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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 labor 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 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 today see
thronging the churches with us, tomorrow 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 effects 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.
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