In essaying to accomplish the task which I had under-taken, of giving, in its main element at least, an historical view of the doctrines progressively held regarding the Church, the assembly of God, I was, I confess, hardly aware of the poverty of the resources to which I should be reduced when once I left scripture. As doctors, I had no great confidence in the fathers; I had consulted them; at any rate, too much for that. But I thought that, on the subject of the Church I should find not surely what had the truth and depth Of scripture, it would have been alike unjust and wrong, but, at any rate, an energy of thought and apprehension, which, if flowing in a channel traced out by human thought, and occupied with an earthly establishment of divine things, would still rise above temporary questions and difficulties, and have an elevation not to be reached by views arising out of them; and, by which the actors of the moment sought to meet them. I judged that a corrupt and human state of things had been clothed, by a discoverable process, with titles and privileges which belonged to a divine creation. My faint recollections of Tertullian a and still more of Cyprian, and in general of Church-history, colored, perhaps, by habit and general opinion, led me to this; and to suppose that there existed at first a mere practical apprehension of the Church, as seen before them; and thereafter a gradual corruption, and larger use of now-collected scripture; a positive, soon an habitual, and, last, doctrinal application of divine prerogatives to human failure, such as we see in full display in Romanism. But the fathers are petty even in error. There is in general nothing to relieve the poverty of their local and occasional preoccupations; and when divine life had seized, as in St. Augustine, some deep and blessed truths, which could not mingle with corruption, and gave some enlargement of view even as to ecclesiastical subjects, practical corruption was now at such a height that the whole produced a confusion, which has, at least, the moral dignity of not passing over evil, or, still worse, not seeing it so as to maintain a hierarchical system which gives importance to self, or which habit has made respectable.
Still, the fathers will give us their own history, which I will briefly follow, and in it the opinions of active men in their day.
The present system of Romanism must be sought else-where. It is simply, as regards our present subject, the use made of general principles met with in these fathers, and forged passages added to their writings, to carry out, by political ability, a scheme which has connected the exclusive appropriation of the claims and privileges of Christianity with the most constant opposition to its truth, its spirit and its practice; and made what claims to be exclusively the Church of God the seat of Satan's power. As to Catholicity, it is well to remember that it is a simple fable. As, when the royalty of Israel became corrupt, the kingdom became divided; so, when the professing Church became entirely corrupt, and the papal pretension became a definite matter of history, God took care that the Church ceased to be Catholic, and the very term Roman Catholic, for any one who knows the use of words, carries falsehood on its face. The pretensions of the papacy revolted the Greek patriarch. What set up Rome destroyed Catholicity. The most ancient churches and the imperial city became an antagonistic body to it. Roman pretensions, the political influence of Rome, were greater; its evil and unscriptural antagonism to, and supremacy over, civil power, which is ordained of God, marked it more distinctly as the seat and throne of wickedness; but Rome never was Catholic. The act by which it was born, its dawn of supremacy, destroyed forever Catholicity. The providence of God has not allowed Catholic corruption. At this moment, the majority of professing Christians and most ancient churches are out-side the so-called Catholic, that is, universal Church. No such thing exists as a Catholic, i. e., universal Church. The claims of each portion of Christendom to be a Church or assembly of God, must be tried, not by its own pretensions, but by scripture, and then they are easily disposed of, unless corruption and Christianity are identical. But I return to the history of the doctrine. The fathers may be divided into three classes, Apostolic, Grecian, and Western. We may also distinguish the Alexandrian, though they write in Greek; but they hardly enter into the sphere of our inquiry, though one considered such comes under the class Apostolic, Barnabas, who, however, affords us no light on the subject of inquiry. He, with Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Hermas, constitute, what are commonly called, the Apostolic fathers; but, since the publication of the canon of Muratori, Origen's supposition that the latter was the Hermas mentioned by Paul is maintained by none; I shall speak of him, therefore, after Justin. Justin and Irenaeus will give us those next succeeding the post-apostolic age. Tertullian, Cyprian, and later, Jerome and St. Augustine, may furnish us the doctrine of the Latins; and Chrysostom, instar omnium, the views of the later Eastern churches. Origen and Clement, Alexandrian or philosophical Christianity; Leo and Gregory the Great, Roman views of the matter.
As regards any spiritual or elevated view of the Church of God, as we see it portrayed in the Ephesians, or even the earthly manifestation or development of it in the power of the Holy Ghost, as in 1 Cor., it must not be looked for. The declaration, that salvation is not to be found out of the Church, and that if a man was not in the body, he could not be connected with the Head, and the application of this necessity to a large corrupt hierarchically governed body on earth, in order to condemn all who were not subject to it, and all who separated from it, through conscience or self-will; this will be found, as schisms flowing from will, or a conscience tormented by the horrible corruption that characterized the Church, took place. But the thought of the presence of the Holy Ghost animating living members, or his unfolding the riches or fullness of blessing, flowing from living union, never crossed their minds.
Of the Apostolic fathers, Barnabas, as I have remarked, furnishes us with no light. His object is to spiritualize Moses. All the ordinances of the law are mere figures. Their taking even circumcision literally was all wrong. Clement does not help us much more. He refers to the Old Testament hierarchy as a motive for order in the Christian services; but does not apply the analogy to a Christian hierarchy. Still, we see how already the mind of the Church was sunk below the urgent taking, by contrast, these analogies out of earth, and raising the, thoughts of saints up to heaven and heavenly things, which we find in the Hebrews, the object of which is to detach from all earthly Jewish hierarchism, and show its fulfillment in Christ in heaven, to which the partakers of the heavenly calling belong. This is the more remarkable, as Clement was familiar with the Hebrews, to which he refers and the present form of it in Greek was by some attributed to him. His epistle, the best of those of the Apostolic fathers, serves to show the sudden and utter declension from spiritual apprehensions which followed the departure of the apostle of the Gentiles. It helps us thus to understand the state of the Church, though it teaches nothing doctrinally about it. It is an amiable effort to make peace at Corinth, where they had turned off some of their elders. But a heavenly, spiritual and elevating use of Jewish forms is unknown to it. He brings us back to earth where the Hebrews had taken, us to heaven, though he refers to Hebrews. I have dwelt thus much on this, because it is the true key to all that follows.
Ignatius next draws our attention; and some important elements of history are here afforded us to consider; and, first of all what a proof of the propensity of the orthodox in these early days to commit pious frauds. What a mass of toil has been imposed on sagacious Ushers, very orthodox and much read Pearsons, and keen Dailies, to unravel what is genuine and is not genuine of the martyred bishop. We have universally acknowledged forgeries, longer interpolated editions, shorter stoutly defended ones, and then Syrian MSS. adduced to prove that five more out of the eight, admitted by many to be genuine, are also forgeries, and that the greater part of the three genuine ones has been added by the forging hand. It is a poor foundation to build on. It is curious enough, and is to the credit of his sagacity, that Usher declared the letter to Polycarp, which is admitted to be genuine, to be spurious; the style was so very different from the others then supposed to be genuine.. He saw the difference, and that both could not be from the same author; and, assuming the others to be genuine, rejected this. What the Syriac leaves of the others, as far as matter and style of thought goes, does not militate against that to Polycarp. For myself, while not pretending to be learned in such matters, I do not doubt, in spite of Hefele and Jacobson, that Cureton has come to the right conclusion. The plea made, that what is found in the Syriac MSS., was an abridgment made for the use of the monks of the convent for pious uses, seems to me without the smallest foundation, as there are three distinct letters, and not the substance of eight or of three either, and nothing monkish in them. They are parts of the three larger, not the substance of three made a pious treatise of. I take, therefore, the Syriac edition as genuine. Their local origin confirms this; but for my present purpose it is not very material. In Ignatius's letters, even in those as I believe not genuine, or in the interpolated portions of the genuine, the Catholic church is not the subject, nor Catholic unity, but local unity in subjection to the bishop, -unity with him. Be is to be viewed as God, the presbyters as Christ, the deacons as the college of the apostles. I take the strong expressions of the whole eight in the form defended by many. The point insisted on is the union of one local flock with one local bishop, and in everything. He who leaves that is outside everything. Diocesan episcopacy does not appear in Ignatius; in truth, it was unknown in that age.
In the epistle of Smyrna, on the martyrdom of Poly-carp, the holy Catholic (universal) Church in every place is spoken of, the particular church is spoken of as Παροικια, Παροικουσης sojourning. The Catholic Church which is in Smyrna (sec. 16). Christ is shepherd of the Catholic (universal) Church in the whole world. Except the fact, that the whole existing Church in the world is one universal one, there is little doctrinal to assist us in this epistle. It is received as genuine; how far it is to be considered free from interpolation must rest upon the general confidence which one has in these remains of antiquity, where the system of pious frauds and fabricated gospels and writings was so abundantly at work. I know of no suspicion cast upon it.
This is all the testimony of the apostolic fathers on the point. Polycarp to the Philippians affords nu additional light. He was a connecting link in point of time between those who succeeded the apostle and the third generation of Christian writers.
First of these Justin presents himself, but he affords us little light on the doctrine of the Church; he views it as embracing men in one, in contrast with Judaism. He applies Psa. 45 to the Church (Dial. with T., 287 b), saying, that the Word of God addresses her as a daughter, as one soul, one synagogue, one assembly. He quotes (Dial. with T., 261 a) Is. lid., according to the seventy, to a similar purpose. That all the apostles would be as one boy, as is to be seen in the body with many members, all one, however, and are called and are one body, and adds, For, also, the people and assembly, many men in number, as being one thing, are called and named with one name. The Exp. Fid. goes farther and quotes Eph. 2 and 2 Cor. 6:1616And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (2 Corinthians 6:16), speaking of the temple of Christ. But this is not of Justin. The Church in Justin is the external body or gathering on earth which he sees as one, as he does the apostles. This is the more striking, as he alludes clearly to 1 Cor., has it in his mind, but does not go further than the fact of one set of people on the earth called Christians.
In Hermas, in the treatise called The Pastor, we find largely developed views on the subject of the Church. I apprehend it is pretty generally agreed that he was brother to Pius II., A.D. 164. He is, it appears, quoted by Irenaeus. His writings were read in many churches, though not exactly as scripture; yet almost quoted as such by some writers, though not of weight on such a point, as Origen, who says he considers him inspired. But the acceptance of The Pastor will show whereabouts the primitive Church was. The modern professing Church speaks of the earlier Christians being a guide to truth, inasmuch as they were nearer the apostolic source, because it believes as little in the need of the Holy Ghost's power, and of his working, as the early Church did, or less. St. Paul had the power of the Spirit of God. He knew by it that after his decease grievous wolves would enter, yea, and that within the Church perverse men would arise. The incapacity of the early Church to discern is plain from the reading of these visions etc. of Hermas, and the respect in which they were held. I have little doubt that they were well-intentioned, and that there was a personal desire of godliness in the writer's soul. But they are ill-conditioned and unseemly fables, fostering the most disgraceful practices of commencing superstition and asceticism, and teaching doctrine heretical in itself, and unworthy of all the dignity of divine things. But we shall get historically a then accepted view of the Church by their means. Passing over the unseemly introduction, the Church is for him simply a building in the world. It begins by forgiveness, not repentance (Command. 3). After that repentance is allowed once. The name of the Son of God is necessary, but all depends on conduct afterward (Sim. 9:13, 14), yet he allows people to be saved who are rejected from the Church (Vis. 3:8). But this is contradicted (Sim. 9:14). He speaks of the Church's becoming one body when purified, and the evil ones cast out. But there are one understanding, one opinion, one faith, and the same charity. The nations have believed and received the seal of the Son of God (baptism), they have all been made partakers of the same understanding and knowledge; and their faith and charity have been the same. And they have carried the spirits of certain virgins of whom he speaks, that is, of different graces, together with his name. After they agreed thus in one mind, there began to be one body of them all; however, some of them polluted themselves, and were cast off from the kind of the righteous, and again returned to their former state and became worse than they were before. Angels build the Church. I do not enter into details of green rods becoming dry, or splitting, or partly dry, getting green again; or, rich men being round stones who must be squared and lose all their riches to be able to be put into the house, and the casting out of stones from the building, when viewed by the Lord, save to remark that the whole is a matter of outward profession, of present moral state, and of this earth, a heavenly body, or a head in heaven, or the Holy Ghost, who unites us to Him and His work, is wholly unknown to him. His doctrine is as follows. The master of a vineyard confides a vineyard to a servant, who is to stake it, and he will thereupon be set free. But he does more, and weeds it. On the master's returning to visit it, he is very content, and takes counsel with his son, and with the angels, how he should reward him, and, as the chosen body into which the holy Spirit which was created first of all served that spirit, nor ever defiled it, it was made heir with the son.
He explains the son to be the Holy Spirit, and the servant to be the Son of God. Yet he explains elsewhere the rock higher than the mountain on which the house (the Church) was built by the angels to be most ancient, and yet a new door which he had become in time. I apprehend, though not openly stated, that his doctrine as to Christ was the common patristic one of his age, that Christ though Eternal, as the word-mind in God, only became a person (προφορικος) when God was about to create the world.
Some have sought to prove him orthodox. Bad as his doctrine is, I hardly feel it needful to prove such poor and unscriptural nonsense unorthodox. What is material to us is to see that the Church is for him a mere outward visible thing, built on the earth, into which men are brought, and often afterward cast out, becoming worse than before. Christ is a foundation on the earth of this outward thing, He is no living head in heaven. That was wholly lost. It was not unnatural that scriptural spirituality not being there, that wonderful thing, the new thing in the earth produced independently of Jew and Gentile, national difference and all earthly power should occupy and possess the mind. They saw the house, viewed it, in its origin as built of God; but made no difference between the divine principle of its constitution, God's work to establish that, and man's actual work in it (on which the apostle is so distinct),-see only the latter, confound the human with the divine, and, in the case of Hermas, attribute it to angels.
Irenaeus sees the Church, in contrast with heretics, as an external thing in this world. That in which the apostles were set, the Church at Jerusalem, is that from which all Churches draw their origin (3:12, 5). The Spirit dwells in it: the communication of Christ is in it (3:24, 1). They who do not receive Him, nor are nourished by the Church, they do not receive that brightest fountain flowing from Christ. The Spirit of God and every grace are in the Church; but it is always the external body contrasted with heretics, particularly the Valentinians. In one place he speaks of Christ as caput ecclesim, but only as the Father is caput Christi; showing he has no sense of the union of the body with Him.
In pleading against the heretics, he uses the faith of the sees which the apostles had founded, as a proof of the truth they had taught; the particular Churches are witnesses in his point of view. It is on this occasion that he gives the list of bishops at Rome.
The fullest statement, perhaps, on the subject of the Church, is in 3:25, 1, where he says, the Church has with constancy kept the faith it had received; that this office was committed to it, that all recipient members may be vivified (the Latin is excessively obscure: ad inspirationem plasmationi, ad hoc ut omnia membra vivifiantur); and that the communication of Christ, that is, the Spirit, was there. He refers then to gifts (1 Cor. 12); adding, for where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church; and the Spirit is truth. In the Church are the gifts, apostles, prophets, doctors, and the whole remaining operation of the Spirit, of which none are partakers who do not run to the Church, but deprive themselves of life. He says, the Spirit is as an admirable deposit in a vase, always youthful, and making youthful the vase in which it is; and then goes on to speak of the life-giving office committed to it. But all this shows entire confusion on the subject which occupies us. The Spirit is in a vase, of which it maintains the youth; that is intelligible, if true; but he adds, that the recipient members may be vivified. Are they, then, members before they are vivified? And if he mean the maintenance of life, something gives it previously, not the Church, and the argument against the heretic fails. The fact is, the members have life, not the Church; but this would not do for his argument. The dwelling in a vase is all well, because the vase has not life, and his speaking of its making it youthful is a delusion. That the presence of the Spirit preserves it from decay, is a question of which the affirmative cannot be assumed, save through the confusion of the living body and the dwelling-place. In man, the breath of life is the life of the whole body and of all the members; and the Spirit may, in a vague way, be so looked at as corporately animating the whole body, when viewed as such in union with Christ; but, then, it is not that it may give them life, as the heretics cannot, because then they the so-called members are looked at as dead, i.e. as no part of the body. Hence the figure is changed, and even so is faulty; they are not nourished as by the mother's breast unto life. Where did they get it to be nourished? and is the Church a thing apart from the members who compose it? "Where the Spirit is, the Church is," is not strictly true; for He is in individuals; but for Irenaeus' purpose it may be so taken; and where the Church is; the Spirit is. But the Church, as the body, does not communicate life; it has it speaking in figure; for, in truth, life is in individuals. Further, the dwelling-place and the body being confounded together, no thought of the Head is in Irenaeus' mind; but the indwelling of the Spirit in the house is life. Indeed, the body, save by comparison with man's creation, is not spoken of; but the external thing taken to have the power of life in it, in virtue of the Spirit's dwelling there, in contrast with heretics. There is the conscious blessing of living faith; but by confusion of all scriptural thought of life, house, and body, or rather the neglect of this last, the ground is laid for the worst pretensions of Romish apostasy.
That the Holy Ghost keeps young the vessel in which it dwells, is never thought of in Scripture; indeed, the contrary is taught. That it maintains eternal life in the saints, members of the body in union with Christ, is quite true. But we see that the Church in contrast at first with heathens, and now with heretics, i.e. the earthly corporation, is absorbing, in the mind of doctors, the privileges of the body, while the scriptural idea of the body and union with the Bead are lost; and as the external thing was already corrupt, and soon became more so, the way was laid for appropriating the privileges to the extreme of corruption. But, as I have said of all, Irenaeus does not get beyond a reference to present circumstances and difficulties; uses what doctrine he has as to the Church to meet them; and does not enter into it for its own fullness and blessing. Hence the thought of the Head is lost. That must have brought truer thoughts and ideas; but when the thought of the Head was lost, the Church had no longer the definite idea attached to it of the body of Christ. The prerogatives and privileges belonged, then, infallibly to the corrupt external thing, and especially for him who had faith in the grant of them; and that Irenaeus, I do not doubt a moment, had. But let the reader note, that the heavenly Head of a living body does not in any way enter into the thoughts of Irenaeus; nor our being in Him, and He in us. Could the Pope, for example, be that? Even in speaking of Adam, he makes Adam the Church; and the breath breathed into him is what animates. No Eve is here, no Adam to represent Christ. All these truths are lost. There is only the Holy Ghost in the external thing, and that supposed to communicate life-as to which indeed, also, all is confusion.
Clement of Alexandria treats little of such subjects: he only tells us, as respecting temples built with hands, that the Church is the congregation of the elect. But the elect, with him, means nothing here. In a passage in the Stromata (vii. p. 885), where he is describing the Gnostic, or Christian according to knowledge, he says, he does not indulge his flesh. The rest are like the flesh of the holy body; for the Church is allegorically the body of Christ-a spiritual and holy choir, of which those who are called only by name, but do not live according to knowledge (εκ λογου), are the flesh; but this spiritual body, which is the holy Church, ought not to consist with fornication but fornication against the Church is living like Gentiles in the Church. We see thus the corruption come in, and how theoretical mysticism gets out of it.
In replying to heretics p. 899, he says, that the most ancient and true Church is the one, the others recent and adulterers from it; that God approves what is only the true catholic Church, founded on the two Testaments, nr rather the one in divers times, in which God by His will gathers by one Lord those who are already ordained to it (τεταγμενους), whom God has predestinated, having known that they would be righteous before the foundation of the world. Before, his conscience was working; here, he is theorizing against heretics.
The baptized are washed, illuminated, perfect, etc.; and so stated in a passage which chews, as do his writings, very little respect for, or knowledge of, the person of Christ: to say the truth, if converted at all, philosophy had far more influence over him than Christianity. In poor, wild, persecuted, but sincere Origen, we see confusion and unbridled imagination indeed; but, in spite of all, marks of genuine living faith. But Origen furnishes us with little which throws direct light on the progress of Church opinion, though he may have largely influenced it. He studied Scripture, and was not occupied in the government of the Church indeed, his own diocesan would not ordain him, but drove him away. In interpreting Scripture, he gives on these points pretty much the contents of the text itself as it is, only the spouse in the Canticles is the Church; the tabernacle represents everything in detail; the ark is the Church; Noah was in the highest story-that is, Jesus, the true rest—at the top; ill-conditioned Christians, like the unclean beasts, at the bottom.
His spiritualizations are elaborate; and, with the simplicity, have the foolishness of a child. He was a great stickler for free-will. On the other hand, in replying to Celsus, to prove the union of the Word with man, he takes up the Church as Christ's body-He animating and giving motion to what was otherwise lifeless and inert, and each member only moving as set in movement by Him, as the life and soul of it as a whole. He calls it, also, the bride and the body of Christ. He applies even the temple of His body, in John, to the Church; but here he states, that it will be one when it is brought to perfection in resurrection; till then, it is like the scattered dry bones in Ezekiel, comparatively dry, scattered in persecutions. Here, also, he calls it the body; and, after Peter, the house built of living stones; and then goes on to apply the numbers of overseers, builders, etc., of Solomon's temple, and dates connected with it, to mystical senses. In a word, we find a large consideration of Scripture by one well versed in it, and hence far more divine thoughts flowing from it; but with this an unbridled imagination, and very little founding in, or even acquaintance with, fundamental truth.
These two last, with Barnabas of an earlier date, are the Alexandrian or intellectual school. We may now turn to more practical Latins, occupied with things -business, not ideas.
Tertullian and Cyprian first present themselves, and bring us back to the history of the dogma. The first, however, helps us but little as to the notion of the Church. All, as I have said, are occupied with their particular difficulties and the evils of the day. He gives no view of the Church. He once says, it is the house of God. But his great and incessantly repeated topic is the churches, not the Church; though he once says, they are one Church. He dwells on the succession from the apostles, or apostolic men, securing the truth, asserting they are one in doctrine (he speaks of conferences in Greece maintaining this). When he speaks of passages in Ephesians which relate to the Church, it is only΄against Marcion; and uses them to skew the Creator was the supreme God, and that flesh was not despised. Some judge this treatise was after he left the body called the Catholic Church in that day; as was probably another remarkable statement of his, that the authority of the Church alone had made the distinction between laymen and ordained persons; that all Christians are priests; and wherever two or three are gathered, even laymen, there is a Church-they can celebrate the Lord's supper, and baptize. In sum, his teaching is the value of apostolic Churches, as securing sound doctrine: it was merely a Roman legal reasoning against heretics.
Cyprian insists much on the unity of the Church; but it is in opposition to the schism of Novatus and Novatian. Hitherto, unity had been assailed by heretics, and the defenders of catholicity had carefully denied their being of the Church, as they had not the faith which could be proved to be that of the apostles. A new thing now arose in the professing Church. Its corruption was so great (as, indeed, Cyprian himself testifies), that rigid discipline was insisted upon; and in default of it, as they judged it was called for, persons admitted to be orthodox separated from it, and the authority of the bishop was called in question. Hence Cyprian's idea of unity is simply local unity with the bishops; and of all bishops as being together one bishop, one episcopacy, he quotes the promise to Peter (Matt. 16:1616And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Matthew 16:16)). Bishops have all like honor and power; yet Christ begins from one, that the Church may be shown to be one. The episcopate is one, of which a part is held by individuals as a part of the whole. The Church, also, is one, which grows out into a multitude. He compares it to light and the sun, to a tree and boughs; if one of them be broken off, it is lost or dies. Such is the Church of the Lord exclusively. Her light, her branches, extend far; but there is unity of light and of body. There is one Head, one origin, one body, one mother (De Unitate Ecclesice, 106, seqq.). We are born of her, nourished by her milk, animated by her spirit; the spouse of Christ cannot be corrupted, she is incorrupt and chaste. He cannot have the rewards of Christ, who leaves the Church of Christ; he is a stranger, profane, an enemy. He cannot have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. There is a great deal more to the same effect. He compares it to Noah's ark, to Christ's vest, Rahab's house, the house where the paschal lamb was eaten. God makes men of one mind in a house. In God's house, the Church of Christ, men live in unanimity (see Epistle to the Lapsed, xxxiii. 66). He again refers to Peter; thence, through the course of times and successions, the ordination of bishops and the principle of the Church has had its regular course; so that the Church should be founded on bishops (Ep. xlix. 93,95). Cornelius, bishop of Rome, says, in the correspondence, there is one bishop in the Church; the Catholic Church is shown to be one, and cannot be split and divided. The tares are in the Church; we are not to leave, but to seek to be wheat; and he quotes 2 Tim. 2:2020But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. (2 Timothy 2:20), vessels to dishonor, but says nothing of purging ourselves from them. The Lord alone, he says, can break the earthen ones. (On the confessor's return, Cyprian, Ep. liv. 99, 100). They cannot be with Christ, who are not with his spouse and in the Church, referring to Eph. 5:3131For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. (Ephesians 5:31). Still all refers to Novatus, who had separated because of loose discipline, as he judged, with the lapsed (96).
As the one Church is divided by Christ in the whole world into many members, so one episcopate is spread abroad by the concordant number of many bishops. 112 refers to the exhortation in Eph. 4 The tares, he says, the apostles were not allowed of the Lord to discover; they pretend to separate (2 Tim. 2:2020But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. (2 Timothy 2:20)). They pretend to despise and throw away these wooden and earthen vessels, whereas it is only in the day of the Lord they will be burnt or broken with a rod of iron (168). The Church does not withdraw from Christ; and for Cyprian, the Church is the people united to the priest, and the flock adhering to its pastor, even if the multitude go away-when, says he, thou oughtest to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop; and if any are not with the bishop, they are not with the Church; since the Church, which is catholic, is one, not split nor divided, but connected and joined by the glue of priests mutually adhering to one another. All this, it will be seen, is directed against Novatus at home, and Felicissimus who headed a party against him, and Novatian at Rome. He says, the Church cannot be corrupted; yet he declares, that, morally, bishops and all, it was thoroughly heathenish and worldly; so that the persecution of Decius was only a most gentle dealing of God with it: it cannot be corrupted, but it was full of tares and vessels to dishonor.
I have the rather gone into Cyprian's statements, because he is known as a great writer on the unity of the Church; and his system, for the short time of his own activity, characterized the Church at large pretty sensibly; but it died with the energy which created it. He added the idea of a united diocesan episcopacy forming a single episcopate in many members, to Ignatius's idea of the unity of the flock to a local president. Though he uses the Scriptures, the idea they- give of living members united to a Head in heaven, does not seem to cross his mind as a truth in itself But he attaches the importance and claims of that of which the apostle speaks, to a body which, he admits, is full of the tares of Satan's sowing, and of vessels to dishonor. But it is to be left so; that is, we have now in view outward unity (that is, really, for the clerical authority of priests who stick together like glue), the attaching the credit of Christ's spouse and body to a vast mass of admitted corruption and evil. Augustine will give us another phase. Yet his views of personal religion and election involve him in the greatest contradiction and difficulty. They are, however, important; for if Cyprian has formed hierarchical views short of Romanism, Augustine has in a great measure been the source of reformed doctrines, save in the point of justification by faith, on which, certainly, the Reformation was somewhat clearer. But his difficulties, if they were not to be wept over for the sake of the Church, would really amuse, from the way he is perplexed. Like all the rest, though searching Scripture for himself as a, godly man, he is occupied in his reasonings with the circumstances of the moment. In his case, it was the Donatists. A quarrel having arisen in Africa, as to the episcopacy of Donatus' predecessor, a very large party indeed was formed, with a very considerable part of the episcopacy. It was alleged, that Cecilianus was ordained by one who had been unfaithful in Diocletian's persecution, having given up the sacred books-a traditor. They chose Majorinus, to whom succeeded Donatus. The others complained of a fanatical love of martyrdom. The Donatists appealed to Constantine; and, after two appeals from the, first sentence, they were condemned and violently persecuted, which they returned by violence and, as is alleged, by assassination; so bright is the history of the primitive Church! But another circumstance must be mentioned here. Cyprian and most of the Eastern bishops had re-baptized those baptized by heretics. Rome, and those under its influence had opposed this. Cyprian and the East, however, held good; but, in the course of time, the Roman opinion prevailed in the West, and it was orthodox to receive heretical baptism. In the East, it was generally rejected for a long while after this. I refer to this, because it was a great source of Augustine's perplexity: he received the Western view. But then he had to acknowledge, that by Donatist baptism those who were not in the catholic Church received forgiveness of sins and the Holy Ghost. This, of course, was a terrible difficulty. I will now give his statements, in which the conflict of his views will easily appear. They gave formal rise to the thought of an invisible Church. He is very fond of insisting on one text, and citing it repeatedly everywhere; thus Eph. 5, as to the unity of the body and Head, spouse and Husband.
Because, therefore, a whole Christ is his head and body; therefore, in all the psalms let us so hear the words of the head, that we may hear the words of the body (Ps. 57. 754, C. D.) Hence, all nations in the Church are like the Day of Pentecost. It is always with him unus homo caput et corpus, one man, head and body (Ps. 18. 122, C.) Hence, when statements in the Psalms do not suit Christ, as God, or even as man, he says, I dare to say Christ speaks, but Christ speaks be-cause Christ is in the members of Christ (Psa. 30.2 ll, A.)
He says (vol. ix. Ed. Ben. 687, B), no one ever arrived to salvation itself and eternal life, unless he who has the head, Christ; but no one can have the head, Christ, save he who is in His body, which is the Church. Then he does not reject the Donatists for all their deeds; that would be straw; but not hurt the wheat, if they held the Church fast. Nor does he accept the Church for any good, or opinions of men. What is done right in the Catholic [Church] is, therefore, to be approved, because it is done in the Catholic [Church] We acknowledge, he says, the Church, as the head, in the holy canonical Scriptures. He insists on searching the Scriptures. They speak of a universal Church. This cannot be the Donatists of Africa. He then seeks to justify persecution, when rightly used. But here, as I have intimated, he was greatly puzzled, because it had been decided that the baptism of heretics was valid. Hence, his adversaries alleged that the baptism of Donatists was accepted, and that, consequently, he must admit that they conferred the forgiveness of sins and the Holy Ghost, as was ' believed to be the case in baptism, and that their admission into the Church of those baptized by them was owned; that is, the Donatists were the Church too. He replies, many who are publicly outside are better than many, and good Catholics. But God also knows his predestinate ones-knows what they will be. But we, who judge from present things, say, His dove does not own them, and the Lord will say, I never knew you, depart from me ye workers of iniquity. I answer, he says again, Do the avaricious or other wicked persons forgive sins? if you regard the sacrament, yes; if himself, no. We own what is of Christ, but it does not profit; but when the evil is corrected, then it will. One baptized, in heresy does not become the temple of God, nor is a baptized avaricious man the temple of God either, unless they leave the evil. (This puts one in mind of the assembly's catechism). Still, he says (ix. 168 B.C.) they are generated to God, but by that which they (the Donatists) have in common with the Catholic Church; separated from the bond of charity and peace, but found in one baptism. And not only they who are in open separation do not belong to her, but those who are mixed up with her unity are separated by a very bad life. He takes the case of Simon Magus, and says, he who has no charity (cui defuit) is born in vain, and, perhaps, it were expedient for him not to have been born (!). He is greatly puzzled, also, by " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," and that, as he quotes it, then follows " baptize all nations in the name," etc.; " and whose sins ye remit," etc. He answers by saying, " He who hates his brother abides in death," but schismatics do. And what is being re-born in baptism but being renewed from one's old state, but he whose old sins are not put away is not so; and if not re-born has not put on Christ; and if he has not put on Christ, he is not to be considered baptized in Christ. But it was replied, as many as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ. He acknowledged one baptized in Christ has put on Christ. It was then naturally alleged that he owned their baptism; therefore, that they were regenerate; therefore, their sins put away. He answers them only by Simon Magus; forgiven, yet having no part or lot in the matter. Then (271, B.C. and foll.), in the ineffable prescience of God, many who seem outside are within, and many who seem within are outside. Of all those, he says, who, as I may so say, are intrinsically and secretly within consists that garden enclosed, the fountain sealed, etc.; but he supposes them by heretics or others baptized into the ark (218, B). The water of the Church is faithful, saving, and holy to those using it well, but out of the Church no man can. /t cannot be corrupted; so the Church is incorrupt, chaste, pure, and therefore avaricious men, etc., do not belong to it, of whom Cyprian himself testifies, there are not only without but within (466, A). If thou groaning seest such crowds (of wicked) around your altars, what shall we say? that they are anointed with holy oil, and as the apostle clearly establishes with clear truth, they will not possess the kingdom of God. Dis-cern, therefore, the holy visible sacrament, which can be in good and evil; for those, for reward; for these, for judgment; from the invisible unction of charity, which belongs only to the good. But the true Church (578, A) is not covered or hidden, nor cannot be (466, B); hence, Donatists are it not. The Lord has compared the Church to a net. The bad fishes are not seen under the waves by the fishers, but on the floor, judgment, are manifested evil ones. So the separation of the fishes was only when the net was drawn out. Thus, before the fan is applied they are mixed in the Church (48, C.) The 7000 did not separate from Israel.
According to Augustine, the Old Testament saints belong to the Church (vi. 454, 455, 480, C.; v. 25, C.D.)
The confusion and contradiction are evident; and the conflict of a mind, who having, learned what true holiness was, and the electing grace of God, had an outward system to maintain, and made the outward corrupt thing the incorruptible body of Christ, though groaning at seeing crowds of wicked around its altars. Jerome is much more vague; he holds Old Testament saints for members of the Church (Corn. on Epis. to Gal. iv. 1, vii. (i.) 446); applies the tares to the Church-and the ark of Noah as receiving all sorts; so 2 Tim. Gold, silver, wooden and earthen vessels in Church he uses against the Luciferians, a strict sect against Arians, more strict than the public Catholic body (ii. 195). The day of judgment will settle it. Yet none are saved out of the Church. The Church is universal, and cannot be the Luciferians. He complains bitterly of its state. He applies Jer. 23:11,1211For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord. 12Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:11‑12), to the Church; assuming it to be Christ's house (iv. 999). He takes Christ, our Head, only as a common Lord; so, when he says Christ is the Head, it is Abraham, Phinehas, etc., are spoken of.
Chrysostom affords us little; he was a preacher, eloquent, a practical man, resisting public evil with earnestness, and died in banishment, deposed from his see, The Church is Christ's body (Horn. xxx. on 1 Cor.), and this is clearly developed. According to him, baptized by the Spirit refers to baptism, and so drinking into one Spirit to the Lord's table. The former he refers to regeneration, and by one Spirit into one body. One by, which, and one into which, he says; but he was much
more occupied with the actual state of the Church; he complains they have only signs or symbols of what they had at first, as two or three speaking.
But during all this doctrinal discussion, another system had been forming itself. The emperor who first professed Christianity had transferred the seat of empire to Byzantium, from him called Constantinople. This had a double effect. It left the Roman prelate in a position of far greater political consequence, which became still greater when the barbarian inroads made the imperial power evanescent in Italy, though where it remained, in Ravenna and even Milan, there was independence of Rome, with which, through Turin, historians seek to connect the Vaudois. At any rate, it was for centuries independent. The other effect was the making the see of Constantinople, which had not been even metropolitan, and was not of apostolic foundation, of such public importance, that it sought to rival Rome-as the city was called Nova Roma. For the reader must understand, that the boasted primitive Church was a sea of raging politics, avarice, and ambition; the genera] councils, assemblies of bishops, called by the emperor to quiet the violent and seditious disputes of ecclesiastical and doctrinal parties, which disturbed and tore up the empire. Strange to say, councils held when the Church was at liberty from the secular power are not held to be general. In much later years the popes held them. At first, the emperors alone called them; indeed, in the council of Nice, the emperor, who had had some experience of ecclesiastics in Donatist matters, managed it all; the holy fathers brought their written complaints, or libels,..against their episcopal brethren, and put them into his hands; he took them, exhorted them to peace, and burnt them all; approved, we are told, those that were right; flattered them all, rather grossly indeed; exhorted them, and, bringing all but a few to agree, settled the contest, and then banished the few refractory ones. In this council, the place of Rome is very obscure; she was represented by two presbyters, perhaps by a bishop, Rosins. It is also alleged the pope was absent from old age, I suspect rather from policy; at any rate, as we find in the letters of Leo on the council of Chalcedon it was made a precedent of, but it is not to be doubted she would have had the precedency of rank (alas the word 1) had she been there. It is, indeed, for this point that I have introduced the matter. Alexandria, Antioch, Rome were, till the seat of empire was transferred to Byzantium, then subordinate to the metropolitan at Heraclea, the three great ecclesiastical centers as the chief cities: Antioch, the ancient capital of the great Syrian monarchy; Alexandria, of the Egyptian, or Ptolemies, and the most famous seat of learning and commerce in existence: Antioch withal, alleged to be founded by Peter, and to have been his see; and Alexandria, too, through his disciple Mark. Rome still more being the metropolis of the world, and, as alleged, founded by the two apostles Peter and Paul. I am not making myself answerable for all this tradition, which, 'in many points, is extremely doubtful, but it had full influence at the time we are speaking of. As long as the emperors were heathen, the influence of these sees was increasing from various causes; but still the independence of the bishops maintained to a very great degree, particularly in Asia Minor and Africa, where Ephesus (afterward made metropolitan) and Carthage held respectively a large share of influence. In the matter of rebaptizing heretics, these two provinces maintained, in the third century, their entire independence of Rome, and Cyprian used very strong language indeed. But Alexandria swayed practically over Egypt and Lydia; and Antioch over Asia, till Jerusalem became, in subsequent times, a patriarchate; Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul, I may add, and the British Christians were also free from Rome's metropolitan sway, which extended over the suburbicarian provinces, now the estates of the Church, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and Sardinia. But there was no great see in all the West to counterbalance Rome; and it gradually extended its influence over Gaul and Spain and Illyricum (which remained, however, a contested sphere till much later times), by appointing some leading bishopric or metropolitan in Gaul, not the regular local metropolitan, as its legate.
By this, and some cleverly interpreted and extended canons of a packed Sardican council, appended to the canons of the Council of Nice, and a, forged addition to the sixth of Nice itself, the influences of princes, and an unceasing practical use of good opportunities, until the West came under its influence. The almost total destruction of the British Churches (which had been founded from the East as their way of keeping Easter proved) by the Saxons, and the conversion of these latter by persons sent from Rome, brought England under its rule, though the Northern Church, which had meanwhile extended itself to middle England, only submitted to Rome after the controversy of Whitby, between Wilfrid and Colman, about 654. It was only at the Council of Trent, and with the strenuous resistance of the Spanish prelates, that the bishops were declared to derive their authority from the pope. The supremacy of a general council over him was decreed and acted on in the 15th century at Constance.
I have just run through the history of the western or Latin hierarchical prelacy, to complete it. I return to the general history of patriarchs. The profession of Christianity by the emperor, and establishment of the capital at Constantinople, raised up, as we have seen, a rival to Rome. But the Greeks disputed about words; the Romans pursued unceasingly their end-the establishment of hierarchical supremacy; advancing a claim which no one knew, using opportunities to act in it, which others afforded them; and then making the ancient claim the proof of an ancient right. Another circumstance favored this. Constantinople sought to extend, and extended its influence over the eastern empire, by arbitrating in disputes between bishops and between metropolitans. In the council of Constantinople, Rome, as old Rome, was allowed the first rank; but Constantinople, as new Rome, the second. At that of Chalcedon, Constantinople was given the same rank, ισα πρεσβεια, as being the emperor's city. But this pressure of Constantinople on Antioch and Alexandria, threw these rather into the arms of Rome. Leo speaks of the three sees of Peter in a remarkable manner; and in the endless theological disputes of the East, the quiet and steady good sense of the Roman West, made home a continual arbiter as to doctrine. This, as in the case of Leo, a really able man, and, I am disposed to think, with right intentions, but, as a true Roman-always seeking political influence-gave them a decisive weight in all these questions. In Leo's person, it took somewhat the form, in his letter to Flavian, of dogmatical authority. Still Constantinople and Rome contended for influence; and one had it in the West, because there was no emperor; the other in the East, because there was. But evil bore its fruits in judgment. Constantinople, in the person of John the Faster, put forth the claim of aecumenical bishop, on charges brought against the patriarch of Antioch, which were tried at Constantinople. Pope Pelagius annulled all the proceedings on this account; but John used it again when he acknowledged the accession of Gregory. Gregory denounced him as a forerunner of anti-Christ, and then took the well-known papal title of servant of the servants of God. Though Rome, he would have it believed, on the authority of the council of Chalcedon, had a title to be called universal Pope, he refrained through humility. But it did not end here. Gregory pursued his efforts to hinder the pretensions of Constantinople, and renounced communion with it. Maurice, the emperor, who resisted the influence of Rome, was murdered with all his family, and his murderer congratulated by Gregory in the most fulsome way. Photius, the new emperor, in return for this, made a decree, that as Constantinople had claimed to be head of all the churches, Rome should be primate of all the holy churches. This recalls somewhat to mind the disputes, on a smaller scale, between York and Canterbury; which resulted in York being primate of England, and Canterbury, primate of all England. In Ireland the same question arose between Dublin and Armagh; the point being, whether Dublin could have the cross (which preceded the archbishop) carried up-right within the jurisdiction of the see of Armagh! Dublin is now primate of Ireland, and Armagh of all Ireland. And this is Christianity! To pursue the sad history. In the eighth century, the territory called now the Estates of the Church, or the greater part of them, were given to Rome by Charlemagne, though he re-served his imperial rights; and the Pope became a temporal prince. At the same time, however, the Grecian or Eastern emperor took away southern Italy, Sicily (the kingdom of the two Sicilies), and Illyricum; depriving the see of Rome of vast estates it held in the, former. Hence, of course, bitter animosity. In the ninth century the emperor, refusing to restore the Estates and authority, the Pope took up the cause of Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, whom the emperor had deposed, and they excommunicated each other. The emperor was murdered; and his murderer and successor recalled Ignatius. Meanwhile, the Pope and the patriarch contended for supremacy over the newly-converted Bulgarians, and then Rome was accused of heresy. Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, was re-stored on Ignatius's death; the Pope agreeing, if Bulgaria was subjected to him, which was agreed to and not executed. A legate was sent from Rome to Constantinople, cast into prison, and then, becoming Pope, said Photius was properly judged and degraded be-fore. In the 11th century, Cerularius, of Constantinople, charged the Pope with various heresies. Leo IX, ex-communicated all the Greek churches. The emperor, who needed his influence in Italy, sought to heal the controversy, and Papal legates were sent to Constantinople; the Greeks would not submit. The legates excommunicated the Patriarch and his adherents; and the patriarch excommunicated the legates and theirs.
And thus, the final schism of West and East took place. In this century it was that the Popes, who, after the gradual increase of their power, had become infamous in their conduct, so that the Romans had deposed them, and the Emperor of Germany named new ones-and then there had been two fighting for the place-enforced, in the person of Gregory VII, called Hildebrand, universal celibacy on the clergy. It had been long nominally required; but the great body of them being, in fact, married, were now forced to put away their wives: and though Gregory died an exile from Rome, he succeeded in depriving the emperors of the right of confirming the election of the Pope, and established the celibacy of the clergy. Another very important change commenced in this century was the election of the Pope by the cardinals, instead of the whole clergy, nobles, and people. The confirmation by the emperor was, however, reserved, and of the people; that of the emperor was set aside by Gregory VII, indeed, by Alexander II, in whose tune, however, there was an Anti-pope. Gregory was chosen by acclamation, and confirmed by the emperor, and then began his work of setting the papacy above all human powers. He claimed from all kings their holding their crowns from him. William the Conqueror, and others, refused; some were glad to act on it-as Naples, Croatia, and, strange to say, Russia.
I am now arrived at the full establishment of the Papal system resisting the imperial right to the investiture of bishops into their sees. The history of the in-dependent Scottish Church is full of interest; it was the great evangelizer of Germany and Switzerland. But Boniface, the apostle of Germany, having put himself under the Pope, and become Archbishop of Mayence, it all fell under Papal influence; or by the vast estates attached to the sees, gave occasion to the question of investiture, as they were real principalities, and held as such.
The Greek church was shorn of its glory by the inroads of the Saracens, before whom Antioch and Alexandria became extinct as to influence; and the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, in the fifteenth century, seemed to close its importance too. But such was not altogether the will of Divine Providence: for the conversion of Russia to Christianity having taken place in connection with the Grecian patriarch, in the tenth century, by the baptism, first of the grand duchess, and then of the grand duke, which was followed by that of the nation; the influence of Russia is now used in favor of the Greek church. They were first under the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In the sixteenth century, the Archbishop of Moscow became first a de-pendent, and then an independent patriarch and in the reign of Peter the Great, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Czar made himself the head of the Church, as in England; and the patriarch and synod became subordinate to his power. The late Russian war had for its earliest pretext the rights of Greeks or Latins to the so-called holy places in Palestine.
Such is what is called Christianity and the Church; my object is not to pursue it as a history, or go farther into detail. The Reformation, in the great and precious mercy of God, brought the Bible forth from obscurity, announced justification by faith, delivering many countries from the yoke of the Papacy; but it left, in all the national churches, the germ of the system, in baptismal regeneration, from which, most indisputably, it was not delivered; and a clerical exclusive right to ministry, denying the sovereignty and work of the Holy Ghost, as still carried on in regeneration and gift; and though many, very many, have freed themselves from the first error, and we see a wonderful energy now at work for deliverance from the second; that energy works to the breaking up of the system. The new wine cannot be put into the old bottles. I have only to speak briefly of the results of this rapid survey.
What I have given is practically the history of the great house; and, at the close, in its worst and most appalling forms, surely not of the body of Christ; yet this, in its very worst form the Papacy, it pretended to be, and that exclusively. Such was the result of confounding the building of God upon earth, placed under the responsibility of man (1 Cor. 3), with the body, composed of living members, united to Christ. We have seen, that the urging of unity by the various fathers was always interested, and bore only on their own position; first Ignatius, unity of a local assembly with its bishop, episcopal thought went no further then. Then, as the inroad of heresies took place, the same apostolical doctrine, held by all, was proved by the uniform doctrine of the apostolic sees; and, as the truth proved the Spirit and the Church, the heretics could not be it, for they had not the truth. The order of this argument is to be noted, however; for it is entirely anti-Roman Catholic; they prove the truth by the Church; while the Irenaeus and Tertullian school, the Church by the possession of the truth. The truth they find from Scripture, or the continuous doctrine of the apostolic sees as a fact. This is not a fact now; for Rome has changed or added in important points, as the addition of filioque in the doctrine of procession; and changes of prayers for the dead, to prayers to the dead; the addition of purgatory; and in many others. Alexandria and Antioch are Monophysites; that is, hold only one nature in Christ.
But to return. At this time, if the Church was referred to, it only was to hold their ground against heresy. In the next struggle, it was only to hold it against schism, and maintain common episcopal rights against schismatic Novatians on the one side, and arrogant Popes of Rome on the other. This was the Cyprian school. Augustine's was partly the same, against the Donatists; but the personal sense of Divine truth in him made all confusion, and led to the invention of an invisible Church known to God. After this, it was merely a struggle for the destruction of the oligarchical power of the body of bishops, first by patriarchal power; and then between Rome and Constantinople for preeminence; the result being, as I have noticed elsewhere, the making a Roman Catholic Church a falsehood, in fact, as it is in sense. For the setting up of the Pope as supreme over the churches (and that by imperial power), which Constantinople had been attempting to be, occasioned an entire breach; and the Church, as an outward body, ceased to be catholic everywhere when Rome attempted to make it Roman Catholic. It was split into two great camps, the Roman and the Greek; the Roman, indeed, the larger; but, after all, dependent on the rulers of the West, as the Greek on the rulers of the East; and now, unable to boast of any superiority of numbers even; for the Protestant secession has made the numbers of professing Christians, outside the Roman pale, greater than those within it. Rome has one thing exclusively-the apostate pretension to power; setting aside the one headship of Christ, and opposing and falsifying His word; but that is all.
But our concern is with doctrine; and here mark another thing. The blessed unfolding of the truth of the Church was thought of by none. Some used the idea, attributing its privileges to the outward body—the house (yet thereby denying them; for wicked members of Christ is nonsense); and quoted some scriptural passages as to it, but merely as a means of confounding their adversaries. None, that I am aware, ever laid hold on its blessings to unfold them; they walked by sight; that which had been founded on earth was before their eyes. It was, indeed, the important thing; the great fact of God's sovereign intervention in the world; what belonged to Him in the earth, His husbandry, His building: but, as they did not distinguish the body from the house, this latter only, which was the visible thing, was before their eyes. The consequence was, first, the allowance of the possibility of evil in the body of Christ, which bound men to the continued walking with evil; practically sanctioning it, or forcing them to break with the body: and next, the attributing the title of divine and spiritual power to the evil itself; all under the claim, that the Church was the body of Christ; that if you were not member, you could not have the head. Salvation was there alone. This was true; but it is not true that they are that body, or that Christ has dead members. Further, baptism was held to be, as the introduction into Christ's assembly, which it is; that by which we become members of Christ, and children of God; So the Romanist; so the orthodox Protestant; so, in general, even the Baptist. But baptism has nothing to do with the unity of, and admission into, the body; even in figure. It goes, even in figure, no further than death and resurrection; the individual passage into new life, and death to Adam existence, But the unity of the body depends on the exaltation of the Head into heaven; who, when exalted, and not till then (as He Himself said, "if I go not away, the Comforter will not come "), sent down the Holy Ghost, and by one spirit we are all baptized into one body. As Peter declares to his hearers in the Acts: " He, being exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father, the promise of the Holy Ghost, has shed forth this which ye now see and hear." This was the baptism of the Spirit as we see (Acts 1:55For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. (Acts 1:5)); and it is thus, by one Spirit, we are all baptized into one body. In this body there are members in which the energy of the Spirit displays itself in various gifts (1 Cor. 14:11-1411Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me. 12Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church. 13Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. 14For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. (1 Corinthians 14:11‑14)). The Spirit does not dwell in the body, but in the house; " builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit." The stones are not as such members of Him who dwells in the building. This was all confounded by the fathers.
The result is, the claims of Popery and the confusion of Protestants, as to baptismal regeneration and membership of Christ, with which baptism has nothing to do.
We have noticed another terrible result-the allowance of evil, connected with Christ. The Church is the ark; no salvation out of it. The unclean beasts are at the bottom story; Christ, like Noah, at the top: this is the Origen and Clement doctrine. In a great house, there are vessels to dishonor, wooden and earthen; but, with a rare confusion of thought and Scripture doctrine, Christ will burn or break them when He comes: this is Cyprian. The tares are mixed with the wheat in the Church: this is Jerome and Protestantism. Till, at last, the corruption was so great, that, as Augustine expresses it, they were groaning at seeing crowds of wicked persons surround the Church's altar: there they are to leave them. The resource of His Spirit, is the predestinating prescience of God, and an invisible Church; many better outside the church, than those in; but God will settle it. They are invisibly united in the bond of charity; while those outwardly within, have no real bond; such is often now the resource of high Calvinism, acquiescing in the establishment; acquiescing in evil, because God will have it all right. Conscience makes men schismatic in form when corruption and evil characterize what is called the body of Christ; and separation from the general mass of Christianity endangers the soul's stability, and its faith in any unity; and often produces, by not seeing the house, an opposition to it, which exposes to wild doctrine and heretical associations.
Such is, alas! the history of the Church, and the process of dogmatical creed, as to it, under the exercises which the state of things produced in connection with the current theory. If the outward assembly was, in fact, the body of Christ, separation from it was schism; and, as far as man's act went-ruin; but true union of the members with the head was really not known. If the outward assembly was nothing, then the whole corporate responsibility was destroyed; and the judgment of the evil servant had no place. There was no corporate responsibility of Christendom, in virtue of the Holy Ghost, having been given to the assembly on the earth. No spiritual conscience could recognize the corruption as the true body of Christ. Some would reform, some separate; and the very idea of the Church in unity, was either lost on the one side, or made perfectly compatible with the grossest corruption, and Satan's power, on the other; and what was so corrupt, called His body, and the claim of Divine authority attached to the administration of that corruption. The notion of an invisible body was invented to conciliate spiritual conscience with such a state of things. Scripture foretells failure; yea, recounts it; and foretells its becoming yet worse; it tells of corruption and perilous times; it tells, finally, of apostasy. But it never speaks of a corrupt body of Christ. It does not deny a corrupt general state of things, which it compares to a great house, and enjoins a man's purifying himself from the vessels of dishonor, and walking with those who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. It tells of a building of God in His purposes; and, in fact, at the commencement, and at the close; but it speaks with equal clearness of man's responsible building. The existing confusion is no difficulty for one who has Scripture in his hand and heart; who owns its authority. The word of God makes all clear-the body united to its heavenly Head in sure and richest blessing-the corruption clearly described and judged; and, in the mixture which is to be expected in a great house, the path for uprightness, and obedience, and purity of walk, clear and distinct. The house, as it should be, well ordered; the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3): when it is filled with vessels to dishonor, as the great house, the distinct command of separation from evil and from them (2 Tim. 2). And the reader -will remark, that it is in this last epistle, when the house is thus spoken of, that the Word of God, the Scriptures, are insisted on as the sure and effectual refuge of the soul in the perilous times of corrupted Christendom.
I add, as a sad but useful appendix, some facts as to the boasted primitive Church. First, as to doctrine. The statements which I have given from Hermas, whose book was read in many churches-quoted by Irenaeus, and believed by Origen to be inspired-is the plainest possible proof of the gross ignorance of the primitive Church, and utter incompetency to judge of doctrine.
But, further; the doctrine of the Ante-Nicene fathers is anything but satisfactory as to the divinity of Christ. Justin peremptorily denies that the one supreme God the Creator, can appear as a man in this world; and the doctrine of Christ's not being distinct, as a person, till creation was about to take place, though not without an exception, no one acquainted with them can deny to be general, as expressed by ενδιαθετος and προφορικος. From their desire to meet the heathen's ideas, and the influence of Platonic philosophy, their teaching on the λογος, or word, and what is expressed by the word Trinity is extremely loose and objectionable, to say the least. But if loose and unsound on so fundamental a point-on that which is the very truth itself, and foundation of all truth-the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, on what can we trust them? The final judgment is treated by one as a means of purifying the imperfect. And Augustine speaks of the Lord's Supper as thanks-giving for the good; propitiation for the bad; and, though it cannot help the wicked dead, a comfort to the living (i.e. by deceiving them). Elsewhere he says, it may allay their pains in hell. As to the grace of God, it was hardly known amongst them.
The reader will remember, I am not speaking of souls and their personal faith, but of doctors. None are more untrustworthy on every fundamental subject, than the mass of primitive fathers.
Now, as to practice, Cyprian, in his treatise " De Lapsis," gives the following account of Christian morals, about two hundred years after Christ, while the empire was yet heathen. He says, " that they were treated mercifully in the persecution; so that it was an investigation or trial of them (exploratio), not a persecution; and that they must not be blind to the causes. Where-upon lie then describes the state of the Church.—Individuals were applying themselves to increase their patrimony; and forgetful what believers either had done under the Apostles-or ought always to do-they were bent, with an insatiable ardor of avarice, on increasing their fortunes. No devout religion in priests; no un-corrupted fidelity in ministers (deacons); no compassion in works; no order in morals. The beard plucked away among men; the face painted among women; the eyes adulterated, after God had made them (post Dei manus); the hair colored with falsehood; cunning frauds to deceive the hearts of the simple; a deceitful will in circumventing brethren. The bonds of matrimony joined with unbelievers; the members of Christ prostituted to heathens.. Not only rash swearing, but, besides even perjury, despising those set over them with proud haughtiness; speaking evil with poisoned lip; mutual discord with pertinacious hatred. Many bishops, whom it behooves to be an exhortation and an example to others-their Divine commission despised-become com-missioners of secular affairs; and leaving their sees and deserting the people, wandering through other provinces, hunt the fairs and markets, trafficking for gain. No help to hungry brethren in the church; the desire to have money largely; seizing on estates by insidious frauds; augmenting interest by multiplied usury.
Such is the picture of Christian morals afforded by a bishop who had lived in the midst of them.
I may next give Augustine's account of saints' festivals, after the emperors were Christians. He had resisted, in a very godly and courageous way, the people coming and getting drunk in the church; having preached against it, and only few being present. There were many murmurs in the mass of people against it. Their fathers, they said, were very good Christians, and they did it; and why should it be put a stop to now. He pressed Christian precepts on them: and adds,-however, lest those, who, before our time, either allowed, or did not dare prohibit, the manifest crimes of an ignorant multitude, should seem to be subjected to some reproach on our part, I laid before them by what necessity those things seemed to have arisen in the church; namely, after so many and so vehement persecutions, when peace having arrived, lest crowds of heathens, desiring to come under the Christian name, might be hindered by this, that they were accustomed to spend festive days with their idols, in abundant feasting and drunkenness, nor could easily withhold themselves from their most pernicious and very ancient indulgences; it seemed right to our ancestors, for the time, to wait on this part of infirmity, and that other festive days, instead of those they left, should be celebrated in honor of the holy martyrs, at least, not with the same sacrilege, although with like luxury. And, then, shows how they hope, by connecting them with Christ, to wean them off by precepts; that what was granted them that they might be Christians, when they were Christians, they might reject. (Aug. Lit. ad Alypium, xxix. Ed. Ben.)
It is hard to say whether the fact, or Augustine's excuse for it, is the worst. It was, however, the real motive. As we in England may justly say; as directions were given by Pope Gregory to act on that principle in converting the Saxons. See, for example (Lib. ix.; Epist. 71), his recommendation to Mellitus on going to Britain.
Nor was this way of settling saints' days, local merely. Christmas was fixed at the Saturnalia-a word passed into a technical one for unbridled license—because they could not bridle it, and would Christianize (?) their feasting. The day of purification was substituted for the Lupercalia, which had this character; and so on.
The following is Eusebius's account of the state of the Church, which had brought on the persecutions which preceded his time:- Rulers raging against rulers, and people in tumultuous conflict with people; lastly, when unutterable hypocrisy, and dissimulation had gone on to the highest pitch. Then divine judgment began, he says, measuredly, as it delights to do, and first with trial among soldiers; but when they went on then to act like Atheists, and added one wickedness to another; when our most esteemed pastors, despising the bond of piety, burned in contentions, one with another, increasing only in strife, and threats, jealousy, enmity, and hatred, one against another. Then, he says, according to the saying of Jeremiah; the full tide of trial broke in. Such was the primitive Church of the third century (Euseb. viii. 1).
Jerome will tell us if they had improved when the empire became Christian. Here is his account of the clergy. Valentinian had passed a law forbidding the clergy getting inheritances by watching the death-beds of persons who had property. Here is Jerome's account of the state of things. Jerome says, he does not complain of the law, but of its being necessary. It shows, in truth, as all such laws do, a general public state of things. " The caution of the law is provident and severe; yet even so, avarice is not restrained. We mock at laws by means of trusts, and as if emperors' decrees were greater than Christ's; we fear the laws and despise the Gospels. It is the shame of all priests to study their own wealth. Born in a poor house, and in a rustic cottage, I, who could scarce content the loud cry of my belly with millet and coarse bread, now am nice about fine flour and honey. I know the kinds and names of fishes. I am knowing as to on what shore a shell-fish is gathered. I discern provinces by the savor of birds, etc. I hear, moreover, of the base service of some to old men and old women without children."
He then describes, in language too disagreeable to translate, the disgusting servile attentions of the clergy at the bed-side of the sick, and continues: " They tremble at the entrance of the physician, and with faltering lips inquire if they are better; and if the old person is somewhat more vigorous, they are in danger, and, while feigning joy, the avaricious mind is tortured within; for they fear lest they should lose their pains, and compare the vigorous old person to the years of Methuselah" (Ep. lii. ad Nepotianum).
Augustine, at the same epoch, complains, that in his day, if any one would live godly, he was mocked, not by heathen simply, but by professing Christians. He complains, that the devil had sent so many hypocrites in monks' habits on every side, going round the provinces, sent nowhere, fixed nowhere, standing nowhere, sitting nowhere; others hawking members of martyrs, if they are of martyrs; others, etc.-all exact either the expense of a gainful need, or the price of a pretended sanctity, (De Opere Monachorum).
These extracts will give an idea of the state of what is called the primitive Church. Greater research and examination would only increase the evidence; and, as to doctrines, in a way calculated to distress every sober and godly mind. This does not prove there was no hidden religion, no true faith; but that the authority of what we possess of the primitive Church is worse than nothing as to doctrine, and its general practice in both clergy and laity a disgrace to the name of Christ. What I have given will give its traits. It is all I seek here, that the consciences of my readers may know what the primitive Church was, and not be under any delusion through the speciously-sounding title. There was no time when there was so little orthodoxy, as before the Council of Nice, I speak of the fathers and doctors, unless in the universal Arianism of the reign of Constans and some other emperors. For the Catholic Church, pope and all, veered round with the emperor like a weathercock. Athanasius died condemned by the Council of Tire; Arius in the communion of the universal Church, only he perished the night before he took his place-his foes say by the judgment of God, his friends by poison.
I add a short note referred to in the body of the paper, as to the epoch of the dogma of Papal supremacy. The first I find, in the midst of much vague deference and admission of rank, who formally makes the Pope the one and sole center of unity, is Optatus of Milevi. In his second book (not having his works, I quote from the Centuriatores. Magdeburgici) he says, "The episcopal chair was first conferred on Peter in the city of Rome, in which he sat as head of all the apostles; whence, also, he was called Cephas, in whom alone the unity of the chair should be kept by all, nor the apostles lay claim each to one for himself (singular sibi quisque); so that he should be a schismatic and a sinner, who should establish another in opposition to the one single chair." But this is said in opposition to the schism of the Donatists. When the African synods, in Augustine's time, had condemned the Pelagians, they sent their decrees as usual to the bishop of Rome. Innocent I tells them, they had manifested a proper sense of the submission due to the apostolic see, whence all episcopal power flowed, and must ever flow, as from one single fountain-head, to fertilize the whole world by its manifold streamlets. He had, he said, of his own authority condemned these heresies, and severed their authors from the Church. However, the following Pope, Zosimus, approved the statements of Pelagius, as sent to him from Palestine, and condemned all the previous proceedings against Pelagius. But, under Augustine's influence, a Council of Carthage, A.D. 418, condemned and anathematized Pelagius, and decreed, that if any one shall presume to appeal beyond sea (i.e. to Rome), let none among you receive him into communion. They sent to the emperor who condemned and banished him from Rome, and then Zosimus condemned, too, what he had approved; and, the Africans being content, Zosimus claims Peter's universal jurisdiction as before, and all goes on smooth. Augustine, in his treatise on the Gospel of John, expressly declares that Christ was the rock on which the Church was built-on the rock which Peter had confessed. Elsewhere, if I remember, in his Retractations, he says, people may take it otherwise if they prefer it.
Leo, an able man, connects the two thoughts with much cleverness of manner. I quote them, as they will give an idea of the way Roman pretensions were put forward in his age
" For the solidity of that faith which is praised in the prince of the apostles is perpetual; and as what Peter believed of Christ ever remains, so what Christ instituted in Peter ever remains.".He then quotes. Matt. 16:16 in full. He continues: " The disposition of the truth, therefore, remains; and the blessed Peter, persevering in the received strength of the rock, has not deserted the undertaken helm of the Church. For he is in such sort placed before the others, that, while he is called the 'rock' (petra), while he is pronounced to be the foundation, while he is made doorkeeper of the kingdom of the heavens, while he is set up as arbiter of what is to be bound and loosed, what is defined by his judgments being to remain in the heavens, we might know, by the very mysteries of his titles, what his association with Christ is, who now transacts more fully and powerfully the things which were committed to him, and executes every part of the duties and cares in Him and with Him by whom he has been glorified. If, therefore, anything is rightly done and rightly discerned by us, if anything is obtained from the mercy of God by daily supplications, it is of the works and merits of him in whose see his power lives and his authority is pre-eminent. For, beloved, that confession which inspired the apostolic heart by God the Father, rose above all the uncertainties of human opinions, and received the firmness of a rock, which may be shaken by no impulses obtained thus. For, in the universal Church, Peter daily says, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' This faith conquers devils," etc. (Ser. iii.). Again, on the assumption of Peter (Ser. iv.): " All are kings by the sign of the cross, all consecrated priests by the unction of the Holy Spirit," etc. 'But Peter was chosen," etc., " that, although in the people of God there are many priests and many pastors, yet Peter should, as by proper title belonging to himself (proprie), rule them all whom Christ also rules as prime and chief (principaliter), a great and wonderful community (consortium) of His power, beloved, has the divine esteem (dignatio) bestowed on this man; and if it has willed that anything should be common to other chiefs with him, it never gave but through him, whatever it did not deny to others;" then quotes Matt. 16 again, interpreting thus: " As I am the inviolable rock, I the corner-stone who make both one, I the foundation besides which none can lay any other, yet thou also art a rock (petra), become identified with my virtue (i.e. power and strength, as we say virtue of a medicine or herb), that what things are proper to me in power, should be common to you by participation with me." See also Ser. lxii. (xi. de Pass. Dom.) Again (Epist. x. ad Episcopos per provinciam Viennensem constitutos): " But the Lord willed that the mystery of this function should so belong to the office of all the apostles, as placed by Him first and chief (principaliter) in the blessed Peter, head of all the apostles, and as being His will that from him, as from a kind of head, His gifts should flow into the body, that whoever dared to get away from the solidity of Peter, should understand that he was deprived of any portion in the divine mystery; for He (Christ) was pleased that he, taken into the community (consortium) of [His] individual unity, should be called that which He was saying, Thou art Peter,'" etc.- " that the building of the eternal temple by a wonderful gift of the grace of God should stand in the solidity of Peter, strengthening His Church by this firmness, that neither human rashness might reach it, nor the gates of hell prevail against it."
Here I close my note. The place given to Peter speaks for itself to every Christian. As to doctrinal claim, it would be needless to pursue the Papacy any further. With its political influence I have here nothing to do: I have sufficiently given its history already.
A most interesting but difficult subject of research in connection with this sketch would be-How far the workings of divine light and conscience were connected with some of the heretical movements of different ages, even though the craft of Satan may have marred and corrupted the movement of these unguarded souls. And this interest would apply to various sects, so-called, which arose from the sixth century onward, at least as much as to earlier heretical bodies. But the facts are very difficult to estimate, and even to ascertain, and the greatest part of the testimony to be sifted as coming from enemies. Take, for example, as obvious instances. Tertullian and the Paulicians.
(Continued from p.67).