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Rh bought a farme, and I must needs goe forth and see it; I pray thee hold me excused. And an other said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I goe to prove them, I pray thee, hold me excused. And an other said, I have maried a wife, and therfore I can not come. And the servant returning told these things to his Lord. Then the Maister of the house being angrie, said to his servant: Goe forth quickly into the streetes and lanes of the citie, and the poore and feeble and blind and lame bring in hither. And the servant said: Lord, it is done as thou didst command, and yet there is place. And the Lord said to the servant: Goe forth into the wayes and hedges; and ″ compel them to enter, that my house may be filled. But I say to you, that none of those men that were called, shal tast my supper. ✠

And great multitudes went with him and turning, he said to them: * If any man come to me and hateth not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea and his owne life besides; he can not be my Disciple. And he that doth not beare his crosse and come after me; can not be my Disciple. For, which of you minding to build a toure, doth not first sit downe and reckon the charges that are necessarie, whether he have to finish it: lest, after that he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, al that see it, begin to mocke him, saying, That this man began to build, and he could not finish it? Or what King about to goe to make warre against an other King, doth not first sit downe and thinke whether he be able with ten thousands to meete him that with twentie thousands commeth against him? Otherwise whiles he is yet farre off, sending a legacie he asketh those things that belong to peace. So therfore every one of you that doth not renounce al that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple. ✠

* Salt is good. But if the salt leese his vertue, wherewith shal it be seasoned? It is profitable neither for the ground, nor for the dunghil, but it shal be cast forth. He that hath eares to heare, let him heare. ✠

ANNOTATIONS. XIIII.

23. Compel them.) The vehement persuasion that God useth both externally by force of his word and miracles, and internaly by his grace, to bring us unto him, is called compeling: not that he forceth any to come to him against their owne willes, but that he can alter and mollifie an hard hart, and make him willing that before would not. S. Augustine also referreth this compelling to the penal lawes which Catholike Princes do justly use against Heretikes and Schismatikes, proving that they who are by their former profession in Baptisme subject to the Catholike Church, and are departed from the same after Sectes, may and ought to be compelled into the unitie and societie of the universal Church againe. And therfore in this sense, by the two former partes of the Parable, the Jewes first, and secondly the Gentils, that never beleeved before in Christ, were invited by faire sweet meanes only: but by the third, such are invited as the Church of God hath power over, because they promised in Baptisme, and therfore are to be revoked not only by gentle meanes, but by just punishment also. Rh