The Catholic Controversy

Gentlemen, having prosecuted for some space of time the preaching of the Word of God in your town, without obtaining a hearing from your people save rarely, casually, and stealthily, — wishing to leave nothing undone on my part, I have set myself to put into writing some principal reasons, chosen for the most part from the sermons and instructions which I have hitherto addressed to you by word of mouth, in defence of the faith of the Church. I should indeed have wished to be heard, as the accusers have been; for words in the mouth are living, on paper dead. “The living voice,” says S. Jerome, “has a certain indescribable secret strength, and the heart is far more surely reached by the spoken word than by writing.” This it is which made the glorious Apostle S. Paul say in the Scripture: How shall they believe him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? . . . Faith then cometh by hearing^ and hearing by the word of Christ. My best chance, then, would have been to be heard, in lack of which this writing will not be without good results, (i.) It will carry to your houses what you will not receive at our house, at our meetings. (2.) It will satisfy those who, as sole answer to the arguments I bring forward, say that they would like to see them laid before some minister, and who believe that the mere presence of the adversary would make them tremble, grow pale, and faint away, taking from them all strength; now they can be laid before them. (3.) Writing can be better handled; it gives more leisure for consideration than the voice does; it can be pondered more profoundly. (4.) It will be seen that I deny a thousand impieties which are attributed to Catholics; this is not in order to escape from the difficulty, as some have said, but to follow the holy intention of the Church; for I write in everybody’s sight, and under the censorship of superiors, being assured that, while people will find herein plenty of ignorance, they will not find, God helping, any irreligion or any opposition to the doctrines of the Koman Church.