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| Of the Indiscriminate Increase of the Church, Wherein Many Reprobate are in This World Mixed with the Elect.
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Chapter 49.—Of the Indiscriminate
Increase of the Church, Wherein Many Reprobate are in This World
Mixed with the Elect.
In this wicked world, in these evil
days, when the Church measures her future loftiness by her present
humility, and is exercised by goading fears, tormenting sorrows,
disquieting labors, and dangerous temptations, when she soberly
rejoices, rejoicing only in hope, there are many reprobate mingled
with the good, and both are gathered together by the gospel as in a
drag net;1236
and in
this world, as in a sea, both swim enclosed without distinction in
the net, until it is brought ashore, when the wicked must be
separated from the good, that in the good, as in His temple, God
may be all in all. We acknowledge, indeed, that His word is now
fulfilled who spake in the psalm, and said, “I have announced and
spoken; they are multiplied above number.”1237
This takes place now, since He
has spoken, first by the mouth of his forerunner John, and
afterward by His own mouth, saying, “Repent: for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.”1238
He chose disciples, whom He also
called apostles,1239
of lowly birth, unhonored, and
illiterate, so that whatever great thing they might be or do, He
might be and do it in them. He had one among them whose
wickedness He could use well in order to accomplish His appointed
passion, and furnish His Church an example of bearing with the
wicked. Having sown the holy gospel as much as that behoved to be
done by His bodily presence, He suffered, died, and rose again,
showing by His passion what we ought to suffer for the truth, and
by His resurrection what we ought to hope for in adversity; saving
always the mystery of the sacrament, by which His blood was shed
for the remission of sins. He held converse on the earth forty
days with His disciples, and in their sight ascended into heaven,
and after ten days sent the promised Holy Spirit. It was given as
the chief and most necessary sign of His coming on those who had
believed, that every one of them spoke in the tongues of all
nations; thus signifying that the unity of the catholic Church
would embrace all nations, and would in like manner speak in all
tongues.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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