1. § 47. The Essence of the Church.

§ 47. The Essence of the Church.

. The community of those who partake of Christ and his benefits bears the name of the church. In the strict sense, therefore, there is talk of this only within the boundaries of Christianity. But that nevertheless does not take away that, just as there are analogies of priesthood and sacrifice and altar and all kinds of other elements in dogma and cult, so also there are analogies of the church in the religions of the peoples. By nature man is already a social being, a ζωον πολιτικον; he is born out of and in and to the community and cannot exist a moment without it. Household, society, state, associations of every kind and for every purpose bind men together and cause them to live and act in community with one another. Stronger still than all these institutions and corporations is the bond that unites men in religion. There lies in religion a mighty social element, Schleiermacher,

Chr. Gl. § 6. A. Dorner, Kirche und Reich Gottes, Gotha 1883 S. 11-17. The reason for that is not far to seek; deeper than anything else religion is rooted in the heart of man. It is immediately given with his creation in God's image and therefore ineradicably proper to his nature. In that religion man

regulates his relation to God, and this is central and principial. As our relation to God is, so is that to our fellow men and to all creatures. At the bottom of all questions lies that of religion. He who in religion agrees with us, agrees with us [2] in the deepest, holiest, and all-governing convictions and sooner or later also comes to the same insight on derivative points; but difference of religious conviction, upon serious reflection, causes one to diverge ever further in all subordinate questions. What in religion binds men is stronger than material interest, natural love, or enthusiasm for science and for art; for religion man has everything, he also has his life forfeit. For if he loses this, then he loses himself; in religion, according to each one's conviction, man's soul and salvation are at stake. Therefore every religion also seeks to propagate itself and to act in a missionary manner. Religion is never a private matter, a subjective opinion, a question of taste; it always includes the pretension to be the true and saving one, and therefore seeks entry with others, expansion if possible over the whole of humanity. It is never a matter of the individual alone, but always also of the family, the kin, the people, and the state. It therefore always produces a common dogma and a common cult, as it were borne by the consciousness that not the single man but humanity is the completed image of God, his temple and body. Outside the terrain of special revelation, however, the consciousness has generally been lost of the unity of God as well as of the unity of humanity. The unity of religion is limited to the tribal or national fellows; civil and religious community coincide; the state is itself also a Cultusgemeinschaft. To be sure, religion also reveals itself in part in independent organization of priesthood, sacrifices, ceremonies, religious associations and secret societies; the Buddhist religion in Tibet shows so much agreement with that of Rome that the Jesuit fathers, when they first

came to know it, saw in it a play of the devil. But yet none of the pagan religions brought it to such an independent organization as that which we encounter under Christianity in the church. Mohammedanism founded nothing other than a kind of theocratic state, in which the Arabs are the lords of the subjected peoples and the Koran is the lawbook also for civil law. And Buddhism formed only associations of world-fleeing monks, who exercised a paralyzing [3] pressure on civil society and over against the state never became independent. Cf. Saussaye, Religionsgesch. I 132.

Pfleiderer, Religionsphilos.3 727 f. Rauwenhoff, Wĳsb. v. d. godsd. 835v.

Tiele, Inl. tot de godsdienstwet. Tweede reeks 1899 bl. 132-154. Falke, Buddha, Mohammed, Christus II 155 f.

However, the Christian church was prepared in the days of the O.

Testament. In the patriarchal period the households of the believers were the religious congregations and the heads of households the priests; a regulated, common cult did not yet exist, although in Gen. 4:26 it is already implied that the Sethites, over against the Cainites, began to call upon and to proclaim the name of God, and although after the flood a separation came about between Semites, Japhethites, and Hamites. With Abraham this separation even received its settlement for centuries. God henceforth let the Heathen walk in their own ways and established with Abraham and his seed a covenant, which also outwardly by the sign of circumcision separated the church from the world and at the foot of Sinai was confirmed and raised to a national covenant. Under Israel church and state were not one and the same; there was distinction between priest and king, temple and palace, religious and civil laws. But both were nevertheless so closely united, that citizen and believer, nation and people of God coincided and it was the one

Divine law that governed the whole life of Israel. Israel as a people was an

ֵעָדה יהוה or a ָקָהל יהוה. Both these words are used in the O. T. for the assembly or the congregation of Israel, without difference of meaning. But after the exile Israel's national existence underwent a remarkable change; the Jews ceased to be a people like the other peoples of the earth and became a religious congregation. In all places in and outside Palestine there arose gatherings of the believers on the sabbath, Ps. 74:8, Hd. 15:21, in order to read the law and to be instructed in it; teaching was the principal component of the worship practiced therein, Mk. 1:21, 6:2 etc. These assemblies, ְכֵנֶסת, συναγωγη, became for the Jews more and more the center of their religious life and in places with mixed or predominantly Greek population received an independent organization. The temple at Jerusalem did indeed continue to exist and was still always honored as the place of [4] the special presence of God. But the Jews outside Jerusalem nevertheless gradually obtained a religious service that proceeded apart from temple and altar, apart from priesthood and sacrifice, and consisted wholly and entirely in preaching and in prayer. Thereby, already in the days of the O. T., the Christian congregation was prepared. Just as the two Hebrew, so the Greek words, συναγωγη and ἐκκλησια, were originally used interchangeably for these religious gatherings of the Jews; the LXX renders עדה as a rule by συναγωγη, and קהל by ἐκκλησια, except in Ex. Lev. Num. Jos., where also

קהל is usually translated by συναγωγη. But gradually there nevertheless already arose among the Jews this distinction, that συναγωγη more denotes the empirical, factual gathering (congregatio, assembly), and ἐκκλησια becomes the word for the ideal congregation, as it comprises those called by God to his salvation (convocatio, congregation). Cf. Schürer, Gesch. des jüd. Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi II3 428-433.

2. From this it is explained that Christian usage of speech continued to employ the word συναγωγη only of the religious assemblies of the Jews and of the buildings in which they took place, Mt. 4:23, Hd. 13:43, Op. 2:9, 3:9, but otherwise began to make use of the word ἐκκλησια. To be sure, this word occurs in the N. T. a few times still of popular assemblies, Hd. 7:38,

19:32, 39, 41; but generally it has a religious character and denotes the N.

Testament congregation. In the patristic literature and especially among the Ebionites the Christian congregation is still sometimes designated by συναγωγη, but soon this word nevertheless makes way entirely for ἐκκλησια, Schürer t. a. p. 432. Sohm, Kirchenrecht 16 f. Cremer s. v. It was, moreover, Christ himself who first applied the word קהל, ἐκκλησια to the congregation which He gathered around himself, Mt. 16:18, 18:17.

Many more recent critics are of the opinion that this word was later put into Jesus' mouth, Holtzmann, Neut. Theol. I 210. But there is no ground for this, and there is nothing surprising in it that Jesus used that word in that sense. For indeed Jesus appeared with the preaching of the kingdom of heaven. But He at once presented a wholly different conception of it than his contemporaries and at first absolutely did not live in the expectation that the whole [5] people would convert and follow Him. John already separated the true Israelites from the mass of the people by the baptism of repentance.

And Jesus was not only conscious from the beginning of his sonship, his messianity and his future suffering, part III 235v.; but He also chose a number of young men and gathered them around himself; He sent them out to preach and to win disciples; He gave to his followers other laws than those that were valid in the circles of the Jewish people, Mt. 5-7, 18:15-35,

20, 28 etc. Thus there gradually came to stand around Him a crowd of disciples, which distinguished itself and separated itself from the people of

the Jews. And to this crowd Jesus now applied the word קהל, ἐκκλησια.

They were the true ἐκκλησια, the genuine people of God, as Israel ought to have been but now in the rejection of the Messiah showed itself not to be.

For Jesus indeed did not come to create something absolutely new, but to bring the law and prophets to fulfillment and to restore the true, essential

קהל. If Jesus therefore uses this word in Mt. 16:18 and 18:17 of his congregation, He therefore also uses it still in a wholly general sense. He does not say that that קהל, ἐκκλησια, will be local or will extend over the whole earth; the later distinction of local and general church is not yet to be found here. But Jesus says quite in general that He will build his ἐκκλησια, in contrast with that of the Jews, not on the law, but on Peter's confession of his messianity, and that He will therefore also arrange it independently and cause it to live according to its own laws. In the disciples whom Jesus himself gathered around himself, the beginnings of the N.-Test. congregation are already present. But as long as Jesus was on earth, He himself remained the personal center and the community of the young men still receded. They were not yet independent and had to be taught and led daily by Him. And the Holy Spirit was not yet, because Christ was not yet glorified. But after Jesus' departure they at once join together more closely,

Hd. 1:14, and receive on the day of Pentecost in the H. Spirit a principle of life of their own, which makes them independent over against the people of the Jews and binds them among themselves most closely. Then the congregation of Christ is in principle detached from Israel's national existence, from priest and law, from temple and altar; it becomes an own, independent, [6] religious assembly; it takes the place of old Israel as the people, as the congregation of God.

This ἐκκλησια at first existed only at Jerusalem. But soon there came also believers in Samaria, in Antioch, and in many other places among Jews and Gentiles; and their assemblies too were designated by the name ἐκκλησια; they too were there on the spot the people, the congregation of God. Thus the word gradually acquired distinct meanings. Jesus still uses the word in a general sense, without thinking of the later distinctions. But after his departure it is applied to the circle of believers in a particular place, because these there constitute the people of God. And then it is applied to them, whether or not they have come together in a particular assembly. In Hd.

5:11, 11:26, 1 Cor. 11:18, 14:19, 28, 35 the word ἐκκλησια clearly refers to the assembly or gathering of the congregation; but elsewhere it occurs repeatedly of the congregation itself, even if it is not assembled, and thus one can speak of ἐκκλησιαι in plurali, Rom. 16:4, 1 Cor. 16:1, Gal. 1:2, 1

Thess. 2:14 etc. The word receives an even narrower meaning when it is used of a portion of the believers that gathers in a private dwelling at a particular place. In cities namely, where the number of Christians became very great, one necessarily had to come to so-called house congregations.

The Jews had in various places, e.g. in Rome, more than one synagogue; and the Christians were all the more compelled to divide themselves at the gathering, because in the first period they had no church buildings but assembled in the dwelling of one of the members of the congregation.

According to Hd. 19:9 the Christians at Ephesus for a time came together in the perhaps for that purpose rented hall of a certain Tyrannus, but as a rule they had their meeting place in a private dwelling. With a somewhat considerable expansion of the congregation they therefore had to come together in different dwellings and form a kind of house congregations. This was the case in Jerusalem, where the congregation soon was thousands of

souls strong, Hd. 2:41, 46, 47, 4:4, 5:14, 8:3, 11:21, 12:12, 17, 21:8, and so also in Rome, Rom. 16:23, Corinth, 1 Cor. 16:19, Colossae, Philem. 2,

Laodicea, Col. 4:15. These house congregations were each by itself called an ἐκκλησια. But in doing so the unity is not [7] lost sight of for a moment.

For although the believers in the same city sometimes, because of their great number, come together in different dwellings, they nevertheless form there on the spot with one another the one ἐκκλησια, Hd. 5:11, 8:1 etc. If the reading of Tischendorf in Hd. 9:31 is correct, all the congregations of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria are there comprehended under the one name of ἐκκλησια in singulari. And in Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 12:12-28, 15:9, Gal. 1:13,

Phil. 3:6, Ef. 1:22, 5:32, Col. 1:18, 24, 25 in the same way all congregations are taken together as one ἐκκλησια and described as the body, the bride, the pleroma of Christ. This unity of all congregations also does not first come about aposteriori through confession, church order, and synodal connection; the church is no association of persons, who first have come to faith outside of it and thereafter have united themselves. But it is an organism, in which the whole precedes the parts; its unity precedes the multiplicity of the local congregations and lies in Christ. He is the one who, in the state of exaltation continuing his mediatorial work, unites and builds up his congregations out of himself as the head, Ef. 1:23, 4:16, 5:23, Col. 1:18, 2:19, who gathers and governs it, Joh. 10:16, 11:52, 17:20, 21, Hd. 2:33, 47, 9:3v., always remains with it, Mt. 18:20, 28:20, is most closely united with it, Joh. 15:1v.,

17:21, 23, 1 Cor. 6:15, 12:12-27, Gal. 2:20, and by his Spirit dwells in it, Rom. 6:5, 8:9-11, 1 Cor. 6:15v., Ef. 3:17 etc. In so far the assertion of Sohm, Kirchenrecht S. 20 is correct, that the general ἐκκλησια precedes the local congregations; it is indeed not the historical, but yet the logical prius,

Holtzmann, Neut. Theol. II 177; every local congregation is the people of

God, the body of Christ, built on the foundation of Christ, 1 Cor. 3:11, 16, 12:27, because it there on the spot is the same as what the congregation in its entirety is, and Christ for it is what he is for the whole congregation,

Zahn, Einl. in das Neue Test. I 355 f. In the different local assemblies of the believers the one congregation of Christ comes to manifestation. Its essence lies, both for the whole and for each of the parts in particular, in this, that it is the people of God, Rom. 9:25, 2 Cor. 6:16, 18, Tit. 2:14, Hebr. 8:10,

13:12, 1 Petr. 2:9, 10, consisting of people who are devoted to the Lord [8] and converted to him, Hd. 5:14, 14:15, who bear the name of disciples, brethren, elect, called, saints, believers, Hd. 1:15, 6:1, 9:1, 32, Rom. 1:7, 1

Cor. 1:2 etc. In the widest sense ἐκκλησια is the assembly of all the people of God, on earth not only but also in heaven, Hebr. 12:23, in the past and present not only but also in the future, Joh. 10:16, 17:20.

3. This spiritual unity of the congregation of Christ also continually comes to the foreground in the post-apostolic period. The Christians are the saints, the elect; they have one God, one Christ, one Spirit of grace, one calling,

Clem. 1 Cor. 46. The church is a tower, which with the rock Christ forms one stone, Herm. Sim. IX 13. 18, from which the stones that are unclean and black and do not fit are removed, ib. 6. 7; the generation of the righteous, from which the godless are separated, ib. 17. 18. The Christians are the soul of the world, Ep. ad Diogn. 6, the true Israel, the blessed people of God, Just. Dial. c. Tryph. 116. 123. 135; they are all priests, Iren. adv. haer. IV 8, 3. Tert. de exh. cast. 7, have all received the H. Spirit, Iren. ib.

IV 36, 2 and together form a communicatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis et contesseratio hospitalitatis, Tert. de praescr. 20 etc. In addition, one then, just like Hermas, makes a distinction between true and false members of the church. With a view to the excommunicated Origen said: ita fit ut interdum

qui foras mittitur intus sit et ille foris, qui intus videtur retineri. And elsewhere he repeatedly expresses that many are called and few are chosen, that there are spiritual and fleshly members, that there is tares among the wheat and the walk of many conflicts with their confession, Seeberg, Der

Begriff der christl. Kirche, Erl. 1885 S. 29. But soon there came in this conception of the church as communio sanctorum a great change. When in the second century all kinds of sects and heresies arose, the question naturally arose, which was the true church. And to that the answer was given: that which remains with the whole and maintains communion with the catholic church. Catholic was the church already called by Ignatius,

Smyrn. 8, cf. Murat. and Mart. Polyc. 5. 16. 19, because it encompasses all believers over the whole earth, in all times and places, and outside it [9] there is no salvation, Clem. 1 Cor. 57. Ign. Ef. 16. Trall. 7. Phil. 3. Herm. IX 16. This catholicity of the church, however, was no longer conceived spiritually over against heresy, but was externalized and embodied in a visible institute. The bishop, descending in a straight line from the apostles and in possession of the pure tradition, became the criterion of the true church. The universal church ceased to be a logical prius and was conceived as a historical prius of all local churches. Thus there came in the concept of the church a complete reversal. It is not the local churches that together form a unity, but the catholic church with the episcopate precedes, and the local churches are parts of the whole and only so long true churches as they keep to that whole and submit themselves to it. The development of this catholic concept of the church was promoted by the resistance that it encountered from the side of heretics. Gnosticism made of the church a school, in which the πνευματικοι were far exalted above the popular representations of historical Christianity. Montanism wanted to establish the

church on the foundation of alleged inspiration and prophecy, with denial of all office and authority; ecclesia proprie et principaliter ipse est spiritus,

Tert. de pudic. 21. Novatianism and Donatism strove for the holiness of the church at the expense of its catholicity. Against all these errors the church fathers came forward and laid more and more emphasis on the episcopal church institute. The church, which is led by the bishops, is the only preserver and preacher of the truth, Iren. adv. haer. I 10, 2. Tert. de praescr.

28, and therefore the indispensable institute of salvation, the mother of all believers, the dispenser of grace, the mediatrix of salvation, scala ascensionis ad Deum. Ubi enim ecclesia, ibi et spiritus Dei, et ubi spiritus

Dei, ibi ecclesia et omnis gratia, spiritus autem gratia, Iren. ib. III 24, 1.

Tert. de or. 2. Clemens, Paed. I 6. Strom. VIII 17. Just as there is only one God and one Lord, so there is also only one church, one flock, one mother, from which all believers are born and outside which there is no salvation.

The ray of light cannot be separated from the sun, the branch not from the tree, the brook not from the spring, Cypr. de unit. ecll. 5. 7. Augustine also moves in the same circle of thoughts. Although the church by its unity, catholicity, and majesty had already earlier made a deep impression on him,

[10] he was nevertheless first compelled by his struggle against Donatism 393-411 to reflect more deliberately on its essence. Even then, however, it is not the doctrine of the church, but the doctrine of grace that remains the center of his thinking and life, and the doctrine of the church comes to stand alongside it to a certain extent detached, independent, and unreconciled. For if God is the sole and absolute cause of grace, as Augustine teaches, then the church cannot be this. Therefore he at once distinguishes between the church as corpus verum and the church as corpus permixtum, de doctr. chr.

III 32. There are members of the true church outside the visible church,

such as the angels, Enchir. 29, the murderer on the cross, who received only the baptism of blood, de bapt. IV 22 and all non-Israelites who before Christ's coming have been saved, de civ. XVIII 23. 47, for the Christian religion is as old as the world, Ep. 102. To the true church also belong those who even now live godlessly or are entangled in superstition and heresy and yet are known by God. Namque in illa ineffabili praescientia Dei multi qui foris videntur intus sunt, et multi qui intus videntur foris sunt. Ex illis ergo omnibus, qui ut ita dicam intrinsecus et in occulto intus sunt, constat ille hortus conclusus, fons signatus, puteus aquae vivae, paradisus cum fructu pomorum, de bapt. V 27. Conversely there are many within the visible church who do not belong to the electi. There is chaff among the wheat, there are bad fish among the good, there are plurimae oves foris, plurimi lupi intus, hom. in Joann. 45. c. lit. Petul. III 3. de bapt. I 10. Multi sunt in communione sacramentorum cum ecclesia, qui tamen non sunt in ecclesia, de unit. eccl. 74. Because of this distinction Augustine was accused by the Donatists that he taught two churches; but he gave in reply that he did not separate the two, any more than one who in man distinguishes soul and body, and that according to the word of Christ tares and wheat had to grow up together. For Augustine the church is not the dispenser of grace, but nevertheless the circle within which God as a rule dispenses his grace. And thus he defends it against the Donatists. The church is the mediatrix of salvation, because in it alone the Spirit, love, perseverance are present.

Outside it there is no salvation. For heretics and schismatics can indeed take along the word and sacrament, but not regeneration and love, [11] which through the H. Spirit are bestowed only within the church; hunc spiritum, quod illi non habeant, qui sunt ab ecclesia segregati, Judas apostolus 1:10 apertissime declaravit. They have the form but lack the essence, just as

severed body parts are indeed a hand, finger, ear etc. but have no life. He who does not have the church as mother does not have God as father, de bapt. VII 44. de unit. eccl. 1. c. lit. Petul. III 9. The church is pia mater, sponsa sine macula et ruga, unica columba, sancta ecclesia; and the church remains holy, even if the godless in it have the majority, for its holiness, like its unity and catholicity, lies for Augustine much more in the objective institute of doctrine, means of grace, and cultus, than in the members of the church; separation is therefore always unlawful, a proof of pride and disobedience, exchanging the universal church for a particularistic or even a national one, c. Cresc. II 37. de unit. eccl. 12. 14. And precisely through this strong emphasis that Augustine against the Donatists lays on the institute of the church, he has to no small extent contributed to the development of the Roman concept of the church. Cf. besides the dogma-historical works of Harnack, Schwane etc., Seeberg, Der Begriff der chr. Kirche 1-56. Köstlin,

Die Kath. Auffassung v. d. Kirche in ihrer ersten Entw., Deutsche Zeits. für chr. Wiss. u. chr. Leben 1856. H. Schmidt, Aug. Lehre v. d. Kirche, Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. 1861 S. 197-250. Reuter, August. Studien 1887 S. 4-105.

Dorner, Augustinus S. 276-295. Specht, Die Lehre v. d. Kirche nach dem h.

Aug. Paderborn 1892.

In the Middle Ages this concept of the church was worked out practically in the development of the hierarchy, in the mighty organization of the ecclesiastical institute, in the struggle of the church with and its elevation above the state. All the more remarkable is it, that it was treated theoretically almost not at all. Not theology but jurisprudence then led the development, Harnack, D. G. III 400. Concerning the doctrine of the church we find something only in Hugo Vict., de sacr. II 2. Halesius, Summa IV qu. 4. Thomas, c. Gent. IV 76. S. Theol. I 2 qu. 101 art. 2. II 2 qu. 10 art.

10. qu. 88 art. 12. III qu. 8 art. 3. 4. qu. 68 art. 9. Only after the combating by Wiclef, Hus, the Reformers etc. is the concept of the church on the Roman side more broadly developed and defended, especially by Torquemada 1468, Catech. Rom. I c. 10. [12] Canus, Loci theol. IV-VI,

Bellarminus, Disp. de controv. Tom. I and II. Becanus, de ecclesia Christi itemque de ecclesia Romana 1615. Id. Manuale controv. I 1-5. Bossuet,

Exposition de la doctrine de l'église cath. sur les matières de controverse 1671 etc. In this concept of the church the visible institute stands in the foreground. Christ namely has founded on earth a church, to which the visible and the invisible side are inseparably connected. Just as in Christ a divine and a human nature, in every human being a soul and body, in the sacrament a sign and a signified thing are united, so there are in the church a visible and an invisible side. The visibility of the church rests on the incarnation of the Word. Christ is the causa efficiens, exemplaris and finalis of the church; He himself lives on in it as prophet, priest and king through the H. Spirit, and pours out into it all the gifts of his grace. He communicates these exclusively by means of office and sacrament; the institute thus precedes the organism; the church is a mother of the believers, before it is an assembly; the ecclesia docens with its hierarchical constitution and its grace-effecting sacraments precedes the ecclesia audiens and stands high above it. To this ecclesia docens then in the first place all those properties are applicable, which the Roman Christian ascribes to his church. It is the one, only, solely-Christian, catholic, by regular succession descending from the apostles, imperishable, infallible church, which disputes the right of existence of all other so-called churches, is intolerant by virtue of its nature, tolerates or recognizes no other churches alongside itself, from which to deviate in doctrine or to separate in life is always sin

and never permitted. For because Christ communicates all grace only through office and sacrament, therefore the ecclesia docens, the Roman ecclesiastical institute, is the only mediatrix of salvation, the guardian and dispenser of all grace for all human beings, the only ark of preservation for the whole human race. It alone leads the human being to Scripture, to the person of Christ, to communion with God. The order of salvation is not this, that God through his Word leads the human being to the church, but conversely it proceeds from the church and then leads to Scripture and to Christ. Therefore the church ought to be knowable, pointable-out and even provable [13] for all; by its properties and marks it must stand out so clearly to view, that with respect to it no doubt is possible and only willful and culpable unbelief can fail to recognize and reject it. It is the very first and principal source of knowledge of the truth and for this reason is treated by many Roman theologians in the doctrine of the principia. On this ecclesia docens the ecclesia audiens is completely dependent; it has only a passive share in all the glorious properties of the church; its only task is, to accept the supernatural grace from the hand of the priest in the sacrament; faith in what the church believes, obedience to the hierarchy, submission to the pope is its greatest virtue and necessary to salvation. Ubi papa, ibi ecclesia.

On the quality of this ecclesia audiens therefore the essence of the church does not depend. Indeed it is good and useful, that the members of the church are believers; decor ecclesiae principaliter in interioribus consistit,

Thomas, Sent. IV dist. 15 qu. 3 ad 1. But the ecclesia docens, the objective institute of salvation remains just as well the true church for that, even if its members are unbelievers and ungodly. No members of the church of Christ are all those, who find themselves outside the Roman church, such as the catechumeni, the excommunicati, the schismatici etc. Their Christian faith,

their pious walk does not benefit them; they are outside the exclusively saving church. But members of the church are indeed all, who remain in communion with Rome, even if they are also public unbelievers and ungodly. These are not actu but potentia de ecclesia; they do not belong to the soul but to the body of the church; they are not so perfectissime de ecclesia, as those who believe and live in the Roman church; but they are nevertheless members of the church and belong to it just as much as the body belongs to the human being's essence. In order in any way, more or less perfectly, to belong to the church, no interna virtus of faith or love is necessary, but only externa professio fidei et sacramentorum communio.

For the church is even visibilis et palpabilis, ut est coetus populi Romani vel regnum Galliae aut respublica Venetorum. It is in one word coetus hominum ejusdem Christianae fidei professione et eorundem sacramentorum communione colligatus, sub regimine legitimorum pastorum ac praecipue Christi in terris vicarii Romani pontificis,

Bellarminus, de eccl. mil. III 2. cf. Heinrich, Dogm. Theol. II 163 f.

Perrone, [14] Prael. theol. I 1838 p. 207 sq. Möhler, Symbolik § 36 f. Simar, Dogm. 576-592. Scheeben-Atzberger, Dogm. IV 279-377. Jansen, Prael. I 325 sq. Concil. Vatic. ed. Lacensis VII Frib. p. 269 sq. 567 sq. enz.

4. To the same extent as this Roman concept of the church was practically realized in the Middle Ages, it encountered resistance and opposition from various sides. The catholicizing of the church-idea had in the first centuries not taken place except under vigorous and persistent protest. Greek

Christendom, although otherwise agreeing with Rome in the doctrine of the church, never acknowledged the primacy of the pope and thereby resisted the striving after absolute unity and catholicity. And thus also in the Middle

Ages various sects rose in opposition to the development of the Roman

church-idea. The opposition proceeded from different principles. Among Cathars, Albigensians, Bulgarians, the followers of Amalric of Bena, the sects of the new and of the free spirit, it was the fruit of dualisticManichaean or gnostic-pantheistic errors. Among others such as the Waldensians, Bradwardina, Wiclef, Hus etc., the view of Augustine continued to operate, according to which the church was an assembly of praedestinati. But the knowability of this true church was then sought not objectively in the administration of word and sacrament, but in the holy life, in life according to the law of Christ, in love, poverty etc.; hence the transition from the idea of the church to reality was lacking and the attempt at reformation could not work through or also ended in disappointment,

Harnack, D. G. III 392-419. Only in the sixteenth century was, through the Reformation, a concept of the church placed over against that of Rome that was different in principle. Luther found peace for his soul, not in the sacrament working ex opere operato nor also in good works, but in the forgiveness of sins through faith alone. And from this standpoint he attacked the Roman church, rejected priest, sacrifice, monasticism, infallible church-institute and magically working sacrament, proclaimed the freedom of the Christian man and conceived the church as an assembly of believers, as a communio sanctorum, as it was confessed as an object of faith in the twelve articles. It cost Luther severe struggle to break with the [15] Roman church and its concept of the church; he had no program of reformation; at first he was concerned only to oppose the abuses. But he found and retained his firmness in the justification of the sinner by faith alone and from there came much further than he had originally thought or intended. This principle also led him to another conception of the church, to that which he found in Scripture. The church was not an assembly of

praedestinati without more, nor also of such as walk according to a few precepts of the sermon on the mount. But it was an assembly of believers, of people who through faith had received forgiveness of sins and thus were all children of God, prophets and priests. Of itself it therefore had an invisible and a visible side. This distinction is according to Seeberg, Der

Begriff der christl. Kirche 91, first made not by Zwingli but by Luther. But by it he understood not two churches, but two sides of one and the same church. For Luther the church is no Platonic ideal, no idea without reality, but for him it exists concretely in people who live and through faith partake of the forgiveness of sins. On the one side it is invisible, an object of faith, for what one believes one does not see; on the other side it is visible, for it becomes manifest and is knowable, not by papacy, bishops, mass vestments and other externals, but by the pure administration of word and sacrament.

Where this is, one can be certain that there is a church; there are true believers, even if only among the children in the cradle; Gottes Wort kann nicht ohne Gottes Volk sein. For there can indeed be unbelievers in a church, just as there can be foreign constituents in a body, but the essence of the church is determined by the believers, the whole is named after the principal part, cf. Köstlin, Luthers Theol. I 317 f. II 534 f. Seeberg t. a. p.

84 f. Gottschick, Hus', Luthers und Zwingli's Lehre von der Kirche, Zeits. f. Kirchengesch. 1886. Accordingly, in the Lutheran symbols the church was defined as a communio or congregatio sanctorum et vere credentium, in qua evangelium recte docetur et recte administrantur sacramenta. It is indeed visible, has offices and institutions, but ecclesia non est tantum societas externarum rerum ac rituum [16] sed principaliter est societas fidei et Spiritus Sancti in cordibus, Conf. Aug. en Apol. 7. 8. Smalc. art. 12. Cat. maj. II 3. The distinction of visible and invisible church thus originally

served only to express over against Rome that the essence of the church lay in the invisible, in faith, in communion with Christ and his benefits through the H. Geest, but absolutely not to detract in any way from the visibility, from the reality of the church. Soon, however, it was used in another sense.

For one could not close one's eyes to the fact that in the church in hac vita multi mali et hypocritae admixti sunt, who indeed are socii verae ecclesiae secundum externos ritus but nevertheless do not form the church and rather belong to the regnum diaboli, Symb. B. ed. Müller 153. 154. 155. The church could thus be taken more narrowly or more broadly as ecclesia stricte et large dicta, ib. 153. Luther sometimes spoke of zwei Kirchen and Melanchton called this a discrimen duorum corporum ecclesiae, C. R. 21,

507, and later theologians, such as Heerbrand, Chemniz, Hutter, Gerhard etc. applied to that the distinction of invisible and visible church. Invisible was the church now called, not because it had a spiritual side and therefore was an object of faith, but because the circle of believers could not be known by us; and visible church became the name, not for the manifestation of the believers in confession and walk, but for the unbelievers, who earlier by Luther and the confessional writings were reckoned not to the church but to the regum diaboli. Idea and reality, essence and appearance were thereby set loosely alongside one another. The believers formed an invisible ecclesiola in the visible ecclesia. Cf. Gerhard, Loc. XXII 69 sq. Quenstedt,

Theol. IV 493 sq. Hollaz, Examen theol. 1278 sq. Buddeus, Instit. theol.

1207 sq. Schmid, Dogm. der ev. luth. K. 434. 440 f. Schultz. Das protest.

Dogma v. d. unsichtbaren Kirche, Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1876 S. 673-690.

Krauss, Das prot. Dogma v. d. uns. Kirche, Gotha 1876 S. 80 f. Seeberg, t. a. p. 104 f. 141 f. Nitzsch, Ev. Dogm. 529 f.

With the Lutheran doctrine of the church the Reformed agrees in the main, but it nevertheless exhibits some not unimportant peculiarities. In the first place, the institute of the church occupies in it a somewhat different place. Luther did indeed understand by [17] the church the communio sanctorum, but still sought its unity and holiness more in the objective institutions of office, word, and sacrament than in the subjective community of the believers, which often left so much to be desired. Thus the church became more and more a divine institute, which had to realize the unity and holiness of the believers. In the same spirit Melanchthon in the Loci of 1543 defined the church as coetus vocatorum and said that we nec alibi electos ullos somniemus, nisi in hoc ipso coetu visibili. And later Lutheran dogmaticians found in it a point of difference, that according to their doctrine the elect are not to be sought extra coetum vocatorum and according to the Reformed they could also occur outside it. And in fact it is

Reformed doctrine, that God does indeed ordinarily bestow the benefits of Christ by means of word and sacrament, but nevertheless is not bound to them and, be it then also rarissime, grants salvation outside the institute of the church, Calvĳn, Inst. IV 16, 19. Ursinus, Expl. catech. qu. 21. Bucanus,

Inst. theol. 400. Gomarus, Theses 30, 29. In the second place, the Reformed brought the church into the closest connection with election and therefore often conceived its invisibility differently than the Lutherans. Zwingli at first did indeed let the invisibility bear upon the ecclesia universalis, which was spread over the whole earth and therefore could be empirically perceived by no one, in contrast with the ecclesia particularis, which is present and visible in a definite place. But later he understood by the ecclesia invisibilis the collective elect, as it is in the twelve articles an object of faith and will first at the parousie become visible. And in

distinction from that he called the ecclesia universalis and the ecclesia particularis a visible (visibilis, sensibilis) assembly of believers, in which hypocrites can also be, Fidei ratio, Op. IV 8. In his Christianae fidei expositio of the year 1531 he then again speaks somewhat differently and says that the church of the believers on earth is invisible, insofar as it includes only the true believers, and visible, insofar as all belong to it, quotquot per universum orbem Christo nomen dederunt, Op. IV 58. Calvin aligns himself with this usage. When he for the first time includes the expression ecclesia invisibilis in the Institutie of 1543, he understands by it the collective [18] elect, who are known to God alone, and then distinguishes the church as universa hominum multitudo in orbe diffusa, which is visible and also contains hypocrites within itself, but nevertheless also insofar again is invisible and an object of faith, as we cannot know who in it are the true believers, Inst. IV 1, 1-9. Invisible, therefore, the church could already be called in a threefold respect: 1o as ecclesia universalis, because a particular person cannot perceive the church in other places and in other times; 2o as coetus electorum, which will first at the parousie be completed and be visible; 3o as coetus electorum vocatorum, because we in the church on earth cannot distinguish the true believers. To that there later still came other points of view, under which the church could be called invisible, because it is not of this world, because its head Christ and thus also it itself as his body is invisible, because its greatest part is in heaven, because it can be temporarily and locally deprived of the administration of the means of grace, because in times of persecution it hides in deserts and caves, because it is perceptible indeed in its outward confession but not in the inward faith of the heart, because the church is never present in one place and in one time but through the centuries and peoples extends itself,

Polanus, Synt. theol. 531. And visible was then called the church over against that, because it becomes manifest in confession and walk, or appears as institute with offices and administrations, or contains not only true believers but also hypocrites. Confession and dogmatics among the Reformed now proceeded from this and then from that conception. Some placed the church as the community of all elect in the foreground and called this the ecclesia invisibilis, Cat. Genev. bĳ Niemeyer 135. Scot. I 16.

Westm. Conf. 25. Alsted, Theol. did. schol. 590. But because the elect, who do not yet live or are not yet called, can be called members of the church only potentia, others let this idea of the church rest and proceeded from the church as assembly of all electi et vocati, Basil. I 5. Helv. I 15. Heid.

Catech. 54. Belg. 27. Helv. II 17. Gomarus, Theses theol. disp. 30. Polanus, Synt. 530. Martyr, Loci 390. Then, however, one had to distinguish therewith immediately between true believers and hypocrites and therefore began to speak of ecclesia stricte and latius dicta, of the esse de ecclesia and the esse in [19] ecclesia, or also of ecclesia invisibilis and visibilis, Ursinus on qu. 54. Alsted, Theol. did. schol. 598. Heidegger, Corpus theol. XXVI 29 etc. This led in connection with the corruption that entered into the church, to the distinction of two circles or groups of people in the one church,

Turretinus, Theol. El. XVIII 3, 3. 24. and brought Janssonius, van der Eerde and others in the previous century to it, to place an outward and an inward covenant alongside each other, to separate the forma externa and interna of the church and to proclaim the doctrine that also the unregenerate, if they lived without giving offense, could be true members of the church and had a lawful claim to its goods and benefits, cf. part III 227. In vain, over against that, others attempted to maintain the unity of the church, by saying that invisible and visible church were two sides of the same thing, Synopsis pur.

theol. 40, 34. Turretinus, Theol. El. XVIII 7, 4. Mastricht, Theol. VII 1, 11.

13. Appelius, De Herformde Leer 1769 p. 300v.; the doctrine corresponded less and less with life. And this was all the more serious for the Reformed doctrine concerning the church, because it saw the essence of the church much less than the Lutherans in the institute. For, and that is a third distinction, which will later come more clearly to light, the Reformed sought the mark of the true church indeed also in the pure administration of word and sacrament, but they usually added to that also church discipline and the Christian walk; election was the foundation of the church but became manifest only in faith and good works. Cf. further also concerning the Reformed doctrine of the church: Beza, Tract. theol. 1582 I 32.

Hyperius, Meth. theol. 529. Bullinger, Huysboeck 1612 fol. 204. Bucanus, Inst. theol. 455. Gomarus, Op. II 97. 202. Voetius, Pol. Eccl. I p. 1 sq. Moor,

Comm. VI 1-179. M. Vitringa, Doctr. chr. relig. IX etc., cf. Seeberg t. a. p.

159 f.

5. The change which the Reformation introduced into the Roman concept of the church also had practical consequences. Uniformity made way once and for all for pluriformity; different churches appeared after and alongside one another and gave to religion and church a wholly different form. The Reformation still tried to keep invisible and visible church in good connection; but history proved how difficult that was. And in other [20] churches outside the Reformed and Lutheran the connection was often completely broken, and the invisible church was sacrificed to the visible or this to that. Socinianism did indeed still accept the distinction, but nevertheless spoke almost only of the visible church, because it conceived the Christian religion as a doctrine fairly acceptable to all, Fock, Der Socin.

690 f. Remonstrantism not only walked in the same track, but also deprived

the church of all independence and left nothing to it but the right of preaching and admonition, Conf. en Apol. conf. 21. 22. Limborch, Theol.

Christ. VII. With Rationalism the church became an association of men for the exercise of religion and for the improvement of morals, Wegscheider,

Instit. § 188. Bretschneider, Syst. Entw. 760. Doederlein, Instit. theol. christ. 1787 S. 716. Kant indicated with the names invisible and visible church the people of God according to his idea and according to its empirical appearance; the latter, that is, the church with its statutory faith is destined to pass over more and more into the rational and moral religion, into a Kingdom of God on earth, Religion ed. Rosenkranz 119 f. 146 f. With Hegel the church likewise had only a temporal, transitory significance, for the state is the true realization of the moral idea, the vernünftlich-sittliche

Substanz. The church has a right to exist only so long as the state does not yet fully correspond to its idea, Philos. der Rel. Werke XII 279. For the church as an institution of Christ, from the standpoint of rationalism no place remains. And from another principle mysticism came to the same result. Anabaptism proceeded from the absolute antithesis of creation and re-creation, nature and grace, world and Kingdom of God and therefore regarded believers as men who in regeneration had become something wholly different and therefore had to live separated from the world. Its program was: not reformation but separation; it wanted a separated church,

Menno Simons, Werken 262. For centuries there had been no church, but only Babel, and Babel had to be left and avoided, ib. 33 v. 289 v. 295. 409 v. In Münster one said that in 1400 years there had been no true Christian,

Goebel, Gesch. d. christl. Lebens I 179. The true church was a church of saints, who after personal confession had been baptized and by abstention from oath, war, [21] governmental office and all kinds of other worldly

practices in food and drink, in clothing and intercourse distinguished themselves from others, De Bres, De wortel, den oorspronck ende het fundament der Wederd. 1589 bl. 39-45. Cloppenburg, Op. II 233. Goebel t. a. p. 134 f. The same dualistic principle lies at the foundation of all kinds of sects that later have appeared within the circle of Protestantism. Labadie called into being at Middelburg in 1666, just as earlier at Geneva and at Amiens, conventicles, to which he gave the name of prophecies and in 1669 founded an "evangelical congregation", which was allowed to consist only of true believers, and later at Herford distinguished itself by a domestic family life, by a questionable marriage practice and by community of goods, Goebel t. a. p. II 181-273. Ritschl, Gesch. d. Piet. I 194-268.

Pietism, both here and in Germany, drew the whole of life together into the narrow circle of religion, became indifferent to church and office, sacrament and formulary, gathered the believers in separated societies and promoted separatism, Ritschl, ib. II 135 f. Zinzendorf organized on 12 Aug.

1729 an apostolic congregation, which in various traits corresponded with the congregation of Labadie, Goebel, ib. II 271. In England under anabaptist influence with Robert Browne and John Robinson there arose

Independentism, which lets the church arise wholly and entirely from the joining together of individual believers, Weingarten, Die Revolutionskinderen Englands 24 f. After Cromwell's revolution, tempered in its enthusiasm, it passed over, as Anabaptism in Mennonitism, into the religion of the Quakers, who formed a congregation separated from the world and distinguished in all kinds of externalities. Detached from all the historical and objective, the church with them became the community of all who were partakers of the illumination of the H. Spirit, and further the name for those who gathered together in one place, as it were formed one

family and by virtue of the inner light also outwardly agreed in confession and life, Barclay, Verantwoording 1757 bl. 212 v. Weingarten ib. 185. 186.

Methodism too is governed by the same antithesis. To be sure, Wesley at first tried to reform the church itself, but in 1784 he nevertheless proceeded to separation from the established church; he ordained preachers, placed them under protection of the Tolerantie-acte and joined [22] the converts together in societies, which came together daily for prayer, from time to time held love-feasts, fast-days, watch-nights, prayermeetings etc. and received as principal task to labor for the conversion of others,

Schneckenburger, Kleinere prot. Kirchenparteien 1863 S. 103 f. The salvation army of General Booth is the consequence of this Methodism; the converts no longer form a church but a standing army of Christ, a corps of evangelists under an officer, separated from the world by special clothing and manner of life, Kolde, Die Heilsarmee 1885 S. 49 f. No wonder that under all such phenomena John Darby came to reject openly and decidedly every church and church form. In his opinion the N. T. dispensation of the covenant of grace was indeed at first endowed by God with church and office, but these have already in the apostolic time degenerated through men's unfaithfulness and been rejected on God's part. Therefore all churches since that time are nothing but Babel, preparations of the antichrist, wholly and entirely corrupted, to be rejected altogether by the believers. These must now do nothing else than withdraw from the world, edify one another in their meetings with their different gifts and in silence await the return of Christ, Dr. G. J. v. d. Flier, Het Darbisme 's Grav. 1879.

Art. Plymouthbrüder in Herzog2.

Thus everything seems to point to a dissolution of the church and to a radical modification of the concept of the church. Yet, over against that,

there is no lack of a powerful reaction. The Russian church, whose supreme administration rests with the Holy Synod and is bound to the emperor by means of the procurator, maintains its claim to the name of the only true, orthodox church and, with suppression of the sects, strives after unity of faith in the whole empire; Pobedonoszew, the present procurator, is an advocate of the absolute monarchy and of the state church and defends the doctrine that the masses find in power the standard of truth, see his

Streitfragen, autor. Uebersetzung, Berlin Deubner 1897. The Roman church is still the same as it previously was, when it had heretics and schismatics persecuted and put to death, and in principle can recognize and tolerate no churches alongside itself; if Roman Catholics speak in the interest of religious freedom and separation of church and state, they are to be regarded as friends of both out of calculation, [23] but as enemies of both out of principle, cf. e.g. Stöckl, Lehrb. d. Philos. III 474. Cathrein,

Moralphilos. II3 555 f. Hettinger, Apol. des Christ. IV2 407 f. In England, Irvingism first appeared, which wished to reform the church by restoration of the apostleship, J. N. Köhler, Het Irvingisme, 's Grav. 1876, and at present ritualism is spreading in the Anglican church, which more and more reshapes offices, sacraments, worship, ceremonies according to Roman doctrine and practice, art. Tractarianismus in Herzog1. Mr. Walter Wash,

Secret History of the Oxford movement 1897. Williams, The crisis in the church of England. Presb. and Ref. Rev. July 1899 p. 389-412. Even among the Lutherans many confessionals went back to the objective institute of church, office, and sacrament and bound to that all communication of grace,

Löhe, Drei Bücher von der Kirche 1845. Kliefoth, Acht Bücher v. d. Kirche 1854. Münchmeyer, Das Dogma v. d. uns. u. sichtb. Kirche 1854. Vilmar,

Theol. der Thatsachen 1876 S. 48 f. Id. Dogmatik II 212. Stahl, Die

Kirchenverfassung nach Lehre u. Recht der Prot. 2e Ausg. 1862 S. 67 f. But despite all this the church, the longer the more, loses its uniform character.

Not only in the Protestant countries, especially in England and America, but also in Russia the number of sects is expanding, J. Gehring, Die Sekten der

Russischen Kirche 1003-1897. Nach ihrem Ursprunge und inneren Zusammenhange dargestellt. Leipzig Richter 1898. Even in the Roman church, which so gladly takes pleasure in the division of Protestantism, in many respects the unity is more appearance than reality. Believers and unbelievers stand within its walls just as far from one another as in many churches of the Reformation. The different orders often stand with one another on anything but friendly terms. Dieselben Motive besonderer

Frömmigkeit, welche auf katholischem Boden zu neuen Ordensstiftungen führen, wirken auf protestantischen Boden zur Bildung von Sekten, Ritschl,

Gesch. des Piet. III 303. And Reform-katholicismus and the "Los-vanRome" movement show how much discontent in many a heart is hidden beneath the outward splendor of unity. Faith in the one, infallible, alonesalvific church is, over against the existence and the flourishing of so many other churches, no longer to be maintained; the doctrine is contradicted as strongly as possible by life and by history. [24]

While Rome closes its eyes to this development of Christianity and church, Protestant theology runs the danger, for the sake of history, of overlooking the divine institution of the church. According to Schleiermacher the church arose durch das Zusammentreten der einzelnen

Wiedergeborenen zu einem geordneten Aufund Miteinanderwirken, Chr.

Gl. § 115. Since, however, regeneration is not a magical change but an ethical renewal, there still always remains in the regenerate a piece of world, and thus in the church a distinction must be made between the

abiding and the changing and vanishing, ib. 125. 126. To this distinction Schleiermacher applies the earlier names of invisible and visible church.

Their earlier use was incorrect, for of the invisible church most is not invisible, since regeneration becomes manifest outwardly in confession and life, and of the visible church most is not church, since it belongs to the world. Invisible church indicates not so much persons as workings of the Spirit in the persons, and visible church makes known that these workings of the Spirit in all believers still go together with after-workings of sin, ib.

148. The two thus stand to each other in relation as essence and appearance, as idea and reality, and are in that same sense also conceived by many other theologians, Nitzsch, Syst. d. chr. Lehre § 186-188. Lange, Dogm. II 1090 f.

Martensen, Dogm. § 191. Müller, Dogm. Abh. 332 f. Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk II3 505. Frank, Chr. Wahrheit II2 369 f. Kaftan, Dogm.

573. 585. Some in doing so abandon the old names and prefer to speak of kingdom of God and church, A. Dorner, Kirche und Reich Gottes, Gotha

1883. Krauss, Das prot. Dogma v. d. uns. K. 1876, or also of congregation and church, Stahl, Kirchenverfassung 67. De la Saussaye in my Theol. van

Ch. d. l. S. 61. Van Oosterzee § 129. One can then still, with Stahl, hold this visible church to be a foundation of Christ; but most nevertheless think of it as a product, a necessary form of existence of the congregation, Lipsius,

Dogm. § 859 f. Tiele, Inl. tot de godsdienstwet. II 1899 bl. 141v., or even judge that the institutional church has had its time, and must pass over into the state, Strauss, Dogm. II 618. Rothe, Ethik § 124 f. 440 f. 1167 f., or into the confessing congregation, Rauwenhoff, Wĳsb. v. d. godsd. 843.

Pfleiderer, Religionsphilos. 1896 S. 745. Sohm, [25] Kirchenrecht passim.

Chavannes, Qu'est ce qu'une église, Paris Fischbacher 1897.

6. The name ָקָהל, ἐκκλησια, already by virtue of its derivation from verbs which mean to call together, denotes an assembly of people who, for one purpose or another, especially a political or religious purpose, have come together, or, even if at a particular moment they are not assembled, are nevertheless mutually united for such a purpose. Under the Old Testament

Israel was the people that had been called together and gathered by God for his service; and in the New Testament this people of Israel has been replaced by the congregation of Christ, which is now the holy people, the chosen race, the royal priesthood of God. The word church, church, kirk, kirche, chiesa, by which ἐκκλησια has been translated, does not express this character of the congregation of Christ as clearly as the original does.

Probably it is derived from κυριακη, scil. οἰκια, or κυριακον, scil. οἰκον and thus originally meant, not the congregation itself, but the place of its gathering, the church building, Suicerus s. v. Herzog2 7, 685. At present we use this word in the same sense of the church building, or in that of religious worship (e.g. church begins at ten o'clock), or in that of an instituted group of congregations (the Roman, the Anglican church etc.).

The meaning of the New-Testament word ἐκκλησια stands in the background with the word church; in some times the consciousness that church is the designation of the people of God was almost entirely worn away. This is also the reason why the word ἐκκλησια in the Statenvertaling has been translated not by church, but by congregation; for this word did bring out again that the essence of the church lies in the communion of saints. If there were no objections against it, it would deserve consideration to replace the word church by that of congregation. But society and state have appropriated this word in the civil sphere, speak of municipality, municipal council, municipal school, town hall, and have thereby in many

respects made this word unusable for ecclesiastical life. Congregation can and may indeed be used in the ecclesiastical sphere, but then has a definite sense and is not as pliable as the word church, which can assume manifold meanings. For although this word originally [26] indicated the church building and then also the religious worship and the ecclesiastical institute, yet the meaning of people of God, of assembly of Christian believers, is not foreign to it. In that sense it occurs in the twelve articles, in the Ned.

Geloofsbel. art. 27-29, in the Dordsche kerkenorde passim. It only depends on revivifying this meaning in consciousness. The words congregation and church can then be used alongside one another but they are never to be distinguished from one another in such a way that the word congregation denotes the assembly of believers in a particular place, and the word church denotes the combining of the congregations into one whole. For church and congregation are both translations of the same word ἐκκλησια and therefore have the same meaning. Both words are names for the assembly of believers, whether in a particular place, whether in a country, whether over the whole earth. It is therefore wholly wrong to think, with congregation, of the true believers, with church, of the apparent believers, to identify both concepts with those of invisible and visible church, or also to understand by congregation the assembly of believers and by church the institute. At most they differ in this, that congregation makes one think more of the communion of believers among one another, and church more of those same believers, as they are organized in an institutional way, under office and ministry of the word. In both cases, however, it is nevertheless the same assembly of believers that is denoted by it; only the point of view differs from which it is regarded. While these two words thus possess citizenship on ecclesiastical terrain, it is quite otherwise with the word

kerkgenootschap. This name has a collegialist aftertaste. It came into use in this country in 1773 through the first versification of the twelve articles of faith, was then in the sense of local or general church taken up in the state regulation of 1798, 1801 and 1805, was in the constitution of 1814 and 1815 replaced by the word religions and religious denominations and thereafter in the constitution of 1848 and 1887 and also again in the law on the churchgenootschappen of 10 Sept. 1853 introduced alongside the name of religious denominations, Heraut 627. The combining of church and association is a mesalliance and mother of many errors. A church is precisely not an association, for it does not arise through [27] voluntary accession of adult persons but out of regeneration by the H. Spirit. Finally it also deserves no recommendation to replace the word church in the sense of the people of God by that of kingdom of God. For between the two there is a not unimportant difference. The kingdom of God, with which Jesus' preaching begins, is in the first place an eschatological concept for the approaching Messianic kingdom with all its goods. And also, insofar as this kingdom is already present here on earth in the hearts through regeneration, forgiveness and renewal, it consists much more in spiritual goods than in a community of persons. The kingdom of heaven is or becomes precisely a possession of the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the little children and itself consists in peace, joy, gladness through the H. Spirit. Therefore it is, at least here on earth, not organized; it is in principle everywhere where the spiritual benefits of Christ have been bestowed, and is nowhere on earth rounded off and completed, deel III 233v. But the church is especially a diesseitig concept, a community of persons, equipped with offices and ministries and appearing in the visible as the gathered people of God. The church is thus the means by which Christ distributes the benefits of the

Godsrĳk and prepares its completion. And on its way, to cause the Godsrĳk to come, it takes up all kinds of elements that are impure and in fact do not belong to it (hypocrites and also the old man in the believers), while the kingdom of God, consisting in goods, is pure and unmixed and includes only the regenerate. Christ has been given to the congregation as a head, precisely so that God at the end may appear as King of his people and may be all in all. Cf. Philippi, Kirchl. Gl. V 3, 203. Frank, Chr. Wahrheit II 375.

Kaftan, Dogm. 584.

Now there is no doubt that, according to Holy Scripture, the essence of the church lies in this, that it is the people of God. For the church is a realization of election, and this is an election in Christ unto calling, justification, glorification, Rom. 8:28, unto conformity to the Son of God,

Rom. 8:29, unto holiness and salvation, Ef. 1:4v. The blessings which are bestowed upon the church are in the first place inward and spiritual in nature and consist in calling and regeneration, in faith and justification, in sanctification and glorification. [28] They are goods of the kingdom of heaven, benefits of the covenant of grace, promises for this but above all for the life to come. On that ground the church is called the body of Christ, 1

Cor. 12:27, Ef. 5:23, Col. 1:18, the bride of Christ, 2 Cor. 11:2, Ef. 5:32, Op. 19:7, 21:2, the sheepfold of Christ, who lays down his life for the sheep and is known by them, Joh. 10, the building, the temple, the house of God,

Mt. 16:18, Ef. 2:20, 1 Petr. 2:5, built up of living stones, 1 Petr. 2:5, upon the cornerstone Christ and upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, 1

Cor. 3:17, 2 Cor. 6:16, 17, Ef. 2:22, Op. 21:2-4, the people, the possession, the Israel of God, Rom. 9:25, 2 Cor. 6:16, Hebr. 8:10, 1 Petr. 2:9, 10. The members of the church are called branches on the vine, Joh. 15, living stones, 1 Petr. 2:5, elect, called, believers, beloved, brothers and sisters,

children of God, etc., and they who are not this in truth are in Scripture regarded as chaff with the grain, Mt. 3:12, as weeds among the wheat, Mt.

13:13, as bad fish in the net, Mt. 13:47, as a man without a wedding garment at the wedding, Mt. 22:11, as called but not chosen, Mt. 22:14, as bad branches on the vine, Joh. 15:2, as not Israel, though being from Israel,

Rom. 2:28, 9:6, as evil persons, who must be put away, 1 Cor. 5:12, as vessels unto dishonor, 2 Tim. 2:20, as such as have gone out from us but were not of us, 1 Joh. 2:19 etc. All this raises it above all doubt, that the church according to her essence is an assembly of true believers. They who do not partake of sincere faith may outwardly belong to the church; yet they do not constitute her essence, her forma, they are in, but not the ecclesia.

This is further confirmed by the manner in which Scripture speaks of the communion of saints. The believers have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, and so also they have one Spirit, Ef. 4:4-6, in whose communion they live, by whom they are born again, baptized into one body and united with Christ, Joh. 3:5, 14:17, Rom. 8:9, 14, 16, 1 Cor.

12:3, 13, 2 Cor. 1:22, 5:5, Ef. 1:13, 4:30, 1 Joh. 2:20. And this Spirit does not annul, in the unity, the diversity which exists among the believers, but He maintains and confirms it. Just as He in creation and preservation adorned and perfected all things in their [29] manner, part II 295, and among Israel bestowed all kinds of natural and spiritual gifts, part II 230; so on the day of Pentecost He communicated Himself with all His charismata to the church of Christ. These charismata in a broader sense also include the benefits of grace, which are the portion of all believers, Rom. 5:15, 16,

6:23; but in a narrower sense they denote those special gifts which in different measure and degree have been bestowed upon believers for one another's benefit, Rom. 1:11, 1 Cor. 1:7, 2 Cor. 1:11, 1 Tim. 4:14, 2 Tim.

1:6 and especially Rom. 12:6-9 and 1 Cor. 12:12 v. Of all these gifts the H.

Spirit, who takes them all from Christ, Joh. 16:13, 14, Ef. 4:7, is the distributor; He distributes them to each one, as He likewise wills, yet not arbitrarily, but in connection with the measure of faith, with the place which someone occupies in the church, and with the task to which he is called,

Rom 12:3, 6, 2 Cor. 10:13, Ef. 4:7, 1 Petr. 4:10, so that each gift is a φανερωσις του πνευματος, 1 Cor. 12:7. These gifts are very many in number. Paul mentions several of them, and by no means intends to give a complete list. The Roman Catholics speak, just as of seven capital sins, seven virtues, seven beatitudes, so also gladly, with appeal to Jes. 11:2, 3, of seven dona Spiritus Sancti, Lombardus, Sent. III dist. 34. Thomas, S. Theol.

I 2 qu. 68. II 2 qu. 8. Bonaventura, Brevil. V 5. Meschler, Die Gabe des h.

Pfingstfestes, 3te Aufl. Freiburg 1896 S. 233 f. Simar, Dogm. 554.

Heinrich-Gutberlet, Dogm. VIII 631. But this set of seven does not include the proper charismata, which are enumerated by Paul and which in Roman theology are rather discussed under the name of gratiae gratis datae, Simar ib. 486. And these are not to be limited to a set of seven. To those counted up by Paul may also still be added those of prayer and thanksgiving, of admonition and consolation, of liberality and hospitality, etc. A classification is therefore also difficult to give. Some clearly bear a supernatural character or were bestowed only in or after conversion, others display more the nature of natural gifts, which have been heightened and sanctified by the H. Spirit. The former came especially strongly to the foreground in the first period, the latter are more proper to the church in its historical, normal development. But whatever those gifts may be, they all serve for the benefit of the church. The [30] communio sanctorum is a sanctorum communicatio, Calvin, Inst. IV 1, 3. The H. Spirit does not

distribute the charismata to the members of the church for the benefit of themselves, but for the benefit of others. They may not be buried or neglected, but must be employed willingly and with joy for the benefit and unto the salvation of the other members, Heid. Cat. 55; they serve for οἰκοδομη, 1 Cor. 14:12, Ef. 4:12, and are subordinate to love, which is the most excellent gift. For this love is yet another than general love of neighbor; it is the love for the brethren, for the household members of the faith. Jesus calls this love a new commandment, Joh. 13:34, 35, 15:12,

17:26, because love in Israel did not bear a purely spiritual character but was interwoven with the bonds of blood, and the love which He now brings about among His disciples is first completely pure, unmixed, and independent of earthly relations. The members of Jesus' church are brothers and sisters among one another, Mt. 12:48, 18:15, 23:8, 25:40, 28:10, Joh.

15:14, 15, 20:17, Rom. 8:29, Hebr. 2:11 etc. They are children of one family; God is their Father, Ef. 4:6, Christ their firstborn brother, Rom.

8:29, Jerusalem, which is above, their mother, Gal. 4:26. And thus they have to serve one another with all their spiritual and natural gifts. The church is a communion of saints. Cf. concerning these spiritual gifts the explanations on the article of faith of the communion of saints and further,

Amesius, Med. Theol. II 2 § 19-23. Voetius, Disp. II 1086-1100. Neander, Pflanzung u. Leitung d. christl. Kirche5 S. 180 f. Pfleiderer, Der

Paulinismus 242. Holtzmann, Neut. Theol. II 143. 175. Art. Geistesgaben of Cremer in Herzog3. Lauterburg, Der Begriff des Charisma u. seine

Bedeutung für die prakt. Theol. Gütersloh 1898.

7. So long as we hold fast to this essence of the church, its concept gives birth to no excessive difficulty. The church is then always, in a broader or in a narrower sense, the assembly of believers. In the broadest sense it

includes all who through faith in Christ have become saved or will also still become so. Adam and Eve before the fall do then indeed not yet belong to it, for they then had no need of a mediator. And the angels also cannot be reckoned to it, although this was done by many; [31] for Christ is indeed the Lord of the angels and has through his cross placed all things, also angels and men, in the right relation to God and to one another; but angels are nevertheless not created after God's image, have not fallen and have not been redeemed by Christ and are thus also no members of the church, which Christ gathers unto eternal life. The believers do according to Hebr.

12:22 indeed come to the fellowship with the thousands of angels, but these are clearly distinguished from the πανηγυρις και ἐκκλησια πρωτοτοκων, vs.

23, cf. deel II 442-445. III 405-408. Members of the church are only men who through faith in Christ have been preserved. To it therefore belong all believers who from the paradise promise up to this moment have lived on earth and have been taken up not into the limbus patrum or into purgatory but into heaven, Hebr. 12:23. To it belong all believers who now still live on earth. And to it belong in a certain sense also all those who later still, up to the end of the ages, will believe in Christ. For the church, also when it is taken in this broadest sense, is no Platonic state, which exists only in the imagination and never becomes reality, but it has the guarantee of its existence now or in the future in the decree of God, in the firmness of the covenant of grace, in the mediatorship of Christ, in the promise of the H.

Spirit. The greatest part of the members of this church is then, however, at a given moment not on earth; for from paradise up to the present there have already been many thousands and millions taken up into heaven and their number is daily, from moment to moment, increased (ecclesia triumphans), and there are many who now still do not believe or are even not yet born

and yet infallibly certainly will come to faith. The church, as assembly of the believers who at a given moment live on earth (ecclesia militans), is thus only a small part of the church, taken in its broadest sense. Yet it is good and necessary, to hold fast to the connection of the church on earth with that in the past and in the future. For it is one assembly, one ἐκκλησια of those who are written up in the heavens and who once as a bride without spot or wrinkle will stand before God's countenance. And the maintaining of this unity of the whole church increases the sense of community, steels the courage and spurs to the struggle. [32] If we further limit ourselves to that part of the church that is on earth (ecclesia militans), then this can again be taken more broadly or more narrowly. We can in that case think of all the believers together, who now in all churches, among all peoples, in all lands are present (ecclesia universalis), of the believers in one land or in a province, Hd. 9:31 (ecclesia nationalis, provincialis) or also of the believers in a particular place, whether city or village (ecclesia particularis, localis).

In that connection it then deserves remark, that the ecclesia universalis (nationalis) precedes the ecclesia particularis. The church of Christ is an organism, in which the whole goes before the parts; it has its origin in paradise, Gen. 3:15, or also before the days of the N. Test. in Jerusalem, Hd.

1:8; the church at Jerusalem was, so long as it alone existed, the ecclesia universalis, the church of Christ on earth, and the churches, which soon appeared alongside it, came into being not autochthonously but from Jerusalem through the preaching of the apostles and evangelists.

Up to this point the concept of the church is clear and plain. But now a double difficulty arises. The first consists in this, that this concept of church in Scripture is applied to concrete, historically existing, closed groups of persons, among whom there are also always unbelievers. In the O. Test. the

whole people was called the people of God, although by no means everything was Israel that was from Israel. In the churches of the N. Test. there was also, though to a much lesser degree, chaff among the wheat and weeds among the grain. And after the apostolic time the churches have repeatedly become secularized, degenerated, divided, and yet we still all call them by the name of churches. Theology, like Scripture, has at all times acknowledged this fact and, following it, has always declared that the essence of the church was determined not by the unbelievers but by the believers, above p. 8 f. Augustine clarified this presence of unbelievers in the church by the scriptural image of chaff and wheat, or also by that of body and soul, outer and inner man, evil humors in the body; the unbelievers are in the body of Christ quomodo humores mali, in Seeberg t. a. p. 45. And thus also spoke the scholastic and Roman theologians.

Bellarmine, e.g., does indeed attempt to show that unbelievers are also members of the church, but he does not get beyond the assertion that they are it aliquo [33] modo, de eccles. mil. III 2; they are only de corpore, not de anima ecclesiae; the boni are pars interior, the mali are pars exterior of the church; the unbelievers are membra mortua, arida, who are connected with the church only externa conjunctione; they do not belong to the kingdom of Christ, quoad fidei professionem, but to the kingdom of the devil, quantum ad morum perversitatem; they are filii propter formam pietatis, alieni propter amissionem virtutum; there may not be two churches, yet there are two partes in the church, ib. III 9. And the Catech. Rom. says that in the church militant there are duo hominum genera and that according to Scripture there are bad fish in the net and weeds in the field and chaff on the threshing floor, foolish among the wise virgins and unclean animals in the ark, I 10 qu. 6. 7. In theory this does not differ much from the doctrine

of the Reformation; but in practice the situation with the church toward the end of the Middle Ages looked quite different, and Rome also continually fosters the idea that outward membership, historical faith, observance of the commandments of the church and submission to the pope constitute the essence of the church. Against that the Reformation raised protest and adopted the distinction between visible and invisible church. Augustine had already said of the nominal Christians, quum intus videntur, ab illa invisibili caritatis compage separati sunt, de bapt. III 19 in Seeberg t. a. p. 42; and actually Rome can have no objection to this distinction and also itself accepts it, insofar as it distinguishes in the one church duo hominum genera, duas partes. Bellarmine treats, de eccl. mil. III 10, of the infideles occulti, and Möhler, Symb. § 49, praises Luther, when he conceives the church as a community of saints and says that the believers, the Unsichtbaren, are the bearers of the visible church. But the distinction between visible and invisible church can be understood differently, above p.

18. Most of these conceptions, however, are to be rejected or at least do not come under discussion in dogmatics. The church is not to be called invisible because Christ, because the ecclesia triumphans, because the church completed at the end of the ages cannot now be observed by us; nor also because the church on earth in many places and countries is not seen by us or in times of persecution is hidden or is sometimes deprived of the ministry of word and sacrament. The distinction between visible and invisible church is applicable only to the ecclesia [34] militans and then indicates that the church according to its spiritual side or in its true members is invisible.

Both these meanings have flowed together among Lutherans and Reformed and also cannot be kept apart from one another. The church is an object of faith. The inward faith of the heart, regeneration, true conversion, the

hidden communion with Christ, etc., are spiritual goods which are not perceptible with the natural eye, and which nevertheless bestow upon the church its proper forma. And to no single human being has God given the infallible standard into his hands by which he can judge the spiritual life of others. De intimis non judicat ecclesia. The Lord alone knows those who are his. Thus it is possible, and it has also always been a fact in the Christian church, that chaff lay hidden among the wheat and hypocrites were concealed among the true believers. The name church, used of the ecclesia militans, of the assembly of believers on earth, therefore has among all Christians, both Roman and Protestant, always had a figurative sense. It is so called, not according to the unbelievers who are found in it, but according to the believers, who form its essential constituent part and give it its essence. The whole is named after the part. A church is and remains an assembly of true Christian believers.

8. So understood, the distinction between the visible and invisible church can be impugned by no one and must rather be acknowledged by all. But there is still another difficulty connected with the concept of the church.

The assembly of believers on earth is not only charismatic but also instituted. It is not only itself the property of Christ, but also serves to win others for Christ. It is coetus, but also mater fidelium; organism but also institute; end and means at the same time. The relation of the church as organism to the church as institute is first discussed in the following paragraph, on the government of the church. For just as the concept of the state is difficult to define and then only becomes clear when people and government are distinguished and treated separately within it, so a good definition of the concept of the church can be given only if one guards against identifying the assembly of believers [35] with its organization in

the institute, Turretinus, Theol. El. XVIII 3, 10. Stahl, Kirchenverfassung 46. Many, however, connect the distinction of the church as organism and as institute with that of invisible and visible and thereby imperceptibly give to the latter a sense that does not belong to it. On the one side stand those who define not only the church according to its idea or the ecclesia triumphans but also the ecclesia militans on earth as an assembly of the praedestinati or electi (Wiclef), or of the perfecti (Pelagius according to August., de haer. 88, the Anabaptists according to Calvin, Inst. IV 1, 8 and many others), or of those, qui nunquam lapsi sunt (Novatianus), or also of those members of the church who go to the Lord's Supper (communicants, as many in America conceive the church). On the other side are the Roman

Catholics, who shift the center of gravity of the church from the assembly of believers to the hierarchical institute, to the monarchia externa et suprema totius orbis and seek its essence much more in the ecclesia docens than in the ecclesia audiens. And in that direction also go all who, in order to retain the unbelievers and hypocrites at least to some extent as true members, define the church as an assembly of the called (Melanchthon,

Löhe, Kliefoth etc.) or of the baptized (Münchmeyer, Delitzsch, Vilmar etc.). Both these views are one-sided and fall short of the essence of the church. On the first standpoint the church becomes wholly invisible, remains an idea, and does not appear in reality. Election as such does not yet make someone a member of the church on earth. Indeed the elect, who have not yet come to faith, belong to the church as it exists in the thought and decree of God; they can even be said, potentia, to belong to the church, but they are nevertheless actu not yet members of it. And the church also cannot be defined as an assembly of the perfect, of the non-fallen, or of communicants, for believers do not attain perfection in this life, are not

guaranteed by the promises of God against every fall, and are not limited to the number of those who go to the Lord's Supper. Nor is the second, abovementioned definition in accordance with the essence of the church. For outward membership, calling, and baptism are no proof of true faith; many are called who are not elect; many are baptized who do not believe; [36] not all are Israel who are of Israel. While the former thus do not arrive at any visible church, the latter neglect the invisible church. Only then do these two both come into their own, when the church is conceived as an assembly of believers. For it is sincere, true faith that saves, receives forgiveness of sins and eternal life. That faith is a matter of the heart, yet it does not remain shut up within man but reveals itself outwardly in confession and walk, Rom. 10:10, and confession and walk are signs of the inward faith of the heart, Mt. 7:17, 10:32, 1 Joh. 4:2. It is true that faith and confession are by no means always in agreement; there is faith, e.g. in the children of believers, that is not made manifest in deeds, and there is a confessing that consists in the crying Lord, Lord and is not born from true faith. But nevertheless the conception of the church as an assembly of believers has this advantage over its definition as an assembly of the called and baptized, that it maintains that on which it depends for every person and for the whole church. Not being called and being baptized decides, but he who shall have believed and shall have been baptized shall be saved, whereas he who shall not have believed, even if he was called and baptized, shall be condemned, Mk. 16:16.

From this it follows that the distinction of the church as institute and organism is a wholly different one than that between visible and invisible church, and may not be identified with this. For institute and organism are both designations of the church according to its visible side. In this

connection one must not forget that also institute and organism of the church, appearing in the visible, have an invisible, spiritual background. For office and gift, ministry of word and sacrament, brotherly love and communion of saints all rest on operations that proceed from the glorified

Head of the congregation through the H. Spirit. Rejection therefore is deserved by the representation as if the institute, as something accidental and external, had been added in a mechanical manner to the church as assembly of believers. But yet, when we think of the church as institute and as organism, we think in the first place of the church according to its visible side, that is, of the offices and ministries with which it is equipped and of the communion of saints, as that is manifested in brotherly love. And precisely in these two the church appears outwardly in visible fashion.

Incorrect therefore is also the opinion that the church becomes visible only in the institute, in office and ministry, in word and sacrament, in some form of church government. Even when all this is thought away, the church is nevertheless visible. For every believer manifests his faith in confession and walk in every sphere of life and all believers together stand with their faith and life over against the world. In heaven there is no office and ministry, no word and sacrament any more and yet the church will be fully visible.

Visibility and invisibility thus distinguish the church from a wholly different point of view than institute and organism. The latter distinction tells us in what the church becomes visible and knowable for us; the former teaches that that visible appearance has an invisible, spiritual side, which is known with certainty to God alone. Therewith it is now of itself also given that visible and invisible church are not two churches. This objection was already raised by the Donatists against Augustine and was later repeated by the Romanists against the Protestants. But the accusation rests on

misunderstanding. Rome itself acknowledges, as has been shown above, that there are duo hominum genera in the church, that it has duas partes, and now indeed tries to show that the unbelievers aliquo modo belong to the church but yet does not dare to say that they constitute the essence of the church. In fact it thus stands before the same difficulty as the Reformation.

For that the hypocrites aliquo modo belong to the church is no point of difference. The Protestants also acknowledge that they are in ecclesia and belong to the church, as the evil branches belong to the vine and the chaff to the grain. Only they deny that these give to the church its forma, for sincere faith is it and nothing else that saves and incorporates into Christ. The unbelievers therefore are not the essence of the church, they are not the ecclesia. Invisible and visible church are thus also absolutely not designations for the group of unbelievers and of believers that are in a church. In the church discipline over doctrine and life is to be maintained according to the Lord's command; but every attempt to separate the believers and the unbelievers, and to set up an ecclesiola in ecclesia, is likewise in conflict with the Lord's command; Mt. 13:30 does not forbid this, for the field meant there is not the church but [38] the world, vs. 38, but it follows from it that we are bound to confession and walk and cannot or may not judge over the heart. Unbelievers therefore no more constitute the essence of the visible than of the invisible church; they belong to the church in neither of the two respects, although the right and the competence are lacking to us to separate them from the believers and to cast them out.

Indeed it can be said still more strongly that also the old man, who remains in the believers, does not belong to the church. Therewith Schleiermacher is not yet right when he deems the essence of the church to be situated in operations of the H. Spirit, for the church is no assembly of operations but

of persons; it is human beings who are reborn by the H. Spirit and brought to faith and who as such, as new human beings, form the essence of the church. But yet, the church is an assembly of believers, and all that does not arise from faith, from the new but from the old man, does not belong to the church and is therefore once cast out. Visible and invisible church are for this reason two sides of one and the same church; they are the same believers, who are considered the one time from the side of faith, which dwells in the heart and is certainly known to God alone, and the other time from the side of confession and of life, which is turned toward us and is perceptible for us. Because the church here on earth is becoming, these two sides are never, even in the purest church, equal to one another. There are always unbelievers within, and believers outside the church; multi lupi intus, multae oves foris. The latter was e.g. under the O. Test. the case with Naäman the Syrian and still applies now to all who for one reason or another live outside the communion of the instituted churches and yet partake of the true faith. But all this nevertheless detracts nothing from the fact that the essence of the church lies only in the believers.

9. If the church according to its essence is an assembly of true Christian believers and these are known only to God, the question becomes important by what the church can be known by us. The Roman Christian therefore has above all an objection to the Reformation concept of the church, because it undermines the certainty of the church and thus of the salvation of his soul and opens the door to doubt, division, [39] indifference. Bellarmine says it as clearly as possible: necesse est, ut nobis certitudine infallibili constet, qui coetus hominum sit vera Christi ecclesia, nam cum Scripturae traditiones et omnia plane dogmata ex testimonio ecclesiae pendeant, nisi certissimi simus, quae sit vera ecclesia, incerta erunt prorsus omnia. This now is

impossible, if sincere faith alone truly makes someone a member of the church, for this can never be known by us with certainty, and a cognitio conjecturalis is insufficient; we have need here of a certitudo infallibilis, de eccl. mil. III c. 10, for tenemur omnes sub periculo mortis aeternae verae ecclesiae nos adjungere et in illa perseverare, ib. c. 12. The true church must therefore be so visibilis and palpabilis, ut est coetus populi Romani, vel regnum Galliae aut respublica Venetorum, ib. c. 2. Hence Bellarmine exerts all his powers to prove the truth of the Roman church. He enumerates no fewer than 15 notae, namely ipsum catholicae ecclesiae nomen, antiquitas, duratio diuturna, multitudo et varietas credentium, successio episcoporum, conspiratio in doctrina cum ecclesia antiqua, unio membrorum inter se et cum capite, sanctitas doctrinae, efficacia doctrinae, sanctitas vitae primorum patrum, gloria miraculorum, lumen propheticum, confessio adversariorum, infelix exitus eorum qui ecclesiam oppugnant, felicitas temporalis, de eccl. mil. IV c. 4-18. The Roman theologians follow this example, but usually reduce the fifteen notae to the four which are mentioned in the symbolum Nic.-Const., namely the unitas, sanctitas, catholicitas and apostolicitas, Perrone, Prael. I 248. Liebermann, Instit. theol. I 255. Scheeben-Atzberger, Dogm. IV 372. Jansen, Prael. I 659.

Hettinger, Apol. 7te Aufl. IV 411, V 106. In addition, it still deserves attention that Rome in the proper sense has no notae or criteria by which the true church can be known. For these presuppose a standard that lies above the church and according to which it may be judged by everyone. And such a standard Rome does not have, for Scripture is dependent on the church, and the church itself is the highest standard for doctrine and life. Notae ecclesiae in Rome are therefore nothing other than indicia, properties, in which the church comes to expression and reveals itself. Proofs for the

church are the same as those for Christianity, for both are one in Rome. And these proofs do not make the proposition that the [40] Roman church is the true church evidenter veram but nevertheless evidenter credibilem, ib. IV c.

3. Likewise the Vaticanum speaks, III c. 3: Deus per Filium suum unigenitum Ecclesiam instituit, suaeque institutionis manifestis notis instruxit, ut ea tamquam custos et magistra verbi revelati ab omnibus posset agnosci. Ad solam enim catholicam Ecclesiam ea pertinent omnia, quae ad evidentem fidei christianae credibilitatem tam multa et tam mira divinitus sunt disposita. Quin etiam Ecclesia per se ipsa, ob suam nempe admirabilem propagationem, eximiam sanctitatem et inexhaustam in omnibus bonis foecunditatem, ob catholicam unitatem invictamque stabilitatem, magnum quoddam et perpetuum est motivum credibilitatis et divinae suae legationis testimonium irrefragabile. The truth of the church is therefore not absolutely provable for everyone; for then the church would not be an articulus fidei and faith would not be free and meritorious.

According to the Vaticanum, there must, alongside the testimony that proceeds from the church, be added an efficax subsidium ex superna virtute.

In fact Rome thereby adopts the same subjective standpoint as the Reformation. The motives, however strong, cannot in actual fact move to faith. It is God's Spirit alone who can inwardly convince someone firmly and certainly of the truth of divine revelation. The deepest ground for faith is also in Rome not Scripture or the church, but the lumen interius. Rome with its infallible church and its infallible pope has in principle nothing more than the churches of the Reformation, for church and pope are, however visible, nevertheless articuli fidei, cf. dl. I 425. 426. 486-489.

The marks which Rome gives for the true church are therefore in no respect clearer and stronger than the pure administration of the word, which

was acknowledged by the Reformation as a mark of the church. Some of the marks named by Bellarmine are of very subordinate value. The gift of miracles is absolutely no conclusive proof for the truth of the doctrine which someone proclaims, Deut. 13:1, 2, Mt. 7:22, 23, 24:24 etc. cf. part I 429v.; the unhappy end of the enemies and persecutors of the church is for the most part only a legend, as Roman Catholics now also acknowledge,

Nik. Paulus, Luthers Lebensende, Freiburg 1898; and the earthly prosperity of the church is always temporary, alternates with persecution and [41] oppression, and can just as well be adduced as a proof against the truth of the church, Mt. 5:10, 16:24, Joh. 16:33, Hd. 14:22, 2 Tim. 3:12. With other marks everything depends on the sense in which they are understood; the name catholic is also adopted by Protestant churches and is in itself no more a proof for the truth of the Roman church than the name Christ, which the false Christs appropriate to themselves, Mt. 24:24, or the name Israel or seed of Abraham, in which the Jews boasted, Joh. 8:33, Rom. 9:6; antiquity, historical continuity, and unbroken succession belong not only to Rome but also to other churches, e.g. the Greek, and in themselves prove no more anything for the truth of the Roman church than they did for that of the Jewish community in Jesus' days; unity and catholicity are pretensions of Rome, which cannot nullify the fact that millions of Christians live outside her; there is not only one church, there are many churches, and there is not a single one that includes all believers. The remaining marks, agreement with the doctrine of the apostles, holiness of doctrine, renewing power which proceeds from it, holy life of many of its confessors, by no means belong only to Rome but also to many other churches, and are subject to the same objections as those which are raised by the Roman Catholics against the Protestant marks and will presently be discussed. Cf. Beza, de eccl. cath.

notis, Tract. theol. III 132. Polanus, Synt. p. 532 sq. Amesius, Bellarminus enervatus II 56-72. Maresius, Syst. theol. XVI 23 sq. Turretinus, Theol. El.

XVIII qu. 13. Mastricht, Theol. VII 1, 34. Moor VI 50. M. Vitringa IX 1 p.

98. Gerhard, Loc. XXII c. 10. 11. Quenstedt, Theol. IV 503.

The Roman church indeed rejoices in her unity and points with selfsatisfaction to the division of Protestantism. But she pays for this joy at a dear price. In the first place she is compelled to transfer the essence of the church more and more from the assembly of believers to the institute of the hierarchy, i.e. in the end to the pope. With more right than Louis XIV could say: l'état c'est moi, the pope can declare: the church is I. Ubi papa, ibi ecclesia. If then, as is proper, in the case of the church one thinks not even of the institute but of the assembly of believers, the division in the Roman

[42] church is not so much less than in the Protestant churches. The difference is only that Rome, seeking her strength in the celibate hierarchy, quietly allows all directions and opinions to exist side by side in the church and deprives her members, even the most unbelieving, of the energy, the sense of freedom and the sense of truth, to break with the church and their own untrue position. In the second place Rome pays for that joy with the dear price of the extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The doctrine of Scripture, that salvation is bound to faith in Christ, was soon, over against schism and heresy, so understood that everyone who wished to become partaker of salvation in Christ had to be connected with the bishop, Ign. ad Eph. 4. 5.

Phil. 3. Trall. 7. Those who wish to be saved must flee into the holy churches of God, Theoph. ad Autol. II 14. Sola catholica ecclesia est, quae verum cultum retinet. Hic est fons veritatis, hoc domicilium fidei, hoc templum Dei; quo si quis non intraverit vel a quo si quis exiverit, a spe vitae ac salutis aeternae alienus est, Lact., Inst. div. IV 30. The church

fathers often used for the church the image of the ark, and Cyprian in particular made use of it in order to raise the extra ecclesiam nulla salus above all doubt, e.g. de unit. eccl. 6 Ep. 69, 2. 74, 11. Augustine had no other opinion: manifestum est, eum qui non est in membris Christi, christianam salutem habere non posse, de unit. eccl. 2. Outside the church someone can take everything with him, sed nunquam nisi in ecclesia catholica salutem potest invenire, Super gestis e. Emerito. Councils and popes have confirmed this doctrine. The fourth Lateran council declared in c. 1 that there is one catholic church of believers, outside which absolutely no one is saved. Trent said that without the catholic faith it is impossible to please God, Sess. 5. Boniface VIII pronounced that submission to the pope was de necessitate salutis. Eugenius IV taught that no one outside the catholic church can become partaker of eternal life. And Pius IX declared in the allocution of 9 Dec. 1854: tenendum ex fide est, extra apostolicam

Romanam ecclesiam salvum fieri neminem posse. Rome must therefore be intolerant; she can recognize no churches alongside herself; she herself is the only church, the bride of Christ, the temple of the H. Spirit. Yet the facts have also become too powerful for Rome. Thousands and millions in the course of the centuries have broken the [43] communion with the Roman church, Novatians, Donatists, Greek Christians, Arians, Monophysites,

Monothelites, many sects in the Middle Ages and then in the sixteenth century more than half of Christendom. And although Rome by the Counter-Reformation has regained much, yet she now counts of the 500 million Christians scarcely half and in numerical strength is going rather backward than forward. In the face of these facts it is not maintainable that there is no salvation outside the Roman church. It is difficult for Roman

Catholics themselves to remain faithful to this doctrine; many are inclined

to concessions. They make a distinction between those who consciously, intentionally, pertinaciter and therefore culpabiliter leave the church, and those who are carried along and misled, bona fide are outside the church and voto, desiderio, animo still belong to the church, ad animam ecclesiae.

In that same spirit the thesis of Baius was rejected by the Roman see; infidelitas pure negativa in his, quibus Christus non est praedicatus, peccatum est, and Pius IX in the allocution of 9 Dec. 1854 pronounced: pro certo habendum esse, eos qui verae religionis ignorantia laborant, si ea invincibilis set. nulla posse hujus rei culpa obstringi. Bellarminus, de eccl. mil. III c. 3. 6. Perrone, Prael. I 331. Klee, Dogm. I 141. Jansen, Prael. I 344. Schanz, Apol. III 188. Dublanchy, De axiomate: extra ecclesiam nulla salus, dissertatio theologica. Bar-le-Duc, Contant-Laguerre 1895.

10. For Protestantism the doctrine of the marks of the true church had an entirely different significance. Through the Reformation the unity of Western Christendom was broken once and for all, and different churches came to stand alongside and over against one another. The Reformers had to demonstrate that the church of Rome was not the true one, and that the churches of the Reformation corresponded to the essence of the church, as Scripture defined it. Their reforming act presupposed that the church was not αὐτοπιστος, that it could err and deviate, and that there was a higher authority to which it too had to submit. And that could be nothing other than

Holy Scripture, the Word of God. Unanimously, therefore, all the Reformers went back to Scripture, saw in it also the standard of the church, and accordingly determined the marks by which the true church was to be distinguished from the false. In [44] the enumeration of those notae there was indeed some difference. In his writing Von den Concilien und Kirchen

Luther counted seven: pure administration of the word, of baptism, of the

Lord's Supper, of the keys, lawful election of the ministers, the public prayer and instruction, and the cross; but elsewhere he named only two, pure administration of word and sacrament. And so did Melanchthon in the Conf. Aug. art. 8 and in the Loci, and later Lutheran theologians, Gerhard,

Loc. XXII § 131. Quenstedt, Theol. IV 503; only Melanchthon in the Examen ordinandorum added to these two yet a third rather hierarchical mark: obedientia ministerio debita juxta evangelium. Of the Reformed, some, such as Beza, Sohnius, Alsted, Amesius, Heidanus, Maresius, gave one mark, the pure administration of the word; others, such as Calvin,

Bullinger, Zanchius, Junius, Gomarus, Mastricht, Marck e. a. two, namely pure administration of word and sacrament; many, such as Conf. Gall.,

Belg, Scot. I, Hyperius, Martyr, Ursinus, Trelcatius, Walaeus, Amyraldus, Heidegger, Wendelinus, added as a third yet the right administration of discipline or the holiness of life. But rightly Alsted, Alting, Maresius,

Hottinger, Heidanus, Turretinus, Mastricht e. a. observed that this was more a difference in name than in the matter, and that there is actually only one mark, namely the one and the same word, which is then in various ways, in preaching, instruction, confession, sacrament, life, etc., administered and confessed, M. Vitringa IX 1 p. 101-109. That the Reformation rightly sought the mark of the church in the Word of God is, with Scripture in hand, beyond any doubt. For, without the word of God there is no church, Spr.

29:18, Jes. 8:20, Jer. 8:9, Hos. 4:6; by word and sacrament Christ gathers his church, Mt. 28:19, which is built on the doctrine of apostles and prophets, Mt. 16:18, Ef. 2:20; by the word he regenerates, 1 Petr. 1:23, Jak.

1:18, he works faith, Rom. 10:14, 1 Cor. 4:15, he cleanses and sanctifies, Joh. 15:3, Ef. 5:26. And they who have thus been regenerated and renewed by the word of God have the calling to confess Christ, Mt. 10:32, Rom.

10:9, hear his voice, Joh. 10:27, keep his word, Joh. 8:31, 32, 14:23, test the spirits, 1 Joh. 4:1, avoid whoever does not bring this doctrine, Gal. 1:8, Tit.

3:10, 2 Joh. 9. The word is indeed the soul of the church, Calvin, [45] Inst.

IV 12, 1. All service in the church is a service of the word. God gives his word to the church, and this one receives it, preserves it, administers it, teaches it, confesses it before God, before one another, before the world in word and in deed. In the one mark of the word the others are included as further applications. Where God's word is rightly preached, there the sacrament is also purely administered, the truth of God confessed according to the intention of the Spirit, conduct and walk ordered according to God's testimony. Even Rome cannot deny that God's word is the mark of the church. Gerhard, Loc. XXII § 138 cites many church fathers who clearly and distinctly express this. Thus Tertullian says: those are true churches which hold what they have received from the apostles, de praescr. 21.

Formerly, says Chrysostom on Mt. 24:15, it could in many ways be shown which was the church of Christ, but since the heresies have crept in, this cannot be indicated otherwise than by the Scriptures; for those Scriptures, he declares, hom. 33 in Act. Ap., are simple and true, so that it is easy to judge by them which doctrine is the true one. Repeatedly Augustine speaks in this spirit: Between us and the Donatists the question is, where the church is. What then shall we do? Shall we seek it in the words of Donatus or in the words of its head, the Lord Jesus Christ? I think that we ought to seek it in the words of him who is truth and knows his body best, for he knows who are his, de unit. eccl. 2. Bellarmine himself defines the church as an assembly of men bound together by the profession of the same

Christian faith and by the communion of the same sacraments etc., includes the sanctitas doctrinae among the marks of the church, ib. IV 11, and

concedes that in some cases, if Scripture is accepted as God's word, Scripture is better known than the church and proves its truth, ib. IV 2. In answering the question which are the distinguishing marks of the church,

Rome too must use Scripture as ground of proof, if it does not wish to remain standing with a sic volo, sic jubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas, cf. others also in Gerhard ib. § 139. Turretinus, Theol. El. XVIII 12, 16.

Scheeben-Atzberger, Dogm. IV 375.

Yet Rome rejects the marks which the Reformation indicated for the true church. Bellarmine objects to them, in the first place, that the pure administration of the word at most only points out, [46] where, but not which the true church is, i.e. who the true believers are, who yet alone according to the Protestant definition constitute the essence of the church, the eccl. IV 2. This objection is to a certain extent correct, but in fact also without difficulty. For it is absolutely not necessary for us to know with infallible certainty who true believers are; for that, e.g. with J. Müller,

Dogm. Abh. 346 f. to seek out infallible marks, leads onto the false track of the Donatists. The pure administration of the word is not a mark of the sincere faith of the individual members but of the church as an assembly of believers. The promise of God, namely, Jes. 55:11, 2 Cor. 2:15, 16 etc. stands surety for us for the fact that the word of God everywhere, where it is preached, will do its work and will not return empty. Gottes Wort kann nicht ohne Gottes Volk sein, wiederum Gottes Volk kann nicht ohne Gottes

Wort sein (Luther). Therefore the Reformers named as the first and principal mark of the church not the confession and the life of the believers, but the administration of word and sacrament. The believers, after all, who constitute the essence of the church, become manifest in a twofold way, in the administration of word and sacrament, which takes place among them,

and in confession and walk, by which they distinguish themselves from the world and also from other churches, i.e. in the church as institute and in the church as organism. The nature of the matter entails that the mark which is derived from the administration of word and sacrament, from the church as institute, bears a more unerring, firmer, more constant, more durable character than that which is found in the confession and life of the believers. Much can be lacking in the latter, without therefore the former ceasing to exist. The Roman church proves this to a very strong degree, but it nevertheless also applies to the Protestant churches. However important a pure confession and a holy walk of the believers may be, the main thing for each and every one remains the pure administration of word and sacrament.

Therefore this ought to count as the first and principal mark of the church.

But the Reformed nevertheless rightly laid emphasis on the fact that the church as an assembly of believers becomes manifest not only in the institute, but also in faith, in fleeing sins, in pursuing righteousness, in love to God and the neighbour, in the crucifixion of the flesh. Ned. Gel. 29. The [47] pure administration of the word also includes the application of ecclesiastical discipline.

Another objection of Bellarmine is that the pure administration of the Word is far too general and too unclear a mark for the true church to be judged by it. For the administration of the Word, on the one hand, in true churches, such as e.g. at Corinth and in Galatia, often still leaves far too much to be desired as to purity, and, on the other hand, it has not entirely perished in heretical and sectarian churches. Socinians and Remonstrants reasoned in the same way and contested the necessity and the usefulness of marks by which the true church was to be recognized, Cat. Rac. qu. 489.

Episcopius, Disp. III 28 Op. II 2 p. 459. And although Lutherans and

Reformed in the first period very emphatically maintained that they were the true church, the increasing impurity of their own churches and the appearance of other churches alongside theirs made it more and more difficult to maintain this assertion in all its strictness. Yes, from the beginning the attitude which the Protestant churches adopted toward the Roman church was quite different than the reverse. Rome can recognize sects but no churches alongside itself, Hettinger, Apol. d. Christ. V7 118.

But the Protestants, although decisively rejecting the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Rome, continued fully to recognize the Christian element in Rome's church. However corrupt Rome may be, there are nevertheless vestigia ecclesiae, ruinae dissipatae ecclesiae in, there is still aliqua ecclesia, licet semirupta, remaining in the papacy, Calvin, Inst. IV 2, 11, cf.

Op. ed. Schippers VIII 111. 309. IX Epist. 51. 57. Beza, Tract. theol. III 145. 192. Bullinger, Huijsboeck 1612 p. 206. 207. Zanchius, Op. II in the praef. before the natura Dei. Polanus, Synt. 535. cf. 496. Polanus a Polansdorf. Part. Theol. p. 196. Junius, Op. II 1018-1023. Alsted, Theol. schol. 696. Voetius, Desp. causa papatus 699-703. Mastricht, Theol. VII 1,

25. Turretinus XVIII 14, 24. 27. The Reformation was a separation ab ecclesia Romana et Papali, but not a vera ecclesia, Turretinus, XVIII 15, 8.

Id. de necessaria secessione nostra ab ecclesia Romana, et impossibili cum ea syncretismo, after his Disp. de satisf. Christi 1691 and other anti-Roman writings in Vitringa IX 1 p. 116. Moor VI 58. Furthermore, the Reformers were, or at least soon became, aware of it, that [48] the pure administration of Word and sacrament could not count as an absolute mark. Calvin warns most strongly against all arbitrary separation. Even if something is lacking in the purity of doctrine or of the sacraments, even if the holiness of life and the faithfulness of the ministers leave far too much to be desired, one may

therefore not at once leave the church. Only when the summa necessariae doctrinae, the praecipua religionis doctrina is exchanged for falsehood, is separation a duty, Inst. IV 2, 12-16. 2, 1. Comm. on Mt. 13:40, 41. 2 Thess.

3:6. When later the corruption in the state churches increased and many felt compelled to separation, most teachers, on the same grounds, resisted separatism, Voetius, Pol. Eccl. IV 488. Brakel, Red. Godsd. c. 25. V. d.

Waeyen and Witsius, Ernstige betuiginge der Geref. kercke aan hare afdwalende kinderen 1670. Koelman, Hist. Verhaal nopende der Labadisten scheuring en velerleye dwalingen met de wederlegging derzelver, 2 parts,

Amst. 1683-84, cf. Hoe oordeelt de H. S. en hoe oordeelen de Geref. vaderen over Scheiding en Doleantie bij J. Campen te Sneek. All saw themselves compelled, with Calvin, to acknowledge that in the true church much impurity in doctrine and life can occur, without this giving a right to separation, and that in the separated churches much good is often found.

Thus the concept of true and false church underwent an important change.

On the one side one had to concede that a true church in an absolute sense is impossible here on earth; there is not a single church that absolutely and in all parts, in doctrine and life, in administration of Word and sacrament, answers to the demand of God. And on the other side it became clear that a false church in an absolute sense also cannot exist, because then it would no longer be a church; even if Rome was a false church, insofar as it was papal, there were nevertheless still many remnants of the true church in it.

There was thus a distinction between vera and pura ecclesia, Polanus, Synt. p. 532. Alsted, Theol. schol. 601 sq. Synopsis 40, 37. Maresius XVI 20,

Vitringa IX 1. 79. True church became the name, not for one church to the exclusion of all others, but for manifold churches, which still held fast the principal truths of Christianity, the fundamental articles, cf. part I 520v. but

otherwise differed very far from one another in degrees of purity; and false church became the name of the hierarchical power of superstition or unbelief, which in the [49] local churches set itself up and ascribed to itself and its ordinances more power and authority than to the Word of God, Ned.

Gel. 29.

11. This development of the concept of the church, which can be observed in history itself, has its unmistakable shadow-side; the idea of a single church institute embracing all believers has thereby been disturbed for good. Nor can it be denied that the endless division of the confessors of Christ offers the world a cause of joy and mockery, and gives it a reason for its unbelief in the One Sent by the Father, because it does not see the unity of the believers in Christ, Joh. 17:21. We as Christians cannot humble ourselves deeply enough over the schism and discord that has existed throughout all centuries in the church of Christ; it is a sin against God, in conflict with the prayer of Christ, and caused by the darkness of our understanding and the lovelessness of our heart, cf. Gunning, The unity of the church 1896. Higher than the church 1897. Account 1898. And it is understandable that many Christians have again and again allowed themselves to be seduced into the attempt to bring about or maintain that fervently desired unity of the church of Christ, either by violent means, especially by the strong arm of the government, or in an artificial way, by syncretism and fusion, cf. e.g.

J. von Döllinger, Ueber die Wiedervereinigung der christl. Kirchen, Leipzig Mohr 1897. But on the other hand we must nevertheless also not forget that the failure of all these attempts has something to teach us. History is, like nature, a work of God; it does not proceed outside his providence; Christ by his resurrection and ascension has been exalted to King at the Father's right hand and will

remain so until all his enemies have been laid under his feet. He reigns, also over the divisions and schisms of his church on earth. And his prayer for her unity did not flow from unfamiliarity with her history nor from inability to govern her; in and through the division it is daily heard and is being led toward its complete fulfillment. The deep, spiritual sense in which the unity of his disciples is conceived by Jesus excludes precisely every violent or artificial attempt at its introduction. Christ, who prayed for it [50], can also alone bring it about; his prayer is a guarantee that it already exists in him and in his time will also become manifest from him in all believers.

Therefore, for a right understanding of the division of the church of Christ, we have to consider the following: 1o All separation and schism that now exists in the church of Christ dates in principle already from the apostolic time. In spite of the fact that the churches for all kinds of reasons then felt themselves much more spiritually one than is now the case even between churches of the same confession, they were distinct in many respects. The apostles at Jerusalem and Paul, the congregations from the Jews and from the Gentiles, diverged on many and even important points; it came between Peter and Paul, Gal. 2:11, between Paul and Barnabas, Hd. 15:39, to a serious difference; heresies and schisms of all kinds already occurred then as well, 1 Cor. 1:10, 11:18, 19 etc.; the congregation of Corinth was divided into parties, silently looked on at the shameful life of one of the brethren, and for a part did not even believe in so significant a fact as the bodily resurrection of Christ and the believers; and the congregations of Asia

Minor, a few decades after they were founded by Paul, had sunk far below the standpoint first taken by them in doctrine and life. 2o These separations and schisms in the apostolic time therefore do not make so deep an impression, because in the N. T. we always have to do in the first place with

local churches. There was as yet nothing other than a spiritual bond that connected all congregations. But when in the church of Christ the hierarchy developed and this regarded itself as the essence of the church, then it is this false, unchristian church-idea that throughout all centuries has provoked the schisms and heresies and has alienated many true believers from itself.

Everywhere where and in the same measure as the hierarchy has developed, in the Roman, the Greek, the Anglican church, there the sects have again and again arisen and, if they were not violently suppressed and exterminated, have pushed back the official church and have many times grown over her head. The hierarchical church-idea, which is first of all intent on the unity of Christendom, has precisely throughout all centuries promoted division and caused schism. And Protestantism denies its principle if it seeks to maintain the unity of Christendom by any hierarchical coercion. 3o Precisely because the word is the mark of the church and there exists no infallible interpretation of that word, to every human being by Christ himself the freedom has been given to understand that word for himself, as he sees it. Morally he is thereby of course bound to Christ, and each will have to answer for himself how he has understood and practiced the word of Christ. But over against his fellow human beings and fellow Christians he stands completely free. Rome fears this freedom, and throws at Protestantism its individualism, subjectivism, and sectarianism.

But what is the weakness of Rome, because it must maintain itself by hierarchical means, that is the strength of Protestantism, because no creature but Christ himself governs his church. It is completely true that, if the word is the mark of the church and is given into the hands of all human beings, each thereby receives the right to judge concerning the church and, if he thinks good, to separate from her. But this freedom is completely to be

respected and by no state or church to be hindered. Even the dreadful misuse that can be made of it and has been made may not for a moment entice to abolition of the use. 4o The division of the church of Christ has without doubt in sin its cause; in heaven there is no place for it any more.

But nevertheless not everything is thereby said. God loves diversity in unity. Diversity existed among all creatures, also when there was as yet no sin. Through sin it has degenerated and been corrupted, but in itself it is good and also of significance for the church of Christ. Difference of sex and age, of character and disposition, of understanding and heart, of gifts and goods, of place and of century also benefits the truth that is in Christ. He takes them all into his service and adorns his church with them. Yes, even though the division of human beings into peoples and languages has had its occasion in sin, it contains something good that is carried into the congregation and thus preserved for eternity. Out of many tribes and languages and peoples and nations Christ gathers his church on earth. 5o If therefore we again, according to N. T. usage, understand by churches the local churches in the whole of Christendom, then there are no true and no false churches in an absolute sense. A church is an assembly of true

Christian believers in a particular place. If somewhere there is no single believer any more, neither actu nor potentia, then the word of God is also unknown there, and there is no church any more. And conversely, if the word of God in a particular place is still known to some extent, it will certainly do its work and there is a church of Christ, however impure and mixed it may be. By that no indifferentism and syncretism is meant.

Nothing is indifferent, least of all in the truth that is according to godliness.

It is not so that we can calmly give up and deny the so-called articuli non fundamentales, if we only accept the articuli fundamentales. While,

however, in relation to others we have to bring into application the word of Jesus: he who is not against me is for me, we ought for ourselves to hold to that other word: he who is not for me is against me. There is great difference in the purity of the confessions and the churches. And toward the purest we have to take our stand and to strive. Whoever therefore comes to the conviction that the Protestant church is better than the Roman, and the Reformed is purer than the Lutheran or Remonstrant or Mennonite, has, without thereby judging his church as a false one, to leave it and to join himself to the other. And to remain in one's own church, in spite of much impurity in doctrine and life, is duty so long as she does not hinder us from being faithful to the own confession and she also indirectly does not compel us to obey human beings more than God. For a church that compels her members to that would in that same moment reveal herself to the conscience of her members, insofar as she did that, as a false one, which ascribes to herself and her ordinances more power and authority than to the word of God. 6o One ought therefore to be cautious with the names schisma and haeresie. Without doubt both are great sins; of schisma they are guilty who, although leaving the foundation of doctrine intact, nevertheless separate from the church over subordinate points of worship or church government; haeretici are they who err in the substance of the truth; the former break the communion of the church, the latter the communion of doctrine. Yet it is difficult, in practice, to indicate the boundary that separates lawful and obligatory breaking of communion with some church or doctrine from unlawful breach. For Rome this is indeed easy, because it recognizes only one church and one confession and pronounces the anathema over all that is outside it. But Protestantism can at most indicate some general rules and must leave the application of them in each concrete

case to the conscience of the believers. The concept of haeresie and schisma has thereby obtained an elasticity which in usage admonishes to caution.

Since the Reformation the church has passed over into the period of pluriformity; and this fact compels us to seek the unity of the church much more in the spiritual bond of faith than in the outward form of government.

Cf. Gladstone, The place of heresy and schism in the modern Christian Church, Nineteenth Century Aug. 1894 p. 157-194. Kuyper, Encycl. II 607v.

12. In accordance herewith, the so-called properties (attributa, proprietates, adjuncta, affectiones, epitheta, elogia) of the church, from a Protestant standpoint, also receive an entirely different meaning than at Rome. Rome has an absolute and exclusive concept of the church; it cannot acknowledge the ministry of word and sacrament as a mark of the church, because this also occurs outside the Roman church, albeit in an impure form; it therefore also cannot make a distinction between marks and properties of the church, for the properties are precisely the indicia, which point out the only true church; and finally it must conceive those properties so sensibly, tangibly, and outwardly, that they apply only to the Roman church and make this, as the alone saving one, spring to everyone's eye.

The first property, the unity of the church, does indeed indicate that the congregation has one Lord, one faith, one baptism, but yet according to Rome it comes to expression especially in this, that the church founded by Christ has one visible head in the pope (unitas hierarchica, regiminis) and can never have another church alongside itself (unitas simultanea) or after itself (unitas successiva); properly speaking, the pope is the one, sufficient mark of the true church, cf. Cat. Rom. I 10, 10. Schema const. dogm. de eccl. Christi and the adnotationes belonging thereto at the Vatican council,

Collectio Lacensis VII 569. 586-588. Bellarminus, de eccl. mil. IV 9. 10.

Scheeben-Atzberger [54] IV 340. Schanz, Apol. d. Chr. III § 6. By this unity of the church, thus conceived, Rome is obliged, at present, to pronounce the anathema over half of the whole of Christendom. Even the thought of Pusey in his Eirenikon and of Palmer, de doctrina christ. I c. 5, that the Roman, Eastern, and Anglican church together constitute the one church, cannot be admitted. Outside communion with the pope there is no salvation. But Protestantism, in the unity of the church, thinks first of all of the unity of the Head of the congregation, Ef. 1:10, 5:22, of the communion of all believers through one and the same Spirit, 1 Cor. 6:17, 12:13, 2 Cor.

12:11, Ef. 4:4 with Christ and with one another, Joh. 10:16, 15:1, Rom.

12:5, 1 Cor. 12:12, 13, Ef. 1:22, and then further of the unity of faith, of love, of hope, of baptism, etc. Ef. 4:3-5. This unity is indeed in the first place spiritual in nature, but it nevertheless exists objectively and really and also does not remain wholly invisible. It manifests itself, even if in a very imperfect manner, outwardly and comes to light, at least to some extent, in that which all Christian churches have in common with one another. There is no Christianity above or below, but there is indeed a Christianity present in the division of faith. Because our eye is directed most to the differences and schisms in Christendom, we constantly run the danger of failing to recognize this unity, which nevertheless truly exists. What binds all true

Christians is always still more than what separates them. Under the holiness of the church Rome understands in the first place the liturgical, ceremonial holiness, consisting therein that the church as institute possesses the lawful sacrificial service and the salutary use of the sacraments, through which God, as by powerful instruments of divine grace, works true holiness in the believers, and then in the second place the personal holiness, which in the

church is indeed not the portion of all or even of the most, nor need be, but is nevertheless always found in some, and then again in very different degrees, Cat. Rom. I 10, 12. Bellarminus, ib. c. 11-15. Scheeben-Atzberger

IV 347. Schanz, Apol. III c. 10. Jansen, Prael. I 452. Because the Reformation again made the church known as the communion of saints, it sought holiness not first of all in the supernatural character of the institute of salvation but in the spiritual renewal of the members [55] of the church.

Holy is the church, because it is a communion of saints. But in doing so the Reformation nevertheless did not fall into the evil of Donatism, and has rather in practice neglected this property of the church all too much. Yet that does not take away that, according to the principle of the Reformation, the church is holy, because it is a communion of saints. And the believers are called holy, first of all because they are objectively in Christ, by virtue of the imputation of his righteousness, reckoned by God as holy, and in the second place because they, born again of water and Spirit and renewed according to the inner man, have a desire and longing to walk in sincerity not only according to some but according to all the commandments of God,

Joh. 17:19, Ef. 5:25-27, Tit. 2:14, 1 Thess. 4:3, Hebr. 12:14, 1 Petr. 2:9. This property of the church also is spiritual, yet not wholly and entirely invisible; although the most holy, so long as they are in this life, still have only a small beginning of perfect obedience, they nevertheless walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh.

The third property is catholicity. In Rome the church bears this name in the first place, because it, although forming one whole and a perfect unity, nevertheless extends over the whole earth, whereas the sects always remain limited to some country, or part of the world. In the second place it is catholic, because it, although formerly existing in a less perfect form,

nevertheless has always been on earth from the beginning of the world and has included within itself all believers from the days of Adam, whereas the sects always come and go. And in the third place it is so called, because it is fully partaker of, preserves, and dispenses all truth and grace destined by God for communication to men, and therefore for all men is the only and necessary institute unto salvation, whereas the sects always possess only a part of the truth. Because catholicity in Rome must be a clearly visible mark of the church, it is especially to be understood in the sense that the church among all peoples where it exists counts a conspicuous multitude of members. In the first time this was indeed not yet the case, but soon the church nevertheless came to great expansion. And now it is the requirement of catholicity, that the number of members of the true church be indeed not greater than that of all men living outside it, but nevertheless greater than the number of members of every [56] sect separately and probably also of all sects together. Cf. Cat. Rom. I 10, 13. Bellarminus, de notis eccl. c. 4. 7.

Scheeben-Atzberger, Dogm. IV 351. Schanz, Apol. d. Chr. III § 7. Söder, Der Begriff der Katholicität der Kirche und des Glaubens nach seiner gesch.

Entw. Würzburg 1881. In outward splendour and glory, in spatial extension and in numerical strength of the members, the Roman Christian thus seeks an essential mark of the true church. Church fathers, such as Tertullian,

Origen, Augustine, have already begun to exaggerate the spread of Christianity among the peoples. And still their example is followed by many Roman Catholics, e.g. in the mission statistics. Yet nowadays one could not as formerly close one's eyes to the fact that there are still almost a thousand million non-Christians and scarcely five hundred million

Christians, that these latter are again divided into about 112 million Greek, 225 million Roman, and 160 million Protestant Christians, and that the

Roman Christians in this century almost everywhere regularly decline in numerical strength and are being overtaken by the Protestant Christians.

According to this mark of catholicity, which the Roman church itself indicates, the state of its truth is becoming ever more lamentable. The name catholic belongs ever less to the Roman church. Roman and catholic are also in contradiction with one another; just as under the O. T. the dispensation of grace had Jerusalem as its centre and bound all believers to that place, so the Roman church in the days of the N. T. makes the faith and salvation of men dependent on a particular place and on a particular person and thereby detracts from the catholicity of Christianity. The name of Roman or Papal church therefore expresses its essence much better than that of catholic. A catholic church is believed and confessed in the apostolic symbol and sometimes also in their own confessions by all Protestants,

Ned. Gel. 27. Apol. Conf. Aug. art. 7. 8. One commonly understood by it the ecclesia universalis, which encompassed all true believers and came to manifestation more or less purely in the different churches, or also the church of the N. T., which in distinction from that of the O. T., was destined for all peoples and places of the earth. The word catholic does not occur in Scripture. But the texts on which the church fathers [57] appeal for the catholicity of the church, such as Gen. 12:3, Ps. 2:8, Jes. 2:2, Jer. 3:17, Mal.

1:11, Mt. 8:11, 28:19, Joh. 10:16, Rom. 1:8, 10:18, Ef. 2:14, Col. 1:6, Op.

7:9 etc. prove that its meaning lies especially herein, that Christianity is a world religion, destined and suited for every people and age, for every estate and rank, for every place and time. Most catholic is that church which has expressed this international and cosmopolitan character of the Christian religion most clearly in its confession and has applied it in practice. The Reformed have had an eye for it, when they in the different countries and

churches confessed the truth in their own, free, independent way and at the Synod of Dordrecht invited delegates from the whole Reformed

Christendom, cf. my address on the Catholicity of Christ. and Church, Kampen 1888. The fourth property of the church is its apostolicity.

According to Rome this belongs to it, because it was founded by the apostles, corresponds in doctrine, constitution and service with that of the apostles, but especially because its office-bearers in unbroken line are successors of the apostles and have received their power and authority from such as had themselves in their turn received them in lawful succession from the apostles. The first meaning is thereby wholly subordinate to the second. The word of the apostles, i.e. Holy Scripture, does not determine which church is apostolic, i.e. corresponds with the doctrine of the apostles; but conversely the church descending from the apostles in unbroken succession decides what is apostolic, what the doctrine of the apostles is.

Yes, even after the promulgation of the dogma of infallibility the apostolic succession of the office-bearers is wholly and entirely determined by their communion with the pope. Even if a bishop is partaker of the apostolic succession, this nevertheless at once becomes void if he breaks communion with the pope. Conversely kann der Papst vermöge seiner kirchlichen

Vollgewalt jeden Mangel heben, der etwa der formalen Apostolicität irgend eines Kirchenvorstehers anhaftet. So ist die Einheit mit den Papste nothwendig, damit ein Vorsteher rechtmässiger Nachfolger der Apostel werden oder sein kann, es ist aber jene Einheit auch sofort hinreichend, um die wahre Apostolicität des letztern zu erkennen, Scheeben-Atzberger IV 1

S. 356. The pope makes everything good. Where the pope is, there is the true church, the pure doctrine, [58] the apostolic succession. Now such an apostolic succession is not to be found with a single word in Scripture and

in itself no more a guarantee for the purity of doctrine than the hereditary high-priestly dignity in Caiaphas was a proof for the rightness of his pronouncements and deeds. And therefore the Protestants rightly said that not the successio locorum et personarum but the successio doctrinae was a distinguishing property of the true church. If this latter was lacking, the former could not make any church into a true church; and if it was present, the former was of very subordinate significance.

Among the properties of the church there finally also belong the indefectibilitas and the infallibilitas. Jesus has promised to his church, that the gates of hell would not be able to prevail against her and that He would preserve her until the end of the world, Mt. 16:18, 28:20, Ef. 4:11-13, 1

Tim. 3:15. The Romanists infer from this, that their church, the papal, will remain until the end of the world, and not only that, but also that that papal church will always remain the catholic, which by the multitude of her members and by her outward splendor will be visible and knowable to everyone, Bellarminus, de eccl. milit. c. 11. 13. 16. De notis eccl. c. 5. 6.

Scheeben-Atzberger, Dogm. IV 1 S. 359. But for this assertion sufficient ground is lacking. Not only has the church in different times, e.g. of Noah,

Abraham, Elijah, Christ etc. been limited to a few persons, but time and again also particular churches in particular countries, e.g. in Asia Minor, have perished. Yes, the N. T. says clearly, that in the last of the days the corruption will increase and the church will be exposed to all kinds of seduction and persecution, Mt. 24:21, 22, Luk. 18:8, 2 Tim. 3:1. Jesus' promise therefore does indeed guarantee, that there will always be an assembly of believers on earth, which Socinians and Remonstrants wrongly deny, Moor IV 122, but it does not in the least imply, that a particular church in a particular country will always remain and by her size and glory

will be knowable to everyone. And likewise it is with the infallibility of the church. The Roman church has long hesitated, to give an answer to the question, in whom finally the infallibility rests and has finally decided it at the Vatican council in favor of the pope. The pope guarantees, that the ecclesia docens cannot err in docendo. But the [59] H. Scripture nowhere connects infallibility to a particular person or to a particular, local church.

There is indeed an infallibility of the church, which the Protestants also gladly acknowledge, but this infallibility belongs to the church as an assembly of true believers and consists in this, that Christ as King of his church will see to it, that there will always on earth be an assembly of believers, however small and inconspicuous then also, which will confess his name. Cf. on the properties of the church from the Prot. side: Martyr,

Loci Comm. p. 226. Turretinus, Theol. El. XVIII qu. 5 sq. Heidegger, Corp.

Theol. XXVI 16 sq. Maresius, Exeg. conf. Belg. art. 27. Witsius, Exerc. in Symb. 24. Vitringa IX 1 p. 81. Mastricht, Theol. VII 1, 9. Quenstedt, Theol.

IV 482. 497. Thomasius, Christi Person u. Werk II 543. Philippi, Kirchl. Gl.

V 3 S. 16 f. Hase, Handb. d. prot. Polemik I c. 1. Van Oosterzee, Dogm. § 130.

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