10. Although, even if there
went before no testimonies concerning Christ and the Church, whom
ought it not to move unto belief, that the Divine brightness hath
on a sudden shone on the human race, when we see, (the false gods
now abandoned, and their images every where broken in pieces, their
temples overthrown or changed into other uses, and so many vain
rites plucked out by the roots from the most inveterate usage of
men,) the One True God invoked by all? And that this hath been
brought to pass-by One Man, by men mocked, seized, bound, scourged,
smitten with the palms of the hand, reviled, crucified, slain: His
disciples, (whom He chose common men,1685
and
unlearned, and fishermen, and
publicans, that by their means His teaching might be set forth,)
proclaiming His Resurrection, His Ascension, which they asserted
that they had seen, and being filled with the Holy
Ghost, sounded
forth this
Gospel, in all
tongues which they had not
learned. And
of them who heard them, part believed, part, believing not,
fiercely withstood them who
preached. Thus while they were
faithful
even unto
death for the
truth, strove not by returning
evil, but by
enduring, overcame not by killing, but by dying; thus was the
world
changed unto this
religion, thus unto this
Gospel were the
hearts
of
mortals turned, of men and
women, of
small and great, of
learned
and
unlearned, of
wise and foolish, of mighty and
weak, of
noble
and ignoble, of high and low, and, throughout all
nations the
Church shed abroad so increased, that even against the Catholic
faith itself there arises not any
perverse sect, any
kind of error,
which is found so to oppose itself to
Christian truth, as that it
affect not and go not about to
glory in the name of
Christ: which
very error would not be
suffered to spring up throughout the
earth,
were it not that the very gainsaying
exercised an wholesome
discipline. How
1686
would The
Crucified have availed so greatly, had He not been
God that took
upon Him Man, even if He had through the
Prophet foretold no such
things to come? But when now this so great
mystery of
godliness
hath had its
prophets and heralds going before, by whose
divine
voices it was afore proclaimed; and when it hath come in such
manner as it was afore proclaimed, who is there so
mad as to assert
that the
Apostles lied concerning
Christ, of Whom they
preached
that He was come in such manner as the
Prophets foretold afore that
He should come, which
Prophets were not
silent as to true things to
come concerning the
Apostles themselves? For concerning these they
had said, “There is neither
speech nor
language, whereof their
voices are not heard; their sound went out into all the
earth, and
their words unto the ends of the
world.”
1687
And this at any rate we see
fulfilled in the
world, although we have not yet seen
Christ in the
flesh. Who therefore, unless
blinded by
amazing madness, or hard
and steeled by
amazing obstinacy, would be
unwilling to put faith
in the sacred Scriptures, which have foretold the faith of the
whole world?
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
