Thirty-Nine Articles (Thomas): Article 19, "Of the Church" (277ff.)

“Our study of the important subject shows the absolute necessity of avoiding all exaggeration of “the Church.” In particular, care must be taken in regard to any personification of the Church as “Holy Mother,” or, in the words of Augustine, that “He shall not have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his Mother.” “High” views of the Church often mean low views of Christ, for there is an undoubted danger of placing the Church between the soul and Christ. The true Churchman is one who believes in the view of the Church taught by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians. This is the highest doctrine, has the virtue of being absolutely Scriptural…On the other hand, we must be equally careful not to depreciate the Church, for this extreme is equally serious. Its life must be fostered. The truest Catholicity is limited only by New Testament principles, excluding none who love the Lord in sincerity. We shall never arrive at New Testament doctrine by the extreme of a low doctrine of the Church. There is nothing higher than the New Testament conception of the Church by reason of its essential narrowness, and in reality is due to a “high,” but erroneous doctrine not of the Church, but of the ministry…If we exalt Christ, the Church finds her right place, but Church history more than once shows that together with what are called “High” views of the Church visible have usually been found low views of the Church spiritual and Christ the Head of the Church. Where the Church tends to precede, there Christ tends to recede. If we push forward the Church as the depository of grace, we tend to push back Christ as the Source of grace. But if we exalt Christ in the Godhead of His Person, the completeness of His sacrifice, the uniqueness of His priesthood; if we exalt the Holy Ghost as the direct Revealed of Christ to the soul, as the immediate and not mediated Source of grace to all believers, as the Divine Illuminator of the Word to each disciple—then we shall obtain, and retain in its true position, the primitive and positive truth of the Chruch as that body of which Christ is the Head…” (279-280).