But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it; lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God.
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Time, and the evident success of Christ's Church, prove it to be of God. No violence of the Jews, no persecution of heathen princes, no attempts of domestic adversaries, heretics, schismatics, or evil livers, have been able to prevail against it. Men of superior abilities have made violent attacks against it; their memory, and that of their disciples, has either been buried and forgotten, or liveth only in malediction and infamy. Let, then, no Catholic be dispirited, because modern heresies continue; Arian and other heresies have continued much longer, have been more powerfully supported by temporal power, and yet have come to nothing. The Catholic religion was the first, and it will be the last religion.
Once more he checks them by the impossibility and the inexpediency of the thing, saying, Lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. And he does not say, If Christ be God; but the work (itself) declares (this). He does not pronounce upon it, either that, it is of men, or that it is of God; but he leaves the proof to the future. They were persuaded [by him].
