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But let us now reply to those who promise deliverance from eternal
fire, not to the devil and his angels (as neither do they of whom we
have been speaking), nor even to all men whatever, but only to those
who have been washed by the baptism of Christ, and have become
partakers of His body and blood, no matter how they have lived, no
matter what heresy or impiety they have fallen into. But they are
contradicted by the apostle, where he says, "Now the works of the
flesh are manifest, which are these; fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variances,
emulations, wrath, strife, heresies, envyings, drunkenness,
revellings, and the like: of the which I tell you before, as I have
also told you in time past, for they which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God." Certainly this sentence of the apostle
is false, if such persons shall be delivered after any lapse of time,
and shall then inherit the kingdom of God. But as it is not false,
they shall certainly never inherit the kingdom of God. And if they
shall never enter that kingdom, then they shall always be retained in
eternal punishment; for there is no middle place where he may live
unpunished who has not been admitted into that kingdom.
And therefore we may reasonably inquire how we are to understand these
words of the Lord Jesus: "This is the bread which cometh down from
heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living
bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he
shall live for ever." And those, indeed, whom we are now
answering, are refuted in their interpretation of this passage by those
whom we are shortly to answer, and who do not promise this deliverance
to all who have received the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's
body, but only to the catholics, however wickedly they live; for
these, say they, have eaten the Lord's body not only sacramentally,
but really, being constituted members of His body, of which the
apostle says, "We being many are one bread, one body." He then
who is in the unity of Christ's body (that is to say, in the
Christian membership), of which body the faithful have been wont to
receive the sacrament at the altar, that man is truly said to eat the
body and drink the blood of Christ. And consequently heretics and
schismatics being separate from the unity of this body, are able to
receive the same sacrament, but with no profit to themselves, nay,
rather to their own hurt, so that they are rather more severely judged
than liberated after some time.
For they are not in that bond of peace which is symbolized by that
sacrament.
But again, even those who sufficiently understand that he who is not
in the body of Christ cannot be said to eat the body of Christ, are
in error when they promise liberation from the fire of eternal
punishment to persons who fall away from the unity of that body into
heresy, or even into heathenish superstition. For, in the first
place, they ought to consider how intolerable it is, and how
discordant with sound doctrine, to suppose that many, indeed, or
almost all, who have forsaken the Church catholic, and have
originated impious heresies and become heresiarchs, should enjoy a
destiny superior to those who never were catholics, but have fallen
into the snares of these others; that is to say, if the fact of their
catholic baptism and original reception of the sacrament of the body of
Christ in the true body of Christ is sufficient to deliver these
heresiarchs from eternal punishment. For certainly he who deserts the
faith, and from a deserter becomes an assailant, is worse than he who
has not deserted the faith he never held. And, in the second place,
they are contradicted by the apostle, who, after enumerating the works
of the flesh, says with reference to heresies, "They who do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
And therefore neither ought such persons as lead an abandoned and
damnable life to be confident of salvation, though they persevere to
the end in the communion of the Church catholic, and comfort
themselves with the words, "He that endureth to the end shall be
saved." By the iniquity of their life they abandon that very
righteousness of life which Christ is to them, whether it be by
fornication, or by perpetrating in their body the other uncleannesses
which the apostle would not so much as mention, or by a dissolute
luxury, or by doing any one of those things of which he says, "They
who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
Consequently, they who do such things shall not exist anywhere but in
eternal punishment, since they cannot be in the kingdom of God.
For, while they continue in such things to the very end of life, they
cannot be said to abide in Christ to the end; for to abide in Him is
to abide in the faith of Christ. And this faith, according to the
apostle's definition of it, "worketh by love." And "love," as
he elsewhere says, "worketh no evil." Neither can these persons be
said to eat the body of Christ, for they cannot even be reckoned among
His members. For, not to mention other reasons, they cannot be at
once the members of Christ and the members of a harlot. In fine, He
Himself, when He says, "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my
blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him," shows what it is in reality,
and not sacramentally, to eat His body and drink His blood; for this
is to dwell in Christ, that He also may dwell in us. So that it is
as if He said, He that dwelleth not in me, and in whom I do not
dwell, let him not say or think that he eateth my body or drinketh my
blood. Accordingly, they who are not Christ's members do not dwell
in Him. And they who make themselves members of a harlot, are not
members of Christ unless they have penitently abandoned that evil, and
have returned to this good to be reconciled to it.
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