Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/297

264 those things which we have in this place ordained in words, we ourselves exhibit practically in our own churches. Laws, although they be the best, are yet a dumb thing. What availed the Hebrew people the laws given by the mouth of God himself? What advantage did the laws of Lycurgus bring to the Lacedæmonians, of Solon to the Athenians, in retaining the liberty on account of which they were written? But wherefore do I call to mind foreign and too ancient things? What instructions or precepts for living well and happily can or ought we to lack, besides the life and teaching of Christ our Lord alone? What, moreover, was omitted by our ancestors, appertaining both to thinking rightly or doing gloriously? Long since, indeed, we had a salutary medicine composed and prepared; but, if it has to expel a disease, it must be taken, and through the veins diffused throughout the whole body. Let us, dearest [brethren], for the first time be drunken with this cup of salvation, and let us be living and speaking laws, and, as it were, a rule and canon to which the actions and studies of others may be directed; and let each man so persuade himself, that nothing will turn out to the advantage and dignity of the Christian republic, except he earnestly contribute all in his own power.

That was both before to be our care, and will hereafter be so, with yet more accuracy. For if, after the example of our Master and Saviour, we ought to do before we teach; what excuse can there be, but that we should do after we have taught? Who will be able to bear with or endure us, if, after we have shown that theft is not to be committed, we ourselves be guilty of theft? if, [when we have shown] that fornication is a crime, we [ourselves] be fornicators? Little does it become the holy to dissent from the holy council—the innocent and blameless from the precepts of integrity and innocence—the firm and constant in faith from the established doctrine of our faith. And such, indeed, do our people expect us [to be], who, having long time borne with our absence, consoled themselves with the hope that, when present, we should atone for this concession of time by greater zeal. But that will, as I hope, most holy fathers, be diligently brought about by yourselves; and, as ye have done in this place, so also will ye at home do enough