You know that because man has a social nature, God creates the social part of that social nature. The socialness of man’s social nature comes from God. It’s absolutely integrated with the individualness of his human nature. The individualness and the familialness and the socialness of human nature are three integrated aspects; they’re not three separate chunks. It’s the whole of human nature which is both individual and familial and social. So the socialness of human nature is absolutely integrated into human nature. That human nature comes from God, socialness comes from God. Therefore, society comes from God.

Contrast Rousseau: society is an artificial thing which the noble savage only gets into trouble with when he walks out of his noble forest. Fantasy, absolute fantasy, but it’s a key fantasy. To deny the socialness of man is to create this insane individualistic world which is part of what’s got into these kids in Littleton. Living in these individualistic suburban homes, not forming part of any decent society, of any human society, with no proper expression for their socialness. That’s bad news. It’s going to twist and frustrate in the depths.

Therefore, society comes from God. Now, society absolutely needs authority, therefore the principle of authority comes from God. The need of authority comes from God. Therefore, authority is of God. That’s exactly what Paul says, exactly what Peter says. Whereas the modern world, authority comes purely from human beings. It’s radically false, radically false, that if human beings live in society, it’s purely by an agreement amongst themselves, the social contract. Fantasy, dangerous and deadly fantasy.

In my judgment, you’re lucky to have had Rousseau really taken to the cleans in front of you, because he is kind of the key to the modern world. Dr. Winowski, who is down at St. Mary’s, taught down the hill before. He used to come up here for Mass, and that’s how he finally got to St. Mary’s. He was down the hill and I asked him once, you know, I thought he may have written it, what is the number one influence down the hill? He said, „Rousseau.‟ The number one influence on all the madness going on in all of these stupid, crazy quote unquote universities, Rousseau. Rousseau, number one. All the madness of the modern world kind of funnels through that poor crazy man.

The mistake, if you don’t distinguish between those two formal aspects of the same material being—this human being taken materially is both a priest and a sinner—if you don’t distinguish between the priest and the poor sinner, then either you’re going to make sin stick to the priesthood, and then when he commits a sin, you throw the whole faith out of the window, which is a deadly mistake. Or you make the priesthood stick to the sin, that is to say since he’s a priest then it’s not really a sin what he’s doing. You’ve got to distinguish the two, and distinguish all the time between those two formal aspects, the two formalities of one material thing or human being, whatever it is.

So, for instance, you’ve got the pope. Materially, he’s just one being, he’s one man. He’s got two legs, two arms, one head. He’s about 78 years old, he’s Polish and so on. That’s taken materially. Taken formally, then there is the Vicar of Christ and the humanly hopeless dreamer, the hopeless dreamer. There are the two things. Now, if you don’t separate the two, if you make the dreamer stick to the Vicar of Christ, you’ll become a Liberal. Because you will say that this dream comes from Christ, the dream of ecumenism, the dream of religious liberty, the dream of building Orthodox churches for the Romanians… That’s the latest, last weekend or the weekend before. He goes there and promises a bunch of Vatican money to help the Romanian Orthodox to build Orthodox churches. I mean, you know. If you fasten the dream to Christ, you’ll become a Liberal. That is to say, you will say that this dream is…

On the other hand, if you fasten Christ to the dream, if you say that Christ is attached to the dream, then of course you become a Sedevacantist because you say that it’s absolutely impossible for Christ to back this dream, therefore he’s not the Vicar of Christ. He is the Vicar of Christ because he is a poor human being at the same time that he is in authority. The formality of his being in authority, the formality of the Vicar of Christ, is different from the formality of his poor weaknesses as a human being.

Why does the Lord God choose to entrust authority, either civil or ecclesiastical, to poor human beings, especially in His Church, knowing that it is going to be poor sinners to whom the authority is going to be entrusted? That’s our Lord’s choice. That’s His decision. He could have instituted… He could have arranged for the Church to be governed by angels. You can imagine, I mean, the Lord God is God, He could easily have done it that way. But then we would… Human, all human beings would have been directed by angels openly and obviously.

What’s the famous principle of Saint Thomas for the reason why our Lord founds the priesthood of poor human beings? Our Lord became man, that’s for sure. If the supreme high priest took human nature, it’s normal that the following priests would be human beings. On the other hand, you might say it’s abnormal since the supreme high priest was sinless, it’s abnormal that He should choose priests who would be sinful. He might just as well say, „Since the supreme high priest was sinless, then He ought to put His Church in the hands of sinless angels.‟ So, the argument is not conclusive.

Nor is Saint Thomas’ argument conclusive, but Saint Thomas’ argument is extremely interesting, and it’s a principle that applies way outside of just why He takes human beings to be priests. He wishes to confer upon creatures the dignity of secondary causality, that’s right. He wants to… If the Lord God could run the whole universe by Himself, and you might say, „If He did it Himself, it would be well-run.‟ But in that case, everybody would be just moved as opposed to mover. The Lord God would do all the moving, directing, deciding, and everybody would be just pawns on the board, so to speak. We’d all be just shuffled around. It would be an impeccable shuffle, but it would be only a shuffle. We would all be doing a divine shoe shuffle all the way to heaven, and that’s all we would be doing.

The Lord God wishes to bestow upon His creatures the dignity of causality. And if those causes, those secondary causes are human beings, then we’re talking about human dignity. Well, there it is, but only in Saint Thomas, it’s the real McCoy, as opposed to this dummy Russoist substitute of today. I can’t remember if that’s in the treatise on the priesthood. It’s certainly towards the end of the Prima Pars, in the whole treatise, the whole section on the governance of creatures, Gubernatio Creaturarum, it must come up front. In other words, it’s the heart of question 103 of the Prima Pars. I’m sure it’ll be there.

The Prima Pars is question one which is sacred doctrine. Then 2 to 26 is Deo Uno, and of course 27 to 43 is Deo Trino. 44 to 49 is Deo Creatore. So that’s all God. And then we come into creatures, the section on creatures, which is principally the angels, 50 to 64, and then 65 to 102, man, those funny, extraordinary, desperate creatures called man. Sophocles says, „There are many strange things but none stranger than man.‟ In Lancashire you’ve heard me quote, „There’s nowt so queer as folk.‟ The last part is the governance of creation, and that’s 103 through to the end, which is 119. Here the governance… the governing of creatures in general, and then the governing as carried out by angels, and then as carried out by men, and finally as carried out by things, as I recall. And that’s where you get the question on faith towards the end, the question, „Do the stars govern us?‟ The answer is of course, no they don’t. But up here must be the principles of why God entrusts the government of the universe to creatures. In other words, He puts His own government into the hands of creatures because He wishes creatures to have the dignity of causality.

Same principle behind the priesthood. Same principle behind all civil authority. Obviously the Lord God foresaw that human beings are going to misuse their authority. Shakespeare: „Dress up a man in a little authority and just see what fantastical high tricks he plays.‟ This line is spoken by Isabella in Measure for Measure (Act II, Scene 2), referring to Angelo, the temporary deputy who abuses his power.

So obviously God foresaw that civil authorities, and much worse, ecclesiastical authorities, are going to play fantastical high tricks, but it’s still worth it. The upside still outweighs the downside. Even if, like with the salvation of souls, even if it’s the great number of souls that go to hell, still it’s worth creating them all for the sake of those relatively few that get to heaven. Even if a number of priests misuse their authority, it’s still worth creating a human priesthood for the sake of those relatively few who make the use of the priesthood that the Lord God intended, who respond to His invitation to make the right use of the enormous authority and responsibility that He puts in their hands.

Our Lord once said to Saint Teresa of Avila, I think, He said, „I would have created the whole of creation just for you.‟ So the Lord God works with quality and not with quantity, and therefore He will… even if the majority of popes misuse their authority, still if there are a few that got it right, the Lord God, the way He operates, would still have instituted a human papacy for the benefit of those who would freely make the right use of His gifts, as opposed to those who freely make the wrong use of His gifts.

So therefore, the Catholic principle of authority, of respectful authority, which goes clean against the whole modern world, which is built on Rousseau, which is built on individualism, built on liberalism, built on liberty, built on fantasy, built on scorn for authority, etc. Notice that section on authority. Notice of course, I think in principle Americans are revolutionary, but then, let Americans understand the need for authority and they are as, as… they are as respectful of authority. For instance, in the American military, there always used to be serious respect for the officers. The military operated by respect. There used to be, and there still is, much respect for the office of the President. And to this day…

Even Americans distinguish between the office and the carrier of the office. But you find amongst quote unquote traditional Catholics, you find many who don’t make that distinction. The priest is either… if you become a priest, you are either going to be, you’ve heard me say many times, you’re either going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread or you’re going to be the greatest traitor that ever was born between from sea to shining sea. And it swings. It takes no more than three minutes to swing from one to the other. One moment it’s wonderful, and the next moment, it’s a back full of daggers. From one moment to the next, simply because people are not making the right distinction. They’re not venerating the priest and just expecting the human being to make mistakes. Instead of that, they either subsume the human being into the priest and everything he does is absolutely wonderful, or they pull the priesthood down to the level of the poor sinner, and then even if he’s a priest, he’s a sinner. They can’t make that distinction. And it’s materialistic thinking. It’s thinking always materially and never thinking formally. But of course, to think formally, you have to start abstracting and nobody likes abstracting, so. But it’s common sense. It’s common sense.

Notice then that passage on authority. And as Saint Peter argues, if you behave yourselves well towards the authorities, you will gain the respect and the confidence of men and you will silence your adversaries. That’s a payoff.

In other words, if somebody wants to talk to you about the evil of slavery, fine, but slavery is not the ultimate evil. Sin is the ultimate evil. Slavery is simply a human institution which gives quite big opportunities to evil. Yes. It’s an institution which is easily exploitable because one man has power over another. It panders to the desire of power and the wrong exercise of power. But from there to saying that slavery is the ultimate evil, absolutely not.

If slavery is wisely operated, you’ve simply got what’s going on today all over the United States. People today are virtual slaves of their punch clock, of their mortgage, of their paycheck, of whatever it is. And you know, if people today think that they’re in any real sense free, they’re slaves of their television, they’re slaves of pornography, they’re slaves of the media, the newspapers. They take all of their thinking. They’re slaves without realizing it and they’re treated like slaves. These politicians scorn these people. These media men scorn these people. They know what they can get away with. They despise the people. They don’t treat the people as free. They know that the people are virtual slaves.

So, slavery is not the ultimate evil, but of course, it’s part of the great lie today, it’s part of the great lie that we in the 20th century are more wonderful and we are more free, we have more liberty, we are more wonderful than any previous age has been. That’s the great lie. So, part of that lie is that people are not slaves today. They are. They just don’t know it. That’s all. It’s been cleverly disguised from them. All right.

Who is the man that is truly free? The man who is master of himself with the grace of God. Master of his passions, who controls himself. There aren’t many such men today. You’ve got to have a proportionate reason. You’ve got to be careful of criticizing people in authority. You can see the example I’ve quoted you many times, the example of our Lord who is being gravely mistreated by Annas and Caiaphas but doesn’t disrespect them. Not a trace of disrespect towards the authority. And Paul turns on the high priest, isn’t it? Acts 22, around there. The high priest who, again, is totally unjust to St. Paul, and St. Paul whips around, „You whited sepulchre,‟ or something. And he has some expression for him. And then somebody said, „Do you realize you’re talking to the high priest?‟ „Oh,‟ says St. Paul, „I didn’t realize.‟ It’s in Deuteronomy, „Thou shalt not, thou shalt not something the prince.‟ Does anybody know where that is? Look up Acts. Find the quotation in Acts. It’s Acts 23:3. Leviticus 19:15. That’ll be it most likely. „Thou shalt not slander thy neighbor.‟ Leviticus 19:15 says, „Thou shalt not do thou which is unjust or judge one way or another.‟

You’ve heard me say many times, the three Ls: listen, love, lead. Listen to women. Do not argue with them. Do not argue with women. It is a complete waste of time. Do not argue with women. It’s unchivalrous for a start. It’s like boys… Never let boys play any sports with women, with girls, because if the boys win it’s unchivalrous, and if the boys lose, it’s unmanly. You… So it’s a lose-lose situation. Don’t…

In any school that you run, don’t let the boys compete with the girls in any way, shape, size or form, because if there’s any danger of the boys being beaten by the girls, all the self-respecting boys will just cut out. They will cut out in order to demonstrate that they’re not really trying, because they couldn’t really try and let themselves be defeated by girls. It’s not possible. It’s against their manly pride, a correct manly pride. It’s not a false manly pride, it’s a correct manly pride when a man does not want to let himself be beaten by a woman. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s correct. The modern world teaches the opposite. The modern world is crazy.

That doesn’t mean to say that you build up the pride of the boys. You can… When the boys are amongst the boys, you can humiliate them as much as you like, but you don’t humiliate them in front of the women, because that’s what… God entrusts authority to the boy, to the men. The men have authority. The men are meant to have authority over the women. They’re meant to make the right use of that authority. They’re meant to have authority over the women, and therefore you don’t… If you make… If you humiliate the boys in front of the girls, you are destroying the principle of authority. Exactly the opposite of what Saint Paul’s just been saying, or what Saint Peter’s just been saying.

But in the Naval Academy, Dr. White will tell you, they now take… they make the chief midshipman, they choose a midshipwoman to be the chief midship- the chief midshippy. Midshipperson. You know, now, in the liberal, in Liberville, when you go down the street, what you see on the street are personholes, because you’re not allowed, I’m sure, to call it any longer a manhole, because you’ve got women workers who are now street workers as well, so it could just as well be a womanhole as a manhole, therefore it’s got to be called a personhole, no doubt. The modern world, it’s stupid. Makes one gag for its stupidity.

And there are all kinds of little things that you can let them decide. In a home, broadly speaking, the woman is the queen of the home and he is the king. The king is ad extra but the woman is ad intra. The home is her domain, and if she wants this color of carpet and that color, let her have it. Let her have it, let her have it, let her have it, because she’ll have it anyway. You know? But then when there’s some major question, then the man has got to put his foot down. „Darling, look, this is how it’s going to be. This is my responsibility and this is what I decided.‟ And if he’s made up his mind, very easily, very often, she will simply fall in line. She’s made to follow her man. She’s made to… She’s made adaptable. She’s made to adapt. She’s… Women are much more adaptable than men are. They’re quite different from men.

There’s another proverb in French: Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut. What woman wants, God wants. And when she’s speaking about her family, about her husband, children, or family, there’s a lot of truth in that. She doesn’t know often what she’s saying or why. She knows things without knowing why she knows them. It’s called intuition. She’s much stronger in intuition than the man is. She intuits things. She knows they’re true by intuition, therefore she can’t be bothered with the arguments. The arguments are just a waste of time because she knows what she knows by intuition, so the rest of it is a waste of time. The men can argue up and down there as much as they like, but she knows what she knows.

And if it’s, especially if it concerns her children, can you say she’s not always right about her children? Of course, because mothers can be very blind about their children, but you’ve got to discern. There’s a time when they are right and that’s when they’re defending their young, in the way the young should be defended. But then, of course, when they’re defending their young because the young are always right, that’s crazy, and that’s the state we get into today.

But they insist upon getting into the law and then they insist upon getting into all kinds of silly things that they’ve got no place, where God never meant them to be. Obviously, He never meant them to be in the military. He never meant them to be in law. He never meant them to be in politics, with rare exceptions. But when you do get a woman who’s logical, she’s liable to be much more terrible than any man who’s logical because she hasn’t got the balance. She’s made up her mind that she… they don’t think. It’s a general rule, they don’t think.

A woman who’s logical is dangerous because she’ll apply the logic implacably, absolutely implacably. She’s got in her head the one idea that logic is a good thing. So, all right, she’s going to… or the, you know, masculinity is a good thing. Then she’s going to make herself masculine or she will drop hydrogen bombs on everybody in order to prove that she’s masculine. There’s no sense of balance or reason. When she tries to put masculine software into the computer, it just goes bananas. Therefore, you must not admire women for being masculine. Do not admire them when they’re being masculine. Admire them and encourage them when they’re being feminine, not when they’re fooling around or provoking to fool around, but when they’re doing what God meant them to do, then admire them. A little male admiration goes a long way.

Also, a little affection goes a long way. These are things you’re going to need in the confessional. You need to know that a teaspoonful of affection, they’re good for another 200 miles. It’s true. So, when they do all the cooking or when they put together the potluck dinner, just make sure that you say a few words of appreciation. It makes a lot of difference. They need that a lot more than men need it. Men… there are some men who need a bit of admiration, but women are built, they’re oriented towards men deeper than men are oriented towards women because in scripture, „Your husband will have dominion over you.‟ And so she’s dependent upon him in a way that he’s not dependent upon, in a deeper way than he is dependent upon her. Mark you, of course, a good wife is an enormous strength to a husband and a deep strength. Scripture again says that, „Who shall find a strong woman? She is more precious than…‟ Proverbs 31. A good wife is an extraordinary, an enormous treasure, and a bad wife is a martyrdom. So it goes deep both ways, but there is a dependency on the side of the woman which there isn’t on the side of the man.

And therefore they keep coming back. They’ll keep coming back towards men. The feminists liberated themselves, quote unquote, from men, about 20 years ago, and then 10, 15 years later all the feminist magazines are full of how, tricks how to get back towards the men because they can’t do without them. It’s too deep. And therefore a man can be very cruel, a husband can be very cruel to his wife if she keeps coming back to him and he whips her or beats her with a stick. It’s like a dog coming back to its master and the master just beating the dog. Of course, I’m not comparing wives to dogs. But that’s why St. Paul says, „Husbands, love your wives,‟ and don’t be harsh towards them. He says that about children, but it applies to wives, too.

A woman, on the other hand, is very cruel to her husband if she doesn’t admire him. The husband needs to be admired or respected, looked up to. His ego, male ego. The woman needs to be loved. That’s the enormous and crucial difference between men and women.

But today, broadly speaking, the women have… Many of the women who are wearing the trousers don’t basically want to do it, and they shouldn’t want to do it and many of them don’t want to do it. All they ask for is for their husbands to start wearing the trousers again. But the liberal men have been persuaded that if they wear the trousers then that’s against equality, it’s against feminine rights, it’s against… They got all kinds of silly ideas in their heads.

And then, „Husbands, look after your wives. Give honor. Behave chivalrously to your wives as to the weaker vessel.‟ Yes, they are weaker in physical strength. They’re far smarter in wiles. They’re far stronger in smarts, people smarts. Women are stronger. They can run around. Most of them can run rings around their husbands when it comes to navigating. God made it that way for a very good reason because if besides being weaker the women were also dumber, the men would simply crush them. So they’re weaker, but smarter, at least people smarter. Not logic smarter, but people smarter. That’s a different thing.

And so they get their husbands sized up. They know their husband. They can read their husbands like the palm of their hand, most of them. And they can work around. They work around him. They work around what he wants. And poor modern woman is having to work around modern man. I blame modern man, principally, for the mess we got into today. Of course woman bears her share of the blame, but she’s basically a follower. And I’m sure you’ve heard me say many times, if today she is wearing the trousers, she’s still following the men because it’s the man who wants her to wear the trousers because it’s the man, liberal man, doesn’t want responsibility. He just wants to be… If she will look after herself, the children are adults, the children will look after themselves, then I don’t have to bother. I don’t have to behave like a father, etc., etc. And that’s the problem.

Father Doran can tell you the same thing. He has, from pastoral experience in post-falls, he can tell you in many cases the problem, the woman’s problem, is the man’s problem. The men are not men, and that’s the number one problem. If you straighten out the men, you got a darn good chance of the women following afterwards. Not all of them, of course. But many of them, all they want… And things can come straight. There are so many things today to make things go crooked, but things can come straight. There are a lot of young mothers, charming young mothers, feminine young mothers in our missions and chapels. At least on Sundays they don’t wear trousers. And they come to the mission or the church or whatever and they’re looking after the children. I see it this time of year with the confirmations, they go all over. They’re looking after the children. So it can come straight, and the good women, all they want is to be given the right program to follow, and the right man to follow, and the right man to look up to. That’s all they want, the good ones.

Of course, the other ones, well, they don’t like the Catholic program. They don’t, because the Catholic program is humbling. Wearing a mantilla over the head, it’s important. It’s not universal in the United States, but it’s better than in Europe, I think, in many countries in Europe. And I’m darn sure that wearing dresses, at least on Sunday, is better here in United States than it is in Europe. I’m told that many of the women folk wear trousers even on Sunday in Europe, which is not good. But that again, the women like to be… They think they want to be emancipated or liberated, and of course, the emancipation of woman was a great, quote unquote, „battle‟ from the beginning of this century. You had the suffragettes, and then you had women wearing trousers, and now you have the feminists. And basically, it’s all, I’d venture to say, it’s a protest against these gutless men, these meaningless men. And so the women have to try to take their place. And feminism is then, I say, it’s basically a protest. It’s a great protest. It’s not what the women really want. It’s not according to their nature, but they’re protesting against what the men are and what, or what the men aren’t, rather.

Is there a connection between them and the temperance ladies? I don’t know about the temperance ladies. Was that the 1920s? 1910s? They wanted to get the men out of the bars. Yeah. To get the men home. The wives need a minimum of time, attention, and affection from their husbands. They don’t only need time, they also need attention. You’ve got to pay attention to them. And not just attention, but some affection. So time, attention, and affection. Some, and not more than some. A man can’t spend all his time hanging around his wife’s neck. God forbid. And a man’s got to do what a man has to do. But the women do need the men at home, and they do need the men to concern themselves with the education of the children, and to back them in educating the children.

Some of the women today are heroic in the way they’re trying to home- school. Having the children that God sends and then trying to home- school them. It’s a big task. And if the men don’t back them, if the husband doesn’t back them, then it’s more than many of them can endure. Whereas if the husband does back them, there’s hardly a limit to what they will do if their husband backs them and loves them and admires them and gives them a hug and so on. Many of them, there’s no limit to what they will do, because she has sacrifice inscribed in her nature by God in a way that man doesn’t. And that’s again, and always, because of maternity, because of the children.

I was just over at the cottage on the other side of the road where somebody is doing some painting. There’s a bird just sitting on the roof there because we were standing around. There’s a nest with some little ones built just by the door. She was sitting there watching. Normally she’d fly away with people standing so close, but with her young so close, she’s standing there and watching. And I’m sure if you could approach that nest and started fooling around, she would certainly have kicked up a fuss. It’s maternity is what’s deepest in feminine nature and it’s what’s noblest in feminine nature. That’s what God made them for. It’s the prime purpose. They are the continuance of the human race, a function in which man doesn’t play nearly such an important part, obviously.

So her place is the home. It’s an old-fashioned saying. The Germans had it. And of course, this is a saying which is horribly mocked today, but it’s absolutely true. Kinder, Küche, Kirche. Children, kitchen, church. That’s what the old-fashioned Germans said. But of course, again, industrial suburbanism throws that all out, because if you want the woman to stay at home and the home is isolated and the home is not social and it’s cut off from everybody else and it’s boring, how do you expect an adult to spend all their time with just screaming children? She can’t do it. Well, many of them can’t do it, and it’s not reasonable to want them to do it. On the farm, they used to be isolated, yes, but not the way it is today, not in the same context as today.

And that’s why you get the soap operas. The soap operas which so many of the women watch, it’s the substitute village. It’s the substitute human interest. They’re all interested in who’s marrying who, who’s going out with who, who’s on the brink of dying, who’s arguing with who. It’s all human interest, which is what women are for. That’s their specialty, and they need that. And it’s not fair to make fun of them always talking to one another, because that’s their business, to… They need to talk to one another about husbands and about children, especially. And in the old days, in the Victorian age, after a dinner, if the men and the women went to dinner, after dinner, the men went into one room to talk about politics, and the women went into another room to talk about the babies and husbands.

Of course, today many women would resent that. They would say, „I want to talk about politics.‟ Well, she’ll come in and talk about politics, but she’ll talk nonsense. She’s not going to get a hold of the right end of the stick very frequently, but she wants to be with the men. She feels the need because she feels she’s being shut out and scorned. Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn, you know? That’s why you should look after them and treat them with honor. He says that, giving honor to the female, and that’s the safest thing to do. Because if you don’t give them honor, watch out.

So, all right, they’re strange creatures. Never think that you will understand them. Never, never think that you will understand because you won’t. Husbands don’t understand their wives. The longer they live with them, the less they understand them. They don’t run on the same gas. They don’t understand themselves because they’re running on a program which is deeper than they have any idea of. And basically that program is the instinctive defense of the family, of children and family. And they don’t even understand themselves always why they do what they do or think what they think. So let alone somebody else can understand. But that’s the way…

But how many a man will tell you, he’s thought and thought and thought about a problem, finally he sees what’s right. His wife was saying it three years ago, she saw it like that. She saw it just like that. She said, „Why do you think that?‟ „I don’t…‟ She can’t say why she thinks it, but she knows it. She sees it by intuition, then he gets there in the end. So, you know. In any case, they’re quite different.

„He that will love life,‟ he quotes the Psalm, „will see good days. Let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him decline from evil and do good. Let him seek after peace and pursue it, because the eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and His ears are unto their prayers, but the countenance of the Lord upon them that do evil things.‟ Obviously, that’s the frowning face. „The frown of the Lord is upon them that do evil things.‟

13 to 17. „Let nobody mind suffering for doing good.‟ Once again, the Christians are obviously beginning to suffer, so Saint Peter is encouraging them in their tribulations. „Who is it that can hurt you if you be zealous of good?‟ If you’re enthusiastic to do good, who can hurt you? „And even if you do suffer or get hurt for the sake of justice, then you’re blessed.‟ „Blessed are you, again, when men shall persecute you and lie against you and do all manner of things for my sake, for then great is your reward in heaven.‟ The end of the Sermon on the Mount. Hear the same doctrine again. „If you suffer anything for justice’ sake, if you’re suffering because of something right that you’ve done and it’s wrong that you’re suffering, still you’re blessed.‟

„Be not afraid of their fear and be not troubled.‟ Be not afraid with fear of them. Don’t be afraid with the fear of worldly people or with the worldly fear of people. It comes to the same thing. Be afraid of offending God, but that’s not their fear. They aren’t afraid of that. Be afraid… you should be afraid of offending God, but don’t be afraid with the kind of fear that they’re afraid, by which they’re afraid. Don’t fear their kind of fear. Fear a Christian’s fear which is of falling into sin and offending God. „Be not afraid with their fear, and be not troubled.‟ „Let not your heart be troubled.‟ Our Lord, John 15. „I have overcome the world. Be not troubled.‟ „Take no thought for the morrow.‟ Sermon on the Mount. Don’t be anxious. Don’t worry. You could put a smiley button in the margin at that point.

„But sanctify the Lord Jesus Christ in your hearts, being ready always to satisfy everyone that asketh you a reason of the hope which is in you.‟ That’s again an echo from before. „Sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts‟ is build the Lord Christ… In other words, build the life of Christ in your hearts. Obviously, Christ is not made any more holy by men, but the life of holiness, which is life in Christ, is increased in the hearts of a man who is sanctifying himself. „Ready always to satisfy everyone that asketh you a reason of the hope which is in you.‟ That’s Colossians 4:6, „Let your speech be always in grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.‟ Always be ready to defend your faith, in other words, to defend your way of life, your faith, defend our Lord. „Being ready always to satisfy everyone that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you.‟ You should always be able to give an account of your faith to somebody who asks.

„But with modesty and fear, having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you, they may be ashamed who falsely accuse your good behavior in Christ.‟ In all of this, be modest and be with modesty and fear, not their fear, which he’s just told, he’s just said we’re not to fear. That’s verse 14. But with the fear of God, with modesty and the fear of God. „Having a good conscience‟ in the state of grace. „That whereas they speak evil of you, they may be ashamed who falsely accuse your good behavior in Christ.‟ In other words, give none of the adversaries of Christ, give none of them an excuse to be adversaries of Christ. On the contrary, give them every reason to respect whoever’s responsible for your good behavior. There’s no real difficulty there.

Now it begins to get a little more difficult. „For it is better doing well to suffer than doing ill.‟ It is better doing well, if such be the will of God, to suffer than doing ill. If you are sinning and then you suff er, well then you’re just getting what you deserve. If you’re without sin and you suffer because you’re being persecuted unjustly, that’s much better than sinning. Socrates said, and it was already quite an advance in his own time probably, „It’s better to suffer an injustice than to commit one.‟ And that’s argued I think in Plato’s Gorgias. It seems like a great conclusion coming from Socrates. Its current coinage in, it’s obvious in Christianity. So it’s better to suffer for doing well than for doing ill. You may think, „I don’t mind suffering for doing ill because then I deserve it, whereas suffering for doing well makes no sense at all.‟ On the contrary, said Peter. If you suffer for doing ill, well that’s you, you are getting what you deserve. But in the other case, you’re meriting. You’re positively meriting. If such be the will of God, it’s not for us to positively go out and seek suffering. But if God sends suffering our way, well then we have to accept it and work around it.

18, „Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust.‟ So there’s the connection. Christ gave us an example of suffering without, of, with suffering for doing well instead of for doing ill. And the reason why He did this was to offer us to God being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit. Now this must, in view of verse 19, refer to Christ’s state between His death and His resurrection. So being put to death in the flesh, and He’s being crucified, enlivened in the spirit is His soul descending live into limbo. So His body is dead upon the cross, and then lying dead in the tomb. His soul goes down alive to limbo.

„In which also coming, he preached to those spirits that were in prison‟ 19. Between His death and resurrection, He visited the spirits in limbo. He visited the souls in limbo, preaching to those spirits that were in prison. They were in limbo. They couldn’t get out. They were caught, trapped there, so to speak, in prison. He preached to those spirits means He told them the good news that they were redeemed. The Protestants take it to mean that we get a second chance even after death. The Church knows that’s not true. So that cannot be the meaning of verse 19. In view of everything else the Church knows and teaches, it can’t be that He’s preaching to the souls after death as though they still have a choice to make. Therefore, preaching does not mean encouraging to repentance. It means announcing the good news that they are redeemed. Because that’s why our Lord descended into limbo, in order to tell those souls that they were redeemed…

„…which had been sometime incredulous when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah, when the ark was a building.‟ This is again something that puts us back in the time of the Old Testament. Souls which, for instance… He’s not… obviously, our Lord… we’re talking about our Lord who went down to limbo. It’s not only the souls that died in the flood, the souls of those who died in the state of grace in the flood. At the time of the flood, obviously, men were very wicked. They had corrupted their ways. But the flood, obviously, it… it, well, it stands to reason, the flood saved a large number of souls because when people saw the waters coming up, they got down on their knees and repented before they drowned. Not everybody for sure, but a large number. Maybe not the majority, probably not the majority, but it’s still a large number.

So, which had been sometime incredulous, so an example, verse 20, an example of the souls to whom our Lord preached in limbo… to whom our Lord announced in limbo that they were redeemed is those souls that mocked Noah before the flood. They were sometime incredulous, souls, for instance, who made fun of Noah, of Noah we say… who made fun of Noah before the flood, but died repentant in the flood. So, between death and resurrection, our Lord went down to limbo to announce to the souls waiting in limbo that they were redeemed, for instance, souls who had disbelieved Noah when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah.

When they waited for the patience of God, what does that mean? What’s the Latin? Quando expectaban patientiam Dei. What verse is it? Verse 20. Quando expectaban Dei patientiam. I’m not sure, I didn’t think about that phrase… but it’s probably when they were exploiting the patience of God. Probably the meaning is that they were living off the patience of God. They were waiting out, they were running out the patience of God. The souls that didn’t believe Noah, they were running out the patience of God in the days of Noah when the ark was a-building. They disbelieved right down to the end. Then it began to rain, and then it continued to rain, and they rang the local radio station and so on, and they said, „Well, we’re sure it will stop in a little while.‟

„…when the ark was a-building wherein a few, that is eight souls, were saved by water.‟ He’s referring… it’s an interesting point. It’s, um, the flood… they died repentant in the flood from which eight souls were saved by the ark. That, of course, is Mr. and Mrs. Noah, Mr. and Mrs. Ham, Mr. and Mrs. Seth, and Mr. and Mrs. Japheth. That’s all that’s… we know from this passage that the flood killed all human beings except eight. It’s an extraordinary thought, but that’s where we know it from. The only human souls that survived the flood. Traditions say that Mrs. Noah was worse than a leaking roof. I don’t know where tradition has that from, but it’s possible.

„…wherein a few, that is eight souls, were saved by water.‟ Of course, the problem here is that the water shifts signification. If you take the ark as the church, and then baptism, and then sin, the sin is the flood, whereas the baptism is what saves, entry into the ark. So the ladder, you could say. The ladder that led up into the ark is like baptism leading into the Church. And as the Church saves from sin, so the ark saved from the flood. St. Peter… the problem is that the water is here and then it’s there. So Peter’s thought is jumping from the water of the flood, in which only a few were saved by the ark, to the water of baptism, by which only a few are saved from sin. Only by the ark were they saved from the flood, only by baptism are they saved… only by the ark were they saved from water, only by water are they saved from sin. The confusion is there. He says, „In which also… wherein a few, that is eight souls, were saved by water whereunto baptism…‟ See the water shifts meaning. In one case, the water is deadly. In the other case, the water is salvation. In the case of Noah, the water is death. In the case of baptism, the water is salvation. So the water shifts. And yet the water is the swing point, the pivot of this comparison. So the pivot gets dislocated.

Is it a case of the water’s grace? Well, yes. The sin, the flood wipes out sinners, yes. But you know, a baptism doesn’t wipe out the sinner. But it wipes out sin? Yeah, of course baptism wipes out sin, yes. But it’s not the same. It’s really not… The water doesn’t have the same signification in both cases. At the Red Sea, the water wiped out the Egyptians. And the Egyptians stand for world and sin. Therefore, there, the water is salvation. The Red Sea, the water is salvation. But in the flood, the water was the instrument of God to kill sinners.

Did Ron say, maybe especially, He killed all men, He killed sinners whether they were born into sin or not born into sin? Uh, it’s… Water drowns the sinner in that sense. If you want to think of it that way, yes. In any case, what he says though… it’s rather like Paul. The thoughts sort of tumble out. It’s all there, but it’s not laid out like an article of St. Thomas, let’s just say. I’m not saying that there’s anything inaccurate obviously, this is the word of God, but it’s not laid out with care and accuracy in order not to confuse. It’s just under inspiration and it needs some sorting out.

So when the… In the flood, a few, eight souls, were saved by water and the suggestion is that it’s only a few that are saved by baptism. It’s not a statement, but it’s a suggestion that, in other words, you Christians should not be surprised if you’re a small number surrounded by a… And that must have been one of the first problems of… It’s always a problem of traditionalists today. Why are traditionalists so few in number? It’s regularly a problem with Catholics. Why are there so few? „Well,‟ says St. Peter, „It’s because there were only eight souls saved in the flood.‟ So if it’s only eight souls being saved by baptism now, don’t be surprised. It’s mysterious, but it shouldn’t be surprising.

„A few, that is eight souls, were saved by water whereunto…‟ So the, um, flood is comparable to the dangers of the world from which Christian souls are saved by the sacrament of baptism. The flood is comparable to the dangers of the world, the sin, sin in the world… from which souls are saved by baptism, or from which Christians’ souls are saved by the sacrament of baptism. And that sacrament is not an Old Testament ablution. „Whereunto baptism being of the like form now saveth you also.‟ Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh. In other words, it’s not just an Old Testament ablution. Compare Hebrews 9. It’s not just an Old Testament ablution, which could only wash away the sins of the flesh. The contaminations. Like, for instance, having touched a corpse that caused a physical contamination, which a Jew had to go through certain ablutions to cleanse. But St. Paul says those ablutions were powerless to touch the soul. Whereas the New Testament sacraments have power to cleanse and affect the soul. Ex opera operato.

So, „A few, that is eight souls, were saved by water. When the ark was fully, wherein a few, that is eight souls, were saved by water.‟ I can’t think of just why it’s separated from everything else. Yes. The souls were saved, the eight souls were saved by water. It’s a strange… It doesn’t make sense, you know. Obviously, it’s a strange expression. He’s talking about Romans Chapter 6, where he talks about how we’re baptized into death. That’s the reason, the power of baptism to cleanse souls comes from the passion of Christ. We’re baptized in His death. But that’s not the Old Testament. That’s not Noah. Well, yeah, but I’m asking about… Well, yes, but the death is only submersion in a figurative sense.

Is that due to the corruption of the world that the flood had not destroyed…? Yes. They might… Yeah. Yes, I see what you’re saying. Yes. If Noah and his family had to go on, go on living in the world like Lot in Sodom, if Lot had been forced to go on living in Sodom, they were saved in that sense. Maybe that’s what he means, yes. In that case, the flood, as you say, separates from them. In that case… How can one put it? It needs reorganizing. The obvious thing is that the water killed a lot of people.

In any case, it’s certain that for Peter, the water, um, answered in, in… What verse is that? Chapter three, verse 20, yes. Through the water in which they were saved. Eight souls were saved through the water. I suppose you could say, yes, they were saved from the world, they were saved from corruption by the flood. In that, that certainly makes it easier to understand that way, yes. Yeah. They were saved from the corruption. They were saved from the world, in which case… Then, then, then you’d say, this is the world to me. They were saved from, uh, the eight souls were saved by the ark through water, the flood. They’re saved in the ark by the flood from the world. Well, they obviously are there saved by the ark from the flood, but in the ark, eight souls in the ark by the flood from the world. Christians are saved in the church by baptism, from sin, from, from the world. Yeah, that’s easier, certainly. That makes it… That’s more reasonable.

All right. Then, 21, „…baptism being of the like form now saveth you also.‟ So baptism, the water of baptism saves a small minority now, just like the water of the flood saved thanks to the ark, a few souls. So baptism, the water of baptism saves a few souls. But baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh. It’s not just the material ablution of the Old Testament. It’s „the examination of a good conscience towards God at the resurrection of Jesus Christ.‟ Baptism is a spiritual sacrament. It acts upon the soul.

And lastly, who is on the right hand… „The resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is on the right hand of God swallowing down death that we might be made heirs of life everlasting being gone into heaven, that we might be made heirs of life everlasting.‟ Colon. He, Christ, being gone into heaven, „the angels and powers and virtues being made subject to him.‟ So the first half of the verse… well, the verse basically refers to Christ, but there’s a final clause in the middle that refers to we men, „that we might be made heirs of life everlasting,‟ and then it refers back to Christ being gone into heaven, „the angels and powers and virtues being made subject to him.‟ So the power of baptism comes from… It’s a spirit, it’s a spiritual baptism with its power coming from Christ who is at the right hand of God to intercede for His system, Paul in Hebrews. Who’s at the right hand of God to enable us to go to heaven, says Saint Peter, same thing. He having gone into heaven and the angels and powers and virtues being made subject to him. We’ll pick up again in 10 or 11 days time.