mother and doing the will of God, has taught us that every man should do the will of God, when he perceives that what God requires is something else than what our parents wish. Mary and Joseph did not want Jesus to remain in the temple but God wanted him to remain. Therefore, Jesus said to his father and mother that it behooved him to remain in the temple to instruct the doctors as the Father had commanded. Against this instruction priests very frequently offend who esteem men’s precepts more highly than God’s commands and obey man rather than God. And priests lead men to a false and sinful obedience, for many of them preach that the people should hearken to all the pope commands and obey him, inasmuch as the pope cannot err. They do not seem to know that many popes have been heretics. Other priests preach that laymen should yield obedience even when a bishop or a pope commands something that is evil, for in obeying they commit no sin and only he commits sin who issues the evil command. That is the devil’s yoke, for the devil seeks to lead men into evil and does not concern himself upon whom the guilt of sin rests. Neither the one who commands nor the one who obeys is without sin, as said the Saviour, Matt. 15: 14: ‘When a blind man leads the blind both fall into the ditch.’ Here the Saviour was speaking of those prelates who, like the scribes and Pharisees, lead the people by their precepts to transgress the commands of God.”
In a sermon on Matt. 13: 24–30 concerning the tares which were not to be pulled up lest the wheat also be pulled up with them, the interesting line of remark is followed that the tares are also in a certain degree useful to the wheat. They protect the wheat against the wind so that it can stand upright. At first it is not possible to distinguish the two and, in pulling up the tares, the wheat is apt to be trodden under foot or its growth in a measure hindered. In like manner bad men, if they are sparsely scattered amongst the good, are helpful to the good unto their lasting salvation, for they help
