Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

Lutherans and Calvinists seemed at first to acknowledge the visibility of the Church, whose marks were, according to them, the pure preaching of the word of God and the sincere administration of the sacraments. But when Catholics asked them to declare where this visible Church was before their reformation, they did not know how to answer. They could not assign the Roman Church, from which they had withdrawn as from the synagogue of Satan, and they could not find, nor can they find, another in which visibly all the dogmas which they hold would be taught. Therefore to extricate themselves from this snare, some contrived a twofold Church, one invisible of the predestined, the other visible composed of the predestined and the reprobate. Others said that the Church, although visible, was then almost extinct, so that it no longer appeared.

The question concerns the visibility of the present Church through bodily eyes, with the judgment and certain persuasion that it is the Church of Christ : otherwise it would be visible materially, and not formally under the aspect of Church.]

I say : The Church is perpetually visible.

Proof. 1° from Scripture. Matth., V, 14, it is said : A city cannot be hidden that is set on a mountain. Of which text Aug., lib. II contra Crescon., c. 36, n. 45, says : « The Church exists clear and conspicuous to all, inasmuch as it is a city which cannot be hidden, established on a mountain. » Likewise the parables of the threshing floor, the field, the net, by which Christ expressed the Church, openly signify that it is visible.

Act., XX, 28, bishops are said to be appointed to rule the Church of God. Paul ad Galat., I, 13, confesses that he persecuted the Church of God. Act., VII, 1, it is read that a persecution was raised against the Church. But they could not rule and persecute the Church unless it were visible. And Matth., XVIII, 17, the incorrigible brother is to be denounced to the Church, and if he does not hear her, he is to be held as the heathen and the publican. But how can one be denounced to the Church and hear the Church, if the Church is invisible?

Proof. 2° from theological arguments : 1° All are bound to come to the Church, outside of which there is no salvation, as the heretics themselves confess. But this would be impossible if the Church were invisible. 2° The Church is a society of men, and these are visible. 3° In the Church there is made an exterior profession of faith, the sacraments are administered, the word of God is preached, jurisdiction is exercised by superiors over inferiors, councils are gathered, definitions of faith are issued, laws are enacted. But all these things are visible. Therefore.

For the solution of the objections, note that two things can be attended to in the Church : one internal, which some call the soul of the Church, and this is the faith by which the members of the Church are internally bound together among themselves and with the head; the other external, which they call the body of the Church, namely the exterior society of those who are joined together by the public profession of the same faith, by the communion of the same sacraments and pastors. But although what is internal is in itself invisible, nevertheless the Church is said to be visible through its exterior: just as, although the soul of man is in itself invisible, man nevertheless is said to be visible from his face.

[Petes whether visibility belongs to the sects of heretics. Resp. it does not belong to them in that degree in which it belongs to the Church of Christ, because they are not conspicuous to the whole world, as the Church of Christ is. Nor were they always visible; for before Luther and Calvin, where were they seen? Nor are more notable things beheld in them, as in the true Church, namely the perpetual and undisturbed succession of its Pontiffs, the gathering of councils, the casting out of heretics, etc.]