example, which nowhere speaks of the Church as being invisible, while yet it clearly intimates in what sense that phrase, which afterwards became a common one, is to be understood. " Although that," it says, "which makes the Church of Christ what it is,―viz. faith in Christ—is invisible, the Church itself is visible, and can be known by its fruits."*

In the following passage from Bishop Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, the reader will find a clear exposition of the Protestant view on the point under discussion. "The Church of God are the body of Christ; but the mere profession of Christianity makes no man a member of Christ; neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything in Christ Jesus; nothing but a new creature; nothing but a faith working by love, and keeping the commandments of God. Now they that do this are not known to be such by men; but they are known only to God; and therefore it is in a true sense 'the invisible Church;' not that there are two Churches, or two societies, in separation from each other; or that one can be seen by men, and the other cannot; for then, either we must run after the Church whom we ought not to imitate, or be blind in the pursuit of the other that can never be found; and our eyes serve for nothing but to run after false fires. No, these two Churches are but one society; the one is within the other; they walk together to the house of God as friends; they take sweet counsel together, and eat the bread of God in common; but yet, though the men be visible, yet that quality and excellence by which they are constituted Christ's members, and distinguished from mere professors and outsides of Christians, is not visible. All that really and heartily serve Christ in abdito, do also profess to do so; but the invisible Church ordinarily and regularly is part of the visible, but yet that only part that is the true one; and the rest but by denomination of law, and in common speaking, are the Church,—not in mystical union-not in proper relation, to Christ: they are not the house of God-not the temple of the Holy Ghost-not the members of Christ; and no man can deny this. Hypocrites are not Christ's servants, and therefore not Christ's members; and therefore no part of the Church, but improperly and equivocally, as a dead man is a man; all which is perfectly summed up in those words of St. Austin, saying, 'that the body of Christ is not bipartitum: it is not a double body: non enim revera Domini corpus est, quod

"Id unde habet quod vere ecclesia Christi sit, nempe fides in Christum." - Conf. Tetrap. c. 15.

cum illo non erit in æternum: all that are Christ's body shall reign with Him for ever.'"*

The true Church, or body of Christ, is, according to Protestantism, invisible, inasmuch as that which makes us members of it-viz. vital union with Christ-is invisible, and none can know with certainty who are thus in union with Christ, and who are not. He who does know "them that are His," and could at any moment separate the wheat from the chaff, will not, we know, do so until He comes again to judgment. Then, indeed, the "manifestation of the sons of God" will take place, and the holy Catholic Church, at present an object of faith, will become an object of sight; but until then, it is, as regards its proper organic unity, or in its corporate capacity, invisible. How, then, does its existence become known; for, as we have seen, the Protestant confessions, not less than the catechism of Trent, affirm that it is, in one sense, visible? We reply that the one true Church becomes visible, not in its proper unity under Christ its Head, but under the form of particular congregations or churches, which are one by virtue of their presumed and, if they are true churches of Christ, actual and inseparable connexion with the one body of Christ. The latter, invisible in its proper corporate capacity, appears or becomes visible at Jerusalem, Corinth, Rome, England, &c., whether the Christian society at each of those places consist of one congregation or of an aggregate of congregations under a common government. Here we see the true import of the Protestant 'notes' of the Church. The Protestant confessions assign no notes to the one true Church: were they to do so, they would be taking up the ground which the adversary occupies: what they assign notes to are the visible churches of Christ, concerning which they affirm that that is a true Church in which the Word is purely preached, and the Sacraments duly administered. And they do so, because they believe that wherever the pure Word is

* Part ii. book i. s. i. The following statements of Gerhard also place the subject in a clear light:-"Distinguimus inter ecclesiam particularem et catholicam. Particulares ecclesias visibiles esse non negamus, Catholicam autem invisibilem asserimus. - Militans ecclesia est quidem hominum societas, qui quatenus prædicatione Verbi et administratione Sacramentorum, utpote visibilibus et externis signis, in unam societatem colliguntur, ecclesiam visibilem constituunt; sed quatenus ad ecclesiam catholicam pertinent, interno, spirituali, et invisibili fidei, spei, et caritatis vinculo cum capite suo et inter sese invicem colliguntur; quod vinculum et qua connexio cum sit invisibilis, ex eo efficitur catholicam ecclesiam esse invisibilem.” Loc. 23. ss. 79. & 82.

"Donatistæ Scripturarum testimonio unam ecclesiam commendarunt, velut contra duas quas catholicos affirmasse jactabant; responsum est a catholicis etiam multas ecclesias in Scriptura inveniri, et septem ad quas Joannes scribit, quæ tamen multæ illius unicæ membra esse intelligerentur." — Aug. Brev. Coll. s. 20.

preached. and the Sacraments admistered, there there will be a part of Christ's body; the presence of which, actual, or at any rate presumed, makes the local Christian society a true Church. The Word and the Sacraments are the means by which the new life is both imparted and sustained: we are certain, therefore, with the certainty of faith, that wherever these means are in active operation, the Spirit of God will by them both generate the sons of God and nourish them unto life eternal; certain, consequently, not that the local church, as such, is a part of Christ's body, but that there, in that locality there will be a portion of the latter. The local church remains a true church, whatever be the inward state of its members, so long as in it are found the preaching of the Word and the Sacraments; but it is a part of the true Church only so far as it actually is what it professes to be, congregation of faithful men," or saints.

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The point of inseparable connexion between the Church as invisible and the same Church as visible will now be understood. It is this: the members of Christ's body are never to be sought for save in the visible Churches of Christ: extra cœtum vocatorum non sunt quærendi electi. The true Church cannot, at present, manifest itself otherwise than under the form of local Christian communities; where they are, therefore, there, and not elsewhere, it is.

The Donatists attempted to make the true Church visible, and found themselves unable to explain the parables of the tares and the fish: Protestants, while they make the true Church, as such, invisible, teach that it is never found separated- never is in this life separable-from its visible manifestation, local churches.* If we are asked which is the body of Christ? we cannot, like the Romanist, give an answer: we cannot say that this, or that, visible community is entitled to the appellation: but if the question be, where is the body of Christ? we reply, it is there wherever there exists a true Church of Christ. We not only affirm that it actually exists upon earth, but we assign the visible notes of its existence the pure preaching of the word and the administration of the Sacraments; for we believe that where these instruments of the Spirit's work are faithfully employed, in that place there will be a portion of the true Church of Christ, the real source of all that is visible in the local Christian society.

"Ecclesia vocatorum latior est quam electorum, quia multi vocati, pauci electi. Matt. xx. 16. Quicunque igitur pertinent ad ecclesiam invisibilem, id est, quotounque sunt electi, illi etiam sund vocati; sed non contra." - J. Gerhard. loc. 23. c. 7. s. 70.

In maintaining, then, the distinction between the visible and the invisible Church, we do not, as Bellarmin untruly alleges, make two Churches, or even, as some of our own divines speak, one society within another:* it is one and the same Church that is the subject of consideration, only regarded from different points of view, lower and goer, from within, and from without. † It is the same persons that, materially, constitute both the one and the other; but the modus existendi is different in each. So far forth as the Christian is a professor of the doctrine of Christ, and in communion with a local Christian society, he is a member of the visible Church, and he remains so, whatever be his inward state, until he be excommunicated: so far forth as he is a living member of Christ, he belongs to the invisible Church, or to the Church in its truth. In the case of the true Christian the two modi existendi are united; in the case of the hypocrite they are disjoined; for though the latter may have outward communion with a Church, he is not a member of the body of Christ. What is affirmed is, that, inasmuch as the one true Church can, in the present life, manifest its existence only under the form of local Christian societies, it and its visible manifestation are never so precisely identical that we can at once predicate of the aggregate of such societies that they constitute the Saviour's mystical body: of this they are indeed a manifestation, but, inasmuch as they contain, in external union with themselves, that which does not properly appertain to the Church of Christ, and which yet is inseparable from it in its present condition as the Church militant here upon earth, the manifestation is but an inadequate, and imperfect, one.. This is all that is really meant by the distinction between the

"For because this visible Church doth enfold the other" (the invisible) "as one floor the corn and the chaff," &c. - Barrow, Unity of the Church.

"Nequaquam introducimus duas ecclesias dvridinpnuevas sibi invicem oppositas, ita ut visibilis et invisibilis ecclesiæ sint species contradistinctæ, sed unam eandemque ecclesiam respectu diverso visibilem et invisibilem esse dicimus."- Gerhard. loc. 23. s. 70. "Hence it cometh that we say there is a visible and invisible Church, not meaning to make two distinct churches, as our adversaries falsely and maliciously charge us, though the form of words may seem to insinuate some such thing, but to distinguish the divers considerations of the same church, which, though it be visible in respect of the profession of supernatural verities revealed in Christ, use of holy sacraments, order of ministry, and due obedience yielded thereunto, and they discernible that do communicate therein: yet in respect of those most precious effects and happy benefits of saving grace wherein only the elect do communicate it is invisible; and they that in so happy, gracious, and desirable things, have communion among themselves, are not discernible from others to whom this fellowship is denied, but are known only to God, That Nathanael was an Israelite, all men knew; that he was a true Israelite in whom was no guile, Christ only knew." - Field on the Church, b. i. c. 10.

visible and the invisible Church. It is easy to see that if, as Protestants hold, the true being of the Church lies not in that which gives it visible existence, but in the unseen work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians, the visible Church- that is, the Church as it meets the eye--can never be more than an inadequate representation of the body of Christ, or the Church in its truth; that these two aspects of the Church never perfectly correspond with each other.

In the first place, as has been more than once observed, the Church visible is, and ever must be, a mixed body, comprehending within its pale both those who are and those who are not savingly united to Christ. For ecclesiastical discipline, the appointed instrument of reducing the Church to a conformity with its idea, is not applicable to sins of the heart: with overt offences, which bring scandal upon the Christian name, its province terminates. By no exercise of discipline, therefore, however stringent, can hypocrites, or secret unbelievers, be removed from outward fellowship with the faithful members of Christ's body: yet how many are there in every local society of Christians who, though outwardly blameless, are destitute of living faith in Christ, and of his sanctifying grace. This is no doubtful conclusion gathered merely from what meets the eye, and therefore liable to the charge of precipitancy of judgment, or uncharitableness. In the parables of the tares and the net, it was foretold by Christ Himself that such, to the end of time, should be the condition of every visible Church. This is the real application of the parables just mentioned, as well as of the passage in the second epistle to Timothy,

*

* These parables formed a frequent subject of dispute between the Catholics and the Donatists. Augustin urges them, with great effect, against the doctrine of his Donatist adversaries; at the same time that, as regards the true idea of the Church, he uniformly expresses himself in genuine Protestant language; e. g. "Cum igitur boni et mali dent et accipiant baptismi sacramentum, nec regenerati spiritualiter in corpus et membra Christi coædificentur nisi boni; profecto in bonis est illa ecclesia cui dicitur, 'Sicut lilium in medio spinarum, ita proxima mea in medio filiarum. In his est enim qui ædificant super petram, id est, qui audiunt verba Christi et faciunt; quia et Petro, confitenti se Christum Filium Dei, sic ait, Et super hanc petram ædificabo ecclesiam meam.' Non est ergo in eis qui ædificant super arenam, id est, qui audiunt verba Christi et non faciunt." - De Unit. Eccles. s. 60. See also Cont. Epist. Par. 1. iii. s. 10. De Bap. Cont. Don. 1. 4. s. 4. Cont. Cres. 1. 2. s. 26. His words in the last passage are: Propter malam pollutamque conscientiam damnati a Christo jam in corpore Christi non sunt quod est ecclesia; quoniam non potest Christus habere membra damnata." Even Cyprian, though his views upon this point are not so scriptural as those of Augustin, while he affirms that the tares are in the Church, guards himself against saying that they are of it: "Etsi videntur in ecclesia esse zizania, non tamen impediri debet aut fides aut caritas nostra, ut quoniam zizania esse in ecclesia cernimus, ipsi de ecclesia recedamus. Nobis tantummodo laborandum est ut frumentum esse possimus. - Epist. 51. ad Confessores, &c.