At hearing the name of the Church the enemy has turned pale.
Still he has devised some explanation which I wish you to notice,
that you may observe the ruinous and poverty-stricken estate of
falsehood. He was well aware that in the Scriptures, as well of
Prophets as of Apostles, everywhere there is made honourable
mention of the Church: that it is called the holy city, the
fruitful vine, the high mountain, the straight way, the only
dove, the kingdom of heaven, the spouse and body of Christ, the
ground of truth, the multitude to whom the Spirit has been
promised and into whom He breathes all truths that make for
salvation; her on whom, taken as a whole, the devil's jaws are
never to inflict a deadly bite; her against whom whoever rebels,
however much he preach Christ with his mouth, has no more hold on
Christ than the publican or the heathen. Such a loud
pronouncement he dared not gainsay; he would not seem rebellious
against a Church of which the Scriptures make such frequent
mention: so he cunningly kept the name, while by his definition
he utterly abolished the thing, He has depicted the Church with
such properties as altogether hide her away, and leave her open
to the secret gaze of a very few men, as though she were removed
from the senses, like a Platonic Idea. They only could discern
her, who by a singular inspiration had got the faculty of
grasping with their intelligence this aerial body, and with keen
eye regarding the members of such a company.
What has become of candour and straightforwardness? What
Scripture texts or Scripture meanings or authorities of Fathers
thus portray the Church? There are letters of Christ to the
Asiatic Churches (Apoc. i. 3), letters of Peter, Paul, John, and
others to various Churches; frequent mention in the Acts of the
Apostles of the origin and spread of Churches. What of these
Churches? Were they visible to God alone and holy men, or to
Christians of every rank and degree? But, doubtless, necessity
is a hard weapon. Pardon these subterfuges. Throughout the whole
course of fifteen centuries these men find neither town, village
nor household professing their doctrine, until an unhappy monk
by an incestuous marriage had deflowered a virgin vowed to God,
or a Swiss gladiator had conspired against his country, or a
branded runaway had occupied Geneva. These people, if they want
to have a Church at all, are compelled to crack up a Church all
hidden away; and to claim parents whom they themselves have
never known, and no mortal has ever set eyes on, Perhaps they
glory in the ancestry of men whom every one knows to have been
heretics, such as Aerius, Jovinianus, Vigilantius, Helvidius,
Berengarius, the Waldenses, the Lollards, Wycliffe, Huss, of
whom they have begged sundry poisonous fragments of dogmas.
Wonder not that I have no fear of their empty talk: once I can
meet them in the noon-day, I shall have no trouble in dispelling
such vapourings. Our conversation with them would take this
line. Tell me, do you subscribe to the Church which flourished
in bygone ages? Certainly. Let us traverse, then, different
countries and periods. What Church? The assembly of the
faithful. What faithful? Their names are unknown, but it is
certain that there have been many of them. Certain? to whom is
it certain? To God Who says so! We, who have been taught of
God--stuff and nonsense, how am I to believe it? If you had the
fire of faith in you, you would know it as well as you know you
are alive. Let in as spectators, could you withhold your
laughter? To think that all Christians should be bidden to join
the Church; to beware of being cut down by the spiritual sword;
to keep peace in the house of God; to trust their soul to the
Church as to the pillar of truth; to lay all their complaints
before the Church; to hold for heathen all who are cast out of
the Church; and that nevertheless so many men for so many
centuries should not know where the Church is or who belong to
it! This much only they prate in the darkness, that wherever the
Church is, only Saints and persons destined for heaven are
contained in it. Hence it follows that whoever wishes to
withdraw himself from the authority of his ecclesiastical
superior has only to persuade himself that the priest has fallen
into sin and is quite cut off from the Church. Knowing as I did
that the adversaries were inventing these fictions, contrary to
the customary sense of the Churches in all ages, and that,
having lost the whole substance, they still wished in their
difficulties to retain the name, I took comfort in the thought
of your sagacity, and so promised myself that, as soon as ever
you had cognisance of such artifices by their own confession,
you would at once like men of mark and intelligence rend asunder
the web of foolish sophistry woven for your undoing.