“The church, which, as he demands again and again, should be believed, is ‘invisible’ in exactly the same sense as all the other constituents of faith are invisible.
It must be believed contrary to all appearances.
What can be seen of the church is anything but ‘glory’.
‘The Christian Church cannot be without suffering, persecution, and dying, yes, not without sin either’ (WA 7, 684, 9).
‘The face of the church is the face of one who is a sinner, troubled, forsaken, dying, and full of distress’ (Erlangen edition ex. lat. 18, 213).
Nevertheless, faith sees the opposite, the saint, the ‘glory of God’, the ‘glory of the Christian brotherhood’.”
Elert, Werner: The Structure of Lutheranism. 262
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