36. Since these things are
so, suffer me awhile, holy brother, (for the Lord giveth me through
thee great boldness,) to address these same our sons and brethren
whom I know with what love thou together with us dost travail in
birth withal, until the Apostolic discipline be formed in them. O
servants of God, soldiers of Christ, is it thus ye dissemble the
plottings of our most crafty foe, who fearing your good fame, that
so goodly odor of Christ, lest good souls should say, “We will
run after the odor of thine ointments,”2592
| 2592 Song of Sol. 1.3,4" id="v.vii.xxxvii-p2.1" parsed="|Song|1|3|1|4" osisRef="Bible:Song.1.3-Song.1.4">Cant. i. 3, 4 |
and so should
escape his
snares,
and in every way desiring to obscure it with his own stenches, hath
dispersed on every side so many
hypocrites under the garb of monks,
strolling about the
provinces, no where sent, no where
fixed, no
where standing, no where sitting. Some hawking about limbs of
martyrs, if indeed of martyrs; others magnifying their fringes and
phylacteries;
2593
| 2593 Reg. S. Ben. c. l. Cass. Coll.
xviii. 7. |
others
with a
lying story, how they have heard say that their
parents or
kinsmen are alive in this or that
country, and therefore be they on
their way to them: and all asking, all exacting, either the
costs
of their lucrative want, or the
price of their pretended sanctity.
And in the meanwhile wheresoever they be found out in their
evil
deeds, or in whatever way they become notorious, under the general
name of monks, your purpose is
blasphemed, a purpose so good, so
holy, that in
Christ’s name we desire it, as through other
lands
so through all Africa, to grow and flourish. Then are ye not
inflamed with godly
jealousy? Does not your
heart wax hot within
you, and in your meditation a
fire kindle,
2594
that these men’s
evil works ye
should
pursue with good works, that ye should
cut off from them
occasion of a foul trafficking, by which your estimation is hurt,
and a stumbling-block put before the
weak? Have
mercy then and have
compassion, and show to
mankind that ye are not seeking in ease a
ready subsistence, but through the strait and narrow way of this
purpose, are seeking the
kingdom of
God. Ye have the same cause
which the
Apostle had, to cut off occasion from them which seek
occasion, that they who by their stinks are suffocated, by your
good odor may be refreshed.
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