In his “Wider das Bapstum vom Teuffel gestifft,” he quotes the words of Christ which refer to prayer in common: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” This leads him to conclude, strange to say, “that even two or three gathered together in Christ’s name hold all the power of St. Peter and all the Apostles.” And, at once, he proceeds in his old vein to declare that two or three, nay, even a single one, who has been enlightened by Christ, is as good a teacher as the whole Church, and, indeed, in certain cases, even takes precedence of her. “Hence it comes,” he says, “that, often, a man who believes in Christ has withstood a whole crowd … as the prophets withstood the Kings of Israel, the priests and the whole nation [to say nothing of Luther himself who had withstood the whole Church]. In short, God will not be bound as to numbers, greatness, height, power, or anything personal to man, but will only be with those who love and keep His Word even though they be no more than stable boys. What does He care for high, great and mighty lords? He alone is the greatest, highest and mightiest.”[1147] Thus he practically claims a Divine dignity for an undertaking such as his, and paints his career afresh as that of a prophet who had a right to exalt himself even over the topmost hierarchy; only that he invests all the faithful, and even the “stable boy,” with the like high calling. But, in such a system, what place was there left for anything more than a phantom Church? Obviously the Church had to withdraw into the region of the invisible. For her again to become visible and assume the shape to be considered below, seems almost a paradox. In view of the elasticity and vagueness of Luther’s teaching on the Church it is not surprising that his followers, to this very day, are divided as to whether, in point of fact, Luther wanted a “Church” or not.