John fell down in worship, was "See
thou do it not, _for_ I am thy fellow-servant; worship God."[21]
It is then a note of the Christian Church, as decisive as any, that she
is not idolatrous; and any semblance of idolatrous worship in the Church
of Rome as plainly dissuades a man of Catholic feelings from her
communion, as the taint of a Protestant or schismatical spirit in our
communion may tempt him to depart from us. This is the Via Media which
we would maintain; and thus without judging Rome on the one hand, or
acquiescing in our own state on the other, we may use what we see, as a
providential intimation to _us_, not to quit what is bad for what may be
worse, but to learn resignation to what we inherit, nor seek to escape
into a happier state by suicide.
6.
And in such a state of things, certain though it be that St. Austin
invites individual Donatists to the Church, on the simple ground that
the larger body must be the true one, he is not, he cannot be, a guide
of _our_ conduct here. The Fathers are our teachers, but not our
confessors or casuists; they are the prophets of great truths, not the
spiritual directors of individuals.
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