40. Luke XV. 32.
232 ST. AUGUSTINE said before, cleanse our wills from the pollution of this concupiscence, even in the judgment of any enemy you please to name as judge, seeing that we use our utmost efforts in entreating the very men of whose labours we avail ourselves to enjoy with us, within the society of the Catholic Church, the fruits both of their labours and of our own. But this, they say, is the very thing which disquiets us,—If we are unrighteous, wherefore do you seek our company? To which question we answer. We seek the company of you who are unrighteous, that you may not remain unrighteous; we seek for you who are lost, that we may rejoice over you as soon as you are found, saying. This our brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.^^ Why, then, he says, do you not baptize me, that you might wash me from my sins? I reply: Because I do not do despite to the stamp of the monarch, when I correct the ill-doing of a deserter. Why, he says, do I not even do penance in your body? Nay truly, except you have done penance, you cannot be saved; for how shall you rejoice that you have been reformed, unless you JSirst grieve that you had been astray? What, then, he says, do we receive with you, when we come over to your side? I answer, You do not indeed receive baptism, which was able to exist in you outside the framework of the body of Christ, although it could not profit you; but you receive the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,^^ without which no one can see God; and you receive charity, which, as it is written, "shall cover the multitude of sins." ^^ And in regard to this
40. Luke XV. 32. 41. Eph. iv. 3. 42. I Pet. iv. 8.