St. Alphonsus Exhortation to Catholics Against Heretics

St. Alphonsus Exhortation to Catholics Against Heretics 

(Taken from: The History of Heresies, 1847, pg. 352.)

EXHORTATION TO CATHOLICS.

DEAR READER Leave heretics in their wilful blindness I mean wilful when they wish to live deceived and pay no attention to the fallacies by which they would deceive you. Hold on by the sure and firm anchor of the Catholic Church, through which God has promised to teach us the true faith. We should place all our hope of eternal salvation in the mercy of God and the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour, but still we should co-operate, our selves, by the observance of the Divine Commandments, and the practice of virtue, and not follow the opinion of the Innovators, who say that faith alone in the merits of Jesus Christ will save us, without works; that God is the author both of all the good and all the evil we do; that salvation or damnation has been decreed for us from all eternity, and, consequently, we can do nothing to obtain the one or avoid the other. God tells us that he wishes all to be saved, and gives to all grace to obtain eternal salvation; he has promised to listen to those who pray to him, so that if we are lost, it is solely through our own fault. He also tells us that if we are saved it must be by those means of salvation which he has given us, the fulfilment of his holy law, the Sacraments by which the merits of Christ are communicated to us, prayer, by which we obtain the grace we stand in need of; and this is the order of the decree of God’s predestination or reprobation, to give eternal life to those who correspond to his grace, and to punish those who despise it.

The devil always strives to deceive heretics, by suggesting to them that they can be saved in their belief. This was what Theodore Beza said to St. Francis de Sales, when hard pressed by him on the importance of salvation : " I hope to be saved in my own religion." Unhappy hope ! which only keeps them in error here, and exposes them to eternal perdition hereafter, when the error cannot be remedied, I think the danger of eternal perdition, by dying separated from the Church, should be a sufficient motive to onvert every heretic. It was this that made Henry IV. forsake Calvinism, and become a Catholic. He assembled a conference of Catholics and Calvinists, and after listening for a time to their arguments, he asked the Calvinistic Doctors if it was possible a person could be saved in the Catholic faith; they answered that it was; " then, said the king, if the faith of the Roman Church secures salvation, and the Reformed faith is at least doubtful, I will take the safe side, and become a Catholic."

All the misfortunes of unbelievers spring from too great an attachment to the things of this life. This sickness of heart weakens and darkens the understanding, and leads many to eternal ruin. If they would try to heal their hearts by purging them of their vices, they would soon receive light, which would show them the necessity of joining the Catholic Church, where alone is salvation. My dear Catholics, let us thank the Divine goodness, who, among so many infidels and heretics has given us the grace to be born and live in the bosom of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and let us take heed and not be ungrateful for so great a benefit. Let us take care and correspond to the Divine Grace, for if we should be lost (which God forbid), this very benefit of Grace conferred on us would be one of our greatest torments in hell. 

Hatred of Heresy