esent the Church; (3.) That the parable of the fishing-net confirms
this interpretation; and (4.) That in the world there was no wheat until
the preaching of the gospel reached it, and consequently the mixture
is in the church, and not in the world.

[13] Die Parabeln des Herrn, fuer Kirche, Schule, und Haus, erklaert
von Dr. De Valenti. Basel, 1841.

[14] It is quite possible that the separatists whom De Valenti
scolds, with more warmth than elegance, may deserve his censure; for
severe restrictive measures adopted by governments to suppress
religious dissent have frequently the effect of deteriorating its
character, on the principle that oppression makes a wise man mad.

The first of these grounds seems most unfortunate; for corrupt
ecclesiastics, from an early age to the present day, have ever shown
themselves ready to cast those whom they call heretics, not out of the
Church only, but out of the world:[15] the second is a refinement too
narrow for building any conclusion upon: the third applies a mistaken
view of one parable to support a mistaken view of another: and the
fourth is the second in another form. After having in effect explained
away his own admission, that the field is the world, and not the Church,
he freely concedes in the close that the openly heretical and vicious
should not be tolerated within the Church. But I ask what right has he
to exclude those whom, according to his exegesis, the Lord commanded
his ministers to tolerate in the Church?

[15] Lange (_in loc._), having quoted Gerlach to the effect that
this prohibition refers to extremes of ecclesiastical discipline,
for the purpose of excluding all unbelievers and hypocrites, and
constituting a perfectly pure Church, timidly replies: "We can
scarcely agree with him that it contains no allusion to the
punishment of death for heresy.... It is well known that
Novatianism, on the one hand, and the Papal hierarchy, on the other,
have addressed themselves to this work of uprooting despite the
prohibition of the Lord, and that the Romish Church has at last
ended by condemning to the flames only the best wheat.... The _auto
da fes_ of the middle ages were only a humble caricature and
anticipation of that fiery judgment."

In the intimation that it was while men slept that the mischief was
done, I cannot find any covert reproof of an indolent ministry in the
Church. It was night: all the community had retired t