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| The Second Rule of Tichonius.
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Chapter 32.—The Second Rule of
Tichonius.
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.”1900
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.1901
For the
tents of Kedar pertain to Ishmael, who “shall not be heir with
the son of the free woman.”1902
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;”1903
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.”1904
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