•sc. 1.] THE PREFACE. 297 good to take the children's meat and to give it to dogs : " also, " Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites ! " I heard how "many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven : * and on the contrary, " I will then say to them, * Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity ! ' " I read, "Blessed are the barren, and the teats which have not given suck ; " and on the contrary, " Those, who were ready, entered with him to the wedding ; afterwards came the other virgins also, saying ' Lord, Lord, open to us : * to whom it was answered, *I do not know you.'" I heard, forsooth, "Whoever shall believe and be baptized, shall be saved, but whoever shall not believe shall be damned." I read in the words of the apostle that the branch of the wild olive was grafted upon the good olive, but should nevertheless be cut off from the communion of the root of its fatness, if it did not hold itself in fear, but entertained lofty thoughts. I knew the mercy of the Lord, but I also feared his judgment : I praised his grace, but I feared the rendering to every man according to his works : perceiving the sheep of the same fold to be different, I deservedly commended Peter for his entire confession of Christ, but called Judas most wretched, for his love of covetousness : I thought Stephen most glorious on account of the palm of martyrdom, but Nicholas wretched for his mark of unclean heresy: I read assuredly, "They had all things common:" but likewise also, as it is written, " Why have ye conspired to tempt the Spirit of God ? " I saw, on the other hand, how much security had grown upon the men of our time, as if there were nothing to cause them fear. These things, therefore, and many more which for brevity's sake we have determined to omit, I revolved again and again in my amazed mind with compunction in my heart, and I thought to myself, " If God's peculiar people, chosen from all the people of the world, the royal seed, and holy nation, to whom he had said, ' My firstbegotten Israel,' its priests, prophets, and kings, throughout so many ages, his servant and apostle, and the members of his primitive church, were not spared when they deviated from the right path, what will he do to the darkness of this our age, in which, besides all the huge and heinous sins, which it has in common with all the wicked of the world