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| Heresy, as Well as Schism and Dissension, Disapproved by St. Paul, Who Speaks of the Necessity of Heresies, Not as a Good, But, by the Will of God, Salutary Trials for Training and Approving the Faith of Christians.
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Chapter V.—Heresy,
as Well as Schism and Dissension, Disapproved by St. Paul, Who Speaks
of the Necessity of Heresies, Not as a Good, But, by the Will of God,
Salutary Trials for Training and Approving the Faith of
Christians.
Moreover, when he blames dissensions and schisms,
which undoubtedly are evils, he immediately adds heresies
likewise. Now, that which he subjoins to evil things, he of course
confesses to be itself an evil; and all the greater, indeed, because he
tells us that his belief of their schisms and dissensions was grounded
on his knowledge that “there must be heresies
also.”1891
For he shows us
that it was owing to the prospect of the greater evil that he readily
believed the existence of the lighter ones; and so far indeed was he
from believing, in respect of evils (of such a kind), that heresies
were good, that his object was to forewarn us that we ought not to be
surprised at temptations of even a worse stamp, since (he said) they
tended “to make manifest all such as were
approved;”1892
in other words,
those whom they were unable to pervert.1893
In
short, since the whole passage1894
points to the
maintenance of unity and the checking of divisions, inasmuch as
heresies sever men from unity no less than schisms and dissensions, no
doubt he classes heresies under the same head of censure as he does
schisms also and dissensions. And by so doing, he makes those to be
“not approved,” who have fallen into heresies; more
especially when with reproofs he exhorts1895
men to turn away from such, teaching them that they should “all
speak and think the selfsame thing,”1896
the very object which heresies do not permit.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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