r 
 
 
 *C^ PRINCETON, N. J 
 
 % 
 
 Presented by Mr. Samuel Agnew of Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 SCUZ. 
 
 Agnew Coll. on Baptism, No. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/christianunityitOOdave 
 
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CHRISTIAN UNITY 
 
 AISTD ITS EEOOYEEY 
 
 JOHN S. DAVENPORT. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON AND OOMPANT, 
 
 443 & 445 BKOADWAT. 
 1866. 
 
Enteeed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SG6, by 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk's OfBce of the District Court of the United States for the 
 
 Southern District of New Tork. 
 
00]^TE]^TS. 
 
 PAGE 
 Introduction, ,.. .. 5 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSIDERED. 
 
 The dnity of Creation the great purpose of God in Christ — The Church to be the first 
 example of this Unity — This the signilicance of Our Lord's Prayer in John, eh. svii. — 
 The Unity of the Father and the Son the type of Unity in the Church — What is 
 this Unity? — What it implies in the Church — This the last and perfect attainment 
 of the Church — The initial ground of this Unity— Its complete development — 
 The Church originally constituted as one having lost Outward Unity has now to 
 work back to it, that she may be prepared for the coming of her Lord, . . 10 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ORGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF SECURING THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 No Unity of Spirit -where there are Sects — Unity of Spirit not to be attained with- 
 out Means — Are there any Divine Ordinances for the Preservation of Unity found 
 in the Constitution of the Ministry ? — What is meant by Organic Unity ? — The True 
 Constitution of the Church impressed upon her by the Lord — The Divine Consti- 
 tution of the Church the means of bringinginto Subjection, 1, the Will; 2, the Intel- 
 lect ; 3, the Affections— Universality necessary to its Effect, .... 28 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO UNITY. 
 
 The great schism between the East and West — The schism caused by the Protestant 
 Eeformation — This resulted not in dividing the Western Church into two great 
 communities, but into a variety of National Churches, without any common head- 
 ship — Subordinate divisions — ^Statement of the present condition of entire Chris- 
 tendom — The Church, in God's sight, embraces all the baptized — ITie question of 
 lay baptism— The Church not now appearing as one whole, but existing in frag- 
 ments — Principles upon which Unity may be recovered, 55 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE RECOVERY OF ORGANIC UNITY. 
 
 Unity can only be restored by Supernatural Action— The Original Planting of the 
 Church — The Eise of the Ecclesiastical System — Necessity felt for some Ordinance 
 for Preserving Unity — Culminating at last in the Papacy — No Conventional Au- 
 thority sufficient — The only possible Solution, the Supernatural Appointment of 
 Men with Apostolic Powers — Does the New Testament warrant any such expec- 
 tation — How it would be done, page . Tl 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THEORIES OF UNITY. 
 
 The Episcopal theory of Unity, that the collective Episcopate is the Bond of Unity — 
 But what is to unite the Bishops, who have been the chief agents of Schism ? — Gen- 
 eral acknowledgment of Episcopacy by Protestant sects would not unite them 
 with Eome, nor with the East, 86 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ROMAN DOCTRINE OF UNITY. 
 
 The Roman Church has always witnessed to Unity — Two distinct Ideas — Catholic 
 Unity and the form of its Realization — Papal arguments — The Primacy of Peter — 
 What it involved — His position compared with that of Paul — A Primacy in tho 
 Apostolic College necessary that thoy might act as one — Arguments of R. J. Wil- 
 berforce examined — The Bishop of Rome did not inherit Peter's primacy — What is 
 the amount of the distinction that the early Fathers ascribe to the See of Eome — 
 The Primacy of Peter a different thing from the Supremacy of the Popes — Admitted 
 by Roman Catholic writers— Ffulkes on the Divisions of East and West — The first 
 acts of Supremacy exerted by Constantine and his successors, .... 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 
 
 Principles announced by St. Paul— One Body— One Spirit— One Hope — One Lord — 
 One Faith— One Baptism— One God and Father of All— These the Principles by 
 which Unity was to be preserved, and by which it is to be recovered — Theological 
 aspect of these principles — Necessity of going back to first principles, . . 106 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 ' INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The divided state of Christendom is a subject tliat 
 never fails to excite the deepest interest in all wlio truly 
 love the Lord Jesus Christ. There is an instinct in the 
 Christian life which forbids Christian men to rest satis- 
 fied with division. Ever since the consummation of the 
 great schism between the East and the West, in the 
 eleventh century, efforts have from time to time been 
 made to heal the breach, though without any substantial 
 success. The nearest approach to it was made by the 
 Council of Elorence, in 1439 ; which, however, was ren- 
 dered futile by the refusal of the Greeks to assent to the 
 reconciliation. In the next century occurred the Protes- 
 tant Reformation, since when no serious efforts have been 
 made by the Roman Church to restore the broken con- 
 nection, and the principles of Protestantism preclude 
 every wish or desire for a union with Roman Catholics. 
 
6 INTKODUCTION. 
 
 Some members of the English Church have endeavored 
 to fix principles of approximation on the part of that 
 communion vrith the Homan Church, one consequence of 
 which has been the secession of large numbers of her 
 best and ablest men to Rome. But this very result has 
 shown how utterly futile must be any attempt to recon- 
 cile these two ecclesiastical systems. Among Protestants 
 there have been, and continue to be, discussions upon 
 the union of various sects and churches, and a very 
 strong feeling of the evil of division prevails. 
 
 Special interest is manifested in the subject at the 
 present time, and it is supposed that the state of the popular 
 religious mind is favorable to the consideration of any 
 suggestions offered for its solution. 
 
 The interest that is felt on this subject generally, has 
 essayed something like organization to secure the end. 
 
 1. There is, I believe, a wide-spread agreement, es- 
 pecially among members of the English Church, together 
 with Episcopalians in this land, in concert with mem- 
 bers of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, for 
 prayer to God to restore unity to divided Christendom. 
 Such an agreement is always a hopeful sign of good. 
 We know that unity is a result acceptable to God, and 
 may be well assured that such a united prayer, going up 
 from so many hearts, is the inspiration of the Spirit of 
 God, who teaches the Church what to pray for. The 
 answer may not come in the form in which many expect 
 it, but if God's children ask for bread He will not give 
 them a stone, and He will grant their requests in such 
 
INTKODUCnON. 7 
 
 way that they shall know that He has heard their 
 prayers. 
 
 2. An effort is being made on the part of the Episco- 
 palian bodies in England and America, to bring abont 
 intercommunion between these churches and the Greek 
 and Rnsso-Greek churches. When we consider the 
 conflicting opinions on all the questions involved 
 that prevail in these Protestant churches, to say nothing 
 of the other party, we cannot suppose that any thing can 
 be effected that will materially change the relations of 
 these bodies to one another. The English Church, even 
 if there were no other obstacles, can do nothing without 
 the consent of the Government, and there is no proba- 
 bility that the Government will give assent to any move- 
 
 ' ment that is at all likely to bring the Establishment into 
 any intimate relations with other State churches ; and 
 the Episcopal Church in the United States cannot speak 
 with any unanimity on the doctrinal and ecclesiastical 
 questions involved. The most that can be accomplished, 
 therefore, is the interchange of good feeling and the in- 
 crease of mutual intelligence. But still, if intercom- 
 munion could be effected in the way sought for, it would 
 come very far short of the unity which is the perfect con- 
 dition of the Church. 
 
 3. The various Protestant denominations in this land, 
 who for the most part deny any exact divine organiza- 
 tion of the Church, are engaged in an association for 
 Christian union, the plan of which seems to confine 
 itself to the cooperation of the different Christian bodies, 
 
8 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 in such good works as they can perform together without 
 surrendering their denominational principles. This has 
 often been tried before, but has never jet resulted in 
 any thing practical or efficient ; and in the absence of any 
 assertion of organic principles which are to command 
 the faith and submission of the Christian mind, it is dif- 
 ficult to see how any union can be effected which shall 
 have any binding force. 
 
 In so far as these movements are indications of a con- 
 viction of the wickedness and unprofitableness of the 
 sectarian condition of Christendom, they are worthy of 
 respect. We may well hope that the interest which is 
 felt in this subject is the work of the Holy Ghost, draw- 
 ing the minds of men toward a true Christian unity, 
 just as a similar tendency to organization and unity is 
 manifested in the region of the natural. 
 
 The subject, however, needs to be discussed in the 
 light of great principles ; and the attempt has been made 
 in the following pages, to do this from a point of view 
 different from that commonly taken. 
 
 I. It is assumed that the unity of the Spirit is the 
 end to be attained by the Church, and that its attain- 
 ment is perfection. 
 
 II. I have then endeavored to show that the outward 
 unity of the Church is the means of attaining the in- 
 ward unity of the spirit. 
 
 III. As a preliminary to the solution of the problem 
 of a recovered unity, I have taken a review of the pres- 
 ent condition of Christendom with reference to unity. 
 
INTKODIJCTION. 9 
 
 rV. I have stated the method in which unity is to be 
 recovered. 
 
 To this is added an examination of different theories of 
 unity, and the whole is closed with some practical sug- 
 gestions as to the conditions of any progress in the di- 
 rection of a recovered unity. 
 
 If this effort shall have no other result than to lead 
 some minds to a more Catholic tone of thought on this 
 subject, it will not be in vain ; and I shall hope that it 
 may serve as a preparation for meeting future conditions 
 of the Church, when the necessity of unity to the very 
 existence of an organized Christianity will be manifest 
 
 to all. 
 
 1* 
 
CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSIDERED. 
 
 The Unity of Creation the great purpose of God in Christ — The Church to be the first 
 example of this Unity — This the signiflcance of Our Lord's Prayer in John, ch. xrii. — 
 The Unity of the Father and the Son the type of Unity in the Church — What is 
 this Unity? — "What it implies in the Church — This the last and perfect attainment 
 of the Church — The Initial ground of this Unity — Its complete development — 
 The Church originally constituted as one having lost Outward Unity has now to 
 work back to it, that she may be prepared for the coming of her Lord. 
 
 The great purpose of God In Clirist we are told bj S. 
 Paul is, " to gather together in one head (icecjiaXaicdoaaOai), 
 all things in Christ, which are in heaven, and which are 
 on earth, even in him." ' Unity, organization, bringing 
 all things under headship to Christ, is the work of God 
 which extends to all creation. All beings are to have 
 their places assigned them, and to recognize those place^ 
 in subjection to the Man to whom God has given all au- 
 thority and power in heaven and in Earth. The rule of 
 Christ is to be seen and manifested in every sphere of 
 existence, so that through Him, as the manifestation of 
 the Invisible, God may be all in all. If this result is to 
 be attained in all the ranks of Creation it must first of 
 all appear in the Church, which is the company of the 
 
 ' Ephes. i. 10. 
 
THE TEUE NATTJEE OF UNITY CONSrD:EKED. '"^] .IX -<£'/>> '^ '%_ 
 
 first-born, and will, in the age to corae, occupy the place 
 of precedency over all other classes of intelligences. S. 
 Paul writes : " Unto me, who am less than the least of 
 all Saints, is this grace given, that I should preach amon'g 
 the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and make 
 all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which 
 from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, 
 who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that 
 now, unto the principalities and powers in the heavenlies, 
 may be made known by the Church, the manifold wis- 
 dom of God, according to His eternal purpose which He 
 purposed in Christ Jesus, our Lord." ^ 
 
 The Church then — the body called out from the 
 world in Christ — is to be the example of the fulfilment of 
 God's purposes in Creation. It is by the Church that 
 the divine wisdom is to be manifested, and the purpose 
 to gather all things together in one head under Christ, is 
 to be declared. It would follow of necessity that first of 
 all, this unity which is the end of God's works, should 
 be made to appear in the Church. The Church that is 
 to witness to the creation of the heading up of all things 
 in Christ — of the perfect organization and order of every 
 created intelligence under the rule of the Man exalted 
 to His Father's right hand, must, in order to such a wit- 
 ness, be itself constituted in unity under Him who is its 
 head. And we can thus see the more readily what is the 
 significance of the prayer of our Lord in the 17th chap- 
 ter of John : " ISTeither pray I for these alone, but for them 
 
 ' Ephes. iii. 8-10. 
 
12 THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED. 
 
 also that shall believe in me through their word ; that 
 they all may be one ; as Thou Father art in me and I in 
 Thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world 
 may believe that Tliou hast sent me. And the glory 
 which Thou gavest me I have given them ; that they 
 may be one even as we are one, I in them and Thou in 
 me, that they may be made perfect in one ; and that the 
 world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved 
 them as Thou hast loved me." ' The Church is the or- 
 gan whereby the Divine glory is to be made known, as 
 the means of gathering into one head all things in 
 Christ. The Divine glory is seen in the unity of the 
 Father and the Son, and that unity can only then be 
 manifest to the Creation, when those whom God hath 
 chosen out of the world and given to His Son, are so 
 united as to present an image or reflection of that unity. 
 Hence it is, that by S. Paul the perfect result of God's 
 actings in the Church is expressed by the attainment of 
 unity : " Until we all come into (eig) the unity of the 
 Faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a 
 perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful- 
 ness of Christ." "" It is this attainment which our Lord 
 contemplates in His intercessory prayer — the prayer 
 which we may not doubt He continually offers for His 
 people before His Father's throne. This prayer must 
 have its answer, for whatever the Well-Beloved asks of 
 the Father will surely be granted. The delay in its 
 complete fulfilment furnishes no cause for doubting its 
 
 ' John xvii. 20-23. ^ Ephes. iv. 13. 
 
THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSIDERED. 13 
 
 ultimate accomplislimeiit. We are held to the assurance 
 that the time will come when there shall be on earth a 
 company of those who believe in Christ, who shall be so 
 united one to another, as to realize this unity here de- 
 scribed — the unity which subsists between the Father 
 and the Son. 
 
 This now is the unity of the Spirit, which S. Paul 
 exhorts the Ephesian Christians to preserve — " endeavor- 
 ing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." ^ 
 It had its exemplification at the beginning of the Grospel 
 dispensation. It existed and was a thing to be zealously 
 kept. There were causes even then in operation, as we 
 learn from the Epistles to the Corinthians, the Philip- 
 pians, the Galatians, the Hebrews, and indeed from al- 
 most all the Epistles, which threatened to disturb it ; 
 these causes have for centuries operated to such an 
 extent in Christendom, that the problem now is, not how 
 to preserve unity, but how to recover it. 
 
 The unity thus referred to is something deeper and 
 more mysterious than any mere ecclesiastical unity, how- 
 ever necessary that may be for its attainment. It is 
 something more real and vital than any consent or 
 agreement of sects one with another. It is a unity 
 which has no parallel in human or finite relations : 
 " That they may be one ; as Thou Father art in me and 
 I in Thee, that they also may be one in us (I in them 
 and Thou in me), that they may be made perfect in one." 
 It is a unity that results from believers partaking of the 
 
 ^ Ephes. iv. 3. 
 
14 THE TEUE NATUEE OF UNITY CONSIDEEED. 
 
 glory whicli the Father gave to the Son, and which He 
 had given to them. The more we attempt to compre- 
 hend this mystery, the more does it appear to pass all un- 
 derstanding. What can we say of that nnity, whicli is 
 thus set forth as the type of the spiritual unity in the 
 Church ? What is the unity of the Father and the Son ? 
 On such a topic we must speak and write very reverent- 
 ly, lest we should be intruding into what is not revealed. 
 But as this is set before us as the type of the unity of 
 the Church, we may venture to look into it with such 
 light as Holy Scripture casts upon it. 
 
 The unity of the Father and the Son consists in the 
 participation by each of the Divine Persons of the same 
 substance, and their possession of one and the same Spir- 
 it (who is also a Person), while yet their personality is 
 unimpaired, and while there is a different sphere of act- 
 ings of the two Divine persons ; still there is that relation 
 between them that the acts of each become the acts of 
 the other. The Father is the source of all Being. The 
 Son is begotten of the Father, and it is by Him that the 
 will of the Fatlier is carried out. The Spirit proceedeth 
 from the Father, and is the giver of life to all creation ; 
 but the Spirit which proceedeth from the Father is also 
 in the Son, and proceedeth from the Son, and herein is 
 the bond of unity. In every man there is one individual 
 spirit which is in him and not in another. No man can 
 impart his own life to another, or cause his spirit to re- 
 side in another. Hence, though all men are partakers of 
 the same nature, and in this respect are one, yet is not 
 
THE TEUE NATUKE OF "UNITY CONSIDEEED. 15 
 
 the luiity complete. In tlie Father and the Son, however, 
 there is one Spirit who is also a Person and who can re- 
 side in both, so that here is a unity not conceivable 
 among creatm'es. The Son is in the Father, and the 
 Father is in the Son. 
 
 As this therefore is the nnity of the Divine persons, so 
 does the unity of the members of the Body of Christ con- 
 sist in this, that as they are by the Holy Ghost partakers 
 of the one nature of Christ, and thus He is " in them," 
 so they are by virtue of their union to Him one with the 
 Father also — " I in them and Thou in me" — and there- 
 fore in the highest sense one with another. There is 
 among the members of Christ a mystical union, to Him 
 and to one another, which lies quite out of the region 
 of natural modes of conception, and is known only by 
 Faith. This is clearly implied in such passages of Scrip- 
 ture as the following : "Abide in me and I in you. As 
 the branch cannnot bear fruit of itself except it abide in 
 the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am 
 the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me 
 and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit ; for 
 without me ye can do nothing. K a man abide not in 
 me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men 
 gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are 
 burned. If ye abide in me and I in you, ye shall ask 
 what ye will and it shall be done unto you." ' " Know 
 ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
 Christ were baptized into His death ? Therefore we are 
 
 ' John XV. 4-8. 
 
16 THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSmERED. 
 
 buried with Him by Baptism into death, that like as 
 Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the 
 Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life," 
 &G. * " And now little children abide in Him, that 
 when He shall appear ye may have confidence and not 
 be ashamed before Him at His coming." ^ What is im- 
 plied in these words is an actual relation to Christ, which 
 is not mere verbal, or external, but real and vital, as 
 proceeding from the participation of His life ; and as all 
 who truly believe in Christ and conform to His command- 
 ments are said to be in Him — to be members of Christ — 
 members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, so 
 must they also be one with each other. 
 
 The unity of the Father and the Son involves also the 
 most perfect oneness of mind and purpose. There are 
 no varying purposes, no divergent actions of the Divine 
 persons. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but 
 what He seeth the Father do ; for what things soever the 
 Father doeth those also doetli the Son likewise." "I 
 came not to do mine own will, but the will of the Father 
 which sent me." And to complete the parallel, there 
 must be among the members of Christ the same identity 
 of will, of purpose, and of aflfection— all in subordina- 
 tion to the Head. 
 
 Such a perfect unity as is shadowed forth in the 
 prayer of our Lord is the last and perfect attainment of 
 the Church. It is a result to be arrived at, not one 
 which is perfect from the beginning. This is apparent 
 
 ' Rom. Ti. 3, 4, &c. ' John ii. 28. 
 
THE TEUE NATUKE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED. 17 
 
 jfrom the words of St. Paul already referred to : " Till 
 we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowl- 
 edge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, to the 
 measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Here 
 attainment is contemplated, growth, which shall result 
 in perfect nnity. This is involved in the words, too, of 
 the intercessory prayer. The Lord asked his Father, not 
 only that His disciples might partake of that grace which 
 should unite them into one body, bnt that the unity of 
 the body might be preserved and developed, until there 
 should be found in the body of the faithful, a oneness 
 which should be parallel with that of the Father and the 
 Son. The prayer looks to an end. iJ^othing is implied 
 in its terms as to the time when that end shall be reached. 
 It contemplates a working in a body, which can only be 
 complete as that body attains its maturity. When that 
 end is attained, then the Bride will be perfect and pre- 
 pared for the marriage, and the Bridegroom will come 
 and take her to Himself. The time, therefore, that is 
 covered by this prayer is the entire period of the Chris- 
 tian dispensation, during which the Church is being per- 
 fected. It is a result not yet attained, but which must 
 be in a process of attainment. 
 
 The unity of the Spirit, therefore, may be considered 
 under the two heads of its initial ground and its com- 
 plete development. 
 
 I. From the Holy Scriptures we learn that it is by 
 the ordinance of baptism that men are initiated into a 
 participation in the unity of the Body. " By one Spirit 
 
18 THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSEDEEED. 
 
 are we all baptLzed into one body, whether we be Jew 
 or Gentile, whether we be bond or free ; " ' "As many of 
 you as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized 
 into His death ; " and thus by baptism are " planted to- 
 gether," both in the likeness of His death and of His 
 resurrection.'^ For this reason it is proper to say that all 
 the baptized, speaking generally, have a participation in 
 the unity of the Body ; they are, in some sense, members 
 of the body of Christ. This is what we call the " initial 
 ground " of unity. It is based upon the incarnation of 
 the Word. The Son of God came into our nature and 
 became completely one with humanity, a member of the 
 race, of which He was constituted the new head. Tak- 
 ing our nature into union with His own, He cleansed 
 and purified it. Passing through the grave and gate of 
 death, He destroyed in it all remains of corruption and 
 infirmity ; and rising from the dead and ascending to 
 the Father, He presented our nature in His resurrection 
 body to His Father, pure and undefiled. Through the 
 operation of the Holy Ghost He imparts to those who 
 believe in Him the virtue of His resmTection life, by par- 
 taking of which they dwell in Him and He in them. 
 This participation is not a mere influence, it is not a 
 mere moral efiiect produced in the region of the mind 
 and aflections. It is an actual imparting of the vital 
 energy of His own resurrection body, which thus becomes 
 a new life. It is the introduction of a new vital element, 
 which renders possible a true s])iritual obedience. The 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xii. 13. ' Rom. vi. 4, C. 
 
THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSEDEKED. 19 
 
 introduction of this supernatural principle, then, is the 
 element of unity. It is not natural life which is the 
 basis of unity, but a supernatural life, which, by the 
 operation of the Holy Ghost, comes from the person of 
 the Incarnate Word, risen from the dead and entered 
 into a spiritual body. 
 
 If the inquiry should arise, How is this possible — the 
 transmission of the life of Jesus to men ? the answer is 
 twofold : 
 
 First. The same which the Lord gave to the Caper- 
 naites when they said, " How can this man give us his 
 flesh to eat ? " " What if ye shall see the Son of Man 
 ascend up where He was before ? It is the Spirit that 
 quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." The change 
 from the natural to the spiritual body, and its ascension 
 to heaven, alters the case. This man, as you now see 
 Him, cannot give you His flesh to eat — can do nothing 
 answering to that form of words ; but in the spiritual 
 body He may impart it to you as a spiritual substance. 
 What is absiu'd in one state of facts is admissible in an- 
 other. And so the conditions which are applicable to 
 the natural life of a man, do not hold with reference 
 to the spiritual nature of Him who is the Word made 
 flesh. We cannot argue from the case of the natural to 
 the supernatural. It is a matter of faith. All that can 
 be said by way of argument upon the subject, is to show 
 that there is no presumption against it. 
 
 Secondly. One human spirit cannot impart its own 
 substance to another ; but this limitation does not apply 
 
20 THE TKUE NATUEE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED. 
 
 to the Divine Spirit. The mystery of the Trinity ex- 
 tends itself to the body of Christ. As the one Spirit is 
 in the Father and the Son, so does He, proceeding fi*om 
 both the Father and the Son, also impart the life of the 
 Son, incarnate and glorified, to the members of the 
 Church. The Church is the temple of the Holy Ghost, 
 and He dwells personally in every member of the Chm*ch 
 in whom the conditions of a perfect unity with Christ 
 are fulfilled. The faith which admits the Trinity, need 
 find no difiiculty in the truth of the oneness of the bap- 
 tized with Christ. 
 
 It is thus that in the initiatory sacrament, there is im- 
 planted in the spiritual constitution of the baptized the 
 germ of that spiritual life, which, in its perfect maturity, 
 develops into perfect unity. 
 
 We come, therefore, to consider the second head under 
 which the unity of the spirit is to be considered. 
 
 II. The element or germ of unity being thus im- 
 planted by the impartation of a supernatural life, re- 
 mains to be developed to its manifestation, in the col- 
 lective body of those who believe in Christ through His 
 Word, ministered in His Church. This result involves 
 an entire unity of faith, of hope, of purpose, of afiection ; 
 and where this exists, there will be the perfect unity of 
 the Spirit — the Lord's prayer will have been answered. 
 
 First of all to be attained is " unity of faith and of the 
 knowledge of the Son of God." Without this, all appar- 
 ent unity is delusive. It has been the instinct of the 
 divine life in the Church resisting separation, which has 
 
THE TKUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSEDEEED. 21 
 
 in past ages maintained the conflict for the integrity and 
 unity of Christian doctrine. Tliere has ever been a deep 
 conviction of the necessity of an entire agreement in all 
 that was properly dejide — all that related to the knowl- 
 edge of God and of Jesus Christ. However much con- 
 troversy may have heen embittered by personal interests 
 and worldly motives, yet the teachers and confessors of 
 past ages — those who, like Athanasius, have withstood 
 a world in defence of the last iota of truth — have been 
 impelled by the conviction, that the very existence of the 
 Church deiDended on the maintenance, unimpared, of 
 the faith once delivered to the saints. The heretics have 
 in all ages been ready to assent to a variety of creeds — 
 a difference in forms of expression for declaring the most 
 fundamental and eternal truths — those in which Chris- 
 tianity as a system consists ; while the party that has 
 contended for the unity of the body has always been 
 strenuous for the assertion of fixed forms of faith. 
 
 It is manifest that differing dogmas will and must re- 
 sult in differing sentiments and practical conclusions. 
 The office of the Gospel, fully administered, is to " cast 
 down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth 
 itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring every 
 thought in subjection to the obedience of Christ." The 
 truth is one thing and not another. There may be some 
 things relating to the religious life which are matters of 
 opinion ; but this is not the case with those which relate 
 to the knowledge of the Son of God. Two differing 
 opinions cannot be equally admissible concerning the 
 
22 THE TEUE nStuK^O^^^^Y CONSIDEKED. 
 
 person or tliework of Christ, or His relation to His 
 followers or to the Church. One or the other must be 
 wrong, and it belongs to the Church, as the witness for 
 the truth, to define doctrine and say, " This is the 
 Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he 
 cannot be saved." * It is the part of faith to submit to 
 divine revelation — and opinion is not faith. There is no 
 faith where one is doubtful whether what he believes is 
 or is not the very truth of God. The admission of a 
 variety of beliefs in the Church would unsettle every 
 belief, so that no faith were possible. 
 
 St. Paul is very urgent upon the Churches to main- 
 tain perfect unity of conviction. To the Corinthians 
 he writes ( 1 Cor. i. 10) : " Kow I beseech you, brethren, 
 by the name of om' Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak 
 the same thing, and that there be no divisions among 
 you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same 
 mind and in the same judgment." To the Philippians 
 (ch. iii. 3) : " If there be, therefore, any consolation in 
 Christ, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and 
 mercies, fulfil ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having 
 the same love, being of one accord, of one mind." To 
 the Thessalonians ( 2d Epis. ii. 15 ) : " Therefore stand 
 fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, 
 whether by word or our epistle." These and other pas- 
 sages, having a similar bearing, make it apparent that a 
 complete and unbroken unity in the intellectual convic- 
 tion of every member of the body, in respect to all that 
 
 ' Athanasian creed. 
 
THE TEUE NATETEE OF UNITY CONSIDERED. 23 
 
 can be called the knowledge of Christ— all that relates 
 to Him in every aspect of His work — is the most essen- 
 tial condition or prerequisite of the unity of spirit which 
 is implied in our Lord's prayer. To specify doctrines 
 would give a direction to this discussion which is not 
 intended, and is therefore avoided ; but we may say this, 
 that in order to the realization of unity, there must be 
 such an exhaustive and comprehensive method of recog- 
 nized teaching on the matters of faith, as shall preclude 
 all controversy, and shall cover every question which 
 can possibly arise as a cause of separation. The Church, 
 the body of the faithful, must reach such an attainment. 
 The idiosyncrasies of intellect which strive to assert 
 themselves must be mastered by the truth. The pecu- 
 liarities of disposition, of temperament, of natural life, 
 even, must give way so far as to recognize what truly 
 comes from God. The pride of life, the consciousness 
 of power and of intelligence, which arrays itself against 
 the authority of the Lord, must be sacrificed. Spir- 
 itual truths are manifested in opposite (not opposing) 
 poles, and much of the division which has given rise to 
 sects, has resulted from parties considering one side of 
 the truth, to the exclusion of the other. Of this the 
 Calvinistic and Arminian controversies of our own 
 time furnish a pertinent example. There is truth in both 
 sides, and it is the office of a true spiritual discernment 
 to see both sides of the truth in harmony. The intel- 
 lectual tendencies of different classes of persons have led 
 them to assert the one and the other side as the exclusive 
 
24 THE TETJE NATTJEE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED, 
 
 truth, while the mind that is regulated not by its own 
 natural tendencies, but by the faith which is the gift of 
 God, will embrace the truth contained in both sides, and 
 contemplate them in harmony as one. Such a reconcil- 
 iation is not of the nature of compromise — does not in- 
 volve the surrender of a truth or the admission to an 
 equal standing with it of an error, but it is the victory 
 of faith over the divisive tendencies of the fleshly intel- 
 lect. Faith wrought by the Holy Ghost is operative in 
 the spirit and works by love. It is light in the intellect, 
 and life and energy in the will. Faith is unity so far as 
 it is spiritual and not corrupted by the fleshly under- 
 standing. The things in which faithful men differ, are 
 either matters of opinion which are not faith, or points 
 which have little or no relation to their belief, and should 
 never be brought into religious controversy. 
 
 The attainment of this unity of Faith and of the 
 knowledge of the Son of God, is the complete develop- 
 ment of the Spiritual life imparted to the baptized. It 
 is the result of growth, not the effect of argument or 
 controversy. It is effected by the Holy Ghost working in 
 the body of the baptized, and knitting them together 
 into one. When realized, it will be the answer to the 
 prayer of the Lord, that they all may be one, for then the 
 one Spirit which is in the Father and the Son, abiding also 
 in the Church, will effect unity of knowledge, unity ol 
 purpose, unity of love. The will of the Father will be 
 the controlling will of the whole body. The knowledge 
 of the Son, as the manifestation of the Father, will be 
 
THE TEUE NATUEE OP "UNITY CONSIDERED. 25 
 
 tlie light lighting every man. The carrying out of the 
 pui'pose of God as manifested in His Son will be the sole 
 desire and intent of every individual member ; while the 
 perfect love which casteth out fear, the love of God 
 shed abroad in the heart, and extending itself to all crea- 
 tion, will be the perfection of the chain of unity. 
 
 The Church was born in the unit}'^ of the Spirit, so 
 that St. Paul when he wrote could say without the need 
 of any qualification, " There is one body." There had as 
 yet arisen no schism in the body. There were not two 
 or more companies of Christians claiming each to be the 
 Church or fragments of the Church. 'No outward breach 
 of unity of the Spirit had occurred, and so the exhorta- 
 tion was to preserve what already existed. 
 
 But the Faith out of which this unity sprang was as 
 yet immature. It needed to be tried, and in the trial its 
 integrity yielded. The spirit of schism early entered 
 and continued to work. St. Paul himself foretold an 
 apostacy, and one of its results is the schism of which 
 we now see the fruits. The unity of the Spirit does not 
 prevail, and believers are not one as the Father and the 
 Son are one. There can be no unity of Spirit when sects 
 are allowed or recognized. 
 
 The Church now, therefore, has to work back to the 
 unity which once she possessed and has lost. Her great 
 work is to recover the unity of the Spirit, so that it can 
 again be said in fact as well as in idea, " there is one 
 body." She has to " grow up in all things into Him who 
 is the head, even Christ," so that there may be found on 
 2 
 
26 THE TEUE NATUEE OF UNITY CONSmEKED. 
 
 earth a body, wliicli has attained to the knowledge of the 
 Son of God in its perfection. She has to outgrow or 
 throw off every thing that belongs not to the very essence 
 of the Faith. She has to enlarge her understanding of 
 the Gospel, so as to recognize and embrace every thing 
 that does belong to, or legitimately flow from the true 
 doctrine of Christ as revealed in God's word. The work 
 of recovering unity involves not contraction but enlarge- 
 ment. It is not elimination, but expansion, that is re- 
 quired. Kot breadth, but narrowness, is the cause of 
 schism. It is not affirmation but negation which has 
 given origin to sects. The Church is built doctrinally 
 upon the affirmation of the truth of the Incarnation. It 
 is the refusal to affirm and recognize this truth in all its 
 bearings that has been the occasion of schism. Negation 
 limits the view and restricts the flow of charity. Per- 
 fect unity takes in every fragment of truth and every 
 form of its practical realization, whether in doctrine, in 
 organization, in worship, or in morals, and assigns to 
 every truth its place in the entire system. This state- 
 ment might be illustrated by particulars, but for the wish 
 to avoid a polemical tone in this discussion ; but it is his- 
 torically true. Every truly Christian sentiment has its 
 origin in the Catholic faith, and that faith therefore 
 must be sufficient to comprehend them all. 
 
 Such a unity of Spirit must be attained before the 
 Church can be prepared to be received by her Lord, " as 
 a bride adorned for her husband." " My dove, my un- 
 defiled is one." "Whether this unity shall include all the 
 
THE TKUE NATUKE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED. 27 
 
 baptized or not, it is certain that there must be a com- 
 pany on the earth, in whom the unity of the Father and 
 the Son shall have its manifestation, so that it shall be a 
 witness to the world. It would be according to analo- 
 gies in nature and in grace, that such a, recovered unity 
 should spring from a nucleus, gathering to itself those 
 who might be found prepared to receive the truth, so 
 that they might " grow up into Him who is the head in 
 all things," expanding until the full number necessary to 
 its perfection should be gathered in. The effecting of 
 such a unity is the crowning work of the Holy Ghost in 
 the Church. It is the last and highest result and appli- 
 cation of the life of Jesus in this present dispensation. 
 Only one thing more remains to fulfil the work of sal- 
 vation, and that is the raising of the dead in Christ. 
 This will not be done until the Lord Himself comes forth 
 from His Father's right hand, and a new series of divine 
 acts begins. Perfect unity is the highest manifestation 
 of the power which is now dispensed by Him through 
 the Holy Ghost from His Father's right hand. This 
 power is competent to overcome every hindrance, and 
 bring about a complete and perfect accordance in all 
 things in the Body of Christ. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OEGANIC insriTY THE MEANS OF SECUPvING THE UNITY OF THE 
 
 SPLBIT. 
 
 No Unity of Spirit where there are Sects — Unity of Spirit not to be attained with- 
 out Means — Are there any Diyinc Ordinances for the Preservation of Unity found 
 in the Constitution of the Ministry ? — What is meant by Organic Unity ?— The True 
 Constitution of the Church impressed upon her by the Lord — The Divine Consti- 
 tution of the Church the means of bringing into Subjection, 1, the Will; 2, the Intel- 
 lect ; 3, the Affections — Universality necessary to its Effect 
 
 We have hitherto been regarding the unity of the 
 Spirit, in which consists the perfect attainment of the 
 Church. Unity is an end, not only a means. We are 
 to desire unity, not merely for the strength it will give 
 against enemies, or for the sake of increasing the num- 
 ber of conversions, but because the Church is the sphere, 
 where first of all, the great purpose of God to gather 
 all things under one head in Christ is to be exemplified. 
 The attainment of this unity is the very chiefest result 
 of the probation of the Chm*ch. In the Church first, is 
 this perfect subordination to a head, and perfect union 
 in the head to be seen, that the world at large may 
 also receive the manifestation of the Father through 
 the Son. 
 
 It is too manifest to need sober argument, that unity 
 
SECUEESTG THE "UNriY OF THE SPIEIT. 29 
 
 of spirit cannot exist where there are sects. Sects arise 
 from an imperfect faith — an imperfect knowledge of the 
 Son of God. They involve differing views of matters 
 relating to the faith. They imply the absence of any 
 bond of peace whereby to preserve unity. "Where there 
 are sects, men are not " perfectly joined together in the 
 same mind and in the same judgment " (1 Cor. i. 10). 
 Sects arise from " one saying I am of Paul, and I of 
 Apollos, and I of Cephas " (1 Cor. i. 12). Sects spring 
 either from difference of doctrine concerning Christ 
 Himself and His way of salvation, or from differing 
 views of the relation He sustains to His Church and the 
 way in which it should be ruled, or from preferences as 
 to worship, or worst of all, from some merely se ctional, 
 national, or personal interests. How absurd, then, to talk 
 of unity of spirit in the midst of sects ! The fact most 
 sorrowful of all in this day, next to the existence of sects, 
 is, that many are found who defend sectarianism on prin- 
 ciple, as a condition of the Church acceptable to God 
 and profitable to men. ISTo union of sects where such 
 principles are maintained, is any approach to unity. 
 The very first element of unity is wanting. 
 
 The unity of the Spirit cannot be attained without 
 means. The work* of the Holy Ghost is not immediately 
 upon men, but mediately, through ordinances. For 
 every appointed result in the Church, there is a means 
 appointed by God. For the attainment of every end 
 there is an ordinance, and we cannot suppose that an 
 end so near the heart of our dear Lord as this one of 
 
30 ORGANIC mnxT the means of 
 
 unity, should not be provided for specially, in the system 
 of means and ordinances which He left for the perfect- 
 ing of His Church. For let it be remembered that al- 
 though there is in the Church even in its state of sepa- 
 ration, an instinctive desire and longing for unity, yet the 
 instinct is not so powerful as to make sure of its own 
 aim, or such that unity can be realized without severe 
 spiritual effort. Moreover, it is effected by the opera- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost, and, according to all the analogies 
 of divine working, this special operation requires ordi- 
 nances adapted to the result. 
 
 Have we in Holy Scripture any intimation of any 
 system of ordinances appointed for this purpose? Noth- 
 ing can be more clear than the words of St. Paul, in 
 Ephes. iv. 1-13. Here he urges the obligation to " walk 
 worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called." That 
 is, we are called as members of one body, in which is to 
 be made manifest the purpose of God to gather all things 
 together into one head under Christ. This " worthiness " 
 consists in the exercise of lowliness, meekness, long suf- 
 fering and forbearance, as the correctives of that pride 
 and self-seeking which are the provocatives of schism. 
 In all this it is easy to see, the apostle anticipates and 
 aims to guard against the very sins and infirmities which 
 have in fact been ihe originating causes of the existing 
 schisms. What but pride, and jealousy, and self-will, 
 originated the great schism of the East and the West, 
 and all subsequent schisms of which we now see the 
 fruits ? Then, after stating the absolute grounds of unity, 
 
SECURING THE TJKITY OF THE SPIRIT, 31 
 
 in the essential oneness of body, in tlie fact of tlie body 
 being dwelt in and inspired by one Spirit, and animated 
 by one hope in the one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
 God and Father of all, he proceeds to declare what was 
 the divine ordinance given for the preservation of unity. 
 " Wherefore He saith, when He ascended up on high, 
 He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men ; and 
 He gave some [men] apostles, and some prophets, and 
 some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the 
 perfecting of the saints to the work of ministry, for the 
 edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come into 
 the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
 of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fulness of Christ." ISTow, from this it is 
 very clear that the divine constitution of the ministry 
 is the ordinance for the preservation and perfection of 
 unity ; and as the constitution of the ministry involves 
 the constitution of the Church, we are justified in draw- 
 ing the inference that outward organic unity is the di- 
 vinely ordained means of attaining the perfect unity of 
 the Spirit. 
 
 By organic unity is meant the unity of the whole 
 Church throughout the world in one organization. 
 
 The means precedes the end, as the end presupposes 
 and implies the means. The Church is the mother of us 
 all. Tlie organization is before those who are added to 
 it. The Lord added to the Church daily those who were 
 saved (cw^ojievovg^ Acts ii. 47). The Lord first con- 
 stituted His Church in the twelve, and sent her forth 
 
e32 OEGANic imrrY the meajsts of 
 
 into the world to bear a witness for His name, and 
 when that witness was effectual, those who received it 
 were " added to the Chnrch." Their receiving the wit- 
 ness and believing the word did not make them members 
 of the Church. It was necessary that they should be 
 baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by this act 
 they became members ; and being members in that one 
 body, were bound to preserve the unity of the body by 
 avoiding every thing that tended to division. Kow, what 
 was it first of all that tended to preserve unity ? Mani- 
 festly it was the authority of the Lord in His Apostles. 
 " They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine 
 and fellowship, and breaking of bread " — or, commun- 
 ion — " and prayers." Here the Apostles, acting collect- 
 ively, were the bond of unity to the whole flock. They 
 were the depositories of the authority of Christ the Lord. 
 This authority, recognized in those who were sent by the 
 Lord, bound men together. The Church was not formed 
 and kept together merely by voluntary consent. Its 
 bond was, subjection to authority. St. Paul declared 
 that he was " under the law to Christ." The Church 
 was the centre of spiritual liberty, but it was not a lib- 
 erty unrestrained by law. Jesus is the Man to whom 
 the Father hath given all authority and power. That 
 authority He has placed in His Church, which stands as 
 His representative on earth, and, as a spiritual mother, 
 is charged with authority over her children. The di- 
 vinely appointed organ by which that authority shall be 
 primarily and ultimately exercised, is the apostolic oifice. 
 
SECUELSTG THE UNITT OF THE SPIKIT, 33 
 
 It is not for the Churcli to attempt to frame lier own 
 constitution for herself — to appoint the organs by which 
 this or that function shall be exercised — to modify or 
 adapt her constitution to the changes of the times. 
 This would be to make the Church not the creation of 
 God, but the contrivance of man. The very name of 
 the l)ody of Christ would seem enough to contradict any 
 such conceit. The Church is left in the world as a wit- 
 ness for God, and we know that all that is in the world, 
 or that belongs to it, is enmity against God. Therefore 
 the Church can take nothing from the world. Her office 
 is to mould society, not to be moulded by it. It is to 
 present the ideal of perfection drawn from the divine 
 word, not to assume the ideas which society may pro- 
 pose. 
 
 ITothing can be clearer than that the Lord impressed 
 upon the Church the form that He intended it should re- 
 ceive. " God hath set some in the Church, first Apos- 
 tles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers," &c. " God 
 hath set the members, every one of them, in the body as 
 it hath pleased Him." " God hath tempered the body 
 together, having given more abundant honor to that part 
 which lacked, that there may be no schism — or division — 
 in the body." ' How, with such words of Holy Scripture 
 in view, any one can assert a right on the part of the col- 
 lective membership of the Church to modify its constitu- 
 tion, is amazing ; the very analogy too of one 'body, is 
 against any such assumption. It is a body, and not a 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xii. 18, 24, 28, 
 
34 OEGAOTC UNITY THE MEANS OF 
 
 mere aggregation of individuals, l^o society called a 
 body existing by law, or in any other way than as a mere 
 voluntary association, can change or modify its organic 
 law. That can only be done by the power that gave it 
 being. The attempt to change the organization of the 
 natural body, can result only in death or deformity. 
 
 ]^ow it is this organization, thus divinely formed, 
 which is the ordained means of effecting and bringing to 
 perfection that unity of the Spirit which is the great ob- 
 ject of desire in the Lord's intercessory prayer. It is or- 
 dained for this purpose, and is adapted to the end. The 
 perfection of unity, as we have seen, involves the bring- 
 ing of every thought into subjection to the obedience of 
 Christ. The will — the understanding — the affections, 
 all must be made to perfectly coincide with the will of 
 God, in order that the Holy Ghost may work effectually 
 in the members of the Body of Christ, to produce that 
 unity which is answerable to the unity of the Father and 
 the Son ; and it is by the external unity of the Church 
 that this effect is produced. 
 
 1. The unity of the Church is the means for the pro- 
 bation of man's will. 
 
 It is by authority, manifesting the will of the supe- 
 rior, that the will of man is brought into subjection. God 
 has provided for this in the series of subordinations 
 which are established in society. The relation of parent 
 and child meets us at our entrance into life. The lirst 
 waking consciousness recognizes the will of a superior 
 by which the child is to be controlled, and in this is laid 
 
SECUEESTG THE UNITY OF THE SPIKIT. 35 
 
 the foundation of all organized social life. Obedience to 
 parents is tlie very essence of filial piety, and in ttie ear- 
 lier years before the powers of discernment are developed, 
 the spirit of filial obedience is doubtless an atonement 
 for many acts in themselves evil which are performed 
 under its promptings. The moral judgment may indeed 
 be fearfully perverted in such cases, but there is a com- 
 pensation in the control which is acquired over the will, 
 and in a will early made subject to a lawful authority 
 lies the secret of many a case of recovery from an almost 
 hopeless degradation. If we were compelled to make a 
 choice between a will duly subjected under a perverted 
 moral training, and a high culture of the moral senti- 
 ments in which the spirit of obedience was wanting, it 
 is hardly to be doubted that the former would be chosen. 
 It is an anomaly, indeed, to speak of high moral culture 
 where the will is not brought into subjection to author- 
 ity ; but we know that it is a fact of frequent occurrence, 
 that families in which there is the nicest sense of honor, 
 the highest disposition to recognize the rights of others, 
 and the most refined sensibility to every thing that is 
 beautiful, grow up without any adequate idea of subjec- 
 tion to authority. Under the mistaken notion that 
 every thing must be carried by love, no restraint is ever 
 placed upon the wiUs of children ; and while great sensi- 
 bility of nature may act as a preservative against vice 
 and immorality, yet there is wanting that central ele- 
 ment of a well-formed character — a will subdued to the 
 recognition of law. The publicans and the harlots, with 
 
36 OKGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 
 
 their perverted social morality, go into the kingdom of 
 heaven before the puritanic Pharisee with his self-will in. 
 the ascendant. 
 
 To the child, while he is a child, the parent stands in 
 God's stead. As intelligence expands, and the perception 
 of God's commandments gains place in the mind, the re- 
 spect for parental authority will of necessity undergo mod- 
 ification, as it is discovered whether that authority is in 
 conformity with, or opposed to God's commandments. 
 And here oftentimes there will arise questions of personal 
 duty, and stragglings with doubt and diflSculty, which 
 will require prayer and spiritual counsel to determine. 
 But there is a long period before this, during which no 
 question can arise in the mind of a child but that of 
 obedience, and it is then that the will is to be brought 
 into subjection to the divine authority residing in the 
 parent. 
 
 As we advance to the age of citizenship we are brought 
 under the control of the authority of the State, which is 
 another of the forms in which the authority of God is 
 brought down to men, and the will of man is kept in sub- 
 jection. This is another of the great moral agencies 
 which God has established to prepare men in the 
 natural sphere for that which must be perfected in the 
 spiritual. " That is not first which is spiritual, but that 
 which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual." 
 These arrangements in the natural order for subduing the 
 wills of men all look to the great end of God to bring 
 every thing in subjection to His Son ; and their considera- 
 
SECUEING THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 3Y 
 
 tion prepares us to recognize a corresponding arrange- 
 ment in the spiritual order, to perfect the subjection of 
 man's will to God. 
 
 The Church is the repository of a divine authority. 
 As members of the Church, we are not subject to any 
 other authority than what is involved in that relation. 
 We all stand there individually responsible to the Lord 
 for our acts as members of the body. After childhood, 
 the parent's rule does not enter here, however much in- 
 fluence may and should prevail, and the intrusion of the 
 rule of the State is usurpation. It is a relation in which 
 there is the most complete exercise of personal responsi- 
 bility. That self-will, disturbing the fixed order of 
 thiugs, is as liable to assert itself here as anywhere else, and 
 even more so, since there are no material restraints upon 
 it, is obvious from all history. And how is it to be re- 
 strained, and the will of man to be led to a true spiritual 
 obedience, but by the recognition of a true divine authori- 
 ty in the body ? If the Church is a mere voluntary asso- 
 ciation, with a constitution framed by its members and 
 subject to their amendment, what is there to bring the 
 will of man into subjection ? Men cannot reverence what 
 they themselves create. For the sake of policy, they may 
 conform to rules which they have had a hand in framing ; 
 but in such a case there is wanting any influence what- 
 ever to act upon that element of their moral and spiritual 
 nature which has the most to do with the spiritual char- 
 acter. 
 
 To efiect this result of subduing the will, the consti- 
 
38 OKGANIC TJNITT THE MEANS OF 
 
 tution of the Church must be at once definite, divine, 
 and unalterable except bj divine revelation. There 
 must be a line which no self-willed action can pass — a 
 fixed order to which every will must conform. "Without 
 this, discipline can have no salutary spiritual efiect, and 
 it will be well if the exercise of self-will does not extend 
 itself, to the choice of what parts of the divine word shall 
 be obeyed or disregarded. 
 
 Breaches of unity arising from this as well as from 
 every other source, are most likely to spring from the 
 spirit of rebellion or self-will on the part of teachers, or 
 persons holding prominent situations in the Church, and 
 of course it is upon them that the bearing of any ordi- 
 nance for the support of unity will be first felt ; but they 
 could not effect schism without a following, and the same 
 force of authority needs to be recognized by private mem- 
 bers as well, in order that the efiect of keeping the will 
 in subjection to the obedience of Christ may be secured. 
 The idea of the unity of the body, and the necessity of 
 preserving it, of the sinfulness of schism, is that which, 
 if duly apprehended, will restrain any teacher or ruler in 
 the body from setting up his own will against existing 
 authority, and will be a guard to all private members 
 against readily following the lead of those who cause di- 
 visions and contentions. It has indeed been often the 
 case during the history of the Church in the ages, that 
 ecclesiastical power has been wickedly used for the de- 
 struction of those who have asserted only the truth as it is 
 in Jesus: and such things may occur again — nay are 
 
SECUELPTG THE "DNITT OF THE SPIRIT. 39 
 
 occurring at this verj day "before our ejes ; but the part 
 of a faithful Christian in such cases is, to put the ecclesi- 
 astical power in the wrong by leaving to it the initiative 
 in the work of separation. That makes the power the 
 schismatic before God, and He will judge it in His own 
 way. To go about to overthrow any ecclesiastical au- 
 thority lawfully existing, cannot be justifiable, even 
 though that authority as actually exercised contains within 
 itself many elements of evil. Such an effort counteracts 
 the very purpose of God in the unity of the Church — 
 the subjection of man's will to authority. Even an 
 illegitimate authority exercised in the name of the 
 Church should not be readily assailed, for it is better for 
 Christian people to be held in control by an authority 
 which has for them a divine sanction, than not to recog- 
 nize any authority at all. 
 
 The great spiritual result of bringing the whole man 
 into subjection to the obedience of Christ, requires an 
 objective organization, recognized as divine and unchang- 
 able, acting upon the will and restraining every effort at 
 separation. In the absence of any material instruments 
 to enforce its authority it is truly spiritual, audits action 
 is entirely consistent with spiritual freedom, while yet as 
 the embodiment of an idea or principle of divine revela- 
 tion, as a divine ordinance, its control over the conscience 
 is ,complete and adequate to the end proposed. 
 
 2. The objective unity of the Church is a discipline 
 for man's intellect. 
 
 The Gospel is represented as " casting down imagina- 
 
40 ORGAliriC UNITY THE MEANS OF 
 
 tions, or reasonings {Xoyia[j,ovg), and every high thing that 
 exalteth itself against the knowlege of God." In these 
 words, doubtless, reference is had to the intellectual hin- 
 drances and obstructions to a perfect obedience. Every 
 one knows that there has been no such fruitful cause of 
 schism in the Church as the exercise of intellectual sub- 
 tilty. This, even more than resistance to authority, has 
 -broken the bond of peace whereby the unity of the Spirit 
 was to iDe preserved. All the controversies of the earlier 
 centuries were the result of attempts by the subtle 
 oriental intellect, either to explain or develop in their 
 own way the mysteries of the faith, or to remove the 
 difficulties which divine revelation presented to the Unite 
 understanding. Arianism with its modern progeny of 
 Unitarianism, Universalism, and Pantheism is the fi'uit 
 of the refusal of the human intellect to submit itself to 
 divine revelation, and of its determination to judge the 
 word of God by its own narrow lights. The doctrine of 
 transubstantiation is the fruit of scholastic subtil ty, 
 attempting to define a spiritual mystery in the forms of 
 human speech. 
 
 The very culture and elevation which Christianity 
 brings with it, excites the intellectual faculties to that 
 degree of activity that they would fain exercise them- 
 selves on the very problems that revelation discloses. 
 All the questions that exercised the genius of Plato and 
 Aristotle, here present themselves, enlarged and extended 
 by the new relations into which men are brought by the 
 incarnation. "By faith we understand that the ages 
 
SECUEING THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 41 
 
 were constituted by the word of God." Here is a first 
 trutli, in receiving wliicli the Christian philosopher is far 
 in advance of Aristotle. Here is the certain knowledge 
 of a personal deity — the Maker and Source of all things. 
 But this being admitted, it is easy to bring faith to 
 an arrest, and attempt to bring every farther truth sug- 
 gested under the survey of the intellect. God is per- 
 sonal — ^but the words of Holy Scripture lead also to a 
 Trinity. How does this Trinity exist ? Is this a Trinity 
 of persons, or only a Trinity of faculties, or of modes 
 of manifestation? What constitutes the Trinity, and 
 what are the relations of the members of it to one 
 another ? God has manifested himself in human form. 
 From this flow questions of the nature of the incarnation 
 — whether the Son of God who appeared in man's nature 
 was really a divine person of the same substance with His 
 Father, or a creature — whether the nature He took was 
 really united with the divine, or a mere form which He 
 laid aside after His Resurrection — and so on, for we do 
 not propose to give a catalogue of heresies. 
 
 The very subjects of revelation, therefore, are those 
 which more than any others excite intellectual activity, 
 and this fact creates the necessity for some agency, which 
 shall hold the self-asserting intellect in check. The 
 Christian is not perfect until his intellect as well as his 
 will is entirely subject to God and to His Christ. He 
 must be content to know every thing by faith — by com- 
 munication from God through His revealed Avord. He 
 must be willing that even the natural reason which God 
 
42 OEGANIC tnsriTT THE MEANS OF 
 
 lias given him, and whicli in the natural sphere is the true 
 organ of knowing, should stand aside and take its light 
 and its direction from the word of God. Every reason- 
 ing (XoyiGfiog), every high theory or philosophy, which ex- 
 alteth itself against the knowledge of God, must be cast 
 down and made subject to God's word as revealed 
 through his Son. If theories cannot be made to harmonize 
 with revelation, theories must give way. Until this is 
 done in the body, the unity of the spirit cannot be per- 
 fect ; we do not come into the unity of the faith and of 
 the knowledge of the Son of God. 
 
 !N^ow for the attainment of this result the objective 
 unity of the Church is the only adequate means. 
 
 The Holy Scriptures are not written in a dogmatic 
 form. Their structure seems designed to test the faith 
 and docility of those to whom they are given. That by 
 themselves they cannot determine doctrine, is manifest 
 from the fact that they are ajjpealed to by every sect 
 that professes to be Christian at all. This is no reason for 
 withholding them from universal perusal however, since 
 the Church duly constituted is equal to the counteraction 
 of false teachings, and beyond this there must be room 
 for the exercise of individual responsibility in their 
 use. Different interpretations are the work of diflerent 
 self-asserting minds, which have force enough to draw 
 disciples after them. The only corrective of such eccen- 
 tricities is the sense of obligation to preserve the unity 
 of the Spirit. The Church received from the Apostles 
 the form of doctrine into which all her teachings were to 
 
SECUEING THE UNITY OE THE SPERIT. 43 
 
 be cast. Every teacher is bound to teacb in accordance 
 with the analogy of the faith, and to interpret Holy 
 Scripture in harmony with the general sense of Christen- 
 dom. 1^0 one acting upon such a principle, and deeply 
 impressed with the sin of causing a schism in the body, 
 would ever have originated novel intepretations, much 
 less have attempted to impose them as additions to the 
 faith. Had Arius recognized the importance of preserv- 
 ing unity, he never would have outraged the convictions 
 of the greater part of the Church by the avowal of his 
 philosophy. Take the case of the separation of the East 
 and West — the pretext for which was the doctrine of the 
 double Procession. Whatever might be true, and however 
 the Western Church might have received it, a proper re- 
 gard for unity would have restrained the Koman Patriarch 
 from attempting to enforce this faith upon the whole 
 Churcb, beyond wbat the East had acknowledged in her 
 creed. In the unfolding of Christian doctrine there 
 must of necessity be a difference in the progressive de- 
 velopment of different minds and different regions ; 
 and the only test that can be applied in such cases, is 
 the integrity of the faith which is common to the whole 
 Church. 
 
 The true effect of a regard for unity would be, on 
 the part of teachers, to restrain the ambition and self- 
 conceit which leads them to put forth new theories, and 
 on the part of the taught, to lead them to weigh well 
 the teachings which may result in such a disaster as a 
 schism. Such self-restraint does not of necessity involve 
 
44 OKGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 
 
 any intellectual bondage. It only tends to promote 
 carefulness in the nnfolding of what may be regarded by 
 the teacher as a more advanced view of truths which the 
 Church approves, and a willingness to subject one's self 
 to the oversight and correction of whatever authority 
 there may be for pronouncing upon such questions. To 
 such supervision and review no one who knows his own 
 insufficiency will object.* 
 
 The truth of the Gospel has a germinative power. 
 Its province is to grow, its nature is to develop. The 
 well-instructed scribe brings out of his treasure, things 
 new as well as old ; but the new must not be at vari- 
 ance with the old. Growth is essential to the attain- 
 ment of unity, " that we be no more children tossed to 
 and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, 
 but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things 
 unto Him who is the head, even Christ " (Ephes. iv. 14, 
 15). But it is manifest that all intellectual activity is 
 not a sign of spiritual growth. The time was foretold 
 when " men would not endure sound doctrine, but ac- 
 cording to their own lusts should heap to themselves 
 teachers having itching ears ; and they shall turn away 
 their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables " 
 
 * I am treating the question here in the abstract, and upon the hypoth- 
 esis that the Church is perfectly constituted according to the divine will. 
 I do not mean to deny that the state of Christendom has been such as to 
 make it necessary for men to speak against what has been the current 
 opinions of the time. But even reformers, in raising their voice against 
 prevalent corruptions and perversions of doctrine, have always appealed 
 to the general sense of Christendom in its purer days, in justification of 
 interpretations which the Church of their own day condemned them for. 
 
SEOUEmG THE UNITY OF THE SPmiT. 45 
 
 (2 Tim. iv. 3, 4). Any exercise of the intellect on spir- 
 itual subjects wMch is not in the direction of faith, is 
 not spiritual progress, but a hindrance rather. Kow, 
 what is there so well calculated to restrain such an ex- 
 ercise of the fleshly intellect, as a conviction of the duty 
 of avoiding any thing that may disturb the unity of the 
 Church? 
 
 As a matter of fact, the doctrine that has obtained 
 the universal assent of Christendom, is that which was 
 declared by the entire Church while the whole Church 
 was in a condition to utter her voice in ecumenical 
 councils. Other questions have since arisen, which, for 
 the want of any means of obtaining the universal ex- 
 pression of Christendom, still remain open. Schisms 
 from schisms have resulted, of which the most obvious 
 effect is to illustrate the necessity of a deeper conviction 
 of the obligation of unity. The spirit of unity may ex- 
 ist even in the midst of schism, and it will be found 
 wherever there is a conviction that any further division 
 is to be avoided. Members of a sect may be so impressed 
 with the duty of maintaining unity, as to be led thereby 
 to restrain themselves from any indulgence of self-will 
 that would renew division. How much more powerful 
 must this conviction prove when it is felt, that unity is 
 the result of a divine organization — that the Church is 
 the repository of the authority of Christ Himselt^ — that 
 she holds the faith once for all delivered to the saints, 
 and has the Lord's promise that if she continues to do 
 His will, she shall be led into all truth. 
 
4:6 OEGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 
 
 The difference is very wide between the servile and 
 literal submission to a supposed infallible personal 
 authority, and a conscientious carefulness to avoid what- 
 ever may come into collision with the received and rec- 
 ognized faith of the whole Church. The latter will be 
 an influence no less powerful than the former to restrain 
 the fleshly mind, and to bring the intellect into sub- 
 jection. It will as completely repress all disposition to 
 put forth theories and conceits, and thus tend to strengthen 
 that unity of the spirit in which the perfection of the 
 Church shall be attained. Thus it is that the objective 
 unity of the Church is a means of bringing the intel- 
 lect into subjection to the obedience of Christ. 
 
 But it is not only by authority that the Church is to 
 act upon the intellect, and satisfy and perfect its devel- 
 opment. The truth which is revealed by the Gospel 
 must of necessity assume difierent aspects to different 
 minds. The human and divine elements of Christianity 
 — its objective and subjective sides — may easily array 
 different parties in opposition to each other. Each is as 
 sure of the truth as clear consciousness can make it, but 
 each, while seeing its own side, has only half the truth, 
 and can be only partially developed. It requires some- 
 thing more than philosophical argument or theological 
 debate, to settle such questions in a way to satisfy the 
 wants of minds that are confident of what they do hold 
 and who see only antagonism in the other side. Tlie 
 intellect that is thus occupied by a half-truth, is imper- 
 fectly developed, and the imperfection must extend to 
 
SECDIONG THE UNITY OF THE SPIEIT. 47 
 
 every other faculty of the soul. Half-truths are the 
 very life-blood of sectarianism ; they are the most pro- 
 lific source of controversies. The divided Church di- 
 vides the truth, and one part is held by one section and 
 another by another. Perfect development can only re- 
 sult from perfect truth, and hence the necessity that the 
 Church shall be so constituted, that the whole truth as 
 it is in Jesus shall be taught everywhere. And this can- 
 not be done short of a universal organization, which 
 shall harmonize every intellectual tendency, and satisfy 
 every intellectual want — which shall furnish adequate 
 nutriment for the analytic intellect of the East, and the 
 synthetic tendency of the West — which shall alike meet 
 the wants of the imaginative mind of the South, and the 
 colder and less luxuriant temperament of the Korth. 
 The opposition between the different tendencies can only 
 then be seen to be not antagonism when each is made 
 to supplement the other, and it is only under such con- 
 ditions that the charity that rejoiceth in the truth can 
 be completely satisfied. Earnest men will feel that it is 
 right for them to contend against error, and so long as 
 an opposite tendency appears to be an error will they 
 fight against it. It is the ofSce of a truly Catholic or- 
 ganization of the Church to bring opposite (not oppos- 
 ing) tendencies into harmony, and thus present the truth 
 as one, that the intellect may be developed in its fulness, 
 and all its various tendencies be met. 
 
 3. The necessity for some agency ordained of God 
 to act upon the affections to bring them into subjection 
 
48 ORGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 
 
 to the will of God, is equally manifest. The heart is 
 not to be controlled by abstractions. Something real 
 and appreliensible by the senses is essential to shape the 
 affections. The whole Gospel system, the manifestation 
 of God in flesh, is in fact a divine arrangement for bring- 
 ing the truth down to meet the finite and intelligible 
 wants of men. The Church is just the embodiment of 
 the system. Sacraments are ordained for bringing spir- 
 itual relations into the conditions of time and space. 
 Christ Himself is indeed the true and chief object of the 
 love and devotion of every one who believes on Him. 
 Any love of the Church which supersedes the love of 
 Christ is mere sectarianism, however pure the Church so 
 loved may be.* But every one knows that the love of 
 Christ manifests itself in the love of the brethren, in 
 love for the mystical body of Him who is the personal 
 object of devotion. The paraphrase of the 136th 
 Psalm, which is such a favorite with all religious denom- 
 inations — 
 
 " I love Thy kingdom, Lord," &c., 
 
 is a form in which love to Christ is expressed more tan- 
 gibly than by mere abstract declarations ; and hence it is 
 that these words, as well as the words of the Holy Ghost 
 
 * It is a remark of Coleridge, that he who begins by loving the Church 
 more than he loves Christ, will go on to loving his own sect more than he 
 loves the Church, and end with loving himself more than all. I quote 
 from memory, but this is the substance, if not the exact form, of the utter- 
 ance. It may be possible to love the Bride more than the Bride- 
 groom, and even to the exclusion of the Bridegroom. 
 
SECURING THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 49 
 
 in the original, thrill through the soul of every devout 
 Christian, with an energy that has its parallel only in the 
 warmest natural affection or the most devoted patriotism. 
 Such love is pure unselfishness. Love for the Church, 
 or for what represents the Church, is one of the first dic- 
 tates of a pure and elevated piety. " Even as Christ 
 loved the Church, and gave Himself for it," so does love 
 for the body of Christ possess the soul of every one in 
 whom the love of Christ becomes controlling. 
 
 iNTow, it is manifest that, in order that this love may 
 be pure, and continue so, its object must be real. It 
 will be deep just as the body of Christ is discerned — 
 just as the true relations between Christ and His Church 
 are apprehended. This can only be when the whole 
 company of the Baptized is seen as one. Under the in- 
 fluence or control of a sect, the sentiment of love for the 
 Church is sure to become a narrow and selfish feeling — 
 to degenerate into sectarian and partisan zeal — to want 
 that pure and unselfish devotion which answers to the 
 love of Christ for His Church. 'No sect can call forth 
 the reverence and affection which should be inspired by 
 the Bride of Christ — for the Bride is one, not made up 
 of many. Only a largeness Qf charity, which compre- 
 hends all the baptized as brethren, which weeps over 
 errors and faults, which avoids bitterness and strife, 
 which longs for the removal of every hindrance to unity, 
 which seeketh not its own, which rejoiceth not in in- 
 iquity but rejoiceth in the truth wherever seen, which 
 beareth all things, belie veth all things, hopeth all things, 
 
50 OEGANIO UNITY THE MEANS OF 
 
 enduretli all tilings — only sucli a love, extended to all 
 the Baptized throughout the world, can answer to the 
 true character of love for the Bride of Christ. 
 
 Such a love, sectarianism cannot beget; and if it 
 springs up, is very apt to prevent and quench. Every 
 sect has its existence based upon some narrow and ex- 
 clusive principle ; either some one or more dogmas held 
 to the exclusion of all others, or some negation of a 
 truth held in whole or in part by other portions of the 
 baptized. The less there is of negation the greater the 
 room for charity, and the less the hindrance to unity ; 
 but it is inevitable that, under the dominion of secta- 
 rianism, what should be the love for the Bride of Christ, 
 degenerates into zeal for a sect, or else subsides alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Since, then, an outward or objective organization is 
 necessary to concentrate and form the spiritual affections 
 which are involved in the attainment of Christian perfec- 
 tion and the perfect unity of the Spirit, it would seem that 
 nothing less than a universal organization, embracing all 
 the baptized, would answer the purpose. Even national 
 Churches, organized on a principle of national independ- 
 ency, cannot develop the sentiment in its completeness : 
 " In Christ Jesus there is neither Greek nor Jew, barba- 
 rian nor Scythian, bond nor free." National relations 
 are of the flesh, and originate in man's fallen condition, 
 and involve duties and attachments which are indhrances 
 rather than otherwise to the spiritual development. 
 
 The time of the kingdom has not yet come, and un- 
 
SECUKING THE UNITY OF THE SPERIT. 51 
 
 til then nationalities must be kept in abeyance where 
 spiritual relations are concerned. Anglicanism must in- 
 volve more or less of English peculiarities, and the 
 same is true with every other national Church organi- 
 zation, which stands upon its nationality. 
 
 The great results that the outward organization of 
 the Church is designed of God to effect can only be se- 
 cured by a truly CathoKc constitution, which shall em- 
 brace under a universal government- — what the form of 
 that government should be, will be a subject of consider- 
 ation hereafter — all those throughout the world who are 
 members of the Body of Christ.* Under such conditions 
 alone does the mind rise above the temporal and secular 
 relations which spring from this present life. Then only 
 do we realize that we are called to sit with Christ in the 
 heavenlies, and that our citizenship is in heaven — that 
 the Jerusalem which is above is the common mother of 
 us all. Some such idea as this is implied in all the high- 
 er forms of spiritual sentiment, even in connection with 
 sectarian organizations, but the tendency of sectarianism 
 to crush and repress'" such sentiments is fearful and irre- 
 sistible. . 
 
 The effort is sometimes made to take a position of 
 assumed superiority to all Church bonds — to cast off all 
 sectarian or ecclesiastical influences ; and such efforts are 
 
 * The authority of Christ cannot be felt TPhen regarded as divided up 
 among a number of coordinate yet independent sovereignties. No author- 
 ity speaking and acting through a part and not being the expression of the 
 whole can have absolute weight, or bind the conscience. 
 
52 ORGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 
 
 perhaps so far successful in individual cases, as to free 
 individuals from the narrowness and selfishness which 
 devotion to a sect inspires, and promote largeness and 
 liberality towards others ; but in such cases there is of 
 necessity a failure in the subjection of the will and the 
 intellect to the divine authority, and a general defect in 
 character follows. Any organized attempts to cast oti' 
 all ecclesiastical restraints, even the lowest and most 
 nominal, as those of Congregationalism, uniformly result 
 either in outright infidelity, or a more narrow and intense 
 Sectarianism. 
 
 I have thus endeavored to show the necessity for an 
 outward organization of the Church which shall be co- 
 extensive with Christendom, for bringing the minds of 
 baptized men into that state which shall fulfil the condi- 
 tions of our Lord's Intercessory Prayer. Such an organ- 
 ization is necessary, to act upon those several powers and 
 faculties in the man, by which his spiritual condition is 
 determined. It must be used, unless we assume that all 
 God's acts among men are to be direct upon his con- 
 sciousness instead of by means of ordinances, which is 
 contrary to all analogy and all revelation. Under these 
 three heads of will, intellect, and afiections, the whole 
 man is comprehended, and by them the whole spiritual 
 character is formed. 
 
 I am guite aware that, in assuming the existence of an 
 outward unity as antecedent to the perfect unity of the 
 Spirit, I am going counter to the prevalent opinion of 
 Protestants, who generally will not allow that the out- 
 
SECUEING THE UNITT OF THE SPIRIT. 53 
 
 ward organization is any thing but the result of the ag- 
 gregation of those who believe, and consequently cannot 
 regard it as the repository of authority. This is, I am 
 persuaded, just the weak point of Protestantism — the 
 point where it fails to apprehend the true relations of the 
 Baptized to Christ. I repeat, therefore, the remark made 
 at the beginning of this chapter — that the organization 
 is before those who are added to it. The Clmrch is in 
 its constitution the IS'ew Jerusalem, and this the Apostle 
 declares is " the mother of us all " (Gal. iv. 26). On Pen- 
 tecost, by the descent of the Holy Ghost, the Lord estab- 
 lished a spiritual polity — i. e., a polity of which the life 
 and power is spiritual in distinction from natural, and 
 every Christian has his standing as a baptized person 
 derived from that polity. The preaching of the Word, 
 by which we have been enlightened and converted, is a 
 function of that body. The baptism whereby we have 
 been grafted in, is another function. And so with all 
 the nurture and discipline whereby the spiritual life has 
 been strengthened. The offices of ministry, whether of 
 the word or sacraments which men exercise, are not 
 merely the works of individuals, but works of men as 
 members of a body, and so are workings of the body. 
 Although we may, without any fault of our own, have 
 been separated from the mass of the baptized among 
 whom a formal organization of the Church has had con- 
 tinuity, whatever grace or blessing we have received has 
 been by virtue of the endowment which the Lord gave 
 to His Church at Pentecost, which thus became the mother 
 
54 OKGANIC UNITY THE MEANS, ETC. 
 
 of all who are bom to God. The recognition of this 
 truth must precede any progress toward a recovered or- 
 ganic unity, by which the unity of Spirit can be restored 
 and perfected. 
 
 The object at present to be hoped for is not so much 
 the actual reunion of the several sects and. portions of 
 Christendom under one federative organization, as the 
 constitution of a body which shall involve every principle 
 of unity, by means of which the unity of the Spirit may 
 be attained. This would not be efi'ected by any recovery 
 of intercommunion between national Churches, as for in- 
 stance the Greek and Anglican, nor by any federative 
 union of sects. No such union would act upon the spir- 
 its of members of the body in such a way as to bring 
 ever}' thought into subjection to the obedience of Christ. 
 The hand of man in bringing it about would be too pal- 
 pable to command the reverence and submission and 
 love, which a new divine creation would call forth. The 
 truce might be kept for a season, the treaty might be ob- 
 served scrupulously, but the absence of the supernatural 
 from it would leave it as a memory on every mind, that it 
 was a human treaty, after all. 
 
 God alone, by supernatural agency, can restore the 
 unity of the Body of Clu-ist. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM CONSEDEEED WITH 
 EEFEKENCE TO UNITY. 
 
 The great schism hetwcen the East and West — The schism caused by the Protestant 
 Eeformation — This resulted not in dividing the Western Church into two great 
 communities, but into a variety of National Churches, without any common head- 
 ship — Subordinate divisions — Statement of the present condition of entire Chris- 
 tendom — The Church, in God's sight, embraces all the baptized — ITie question of 
 lay baptism — The Church not now appearing as one whole, but existing in frag- 
 ments — Principles upon which Unity may bo recovered. 
 
 Before proceeding to consider tlie metliod of realiz- 
 ing tlie principles stated in the foregoing chapters, it will 
 be well to dwell upon the present condition of Christen- 
 dom, as related to the question we have in hand. This, 
 it will be admitted, is widely different from what it was 
 in the first, or even in the sixth, century. Schisms and 
 heresies there were, but there was no settled division of 
 the whole Christian community throughout the world, 
 into distinct and opposing parties. With insignificant 
 exceptions, the whole company of the baptized through- 
 out the world constituted one community. True it is 
 that there were disruptive causes at work in the midst 
 of the Church — there were rivalries and animosities — 
 there was strife and contention enough to drive into 
 
56 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHKISTENDOM 
 
 fragments any society which was not held together by 
 some unseen power. Tlie real and perfect bonds of unity 
 were lost when the apostles ceased to be alive and rule 
 the Church ; but still there was enough of the conviction 
 of the essential oneness of the body, and of the sin and evil 
 of separation, to retain the various parts of the body 
 together and prevent a permanent and irremediable 
 schism. 
 
 The rivalry between the Eastern and Western Em- 
 pires extended also to the Patriarchs of Rome and Con- 
 stantinople, and thus the spirit of separation was encour- 
 aged, and nothing could be anticipated from the mutual 
 curses and excommunications of the respective patriarchs, 
 which were for several hundred years passing to and fro, 
 but ultimate separation. The heart and spirit of the 
 two communities had been divided and alienated upon 
 grounds both of faith and of precedency. The last and 
 crowning act which consummated the schism was the 
 placing upon the altar of St. Sophia, by Leo IX., of the 
 written decree of excommunication of the Eastern Patri- 
 arch, when his legates shook off the dust from their feet 
 and departed forever. This was in the year A. D. 1054. 
 The rupture of the Church was now complete. Other 
 questions had separated men, and even communities, 
 from the Church ; but now schism divided the Church 
 itself, and rent it in two. 
 
 The great schism of the eleventh century is tlie parent 
 of all other schisms. The body being rent in twain, it is 
 
CONSIDEBED WITH KEFERENCE TO UNITY. 57 
 
 impossible to enforce the obligation to keep the unity 
 of the Spirit. 
 
 The "Western Church being separated from the East- 
 ern, proceeded more and more, with the aid of the secu- 
 lar power, to consolidate her own organization, and was 
 in the main successful. For four and a half centuries 
 no disturbance of the organic unity of the Church in 
 "Western Europe occurred sufficient to effect a division. 
 There were schisms within it, of which the long-standing 
 schism of the Papacy in the fourteenth century is the 
 most signal example; and this, no doubt, contributed 
 very materially to prepare the way for the great Protes- 
 tant schism. There were communities which dissented 
 from some of the teachings of the Church, such as the 
 "Waldenses, and others like the followers of Huss in Bo- 
 hemia, who, from demanding practical reforms in the 
 Church, which were refused, were at length driven out 
 of the Church and formed into separate associations ; 
 but until the times of Luther and the Protestant Eefor- 
 mation, there was no community of Christian people who 
 separated themselves from the organic Poman Church 
 by casting off the authority of its head. But in the six- 
 teenth century this authority was more effectively ques- 
 tioned, and further schism occurred. The Protestants 
 of the Continent denied the authority of the Papacy, and 
 were cast off by it. The Church that was in England, 
 acting under the lead of the English king, also separated 
 herself from the organic unity of Rome. The Church 
 in Scotland followed the course of the Continental Prot- 
 
68 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHKISTENDOM 
 
 estants. The Protestant schism was not, like the great 
 schism of East and West, a division of the Western 
 Chnrch into two great parts, each having an organic 
 nnity of its own. While Rome retained her nnitj, the 
 several Protestant nationalities were divided, each into a 
 separate organization, having no common bond except 
 their opposition to Rome. Each national Church was 
 brought under the control of its national government. 
 They were not organized alike. They had no common 
 creed, no uniformity of worship, and were, in fact, so 
 many separate communities, each having through its 
 secular government a unity in itself, but having no 
 unity together. The English Church retained the Epis- 
 copal organization, with the succession of the priesthood, 
 liturgical services, and the sacramental doctrine. In 
 Scotland, the Church was constituted on a Presbyterian 
 basis. In Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland, etc., 
 substantially the same organization was adopted, with 
 such variations of doctrine and worship as the Calvinistic 
 and Lutheran systems present. In thelSTorthern nations 
 the form of Episcopacy, though without the succession 
 of priesthood, was established in connection with Lu- 
 theran doctrine. 
 
 The principle of objective unity being lost, when the 
 power of the civil authority did not interpose there was 
 nothing to hinder further subdivision, and so sects upon 
 sects and schisms from schisms arose and multiplied. In 
 Great Britain and in this country, the freedom from po- 
 litical restraint has favored the exercise of every form of 
 
CONSIDEBED WITH KEFEEENOE TO UNITY. 59 
 
 belief and no belief, and consequently bere we see as no- 
 where else the development of tbe sectarian principle, 
 and (in this land at least) the unqnalified assertion that 
 sectarianism is a good thing. 
 
 It is no part of my present undertaking to decide 
 where the blame of this state of things belongs. I have 
 now only to state it in such fonn that we may, as from 
 a height, look down upon the Christian world and be- 
 hold its condition. 
 
 We have, then — 
 
 First. The Eastern Church, with its dependencies, in- 
 cluding the Russian Church, which, in the main, consti- 
 tute one community, not to speak of lesser communities 
 in the East, of which our knowledge is but limited but 
 which are substantially identified with it. 
 
 Secondly. The great Roman Catholic Communion, 
 extending to all parts of the world, and bound into one, 
 by the recognition of the authority of the Pope. 
 
 Thirdly. The great mass of Protestants, consisting of 
 numerous communities, bound together by no common 
 bond of unity, and some of them not recognizing the 
 others as having any title to the Christian name.* 
 
 These several classes compose the company of the 
 Baptized, or the visible Church militant, here upon 
 earth. 
 
 Of all these classes, the Roman Catholic Church 
 
 * It is possible that these three divisions of Christendom constitute the 
 " three parts " upon which the judgments announced in Kev. ch. viii. are 
 poured out. 
 
60 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM 
 
 alone claims to be exclusively the Catholic Church, on 
 the assumed ground that the Bishop of Rome, as the suc- 
 cessor of St. Peter, is the divinely ordained head of the 
 Church on earth. High Anglicans attempt to limit the 
 comprehension of the Church to those who are in imme- 
 diate relations to a pastorship of Apostolic Succession. 
 The Baptists will allow none to be of the Church who 
 are not immersed, but all other sects and parties are 
 willing that all whom they can recognize as evangelical^ 
 which excludes Romanists and high Anglicans, should be 
 regarded as comprehended within the Church. The 
 Roman Catholics are the only party who maintain any 
 principle of unity. The high Anglican is also a stickler 
 for national independency, which is as fatal to Catholic 
 unity as Congregationalism, while the very life of all 
 other divisions is the asserted right of separation. Seen 
 from a position in the heavenlies, the great community 
 of the baptized must seem like a vast army divided into 
 many parts, and, while not wholly regardless of their 
 common enemy, yet much weakened and rendered pow- 
 erless by contention among themselves. We cannot 
 suppose that our Lord regards them otherwise than as 
 one aggregate body. Among some portions of the 
 whole His ordinances are preserved with a greater degree 
 of perfection, and with others less, while some have so 
 far departed from His ways as to have left scarce a shad- 
 ow of His institutions among them, and to hardly have 
 any title to be accounted His followers, and others 
 have engrafted upon His ordinances a variety of human 
 
CONSIDERED WITH KEFEKENCE TO UlSriTT. 61 
 
 devices, which hinder and obscure what is divine. One 
 portion has assumed a principle for unity which is a 
 usurpation of His own prerogatives, and has been the 
 fruitful cause of the present condition of the whole body ; 
 while others have so far lost sight of the true end of their 
 calling as to repudiate all thoughts of unity. 
 
 Something may require to be said in defence of the 
 principles of comprehension here assumed — viz., that the 
 visible Church consists of all the Baptized. The Roman 
 Catholic Church claims to be the possessor of the sole 
 legitimate ecclesiastical authority, but even Romanists 
 will allow that Protestants are by baptism their breth- 
 ren, and in some way members of the same mystical 
 body. The claim, therefore, for the possession of an ex- 
 clusive divine authority does not preclude the admission 
 that those who do not recognize that authority are mem- 
 bers of the visible Church. The objection to our prin- 
 ciple of comprehension comes most positively from high 
 Anglicans and Episcopalians, who are much given to 
 speaking of themselves as exclusively "the Cliurch," 
 ISTow, in England, where the English Church has an un- 
 doubted authority and an original mission, the claim to 
 recoD-nition of the establishment as The Church has a 
 very strong basis, both as against dissenters, who have 
 separated themselves from it, and the Church of Rome, 
 which has intruded upon its field. In this land, the prin- 
 ciples of Anglicanism, which are those of national inde- 
 pendency (and even of diocesan independency), leave it 
 no more claim than it can establish in the convictions 
 
62 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHKISTENDOM 
 
 of men. The Protestant Episcopal Cliurcli stands side 
 bj side with the Koman Catholic Church (not to speak 
 here of other bodies), which has at least an equal right 
 with itself to the title of the Church ; for high church- 
 men will not deny that it has all the essentials of a 
 Church. ]^ow, the Roman Catholic Church has as good 
 a right to extend itself as the English Church, and its 
 orders and authority may be regarded, as far as the let- 
 ter goes, of equal force. The Episcopal Church acquired 
 no national standing under the colonial regime which 
 would warrant it to claim the title of the Ameri- 
 can Church, at the occurrence of the Revolution. There 
 were only a few scattered congregations of Episcopalians 
 in the land, which were under the oversight of the 
 Bishop of London ; but no bishop had been sent here, 
 and there was no ecclesiastical constitution, such as now 
 prevails in the British colonies. The attempt, therefore, 
 to assert for this body a standing in the reh'gious world an- 
 swerable to that of the established Church in England, is 
 simply absurd. In some minds the talk of high cliurch- 
 men about their Church as " The Church," provokes irrita- 
 tion ; it may more properly be passed by with a smile. 
 A certain class of high churchmen have undertaken to 
 affirm that no baptism is to be regarded as real or valid, 
 except what is administered by ministers who have re- 
 ceived episcopal ordination ; that is, that for the last 
 three centuries there has been no baptism among Prot- 
 estants outside of the Church of England and its off- 
 spring, and that consequently, the great mass of these 
 
CONSIDEEED WITH EEFEKENCE TO TUSTITY. 63 
 
 communities are not to be regarded as belonging to the 
 Church. This theory has indeed been sometimes carried 
 to a most absurd application. This would be to admit 
 that the energy of the Divine life would be just as effec- 
 tive outside the Church as within it. It cannot be de- 
 nied that there have been at least as many and as abun- 
 dant tokens of the operation of a supernatural grace 
 among those outside of episcopacy as within it. It is a 
 folly amounting to infatuation, to affirm that all the in- 
 tellectual and moral manifestations produced among the 
 Puritans and other dissenters in England, and among the 
 Protestants in this country and on the Continent of Eu- 
 rope, are the results of mere nature, and not to be re- 
 garded in any way as fruits of the Spirit. Faith is the 
 gift of God — the work of the Holy Ghost. When we 
 see on a large scale evidences of an inwrought, effective 
 faith — when we see whole communities under its power 
 holding to the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, 
 such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, 
 the work of the Holy Spirit — when we see manifest fruits 
 of godliness, not only in individuals, but in the consti- 
 tution of society, with whatever shortcomings and defects 
 in matters ecclesiastical and ritual, and withal can give 
 a very rational and consistent account of the rise, growth, 
 and establishment of what may be anomalies in these 
 systems — when such a state of facts presents itself to us, 
 it is surely undervaluing by comparison the advantages 
 and grace of Christian ordinances to say, that all these 
 fruits have been attained in unbaptized communities. 
 
64 THEPEESENT STATE OF CHEISTEisTOOM 
 
 It has certainly never, in the most palmy days of eccle- 
 siastical authority, been maintained that baptism was 
 void in its effect for want of regularity in the ordination 
 of the administrator. l!^ay, the sanction expressly given 
 to baptism by lay persons both male and female in cir- 
 cumstances of necessity, and the steady refusal of the 
 Church to treat as void baptism administered by those 
 in heresy or schism, provided the right matter and form 
 were used, establishes the principle, so far as the action 
 of the Church can do so, that baptism is not rendered 
 void by want of regularity of ordination. Just such a 
 state of facts as that occasioned by the Protestant Refor- 
 mation had not indeed existed in the previous centuries. 
 The schisms of the Donatists and Novatians, and otlier 
 of the earlier sects, did not involve the rejection of the 
 Episcopate, neither, on the other hand, was the rejection 
 of the Episcopate regarded by the English Church as 
 separating the reformed bodies of the Continent from the 
 body of Christ, or denying the validity of baptism as ad- 
 ministered among them. 
 
 The acts of separation from the communion of the 
 Western Church having its head and centre at Rome, at 
 the time of the Reformation, were not the acts of individ- 
 ual members. They were the acts of entu-e communities. 
 The Church of an entire nation and people, acting as one, 
 threw off that authority, and by so doing did not lose its 
 corporate character. This was as true on the Continent 
 as of the Church of England. The adoption on the Con- 
 tinent of an ecclesiastical system without the element of 
 
CONSIDEKED WITH KEFERENCE TO UNITT. 65 
 
 Episcopacy was a distinct act. l!Tow, where has there 
 existed any authority to say that these bodies of Chris- 
 tian people, these national Churches, by this rejection of 
 Episcopacy, separated themselves from the body of 
 Christ ? The authority of Eome has declared all Prot- 
 estant bodies both heretical and schismatical, because of 
 their rejection of the Papal authority and dogmas ; but 
 in this it places all Protestants, whether Episcopal or not, 
 on a footing, and includes the Church of England with 
 all the rest. The Church of England has never assumed 
 to say that the want of Episcopacy separated any com- 
 munity from the body of Christ ; and it is a mere exer- 
 cise of private opinion in its worst form, for Episcopa- 
 lians — or high Anglicans if they prefer the name — to as- 
 sume to say that non-Episcopalians are not of the 
 Church. 
 
 If these Protestant communities were not by the sep- 
 aration from Kome cut off from the body of Christ, and 
 have not since then cut themselves off by rejecting the 
 Christian faith, they still must have within them a meas- 
 ure of the supernatural grace which is inseparable from 
 the body of Christ ; and it is certainly not unreasonable 
 to assume, that the principles which had been recognized 
 as applicable to the case of baptism by unordained per- 
 sons, may be admitted here, to establish the continuity of 
 these bodies as members of the body of -Christ, and their 
 right to be regarded as important fragments of the one 
 broken and divided body. 
 
 These remarks would not have their full application 
 
6(y THE PRESENT STATE OF CHEISTENDOM 
 
 to the various sects which have sprung up by individual 
 separations from the original reformed Churches, which 
 is the case of most of the sects in this land, inasmuch as 
 these had no original corporate relations to the undivided 
 Church. But as these sects have never been cut off by any 
 competent authority, they are still to be regarded as com- 
 ponent parts of the Church, while by the ordinance of 
 baptism the power of continuity is retained. 
 
 The conclusion that we must reach upon such a re- 
 view of the state of Christendom, is simply this : that the 
 organization of the Chm*ch as one whole is dissolved — 
 that the Church now exists in fragments, some having 
 retained a greater and some a less portion of the truth 
 which the Lord gave to her, and of the ordinances which 
 He established for her perfecting. In a perfect condition, 
 the Church, whole in every part, would give a perfect 
 witness for all truth and every divine ordinance. But 
 in her actual condition, the truth is divided among the 
 several parts. The Koman Catholic Church has not 
 ceased to witness for unity — for authority — for order — 
 and to set forth, in however perverted a form, doctrines 
 and usages which are essential constituents of the perfect 
 truth as it is in Jesus. But she has closed the Bible, and 
 overlaid divine truth and order with doctrines and com- 
 mandments of men, and usurpations of authority. Prot- 
 estants, on the other hand, have with one voice con- 
 tended for the exercise of the individual conscience and 
 the private judgment, for the open Bible and the reason- 
 able service, while in doing so they have erred to the ex- 
 
CONSIDEKED WITH KEFEEENCE TO UNITr. 67 
 
 tent of throwing off all authority, and disregarding all 
 order, and abusing the right of private judgment into 
 rationalism and unbelief. 
 
 Among Protestants, again, the Church of England 
 has continued to witness to the reality of a divine minis- 
 try in the Church, to order in worship, to the reality of 
 sacraments, while, for the greater part of her separate ex- 
 istence, she has practically failed to recognize the reality 
 of a divine supernatural life in ordinances ; and this has 
 been the cause of the separation from her of various 
 sects, who have sought in separation to attain what she 
 failed to supply. 
 
 A similar division of the truth among the different 
 sects is seen in the case of the Calvinistic and Methodist 
 Churches, the one so grasping the divine side of the mys- 
 tery of united divine and human agency in salvation, 
 and the other the human side, as to give a half truth to 
 each, and leave space for constant misunderstanding and 
 confusion. 
 
 The view we have taken of the condition of the uni- 
 versal Church, and the relation of the parts to the whole, 
 suggests the principles upon which unity may be recov- 
 ered : 
 
 1. The unity we are to contemplate and hope for, 
 must comprehend all parts of the scattered and broken 
 body. It must be a unity which shall include Koman 
 Catholics, and Greeks, and Armenians, and Protestants — 
 which must extend over the whole of Christendom. It 
 is not merely the reconciling of Protestant sects one with 
 
68 THE PEESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM 
 
 another, for the purpose of a stronger and more effectual 
 assault against Rome, nor an intercommunion of the 
 Greek and Episcopal Churches for the same pui-pose. 
 This would only intensify the sect spirit, transferring it 
 from the narrower to the wider field, and would not tend 
 in any degree to illustrate to the world the unity of the 
 Father and the Son. 
 
 2. It is manifest that no unity by the union of sects, 
 or of national Churches, is possible. 
 
 If all other bodies of Christians could by some ar- 
 rangements and concessions be united into a confedera- 
 tion, still the Eoman Catholic Church would by its first 
 principles be excluded. ISTo one will be so enthusiastic 
 as to suppose that that communion will ever surrender 
 its claims to universal supremacy. ITeither is the East- 
 ern Church at all likely to abandon the ground it has 
 held for so many centuries, and admit the supremacy of 
 Rome. It is hardly necessary to say, that it is equally 
 impossible for the Protestant sects to surrender their 
 hostility to that branch of Christendom. Neither can 
 the Protestant sects be blended into one body organi- 
 cally united. But, it is needless to make any state- 
 ments on this point, so obvious are the facts in the case. 
 In fact, such unity is disavowed by many who are now 
 engaged in the discussion of the subject. 
 
 3. It is plain that the restoration of unity must be a 
 work of divine power. It will require the operations of 
 a grace more special and abundant than we now wit- 
 ness in connection with the received ordinances of the 
 
CONSroEKED WITH EEFERENCE TO UNITY. 69 
 
 Church, to fit into a Kving unity, so that they may be 
 one as the Father and the Son are one, the separated 
 and scattered members of the body of Christ. It must 
 be the result of a revival of spiritual hfe — an extraordi- 
 nary outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which shall enlighten 
 the minds of baptized men., to see the oneness of their 
 hope and faith and obedience — to cast aside all their sec- 
 tarian preferences, and submit themselves with one mind 
 and one heart to the authority of Christ the Lord. 
 
 4. A restored unity must proceed from a centre or 
 nucleus, which shall originate in some supernatural di- 
 vine actings recognized as authoritative ; which centre 
 shall gather around it, first those members of the body 
 who shall be found willing to be gathered into a unity and 
 to be moulded collectively into the perfect image of Christ, 
 so that the perfect man may be brought forth. The re- 
 alization of unity does not require that all shall be gath- 
 ered, for there are many among the baptized who will, 
 doubtless, reject the counsel of God toward them. What 
 is required is, that there shall be a body, in which the 
 true unity of the Spirit can be realized. The existence 
 of such a body on earth will be to all men a test of their 
 willingness to be carried on to perfection. They who 
 refuse this test will either be found among the followers 
 of Antichrist, or else wUl suffer in the tribulation which 
 his reign of iniquity will bring upon all who will be faith- 
 ful to the truth. But the purpose of God will be accom- 
 plished, to have a body, in which all the members are 
 united one to another in the perfect unity of the Spirit. 
 
70 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM 
 
 The members of this body will be gathered out of 
 all sects — all parties — all fragments of Christendom. 
 Through the operation of the Holy Ghost, they will be 
 enlightened and moulded into one. Ko sect or frag- 
 ment, however great its extent, can be made this centre, 
 for that would be to give to one part the honor which 
 belongs only to the whole, and to give a sanction to the 
 claims of that sect, and an authentication of its errors 
 and defects. 
 
 All must admit that here is a nodus vindice dignus — 
 a case that will warrant a divine interposition, and it is 
 not beyond what we may reasonably expect, to hope 
 that God will arise and put to His hand, to remove a 
 difficulty which no human wdsdom can reach, and which 
 none of the institutions recognized among men have 
 hitherto had power to clear away. 
 
 Thus we have the facts and conditions of the problem. 
 Let us now pass to consider what we can learn regard- 
 ing the method of its solution. 
 
CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 THE EECOVEET OF OEGAJSTIC UISTITY 
 
 Unity can only be restored by Snpematoral Action— The Original Planting of the 
 Church — The Eise of the Ecclesiastical System — Necessity felt for some Ordinance 
 for Preserving Unity — Culminating at last in the Papacy — No Conventional Au- 
 thority sufficient — The only possible Solution, the Supernatural Appointment of 
 Men with Apostolic Powers — Does the New Testament warrant any such expec- 
 tation — How it would be done. 
 
 I HAVE said tliat tlie only means of recovering unity, 
 is by the establishment through supernatural action, of 
 a centre of unity around which those of the baptized who 
 are found willing to be moulded into the unity of the 
 Spirit may be gathered. Any such movement must 
 have a supernatural Initiative, otherwise it would be a 
 human work and not an object of faith. As claim- 
 ing our recognition, moreover, it must be in harmony 
 with what we learn from Holy Scripture, and with 
 God's past actings in His Church. We may not look 
 for the establishment of a " new Church," such as Swe- 
 denborg attempted, for that would be to assume that the 
 Church in this dispensation had come to an end, and 
 virtually to say, as he does, that the Resurrection was 
 past already. The Church restored in unity must be 
 the same body which was formed at Pentecost, inheriting 
 
72 THE RECOVERY OF ORGANIC UNITY. 
 
 the same promises, in which the life then imparted by 
 the Holy Ghost has through Baptism had an unbroken 
 continuity. The restored unity must consist of the 
 members of that same body taken as they are — not bap- 
 tized anew, and gathered into one by the operation of 
 the Holy Ghost. The principles, too, upon which the 
 Church is to be restored in unity, must be those which 
 we learn from the New Testament were in operation at 
 the beginning of this dispensation. For we cannot ex- 
 pect a new revelation ; we nmst be taught out of that 
 which we have received, and whereby Christendom is to 
 be judged. Even as when Adam fell, God did not destroy 
 the fallen race and create a new one, but provided for 
 its recovery by a new creation in the Incarnate Word, so 
 is the Church to be restored to its unity, not by destruc- 
 tion of that which has fallen away and the calling into 
 existence of a new body, but by taking the members of 
 the existing body, and through the outpouring of the 
 Sj)irit reestablishing among them that perfect order from 
 which the Church has fallen, thus preserving its iden- 
 tity. 
 
 To obtain light on this subject let us then revert 
 to the original planting of the Church. 
 
 The Church at the first was all contained in the 
 apostolic college. To the twelve was the charter of the 
 Church given, not for themselves individually, but as 
 the Church. To them was the Holy Ghost first given, 
 and by their apostolic action was it imparted to others. 
 By their preaching and the power of the Holy Ghost, 
 
THE RECOVEKT OF ORGAJSTIC UNITY. 73 
 
 men were saved and joined themselves to the apostles, 
 and continued steadfastly in their fellowship. Thej con- 
 stituted a centre, around which the Church as a body 
 was formed. The first local organization was, of course, 
 the Church in Jerusalem. As the Gospel extended, 
 other Churches were formed in Antioch, in Samaria, in 
 Corinth, in Ephesus, in Rome, and to the utmost parts 
 of the earth. All these several local churches constituted 
 but one society, of which the connecting link was the 
 apostolic college. These churches thus united were col- 
 lectively the Church of God — the Body of Christ. As 
 respects each other, the several churches were independ- 
 ent — and here is the grain of truth in the theory of Con- 
 gregationalism ; but as respects the whole body, they 
 were bound into one by their common subordination to 
 the authority of Christ in His apostles. There was not 
 one local Church, as that of Jerusalem, claiming to be 
 the root or trunk of which all the rest were branches. 
 "No Church claimed to be the mother and mistress of all 
 churches. Christ was the vine, the stock, the trunk, and 
 the churches were branches in Him. The authority of 
 the Lord in His apostles was the cementing link of the 
 whole. This was the " bond of peace " by which all were 
 held together. Subjection to this made the whole to be 
 one body. So long as the apostles lived, there could be 
 no doubt or question as to where the bond of unity lay. 
 As Churches continued in the "Apostles' fellowship," so 
 were they in fellowship with one another ; and, as St. 
 
 John writes in his first epistle (chap. i. 3), as they were in 
 4 
 
74 THE EECOVEKY OF OEGANIC UNITY. 
 
 fellowship with the apostles, they were in fellowship with 
 the Father and the Son. 
 
 Such was the unity of the whole Church. 
 
 The unity of the local church was secured by the 
 appointment of one of the elders to preside over the 
 rest, upon whom rested the responsibility and oversight 
 of the whole.* 
 
 After the death of the apostles, a further effort to se- 
 cure unity on a larger scale resulted in the appointment 
 of Metropolitans, and ultimately of Patriarchs, of which 
 in the early Church there were, according to Bingham, 
 in the fourth century thirteen, but of which the num- 
 ber was at length reduced to four, viz. : E,ome, Antioch, 
 Constantinople, and Alexandria. These are simply his- 
 torical facts, and their significance is this : that in the 
 centuries directly following the apostolic age, in the ab- 
 sence of Apostles the Church felt the necessity for some 
 ordinance for the preservation of unity — for keeping the 
 whole Christian community together. There was an in- 
 stinct of unity in it which resisted the disintegrating 
 tendency, by conceding to the chief pastors in the prin- 
 cipal cities of the empire, an authority over the sur- 
 rounding churches. For the local, the Metropolitical, 
 and the Patriarchal sees, this arrangement furnished a 
 bond of unity for the churches within their respective 
 
 * Qt. Kolug •KpoEGTUTEQ iTpeafivTEpoL (1 Tim. V. 1*7). This evidently refers 
 to the elders who in the several churches were placed over their brethren 
 as presidents ; i. e., were made bishops — called in the Apocalypse " angels." 
 It is strange that men of learning should cite this text as a scriptural war- 
 rant for what are by Presbyterians called Ruling Elders 
 
THE EECOVEEY OF ORGANIC UNITY. Y5 
 
 territories. The cases of Timotliy and Titus, who were 
 sent by St. Paul to exercise authority over the churches 
 in and around Ephesus and Crete, suggest the probability 
 that this subordination to Metropolitans and Patriarchs 
 was not without apostolic sanction. As such it would 
 have weight and force upon the conscience in a way that 
 no conventional arrangement could do. But there was 
 for centuries no authority claimed or exercised over the 
 whole Church, until, after the conversion of Constantine, 
 first the Emperor, and afterwards the Bishop of Rome as- 
 sumed that authority. The earliest exercise of universal 
 authority was by the Emperor.* From him it passed 
 over, so far as the Western Church was concerned, to the 
 Pope. The acquiescence of the whole Church east and 
 west in the supremacy of the Emperor, and of the "Western 
 Church in that of the Pope, shows that there was a con- 
 viction in the mind of Christendom of the need of a 
 central authority to bind the Church together into one. 
 
 Still, any authority that is merely conventional, self- 
 imposed, and not recognized as absolutely jure divino, 
 will fail to produce perfect results even in those who ac- 
 knowledge it ; and for this reason, that the recognition 
 of it does not proceed from faith. The ecclesiastical 
 system which has a conventional origin can only control 
 the rational judgment of men, and when it ceases to do 
 that, its power is gone. The secret of the power which 
 the Church of Rome exerts over its members lies in the 
 conviction it has been able to produce, that the Pope is 
 
 * In a later chapter I shall furnish some illustrations of this fact. 
 
76 THE EECOVEKY OF ORGANIC UNITY. 
 
 the successor of Peter in the See of Eome, and as such 
 has received from the Lord an indefeasible authority over 
 the whole Church, vfhich it is deadly sin to question or 
 resist. However mistaken this is on the part of Roman 
 Catholics, an act of faith. The Church is identified 
 with the Papacy as a divinely planted institution, which 
 may not be set aside, and which as such has the promise 
 and assurance of infallibility. The eifect of this belief 
 upon the conscience is as powerful as though it rested 
 upon an actual revelation, and it is thus to that body the 
 bond of unity. It is only when the moral results of the 
 Papal system suggest doubts of its having a divine au- 
 thority that there can be any shaking of the allegiance 
 which is felt to be due to a truly divine ordinance. 
 
 In order, then, to the recovery of a unity by which 
 the whole Church throughout the world may be bound 
 into one universal or Catholic organization, there umst 
 be a central authority which can be received and re- 
 spected as being placed and endowed by Christ Himself 
 — an authority such as that by which the Church at the 
 beginning was constituted one body. 
 
 How, then, can this authority be brought into exist- 
 ence? It may not be conventional, or originated by 
 the agreement of men or churches one with another. 
 It may not, as the papacy did, grow out of the grants of 
 authority wliich the churches conceded, first to Metro- 
 politans and then to Patriarchs. It must come from 
 above. It can proceed only from supernatural actings of 
 God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It must 
 
THE EECOVEET OF OEGANIC UNITY. 17 
 
 have its hold upon the faith of the Church. In plain 
 words, the only possible solution of the problem of unity 
 is, the supernatural appointment of men with apostolic 
 authority and apostolic powers, who shall enter into the 
 ministry and possess the endowments of tlie Apostles 
 who were at the beginning, to whom the Lord said, 
 "As my Father hath sent me, so send I you ; " " Lo, I 
 am with you all days, even to the consummation of the 
 age." 
 
 Such a ministry, and no other, will furnish a centre of 
 unity around which all may gather who are willing to be 
 gathered into a unity. The recognition of it will fur- 
 nish a restraint upon the wills and the intellects of men, 
 whereby the spirit of obedience and of teachableness 
 will be exercised, and men may become like little children. 
 Being received by faith and apprehended by spiritual 
 discernment, it will give exercise to the spiritual nature, 
 and will repress the sharp logical tendency which excites 
 self-conceit and hardens the heart from the exercise of 
 charity. 
 
 Such a ministry of Apostleship would, from its en- 
 dowment of divine wisdom, be qualified to decide all 
 doubtful questions of doctrine, and thus remove one of 
 the existing causes of division, while the recognition of 
 it as a supreme central authority, having the mind of 
 Christ and led by His Spirit, will preclude all rivalries 
 and contentions among different Churches. It would be 
 qualified by its supernatural endowment, not only to 
 prescribe the true order of divine worship, but also so to 
 
T8 THE EECOVEEY OF OEGANIC TmiTY. 
 
 instruct, that men's prejudices may be removed, and they 
 be made willing to dwell together as brethren in unity. 
 
 Is there any warrant in the ITew Testament for the 
 expectation of such a favor ? To me it seems very clear. St. 
 Paul says, " God hath set Apostles first in the Church." 
 This implies that the Apostolic office proper is an essen- 
 tial part of her constitution, without which she cannot 
 be complete ; and surely we may look to God to give 
 whatever shall be necessary to make perfect the Bride of 
 His Son. The promise of the Lord, " Lo, I am with you," 
 etc., also implies that there is no time when the Church 
 may not hope to receive from Him the gift of Apostle- 
 ship. Apostleship comprehends all other ministries, and 
 the words of the Lord constitute a promise to the Church 
 of all the fulness of ministry in men, which she may need 
 at any time during this dispensation. 
 
 It will not be difficult to understand how such a min- 
 istry may be raised up of God, if we fully recognize 
 Christ as the living Head of the Church at the Right 
 hand of the Father. In sending forth His Apostles be- 
 fore His ascension, He did not abdicate His right to in- 
 terfere directly in the affairs of His Church at any and at 
 all times. N^ay, the promise of His presence with the 
 Church, implies that he may exercise His prerogative to 
 send forth whom He may choose at any and at all times. 
 This right certainly was exercised in the case of Paul, 
 whom He called from the heavens, and sent him forth 
 with a power and authority equal to that of the first 
 twelve ; and what He did then He may do again. The 
 
THE EECOVEET OF OEGANIC UNITY. 79 
 
 ordinary way of God's acting in tlie Church is by ordi- 
 nances. No man has any right to assume, that he can 
 individually obtain any grace or spiritual benefit from 
 God, except through the ordinances of divine appoint- 
 ment. To expect any thing else is fanaticism, which can 
 result only in evil. But God is not so tied to His own or- 
 dinances that He may not in exigencies act without them. 
 When that ordinance in which all other ordinances are 
 concentrated has lapsed, it is not fanaticism to expect 
 that He may interpose to restore that ordinance that His 
 Church may be complete. This ordinance of Apostle- 
 ship is not a secondary, but a primary one. It comes 
 not into existence through the agency of any other ordi- 
 nance. Apostles are not of man, neither by men, but by 
 Jesus Christ and God the Father (Gal. i. 1). God may 
 make men to be Apostles, and give assurance to the 
 Church of their calling in such form as shall justify the 
 Church in receiving them as sent by the Lord. 
 
 Such an act of God, as supernatural and extraordi- 
 nary, would indeed make a demand upon our faith. It 
 would be an acting that would partake of the miraculous ; 
 but it will be admitted by every one who adequately 
 considers the subject, that unity cannot be restored with- 
 out miracle. There are no means now in operation for 
 effecting unity, and its recovery cannot be looked for 
 without a supply of means adapted to the end. If the 
 means are not in operation, they must be supplied from 
 on high ; they must come in an extraordinary way. Can 
 any one, who admits that the Church is a divine crea- 
 
80 THK KECOVEKT OF OKGANIO UNITY. 
 
 tion — a supernatural organizatiou, in whicli, througli or- 
 dinances and sacraments, there is a constant flowing 
 fortli of supernatural life, deny tlie possibility of an ex- 
 traordinary operation of supernatural power to effect 
 such a grand result as that of unity ? Is it too much to 
 hope for, that God the Father, and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, should provide means and ordinances whereby 
 the Holy Ghost, dwelling in the Church, may work in 
 the hearts of the faithful to knit them into one, and thus 
 fulfil the petitions of the Lord's intercessory prayer ? 
 
 The restoration of a ministry endow^ed with the au- 
 thority that was at first conferred upon apostles, and 
 with the grace needful to make that authority effectual, 
 would completely supply the want. Here would be a 
 centre for the entire Christian world, by the recognition, 
 of which all the baptized may be united into one. Here 
 would be an authority by which open questions may be 
 settled, and unruly and ambitious wills maybe brought 
 into subjection, or cut off as useless branches from the 
 vine. 
 
 The statement has been made, and there are many, 
 doubtless, who would be ready to assert it, that no insti- 
 tution can be recognized as a means of unity W'hich has 
 not had an unbroken continuity in the Church from the 
 beginning. This would be to aflirm that the Church can 
 never have lost or forfeited any of the grace that was 
 conferred upon her at the first. And yet, so far as prin- 
 ciples go, the statement may, to a certain extent, be ad- 
 mitted. For the greater part of the time that has 
 
THE EECOVEKY OF ORGANIC UNITY. 81 
 
 elapsed since the history of the Church began, the ne- 
 cessity of some ministry answering to the apostolic has 
 been felt, and a substitute for it has been recognized. It 
 was seen in the fourth century that some authority was 
 needed that should be universal in its scope ; and in the 
 absence of any proper ecclesiastical authority, the Em- 
 perors assumed universal supremacy. Only the felt ne- 
 cessity of a ministry of apostolic powers, could have ren- 
 dered possible the ascendency which the Bishops of 
 Rome acquired and attempted to exert over the whole 
 of Christendom. For centuries past, Rome has been 
 known as the Apostolio See, and it has been claimed to 
 be the inheritor of all apostolic, as distinguished from 
 episcopal, powers. The idea, then, of an apostolic min- 
 istry is not a new one, nor is the belief in its necessity as 
 a bond of unity. It has not been recognized in the Eng- 
 lish Church for three centuries past, it is true (and it is 
 fi'om this quarter that the objection proceeds), but Eng- 
 land is a small part of Christendom, and the voice of the 
 English Church has had no great weight in these cen- 
 turies as an authority in such matters. 
 
 The way in which unity would be restored by such 
 an agency would be, not by drawing different churches 
 and sects together and compromising their difficulties, 
 but by gathering out of all churches those who were pre- 
 pared to receive such a grace, and knitting them into a 
 perfect unity by spiritual bonds. Such would form a 
 nucleus, in which the true principles of unity could be 
 exemplified, and around which might ultimately be gath- 
 
82 THE EECOVERY OF OKGAIJIC UNITY. 
 
 ered all who should desire to be delivered from the city 
 of confusion which Christendom has become. Thus 
 would the Lord have on earth a body in which the unity 
 of the Father and the Son — the true unity of the Spirit 
 — could be seen, and by which He might save and gather 
 into one all who would be willing to be saved, so that 
 we may all come into the unity of the faith and of the 
 knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. Thus 
 would the desire expressed in our Lord's prayer be ful- 
 filled, and the end be attained of having on this earth a 
 body perfectly constituted in unity — a " Church without 
 spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, holy and without 
 blemish " — prepared to be translated and to be presented 
 to tlie Lord at His coming, as a bride adorned for her 
 husband. 
 
 It would not follow that such a ministry supernatur- 
 ally supplied would be at once recognized and received 
 even by all true Christians. Its recognition would be a 
 test of the faith and obedience of men — of their willing- 
 ness to be freed from the narrow bonds of sectarianism, 
 and to be gathered together into one, Not without trial 
 and judgment would the gathering be efiected. The 
 churches would need to feel the pressure of the rising 
 power of Antichrist before they would so realize the 
 need of a common bond as to be willing to receive a 
 supernatural visitation ; for schism has defiled and pol- 
 luted the entire Church, and there is no portion of it 
 that is willing to be made a living sacrifice. " All seek 
 their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's." 
 
 I 
 
THE KECOVEKT OF ORGANIC UNITT. 83 
 
 I have stated tliis matter hypotlietically, and believe 
 it to be the only metbod by which the problem of a re- 
 covered unity can be solved. But it is not mere hy- 
 pothesis : the hypothesis is derived from existing facts. 
 There has been for thirty years past a spiritual work in 
 progress, in which this theory — so to call it — has been 
 realized. In the year of grace, 1830, God in answer to 
 the prayers of many of His faithful people, who sought 
 from Him a reviving in His Chm'ch, was pleased to pour 
 out His Spirit in Scotland and other parts of the British 
 Isles, by which the gifts of the Holy Ghost were revived, 
 especially the gift of prophecy attended by some striking 
 cases of miraculous healing. They who received these 
 gifts, and others who recognized them, were led by the 
 words of the Holy Ghost thus spoken to pray earnestly 
 to God to send Apostles to His Church. In the year 
 1832 this prayer began to be answered by the supernat- 
 ural calling (somewhat after the manner in which Paul 
 and Barnabas were called in Antioch, Acts ch. xiii.) of 
 first one, and then another among those who believed in 
 those things, to be Apostles, until the complete number 
 of twelve were thus called, and in 1835 they were sol- 
 emnly separated to their work. 
 
 Since that time they have been fulfilling their minis- 
 try, and by them churches have been formed in differ- 
 ent parts of Europe and America, in which the principle 
 of unity has been developed, and every form of truth 
 which has at any time found expression in the universal 
 Church, has been recognized and set forth. The Apos- 
 
84 THE EECOVEET OF OKGANIC UNITY. 
 
 tolic College is a central authority — a Catholic Supeem- 
 AOT, wMch binds into one all the several churches 
 which acknowledge them, in Great Britain, Germany, 
 Holland, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States, 
 and wherever believers are found. In these churches 
 every thing that is essential to the perfect unity of the 
 Spirit is maintained — absolute uniformity in doctrine, 
 and harmony in all teaching — uniformity as to all the 
 essentials of worship, identity in the form of organiza- 
 tion, and of ministry as far as the materials are at hand. 
 All are " perfectly joined together in the same mind and 
 in the same judgment." 
 
 The system has been long enough in operation to test 
 its capabilities. It does not preclude the entrance of all 
 evil. It does not restrain men absolutely from sin, and 
 from apostacy from the Church — this cannot be in the nat- 
 ural body — but it has shown its capacity for throwing off 
 every opposing element, and for subduing, with none but 
 spiritual agencies, the wills of men into subjection to an 
 authority which is the authority of the Lord. The Apos- 
 tleship, being the divine ordinance for the guidance of 
 the Church into all truth, is looked to as the determiner 
 of questions of serious doubt that might, in the hands of 
 inferior ministers, occasion strife and dissension. Apos- 
 tles do not assume to be " Yicars of Christ," nor does any 
 one Apostle act on a question of universal concern with- 
 out his brethren. The unity of the Lord's rule is made 
 manifest by being vested in a definite number, which 
 can act as one, and acts not unless all are agreed togeth- 
 
THE EECOVEKY OF OKGANIO imiTT. 85 
 
 er as to what they shall ask for, and what shall be de- 
 creed. 
 
 It falls not within the range of my present undertak- 
 ing to enter into a history of this work, or a detail of the 
 organization effected by it. I refer to it in this connec- 
 tion as a demonstration of the practicability of the meth- 
 od which has been herein laid down. The assertion 
 of a title to Apostleship, of course, needs some signs to 
 prove its warrant. Nothing can more effectually do 
 this than the fruits of thirty years' labors. These, I af- 
 firm, show the possibility of a recovered unity by means 
 of a supernatural divine acting. They show vsrhat may 
 be done if the faithful servants of Christ — those vfho truly 
 believe in Him and love Him — will but consent to lay 
 aside their sectarian prejudices, and admit the reality of 
 His rule in the Church, and submit themselves to Him. 
 There is already a body sufficiently large, known as the 
 " Catholic Apostolic Church " — by which name is to be 
 understood, not that it claims that title exclusively, but 
 that it refuses to be called by any other — to make it 
 clear what it might be if it were larger in respect to 
 numbers, and wide enough in its extent, to show that it 
 might embrace the whole of Christendom. It is a stand- 
 ing proof of the possibility of a Catholic Church — of a 
 universal organization without the evils of the Papacy. 
 It is a standing witness against the confusion of Baby- 
 lon — the Sectarianism of the present age. 
 
 It is the solution of the problem how unity may be 
 restored. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THEOKIES OF UNITY. 
 
 The Episcopal theory of Unity, that the collective Episcopate is the Bond of Unity— 
 But what is to unite the Bishops, who have been the chief agents of Schism ? — Gen- 
 eneral acknowledgment of Episcopacy by Protestant sects would not unite them 
 with Eome, nor with the East. 
 
 We have already considered the theory of unity which 
 is entertained by the greater part of the Christian com- 
 munities which have resulted from the Protestant Eefor- 
 mation, viz. : that the only unity that is to be looked for 
 is a unity of spirit which allows of the existence of sects, 
 and has no corresponding organization. Into this view 
 the Episcopalians of the low church school, I believe, 
 enter for the most part. 
 
 Another view is that held by the Episcopalians of 
 the high church school, which is known as Anglicanism, 
 viz. : that the unity of organization in the Church con- 
 sists in the collective episcopate, by which, as by a grand 
 chain reaching down from the beginning and extending 
 throughout the world, the whole Church is bound into 
 a corporation, while difierent national churches are so 
 many distinct and coordinate branches of the one body — 
 the peculiarity of the theory being the denial of any 
 
THEORIES OF UNITY. 8t 
 
 ministry for uniting tlie wliole company of bishops into 
 one organization, or any head of the episcopate. 
 
 A third theory is that of the Papacy, which affirms 
 that the one Church must be united under one head, and 
 that the bishop of the Church of Rome, as the successor 
 of St. Peter, is the divinely appointed head of the uni- 
 versal Church. 
 
 A few pages will be devoted to the consideration of 
 these two last named theories. 
 
 The collective episcopate extends over the whole of 
 Christendom, embracing the heads of all the local or di- 
 ocesan churches throughout the world. The churches 
 respectively are united in their bishops : but how are the 
 bishops united ? It is idle to say the bishops are united 
 by their ordination, or apostoKc succession, and that this 
 is the bond of unity. As well might the common union 
 which all Christians have in their baptism be adduced as 
 the complete bond of unity. All Christians are one as 
 members of the one body, and all bishops are one as 
 members of the one episcopate, and all priests are one as 
 members of the one priesthood ; but the oneness of the 
 members of the episcopate no more fulfils the idea oi 
 unity which the Church is to attain, than does the one- 
 ness of the membership by baptism. The bishops of the 
 East and the "West are not united, though both alike are 
 members of the collective episcopate; neither are the 
 bishops of the Eoman and Anglican Churches. I^ay, 
 even intercommunion, as between the Episcopal churches 
 in England and America, where there is no common organ- 
 
OO THEORIES OF TJNITT. 
 
 ization, does not constitute unity. Much less is the posses- 
 sion of the common episcopate, when the churches are at 
 variance, the bond of unity. Who have been the prime 
 agents in the schisms that have rent Christendom asun- 
 der ? Who are the parties primarily and directly in an- 
 tagonism ? Are they not the bishops ? Who have been 
 the leaders in the earlier, and, as respects the great 
 schism, the lesser schisms which occurred in the East ? 
 Were they not the bishops ? Who were the prime con- 
 testants in the long-protracted quarrels which produced 
 the great schism? Were they not the Patriarchs of 
 Rome and of Constantinople, representing the arch- 
 bishops and bishops subject to them respectively ? Might 
 not an objector to the Episcopal order say that the laity 
 had nothing to do with these controversies, and that but 
 for the ambition and strife of their prelates the schism 
 would never have occurred ? What but the ambition of 
 the Roman PontiflPs, sustained by their subject bishops 
 on the one hand, and the refusal of the Eastern bishops 
 to own the supremacy of the Poman Church on 
 the other, has prevented the healing of that schism to 
 the present hour? Would the acknowledgment of the 
 episcopate by the non-Episcopal Churches be a restoration 
 of Catholic unity ? Would not the Episcopal churches 
 be as much as ever divided from the Church of Rome ? 
 The episcopate needs a universal headship — a centre — as 
 much as the body of the baptized. The question still 
 recurs : Quis custodiet custodes f Who shall unite the 
 bishops, so as to cause them to preserve the unity of the 
 
THEORIES OF TINITT. 89 
 
 Spirit ? to be one as the Father and the Son are one? to 
 bring them to be perfectly joined together in the same 
 mind and in the same judgment ? How is it in tho 
 purely Episcopal churches — those of England and Amer- 
 ica — which have a common episcopate ? Is unity per- 
 fect among them ? Are they agreed in point of doc- 
 trine ? What say the various parties of high and low 
 Anglicans, Evangelicals, Broad Church ? Is the influ- 
 ence of the episcopate such as to lead the people on to 
 the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
 of God ? Do not the doctrinal and practical differences 
 that exist between bishops and clergy of different schools 
 declare that the knowledge of the Son of God among 
 them comes far short of that perfection which is implied 
 in Unity ? 
 
 In truth, this theory can only be maintained on the 
 ground upon which Congregationalism is defended — that 
 there is required no visible ordinance for unity. It is 
 only Congregationalism on a large scale — the congrega- 
 tions being in this case dioceses headed up in bishops, 
 instead of local churches personally represented. The 
 principle which requires Episcopacy as the bond of unity 
 for the local church, can only be logically complete 
 when applied to the universal Church, and the denial of 
 the necessity of a bond of unity for the universal Church 
 cannot logically stop short of its denial in relation to the 
 local church. 
 
 These then are facts — that the collective episcopate 
 does not operate as a bond of peace, holding Christen- 
 
90 THEORIES OF UNITT. 
 
 dom together in such, manner as to exercise and develop 
 the "Qnity of the Spirit, and that the members of the col- 
 lective episcopate have been the principal agents in 
 causing the divisions of Christendom. 
 
 I^or would it be any different if the episcopal princi- 
 ple were universally restored by the dissolution of the 
 Papacy, or by the non-episcopal bodies adopting Episco- 
 pacy. This must be said for the Papacy, that it re- 
 strains the tendency to schism, which, without it, would 
 break out afresh, and aggravate what now prevails. 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 THE EOMAIf DOCTErSTE OP TJOTTT. 
 
 The Eoman Church has always witnessed to Unity — Two distinct Ideas — Catholic 
 Unity and the form of its Eealization — Papal arguments — The Primacy of Peter — 
 What it involved — His position compared with that of Paul — ^A Primacy in the 
 Apostolic College necessary that they might act as one — Arguments of E. J. Wil- 
 berforce examined — The Bishop of Eome did not inherit Peter's primacy — What is 
 the amount of the distinction that the early Fathers ascribe to the See of Eome — 
 The Primacy of Peter a different thing from the Supremacy of the Popes — Admitted 
 by Eoman Catholic writers — Pfulkes on the Divisions of East and West — The first 
 acts of Supremacy exerted by Constantino and his successors. 
 
 Of all tlie several parts into wHch Christendom is 
 divided, the only one that has maintained the true idea 
 of Catholic unity, is that v^hich is united under the Bish- 
 op of Home. This, no doubt, has ever been, and is still, 
 the secret of her great strength and durability. It 
 is a superficial philosophy which, can be satisfied with 
 asserting that the entire system of the Papacy is false — 
 that there are no divine principles involved in it. It has 
 become an axiom with all thinking persons, that no sys- 
 tem ever took and kept a strong hold upon a large part 
 of mankind which had not in it elements of truth. 
 When, therefore, we are called upon to meet and coun- 
 teract the influence of any system of institutions, which 
 we are persuaded is, on the whole, contrary to truth, the 
 
92 THE EOMAJSr DOCTRINE OF UNITY. 
 
 first step to any successful conflict is to discover and elim- 
 inate the elements of trutli which it contains, so that what 
 remains may be the more unsparingly and rigorously 
 assailed. There are several distinct forms of truth to 
 which the Roman Church has at all times given witness, 
 more steadily than has been done by any other j)ortion 
 of divided Christendom. She has the deep things of God 
 which have been by perversion made to be the " depths 
 of Satan ;" but we must beware lest, in our hatred of the 
 perversion, we also reject the truth. 
 
 One of the truths to which the Roman Church has 
 continued to give a witness is that of unity — the unity 
 of the whole Christian body under one organization. 
 This is the truth ; the error which has been the parent 
 of many other errors which pervade the actual Roman 
 system is, that the headship of the Catholic Church is by 
 divine authority vested in the Bishop of Rome. It is 
 very manifest that here are two ideas which we may re- 
 gard separately. The idea of unity is one thing, the 
 form of its realization another. Assuming, as is done in 
 this discussion, the truth of Catholic unity, there remains 
 the inquiry what there is to support the Roman doc- 
 trine of the form in which it is realized. 
 
 In a discussion of this nature this question could not 
 be well passed over. Still I do not purpose to go into 
 any exhaustive examination of it, nor to enter upon any 
 original investigations of its history or progress. I shall 
 make use mainly of the statements and admissions of wri- 
 ters in the Roman Catholic interest. The two authors to 
 
THE KOMAJSr DOCTEINE OF UNITY. 93 
 
 whom I propose to refer are, R. J. Wilberforce, formerly 
 Archdeacon in the English Church, in his work on the 
 " Principle of Church Authority," written as an apology 
 for his secession to Rome, and a recent work entitled, 
 " The Divisions of Christendom on East and West, by Ed- 
 mund S. Efulkes, formerly fellow and tutor of Jesus Col- 
 lege, Oxford." This latter work seems to be written in 
 the hope of preparing the way for renewed eilbrts for the 
 restoration of unity, and while fully in the interest of 
 Kome, yet makes a frank admission of the facts which 
 serve as an apology for the divisions which the author 
 hopes to contribute to healing. There can be no better 
 sources of reference than such authors. They are men 
 whose adhesion to the Papacy is not the result of educa- 
 tion, but has come from the consideration of arguments 
 which they place in the strongest light in which they 
 can be put. 
 
 The first link in this chain of argument — the staple 
 from which it all hangs, is the primacy of Peter in the 
 Apostolic College. This I must admit. All that is said 
 of and to Peter by our Lord, and by the writers of the 
 ISTew Testament, cannot pass for nothing. Peter was, in 
 one sense, the "Pock" on which the Church was built. 
 He was the Eirst — as stated by St. Matthew (ch. x. 2) — 
 and that not merely in the order of his calling — in which 
 he was not first apparently, but as 2i primus inter pares. 
 There is something significant in our Lord's words to 
 him. " Satan hath desired to have you, that he might 
 sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for thee, that thy 
 
94 raEK^ESNnDOCTRraEOTC®^ 
 
 faith fail not : and when thou art converted, strengthen 
 thy brethren " (Luke xxii. 32). The charge which the 
 Lord gave to him after the Resurrection, "feed my 
 lambs, feed my sheep," cannot be supposed to be devoid 
 of some special significance. When Paul went to Jeru- 
 salem, he went " to see Peter." All this implies some 
 positive relation to the rest of the Apostles. It may 
 well be called ajjWmacy, and it remains to inquire what 
 is involved in it. 
 
 I cannot accede to Wilberforce's notion, that Peter, 
 as distinguished from his brethren, " was to be associated 
 by peculiar copartnership in one of the functions of his 
 master, and become by grace that which Christ was by 
 nature." This is a theory without a shadow of Scriptu- 
 ral warrant, and is a bold assumption upon which to 
 build up the theory of the Papacy. The real signifi- 
 cance of the distinction of Peter is, doubtless, what was 
 asserted by the early writers, that the unity of the Apos- 
 tolate might be represented in him. The twelve were to 
 act as one, and so the charge w^as given to one for all, 
 that there might be no divisive action. In this view it 
 may be admitted as possibly true, though it certainly 
 cannot be proved from the I^ew Testament, that Peter's 
 assent and approval was requisite to the efiiciency of the 
 united action of the Apostolic college, though there \t\ 
 no ground at all for what "Wilberforce claims (p. 1Y2), 
 "that the cooperation of no other individual was neces- 
 sary to him." His primacy could not make him inde- 
 pendent of his brethren. The Apostolate was repre- 
 
THE ROMAN DOCTKINE OF UNITY. 95 
 
 sented in Peter, and was thus constituted into a twelve- 
 fold unity, but there is no evidence that farther than 
 this there was any function, or any prerogative belong- 
 ing to him, which was not equally exercised by all the 
 rest. 
 
 But while it is admitted that Peter held such a pri- 
 macy among his fellow apostles to the circumcision, what 
 shall be said of the relations of Paul ? Clearly he was 
 not subordinate to Peter. He himself declares he was 
 " not a whit behind the very chiefest of the Apostles " 
 (2 Cor. xi. 5), and it is evident that he held a position anal- 
 agous to Peter's. This is a point that has been very 
 much overlooked, and needs explaining. Peter was the 
 head of an organized apostleship who were sent to the 
 Jews. Paul calls himself " the Apostle of the Gentiles." 
 The Apostleship of the Gentiles was committed to him, 
 as the Apostleship of the Circumcision was to Peter. 
 These words define his position.* Whatever position 
 Peter held in the one case, Paul held in the other. If 
 Peter were the Primate of the apostles to the Jews, 
 Paul was Primate in the Apostleship of the Gentiles. 
 Wilberforce gives one citation in which this view of the 
 respective relations of the two apostles is expressly de- 
 clared. He says (p. 164) : " Hilary the deacon says : 
 ' Paul mentions Peter alone, and compares him to him- 
 self because he had received a primacy for the founding 
 
 * He received a distract commission involving all the gifts that had al- 
 ready been bestowed, and which were involved in Apostleship, and also 
 whatever specialty belonged to Peter. 
 
96 THE KOMAN DOCTRINE OF UNTTY, 
 
 of the Churcli, while he himself was elected in like man- 
 ner to have a primacy in founding the churches of the 
 Gentiles,' " Again : " As he assigns associates to Peter, 
 namely, the illustrious men among the apostles, so he 
 joins Barnabas to himself, who had been associated with 
 him by divine appointment ; yet he claims the grace of 
 the Primacy as granted by God to himself alone, as to 
 Peter alone was it granted among the apostles." 
 
 The principle of a Primacy — a First from whom 
 unity might proceed, and by whom the Twelve were 
 bound into one, which was first exemplified in Peter, was 
 further exemplified in Paul. He had an office, the same 
 in its nature as was Peter's, but a ministry which was 
 entirely distinct. But he had a distinct and more ad- 
 vanced revelation than Peter's, which he calls " my gos- 
 pel," and which he declares he was taught by special rev- 
 elation, not having received it through the medium of 
 Peter or his brethren (Gal. i. 11, 12) ; and he went up 
 to Jerusalem " to see Peter," because it was necessary 
 that there should be a perfect understanding between 
 the two apostleships. Peter was not primate with re- 
 spect to him, but only with respect to his fellow Apostles 
 to the Circumcision. Paul's primacy was not so dis- 
 tinctly called into exercise, because he had not associated 
 with him a full number of apostles. He speaks of him- 
 self as an eK-gufia (1 Cor. xi. 7), a premature birth, the 
 meaning of which is, that the time had not arrived for 
 the Church to bring forth from her womb the fully 
 formed Apostleship to the Gentiles ; but in order to the 
 
THE KOMAN DOCTRDSTE OF UNITY. 97 
 
 revelation of the purpose of God in the Gentiles, it was 
 necessary that one should be thus early, prematurely 
 called forth to inaugurate the Gentile Church, and commit 
 to it the revelation which was not made to the Church 
 of the Circumcision ; which apostleship was to come out 
 in its completeness in the end of the dispensation. A 
 Primacy in Paul, therefore, has the same effect as a 
 Primacy in Peter, and this dignity was not a preroga- 
 tive peculiar to that apostle. 
 
 A Primacy in the apostolic college was requisite to 
 the unity of the Apostolate, inasmuch as no collective 
 body can act without a head ; and the scriptural fact of 
 the primacy of Peter is the standing answer to the the- 
 ory that the visible Church can be bound in unity with- 
 out a visible centre of unity. Here is a reason sufficient 
 to justify all that is said in the l^ew Testament that im- 
 plies a primacy in the apostolic college vested in Peter, 
 and in this view we can but be struck with the evident 
 exaggeration which pervades the whole argument of 
 Wilberforce in his statements of the relation of Peter to 
 the Church. In fact, the argument is overdone; for 
 there is ascribed to Peter a peculiarity of office far be- 
 yond any thing hinted at in the Scriptures, and which 
 nothing short of special revelation could warrant us in 
 believing had devolved upon any successor. 
 
 The admission of a Primacy held by Peter in the 
 original apostolic college, by no means involves an assent 
 to the inference that the Bishop of Rome inherits that 
 prerogative as his successor. 
 
yb THE KOMAN DOCTRINE OF TJNITY. 
 
 1. Peter held the primacy as an apostle, and it could 
 be only an apostle in the full sense of the word that 
 could in any way succeed to that oifice. The whole 
 of Wilberforce's argument rests upon the assumption 
 that the Apostolate is perpetuated in the Episcopate. 
 This is the fallacy which underlies this whole discussion, 
 on the Protestant as well as the Roman side. But it is 
 directly contrarj'- to Scripture. There is no evidence 
 there that the apostles intended to convey their own pe- 
 culiar functions to any of the ministers whom they ap- 
 pointed. The apostles were appointed by the Lord, with 
 the words, " As my Father hath sent me so send I you." 
 'No such words passed upon any of the bishops whom 
 the apostles ordained. They were not, as the Twelve 
 were, "named apostles" (Luke vi. 13), and consequently 
 could not enter upon their office. An apostle is "not of 
 men, neither by man, but of Jesus Christ and God the 
 Father " (Gal. i. 1) — directly called of God. It belonged 
 not to the apostles to send other apostles, consequently 
 any office or official rank which Peter held among his 
 brethren derived from his apostolical character, he could 
 not communicate ; and if he could not impart the office of 
 apostleship, much less could he that of apostolic Pri- 
 macy. 
 
 2. It is an assumption that Peter ever really held the 
 office of Bishop of the Church of Pome. I do not mean 
 to call in question the ancient tradition that he and St. 
 Paul were together at Rome, and united in founding the 
 Church there ; but if there, Peter was there as an 
 
THE KOMAN DOCTRINE OF UNITY. 99 
 
 Apostle, establisliing the Church, guarding it and setting 
 it in order ; and it was in so doing that he ordained 
 Linus, as the tradition runs (though some authorities, I 
 believe, refer the ordination of Linus to Paul, and that 
 of Clement to Peter), as the bishop thereof during his 
 lifetime, and not as his successor. 
 
 3. It is very clear that no such dignity was claimed 
 by the earlier bishops of Rome after the apostolic age, 
 as that of Primate over the whole Church. 'No trace of 
 any assertion of any special dignity for that Church is 
 apparent until some time in the second century. ]l!^ow, 
 it is absolutely incredible that it should have been so if 
 the case really had been such as the defenders of the Pa- 
 pacy allege. Peter, when he wrote his Epistles, called 
 himself the "Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ." It was in- 
 cumbent on him to assert his calling — to make known the 
 relation in which he stood to the Church and to the Lord. 
 Could it have been less so with one who was really his 
 successor ? But in the Epistle of Clement we see no such 
 assertion of office — nothing that could suggest that he as 
 Bishop of Eome had any preeminence over his brethren. 
 It is an epistle written in the name of the Church of 
 Rome to that of Corinth. Its temper is that of pater- 
 nal admonition, and it contains nothing which implies any 
 such superiority as Primacy. 
 
 The earliest indications of any thing like an assertion 
 of a claim of Primacy that these Roman Catholic writers 
 adduce, are as late as the third century. Cyprian is the 
 earliest writer whom "Wilberforce cites as calling- the 
 
100 THE ROMAN DOCTELNE OF UNITY. 
 
 Episcopal See of Rome " the chair of Peter." He refers 
 to many authors as saying that Peter founded the See of 
 Pome, and that Linus succeeded him, but nothing at that 
 early period that implies that the Bishop of Pome inherited 
 the prerogatives of the apostle. A respect is claimed for 
 the Church of Pome as of ancient apostolic foundation, 
 even as early as the time of the Quartodeciraan contro- 
 versy ; but we are struclc with the utter absence of any 
 thing out of which the claim of papal supremacy could 
 have grown.* One citation which Wilberforce makes from 
 
 * All that can be deduced from the references in the writers of the ear- 
 lier centuries to the See of Rome is, that that Church had a peculiar dignity 
 and consideration, as being of apostolic foundation. It was the Church 
 that gave importance to the bishop rather than the bishop to the Church. 
 It was the Seat of Peter, as it began to be called, that imparted authority 
 to the bishop who occupied it, rather than the successor of Peter, that gave 
 weight to the see. Thus Ffulkes says : 
 
 " That the See of Rome was supposed to possess some inherent pre- 
 rogatives" (this is rather a stronger expression than the facts warrant) " no 
 student of ecclesiastical history will now deny ; and the most hostile ex- 
 planation that can be given of them is, that they attached to it as the seat 
 of empire. This may or may not be the fair inference to be drawn from 
 those well-known canons of the second and fourth General Councils, in 
 which rank ' next after Rome ' is given to the See of Constantinople ; but it 
 is certainly fair to call attention to what they suppress as well as express. 
 Constantinople had, in fact, no other title to put forward but that of its im- 
 perial importance. Rome, on the other hand, in addition to any mere im- 
 perial privileges, had another that had infinitely more charms for Christen- 
 dom, namely, the preeminence of its apostolic origin. As it was the only 
 see in the West which could boast of that distinction, so it was the only 
 see in all the world that had been founded, not by one apostle, but by two, 
 and those the greatest of the apostles. This, incomparably more than the 
 other, is the fact so glowingly dwelt upon by Irenaeus, Cyprian, Tertullian, 
 Athanasius, Augustine, and others who have testified to the prerogatives of 
 the See of Rome ; and if they have nowhere defined those prerogatives, it 
 is quite certain that both fathers and councils continually acted as recog- 
 nizing in them a good deal more than mere words " (pp. 22, 23). 
 
 All the citations this author gives from those fathers go to this extent and 
 no more ; that the Church of Rome was entitled to respect and reverence, 
 
THE KOMAN DOCTKINE OF UNITY. 101 
 
 Tertullian seems rather like irony. Complaining of the 
 relaxation of discipline he says : " I hear that an edict 
 has been propounded, and that a peremptory one : the 
 Pontifex Maximus, it seems, that is the Bishop of bishops, 
 gives out, I remit the crimes of adultery and fornication 
 to the penitent ; " and he adds that Tertullian, who had 
 at that time become a Montanist, asserts that the apostle 
 had received no other than a personal commission, and 
 denies that the Chnrch had any authority to readmit 
 men to communion after deadly sins. The application of 
 the term Pontifex Maximus, the title of the Pagan em- 
 perors to the Bishop of Pome, seems to imply that there 
 was a tendency to exaggeration of the authority of that 
 see, which he intended thus, by the use of satire, to con- 
 demn. The fact of his having become a Montanist does 
 not impair the value of his testimony as to a matter of fact. 
 There is, however, in Wilberforce, a disposition to 
 exaggerate every little circumstance which can be made 
 to have the remotest bearing upon the point. It is only 
 by aggregating such circumstances that he makes what 
 seems a cumulative argument in favor of his position ; 
 but his argument is an inverted cone, and has a poor 
 basis on which to rest a faith which must receive an in- 
 stitution so momentous in its influence, as a divine ordi 
 nance. In fact, it is very apparent that the recognition 
 
 and lier judgment as having special weight on account of her apostolic ori- 
 gin ; but they do not involve the idea that the Bishop of Rome inherited all 
 the authority of Peter. That, this very writer admits, was the result of a 
 later development. 
 
102 THE EOMAN DOCTEINE OF UNITY. 
 
 of the Papacy is a result of natural reason and not of 
 faith — an intellectual conclusion ratlier than a spiritual 
 act. 
 
 4. It is admitted by these very writers that the Pri- 
 macy of Peter was a very different thing from the Papal 
 supremacy as it now appears. The latter has been the 
 growth of centuries. Its development has been owing to 
 political quite as much as to ecclesiastical causes ; but 
 the one principle which has given it vitality, has been 
 the idea of unity — the necessity of some power which 
 should be an ultimate appeal in cases of difficulty and 
 doubt. 
 
 Says Ffulkes : 
 
 " At first it seemed as though the supreme governorship of the Church 
 had been entrusted to the converted emperors. Constantine assumed it 
 immediately after his victory over Maxentius, as a trust committed to him. 
 
 " On tidings of the rupture between Alexander and Arius, he despatched 
 a joint letter to them both, in which one is censured for having raised im- 
 prudent questions, and the other for having returned rash answers. Unable 
 to bring them to terms by his remonstrances, it was he who conceived and 
 carried out the plan of calling all the bishops of Christendom together, to 
 pronounce upon their case. Here is a fact of prime importance in ecclesi- 
 astical history. It should be written down in the largest characters, that 
 what are called oecumenical councils, originated, not with the apostles or 
 their successors, but with the first Christian emperor and his successors ; 
 so much so that there is not one of them, at least of those designated oecu- 
 menical by East and West, that was not convened by imperial mandate." 
 
 " Another notable feature of the Constitution of these councils was that 
 they directly involved the notion of universal monarchy. * * * 
 
 " Gradually then as the whole Church assembled in oecumenical synod, 
 It not only felt conscicus of having been convened by one Sovereign poten- 
 tate, but it likewise saw the bishop of one see sitting at the head of the 
 collective episcopate. Could it have been otherwise than a mere question 
 of time, to delegate to him the same executive powers over Christendom 
 generally, that had been already delegated to metropolitans over provin- 
 
THE KOMAN DOCTKINE OF UNITY. 103 
 
 cial, and to patriarchs over diocesan Cliurches ? Could it have been other- 
 wise regarded than as carrying out of received principles to their legitimate 
 results; a logical consequence of assimilating ecclesiastical jurisdiction to 
 that of the empire — the universal Church to the universal State ? " 
 
 Again : 
 
 " In the matter of appeals likewise, there can be no doubt but that 
 Constantine and his successors received them from all parts of Christen- 
 dom, and appointed judges to hear them, whose sentence they confirmed 
 and executed. Previously, there had been no one Supreme Court of ap- 
 peal in the Church ; now, there was not only one, but it vested in one su- 
 preme potentate. There is not a heresy, from that of Paul of Samosata, 
 nor a schism from that of Donatus, of any consequence for the first six cen- 
 turies, in which their intervention is not recorded in some form or other. 
 The earliest ecclesiastical historian had styled Constantine a "common 
 bishop ;" the next in order, far from disputing it, expresses himself as fol- 
 lows in a studied preface : We include the emperors in our history, because 
 from the time that they became Christian, ecclesiastical affairs have de- 
 pended on them, and the greatest councils have been and are held by their 
 decree."— Ffulkes, pp. l'7-20. 
 
 This view of the case is an admission that the recog- 
 nition at last of the supremacy of the Pope of Rome, did 
 not spring from any faith in it as a divine institution, 
 but was in effect a conventional arrangement, which, 
 grew out of the experienced necessity of some central au- 
 thority for the purpose of maintaining unity. The most 
 that can be claimed for it is, that it was providentially 
 ordered and allowed. 
 
 It requires nothing more than the admissions and ar- 
 guments of these writers to establish the conclusion that 
 the government of the Church under the Papacy is an 
 essentially different constitution from that administered 
 by the apostles in the first age of the Church. 
 
 The Papacy is an ecclesiastical monarchy, which 
 
104: THE ROMAN DOCTEINE OF UNITY. 
 
 claims to be universal — coextensive witli Christendom. 
 The Chnrcli was constituted a universal spiritual polity, 
 not yet arrived at the condition of a kingdom, but the 
 kingdom in a mystery to be revealed in its perfection, at 
 the return of the King from heaven. 
 
 The rule of the Church in the hands of the first 
 Apostles, was authority administered by a commission in 
 constant communication through associated Prophets 
 with the Head in the heavens, receiving thus intima- 
 tions of His mind, and endowed with wisdom to carry 
 the same into effect. 
 
 Under the Papacy the Church is governed by a Yice- 
 roy, for whose administration infallibility is claimed, 
 but without any associated ordinances for ascertaining 
 the mind of the Lord. The Papacy is an anticipation 
 of the Kingdom, and a usurpation of the place of the 
 Lord Himself. The term vicar of Christ implies that a 
 single man can adequately fill the place of the Lord. A 
 collective headship, consisting of a mmiber called by the 
 Lord to be His representatives, is free from this objec- 
 tion, while, at the same time, it satisfies the idea of a 
 Catholic Supremacy. E^o substitute can perfectly fill 
 the place of the Lord Himself. At His second coming 
 He ajDpears as sole Head. In His absence He is repre- 
 sented, not by one, but by Twelve, acting as one. 
 
 One of the strongest arguments for the Papacy has 
 been the assumption that it is the only way of solving 
 the problem of unity. If, then, any other way can be 
 shown as possible, this argument is so far neutralized. 
 
THE EOMAJSr DOCTEINE OF TOTITT. 105 
 
 If an alternative can be presented, it proves nothing in- 
 deed, but it relieves the mind from what might other- 
 wise be regarded as a logical necessity. An hypothesis 
 or a possibihty is not, indeed, an argmnent, but to certain 
 states of mind it has at least the effect of a negative ar- 
 gument. And so if it is shown that there is any other 
 way by which Catholic unity can be realized than by the 
 admission of the divine authority of the Papacy, such a 
 suggestion tends to weaken in so far the force of argu- 
 ments which might otherwise seem to some minds irre- 
 sistible in its support. 
 
 Such an hypothesis I have presented as a means of 
 solving this problem. I hope it may at least serve the 
 purpose of relieving some minds of embarrassing diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 5* 
 
CHAPTEE YII. 
 
 THE CONSTITUENT UNTTIES. 
 
 PriBciples annonnccd by St. Paul— One Body — One Spirit — One Hope — Ono Lord — 
 One Faith— One Baptism — One God and Father of All — These the Principles by 
 which Unity was to be preserved, and by which it is to be recovered — Theological 
 aspect of these principles — Necessity of going back to first principles. 
 
 In the preceding pages tlie unity of tlie Spirit has 
 been considered as a result. The words of St. Paul that 
 have been already referred to, in the fourth chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Ephesians, present to us several con- 
 stituent unities, all of which must be apprehended in 
 order to the realization of the all-comprehensive unity. 
 To these, in conclusion, I propose briefly to call atten- 
 tion. 
 
 " There is one Body and one Spirit, even as ye are 
 called in one Hope of your calling, one Lord, one Faith, 
 one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above 
 all, and through all, and in you all." Let us consider 
 them in detail. 
 
 1. One Body. — Not many bodies united in a confed- 
 eration, but one universal body. This is directly at va- 
 riance with the notion of a variety of sects or sectarian 
 organizations, and implies plainly that there can be no 
 
THE CONSTTTUENT UNTTIES. 107 
 
 unity of the Spirit where separate ecclesiastical organi- 
 zation is maintained and justified. It may not be clear 
 how the existing evil is to be at once overcome — it may 
 be unavoidable for a time that the existence of sects 
 should be allowed ; but there can be no approximation 
 to unity on the part of any individuals or communities 
 by whom the sectarian condition is not disapproved and 
 deprecated, and regarded only as an evil from which in 
 time the Church is to be delivered. Consequently, no 
 movements toward a confederation in which the respec- 
 tive interests of the confederated sects are to be preserved, 
 can be regarded as any approach to unity. The body is 
 one, and its unity must be made manifest in every part 
 and member, just as in the natural body the life is whole 
 in every part. 
 
 This conviction of the essential oneness of the body 
 would have the effect to suppress active measures of sec- 
 tarian proselyting, and rather turn the attention of men 
 to the inquiry how they and their brethren could be de- 
 livered from the evils of division, and enabled to attain 
 the unity of the Spirit. This would remove one of the 
 greatest evils of sectarianism, and incline Christian men 
 to recognize the good that is in their brethren as well as 
 to see and object to the evil. There can be no return to 
 God without repentance, and the first fruits of repent- 
 ance will be to renounce and condemn the sectarian 
 principle in whatever form it may present itself. 
 
 2. One Spirit. — The sectarian principle divides the 
 Spirit. Instead of looking for diverse forms of mani- 
 
108 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 
 
 festation in one body, it requires a distinct form of mani- 
 festation in each different body. This is its alleged jus- 
 tification. The plea is made that all men are not alike, 
 and that the manifestation of the Spirit must be different 
 in different classes as well as individuals ; and in order 
 thereto, these classes, with their different intellectual, 
 aesthetic, and social tendencies, must be separately or- 
 ganized. What is the consequence? First of all, the 
 manifestation of the Spirit is hindered, because a partial 
 operation can never be complete; and then each sepa- 
 rate portion is hindered by its separation from sharing in 
 the grace which may come to the others. This theory 
 by which sects are justified is not warranted by facts. 
 Whatever grace through the forbearance and long-suffer- 
 ing of God may be found in one sect or section does not 
 avail for others. The spirit of antagonism, or of secta- 
 rian or denominational self-interest, hinders each sect 
 from deriving benefit from the good that is in the others. 
 The good that is in the Roman Catholic Church has 
 little power over the Protestant, and vice vei'sd. The pe- 
 culiar features of spiritual grace that appear in the Epis- 
 copalian bodies, operate with very limited effect upon 
 non-Episcopalians ; and so on throughout the catalogue. 
 True it is that the Protestant Eeformation had a power- 
 ful influence upon the Pom an Catholic Church, in com- 
 pelling a " reformation in the head and members," which 
 had for centuries been called for within the Church to 
 no purpose. Methodism had a powerful effect in arous- 
 ing the Church of England from its apathy and indiffer- 
 
THE CONSTITUENT "DNITIES. 109 
 
 ence to the spiritual wants of the masses in England. 
 Every onward movement, every true revival of a part, 
 has had an effect upon other parts ; more, however, in the 
 way of provoking to emulation than in the more excel- 
 lent way of a general diffusion of life through the whole 
 body. But it still remains, that when the Spirit of God 
 acts at all in a divided Church, His action is divided, and all 
 parts do not feel alike the movement of the pulses of the 
 divine life. For tlie full manifestation of the power of 
 the One Sphit there must he one body, in which all the 
 members are organically knit together, holding the 
 Head and drawing nourishment from Him by the 
 joints and bands by which they are united, so that 
 it may increase with the increase of God (Coloss. 
 ii. 19). 
 
 3. One Hope. — The hope which St. Paul referred to 
 was the hope of the Lord's second Coming, and of our gath- 
 ering together unto Him (1 Thess. i. 10; 2 Thess. ii. 1). 
 This was the " one hope of their calling," which, giving 
 to all of them a common object of interest, tended pow- 
 erfully to remove causes of division. This hope involved 
 the perfecting of the body, and its being " presented as a 
 chaste virgin to Christ " at His appearing (2 Cor. xi. 2). 
 It was not the mere hope of happiness after death — of 
 individual salvation — but a hope for the body, the 
 Church — an interest in the Body as the instrument God 
 would use for the fulfilment of His purposes toward cre- 
 ation (Ephes. iii. 10, 11) — that Paul here refers to. The 
 influence of such a hope in drawing faithful men to- 
 
110 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 
 
 gether, and in exciting them to endeavor to keep the 
 unity of the Spirit, mnst be obvious. With such an end 
 in view — the participation of the glory of the risen Lord, 
 reigning with Him in His kingdom, and serving under 
 Him in the government and rule of the universe — an end 
 which can only be attained by the Church perfected in 
 unity — an end which separation and disunion must frus- 
 trate and postpone — the motive to preserve unity would 
 be most strong, as the sympathy and fellowship it would 
 inspire would be deep and intimate. 
 
 The loss of this hope removes, therefore, one of the 
 strongest influences which is to bind into one the meni- 
 bei's of the body of Christ. Its recovery is one of the 
 essential conditions of any approach toward unity. There 
 can be no progress in that direction without this as the 
 common end and object of all desire. 
 
 It is to be observed that in the attempt to effect the 
 Tinion of sects, a common hope seems to have been over- 
 looked as one of the essential constituents of unity. And 
 truly, the mere hope of individual salvation, which is all 
 that the popular religion dwells upon, has little in it to 
 bind men into one, since no sect — not even the Roman 
 Catholic practically — really affirms that salvation is not 
 possible out of its communion. 
 
 If, however, we rise up to the higher ground of a 
 hope for the Church — for the body of Christ, as the Per- 
 fect Bride of the Lamb to be prepared for the marriage — 
 to be caught away, and come with Him when He shall 
 appear in His glory, a different object is presented to 
 
 1 
 
THE CONSTITUENT TTNITIES. Ill 
 
 view. Individual salvation is lost sight of, and all per- 
 sonal interests are swallowed up in the one Hope of the 
 glory which shall be conferred upon the Bride of the 
 Lamb. Here is a motive to unity, and a force operative 
 to effect it. 
 
 4. One Lord. — Jesus Christ is the Lord. God hath 
 given Him power over all flesh. All power is given 
 unto Him in heaven and on earth. All things are to be 
 brought into subjection unto Him. He is to be revealed 
 as King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is Lord, not as 
 in right of His Grodhead, but as the prerogative of His 
 manhood, for Lordship was the Father's gift to Him in 
 reward of His obedience as man. We see not yet all 
 things put under Him. In this present dispensation the 
 Church is the sphere where His Lordship is exercised and 
 acknowledged, and this acknowledgment is one of. the 
 essentials of unity. There must be conceded to Him the 
 right to do His pleasure in His own house. iN^either 
 directly nor by implication must men deprive Him of 
 that right, claiming to shape the constitution of the 
 Church according to their own conceits, or denying Him 
 the right to call from the Heavens and send forth those 
 whom He may choose, to rule and order His house ac- 
 cording to the will of His Father. 
 
 He must be seen as One Lord. But how can the 
 one lordship be seen in the Church when there is no re- 
 cognized centre from which the Head can communicate 
 with all the parts, and direct their movements toward a 
 common end ; but every fragment has its own self-im- 
 
112 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 
 
 posed constitution, and struggles to get itself a place and 
 name of honor at the expense of its rivals ? 
 
 Jesus Christ was sent to be both a Prince and a 
 Saviour. His Lordship therefore — His right to rule, re- 
 quires distinct recognition. In words, the Lordship of 
 Christ would not be denied by any who profess to believe 
 the Gospel ; but closer thought upon the subject, would 
 disclose a significance in these words which would be 
 found to reveal some of the causes of existing divisions, 
 and to suggest their remedy. 
 
 5. One Faith. — By this is meant, doubtless, tlie Faith 
 once delivered to the Saints : the great facts of the 
 Gospel history, with the truths which they involve as 
 affirmed in the Apostles', and afterwards expanded in the 
 Nicene creed. The Incarnation, sufferings, resurrection, 
 and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; His coming 
 again to judge the living and the dead ; the sending of 
 the Holy Ghost ; the calling of the Church ; the resurrec- 
 tion of the body and the life everlasting, as the same is 
 revealed in the Scriptures. This is the one Faith, and it 
 is implied that it must be held as one — with a common 
 conviction — a common interpretation. Tlie same for- 
 mula held, with variant interpretations, would not be an 
 element of unity, but the reverse. As this point has 
 come under our consideration in previous chapters, I 
 need not dwell upon it here. 
 
 6. One Baptism. — Into the One Kame, of the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; for one end — the remis- 
 sion of sins ; knitting the baptized mysteriously into one 
 
 • 
 
THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 113 
 
 bodj, of wliicli tliey are thus constituted members. This 
 is one of the elements of imity and must be recognized 
 as such — the outward ordinance, the means of initiation — 
 implying that the body is a real, visible constitution ; as 
 necessary as the faith of which it is the Seal. And this 
 involves, also, an apprehension of the standing into 
 which the Baptized are brought as the members of Christ 
 and partakers of His grace. 
 
 T. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and 
 through all, and in you all. 
 
 These words serve to complete the circle of unities 
 in which the unity of the Spirit has its full exercise. We 
 are not to understand that St. Paul here designed to 
 assert the unity of the Godhead as against the Pagan 
 mythology. ISTor will this text serve any purpose of sus- 
 taining Unitarian doctrine. The Father is the one 
 source of all being ; every thing that exists proceeds from 
 Him as the one fountain of existence, and no enumer- 
 ation of the great principles of truth by which the unity 
 of the Spirit is effected would be complete without lead- 
 ing up to Him from whom all things proceed. The 
 " One Spirit " has been named, who dwells and mani- 
 fests His presence in One Body ; the " One Lord Jesus 
 Christ " who is the Son of God, of the same substance 
 with the Father ; and now we are led up to the " One 
 God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
 and in you all." These last words, " in you all," may, 
 perhaps, be regarded as the specially significant words 
 in this passage. The oneness of the members of Christ 
 
114 THE OONSTITUElsrT UNITIES. 
 
 in the Father and the Son, is, as was shown in the 
 first chapter, the ultimate reality, and in order to the 
 preservation of the unity of the Spirit, this truth must be 
 seen and apprehended. 
 
 Since, then, these are the principles by the apprehen- 
 sion of which the unity of the Spirit which existed at the 
 first was to be preserved, it is by the same principles that 
 unity now broken, must be recovered. Their considera- 
 tion covers a wide field — nothing less, in fact, than the 
 whole field of Theology as related to the Church. This 
 is a branch of theology that has been much overlooked, 
 and, in fact, among non-Episcopalian Protestants, almost 
 universally ignored. The subject of the Church has 
 been treated as a side issue, of secondary importance, or 
 none at all. It has not, in the received theological sys- 
 tems of the day, been regarded as having any relation to 
 the inward life, and the assertion of any principles in re- 
 gard to it is almost always denounced as bigotry. 
 
 The ancient creeds included the Church — the Holy 
 Catholic Church, as an article of the Faith. It stands 
 with the Incarnation — the mission of the Holy Ghost — 
 the life everlasting. This would seem to suggest that 
 the doctrine concerning the Church was equal in import- 
 ance to the others with which it is associated in the most 
 ancient symbols, and had some intimate connection with 
 them. And what does it involve ? Plainly the rela- 
 tions which the Lord Jesus Christ sustains to the body 
 which the Father has chosen out of the world — the man- 
 ner and form in which He exercises His rule upon the 
 
THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 115 
 
 eai-tli — the means and ordinances by wliicL He dispenses 
 His grace^the way in wbicTi the Father is to be wor- 
 shipped, and the purpose to be accomplished by the 
 Church. All these are questions essentially theological, 
 as much so as the doctrines of Incarnation and atone- 
 ment, and involve principles upon which Christian people 
 should not be left in doubt or uncertainty. 
 
 But these are questions which are for the most part 
 ignored or put out of sight. It is contended that they 
 are not essential. If by this is meant that a full recog- 
 nition of them is not an absolute sine qua non of indi- 
 vidual salvation, it may be admitted. But as the pur- 
 pose of God involves something more than the salvation 
 of individuals, even the perfecting of the Bride of His 
 Son, the truth is not to be regarded exclusively in its re- 
 lation to the salvation of individuals. Whatever is re- 
 quisite to the completeness of the system of divine reve- 
 lation is essential^ however it may or may not affect indi- 
 vidual salvation. " Every word of God is pure," and no 
 individual, much more no Church, is perfect and com- 
 plete in all the will of God, which does not hold to and 
 assert all that God has revea,led. regarding the relations 
 of the Church, as well as of individuals to the Lord. 
 
 It is only when these which I have called constituent 
 miities are apprehended, that the true nature and neces- 
 sity of unity can be seen at all. "Without them the dif- 
 ferent religious communities are only so many voluntary 
 societies, with no common bond ; and although they may 
 agree to differ, they never can attain to that higher and 
 
116 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 
 
 mysterious unity whicli is a reflex of tliat in the Most 
 Holy. 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that it is necessary to go 
 back to first principles in order to any progress toward 
 the true unity of the Spirit. The recovery of unity is 
 not a matter of feeling, but of principle. Any coming 
 together of divided sects upon the mere ground of good 
 feeling, of kindness of heart, of mutual personal confi- 
 dence, would not fulfil the conditions of unity. Some- 
 thing is gained when Christian bodies that have been 
 separated or have grown asunder, have ceased to bite 
 and devour one another, and have come to recognize the 
 good that is in those from whom they are separated. 
 This may be regarded as a step in advance, an improve- 
 ment upon that time when every sect regarded it as its 
 chief duty to oppose and contend with all who did not 
 subscribe to all its usages and dogmas. Still more is 
 gained when difierent sects or parties are so enabled to 
 enlarge their basis of doctrine as to merge their differ- 
 ences without compromising theii* convictions. But the 
 real value of any movements of this nature is in their 
 tendency to lead Cliristian men to see more clearly 
 the constituent unities — the apostolically announced 
 principles which are requisite to preserving the unity of 
 the Spirit in the bond of peace. Existing prejudices and 
 long-standing convictions are hindrances to the recogni- 
 tion of a system that is materially difierent from what 
 has been received, however logically it may be presented ; 
 and it is, therefore, necessary to go back to first princi- 
 
THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 117 
 
 pies in order to change tlie position ffoin wliicli tlie sub- 
 ject is seen, and enable the observer to view it in new 
 lights and relations. 
 
 In presenting the views set forth in the previous 
 pages, the writer has not overlooked this difficulty, or 
 been unaware of the hindrances which the reception of 
 the popular rehgious system presents to the admission of 
 the conclusions here exhibited. But a sharp contrast is 
 sometimes more effectual to awaken thought than an 
 easy transition. The movements that succeed in chang- 
 ing the face of society are those which are radical, and 
 such is the character of the doctrine defended in these 
 pages. The unity here proposed is radically different 
 from that popularly assumed, even in the Episcopalian 
 bodies, and as such it claims the attention of thoughtful 
 Christian men. There is no point of contact between a 
 system which involves a truly Catholic organization, and 
 one which looks no farther than the confederation of a 
 number of voluntary societies. Dread of the Papacy 
 has, doubtless, precluded, on the part of Protestants, all 
 thoughts of Catholicity ; but if that evil can be avoided, 
 the subject may be more candidly considered. And 
 then, if the minds of Christian men can be raised up to 
 the recognition of a constant supernatural presence of 
 the Holy Ghost in the Church, they may be enabled to 
 see, first, the -possibility, and afterwards the reality of a 
 divine interposition to restore the long lost unity of the 
 Body of Christ. 
 
 But the writer would not urge upon any, hasty or in- 
 
118 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 
 
 considerate changes in their Church relations. The move- 
 ments of isolated individuals, however they may affect 
 themselves, have little or no effect upon the general re- 
 sult of the recovery of unity. It is in the performance 
 of duty in the relations in which one is providentially 
 placed, that light upon one's path is received, and the 
 will of God made known. Activity of mind, interest in 
 questions of importance, is of more consequence than 
 the right or wrong determinations of individuals. "When 
 there is activity, the truth has some chance ; when the 
 general mind is dull and sluggish, truth and error alike 
 pass unheded. 
 
 The first condition of any progress in a right direc- 
 tion will be a conviction that there is a radical error in 
 the generally received views of this subject. This will 
 open a place for repentance, and without repentance 
 there can be no return. Departure from the ways of 
 God, however insensibly it may have been fallen into, 
 can only be healed by repentance. What shall be the 
 substitute for the received system must be learned fi'om 
 the study of Holy Scripture, and for this I have en- 
 deavored to furnish some help. The existing condition 
 of the rehgious world, one would think, was enough to 
 prove that an error nothing less than radical held pos- 
 session of the consciences of men, and that a great and 
 radical change was required. 
 
 And this change is not one that can be postponed for 
 centuries. The signs of the times warn us that the 
 period of fierce and active conflict with the powers of 
 
THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 119 
 
 Antichrist is near at hand, when all the strength that can 
 be drawn from a divinely ordained unity will be needed 
 to defend each and every individual from the seductive 
 power which shall come with " all deceiveableness of 
 unrighteousness." It is only as members of the Body 
 of His Son that we receive the grace of God ; and it is 
 only in the faith of that membership that we can " with- 
 stand in the evil day." That faith maybe firm, we must 
 stand in unity, and not in separateness. Sectarianism 
 takes away the defences, and leaves those who are in- 
 fected by it open to all the assaults of the adversary. 
 Blindly, unconsciously, are men and communities now 
 being led into error and unbelief, because they recognize 
 no divine ordinances whereby they may be bound to- 
 gether in the support and confession of the Faith. 
 
 When Babylon, the city of confusion, is destroyed, 
 then shall those in whom the unity of the Father and 
 the Son is manifested, appear united as the chaste and 
 unspotted Bride of the Lamb, ready for the marriage. 
 
1 
 
 ■