And Fulke repeated Goode’s assertion, that valuable as the remedy is, it cannot always be had.
Anthony sat back, puzzled. Both sides seemed right. Persecution must often hinder the full privileges of Church membership and the exercise of discipline. Yet the question was, What was Christ’s intention? Was it that the Church should be visible? It seemed that even the ministers allowed that, now. And if so, why then the Catholic’s claim that Christ’s intention had never been wholly frustrated, but that a visible unity was to be found amongst themselves—surely this was easier to believe than the Protestant theory that the Church which had been visible for fifteen centuries was not really the Church at all; but that the true Church had been invisible—in spite of Christ’s intention—during all that period, and was now to be found only in small separated bodies scattered here and there. How of the prevailing of the gates of hell, if that were allowed to be true?
At two o’clock they reassembled for the afternoon conference; and now they got even closer to the heart of the matter, for the subject was to be, whether the Church could err?
Fulke asserted that it could, and did; and made a syllogism:
“Whatsoever error is incident to every member, is incident to the whole. But it is incident to every member to err; ergo, to the whole.”
“I deny both major and minor,” said Campion quietly. “Every man may err, but not the whole gathered together; for the whole hath a promise, but so hath not every particular man.”
Fulke denied this stoutly, and beat on the table.
“Every member hath the spirit of Christ,” he said, “which is the spirit of truth; and therefore hath the same promise that the whole hath.”
“Why, then,” said Campion, smiling, “there should be no heretics.”