to-morrow we die,"[375] asserting that there was no resurrection of the dead? And yet they were among the very men to whom the same apostle says, "Was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?"[376] For he writes most manifestly to them, saying, "How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?"[377] * * * * * CHAP. XXVII.--38. And in that the Church is thus described in the Song of Songs, "A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed: thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits;"[378] I dare not understand this save of the holy and just,--not of the covetous, and defrauders, and robbers, and usurers, and drunkards, and the envious, of whom we yet both learn most fully from Cyprian's letters, as I have often shown, and teach ourselves, that they had baptism in common with the just, in common with whom they certainly had not Christian charity. For I would that some one would tell me how they "crept into the garden enclosed and the fountain sealed," of whom Cyprian bears witness that they renounced the world in word and not in deed, and that yet they were within the Church. For if they both are themselves there, and are themselves the bride of Christ, can she then be as she is described, "without spot or wrinkle,"[379] and is the fair dove defiled with such a portion of her members? Are these the thorns among which she is a lily, as it is said in the same Song?[380] So far, therefore, as the lily extends, so far does "the garden enclosed and the fountain sealed," namely, through all those just persons who are Jews inwardly in the circumcision of the heart[381] (for "the king's daughter is all glorious within"[382]), in whom is the fixed number of the saints predestined before the foundation of the world. But that multitude of thorns, whether in secret or in open separation, is pressing on it from without, over and above the number. "If I would declare them," it is said, "and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered."[383] The number, therefore, of the just persons, "who are the called according to His purpose,"[384] of whom it is said, "The Lord knoweth them that are His,"[385] is itself "the garden enclosed, the fountain sealed, the orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits." Of this number some live according to the Spirit, and enter on the excellent way of charity; and when they "restore a man that is overtaken in a fault in the spirit of meekness, they consider themselves, lest they also be tempted."[386] And when it happens that they also are themselves overtaken, the affection of charity is but a little checked, and not extinguished; and again rising up and being kindled afresh, it is restored to its former course. For they know how to say, "My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto Thy word."[387] But when "in anything