spirit and
life of the outward and visible Church. This truth the Silesian
reformer knew full well, and for this reason he was ready at all costs
to be a quiet apostle of the invisible Community of God and let the
outward {87} organism and organ of its ministry come in God's own way.
The nobler men among the English Seekers, as also among the Dutch
Societies, rose gradually to this larger view of spiritual religion,
and came to realize, as Schwenckfeld did, that the real processes of
salvation are inward and dynamic. Samuel Rutherford is not a very safe
witness in matters which involve impartial judgment, or which concern
types of spiritual experience foreign to his own type, but he is
following a real clew when he connects, as he does, the leaders of
spiritual, inward religion in his day, especially those who had shared
the seeker aspirations, with Schwenckfeld.[48] Rutherford's account is
thoroughly unfair and full of inaccuracies, but it suffices at least to
reveal the fact that Schwenckfeld was a living force in the period of
the English Commonwealth, and that, though almost a hundred years had
passed since his "home-passage" from Ulm was accomplished, he was still
making disciples for the ever-enlarging community and household of God.

[1] The most important material for a study of Schwenckfeld is the
following:--

_Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum_, edited by C. D. Hartranft. Published
Leipzig, vol. i. (1907); vol. ii. (1911); vol. iii. (1913). Other
volumes to follow.

_Schriften von Kaspar Schwenckfeld_, in 4 folio volumes. Published
between the years 1564-1570. Indicated in my notes as vol. i., vol.
ii., vol. iii. A, vol. iii. B. There are, too, many uncollected books
and tracts, to some of which I refer in footnotes.

Karl Ecke, _Schwenckfeld, Luther, und der Gedanke einer apostolischen
Reformation_ (Berlin, 1911). Important book, but to be followed with
caution.

R. H. Gruetzmacher, _Wort und Geist_ (Leipzig, 1902).

Gottfried Arnold, _Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historien_, i. pp. 1246-1299.
(Edition of 1740.)

H. W. Erbkam, _Geschichte der prolestantischen Sekten im Zeitaller der
Reformation_ (Hamburg und Gotha, 1848), pp. 357-475.

Doellinger, _Die Reformation_, i. pp. 257-280.

Ernst Troeltsch, _Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und
Gruppen_ (Tuebingen, 1912), pp. 881-886.

[2] Christ, Schwenckfeld insisted, is the sum of the whole Bible, and
to learn to know Christ fundamentally is t