the councils." I answered that Engelhard, the ornament of our city, had
7. They added the words "contrary to the decrees of the Holy Fathers and the councils." I answered that Engelhard, the ornament of our city, had carefully weighed with me those in which our friends placed greatest confidence, and that no such asseveration could be made from those which they treated as a sacred anchor. For the question was not whether Lent ought to be done away with, but whether it was permissible by the law of Christ to eat meat at that time. While I forbid no man's fasting, I leave it free to him. 8. They had also added: "and contrary to very ancient custom." Here I frankly granted that it was the custom, and not a bad one. But if it were the custom, why was a proclamation added? I promised that I would certainly see to it that the custom should not be wantonly interrupted. 9. And if this custom (he continued) had not been inspired by the divine spirit it would not have lasted so long, in accordance with the words of Gamaliel. I answered that this and other things which were not from the mind of God would be done away in their own good time. For "every plant," says Christ in Matthew, "which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up." But selection of foods neither Christ nor the Apostles had prescribed. Therefore no one ought to be surprised if unhappy mortals are turning their eyes towards freedom, since Christ in his loving kindness has now illumined the world more brightly with his gospel by a sort of second revelation. 10. After this the weighty speaker made his turn to the Senate, appealing to them to stay with and in the Church, for outside of it none were saved. This I met thus: "Let not this exhortation move you, most excellent citizens, as if you had ever abandoned the Church of Christ. For I am persuaded of you that you hold in fresh remembrance what is said in the narrative of Matthew, that the foundation of the Church is that rock which gave his name to Peter the faithful confessor. No one lays other foundation than this, nor can do so. Nay, in every nation and place, every one who confesses the Lord Jesus with his tongue and believes in his heart that God raised him from the dead shall be saved, whether he be among the Indians or the Scythians, and it is fixed beyond controversy that outside of that Church none is saved, within which we all believe ourselves to be the more firmly as we glory the more certainly in the hope of the glory of the sons of God." Here I might have dragged the man forth and laid bare his notion of the Church, but I preferred to spare him,