THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH.

Of all the vague, mystical, indeterminate ideas enveloped in any one term of theology, there is none more so to most minds than that attempted to be embodied in the term, the Church. As this term is used by a large class of writers, it is impossible to attach to the thing denoted by it any form, outline, or substantive existence, so as have any definite conception of what the thing is, and where it is to be found. Even "imagination," which the poet says, "bodies forth the form of things unknown, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name," is here baffled; for local habitation, or a place among the recognisable realities of the actual world, the Church, according to their description of it, has none.

As a proof of what we have asserted, let us take the following account of the nature and office of the Church. After stating that the Church has a "real individual nature," the writer whom we quote proceeds: "We mean by a Being, that which has a separate nature and peculiar identity, a life, consciousness, and energy of its own; something which is not merely the creation of our imagination formed by abstraction out of various elements, as ready to

resolve themselves into any other shape, but which exists irrespective of our conceptions, and by its works and doings asserts its place in the actual world. Since the Church, therefore, is declared in Scripture to have an individual being, and personal existence, to be Christ's body, his mystic bride; since it is declared to be created for the setting forth of God's glory so that its very life must be in prayer and praise, therefore those who compose it are not a mere congeries of unconnected essences, brought by accidental juxtaposition within a common precinct, but by a divine order and mystical harmony, are in truth built up into a living body, and connatural whole."

Now to those who take obscurity for depth, and the unknowable for the magnificent, this may look like very fine writing; for, without question, this passage possesses all that misty vagueness of grandeur which is said to be a characteristic of the sublime; but somehow, spite of ourselves, it forces upon our minds the recollection that the sublime borders close upon the ridiculous. That this is not the language of mere sarcasm on our part, but in very deed the sober severity of truth, will be manifest if we only analyse this conglomerate of absurdities, and weigh the import of the several grandiloquent expressions which are here used to describe the Church. But, to complete the picture, and to give all the parts in their several harmonious relations to each other with all fairness, we must bring into view those other statements of the writer which stand in immediate juxtaposition with this

transparent, egregious attempt to imitate, or rather to transcend the depth and the majestic dignity. of old Hooker.

"As the public voice of this collective being," the author continues, "does the minister by God's ordinance stand forth, and presents the commingling adoration of many hearts blended together into the awful solemnity of one Christian sacrifice." And, immediately preceding the before-quoted passage, we find this statement: "The conduct appropriate to public worship must be regulated by its nature. principle is that each member of the Church should have somewhat to offer, yet that the collective prayers of all should be presented as one single tribute by the minister of God. For this is what preserves to the Church the real attribute of an individual

Its

nature, while it maintains the sacred doctrine of the inward life of each man's spirit.'

Now it will be observed that, in the first of the three passages we have here quoted, the Church is spoken of in its collective or catholic capacity; and yet in the second, which follows in immediate connection with it, the presenting of the "collective prayers" of this "collective being" is represented as the act of one single "minister of God." This is the first inconsistency. The second is this: the writer states that "this is what preserves to the Church the real attribute of an individual nature" (he does not make, let it be noticed, the "one Spirit," which pervades all the members of the body, to be, as the

66

Scripture represents it, that which gives it its corporate oneness); while this attribute is scattered to the winds by the fact that the prayers of this "collective being" are offered by many ministers, in many forms, and not by any single one- unless, indeed, by the public voice of this collective being" our author means a certain central authority of the West, according to the theory of Romanists, by which it is held that the people confess to the priests, the priests to the bishops, and the bishops to the Pope, and the Pope for the whole to God; and that thus it is that "the real attribute of an individual nature" is preserved to the Church.

But again while, in the first of the foregoing quotations, the Church is far enough, in terms at least, from being made an abstraction, yet an abstraction it is, of the most impalpable kind; for where, in the whole universe, is any such actual

66

Being" as that there described, to be found in realised existence?-existing, that is, as a real person? The Scriptures, indeed, by a figure of speech, speak sometimes of the Church as a person; but it is evidently not as in a figure, but as in truth a person, this author invites us to contemplate the Church; for, according to him, it possesses a real "individual nature" it is emphatically a "Being"-that which has a separate nature and peculiar identity" — and not a body "formed out of various elements," capable of "resolving themselves into any other shape." In other words, it is not a mere congregation or society of

66

veritable men and women, united by one common purpose, and one common spirit, and so forming one body to "our intellectual conceit," as Hooker expresses it; for it has "a life, consciousness, and energy of its own," distinct, as is expressly stated, from the inward life of each individual Christian, or of the individual members which make up the whole. And yet, while it is of such a thoroughly mystical and transcendental nature, that it exists "irrespective of our conceptions," "by its works and doings," we are told, "it asserts its place in the actual world." Here we are more bewildered than ever. Where, in the name of common sense, we ask, does this wonderful Being dwell which has a "personal existence," and yet "exists irrespective of our conceptions;" which has "a peculiar identity and life of its own," and "by its works and doing sasserts its place in the actual world;" which is, in a word, not a society or body politic, but a

66

66

Being." When we read this description, we seem to see rising up before us a huge form of substantive existence, a new and unknown living creature of vast dimensions, endued with extraordinary powers and properties; but, lo, when we put out our hand, and attempt to touch it, it turns out to be a huge impalpability. Works and doings," we thought, were visible things; and by means of these at least we hoped to realise it to our apprehensions; but it is made to flit through our fingers like thin air, by our being informed that it has a "separate nature" from anything that we see, feel, know, or can take cognisance of, even in our mental conceptions.