Sermon 35

SERMO 35

ABOUT WHAT IS WRITTEN IN THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON:
"If you will be wise, you will be so for yourself and for your neighbors."
But if you turn out to be evil, you alone will suffer bad things.

The good life of a neighbor brings joy, the perverse life brings sorrow.

If divine words are not heard negligently, perhaps not unreasonably, that which is written may strike: Son, if you are wise, you will be wise for yourself and for your neighbors; but if you become evil, you alone will bear the evils. For how can this rightly be understood? Since just as the good life of a neighbor delights us, so also does the perverse sadden us. Or if this is thought to be said because of persuasion, because the wise are both for themselves and for those they persuade in wisdom, in what way, if they become evil, will they alone bear the evils, when it is said concerning such persuasions: Bad company corrupts good morals? For what else does that voice of charity proclaim: If one member is glorified, all the members rejoice; and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it? How then is it true: Son, if you are wise, you will be wise for yourself and for your neighbors; but if you become evil, you alone will bear the evils? How will I rejoice in his good, whose evil will not cause me sorrow? How will I delight in the one found who can be lost securely by me? Surely if he is wise, he will be a healthy member, in whom the other members will rejoice? How then will an evil person alone bear the evils, when similarly the other members will sympathize with the sick member?

On the true love of one's neighbor.

Therefore, unless this question is resolved, it will disturb. However, with the help of the Lord, it will be resolved if we first hold firmly, fixed, and immovable to the most certain truth—that neither can anyone be good by another's good, nor evil by another's evil. For the Apostle says: Each one of us shall bear his own burden. And elsewhere: Therefore each one of us will give an account of himself to God. And again: Let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in another. This is also stated through the prophet Ezekiel: The soul of the father is mine, and the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sins, it shall die. He explains this whole passage in such a way as to show that bad children are not helped by the good of their parents, nor are the good ones oppressed by the bad. With this most truthful sentence firmly and primarily established for our sake, it remains to consider what duty we bestow on others, diligently distinguishing what effect we strive for our own salvation and what affection we show to our neighbors. If you are good, you are certainly not good by another's good, but by your own good. Nevertheless, by that very good whereby you are good, you also rejoice in another's good, not from borrowed goodness, but from shared love. Likewise, if you are evil, you are not evil by another's evil, but by your own. By the same your evil, you do not love your neighbor as yourself. Indeed, you do not even love yourself. For you love iniquity, your fiercest enemy, not directed at you from outside, but made by you inwardly for yourself. To conquer you more easily, you favor it against yourself. Thus, you are evidently convinced that you hate yourself when you love that by which you are disgracefully conquered. Indeed, the divine word would not deceive, where it is said: He who loves iniquity hates his own soul.

We ought to hate evil, to love good.

Hence it is that a good person, through the goodness by which they are good, rejoices in another's goodness and grieves for another's evil. And thus, by using such a neighbor—since he is truly called a neighbor who watches over you closely, that is, looks upon you mercifully—if you are wise, you will be both to yourself and to him. Not because he will be good through your goodness, but because by his own goodness he will be a lover of your goodness. But if he is evil, you will have escaped; you will suffer evil not with him but alone. For he will not suffer greater evil through your evil, but he will be merciful in your sorrow. Your malice grieves him, but his own punishment does not follow. It brings him sadness but does not share injustice with him. Therefore, the evil person will suffer evil alone, not alongside the good of his neighbor, because the sadness that a good person feels for you is due to his own goodness and your evil. That sadness of his indicates his love and your destruction. It condemns you and crowns him; it depresses you and raises him. Hence it is also written: Be obedient to your leaders, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they do this with joy and not with grief; for that would be unprofitable for you. Therefore, it is not profitable for you to be burdened by their grief. For it is fitting for them to grieve over your injustice. Therefore, deem good people as neighbors, and be good for your own good, not theirs, and this goodness is not given by you to yourself, but imparted by divine grace. For what do you have that you did not receive? And thus, if you are wise, you will be wise to yourself and to your neighbors, for whom it is good to be nourished by your goodness. But if you become evil, you will suffer evil alone; it will not be for those for whom it is good to be grieved by your malice.