The living temple

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. |

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Preface

THE work here offered to the public embodies the substance, carefully revised, slightly enlarged and somewhat modified, of what was some years ago published under the title of " The Church Universal." No essential change has been made ; but the author ventures to hope that sufficient improvement has been effected to render the work more worthy of the time and thought which may be given to its perusal.

The book aims, among other things, at two principal points : the Scriptural Idea of the Church ; and the accord with this Idea of our own standards and of the best standard writers on the subject.

1. In his appeal to Scripture, the Author has been influenced by a conviction that there has been, and still is, among us, a tendency to leave the Bible too much out of view in our controversial and theological discussions ; that unless this tendency can be brought within due bounds, we are in danger of reaching a state, in which argument from the supreme, all-sufficient authority of the Word of God, in the style of the first Christian writers and apologists, will fall a virtually dead weight on the minds of both our clergy and our laity. He is sincerely desirous of doing what little he can towards lifting the Bible into that peerless honor which is its heaven-born right, as the only infallible rule of faith and practice in matters of religion. To the inspired Word nothing can give either a meaning, or a certainty, which lies not in its own sense ; and from that Word nothing but Inspiration can develop a meaning or a certainty, which the human mind, as addressed therein, and as guided by the ordinary teachings of the Holy Spirit, and by other accessible lights, is unable to discover. This is spoken of doctrines, or truths designed to govern moral and religious faith and practice. Testimony to facts, and determination of doctrines, are different things. So far as testimony may be needed in establishing such facts as the application of Baptism to infants, the change of the Day of Rest, the origin of Episcopacy with the Apostles, and the prevalence of the doctrine of the Trinity, or of any other doctrine, as a matter of history, we may receive that testimony, if good and sufficient in kind and amount, just as we receive any other good and sufficient human testimony ; regarding it as adequate to the reasonable proof of any fact possible under the government of God.

But we cannot receive any exterior documents, or authority, as necessary and sufficient to determine, with infallible certainty, what are the otherwise undiscoverable doctrines of the Bible, without thereby elevating those documents, or that authority, to a certainty and a value above those of the Bible itself. If, in matters of doctrinal truth, the Bible, under the ordinary teachings of the Holy Spirit and amid the light with which Divine Providence has surrounded it, cannot disclose its own sense to that mind of man which it addresses, then nothing lower than a new and clearer Revelation can be made an infallible interpreter of that sense. Such a revelation, if given, could never be safely received, unless accredited by miracles ; and, so accredited, that Revelation would at once take rank, for certainty of authority and for eminence of value, above the ancient Scriptures. Hence the peril of receiving Tradition in any form, as a necessary and infallible interpreter of the doctrinal sense of the Bible. To be of any higher authority than ordinary testimony, of any higher value to interpretation than ordinary human helps, Tradition must necessarily take rank with Revelation ; and when used to fix on the doctrinal sense of the Bible an infallible interpretation not otherwise discoverable, it must necessarily take rank above the Bible. And yet, the Tradition of which so much is made can show no divinely-accrediting seals. The gravest suspicion may well be considered as resting on all pretensions to miracle since the Apostolic Age.

The tendency of the Doctrine of Tradition, as a necessary and infallible interpreter of the Bible, may be seen in the celebrated "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine," and in the resulting movement of its Author. The starting point of that Doctrine of Tradition cannot be distinctly and intelligently assumed, and the line which flows from that point cannot be logically and honestly followed, without reaching an elevation of Authority and value above the Word of God. The Doctrine develops itself into Romanism, and its advocates into Romanists. If either the Church or an individual start from the point of Tradition, as above defined, the line of development, flowing from that point, will certainly lead its follower into Rome. The individual, indeed, may die before reaching that result, or various strong influences may hold him back, or turn him aside, from the advance of rectilinear logic and sympathy ; but nothing else can keep him from reaching and entering the gate that opens into the inclosure both of Romish theology and of Romish superstition.

2. In his appeal to Standard Writers, the Author feels a confidence inspired by facts too plain to be denied. Even the advocates of the ultra-Episcopal theory of the Clmrcli admit that the testimony of the writers of tlie English Church in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries is decidedly in favor of the Definition of the Church given in the following pages. Indeed, that testimony is too explicit and harmonious to be disputed or set aside. The only way in which it can be met, is by ascribing that testimony to undue sympathy with the Continental Reformers, and to ignorance of the Value of certain Patristic testimony, the credit of which, it is said, has since been established. The plea, in substance, is, that the English and Continental Reformers were fellow-sufferers in the persecutions which Rome waged against her reforming opponents ; and that, therefore, it is no wonder if, in their strong feelings of affection for each other, and of dislike to the common persecutbr, the English Writers were led too far in admitting the claims of the Non-Episcopal Reformed bodies on the Continent to the character of Churches, or parts of the one true Church of Christ ; especially since, at the time of the Reformation, and in the Seventeenth Century, the Epistles of Ignatius were not free from a suspicion of their authenticity. This suspicion has since been removed, and the Ignatian Epistles are now available to the Episcopal argument in all the explicitness and strength of their testimony. Had those Epistles been in credit at the Reformation, as they are now, the Englisli Reformers and their immediate successors would not have admitted, as they did, the Church character of the Continental Reformed Christians. A few words on both parts of this plea.

(1.) As to the former part : If sympathy under common persecution can make Protestants recognize each other as fellow-members of the Church of Christ, and Protestant Communions acknowledge each others claims to, at least, the substance of Church cTiaracter, there would be one blessing, if no more, in making such persecutions perpetual. That the English Reformers sympathized tenderly with the Continental Reformed Christians in their trials, there can be no doubt • but, that their sympathy blinded their judgments, or made them indifferent to the loss of the Episcopacy among their companions in suffering — this is a very slender pretense, opposed by abundant testimony to the contrary. The language of Bp. Hall expressed not his own sentiments alone, but those of others as well, when he thus wrote : •' Oh I How oft, and with what deep sighs, hath this most flourishing and happy Church of England wished that she might, with some of her own blood, have purchased unto her dearest sisters abroad the retention of this most ancient and every way best of Governments ;" that is, the retention of Church Government by the Episcopacy.

Again : " It is not the variety of by-opinions that can exclude them from their part in the One Catholic Church and their just claim to the Communion of Saints. While they hold the solid and precious foundation, it is not the hay or stubble, which they lay upon it, that can set them off from God and His Church. But, in the meantime, it must be granted, that they have much to answer for to the God of peace and unity who are so addicted to their own conceits, and so indulgent to their own interest, as to raise and maintain new doctrines, and to set up new sects in the " Church of Christ " (in, not out of the Church), "varying from the common and received truths ; laboring to draw disciples after them, to the great distraction of souls and scandal of Christianity."

The English Reformers and their immediate successors were neither blind nor indifferent to the value and the obligation of Episcopacy. All their sympathy with their suffering brethren on the Continent could not have extorted from them an acknowledgment of Church character without Episcopacy, had they not, as students of the Bible and antiquity, been convinced that Episcopacy however valuable and obligatory, is not, in such sense, essential to the being of the Church ; that, without it, the Church cannot exist.

(2.) As to the latter part of the plea : It is true lo PREFACE.

that the Ignatian Epistles are now admitted to be authentic 5 but it is not universally conceded that they are free from interpolations. Mr. Cureton, a learned Orientalist in England, some time since published, and, by permission, dedicated to the Primate of the English Church, an interpretation of the Syriac version of three of those Epistles ; which, as there is said to be little reason for considering them abridgments, would show that the expurgated Greek copies in ordinary use, much as their former contents have been reduced, still contain many interpolations ; and, what is remarkable in this shorter Syriac version, almost all the strong passages on the subject of Episcopacy are wanting. Allowing, however, that the common Greek copies are both authentic and genuine, or that Ignatius wrote all the strong passages ascribed to him on the subject of Episcopacy, this makes him not a teacher of the ultra-Episcopal dogma. You search those Epistles in vain for that Idea of the Apostolical Succession which makes Ordination a Sacrament, transmitting not merely Office, but a certain mysterious Sacerdotal Power, on the possession of which, from the Apostles' hands, through the line of Bishops alone, depend the validity and efficacy of all other sacraments and ministerial acts. Not one of the strong passages referred to represents Ordination as the exclusive prerogative of Bishops ; not one speaks of Ordination

PREFACE. II

as conveying that mysterious Sacerdotal power. Allowing that he wrote all those passages, Ignatius was eyidently pressing the Episcopacy as simply the regularlyderived Government of the Church, a Government then universally received, but having no necessary affinity with the Idea of a Sacerdotal power, conveyed in Ordination, and without which there can be no valid or efficacious ministerial act. Ignatius looked at Episcopacy as a Government for the Church, and not as a channel of Ordination for the transmission of any such mysterious power. At least, his epistolary remains furnish no evidence of such ultra-Episcopacy. A single passage will serve to illustrate these remarks. To the Magnesians, he writes : " I exhort that ye study to do all things in a divine concord, your Bishop presiding in the place of God ; your Presbyters in the place of the Council of the Apostles ; and your Deacons, most dear to me, being entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ." This, it is needless to say, has nothing to do with Ordination, though it has much to do with Government. It is simply an exhortation to concord in all things under the Presidency of Bishops with their associated Presbyters and Deacons ; that is, to a peaceful and Christian cooperation with their proper ecclesiastical governors in all things pertaining to the welfare of the Church. Similar passages are of frequent occurrence in his Episties ; and they show liow little Ignatius had to do with the theory of transmitting Sacerdotal powers through Bishops alone..

It may be added that the English Reformers and writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries were not unlearned in Patristics. Usher, at Oxford, in 1644, as well as Yossius, at Amsterdam, in 1646, was very learnedly engaged in expurgating these very Ignatian Epistles. The sacred scholars of England, in both centuries, studied the fathers deeply, and the Bible profoundly ; and thus, well versed in both, and, withal, skilled as few have since been in meeting all the turns and foiling all the movements of the Romish Argument on the subject of the Church, they adopted the only Church theory which can stand this side of an admission of the entire claim of Rome.

The English Reformation theory of the Church, giving Episcopacy its due place of value and of obligation, yet leaving to all Christians an open ground of common membership in the Church of Christ, a ground on which they may all come together in the work of kindly drawing all hearts into one feeling of love, and of lovingly uniting all mouths in one profession of faith, has, as the Author believes, the Bible for its base and the mind of God for its origin. It is, perad venture, the only Window in the roof of our Ark through which light from Heaven can come in upon the darkness of those confusions and divisions into which the Church has fallen, and make manifest the secret of peace, love, and concord among all who name themselves of Christ. Cheerfully, therefore, and trustingly, does he again bid this little work go forth to do whatever God may make it the instrument of doing in the blessed work of filling the world with the spiritual reign of the Prince of Peace.

Bow-Mount, 1866.

Chapter I. Definitions Of The Church

XN selecting a subject for my first course of -^ Prelections in this Divinity School, I have endeavored to find some topic not unrelated to your general course of study ; at the same time, not to trench on any Department, in which you have other and abler teachers ; and yet to light upon some matter, which my own previous pursuits may be supposed to qualify me, in some measure, to discuss.

These views have, at length, induced me to invite your attention to the subject of The Church ; not, however, as seen under the aspect and within the department of Ecclesiastical Polity, nor as viewed amid the lights and affected by the incidents of Ecclesiastical History, but as presented to us, mainly, on the pages of the Bible.

This, so far as the Christian world is concerned, has become one of the great subjects of the age. It is occupying profoundly the thoughts of almost all thouglitful Christians ; and, perad venture, of many who are kept by their ponderings on it from becoming Christians. The Church ? What is it, where is it, and how may I know that I belong to it? These are queries which our times have revived with an interest unfelt for ages. After having been long put — ^not out of sight among Protestants, but — behind the main truths of Christianity, they have been again brought forward, placed in the foreground, and made to demand a distinct answer. Such an answer they need at all times, but especially from the' teachers of the present generation.

Nor is this question unrelated to your present general course of study. Christ and His Cross are, indeed, what, as preachers of the Gospel, you most need to know ; yet the Church, though not Christ, is His mystical Body ; though it cannot stand in Christ's stead, as a Saviour, yet it exists in the world as His Servant ; though it cannot make the Gospel which it is to preach, j^i it can and should preach the Gospel of which He is the center and the subject ; though it cannot give life through the sacraments, yet it does administer the sacraments of Him who giveth life through Himself When, therefore, we speak of the Church, provided we speak right things, we do, in truth, teach Christ ; we teach that in which He is intimately con-

DEFINITIONS OF THE CHURCE. z\

cerned, that which holds intimate relationship with Him.

Since, then, this question needs an answer, and since a right answer has so close relation to your chief study, let us proceed to seek for some clear, and, should God so favor us, some just conclusions on this great topic of the day. What is the Church, and who belong to it ? The Church, in its comprehension, with some thoughts as to what affects its well-being, is the theme on which we enter.

1. The Romanist, then, defines the Church, in its Catholicism, universality, or comprehension, as that visible Society only, of professing Christians, which holds and submits to its one temporal, human head, the Pope, and which, under this head, has communion in all the so-called Sacraments of that Church. All other bodies called Christian, for whatever reason they may have been cut off", and however they may call themselves Churches, do not, in his view, belong to the One Catholic or Universal Church. To him the Greek, Armenian, Syrian, and Coptic, the English and American Episcopal, with all other Protestant Bodies — planted, as these communities are, with all their millions, from end to end of the earth — though they may retain some portions of Christian truth, and though many of them, as individuals, may peradventure be saved, yet, are not Churches, nor do they belong to the One Catholic Church in the World. They are but heretical or schismatical Sects, and have neither part nor lot in the One true Church. To him, the Eoman communion embraces this Church, '* Totus^ teres^ atque TotundusV

2. Again, the Exclusive Episcopalian, eschewing, as far as he may, the name of Protestant, adopts a view of the Church somewhat more comprehensive. He defines the Church as that visible Society of professing Christians which holds and submits to an Episcopal ministry, and has a common union in Sacraments Episcopally administered. This definition includes, within the Catholic pale, the Eomish, Greek, and other Oriental Churches, together with the English, American, and other Episcopal bodies. All these, it is admitted, exist as separate ecclesiastical organizations ; and so long as they neither hold free intercommunion, nor acknowledge one visible unity, their separation, though it leaves them still within the Catholic pale, is yet one of the sorest and most to be deprecated of evils ; and its removal is to be sought as one of the highest attainable blessings. But, at this point, the limit of Catholicism with this class of definers is reached. According to them, all Protestant, or other religious bodies, not Episcopally

DEFINITIONS OF THE CHURCH.

constituted, however numerous, full of spiritual life, and active in spreading the knowledge of Christ and the blessings of Christianity to the ends of the earth, do not belong to the Church. They may hold much Christian truth ; and, as individuals, many of them may be saved ; but they are not Churches, nor parts of the Church ; they are but heretical or schismatical sects, and their existence as such is an evil of the gravest, most afflictive magnitude. The Churches labor should be to reabsorb them into herself, while, at the same time, seeking to recover her own lost visible unity. Submission to a universal Episcopacy, claiming the supernaturally derived power of conveying the Holy Ghost, and the real Body and blood of Christ, in ordination and in sacraments, is, upon this theory, the indispensable requisite, not only to the integrity and perfectness, but to the very existence, of the Church.

3. And now, to those, who cannot adopt, as their own, either of the foregoing definitions of the Church, — and, for one, I acknowledge myself of this class — it remains to seek a third. In seeking this third definition, however, which I hope to make exhaustive, I propose to approach it, not directly, but through some preparatory views, taken from Scriptural points of observation.

1. And first, — ^The design of God, in the revelation of His will and in the Incarnation of His Son, is to save men from sin, and to make them partakers of eternal life. This design, as realized in the sinner, requires a thorough reconciliation to his Heavenly Sovereign, on the simple terms of '' Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Chrisf Acts, 20 : 21 — an individual and hearty concurrence in the Divine counsel of Redemption. Every person thus reconciled, is said to be "justified by faith ; " and hath " peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Rom. 5 : L Every one, thus justified, is "renewed in the spirit of his mind,'^ lives " a godly life," grows in holiness, and has, even on earth, the beginning of the true life eternal. This eternal life now " abideth in him ; " he has already entered on the foretaste of his salvation. Hence the words of Christ : " He that heareth my word, and belie veth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed *' — passed already — " from death unto life." John, 5 : 24. This assurance, in its original, essential truth, is tied to no observance of outward institutions. It brings to view nothing but the Saviour and the sinner ; the Saviour's word and the sinner's faith ; that faith which is always followed by repentance and holiness. It is an assurance, based essentially on an inner transaction between Christ and the true be-

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liever. Wherever the Word goes and is received into the faith of the heart, there is the basis of this Divine assurance, "he is passed from death unto life." This is the reason, not merely why there shall be, but why there "is, joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." His repentance is the first step out of that faith which taketh hold on eternal life. The angels see in it another victory for Christ ; another soul already ^' passed from death unto life."

The Scriptures abound in this peculiar teaching — the assurance of salvation to every one, be his outward circumstances what they may ; who truly believes in Christ. " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Acts, 16 : 31. " Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." "There is no difference between the Jew and the Grreek," the most and the least privileged ; " for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him; for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Rom. 10 : 4, 12, 13. Whosoever calleth in that faith, which " cometh by hearing," as hearing " cometh by the word of Grod,'' shall be saved. Whosoever. It is impossible to find a man with this faith under such peculiar circumstances as to invalidate the truth of this assurance — "he shall be saved." The eternal Father hath so bound

Himself to this, that He would not be ''just" were He not also " the justifier of him that believe th in Jesus, '^ wherever and whenever this believer may be found. Both " the Law and the Prophets/' as well as the Gospel, concur in the ''witness" that ' ' the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all and upon all them that believe." Eom. 3 : 21, 22, 26. As '^ all have sinned " and are alike in that, so, among those who have this faith, " there is no difference." Nothing can make a difference in favor of one and against another, in whom this faith dwelieth. " Jesus said, I am the Bread of Life ; he that cometh to me " — whoever he may be, and whatever his outward lot — "he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." John, 6 : 35. " I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me, though he were ' dead yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." John, 11 : 25, 26. " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John, 3 : 16.

There, Christian student, is the Gospel in element, in its simple, yet all-comprehending base. We must convict the solemn Trinity of falsehood before we can take eternal life from him that truly believes in Jesus Christ. It matters not by what

DEFINITIONS OF THE CHVRGH. 27

name he is called, or in what connection he is found, if he have this faith in his heart, whole and uncorrupt, he hath eternal life ; and no man can take from him that ''gift of Grod."

And now, why does the Bible make so much of this faith ? Ts it because this alone constitutes the Christian character ? No : but because this faith cannot be alone in that character. It is, under the Spirit, the parent of all holy graces. This truth, in former times, drew from that ''staunch churchman," Bishop Hall, the exclamation: " the grace of faith ! justly represented to us by St. Paul, above all other graces, incident unto the soul, as that which, if not alone, chiefly transacts all the main affairs tending to salvation. For faith is the quickening grace, the directing grace, the protecting grace, the establishing grace, the justifying grace, the sanctifying and purifying grace. Faith is the grace which assents to, apprehends, applies, appropriates Christ ; and, hereupon, it is the uniting grace ; and, which comprehends all, the saving grace.'^

In the texts thus far cited, we see the simple, essential requisites to salvation under the Gospel ; those without which no man, to whom the Gospel comes, can be saved j and with which any man will be saved.

2. We now take another step. Every one, in whom the required faith is found, has a direct and personal union with Christ ; so that he draws his spiritual life, not by succession, nor by transmission from any other believer, but immediately from the Saviour Himself. Nothing, however thin, intervenes between the two. By faith the believer is "in Christ;" and by the same faith Christ '' dwells '^ in the believer's ''heart." Eph. 3 : 17. This mystic union between Christ and each individual Christian is as close and perfect, as though Christ and each individual were the only ones in all the world concerned in that union. As a foundation, Christ is as long as the age of grace, and as broad as the realm of sin ; so that every true believer touches, immediately and for himself, that on which he is builded. In this peculiar union there is, not a miraculous impartation of the divine substance, but a real derivation of the divine life ; and faith is the grace, by which the heavenly derivation is realized. Faith brings the soul to the springhead of that life in Christ. Faith drinks of the "■ living water " which He gives. " Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John, 4 : 14. ''I am the Vine; ye are the branches ; he that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." John,

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15 : 5. "If any man be in Christ, lie is a new creature." 2 Cor. 5:17. " That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." Eph. 3 : 17. " Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you : now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."' Eom. 8:9. " Your life is hid with Christ in God." Col. 3 : 3. He that, Avith an appropriating faith, '' eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him." John, 6 : b^. These are some of the passages in which this sacred union is indicated ; and they show that, while Christ holds this union with all who truly believe in Him, He still holds it with each separately and severally. Each single Christian holds this living connection and communion with the Saviour as immediately and as closely, and draws life therefrom as abundantly and as perfectingly, as though himself and the Saviour were the only beings concerned in the divine affinity.

3. We have thus seen what it is that essentially characterizes the true Christian, and what is the relation which he sustains with Christ. We now take one further stej). There are, then, in the world, as there have been from the beginning, and will be to the end, a steadily growing, and at length a very great company of human beings, sustaining the character and the relations which I have just

THE LIVING TEMPLE.