13. have for you: according to that passage of holy writ, the servant of the Lord ought not to love strife and quarrels, but to be gentle, affable, and patient towards all mankind, and to reprove with modesty those who differ from him in opinion.'—Let them only treat you with rigour, who know not how difficult it is to find out the truth, and avoid error. Let those treat you with rigour, who are ignorant how rare and painful a work it is calmly to dissipate the carnal phantoms, that disturb even a pious mind. Let those treat you with rigour, who are ignorant of the extreme difficulty that there is to purify the eye of the inward man, to render him capable of seeing the truth, which is the sun, or light of the soul. Let those treat you with rigour, who have never felt the sighs and groans that a soul must have before it can obtain any knowledge of the Divine Being. To conclude, let those treat you with rigour who never have been seduced into errors, near akin to those you are engaged in. I pass over in silence that pure wisdom, which but a few spiritual men attain to in this life; so that though they know but in part, because they are men; yet nevertheless they know what they do know with certainty for, in the catholic church, it is not penetration of mind, nor profound knowledge, but simplicity of faith, which puts men in a state of safety.
"Barbari quippe homines, Romanæ, imo potius humanæ eruditionis expertes, qui nihil omnino sciunt, nisi quod à doctoribus suis audiunt: quod audiunt hoc sequuntur, ac sic necesse est eos qui totius literaturæ ac scientiæ ignari, sacramentum divinæ legis doctrina, magis quam lectione, cognoscunt, doctrinam potius retinere, quam legem. Itaque eis traditio magistrorum suorum et doctrina invete-
V. 16.
