And our Saviour said unto them, "If you be the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham." If there are any Catholics foolish enough to build their hopes of salvation on the mere fact of being Catholics, without having the spirit and the works of the Catholic religion, let them consider the fearful denunciation of our Lord against them. Take the parable of the wheat and the tares. The kingdom of heaven is like to a man who sowed wheat in his field, and by-and-by, when it came up, a quantity of weeds, or tares, came up with it. The servants asked their lord, "Shall we not go out and pull up the tares?" "No," he replied; "lest, pulling out the tares, ye pull out the wheat with them. Suffer them to grow together until the harvest, and then the wheat shall be gathered into my barn, and the tares shall be bound up into bundles to be burned in the fire." The question is not--Am I growing in the field of the Church? but--Am I the wheat? or the tares, fit only for the burning? Our Lord never seems to grow tired of denouncing this doctrine. Listen to His description of the last judgment: "And when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: Lord, open to us; and he answering, shall say to you: I know not whence you are. Then you shall begin to say: We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. And he shall say to you: I know not whence you are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity." [Footnote 9] [Footnote 9: St. Luke xiii. 25-27.] {59} You see, then, the plea of being familiar in the house of God, of eating and drinking in His presence, is of no avail. Others, who are not in the outward Church of God, though in it in heart and soul, may enter the kingdom of God, but all the wicked in the Church shall be thrust out. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. When you shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you shall be cast out. And they shall come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." It is no doubt of immense and incalculable benefit to be within the pale of the Church, and within reach of the Sacraments, but if you presume on this alone, instead of getting any benefit, you will only make them the occasion of your damnation. You have received this great grace, but remember that you are thereby rendered responsible for the right use of it. "Brethren, beware lest you receive this grace of God in vain." Now, there is another false idea of what it is to be a Christian, and I am convinced that this prevails much more extensively, for, after all, few are foolish enough to build their hopes of salvation exclusively in the mere fact of being outward members of the Church of God. {60}