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THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
THE 
 
 CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 ITS FOUNDATION AND CONSTITUTION^ 
 
 FATHER PETER FINLAY, S.J. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK 
 BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 
 
 I915 
 
t^g'6'^2?^. 
 
 loaH st*^SS 
 

 TO 
 
 THE ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS 
 OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN IRELAND 
 
 P. F. 
 
 204 
 
^ihil ohstai: 
 
 GULIELMUS HENRY, S.J. 
 
 imprimi potest: 
 
 T. V. NOLAN, S.J., 
 
 Preep. Prov, Hib. 
 
 imprimattir: 
 
 GULIELMUS, Archiep. Dublin. 
 Hibernice Pritnas. 
 
The following Lectures were delivered in the 
 Dublin College of the National University of 
 Ireland. They have been published at the desire 
 of a very dear friend, who has defrayed the whole 
 cost of publication, that so they might issue at a 
 very reduced price, and might reach a wider circle 
 of readers. It has been thought best to print 
 them exactly as they were delivered, with what- 
 ever shortcomings are incidental to the Lecture 
 form. 
 
 MiLLTOWN Park, 
 October^ iQ^S* 
 
 vii 
 
Most of the references which occur in these pages are from 
 the New Testament writings. Some few are from the Fathers 
 and Councils. When not otherwise noted, the following 
 abbreviations are used : — 
 
 Harduin : Conciliorum Collectio Regia Maxima ; Parisiis, 
 
 1715- 
 Hefele : Conziliengeschichte ; First Edit. 
 Dcnz. : Denziger-Bannwart : Enchiridion Symbolorum ; 
 
 Friburgi, 1908. 
 M. G. : Migne, Patrologia, Seria Grseca. 
 M. L. : Migne, Patrologia, Seria Latina. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 The Sources: New Testament Writings. 
 
 Authority. Authority in Religion. Authority of the 
 Church. Line of Inquiry. Historical value of New 
 Testament writings. As merely human documents. 
 Manuscripts. Date of composition. Authorship. 
 Writers fully informed and truthful. Myth theory. 
 
 pages 1-27 
 
 LECTURE n. 
 
 The Divinity of Christ. 
 
 Christ confessedly man : is He God as well ? New Testa- 
 ment writers believed him to be God. Human character 
 of Christ. His claims. He preaches Himself. Men 
 belong to Him. Accepts Divine homage. Forgives 
 sin. Empowers men to forgive it. Will judge man- 
 kind. Asserts His pre-existence. Is One with God. 
 Attitude before the Sanhedrists. God or an impostor. 
 His resurrection : Vision theory ; Swoon theory. 
 
 pages 28-60 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 The Foundation of the Church. 
 
 Did Christ found a Church? He came to redeem and 
 sanctify mankind. To do this, He founded a Kingdom 
 — not a school of philosophy or of religion. Nature of 
 the Kingdom : on earth, but not earthly ; universal, in- 
 dependent. How He established it : the training of the 
 Apostles — their mission to teach, to govern, to minister. 
 Their success. The very concept of the Kingdom 
 proves the Divinity of Christ . . pages 61-95 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Characteristics of the Kingdom (or Church). 
 
 Christ's Church imperishable. A priori likelihood that it 
 would be so. Distinct promise of Christ. How 
 understood by the Apostles. It can be only one : so 
 determined by Christ ; so understood by the Apostles ; 
 so emphatically described by St. Paul. And member- 
 ship of it obligatory : Apostolic view of heresy and 
 schism ; Christ's express command . pages ^(i-12%^ 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Teaching Authority of the Church. 
 
 The Church to teach Revealed Truth. Christ Himself an 
 infallible teacher when on earth : has He provided for 
 continued infallible teaching ? Infallibility : what it is. 
 Active and passive infallibility. What infallibility is 
 not. Not to be demonstrated a priori ; though ante- 
 cedently to be expected. The Apostles* belief in their 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 own infallibility. Christ's promise : " I am with you " ; 
 and His warning : " He that believeth not shall be 
 condemned ". Did infallibility cease with the Apostles ? 
 Its continuance guaranteed by Christ. " Subject " of 
 infallibility. Its " object " : how determined. How 
 we may recognize its exercise. Its claim on our assent 
 
 pages 129-162 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Which is the True Church of Christ? 
 
 The Church of Christ is not a body which denies or doubts 
 the Divinity of Christ. Nor the aggregate of all the 
 Christian societies which confess that Divinity. The 
 Branch Theory : unknown until recent times ; repudi- 
 ated by all except Anglicans ; untenable ; St. Paul's 
 appreciation of it. The Greek Orthodox Church. The 
 Anglican Church : Pan-Anglican Synods. The Roman 
 Catholic Church : her unity of Faith, her Sacraments 
 and Sacrifice, her government ; her continuity with the 
 past. The Separation of East and West. The 
 Protestant Reformation. Argument from Church 
 infallibility ..... pages 163-194 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 The Authority of the Pope. 
 
 The Catholic Church infallible. Bearing of infallibility on 
 Papal Authority. Antecedently probable that there 
 will be some one infallible teacher and supreme ruler in 
 Christ's Church. Theocracy and Hebrew Monarchy. 
 St. Peter in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 Christ's promise at Csesarea Philippi. " Feed My lambs : 
 feed My sheep." St. Clement of Rome to the Corin- 
 thians. St. Ignatius Martyr to the Romans. Polycarp, 
 the Martyrs of Lyons, St. Irenseus, Pope Victor, 
 Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Firmilian. The great Church 
 Councils : particularly, Lyons, Florence and the 
 Vatican. What the Primacy is not. When and how 
 exercised ..... pages 195-228 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The Authority of Bishops. 
 
 Authority not conferred on St. Peter alone. Christ Him- 
 self appointed the other Apostles also to be teachers 
 and rulers. And willed them to have successors 
 throughout all time. A dogma defined by Trent. 
 Priests and Bishops in the New Testament. Office 
 and authority of Bishops of Divine institution and of 
 Apostolic usage. Clement of Rome, Ignatius Martyr, 
 Irenseus on Episcopal Authority. Episcopacy of the 
 very essence of the Church. Duties and powers of 
 Bishops — in General Councils, dispersed, in the indivi- 
 dual diocese. The diocesan Bishop an authentic 
 teacher of the whole Deposit of Faith, and of the 
 limits of that Deposit. He is also legislator and ruler. 
 Summing up . . . . pages 22^-261 
 
 Index pages 262-264 
 
< 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 THE SOURCES: 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS. 
 
 When I learned that the Catholic Bishops of 
 Ireland had decided, with the approval of the 
 Senate, to establish a Professorship of Theology 
 in the National University, and had nominated 
 me to the position, I thought at first that we 
 should begin these lectures by defining the nature 
 and scope of theological studies, their place in a 
 University, and their bearing upon the intellectual 
 attitude and practical conduct of educated Catho- 
 lics, lay, not less than clerical. But I reflected 
 that this work has been already done — done, too, 
 with a grace and thoroughness which render any 
 other attempt not merely unnecessary, but in this 
 place at least, well-nigh presumptuous. It was 
 done by the first Rector of the Catholic Univer- 
 sity of Ireland, John Henry Newman, when he 
 delivered the second, third, and fourth of his " Diej- 
 
 \ 
 
2 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 courses on the Scope and Nature of University 
 Education, "addressed to the Catholics of Dublin. 
 Omitting, therefore, all such preliminary and 
 general considerations, I purpose dealing with a 
 question of theology, which is fundamental in our 
 Catholic system, which marks us off sharply from 
 all other religious organizations, and which gives 
 us intellectually and emotionally a sense of re- 
 ligious peace and security to be obtained nowhere 
 else. We assent to a large body of Divine 
 truths, we accept a large body of moral precepts, 
 on the authority of the Church. We receive her 
 rites and ministrations, at the value which she 
 herself sets on them. We may, of course, assure 
 ourselves, by personal study, of the truth and 
 reasonableness of individual doctrines, and of the 
 wisdom or need of particular laws. But the 
 great majority of men and women are quite un- 
 fitted for any detailed investigation of religious 
 teachings. In religion, as in history, in mathe- 
 matics, in philology, and in all the arts and 
 sciences, the multitude must be guided in action 
 and in opinion by authority. Even the few who 
 have ability, leisure and opportunity for independ- 
 ent research must pay the price of almost ex- 
 clusive devotion to severe and specialized studies, 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 3 
 
 before they can place any well-founded confidence 
 in their own conclusions. It is, therefore, su- 
 premely reasonable that we Catholics generally 
 should take our religion upon trust, as, in fact, 
 we do ; while it is of vital importance to us that 
 the authority in which we trust shall be one on 
 which we can unhesitatingly rely. 
 
 For, logically, we base our certainty in religion 
 on our certainty that the Church has authority 
 from God to teach what truths we must believe, 
 and what laws of conduct we must follow. And 
 this certainty we do not derive from the Church's 
 teaching. She does, indeed, teach her own in- 
 fallibility and her power to make laws and to en- 
 force them. But we do not admit her claim until 
 we have satisfied ourselves on other grounds 
 that it is well founded. We do not acquiesce 
 in a man's pretensions to teach and legislate 
 merely because he puts them forward. 
 
 And this leads us to inquire for what reasons, 
 other than her own assertions, do we acknow- 
 ledge the authority which we attribute to the 
 Church. That inquiry will form the subject of 
 this present course of lectures. 
 
 In entering on the inquiry, it will, I think, 
 make for clearness, if I point out briefly the 
 
4 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 various stages of the argument which I hope 
 to lay before you, and their enchainment each 
 with the other. 
 
 We have to show, then, that the Catholic 
 Church, of which we are members, has a Divine 
 right to prescribe for us a rule of religious belief 
 and of moral conduct. To do so we must show 
 that the Catholic Church of our day is the one 
 true Church of Christ, the possessor, in legiti- 
 mate succession, of all the rights and preroga- 
 tives which Christ bestowed on the organized 
 society that He Himself established. We must 
 show further that He had it in His power to 
 grant such an authority, which only God can 
 give ; and we must consequently show that He 
 was very God Himself. Or, conversely, we 
 shall endeavour to satisfy ourselves that we have, 
 in the Gospel and other writings of the New 
 Testament, authentic historical documents of 
 first-rate importance, which prove beyond all 
 reasonable doubt that Christ was God ; that He 
 established a visible society, one and imperish- 
 able, in which He appointed an authority that is 
 infallible in its religious teaching, and supreme 
 in government ; and that the Catholic Church, 
 as we know it to-day, is that society. Clearly, 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 5 
 
 it is impossible to exaggerate the vital conse- 
 quences of such a position. For, if we can 
 make it good, the Catholic Church in its authori- 
 tative teaching is in a very real sense the living 
 voice of God, and in its legislation the very will 
 of God. We can no more hesitate to accept her 
 teaching than we should hesitate to accept the 
 testimony of God, and no more set her laws aside 
 than we may set aside the laws of God Himself. 
 We begin, then, to-day with the question 
 which comes logically first in our inquiry : What 
 is the historical value of the New Testament 
 writings, in particular of the Gospels, the Acts of 
 the Apostles, and the greater Letters of St. Paul ? 
 For these are the chief sources from which we 
 derive our knowledge of Jesus Christ, of the 
 claims which He put forward, the promises He 
 made, and the work which He accomplished. I 
 do not, of course, suggest that no other sources 
 are open to us. Indeed, we could still make 
 good our case, were every copy of the New 
 Testament writings to perish. The history ot 
 the Church, the writings of the Fathers, oral 
 traditions, would suffice. But, as they stand, 
 and for the purpose we have in view, they offer 
 us the simplest, easiest and most convincing 
 
6 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 evidence ; and all other evidences can be only 
 subsidiary to them. And this, not because they 
 are inspired writings. They are so, no doubt ; 
 but we are not concerned with their inspiration 
 here ; we take them as purely human documents, 
 of purely human origin ; we shall deal with them 
 as we should with a publication in the " Rolls 
 Series," or with any other profane history. If 
 they are fully trustworthy in the account they 
 give us of the Founder of our religion, we ask at 
 present no more from them. 
 
 And, as purely human documents, they are 
 fully trustworthy. 
 
 I do not, of course, intend asking your atten- 
 tion for a technical dissertation on what is called 
 the "Higher Criticism" — the scientific discus- 
 sion of the authorship, date, composition, and 
 authority of the books of the New Testament. 
 It would take too long, and would, I fear, prove 
 too uninteresting. It will be enough to set out 
 shortly the origin and course of the controversy, 
 and the general results, which in the opinion of 
 the ablest scholars of every school of thought, we 
 may regard as definitely secured. 
 
 The portions, then, of the New Testament 
 with which we are concerned here were written 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 7 
 
 originally in Greek, if we except the Gospel of St. 
 Matthew, which was written most probably in 
 Aramaic, the language of Judea, Galilee, and 
 Perea, the country in which its scenes are laid.^ 
 Of the original manuscripts, as might have been 
 expected, no one has come down to us. We are 
 in the same position as regards the Scriptures 
 that we hold as regards the Greek and Latin 
 Classics, and almost the whole literature of anti- 
 quity : we have only copies of the originals or 
 copies of copies. Of these copies over 4000 manu- 
 scripts — some containing all, others portions only 
 of the New Testament — have been already cata- 
 logued and partly studied. The multiplication 
 of copies by writing leads almost of necessity 
 to differences of text ; the accuracy of our days 
 was impossible before the art of printing ; and in 
 early Christian times there was no one to corre- 
 spond with our careful editors and exact proof 
 readers. We are not surprised, therefore, to 
 find variant readings — more than 1 50,000 — in the 
 earlier sources of the New Testament text. But 
 very few of them are of any real importance ; 7000 
 out of 8000 verses are to be considered, accord- 
 
 1 The Aramaic text has been lost : we have only the Greek 
 translation, made we cannot say by whom. 
 
8 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 ing to Westcott and Hort, as definitely estab- 
 lished ; no serious doubt exists about fifty-nine- 
 sixtieths of the whole number ; and no question 
 of any consequence is dependent on any dif- 
 ference of reading. Indeed, no text in classical 
 literature can compare in certainty and purity 
 with the text of the New Testament ; except 
 Virgil only, which stands on approximately the 
 same level. And no manuscript copy of any 
 classical author approaches at all so near to the 
 date of the original as do our New Testament 
 manuscripts to the date of theirs. Twenty of the 
 texts are prior to the eighth century, a dozen are 
 of the sixth, five of the fifth, and two of the 
 fourth. Some fragments on papyrus discovered 
 recently in Egypt belong to the fourth century, 
 one even to the third. 
 
 Besides, we have the ancient versions — sev- 
 eral of them translations from texts which were 
 older than our oldest Greek manuscripts. Chief 
 amongst them is the Itala — a Latin version go- 
 ing back to the second century, revised by St. 
 Jerome in the fourth century, and in common 
 use throughout Western Christendom since the 
 sixth century under the name of the Vulgate. 
 Then we have Syriac versions : the Diatessaron 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 9 
 
 of Tatian in the second century ; the Sinai 
 Palimpsest, discovered recently by an English 
 lady, Mrs. Lewis, perhaps of the second, at 
 latest the third, century ; the Curetonian Codex, 
 of the third century also; and the Peshitto or 
 Syriac Vulgate — a, fifth century revision. In 
 Egyptian we have the Coptic in Lower Egypt, 
 dating from the fifth century, and the Theban 
 or Sahidic, in Upper Egypt, of the third or, 
 possibly, of the second. And we have also — 
 though they are of less importance — early trans- 
 lations into Armenian, Ethiopian, Georgian, and 
 Gothic. 
 
 Finally, if all these texts were lost, it would 
 still be possible to reconstitute the whole New 
 Testament from the quotations in the Fathers of 
 the first centuries. 
 
 No wonder that scholars should be at one in 
 holding that we have in our present-day text of 
 the New Testament, not only substantially, but 
 in all-important particulars, the original text, as 
 it proceeded from its authors. 
 
 And now what is its value as history ? We 
 may have the pure text of a historical work, and 
 yet its value as history may be of the slightest. 
 Vital as the question must seem to us, it was 
 
10 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 scarcely discussed at all until the eighteenth 
 century. Even Reformation controversies led to 
 no immediate scepticism as to the truthfulness of 
 the New Testament writings, their authorship, 
 or date of composition. It was the anti-Christian 
 spirit of the eighteenth century which gave rise 
 to the Higher Criticism. The Deists in Eng- 
 land and Germany — men like Toland, Collins, 
 Woolston, Tindal, Reimarus, Lessing, and Sem- 
 ler — with Voltaire and his friends in France, 
 were bent on destroying Christianity ; and you 
 cannot reject Christianity if you accept the 
 New Testament as authentic history. Hence a 
 strange variety of opinions : — The writers of the 
 New Testament were conscious impostors, as 
 was their Master, and planned and carried out 
 a fraud upon the world. They were enthusiasts, 
 who, on a slender foundation of facts, built up a 
 superstructure of marvellous teaching and of 
 preternatural events. They intended to narrate 
 events truly, but were themselves deceived in 
 the interpretation which they put upon them. 
 They wrote so long after the incidents they 
 describe, and popular myths had so grown up in 
 the meantime around the actual occurrences, 
 that, while honestly recording the beliefs of their 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS ii 
 
 day, they have given us only unreliable legends. 
 Or, finally, the New Testament writings are 
 merely symbolical ; are intended only to express 
 the religious experiences of Christ and His 
 followers — experiences which we must strive to 
 reproduce within our own souls, and which are 
 quite independent of the letter of the records in 
 which we read of them. I need not add to this 
 list of theories, or particularize the authors and 
 chief exponents of them. Strauss, Baur, Renan, 
 Jiilicher, Ritschl, Harnack, Matthew Arnold, 
 F. D. Maurice, Sabatier, Loisy, and Tyrrell are 
 names with which we are familiar ; and they, 
 and those who think with them — whatever their 
 differences may be in detail — are agreed in deny- 
 ing that the New Testament is serious history. 
 And whether it is or is not is the main question 
 for our consideration to-day. 
 
 In dealing with it, the chief points to be 
 inquired into are : — When were the writings of 
 the New Testament composed ? Who were the 
 writers ? Were they honest ? Were they well- 
 informed about the events which they describe ? 
 For it is clear that these are the essential con- 
 ditions of all true history : the historian must 
 have a knowledge of what he sets down, he must 
 
12 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 set it down as he knows it, and he must have 
 been a witness, or in contact, mediately or im- 
 mediately, with contemporaneous witnesses, of 
 the facts and sayings that make up his narrative. 
 If the Evangelists, the writer of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, and St. Paul were contemporaries of 
 Christ and lived with a generation which had 
 known Him ; if they were well-informed and 
 sincere ; and if — as we have seen is the case — 
 their account of Him has come down to us as 
 they wrote it, then we have all the material for 
 judging accurately of Christ's person and char- 
 acter and plans. 
 
 First, then : When were the books of the New 
 Testament written ? Thirty or forty years ago 
 it was common among the more advanced non- 
 Catholic students of the Higher Criticism to as- 
 sert that the whole of the New Testament, except 
 four Epistles of St. Paul (Rom., Gal., i and 2 
 Cor.), were composed in the second century. As 
 in the case of Darwinism, we Catholics were 
 looked upon as utterly unscientific, because we 
 refused to accept the new ideas. Not that records 
 put into writing a century or more after the events 
 they chronicle, must necessarily be untrustworthy. 
 They may, as we all know, be more reliable 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 13 
 
 than contemporary accounts. A history may be 
 written, fifty or a hundred years hence, which 
 shall be more in accordance with the facts of the 
 past twelve months than what we have read in the 
 columns of the daily Press. And, even had the 
 New Testament books, as we have them, been 
 written in the second century, we could trust them 
 fully, if we knew the writers to be honest and 
 thoroughly informed men. But we Catholics 
 continued to hold the traditional view, which had 
 come down to us from the very earliest times, 
 and which attributed all the New Testament 
 books, excepting only the Gospel of St. John, to 
 the second half of the first century. And all that is 
 best and most authoritative in even non-Catholic 
 Higher Criticism has now accepted our opinion. 
 Slowly, step by step, the critics have been forced 
 back to earlier and earlier dates, until at present 
 there is little with which we need quarrel in their 
 conclusions. Thus Professor Harnack, of Berlin, 
 probably the greatest living authority among non- 
 Catholics on early Church history, thinks that 
 Luke may have been written between the years 
 60 and 70, probably towards the beginning of the 
 decade^ ; Mark somewhat earlier ; Matthew be- 
 tween 70 and 86, and John between 80 and 1 10, 
 
14 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles, he thinks, were written 
 nearer to 60 than 70 ; the earliest Epistles of St. 
 Paul between 52 and 58. And Professor Har- 
 nack cannot be counted among the orthodox or 
 conservative Protestants ; he would date the New 
 Testament writings later, as he admits, and as in- 
 deed he once did, if his historical conscience 
 would allow him. Catholic critics adopt approxi- 
 mately the same dates. Comely, indeed, assigns 
 earlier ones ; he places Matthew between 40 and 
 50, Mark between 52 and 62, Luke from 59 to 
 6^, and John from 96 to 98. But Catholics 
 generally, with many of the more conservative 
 Protestant scholars, place the three Synoptic 
 Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) before the 
 destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70, 
 and the Gospel of St. John at the close of the 
 first century. The Epistles of St. Paul will lie 
 between 51, when i and 2 Thessalonians were 
 written, and 66, the year before St. Paul died. 
 And the Acts of the Apostles were composed, 
 most likely, about the years 62-64, ^.t the close 
 of St. Paul's first Roman imprisonment, to which 
 allusion is made in the last paragraph of the book. 
 I do not purpose wearying you with the technical 
 evidence, internal and external, on which scholars 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 15 
 
 base these conclusions. It is within easy reach, 
 in the later works of Professor Harnack, in the 
 works of Sanday, Stanton, and Leigh ton- Pullan 
 among Anglicans ; and in Batiffol, Durand, Jac- 
 quier, the Catholic Encyclopaedia, Dictionnaire 
 Apolog^tique de la Foi Catholique, and other 
 Catholic publications. I shall only emphasize the 
 fact that what we may call the Apostolic writings 
 — those amongst them which are universally 
 recognized as genuine, and which are abundantly 
 sufficient to inform us fully about Christ's person 
 and work — were all written between the years 50 
 and 100 or no, most of them before the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem in the year 70, and, therefore, 
 well within the lifetime of multitudes who had 
 themselves looked on Christ and listened to His 
 teaching, and of larger multitudes who had 
 known His contemporaries. 
 
 Our next question is concerned with the author- 
 ship of the New Testament books. Who were 
 the writers ? At first sight it seems a question 
 which answers itself Are not our Gospels en- 
 titled '' According to St. Matthew," " According 
 to St. Mark " ; and the Epistles : " St. Paul the 
 Apostle to the Romans," " St. Paul the Apostle 
 to the Corinthians," " The General Epistle of St. 
 
l6 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 James," and so forth? But these titles are far 
 from deciding the question ; indeed, it has been 
 argued by some that the very phrase *' according 
 to St. Matthew " implies a denial of St. Matthew's 
 authorship, though it also implies that the contents 
 of the book are according to his teaching. Nor 
 is the question in itself a very important one. 
 The historical value of a work is not dependent 
 on the name of the writer. It matters litde who 
 wrote the books of the New Testament, if the 
 authors lived in Christ's time and country, or 
 were intimate with those who had been witnesses 
 to His life, and were accurate in their information 
 and truthful in recording it. But while this is so, 
 yet we need have no hesitation in accepting the 
 traditional view that the New Testament books 
 are really by the writers whose names they bear. 
 Some would have us except the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews and the second Epistle of St. Peter ; 
 but even critically there seems to be no sufficient 
 grounds for doing so, and there are weighty 
 arguments in favour of their authenticity. As 
 regards the other books, the testimony of the early 
 Church writers appears convincing. Clement of 
 Rome, in his letter to the Corinthians, about 95 
 A.D., refers them to **tbe Epistle of the Blessed 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 17 
 
 Paul the Apostle. What did he first write to 
 you in the beginning of the Gospel?" About 
 130 A.D., Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, mentions 
 the Gospels written by St. Matthew and St. 
 Mark; Irenaeus, about 185 a.d., tells us that 
 " Luke the companion of St. Paul recorded in a 
 book the Gospel preached by him " ; the Mura- 
 torian fragment, about 180 a.d., assigns the 
 ** third book of the Gospel " and the ** Acts of all 
 the Apostles " to St. Luke ; *' the fourth of the 
 Gospels" and Epistles to St. John ; and almost 
 all the other books to the same writers to whom 
 we assign them. Justin Martyr, about 152 
 A.D., speaks of ** Memoirs . . . which are called 
 Gospels," and he says ** They were compiled by 
 Christ's Apostles and those who companied with 
 them". Marcion of Pontus, a heretic, writing 
 in Rome, about 144 a.d., while rejecting other 
 books, retains the Gospel written by St. Luke, 
 the friend of Paul, and ten of St. Paul's epistles. 
 Other witnesses, too, might be quoted from the 
 second century, and later witnesses in abundance. 
 Now, if we take into account how very scanty is 
 the Christian literature which has come down to 
 us from the second century, and the fact that no- 
 where in any early writer is any other New 
 
1 8 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Testament author mentioned than those we are 
 familiar with ; and the further fact that our wit- 
 nesses were born, the earlier ones in Apostolic 
 times, the later in a generation which had known 
 the friends of the Apostles, we need not hesitate 
 to maintain the traditional opinion. And, inci- 
 dentally, we may note in these evidences from the 
 first half and middle of the second century, how 
 widely spread the New Testament writings al- 
 ready were, how unquestioningly they were ac- 
 cepted, and therefore how much earlier they must 
 have been composed and brought to the know- 
 ledge of the Faithful. 
 
 But are they based on accurate information ? 
 Can we feel sure that the authors were acquainted 
 with the incidents and teachings which they de- 
 scribe? If we exclude the supernatural from our 
 inquiry, critics generally, even the more unortho- 
 dox, will reply in the affirmative. Accepting the 
 common theory of authorship, Matthew and John 
 were themselves witnesses of nearly all that they 
 relate. Mark was disciple and companion of St. 
 Peter, and his Gospel is a summary of Peter's 
 preaching. Luke himself tells us of the inquiries 
 he had made ; and he makes mention of various 
 written narratives, which were already in exis- 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 19 
 
 tence, when lie undertook his own Gospel, and 
 on which we may be sure he built. Indeed, all 
 three Synoptic writers may have utilized pre- 
 viously existing documents ; and St. John, when 
 he came to write his Gospel, may have had the 
 three Synoptists before him, and various other 
 documents as well. The author of the Acts may 
 have been himself present at most of the incidents 
 which he narrates in the first half of the book ; 
 and he was certainly the companion of St. Paul 
 during the missions and journeyings which he 
 narrates in the second. Besides, all the New 
 Testament writers lived and conversed habitually 
 with men who had known the Christ, and who 
 had taken part in the agitation and controversies 
 to which His life and teaching had given rise. 
 
 Further, the statements which they make, 
 so far as we can control them by other sources 
 of information, are found to be singularly exact. 
 They give us a chronology of the principal 
 events in Christ's life; they set out a mass 
 of details concerning the conditions, political, 
 social, administrative, and religious, of Palestine 
 at that time ; they have much to say about in- 
 dividuals : Herod, Pilate, Caiaphas, Felix, Porcius 
 Festus, Agrippa, and others : and wherever we 
 
20 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 are able to test their accuracy by profane his- 
 torians, such as Tacitus and Josephus, by the 
 Talmud, by medals and inscriptions, or in any 
 other way, they stand the test. 
 
 Again, the Epistles of St. Paul (except 
 Hebrews, and those to Titus and to Timothy) 
 are held by the great majority of every class of 
 critics to be authentic writings of the Apostle, 
 composed between the years 48 and 66 — twenty 
 or thirty years after Christ's death, and conse- 
 quently within the lifetime of a generation which 
 had seen and listened to Christ. They confirm 
 fully and in considerable detail the Gospel state- 
 ments. There seems, then, to be no reason 
 whatever for questioning the fullness and ac- 
 curacy of knowledge which the New Testament 
 writers possessed. 
 
 And were they truthful and honest, in setting 
 down what they knew? No scholar nowadays 
 would venture to accuse them of conscious fraud. 
 The very books themselves impress a reader 
 with the conviction that the authors were plain, 
 straightforward men, describing simply what they 
 had seen or heard, or had learned from others, 
 on whose evidence they could rely. There is a 
 naturalness in their narratives which it would be 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 21 
 
 difficult to reconcile with an intention to deceive. 
 Besides, they were writing, if we except St. John, 
 for contemporaries of the Christ. Many of 
 their readers had listened to His discourses, and 
 seen His works, been present at His Passion, 
 and shared in the occurrences that followed on 
 His death. Many more had learned the details 
 from eye-witnesses. The Evangelists and St. 
 Paul would not have dared, even had they been 
 willing, to falsify or invent. Further, what had 
 they to gain by fraud ? Like the soldiers set to 
 guard the tomb, they might have hoped for pay- 
 ment, if they gave testimony against Christ. But 
 what advantage could they look for, after He had 
 been taken from them, in renewing His claims, 
 and publishing His doctrines, and announcing to 
 the world, both Jew and Gentile, the terrible in- 
 justice which their own people had done to Him? 
 What could they expect unless what actually be- 
 fell them : to be "scourged, and charged that they 
 should not speak at all in the name of Jesus," ^ 
 and, should they persevere, to be treated as St. 
 Paul describes in his second letter to the Corin- 
 thians : " Of the Jews five times did I receive 
 forty stripes save one ; thrice was I beaten with 
 
 ^ Acts V. 40. 
 
22 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 rods ; once I was stoned ; thrice I suffered ship- 
 wreck ; a night and a day I was in the depth of 
 the sea. In journeying often, in perils of water, 
 in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, 
 in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, 
 in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in 
 perils from false brethren. In labour and painful- 
 ness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in 
 fastings often, in cold and nakedness " ? ^ If they 
 were not constrained by a love of truth, it would 
 have been wiser and of more immediate profit to 
 be silent, or to falsify their story, as their rulers 
 would have wished. 
 
 But, furthermore, the context of the writings 
 bears testimony to their truth. In any other 
 hypothesis, the Evangelists and St. Paul must 
 have conspired to foist a lie upon the world — 
 a lie which has succeeded in capturing the 
 loftiest intelligences and the noblest hearts 
 which the world has seen since then. The 
 most wonderful of the Gospel miracles pales 
 before a wonder such as this. And, had they 
 conspired, they would have arranged their 
 methods differently. They would, for instance, 
 have guarded against discrepancies in their 
 
 1 2 Corinthians xi. 24. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 23 
 
 stories. Discrepancies in different accounts of 
 the same events, if they are concerned with 
 unimportant details only, are no proof of error 
 or of falsehood in the main facts stated. But, 
 when witnesses are planning a fraud, they 
 endeavour to agree even in the minor circum- 
 stances. And there are discrepancies between 
 the narratives in the New Testament — trivial 
 ones, it is true, but such as witnesses conspiring 
 to propagate a falsehood would have been care- 
 ful to avoid. Again, only a love of truth could 
 have led the Evangelists to paint the Apostles as 
 they have painted them — poor men, ill-educated, 
 " foolish, and slow of heart," jealous, cowardly ; 
 not at all the men, humanly speaking, to found a 
 great movement, and win enthusiastic adherents 
 to it. Untruthful men would have pictured a 
 Jewish Messiah — an earthly prince, and an 
 earthly kingdom, in which they themselves might 
 hope for high place. They would even have 
 given us a different Christ ; He would scarcely 
 have been poor, an artisan, tempted by the devil, 
 or compassionate to the Magdalen, or the friend 
 of sinners, or agonizing in the garden, or power- 
 less before His tormentors, or desolate upon the 
 Cross. The Jews had never dreamed of such a 
 
24 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Saviour. Neither had they ever risen to the 
 moral elevation of much of our Lord's teaching. 
 The Sermon on the Mount, the Discourse at 
 the Last Supper, many of the parables, the 
 moral precepts introduced by the words : ** It 
 was said to you of old, but I say to you " — what 
 mere Jew, brought up in the tradition of his 
 people, could have conceived or formulated them ? 
 And what, unless the truth of facts, could lead 
 Jewish writers to picture such a Messiah and 
 ascribe such teachings to Him ? 
 
 But, sincere and truthful as they may have 
 been, can they not have been themselves de- 
 ceived? May not myths have grown up, 
 popular distortions of incidents and discourses, 
 between the period of Christ's life and the com- 
 position of the New Testament writings ? This, 
 indeed, is the theory of the older rationalists, and 
 was the reason why they endeavoured to throw 
 back the date of composition into the second 
 century. That would have given time for the 
 growth of myths. But the dates which are now 
 scientifically established exclude the . theory : 
 Christ died in the year 29 or 30 of our present 
 era ; the three Synoptic Gospels were written 
 before the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 25 
 
 70 ; the Epistles of St. Paul were written be- 
 tween the year 5 1 and 64 or 6^^ when he died ; 
 the Acts of the Apostles were written in 62 or 
 64, at the close of St. Paul's first imprisonment 
 in Rome. The earlier writings date from some 
 fifteen or twenty years after Christ's death ; the 
 later — of the same character as the earlier — are 
 only some ten or fifteen years more distant. 
 What widespread persistent myths can grow up 
 in fifteen years, or even in thirty or thirty-five, 
 especially in connexion with well-known person- 
 ages and public occurrences, and easily ascer- 
 tained facts, on which the attention of many 
 thousands has been riveted ? The myth theory 
 must stand or fall with the late, second century, 
 composition of the New Testament writings. 
 
 We may, then, on all these grounds, which 
 cumulatively appear convincing, accept the New 
 Testament writers as entirely sincere and truth- 
 ful. 
 
 To resume : We have, in the Gospels, the 
 Acts, and the Epistles of St. Paul, what purports 
 to be a life of Christ and a record of His works 
 and teachings. These books were written by 
 men who lived in Christ's own day, who were 
 His countrymen, who wrote for a generation 
 
26 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 that was born before Christ died, many of whom 
 had themselves been witnesses of the events 
 described. The writers had abundant means of 
 verifying all the statements which they made ; 
 they had had personal experience of some ; they 
 had contemporary oral evidence and written tes- 
 timony for others. They had every motive to 
 be truthful ; and all the evidence, external and 
 internal, proves convincingly that they were. 
 We may trust, then, with absolute certainty in 
 what they tell us about Christ and about the 
 Society or Church which He planned and 
 founded. If they do not give us authentic his- 
 tory on these points we can scarcely hope for any 
 authentic history whatsoever. 
 
 And the fate of the New Testament apocry- 
 phal writings confirms our certainty. For there 
 were other Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, and 
 Epistles, in the early Church. But you have 
 only to compare them cursorily with the books 
 of which we have been speaking to see what a 
 difference separates the two literatures, and how 
 reliable the judgment of the early Christians was, 
 when they rejected the apocryphal and approved 
 of our canonical writings. 
 
 We shall assume then, in our further inquiries, 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS 27 
 
 the substantial historical accuracy of the Gospels, 
 the Acts of the Apostles, and the greater Epistles 
 of St. Paul. We may, indeed, appeal on oc- 
 casion to other historical documents of un- 
 questioned authority ; but our chief and most 
 trustworthy sources of information will be those 
 books of the New Testament to which we have 
 referred. 
 
 And, basing our investigation on those books, 
 we shall next inquire into the personality and 
 authority of Christ our Lord. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 In the previous Lecture we inquired into the 
 historical value of those books of the New Testa- 
 ment — the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and 
 the greater Epistles of St. Paul — from which our 
 knowledge of Christ, His life, His character, His 
 teaching, and His work, is chiefly derived. We 
 purpose studying the foundation and constitu- 
 tion of the society which He established. It is of 
 vital importance, therefore, that we should know 
 the authority which He had to found it, the 
 power He had to communicate to it the preroga- 
 tives which it claims ; and we can determine 
 this most easily from the records which the New 
 Testament contains. If the New Testament 
 writers may be fully relied upon, we have abun- 
 dant data for forming a clear, decisive judgment 
 on the person and projects of Christ ; and we can 
 then pass on to the chief object of our inveistiga- 
 
 2& 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 29 
 
 tion — the constitution which He bestowed upon 
 His Church. 
 
 And we have seen that the New Testament 
 records are authentic history. They were 
 written by men who lived in the days of Christ, 
 some of them His intimate friends, all of them 
 associated closely with His relatives and com- 
 panions, men, therefore, who could not be ignor- 
 ant or ill-informed of the events and discourses 
 which they describe. The simple style of their 
 narratives, the utter absence of any apparent wish 
 to exaggerate or make capital out of the incidents 
 narrated, the lack of any motive for deceiving 
 their readers, give us confidence in their truth- 
 fulness. And this confidence is confirmed by all 
 the evidence we can bring to bear from other 
 sources — by the fact that they wrote so soon 
 after the events described (all of them, except one, 
 within from fifteen to forty years after the oc- 
 currences), and consequently before the popular 
 recollection had become distorted or obscured ; 
 and by the further fact that they would not dare, 
 even though they had been willing, to misrepre- 
 sent what was within the personal knowledge of 
 so many of those for whom they wrote. In a 
 word, they were men who could not but know 
 
30 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 the facts they were writing about ; and there is 
 no reason whatever to doubt their good faith and 
 honesty. We may, therefore, accept their writ- 
 ings — the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and 
 the greater Epistles of St. Paul — as historical 
 documents of first-class importance and author- 
 ity, and proceed to study in them the personality 
 of Christ. 
 
 " Whom do men say that I am ? " Christ 
 asked of the Apostles ; and it is the same ques- 
 tion we are to discuss to-day : Whom do the 
 New Testament writings prove Christ to have 
 been? 
 
 That He was a man, in all essentials like other 
 men, is beyond controversy. There were, in- 
 deed, heretics, in the early Church, who held 
 that He was man in appearance only ; as there 
 were others who maintained that His human 
 nature was only partially complete — that Divinity 
 assumed the functions of mind or soul or will ; 
 and as there are extreme rationalists in our own 
 time, who deny the historic existence of the Christ 
 altogether. But such heretics were always re- 
 latively few ; and such extreme rationalists are 
 rare. If anything is clear from New Testament 
 history, it is that there was a man, Christ, born 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 31 
 
 of a human mothef' into the world of Palestine 
 some nineteen hundred years ago ; that He lived 
 among His fellows, a man like themselves, with 
 human feelings, thoughts and wishes ; that He 
 suffered, and shrank from suffering ; that He 
 loved, and was gladdened by others' love ; that 
 He was put to death, and died upon across. No 
 fact in all history, profane or sacred, is more cer- 
 tain than the existence and the reality of the 
 human nature of Jesus Christ. 
 
 But, was He more than man ? I do not mean 
 in the sense that He had a Divine mission, a 
 God-given message to communicate, a God-given 
 authority to make laws and to enforce them. 
 He might be a mere man, and yet have both ; 
 as Moses and others of the Prophets had. But 
 was He Himself Divine ? Had He the very 
 nature of God ? Were His words the words of 
 God? Are His promises the promises of God? 
 Is His power the omnipotence of God ? 
 
 I shall not detain you with any attempt to de- 
 fine exactly the concept of Godhead, as we attri- 
 bute it to Christ. You may meet with men who 
 deny God's existence, with some again who pro- 
 fess their inability to form a definite opinion on the 
 point, and with others who hesitate to rest their 
 
32 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 belief in it on the generally accepted proofs. But 
 they are all at one with orthodox believers as 
 to what the idea of God involves. Their denials, 
 their uncertainties, their controversies themselves 
 are all concerned with the same infinitely perfect 
 Being, whom Christians love and worship. And 
 we have no need to determine further for the 
 present what is signified by the concept and name 
 of God. 
 
 Assuming, then, the general idea which is 
 present to the minds of all educated persons, 
 when they speak of God, we proceed to inquire 
 — and it is the question I ask you to consider 
 with me to-day — do the writings of the New 
 Testament afford us convincing proof that Christ 
 was God ? The answer must be affirmative. 
 
 And, first, the writers of the New Testament 
 themselves and their contemporaries were firm 
 believers in the Divinity of Christ. St. John's 
 Gospel opens with a clear statement of his own 
 belief: ** In the beginning was the Word . . . 
 and the Word was God . . . and the Word was 
 made Flesh ".^ In the last chapter but one he 
 gives the confession of St. Thomas : '' My Lord 
 and my God ".^ St. Paul addresses the elders of 
 iSt. John I. I. 2 jjjI^^^ XX. 28. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 33 
 
 the Church of Ephesus, and commends to them 
 " the Church of God, which He hath purchased 
 with His own blood ".^ He tell the Colossians 
 that in Christ " dwelleth all the fulness of the God- 
 head bodily ".^ He reminds the Romans of the 
 glory of Israel, '* of whom is Christ according to 
 the flesh, who is over all things, God* blessed for 
 ever. Amen." ^ But I shall not multiply instances. 
 Christ's Divinity, it may be said, is a matter of 
 inference, and the New Testament writers, how- 
 ever admirable as witnesses to facts, may have 
 been honestly mistaken in the inferences which 
 they drew from them. 
 
 So I shall ask you to consider two arguments, 
 based upon the New Testament writings, both 
 conclusive, I think, of the Divinity of Christ : the 
 second of them forming the very foundation of 
 the Apostolic preaching. They are, first, the 
 character of Christ and the claims which He 
 Himself put forward ; and, secondly, the fact of 
 His Resurrection. 
 
 I do not, of course, call in question the value 
 
 of other arguments as well. I know, for instance, 
 
 that His Divine mission and His Divinity itself 
 
 can be proved by the prophecies of the Old Tes- 
 
 1 Acts XX. ?8, 2 ji,ifi^ I, g 3 j^i^ ^ jx. j^ 
 
 3 
 
34 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 tament and their fulfilment in His person : He 
 frequently appeals to them Himself. I know 
 they can be proved by the many miracles He 
 wrought : *' The works that I do in My Father's 
 name, these bear witness to Me. . . . Though 
 you will not believe Me, believe the works " ; -^ 
 ** Go and relate to John what you have heard 
 and seen : the blind see, the lame walk, the 
 lepers are cleansed, the dead rise again ".^ I am 
 sure they can be proved by the hold which His 
 teaching has taken upon the world, and the mar- 
 vellous change which Christianity has wrought 
 in human ideals, and in moral theory and prac- 
 tice. What but the truth of His Divinity could 
 induce the world to accept doctrines so startling 
 and so improbable ; which make such grave de- 
 mands on mind and heart and external action ; 
 which rouse such constant, often fierce, opposition 
 from prejudice and passion and pride? Then, 
 too, I remember that the Apostolic Church con- 
 fessed Him to be God. They did not merely 
 reverence Him as a saint ; they did not only 
 admire Him as a model. They prayed to Him 
 as being God Himself "And they stoned 
 Stephen," the Acts of the Apostles tell us of the 
 1 John X. 25. 2 yisLtt. xi. 5. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 35 
 
 first martyr, " invoking and saying : Lord Jesus, 
 receive my spirit. . . . Lord, lay not this sin to 
 their charge."^ And the same Acts, describing 
 the miracle upon the lame man at the gate of the 
 temple, which is called Beautiful, quote St. Peter's 
 words : " Silver and gold have I none ; but what 
 I have I give thee. In the name of Jesus Christ 
 of Nazareth, arise and walk."^ And St. Paul's 
 Epistles abound with invocations of Christ which 
 are meaningless, unless he believed Christ was 
 God : ** Peace be to the brethren and charity 
 with faith from God the Father and the Lord 
 Jesus Christ";^ ** Grace be to you and peace 
 from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus 
 Christ " ; * ** The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 be with you all ".^ And these instances might 
 be multiplied indefinitely. But there is no need ; 
 for nothing is plainer, through the pages of the 
 New Testament, than that the Apostles them- 
 selves and their first converts thought of Christ 
 as God, so soon as He was taken from them. 
 They turned to Him in prayerful adoration ; 
 belief in Him, hope in Him, love of Him, be- 
 came the conditions of their salvation. I would 
 
 1 Acts VII. 58. '^ Ibid., III. 6. ^Ephes. vi. 23. 
 
 *Gal. I. 3 et passim. ^ 2 Cor. xiii. 13. 
 
 3* 
 
36 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 not, of course, deny, I would not minimize in the 
 least, the efficacy of such arguments. But I 
 would submit for your consideration the two to 
 which I have already referred, as simpler in them- 
 selves, and, if the New Testament writings be 
 truthful records, as entirely unanswerable. 
 
 First, then, Christ Himself claims persistently 
 and in the clearest manner to be God. There- 
 fore I conclude He was God. I do not usually 
 admit a man's claim merely because he puts it 
 forward ; but I do in the case of Christ. 
 
 To appreciate the argument rightly we must 
 consider the human character of Christ. The 
 world, whatever its religious opinions, is agreed 
 that, if the Gospel story be a true one, Christ 
 was an absolutely perfect man. There is no 
 other human character in all authentic history, 
 there is no creation of poet or philosopher, which 
 we should think for a moment of comparing with 
 Him. We feel, indeed, that He must have lived 
 and taught and acted as the Evangelists describe 
 Him ; that their story must.be true ; they could 
 never have invented it. He stands apart from 
 all who went before, and have followed after, 
 not more in arresting the attention of mankind, 
 and challenging their judgment of Him, than in 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 37 
 
 the singular unanimity with which He has been 
 proclaimed the highest type and expression of 
 our humanity. ** Whom do men say that I, the 
 Son of Man, am ? " ^ He asks at Cesarea Philippi ; 
 and the answer of mankind, of orthodox, of 
 heretic, and of infidel alike, has only grown in 
 distinctness and in emphasis through the cen- 
 turies since then. As they realize more fully 
 how much the world owes Him, they reply more 
 clearly : " If the Christ of the Gospel be as He 
 is depicted there, then He is the noblest product 
 of our race ". Nor, indeed, can we examine even 
 cursorily the portrait of Him in the Gospels 
 without seeing how entirely free from exaggera- 
 tion the answer is. I do not now refer to the 
 sublimity of His religious doctrine, of His teach- 
 ing about God, about God's dealings with our- 
 selves, about our present state and future destiny ; 
 nor the lofty purity of His moral law — the most 
 perfect measure of ethical excellence ever pre- 
 sented to mankind. I am concerned only with 
 the fact that He was Himself the most faultless 
 embodiment of that highest of standards which 
 the world has ever seen. It must come as a 
 shock to our feelings of reverence and love for 
 
 ^ Mark vni. 27. 
 
38 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Christ to hear Him spoken of as though He 
 were only man. You will bear with me if I do 
 so for the moment : it is only to demonstrate the 
 more convincingly that He was God as well. 
 As man, then, He gives proof of rare intellectual 
 powers : in H is knowledge of all that was best 
 in Jewish learning ; in the sublimity and har- 
 mony of His own religious and moral views ; in 
 the power and aptness of His presentation of 
 them ; and in the ease and thoroughness with 
 which He treated the cavillings and questionings 
 of enemies and of friends. To these rare intel- 
 lectual gifts He joined a singular self-restraint 
 and moderation. Neither in His manner of liv- 
 ing, nor in His public speech, nor in His deliber- 
 ately avowed aims, nor in His more hurried 
 decisions at critical moments of His life, is there 
 any trace of a fanatical spirit, of any interference 
 by enthusiasm and passion with calm judgment 
 and prudent action. And the higher virtues are 
 still more prominent : His entire submission 
 to and love of God the Father, His humility, 
 His unselfishness. His transparent sincerity and 
 truthfulness — to particularize those only which 
 are most relevant to our present purpose. I need 
 not stay to illustrate these characteristics from 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 39 
 
 the Gospels : they are witnessed to by almost 
 every page. I need not quote for you the testi- 
 mony of many of the keenest and most impartial 
 judges of human excellence since Christ's time : 
 '* It was reserved for Christianity," says Mr. 
 Lecky, in his " History of European Morals," 
 and he may be taken to speak for all educated 
 and thoughtful men, *' it was reserved for Chris- 
 tianity to present to the world an ideal character, 
 which through all the changes of eighteen cen- 
 turies has inspired the hearts of men with an 
 impassioned love ; has shown itself capable of 
 acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and 
 conditions ; has been not only the highest pat- 
 tern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its 
 practice, and has exercised so deep an influence 
 that it may be truly said that the simple record 
 of three short years of active life has done more 
 to regenerate and to soften mankind, than all 
 the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the ex- 
 hortations of moralists ". 
 
 In Christ, therefore, we have, admittedly, a 
 man of rare intelligence, of quite unusual mod- 
 eration and strength of character, singularly reli- 
 gious-minded, wise, prudent, unassuming, truthful, 
 
40 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 endowed with a pre-eminence of moral beauty, 
 which is not merely beyond comparison, but is 
 absolutely without fault. And this Man, some- 
 times directly, sometimes indirectly, but always 
 emphatically and persistently, proclaims Him- 
 self more than man ; claims, indeed, to be very 
 God Himself; even lays down His life, rather 
 than withdraw the claim. What are we to think 
 of Him, if the claim be not true ? 
 
 And that Christ did put forward the claim, not 
 covertly, not occasionally, but openly, plainly, 
 and continuously, admits of no doubt whatsoever. 
 Let me direct your attention to the following 
 considerations, based entirely upon the Gospel 
 narratives : — 
 
 As men grow in holiness or moral worth, as 
 they conceive higher and more perfect rules of 
 conduct, as they impress these loftier standards 
 with an increasing urgency upon the minds of 
 others, so do they acquire a more profound con- 
 sciousness of their own weakness, their own un- 
 worthiness, their own sin ; so do they experience 
 a growing need to confess in some way their 
 failure to realize the perfect ideals which they 
 have conceived and which they preach. Now, 
 there can be no question about the perfection 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 41 
 
 of the moral standard which Christ professed 
 and taught. Read His Sermon on the Mount 
 and the exhortation : ** Be you, therefore, perfect, 
 as your Heavenly Father is perfect ".^ And yet 
 there is no trace of consciousness that He Himself 
 fell short of the perfection which He preached. 
 There is no admission of any sin, however venial, 
 nor even of liability to sin. He discourses much 
 on sin and sinfulness, on the need of repentance 
 for sins committed, on the danger of sinning to 
 which our nature is exposed. But there is no 
 slightest reference to any bearing of such doc- 
 trines upon Himself. Nay, He positively asserts 
 His sinlessness : '* I do always the things that 
 please Him that sent Me ".'^ He goes further, 
 even, and challenges His enemies to bring any 
 proof of sin against Him. " Which of you shall 
 convince Me of sin ? " ^ Surely there is in this 
 a claim to superhuman holiness ? 
 
 And hence He does what no other teacher has 
 ever ventured to do in the world's history : He 
 openly and persistently preaches Himself. He is 
 not content to preach abstract truths, however 
 beautiful and sublime ; He repeatedly and earn- 
 estly declares Himself to be their visible embodi- 
 
 ^ Matt. V. 48. 2 JqJijj VIII. 29. 3 jijI^^ ^5^ 
 
42 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 ment. Sometimes in metaphor, sometimes in 
 plain and simple language, He bids men seek 
 salvation in and through Himself. '' I am the 
 light of the world," ^ He tells them ; *' he that 
 followeth Me walketh not in darkness, but shall 
 have the light of life." ** I am the way, the 
 truth, and the life," He says to them again, 
 ** no man cometh to the Father but by Me." ^ 
 And on another occasion : " I am the living 
 bread, which came down from Heaven ; if any 
 man eat of this bread, he shall have life for 
 ever ".^ And again : ** I am the door ; by Me 
 if any enter in, he shall be saved ".^ And : '' I 
 am the vine, you the branches ... if any one 
 abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth and shall 
 wither, and they shall gather him up and cast 
 him into the fire ".^ And once again : '* I am 
 the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth 
 in Me, although he be dead shall live ".^ What 
 merely human teacher has ever dared to preach 
 in such a fashion ? 
 
 Furthermore, and in the same spirit, He treats 
 men as belonging to Him, as bound unhesitat- 
 ingly to obey His will. ** Come ye after Me," 
 
 ^ John VIII. 12. "^ Ibid.^ xiv. 6. ^ Ibid., vi. 41. 
 
 * Ibid.^ X. 9. 5 Ibid., xv. 5. « /^^-^^ xi. 25. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 43 
 
 he says to Peter and Andrew, " and they im- 
 mediately, leaving their nets, followed Him."^ 
 To another : " Follow Me . . . and let the dead 
 bury their dead ".^ To Levi, sitting at the receipt 
 of customs : " Follow Me ; and, leaving all things, 
 he rose up and followed Him"/ To the rich 
 young man : " Go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and 
 give to the poor . . . and come, follow Me ".^ 
 His call to discipleship was a command rather 
 than an invitation, and a command which was to 
 be fulfilled at whatever cost of comfort and peace 
 and natural affection : *' Think ye that I have 
 come to give peace on earth ? I tell ye no, but 
 separation " ; ^ ** He that taketh not up his cross, 
 and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me " ;* " If 
 any man comes to Me, and hates not father and 
 mother and wife and children and brethren and 
 sisters, he cannot be My disciple "J Are such 
 claims of imperative personal allegiance tolerable, 
 are they intelligible even, if He believed Himself 
 to be only man ? 
 
 Hence He accepts, without protest, simply as 
 His due, the form of worship offered to God 
 
 1 Mark I. 17. 2 L^ke ix. 59. ^ Ibid.,w. 27. 
 
 ^ Ibid., XVIII. 22. ^ Ibid., xii. 51. ^ Matt. x. 38. 
 
 ^ Luke XIV. 26. 
 
44 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 alone. The woman of Canaan whose daughter 
 was " grievously troubled by a devil . . . came 
 and adored Him, saying : Lord, help me ".^ 
 The mad youth's father ** came, falling down on 
 his knees before Him, saying : Lord have pity 
 on my son ".^ When He had calmed the storm, 
 ** they that were in the boat came and wor- 
 shipped Him, saying : Of a truth Thou art the 
 Son of God".^ Peter, after the miraculous 
 draught of fishes, *' fell down at Jesus' knees, say- 
 ing : Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O 
 Lord ",* The man ** blind from his birth," to 
 whom He says : *' Dost thou believe in the Son 
 of God ? " answers : *' I believe. Lord. And, 
 falling down, he adored Him." ^ I quote only a 
 few out of many similar passages. Now, had 
 He believed Himself mere man, a messenger, 
 indeed, from God, but still a merely human one, 
 would He have accepted Divine homage ? Even 
 Barnabas and Paul, at Lystra, in like circum- 
 stances, ** rending their clothes, leaped out among 
 the people crying, and saying : Ye men, why do 
 you these things ? We also are mortals, men 
 like unto you." ^ 
 
 1 Matt. XV. 25. 2 iifid,^ XVII. 14. 2 Ibid.^ xiv. 33. 
 * Luke V. 8. ^ John ix. 35. ^ Acts xiv. 14. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 45 
 
 Again, He proclaims His independent power to 
 forgive sin : " Be of good heart, son," He says 
 to the man sick of the palsy, " thy sins are for- 
 given thee " ; and, when the Scribes repudiate 
 the implied claim : ** He blasphemeth ; who can 
 forgive sins but God alone ? " He does not dis- 
 approve the inference, but goes on to reassert and 
 emphasize the claim : " That you may know that 
 the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive 
 sin, I say to thee. Arise, take up thy bed and go 
 into thy house ; and immediately he arose and 
 went his way, in the sight of all "} In almost 
 similar language Headdresses a sinful woman in 
 the house of Simon the Pharisee : ** Thy sins 
 are forgiven ; go in peace " ; so that, as the 
 Evangelist adds : ** They that sat at meat with 
 Him began to say within themselves : Who is 
 this that forgives sins also ? " ^ And, more as- 
 tounding still. He asserts His right to communi- 
 cate to others the power of forgiving which He 
 exercised Himself : " Amen, I say to you, what- 
 ever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in 
 heaven " ; ' " Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whose 
 sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them 
 
 » i 
 
 ^Matt. IX. 2. ^ Luke VII. 49. 'Matt, xviii. 18, 
 *John XX. 23. 
 
46 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 More startling even in One Who should hold 
 Himself to be only man, He claims to sit in judg- 
 ment on all mankind : '' The Father , . . hath 
 given all judgment to the Son, that all men may- 
 honour the Son as they honour the Father," ^ 
 and *' The Son of Man shall come in His majesty 
 and all the Angels with Him ; and all the na- 
 tions shall be gathered together before Him ; and 
 He shall separate them one from another ".^ Con- 
 sider the nature of the office which He here as- 
 sumes : that He will look out over the countless 
 millions who have ever lived on earth, will search 
 into the innermost recesses of every individual 
 soul, and appraise every thought and word and 
 act of each ; that He will determine at once, and 
 with unerring justice, their eternal fate, and pro- 
 ceed to pass sentence irrevocably. Can we con- 
 ceive of any finite intelligence that shall be equal 
 to the task ? 
 
 But these claims, after all, it may be said, are 
 indirect. Are they sufficient to convince us that 
 Christ claimed to be Divine ? In answer I would 
 only ask you to consider the case of a religious 
 teacher in our own day who should put forward 
 such pretensions. Picture to yourself one who 
 
 1 John V. 22. 2 Matt. xxv. 31. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 47 
 
 should discourse much on the weakness of our 
 human nature, its tendency to sin, its inevitable 
 sinfulness ; yet seem utterly unconscious that his 
 teaching has the slightest bearing on himself. 
 Let him condemn sin and sinners openly and 
 sternly, so that he arouses the enmity of many 
 adversaries, keen-sighted and influential ; and let 
 him challenge them before the world to prove sin 
 against him. Let him add to this the declaration 
 that he does always and in all things God's will. 
 Imagine, further, that he proposes himself to the 
 people as an object of religious faith and love ; 
 as the one means by which spiritual life here and 
 eternal happiness hereafter are attainable. He 
 accepts, as of course, the reverence and adoration 
 which are offered to him as to one who is very 
 God himself. He proclaims his right — and 
 acts on it — to call men, in despite of family ties 
 and all earthly interests, when and how he thinks 
 fitting, and to bind them to his service, what- 
 ever cost it may entail. And suppose him to 
 declare that by his own power he can forgive 
 all sin, and can commission others to forgive it ; 
 that one day he will even come to judge the 
 universe, and apportion to every man his place 
 throughout Eternity ; what opinion should we 
 
48 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 form of his claims ? I do not ask : Should we 
 hold him to be a fool, or should we hold him to be 
 a knave ? But should we imagine for a moment 
 that he was claiming only human powers ? 
 Should we not understand at once that, knave or 
 madman, he claimed to be Divine ? 
 
 And Christ, in His statements about Himself, 
 goes far beyond such indirect, though all-suffi- 
 cient, declarations. He tells the Jews that He 
 existed prior to His human life on earth : ** I 
 came down from heaven, not to do My own 
 will, but the will of Him that sent Me ".^ And, 
 again : ** I am the living bread that came down 
 from heaven".^ And, a little later, when the 
 disciples murmur at His Eucharistic teaching, 
 and find it ** hard to bear," He confirms the 
 doctrine, and strengthens the incredulous, by the 
 prophetic question : " What, then, if you shall 
 see the Son of Man ascend up where He was 
 before? "^ ** I came forth from the Father," He 
 says to them, in His last discourse, "and am 
 come into the world : again I leave the world 
 and I go unto the Father."* And, most clearly 
 perhaps of all, when He tells them in the 
 1 John VI. 38. 2 jf^i^^ ^ J 3 j^i^^ 5^^ 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 49 
 
 Temple : " Your father, Abraham, rejoiced that 
 he might see My day ; he saw it, and was glad " ; ^ 
 and then, in answer to their objection that Abra- 
 ham was long since dead, while He Himself was 
 still a young man. He declares emphatically : 
 "Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham 
 was made, I am ". He claims pre-existence, and 
 not even pre-existence only, but unending, un- 
 beginning, changeless being. For He is One 
 with the Father — One in Divine power : ** My 
 sheep hear My voice," He says to the Jews in 
 the porch of Solomon, "... and no man shall 
 pluck them out of My hand. My Father, Who 
 hath given them unto Me, is greater than all ; 
 and no man can snatch them out of My Father's 
 hand. I and the Father are one." ^ And " the 
 Jews," the Evangelist adds, " took up stones to 
 stone Him . . . because that Thou, being man, 
 maketh Thyself God ". He is One in operation 
 with the Father : " My Father worketh until 
 now, and I work. . . . Amen, amen, I say unto 
 you . . . what things soever the Father doth, 
 these the Son also doth in like manner."^ 
 "Therefore," the Evangelist continues, "the 
 Jews sought the more to kill Him, because . . . 
 
 ^ John VIII. 56. ^ Ibid., x. 27. * Ibid., v. 17. 
 4 
 
50 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 He said that God was His own Father, making 
 Himself equal with God." He is One also 
 in identity of uncreated nature : " Lord, show 
 us the Father," Philip says to Him, and He 
 answers : ** So long a time have I been with 
 you, and have you not known Me? Philip, 
 he that seeth Me seeth the Father also." ^ And 
 then, addressing all the Apostles : ** If anyone 
 love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father 
 will love him ; and We will come to him, and 
 make Our abode with him ". 
 
 More clearly still, in the supreme moments of 
 His earthly life, when He stands before the 
 Sanhedrim, and His enemies are seeking for a 
 pretext to condemn Him, does He profess Him- 
 self the Son of God, identical in nature with Him ; 
 and He is condemned and dies, because He will 
 not forgo the claim. ** And the High Priest said 
 to Him," St. Matthew writes, '* I adjure Thee by 
 the living God, that Thou tell us if Thou be 
 Christ, the Son of God." Jesus saith to him : 
 " Thou hast said it ".^ Or, as St. Mark describes 
 the scene : ** The High Priest asked Him, and 
 said to Him : Art Thou the Christ, the Son of 
 the Blessed God ? And Jesus said to him : I 
 
 1 John XIV. 9. 2 Matt. xxvi. 63. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 51 
 
 am." ^ Now, you will observe that there is no 
 question here of ethical or moral sonship, such as 
 Jew and Christian alike attribute to God s faith- 
 ful servants and saints. It was no crime in a Jew 
 to call himself '* Son of the Blessed God," by ser- 
 vice, grace, adoption. Every true Israelite would 
 glory in such a sonship. And Caiaphas sought 
 to entangle Jesus in the confession of a crime. 
 It was natural sonship, involving identity of 
 Divine nature, about which Caiaphas questioned 
 Him ; for that claim was a legal crime, and 
 worthy of death, in Jewish law. And so, when 
 Christ's answer had been given, "the High 
 Priest rent his garments, saying : He hath blas- 
 phemed ; what further need have we of witnesses ? 
 Behold, now you have heard the blasphemy ; 
 what think you ? But they answering said : He 
 is guilty of death." They did not think it blas- 
 phemy that He should call Himself Son of God, 
 because of some mere ethical relationship. They 
 judged it blasphemy, and condemned Him to a 
 blasphemer's death, because they knew He 
 claimed a literal Divinity. "We have a law," 
 they said, when they carried Him before Pilate, 
 "and, according to the law, He ought to die, be- 
 ^Mark xiv. 61. 
 
 A ♦ 
 
52 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 cause He made Himself the Son of God." ^ Is it 
 not clear, then, that, in these last and most solemn 
 moments of His mortal life, Christ claimed, and 
 was understood to claim, and was condemned to 
 death because He claimed, to be literally and 
 truly God ? 
 
 Here, then, again, we have most convincing 
 proof of what we may reverently call the Divine 
 self-assertiveness of Christ. He declares in ex- 
 press and unambiguous terms that He existed 
 prior to this earthly life ; that He has come down 
 from Heaven, and will return whither He has 
 come ; that He and the Father are one in power, 
 operation, nature ; that they come into, and dwell 
 together in, the souls of those who love Him ; 
 that He Himself is very God, and will die rather 
 than abate His claim. Impossible to deny or to 
 explain away the significance of this language of 
 Christ. Directly and indirectly, literally and by 
 metaphor, by implication and expressly, persist- 
 ently, almost continuously. He claims to be God 
 Himself. 
 
 And if the claim be false, what is He ? We 
 must face the issue, though the Christian soul will 
 shudder at the thought. We may face it, since 
 
 1 John XIX. 7. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 53 
 
 the whole object of these considerations is to 
 prove that the claim is true. If Christ be not 
 God, then He is an impostor ; and, if an im- 
 postor, then either knave or fool. There is no 
 escape from the dilemma : God or an impostor ; 
 and an impostor the maddest or the most criminal 
 whom the world has ever seen. And, since our 
 own whole being, and the conscience of civilized 
 mankind revolt from this latter judgment, a judg- 
 ment on the human character of Christ ; since 
 the Gospel story is utterly irreconcilable with a 
 theory of madness or of fraud ; since the world, 
 through all these centuries, has ever looked on 
 Christ as the most perfect pattern of our race ; 
 and, since wisdom and moderation and unselfish- 
 ness and truth shine out from every page of the 
 records of His life, we have no alternative but to 
 admit the claim, and to confess that Christ is 
 very God. 
 
 And the second of our arguments, with which 
 we may deal much more briefly, confirms this 
 conclusion to which we have been led ; while, 
 even by itself, it will probably appear convincing. 
 On several occasions during Christ's public life 
 His countrymen appealed to Him for miraculous 
 proof of the claim He put forward for Himself 
 
54 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 and for His teaching : " Then some of the 
 Scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying : 
 Master, we would see a sign from Thee ". 
 And again, *' There came to Him the Scribes 
 and Sadducees tempting ; and they asked Him 
 to show them a sign from heaven".^ And, 
 further, " They said to Him : What sign, there- 
 fore, dost Thou show, that we may see, and may 
 believe Thee ? What dost Thou work ? " ^ 
 And when He had driven forth the money- 
 changers from the Temple : ** The Jews, there- 
 fore, answered and said to Him : What sign 
 dost Thou show unto us, seeing Thou dost these 
 things "/ Now, it would seem to have been a 
 fixed principle, in the exercise of Christ's powers, 
 that He would work no wonder for purposes of 
 self-defence or self-exaltation. We are not sur- 
 prised, therefore, that He refused compliance 
 with the request, all the more because He knew 
 and had declared how vain such proofs would be. 
 **Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Beth- 
 saida," He says of two of the cities in which His 
 miracles of mercy had taken place, ** for if in Tyre 
 and Sidon had been wrought the mighty works 
 
 ^ Matt. XII. 38. ' Ibid.^ xvi. i. ^ John xi. 30. 
 
 ^Ibid,, II. 18. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 55 
 
 that have been wrought in you, they would have 
 done penance long ago, sitting in sackcloth and 
 in ashes. "^ But He bade them look forward to 
 a wonder which was to come, and which, when 
 it came, would justify all His claims and teaching. 
 At first He speaks obscurely : "Jesus answered, 
 and said to them — Destroy this temple, and in 
 three days I will raise it up ". ^ Later He speaks 
 more clearly, as for instance : ** An evil and 
 adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and 
 a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas 
 the Prophet".^ To Peter, James, and John, as 
 they came down from the Mountain of the Trans- 
 figuration, He says : " Tell the vision to no man, 
 till the Son of Man be risen from the dead ".* 
 And, most clearly of all, to His disciples, before 
 His triumphal entry into Jerusalem : " Behold, 
 we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man 
 shall be betrayed to the Chief Priests and the 
 Scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, 
 and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to be 
 mocked, and scourged, and crucified ; and the 
 third day He shall rise again ".^ He Himself, 
 therefore, appoints His Resurrection, on the third 
 
 1 Matt. XI. 21. 2 John 11. 19. ^ Matt. xn. 39. 
 
 * Ibid.^ XVII. 9. ^Ibid., xx. 18. 
 
56 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 day after death, as the test by which His claims 
 are to stand or fall. And they stand unshaken ; 
 for, on the third day, He did rise from the dead. 
 
 I am not concerned here to prove the evi- 
 dential value of miracles, or to show that in 
 Christ's Resurrection from the dead, if He did 
 rise, we have a genuine and astounding miracle. 
 I shall assume both propositions. No serious 
 thinker, indeed, of any school of thought disputes 
 either in our day ; and not even one will be found 
 among the disciples of the Higher Criticism to 
 admit the reality of the Resurrection of Christ and 
 to deny that admission of His Divinity follows 
 necessarily upon it. Nor is there any need to 
 argue that miracles are possible ; if Christ be 
 truly risen from the dead there is an end of argu- 
 ment upon the abstract question. The only con- 
 troversy which is of present interest to us is 
 concerned with the single fact : Was Christ's 
 promise and prophecy fulfilled in truth ? Did 
 He rise again after death ? Rationalistic critics 
 deny the fact ; Christians universally affirm it. 
 
 That the New Testament writings assert it in 
 the most unmistakable language is beyond all 
 doubt. Each one of the Gospels gives a detailed 
 account of its occurrence. It becomes the very 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 57 
 
 foundation of St. Peter's and St. Paul's preaching, 
 as described in the Acts of the Apostles. The 
 latter, indeed, in his first Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians makes the whole structure of Christianity- 
 depend on the literal fulfilment of Christ's prom- 
 ise. ** If Christ be not risen again," he tells 
 them, '* then is our preaching vain and your faith 
 is also vain. Yea, and we are found false wit- 
 nesses of God, because we have given testimony 
 against God, that He hath raised up Christ." ^ 
 It is clear that the Apostles believed Christ was 
 risen, that they themselves had seen Him fre- 
 quently, conversed with Him, touched Him, 
 eaten and drunk with Him, Mary and other wo- 
 men, who sought H is body in the garden, believed 
 that they had met Him, spoken with Him, wor- 
 shipped Him. The disciples, on the way to 
 Emmaus, walked with Him, listened to His dis- 
 course, recognized Him in the breaking of bread. 
 " Then He was seen by more than 500 brethren 
 at once, of whom many remain until this present 
 and some are fallen asleep,"^ as St. Paul writes 
 to the Corinthians. ''And, last of all. He was 
 seen also by me," St. Paul says, ** as by one born 
 out of due time." ^ 
 
 ii Cor. XV. 14. 2 Ibid,, 6. 3 7^/^,^ g. 
 
58 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Now assuming, what we have already proved, 
 the truthfulness of the New Testament writers 
 and the early date of their writings, what escape 
 is there from the conclusion that Christ rose 
 physically, in the body which had died and been 
 buried, from the dead ? Among rationalistic 
 theories there are only two which I need mention, 
 the only ones to which, even at first sight, any 
 semblance of probability could attach : the vision 
 theory, in which desire and expectation lead up 
 to imaginary appearances ; and the swoon theory, 
 in which Christ is supposed to have fainted upon 
 the Cross, not really to have died at all. But 
 neither theory will bear serious examination. 
 Not the former ; for the disciples, assuredly, had 
 no hope of a resurrection ; they even refused at 
 first to believe it had occurred. So little did they 
 expect to see the Christ that repeatedly they 
 failed to recognize Him. Sane men do not talk 
 with visions, walk with them, eat with them, 
 handle them. Two, a dozen, five hundred do 
 not see the same imaginary vision at the same 
 time. Nor does a vision roll away a great stone 
 from the entrance to a tomb, or remove a dead 
 body, and leave the tomb empty. Not the latter 
 or swoon theory ; for every one of those con- 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 59 
 
 cerned in Christ's Passion was persuaded of His 
 death — the Centurion, the soldiers, Pilate, His 
 enemies and His friends. So too were Joseph 
 and Nicodemus, who embalmed the body, and 
 the Jews, who set a guard over it. And, if we 
 suppose Christ to have swooned upon the Cross, 
 to have been laid unconscious in the tomb, are 
 we to believe that, on coming to, unaided. He 
 rolled away the great stone, and escaped the 
 soldier guard, and wandered about the garden of 
 the sepulchre ? Then, in the early afternoon of 
 the same day, this Man, extenuated by the 
 agony, the scourging, the way of the Cross, with 
 pierced hands and feet and side, after long hours 
 of torture on the uplifted wood, journeys on foot 
 to Emmaus and back to Jerusalem again ? And 
 He enters into the supper-room through closed 
 doors ; and He appears and disappears at will ; 
 and after forty days He ascends into Heaven ! 
 And He is an impostor all the while, Who de- 
 ceives His disciples, and sends them forth, or 
 permits them go forth, to preach a lie, as the 
 foundation of a religion of holiness. 
 
 We may, therefore, indeed we are compelled 
 to, accept Christ's Resurrection as a fact of 
 history. And if Christ be risen from the dead, 
 
6o THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 then Christ is God, and the argument we based 
 upon His character and claims finds its comple- 
 ment and corroboration in the ** sign " which He 
 Himself appointed. 
 
 Christ, then, is God : and His history proves 
 to us that God exists — whatever may be the value 
 of philosophic demonstrations. Christ is God ; 
 and, so, all His teachings and promises and insti- 
 tutions are Divine. One of these Divine institu- 
 tions we shall next proceed to study : the 
 organized Society or Church which He estab- 
 lished. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 In our last Lecture, we sought to prove the Di- 
 vinity of Christ, from the claims which He Him- 
 self put forward and from His Resurrection — 
 the Divine vindication of Himself and of His 
 work. We collected from the New Testament 
 writings, not from isolated passages which might 
 be made the subject of controversy, but from the 
 whole trend and context of the Gospels, con- 
 vincing evidence that He claimed deliberately 
 and persistently, throughout the course of His 
 three years' public ministry, to be more than man. 
 And then we argued that a man of His intel- 
 lectual powers and moral qualities, not fool, not 
 knave, not enthusiast, could never seriously 
 advance a claim, and one of such transcendent 
 greatness, unless it were a true one. Other men 
 put forward claims, and we may feel free, even 
 bound, to reject them. But, when we do reject 
 
 6i 
 
62 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 them, it Is on the ground that those who make 
 them are endeavouring consciously to impose on 
 us, or are themselves imposed upon. We attri- 
 bute to them some moral or mental failing, a 
 failing greater or less, in proportion to the magni- 
 tude of the claim, which they press upon us. 
 But the whole recorded history of Christ's life, 
 its general tenour and its individual details, 
 negatives the idea that consciously or uncon- 
 sciously he was party to a fraud. There is no 
 indication in the New Testament of any mental 
 weakness or restless enthusiasm in Christ ; there 
 is no trace of insincerity or self-seeking. On the 
 contrary, there is abounding proof of lofty intel- 
 ligence and calm strength of will ; there is con- 
 vincing testimony to His humility, unselfishness, 
 and truth. Besides, the concordant voice of 
 civilized mankind proclaims Christ to be the 
 most perfect type and pattern of our race, a man 
 the wisest, the most virtuous, most straightfor- 
 ward, that the world has ever seen, the most 
 unlikely to be the victim or the author of the 
 most stupendous and most wicked deception in 
 all human history. And so we drew the neces- 
 sary inference that His claim was warranted, that 
 He was more than man, was very God Himself. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 63 
 
 Then, we reflected further that the claim was 
 tested and was vindicated by His resurrection 
 from the dead. When challenged, during life, 
 to justify His extraordinary pretensions. He 
 had repeatedly, and with a growing clearness, 
 referred His questioners to the incidents of His 
 coming death, and above all to His resurrection 
 on the third day. The whole city of Jerusalem 
 was aware of the prophecy ; the chief priests and 
 the Pharisees discussed it with Pilate ; and 
 to prevent its apparent fulfilment by fraud, *' they 
 made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and 
 setting guards".* But, on the third day, the 
 tomb was empty, and Christ again appeared 
 amongst His disciples and friends, eating, drink- 
 ing, walking, discoursing with them, as He had 
 done before ; inviting them even to examine 
 closely, to see and touch. His risen body, so that 
 there should be no doubt of its reality. And, 
 assuming the good faith of Christ Himself and of 
 the New Testament writers, we were satisfied 
 that Christ did really rise from the dead, and ap- 
 pear to the Disciples. For we cannot doubt that 
 Christ died : the swoon theory involves too 
 many and too grave absurdities. We cannot 
 
 ^ Matt. XXVII. 66. 
 
64 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 doubt that it was Christ Himself, in His human 
 body, whom the Disciples saw, spoke with, and 
 touched ; the theory of visions is an impossible 
 alternative. But, if Christ rose physically from 
 the dead, as He had foretold, then we are com- 
 pelled, on this ground also, to admit His claim, 
 and to confess that He was more than man, was 
 true God as well. 
 
 Now, so much being admitted, it follows that 
 all Christ's teachings, His precepts. His institu- 
 tions are Divine. They rest on the authority of 
 God. What Christ teaches we must believe, 
 because it is God Who teaches it ; where Christ 
 commands we must obey, for it is God com- 
 mands ; what Christ has instituted for us we 
 must accept, because it is God who urges its ac- 
 ceptance on us. If He established a society, 
 that society was Divine ; if He entrusted to it a 
 body of doctrines to be taught, those doctrines 
 were Divine ; if He appointed in it definite 
 means of sanctification and salvation, those also 
 were Divine ; if He bestowed upon it a constitu- 
 tion and authority, constitution and authority 
 were equally Divine. But did He establish a 
 society to preserve and propagate His teachings, 
 to minister special means of sanctification, to live 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 65 
 
 and work within a constitution and with an 
 authority which He Himself defined ? 
 
 Christ, as we have seen, is God incarnate. 
 *' When the fulness of time was come," St. Paul 
 writes to the Galatians,^ "God sent His Son, 
 made of a woman, made under the law." And 
 he adds the reason : ** That He might redeem 
 them who were under the law ; that we might 
 receive the adoption of sons ". We are not, of 
 course, so presumptuous as to think that we know 
 the whole purpose of God in the Incarnation. 
 We know only what He Himself has con- 
 descended to make known to us : enough to fill 
 our hearts with wonder and gratitude for His ex- 
 ceeding mercy, and to make us see how little 
 able we are to fathom the mysteries of His pro- 
 vidence. But some part of His purpose He has 
 declared to us : ** She shall bring forth a Son," 
 the angel says of God's Blessed Mother, '* and 
 thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save 
 His people from their sins".^ "The Son of 
 Man is come," Christ Himself says to Zacheus, 
 " to seek and to save that which was lost " ; ^ and 
 in another place to His Apostles : " The Son of 
 Man is not come to be ministered unto, but to 
 
 ^Gal. IV. 4. 2 Luke i. 31. ^ Ibid., xix. 10. 
 
 5 
 
66 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 minister and to give His life a redemption for 
 many ".^ And, again, in St. John: ''God so 
 loved the world as to give His only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not 
 perish, but may have life everlasting ".^ And, 
 in that wonderful sixth chapter of the same 
 Gospel : ** The bread of God is that which 
 Cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life to 
 the world. ... I am the bread of life " ; ^ and, once 
 again, in a later chapter : ** I am come that they 
 may have life and may have it more abun- 
 dantly ".^ Or read the two first chapters of St. 
 Paul to the Ephesians, where he sums up all the 
 spiritual blessings that have come to us through 
 Christ, and tells us that none has come to us from 
 any other source whatever. Briefly, the purpose 
 of the Incarnation, as made known to us in the 
 New Testament, is that men "may have life" 
 through the passion and death of Christ, and 
 *'may have it more abundantly," through His 
 example. His teaching and the sacred channels 
 of grace which He established. He came to 
 save and to sanctify mankind. 
 
 And, to do this the more effectually, He 
 
 ^Matt. XX. 28. 2 John ni. 15. 
 
 ^/did.f VI. 33. */did.f X. 10. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 67 
 
 founded a kingdom. He might, indeed, have 
 worked out partly His purpose in men's souls 
 without drawing them together by any closer 
 bond than their acceptance of Him as a teacher, 
 and their profession of the more important doc- 
 trines which He taught. But He was far more 
 than a teacher. There have been others also, 
 who taught a lofty morality, who discoursed 
 wisely and eloquently on the existence and attri- 
 butes of God, and on man's relation towards 
 Him. Four centuries before Our Lord's coming, 
 Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle had done as 
 much. And they gathered disciples around 
 them, and impressed their opinions upon them ; 
 and these disciples were united together by 
 common doctrines, and by their admiration and 
 love for the teacher from whom they had received 
 them ; and they endeavoured, in their turn, to 
 gain adherents for their views and feelings. But 
 it has been well remarked that movements of the 
 kind resulted at best in philosophic schools, in 
 merely accidental groupings of disciples, not 
 organized into a society, not fitted for persistent 
 life, not even planned or built up by the teacher 
 himself Such a teacher drew men about him, 
 for there was no other way in which they could 
 
 5* 
 
68 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 learn, or learn so readily, what he taught ; and 
 intimacies sprang up, and enthusiasms were 
 aroused, and perhaps a distinctive name was 
 adopted, such as the Academy or the Porch. 
 But there was no close bond of fellowship be- 
 tween the members ; there was no common 
 principle of authority, no interchange of service 
 between part and part, no definite direction to- 
 wards common objects. They were only schools 
 of thought. Their immediate aim was the ac- 
 quisition of truth ; and if at all, it was only by an 
 appeal to reason they could hope to influence 
 conduct. 
 
 Christ, on the other hand, is not the founder 
 of a school. He did, indeed, teach, and teach 
 in such wise that His very enemies were com- 
 pelled to say : ** Never did man speak like this 
 Man ".^ But He did a great deal more. No- 
 thing is more remarkable in His history than 
 His persistently avowed intention to found a 
 kingdom. God had had His kingdom upon 
 earth in the days of the Jewish theocracy. It 
 was only national, or nearly so ; it lay chiefly in 
 externals ; and, long before Christ came, it had 
 passed away. Christ was to restore it, fairer 
 
 ^ John VII. 46. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 6g 
 
 and more perfect. "Thou shalt bring forth a 
 Son," the angel had announced to Mary, His 
 Mother, "and the Lord God shall give unto 
 Him the throne of David, His father, and He 
 shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And 
 of His kingdom there shall be no end."^ The 
 teaching of His predecessor, the Baptist, may be 
 summed up in the warning: "Do penance for 
 the Kingdom of heaven is at hand".^ And, 
 "after that John was delivered up," St. Mark 
 tells us, "Jesus Himself came into Galilee, 
 preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, 
 and saying the time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom 
 of God is at hand ".^ And St. Matthew adds : 
 "He went about all Galilee, teaching in their 
 synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the 
 Kingdom ".* Later, when sending forth the 
 twelve on their first apostolic mission. His 
 command was : " Go and preach, saying the 
 Kingdom of heaven is at hand" ;^ and He fore- 
 told : " These good tidings of the Kingdom shall 
 be preached throughout the whole world, for a 
 testimony unto all the nations".* When the 
 people of Capharnaum "stayed Him that He 
 
 ^Luke I. 32. 2 Matt. in. 2. ^Mark i. 15. 
 
 *Matt. IV. 23. '^ Ih'd., X. 7. ^ Ibid.^ xxiv. 14. 
 
70 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 should not depart from them," He said: '* To 
 other cities also I must preach the Kingdom of 
 God ; for therefore am I sent "/ To one of 
 His disciples, Peter, after the Confession of 
 Cesarea Philippi, He promised supreme authority 
 in the Kingdom : " And I will give to thee the 
 keys of the Kingdom of heaven".^ But I need 
 not accumulate quotations : so persistently and 
 so publicly did He declare His design that, 
 when the chief priests and scribes carried Him 
 before Pilate, they opened their accusations 
 against Him with the words : *' We found this 
 man perverting our nation . . . and saying that 
 He Himself is Christ, a King".^ ''Art Thou a 
 King then ? " Pilate asks Him ; and Christ 
 admits and emphasizes the charge : ** Thou 
 sayest that I am a King" — the equivalent in 
 Hebrew idiom of an earnest *' I am ". So ** the 
 soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on 
 His head, and arrayed Him in a purple garment : 
 and they came unto Him, and they said : Hail, 
 King of the Jews ".* " And Pilate wrote a title, 
 also, to put it on the Cross, and there was written, 
 Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."^ 
 
 ^Luke IV. 43. 2 Matt. xvi. 19. ^Luke xxiii. 2. 
 ^Johnxix. 2. ^ Ibid.y ig. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 71 
 
 Now, what was the nature of this Kingdom 
 over which Christ claimed to be the King? 
 The Jews generally, both the people and their 
 rulers, understood it to be an earthly common- 
 wealth, which should restore the glories of David 
 and of Solomon, and give them freedom from 
 the Roman yoke. Therefore, they cried out, 
 when Pilate would dismiss Christ : "If thou 
 release this man thou art not Caesar's friend ; for 
 whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh 
 against Caesar ".^ Even the disciples themselves 
 at first shared the same belief. They contended 
 one with the other who should hold first place in 
 it. The mother of the sons of Zebedee be- 
 seeches Christ : " Say that these my two sons 
 may sit, the one on Thy right hand and the 
 other on Thy left in Thy kingdom".^ And, 
 after His very death and resurrection, their 
 thoughts are still fixed upon a temporal state. 
 "Lord," they ask of Him, "wilt Thou, at this 
 time, restore again the Kingdom to Israel ? " ' 
 But such a kingdom, it is clear. Our Lord had 
 never thought of founding ; or, if He had thought 
 of it at all, it was only to reject it. The very 
 titles which He constantly employs, " Kingdom 
 
 ^John XIX. 12. ^Matt. xx. 21. ^ Acts i. 6. 
 
72 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 of heaven," ** Kingdom of God," show con- 
 clusively how unearthly His kingdom was to be. 
 During the course of His public life He put 
 aside repeatedly the suggestion that He should 
 assume or exercise temporal authority. When 
 He *' knew that they were about to come and 
 take Him by force, to make Him King, He fled 
 again," St. John tells us, ** into the mountain 
 Himself alone ".^ He refused, even when ap- 
 pealed to, to act the part of civil arbitrator or 
 judge : '' Man," He replies to one of the brothers 
 who were at variance, *' who hath appointed Me 
 judge or divider over you ? " ^ He would not 
 be entrapped into a condemnation of the tribute 
 which the Romans had imposed ; He even paid 
 it for Himself. He would allow no recourse to 
 arms, even in His own defence. And so He 
 assured Pilate : ** My Kingdom is not of this 
 world. If My Kingdom were of this world, 
 then would My servants fight that I should not 
 be delivered to the Jews ; but now My Kingdom 
 is not from hence." ^ Indeed, nothing is more 
 certain from the story of the Gospels than that 
 His countrymen delivered Him to the Romans 
 and clamoured for His death, because, while 
 
 ijohn VI. 15. 2 Luke xii. 14. ^ John xviii. 36. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 73 
 
 claiming to be a King, and announcing His 
 determination to found a Kingdom, He utterly 
 repudiated the material, temporal ideals to which 
 His countrymen still clung. 
 
 He was resolved, then, to establish a Kingdom, 
 though not after the pattern of earthly King- 
 doms, not one which should own territory, and 
 issue coinage, and wage war, and defend the 
 sovereign by the weapons of force. His King- 
 dom was to be spiritual. 
 
 But it was also to be upon earth. Though 
 "of God," "of Heaven," it is not to be in 
 Heaven ; or if it be, it is only to be perfected 
 and consummated there. Though not "of the 
 world," it is to be in this world ; men and women 
 are to be already citizens of it, while here ; it is 
 to exist alongside the kingdoms of the earth, 
 commingled with them, composed of the same 
 members who constitute them. "The time is 
 accomplished, and the Kingdom of God is at 
 hand,"^ Our Lord declares, at the very opening 
 of His public life, where the reference cannot, 
 surely, be understood to a Kingdom beyond the 
 grave. And when He sent the seventy-two 
 Disciples " into every city and place whither He 
 
 iMark i. 15. 
 
U THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Himself was to come, He said to them . . . say 
 . . . the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto 
 you ".-^ And, on another occasion : " I tell you of 
 a truth : There are some standing here who 
 shall not taste death, till they see the Kingdom 
 of God ".^ And to the Pharisees, who had asked 
 Him : ** When the Kingdom of God should 
 come," He answered them and said: "The 
 Kingdom cometh not with observation. Neither 
 shall they say : Behold here or behold there. 
 For lo, the Kingdom of God is within you." ^ So 
 that St. Paul could write to the Colossians : 
 " Giving thanks to God the Father Who hath 
 . . . delivered us from the power of darkness, 
 and hath translated us into the Kingdom of the 
 Son of His love".* No wonder the Apostles 
 looked for a kingdom to be established in their 
 own day, and visible to their earthly eyes : " Lord, 
 wilt Thou at this time restore the Kingdom ? " 
 they ask of Him, as we have seen, even after the 
 forty days during which He had ** appeared to 
 them, speaking of the Kingdom of God ".^ 
 
 But it may be objected that, in all these pas- 
 sages, and in the many others in which Our Lord 
 
 ^ Luke X. 9. 2 Mark viii. 39. ^ Luke 3?:vn. 21. 
 
 *Coloss. I. 13. ^ Acts I. 3. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 75 
 
 discourses on the Kingdom, He is referring to 
 His Empire over men's minds and hearts, to the 
 new tone and temper of soul which His teaching 
 and example are to create among His followers. 
 It is to be, as He Himself says, and as we have 
 already quoted Him, " within " men ; it is to come 
 noiselessly and *'not with observation" ; it is to 
 be maintained by spiritual, not carnal weapons. 
 Why, are we to think of it, or are we to think 
 of it, as an external, visible organization ? The 
 answer is at once obvious and undoubted : unlike 
 the kingdoms of earth, Christ's kingdom here is 
 at the same time visible and invisible. He de- 
 sires to rule not merely, not mainly, over men's 
 bodies and external acts. He wishes to govern 
 through conscience, and to reach men's souls — 
 their minds, and hearts, and wills. He declares 
 the spirit of the Kingdom in that marvellous ex- 
 position of the highest moral and religious life — 
 the Sermon on the Mount, which contrasts so 
 sharply the external observances of the Mosaic 
 law with the new dispensation of holiness in mo- 
 tive, thought, desire, conformity of will. But, while 
 this is so, and while in this sense the Kingdom 
 is in the souls of men, it is equally certain that it 
 is also external. The very name of ** Kingdom," 
 
;6 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 when used of and among men, implies a visible 
 organization. So also do the names " city," 
 "shepherd," ''family," and others, under which 
 Our Lord describes His kingdom In the parables. 
 And, further, confession of Him ''before men" 
 is the condition of His confessing His followers 
 before His Father who is in heaven. This public 
 confession will cause them to be " brought before 
 kings and rulers " and to be " reviled and perse- 
 cuted," for His name's sake. They are to be ini- 
 tiated into the kingdom by an outward, visible 
 Baptismal rite. They are to make oral profession 
 of the same religious creed. They are to meet 
 together to share in a common Eucharistic meal. 
 They are placed under the guidance and govern- 
 ment of a body of visible teachers and rulers, 
 especially selected and prepared by Christ, to whom 
 He says, when giving them their commission : 
 " He that recelveth you receiveth Me,"^ and "As 
 the Father hath sent Me so I also send you ".^ 
 These men, so invested with authority, form the 
 first believers everywhere into visible communi- 
 ties to which they appoint laws of faith, conduct, 
 and religious worship. These communities are 
 knit together in belief and charity ; and are sub- 
 
 ^Matt. X. 40. 2joijn xx. 21. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 77 
 
 ject to the same disciplinary precepts, drawn up 
 and imposed on all by the first Council in Jerusa- 
 lem. Does not all this signify plainly that the 
 Kingdom, while spiritual in object, means, and 
 motives, was to be also visible as an outward 
 visible organization ? 
 
 And it was to be universal. Unlike the Jewish 
 theocracy, and unlike every other kingdom es- 
 tablished before or since, it was not to be nar- 
 rowed down to any place or people. Men every- 
 where were invited to become citizens. "To 
 what shall we liken the Kingdom of heaven ? " 
 Our Lord asks the mukitude, as He taught them 
 from the ship by the shore of Genesareth, "or to 
 what parable shall we compare it ? It is a grain 
 of mustard seed ; which when it is sown in the 
 earth, is less than all the seeds that are in the 
 earth. And when it is sown, it groweth up, and 
 becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth 
 out great branches, so that the birds of the air 
 may dwell under the shadow thereof."^ And so 
 He foretells that "repentance and remission of 
 sins shall be preached in His name unto all 
 nations, beginning at Jerusalem," ' and He says 
 to the Apostles : ** You shall receive the power 
 
 1 Mark iv. 30. 2 Luke xxiv. 47. 
 
7S THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you 
 shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and 
 all Judea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost 
 parts of the earth ".^ And He gives them an 
 express command: *'Go ye, therefore, into the 
 whole world, and preach the Gospel unto every 
 creature ". " But they going forth," St. Mark 
 adds, "preached everywhere";^ and St. Paul 
 writes of them to the Romans : '* Yes, verily, 
 their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, 
 and their words unto the ends of the whole 
 world" ;^ and again to the Colossians : "of the 
 truth of the Gospel, which is come unto you, as 
 also it is in the whole world, and bringeth forth 
 fruit and groweth ".* But, indeed, the universal- 
 ity of the Kingdom is a necessary consequence of 
 its foundation for the redemptive and sanctifying 
 work of Christ. Christ had come, we have seen, 
 to redeem and sanctify mankind ; and no human 
 being was excluded from His mercy. "He was 
 the true light," as St. John says, " which enlighten- 
 eth every man that cometh into this world. " ^ God 
 " spared not even His own Son," St. Paul tells 
 the Romans, " but delivered Him up for us all ".^ 
 
 1 Acts I. 8. 2 Mark xvi. 20. » Rom. x. 18. 
 
 * Col. I. 5. * John I. 9. ^ Rom. viti. 32. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 79 
 
 And, again, he writes to the Corinthians : "If 
 one died for all, then, all were dead ; and Christ 
 died for all".^ But it is through citizenship of 
 the Kingdom that men are to be saved, that the 
 fruits of the Redemption are to be bestowed upon 
 them ; and so the Kingdom, in the Divine plan, 
 was to be co-extensive with the needs of men, 
 and with the distribution of Christ's benefits 
 among them. 
 
 It was also to be independent. It was not to 
 be an earthly Kingdom ; still less a department 
 or function of any civil State. Its founder was 
 God Himself; its objects were defined by Him ; 
 the bonds uniting all its members were fixed by 
 Him ; the officers who should rule over it were 
 of His own appointment ; the limits of their 
 authority, the principles of their government. He 
 Himself laid down. It was the Apostles, not 
 temporal princes, whom He sent to preach, and 
 to baptize ; it was only to the Apostles He gave 
 power to forgive sin and to reproduce the 
 Eucharist ; it was only the Apostles who received 
 authority to say : "It hath seemed good to the 
 Holy Ghost and to us to lay no further burden 
 upon you than these necessary things".^ Nor 
 
 1 2 Cor. V. 14. 2^cts XV. 38. 
 
8o THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 did He call kings or princes into consultation ; 
 or even hint to His Apostles that, in the fulfil- 
 ment of their mission, they were to wait on any- 
 secular approval or consent. And so much we 
 might have looked for. If the Kingdom is a 
 spiritual one, if it comes into being for the saving 
 and the sanctifying of men's souls, if the faith it 
 teaches, the means of salvation it employs, are 
 superhuman and supernatural, then we should 
 not expect it to be left dependent, for its action 
 and its very existence, on any earthly power. 
 And its universality precludes such dependence. 
 If the Kingdom is to be a world-wide society, 
 with a common faith, and common religious rites, 
 and common government, it can neither be 
 identified with nor subject to any local state. 
 And that, all the less, if, as Christ warned His 
 Apostles, when preparing them to carry out His 
 plan, they were sure to meet with opposition 
 from the great ones of the world. "If they have 
 persecuted Me, so will they persecute you,"^ 
 He tells them ; and ** They will deliver you up 
 in Councils, and they will scourge you in their 
 synagogues ; and you shall be brought before 
 governors and before kings for My sake, for a 
 
 ^ John XV. 20, 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 8i 
 
 testimony to them and to the Gentiles. . . . 
 
 The disciple is not above the master, nor the 
 
 servant above his lord."^ There was no civil 
 
 authority on the earth, when Our Lord was 
 
 laying the foundation of His kingdom, from which 
 
 He might look for favour or support, or even 
 
 toleration. Is it, therefore, likely He would give 
 
 civil authorities the right to frustrate His Divine 
 
 plan ? His Apostles had scarcely entered on the 
 
 work for which He had prepared them when 
 
 *' the priests and the officers of the temple and 
 
 the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved 
 
 that they taught the people . . . and they laid 
 
 hands upon them and put them in hold till the 
 
 next day. . . . And it came to pass, on the 
 
 morrow, that their princes and ancients and 
 
 scribes were gathered together . . . and setting 
 
 them in the midst they asked : By what power, 
 
 or by what name, have you done this? . . . 
 
 And they conferred among themselves, saying : 
 
 What shall we do to these men ? . . . And, 
 
 calling them, they charged them not to speak at 
 
 all nor teach in the name of Jesus " '^ ; and when 
 
 " Peter and the Apostles answering, said : We 
 
 must obey God rather than men . . . they were 
 
 ^Matt. X. 17. 2 Acts IV. I. 
 6 
 
82 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 cut to the heart, and they thought to put them to 
 death ".^ This was the temper of the kingdoms 
 of the world towards the new Kingdom of Christ, 
 the temper which showed itself in the martyr- 
 doms of Peter and Paul and of others of the 
 Apostles, and in the ' persecutions of the early 
 Church. No wonder that the exercise of apostolic 
 powers should not be made dependent on the 
 temporal state. 
 
 Christ, then, designed to establish a kingdom 
 upon earth, a kingdom which should be spiritual 
 in its objects and in the means of attaining them, 
 yet visible in the living men and women who are 
 members of it, and in the bonds by which they 
 are united ; universal, too, in its extension to 
 every country and to every race ; and self-con- 
 tained, by the possession of all the authority which 
 is needed to work out its purpose, without hind- 
 rance or interference from any earthly power. 
 But did He execute His design? Let the 
 New Testament writings answer. We read there 
 how He Himself, by His doctrines and His pre- 
 cepts, framed, as it were, its constitution and 
 promulgated its laws ; how, preaching through 
 Galilee and Judea, He collected adherents for 
 
 1 Acts V. 29. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 83 
 
 it ; how He prepared and provided for its de- 
 velopment and organization. For He selected, 
 we are told, a chosen few from among the larger 
 number of His disciples ; and during a period 
 estimated generally at about three years, He kept 
 them habitually near His own person, and taught 
 and trained them with an especial care. " He 
 appointed twelve," St. Mark says, "that they 
 might be with Him and that He might send them 
 forth to preach. " ^ The fullness and clearness of 
 their instruction He Himself declared, when He 
 says to them : ** To you it is given to know the 
 mystery of the Kingdom of God ; but to them 
 that are without all things are done in parables ".^ 
 They could question Him as they willed. They 
 had His example always before their eyes. And, 
 at the close of His public life. He could say to 
 them, as St. John relates : " All things whatsoever 
 I have heard from My Father I have made 
 known to you"." Then He sent them forth, at 
 first into the Jewish villages and towns ; later, 
 into the whole world : " Go ye into the whole 
 world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, 
 baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
 the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them 
 
 ^Mark in. 14. '^ Ibid., iv. u. 'John xv. 15. 
 6* 
 
84 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
 manded you"/ To authorize their mission, 
 "He gave them power to heal sickness and to 
 cast out devils ".^ He even promised that " signs 
 shall follow them that believe ; in My name they 
 shall cast out devils ; they shall speak with new 
 tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if 
 they shall drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt 
 them ; they shall lay their hands upon the sick, 
 and the sick shall recover ' .^ And He declared 
 in the most emphatic terms the grave obligation, 
 imposed upon all to whom opportunity was given, 
 of listening to and accepting "the Gospel of the 
 Kingdom ". " Into what city soever you enter, 
 and they receive you," He tells them, "... heal 
 the sick that are therein, and say to them the 
 Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But 
 into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive 
 you not, going forth into the streets thereof say : 
 Even the very dust of your city that cleaveth to 
 us we wipe off against you. Yet know this that 
 the Kingdom of God is at hand. I say to you it 
 shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom 
 than for that city. . . . He that heareth you 
 heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth 
 
 1 John XXVIII. 19. * Mark in. 15. ^ Ibid., xvi. 17. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 85 
 
 Me."^ Later, when about to ascend from them, 
 and when He was entrusting to them their world- 
 wide mission : " Preach the Gospel to every 
 creature," He added to it the solemn sanction : 
 "He that belie veth and is baptized shall be 
 saved ; but he that believeth not shall be con- 
 demned ".^ But they were not to preach only ; 
 they were to govern as well. ** As the Father 
 hath sent Me, so I also send you," ^ He says 
 to them ; and we would seem justified in under- 
 standing the commission not merely of objects 
 which are identical, but also of similar authority 
 and powers. More clearly still, in that passage 
 from St. Matthew, which we have already 
 quoted : ** Whatsoever you shall bind on earth 
 shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever 
 you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in 
 heaven" ;* where He appears to except nothing 
 from the authority which He confers on them. 
 Again, after describing how, by personal persua- 
 sion and admonition, they should strive to gain 
 an erring brother's soul, He goes on to say that, 
 if all else fail, they must invoke the Church : 
 " If he will not hear . . . tell the Church ; and if 
 
 1 Luke X. 8. ^^ Matt. xvi. 16. 
 
 2 John XX. 21. *Matt. xviii. 18. 
 
86 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 he will not hear the Church " — will not obey its 
 God-given authority — ** then let him be to thee 
 as the heathen and the publican ".^ Last of all, 
 after His resurrection, when "He showed Him- 
 self again to the disciples at the Sea of Ti- 
 berias,"^ and claimed from St. Peter the triple 
 confession of love. He commanded. He seemed 
 to adjure, him, after each confession, to "feed" 
 — to teach, that is, and govern — His lambs and 
 sheep. Hence it was that St. Paul could say to 
 the elders or presbyters of Ephesus and Miletus : 
 " Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, 
 wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you 
 Bishops, to rule the Church of God ".' Hence, 
 he writes to the Corinthians, and lays down for 
 them a series of ritual and moral laws, concluding 
 with the words : " The rest I will set in order, 
 when I come ".* And, again, in a second letter 
 to them, after various warnings and exhortations : 
 ** Therefore," he says to them, " I write these 
 things being absent, that being present I may not 
 deal more sternly, according to the authority 
 which the Lord hath given me for . building 
 up".^ And the writer of the Epistle to the 
 
 ^Matt. xvin. 17. ^j^jm xxj j^ ^^^ts xx. 28. 
 * I Cor. XI. 24. 5 jj Qor^ 3^111, jp; 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 87 
 
 Hebrews : "Obey your prelates and be subject 
 to them ; for they watch, as being to render an 
 account of your souls ".^ Indeed, the Acts of the 
 Apostles and the Apostolic Letters present us with 
 repeated instances of a like nature, instances in 
 which the Apostles, collectively, as in the 
 Council of Jerusalem, or individually, as must 
 have been generally the case, drew up and pro- 
 mulgated for the acceptance of the faithful, not 
 merely doctrinal and moral teachings, but disci- 
 plinary enactments, which the faithful were bound 
 and were expected to obey. 
 
 And, lastly, he sent the Apostles, not to preach 
 and to govern only ; they were also authorized 
 and commissioned to administer religious rites. 
 They were to preach the Gospel, and then admit 
 believers into the Church by the Sacramental 
 ceremony of Baptism. They were to exhort to 
 penance, and then absolve or loose the penitent 
 from the bonds of sin. They were to imitate 
 Christ, Who at the Last Supper, " taking bread, 
 gave thanks and brake, and gave to them, say- 
 ing : This is My Body, which is broken for you. 
 Do this for a commemoration of Me."^ I 
 would not, of course, be taken to mean that 
 
 ^Heb. XIII. 17. ^Luke xxii. 19. 
 
88 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 they received no other Sacramental powers : 
 the laying on of hands, for instance, so often 
 referred to in the Acts of the Apostles, is evi- 
 dence to the contrary. But I have preferred 
 examples which lie as it were on the surface of 
 the Gospels, and are not open to serious contro- 
 versy among those who believe in the Divinity 
 of Christ. 
 
 The Apostles, therefore, in continuation of 
 Christ's own mission upon earth were to teach 
 all men what Christ had taught themselves. 
 They were to govern with His Divine authority 
 all those who listened to their message, and ac- 
 cepted the doctrines which they preached. They 
 were to initiate believers into the Christian com- 
 munity by the sacred rite of Baptism, purify 
 them, on repentance, from whatever sins they 
 might commit, and strengthen and sanctify them 
 by the Eucharist. This was the work which 
 Christ gave them to do ; it was for this He pre- 
 pared and trained them. This was to build on 
 the foundations which He had laid ; to give 
 visible substance and shape to His Divine plan. 
 And with what success did they labour ? On the 
 day of Pentecost, after Peter's first discourse in 
 Jerusalem, ** they that received his word were 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 89 
 
 baptized, and there were added . . . about 
 three thousand souls ".^ Some days later, after 
 the miracle on the lame man at the Temple gate, 
 ** many of them, who had heard the Word, be- 
 lieved ; and the number of the men was made 
 five thousand".'* A little later still, ** the multi- 
 tude of men and women who believed in the 
 Lord was more increased".^ ** Behold you have 
 filled Jerusalem with your doctrine," the High 
 Priest says to *' Peter and the Apostles,"* when 
 they were dragged before the Council . And about 
 the same time, ** The word of the Lord increased, 
 and the number of the disciples was multiplied 
 in Jerusalem exceedingly : a great multitude also 
 of the priests obeyed the faith"/ Philip goes 
 down to the City of Samaria, and '' the people 
 with one accord were attentive to those things 
 which were said by Philip, hearing and seeing 
 the miracles which he did. . . . But when they 
 had believed Philip preaching of the Kingdom 
 of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, they were 
 baptized, both men and women." ^ Some 
 of those who were "dispersed by the persecution 
 that arose on occasion of Stephen . . . when 
 
 ^ Acts II. 41. ^ Ibid,^ IV. 4. ^ Ibid., v. 14. 
 ^ Ibid., V. 28. ^ Ibid., vi. 7. ^ Ibid., viii. 6. 
 
90 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 they were entered into Antioch, spoke also to 
 the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus. And 
 the hand of the Lord was with them ; and a great 
 number believing was converted to the Lord. 
 And the tidings came to the ears of the Church 
 that was at Jerusalem . . . and they sent Barna- 
 bas as far as Antioch . . . and a great multitude 
 was added to the Lord".^ Paul and Barnabas 
 came to Iconium in Lycaonia, and** they entered 
 together into the synagogue of the Jews, and 
 they so spoke that a very great multitude both of 
 the Jews and of the Greeks did believe".' In 
 Thessalonica, ** where there was a synagogue of 
 the Jews, Paul, according to his custom, went in 
 unto them, and for three Sabbath days he 
 reasoned with them out of the Scriptures . . . 
 and some of them believed, and were associated 
 to Paul and Silas ; and of these that served God 
 and of the Gentiles a great multitude ; and of 
 noble women not a few ".^ But why multiply 
 quotations ? Those already made are concerned 
 with Peter and John, Paul and Barnabas, alone ; 
 they describe only a few incidents in their activity. 
 Meanwhile the other Apostles are at work else- 
 where, and, with such results, that St. Paul in 
 
 ^Acts XI. 19. "^ Ibid,, XIV. I. ^ Ibid,, xvii. 4. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 91 
 
 writing to the Romans, within about twenty-five 
 years of Our Lord's death, is able to say to them : 
 " I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ 
 for you all, because your faith is spoken of in the 
 whole world ".^ And so it grew, the grain of 
 mustard seed which the Lord had taken and 
 "sowed in His field ; and it grew and became a 
 great tree, so that the birds of the air came and 
 dwelt in the branches thereof".'^ Surely, we 
 have in all this the foundation of a kingdom. 
 Christ Himself proclaims His design to found one. 
 By His doctrines and precepts He promulgates 
 its constitution. In His missionary journeys He 
 gains adherents for it. By His Apostles He 
 carries on and extends His teaching, He pro- 
 vides for the administration of His laws. He se- 
 cures the dispensation of His Sacraments. He 
 gathers together a multitude of subjects under 
 His own and the Apostles' authority. Have we 
 not here all the elements of an organized society, 
 such as we see in the kingdoms of the world 
 around us — a multitude of persons, drawn to- 
 gether for a common purpose, bound together by 
 common interests and methods, guided and 
 moved by a common authority and government ? 
 
 iRom. I. 8. 2^att. xiii. 31. 
 
92 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Are we not justified in saying that Christ Him- 
 self, by His own labours, and by the labours of 
 His Apostles, the workers whom He had trained, 
 did found and build up for Himself a kingdom 
 upon earth? And this kingdom we call the 
 Christian Church — a title He bestowed on it 
 Himself, when He said to one of His Apostles : 
 ** Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jona . . . Thou 
 art Peter ; and upon this rock I will build My 
 Church "/ 
 
 The Christian Church, therefore, is a Divine 
 institution. It is not a voluntary association, 
 which the first believers, or those who im- 
 mediately succeeded them, were left at liberty to 
 form, and did form, for purposes of mutual sym- 
 pathy and assistance. So far as we can gather 
 Christ's mind and plan, from His recorded 
 words and acts, He was no less resolved to 
 establish an organized society than He was to 
 save and sanctify individual souls ; souls, indeed, 
 were to be saved and sanctified through their 
 membership of the society. The society, no 
 doubt, was instituted for the members ; but 
 membership, as we shall see, was made binding 
 by Him on all the followers of Christ. 
 
 iMatt. XVI. 1 8. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 93 
 
 We have seen, then, that the Church was 
 conceived and established by God Himself; for 
 Christ was very God. It may be of interest 
 now to consider, for a moment, how far the 
 conception and foundation of the Church will 
 serve as an argument for the Divinity of Christ. 
 It is, I think, conclusive. For let us suppose 
 Christ to be merely man ; and what are the facts 
 we are called onto explain? He is a Galilean 
 villager, from an obscure little town, of which it 
 is proverbially said : ** Can there any good thing 
 come out of Nazareth ? "^ He is poor, illiterate, 
 un travelled. He has not frequented any schools 
 of learning, has not had correspondence with 
 great thinkers or opportunity to read their works, 
 has not associated with persons of refined man- 
 ners and gentle blood. He has no acquaint- 
 ance with the philosophies of Greece or Rome. 
 He has, probably, never even heard the names 
 of the leaders of thought or literature in con- 
 temporary centres of civilization. He has hith- 
 erto spent His life in commonplace manual 
 labour, in the midst of a village community, poor, 
 for the most part, and illiterate as Himself. And 
 suddenly, without preparation, He leaves the 
 
 ^ John I. 46. 
 
94 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 workman's shop, with its uncultured surround- 
 ings, and appears before the world as a great 
 religious and moral teacher — admittedly the 
 greatest whom the world has ever seen. He 
 puts forward a scheme of religious belief and a 
 theory of moral conduct more sublime, more 
 harmonious, more fitted to upraise and ennoble 
 mankind than anything which the wisest phil- 
 osophy has ever dreamed of He announces 
 His intention of establishing a world-wide 
 spiritual kingdom — an idea utterly foreign to 
 the mind both of Gentile and of Jew ; and He 
 promulgates at once its constitution, its laws, its 
 government. His intention. His plan itself, 
 undergo no revision, are subjected to no ex- 
 periment. They are already complete when He 
 first makes them known. And His design is so 
 perfect, the means He adopts to realize it so 
 fitted for the purpose, that, contrary to all human 
 likelihood and expectation. He achieves the 
 success which He had predicted. And I am 
 not now arguing from the success which He 
 achieved, but from the scheme which He so 
 confidently set before the world for its acceptance. 
 Accepted by the wc^-ld or rejected, it could never 
 have been even conceived by the peasant artisan 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 95 
 
 of Nazareth, had He been man only. Its very 
 conception, the design which He announced, is 
 conclusive proof of His Divinity. 
 
 We shall pass on to consider next some 
 characteristics of the kingdom or Church which 
 Christ established. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 CHURCH: IMPERISHABLE, ONE, OBLIGA- 
 TORY. 
 
 We have seen that the New Testament writings, 
 especially the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and 
 greater Epistles of St. Paul, are historical docu- 
 ments of the highest value, for whose authenticity 
 and accuracy we have the fullest critical guaran- 
 tees. When we study in these writings the life 
 and character of Jesus Christ, we are led inevit- 
 ably to the conclusion that Christ is God ; and 
 that consequently His teaching, His promises, 
 and His institutions are Divine. The Christian 
 Church, therefore, is Divine ; for it was designed 
 and established by Christ Our Lord. It had 
 been foretold, at His Conception, that, *' The 
 Lord God shall give Him the throne of David, 
 His father . . . and of His Kingdom there shall 
 be no end".^ The Precursor had come, preach- 
 
 ^Luke I. 32. 
 96 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 97 
 
 ing **The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand".^ 
 He began His own public ministry by announc- 
 ing the advent of the Kingdom. He selected 
 Apostles, and trained them, and sent them forth 
 to preach the Kingdom. His declared intention 
 of founding a Kingdom was the main charge al- 
 leged against Him by the Jews, when they 
 coerced Pilate to condemn Him. And, far from 
 denying the accusation. He admitted and em- 
 phasized it, was put to death because of it, and 
 had it fastened to the Cross above His head, as 
 though to explain and justify the sentence passed 
 upon Him. But His Kingdom was not to be 
 of this world. It was, indeed, to be in the world ; 
 and its citizens were to be at the same time 
 citizens of temporal states. And it was to be 
 visible, not only as composed of men and women, 
 but as held together by the external profession 
 of the same faith, by external communion in the 
 same religious rites and ceremonies, and by 
 obedience to the same visible authority. He 
 Himself, even after He had ascended from the 
 eyes of men, was to remain always the one 
 supreme Governor of the Kingdom. Its objects, 
 its methods, the means which it employed, the 
 
 ^ Matt. III. 2. 
 7 
 
98 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 motives it appealed to, were to be all primarily 
 spiritual. And, because spiritual, it was to be 
 universal. It was to be co-extensive with 
 Christ's work of Redemption and sanctification. 
 All men, everywhere, were to be called into the 
 Kingdom. And therefore it could be subject, 
 as of right, to no earthly State. Christ's mission, 
 Christ's work for souls, was not to be dependent 
 on this world's rulers. 
 
 We have seen, too, that Christ's design was 
 carried into execution. The Apostles whom 
 He trained, to whom He made known His plan, 
 whom He sent forth to realize it, did achieve His 
 purpose. In spite of the utter improbability of 
 the scheme itself, in spite of their own natural 
 unsuitability for the work, in spite of the earnest 
 opposition of Gentile and of Jew, they built up, 
 within twenty-five years of Christ's death, just 
 such a spiritual organization as Christ had marked 
 out for them ; a widely extended society, number- 
 ing many thousands of devoted adherents, scat- 
 tered throughout the Empire and beyond its 
 limits, all united in one common faith, common 
 religious privileges and worship, common law of 
 discipline, promulgated or prescribed for them 
 by the College of Apostles, And this Divine 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 99 
 
 society we call, after its Divine founder, the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 We now go on to consider its more important 
 characteristics. 
 
 And, first, Christ willed it to be imperishable : 
 He willed it to endure on earth so long as there 
 are souls of men on earth to be saved and sanc- 
 tified. We might infer so much from its very 
 foundation, even had not Christ expressly de- 
 clared it. It must seem in the highest degree 
 improbable that an institution designed by Him 
 for the salvation of mankind should ever perish 
 wholly from the earth, while there are souls upon 
 it to be saved. God became incarnate in Christ 
 for love of souls ; He trained and sent forth the 
 Apostles, and laid the foundations of the Church, 
 to carry on His work for souls. That work has 
 to be done until the end of time. Is it likely He 
 should desire or even suffer the total destruction 
 of a scheme which He had Himself drawn out 
 so admirably, and set up so laboriously, for the 
 objects He had in view ? He might, indeed, 
 have established an institution which should serve 
 a merely temporary purpose, and then pass 
 away, as the Jewish Dispensation passed, making 
 
 room for something different and more perfect. 
 
 7» 
 
100 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 But the burden of proof lies with those who 
 suggest the theory ; and there is no indication of 
 any such intention in the records of H is life. Nor 
 is there any reason for supposing that a revealed 
 religion must be subject to continuous change and 
 evolution. We understand readily enough that 
 the Incarnation should mark the beginning of 
 a new era in religious beliefs and religious 
 organization. If God comes down to earth and 
 lives, a man amongst men, to regenerate mankind, 
 we should expect Him to teach religion and 
 moral truth more fully than it had been ever 
 taught before, to provide new and more effica- 
 cious means of sanctification, to arrange for per- 
 petuating His doctrines, and for the continued 
 distribution of His graces. And, unless warned 
 to the contrary, we should probably look upon 
 His work as final ; we should not expect any 
 change of essential plan, still less a complete 
 failure. We should be prepared for develop- 
 ments in harmony with the original design, for a 
 better understanding of old truths, for fresh 
 inferences from revealed doctrines, for the con- 
 demnation of new errors, and for the modi- 
 fication of mere disciplinary laws in accordance 
 with changing social conditions. But we should 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS loi 
 
 scarcely expect any new revelation to the Church 
 at large, or any vital change in the means of 
 sanctification, or a new form of government. We 
 cannot, however, argue conclusively from what 
 Our Lord's intention might have been, or even 
 from what we should naturally conjecture it to be. 
 What God has in fact appointed we can only know 
 with certainty from what He Himself has chosen 
 to tell us ; and so we turn to the New Testament 
 records for a clear manifestation of His will. And 
 we find it there, beyond all reasonable doubt. 
 You remember Christ's parable of the cockle — of 
 the weed pushing up among the good wheat, and 
 of the owner's order to his servants : " Suffer 
 both to grow until the harvest"?^ "Having 
 sent away the multitude He came into the house," 
 St. Matthew continues, "and His disciples came 
 to Him saying : Expound to us the parable of 
 the cockle of the field. Who made answer and 
 said to them : He that soweth the good seed is 
 the Son of Man. And the field is the world. 
 And the good seed are the children of the King- 
 dom. And the cockle are the children of the 
 wicked one. . . . But the harvest is the end of the 
 world. ... At the end of the world the Son of 
 ^ Matt. xni. 30. 
 
102 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Man shall send His angels, and they shall gather 
 out of His Kingdom all scandals and them that 
 work iniquity." ^ The Kingdom, therefore, which 
 Christ preached, the Church which He established, 
 is to remain until the end of the world. And 
 again, Christ tells them : " The Kingdom of 
 Heaven is like unto a net cast into the sea, and 
 gathering together of all kind of fishes ... so 
 shall it be at the end of the world : the angels 
 shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from 
 among the just ". ^ The Kingdom is, therefore, 
 to endure until the end of the world comes. 
 There is question in both parables, on Our 
 Lord's own showing, of a Kingdom in this 
 present world ; of a visible Kingdom not con- 
 stituted by the men and women only who in- 
 visibly are God's ; and of a Kingdom which is to 
 last, one and the same, until Christ comes to 
 judge us. And consider His promise to St. 
 Peter, in return for the confession of His 
 Divinity : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 
 I will build My Church ".^ You will recollect a 
 striking picture, which Christ drew, earlier in His 
 public life, of a **wise man that built his house 
 upon a rock, and the rain fell, and the floods 
 1 Matt. xni. 36. '^ Ibid.^ 47. ^ Ibid,^ xvi. 18. 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 103 
 
 came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon 
 that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on 
 a rock ".^ He would almost seem to have the 
 picture in mind when addressing Peter, and to 
 promise stability and perpetuity to His Church 
 by the very form of words in which He describes 
 its approaching foundation. But He goes on to 
 add, in even plainer language : *' Upon this rock 
 I will build My Church, and the gates of hell " — 
 death, that is, or all the power of her enemies — 
 ** shall not prevail against her ". And they could 
 not, it is clear, prevail more triumphantly against 
 her than by compassing her destruction utterly, 
 or — what is practically the same thing — by intro- 
 ducing any substantial change into the consti- 
 tution of the Church, as Christ established it. 
 Again, when He sent out the Apostles to build 
 up the Kingdom by preaching to every creature. 
 He encouraged them with the promise : '* Be- 
 hold, I am with you all days, even to the con- 
 summation of the world ".^ In what sense He 
 would be with them we need not seek to 
 determine here. It is enough for our present 
 purpose to note His solemn assurance that He 
 would be with His Apostles until "the con- 
 1 Matt. VII. 24. 2 Ibid.^ xxviii. 20. 
 
104 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 summation of the world " : with those individual 
 men, therefore, whom He was then sending 
 forth, and not less with their successors, who 
 should carry on and develop the work to which 
 He sent them. And hence the Apostles went 
 out upon their mission, and laboured in it, with- 
 out any thought that their success could be at 
 best of only a temporary character, that the 
 Church would perish or become transformed, be- 
 fore the end of all things came. On the contrary, 
 they formed believers into organized communi- 
 ties, which were linked together by a common 
 Faith, the same sacred rites, and one supreme 
 government ; and they made provision for the 
 indefinite continuance of their work. There are, 
 no doubt, passages in their writings which may 
 seem to imply that they expected the **parousia," 
 or second coming, of the Saviour, at no very 
 distant date. But their care to organize the 
 infant Church on an enduring basis would 
 suggest a different interpretation of the texts ; 
 and in any case they were clearly of opinion that 
 until Christ did come again the Church should 
 not cease to exist. St. Paul, in his first letter to 
 the Corinthians, when he had impressed on them 
 the truth of Christ's resurrection, and the hope 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 105 
 
 we build on it, goes on to add : ** By a man 
 came death, and by a man the resurrection of the 
 dead. . . . Thencometh the end, when He shall 
 deliver up the Kingdom to God and the Father, 
 when He shall have brought to naught all princi- 
 pality, and power, and virtue. For He must 
 reign. "^ And, again, in his letter to the 
 Ephesians, where he sets before them the Church 
 under his favourite figure of Christ's body, he 
 tells them how "He gave some Apostles and 
 some Prophets and some Evangelists, and other 
 some pastors and doctors for the perfecting of 
 the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the 
 building up of the body of Christ, until we all 
 meet into the unity of faith and of the knowledge 
 of the Son of God . . . unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fullness of Christ".^ The Church, 
 therefore, with her apostles, prophets, pastors, 
 and teachers, will continue to exist and to carry 
 on the work of the ministry, while there are 
 saints to be perfected, and men to be guided into 
 the knowledge and the stature of the fullness 
 of Christ. But there is no need to dwell further 
 on the point. All men of whatever school of 
 religious thought, if they admit that Christ estab- 
 ^ I Cor. XV. 24. ^Eph. IV. 11. 
 
io6 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 lished a visible society, admit also that He gave 
 to it a promise of permanence until the end of 
 time. 
 
 His Church, then, is imperishable, is to last, 
 that is, without any substantial change, until Christ 
 Himself comes again. 
 
 It must be also one. Christ did not plan, 
 neither did He and His Apostles establish, a plu- 
 rality of religious societies, each independent of, 
 perhaps conflicting with, the others. He called 
 all men, and He sent His Apostles to call them, 
 into one single organization, the members of which 
 were to be closely joined together in one faith, 
 one worship, the same Sacraments, one form and 
 system of government. ** Going, therefore, teach 
 ye all nations ; baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; 
 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
 have commanded you." ^ "He that believeth and 
 is baptized shall be saved. "^ The Apostles are 
 to teach everywhere one and the same body of 
 Divine truths, revealed to them by Christ, and by 
 His Holy Spirit. They are to make known 
 everywhere one and the same body of Divine 
 laws ; they are to receive into the Kingdom, 
 ^Matt. xvm. 19. ^Markxvi. 16. 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 107 
 
 by the same Divinely appointed rite of Baptism, 
 all who profess their willingness to believe and to 
 obey ; they are to break unto all the same 
 Eucharistic bread ; they are to exercise towards 
 all the Divine power of loosing and of binding ; 
 they are to feed and rule over all the lambs 
 and sheep. There would seem to be all the 
 elements of a single social body here, of a social 
 body one in number and organically one. Again, 
 the Church is almost always spoken of by Our 
 Lord as " the Kingdom " ; and scarcely any other 
 metaphor could have been chosen by Him more 
 suited to express the twofold oneness we attribute 
 to it. It is not a federation of independent States ; 
 it is not composed of loosely compacted parts. 
 A similar idea is presented to us by the other 
 titles which He gives it : "a city," " a household," 
 "a sheepfold," "a flock," "a people"; by the 
 parables of the "field," the "net," the ** grain of 
 mustard seed " ; and most clearly by Our Lord's 
 own declaration to the Jews : " Other sheep I 
 have that are not of this fold ; them also I must 
 bring ; and they shall hear My voice, and there 
 shall be one fold and one shepherd".^ Where 
 you will note that there is not question of a 
 ^John X. 16. 
 
io8 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 mere wish or hope, put forward however earnestly 
 by Christ, nor of a mere precept enjoined by Him 
 on His followers, but of a prediction and a pro- 
 mise, which of necessity carry fulfilment with 
 them. Indeed, as Our Lord Himself argued on 
 another occasion, and in reference to " the King- 
 dom " : ** Every Kingdom divided against itself 
 shall be made desolate, and every city or house 
 divided against itself shall not stand ".^ And 
 hence His phrase to St. Peter : *' Upon this rock 
 I will build My Church . . . and I will give to 
 thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven ".^ ** My 
 Church," ** My Kingdom," is to be one and to be 
 placed under one visible authority or ruler. This, 
 too, is the conception of the Church which the 
 Apostles received from Christ Our Lord. We find 
 them everywhere establishing local Churches — in 
 Rome, in Corinth, at Ephesus, Colossa, Thessa- 
 lonica, and many other places. But they had no 
 thought of founding independent congregations. 
 The members of each local Church communicated 
 not only with each other, but also with the mem- 
 bers of all other local Churches, as opportunity 
 arose. Antioch sent alms by Paul and Barnabas 
 to the Church of Jerusalem ; so did the Churches 
 iMatt. xn. 25. '^Ibid., xvi. 18. 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 109 
 
 of Macedonia, of Corinth, and Galatia. From 
 Antioch, too, it was " determined that Paul and 
 Barnabas and certain others . . . should go up to 
 the apostles and priests of Jerusalem about the 
 question " of subjecting the Gentiles to the Mosaic 
 law.^ St. Paul is accompanied to Troas by 
 "Sopater, the son of Pyrrhus of Berea, and of 
 the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus ; 
 and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy ; and of Asia, 
 Tychicus and Trophimus ; " ^ and, on the first day 
 of the week, they all assembled together "to 
 break bread ". Paul, again, in his letter to the 
 Romans commends to them ** Phebe our sister, 
 who is a servant of the Church that is in Cenchrese ; 
 that you receive her in the Lord, as becometh 
 saints, and that you assist her in whatever business 
 she shall have need of you".^ And, after various 
 personal salutations, he adds : *' All the Churches 
 of Christ salute you ". " To the Church of God 
 that is at Corinth," he writes : " The Churches of 
 Asia salute you ; Aquila and Priscilla salute you 
 much in the Lord, with the Church that is in their 
 house. . . . All the brethren salute you."* And 
 he informs us, in his second letter to the same 
 
 1 Acts XV. 2. '^ Ihid,, XX. 4. 
 
 *Rom. XVI. I. * I Cor. xvi. 19. 
 
no THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Corinthians, that it was quite usual for the Chris- 
 tians of that day, when journeying from place to 
 place, to carry with them commendatory letters 
 from their own to other Churches. These first 
 Christian communities, then, looked on themselves 
 as parts of one great whole, bound together 
 by belief, religious practice, common authority. 
 They already formed one widespread carefully 
 organized society. Nor, indeed, could it well be 
 otherwise, if they had any regard for apostolic 
 teaching. The duty of charity, of mutual love, we 
 should, of course, expect the Apostles to preach : 
 it was to be the distinctive mark of true disciples. 
 And, when fulfilled, it would lead necessarily to 
 that union among believers, which Our Lord 
 desired for them so ardently, and prayed for so 
 earnestly : " I pray for them (the Apostles). . . . 
 And not for them only do I pray, but for them 
 also who through their word shall believe in Me, 
 that they may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, 
 and I in Thee ; that' they also may be one in Us. " ^ 
 But the Apostles taught union also of another 
 kind, the union which draws together the citizens 
 of a social state. " I beseech you, brethren, by 
 the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that you will 
 ^ John XVII. 20. 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS in 
 
 speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms 
 among you," St. Paul writes to the Corinthians.^ 
 And to the Romans : ** Now, I beseech you, 
 brethren, to mark them who cause divisions and 
 offences, contrary to the doctrine which you have 
 learned, and to avoid them ; for they that are such 
 serve not Christ Our Lord ".^ So all-important 
 is the duty of union and peace within the 
 Churches, and still more, therefore, within the 
 Church universal, and so grievous the sin of any 
 who would disturb it, that such disturbers are to 
 be shunned, cut off, that is, from the communion 
 of the faithful. Hence, in nearly all his letters, 
 notably in those to the Corinthians, to the 
 Ephesians, and to the Philippians, St. Paul urges 
 this union so earnestly on his converts : " I, 
 therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you, 
 that you walk worthy of the vocation in which 
 you are called. . . . Careful to keep the unity of 
 the spirit in the bond of peace. One body and 
 one spirit : as you are called in one hope of your 
 calling. One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one 
 God and Father of all. " ^ And more clearly again, 
 in his Epistle to the Romans, where he introduces 
 ^ I Cor. I. lo. 'Rom. xvi. 17. 
 
 3 Eph. IV. I. 
 
112 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 the metaphor, which he employs so often to ex- 
 press the oneness and the organic unity of Christ's 
 Church: **As in one body," he says, **we have 
 many members, but all the members have not the 
 same office, so we being many are one body in 
 Christ and every one members one of another "/ 
 He is speaking here undoubtedly, not of any 
 local Church, but of the whole multitude of 
 Christian believers ; and he tells us of them that, 
 however many they may be, they can form only 
 one body, and must be knit together, each with 
 the other, in one living whole. He had already 
 declared it more in detail in his first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, where he says to them : ** As the 
 body is one and hath many members, and all the 
 members of the body, whereas they are many, 
 yet are one body : so is Christ. For in one spirit 
 were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews 
 or Gentiles, whether bond or free ; and in one 
 spirit have we all been made to drink. . . . Now 
 you are the body of Christ, and severally members 
 thereof."^ And, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, 
 where he exhorts husbands to love their wives, he 
 bases his argument on the relation of Christ to- 
 wards the Church : ** For the husband is the head 
 iRom. XII. 4. 2 1 Cor. xii. 12. 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 113 
 
 of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the Church, 
 being Himself saviour of His body ".^ Or, as he 
 puts it in another passage of the same Epistle : 
 " The God of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . raising 
 Him up from the dead . . . hath subjected all 
 things under His feet, and hath made Him head 
 over all the Church, which is His body, and the 
 fullness of Him, which is filled all in all ".^ The 
 constant teaching of St. Paul, then, is that Christ 
 at the Father's '' right hand in the heavenly 
 places"^ is still head of the visible Church on 
 earth, that the Church is the one mystical body 
 of Christ, that all the members of it are to be 
 united, each with the other, and all with the 
 whole body, as the hand and eye and ear and 
 foot are with each other and with the living body 
 of a man. Could St. Paul express more strik- 
 ingly the essential oneness and organic unity of 
 the Christian Church ? 
 
 We have it, therefore, on the Divine authority, 
 made known to us in the words and acts of 
 Christ, and in the testimony of His apostles and 
 disciples, that a Society was established by Him 
 upon earth, and called by Him His Church ; 
 
 ^ Eph. V. 23. ^ Ibid,^ I. 17. 
 
 ^ Ibid.f 20. 
 
 8 
 
114 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 that He willed and promised it should neither 
 perish wholly nor undergo essential change, until 
 He Himself comes again to earth in judgment ; 
 and that the Divine Society can be only one 
 throughout the world, all the parts being built to- 
 gether into one body, in faith, in ritual, and in 
 government. There exists, consequently, in the 
 world to-day a visible society which is the one 
 true Church of Christ ; and all men are bound, 
 opportunity offering, to become members of it. 
 
 That membership of Christ's Church must be 
 a blessing, no one, I think, who admits the 
 existence of the Church, will be disposed to 
 deny. To know the doctrines which Christ 
 taught, to share in the graces of a sacramental 
 system which He instituted, to live under the 
 authoritative guidance of religious rulers whom 
 He Himself appointed : these, in themselves, 
 are very excellent privileges, and the source of 
 many other spiritual benefits as well. But are 
 men morally obliged to avail themselves of 
 them ? This is a question, as is evident, of vital 
 importance, which must raise very grave issues 
 in human life. To answer it is the purpose of 
 our further consideration to-day. 
 
 The characteristic doctrine which distinguishes 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 115 
 
 the religion of the Gospel from heathenism and 
 Judaism, which at once arrested the attention of 
 both Gentile and Jew, to whom Christ and His 
 Apostles preached, which sobered the thought- 
 less and changed the hearts of the sinful, which 
 has created in great part the peculiar atmosphere 
 and temper of Christian life and of Christian 
 history, is the immortality of the human soul. 
 " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," 
 had been the wisdom of the heathen. ** That 
 thy days may be long in the land which the Lord 
 thy God will give thee," was the main incentive 
 to virtue for the Jews. " To-morrow we die," 
 Christ also and H is Apostles taught ; but they 
 added : *'and after that, the Judgment". Death 
 is only change, a passing over from the occupa- 
 tions and pleasures and sufferings of this visible 
 world to the realities of eternity. And it is to 
 prepare for those realities, to predetermine our 
 part in them, that we are living here. So much 
 God incarnate, by Himself and by His Apostles, 
 has made clearly known to us. Now it cannot 
 seriously be doubted that we are bound to make 
 that preparation, to take all wise and reasonable 
 precautions to secure happiness in eternity. If 
 
 self-preservation be not merely an instinct of 
 
 8* 
 
ii6 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 nature, but a moral law, if man may not misuse 
 grossly or recklessly cast away, the material and 
 spiritual gifts which God has bestowed upon him, 
 and which fit him for personal and social happi- 
 ness, if he is even bound, within reasonable 
 limits, to preserve and develop them, surely we 
 are obliged to guard against the loss of the 
 higher life which should follow upon death, and 
 against the perversion or destruction of the gifts 
 and faculties, through which alone that higher 
 life is possible ? And, surely we are obliged to 
 adopt the means at once easiest and most secure 
 to attain that object ? Membership of the Church 
 of Christ is just that means. Unswerving faith 
 in the Christian revelation, obedience to a Di- 
 vinely given moral law, approach to Divinely 
 instituted religious rites through which grace is 
 offered ; submission to a Divinely appointed 
 guiding authority : it is plain that these consti- 
 tute an easy and effective means by which to 
 attain salvation ; and these are the links which 
 bind men to the Christian Church, and bind 
 them, within it, to one another. On this ground, 
 then, of personal need and personal advantage, 
 there would seem to be a natural obligation to 
 seek membership of the Church of Christ. 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 117 
 
 But, consider, further, the object of Christ's 
 coming, and of His life on earth. He came, as 
 He told the Pharisees, that men "may have life, 
 and may have it more abundantly ".^ He might 
 have redeemed the world by any deliberate act 
 of His human will, above all by His sufferings 
 and by His death. But it was not enough for 
 His mercy and love that man's sin should be 
 blotted out ; He desired to provide plentiful 
 means of salvation and sanctification, " until the 
 consummation of the world ". And so He spent 
 some thirty years of hidden labour, and then 
 three years of painful public ministry, teaching, 
 gathering adherents, training Apostles, founding 
 and establishing a Church, which should perpetu- 
 ate His Divine Mission, and be His chosen in- 
 strument for its accomplishment until the end of 
 time. And consider, too, the marvellous zeal 
 and continuous efforts of the Apostles, in build- 
 ing up and extending, as their Master had 
 instructed them, the Church of Christ. Think of 
 the journeyings, the toil, the privations, the 
 danger and the sufferings they underwent. " For 
 I think," St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, 
 " that God hath sent forth us, the Apostles, last 
 ^ John X. 10. 
 
ii8 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 of all, as it were men appointed to death ; for we 
 are made a spectacle to angels and to men. We 
 are fools for Christ's sake. . . . Even unto this 
 hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and 
 are buffeted, and have no fixed abode. . . . We 
 are reviled ... we are persecuted ... we are 
 blasphemed ... we are made as the refuse of 
 this world, the offscouring of all things, even 
 until now."^ And, ''they rejoiced exceedingly 
 that they were accounted worthy to suffer re- 
 proach for the Name " ^ and work of Christ. " I 
 rejoice in my sufferings for you," St. Paul writes 
 to the Colossians, "and fill up those things that 
 are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my 
 flesh, for His body, which is the Church." ^ Now, 
 is it not clear, from considerations such as these, 
 that Christ's Church is the Divinely appointed 
 means for men's salvation ? I do not wish to 
 argue, at this moment, that men may not find 
 salvation beyond her pale. I would only invite 
 you to reflect how very admirably the Church has 
 been adapted by her Founder for the realization 
 of His sublime purpose ; at what a cost He 
 founded her and built her up ; how persever- 
 ingly and self-sacrificingly, " in much patience, in 
 
 ^ I Cor. IV. 9. 2^(,ts V, ^i. 8(;;;oi^ , 2^, 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 119 
 
 tribulation, in necessities ... as sorrowful, yet 
 always rejoicing," ^ the Apostles carried forward 
 Christ's Divinely planned, work ; and then to say 
 if we are not fully justified in our inference that 
 Christ Himself and His Apostles, who knew His 
 mind so intimately, regarded membership of His 
 Church as a supreme and vitally important factor 
 in the Christian life, as the Divinely appointed 
 way by which men are to attain salvation. For 
 Christ and His Apostles did not merely require 
 an unconditional acceptance of His teaching : 
 men were to believe ; but they were also to be 
 baptized. And baptism was not a mere isolated 
 rite, however significant and efficacious ; it was 
 a solemn initiation into an organized Society. 
 Men were called to follow Christ, not as single, 
 separate individualities, but as subjects of a world- 
 wide spiritual kingdom ; and the history of the 
 New Testament is a history of the design and 
 foundation and growth of that kingdom, through 
 which, and in which, men are to be saved. Can 
 we conceive that Christ and His Apostles should 
 be so greatly concerned to establish and per- 
 petuate an institution, and should labour so un- 
 weariedly to draw men into it, if they believed it 
 ^ 2 Cor. VI. 10. 
 
120 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 to be a help, indeed, but still a quite unneces- 
 sary help towards salvation ? Their words, their 
 works, their whole lives are convincing proof 
 of the supreme value which they attached to 
 membership of it. 
 
 And consider also the attitude adopted by 
 Christ's Apostles towards those who had been 
 members of the Church, but had gone out from 
 her, through heresy or schism. There were some 
 such in Galatia when St. Paul wrote to the 
 Churches there. ** There are some that trouble 
 you," he says, "and would pervert the Gospel of 
 Christ. But though we, or an angel from 
 heaven, preach unto you any gospel other than 
 we have preached to you, let him be anath- 
 ema."^ And the author of the letter to Titus, 
 which admittedly represents the mind and temper 
 of St. Paul : '' A man that is a heretic, after the 
 first and second admonition, avoid : knowing 
 that such a one is subverted and sinneth, be- 
 ing self-condemned ".^ And to Timothy : " This 
 charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, that 
 thou war the good warfare, holding faith and a 
 good conscience, which some, rejecting, have 
 
 ^Gal. 1. Q. 2 Tit. III. lo. 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 121 
 
 made shipwreck concerning the faith . . . whom 
 I have delivered up to Satan, that they may learn 
 not to blaspheme ".^ And even St John, the 
 Apostle of gentleness and love, is no whit behind 
 St. Paul in his vehement denunciation of such 
 wickedness. ** Whosoever revolteth," he writes 
 to the lady elect and her children, "and con- 
 tinueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not 
 God. . . . If any man come unto you, and bring 
 not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, 
 nor say to him God speed you. For he that 
 saith to him, God speed you, communicateth with 
 his wicked works." * The world has grown very 
 tolerant of religious error ; but such tolerance, 
 you see, had no part in the training and temper 
 of the Apostles. For what must we conclude 
 from such stern words as we have quoted, if not 
 that the Apostles and the Apostolic Church 
 esteemed apostacy to be a spiritual death, and 
 the apostate to be cut off, by his own act, not 
 only from the Communion of the Church on earth, 
 but also from the hope of happiness in heaven ? 
 And if men may not resign their membership of 
 Christ's Church without imperilling salvation, 
 
 1 1 Tim. I. 19. 2 2 John i. 19. 
 
122 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 can they, do you think, without danger of a like 
 result, reject that membership when it is offered 
 to them ? 
 
 But we are not left to draw inferences, how- 
 ever certain. Our Lord was pleased, when 
 establishing His Church, to declare in the most 
 explicit terms that all men are bound, under the 
 very gravest penalty, to enter into it. I shall 
 ask you to consider only two declarations which 
 He made to His Apostles : one, when sending 
 them to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom be- 
 fore His Passion ; the other, when laying His 
 last commands upon them, at His ascension into 
 heaven. " Go ye not," He said to them, on the 
 former occasion, " into the way of the Gentiles, 
 nor into the cities of the Samaritans, but go ye 
 rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; 
 and, going, preach, saying the Kingdom of 
 Heaven is at hand." Then, after explaining to 
 them the object and the methods of their Apostle- 
 ship, He continued : '* And whosoever shall not 
 receive you, nor hear your words, as ye go forth 
 out of that house or that city, shake off the dust 
 of your feet. Amen, I say unto you. It shall be 
 more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Go- 
 morrha in the day of judgment than for that 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 123 
 
 city."^ Here, then, our Lord states plainly that 
 whosoever will not receive His Apostles and 
 " hear " their message of the Kingdom, is deserv- 
 ing of a worse punishment than the people of 
 Sodom and Gomorrha. But to " hear," in the 
 language of the New Testament, is not merely 
 to listen to a message : it means, further, to ac- 
 cept it, to obey : " If he will not hear the 
 Church " ; " They have Moses and the Prophets, 
 let them hear them " ; " This is My Beloved 
 Son : hear ye Him ". To ** hear the words " of 
 the Apostles, then, is to accept and to obey their 
 teaching ; to accept and to obey their teaching 
 is to believe and to be baptized, to seek entrance 
 into the spiritual Kingdom, which they were com- 
 missioned to announce ; and whosoever cul- 
 pably fails to do so challenges a more intolerable 
 judgment, our Lord solemnly declares, than the 
 sinful Cities of the Plain. Could He express 
 more clearly and more emphatically the obligation 
 which He imposes of entering into His Church ? 
 Later, on the occasion which St. Mark describes 
 in the last chapter of His Gospel, where he tells 
 us of Christ's final interview with His Apostles, 
 before He was taken up into Heaven from them, 
 
 ^ Luke X. 10, 
 
124 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 ** Go ye into the whole world," He says to them, 
 **and preach the Gospel to every creature. He 
 that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved." ^ 
 Christ here lays down distinctly the conditions 
 of salvation. Men accept the Gospel message in 
 its integrity ; they assent to all the truths which 
 the Apostles are commissioned to proclaim ; they 
 are initiated by baptism into the Communion of 
 Christ's adherents, and so into membership of 
 His Church : if so, they ** shall be saved ". And 
 we might, I think, legitimately infer that it is 
 only on these conditions salvation can be se- 
 cured. We are not left, however, to draw the 
 inference. Our Lord goes on Himself to state 
 it briefly and emphatically : ** He that believeth 
 not shall be condemned ". It may be that the 
 text read originally, as the parallelism seems to 
 require, *' He that believeth not, or is not 
 baptized " ; but, in any case, Christ had before 
 made known the need of baptism in the words, 
 addressed to Nicodemus : *' Unless a man be 
 born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he 
 cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven".^ 
 Thus we have it once more, on Christ's own 
 authority, that, unless a man believes Christ's 
 ^ Mark xvi. 15. ^ jQ^n iii. 5. 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 125 
 
 Gospel, and enter, by Baptism, into Christ's 
 Church, he shall certainly be condemned. Or, 
 to set out the same truth in other words, we 
 know, from the unvarying and explicit teaching 
 of Christ and of His Apostles, that men may not, 
 without peril of salvation, refuse to believe 
 Christ's Gospel when it is duly preached to them ; 
 may not refuse the means of sanctification He 
 has instituted, when they are offered to them ; 
 may not refuse obedience to the spiritual author- 
 ity He has appointed, when its claims are brought 
 before them. And, since His Church on earth 
 consists of those who believe His Gospel, and 
 are partakers of His Sacraments, and are subject 
 to the pastors He has set over them, it must be 
 clear that membership of His Church is binding 
 upon all who would attain salvation. There is 
 no salvation outside the true Church of Christ. 
 
 Under the Gospel scheme, then, there is no 
 place for indifferentism in religion. In the eyes 
 of Christ and of His Apostles, one religion, one 
 Church is not as good as another. It is not 
 sufficient, even were it possible, to lead an 
 honourable and upright life, to be just, truthful 
 and benevolent, and to set aside all Churches and 
 religions whatsoever. If Christ is God, if He 
 
126 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 has revealed a religion to mankind, if He has 
 established a spiritual society or Church on earth ; 
 if He has commanded all men to become mem- 
 bers of it ; and if that society still exists on earth 
 to-day : then all men are bound to hearken to 
 the Divine voice, to embrace the religion He has 
 revealed, and enter into the Church which He 
 has founded. To do otherwise, when the truth 
 has been made known to them, is rebellion 
 against God ; it is to reject His authority when 
 He teaches, or His authority when He com- 
 mands. 
 
 Now, I do not mean to say that this doctrine 
 is an easy one. Difficulties, and grave ones, are 
 likely to have presented themselves already to the 
 minds of many of us ; and opportunity will, I hope, 
 offer at another time to deal with some of them. 
 For the moment, it will be enough, I think, to 
 direct your attention to two considerations. First, 
 that God is and remains always the master of His 
 own gifts ; it is for Him to prescribe, as He may 
 choose, the conditions under which He will be- 
 stow them. Secondly, that to incur responsibility 
 for rejecting the privileges of the Kingdom, they 
 must have been offered to us. "He who be- 
 lieveth not," follows in our Lord's statement, on 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 127 
 
 "Go, preach the Gospel to every creature"; 
 and "whosoever shall not receive you or hear 
 your words," supposes the Apostles to have de- 
 livered His Divine message. As St. Paul writes 
 to the Romans : " How shall they believe Him 
 of Whom they have not heard, and how shall 
 they hear without a preacher ? " ^ No man, we 
 may be sure, shall be punished by God for having 
 left a duty unfulfilled, the very existence of which 
 had never been brought home to him. This, in- 
 deed, is far from implying that those who live or 
 die, even inculpably, without the visible Church 
 of Christ, are on a level of advantage with those 
 within. They are .exposed to dangers, from 
 which members of the Church are shielded ; they 
 are shut out from graces which members of the 
 Church receive abundantly. St. Paul had this in 
 mind when he wrote to the Romans, of the unbe- 
 lieving Jews : " I speak the truth in Christ ; I lie 
 not, my conscience bearing me witness in the 
 Holy Ghost : that I have a great sadness and 
 continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish 
 that I myself were anathema from Christ for my 
 brethren's sake, who are my kinsmen according 
 
 1 Rom. X. 14. 
 
128 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 to the flesh." ^ But we are not now concerned 
 directly with the case of those who are ignorant 
 of the law that binds them to become members 
 of Christ's Church : we have spoken of those 
 only to whom the law has been made known, and 
 who have chosen wilfully to disobey it. 
 
 We have seen, then, that the Church of Christ 
 on earth is an imperishable society or kingdom ; 
 that it is one, and can be only one, in number and 
 in organic structure ; that all men to whom its 
 existence and claims become known are bound 
 to enter into it. We shall next consider its teach- 
 ing authority. 
 
 1 Rom. IX. I . 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 TEACHING AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 We have seen that Christ, by Himself and by His 
 Apostles, established a society or Church on 
 earth, which is to endure until the end of time, 
 and is to carry on the work for which ** the Word 
 was made flesh and dwelt amongst us " . One 
 among the purposes of the Incarnation was to 
 teach mankind, not to teach them mere human 
 wisdom, which men may gather for themselves, 
 but Divine truth, concerning God and the things 
 of God, which men can learn only from God 
 Himself, and concerning moral conduct, which 
 must look for a standard and a sanction to Divine 
 law. And Christ gave men this teaching, partly 
 adopting and correcting the older dispensation, 
 partly promulgating. Himself and through His 
 Holy Spirit, new doctrines and precepts. And 
 this whole deposit of Divine truth He committed 
 to His Church, to be taught by the Apostles and 
 
 129 9 
 
130 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 by all who should aid or succeed them in their 
 teaching office, and to be accepted and believed 
 by the entire body of His followers, both teachers 
 and taught. Every religion, of whatever kind it 
 is, must rest primarily on a system of beliefs. 
 Christianity is no exception to the rule, and 
 Christianity in the concrete is the living Church 
 of Christ. The Church's first duty must, conse- 
 quently, be to teach revealed truth : '* Going, 
 therefore, teach all nations " ; tell men what they 
 must believe concerning God and His attitude 
 towards them, concerning life's present purpose 
 and future destiny, the moral law, Christ's work 
 and personality, the means of grace He instituted, 
 the precepts He imposed, the kingdom He es- 
 tablished. Lay before them the Divine message 
 in its entirety, adding nothing, changing nothing, 
 and then guide them into the fulfilment of all 
 things I have commanded. 
 
 But will the Church be faithful to her mission ? 
 Will she carry out the purpose of her Founder ? 
 Will she, above all, continue to hold and to teach 
 unerringly the dogmatic and moral truths which 
 He revealed, and on which Christianity, its faith, 
 its moral life, its embodiment in a visible society, 
 depend ? The Churchj indeed^ will endure for 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 131 
 
 ever ; Christ's solemn promise, God's promise, is 
 our guarantee and pledge. But, will her teachers 
 continue always to deliver their message, as it 
 was entrusted to them ? Will the body of be- 
 lievers continue always to believe and to profess 
 what Christ and the Apostles taught ? In a word, 
 is Christ's Church infallible in what she teaches 
 concerning the revelation that was made to us 
 through Christ ; and is she equally infallible in 
 what she believes to be contained in that revela- 
 tion ? This is the question for which I ask your 
 consideration now ; and it is a question, as you 
 will see at once, of no ordinary importance. For, 
 if Christ's Church on earth be infallible in what 
 she holds and teaches as Divinely revealed, and 
 if we can recognize with certainty, among existing 
 religious bodies, the true Church of Christ, then 
 difficulties of belief are very largely at an end, or, at 
 any rate, will find an easy and prompt solution. I 
 may not always be able to determine with cer- 
 tainty even then, what the Church believes and 
 teaches ; but, when I do, I am in possession of 
 Divine truth, to which I assent on the authority 
 of God ; and no objection, however insoluble it 
 may seem, or however much it may perplex me, 
 can shake my adherence to it, 
 
 9* 
 
132 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Now, there was a time, we have already 
 shown, when men had an infallible religious 
 Teacher visible on earth ; during the years when 
 God lived among them as Man in Judsea and in 
 Galilee. His contemporaries who were privi- 
 leged to listen to His teaching and to recognize 
 His Divine authority had the absolute certainty 
 that everything He taught was true. They 
 might fail to discern the full significance of His 
 words ; they might be unable to understand the 
 reasons on which He based His teaching ; they 
 might note in it an absence of all proof and 
 reasoning whatsoever ; and they might be per- 
 plexed by objections to which He made no re- 
 ference, and which they were utterly unable to 
 resolve. But there could be no doubt, no hesi- 
 tation about assenting to the doctrines which He 
 taught : God the infallible Truth was speaking 
 to them. It may be said no doubt that this 
 was a qualified advantage. To give men an in- 
 fallible teacher, such as Christ, but no evident 
 infallible means of recognizing Him : to give them 
 teaching which is infallible, but at times obscure ; 
 to give them an unerring oracle, but one which 
 leaves many questions unanswered and many 
 difficulties unsolved, is surely to bestow upon 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 133 
 
 them a privilege with many and grave limi- 
 tations ? I have no wish to deny that the privi- 
 lege might have been greater : we are of too 
 circumscribed intelligence to judge such high 
 matters with any certainty. I am only concerned 
 at present to point out that it was a privilege, 
 limited, no doubt, as God judged fitting, but none 
 the less real within its limits, and that these limits 
 themselves afford no argument, not even a seri- 
 ous objection, against the bestowal of the privi- 
 lege in the person of Christ. And when I go on 
 to inquire, as we inquire now, whether or no a 
 like privilege has been bestowed upon Christ's 
 Church, I shall not be prejudiced in my inquiry 
 by the alleged need of an infallible means for dis- 
 covering her identity, or by her silence and 
 her lack of definiteness in her teaching at times. 
 I shall not expect the infallibility of the Church, 
 if she be infallible, to be very different in its 
 manifestations from the infallibility of Christ 
 H imself. 
 
 But has He been pleased to perpetuate the 
 privilege in His Church ? If He have, then the 
 members of that Church, who receive her au- 
 thoritative teaching, can have no more doubt or 
 hesitation about its truth than if Christ spoke to 
 
134 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 them Himself. They may be disposed to com- 
 plain that she is too slow to pronounce, or that 
 she has pronounced too hurriedly ; that her 
 language is obscure or not sufficiently decisive ; 
 that there are objections which she has passed 
 over, or has not met fully. But, in her clear 
 teaching, in her decisive pronouncements, and 
 within the province assigned to her by her 
 Founder, her children have the truth as 
 guaranteed by God ; they are as fully safe- 
 guarded against error as were those who lis- 
 tened to the very words of Christ. And Christ's 
 Church, we now proceed to show, is infallible. 
 
 By infallibility, we understand, when predi- 
 cated of the Church, immunity from error in 
 teaching revealed doctrines. We conceive of 
 God as having revealed to mankind a great 
 number of religious and moral truths, some 
 before Christ came, others through Christ Him- 
 self, others, again, through the Holy Spirit, as 
 promised by Christ : ** But when He, the spirit 
 of truth, is come. He will teach you all truth ".^ 
 This body of truths is often spoken of as the 
 ** Deposit of Divine Faith," the collection, that 
 is, of doctrines which are to be believed on the 
 ^ John XVI. 13. 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 135 
 
 authority of God, and which have been deposited 
 with the Church to be preserved and promul- 
 gated. The Church is infallible, if she neither 
 errs nor can err in teaching and believing 
 that Deposit. I would not be understood to 
 deny, or even doubt, that the Church is infal- 
 lible even beyond these limits ; but that raises a 
 further question, with which we need not concern 
 ourselves to-day. We shall be satisfied for the 
 present if we can prove that she is infallible in 
 teaching and believing those things which are of 
 Divine Faith. And we say *' teaching" and 
 "believing" ; for infallibility is a twofold gift, as 
 bestowed by Christ upon His Church. We 
 have had occasion to note already that in Christ's 
 Church all the members are bound to hold one 
 and the same faith ; and in so far as they cannot 
 err in what they hold, the Church Universal will 
 be, as is said, " passively infallible ". But among 
 the multitude of believers there are some set 
 apart to teach, to whom the commission has 
 been handed down which was first given to the 
 Apostles : " Go, therefore, preach the Gospel to 
 every creature " ; and, in so far as these teachers 
 cannot err in their delivery of the Divine 
 Message, the Church is said to be "actively 
 
136 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 infallible ". I do not know that the words have 
 been very aptly chosen ; in believing one is as 
 little passive as in teaching ; but they have been 
 received into general use ; and they may serve, 
 if we are clear as to their meaning. Again, 
 active and passive infallibility are closely co- 
 related. No doubt, in themselves they are 
 wholly distinct and separable. Christ might, 
 had He chosen, have appointed an infallible 
 body of teachers in His Church, and yet have 
 allowed the mass of believers to fall into the 
 grossest religious errors ; and He might preserve 
 believers, while exercising no such providence 
 towards their teachers. In fact, however. He 
 has promised His Church that He will bestow 
 infallibility on both : on the teachers, for the 
 sake of those who are to be taught, and because 
 He has ordained that the Gospel authoritatively 
 preached is to be unhesitatingly accepted ; and 
 on the taught themselves, because He has 
 constituted His Church a society of believers, 
 which is to endure unchanged until the end of 
 time. And hence there is no need to discuss 
 active and passive infallibility separately ; they 
 are linked so closely in Christ's plan that, while 
 the concepts are wholly different, to prove one is 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 137 
 
 to prove the other. And hence, too, we may 
 fix our attention more particularly on active 
 infallibility, or immunity from error in teaching 
 revealed doctrines, as of more practical moment 
 to ourselves and more subject to inquiry and 
 controversy. 
 
 And first, for it is misunderstood very fre- 
 quently, it will be well to determine its meaning 
 more accurately. It does not presuppose or 
 bring about the personal holiness of those through 
 whom it may be exercised ; a great sinner may 
 teach infallibly. It does not involve any new 
 revelation to be granted to the teacher ; it is 
 concerned solely with the revelation already 
 made to the Apostles. It does not imply any 
 Divine impulse or inspiration to teach or to 
 define : it only guarantees the truth of the teach- 
 ing and definition when they actually take place. 
 It does not of itself afford security that it will be 
 called into operation at fitting times and through 
 worthy motives ; its one object, its only object, 
 is to give us absolute certainty that what the 
 Church of Christ, through her authorized teachers, 
 declares to be a doctrine revealed of God has 
 really been so revealed. I have no doubt that 
 God's providence for His Church, and His 
 
138 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 promises to her, extend far beyond the pre- 
 rogative we are claiming for her now. I believe 
 that there is a Divine guidance which leads her 
 to teach, to define and to condemn, as the needs 
 of the faithful may require. I think it likely, 
 and the history of the Church encourages me to 
 think, that special gifts are not often exercised 
 by very unworthy men. But infallibility is a 
 singular and specific privilege ; and, both in its 
 concept and by the usage of those who claim it 
 for the Church, has no other purpose than to 
 protect her authorized beliefs from doctrinal 
 error. You may have seen a child engaged in 
 writing down from memory a statement or a 
 story received from a father's lips. Suppose the 
 child to exercise a perfect freedom of choice as 
 to the place and time and other circumstances of 
 the writing, and even as to whether it will write 
 at all or no ; suppose it, further, to write under 
 the father's watchful supervision ; and suppose 
 the father to pledge himself that he will permit 
 nothing to be set down in writing which was 
 not in the story as told originally by himself: 
 should we not have the father's authority for the 
 story, as put before us by the child? Should 
 we not regard the child-writer as sharing to the 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 139 
 
 full in whatever measure of inerrancy we be- 
 lieved the father to possess ? In somewhat the 
 same manner we conceive of the infallibility of 
 Christ's Church : God makes known a revelation 
 to His Church, through Christ and His Apos- 
 tles ; she is to believe and teach that revelation, 
 under God's eye. Suppose Him to guarantee 
 that her teaching and belief shall express, when- 
 soever she teaches and believes, with an absolute 
 truthfulness the revelation originally communi- 
 cated to her ; and we shall have the only right 
 and accepted concept of Church infallibility. 
 
 But has infallibility, as thus defined and limited, 
 been bestowed by Christ upon His Church? 
 There is no a priori argument to establish her 
 possession of the gift. God was under no com- 
 pulsion to make any revelation to mankind ; 
 and, when in His mercy He made it, and com- 
 pleted it through Christ and His Holy Spirit, 
 He was not bound to secure, by a further privi- 
 lege, its permanency and purity. He might have 
 left it to believers to show their appreciation 
 of His gift by their vigilance and solicitude in 
 guarding it. Or He might have taken measures 
 to preserve its more important doctrines, while 
 permitting errors to creep in, in those of lesser 
 
140 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 moment. He allows men and societies of men 
 to throw away wholly or in part many of the best 
 gifts which He bestows upon them. Nor does 
 the seeming desirableness of such a privilege 
 afford any conclusive evidence that it has, in 
 fact, been granted. Experience proves that 
 many privileges have been withheld, which seem 
 to us, and perhaps are, of surpassing excellence 
 and value. God is the Master of His gifts : He 
 grants them when and how He pleases. 
 
 But, while we hold that there is no convincing 
 a priori proof of the Church's infallibility, we 
 maintain its antecedent likelihood. For, consider 
 how the case stands : God becomes incarnate that 
 He may more effectually teach men Divine truth. 
 ** To this end was I born," He says to Pilate, 
 " and for this am I come into the world, that I 
 may bear witness to the truth. "^ He founds 
 an imperishable society, and communicates to it 
 a revelation — a body of truths, by which its faith, 
 its sacraments, its worship, its laws, its whole 
 organization are to be determined. He Himself 
 and His Apostles, men intimately acquainted 
 with His intentions, are unceasing in their efforts 
 to make this revelation known ; are emphatic in 
 
 1 John xvni. 37. 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 141 
 
 declaring that its acceptance is essential to salva- 
 tion ; are insistent that, though an angel from 
 Heaven should preach another Gospel, he must 
 be anathema. They compare it with the older 
 Dispensation, to bring out more clearly its ex- 
 cellence and perfection ; and they assert explicitly 
 that it is the full and final measure of super- 
 natural revelation to be bestowed on man. 
 Surely, in all this we have proof that Christ and 
 His Apostles regarded the Christian revelation 
 as a blessing of inestimable value ? And surely, 
 too, it is not unreasonable to infer that some 
 special precaution is likely to be adopted, some 
 special assistance to be provided, for its preser- 
 vation? And the simplest and most obvious 
 means for preserving it would seem to be infalli- 
 bility in belief and teaching. I do not, of course, 
 advance the argument, as though it could warrant 
 us in asserting positively that the gift has been 
 bestowed ; but it will at least prepare us to con- 
 sider favourably the evidence, which we now pro- 
 ceed to deal with. 
 
 The teaching Church, as it was first constituted 
 by Christ Himself, was infallible. The Apostles 
 themselves were certainly of this opinion. "It 
 hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to 
 
142 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 us,"^ they write to the Churches at Antioch and 
 in Syria and Cilicia, after the Council at Jerusalem. 
 And St. Paul tells the Galatians, in words al- 
 ready quoted : " Though an angel from heaven 
 preach a gospel to you, beside that which we 
 have preached to you, let him be anathema".^ 
 In his first Epistle to the Corinthians, he com- 
 mends his teaching on the subject of virginity by 
 the impressive words : *' And I think that I also 
 have the spirit of God " ; ^ and when he con- 
 trasts his own preaching with the ** persuasive 
 words of human wisdom," he tells them that he 
 had spoken to them *' in showing of the spirit and 
 of power ; " * '' not in the learned words of human 
 wisdom, but in the doctrine of the Spirit " ; ^ for, 
 as he adds: ** We have the mind of Christ".^ 
 Hence the Apostles demanded an absolute ac- 
 ceptance of their teaching, as though it were God 
 Himself who taught. Hence St. Paul thanks 
 God for the Thessalonians, ** because that when 
 you had received of us the word of the hearing 
 of God, you received it not as the word of men, 
 but (as it is, indeed) the word of God V And 
 
 1 Acts XV. 28. 2 Gal. I. 8. ^1 Cor. vii. 40. 
 * Md., II. 4. 5 /i,^^^ 13^ 6 /^/^^^ j6^ 
 
 ^ I Thess. II. 13. 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 143 
 
 hence the Apostles condemned so earnestly, al- 
 most fiercely, apostates who rejected any portion 
 of the Gospel which they had once accepted. 
 Surely language such as this, a mode of acting 
 such as this, implies that the doctrines which they 
 preached had been revealed by God, and that 
 they themselves were Divinely guided in making 
 the revelation known ? 
 
 But the view, it may be said, which the 
 Apostles took of the assistance given them for the 
 fulfilment of their mission need not necessarily be 
 correct. There have been persons who believed 
 themselves under a heavenly guidance, when 
 carrying out purposes in which God had no part. 
 We have to bear in mind, however, that the 
 Apostles were Christ's intimate friends, prepared 
 by Him during three continuous years and in- 
 structed for their work, "to whom also He 
 showed Himself alive after His Passion . . . 
 for forty days appearing to them, and speaking 
 to them of the Kingdom of God " .^ They must, 
 therefore, have been in full possession of His 
 mind, and of His intentions for His Church, and 
 not at all likely to be mistaken as to the most 
 valuable of the gifts which He had determined to 
 
 1 Acts I. 3. 
 
144 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 bestow on her. We can turn, besides, to Our 
 Lord's own declarations, which He made to the 
 Apostles when conferring the office of teachers 
 upon them ; and we may consider two, recorded 
 by the Evangelists in their accounts of His last 
 discourse, when He was about to ascend into 
 heaven from them. **A11 power is given to 
 Me," He says in the Gospel of St. Matthew, 
 "in heaven and on earth. Going, therefore, 
 teach ye all nations . . . teaching them to observe 
 all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; 
 and behold I am with you."^ It is evident that 
 He is here sending them forth to preach to all men 
 the full revelation made by God ; and He solemnly 
 promises to be ** with " them in the work. Now, 
 I shall ask you to examine carefully and in some 
 detail the meaning and force of this expression, 
 ** I (God) am with you," and then its bearing on 
 the mission entrusted to the Apostles. Clearly 
 we must take it to mean what it ordinarily meant, 
 at that day, in the language and country of the 
 speaker, what the Apostles were accustomed to 
 understand by it, and what they must, . therefore, 
 have taken it to mean, when Christ addressed it 
 to them. Under such solemn circumstances, and 
 
 1 Matt. XXVIII, 20, 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 145 
 
 in confiding such high duties to them, He would 
 not use language which they could not rightly 
 understand. The phrase occurs repeatedly in 
 both the Old and the New Testaments ; and it 
 retains everywhere one fixed and well-defined 
 meaning. It implies always, on the part of God, 
 a particular providence, a special watchful care, 
 of persons and their interests, so that they shall 
 unfailingly succeed in the undertakings to which 
 it refers. Thus we read in Genesis that it was 
 said to Abraham : "God is with thee in all that 
 thou dost ".^ And, again, God Himself says to 
 Isaac : " Dwell in the land which I shall tell thee 
 of . . . and I will be with thee, and will bless 
 thee ".^ And a little later : ** Fear not, I am with 
 thee ".^ Of the Patriarch Joseph we are told : 
 ** And the Lord was with Joseph ; and he was a 
 prosperous man in all things. And his master 
 saw that the Lord was with him, and that the 
 Lord made all he did to prosper in his hand."* 
 So, too, speaking by Isaias, God comforts Israel : 
 " Fear not, for thou art Mine. When thou shalt 
 pass through the waters I will be with thee, and 
 the rivers shall not cover thee. When thou shalt 
 
 ^ Gen. XXI. 22. 2 y^?/^., xxvi. 3. 
 
 ' Ibid,<t 26. * Ibid.y XXXIX. 3. 
 
 10 
 
146 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 walk in the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither 
 shall the flames kindle upon thee . . . Fear not, 
 for I am with thee."^ In the New Testament, 
 Gabriel salutes God's chosen mother with the 
 same assurance of a special Divine protection : 
 "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!"^ 
 And, when ** Nicodemus came to Jesus ... he 
 said to Him : Master, we know that Thou art 
 come a teacher from God ; for no man can do 
 these signs which Thou dost, unless God be with 
 him ".^ St. Peter, too, when sent to Cornelius 
 and his kinsmen in Cesarea, takes for granted 
 that even the Gentiles are familiar with the expres- 
 sion, and its significance, ** Jesus of Nazareth " : 
 he says to them, **how God anointed Him with 
 the Holy Ghost and with power ; Who went 
 about doing good, and healing all that were op- 
 pressed by the devil ; for God was with Him ".* 
 Indeed the phrase occurs close upon one hundred 
 times in the writings of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments, in contexts exactly similar to that in which 
 Christ addresses it to the Apostles ; and it invari- 
 ably bears the meaning we have assigned to it, of 
 a particular Divine assistance resulting in success. 
 
 1 Is. XLIII. 2. 2 Lul^g J ^3 
 
 ^ John III. 2. * Acts x. 38. 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 147 
 
 And, furthermore, we find that when God, in 
 Holy Scripture, makes choice of anyone for a 
 work of peculiar difficulty, which seems to be be- 
 yond the natural strength of the agent He has 
 selected, He is accustomed to inspire confidence, 
 and to guarantee success by this same expres- 
 sion. ** Who am I that I should go to Pharao, 
 and should bring forth the children of Israel out 
 of Egypt ? " Moses protested, when God ap- 
 pointed him their deliverer. And God said to 
 him, ** I will be with thee ".^ Again, when He 
 destined Jeremias to the cities of Juda, and the 
 reluctant prophet objected to the Divine call : 
 " Ah, Lord God ! behold I cannot speak, for I 
 am a child," God's answer was : '* Thou, there- 
 fore, gird up thy loins and arise and speak to 
 them all that I command thee ... for behold I 
 am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee ".^ 
 And, when Gideon mistrusted his ability to 
 " deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian " : 
 " Behold, my family is the meanest in Manasses, 
 and I am the least of my father's house," the 
 Lord said to him, '* I will be with thee ; and 
 thou shalt cut off Madian as one man ".^ And, 
 
 ^Exod. HI. 3. ^]er. i. 6, 17, 19. 
 
 ^Jud. VI. 15. 
 
 10* 
 
148 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 once again, in the New Testament, in the midst 
 of St. Pauls dangers from the Jews of Corinth, 
 the Lord said to him : ** Do not fear, but speak, 
 and hold not thy peace ; because I am with thee, 
 and no man shall hurt thee ".^ 
 
 But there is no need to accumulate further evi- 
 dence. Nothing can be more certain than the 
 invariable meaning in Scripture language, the 
 language most familiar to Our Lord and His 
 Apostles, of the phrase, ** I, God, am with thee ". 
 It signifies always a very special and efficacious 
 Divine assistance ; and, more particularly, when 
 a commission is given, which appears to be 
 beyond human strength, it carries with it a 
 Divine promise of complete success. Does not 
 something of the idea attach to the phrase we 
 ourselves so often use when a friend sets out on 
 any arduous undertaking : ** God be with you " ? 
 
 Now, what was the undertaking, what the 
 commission, which Christ entrusted to His 
 Apostles, and to which He subjoined the pro- 
 mise : " I am with you all days " ? The Gospels 
 answer: "Go, teach all nations," **.Go, preach 
 the Gospel to every creature," "Teach them to 
 observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
 
 ^ Acts xvni. 9. 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 149 
 
 you ". Here, surely, is a commission of more 
 than ordinary difficulty — to teach all men all 
 things whatsoever Christ had taught the Apostles. 
 They, the rude illiterate fishermen, *' foolish and 
 slow of heart to believe," are to publish to the 
 world the whole revelation which He had made 
 known to them ; not adding to it, not taking from 
 it, not changing in any wise the Divine message. 
 And so He promises to be *' with them" — to 
 watch over, and to assist them, to secure the 
 complete success of the teaching mission He has 
 imposed upon them. Can He do so, if He per- 
 mits them to fall into error, in the ** teaching of 
 the nations," in the "preaching of the Gospel to 
 every creature"? Must He not see to it that 
 they teach and preach what they have heard and 
 learned from Him ? 
 
 And consider also, in the account St. Mark 
 gives of the same momentous incident, what he 
 tells us of the sanction under which Christ sent 
 His Apostles to " preach the Gospel " : "He that 
 believeth not," Christ says to them, "shall be 
 condemned ". He binds all men, under the most 
 terrible of penalties, to accept the Divine message 
 in its entirety when presented to them. They 
 may, indeed, nay, ought to, verify the credentials 
 
150 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 of His messengers ; but they may not examine 
 critically the message itself. They may not give 
 a qualified or limited assent. They may not ac- 
 cept a part and reject the rest. They may not 
 refuse any the least portion of the Divine gift. 
 And can we conceive a wise and merciful Re- 
 deemer imposing such a stringent obligation, 
 and under such a fearful penalty, if any part of 
 the message, as delivered, be untrue? When 
 He binds men, under pain of everlasting misery, 
 to accept His revelation, as it is announced to 
 them by His messengers, does He not bind Him- 
 self to have it announced as He had made it 
 known? Or, does He command men solemnly 
 to believe falsehood as well as truth, and under 
 the same penalty ? And how can He exclude all 
 falsehood from the teaching of the Apostles unless 
 He confers infallibility upon them ? 
 
 The Apostles, therefore, that is, the teaching 
 Church, at the time of its foundation, received 
 the gift of infallibility, for their work of teaching 
 the revelation made through Christ. And, as we 
 have seen from their language and from their 
 ways of acting, they themselves understood 
 clearly that the gift had been bestowed upon 
 them. Now, is it likely, is it even credible, that 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 151 
 
 the first teachers of the Church should receive the 
 gift, if it was to perish with them ? Christ draws 
 the Apostles to Him, keeps them with Him for 
 three years, during which He instructs and trains 
 them, sends down His Holy Spirit upon them, 
 •' as it were in parted tongues of fire," and further 
 safeguards the revelation which He commissions 
 them to announce by making them infallible. 
 The Apostles pass away ; their place is filled by 
 other teachers not formed personally by Christ ; 
 the Christian revelation must be announced until 
 the consummation of the world ; the penalty for 
 non-acceptance of it remains unaltered ; the 
 danger of error and adulteration grows as one 
 generation succeeds another : can we, then, be- 
 lieve that Christ withdraws the safeguard which 
 He gave in the beginning, just when the need 
 for it becomes more pressing ? Every probability 
 points the other way. It was no purely personal 
 privilege conferred on the Apostles. It was no 
 mere reward of personal merit. It was granted 
 to them, for the advantage of those whom they 
 were to teach. It was attached to the teaching 
 office, which they were to fill. As long, therefore, 
 we may conclude, as the teaching office continues 
 in the Church, as long as men are bound to accept 
 
152 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 the Church's teaching, so long will that teaching 
 remain infallible. 
 
 But further, as we have already seen, the 
 Church which Christ established is to endure for 
 ever. Not only is there to be a visible Society, 
 which shall bear Christ's name ; but it is to 
 continue one and the same in specific character 
 and constitution, from the time when He laid its 
 foundation until it is perfected by His second 
 coming. Its object, its form of government, its 
 sacramental system cannot change. It cannot 
 become other than what He planned and 
 fashioned. Now, the teaching authority of the 
 Church is of its very essence, as Christ established 
 it, like the revelation He commissioned it to pre- 
 serve and preach. If the teaching authority 
 which was once infallible should become liable to 
 error; if the doctrines "once delivered to the 
 saints " should become corrupted in transmission ; 
 if the Church's faith to-day should be different 
 from that of yesterday or of the day before ; with 
 what semblance of truth could it be said that the 
 Church of Christ, the same Church founded by 
 Him and built up by His Apostles, is with us still, 
 and will remain with us for ever ? And how can 
 identity of teaching and of consequent belief be 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 153 
 
 secured, generation after generation, unless He 
 makes His Church infallible? The argument, 
 therefore, appears to be conclusive that, as the 
 Apostles were, so their successors will be, be- 
 yond the reach of error in their teaching office 
 until Christ comes again. 
 
 And we are confirmed in our certainty by the 
 direct and explicit promise of Christ. Let us take 
 up once more the words in which He pledged 
 Himself to guard the Apostles against all doc- 
 trinal error in their preaching of the Gospel : 
 " Going, therefore, preach . . . and behold, I am 
 with you — with you, all days, even to the con- 
 summation of the world ". By the words, " I am 
 with you," He promises them, as we have seen, 
 infallibility. By the words, "even to the con- 
 summation of the world," He extends the promise 
 to the very end of time. The " you " in " I am 
 with you " does not restrict the gift to the Apostles 
 only. It was very usual with Christ to address 
 Himself to those before Him, as representatives 
 of others like them in all future generations. The 
 Sermon on the Mount is rich in examples : 
 "Blessed are ye that hunger now"; "Wo to 
 you that are rich " ; "Be ye, therefore, merci- 
 ful"; "Bless them that curse you," and many 
 
154 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 others/ " Thus, therefore, shall you pray," "^ He 
 says, when suggesting a form to be used by all men, 
 throughout all time. '* You shall hear of wars and 
 rumours of wars,"^ He tells the Apostles, when 
 pointing out to them the signs of His second com- 
 ing. Again, in the sixth chapter of St. John, He 
 warns the multitude : " Amen, amen, I say unto 
 you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, 
 and drink His blood, you shall not have life in 
 you".'* And we might multiply texts almost in- 
 definitely which while addressed to Christ's im- 
 mediate hearers, are obviously meant, like those 
 just quoted, for all His followers to whose know- 
 ledge they may come. Is it not, indeed, quite 
 customary, in our own daily life, to speak of 
 those who have long since died, and of those still 
 unborn, in words that, taken literally, point only 
 to ourselves ? We have no fear that any will 
 misunderstand us, when we say that "We Irish 
 Catholics have struggled and borne persecution, 
 through centuries, to preserve our faith " ; or 
 when we add: "And we shall continue to 
 struggle, through other centuries, if necessary, 
 to secure and to maintain our religious rights ". 
 
 i-Luke VI. 21-36. 2 Matt. vi. 9. 
 
 3 Ibid., XXIV. 6. * John vi. 54. 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 155 
 
 Such modes of thought and speech are not con- 
 fined to any people or to any tongue. And so, 
 in our text, " I am with you," the words spoken 
 primarily to the Apostles, and declaring their 
 inerrancy, are applicable also to their successors 
 in the teaching office ; and the added clause : 
 " Until the consummation of the world," shows 
 evidently that they must be so applied ; for the 
 Apostles are not themselves to preach, *' until the 
 consummation of the world ". If Christ be " with 
 them " until then, it must be in the persons of 
 those to whom they hand on their commission 
 and their authority. 
 
 Finally, the same Divine promise is given to 
 the Church in Christ's words to St. Peter at 
 Cesarea Philippi, from which we have already 
 drawn a proof that she cannot perish. "Thou 
 art Peter," He says, "and upon this rock I will 
 build My Church ; and the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against her."^ He gives warning of the 
 trials and dangers in store for her ; He implies 
 that her whole history is to be one of struggle and 
 combat ; and He adds the assurance, absolute 
 and unqualified, that she shall not be worsted in 
 the strife : no enemies " shall prevail against her". 
 
 ^Matt. XVI. 1 8. 
 
156 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Now, the full significance of this assurance, as it 
 bears upon the question with which we are en- 
 gaged, is only to be understood when we reflect 
 on the objects for which the Church was founded. 
 Chief amongst them was the spread and preser- 
 vation of the doctrines which Christ taught. 
 Indeed, this purpose underlies all others, for our 
 conception of the Church and our acceptance of 
 her claims rest wholly on what Christ has revealed 
 to us concerning her. Her most important office, 
 her fundamental duty, is, therefore, to announce 
 and safeguard the revelation made by Christ. 
 She fails in her mission if she neglects to make 
 that revelation known ; and she fails no less 
 if she corrupts the Divine message, or allows it 
 to become corrupted in her keeping. How could 
 her enemies more entirely "prevail against her " 
 than by effecting an admixture of falsehood with 
 revealed truth in the Church's common faith, 
 or by leading her to preach man's mere inventions 
 as the revealed Gospel of Christ? She must 
 not, under pain of failure, of ceasing to be the 
 society of believers which Christ established, hold 
 any doctrine as revealed which God has not 
 revealed to her. She must not deny any doctrine 
 which He has revealed. She may not contradict 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 157 
 
 to-day what at any time she has ever taught. 
 She can no more alter her creed than she can 
 alter her Sacramental system or her form of 
 government. And, if she is to preserve it un- 
 altered, she must be safeguarded against error in 
 belief and teaching, she must be protected by 
 passive and active infallibility. 
 
 We have thus, I think, found abundant warrant 
 in the Gospels for the statement we set out to 
 demonstrate : that Christ's Church on earth has 
 received from Him this high privilege. We 
 should have judged it antecedently likely that He 
 would bestow the gift upon her. In His recorded 
 conversations with the Apostles He pledges Him- 
 self repeatedly and very solemnly to do so. The 
 Apostles themselves, the official teachers whom 
 He has appointed and trained, show plainly, by 
 their words and acts, that they are certain the 
 pledge has been fulfilled. And the whole history 
 of the infant Church — the unconditional assent 
 which she demands for all her teaching, the 
 decision and finality with which she condemns 
 opposing errors, the penalties she threatens and 
 inflicts on heresy — all conspire to prove Christ's 
 Church infallible. 
 
 There remain certain consequential questions 
 
158 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 which present themselves here for solution. 
 Some of them we can deal with briefly but suf- 
 ficiently at once ; others will come up for treat- 
 ment more appropriately at a further stage of our 
 inquiries. 
 
 First, then, Who is the ** Subject " of infalli- 
 bility ? Who are the persons upon whom the 
 gift is bestowed ? Infallibility of belief, or passive 
 infallibility, we have already seen, vests in the 
 whole body of believers, in all the members of 
 the Church ; infallibility of teaching, or active 
 infallibility, in the whole body of the Church's 
 teachers. Who these teachers are and whether 
 any one or other of them can be singled out as 
 possessed of special privileges, we need not now 
 determine. Nor is it necessary to define with 
 any great accuracy what measure of agreement 
 in believing or in teaching is required as evi- 
 dence that the gift is operating. Two things 
 seem certain : one, that absolute unanimity nei- 
 ther is, nor can be, essential ; the other, that 
 agreement must have reached such a point that 
 the majority can be accounted morally the body. 
 When we know that the faithful, as a body, 
 though there may be exceptions, hold a doctrine 
 to be revealed of God, we know, too, that it is so 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY 159 
 
 revealed ; and when we know that the official 
 teachers of the Church, as a body, though there 
 may be exceptions, teach a doctrine as revealed 
 of God, we know, too, that that doctrine is re- 
 vealed. 
 
 Secondly, What is the " Object " of infallibility ? 
 What are the doctrines, in teaching and believ- 
 ing which, the Church is under this Divine pro- 
 tection ? The whole Christian revelation, every 
 truth revealed by God to man, and commended 
 by Christ to the Apostles, when He bade them 
 *'go preach the Gospel to every creature". 
 Other connected truths may also be included ; 
 whether it is so or not, we shall probably have 
 occasion to inquire later ; but, at present, it is 
 enough to show, as we have shown, that the 
 whole *' Deposit of Faith," the whole body of doc- 
 trines entrusted by Christ to the keeping of His 
 Church, is covered by her infallibility. 
 
 Thirdly, How are we to determine the content 
 of that revelation ? How are we to know the 
 limits of that doctrinal territory within which the 
 Church can exercise her infallible authority? 
 As in the case of all authority, so here, many 
 questions will lie clearly within her jurisdiction, 
 many others will as clearly lie outside. In those 
 
i6o THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 which seem doubtful, it will be for the Church 
 herself to decide. A lower tribunal may deter- 
 mine the sphere of its own authority in doubtful 
 cases, though subject to appeal ; the highest 
 tribunal must determine it, since there is no other 
 tribunal to which appeal can be made. 
 
 Fourthly, How shall we tell when the Church 
 is exercising her Divine gift ? How may we 
 know she is teaching or holds a truth infallibly ? 
 When in any way it is made clear to us that she 
 is using the fullness of her teaching authority. 
 She may tolerate opinions in matters of religion, 
 may approve of them as edifying or pious, may 
 hold or recommend them as more probable, as 
 true, or even as certain : and yet there may be no 
 question of her infallibility, nor of the Divinely 
 revealed Deposit. But, if the whole Church 
 should accept a doctrine as revealed, or should 
 solemnly propose it as a doctrine of Divine faith 
 through the teaching of Pope or General Council 
 or the dispersed episcopate : then we know for 
 certain that belief and teaching are infallible. 
 
 Fifthly, What is our obligation to assent, when 
 the Church so believes or teaches? The same 
 obligation as though it were God Himself Who 
 spoke to us immediately. Indeed, our assent is 
 
TEACHING AUTHORITY i6i 
 
 given in such cases not to the Church but to God. 
 I believe the revealed truth, because it is God 
 Who has revealed it ; and I am certain that God 
 has revealed it because His Church, Divinely 
 safeguarded, tells me infallibly that He has 
 done so. 
 
 Other questions bearing upon infallibility we 
 may defer till later. 
 
 Let me sum up, then, very briefly what we 
 
 have thus far discussed and decided. We have 
 
 seen that in the New Testament writings we 
 
 have trustworthy records of the life and doctrines 
 
 of Christ. From these records we have learned, 
 
 with entire certainty, that Christ claimed to be, 
 
 and was, God Himself. From them, too, we 
 
 know, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Christ, 
 
 the Man God, established a visible Society, which 
 
 He called His Church ; which is to endure on 
 
 earth, essentially unchanged, until the end of 
 
 time ; which is and can be only one — one in 
 
 religious faith, worship, government ; which is 
 
 Divinely protected against all error in teaching 
 
 and believing the revelation entrusted to her ; 
 
 and which all men are bound, under the gravest 
 
 penalties, to enter, when her claims have been 
 
 made known to them. 
 
 II 
 
i62 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 That visible society or Church is still on earth, 
 the same to-day in all essentials as Christ planned 
 and founded her. And we are in a position now 
 to identify her. In our next Lecture we shall 
 proceed to do so. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST? 
 
 In the previous Lectures, we established the 
 value of the New Testament writings as 
 historical records, and we proved from them the 
 Divinity of Christ and the foundation by Him 
 of a world-wide visible society which He called 
 His Church. This Church, we saw, is imperish- 
 able. It is the depositary of Christ's teaching 
 and sacraments ; and Christ Himself commands 
 all men to become members of it. It is, and 
 can be, only one, one among the many rival 
 religious societies, of which each claims to be 
 the Church of Christ, or to be at least a branch 
 or portion of it. It is, therefore, all-important 
 for us to determine which it is. That is the 
 question I purpose discussing with you now ; and 
 I hope to show that the Catholic Church in 
 
 communion with the See of Rome, and that 
 
 163 II ♦ 
 
i64 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Church alone, is the Church which Christ estab- 
 lished. 
 
 We may begin by narrowing the field of our 
 inquiry. All non-Christian bodies may be ex- 
 cluded from consideration, for it is clear that the 
 Church of Christ is not to be found among those 
 who reject His personal claims, His distinctive 
 teachings, and ignore or repudiate the very 
 existence of any society which looks to Him as 
 its founder. 
 
 Nor is there any need to examine in detail 
 the position of such other religious associations 
 as call themselves, indeed, by the Christian 
 name, and accept some Christian doctrines, 
 while they deny others that lie at the very 
 foundation of the Christian faith and Christian 
 organization. There are those who profess a 
 reverence for Christ and for the laws of moral 
 conduct which He taught, and yet believe Him 
 to be only man, or at least think it allowable to 
 question His Divinity. Now, as we have al- 
 ready seen, if there be one doctrine more than 
 another which Our Lord Himself taught clearly 
 and insistently ; if there be any one which His 
 Apostles preached as of supreme importance ; if 
 there be one on which, as on a foundation stone, 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 165 
 
 the Church of Christ was established, surely it is 
 the doctrine that Christ is God. And what part 
 with the Church of Christ can a body have which 
 rejects or doubts her central dogma, and, with 
 that dogma, her Sacraments, her worship, and 
 her authority ? 
 
 We proceed, then, to consider the religious 
 bodies which profess belief in the Divinity of 
 Christ, which accept what they believe to be 
 His teachings, and are organized into societies 
 which correspond, they think, with the kingdom 
 that He established. Unfortunately, there are 
 many such bodies. There is the Anglican Epis- 
 copal Communion, there is the Greek Church, or 
 rather there are the various sections — Russian, 
 Bulgarian, Servian, Hellenic, Turkish — into 
 which the Greek Church has divided. There 
 are the Lutherans in Northern Germany, Den- 
 mark, Sweden, and Norway. There are the 
 Presbyterians in Switzerland, Scotland, Ulster, 
 and North America. There are the different 
 " Connexions " into which Methodism has broken 
 up ; and there are some hundreds of other less 
 numerous and less well-known associations : all 
 bearing the Christian name and reverencing the 
 Bible. Finally, there is the Church of which 
 
1 66 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 we ourselves are members. Obviously, in face 
 of such divisions, three questions present them- 
 selves. Can the aggregate of all these bodies, 
 the whole multitude of men and women, who call 
 themselves after the name of Christ, confess H is 
 Divinity, and accept portions of His teaching, 
 can they, all together, make up that one Church 
 which He established? And, if not, can any 
 smaller group, the Episcopal, for instance — 
 Anglican, Greek, and Roman — which claim to 
 possess Sacramental Orders, transmitted lawfully 
 from Apostolic times? Or, is there only one 
 among all these conflicting bodies, which is 
 marked with the characteristics of Christ's true 
 Church ; and is that one our own, the Church in 
 communion with the Bishop and See of Rome ? 
 With the first question we can, I think, deal 
 very briefly : it is quite impossible to conceive of 
 the Church of Christ as composed of all the 
 various societies that take His name. They 
 make no pretence, they have no wish, to form 
 one organization. They have no common creed, 
 no common worship, no common systerh of laws, 
 no common authority. Many of them are en- 
 gaged in a bitter and ceaseless endeayour to 
 destroy one another. If Christ's Kingdom upon 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 167 
 
 earth be one, in any intelligible sense of the word, 
 it cannot be constituted by such warring elements. 
 Besides, every argument we shall advance against 
 the Anglican theory of a three-branched Church 
 — of one Church composed of Anglican, Greek, 
 and Roman provinces or branches — must tell 
 with intensified force against a Church composed 
 of them and of all the other Christian bodies. 
 
 What, then, is this branch theory, which has 
 
 found so much acceptance among members of the 
 
 Anglican communion, especially since the days 
 
 of the Oxford Movement ? We are asked to 
 
 conceive of the Church of Christ as a great tree, 
 
 whose branches fill the earth. The tree is one, 
 
 the branches are distinct ; but all draw life from 
 
 the same source, which gives a corporate unity 
 
 to the whole. And we are asked further to 
 
 believe that there are only three branches in the 
 
 Church ; because Episcopal and Priestly Orders 
 
 validly transmitted are of the very essence of the 
 
 Church of Christ ; and it is only in the Anglican, 
 
 Greek, and Roman Churches that such Orders 
 
 can be found. Lutherans, Dutch Calvinists, 
 
 Scotch Presbyterians, all the Nonconformist 
 
 sects, are, in this Anglican theory, without the 
 
 Christian Church. They neither have, nor claim 
 
i68 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 to have, Bishops and Priests with Divinely ap- 
 pointed powers, handed on by generation to 
 generation, from Apostolic times, through Di- 
 vinely appointed Sacramental rites. Anglicans 
 alone, they say, with Greeks and Roman 
 Catholics, have, and claim to have, a Sacrament 
 of Orders, which only Bishops can confer ; and 
 therefore, Anglicans, Greeks, and Roman Ca- 
 tholics alone belong to and constitute the Church 
 of Christ. 
 
 Now, on this theory we may remark at the 
 outset, and it is a weighty argument against its 
 truth, that it is wholly modern, entirely unthought 
 of through all the earliest ages of Church history. 
 Neither those who separated from the primitive 
 Church in local schisms, nor those who took 
 part in the sad division of East and West, and 
 in the Reformation troubles of the sixteenth 
 century, had recourse to it ; and we can hardly 
 doubt it would have been at least discussed, had 
 anyone imagined it was tenable. 
 
 Further, even in our own day, though it has 
 been prominently before the world for. three- 
 quarters of a century, it finds no one to accept 
 and advocate it, outside the Anglican Com- 
 munion. A section, a small minority, most pro- 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 169 
 
 bably, of the Church of England, maintains the 
 theory ; the large majority of Protestant Episco- 
 palians know nothing of it ; while Greeks and 
 Roman Catholics repudiate it utterly. Is it 
 likely that the Church of Christ is constituted on 
 a pattern which not one in a hundred of her 
 members will acknowledge ? 
 
 Are we to believe that the true constitution of 
 the Christian Church was hidden from mankind, 
 from the Church herself, throughout nineteen 
 centuries, and was only then made known to a 
 little group of Anglican theologians who have 
 failed to persuade any but a handful of their own 
 Communion that their conception of the Church 
 is that of Christ ? 
 
 Nor is the theory merely novel, and incredible 
 to those for whom it was intended : in itself it 
 is quite untenable. We can, indeed, conceive of 
 local Churches largely independent of each other, 
 yet forming one ecclesiastical society, through 
 unity of faith, of communion, and of supreme 
 government. Such were the Churches of Gaul, 
 of Spain, of Africa, and others in the early cen- 
 turies. Such are the Catholic Churches of France, 
 of Ireland, of Germany, of the United States, and 
 many others, in our own day. But, where in- 
 
170 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 dependence changes into hostility, where inter- 
 communion is denied, where there is no common 
 social authority which all are prepared to recog- 
 nize, what social unity can there be? How can 
 distinct and warring bodies be said to form 
 one society ? When the States of the American 
 Union seceded from the Mother Country, when 
 they repudiated her authority, set up an inde- 
 pendent Government of their own, and pro- 
 ceeded to make war against her, did they not 
 cease to form one kingdom with her, even though 
 they still retained her language, her laws, and her 
 traditions ? Could they, can they now, with any 
 propriety of thought or of expression, be said to 
 form a branch or province of the Empire ? And 
 if another of the colonies should break away or 
 be cast off, though it did nothing else than cease 
 to obey the authority it had obeyed before, would 
 it not cease to be a portion of the King's do- 
 minions? Now, God's Church is not less one 
 than any civil state. We have seen, from the 
 terms of its institution, and from theteaching and 
 action of the Apostles, that all its members must 
 be linked together in unity of faith, of Sacraments, 
 of communion, and, above all, of government. 
 It is not, as we saw, a loose federation of more 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 171 
 
 or less independent states. It is one organized 
 society, one " Kingdom," one " Household," one 
 living " Body," whose members act and re-act 
 upon each other, and are joined and controlled 
 in living unity by one principle of life, which is 
 a common and supreme authority. But, what 
 unity can we discover in this aggregate of 
 "branches" or "provinces"? They have no 
 one visible government which all are prepared to 
 obey. They have no one profession of Faith, 
 which all will accept as sufficient and essential. 
 They have no common religious rites and Sacra- 
 ments which all may partake of, and to which all 
 are to be admitted. Each charges the others with 
 heresy and with schism. Each counts it a duty 
 and a gain to make proselytes from the others. 
 And this condition of things has lasted, between 
 Greeks and Roman Catholics, for eight and a 
 half centuries ; between English Protestants on 
 the one hand, and both Greece and Rome upon 
 the other, for close upon four hundred years. I 
 am not seeking now to apportion blame for this 
 disunion, to determine its origin, or to fix the 
 charge of heresy or schism on any of the con- 
 tending bodies. I only ask you to observe 
 that there is disunion, disunion bitter, long con- 
 
172 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 tinued, on fundamental points in the very con- 
 stitution and teaching of the Church ; and then 
 to say is it not a mockery to maintain, as Angli- 
 cans maintain, that these three antagonistic 
 bodies form one social organization, the one 
 Church of Christ ? 
 
 Or conceive if you can the branch theory set 
 out for the acceptance of St. Paul, of the St. Paul 
 on whose emphatic language to the Ephesians 
 and the Corinthians, on the subject of Church 
 unity, we have already dwelt. Tell him that 
 the Church which he and the Apostles founded 
 has become divided into rival parties ; that the 
 three chief of these are wholly at variance in 
 their symbols of belief; that they refuse to com- 
 municate in the same Sacraments, or join in the 
 same religious worship ; that they are ruled by 
 pastors who are openly and earnestly hostile to 
 each other ; but that the Church is still essentially 
 unchanged, is still one and the same with that 
 Apostolic Church which he laboured to establish, 
 and which had only one Faith, one worship, one 
 and the same Sacraments, one supreme governing 
 authority. Would not St. Paul reply that it was 
 not so he had conceived of the Church's con- 
 stitution ; that it was not so their Master had 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 173 
 
 explained it to the Apostles ; that the unity which 
 Christ had promised, and they had striven to 
 realize, was not a curious abstraction, the object, 
 for centuries, of prayer and longing, but a concrete 
 fact, an essential attribute, in every period of the 
 Church's history ? 
 
 The Church of Christ, then, is not to be found 
 in an impossible combination of these three con- 
 flicting societies. No visible kingdom was ever 
 constituted of provinces which acknowledged no 
 visible and common ruler, which permitted no 
 civil and social intercourse between their citizens, 
 which made unceasing and active war upon each 
 other. 
 
 And yet the Church of Christ must be identical 
 with one of these three bodies. They, and they 
 alone, among all others, have preserved even the 
 outward forms of that essential organization, 
 which Christ and His Apostles gave to the Apos- 
 tolic Church. In no other bodies do we meet 
 with even a claim to Divinely;appointed teachers, 
 to doctrinal infallibility, to unity of Faith, to an 
 ordered transmission of priestly powers, to any 
 Sacramental system, to a world-wide mission, to 
 one common ruling authority. Indeed, the only 
 oneness those others can make show of is that of 
 
174 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 name, and of a few so-called fundamental doc- 
 trines. What else have the Calvinists of Geneva 
 in common with those of Scotland ? Or the 
 Methodists of the United States with those of 
 Wales ? The Church of Christ, then, is identical 
 with that of Greece, or that of England, or that 
 of Rome : where we use the names to designate 
 not geographical areas, but religious bodies. To 
 these three we may confine our further inquiry. 
 
 And here we are compelled, however unwill- 
 ingly, to touch on controversy. I have en- 
 deavoured hitherto to avoid everything which 
 could cause pain or give offence to others. I 
 have desired only to explain and justify our own 
 position. Religious controversy, like every other, 
 leads few souls into the truth. But we must 
 enter, in some degree, upon it here. For we have 
 to show that the Roman Catholic Church, alone 
 among rival claimants, is the one true Church of 
 Christ. This we cannot do, unless by rejecting 
 the claims of others, especially the Greek and 
 Anglican Communions. We must only strive 
 to do it temperately and in charity. 
 
 And first, as to the Greek or, as it is frequently 
 called, the ** Orthodox Greek " Communion. We 
 are to note that it is by no means limited to the 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 175 
 
 Christian population of either ancient or modern 
 Greece. It includes all the Episcopal Churches 
 in the East, which were once united with the See 
 of Rome, but which parted from her, first for a time, 
 under Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in 
 the ninth century, and then permanently, under 
 Michael Caerularius, about 1054. It counts large 
 numbers of adherents in the Turkish Empire ; 
 it is spread throughout the whole of Russia ; it is 
 the religion of the Kingdoms of Greece, Servia, 
 Montenegro, Roumania, and Bulgaria. Its total 
 membership must be about one hundred millions. 
 And it has preserved a great portion of the 
 Catholic inheritance ; almost all the dogmas of 
 the Faith, valid Episcopal Succession, Priestly Or- 
 ders, the Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Euchar- 
 ist, private Confession and absolution of sins, all 
 seven Sacraments, devotion to the Blessed Mother 
 of God and to the other saints, a belief in Pur- 
 gatory and in prayer for the departed. But it is 
 not the Church of Christ. Indeed it is not a 
 Church at all. For Christ's Church, as we have 
 seen, is an organized Society, the parts of which 
 are united by a common bond, which can only be 
 authority. Now, in the Churches of the Greek 
 Communion there is no common authority. In 
 
176 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Greece itself they are governed by an Episcopal 
 Synod appointed by the King. In Russia by 
 the Holy Synod, which is wholly dependent on 
 the Emperor. In the Balkan States by National 
 Synods, each within its own territory. In Turkey 
 by the four Patriarchs — Constantinople, Alex- 
 andria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. And each 
 Synod and Patriarch is wholly independent of 
 every other ; no claim is admitted, no claim is 
 made, that any should have a right of interference 
 within another's jurisdiction. It is true, no doubt, 
 that there is a certain unity of belief among these 
 Churches ; points of difference are few and un- 
 important. But the fact seems due to the con- 
 servatism or intellectual inactivity of the Eastern 
 mind ; for there is no principle of unity among 
 them : and as there is no one governing, so 
 there is no one teaching, authority. Each na- 
 tional Church in its national Synod may formulate 
 its creed as it judges best. No power is recog- 
 nized on earth as competent to declare offi- 
 cially what the Faith of the Greek Church is. 
 Such an aggregation of independent bodies is 
 clearly not the Church of Christ. It corresponds 
 in no way with the " Kingdom," " Household," 
 " City," " Sheepfold," of which Our Lord spoke, 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 177 
 
 or with the living human '* body," which was the 
 chosen metaphor of St. Paul. Nor does the 
 Greek Church claim to be the one true Church. 
 It makes no such claim, and has never made it, for 
 any of the national establishments, into which it 
 has broken up. And, whatever may have been 
 its case, when all the Eastern Bishoprics were 
 grouped about the Patriarchate of Constantinople, 
 and acknowledged a primacy of honour in that 
 See, now at any rate, that the primacy has been 
 set aside, and that the national Churches are as 
 independent of each other as are the civil States, 
 the claim is not put forward even for the aggre- 
 gate of the Eastern Churches. We have it, 
 therefore, that these Churches make no exclusive 
 claim to be the Church of Christ ; that they are 
 without the living unifying principle which Christ 
 instituted in His Kingdom to make it and to 
 keep it one ; that they are in fact not one, but 
 separate and independent bodies. We may, I 
 think, in consequence, conclude unhesitatingly 
 that the Orthodox or Eastern Church is not 
 Christ's Church. 
 
 And what of the Anglican Communion ? By 
 the Anglican Communion I mean the whole body 
 
 of Protestant Episcopalians, represented by the 
 
 12 
 
178 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Bishops of English-speaking countries, who 
 assemble from time to time in Lambeth for Pan- 
 Anglican Synods. Their dioceses lie in England, 
 Scotland, Ireland, in the various Colonies of the 
 British Empire, and in the United States of 
 America ; with a very few others, such as Jeru- 
 salem, Southern Europe, and Korea. It is not 
 of course contended that the Anglican Church in 
 any of these countries is the one true Church of 
 Christ ; no one has ever put forward such a 
 theory. A merely local Church — whether of a 
 city, a province, or an empire — cannot be Christ's 
 universal Church. But it may be argued that 
 Protestant Episcopalians in their entirety do 
 constitute that Church : for they are to be met 
 with everywhere ; and in number they are many 
 millions. Let us examine if it be so. 
 
 And, first, if we consider them as an aggregate 
 of all the local Churches, they are in the same 
 position as the Greeks : they may be one in 
 name, in methods, and in objects ; but they have 
 no organic unity. They are distinct and inde- 
 pendent bodies. There is no common authority 
 which can legislate for all ; no common authority 
 which can everywhere declare what are revealed 
 doctrines. The Bishops of the Anglican Com- 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 179 
 
 munion can indeed meet together in Lambeth or 
 in Canterbury ; and the Anglican Archbishop, 
 who holds the Cathedral of Anselm and Thomas 
 Becket, will probably be invited to preside over 
 them. But no one has a right to convene them : 
 they meet because they themselves choose to 
 meet, as might the members of a Section on 
 Religion in the British Association ; and the out- 
 come of their conferences and discussions is en- 
 tirely without authority. They cannot decide a 
 doctrinal controversy. They cannot determine a 
 point of liturgy. They cannot enact or abrogate 
 a single detail of Church discipline. They know, 
 they have been warned, and they profess, that 
 even a Pan-Anglican Synod can only discuss 
 and offer counsel ; it can neither teach nor com- 
 mand authoritatively. There is no living prin- 
 ciple of unity in the Anglican, as there is none 
 in the Greek, Communion. And the consequences 
 are more disastrous among the Anglicans than 
 among the Easterns. There is in fact no unity of 
 faith among them ; a loyal Anglican may hold 
 whichever he may chooseof contradictory opinions 
 upon the most vital points of Church doctrine. 
 Ask him, for instance, if Christ be really present 
 in the Eucharist ; he will tell you, on the authority 
 
 12* 
 
i8o THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 of a late Primate of the Church of England, that 
 you may affirm and that you may deny it. Ask 
 him has the priesthood of his Church the power 
 of offering sacrifice, and the power of forgiving 
 sin : he will answer that the most learned and 
 the most devoted members of his Church are 
 divided on both questions. Ask him, again, is 
 Episcopacy of Divine institution, and are priestly 
 powers transmitted by Sacramental rites : he 
 must reply that high Anglican authorities may 
 be quoted on both sides of the controversy. Is 
 marriage a Christian Sacrament, or is it merely 
 a civil contract, subject, like other contracts, to 
 State control, and terminable by mutual consent 
 or legal sentence? He will admit that some 
 maintain its sacred character ; but others, the 
 majority, indeed, and not a few among the pastors 
 of his Church, maintain the contrary. May a 
 minister of his communion deny the efficacy and 
 need of Baptism, and still continue to exercise 
 the ministry? He must say that so it has been 
 legally decided. Baptism, the Eucharist, Penance, 
 Marriage, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the histor- 
 icity and inspiration of the Scriptures, the Resur- 
 rection of Christ our Lord, His very Divinity — 
 and we might add almost indefinitely to the list 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? i8i 
 
 — are all doctrines on which an approved and ac- 
 knowledged member of the Church of England 
 may believe almost anything he chooses. And 
 he is free to do so, because he has no authoritative 
 teacher, to whom all must listen. No doubt, 
 there are the Holy Scriptures, the early Councils 
 and tradition, which many Anglicans hold in un- 
 questioning reverence. But where is the living 
 authoritative interpreter ? Who is to apply the 
 dead rule to present issues? As matters stand, 
 it must be each man's private judgment. Synods 
 and Convocations, whether of York or Canter- 
 bury, of Ireland, or the United States, or even of 
 all the Anglican Churches, make no claim to an 
 infallible authority. Formularies are dead things ; 
 and there is no living judge of controversies. No 
 wonder that the very foundations of the Faith 
 are so uncertain, that there is such diversity of 
 belief, and such vital and never-ending differences. 
 And no wonder we fail to find in such a Church 
 that Kingdom of Christ on earth, which He 
 promised should be ever one in faith, in worship, 
 and in government. 
 
 But, indeed, the Protestant Episcopalian Church 
 and the members of the Anglican Communion, 
 make no claim to constitute, by themselves alone, 
 
i82 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 that Kingdom ; they profess — or those of them 
 who hold that Christ's Church is visibly to endure 
 for ever — that they themselves are only part, a 
 "province" or a "branch," of the great world- 
 wide organization. And, how unfounded, how 
 impossible, that theory is, we have seen already. 
 
 Neither Easterns, then, nor Anglicans have 
 any title to be thought the Church of Christ. In 
 both Communions there are high graces and lofty 
 virtues, and noble Christian characters ; there are 
 precious truths of revelation, and a rich outpour- 
 ing of Divine blessings. But the special mark 
 and seal of the Christian Church, the oneness of 
 Faith, government, and means of sanctification, 
 which Christ made essential — that is possessed 
 by neither of them in fact or principle. 
 
 And here we might almost end our inquiry. 
 For, if the Protestant Episcopalian Churches do 
 not constitute the true Church of Christ ; if it be 
 not formed of the Greek or Eastern Churches ; 
 and if the branch theory advanced by Anglicans 
 be unfounded and erroneous ; then we may infer 
 at once, and with the utmost certainty, that the 
 Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, the 
 Church of which we ourselves are members. 
 We have seen, and we have proved, that the 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 183 
 
 visible Church of Christ is an imperishable society. 
 Therefore, it exists somewhere in the world of 
 to-day ; and may be recognized by those who 
 duly seek it. It is not to be sought in an aggre- 
 gate of all who take Christ's name, or even con- 
 fess His Divinity. It is not to be found among 
 the lesser religious bodies, which have broken 
 away from larger organizations, and make no 
 claim to be more than fragments. It is not the 
 Eastern Church ; it is not the Anglican ; it is not 
 both of them conjoined, together with the Church of 
 Rome. Therefore, it must inevitably be this last 
 Church ; for there is no other possible claimant 
 to the title. The argument is the "argument of 
 exclusion " ; and it is convincing. 
 
 But, furthermore, as the absence of organic 
 unity is certain proof that the religious society, in 
 which we observe it, is not Christ's Church, so 
 its existence in a religious body stamps that body 
 as the true Church of Christ. And the proof be- 
 comes more and more convincing as the society 
 spreads more and more widely, and as the unity 
 which it manifests is not merely in the present, 
 but is also a oneness with its own past. A sect 
 may be, every sect is, in the beginning, one. 
 Those who form it must have something in 
 
i84 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 common, to join in separating from the parent 
 body. But as they grow in numbers, as they 
 extend from one country to another, as genera- 
 tion follows generation, only a Divine influence 
 can prevent further divisions from taking place 
 amongst them. And in a world-wide society, 
 like the Christian Church, embracing, as it does, 
 men of every race and class and prejudice, of the 
 most varied intelligence and education, in every 
 kind of circumstances and of surroundings, living 
 on, too, from generation to generation, and from 
 century to century, abiding unity can only be 
 from God : the Church herself must be Divine. 
 And it is plain, I think, to all unprejudiced ob- 
 servers that in the Catholic Church there is a 
 wondrous and a perfect unity. 
 
 She is one in Faith. The charge, indeed, is 
 commonly brought against her that independence 
 and originality of thought are impossible to her 
 members, because of the crushing uniformity of 
 belief which she imposes on them. This is not 
 the time to examine the accusation ; but it testi- 
 fies, at any rate, to the unity of religious faith 
 amongst us. Not that all believe explicitly the 
 same individual doctrines. Beyond the limits of 
 the Church's authoritative teaching, there is a 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 185 
 
 wide field open to discussion ; there have been, 
 there are, rival schools of Catholic theology ; 
 there may be different, even contradictory, 
 opinions as to whether one or other particular 
 tenet is or is not contained in the Christian Reve- 
 lation ; even the explicit teaching of the Church 
 will be brought home differently to different 
 minds, according to their powers of intellect, and 
 opportunities for gaining knowledge. But the 
 disputations of the schools and religious contro- 
 versy among Catholics are rarely concerned with 
 revealed truths at all ; they deal chiefly with in- 
 ferences from them. Controversy is ever* carried 
 on with entire submission to Church authority. 
 The disputants are ready to abide by her decision, 
 if and when the Church sees fit to give a decision 
 to them. Then there is a great body of revealed 
 teaching, which all the children of the Church have 
 learned explicitly and hold in common. No single 
 truth which she proposes for belief may ever be 
 called in question by any of her members. And, 
 above all, her children see in her a Divinely ap- 
 pointed guide, who speaks to them with a living 
 voice, which "can neither deceive nor be de- 
 ceived ". No wonder they have unity of Faith, 
 not as an accidental fact, but as the necessary re- 
 
1 86 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 suit of obedience to such a teacher, whom they 
 listen to, within defined limits, as they would 
 listen to their Divine Founder. 
 
 Further, the Catholic Church is one in Sacra- 
 ments and Sacrifice. Wherever her temples and 
 her ministers are to be found, there her children 
 will find the same ministrations, to which all are 
 everywhere admitted. There may be differ- 
 ences of language ; there may be peculiarities of 
 liturgy and ceremonial ; but there is no differ- 
 ence as to the number, the nature, the efficacy 
 of her Sacraments, and none as to the reality of 
 her Sacrifice, or the value and effects of its 
 oblation. 
 
 Again, she is one in government. Her local 
 churches are, indeed, \ under the rule of local 
 pastors. But they are joined together into 
 provinces and nations ; and all are united under 
 one visible Head, who exercises a universal 
 and supreme jurisdiction. We are not concerned 
 here with the origin and rightfulness of this su- 
 premacy ; it is enough at present that it exists in 
 the Catholic Church, and that it secures a unity 
 of Faith, of worship, and of government which it 
 is vain to look for elsewhere. 
 
 But is she one with her own past ? Is she the 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 187 
 
 same to-day, in Faith, in ritual, and in govern- 
 ment, that she was a thousand, fifteen hundred 
 years ago ? I do not now inquire is she identical 
 with the Church of Apostolic times. If she be, 
 she is evidently the Church of Christ. But that 
 inquiry is dependent on complex historical in- 
 vestigations, for which satisfactory data are often 
 wanting, and it involves not a few much-discussed 
 points of controversy. Nor is it necessary for 
 our immediate purpose. Identity through a thou- 
 sand years, over such a vast area, and in such 
 a multitude of members, with such mysterious 
 doctrines, and under such changing circumstances, 
 is convincing proof of a special Divine protection ; 
 and if God be its author, the Church herself is 
 Divine. Now, for a thousand and more years, 
 during which her history is open to us, and 
 documentary evidence is abundant, the Catholic 
 Church has undergone no substantial change. 
 Growth, development, there must be, if she lives ; 
 but in all essentials her glory is the accusation 
 made so bitterly against her : " Semper eadem " — 
 "ever the same". Two or three points there 
 may be, in which adversaries may say she 
 has added to her creed. They prove nothing. 
 Are they, are they not, additions is in con- 
 
1 88 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 troversy. Were it even granted that they are, 
 what are they in the unchanging sameness of a 
 thousand years ? But we do not grant it. There 
 is nothing in our belief, in our worship, in the 
 government of our Church to-day, which would 
 cause even a moment of surprise or an instant of 
 hesitation in Columbanus, or Malachy of Armagh, 
 or Anselm of Canterbury, or Francis of Assisi, 
 or any of the saints and doctors and simple faith- 
 ful of the ten last centuries. 
 
 This, then, is our first and all-sufficient argu- 
 ment. There is a visible Church of Christ on 
 earth. It is one, not merely numerically but 
 organically as well ; one, that is, in Faith, sacra- 
 ments, sacrifice, government, and historical iden- 
 tity ; and it is organically one, not in fact only, 
 but through an abiding principle by which 
 that unity is permanently secured. Now, no 
 religious body, as we have seen, except the 
 Catholic Church, has that essential unity. There- 
 fore, no other religious body can be the Church 
 of Christ. And again, the unity of which we 
 speak is so peculiarly the privilege of Christ's 
 Church that it cannot be found in any other 
 religious body. Now it is found, as we have 
 shown, in the Catholic Church. Consequently, 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 189 
 
 the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church 
 only, is Christ's true Church. 
 
 Consider, further, that until the division be- 
 tween East and West, until the days of Photius 
 and Cserularius, the visible society of Christ on 
 earth, His Church, was the Catholic Church, 
 united in communion and obedience with the 
 See of Rome. Then came the separation : a 
 word,^ the Greeks complained, had been unlaw- 
 fully added to the Creed ; and there were some 
 Western liturgical details to which they made 
 objection. Therefore, they cut themselves off 
 from Rome and the Churches in communion with 
 her. What view are we to take of the result ? 
 Till then, the faithful, the bishops, the chief pastor, 
 of the Latin Church had been members of the 
 one true Church of Christ. Did they cease to be 
 so when the Greeks withdrew from their com- 
 munion ? They had committed no act of schism ; 
 they still held the faith which had been held by 
 the united and infallible Church, up to the days 
 of separation ; the Church of Christ did not 
 perish then, or become invisible. The Latin 
 Church, therefore, preserved its membership of 
 Christ's Church ; and since Christ's Church is 
 
 ^ The ^/iogui. 
 
190 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 one, and one only, the Latin Church alone was 
 then the true Church of Christ. Now, see what 
 follows. Until the religious trouble of the six- 
 teenth century the Latin Church in communion 
 with Rome was the one true Church. Till then 
 there was one united Western Church, visible 
 and infallible, under the obedience of the Bishop 
 of Rome, and in full communion with him. And 
 when Northern Europe, and then England and 
 Scotland, separated from her, what was the con- 
 dition of those who remained faithful to her? 
 We must reason exactly as we did on the separa- 
 tion of Greeks and Latins, five centuries before. 
 Roman Catholics continued to hold the faith 
 which the whole Western Church had held until 
 the Reformation, and which Church infallibility 
 had kept free from error. They retained the 
 Sacraments and Sacrifice, which all had held to 
 be Divinely instituted. They still obeyed the 
 authority which all had believed to have been 
 set over them by God. They could not lose 
 membership of the Church except through her- 
 esy or schism, and, clearly, they were guilty of 
 neither. They must, then, have continued in the 
 Church ; and since the Church is visible, and is 
 not composed of "branches," they and they alone 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH? 191 
 
 could constitute it. In the sixteenth century, 
 therefore, as in the ninth and the eleventh, the 
 Christian Church was that which remained united 
 with the Roman See. Roman Catholics were 
 then, and so they must be now, the one Church 
 which Christ established. 
 
 And, finally, the Catholic Church alone is 
 Christ's, because Christ's Church is infallible, as 
 we have already seen ; and only the Catholic 
 Church makes claim to be so. In an able and 
 singularly bitter attack, which Dr. Salmon, a 
 former Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, makes 
 on the Catholic Church, in his lectures on Church 
 Infallibility, he says very truly : " The issues of 
 the controversy mainly turn on one great ques- 
 tion — I mean the question of infallibility of the 
 Church. If that be decided against us our whole 
 case is gone " ; and the object of his book, as he 
 says further on, is to demonstrate the proposition : 
 "that God has appointed some one on earth 
 able to give infallible guidance to religious truth, 
 admits of no proof, and is destitute of all prob- 
 ability". On Dr. Salmon's showing, then, our 
 case stands thus : If there be an infallible Church 
 on earth, the Roman Catholic Church is that 
 Church ; and the controversy between Roman 
 
192 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Catholics and Protestants is ended, in favour of 
 the former. Many Protestants, I know, and all 
 Anglicans will refuse to follow him. But his in- 
 ference, I am confident, is justified ; as we shall 
 see, if we examine it. 
 
 A Church might, indeed, claim infallibility, and 
 yet be false ; but a Church which disclaims it 
 cannot be the Church of Christ : for Christ*s 
 Church is infallible. The infallibility of the true 
 Church is, as we have seen, a doctrine revealed 
 of God ; and so the infallible, the true Church 
 cannot disclaim or even doubt it. And, further, 
 the true Church must claim infallibility. She 
 must preach the Gospel, and declare that those 
 shall be condemned who will not accept her 
 teaching. She must determine controversies, 
 anathematize heresies, define dogmas ; and all 
 this irrevocably. She must demand assent to 
 her decisions, under the most grievous penalties. 
 What teacher and judge, if not infallible, and 
 claiming infallibility, would be justified in doing 
 so ? Consider now the various Churches, the 
 various religious bodies, which hold themselves 
 descended in legitimate succession from the 
 Apostolic Church. The Catholic Church, and 
 she alone, believes herself to be infallible ; she, 
 
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH 193 
 
 and she only, claims for herself infallibility. All 
 others, Greek, Anglican, Protestant, Episco- 
 palian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Nonconformist — 
 of whatever name and nature — put forward no 
 such claim ; indeed, profess openly they have no 
 such privilege. On this ground, then, also, the 
 Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ. 
 
 And now, let me sum up briefly the considera- 
 tions on which we have just dwelt. Assuming, 
 from previous lectures, that the ** Kingdom of 
 God," Christ's Church, the heir to the Divine 
 promises, the chosen channel of Divine graces, 
 is a visible society, existing upon earth even now, 
 and seeing the many different religious bodies 
 around us, the question is at once suggested : 
 which amonor them all is the Church of Christ ? 
 How shall we identify her? In studying the 
 foundation and constitution of the Church, we saw 
 Christ willed she should be one and universal. 
 She was to spread throughout the world, and 
 endure throughout the ages ; and yet she was 
 to remain one through historic continuity, and 
 one in her profession of revealed truth, in her 
 sacraments and sacrifice, and in her government. 
 And in no society but the Church of Christ can 
 such unity be found ; it is the work and gift of 
 
 13 
 
194 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 God alone, and God will not, and cannot, 
 authenticate a falsehood. The Church, too, is 
 infallible in her teaching of revealed truth, and 
 she must be conscious of and claim, as well as 
 exercise, the Divine gift ; the religious society 
 which repudiates it is not Christ's Church ; and if 
 one only among religious societies lays claim to 
 it, that society must be the Church of Christ. 
 And then we saw that the Catholic Church, and 
 she alone among all the Churches, fulfils these 
 requirements ; from which we infer with certainty 
 that she and she only is Christ's true Church. 
 
 We shall inquire next into the teaching and 
 governing authority of the Church, who the 
 persons are in whom it vests, and what is its 
 nature and its extension. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE. 
 
 We have now reached a point in our inquiry into 
 the foundation and constitution of the Christian 
 Church, where we know with entire certainty that 
 the one visible Kingdom of Christ upon earth, 
 His Church, is that of which we ourselves are 
 members ; and that in teaching and believing 
 the revealed truths confided to her, that Church 
 cannot err. We have reached a point, therefore, 
 when we can appeal with confidence to the Cath- 
 olic Church herself for assistance in our further 
 inquiries. Hitherto, we have never had recourse 
 to her authority. On the various questions 
 which we have discussed her testimony is distinct 
 and decisive. She believes and teaches the 
 genuineness and authenticity of the New Tes- 
 tament writings. She believes and teaches the 
 Divinity of Christ. She believes and teaches the 
 foundation of the Church as a Divine Society 
 — one in Faith, ritual, and government. She 
 
 X95 13 * 
 
196 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 believes and teaches its visible continuance until 
 the end of time ; and she believes and teaches 
 its infallibility in belief and teaching. But we 
 have not appealed to her authority. We wished 
 to mark the steps by which an impartial student 
 of religion might be logically led on, through a 
 critical investigation of the Church's origins and 
 of the present condition of the Catholic Church, 
 to a reasoned acceptance of her claims and doc- 
 trines. I was anxious to avoid argument ** in a 
 circle ". I was not seeking to explain why and 
 how we Catholics, educated and uneducated alike, 
 hold and profess the truths we have discussed in 
 previous Lectures. In childhood, in youth, even 
 in maturer years, we do not, for instance, believe 
 Our Blessed Lord's Divinity because of the 
 proofs that may be drawn from His statements 
 about Himself, His character, the wonders that 
 He worked, and His Resurrection. Our assent, 
 as we may have occasion to see later on, is very 
 much more simple. But I was concerned to 
 show how rigorously scientific the Catholic Faith 
 itself is, what a critical examination it is prepared 
 to undergo, and how satisfactorily we can justify 
 our religious position to ourselves and to in- 
 quirers, when need for justification arises. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 197 
 
 Now, however, that the infallible authority of 
 the Catholic Church in the domain of revealed 
 truth has been demonstrated, there can be no 
 reason why we should not in future make use of 
 that authority. We might do so, even to the 
 exclusion of every other argument. We noted, 
 as a characteristic of Christ's teaching, that He 
 simply asserted the truths which He put forward : 
 He offered no proofs in their favour ; they were 
 guaranteed by H is Divine infallibility. Similarly, 
 when once the infallibility of the Catholic Church 
 has been made clear to us, we are bound to assent 
 to her belief and teaching of revealed doctrines, 
 though she advanced no other proof, and we saw 
 none other ourselves, in support of them. Her 
 living voice is warrant for our assent, and makes 
 it obligatory. But, as we have already seen, she 
 receives no new revelation. Her teaching office 
 is to preserve and to explain the revelation made 
 to the Apostles. And because that revelation, 
 in all its main features, and most even of its de- 
 tails, has been enshrined in the New Testament 
 writings, and because the accurate understanding 
 and authentic interpretation of those writings has 
 in large part come down to us in Catholic tra- 
 dition, we can almost always corroborate the 
 
19S THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 authority of the Church from those other sources. 
 Truths, too, are proposed to us by the Church 
 at times, as contained an revelation, which are 
 antecedently probable, or even capable of a 
 rational demonstration ; and there is no reason 
 why we should reject arguments that may render 
 our assent both easier and clearer. 
 
 And we proceed to apply this method to the 
 question which is to occupy us to-day — the per- 
 son or persons in whom the supreme authority 
 of the Church is vested. Infallibility of belief, or 
 passive infallibility, as it is often called, resides 
 evidently in the whole body of the Church's 
 members. The Church is passively infallible, is 
 Divinely preserved from error, when her children 
 hold, universally, any truth as a doctrine of 
 Divine Faith, or reject any error as certainly op- 
 posed to it. There remains to be considered the 
 active authority of the Church, her authority in 
 teaching and in governing ; and we are to ex- 
 amine now the position, which we Catholics 
 maintain, that all such authority is concentrated, 
 though not exclusively, in the Bishop and See of 
 Rome ; that the Pope is infallible teacher and 
 supreme ruler of Christ's Church on earth. 
 
 And first it seems antecedently likely that 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 199 
 
 some such teacher and ruler must exist. Christ 
 planned and founded a visible and imperishable 
 society, in which He Himself was supreme visible 
 Teacher and Ruler, while He lived on earth. 
 We should be disposed, therefore, to expect that 
 He would make the office a part of the Church's 
 constitution, and provide for successors who 
 should occupy it. This is no proof, of course, 
 that He actually did so ; but it prepares us to 
 consider favourably any arguments which go to 
 show that He did. Then, further, He deter- 
 mined that His Kingdom should be universal, 
 and should be one, should be spread over the 
 earth, yet with all its parts bound together, in a 
 common Faith, into one organized social whole. 
 To secure such Catholic unity, no means would 
 appear better adapted than one sr.preme visible 
 head. The object could, doubtless, have been 
 obtained in other ways — by the direct controlling 
 action of the Holy Spirit on all the members of 
 the society, or by entrusting all authority to a 
 Senate or a Council. But the balance of ad- 
 vantage and the parallelism of the Theocracy 
 and of the Hebrew Monarchy would point to the 
 likelihood of government by an individual. And 
 we are confirmed in this view, when we find one 
 
200 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 among the Apostles singled out for a very special 
 prominence by Our Lord Himself, and acknow- 
 ledged in a very marked manner as a leader 
 by the other Apostles. It is not without signifi- 
 cance, that, alone of the Apostles, Simon, the son 
 of Jona, had a name selected for him by Christ, 
 and that the name was Rock or Peter. He was 
 one of the chosen companions of Our Lord at the 
 Transfiguration and the Agony in the Garden. 
 When Our Lord addresses the Apostles, it is in- 
 variably to Peter that He speaks. When the 
 Apostles would address or question Christ, it is 
 almost always St. Peter who is allowed to do it. 
 In the lists of the Apostles, which all four 
 Evangelists give us, St. Peter is placed always 
 first. When tribute is to be paid, Peter is bid- 
 den by Our Lord to pay it for both himself and 
 Christ.^ On every occasion, when Peter is men- 
 tioned in the New Testament with any other 
 of the Apostles, the phrases recur : " Peter with 
 the eleven,"^ or *' Simon and they who were with 
 him," ^ or '' Peter and the two sons of Zebedee,"* 
 or *' Simon Peter and Thomas, who is called 
 Didymus, and Nathanael,"^ or " Simon Peter and 
 
 ^Matt. xvn. 26. ^^^ts n. 14. ^Luke vni. 45. 
 
 ■^Matt. XXVI. 37. ^John xxi. 2. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 201 
 
 the other disciple whom Jesus loved ".^ After 
 the Ascension, St. Peter seems to assume at once, 
 and as of course, the position of chief of the 
 Apostles. He proposes the election of a succes- 
 sor to Judas. He preaches the first Apostolic 
 discourse on the Feast of Pentecost. He works 
 the first Apostolic miracle on the lame man at 
 the Temple gate. He defends the Apostles 
 when brought prisoners before the Council. He 
 receives the first Gentiles into the infant Church, 
 and lays down the principle that Gentiles are to 
 be admitted. He pronounces against the con- 
 tinuance of the Jewish ceremonial law, as an un- 
 bearable "yoke on the necks of the disciples". 
 He seems to take unquestioned a place among 
 them, which recalls — though at infinite distance 
 — the place which Christ had held before the 
 Passion ; and it is a place we must find it difficult 
 to understand or to explain, unless on the ground 
 of a Divine appointment. I do not say that this 
 New Testament evidence is conclusive proof of a 
 primacy of teaching authority and of jurisdiction 
 conferred by Christ upon St. Peter ; but it does, 
 I think, point to a prominence and a pre-eminence 
 which are scarcely to be distinguished from such 
 ^ John XX. 2. 
 
202 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 a primacy ; and, whatever the privilege was, It 
 was given seemingly for the welfare of the 
 Church, and cannot, therefore, in the absence of 
 proof, be supposed to perish when St. Peter 
 died. 
 
 But the Gospels offer us a more convincing 
 argument. They tell us of a plain promise made 
 by Christ to Peter that He would give him su- 
 preme authority in the Church — supreme, and 
 therefore infallible, authority to teach ; supreme 
 authority to govern. And they tell us also of 
 the solemn fulfilment of the promise. 
 
 You remember the questions which Our Lord 
 put to His disciples, when He came with them 
 " into the quarters of Csesarea Philippi " : '' Whom 
 do men say that the Son of Man is ? " ; and, a 
 little later : ** But whom do you say that I 
 am ? " ; and then St. Peter s answer : '* Thou art 
 Christ, the Son of the living God ". ** And 
 Jesus answering said to him : Blessed art thou, 
 Simon Barjona. . . . And I say to thee : that 
 thou art Peter ; and upon this rock I will build 
 My Church, and the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail against it. And I will give to thee the keys 
 of the Kingdom of Heaven ; and whatsoever 
 thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 203 
 
 in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 
 earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."^ It is 
 clear, from Our Lord's words, that He regarded 
 St. Peter's declaration of belief in His Divinity 
 as of great importance, and as deserving of a 
 great reward. And He goes on to say what this 
 reward will be : ** Thou art Peter (Cephas or 
 rock, in the language which Christ spoke), and 
 upon this rock (Cephas) I will build My Church ". 
 In the original there is a play upon the name, 
 which is lost to us in English, but is clear in some 
 other translations. " Tu es Pierre, et sur cette 
 pierre je bdtirai mon ^glise," renders it precisely. 
 St. Peter, therefore, is chosen to be the founda- 
 tion on which Christ will raise His Church ; '' and 
 the gates of hell," the powers of evil, *' shall not 
 prevail against her ". St. Peter is to be to the 
 Christian Church what a rock foundation is to an 
 ordinary edifice — the principle of stability, unity, 
 permanence; and, because he is so, no enemy 
 ** shall prevail against her ". Now the unity and 
 stability, and therefore the continued existence, 
 of a society are due chiefly to the authority which 
 binds its elements together. And, if an essential 
 function of the society be to maintain and teach 
 ^ Matt. XVI. 13. 
 
204 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 a body of doctrines or opinions, whether philo- 
 sophical or religious, the supreme authority must 
 have power to declare what those doctrines or 
 opinions are. Christ Himself is the one Divine 
 foundation of His Church. ** Other foundation," 
 as St. Paul tells the Corinthians,^ *'no man 
 can lay than that which is laid, which is Christ 
 Jesus." And Christ is the foundation, not only 
 because He purchased the Church with His 
 Precious Blood, and framed her constitution, and 
 instituted her Sacraments, but also because He 
 taught her all revealed truth with infallible 
 authority, and ruled over her with a jurisdiction 
 from which there was no appeal. In the former 
 of those prerogatives, he called no one, neither 
 St. Peter nor any other, to take any part. In the 
 latter — supreme authority to teach and govern — 
 He promises, in our text, that St. Peter shall 
 have a share. And He goes on to emphasize, in 
 the words which follow, the privilege that He will 
 bestow: "I will give to thee," He says, ''the 
 keys of the Kingdom of Heaven ". No meta- 
 phor was better known to the Jews than the 
 keys, as a symbol of authority.''' They were as 
 familiar with its meaning as we are, when we 
 ^i Cor. III. II. 2 js^ xxn. 22. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 205 
 
 present the keys of a city to the sovereign, on his 
 entrance into it. St. Peter, then, is to receive 
 the keys of the kingdom, supreme authority to 
 teach and govern under Christ. 
 
 And after the Resurrection, the promise was 
 fulfilled. Before our Lord ascended into 
 heaven He entrusted His whole flock, sheep and 
 lambs, to the guardianship and guidance of St. 
 Peter. As He had associated Peter with Him- 
 self, when He used the metaphors of " founda- 
 tion " and of ** keys," so does He here, where He 
 speaks of the sheepfold, whose supreme pastor 
 He Himself is. " Feed My lambs," He says to 
 Peter, "Jdc the shepherd of My lambs," "feed 
 My sheep ".^ No member of the Church of 
 Christ is excepted from the commission ; the 
 Apostle is to feed and shepherd all. He is to 
 teach them the doctrines which Christ taught, to 
 administer to them the sacred rites which Christ 
 instituted, to govern them under the laws which 
 Christ laid down. Where we are to note that 
 Christ had already, on a previous occasion, be- 
 stowed on all the Apostles jointly the Apostolic 
 mission and Apostolic powers : " As the Father 
 hath sent Me, I also send you," He had said to 
 1 John XXI. 15. 
 
2o6 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 them ; ** Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins 
 you shall forgive they are forgiven them, and 
 whose sins you shall retain they are retained ".^ 
 Now He addresses Himself particularly to Peter ; 
 and, as at Csesarea Philippi, on eliciting from 
 Peter a profession of Faith in His Divinity, He 
 gave him the promise of the primacy, so here, 
 on eliciting a protestation of love. He bestows 
 on him the promised dignity. 
 
 I need not tell you that controversy rages 
 fiercely round these two texts, for it is felt that, if 
 they are admitted to prove a supreme governing 
 and teaching power conferred on Peter, there 
 must still be someone in Christ's Church invested 
 with that power. The constitution of the Church 
 has not changed. Such as she was in substance 
 and essentials in the days of the Apostles, such 
 she must be to-day. She cannot become other 
 than she was. If Christ founded a monarchy, 
 and made St. Peter to be ruler over it, infallible 
 and supreme, then there is to-day a successor to 
 Peter, in Christ's Church on earth ; and that suc- 
 cessor can only be the Bishop of the See of 
 Rome. No other has ever claimed the title ; for 
 no other has any claim been ever made. Hence 
 1 John XX. 21, 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 207 
 
 it was maintained by some — while disputants were 
 still willing to allow the authenticity > of both pass- 
 ages and the undeniable inference from them of 
 Peter's primacy — that the privilege had ceased 
 with the Apostle. His dignity, it was said, was 
 personal to himself, and passed away with him ; 
 or it was needed in the special circumstances of 
 the infant Church ; it was no longer necessary 
 and was, therefore, withdrawn, when the Apostle 
 died But such opinions find few, if any, to sup- 
 port or follow them to-day. If Roman claims 
 are to be repudiated, the primacy of St. Peter, 
 it is felt, must be denied. And so the most 
 varied explanations have been invented to escape 
 the cogency of the texts, culminating in the theory 
 of some hard-pressed controversialists that the 
 passage in St. Matthew, which contains the 
 promise made to Peter, is unauthentic. But I 
 shall not weary you by entering further into this 
 detail of our subject. I need only say that there 
 is no argument of the smallest scientific value 
 against the genuineness of the passage ; and 
 add, that the undivided and infallible Church, 
 before the schism of East and West, and then 
 the Western Church, until the Protestant Re- 
 formation, accepted both the texts as equally 
 
208 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 authentic, and attached to both the dogmatic 
 meaning which we have given them. 
 
 Besides, the whole temper of the Church, as 
 recorded in her history, has ever been to recog- 
 nize, both in fact and theory, the primacy of 
 Rome, and to recognize a primacy because the 
 Roman Bishop is the successor of Peter. Com- 
 munication with the Roman See was carried on 
 with difficulty in the days of persecution. We 
 have little documentary evidence concerning the 
 Christian Church during the three first centuries. 
 But we have enough to show us the position of 
 pre-eminence already occupied by the Church and 
 Bishop of Rome ; and when persecution ceases, 
 the evidence of an acknowledged primacy be- 
 comes overwhelming. 
 
 Towards the close of the first century, during 
 the lifetime, therefore, of St. John the Apostle 
 and Evangelist, dissensions arose in the Church 
 of Corinth. The faithful of that Church sought 
 advice and direction, not from the living Apostle, 
 but from Rome. And we still possess the 
 Epistle of St. Clement, in which, as Bishop of 
 the Roman Church, he prescribes what the 
 Corinthians are to do ; in which he exhorts them 
 to obey in those things ** which through the Holy 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 209 
 
 Spirit he has written to them," and declares that 
 ** Christ speaks to them through him," and that 
 those who refuse to listen sin gravely.^ At the 
 beginning of the second century, the Martyr 
 Ignatius, in a letter to the Romans, speaks of 
 their Church as presiding over all the Churches, 
 and of himself as anxious to approve whatever 
 they may teach and order. '^ In the same century, 
 Polycarp of Smyrna, St. John's disciple, voyages 
 to Rome to consult with Pope Anicetus on some 
 Eastern controversies,^ and the Martyrs of Lyons 
 send to Pope Eleutherius, asking his assistance in 
 combating the errors of Montanus.* Even here- 
 tics, like Marcion and the Montanists, make their 
 way to Rome, in order, if they may, to secure Ro- 
 man recognition.^ At the close of the century, 
 St. Irenaeus, a witness to the belief of Asia and 
 of Gaul, having asked how true tradition may 
 be distinguished from false, makes answer that it 
 will be enough to examine what is held by the 
 Church of Rome, since "all other Churches must 
 
 ^ Ad Corinth., c. 59; Lightfoot, ii. p. 170. 
 '•^Ad Rom.; Lightfoot, ii. pp. 189, 203. 
 ^Euseb., "Hist. Eccl.," v. c. 24 (ed. Burton). 
 
 * Ibid., c. 3. 
 
 * "Epiph. Haer.," 42, n. i ; M. G., xli. 695. 
 
 14 
 
2IO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 agree with her, because of her greater authority ".^ 
 At the same time, Pope Victor urges the Bishops 
 of Asia to hold synods for the settlement of the 
 Paschal controversy ; and when the Bishops of 
 Asia Minor refuse to adopt the Western usage, 
 Victor lays a command upon them, and seeks to 
 enforce it by excommunication.^ In the third 
 century, Tertullian speaks of the Pope as 
 " Pontifex Maximus "— that is, the *' Bishop of 
 Bishops " — and tells us of his issuing " a peremp- 
 tory edict " concerning absolution from sin, and 
 intended for the guidance of the Church universal.^ 
 And Tertullian's disciple, the Martyr Cyprian, 
 writes to Pope Cornelius of the Roman Church 
 as **the Chair of Peter, the principal Church, 
 whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise, 
 whose faith is praised in the preaching of the 
 Apostles, to whom faithlessness cannot have 
 access," * and he urges Pope St. Stephen to 
 excommunicate and depose Martian, Bishop of 
 Aries, and to appoint another Bishop in his stead.^ 
 
 Uren., "Contra Haer.," in. c. 3 ; M. G., vn. 849. 
 2Euseb., *'Hist. Eccl.," v. c. 24. 
 ^TertuU., "De Pudic," c. i ; M. L., n. 980. 
 *Ep., 59, n. 14; alit. xii. ; M. L., 111. 818. 
 ^Ibid.^ 67 ; M. L., iv. 399. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 211 
 
 In the same century Pope Stephen s decision on 
 the validity of heretical baptism overcame the 
 opposition of Cyprian, Firmilian, and many 
 African and Eastern Bishops, and was received 
 by the whole Church as a rule of Faith and prac- 
 tice. At the same time, we find Origen and 
 Denis of Alexandria writing to the Roman Bishop 
 to make a profession of belief and clear themselves 
 of all suspicion of error.^ We have St. Athanasius 
 and St. Peter of Alexandria seeking the assistance 
 and protection of Rome.^ We have Bishops 
 deposed by local Councils and carrying their 
 appeals to Rome^ — appeals received and dealt 
 with by the Roman See, and solemnly approved 
 of by the Decrees of Sardica.* We have heretics 
 and schismatics hurrying to Rome in order to 
 snatch a favourable decision from the Roman 
 Bishop, which could be set against, and would 
 override, the decision of local Churches. When we 
 can raise a little the veil which hides from us the 
 Church life and organization of those three first 
 
 lEuseb., "Hist. Eccl., " vi. 36; Athan., "Ep. de Sent. 
 Dion.," n. 13 ; M. G., xxv. 499. 
 
 ^Hieron., Ep., 127, n. 5 ; M. L., xxii. 1090. 
 'Cyprian, Ep., 67 ; M. L., iii. 986. 
 * Harduin, i. 638, and cf. Hefele, i. p. 649 sqq. 
 14* 
 
212 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 centuries, we find the Church and Bishop of Rome 
 in very much the same assured position of au- 
 thority to which the following- centuries testify 
 with overwhelming evidence. Nor is it an au- 
 thority in the making. Wherever we can observe 
 it, it appears to be already settled, traditional, 
 and acknowledged. Even angry outbursts, like 
 those of Firmilian, in the controversy with Pope 
 Stephen, about the middle of the third century, 
 are confirmation of the claims which Rome put 
 forward. When he tells us that Stephen *' prides 
 himself on the place of his Episcopate, and con- 
 tends that he holds the succession of Peter, upon 
 whom the foundations of the Church were laid " ; 
 when he accuses him of "provoking quarrels and 
 dissensions" by his decision, ** through the 
 Churches of the whole world " ; when he charges 
 him with ** thinking that all may be excommuni- 
 cated " by him, we can see that he recognizes 
 him as the Chief Bishop of Christendom, 
 does not venture directly to call in question his 
 authority, or even hint that the assertion of it is 
 a novelty. 
 
 And, when the age of persecution ended, when 
 communications with Rome were rendered easy 
 by favour of the Civil Government, and when 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 213 
 
 the Bishop and Church of Rome were at liberty 
 to exercise their privileges more openly, the two- 
 fold primacy — of teaching and of jurisdiction — 
 appears not merely universally admitted, but is 
 everywhere held to be decisive. I do not propose 
 quoting individual fathers — the great Bishops and 
 Priests of the early Church, who are witnesses to 
 its faith, and on whose teaching the Church's faith 
 was established. In East and West their testi- 
 mony is clear and unanimous. Gregory of 
 Nazianzus and Basil, Chrysostom and Cyril of 
 Alexandria, Theodoret and Chrysologus, Am- 
 brose, Augustin, Jerome, the great Popes, 
 Damasus, Leo, Innocent, Celestine, and a multi- 
 tude of others : all are at one in proclaiming the 
 prerogative of Peter, and the ordered succession 
 to Peter's rights in the See of Rome. But I pre- 
 fer to lay before you the collective witness of great 
 Church assemblies, in which the Church's Faith 
 found public and solemn expression. 
 
 In the Council of Ephesus (ann. 431), com- 
 posed mainly of Eastern Bishops over whom, by 
 appointment of Pope Celestine, St. Cyril of Alex- 
 andria presided, sentence against Nestorius was 
 introduced in these terms : " Being necessarily 
 constrained by the Canons, and by the letter of 
 
214 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 our most holy Father and fellow minister, 
 Celestine, the Bishop of the Church of the 
 Romans, we have, with many tears, come to this 
 mournful sentence against him" (Nestorius). 
 And, Nestorius having been deposed, '* Philip, 
 priest and Legate of the Apostolic Chair, con- 
 tinued : No one doubts, yea all ages know, that 
 the holy and most blessed Peter, the prince and 
 head of the Apostles, the pillar of the Faith, the 
 foundation of the Catholic Church, received the 
 keys of the Kingdom from our Lord Jesus 
 Christ . . . who, even until now, and always, 
 lives and judges in his successors. Wherefore 
 our holy and most blessed Pope,- Celestine 
 Bishop, his successor in order, and holder of his 
 place, has sent us to this holy synod, to supply 
 for his own presence."^ And, twenty years 
 later, in the Council of Chalcedon, after Pope 
 Leo's letter to Flavian of Constantinople had 
 been read, in which the errors of Eutyches were 
 condemned, the six hundred Bishops, Orientals 
 almost all, cried out : ** This is the faith of the 
 Fathers ; this is the faith of the Apostles. Thus 
 we all believe ; thus do the orthodox believe. 
 Anathema to him who believes not thus. 
 ^Harduin, i. 147. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 215 
 
 Thus hath Peter spoken through Leo." ^ Again, 
 in the third Council of Constantinople (ann. 680), 
 presided over by Papal Legates, and numbering 
 between two and three hundred Eastern Bishops, 
 Pope Agatho's condemnation of the Monothelite 
 heresy having been read and confirmed, the 
 Bishops exclaim : " Through Agatho Peter 
 hath spoken " ; and to the Pope himself they 
 write : *' Therefore, unto thee, as Bishop of the 
 chief See and of the Universal Church, standing 
 on the firm rock of Faith, we leave to determine 
 what is to be done ; acquiescing gladly in the 
 Letters of true confession sent to the most pious 
 Emperor by your fatherly Blessedness, which 
 Letters we accept as though Divinely written by 
 the Head of the Apostles ".^ The General 
 Councils of Lyons and Florence, in which both 
 Latins and Greeks took part, teach the same 
 doctrine ; the latter in a solemn definition : We 
 also define, it says, "that the holy Apostolic See 
 and the Roman Pontiff possess a primacy over the 
 whole world, and that the Roman Pontiff himself 
 is the successor of Blessed Peter, prince of the 
 Apostles, and true Vicar of Christ, Head of the 
 whole Church, Father and Teacher of all 
 1 Harduin, 11. 305. ^ Ibid., 111. 1422. 
 
2i6 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Christians ; and that to him was given, in Blessed 
 Peter, by our Lord Jesus Christ, full power to 
 feed and rule and govern the Universal Church, 
 as is also set forth in the Acts of General Councils 
 and in the Sacred Canons"/ And, finally, as 
 placing the question beyond all doubt and contro- 
 versy for us Catholics, we have the definitions of 
 the Vatican Council in our own day : "If any- 
 one shall say that Blessed Peter the Apostle was 
 not appointed by Christ the Lord chief of all the 
 Apostles and visible head of the whole Church 
 Militant, or that he received from the same Jesus 
 Christ our Lord a primacy of honour only, and not 
 directly and immediately one of true and proper 
 jurisdiction, let him be anathema".^ And : '* If 
 anyone shall say that it is not by institution of 
 Christ the Lord Himself, and so of Divine right, 
 that Blessed Peter should have a perpetual line of 
 successors in the primacy over the Universal 
 Church, or that the Roman Pontiff is not Blessed 
 Peter's successor in that primacy, let him be 
 anathema "/ And : ** If anyone shall say that the 
 Roman Pontiff has the duty only of inspecting and 
 directing, but not full and supreme power of 
 jurisdiction over the Universal Church, not only 
 
 ^ Denz., n. 694. ^ Ibid., n. 1823. ^ Ibid,^ n. 1825. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 217 
 
 in things which concern Faith and morals, but in 
 those also which relate to the discipline and 
 government of the Church, which is spread 
 throughout the whole world ; or that he has only 
 the principal part, but not the entire fullness of 
 this supreme power ; or that his power is not 
 ordinary and immediate, both over each and all 
 the Churches, and over each and all the pastors 
 and the faithful, let him be anathema ".-^ Then, 
 as though the infallible teaching authority of the 
 Pope were not sufficiently defined in his primacy 
 of jurisdiction, there is the further explicit defini- 
 tion : " Faithfully adhering to the tradition 
 handed down from the beginning of the Christian 
 Faith, for the glory of God our Saviour, the exalta- 
 tion of the Catholic religion, and the salvation of 
 Christian peoples, with the approval of the Holy 
 Council we teach and define it to be a Divinely 
 revealed dogma, that the Roman Pontiff, when 
 he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge 
 of his office of pastor and teacher of all Chris- 
 tians, he defines in virtue of his supreme Apostolic 
 authority, a doctrine concerning Faith or morals, 
 to be held by the Universal Church, is, through 
 the Divine assistance, promised to him in Blessed 
 
 ^ Denz., n. 1831. 
 
2i8 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which 
 the Divine Redeemer willed His Church to be 
 endowed, in defining doctrines concerning Faith 
 and morals : and that therefore, such definitions 
 of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not 
 through the consent of the Church, irreformable. 
 And if anyone — which may God avert — should 
 presume to contradict this our definition : let him 
 be anathema."^ 
 
 Other conciliar definitions we might quote to 
 the same effect, as we might have quoted a 
 vast mass of ecclesiastical witnesses scattered up 
 and down through the Church's history. But 
 we have already quoted more than sufficient for 
 our purpose. I wished to prove that in the 
 Church of Christ, which we have shown to be 
 the Catholic Church, one man, and that the 
 Bishop of Rome, enjoys a primacy ; that he has 
 supreme power for the government of the 
 Church, and that in his teaching of revealed truth 
 he is infallible. We conceive, indeed, of these 
 as distinct prerogatives, though one does in fact 
 include the other. In a society, of whose very 
 essence is unity of Faith, and which cannot itself 
 err in the revealed doctrines which it believes 
 
 1 Denz., n. 1839. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 219 
 
 and teaches, the supreme governing authority 
 must clearly, within the domain of revelation, be 
 an infallible teacher and an infallible judge of 
 controversies. We began, then, by noting that 
 it was antecedently probable Christ would ap- 
 point some one supreme ruler in His Church, 
 and would provide for a perpetual succession of 
 such rulers. Christ's own attitude towards St. 
 Peter, as recorded in the Gospels, implies a 
 quite singular pre-eminence conferred on that 
 Apostle. So, too, does the manner in which the 
 New Testament writers refer always to him, 
 and the leading position which he assumes, and 
 which the other Aposdes yield unquestioningly 
 to him, after the Ascension. But we are not 
 left to inferences or surmises. In the plainest 
 language Our Lord first promises, and then 
 bestows, the twofold primacy on Peter ; and 
 from the nature of the case, and from Christ's 
 words themselves, we gather that the primacy is 
 to continue in the Church for ever. But, in 
 what See ? The belief of the Church has ever 
 been that the Bishop of Rome is the successor 
 of St. Peter and the heir to his primacy. No 
 other See has ever made any claim to it. Such 
 too, we saw, was the opinion of the earliest 
 
220 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Church Fathers, whose scanty writings have 
 been preserved to us from the days of persecu- 
 tion. Such was the opinion of the great Bishops 
 and Doctors of the fourth, fifth, and sixth 
 centuries, when persecution had died away. 
 Then, and later, the action of Popes supposed, 
 and was based upon it, and CEcumenical Councils, 
 first in the East and later in the West — Councils 
 of the undivided Church and Councils of the 
 Latin Communion — have solemnly and un- 
 equivocally declared and defined the doctrine. 
 
 Assuming, then, as already proved, that Christ's 
 Church, the Catholic Church, is infallible in be- 
 lieving and teaching revealed doctrines of Faith 
 and morals, the personal supremacy and personal 
 infallibility of the Pope — that is, of the lawfully 
 elected Bishop of Rome — is for us Catholics a 
 defined dogma of our religion. The teaching 
 Church proclaimed it in the Council of the Vati- 
 can ; and, even were it possible to entertain a 
 misgiving about the Vatican decrees themselves, 
 the whole Catholic Church, the Bishops, without 
 even one exception, and the Faithful, accepted 
 the definition, and believed it. Not a single Ca- 
 tholic Bishop refused or hesitated to promulgate 
 the doctrine. A handful of German priests and 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 221 
 
 a few thousands of German and Swiss laymen 
 rejected it, and became "Old Catholics"; they 
 created scarcely a ripple on the vast expanse of 
 Catholic unity. Had we even, therefore, no 
 other argument, the Vatican definition alone, and 
 the infallible Church's acceptance of and faith in 
 it, would be abundantly sufficient. But we have 
 all the other arguments as well, which we have 
 been just considering ; and it is difficult to under- 
 stand how any impartial mind, which accepts the 
 New Testament writings, and believes in Church 
 infallibility, can resist their cogency. I do not 
 say that any one or other text of the Gospels, or 
 any isolated facts in the Gospels or Acts of the 
 Apostles, must necessarily convince a fair-minded 
 inquirer. I do not, indeed, think that any of the 
 great truths of the Catholic faith can be satis- 
 factorily demonstrated by single texts or incidents 
 in Scripture. But the cumulative weight of New 
 Testament references to St. Peter seems to me 
 well-nigh irresistible. They assign him a posi- 
 tion apart from and above the other Apostles, 
 which we cannot explain on grounds of age or 
 ability or personal qualities of any kind : we are 
 driven back on Divine appointment. And, if a 
 Headship were given to Peter, for the welfare of 
 
222 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 the Church, the Headship did not die with him. 
 Besides, the belief and teaching of the Church 
 are a convincing interpretation of the Scriptures ; 
 and in the East and West, in sermons, in formal 
 treatises, in great gatherings of Bishops, in the 
 conduct and determination of religious contro- 
 versies, in the ordinary social life and work of 
 the Church, we see the conviction growing more 
 distinct and more emphatic that, in the Gospels 
 of St. Matthew and of St. John, we have the re- 
 velation of a primacy conferred on Peter, a pri- 
 macy to be continued in his successors for ever. 
 The Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Con- 
 stantinople express the faith of the undivided 
 Church : Lyons and Florence bear witness for the 
 Western. Evangelical Protestantism is logical, 
 when it rejects their testimony, and reads its own 
 into the Bible ; but what of the Greek and Angli- 
 can positions ? 
 
 The Pope, then, or Bishop of Rome, has a 
 Divinely given primacy. It is not conferred on 
 him by the Church ; it is not entrusted to him by 
 his electors. It comes to each Pope, as it did to 
 Peter, immediately from God, when he is validly 
 elected, and because, by such election, he is St. 
 Peter's successor. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 223 
 
 And what is the primacy ? First, it is not sin- 
 lessness. Christ could, of course, had He so willed 
 it, have made His Vicars sinless. He has chosen 
 not to do so. There have been grave scandals 
 in the history of the Roman See — not so many, 
 not so grave, as in the history of other kingdoms ; 
 and they have been exaggerated grossly for pur- 
 poses of controversy. But, in any case, they 
 have no point of contact with the subject of the 
 present lecture. Holiness of life commends all 
 those who teach and govern ; but it is not es- 
 sential to their office. It is not infallibility, it is 
 not supreme, legislative, judicial, or executive 
 authority. It is not even a condition precedent 
 to the valid or lawful exercise of any of them. 
 And Christ our Lord has promised these latter 
 gifts, not holiness of life, to St. Peter, and to St. 
 Peter's successors. 
 
 Again, the primacy does not involve the pri- 
 vilege of inspiration. No doubt God's pro- 
 vidence over His Church will lead Him, at 
 special times and under special circumstances, to 
 interfere actively in its government. He may 
 move authority to define a doctrine, or He may 
 restrain it. He may guide it to frame a law, or 
 to repeal one. He may guarantee executive acts 
 
224 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 against imprudence, timidity, or obstinacy. He 
 often exercises a similar special providence even 
 over individuals. But it is not inspiration, as the 
 term is applied to Holy Scripture. It does not 
 make God the author of the acts, or law, or 
 definition. 
 
 Nor does the primacy suppose any new reve- 
 lation. Revelation is the unveiling of truth by 
 God to His creatures ; and there is no new re- 
 velation where no new truth is revealed ; and 
 no new truth is needed for the exercise of the 
 primacy. 
 
 That primacy, therefore, is nothing other than 
 supreme authority — supreme authority in teach- 
 ing, which is necessarily infallible ; and supreme 
 authority in governing, which is the power to 
 legislate, to judge, and execute the laws, without 
 appeal to a superior. The latter, in the Church, 
 includes the former ; but, as we have already 
 said, the ideas are distinct, and the Vatican 
 Council defines and explains each separately. 
 
 And next, when does the Pope, according to the 
 Council, speak infallibly? He must speak in 
 ''his office of Pastor and Teacher of all 
 Christians ". It cannot be as a friend or a 
 private theologian, or as Bishop of Rome, or 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 225 
 
 Primate of Italy ; it must be as successor of St. 
 Peter in his headship of the whole Church. And 
 he must speak, and show clearly that he speaks, 
 *' with supreme Apostolical authority ". It is not 
 enough to speak as Head of the Church, which 
 he may do, and does at times, even when speak- 
 ing only as Prefect or President of a Roman 
 Congregation. It is not enough to use his 
 teaching authority in exhorting, advising, or 
 instructing the whole body of the faithful. He 
 must make use of it in its highest form, and to 
 the fullest extent in which it has been bestowed 
 upon him. And, hence, he must "define," that 
 is, put an end to all discussion ; he must decide 
 irrevocably. Then, too, the doctrine he defines 
 must be ** concerned with Faith or morals," and 
 with Faith or morals as contained in the re- 
 velation which was given to the Apostles. His 
 gift extends only to the truths which were en- 
 trusted to the Church at her foundation, and to 
 such other truths as may be necessary for the 
 maintenance of the original deposit. And he 
 must require that the doctrines so defined shall 
 be " held " — held, that is, with a firm interior assent 
 — " by the universal Church ". As Chief Pastor 
 of the Church he may, of course, teach in- 
 
 J5 
 
226 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 dividuals and local Churches ; he may prohibit 
 a doctrine to be taught, or he may impose silence 
 on a controversy. But in none of these things 
 is his infallibility involved. He is only infallible 
 when he demands assent, and demands assent 
 from all the Church's children. If all these 
 conditions be fulfilled we have an infallible 
 definition ; and such a definition, the Vatican 
 tells us, is *' irreformable " — not liable to modifica- 
 tion or revision — of itself, and at once, not 
 through the Church's subsequent acceptance and 
 approval of it. 
 
 The Pope has, further, a primacy of juris- 
 diction ; he not only teaches, he governs, the 
 Church, under Christ, without hindrance from, 
 or appeal to, any other authority. As in the 
 civil state, so in the Church, supreme authority, 
 in whomsoever it may vest, must make laws 
 when needed, apply them to individual cases, 
 and see to their proper execution. This, too, is 
 the function of the Pope, within his sphere of 
 jurisdiction. For his power is not unlimited. It 
 is confined within the purpose for which the 
 Church has been established. The power of the 
 State is determined by the object for which the 
 State exists ; its authority extends to everything 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE 227 
 
 which is necessary for the existence, and even 
 for the well-being, of the commonwealth. Now 
 the Church is a spiritual society, whose object is 
 the spiritual welfare of souls. Things spiritual, 
 therefore, constitute the native sphere of Church 
 and Papal jurisdiction ; things temporal belong 
 to it only in so far as they have a bearing on the 
 spiritual. But, within that sphere, the juris- 
 diction of the Pope — legislative, judicial, and 
 executive — is supreme. There is no power 
 within Christ's Church which he cannot exercise. 
 It is given him directly by God ; it is not 
 delegated to him by the Church. It is uni- 
 versal, as extending to all the members of the 
 Church, wherever they may be, and of whatever 
 order, class, or dignity. And it is immediate ; he 
 may exercise it over whom he wills, without the 
 intervention of any local, and, therefore, inter- 
 mediate authority. 
 
 He may also, nay he must, make use of 
 instruments — individuals, and congregations or 
 committees — to carry on his government. He 
 could not himself alone meet the needs of such 
 a vast organization. And he can share his 
 jurisdiction with others. Infallibility is his in- 
 communicable prerogative ; he can give no part 
 
 15* 
 
228 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 of it to his Cardinals, no part to his most 
 important and most trusted congregations. But 
 the power to make spiritual laws, and issue 
 precepts, and grant dispensations, to exercise 
 judicial functions, and to execute justice, he must 
 delegate in part to different sections of the 
 machinery by which he rules. But he does not, 
 and he cannot, divest himself of any the least 
 portion of the jurisdiction which Christ has given 
 him. He remains always the supreme governor, 
 as he is the supreme and infallible teacher of 
 Christ's Church. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS. 
 
 We saw something in our last lecture of the 
 position which the Bishop of Rome holds in the 
 Church of Christ. He becomes, on his election 
 to the Roman Bishopric, the successor of St. 
 Peter, and, as St. Peter's successor, he is invested 
 with a primacy of teaching and of governing 
 authority over the universal Church. Within 
 the limits of the Christian Revelation he cannot 
 err in what he proposes to the Church as 
 doctrines to be believed, and, within the con- 
 stitution given to the Church of Christ, he has 
 supreme legislative, judicial, and executive 
 authority. 
 
 But in Christ's Church, as we see it, and as we 
 know it in its history, the Bishop of Rome is not 
 sole teacher, he is not sole ruler. The Divine 
 commission, " Preach the Gospel," was not 
 spoken to St. Peter only ; it was addressed to all 
 
 229 
 
230 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 of the Apostles. The power to bind and to 
 loose was not promised to St. Peter alone ; it was 
 promised to all the Twelve. And the Apostles 
 were not mere delegates of Peter in teaching and 
 in governing ; their authority was given to them 
 by Christ Himself. St. Peter did, indeed, re- 
 ceive a primacy for himself and for his successors. 
 Under Christ it was supreme, plenary, and inde- 
 pendent. But it was not the sole authority, 
 although supreme. Side by side with it, subor- 
 dinate to it, and therefore dependent upon it, was 
 the authority which Christ gave to others also, 
 and which He willed to continue in His Church 
 for ever. 
 
 The Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the 
 Epistles — all show us very clearly that Christ 
 Himself appointed a body of teachers and rulers 
 for the Society He was founding. He did not 
 establish the Society, and invest it with an autho- 
 rity to teach and govern, which it might transfer 
 wholly or in part to delegates, as we may con- 
 ceive to be the case in civil States. He Himself 
 appointed the governors and teachers, who were 
 to build up the Church ; and these, in turn, were 
 to make provision for their successors. It is 
 quite obvious that Christ had no thought of 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 231 
 
 establishing a pure democracy. In considering 
 the primacy conferred upon St. Peter, and the 
 Roman Bishops, in succession to him, it was 
 made clear that " the Kingdom " is a monarchy. 
 If we consider now the appointment of the 
 Apostles, we find that there are to be subordinate 
 authorities, entrusted with a share of the teaching 
 and ruling powers bestowed upon St. Peter. 
 "All power is given to Me in heaven and on 
 earth," Christ says to them, after His resurrec- 
 tion ; ** Going therefore teach all nations, baptizing 
 them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe 
 all things whatsoever I have commanded you. 
 And behold I am with you all days even to the 
 consummation of the world. "^ He commissions 
 the Apostles to preach, to baptize, to direct be- 
 lievers in the way of obedience to the Christian 
 law ; and He promises to be with them in doing 
 so until the end of time. Clearly, He contem- 
 plates a perpetual continuance of the office to 
 which He is appointing them ; and, equally 
 clearly. He must will that they shall have suc- 
 cessors for ever in it. Besides, as we have had 
 already occasion to note, the Constitution of 
 ^Matt. XXVIII. 18. 
 
232 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Christ's Church cannot undergo any substantial 
 change. As He established it, with its Divinely 
 appointed teachers and rulers, so, in the absence 
 of all evidence to the contrary, we must suppose 
 it will remain until the end. And this, indeed, 
 is a defined dogma of our Faith. *' If any one 
 shall say," the Council of Trent declares, ''that 
 in the Catholic Church there is not a hierarchy, 
 instituted by a Divine ordinance, and consisting 
 of Bishops, priests, and ministers : let him be 
 anathema." And, ''If any one shall say that 
 Bishops are not superior to priests, or have not 
 the power to confirm or ordain, or that the 
 power which they have is common to them with 
 priests, let him be anathema".^ It is, therefore, 
 of Catholic faith that there is, and ever will be, 
 in the Church a governing authority, embodied 
 in Bishops, priests, and ministers or deacons : 
 distinct Offices and Orders, whether they are 
 held by different individuals, or held as they so 
 often are by one. For every Bishop is at once 
 Bishop, priest, and minister combined. 
 
 But though the doctrine is of faith, and long- 
 continued practice marks clearly the distinction 
 between priests and Bishops, it is not so easy to 
 
 ^Sess. XXIII., can. 6 and 7; Denz., 966-7. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 233 
 
 distinguish them in Apostolic times. The autho- 
 rity of the Apostles themselves is clearly recog- 
 nized in all the Churches. It is certain, too, from 
 the Acts of the Apostles, and from the Epistles, 
 particularly St. Paul's pastoral Epistles, that 
 there were persons in authority in all the local 
 Churches; though it is not always easy to de- 
 termine from the New Testament writings alone 
 what their precise functions were. They are 
 variously called: at one time "presbyters," at 
 another *' Bishops" ; and it would seem that the 
 same persons were called now by one name, again 
 by another. We are not now concerned with the 
 Order of deacons, of which the origin and original 
 duties are set out in the Acts of the Apostles. 
 Nor with the individuals possessed of very special 
 spiritual gifts : of prophecy, of healing, of tongues, 
 of discerning of spirits, and the like ; whom St. 
 Paul speaks of frequently in his greater Epistles. 
 Such gifts, or "charismata," wonderful manifesta- 
 tions of Divine grace and religious life, in the 
 infant Church, were not necessarily elements or 
 even accompaniments of Church authority. Our 
 difficulty lies in distinguishing those two first 
 Orders of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which the 
 Council of Trent has told us are of Divine 
 
234 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 institution : the Order of Bishops and the Order 
 of Priests ; and in assigning to each its proper 
 powers and duties. Of Paul and Barnabas we 
 are told in the Acts that they "ordained 
 presbyters or priests in every Church," which 
 they established in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch/ 
 A little later Paul and Barnabas "go unto the 
 Apostles, and presbyters to Jerusalem ".^ After 
 the Council, in which "the Apostles and 
 presbyters were gathered together, to consider " 
 the controversies referred to them, the decree of 
 the Council was issued in the names of the 
 " Apostles and the presbyters brethren ".^ Later 
 again, St. Paul " calls to him the presbyters of 
 the Church of Ephesus," and, in the course of 
 his address to them, he says : " Take heed unto 
 yourselves, and to all the flock in which the 
 Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops to rule the 
 Church of God "/ His Epistle to the Philippians 
 is sent to " all the saints in Christ Jesus who are 
 at Philippi with the Bishops and deacons "/ He 
 bids Timothy, " Not neglect the grace that is in 
 thee, which was given thee with the laying on 
 of the hands of the Presbytery," ^ or priesthood. 
 
 ^Acts IV. 23. ^ 3id., XV. 2. ^ Ibid., 23. 
 
 ^ Ibid., XX. 28. sPhil. i. i. ^1 Tim. iv. 14. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 235 
 
 He reminds Titus, "that for this cause I left 
 thee in Crete, that thou shouldst ordain priests 
 (or presbyters) in every city ".^ He declares : '* If 
 a man desireth the office of a Bishop he desireth 
 a good work,"^ and he then proceeds to describe 
 the qualifications of a Bishop. " Let the priests," 
 he says, further on, ** that rule well be esteemed 
 worthy of double honour, especially those who 
 labour in the word and in teaching."^ And St. 
 Peter writes, in his first Epistle " to the strangers 
 dispersed through Pontas, Galatia, Cappadocia, 
 Asia, and Bythinia, elect": **The presbyters 
 therefore, that are among you, I beseech, who 
 am myself also a presbyter . . . feed the flock 
 of God, which is among you, exercising the 
 oversight, not of constraint, but willingly . . . 
 being made a pattern to the flock from the 
 heart".* But I need not further multiply quota- 
 tions. From those which I have made we may, 
 I think, gather that it would be difficult to 
 distinguish, on New Testament evidence, be- 
 tween the Bishops and the presbyters or priests, 
 to whom the New Testament so often makes 
 reference. It is possible that the names were 
 
 ^ Titus I. 5. '-^ I Tim. 111. i. 
 
 3 Ibid., V. 17. * I Pet. V. i. 
 
236 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 used indiscriminately, though the offices and 
 powers were distinct — that Bishops, as we under- 
 stand the name and office, were often called 
 '* presbyters " or ** elders " or " priests " ; and 
 priests, corresponding in functions and authority 
 with the "priests" of our day, were called 
 " Bishops " or ''overseers". It seems certain, 
 also, from the incident at Miletus — where St. 
 Paul ** called to him the presbyters " and then 
 addressed them as *' Bishops " — that the same 
 persons bore sometimes both names. And it 
 may be that the powers of the Episcopacy and 
 of the priesthood were vested always in the same 
 individuals, that full Episcopal Orders were 
 conferred on every priest in Apostolic times. 
 We cannot advance much further in the solution 
 of the question, with the aid of the New Testa- 
 ment alone. Nor is it necessary ; for this, at 
 any rate, the New Testament does make clear 
 to us : that already during the lifetime of the 
 Apostles, a very few years after the death of 
 Christ, there were men, not themselves Apostles, 
 appointed and ordained through the Apostles by 
 the Holy Ghost to exercise authority in the local 
 Churches. They are to ** preach the word," to 
 ''impose, or lay on, hands," to "ordain priests," 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 237 
 
 to " rule the Church," to " feed the flock of God," 
 to "command and teach," ^ to "receive an ac- 
 cusation against a priest only under two or three 
 witnesses,"^ to "reprove, entreat, rebuke in all 
 patience and doctrine,"^ to "speak, exhort, 
 reprove, with all authority,"* to "commit to 
 faithful men, who shall be able to teach others 
 also the things which they had heard " ^ from the 
 Apostles. Assuredly, we have in these and 
 similar passages convincing proof that the office 
 and powers of Christian Bishops, as they have 
 been known to the Catholic Church throughout 
 her history, existed already fully and definitely 
 in the Apostolic Church. The titles given to 
 the office, and to the men who held it, have an 
 historical interest only, and are without bearing 
 on the one important question : Is the office itself, 
 and are the powers inherent in it, of Divine 
 institution, and of established usage in Apostolic 
 times ? The answer of the New Testament is an 
 emphatic affirmative. 
 
 And we are strengthened in this opinion by 
 all the information we can glean from the scanty 
 remains of the earliest Church writings. St. 
 
 ^ I Tim. IV. II. '^ Ibid.^ v. 19. ^ 2 Tim. iv. ;», 
 
 ♦Tit. II. 15. »a Tim. 11. 3, 
 
238 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Clement of Rome, towards the close of the first 
 century, in his letter to the Corinthians, mentions 
 as a fact, about which there could be apparently 
 no doubt, that " the Apostles, instructed by our 
 Lord Christ, . . . themselves appointed Bishops, 
 and gave order that, when such Bishops died, 
 other approved men should succeed them in 
 their office"/ And he goes on to censure the 
 Corinthians gravely for their rebellion against 
 their Bishops. About the year 107, Ignatius 
 Martyr, disciple of St. John the Evangelist, in 
 several of his authentic letters, shows us a Church 
 organization very much the same as it is in our 
 own day. He was himself Bishop of Antioch ; 
 and in his various letters, written to local 
 Churches, on his way from Antioch to Rome 
 and martyrdom, he assumes the government of 
 each to lie in the hands of one Bishop, with 
 priests and deacons to assist him ; and he is 
 emphatic in urging the duty of union with and 
 obedience to the Bishop. ** When you are 
 subject to the Bishop as to Jesus Christ," he 
 tells the Trallians, " you seem to me to live ac- 
 cording to Jesus Christ, and not according to 
 
 ^XLiv. I ; Lightfoot, 11. p. 131. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 239 
 
 men."^ And to the same Trallians he says 
 further on : "It is necessary you should do 
 nothing whatsoever without your Bishop ".^ To 
 the Ephesians he writes : "It is manifest we 
 should look upon the Bishop as Christ Himself" ; ^ 
 and to the Smyrniots : "Apart from the Bishop, 
 let no man do aught of things pertaining to the 
 Church ; let that be held a valid Eucharist 
 which is under the Bishop, or one to whom he 
 shall have committed it. . . . It is not lawful 
 apart from the Bishop either to baptize or to 
 celebrate the Agape ; but whatever he shall 
 approve, that is well pleasing to God also."* 
 And, again, to the Philadelphians : " See to it 
 that you partake of one Eucharist, for one is the 
 flesh of Christ our Lord, and one the chalice of 
 His blood, one altar, and there is one Bishop, 
 with his priests and deacons ".^ And there are 
 many other passages equally clear and equally 
 decisive in his seven great Epistles, in which 
 his teaching is briefly this : The Hierarchy of 
 
 ^ Trail., II. 5 ; Lightfoot, 11. p. 154. 
 '^ Ibid.y II. 10; Lightfoot, p. 155. 
 ' Eph. VI. I ; Lightfoot, p. 46. 
 ^Smyrn., viii. 10; Lightfoot, p. 309. 
 *Phil. IV. 10; Lightfoot, p. 257. 
 
240 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 the Church was instituted by Christ Himself; 
 it consists of three Orders — Bishops, priests, and 
 deacons ; Bishops are superior, by Divine 
 authority, to priests ; they are to be found in all 
 Churches ; without them there is no Church ; ^ 
 all are to be united with and to obey them. In- 
 deed the testimony of Ignatius is so cogent in 
 favour of the Catholic doctrine of Episcopal 
 authority, and of Episcopal authority as exercised 
 by one Bishop in each local Church, before the 
 beginning of the second century, and he assumes 
 so unquestioningly in all his letters that the 
 arrangement is everywhere the same, and that 
 no one of those to whom he writes will contro- 
 vert his statements, or make any charge of 
 novelty against him, that many opponents of 
 Episcopacy are driven to assert the spuriousness 
 of the letters. But, since Bishop Lightfoots 
 labours, no serious critic will be found to even 
 doubt their genuineness. 
 
 One other writer I shall quote — from the 
 second half of the second century. St. Irenseus, 
 the friend of Polycarp, who had been disciple of 
 St. John, represents the ecclesiastical tradition of 
 both East and West ; and he is, if anything, more 
 
 1 Trail, III. I ; Lightfoot, p. 158. ' 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 241 
 
 explicit than Ignatius Martyr, in declaring the 
 authority of Bishops and their Apostolic origin. 
 " We must be obedient," he says, ** to the presby- 
 ters of the Church, to those who have succession 
 from the Apostles, who have received the certain 
 gift of truth, together with the Episcopal inheri- 
 tance."^ He speaks of *' those who were insti- 
 tuted Bishops by the Apostles, and are their suc- 
 cessors even to our own day '* ; ^ and, because it 
 would be too long to enumerate the succession of 
 Bishops *'in all the Churches," he gives that of 
 Rome and of Smyrna, in the latter of which his 
 friend Polycarp had been appointed Bishop by 
 the Apostles. 
 
 I do not cite the testimony of later writers ; for 
 it is agreed on all hands that dating from the 
 second century, the belief of the Church, expressed 
 in the clearest terms by her Fathers and historians 
 and Councils, has always been the same belief 
 which the Council of Trent defined : that the 
 Bishops of the Catholic Church are the successors 
 of the Apostles, appointed, according to Christ's 
 institution, for the preaching of the Gospel, the 
 administration of religious rites, and the govern- 
 
 ^ "Contra Haer.," iv. c. 26, n. 2 ; M. G., vii. 1053. 
 '^ Ibid., III. c. 3, I ; M. G., vn. 848. 
 16 
 
242 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 ment of local Churches. And the Church her- 
 self has no power to make any change in this 
 Divine economy. She could no more alter the 
 constitution given her by Christ and promulgated 
 by the Apostles, in what concerns the Episcopal 
 Order than in what concerns the Primacy. The 
 one is as necessary to her existence as the other. 
 It is not essential that she should ordain deacons, 
 as a class apart, to be occupied in special minis- 
 terial functions. Deaconship, in fact, according 
 to the present discipline of the Church, is only a 
 stage on the way towards the priesthood. The 
 deacon is absorbed in the priest ; one man holds 
 and exercises the twofold office. Similarly, it is 
 not essential there should be a separate body of 
 priests, either secular or religious. As the same 
 individual is at present priest and deacon, so he 
 might be Bishop also were the Church to so de- 
 termine. We might have Bishops only, to teach 
 and minister in the Church, who would unite in 
 their own persons the several Offices and Orders 
 of Bishops, priests, and deacons. But the 
 Episcopacy itself, scattered throughout the world, 
 and governing and teaching the local churches, 
 with a God-given authority, is essential to the 
 Church's very existence, no less than to her well- 
 being. 
 
THE, AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 243 
 
 And when we inquire what the authority of 
 Bishops is, we find the answer in what we have 
 already seen : that the Bishops succeed to the 
 Apostles. Their office, therefore, within certain 
 limits is the Apostolic office ; their duties, their 
 authority, those of the Apostles. They have to 
 teach, preserve, and spread Christ's Gospel. 
 They have to feed and govern the faithful com- 
 mitted to their care. They have to hand on the 
 Office and the powers which were entrusted to 
 them. We say they have to do this "within 
 certain limits," for their mission is not quite the 
 same as that of the Apostles. The Bishops as a 
 body, succeed to the Apostles as a body ; " college 
 succeeds," it has been said, "to college". But 
 only the head of the Apostolic College has a suc- 
 cessor with all the fullness of that Apostle's powers 
 and rights. The Roman Bishop of to-day has 
 the same Divine mission, receives precisely the 
 same authority which the first Roman Bishop, 
 St. Peter, had. But other Bishops individually 
 are under somewhat different conditions. They 
 are not sent "into the whole world," not com- 
 manded to '* preach the Gospel unto every 
 creature" as the Apostles were. A definite 
 
 fMDrtion of the vineyard is assigned to each of them, 
 
 16 ♦ 
 
244 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 a part only of the flock of Christ. Nor is their 
 individual teaching protected by infallibility, as 
 we conceive the teaching of each Apostle to have 
 been. They may misconceive, they may falsify, 
 the message which they are sent to convey. 
 
 But we shall understand better the nature and 
 the extent of their authority, if we consider the 
 threefold class of circumstances under which they 
 exercise it. The Bishops of the Catholic Church 
 may meet to take counsel on the necessities of the 
 Universal Church, to make laws for the guidance 
 of all the faithful, to explain or define doctrines 
 which all are to believe. Even dispersed 
 throughout the world, each busied with the needs 
 of his own flock, they still constitute, when taken 
 together, the one Divinely appointed body of 
 teachers and rulers on whom the faith and unity 
 of the Church depend. And finally, they may be 
 regarded as individual members of the one great 
 ruling and teaching body, in their relation only 
 to those of the faithful who are committed to 
 each one's special care. 
 
 They may meet in Council. I do not intend 
 to discuss here at any length the various questions 
 which are concerned with General Councils. It 
 will be enough to say that the Bishops of the 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 245 
 
 Church may come together under such circum- 
 stances that they shall be, or shall adequately 
 represent, the teaching and governing authority 
 of the Church. And, should they do so, it is 
 clear that their decisions must carry all the value 
 which attaches to such authority. Their defini- 
 tions, in matters of Divine Faith, must be in- 
 fallible : for the congregated Bishops constitute 
 or represent the teaching Church ; the Church 
 universal is bound to accept their teaching ; and 
 both the teaching and the universal Church are 
 endowed with infallibility. Their laws, too, 
 within the sphere in which the Church has 
 power to legislate, are binding upon all the faith- 
 ful. They form a High Court, from which there 
 is no appeal, in judicial proceedings ; and they 
 can exercise all the functions of a supreme ex- 
 ecutive. 
 
 Or, we may consider the Bishops of the Ca- 
 tholic Church, "dispersed" throughout the world 
 engaged in their ordinary duties of teaching and 
 governing, but still forming, in the aggregate, 
 one body of teachers and rulers. Considered in 
 this way, it is impossible to see how they can ex- 
 ercise any judicial or executive functions. They 
 cannot even legislate ; though if they chanced, or 
 
246 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 were all agreed, to frame the same laws, each for 
 his own diocese, those laws would soon acquire 
 the binding force of universal custom. But what 
 if they are at one in teaching doctrines of Faith 
 or Morals? Then, beyond all doubt, they are 
 infallible. Dispersed, no less than gathered to- 
 gether in Council, they are the teaching Church ; 
 and the teaching Church is not infallible then 
 only when, on rare occasions, the Bishops are 
 convened in oecumenical assemblies. The Church, 
 too, is passively infallible ; and the Church be- 
 lieves, and must believe, what, day by day, and 
 year by year, the Bishops of the Church, her 
 Divinely appointed teachers, are agreed in teach- 
 ing. A Bishop may err, through ignorance or in 
 malice ; the Bishops of a province, of a nation, 
 may teach heresy ; neither active nor passive in- 
 fallibility is promised to individuals or to peoples. 
 But the whole teaching body, the whole believ- 
 ing Church, cannot err in delivering, or in hold- 
 ing the revealed doctrines of the Faith ; and, 
 therefore, the unanimous teaching of the Bishops, 
 even when dispersed, must be infallible. 
 
 Or, finally — and this is the most important 
 point to be considered, as being of most practical 
 and immediate consequence — we may take each 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 247 
 
 Bishop in his own particular diocese, and inquire 
 what his authority is in it. I do not speak now 
 of the authority which Bishops in the past have 
 often exercised, and which in places many exer- 
 cise, in fact, to-day, without any Divinely given 
 right to do so. Christian Europe, in mediaeval 
 times, entrusted large powers to the Head of the 
 Christian Church, which were no part of the au- 
 thority bestowed on him by her Founder. So, 
 too, in the case of Bishops ; circumstances have led 
 often to their acceptance of duties and privileges 
 entirely outside their spiritual mission. They 
 became princes of the Empire, peers of parlia- 
 ment, high officers of State, judges in merely 
 civil matters. Until recent years, the Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh, in Ireland, and the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, in England, by inheritance 
 from pre- Reformation times, had their Courts of 
 Probate, in which all questions concerning wills 
 were to be decided. And Bishops, of course, lose 
 none of their rights as citizens at consecration ; 
 they are entitled to all the influence and authority 
 which birth and ability, and education, or other 
 natural and acquired qualities may win for them. 
 We speak, therefore, of that authority alone 
 which is inherent in their office, which Christ be- 
 
248 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 stows upon them when appointed to a diocese. 
 And the general reply to our inquiry is plain and 
 easy. Each Bishop in his diocese, and under 
 certain limitations, is to his own faithful people 
 what an QEcumenical Council and the Roman 
 Pontiff are to the Church universal. Under cer- 
 tain limitations : for his laws and precepts, his 
 judicial decisions, his executive measures, may be 
 appealed against. He may not decide questions 
 of Faith or Morals, which, with the knowledge 
 and acquiescence of the Church, are subjects of 
 controversy among Catholics. His doctrinal de- 
 cisions are not infallible. But within these 
 limitations, the authority of the Church is in his 
 hands to exercise. 
 
 He is the one authentic teacher of Faith and 
 Morals within the diocese. To him, and to him 
 only, are Our Lord's words applicable : *' Going, 
 therefore, preach the Gospel " . To him, and to 
 him only, may be applied the instructions and 
 exhortations addressed by St. Paul to Titus and 
 to Timothy. He, and he alone, is the successor 
 of the Apostles. He, and he alone, has received 
 the Apostolic Commission. There may be others 
 in his diocese, abler, of greater intellectual gifts, 
 more profound, more widely read theologians. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 249 
 
 There may be some among his clergy, both 
 secular and regular, more eloquent, better fitted 
 to expound the truths of Revelation. But he, 
 not they, is the Divinely appointed public teacher 
 of his people. They can only teach publicly at all 
 in so far as he permits, or calls, them to assist him 
 in his labours ; and they can only teach what 
 the Bishops in union with their head on earth 
 approve and sanction. 
 
 And his teaching authority extends to the 
 whole contents of the Christian revelation. It is 
 clear that he has no direct commission to com- 
 municate profane knowledge. He may be deeply 
 versed in history, philosophy, biology, » or mathe- 
 matics : but he has not been sent to preach them ; 
 they are not part of the Gospel, which Christ has 
 entrusted to him. His concern, like that of the 
 Church, which he represents officially, is with the 
 *' Deposit of Faith," the body of revealed truths, 
 which Christ and His Holy Spirit made known 
 to the Apostles. This he must explain and de- 
 fend ; as also whatever other truths are so bound 
 up with it that they stand or fall together. And 
 his people are obliged to accept his teaching. 
 They may not reject it, they may not pass it idly 
 by : they are bound, speaking generally, to give 
 
250 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 assent to it. I know, of course, that a Bishop 
 may err in what he teaches, even in matters of 
 revealed Faith and Morals. But the mere pos- 
 sibility of error in a teacher exempts no one from 
 the duty of believing. When a child receives its 
 first lessons in religion from a parent or a guardian, 
 it is not justified in denying or even doubting the 
 truths proposed to it, on the ground that father 
 or mother or guardian may be mistaken. If my 
 Bishop teaches what I know to be at variance 
 with the admitted doctrines of the Church, or if I 
 have serious reasons for questioning his state- 
 ments, I may withhold assent, and, in the former 
 case, I must withhold it. But in the ordinary 
 circumstances of life, and where no grave reason 
 for doubt presents itself, to refuse belief in matters 
 of Faith and Morals to what my Bishop teaches 
 me is to reject a message which purports to be 
 Divine, conveyed to me by a messenger whom I 
 know to be Divinely appointed. Besides, it 
 would mean that I should believe only what I 
 chose myself; and it would base the whole re- 
 ligion of the Church upon private judgment. And 
 hence a Bishop's religious teaching has a claim 
 upon his flock, which no other teaching, except 
 the infallible teaching of the Church, can have. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 251 
 
 The inferior clergy, those charged with the cure 
 of souls, members of Religious Orders, professors 
 in great seats of ecclesiastical learning, parents 
 themselves, may and must teach the truths of the 
 Christian Revelation ; but they are not specially 
 accredited messengers ; they have no special ap- 
 pointment from God, the author of that Revela- 
 tion. 
 
 And not only is the Bishop in his diocese to 
 teach authoritatively, within the limits of Faith 
 and Morals, but it is for him also to declare 
 authoritatively, in case of doubt, how far those 
 limits extend. There are questions which lie 
 evidently within the sphere of revealed truth, if 
 there be any such sphere at all. There are others 
 which lie as evidently without it. But there is a 
 third class of questions, on which opinion may be 
 divided, or in which at least the Bishop's authority 
 to pronounce may more readily be denied or 
 doubted. And this is the common lot of all 
 authority, which is only finite ; whether it be 
 civil or religious, in the home, the State, or the 
 Universal Church. There will be a certain 
 territory in which each holds undisputed sway ; 
 there will be other territories, in which it has no 
 jurisdiction whatsoever ; and there may be some, 
 
252 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 in which its claims are doubtful, or are at any 
 rate contested according to the varying interests 
 or principles or passions which are affected. Now, 
 it is in this third class of question that we assert 
 the Bishop's right to determine, subject to appeal, 
 the limits of his own jurisdiction. He has not 
 only the power to teach, but he has also the 
 power to declare what questions are contained 
 within the limits of his teaching power. For, if 
 he have not, who has ? Not the State ; the 
 State has no power of interference in the teaching 
 of the Christian Revelation. Not, surely, the 
 persons to be taught ? It has never been sug- 
 gested that those subject to a jurisdiction must be 
 permitted to fix its limits. Therefore, it must be 
 the Bishop. We argue here as we do in the 
 case of Church infallibility. The Church is in- 
 fallible, not only in determining questions of 
 Faith and Morals, but in determining how far 
 the circumference of Faith and Morals extends. 
 If those whom her teaching failed to please might 
 lawfully refuse assent, by pleading that, while 
 bound to yield submission where she had a right 
 to claim it, it was they themselves who were to 
 judge how far her right extends, then her teach- 
 ing authority could be always set aside. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 253 
 
 But, indeed, every authority — legislative, 
 judicial, executive, as well as doctrinal — must 
 have the right to declare what are the boundaries 
 of its own jurisdiction. If the authority be su- 
 preme, no appeal, of course, is possible ; but still 
 the right is always claimed and exercised. If an 
 appeal lies, the decision of the inferior authority 
 may be called in question ; but, until overruled, 
 the decision holds ; and those subject to the au- 
 thority are bound to accept and to obey it. I 
 may not, therefore, avoid an act of supreme 
 Church authority on the ground that the subject 
 matter of her decision lies outside her jurisdic- 
 tion : she can declare infallibly what her jurisdic- 
 tion is. And, in matters not clearly beyond the 
 bounds of Episcopal authority, I may not refuse 
 obedience or assent upon the ground that, in my 
 opinion, the limits of rightful authority have been 
 exceeded. I may, of course, appeal to a higher 
 court ; but I may not myself reject the decision 
 arbitrarily ; and until my appeal is admitted and 
 allowed, the decision of my Bishop binds me. 
 
 The principle, as you will see, is an important 
 one, and when feeling runs high, one liable to 
 be ignored or questioned even by Catholics them- 
 selves. We have already had occasion to con- 
 
254 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 sider that the mission of the Church is a spiritual 
 one — to souls. It is only indirectly that, as a 
 Society, she can interfere in what is temporal : 
 only in so far as things temporal have a bearing 
 on what is spiritual. Now, given her right to 
 exist at all, no one will question her authority in 
 things purely spiritual. Further, we Catholics 
 ourselves disclaim for her all power to meddle in 
 things merely temporal. But there is a wide 
 field of matters, in themselves temporal, but with 
 a spiritual side, which some will think justifies, 
 others will think does not justify. Church interfer- 
 ence. Who is to decide the question ? On Catho- 
 lic principles, the Church herself, and the Church 
 only. Now, the Bishop exercises, fallibly, sub- 
 ject to appeal, and under certain limitations, the 
 powers inherent in the Church universal. He 
 has direct and unquestioned power in things 
 wholly spiritual ; he has no power whatsoever in 
 things wholly temporal. In those of a mixed 
 nature, he has authority, so far as its exercise is 
 needed for his spiritual mission. Who is to decide 
 when it is so needed ? On Catholic principles, it 
 is not the State, not politicians, not individual 
 Catholics lay or clerical : it is the Bishop himself ; 
 and, subject to appeal, the Bishop only. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 255 
 
 The Bishop, therefore, is the one authoritative 
 teacher in his diocese ; and he is to teach re- 
 vealed truth, truth necessary for its maintenance, 
 and, therefore, if need be, the extent of his own 
 teaching authority. 
 
 He is also a governor or ruler ; and as such he 
 may make laws for his diocese. Every social 
 body has power to legislate for its members. If 
 men join together to work out a common purpose, 
 there must be rules of conduct binding upon all, 
 and some machinery to enforce their execution. 
 Otherwise there will be chaos. But the larger 
 the social body is, the more widely it extends, 
 the more need there will be to provide for local 
 conditions and necessities. You cannot have 
 one only code, which shall be applicable, in all its 
 details, to every portion of the British Empire. 
 There must be colonial and provincial legisla- 
 tures ; there are county, municipal, and district 
 councils, with power to frame by-laws and regula- 
 tions for the areas subject to them. Now Pope 
 and Bishops are the only law-makers of the 
 Church. When they meet in GEcumenical 
 Councils, they legislate for the universal Church ; 
 and the Pope, in virtue of his primacy, can do as 
 much alone. But, in a world-wide empire, like the 
 
256 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 Church, universal laws must be supplemented to 
 meet local needs. And so we have National 
 Synods or Councils, and Provincial Synods, In 
 which the Bishops of a whole country, or of an 
 ecclesiastical province In It, make laws In common 
 for the laity and clergy confided to their care. 
 There remains the diocese — the Divinely ap- 
 pointed unit of Church organization. Its con- 
 ditions may be so peculiarly its own as to require 
 some special legislation. If so, the Bishop Is 
 Divinely empowered to provide it. We need 
 not repeat here what has been already said, as to 
 the authority of the Bishops defined In the New 
 Testament, and In the lifelong usage or traditions 
 of the universal Church. It all applies to the 
 Bishop In his diocese, and to his legislative 
 power. And it shows us also how that power Is 
 limited. Like the Church herself he cannot 
 modify or even dispense from the Divine law. 
 He may not legislate against general Church 
 law — statute or customary, or against the decrees 
 of National or Provincial Synods, though he may 
 dispense from them in certain cases. He cannot 
 make laws which are concerned with merely 
 temporal matters, or aim at merely temporal re- 
 sults. His legislation, like all his authority, is 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 257 
 
 spiritual. And, even in the spiritual order, his 
 legislation must be reasonable, must not impose 
 an unduly heavy burthen upon his flock. Hence 
 the universally admitted axiom : " Church law — 
 whether universal or particular — does not bind, 
 when grave inconvenience would be the conse- 
 quence ". But, in the spiritual order, and even in 
 those temporal matters which, as we have seen, 
 may be linked closely with the spiritual, and sub- 
 ject to the limitations imposed by Divine and ec- 
 clesiastical law or usage, a Bishop's right to enact 
 laws, and issue precepts, in his diocese can only 
 be defined by the spiritual welfare of his people. 
 His right is beyond all doubt, in matters purely 
 spiritual. H e makes rules for the teaching of the 
 Faith, the administration of Sacraments, the 
 offering of the Holy Sacrifice, the whole ritual of 
 public worship. But, in matters not purely 
 spiritual and in particular instances, his right is 
 not always quite so evident. His case is similar 
 to that of the supreme authority of the Church. 
 It is often difficult to show clearly such a relation 
 between the temporal and the spiritual as to 
 warrant the Church's interference in what of it- 
 self is temporal. The interference, too, is some- 
 times based, as it was at times in the Middle Ages, 
 
 17 
 
258 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 on a grant of power by princes or by peoples to 
 the Church. Or a law may have grown out of 
 custom, introduced by the faithful themselves, 
 and merely sanctioned by the Church's rulers. 
 Thus the Church forbids the use of certain meats 
 at certain times ; but the prohibition seems to 
 be the outcome of popular custom, and not of 
 any statutory enactment. How far the Church 
 could forbid the use of other kinds of food, at 
 times or altogether ; how far she could legislate 
 on dress, social amusements, professional occu- 
 pations, civil contracts, political associations, and 
 kindred matters, because of their bearing upon 
 spiritual interests, it might not be easy in par- 
 ticular cases to decide. But two things seem 
 quite clear — one, that she has power to make 
 laws and impose precepts in such matters when 
 the well-being of souls is vitally concerned ; the 
 other, that when doubt arises in an individual 
 case it is for her to determine what her power is. 
 No one else can. Somewhat in the same way 
 we must regard the Bishop, legislating for his 
 own flock where the subject matter is primarily 
 temporal, but important spiritual issues are in- 
 volved. He forbids the reading of a newspaper 
 or of a book ; he condemns a particular form of 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 259 
 
 amusement ; he warns his people against a 
 secular association ; he calls on them upon oc- 
 casion to vote with a political party at Parlia- 
 mentary or municipal elections, and the like. No 
 Catholic can question his right to do so, if ade- 
 quate spiritual interests are concerned. But who 
 shall judge? The newspaper editor? A poli- 
 tician ? The author of the book ? Only the 
 Bishop himself, or, on appeal, his superior in the 
 Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. And until an appeal 
 is taken and allowed, the decision of the Bishop 
 stands. Otherwise all Episcopal jurisdiction, how- 
 ever Divinely given, could be reduced to naught. 
 
 And, finally, the Bishop has judicial and ex- 
 ecutive authority as well. But we need not 
 consider it in any detail. Practically, in our 
 day, the Bishop acts as judge towards members 
 of his clergy only ; the penalties that he im- 
 poses are purely spiritual ; and no principle is 
 involved which we have not already taken into 
 consideration. 
 
 And now, in closing this series of lectures, may 
 I sum up briefly the stages through which we 
 have passed in our inquiry ? 
 
 We desired to justify, on purely rational 
 grounds, our own position as Catholics, and to 
 
 17* 
 
26o THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 study in its broad outlines the Constitution of 
 the Church of which we are members. And we 
 began with an examination of the historical 
 sources, from which almost all our knowledge of 
 the Church's Founder and foundation is derived. 
 We saw that critically, on both intrinsic and ex- 
 trinsic evidence, the writings of the New Testa- 
 ment are documents of unimpeachable value, 
 entirely trustworthy in what they tell us of the 
 persons, doctrines, and events which they describe. 
 We gathered from them the claims and the 
 character of Christ, which prove conclusively that 
 Christ was God ; a conclusion rendered still more 
 certain by His Resurrection from the dead. 
 Christ, God, planned and established a Society, 
 which He called His Church, which is to be im- 
 perishable, universal, numerically and organically 
 one, infallible in teaching and belief, the ordinary 
 source and channel of the fullness of His graces 
 to mankind. That Church exists to-day, and 
 can only be the Roman Catholic Church, since 
 she alone is possessed of that unity in Catholicity 
 which Christ promised to His Church, and since 
 she alone is and claims to be infallible. All this, 
 I think, we have satisfactorily established, and 
 so have laid the foundations of our whole Faith 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS 261 
 
 and practice. We can and must ** believe every- 
 thing which the Holy Roman Catholic Church 
 proposes to our belief" ; and we must obey the 
 whole law, her own and the Divine, which she 
 lays upon us. Then, examining the structure of 
 the Church as a Society, we found it to be Mon- 
 archical, taught and governed by one visible 
 Head on earth, to whom in Peter and his suc- 
 cessors Christ gave supreme authority. The 
 Bishop of Rome, St. Peter's successor, is therefore 
 infallible in teaching, and exercises the fullness 
 of the Church's jurisdiction over us. But we live 
 under a more immediate spiritual head, the Bishop 
 of our diocese, who is set by the Holy Ghost to 
 teach and govern us. These two — the Pope and 
 our Bishop — are in the ordinary Providence of 
 God the Divinely appointed representatives of 
 Christ to us. They come to us with a Divine 
 authority which no one else can lay claim to or 
 possess. 
 
 It is well with us, then, in the Catholic Church, 
 where we have the infallible teaching of religious 
 truth, the Sacraments and sacrifice instituted by 
 Christ for our sanctification and salvation, the 
 guidance of a Divinely appointed religious au- 
 thority which speaks to us with the voice, and 
 in the name, of God. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Agatho, Pope, 215. 
 
 Anglican Church, not the Church 
 
 of Christ, 177. 
 Anselm, St., 188. 
 Apostles, chosen and trained by 
 Christ; then sent to preach, 
 govern, minister, 83. 
 
 — success of their work, 88. 
 
 — not delegates of St. Peter, 230. 
 
 — to have successors until the 
 
 end, 231. 
 Authority of Bishops, 229, 243, 
 246. 
 
 Church, 3, 129. 
 
 Pope, 195. 
 
 B 
 
 Bishops, authority of, 229. 
 
 — diocesan, authority of, 247. 
 
 — in primitive Church, 233. 
 
 — teaching authority of, 249. 
 
 — legislators and rulers, 255. 
 
 — office of, 237. 
 
 — Clement of Rome on, 238. 
 
 — Ignatius Martyr on, 238. 
 
 — Polycarp on, 240. 
 
 — essential to existence of the 
 
 Church, 242. 
 
 — threefold activity of, 244. 
 
 — determine extent of their juris- 
 
 diction, 251. 
 
 — legislative power, 255. 
 Branch theory of the Church, 167. 
 
 C^RULARius, 175, 189. 
 
 Celestine, Pope, 213. 
 
 Chalcedon, Council of, on Papal 
 
 authority, 214. 
 Characteristics of Church, 96, 
 Charismata, 233. 
 Christ, man, 30. 
 
 — God, 31. 
 
 — His Character, 36, 93. 
 
 — His Claims, 40. 
 
 — His Resurrection, 53. 
 Church, Anglican, 177. 
 
 — Greek Orthodox, 174. 
 
 — of Christ, imperishable, 99. 
 One, 106. 
 
 membership of, obliga- 
 tory, 114. 
 
 infallible, 134. 
 
 believed to be infallible 
 
 by Apostles, 141. 
 
 Clement of Rome, 16, 208, 238. 
 
 Columbanus, St., 188. 
 
 Corinth, Church of, 208. 
 
 Comely, on date of Gospels, 14. 
 
 Councils, General, on Roman See, 
 213. 
 
 Cyprian, St., 210. 
 
 Deists, 10. 
 
 Divinity of Christ, 31, 93, 
 
 Division of East and West, 189. 
 
 262 
 
INDEX 
 
 263 
 
 Ephbsus, Council of, 213. 
 F 
 
 Faith, unity of, in Catholic 
 
 Church, 184. 
 Pilioque, 189. 
 Firmilian, 211, 212. 
 Florence, Council of, on Roman 
 
 Primacy, 215. 
 Foundation of Church, 61. 
 Francis, St., of Assisi, 188. 
 
 Greek Orthodox Church, 174. 
 H 
 
 Harnack, 13. 
 
 Heresy, Apostolic view of, 120. 
 
 Higher criticism, 6, 10, 12. 
 
 I 
 
 Ignatius Martyr, on Roman 
 Church, 209. 
 
 on Bishops, 238. 
 
 Indifferentism, religious, 125. 
 Infallibility, active and passive, 
 
 134. 
 
 — what it is not, 137. 
 
 — of Apostles, 141. 
 Church, 138, 150. 
 
 — antecedently probable, 140. 
 
 — promised by Christ, 144. 
 
 — subject and object of, 158. 
 
 — claimed by Catholic Church, 
 
 192. 
 
 — A mark of the true Church, 
 
 192. 
 
 — Dr. Salmon on, 191. 
 Ircnaeus, St., 17, 209, 240. 
 
 Jurisdiction, Primacy of, 226. 
 Justin Martyr, 17. 
 
 Kingdom founded by Christ, 67. 
 
 — not a school of thought, 68. 
 
 — nature of the, 71. 
 
 — not earthly, 71. 
 
 — yet on earth, 73. 
 
 — and visible, 75. 
 
 — universal, 77. 
 
 — independent, 79. 
 
 — its conception a proof of 
 Christ's Divinity, 93. 
 
 Lecky, Mr., on the character of 
 
 Christ, 39. 
 Leo, Pope, 214. 
 Lightfoot, Bishop, 240. 
 
 Malachy, St., 188. 
 Manuscripts of New Testament, 7. 
 Martyrs of Lyons, 209. 
 Muratorian Fragment, 17. 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, i. 
 New Testament, ancient ver- 
 sions, 8. 
 
 authorship, 15. 
 
 date of composition, Z2. 
 
 historical value, 9. 
 
 manuscripts, 7. 
 
 variant readings, 7. 
 
 writers, 15. 
 
 well informed, 18. 
 
 truthful, 20. 
 
 believed Christ to be 
 
 God, 32. 
 as human documents, 6. 
 
 " Old Catholics," 221. 
 
264 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAN-Anglican Synods, 179. 
 Papal authority, antecedent likeli- 
 hood of, 199. 
 
 — infallibility, 198. 
 
 in Church History, 208. 
 
 proclaimed by Councils, 213. 
 
 what it is not and what it is, 
 
 223. 
 
 when exercised, 224. 
 
 incommunicable, 227. 
 
 — jurisdiction, 226. 
 Papias, 17. 
 
 Paul, St., Epistles of, 20. 
 
 Peter, St., in New Testament, 200. 
 
 Christ's promise to, 202. 
 
 commission to "feed lambs 
 
 and sheep," 205. 
 Petrine texts, 206. 
 Photius, 175, 189. 
 Polycarp, St., 209. 
 Pope, authority of, 195. 
 Priests and Bishops in Apostolic 
 
 times, 233. 
 Primacy, what it is not, 223. 
 
 — what it is, 224. 
 Protestant Episcopalians, 177. 
 
 Reformation of sixteenth century, 
 190. 
 
 Resurrection of Christ, a proof of 
 His Divinity, 53. 
 
 vision, and swoon theo- 
 ries, 58. 
 
 Roman See, in primitive Church, 
 
 208. 
 — congregations, 227. 
 
 Sardica, Decrees of, 211. 
 
 Salmon, Dr., on Church infalli- 
 bility, 191. 
 
 Sources of our knowledge, i. 
 
 Stephen, St., 211, 212. 
 
 Supremacy promised to St. Peter, 
 202. 
 
 Teaching authority of Church, 
 
 129. 
 TertuUian, 210. 
 Trent, Council of, on ecclesiastical 
 
 hierarchy, 232. 
 True Church, which it is, 163. 
 
 U 
 
 Unity, in Greek Orthodox Church, 
 
 174. 
 
 Anglican Communion, 177. 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, 
 
 184. 
 
 Vatican Council, 
 
 macy, 216. 
 Victor, Pope, 210. 
 
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