Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/97

Rh Hence, John the Baptist aptly says that "he will purge," that is, on the day of judgment, "his threshing-floor," that is, holy church, and "gather the wheat into the garner," namely, the predestinate into the heavenly country; but "the chaff," namely, the reprobate, "he will burn with fire unquenchable." And Augustine, commenting in his Letter to Peter on Faith [Migne, 40: 777], as already quoted, says: "Hold fast most tenaciously and never doubt that God's threshing-floor is the catholic church, and that unto the end of the world will be found in it chaff mixed with wheat. Here also the wicked and the good are mingled in the communion of the sacraments; and in every calling, whether of clerics or laymen, there are both good and bad." And further on he says: "But in the end of the world the good are to be separated with the body from the bad, when Christ shall come with his fan in his hand and shall purge his threshing-floor and gather the wheat into the garner and burn the chaff with fire unquenchable, yea, when by righteous judgment he shall separate the righteous from the unrighteous, the good from the wicked, the strait from the crooked. The good he will place at his right hand, and the wicked at his left. And from his mouth will go forth a sentence, unending and immutable, of righteous and eternal judgment, and all the wicked will go into eternal burning, but the righteous into life eternal. The wicked will always be burning with the devil, the righteous be reigning without end [with Christ]." Thus far Augustine. From the exposition of the saints it is clear how in Christ's parables the reprobate are symbolized by the bad fishes, by the bad guests at the wedding, by the man not clad in a wedding-garment at the feast, by the chaff, by the tares, by the bad seed, by the evil tree, by the foolish virgins, and by the goats. On the other hand, in an opposite way, the predestinate are symbolized by the good fishes, the good guests, the man clad in a