THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
distinguished between the visible church as the " assembly of the called " and the invisible church existing within tliis, as the sum of all the really faithful or sanctified or regenerate. This distinction belonged originally to the Calvinists (see below); though, unlike them and Wyclif, the Lutheran theologians had in mind not the predestinetl, but all who were within the real, existing inner body. The idea of the objective and external use of the means of grace is thus no longer connected, as by Luther, with the idea of a church which is still proclaimed in^dsible, but with that of a visible church within which the saints also partake of those means of grace. The Lutheran Church is thus in its essence an institution existing for the communication of grace by these means, in relation to which the individual members assume a receptive attitude.
The Reformed leaders also designated the church as the congregation of believers or saints, and made the preaching of the pure word of God a condition of its existence. But they laid stress on the distinction between the visible and the invisible church, taking their conception of the latter from Wyclif and Huss. Zwingli not only allowed the significance of the sacraments to drop out, but even minimized that of the revealed word, outside of the sphere of influence of which he believed that there were elect among the heathen. Of this last belief Calvin knew nothing, though he, too, considered the church as the invisible fellowship of the predestined; and he emphasized much more than Zwingli the necessity of the word and sacraments, laying besides a peculiar stress on the exercise of government and discipline, through teachers, pastors, and elders. The definite Calvinistic conception found expression more or less in the various confessions.
Thus the Heidelberg Catechism de- 4. Calvin- gjjgg ^j^g church generally as "a trine°of'tlie '^^^P^^Y elected to Ufe," assembled Church ^Y through his Spirit and his
word. That of Geneva has the phrase " body of the faithful whom God predestinated to eternal life "; but besides this church, which is recognized by faith alone, it speaks of a visible church with definite signs. The Westminster Confession mentions both visible and invisible side by side. The great difference between Lutheran and Calvinist views lay in their attitude toward the means of grace. The church could not be to the Calvinist an institution for conveying grace, on account of his idea of the absolute sovereignty of God and the operation of the Spirit as entirely independent of created means. Again, the energetic effort to sanctify God's people for his service led to a sort of new legalism in both corporate and individual life among the Calvinists; while Lutheranism tended either to a Quietism in which the church contented itself with offering the means of grace and the individual with receiving them, or to a worldly spirit which abused the liberty of the children of God.
As to the question of external organization and government, Zwingli wished discipline to be exercised not by special ecclesiastical organs, but by those who stood in general at the head of the Chris-
tian people, thus leading to Erastianism (see Erastus). The theory of necessary independence of the state was a later growth. As for organization, different theories were held. Presbyterianism developed its teaching and ruling elders, and its general synodal constitution based on the local presbyteries; the Independents or Congregationalists erected no general organization, identified the functions of pastor and elder, and put discipline and the decision of questions affecting the church into the hands of the local churches; Quakerism denied that any such forms or laws
5. Post- ^gi-g permissible, appealing to Scrip-
tion ^c- ^^^^ support of its contention. The
trines of POsiti<^n of the Church of England is a the peculiar one. While the doctrine of
Church, its Articles on the Lord's Supper is distinctly Calvinistic, it defined the church, under the influence of Melanchthon's later teaching, is " a visible congregation of faithful men " with the pure word of God and due administration of the sacraments. With its episcopal organization, it preserved more the character of official Christianity than any other Protestant body; but the doctrine of the necessity of the apostolic succession supposed to be there preserved was not stated in the Articles, and did not become influential until a later period.
After the dominion of Protestant orthodoxy, which marked the period with both its strength and its weakness, followed another in which the newly aroused subjective piety departed more or less from the rigid forms of corporate church life. The tendency of Pietism was rather to erect " little churches " for the satisfying of spiritual needs;
and the devotion which thus found 6. Pietistic expression took on a narrow, legal-
RaUon ^^tic, and rather Calvinistic character, alistic Doc- '^'^en came rationalism, with its relig-
trines. ^^^^ indifferentism and lack of belief in the importance of the church, as that importance had been understood in both early and Reformation times. To it the church was merely an association on a par with other human and earthly societies, and it asserted with great positiveness that Christ himself had no intention of founding a church in the received sense of the word. But it would require far too much space to trace in detail all the later variations of local or individual attitude toward the complicated questions which have been here discussed. It may, however, be remarked that the tendency to form churches wholly independent of the state and receiving no support from it is characteristic especially of the Reformed bodies, though, as we have seen, it can not be traced back to Zwingli or to Calvin. Connection of any kind with the state was felt to be prejudicial to the liberty of selfexpression claimed for the Christian Spirit. The " free church " movement manifested itself first, and most forcibly in Scotland, in the Secession Church of 1733, the Church of Relief of 1752, the union of both under the name of United Presbyterian Church in 1847, and particularly the Free Church of 1843, the two last having effected a further union in 1900. See Church and State.
(J. KoSTLINt-)