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| Chapter XVII. Those who are under an error in one point of the Catholic religion, lose the whole faith, and all the value of the faith. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XVII.
Those who are under an error in one point of the
Catholic religion, lose the whole faith, and all the value of the
faith.
And since this is so, in
denying that Jesus Christ the Son of God is one, you have denied
everything. For the scheme of the mysteries of the Church and the
Catholic faith is such that one who denies one portion of the Sacred
Mystery cannot confess the other. For all parts of it are so bound up
and united together that one cannot stand without the other and if a
man denies one point out of the whole number, it is of no use for him
to believe all the others. And so if you deny that the Lord Jesus
Christ is God, the result is that in denying the Son of God you deny
the Father also. For as St. John says: “He who hath not the Son
hath not the Father; but he who hath the Son hath the Father
also.”2569 By denying then
Him who was begotten you deny also Him who begat. By denying also that
the Son of God was born in the flesh, you are led also to deny that He
was born in the Spirit, for it is the same Person who was born in the
flesh who was first born in the Spirit. If you do not believe that He
was born in the flesh, the result is that you do not believe that He
suffered. If you do not believe in His Passion what remains for you but
to deny His resurrection? For faith in one raised springs out of faith
in one dead. Nor can the reference to the resurrection keep its place,
unless belief in His death has first preceded it. By denying then his
Passion and Death, you deny also his resurrection from hell.2570 It follows certainly that you deny His
ascension also, for there cannot be the ascension without the
resurrection. And if we do not believe that He rose again, we cannot
either believe that He ascended: as the Apostle says, “For He
that descended is the same also that ascended.”2571 Thus, so far as you are concerned, the
Lord Jesus Christ did not rise from hell, nor ascend into heaven, nor
sit at the right hand of God the Father, nor will He come at that day
of judgment which we look for, nor will He judge the quick and the
dead.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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