Sermons · Sermon 1792

1After this exhortation, I fear that I will not uplift with words, but will break with despair. Perhaps someone, or one, or two, or certainly more, in this frequent assembly of yours judges me and says, "I would like to know if he who speaks to me does all that he himself hears or tells others." To this, I respond: "For me, it is a very small thing to be judged by you or by a human court. For I too, in some part, can know what I am now; what I will be tomorrow, I do not know. But your Lord has given you security concerning me. For if I do what I say or what I hear, be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. But if I speak and do not do, listen to the Lord: What they say, do; but do not do what they do. Therefore, if you think well of me, you praise me; if you think ill of me, you accuse me, but you do not excuse yourself. For how will you excuse yourself if you turn the accusation against a preacher of truth speaking the word of God to you and doing his own evil deeds, when your Lord, your redeemer, the pourer of the ransom, who assembles you into his army and makes of his servant his brother, does not cease to remind you and says: What they say, do; but do not do what they do? For they say, he says, and do not do. They say good things, they do bad things; you listen to the good things and do not do the bad things." Here you will respond: "How do I hear good from a bad man? Do men gather grapes from thorns?"