# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1862_S258
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

258 Theological Axioms.

even at this very time when the rekindled light of the Gospel shines most
brightly in many kingdoms and provinces.

9. "When Christ says: The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, and
likewise, unto the ten virgins, he does not mean that the wicked are the
Church, but teaches how the Church appears in this world; therefore he
says it is like (simile, similar) unto these, etc.: that is, as in a haul of
fish the good and the bad lie mixed together, so the Church is here hidden
under the great crowd and multitude of the ungodly." (Apology.)

10. Ubicunque nomen ecclesiae proprie ac specifice accipitur et pro
catholica ecclesia ponitur, invisibilem sanctorum et vere credentium coetum
denotat, quia vera ecclesiae catholicae membra non sunt, nisi vere
credentes et sancti. (Quenstedt.)

Wherever the name Church is taken properly and specifically and is set
for the catholic Church, it denotes the invisible assembly of the saints
and truly believing, because the true members of the catholic Church are
nothing other than the truly believing and the saints.

11. As man consists of two natures, body and soul, so he is reckoned a
member of Christendom not according to the body, but according to the
soul, indeed according to faith. For if Christendom were a bodily
assembly, one could tell by looking at anyone's body whether he were a
Christian, a Turk, or a Jew — just as I can see from someone's body
whether he is a man, a woman, or a child, black or white; likewise, in
worldly society I can see whether he is gathered with others at
Wittenberg or Leipzig, here or there; but not at all whether he believes
or not. Therefore let him hold to this firmly who does not wish to err:
that Christendom is a spiritual assembly of souls in one faith, and that
no one, on account of his body, is to be reckoned a Christian. (Luther.)

12. It is manifest that Christendom is a spiritual community, which
may not be counted among the worldly communities, no more than spirits
may be counted among bodies, or faith among temporal goods. (Luther.)

13. Videmus coetum hominum, qui est ecclesia, sed an illi homines
sint ecclesia, non videmus. (Quenstedt.)

We see the assembly of men which is the Church, but whether those men
are the Church, we do not see.

14. Extra coetum vocatorum non sunt quaerendi electi. (Quenstedt.)

Outside the company of the called are no elect to be sought.

15. Vere credentium et sanctorum coetibus, qui proprie militantem in
terris ecclesiam Christi constituunt, ubique locorum admixtos esse non
sanctos sive peccatores, occultos et manifestos, notius est, quam quod
probatione indigeat. (J. Musaeus.)

That to the communities of the truly believing and the saints, who
properly constitute the Church of Christ militant on earth, there are,
in every place, mixed in non-