If the Apostle St. Paul felt called upon to warn
his own beloved disciples against those "who would not endure sound
doctrine," and who "heaped to themselves teachers, having itching
ears," and who even "closed their ears to the truth, in order to
listen to fables" (2 Tim. iv. 1-5), surely we may reasonably expect to
find, even in our own generation, many who have fallen, or who are in
danger of falling under the pernicious influence of false teachers,
and who are being seduced and led astray by the plausible, but utterly
fallacious, reasoning of proud and worldly spirits. It would be easy
to name several, but they are too well known already to need further
advertising here.
Then, she has adversaries without, as well as within. For, though the
Church is not _of_ the world, she is _in_ the world. Which is only
another way of saying that she is surrounded continually and on all
sides by powerful, subtle, and unscrupulous foes. "The world is the
enemy of God," and therefore of His Church. If its votaries cannot
destroy her, nor put an end to her charmed life, they hope, at least,
to defame her character and to blacken her reputation.
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