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45. The second rule is about the twofold division of the body of the
Lord; but this indeed is not a suitable name, for that is really no
part of the body of Christ which will not be with Him in eternity.
We ought, therefore, to say that the rule is about the true and the
mixed body of the Lord, or the true and the counterfeit, or some such
name; because, not to speak of eternity, hypocrites cannot even now
be said to be in Him, although they seem to be in His Church. And
hence this rule might be designated thus: Concerning the mixed
Church. Now this rule requires the reader to be on his guard when
Scripture, although it has now come to address or speak of a different
set of persons, seems to be addressing or speaking of the same persons
as before, just as if both sets constituted one body in consequence of
their being for the time united in a common participation of the
sacraments. An example of this is that passage in the Song of
Solomon, "I am black, but comely, as the tents of Kedar, as the
curtains of Solomon." For it is not said, I was black as the tents
of Kedar, but am now comely as the curtains of Solomon. The Church
declares itself to be at present both; and this because the good fish
and the bad are for the time mixed up in the one net. For the tents of
Kedar pertain to Ishmael, who "shall not be heir with the son of the
free woman." And in the same way, when God says of the good part of
the Church, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I
will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness
light before them, and crooked things straight: these things will I
do unto them, and not forsake them;" He immediately adds in regard
to the other part, the bad that is mixed with the good, "They shall
be turned back." Now these words refer to a set of persons altogether
different from the former; but as the two sets are for the present
united in one body, He speaks as if there were no change in the
subject of the sentence. They will not, however, always be in one
body; for one of them is that wicked servant of whom we are told in the
gospel, whose lord, when he comes, "shall cut him asunder and
appoint him his portion with the hypocrites."
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