this season of trial. For it belongs to Us to give the alarm, and to leave no means untried which may prevent the boar of the forest from trampling down the vineyard, or the wolf from taking the lives of the flocks. Ours is the task to drive the sheep into healthful pastures which preclude all suspicion of danger. But God forbid, Dearest Brethren, God forbid that while so many evils press, while so many dangers threaten, pastors should be wanting to their duty, and that fear-stricken, they should fly from their flocks, or slumber in idle and inactive forgetfulness of them. In union of spirit then, let us be true to our common cause, or rather to the cause of God; and let us unite our vigilance and exertions against the common enemy, for the salvation of the whole people.
Now you will best correspond with these sentiments, if in compliance with the nature of your situation, you "attend unto yourselves and to doctrine;" ever bearing in mind, "that the Universal Church suffers from every novelty,"[1] as well as the admonition of the Pope St. Agatho, "that from what has been regularly defined, nothing can be taken away, no innovation introduced there, no addition made; but that it must be preserved untouched both as to words and meaning."[2] This will preserve unshaken, that unity which belongs to the Chair of St. Peter as its foundation, so that there, where the rights of all the Churches by an admirable union have this origin, "may be a wall of protection, a port in which no wave ever breaks, and a treasury of inxehaustible resources."[3] To humble, therefore, the audacity of those who would encroach upon the rights of Our Holy See, or who would destroy its junction with the Churches, to which those Churches owe their support aud their vigour, inculcate in her regard the most zealous fidelity, and most sincere veneration, proclaiming with St. Cyprian, "that he falsely imagines himself to be in the Church, who deserts the Chair of Peter, upon which the Church is founded."[4]
To this point, therefore, your labours must tend, and your vigilance must be unceasingly directed to preserve the deposit of faith, amidst the wide-spreading conspiracy formed for the impious pur| pose of tearing it from you to destroy it. Let all remember that the principles of sound doctrine, with which the people are to be imbued, must emanate from, and that the rule and the administration of the universal Church belongs to, the Roman Pontiff, to whom was delivered "the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the Universal Church, by Christ our Lord," as the Fathers of the Coun-
- ↑ St. Celest. P. Epistle xxi. to the Bishops of Gaul.
- ↑ St. Agatho P. Epistle to the Emp. apud Labb. Tom. ii. page 235.
- ↑ St Innocent, P. Epis. ii. apud Constat.
- ↑ St. Cyp. On the Unity of the Church.
