528 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
communion ( Gemeinschaft) to mean the community or congregation (Gemeinde) of saints. He also substituted, in his Catechism, the word “ Christian ” for * catholic,” in order to include in it all believers in Christ. Hence the term “ catholic ” became, or remained, identical in Germany with “Roman Catholic” or “papal; ”} while the English Protestant churches very properly retained the word “ catholic” in its true original sense of “ universal,’’ which admits of no sectarian limitation. The Romanists have no claim to the exclusive use of that title ; they are too sectarian and exclusive to be truly catholic.
Luther held that the holy church in its relation to God is an article of faith, not of sight, and therefore invisible.2, But as existing among men the true church is visible, and can be recognized by the right preaching of the gospel or the purity of doctrine, and by the right administration of the sacraments (i.e., baptism and the Lord’s Supper). These are the two essential marks of a pure church. ‘The first he emphasized against the Romanists, the second against what he called Enthusiasts (Schwarmgeister) and Sacramentarians Gin the sense of anti-sacramentarians ).
His theory acquired symbolical authority through the Augsburg Confession, which defines the church to be “the congregation of saints in which the gospel is rightly taught, and the sacraments are rightly administered.”? Worship Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 22 and II. 52. The oldest commentators understood it of the communion with the saints in heaven. According to the Catechism of the Council of Trent, it means ‘‘a community of spiritual blessings,’’ especially the sacraments enjoyed in the Catholic Church. A more comprehensive and satisfactory exposition is given by Pearson on the Creed, Art. IX., and in the Westminster Confession, Ch. X XVI.
1 The German proverh, ‘‘ Das ist um katholisch zu werden” (This is to turn Catholic), describes a condition of things that drives one to desperation or madness.
2 In his second Commentary on the Galatians (Erl. ed., 111. 38): ‘‘ Recte igitur fatemur in symbolo, nos CREDERE ecclesiam sanctam. Est enim IN- VISIBILIS, habitans in Spiritu, in loco inaccessibili, ideo non potest VIDERI ejus sanctitas.”’
3 Art. VIL, “‘ Est autem ecclesia congregatio sanctorum [Germ. ed., Versammlung aller Gliubigen], in qua evangelium recte [rein] docetur, et
§ 85. ENLARGED CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH. 529
and discipline, rites and ceremonies, are made secondary or indifferent, and reckoned with human traditions which may change from time to time. The church has no right to impose what is not commanded in the Word of God. In such things everybody is his own pope and church. The Lutheran Confession has always laid great — we may say too great —stress on the unity of doctrine, and little, too little, stress on discipline. And yet in no other evangelical denomination is there such a diversity of theological opinions, from the strict orthodoxy of the Formula Concordiz to every form and degree of Rationalism.
How far, we must ask here, did Luther recognize the dominion of the papacy as a part of the true catholic church? He did not look upon the Pope in the historical and legal light as the legitimate head of the Roman Church; but he fought him to the end of his life as the antagonist of the gospel, as the veritable Antichrist, and the papacy as an apostasy. He could not have otherwise justified his separation, and the burning of the papal bull and law-books. He assumed a position to the Pope and his church similar to that of the apostles to Caiaphas and the synagogue. Nevertheless, whether consistently or not, he never doubted the validity of the ordinances of the Roman Church, having himself been baptized, confirmed, and or- : dained in it, and he never dreamed of being re-baptized or _ re-ordained. Those millions of Protestants who seceded in the sixteenth century were of the same opinion, with the sole exception of the Anabaptists who objected to infantbaptism, partly on the ground that it was an invention of the popish Antichrist, and therefore invalid.
recte [laut des Evangelii| administrantur sacramenta.’? Comp. the Apol. Conf., Art. VII. and VIII. The same definition is substantially given in the Anglican Art. XIX. It would exclude the Quakers, who reject the external sacraments, yet are undoubted believers in Christ. The Calvinistic Confessions (e.g., Conf. Belgica, Art. X XIX.) add characteristically to those two marks a third one, the exercise of discipline in punishing sin.