[6] A military officer who had been adjutant of the Russian general Münnich said: “When I was his adjutant I felt myself greater than now that I command.” [↑]
[7] To faith, so long as it has any vital heat, any character, the heretic is always on a level with the unbeliever, with the atheist. [↑]
[8] Already in the New Testament the idea of disobedience is associated with unbelief. “The cardinal wickedness is unbelief.”—Luther (xiii. p. 647). [↑]
[9] God himself by no means entirely reserves the punishment of blasphemers, of unbelievers, of heretics, for the future; he often punishes them in this life also, “for the benefit of Christendom and the strengthening of faith:” as, for example, the heretics Cerinthus and Arius. See Luther (Th. xiv. p. 13). [↑]
[10] “Si quis spiritum Dei habet, illius versiculi recordetur: Nonne qui oderunt te, Domine, oderam?” (Psal. cxxxix. 21); Bernhardus, Epist. (193) ad magist. Yvonem Cardin. [↑]
[11] “Qui Christum negat, negatur a Christo.”—Cyprian (Epist. E. 73, § 18, edit. Gersdorf.). [↑]
[12] Thus the apostle Paul cursed “Elymas the sorcerer” with blindness, because he withstood the faith.—[Acts xiii. 8–11]. [↑]
[13] Historically considered, this saying, as well as the others cited pp. 384, 385, may be perfectly justified. But the Bible is not to be regarded as an historical or temporal, but as an eternal book. [↑]
[14] “Tenerrimam partem humani corporis nominavit, ut apertissime intelligeremus, eum (Deum) tam parva Sanctorum suorum contumelia lædi, quam parvi verberis tactu humani visus acies læditur.”—Salvianus, l. 8, de Gubern. Dei. [↑]