As far as we are concerned, if one man, Noah, condemned all the men of his generation by his faith, there is no reason why a great crowd of unbelievers should move us from our position. At the same time, I say that it is not only hardly a probable, but indeed an unjust and disgraceful, cause of a scandal when regard for men outweighs the Word of God. What then? Will the truth of God not stand unless we have been pleased to put our confidence in men? On the contrary, as Paul says, “Let man remain the liar that he is. Let those to whom God deigns to reveal himself, know that he is true” (Rom. 3:4). And we have already shown elsewhere why the majority of men are so reluctant about yielding themselves in obedience to God. Therefore, when the world shows such obstinacy it is by no means appropriate that our faith be directed according to the example of the multitude. Moreover, the sign is given by Christ, “where the eagles gather together there the body is” (Matt. 24:28). I do not deny indeed that if all the eagles ever gathered together in one place, the conversion of the whole world is to be looked for at once. But since Christ is not meaning there all eagles in general, but those which follow the life-giving odor of his death, who does not see that the expression must be restricted to a few men? If anyone perhaps objects that we are not excused by the example of Noah, if we separate ourselves from that crowd which keeps the name of “the Church,” Isaiah, when he gave orders to abandon the conspiracy of men and follow God alone, was referring not to strangers but to those who were at that time glorying exceedingly in the name of the people of God (Isa. 8:12). And when Peter compares the Church to the ark, because in a perishing world a small company of men is saved as if through a flood, he is giving warning enough that we must not be dependent on the multitude (I Pet. 3:20ff.). Why then does it please wretched men to grasp at the chance of staggering and tottering in the changeable breezes of the world when God makes us firm on the eternal foundation of his Word? Why do they prefer to be tossed about in the midst of the storms of opinions rather than lie quietly in the safe harbor of certain truth, where God invites us?

Yet it is not here that we are engaged in the most important struggle. But after the papists have set up the Church on the throne of Christ, so that it establishes religion by its own authority, and makes judgments on Scripture without challenge, they then seize that right, whatever it is, for themselves. Indeed, because it is as easy as it is dangerous to be deceived in this matter, we wish that it be determined which is the true Church. It is certainly no new thing for those who take charge in the office of pastor sometimes to be “cruel wolves” (Acts 20:29), and for those who have customary power in their hands to be ungodly and treacherous betrayers of God and the Church. Why then do lifeless specters frighten us away from investigating, as is proper, whether what is called “the Church” is truly the Church? Paul says that the Church is “the pillar of the truth” (I Tim. 3:15), but he also predicts the rebellion of the already converted world and the open reign of Antichrist in the temple of God (II Thess. 2:4). It is known well enough that he had to undergo the same struggles by which we are exercised today, when the Jews, taking pride in the name of “the Church,” were loud in their complaints that he was both an apostate and the cause of schisms and disturbances.

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