of flagrant and notorious offenders, whose character, as belonging to the tares and not to the wheat, is altogether unequivocal,-so neither does it denote any indifference to others' vices or sins, any connivance or mental allowance of them, under the plea that God alone is judge, and that we have no concern in such matters. The precepts and example of the Divine Saviour himself are the best proof that such could not be his meaning. The law of charity even under the Law declared, "Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy brother, and not suffer sin upon him ;" and the severe invectives which the holy prophets of old ever uttered against the iniquities and offences of their several times, are exceeded in earnestness and vehemence by His declarations who came down from heaven to redeem and purify us. And though the Christian is in all cases directed to look principally and constantly to his own path, though the judgment and censure of others is not his province, and reproof even of plain evils is a duty by no means incumbent on all,-though few cases exist in which reproof of a superior is proper, and that of an equal or inferior requires always to be moulded by temper and charity,-yet is the servant of Christ not to spare when he appears in a character higher than that which is personally his own: he must dread lest, by neglect of suitable caution or warning, he himself incur the guilt of an unfaithful watchman, and a partaker of other men's sins.

Where, then, if this censure of scandals is not forbidden, is that patient acquiescence in existing

evils, which our Lord's parable so clearly and strongly enjoins on us? The answer is not a very difficult one. Whatever be the magnitude of the evils from which we ourselves study to be free, in which we decline all participation open or implied, and against which, with all charity to the persons of others, we protest by our example at all times, and, when proper occasion requires, by our express denunciation, we are not, in the first place, to suppose that these evils, because unextirpated, are sufficient to neutralize the Church of God in which they are found, or to make the divine promises respecting it ineffectual. It would be hard to conceive of any condition of the Church more lawless than was that of Israel in the period of the Judges,more desolate and apparently hopeless than during the Babylonian captivity,-more corrupt and overrun with noxious spiritual disorders than in the generation to which Christ himself came. Yet in the very worst of these times we know that God's covenant and alliance were unrepealed; the means of approach to Him subsisted, however clouded with difficulty, yet sufficient to the faithful that used them; and if the unworthiness of the many did not then frustrate the divine gift and calling, as the apostle has argued the case before us, so neither can it now. Again, we are not to think that offences of an undefined nature, which different habits of thinking will cause even good men to apprehend differently, ought to be met in the same manner as plain and tangible offences against the laws of God and man; still less are we to define, on grounds of

this kind, who are tares and who are wheat in the visible Church—a question which, in the immense majority of cases, is utterly beyond our power to solve, and known only to Him who searcheth the heart and reins. Bearing therefore perpetually in mind this difficulty, or rather utter impossibility, and the awful denunciations of our Lord and his apostles which forbid us, as we would escape judgment ourselves, to arrogate to ourselves the office of judges of others; our course, when even serious offences or scandals come under our observation, is not to undertake the rectification without a clear and manifest call of Providence to this work; never, unless perfectly convinced of its practicability as well as its necessity; never to seek, in an exclusion which necessarily condemns and proscribes the innocent with the guilty, a remedy far worse than any evil it would cure; still less to withhold Christian communion from those by whom in our opinion, whether that opinion be well or ill founded, the offence might be removed, and is not. Thus, when in an early age of ecclesiastical history, an extensive and most uncharitable separation was made from the general Church, on the single alleged ground of a prelate being recognized whose conduct was said to have deserved deposition,-it was urged against them from our Lord's word in these parables, that the charge, if ever so true, could not justify their schism: it was their duty, however they might condemn the offence, to bear with the evil as one which the day of judgment would rectify; and not proceed on the chimerical pre

A

sumption, that the net of Christ's Church caught good fishes only, or that the wheat in His field must be wholly unmixed with tares'. We need not point to more recent examples of a similar error, the immediate or remote consequences of which are felt in the state of our religious history even now. Rather would we turn to the examples, which all, even the least catholic-minded amongst us, would agree in recognizing. Those who looked for redemption in Israel in the days of Zacharias and Elisabeth and the blessed Virgin, did not withhold their worship at God's house, and participation in all ordinances of his prescribed worship, because of the abuses and offences then existing, far greater and more grievous than can be possibly pretended among ourselves. They worshipped at his holy temple, where Pharisees and publicans could meet, not heeding the money-changers that sat in the courts. If their piety was offended, as it doubtless was, by

1 Non ideo Ecclesiam negligimus; sed toleramus quod nolumus, ut perveniamus quo volumus, utentes cautela præcepti Dominici, ne cum volumus ante tempus colligere zizania, simul eradicemus et triticum. Utentes etiam exemplo et præcepto B. Cypriani, qui collegas suos fœneratores, fraudatores, raptores, pacis contemplatione pertulit tales, nec eorum contagione factus est talis. Unde et nos si triticum sumus, ejusdem beati Martyris verba fidentissime dicimus; "quia etsi videntur in Ecclesia esse zizania, non tamen impediri debet aut fides aut charitas nostra; ut quoniam zizania in Ecclesia cernimus, ipsi de Ecclesia recedamus." Hæc verba justissime ac piissime dicerent majores nostri, etiam si Cæcilianum et aliquos coepiscopos ejus malos viderent, quos tamen ab Ecclesia separare non possent......hæc verba omnino dicerent, hoc omnino sentirent, ne cum vellent temere zizania separare, simul et triticum eradicarent.

Ager est enim mundus, non Africa: messis finis seculi, non tempus Donati. [S. Augustin. ad Donatistas post collat. cap. 20: et contra literas Petiliani, lib. III. cap. 2.]

their intrusion, their conscience was not ensnared by it, (as by a falsely styled tenderness it would have been), as though the guilt of these men or of the rulers extended to all. They looked to this and other like instances as evils which He who should visit his temple would in due time rectify; they possessed their souls in patience, expecting His coming to Israel for deliverance and for judgment; pursuing in the meantime meekly, without officious interference, or censure of things beyond their reach, their own career of unostentatious daily obedience. Thus they served God in his house and at home: and they were blessed in their choice and deed far beyond the exclusive Zealots, or the Essenes of the desert. Even thus may that spirit be restored to the Christian Church which Christ at his first coming pronounced and made thus blessed; which retains and cultivates that peace of God to which we are called in one body; which is thankful, without censure and contention; which, while sitting in judgment on its own conduct, is sensible throughout of its own deficient powers even for this', without entering into unauthorized judgment of others; which "judges nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall man have praise of God."

every

3 1 Cor. iv. 3-5.