n an external Church, nor in the
external use of sacraments, nor in any external thing, but that it
rests alone in Jesus Christ our Lord, and is received through true and
living faith.[43]

For Schwenckfeld himself the important matter was the increase of this
inward life, the silent growth of this kingdom of God in the hearts of
men, the spread of this invisible Church, but his writings plainly
suggest that God will eventually restore the former glory to His
visible Church. "You are," he says, in one of his epistles, "to pray
earnestly that God will raise up true apostles and preachers and
evangelists, so that His Church may {86} be reformed in Christ, edified
in the Holy Ghost, and unified into one, and so that our boasting of
the pure preaching of the Gospel and the right understanding and use of
the sacraments may be true before God,"[44] and the time is coming, we
may in good faith believe, when the sacraments will be used according
to the will of Christ, and then there will be a true Christian Church,
taught outwardly by apostolic ministers and taught inwardly by the Lord
Himself.[45] Fortunately, however, salvation does not depend upon
anything outward, and during the _Stillstand_ or interim there is no
danger to be feared from the intermission of outward ceremonies.[46]

Sebastian Franck graphically describes this waiting, seeking attitude
as well known in his time. He wrote in his "Chronicle" (1531): "Some
are ready to allow Baptism and other ceremonies to remain in abeyance
["stilston," evidently Schwenckfeld's _Stillstand_] until God gives a
further command and sends true labourers into His harvest-field. For
this some have great longings and yearnings and wish nothing else."[47]
The intense _expectation_ which the Seekers, both in Holland and
England, exhibit was, of course, a much later development, was due to
many influences, and is connected only indirectly with the reforming
work and the Gospel message of Schwenckfeld. It indicates, in the
exaggerated emphasis of the Seekers, a failure to grasp the deeper
significance of spiritual Christianity as a present reality, and it
misses the truth, which the world has so painfully slowly grasped, that
the only way to form an apostolic and efficacious visible Church is not
through sudden miracles and cataclysmic "restorations" and
"commissions," but by the slow contagion and conquering power of this
inward kingdom, of this invisible Church, as it becomes the