511. The church cannot exist in any person until his sins have been distanced from him. Any reasonable person can reach this conclusion, and it can be illustrated by the following comparisons. Can anyone put sheep, kids or lambs into fields or woods teeming with all kinds of wild beasts, before driving out the wild beasts? Can anyone work over a piece of ground thick with thorns, briars and nettles to make a garden, until he has uprooted those weeds? Can anyone introduce a form of government based upon justice or set up an independent state in a city occupied by an enemy, until he has driven the enemy out? It is much the same with the evils in a person, which resemble wild beasts, briars and thorns, or enemies. The church can no more co-exist with these than anyone can live together with tigers and leopards in a zoo. No more can anyone sleep in a bed made on a layer of poisonous plants or with the pillows stuffed with them. No more can anyone sleep at night in a church, if beneath its paving stones lie tombs full of corpses. He would surely be at the mercy of ghosts resembling furies.