The Steps of Humility and Pride V:17 45
The Steps of Humility and Pride V:17
up together in him126 and he burst out into the sweeping but true statement: "Every man is a liar."
17. This is very different from the conceit of the proud Pharisee. You remember the words he spoke "in his excess":
"I give you thanks, O God, that I am not like the rest of men."127 He had admiration for himself alone, for others only insults. That was not how David spoke. His words were: "Every man is a liar." He excepted no man. He did not try to deceive anyone, because he knew that "all have sinned and need the glory of God."128 The Pharisee damned all others, excepting only himself, and fooling only himself. The Prophet shared the common mercy because he included himself in the common misery. The Pharisee waved aside mercy when he denied his misery. The Prophet said of everyone, including himself:
"Every man is a liar." The Pharisee spoke of everyone except himself: "I am not like the rest of men." He gave thanks, not that he was good but that he was peerless. His gratitude was inspired not by any good he saw in himself but by the evil he saw in others. He has not yet taken the beam from his own eye but is busy counting the motes in his brothers' eyes 1 2 9- "unjust, robbers."1301 am afraid I am "speaking in my excess" now myself and have wandered away from my subject. Still, no harm is done if I have conveyed to you the difference between the two kinds of "excess."
18. Well! let us come back to the point. When in the light of Truth men know themselves and so thin). less of themselves it will certainly follow that what they loved before will now become bitter to them. They are brought face to face with themselves and blush at what they see. Their present state is no pleasure to them. They aspire to something better and at the same time realize how little they can rely on themselves to achieve it. It hurts them and they find some relief in judging themselves severely. Love of truth makes them hunger and 126. Eccles 1:18.
127. Lk 18:11. Cf. Ann 3:10; OB 5:41f;CF 22.
12a Rom 3:23.
129. Mt 7:5.
13ft Lk 18:11.
The Steps of Humility and Pride VI: 19 thirst after justice131 and conceive a deep contempt for themselves. They are anxious to exact from themselves full satisfaction and real amendment. They admit that to make satisfaction is beyond their own powers—when they have done all that is commanded them they acknowledge that they are still unprofitable servants.132 They fly from justice to mercy, by the road Truth shows them: "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy."133 They look beyond their own needs to the needs of their neighbors and from the things they themselves have suffered they learn compassion: they have come to the second degree of truth.
VI.
19. If they persevere in these things: sorrow of repentance, desire for justice and works of mercy, they will cleanse their hearts from the three impediments of ignorance, weakness and jealousy and will come through contemplation to the third degree of truth. There are ways that seem good to men,134 to the kind of men, I mean, who rejoice when they do ill and exult in evil things, and make excuses for their sins.135 They try to hide behind the plea of weakness and ignorance.136
They had better not flatter themselves. The excuse of ignorance and weakness will not avail if they remain deliberately weak and ignorant so as to sin more freely. It did not do much good for the first man to plead that he was not acting with full freedom because he was led astray by his wife, that is, through the weakness of the flesh.137 Were those who stoned the first martyr, because they stopped their ears, excused by their ignorance?138 When men realize how far they have fallen away from truth by a strong love for sin their remedy is to put that strength into their repentance and turn that love of sin into contrition. They have been weighed down by weak131. Mt 5:6.
132. Lk 17:10.
133. Mt 5:7. Cf. Conv 29; OB 4:104f; CF 43.
134. Prov 14:12; 16:25.
135. Prov 2:14.
136. Ps 140:4.
137. Gen 3:12ff.
138. Acts 7:57.