Let these and similar answers (if any fuller and fitter answers can be
found) be given to their enemies by the redeemed family of the Lord
Christ, and by the pilgrim city of the King Christ. But let this city
bear in mind that among her enemies lie hid those who are destined to be
fellow-citizens, that she may not think it a fruitless labor to bear
what they inflict as enemies, till they become confessors of the faith.
So also, as long as she is a stranger in the world, the city of God has
in her communion, and bound to her by the sacraments, some who shall not
eternally dwell in the lot of the saints. Of these, some are not now
recognized; others declare themselves, and do not hesitate to make
common cause with our enemies in murmuring against God, whose
sacramental badge they wear. These men you may see to-day thronging the
churches with us, to-morrow crowding the theatres with the godless. But
we have the less reason to despair of the reclamation of even such
persons, if among our most declared enemies there are now some, unknown
to themselves, who are destined to become our friends. In truth, these
two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermingled until
the last judgment shall effect their separation. I now proceed to speak,
as God shall help me, of the rise and progress and end of these two
cities; and what I write, I write for the glory of the city of God, that
being placed in comparison with the other, it may shine with a
brighter lustre.