Against The Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental: 35 (Lighthouse Church Fathers)

My prayer to the one true almighty God of whom and through whom and in whom are all things has been and is now that in opposing and refuting the heresy of you Manichæans as you may after all be heretics more from thoughtlessness than from malice He would give me a mind calm and composed and aiming at your recovery rather than at your discomfiture. For while the Lord by His servants overthrows the kingdoms of error His will concerning erring men as far as they are men is that they should be amended rather than destroyed. And in every case where previous to the final judgment God inflicts punishment whether through the wicked or the righteous whether through the unintelligent or through the intelligent whether in secret or openly we must believe that the designed effect is the healing of men and not their ruin; while there is a preparation for the final doom in the case of those who reject the means of recovery. Thus as the universe contains some things which serve for bodily punishment as fire poison disease and the rest and other things in which the mind is punished not by bodily distress but by the entanglements of its own passions such as loss exile bereavement reproach and the like; while other things again without tormenting are fitted to comfort and soothe the languishing as for example consolations exhortations discussions and such things; in all these the supreme justice of God makes use sometimes even of wicked men acting in ignorance and sometimes of good men acting intelligently.