more scientifically, led to a reaction, and to a more spiritual idea of the Church. CLEMENT calls the Church, a community of men who are led by the divine Logos, an invincible city upon earth which no force can subdue, where the will of God is done as it is in Heaven.* The earthly assembly of believers is an image of the Heavenly.† The Church is the true temple of God, founded by means of knowledge to his glory. It is formed into a temple by the will of God; I do not now speak of the Church as a material building, but the collective body of the chosen. It is true that an error proceeding from the Alexandrian Aristocraticism was attached to this spiritual conception, since this Church was supposed to consist pre-eminently of the yvWσTIXO. And as from the standpoint of the Catholic Church a false Aristocraticism was established to the injury of Christianity through the idea of a Jewish priesthood, so here from an intellectual standpoint.

The opposition against the first error was conducted still more energetically by ORIGEN, occasioned by the hierarchical pretension of DEMETRIUS, Bishop of Alexandria. He combats those who would derive the episcopal power from the words of Christ to Peter in Matthew xvi., that he would found his Church upon him. These words, he says, refer not to Peter personally, or to a dignity specially bestowed on him, but to Peter only as far as he had spoken in the name of all believers. It applies therefore to all those who acknowledge Christ as the Son of God; the true Church is founded on all true Christians who are in doctrine and conduct such that they will attain to salvation. All these followers of Christ are therefore Πέτροι, Rock-men, just as being members of Christ they are called Christians. The kingdom of God consists of such true disciples; it is not here or there; this is the Church against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail. § The Church is here evidently understood to be a community which does not propagate itself from without, but is formed from within.

CYPRIAN himself had to combat with a reaction of the simple Christian consciousness against his idea of the Church. It proceeded from those who were unwilling to subject them

* Strom. iv. p. 543.

+ Ibid. p. 500.

Ibid. vii. p. 715.

§ In Matth. xii. § 10, 11. On the Lord's Prayer, § 28.

selves to this outward unity of the Church-since they appealed to Christ's words in Matthew xviii. 20: "Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." The Protestant idea of the Church is here assumed, but Cyprian would not admit it, but maintained that the words were torn from their connexion, and misunderstood. They could not agree who were not in agreement with the body of the Church. They must be connected with the body of Christ, with the Church; only of such did Christ speak.*

MONTANISM combated on one side, the externality of the Catholic Church, as far as it made everything dependent on the succession of bishops; on the contrary, it placed something internal in the first rank,-the operation of the Holy Spirit in its new effusion on the Prophets on which the true development of the Church depended. Hence TERTULLIAN says, the words of Christ to. Peter (Matt. xvi. 18, 19) do not refer to Peter alone, nor to his personal dignity, but to Peter as far as he was enlightened and purified by the Holy Spirit. They apply to him as the representative of all the enlightened, and therefore to all who like him have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit. The Church in a peculiar and exalted sense is the Holy Spirit himself; and after Him, men animated and sanctified by the Spirit are so called. Hence Tertullian opposes to the ecclesia as numerus episcoporum, the ecclesia as spiritus per spiritalem hominem. According to this, it would appear that Montanism regarded the spiritual internal fact as the main and fundamental thing, and therefore opposed a Protestant element to Catholicism; it seems as if it would say, ubi spiritus ibi ecclesia. But the agreement with Protestantism is only in the opposition; the principle is different. The reference here is not to such an

* De Unit. Eccles. c. 12.

De Pudicit. 21.-Secundum enim Petri personam spiritalibus potestas ista conveniet aut apostolo aut prophetæ. Nam et ecclesiæ proprie et principaliter ipse est spiritus, in quo est trinitas unius divinitatis pater et filius et spiritus sanctus. Illam ecclesiam congregat, quam dominus in tribus posuit. Atque ita exinde etiam numerus omnes, qui in hanc fidem conspiraverint, ecclesia ab auctore et consecratore censetur. Et ideo ecclesia quidam delicta donabit; sed ecclesia spiritus per spiritalem hominem, non ecclesia numerus episcoporum. Domini enim, non famuli est jus et arbitrium Dei ipsius, non sacerdotis.

operation of the Holy Spirit as is accomplished in every one through faith in the Redeemer, but of the extraordinary agency of the Spirit through the new class of Prophets; those who are under the influence of that agency are the true spiritales, which character is also transferred to those who acknowledge the new Prophecy. Montanism sets out from the same idea of the Catholic Church, since it derives it from the sedes apostolica, only it gives prominence to the contrariety of the true and the false Church. Therefore, the element of externality and the confounding of the Jewish and Christian standpoints are to be found in it, only in a different manner. From the Catholic standpoint everything depends on the Episcopal Succession; here the development of the Church is carried on by order of Prophets: in the former, the Old Testament idea of Priesthood is conspicuous; in the latter, that of a prophetic order. There is an important distinction which passed over from Montanism to the Catholic Church. We have already noticed in treating of the doctrine of Tradition, that Montanism set itself against a fixed unalterable Tradition. The Catholic Church adopted its own view, for which we may observe a preparation made by Cyprian. If at an earlier period the Catholic doctrine was simply conservative, a progressive element was now added to it,-the constant development of the Church guided by the Holy Spirit, only with this difference, that Montanism derived it from new extraordinary revelations, but the Catholic standpoint from the internal development of Christianity, from the organic operation of the Holy Spirit in the Church. What was effected according to Montanism through the medium of the new Prophetic order, was to be brought about in the Catholic Church through the organism already existing,—the Episcopal order. From this quarter the tenet went forth that the convocation of the Bishops was the organ for this operation of the Bishops. As early as the third century the Provincial Synods were regarded as the channels of spiritual illumination. It was only through the conferences of the Provincial Synods that a general conformity could be obtained at this period. A universal organ of this kind was not possible till the succeeding age.

A reaction of Separatism against the Catholic idea of the Church proceeded from the followers of NOVATIAN. The

principle of externality was at the basis of this opposition to the Catholic form of externality. Novatian maintained that the Church in order to preserve its purity and holiness must exclude all the unworthy members who had broken their baptismal vow by deadly sins, and never readmit them; otherwise it would be itself defiled and lose the character of Catholicity, and all the immunities granted to it by Christ. If we consider the mutual relation of the two tendencies, they both set out with confounding the visible and invisible Church, since they assign the predicates which belong to the Church as a divine institution to a definite visible Church out of which there is no salvation. They maintain that this visible Church was as such pure, but that this characteristic did not attach to any community out of her. Both lay peculiar stress on the idea of the Church, but the predicates belonging to it stand in the two systems in inverse relation. On the Catholic standpoint the idea of Catholicity presupposes and maintains that the Church carried on through the succession of Bishops is the Catholic; the idea of purity and holiness is subordinated to Catholicity, the Catholic Church remains the pure Church which nothing can render impure. Novatian, on the contrary, made purity and holiness the primary qualities of the Church, and subordinated to them its Catholicity; only a pure and holy Church could be Catholic. The controversy with this party might have led to distinguishing more accurately the various ideas of the constitution of the Church; the issue of the controversy would have been more satisfactory if the predicates of purity and holiness had been referred to the invisible Church, but this distinction was not understood. Cyprian opposed to Novatianism the different condition of the Church in this and the future life: here the worthy and unworthy are mixed together; there they are separated from one another; he reproached them with arbitrarily attempting to effect that separation here which can only take place in the future.

f. THE DOCTRINE OF THE SACRAMENTS.

The doctrine of the Sacraments bears an analogy to that of the Church, since there is in it a combination of two things: something internal and divine, and an outward sign. Thus in the Church we must distinguish between the internal fellowNeander's Church History, i. 344.

ship and the representation of the Church in a definite form. Our attention is therefore called to two objects: the manner in which the consciousness is developed of the nature of the internal reality, and the relation of the internal to the external. The consciousness of the essential nature of the Sacraments might be pure, and yet an external conception be formed of them, as we have noticed in Irenæus's idea of the Church. We might expect similar results in the doctrine of the Sacraments, since the same mental tendencies were in operation, as concerning the doctrine of the Church. In reference to this externalism two forms may be distinguished: either the outward was firmly retained and the inward altogether forgotten, or the two were mixed together,- -a superstitious confounding of the inward and outward, such as easily attaches itself to vivid religious feeling. To this externalism was opposed a one-sided internalism,-a falsely spiritual and idealistic tendency. In the former case, too much was attached to the outward signs, because the mind, absorbed with what was divine in the Sacrament, was incapable of distinguishing the inward from the outward. In the other case, things were separated which ought to have been kept together; the former error is found on the Catholic standpoint, the latter belongs especially to Gnosticism.

1. THE DOCTRINE OF BAPTISM.

G. J. VOSSIUS, De baptismo disputt. 20. Opp. Amst. 1701. t. vi. C. St. MATTHIES, Baptismat. expositio biblica histor. dogmatica. Berol. 1831. J. W. HOLLING, Das Sacram. der Taufe nebst andern damit Zusammenhängend. Acten der Initiation. Erlg. 1846. 2 Th. W. WALL, History of Infant Baptism. Lond. 1707. Lat. vert. J. L. SCHLOSSER: 1748, 1753. 2 t. J. G. WALCH, Historia pædobaptismi 4 prior. sæculor. Jen. 1739. 4to.

As baptism forms the initiation into the Christian community, everything was transferred to it which belongs to the latter, whether Negative or Positive: freedom from the power of evil, and regeneration to a new divine life, entrance into fellowship with Christ, and the participation of the Holy Spirit. The reception of the Divine was distinguished from the conditions necessary thereto faith, the avowal of obligation to lead a new divine life, forsaking a sinful life, and entrance into the militia Christi. But at a very early period Regeneration was connected too much with the outward signs. This may be traced in the Myth contained in the Shepherd of