2. Ps. cxviii. 8.
POLITICAL WRITINGS 209 take the utmost pains we can to correct the erring ones themselves; not only watching that they should do no injury to the weak, and that they should be delivered from their wicked error, but also praying for them, that God would open their understanding, and that they might comprehend the Scriptures. For in the sacred books, where the Lord Christ is made manifest, there is also His Church declared; but they, with wondrous blindness, whilst they would know nothing of Christ Himself save what is revealed in the Scriptures, yet form their notion of His Church from the vanity of human falsehood, instead of learning what it is on the authority of the sacred books.
they prefer to the testimonies of Holy Writ their own contentions, because, in the case of
Caecilianus, formerly a bishop of the Church of
Carthage, against whom they brought charges which they were and are unable to substantiate, they separated themselves from the Catholic Church,—that is, from the unity of all nations. Although, even if the charges had been true which were brought by them against Caecihanus, and could at length be proved to us, yet, though we might pronounce an anathema upon him even in the grave, we are still bound not for the sake of any man to leave the Church, which rests for its foundation on divine witness, and is not the figment of litigious opinions, seeing that it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.2 For we cannot allow that if Caecilianus had erred,—a supposition which I make without prejudice to his integrity,—Christ should therefore have forfeited His inheritance. It is easy for a man to b. Letters, CLXXXV, 4-6.
2. Ps. cxviii. 8.