on the other side let them raise their counter-voice, as the frogs or flies of Egypt, or insects of a day, I mean such as the Pelagians. Let them say, Take us for your authority, for your guides, for your expositors, in condemning what you used to hold, in holding what you used to condemn, in rejecting the ancient faith, your fathers' usages, the trust committed to you by your ancestors, and in receiving—what? I tremble to say what; so proud are their words, that to pronounce them, nay even to refute them, seems to involve some sort of pollution.
But it may be said, why then does Providence so often allow distinguished persons in the Church to preach novelties to Catholics? A fair and profitable question, which I shall answer, not by any attempted explanation of my own, but by the authority of the Divine law, and the example of an inspired teacher of the Church. Holy Moses teaches us, why learned men, men who by reason of their gift of knowledge are even called Prophets by the Apostle, are sometimes permitted to preach their new doctrines, or as they are called in the figurative style of the Old Testament, "other gods." "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams," that is a teacher constituted in the Church, whom his followers or hearers consider to speak as from revelation. What then? he continues, "and he giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass." It is plain some great teacher or other is spoken of, one of surpassing knowledge, so as to seem to his partizans to have the gift even of foreknowledge, such as is attributed by their disciples to Valentinus, Donatus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and the like. What follows? "And shall say to thee, "Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;" "Other gods," that is, errors external to the Church … "serve them," that is, believe them, follow them. "Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams." Now, why is it that God allows to be taught, what He does not allow to be received? Moses continues, "for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul." And doubtless the temptation is great, when he whom you consider
