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A It E^^re00 to tbe Hlumni, M^Utfe Colledc lillntveraiti? of ^Toronto, (S)ctober 8tb, 18Q6. .;m- ^3»^feft-?& WYCLIFFE COLLEGE UNIVERSITY or TORONTO ■jIi*" H- , * The Idea of the Church AN ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI BY THB Rev. Principal Sheraton, D.D., LL.D. October 8th, 1896. TOKONTOl TNI mMIT PRUt THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH THE QUESTION STATED. By the Idea cf the Church is to be understood the formative idea, the essential and fundamental principle of which the Church is the embodiment, that which makes the Church to be the Church, which determines its esse, its essential being. This is a fundamental question in regard to which clearness and definiteness of conception are all-important. H-^re vagueness and uncertainty become the prolific source of error. It is surely the duty of every teacher of theology, and of every Christian pastor, to possess and impart clear and well-defined instruction upon such a subject. Qui bene distinguit, bene docet. It is only by means of such clearness and accuracy in theological study that we can hope to find the unity of truth, or to mediate between conflicting opinions. So far from the tendency of such definiteness being towards a narrow and intolerant dogmatism, it is the chief means by which real comprehension and reconciliation can be achieved, and by which we can be brought into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. In the past, the history of Christendom has been largely moulded and controlled by false ideas of the Church. The developments of the future will, in a great measure, be determined by the conception of the Church which becomes dominant ; hence the vital importance of the topic to be discussed. 3 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. The Church is built upon Jesus Christ. It has, and can have, no existence apart from Him. Hence our ultimate appeal must be to Christ's idea of the Church. But that idea has been variously understood. Divers bodies exist which profess, more or less completely and faithfully, to embody it. Amid the differences and discordances of Christendom can we find any clue to assist us in our enquiry ? TWO ANTAGONISTIC THEORIES. If we compare the different definitions of the Church in the creeds, confessions, and theological systems of Christendom, it will be found that all agree at least in this : — That the Church is a religious fellowship, a society, company, or brotherhood of men, standing in certain defined relations to God as revealed in Christ. But under this apparent agreement a radical difference quickly discloses itself, which separates all these definitions into two opposing classes, according as they make the ground of this fellowship to lie in one or other of the two sides of the religious life of Christendom, the ethical and spiritual or the ritual and ecclesiastical. The one theory defines the Church by its outward characteristics of form and organization ; the other theory defines it by the inward characteristics of faith and the fruits of a living faith in the heart and life. The former theory makes the existence of the Church depend upon what is external and visible, the succession of the ministry and the due administration of the Sacraments. The latter theory makes the essential nature of the Church to consist in what is spiritual and ethical, in the great realities of truth, love, and righteousness, in the life of God in the hearts of Christians, through the presence and power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The former theory may be called the Roman, from its chief political embodiment, or the sacerdotal, from its domi- nant religious conception. 4 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH, The latter theory we believe to be Biblical and Evan- gelical — that which is set forth in the Divine Word, and which embodies the spirit and life of the Evangel of Jesus Christ. It may also be called the Reformed, because it was that idea of the Church which the Reformation vindicated and embodied, in opposition to the conception and doctrine of the unreformed Church. The Broad Church view is not a distinct theory. It must either sink to a barren humanitarianism, so far as it tendj! to identify the Church with the world ; or, escaping that tendency, it will continue to oscillate vaguely and in- definitely between the only two possible positive systems* according as its chief emphasis is laid upon the ethical and intellectual, or upon the external, institutional, and political side of Christianity. THE ESSE AND THE BENE ESSE. The sacerdotal theory of the Church makes its esse, its essential being, to lie in that which constitutes its visibility ; the evangelical in that which constitutes its invisibility. All admit and maintain that there is but one Church, out of which there is no salvation. Both also admit that to this one Church belong, at least in some sense, both visibility and invisibility. These are both attributes of the one Church, not two Churches. All the Protestant confessions maintain that theCharch has visibility — that it manifests its unseen fellowship by means of visible ordinances. And, on the other hand, even Roman Catholic theologians admit that, in some sense at least, the Church possesses or con- tains within it what is invisible and spiritual. But herein lies the vital and distinctive difference between the two. The evangelical doctrine of the Church makes what is visible in the Church the consequent and result of the invisible — the outcome of the unseen life. The sacerdotal theory reverses this order, and makes what is visible, the external order and organization of the Church, 5 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. the antecedent and cause of what is invisible and spiritual in the life of the Church. The philosophical Roman Divine, Moehler, gives what he calls " a short, accurate, and definite expression " of " the differences between the Catholic and the Lutheran view of the Church." " The Catholics," he says, " teach the visible Church is first ; then comes the invisible. The former gives birth to the latter. On the other hand, the Lutherans say the reverse ; from the invisible emerges the visible Church ; and the former is the groundwork of the latter. In this apparently very unimportant opposition," he emphatically adds, " a prodigious difference is avowed."* The sacerdotal doctrine admits, indeed, that there is, or ought to be, in the Church an inner life and spiritual realities invisible to the human eye ; but it looks upon these spiritual realities as merely accidental or subsidiary, and not at all essential to the existence of the Church, which, it asserts, depends upon what is external and visible in its organization and ordinances.t The evangelical doctrine, on the contrary, affirms that the being of the Church lies in what is invisible and spirit- ual, and that its visibility is the result and manifestation and not the ground and basis of the former. Herein we find the crucial difference between the two systems, as Moehler himself affirms, a difference which is fraught with the most radical and far-reaching consequences. It is therefore of vital moment to ascertain which of these theories represents the true idea of the Church, Christ's idea of it. Let us, accordingly, first briefly discuss the grounds upon which the Evangelical theory rests, and then enquire into the origin and effects of the opposite and antagonistic doc- trine. ♦Moehler's Sytnbolik, § 48. t This is indisputably (he position of the Oxford Tractarian School. Liddon asserts (^ Father in God, 2nd ed., p. 13) that the Episcopate is " organically necessary to the structure of the visible body of Christ,"-*' necessary not merely to its bene esse, but to its esse." See, also, Gore's •' The Church and the Min- istry," pages 64, 65, 86, etc. 6 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. THE CHURCH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. From the classical use of the Greek iKK\r]fTia we gather at least this: that it stands for the fellowship of the enfranchised, the freemen who constitute the Common- wealth. There was, therefore, a natural fitness in the selec- tion of this word by the Septuagint writers to represent the Hebrew Kahal, the Old Testament designation of Israel viewed in its religious unity, the body corporate, the com- munity in its organic completeness. , The Kahal or ecclesia of the Old Testament had its beginning in Abraham and in the covenant into which God entered with him. He was called by God into fellowship with Himself. Great emphasis is laid upon this call throughout the Scriptures. He is described as the friend of God, called, chosen, and faithful. The covenant into which Jehovah entered with him is repeatedly referred to in the Old Testament. In the New Testament its identity with the Gospel covenant is affirmed. Christ came, as the Holy Ghost by the mouth of Zacharias declared, in fulfil- ment of " the holy covenant, the oath which God sware unto Abraham our father," Luke i. 72, y^. Now, the covenant can have but one meaning, and so it is interpreted by the prophet Jeremiah and by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews : — '* This is the covenant that I will make with them : I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." As Professor Davidson tersely states it* : — The Covenant is a state of relation in which God is our God and we are His people. It is a divinely con- stituted fellowship of men with God. " The everlasting covenant " is the expressive designation applied both in the Law and the Prophets to the fellowship of God with His people. THE CHURCH AND THE COVENANT. The Kahal, the ecclesia of Israel, was based upon this Covenant. And the Covenant was antecedent to the Law, 'Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 162. 7 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. which was, as St. Paul affirms (Romans v. 20), a paren- thetical dispensation. Its design was to mediate between the promise and its fulfilment. It had its position and purpose al'ogether with a view to the Covenant. Herein its function was twofold. Its first function was to show what was the great obstacle to the realization of the Covenant, the great barrier to the Divine fellowship with man. It was added because of transgressions (^Gal. iii. 19), to reveal them, ?vd so to convict man of sin and guilt. Its second function was to reveal the means by which guilt would be removed and reconciliation effected between God and man, and thus the Tellowship consummated. This it did by meap'^ of the Levitical symbolism, which centred in the priesthood and the sacrifices, and which prefigured the one sacrifice of the one priest, Jesus Christ, which alone, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews demonstrates, is effective "to make the worshipper perfect," that is, to bring him into true and abiding fellowship with God * It was by the exercise of these two functions that the law made way for the realization of the Covenant of Grace in Christ, which was, as St. Paul affirms, the very same Covenant which was " confirmed beforehand by God, and which the Law which came 430 years after doth not disannul so as to make the promise of none effect." (Gal. iii. 17.) The Law, then, did not supersede the promise as the original basis upon which the fellowship of Israel was constituted. This original Covenant was one of grace. The word Uaed to designate it implies this. It was a diatheke, BiaSrjK^, not a suntheke, awdriKri, a gracious arrangement of God, not a bargain with man. The choice of the former word, in preference to the latter, Loexprt^ss the nature of the Divine Covenant, is, says Bishop Westcott,t easily intelli- gible. ** In a divine covenant, the parties do not stand, in the remotest degree, as equal contractors. God, in his own * " To perfect is to put the people into the true covenant relation of worship- pers of the Lord, to bring them into His full fellowship." Davidson on Hebrews, p. 208. t Westcott on Hebrews, p. 299. 8 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. good pleasure, makes the arrangement which man receives." The Divine promise, says Bishop Lightfoot,* " is always a gift graciously bestowed, and not a pledge obtained by nego- tiation." As Oehler observes,t " Israel's adoption to be the covenant people " is " an act of the Divine love," and ** in no way dependent on man's desert." On man's part the condition of the covenant is solely and absolutely faith, which culminates in the self-surrender of the man to God. Abraham believed God. By faith he became the friend of God and the heir of the world. He was thus the typical Israelite and the father of all who believe. He is not a Jew who is merely one outwardly. " They which be of faith, the same are sons of Abraham" (Gal. iii. 7). The promise was made to Abraham and his seed. It was essentially not a natural but a spiritual seed. Christ, St. Paul tells us, is the true seed of Abraham. The term " seed," as Bishop Light- foot| points out, is used collectively. As Fairbairn shows,|| " it is applied to Christ, not as an individual, but to Christ, as comprehending in himself all who form with him a great spiritual unity." It is plain, then, that, notwithstanding its externalism, which was due to its preparatory character, the Old Testa- ment Church was constituted upon the ground of faiths not of works. The external and visible was subordinate to the inward and spiritual. The more the Israel after the flesh declined, the more msr.ifcstly the believing remnant was seen to be the true Israel. When, for example. King Ahaz, instead of trusting in Jehovah, sought the help of Assyria in an alliance which soon proved the temporal destruction of Judah, the little band of faithful men who rallied around Isaiah formed the real Church within the nation. The unifying principle of this fellowship was faith in God. It *Lightfoot on Galatians, iii. 14. tOehler's Theology of the Old Testament, vo]. i., p. 256. (Lightfoot on Galatians, p. 142, sq. llFairbairn's Typology, i, 460. 9 u THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. formed " the holy seed " which made restoration possible, for upon it and not upon any external institution depended the continuity ar' permanence of Judah. "This," says Principal Rainy,* " is that which abides and persists amid all the siftings and scatterings. A tenth, a holy seed, is the substance of the people." (Isaiah vi. 13.) \ THE HOUSE OF JEHOVAH. But another supplementary and confirmatory line of thought is opened up to us in the word "Church," which, as the best etymological authorities affirm, is derived from the Greek KvpiaKov, and signifies the House of the Lord. The house here is o'kos, not oIkm, the household, not the material dwelling ; the family as a unity, knit together by ties of kinship, in relati('ns of com.mon privilege and respon- sibility under a representative head. The Hebrev equivalent is used in two special senses, the household of Israel and the place of God's special manifestation of His presence. In the latter sense it was first used by Jacob, when under the open heaven in the visions of the night he realized the Divine presence and received the assurances of Divine protection, and he said, " This is none other than the House of God." It v/as not the material structure, whether of the ruder Tabernacle or the more splendid Temple, which constituted the House of Jehovah, but the fellowship there symbolized and real- ized between God and His people. Hence the expressive designation of the Tabernacle, " the tent of meeting," the tent of tryst (as Principal Douglas aptly suggested to the Old Testament revisers), because Jehovah said, " There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee." Ex. XXV. 22. This is the fellowship which the Psalmist vehemently desires when his " soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the * Delivery and Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 339. 10 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. Courts of the Lord " ; his heart and his flesh crieth out for the living God ; and he is comforted with the assurance ;,hat he "will dwell in the House of the Lord forever." Ps. 84: 2 ; 23 : 6. These two conceptions, the household of Israel and the House of Jehovah, draw closer and closer together, until they become identified. The House of Israel is Ihe House of Jehovah.* The two are united in the one conception — the fellowship of God with His people. Thus, under this expressive form, bound up with the worship of Israel, there are set forth the coven:int relations of God with His people, upon which is constituted the Kahal, the ecclesia, the Church of the old dispensation. ^ It is most instructive to recognize, what a careful study of the Old Testament plainly shows, that even in its rudi- mental and preparatory form, when the Church was, as St. Paul declares, under bondage to the elements of the world, kept in ward under the law, a necessary discipline during the period of its spiritual childhood, even then the esse, the essential being, of the Old Testament Church did not lie in those external institutions, but in the great spiritual realities of faith and fellowship with Jehovah, FAITH, THE BASAL PRINCIPLE OF THE LHIKCH When it is so plain that the constructive principh of the Jewish Church, notwithstanding its seminal and pre- paratory character and the externalism of its pupilage, was living and spiritual, much more manifestly is it so in the case of the New Testament Church. If even the Law was, in its ultimate design and result, a minister of grace, beyond all contradiction the Gospel is the Epiphany of Grace ; and if faith were the absolute and indispensable condition of fellowship under the forms of the Old Testament Ecclesia, much mere plainly is it the vital and constructive principle of the Church of Jesus Christ, in *Bannerman's Scripture Doctrire cf tho Church, pages 76, 77, sq. II ^ THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. which we all, both Jews and Gentiles aliki, are householders of the faith. "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John i. 17); Christ is the Truth, the self- revelation of God. " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." But this self-revela- tion was accomplished by means of the grace, the self-giving of God. God is love, and love is self-sacrifice, self-giving. Hence God could never be fully revealed except in a revelation of grace. The Incarnation is the first step in this self-revelation ; and it is always viewed in the New Testament as preliminary to the cross and passion. The supreme revelation is given in and by means of the death of Christ, the crowning act of Christ's self-sacrifice, when He suffered in our stead, the just for the unjust. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself (2 Cor. v. 19). He, the Father," made peace by the blood of the cross," the cross of His Son, " through Him to reconcile all things to Himself." The death of Christ was accordingly the ratifi- cation of the covenant, as is said in Heb. ix. 16, 17. " For where there is a covenant, the death of him who made it must needs be represented. For a covenant is sure where there hath been death, since it doth not ever have force when he that made it liveth."* So our Lord declared at the Last Supper : — " This cup is the New Covenant in my blood." Thus on the Divine side the covenant is con- summated, the Church is constituted by grace, by the Divine self-giving in the Incarnation and Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. And on man's side the Church is constituted, the Divine fellowship entered, by means of faith, and by faith alone. This is the one unique and imperative condition and requirement. He that believeth is justified, is recon- ciled, is brought into fellowship with God in Christ, and, consequently, with all who believe in Christ. And so throughout the whole Christian life faith is the essential *Bishop Westcott's translation in his Cq^iQientary on the tlebtrews, 12 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. requirement. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, personal trust in Him, is the basal principle of the Christian life, the primary and essential characteristic of a Christian, without which he could not be a Christian in reality, what- ever he might be in profession. Now, the basal principle of the Christian life is the basal principle of the Christian Church. The Church in its essential being is simply the fellowship of believers in Christ. The Holy Catholic Church is, as the Apostles' Creed defines it, " the com- munion of the saints, the fellowship of believers," for thus the latter clause is regarded both by Protestant and Roman theologians,* although they differ radically in their concep- tions of faith and saintship. Thus the Christian Church has no existence apart from believers. They constitute it. As Westcott says, " Chris- tians as such are essentially united together in virtue of their relations to Christ. "t That which makes a man a Christian makes him a member of the Catholic Church, viz., faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing could be more explicit than the statement of Bishop Ridleyt : — "That Church which is Christ's body, and of which Christ is the head, standeth only of living stones and true Christians, not only outwardly in .lame anc^ title, but inwardly in heart and truth." Hooker declares,^ "That Church which is Christ's mystical body consisteth of none but only true Israelites, true sons of Abraham, true servants and saints of God." " The mere profession of Christianity," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor,|| " makes no man a member of Christ ; nothing but a faith working by love." Again he says, " The invisible part of the visible Church, that is, the true servants of Christ, only are the Church." The late *Litton on the Church, p. 50. tWestcott's Gospel of the Resiurrection, p. 206. I^Bishop Ridley's Works (Parker Soc. ed.), p- 126. §Hooker, E. P., III., i. 8. IIDissuasive from Popery, Part II., Book I., section I. 1^ THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. Bishop Mcllvaine, of Ohio, truly voices the formularies of the Church of England : — *' So we must say of ail the baptized and the communicating that, while they all have the visibility of the Church, none of them have any part in its reality except they be joined by a living faith to Christ."* THE CHURCH Au-"^ THE KINGDOM. Our Lord uses the word " Church " but twice. The word "Kingdom" (Kingdom of Heaven, or Kingdom of God, or My Kingdom ") He uses 112 times. Evidently the terms stand in closest connection. It is not necessary to enter into the discussion as to their equivalency. Whether they be regarded as synonymous, or the term " Kingdom " be the larger, inclusive of, but exceeding in its fulness, the term " Church," " it is plainly," as Oosterzeet observes, " a spiritual communion, to become a member of which, without a spiritual change, is impossible." The word has, indeed, as Bishop Westcott points out, a twofold appli- cation, internal and external, just as the word "Church," but the essential nature of the kingdom is spiritual. Its blessings are always represented by our Lord as spiritual, not external. It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, as St. Paul affirms. All its signs and attributes are spiritual and ethical ; they relate to holy living and loving service, and not to ecclesiastical office or to acts of cere- monial. In the Epistles the word " Church " predominates, appearing 112 times, while the word "Kingdom" occurs but 29 times, the reverse of the usage in the Gospels. Cre- mer, the distinguished New Testament lexicographer, notes that in the New Testament ecclesia denotes the community of the redeemed in its twofold aspect, and he makes the primary and fundamental signification of the word to be the entire congregation of all who are called by and to Christ, * The True Temple, p. 54. t Biblical Theology of the New Testament, p. 70. 14 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. A all who are in the fellowship of His salvation. Its applica- tion to local and visible bodies he holds to be secondary. THE SPIRITUAL HOUSE. The Epistle to the Ephesians is distinctively the ecclesi- astical Epistle. Its central thought is the Church in its relations to Jesus Christ, and these relations are set forth under two expressive analogies: the Church is the House of the Lord, the Holy Temple builded together for the Divine indwelling ; and it is the body of Christ which He fills with His Divine fulness. The first of these analogies recalls at once the Old Testament designation of Israel, and evidently St. Paul had this in mind, for he is insisting upon the unity of believers, both Jews and Gentiles. These two races, so bitterly hostile, were now brought together in Christ, who *' has made in himself of twain, one new man, so making peace." And joyfully addressing the Gentile believers, he reminds them that they are ** no more strangers and aliens, but fellow-citizeus with the saints and members of the house- hold of God, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone, in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy Temple in the Lord, m whom you also are being builded together for an habitation (a permanent abode) of God in the Spirit." Such, then, is this great living sanctuary. It is built upon Christ. It is built in and by the Spirit. And so St. Peter (i Peter ii. 5) describes it as a spiritual house built of living stones. In this passage we have St. Peter's own comment upon the words addressed to him by Christ : — " Upon this rock I will build my Church." It was not Peter's person, but Peter's faith, which was the fundamental matter in Christ's mind. It is to Peter, as the man of faith, the typical New Testament believer, as Bey- schlag pertinently comments, that the great promise is given. These words of Christ, says Origen,* refer to Peter only as far •In Matt. xii. § 10, li. On the Lord's Prayer, § 28. 15 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. as he had spoken in the name of all true believers. The true Church is founded on all true Christians who are in doctrine and conduct such that they v/ill attain to salvation. St. Peter makes it plain that he regarded Christ Himself as the Living Stone upon which the Church is built, and that it is built up of men of faith, of those who through faith in Christ become living stones in the Temple, members of the great fellowship which is the Catholic Church. Observe St. Peter's words, " unto whom coming as unto a living stone, ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house.'* So Archbishop Leighton, in his comment on this passage, says, " To be built on Christ is plainly to believe on Him." Each Christian comes to Christ personally and individually in the act of faith. It is by means of this coming that each becomes united to Christ, becomes a partaker of His life» and thus a living stone in the spiritual house, a living mem- ber of that liviag fellowship which is the Catholic Church. Thus Bishop Mcllvaine plainly puts it : — " The soul's com- ing to Christ is his life ; his drawing life from Christ is his union with Him ; and in that very union unto Christ is contained and involved his be".ng built up in His true Church."* So an old divine (Perkins) of the i6th century says, " This union with Christ maketh the Church to be the Church." And Hooker says,t " That which linketh Christ to us is His mere (pure, unqualified) mercy and love towards us, that which tieth us to Him is our faith in the promised salvation revealed in His word of truth," and there- fore he declares, " Faith is the ground and glory of all the welfare of this building " (the Church). To the same effect Archbishop Usher saysij:: — ** I^ Christ's quickening Spirit ^ [■ii * The True Temple, page 23. + See his Sermons on Jude. Z Usher's Sermon before the Mouse of Commons. "What is meant here (in the Creed) by the Catholic Church ? That whole universal company of the elect that ever were, are, or shall be gathered together in one body, knit together in one faith, under one head, Jesus Christ . . . the 16 • > THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. be wanting in i»ny. no external communion with Christ can make him a true member of Christ's mystical body, this being a most sure principle, that he which hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of His." THE BODY OF CHRIST. V The second analogy, which St. Paul employs in the Ephesians and elsewhere, brings out more fully and specifi- cally the vital characi»ir of the fellowship which constitutes the Church and its absolute dependence upon Christ. God " gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is H's body : Unum corpus sumus in Christo. We are one body in Christ. But what is a body ? Not a mere congeries of disconnected atoms, without unity or com- pleteness. Nor is it a mere machme which, however complex or compact in its unity of many parts, is formed from without and regulated from without. A body is formed from within. It is an organic unity, built up out of many and various elements, composed of many and different members, constituted and moulded by the life of which it is the product, controlled and unified by the indwelling spirit. Such is the Church of Christ. There is one body, and one Spirit who pervades and energizes it. It is not constituted by any external and mechanical process. It is a vital growth, constituted and built up by the Spirit of Christ. As Luthardt* well says, " It is not external forms and customs. multitude of all those that have, do, or shall believe unto the world's end." — Archbishop Usher's ^* Body of Divinity " *' The Catholic Church, in the prime sense, consists only of such men as are actual and indissoluble members of Christ's mystical body, or of such as have the Catholic faith, not only sound in their brains or understandings, but thoroughly rooted in their hearts. . . . The whole company of God's elect actually made members of Christ by virtue of an inward effectual calling to faith and godliness— this we commonly call the invisible Church, or the Church of God's elect. The whole company of all those throughout the world who, by their doctrine and worship, do outwardly make profession of the name of Christ — this we call the universal visible Church, or the Catholic Christian Church." — Dr. Jackson on the Church, chap. xvii. i. 'Lectures on the Fundamental Truths of Christianity. 17 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. but the Holy Ghost which makes the Church redly the Church. He is the soul that fills and animates her, and combines all her individual members into the unity of one body." " There is one body and one spirit." The body is not the external polity and organization, as some say, but the fellowship of believers, and the spirit is the Holy Ghosc, who, as St. Paul declares, dwells in each Christian. The absolute dependence of the Church upon Christ is emphasized in the concluding clause of St. Paul's definition in Eph. i. 22, 23 : — " The Church is the body of Christ, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all." The Church, as Meyer renders it,* is the Christ filled, that which is filled by Him, that in which He by His Spirit dwells and rules, pro- ducing all Christian life and penetrating and filling all with His gifts, and with the life forces and powers that proceed from Him. It is a living and a life-giving indwelling by His Spirit. The Church as the body of Christ is constituted by the life-giving presence of Christ. As Ignatius wrote in his let- ter to the Smyrnsans, " Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." And this presence is conditioned on the D'vine side by the Spirit, whom Christ sent, and whose office is to reveal Christ and impart the life of Christ to men. And on the human side this Divine indwelling presence is conditioned and mediated by faith : — " That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith " (Eph. iii. x/). It is faith, as Principal Moule observes, " which is alone the effectuating and maintaining act." THE EXTERNAL ORGANIZATION. Such, then, is the apostolic conception of the Church, and we find the doctrinal teaching of the Epistles fully cor- roborated by the actual history of the Apostolic Church as recorded in the Book of Acts. As the Lord had refused to set up a kingdom of this world and insisted upon the 'Commentary on the Ephesians. 18 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. ' spiritual nature of His kingdom, so the Apostles did not begin with an external polity. They went forth, as their Master did, and preached the Gospel. When those who heard believed, they by their faith itcelf, a faith confessed and declared in baptism, were made members of the Divine fellowship of which Christ is the living head and centre, In the expressive words of St. Luke, "they were added to the Lord." In this inward and spiritual relation to Christ was in- volved the essential being of the Church. The invisible is first ; then follows the visible as its result and manifesta- tion. The faith of the heart must be confessed with the mouth. From faith proceed, as its expression and fruit, all the actualities of worship and of service. Love for Christ and for the brethren must manifest itself in works of love and mercy, and in all the ministries and services by which it seeks to advance the glory of the great Head of the Church and the well-being of men. Believers united together in worship and in work, at first, without any definite organization ; but as the Church increased organization became necessary. As necessities arose provision was made for them. Thus it was, as Lech- ler* observes, that " an external association arose out of the internal community of faith." Three things are here noteworthy. First, the Divine work in the Vv^orld is entrusted to the operation of the great social and psychological laws which govern the structure of human society. Man's social and political constitution is not antagonized, but utilized and trans- formed by Christianity, and made the means of its promul- gation. Secondly, it was out of elements already in existence in society that the external organization of the Christian Church was con structed. In the case of the Jewish Christian Churches, the synagogue, itself the offspring of necessity under Providential guidance, was the chief mould •Lechler's Apostolic end Post- Apostolic Times, vol. i., p. 90. 19 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. which gave form to the nascent organization. As the Church extended amongst .the Gentiles other elements were added, drawn from the civil and social life and the municipal institutions of Greece and Rome. In this way, as Bishop Westcott* has pointed out, "the Church organ- ization, which the vital force moulds, and by which it reveals itself," was " fashioned out of elements earthly and transitory." Thirdly, it is plain how abundantly the Book of Acts, as well as the Apostles' teaching, confirms the Reformed and Protestant doctrine of the Church. Through- out the whole course of the history, as Lechler observes, " the law holds good that creative power lives within, in spirit and personality, and that the external is produced and built up from within." The study of history and the teaching of the Scriptures alike confirm the evangelical doctrine that the visible and external in Church organiza- tion and order is the result and consequent of the invisible realities, the outcome and manifestation of the inner life. Consequently, the essential and constructive principle of the Church, its esse, lies not in the external form, but in the inward and spiritual life, which is the gift of God to every one who believes. As Bishop Westcott pertinently says,t " The essential bond of union is not external, but spiritual ; it consists not in one organization, but in a common principle of life. Its expression lies in a personal relation to Christ, and not in any outward system." The formative idea of the Church, then, is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In its essential being the Church of Christ is the fellowship of believers in Christ, the household of faith. THE SECULARIZATION OF THE CHURCH. When the Apostolic idea of the Church stands forth so distinctly, the rise and prevalence of an antagonistic con- *The Gospel of the Resurrection. fThe Uospel of the Resurrection, p. 215. 20 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. ception seems the more surprising, and it will be instructive to enquire into its origin. The doctrine of the Church is intimately connected with the doctrine of salvation. This was remarkably brought out in the process of the Reformation, which began with the anxious enquiry of the Philippian jailer, '* What must I do to be saved ? " And it was, as Luthardt expressively puts it, out of St. Paul's answer to this great enquiry that the Church of the Reformation was born. The Reformed doctrine of the Church necessarily followed from the doc- trine of justification by faith only. What mattered it to the Reformers that they were thrust out of the Church as then visibly constituted ? By faith they were brought into direct relations to God, and, as Dorner says,* " the immediateness of the relation to God in faith excluded all human lordship over faith." Thus the sacerdotal cjnception of the Church was overthrown, and there first cime forth distinctly into theological thought the Biblical conception of the Church and of the relations between its visibility and its invisibility which, as Dorner says, now " became a part of the common evangelical consciousness." The very definition of the Church by which our great V/ycliffe had, as Lechler ob- serves.t placed himself in deliberate opposition to the idea of the Church which prevailed in his time now obtained its place in all the confessions of the Protestant Churches. Now, just as it was the recovery of the Biblical doc- trine of salvation which restored the Apostolic conception of the Church, so it was through a false doctrine of salva- tion that that conception had been lost and an alien and antagonistic idea of the Church took possession of Christen- dom. The erroneous development began, as Neander| says, *' with a lowering of the idea of faith." This degradation •History of Protestant Theology, vol. '» P- 257. tLechler's John Wiclif, vol. 2, p. 98. . :t:Neander's History of Dogma, I : 217. .. 11 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. of faith was prevalent in Rabbinism. St. Paul must have been familiar with the discussions on faith in the Jewish schools. The Gentile Apostle and the Jewish Rabbi, as Bishop Lightfoot points out,* might both maintain the supremacy of faith, but faith with St. Paul was a very different thing from faith with the Rabbi; with whom it was merely submission to an external rule of ordinances and reception of the orthodox dogmas of Judaism. This erroneous view of faith at once found its way into the Jew- ish Christian Church. It is this kind of faith which St. James stigmatizes as the faith of devils. And so it passed into the Gentile Church, where, as Neander notes, it spread more and more, and Christian faith came to be regarded as simply the belief and acceptance of Church dogma, and this not on the ground that Scriptures so taught, but that the Church so received. Thus the old Jewish traditionalism reappeared, and the authority of the Church was substituted for the authority of the truth. In this way the whole doctrine of salvation was gradually externalized, and the Church itself came to be regarded as, primarily, a visible institution. ** Already," says Sohm.t " from the middle of the second century, we see the secularization of the Church making unbroken progress." The climax was attained in the organization and theology of the Papacy. Thus Cardinal BellarmineJ declares the Church to be " a society of men as visible and palpable as the Roman people, the Kingdom of France, or the Republic of Venice." And that there may be no mistake about his meaning, he says, " We deny that to constitute a man a member of the true Church any internal virtue is requisite, but only an external profession of the faith, and that participation of the sacraments which is perceptible by the senses "; while the * Lightfoot's Commentary on the Galatians, p. 162. fOutlincs of Church History, p. 20. :!:De Eccles. Mil. c. ii. 22 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. Protestants, he adds, " to constitute any one a member of the Church require internal virtues." This, he says, is the distinction between the Roman and Protestant views of the Church. In keeping with this statement is Bellarmine's enumeration of those who belong to the Church. He excludes heathen, excommunicated, and schismatics ; but all others, even impious and reprobate men, are expressly included : — " Incliiduntur autem omnes alii etiamsi reprobi, scelesti, et impii sint." Of course Bellarmine does not deny that the ultimate aim and purpose of the Church is to lead men to holiness, but he does deny that spiritual gifts and qualities belong to the essence of the Church. Faith in Christ becomes an accident, and is not of the essence of membership in the Catholic Church. But not only is the idea of the Church externaliised ; a low and unspiritual meaning is given to faith and holiness. Faith becomes a. fides implicita, a mere assent an- submission of the will to formulae which neither the understanding grasps nor the heart embraces. Holiness itself is materialized ; it is degraded into an official and ceremonial sanctity, which may exist apart from personal goodness. Such was the strange and pitiful transformation by which the living Church was petrified into a mere institution, a kingdom of this world. THE POLITICAL AND SACERDOTAL INFLUENCES. Two influences hastened this development. The one was political. The imperial idea and organism passed from decadent Rome into the Catholic Church and changed it into a new Empire. The other influence was religious. A new conception of the ministerial office prevailed. The clergy became a sacerdotal order, priestly mediators dispensing the blessings of salvation. The origin of the sacerdotal idea is variously explained. Some, like Neander, trace it to Judaism. Others, as Ritschl and Lightfoot, believe it to be chiefly due to 23 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. Gentile prepossessions and the familiarity of the newly con- verted heathen with the priests and sacrifices of their former religions. But from whatever source the conception came, it grew rapidly in a soil made ready to receive it by the externaliz- ing processes to which the faith of the Christian Church had been subjected. As early as the middle of the third century, Cyprian of Carthage put forward without relief or disguise the most absolute sacerdotal assumptions, and " so uncompromising," says Bishop Lightfoot,* "was the tone in vv^hich he asserted them, that nothing was left to his successors but to enforce his principles and reiterate his language." THE QUESnONS OF POLITY AND SACERDOTALISM DISTINCT. The developments of the Papacy have added nothing to the sacerdotal claims and assumptions of Cyprian. The principle is the same, only it has received in the Papacy a political embodiment. The latter is objectionable only as it makes the former more formidable. The Papacy might be overthrown and sacerdotalism still remain to form new combinations and alliances. Apart from the sacerdotal principle embodied in it, the Papacy would only be a form of polity, probably a most objectionable one, but deprived of its most hurtful and formidable constituent. No doubt the sacerdotal development in the Latin Church was inti- mately connected with the political environment. But the two elements are altogether distinct. Instead of being Papal, we can conceive that the Latin Church might have remained Episcopal, or it might possibly have become Pres- byterian. t •• *Commentary on the Philippians, p. 259. tThe Cyprianic theory of the Episcopate necessarily leads up to the Papacy. Of itself, it is essentially schismatlcal. So Mohler (Symbolik, § 43) ably maintains that the Papacy was necessary for the maintenance of the unity of the Church against the schismatical tendency of the Cyprianic doctrine of the 24 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. The question of sacerdotalism is distinct from the question of polity. The question of the form of the n iiiistry is entirely distinct from the question as to the naiure of the ministry. The one question touches merely the external form of the visible organization ; the other enters into and affects the very nature of Christianity itself. So long as we place the essential being of the Church in what is inward and spiritual, questions of polity are kept in their true position, subordinate to the great realities of faith and righteousness. There havj been those who have held to the jus divinum of Presbytery, or Epis- copacy, or Congregationalism, and yet did not unchurch those who accepted other forms of polity than their own. But whenever the esse, the essential being, of the Church is placed in the external polity, and that polity changed into a system of priestly mediation, we pass at once from the ncn necessaria, in which there is liberty, into the most vital and essential questions in regard to which there can be no compromise ; we stand then face to face with two opposed and irreconcilable conceptions of the Church. And these two doctrines of the Church logically involve two theologies. Every doctrine is more or less affected, the way of reconciliation and the rule of faith at once and directly, others, perhaps, more remotely. Dorner* main- tains that in the Roman doctrine of salvation there lies ultimately an immoral idea of God, that in it a physical conception of the Divine nature is substituted for the ethical. How far-reaching, then, are the issues involved in the question before as. And these are not merely theo- retical. They are most practical, and have directly to do with Christian life and conduct, and with the great practical Episcopate, which is the modern High Church theory. See Whalely's Kingdom of Christ, p. 182. The connection between the teachings and claims of Cyprian and the subsequent developments which cuh..inated in the Papacy was due to- tlie fully developed sacerdotalism of the Bishop of Carthage. •Dorner's History of Protestant Theology, i. 47. ... 25 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. questions of the day as to Church work at home, missions abroad, and Christian unity and co-operation. THE TRUE GROUND OF THE CHURCH'S SfABILITY AND CATHOLICITY. It has been alleged against the Protestant and Reformed doctrine of the Church, that it reduces the Church to a phantom, a mere idea without substantive existence, a Platonic republic, as the cavillers against the Augsburg Confession called it. Those who make such statements overlook two things. First, to put the external organization in its true place, subordinate to the inward and spiritual, is not to disparage or discard it. On the contrary, we maintain that there must be organization, that the unseen fellowship must manifest itself in visible ordinances and ministries. We believe that right organization is of the greatest value, and necessary for the due discharge of the functions of the Church in its service and witness in the world. But while we assert that government is necessary, we do not, as Archbishop Whitgift says,* thereby affirm that it is of the essence of the Church, or that it could not be the Church of Christ without some one form of government. Still less do we make any form of government a channel of grace and a mediatorial agency through which alone Christ exercises His ministry and bestows His gifts upon men. Then, secondly, these objectors overlook the real seat and source of the permanence and indefectibility of Christ's Church. It is a common mistake to regard an external institution as a better guarantee of endurance than a living principle. But the real ground of the permanence of any institution is the principle embodied in it. The securities for ibe continuity and perpetuity of the Christian Church do not lie in antiquarian researches or doubtful precedents, or the ♦Whitgift's Works, vol. i., p. 184, sq. (Parker Society Ed.). 26 te THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. jus divinum of an external order ; but in the truth and love revealed in the Gospel and apprehended by humble and believinfj hearts. Even the Roman theologian, Mohler, makes the remarkable admission that " Christ maintains the Church in vigour by means of those who live in faith." " These unquestionably," he says, *' are the true supporters of the visible Church."* The continuity of the Church is primarily a continuity of life ; the external forms in which that life is embodied may change. As Bishop Westc *t says,t " it is impossible to regard the Church as a body without recognizing the necessity of a constant change in the organization." If the essential being of the Church lies in some one external form, there is no room left for development or reconstruction. Everything is fixed, positive and unalter- able. The sacerdotal theory of the Church can never be the basis of a reunited Christendom. Were it possible, nothing more grievous, more disastrous to the Kingdom of Christ, could ever tuke place. It would be the re-establish- ment of a reign of priestly despotism and spiritual death. But it would surely be the precursor of judgment. " God," says Bishop Westcott,t " has signally overthrown every attempt to establish Church unity upon a false basis." But, if the Church is a living body, an organic unity, what is organic has endless power of adaptation. Only this organic process will be in harmony with the great laws and principles of the Gospel. Litton well says.t "Just in proportion as Protestantism, as compared with Romanism, takes the inward view of the Church does it place the legiti- mate expansion of the various elements of visible Church life upon a surer and more permanent basis." The essential idea of the Church reaches back into the very origines of man's being. Man was made for fellowship, * Symboiik, § 49. t Westcott's Gospel of the Resurrection. X Lilton on the Church, page 248. 27 THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. and the foundations of his social relations were laid in his relations to God, whose offspring he is. The Church was designed in God's gracious purpose of love to become the realization of this fellowship through the processes of redemption. It is the society God Himself is creating, the community and fellowship of men who are redeemed by His Son and regenerated by His Spirit, who are possessed of His truth and obedient to His will, the fellowship of the sons of God. This is the ci^^y which hath the foundations, eternal foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Of this city, this great spiritual fellowship, Jesus Christ Him- self is the chief corner-stone. He is, as has been well said, " its creative and normative personality," " in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." k