§ 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.