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| Chapter XVI.
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Chapter XVI.
Take heed that ye love
not human glory in any respect, lest your portion also be reckoned
among those to whom it was said, “How218
can ye believe, who seek glory, one from another?”
and of whom it is said
through the prophet, “Increase219
evils to them;
increase evils to the boastful of the earth”; and elsewhere,
“Ye are confounded220
from your boasting,
from your reproaching in the sight of the Lord.” For I do not
wish you to have regard to those, who are virgins of the world, and not
of Christ; who unmindful of their purpose and profession, rejoice in
delicacies, are delighted with riches, and boast of their descent from
a merely carnal nobility; who, if they assuredly believed themselves to
be the daughters of God, would never, after their divine ancestry,
admire mere human nobility, nor glory in any honored earthly father: if
they felt that they had God as their Father, they would not love any
nobility connected with the flesh. Why, thou foolish woman, dost thou
flatter thyself about the nobleness of thy descent, and take delight in
it? God, at the beginning, created two human beings, from whom the
whole multitude of the human race has descended; and thus it is not the
equity of nature, but the ambition of evil desire, which has given rise
to worldly nobility. Unquestionably, we are all rendered equal by the
grace of the divine221
| 221 “divini
lavacri”: referring to baptism. | bath, and there can
be no difference among those, whom the second birth has generated, by
means of which alike the rich man and the poor man, the free man and
the slave, the nobly born and the lowly born, is rendered a son of God.
Thus mere earthly rank is overshadowed by the brilliance of heavenly
glory, and henceforth is taken no account of, while those who formerly
had been unequal in worldly honors are now equally arrayed in the glory
of a heavenly and divine nobility. There is now among such no place for
lowness of birth; nor is any one inferior to another whom the majesty
of the divine birth adorns; except in the estimation of those who do
not think that the things of heaven are to be preferred to those of
earth. There can be no worldly boasting among them, if they reflect how
vain a thing it is that they should, in smaller matters, prefer
themselves to those whom they know to be equal to themselves in greater
matters, and should regard, as placed below themselves on earth, those
whom they believe to be equal to themselves in what relates to heaven.
But do thou, who art a virgin of Christ, and not of the world, flee
from all the glory of this present life, that thou mayest attain to the
glory which is promised in the world to come.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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