CHAPTER XXI

THE ENEMIES OF RELIGIOUS SPREAD ABROAD AGAINST THEM REPORTS, OF WHICH THE TRUTH IS DOUBTFUL. FOR INSTANCE, THEY ACCUSE RELIGIOUS OF SEEKING POPULARITY, AND OF DESIRING TO GAIN GLORY FOR THEMSELVES, INSTEAD OF LABOURING FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

WE will next consider how the enemies of religious propagate against them accusations, of which the truth is doubtful.

             Doubt exists about future events, and also about the workings of a man's heart. Nevertheless, the enemies of the religious life, do not hesitate to assert, that religious will, eventually, become both immoral and unbelieving. They, also, profess to be able to read the hearts of religious, and accuse them of desiring popularity, of seeking their own glory instead of the glory of God, and of many other things of the like nature. Such accusations convict their authors of rash judgment. "Let us not, therefore, judge one another, any more," says St. Paul (Rom. xiv. 13). The Gloss hereon observes: "We judge rashly, if we pass sentence on the secret things of another man's heart; or if we foretell what a man, who now seems either good or bad, will be in the future." Such judgments proceed, either from pride, or envy; and the authors of them prefer rather to blame, and to backbite other men, than to correct or improve them. They, likewise, lay claim to the power of Almighty God, to whom alone it belongs to read the future and the secrets of man's heart. Isaias says (xli. 23), "Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that ye are gods." Jeremias, likewise, says (xvii. 9): "The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable; who can know it? I am the Lord who search the heart." St. Paul writes (1 Cor. iv. 5), "Judge not before the time." The Gloss remarks on these words: "It is an insult to the judge, if his slave presume to anticipate him in pronouncing sentence." These words apply to those who pass judgment, on causes, which the Lord reserves to Himself.