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it; he would be disposed if he were disposed; he would have moral ability if he had moral ability, the precise thing that he has not, and never will have till it is imparted by the Holy Ghost. As Fuller says, "this is no more than the power of being what they are." But it surely cannot avail to make them what they are not. Without this right disposition, mere natural power, as it is termed, the possession of the faculties requisite to humanity and free agency, can never renew or purify the evil heart. They fix responsibility. They make men guilty for their sins. They make it certain that so surely as the wicked man acts freely, he will sin, and sin only. But they never can make corrupt man a new creature in Christ Jesus.

ART. III.-Idea of the Church.

IN that symbol of faith adopted by the whole Christian world, commonly called the Apostles' Creed, the church is declared to be "the communion of saints." In analysing the idea of the church here presented, it may be proper to state, first, what is not included in it; and, secondly, what it does really embrace.

It is obvious that the church, considered as the communion of saints, does not necessarily include the idea of a visible society organised under one definite form. A kingdom is a political society governed by a king; an aristocracy is such a society, governed by a privileged class; a democracy is a political organization having the power centred in the people. The very terms suggest these ideas. There can be no kingdom without a king, and no aristocracy without a privileged class. There may, however, be a communion of saints without a visible head, without prelates, without a democratic covenant. In other words, the church, as defined in the Creed, is not a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy. It may be either, all, or neither. It is not, however, presented as a visible organization, to which the form is essential, as in the case of the human societies just mentioned.

Again, the conception of the church as the communion of saints does not include the idea of any external organization. The bond of union may be spiritual. There may be communion without external organised union. The church, therefore, according to this view, is not essentially a visible society; it is not a corporation which ceases to exist if the external bond of union be dissolved. It may be proper that such union should exist; it may be true that it has always existed; but it is not

necessary. The church, as such, is not a visible society. All visible union, all external organization may cease, and yet, so long as there are saints who have communion, the church exists, if the church is the communion of saints. That communion may be in faith, in love, in obedience to a common Lord. It may have its origin in something deeper still; in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, even the Spirit of Christ, by which every member is united to Christ, and all the members are joined in one body. This is an union far more real, a com.munion far more intimate, than subsists between the members of any visible society as such. So far, therefore, is the Apostles' Creed from representing the church as a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy,-so far is it from setting forth the church as a visible society of one specific form, that it does not present it under the idea of an external society at all. The saints may exist, they may have communion, the church may continue under any external organization, or without any visible organization whatever.

What is affirmed in the above-cited definition is, first, that the church consists of saints; and, secondly, of saints in communion that is, so united as to form one body. To determine, therefore, the true idea of the church, it is only necessary to ascertain who are meant by the "saints," and the nature of their communion, or the essential bond by which they are united.

The word ayos, saint, signifies holy, worthy of reverence, pure, in the sense of freedom either from guilt or from moral pollution. The word ayage means to render holy, or sacred; to cleanse from guilt, as by a sacrifice, or from moral defilement, by the renewing of the heart. The saints, therefore, according to the scriptural meaning of the term, are those who have been cleansed from guilt or justified, who have been inwardly renewed or sanctified, and who have been separated from the world and consecrated to God. Of such the church consists. If a man is not justified, sanctified, and consecrated to God, he is not a saint, and therefore does not belong to the church, which is the communion of saints.

Under the old dispensation, the whole nation of the Hebrews was called holy, as separated from the idolatrous nations around them, and consecrated to God. The Israelites were also called the children of God, as the recipients of his peculiar favours. These expressions had reference rather to external relations and privileges than to internal character. In the New Testament, however, they are applied only to the true people of God. None are there called saints but the sanctified in Christ Jesus. None are called the children of God, but those born of the Spirit, who being children are heirs, heirs of God, and joint

heirs with Jesus Christ of an heavenly inheritance. When, therefore, it is said that the church consists of saints, the meaning is, not that it consists of all who are externally consecrated to God, irrespective of their moral character, but that it consists of true Christians or sincere believers.

As to the bond by which the saints are united so as to become a church, it cannot be any thing external, because that may and always does unite those who are not saints. The bond, whatever it is, must be peculiar to the saints; it must be something to which their justification, sanctification, and access to God are due. This can be nothing less than their relation to Christ. It is in virtue of union with him that men become saints, or are justified, sanctified, and brought nigh to God. They are one body in Christ Jesus. The bond of union between Christ and his people is the Holy Spirit, who dwells in him and in them. He is the head, they are the members of his body, the church, which is one body, because pervaded and animated by one Spirit. The proximate and essential bond of union between the saints, that which gives rise to their communion, and makes them the church or body of Christ, is, therefore, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.

Such, then, is the true idea of the church, or, what is the same thing, the idea of the true church. It is the communion of saints, the body of those who are united to Christ by the indwelling of his Spirit. The two essential points included in this definition are, that the church consists of saints, and that the bond of their union is not external organization, but the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. These, therefore, are the two points to be established. As, however, the one involves the other, they need not be considered separately. The same arguments which prove the one prove also the other.

By this statement, it is not meant that the word church is not properly used in various senses. The object of inquiry is not the usage of a word, but the true idea of a thing; not how the word church is employed, but what the church itself is. Who compose the church? What is essential to the existence of that body to which the attributes, the promises, the prerogatives of the church belong? On the decision of that question rests the solution of all other questions in controversy between Romanists and Protestants.

The mode of verifying the true idea of the church.-The Holy Scriptures are on this, as on all other matters of faith or practice, our only infallible rule. We may confirm our interpretation of the Scriptures from various sources, especially from the current judgment of the church, but the real foundation of our faith is to be sought in the Word of God itself. The teachings of the Scriptures concerning the nature of the church,

are both direct and indirect. They didactically assert what the church is, and they teach such things respecting it as necessarily lead to a certain conception of its nature.

We may learn from the Bible the true idea of the church, in the first place, from the use of the word itself. Under all the various applications of the term, that which is essential to the idea will be found to be expressed. In the second place, the equivalent or descriptive terms employed to express the same idea reveal its nature. In the third place, the attributes ascribed to the church in the Word of God determine its nature. If those attributes can be affirmed only of a visible society, then the church must, as to its essence, be such a society. If, on the other hand, they belong only to the communion of saints, then none but saints constitute the church. These attributes must all be included in the idea of the church. They are but different phases or manifestations of its nature. They can all, therefore, be traced back to it, or evolved from it. If the church is the body of those who are united to Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, then the indwelling of the Spirit must make the church holy, visible, perpetual, one, catholic. All these attributes must be referable to that one thing to which the church owes its nature. In the fourth place, the promises and prerogatives which belong to the church teach us very plainly whether it is an external society, or a communion of saints. In the fifth place, there is a necessary connection between a certain scheme of doctrine and a certain theory of the church. It is admitted that the church includes all who are in Christ, all who are saints. It is also admitted that all who are in Christ are in the church. The question, therefore, Who are in the church? must depend upon the answer to the question, Who are in Christ? or how do we become united to him?

Finally, as the true doctrine concerning the way of salvation leads to the true theory of the church, we may expect to see that theory asserted and taught in all ages. However corrupted and overlaid it may be, as other doctrines have been, it will be found still preserved and capable of being recognised under all these perversions. The testimony of the church itself will, therefore, be found to be in favour of the true doctrine as to what the church is.

The full exposition of these topics would require a treatise by itself. The evidence in favour of the true doctrine concerning the church, even in the imperfect manner in which it is unfolded in this article, is to be sought through all the following pages, and not exclusively under one particular head. All that is now intended is to present a general view of the principal arguments in support of the doctrine, that the church

consists of saints or true Christians, and that the essential bond of their union is not external organization, but the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.

Argument from the scriptural use of the word church. The word ἐκκλησια from ἐκκαλεω, evocare, means an assembly or body of men evoked, or called out, and together. It was used to designate the public assembly of the people among the Greeks, collected for the transaction of business. It is applied to the tumultuous assembly called together in Ephesus by the outcries of Demetrius, Acts xix. 39. It is used for those who are called out of the world by the gospel, so as to form a distinct class. It was not the Helots at Athens who heard the proclamation of the heralds, but the people who actually assembled, who constituted the ixxλnoia of that city. In like manner it is not those who merely hear the call of the gospel, who constitute the church, but those who obey the call. Thousands of the Jews and Gentiles, in the age of the apostles, heard the gospel, received its invitations, but remained Jews and idolaters. Those only who obeyed the invitation, and separated themselves from their former connections, and entered into a new relation and communion, made up the church of that day. In all the various applications, therefore, of the word ixxλnora in the New Testament, we find it uniformly used as a collective term for the xλnro orixλexTo, that is, for those who obey the gospel call, and who are thus selected and separated as a distinct class from the rest of the world. Sometimes the term includes all who have already, or who shall hereafter, accept the call of God. This is the sense of the word in Eph. iii. 10, where it is said to be the purpose of God to manifest unto principalities and powers by the church his manifold wisdom; and in Eph. v. 25, 26, where it is said, that Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Sometimes the word is used for the people of God indefinitely, as when it is said of Paul, he persecuted the church; or when we are commanded to give no offence to the church. The word is very commonly used in this sense, as when we speak of the progress of the church, or pray for the church. It is not any specific, organised body that is commonly intended in such expressions, but the kingdom of Christ indefinitely. Sometimes it is used for any number of the called, collectively considered, united together by some common bond. Thus we hear of the church in the house of Priscilla and Aquila, the church in the house of Nymphas, the church in the house of Philemon; the church of Jerusalem, of Antioch, of Corinth, &c. In all these cases, the meaning of the word is 2 L

VOL. IIL-NO. X.

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