s it would thereby
assure them of salvation. Hence it can only take back those who have
been excluded in cases where their offences have not been committed
against God himself, but have consisted in transgressing the
commandments of the Church, that is, in venial sins.[236] But in course
of time it was just in lay circles that faith in God's grace became
weaker and trust in the Church stronger. He whom the Church abandoned
was lost to the world; therefore she must not abandon him. This state of
things was expressed in the new interpretation of the proposition, "no
salvation outside the Church" ("extra ecclesiam nulla salus"), viz.,
_the Church alone saves from damnation which is otherwise certain_. In
this conception the nature of the Church is depotentiated, but her
powers are extended. If she is the institution which, according to
Cyprian, is the indispensable preliminary condition of salvation, she
can no longer be a sure communion of the saved; in other words, she
becomes an institution from which proceeds the communion of saints; she
includes both saved and unsaved. Thus her religious character consists
in her being the indispensable medium, in so far as she alone guarantees
to the individual the _possibility_ of redemption. From this, however,
it immediately follows that the Church would anticipate the judgment of
God if she finally excluded anyone from her membership who did not give
her up of his own accord; whereas she could never prejudge the ultimate
destiny of a man by readmission.[237] But it also follows that the
Church must possess a means of repairing any injury upon earth, a means
of equal value with baptism, namely, a sacrament of the forgiveness of
sins. With this she acts in God's name and stead, but--and herein lies
the inconsistency--she cannot by this means establish any final
condition of salvation. In bestowing forgiveness on the sinner she in
reality only reconciles him with herself, and thereby, in fact, merely
removes the certainty of damnation. In accordance with this theory the
holiness of the Church can merely consist in her possession of the means
of salvation: _the Church is a holy institution in virtue of the gifts
with which she is endowed_. She is the moral seminary that trains for
salvation and the institution that exercises divine powers in Christ's
room. Both of these conceptions presuppose political forms; both
necessarily require priests and more especially an episcopate. (In de
p