+I. The definition here given of the Christian Church.+--1. _A
society founded upon natural affinities--"a family."_ A family is
built on affinities which are natural, not artificial; it is not a
combination, but a society. In ancient times an association of
interest combined men in one guild or corporation for protecting the
common persons in that corporation from oppression. In modern times
identity of political creed or opinion has bound men together in one
league in order to establish those political principles which
appeared to them of importance. Similarity of taste has united men
together in what is called an association, or a society, in order by
this means to attain more completely the ends of that science to
which they had devoted themselves. But, as these have been raised
artificially, so their end is, inevitably, dissolution. Society
passes on, and guilds and corporations die; principles are
established, and leagues become dissolved; tastes change, and then
the association or society breaks up and comes to nothing. It is upon
another principle altogether that that which we call a family, or
true society, is formed. It is not built upon similarity of taste nor
identity of opinion, but upon affinities of nature. You do not choose
who shall be your brother; you cannot exclude your mother or your
sister; it does not depend upon choice or arbitrary opinion at all,
but is founded upon the eternal nature of things. And precisely in
the same way is the Christian Church formed--upon natural affinity,
and not upon artificial combination.
2. _The Church of Christ is a whole made up of manifold
diversities._--We are told here it is "the whole family," taking into
it the great and good of ages past now in heaven, and also the
struggling, the humble, and the weak now existing upon earth. Here,
again, the analogy holds good between the Church and the family.
Never more than in the family is the true entirety of our nature
seen. Observe how all the diversities of human condition and
character manifest themselves in the family. First of all, there are
the two opposite pales of masculine and feminine, which contain
within them the entire of our humanity; which together, not
separately, make up the whole of man. Then there are the diversities
in the degrees and kinds of affection. For, when we speak of family
affection, we must remember that it is made up of many diversities.
There is nothing more different than the love which the sister bears
towards the brother, compared with that which the brother bears
towards the sister. The affection which a man bears towards his
father is quite distinct from that which he feels towards his mother;
it is something quite different towards his sister; totally diverse,
again, towards his brother. And then there are diversities of
character. First, the mature wisdom and stern integrity of the
father, then the exuberant tenderness of the mother. And then one is
brave and enthusiastic, another thoughtful, and another tender. One
is remarkable for being full of rich humour; another is sad,
mournful, even melancholy. Again, besides these, there are
diversities of condition in life. First, there is the heir,
sustaining the name and honour of the family; then perchance the
soldier, in whose career all the anxiety and solicitude of the family
is centred; then the man of business, to whom they look up, trusting
his advice, expecting his counsel; lastly, perhaps, there is the
invalid, from the very cradle trembling between life and death,
drawing out all the sympathies and anxieties of each member of the
family, and so uniting them all more closely, from their having one
common point of sympathy and solicitude. Now, you will observe that
these are not accidental, but absolutely essential to the idea of a
family; for so far as any one of them is lost, so far the family is
incomplete. And precisely in the same way all these diversities of
character and condition are necessary to constitute and complete the
idea of a Christian Church.
3. _The Church of Christ is a society which is for ever shifting its
locality and altering its forms._--It is the whole Church, "the whole
family in heaven and earth." So, then, those who were on earth and
now in heaven are members of the same family still. Those who had
their home here, now have it there. The Church of Christ is a society
ever altering and changing its external forms. "The whole
family"--the Church of the patriarchs and of ages before them; and
yet the same family. Remember, I pray you, the diversities of form
through which, in so many ages and generations, this Church has
passed. Consider the difference there was between the patriarchal
Church of the time of Abraham and Isaac and its condition under
David; or the difference between the Church so existing and its state
in the days of the apostles and the marvellous difference between
that and the same Church four of five centuries later; or, once
again, the difference between that, externally one, and the Church as
it exists in the present day, broken into so many fragments. Yet,
diversified as these states may be, they are not more so than the
various stages of a family.
+II. Consider the name by which this Church is named.+--"Our Lord
Jesus Christ," the apostle says, of whom "the whole family in heaven
and earth is named."
1. _First, the recognition of a common Father._--That is the sacred
truth proclaimed by the Epiphany. God revealed in Christ--not the
Father of the Jew only, but also of the Gentile. The Father of a
whole family. Not the partial Father, loving one alone--the
elder--but the younger son besides, the outcast prodigal who had
spent his living with harlots and sinners, but the child still, and
the child of a Father's love.
2. _The recognition of a common humanity._--He from whom the Church
is named took upon Him not the nature merely of the noble, of kings,
or of the intellectual philosopher, but of the beggar, the slave, the
outcast, the infidel, the sinner, and the nature of every one
struggling in various ways.
3. _The Church of Christ proceeds out of and rests upon the belief
in a common Sacrifice.--F. W. Robertson._
_The Family in Heaven and Earth._--With the boldness of a true and
inspired nature the apostle Paul speaks with incidental ease of one
family distributed between heaven and earth. There is, it seems,
domesticity that cannot be absorbed by the interval between two
spheres of being--a love that cannot be lost amidst the immensity,
but finds the surest track across the void--a home affinity that
penetrates the skies, and enters as the morning or evening guest. And
it is Jesus of Nazareth who has effected this; has entered under the
same household name, and formed into the same class, the dwellers
above and those beneath. Spirits there, and spirits here, are
gathered by Him into one group; and where before was saddest exile,
He has made a blest fraternity.
I. +Members of the same home cannot dwell together, without either
the memory or the expectation or some mutual and mortal
farewell.+--All we who dwell in this visible scene can think of
kindred souls that have vanished from us into the invisible. These,
in the first place, does Jesus keep dwelling near our hearts; making
still one family of those in heaven and those on earth. This He would
do, if by no other means, by the prospect He has opened, of actual
restoration. And since the grave can bury no affection now, but only
the mortal and familiar shape of their object, death has changed its
whole aspect and relation to us; and we may regard it, not with
passionate hate, but with quiet reverence. It is a Divine message
from above, not an invasion from the abyss beneath; not the fiendish
hand of darkness thrust up to clutch our gladness enviously away, but
a rainbow gleam that descends through Jesus, without which we should
not know the various beauties that are woven into the pure light of
life. Once let the Christian promise be taken to the heart, and as we
walk through the solemn forest of our existence, every leaf of love
that falls, while it proclaims the winter near, lets in another patch
of God's sunshine to paint the glade beneath our feet and give a
glory to the grass. Tell me that I shall stand face to face with the
sainted dead; and, whenever it may be, shall I not desire to be
ready, and to meet them with clear eye and spirit unabashed? Such and
so much encouragement would Christianity give to the faithful
conversation of all true affections, if it only assured us of some
distant and undefinable restoration. But it appears to me to assure
us of much more than this; to discountenance the idea of any, even
the most temporary, extinction of life in the grave; and to sanction
our faith in the absolute immortality of the mind. Rightly
understood, it teaches not only that the departed will live, but that
they do live, and indeed have never died, but simply vanished and
passed away.
II. But it is not merely the members of the same literal home that
Christ unites in one, whether in earth or heaven. +He makes the good
of every age into a glorious family of the children of God;+ and
inspires them with a fellow-feeling, whatever the department of
service which they fill. Keeping us ever in the mental presence of
the Divinest wisdom and in veneration of a perfect goodness, it
accustoms us to the aspect of every grace that can adorn and
consecrate our nature; trains our perceptions instantly to recognise
its influence or to feel its want. It looks with an eye of full and
clear affection over the wide circle of human excellence. Such hope
tends to give us a prompt and large congeniality with them; to
cherish the healthful affections which are domestic in every place
and obsolete in no time; to prepare us for entering any new scene,
and joining any new society where goodness, truth, and beauty
dwell.--_Martineau._
_The Christian Brotherhood of Man._--The brotherhood of man has been
the dream of old philosophers, and its attainment the endeavour of
modern reformers. Man can only reach his highest life when he forms
part of a society bound together by common sympathies and common
aims, for by a great law of our nature it is true that he who lives
utterly apart from his fellows must lose all true nobleness in
selfish degradation. There is no real progress for the individual but
through social sympathy. There is no strong and enduring aspiration
but in the fellowship of aspiring souls. That conviction which men
have so strongly felt and so vainly endeavoured to realise is
perpetually asserted in the Book of God.
+I. The brotherhood of man in Christ.+--1. _The Christian brotherhood
is a unity of spirit under a diversity of form._ Thus with the Church
of the first century. At first it was one band of brotherhood; but as
it grew and individual thought expanded and experience deepened there
arose infinite diversities. The more men think and the more they
grow, the more will they differ.
2. _There are spiritual ties in action which in Christ bind man to
man._--Paul's words imply a threefold unity. 1. The fellowship of
devotion to a common Father. 2. The fellowship with Christ our common
Brother. 3. That fellowship is unbroken by the change of worlds.
+II. Results of realising this fact of brotherhood.+--1. _Earnestness
of life._ 2. _Power and grandeur of hope._--Some complain that their
ideas of heaven are vague and ineffective. Only realise the
brotherhood of man, and then the hope of the future will become a
power in life.--_E. L. Hull._
_The One Family._--1. Believers on earth and saints and angels in
heaven spring from the same common parent. 2. Are governed by the
same general laws. 3. Share in the same pleasures and enjoyments.
4. Have the same general temper, the same distinguishing complexion.
5. Have one common interest. 6. Look to, rely upon, and are guided by
the same Head. 7. Are all objects of God's love. 8. At the last day
will meet in God's presence, be openly acknowledged as His children,
and admitted to dwell in His house for ever.
+Lessons.+--1. _If we estimate the dignity of men from the families
with which they are connected, how honourable is the believer!_
2. _We see our obligations to mutual condescension, peaceableness,
and love._ 3. _Let those who are not of this family be solicitous to
obtain a place in it.--Lathrop._