ice,
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 eve