10. Although, even if there
went before no testimonies concerning Christ and the Church, whom
ought it not to move unto belief, that the Divine brightness hath
on a sudden shone on the human race, when we see, (the false gods
now abandoned, and their images every where broken in pieces, their
temples overthrown or changed into other uses, and so many vain
rites plucked out by the roots from the most inveterate usage of
men,) the One True God invoked by all? And that this hath been
brought to pass-by One Man, by men mocked, seized, bound, scourged,
smitten with the palms of the hand, reviled, crucified, slain: His
disciples, (whom He chose common men,16851685 and unlearned, and fishermen, and
publicans, that by their means His teaching might be set forth,)
proclaiming His Resurrection, His Ascension, which they asserted
that they had seen, and being filled with the Holy Ghost, sounded
forth this Gospel, in all tongues which they had not learned. And
of them who heard them, part believed, part, believing not,
fiercely withstood them who preached. Thus while they were faithful
even unto death for the truth, strove not by returning evil, but by
enduring, overcame not by killing, but by dying; thus was the world
changed unto this religion, thus unto this Gospel were the hearts
of mortals turned, of men and women, of small and great, of learned
and unlearned, of wise and foolish, of mighty and weak, of noble
and ignoble, of high and low, and, throughout all nations the
Church shed abroad so increased, that even against the Catholic
faith itself there arises not any perverse sect, any kind of error,
which is found so to oppose itself to Christian truth, as that it
affect not and go not about to glory in the name of Christ: which
very error would not be suffered to spring up throughout the earth,
were it not that the very gainsaying exercised an wholesome
discipline. How16861686 would The
Crucified have availed so greatly, had He not been God 343that took
upon Him Man, even if He had through the Prophet foretold no such
things to come? But when now this so great mystery of godliness
hath had its prophets and heralds going before, by whose divine
voices it was afore proclaimed; and when it hath come in such
manner as it was afore proclaimed, who is there so mad as to assert
that the Apostles lied concerning Christ, of Whom they preached
that He was come in such manner as the Prophets foretold afore that
He should come, which Prophets were not silent as to true things to
come concerning the Apostles themselves? For concerning these they
had said, “There is neither speech nor language, whereof their
voices are not heard; their sound went out into all the earth, and
their words unto the ends of the world.”16871687 And this at any rate we see
fulfilled in the world, although we have not yet seen Christ in the
flesh. Who therefore, unless blinded by amazing madness, or hard
and steeled by amazing obstinacy, would be unwilling to put faith
in the sacred Scriptures, which have foretold the faith of the
whole world?
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