August 18

Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.—Galatians 5:26.

It is a sad thing, and replete with disgrace of every kind, to be in love with glory in civil matters. But when even in spiritual you are in the same plight, what excuse is there left remaining for you, when you are not minded to yield God even as much honor as you have yourselves from your servants? For even the slave looketh to the eyes of his master, and the hireling to his employer, who is to pay him wages, and the disciple to his master. But you do just the contrary. Having left the God that hired thee, even thy Master, thou lookest to thy fellow-servants; and this knowing that God remembers thy well-doings even after this life, but man only for the present. And when thou hast spectators assembled in heaven, thou art gathering together spectators upon earth. And where the wrestler struggles, there he would be honored; but thou, while thy wrestling is above, art anxious to gain thee a crown below. And what can be worse than madness like this? But let us look, if it seem proper, at the crown also. For one is formed by haughtiness, and a second by grudging against another, and a third by dissimulation and flattery, another again by wealth, and another by servile obsequiousness. And like as children at their childish play put crowns of grass upon one another, and many a time laugh at him that is crowned behind his back; thus now also they that pass their praises upon thee, many a time joke by themselves at their putting the grass upon us. And would it were grass only? But now the crown is laden with much mischief, and ruins all our well-doings. Taking then the vileness of it into consideration, flee from the damage entailed. For how many would you have to praise you? A hundred? or twice, or thrice, or four times as many? Or rather, if you please, put them at ten times or twenty times as many, and let there be two or four thousands, or if you will even ten thousand to applaud you. Still these are no better than so many dams cawing from above. Or rather, taking the assemblage of the angels into consideration, these will seem more vile than even worms, and their good word of not so much solidity as a cob-web, or a smoke, or a dream. Hear then how Paul, who saw through these things thoroughly, is so far from seeking after them, that he even deprecates them, in the words, But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ. This glory then be thou also emulous of, that thou mayest not provoke the Master, because in so doing thou art insulting God, and not thyself alone. For if thou even wert a painter, and hadst some pupil, and he were to omit showing thee his practice of the art, but set forth his painting publicly just to any body that chanced to observe it, thou wouldst not take it quietly. But if this even with fellow-servants were an insult, how much more with the Master!

But if you have a mind to learn on other grounds to feel scorn of the thing, be of a lofty mind, laugh at appearances, increase thy love of real glory, be filled with a spiritual temper, say to thy soul as Paul did, Knowest thou not that we shall judge the angels? and having by this roused it up, go on to rebuke it, and say, Thou that judgest the angels, wilt thou let thyself be judged of off-scourings, and be praised with dancers, and mimics, and gladiators, and horse-drivers? For these men do follow after applauses of this sort. But do thou poise thy wing high above the din of these, and emulate that citizen of the wilderness, John, and learn how he was above regarding the multitude, and did not turn him to look at flatterers, but when he saw all the dwellers of Palestine poured forth about him, and wondering, and astonished at him, he was not puffed up with such honor as this, but rose up against them, and discoursing to his great concourse as if to one youth, he rebuked them, and said, Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! Yet it was for him that they had run together, and left the cities, in order to see that holy personage, and still none of these things unnerved him. For he was far above glory, and far from all vanity. So also Stephen, when he saw the same people again, not honoring him, but mad upon him, and gnashing their teeth, being lifted above their wrath, said, Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart. Thus also Elias, when those armies were present, and the king, and all the people, said, How long halt ye upon both your hips? But we flatter all, court all, with this vile obsequiousness buying their honor. Wherefore all things are turned upside down, and we have fallen from this grace, and the business of Christianity is treacherously given up, and every thing neglected for the opinion of the multitude. Let us then banish this passion, and then we shall have a right notion of liberty, and of the heaven, and the calm. For the vain man is ever like persons in a storm, trembling, and fearing, and serving a thousand masters. But he that is clear of this thralldom, is like men in havens, enjoying a liberty untainted. Not so that person, but as many acquaintances as he has, so many masters has he, and he is forced to be a slave to all of them. How then are we to get free from this hard bondage?

It is by growing enamored of another glory, which is really glory. For as with those that are enamored with persons, the sight of some handsomer one doth by its being seen take them off from the first; so with those that court the glory which cometh from us men, the glory from heaven, if it gleameth on them, has power to lead them off from this. Let us then look to this, and become thoroughly acquainted with it, that by feeling admiration of its beauty, we may shun the hideousness of the other, and have the benefit of much pleasure by enjoying this continuously. Which may we all attain, by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also be glory to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit, now and always even unto all ages. Amen.