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identification of the visible and organized Church with the Kingdom of God had far-reaching
consequences: (1) It required that everything be brought under the control of the Church: the
home and the school, science and art, commerce and industry, and so on. (2) It involved the
idea that all the blessings of salvation come to man only through the ordinances of the Church,
particularly through the sacraments. (3) It led to the gradual secularization of the Church, since
the Church began to pay more attention to politics than to the salvation of sinners, and the
Popes finally claimed dominion also over secular rulers.
2. THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH DURING AND AFTER THE REFORMATION.
a. During the period of the Reformation.
The Reformers broke with the Roman Catholic
conception of the Church, but differed among themselves in some particulars. The idea of an
infallible and hierarchical Church, and of a special priesthood, which dispenses salvation
through the sacraments, found no favor with Luther. He regarded the Church as the spiritual
communion of those who believe in Christ, and restored the Scriptural idea of the priesthood of
all believers. He maintained the unity of the Church, but distinguished two aspects of it, the one
visible and the other invisible. He was careful to point out that these are not two churches, but
simply two aspects of the same Church. The invisible Church becomes visible, not by the rule of
bishops and cardinals, nor in the headship of the Pope, but by the pure administration of the
Word and of the sacraments. He admitted that the visible Church will always contain a mixture
of pious and wicked members. However, in his reaction against the Roman Catholic idea of the
domination of the Church over the State, he went to another extreme, and virtually made the
Church subject to the State in everything except the preaching of the Word. The Anabaptists
were not satisfied with his position, and insisted on a Church of believers only. They, in many
instances, even scorned the visible Church and the means of grace. Moreover, they demanded
the complete separation of Church and State. Calvin and Reformed theologians were at one
with Luther in the confession that the Church is essentially a communio sanctorum, a
communion of saints. However, they did not, like the Lutherans, seek the unity and the holiness
of the Church primarily in the objective ordinances of the Church, such as the offices, the Word,
and the sacraments, but most of all in the subjective communion of believers. They, too,
distinguished between a visible and an invisible aspect of the Church, though in a slightly
different way. Moreover, they found the true marks of the Church, not only in the true
administration of the Word and of the sacraments, but also in the faithful administration of
Church discipline. But even Calvin and the Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century in
a measure fostered the idea of the subjection of the Church to the state. However, they
established a form of government in the Church which made for a greater degree of
ecclesiastical independence and power than was known in the Lutheran Church. But while both
Lutheran and Reformed theologians sought to maintain the proper connection between the