Annotation XXXVIII

”Hypocrite, cast out first the beam,” etc. — Matthew 7:5

Whether there is sin in the Church.

Augustine, in the second book On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, seems to agree with the Lutheran heretics who teach that there is no sin in the Church of God — when he says: “God chose for himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle.”

But he declares this same thing [more clearly] in the first book of the Retractations, chapter 19, showing that that opinion is to be understood not of this Church militant — mixed of good and bad — but of the glorious and triumphant Church.