ARTICLE VI-THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

THE recent convocation of the Evangelical Alliance held in New York, if it did not claim or have the authority of an cecumenical council, was a significant event as marking the advance of a true idea in the world. Its occurrence in the New World itself showed progress in the widening circle of liberal Christian sentiment. The meeting was a far more impressive and important one than had been anticipated by its most sanguine advocates. It was the testimony of all who watched its. progress that it grew upon them steadily, that its interest was profound and wide-spread, and that its spirit was of a primitive type of Christianity. It was characterized by a forgetfulness of what was narrow and selfish in the past, and by a large and scriptural hopefulness prophetic of greater things to come. Were it not too bold an expression we would say that the Spirit of God took possession of this simple instrumentality to teach men divine lessons, and there flowed forth from the meeting a secret power of good which was confessed by all who participated in it, and was confirmed by the enlargement and elevation of spirit that resulted from its silent influences. Many who came from curiosity went away deepened in their religious convictions and purposes. The whole Christian community was unexpectedly ripe for it, and it met the earnest though undefined yearnings of hundreds and thousands of souls, in all sections of the Church, for a freer common expression of thought and feeling upon themes that belong to man's higher nature, and that rise above the incessant clamor of temporal interests who were tired of differences and wished to show their common love for Christ. Even if it aroused opposition and has stirred up controversy upon new and old issues, that showed it was a power. As its crowded sessions went on day after day with increasing enthusiasm, calm but deep, it was seen by all, whether friends or enemies of Christian faith, that Christianity possessed an intellectual vigor at least equal to the demands of the age; that it was also thoroughly in earn

est to cope with the living problems of the day, and that, on the same platform, the earnest worker gained for himself as close a hearing as the ablest thinker; that there was no repression of humor and the human element, and that they who took part were evidently among the happiest as well as most loving of men; that there could be disagreement among members in matters of opinion, and strenuous discussion even upon radical points, without the disturbance of fraternal feeling; and, above all, it was seen that Christians of various churches, languages, cultures, garbs, and complexions, from all parts of the earth, were, in a deeper sense, truly one. That was the significant fact. That was what made the meeting a kind of spiritual nilometer, indicating the height to which the waters of religious opinion and sentiment had risen.

There may not have been, and, from the nature of the organization, could not have been, in this meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, a positive expression of the unity of the Church, although there was an expression of the unity of true Christians; but, nevertheless, a gain was made toward the practical recognition in the world of the great idea slowly and wearily struggling to make its way in men's minds and hearts, of the unity of the Christian Church.

This truth undoubtedly now exists as an ideal truth, or, we should rather say, it is a truth which has not as yet wrought itself out into an objective fact, although there is no more real truth. It is true,

1. From the nature of things. In every object, philosophically conceived, its unity precedes its diversity. Both in an absolute and relative sense the law of unity is a fundamental law of all being. The arguments that prove the absolute being of God also go to prove his unity, even as the very existence of the human soul proves its unity. First the one, then the many. First unity, then variety in unity. And especially is this essential law of unity true in the relative sense of the term, as comprehending the relations of things to one another. Nothing is perfect which stands alone, or which is cut off from its true relations to other objects. Through all creation runs this law of interdependency, of union, of mutual support and perfection, binding the stars together in their

courses. This comes from a common plan enstamped upon all things by a one common Creator. When we apply this principle to man, especially in his highest religious nature and relations, we cannot escape from the binding force of the law of unity. In origin, all men are one. In the law of righteousness which is impressed upon their consciences and hearts, they are one. In the consequences of their actions, their aims and destinies, they are one. In their mutual wants, sympathies, feelings, and affections as members of the human family, they are one. And is it to be supposed that in their spiritual interests they can be separated? Can they live in these without mutual dependency and union? Can they exist in exclusiveness? Can they break the law of unity in these higher spiritual things where they come nearer to the one Divine Will and Spirit? The best minds, therefore, in all ages discerning the one original plan of God in men's natures, have yearned for a true religious as well as political unification of the race. The longings for "the city of God" have been transferred by great and devout minds to a future state, only because it seemed impossible that there should be even an approximate realization of this high and joyful truth on the earth. Roman Catholicism, from an inherent error in its theory, has not succeeded in its attempt to carry out the idea of a universal church; but this ill-success by no means proves that the idea is not philosophical, is not one that is true in the nature of things, is not one that is intuitive to the human mind when freed from prejudice and selfishness, is not one that is possible and shall be finally realized. As sure as men, made of one blood, shall be at length united in a broad political brotherhood, recognizing the equal rights of each nation and each individual before the law, and binding themselves to mutual acts and responsibilities for each other's temporal safety and welfare, so there shall be, by the constitution of things, a like union in religion, a world-church comprehending the whole human race, one holy Catholic Church, whose members are members one of another, recognizing each other in every right, in every sympathy, in every duty and responsibility, and bound together in a unity where nature is made doubly nature by the Spirit of God.

2. From the testimony of Scripture and the type of the primitive Apostolical Church. The church of the first disciples was the "one one body" of Christ. "For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ; for by one spirit we are all baptized into one body." There was in the apostolic period a true corporate union existing among all the various members of Christ's body, the Church-not merely a spiritual, but a bodily, or, in a true sense, vital and organic union. This union embraced all believers, and was as wide as the world. Neander, who as a Church historian unites philosophic profundity with the most reverent care for the truth, speaks thus of the typical idea of the Apostolic Church: "But this consciousness of divine life received from Christ, is necessarily followed by the recognition of a communion which embraces all mankind, and passes beyond the boundaries of earthly existence, the consciousness of the Holy Spirit as the spirit producing and animating this communion,—the consciousness of the unity of the divine life shared by all believers, a unity which counterbalances all the other differences existing among mankind, as had been already manifested at the first promulgation of Christianity, when the most marked contrarieties arising either from religion, national peculiarities, or mental culture, were reconciled, and the persons whom they had kept at a distance from each other became united in vital communion."* Again: "This is no abstract representation, but a truly living reality. If in all the widely spread Christian communities, amidst all the diversity of human peculiarities animated by the same spirit, only the consciousness of this higher unity and communion were retained, as Paul desired, this would be the most glorious appearance of the one Christian Church in which the kingdom of God represents itself on earth; and no outward constitution, no system of episcopacy, no council, still less any organization by the State, which would substitute something foreign to its nature, could render the idea of a Christian Church more real or concrete."+

To bring this idea of the one apostolic and universal church

into something like a definite statement, we would say, that he who studies with unprejudiced mind the scriptural account of the planting of the primitive Church, freeing his mind from the influence of subsequent historical developments and following the New Testament record pure and simple, must come to the conclusion that, during the life of the apostles, who, under Christ established the constitution of the Church, the Christian Church was formed of various communities of believers, in and out of Jerusalem, and also in cities and nations other than Jewish, who, though varied, still all held together as the real members of one body, with recognized relations to each other, and with mutual duties and responsibilities arising from such a corporate union. They were one body. The apostles never thought of anything else. Christ was not divided. The doings of the Church in Antioch were a common and serious concern of the Church in Jerusalem. The membership of the Church in Ephesus was a membership of the Church in Antioch. A man was a member of the Church of Christ rather than of the Church of Jerusalem. The Church at Jerusalem was only one of the doors, or inlets, by which he entered into the one temple and kingdom of Christ. This kingdom was world wide; this Church was a universal Church. It was a greater idea than that of the Roman Empire. An idea like that fired the hearts of the first disciples and evangelists to go forth to the conquest of the whole world for Christ, and because we have lost this great idea, we have grown cold in our zeal for the world's redemption.

This then, we conceive to be the type of the primitive Apostolic Church, a unity in diversity in which the diversity was as nothing to the unity,-in which the diversity was chiefly human and the unity divine. It was a union not only spiritual but visible, or organically corporate. When numerous minor churches began to be formed, differences began to develop themselves, since neither Christ nor his apostles laid down a uniform model of church organization. Such differences already existed between the Jewish and Hellenic Churches in the apostles' time-but these did not break the union; they did not divide the body of Christ. True brotherhood, communion, equality, sympathy, the reciprocal reference of difficul