RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Church, The Christian
The idea of both Wyclif and Huss was thus not of an actually existing body of united associates, but merely the total of predestined Christians who at any time are living holy lives, scattered among those who are not predestined, together with those who are predestined but not yet converted, and the faithful who have passed away.
Luther defended Wyclif 's definition at the Leipsic Disputation of 1519, in spite of its condenination by the Council of Constance. But his own idea was that the real nature of 2- the church was defined by the words
following its mention in the creed — Teac ing. a ^j^g pqjjjj^^jjJqji gf g^jnts," taking the word " saints " in its Pauline sense. These (although sin may still cling to them) are sanctified by God through his word and sacraments — sacraments not depending upon an organized, episcopally ordained clergy, but committed to the church as a whole; it is their faith, called forth by the word of God, which makes them righteous and accepted members of Christ and heirs of eternal life. Thus the Lutheran and, in general, the Calvinist conception of the church depended from the first upon the doctrine of justification by faith. In harmony with Luther's teaching, the Augsburg Confession defines the church as " the congregation of saints in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments are rightly administered." In one sense the church is invisible, since the earthly eye can not tell who has true faith and in this sense is a " saint," but in another it is visible, since it has its being here in outward and visible vital forms, ordained by God, in which those who are only " saints " in appearance have an external share. The church, too, always has need of some sort of external forms, of human ordinances, in which to clothe the administration of the means of grace, the preaching of the word, and public worship; but these must not claim divine sanction or unconditional obligation. There was, however, one thing on which Luther insisted as essential — that the public administration of the means of grace entrusted to the church by God should be performed only by persons duly called to that function, who were to feed the flock with the word of God. His conclusion of its necessity is drawn not from any divine revelation or law, but from the nature of the case and the need of a settled order. The division of offices, the placing of superintendents or bishops over the pastors of the local churches, was considered a matter of variable human arrangement. While Luther rejected the papal claim to condition salvation by its forms and ordinances, declaring them anti-Christian and opposed to God's will, he recognized the possibility of sanctified behevers and true members of the body of Christ living within the Roman Church, because even there, in spite of all corruption, the power of the word and sacraments was still working. Here is a difference between the fteformation view and other postapostolic conceptions of the church. For the first time there were two bodies with opposite religious principles, each accusing the other of grievous error, and yet one of them admitting a commxmion in
grace with the other, and indeed with all Christians of whatever name who cling to the fundamental elements in the message of salvation. It was in this sense that the Reformers taught one catholic church, spread throughout the Christendom of all times and places, the unity of which lacked external organization, but was sufficiently established by its possession of one invisible head, one faith, one baptism. Its holiness is shown by the fact that Christ is its head, and that the sanctifying grace of God works within it; its apostolicity, by its original foundation at the hands of the apostles and its continued resting upon their word.
The view here set forth left unsettled a number of questions which then came up for the first time and influenced later theological movements. To what extent the pure preaching of the Gospel and due administration of the sacraments was necessary; how far the name of a church of Christ might be given to a particular church which was lacking in these requisites; how far an effort should be made to attain a pure expression of Evangelical truth in the shape of creed and dogma — these were some of the questions. The last led to the distinction between essentials and non-essentials, and to that between the Gospel, or the simple preaching of the word of God as a source of life and grace, and theological dogma. Another question was the external government of the church. If it was not regarded as a matter of divine institution, who 3. Ques- establish and exercise it ? Who
was to organize the churches that
tions Left Unset-
tled by the springing up outside the ancient Reformers. traditional Christendom? Luther seems to havecontemplated originally a free organization by these true believers themselves into a church with simple, Evangelical worship and discipline; but historical circumstances led to this function, as well as the continued direction of the church, being left largely to secular princes and magistrates, as charged by God with the maintenance of morality and order among Christian people and with the enforcement of the first as well as the second table of the decalogue. This result was brought about partly by the fact that for years a hope was cherished of a reunion with the old episcopate, and such institutions as were set up were regarded as to some extent provisional. So by degrees the organ of the supreme direction of the Lutheran Church came to be in the hands of consistories appointed by the local secular government, and the share of the other members of the church was reduced to an assumed tacit consent to legislation. Melanchthon's later teaching differed somewhat from Luther's. He was influenced by a fear of spiritualistic fanaticism and a desire to see the Evangelical religion firmly and practically established. He considered the Christian church visible on the ground of its self-expression in the preaching of the word and administration of the sacraments; and he emphasized its institutional character much more than Luther. He clung as long as possible to the desire for reunion with the great, firmly established traditional church. Among Lutheran theologians it was not till after Chemnitz that the doctrine appeared and prevailed which
Church, The Christian Church Diet