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| The Truth Not Indebted to the Care of the Heretics; It Had Free Course Before They Appeared. Priority of the Church's Doctrine a Mark of Its Truth. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XXIX.—The
Truth Not Indebted to the Care of the Heretics; It Had Free Course
Before They Appeared. Priority of the Church’s Doctrine a Mark of
Its Truth.
In whatever manner error came, it reigned of
course2150 only as long as
there was an absence of heresies? Truth had to wait for certain
Marcionites and Valentinians to set it free. During the interval the
gospel was wrongly2151 preached; men
wrongly believed; so many thousands were wrongly baptized; so many
works of faith were wrongly wrought; so many miraculous gifts,2152
2152 Virtutes,
“potestatem edendi miracula” (Oehler). | so many spiritual endowments,2153 were wrongly set in operation; so many
priestly functions, so many ministries,2154
2154 Ministeria. Another
reading has mysteria, “mysteries” or
“sacraments.” |
were wrongly executed; and, to sum up the whole, so many martyrs
wrongly received their crowns! Else, if not wrongly done, and to no
purpose, how comes it to pass that the things of God were on their
course before it was known to what God they belonged? that there were
Christians before Christ was found? that there were heresies before
true doctrine? Not so; for in all cases truth precedes its copy, the
likeness succeeds the reality. Absurd enough, however, is it, that
heresy should be deemed to have preceded its own prior doctrine, even
on this account, because it is that (doctrine) itself which foretold
that there should be
heresies against which men would have to guard! To a church which
possessed this doctrine, it was written—yea, the doctrine itself
writes to its own church—“Though an angel from heaven
preach any other gospel than that which we have preached, let him be
accursed.”2155
2155 Gal. i. 8. [In this chapter (xxix.) the
principle of Prescription is condensed and brought to the
needle-point—Quod semper. If you can’t
show that your doctrine was always taught, it is false: and this
is “Prescription.”] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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