and of false Christians within the church._
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 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 labour to
bear what they inflict as enemies until they become confessors of the
faith. So, too, 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 recognised; 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 to-day see thronging the
churches with us, to-morrow crowding the theatres with the godless.
But we have the less reason to despair of the reclamation even of 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 intermixed until
the last judgment effect their separation. I now proceed to speak, as
God shall help me, of the rise, 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.