APPENDIX

THE CHURCH AS INVISIBLE AND VISIBLE

THAT in some sense The Church is invisible is not only taught by protestants, but also by catholics.

That protestants taught two churches, as Bellarmine urged, is not strictly true, even though language might seem to yield this result, and even though some protestants have seemed so to do. This is not, however, a necessary protestant position. It is not the protestant who teaches two churches, one invisible and the other visible, it is the catholic who does so. The protestant teaches that the One Church has an invisibility, since no man can see it perfectly. Visible or institutional Christianity is not The Church, it is a part of, a manifestation of The Church.

The catholic really teaches two churches, one visible, the other invisible, because he calls a church, The Church, and yet says that there is another church within it which is the real bona fide Church.

Writing from the Anglican-catholic viewpoint, Durell says: "The Church has a spiritual existence apart from its outward or institutional form. We may regard as universal the idea that the Church is not merely the company of the faithful, but has also a mystical existence as the sphere of grace into which the faithful are gathered.

"The definite distinction which we find both in Hermas and the Pseudo-Clement, between the institutional church

and the spiritual church is an expression of the doctrine that though the members of the outward church have the way of salvation open to them, it depends on their own efforts whether they reach the goal" ("The Historic Church," p. 301).

According to this the organized Church is a probationary institution. And this is the catholic notion. Hooper taught this difference between The True Church and The Church as man sees it. So also does Hooker, and Field.

The position of Darwell Stone (" The Christian Church ") is contradicted by the Articles of Religion which use the phrase "visible church," plainly teaching as Calvin taught, that there is an invisibility about The True Church.

Augustine distinguishes : "Some are in such sort in the house of God that they also are the house of God, and some are so in the house of God that they pertain not to the frame and fabric of it."

If this visible "frame" is The Church, then we have here two churches, an inner church and an outer. Only by admitting that a church, which man sees is not The Church, but only a part of, a local manifestation of The Church, which takes on necessarily local and temporal features, can we escape the dualism of the catholic church notion.

The Anglicans can still less claim that the visible association of Christians is The Church, because these admit that the Roman Catholic Church is, to use their constant language, a part of The Church."

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Therefore the Roman Church, by their confession, is not The Church, nor is the Anglican, nor is the Greek. These are only manifestations of The Church, and there are others. Only when we admit that churches are only partial manifestations of the True Church, can we avoid the incredible "two Church" notion. We cannot call any church The

Church, and yet say that The Church is more than, or other than this which is so called.

If the Anglican Church is not coextensive with The Church, it is not The Church. The same holds true of the Greek and the Roman Churches. That is, churches are manifestations of a larger reality which is alone The True Church, invisible in its totality, but so far manifest in the churches which contain members of The True Church.

The opinions of A. RITSCHL on this subject are of interest. Ritschl had long occupied himself with the notion of The Church. As Oman says, it is the central idea of his theology. He wrote for a prize essay, "de ecclesiæ invisibilis notione," in his twentieth year. (See Leben, I, p.63.)

His latest opinion is given in his "Rechtfertigung," and in the "Unterricht.'

Ritschl defines The Church as "those who believe in Christ, so far as they present their prayer to God the Father, or themselves to God as pleasing, through Christ."

The Kingdom he defines as "those who believe in Christ so far as they, regardless of race, etc., act out of love to one another" (Rechtf., III, p. 266, 2d Ed.).

For Ritschl, The Church is the fellowship (gemeinschaft) which Christ established to realize the purpose of God in the forgiveness of sins. Every member of this community has the right to announce the justifying grace of God, but especially the official representatives of the Church. Along with these human organs, the sacraments are bearers of the grace of God, together with the word of the gospel (Rechtf., III, p. 103 ff.).

To Ritschl, and here he follows both Luther and Calvin, The Church, as the communion of saints, is the association within which the grace of God prevails.

Ritschl opposes to the assurance of forgiveness which the mystic has who relies on his personal experience, the word of the gospel which avails in The Church.

The Church is the communion of the saints which can never have the visibility of an institution. This is The True Church. And for the Apostles, Ritschl says, the Kingdom is the expression of the Christian hope, and The Church, the present institution for its realization (Rechtf., III, p. 266).

He says, that Augustine introduces the fatal notion that the Kingdom is The Church under the rule of the apostles and bishops.

In this catholic "Kingdom of God" Ritschl declares, righteousness consists in selfish usurpation and in the use of all means of deceit and violence (Rechtf., III, p. 267).

In 1859 Ritschl wrote for the Studien und Kritiken a criticism of Münchmeyer's opinion on The Church. He entitles his dissertation, "" UEBER DIE BEGRIFFE: SICHTBARE UND UNSICHTBARE KIRCHE.'

Ritschl says that Zwingli was the first to make use of the distinction between the visible and invisible Church. By which he must mean a distinction which made each adjective name a distinct Church.

For Zwingli, the invisible Church is the elect, only God sees this Church. The visible Church is all those who confess Christ, whether truly or not.

Concerning this notion, Ritschl goes on to note certain difficulties. For example, inasmuch as all those who really believe must likewise confess their faith, so the members of the invisible Church must become visible.

Also, an invisible Church such as Zwingli affirms as over against a visible Church, would exclude the possible rela

tionship of its members one with another. It would be a circle without any circumference; merely isolated points.

Zwingli is not consistent, because he now speaks of the Church as the true believers, and again as the elect. But all the elect may not at a given time be believers. And if they are believers, then they must be so far visible, since belief involves confession. And so, the invisible Church, is, in part at least, not invisible, but visible.

In distinction from the Zwinglian notion of the invisible and visible churches, Ritschl makes clear that Huss escapes the difficulties in which Zwingli involved himself.

Huss called The Church the totality of the elect; past, present, and to come. The unity of The Church rested on predestination. In the present time this unity rests on faith and virtue (virtus), and love.

The Church is thus the body of Christ, though like the body, it contains what does not really belong to it.

Connected with The Church are children of the devil. The Church as seen by faith is the genuine church; as seen by sight, it is imperfect. It is the same body as seen from two viewpoints (as from above or below the horizon).

The Church of the predestined is not yet a reality, except as it exists in the will of God. Yet the predestinated are in part a real Church, and visibly so, so far as it is "in unitate fidei et virtutum et in unitate caritatis."

Therefore, with Huss the defined idea of The Church as the predestinated includes the visibility of this Church on earth. That one cannot discern the evil, makes The True Church an object of faith; it is spiritually discerned. The Church is invisible only because our human judgment errs. That is, The Church is so far the realization of the divine idea, and is visible.

There is an unknowableness about The Church so far as