1. The error of those who attend, in men, to what they have, not to what they are. — The very quality of the human condition indicates how far it excels the other things. For the reason bestowed on man asserts how greatly the rational nature surpasses all things that lack either life, or sense, or reason. And yet, because we close our eyes to inward and invisible things, and feed them on visible things, we very often venerate a man not from that which he himself is, but from those things which are around him. And when we do not behold what he himself is, but what he can do in the respecting of persons, we are led not by the persons, but by the things adjacent to them.
And so it comes about that even he too comes into contempt within us, who is honored without, because while he is held honorable on account of those things which are around him, in our examination he is postponed to his own possessions. But the Almighty God interrogates the life of men from the sole quality of their merits; and often he punishes more from thence, from whence here he conferred greater things for ministry, Truth bearing witness, which says: To whom much is given, much shall be required of him (Luke 12:48). Whence well is it now said through Elihu: