Obedience, first, is to be learned from them. “An obedient man will speak victory” [Vir obediens loquetur victoriam], Proverbs 21:28. And indeed [it is] a kind of obeying most pleasing to GOD which is undertaken for the salvation of others — just as also Christ the Lord, Phil. 2, “was made obedient, up to death, but the death of the cross.” There are [Sunt]
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—indeed [some], to whom, if superiors indulge anything — if they command [things] less than by highest right they could — they are wont to abuse their patience and facility, so that (as is commonly said) “if a finger be granted, they take the whole hand.” Not so the tribesmen of these tribes; nay rather, they are excited to greater alacrity — which alacrity, in the second place [secundo loco], is also to be learned by us: so that with [our] superiors we may contend [compete] in a certain holy contest. Let them ask less; let us offer more, or at least, with as great accurateness [care] as we can, let us render what they ask — mindful, however, ever of that [saying]: that when we shall have done all, we may say, “We are unprofitable servants; what we owed to do, we have done,” Luke 17:10.
Thirdly. There are others in whom there is a study of obeying, but not except to certain great — and quite named [famous] — men, [while] to their successors, perhaps less celebrated, not likewise. I dismiss [Mitto] those who, in warfare only, require Caesars and Alexanders whom they may obey; in Republics [commonwealths], Solons and Lycurguses. You may see, in the families of Religious [orders], sometimes some to whom, either in word or at least in work, “to an Antony, a Macarius, a Benedict I would obey — but this one, who now commands these [things], who [is he]?” Truly indeed, if we shall reason rightly, [there] was something more of excellence, dignity, and glory in Moses than in Joshua. That [glory], for so many years now, [and] by so many present testifications and elogies of GOD, by so many and so great miracles and prodigies, [was] procured, preserved, and amplified to him; and, to say [it] with a word, Moses had been the Master [teacher], Joshua the disciple. Yet because equal was the right of commanding, [these our men] promised with a great and wise voice [that] they would obey this one nothing less than that one. Not the great names of those who preside, but the power [potestas], and He on whose account obedience is given to these, [is what one must] look to [as] Lord [intuendus Dominus].
Fourthly. But let us consider, in these tribes, the voice of the pious Israelites. They obeyed Moses; they will therefore also similarly obey Jesus Christ. “Let us see,” says Origen (in the place cited before), “what these say to Jesus [Joshua], who come out of that land which Moses distributed: ‘Just as we heard [obeyed] Moses, so will we hear thee also.’ Nothing [is] so true as that everyone who hears Moses, [let him] hear also Jesus [Joshua] our Lord. For of Jesus [Joshua] that one [Moses] wrote. Whence also the Lord in the Gospel, reproving them, because from that [fact] that they do not believe him they do not believe Moses [either], says: ‘If you believed Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for of me that one wrote,’ John 5:46.” But I would opt [prefer] something more [plus quiddam]. They obeyed Moses in all things; we [obey] much more, and much more studiously and constantly, the same Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. For greater [is] this one here than that Moses, and greater [is] to him the right of ordering and commanding.
Fifthly [Quinto]. There is, says Masius, the approved [proven] religion of the wishing [optantis] people, who refer all Moses’s felicity not to his fortune, but to GOD [as] received [from Him]; nor [can] Joshua further carry on affairs prosperously unless they acknowledge [it] to be aided [only] by this one’s [God’s] help. But if we regard our Jesus in Joshua, we can — and ought — to opt [wish] nothing otherwise than [we would] to GOD: namely, that with his members, the whole Church, and all its single parts—and thus [Sicque]
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—may [it] be GOD; [that] His will be done in them; [and that] by these to Him praise and glory be rendered. And thus [Sicque] may that [word] of Isaiah ch. 53:10 be more and more fulfilled: “The will of the Lord shall be directed in his hand” (CHRIST’s). But if in this same Joshua we auspicate [regard with good omen] our Kings, Princes, and — to use St. Augustine’s word — [our] prelates [praeditos, those set over us], [it is] surely fair [that] the same [prayer], often, from the sentiment of [our] mind, we should vow for them; [that] we should pray from the Saviour himself that with them GOD may be — [that] they themselves, in so great labors, molestations, and dangers of governing, may be strengthened [comforted], and act manfully. “I beseech [thee],” says St. Paul, 1 Tim. 2:1, “first of all, [that] supplications, prayers, postulations, [and] givings-of-thanks be made for all men — for kings and [for] all who are in sublimity [high place] — that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all piety and chastity.” “It is to be known,” says St. Gregory, bk. 6, epist. 5, “that, in order that it may be lawful for us to confess the right faith freely, and to dispose concordantly, in peace, all [things] which are to be done, [it is] for the life of the most Serene Lords, and for their own offspring [progeny] also, incessantly to be prayed—
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—that omnipotent GOD may subject the barbarous nations to their feet, [and] may concede to them long and happy times, insofar as, through a Christian empire, the faith which is in CHRIST may reign.” Likewise epist. 7, about a new Bishop: “Just as he who is set over you [as] prelate, and over your peoples, [is] to intercede for all — so, for his conversation and morals, you all ought to pray, that in the sight of omnipotent GOD you may avail to profit by his imitation, and [that] he may be aided by your merits. But let us all concordantly — for the most serene Lords and their pious offspring, [and] with great [floods of tears], insofar as we can — with assiduous weepings pray, that superne [heavenly] grace, protecting their life, may guard [it], and may lay the necks of the nations under the Christian Empire.” And, most accommodated to these our times, bk. 9, epist. 40: “For the life of the most pious and most Christian Emperor our Lord, and for the most tranquil [life] of his consort, and for [his] most gentle offspring, [it is] ever to be prayed — in whose times the mouths of heretics fall silent [conticescunt]; because, although their hearts, in insanity, boil up perverse senses, yet the orthodox [the Emperor being orthodox], in the time of [such an] Emperor, presume not to speak forth the depraved [things] which they feel.”