Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.281each member of the Church, Jwho does nothingwithout the Word."45The four great writers, then, of this period,Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement, and Origen, none ofthem indeed from Kome, but representing thees of Asia, Gaul, Africa, and Egypt, exconcur in the principle by which they reheresy, the propagation, that is, of the rule ofFaith in its purity and integrity, by those whopossessed the succession of the Apostles and theiroffice of teaching, in which lay a divine gift ofthe truth.But to those who proceeded from this basis itwas a further labour to set forth the true know-ledge against the false. And we may trace thefollowing results of heresy, quite unintended byitself, in its operation on the Church.1. In the first place, S. Augustine continuallyremarks that the more accurate enucleation oftrue doctrine usually proceeded from the attacksof heresy; and this happened so continually thatit seems to him a special instance of that law ofdivine Providence which educes good from evil." If the truth," says he, " had not lying adver-saries, it would be examined with less carefulness,"and so "a question started by an opponentbecomes to the disciple an occasion of learning. "4GAnd he observes that "we have found by experiencethat every heresy has brought into the45 dont. dels. vi. 48, torn. i. 670. *" De Civ. Del, xvi. 2.