putting its confidence in this book, and therefore feels constrained to obey it. In such trust and obedience consists what was previously called the method of the Holy Spirit and of faith. Study the history of the Church! Did it ever consist in anything else? And whoever is concerned about what the world thinks of the Church ought to become aware of the fact that the world is interested in only one question about the Church: Does the Church still dare, and dare ever and ever again, to cling simply and concretely to the method of the Holy Spirit and faith? The Church which dared to do so always overcame the kingdoms of this world—secretly or openly. But the Church gained this mastery only where it did not seek it. For in order to make this method effective, the last security of Roman Catholic and modernistic clericalism must be sacrificed.
If it is true that hearing the word of God, submission to it, and being bound by it constitutes the concrete order of life for the Church—if it is true that the Church comes to life, always and ever, by the word of apostles and prophets as it calls us to join their ranks in order that with them we may become face to face with the initiative of God and with them become witnesses of revelation and hearers of his word—then it is also true that life in the Church, yes the life of the Church itself, must be humility and service.
In more than one instance the New Testament gives to those who desire to listen to God and to the word of his prophets and apostles as its foremost direction the admonition to tapeinophrosune. It signifies thinking in submissive abasement before God and men. There is no danger that a spirit of domination will die out either in public or private life. The state represents sovereignty, culture means dominion, and even the best and purest development of human nature is a will-to-rule. There is not one among us who does not have a share in some such rule, and there is none who does not somehow strive for it. And the rule of men is always sinful and perverse. In spite of this insight, the Church has always acknowledged—also in this respect, obedient to the Scriptures—that this sinful and perverse government among men is a necessary divine order to restrain its equally sinful and perverse freedom.
Just as definitely, however, the Church has found its calling to consist in something else than in the establishment and maintenance of such a rule. It will give to Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, but it can never give its unconditional sanction to any such form of mastery, to any form of the state or trend of culture. It cannot join hands with any of them for better or worse. It is in no wise its office to undergird man and aid his ascendancy. Where it does affirm man’s rule over men it will do so in reverence of the hidden intent of God and not of the only-too-patent plans of man. It will have regard for the patience and wisdom of God who knows to set bounds to sin even by sin itself. But for the sake of God and man, it will keep its hands free for its own peculiar task. The sign which it is called to erect is a sign other than the sign of dominion. For this reason, it will not conceive its task to be the establishment of a rule of its own. It will not proceed to build a city of God in opposition to the cities of the world, a realm of the pious against the realm of the godless, an island of the righteous and blessed in the midst of the sea of wickedness. Its very sympathy and solidarity will prevent its doing so.
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