Chapter 13.—14. If, in the interests of the unity of the party of Donatus, no one rebaptizes those who were baptized in a wicked schism, and men, who are guilty of a crime of such enormity as to be compared by them in their Council to those ancient authors of schism whom the earth swallowed up alive,1944
are either unpunished after separation, or restored again to their position after condemnation; why is it that, in defence of the
unity of
Christ, which is spread throughout the whole inhabited
world, of which it has been predicted that it shall have
dominion from
sea to
sea, and from the
river unto the ends of the
earth,
1945
—a prediction which seems from actual
proof to be in process of fulfillment; why is it that, in defence of this
unity, they do not acknowledge the true and universal
law of that inheritance which rings forth from the books that are common to us all: "I shall give Thee the
heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth for Thy possession?"
1946
In behalf of the
unity of Donatus, they are not compelled to call together again what they have scattered abroad, but are
warned to hear the
cry of the Scriptures: why will they not understand that they meet with such treatment through the
mercy of
God, that since they brought false charges against the Catholic
Church, by contact as it were with which they were
unwilling to
defile their own excessive sanctity, they should be compelled by the sovereign
authority of
Optatus Gildonianus to receive again and associate with themselves true offenses of the greatest enormity,
condemned by the true voice, as they say, of their own plenary
Council? Let them at length perceive how they are filled with the true
crimes of their own party, after inventing fictitious
crimes wherewith to charge their
brethren, when, even if the charges had been true, they ought at length to feel how much should be
endured in the cause of
peace, and in behalf of
Christ’s
peace to
return to a
Church which did not condemn crimes undiscovered, if on behalf of the peace of Donatus they were ready to pardon such as were condemned.
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