of the nations, and earnestly beseech them in the august name of the most high God, not to refuse the Church's aid, proffered them in a season of such need, but with united and friendly aims to join themselves to her as the source of authority and salvation, and to attach themselves to her more and more in the bonds of hearty love and devotedness. God grant that—seeing the truth of Our words and considering within themselves that the teaching of Christ is, as Augustine used to say, "a great blessing to the State, if obeyed,"[1] and that their own peace and safety, as well as that of their people, is bound up with the safety of the Church and the reverence due to her—they may give their whole thought and care to mitigating the evils by which the Church and its visible Head are harassed, and so it may at last come to pass that the peoples whom they govern may enter on the way of justice and peace, and rejoice in a happy era of prosperity and glory.
In the next place, in order that the union of hearts between their chief Pastor and the whole Catholic flock may daily be strengthened, We here call upon you, Venerable Brothers, with particular earnestness, and strongly urge you to kindle, with priestly zeal and pastoral care, the fire of the love of religion among the faithful entrusted to you, that their attachment to this chair of truth and justice may become closer and firmer, that they may welcome all its teachings with thorough assent of mind and will, wholly rejecting such opinions, even when most widely received, as they know to be contrary to the Church's doctrine. In this matter, the Roman Pontiffs, Our predecessors, and last of all, Pius IX, of sacred memory, especially in the General Council of the Vatican, have not neglected, so often as there was need, to condemn wide-spreading errors and to smite them with the Apostolic condemnation. This they did, keeping before their eyes the words of St. Paul: Beware lest any man cheat you by
- ↑ Epistola 138 (vel 5), ad Marcell, n. 15
