“The Church is altogether in the spirit,” so he again says in the following year, “she is altogether a spiritual thing.”[1089] “Christ,” so he says later, “works in the spirit so that it is hardly possible to smell His Church and bishops from afar, and the Holy Ghost behaves as though He were not there”; but that Church which is so close at hand “that it is possible to lay hold on her,” as is the case with the Popish Church, is only the Church of the devil.[1090] “Who will show us the Church,” he asks, “seeing that she is hidden in the spirit and is only believed in, just as we say: ‘I believe in one Holy Church.’”[1091] “The Church is believed in but she is not seen, and for the most part she is oppressed and hidden, under weakness, crosses and scandals.”[1092] In short, as a Lutheran theologian puts it, “he is speaking merely of a Holy Church or congregation whose real complement of Saints is not apparent, and which is therefore termed invisible.”[1093] Nor could he speak otherwise, for the absence of a divinely appointed hierarchy, and likewise his principle of the free examination of Scripture, could not but lead him to assume an invisible Church which lives only in the hearts of those who share the faith and the possession of the Holy Ghost.
Although, as the theologian in question points out, in Luther’s idea of the Church visible elements are not lacking, e.g. preaching and the sacraments, yet the actual congregation of Saints is visible to God alone; indeed the Church would still be there even should her only members consist of “babes in the cradle.”[1094] For instance, according to him, the Church before his day comprised very few people, and those unknown, who kept the Gospel undefiled and thus preserved the Church; some “elect souls must needs have come back, at least on their death-beds, to the true path.”[1095]—“Such persons [inspired by the Holy Ghost] there must always be on earth, even though there should only be two or three, or just the children. Of the old there are, alas, but few. Such as do not belong to this class have no right to look upon themselves as Christians; nor are they to be consoled as though they were Christians by much talk of the forgiveness of sins and the Grace of Christ.”[1096]
Thus, in so far as the visible elements were recognised by Luther, Protestants are justified in teaching that Luther’s Church-Unseen was “not a mere idea or empty phantom”; if, however, they go on to say that, according to Luther, the Church is “the living sum total of all who are united in the Spirit,” one sees at a glance that, though, mentally, we can make a class of all who come under the category of “believers,” this implies no actual relation between such, and consequently no “Church” or real though invisible society.[1097]
The Marks of the Church. Gradual Disappearance of the Old Conception of the Church
It is a matter of common knowledge that the marks or “notæ” of the Church had been the subject of many disquisitions before Luther’s day. We may now inquire whether Luther himself also admitted the existence of these “marks,” by which the true Church of Christ might be known.
Though the admission of such marks seems incompatible with his theory of the Church-Unseen, Luther repeatedly seeks to prove the truth of his own Church and the falsehood of Catholicism by this means. Especially is this the case in his “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen” (1539).
Thus he asks: How can “a poor, blundering man know where to find this holy Christian folkdom [the Church]? For we are told that it is [to be found] in this life and on this earth … where it will also remain till the end of time.”[1098] This leads him to speak of the marks of the true Church.
“First of all the holy Christian people can be told by its having the Holy Word of God.” Luther forgets to say how the latter is to be recognised, though on this all depends; for he was far from being the only one who laid claim to possessing the pure Word of God. Hence many were not slow in pointing out how useless it was on his part to say: “Where you hear or see this Word preached, believed, confessed and acted upon, have no doubt that there, assuredly, must be the true ‘ecclesia sancta catholica,’ and the Holy Christian people, even though in number they be but few.”[1099] Nor did his theological opponents think any more highly of the other marks of the true Church which he sets up in the same work. They urged that the distinguishing marks should surely be clearer than what was to be distinguished, and patent and evident even to the unlearned. Concerning the marks set up by Luther, however, there was doubt even among those who had cut themselves adrift from Catholicism.
For instance, the second mark was “the Sacrament of Baptism where it is rightly taught and believed, and administered according to Christ’s ordinance.”[1100] But, among the Zwinglians and Anabaptists, baptism, so at least they claimed, was also rightly administered according to the ordinance of Christ; and, as for the Popish Church, Luther himself admits that she had always preserved baptism in its purity. Hence, here again, we have no clear, distinctive mark.
The other marks, according to Luther’s “Von den Conciliis,” were, thirdly, “the Sacrament of the Altar where it is rightly given, believed and received according to the institution of Christ”; and, fourthly, “the keys [forgiveness through faith] of which they make public use.” “Fifthly, the Church is known outwardly by her consecrating or calling of ministers of the Church, to the offices which it is her duty to fill.” Sixthly, “by her public prayer, praise, and thanks to God.” “Seventhly, the Christian people is recognised outwardly by the sacred emblem of the holy Cross since it has to suffer misfortune and persecution, all kinds of temptation and trouble—as we learn from the Our Father—from the devil, the world and the flesh; must be inwardly in pain, foolish and affrighted, and outwardly poor, despised, weak and sick.”[1101]