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FROM THE LIBRARY
OF
JOHN PUNNETT PETERS
YALE 1873

LECTURES ON

CHRISTIAN UNITY

HERBERT SYMONDS, M.A.
Rector of St. Luke's Church, Ashburnham, and President of the
Canadian Society of Christian Unity.

"Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge
of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ." — Ephesians iv. 13.
{Motto of the Canadian Society of Christian Unity.)

TORONTO
"WILLIAM BRIGGS
1899.

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine, by William Briggs, at the
Department of Agriculture.

AS A MEMENTO

OP THE BEGINNINGS OF THE

Canaoian Society of Cbrtstian TDlnits

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO

Rev. F. C. C. Heathcote, L.Th.,
St. Clements Church, Toronto.
Rev. R. J. Moobe, M.A.,
St. Margaret's Church, Toronto.
Rev. C. H. Shortt, M.A.,
St. Thomas' Church, Toronto.
Rev. Cabl S. Smith, M.A.,
St. John the Evangelist's Church,
Berlin, Ont.

CONTENTS.

Page
Preface  7
LECTURE I.
The Movement Towards Unitt .... 9
LECTURE II.
The Goal of the Christian Church ... 37
LECTURE III.
What is Christian Unity ?  65
LECTURE IV.
The Historic Episcopate ... .92
LECTURE V.
The Church of England and the Historic
Episcopate  119
LECTURE VI.
The Relation between Civil and Ecclesiastical
Polity  14g
5

PREFACE.

The six lectures in this little book are the
expansion of a lecture on Christian Unity,
which I have delivered at various times and
places. This lecture has appeared to create
such a genuine interest in the subject, as to
lead me to think it might be worth while to
publish a small volume dealing with some of
the aspects of a large and complicated problem.
I would ask the reader to remember that these
lectures have been written during the hours
with diflBculty snatched from the performance
of the duties of a large and scattered parish,
and lay no claim to the possession of any
excellences of style.

8 PREFACE.
I wish to express my thanks to Rev. Profes
sor Clark, D.C.L., of Trinity College, Toronto,
for his great kindness — only one of many — in
reading the proof-sheets. I need scarcely say
he is not responsible for any of the views herein
expressed, from some of which he would prob
ably dissent.
Herbert Symonds.
St. Luke's Rectory,
Ashburnham.

LECTURES ON CHRISTIAN UNITY.

LECTURE I.
TEE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY.
The subject of Christian Unity is one which
has occupied the attention of all the principal
Christian communions during the last half of the
nineteenth century. The Pope has issued encycli
cals. The bishops of the Anglican communions
throughout the world have reported upon it;
church congresses of all kinds frequently discuss
it. At Grindelwald in Switzerland distinguished
members of several communions have met to ex
change their views upon the subject. Societies
for the promotion of Unity have been formed in
England, the United States and Canada, and
whereas only a few years ago the general public,
whose opinion finds expression in the secular
press, regarded the idea as an amiable fad, to-day
it is widely admitted that Christian Unity has
become a question of practical church politics.
9

10 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Nevertheless, in spite of the remarkable
change that has come over the Christian world
in regard to this question, it is undeniable that
grave difficulties still stand in the way of the
consummation of Unity. Along with a general
agreement that it is to be desired, there is a wide
divergence of opinion as to what Christian
Unity is, what it involves, or how it is to
be accomplished. The Pope, Lord Halifax,
Rev. Hugh Price Hughes have widely differing
views as to the principles or essentials of Unity.
Submission is the papal demand. The accept
ance of the apostolical succession is the prime
essential of the kind of Anglicanism that is
represented by Lord Halifax and the English
Church Union. Federation upon a footing of
equality, without any question about validity of
orders, is Mr. Price Hughes' proposition. No
thoughtful person will deny that these are seri
ous differences which can only be reduced to
unity by continued discussion. The main fea
tures of any helpful consideration of this ques
tion must in my judgment be (1) Absolute
candor, combined with the largest charity, and
(2) A sincere love of truth. We have outstripped
the time when vague generalities will suffice.
The subject in its general aspects has been
so fully discussed that people are beginning to
say, " We all agree that Unity is desirable, but

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 11
we want you to convince us that it is possible
and to give us some idea as to how it is to be
accomplished." Now, I do not pretend to be able to meet
such a demand as this, but I should like these
lectures to be regarded as a contribution towards
actual Unity, and shall therefore take it for
granted that we are all agreed that what has
been well called the present state of organized
disunion is wrong, and that some form of Unity
is to be earnestly desired. Upon the basis of
this assumed agreement it is proposed to discuss
the following subjects. In the present lecture
"The Movement towards Unity" will be consid
ered. The second will be devoted to the ques
tion, "What is the goal of the Christian Church?"
In the third we shall ask and try to answer the
question, " What is Christian Unity ? " The
fourth and fifth will be devoted to the discus
sion of the Historic Episcopate, and the last will
be upon " The Relation between Civil and Eccle
siastical Polity."
There are to the thoughtful mind few more
interesting subjects of study than the beginning,
the growth and the maturity of what are called
" Movements of Thought." All history may be
regarded as a record of a series of movements,
beginning in ideas and culminating in action,
in the various spheres of human activity. Are

12 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
we interested in politics ? We may contem
plate the whole development of human civiliza
tion as a series of political movements. From
this point of view we may study the rise and
fall of the great world empires of antiquity,
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Rome. How
little shall we understand modern Europe without
a clear notion of the political idea of the Holy
Roman Empire and of the Holy Roman Church
as it gradually developed during the Middle Ages.
What an inadequate idea we shall have of the
Reformation, if we fail to study it in connection
with the political movement towards national
unity, which, from the reign of Louis XI. of
France, was common to Western Europe. And
to-day, how can we take a sympathetic interest
in the problems of government without some
conception of the course of the development of
Democratic ideals ?
Or we may be interested in philosophy, and
our study will properly commence with the
history of philosophy, and it will at once become
clear that the development of philosophy is
closely connected with a few great names of men
who originated new conceptions, and whose
ideas were first imparted to their immediate
disciples, and then gradually permeated the
minds of a continually enlarging circle.
It is the same in art and in literature, and all

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 13
the various interests of life. It is in the study
of the growth of any movement that the real
nature of the object desired will be revealed,
although it may often be difficult to disentangle
the accidents from the essentials of the move
ment. The idea of Christian Unity is not new. It
is as old as the Gospel, and it has never been
entirely lost. Circumstances have rendered it
necessary for some to put forth a defence of
disunion, but no theologian has ever developed a
theory of Christian Division. The mere phrase
at once strikes us as absurd, and it is interest
ing to notice that the principal line of defence
of the present state of Christendom has been a
practical denial of division. It used to be said
by those who were satisfied with the present
state of things, that the Christian churches
were like the regiments of an army, with their
various uniforms but all fighting against a com
mon foe. That was an analogy which, so far
from defending division, denied its existence.
We do not often hear it now, because we all
know the analogy is not a good or true analogy.
An army with no more cohesion, co-operation
or unity of design than the various divisions of
the Christian Church, would be doomed to com
plete and crushing defeat as soon as it found
itself opposed to a united enemy. The words

14 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
schism and heresy, expressive of division, have
always been words of evil import. The word
catholic, expressive of unity and universality,
has always been of good import. No one wishes
to be called a schismatic ; we all like to be con
sidered catholic. Divisions have indeed been
numerous in the Church almost from its earliest
days, and no doubt owing to the fact that in
most, perhaps in all, divisions there has been
some right on the side of the separating party,
divisions have often in the long-run been pro
ductive of some good. But alongside of dividing
movements there have ever run movements for
Unity. Oftentimes efforts were made to com
pose the great schism of the Greek and Roman
churches,1 and at the time of the Reformation
many of the numerous councils or conferences
proposed or actually held were, ostensibly at
least, for the purpose of restoring Unity.
A list of books on Unity has been drawn up
by Rev. Dr. Huntington, of New York, and
appended to his interesting little work, entitled
"A National Church," and a perusal of the titles
and dates of publication of these shows clearly
enough that the thought and hope of Unity have
1 "The Greek emperors labored almost without interrup
tion throughout the fourteenth century to effect a union
of the two divided churches. " — Gieseler's "Eccl. Hist., IV.,"
p. 263.

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 15
never been wholly absent from the minds of
pious and charitable men.
At the same time it is true that the circum
stances of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen
turies did not lend themselves to the encourage
ment of a movement towards Unity. The seeds
were sown but they failed to germinate, for they
fell into a soil unprepared for their reception.
Religion both in England and on the Continent
was too closely allied to politics, and after the
fierceness of the civil strife in England in the
seventeenth century died away, it was natu
rally succeeded by a period of lethargy. But in
the present century circumstances are vastly
changed amongst English-speaking peoples. In
England itself, the entire abolition of tests and
other disabilities under which Nonconformity
groaned, has issued in a state of religious free
dom that would amaze our ancestors, whilst on
this continent there has sprung up a vast popu
lation of men and women, who live for the most
part in much peace and charity in the different
communions wherein they were born or which
they may elect to join. Whilst this is very
far from being Unity, yet it is a state of things
favorable to the promotion of Unity, and hence
it is not unnatural that our century should see
not merely the publication of a few books on

16 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Unity, but the birth and growth of a popular
movement towards Unity.
But there are deeper grounds for this move
ment than the decline of controversy or the
growth of religious liberty, and to these I wish
to ask your close attention, for in them I believe
we shall find a convincing demonstration that
the movement towards Unity is no merely tran
sitory wave of feeling, but is a genuine develop
ment, the necessary outcome, of the circumstances
of our time, which cannot therefore be stayed
or turned aside until it has reached its appointed
goal. For Unity is the key-note of our age. It
is true that at first sight the facts appear to con
tradict the assertion. A thoughtful writer
indeed declares that the distinguishing charac
teristic of the nineteenth century would be best
expressed by the word disintegration. " Every
human institution," says he, " political or relig
ious; every scheme of thought, philosophical,
theological or scientific ; every fabric of long
accredited belief or tradition ; whatever product
of human reason or practical exigency, in short,
that can claim, apparently or really, character
istics of growth and fixity, has either undergone,
or is in process of undergoing, the most search
ing investigation and vivisection."2 This is per
fectly true. The age is an age of criticism.
2 Owen's " Essay on the Christian Ministry."

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 17
Nothing is too sacred to escape the trying pro
cess of nineteenth century tests. And at first
sight the result seems to be the opposite of Unity.
Authority which has been the basis of political
and ecclesiastical unity, has been tried in the
balances and found wanting. The authority
not only of kings, of popes, of bishops, but even
the authority of the Bible seems to have been
overthrown. What strong and stable founda
tion of authority can be found upon which to
erect the superstructure of a united society ?3
But a closer examination of the phenomena of
the time will convince us that this critical, dis
integrating process is only the necessary prelude
to the reconstruction of such elements as pass
unscathed through the fiery trial, into a unity
that shall be vastly more inspiring, enduring
and beneficent than anything that has preceded
it, just because it will be the unity of mankind
upon a higher plane of development and civiliza
tion than has been hitherto achieved.
Look, for example, at philosophy. The prob
lem it sets itself to-day is to discover some one
principle from which all things may be ex
plained. Philosophy abhors division. It is con-
3 The subject of authority is a difficult one. Reference
may be made to a. lucid discussion of the various kinds of
authority in the Bishop of Ripon's "Christian Reunion."
Address II. 2

18 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
vinced that there is some one fundamental
essence at the root of all things, and it has an
inextinguishable conviction that, even though
human reason can never fully solve the problem
of the universe, yet it can continually approach
its solution.
Or turn to the sphere of science. It is not
inconceivable that there should be " gods many
and lords many.'' Polytheism is inconceivable to
us to-day, but there seems to be nothing essen
tially irrational in it. Yet every discovery in
the world of nature only strengthens our con
viction that albeit the variety of manifestations
of energy is infinite, yet one life, one energy
pervades that organism, so that despite the
manifold diversity of nature, we have no diffi
culty in asserting its unity. The world of
nature is a harmony, and just as music was
almost infinitely enriched by the discovery of
the laws of harmony, the tuneful blending of
various notes, so it is perfectly clear to us that
the beauty, the interest and the value of nature
are almost infinitely increased by its infinite
variety, which none the less springs from one
fount of energy, and works towards common
and mutually advantageous ends.
Or if we turn to the study of mankind, either
in the comparatively insignificant spot of earth
where we reside, or in the pages of history, we

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 19
find ample illustration of the same truth. We
are increasingly realizing the unity of human
nature that underlies all the varieties of human
activity. How different are the capacities, the
tastes, the virtues, the vices, the prejudices, of
even the first hundred people you meet on the
street. How much more of a thousand millions,
no two of whom are exactly alike. Yet we
rightly speak of a common ground, which we
call human nature, out of which all this
variety springs. Unity in variety is surely
one of the great lessons history is teaching us
more plainly every day.
In the world of politics again, the nations are
becoming united. It is growing more and more
difficult for two countries to go to war with
each other. Something of the deep sentiment
for Unity, something of the real yearning of
humanity for peace that is imbedded in the
human heart, has been manifested in the swift
and enthusiastic reception of the idea of Anglo-
American Unity, an idea which must assuredly
bring forth rich fruits. Without being too san
guine in the face of the armaments of Europe,
we may certainly hold that the day is steadily
approaching when " nation shall not lift up
sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more."
Or, to give one more example of the move-

20 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
ment towards Unity, any one who seeks to look
below the surface of things and to discern the
direction of the noiseless currents of influence,
can scarcely doubt that Unity is being silently
promoted by the astonishing inventions which
in our century have revolutionized our means of
locomotion and communication. The measure
ment of space by miles is now a misleading
measurement. Space should rather be measured
by time. It is not necessary to dwell upon
these changes. I need but mention the railway,
the steamship, the telegraph and the telephone.
By these the most remote parts of the world
have been brought close together. Travel and
acquaintance with other peoples is slowly but
surely breaking down national prejudices and
preparing the way for an impartial study of
other methods, other tastes, other ideals than
our own. Mutual knowledge will bring in its
train mutual respect ; mutual respect will breed
mutual tolerance. When prejudices are broken
down, the best things by their intrinsic worth
become predominant. Are there any of us so
faithless as to doubt that Christianity alone is
the universal religion, and that when prejudice
is slain the truth will prevail ?
The consideration of these and similar phe
nomena of our age will, I think, convince us
that Christian Unity, regarded as a movement,

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 21
is but the religious aspect of the characteristic
feature of our age. It is, therefore, the very
reverse of a fad, by which we understand the
crotchet or whim of an individual or of a few
individuals. Judged by the analogy of nature as
it is understood in the science of the nineteenth
century, judged by the tendencies of the times
in things called secular, Christian Unity is re
vealed as the movement of supreme importance
in the sphere of theological thought, and in the
corresponding sphere of practical religion. Many
years ago Mr. Goldwin Smith, in a volume which
contains his noblest utterances — the " Lectures
on the Study of History" — said : " The Reunion
of Christendom is likely at last to become a
practical aim. Probably it would be a greater
service to humanity, on philosophical as well as
religious grounds, to contribute the smallest unit
towards this consummation than to construct
the most perfect demonstration of the free per
sonality of man. As things are, rationalism and
fatalistic reveries may be laboriously confuted,
but amidst the energies and aspirations of a
regenerated Christendom, they would spontane
ously pass away."
But at this point it may be fairly asked,
Admitting that there is such a movement as you
have described, what has it so far accomplished?
In dealing with this very natural question, I

22 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
must ask you to bear in mind that the really
great movements of thought or action must in
the nature of the case proceed slowly. Where
vast bodies of men are interested, where old
historic societies, built up through the course of
many years, are likely to be deeply affected, we
may expect to find a strong conservative senti
ment. Men do not wish to endanger the security
of the established order of things until they are
sure something better will take its place, and
even though they may all agree that something
better has been proposed, they will want to feel
reasonably sure that the proposal can be carried
into effect before they are prepared to act. Pro
vided that there is progress, we ought by no
means to feel discouraged that it is slow. What
progress, then, can we discern in the Christian
Unity Movement ?
1. Consider in the first place the significance
of the papal encyclicals on Christian Unity.
Whatever doctrinal or other objections we may
take to the Roman Church, we none of us deny
that she has a genius for government and a re
markable appreciation of signs of the times.
The issue of encyclicals on Christian Unity is
a sure proof that the Church of Rome notes
with interest the Christian Unity Movement,
and regards it as genuine.
2. Of greater practical importance than papal

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 23
encyclicals is the movement which has resulted
in the union of the various branches of two of
the great religious communions of Canada. In
this respect Canada is in advance of the older
countries. There is no longer an Old Kirk or a
Free Kirk in Canadian Presbyterianism, but
there is one great Presbyterian Church. Equally
successful has been the Unity Movement among
the Methodists. A Methodist minister told me
some months ago, that Canadian Methodism had
little to learn from English Methodism, and
there can be no doubt that the union of the
various branches of Methodism has greatly con
duced to its strength in our country. " In 1873
there were six Methodist churches in Canada :
the Wesleyan Methodist Church in the Eastern
Provinces, the Wesleyan Methodist Church in
Ontario and Quebec — two churches historically
and organically separate — the Methodist New
Connexion Church in Canada, the Methodist
Episcopal Church in Canada, the Primitive
Methodist Church in Canada and the Bible
Christian Church. ... In 1873 a plan for
union was adopted by the Wesleyan Methodist
Conference of Upper and Lower Canada, by the
New Connexion Methodist Conference, and by
the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of the
Eastern Provinces. . . . In 1884 the Meth
odist Episcopal Church in Canada, the Bible

24 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Christian Church, and the Primitive Methodist
Church in Canada merged themselves into the
larger Church."4
3. Other eirenic movements that may be
noted, are the formation of the Evangelical
Alliance in 1846 ; of the British and Foreign
Bible Society in 1804, and the American Bible
Society in 1816. There can be no doubt that
these societies have done and still do a valuable
work in uniting for common objects members of
various denominations. But they are doing
but little towards organic union. The Evan
gelical Alliance, for example, is, to use Mr. Hugh
Price Hughes' words, " merely a fortuitous con
course of evangelical individuals who meet to
gether occasionally to say that they love one
another, and who also render some excellent
service in speaking a kind word for persecuted
Protestants on the Continent. All honor to
those who started that Alliance half a century
ago ; it was all of which men were then capable,
and it was very much more than any of their
predecessors could have done since the sixteenth
century. But it falls far short of the union we
desire." The Christian Unity Movement of
to-day aims at more than the co-operation of
individual Christians of various denominations ;
4 "Lectures on Christian Unity." Published by Scrib-
ners' Sons.

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 25
it aims at the co-operation and fellowship of
the denominations themselves.
4. The Church of England has been by no means
behindhand in these movements. The so-called
" Chicago- Lambeth Quadrilateral "5 offers liberal
proposals of communion to the various denomi
nations, and is incidentally a striking revelation
of the large measure of unity already existing,
It was scarcely to be expected that the Historic
Episcopate would be accepted right off by Pres
byterians, Methodists or Congregationalists,
more especially as the exact relationship of the
Episcopate to the doctrine and discipline of the
Anglican Church is in dispute amongst Anglican
theologians themselves, but it was no mean
achievement to bring conspicuously to light the
fact that, with regard to three of the four sides
of the quadrilateral, there was already substan
tial agreement. We can hardly suppose there
are many who hold the particular form of church
government of equal importance with the faith in
Holy Scriptures, the acceptance of the Nicene
Creed as the sufficient statement of our Christian
faith, or the recognition of the two great evan
gelical sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's
Supper. Thus the circle of substantial agree
ment is very much larger than the circle of
disagreement. • Cf. Lecture V.

26 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
5. Such are some of the practical results of
the Unity Movement. It only remains to notice
one feature of the times, which perhaps may
appear to some to partake of the theoretical
rather than of the practical, but which appears
to me to be the most hopeful of all. I refer to
what may be called the Cosmopolitanism of
Theology. It is but a short time since every important
denomination used as text-books the commen
taries on Scripture or the theological works of
scholars of their own denomination and of no
other. In a Church of England college you
would have found Church of England text
books ; in a Presbyterian college, Presbyterian
text-books, and so on. To-day the first ques
tion that is asked concerning a writer is not, is
he an Anglican, Presbyterian or Methodist, but
is he a genuine scholar, is he a real thinker, is
he an honest, sincere and devout man, and it is
only after these questions have been answered
that we proceed to ask what his denomination
may be. These remarks do not, of course, apply
to books upon the distinctive doctrines of the
various denominations, but they refer to all
kinds of works upon the Holy Scriptures, and
as the Holy Scriptures are in all reformed
bodies the final criterion of Christian doctrine,
you can at once see how unity in the study of

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 27
Scripture must tend to unity of interpretation
and unity of mind. Consider in this connection
the significance of such a publication as the
"International Commentary on the Bible." Of
this great work some eight volumes have been
published, and have been received with a chorus
of approbation by the leading religious reviews.
No one doubts that this work represents the
high-water mark of Biblical interpretation. But
it is not the undertaking of any one church, nor
even of the scholars of any one country. Here
are Scotchmen, Irishmen, Englishmen and
Americans ; here are Anglicans, Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, Baptists united in one of the
greatest theological enterprises of the day.
" The Commentaries," say the editors, " will be
international and interconfessional, and will be
free from polemical and ecclesiastical bias." In
other words, they are undenominational. But
undenominationalism is by many supposed to be
the weak, boneless, nerveless residuum of the
ology that remains after all that is vital has been
carefully eliminated. How many of those who
despise undenominationalism have ever really
examined it ? How many use the expression as
a shibboleth to stir up a temporary manifesta
tion of zeal for their own Church ? If unde
nominationalism is an altogether bad thing,
it must be most injurious in relation to the Holy

28 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Scriptures ? Undenominationalism, if it be the
feeble, shapeless jelly-fish, which it is sometimes
said to be, will be most feeble, most shapeless,
most harmful when it deals with Holy Scrip
ture. Be undenominational, if you will, on the
platform of a revival ; be undenominational, if
you will, in works of charity, on hospital or
poor-house boards, but when the fount of all
doctrine is to be studied, beware of so dealing
with it that, for the sake of an imaginary and
delusive unity, you sacrifice its very vitals !
Such is the language we might expect to
hear from those who denounce sometimes in
terms of the utmost contempt undenomination
alism. But, as a matter of fact, one is glad to
say that no such language has been heard
regarding the "International Commentary.'' It
cannot be that the distinguished scholars who
are engaged in this work are all jelly-fish theo
logians, nor that they would co-operate in any
scheme for the emasculation of the truths of
the Holy Scripture. But if this be so, then con
sider whether, if men can unite for the common
study and interpretation of the sources of their
faith, there is any good reason why they should
not co-operate for the promotion of the faith
that is drawn from those sources. If we have
inter-denominationalism, if we have a kind of
federation for study, and if the results of that

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 29
federation are pronounced good, why should we
not have federation for action ? Remember that
all action springs out of thought. At the back
of deeds lie ideas. Is it not then a significant
and hopeful movement towards Unity that is
revealed in this quiet union of men of many
denominations in the interpretation of the Word
of God ?
But this is not all. You may perhaps say, we
can understand people uniting in this way to
produce a commentary. It is when we come to
history and doctrine that differences are re
vealed. Well, the same publishing house which
is issuing the "International Commentary," some
years before commenced the issue of what is
called " The International Theological Library."
In addition to the American, English, Scotch
and Irish scholars of the Commentary, we may
notice in this list the name of a German, Caspar
Gregory, Professor in the University of Leipzig.
And the subjects which this Library deals with
are such as the following : " The Apostolic
Church," " History of Christian Doctrine,"
" Christian Institutions," " The Theology of the
Old Testament," " Theology of the New Testa
ment," "The Ancient Catholic Church," "The
Latin Church," and so on. I do not for a moment
wish to lead you to suppose that on these varied
subjects there are not grave differences of

30 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
opinion amongst the writers themselves, or that
these books will supersede all others. But is it
not a remarkable thing that such a body of
scholars can unite together in such labors as
these ? Can there be a more hopeful augury of
practical unity in the future, than what we may
call this theoretical unity in the present ?
I said at the outset of this lecture that I
believed that the time was come for very plain
speaking. What, then, in plain language, do
these theological undertakings — and there are
others of a similar kind, such as the Expositor's
Bible, and the Theological ^Educator Series —
indicate ? Unless in principle they are alto
gether wrong, they indicate that the denomina
tional differences of the great reformed bodies
are of very much less importance than we have
supposed. What we call distinctive doctrines do
not, in the light of the nineteenth century intel
ligence, justify the divisions of to-day. We un
derstand as our forefathers did not understand,
how various are the minds and the spirits of
men and women. We know that it is due to
difference in spiritual constitution that one man
is saved by ritual, another by preaching. We
know that one man is constitutionally a ration
alist, his mind imperatively insisting upon a
reason for every faith that is in him, whilst the
mystic, on the other hand, only asks to feel. We

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 31
know that one man is by nature a predestinarian
and another an Arminian. We know that there
are mysteries of life, and there are correspond
ing mysteries of faith which the finite mind
cannot perfectly comprehend, because they
belong to the region of the infinite. And know
ing these things which our fathers did not and
could not know, because it is from their experi
ence that we have learnt them, let us plainly
say that our distinctive doctrines about predes
tination and free-will, about sacramental grace,
about the externals of church organization and
about forms of worship, do not justify division ;
that they are distinctions not incompatible with
unity — distinctions which will probably always
exist, but will not always divide. I do not pro
fess to be a Utopian. I am not holding up for
your eyes the prospect of a Golden Age when
every one will think alike and worship alike. I
am not sure that that would be a Golden Age at
all. Controversy there will always be, for, as
has been well said, " Truth is struck out in
the clash of conflicting opinions." But I do ask
you as sensible, thoughtful men and women, to
consider whether in our day it ought not to be
possible to realize a unity which should include
schools of thought and varieties of worship. Is
not such a unity in principle, at least, expressed
in these great words of St. Paul : " There are

32 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And
there are diversities of ministrations and the
same Lord. And there are diversities of work
ings but the same God, who worketh all things
in all."
In concluding this lecture let me try and sug
gest a practical answer to a practical question.
What is to be your attitude, what is the true atti
tude of the intelligent layman and laywoman to
this movement towards Unity ? A thoughtful
writer6 in the New York Churchman says : " It
is sometimes foolishly imagined that Church
Unity is a problem for the clergy to work out,
and that if all the ministers in the world could
agree on some common basis of belief, that
would end the matter, and the millennium would
be forthwith inaugurated. Nothing could well
be more absurd. The vast body of the laity
have quite as vital a part to play in the move
ment towards Unity as the clergy. Their intelli
gent co-operation must be enlisted ere the move
ment is thrilled with that passionate enthusiasm
which should mark it out from all other ambi
tions of men. The conviction that Unity is
the will of God must lay hold of the common
folk. People must be shaken out of compla
cency and contentment with the existing state
of things." With these sentiments I am in
6 John Ridd, January 29th, 1898,

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 33
entire accord. This question of Unity is one
which all may take an interest in, because it is
one which affects us all. It is partly a theolo
gical question, and doubtless some fine questions
of history or doctrine must be threshed out by
professional theologians. But it is in a far
greater degree a practical question. And in so
far as it is a practical question it behooves all
to take a practical interest in it. There was a
time when theology was a subject of interest to
lay people as well as the clergy. Let me remind
you that St. Paul's epistles were written not to
clergymen or to theological students, but to lay
men and women, the congregations of the vari
ous churches he established. But in recent years
the laity have, in a continually increasing mea
sure, left theology to the clergy. And so far as
theology is merely theoretical or critical, it is as
well that it should be so. But such a question
as this of Christian Unity combines in fairly
equal proportions the theoretical and the practi
cal. And therefore I appeal to all to take an
interest in it and to seek to inform themselves
in regard to the principal issues at stake.
It will be one object of these addresses to
state as clearly as possible these issues. " What
was the object which our Saviour had in view
in inaugurating the Church ?" That surely is a
fundamental question to which every one should
3

34 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
be able to give some reply. You do not belong
to the Freemasons, or the Foresters, or the Odd
fellows without knowing what the object of that
society may be. " What is Christian Unity ?"
A question in hot debate, but one which you
may and ought to study ; and while I would
advocate an open mind always free to receive
fresh light, still I would also say that every one
ought to have his own conception of Christian
Unity. The importance of the discussion of the
Historic Episcopate must be obvious to every
one. And albeit our last lecture on " The Rela
tions of Ecclesiastical and Political History " is
less obviously connected with Christian Unity,
I trust it will be made clear that in reality its
connection is very close. The attitude, then, of
the laity to this question may be summed up in
these words :
1. Sympathy. You must not say, "My Church
is good enough for me; it will take me to
heaven quite well. I do not interfere or care to
interfere with others." You are, if a servant and
disciple of Jesus Christ, interested in the things
that interested Him, and bound to promote the
object which He sought to promote. He did
not come merely to make it easy for you to get
to heaven. He came to save the world. He
came to establish the kingdom of heaven, and

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY. 35
every day you pray in His own words for the
coming of that kingdom upon earth.
2. Study. You have not much time, perhaps.
But you have some. There are books small and
books great on this subject. Or sermons and
lectures are delivered upon it. Or you can talk
it over with others who have studied it. There
is no question, about which a man is really in
terested, on which he cannot find information
and arrive at some approximate solution.
3. Prayer. How much of our prayer is but
for ourselves and our particular needs ! How
little for the world at large ! Brethren, some
times lift up your hearts, it may be in the
church, it may be in the privacy of your own
rooms, it may be in some quiet walk, but where-
ever it may be, sometimes lift up your hearts to
God and say, " 0 my Father, reveal to me what
is Thy will for all mankind. Let me not be
wrapped up only in my own selfish purposes, but
grant unto me that I may know and love Thy
will for others." Read over that most beautiful
of prayers, the prayer of our Saviour in St. John
xvii. If you knew what were the aspirations
of Jesus, would you not desire to forward their
realization — would you not for once forget your
own self, your own soul, your own needs, and
cry with a St. Paul, " Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do ? " Well, brethren, here is the

36 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
aspiration of the Saviour : " I pray for them
which thou hast given me. . . . Neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also which
shall believe on me through their word. That
they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me>
and I in thee, that they also may be one in us :
that the world may believe that thou hast sent
me."

LECTURE II.
THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
In any effective discussion of Christian Unity
it is impossible to overlook the question of the
nature of the Christian Church. What is the
Church ? is a question which at some time or
another exercises the minds of most religious
persons. It is one to which the Roman, the
Greek, the Anglican, the Presbyterian and the
Congregationalist give different answers. Here,
as elsewhere, the Anglican Church permits of
a wide diversity of opinion amongst her mem
bers, and if I held that any one of the religious
communities which together compose Christen
dom was entitled to claim, to the exclusion of
all others, that it was the Church, then the
course of these lectures would be very different
from what it is. But I do not believe that this
is the case, nor does the Anglican Church put
forth such a claim. But it is not proposed to
attempt to answer the question, " What is the
Church?" in this lecture, but rather to go behind
this question and ask another, viz., "What is
37

38 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
the goal of the Church ? " What is the aim and
object of the Church as revealed in the life and
words of the Head of the Church, and in the
writings of the Apostles which form a part of
the canonical Scriptures ?
The perennial importance of the question lies
in this consideration. Any one who has ever
studied the history of organized bodies, knows
how fatal is the tendency amongst their mem
bers as years roll on to forget the objects of the
society in the mere effort to keep the society
going. Or where those objects are not altogether
forgotten, they are ofttimes degraded from a
primary to a secondary position. The propor
tion of the faith is destroyed. Things that are
first are often put second, and things that are of
but secondary importance are put first. The
Church, if I may assume a part of the answer to
the question before us to be more fully unfolded
as we proceed, exists as a means to the accom
plishment of the brotherhood of man. Has she
never forgotten that object ? " Vast sections of
our great cities, where hundreds of thousands
of men, women and children live and die, are
as nearly devoid of any opportunity for Chris
tian worship, as nearly desolate of the conso
lations and helps of the Christian religion as
if they were in the heart of the African desert."1
1 Crapsey, "A Voice in the Wilderness," p. 26.

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 39
Has she never degraded it from its primary
position to a secondary ? Has she never ap
peared to the world as an exclusive or aristo
cratic society ? Has she never, either in whole
or in some of her parts, sacrificed the fellowship
of brethren for the sake of some unessential or
secondary doctrine ? This fatal tendency of
societies to get astray from the main track of
destiny, to forget true ends, to disregard the
relative importance of various truths, is illus
trated in the Jewish Church in the time of our
Saviour. It brought Him into violent collision
with the churchmen of His day. It had much,
perhaps most, to do with His persecution and
rejection by that church. And in dealing with
it in the forms in which this tendency came
before Him, our Lord, as so often in other cases,
laid bare by illustration the true principle by
which all societies created for the good of man
kind may be tested. The question concerned
the nature of the Sabbath. When the Jews
violently opposed the attitude of Jesus towards
the Sabbath, He uttered those memorable words,
" The Sabbath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath." The Jews thought otherwise.
They had turned a great truth upside down.
In their zeal for an institution they opposed the
very objects for which the institution was estab
lished. The institution was not an end in itself

40 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
it was a means to an end. The end was the
spiritual welfare of man. So here at the outset
we may lay down as the guiding principle in
our discussion of the goal of the Christian
Church this saying, " The Church was made for
man, and not man for the Church."
The end of any society will always be clearly
revealed in its beginning. This is perfectly
natural, and, indeed, inevitable. The society is
called into existence for some one supreme
object. The achievement of that object is its
goal. Between the beginning and the end,
between aspiration and accomplishment, there
may intervene a long period of time, and as
the society grows more and more complex, as a
multitude of subsidiary objects come into view,
the supreme object of the society may be for
gotten or lost to view, and then when we awake
to the fact that the society is somehow or
other not accomplishing its true task, the
appeal of the prophet is heard, " Look unto the
rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of
the pit whence ye were digged." This is both
the meaning and the justification of the fre
quent appeal to the past, to the Reformation, it
may be, or to the fourth century, or to the
primitive church. But to find the goal of the
Church we must go further back than this. We
must go back to the Church's Founder, and we

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 41
must study His work and His words, in order
that we may discover His mind and intention
regarding the Church.
I. The first and, throughout His life, the main
object of the teaching of Jesus was the kingdom
of heaven. What did our Lord seek to convey
to the minds of His hearers by the use of this
expression ? It was no new term. John the
Baptist came preaching the near approach of
the kingdom of heaven, and his generation
flocked out in multitudes to hear him. But
neither was it new when John used it. That
he was a subject of a kingdom, and that that
kingdom was the kingdom of heaven or the
kingdom of God, was a familiar idea to every
Jew. The Book of Exodus records how at the
outset of this people's career Moses was commis
sioned to tell them that they were to be to God
'¦' a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." The
idea of the kingdom of Jehovah runs through
the whole of the Old Testament,2 and is especially
prominent in the Book of Psalms.3 The fall of
the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, so far from
involving the destruction of the Jewish faith in
the kingdom, proved the starting point of a
2 Cf. Edersheim, " Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,''
I. 265. 3 For the Old Testament conceptions of the kingdom of
heaven and the King, cf. Riehm's "Messianic Prophecy."

42 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
new and more spiritual conception amongst the
prophets.4 But the spiritual ideas of the pro
phets were materialized in the popular faith.
The Jews, when Jesu3 came, expected from the
Messiah deliverance from the Roman yoke and
the restoration of the earthly kingdom of David.
Hence the excitement that followed upon the
preaching of John. Hence the multitudes that
followed Christ. Hence, alas ! their rejection of
Him when His idea of the kingdom proved so
different from theirs.
It is not easy to give a short definition of the
expression, " The kingdom of heaven," as used
by Christ, for He did not always employ it in
the same sense. Edersheim tells us that it
occurs no less than one hundred and nineteen
times in the New Testament, chiefly in the
first three gospels. He makes it equivalent to
" the rule of God ; which was manifested in
and through Christ ; is apparent in the Church ;
gradually develops amidst hindrances; is tri
umphant at the second coming of Christ; and
finally, perfected in the world to come."5 Wendt
describes the kingdom as preached by Jesus, as
" the idea of a divine dispensation under which
God would bestow His full salvation upon a
society of men who, on their part, should fulfil
* E.q., Isaiah ii. Iff.
"¦ Edersheim, "Life and Times of Jesus," I. 270.

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 43
His will in true righteousness."6 More striking is
the definition found in Grimm's Lexicon of New
Testament Greek, where we read that "Jesus
employed the phrase, kingdom of God, or heaven,
to indicate that perfect order of things which
He was about to establish, in which all those of
every nation who should believe in Him were
to be gathered together in one society, dedicated
and intimately united to God and made par
takers of eternal salvation."7
But Jesus not merely preached the kingdom
of heaven. He declared that it was the Gospel.
" Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel
of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and
the kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye, and
believe in the Gospel."8 Remember that in those
days " Gospel" was not yet a technical term. It
means "good news." What the word Gospel
meant to Jesus, then, was " the good news of the
kingdom of God." " Repent," or more literally,
" Change your minds," cried He, " and believe
the good news." So in St. Matthew iv. 23, we
read that Jesus went about all Galilee announc
ing the good news of the kingdom. And at the
end of His earthly course He declared that " the
good news of the kingdom shall be preached
6 Wendt, " The Teaching of Jesus," I. 175.
7 Thayer's "Grimm's Lexicon," sub fiaoikeia.
8 St. Mark i. 14.

44 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
in the whole world for a testimony unto all
nations."9 The authorities quoted above are, it will be
observed, agreed that by the " Kingdom of
heaven" a society is intended. The Gospel,
then, in the mind of Jesus, is essentially social.
Whether the kingdom be visible or invisible,
whether governed by popes, bishops, presbyters,
kings, or parliaments, it is a society. In the
light of this conception the prevalent idea of
the meaning of the word Gospel is seen to be
incomplete. Thus, in popular phrase, a Gospel
preacher is one who comes exhorting to conver
sion and faith. That is part of the truth, but
only part. Jesus called the Gospel the preach
ing of the kingdom. You have not, brethren,
fully brought yourselves within the sphere of
salvation until you have become members of
the kingdom. You may have repented, you
may have believed — two essential steps — but
your regeneration is not complete until you have
enrolled yourselves in the kingdom of heaven.
It is when we get thus far that the very
difficult question of the relation of the Church
to the kingdom of heaven calls for an answer.
Some people would identify the two. They
would say, Whatever the Church is, whether it
be Roman, Greek, Presbyterian, Anglican or
9 St. Matthew xxiv. 14.

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 45
Congregational, or all of them together, the
kingdom of heaven is simply the equivalent of
the Church. A close examination of our
Saviour's language will not, I believe, justify
this idea. In the mind of Jesus the kingdom of
heaven appears to have been an ideal. But it is
an ideal which embodies itself in the Church,10
but not perfectly nor all at once, in such a
sense that the two can be identified, or in such
a sense that the actual existing Church may
not be contrasted with the ideal of the kingdom
of heaven. The ideal of Jesus bears a similar
relation to the historical church that the archi
tect's plan of a cathedral bears to the cathedral
in the course of erection. No doubt in due
time the cathedral may be completed, but mean
time in its various stages it would appear to
one who knew nothing of plans, to be first a
mere hole in the ground, then a number of ap
parently separate parts. Is this the cathedral ?
you ask. And the answer is, No: it is only
the cathedral in course of erection. And so
when men look at the Church they may cry,
Is this the kingdom of God ? And the answer
is, No; it is only the kingdom in course of
realization. And just as the contractors or
workmen make mistakes in carrying out the
plan of the cathedral, so that the architect has
10 Cf. Hort, "Ecclesia," p. 19.

46 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
to order this or that piece to be pulled down
and reconstructed, just so is it with the Church
of Christ. It is liable to corruption, and some
times needs reformation.
And this brings us to the vexed question of
the visible Church. Is the true Church visible,
or is it invisible ? Around this question a
violent controversy has raged. The idea of an
invisible Church as distinct from the visible
Church is modern. It is not found in the
Bible, it is not found in the early Church, nor
in the mediaeval Church. It belongs to the
Reformation period. And this is what it meant
to the reformers. " Within the visible Church
we might conceive to exist a body of the saints,
persons not only communicating with the out
ward Church, but moreover really sanctified in
heart, who not only now partook of Church
privileges, but would forever reign with Christ.
These formed the invisible Church, whom
none knew but God, whereas the visible Church
was composed of faithful and sanctified, of tares
and wheat."11
Now, whilst it is true that there is a distinc
tion between tares and wheat, between the
insincere and the sincere members of the
Church, we have no authority for applying to
the whole body of the truly faithful such an
1 l Browne, on the Articles, p. 453.

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 47
expression as the invisible Church, and the
doing so has had the injurious effect of leading
the reformed bodies to depreciate the visible
Church, and finally to arrive at an altogether
false conception of the Church. I do not mean
that this absolutely false conception is to be
found in the theological text-books of the
reformed churches, but it is almost universal
in the minds of their members. Amongst
Protestants the Church sinks into an alto
gether subordinate place. It becomes a con
venient arrangement whereby a great number
of people can be preached to at once, or whereby
those who hold similar views may unite to
gether. It is a human arrangement ; it is
Anglican, or Methodist, or Presbyterian, or
Baptist, or Congregationalist. Of a Holy
Catholic Church there is no conception. Again,
I repeat, I am speaking of the popular idea, not
of the theological as found in technical theolo
gical books.
On the other hand, Roman Catholic and
Anglo-Catholic are not to be held without
responsibility for this view of the visible
Church. They have regarded the visible
Church as the exact equivalent of the kingdom
of heaven, whereas the visible Church is the
ideal kingdom of heaven in course of realiza
tion, but not perfectly realized. The Anglo-

48 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Catholic sometimes forgets that the visible
Church may become corrupted, may depart
from the architect's plan, and that protest
against corruption, if ineffectual, must result in
schism, and the sin of schism rests with the
corrupt. " If you turn in another direction, and
dwell upon the rise and progress of Noncon
formity, there can be no question at all — it is,
in fact, hardly questioned — that it was due in
the past not to any spirit of schism, but, at
least, in the great majority of instances, to the
fact that the Anglican Church was not behav
ing as the true mother of the people."12 The
work of transforming the ideal kingdom of
heaven into the visible, realized Church of the
living God upon earth is committed to the
hands of men who are fallible and imperfect.
Sometimes they grow careless, sometimes they
neglect their plans, sometimes they become self-
seeking, and therefore schism may become
inevitable ; and albeit not contemplated in the
ideal, it is yet possible that there may be several
bodies working more or less separately and yet
not without claim to the title Church.
I would, therefore, ask my High Church
brother to reconsider his identification of the
visible Church as it is, or ever has been, with
the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, I
12 Gore, " The Mission of the Church," p. 82.

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 49
appeal to the Protestant to consider whether he
has not degraded below the level of that Scrip
ture to which he makes his final appeal, the
idea and the doctrine of the visible Church.
That it has been degraded, a great many evan
gelical Christians are beginning to see. I might
quote from the late Professor Milligan 's "Resurrec
tion of our Lord," and would earnestly commend
to all earnest people the sixth lecture of that
admirable work, but I would prefer to quote the
words of a former president of the Methodist
Conference in England. The Rev. Hugh Price
Hughes, speaking not as an individual, but as
the spokesman of a new movement for uniting
more closely the various Nonconformist bodies
in England, says : " The leaders of this move
ment deeply realize that what the evangelical
churches in this country need, perhaps, more
than anything else is a definite, positive and
scriptural conception of the Christian Church."
What it is that the evangelical churches need is
more precisely contained in the following words :
" We hold as strongly as any that Christ came
into the world not merely and not mainly to
save individual men, but to establish a Church,
and the Church He established is obviously a
visible Church. Baptism, the sacrament of
initiation, cannot be administered by or to an
invisible Church. The Holy Communion, the
4

50 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
perpetually renewed sacrament of membership,
is equally inapplicable to an invisible Church.
We repudiate the modern dangerous delusion
that religion is simply a matter between a man
and his Maker. The Christian religion has at
every stage relation to our fellowmen as well as
to God our Saviour. The highest and richest
blessings of personal sanctification are offered
not to the individual who isolates himself from
his brother Christians, but to the Christian
Church."13 In concluding this part of the subject, let me
repeat that the visible Church is the kingdom
of heaven of our Lord's teaching in course of
realization, but not yet realized ; and whilst
through the imperfection of its citizens it may
perforce have been divided, yet Unity (and what
Unity is falls to be considered later) is an essen
tial mark of the realized ideal. For in the same
passage in which St. Paul bids his readers en
deavor to preserve the unity of the spirit, he
asserts that there is one body.14 Mr. Price
Hughes, therefore, well says, " All the churches
will ultimately realize that visible Unity for
which our Lord prayed, and which is the
essential preliminary of the final and universal
triumph of Christianity."
13 The Contemporary Review, August, 1897.
1 4 Ephesians iv. 4.

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 51
II. From this discussion of the relation of the
kingdom of heaven of our Lord's teaching to the
visible Church upon earth, it follows that albeit
they are not to be identified, yet they have
a common goal. Now, the goal of the Church
must be sought in the teaching of Jesus, and
the sum total of the teaching of Jesus regarding
the kingdom of heaven is admirably expressed
in the definition I have already quoted from
Thayer's Lexicon : " Jesus employed the phrase,
kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven, to indi
cate that perfect order of things which He was
about to establish, in which all those of every
nation who should believe in Him were to be
gathered together in one society, dedicated and
intimately united to God and made partakers of
eternal salvation."
From this definition I take two clauses upon
which to comment, (a) "All those of every
nation who should believe in Him." What is
the picture those words present to our minds ?
Is it not of a greater or less number of peo
ple who individually enter into a relation
ship with Jesus Christ described by the word
" Faith " ? In other words, this first clause, " all
those of every nation who should believe in
Him," expresses the individualistic side of the
Gospel. You know how much talk there is
to-day about individualism and socialism, about

52 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
the individualist and the socialist. Individual
ism bas had a great day, but it has fallen into
some little disrepute. But it is perfectly true
that Christianity has its individualistic aspect
" What must I do to be saved ? " is an impor
tant question. Each man must have a personal
faith, a personal conviction, must recognize his
individual duties and responsibilities, must come
out from the world and become one of those
" who in every nation believe in Christ." The
kingdom of heaven, then, is composed of in
dividuals, (b) The second clause which I take
to comment upon is that which immediately
follows the first. Those individuals who out of
every nation believe in Him, what are they to
do next ? They are "to be gathered together m
one society." Bear in mind that this is not a
theologian's clause. It is not written in the
interests of Roman Catholicism, or Anglicanism,
or Socialism. It is taken from the most scien
tific and least emotional or partisan kind of
book — a dictionary. The whole aim of the
writer is to give the most perfect possible defi
nition of the kingdom of heaven as used by
Jesus himself. It is, then, the mind of Jesus,
the will of Jesus, the design of Jesus, that all
those who believe in Him should be gathered
together in one society. Here, then, is the ex
pression of the social side of the Gospel, which

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 53
it must plainly be said has been largely over
looked in popular Protestantism. The great aim
of religious effort has been to convert the indi
vidual soul, to bring it in direct relationship
with God. It has in only a very slight degree
sought to gather the converted souls into the
one society. Indeed, it has been indifferent to
the society. It has not cared that the society
itself is no longer in any practical sense one.
But the Gospel, remember, is the good news
about the kingdom of heaven. It has its indi
vidual side, because men are individuals ; but it
has its social side, also, because man is a social
animal, who cannot possibly work out his own
salvation in isolation, but is at every point
dependent upon his brother man.
It may be doubted whether the individual
ideals set before men were ever higher than
to-day. It may be doubted whether there was
ever a larger proportion of earnest and good-
living individuals than there are to-day. Yet
we are told again and again that the social order
is decaying, that social corruption is deep-seated
in the body politic, that a social revolution may
at any day involve our modern civilization in an
unparalleled strife and bloodshed. Do not these
facts bear out my contention that Protestantism
has been strong on the individualistic side and
weak on the social side ? Do they not indicate

54 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
that the prime need of to-day is the frank ad
mission that we have been one-sided in our pres
entation of the Gospel, that we have overlooked
much of our Saviour's teaching, and that if we
are to save society we must " raise up the taber
nacle of David that is fallen, and close up the
breaches thereof; and raise up his ruins, and
build it as in the days of old : that we may
possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the
heathen which are called by the name of the
Lord " ?16
When our Saviour came, one of the prime
sources of joy to issue from His advent was
declared to be that the poor should have the
Gospel preached to them.16 Why was the " good
tidings " to be especially joyful to the poor ?
Have we not sometimes supposed that the words
meant that they need no longer mind their
poverty, or the oppression under which they
then groaned, or their lack of opportunity to
enjoy life, because there was revealed a world of
bliss hereafter ? But this was also revealed to
the rich. This is not the peculiar Gospel of the
poor. This interpretation seems to be altogether
wrong. What, then, does the phrase mean ?
The clue is to be found by recalling our
Saviour's definition of the Gospel, namely, the
good news of the kingdom of heaven set up on
15 Amos ix. 11, 12. 10 St. Luke iv. 18.

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 55
earth. That was, or ought to have been, good
news to the poor, telling them of a society
wherein they had equal rights and privileges
with the rich, in which the wealth of the rich, . i
the strength of the strong, the learning of the
wise, were to be held, as it were, in trust for the
benefit of all. Ah ! have we not forgotten this
interpretation ? We have separated into learned
churches, rich churches, and fashionable churches,
and ignorant churches, squalid churches, and poor
churches. And why have we done this? Be-^y
cause we have forgotten the social side of Chris
tianity, the one society in which believers were
to be gathered. We have taught the past, and
we teach the present generation that the one
thing is to save our souls. We are willing and
anxious to have the souls of the poor saved, but
inasmuch as we have no conception of the king
dom of heaven, we think it right and natural
that the rich saved souls, in their well-dressed
bodies, should go to their own churches, well
built, comfortably seated, with sesthetic furnish
ings and sensuous music ; and the poor saved
souls, in their ill-clad bodies, should go to the
poor churches, with dingy furnishings, and no
attractions to speak of. The rich man fares
sumptuously every Sunday, and Lazarus lies at
the gate, feeding on the crumbs that fall from
his table. The Gospel in its fulness is not

56 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
preached to the poor, i.e., the good news of the
kingdom of heaven upon earth.
The goal of the kingdom of heaven, the goal
of the holy catholic church, is a perfect order of
things in which all those of every nation who
should believe in Christ are to be gathered to
gether in one society, dedicated and intimately
united to God and made partakers of eternal
salvation. Let us now examine this same question of the
goal of the Church from a secular point of view.
We talk much of civilization. But what is
civilization ? We often identify it with what
are really only its instruments. Emerson has
somewhere said that no one has ever defined
civilization, but if you will take the trouble to
read the first lecture in the English translation
of M. Guizot's " History of Civilization," I think
you will find a perfectly clear and luminous
description of the essential features of civili
zation. "It appears to me," says Guizot, "that the
first fact comprised in the word civilization . .
is the fact of progress, of development ; it pre
sents at once the idea of a people marching
onward, not to change its place, but to change
its condition.
"The idea of progress, of development, ap
pears to me the fundamental idea of civiliza-

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 57
tion. What is this progress, what this devel
opment ?
" The etymology of the word would seem to
answer in a clear and satisfactory manner; it
says that it is the perfecting of civil life, the
development of society, properly so called, of
the relations of men among themselves.
" Such is, in fact, the first idea which presents
itself to the understanding when the word civil
ization is pronounced ; we at once figure forth to
ourselves the extension, the greatest activity,
the best organization of the social relations — on
the one hand, an increasing production of the
means of giving strength and happiness to so
ciety ; on the other, a more equitable distribu
tion, amongst individuals, of the strength."
But the historian goes on to show that this
development of the social relations is only one-
half of civilization. There is a development
other than that of the social life ; there is a
development of the "individual, internal life,
the development of man himself, of his faculties,
his sentiments, his ideas."17 " Two facts are com
prehended in this great fact ; it subsists on two
17 Cf. also Mackenzie, "An Introduction to Social Phi
losophy," p. 340 : " We must remember that the well-being
of mankind . . . consists of three main elements : (1)
The subjugation of nature, (2) the perfection of social
machinery, (3) personal development — and that a true pro
gress must include advancement in all."

58 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
conditions, and manifests itself by two symp
toms : the development of social activity and that
of individual activity ; the progress of society
and the progress of humanity. Wherever the
external condition of man extends itself, vivifies,
and ameliorates itself ; wherever the internal
nature of man displays itself with lustre, with
grandeur, at these two signs, and often despite
the profound imperfections of the social state,
mankind with loud applause proclaims civili
zation."18 Guizot declares that all history may be re
garded as a history of civilization. The great
crises of history are always crises of individual
or of social development ; facts which have
changed the internal man, his creed, his man
ners, his culture, or facts which have changed
his external relations with his fellows. And he
further expresses his eonviction that civiliza
tion, the gradual development of the individual
and of society, is a destined fact, what St. Paul
would call foreordained.
Now, the reason why I have drawn your at
tention to this apparently secular subject of
civilization, and to its secular treatment by a
secular historian, is because I want you to
observe how exactly what we may call the pro
gramme of humanity, as it is described by the
18 Guizot's " History of Civilization in Europe," Lecture I.

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 59
secular historian, corresponds with the pro
gramme of humanity as it is described in the
teaching of our Lord. We have seen that there
is an individualistic side to the Gospel. It aims
at the perfection of the individual. But we
have also seen that by the phrase, the kingdom
of heaven, Jesus indicated the perfection of the"
social relations of men, and a world-wide society
wherein they could be perfected.
If, in brief, the study of history by one of its
most brilliant exponents convinced him that the
goal of humanity is the perfect man in the per
fect state, we say that this is also the programme
of Christianity, and the claim of Christianity to
be the universal religion, and of the Christian
Church to be the universal society, is vindicated
by the observance of the correspondence be
tween its plan and programme and the plan
and programme of humanity which is revealed
in history.
And now, let us in concluding this lecture, see
how the results at which we have arrived stand
related to the subject of Christian Unity.
1. We have seen that the actual social rela
tions of men are highly imperfect, that the
great questions of our day are social questions,
and that the interest shown by all classes of
the community in social questions is an indica
tion of our consciousness of social imperfection.

60 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
2. In the next place, is it not equally clear
that the existing relations between the various
portions of the kingdom of heaven, between the
numerous churches about us, are equally imper
fect ? How far different organizations can
coexist within one Church, we shall inquire in
our next lecture, but no sensible and honest
man would describe the present condition of the
churches as even remotely resembling the king
dom of heaven as it is described in the New
Testament. The various churches, Roman
Catholic, Greek, Anglican, Presbyterian, Method
ist, Baptist, Congregationalist, are separate and
distinct organizations whose work is carried on
without any consultation, oftentimes with unex
pressed, it may be, but real antagonism, which
overlaps both at home and in the mission field,
whose expenditure of energy in controversial
work has been enormous, and whose expenditure
of money has sometimes, and is still, in many
places, a vast waste of money extracted with the
utmost difficulty from the pockets of the laity,
not because they are ungenerous or illiberal, but
because they feel that there is something wrong
with the whole method of conducting our
Christian operations. These various bodies
cannot be regarded either separately or all
together, as " the perfect order of things which
Jesus established in which all those of every

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 61
nation who should believe in Him were to be
gathered together in one society."
I do not forget the circumstances that have
led up to this unhappy state of things. I do not
wish to say that the blame lies here or there
more than anywhere else, but I do ask that men
shall not pretend that what is most imperfect is
really a satisfactory state of affairs. Do let us,
brethren, strive to understand and to know what
is the ideal of Jesus Christ. Let us not be
afraid to openly confess that very much in the
existing state of the kingdom is discordant
with that ideal. Do let us, then, with
humility and courage, with meekness and
sincerity, with an open and inquiring mind,
and yet with confidence, say, " I, for my
part, as a disciple of Christ, will never rest
satisfied with what is imperfect. I, as a
learner in the school of Christ, will seek to
know what is His will concerning the kingdom
of heaven, and though but the least in that
kingdom, will seek to realize its accomplish
ment." 3. And in the third place, is it not the case
that this imperfection of the social relation of
Christians has arisen from a one-sided view of
Christianity ? Is it not the case that individual
salvation has been preached in a one-sided way ?
Have we not largely forgotten that the salva-

62 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
tion of the individual is to some extent depend
ent upon the state of society in which the
individual lives ? And, therefore, it behooves
us now to turn our attention to the perfecting
of our social relations — in one word, to the unity
of Christendom.
We must, dear brethren, enlarge the horizon
of our vision. You know how, when you have
been in the city for weeks together, if you get
out some fine day to the country, a sense
of its largeness, its expanse, fills you with a
delight which you cannot describe but only feel.
And this feeling is intensified if from some
hill-top the eye can embrace a wide extent of
land and sea. It is, perhaps, the suggestion of
the infinite in nature that corresponds with the
infinite in ourselves, that produces this exhilar
ating effect upon us. And so, believe me, we
want sometimes to get in thought beyond the
four walls of our own Church, or the limits of
our own diocese, or of our own communion. We
want sometimes to imagine the fifteen hundred
millions of human beings, of every tribe, nation
and race; we want sometimes to realize the
magnificence of the design of the Almighty
for the generations upon generations of man
kind. Then our thoughts and ideas will be
expanded, and we shall see that the Church
is not a mere matter of buildings, and of this

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 63
or that kind of worship, of vestments or no
vestments, of extempore prayer or a liturgy,
but we shall see that it is the universal
society of ten thousand times ten thousand
men of various needs, capacities, opportuni
ties, powers, tastes, welded together into
one society for their mutual salvation. The
goal of the Church is not the perfection of
liturgy, or of organization, it is not found in
any of those multitudinous forms or ceremonies
which we call means of grace, but it is the
achievement of the perfect man, in the perfect
society. Nineteen centuries have passed away,
and the Christian Church has not, in the person
of any of its members, or in any of its divisions,
attained as yet to the height from which St.
Paul, like Moses of old on Mount Pisgah, sur
veyed the promised land. He, caught up by the
Spirit of God to the heights, still cries to us and
reports what he sees, and this is what he says :
" There is one body, and one Spirit. Even as
also ye were called, in one hope of your calling ;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all, who is over all, and through all,
and in all." And then he tells us what is the
ultimate goal of the Church: " Till we all attain
unto the unity of the faith, and of the know
ledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness

64 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
of Christ. . . . From whom all the body
fitly framed and knit together, through that
which every joint supplieth, according to the
working in due measure of each several part,
maketh the increase of the body unto the build
ing up of itself in love."19
18 Ephesians iv. 4-6, 13-16.

LECTURE III.
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY?
That Unity will be a mark of the perfected
church no one will deny. That Unity is an ideal
for whose realization there is a call to labor, most
serious people will agree. One of the first mem
bers and warmest supporters of the Canadian
Society of Christian Unity, in a letter upon this
subject, said : " I work with the society in the
conviction that we not only ought to be, but are,
essentially one, and that it is our duty and priv
ilege in all practicable ways to manifest that
unity." There is a measure of truth in this view ;
there is a large territory of common doctrine,
common hope, and in matters of philanthropy,
even of common action, occupied by the principal
communions of English Christianity. We are
essentially, that is, in essentials, one. Bishop
Cosin, reckoned amongst the High Church divines
of the seventeenth century, when writing his
last will declared himself as knit in spirit " to
all true Christians all the world over. In what
part of the world soever any churches are extant,
5 65

66 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
bearing the name of Christ and professing the
true catholic faith and religion, worshipping and
calling upon God, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost with one heart and voice, if any
where I be now hindered actually to be joined
with them, either by distance of countries, or
variance amongst men, or by any other lot what
soever, yet always in my mind and my affection
I join and unite with them ; which I desire to
be chiefly understood of Protestants, and the best
of the reformed churches ; for, where the foun
dations are safe, we may allow, and therefore
most friendly, quietly and peaceably suffer in
those churches where we have not authority, a
diversity, as of opinion, so of ceremonies, about
things which do not adhere to the foundations,
and are neither necessary nor repugnant to the
practice of the universal church."1
According to the view of my correspondent,
the problem of Christian Unity becomes the
problem of the manifestation of Christian Unity.
In other words, the practical question is greater
than the theoretical question.
Nevertheless, I do not altogether assent to this
view of the matter, which I cannot help thinking
indicates an imperfect estimate of the Church as
the universal society, which is not only pervaded
1 Boyd Carpenter, " Christian Reunion," p. 218.

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 67
by one spirit, but whose members are knit
together in a living body.
Whilst, then, it is not necessary to dwell at
any great length upon the doctrinal or ritual
questions connected with Christian Unity, for
no trouble is raised regarding the Apostles' and
Nicene creeds, or the sacraments of Baptism and
the Holy Communion, it is necessary to inquire
somewhat carefully into the nature of Christian
Unity, i.e., the Unity which is described first in
the teaching of Christ, and then in the teaching
of His apostolic interpreters.
The subject, then, of this lecture is, " What is
Christian Unity ? "
St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians and
elsewhere, regards Christianity as the culmina
ting point of a long period of preparation. He
describes it as " the mystery of Christ, which in
other generations was not made known unto the
sons of men, as it has now been revealed unto
His holy apostles and prophets in the spirit ; to
wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and fellow-
members of the body, and fellow-partakers of
the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gos
pel."2 Consider these words carefully, and you
will see that the mystery of Christ, i.e., the
doctrine of Christ, not known or understood of
previous ages, was the doctrine of a universal
8 phesians iii. iff.

68 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
society, "the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and
fellow-members {i.e., with the Jews) of the body."
But in the Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul
speaks of the law as being our tutor to bring us
to Christ, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the
same thought of a long preparation culminating
in the manifestation of the Son of God is clearly
expressed in its opening verses: "God, having
of old time spoken unto the fathers in the
prophets by divers portions and in divers man
ners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto
us in his Son." We may, then, reasonably ex
pect to find the mystery of Christ, the revelation
of the universal society made clearer by a
study of the pertinent points in the prepara
tory revelation given to the fathers through
the prophets.
The Old Testament may, for purposes of
study, be divided in various ways. We may
study it by books, or by periods, or by subjects.
For our present purpose we may notice how it
falls into two main divisions. In the first divi
sion it has to do with men grouped in families
— Adam and his family, Noah and his family
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. The Book of
Genesis is a book of families. Whatever of
revelation there is in that book is a revelation
made through the family. There was in that
early time no church and no nation, or rather

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 69
the family was the nation and the church in
germ.3 Must we not, then, conclude that in the
mind of God the family is a divine institution
equally with the Church, and that the under
standing of the family will help us to understand
the Church, and vice versa, the understanding of
the Church will help us to understand the family.
Unless we grasp this truth of the divine institu
tion of the family, the stories of the patriarchs
must appear childish and trivial, and we shall
not understand why, e.g., Isaac's journey to find
a wife, or Jacob's dealings with his sons, and
even some more unexpected things should form
a part of the divine revelation. Again, we notice
that revelation is social in its character. That
3 As against all theories which trace the origin of society
to some artificial or mechanical contrivance or arrangement
invented by men, the following quotations are interesting :
" Many writers begin with considering mankind as a mul
titude of units. They ask, ' How did any number of these
units form themselves into a society ? ' I cannot adopt that
method. At my birth I am already in a society. I am
related at least to a father and a mother. This relation is
the primary fact of my existence. I can contemplate no
other fact apart from it." — Maurice, "Social Morality,"
Lecture 2.
"We do not get first the idea of man, and then add to it
the further idea of society or the social union ; for man is
not man, the idea of human nature cannot be expressed apart
from the social relation in which alone that nature is real
ized."— J. Caird, "Philosophy of Religion," pp. 188, 189.

70 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
whilst it is perfectly true that God reveals him
self to individuals, it is equally true that His
greatest revelations come to men not as individu
als but as living in social relations. This is a
fact that has, as we shall see, a real bearing
upon the question of Unity. "Man," says Bishop
Westcott, " is made by and made for fellowship.
The Family, and not the individual, is the unit
of mankind." And again : " The Family is not
only an expression of divine law. It is, under
the conditions of earth, in some sense a reflection
of the divine nature. Every Family, every
Fatherhood, derives that in virtue of which it is
from the one Father. We must therefore strive
with reverent patience to enter into the meaning
of the Family, if we desire to understand the
divine conditions of our life."4
The second half of the Old Testament is
mainly taken up with the history of a Nation.
The Family has grown into a People. There is
as yet no Church, or we may say the Nation
is the Church. This Nation believes itself
to be divinely called, believes itself to be
bound together by a divine constitution. The
Hebrew represented his relations with the
Divine under the figure of covenants. In
Genesis we have family covenants ; in the Book
of Exodus we have the story of the national
¦* "Social Aspects of Christianity," pp. 21, 23.

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 71
covenant. The covenant is ratified by a solemn
ceremonial. " And he (Moses) took the book of
the covenant, and read in the audience of the
people : and they said, All that the Lord hath
spoken will we do, and be obedient. And Moses
took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people,
and said, Behold the blood of the covenant,
which the Lord hath made with you concerning
all these words."5
The Nation, then, no less than the Family,
stands out as a social organism, designed by
God to be one of the means through which
humanity should develop itself, and should press
on to that ' ' one far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves."
And if the Old Testament revelation of the divine
origin and significance of families will help us to
understand the divine origin and significance
of the Church, the same thing is equally true of
the Nation. This Nation, called of God to fulfil
a unique destiny, thought of itself as the king
dom of God, and regarded its king as God's vice
gerent. The revelations of God through pro
phets were national revelations ; the Messianic
prophecies are almost all clothed in a national
garb. And here again we may notice the social
significance of this national revelation, God re-
* Exodus xxiv. 7, 8.

72 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
vealing himself to men, guiding and directing
their lives through the medium of their relations
to one another as members of a commonwealth.
But men are not bound together only because
they are members of a common family, or
citizens in a commonwealth ; they are bound
together by the possession of a common nature.
And so "in the fulness of time" comes the
ultimate revelation of a universal society, the
Church, which, in idea and in intention, is co
extensive with the race. Along this line of
social religion, Christianity is the supreme and
unique revelation. There cannot be anything
greater or nobler in conception, or in realiza
tion, than the unity of the human race.
We notice that our Lord took up, as the key
note of His message, a familiar expression, the
kingdom of God. The Gospel itself is defined
as the good news of the kingdom of God.6 Our
Lord, however, gave it a wider connotation than
that in the minds of the exclusive Jews. And
this was one cause of His rejection by them.
They could not endure to be told that many
shall come from the east, and from the west,
and from the north, and from the south, and
sit down in the kingdom of heaven, but the
children of the kingdom should be cast out.7
In His teaching about the kingdom our Lord
0 Cf. Lecture II. 7 St. Matthew viii. 11.

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 73
gradually became more and more explicit.
The field is no longer the Holy Land, it is the
world.8 The leaven of the kingdom is to pene
trate the whole mass of humanity.9 The Gospel
of the kingdom is to be preached amongst all
nations.10 And finally comes the command,
"Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all
nations."11 The old elaborate national rites of the Jews
are replaced by two simple signs, adapted for
use in a universal society — Baptism, the ini
tiation into the society, with the symbolic use
of water, and the Holy Communion, token of
fellowship divine and human, in the simple
elements of bread and wine. The more one
studies the work of Jesus Christ and brings to
bear upon it the rays of light that stream from
the preparatory revelation of the Old Testament,
the more clearly do we see how the kingdom of
heaven is the last stage in a threefold revela
tion of human relations — the Family, the Nation,
the Church.
I have, in the previous lecture, spoken of the
relation of the kingdom of heaven of our
Saviour's teaching to the historical church.
The kingdom is the ideal, the Church is the
actual — the kingdom in course of realization.
8 St. Matthew xiii. 38. » » St. Matthew xxiv. 14.
* St. Matthew xiii. 33. 1X St. Matthew xxviii. 19.

74 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Now, this being so, I want to ask you to con
sider whether the unity of the Church must not
be similar to the unity of the family and of the
nation. The spiritual unity of the family and
of the nation are impaired and perhaps ulti
mately destroyed by division. So the spiritual
power of the Church must be injured, and unless
it be repaired, sooner or later destroyed by
division. In other words, Christian Unity, to be real,
must be manifested in some outward form.
" What the Church ought to possess," says Dr.
Milligan, " is a unity which the eye can see. If
she is to be a witness to her Risen Lord, she
must do more than talk of unity, more than
console herself with the hope that the world
will not forget the invisible bond by which it is
pleaded that all her members are bound together
into one. Visible unity in one form or another
is an essential mark of her faithfulness. Let it
be allowed that differently organised branches of
the one Church of Christ may exist in different
lands, or even in the same land ; they must
occupy such a relation to each other that their
unity shall be manifest to the world. There
must be intercommunion, mutual helpfulness —
even to a certain extent confederation — among
them. Unless it be so, the unity of the Church
of Christ is destroyed, and without it she cannot

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 75
fulfil her mission. . . . The world will never
be converted by a disunited Church."12
The result of this general view of the de
velopment of what we may call social revela
tion, is such as to convince us that for the
realization of the ideal of Jesus Christ, " The
Kingdom of Heaven," there must be a visible
unity of the Church, in a similar sense that the
unity of the family and the unity of the nation
is visible. We must now attempt to give a more detailed
description of this unity. It will, I trust, be
understood that in making this a.ttempt I do
not presume to offer more than suggestions, or
ideas which may perhaps serve as a basis for
further discussion.
It is often supposed that Christian Unity
means uniformity — uniformity of government,
and uniformity of worship. Perhaps this is
why the overtures of Anglicans towards other
communions have been received with a measure
of suspicion. They say, " We appreciate your
motives, of whose sincerity we have no doubt,
but the unity you propose does look to us like
absorption. No doubt you would offer us liberal
terms, but at bottom you aim to make us all
Anglicans." The popular mind expresses itself
12 Milligan, "The Resurrection of our Lord," pp. 206,
207.

76 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
in a rough-and-ready fashion thus : " The
Methodists will never give up extempore prayer,
or class-meetings, and the Anglicans will never
give up the Prayer Book, so all this talk about
unity is nonsense."
It is necessary, therefore, emphatically to deny
that Unity means uniformity of either govern
ment or worship. In this matter we must be
guided by the magnificent utterance of St. Paul :
" Now there are diversities of gifts, but the
same Spirit. And there are diversities of minis
trations, and the same Lord. And there are
diversities of workings, but the same God, who
worketh all things in all."13 Yet in the same
passage he compares the unity of the Church to
the unity of the human body. " For as the
body is one, and hath many members, and all
the members of the body, being many, are one
body ; so also is Christ."14
' The unity of the Church must first of all
consist in a unity of spirit. " Giving diligence,"
says St. Paul, " to keep the unity of the Spirit."
And so in our Prayer Book, when praying for
the Catholic Church, the first thing we ask is,
1 3 1 Corinthians xii. iff.
14 1 Corinthians xii. 12. Cf. Boyd Carpenter, "Christian
Reunion," p. 14: " The expectation of reunion on the basis
of uniformity is thus neither likely nor desirable. It is also
uncatholic. In the best days of the Church this principle of
variety was understood and recognized. "

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 77
" that all who profess and call themselves Chris
tians may be led into the way of truth, and hold
the faith in unity of Spirit."
Now, I do not dwell at any great length upon
this point, because, whilst it is the fundamental
necessity of all, one rejoices to feel that in a
large and growing measure we already possess
that spirit. As the correspondent to whom I
referred at the opening of this lecture says, " We
are essentially one." The problem is, How can
we manifest that unity ?
1. In the outward manifestations of unity
then, whilst there may be diversity in details of
government and of worship, there must be some
central body, to which certain important matters
shall be referred. That central body need have
no more to do with the affairs of the various
bodies of Christians than the Government at
Ottawa has to do with the Province of Ontario.
Within its purview only such matters would come
as affected the interest of the Church as a whole.
But it seems clear that in breaking new ground
at home, or in foreign missionary work abroad,
some such body would be necessary for the
avoidance of some of the evils of to-day, both
at home and abroad — the evils of overlapping,
with its consequent rivalries, waste of money,
and dissipation of energy.
2. In the outward and visible manifestation

78 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
of unity, there must be some association of
various churches in our large towns, or in the
counties. Already the way is paved for these.
We have ministerial associations, and in the
country districts the Sunday School workers are
in most parts thoroughly organised ; and I can
bear testimony not only to the excellent work
that is done by these Sunday School associa
tions, but to their value in promoting Christian
unity. But the Ministerial Association at pres
ent only considers the theoretical side of the
Church's work and the minister's duties. It
meets for the discussion of theological questions.
Occasionally, perhaps, it oversteps these bounds,
but in a united church it would have to deal
with the practical questions connected with the
practical work of the Church. It is just here
that difficult questions would arise. But it is
not claimed that Christian Unity would at once
realize the millennium. It is quite true that
there would be thorny questions, disputed points,
and practical problems of many kinds. Hence
we must not be too eager to see the consumma
tion of Unity. The movement for Unity is a
movement that must grow; it is a movement
which must have strongly commended itself to
the hearts and minds of the people before it is
realized. The walls of our City of God must
not be built with untempered mortar, otherwise

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 79
of a surety they will soon fall down. Whilst
we may and must see visions and dream dreams
of the Golden Age to come, yet in practical
affairs we must echo the poet's words :
" I do not ask to see
The distant scene ; one step enough for me."
3. With provision made for a central repre
sentative and for local councils, there would be
nothing inconsistent with unity in the continued
existence of Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist
and Baptist churches. It is probable that for a
long time to come, at least, these four types
would continue to exist. I have in these re
marks reference to Canada only. Some of the
smaller communions might at once coalesce with
one or other of these — the Congregationalists,
for example, with the Presbyterians. And one
of the problems connected with the extension of
unity would be the gradual bringing into unity
of some bodies that probably would at first hold
aloof, such as, for example, the Christian Alli
ance, or the Salvation Army.
4. In a united church of this kind, it is prob
able that each branch would come to appreciate
and profit by the excellences of the others. The
minds of some are prejudiced against the Angli
can Liturgy, simply because it is regarded as a
badge of division, or a mark of exclusiveness.
With the disappearance of this prejudice, it

80 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
might come to be universally appreciated as
one form of service suitable for all Christians.
Anglicans, on the other hand, would lose their
prejudice against extemporaneous forms of wor
ship, and might come to see how universally
good this form of worship (clearly primitive)
might be at certain times. There seems to me
to be nothing unlikely in the supposition that
the day may come when, for example, in the
morning, we may have a grand united morning
prayer or Holy Communion service after the
Anglican type; in the afternoon, in the same
building, a preaching service, in which the ser
mon or lecture shall be the special feature,
and in the evening, in the same building, a
popular evangelistic service, with extempora
neous prayer, popular hymns, and hortatory or
revival addresses. In such a way we might
derive all the advantages and avoid the evils of
those various methods.
It is probably clear to you all that w hat I have
been describing is a federation of the churches.
And let us not forget that federation is a very
strong form of unity, and peculiarly adapted to
our own times. We live under a federal gov
ernment. The United States is a federation, and
it is not improbable that the British Empire will
become a federation of states. That this is the
form in which Unity will be realized I am

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 81
strongly convinced, and there are many signs
that it is actually in course of realization.16
In England the Nonconformist communions
have succeeded in forming what is called " The
National Council of the Evangelical Churches."
It is a representative body formed to discuss
matters of common interest, and to combine for
certain common objects. It is, in short, the
beginning of a federation. Its constitution de-
fines the objects of the movement in the follow
ing terms : (a) To facilitate intercourse and co
operation among the Evangelical Free Churches.
(b) To assist in the organization of local coun
cils, (c) To encourage devotional fellowship
and mutual counsel concerning the spiritual life
and religious activities of the churches, (d) To
advocate the New Testament doctrine of the
Church, and to defend the rights of the associ
ated churches, (e) To promote the application
of the law of Christ in every relation of human
life. Since the above was written an interesting
account of a similar movement in New York
City has been published, called "The Federa
tion of Churches and Christian Workers in
New York City." Some highly important facts
were revealed in a house-to-house visitation of
the 21st Assembly, which has a population of
1 6 For the development of this idea cf. Lecture VI.
6

82 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
50,000. For example, it was discovered that 48
per cent, of the Protestants of a district, not by
any means in the poorest part of the city, were
not attached to any congregation. On the other
hand, only 12 per cent, of the Roman Catholics
were unattached, although the church accommo
dation of the Protestants was greatly in excess
of that of the Roman Catholics. Surely this
fact goes far to show how unreliable is the oft-
repeated statement that competition amongst
the churches increases the effectiveness of their
work. The work of the Federation has been so
successful that a movement is now under way
for the permanent organization of a National
Federation of Churches.16
Or, as a sign of the times, I turn to the United
States, and read that at the fifth annual conven
tion of the open and institutional Church, held
at Worcester, Mass., on November 2nd, 1898,
the federation of the American churches was
discussed under three heads, when Rev. Dr.
Hagerman, of New York, " stirred every heart
by his powerful presentation of the opportunity
that now offers for bringing the Christian and
denominational forces of the country into feder
ative relations."17
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Andrews, formerly presi-
1 6 Cf. New York Churchman, July 15th, 1899.
17 The Outlook, November 26th, 1898.

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 83
dent of Brown University, who is, I believe, a
Baptist, and who delivered a lecture at the Union
Theological Seminary, New York, on " The Sin
of Schism," is a federationist, and makes some
practical suggestions. The result of a policy
of federation would, he thinks, be such that
" instead of many a spindling plant, each town
would soon have at least one strong church
with an able ministry, a flourishing Sunday
School, good music and desirable accommoda
tions of every kind. Cold Christians and the
worldly would be attracted, unbelief would be
matched and the kingdom of God would grow
apace. Feeble, dying churches will be far less
numerous in our hamlets and border settle
ments; city congregations will cease to crowd
each other ; co-operation will supplant rivalries ;
all missionary fields will be cultivated up to
the limit of the resources of the total church;
immense economies in the way of theological
teaching, and missionary, educational and phil
anthropic machinery will be introduced, and the
Golden Age of perfected humanity be hastened
in a thousand ways."1 8
It is, of course, quite possible that in time
the federation of churches would give way to
some form of closer union still. For my part I
1 8 " Church Unity. " Five lectures delivered in the Union
Theological Seminary, New York, 1896.

84 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
believe the day will come when the names
Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and
Congregationalist will cease, and when there
shall be one church of the English-speaking
people, a church which in its turn may be feder
ated with other racial or national churches. But
meantime, federation of the different communions
amongst us appears to be the practical goal
that is already within sight, towards which all
who believe in unity should press forward.
And now, in concluding this lecture, I should
like, in order that we may more intelligently work
towards one goal, to indicate what are the fun
damental ideas of any possible unity amongst
the reformed churches of the English-speaking
people. 1. The underlying and guiding idea which has
really directed the internal movements of the
progressive nations of the world during the past
four hundred years, has been that of liberty,
both political and religious. The idea of liberty
in reality underlies the reformation doctrine of
the direct communion of the individual soul
with God. Political liberty was the moving
cause of the great struggles between the Crown
and the Parliament of England in the seven
teenth century. However much it came to be
abused, liberty was in truth one of the great
watchwords of the French Revolution.

WHATSIS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 85
But it is in England, in the spheres of both
Church and State, that this development of the
movement for libertj* can be most profitably
studied. A writer quoted by Lord Acton in his
lecture on "The Study of History," describes the
three great reforms that have renewed England
as religious liberty, parliamentary reform and
economic freedom.
One of the characteristics of movements of
permanent influence is development. A genuine
idea manifests itself in the growth of its appli
cation to practical life. The idea is like the
germ, which contains within it all that hereafter
shall spring out of it ; but like the seed, it must
first take root downwards before it bear fruit
upward. And this has been characteristic of
the development of English liberty :
" It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose ;
A land where, girt with friends or foes,
A man may speak the thing he will.
' ' A land of settled government,
A land of old and just renown
Where Freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent. "
And again :
" Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet ;
Above her shook the starry lights ;
She heard the torrents meet.

86 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
" There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gathered in her prophet mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
"Then stepped she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men revealed
The fulness of her face."
Therefore we ought to lay it down as a fun
damental principle, that no proposals for Unity
have the slightest prospect of success which do
not lay down as one of its foundation stones the
necessity of liberty. Any terms or proposals
that neglect to take full account of the modern
doctrine of liberty, are in reality reactionary and
not progressive. And when we bring our faith
in liberty to the test of the New Testament, our
hearts must leap within us when we find that
liberty is indeed a key-note of the Gospel. " The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me," cried our Lord in
His first recorded sermon, " because he anointed
me to preach good tidings to the poor : he hath
sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and
recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord."19 " If ye abide in my word,
then are ye truly my disciples ; and ye shall
18 St. Lukeiv. 18.

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 87
know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free."20 " The aim of Jesus Christ was to make all men
free. He saw around Him servitude in every
form — man in slavery to man, and race to race ;
His own countrymen in bondage to the Romans ;
slaves, both of Jewish and Roman masters,
frightfully oppressed; men trembling before
priestcraft, and those who were politically and
ecclesiastically free, in worse bondage still ; the
rich and rulers slaves to their own passions.
Conscious of His inward Deity and His Father's
intentions, He, without hurry, without the excite
ment which would mark the mere earthly liber
ator, calmly said, " Ye shall be free."21
And St. Paul, with his magnificent insight into
this element of the Gospel message, utters the
splendid saying, " Where the spirit of the Lord
is there is liberty."22 But it is not merely in a
few proof texts that we find our idea of liberty
contained in the Bible (whence in truth, con
sciously or unconsciously, men have derived it),
but it is rooted in Christianity itself, for Chris
tianity is not a religion of precepts or laws, but
of principles, and principles must be absorbed
by the heart, and it is only the free spirit that
20 St. John viii. 31, 32.
" Robertson of Brighton, "Freedom by the Truth."
22 2 Corinthians iii. 17.

88 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
can take up and embrace principles. You may
impose actions upon men by force of arms or of
intellectual or spiritual servitude, but you can
not compel men to embrace principles. Free
dom is essential to the highest development of
Christianity. And again, Christianity teaches
the doctrine of God's fatherhood and man's son-
ship. But in proportion as man realizes his
sonship, he realizes his freedom. " Ye received
not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but
ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we
cry, Abba, Father."23 Hence the unity of Christ's
kingdom must be the unity of free men, inspired
by the spirit of brotherhood.
2. And this brings us to the second idea which
must underlie the coming unity, namely, the
idea of love. At first sight liberty seems to be
opposed to love, but it is not so. They are com
plementary ideas. He who cherishes freedom
selfishly, who understands by it the power to do
what he likes, will inevitably become the slave
of his own passions. Liberty must be inter
preted in connection with our whole human
nature. And it is an essential condition of
humanity to stand in social relations. Man finds
his perfect development only in recognition of
his relations as a member of the family, of the
nation, of the race. And here, too, it is scarcely
2 3 Romans viii. 15.

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 89
necessary to point out how entirely this idea
accords with — being, indeed, derived from — the
New Testament. The idea of service is funda
mental to Christianity. And the service is not
that of slaves, but the free, mutual service of
brothers. It springs not out of compulsion but
out of love. And just as in the Epistle to the
Galatians St. Paul works out the idea of the
liberty of the sons of God, so in that to the
Ephesians, he works out the idea of a unity
based upon love. " I, therefore, the prisoner in
the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the
calling wherewith ye are called, with all lowli
ness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbear
ing one another in love ; giving diligence to
keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of
peace. There is one body and one spirit, even
as also ye were called, in one hope of your call
ing ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, who is over all, and through
all, and in all. . . . And he gave some to
be apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some
evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for
the perfecting of the saints, unto the work
of ministering, unto the building up of the body
of Christ : till we all attain unto the unity of
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ. . . From

90 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
whom all the body fitly framed and knit
together through that which every joint sup
plieth, according to the working in due measure
of each several part, maketh the increase of the
body unto the building up of itself in love."24
And thus we can see why it is impossible that
reformed Christendom should ever accept the
invitation of the Roman Church to find unity
within its pale. For the unity it offers is, in
truth, not based upon either liberty or love. It
is not a unity of sons, but a unity of servants.
The Church is one because its people are not
free, and it is possible to pay too great a price
even for unity.
The religious problem which emerges at the
end of this nineteenth century, and which will,
I believe, be solved in the twentieth century, is
this — to discover the true nature of Christian
24 That these two ideas both underlie the Reformation is
pointed out by Ritschl: "In order to express accurately
the one principle of the Church Reformation, we must take
the thought of the certainty of salvation in the individual
believer — a certainty which is independent of and rises above
all mentionable instrumentalities, being determined solely by
Christ ; and, on the other hand, the thought of the commu
nity of believers under Christ — a community appointed and
foreordained by Christ." — "Justification and Reconcilia
tion," pp. 157, 158.
Protestantism has developed the first principles, but not
the second. Hence its weakness on the social side, and the
emergence of all sorts of social problems at the present time.

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNITY? 91
Unity. The problem is not an easy one, but
with God all things are possible. I venture to
submit to you that the unity of liberty and love
is the only possible unity. Only let Protestant
ism devote itself with faith and zeal to this
task, and then shall come to pass the eloquent
prediction of the Bishop of Ripon :
" The religion of the future will be neither
Catholic nor Protestant, but simply Christian.
The dogmas which have separated communion
from communion, will fall off, as autumn leaves
before the fresh winds of God. . . . The
Church of God will renew its strength. . . .
It will not need any longer Trent, or West
minster, or Lambeth, or the Vatican to lead it.
It will be satisfied with ;;impler thoughts and a
purer faith. It will be satisfied to realize that
there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one
God and Father of us all."26
26 Bishop of Ripon's opening address at the Bradford
Church Congress, 1898.

LECTURE IV.
THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE.
The so-called Chicago-Lambeth Articles pro
pose to the Christian world four terms of unity.
As expressed by the general convention of the
Protestant Episcopal Church of the United
States, in the year 18S6, these are :
1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments, as the revealed Word of God.
2. The Nicene Creed, as the sufficient state
ment of the Christian Faith.
3. The two sacraments — Baptism and the
Supper of the Lord — ministered with the unfail
ing use of Christ's words of institution, and of
the elements ordained by Him.
4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in
the methods of its administration to the varying
needs of the nations and peoples called of God
into the Unity of His Church.
Of these, the first three would be generally
accepted by most of the principal bodies of re
formed Christendom, but the Historic Episcopate
92

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 93
is apparently an insurmountable barrier to
unity. The subject is one of great delicacy and
difficulty, because of the divergence of opinion
upon this subject within the Anglican com
munion, and at first it was my intention to omit
any consideration of it from this course of
lectures, but it afterwards seemed to me, that to
leave out the discussion of the most difficult
problem was to play the part of cowardly
unfaith. Since the year 1886, much has been
written upon the subject of the Christian min
istry, and albeit, to the superficial observer we
may appear to be as much at a dead-lock as
ever, I hope to be able to show that there are
some prospects of a mutual understanding
between the High Churchman, on the one side,
and the various Protestant communions on the
other. It is obviously impossible to treat fully in
two lectures the subject of the Christian minis
try. What I propose to attempt is to discuss
carefully the scriptural view of the Church;
secondly, to glance at the subsequent develop
ments during the first three centuries, and then
thirdly, to attempt to sum up the attitude of the
Church of England towards this question.
In the consideration of the scriptural view of
the organization of the Christian Church, we
must begin with the four Gospels. And here

94 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
the first thing to notice is the absence of any
recorded instructions of a definite character by
our Lord to the apostles. "There is no trace of
bishop, presbyter, deacon, metropolitan, patriarch
or pope in any of the four Gospels."1 Neverthe
less there are, as we have already seen, certain
indications of the intention of our Lord to found
a church, and an organized church. And all the
evidence points to the fact that this organiza
tion was, in the beginning, analogous to that
of the Jewish synagogue, and not to that of the
Jewish temple. "The synagogue," says Dr.
Plumptre, " was the order with which the first
Christian believers were most familiar, from
which they were most likely to take the out
lines, or even the details, of the worship, organi
zation, government of their own society. Widely
divergent, as the two words and things they
represented afterwards became, the Ecclesia had
its starting point in the synagogue."2 The same
writer in summing up his remarks on the organ
ization of the synagogue, says : " It will be seen
1Cf. Stanley, "Christian Institutions," chap. 10.
2Plumptre, Art. Synagogue, "Diet, of Bible." But this
divergence did not exist at first. Cf. St. James ii. 2. The
term ' ' synagogue " was applied to Christian meetings by
Ignatius, Ep. ad Trail., u. 5, ad Polyc, c. 3. It is used of
the churches by Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6. See also
Scheurer, "The Jewish People in the Time of Christ," II.,
ii., p. 58.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 95
at once how closely the organization of the syn
agogue was reproduced in that of the Ecclesia."
The beginning of this correspondence can cer
tainly be traced to the directions of our Lord
himself. At first He taught everywhere in the
synagogues; but at last, the opposition of the
Jews reached its climax in excommunication.
The decision of the Jews, "that if any man
should confess him to be Christ, he should be
put out of the synagogue,"3 implies that Jesus
himself and His disciples were excommuni
cated.4 This placed the followers of Jesus in a
position of entire separation from the nation
of which they had hitherto formed a part. It
was at about this time that St. Peter made his
famous confession, in response to which Jesus
said, " Upon this rock I will build my church."
At the same time came the famous commission,
first to St. Peter, then to the other apostles,
"I will give unto thee the keys of the king
dom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt
bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven ; and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth it shall
be loosed in heaven." This power, which has
been so strangely misunderstood because men
have not asked the obvious question, " How
3 St. John ix. 22.
* For what follows, cf. Skene, in his introductory chapter
to Bickell's "Lord's Supper and the Passover Ritual."

96 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
would the twelve themselves have understood
this saying ? " was one exercised continually by
the officers of the synagogue. " No other terms,"
says Edersheim, " were in more constant use in
Rabbinic Canon Law than those of 'binding'
and ' loosing.' The words are the literal transla
tion of the Hebrew equivalents, 'Asar,' which
means 'to bind,' in the sense of prohibiting, and
' Hittir,' which means ' to loose,' in the sense of
permitting. For the latter, the term ' Shera ' or
' Sheri ' is also used. But this expression is,
both in Targumic and Talmudic diction, not
merely the equivalent of permitting, but passes
into that of remitting or pardoning. On the
other hand, 'binding' and 'loosing' referred
simply to things or acts, prohibiting or else per
mitting them, declaring them lawful or unlawful.
. . . These two powers, the legislative and
the judicial, which belonged to the Rabbinic
office, Christ now transferred ... to His
apostles — the first here to Peter, as their repre
sentative ; the second, after His resurrection, to
the Church."6
Again, when our Lord said, " If thy brother
sin against thee, go and tell him his fault, be
tween thee and him alone ; if he shall hear thee,
thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will
6 Edersheim, " Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah," II.,
pp. 84, 85. St. John xx. 23.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 97
not hear thee, then take with thee one or two
more, that in the mouth of two or three wit
nesses every word may be established. And if
he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the
church,''6 he was adapting to the use of the
Christian church a custom of the Jewish syna
gogue. " Their rule was that any one against
whom a sin had been committed must deliver
his soul by reproving his brother; and if he
could not bring him back to the right way, he
must reprove him before witnesses, so that they
might testify that he against whom the sin was
committed, used due reproof, the witnesses also
adding their friendly admonition; and if the
offender hearkened not unto them, then they
made proclamation concerning him in the syna
gogues for four Sabbaths."7
Yet once more, by the custom of the Jews
there could be no synagogue unless there were
ten men of leisure who could attend its services
regularly, and it came to be a belief among them
that unless these ten men were present, their
prayers in the synagogue were not heard by
God. But Jesus vindicates the efficacy of com
mon prayer without any condition as to num
bers ; for He said that if even "two of you shall
agree on earth as touching any thing that they
« St. Matthew xviii. 17.
7 Skene, in his introductory chapter, ut sup. p. 15.
7

98 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father
which is in heaven. For where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I
in the midst of them."8
Upon this testimony one or two remarks must
be made. In the first place we may notice that
the later analogy between the church and the
temple with its Levitical priesthood is entirely
unfounded.9 It is a mere coincidence that bishop,
presbyter and deacon numerically correspond to
the high priest, priest and Levite. There is no
real parallel between them. There is at least an
apparent, and perhaps a real, analogy between
the chief or ruler of the synagogue, the board or
college of elders, and the receivers of alms10 and
the primitive bishop with his presbyters and
deacons. Secondly, the idea of succession, or of
continuity through an order of men, specially
consecrated, does not belong to the Jewish syna
gogue. The prayers, lessons and sermons could
be undertaken by any one appointed by the ruler
of the synagogue, or even without such appoint
ment, as several familiar passages in the New
Testament, as well as the evidence of the Tal
mud, prove. And, thirdly, we require very
8 Skene, in his introductory chapter, ut sup. pp. 15, 16.
* It belongs to the time of Cyprian. Cf. Lightfoot,
"Epistle to Philippians," p. 256/.
10 Cf. Scheurer, "The Jewish People in the Time of
Christ," pp. 65, 66.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 99
strong evidence from the Acts of the Apostles
and from the apostolic epistles, that the idea of
succession of the order, especially consecrated
was entertained by the apostles, before we can
set aside such strong indirect testimony of the
Gospels. We may, perhaps, anticipate a little,
to quote here the words of Professor Hort on this
head : " The true way, the apostolic way of
regarding offices and officers in the Ecclesia is
to regard them as organs of its corporate life
for especial purposes, so that the offices of an
Ecclesia at any period are only part of its
organization. . . . There is no trace in the
New Testament that any ordinances on this
subject were prescribed by the Lord, or that
any such ordinances were set up as permanently
binding by the Twelve, or by St. Paul, or by
the Ecclesia at large."11
But there is a further question connected with
this part of our subject, viz., "To whom were
the various powers referred to above com
mitted ? Was it to the apostles alone, or to the
apostles as representatives of the Church ? "
Take the famous passage, St. John xx. 23 :
" Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whose soever
sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them ;
and whose soever sins ye retain, they are
retained." Bishop Westcott, the foremost Eng-
11 "Ecclesia," p. 230,

100 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
lish commentator on the Gospel of St. John,
shows good reason for supposing that they were
not uttered to the apostles only but also to an
indefinite number of disciples with them. For
the appearance of our Lord here recorded is, in
all probability, parallel with that of St. Luke
xxiv. 33jf, where we read that the eleven were
gathered together and them that were with
them, i.e., other disciples.
But whether this be the case or not, both
Bishop Westcott and the late Professor Hort
are agreed that this and other commissions
were given to the apostles, not as exclusive
representatives of the ministry, but as the
representatives of the whole Church of which
they were the nucleus. "The main thought,"
says Westcott, " which the words convey is
that of the reality of the power of absolution
from sin granted to the Church, and not of
the particular organization through which the
power is administered. . . . The commis
sion . . . must be regarded properly as
the commission of the Christian society, and not
as that of the Christian ministry."12 So Dr.
Hort says : " The Apostolic age is full of embodi
ments of purpose and principles of the most
instructive kind, but the responsibility of choos
ing the means was left forever to the Ecclesia
1 2 Westcott on St. John in loc.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 101
itself, and to each Ecclesia, guided by ancient
precedent on the one hand, and adaptation to
present and future needs on the other."13 " Dr.
Hort," says Prof. Armitage Robinson, one of his
old pupils, "believes that authority for deter
mining the method of government and adminis
tration is lodged by Christ in the Church as a
whole."14 Now, this view finds very strong support in
the description of St. Paul's dealings with a
flagrant offender in the Corinthian Church.
This man had been guilty of a heinous offence.
The Church of Corinth, which during the Apos
tle's absence had degenerated, had taken no
notice of the matter. St, Paul, as the spiritual
overseer, instructs them what to do. In the
sentence passed upon the offender he associates
the whole Church, no mention being made of
clergy at all, whilst throughout the passage it is
implied that the Church ought to have dealt
with the case without his intervention. " In the
name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered to
gether, and my spirit, with the power of our
Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan
for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."16
13 " Ecclesia," pp. 232, 233.
14 Guardian, March 9th, 1898. Cf. the whole passage.
1 6 1 Corinthians v. 4, 5.

102 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
This case is the more interesting in that we know
the sequel. St. Paul makes reference to the same
man in his second epistle, written some months
later. The offender had repented, and the Apos
tle urges his restoration. But mark how he
implies that everything that had been done, and
was to be done, was done by the Church at
large. " Sufficient to such a one is this punish
ment which was inflicted by ihe many ; so that
contrariwise ye should rather forgive him and
comfort him, lest by any means such a one
should be swallowed up with his overmuch
sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you to confirm
your love toward him. For to this end also did
I write that I might know the proof of you,
whether ye are obedient in all things."16
The concluding verse, here quoted, does not
imply absolute authority, which would be in
consistent with what precedes and follows, but
is to be interpreted with reference to the fact
that the loyalty of the Church of Corinth to
St. Paul had been disturbed. " Obedient " is,
therefore, equivalent to " loyal." " But to
whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also."17
In this famous case the seat of authority is
the whole Church. No doubt the Apostle has
a lofty authority, too ; but it was of the kind
which Dr. Hort attributes to the twelve. " Their
16 2 Corinthians ii. 6-9. 17 2 Corinthians ii. 10.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 103
commission was to be witnesses of [Christ]
himself, and to bear that witness by preaching
and by healing. But it is inconceivable that
the moral authority with which they were thus
clothed, and the uniqueness of their position and
personal qualifications, should not, in all these
years, have been accumulating upon them by
the spontaneous homage of the Christians of
Judea, an ill-defined but lofty authority in mat
ters of government and administration."18
There is, however, yet one point connected
with the indications of church organization
found in the Gospel. However true it is, it
may be said, that the Christian Church was
founded upon the Jewish synagogue, we must
remember that there are two rites in the Church
of Christ that do not come from the synagogue,
viz., Baptism and the Holy Communion. We may
admit the right to preach or teach without dis
tinct apostolic commission, but we cannot allow j/"
to any the right to celebrate or administer the
Lord's Supper. Here, too, it is added, is the
point of contact between the Christian Church
and the Temple with its priests and sacrifices,
for the Holy Communion springs out of the
Jewish Passover.
Here we must notice, first, that it is doubtful
whether the meal of ' which our Lord partook I
18 Hort's "Ecclesia," p. 84.

104 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
was the regular paschal meal ;19 secondly, that no
mention is made of any lamb at the Last Supper,
i.e., the part of the Passover with which the
priest had to do ; thirdly, that our Lord delib
erately instituted the Supper in that which
was not part of the sacrifice proper, but only
its accompaniment.
In the fourth place there is not the slightest
ground in Scripture for supposing that the
administration of the Holy Communion requires
any different authority from that of baptizing,
preaching, or teaching. Indeed we might claim,
although I do not press the point, that it requires
less authority, for whereas, when our Lord
departed from the earth He commissioned the
eleven to go and " make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them into the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost:
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you,"20 nothing is said about
the Holy Communion at all. Yet we know
that Baptism administered by a layman is
admitted to be valid, provided it be admin
istered in the form appointed by our Lord.
There is no ground in Scripture whatever for
the drawing of a line of distinction between the
administration of Baptism and that of the Holy
1 ° Cf. Archdeacon Watkins in Ellicott's Commentary on
the New Testament.
20 St. Matthew xxviii. 19, 20.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 105
Communion. There is, so far as I can see, not
the slightest ground in Scripture (and bear in
mind the Anglican view of Scripture), for
sajTing that the Baptism of the Presbyterian or
Methodist or other organized communion of
Christians is valid, but that their administra
tion of the Lord's Supper is invalid.
From the testimony of the Gospels we pass
to that of the Acts and the apostolic epistles.
Here it will be necessary to select, but I think
the conclusions reached will not be such as can
be invalidated by the testimony of any passage
omitted. Professor Hort, in his "Ecclesia," maintains
that the commission of the apostles was not a
commission to govern, but " to be witnesses of
[Christ] himself and to bear that witness by
preaching and healing." With this agrees the
account of the selection of an apostle to take the
place of Judas Iscariot. The candidates were
chosen with especial view to their qualifications
as witnesses. " Of the men therefore which have
companied with us all the time that the Lord
Jesus went in and went out among us, begin
ning from the baptism of John, unto the day
that he was received up from us, of these must
one become a witness with us of his resurrec
tion."21 21 Actsi. 21.

106 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
From this we pass on to the sixth chapter of
the Acts, which records the institution of the
Diaconate. The circumstances connected with
this event show clearly that the apostles had
no predetermined scheme of a threefold min
istry, but that the institution of the Diaconate
was the outcome of especial circumstances and
was designed to meet especial needs. " Eccles
iastical organization proper arises under forms
determined by experience."22
Of the institution of the presbyterate there is
no record whatever. The presbyters of the
Primitive Church almost certainly correspond
to the Jewish elders of the synagogue. " There
is no evidence that the leaders of the new
Ecclesia devolved on any local officers, functions
substantially other than those of elders of a
synagogue in the old Israel."23 That the Acts
of the Apostles supports the doctrine that the
whole Church is the seat of authority (an author
ity, of course, exercised in every society by
qualified officers), seems to follow from a study
of Acts xv. When a council is summoned, the
apostles, despite their altogether unique posi
tion, do not act as the absolute rulers of the
Church, but first we are told that " the apostles
and elders were gathered together to consider of
22 Bartlet and Carlyle, Contemporary Review, August, 1898.
23 Ut sup.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 107
this matter." (Acts xv. 6.) And then, when, in
the presence of the whole congregation (verse
12), the matter had been discussed, " it seemed
good to the apostles and elders with the whole
Church, to choose men out of their company and
send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas "
(verse 22). The letter which is sent to Antioch
is not addressed to any church officers, but to
the Church in general. " The apostles and elder
brethren to the brethren which are of the
Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia"
(verse 23.)
A candid study of these and other passages,
with a view to understanding the conceptions
of the Apostolic age, leads to the conclusion that
the ideas of Apostolical Succession, or even of
clergy and laity as separate orders, were not,
as yet, born, and that organization was an
altogether secondary consideration.
Nor do we find anything inconsistent with
these conclusions in the epistles.
Consider for a moment the circumstances of
the Church of Corinth, when St. Paul wrote to
it his first letter. He had spent a year and a
half there, surely long enough to have not only
made a large number of converts, but to have
thoroughly organized the Church; and yet,
despite the fact that divisions and disorders
were rife in the Church of Corinth, that letter

108 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
is not addressed to any officers or ministers at
all, whether bishops, presbyters, or deacons, but
unto the " Church of God, which is at Corinth,
even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints, with all that call upon the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place."
It is inconceivable that a modern bishop
should write to any church amongst us, under
similar circumstances, without especial mention
of the ministry. In 1 Corinthians xvi. 16, and
again in 1 Thessalonians v. 12, reference is
made to the ministering brethren, and the
apostle exhorts, not commands, his readers " to
be in subjection unto such, and to every one that
helpeth in the work and laboreth"; and again,
" to know them that labor among you, and are
over you in the Lord, and admonish you ; and to
esteem them exceeding highly in love for their
work's sake," but there is no mention of an
authoritative commission, and the context and
the larger context of the whole letters exclude
any such notion. But there are one or two
passages in the epistles which the older writers
on the ministry either entirely overlooked
or of which they failed to perceive the true
significance. There are certain passages in which a direct
divine appointment is assigned to certain min
isters in the Church. Thus, in 1 Corinthians

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 109
xii. 28, we read : " God hath set some in the
Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly
teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings,
helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues."
And again in Ephesians iv. 11 : "And he gave
some to be apostles ; and some, prophets ; and
some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teach
ers." But the striking thing to notice is that
as orders of a ministry (if they ever were
orders), every one of these has passed away,
and, on the other hand, there is no mention at
all of bishops, presbyters or deacons. Now,
let us suppose that the text had run, "God
hath set some in the Church, first, bishops ;
secondly, presbyters ; thirdly, deacons," then we
might indeed have drawn from it the deduc
tion that these were of divine appointment, and
that it would be sacrilegious even to hint that
any other form of ministry could be valid. And
yet, we should have been wrong in making that
deduction. For although God set apostles, pro
phets, teachers, helps, men with gifts of healing
and of tongues, yet these have all passed away,
or at all events their offices have undergone
transformation.24 Somewhat later than the time when 1 Corin
thians was written, viz., in the Epistle to the
24 On Prophets, see Allen, "Christian Institutions," or
any recent monograph on the Christian Ministry.

110 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Philippians, we have mention of bishops and
deacons, but these bishops are equivalent to
presbyters and not successors of the apostles.
In the pastoral epistles we have somewhat elab
orate directions concerning the ministry, from
which it is clear that the importance of organiza
tion is growing, but there is nothing, so far as I
am aware, that is in contradiction with Professor
Armitage Robinson's conclusion that "Church
order is from the beginning a sacred growth,
directed by the constant presence within of the
Holy Spirit, so as to meet the needs of a living
and multiplying society ; it is not a scheme
delivered by the Lord to the apostles, and by
the apostles to the Church. The body of Christ
is an organism rather than an organization."26
With regard to the significance of the laying on
of hands, Hort says : " Jewish usage in the case
of Rabbis and their disciples renders it highly
probable that, as a matter of fact, laying on
of hands was largely practised in the Ecclesia
of the Apostolic age, as a rite introductory to
ecclesiastical office. But ... it can hardly
be likely that any essential principle was held
to be involved in it. It was enough that an
Ecclesia should, in modern phrase, be organized,
. and that all things should be done
decently and in order."26
25 Guardian, March 9th, 1898. 2« " Ecclesia," p. 216.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. \\\
In concluding this part of my subject, let me
give two quotations which have this peculiar
merit, that whilst they are both from authors of
accredited ability, neither of them are from con
troversial writers or controversial writings. Dr.
Latham, in a book which created wide-spread
interest a few years ago, entitled " Pastor
Pastoruni," after a discussion of the relation of
our Lord to the Church as an organization, sums
up thus : " Church polities, like forms of secular
government, were to be formed by men of each
age for themselves, and to lay down a system
for which divine authority would inevitably be
claimed, would bar all human intervention in
matters ecclesiastical, and hamper men's minds
in ways that I have glanced at before. . .
A visible church framed by our Lord would have
afforded a model from any line in the construc
tion of which it would have been heresy to
swerve. Men would not only have consecrated
the principles of its polity, but they would have
seized on the visible constitution and points of
practice, and have battled for these to the death.
We should have had an institution divinely
authorized, and which therefore could not in
the smallest particular be changed, imposed on
races inheriting different temperaments, and one
ecclesiastical rule would have been fixed for
all time."27 27 "Pastor Pastorum," pp. 236, 237.

112 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
The second quotation is from a sermon
preached by Phillips Brooks, and appears to
me exactly to sum up the truth on this subject.
"Did Christ construct a system, decree a govern
ment, designate officers, establish a perpetual
economy by the direct interposition of His
divine authority ? Or did He establish prin
ciples ; set truths at work which of themselves
were freely to shape the outward form in which
they were to live ? That to a certain extent He
did the first, there can be no doubt. That He
ordained an outward Church, established sacra
ments, intended a ministry, there can be no
doubt. But more and more, the longer I am in
the Church, and in the ministry, it appears plain
to me that He did not order the details of the
Church's government or appoint the grades or
function of its ministers. . . . He taught
His truth, He gave His Spirit, He sent His
ministers, but He did not make bishops, priests
and deacons. He did not establish any pattern
of worship. He did not declare how or when
His sacraments should be administered. All
these things shaped themselves out of the free
life of the Church. They are free to change, as
the Gospel, always the same, changes its attitude
towards each changing age."
I must ask your attention for a few moments
longer whilst we glance at one or two features

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 113
of the organization of the Church during the
first three centuries. The question to be
answered here is, Do we find at the end of the
first century a fixed ministry of bishops, pres
byters and deacons, or do the facts point to a
ministry which, just as in the Apostolic times,
was in course of a development largely shaped
by the circumstances of the times?
In the first place, we must notice that no one
knows when, or by whom, the Episcopal system
of government was inaugurated. Bishop Light
foot has shown excellent reason for supposing
St. John had much to do with it, but there is no
direct evidence to this effect, although some
writers, almost in the same breath that they
deprecate the speculations of others, mention it
as an ascertained fact.28 In the opening para
graph of the Guardian's Review of Dr. Mober
ly 's " Ministerial Priesthood," reference is made
" to the daring speculations of Dr. Hatch," but
further on we read : " The Church must have
gone, in outlying districts of Syria and in parts
of the west, through an anxious period, before,
under the leadership of St. John, the definite
threefold ministry took shape as the one divinely
authorized form for all the churches." This is
a surprising sentence. Not only is the theory
of Rothe and Lightfoot concerning St. John's
28 Cf. Guardian, February :!nd, 18IJS.

114 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
part in the evolution of episcopacy assumed
as an historical fact, but a further quite base
less assumption is made that St. John ordained
the threefold ministry as the one divinely
authorized form for all the churches.
The old and oft-repeated view, that the same
officers in the Church who were first called apos
tles came afterwards to be designated bishops, is
said by Lightfoot to be "baseless."29 " It is not,
therefore," he adds, " to the apostle that we must
look for the prototype of the bishop." The con
clusion to which Lightfoot comes is, that " the
episcopate, properly so called, would seem to
have been developed from the subordinate office.
In other words, the episcopate was formed, not
out of the apostolic order by localization, but
out of the presbyteral by elevation; and the
title, which originally was common to all, came
at length to be appropriated to the chief among
them."30 The evidence which we possess, scanty
enough, it must be admitted, is in favor of the
supposition that this development of the episco
pate was the result not of any foreordained
scheme or plan of church organization, but:
under pressure of circumstances, it became de
sirable that the elements of the Christian
society should be more closely cemented together
28 " The Christian Ministry," pp. 193, 194.
30 Utsup. p. 194.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 115
by more compact organization of the Church.
Jerome says, that "before factions were intro
duced into religion by the prompting of the
devil, the churches were governed by a council
of elders, but as soon as each man began to con
sider those whom he baptized belonged to him
self, and not to Christ, it was decided throughout
the world that one selected from among the
elders should be placed over the rest, so that the
care of the Church should devolve on him, and
the seeds of schism be removed."31 " But," con
tinues Lightfoot, " there is no reason for suppos
ing that any direct ordinance was issued to the
churches."32 After it was " firmly established "
in the principal cities of Asia Minor, during the
early years of the second century, there is still
no trace of the bishop at Philippi or at Corinth,
two churches of St. Paul's own foundation.
And even as regards Rome, Lightfoot declares
that " the attempt to decipher the early history
of episcopacy here seems hopeless, where the
evidence is at once scanty and conflicting."
Around the history of the Church at Alexan
dria the storm of controversy has raged, and,
indeed, still rages. Yet Lightfoot, despite all
written on the other side, adhered to the view
that " at Alexandria the bishop was nominated,
31 " The Christian Ministry," p. 204.
32 Utswp. p. 205.

116 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
and apparently ordained by the twelve presby
ters out of their own number."33 But even
after the episcopate was formed, the develop
ment of the powers of the bishop, and of the
ideas connected with his office, continued until
at least the time of Cyprian (circ. 250 A.D.).
Let us now sum up our results :
1. The four Gospels contain no record of any
definite instructions from our Lord to His disci
ples concerning church organization.
2. But there are plain indications that He
intended to found a society.
3. Which all the evidence shows, was at first
analogous to the Jewish synagogue, not the
temple. In the synagogue the idea of succes
sion, and other ideas afterwards attached to the
ministry, had no place.
4. The commission of Christ is given to the
apostles, as representatives of the whole Church,
not to the ministry only.
5. No especial authority is referred to as
necessary for the administration of the Holy
Communion. 6. The Acts of the Apostles and the epistles
support these conclusions.
7. They show, just as does the history of the
33 " The Christian Ministry," pp. 224 and 229. On the
other side, the reader may consult Gore, on ' ' The Christian
Ministry."

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 117
Primitive Church, that the ministry was a grad
ual development, in accordance with the circum
stances and needs of the time.
But there is nothing in all this that is in
conflict with the doctrine that the Holy Spirit
guides and directs the course of the Church.
The Church of Christ has been thought of in the
same way that the world itself was thought of by
the Deists — as a machine, divinely created and
set in motion, and then left. It is supposed that
unless we have a variety of infallible authorities
— popes, councils, or ministries — the Church can
not endure the assaults of her foes, or maintain
the allegiance of men. Such persons forget the
promise of Christ, '' Lo, I am with you alway."
It is through that same Holy Spirit, who takes
of the things of Christ and shows them to us,
that the Church is supported. Without that
Spirit, there is no security in popes, or councils,
or bishops ; with the Spirit, no mechanical sup
ports of any kind are essential. As a matter of
fact, neither popes, councils, nor bishops, thought
of as divinely necessary, have given unity to the
Church. By exalting to the place which belongs
to that guiding Spirit, any earthly authorities,
by declaring this, that, or the other form eter
nally necessary, may we not be hindering or
frustrating the power of the Spirit ? Is there
no need that we should ask ourselves whether,

118 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
by its traditions, the Church has not sometimes
made the Word of God of none effect ?
At the same time I must ask you to believe
what I hope to make clear in my next lecture,
that I am not advancing anything against episco
pacy, as it is taught in the formularies of the
Anglican Church. I must ask you also to notice
that most of the authorities quoted have been
names of high repute and honor in the Anglican
communion. I believe that, rightly regarded, the
Historic Episcopate may yet become a means of
external unity. For, as a distinguished Presby
terian writer34 says, " Anglicans have a strong
position when they argue that it would be un
wise to depart from a system of government
which obtained early and general acceptance."
And Dr. Andrews, formerly President of Brown
University, says: "A great many clergymen in
these bodies " (Presbyterian, Congregational, and
Baptist are cited) " stand ready, for the sake of
promoting Church Unity, to take bishop's orders,
so soon as any bishops are ready to ordain them,
with the understanding that their original ordi
nation is not abjured."36
34 " G," in the Queen's Quarterly.
35 " Church Unity,"p . 103.

LECTURE V.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE
HISTORIC EPISCOPATE.
When one attempts to define the position of
the Church of England, in regard to such a
subject as the Historic Episcopate, he at once
encounters the difficulty that there is within her
borders a great diversity of opinion and impor
tant variations in the interpretation of her
accredited formularies. We are not even agreed
as to what the expression, " Historic Episco
pate," implies in the Chicago-Lambeth Quad
rilateral. By some it is taken as the
equivalent of Apostolical Succession.1 On
the other hand, it is maintained that the
bishops in choosing this expression, " fastened
on certain words, the characteristic of which is
that they express a fact, without at all insisting
upon any theory of the fact."2
1 Rev. Francis J. Hall, on " The Historic Episcopate," in
the Church Club Lectures, New York, 1895.
* Rev. Dr. Huntington, " The Peace of the Church." Cf.
also Dr. Shields in " Church Unity," p. 4S.
119

120 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
The Historic Episcopate is certainly vener
able with age. It has been the form of Church
government under which the world was con
verted, and under which it lived for sixteen
centuries, and is still full of vitality. On these
grounds, it is inserted as a plank in the Anglican
platform of unity. But no one is asked to
accept any particular theory of the nature and
sanction of the Christian ministry. That Rev.
Francis Hall is wrong, and that Rev. Dr. Hunt
ington is right, seems clear to me from the fact
that there are certainly English, and probably
American bishops also, who would emphatically
reject the doctrine of Apostolical Succession, and
who would, therefore, on no account, have agreed
to the fourth term, had any particular interpre
tation of it, such as that of Mr. Hall, been
regarded as its only possible interpretation.
When we turn to the formularies of our
Church, we find in one place the clearest possi
ble statement of the terms upon which the
Church of England allows a minister to officiate
in her communion. But the doctrine of Apos
tolical Succession is nowhere laid down, nor,
indeed, any doctrine of the ministry. She
neither affirms nor denies the doctrine of Apos
tolical Succession, as an essential mark of the
Church or any branch of the Church. " The
English Church has been content to give her

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 121
decision as to the right mode of ordaining, min
istering sacraments and exercising discipline,
without expressing an opinion on the degree of
defectiveness in such matters, which would
cause other communions to cease from being
churches of Christ."3
The nineteenth article of the Church of
England is entitled, " Of the Church." It is
extremely brief, and it defines the visible
Church as " a congregation of faithful men, in
the which the pure Word of God is preached,
and the sacraments be duly ministered, according
to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of
necessity are requisite to the same."
Nothing is here directly said of a ministry,
although, no doubt, something is implied in the
words " duly ministered." It is worthy of
notice that the article is modelled upon the
seventh article of the Confession of Augsburg,
the confession of the non-episcopal Lutheran
Communion, which says, " There is one Holy
Church to abide forever. And the Church is a
congregation of Saints in which the Gospel is
rightly taught, and the Sacraments rightly
administered."4 No direct statements concerning the nature of
the ministry are to be found in the Homilies or
3 " Browne on the Articles," p. 467. 12th edition.
4 Ut sup. p. 451.

122 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
in the Catechism of Edward VL, 1553, or Noel's
Catechism, or Bishop Ridley's definition of the
Church.6 The preface to the form and manner of
making, ordaining and consecrating of bishops,
priests and deacons, found in the Prayer Book,
defines clearly that episcopal ordination is ne
cessary for any minister in the Anglican Church,
and in terms which are by some supposed to
imply the doctrine of Apostolical Succession.
This preface was composed in 1550, and is
found in the first and second Prayer Book of
Edward VI. In 1661 it was revised, and it is
in this revised form that it now stands in our
Prayer Book.
The words pertinent to our inquiry are as
follows : " It is evident unto all men diligently
reading the Holy Scriptures and ancient authors,
that from the Apostles' time there have been
these orders of ministers in Christ's Church :
Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Which Offices
were evermore had in such reverent Estimation
that no man might presume to execute any of
them, except he were first called, tried, exam
ined, and known to have such qualities as are
requisite for the same ; and also by public
Prayer with Imposition of Hands, were approved
and admitted thereunto by lawful Authority,
B Browne, pp. 451, 452.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 123
And therefore, to the intent that these Orders
may be continued, and reverently used and
esteemed in the Church of England; no man
shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful
Bishop, Priest or Deacon in the Church of
England, or suffered to execute any of the said
Functions, except he be called, tried, examined,
and admitted thereunto, according to the Form
hereafter following, or hath had formerly
Episcopal Consecration or Ordination."
Now, whilst in this preface the Historic Epis
copate is laid down as a fact, and I may here
remark that nothing in the previous lecture
conflicts with this preface, no doctrine is formu
lated whether of Apostolical Succession or any
other. The Church of England, at the time of
the Reformation, here as elsewhere acted on
certain definite principles, one of which was that
things ancient and of proved value, that did not
conflict with Holy Scripture, were to be retained.
Now, the Historic Episcopate was ancient, of
proved value, and did not conflict with Scrip
ture. Therefore it was retained. But it is not
laid down as essential to the being or of the
esse of the Church. Most careful were the
framers of this ordinal to say that, " to the
intent that these orders may be continued, and
reverently used, and esteemed in the Church of
England, no man shall be accounted or taken

]24 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
to be a lawful bishop, priest, or deacon, in the
Church of England."
So far, then, the formularies of our Church
support the Historic Episcopate. Unless they
be in some way changed, no man can exercise
any of the offices of a bishop, priest, or deacon, in
the Church of England, unless he be episcopally
ordained. But I contend that they do not sup
port the doctrine of Apostolical Succession, nor
intend to deny to those communions which are
without the Historic Episcopate, the right to
be regarded as branches of the Holy Catholic
Church. But the question may well be asked,
" What are the said functions ? " referred to in
the preface to the ordinal ? They are the func
tions of a bishop, priest, or deacon, as prescribed
in the ordinal itself or in the services of the
Church. Vet it is interesting to note how large
a part of these functions is now taken by lay
men — laymen read the lessons, almost the entire
order for morning and evening prayer, and
preach regularly here in Canada. Surely this
is in direct contravention of the preface to the
ordinal, or else these things do not exclusively
belong to the functions of bishop, priest or
deacons, in which event there can be no funda
mental reason why a minister of some other
denomination should not preach in our churches.
As a matter of fact, even in conservative

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 125
England, Nonconformist ministers have read the
lessons in the parish churches. Is not this a
part of the " Ministry of God's Word" ? In the
use of the lay readers in Canada, we have an
instructive illustration of the way in which the
pressure of circumstances modifies standing
forms and rules.
In order to support this position, let me draw
your attention to the opinions of those who were
leaders of the Reformation and of the period
immediately subsequent to the Reformation.
Let us begin with Hooker. Hooker believed
that episcopacy was scriptural, but he also
believed that the Church had great liberty in
its choice of government and ceremonial. As
Matthew Arnold says, " Hooker's great work
against the impugners of the order and discipline
of the Church of England was written, . . .
not because Episcopalianism is essential, but
because its impugners maintained that Presby -
terianism is essential, and that Episcopalianism
is sinful."6
Hooker himself writes concerning divisions :
"Which divisions and contentions might have
easily been prevented if the orders, which each
church did think fit and convenient for itself,
had not so peremptorily been established under
* From Allen's "Continuity of Christian Thought," pp.
328, 329— note.

126 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
high commanding form, which tendered them
unto the people as things everlastingly required
by the law of that Lord of hosts against whose
statutes there is no exception to be taken. For
by this it came to pass, that one church could
not but condemn another of disobedience to the
will of Christ.
Hooker further writes : " The unity of which
visible body and Church of Christ consisteth
in that uniformity which all several persons
thereunto belonging have, by reason of that
one Lord whose servants they all profess them
selves, and that one Faith which they all
acknowledge, that one Baptism wherewith
they are all initiated."8 These, and these only,
he describes as "things which supernaturally
appertain to the very essence of Christianity."
Again, whilst admitting the importance of
Church polity, he says : " We must note .
that the necessity of polity and regimen in all
churches may be held without holding any one
certain form to be necessary in them all."9
He declares that all Church constitutions are
of the nature of a human law,10 but even if
otherwise, he contends that " neither God's
being author of laws, nor His committing
7 From ' ' Continuity of Christian Doctrine, '' p. 329.
8 Hooker, "The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," III. 1.
8 Ut sup. III. 2. 10 Ut sup. III. 9.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 127
them unto Scripture, ... is any reason
sufficient wherefore all churches should for ever
be bound to keep them without change." n
He asks, whether when our Lord declared that
He had " concealed not any part of His Father's
will," " any part of that will required the immu
tability of laws concerning Church polity," and
argues that " Christ did not mean to set down
particular positive laws for all things in such
sort as Moses did."12 Finally, he calls certain
reformed bodies without episcopal government
churches, and will go no further than to say
that he regards government, that is, by bishops,
as that which best agreeth with Scripture.13
Hooker had, however, no doubts about the
divine origin of episcopacy. "Let us not fear
to be herein bold and peremptory, that if
anything in the Church's government, surely
the first institution of bishops was from hea
ven, was even of God; the Holy Ghost was
the author of it." Mr. C. Raymond Beazley
thus sums up Hooker's teaching on this head :
" As to the question of the necessity of episcopacy
he will not decide. . . . There are great
branches of religious life, he insists, for which
no fundamental rules are laid down in the New
Testament. There are laws of the Church as
there are laws of man, which expediency dictates.
"Hooker, III. 10. 12 Ut sup. III. 11. 13 Ut sup. III. 11.

128 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
but which have still a binding force on all who
would be governed by reason or constrained by
law at all. Much may become requisite which
was not at first ordained ; some things, too, may
be abandoned which were at first required.
. . . The ecclesiastical polity of England is
that which most nearly satisfies Scripture and
the times. Yet he will not insist that it is im
mutable, or declare it is of universal obligation."14
At the time of the Reformation ecclesiastical
and secular politics were closely knit together.
It is not surprising, therefore, to find leading
politicians taking a great interest in church
questions. Thus Lord Bacon writes : " I, for
my part, do confess, that in revolving the Scrip
tures I could never find any such thing, but
that God hath left the like liberty to the church
government as He hath done to the civil gov
ernment, to be varied according to time and
place and accidents, which, nevertheless, His
high and Divine Providence doth order and
dispose. ... In church matters the sub
stance of doctrine is immutable, and so are the
general rules of government, but for rites and
ceremonies and for the particular hierarchies,
policies and disciplines of the Church they are
left at large. And, therefore, it is good that we
return unto the ancient bond of unity in the
14 "Social England," Vol. III.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 129
Church of God, which was one faith, one bap
tism, not one hierarchy, one discipline."16
When Archbishop Bramhall (1594-1663), who
is described as a great anti-Puritan Irish pre
late, and as closely imitating Laud in policy,
reordained certain ministers, he inserted the
following clause in their letters of orders :
"Non annihilantes priores ordines (si quos
habuit) nee validitatem aut invaliditatem
eorundem determinantes, multo minus omnes
ordines sacros Ecclesiarum forinsecarum con-
demnantes, quos proprio judici relinquimus,
sed solummodo supplentes quicquid prius defuit
per canones Ecclesiae Anglicanae requisitum, et
providentes paci Ecclesiae, ut schismatis tollatur
occasio et conscientiis fidelium satisfiat, nee ullo
modo dubitantes de ejus ordinatione, aut
actus suos presby ter iales tanquam invalidos
aversantes."16 15 Purification and Edification of the Church. Sped-
ding's "Life." Vol. III., pp. 107, 108.
16 From Church Quarterly Review. Vol. XXL, pp.
132, 133: "Not annulling his previous orders (if he had
such), nor determining their validity or invalidity, much less
condemning all the holy orders of foreign churches, which
we leave to Him who alone can judge, but merely supplying
what was previously lacking as required by the canons of the
English Church, and providing for the peace of the Church,
so as to take away occasion for schism and satisfy the con
sciences of the faithful ; nor in any way doubting as to his
ordination or rejecting his presbyteral acts as invalid."
9

130 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
When accused by Baxter of unchurching
other Protestants, Bramhall replied that " they
(i.e., Episcopal divines) do not deny those
churches to be true churches wherein salvation
is to be had. They will readily subscribe to
Bishop Andrews' determination: If episcopacy
be of divine right it does not follow that there
is no salvation without it, or that a church cannot
consist without it. He is blind who doth not
see churches consisting without it ; he is hard
hearted who denieth them salvation. There
may be something absent in the exterior regi
men which is of divine right, and yet salvation
be to be had." He even adds that he grants to
them the true nature and essence of a church,
although it is contended that he contradicts this
in other parts of his writings.17
There appears to be abundant evidence that
before the time when the great conflict between
the Parliament and the Crown embittered the
relations between Churchmen and Puritans, the
Presbyterian orders of France and Germany
were unquestioned. Bishop Cosin, who was a
High Churchman, in advising a person named
Cordel, who had scruples about it, to communi
cate with French Protestants, says : " If at any
time a minister so ordained (i.e., unepiscopally)
17 Church Quarterly Revievj, ut sup. p. 133. Cf. also
quotation from Cosin, pp. 65, 66.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 131
in their French churches came to incorporate
himself in ours and to receive a public charge
or cure of souls among us in the Church of
England (as I have known some of them to
have so done of late, and can instance in many
others before my time), our bishops did not [/
reordain him before they admitted him to his
charge, as they would have done if his former
ordination here in France had been void. Nor
did our laws require more of him than to de
clare his public consent to the religion received
among us, and to subscribe the articles estab
lished."18 Nothing can be more certain than that no
modern High Churchman of the Oxford school
would write thus, and if High Churchmen like
Cosin, Andrews and Bramhall held these mod
erate views, what must have been the opinions
of those who correspond to the Low Churchmen
of our day ? But I have not brought these
views before you merely for controversial pur
poses. It appears to me that they have a prac
tical bearing upon our own circumstances. It
was natural enough that after the Common
wealth the lines of division between English
Nonconformity and the Anglican Church should
18 Child, "Church and State under the Tudors," pp.
295, 296,

132 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
be more deeply drawn. The Nonconformist
had gone out from the Church. In his hour of
triumph he had not failed to heap insult and
ignominy upon the Church. At the restoration
the Church retaliated. The story is a sad one,
and neither side is free from blame, although
from the time of Hooker onwards it seems clear
that the Puritans were the more exclusive and
narrow of the two parties. " The power-hold
ing cause, or school or party, regularly and
consistently tried under Elizabeth, under James
and Charles — under the great rebellion in
America, as in England — to bend all other
parties to its will, to produce a uniformity in
religion that should answer to the uniformity
in the State, and should reflect the mind of
the Government for the time being. This was
why "new presbyter was but old priest writ
large" ; this was why, as Matthew Arnold
pointed out in " St. Paul and Protestantism,"
every one of the Stuart attempts at compromise
between Anglican and Puritan was such a hope
less failure ; this was why every revision of the
Prayer Book failed to satisfy. For the opposition
was one which aimed not to broaden the Church
into something that might include an expanding
national life, but at narrowing it, forcing it into
the straps of some particular discipline, just as

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 133
the giant in the old Greek fable fitted all
passers-by into his bed."19
But here in Canada we leave behind these old
grounds of dispute. We have no Established
Church, we have no Nonconformists, and, there
fore, it appears to me that, instead of regard
ing our relations to the Presbyterians, Con-
gregationalists and Methodists in the way in
which such relations may with some excuse
be regarded in England, we should rather
regard them as similar to those between the
Anglican Church and the continental Reformed
Churches at the period of the Reformation. If
Bishop Andrews could say, that "he must be
stone blind that sees not churches standing"
without episcopal government, surely we have
as much reason to say the same here in Canada
to-day. And if this be so, then I would earnestly
plead that we should without, as yet at all
events, proposing any changes in the canons of
our Church, seek to co-operate with the churches
about us in every possible way. Our attitude
towards them must be changed. No doubt, to
some extent we are rivals, but to a large extent
we are allies. Let us look more steadfastly upon
that large circle of things wherein we are agreed,
and less often and less particularly upon the
19 C. Raymond Beazley in " Social England." Vol. III.,
pp. 433, 434.

134 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
smaller circle of things wherein we differ. The
results of history cannot be undone in a day.
But it is the object of this and the previous
lecture to show that no fundamental principle
divides us from the larger body of our breth
ren of the Reformed Churches, and that by
drawing together in the bonds of sympathy
and charity, and for the courteous exchange
of views, we shall easily and naturally pro
mote, and in time consummate, the unity of the
Church. There must be, there need be, no hurry, pro
vided we seek ever to be moving on. Enchant
ing as the prospect of a great church of the
English-speaking peoples may be, we must, with
the poet, say : " I do not ask to see
The distant scene ; one step enough for me."
At the outset of the previous lecture it was
indicated that, although to all appearances the
dividing lines between High Anglicanism and
non-episcopal Communions are as sharply drawn
as ever, there yet appeared to be some faint
signs of a mutual understanding.
It is now time to point out the grounds of
this opinion.
1. In the first place, amongst a considerable
section of the High Church school the doctrine of

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 135
the Apostolical Succession is held with less rigor
than formerly. Able, candid and unprejudiced
men, as many of them are, they cannot be alto
gether indifferent to the singular fact that this
doctrine has met with its ablest antagonists not
outside but inside the Anglican fold. And fur
ther, that these men have none of them been, in
any narrow sense, scarcely in any sense at all
controversial theologians, but the ablest, most
honest, and impartial scholars of their day.
Leaving out Dr. Hatch (whose brilliant scholar
ship, however, none will deny), we may mention
the great names of Lightfoot, Hort and Sanday.
The authority of Lightfoot is so great that both
parties sometimes seek to claim him. Yet, de
spite the consternation which the publication of
his " Essay on the Christian Ministry " caused,
he steadily refused to alter it in any respect in
subsequent editions of that essay. The Guar
dian reviewer of "Moberly's Ministerial Priest
hood," however, truly says that "there is nothing
to be gained by denying that the essay cuts
at the root of the principle of an authorita
tive ministerial commission from God, original
in the person of the apostles and transmitted
from them down the generations of the Church
unto the end."
Westcott has not directly dealt with the sub-

136 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
ject, but there are indications that he is in
agreement with the others on the main points.20
2. Secondly, the zeal and piety of the Re
formed Churches is an argument which very
properly carries greater weight than previously.
How can these churches show so much of the
evidence of the Spirit's power if they are out
side the sphere of covenanted grace ? This is
a question more and more difficult to answer
from any rigid High Anglican standpoint. It
is agreed that the Spirit is not bound to the
ordinary channels of grace, but has exceptional
modes of operation. But when the exceptions
exceed or even approach the rule, then we are
apt to think that there must be something
wrong with the rule. It is, further, hard to
find an answer to the argument that if these
bodies are outside the sphere of covenanted
grace, and yet show such manifold signs of
grace, then the Almighty seems to connive at
2 ° For Westcott, in addition to the already quoted com
ment on John xx. 23, cf. "The Resurrection of our Lord,"
Chap. III. sections 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 39.
In Hort's "Published Letters" there is one to Dr. Hatch
in which he says : " On the question of organization I
imagine we agree more than we differ. I quite go with
you in condemning the refusal of fellowship with sister
churches, merely because they make no use of some elements
of organization assumed to he jure Divino essential." — "Life
and Letters," Vol. II. , p. 357.

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 137
schism. These difficulties are being felt by the
younger High Churchman. Thus the Rev.
Hensley Henson in a recent book says : " His
tory is a present teacher, and we may not
wisely or reasonably shut our eyes to the lessons
of contemporary events. Christianity, as we
know it, is largely non-episcopal, and non-
episcopalian Christians are not less rich in moral
fruits than other Christians. The graces of the
Holy Ghost are as apparent in the Presbyterian,
the Lutheran, and the Wesleyan as in the
Anglican, the Roman Catholic and the Greek. .
. We must acquiesce apparently in a posi
tion which is neither logical nor popular. On
the one hand, we cannot either abandon an
ecclesiastical regime, which, as far as we can
perceive, derives its authority from our Lord, or
surrender an ideal which is the assumption of
the New Testament, and the legacy of the
primitive ages ; on the other hand, we cannot
use the language of denunciation or contempt
towards the non-episcopal systems, which have
considerable historical justification, and are so
manifestly blest of God."2?
These words may be described as the utterance
of a High Churchman, but of a High Churchman
whose mind is in a state of unstable equilibrium.
21 "Light and Leaven," by H. Hensley Henson, M.A.,
quoted from the Guardian's review.

138 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
It is not a condition of mind that can' continue
long unchanged. And I venture to think that
such minds will, as they continue to study and
restudy the evidence, at length agree that it is
but a low degree of probability upon the basis
of which the larger part of English-speaking
Christians are practically unchurched ; and that
a low degree of probability for a doctrine of
such far-reaching consequence as that of the
Apostolical Succession is equivalent to its dis
proof. Supposing, now, the young High Churchmen
should come to this conclusion. Are we to say
that the Oxford Movement has come to nought?
Are we to say that the whole of the literary
work of the High Church school is built up
upon an untenable hypothesis ? I think not.
For the idea of the Church is the fundamental
idea of the High Churchman. He has vigorously
and successfully protested against the Individual
ism of Protestantism. He has claimed that the
idea of a universal society is a part of the
essence of Christianity, and that all forms of
Christianity which fail to embody this idea are
imperfect. He can find abundant scriptural
testimony to the truth of this position.
But to it he has added the assumption that
this church must have an unchangeable kind of
government, and one that rests in its precise

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 139
form upon divine right. To him it seems that
without this there can be no guarantee of the
continuance of orthodoxy or of unity. He for
gets that it is largely out of these claims that our
divisions have sprung. He forgets that the Holy
Spirit can take care of His own. Like Uzzah of
old, he stretches out a human hand to protect
the Ark of God. I know how short a distance
my voice can reach. I know that there is an
appearance of assumption even in the request,
but as one who has many intimate friends
amongst High Churchmen, as one who knows
their love of truth, their sincerity, their zeal,
their pure unaffected goodness, as one who ac
knowledges how much he has learnt from them,
I appeal with all my strength to the High
Churchman to consider or to reconsider the
question whether his idea of the Church and
his doctrine of Apostolical Succession are not
two separate and by no means necessarily con
nected things. It has been said, and I believe
not without sympathy, although by a Congre-
gationalist, that the point for which High
Churchmen have in reality been struggling has
been " rather that of the divine character of the
Christian Society than the divine authority
inherent in one form of Society."22
And I make this appeal with the greater
2 2 Vernon Bartlet, in Contemporary Review, ut sup.

140 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
earnestness and urgency, because I see that
whilst the High Churchman is becoming less
rigid in his High Churchism, the Protestant is
becoming less rigid in his Protestantism. There
is a rapprochement between them.
In proof of this, I need not remind you of the
thoroughly " High " conception of the Church en
tertained by the late Prof. Milligan, of Aberdeen,
in his lectures on " The Resurrection of our
Lord." But I would ask your attention to some
words of the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, in the
Contemporary Review, in which he speaks not
for himself only, but for that movement towards
the federation of the Nonconformist churches in
England, which is sometimes called " The Free
Church Unity Movement " : " There can be no
doubt that as the result of the misery of the
times through which we have passed, and
of our endless divisions and disputes, many
have practically lost all conception of the
Christian Church. The astonishing and im
pressive revival of Anglicanism is due to
the new idea of the Church which Cardinal
Newman presented to two generations of young
Englishmen at St. Mary's, Oxford, and the
leaders of this movement deeply realize that
what the Evangelical Church in this country
needs, perhaps more than anything else, is a
definite, positive and scriptural conception of the

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 141
Christian Church." And again : " We do not
attempt to escape from practical difficulties, by
arguing that the Church is an invisible body.
. . We hold as strongly as any that Christ
came into this world, not merely and not mainly
to save individual men, but to establish a
Church, and the Church He established is obvi
ously a visible Church. Baptism, the sacra
ment of initiation, cannot be administered by or
to an invisible Church. The Holy Communion,
the perpetually renewed sacrament of member
ship, is equally inapplicable to an invisible
Church. We repudiate the modern dangerous
delusion that religion is simply a matter between
a man and his Maker. The Christian religion
has, at every stage, relation to our fellowmen
as to our God and Saviour. The highest and
richest blessings of personal sanctification are
offered, not to the individual who isolates him
self, but to the Christian Church. . . . We
do not believe in the permanence of any
Christian work which is not securely founded
on the Church created by Christ."23
These are words which would never have been
written without the Oxford Movement. The
best, the deepest, the truest spirit of High
23 Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, on " Free Church Unity ;
The New Movement." Contemporary Review, 1897-

142 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Churchism finds expression in them. Is it not
true, then, that there are signs of an approach
ing alliance between what I may call Catholi
cism and Protestantism ?
The full and perfect idea of the Church has
not as yet been completely grasped by either
high or low, perhaps never by any one man
except St. Paul. The Catholicism that took
its rise in the third century and culminated
in what we call Roman Catholicism, makes of
the Church a dualism, a double body of clergy
and laity, and ultimately locates the Spirit, not
in the Church, but in the clergy. Protestantism
reacting against this, lost almost entirely the
conception of the body, the social organism.
. . . To-day we are beginning to understand
that it is the whole body that is the Spirit-
bearing body. This is the view of Dr. Hort,
and hence his "Ecclesia" seems to me to be
worthy to be called an Eirenicon. As Professor
Armitage Robinson says : " This view at least
deserves the most serious consideration; surely
it involves the very loftiest conception of the
Ecclesia as the Body of Christ and His only
complete representative in the world." Worthy
of note is also a letter by Professor Sanday,
in which, deprecating some criticisms passed
upon " Ecclesia," he concludes : " I am tempted

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 143
to say both to Canon Gore and to Dr. Moberly
that if they could consider the Christian Ec
clesia, not so much in reference to the logic of
their own system as in the influence which it is
calculated to have on those who approach the
subject from a different standpoint, and the
extent to which it helps to establish a common
ground for the two parties, they might perhaps
see reason to value more highly those parts of
it with which they agree and insist somewhat
less on those from which they differ."24
And if this position which is, after all, not
essentially new, but which I believe agrees more
nearly than any other with our Anglican
formularies, be openly espoused by the Anglican
Church, if we admit that the whole body is the
Spirit bearer, I for one believe that for the
sake of unity, for the sake of the preserva
tion of what is historically so venerable, and
which is yet a living power, our brethren will
not indeed submit to reordination, but will
accept for all who shall subsequently be ordained,
the Historic Episcopate in the democratic form <¦•"'
in which it is found in the Anglican Communion
on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The view of the Christian ministry set forth in
this and the previous lecture is in thorough accord
24 Guardian, March 9th, 1898,

144 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
with the principles of Lecture III. We saw there
that liberty is one of the fundamental ideas of our
time, and that no proposals for unity have the
slightest prospect of success which do not pro
vide for the liberty of the children of God. The
second fundamental idea of our time is love. The
idea of liberty inevitably belongs to the idea of
divine sonship. And the idea of love as inevi
tably belongs to the conception of the brother
hood of man. Developed to its logical conclu
sions, the doctrine of Apostolical Succession
involves the idea of a Church within the Church.
The ministry becomes a self-continuing body,
with no necessary connection with the main
body of the Church, the laity. But this doctrine
cuts at the root of Christian liberty. The laity
are not free, but at the mercy of the ministry.
It also cuts at the root of the Christian brother
hood, for the ministry, conceived of as quite
independent of the laity, and as the necessary
channels of grace, are the only true sons of God.
All others are dependents or retainers.
The true conception of the Church is that of
the family of God, within which is a great diver
sity of function, but all ideally stand on an equal
footing of brotherhood, and are equally near to
the Father who is equally accessible to all. No
part of the family has exclusive access to the

THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 145
Spirit. The Church is the Spirit-bearing body.
And this view corrects alike the one-sidedness
of the individualist who regards the salvation
of his own soul as the object of his life, and is
indifferent to the unity of the members of the
family, and that of the Romanist who reduces
the children of God to servants entirely depend
ent upon the priesthood.

10

LECTURE VI.
THE RELATION BETWEEN CIVIL AND
ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY.
The subject of this lecture, at first sight,
appears to have but little to do with Christian
Unity. But I trust by the time it is concluded
you will see that it has, perhaps, of them all,
the most practical bearing upon the question.
The course of the argument will be directed
to show that there are always intimate connec
tions between ecclesiastical and civil polity.
Contrary to our expectations, however, it is the
civil that leads the way, and to it the eccles
iastical adapts itself. If this thesis can be
demonstrated, then we ought to be able, from
the study of the larger political movements of
to-day, to forecast some of the ecclesiastical
movements of to-morrow.
When our Lord stood before Pontius Pilate,
He acknowledged that He was a King, but
added, " My kingdom is not of this world," by
which we are not to understand that it does not
146

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 147
exist in the world, but that its principles and
methods are not the principles and methods of
worldly kingdoms. "If my kingdom were of
this world, then would my servants fight." Not
with spear and sword, not by political intrigue,
but by the announcement of the truth was the
kingdom of Christ to be built up, and the unify
ing attractive power was not as in the Roman
Empire, force, the power of the " big battalions,"
but Love.
It follows from this that Christianity does
net directly interfere with political forms. Of
the heathen Emperor, with all his subordinates,
the apostle could write : " Submit yourselves to
every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake."
For " the powers that be are ordained of God."
Thus it was that Christianity did not directly
interfere with even so anti-Christian a custom
as slavery. Christianity was essentially a new
spirit, a body of new ideas — the truth, the good
news — and the primary function of its apostles
was to be the heralds of this good news to the
world. " Christ sent me," cried St. Paul, " not
to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." Hence
Christianity aimed at leavening the world with
its new ideas, and thus indirectly and without
revolution to transform the face of society.
Except in those cases where conscience forbade
them, they were the most obedient and loyal

148 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
citizens of the Empire. And history shows
that it has always been so. Christians are
obedient to the powers that be. If, however, in
any form of government or in any social cus
toms, there has been anything essentially con
trary to the spirit of Christianity, by the faith
ful proclamation of true principles men's minds
have been gradually won to truth and, although
not always without violent shocks, the false has
been eliminated and steady progress has been
made in the transformation of the kingdoms of
this world into the kingdom of our God and of
His Christ.
But it is not to this process that I wish to
draw your attention, but rather to a very inter
esting phenomenon in church history, viz., the
way in which, when the Church by degrees came
to define its organization, it followed, in some
respects, with a remarkable exactness, the forms
of organization of the Roman Empire.
It will not be necessary in the course of a
popular lecture to trace out the various stages
in the adaptation of the Church's outward form
to the lines of the imperial government of the
Empire. We may take our stand at that period
when, after the conversion of the Emperor, the
Church and Empire are in alliance. For pur
poses of local government the Roman Empire
was divided into municipalities, provinces and

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 149
dioceses. " An important feature of the Roman
imperial administration was the respect which
it showed to local liberties. For many impor
tant purposes a municipality was independent:
the reality, as well as the form, of republican
government lingered in the towns long after it
had become extinct at Rome. For certain other
purposes a province was independent. . . .
Every year deputies from the chief town of a
province met together in a deliberative assem
bly."1 The municipalities of the Empire were
grouped into provinces and the provinces were
grouped into dioceses. So in like manner
in the Christian Church there came to be a
similar division and a similar grouping of the
divisions. Each municipality had its own
bishop. The municipalities were as for civil,
so also for ecclesiastical purposes, grouped into
provinces, and the provinces into patriarchates,
which correspond with the civil diocese. Thus
for purposes of jurisdiction we have gradations
amongst the bishops. The bishop of the principal
town in a province was called the Metropolitan,
and the bishop of the chief city of a diocese or
patriarchate was called a Patriarch. At first
,* Hatch, " Organization of the Early Christian Churches."
Lecture VII.
2 The word is not to be confounded with its modern use.
In the Empire it represents the largest territorial division.

150 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
the bishop of the chief city of a diocese had
the same title as its civil head, viz., Exarch.3
The custom of meeting together in ecclesias
tical councils was also derived from the similar
custom of meeting together in civil councils.
" Every year deputies from the chief towns of a
province met together in a deliberative assembly.
This assembly had to some extent a religious
character. Its meeting place was the altar of
Augustus; its deliberations were preceded by
a sacrifice ; its president was named a high
priest."4 " Towards the end of the second cen
tury the churches of Greece and Asia adopted
the useful institutions of provincial synods, and
they may justly be supposed to have borrowed
the model of a representative council from the
celebrated examples of their own country, the
Amphictyons, the Achaean League or the assem
blies of the Ionian cities."6
But after the conversion of the Emperor it
became possible and desirable that in addition
to provincial there should be " Ecumenical " or
imperial councils representative of the whole
Church. And so " for matters which affected
3 Cf. Neander, " Church History." Vol. III., p. 231.
* Hatch, "Organization of the Early Christian Churches,''
Lecture VII.
6 Gibbon, Chap. XV. Gibbon has antedated the institu
tions of provincial synods by about a century. Cf. Mil-
man's note in loc.

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 151
the whole body of Christian churches there
were general assemblies ; . . for minor mat
ters . . . there were provincial assemblies."
By these gradual steps the Christian churches
passed from their original state of independence
into a great confederation, which closely fol
lowed the lines of the imperial government, but
which was formed by a process of an entirely
voluntary nature.6
The three principal cities of the Roman
Empire were Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, and
these became the seats of bishops who were
patriarchs. But of these Rome was the capital
of the whole Empire. Naturally, therefore, the
Bishop of Rome becomes the principal bishop
of the Church. Other things may have contrib
uted to the establishment of his supremacy,
but it is rooted not in any direct divine appoint- \
ment, nor even in any peculiarly ecclesiastical
conditions, but in the political circumstances of j
the time. That this was understood even in
the fourth and fifth centuries when the residence
of the emperors was at Constantinople, is shown
by the fact that the Council of Constantinople,
in 381 A.D., directed that the Bishop of Con
stantinople should take rank next after the
Roman Bishop, since Constantinople was New
Rome. In 451 A.D. the Council of Chalcedon
" Hatch, p. 175.

152 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
confirmed this degree, with the following notice
able comparison between the Church of the
ancient and that of the new Rome : " The fathers
rightly conceded that rank to the episcopate of
ancient Rome, because Rome was the mistress
city."7 This parallel organization of Church and
State was a process which might have been
expected to continue until the Church became
compactly organized and then to have ceased.
But it was not so. I am not prepared to
say how far the division of the one Catholic
church into the eastern or western churches was
the result of the division of the one Roman
Empire into the eastern and western empires, but
it is significant that the division of the Church
followed the division of the Empire. " After
the eastern and western empires were separated,
disputes gradually arose between the eastern
and western churches. They differed on some
points both of doctrine and ceremony, but the
real ground of quarrel was chiefly because the
eastern church would never admit the claims of
the Bishop of Rome."8 But passing over the
intermediate centuries between the fifth and the
thirteenth, we find in the mediaeval political
7 Neander. Vol. III., p. 232.
" Freeman, "General Sketch of European History," p.
149.

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 153
theories a remarkable correspondence between
the conceptions of the Church and State.
Theoretically, Western Europe during the
Middle Ages composed one great empire. The
various kings and dukes, and other rulers of the
parts of this empire, recognized the supremacy
of the Emperor. He was, in the language of
feudalism, their over-lord. Over against the
Emperor stood the Pope, the supreme head of
Church and of the spiritual order ; and through
out the Middle Ages the Empire and the Church,
and the Emperor and the Pope, stood in closest
relation to each other. Out of this relationship
of the Church and the State there sprang a
splendid political theory. Christianity, men
reasoned, is a universal religion expressing itself
through a universal or catholic church. Cor
responding, and as it came to be thought, of
necessity corresponding with the catholic church,
was the universal empire, wherein all the people
of the world are bound together in one vast
political federation, at the head of which stands
the Emperor. The idea of one world-wide
society, with the Pope as its spiritual and the
Emperor as its political head, gradually took
possession of men's minds, until they looked
upon both Church and Empire not only as part
of a divine, but also of an eternal, order of
things. St. Thomas Aquinas compares the rela-

154 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
tion of papal and imperial powers to that of the
soul to the body, " The Pope, as God's vicar in
matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life ;
the Emperor, as vicar in matters temporal, must
so control them in their dealings with one
another, that they may be able to pursue un
disturbed the spiritual life, and thereby attain
the supreme and common end of everlasting
happiness." The Emperor, writes a modern
Roman Catholic concerning this mediaeval theory,
is " the steward of Christendom, the mediator
between Christian princes, the guardian of peace,
the protector of the widow and orphan, the
avenger of all injustice."
" One Pope, one Emperor, one Lord, one faith,
one kingdom of God upon earth, with the Em
peror as its chief for temporal ends, and the Pope
for spiritual — this was the mediaeval conception
of Church and State, of empire and papacy."9
The Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Roman
Church are one and the same thing in two
aspects. And these ideas inspired not only
mediaeval architecture, but its painting and its
literature. There is in Rome, Mr. Bryce tells
us, the copy of a mosaic constructed by Pope
Leo III., about A.D. 800. " It represents in the
centre Christ surrounded by the apostles, whom
He is sending forth to preach the Gospel ; one
° Bryce, "Holy Roman Empire."

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 155
hand is extended to bless, the other holds a
book, with the words Pax Vobis. Below and
to the right, Christ is depicted again, and this
time sitting; on His right hand kneels Pope
Sylvester, on His left the Emperor Constantine ;
to the one He gives the keys of heaven and hell,
to the other a banner surmounted by a cross.
In the group opposite, i.e., on the left side of
the arch, we see the Apostle Peter seated, before
whom in like manner kneel Pope Leo III. and
Charles the Emperor, the latter wearing, like
Constantine, his crown. Peter himself grasp
ing the keys, gives to Leo the pallium of an
archbishop, to Charles the banner of the Chris
tian arms. The inscription runs : " Blessed Peter,
grant to Pope Leo life and to King Charles vic
tory." Such was the theory of the Holy Roman
Empire and of the Holy Roman Church in the
Middle Ages, a theory which only needs to be
stated to show how closely in this case ideas of
civil and ecclesiastical polity were related. It
may sound startling to unaccustomed ears, but
it is the simple truth that had there been no
heathen Roman Empire there would have been
no Roman Catholic Church, and the real authors,
not, of course, of the doctrines, but of the out
ward and visible form of the Roman Church,
are Julius Caesar and his nephew Octavian.
" The truth is," says Professor Freeman, " that

156 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
the power of the bishops of Rome had grown
up from the same cause as the power of
the Emperor of Rome, that is, because Rome
was the head city of the world."10 This ideal
of the one Empire and the one Church was
magnificent and inspiring. We may cordially
admit that it was for the age and its circum
stances divinely ordained. But in order to
make this admission, we must adopt the *' great
reconciling principle of development. . . .
That principle has for the first time put into
our hands ' the leaden rule of Lesbian architec
ture,' which can adapt itself to all the inequali
ties of the varied and complex structure of
human opinion. It has made it possible for us
to understand the errors of men in the past as
partial and germinating truths; and to detect
how ideas grow up under forms which are in
adequate to them, and which finally they throw
off when they have reached maturity."11 Yet
the ideal was never even for a moment per
fectly realized. And herein, too, we may trace
the operation of divine wisdom, which leaves
open doors for progress under new forms,
"Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
This theory bore within itself the seeds of its
10 Freeman, "General Sketch of European History,"
p. 243. 11 E. Caird, " Evolution of Religion," p. 5.

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 157
own decay. For first, according to the theory,
these twin institutions should have been univer
sal. But the Eastern Empire and the Eastern
Church lay outside of the pale of the Holy Ro
man Empire and the Holy Roman Church. And
secondly, there were flaws in the title deeds of
both Church and Empire. The Church rested in
part upon the famous Forged Decretals. With
regard to the Empire, these questions were never
answered : " Did Charles the Great, who received
the Empire, win it with his own sword, or was it
conferred upon him on that memorable Christmas
Day, in the year 800 A.D., when he was crowned
by Pope Leo at Rome ? " " And if he received
it, as the Pope always claimed, at the hand of
Leo, by what right did the Pope confer em
pires ? " These questions seriously exercised the
minds of politicians and ecclesiastics. The eccle
siastics took the short-cut of forgery. A docu
ment, entitled " The Donation of Constantine,"
was composed, wherein it was pretended that
the Emperor had granted power over the West
to the Popes. " When this donation of Constan
tine was proved to be an impudent forgery, the
whole structure of the temporal power of the
Church, of which it was the chief corner-stone,
fell into ruins."12
In the third place the heads of the Holy
12 "Encyclopaedia Britannica," Article "Canon Law."

158 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Church
were continually fighting. And fourthly, there
was the famous schism in the papacy itself.
From 1102-1168 there were no fewer than nine
Anti-Popes. Each of these causes was like a
fresh wedge driven deep into the mediaeval
theory of Church and State. They gradually
but surely dispelled that awe which produced
unquestioning obedience. Questions must arise
in men's minds when they saw two popes, each
claiming supremacy, or pope and emperor, the
twin foundations of the commonwealth, engaged
in deadly strife. " The system which Constan
tine founded amid such rejoicing, which culmin
ated so triumphantly in the Empire Church of
the Middle Ages, has in each succeeding genera
tion been slowly losing ground, has seen its
brightness dimmed and its completeness marred,
and sees now those who are most zealous on
behalf of its surviving institutions, feebly defend
or silently desert the principle upon which all
must rest."13
But there was another cause of the breaking
up of the mediaeval theory of Church and State,
which we must more carefully observe, because
it introduces us to a new illustration of our
thesis, that a close relation is always to be dis
covered between the civil and ecclesiastical
1 3 Bryce, p. 108.

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 159
development, and that so far as external form is
concerned the civil development precedes the
ecclesiastical, the latter always adapting itself
to the former.
This cause was the gradual decay of the power
of the Empire, and the increasing power of the
kings with a corresponding growth in the senti
ment of nationality. The great political move
ment of the fifteenth century, i.e., of the century
that preceded the Reformation, was the centrali
zation of the national power in the hands of the
kings. Previously to this century the power
of the barons, even of individual barons, was
often equal to that of the kings. The fifteenth
century is the century of " the last of the
barons." Their power as independent chieftains,
owing only a feudal allegiance to their monarch,
was broken. The policy of the crafty Louis XI.
of France was directed to the destruction of the
power of the nobles and the centralization of
the monarchical power. In England the Wars
of the Roses destroyed the old nobility and pre
pared the way for the great kings of the line of
Tudor. From Spain the Mohammedans were
driven out, and by the marriage of Ferdinand
and Isabella, Spain became a united kingdom.
" The most remarkable event in the history of
the last three hundred years," i.e., prior to the
fifteenth century, " had been the formation of

160 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
nationalities, each distinguished by a peculiar
language and character, and by steadily increas
ing differences of habits and institutions."14 And
as upon this national basis there had been in
most cases established strong monarchies, Europe
was broken up into disconnected bodies, and the
cherished scheme of a united Christian state
appeared less likely than ever to be realized.
" You see, under whatever point of view the
political history of Europe at this epoch is pre
sented to us, whether we turn our eyes upon
the internal state of nations, or upon the rela
tions of nations with each other, whether we
consider the administration of war, justice, or
taxation, we everywhere find the same charac
ters, everywhere we see the same tendency to
the centralization, unity, formation, and pre
ponderance of general interests and public
powers."15 Amongst the causes of the Reforma
tion Mr. Bettany, in his popular " History of the
Reformation," enumerates " The interference of
the Papal power with the national and princely
rights and liberties, and the antagonism thus
produced between Romanism and the champions
of national liberty."
Following upon this increase and triumph of
the sentiment of nationality comes the growth
14 Bryce, " Holy Roman Empire," p. 243. Cf. Guizot.
16 Cf. Guizot, "History of Civilization." Lecture XI.

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 161
and partial triumph of the idea of National
Churches.16 Even in Roman Catholic countries this con
ception was not wanting. The Church in
France came to be known not merely as the
Catholic Church in France, but as the Gallican
Church, nor did it surrender to Ultramontan-
ism without a struggle. The connection and
sequence of the political and ecclesiastical move
ment is, however, best seen in the history of the
English Reformation. It is sometimes urged
that the English Reformation was a political
movement. This is only partially true, but par-;
tially true it is, and in so far as it is true it is
no reproach. That the civil interests had more
to do with the English Reformation than with
other countries arose from the fact that "England
was a compact nation with a strong central gov
ernment ; and so instead of splitting into parties
and ending in civil war, revolted altogether, the
king and parliament acting together, and trans
ferring to the Crown the ecclesiastical jurisdiction
hitherto exercised by the Pope in England."17
16 "And now men were beginning to be discontented
with the power of the popes through the same causes which
had made the power of the emperors die away. That is to
say, Christendom was split up into separate nations and
kingdoms, and Rome no longer kept its place as centre of
all." — Freeman, "General Sketch of European History,"
p. 224.
17 Seebohm, " Protestant Revolution," p. 167.
11

162 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Thus, in England, the growth and firm estab
lishment of the nation and the centralization of
its powers in the king, was quickly followed by
the establishment of a national church. How
far this idea, that the religion of the State
should be the religion of all the people of the
State, i.e., that the political unit should also be
a religious unit, took possession of men's minds
is shown by the very unsatisfactory but very
striking motto, Cujus regio, ejus religio, that
issued from the hollow peace patched up between
the Emperor Charles V. and the Protestant
States. This motto meant that subjects should
follow the religious faith of their rulers. The
principle resulted in the breaking up of the
Lutheran Church into a number of small
national churches. Our object is not to criticise
this curious and unstable settlement, but only
to observe how strongly it testifies to the do
minion of the national idea in the sixteenth cen
tury both in the sphere of politics and in that
of religion. " By Elizabeth all ecclesiastical dis
obedience was regarded as treasonable, and the
legislation of her later years was directed
against those who took offence at the ritual and
the hierarchy, and were known as Nonconform
ists." That this political policy had but little,
if anything, to do with the idea that the Noncon
formists were, in the theological sense, without

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 163
the pale of the Church, is shown by the friendly
attitude of England to continental Reformed
Churches. Nonconformists were regarded as 1
political offenders, and accordingly their dis
abilities were largely political disabilities. It is
most important that this view should be under
stood here in Canada, amongst those who work
for Christian Unity.
The Roman Empire gave form and organiza
tion to the early Church. The mediaeval Empire
was accompanied by the mediaeval Church. The
breaking up of the Empire into nations was
followed by the formation of national churches.
But has this process of progressive change
ceased ? By no means. Let us then turn our
attention for a moment to the political and
ecclesiastical movements and ideals of to-day.
The most obvious feature of modern politics
is the growth of democratic ideals. Democracy
is triumphant. The question, whether the peo
ple can govern themselves, has been emphatically
answered in the affirmative. The strongest
governments are the democratic governments.
France may be thought an exception to this
rule, but there can be no reasonable doubts as
to the success of Democracy in the British
Empire and the United States. Whatever
changes the future may have in store for us, it
is inconceivable that in English-speaking coun-

164 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
tries there shall be any diminution of popular
power. The best efforts of the State are directed
now to the education of the individual citizen in
the proper performance of his duties. The gloomy
forebodings of many earnest and able men,
when, fifty or more years ago, Reform Bills were
passed in England steadily increasing the power
of the people at large, have not been fulfilled.
The testimonies of American writers to the
courage, intelligence and coolness of the people
in times of trial are by no means all bombast.
" One night," says Walt Whitman, " in the
gloomiest period of the war, in the Patent Office
Hospital in Washington City, as I stood by the
bedside of a Pennsylvania soldier, who lay con
scious of quick approaching death, yet perfectly
calm and with noble, spiritual manner ; the
veteran surgeon, turning aside, said to me, that
though he had witnessed many, many deaths of
soldiers, and had been a worker at Bull Run,
Antietam, Fredericksburg, etc., he had not seen
yet the first case of man or boy that met the
approach of dissolution with cowardly qualms
or terror."18 Whitman continues : " What have
we here, if not towering above all talk and
argument, the plentifully-supplied, last-needed
proof of Democracy in its personalities ?" It is
not contended that Democracy is perfect, but
1 8 Democratic Vistas.

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 165
that it has on the whole justified itself, and
raises hopes of greater efficiency as the people
grow in education and enlightenment. Bribery
and corruption are the chief weaknesses of
democracies. Yet the instances of popular
venality can easily be paralleled from the
history of aristocratic England of the eighteenth
century. But the development of democratic opinion
has been vastly different from what the English
Radicals of fifty or sixty years ago anticipated.
The last thing that Democracy was expected to
favor was Imperialism, and yet to-day it is not
merely Democracy, but Imperial Democracy that
is triumphant. I believe the American people
were perfectly sincere when they said they had
no desire to extend their territory by force of
arms or to become a world power, but the logic
of events has been too strong for them. And
this development of Imperial Democracy indi
cates that the national idea is undergoing a
transformation. England to-day is not a nation
in the sense in which she felt herself a nation
in the time of Elizabeth. She is an empire.
The political problem that faces her is the prob
lem of federating the component parts of the
Empire, so as to preserve both liberty and unity.
The United States is scarcely to be regarded as
a nation ; she is a federation of self-governing

166 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
states. The German Empire, though less devel
oped on the democratic side, yet affords another
illustration of Imperial Democracy.
But the British Empire and the United States
are very different from the Holy Roman Em
pire. And the difference lies in the difference
between the feudal system and democracy. It
is being politically demonstrated that the strong
est unity is the unity of freedom. We are free.
We all have a voice in the government. We are
bound together by stronger ties than those of
brute force or the voice of kings. Canada could
separate herself from England to-morrow, if she
chose. But has there ever been a time when
she was less likely to do so ? What are the
bonds that bind together the British Empire ?
Are they not those of common blood, common
aims, common institutions ? These things are
fundamentally spiritual things; and spiritual
things are, in the long-run, stronger than mate
rial. Such seems to me to be the characteristic
of the most influential political movement of our
time — the nation giving way to the free demo
cratic empire. And already there looms upon
the horizon the prospect of a wider federation
yet, a federation of all the great peoples of the
world for the preservation of peace and the pro
motion of prosperity.

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 167
I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder
that would be.
' ' Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of
magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with
costly bales ;
"Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there
rain'd a ghastly dew
From the Nations' airy navies grappling in the
central blue ;
"Far along the world-wide whisper of the south
wind rushing warm
With the standard of the peoples plunging through
the thunder storm,
"Till the war-drums throbbed no longer, and the
battle-flags were furled
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the
world. "
Now, if this brief analysis of the main political
current of our times be true, shall we not expect
to find some corresponding movement in the
sphere of ecclesiastical life? If, in the sphere of
politics, liberty and equal political privileges are
seen to issue in a federation of kindred peoples,
a federation wherein the bonds are spiritual, not
material — sentiment, not arms — a federation
based upon the principles of liberty and love,
does not history teach us to look for similar
signs in the sphere of the religious interests ?

168 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Looked at from this point of view, we observe,
in the first place, that the idea of national
churches is dead. I am not unmindful of Dr.
Huntington's interesting lectures on "A National
Church." His proposals, however, are simply a
national church composed of a federation of vari
ous communions. I do not think in what follows
there is anything that conflicts with his ideas.
No one proposes to establish a church on this
continent. The Established Church of England
embraces not much more than one-half of the
active religious life of the country, and the ques
tion of disestablishment is a live issue. The
Presbyterian Church of Scotland, with unity in
doctrine and worship, is split into two nearly
equal parts on this question of establishment.
On the other hand, federation is either directly
or indirectly proposed. The Chicago-Lambeth
Quadrilateral, had it been accepted by any com
munion, would not have issued in complete
unity, but in a federation.
The unity of the Free Churches in England,
in which Mr. Hugh Price Hughes is so deeply
interested, is really a federation of churches.
The Anglican communion exists in absolutely
independent bodies in England, Ireland, Scot
land, America, and the colonies, yet the Lambeth
conferences, held every ten years, attended by
all bishops in communion with the Anglican

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 169
Church, are an outward and visible expression
of the federation of the branches of this com
munion. Federation is the key-note of ecclesi
astical no less than of civil politics.
Nothing, again, is more remarkable than the
growth of democratic principles in ecclesiastical
affairs. It is true that many of the Reformed
bodies were organized from the first on a demo
cratic basis, but in the Church of England the
powers of the laity were reduced to such a
minimum as to be practically non-existent. To
day a determined agitation has won some rights
for the laity, and aims at far more. But it is
most interesting to notice how the Anglican
branches in the colonies, preserving the polity
and worship of the Mother Church, have from
the first recognized the necessity of a full repre
sentation of the laity in all their synods.
We may, then, fairly claim to have shown
that the civil idea of the democratic federation
is finding its parallel in the Church, and may,
therefore, venture from the solid ground of pres
ent fact to forecast the fdture growth of this
movement. The ideal which I would commend
to all English-speaking lovers of and believers
in Unity, is the ideal of a church of the English-
speaking peoples, with, it may be, many varieties
of worship, of ritual, of methods of work; and yet,
because voluntary, one with a unity more vital

170 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
and infinitely more powerful for good than any
which has yet existed. The ideal of the Church
of Christ is to bind together into one com-
munnion and fellowship all mankind. The ideal
of an English Church is of a church wherein all
English-speaking peoples shall be bound together
into one communion and fellowship. The unity
must be the expression of a common spiritual
loyalty to the one Lord, and of a common spirit
ual aspiration — the " one faith and one hope of
our calling," and then it will be not a mere
formal fellowship, but a fellowship of free men,
freely uniting for a common end. Surely the
day is not far distant when there will be not
merely Lambeth conferences, or Free Church
conferences, or American congresses of religion,
but when all the spiritual forces of English-
speaking Christians will regularly assemble in
the person of their elected representatives in
a parliament, for the consideration of the main
objects of the various branches of the Church,
the uplifting of the masses, the destruction of
the tendencies which compel the separation of
class from class, the conversion of the world, and
the promotion of peace.
And then there arises upon the far distant
horizon the vision of a yet wider Parliament,
the Parliament of the world, wherein shall be
realized those old splendid but premature ideas

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 171
of the Middle Ages concerning the Universal
Empire and the Universal Church.
Visions, do you cry ? Unsubstantial as the
fabric of a dream ! Visions they may be, but
not, I hope, without some promise of truth and
reality. The conceptions of the connected pro
gress of civil and ecclesiastical political ideas,
which I have so inadequately sought to present
to your minds, if true only in main outline,
surely afford some solid basis for the flight of
imagination. And what is imagination but
another word for faith ? Difficulties you may
see in the pathway of the ideal, but faith can
remove mountains. " Your old men shall dream
dreams, your young men shall see visions,"19
cried the prophet. And the vision was to
be the outcome of the outpouring of the Spirit
of the Infinite upon finite souls. The ideal
which is presented to you by the words " Christian
Unity," is the ideal of prophet and apostle.
It is the ideal that underlies the words found
in both Isaiah and Micah : ' It shall come to
pass in the latter days, that the mountain
of the Lord's house shall be established in the
top of the mountains, and shall be exalted
above the hills; and all nations shall flow
into it. And many peoples shall go and say,
1 » Joel ii.

172 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain
of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ;
and he will teach us of his ways, and we will
walk in his paths : for out of Zion shall go forth
the law, and the word of the Lord from Jeru
salem. And he shall judge between the nations,
and shall reprove many peoples : and they shall
beat their swords into ploughshares, and their
spears into pruninghooks : nation shall not lift
up sword against nation, neither shall they
learn war any more."
It is the ideal of St. Paul, the Apostle of the
nations, when he writes that in Christ Jesus
there " cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision
and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond
man, freeman ; but Christ is all and in all." It is
the ideal of the same Apostle when he cries,
" There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye
also were called in one hope of your calling; one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of us all. . . . And he gave some to
be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evan
gelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for the
perfecting of the saints unto the work of minis
tering ; unto the building up of the body of
Christ ; till we all attain unto the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ. . . . From

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 173
whom the whole body fitly framed and knit
together through that which every joint sup
plieth, according to the working in due measure
of each several part maketh the increase of the
body unto the building up of itself in love."20
Ah, yes, and it was, too, the ideal of the Lord
himself, an ideal revealed in the words, " Go ye
into all the world and preach the Gospel to
every creature, baptizing them into the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." With Him it was more than an ideal, it
was a prayer for all the world. " Neither for
these only do I pray, but for them also that
believe on me through their word ; that they
may all be one ; even as thou, Father, art in me,
and I in thee, that they also may be one in us :
that the world may believe that thou didst
send me."21
The vision of the prophet, the ideal of the
apostle, the prayer of the Master, — shall we in
these momentous days wherein a great century is
drawing to a close, and hopeful eyes look on into
a greater century to come — shall we, believing
that the prophet and the apostle were inspired,
and that the Master is divine, disregard or de
spise alike the vision, the ideal and the prayer,
and with faithless eyes turned down to the
20 Colossians iii. 11, and Ephesians iv. 4.
21 St. John xvii. 20, 21.

174 CHRISTIAN UNITY.
earth beneath us, wrap ourselves up in the
petty interests of our individual, or our busi
ness, or our sectarian life ? No ! " To you and
to me and men like ourselves is committed, in
these anxious days, that which is at once an
awful responsibility and a splendid destiny — to
transform this modern world into a Christian
society, . . to gather together the scattered
forces of a divided Christendom into a confed
eration in which organization will be of less
account than fellowship with one Spirit and
faith in one Lord — into a communion wide as
human life and deep as human need — into a
church which shall outshine even the glory of
its dawn by the splendor of its eternal noon."22
O Almighty Father, gather together from all
the earth those who love Jesus Christ, the Lord,
and pour down upon them thy Holy Spirit in
pentecostal fires that shall burn away all the
barriers which pride and vainglory, tradition
and prejudice have erected, and knit together
into one communion and fellowship all mankind
in bonds of simple faith and earnest hope and
of love unfeigned that never grow eth cold, for
the sake of Him who loved all the world and
gave himself for its eternal blessedness, Jesus
Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
22 Hatch, ' Organization of the Christian Church.'
Lecture VIII.