In addition to so many other signs of piety, they[359] are also persecuted, which is the best sign of piety.
860
The Church is in an excellent state, when it is sustained by God only.
861
The Church has always been attacked by opposite errors, but perhaps never at the same time, as now. And if she suffer more because of the multiplicity of errors, she derives this advantage from it, that they destroy each other.
She complains of both, but far more of the Calvinists, because of the schism.
It is certain that many of the two opposite sects are deceived. They must be disillusioned.
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other. There is a time to laugh, and a time to weep,[360] etc. Responde. Ne respondeas,[361] etc.
The source of this is the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ; and also the two worlds (the creation of a new heaven and a new earth; a new life and a new death; all things double, and the same names remaining); and finally the two natures that are in the righteous, (for they are the two worlds, and a member and image of Jesus Christ. And thus all the names suit them: righteous, yet sinners; dead, yet living; living, yet dead; elect, yet outcast, etc.).
There are then a great number of truths, both of faith and of morality, which seem contradictory, and which all hold good together in a wonderful system. The source of all heresies is the exclusion of some of these truths; and the source of all the objections which the heretics make against us is the ignorance of some of our truths. And it generally happens that, unable to conceive the connection of two opposite truths, and believing that the admission of one involves the exclusion of the other, they adhere to the one, exclude the other, and think of us as opposed to them. Now exclusion is the cause of their heresy; and ignorance that we hold the other truth causes their objections.