But it was not greatly to their credit that the latter, for the sake of increasing tile number of their citizens, did that which the former have done, lest the number of their enemies should be diminished.
CHAP.35.--OF THE SONS OF THE CHURCH WHO ARE HIDDEN AMONG THE WICKED, AND OF FALSECHRISTIANS 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 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 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 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.
CHAP.36.--WHAT SUBJECTS ARE TO BE HANDLED IN THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE.
But I have still some things to say in confutation of those who refer the disasters of the Roman republic to our religion, because it prohibits the offering of sacrifices to the gods.For this end Imust recount all, or as many as may seem sufficient, of the disasters which befell that city and its subject provinces, before these sacrifices were prohibited; for all these disasters they would doubtless have attributed to us, if at that time our religion had shed its light upon them, and had prohibited their sacrifices.I must then go on to show what social well-being the true God, in whose hand are all kingdoms, vouchsafed to grant to them that their empire might increase.I must show why He did so, and how their false gods, instead of at all aiding them, greatly injured them by guile and deceit.And, lastly, I must meet those who, when on this point convinced and confuted by irrefragable proofs, endeavor to maintain that they worship the gods, not hoping for the present advantages of this life, but for those which are to be enjoyed after death.And this, if I am not mistaken, will be the most difficult part of my task, and will be worthy of the loftiest argument; for we must then enter the lists with the philosophers, not the mere common herd of philosophers, but the most renowned, who in many points agree with ourselves, as regarding the immortality of the soul, and that the true God created the world, and by His providence rules all He has created.But as they differ from us on other points, we must not shrink from the task of exposing their errors, that, having refuted the gainsaying of the wicked with such ability as God may vouchsafe, we may assert the city of God, and true piety, and the worship of God, to which alone the promise of true and everlasting felicity is attached.Here, then, let us conclude, that we may enter on these subjects in a fresh book.