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"Marks and notes to know the Church there are none, except we will make true profession \-\- which is the form and essence of the Church \-\- to be a mark. And as there are none, so it is not necessary there should be. For to what purpose should they serve? That I might go seek and find out some company to mark. This is no way necessary; for glorious things are in the Scriptures spoken of the Church. Nor that I should run up and down the world to find the persons of the professors; but that I should make myself of it. This I do by taking upon me the profession of Christianity and submitting myself to the rules of belief and practice delivered in the Gospel \-\- though besides myself I know no other professor in the world" (John Hales, _Miscellanies_, § i: "How to Know the Church" \[50\]).