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| The Heretics are deprived of their Meeting Places.
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Chapter
LXV.—The Heretics are deprived of
their Meeting Places.
“Forasmuch, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with
your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that
none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together.3305
| 3305 There is throughout this Life a curious repetition in the details
of action against heretics of precisely the same things which
Christians complained of as having been done to them. The idea of
toleration then seems to have been much as it was in pre-reformation
times, or, not to judge other times when there is a beam in our own
eye, as it is in America and England to-day,—the largest
toleration for every one who thinks as we do, and for the others a
temporary suspension of the rule to “judge not,” with an
amended prayer, “Lord, condemn them, for they know not what they
do,” and a vigorous attempt to force the divine
judgment. | We have directed, accordingly, that you
be deprived of all the houses in which you are accustomed to hold your
assemblies: and our care in this respect extends so far as to forbid
the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public
merely, but in any private house or place whatsoever. Let those of you,
therefore, who are desirous of embracing the true and pure religion,
take the far better course of entering the catholic Church, and uniting
with it in holy fellowship, whereby you will be enabled to arrive at
the knowledge of the truth. In any case, the delusions of your
perverted understandings must entirely cease to mingle with and mar the
felicity of our present times: I mean the impious and wretched
double-mindedness of heretics and schismatics. For it is an object
worthy of that prosperity which we enjoy through the favor of God, to
endeavor to bring back those who in time past were living in the hope
of future blessing, from all irregularity and error to the right path,
from darkness to light, from vanity to truth, from death to salvation.
And in order that this remedy may be applied with effectual power, we
have commanded, as before said, that you be positively deprived of
every gathering point for your superstitious meetings, I mean all the
houses of prayer, if such be worthy of the name, which belong to
heretics, and that
these be made over without delay to the catholic Church; that any other
places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever
be left for any future gathering; in order that from this day forward
none of your unlawful assemblies may presume to appear in any public or
private place. Let this edict be made public.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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