5#'5^~^*;?^ < ^^r."^, »-^ / d yx's *^ BV 601.3 .G7x Gregory, Benjamin, 1820- 1900. The holy catholic church THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE COxAIxMUNION OF SAINTS. ^^^TTt uo-;- ^M OF mHnL DELIVERED AT BRUNSWICK CHAPEL, NEWCASTLE, ^7(1}' 29M, 1873, IX CONNECTIOX WITH THE ASSEMBLING OF THE WESLEYAN-METHODIST CONFERENCE. BEING THE FOURTH LECTURE ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE JOHN FERNLEY, ESQ. WITH NOTES, AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS ON THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP, AND THE ORIGIN OF THE " HIGH CHURCH " AND '• BROAD CHURCH " THEORIES. BY THE REV. BENJAMIN ''GREGORY. LONDON : WESLEYAN CONFERENCE OFFICE, 2, CASTLE-STREET, CITY-ROAD; SOLD AT G6, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1873. PREFACE. My aim in these pages is to present, clearly and con- vincingly, the true idea of the Christian Church. I have neither evolved it out of my own consciousness, nor con- structed it according to the systems of uninspired men, but have betaken myself directly, and confined myself exclu- sively, to the only authoritative and trustworthy instructors — Christ and His Apostles ; referring to other teachers for confirmation only, as they sijnply elicit the meaning of the sacred text, or in refutation of unwarrantable interpretations, or exposure of polemical interpolations or manipulations of Holy Writ. This latter part of the work has been the only unpleasant part. If in clearing away arbitrary theories, which have long overlain the yet perfect outline of the Temple of God, I have ^sometimes shown too much direct- ness and incisiveness, it must be remembered that the task of the excavator is rough work, and that the Divine idea of the Church has lain for ages like some grand temple in the desert, entombed in the sand- drifts of centuries. A great weight was taken from my mind by a mild com- plaint in the current London Quarterly Review^ that the Lecture, as delivered, did not "present more directly the specific Methodist idea of the Church." The one thing which, above all others I dreaded, deprecated and watched against, was the very thing which, it seems, I was expected to do, namely, to give a specific Denominational idea of the Church. This presentation of the specific idea of some particular Denomination has been the fatal flaw of all the ablest books upon the Church, from Belarmine, Hooker, and Field, to M'Neile and Goulburn. If I had understood that to be my duty, I should have declined the task without a. moment's hesitation. If my dread of the temptation to handle " the Word of God deceitfully" had not rescued me from perplexing a great subject by one more sectional book upon the Church, my sense of the ludicrous, no doubt abnor- mally developed, would have stood me, for once, in good 2 a iv PREFACE. stead, by rendering it impossible for me to present the sjjecific Methodist idea of the Catholic Chureh ! Whatever coincidence, tlien, may strike the readers of this book between Methodism and the Divine idea of the Church must be wholly credited to Methodism, and not at all to any special pleading of mine. I fear that a certain want of artistic compactness may be detected in some parts of the Lecture. This results from the blending of Lecture with exposition ; my text presenting, in my judgment, the full Divine idea of the Church. Bat 1 hope tbat the Analysis wall lay bare the thread of continuity. I send forth the Volume with a painful sense of its incom- pleteness : but I think I have a claim on the clemency of critics as to the literary demerits of my Book (as to any divergences from Scripture I hope no mercy may be shown). The task was laid upon me in a way which to vn^^ feeling was imperative. The subject was chosen for me, not by me ; that subject being the most difficult, the most tampered with, of any in the w^hole range of theology ; and having a Vaster vicinage than any other : and it was only by working overtime that the order could be met by the date fixed. Method- ism has no Canonries ; and the office which I have the honour to hold has strained the strength of stronger men than L It is but fair to add that the incompleteness of the Book is due also to the dread of increasing its bulk. Two supplemetary Essays wiiich I have written I am obliged to suppress for want of room — the one on Hereby and Schism^ the other on The Power of Binding and Looking, I have also spc^nt much thought on, and collected some material for, jin Essay on Bapti&m and the Lord's Supper. If, however, 1 have been enabled to do anything towards helping any one to say more intelligently and more devoutly, " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints," my toil will be well repaid. It is right to add, that a fear of presuming too much on the patience of my audience, combined with a sudden attack of indisposition, induced me in the delivery of the Lecture to pass over considerable portions, which in its permanent form it seems right to retain. I regret, however, that I have not thrown into the notes much of what is left in the text. ,SfoA-6 Newimjton, BENJAMIN GEEGOEY. iMcmibcr 16, 1873. ANALYSIS. PAGE 1 9 Grandeur of the Divine Idea of the Church Arbitrary human Church-Ideals Fragmentary Truth in All '^ Source of the true Church-Idea SCPdPTURAL CHURCH PRINCIPLES. I. The Church not a thing of rigid Definition 5 (1.) Not defined by Christ ^ (2.) Not formulated by the Apostles 7 (3.) Simplicity of the conception of the Church ... 8 (4.) Etymology and original meaning of the word . . 9 //. The Church a Definite Community 10 ///. The two principles not Incompatible 13 (1.) The Church at once visible and invisible . ... 13 (2.) The Mission of the Church 1^ IV. The Church, the Body, and the Bride of Christ. . . 17 (1.) The Spirit of Christ the Soul of the Church ... 21 (2.) The Church a Family and a City 22 V. The Church a Living and Organic Unity : not a mere Corporation -^ VL The Church is Shaped by its inherent Life .... 24 (1.) Its protoplasm and formative Life-force .... 25 (2.) Principles and process of organization 26 {a.) The Advent of the Spirit, the Inauguration of the Church ^* (6.) The Christian supersedes the Jewish Church . 27 VII The Church is the Organ of the Spirit 28 VIIL Differentiation of Function : the Apostolate ... 29 VI ANALY^SIS. IX. The Divine Riglit of Common Sense and Charity : No particular form of Organization prescribed : This Principle Illustrated by " The Acts " (1.) Elasticity of the Framework (2.) The Diaconate called for by an emergency (3.) Officers of Finance must be Spiritual (4.) Spontaneous action of private members .... (5.) Scriptural Quakerism (6.) Unition of the Churches (7.) Peter no slave of Legality (8.) Incidental initiation of Gentile Churches .... (9.) Principles rather than Prescriptions (10.) Origin .of the Eldership (11.) Apostolic Xoniuterfereuce (12.) Local Organization X The Church nevertheless a Law-abiding Society . . . (1.) The Council at Jerusalem (a.) The true Basis of Church Eecognition . . . (b.) Unanimity, how attained (c.) Order, Oversight, Subordination essential . . XL The Church a Self-edifying Organism (1.) Every Member of the Church a Joint of the Spiritual Supply (2.) " The Effectual Working in the measure of every part" (3.) The Universal Mutual Ministry (4.) Every Member has a Special Gift XII. Hence, the Communion of Saints an Essential of the Church Fellowship, What is it ? The Four Elements of Church-Life Obligatoriness of Mutual Edification (2.) (3.) (4.) Classification of Converts (5. ) Close Church-fellowship essential to Compact Church- order (6.) Communication of Faith (7.) Acknowledgment of Good (8.) ^lutual Vigilance 31 33 34 37 37 39 41 43 44 45 46 49 51 53 55 57 59 60 61 61 65 07 71 73 75 77 79 S3 S5 87 91 93 ANALYSIS. vii PAGE (9.) The Primitive Lovefeast and its Objects .... 94 XIII. The Special Functions of the Ministry 99 (1.) Bishops and Deacons 99 (2.) The Divine Call 101 XIF. Legitimate Constituency of the Clmrcli 102 (1.) Terms of Admission 103 (2.) The Church an Association for Moral, Spiritual, and Heavenly purposes 105 (3.) The holiness of the Church not merely hypothetical or corporate, but individual 106 (4.) Discipline Essential to the Church 107 (5.) Ministerial and Personal Responsibility for the maintenance of Church-purity 107 (6.) Proven Wickedness not to be tolerated . . . .107 (7.) Excommunication and the relation to the Church of the excommunicated 107 (8.) The Church the responsible Guardian of its own morals and reputation 107 (9.) Binding and Loosing 108 (10.) Rights and responsibilities of local churches . . .108 (11.) Secondary Excommunication 109 (12.) Christ-like Intolerance 110 (13.) Converse directions examined and weighed . . .111 (a.) Parable of the Tares : Distinction between the Church and the Kingdom 112 (b.) Servants must not sow Darnel 113 (c.) Ananias and Sapphira 119 (c?.) Parable of the Draw-Net 121 (e.) The Final Scrutiny 123 (/.) Similitude of the Great House 125 (g.) When is Church Secession Guiltless ? . . . .129 (k) Broad Church theory false 131 (?'.) Renders the Church ''a servant unto tribute" . 133 (j.) Restoration of the Fallen 135 (L) Excommunication a terrible act 137 Xr. The Unity of the Church 141 (1.) Elements of Unity 141 vui ANALYSIS. (2.) Where is the Catholic Cliurcli ? 143 (3.) The Visibility of the Church 145 (4.) The one Spirit makes the one body 149 (5.) Unity, how manifested and maintained . . . .151 (6.) Unity of the Primitive Church 155 (7.) Church Feeling 157. (8.) There is still one body 159 (9.) Sentiment of Historical Continuity 1G5 (10.) Wherein Historical Continuity consists . . . .167 (11.) Irritability a property of life 169 (12.) "One Lord, one faith" 171 (a.) Doctrinal Basis of the Church 173 (/;.) Unitarians not Members of the Church . . .175 (c.) The Rule of Inclusiveness 177 (13.) "One Baptism" 179 (14.) " One God— in you all" 181 (15.) The Church a Supernatural Society 183 Xr/. Relation of the Church to the World 183 (1.) Who are the " Other Gentiles V Contrast and Antagonism 185 (2.) The Church a Sympathizer 189 (3.) The Church the great Agent of Civilization . . .191 XFII. The Future of the Church 192 (1.) Unity of the Faith attainable 193 (2.) Manhood of the Church attainable 195 (3.) Impediments to Unity 197 (4.) Winds of Doctrine 199 (5.) Unification not to be effected by Absorption . . . 201 (6.) Denominationalism not Sectarianism 203 (7.) Successionists obstructive to Union 205 (8.) Hopeful Signs 207 Conclusion • 210 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. " Theee 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. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore He saith, When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men And He gave some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ : till we all come in 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 : That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive ; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ : from Whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the eflfectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind." — Ephesians iv. 4—8, 11—17. The Apostle, gazing entranced on the boundlessness of God's love to man, yearns for an ascription of praise which may, at least in infinity of duration, correspond to that illimitable love : " Now unto Him that is able to do exceed- ing abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, to Him be glory in the Churchy by Christ Jesus, world without end." A magnificent conception rises before his mind of a vast association, never B -2 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. to be disbanded, but to stretch in unbroken continuity through the centuries of time and the cycles of eternity ; a countless priestly temple-choir which has struck up the anthem of praise to God, never to be ended, never to be intermitted : " Unto Him be glory in the Church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end." W/iat is this grand association called tlie Church? The passage which I have read brings it before us fully ; places us in front of the Divine ideal of the Christian Church. But it does more than this, it lays down the working-plan on which the Church is to be constructed. Let us ask. What is the true idea of the Church, and where that true idea is to be sought ? Where must we seek for the true idea of the Church ? The question, What is the true idea of the Church ? cannot be answered until this preliminary question has received a satisfactory reply. The necessity that the question, Wliere is that true idea to be sought? should take temporary precedence is apparent, inasmuch as many conflicting theories and ideals of the Church are abroad in the world ; many unwarrantable theories and arbitrary, fanciful ideals. In glancing at these theories and ideals we must remember that, at present, we are not criticising theories themselves, but the methods by which they are reached. As to the conclusions, all we just now find fault with is, their extreme precarious- ness, being arrived at by such unsafe processes. These theories are either adjusted to existing institutions, framed to fit those institutions as they are, not to modify or regulate them ; doctrines not moulding institutions, but moulded on institutions, which institutions had been shaped by the endless interaction of human thinkings, fancies, passions, and mundane vicissitudes ; dogmas made to prop up over- ARBITRARY CHURCH-IDEALS. grown and hollow assumptions, or to lend the semblance of reality to illusive imaginings, — such as the Roman Catholic theory of the Church, which is historically later by many centuries than the Church itself; or hypotheses elaborately constructed to justify and glorify the present actual position of some ecclesiastical corporation, such as the Anglican High Church theory, framed so as to be most advantageous to the pretensions of the existing English Establishment, and least advantageous to all other Christian communities ; or theories made to meet the case of a professedly Christian, but in reality, to an awful extent, heathen and infidel people, such as the Broad Church theory, according to which the only heresy is a firm and consistent belief, and the only schism the coming out from the world and being separate ; or theories like that of the Society of Friends, originating in a vehement recoil from ecclesiastical exaggerations, aifecta- tions, usurpations and restrictions ; or theories generated by a hasty dissatisfaction with tJie actual condition of the Church, such as Novatianism in the early history of the Church, and Plymouth-Brethrenism in our own day; or theories which assume that it is possible by force of external arrangements to recall the past and forestall the future, such as current Irvingism ; or political and secular theories, which thrust into the foreground the secondary objects of the Church, subjecting its spiritual to its social mission, its efiectiveness as the real civilizer and pacifier ; or last of all, theories which captivate the imagination by their poetic or aesthetic charm, but do not command the conscience by Divine authority, — sentimental, antiquarian, philosophic ideals of the Church. Amidst this seething chaos of opinion where shall we look ? To whom shall we go for the true idea of the Church ? *^ Go ! " some reply, " Why, go to the Church herself; who b2 4 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. so competent as she to tell you what she is ? " Now, we will not say that this is a preposterous reply, inasmuch as it is palpably no reply at all : for how can we betake ourselves to the Church to solve any difficulty whatsoever, until we be first certified as to what or which the Church is ? For anything that a free-minded inquirer can at the outset allow himself to know, that which most loudly and threateningly announces itself as the Church may be a colossal cheat. Where then shall we go for an answer to the question, What is the Church ? Surely, to the Divine Founder of the Church Himself, and those whom He expressly commissioned to sketch the working plan, and to lay the first and pattern course of living masonry in this great temple ? Yet, if we should find that not one of the current theories of the Church is altogether false, however wrong the mental methods by which they were arrived at, let us not start or stumble at the discovery. If reverence for Revelation should lead us to re-affirm certain principles embodied or pre- supposed in various adverse systems, let us not forthwith reject those principles with disgust or dismay. If we should find after all that the Church is an institution, and not a mere ideal ; that ,there 25 a real historic continuity of the Church, a veritable visibility, an indestructible unity, an infallible in- fallibility ; let us not cry, T/iat is Popery ! and shake it off as Paul shook off the viper into the fire. If we should find in the Church of Revelation, a spacious, an eager inclusiveness, whether as to the states and stages of the spiritual life, the clearness and comprehensiveness of doctrinal teaching, and the free play of individual tastes and tendencies; a motherly tenderness, a hatred of putting away, a genuine humanitarian element ; let us not cry. That is latitudinarianism ! and flee from it as from the face of a serpent. If we should find withal a sensitive exclusive- THE TRUE SOURCE OF THE CHURCH-IDEA. ^ ness and a simplicity and sociality of sacramental ob- servance ; let us not exclaim, T/iat is Plymouth-Brethrenism ! and dismiss it with a sneer. If we should come upon a lofty, and, to some eyes, a quaint postponement of the form and letter to the power and spirit ; let us not say That is Quakerism ! and pass it on as a thing to be indulged, not recognised. What is there to sadden or alarm, if it should turn out that the true ideal of the Church is not the present speciality of any one particular Christian community or school of theological thought, but that " broken lights " have fallen on us all from the Father of lights; that we have all much to learn from each other, and that there is not one of us but has somewhat to teach. Let us betake ourselves at once to Christ and His Ajxostles to ascertain the true idea of the Church, free from all the morbid incrusta- tions which have through the ages gathered round it. And having ascertained, and whilst ascertaining, the true idea of the Church from the lips of its Founder and Head, and the pens and the practice of His Apostles, we must resolutely and religiously hold to that idea, not permitting any intel- lectual pre-occupation or imaginative predilection, or the authority of any post-apostolic teacher, to modify that idea in the slightest, or meddle with it at all ; nor must we permit any apprehension of the direction in which any clear Scrip- tural principle is leading us deter us from pursuing it; for if we allow ourselves to falter in our inquiry, or any merely human figure to come between us and the light, to us the Divine ideal of the Church will be blurred and distorted, and our Church action will be blundering and obstructive at best. I. We find that the Church is not a thing of rigid definition, and yet is nevertheless a definite community, 6 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. with a distinct object and reason of existence, with a cor- porate and confidential fellowship upon plain, precise and peremptory conditions. In vain we search amongst the sayings of Christ for any definition of His Church. He clearly and decisively fore- announced His Church. He spoke of " My Church," '^ The Church." He proclaimed Himself the Builder of the Church, and its all-pervading Occupant ; He foreshadowed its assail- ants and its struggles ; He guaranteed its invincibility and permanence ; He endowed it with inviolable autonomy ; a constitutional, not arbitrary/, authority over its members, and that on the express ground of His own perpetual presence in its assemblies, whether for worship, fellowship, social prayer, or discipline (for He decreed it discipline), — the preservation of its own purity and concord, by the correction of faulty and the exclusion of incorrigible members. He declared, '^ / will build M^ Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." " If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you. Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. . . . For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." But nowhere does Christ tell us, in direct, definite terms, what the Church is. The Church was never verbally formulated, either by Christ or His Apostles. The only approach to or substitute for a definition of the Church to be found in the New Testament, is the employment of interchangeable, though not absolutely equivalent expres- sions. For all practical purposes, — those of charity, mutual recognition and intercommunion. Church purity, distinctive- ness, and self-preservation, the synonymous phrases used by St. Paul are amply sufficient. We have from the APOSTOLIC CATHOLICITY. Spirit, through him, descriptive designations of the constituent elements of the Church, though not one defini- tion of the Church. These are the following : — " All that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their's and our's." (1 Cor. i. 2.) Is not this an indica- tion of the bounds of the Catholic, the all-comprising Church? "All them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity'* (Eph. vi. 24) ; " As many as walk according to this rule/' namely the rule of living, the habits or habitudes of the " new creature." (Galatians vi. 15, 16.) We have here an indication clear enough for all practical purposes of the rightful and real constituency of the Catholic Church, in plain English, the Church which excludes none that have a right to be included. No Christian community can, without the most egregious violation of the sanctity of language, call itself Catholic, which shuts out any one, much more any company, bearing these Divinely-indicated and Divinely- impressed marks of the true Church. All the other marks or signs of the true Church which have been insisted upon are human after-thoughts, ingeniously invented to suit the invidious claims of some particular form of eccle- siasticism. And, this absence of express definition of the Church is full of authoritative significance. The reason of this reserve is to be found, not only in the fact that the Bible is not a dictionary, but also in the certainty that the Divinest defi- nition would have been misused, even by the Church itself: and therefore Christ has built His Church, " With crystal walls too lucent to behold ; That none may take the measure of the place." This, then, is the first Church principle :— 'The Ckurck is not a thing of rigid definition. 8 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTi^. But is it not noteworthy that the disciples never asked the Master for an explanation of the meaning of the word C/mrck, much less for an authoritative definition of it? To their minds the word carried with it its own meaning ; it was luminous with its own significance. All the obscurity and confusion which have gathered about this word result from human efibrts to make the Church something else than its Divine Founder and living Head designed, or will allow it to be. To the disciples the Church was " no parable." They never said, " Declare unto us this." With them the word seemed to involve as little practical embarrassment as theoretical vagueness. It was plainer than how to pray, or else not so necessary to be known. They said eagerly, '' Lord, teach us to pray ?" but never. Lord, show us how to go about the formation of Thy Church ? They understood the Master too well to put such a question. Had He not said, "/ will build My Church"? This was no ** hard saying," like the foretelling of His death, which ^^ they understood not, and were afraid to ask Him." It was not even the subject of discussion amongst themselves. We find them " questioning among themselves, what the rising from the dead should mean," but never, what the Church should mean. Depend upon it, this much-vexed word Church stands for a very simple idea after all — if our minds were but as simple as the idea ! How had the word Church become to the disciples such an unmistakable household word? From the Old Testament Scriptures. The Greek word by which the Evangelists render that which our Lord would employ in speaking the vernacular of His native land is the same which, in the Greek transla- tion of the Old Testament, is given as the equivalent of the Hebrew words which our English Bible renders " congrega- tion." And the Hebrew word most frequently used is ETYMOLOGY OF THE ECCLESIA. 9 singularly equivalent with the Greek word in its root-idea, which is that of a call, or summons. The Hebrew word is never used to denote a promiscuous or incidental assemblage, a crowd or concourse. It always indicates a regular body* and usually a summoned or stated assembly of such individuals only as hold the right and privilege thus to assemble, " whose names are written '* in the public register as the legal constituents of that assembly. So thoroughly was this the case, that " the congregation " was the congregation, whether actually congregated or not, inasmuch as initiation and enrolment constituted membership. And in the Greek word, the idea of privi- lege and consequent exclusiveness is the prominent, the essential conception. The Greek IxKhmiu, which the Christian Church chose as its namesake, was a parliament of the free and enrolled citizens, of which the membership, rights, immunities and dignities were most jealously guarded. The mere fact of birth or residence in a city, for however long a time, did not invest a man with membership in the ecclesia — the civil church of that city — however rich, learned, influ- ential, virtuous, the man might be. Privilege, franchise, distinction, qualification, circumscription, exclusiveness, in so far as privilege and distinction necessarily imply exclu- sion as their counterpart, are of the very essence of * No less an authority than Gesenius gives as a secondary meaning of the word ?T\'^ " any assembly or multitude^ But the instances which he cites disprove his statement. In all of them but two our translators rightly render the word, " company," " assembly," or " congregation ; " and their arbitrary divergence in those two instances into the translation " multi- tude " (in the parallel passages they have " company "), lowers and impairs the sense of the original. Gusetius, however (a lexicographer now too much overlooked), says, ad voc, — All the various uses and derivatives of this word have respect to a calling together — " Quidquid ad earn pertinet, etc.^^ 10 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. the Old Testament congregation and the New Testament Church.* II. This, then, is the second principle at which we have arrived. The Church is a definite community^ with a distinct object and reason of existence ; a corporate^ confidential fellow- ship upon plain, precise^ peremptory conditions, * Etymological and classical meaning of the word lKK>>r>o-i», as bearing upon its use in the New Testament : The most frequent sense of the word is the general assembly of the citizens of Athens for purposes of discussion, and in later and better known times, for legislation. The power of the ecclesia dates from the Constitution of Solon, but he does not seem to have been its originator. It is probable that every Greek state had its popular assembly, like the agora described in Homer. The term is not, however, confined to the Athenian Assembly. Herodotus (Bk. iii., ch. 142) uses it of a Samian gathering — whether a legal body or a mere iDublic meeting is uncertain. Maidv^pios . , , l^KXinaUv avva.yt7pxs moivTuv Tuv cKTTUV. . . . Cf. Acts xix. 39. tv T^ l*v6y.u> £xx\r,!7ta. N.B.— Athens, Samos, and Ephesus were all Ionic cities. The name of the similar assembly at Sparta was aitiWa,. Cf. Hesychius ad voc. The word itself is connected with the verb xaKeu, to call ; inxuhiu^ to call out, to summon. EKK>^vais is used by Polybius (Fr. 44) in the sense of our duelling phrase, " calling out," i. e., challenging. It is also employed for magical evocation. tKKKna'^a is therefore a summoned assembly, like the Latin commitia, calata, from calare. The Latin phrase, e.g. com. airiata, centuriata, or tributa, means a regular, duly constituted meeting. Uxa>^Ba simply means to call out, e.g. Eurip. Bacchse, 170. Ka^/xo» ixxxXti ioixuy, evocare, not eligere. The meaning of the word l)tx^»9(7ta, at Athens was the citizens assembled by summons. exxX»)(7ta in the New Testament, being the equivalent for the words translated " congregation " in the Old Testament, doubtless possesses the associations of those words. The word xMjtos is closely connected with luxXviaici ; wherever it is used in the New Testament, the notion of summoning is prominent, e. g. Eom. i. 1. xXjjto^ aTTocTToAoj. 1 Cor. i. 1. fji ixKKnffia 7ov Qsov . . . xArjTOiy uyiots. THE CHURCH A DEFINITE COMMUNITY. 11 It is a primary, and must be a fixed idea with refer- ence to the Church. It is in possession, and must never be dislodged by any process of ejectment or eviction, however plausible or positive. When Christ first made to His dis- ciples the grand announcement, " I will build My Church^''' they never could have understood the word (with which they were perfectly familiar) in any other sense than that of a gloriously privileged community, membership in which must presuppose solemn individual admission after strict scrutiny of claim, to the sensitive exclusion of all who would not sub- mit to the terms of admission ; an enrolled order, the mem- bers of which have a character to maintain and obligations to fulfil, the wilful or reckless non-fulfilment of which must entail forfeiture of its honours and advantages. No man, Jew or Greek, reading the book of the Acts, and coming upon the word Churchy given, as it always is, without explanation, could possibly conceive of it otherwise than as a distinct privileged community, corporation, society, fellow- ship, brotherhood. A promiscuous Church ! an indiscri- minately inclusive Church ! a Church to which any man may challenge admission by virtue of his general respectability, is a flat contradiction in terms, an utterly unthinkable thing. It may be asked with perfect fairness. Is it not possible to press an etymology too far? Certainly. If the original constitution of the Church, or if the shape it took at the period of its formation, could be proved to be out of keeping 4t.h the strict meaning of the word, and out of accordance and analogy with the sense which it confessedly bore at the time when it was adopted as the designation of the Christian brotherhood, then it would be mere muddling pedantry to insist upon its etymology, or even its simple, primary sense.* • Many ancient writers, however, do insist upon the etymology of the 12 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. But is it so ? First of all, Christ must have had the hiohest reason for choosino^ that word as the sacred and perpetual designation of the new community which He was about to found. Perpetual designation, for who could think, who has ever thought of superseding the title which He had chosen ? Moreover, if He were using the familiar and already sacred word Church in a totally new and arbitrary sense, He would assuredly have appended an explanation. But the disciples, whom He knew too well to be very slow in grasping a new idea, believed that they understood it. He allowed them so to think. Moreover, when St. Luke, moved by the Holy Ghost, records the most salient and significant events in the first period of the Church's history, he too uses the word Church without any direct explanation, simply saying, " The Lord added to the Church." And the indirect explanation supplied by the phrase for which he makes the word Church the compen- dious designation is in exact accordance with the common acceptation of the term, as implying a definite, privileged association around a common centre (that centre being the doctrine of the Apostles), with terms of membership and a recognised basis of union, that basis being doctrinal, " They continued steadfast in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship,'''' And yet this Gentile word Ecclesia — Church, was stamped with a new significance, so expansive and lofty that it became " a new name " for the people of God, " which the mouth of the Lord " did " name." (Isaiah Ixii. 2.) But how are these two primary Church principles to be correlated and reconciled ? — I. The Church is not a thing of word as indicative of its meaning : not only the Latin Father, Angustine (Exp. ad Rom.), but the Greek, Clement of Alexandria (Circ a.d. 255, Strom vil 5, and elsewhere), also Methodius. THE CHURCH AT ONCE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 13 rigiid definition. II. 27ie Church is a definite community with a distinct object and reason of existence ; a corporate and confi- dential fellowship^ upon plain^ precise^ peremptory conditions. The seeming incompatibility of these positions will disappear if we bear in mind that the Church is first of all a spiritual comynunity^ that is, a society of souls, having the profoundest and most vital relations with the invisible and eternal world ; and yet is, at the same time an institution, existing in the present world and acting on the present world — the grandest institution of human history. And the members of the Church as a mundane institution are not always numerically and individually identical with the members of the Church as a spiritual community, a society of souls, which is in living communication with the invisible and eternal world. This distinction, between the Church as a spiritual community and the Church as a mundane institution, results from the following facts which will appear in the course of our inquiry. (1.) From the sovereign prerogatives of the Holy Spirit, the ''' free Spirit," Whose office it is (as we shall presently see) to collect and animate this spiritual community ; Who bloweth where He listeth^ and will not be shut in by or shut up to any outward forms or officiations whatsoever. (2.) From the universality of the Church's mission and the beneficent boundlessness of its invitation, and the authori- tative urgency of its summons, so that every form and extreme of moral compulsion is brought to bear upon them that are without, (Parable of the Marriage Feast,) and from the searching sweep of the Church's appliances. (Parable of Draw Net.) (3.) From the fallibility of the human officials whose function it is to admit into the external fellowship of the Church, upon strict and faithful, yet most delicate and 14 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. hopeful scrutiny ; here and there " one " having a moral attire so like the Wedding Garment that none but " the King" can detect the specious intruder. (Parable of the Wedding Garment.) (4.) From the stealthy action of the devil, to whose empire the Church is aggressively opposed, who contrives to induce into the Church members of his own party so like the true children of the Church, in some states and stages of their growth, that the eye of the faithful overseers cannot be trusted to discriminate between them. (Parable of the Tares.) (5.) From the mysterious freedom of the human will and the consequent incalculable developments of human character ; so that the good seed which has a promising spring and even a vigourous summer, may yet fail of a fruitful autumn (Parable of the Sower) ; and through the weakness and unfaithfulness of Church officials, such as the angel of the Church in Pergamos, the holders of corrupt and cor- rupting doctrine are allowed to remain in the Church (Rev. ii. 14, 15), and the ruling representative of a Church may himself lose the life of God, like the angel of the Church in Sardis. (Rev. iii. 1.) (6.) The Church, being the administratrix or stewardess of a divine system of healing and help — not the sole con- signee of grace, must needs be tender and maternal in its discipline, giving to all its questionable members the benefit of a doubt. (Parable of the Tares.) (7.) Because the individual believer holds directly on Christ and through Him on the spiritual community,— so that even if separated from the external institution by his own innocent mistake, or by the erring or unjust decisions of the Church authorities, he is still a member of the body of Christ. We must now look at the Church as a historical institu- tion, a distinct association, a corporate fellowship ; and ask THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 15 What is the object or what the objects of its existence ? These are plainly stated in the New Testament. (1.) The Church is to be the continuator on earth of Christ's work of invitation, teaching, restoration, sympathy, and consolation ; — not of atonement, that He " finished " " by one offering of Himself once for all." With that express exception, it is to be the conscious and subservient instrument in carrying on the work which Christ initiated, " all that Jesus began both to do and teach." (Acts i. 1.) It is to be the organ of His highest action upon the world, and that not only by authorization, but, still more, by the derivation of life from Him, and by the fact that His Spirit is its animating principle. In this, as in other, respects, ^Hhe Church is His body." This Christ Himself said, "As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." (John XX. 21.) To which announcement correspond the words of the beloved disciples, " As He is, so are we in this world." (1 John iv. 17.) And to this agree the words of the prophet where after speaking in the person of Christ, " Th e Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me ; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek ; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound ; ... to comfort all that mourn : " he adds that the comforted mourners in Zion shall in turn take up and carry forward His gracious work on a large scale; "They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations." (Isaiah Ixi. 1, 2, 4.) Yes, this work of universal restoration is to be not only the enterprise of the collective Church, but to each living member a personal " work of faith and labour of love," as Christ Himself asserts, " Verily, verily, I say unto you. 16 THE CHURCE, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. He that believetli on Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto My Father." Thus the Church is to be like Him, the great Burden-Bearer and Blessing-Bringer. Another object of the Church is — to be ^' the pillar and ground of the truth," — that is, to give a massive, permanent, stately, graceful, impressive and attractive visibility to the teaching of Christ, to be a living and most lovely embodi- ment and presentation of His religion, even in its lowliest members — domestic servants, " that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." (Titus ii. 10.) The object of the Church, again, is to form a glorious society composed of individuals rescued from the alienation, corruption, and hopelessness of the world, and in process of training for, and assimilation to, the society of heaven, of which society they already form an integral portion. Another leading object of the Church is to be Christ's embodied host set in array against the marshalled forces of evil, " the gates of hell " which " shall not prevail against it." And, in the beginning, thus we find it to have been, in fact. The new-born Church was the organ of Christ. It is im- possible to read with one's heart open that blessed book misnamed the Acts of the Apostles (it should be called the Acts of Christ) without incessantly exclaiming, " Lo, Christ is with them always I " Is there anything done of which He is not the Doer ? If daily accessions crowd into the Church — Who brings them? " The Lord added to the Church daily." If miracles are wrought— Who works them? The Lord wrought special miracles by the hands of this or that Apostle. If through the preaching of the disciples scattered abroad by persecution, ^^ a great number believed THE CHURCH, THE BODY OF CHRIST. 17 and turned unto the Lord," it was because " the hand of the Lord was with them." And thus it is throughout.* There have been many and very able Lives of Christ written in our time, both by believers and by unbelievers, but they have all in common this one great defect— they terminate with His Ascension ; which is, as if any one professing to write the Life of a great King, should suddenly break off at his accession to the throne. The fact is that the history of the Church, or indeed of the World, from the Ascension to the Second Advent, can only be intelligently written as the Life and Times of King Jesus. And this St. Luke clearly inti- mates at the very opening of the Acts, when he says that in his former treatise, — his Gospel, — his purpose was to give a compendium of "all that Jesus bepan, both to do and teach," implying that in his later treatise, the Acts, he pro- ceeds to give an outline of what Jesus went on to do and teach by the agency of His Church. Although no strict definition of the Church is given in Holy Writ, yet a clear and complete ideal is set forth ; and that organization is the best which tends most strongly and securely to the realization of that ideal. The ideal of the Church was not fully realized in the Apostolic times, but is to be realized before the completion of the Church's history. All the church arrangements made by the Holy Spirit, through the Apostles, were made with direct reference to the ultimate attainment of this perfection, " for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ : till we all come," etc. Let us glance at this ideal of the Church in the various aspects presented to us in the New Testament. 1. " The Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that • Bauragarten (Apostolic History), and Wordsworth (Commentary), see this fact clearly and state it forcibly. C 18 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. filleth all in all." This implies a most real and realizable^ sensitive, intimate, living union of Christ with His Church. Each is the complement of the other : they have a mutual consciousness. Christ and His Church are not only mutually related, but also mutually affected. Christ is not the Head of a dead body, but of a living one. The Church is in such wise the body of Christ, that she is also His "fulness." Not only is He her fulness, but she is His fulness. The Church is in a special and most true sense necessary to Christ. A Churchless Christ would be a bodi- less Head, even as a Christless Church would be a headless corpse. " This is a great mystery . . . concerning Christ and the Church ;'" but it is none the less a fact. The Church is the final cause of all Christ's action as Monarch of the universe. He is " Head over all things to the Church." She is to wear the crown matrimonial of heaven, and when He presents her to Himself, His universe shall be her dower, and He will present it to her. Dear as is His creation to His loving heart. His Church is infinitely dearer still. The vital union of Christ with His Church rests on the unity of the individual members of the Church with Christ, as the Source and Sustainer of their spiritual life. This vital union is expressed by Christ Himself as a mutual indwelling and abiding: "Abide in Me and I in you." "He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him." He presents this truth to us, not only as a matter of faith, but also of experience : " Ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ^/e in Ale and Jin you.''^ The Church, in becoming the recej)tacle of Christ, becomes the fulness of Christ, after the same manner that His " strength is made perfect in weakness." Christ's strength is not only all-sufficing, but in its rich excess, its redundant overflow, would run to waste, unless it could find the helj^le^s THE CHURCH THE BRIDE OF CHRIST. 10 to support. It is strength treasured up for His Church, and hekl in trust for His Church. Thus the Church, as receptive of His Spirit, His peace. His holiness and moral power, becorues His fulness. In it He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied. He says of His Church, " This is My rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it." The Church is the Spouse of Christ ; His " other self," with- out whom the Second Man would be, like the first man before the creation of Eve, perfect in himself, but alone, having none to bless, "with kindred consciousness endued." As Eve was of Adam's flesh and bone, so "we are members of" Christ's " body, of His flesh, and of His bones." (Eph. v. 30.) As Eve sprung from Adam's side, so sprung the Church from the side of Christ crucified. Her very sub- stance, her spiritual body, the new, the heaven-born nature of her individual members, is derived from Him and depen- dent upon Him. The Church is to Christ the realization and the embodiment of His own full idea of spiritual beauty and perfection. The Church is His fulness of restful, bliss- ful, consummate satisfaction, in loving and being loved again. He will present it to Himself in its final complete- ness, both numerical and spiritual ; " not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." To have a Church which He can call His own is His highest conception of bliss, and the reciprocal devotedness of Himself to His Church and of His Church to Himself its profoundest realization. Herein is love ! To woo the guilty to reconciliation, the unlovely and unloving, the hateful and the hating to the most sacred, sensitive endearment, to in- dissoluble oneness ; to win the reluctant, the averse, the repellent, by an all-subduing warmth, energy, and persist- ence of persuasion; and then with nothing but sheer and slow consent, w4th no dower but debt, to betroth the long- c2 20 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. resisting one ; and then to educate the untamed and untaught, to beautify the unsightly, to attach the changeful, froward, and perverse ; to raise to such a height of loveliness, noble- ness and devotedness as shall at last richly repay all the infinite foregoing outlay of sacrifice and sorrow ; — this is love, which, had it not been revealed from heaven, could never have been dreamed of on earth. What else has history to compare with this? Could philosophy in its proudest moods, could poetry in its boldest flights, attain to this? Nay, what wonder has science that may compete with this ? Well may the strongest human intellects eagerly penetrate the mysteries of nature ; but '' these things the angels desire to look into." "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall tliy God rejoice over thee ; " " He will rest in His love. He will joy over thee with singing." In the construction of His own unutterable love. His Church is indispensable to Him, so that the Head cannot say to the body, " I have no need of thee." Every increase of light, love, and holiness which living members of the Church attain is at once a part of Chrisfs communicated fulness, and an accession to His own complacency and loving delight. His fulness is, as it were, redoubled when His Church is " filled with all the fulness of God." He Whose fulness fills, floods, feasts creation is Him- self filled, flooded, feasted with the lovingness and love- w^orthiness of His Church. It is this boundless ever-expand- ing receptivity of the Church, corresponding to His own exhaustless and unintermitted communicativeness, which constitutes the Church " the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." For Christ's Headship of the Church, as the God-man, is not a mere honorary or even a mere ofiicial Headship, as the supreme authority in a merely human corporation ; it in- THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, THE SOUL OF THE CHURCH. 21 eludes the actual communication from Christ to His mem- bers of strengtli, peace, blessedness and purity, in fact, of His own " nature," and a reciprocal consciousness between Him and them. And not only is the Church the body by whose member- ship He acts upon the world, and carries on to comple- tion His mission among men, but it is the medium whereby His perfections become most gloriously manifest to the highest order of His creatures — '^ That now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God," and " He s/iall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe." We are also taught /lorv Christ animates His body the Church, — even by the communication of His Spirit. And it is this fellowship, — this common participation — of the Spirit (Philippians ii. 1) which constitutes the real, essential one- ness of the Church. " There is one body," because there is '^ one Spirit." It is one body by virtue of that one all- pervading, all-animating Spirit. The real Church is the aggregate of human beings who are animated by the Spirit of Christ It is He who effects their aggregation. He is the Gatherer as well as the Garnisher of the living stones of the temple, and it is He who fills them with life. The Church, then, is not a mere social organization, institution, or corporation, such as may legally hold property, dependent for its continuous existence on official succession. Tlie body of Christ is far from being absolutely identical with the church which has hitherto been too exclusively the theme of Church-historians. It is a unique social phe- nomenon, which rests on supernatural facts. No wonder that it is misconceived by the acutest of unspiritual men, especially when so deplorably misrepresented by its un- 22 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. spiritual attaches, and hid from view by the poisonous, para- sitical growths which have fastened and fattened on its externals. 2. The Church is d^, family, it is "the household oi i2^^'''' (Gal. vi. 10), " the household of God." (Eph. ii. 19.) Its central rite is a family meal : its worship is family worship : family converse is an essential element of its life. 3. The Church is a city (Eph. ii. 19), "compact together," " at unity with itself." But this unity by no means necessitates uniformity. What advantage were it to St. Petersburgh that its streets are built at right angles, if that only gave a clear rake to the artillery of civil conflict ? 4. The Church is represented as a most intimate association of individuals, who, in obedience to the call of God, have come out from among those who remain heedless of that call, and who continue separate from them. We see that the internal relations of a church are of the closest and most endearing character : its members are " yoked together ; " they have " fellowship," " communion," "concord," "agreement;" they have "part with" each other ; they form " the temple of the living God ; " and they are His family by individual reception as the " sons and daughters " of " the Lord Almighty." The utmost capability of language is strained to set forth the living oneness of a Church of the one living God. * 5. Last of all we find the Church to be an organic unity, a mutual incorporation so living and intimate as to form, in union with Christ, so to speak, one corporate personality, a new and nobler type of human nature, " one new man." (Eph. ii. 15.) The Apostle, in his glowing descriptions of * See on this subject a paper by the author of this Lecture, entitled, " Personal Holiness fht Great Object of Creed and Church Membership" in the Wesleyan Methodist Sixpenny Magazine, October, 1870. THE CHURCH AN ORGANIC UNITY. 23 the Church as a " commonwealth " (Eph. ii. 12), a " house- hold," a " city," and " one body," had before his view a visible confraternity, an institution of which the world without could take knowledge. And this, by a marvellous anticipation of the discoveries of modern physiological science, he compares to the human body, which he regards as an analogue of Church life. Church structure, and Church function : — ^' May grow up into Him in all things which is the Head, even Christ : from Whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the efiectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." And let us never forget that this is no mere ideal, but the working plan on which the Church as an institution is to be formed. The first principle implied in this analogy is, that as the self- constructive force of the human body — that by which it makes increase of itsef — flows from the head ; the head being the focus of feeling and force, of sensa- tion and vital energy, to the whole body, every particle being sensitively and efiectively connected with it, — so in like manner Christ is the living Head of the Churchy '^ from Whom the whole body maketh increase." Christ's Headship of His Church is not a merely titular Headship, any more than the human brain is the merely titular sensorium of the human body. Christ is as actually (and far more actively) the sensorium of His Church as the brain is the sensorium of the body. And this, as we have seen, was recognised and realized in the first age of the Church; as it is tlds day in all living churches. The Church no more needs, can no more do with, a visible, vicarious head, than the body needs, or could bear the encumberance of a visible, vicarious brain. 24 THE CHUBCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. And Christ is in such wise the Head of His Church, that He is the direct Head of every living member of the Church, even the lowliest and most unofficial, " the weakest believer that hangs upon Him." Hence the Church may not assume to intervene between Him and the individual believer, as the Roman Catholic and High Church theories most unscrip- turally, preposterously, and irreverently make out. Each individual believer is consciously united with Him, and in immediate and continuous correspondence with Him. " The head of every man is Christ." (1 Cor. xi. 3.) And as " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it," so He " loved me, and gave Himself for me,^^ Christ is the door to His own sheepfold (John x. 7, 8). Whosoever presumes to come before Him, and therefore between Him and His sheep, " the same is a thief and a robber." How often has the self-styled Catholic Church played the part of the fierce harlot in the famous judgment of Solomon, whose *' child died in the night, because she overlaid it! " (1 Kings iii. 19 — 26.) How often has she, as if in the stupor of debauch, crushed out by her own pampered weight the young life to which she had given birth ? And the murderous eagerness with which she has then invoked the secular sword to cut to pieces the living little ones which were not her own offspring, was the cruelty of vexation and envy, and the ferocious instinct of bereaved maternity. The second Church principle implied in this similitude is, that the Church, like the human body, is shajoed by the life that is in it. It is an established fact in physiology that the body is fashioned by the life within its embryonic mass — its substance, as the Psalmist terms it (Psa. cxxxix. 15, 16), and that according to a certain type as definite, and an aim as specific, as the ideal form which an artist has before his mind when he works up his material to whatever he may THE PROTOPLASM OF THE CHURCH. 25 wish to make of it, so that it is " curiously wrought," and its members are " in continuance fashioned " by an inherent life-force, as if copied out of God's " book." The life-force which gives form to a human body works according to a plan quite as directly and steadily as does an architect or a ship-builder. The man-type, which could have no existence but in the mind of God until a man was made, is the pro- gramme on which the hidden life-force works. The life-force is an aim-force : and thus it is with Christ's body — the Church. What, then, is the substance, the protoplasm out of which the Church is formed ? and what the life-force that forms it? The formative life-force of the Cliurch is the Spirit of God. The Church is animated, ensouled, shaped, actuated by the Spirit. On His advent at the day of Pente- cost it started into being. And the substance out of which the Church organism builds itself up, by the Divine life within it, is nothing else but a seeking, beseeching, trusting, expecting, receptive soul. You can never make sound, vitalized Church-tissue or Church-fibrine out of anything else. What was the Church of Pentecost but an aggregation of souls pulsing with incipient life ? And one of the most striking facts which reveal themselves to the student of the Acts of the Apostles is the close connection everywhere apparent between the spiritual life of the Church and the organization into which it shaped itself. The life must needs manifest itself in some organization, and the organization it actually took was assuredly not accidental, but according to a law. But that law was clearly not an outward, but an inward law. The organization of the primitive Church was, like the Priesthood of its Head, " not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an end- less life ; ^^ the ^^ perfect law of liberty," *^ the law of faith," " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." The 26 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. Church, being a distinct society, must needs assume some organization : regulation, co-ordination, control, and diversity of office, differentiation of function, are essential not only to the permanence and growth of a society, but to its very existence. But what a wonderful spontaneoasness, instinc- tiveness, extemporaneousness, there was in the shaping of its organization ! The Spirit of the Lord was there, and '^ where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." At the time when Christ appropriated to the new com- munity which He was about to found the name which had heretofore belonged to the Jewish people. He implied that His community was to succeed and supersede the ancient Israelitish congregation. But whilst His bodily presence was yet with His disciples. He spoke of His Church as a future erection. He said, "I will build My Church." At the time of His ascension the Christian Church was not yet fully constituted. Its chief comer-stone was laid in Zion by the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ ; but the structure had not yet commenced. It is true that its nucleus had been formed. In speaking of His Church, Christ addressed those who were already His disciples as the future Church, saying, " Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." He had spoken of it as rudimentally existing, even then, in the little gatherings of His followers, saying, " Wherever two or three are met together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." Shortly before His ascension He had given His disciples a universal commission, on the strength of His perpetual presence with them, saying, " Go, teach all nations, baptizing them, etc."; but they had not yet received the endowment which was to make them equal to their work. Hence, after His ascension, when the stupendous undertaking lay before them, their first step was to return ; their first duty was to wait — to return to Jeru- CHANGE OF THE CHURCH-CENTRE. 27 saleiu, and to tarry there until their endowment and equip- ment should arrive. What was that endowment ? Whence was it to come? The endowment was " power ;" the source and direction from which it was to come was " from on high." That power was to be a Divine Presence, a Divine Personality — tke Holy Ghost. Christ's parting direction had been, " Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high :" His parting promise, " Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be witnesses unto Me, . . . unto the uttermost part of the earth." We see, then, how justly the most ancient of the creeds immediately connects the Holy Ghost with the holy Church. The advent of the Comforter was the inauguration of the Church. The Christian Church dates, strictly speaking, from the day of Pentecost. When the Spirit came upon the hundred and twenty disciples, the religious centre was at once transferred from the temple on Mount Moriah to the upper room on Mount Zion. The glory of the Lord which Ezekiel had seen leaving the temple and hovering on " the mountain on the east side of Jerusalem," the Mount of Olives, the Mount of the Ascension, returned to the city, but found a new resting- place ; not now or henceforth on the temple-crowned height of Moriah, but on the upper room in Zion ; most likely the " large upper room" where Christ had eaten His last Passover with His disciples. The three thousand temple-worshippers who were converted on that day were added to the hundred and twenty in the upper room, who, with their three or four hundred brethren and sisters in Galilee, now formed " the Church." And the " great company of the priests " that soon afterwards " were obedient to the faith," exulted to find themselves merged in that royal priesthood whose anointing was the Holy Ghost, whose sacerdotal vestments were 28 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. ordinary " garments," kept " unspotted from the world," whose liturgical processions were individuals with no distinctive garb, scattered wide over the city, visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and w^hose simple ritual was " breaking bread from house to house ;" whose dignitaries were the sick poor and " widows indeed." And when the little Church had received its all-sufficient endowment and equipment, what did they proceed to do ? Did they forthwith resolve their prayer-meeting and waiting- meeting into a constituent assembly, and form the upper- room into a council-chamber, and draw up a paper constitu- tion, or sketch a programme or plan of operations ? No ! nothing of the kind. No pattern had been showed them on the mount. They could not say, like David, when he sketched for Solomon the outline of the temple, " All this the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern." Such a thought never occurred to them. It would have seemed to them, had it ever been suggested, an act of arrogant unbelief. Had not Christ said, " 1 will build My Church " ? Had He not said, "When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come. He shall guide you " ? What, then did they begin to do ? Begin to do? "They began to speak;'"' every one of them^ man or woman, Apostle or private disciple, — began to praise and to preach. How did they preach? and what? " As the Spirit gave them utterance." Here then, we have gained another fundamental Church principle, namely, the Church is the organ of the Spirit, and that in its individual members ; that the Church is a living organism, called into existence, created, shaped, animated, ensouled, actuated, by the Spirit. On His advent it starts into being; at His impulse it starts upon its feet! it speaks, with what power ! — as the Spirit gives it utterance. Before THE APOSTOLATE. 29 the Spirit came, there was no organization, excepting the most rudimental and embryonic. True, there was the pro- toplasm out of which Church organism builds itself up, or rather is built up l)y the mysterious, the Divine life within it, communicated and sustained by the Spirit of God. And what, on analysis, do we find that protoplasm to be ? We have seen that it is nothing else but a seeking, trusting, beseeching, expecting soul ; a voluntary and cordial aggrega- tion of such souls is a Church. Before the Spirit came, the Church was not a clay- Adam, shapely, perfect; coldly and unconsciously awaiting inspiration. It was an embryo, struggling with incipient life. In God's book all its " members were written," which, by the true law of spiritual evolution, in continuance ^^ were fashioned," but " as yet there was none of them." It is true, again, that the embryo was not altogether formless or featureless. Though the whole substance was homogeneous, there was a very notable differentiation of its component parts. All were disciples, believers ; this was a common dignity, compared with which any distinction, how- ever glorious, was very faint. But were "all Apostles?" That this distinction was of the highest importance is plain, inasmuch as the incidental, instinctive, natural filling up of the number of the Twelve was the only step the little body ventured on between the Ascension and the Day of Pentecost. And this distinction was to be perpetual, eternal. They were to have no partners, no successors, but through the ages sit on thrones judging the tribes of Israel. Thus, although the body was perfectly homogeneous, — " they were all filled with the Holy Ghost" — and although this indi- vidual and universal repleteness with the Spirit was the most significant and vital phenomenon of Pentecost; — establishing the importance and authority of the indi- 30 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. vidual as well as of the collective body, — yet the Church was not a non-nucleated mass. But the Apostolic authority did not check the free develop- ment of the Church's life. That which Samuel announced to the newly-anointed Saul was fulfilled in the newly- anointed Church and in each of its members : " The Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy, . . . and shalt be turned into another man. And let it be, when these signs are come unto thee, that thou do as occasion serve thee ; for God is with thee." And the structural type which the little Church assumed was in exquisite accordance with the personal life of each believer. The disciples, in shaping and settling themselves into an aggregate community, formed, as it were, one compact discipleship. The law of Faith and Grace, in this respect also, corresponded with the law of Nature. As the character of the separate molecules which make up a mass of matter determines the form of crystallization which that mass shall assume, and its mode of crystallizing, so the spiritual instincts and proclivities of the individual members of the little Christian Church in Jerusalem determined the shape which it took as an institution, and the very process by which it was shaped. And this spontaneity, freedom, im- provisation, extemporaneousness of organization, did not issue in an amorphous Church, but, in the contrary, in an exquisitely symmetrical Church. For although the indi- vidual members, by virtue of their very individuality could not be without angles (as was seen in the dispute about the widows of the Grecians, in which the office of deacon originated), yet the life that was glowing and pulsing in each bosom was the self-same life, '^ and the multitude of the believers were of one heart and one soul ; " literally, to the multitude of the believers there 7vas one heart and soul. THE DIVINE RIGHT OF COMMON SENSE & CHARITY. 31 Moreover from the difference between the mode of address in the Epistles, and that employed in the Revelation of St. John ; that of St. John being to the angel of the respective churches, that of St. Paul being either '' to the saints," or " to the saints with the bishops and deacons," — it is plain that the Church- tissue had not, during the lifetime of the majority of the Apostles, assumed a structure which was regarded as too perfect to admit of readjustment. How great a mistake it is to contend for a Divine right of any particular form of Church-organization or Church- government, — such as the Divine right of Episcopacy, of Presbyterianism, of Independency, or the absolute wrongness of any one or all of them, as the Plymouth Brethren and the Society of Friends would seem to maintain, — becomes more apparent on recognition of the fact, that the original structure of the Church was greatly modified by circum- stances and emergencies. Hence no Divine right can be claimed for any particular form of Church-organization or government which does not include the Divine right of readjustment, according to circumstances and emergencies. A Divine right for government in the Church is clear from Scripture (and so it is indeed for government in the State, in fact, it is hard to see how there can be either Church or State without government) ; but no special form of govern- ment, either in State or Church, can challenge any special Divine right. It would be no more absurd to say that because in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul the civilized world was governed by the Emperor of Home, therefore, a universal empire is the only legitimate form of government, than to assert that, because in the time of the Apostles the organization of the Church took such and such a shape, therefore no other form of Church-government is admissible The only Church-government which can justly claim a 32 Divine right is the government by sound, practical good sense, mutual compliance, and loving co-operation. Another cognate fact must never be lost sight of, namely, That no form of organization whatsoever can constitute a community a Christian Church ; inasmuch as it is im- possible, by any arrangement of particles or persons, to give to the aggregate, or the community, any other character than that of the units, the individuals who go to make up that aggregate. You cannot make people Christians by bare baptism, or by giving them the Lord's Supper, or per- suading them to join a Class, or placing them under the authority of a bishop or a presbytery. Still fui'ther. To force upon a Church a perfect organiza- tion to which it had not yet grown would not promote its vitality, but, on the contrary, check and ultimately crush its vitality ; would not speed its growth, but stunt and stop its growth. Whatever organization does not grow out of and grow with the Church's growth, and spring out of the Church's strength, and strengthen with its strength, must arrest its growth, and compress and cripple its strength. It is a well-known physiological fact, that with living creatures of the highest type, perfection, and so to speak, finality of organism, is inconsistent with rapidity of growth. The details of structure are never completed until growth is at an end. In like manner the framework of the primitive Church in its days of youthful vigour was compliant and expansive. And so of every church. Finality of organiza- tion is fatal to growth. The appliances of the early Church were the product of its exigencies and its aptitudes, and these were gradually unfolded. And as the Church multi- plied its converts and enlarged its Geographical boundaries, so as to include various nationalities, it modified its forms whilst adhering strictly to original principles and proclivities. ELASTICITY. 33 The Lovefeast at Coriiitli was not made to conform rigidly to the Lovefeast at Jerusalem. And whilst in Christ Jesus there was neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian, yet nationality was allowed to assert itself against a dead uniformity. Premature ossification dwarfs a man, and cramps a church. Up to a certain point, structure is not only favourable but necessary to growth, beyond that point it hinders growth. We must not cut away cartilage because it is not yet bone, nor must we in Church-arrangements and appliances reject everything that is rudimental and provisional. To forbid readjustment by decreeing the finality of Church-arrange- ments, is to repress vitality by retarding growth. In the State, that is the best Constitution which has grown with the growth of civilization, or rather is itself the growth of civilization ; and correspondingly that is the best Church organization which has grown with the expanding life of the Church, which is itself, in fact, the outgrowth of the Church's life. " It is the Spirit that giveth life," God's " free Spirit " must uphold the Church as an institution, as well as the individual believer. All external realization of the Kindom of God must rest on, and result from tlie in- ward Kingdom — "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." The early Church, having no worldly wants required no worldly wisdom for its guidance. How calmly it awaited, how closely it followed the leadings of the Spirit and of Providence ! It was in no haste to cut itself off from the past, nor to obtrude upon the public gaze the transference of the religious centre from the temple to the dwellings of Zion, where tlie Christians broke bread together, from house to house. The temple was their "daily" teaching-place. They "were all with one accord D 34 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. in Solomon's Porch:" '^ Peter and John " still "went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer." There was never a formal secession from the Jewish Church. The Apostles were very slow in abandoning the hope of the con- version of the great body of their fellow-countrymen, who had formerly been their fellow-churchmen. When they saw " many thousands " of the dwellers in Jerusalem alone, and among them " a great company of the priests," flock- ing into the Church of Christ, they might well be hopeful that no chronological chasm should completely break up the historical continuity of the Church of God in the two dis- pensations. They might well indulge the expectation that the Church of the Old Dispensation would be merged in the Church of the New.* Hence the essential traits in the self-shaping of the pri- mitive Church are phenomena of evolution. Those very usages which were derivative, — moulded on the model of the synagogue, — were not adopted on deliberation, but taken up, or rather stept into, without conscious imitation. The like absence of any eager external constructiveness in the Church is evidenced by the mode in which the insti- tution of the office of deacon occurred. At first the distribu- tion of the Church-funds was under the absolute control of the Apostles. But even this was by the voluntary, in- stinctive act and deed of the members of the new Society. They " brought the money and laid it at the Apostles' feet," — that is to say, spontaneously placed their donations under the absolute control of the Apostles, who, for a time, did not decline the responsibility and labour of superintending its • It is impossible not to be reminded here of the bearing of early- Methodism towards that church within which it was born. Nor is this a fanciful or delusive historical parallel, but an instance of the working of the same law of the Spirit. HARMONY PRESERVED. . 35 disbursement. But " when the number of the disciples was multiplied," there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected " in the daily ministration." There is nothing in the narrative to awake the suspicion that the Grecians were the victims of anything like intentional neglect. The original word gives the gentlest possible intimation of a slight preference,* and an unconscious partiality towards the Hebrews. The fibres of this root of bitterness grew out of the old Jewish life of the new converts. The Grecians formed a numerous class in Jerusalem, being either the children of an intermarriage between a Jew and a Greek (like Timothy), or (like St. Paul), of Jewish parents settled in a Greek-speaking city, wearing a Greek name, and receiving a Greek as well as a Hebrew education, or else proselytes of heathen parentage. Some jealousy had long existed between the pure Hebrews and these foreign brethren whose minds had been enlarged and enriched by Greek cultivation. The Hebrews proper were apt to look down upon the latter, and called them Grecianists (not Grecians, as in our version), as if they were but half-bred religionists ; and these Grecianists, on their part, showed a suspicious sensitiveness to any slight, real or apparent, from their brethren of the Hebrew syna- gogues. These ancient heart-burnings, though in the new- born Church quenched by the glorious flood-tide of Divine love, were beginning to give forth a smouldering smoke from a little spark struck out from some unwitting prefer- ence shown to the Hebrew widows in the daily distribution of Church-monies to the needy members. Doubtless, the misunderstanding arose from the want of due consideration on the one side, and an over-sensitiveness on the other. After all, it was but an undertone of discord, ''•' a murmur- 36 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINT'^. ing/' not an outcry. The Apostles at once called together the body of the disciples, and requested them to look out from among themselves seven well-spoken men, ^^ full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom," whom they — the Apostles — might appoint over the distribution of the Church-funds. What are the principles evolved by this most significant occurrence, besides that spontaneity which w^e have already noted ? 1. Do we not at once recognise the fact, that there is in the Church no absolutism^ hut that of a stjmpathetic and prac- tical good sense, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost ? The Apostles, as was right and natural, took the initiative. The seven men looked out by the whole community were, as tlieir names indicate, all taken from the aggrieved party. This showed that the gangrene of mutual dissatisfaction was only skin deep, and that the community were not unworthy of the confidence which the Apostles placed in them. 2. The Apostles avowedly acted on the principle of a pure and generous expediency, and a sanctified good taste. They simply said, " It is not reasoii,"" literally, it is not pleasing, agreeable, grateful, fitting, '^ that we should leave the word of God and serve tables." 3. Still further, the proposal of the Apostles, — for that it was a proposal, and not an injunction, is plain from the state- ment that its adoption by the multitude of the disciples followed on the fact that it ''• p)leased^' them "all," — the proposal not only divested the Apostles themselves of a large amount of official power, but also implied that the endowment of the Church with practical wisdom for the management of its temporal affairs, and with grace to use that wisdom in perfect charity, was not confined to the Apostles, but was shared with them by the body of the Church. We see further, that the Apostolate was the source of fiPJniTUAL OFFICERS OF FINANCE. 37 all olHcc in the Church, for they not only took the initia- tive and devolved the responsibility of nomination and election on the believing multitude, but they reserved the actual appointment in their own hands.- " Look you out men whom we may appointr And not only so, but they ordained the nominees of the multitude with their own hands. And surely the right of ratification implies the right of rejec- tion. 4. We also gain another most important and precious prin- ciple, namely, that the primal qualification for even a seculnr function in the Church is to be "full of the Holy Ghost;" and that in Apostolic times officers of finance were inducted by the most solemn ordination, the imposition of the Apostle's hands ; so that a portion of the Apostolic authority was communicated to the deacons or stewards of the Church. Moreover, this specialization of labour by the nnpromptu creation of a new office, to meet a newly discovered want, arising out of the rapid numerical growth of the Community, and its inclusion of elements formerly antagonistic, was a development as natural as it was gracious. A further notable instance of the dependence of the Church's movements on the indications of Providence, appears in the f^ict that the evangelization of Judea and Samaria was not the result of an organized aggression, but of a great breaking up, occasioned by persecution. These scattered refugees become at once a band of missionaries. With no commission from the Apostles or the collective Church, with no concert ; without any authorization wliatsoever, but that of the Spirit ; they went everywhere preaching ihe word. The constraint was the commission. What right had these private disciples to preach? "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Had affairs been managed according to a well-rounded theory, that could never have happened. 38 THE CHUECH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. Had the Book of the Acts been written after ecclesiasticism began to develop itself, like a hard cancerous substance, in the bosom of the Church, that would never have been written. For be it remembered, they baptized as well as preached. And how did the Apostles treat these uncom- missioned preachers ? They were content to follow in their wake. They sent down to Samaria the two foremost of the twelve, Peter and John, to complete the work which Philip, the poor-steward, had begun, by conferring on them miracu- lous gifts, which Philip, though he possessed them, was not able to communicate. This was a wonderful step to be taken by private disciples without authorization, without rebuke from the Apostles. For this was something more than prophesying, that is, dis- coursing loftily under intense spiritual influence, on the wonderful works of God, as the hundred and twenty had done at Pentecost; something more than discussing inci- dentally with gainsayers, as Stephen had done in Jerusalem. It was preaching, as Peter had done. Is not this unconcerted and humanly uncommissioned assum]3tion of the preaching function by private disciples, at the call of Providence and of the Spirit, a signal instance of the free spontaneous development of the Church ? For who but the Spirit, and what but the Providence of God, made Philip the poor- steward Philip the Evangelist ? Unquestionably, on the other hand, there was a something, and that of very high importance, wanting to the churches founded by the unofficial refugees, until the two Apostles came down from Jerusalem to meet that want. And there was some power, which Philip the deacon possessed in a wonderful degree, which he nevertheless was not competent to communicate. What that power was the context enables us to determine with sufficient accuracy. First, it could not SCRIPTUBAL QUAKERISM. 39 be forgiveness, salvation, for that the converts had before the arrival of the Apostles. They had believed, and were baptized, and therefore were saved. Second, that which they received through the Apostolic prayer and imposition of hands was immediately and vividly perceived, even by the most unspiritual observer. It was obviously some striking external effect, some brilliant and influential endowment, such as the shrewd, hard-headed, wrong-hearted, calculating, selfish Simon Magus thought it worth his while to bid for as a means of self-glorification. It was a miracle, which struck the mere natural man at once. Was not this a repe- tition, in part, of the phenomenon of Pentecost ? — a super- natural command of other tongues, and a burning, high- toned, heavenly eloquence of praise, so that men spake with the tongues of angels ? We know that this is what occurred at Cfesarea, under Peter's ministration; and so little is God's free Spirit bound by a rigid regularity, that these gifts came upon the first Gentle congregation before baptism. The importance and necessity of this lesson is shown by the daring and dogged polemical disregard of the striking diversities in the Spirit's operation in these two critical and crucial events. Baronius and the Romanists insist upon the one instance, and Calvin and his partisans insist upon the other, and both alike refuse not only to correlate, but even to allow, any real significance to the complementary event which does not favour, but forbids and rebukes their respective theories. But some man will say, T/iis has a very mspicicms look of Quakerism. Very well. Did we not agree at the outset not to distress ourselves — however we might feel momentarily disconcerted — at the discovery that this or that Christian community was not altogether in the wrong ? How shocking that such saints as George Fox, William Penn, John 40 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. Woolman, Stephen Grellet, Elizabeth Fry, Buxton, Back- house, George Washington Walker, etc., etc., should after all be found to be partly in the right ! The error (I had almost said the heresy) of the Society of Friends, in the matter of Church- organization (" If shape that may be called which shape hath none "), is, that they presume to restrict the freedom of the Spirit^ inasmuch as they will not allow Him to organize if He please, but will insist upon His always acting in an incalculable and inconsequent manner.* Hence the most impassioned rejection of forms has become the baldest, stiffest formalism. The significance of this Apostolic visit and effective officiation and magnificent display of the " signs of an Apostle," is surely not far to seek. It gave solemn, formal, hearty recognition of the work, and it established a direct connection between these outlying churches in Judea and Samaria, and the mother Church at Jerusalem, and with the Apostles as the centre of the Church. It preserved the unity of the Church, and prevented its becoming a number of isolated, self-centred communities. Does not this prove that in the eyes of the Apostles and the first believers the avowed practical recognition of the 07ieness and indivisibility of Christ" s Church is of the highest importance and necessity ? The Church had now become a plurality. We forthwith read of " the churches throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria." But it had not thereby ceased to be a unity. These many churches made up one Church. And the fact that the next stage in the extension of the Church was committed directly by the Spirit to the Deacon- Evangelist Philip is very noteworthy. It is he, not an * Nevertheless no Christian community is more ready to acknowledge the Spirit's work on the character and in the labours of members of other Denominations. UNIT ION OF THE CIIUBCIL ' 1 Apostle, who is commissioned to send the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth by converting the Ethiopian treasurer to Christ ; who, on his part, waited not for Apostolic officiation, but, believing and being baptized, "went on his way rejoicing," to bear the Gospel to his black-skinned and dark-minded fellow-countrymen, the curse-redeemed children of Ham. This shows that direct Apostolic recog- nition was not necessary in each individual case. The Deacon-Evangelist proceeds at once to preach the Gospel in the land of the old Philistines. Beautiful is the picture which is given of the churches of the Holy Land. They " were edified" — built like a house — churches. There was a steady progression in knowledge and force of character, along with a compact unity ; for it was as churches that they were built up, — " built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ Him- self being the chief corner-stone ; in Whom all the building, fitly framed together," was growing unto an holy temple in the Lord: in Whom also they were " builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit," — " and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost," they " were multiplied." Their being built up as churches is put in the forefront, and their numerical multiplication and local extension is represented as the sequence of their mutual coherence and united progression in knowledge and in love. The unity of the Palestinian churches with each other and with the Mother-Church at Jerusalem, and the Apostles as its centre, was realized and strengthened by the itinerant superintendency of Peter, who, we are told, " passed through all ; " the Apostle, treading in the steps of the Deacon- Evangelist and the preaching refugees, and building on the foundation which they had laid. 42 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. The next great advance made — the formation of the first Gentile church — is most markedly under the immediate direc- tion of the Head of the Church Himself. The step which was to initiate such a magnificent series of events, consti- tuting a new epoch in the history of the Church, did not originate in a solemn conclave of the Apostles ; it was not the result of deliberation, nor was it the product of the daring enthusiasm of him who had thus far for the most part taken the lead, although always willing to follow. Whilst Peter is on his tour of superintendency, he receives direct instructions from the Master to use his golden key, and "open the door of faith unto the Gentiles." At the summons of a Roman ofiicer he is to sacrifice all his national and religious caste-distinctions and antipathies; and this Jew, who had been called to hold the closest and most confidential " dealings with the Samaritans," is now to enter into the most intimate and endearing relations with the Gentiles. This work is assigned to Peter, not Philip, who must have been in the neighbourhood at the time; to Peter, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by G|irist Himself, " I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Yet in the continuous evolution of the Church we cannot but recognise the essential oneness of the work, attesting the Oneness of the Worker, amidst the most beautiful and instructive diversities of adaptation to varying characters and circumstances. An unbroken uniformity of sequence, in the developmental processes by which the Church is extended, testifies to the ever-active superintendence of an intelligent Power, a Divine Personality, Whose energy is throughout the motive force. We see purpose, plan, prevision ; but the purpose, plan, prevision is not man's, but God's. PETER J^O SLAVE OF LEGALITY. 43 Another exquisite proof that the Church is the empire of Charity and Common Sense, not of overbearing human authority and unekistic routine, occurs on the return of Peter to Jerusalem, after he had laid the foundations of the Gentile Church. He who, on receiving his Lord's command to admit Gentile inquirers into the all-equal fellowship of the Gospel, did not wait to confer even with his brother Apostles ; yet when confronted, challenged, and criticised by a certain narrow school of Christian thought within the Church at Jerusalem,— when " they of the circumcision con- tended with him," as if he had taken an unwarrantable step,— he simply " rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded it unto them" at large, finishing with this appeal, " Inasmuch as God gave unto them the like gifts as unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could withstand God ? " This utterance at once transformed prejudice into praise. '' When they heard those things they held their peace, and glorified God." The free movement of the Spirit is also clearly seen in the next stage of the Church's progress. Our old friends the fugitives°from persecution, had been steadily pushing forward the outposts of the Lord's hosts into heathen lands; into Phoenicia, Syria,- and Cyprus, preaching at first, however, only to Jews. But now some of them who by language and education had strong sympathies with the heathen Greeks, begin to preach to them, without any other authorization than that of Peter's example. But the supreme author- ization forthwith followed : " The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord." Yet no time is lost in establishing a vital sympathy between these Gentile churches and the Mother Church at Jerusalem, which is still the centre of the Church. Barnabas, 44 THE CHUBCn, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. not one of the Twelve, is deputed to visit these Gentile churches. He was selected on account of the fact that lie too was a man of Cyprus, and was distinguished by benevolence and intense spirituality, qualities which pre-eminently fitted him to form a true estimate of the soundness of the work and the mode in which it should be carried on : " For he was a good (a benevolent) man, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." He at once recognises in these communities of converted heathens brought to Christ by the uncommissioned and anonymous instrumentality of obscure disciples, — sprung from a Mediterranean island and the coast of Africa — " the grace of God." That was enough for him. He " was glad." He exhorts the new-born souls to steadfast loyalty, joins the band of unofficial preachers in proclaiming Christ to the Gentiles, and then, perceiving that the work of teaching must advance side by side with that of conversion, bethinks him that Saul's native city is not far off, hastens in search of him, brings him to Antioch, where the two devote a year to the building up and extension of a church of Gentile converts. What a signal and significant instance of t/ie incidental initiation of a mighty Church development, — the Jlrst formation of churches of heathen converts who had not joassed through the intermediate stage of Judaism. This bold over- leaping, or quiet ignoring, of the whole Old Testament organization, must have seemed to contemporaries not so much an evolution as a revolution, involving a sudden and immense expansion of the mind and heart of the Church, an expansion like that caused by the sudden ignition of a pent- up gas ; for it broke down at once the huge and massive middle wall of partition between the Gentile and the Jew. The change was so marked as to arouse the attention of the heathen society around, who saw that this newly-formed community was not merely the latest school of Jewish thought. PRINCIPLES BATHER THAN PRESCRIPTIONS. 54 the most modern of the synagogues, but a new community requu'ing a new name ; an association w^ithout a precedent, the Head of which was no human High Priest or Apostle, but C/irist, for " the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." Yet the mode in which these Gentile churches showed their sense of oneness with the Mother Church at Jerusalem is very beautiful and touching. Some members of the Church in Jerusalem, endowed with the gift of prophecy, visited Antioch. One of them foretold an approaching universal famine. This calamity was to affect Syria as well as Palestine ; themselves as well as their brethren in Judea. But their brethren in the Holy Land would be in greater straits than themselves, by reason of the rage of persecution. The Gentile Christians therefore resolved to make a collection, '^ every man " giving " according to his ability," and to send relief unto their Judean brethren. Thus the Pentecostal Spirit was at work in Antioch as well as in Jerusalem; amongst the converted heathen as well as the converted Jews. Here, again, we must pause to note that the early Churches acted less from prescriptions than from principles, and less from articulated j^rinciples than from intuitions. What a contrast this presents to the capital error of the Church in after ages ! The self-abnegation of the twelve Apostles who were well- content to be left further and further in the background, to "decrease" so long as Christ should ''increase," was in accordance with the utter absence of self-conscious egotism in the Church, which sees in its own accessions multitudes added to the Lord, and thus records its own conquests : " So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed." Eccle- siasticism was not yet born ; for Christianity was not yet carnalized. 46 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. Through the journey of Barnabas and Saul to convey the contributions of the Syrian Christians to Jerusalem, we incidentally become aware of a new office, or, at least, a new designation, that of the Elders. The contribution is " sent to the elders.''' This indicates some change in the economics of the Church. How this originated, whether by the suggestion of the Holy Spirit, or by the adjustments of experience, we are not told, because it is not necessary for us to know ; inasmuch as we have already perceived that the framework of the primitive Church was not rigid and fixed, but compliant and expansive. The 9visdom which is from abode is ingeniously and cautiously constructive, it dwells with prudence and finds out knowledge of witty inmntions. It is absurd to assume, as some Church-theorists do, that there was nothing preparatory or provisional, or permissive in the structure of the early Church. Doubtless, the word Elder, like the word Cliurch, was derived from the Hebrew vocabulary; but to what extent and in what respects the eldership of the Christian Church was moulded on the model of, or corresponded with the functions of the eldership of the synagogue, is quite another question. The Church was still Jerusalem, but it was the New Jerusalem, — Jerusalem from above, which is ''free.'''' But the constitution of the synagogue itself was not drawn out by the Divine draughtsman; it was the creation of devout and earnest common sense. * * The fact must not be lost sight of, that the elders, on their first appear- ance, are represented as invested with a function of the diaconate— the trustee-ship, if not the administration of the Church-f imds. Yet the diaconate was not superseded, as we learn from the Epistles. Perhaps the word elders, in this stage, simply means authorities, and includes the Apostles and the deacons. We know that the Apostles were also elders. So Peter styles himself " an elder ; " we also know that the Apostles were not deacons. CHRIST REIGNING IN ZION. 47 The next great era in the history of the Church — the ordination of Paul and Barnabas by the prophets and teachers of Antiocli to carry on missionary operations amongst the heathen, supplies another instance of feedom of Church- action, in supplying another proof that the Apostles did not assume the exclusive right to initiate great movements in the Church. If any of them had formed the preconception that thus it behoved to be, they were soon and very willingly undeceived. They well knew that the Sovereignty in the Church rested not with them, but with the Lord, acting by" His Spirit. And if they had for a moment supposed that the Spirit would never originate great Church enterprises, but through them, they quickly found it otherwise. True, they held, and do still, by their writings and example, a veritable and substantive authority in the Church. Spiritually they sat on thrones, judging the tribes of Israel. That is to say, their authority was that of tribe-rulers, and not that of kings. Christ was King, resplendently visible to the eye of faith, though hid from that of flesh. His throne was the central throne, high, and lifted up — and they sat some on His right hand, others on His left hand in His kingdom. Then was brought to pass the saying that is written, " The Lord of Hosts shall reign ... in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously." (Isaiah xxiv. 23.) Whensoever, wheresoever, by whomsoever, the Spirit prompted Church -action, and gave it His imprimatur of spiritural success, they at once recognised, reverenced, and rejoiced in His work. By Peter's own confession and appeal an Apostle was nobody, was nothing to countervail the action of the Spirit blowing as He listed. " What was I," he exclaims in the presence of the working Spirit, " that I could withstand God?" The Apostles, conjointly witli tlie elders of Jerusalem, 48 TJIE CIIURCTT, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. formed an appellate court for the settlement of doctrinal disputes, and matters of grave, practical difficulty arising amongst the Jewish or the Gentile churches ; by individual letters to the churches the Apostles corrected abuses, denounced error, made authoritative and irreversible pro- nouncements on all matters of doctrine and morals ; insisted upon order, purity, and harmony throughout the churches ; exercised visitorial superintendence ; broke up partisanship ; commanded the exercise of Church-discipline in cases of scandal ; and delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, incorrigible offenders. What they preach is Gospel ; what they write is law. Their Gospel is never inconsistent, never "yea and nay;" their letters are read to the churches as binding or loosing effectively for ever ; and through their letters, which remain, their authority in the Church is per- manent, stretching through the ages. They have no suc- cessors, they can have none, for they still reign. Moreover, they undertook the task of giving form and consistence to infant Christian communities, by deputing extraordinary Church-officers, such as Titus, to ordain elders and set in order the things that were wanting ; and whether in session at Jerusalem, or on circuit among the churches, they formed the bond of Church-unity, and the magnetic pole of Church- sympathy. But for all this one cannot but be struck by the conspicuous absence of all intermeddling officiality on the part of the Apostles. They were tender of the young life of the churches, as a nursing mother of her first-born. How careful they were not to interfere with the Spirit's action, and not to cramp or chill the rich excess of the Church's life ! Was there, then, in the Apostolic Church no authority, no regulation; no appellate jurisdiction to end all strife; no APOSTOLIC NONINTERFERENCE. 49 Church to " heavy There was all this. There was authority, both local and central ; — regulation : all things were to be " done decently,*" in fair form — «ycr;)^;»)jt*o»wj — "and in order." Wherever there was a church at all, there was " the Church " to hear. But that authority was not a cramping authority, peevishly jealous of its rights; that "fair form" was not stereotyped; it had all the gracefulness of freedom. Authority and regulation formed but a background and base of operations for spontaneity of enterprise and a principle of cohesion for individual adventure and success. We must neither "loose the bands " of spiritual order, nor " bind the sweet influences " of spiritual freedom. What the Apostles did with the results of spontaneous evangelistic action was to lose no time in recognising it and connecting it.* What maternal forbearance and indulgence they showed towards the generous, though sometimes troublesome, vivacity of the Church's childhood ! They did not suppress the Corinthian Lovefeasts because of their abuses, or close the meetings for mutual edification because of their irregu- larities. *^ A judicious letting alone " formed a large element of their administration. They merely charged themselves with setting in order the things that were wanting, A striking instance of this Apostolic non-interference was the movement to which we have just alluded. A significant mode of expression adopted by St. Luke is lost sight of in our authorized version. He writes, " Now there were in Antioch," in the church as then existing, xar* tjjv Ivaav UKXnaiav " certain prophets and teachers " (Acts xiii. 1) : that is to say, men whose official duty consisted in the public exercise of these gifts of prophesying and teaching with which they were * Methodists should be the last to stagger at this, for, on the principle of rigid ecclesiastical routine, how could such a movement as Methodism have originated ? E 50 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. endowed, — not elders or deacons, — but prophets and teachers, — prophets who under a special afflatus of the Holy Spirit reached a strain of supernatural eloquence in discoursing of the things of God, and were sometimes enabled and moved to foretell future events, and teachers who in a quieter and less extraordinary way, expounded and enforced the truth. Whilst these were ^^ministering," literally, doing public and sacred work, xtaovpyowTuv — officiating as prophets and teachers (not as priests) " minis- tering to the Lord " by the excitation and instruction of His Church, there came to them an injunction immediately from the Holy Spirit, to separate to an especial service under the Spirit's own direction and empowerment two of their number, Barnabas and Saul. This service was a mission to the Gentiles. Accordingly, the rest of the prophets and teachers, after fasting and prayer, solemnly ordained their two brethren, and bade them God speed. How instructive is the difference between the course pursued by order of the Spirit and that which a rigid extern- ality would have prescribed ! Here the Apostles Barnabas and Saul are ordained by unordained men, and sent forth on a grand Christian enterprise ; the eleven surviving Apostles not being consulted in the matter ! The outward call and consecration of the Apostle Paul to begin his Apostolical labours amongst the heathen, and the connecting the results of those labours with existing Christianity, were given by neither Apostles, nor elders, not even by deacons or evan- gelists, but by " prophets and teachers." The Holy Spirit chooses His own instruments, and He chooses them in His own way.* * George Piercy was wise in first offering himself to the Conference and Wesleyan Missionary Committee ; but had they declined his services, he would have had a right to go to China and carry out his commission there as best he could. ORGANIZATION. 51 But whilst there was such wise and generous care not to check the free growth of tlie Church, or cramp the young histihood of its members, or cliain down its muscular energy, or repress its spirit of daring enterprise, or restrict the self-unfolding of its resources, yet the necessity of order, government, and authority in the Church, was recognised and acted upon. Paul and Barnabas took care not to leave the new converts in the various cities which they had evan- gelized during their missionary tour as a mere incoherent and inorganic social aggregation, without internal structure or external symmetry, without any established subordination or centre of control. Christian liberty is not an unregulated liberty; Christian equality is not anarchy, but has its co-ordinating and its co-ordinated portions; its regulative and its operative members. Christian fraternity has its elders and officials. The best instructed among the new converts had been drawn from the synagogue, and had been trained to its orderly but free arrangements. Now they needed support against its persecutions. Most of them had been drawn from heathen communities, and they too had been accustomed to a well-articulated social constitution. They would want a stay against the adverse pressure of the unholy usages and institutions in which they had been brought up. The two Apostles therefore could not leave these believin"- companies without laying a foundation of Church order and initiating some stable organization. Hence they did not content themselves with " confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith." They also " ordained for them elders in every church." Without some governmental provision of this kind the bands of disciples could have no solidity or permanence ; and without solidity and permanence how could they have growth? The Christian Church is a household, but it E 2 52 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. presents the picture of a well-managed household, " governed by system, because regulated by principle." Lofty as was tlie dignity and venerable as was the sanctity of the indi- vidual, tli'ere must be subordination in the community ; so on the summit of Christian equality the Apostles fixed firmly the banner of Christian authority. But that the two Apostles made these appointments without the concurrent action of the communities is incon- ceivable. Had they done so they would have put themselves in opposition to Apostolical precedent, and inverted the procedure of the Twelve at Jerusalem on the ordination of deacons. Besides, the succeeding context of Church history forbids such a supposition. It is an unquestionable fact that in the immediately post-apostolic time the co-operation of the community in the selection of their Bishops was accounted indispensable to the validity of the appointment. And to fancy that popular rights were the outgrowth of episcopal prerogatives is to reverse the whole teaching and tenor of historj^ But the word employed by St. Luke seems decisive. It means to elect to an office by lifting up of hands, and is accordingly rendered chosen in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, where St. Paul informs them that Titus was '^ chosen of the churches." Again, the fact must not be overlooked that the ordination of elders took place on a second visit to the resj^ective churches. They were in no hot haste to organize. They left the young societies for a time to partially shape themselves, and to find out the necessity of a more definite shaping. They allowed time for the manifestation of individual character and gifts. The two Apostles efiect a conjunction of the new work with the preceding, by returning to Antioch, gathering the church together^ and rehearsing " all that God had done by them." THE CHURCH A LA \V- ABIDING SOCIETY. 53 And now we come upon a page of primitive Church History of tlie highest interest and instructiveness. It shows most strikingly that the early Church was a law-abiding, though not a law-adoring community; that even in its seeming irregularity it was instinctively regular, and that, on the other hand, whatever uniformity it attained was the outbirth of spontaneity. The Garden of the Lord was not laid out in squares and circles ; the City of God had not all its streets at right angles. 'Twas "nature all." Every- thing was voluntary, vigorous, and vivacious. And why? Because everything was vital. An exuberant, irrepressible life burst out everywhere. True, the Apostles were the tribe-princes of the Church ; but the rod of their rule was not a dry, dead, straight, rigid, polished stick : it bloomed with perennial beauty and vitality ; it " budded . . . and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds." (Numb. xvii. 8.) Whilst Paul and Barnabas were labouring at Antioch, on their return from their missionary tour, a terrible peril assaulted the Gentile churches. That movement was set on foot which, although repulsed for a while, was in after ages so fatally successful, and in our times is still in full and deadly force ; namely, the attempt to confine the grace of Christ to certain external channels. " Certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren, . . . Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small discussion and disputation with them, they " (the brethren at Antioch) " determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the Apostles and elders, about this question." (Acts xv. 1, 2.) In the first place, Paul and Barnabas, and the rest of the church at Antioch, heard patiently and candidly what these preachers 54 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. of circumcision had to say. They attempted to settle the question by free and fall discussion and debate before they made any appeal to authority. Second, Thorough ventilation and investigation of the point in dispute failing to secure unanimity, the church of Antioch sent a deputation to Jerusalem, consisting of the two Apostles and '^ certain other " less distinguished of their brotherhood, to consult with the eleven Apostles and the elders of the Mother-church ^^ about this question." The two Apostles and their col- leagues went to Jerusalem as delegates of the church of Antioch, having received their instructions, as well as their commission, from the whole body of the brethren. Third, The deputation were directed to submit the question in dispute, not to the Apostles alone, but to the Apostles and the elders, as co-assessors. Fourth, This act involved a recognition, on the part of the church in Antioch of the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem as the centre of Church unity and Church authority, as a Divinely provided and Divinely empowered Court of arbitration and appeal. Fifth, The reception of the Antiochian delegates at Jerusalem was given by the whole Church under the presidency of the Apostles and the elders : *' They were received of the Church and the Apostles and the elders." Sixth, The delegates did not lay the matter about which they had come before t/iis general Church-gathering ^ which was only a meeting of recog- ration. They confined themselves to a narration of the success of the Gospel amongst the Gentiles. But some members of the Church, who before their conversion had been Pharisees, rose and introduced the question, taking up a decisive position in favour of the partisans of circumcision. They were not put down either by authority or clamour ; but allowed to state their opinion. Seventh, The question was 7'iot determined in this general Church meeting^ before which THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM. ^^ indeed the delegates had not stated the question, but where it had been introduced by the eagerness of the Ex-Pharisees. Eighth, The questions were next discussed by the Apostles and elders, at a subsequent meeting, in which no other members of the Church took part, although they seem to have been present as hearers. Ninth, The matter was thoroughly and vigorously discussed, right and left, with " much disputing," and was determined at last, not by authority, but by argu- ment. Tenth, The decision of the Apostles and elders was then reported to " the whole Church," who adopted it and became parties to the decision. "Then pleased it the Apostles and elders, with the whole Church, to send chosen men of their own company " along with the returning delegates to Antioch ; and the decisive document begins thus : " The Apostles, and elders, and brethren;' and these three estates of the Church conjoin in one compact we, and sum up at last in this style,—" It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things." Eleventh, The whole Church at Jerusalem regarded itself as exercising in this matter the power of binding and loosing, of laying on a " necessary " burden, and taking off an unnecessary one ; and the churches of the Gentiles viewed the matter in the same light. That was the way they managed the most critical matters in the primitive Church. Everywhere we find freedom and force of thought and sentiment ; and indulgence for the side- play and the underplay of opinion and of prejudice. Apostolic inspiration did not overawe or supersede delil)eration. The body of the Church was not treated as in a state of everlast- ing nonage. The Church was under the reign of law, but it was the law of liberty and love. Decisions were arrived at by the frank and cordial coalition of all the component parts of the Church. The Apostles did not act as an absolute 56 THE CHUECE, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. Directory or correctional police. The conclusive pronounce- ment of the Holy Ghost came through " the whole Church," differentiated as to office, but still " one body," animated by " one spirit." There was no crushing or cramping centraliza- tion ; no absorption of the mind or the will of the Church in one absolute corporation ; no annihilation of local self- impulsion. There was no congestion ; on the contrary there was the freest circulation through every part of the system. The Church was alive all over. There was no torpor at the geographical extremities of the Church. The Gentile Antioch was one with Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was one with Antioch. And in the Apostolic Synod argument was not based on authority; but, contrariwise, authority was enthroned on argument. Nay, rather, here argument and authority met together. Divine guidance and human good-sense did kiss each other. A spark from "the Fountain of light" lit up the lamp of honest insight : in God's light they did see light. And what a consciousness that the Holy Ghost was with them and they with Him, what a sense of their own sim- plicity and godly sincerity spoke in the solemn style, " It seemed good unto the Holy Ghost and to usf^ What a con- fidence in His patience with their personal prejudices inspired them with mutual forbearance, mutual confidence, mutual deference! They knew that the Spirit would pilot them into port even through the swelling surf and the con- flicting currents of debate. Had not Apostles, Elders, and Brethren all knelt together and implored direction, assurance, unanimity? They were all alike seekers and scholars. They called no man Master: yet they were not Masterless ; One was their Master even Christ, Here was no human domination either of crown or crowd. Here was no voting by orders, but an absolute deliberative equality; THE TRUE BASIS OF CHURCH-RECOGNITION. 57 here was nothing of democracy, and if possible, still less of absolutism or hierarchical pretension. The tone and accent of a studied or rather an instinctive moderation pervade the only two recorded speeches, those of Peter and James. A gentle and convincing light fills the place where they are sitting. Everything finds its exquisite equilibrium. That the debate had been animated, and attended by much move- ment on the part of the unofficial brethren, who, if they did not join in the discussion, gave vocal indication of their assent or dissent, is graphically indicated by the description of the effect of Peter's speech, " Then all the multitude hept silence.'''' The sum of Peter's speech is this : GocVs Church is bound in spite of all personal predilections and preconcej)- tions to accept God's own action as authoritative and conclusive. If the work of the Sjnrit in tlie world proves to he contrary to our Church-theories then our Church-theories are wrong^ and must he corrected into accoi' dance ivith the action of God. God has made no difference hetween the uncircumcised hclievers and the circumcised. He has purified their hearts hy faith as well as ours. The correspondence between their heart-experience and ours is decisive of the whole question. "What a grand axiom is this — the very charter and criterion of true catholicity! Had this axiom been kept in view, bigotry could never have obtained foothold in the Church of Christ. A universal re- affirmation of and recurrence to this 2)rinciple is all that is needed to terminate the mutual unchurching of all true Christians. I, for one, do most solemnly re-affirm it : Heart-experience, shown in character^ is the true basis of Church-recognition. The most unchurchly aberration from Apostolic Church- principles into which the Church can fall is to unchurch any to whom God has borne witness by stamping His seal upon their consciences and their characters. This, as St. Peter puts it, is essentially a perpetration of that terrible 58 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. crime of tempting God — ("Now therefore why tempt ye God ? Yer. 10) — that is to say, dictating to Him as to what should be His course of procedure, and refusing to recognise His divines t action — that upon the human heart and cha- racter — unless it accords with our Church-theories. This is to place the Church in opposition to the Spirit; the Spirit witnessing to a fact, and the Church contradicting it ; the Spirit conferring present and patent salvation on multitudes who have not passed through certain rites ; and the Church avowing that unless you pass through those rites you cannot be saved ! Peter, in effect, says, We are the Church of God, are we not? Of God? Well; a work is wrought upon the hearts of these uncircumcised believers which God alone could work. If it were the Church'' s work to jmrify the heart, it might be competent to us, though not very charitable, to decree^ There shall be no circumcision of the heart without circumcision of the flesh. But this is God's work, and not that of the Church, You, estimable brethren, who, when you became Christians, did not cease to be Pharisees, say, " But God has made circumcision necessary to salvation.^'' " Why tempt ye God? " Do you not see that this is attempting to place the Omniscient in a dilemma, setting His Word against His Work? You have misread His Word: Go back, and read His Word by the light of His Work, and note well this text, " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy Godr Re-read God''s Word by the light of His Work:—Th2it is just what St. James does in the speech which decided the whole matter. He shows that the discrepancy was not between the Work and the Word, but between the Work of God and a narrow, hasty, superficial, one-eyed mis -interpreta- tion of the Word. And in this perfect unison between the Word and the Work of God, he sees the basis of union between the church of Antioch and that of Jerusalem, the UNANIMITY. 59 cliiirclies of the Gentiles and the churches of the Jews. And this is the true and only firm foundation for a re-united Christendom. The kernel of St. James's argument lies in these words : " Saith the Lord that doet/i these things." Jehovah the Doer is the Expositor of Jehovah the Speaker. On this broad, deep, strong principle was a decision based which was to affect the destinies of the Church to the end of time. It is idle then to quote isolated passages of Scripture in defence of Church-theories which are belied by the facts of history and of existing society. Thus then was guaranteed to the Gentile churches an unrestricted and inviolable freedom of self- evolution and self-shaping. Non-interference on questions of ceremonial is decreed. St. James's " sentence is — that we trouble not them." What he above all things dreads is a meddling dictation which might impair or impede the Work of God amdngst the Gentiles, and harass or hamper the workers. And yet this self-same decree effects the thorough unification of the Gentile and the Jewish churches. The absolute unanimity with which this decision was arrived at was felt to be the work of the Holy Spirit. He had made '' men to be of one mind in an housed When they assembled there was wide divergence of opinion and keen contrariety of sentiment ; before they parted they could say, " It seemed good to us having become unanimous " y£vo/x«»o/? 6/xo6y;aa^o». This was no Popish unanimity : it involved no suppression or dissembling of personal conviction; no abdication of individuality, or abandonment of Christian liberty and independence of thought. It was not a mere outward, surface, make-believe agreement. It was an honest, natural, ex animo concurrence of sentiment and j udgment. And the decision arrived at was re^rarded as authoritative, 60 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. definitive, decisive. Paul and Silas in the visitation of the churches of Asia Minor deliver them " tke decrees for to keep, which were ordained of the Apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem." This did not at all imply the domination of the church of Jerusalem, over the church of Antioch and the other Gentile churches, for it was really the decision of the church of Antioch as of that of Jerusalem. For the Antiochian delegates were integral parts of the synod, and parties to the decision. So clearly was this the case, that Paul and Barnabas become now a moiety of the delegation from Jerusalem to Antioch; that delegation being the Apostles Paul and Barnabas, and the prophets Judas and Silas, '^ chief men among the brethren." (Ver. 22.) Paul and Barnabas were, in fact, members and representatives of both the churches, or rather, they represented the oneness of the twain who were in Christ, Himself ^' of twain one new man ; so making peace." Thus love was the limiter of liberty, and the Holy Ghost Himself was the Harmonizer of opposite tendencies of thought. It should also be borne in mind that this decree of the Council of Jerusalem, whilst it established the liberty of the Gentile churches, also regulated that liberty ; and whilst it removed obstacles to progression for the future, it also estab- lished a harmonious connection between the new era and the past ; in other words, maintained the historical continuity of the Church, and prevented its squandering the " holy legacy of a Divine post." To assert that this first great Christian Council was a normal Council might be saying too much; but assuredly it is a most luminously exemplary Council. As we trace the further unfolding of the Church, we find it still to be richly natural, and yet accomplished by the most real and effective Headship of Chiist through His ever- EVERY BELIEVER A "JOINT OF SUPPLY:' 61 present Spirit. The Apostles still reverently adjust their formative action to that of the constructive Spirit. As we watcli the germination of the living Word into the living Cliurch, we see that " God givetk it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed its own body.'' We mark a refreshing individuality amidst essential sameness. The Spirit of God moves upon the primordia of the Churchy and gives it con- figuration and Kosmic beauty. Thus that which became a universal Church-institution, the Eldership, is said by St. Paul to be, as to the selection of the individual members of the order, and therefore a fortiori of the origination of the order itself— the Spirit's act and deed. He tells the Ephesian elders that the Holy Ghost has made them " over- seers over the Church of God." The Apostles by ordaining elders in every Chm'ch did, so to speak, decree order and oversight, and consequently subordination, as essentials in the Church. III. The third principle implied in St. Paul's analogy between the human body and the Chureh is, that the Church, like the human body, is built up of individual living particles ; the members of the Church, like the piarticles of the body, being all homogeneous and related structures, and not unrelated atoms — as in some inorganic mass : and that, as each particle of the body contributes to the growth of the body, so every member of the Church is bound to be a ''joint of supply,'' by which the growth of the whole Church, in knowledge, faith, love, holiness, in one word, spiritual manliness, is advanced: a joint as of the spinal column, " full of marrow," and replenished with nerve-force from the Living Head : " The Head, even Christ : from Whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself ^'2 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. in love." There is no little difficulty if not in ascertaining the exact meaning of the word a
r> signifies. First, the ligaments,
nerves, and veins, by which the members are joined together
amongst themselves, and at the same time connected with
the head : Second, the actual mutual contact and
cohesion of the various parts of the body. Joinings of supply,
to he taken actively/, because by them the vital spirit and
* To what extent the physiological principles laid down by St. Paul
were in accordance with, or in advance of, his age, I have not been able to
discover. But that Hippolytus (Circ. a.d. 200) held that the head is the
focus of life appears incidentally from a remarkable passage in his liefutn-
Hon of All Heresies (Bk. iv., chap. 51). "The brain ... the whole frame
participates in the spiritual energy."
C4 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
nutriment are subministered as from the Head to each
member, so by the members to each other reciprocally.
According to the effectvul working of each member ; by which
the gifts received are not kept buried, but each communicates
to the others." {Eatenus totum corpus, etc.) Again " Grow-
up into Him " signifies, not local but spiritual motion. That
is, he who grows up into Him, tends to Him as his con-
summation, and becomes ever more and more incorporated
with Christ like to Him, one with Him. The accusative
here has great force (Motuum, etc.)*
In the human body, the sensitive, vital energy, is transfused
and interfused through every particle — molecule — vesicle of
the entire tissue of the body. It is not merely f/^fused, as
if each part of the whole mass were independent of the rest
and non-essential to the rest for its vitalization and growth,
but the life-force passes from the head to every particle and
through every particle to the rest : so that a devitalization
or degeneratioQ of any one vesicle of the entire tissue would
entail an arrest or diminution of supply to the other vesicles ;
and a degradation of any portion of the tissue of a living
body, involving a lessening of the energy and lowering of the
function of that part, impedes, to that extent, the growth of
the body, and to that extent depresses its tone. Every
particle or vesicle of the human body is a "joint of supply "
to the rest ; in other words, fornis an integral part of the
system of supply from the head downwards, by which the
vitality and power of growth of " the whole body " is
sustained ; so that each vesicle is a feeder as well as a sucker.
If any vesicle were to be continually absorbing nutriment,
* So Grotius : " Christ in the Church discharges the functions both of
the head and of the heart : whence both the blood are the spirits, by
many interconnected channels, are conveyed even to the extremities, and
supply increase to each." (Christus in Ecclesia, etc.)
HOW CHUECH-GROWTH liS EFFECTED. 65
and never giving it out or passing it on, that vesicle would
become congested and diseased.
We are distinctly taught by the Spirit of God that mutual
cohesion, mental and spiritual contact, sympathy and interde-
pendence between the members which compose the Church,
are as essential to the healthiness, vigour, and integrity of
the Church as are mutual cohesion, sympathy, and inter-
dependence amongst the particles that compose a human
body to the healthiness, vigour, and integrity of that body.
In short, all that has been affirmed of the particles of a
healthy body may with equal truth be affirmed of the
members of the Church when in its normal state ; when it is
as it ought to be, as it is to be, and as it is the m*gent duty
of every member of the Church to strive to make it. The
Church is not a low invertebrate type of organization, but is
as exquisitely articulated as it is intensely vitalized.
IV. The fourth principle implied in this analogy is that,
as the growth of the body is in proportion to the " effectual
working," the active and effective energy " in the measure
of every part," even so the real growth of the Church is in
proportion to the " effectual working," — the active and
effective energy " in the measure of every one of its members."
In a healthy body there is an incessant activity in all its
component particles, — an " effectual working in the measure
of every part." There is in every vesicle a teeming faculty
of growth, so that, if one may so speak, the right and the
responsibility of growth is shared by every particle of the
entire mass ; each particle being a life-point. Thus the body,
though not self-created, is self-built up by the continuous
utilization of the life-force communicated from the head to
each individual particle. The body is built up of rings —
zones — which are united and nourished by what modern
physiologists term " commissural growths," — joining growths,
F
QQ THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
— (the very idea of the text) ; each vesicle budding towards
its neighbour. Thus the whole body is made up of budding
particles, closely related to each other, and formed into a
unity of mass by the unity of a common and intercom-
municated life ; each particle being at once a depository and
a distributary of the vital force.
And what, according to the teaching of the Spirit of God,
are the analagous facts which constitute the Church of
Christ, not only in the Divine idea, but also in its normal
state ^ as real an organic unity as is the living body of a man ?
Why, that there is in eveiy living member of the Church
a teeming faculty of growth : every living member is charged
with grace — charged in a double sense — with stored-up
spiritual energy, communicated from Christ, " the Head,"
for the benefit of his fellow-members as well as of himself.
Hence if any member of the Church wilfully presume to
absorb spiritual nutriment without contributing directly to
the edification of others, that member inevitably becomes
morbid and congested.
In the human body, the nutritive process, that by which
the body "maketh increase to the building up of itself" in
the mutual sympathy of its parts, — depends upon and is
carried out, not by one organ only, but by the vital powers
of its several particles. The body is built up by the living
force, and out of the living matter which the individual
particles contain. The binding force which makes it " one
body," and the building force which makes it grow inheres
— it is one force — in every particle of which the body is
composed. Not only does a devitalization or degeneration of
any member of the Church entail on the other members
an arrest or diminution of supply, but sluggishness or self-
containedness in any member inflicts an incalculable loss,
and perpetrates an irreparable wrong on all the rest ; inas-
THE UNIVERSAL MINISTRY. 67
much as it, to a very serious extent, impedes the growth and
depresses the spiritual tone of the Church. Every individual
member of the Church forms an integral part of the system
of spiritual supply. Each member is required to be, both a
depository and a distributary of light, faith, love, energy.
We must all be "vessels, instruments of grace." The
official ministry of Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors,
and teachers, is not intended to supersede, nor even to
supplement, but to set agoing, to direct and keep in full
operation, the individual and universal ministry, which
belongs inalienably to all and every member. Christ " gave
some Apostles," etc. (Yer. 12), "for the perfecting of the saints
for the work of the ministry," — that separating comma has
no business here ; it diverts and distorts the sense.* At any
rate one may boldly say that the natural and straightforward
translation is — " for the perfecting of the saints to work of
ministry or ministration, 'n^os roy xuTae,prt(r[xo¥ ruv uyiuv eli spyov
^;axo/»af. Nothing but the incapacity for making sense of the
words, if rendered according to their simple and obvious
meaning, an incapacity resulting from its contrariety to
ecclesiastical usages and ideas, — caused the deflection of
translators to a barely admissible and most unlikely alter-
native rendering. The words are clear enough, if translators
and expositors would let them speak for themselves. It is
the starting at the plain meaning of the words which has
driven exegesis into such pitiable embarrassment, f The
direct rendering of the passage is in detail : vpos — Towards,
* It is omitted in most editions of the Greek Testament. Scrivener
omits it, and gives no various reading. Ellicott and Valpy omit it from
the text, and insert it in the translation.
t For example, Ellicott might have been saved his dubious, hesitating,
complicated, and somewhat perplexed note, had ho not either shrunk
instinctively from the simple significance of the passage, or failed to
realize the idea of the text in actual working.
f2
68 TEE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
unto, for this end, viz., — to» Karapnafio* — the perfecting,
the fully-fitting of the saints — «»j, unto efyov itaKotias — work of
ministration (neither of the two ^* thes " is in the original),
that is, effective and useful function (1 Tim. iii. 1) in the
Church, in one department or another, according to the
special grace-gift of the individual, in its Divinely designed
and Divinely dispensed adaptation to the particular needs of
the Church. To what ministerial work? Unto—f'^s — ^' the
building up of the body of Christ," the advancement of the
whole Church to a symmetrical spiritual completeness, its
steady progress towards perfect holiness and love. Each of
us has a benign duty to fulfil, and a blessed destiny to realize,
in the building up of the Church, which nothing but one's
own unfaithfulness or the wasteful malconstruction or mal-
administration of our Church-systems can defeat. The
Church is self-built up by the active utilization of the life-
force communicated from the Head to each individual member.
It is " compacted by," literally through — ^«*— through in both
senses — intermediately and instrumentally — every member.
According to, that is in proportion to, and as the result of
jtara — "the effectual working in the measure of every part."
In the ideal Church, the potential Church, and according to
the plan on which we ought all to be working, " the whole
body maketh increase of the body," by a system of mutual
ministration, — the productive employment " of the manifold
grace of God " distributed by Christ Himself to each one of
His members. Reciprocal sustentation is a fundamental law
in the sacred physiology of Christ's body the Church.*
* The reasons why this text has been so difl&cult of interpretation to
commentators, as Matthew Pole says, "locus difficilis" are. First, its
anticipation of modem physiological discovery ; even the clear-headed
Grotius being somewhat perplexed by its divergence from the physiology
of his time : and Second, the fact that all their existing Church arrange-
ments, with one exception, which did not come into existence till about
INSTITUTIONS AFFECT INTERPRETATIONS. 69
No living member of Christ's Church is without his
speciality. Each is able, and each is under obligation ; every
one can, and every one is bound to contribute his share to
the edification of the Church. Whilst all have an infinitude
in common, each has a most precious gift of his own, which
is yet not his own, but the property of the Church. " To
everi/ one of us is" literally was •^ofi'J ^* given" literally
" the o-race," h x«f'j. The common grace which the Head of
the Church at His ascension received in trust for the self-
the middle of the last century, were so wofully out of harmony with the
Apostolical ideal. Yet Hammond, as well as Zanchy and Macknight,
saw clearly that the text announces the mutual adaptation of the
members of the Church, the correlativeness of their graces and gifts, and
the necessity of close connexion amongst them.
Beza, (from another point of view, but still with the same general idea,)
" in the measure of every part, according to the capacity on the one baud
and the need on the other, of every member " (pro modo et e:dgentia).
Similarly, Mede and Hammond. Vetablus points out the fact that this
mutual ministration is to be effective in the accomplishment of its purpose,
is not to stop short of that purpose— not merely towards, but unto " usque
ad ''—the edifying of itself (not " for," as Ellicott weakly and inconsistently
renders). Estius finely comments : " The building up,— both the enlarge-
ment and the perfect binding together. This teaches the end contemplated
by this growth of individual members and its serviceable result, not only
the member's own personal benefit, but the common advantage of the
whole body ; for the sake of which every one has received from Clirist
whatever gift he may possess. In love, without which the body does not
grow, and without which all the rest is nothing." {Edijicationem sive
extructionen, etc). Whitby's comment is to the same effect : " By the
assistance which every of these parts, thus ^mited together, gives to the
whole, according to the particular proportion of its gifts, increaseth or
grows in love, and so each member edifies one another.'*
Were not the fact so. patent that institutions shape ideas, it would be
strange indeed that all these able expositors, seeing so clearly as they did
that the plain, the inevitable teaching of this passage and others is— that
reciprocal edification is an essential part of Church-life, an indispensable
element in Church organization, did not call attention to the glaring
deficiency of the existing Church-organi»tions in this particular.
Modern conmientators, Ellicott and Alford, for example, though not
70 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
upbuilding of His Church, and for the fulfilment of its
mission to the world, is specialized in each individual
believer. In the animal kingdom there are some species
which include such a wide free range of individual peculiarity
that each individual may be regarded as almost constituting
a sub-species by itself: but in no kingdom is there such
diversity of original gift as in the kingdom of grace.
All believers have equal Church-rights; the dignity of each
being so lofty that none can possibly overtop another, all being
" sons, heirs, kings, and priests unto God." There cannot
be any difference of order, since each holds a rank than which
there can be no higher ; still there is a difference of office, a
diversity of function. The one God works through all, yet
diversely as to measure and manner. No real member of
God's Church is without his speciality. Every one of us has
a work to do, a function to discharge, for the building-up of
the body, which no one else can do so well, because no one
else has the exquisitely fitting gift for it.
According to the measure of the gift — the boon of Christ, That
is to say, each individual member's gift for the edification of
the Church is a definite spiritual, mental, bodily endow-
nearly so explicit as many of their predecessors, say quite enough to
implicitly condemn the large majority of existing Church-systems for
making no provision for this essential element of the Christian Ufe —
mutual ministration, reciprocal edification. Ellicott ever and again
" burns" to use an expressive child-phrase in the game of " hide and
seek," but just when you think he now must put his finger on the point,
his ecclesiastical pre-occupations send him off in some other direction.
For example, on verse 7, he writes, " In the general distribution of gifts,
... no single individual is overlooked, . . . each has his peculiar gift, each
can and ought to contribute his share to — " What ? Surely to the
matter in hand, namely, " the edifying of the body of Christ." But no,
he resiles from that instinctively, and falls back on the comparatively
remote context, — "preserving the unity of the Spirit." What but
prepossession could drive such an accomplished and conscientious
commentator to such an exegetical eccentricity ?
EVERY MEMBER HAS A SPECIAL GIFT. 71
ment, determined as to its original extent and limits by
Christ Himself. It is a Christ-given faculty, bestowed, not
by the Church, but for the Church : it being the business of
the Church to ascertain the special designation of each one
of its members, as indicated by the special faculty. The
neglect by the Church of the working power of its members
is a wanton waste, entailing woful want. Whilst all the
members form one Church, each member has his own
strongly-marked, most interesting, important and serviceable
individuality. And this individualization, so far from dis-
integrating the Church, constitutes its completeness, since
the perfection of the Church is the perfect development and
correlation of all its members. Every believer should
reverence his own gift and recognise, respect, and rejoice in
that of his brother.
It is by these universally distributed gifts, received by
Christ from the Father and communicated by Him through
the Spirit, that the One God and Father of all works
"through all." Thus, while there is such diversity of gift,
there must be no divergence of aim or effort.
When He ascended up on high. This grandly connects
the Ai'ticle on the Holy Catholic Church with that on the
Ascension. It also shows that the Church was not really
constituted until after the Ascension, although it had existed
previously in a rudimental or embryonic state. He gave gifts
to men and far men,— the gift and the office being the
counterparts of each other.
From all this it is plain that in the view of the Holy Spirit
the Church is a living organism, animated by the Spirit of
Christ diffused through all its members ; an organism of
which in its healthy, normal condition, the mutual inter-
dependence and the reciprocal sustentation are perfect and
entire. Cuvier's descriptive definition of an organized being
72 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTii.
is precisely the Spirit's representation of the Church. " Each
organized being forms a complete and specific system, all
whose parts mutually correspond to each other and, through
their mutual and combined activity, fulfil a definite aim." Or
take the words of another great physiologist, Johannes
Muller : — ^^ All the parts are co-ordinated, so as to form one
whole, and to combine in fulfilling the object of that
organized whole. Some have believed that life, or the
activity of organic bodies, is only the result of the harmony
of their parts, the interlocking, as it were, of the wheels of
the machine, and that death is caused by the rupture of this
harmony. . . . But this harmony which exists among all the
members of the whole body, is itself produced hy some power
which operates through the whole body. . . . And further, this
power exists before the harmoniously related members of the
whole body''' * Dr. Radcliffe, again, says, — " Bones and
vessels and nerves are bound up in mysterious communion, and
their harmonious reconciliation in a common jmrpose may be
presumed to indicate the probability of a common law of
formation."! This sentence, too, might serve as a compen-
dium of the Pauline physiology, on which rests his grand
analogue of Church-organism, excepting that " the common
law of formation" is laid down by the Apostle as an
unquestionable fact, and the '* harmonious reconciliation in
a common purpose " is assumed to be the practical sequence.
V. The fifth principle involved in St. Paul's analogy is,
that to the mutual ministration of spiritual life-force,
coherence, contact, continuity of parts are requisite. The
particles which compose the body cleave to those, that are
locally the nearest. Whilst —
" Each part may call the farthest ' Brother,'
For head with foot hath private amity." t
• Quoted in London Quarterly Review, January, 1873, p. 280.
f Proteus, or the Laic of Nature. % George Herbert.
SYSTEMATIC FELLOWSHIP. 73
every vesicle fraternizes most practically with its neighbours.
And thus it should be in the Church. But this can only be
accomplished upon system. It must be at once voluntary
and regulated. Of course in the present state realized
communion must be modified by the cramping conditions of
our mortal life. Thus, to some extent, Baxter's aphorism is
correct, though it must be taken with strong modifications.
«^ The Communion of Saints is, in this world, a matter of
faith." Certainly, but like other matters of faith, it is also
a matter for practice, of duty. What is the use of believing
"in the Holy Catholic Church," whilst taking no steps
towards identification with it? What, of believing in " the
Communion of Saints," without endeavouring to realize it
so/ar as the conditions of our earthly life will allow ? Even
in heaven, the finiteuess of the creature must impose some
limitations on realized communion. " The spirits of the
just made perfect" do, doubtless, group themselves into
" solemn troops and sweet societies," whilst they altogether
form one harmonious household : for, as the Spirit teaches
us in this Epistle, God is " the Father of Whom eYevj/amih/'
—Tracra-TraTp^i—" in heaven and earth is named." And, in
this respect, too, —
" What if earth be but the shadow of heaven ? "
and as in our '' Father's house are many mansions,'" so the
enthroned Apostles shall judge the tribes of Israel; and the
good and faithful servant shall have dominion over cities;
and " the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the
light of the city of God?"
But the question fairly urged with regard to the etymology
of the word Ecclesia may be put, with reference to the analogy
between the human body and the Church, Is it not possible
to press an analogy too far ? And the answer is similar,—
74 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
Certainly: the analogy must not be pushed one hair's
breadth further than the point of its accordance with Apostolic
precept and procedure, and the institutions and usages of the
Primitive Church. Let us then look closely and candidly at
the injunctions of the Apostles with regard to reciprocal
edification, and inquire what provision was made for it in the
arrangements of the primitive Church.
And, first of all, Could anything be more explicit and more
emphatic than the assertion of the Spirit, through St. Paul,
of the universal difi'usion of gifts for mutual edification, and
the repeated insistence on the fact, that one grand depart-
ment of the Spirit's work in the Church is the exquisitely
balanced distribution of gifts amongst the various members
of the Church for the express purpose of reciprocal up-
building ? The Spirit Himself distinctly affirms that " the
manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal " (1 Cor. xii. 7), — for utilization — wpoy to o-W|W.(ps^o» ; as the
context shows, not his own only, but that of his fellow-
members.* — " Dividing to every man severally, as He will."
(1 Cor. xii. 11.) It is also abundantly clear that the
Christian gift of " prophecy," that is, of sjDeaking on divine
themes under a divine afflatus, in an elevated and elevating
manner, was very far from being an exclusively official
function.
The earliest description of primitive Church-life occurs
in Acts ii. 42 : " And they continued steadfastly in the
Apostles'* doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread,
and in prayers." Continued steadfastly: — The word here
employed by St. Luke is much stronger than this rendering
TTpoay.apTepovtTss. It is cxpressivc of the most energetic per-
sistence. They ^ave themselves up to it, as the word is
* So Valpy (o^ loc) "Ad Utilitatem. Non propriam, sed ecclesioe, in
communem populifdelis usum."
WHA T IS FELLO WSHIP ? 7 5
rendered in the sixth chapter, where the Apostles say, —
" We will ffive ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the
word."
Now, what is meant by giving themselves to "the
Apostles' doctrine " is very plain. They devoted themselves
to the learning, to the experimental realization, and to the
assiduous practice of the truths which it was the principal
work of the Apostles to teach. But what is meant by ^'fel-
lowship " F This is obviously a question of vital importance
to the very conception of the Church. We must get to the
root of this matter if possible. The word * here and else-
where rendered " fellowship " means, in the first place, a
having in common, a joint interest; then intercourse; next, an
intimate and sympathetic sharing, as where St. Paul declares
his intense aspiration to prove " the fellowship oV Christ's
" sufi'erings ; " then it comes to signify affinity, mutual
attraction, coalescence, as where he asks, '^ ^hat fellowship
hath righteousness with unrighteousness ? " next, a joint and
privileged partaking, as where he terms the Lord's Supper
" the coinmunion of the blood" and "the communion of the
body of Christ." Then, by a very natural crystallization of
meaning, the word designates the parties to whom the
privilege of joint participation exclusively belongs, — the
initiated and registered society or brotherhood, the enrolled
community, as when St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that
they " were called unto the fellowship of— Jesus Christ," and
hence exhorts them to have " no divisions among " them, but
to " be perfectly joined together." It then comes to signify
reciprocal recognition and co-partnership, as when St. Paul
says that the other Apostles gave to him and Barnabas " the
right hand oi fellowship.'' Sometimes it means the actual
76 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
communicating and conveying to others of sentiment, feeling,
experience, and is so rendered in our English Bible, where
the Apostle prays that *^ the communication " of Philemon's
faith may become "effectual." Sometimes it signifies a
Church-contribution, as where St. Paul tells the Romans, —
" It has pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a
certain contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem." Again,
in writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul uses this word to
designate their Church-charities, where our translators render
the word "distribution."
Now it will be readily perceived that although this word has
great breadth and elasticity of signification, yet all its
meanings are closely related, and, so to speak, run into one
another naturally. But our present question is. In which of
these shades or phases of meaning are we to take the word
in this description of the form which the Church-life of the
first converts spontaneously assumed ? That it must have
been something substantive ; something of which a descrip-
tion could have been readily given in answer to a candid
inquirer, is plain from the connection. For this is but one
of several details of the primitive Church-life. If Theophilus
had written to St. Luke to this effect ; — You speak of the
new converts as devoting themselves to the Apostle's
teaching, — what does that mean ? He could have felt no
difficulty in describing this usage and habit as it actually
appeared at the time. Or if Theophilus had put the like
question with regard to " breaking of bread," or " prayers,"
a descriptive answer would have been readily returned.
Does any one doubt then that if Theophilus had written, —
There is one part of your account of the Church-life of the
converts of Pentecost which I find myself unable to realize, —
" fellowship," one of the four things which you say they
were given up to, — what usage or usages do you indicate by
THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF CHURCH-LIFE. 77
that word? What did it feel like to them? What did it
look like to others ? Does any one imagine that St. Luke
would have had any greater difficulty in describing the
fellowship than in describing the teaching, the breaking of
bread, or the prayers ? Clearly not : for St. Luke himself
only used the word as a compendious expression for that
which he had witnessed or which had been described in
detail, and vividly, glowingly, amply narrated to him. This
is rather obscured in the A. V., by an arbitrary and incon-
sistent punctuation and use of the word " in : " there ought
to have been a comma and an " in " between doctrine and
fellowship. The strict rendering is, " They devoted them-
selves to the teaching of the Apostles, and to fellowship, and
to breaking of bread, and to prayers." Their Church-life had
four principal departments, to which they all gave assiduous
attention : First, the teaching of the Apostles ; Second,
fellowship; Third, breaking of bread; Fourth, prayers.
That some special usage is meant is plain. It cannot mean
merely that they did not abandon their profession, did not
renounce their baptism. The word here, then, cannot have
one of its two most usual significations — community. But
is there any objection to the other,— confidential intercourse?
That there is no antecedent unlikelihood in the practice of
close, familiar intercourse amongst them is obvious, and
that such intercourse did form an essential element of
primitive Church-life is abundantly evident from other
passages in the New Testament, and from ecclesiastical and
secular history throughout the first six centuries of the
Christian era.
That the followship, communion, here spoken of, was not
identical with that blessed solemnity to which we now
emphatically apply the name — tJie Communion, is plain, in-
asmuch as that rite is mentioned next— under the descriptive
78 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
title "breaking of bread;"* the two might be, and demonstrably
were, generally combined. We know the Lovefeast and the
Lord's Supper were so combined in primitive times. Often
probably the four principal elements of Church-life — teaching;
social intercourse; the Christian family-meal; the Lord's
Supper ; and conjoint prayers were united in one service. But
still— jfelhwskip must have been as distinct an element of
Church-life — as were teaching, the Lord's Supper, and col-
lective prayer. Fellowship, like the three other elements of
Church-life, was a regularly recurring act, performed at set
times. And this addiction to fellowship^ hearty social inter-
course, was in exquisite accordance with the self-surrender,
the effusion, one might almost say the abandon of a com-
munity such as had never before appeared on earth ; which as
Baumgarten beautifully says " exulted in its own existence,"
and which, as St. Luke tells us, by its unearthly loveliness
commanded at once " fear " and " favour," from those whose
enslaving world] iness could not permit them to join it.
Those who would not be its adherents were per-force its
admirers.
The sense of mutual belonging is beautifully indicated in
the word used by St. Luke in recording the action of Peter
and John on their dismissal from the Jewish Council — " they
went to their own.'''* No sooner were they at large than they
naturally gravitated to the confidential, privileged gathering
of the disciples. That was the magnetic hearthstone to
which their hearts were instinctively drawn. This closeness
of union is further indicated by the strength of the expres-
sion employed by St. Luke in describing the salutary effect
of the vindication of the holiness of the Church by the death
of Ananias and Sapphira. " Of the rest " — contrasted with
* Bishop Wordsworth {ad loc) maintains this on grammatical grounds.
He sees that " external acts of fellowship " must be meant here.
MUTUAL EDIFICATION. 79
believers — of those who were not sincere believers, durst no
man join himself — literally glue or solder himself unto them,
xo^^ac^9a/. (see Valpy ad loc.) The Church was a spiritually
agglutinated mass.
But it may be said — This was peculiar to the Hebrew
Church who had been accustomed to the free social services
of the Synagogue. Let us see, then, whether there was any-
thing like it in the Gentile churches.
In St. Paul's earliest Epistle, the First to the Thessalonians,
he writes thus to these newly converted Greeks : " Comfort
yourselves togetJier and edify one another^ even as also ye do^'''
are in the habit of doing. (Ch. v. 11.)
Again, in Col. iii. 16, the Apostle exhorts believers to the
duty of " teaching and admonishing one another in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs." Here an important func-
tion of the Apostles, that of teaching and admonishing
reminding — ^ov^trovyres — (see Ch. i. 28) is laid upon each in-
dividual believer ; teaching one another, what was not before
clearly known, reminding one another of what was in danger
of not being sufficiently heeded — one another — yourselves con-
jointly fawToyr, each convcyiug to himself and his brethren at
the same time, instruction and admonition through the
medium of psalms, etc. ; as did the Apostles and disciples
when Peter and John returned from the Council, and as was
customary in the Corinthian meetings — ** Every one hath a
psalm" (1 Cor. xiv. 26), and according to the good old usage of
Methodist prayer-meetings, when any member of the meet-
ing might give out a verse or two admonishing himself and
his fellow-Christians by such a hymn as " A charge to keep
I have, etc." The idea is plainly that of mutual and con-
joint instruction and admonition by means of a varied
psalmody adapted to the varied moods and phases of the
spiritual life. " Speaking to one another (not yourselves
80 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
exclusively, — Ellicott ad loc, — more correctly still among
yourselves) in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."
(Eph. V. 19.) This is strikingly illustrated by Pliny's cele-
brated letter to Trajan " Carmina Ckristo quasi Deo dicer e
secum invicem.^'' That these were social singings seems to be
indicated by the context ; the contrast between being drunk
with wine and being filled with the Spirit^ being implicitly
continued in that between the Bacchanalian drinking songs,
by which the intemperate excited each other to excess, and
the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, by which the Chris-
tians were wont to intensify their social devotions and to
challenge each other to heroic constancy and a holy rivalry
of goodness, to stir the fire of sacred enthusiasm, and " con-
sider one another to provoke unto love and to good works."
It seems plain from 1 Cor. xiv., that in the earliest
Christian times, under an afflatus of the Spirit, a sacred
improvisation was common.
'' Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to
good works : not forsaking the assembling of ourselves
together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one
another." (Heb. x. 24, 25.) Consider — earnestly regard^ —
ytoLxavoufxii (Acts xxvii. 29, " wished for the day," looked out
longingly for it) " the assembling of ourselves together : " the
word together here is not pleonastic but emphatic, being the
translation of the 'w* in linavvuyuyh, which certainly suits
better a close and confidential and an exclusively Church-
gathering than a public assembly. (Comp. Matt. xxiv. 31,
Mark xiii. 27, 2 Thess. ii. 1, Matt, xxiii. 27, Luke xiii. 34.)
Well does Bengel comment on this passage. " For spiritual
heat and ardour also disjoin things that are heterogeneous,
and draw together those that are homogeneous. The ex-
hortation which is required includes the peculiar ardour of
* " Eegard with solicitude," (Williams in loc.)
FELLOWSHIP ONE WITH ANOTHER. 81
every individual." {Nametiamspiritualis^etc.) " Oneanother"
is also very emphatic. The juxtaposition and organic con-
nection of the clauses suggest that the exhorting one
another, was one of the chief objects of " the assembling of
ourselves together."
- Nor is this idea of the mutual attraction of true believers,
their vital affinity and interdependence, not only as a matter
of faith, but also as a matter of fact, practice, usage,
duty, and experience— not only as an ideal, but as an
institution — confined to St. Paul. In St. John's yiq^ fel-
lowship one with another is as real as our fellowship with
the Father and the Son; fellowship one with another being
the proper sequence of our fellowship with the Father and the
Son. — He writes ^' Truly our fellowship is with the Father and
with His Son Jesus Christ. . . . And if we walk in the light, as
He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another."
Assuredly fellowship with the Father and the Son is to the
true believer a matter of experience and realization, — in prayer
and thanksgiving on his own part, and in the communication
of peace and joy and strength from God to the believer. Who
could maintain fellowship with the Father and the Son with-
out frequent, if not regular and stated acts of prayer and
thanksgiving ? How then can we be said to have fellowship
one with another without Christian social intercourse, — fre-
quent, if not regular and stated ?
In like manner St. James enjoins mutual confession, and
supplication for one another. " Confess your faults one to
another and pray one for another."
It is true that nothing is said in any of the Epistles as to
the precise mode of exercising all this mutual vigilance, and
realizing this mutual membership, and discharging those
reciprocal obligations, and condensing into an effective work-
ing force this strong and universally diffused sentiment of a
o
82 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
mutual belonging. The exact mode in which the Church is
to accomplish its great work of self-upbuilding is not made
matter of Apostolic prescription. What were the definite
arrangements for the utilization of each member's special
gifts ; in what particular manner the primal and imperative
Christian duties of reciprocal exhortation, confession, con«£-
solation, incitation to love and to good works, were to be
fulfilled, is not laid down in any of the Apostolical letters ;
any more than the precise mode of conducting public worship,
administering baptism, or solemnizing the Supper of the
Lord. But it is just as unreasonable to doubt that there did
obtain in the primitive churches usages of, and arrangements
for mutual edification, heartening and confession, and the
interchange of Christian sentiment, as to doubt that in some
form or some variety of forms public worship was conducted,
and that in some way or some diversity of ways baptism was
administered, and the Lord's Supper was celebrated.
There can be little doubt that as to the mode of meeting
these solemn Church-responsibilities and securing these in-
valuable Church advantages much was left to the genius of
the people, and their previous religious and social usages and
habits. Indeed this becomes apparent in comparing what
we know from " the Acts " of the Church in Jerusalem with
what we gather of the Corinthian church-customs from the
Epistles to the believers of that great centre of Greek in-
telligence and energy. There are reasons at once obvious
and conclusive why no rigid Apostolic regulations should
form part of the rule of Christian faith and practice, and
why no detailed descriptions should be given of the meetings
for reciprocal edification and enlivenment, and why we are
rather left to form a general idea of the several customs and
institutions of the primitive Church from scattered and inci-
dental intimations. There is such a terrible tendency in all
CLASSIFICATION OF CONVERTS. 83
ages to insist upon the form rather than the force, to rely
upon the opus opcratum rather than the spirit and life, that
we may well thankfully recognize the wisdom and the kind-
ness, the mercy and the justice of this chariness of detail as to
Church organization and administration, and hoard up the
golden silence of Scripture on this as on many other ques-
tions. But notwithstanding all this there are ample indi-
cations in the Epistles of most veritable and effective modes
of manifesting the essential mutuality of the Christian life,
and indulging and strengthening its strong family-instinct,
in short of building itself up in love.
In the First Epistle to the Corinthians we have some very
interesting and instructive glimpses of the internal structure
of the Church. We first discover a system of classification
of converts with reference to the various states and stages of
the spiritual life ; and how classification could be accom-
plished without classing, and how classing could be effected
without classes, it is not easy to conceive. In the Second
Chapter, the sixth verse, St. Paul tells the Corinthians,
" We speak wisdom among them that are perfect," — mature,
"of full age." (Compare Heb. v. 14.) "We speak^'' says
Bengel, " implies something private. (Compare Ver. 7,
13.) Y^Q preach, — a public act." {"• Loqui7nur habet, etc.^'')
Besides, the idea of privacy and confidentialness is sug-
gested by the word ^^ among them that are perfect."
That to T6Xfio/j should be here assigned its frequent mean-
ing mature, advanced, proficient, seems required by
the contrast in the subsequent context " babes in Christ."
It is plain from the tenor of the second and third chap-
ters that the Apostles supplemented their public preach-
ing by private instruction, ascertaining the exact state of
individual disciples, and- addressing their teaching to that
state. They formed inner circles of more advanced believers,
g2
84 THE CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
among whom they spoke '^ wisdom . . . and the deep things
of God."*
The utilization of the manifold and universally-diffused
gifts of the Christian Society, and the earnest care of the
Apostle to regulate, but in nowise to repress, the rich
resources of the Church for mutual edification, are instinctively
apparent from that very Epistle to the Corinthians in which
he most severely rebukes license and disorder. First of all,
he gratefully recognises the various and most precious
endowments of the Church comprehended under the term
" utterance " (1 Cor. i. 5), presenting an admonitory
contrast with that reticence as to personal experience
which in the present day has become a fashion and an
epidemic, t
In Chap. xiv. 12, the whole body of believers is exhorted
individually to " seek to excel to the edifying of the Church.".
" Understanding " on spiritual matters is pronounced " un-
fruitful," if not directed to the edification of others. The
Apostolic rescript is as positive as it is plain, " Ye may all
prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be
comforted." The learning " all " and the speaking '^ all "
are identical. J
* Assuredly, the pubUc and promiscuous preaching of the word — the
present style of average and even of popular preaching, adapted to the
present state of our congregations —is not sufficient for the formation of a
full-grown, manly, robust, and high-toned Christian experience. The
churches of the present day are kejjt to a large extent on a milk diet, —
are treated as infantile, invalid, or convalescent. (See a Paper
by the Lecturer in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine for January, 1867.
" The Pew, etc.'')
t We ourselves have heard one of the most eminent and eloquent of
Dissenting Ministers deduce from the expression " joy unspeakable," by
a curious hermeneutical process, the wisdom and propriety of leaving
altogether unspoken our spiritual joys.
X On this passage Bengel, with his usual insight, says, "All; the univer-
CHURCH ORDER. 85
Again, the striking passage in the Epistle to the Colossians,
parallel with our text, in which the Apostle holds up the
ideal of a compactly and sensitively united and self-nourishing
Church, is preceded by a glowing description of the actual
state of the Colossian church. He writes, " I am with you
in the Spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the
steadfastness of your faith in Christ," which, as Bishop
Ellicott says, has " reference to Church-fellowship." It is
difficult to imagine how the Apostle could have chosen the
words — T^v T«|