There are many leges n which I may al ser f zomrietor. I vas zamed when it Peter and then reised I eat with Gentle converta a Acce. Breaches I grater or less extent have frequently emmed; some are retente.

affecting the essential and fel mity of the Church, Sey do grievous rytas practical or meal mity

Each local thought to reproduce me characteristics of the vicle. Isal fact numerically one, being the whole company of Christian men living in a certain place. It should also be at my sell St. Pall was grievously disturbed on bearing of Evisions or schisms in the chart of Corinti These divisions were, in the proper meaning of the term, sects: that is to say, they were partisan companies of men professing to follow a certain leader. "Each one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas." There

is no reason for supposing these sects to have actually fallen asunder from manual communion, but there was a risk of this, and the perfect union of Christian charity was lacking. Pearson has observed that wherever in the New Testament any country or district is named in which the gospel had been preached, the churches of that region are spoken of in plurality, as the churches of Judaea, of Syria and Cilicia, of Galatia and Macedonia. On the other hand, where one city alone is mentioned, then the church of the place is spoken of in singularity-the church at Antioch, at Ephesus, the church of the Thessalonians, and so forth. He infers that even if in a great city there were several congregations, meeting apart for convenience,

1 Cor. i. 12. It is doubtful whether the eye dè XpiσToû following is an indignant remonstrance by St. Paul, or represents a further sect, affecting superiority to all parties, but full of party spirit.

they were all held in one under a common government.1 The conclusion is perhaps too absolute. The domestic churches spoken of by St. Paul, the church in the house of Aquila, in the house of Nymphas, in the house of Philemon,2 whether we are to understand in each case only a Christian family, or a company of the faithful habitually meeting there, suggest a more elastic use of the word. What we know with certainty is that very soon after the apostolic age the Christians living in one town and its neighbourhood were held together in a unity depending on details of organization, which we shall consider in their place. There is no countenance in Scripture or in the practice of the Church for the conception of an unity consisting in the agglomeration or amicable intercourse of sects organized according to the preferences of individuals. Where the churches are spoken of in plurality regard is had only to local or geographical distinction; Christians living within the same circumscription, large or small, form one church, and are bound to live together in unity, avoiding the separation even of party spirit. In this way they work individually to promote the practical unity of the Church.

The Church is Holy. In the New Testament its members are commonly called saints. The fundamental meaning of holiness, in the language of Scripture, is separation from sin and from usages that are tainted with sin. Israel was a holy nation because separated from the rest of mankind and dedicated to the service of God. The things of the sanctuary, the offerings of God,

1

Exposition of the Creed, p. 338, 8th ed. The passage in 1 Cor. xiv. 34, which he quotes to show that several congregations must have consisted in the Church of Corinth, will hardly bear the inference; év Tαîs ÈKкλŋσíαis may mean "at your meetings."

2 Rom. xvi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 19; Col. iv. 15; Philem. 2.

were boly because set apart from common use. There was a moral significance in this holiness; it was an approximation to the boltness of God himself. “Ye shall be holy unto me," says the Law, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that ye should be mine." Isael was holy in essential fact; the children of Israel were therefore the more bound to strive after practical holiness in the likeness of God. Their failure did not for a time affect the essential holiness of the nation; but when the judgment of God fell upon them they were scattered among the heathen, losing their mark of separation. A precisely similar command forms the law of holiness for the Church of the New Testament : "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." 1

The essential holiness of the Church consists in the separation of Christians from the world. On entering the Christian society they make a formal renunciation of all evil, which is described by St. Paul as dying to sin. They are justified, as we have seen, or freed from the inherited and acquired guilt of sin. Nor is this a mere forensic or ceremonial cleansing. They are called to be saints, and obeying the call they receive a power of holiness given them by sanctifying grace. Being incorporated in the one Body wherein dwells the one Spirit of holiness, they have continual supplies of actual and habitual grace. They use or abuse these gifts according to their several practice; but, says Pearson, "the Church of God is universally holy in respect of all, by institutions and administrations of sanctity." 2

The Church of the New Testament, like that of the Old, but in a higher sense, is "an elect race, a royal

1 Lev. xx. 26; cf. xix. 2, and xxi. 8; Matt. v. 48; 1 Pet. i. 15. "Exposition of the Creed, p. 345.

priesthood, a holy nation." This description must be taken as one. Holiness and priesthood go together. A priest is essentially a man taken from among men and consecrated to the service of God as representing his fellows. The priesthood of Christ is an attribute of his humanity, and as Head of the Church he communicates his human qualities to the Body. They are conveyed to the members severally, all being called to attain unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Therefore he has made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father. But we have this quality as members of the Body, not as individual men. The Church as a whole is the royal priesthood.2

3

The function of a priest is to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. Here is a twofold ministry; the ministry of worship and the ministry of reconciliation closely interwoven. The various kinds of offering, distinguished in the Old Testament for the sake of clearness, are combined in the one offering of the New Testament, made by Christ himself, the one Priest, and by the Church in union with him. The essential holiness of the Church is the holiness of priesthood, manifested in the continual offering of the Christian Sacrifice and in the continual exercise of the ministry of reconciliation.

The ideal holiness of the Church is the holiness of Christ the Head regarded as the standard of attainment. It is the holiness also of those who have attained. In the imagery of the Apocalypse the Church is the Bride. of the Lamb, arrayed in fine linen, bright and pure, which is the righteous acts of the saints. The Church is the Communion of Saints, whether in the sense that all are fellow-citizens with those who are perfect and partakers 1 Exod. xix. 6; 1 Pet. ii. 9. Eph. iv. 13; Rev. i. 6; v. 10.

3 Heb. v. I.

of their merits, or in the sense that all partake in the administration of holiness by which they are brought to perfection.1

The practical holiness of the Church is found in warfare against evil. Of this warfare there are two wellmarked stages. The Church is triumphant in Paradise,

militant on earth.

The imagery of war is constant in the New Testament. The contest of the Church is with mysterious powers of evil. "Our wrestling," says St Paul, is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. It is not evil men, as men, who are the enemies of the Church. Indeed the Church fights on behalf of all men against the influences which ruin human society. Separate from these, and essentially hostile to them, the Church labours to set up the reign of righteousness, the kingdom of God. The separation is not between man and man. The Church militant is not a group of specially good men segregated from their fellows. That conception, or something approaching it, has at times occupied certain minds with disastrous results, to be read in the history of Novatianism, of Donatism, of the Cathari and of the Puritans. We are taught by the parables of the Tares and of the Draw-net that in the Church militant good men and bad are mingled. The holiness of the Church is a power working always for the conversion of the bad, and failing that, for their exclusion from the Church triumphant.

It

1 Rev. xix. 8; Eph. ii. 19. The question appears insoluble whether in the phrase of the creed sanctorum communionem the word sanctorum is masculine, signifying holy persons, or neuter, signifying holy things.

2 Eph. vi. 12.