# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1864_S5
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Some Remarks on the Teaching of the Oberkirchencollegium of the Ev. Luth. Church in Prussia, etc. 5

and thus the Church herself is at once visible and invisible. Visible, in that the Word and the Sacrament, whereby the Holy Spirit makes men blessed, and the congregation of those who receive and practice them, are something perceptible to the senses; invisible, in that faith in the heart cannot be perceived outwardly. Although the Church properly and truly consists only in her believing members, yet for the determination and judgment of all her relations on earth she can only come into consideration as at once invisible and visible, and in doing so one must also proceed, to that extent, from her visible side, inasmuch as men simply cannot surely distinguish who is a believer, and faith arises only through the outwardly perceptible means of preaching and of the Sacraments. The presence of believers in a congregation with pure Word and Sacrament must therefore only be assumed on the ground of the promise that God's Word does not return empty, but accomplishes — even if not in all — that for which it is sent."

Neither the coming-into-being nor the preservation of the Church is visible, but only invisible, as workings of grace of the Holy Spirit, John 3:8. But just as I hear and perceive the rushing of the wind without seeing it: so I hear and perceive the existence of the Spirit and of His Church on earth — which are in themselves invisible — from the sound of the Gospel and from the administration of the Sacraments, which indeed falls outwardly upon the senses; these, as infallible marks of the presence of the invisible Church (though they too, again, as means of the grace of Jesus Christ and of divine origin, can only be believed, not seen), do indeed bring about a Church perceptible to the senses, as a "fellowship of outward signs (of the name and of the offices)." The 7th Article of the Augsburg Confession does not speak at all of the visible Church; the addendum, "in which the Gospel is ... administered," means to say nothing other than this: since no one sees the Church, one must believe her solely by the signs of the Word. (Luther's "Revelation of Antichrist," etc.) Only the 8th Article considers the Church according to her outward society, namely as the good and the wicked found together in one company. Compare Carpzov's Isagoge in II. eccl. Luth. symb., p. 300. And this happens, at least here, expressly in order to oppose the error of all those who make the power of God, essentially indwelling in the means of grace, dependent on the inward character of the men who administer them. Apology (according to the Dresden edition of 1580), fol. 65a. It is indeed quite beyond doubt one and the same Church that is at once invisible and visible, because the believers, who alone constitute the Church, are visible men; before God, the Knower of hearts, these individual members of the spiritual body of Jesus Christ are indeed well known, but not before men on earth; and these latter are therefore directed, by His Word of Holy Scripture, to give the name "Church" to the whole of the visible company and to these individuals who have the means of grace among them, although they