us. For what can hurt him who hath chosen the riches, the honor, the glory, the pleasure of the life to come? They are all firm, in them there is no variableness; all things here subject to reverse, and are for ever changing. For what wouldest thou have? glory? The Psalmist says, “His glory shall not descend after him.” (Ps. xlix. 17.) And often it abides not with him whilst he lives. But it is not so with virtue, all things which pertain to her are permanent. Here, he who obtains glory from his office, upon another succeeding to his office, becomes a private man and inglorious. The rich man is reduced to poverty by the attack of robbers, or the snares of sycophants and knaves. It is not so with Christians. The temperate man, if he take heed to himself, will not be robbed of his virtue. He who rules himself, cannot become a common man and a subject. And that this rule is superior to any other, will appear upon examination. For of what advantage, tell me, is it to reign over nations of our fellow-men, and to be the slaves of our own passions? Or what are we the worse for having no one under our rule, if we are superior to the tyranny of the passions? That indeed is Freedom, that is Rule, that is Royalty and Sovereignty. The contrary is slavery, though a man be invested with countless diadems. For when a multitude of masters sway him from within, the love of money, the love of pleasure, 473 and anger, and other passions, what avails his diadem? The tyranny of those passions is more severe, when not even his crown has power to deliver him from their subjection. As if one who had been a king should be reduced to slavery by barbarians, and they wishing to show their power the more absolutely, should not strip him of his purple robe and his diadem, but oblige him to work in them, and to perform all menial offices, to draw water, and to cook their food, that his disgrace and their honor might be the more apparent: so do our passions domineer over us more barbarously than any barbarians. For he that despises them can despise the barbarians too; but he that submits to them, will suffer more severely than from barbarians. The barbarian, when his power prevails, may afflict the body, but these passions torture the soul, and lacerate it all over. When the barbarian has prevailed, he de- livers one to temporal death, but these to that which is to come. So that he alone is the free man, who has his freedom in himself; and he who submits to these unreasonable passions, is the slave. No master, however inhuman, imposes such severe and inhuman commands. They say to him, in effect, “Disgrace thy soul without end or object,—offend thy God,—be deaf to the claims of nature; though it be thy father or thy mother, be not ashamed to set thyself against them.” Such are the commands of avarice. “Sacrifice to me, she says, not calves, but men.” The prophet indeed says, “Sacrifice men, for the calves have failed.” (Hosea xiii. 2, Sept.) But avarice says, “Sacrifice men, though there are yet calves. Sacrifice those who have never injured thee, yea slay them, though they have been thy benefactors.” Or again, “Be at war, and go about as the common enemy of all, of nature herself, and of God. Heap up gold, not that thou mayest enjoy it, but that thou mayest keep it, and work greater torture to 819 1 Timothy 6:13-16