rmed, they must admit that they have lived without a
knowledge of God and of his will, and that they have no counsel or
help unless they lay hold on the words of the Gospel of Christ.

33. We were all like that heretofore. Even I, a learned doctor of
divinity, did not know better. I imagined that with my monk's cowl I
was pleasing to God and on the way to heaven. I thought that I knew
the mind of God well. I wanted to be his counselor, and to earn a
recompense of him. But now I realize that my belief was false; it was
blindness. I know that I must learn from his Word; that nothing else
avails before him but faith in the crucified Christ, his Son; and
that in such faith we must live, and do as our respective callings or
positions require. Thus we may know right and wrong in God's sight;
for our knowledge is not of our own invention, but we have it from
revelation. By revelation God shows us his mind; as Saint Paul says
(1 Cor 2, 16): "We have the mind of Christ." And again (verse 10):
"But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit."

34. The third class are those who transgress, having knowledge. They
have the Word of revelation. I am not now speaking of those who
knowingly persecute the truth--those of the first class, who are
unconcerned about God--but I am speaking of those who recognize the
revelation but are led by the devil to override it and go around it.
They would conceive ways and judgments of God that he has not
revealed. If they were Christians, they would be satisfied and thank
God for having given us his Word, in which he shows us what is
pleasing to him and how we may be saved. But instead, they allow
themselves to be led by the devil to seek for other revelations and
to speculate on what God in his invisible majesty is, and how he
secretly governs the world, and what he has determined in regard to
the future of each particular individual. And so presumptuous is our
human nature that it would even interfere, with its wisdom, in God's
judgment, and intrude into his most secret counsel, attempting to
teach him and direct him. It was because of his arrogance that the
devil was cast out into the abyss of hell; because he aspired to
interference in the affairs of divine majesty, and would drag down
man in the fall with himself. So did he cause man to fall in
paradise, and so did he tempt the saints; and so he tempted Christ
himself when he set him on the pinnacle of the temple.

35. Against this third cla