happen; princes, prophets, Pope, and even the priests. And yet the
Church is to abide. By the grace of God we have not come to that. Woe to
these priests! But we hope that God will bestow His mercy upon us that we
shall not be of them.
Saint Peter, Epistle ii: false prophets in the past, the image of future
ones.
889.... So that if it is true, on the one hand, that some lax monks and some
corrupt casuists, who are not members of the hierarchy, are steeped in these
corruptions, it is, on the other hand, certain that the true pastors of the
Church, who are the true guardians of the Divine Word, have preserved it
unchangeably against the efforts of those who have attempted to destroy it.
And thus true believers have no pretext to follow that laxity, which is only
offered to them by the strange hands of these casuists, instead of the sound
doctrine which is presented to them by the fatherly hands of their own
pastors. And the ungodly and heretics have no ground for publishing these
abuses as evidence of imperfection in the providence of God over His Church;
since, the Church consisting properly in the body of the hierarchy, we are
so far from being able to conclude from the present state of matters that
God has abandoned her to corruption, that it has never been more apparent
than at the present time that God visibly protects her from c
.
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