The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.
When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.
Against the persecution of a tyrant the godly have no remedy but prayer.
Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.
We must make the invisible kingdom visible in our midst.
Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.