Chapter 31

§ 1. The Question stated.

One of the most interesting questions of the present time, in practical theology, concerns the nature, authority, organization, functions, and future of the Christian Church. The interest in this subject has recently much revived, in consequence of a reaction towards the Roman Catholic or High Church view. This has appeared in the tendency among Protestants to join the Catholic Church as the only true and saving Church of Christ. The same tendency has taken into the Church of England, and into the Episcopal Church of the United States, those who were not ready to go as far as Rome. It is therefore important and useful to ask, What is the truth and what the error in the different views concerning the Church? These differ very widely. The Roman Catholics declare that theirs is the only true Church, and that out of it is no salvation. Many Protestants reply that the Roman Catholic Church is Antichrist, and the only true Churches are those which hold the Evangelical or Orthodox creed. The Swedenborgians say that the Old Church came to an end in 1758, and that since then the New Church has taken its place. Finally, a considerable number of persons maintain that all these churches are worse than useless, and that it is the duty of Christians to come out, and be separate from them all. They do not believe in the need of any church, but would substitute for it societies for special purposes,—lyceums and literary clubs for purposes of mental instruction; temperance societies, peace societies, and other associations for moral purposes; and Odd-Fellows associations, Masonic associations, and clubs for social purposes.

The question then is, Is a Christian Church needed for the permanent wants of man? Was such a Church established by Christ? If so, which Church is it? And what is to be its future character and mode of organization?

It is scarcely necessary to discuss here the abstract question—Is a church an essential want of man, so as to be needed by him forever? It is enough to show that a church is needed now, and will be, for a long time to come. Every religion has had its church. No sooner does a new idea arise, than it is incorporated in some outward union. The new wine is put into new bottles. Confucius has his church, Mohammed has his church; even Mormonism and Spiritualism have established their churches. The Christian Church arose immediately after the ascension of Jesus; it came as a matter of necessity, born not of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It has continued ever since, in ever-varying forms, but one undying body. Other institutions have risen and passed away. The Roman empire has disappeared. The barbarous nations overflowed Europe, and then were civilized, Christianized, and absorbed into the Christian Church. Protestantism separated from Romanism, but _the Church_ remained in both. Other sects, Presbyterian, Independent, Quaker, Methodist, Baptist, Swedenborgian, Unitarian, Universalist, separated from the main Protestant body, but each took with it the church; each has its own church. Even the Quakers, the most unchurched apparently of any, who renounced the visible ministry, and the visible sacraments, made themselves presently into the most compact church of all. So the word continues evermore to be made flesh. So all spirit presently becomes incarnate in body. The body is outward and visible; the spirit inward and invisible. Both are necessary to the life, growth, and active influence of the gospel. Without the spirit of Christianity, the body would be good for nothing; it would be only a corpse. Without the body of Christianity, the spirit would be comparatively inactive; it would be only a ghost. A body without spirit corrupts and is offensive; a spirit without body is inoperative and alarming. Through body alone the spirit can act; through spirit alone the body can live.

Without asking, therefore, for any other authority for the Church, than its adaptation to human wants, we may safely say, that it is a great mistake to suppose we can dispense with churches. You cannot overthrow the churches, not the weakest of them, by any agency you can use; for all came up to meet and supply a want of the human soul. They are built on that rock. What will you put in their place? A lyceum? A debating society? A reform club? What are you to say to the souls of men, hungering and thirsting for God? What to the sinner, borne down by the mighty weight of transgression? What to the dying man, who knows not how to prepare to meet his God? We need the Church of Christ—the Church whose great aim it is, and always has been, to renew and regenerate the soul from its foundation, to lay the axe at the root of the tree of evil, and the very sound of whose bell, rolling its waves of music over the sleeping hills on the Sabbath morning, is worth more to the soul than a thousand lyceums and debating societies.

No; the Church is not to be destroyed; it is to be renewed with a deeper and fuller life. We want a better Church, no doubt—one more free in its thought, more active in its charity, with more of brotherhood in it. We want an apostolic Church, fitted to the needs of the nineteenth century. The theological preaching which satisfied our parents is not what we wish now. We need Christianity applied to life—the life of the individual and of the state. A better Church, no doubt, is needed; but we want the churches _fulfilled_, not destroyed.

§ 2. Orthodox Doctrine of the Church—Roman Catholic and High Church.

Admitting, then, the permanency of the Christian Church, we next ask, “What is its true form?” or, “Which is the true Church?” or, again, to state it in another way, “Is the form of the Church permanent, or only its substance? Is _any_ union for Christian purposes, for worship and work, a Church, or must it be found in some particular organic form?” To this question Romanism and High Church Episcopacy reply, “It must.” The rest of Protestantism answers, “No.” Romanism says—Jesus established an essential form for his Church, as well as an essential substance. The true Church is an organization as well defined as any corporation for secular purposes. It has the monopoly of saving souls, a patent right of communicating spiritual life, which cannot lawfully be infringed by any other corporation. This right was originally bestowed on St. Peter, and has been transmitted by him to his successors, bishops of Rome. The proof is in the original deed of gift, “Thou art Peter,” &c., and in the regularity of the succession of subsequent bishops.

“According to the Catholic dogma,” says Guericke,(60) “the Church is an outward community, by which all communion with Christ is conditioned and mediated. This outward community is the true Church, with the signs of unity, universality, apostolicity, and holiness, and is both the only infallible Church, and only one which can save the soul.” This Church, according to Bellarmine, is a wholly visible and outward association; as much so as the kingdom of France or republic of Venice.(61) According to Moehler,(62) the Church “is the visible community of believers, founded by Christ, in which, by means of an enduring apostleship, &c., the works wrought by him during his earthly life are continued to the end of the world.” The Roman Catholic idea is of a visible Church only, and not of a Church at once visible and invisible, which is the Protestant notion. It is composed of good and bad, while the Protestant notion makes the true Church consist only of the regenerate.(63)

The chief refutation of this claim of the Romish Church is to be found in the very vastness of its assumption. Assuming itself to be the only true Church, and the only one founded by Christ, we of course require full and exact evidence in proof of its assertion. It must prove, (1.) That Jesus founded an outward Church of this kind; (2.) That he made Peter its head; (3.) That he gave Peter power to continue his authority to his successors; (4.) That the bishops of Rome are the successors of Peter; (5.) That this succession has been perfect and uninterrupted; (6.) That the Roman Catholic Church _is_ infallible, and has never committed any mistake; (7.) That it _is_ Catholic, and includes all true Christians; (8.) That it _is_ at one with itself, having never known divisions; (9.) That it _is_ the only holy Church, bearing the fruits of Christian character in a quality and quantity which no other Church can rival. If any one of these nine propositions fail, the whole claim of Rome falls prostrate. But they _all_ fail, not one being susceptible of proof. It cannot be made to appear that Jesus ever intended to found a Church having such a monopoly of salvation; nor that the apostle Peter was ever placed at its head, with supreme authority;(64) nor, if he had this authority, that he ever was bishop of Rome; nor, if he were, that he transmitted his authority to his successors; nor, if he did, that the bishops of Rome are his successors; nor, if they are, that the succession has been unbroken; nor that the church has been actually infallible; nor that it includes all true Christians; nor that it has been free from schisms; nor that it has always been so pure and holy as to show that Romanism is eminently Christian, and Protestantism not so. The chain of proof, therefore, which, if one link parted, would be a broken chain, is broken at _every_ link, and cannot carry conviction to any unbiassed mind.

In a little work lately published in France by the Protestant Pastor, Mr. Bost,(65) the author gives as a reason for not being a Catholic, that while the Church calls on us to submit to its authority, it cannot tell where the authority resides.(66) The Ultramontanes place it in the person of the pope; but the Gallicans have never admitted this idea, and place the supreme authority in a universal council.

Besides, what sort of infallibility is that which has tolerated the Inquisition, applauded the St. Bartholomew massacre, preached crusades against the heretics in France, massacred the Protestants in Holland, burned ten thousands at the stake in Spain? If it be said that Protestants also have persecuted, we reply, that they did it _against_ their own principles, but that the Catholics persecuted in accordance with theirs; and that the Church which claims exclusive infallibility and holiness has no right to excuse itself _because it has done no worse_ than those which it denounces as being in error and sin.

§ 3. The Protestant Orthodox Idea of the Church.

Protestantism does not claim for its Church exclusive holiness or infallibility. It defines the Church to be “a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered.”(67) Why, then, the reaction towards Romanism? It is partly owing to the passive element in man—the wish to be governed, the weariness of independent thought, which led Wordsworth to say,—

“Me this unchartered freedom tires,”—

and which, in “Van Artevelde,” declares that,—

Thought is tired of wandering through the world, And homeward fancy runs its bark ashore,—

and partly because the Protestant Churches are often less active and diligent in the practical part of Christian work than the Roman Catholic Churches. Instead of a manly Protestantism, they give us a diluted Catholicism. They insist on a creed which has neither antiquity nor authority to recommend it, on sacraments that are no real sacraments, but only symbols, and on a ritual which has neither the beauty nor variety of the Roman worship.

What does the Protestant Church propose to itself as its end? To produce an abstract piety, instead of a concrete piety—not a piety embodied in life and conduct, but taking only the form of an inward experience. If the churches should set themselves the work of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, of removing the vices and crimes of men, of helping the outcasts and visiting the prisoners, they would have a more living piety growing out of this active charity. Their prayer meetings would be much more vigorous when they prayed in order to work, than when they pray in order to pray. Men should not be admitted into the Church because they are pious, but in order to become pious by doing Christian work. By loving, practically, the brother they have seen, they would come to love God, whom they have not seen.

Again: the Protestant Church feebly imitates the aristocracy of the Romish Church. In order to conquer Romanism, we must go on and leave it behind, seeking something better, and finding some more excellent way. Now, the sin of Romanism is its aristocracy; Protestantism ought, then, to give us, in its Church, a Christian democracy. But it keeps up the pernicious distinction between clergy and laity, making the clergy a separate class, and so justifying Milton’s complaint that the “Presbyter is only the old priest written large.” It makes a distinction between men and women in the Church, not encouraging the latter to speak or to vote. It makes a distinction between the rich and poor, selling its pews to those who can buy them, and leaving those who are unable to do so outside of the sanctuary. It makes a distinction between Orthodox and heretics, excluding the latter, instead of inviting them in where their errors might be corrected. And finally, it makes an unchristian distinction between good people and bad people; for while Jesus, its Master, made himself the friend of publicans and sinners, the Church too often turns to them the cold shoulder, and leaves them to be cured by the law, and not the gospel.

The following saying of a saint of the desert, Abbot Agatho, is reported by Dr. Newman, who tells it as something wise and good. It seems to us to illustrate, with much _naïveté_, the tendency of both Catholic and Protestant Orthodoxy, to put right opinion above right conduct.

“It was heard by some that Abbot Agatho possessed the gift of discrimination. Therefore, to make trial of his temper, they said to him, ‘We are told that you are sensual and haughty.’ He answered, ‘That is just it.’ They said again, ‘Are you not that Agatho who has such a foul tongue?’ He answered, ‘I am he.’ Then they said, ‘Are not you Agatho _the heretic_?’ He made answer, ‘No.’ Then they asked him why he had been patient of so much, but would not put up with this last. He answered, ‘By those I was but casting on me evil; but by this I should be severing me from God.’ ”

According, therefore, to Agatho and Dr. Newman, the tongue “which is set on fire of hell,” does not separate us from God, but an error of opinion does. Pride, “which comes before a fall,” and sensuality, which makes of a man a beast, do not come between the soul and God so much as an honest error of opinion.

The Protestant Church fails to overcome the Catholic Church only by being too much like the latter. With Protestant ideas, we have semi-Catholic Churches. We claim as our fundamental principle the right of private judgment, and then denounce and exclude those who differ from us. We claim that the soul is not to be saved by monkish seclusion, by going away from the world; and yet we do not preach and carry out in our church-action the purpose of saving the bodies of men as well as their souls. When the Protestant Church work gets more into harmony with Protestant ideas, we shall then see fewer relapses into Romanism.

§ 4. Christ’s Idea of a Church, or the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Roman Catholics having made the visible Church, or outward Christian community, the central idea of Christianity, and having changed this into a close corporation of priests, it was natural, perhaps, that Protestants should go too far in another direction. Accordingly, the central idea in Protestantism is not the Church, but the salvation of the soul; not social, but personal religion; not the Christian community, but personal development; not the kingdom of heaven here, but heaven in a future life. Yet it is true, and has been shown lately with great power,(68) that the direct and immediate object of Jesus was to establish a community of believers. This was implied in his being the Christ,—for the Christ was to be the head of the kingdom of heaven,—and the kingdom of heaven was to be an earthly and human institution. Jesus took the idea of the kingdom of God, as it was announced by the prophets; purified, developed, deepened, and widened it; and it resulted in his varied descriptions of the “kingdom of heaven,” This phrase, in the mouth of Jesus, expresses essentially what we mean by “the Church.” This will appear more plainly if we sum up the principal meanings of the phrase “kingdom of God” in the New Testament. It is,—

1. _Something near at hand._

Mark 1:15. “The kingdom of God is at hand.” Luke 9:27. “There are some standing here who shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God.” Mark 9:1. “There be some of them which stand here which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.”

2. _It was already beginning._

Luke 17:20. “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, Lo, there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within (or ‘among’) you.”

3. _It was not of this world._

John 18:36. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

4. _But was to be in this world._

Matt. 6:10. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

5. _In some respects it was to be an outward and visible kingdom, or an outward institution._

Parable of the grain of mustard-seed. Matt. 13:31, 32.

6. _It would contain good and bad._

Parable of the net. Matt. 13:47.

7. _It would belong to Christ._

Col. 1:13. “Hath translated us into the kingdom of his Son.” Luke 22:30. “Ye shall eat and drink in my kingdom.” John 18:36. “My kingdom is not of this world.” Matt. 16:28. “Shall see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”

8. _It would be finally given up to God._

1 Cor. 15:24. “Then the end; when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father,” &c.

9. _It is a spiritual kingdom._

Rom. 14:17. “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

10. _Flesh and blood cannot inherit it._

1 Cor. 15:50. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”

11. _The conditions of admission are spiritual._

John 3:3. “Except a man be born again,” &c. Matt. 5:3. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” &c. 1 Cor. 6:9. “The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” See Gal. 5:21. Eph. 5:5.

12. _The kingdom was to be established by the Son of man at his coming._

Matt. 24:30; 25:1. “They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven,” &c. “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened.”(69)

Christ, therefore, had in his mind, as the direct object of his coming, to cause God’s kingdom to come, and his will to be done on earth as in heaven. It was not his direct purpose to teach the truth in abstract forms, like the philosophers; nor to make atonement by his death for human sins; nor to set an example of a holy life; nor to make a revelation of God and immortality; nor to communicate new life to the world. These he did; but they came as a part of the kingdom of heaven. They were included in this great idea. His kingdom was a kingdom of _truth_, in which his _word_ was to be the judge. He was to reconcile the world to God by his death. He was to show what man was made to be and could become. He was to reveal God as a Father to his human children. He was to set in motion a tide of new spiritual life. But the METHOD by which all this was to be done was the method of a community of disciples and brethren, who should be his apostles and missionaries. They were to be an outward, visible association with the symbols of baptism and the supper. They were also to be an influence in the world, a current of religious life. We find that such was the result. We see the disciples embodied and united in a visible community, which spread through all the Roman empire, which soon had its teachers, officers, its meetings, its worship, its sacred books, its sacred days. But we find also the larger and deeper current of life, which constitutes the invisible Church, flowing, like a great river, down through the centuries. All Christians in all Christian lands drink from this stream, and all their ideas of God, man, duty, immortality, are colored and tinged by it. We read the Bible by the light of the convictions we absorbed at our mother’s knee in our infancy. We carry on our churches in the power of the holy traditions which have become a part of our nature. There is a Christian consciousness which grows up in every child who is born in Christendom, and is the best part of his nature. This makes him a member of the invisible Church before he outwardly becomes a member of the visible Christian community.

§ 5. Church of the Leaven, or the Invisible Church.

There are two parables of Christ which apply to the Church visible and invisible. The Church Visible is the Church of the Mustard-seed; the Church Invisible is the Church of the Leaven. The former is an organization, the latter an _influence_; the one is body, and the other spirit. The Visible Church is limited by certain boundaries; defined by its worship, creeds, officers, assemblies, forms. It has its holy days, holy places, holy men, holy books. But the Invisible Church is not limited by any such boundaries; it exists wherever goodness exists. The Church of the Leaven is to be found inside and outside of Orthodoxy; inside and outside of professing Christianity; among Jews, Mohammedans, Heathen; among Deists and unbelievers of all sorts, who build better than they know. For says Jesus, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof.... So is every one who is born of the Spirit.” A locomotive must run on a track, a wagon on a road. But there is no track laid through the sky for the south wind; there is no time-table to determine the starting and arriving of the soft breeze which comes from the far prairies, laden with the sweet fragrance of ten thousand flowers.

“So is every one who is born of the Spirit.” Get out your Catechism, my Orthodox friend; establish, dear Methodist brother, your experience to determine whether one is converted or no. Settle for yourself, excellent formalist, the signs of the true Church, out of which there is no salvation; and when you have got all your fences arranged, and your gates built to your satisfaction, you are obliged to throw them all down with your own hands, to let THE CHURCH OF THE LEAVEN pass through. “Nobody can be saved,” says Dogmatic Christianity, “who does not believe in the Trinity and the Atonement.” “Nobody can be saved,” says Sentimental Christianity, “who has not had a conscious change of heart.” “ Nobody can be saved,” says Formal Christianity, “who is out of the true Church and its sacraments.” Here are the three fences of the Church of the Mustard-seed. But see! here comes an innumerable multitude of little children, who have never believed in Trinity or Atonement; have never been baptized at all; have never been converted. Yet neither Dogmatist, Sentimentalist, nor Formalist dares to exclude them from heaven. Logic steps aside; good feeling opens the three gates; and the little ones all walk quietly to the good Shepherd, who says, “Let them come to me, and forbid them not;” gathering the lambs in his arms, carrying them in his bosom, and tenderly leading them in the green pastures beside the still waters.

The little children must be allowed to go through; consistency requires them to be damned; but consistency must take care of itself; so much the worse for consistency. But who comes next? Here are all the heathen, who have not heard of Christ. Must they be damned? According to the creeds, yes; but modern Orthodoxy has its doubts; its heart has grown tender. Somehow or other we think that we shall have to let them pass, before a great while. Then here are all the people whom we have known and loved. They did not believe as they should. They were never converted, so far as we know; they were not members of any Church, true or false. But we loved them. Cannot the three fences be put aside again, just to let these friends of ours pass by. What kind-hearted Orthodox man or woman was ever wanting in an excuse for letting his heretical friends into heaven. “He changed his views very essentially before he died. He used very Orthodox language, to my certain knowledge. He said he relied on the merits of Christ; or, at least, he said he believed in Christ.” And so all the good and kind dead people must follow all the little children, and pass the triple fence. They do not belong to the Church of the Mustard-seed; but they belong to the Church of the Leaven. These fences are like the flaming wall in Tasso; they seem impassable, but as soon as one comes up to them they are found to be nothing. Blessed be God that common sense is stronger than logic; that humanity is stronger than forms; and that large, kind Christian hearts are more than a match for the somewhat narrow Christian head.

§ 6. The Church of the Mustard-seed.

This is not the spirit, but the body; not the life, but the organization of that life. There is no doubt that we need a Church visible as well as a Church invisible; need a body as well as a soul; and it is a very important question what sort of a body we shall have. Soul, no doubt, is infinitely more important than body; still we do not wish our body to be lame, blind, or dyspeptic. Because soul is better than body, we do not like rheumatism or neuralgia. Our visible Church, the body of Christ, is sometimes a little dyspeptic, and goes about looking very gloomy and miserable, when it ought to be as gay as a lark. Sometimes also it seems to be rheumatic; at any rate, it cannot go and attend to its work. It is very subject to fever and ague; plenty of meetings to-day, all alive with zeal and heat, but to-morrow it is cold and shivering. It has its pulmonary disease too; its lungs are not strong enough to speak when it ought; to cry out for truth and right in the day of trial. And as we find that hygienics are better than therapeutics for physical diseases, so, perhaps, it will be better for us to prevent the diseases of the Church by wise arrangements, which shall give it air, exercise, and a wholesome diet, than to cure it, when sick, by the usual medicine of rebuke, reproof, and ascetic mortification.

The visible Church may be looked at in four points of view. We may consider it as,—

1. The Primitive Church, or Church as it was. 2. The Church Actual, or Church as it is. 3. The Ideal Church, or Church as it ought to be. 4. The Possible Church, or Church as it can be.

§ 7. Primitive and Apostolic Church, or Church as it was.

If we study the nature, organization, and character of the primitive Christian Church, as it appears in the book of Acts and in the Epistles, we recognize easily the warm, loving life which was in its spring time, when all buds were swelling, and all flowers opening. It was far from being a perfect Church. It had many errors, and included many vices. Some persons in the Church did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. (1 Cor. 15:12.) Some disciples had not heard there was a Holy Ghost. (Acts 19:2.) Some even became intoxicated at the Lord’s Supper. (1 Cor. 11:21, ὁς δὲ μεθύει). Some Christians had to be told not to steal (Eph. 4:28); nor to lie, (Col. 3:9); nor to commit other immoralities. Peter (supposed to be the infallible head of the Church) was rebuked by Paul for dissimulation. Paul and Barnabas could not get along together, but quarrelled, and had to separate. Part of the Church Judaized, and denounced Paul as a false apostle. Another part Paganized, and carried Pauline liberty into license. And yet, though there was so little of completed Christian character, there was a great amount of spiritual life in the apostolic Church. They are styled saints, but never was anything less saintly than the state of things in the beginning. But they were looking the right way, and going in the right direction. They were full of faith, zeal, enthusiasm, and inspiration; so they had in themselves the promise and expectation of saintship, if not its reality.

Directly after the ascension of Christ, and the wonderful experiences of the day of Pentecost, we find the Christian community in active operation. Its organization was as yet very indefinite; that was to come by degrees.

It was a Church without a creed; its only creed was a declaration of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. It was a Church without a bishop, or a single head of any kind; for Peter, James, and John seem all three to have possessed an equal influence in it, and that influence was derived from their character. Paul tells us expressly, in the Epistle to the Galatians, that when he went up to Jerusalem, long after his conversion, Peter, James, and John “seemed to be pillars” there. No mention is made anywhere in the book of Acts of a single bishop presiding over the Church at Jerusalem, or over any other Church. And as to the Romish Church, which claims to be the oldest Church, and the mother of all the rest, it was not yet founded at all, when the Church at Jerusalem was established. Nor was the Church at Rome as old as the Churches at Antioch, at Lystra, at Iconium, and elsewhere, for Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in all these churches, as we are expressly told in Acts 14th; and in Acts 15:7 we find Peter still at Jerusalem. If there was any church at Rome, Peter was not its bishop; then either it was a church without a bishop, or Peter was not its first bishop.

We find also that as the apostolic Church had no creed and no bishop, neither had it any fixed or settled forms. Its forms and usages grew up naturally, according as convenience required. Thus (Acts 6:1-5) we find that the apostles recommended the disciples to choose seven persons to attend to the distribution of charity. “A murmuring arose” because the Greek widows were neglected—neglected, probably, because not so well known as the others. This shows that there were no fixed, established forms; even the order of deacons was originated to meet an occasion.

That they had no form of service, no fixed Liturgy, in the apostolic Church, appears from 1 Cor. 14:26. “How is it, brethren, when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, an interpretation? Let the prophets speak, two or three, and the others judge, and if anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. You may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all be comforted.” Now, it is very evident no fixed or formal service could have been established in the churches when he recommended this.

But though the apostolic Church had neither bishop, nor creed, nor fixed forms, nor a fixed body of officers, it had something better—it had faith in God, and mutual love. “The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any man that aught that he possessed was his own, but they had all things common.” We do not find an absolute community of property established by a law of the Church, as in the monastic orders, or as in the school of Pythagoras, and some modern communities, as that of St. Simon; for Peter says to Ananias, of his property, “While it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?” But though their property was in their own power, they did not call it their own, or consider it so; it belonged to God: they were only stewards, and they readily brought it, and gave it to the use of the Church.

The apostolic Church was a home of peace and joy. Whatever tribulations they might have in the world, when they met together they met Christ, and ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. They were in an atmosphere of love and freedom. We hear of no rules, no laws, no constraining forms; but all were led by the Spirit of God. Even in their public service, as we have seen, though Paul recommended a greater order, it was not based on authority, but on the sense of propriety of each individual, because God was not the God of confusion, but of peace.

Such was the original Church, as described in the Acts and Epistles. It sprang up because it was wanted, and Christ foresaw that it would be. It was founded not on an arbitrary command, but on the needs of human nature. Man is not a solitary, but a social being. He needs society in his labors and in his joys; society in study, society in relaxation. Even in the highest act of his life,—in the act of prayer, in communion with God; in that act, called by an ancient Platonist “the flight of one alone to the only One,”—even then he cannot be alone. In the union of man with man in any natural and true relation, his thought becomes more clear, his will more firm, his devotion more profound, his affections more enlarged. The broader and deeper the basis of the union, the more it blesses and helps him. A friendship based upon the knowledge and love of the same God, what can be better for us than this?

Thus we see that the apostolic Church was a home for Christ’s family (Matt. 12:49); a school for his disciples; a fraternity of brethren. For discipline, it had officers, but no clergy, nor priesthood, for all were priests, and all took part in the services. (1 Peter 2:5; Rom. 1:6; 1 Cor. 14:26.) Its only creed was a belief in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. (Acts 8:37; 16:31. 1 John 4:15; 5:5, 10. Rom. 10:9.) The unity of the Church was not the unity of opinion, nor the unity of ceremonies, but the bond of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3), and the central unities of faith, not of doctrine (Eph. 4:5.) The object of the Church service was not merely to partake the Lord’s Supper together, nor to maintain public worship, nor to defend and propagate a creed, nor to call men into an outward organization, nor to gather pious people together, and keep them safe as in an ark, but to _do good_ and _get good_—to grow up in all things into Him who is the Head. And the condition of membership was to wish to be saved from sin, and to have faith in Christ that he could save them; it was to hunger and thirst after righteousness.

§ 8. The Actual Church, or the Church as it is.

Now, if we turn from the Church as it was to the Church as it is,—from the apostolic Church to those around us,—we see a difference. Instead of the freedom and union which were in the early Church, we find in the Roman Catholic communion union, but no freedom; in the Protestant Churches freedom, but no union. In both we find the Church built on the ministry, instead of the ministry on the Church; the priests everything, the people nothing; fixed forms, instead of a free movement; dead creeds, instead of a living faith. The spirit of worldliness has entered the churches, and they try to serve God and Mammon; God on Sunday, and Mammon on the week days. The members of the churches are more devout and more religious, but not more moral or more humane, than many who are out of their body. And because they do not love man whom they have seen, they find it hard to love God, whom they have not seen. Their want of humanity destroys their piety.

A vast amount of good is done by the churches, even in their present state; but when we think of what they might do, it seems nothing. Yet it is _not_ nothing. Could we know the good done by the mere sound of the church bells on Sunday, by the quiet assembling of peaceful multitudes in their different churches; could we measure the amount of awe and reverence which falls over every mind, restraining the reckless, checking many a half-formed purpose of evil, rousing purer associations and memories, calling up reminiscences of innocent childhood in the depraved heart of man; could we know how many souls are roused to a better life, made to realize their immortal nature, reminded of a judgment to come; could we see how many souls, on every Sabbath, in our thousands of churches, are turned from sin to God, how many sorrowing hearts are consoled by the sweet promises of the gospel; could we see, as God sees and the angels see, all this,—we should feel that the churches, in their greatest feebleness, are yet the instruments of an incalculable good. But when we look at what _is_ to be done, what _ought_ to be done, what _could_ be done by them, their present state seems most forlorn.

It is one of the most difficult of our duties not to despise an imperfect good, and yet not to be satisfied with it.

One of the greatest evils of our churches is, that they are churches of the clergy, not of the people. Our clergy are generally pure-minded, well-intentioned men, less selfish and worldly than most men; but they are not equal to the demands of their position. We take a young man, send him to college, then to a theological school, where he studies his Greek very faithfully, and learns to write sermons. He comes out, twenty-two years old, a pleasing speaker, and is immediately settled and ordained over a large long-established church. As he rises in the pulpit and looks down on his congregation, one would think he would despair. What can he say to them? He knows nothing of human nature, of its struggles and sins, its temptations in the shop and the street. Men do not curse at him, nor try to cheat him, nor entice him into bar-rooms, oyster-cellars, billiard-rooms, and theatres. He cannot speak to men of their vices, their stony and hard hearts, their utter unbelief, their crying selfishness, for he knows nothing of it. He must speak of sin in the abstract, not of sin in the concrete. If he did, what could he say? What weapons has he? The sword of the Spirit is in his hands, but he has not tried it; he has no confidence in it. The awful truths of the Bible, which smite the stoutest sinner to the earth, these he might utter, if he dared; but he knows not how. And yet he is the teacher of these gray-headed men, and their only teacher. Had he gone out as Jesus sent his disciples, without purse or shoes or two coats, and preached the gospel for ten years by the way-side, in cottages, in school-houses, living hard, sleeping on the floor, seeing men and women everywhere without disguise, and taking no thought beforehand what to say, but leaning on God for his inspiration,—then might he have learned how to say something weighty even to a great congregation. Or if this poor boy were surrounded by a living active church, helping him by advice, going with him into the house of sorrow, the haunt of sin, kneeling with him by the sick couch and death-bed, and adding to his small experience the whole variety and richness of theirs,—then might he be a man of God, thoroughly furnished for every work.

If there were Judaism and Paganism in the early Church, they still, no doubt, linger in our churches to-day. The Church Judaizes in this—that it still puts forms above life. For example, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that if you take a child, and put water upon him, repeating the baptismal formula, and with the _intention_ of baptizing him, the child becomes in that moment regenerate. If he had died the moment before, he would have been damned forever in eternal torments; if he dies the moment after, he will go to eternal bliss in heaven. Now, if an earthly parent should cover his child’s body with camphene, and then set it on fire, because somebody had not baptized it, we should say he was a very cruel parent. But this conduct is attributed to the good God by the Roman Catholic doctrine. Moreover, when an outward form is made thus essential, when everlasting salvation or damnation depends on it, it behooves us to know what it is. Baptism consists of three parts—the water, the formula, and the intention of the baptizer. But as to the water, we may ask, _How much_ is essential? Is it essential that there be enough to entirely immerse the body? The Catholic Church replies, “_No_.” Is the aqueous vapor always present in the air enough? It answers, “No, _that_ is _not_ enough.” At what precise point, then, between these two, does _enough_ begin, does baptism take place, and the child cease to be a child of perdition, and become an heir of salvation? The Roman Catholic Church, being obliged to answer this question, has answered it thus: There is no baptism until water enough to _run_ is put on the child. A drop which will not _run_, does not baptize him; a drop which will run, baptizes him. The difference, then, between these two drops, is the difference to the child between eternal damnation and eternal salvation.(70)

How does this sound by the side of the declaration of the apostle Paul—“He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart”? Judaism, if anything, was an outward institution; Christianity, if anything, is an inward life. And yet that which the apostle Paul said of Judaism we hardly to-day would venture to say of Christianity. “He is not a Christian who is one outwardly, neither is Christianity in outward belief, profession, or aspect; but he is a Christian who is one inwardly.” “O, no!” we say, “there must be a distinction. A man who does not believe in the miracles, for example, may be a good man, but you must not call him a Christian.” But he who follows Christ, we think, is a Christian. And as Christ walks before mankind on the divine road of goodness, truth, love, purity, he who walks on that road _cannot help being a follower_ of Christ, whatever he may call himself.

How the Church Judaizes about the Sabbath—pretending, first, that there _is a Sabbath_ in Christianity, and teaching people that there is a sort of piety in calling Sunday _the Sabbath_, and next putting this ritual observance, this abstinence from labor and amusement, on a level with moral duties! When men tithe mint, they are apt to forget justice and mercy. If Jesus were to return, after all these centuries, and were only to do and say just what he did and said about the Sabbath when he was here before, there are many pious Protestants who would think him rather lax in his religious principles. How long he has been with us, and yet we have not known him!

An American Protestant bishop once forbade a clergyman of his church to officiate again, because this clergyman had invited a Methodist minister to assist him in the administration of the sacrament. This is backsliding a good way from the position of Him who said, “Forbid him not: he that is not against us is with us.” And again: “Whosoever wishes to do the will of God, the same is my mother, my sister, and my brother.” Dear Master! is _thy_ Church so broad as to include all who desire to do the will of God, and are _our_ churches so narrow that they cannot hold any but those who agree with us in our little notions about ceremony and form? Hast thou been so long time with us, and yet have we not known thee?

The Church Actual is a timid Church. It is afraid of truth, and afraid of love. Its creed is full of mysteries too solemn and sacred to be examined. They are the sealed book of the prophet, which is given to the learned clergy, and to the unlearned laity; and the answer of the unlearned laity is, “We are not learned.” And the answer of the learned clergy is, “It is sealed. It is a mystery. We must not even try to understand it.” The Actual Church is not fond of a free examination of its tenets, but rather represses it by the flaming terrors of perdition impending over honest error.

The Church Actual sticks in the letter. How it idolizes the Bible! But when you ask, _What?_ you find it is rather the letter of the Bible than its manly, generous, humane, and holy spirit. It babbles of verbal inspiration and literal inspiration, which are phrases as absurd as it would be to say “bodily spirit.” Question the inspiration of the letter, and a thousand voices cry, “You are cutting away the very foundations of our faith. If we cannot believe every letter of the Bible to be from God, we have nothing to hold by.” But the apostle Paul thought somewhat differently, when he said, “Who hath also made us able ministers of the New Testament, _not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life_.”

The American Bible Society appointed a committee of learned persons to revise the present translation of the Bible—not to make a new translation by any means, but merely to correct palpable blunders of the press, palpable errors in the headings of chapters, or universally admitted mistakes of the translators. The learned men did their work. It was examined, printed—about to be published. But an outcry was made, that the Bible Society, in taking away these few errors of the press, was taking away _our_ Bible. The Christian public, in the middle of the nineteenth century, has been so instructed, that when a few errors in the letter of the outward word are corrected, it cries out, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.”

The Church Actual is sectarian. Every church is trying to swell its numbers at the expense of its neighbors. We do not think that a Christian Church should be constructed on the principle of a mouse-trap, which it is easy enough to get into, but hard to get out of. We do not think it right that young persons, in the glow of their piety, should be drawn into a church, without being told that if they should change their views on any important point, they cannot leave it except by being excommunicated publicly. But there are churches in New England which have many very easy and agreeable entrances, but only two exits—very difficult and disagreeable. If one wishes to leave, he is dismissed with a letter directed to some other church of the same creed, and not till he has joined some such church, and a certificate is sent back to that effect, is he released from his obligations. The Church is therefore like a city on a hill, with a palisade fence all round, with openings by which one can get in, but not out; and having only two outlets—one by a gate kept carefully locked, and the other over a steep wall, fifty feet high. You have your choice of three things: 1. Stay where you are; 2. Go through the gate into another palisaded enclosure; 3. Be pitched down the Tarpeian rock of excommunication.(71)

Thus we see that the Church Actual differs much, and often for the worse, from the Church Primitive. It is not now a home or a fraternity, for its members often do not know each other by sight. It is not a school of disciples, for it is thought necessary to take your whole creed at once, ready made, and not learn it by degrees. The worship is too often by the minister and choir, the people being only spectators. Instead of the simple original faith in Jesus as the Christ, the people are taught long and complicated creeds. Instead of a unity of conviction, seeing the same things, there is only a unity of expression, _saying_ the same things. Instead of seeking to save the outcasts, infidels, vicious; churches are built and occupied by Christians themselves, as though Christ came to call only the righteous to repentance. There may be, in our great cities, a church to every two thousand persons; but every seat in every church is bought and occupied by the respectable and comfortable classes. The gospel is preached, but no longer to the poor. There is something wrong in all this.

§ 9. The Church Ideal, or Church as it ought to be.

The Church Ideal is full of life, power, love, freedom. It is a teaching Church; calling men out of darkness into marvellous light, throwing light on all the mysteries of human existence. It takes the little child and teaches it concerning its duty and destiny. It organizes schools through every Christian nation, so that all Christian children shall be taught of God, and that great shall be their peace. It teaches systematically and thoroughly all classes of society; so that all, from least to the greatest, know the Lord. It organizes missions to all heathen lands, and its missionaries are so true, noble, kind, so reflect the life of Jesus in their own, that the heathen come flying like clouds, and like flocks of doves, to the windows of the holy home. The dusky, and swarming races of Hindostan, the mild and studious Chinamen, come flowing to Christ, as the long undulating clouds of pigeons darken along the October sky in our western forests. The ideal Church is a loving Church. It loves men out of their sins. It seeks the poor and forlorn, the hard-hearted and impenitent, and by unwearied patience soothes their harsh spirit. Enter its gates, and you find yourself in an atmosphere of affection. The strong bear the infirmities of the weak. Each seeks the lowest place for himself. They love to wash the disciples’ feet.

The Ideal Church is an active Church. All the members work together for the building up of the body; some after this fashion, others after that. “So the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,” is built up in love. Is there any ruinous vice, any corroding sin, any festering moral disease in the land? The Ideal Church searches for its root, and finds its cure. It takes the intemperate man by the hand, and will not let him go till he abstains. It penetrates into every haunt of sin and pollution, and brings forth the half-ruined child, triumphantly leads out the corrupt woman, and places them in new homes. The Ideal Church does not dispute about doctrines or dogmas. It says to each, “To your Master you shall stand or fall, not to me.”

Therefore the Ideal Church is an earthly heaven. There is in it a warm, serene, sunny atmosphere; a sky without clouds; the society of love, the solitude of meditation, the inaccessible mountain tops of prayer; the low-lying, quiet valleys, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

But where is the Ideal Church? We have seen that it is not in the past, where many look for it. The golden age of the Church, the Paradisiacal state of Christianity, is not behind us. Was the Ideal Church that which persecuted Paul for renouncing Judaism? Was it any of the Churches described by John in the book of Revelation? that of Ephesus, which had “left its first love”? that of Pergamos, which contained heretical teachers? that of Thyatira, which communed with Jezebel and the depths of Satan? that of Sardis, which had “a name to live, and was dead”? or that of Laodicea, which was lukewarm?

Was that an Ideal Church where Paul was obliged to write to Titus that a bishop must not be a striker, nor given to wine, nor to filthy lucre? and to advise Timothy to avoid “profane and vain babbling”?

There was more life in it than in the Church now; a great struggling, but undeveloped power of life, heaving and tossing the Church, as with subterranean fire—smoke and flame bursting forth together; a great power of life, but little chance of doctrine as yet; little harmony of action; little in accordance with our ideas of decency and order. It was the spring time, and as in the spring there is a great power of life in nature, swelling all buds, pushing all shoots, unfolding leaves,—but all things still bare; few flowers, no fruit,—so it was in the Primitive Church. It was not Ideal. The Ideal Church is before us, not behind us; it is to come.

§ 10. The Church Possible, or Church as it can be.

Is any Church possible but the Actual? We think there is. We think that a Church may be something more and better than any we have now. Without reaching the ideal standard we can yet do something.

We think it possible for a Church to be united on a basis of study and action rather than on that of attainment. Instead of having it consist of those who have formed opinions, let it consist of those who wish to form them. Instead of having it consist of those who have been converted, and who believe themselves pious, let it consist of those who wish to be converted, and who desire to be pious. Instead of having it consist of good people, let us invite in the bad people who desire to be good. Do you send your children to school because they are learned, and not rather because they are ignorant? Why should we not become disciples of Christ because of our ignorance, rather than our knowledge.

We think it possible to have a Church, and even a denomination, organized, not on a creed, but on a purpose of working together. Suppose that the condition of membership was the desire and intention of getting good and doing good. The members of a church are not those who unite in order to partake the Lord’s Supper, but to do the Lord’s work. The Lord’s Supper is their refreshment after working. They come together sometimes to remember his love, and to get strength from him. Let them sit together, express their desires, confess their faults, say what they have been trying to do, where they have failed, where succeeded, and so encourage each other to run with diligence the race set before them.

We therefore think it possible for a Church to be built on Christ himself, and not on a minister. The Church might even do without a sermon; the members might pray together and sing together, when they had no minister, and be a true family of Christian men and women, brothers and sisters in the Lord. The lowest view of a Christian Church is that which makes it a body of pew-holders; the next lowest, that which makes them an audience met to hear a sermon; the next lowest, a mere congregation or assembly of worshippers; a little higher is that of a body of communicants, bound together by the desire of knowing Christ; but highest of all is that which regards a Church as the body of Christ. Such a Church is to learn of him, and to do his will; it is his eyes, to look on all things with a Christian vision; his hands, by which he shall still touch and heal the wretched; his feet, to go through the world, to search out its evils and sins; his mouth, through which he shall speak words of divinest help and encouragement. “The body of Christ, and members one of another.” The body of Christ; always active, always progressing, always advancing; advancing into a deeper and better knowledge of his will, into a purer love of his kingdom, into a further and divine life of union with him; the body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, making increase of the body to the building of itself up in love.

It is possible to have a Church which shall be ready to teach and preach the gospel, not to a few pew-holders only, but to the whole community. Every child born in New England is taught the elements of secular knowledge without money and without price. Are the waters of earthly knowledge, then, so much more essential to the safety of the state than the waters of life, that we cannot risk the chance of leaving any child uninstructed in reading and writing, but may leave him untaught in the gospel? It would seem to be possible, since we have free schools, to have also free Churches, and so really to have, what we profess to maintain, _Public Worship_! There is no such thing now as public worship. The churches are not public places—each belongs to a private corporation of pew-holders.

It is possible to have a Church which shall consider it its duty to obey its Master’s first command, and “preach the gospel to every creature.” Its mission shall be to go out into the highways and the hedges, to seek and save the lost. It will regard the world as its field, and the whole community as its sphere of labor—the whole community, according to its needs, to be taught, helped, comforted, and cured by the gospel.

It is possible to have a Church which shall be united, not on ceremonies, nor on a creed, but on study and labor, on loving and doing. The condition of admission should be the purpose to get good and do good. They should enter this school to learn, and not because they were already learned; to become good, and not because they were already so.

It is possible to have a Church which shall make it its purpose to educate the whole man—spirit, soul, and body; and not merely the spirit; to present the human being to God perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

It is possible to have a Church which shall combine union and freedom. The Roman Church, aiming at union, and neglecting freedom, has a union which is no real union; which is an outward shell of conformity, without inward unity of heart and thought. The Protestant Church, desiring freedom and neglecting union, has a freedom which is not really freedom, being only the outward liberty of tolerated opinions, but one in which free thought is discouraged, and honest difference of opinion disallowed. Only by combining in a living whole such antagonist needs, can either of these be fully secured. Union without freedom is not union; freedom without union, not freedom. There is no harmony in the juxtaposition of similar notes, but in the concord of dissimilar ones. Difference without discord, variety in harmony, the unity of the spirit with diversity of the letter, difference of operation, but the same Lord, many members, but one body,—this is very desirable, and wholly possible.

The day is coming in which our dogmatic Churches, formal Churches, sentimentally pious Churches, and professedly liberal Churches, shall be all taken up into something higher and better. The very discontent which prevails everywhere announces it. It is the working of the leaven—mind agitating the mass. In Protestant countries there is a tendency to Rome; but in Roman Catholic countries an equal or greater tendency to Protestantism. Orthodoxy tends to Liberal Christianity. Liberal Christianity tends to Orthodoxy. Each longs for its opposite, its supplement, its counterpart. It is a movement towards a larger liberty and a deeper life.