is expressed by fortified cities, but suspicious minds always surrounded by a deceitful defense, which, as often as their fault is corrected, do not admit to themselves the darts of truth? And what is signified by high corners (for in corners a wall is always double) but impure hearts? which, while they flee the simplicity of truth, are in a manner folded back upon themselves by the perversity of duplicity, and, what is worse, in their thoughts, in the pride of prudence, exalt themselves out of that very fault of impurity.
The day of the Lord's vengeance and reproof, therefore, comes full upon the fortified cities and upon the high corners, because the wrath of the final judgment both destroys human hearts closed by defenses against the truth, and dissolves those enfolded in duplicities. For then the fortified cities fall, because minds impenetrable to God will be damned. Then the high corners collapse, because hearts which exalt themselves through the prudence of impurity are laid low by the sentence of justice.