Sermons to the People 17.1–18.4

We have sung, brothers, "God will come manifestly, our God, and will not keep silent." Scripture foretold that God, Christ, will come to judge the living and the dead. For when he came before to be judged, he was hidden: when he comes to judge, he will be manifest. How hidden he was then, understand from what the Apostle says: "For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." Then he kept silent when questioned, as the Gospel says, and the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled in him, saying: "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer he was without voice, so he did not open his mouth." So he will come manifestly, and will not keep silent. "He will not keep silent" was said for this reason, because he kept silent when judged. For as regards his words necessary for us, when has he kept silent? He did not keep silent through the patriarchs, he did not keep silent through the mouth of his flesh: and if he kept silent now, Scripture would not speak. The reader goes up, and he does not keep silent. The preacher speaks; if he speaks the truth, Christ speaks. If Christ kept silent, I would not be saying these things to you. Nor has he kept silent through your mouth: for when you were singing, he was speaking. He does not keep silent; we need to hear, but with the ear of the heart: for it is easy to hear with the ears of the flesh. We ought to hear with those ears which the Master himself was looking for when he said: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." For who stood before him, when he was saying this, without fleshly ears? All had ears, and few had them: not all had ears to hear, that is, to obey.

How terribly he spoke through the prophet Ezekiel! I believe you paid attention; I believe you heard how he said, "I will send you to the house of Israel, not to a people of a deeper language will I send you. But that people will not listen to you, because they will not listen to me." What does this show but that God himself was speaking through the prophet? But because we, above all, were terrified by those very prophetic words, that is, the overseers whom he set to speak to his people, we first see our own face in those words. For a mirror, as it were, was shown to us as the reader read, in which we might look at ourselves; and we have looked at ourselves: you look at yourselves. See, I am doing what I heard there. "If you do not warn," he says, "the righteous; if you do not say to the sinner, 'You shall surely die,' and show him so that he turns from his iniquities, he will indeed die in his sins, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you have spoken, and he has despised it and not obeyed, he will die in his crimes, but you will have freed your soul." I tell you, I am freeing my soul. For if I keep silent, I am placed not in great danger, but in ruin. But when I have spoken and fulfilled my duty, you now attend to your danger. What do I want? What do I desire? What do I long for? Why do I speak? Why do I sit here? Why do I live? If not with this intention, that we may live together with Christ? This is my longing, this is my honor, this is my glory, this is my joy, this is my possession. But if you do not hear me, and still I have not kept silent, I shall free my soul. But I do not want to be saved without you.

So do not make light, my brothers, of the sins that you have perhaps already made a habit of. For every sin becomes cheap through habit, and becomes to a man as though it were nothing: he has grown hard, he has already lost the pain. What is very rotten does not even hurt: what does not hurt is not to be held sound, but to be counted dead. Pay attention to what Scripture says, and see there how you ought to live. Who does not make light of the sin of drunkenness? Such a sin abounds, and is made light of. The drunken heart has already lost its feeling; it has no pain, because it has no health either. When something is pricked and hurts, either it is sound or there is some hope of health in it: but when it is touched, pricked, plucked at, and does not hurt, it is to be held dead and cut off from the body. But sometimes we spare, and know only how to speak: we are slow to excommunicate, to cast out of the Church. For sometimes we fear that the one who is beaten will become worse by the very scourge. And although such people are already dead in soul, still, because our Doctor is almighty, we must not despair of them, but beg with all our strength that the Lord may deign to open the ears of the heart which they are shown to have closed. But will he whom we ought to fear spare, will he keep silent? You heard in that same Psalm, my brothers, when he listed the sins of the sinner, he said, "These things you have done, and I kept silent." Against this it was said, "He will come, and will not keep silent." By his presence he will not keep silent. For apart from the fact that the Lord Christ is signified, because he kept silent at his trial, so that that prophecy too might be fulfilled in him which I mentioned a little before; apart from this, God himself, the Lord Christ, in his own person, now keeps silent. For he has ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, whence he will come to judge the living and the dead: as long as he is there, until he comes, he keeps silent. We hear his voice in the books; we do not hear it from his mouth. You heard his voice from the holy Scriptures in this passage: you hear it when you remind yourselves of these things, and perhaps talk about them among yourselves.

Whoever wants to be heard by God, dearly beloved, let him first hear God. Do you hear him when you commit adultery, and think you are hidden because no man sees you? He sees you, but he keeps silent. When you steal, you watch the eyes of the one you are robbing; and if you escape his notice, you do it: if you do not do it only because you are afraid of being seen, you have done it within, you have done it in your heart; you are held a thief, and you have taken nothing: but you too, if opportunity were given to carry out your evil deed, would steal, and you are glad because he keeps silent. So hear the Psalm: it has warned you, you, whoever you are, who perhaps stand here today and did something last night; it has warned you, it has said to you, "These things you have done, and I kept silent. You suspected iniquity, that I would be like you." O people, you who have these words I am about to say neither in your mouth nor in your heart, you are happy. Do not people who do evil every day, or who regret having done good, and by a perverse repentance pour out what they had milked, do they not say every day, and gnaw these murmurs among themselves: "Truly, if these things displeased God, would he allow them to be done, or would those who do them be happy on earth? We see robbers, we see oppressors of the weak, we see men who drive out their neighbors, we see violent invaders of boundaries, we see slanderers; and yet they are powerful, rich, happy in this land. If God truly saw these things, if he cared about them, would he spare them?" They add this too, which is worse: "Only the wicked are pleasing." And if it happens that someone does good, and perhaps some trial follows, he has it ready to hand at once: "It does not pay to do good; whoever does good gains nothing by it." Is it not enough for you that you want to do evil, but you curse those who do good? "These things you have done," he says, "and I kept silent. You suspected iniquity, that I would be like you." What does "that I would be like you" mean? That evil pleases me as it pleases you: this is what you suspected. You said this in your heart: but I heard, when you said it in your heart. What is worse, they go so far in these words that they are not even afraid of being heard.

So you suspected wickedly that I would be like you. "I will rebuke you": in a way you do not expect, and when you do not expect it, I will rebuke you. I keep silent when you act: but I do not keep silent when I judge. "I will rebuke you." What will I do to you when I rebuke you? "I will set you before your face." For now, when you do evil, you think you are good, because you do not want to see yourself. You blame others, you do not look at yourself; you accuse others, you do not think about yourself; you put others before your eyes, you put yourself behind your back. When I rebuke you, I do the opposite; I take you from behind your back and put you before your eyes. You will see yourself, and lament yourself; and then there will be no way for you to correct yourself. So you despise the time of mercy; the time of judgment will come: because you sang to me in church, "Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, Lord." It comes out of our mouth, and churches everywhere resound to Christ, "Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, Lord." It is the time of mercy, so that we may be corrected: the time of judgment has not yet come. There is room, there is space: we have sinned, let us be corrected. The road is not yet finished, the day not yet closed, the last breath not yet drawn; let there be no despair, which is worse: since for those human and tolerable sins, which are the more frequent the milder they are, God has established in the Church, in the time when mercy is offered, a daily medicine, that we should say, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors": so that with our faces washed by these words we may approach the altar, and with our faces washed by these words we may communicate in the body and blood of Christ.

But what is more serious, people so despise this very medicine that they not only do not give pardon when they are sinned against, but will not even ask for it when they themselves sin. Temptation has come in, anger has crept in; wrath has gained as much mastery as it could, so that not only was the heart in turmoil, but the tongue also vomited insults and accusations. Do you not see where it drove you? Do you not see where it threw you headlong? At last correct it; say, "I did wrong, I have sinned." For you will not die if you say it: believe, not me, but God. What am I? I am a man, I am your equal, I carry flesh, I am weak: let us all believe God. Take heed to yourselves. The Lord Christ himself says, "Take heed to yourselves: if your brother sins, rebuke him between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother: if he does not listen to you, take with you two or three. On the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand. If he does not listen even to them, refer it to the Church. If he does not listen even to her, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector." A heathen is a Gentile; the Gentile is one who does not believe in Christ. If he does not listen even to the Church, count him dead. "But see, he is alive, see, he comes in, see, he signs himself with the cross, see, he kneels, see, he prays, see, he approaches the altar." But let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector. Do not attend to false signs in him: living, he is dead. How does he live? In what way does he live? If I say to someone in your presence, "You did this," he will answer afterwards, "How much was it? He should have warned me privately, told me privately that I did wrong, so that I might see my sin privately: why does he rebuke me before the people?" What if you did it, and did not correct it? What if you did it, and still persist? What if you did it, and still think in your heart you did well? Because he keeps silent, are you righteous? Because he does not now take vengeance, have you done nothing wrong? Are you not afraid of "I will rebuke you"? Are you not afraid of "I will set you before your face"? Are you not afraid?

"But the judgment is far off," you say. First, who told you that the day of judgment is far off? Even if the day of judgment is far off, is your own day far off? How do you know when it is? Have not many fallen asleep healthy and grown stiff? Do we not carry our falls with us in this flesh? Are we not more fragile than if we were made of glass? For glass, though it is fragile, lasts a long time if it is kept carefully: and you find cups from grandfathers and great-grandfathers from which grandsons and great-grandsons drink. Such fragility has been preserved through the years. But we human beings walk about fragile amid so many daily accidents; and even if those sudden accidents did not happen, we still could not live long. The whole of human life is short; from infancy to decrepit old age it is all short. If Adam were still alive and died today, what good would the length of life have done him? Add to this that the very day which seems to serve us naturally becomes uncertain when disease strikes. Every day people die: and those who are alive escort them to burial, celebrate their funerals, and promise themselves life. No one says, "Let me correct myself, lest tomorrow I be what this man is whom I have escorted to burial." Words please you; I look for deeds. Do not grieve me with your bad ways: for my delight in this life is nothing but your good life.

To encourage the minds of your Charity, receive gladly a few things from the present Psalm, which the Lord grants. It was prophesied of our Lord Jesus Christ in this Psalm, where we heard and sang, "God will come manifestly, our God, and will not keep silent." For the Lord Christ himself, our God, the Son of God, came hidden at his first coming; he will come manifest at his second coming. When he came hidden, he was known only to his servants: when he comes manifest, he will be known to good and bad. When he came hidden, he came to be judged: when he comes manifest, he will come to judge. In fact, when he was judged, he kept silent, and the prophet had foretold his silence: "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearer, so he did not open his mouth." But "our God will come manifestly, our God, and will not keep silent." As he kept silent when he was to be judged, so he will not keep silent when he is to judge. And now he does not keep silent, if there is anyone to hear: but it was said, "Then he will not keep silent," when even those who now despise him will recognize his voice. For now, when the commandments of God are spoken, some people laugh at them: and because what God promised is not now shown, and what he threatens is not now seen, what he commands is mocked. For now the bad also have what is called the happiness of this world; the good also have what is called the unhappiness of this world. People who believe in the present and do not believe in the future notice that good and bad alike have these goods and evils of the present age. If they want riches, they see that both the worst men and good men have riches; they also see, if they shudder at the poverty and miseries of this world, that not only the good but also the bad toil in these miseries: and they say in their hearts that God neither looks on human affairs nor governs them, but has left us altogether to be rolled about by chance in some deep pit of this world, and shows us no providence. And because of this, contempt for the commandment arises in them, because they do not see the manifestation of judgment.

Yet even now each one ought to notice that when God wills, he looks and judges, and does not delay for an hour; and when he wills, he delays. And why this? Because if he never judged in the present, it would be believed that there is no God: if he judged everything in the present, he would reserve nothing for the judgment. For many things are kept for the judgment, and some are judged in the present, so that those who are put off may fear and be converted. For God does not love to condemn, but to save: and so he is patient with the wicked, so as to make the wicked good. But the Apostle says that the wrath of God will be revealed against all ungodliness, and God will render to each according to his works. And he admonishes and rebukes the man who despises, and says, "Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and long-suffering?" Because he is good to you, because he is long-suffering toward you, because he is patient with you, because he puts you off and does not take you away, you despise him, and think there is no judgment of God at all: "not knowing that the patience of God leads you to repentance? But according to the hardness of your heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works."

Whatever a man does now, then, he puts into a treasury, but he does not know what he is gathering: just as the rich, who put into an earthly treasury, as it were know what they are gathering, but do not know for whom they are gathering. For they have no idea at all who will possess their riches after their death: and sometimes their riches come to their enemies. And so a man cheats himself, unwilling to eat, in order to grow rich, so that another may wallow and indulge and dissolve himself on his labors. So as they gather knowing what, but not knowing for whom, so on the contrary in the heavenly treasury the good know what they gather, the wicked do not know what they gather. For the good man puts in the heavenly treasury all the works of mercy that he has done for the people he has helped; and he knows that the keeper is faithful, who keeps for him everything he deposits. And he does not see them, but he is sure of his treasure, that nothing is stolen by a thief, nor seized by an enemy, nor taken by a hostile, wicked and powerful man as from one defeated; but it will always remain, because it is guarded by the most powerful Lord. For if people entrust money to a faithful servant and are secure, do they entrust their acts of mercy to the powerful Lord and remain anxious? So they know that whatever they deposit is all safe there: those who are faithful join their faith to the power of their Lord. For they believe that he keeps it, and they find what he keeps. For do even people who gather money always see the chest itself, or always gather and put money into the chest, or bury and keep it? They do not see it; and yet their conscience, as it were, knows that it is there in the place where they put it. And perhaps a thief has already taken it, and the empty man rejoices who has kept it in vain. But if we put anything in the heavenly treasury, we are secure in the Lord's keeping, and suffer no thief at all, nor sustain any loss. But the wicked too put all their evil works into the treasury, and God keeps them for them. This is what the Apostle said: "You are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of the wrath of the just judgment of God."

But since whatever the wicked do is kept, and they do not know it, when our God comes manifestly and does not keep silent, he will call all nations to himself, as he says in the Gospel, and separate them, putting some on the right, some on the left: and he will then begin to go through the treasuries of both, what each has put in to find again. "Come," he says to those on the right, "you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world." The kingdom of heaven, the everlasting kingdom, fellowship with the angels, eternal life, where no one is born and no one dies: receive this. For when you were putting your works into the treasury, you were buying the kingdom of heaven. "Receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world." He even shows them their treasuries: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was naked and you clothed me; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was in prison and you came to me; I was sick and you visited me." And they answer: "Lord, when did we see you in these needs and minister to you?" And he: "When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me." Since, then, when you did it to one of the least of mine you did it to me, receive what you sent ahead, possess what you bought. For that is why you trusted me, the Keeper. Then he will turn to those who are on the left, and show them their treasuries empty of good works: "Go," he says, "into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. I was hungry and you did not give me to eat." Or if you have found anything in this treasury, or sent anything ahead, think, and it will be given back to you. "But we never," they say, "saw you hungry." And he: "When you did not do it to one of the least of mine, you did not do it to me." Perhaps you did not do it for me because you did not see me walking on earth? You are so wicked that if you had seen me, you would have crucified me like the Jews. For today, wicked people who try, if it were possible, to have no churches where the commandments of God are preached to them, would they not kill Christ himself if they found him living on earth? But they will dare to say, as if to one who does not know human thoughts: "Lord, when did we see you hungry?" And he: "When you did not do it to one of the least of mine, you did not do it to me." "I had placed my least ones, needy, among you on earth: I, as the head," he will say, "was sitting in heaven at the right hand of the Father; but my members were toiling on earth, my members were in need on earth; you should have given to my members, and what you gave would have reached the head. And you should have known that when I placed my needy least ones among you on earth, I appointed them as porters for you, to carry your works into my treasury: you put nothing into their hands, and so you have found nothing with me." Then, therefore, he will not keep silent, but will appear: that is why it was said, "He will not keep silent." But now the reader says this from the book, and it is despised; the preacher or disputing bishop says it from his own mouth, and it is mocked. Will it be mocked like this when it is spoken by the most powerful Judge himself? "Each will receive what he has done, good or bad." Then people will say, in late and fruitless repentance: "Oh, if we could live again, and hear and do what we despised!" Then those whom their iniquities set on the other side will say, as is said in the book of Wisdom: "What did pride profit us? And what did the boasting of riches bring us? All those things have passed away like a shadow." You see that they will repent: but that repentance will torment, not heal. Do you want a useful repentance? Have it now. For if you have it now, you will be corrected: when you have been corrected, that treasury of yours where your evil works were gathered will be emptied, and your other treasury will be filled, where your good works are gathered. "But perhaps, as soon as I turn to God, I will die; will no works of mine perhaps be found in that treasury?" Certainly you will find your works there, for it is written, "Peace on earth to men of good will." God does not note your means, but crowns your will. He knows that you willed and could not; he notes you as if you had done what you willed. So it is necessary for you to be converted, lest by delaying you die suddenly, and nothing at all be found for you to have in the present and possess in the future. Turning to the Lord, etc.