Thirty-eighth Day
The Holy Thing: Due discernment in preaching the Gospel. — Matt. vii. 6.
THAT which is holy 9 is the body of Jesus Christ; we must not ‘ give it to dogs ’: — that is to say, to the impure, to the brazen, to those who are ready to fall out with everybody round them; nor, again, must we give it to those constantly relapsing sinners whom St Peter has figured by the image of a 'dog returned to his vomit, and a sow to her wallowing in the mire ’: — as we have already seen in a passage from that Apostle.
Speaking generally, ' that which is holy ’ means all those sacred mysteries that the preachers of the Gospel are warned to impart with great discernment, and not to have profaned by the unworthy.
'Pearls put before swine ’ are holy words spoken before men incapable of relishing them, and who, for this very reason, would turn with a
