The Ruler Should Not Set His Heart on Pleasing People

Meanwhile the ruler must also keep a careful watch that the craving to please people does not attack him. When he looks deeply into inward things and providently supplies outward things, he must not seek to be loved by those under him more than the truth. While his good deeds hold him up and he seems not to belong to the world, love of self must not estrange him from his Maker. For he is the Redeemer’s enemy who, through the good works he does, longs to be loved by the church in place of him; just as a servant whom the bridegroom has sent with gifts to the bride is guilty of treacherous thought if he wants to please the bride’s eyes himself. And in truth this self-love, once it has taken hold of a ruler’s mind, sometimes carries it off beyond measure into softness, and sometimes into harshness. From love of himself the ruler’s mind leans toward softness, because when he sees those under him sinning, he does not dare to rebuke them, for fear their affection for him should cool; and sometimes he even smooths over with flattery the offense of those under him that he ought to have rebuked. Hence it is well said through the prophet, “Woe to those who sew cushions under every elbow, and make pillows under the head of every stature, to catch souls.” To put cushions under every elbow is to cherish with smooth flattery souls that are falling from their uprightness and lying back in the enjoyment of this world. For it is as though the elbow of someone lying down rested on a cushion and his head on pillows, when the hardness of rebuke is taken away from one who sins, and the softness of favor is offered him instead, so that he may lie comfortably in his error with no harsh contradiction to trouble him. [a]

But rulers who love themselves no doubt show themselves this way to those by whom they fear they may be hurt in their pursuit of worldly glory. Those whom they see to have no power against them they always keep down with the harshness of rigid censure. They never admonish them gently, but, forgetting pastoral kindness, terrify them with the rights of domination. The divine voice rightly rebukes such men through the prophet, saying, “But with severity and power you ruled them.” For, loving themselves more than their Maker, they lift themselves up haughtily over those under them, thinking not about what they ought to do but about what they can do. They have no fear of the judgment to come; they glory insolently in worldly power; it pleases them to be free to do even unlawful things, with no one among those under them to contradict them. He, then, who sets his mind on doing wrong and yet wants everyone else to keep quiet about it is his own witness that he wants himself to be loved more than the truth, since he will not have the truth defended against him.

There is indeed no one who lives in such a way as not to fall short of his duty in some measure. So it is the one who wishes to be spared by no one against the truth who wants the truth loved more fully than himself. That is why Peter willingly accepted Paul’s rebuke, and why David humbly listened to the reproof of his subject: good rulers, since they are not conscious of loving with a partial affection, take a free and sincere word from their subjects as an act of humble respect. But meanwhile the care of government must be tempered with such skill that the minds of subjects, once they have become able to judge rightly on some matters, advance to freedom of speech in such a way that their freedom does not break out into pride; lest, if freedom of the tongue is perhaps granted them too far, the humility of their life be lost.

It should also be remembered that it is right for good rulers to want to please people; but only in order to draw their neighbors, by the sweetness of their own character, to love of the truth. They should not long to be loved themselves, but should make the affection people have for them a kind of road by which to lead the hearts of their hearers to love of the Creator. For it is indeed hard for a preacher who is not loved, however well he preaches, to be willingly heard. So he who is over others ought to try to be loved in order to be heard, and yet not seek love for its own sake, lest in the hidden usurpation of his thought he be found rebelling against the one whom in his office he appears to serve. Paul hints at this well when, revealing the secret of his affection for us, he says, “Just as I also please everyone in everything.” And yet again he says, “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be the servant of Christ.” So Paul pleases and does not please; because in wishing to please, he seeks not that he himself should please people, but that the truth should please them through him.