fall to the presbytery. To abstain from unlawful things is little, unless, being zealous for the better gifts, we know how to use lawful things sparingly and to edification.[1] We therefore lovingly in the Lord beseech our beloved clergy to observe the aforesaid prohibitions not only in the letter, but also in the spirit, interpreting them with piety."
On these little comment can be made without weakening their searching force. There is only one point which may be noted. We are exhorted to observe these prohibitions secundum spiritum—as those who are even now being judged before your Divine Master by the "law of liberty;" and not this only, but pie interpretantes, reading their inmost meaning with a loving desire to fulfil, and even if we can to go beyond, what they literally require. The slothful servant and the mistrustful, the grudging and the cold-hearted, go by the letter, and search for probable opinions to evade the letter, littera occidet. And thus our generous Master is ungenerously served.
11. "A hard and morose spirit is unbecoming in a priest who labours in the midst of the people; a modest cheerfulness, if only in season, is not to be
- ↑ "Habent sancti viri hoc proprium ut quo semper ab illicitis Jonge sint a se pleramque etiam licita abscindant."—S. Greg. M. Dialog. lib. iv. c. xi.
