ywhere, to the great
injury of many souls, who think that such outward show is the
spiritual and only true estate in Christendom. Of such a purely
external Church, there is not one letter in the Holy Scriptures.
The building and increase of the Church, which is the body of
Christ, cometh alone from Christ, Who is its head. Christendom is
ruled with outward show; but that does not make us Christians.
The Church is a spiritual and not a bodily thing, for that which
one believes is not bodily or visible. The external marks whereby
one can perceive this Church is on earth, are Baptism, the
Sacrament and the Gospel. For where Baptism and the Gospel are no
one may doubt that there are saints, even if it were only the
babes in their cradles."

[27] "It is evident that a type is material and external, and
fulfilment of the type is spiritual and internal; what the type
reveals to the bodily eye, its fulfilment must reveal to the eye
of faith alone. The bodily assembly of the people signifies the
spiritual and internal assembly of the Christian people in faith.
Moses set a serpent on a pole and whosoever looked upon it was
made whole. That signifies Christ on the cross. Whosoever
believeth in Him is saved. And so throughout the entire Old
Testament, all the bodily visible things in it signify in the New
Testament spiritual and inward things, which one cannot see, but
only possess in faith. St. Augustine says on John iii: 'This is
the difference between the type and its fulfilment: the type
gave temporal goods and life, but the fulfilment gives spiritual
and eternal life.'"

"Aaron was a type of Christ and not of the Pope. Paul says the
high priest typifies Christ; you say St. Peter. Paul says Christ
entered not into a temporal building. You make the fulfilment to
be earthly and external. If Aaron was a type in external
authority, vestments and state, why was he not a type in all
other external and bodily matters? The Old Testament high priest
was not permitted to have his head shorn. But why does the Pope
have a tonsure? The Old Testament high priest was a subject. Why
then does the Pope have men kiss his feet and aspire to be king,
which Christ Himself did not? Wherein is the type fulfilled?"

[28] Luther to Spalatin, June 8th: "Gegen den Esel von Alveld
werde ich menen Angriff so enrichten dass ich des romischen
Pabstes nich uneingedenk bin, und werde keinem von beiden etwas
schenken. Denn solches erfordert der Stoff mit