{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"a28393ab98945cdb9a76a75274110c3da33635ceb414d3f1a0a1402d5e47c0e0","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK FIRST."],"id":"pg45304-paragraph-46","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","note_targets":[],"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-paragraph-unclassified","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":null,"source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<p>If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those\r\nwho are doing wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable\r\nopportunity, or because he fears they may be made worse by\r\nhis rebuke, or that other weak persons may be disheartened\r\nfrom endeavouring to lead a good and pious life, and may be\r\ndriven from the faith; this man's omission seems to be occasioned\r\nnot by covetousness, but by a charitable consideration.\r\nBut what is blameworthy is, that they who themselves revolt\r\nfrom the conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another\r\nfashion, yet spare those faults in other men which they ought\r\nto reprehend and wean them from; and spare them because<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_13\">[Pg 13]</a></span>\r\nthey fear to give offence, lest they should injure their interests\r\nin those things which good men may innocently and legitimately\r\nuse,—though they use them more greedily than becomes\r\npersons who are strangers in this world, and profess the hope\r\nof a heavenly country. For not only the weaker brethren,\r\nwho enjoy married life, and have children (or desire to have\r\nthem), and own houses and establishments, whom the apostle\r\naddresses in the churches, warning and instructing them how\r\nthey should live, both the wives with their husbands, and the\r\nhusbands with their wives, the children with their parents,\r\nand parents with their children, and servants with their masters,\r\nand masters with their servants,—not only do these weaker\r\nbrethren gladly obtain and grudgingly lose many earthly and\r\ntemporal things on account of which they dare not offend men\r\nwhose polluted and wicked life greatly displeases them; but\r\nthose also who live at a higher level, who are not entangled in\r\nthe meshes of married life, but use meagre food and raiment,\r\ndo often take thought of their own safety and good name, and\r\nabstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear\r\ntheir wiles and violence. And although they do not fear them\r\nto such an extent as to be drawn to the commission of like\r\niniquities, nay, not by any threats or violence soever; yet\r\nthose very deeds which they refuse to share in the commission\r\nof, they often decline to find fault with, when possibly they\r\nmight by finding fault prevent their commission. They abstain\r\nfrom interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect,\r\ntheir own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed;\r\nnot because they see that their preservation and good name\r\nare needful, that they may be able to influence those who need\r\ntheir instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the\r\nflattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the\r\npeople, and the pain or death of the body; that is to say,\r\ntheir non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of\r\nlove.</p>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html","text_sha256":"488ac8be4c99f42229e5e090c55fd20b5d1520dfb05e6abc101ddb3acbc5980d","verified":false,"work_id":null}