Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

² For what need a man fear from man? And what is that whereby one man should cause another fear, since both of them are men? One threatens and says, “I will kill you;” and does not fear, lest after his threat he die before he have fulfilled it. “I will kill you,” he says. Who says it, and to whom? I hear two men, the one threatening, and the other alarmed: of whom the one is powerful, and the other weak, yet both are mortal. Why then does he so stretch out himself, he, in honour, a somewhat more inflated power, in body, equal weakness? Let him securely threaten death who does not fear death. But if he fear that whereby he causes fear; let him think of himself, and compare himself with him whom he is threatening. Let him see in him whom he threatens a likeness of condition, and so together with him let him seek like pity from the Lord. For he is but a man, and he threatens another man, a creature, another creature; only the one puffed up under his Creator's eye, and the other fleeing for refuge to the same Creator.