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| If Unveiling Be Proper, Why Not Practise It Always, Out of the Church as Well as in It?
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Chapter XIII.—If
Unveiling Be Proper, Why Not Practise It Always, Out of the Church as
Well as in It?
If on account of men318
| 318 As distinguished from
the “on account of the angels” of c. xi. | they
adopt a false garb, let them carry out that garb fully even for that
end;319
| 319 i.e., for the sake
of the brethren, who (after all) are men, as the
heathens are (Oehler, after Rig.). | and as they veil their head in presence of
heathens, let them at all events in the church conceal
their virginity, which they do veil outside the church. They fear
strangers: let them stand in awe of the brethren too; or else let
them have the consistent hardihood to appear as virgins in the
streets as well, as they have the hardihood to do in the
churches. I will praise their vigour, if they succeed in selling
aught of virginity among the heathens withal.320
| 320 i.e., as Rig. quoted by
Oehler explains it, in inducing the heathens to practise it. |
Identity of nature abroad as at home, identity of custom in the
presence of men as of the Lord, consists in identity of liberty.
To what purpose, then, do they thrust their glory out of sight abroad,
but expose it in the church? I demand a reason. Is it to
please the brethren, or God Himself? If God Himself, He is as
capable of beholding whatever is done in secret, as He is just to
remunerate what is done for His sole honour. In fine, He enjoins
us not to trumpet forth321
any one of those
things which will merit reward in His sight, nor get compensation for
them from men. But if we are prohibited from letting “our
left hand know” when we bestow the gift of a single halfpenny, or
any eleemosynary bounty whatever, how deep should be the darkness in
which we ought to enshroud ourselves when we are offering God so great
an oblation of our very body and our very spirit—when we are
consecrating to Him our very nature! It follows, therefore, that
what cannot appear to be done for God’s sake (because God wills
not that it be done in such a way) is done for the sake of men,—a
thing, of course, primarily unlawful, as betraying a lust of
glory. For glory is a thing unlawful to those whose probation
consists in humiliation of every kind. And if it is by God that
the virtue of continence is conferred, “why gloriest thou, as if
thou have not received?”322
If, however,
you have not received it, “what hast thou which has not
been given thee?” But by this very fact it is plain that it
has not been given you by God—that it is not to God
alone that you offer it. Let us see, then, whether what is
human be firm and true.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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