Tertullian, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Maturity, and I will say why in the order the Lord himself gave it. He sent the Paraclete because human mediocrity could not take in everything at once, so that discipline should be directed little by little, ordained and carried on to perfection by the Holy Spirit as the Lord's Vicar.1 The devil does not rest from adding daily to the ingenuities of iniquity.
Should the work of God alone have ceased, or stopped advancing? Look at creation: first the grain, then the shoot, then the shrub, then the boughs, the flower, the fruit, rude for a while and unshapely, and only by degrees trained to mellowness. So righteousness, for the God of righteousness and of creation is the same, began in a natural fear of God, passed through the Law and the Prophets to infancy, through the Gospel to the fervour of youth, and now, through the Paraclete, is settling into maturity.1
That is no schism. It is the tree standing where it was planted. The psychics say the Paraclete teaches novelty and burden. I grant both, and so did the Lord, who said he had many things still to say that men were not yet able to bear.2 Novel, because never before published; burdensome, because that is the reason they were not published. But I do not hand the Church over to any spirit that happens to be harsh.
The adversary spirit would betray itself by the diversity of his preaching, beginning by adulterating the rule of faith and only then the order of discipline. The Paraclete begins by bearing emphatic witness to Christ, such as we believe him to be, together with the whole order of God the Creator, and only then reveals what pertains to discipline.2
The rule of faith stands untouched. Doctrine is settled; what grows is conduct. Nor is the stricter rule an invention of mine or his. On second marriage I ask: why could the same Spirit, after the apostles, not lay a final bridle on the flesh, openly, no longer obliquely calling us away from marriage? Nothing of novelty is the Paraclete introducing.
What he premonished, he is now definitively appointing; what he deferred, he is now exacting.3 And notice that he comforts even as he commands: he excuses your infirmity from an absolute continence.3 As for the keys, I do not deny that the Church has the power to forgive sins. I say it more firmly than you, who have the Paraclete himself in the persons of the new prophets saying that the Church has the power, but that he will not exercise it, lest they commit others withal.4
And I ask by what right you usurp this power to yourself as "the Church," if you show neither apostolic nor prophetic evidence.4 The apostles assembled in council laid on the nations only sacrifices, fornications and blood, leaving adultery and fornication in their place of honour between idolatry and murder. They loosed our necks from the heavier yoke only that we might be bound forever to the abstinences most necessary.5 A stricter rule, then, is no rebellion against the apostles. It is their own bond drawn tight.
The Paraclete was promised to lead into all truth, and the truth he leads into is discipline: not new doctrine, which is fixed, but the hardening of conduct for a Church that has grown soft. No second marriage, because the one flesh is one; no flight, because persecution comes from God and the soldier does not desert; no pardon from the bishop for adultery, because the keys were given to Peter personally and the Church is where the Spirit is.6 The psychics call this novelty; it is the opposite, the Church growing up into what it was promised.78
the reason why the Lord sent the Paraclete was, that, since human mediocrity was unable to take in all things at once, discipline should, little by little, be directed, and ordained, and carried on to perfection, by that Vicar of the Lord, the Holy Spirit.On the Veiling of Virgins
the adversary spirit would be apparent from the diversity of his preaching, beginning by adulterating the rule of faith, and so (going on to) adulterating the order of disciplineOn Monogamy
Nothing of novelty is the Paraclete introducing. What He premonished, He is (now) definitively appointing; what He deferred, He is (now) exacting.On Monogamy
The Church has the power to forgive sins; but I will not do it, lest they commit others withal.On Modesty
Why do they indulgently relax so many bonds, except that they may wholly bind us in perpetuity to such as are more necessary?On Modesty
Hence the power of loosing and of binding committed to Peter had nothing to do with the capital sins of believers; and if the Lord had given him a precept that he must grant pardon to a brother sinning against him even "seventy times sevenfold," of course He would have commanded him to "bind"----that is, to "retain" ----nothing subsequently, unless perchance such (sins) as one may have committed against the Lord,…On Modesty
For of the Spirit he would not have said (that), inasmuch as the Spirit is without any external influence recognised as "holy," nor does He wait to be admonished to sanctity, which is His proper nature. But the flesh is taught sanctity; and that withal, in Christ, was holy.On Monogamy
Or if, again, (the pseudo-prophetic spirit) has been eager to affect this (sentiment) in accordance with "the Spirit of truth," it follows that "the Spirit of truth" has indeed the power of indulgently granting pardon to fornicators, but wills not to do it if it involve evil to the majority.On Modesty
The position that cost him canonisation and that every later reader must decide what to do with: the one Father whose last works the Church used while refusing the man.