Chapter IV: Part 4

St. Paul has unfolded the dimensions of the revelation of God given in the catholic church. The interests of the whole of mankind and of the whole universe which it is to subserve--that is its breadth: the eternal and slowly realized intention of God of which it is the expression--that is its length: the spiritual elevation up to which it takes men--that is its height: the gulf of sin and misery from which it rescues them--that is its depth. And now he is about to press upon the Asiatic Christians the moral obligations which this great catholic brotherhood involves. He begins his exhortation and enforces it by reminding them of what he was enduring as a prisoner for Christ's sake--'For this cause (i.e. seeing that all this is true), I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you, the Gentiles.' But when he has thus made a beginning, he pauses to add weight {122} to his appeal by emphasizing a personal but very important consideration. The particular truth of the catholicity of the Church had been in quite a special sense entrusted to him, Paul, personally, as apostle of the Gentiles. He assumes that they have heard of this, his special commission, and that it was the subject of a special revelation to himself[1]. Indeed the fact must have formed part of his teaching at Ephesus and throughout Asia, for his mind was full of it; he had contended for it against strong opposition in his epistle to the Galatians[2]; he had asserted it in his speech on the occasion of his being made a prisoner at Jerusalem: and he had quite recently explained it 'in brief compass' in the letter to the Colossians which was intended to have, in part at least, the same readers as his present epistle[3]. This special revelation then and accompanying commission justifies him in particular, and more than any of {123} the other apostles, in pressing upon his converts the doctrine which forms the special topic of this epistle.

But to think of his special office as apostle of a catholic society, is to think also of its extraordinary difficulty.

[Sidenote: _The difficulty of catholicity_]

When we set ourselves in our own later age to rehabilitate the sense of church membership, we feel at once the strength of the forces against us; we realize how much the feeling of blood-kinship in the family counts for, or the wider kinship of national life, or the common interests of our professions or our classes, compared to the feeble sense of fellowship which comes from a church membership which is so largely conventional. Most assuredly we feel the difficulty of what we have in hand. But we cannot feel it more intensely than St. Paul felt the difficulty involved in the very idea of a human brotherhood in which national distinctions were obliterated. After all, the degree of unity impressed by the Roman Empire upon the different nations it embraced was superficial. On the whole it left men to walk in their own ways. In particular it did not succeed in breaking down the barriers of Jewish isolation. A society in which men should be neither Jews nor {124} Gentiles, Greeks nor barbarians, bond nor free, but all should be welded into one manhood by the pressure of a common and constraining bond of brotherhood--a society in which even the savage and brutal Scythian should have equal fellowship with Greeks and Jews[4]--represented what had never yet been accomplished, and what the most sanguine might reasonably have thought impossible. The history of the Church, though not yet much more than thirty years old, had served already to emphasize the difficulty of the undertaking. We read the record of the first Jerusalem Church with its communism of love and sympathy, and it seems the perfect realization of the Christian spirit of brotherhood. So it was, but under comparatively easy conditions. For all that community were Jews with common traditions, sympathies, habits, ways of looking at things. They could behave as brethren, in the glow of their fresh enthusiasm at finding that the long-expected kingdom of Christ was now an actual fact, and its triumph to be immediately expected, without any real bridging of the gulfs which yawn between different sorts of men. That these gulfs still remained to be bridged soon appeared. It became manifest that {125} Gentiles, 'sinners of the Gentiles,' had to be received into Christian brotherhood upon equal terms, and without their accepting the Jewish law and customs. The Council at Jerusalem attempted a compromise by requiring of the Gentile converts certain accommodations to Jewish manners. But the compromise did not avail to overcome the difficulty. St. Paul found the centre of opposition to the equal admission of the Gentiles in that very Church of Jerusalem which had been previously foremost in the race of love. In fact, the true difficulty of the law of brotherhood only then appeared when the obligation to fuse inveterate national distinctions began to be enforced. Then indeed flesh and blood rebelled. Without going any further than this single piece of Christian experience, there is every reason why St. John should warn Christians that the old commandment, 'ye shall love one another,' is constantly, with every change of circumstance, becoming 'a new commandment,' involving new difficulties, and challenging afresh the efforts of the human will[5]. The same difficulty, only in a less acute form, is in St. Paul's mind, and makes him measure and weigh his words, when he writes to Philemon {126} to beg him to receive his former runaway slave, 'no longer as a slave, but as a brother beloved[6].'

And we cannot but pause and ask, in view of all the moral discipline for men of various kinds which St. Paul sees to be involved in the simple obligation to belong to one Christian body[7],--what would have been his feelings if he had heard of the doctrine which cuts at the root of all this discipline by declaring that religion is only concerned with the relation of the soul to God, and that Christians may combine as they please in as many religious bodies as suits their varying tastes?

This difficulty in the very idea of a catholic brotherhood of men explains the extraordinary earnestness with which St. Paul proceeds to emphasize that indeed this, and nothing less than this, is the divine mystery (or 'secret'), which, held back from all eternity in the mind of God, was only now being disclosed through Christ's consecrated messengers, and specially through St. Paul himself, the apostle of the Gentiles. The incredible nature of the idea clogs St. Paul's language, and almost makes shipwreck of his grammar. All the depth of Christian doctrine is necessary as background {127} to recommend and justify this otherwise entirely 'supernatural' ideal--this marvellous climax of the workings and revelations of God. The spectacle of a catholic brotherhood, with all that it promises of universal unity beyond itself, is a lesson even to the angels of what the manifold wisdom of God can conceive and accomplish.

We have got into a habit of talking about the 'brotherhood of man' as if it was an easy and obvious truth. All our experience of our English relations with races of a different colour to our own, nay, all our experience of class divisions at home, might have served to check this easy-going sort of language. If we will consent to pause and reflect on the actual difficulty of behaving or feeling as brethren should behave and feel towards men of other races and of other educations and habits than our own, we may be more inclined to believe that it is only through some fundamental eradication of selfishness and inherent narrowness that it can be made possible; only when we begin to live from some centre greater than ourselves. And that is the moral meaning of the constant doctrine of the New Testament, that only through being reconciled to God can we be reconciled to one {128} another--only in Christ that men can permanently and satisfactorily learn to love one another, when racial and educational and personal antipathies make for separation and not for unity.

Now perhaps we are in a position to read with greater intelligence what St. Paul wrote about 'the dispensation of the divine mystery,' i.e. 'the stewardship of the divine secret,' of the brotherhood of all men in Christ or the catholicity of the Church, which had been committed to him by the 'revelation' which followed his conversion to Christ[8].

The doctrine of the brotherhood of men is in fact as much a peculiarly Christian doctrine as that of divine sonship, and both alike are, in the New Testament language, represented as realized only within the community of the baptized. The facts of New Testament language compel us to say and to recognize this[9]. But {129} we are bound to recognize also that they are truths which, when they are heard, are welcomed by the natural conscience everywhere. For as all men are 'God's offspring[10],' by the very fact of their creation as men, so they are fitted to receive the privilege of sonship: and as they are 'made of one[11],' so they are fitted to realize the privilege of brotherhood. It is but to say the same thing in other words, if we insist that Christians are the elect body, to realize and express among men an idea of human nature which is the only true idea, and which, overlaid and forgotten as it may have been, has never ceased to stir in man's heart and conscience everywhere. The elect are elected for no other purpose than to make manifest what all men are capable of becoming, and, if they will obey God, are destined to become.

For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles,--if so be that ye have heard of the dispensation of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward; how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ; which in other {130} generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; _to wit_, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God who created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly _places_ might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him. Wherefore I ask that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which are your glory.

There are a few points in this passage which still require explanation.

[Sidenote: _Paul the apostle of catholicity_]

1. What is St. Paul referring to when he says 'As I wrote afore in few words whereby, when ye read[12], ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ' or (if I may venture to retranslate it) 'as I wrote before in brief, by {131} comparison with which, as ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the secret of the Christ'? It is generally supposed that he is referring to the verses in the first chapter of this epistle (i. 9, 10, &c.), in which he speaks of the 'mystery' or 'secret' of the divine will now disclosed. But his point appears to be rather that he had elsewhere written in brief about his own special commission to preach the Gentile gospel; and the more probable reference seems to be to the Epistle to the Colossians which was written almost simultaneously with this epistle, probably just previously, and was intended to be read at some at least, if not all, of the same churches as this circular epistle, that is to say at Laodicea and Colossae at least, and probabfxly more widely. In that epistle (i. 25 ff.) he had really dwelt on his special commission in almost the same terms as here, and comparison with what he said there would indeed assist those he was now addressing to understand his knowledge in the 'revealed secret of the Christ.'

2. How can St. Paul, who insists continually that he is one of the apostles, call them, without self-complacency, God's holy apostles? The answer to this is that 'holiness' means 'consecration.' Any one is 'holy' or a 'saint' (the {132} same word) who is consecrated to God in any special way. Such consecration lays upon him an obligation to moral goodness, which is what we mean by holiness, but it precedes the fulfilment of the obligation. All Christians are holy (or 'saints') because they are Christians, all apostles because they are apostles. As for St. Paul's personal estimate of himself as an individual, we have it just below. In view of his past sins, when he was 'kicking against the pricks,' and, albeit in ignorance, persecuting the Church, he calls himself 'less than the least of all the holy.'

3. St. Paul conceives his function to be to 'make men see,' or 'bring into the light' a long hidden secret of God now in part disclosed to the apostles, and to be by them disclosed to the world--in part, for its contents are still 'unsearchable' in their depth and in the 'manifoldness' of divine wisdom which they imply. But what is disclosed is no afterthought of God. It is an eternal purpose; and it is all of a piece with the original idea of creation: it is a 'secret ... hidden in God who created all things.' Redemption in fact interprets to angels and men what God's purpose in creation originally was. To minister to this disclosure is enough for any {133} man. It makes all St. Paul's tribulations only such as it is worth while to bear; and the Gentiles, in their turn, should find their glory in his tribulations as an evidence of how much he thought it worth while to suffer in what is their cause no less truly than his.

[Sidenote: St. Paul's second prayer]

Here, as in the first chapter, the consideration of the glory, and consequently the difficulty, of the gospel which St. Paul has to deliver leads him off--just at the point where he seems to be resuming the uncompleted sentence with which he began--into a prayer that the Asiatic Christians may have strength given them to apprehend the wealth of their spiritual position and opportunity. He invokes God as the universal 'father (_pater_) from whom every family (_patria_)--every company of men knit together by common relation to one father--is named,' because this has direct reference to his purpose. All men recognize family, or blood relations and obligations. St. Paul reminds them that every conceivable society on earth or in heaven which is bound by the ties of a common fatherhood, derives its 'name' and therefore its significance from a larger relationship, an all-embracing relationship of which these lower ones are but shadows--the relationship to the one Father: {134} and he calls upon the one Father to strengthen men to transcend all narrownesses of family or blood, and rise to realize their position in the great family, the great brotherhood under the one Father. To do this a strengthening of the inner man, or inner life, by the divine Spirit is indeed needed. Christ must be not only possessed by Christians, but realized. He must dwell in their hearts by the realizing power of an active personal faith. Where this is so--where faith is vigorous--there life must be rooted and founded on love. Christian faith involves love. For it is faith in a Father and His Son and His Spirit; and love, and nothing but love, is the gift of the Father in the Son by the Spirit. This love then will strengthen them, in the fellowship of the saints or consecrated ones altogether, to apprehend God's work and purpose in all its dimensions--breadth and length and depth and height--and to know Christ's love (which yet passes knowledge and remains unknowable), and to find their whole being, not as separate individuals, but as one body praying and working and thinking together, expanded to take in the fulness of what God is, the full complement of the divine life. To be thus enlightened and enlarged is what St. Paul {135} understands by being a 'good catholic': that is what he prays all these Asiatic Christians may become.

And his prayer passes into a doxology--an ascription of glory to God because He is able to realize even what passes our power to conceive or to ask for; and that without doing more for us than He has already pledged Himself to do and actually begun to accomplish in us. And this glory he would have eternally ascribed to God in the Church which lives by His life; and also (where alone God can never fail of His full rights) in Him in whom alone God's life is perfectly realized, and worship perfectly rendered Him under conditions of manhood, in Jesus the Christ.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him _be_ the glory in the {136} church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Augustine, with his eye on the imperfections of the Church, speaks[13] of 'the glory of love ... alive but yet frost-bound. The root is alive, but the branches are almost dry. There is a heart alive within, and within are leaves and fruits; but they are waiting for a summer.' That is surely what we feel. The world cries out for brotherhood. We are perpetually explaining that brotherhood can only become actual, in the long run, where men know themselves to be, and in fact are, sons of God. We are continually pointing out that external legislative social reforms can only effect good where there exists, to respond to them and to use them, some strength and purity of inward character: that outward reforms without moral redemption would effect evil rather than good. All this is true and it is necessary to explain it. But the convincing demonstration begins at that point where Christianity makes man feel, and see in fact, that it contains in itself the remedy for social evils, because it has the spirit of love: where the Church is so actually presented as that men should feel and know that this is a true human {137} brotherhood. It is the social, human, brotherly power of the Church which is what is at the present moment best calculated to win the consciences and convince the intellects of men. But this actual living spirit of self-sacrificing love--this spirit of real brotherhood--how 'frost-bound' it is! How large the area of the Church, how many its institutions, where it is not (to say the least) the most obvious thing represented! In fact, social reform, and that the most thorough and the most permanent, requires nothing more than that professing Christians should be better Christians, Christians who really believe what St. Paul and St. John say about the love of the brethren. Come then, O breath of the divine Spirit, and breathe upon these bones of the Christian Church, that they may live!

And outside the area of nominal Christianity how 'frost-bound' our evangelizing love. Surely the Church of England, as part of the expansive British nation, has an apostleship to the nations comparable to St. Paul's. Yet missionary zeal, as directed towards the natives of India, or Japan, or Africa, is a very restricted thing; noticeably restricted it must be confessed among those who most love the name of Catholic: and almost non-existent in the great majority of those who are {138} yet members of the national Church. But it cannot be too deeply felt that to St. Paul the reconciliation of men with God is inseparable from the reconciliation of man with man. The atonement with God that is not an atonement among men he would not own. A peace with God that leaves us content that Hindoos and Japanese and Africans should not be of our religion is a false peace. A Christian who is not really in heart and will a missionary is not a Christian at all. Missionary effort is not a speciality of a few Christians, though, like every other part of Christian life, it has its special organs. It is an essential, never to be forgotten, part of all true Christian living, and thinking, and praying.

The missionary obligation of the Church depends, no doubt, chiefly on the command of Christ, 'Go ye and make disciples of all the nations.' But it is made intelligible when we realize that Christianity is really a catholic religion, and that only in proportion as its catholicity becomes a reality is its true power and richness exhibited. Each new race which is introduced into the Church not only itself receives the blessings of our religion, but reacts upon it to bring out new and unsuspected aspects and {139} beauties of its truth and influence. It has been so when Greeks, and Latins, and Teutons, and Kelts, and Slavs have each in turn been brought into the growing circle of believers. How impoverished was the exhibition of Christianity which the Jewish Christians were capable of giving by themselves! How much of the treasures of wisdom and power which lie hid in Christ awaited the Greek intellect, and the Roman spirit of government, and the Teutonic individuality, and the temper and character of the Kelt and the Slav, before they could leap into light! And can we doubt that now again not only would Indians, and Japanese, and Africans, and Chinamen be the better for Christianity, but that Christianity would be unspeakably also the richer for their adhesion--for the gifts which the subtlety of India, and the grace of Japan, and the silent patience of China are capable of bringing into the city of God.

Come, then, O breath of the divine Spirit, and breathe upon the dead bones of the Christian churches that forget that they are evangelists of the nations, that they may live and stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army, an army with banners.

[1] Acts xxii. 17-21. 'While I prayed in the temple, I fell into a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem.... Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles.'

[2] Gal. i. 15. 'It was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, _even_ from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.'

[3] Col. i. 24-29; iv. 3, 4.

[4] Col. iii. 11.

[5] 1 John ii. 7, 8.

[6] Phil. 16.

[7] Eph. iv. 1-3.

[8] Acts xxii. 21; xxvi. 17, 18.

[9] Thus the limitation of the term 'brotherhood' to Christians is implied in 1 Pet. ii. 17, 'Honour all men. Love the brotherhood;' and in 2 Pet. i. 7, 'In your love of the brethren supply love' (i.e. in the narrower and closer circle of believers, learn the wider and all embracing attitude towards men as men); and in 1 Cor. v. 11, 'Any man that is named a brother.' The word brother is throughout the New Testament used of _Christians_ only, except where, in the Acts, it is used by Jews of Jews. Our Lord's language about brotherhood applies to the circle of the disciples, except Matt. xxv. 40, 'One of these my brethren,' i.e. the wretched.

[10] Acts xvii. 28.

[11] Acts xvii. 26.

[12] Dr. Hort thinks 'read' is a technical word for reading the Scriptures, and that this reading of the Old Testament Scriptures is to enable them to appreciate St. Paul's 'understanding in the secret of the Christ.' But I doubt if so technical a use of 'read' can be made out.

[13] _In Epist. Joan, ad Parth._ v. 10.

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DIVISION I. Sec. 6. CHAPTER IV. 1-16.

_The unity of the church._

[Sidenote: _Connexion of thought_]

This Epistle to the Ephesians, viewed as a whole and from the point of view of a sympathetic intelligence, has a remarkable unity, and a unity progressively developed. Thus, first of all, the apostle opened the imagination of his hearers or readers to consider the place which the catholic church holds in the divine counsels for the universe, in the realization of the human ideal, and in the work of redemption from sin (chap. i and ii). Then he proceeded to justify and explain his own activity in the cause of catholicity, and made them feel at once the glory and the profound difficulty of the ideal of unity in diversity which it involves (chap. iii). It follows naturally and logically that he should set the Church before them as an actually existing organization, and bid them study it exactly and note the grounds of its unity and the common end to which its different elements or members {141} are meant to minister; and this is what he actually does in the fourth chapter (1-16). Viewed, however, as a matter of grammatical structure, it is probable that this passage forms another digression--the real necessity of the argument acting as an overmastering motive which pulls contrary to the immediate grammatical purpose of the writer. Thus he had begun, at the beginning of chapter iii, to pass from the doctrinal exposition which is involved in his opening chapters to practical exhortation. The Asiatic members of the catholic church are to be exhorted to live up to their calling: to turn their backs deliberately on their old heathen habits, and to conform themselves entirely to the principles of their new state. To this exhortation he actually and finally attains at chapter iv. 17. The intervening passage (a chapter and a half) is occupied, first, with the digression which we have just considered at length, about St. Paul's mission to the Gentiles and the difficulty of its realization, and with the great prayer which that topic suggests (chap. iii); secondly, with another digression on the character of the unity of the Church. This is, I say, probably the case grammatically. For 'I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles' (iii. 1) is almost {142} unmistakably intended to introduce a moral appeal to which his imprisonment for the sake of those to whom he writes adds weight and force[1]. It is taken up, after a digression, in iv. i, 'I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily'; but the appeal there begun yields anew to the necessity of further exposition, and only reaches its free expression in iv. 17, 'This therefore I say and testify in the Lord'; after which point we have moral exhortation and little else.

Now, therefore, we are to occupy ourselves with what is grammatically a second digression, but logically and really a most necessary step in the exposition of St. Paul's thoughts--the subject of the unity of the church catholic, its nature and obligations. Conscious of the profound difficulty of welding naturally antagonistic elements, such as Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free men, into one catholic fellowship, St. Paul appeals to the Asiatic churches with all the force which he can command as a prisoner on their account, to 'walk' as their catholic calling {143} involves; that is, to exhibit all those moral qualities which are necessary to maintain peace under difficult circumstance--a modest estimate of oneself (humility or 'lowliness'), a mildness in mutual relations ('meekness'), an habitual refusal to pass quick judgements on what one cannot but condemn or dislike ('longsuffering'), a deliberate forbearance one of another based on love. They are to accept one another as brethren, with the rights of brethren. And the reason why they should exhibit these qualities is not far to seek: they actually share one common supernatural life--the imparted life of the Spirit--and they are, therefore, to make it their deliberate object to preserve this actual spiritual unity in its appropriate outward expression, that is in harmonious fellowship,--'giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'

[Sidenote: _The unity of the church_]

But at this point the idea of the unity of the Church is felt to need fuller exposition. In what sense are Christians one? They are one as _one body_ or organization, made up no doubt of a multitude of differing individual members, but all bound into one, under Christ for their head, by the fact that the _one Spirit_, which is Christ's supreme gift, is imparted to the whole {144} organization and every member of it: and this common corporate life, where the elements are so different, is made possible by the _one hope_ reaching forward into an eternal world, which was set before them all when they received their call into the body of Christ. This should be enough to annihilate lower and shorter-lived differences. 'There is one body[2] and one spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.' It follows from this that there is another threefold unity. For the existence of the common head involves a common _allegiance to Him as Lord_, an allegiance which is justified by what He is _believed to be_ by all Christians; an allegiance, further, which is more than an outward fealty, being cemented by an actual incorporation into His life which takes place through the speaking symbol of the _laver of regeneration_[3]. 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.' But once more. This common union with and under Christ in the Spirit, is not anything less than union with _the one and only God and Father_, who is _over all_ as the one head (even 'the head of Christ is God'), _through all_ as the pervading presence, _in all_ as the active {145} life, 'one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all things.' Thus their unity is the deepest and most ultimate conceivable: it has a width and range from which no one can be excluded: while it has a closeness and cogency like the unity of blood.

To realize what this unity is and may be, involves on our part a continual looking out of ourselves, out of all individual, social and national differences, up to the common source of all the gifts of all Christians. Whatever each one possesses is simply the gift of the divine bounty or grace, given to him by a definite act of bestowal, varying merely in kind and degree according to the sovereign will of Christ the Lord, the only giver; and it is therefore to be used in His service and for His ends. The Psalmist had sung of the divine king of Israel mounting as an earthly conqueror unto his sanctuary throne in Zion after making captives and receiving gifts from among his enemies without exception.

'Thou hast gone up into the heights,
Thou hast led captives captive;
Thou hast received gifts among men, yea from the rebellious also[4].'

It stands to reason that to St. Paul's mind this {146} conception is realized nowhere but in Christ. Its application to Christ is in fact assumed--'therefore,' i.e. with a view to Christ, 'he' or rather 'it,' the Scripture 'saith'--and the passage is given free interpretation, and, more than this, free modification, on the basis of this assumption. For (1) the ascension of the conquering king is spoken of as the result of a previous descent to the 'lower regions of this earth of ours[5].' No man, as St. John says, hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven. The person who 'beggared himself' to come down to our earth and who subsequently mounted into the divine glory is one and the same person, Christ the incarnate Son; and He thus descended and re-ascended in order that He might, through the atonement wrought by Him in the flesh and through the exaltation which rewarded it, restore to the universe that unity of which sin and rebellion had robbed it, and 'fill all things' once again with the divine bounty and presence[6].

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(2) The sense of the psalm is--possibly not without Jewish precedent[7]--altered in expression so that, instead of the conqueror receiving gifts from men, his conquered enemies, we have him represented as 'giving gifts to men.' This modification, whether original in St. Paul or accepted by him, is no doubt due to the fact that his mind is full of the idea of Christ as conquering only to bless, receiving homage only to be enabled to bestow on them who offer it the fulness of the divine bounty. And the 'captives' of Christ, to St. Paul's mind, are no doubt not men, but the hosts of Satan reduced to impotence. The exalted Christ, then, is the source of all gifts in His Church, and He bestows on men various endowments in such a way as to maintain among them a necessary relation. 'No member of the body of Christ is endued with such perfection as to be able, without the assistance of others, to supply his own necessities. A certain proportion is allotted to each, and it is only by communicating with others that all enjoy what is sufficient for maintaining their respective places in the body[8].' This is the principle of mutual dependence, the fundamental principle of corporate life. Thus 'He gave {148} some as apostles, some prophets,' others in other varying capacities to fulfil varying functions; the principle of the bestowal being the same throughout. Each 'gifted' individual becomes himself a gift to the Church. He is 'gifted' not for his own sake but for the Church's sake--'with a view to the perfecting of the saints,' or 'the complete equipment of the consecrated body,' for the manifold 'work of ministry' entrusted to it; or to look at the matter from a rather different point of view, 'for the purpose of completing the structure of the body of Christ'--that living company of men in whom Christ expresses Himself and through whom He acts upon the world. And that structure is not complete till all together attain what is impossible to any isolated Christian individual, the unity not only of a common faith, but also of a common knowledge of what is revealed in the Son of God; or, in other words, to the full-grown manhood; which, once again, means that complete developement in which the fulness of the Christ--all the complete array of His attributes and qualities--finds harmonious exhibition over again in His people, His body.

But the possibility of this completeness on the part of the Church as a whole, depends on the {149} stability of the individual members in the common faith. Thus it is Christ's purpose that His members should cease to be as children, stirred up like the waves of the sea, or carried about like feathers, by every wind of false teaching. There is, it must be remembered, a kingdom of deception, an organized attempt to seduce souls, of which wicked men make themselves the instruments. In view of this hostile kingdom of error, the Christians must abide in the truth revealed to them in love, and so grow up into the completed life of Christ. For He is the head, and in Him they are the body. And the body is a unit of many parts fitted and held together in one life by a supply from the head, which circulates through every joint, and for the full and unimpeded communication of which each several limb must do its proper work, so that the whole body may grow into completed life in that mutual coherence which is Christian love.

This prolonged paraphrase may serve to bring out the innumerable points of interest in that rich passage in which St. Paul as it were gives the reins to his imagination and his feelings in order to describe the glory of the unity of the Church.

{150} I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. _There_ is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith,

When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive,
And gave gifts unto men.

(Now this, He ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some _to be_ apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into him, which is the head, _even_ Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in _due_ measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.

{151}

In this great conception of church unity there are several points to which special attention must be given.

i.

The Church is one, first of all, because a common inward life, the Spirit, from a common source, Christ, flows in her veins and makes her to be one body. What is this 'unity of Spirit?' says Chrysostom. 'As in a body it is spirit which holds all together, and makes that to be a unity which consists of different limbs, so it is in the Church. For the Spirit was given for this purpose that He might unify those who differ in race and variety of habits.' This inward life is no doubt, as we shall see, imparted, maintained and perfected through outward means or institutions--baptism, the eucharist, human offices and ministries; but none the less it is the inward life which makes the Church one. So that her unity is like the unity of a family or a race, a unity of blood and life which exists in spite of all outward differences: and not like such a unity as is produced by outward government, as, for example, Armenians, Syrians, Kurds, and Turks make up the unity of the Turkish empire, or Englishmen and Frenchmen the Dominion of {152} Canada. The unity of the Christian Church is thus a unity which ought to express itself in 'the bond of peace,' but which does not consist in that, any more than the unity of a family consists in the affection and sympathy which yet brothers ought to have one to another. This Pauline idea of church unity--which is the idea also of the New Testament as a whole--constantly finds expression in early Christian writings, but one particular expression of it may be cited. Hilary of Poitiers, in argument with the Arians, is confronted with the position that the phrase 'I and my Father are one' means only one in will, not one in nature, like the phrase used of the Church, 'one heart and soul.' He refutes the argument by urging that, in the latter case also, what is referred to is not a unity of wills but of nature: believers are 'one thing through a new birth into the same (new) nature.' 'Ye are all one,' says St. Paul, 'in Christ Jesus.' 'The apostle teaches that this unity of the faithful comes from the nature of the sacraments.... What then can concord of minds have to do with a case where men are already made one by being clothed with one Christ through the nature of one baptism?[9]' This passage gives {153} a striking view of what ultimately constitutes church unity.

It is necessary to call attention to this position because the great Roman church, which occupies so large a space in the whole area of the church, and impresses its ideas so powerfully upon men's imagination, has perverted this idea of church unity by a one-sided emphasis on unity of government. I find a typical modern Roman statement in Dr. Hunter's _Outlines of Dogmatic Theology_[10]: 'The Church has a principle of oneness which joins the members together, and distinguishes the society from a mere aggregate of unconnected units. The members are associated in order that, believing the revelation that God has given, and using the means of grace which He has provided, under the direction of the governors who have their authority from Him, they may attain the end of their being, the salvation of their souls. In other words, the unity which the Church must have includes the unity of faith, unity of worship, and unity of government.' Here we have church unity described as an outward association of individuals to attain a certain end by submitting to a common authority in matters of belief and worship. The {154} unity of spiritual life which St. Paul and St. Hilary put distinctly first, becomes secondary or subordinate. It is not even specified among the three chief elements of unity. But it makes the greatest possible difference whether you say 'the Church is one because all baptized persons share a common life in Christ, and ought therefore to behave as "one body,"' or 'the Church is one by submitting to a common authority in belief, worship, and government.' The second is the Roman, the first is the apostolic statement.

ii.

Once more, St. Paul's idea of the unity of the Church forbids us to conceive of it as complete in this world. Each particular church with its own organization has a certain relative completeness, but it gains all its meaning and life through fellowship in the body of Christ--the whole society of men who, having Christ for their head, live in the unity of a life derived from Him. The head of the body is out of sight. So also are the members of the body who 'are fallen asleep' but are still 'in Jesus[11].' It is, so to speak--and increasingly as history goes {155} on--only the lower limbs of the body who are on the earth at any particular moment. And they find their centre of unity at no lower point than Christ, the unseen head. This idea is vigorously expressed by St. Augustine[12]: 'Since the whole Church is made up of the head and the body, the head is our Saviour Himself, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who now, after He has risen from the dead, sits at the right hand of God; but the body is the Church--not this church or that, but the Church scattered over all the world; nor is it that only which exists among men now living; but they also belong to it who were before us and are to be after us to the end of the world. For the whole Church, made up of all the faithful, because all the faithful are members of Christ, has its head situate in the heavens which governs this body: though it is separated from their sight, yet it is bound to them by love."

Now it is obvious that this Pauline and Augustinian idea of church unity excludes, instead of suggesting, the Roman method of arguing for the papacy from the necessity that a body must have a head. An association of men in this world, such as the Church on earth {156} is--a 'body of men' in this sense--may be governed in any of the various ways in which human societies are governed, not by any means necessarily by a monarch[13]. In this sense a body need not have a single head; or it can be ruled by a president in a council of equals. But in St. Paul's sense, the Church as a body must have a head, and that head can be none other than Christ, because, according to his spiritual physiology, from its head the Church receives its continually inflowing life; and because the body is not completely, but only partially, in this world, and the head must be over all the members, and not only over some.

iii.

But if the unity of the Church, as St. Paul expounds it, is before all else a unity of life, it is as well a unity in the truth. It is a unity based on belief in a divine revelation, given in the person of Christ--based on the common confession that Jesus crucified and risen is Christ and Lord[14]. To say that 'Jesus is the Lord' {157} involves further--what is implied in this passage of the Epistle to the Ephesians--the confession of the threefold name--the 'one God and Father,' the 'one Lord' Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the 'one Spirit' which is His gift; and there can be no real question that St. Paul's language constantly involves that the Son and Spirit are with the Father really personal, and really divine, included, so to speak, in the one only eternal Godhead. A creed then is at the basis of the Christian life--a creed which finds its best expression and safeguard in the formulated doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. There is no reason to think that St. Paul, if the situation of the later Church could have been made plain to him, would have shrunk from these dogmatic safeguards of the Church's central faith.

But if we grant--what cannot really with any show of reason be denied--that the Church is a visible organization based on a certain revealed truth, which must be accepted by its members, and which admits of being formulated in order to be preserved; still this truth may be advanced and defended mainly by one of two methods--that of external regulative authority, or that of appeal to principles, discussion, controversy, {158} exhortation. And it can hardly be denied that St. Paul prefers the latter. Sharp appeals to authority are indeed to be found in St. Paul[15], but they are very rare. For example, in none of his epistles against the Judaizers is the authority of the apostolic decision, as to what might and what might not be required of the Gentile Christians 'in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia[16],' brought into requisition; though that decision 'settled the question.' He prefers to prove that 'circumcision is nothing.' This may be in part accounted for by St. Paul's refusal to admit that his own apostolic authority needed the support of the twelve, and by the limited area to which the decision was addressed; but there is another reason as well. For he plainly, as all his epistles show, prefers to appeal not to authority at all but to the spiritual reason; to expound principles, to argue, to awaken the heart, conscience, and mind of Christians. It must be admitted that there is very little in St. Paul's epistles about differences of doctrinal views among Christians as distinct from differences in practices. Yet there is enough--as in the vigorous passage about the 'regarding of one {159} day above another[17]'--to justify the belief that he would not have viewed with any disapproval the existence in the Church of tolerated differences of opinion where they did not touch the basis of the Church's life. Such differences of view are hardly separable from what St. Paul glories in--a unity which is consistent with great variety of gifts and character, and great freedom. It is unity in variety which he has as his ideal, such a unity as is always characteristic of a unity of life, like that of nature or of a free people; or a unity, again, like that of a great Gothic Church, or of the Bible.

It is quite certain that St. Paul would have deprecated that 'short and easy' method of promoting unity which has constant recourse to the external pressure of dogma and authority.

iv.

It follows naturally from what has been just said, that St. Paul should look not so much to ecclesiastical enactments as to a right Christian temper for preserving outward unity. 'Making it your moral effort,' so we may paraphrase his exhortation to the Asiatic Christians, 'by means {160} of the virtues which I have just specified of humility, meekness, long-suffering, and forbearance, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Christian peace.' The New Testament view of heresy (a self-willed separatism), or schism, is that it is a violation of charity and peace in the interests of pride and impatience and self-will. It is men like 'Diotrephes who loveth to have the pre-eminence,' who violate it. In fact it is written in history that the ecclesiastical schisms of the past have been due mainly either to the impatience and wilfulness of would-be reformers, from Tertullian downwards, or to the arrogance and love of domination in rival individuals or rival sees.

'Nothing,' says Chrysostom on this passage, 'will have power to divide the Church so much as the love of authority, and nothing provokes God so much as that the Church should be divided. We may have done ten thousand good actions, but if we rend the fulness of the Church, we shall suffer punishment with those who rent His body.'

From this point of view we may find an interesting parallel to this exhortation of St. Paul in a passage of Plato's _Laws_, which is, I believe, one of the few passages in pre-Christian writings where the virtue of humility is recognized. {161} 'God, as the old tradition declares, holding in His hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is, moves according to His nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of His end. Justice always follows Him, and is the punisher of those who fall short of the divine law. To that law he who would be happy holds fast, and follows it in all humility and order; but he who is lifted up with pride, or money, or honour, or beauty, who has a soul hot with folly and guilt and insolence, and thinks that he has no need of a guide and ruler, but is able himself to be the guide of others, he, I say, is left deserted of God; and being thus deserted, he takes to him others who are like himself, and dances about in wild confusion; and many think that he is a great man, but in a short time he pays a penalty which justice cannot but approve, and is utterly destroyed, and his family and city with him.'

From the point of view of the moral duty of preserving ecclesiastical unity, it is quite clear that the guilt of Christians has been exceedingly great, and also that it has been very widely diffused. The amount of ambition, insolence, and impatience in the Church has, in fact, been so vast that it remains no longer a matter {162} for astonishment that it should have made the havoc that it has made in the divine household, and should have thwarted, as it has thwarted, the divine intention. But the recognition of this fact lays on us the duty of meditating continually on the divine intention, and by all that lies in our power, by prayer and by every other means, to restore the recognition of the divine principle of unity whether in the narrower or the wider circle of church life.