and again (in the seventy-first Psalm):
'Let the mountains receive peace for the. people, and the hills justice,'
and in the Gospel:
'My peace I give to you, My peace I leave to you' ;
and Paul says:
'He who sows peace, peace also shall he reap,'
and in all his epistles :
'Let peace abound amongst you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost' ;
and in the thirty-third Psalm:
'Seek peace and thou shalt obtain it.'
Peace had been put to flight by your fathers and departed. You ought to seek it as God has commanded, though, until now, you have neither been willing to seek it yourselves, nor to accept it, when it was freely offered to you.
For who is there in so many Provinces that has heard of whom you have been born, and (if there be anyone who had heard this) who is there that does not marvel at your error? Who is there that does not condemn your wickedness? Wherefore, since it is clear, yea, clearer than the light itself, that we are with so many peoples who cannot be numbered, and that so many countries are with us; whilst you see that you are to be found only in a portion of one country; and that you, by your errors, are separated from the Church; in vain do you claim for yourselves alone this name of the Church with her Endowments, which are rather with us than with you.
Now these Endowments are connected one with another, and are distinct, but in such a way, that it |78 may be understood that one cannot be separated from another. For they are numerically distinct, but with one act of the mind we see them joined in their Body, as are the fingers on the hand----each of which we perceive to be removed by spaces from the others. Therefore he who possesses one, must possess them all, since not one of them can be apart from its fellows.
We may add that we possess----and that in the strictest sense----not one Endowment alone, but all.
VI. The second Endowment of the Church, 'The Angelus,' or Bishop, is not with the Donatists.
So, of the above-mentioned Endowments, the Cathedra is, as we have said, the first, which we have proved to be ours, through Peter, and which draws to itself the ANGEL ----unless, perchance, you claim him for yourselves, and have him shut up somewhere or other. Send him out if you can, and let him exclude from his communion seven angels, our colleagues in Asia, to whose churches wrote the Apostle John----churches with which you cannot prove that you have any intercourse whatsoever.
On what ground, then, can you maintain that you |79 possess an Angel able to move the Fountain, or one who, as such, can be numbered among the other Endowments of the Church?
Whatever is without the Seven Churches is alien. |80 Supposing then that you really had even one Angel who belongs to the Church, through that one Angel you would be in communion with other Angels too, and through them with the above-mentioned Churches, and through these Churches with us also. |81
If these things be as I have stated them, you have lost your case.
VII. The third Endowment, Spiritus, the Holy Spirit, is in the Church, not with the Donatists.
Now perhaps you will see that the Endowments of the Church cannot be with you, for you cannot claim for yourselves alone the SPIRIT of God, nor can you shut up (in a small corner of Africa) Him |82 whose Presence we recognise though we see it not. For so has it been written in the Gospel:
'God is a Spirit,' and 'breatheth where He willeth, but you hear not His voice, nor do you know whence He cometh and whither He goeth.'
Permit God to come whence He willeth, and allow Him freedom to go where He pleaseth. He can be heard, but He cannot be seen. And yet, through your lust for calumny, you have been pleased to blaspheme and say:
'What Spirit can there be in that Church, excepting one which should give birth to sons of Hell?'
Thou hast vomited forth thine invective and hast thought that thou mightest thus be able to strengthen thyself by producing testimony from the Gospel, where we read: