2. St. Augustine teaches in explicit terms that existence is a good even to angels and men who are eternally bound by the consequences of evil.

3. Eternal death, according to St. Augustine, is a subsidence into a lower form of life, a privation of the highest vital influx from God in order to everlasting life, or supreme beatitude, but not of all vital influx in order to an endless existence, which is a partial and incomplete participation in good. These sinful souls, therefore, fulfil in a measure the end of their creation, and have a place and a function in harmony with the general order of the cosmos. There is no trace, in this view of Augustine, that God hates a portion of his creatures with an absolute, infinite, and eternal hatred, and is hated by them in return. The original act of creative love is an enduring and eternal act, in which even Satan is included. "Their nature still remains essentially good, and far superior in excellence and beauty to material light, which is the highest corporeal substance."

4. Hell, therefore (Infernus), is simply a lower state of inchoate and imperfect being, "of saints nipped in the bud." Infant damnation is only a gentle sadness—"levis tristitia." All positive suffering in hell is probably temporal, and therefore must at last cease. The lost souls will enjoy there quite as much as they can do here, minus the temporal sufferings of this life. They continue natural beings, and therefore can enjoy all natural joy; and that which they lose, being the "beatific vision," of which they have no conception, is a loss of which they are wholly unconscious.

Swedenborg maintains, in the same way, the everlasting character of the punishment of those who have passed the final judgment, but admits many palliations to its sufferings. He teaches that delight is the universal substance of heaven, and also of hell, and that evil spirits are in the delight of evil, as good spirits in that of good. An evil spirit would be as unhappy in heaven as a good one would be in hell.



7. The meaning of Eternal Punishment in Scripture.

But what, then, is the vital truth in the doctrine of eternal punishment? Christ says, "These shall go away into eternal punishment."(55) What is this "eternal punishment"? It is commonly supposed to mean the same thing as punishment which shall never end, or punishment continued through all time. But this is to misunderstand both the philosophical and scriptural meaning of the word "eternal." Eternal punishments are the opposite of temporal punishments: they have nothing to do with time at all; they are punishments outside of time. To attempt to realize eternity by adding up any number of myriads of years of time, is necessarily a failure; for time and eternity are different things. You might as well attempt to produce thought or love, by adding up millions of miles of distance, as, by adding up millions of years of time, to get any idea of eternity. Eternal life, in the language of Scripture, has nothing to do with the future or the past. It is a present life in the soul, awakened within by the knowledge of God and Christ. "This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." "Eternal life and eternal death both come from the knowledge of God and of Christ." To one it is a savor of life, to another of death. Eternal punishment and eternal life are the punishments and the rewards of eternity, distinguished from those of time, and having their root in the knowledge of God which comes through Christ. Eternal life and eternal punishment both commence here, from the judgments which takes place now: but the last judgment, or the judgment of the last day, is that which will take place hereafter, when the soul shall have a full knowledge of itself and of God; see its whole life as it really is; have all self-deceptions taken away, all disguises removed, and know itself as it is known. God's love, when revealed, attracts and repels. Like all real force, it is a polar force. The one pole is its attractive power over those who are in a truth-loving state; the other pole is its repelling power to those who are in a truth-hating state. Love attracts the truthful, and repels the wilful. Eternal punishment, then, is the repugnance to God of the soul which is inwardly selfish in its will,—loving itself more than truth and right. It is the sense of indignation and wrath, alienation and poverty, which rests on it while in this condition. It is the outer darkness; it is the far country; it is the famine, which comes as a holy and blessed evil, sent to save, by bringing to repentance, the prodigal child, who has not yet "come to himself."

From this knowledge of God and of itself, therefore,—from this judgment of the last day,—will flow eternal life to the one class, and eternal punishment or suffering to the other. Those who have been conscientious and generous; who have endeavored faithfully to live for truth and right; who have made sacrifices, and not boasted of them; who have clothed the naked and fed the hungry, making the world better and happier by their presence,—will hear the Saviour say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and ye gave me meat." Perhaps they have never even heard the name of Christ; perhaps they were the Buddhists of Burmah, of whom Mr. Malcom speaks, who brought food to him, though a stranger to them. "I was scarcely seated," says he, "when a woman brought a nice mat for me to lie on; another, cool water; and a man went and picked me a half dozen fine oranges. None sought or expected the least reward, but disappeared, and left me to my repose." Or perhaps they will be the poor black women in Africa, who took such kind care of Mungo Park, singing, "Let us pity the white man: he has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind him corn." The reward of their fidelity will be the gift of a greater power of goodness, coming from a knowledge of God and Christ. They were helping Christ, though they did not know him. They will say, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered?" These Gentiles, without the law, who do by nature the things contained in the law, will come to know Christ, and receive a spiritual life—life flowing from that knowledge. On the other hand, those who have not endeavored to do what they knew to be right will receive from the same knowledge of God and Christ a spiritual or eternal punishment. Perhaps they have received some of it already in this world; but a deeper knowledge of the truth will bring a keener self-reproach. The worm that never dies is this gnawing(56) tooth of conscience. The fire which is not quenched is the heart still selfish, turned to evil, joined with a conscience which sees the good. For man, as long as he is man, cannot get away from himself. He may sophisticate himself with falsehoods, put his conscience to sleep, and imagine that he has escaped all the penalties of evil; but he cannot escape from himself. The longer and deeper the sleep of conscience, the more terrible its final awakening.

Eternal punishment, therefore, is the punishment which comes to man from his spiritual nature; from that side of man which connects him with eternity, in contradistinction from temporal punishment, which is that which comes from his temporal nature and the temporal world. Through the body he receives temporal pleasure or pain from the world of time and space; through the spirit he receives spiritual joy or sorrow from the world of eternity and infinity.

Thus intimately are judgment and retribution connected. There is nothing arbitrary about rewards or punishments. They follow naturally and necessarily from the revelation of divine and eternal truth. Sooner or later, the everlasting distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, make themselves seen and known. The distinctions between right and wrong are eternal.

The idea of duration is not connected with eternal punishment or eternal life; for the idea of duration belongs to time, and not to eternity. Human law sentences men, for crime, to be punished by imprisonment for six months, three years, ten years, or for life; but in God's world there is not, and cannot be, any relation between a man's guilt and the precise time he is to suffer. He must suffer while he is guilty, be the time longer or shorter. When he ceases to be guilty, he must cease to suffer. He therefore fixes the duration of his suffering himself: that makes no part of the divine sentence. If he judges himself unworthy of eternal life during five, ten, one hundred, or ten thousand million years, that is for himself to say. God will never save him against his will; and God can wait. The sphere of time belongs to man's freedom; that of eternity, to the freedom of God.

And this reconciles the philosophic difficulty. Man, being free, can postpone his submission and obedience indefinitely; but, being finite, cannot postpone it infinitely. At any point of time, he may still resolve to resist the influx of eternal life, and continue in the sphere of death: but eternity surrounds time, and infolds it; and in eternity God's purposes will be realized, and every knee bow, of things in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth. Universal harmony must prevail at last.

"Eternal" and "everlasting" are two wholly different ideas. We fully believe in eternal punishment, but not in everlasting punishment. Eternal life is spiritual life: eternal suffering is spiritual suffering.

The whole of antiquity recognizes this distinction; and the Bible is saturated with it. When Jesus says, "He who believes in me has eternal life abiding in him," there is nothing about duration intended in that. When he says, "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God," there is nothing about duration implied. It is the quality of the life which is conveyed—spiritual life, life flowing from the sight of God and Christ.

We believe in eternal punishment; but, because it is eternal, therefore it is not everlasting. Eternal suffering, flowing from the sight of the eternal truth and love of God, is real suffering, because it involves the sight of sin, the consciousness of failure, the deep conviction of what we ought to do and have not done; but all this leads to repentance and salvation. When the Lord turned and looked on Peter, Peter went into eternal suffering. He saw his own guilt and the infinite goodness of his Master at the same time. The one produced penitence; the other, hope. But, when Judas hanged himself, he did not go into eternal punishment, but into temporal. He saw his own baseness and his own folly; but he did not see God's love. If he had seen God's love and Christ's pardoning mercy, together with his sin, he would not have hanged himself; but, like Peter, he would have repented, and gone forth to preach the gospel.

When we see God's truth and love, we go into eternal life or into eternal suffering, according to the direction of our lives and hearts. If we are following Christ, and trying to do right,—if we are not selfish, but generous,—then the sight of God's love and truth in Christ leads us directly into spiritual joy; but if we are selfish, and seeking only our own good, if we are indifferent to the rights of our fellow-men, then we go into eternal or spiritual suffering.

The force of eternal punishment, therefore, is not in the statement that it is never to end; nor in any description, however vivid, of outward physical torments. Such descriptions produce excitement, agitation, terror. But this is not conviction. The doctrine, not being in harmony with the attributes of God or the nature of man, can never be sincerely or profoundly believed. It is inwardly opposed by every Christian conviction in the human soul; for it is not Christian, but Pagan. It is a relapse into Paganism, an importation of Pagan terrors into Christianity. It degrades every soul that teaches it, or that accepts it, in the same way that idolatry degrades it. It puts a veil between the soul and the true God.

But the true Christian doctrine of eternal punishment is, that the soul which sins shall eternally suffer; that there is an eternal distinction between truth and falsehood, good and evil; that spiritual distinctions are positive and real; and that evil is not a mere negative thing, implying a little less of good, but positive, being the state of a soul which is repelled, not attracted, by the divine goodness; which keeps away from God, as the shadow keeps on the side of the globe which is away from the sun.

Again: eternal suffering is the suffering of eternity, as distinguished from temporal suffering, which has its root in time. This is something which comes from within, while temporal suffering comes from without. Till man is reconciled to God by obedience and love, he has the sentence of death in himself. This suffering is not arbitrary, but fixed in the nature of things. As a sinner, man must be eternally separated inwardly from God, and therefore from bliss. His hell is within him, not without. And it is also here, as well as hereafter, since eternity is here, no less than time.

In this view of eternal punishment, there is an important truth—truth essential to the just spiritual growth of man. It is needed to resist the tendency to make light of sin. It is needed to oppose the view which makes evil, as well as good, a natural growth, and teaches that all men are on their way upward, and will ultimately fall into heaven by some specific levity. It is needed to remind us that we must choose whom we will serve, and that, consciously or unconsciously, we are at all moments tending either upward or downward—either towards God or away from him.

This is the great truth which is often lost sight of by Liberal Christianity, and by that easy optimism which declares that "whatever is, is right;" but darkly taught, because dimly seen, by Orthodoxy. Pagan in its form, there is often an essentially Christian idea communicated by the Orthodox pulpit. The Pagan form may be neglected and disbelieved: the Christian impression may remain. It tightens the nerves of the soul, as a cold bath invigorates the body made languid by too much warmth and ease. Yet, as long as the Pagan form remains, the interior truth is shorn of its full power. Let us pray that the truth, divested of its dark errors, may at last be recognized by the Christian Church. For very often the words of a great writer and thinker (who also was an earnest opponent of the Orthodox form of this doctrine) recur to us in these studies: "Few see the things themselves, but only the forms of things, in the mirror of reflection, as images. But we shall at last see the things themselves face to face, as it is said, and without a veil, if it please God, in part before the close of this present life, more fully in the life to come."(57)



8. How Judgment by Christ is connected with Punishment.

To what we have said of judgment by Christ, in the previous chapter, we add here some further thoughts in regard to its connection with punishment. Orthodoxy makes this connection arbitrary and outward. For such sins, it says, God has appointed such a punishment; and the object of judgment is to glorify God, by showing how exact he is in finding out every sinner, and fulfilling his every threat against evil. But, according to a better view, which alone can commend itself to minds of any large range—future judgment is simply the act by which God shows to a man the truth concerning himself, so that he can see it.

A deaf and dumb child being asked, "What is judgment?" replied, "Judgment is to see ourselves as we are, and to see God as he is." This is the essential thing in judgment; and in this sense Christ is declared "to be the judge of the quick and the dead;" that is, he judges us in this world, and will judge us in the other world. His judgments are not external, sentencing us to external punishments; but they are internal, causing us to judge ourselves. He shows us what we are. Whenever he comes, he comes to judgment, separating the good from the evil, testing the state of the heart, causing men to go to the right or the left. His coming always makes an issue which cannot be avoided; calls upon us to decide which course we shall take, what thing we shall do, what master we will serve. When Christ first came, he came for judgment, that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed,—revealed to themselves and to others. Wherever he came, men immediately were divided into two classes,—becoming his disciples, or becoming his opponents. No longer was any compromise possible between truth and error, between right and wrong. They were obliged to choose which to serve; and they chose according to the inward tendency of their hearts. They whose hearts were right, chose the right: they whose hearts were wrong, chose the wrong.

Christ is thus the Judge of the living as well as the dead. Often in our lives he comes to us thus to be our Judge. Every time he calls upon us to do anything for him, he judges the state of our heart. Every time he offers an opportunity to the world of improvement or progress, he judges the world.

When he was on trial before Caiaphas and before Pilate, they were on trial, and not he. When they sentenced him, they condemned themselves. During the whole of those dark hours, when Christ was buffeted, spit upon, crowned with thorns, to the eyes of angels he was seen to be sitting on the throne of his glory. Caiaphas and the Jewish priests, Pontius Pilate and the Roman soldiers, Judas Iscariot, the Jewish people, each in turn received their sentence, and passed to the left hand. And so ever since, whenever any great opportunity has been given to the world to decide between right and wrong, the world has pronounced judgment on itself; has gone to the right hand with the sheep, or to the left hand with the goats. When Paul offered Christianity to the Jews, and they rejected it, he said "it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." So it always is. God does not judge us, nor Christ; but we judge ourselves. For this reason Jesus says, "If any man hear me, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world." And again he says, "The word which I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day." And yet again, "This is the judgment, that light has come into the world, and that men have chosen darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil."

The account of judgment (in the 25th chapter of Matthew) at Christ's coming we considered in the last chapter. It will, however, bear a little further examination. There are three different judgments indicated in the three parables of the virgins, the talents, and the sheep and goats. The first is the judgment of opportunity, the second of work, the third of knowledge. In the first and second we judge ourselves, in the last we are judged. These two occur in time, the other in eternity. The first two are the judgments which take place at Christ's coming here; the third is the judgment of "the last day." The first takes place whenever we are "called" by a new opportunity; the second comes in all retribution; the third by the inward revelation of God's truth, showing men what they are, and what God is. The wise and foolish virgins represent those who are invited to receive Christianity; the servants with the talents, believers who have received it in different degrees; and the nations (heathen, τὰ ἔθνη)(58) those (in Christendom or outside of it) to whom Christianity has never come.



9. The Doctrine of Annihilation.

This view of the final results of moral evil, as destroying personal existence, is hardly an Orthodox doctrine, though quasi-Orthodox. It is the refuge of that class of minds which are unable to accept universal restoration on the one side, or everlasting punishment on the other. To them a large number of human beings seem "too good for banning, and too bad for blessing," and in their opinion will be suffered quietly to drop out of conscious existence. The analogies of nature, in which out of many seeds and many eggs produced, only a few attain to the condition of plants and animals, tend to confirm this view. The state of human character here appears also to favor it, since multitudes pass out of this world in an undeveloped condition, seeming wholly to have failed of the end of their being. The chief scriptural argument in favor of the doctrine is found in the assumption that "life through Christ" is equivalent to continued conscious existence, and that "death" as the punishment of sin, is equivalent to annihilation. We have so fully discussed the meaning of these terms in the previous chapter, that it is not desirable to argue this point here. We agree with the Orthodox view, and differ from that of the annihilationists on this point. The God of the gospel is the Father of all his children—of the weakest, feeblest, and most sinful. If he is the God of all, then he is "the God, not of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him." Indian tribes and heathen nations may be willing that the sickly infants, and those worn with age, should perish; they may expose female infants, thinking them not worth bringing up; but Christian nations establish schools and hospitals for the deaf and dumb, the insane, the inebriates, the idiotic. If we, then, being evil, know how to care for the weak, undeveloped, and vegetative natures, how much more shall their Father in heaven care for them! The doctrine of annihilation rests fundamentally on a Pagan view of God.



10. The Doctrine of Universal Restoration.

This opinion has its roots, we think, in the gospel. It has prevailed in the church from the earliest times, having been held, as we have seen, by Origen, and a great number of eminent church fathers and doctors. What more Christian word has come to us from the earliest centuries than the cry out of the heart of the great Alexandrian teacher, "My Saviour, even now, mourns for my sins. My Saviour cannot be happy while I remain in my iniquity. He does not wish to drink the cup of joy alone in the kingdom of God; he is waiting till we shall come and join him there."(59)

Our object in this chapter is to consider the Orthodox view, and we shall not, therefore, enter into any extensive argument concerning universal salvation. We will only here indicate the general scriptural evidence in its support. The alternative to the Orthodox view of everlasting punishment is not, as we have shown, necessarily Universalism. It may be annihilation, or it may be, under the name of eternal punishment, a negative evil, being the privation of the highest kind of happiness. Still, it seems proper to suggest, if only very briefly, some reasons given by Universalists for their belief.

In the Epistles of Paul there are five or six passages, which appear to teach, or to imply, an ultimate restoration of salvation of all moral beings. Among them are these:—

1. Eph. 1:9, 10. "Having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him."

The apostle is speaking of the "riches of God's grace," wherein "he hath abounded toward us," and gives as the proof this revelation made in Christ of a great mystery—that "in the dispensation [economy] of the fulness of times" he might bring into one (under one head) "all things in heaven and on earth." The idea of the passage seems evidently to be that in the economy, or order, of the divine plan, which extends through indefinite periods of time, all things shall be united under one head in Christ. But if brought under one head (as the Greek word signifies), then all become Christians, all "in heaven and earth." This would seem to be a very plain statement of a universal restoration.

As such, Olshausen, one of the most Orthodox of commentators, regards it. He rejects all the explanations offered by the advocates of everlasting punishment as unsatisfactory. "It cannot be disputed," he says, "that in it the restoration of all things seems to be again favored—a view which Paul in general, as has already been remarked (on Rom. 11:32; 1 Cor. 15:24; Gal. 3:22) says more to support than the other writers of the New Testament." Olshausen declares the interpretations which suppose a merely external subjection of the world to Christ to be entirely inadequate, and have left unresolved the principal difficulty, which is, "how Paul could say that all have a share in redemption, if he held the common view that the numberless hosts of angels who fell, along with the far greatest part of mankind (Matt. 7:13, 14) are eternally damned, and thus shut out from the harmony of the universe." The defenders of universal restoration, says Olshausen, "understand the harmony of the universe seriously, in its literal meaning, and seem, according to that, to be here in the right."

2. Phil. 2:9, 10. "Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Here we have "things under the earth" (καταχθονίων) added to "things in heaven and on earth." This word only occurs here in the New Testament, but is by Bretschneider (Lex. Man.) translated "subterranean" or "infernal," and applied to the inhabitants of Hades, with a reference to Origen, who uses the word in relation to the demons. De Wette applies the language to angels, living men, and the dead. At all events, it appears to include all moral beings, and to declare that the whole human race shall bow to Christ, and accept him as Master. But this cannot mean a merely outward submission, for such a forced and reluctant homage would bring little honor to God, nor be worth such admiration on the part of the apostle. It must therefore mean that all men, not only all who now live, but all who have lived, shall finally become Christians and enter into the glory of God.

3. Col. 1:20. "And, having made peace by the blood of the cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven." Here a new feature is added to the statement by the word "reconcile," which evidently expresses the entire conversion of the heart, and therefore of human beings, to the law of Christ.

4. 1 Cor. 15:22. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." The "all" must be as extensive on one side as the other. Now, whether the death in Adam be physical or moral, whether it mean the dissolution of the earthly body, or the loss of innocence by sin, it certainly includes all human beings, in the fullest sense. All men die, and all men sin. It would therefore seem that the other "all" must be quite as comprehensive. It must include all human beings. All men shall "be made alive in Christ." But this cannot mean a mere physical immortality, or an immortality in misery; for one cannot be said to be "alive in Christ" who is suffering endless torment. To be "alive in Christ" means to be spiritually alive, for "he that hath the Son hath life."

5. 1 Cor. 24:28. In this passage Paul declares that all enemies shall be subject to Christ. But this, again, cannot mean a forced submission, for that is in no sense being subject to Christ. Christ's subjects are willing subjects. It therefore must mean that, finally, all human beings shall become Christian in conviction and in heart.

These five texts from the apostle Paul seem to us very plain and conclusive as to his opinions. But perhaps the strongest evidence in proof of a universal restoration is to be found in Christ's own parable of the prodigal son. For in this the genuine spirit and purpose of the gospel is shown to be that God never loses his fatherly love for his rebellious and lost children. On the contrary, his heart yearns towards them with a more earnest affection than towards the holy and good. The prodigal son represents those who are "dead in sin." (Luke 15:24-32.) The parable teaches that God loves them all the while they are away, and that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance." Now, if God loves the sinners thus whose bodies are yet alive, does he cease to love them when the bodily change takes place which we call death? Does his nature change then? And if not, does it ever change? After millions of years, if they have been lost and dead so long, has his love become weary of waiting, or does "his mercy endure forever"?

To us it seems clear, that if the parable of the prodigal son is to be taken as a true statement of the feeling of God towards every sinner, that every sinner must at last be brought back by the mighty power of this redeeming love. The power of the human will to resist God is indeed indefinite; but the power of love is infinite. Sooner or later, then, in the economy of the ages, all sinners must come back, in penitence and shame, to their Father's house, saying, "Make us as thy hired servants." If so, if universal restoration does not mean primarily restoration to outward happiness, but to inward obedience, it seems to us that the doctrine may be so stated as to be a new motive for present repentance and obedience. May we not say to the sinner, You may resist God to-day, to-morrow, for a million years; but, sooner or later, you must return, obey, repent, and submit? God will spare no means to bring you. His love to you requires him to use all methods, all terrors, all suffering. The "worm that never dies," the "fire that is never quenched," the "outer darkness,"—these are all blessed means, in the providence of the Almighty, to bring the sinner back to a sense of his evil state. In the other world, as in this world, God will "chasten us, not for his pleasure, but for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness."



CHAPTER XV. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.



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 naivete, 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.



CHAPTER XVI. THE TRINITY.



1. Definition of the Church Doctrine.

"The fundamental formula for the doctrine of the Trinity, as defined by the Church," says Twesten,(72) "is, that in one divine essence or nature there are three persons, distinguished from each other by certain characteristics, and indivisibly participating in that one nature." The "Augsburg Confession," says, in like manner, "three persons in one essence."(73) So the "Gallic Confession," and other Church Confessions, which say almost the same thing in the same words.(74)

The explanations given to these phrases vary indefinitely. Nitzsch (System d. Christ. Lehre, 80) says, "We stand related in such a way, with all our Christian experience (Gewerdensein und Werden), to the one, eternal, divine essence, who is love, that in the Son we adore love as mediating and speaking, in the spirit as fellowship and life, in the Father as source and origin." Schleiermacher considers this doctrine as not any immediate expression of the Christian consciousness, and declares that "our communion with Christ might be just the same if we knew nothing at all of this transcendent mystery." Hase says,(75) "This Church dogma always has floated between Unitarianism, Tritheism, and Sabellianism, asserting the premises of all three, and denying their conclusions only by maintaining the opposite."

All sorts of illustrations have been used from the earliest times—such as fountain, brook, river; root, stalk, branch; memory, understanding, will;(76) soul, reason, sense;(77) three persons in grammar, the teacher, the person spoken to, and that spoken of.(78) Some mystics argued the necessity of three persons in the Deity for the sake of a divine society and mutual love.(79) Lessing argues that "God from eternity must have contemplated that which is most perfect, but that is himself; but to contemplate with God, is to create; God's thought of himself, therefore, must be a being, but a divine being, that is, God, the Son God; but these two, God the thinker and God the thought, are in perfect divine harmony, and this harmony is the Spirit."(80) Leibnitz also considers the Trinity as illustrated best by the process of reflection in the human mind. Strauss objects to this class of definitions, that they are two elements united in a third, while the Church doctrine requires three united in a fourth.

The Church doctrine concerning the Trinity appears most fully developed in its Orthodox form in what is called the Creed of St. Athanasius. It was not written by him, but by some one in the fifth or sixth century.