are being made essential
to salvation. The true Reformation, he thinks, should be devoted to the
construction of the invisible Church, which has existed in all ages of
the world, but which is kept from realizing its full scope and power
because the attention of men is too greatly absorbed with signs and
symbols and outward things.[11]

For similar reasons he disapproved of the Anabaptists, even in their
purified form as worked out under the guidance of Menno Simons. They
still held, as did the reformed churches, that the true Church is a
visible church which every one to be a Christian must join, though this
true Church, as they conceive it, consists only of "saints." They claim
the authoritative right to ban all persons who, according to their
opinion, are not "saints." This right Coornhert denies. He further
disapproves of their literal interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount,
and of the obstacles which they put in the way of the free exercise of
prophecy on the part of the members of the community. He insists that a
person may be a Christian and yet belong to no visible church, if
meantime he is a true member of the invisible Communion. He himself
refrained from taking the communion supper, either with Papists,
Lutherans, or Calvinists, because he said they all set the sacrament
above the real characteristic mark of Christian membership, which is
love, and because there is no divine command, with distinct and
unambiguous authority, for the efficacious celebration of the sacrament,
which in any case could not be rightly kept so long as sectarian
hostility and lack of love prevail in the contending visible
churches.[12] Under these circumstances, Coornhert, who was intensely
concerned for the sincere, simple-minded souls, perplexed by the maze of
varying sects and parties, refused to found a new sect or to head a new
schismatic movement. On behalf of those who could not {113} conform, he
pleaded for freedom of conscience and for the right to live in the world
undisturbed as members of the invisible Church, using or omitting outward
ceremonies as conscience might direct, waiting meantime and seeking in
quiet faith for the coming of new and divinely commissioned apostles who
would _really reform_ the apostate Churches, unite all divided sects, and
gather in the world a true Church of Christ.[13]

Meantime, while waiting for this true apostolic Church to appear,
Coornhert approved of the formation of an _int