5. Great praise is due to the Scottish nation, as a whole, that they have always shown reverence and love for the Inspired Writings. They cannot therefore be unwilling to listen to a few words which in Our affection We would address to them on this subject with a view to their eternal welfare; since We find that in revering the Sacred Scriptures, they are in agreement with the Catholic Church. Why then should this not be the starting-point for a return to unity? We beg them to remember that they have the Books of the Old Covenant and of the New from the Catholic Church and from the Catholic Church alone. If these Inspired Writings have passed unscathed through the many and dangerous vicissitudes of centuries, such a blessing is to be attributed to her never-failing vigilance and unceasing care. History attests that in the early ages of the Church the integrity of the Scriptures was preserved by the ever-memorable efforts of the Third Synod at Carthage and of Innocent I, the Roman Pontiff. At a later time no less watchfulness was shown, as we know, by Eugenius IV. and by the Council of Trent. We Ourselves, not unmindful of the necessities of the present day, published a short while ago an Encyclical Letter in which We gravely addressed the Bishops of the Catholic world and diligently admonished them as to the means to be adopted in order to safeguard the integrity and the Divine authority of the Sacred Writings. For owing to the restlessness of modern thought, there are many whom the inordinate desire of superciliously inquiring into everything, and contempt for antiquity, pervert to such a degree, that they either refuse all authority to Holy Writ, or at least seriously curtail and minimize it. These men, puffed up by an exaggerated estimate of their own knowledge, and having an overweening trust in their own judgment, fail to perceive how rash and monstrous it is to try to measure the works of God by our own puny intelligence; nor do they sufficiently heed St. Augustine's warning: "Honour God's Scripture, honour God's Word though not understood, reverently wait in order to understand" (in Ps. 146, n. 12). "Those who study the Venerable Scriptures ought to be admonished . . . that they must pray in order to comprehend." (Doct. Chr. lib. iii., c. 37, n. 56.) "Lest anything unknown be rashly asserted as known . . . let nothing be rashly asserted, but all things cautiously and modestly examined" (in Gen. Op. Imp.).