St. Augustine (AD 354-430)
Faith Alone?
“we should advise the faithful that they would endanger the salvation of their souls if they acted on the false assurance that faith alone is sufficient for salvation or that they need not perform good works in order to be saved.” (On Faith and Works, 14:21)
“When St. Paul says, therefore, that man is justified by faith and not by the observance of the law, he [Paul] does not mean that good works are not necessary or that it is enough to receive and to profess the faith and no more. What he means rather and what he wants us to understand is that man can be justified by faith, even though he has not previously performed any works of the law. For the works of the law are meritorious not before but after justification.” (Ibid)
Church Authority
"In the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep (John 21:15-19), down to the present episcopate.
And so, lastly, does the very name of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house.
Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church, as it is right they should...With you, where there is none of these things to attract or keep me... No one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion...For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church."
Against the Epistle of Manichaeus AD 397
[Contra Epistolam Manichaei Quam Vacant Fundamenti]
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"Let us love our Lord God, let us love His Church, Him as a Father, her as a Mother; Him as a Master, her as His Handmaid; for we are children of the Handmaid herself. But this marriage is held together by great love; no one offends the one and gains favor with the other. . . . Cling, then, beloved, cling all with one mind to God our Father and to the Church our Mother."
Sermons [inter A.D. 391-430]: Reconciliation
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Penance
"If you want God to forgive, you must confess. Sin cannot go unpunished. It were unseemly, improper, and unjust for sin to go unpunished. Since, therefore, sin must not go unpunished, let it be punished by you, lest you be punished for it. Let your sin have you for its judge, not its patron. Go up and take the bench against yourself, and put your guilt before yourself. Do not put it behind you, or God will put it in front of you."
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"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."
