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The case then (if these mens censures were ought worth) would go hard with Nectarius, and all the Bishops that followed him; but especially with S. John Chrysostom, who was his immediate successor in the See of Constantinople. for thus doth he expound that place of the Apostle: ^zLet every one examine himself, and then let him come. He doth not bid one man to examine another, but every one himself; making the judgement private, and the trial without witnesses. and in the end of his second homily of Fasting (which in others is the eighth de Poenitentiâ) frameth his exhortation accordingly. ^aWithin thy conscience, none being present but God who seeth all things, enter thou into judgement and into a search of thy sins, and recounting thy whole life, bring thy sins unto judgement in thy mind: reform thy excesses, and so with a pure conscience draw near to that sacred Table, and partake of that holy sacrifice. Yet in another place he deeply chargeth Ministers, not to admit known offenders unto the Communion. But ^bif one (saith he) be ignorant that he is an evil person, after that he hath used much diligence therein, he is not to be blamed. for these things are spoken by me of such as are known. And we find both in him, and in the practise of the times following, that the order of public Penance was not wholly taken away; but according to the ancient discipline established by the Apostles in the Church, open offenders were openly censured and pressed to make public confession of ⟨p. 97⟩their faults. Whereby it is manifest, that the liberty brought in by Nectarius, of not resorting to any Penitentiary, respected the disclosing of secret sins only; such as that foul one was, from whence the public scandal arose, which gave occasion to the repeal of the former Constitution. For to suffer open and notorious crimes, committed in the Church, to pass without control, was not a mean to prevent but to augment scandals; nay the ready way, to make the house of God become a den of thieves.

The case then (if these mens censures were ought worth) would goe hard with Nectarius, and all the Bishops that followed him; but especially with S. Iohn Chrysostom, who was his immediat successor in the See of Constantinople. for thus doth hee expound that place of the Apostle: