On the Unity of the Catholic Church 19

These, of course, are imitated and followed by those who, despising God's tradition, seek after strange doctrines and bring in teachings of human institution; whom the Lord rebukes and reproves in his gospel, saying: "You reject the commandment of God, so as to establish your own tradition." This crime is worse than that which the lapsed seem to have committed, who nevertheless, placed in penance for their crime, beseech God with full satisfactions. Here the church is sought and entreated; there the church is fought against. Here there may have been necessity; there the will is held fast in crime. Here he who lapsed harmed only himself; there he who tried to make a heresy or schism deceived many by dragging them with him. Here is the loss of one soul; there the danger of many. Certainly the one both understands that he has sinned and laments and bewails it; the other, swelling in his sin and pleasing himself in his very offences, separates sons from their mother, entices sheep from their shepherd, disturbs the sacraments of God. And while the lapsed man has sinned once, the other sins daily. Finally, the lapsed man, if he afterwards attains martyrdom, can receive the promises of the kingdom; the other, if he is killed outside the church, cannot attain the rewards of the church.