For many truths by you this day enforced,
Hear ye in turn but one. The church is God’s:
Lords, were it ours, then might we traffic with it;
At will make large its functions, or contract;
Serve it or sell; worship or crucify.
I say the church is God’s; for he beheld it,
His thought, ere time began; counted its bones,
Which in his book were writ. I say that he
From his own side in water and in blood
Gave birth to it on Calvary, and caught it,