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Church government. Even if all these things were absent, the Church would still be visible in the
communal life and profession of the believers, and in their joint opposition to the world. But
while emphasizing the fact that the distinction under consideration is a distinction within the
visible Church, we should not forget that both the Church as an organism and the Church as an
institution (also called apparitio and institutio) have their spiritual background in the invisible
Church. However, though it is true that these are two different aspects of the one visible
Church, they do represent important differences. The Church as an organism is the coetus
fidelium, the communion of believers, who are united in the bond of the Spirit, while the
Church as an institution is the mater fidelium, the mother of believers, a Heilsanstalt, a means
of salvation, an agency for the conversion of sinners and the perfecting of the saints. The
Church as an organism exists charismatic: in it all kinds of gifts and talents become manifest and
are utilized in the work of the Lord. The Church as an institution, on the other hand, exists in an
institutional form and functions through the offices and means which God has instituted. The
two are co-ordinate in a sense, and yet there is also a certain subordination of the one to the
other. The Church as an institution or organization (mater fidelium) is a means to an end, and
this is found in the Church as an organism, the community of believers (coetus fidelium).
C. VARIOUS DEFINITIONS OF THE CHURCH.
The Church being a many-sided entity has naturally also been defined from more than one
point of view.
1. FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF ELECTION.
According to some theologians the Church is the
community of the elect, the coetus electorum. This definition is apt to be somewhat misleading,
however. It applies only to the Church ideally considered, the Church as it exists in the idea of
God and as it will be completed at the end of the ages, and not to the Church as a present
empirical reality. Election includes all those who belong to the body of Christ, irrespective of
their present actual relation to it. But the elect who are yet unborn, or who are still strangers to
Christ and outside of the pale of the Church, cannot be said to belong to the Church realiter.
2. FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF EFFECTUAL CALLING.
To escape the objection raised to the
preceding definition, it gradually became customary to define the Church from the point of
view of some subjective spiritual characteristic of those who belong to it, especially effectual
calling or faith, either by naming such a characteristic in addition to election, or by substituting
it for election. Thus the Church was defined as the company of the elect who are called by the
Spirit of God (coetus electorum vocatorum), as the body of those who are effectually called
(coetus vocatorum), or, even more commonly, as the community of the faithful or believers
(coetus fidelium). The first two of these definitions serve the purpose of designating the Church
as to its invisible essence, but give no indication whatsoever of the fact that it also has a visible