Recognizing the Visible Church of Christ

By Robin G. Jordan

One of my readers in a comment in response to a previous article raised the question “Where do we find the true church?” To answer this question, we must turn to the formularies of the Reformed Church of England and the writing of the sixteenth century Reformers. This was a pressing question in the sixteenth century, as it is in the twenty-first. How do we recognize the true church?

The Reformers acknowledged the existence of two churches—the invisible church and the visible church. The invisible church is not confined to one place and time but scattered and spread throughout the world and across the centuries. It is composed of God’s elect, those God had chosen for salvation and justification. Its members are said to be invisible, not because they are not to be seen but because their faith and conscience toward God is not perfectly known to us. The visible church exists in a particular place and a particular time, and is recognizable by certain marks, or visible signs.

The Thirty-Nine Articles identify three “notes” of the visible church. It is a coetus fidelum, a society of believers. In it the verbum Dei purum, the pure word of God, is preached. In it the sacraments are recte, duly, ministered in all essentials of Christ’s institution.

Article XIX - The Church
The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments are duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome has erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.

The Seventh Article of the Augsburg Confession is undoubtedly the origin of the first clause of Article XIX.

The Church is a congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is recte, rightly, taught, and the Sacraments are rightly administered.

The Thirty-Nine Articles reflect the commonly held view of the sixteenth century Reformers that the two principal marks of the visible church are the preaching of the pure word of God and the due ministration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ. We find this view in the writings of saintly John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester and of Worcester in the reign of Edward VI and martyr in the reign of Edward’s older sister Mary.

These two marks the true preaching of God’s word and the right use of sacraments, declare what and where the true church is. Unto which church I would all Christian men should associate themselves although there may happen t be some things [to be] desired in manners and discipline. For no church, as touching this part, can be absolutely perfect.

But where the doctrine is sound, and no idolatry defended, that church is of God, as far as mortal man can judge. And where this doctrine and right use of sacraments be not, there is no church of Christ, though it seem never so holy.

We find the same view in Alexander Nowell’s A Catechism, which would become the official catechism of the Reformed Church of England. Nowell was a prebend of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the reign of Elizabeth I and prepared the catechism at the request of Convocation.

M. Then, that this whole matter of the church may be made plainer, so describe and paint me out that same visible church with her marks and signs, that it may be discerned from any other fellowship of men.

S. I will assay to do it as well as I can. The visible church is nothing else but a certain multitude of men, which in what place soever they be, (Isa. 55:11; Matt. 10:14 & 28:19; Luke 24:47; Rom. 10:8-9; 2 Tim. 1:10.) do profess the doctrine of Christ, pure and sincere, even the same which the evangelists and apostles have, in the everlasting monuments of holy scriptures, faithfully disclosed to memory, and which do truly call upon God the Father (John 14:13 & 15:16 & 16:23) in the name of Christ, and moreover do use his (fMatt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 11:28.) mysteries, commonly called sacraments, with the same pureness and simplicity (as touching their substance) which the apostles of Christ used and have put in writing.

M. Thou sayest then that the marks of the visible church are, the sincere preaching of the gospel, that is to say of the benefits of Christ, invocation and administration of the sacraments.

S. These are indeed the chief and the necessary marks of the visible church, such as without the which it cannot be indeed, nor rightly be called, the church of Christ. But yet also in the same church, if it be well ordered, there shall be seen to be observed a certain (Matt. 18:15-17; 1 Cor. 4:21 & 10:31-32 & 14:26, 40; Phil. 2:14-15; 1 Thess. 5:14, 22 & 2 Thess. 3:14-15; Col. 2:5; 1 Tim. 2:8-9 &c. & 3:1-2; Tit. 2:2-4 &c. & 3:10) order and manner of governance, and such a form of ecclesiastical discipline, that it shall not be free for any that abideth in that flock publicly to speak or do anything wickedly or in heinous sort without punishment, yea, and so that in that congregation of men all offences (so far as is possible) be avoided. But this discipline since long time past by little and little decaying, as the manners of men be corrupt and out of right course, specially of the rich and men of power, which will needs have impunity and most free liberty to sin and do wickedly, this grave manner of looking to them and of chastisement can hardly be maintained in churches. But in whatsoever assembly the word of God, the calling upon him, and his sacraments, are purely and sincerely retained, it is no doubt that there is also the church of Christ.

M. Are not, then, all they that be in this visible church of the number of the elect to everlasting life?

S. Many, by hypocrisy and counterfeiting of godliness, do join themselves to this fellowship, which are nothing less than true members of the church. But, forasmuch as wheresoever the word of God is sincerely taught, and his sacraments rightly ministered, there are ever some appointed to (Isa. 4:11; Acts 13:48) salvation by Christ, we count all that whole company to be the church of God, seeing that Christ also promiseth that himself will be present with two (Matt. 18:20) or three that be gathered together in his name.

In his Catechism Nowell draws attention to the third mark commonly propounded by the English Reformers as distinguishing the true church. This is church discipline. Hooper also refers to this mark in his writings.

I believe that that the Lord God hath given us three principal signs and marks by which we may know his church: That is to say, the word, the sacraments, and discipline.

In Theology of the English Reformers the late Philip Edgcumbe Hughes notes that this third mark of differentiation appears to be implied though not expressed in Article XIX:

This mark, indeed, would seem to be implicit in Article 19, which speaks of the church of Christ as a congregation, not merely of men, but of faithful men—that is to say, persons who profess faith in Christ and whose profession of faith is not contradicted by indiscipline of conduct. This Article also speaks of the sacraments being duly ministered—that is to say, ministered with the exercise of due discipline and discernment with regard both to the manner of celebration and to the danger of unworthy participation (cf. 1 Cor 11:27-31).

Article XIX, when it refers to “a congregation of faithful men,” is not referring to a denomination, diocese, or district. It is referring to a local church, to an assembly of believing people that regularly, in the words of the Canons of 1604, “celebrate and keep the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday, and other Holy-days, according to God's holy will and pleasure…; that is, in hearing the Word of God read and taught; in private and publick prayers; in acknowledging their offences to God, and amendment of the same; in reconciling themselves charitably to their neighbours, where displeasure hath been; in oftentimes receiving the Communion of the body and blood of Christ…,” and which gathers for these purposes in a particular community or locality.

As Article XXVI states, “in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good.” It is a mixture of both genuine and false professors of the Christian faith—of both wheat and tares. In his work The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England Thomas Rogers gives this explanation:

The members of the visible church are some of them for God, and some against God; all of them notwithstanding are deemed parts of the church and accounted faithful, so long as they make no manifest and open rebellion against the gospel of Christ.

We may hunt high and low in the Articles for a reference to the necessity of the historic episcopate but we will find no such reference. Such necessity cannot be deduced from the reference to the Ordinal of King Edward VI in Article XXXVI. The article in question upholds the lawfulness, rightness, and orderliness of consecrations and ordinations at which that particular Ordinal has been used, and repudiates the Roman Catholic claim that the Ordinal is defective and therefore the consecrations and ordinations are invalid. It does not identify the retention of the historic episcopate as a mark of the true church. The compilers of the Articles assiduously avoided unchurching the Continental Reformed Churches that had not retained the office of bishop.

While the sixteenth century divines defended the episcopal form of government that the Church of England had retained, they refused to make episcopacy a mark of the true church even in the face of the insistent claims of the presbyterians that the Scriptures prescribed a presbyterian form of government. In his debate with Thomas Cartwright, a leading proponent of presbyterianism, Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift summed up the Reformed view:

There is no one certain kind of government in the church which must of necessity be perpetually observed….

The offices in the church whereby this government is wrought be not namely and particularly expressed in the Scriptures, but in some points be left to the discretion and liberty of the church, to be disposed according to the state of times, places, and persons….

That any one kind of government is so necessary that without it the church cannot be saved, or that it may noot be altered into some other kind thought to be more expedient, I utterly deny; and the reasons that move me to do so are these:

The first is, because I find no certain and perfect kind of government prescribed or commanded in the Scriptures to the church of Christ; which no doubt should have been done if it had been a matter necessary unto salvation.

Secondly, because the essential notes of the church be these only: The true preaching of the word of God and the right administration of the sacraments.

The preaching of the pure word of God, the due ministration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ, and the faithful observance of ecclesiastical discipline according to the word of God are the three marks that the Reformers picked out as the principal signs by which the visible church could be recognized. In my second article in this series I will take a closer look at the three marks as the Reformers distinguished them. In the third article I will explore what we can do to restore these authentic marks to the visible church of Christ in our own day. The Reformers themselves did not believe that the reforms that they instituted were a onetime thing. Rather they believed that the church was constantly in need of reform. As Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer succinctly observes in the Preface to the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, “there was neuer anye thinge by the wytte of man so wel deusised, or so sure established, whiche (in continuance of tyme) hath not been corrupted….” We have only to look at the church of our own time to see the truth of his words. The end of reforming the church is not to make it more to our liking, more acceptable to our culture, or congenial to those outside the church but to bring the church into line with the teaching of God’s word and thereby to obey and glorify God. This is what the Reformers understood to be their task in their day. It is our task in our own generation.