{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p><span class=\"smcap\">Chap. iv.</span>—5. Nor would I therefore be understood to urge\r\nthat ecclesiastical discipline should be set at naught, and that\r\nevery one should be allowed to do exactly as he pleased, without\r\nany check, without a kind of healing chastisement, a\r\nlenity which should inspire fear, the severity of love. For\r\nthen what will become of the precept of the apostle, \"Warn\r\nthem that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the\r\nweak, be patient toward all men; see that none render evil\r\nfor evil unto any man?\"<a id=\"FNanchor_1048_1048\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_1048_1048\">[1048]</a> At any rate, when he added these\r\nlast words, \"See that none render evil for evil unto any man,\"\r\nhe showed with sufficient clearness that there is no rendering\r\nof evil for evil when one chastises those that are unruly, even\r\nthough for the fault of unruliness be administered the punishment\r\nof chastising. The punishment of chastising therefore\r\nis not an evil, though the fault be an evil. For indeed it is\r\nthe steel, not of an enemy inflicting a wound, but of a surgeon\r\nperforming an operation. Things like this are done within\r\nthe Church, and that spirit of gentleness within its pale burns\r\nwith zeal towards God, lest the chaste virgin which is espoused\r\nto one husband, even Christ, should in any of her members\r\nbe corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ, as Eve\r\nwas beguiled by the subtilty of the serpent.<a id=\"FNanchor_1049_1049\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_1049_1049\">[1049]</a> Notwithstanding,\r\nfar be it from the servants of the father of the family\r\nthat they should be unmindful of the precept of their Lord,\r\nand be so inflamed with the fire of holy indignation against\r\nthe multitude of the tares, that while they seek to gather\r\nthem in bundles before the time, the wheat should be rooted\r\nup together with them. And of this sin these men would be\r\nheld to be guilty, even though they showed that those were\r\ntrue charges which they brought against the <i>traditors</i> whom<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_412\">[Pg 412]</a></span>\r\nthey accused; because they separated themselves in a spirit\r\nof impious presumption, not only from the wicked, whose\r\nsociety they professed to be avoiding, but also from the good\r\nand faithful in all nations of the world, to whom they could\r\nnot prove the truth of what they said they knew; and with\r\nthemselves they drew away into the same destruction many\r\nothers over whom they had some slight authority, and who\r\nwere not wise enough to understand that the unity of the\r\nChurch dispersed throughout the world was on no account to\r\nbe forsaken for other men's sins. So that, even though they\r\nthemselves knew that they were pressing true charges against\r\ncertain of their neighbours, yet in this way a weak brother,\r\nfor whom Christ died, was perishing through their knowledge;<a id=\"FNanchor_1050_1050\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_1050_1050\">[1050]</a>\r\nwhilst, being offended at other men's sins, he was destroying\r\nin himself the blessing of peace which he had with the good\r\nbrethren, who partly had never heard such charges, partly\r\nhad shrunk from giving hasty credence to what was neither\r\ndiscussed nor proved, partly, in the peaceful spirit of humility,\r\nhad left these charges, whatsoever they might be, to the\r\ncognizance of the judges of the Church, to whom the whole\r\nmatter had been referred, across the sea.</p>","headings":["WRITINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY.","BOOK THIRD."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45843-paragraph-682"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"ef9e1d5bd96da3de39768e82d20fde75e81c6cbaed2632c41ab74afe46c37403","edition_title":"Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy","edition_translators":["John Richard King"],"edition_year":1872,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"2CO","chapter":11,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"2 Cor. xi. 2","verse":2,"verse_end":2}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45843-Footnote_1049_1049","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Title leaves identify J. R. King, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1872; catalog identifies translator John Richard King (1835-1907). Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/American Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_1049_1049","source_ebook":45843,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_1049_1049\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_1049_1049\"><span class=\"label\">[1049]</span></a> 2 Cor. xi. 2, 3.</p></div>","source_sha256":"a7a04003f4d3c49eb73db6c5936713979fcecadd86884373a9914ac54373ac5b","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45843/pg45843-images.html#Footnote_1049_1049","text_sha256":"2918216c8bb1f0d6e4502cf86a9d8e58b52b61230be1ea8bfed78c228a3f1755","verified":false,"work_id":null}