The Church is thus primarily a witness: the strength of its authority lies in the many sides from which the witness comes; but the exigencies of controversy, and indeed of thought even apart from controversy, rendered necessary another function in respect to truth. The Church was compelled to formulate, to express its witness in relation to the intellectual difficulties of the time. Christianity is indeed essentially a matter not of the intellect, but of the will, a personal relation of trust in a personal God. Its first instinct is, as the first instinct of friendship would be, to resent intellectual analysis and dogmatic definition. But as the need of telling others about a friend, or defending him against slander, would compel us to analyse his qualities and define his attractiveness; so it was with the Church's relation to the Lord. It bore witness to the impression which His life had made upon His followers that He was Divine; it bore witness to the facts of the life that attested it and to His own statements. But the claim was denied; it needed justifying; it needed to be shewn to be consistent with other truths, such as the unity of God, and the reality of His own human nature, and so definition was forced upon the Church. The germ of such definitions is found in the New Testament; the deeper Christological teaching of the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, and of the prologue of S. John are instances of such intellectual analysis and formulation, and were evidently written in the face of controversy. The technical decisions of the great councils of the fourth and fifth centuries and their expression in the Nicene and 'Athanasian' Creeds are the outcome of the same tendency. Yet even in them, the Church acts, in a sense, as a witness; the Scriptures are appealed to as the ultimate authority; the Creed is the summary of its chief doctrines: the one aim is to secure and express the truth witnessed to by churches throughout the world, to eliminate novelty and caprice; the new definitions are accepted, because they alone are felt to express the instinct of the Church'sworship. By this time the canon of Holy Scripture was fixed. It becomes thenceforth an undying fountain of life from which the water of pure doctrine can be drawn. Tradition and development can always be checked by that.
In the truths then which the Church teaches we may distinguish two classes. First, there are the central truths to which it bears absolute witness; such as the Fatherhood of God, the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the Redemption of all mankind, the origin and purpose of human life. These it teaches authoritatively. Its conduct is exactly analogous to that of a parent teaching the moral law to his children; teaching the commandments authoritatively at first, till the child can be educated to understand the reason of them. So the Church says to her children, or to those who are seeking after truth 'there is an absolute truth in religion as well as in morality: we have tested it; generations of the saints have found it true. It is a truth independent of individual teachers; independent of the shifting moods of opinion at any particular period; and you must accept it on our authority first. Further, these are truths which affect life, therefore they cannot be apprehended merely by the intellect. You must commit yourself to them; act upon them; there is a time when the seeker after truth sees where it lies; then it must cease to be an open question. "You must seek till you find, but when you have once found truth, you must commit yourself to it[358]." You must believe that you may understand; but it isthatyou may understand.' The dogma is authoritatively taught, that the individual may be kept safe from mere individual caprice and fancifulness, but also that he himself may come to a rational understanding of his belief. No doubt the truth is so wide that to the end of our lives we shall still feel the need of guidance and of teaching. 'As long as we live,' said Calvin, 'our weakness will not allow us to be discharged from school.' Like S. Ignatius on his way to martyrdom, the Christian may feel at his dying day, 'Now I begin to be a disciple;' but the aim of the Church is to make each memberhave a rational hold upon his faith. When we are young we accept a doctrine because the Church teaches it to us; when we are grown up, we love the Church because it taught us the doctrine. 'The Churchman never surrenders his individual responsibility. But he may and must surrender some portion at least of his independence, and he benefits greatly by the surrender[359].' 'Submission to the authority of the Church is the merging of our mere individualism in the whole historic life of the great Christian brotherhood; it is making ourselves at one with the one religion in its most permanent and least merely local form. It is surrendering our individuality only to empty it of its narrowness[360].'
Secondly, there are other truths, which are rather deductions from these central points or statements of them in accordance with the needs of the age; such as the mode of the relation of the Divine and human natures in Christ, of free-will to predestination, or the method of the Atonement, or the nature of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture. If, in any case, a point of this kind has consciously come before the whole Church and been reasoned out and been decided upon, such a decision raises it into the higher class of truths, which are taught authoritatively; but if this is not so, the matter remains an open question. It remains a question for the theologians; it is not imposed on individual Christians; though it may at any time become ripe for decision. The very fixity of the great central doctrines allows the Church to give a remarkable freedom to individual opinion on all other points. Practically, how much wider is the summary of the rule of faith as given in Irenaeus (III. 4), or Tertullian (Praescr.13), or Origen (De Principiis), or in the Apostles' or Nicene Creed, than the tests of orthodoxy that would be imposed in a modern religious, or scientific circle! S. Vincent of Lerins is the great champion of antiquity as the test of truth; yet he who lays it down that 'to declare any new truth to Catholic Christians over and above that which they have receivednever was allowed, nowhere is allowed, and never will be allowed,' also insists on the duty of development, of growth, within the true lines of the central truths. 'Is there,' he assumes an objector to urge, 'to be no growth within the Church? Nay, let there be growth to the greatest extent; who would be so grudging to man, such an enemy to God, as to attempt to prevent it; but yet let it be such that it be growth, not change of the faith.... As time goes on, it is right that the old truths should be elaborated, polished, filed down; it is wrong that they should be changed, maimed or mutilated. They should be made clear, have light thrown on them, be marked off from each other; but they must not lose their fulness, their entirety, their essential character[361]. So it has happened in the course of the Christian history; doctrines like that of the Atonement have been restated afresh to meet the needs of the age. So it is happening still; doctrines like that of the method of creation or of the limits of inspiration are still before the Church. The Church is slow to decide, to formulate: it stands aside, it reiterates its central truths, it says that whatever claims to be discovered must ultimately fit in with the central truths; creation must remain God's work; the Bible must remain God's revelation of Himself; but for a time it is content to wait, loyal to fact from whatever side it comes; confident alike in the many-sidedness and in the unity of truth. While he accepts and while he searches, the Churchman can enjoy alike the inquiry of truth which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth which is the enjoying of it, and all these together, says Lord Bacon, are the sovereign good of human nature[362].
Thus far we have in this part considered the Church's function with regard to truth from the point of view of those whom it has to teach. Its function is no less important from the point of view of the truth itself. As spiritual life is a tender plant that needs care and training; so spiritual truth is a precious gem, that may easily be lost and therefore needs careful guarding. 'The gem requires a casket, the casket akeeper.' Truth is indeed great and will prevail, but not apart from the action of men: not unless there are those who believe in it, take pains about it and propagate it. This is the case even with scientific truths;à fortioritherefore, with moral and religious truths which affect life and need to be translated into life before they can be really understood. The comparative study of religions is shewing us more and more how much of deep spiritual truth there is in heathen religions, but it is shewing us equally how little power this truth had to hold its own, how it was overlaid, crushed out, stifled. The truth of the unity of God underlies much of the polytheism of India, Greece, and Rome; but it is only the philosopher and the scholar that can find it there. It is only in the Jewish Church, the nation which stood alone from other nations as a witness to the truth, that it retained its hold as a permanent force. The Fatherhood of God is implied in the very names and titles of most of the chief heathen gods; but what a difference in its meaning and force since the time of Jesus Christ! It is not only that He expanded and deepened its meaning, so that it implied the fatherhood of all men alike, and a communication of a spiritual nature to all; it is also, and much more, that He committed the truth as a sacred deposit to a Church, each member of which aimed at shewing himself as the son of a perfect Father, and which witnessed to the universal Fatherhood by the fact of an universal brotherhood.
The very truths of natural religion, which heathenism tended to degrade, found a safe home within the Church; the knowledge of the Creator, His eternal power and Godhead, which the nations had known but lost, because they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, has been kept alive in the Eucharistic services of the Church, repeating through the ages its praise of the Creator: 'We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we give thanks to Thee, for Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.'
III. We pass naturally to the third point: the Church is the home of worship. It is the Temple of the Lord. As a teaching body, it had carried on and spiritualized the work of the Jewish Synagogue: it also took up and spiritualized theconceptions of prayer and praise and sacrifice which clustered round the Jewish Temple. The Body of Christ was to take the place of the Temple when the Jews destroyed it[363]. And here, as in all other respects, the body is the organ and representative of the risen Lord. He, when on earth, had been a priest in the deepest sense of the word: He, as the representative of the Father, had mediated the Father's blessings to man: He, as one with man, had become a merciful and faithful high-priest for man; He had offered His whole life to God for the service of man; He had by the offering of His pure will made purification of sins: He lives still, a priest for ever, pleading, interceding for mankind.
And so the Church, His body, carries on this priestly work on earth. 'Sacerdotalism, priestliness, is the prime element of her being[364].' She is the source of blessing to mankind; she pleads and intercedes and gives herself for all mankind. Christians, as a body, are 'a royal priesthood.' Christ made them 'priests unto His God and Father,' they can 'enter in into the holy place,' like priests, 'with hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and bodies washed with pure water.' They are 'the genuine high-priestly race of God:' 'every righteous man ranks as a priest:' 'to the whole Church is a priesthood given[365].' This priesthood is exercised throughout life, as each Christian gives his life to God's service, and the whole Church devotes itself for the good of the whole world. But it finds its expression in worship, for worship is the Godward aspect of life. It expresses, it emphasizes, it helps to make permanent the feelings that mould life. It is the recognition that our life comes from God: that it has been redeemed by God; it is the quiet joyous resting upon the facts of His love; it is the conscious spiritual offering of our life to God; it is the adoration of His majesty. This worship the Church leads and organizes. 'In the Church and in Christ Jesus' is to be given 'the glory to God unto all generations for ever and ever.' Inthe Apocalypse, it is pictured as praising God alike for His work in Creation and in Redemption. In the Eucharist the Church shews forth the Lord's Death till He come[366]. Hence this act of Eucharistic worship, above all others, has become the centre of unity. In it the Church has offered its best to God: all the more external gifts of art, such as architecture, painting, and music, have been consecrated in worship: but deeper still, in it each Christian has taken up his own life, his body and soul, and offered it as a holy, lively, and reasonable sacrifice unto God, a service in spirit and in truth: and deeper still, he recognises that his life does not stand alone; through the common ties of humanity in Christ he is linked on by a strange solidarity with all mankind; his life depends on theirs and theirs on his, and so he offers it not for himself only but for all; in the power of Christ he intercedes for all mankind: and deeper still, he feels in the presence of the Holiness of God how unworthy his own offering and his own prayers are, and he pleads, he recalls before the Father, as the source of his own hope and his own power of self-sacrifice, the one complete offering made for all mankind.
So the Church performs its universal priesthood[367]; so it leads a worship, bright, joyous, amidst all the trials and perplexities of the world, for it tells of suffering vanquished; simple in its essence, so that poor as well as rich can rally round it; yet deep and profound in its mysteries, so that the most intellectual cannot fathom it. It is an universal priesthood, for it needs the consecration of every life: and yet this function too of the Church naturally has its organs, whose task it is to make its offerings and to stand before it as the types of self-consecration. The Church has from the first special persons who perform its liturgy, its public ministering to the Lord[368]. It is in connectionwith worship, and the meetings of the Church that S. Paul emphasizes the need of unity and subordination, and dwells upon God's special setting of Apostles, Prophets and Teachers in the Church[369]. The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians may be open to difficult questions of interpretation in its language about the ministry, but this at least is clear that order and subordination are treated as the necessary outcome of love, which is of the essence of the Church; that this order and subordination is specially needed in all details of worship; that it had been so in Judaism, and must be so,à fortiori, in the Christian Church; that as Christ came from God, so the Apostles from Christ, and their successors from them; and therefore it must be wrong to throw off subordination to those who were so appointed and who have blamelessly offered the gifts[370]. 'The Church,' said S. Augustine, 'from the time of the Apostles, through most undoubted succession of the bishops, perseveres till the present moment, and offers to God in the Body of Christ the sacrifice of praise[371].' As the teaching function of the whole Church does not militate against the special order of teachers, so the priestly function of the whole does not militate against a special order of priests. We cannot speak of those who are ordained as 'going into the Church'—and it is hard to estimate the harm done by that fatal phrase—for that implies that the laity are not of the Church, but we can call them priests in a special sense; for they give themselves up in a deeper way to the service of God; they are specially trained and purified for His service; they are put as representatives of the whole Church in a way in which no other is, able to know and to sympathize with its wants, its joys, its failings; able therefore to intercede for it with God and to bring His blessings to it. As the Church stands in relation to the world, so they stand to the Church; they fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in their flesh for His body's sake which is the Church, whereof they are made ministers; they convey spiritual gifts and benediction to the Church.
To complete the conception of the Church, it would be necessary to add the thought of the Church expectant and triumphant, the presence of the blessed dead. For they too strengthen and complete each aspect of the Church's work. The great cloud of witnesses, the heroes of faith, who watch their brethren on earth, they, by their example, aid the spiritual life and strengthen us to lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us: their virtues reflect parts of the manifold glory of the Son of Man. With their heirsnoblesse oblige; each Christian born of such ancestry is able to be like the Athenian Lycurgus, independent of the world, bold and outspoken, because of his noble birth[372]. The record of their writings strengthens the witness to the faith once delivered to the saints, and binds us to loyalty to that which has stood the test of ages. They, 'the general assembly and church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven,' themselves, we believe, worship God with a purer worship than ours; the thought of their presence in worship, as we join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, lifts our hearts to a wider, more spiritual adoration.
But for our present purpose it is with the Church militant we have to deal: the Church on earth, the visible organ of the risen Lord, the organ of redemption, of revelation, of worship; the chief instrument designed by the Lord for the establishment of the kingdom of Heaven upon earth. That is our ideal of it. But what of the reality? of the historical facts? Has not the Church crushed out individual life and freedom? has it not thrown its shield over laxity? has it not repressed zeal and so driven piety into nonconformity? has it not tried to check scientific truth and condemned a Galileo? has it not made worship a matter of form and reduced it to externalism? So its opponents ask, and its defenders admit that there is much of truth in these charges. They admit that it has looked very different from its ideal. 'It has looked like an obscure and unpopular sect; it has looked like a wonderful human institution vying with the greatest in age and power; it has looked like a great usurpation; it haslooked like an overgrown and worn-out system; it has been obscured by the outward accidents of splendour or disaster; it has been enriched, it has been plundered; at one time throned above emperors, at another under the heel of the vilest; it has been dishonoured by the crimes of its governors, by truckling to the world, by the idolatry of power, by greed and selfishness, by their unbelief in their own mission, by the deep stain of profligacy, by the deep stain of blood[373].' The Church has, indeed, many confessions to make, of its failure to be true to its ideal. But there are several considerations which must be borne in mind when we pass judgment upon it.
In the first place, it was committed to human hands, 'the treasure is in earthen vessels;' and while it gains thus in reality, in human sympathy, in touching the facts of everyday life, it is exposed to all the risks of imperfection, mistake, perversion. But further, as S. Augustine said, we still can say, 'Non adhuc regnat hoc regnum.' The Church has never had free play; it has never been in a position to carry out its ideal. At first, a persecuted sect, it had not the power; then, when it became established and gained the power, there burst into it an influx of half-Christianized converts who lowered its moral level or misunderstood its doctrines; then, with the break up of the Roman Empire, it had to tame and civilize the new races of Europe; and finally, the divisions of the Reformation have weakened its witness in the world. But, more important still, the very greatness of the ideal has caused the difficulty of its realization, and has exposed itself to caricature and to one-sidedness. The richer, the more many-sided, the more complete an ideal is, the less possible is it for any one generation to express it completely, the more likely is it that one side of truth will be pressed to the exclusion of some, if not of all the rest.
This may be tested in each of the points which we have considered. The Church is an organization for spiritual life, for holiness. It makes the bold claim to be the society of saints; but at once there arises the conflict between the ideal and theactual state of men. Press the ideal, and you will narrow the Church to those who are externally leading good lives or who are conscious of conversion to Christ. This was the line taken by the Novatians, by the Donatists, by the Puritans, by the Baptists, and the Church was thereby narrowed. On the other hand, dwell only on the actual state, the weakness, the failures of human nature, and you acquiesce in a low level of morality. The Church aims at being true to both; it will not exclude any from its embrace who are willing to submit to its laws; it takes children and trains them; it takes the imperfect and disciplines them; it rejects none, save such as rejoice in their iniquity and deliberately refuse to submit to discipline.
But again, this suggests another class of difficulties, all those which are associated with the relation of the individual to the society, difficulties which are parallel to the difficulties in politics, which are not yet solved there, and which are always needing readjustment. Here again it is possible to overpress either side: the claims of the society may be urged to the detriment of the individual, the central organization may crush out national life and give no scope for individual development, and so there arises the imperial absolutism of the mediaeval Church. On the other hand, it is equally possible to exaggerate the claims of individualism, of independence, of freedom, and the result is division and disaster to the whole society; the individual is only anxious to save his own soul, and religion is claimed to be only a thing between a man and his God; common Church life becomes impossible, and the witness of the Church to the world, and thereby its power for missionary work, becomes weakened. As before, the Church ideal strives to combine both sides of the truth. It values, it insists on, the rights of each individual soul; its mission is to convey the Spirit to it, that is to say, to waken it up to a consciousness of its own individual relation to God, its own personal responsibility in God's sight; it does bid each individual save his own soul. But it keeps also before him the claims of the society; it says to him that in saving his soul he must lose it in service for others; when hissoul is saved, it must be used for active service with others in joint work. It does say that the society is more important for the world than any one individual member of it, and that each individual gets real strength when he speaks and acts not for himself but as representing the society behind him. It is possible to think of the Church as an organization existing for the spiritual good of the individual; but it is possible also, and it is a deeper view, to think of the individual as existing for the good of the Church, like a singer training himself not to display his own voice but to strengthen the general effect of the whole choir. That is the ideal of the Church, a body which quickens the individual into full conscious life, that the individual may devote his life to the service of the whole. Its life is like that of a great moving flight of birds, each with its own life, yet swaying and rising and turning as by a common impulse,
Their jubilant activity evolvesHundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,Upwards and downwards; progress intricateYet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayedTheir indefatigable flight[374].
Their jubilant activity evolvesHundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,Upwards and downwards; progress intricateYet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayedTheir indefatigable flight[374].
Their jubilant activity evolves
Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,
Upwards and downwards; progress intricate
Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed
Their indefatigable flight[374].
The Church, again, is the teacher of truth; but in the acquisition of truth there are always two elements. There are the fixed facts of life, with which theory deals, and the accumulation of past thought upon the facts; there is also the creative spirit which plays upon these, which re-adapts, combines, discovers. The teacher of any science has to convey to his pupil the accumulated theories of the past and to quicken in him fresh power of thinking: he speaks first with authority, though of course with assurance that his authority is rational, and that the pupil will understand it ultimately. The teacher of morality, the parent, teaches even more strongly with authority, though he too trusts that the child will ultimately accept the law on rational grounds. The pupil needs at once a receptive and a critical faculty. The absence or exaggeration of either is equally fatal. Here again the Church ideal tries to combine both sides and to insist upon the real unityof all truth, and this makes its task so difficult. At times the whole stress has been laid on the permanent elements in the faith, and the result has been, as often in the Oriental Church, a tendency to intellectual stagnation: at other times the present speaking voice of the Church has been emphasized, and any theory has been hastily adopted as absolutely true, without due consideration of its relation to other truths. At times authority has been over-emphasized, and the acceptance of dogma has seemed to be made the equivalent of a living trust in a personal God: at others the duty of individual search after truth, of individual conviction has been pressed; the traditions of the past have been ignored; nothing has been of value except that which has commended itself to the individual reason, and the result has been confusion, uncertainty, the denial of the greatness and the mystery and the width of truth, and too often a moral and spiritual paralysis. Meanwhile the Church has tried to hold to both sides: it has insisted on the ultimate unity of all knowledge: starting from the axiom that One is our teacher, even Christ, and believing that all truth comes from His inspiration as the Word of God, it has refused to acquiesce in intellectual contradiction; it has ever held, with King Lear, 'that "ay" and "no" too is no good divinity.' The truths of philosophy and religion must be one: the truths of science and religion must be one[375]. In the desire to see this, the Church has been hasty, it has rejected scientific truth, because it did not fall in with its interpretation of the Bible. It has made its mistakes, but it has done so out of a noble principle. It would be easy to gain consistency by sacrificing either side; it is hard to combine the two: and this is what the Church has tried to do: it has upheld the belief of the ultimate synthesis of all knowledge. In exactly the same way, the sects have often gained force, popularity, effectiveness for the moment by the emphasis laid on some one truth; the Church has gained strength, solidity, permanence, by its witness to the whole body of truth.
The same tendency may be shortly illustrated with regard to the function of worship. That too is a complex act; in that there should be the free conscious act of the individual, worshipping in spirit and in truth a God whom he knows as a personal God; but clearly this is not all; the whole society must express its corporate life in corporate worship. Its influence is something over and above the influence of its individual members, and that influence must be exercised on the side of God; it must be recognised as coming from God; it must be solemnly consecrated to God's service. The society has a right then to call upon its individual members to join in this corporate action. On the one hand lies the danger of the overpressure of the society, where the service of the individual is unwilling or apathetic: on the other hand the danger of individualism and sectarianism, in which the whole conception of public worship is lowered and the individual is never trained in religious matters to feel the kindling power of a common enthusiasm, to be lifted above himself in the wave of a common joy. The Church has aimed at combining both; by the insistance on confession and absolution it has tried to train the individual to a sense of personal penitence and personal gratitude: but these have only prepared him to share in the common worship of the society.
But the Church has had to do even more than this. Not only has it aimed at keeping in due proportion the conflicting elements in life, in truth, and in worship; it has also had to keep alive the three sides at once, and to keep them in their true relation to each other. To be at one and the same time the home of life and truth and worship, this belongs to its ideal and this adds new difficulties. Sometimes one element has preponderated, sometimes another: but its aim is always to preserve the three. It has historically preserved the synthesis of the three more than any other Christian body. It has moved through the ages doing its work, however imperfectly. It has kept historic continuity with the past: it has disciplined life and raised the standard of morality and united the nations of the world. It has been a witness to a spiritual world, to the fact that men haveinterests above material things, and that these deeper spiritual interests can combine them with the strongest links. It has gone out as aCatholicChurch, knowing that it contains in its message truths that can win their way to every nation; and therefore it has never ceased to be aMissionaryChurch, as it needs that each nation should draw out into prominence some aspect of its truth, and reveal in life some side of its virtue. It has enshrined, protected, witnessed to the truth; both as an 'authoritative republication of natural religion,' keeping alive the knowledge of God, and of His moral government of the world[376], and as a revelation of redemption. It has drawn up the canon of Holy Scripture and formulated its Creeds: it still witnesses to the unity of knowledge: it has held up before the world an ideal of worship, at once social and individual. Its truths have indeed spread beyond itself, so that men find them now in bodies opposed to it; and therefore are perplexed and do not know where their allegiance is really due. It has indeed been itself often untrue to its mission; but ever and again it has re-asserted itself with a strange recuperative power, for, as the fountain of its life, there is ever the power of the Holy Spirit, sent by the risen Lord; to check temporary failures or accretions of teachings, there has been the perpetual re-appeal to Holy Scripture and the Creeds; to control idiosyncrasies of worship, there has been the permanent element of its Liturgies. Its very failures have come from its inherent greatness; they are the proof of great capacities, the omen of a greater future. Like S. Paul, it holds on its way 'by glory and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceiving and yet true, as unknown and yet well-known; as dying and behold it lives; as chastened and not killed; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor and yet making many rich; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.'
Does the world need the witness of the Church's life less now than in past ages? Less? nay, for many reasons more. The widening opportunities of intercourse are opening up new nations, whose existence had only been suspected before; theyare bringing the various parts of human kind into a closer touch with each other. The problems of civilization are more complex; and the more complicated a piece of machinery is, the more difficult it is to keep it in order; so small a defect may throw the whole out of gear. The wider our knowledge of humanity, the greater need of a Catholic Church, which shall raise its voice above the din of conquest and the bustle of commerce, and insist that all races shall be treated with justice and tenderness as made of one blood; which shall welcome all men freely into its own brotherhood, and conveying to them the gifts of the Spirit, shall help them to shew forth in their lives fresh beauties of the richly-variegated wisdom of God. The growth of our huge towns, 'where numbers overwhelm humanity,' and the accumulation of wealth bring the danger nearer home: amidst social upheavings and the striving of class with class, there is need of a Church to rise above rich and poor alike, which shall embrace both; which shall teach both a real visible brotherhood amid all external inequalities; which shall teach the poor the dignity of labour wrought for the good of the whole society, and teach the rich the duty and the blessing of the consecration of their wealth. With the wider use of machinery and the restless rush of money-getting, it is important that there should be the appeal of the Church that no man or woman shall be degraded into being a mere machine; because each is a living soul, capable of personal responsibility, capable of a pure life, capable of a knowledge of God.
Amid the increasing specialization of studies, amid all the new discoveries of science and historical criticism, with all the perplexities that arise as to the interpretation and inspiration of the Bible, now, if ever, there is need of a Church, which conscious of its own spiritual life, knowing that its spiritual truths have stood the test of centuries, has patience and courage to face all these new facts and see their bearing and take their measure; which all the while shall go on teaching to its children with an absolute but rational authority the central facts of the spiritual life, and shall never doubt the ultimate unity of all truth.
Amid the uncertainties of individualism, the fantastic services of those who tend to reduce worship to a mere matter of emotion, amid the sorrows and perplexities of modern life, the world needs the witness of a rational and corporate worship, which recognises the deepest sufferings of human nature enshrined in its very heart, yet recognises also the way in which suffering when accepted freely, is blessed of God; which worships at once a crucified and a risen Lord. Over against the divisions of race and continent the Church raises still its witness to the possibility of an universal brotherhood: over against despair and dispersion it speaks of faith and the unity of knowledge: over against pessimism it lifts up a perpetual Eucharist.
[333]The Dean of S. Paul's onThe Christian Church. Oxford House Papers, No. xvii. where this truth is excellently worked out and applied to the Church.[334]Browning,Paracelsus, ii. p. 30, ed. 1888.[335]Tennyson,In Memoriam, xxxvi.[336]Ps. lxxviii. 3, 4.[337]De Inc.12.[338]Browning,Fra Lippo Lippi: M. Arnold,The Youth of Nature: Shelley,The Skylark.[339]Ep. ad Diogn.vi.[340]Bruce,The Chief End of Revelation, p. 116.[341]Eccl. Pol.v. 54. Cf. Iren.adv. Haer.iii. 20: 'Gloria enim hominis Deus; operationis vero Dei et omnis sapientiae Ejus et virtutis receptaculum homo.'[342]Ign.ad Eph.viii. ἃ δὲ καὶ κατὰ σάρκα πράσσετε, ταῡτα πνευματικά ἐστιν ἐν Ἰησοῦ γὰρ Χριστῷ πάντα πράσσετε.[343]Aurora Leigh, vii. p. 302.[344]Cp. H. S. Holland,Creed and Character, Sermons III-VIII.[345]Πάντων τοίνυν ἀνθρώπων κεκληένων, οἱ ὑπακοῦσαι βουληθέντες, κλητοὶ ὠνομάσθησαν, Clem. Alex.Strom.I. xviii. 89.[346]Cp. 1 Tim. ii. 1-6.[347]For the whole of this last paragraph cf. H. S. Holland,On behalf of Belief, Sermons VI and VII.[348]S. Ignatius,ad Eph.vii. εἷς ἰατρός ἐστι, σαρκικὸς καὶ πνευματικὸς, as compared withad Magn.xiii. ἵνα ἕνωσις ᾐ σαρκική τε καὶ πνευματική.[349]Pseudo-Clem. Rom.Ep.ii. 14; Clem. Alex.Str.vi. 14; iv. 8. For these and other illustrations cf. Seeberg,Der Begriff der christlichen Kirche(Erlangen, 1885), cap. i; and Gore,Church and the Ministry, ed. i. pp. 19, 28, 136.[350]1 Cor. xii. 28.[351]Cp. Acts ix. 31 ἡ ἐκκλησία καθ᾽ ὅλης τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ Γαλιλαίας καὶ Σαμαρείας.[352]1 Cor. xii. 28, xv. 9; Gal. i. 13; Phil. iii. 6; Eph. i. 22, iii. 10, 21; Col. i. 18, 24; 1 Tim. iii. 15.[353]Hibbert Lectures, 1883, p. 311.[354]Bp. Forbes,Explanation of the Nicene Creed, p. 290.[355]ad Eph.ii. iii. vi. xx;ad Trall.vii. xiii;ad Phil.iv. vii;ad Smyrn.viii. ix.[356]Irenaeus,adv. Haer., cp. esp. I. 10, II. 9, III. 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 24.[357]Praescript. adv. Haereticos; cp. esp. 3, 6, 15-21.[358]Tertullian.Praescr.9: 'Quaerendum est donec invenias, et credendum ubi inveneris.'[359]Hawkins'Sermons on the Church, p. 77.[360]Rev. C. Gore,Roman Catholic Claims, p. 51.[361]Commonitoriumix. and xxiii.[362]Bacon, Essay onTruth.[363]S. John ii. 19-21.[364]From a striking and bold article by Prof. Milligan, in theExpositor, March, 1889.[365]1 S. Peter ii. 9; Rev. i. 6; Heb. x. 19. Justin Martyr,Dialog. c. Tryph.116; Irenaeus iv. 8; Origen,Hom. vi. in Lev.5. For other instances, cp. Seeberg,ubi sopra, or Gore,Church and the Ministry, pp. 87-90.[366]Eph. iii. 21 (R.V.); Rev. iv. 11, v. 11-14; 1 Cor. xi. 26.[367]Cf. the striking account of the true Christian sacrifice in S. Aug.De Civ. Dei, x. 6: 'Profecto efficitur ut tota ipsa redempta civitas, hoc est congregatio societasque sanctorum universale sacrificium offeratur Deo per sacerdotem magnum, qui etiam se ipsum obtulit in passione pro nobis, ut tanti capitis corpus essemus.... Hoc est sacrificium Christianorum,multi unum corpus in Christo. Quod etiam sacramento altaris fidelibus noto frequentat ecclesia, ut ei demonstretur, quod in ea re, quam offert, ipsa offeratur.'[368]Acts xiii. 1.[369]1 Cor. xi-xiv.; cp. 1 Tim. ii.[370]Clem,ad Cor.1. esp. 40-45.[371]Contra Adv. Leg. et Proph.xx. 39.[372]Παῤῥησιαστὴς διὰ τὴν εὐγένειαν, Plutarch.Vitae x Orat.7.[373]The Dean of S. Paul's,Advent Sermons, p. 73.[374]Wordsworth,The Recluse.[375]Cp. Socrates iii. 16 Τὸ γὰρ καλὸν, ἔνθα ἂν ᾖ, ἴδιον τῆς ἀληθείας ἐστίν. S. Aug.de doctr. Chr.ii. 18: 'quisquis bonus verusque Christianus est, Domini sui esse intellegat ubique invenerit veritatem.'[376]Butler'sAnalogy, Pt. ii. ch. 1.
[333]The Dean of S. Paul's onThe Christian Church. Oxford House Papers, No. xvii. where this truth is excellently worked out and applied to the Church.
[334]Browning,Paracelsus, ii. p. 30, ed. 1888.
[335]Tennyson,In Memoriam, xxxvi.
[336]Ps. lxxviii. 3, 4.
[337]De Inc.12.
[338]Browning,Fra Lippo Lippi: M. Arnold,The Youth of Nature: Shelley,The Skylark.
[339]Ep. ad Diogn.vi.
[340]Bruce,The Chief End of Revelation, p. 116.
[341]Eccl. Pol.v. 54. Cf. Iren.adv. Haer.iii. 20: 'Gloria enim hominis Deus; operationis vero Dei et omnis sapientiae Ejus et virtutis receptaculum homo.'
[342]Ign.ad Eph.viii. ἃ δὲ καὶ κατὰ σάρκα πράσσετε, ταῡτα πνευματικά ἐστιν ἐν Ἰησοῦ γὰρ Χριστῷ πάντα πράσσετε.
[343]Aurora Leigh, vii. p. 302.
[344]Cp. H. S. Holland,Creed and Character, Sermons III-VIII.
[345]Πάντων τοίνυν ἀνθρώπων κεκληένων, οἱ ὑπακοῦσαι βουληθέντες, κλητοὶ ὠνομάσθησαν, Clem. Alex.Strom.I. xviii. 89.
[346]Cp. 1 Tim. ii. 1-6.
[347]For the whole of this last paragraph cf. H. S. Holland,On behalf of Belief, Sermons VI and VII.
[348]S. Ignatius,ad Eph.vii. εἷς ἰατρός ἐστι, σαρκικὸς καὶ πνευματικὸς, as compared withad Magn.xiii. ἵνα ἕνωσις ᾐ σαρκική τε καὶ πνευματική.
[349]Pseudo-Clem. Rom.Ep.ii. 14; Clem. Alex.Str.vi. 14; iv. 8. For these and other illustrations cf. Seeberg,Der Begriff der christlichen Kirche(Erlangen, 1885), cap. i; and Gore,Church and the Ministry, ed. i. pp. 19, 28, 136.
[350]1 Cor. xii. 28.
[351]Cp. Acts ix. 31 ἡ ἐκκλησία καθ᾽ ὅλης τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ Γαλιλαίας καὶ Σαμαρείας.
[352]1 Cor. xii. 28, xv. 9; Gal. i. 13; Phil. iii. 6; Eph. i. 22, iii. 10, 21; Col. i. 18, 24; 1 Tim. iii. 15.
[353]Hibbert Lectures, 1883, p. 311.
[354]Bp. Forbes,Explanation of the Nicene Creed, p. 290.
[355]ad Eph.ii. iii. vi. xx;ad Trall.vii. xiii;ad Phil.iv. vii;ad Smyrn.viii. ix.
[356]Irenaeus,adv. Haer., cp. esp. I. 10, II. 9, III. 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 24.
[357]Praescript. adv. Haereticos; cp. esp. 3, 6, 15-21.
[358]Tertullian.Praescr.9: 'Quaerendum est donec invenias, et credendum ubi inveneris.'
[359]Hawkins'Sermons on the Church, p. 77.
[360]Rev. C. Gore,Roman Catholic Claims, p. 51.
[361]Commonitoriumix. and xxiii.
[362]Bacon, Essay onTruth.
[363]S. John ii. 19-21.
[364]From a striking and bold article by Prof. Milligan, in theExpositor, March, 1889.
[365]1 S. Peter ii. 9; Rev. i. 6; Heb. x. 19. Justin Martyr,Dialog. c. Tryph.116; Irenaeus iv. 8; Origen,Hom. vi. in Lev.5. For other instances, cp. Seeberg,ubi sopra, or Gore,Church and the Ministry, pp. 87-90.
[366]Eph. iii. 21 (R.V.); Rev. iv. 11, v. 11-14; 1 Cor. xi. 26.
[367]Cf. the striking account of the true Christian sacrifice in S. Aug.De Civ. Dei, x. 6: 'Profecto efficitur ut tota ipsa redempta civitas, hoc est congregatio societasque sanctorum universale sacrificium offeratur Deo per sacerdotem magnum, qui etiam se ipsum obtulit in passione pro nobis, ut tanti capitis corpus essemus.... Hoc est sacrificium Christianorum,multi unum corpus in Christo. Quod etiam sacramento altaris fidelibus noto frequentat ecclesia, ut ei demonstretur, quod in ea re, quam offert, ipsa offeratur.'
[368]Acts xiii. 1.
[369]1 Cor. xi-xiv.; cp. 1 Tim. ii.
[370]Clem,ad Cor.1. esp. 40-45.
[371]Contra Adv. Leg. et Proph.xx. 39.
[372]Παῤῥησιαστὴς διὰ τὴν εὐγένειαν, Plutarch.Vitae x Orat.7.
[373]The Dean of S. Paul's,Advent Sermons, p. 73.
[374]Wordsworth,The Recluse.
[375]Cp. Socrates iii. 16 Τὸ γὰρ καλὸν, ἔνθα ἂν ᾖ, ἴδιον τῆς ἀληθείας ἐστίν. S. Aug.de doctr. Chr.ii. 18: 'quisquis bonus verusque Christianus est, Domini sui esse intellegat ubique invenerit veritatem.'
[376]Butler'sAnalogy, Pt. ii. ch. 1.
FRANCIS PAGET.
Itis the characteristic distinction of some men's work that they are resolute to take into just account all the elements and conditions of the matter with which they deal. They will not purchase simplicity at the expense of facts; they will not, by any act of arbitrary exclusion or unreal abstraction, give up even the most distant hope of some real attainment for the sake of securing a present appearance of completeness. They recognise and insist upon all the complexity of that at which they look; they may see many traits in it to which they can assign no definite place or meaning, but they will not ignore or disparage these; they will not forget them, even though for a while they may have to defer the closer study of them; they will dutifully bear them in mind, and carry them along through all their work; they will let them tell with full weight in qualifying, deferring, or precluding the formation of any theory about that of which these traits, trivial or important, explained or unexplained, are a genuine part. It is difficult to find a name for this rare and distinctive excellence. But it is that which more than any other quality gives permanence and fruitfulness to work: for even the fragmentary and loosely ordered outcome of such thought is wont to prove germinant and quickening as time goes on. Patience, honesty, reverence, and unselfishness, are virtues which appear congenial with such a character of mind; and the high,undaunted faith which is the secret of its strength and the assurance of its great reward has been told by Mr. Browning inA Grammarian's Funeral:—