kin the
Sacred Host, and full of faith swam to shore (_Ambrose, Orat.
fun. de Satyro_).

Ours are the Bishops Martin and Nicholas, exercised in watchings,
clad in the military garb of hair cloths, fed with fasts. Ours is
Benedict, father of so many monks. I should not run through their
thousands in ten years. But neither do I set down those whom I
mentioned before among the Doctors of the Church. I am mindful of
the brevity imposed upon me. Whoever wills, may seek these
further details, not only from the copious histories of the
ancients, but even much more from the grave authors who have
bequeathed to memory almost one man one Saint. Let the reader
report to me his judgment concerning those ancient blessed
Christians, to what doctrine they adhered, the Catholic or the
Lutheran. I call to witness the throne of God, and that Tribunal
at which I shall stand to render reason for these Reasons, of
everything I have said and done, that either there is no heaven
at all, or heaven belongs to our people. The former position we
abhor, we fix therefore upon the latter.

Now contrariwise, if you please, let us look into hell. There are
burnt with everlasting fire, who? The Jews. On what Church have
they turned their backs? On ours. Who again? The heathen. What
Church have they most cruelly persecuted? Ours. Who again? The
Turks. What temples have they destroyed? Ours. Who once more?
Heretics. Against what Church are they in rebellion? Against
ours. What Church but ours has opposed itself against all the
gates of hell? When, after the driving away of the Hebrews,
Christian inhabitants began to multiply at Jerusalem, what a
concourse of men there was to the Holy Places, what veneration
attached to the City, to the Sepulchre, to the Manger, to the
Cross, to all the memorials in which the Church delights as a
wife in what has been worn by her husband. Hence arose against us
the hatred of the Jews, cruel and implacable. Even now they
complain that our ancestors were the ruin of their ancestors.
From Simon Magus and the Lutherans they have received no wound.
Among the heathen, they were the most violent who, throughout the
Roman Empire, for three hundred years, at intervals of time,
contrived most painful punishments for Christians. What
Christians? The fathers and children of our faith. Learn the
language of the tyrant who roasted St. Lawrence on the gridiron:

That this is of your rites
The custom and practice, it has bee