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perfect holiness. Hence she can truly be called a community of saints. This holiness is first of all
a holiness of the inner man, but a holiness which also finds expression in the outer life.
Consequently, holiness is also attributed, secondarily, to the visible Church. That Church is holy
in the sense that it is separated from the world in consecration to God, and also in the ethical
sense of aiming at, and achieving in principle, a holy conversation in Christ. Since visible local
churches consist of believers and their seed, they are supposed to exclude all open unbelievers
and wicked persons. Paul does not hesitate to address them as churches of the saints.
3. THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH.
a. Roman Catholic conception.
The attribute of catholicity is appropriated by the Roman
Catholic Church, as if it only has the right to be called catholic. Like the other attributes of the
Church, it is applied by her to the visible organization. She claims the right to be considered as
the one really catholic Church, because she is spread over the whole earth and adapts herself to
all countries and to all forms of government; because she has existed from the beginning and
has always had subjects and faithful children, while sects come and go; because she is in
possession of the fulness of truth and grace, destined to be distributed among men; and
because she surpasses in number of members all dissenting sects taken together.
b. Protestant conception.
Protestants, again, apply this attribute primarily to the invisible
Church, which can be called catholic in a far truer sense than any one of the existing
organizations, not even the Church of Rome excepted. They justly resent the arrogance of the
Roman Catholics in appropriating this attribute for their hierarchical organization, to the
exclusion of all other Churches. Protestants insist that the invisible Church is primarily the real
catholic Church, because she includes all believers on earth at any particular time, no one
excepted; because, consequently, she also has her members among all the nations of the world
that were evangelized; and because she exercises a controlling influence on the entire life of
man in all its phases. Secondarily, they also ascribe the attribute of catholicity to the visible
Church. In our discussion of the unity of the visible Church, it already became apparent that the
Reformers and the Reformed Confessions expressed their belief in a catholic visible Church, and
this opinion has been reiterated by Dutch, Scottish, and American Reformed theologians right
up to the present time, though in recent years some in the Netherlands expressed doubt about
this doctrine. It must be admitted that this doctrine presents many difficult problems, which
still call for solution. It is not easy to point out with precision just where this one catholic visible
Church is. Furthermore, such questions as these arise: (1) Does this doctrine carry with it a
wholesale condemnation of denominationalism, as Dr. Henry Van Dyke seems to think? (2)
Does it mean that some one denomination is the true Church, while all others are false, or is it
better to distinguish between Churches of more or less pure formation? (3) At what point does