Luther has ridiculed the implicit, or blind, faith of Catholics, when he writes:  “The papists say that they believe what the Church believes, just as it is being related of the Poles that they say:  I believe what my king believes.  Indeed!  Could there be a better faith than this, a faith less free from worry and anxiety?  They tell a story about a doctor meeting a collier on a bridge in Prague and condescendingly asking the poor layman, ‘My dear man, what do you believe?’ The collier replied, ‘Whatever the Church believes.’  The doctor:  ’Well, what does the Church believe?’ The collier:  ‘What I believe.’  Some time later the doctor was about to die.  In his last moments he was so fiercely assailed by the devil that he could not maintain his ground nor find rest until he said, ‘I believe what the collier believes.’  A similar story is being told of the great [Catholic theologian] Thomas Aquinas, viz., that in his last moments he was driven into a corner by the devil, and finally declared, ‘I believe what is written in this Book.’  He had the Bible in his arms while he spoke these words.  God grant that not much of such faith be found among us!  For if these people did not believe in a different manner, both the doctor and the collier have been landed in the abyss of hell by their faith.” (17, 2013.)

Luther’s teaching regarding the Church leads to a proper valuation of the means of grace.  Only through the evangelical Word and the evangelical ordinances is the Church planted, watered, and sustained.  It is, therefore, necessary that the world be supplied in abundance with the Word through the missionary operations of Christians, and that the Christians themselves have the Word dwell among them richly (Col. 3, 16).  “He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing,” says the Head of the Church to His disciples (John 15, 5); and in His last prayer He pleads with the Father in their behalf:  “Sanctify them through Thy truth:  Thy Word is truth” (John 17, 17).  For the same reason it is necessary that the Word and Sacraments be preserved in their Scriptural purity, that any deviation from the clear teaching of the Bible be resisted, and orthodoxy be maintained.  Errors in doctrine are like tares in a wheat-field:  they are useless in themselves, and they hinder the growth of good plants.  Error saves no one, but some are still saved in spite of error by clinging to the truth which is offered them along with the error.  Luther believed that this happened even in the error-ridden Catholic Church.

Luther’s teaching regarding the Church enables us, furthermore, to form a right estimate of the ministry in the Church.  Christ wants all believers to be proclaimers of His truth and grace.  The apostle whom Catholics regard as the first Pope says to all Christians:  “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath