# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1862_S259
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Theological Axioms. 259

saints or sinners, hidden and manifest, mixed in — this is too well known
to need any proof.

16. A potiori fit denominatio.

A thing bears its name according to its chief constituent.

17. Scriptura loquitur de ecclesia diversimode: primo populariter et
synecdochice, et sic totum coetum vocatorum hoc nomine intelligit; deinde
exquisite, proprie et principaliter, et sic solos electos sive sanctos in illo
coetu numerat. (Gerh.)

Scripture speaks of the Church in various ways: first in a common and
ordinary way, and synecdochically,*) and so understands by this name the
whole company of the called; secondly, in a strict, proper, and original
sense, and so counts in that company only the elect or the saints.

18. Extra visibilem ecclesiam non est quaerenda invisibilis, sed haec
illi est inclusa. (Quenstedt.)

Outside the visible Church no invisible one is to be sought, but this
latter is included within the former.

19. Nulla particularis ecclesia visibilis, quin lateat invisibilis.
(Dannhauer.)

There is no visible particular church in which the invisible one does
not lie hidden.

20. Non facimus geminam ecclesiam, aliam sanctorum, aliam mixtam; sed
hanc tantum nostris distinctionem esse dicimus, qua ὁμονύμως vox
ecclesiae accipitur semel pro coetu fidelium, iterum pro conventu, in quo
fidelibus admixti reperiuntur hypocritae. (Calov.)

We do not make a twofold Church, one of the saints and another a mixed
one; rather we say only that ours is the distinction by which the word
Church is taken homonymously**) at one time for the assembly of
believers, and at another for the assembly in which hypocrites are found
mixed in among the believers.

21. Coetus, in quo est ecclesia, videri quidem ac dignosci et indice
digito demonstrari potest, in quo scl. verbum docetur et sacramenta
dispensantur juxta Christi mandatum; sed coetus ille, qui proprie est
ecclesia h. e. communio fidelium et sanctorum, non est visibilis, nec
demonstrari potest. (Calov.)

That company in which the Church is can indeed be seen and
distinguished and pointed out with the finger, namely the one in which
the Word is taught and the sacraments are administered according to
Christ's command; but that company which properly is the Church, that
is, the communion of believers and saints, is not visible and cannot be
pointed out.

*) That is, in such a way that Scripture gives the name Church to the
whole company, though it properly belongs only to one part of it, namely
to the believers within it.
**) A homonymy is the sharing of one name by different concepts and things.