“Yes,” answered Fulke, “heretics may be within the Church, but not of the Church.”
And so they found themselves back again where they started from.
Anthony sat back on the oak bench and sighed, and glanced round at the interested faces of the theologians and the yawns of the amateurs, as the debate rolled on over the old ground, and touched on free will, and grace, and infant baptism; until the Lieutenant interposed:
“Master Doctors,” he said, with a judicial air, “the question that was appointed before dinner was, whether the visible Church may err”—to which Goode retorted that the digressions were all Campion’s fault.
Then the debate took the form of contradictions.
“Whatsoever congregation doth err in matters of faith,” said Goode, “is not the true Church; but the Church of Rome erreth in matters of faith; ergo, it is not the true Church.”
“I deny your minor,” said Campion, “the Church of Rome hath not erred.” Then the same process was repeated over the Council of Trent; and the debate whirled off once more into details and irrelevancies about imputed righteousness, and the denial of the Cup to the laity.
Again the audience grew restless. They had not come there, most of them, to listen to theological minutiæ, but to see sport; and this interminable chopping of words that resulted in nothing bored them profoundly. A murmur of conversation began to buzz on all sides.
Campion was in despair.
“Thus shall we run into all questions,” he cried hopelessly, “and then we shall have done this time twelve months.”