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If the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence
of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a
health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and
piety, the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and
express them in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse
to refute the errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is
now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even
after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to
man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies,
either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from
seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their
opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the
force of what they do see. There therefore frequently arises a
necessity of speaking more fully on those points which are already
clear, that we may, as it were, present them not to the eye, but
even to the touch, so that they may be felt even by those who close
their eyes against them. And yet to what end shall we ever bring our
discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we proceed
on the principle that we must always reply to those who reply to us?
For those who are either unable to understand our arguments, or are so
hardened by the habit of contradiction, that though they understand
they cannot yield to them, reply to us, and, as it is written,
"speak hard things," and are incorrigibly vain. Now, if we were to
propose to confute their objections as often as they with brazen face
chose to disregard our arguments, and so often as they could by any
means contradict our statements, you see how endless, and fruitless,
and painful a task we should be undertaking. And therefore I do not
wish my writings to be judged even by you, my son Marcellinus, nor by
any of those others at whose service this work of mine is freely and in
all Christian charity put, if at least you intend always to require a
reply to every exception which you hear taken to what you read in it;
for so you would become like those silly women of whom the apostle says
that they are "always learning, and never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth."
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