Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/82

30 the beginning even unto the end, and all the legions and armies of the angels being also added—that so there might be one city under one king, and one province under one emperor, happy, lauding God in its never-ending peace and salvation, and blessed without end. Christ's body, which is the church, is, as it were, like a young man. And now in the end of the world the church is of plump old age, because, with reference to this, it was said of her: 'They shall be multiplied in her plump old age.' She has been multiplied among all nations." So much Augustine, in whose words it appears how Christ is the head of the holy church, in whom the fathers believed as the one who was for to come in virtue of his humanity that he might be their head in his humanity as he had always been present with them in his divinity. And in this head all the elect are united, together with the holy angels.

(2) The second point concerns the objection that no reprobate is a member of our holy mother, the Catholic church. For, not only is our holy mother, the Catholic church, one from the beginning of the world, which without mixture has been embraced with never-ending love by the right hand of the bridegroom, as is plain from what has been said above and on Augustine's authority: Inasmuch as the church, after the day of judgment, will have no other members than she has and will have before the day of judgment, but all who are to be saved after that day of judgment are predestinate, therefore none of them, before that day of judgment are reprobate. And consequently no reprobates have ever been members of the church, the bride of Christ. By the same kind of reasoning this will always be true, that no reprobate whatsoever is a member of our holy mother, the Catholic church.

Likewise, it is not possible that at any time Christ does not love his bride or any part of her, for he necessarily loves her as he loves himself. But it is not possible that he should love any reprobate in this way; therefore it is not possible