and time, rebuke should be made when it seems likely to be useful.
Up to this point it is to be noted that human obedience is threefold—spiritual, secular and ecclesiastical—spiritual, which is due purely according to God’s law, and under this kind of obedience Christ and the apostles lived and each Christian should live. Secular obedience is obedience due according to the secular code. Ecclesiastical obedience is obedience according to the regulations of the priests of the church aside from the express authority of Scripture. The first kind of obedience always excludes what is of itself evil, both on the part of the person giving the command and on the part of the person obeying. For he who commands according to God's law and he who obeys act rightly, and of both it is said: "Thou shalt do whatsoever the priests the Levites have taught, according to all I have taught them," Deut. 29 [Deut. 24:8].
Here it is affirmed that he who commands ought only to command things in agreement with the law, and the person obeying ought to the same extent to obey them and never act contrary to the will of God Almighty. On this I have in another place quoted Augustine, Gregory, Jerome, Chrysostom, Isidore, Bernard and Bede, as well as the Scripture and the canons. These for the sake of brevity I will pass. Only let the saying of Isidore be given, 11: 3 [Friedberg, 1: 672]: "He who presides, if he command anything or say anything otherwise than in accordance to God's will or what is plainly commanded in Holy Scripture, he shall be regarded as a false witness of God, or as committing sacrilege."
