# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1856_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 The Church Informatorium.

not merely a fellowship [societas] whose bond would be external things and customs, as other worldly kingdoms are, but rather principally [principaliter] it is a fellowship whose bond is faith and the Holy Spirit in the hearts, which nevertheless has external signs by which it can be recognized, namely the pure doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments according to the Gospel of Christ. And this Church alone is called the body of Christ, whom Christ renews, etc.'"), "is treated of by those who, firstly, disregard entirely both the preceding 'not merely' (non tantum) and the following 'yet nevertheless' (quae tamen), "and then translate: The Church is principaliter the 'fellowship' of faith and the Holy Spirit of the heart, by which they then make the Church essentially into an inward spiritual life, to which the outward visible form belongs only consequentially. But societas is not fellowship in this sense; rather it is a company, a corporation, a societas — namely, it is the totality of the persons who, through faith and the Holy Spirit in the hearts, are socii, associates. Faith and the Holy Spirit are not essentially the Church, but rather the essential bond of the Church. And when preaching and the administration of the sacraments are here set forth merely as marks of the Church, it is not thereby said that this is their whole significance; rather, they come into consideration here only according to this derived, consecutive significance, while nevertheless also retaining that significance which, according to Article 5, they have principaliter."

Let everyone take note here how well the Informatorium understands how to give itself the appearance of being right, when in fact it is no longer even asserting its own error, but rather a truth to which it has no claim. It wishes to be considered right when, at the outset, it levels against those who place the essence of the Church in the fellowship of faith and the Holy Spirit the reproach of treating that passage of the Apology falsely and confusingly. Yet after it has, immediately thereafter, itself proven that with these words it is merely saddling its opponent with its own error, in the end nothing else comes of it than what had already been rejected above. What is rejected, firstly, is that the Church essentially is the "fellowship" of faith and the Holy Spirit in the heart, to which the outward visible form belongs only consequentially. Against this it is now asserted that the Church, as a fellowship, is the totality of the persons who, through faith and the Holy Spirit in the hearts, are socii, associates. Here, then, the Informatorium concedes that the persons who, in their union with one another, constitute the Church must beforehand have faith and the Holy Spirit. From this it surely follows that this very thing is the distinguishing mark of this fellowship, or that wherein this fellowship essentially consists. For fellowship in and of itself belongs just as well to bands of robbers as to the congregation of God. Should, then, something that the Church has in common with the most unclean of associations constitute her essence? By this, at bottom, what had a moment before