Page:King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care (2).djvu/459

books; he said: "Beware of doing your righteousness before men, lest they praise you." But what kind of works can they be, which in one place we are forbidden to do before men, while in another we are taught to conceal them that we may not be praised, and display them that God may be praised, and others may take the same example! When God forbade us to perform our righteousness before men, he showed us why he forbade it, when he said, "lest they praise you." And again, when he bade us do it before men, he said immediately afterwards, "that they may honour your Father who is in heaven." With these two sentences he showed us why we are to hide our good works, and why we are to proclaim them; that every man, whatever good he wishes to do, may not do it merely to be praised, but rather for the sake of God. Therefore every good work is good, whether it be open or concealed. When a man does not seek his own glory thereby, but that of the lofty Father, although he does it openly, he conceals it by having the testimony of him whom he thinks to please that he did it for the sake of God, not for glory. But if it is done secretly, and he yet desires to be blamed, and afterwards praised on that account, though no man knows it, yet it is done before men, just as if it had been done with the cognizance of all those whose praise he desired in his mind. Therefore it is better, as we have said above, for every man to wipe away from the minds of others the unfavourable opinion of himself, as far as he can without sin, because, if he does not do so, by his example he makes all imbibe the sin who attribute to him any evil. Therefore it often happens that, when a man does not care how much evil is attributed to him, although he does not do any himself, he sins through those who follow his example. Therefore St. Paul said to his disciples, when he allowed some of them to partake of what he did not wish them all to partake of, lest the weak should imitate their example, and through that be disturbed by some temptation, which they would not afterwards be able to withstand; therefore he said: "See now that this your privilege be not a temptation to others." And again he said on the same subject: "Then will thy brother perish on thine account, for whom Christ formerly suffered. So when ye sin against your brothers, and slay their weak intellects, ye sin against God." Of the same Moses