CHAPTER III.

THE ACTUAL RELATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE FROM THE DAY OF PENTECOST TO CONSTANTINE.

_Transmission of Spiritual Authority from the Person of Our Lord to Peter and the Apostles, as set forth in the New Testament._

The Spiritual Power rests for its origin, so far as all Christians are concerned, upon the transmission of spiritual authority from the Person of our Lord to Peter and the Apostles.

That transmission runs up as a fact by a living unbroken line of men to our Lord Himself. It subsists as a kingdom subsists. As the governments of England, or France, or Russia, or China, occupy a portion of the earth, and by that fact are recognised quite independently of any records which attest their rise and growth, so the far greater and more widely spread government of the Church exists, and is in full daily action, independently of any records which attest its origin. Day by day in the sacrament of Baptism it admits children into the Christian covenant; day by day upon myriads of altars, from the rising to the setting sun, it offers the unbloody sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ; day by day in unnumbered confessionals it exercises in binding and loosing the sacrament of Penance; day by day its priests teach, support, console, uphold, in ways which it would exhaust the power of language to describe, a multitude of its people. This is its vital force as a kingdom, which it has gone on exerting for eighteen hundred and fifty years without a moment's suspension. This vital force does not proceed from any record which attests it: it is not stored up in any book, but in a divine presence resting on a living succession of men, which perpetuates itself--which, as a fact, goes on increasing in volume and in the effects which it produces from age to age.

Nevertheless, it is desirable to draw out as accurately as we can the account of the first transmission of that spiritual authority by which this kingdom exists, as we have it recorded for us in the writings of the New Testament. For this purpose I shall quote the terms which express it as given in each of the four Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul and in the Apocalypse.

First of all is the institution of that Priesthood which supports the whole spiritual superstructure, and from which, as the stem, all its branches spring. And this is seen to take place at a moment when our Lord's Passion may be said to have begun--to be, as it were, the first act of it. The fullest record we have is that given by St. Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which runs thus: (1 Cor. xi. 23) "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you: the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said, Take ye, and eat: this is My Body which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of Me. In like manner also the chalice, after He had supped, saying, This chalice is the new testament in My Blood: this do ye, as often as ye shall drink, for the commemoration of Me." The Apostle adds in His own words that this was an everlasting memorial of the Lord's death, to continue until His second coming, and that it so contained the Lord's Body and Blood that he who ate or drank unworthily was guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. "For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink this chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord until He come. Therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord."

St. Luke in the Gospel mentions the institution in terms similar to those of St. Paul, especially in that he uses in respect of the Body the sacrificial words, "Do or offer this in commemoration of Me," which St. Paul uses of the chalice also, while St. Luke omits them. St. Matthew and St. Mark record it more briefly still, not giving the sacrificial words in either case; and St. John passes over the institution itself of the Blessed Sacrament, while he adds very largely to the record of what was said by our Lord on the eve of his Passion, and gives three whole chapters which might almost be considered as a comment upon that act of divine love. Indeed, the opening words, "I am the true Vine," seem to point to the rite as having just been accomplished, and to give a divine interpretation of the graces stored up in it. On the whole, it must be said of these four accounts, even including that of St. Paul, that they are rather an allusion to a thing otherwise well known to those for whom it was written than a description of it. When St. Paul wrote, the Priesthood and the Sacrifice had been in daily operation for twenty-five or thirty years, and every Christian knew by the evidence of his senses the full detail, both as to Priesthood and to Sacrament, of that to which reference was made. This is a consideration which it is requisite to bear in mind. Nothing could be further removed from the truth than to suppose that we were intended to obtain our knowledge of what the Priesthood, the Divine Sacrifice, and the Blessed Sacrament were, merely or mainly from the record of them in the Gospel narrative. When this was first published in writing, they were institutions upon which the Church had been already founded; every detail of them was imprinted upon the heart of every Christian, associated with his daily life, and enshrined in his practice. To a heathen reading the Gospel, the words, "Do this in commemoration of Me," might be an enigma; while to a Christian they carried the power of which his whole spiritual being was the growth.

The institution of the Blessed Sacrament and of the Priesthood which is to offer the Sacrifice is enacted by our Lord on the eve of His Passion before the Apostles collected together, as He is about to make the offering in commemorating which forever, until His final coming, the Priesthood consists. Thus the moment of the institution is so chosen as to connect it most intimately not only with His Person, but with that act of our Lord wherein He is our High Priest, and in reference to which His own words of institution carry so deep a significance. That which was given by our Lord to His Apostles, that which they were to receive themselves and give to others to the end of the world, was precisely that which was to be offered on the same day for the sin of the world, which is very exactly intimated in the tense used in the original; not a future but a present tense: "Take, eat: this is My Body which is being broken for you;" as if the action of His immolation had begun.

As the whole divine mission of our Lord is collected up in his Priesthood, and no less the whole power which He left to His Church, every circumstance of time, place, and occasion which belongs to its institution has to be noted, and this in particular, that it is bestowed before His death, and that it is the only power which is recorded to have been actually bestowed before it. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that His death is the crowning act of the eucharistic institution, and accompanies the institution, understanding in this sense the words of St. John, "Jesus knowing that His hour was come that He should pass out of this world to the Father, He loved them unto the end," words by which he introduces the account of that last evening of our Lord's life.

The basis of the whole structure being thus laid in the act which began our Lord's Passion and commemorates it for ever, we proceed to the testimony of the several Gospels as to the investiture of the Church's rulers which followed the Passion.

1. The words in which St. Matthew records the transmission of spiritual power from the Person of our Lord after His resurrection are the following:--"The eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them.... And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth. Go forth, therefore, and make disciples 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."

The power thus given, as recorded by St. Matthew, comes direct from Christ, as an outflowing of His all-power in heaven and on earth: it is an universal power, co-extensive with all the purposes for which the Church has been created, and enduring so long as the Church endures, through the accompanying presence of the Lord; and it is given to the Apostles collectively as to one body.

But St. Matthew, in a former part of his Gospel, had recorded a most remarkable and singular promise made to Peter, or rather a group of four promises forming one mass: the first, that he should be the Rock on which Christ would build His Church; the second, that against this the gates of hell should not prevail; the third, that Christ would give to him the keys of the kingdom of heaven; the fourth, that whatsoever he should bind on earth should be bound in heaven, and whatsoever he should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven. Matthew (xviii. 17, 18) had also recorded, a little later, a promise made to the Apostles collectively, in which our Lord, after referring to the Church as an authoritative tribunal for all His people, had added, "Amen, I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven." This promise then contained a part of the fourfold promise already made to Peter, with the limitation, however, not only that it was made to the Apostles conjointly, whereas it had been made to Peter singly, but also that it was detached from the other part of the promise so given to Peter. With respect to the first point, a power vested in a Body, with the condition that it be exercised by common consent, differs greatly from the same power vested in the Head of that Body, to be exercised by him singly. It differs, as far as the conception of aristocracy differs from the conception of monarchy. And the second point above noted, that the promise thus given to the Apostles is detached from the other parts of the promise which had been given to Peter, corroborates this distinction. The powers which indicate monarchy lie in those parts of the promise which were not given to the Apostles conjointly.

The whole testimony of Matthew, therefore, consists in the promise of powers which he records to have been made before the Resurrection, and in the giving of powers which he records to have been made after it.

2. The testimony of Mark is contained in the last six verses of his Gospel: "And He said to them (the eleven), Go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: in My name shall they 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 they shall recover. And the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed."

Here also the power comes direct from Christ; it is universal in its range and permanent in duration; it is given to the Apostolic Body, and St. Mark attaches to it the perpetual accompaniment of miraculous effects, which he connects with the session of our Lord at the right hand of God, as witnessing to the truth of the Apostolic mission; and not only so, but as further implying that so long as the session at the right hand of God continues, the divine effects which proceed from it shall continue also.

It is remarkable that St. Mark's Gospel, which is the Gospel of Peter, set forth by his disciple at his instance, is the only one of the four which does not record either the promise or the conveyance of the special power bestowed upon Peter.

3. St. Luke's record is this: Our Lord coming to the Apostles on the evening of His Resurrection bestows upon them His peace; convinces them that He has risen again; eats with them; illuminates their mind to understand the Scriptures and the need of His Passion. "And He said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead the third day; and that penance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. And behold I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay you in the city until you be indued with power from on high. And He led them out as far as Bethania, and lifting up His hands, He blessed them. And it came to pass while He blessed them He departed from them and was carried up into heaven."

Luke completes his account in the Acts, where he says our Lord "showed Himself alive, after His Passion, to the Apostles whom He had chosen by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God. And eating together with them He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard, saith He, by My mouth. For John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. They, therefore, who were come together asked Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? But He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in His own power; but you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had said these things, while they looked on, He was raised up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight."

The power thus promised as about to be bestowed in terms so concise and yet so simple, as "the promise of the Father sent down by the Son," "the power from on high," "the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you," is afterwards described in the events which took place on the Day of Pentecost, which therefore supplement or give their full meaning to St. Luke's account of the transmission of spiritual authority. It is a power coming down on the Apostles in a Body direct from Christ--the power, in fact, which makes the Church to be what she is; it is a visible descent of that perpetual presence of the Holy Ghost within her which is her life, by which she is the kingdom of God on earth--a power universal and permanent.

It is given to the Apostolic College collectively, and there is no mention here of a special power given to Peter. But St. Luke in his account of the Last Supper introduces in a manner peculiar to himself a special prerogative promised by our Lord to Peter. To gather its whole force, it is necessary carefully to study the context in which it is found.

Immediately after his reference to the institution of the Lord's Supper and the announcement that there was one among them who should betray his Lord, St. Luke writes: "And there was also a strife among them which of them should seem to be greater. And He said to them, The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that have power over them are called beneficent. But you not so; but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger, and he that is the leader, as he that serveth. For which is greater, he that sitteth at table or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at table? but I am in the midst of you as he that serveth. And you are they who have continued with Me in My temptations; and I dispose to you, as My Father has disposed to Me, a kingdom; that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and may sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren. Who said to Him, Lord, I am ready to go with Thee both into prison and to death. And He said, I say to thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day till thou thrice deniest that thou knowest Me. And He said to them, When I sent you without purse and scrip and shoes, did you want anything? But they said, Nothing. Then said He unto them, But now, he that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise a scrip, and he that hath not, let him sell his coat and buy a sword. For I say unto you that this which is written must yet be fulfilled in Me, 'And with the wicked was He reckoned.' For the things concerning Me have an end. But they said, Lord, behold here are two swords. And He said to them, It is enough."

We may judge of the importance of this conversation by the fact that the space given to it by St. Luke makes much more than half of his whole record, so far as the events are concerned which took place in the upper chamber, while it exceeds the whole record of those events given either by St. Matthew or St. Mark. In fact, it constitutes the main addition which St. Luke has made to the record of the first two Evangelists, and, viewed as that addition, it specially draws our notice to his reason for inserting it. The incident thus dwelt upon by St. Luke with so much detail is omitted not only by St. Matthew and St. Mark, but by St. John also. If we view the narrative of the Passion as a whole, given by the four Evangelists, it is as special a contribution to it by St. Luke as the conversation given by St. John.

And here, first, it may be again remarked, that our knowledge of the institution either of the Priesthood or of the Blessed Sacrament did not depend upon its record in the Gospels, because both were institutions of the divine kingdom carried into effect before the Gospels were published, and exhibited in the daily action of the Church. But our knowledge of a contest having arisen among the Apostles at the very time our Lord was speaking of one out of the Apostolic College itself who was to betray Him--a contest the subject of which regarded the person who should be the greater in that College--does depend upon the written record of it; and the selection of it to occupy so large a part in so short a narrative, as well as to form almost the whole addition which St. Luke was to contribute to the previous record of St. Matthew and St. Mark, shows that something was contained in it which was to be kept in perpetual remembrance among Christians.

First, then, our Lord does not put aside this contest, but proceeds to determine it. He draws the strongest contrast between heathen domination, such as it both was then and had been in past time, and Christian government, which as yet was not, but was to be. "The kings of the earth lord it over them, and they that have power over them are called beneficent. But you not so; but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger, and he that is the leader as he that serveth." Thus "a greater" and "a leader" in the Apostolic College is pointed out as to be. But it is also pointed out that the type and example of this superior is our Lord Himself. It is the character of one who represents Him. "For which is greater, he that sitteth at table or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at table? But I am in the midst of you as he that serveth." If the character of our Lord's example is here pointed at on the one hand, on the other the greatness of the rule to be exercised is indicated. In both, in the character of the rule as being a service to those who are ruled, and as representing our Lord Himself, the application makes itself felt. The superior was to exercise not a domination which had become the mark of Gentile kings, but a service for the good of the governed such as Christ in all His ministry had shown. The words recorded by St. Luke bring back those recorded by St. John, which our Lord had uttered just before: "Know you what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If then I, being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also." If this had been all which St. Luke had recorded, the existence of a Superior in the Church after the pattern of Christ Himself might have been inferred as to come.

But our Lord then proceeds to speak positively of a kingdom which He was setting up, and of the place in it which the Apostles should hold: "And you are they who have continued with me in my temptations; and I dispose to you, as my Father hath disposed to me, a kingdom; that you may eat and drink at my table, in my kingdom, and may sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." From these words we gather that in the kingdom thus announced there should be not only one Superior after the pattern of Christ--"the greater and the leader"--but the College of the twelve, sitting on thrones, and judging the whole people of God. The kingdom and its rulers are correlative and co-enduring. And is not the whole of the order of the Episcopate symbolised in these words, as well as the distinctive rank of the twelve Apostles? For do not they in their heirs carry on through the whole duration of the kingdom on earth the mysteries of that wonderful priesthood instituted at this moment, eating and drinking at His table in His kingdom, and judging His people in the tribunal which has reference to it?

This interpretation seems intimated in the words which follow, in which an attack is spoken of as to be made upon all the rulers of this kingdom; and not, as it would seem, a passing, but a continuing attack. "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren." He singles out one Apostle, and speaking of the whole Body in the plural as the object of the attack, declares that He has prayed for that one, that he may be able, at a future time, when he has been converted, to confirm his brethren. Peter, supposing that our Lord spoke of the actual moment, said to Him, "Lord, I am ready to go with Thee both into prison and to death. And He said, I say to thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, till thou thrice deniest that thou knowest Me."

Thus pointedly did our Lord exclude the time then present from that at which Peter should confirm his brethren; and the event showed that, so far from confirming them during the night of the Passion and the subsequent Crucifixion, his faith and his conduct conspicuously failed: while all deserted Him and fled, he denied Him.

But of what time, then, did our Lord speak? of what attack? of what confirmation to be rendered by Peter?

The words which follow seem to give an answer to these questions. "And He said to them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, did you want anything? But they said, Nothing. Then said He unto them, But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip, and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword. For I say to you, that this that is written must yet be fulfilled in Me, 'And with the wicked was He reckoned.' For the things concerning Me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold here are two swords. And He said to them, It is enough."

What is this but that our Lord contrasts all the time of His ministry, when He was with them, their visible Master, Lord, and Comforter, when He sent them forth with instructions, after fulfilling which they were to return to Him, with another period--that in which the things concerning Him had an end: when He was to be taken from them: when they were to go forth in His power, but without the resource of His visible Headship and the comfort of His visible presence. That period is the whole time during which the apostolic ministry--the eating and drinking at His table, and the sitting on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel--continues. During all this time the attack of which our Lord spoke is going on: there is one who desires to have them that he may sift them as wheat: there is one also whose faith, in virtue of our Lord's prayer, fails not, and who is appointed to "confirm his brethren." Peter and the eleven, as individual men, passed away and went to their reward; but the kingdom of which our Lord was speaking, and which He disposed to them, did not pass, nor by consequence its rulers, neither those who were to be sifted as wheat, nor he who was to confirm his brethren. Thus during all that time which was to begin after His passion, death, and resurrection, when the kingdom was disposed to the Apostles, when the apostolic ministry was being carried on, and when the undying enmity of the great enemy was to be shown in the persistence of his attack, the chaff is burnt, the wheat is sifted, and the Confirmer, after having been converted, is in the midst of his brethren and performs his work.

Thus completely does our Lord answer the question of the strife which had arisen among the Apostles, and so great is the pertinence of the narrative thus introduced by St. Luke, so important its bearing upon all future history. If, then, these fifteen verses be considered in their whole context, not forgetting that they constitute the insertion of a totally new incident, in which consists mainly the addition made by St. Luke to the two points which are common to his own record and that of the first and second Evangelist, that is, the declaration of our Lord as to the disciple who should betray Him, and the institution of the Blessed Eucharist, it will appear that St. Luke distinguishes Peter from the other Apostles, and the power promised to him of confirming his brethren from the powers given to hint in common with them, no less markedly than St. Matthew and St. John, though in quite other language. And it must be added that, as his narrative in the Acts of what took place on the Day of Pentecost completes his statement in his Gospel concerning that "promise of the Father," and "power of the Holy Ghost" coming down, with which the Apostles were to be endued; so his narrative, from the Day of Pentecost through eleven chapters of the Acts, to the end of the time during which he speaks of the whole College of the Apostles, their preaching and miracles, illustrates what is meant in his Gospel by the special office here promised to Peter of "confirming his brethren." For Peter throughout appears at the head of the Apostles: his Primacy is exhibited in action from the first mention on the Day of Pentecost itself, as in the words, "Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and spoke to them;" while his supervision of the whole work, which comprises the first period of the Church's history, while the Apostles acted in one country together and until they separated, is stated in the words, "Peter, as he went through, visiting all," which indeed may be said to be a compendium of the whole narrative. And of him alone is it recorded that, when he was in prison, "prayer was made without ceasing by the Church unto God for him."

This, then, is the testimony of St. Luke considered as a whole, contained partly in the Gospel, partly in the Acts, as to the transmission of spiritual power, and such is the very remarkable addition which he contributes to the narrative given by his predecessors, St. Matthew and St. Mark.

4. The testimony of St. John as to the transmission of spiritual power may be divided, as in the cases of St. Matthew and St. Luke, into the promises which he records as made before our Lord's Passion and the fulfilment which he records as made after His resurrection.

The promises are contained in that same wondrous discourse of our Lord to His Apostles, of which St. Luke has preserved for us another portion in the passage just transcribed. They are given to the apostolic Body collectively, and, so far as they refer to this particular point, the transmission of spiritual power, are contained in the following verses:--

"Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do: that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask Me anything in My name, that will I do.--And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever: the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him: but you shall know Him, because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you.--These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you.--If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask whatsoever you will, and it shall be done unto you.--You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit: and your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you.--I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you.--But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself: but what things soever He shall hear, He shall speak, and the things that are to come He shall show you. He shall glorify Me: because He shall receive of Mine, and show it to you.--And in that day you shall not ask Me anything. Amen, amen, I say to you: if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it you.--Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world."

In these words our Lord foretells and promises the coming of the Paraclete to His Apostles, whom He would send to them from His Father, and the perpetual possession of truth which the Paraclete, by His presence, would confer upon them, and our Lord also says how He would bestow on them His own mission, received from the Father. There was the promise of a vast and manifold spiritual power involved in these things, which we do not attempt to draw out; but we pass to the record of St. John as to the bestowal of spiritual power made by our Lord on the eve of His resurrection to the assembled Apostles. A clear and striking connection and correspondence between the bestowal and the promise are here to be seen. An interval of three days only in time had taken place, but in it the passion and resurrection of our Lord had been accomplished.

"Now when it was late that same day, the first day of the week, and the doors were shut, where the disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them: Peace be to you. And when He had said this, He shewed them His hands and His side. The disciples therefore were glad when they saw the Lord. He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you. When He had said this, He breathed on them; and He said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."

In these few words, addressed to the Apostles together, our Lord would seem to have conveyed a power as universal and as direct from Himself as that contained in the corresponding passages of the three preceding Evangelists. Nothing could be wanting to that mission of which it is said, "As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you;" nothing to the fulness of the grace communicated by the Lord breathing on them, and saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost;" while the concluding words coincide exactly with the promise made to the Apostles in St. Matthew, that they should receive the power to forgive or to retain sins. In this interview with His Apostles on the evening of the day of His resurrection. He conveys to them the full apostolate in terms the simplicity of which is only equalled by their majesty.

Had the testimony of St. John stopped here, it would have seemed to give to the Apostles every attribute of power needed for their work. And it is to be noted that St. Peter was present with his brethren, St. Thomas alone being absent, and so, notwithstanding his recent fall, was included in that grant to the Apostolic College.

But St. John, in the last chapter of his Gospel, has added to it a record of that famous scene wherein our Lord bestowed on Peter singly a power as universal as that contained in the fourfold promise recorded by St. Matthew, a power also completely including the power given collectively to the Apostles in the four Evangelists. Indeed, we seem to hear the same voice sounding which said, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and they that have power over them are called beneficent. But you not so; but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger, and he that is the leader as he that serveth:" when the Lord said to Peter, "Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these? Feed My lambs: be shepherd over My sheep; feed My sheep." How else was it possible for Eternal Love to give so stupendous a charge and power in language so tender?

But considering that our Lord had already bestowed a mission on the Apostles collectively, which He likened to the mission received by Himself from the Father, what could these words mean save the universal pastorship of the flock of Christ? What _more_ could Peter receive than the others, in answer to his greater love for his Master, except this?

The passages which we have now cited contain the whole account which we possess, as written in the Gospels, of the spiritual authority first promised, and then communicated by Christ to the Apostles and to Peter.

They comprehend two classes of passages, those which regard the Apostolic College collectively, and those which regard Peter singly. And this division is made the more remarkable by the fact that no power is either promised or conveyed to any Apostle distinctly from the rest except to Peter.

In estimating their relative force, on the one hand, the full meaning must be given to each of these classes; on the other, no interpretation can be admitted which puts one class into conflict with the other. That interpretation alone can be sound which binds them in one harmonious whole.

If we take the passages which we have above cited, and which are addressed to the Apostles collectively, that is, Matt. xxviii. 18 20, Mark xvi. 15-20, Luke xxiv. 46-49, with Acts i. 3-9, and the passages from our Lord's last discourse in St. John together with John xx. 21-23, we find them to contain an universal supernatural power which is conveyed to a Body consisting of the Apostles, and which is co-extensive with the needs of that Body, and which lasts so long as the Body is to last. Moreover, the language used by each Evangelist is sufficient by itself, without reference to the others, to express the conveyance of this power, but at the same time the language of each several Evangelist corresponds to the meaning of the others.

If we take the passages addressed to Peter singly, that is, Matt. xvi. 17-19, Luke xxii. 31, 32, John xxi. 15-17, we find a power of Headship superadded to the former power which had been conveyed to the Apostles as a College. This Headship is conveyed in various expressions, such as the Rock on which the divine House is built, while to it the promise of perpetual stability is attached; the Keys, which indicate the supreme power in the divine Kingdom; the power to bind and to loose everything in heaven and earth, as given not to a collective Body, but to one singly, which distinction in the terms of the grant greatly enlarges the authority of the recipient by removing all restraint arising from common action; the Confirming the brethren in the divine Family; the Pastorship of the divine Flock. Each of these five things indicates sovereignty; together they express it with cumulative evidence: but each of these five things also indicates not collective sovereignty given to a college of men, but the sovereignty proper to a single person.

These passages in three several Evangelists addressed to Peter singly correspond to each other even more closely than the former class of passages corresponds to each other, and the power conveyed in them is a power more definitely marked than the power conveyed in the other.

Again, the two classes of passages, as given in the several Evangelists, may be separately compared in the case of each; as Matt. xxviii. 18-20, given to the College, with Matt. xvi. 17-19, promised to the individual; as Luke xxiv. 46-49 and Acts i. 3-9, as said to all, with Luke xxii. 31, 32, prophesied of Peter singly; and, lastly, the various words addressed to the Apostles collectively in the discourse after the Last Supper, and the gift of the Holy Ghost breathed on them together in John xx. 21-23, with the charge to Peter alone recorded in John xxi. 15-17. The result of the most careful and accurate comparison will be to see that the full power given to the Apostolic College in the concluding words of St. Matthew's Gospel is not interfered with by the Headship promised to Peter in chap. xvi. 17-19: that in Luke, the power from on high, and again the power of the Holy Ghost coming down upon the Apostolic College, do not exclude the confirming power promised to one of them: that in John, the universal Apostolic mission and the imparting of the Holy Ghost, bestowed by Christ upon the Apostles in common, so far from being opposed to the universal Pastorship conferred upon Peter by our Lord on the shore of the lake, receive as it were their completion and crown in the privileges of the Head.

It may be noted that in St. Mark alone, the Evangelist who wrote from St. Peter's side and at his direction, there is an absence of this distinction of passages, some of which relate to the Apostles collectively, others to Peter singly. He gives only one class of passages, that which expresses the powers given to the Apostles in common. But Matthew and Luke, while they record only the first class of passages relating to powers given after the Resurrection, record also singular promises made to Peter by our Lord before His Passion. St. John alone, writing last, and in that purpose of supplementing the preceding Gospels which so remarkably belongs to him, gives both words addressed and powers assigned after the Resurrection to the Apostles collectively, and words addressed and powers assigned to Peter singly. His record of the creation of the universal Pastorship following upon his record of the apostolic mission, following also the promise of the Holy Ghost to dwell perpetually with the Apostles, and the gift of the Holy Ghost breathed upon them from His mouth, seems to bind together in one harmony the whole narrative in the four Gospels of the power given by our Lord for the establishment of His Church. "As My Father sent Me, I also send you," addressed to a company of men, and the gift of the Holy Ghost accompanied with the power to remit or retain the sins of men, seem to embrace all the powers of the Apostolate. So, too, the words in the promise, "When He, the Spirit of truth, be come, He shall lead you by the hand into all truth," seem to embrace the whole gift of maintaining revealed truth in the world: while the solemn charge, thrice given, and in the presence of his brethren, to feed the sheep of Christ, addressed to one singly, contains all the powers of the Primacy.

St. Luke says of our Lord, that "He showed Himself alive after His Passion, by many proofs, for forty days appearing to the Apostles, and speaking of the kingdom of God." We have cited all that we possess in the written record of that intercourse, so far, that is, as concerns the government of the kingdom which He was establishing. It would be a great error to suppose that what we possess in the written record is all that took place. There is a double warning of St. John given to prevent precisely such an error. Immediately after his account of our Lord's first and second appearance to the Apostles together, he adds, "Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, you may have life in His name." And immediately after his record of the Pastorship conferred on Peter, he closes his Gospel with the words, "But there are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written."

The inference from these passages would be the same which meditation on the whole subject would suggest, that in the great forty days between His Resurrection and Ascension our Lord instructed His Apostles perfectly in all which they needed to know concerning the kingdom of God for the execution of their office as God's ministers for its propagation. Under this head would fall the number and nature of the sacraments, their ritual--in short, the government of the Church as a spiritual society. Of the details which regarded these subjects, nothing was made known in the writings, of which even the first in time, the Gospel of St. Matthew, began to be published many years after the Church had been carried on in its appointed order. The simple statement of such a fact is enough to show that for the Christians themselves such details were not needed to be expressed in a writing which might fall into other than Christian hands; while to lay them open to the heathen empire, in the midst of which the Church was rising, would have constituted a gratuitous danger, and would have contradicted what we know to have been the discipline of discretion long practised during the era of persecution. It was precisely the polity of the Church at which the Roman State would take umbrage. Thus the powers which are requisite for establishing and perpetuating this polity were recorded as having been conveyed to the Apostles under general heads. The language used for this purpose has a terseness, a concentration, a sublimity which betokens the voice of a Sovereign, the fiat of a Legislator. It befits the Person of the Word in the construction of His divine work. It harmonises admirably with those eight words upon the Mount which sustain and reveal a whole fabric of divine philosophy and Christian life.

Thus the central mystery of divine love, carrying in it the perpetual presence of the Incarnate God in His Church and the institution of the Priesthood, is referred to in the briefest terms, as given to the Apostles by our Lord on the eve of His Passion: "This do in commemoration of Me." The authority which He bestowed on them after His Resurrection is, as St. Matthew states it, a power to confer sacraments and to teach all nations, carrying with it an obligation upon those who are taught of obedience to all which the Apostles should enjoin as commanded by Christ, and a promise of His perpetual presence with them in the fulfilment of the office. As St. Mark states it, a power to teach all nations, to dispense sacraments, and to work miracles, accompanied by the co-operation of Christ sitting at the right hand of God. As St. Luke states it, the promise of the Father sent upon them by Christ; power from on high; power of the Holy Ghost coming upon them; baptism with the Holy Ghost: all which is, in this case, elucidated by what took place on the Day of Pentecost. As St. John states it, such a mission of the Apostles by Christ as Christ received from the Father, and the gift of the Holy Ghost proceeding from the mouth of Christ, together with the power of remitting and retaining sins.

All this was power bestowed upon the Apostles collectively, which Peter, as one of them, shared.

The privileges recorded to have been bestowed on Peter, if we treat, as we must, the promise and the fulfilment as of equal force, are six--

The first, to be the Rock on which Christ would build His Church.

The second, that to the Church thus founded on the Rock, or to the Rock itself, perpetual continuance and victory are guaranteed.

The third, that the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that is, supreme power in the Lord's house, guardianship of the Lord's city, are committed to him alone.

The fourth, that the power of binding and loosing whatsoever shall be bound or loosed in earth and in heaven is committed to him singly.

The fifth, the power to confirm his brethren, in which name the Apostles are specially indicated, because his own faith shall never fail.

The sixth, the supreme Pastorship of the whole flock of Christ.

Comparing carefully together what is said to the Apostles as a body with what is said to Peter singly, we cannot but be struck with the fact that while they received nothing without him, he received a power including and crowning theirs. The terms of conveyance in the two cases are indeed of similar majesty and simplicity, being the language of God in the sovereign disposition of His gifts; but in the case of Peter there is greater definiteness, and to him our Lord employs constantly the parabolic form of expression, calling him the Rock, giving him the Keys, committing to him singly the binding and loosing, and the confirmation of the brethren, which is the image of a tower or structure held together in one mass, charging him finally with the Pastorship of the flock of Christ. This imagery is capable of wider application than any other form of speaking, and as we know by the instance of the parables, contains in it an amount of instruction which direct language can only convey at a much greater length. None of it is given to any Apostle by himself, except Peter; what the rest receive of it together, as in the case of the power of binding and loosing, first promised and then given to them collectively, is greatly exceeded by what he receives alone. And besides, their commission and his throw light upon each other. The Papacy and the Episcopate are their joint result. Give its full force to the Apostolic commission, and Christ is with the one universal Episcopate all days to the consummation of the world. Give the same full force to the words bestowed upon Peter, and he feeds the flock of Christ until the second coming of the Great Shepherd. Perpetuity enters equally into both.

There is thus accordance in the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles as to the persons to whom transmission of spiritual power in the Church was made. The Gospels and the Acts record in the form of narrative the institution of the divine kingdom from its beginning and before it was carried into effect. But there is another inspired writer who speaks of it incidentally in his Epistles after it had been in operation between twenty and forty years. The eminence of St. Paul as the Preacher of the Gentiles is so great that we may endeavour to put together his testimony concerning the constitution of that Church which he loved so well, and for which he gave his life.

And, first, it is from him we derive that name of the Church which, more perhaps than any other, expresses her nature, and identifies her with our Lord. The Church to St. Paul is "the Body of Christ." "As the human body," he says, "is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also 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 we have all been made to drink." "There are," he says, "diversities of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God who worketh all in all;" and saying this to the Corinthian disciples he well-nigh repeats it to the Roman. To him, therefore, the whole structure of the Church's government is divine, as drawn from Christ's Person, as animated by His Spirit, as the work of the Eternal Father in and through the Son whom He has sent, and by the Spirit whom He has also sent. And again, as he thus wrote in the middle of his course to his Corinthian converts, so nearly at the end of it he expressed to the beloved Church of Ephesus, the fruit of so many toils, the same doctrine. This passage is sufficient of itself to give the complete Pauline conception of the Church as it was present to his mind in the whole range of time, stretching from the first to the second coming of our Lord. "I therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called, with all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another in charity, 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, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. But to every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the giving of Christ. Wherefore He saith: Ascending on high He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to men. Now that He ascended, what is it, but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the edifying of the Body of Christ: until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ: that henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive: but doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole Body, being compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity."

Are not these words a divine comment from the Apostle himself upon what he means by the Body of Christ? It is no figure of speech, but the grandest reality in the universe. The words contain the beginning, middle, and end of his belief concerning the instrument of our salvation. It is an inspired summary of the record in the Gospels which we have been so long considering. Its compass reaches from the ascension above the heavens to the completion "of the perfect man" in the fulness of the mystical Body, when all the labours and sufferings of earth are at an end. It places the security against error of doctrine, as well as the growth of charity in the working together of one ministry through the whole Church, and through all time, not only drawn from the institution of Christ, but enclosed in the sacred structure of His Body; nor can we conceive of any preaching of the Gospel without a divine mission derived from Christ through this ministry, as he elsewhere wrote to the Roman Church: "How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe Him of whom they have not heard? or how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?" There is, in his conception, one mission only in the Body of Christ. The splitting of this Body of Christ into two or three parts would be simply the destruction of St. Paul's conception, not an atom of it would remain. There is, in his conception, but one ministry, in unity and harmony with itself, the guardian and the propagator of the truth--Bishops existing outside this one divine ministry and exercising authority are a complete denial of the whole idea.

It is in exact accordance with these passages that St. Paul, in his pastoral letter to his disciple St. Timotheus, reminds him of the grace of God derived to him by the imposition of the Apostle's hands, and the hands of the Presbytery. He speaks manifestly of a divine gift descending through the hands of men from Christ, "who, ascending up on high, gave some apostles, some prophets," and the rest.

Again, it is after a strict and precise charge to St. Timotheus respecting the quality of the persons whom he should choose for the office of the episcopate that St. Paul winds up with the words: "These things I write to thee, hoping that I shall come to thee shortly, but if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." Here then, also, as in the letter to the Ephesians, he describes the divinely appointed ministry as bearing and upholding the truth which it is charged to impart; so that St. Augustine was putting St. Paul's doctrine forth when he wrote, "I should not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me thereto."[30] According to St. Paul's mind, it is the living ministry which carries to the world the knowledge "of the living God," a knowledge which dwells in "the house of God" alone. Outside the house the truth is corrupted, and the ministry loses its gift.

From the union of these passages, to which many more of like import might be added, we learn that the unity of the Church, in St. Paul's idea and expression, rests upon the very deepest foundation, the unity of Christ's Person as receiving a mission from the Father, which He accomplishes in His own Body, and by the working of His Spirit. If the promise to St. Peter and its fulfilment were for a moment put out of sight, yet this divine unity testified in St. Paul's letters would still remain in all its force, and could not be disregarded without giving up St. Paul's mind altogether. How can it be accomplished except by means of the promises given and the charge imposed on St. Peter? Thus St. Paul, in testifying directly to the unity, a witness the depth, precision, force, and tenderness of which no one can deny, testifies indirectly to the means by which it is obtained. If there be one ministry discharging in the Body of Christ the functions which St. Paul assigns to it, there must be the organ also by which that ministry remains one. Nor does it follow less that, as the ministry is visible and permanent, so likewise must the organ of its unity be visible and permanent. And if St. John records, in the most emphatic manner, the universal pastorship bestowed on Peter by his Lord, St. Paul sets forth as a reality the unity thus created in a symbol more striking, if possible, than the flock of the One Shepherd, for it is the Body of the One Lord. If the Apostle who lay on our Lord's breast and heard Him declare Himself to be the good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep, recorded the transmission of that charge to St. Peter under that same figure of the Shepherd in the injunction to feed the lambs and the sheep of Christ, St. Paul, who was carried up to heaven and heard unspeakable words, saw from his prison in Rome, through the whole vast period from our Lord's first to His second coming, the growth of that sacred Body which was to fill all in all, compacted together of the apostles, doctors, and pastors, whom at the beginning Christ gave, whom He would continue to the end to give; for does it not run, "until we all meet into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ." In all this St. Paul declares that, so long as the Church is militant, her ministry is the organ of truth, and this because the Church is the Body of Christ.

Thus it is a great and striking harmony with the witness of the Gospels and of the Acts to the transmission of Spiritual Power in the Church which the vessel of election, the Preacher of the Gentiles, contributes. Thus the figure of St. Peter stands in the New Testament between St. Matthew and St. John, supporting him on one side, and St. Paul and St. Luke on the other.

Nothing can be clearer than the mind of St. Paul in these passages. To him the fabric of government is inseparably united with the fabric of doctrine. It is one and the same institution which is indivisible in its organic structure and infallible in the truth which it upbears and expounds. He sets forth a Creed at the same moment that he describes a Body. The Creed and the Body make one thing. St. Paul's doctrine of unity is part of his conception of truth. The Church, the Body of Christ, is as completely possessed by all the truth which came by Jesus Christ as it is dowered with the grace which also came by Him. And the Christian ministry, viewed as a whole, as the mantle dropped by Him who, ascending up on high, led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men, is that wherein the double gift of truth and grace resides indefeasibly.

I pass to another point in St. Paul's teaching. Do the recipients of the government which in general and in particular he thus describes receive it from above or below? Does the magistracy draw its authority from a charge which the community bestows, or from a power which creates the community itself? Which is first both in principle and in time, the magistracy or the community?

There are six names by which, in various parts of his epistles, St. Paul describes the commission in virtue of which he spent his life and finally poured forth his blood in preaching the Gospel. These six names are apostle, minister, doctor, steward, ambassador, and herald. Sometimes they are mentioned singly, sometimes they are blended with each other in a way which sheds light upon them reciprocally. He terms himself an ambassador, when he says, "for Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors, God as it were exhorting by us." And he beseeches his converts to pray for him "that speech may be given me that I may open my mouth with confidence, to make known the mystery of the Gospel, for which I am an ambassador in a chain."[31] He refers all his power back to God when he says, "Our sufficiency is from God, who also has made us fit ministers of the New Testament," for this word, the original of deacons, signifies here a ministry to God, not a service of men. The sufficiency was that God had accredited certain men to bear to their fellow-men a certain document, a new covenant. They stood in the relation of ministers to Him who appointed them; to those to whom they came they were the commissioned agents of a sovereign. He calls himself also a steward,[32] where he says, "Let a man so account of us as the servants of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required in dispensers that a man be found faithful; but to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man's day,--but He that judgeth me is the Lord." And in another place he very remarkably joins together three terms which he applies to himself, while he specially connects them with the source and head of all power in that work of the dispensation which He became man to accomplish. St. Paul breaks into a sort of creed, which is like a summary of his whole message, in these most solemn words which he addresses to the archbishop whom he had himself set in the great see of Ephesus: "There is one God and one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times. Whereunto I am appointed a herald and an apostle (I say the truth, I lie not), a doctor of the Gentiles, in faith and truth." And he joins the same three names together in another letter to the same Bishop, "The Gospel whereunto I am appointed a herald and an apostle and a doctor of the Gentiles."[33] The original word herald was rendered by preacher; and the term Apostle has become so fixed as the name of those to whom our Lord committed His Church in chief, that the lesson as to the source of the authority which it bears in its meaning of "the sent," has been impaired to many minds. A multitude of men preach in these days without any notion that a preacher is a man who bears a divine commission from a Sovereign to announce pardon to His people, and that a man who chooses himself for such a function is an impostor. Now what I wish to remark of these six terms, by which St. Paul expresses his own authority and that of the brethren who held the like rank with himself, is that they all concur in deriving the power and the commission which they represent from the person giving it, that is Jesus Christ, in the name of His Father, and not from the people for whose good it is bestowed. The whole publication of the Gospel is, in fact, called "The Proclamation," which the word preacher and preaching no longer conveys. It is the message of a King to His subjects declared by His heralds. They convey it to those who hear it by a commission from above. Their whole authority comes from above, not from below. It is not the election of brethren which is the principle of their mission, but the charge of the Sender, Christ. And as the Apostles were sent, they sent their successors. Election, in subsequent times, however conducted, indicated the person upon whom power fell; but the power was from God.

A further light is thrown upon this most grand and beautiful doctrine of St. Paul as to the Church being the Body of Christ, and her ministry the appointed organ for maintaining divine truth through the whole course of time upon earth, by the magnificent vision bestowed upon the beloved Apostle when he was by command of Domitian a prisoner in the island of Patmos, "for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus." As he "was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, he heard behind him a great voice as of a trumpet, saying: What thou seest write in a book, and send to the seven Churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamus, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicia. And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks one like to the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. And His head and His hairs were white, as white wool and as snow, and His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, as in a burning furnace. And His voice as the sound of many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars. And from His mouth came out a sharp two-edged sword: and His face was as the sun shineth in His power. And when I had seen Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, Fear not, I am the First and the Last, and He that liveth, and I became dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, and have the keys of death and of hell. Write, therefore, the things which thou hast seen, and which are, and which must be done hereafter: the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches: and the seven candlesticks are seven Churches."

This vision occupies a quite singular position. It is, as it were, the opening scene of that revelation which was made by our Lord to the Apostle of the things that should happen in His Church from His first to His second coming; and which terminates only in the conclusion of the great conflict between the city of God and the city of the devil, when the seer beholds the Holy City "coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." It took place rather more than sixty years after the day of Pentecost, when two persecutions of the Church, the first under Nero, and the second under Domitian, had already tried the patience of the saints. Thus it dates a full generation after the time of St. Paul. In accordance with the position which it occupies at the head of a revelation given by the Lord Himself to him,

"Che vide tutti i tempi gravi, Pria che morisse, della bella sposa, Che s'acquistò con la lancia e co' chiavi,"

it is a vision of extraordinary power and majesty, repeating, and if possible excelling, the grandeur of similar visions in the old prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.[34] Our Lord appears with the incommunicable name of God, as the First and the Last: as the Redeemer, that Living One who became dead and is alive for ever and ever; as the Ruler who orders all things as to the race of man, having the keys of death and of hell; as the world's Teacher, with the sharp sword of the Word, the instrument of His dominion, proceeding out of His mouth; in the glory of the Resurrection, for His face is as the sun shining in his strength. The disciple who lay upon His breast at the Supper, now, when he saw Him, fell as one dead at His feet; but He, deigning to lay His right hand on him, raised him up, and communicated the meaning of the vision: and we learn from our Lord's own words that it showed Him present in the government of His Church. Write, He commanded the seer, the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are seven Churches. The mystery, He said--and the number seven is mystical. The seven stars represent the whole Episcopate held in the right hand of the Lord:[35] the seven candlesticks the whole number of Churches throughout the world: and that He, the Son of Man, is in the midst of them, His perpetual government in and through those whom He has appointed:[36] and the seven letters directed to the seven Churches, may by parity betoken seven ages or conditions of the one Church.[37] For the vision, taken as a whole, exhibits the perpetual action of Christ, not in one place, but in the midst of His people from the beginning to the end. It is thus equivalent to the scope of the entire Apocalypse, at the head of which it stands. It also conveys to us, with the witness of St. John, a complete agreement with the conception of St. Paul as to the unity of the divine mission centred in the Church, and exerted by her Episcopate; as to the relation of that Episcopate to Christ, which in every age is held in His right hand, as in every age He is in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; as to the relation also of that Episcopate to the people over which it is set: for our Lord commands what He would say to the Churches to be written to their several angels, to express the truth that they summed up in their person the flock committed to them. The stars are in His hand, while He is in the midst of the candlesticks. They are His angels, and their authority lies in the message which they bear from Him, not in any charge deputed to them by those whom they govern. Each letter gathers up the character of the people, in the single person of the angel: "I know thy works, thy labour, and thy patience:" thus expressing the doctrine of St. Cyprian, "the Church is in the Bishop."

Thus St. Paul's truth of the Body of Christ is delineated in the vision of Him who is the First and the Last, who became dead, and who lives for ever and ever, and from whom not only does all spiritual power originally descend, but is perpetually carried in His right hand; which does not leave Him because it is used by human instruments under Him. And if the vision seen by St. John is in perfect agreement with the conception of St. Paul, no less does it agree with, and convey in visible action, that whole account of the origin and transmission of spiritual power which we have been contemplating in the harmony of the Gospels and the Acts. Only it is to be noted that what the Gospels declare is _to be_, the vision exhibits _as being_.

If we take the whole mass of the Scripture testimony respecting the transmission of spiritual power for the government of the Church and the constitution of her polity, four qualities will appear salient: its coming from above; its completeness; its unity; its independence of civil authority.

1. First, the power thus instituted comes down from Christ upon Peter and the Apostles, and from them upon their successors. It does not spring from election out of the body, but by an exactly reverse process; the body itself springs from it. On the eve of the Passion, just after the institution of the Priesthood, our Lord said: "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and have appointed you that you should go and should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain."[38] This is the whole order of the divine appointment, from beginning and throughout. The Apostles develop out of themselves ministry and people. This growth Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost inaugurated, as the power from on high came down upon him and his brethren. The whole history of the Church through the first three centuries is a faithful continuation of this beginning. But here we have to note how every particle of the Scripture record testifies to the spiritual power coming down from above, not rising up from below. The figure of this in the old law was Aaron invested by Moses with the Priesthood in the face of the whole congregation of the children of Israel; the counterpart in the new is Christ ascending to heaven, blessing His brethren as He ascended, and sending down upon them the promise of the Father. Thus the divine polity unfolds itself in a spiritual descent.

2. The second quality is the completeness of this power. The absence of details in the records, far from being an impeachment of this completeness, subserves to its expression, because the power given is summed up in a general head, which embraces all particulars under it. Of this summing up we have in the same Gospel of St. John an instance both in what is said to the Apostles and in what is said to Peter. As to the Apostles, the Incarnation, often called by the Fathers the Dispensation, embraces the whole work of our Lord; not only His coming in our flesh, but His satisfaction for the sins of the world in the flesh assumed. All this was a mission from the Father. Now, in investing His Apostles with power on the evening of the Resurrection, He used this very expression: "As My Father hath sent Me, I also send you." Whatever there was to be done and ordered in the Church from the beginning to the end was, by the force of the similitude with Himself thus used, included in these words. They are truly imperial words, constituting a spiritual empire. So, again, as to St. Peter, our Lord was "the great Pastor of the sheep in the blood of the everlasting testament." As such He had been marked out by prophecy: it was His name of predilection: "I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep." Now, this and none other was the term He used when He would convey to Peter, in the concluding words of the last Gospel, supreme authority: "Lovest thou Me more than these? Be shepherd over My sheep." What could be added to this one word? That which we render "Be shepherd" comprehends all offices which government in the divine polity requires. It is the word chosen of old in psalm and prophecy for the sovereignty of the Messiah. First the Psalmist sung, as he recorded the splendid promise of the future King, "Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession: Thou shalt _rule_ them with a rod of iron."

Again, when Herod, assembling all the high priests and scribes of the people, inquired of them when the Christ should be born, they replied to him out of the prophet Micheas, describing by this word the reign of Messiah: "Out of thee shall come forth the Captain that shall _rule_ My people Israel."

Again, when the last prophet saw in the Apocalyptic vision the glory of the Word of God going forth as a Conqueror, he described His power in the same expression: "The armies of heaven followed Him on white horses, clothed in linen white and clean. And out of His mouth goes forth a sharp sword, that in it He may strike the nations: and He shall _rule_ them with a rod of iron." Our Lord of set purpose selected the one word[39] which conveyed His regal dominion, and bestowed it upon Peter. Nor did He give it with a restricted but with a universal application: "Be shepherd over My sheep." Who can refuse St. Bernard's comment: "What sheep? the people of this or that city, or country, or kingdom? _My_ sheep, He said. To whom is it not plain that He did not designate some, but assign all? Nothing is excepted where nothing is distinguished."[40] On the two sides, therefore, the power is complete; in its nature, as that specially belonging to Christ; in its subjects, as universal. This one word includes in itself all inferior derivations, whether of episcopal or other subordinate power, and in virtue of it St. Peter becomes the source of the whole episcopate as well as the type or figure of every local Bishop.

If the special conversations between our Lord and the Apostles which passed in the forty days are not recorded for us in their details, as being privileged communications made only to the chiefs of His kingdom, for their guidance, and as instructions to be carried out by them in practice, yet the institution of an everlasting polity by Him is marked out in the two instances of Mission and Rule just cited, as well as in the other passages before collected. In fact, it is in the institution of such a polity that the perfection of our Lord as Lawgiver and Governor consists. Nothing in His kingdom was left to chance, or to sudden expedients arising in unforeseen dangers. All was from the beginning foreseen and provided for. When He said to Peter, "Follow thou Me," which was His interpretation of the commission He had just before given to Peter, and a crucifixion which ensued upon a crowning in the case of the disciple as of the Master, the whole sequence of His Church through the centuries was in His mind and expressed in His voice.

3. But further, the very basis of the Spiritual Power, as delineated in the testimony of Scripture, is so laid in unity, that if unity be broken the idea itself is utterly destroyed.

"The Captain who should rule My people Israel" presents a very definite idea. "To feed the flock of Christ" is equally definite. The one is the portrait of Christ in prophecy; the other represents His kingdom in history. It is one people and one flock, as it has one King and one Shepherd. So the Rock on which the Church is built is one structure; the confirmation of the brethren is the holding together one family in that one structure. When St. Paul convoked the ancients of the Church at Ephesus, he expressed the duty of Bishops through all time and place: "Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you Bishops, to rule the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood." This work of the Holy Ghost was not limited either as to time or as to place, and belongs to the Bishops of the whole world as much as to those who met at Ephesus to receive the farewell of St. Paul. In precisely similar terms St. Peter charged the Bishops whom he had planted in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, "to feed the flock of God which is among you;" indicating at once the unity of the flock and the unity of the episcopate held by many shepherds. For it is one flock which they rule everywhere; not each a separate fold. A confederation of Bishops, each ruling a fold of his own, would frustrate the divine idea; also it would be difficult to imagine a government more futile, or a spectacle less persuasive to the world. If we take the account of the Church's ministry quoted just above from St. Paul, its unity runs through the whole as much as its descent from above. The Body of Christ expresses both equally. If either part is taken away, the essence is gone. A ministry such as is there described, existing in a dozen different countries of the earth, even if it possessed the same succession and order would present no such idea as the Apostle contemplates, and offer no such guarantee of divine truth as he dwells upon, unless it were organically one. Its witness in one country might otherwise be diverse from its witness in another country; and as each would have the same claim to be heard, the one would neutralise the other. In fact, the Body of Christ would cease to be. So ineffaceably is the Sacrament of Unity impressed on the whole Gospel account of spiritual government. There is not a single promise made nor a single power given except to the whole Church and to the one Church.

4. The three qualities we have described, the coming from above, completeness, unity, are intrinsic to the essence of spiritual government. They form together an external relation of entire independence with regard to civil government. Nothing can by plainer than the fact that Christ came from God, and that He gave to His Apostles, and not to kings or rulers of the world, the Spiritual Power which He meant to transmit. Equally plain is it that the power so given, being complete, could derive nothing intrinsic to its essence from the Civil Authority; and its unity demonstrates in no less a degree its independence of that authority, for it is the same one power everywhere, whereas civil government is both complete and different in each separate State. Thus the independence of the Spiritual Power is essential to it, as flowing out of the qualities which make it.

When we view the Spiritual Power as possessing inalienably these four qualities, as coming from above, as complete in itself, as one in all lands, and as independent of the Civil Power, the notion of perpetuity will be found to be inherent in the thing so conceived. Again, the promises made to it last as long as the subject to which they belong. As the kingdom of Christ and the flock of Christ are perpetual from His first to His second coming, so therefore is the Bearer of the keys and the Shepherd of the flock. And yet more, the Body of Christ moves through the ages, ever growing to His full stature and measure, so that this living structure can as little fail as Christ Himself. The Head and the Body live on together. Again, the secular power also, over against which and in the midst of which in all lands and times the Spiritual Power stands, is perpetual. The promise made to the College of Apostles, "Behold I am with you all days to the consummation of the world," is an express grant of perpetuity. The promise to Peter that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Rock, or the Church which is founded on the Rock, is a grant of perpetuity equally express. The same is implied in St. Mark's closing words, that our Lord sat down on the right hand of God, after giving His commission to the Apostles to preach the gospel through the whole world to every creature; and that as they went forth He worked with them, confirming the word by signs following--a work and a confirmation on His part which should last equally to the end, so long as He was seated at the right hand of God. So equally the promise of the Father, the Paraclete, sent down from above by the Son, is a permanent power by which the Church was originally made and perpetually subsists. All these divine promises cohere and shed light upon each other. Thus the commission to Peter, "Feed My sheep," is universal, not only as to its subject, which is the whole flock of Christ, but as to its duration, which is so long as there is a flock to feed. It was a charge, not only to a person, but to an office. If the thing itself to which it related was to endure, it is obvious that the longer it lasted, and the more it grew, the greater also the need of the office which should upbear it. The duration of the living organism moved by the Head, which St. Paul so strongly attests, and carries on into the unseen world, attests the reciprocal duration of the Head.

As those divine words which convey the promise or confer the gift of the Spiritual Power cohere and shed light on each other, so the impairing them in any particular destroys their idea, which is to say that they express a real and concrete existence, wherein the idea has passed into an adequate act. This is Jesus Christ in His Kingship, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Contr. Epist. Manichæi, cap. 5, tom. 8, 154.

[31] 2 Cor. v. 20; Ephes. vi. 19, 20; 2 Cor. iii. 6.

[32] 1 Cor. iv. 1: hupêretas christou kai oikonomous mustêriôn Theou.

[33] 1 Tim. ii. 7; 2 Tim. i. 11.

[34] Isaias vi. 1; Ezech. iv. 32; Dan. vii. 9.

[35] Compare the strikingly similar and almost contemporary passage in the letter of St Ignatius to the Ephesians: "For Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the mind of the Father, as also the bishops, appointed throughout the earth, are in the mind of Christ."

[36] Baur, Kirchengeschichte der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, p. 272, remarks, "Nicht ohne Grund hat man daher schon in den Engeln, an welche die den sieben Gemeinden der Apocalypse bestimmten Schreiben gerichtet sind, einen Ausdruck der Episcopatsidee gesehen--da die den sieben Engeln entsprechenden Sterne alle zusammen in der Hand Christi sind, in ihm also ihre Einheit haben, so kann durch den Engel, welchen jede Gemeinde hat, nichts anders ausgedrückt sein, als die Beziehung, die sie mit Christus als dem einen Haupte aller Gemeinden und der ganzen Kirche verknüpft."

[37] "Ideo septem scribi ecclesias ut una Catholica septiformi gratiæ spiritu plena designetur."--_Cornel. a L. in loco._ "Wherefore in the Apocalypse the whole Church is represented by the sevenfold number of the Churches."--_St. Greg._, 1. B. 23, _Morals. on Job_. "Propter quod et Johannes Apostolus ad septem scribit ecclesias, eo modo se ostendens ad unius plenitudinem scribere."--_St. Aug. de Civ. Dei_, xvii. 4.

[38] John xv. 16.

[39] Heb. xiii. 20; John x. 11, xxi. 16; Ps. ii. 9: Sept. Matt. ii. 6, in translating Mic. v. 2, where its equivalent is archonta tou Israêl; Apoc. xix. 15; the same word, poimainein, is used in all these passages.

[40] De Consideratione ad Eugenium Papam, 2, 8.