25. Let us seek therefore that truly wise man, that truly free man, who although he live under the dominion of many, says freely, _Who is he that will plead with me? from Whose sight I shall not be able to hide myself, only do Thou withdraw Thy hand far from me, and let not Thy dread make me afraid_. Sidenote: Ps. li. 6. 26. And King David, who followed him, said, _Against Thee only have I sinned_. For being supported by the royal dignity, and being, so to speak, master of the laws, he was not subject to them but was liable to God alone, Who is the Lord of hosts. Sidenote: 1 Cor. iv. 3, 4. Sidenote: 1 Cor. ii. 15. Sidenote: Job xxvii. 2. Sidenote: Ib. xxv. 5. 27. Hear another free man; _But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self_, for I know nothing _against_ myself, ... _but He that judgeth me is the Lord_. The freedom of the spiritual man is a true freedom, because _he judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man_, because he knows himself to be subject to nothing which has any participation in the creature, but to God alone, Who only is without sin, of Whom Job also says, _God liveth Who hath taken away my judgment_, for the just man can only be judged by Him _in Whose sight the heavens are not clean, nor the light of the stars pure and clean_. 28. Will any one bring forward those verses of Sophocles which say ‘Jupiter, and no mortal man is ruler over me?’ How much more ancient is Job, how much older is David? Let them acknowledge then that they have borrowed from us the more excellent of their sayings. Sidenote: Ps. xlv. 8. 29. Who then is wise but he who has arrived at the very mysteries of the Godhead, and has known the hidden things of wisdom to be manifested to him. He then alone is wise who has taken God as his guide, to conduct him to the secret resting-place of truth, and although but a mortal man has become by grace the heir and successor of the eternal God, and partaker, as it were, of His sweetness, as it is written, _Wherefore God, even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows_. Sidenote: 2 Cor. vii. 5. Sidenote: Rom. viii. 37.