It is in this wise, and never in any other, that the Holy Scriptures speak of the Holy Church and of Christendom. [Sidneote: The External Church] Beyond that, another way of speaking of Christendom has come into use. According to this, the name Church[36] is given to an assembly in a house or a parish, a bishopric, an archbishopric, or the papacy, in which assembly external rites are in use, such as chanting, reading, vestments. And primarily the name of "spiritual estate" is given to the bishops, priests and members of the holy orders; not on account of their faith, which they perhaps do not have, but because they have been consecrated with an external anointing, wear crowns, use a distinctive garb, make special prayers and do special works, say mass, have their places in the choir, and attend to all such external matters of worship. But violence is done to the word "spiritual," or "Church," when it is used for such external affairs, whereas it concerns faith alone, which, working in the soul, makes right and true spirituales and Christians; yet this maimer of using it has spread everywhere, to the great injury and perversion of many souls, who think that such outward show is the spiritual and only true estate in Christendom or the Church. There is not one letter in the Holy Scriptures to show that such a purely external Church has been established by God; and I hereby challenge all those who have made this blasphemous, damnable, heretical book, or would defend it, together with all their followers, even if all the universities hold with them. If they can show me that even one letter of the Scriptures speaks of it, I am willing to recant. But I know that they cannot do it. The Canon Law and human statutes, indeed, give the name of Church or Christendom to such a thing, but that is not now before us. Therefore, for the sake of brevity and a better understanding, we shall call the two churches by different names. The first, which is the natural, essential, real and true one, let us call a spiritual, inner Christendom. The other, which is man-made and external, let us call a bodily, external Christendom: not as if we would part them asunder, but just as when I speak of a man, and call him, according to the soul, a spiritual, according to the body, a physical, man; or as the Apostle is wont to speak of the inner and of the outward man. [Rom. 7:22] Thus also the Christian assembly, according to the soul, is a communion[37] of one accord in one faith, although according to the body it cannot be assembled at one place, and yet every group is assembled in its own place. This Christendom is ruled by Canon Law and the prelates of the Church.[38] To this belong all the popes, cardinals, bishops, prelates, monks, nuns and all those who in these external things are taken to be Christians, whether they are truly Christians at heart or not. For though membership in this communion[37] does not make true Christians, because all the