spoken of as "the brothers." Very early the legislation and the discipline necessary for the infant Church began. The new society which was the transformation of the old grew and developed. We need not pursue the history in detail. The development is one both of external extension and of the internal growth rendered necessary by the extension. The appointment of the Seven; the establishment of a regular method of ordination by the laying on of hands; the spread from Jerusalem; the separation from the synagogue; the organization of Christian synagogai or, as they came to be called, ecclesiai, with their presbyters; the rise of the evangelistic ministry of apostles, evangelists, prophets, and teachers; the extension of the Gospel to Samaritans, to Gentiles in the Holy Land, to the Gentile world, to Antioch, to Ephesus, to Corinth, and Rome; the passing away of the missionary ministry, and the establishment, however it happened, of monarchical episcopacy-all these are landmarks in the progress of the new society.

The point that I would make is that none of these things happened, so far as we can judge, in accordance with any command or direction of Jesus; they were the natural outcome of the spiritual power and life of the Church moulding itself to the different circumstances that arose. I would quote what Dr. Hort has said about the appointment of the Seven:

"But the appointment was not only a notable recognition of the Hellenistic element in the Ecclesia at Jerusalem, a prelude of greater events to come, but also a sign that the Ecclesia was to be an Ecclesia indeed, not a mere horde of men ruled absolutely by the Apostles, but a true body politic, in which different functions were assigned to different members, and a share of responsibility rested upon the members at large, each and all; while every work for the Ecclesia, high and low, was of the nature of a ministration,' a true rendering of a servant's service."1 There are certain great principles that emerge from a study of our Lord's method in founding the Church 1 Hort, op. cit., p. 52.

THE CHURCH IN HISTORY

13 and the history of its development. He never gave rules or laws for His Church. He gave great ethical principles, which were universal in their application. He attached men to Himself by personal allegiance, by love and faith, and thus made Himself the centre of the new society, but He formulated no dogmatic principles. He did not give a constitution, but He established the principles on which a society might develop brotherhood, discipleship, ministry, the Sacraments. He left the Church to organize its own form and order. So, again, with the Apostolic Church. It inherited these principles. In accordance with them it developed. It gradually built up a polity. We can study its methods. We can learn its customs. But it never gave us any regulations for the future. The government of the Church in the Apostolic age was different from what it became afterwards. I am quite willing to call the Bishops the successors of the Apostles, and to look upon Episcopacy as a wholesome representation for us of the polity of the Apostolic age, but we have no Apostolic command giving any authority to Episcopacy as we know it. The history of the Church has been, and should be, a free development of the principles that Jesus gave it.

I pass on to the Christian Church in history. This history divides itself, from our present point of view, into three epochs.

The first is the period of the Undivided Church, which lasted for just a thousand years. It was in 1054 that the final breach occurred between East and West, and the great schism began. The second period lasted from the time of the schism to the Reformation. It came to an

end when Luther, in 1517, nailed his theses on the church door at Wittenberg. It was the period of the mediæval papacy and the division of East and West. The third period has extended from the Reformation to the present day. It is the period of a divided Christianity.

Now, as a result of this history, from causes which I have attempted to analyze elsewhere, the one Church

which existed thus for the first thousand years of Christianity has become divided. There are a considerable number of large religious bodies, and a large number of smaller ones, all competing against one another, and presenting a very diversified and irregular appearance. Now, to the disinterested observer, surveying all these from outside, a problem of intense interest arises-Where does the true Church lie? What is true Christianity ? The question, indeed, does not present itself very acutely to most of us. We have received our Christianity within a particular religious body, and have what appears to be a fairly satisfactory solution, at any rate one to which we are accustomed. But to some men, at some periods, the question which is the true Church has assumed such. importance, that it has demanded from them the sacrifice of their lives, and it is obvious that if we are to teach Christianity as a true explanation of human life and the problems of the world, we must do our best to be certain what that Christianity is. At the present day both these problems are insistent, for the world is beginning to be dissatisfied with a Christianity which speaks with a divided voice, and as systems of doctrine have been put forward claiming to represent Christianity which seem to many certainly untrue, it becomes of obvious importance for those who advocate it to have examined carefully the teaching that they give, and to satisfy themselves that it is true. It is a much better attitude of mind and thought for you to adopt, to ask yourself whether what you teach is really true, than to ask, How can I defend what I am teaching? Honest investigation is the best apologetic.

Let us consider some of the main theories which are presented to us. There are those in the first place who claim that the church or society to which they belong is the true Church, and that there is none other, and that all outside it are outside the Church. This is the claim often made by the Roman Church, and sometimes asserted most aggressively. At other times, the crudity of the claim becomes too apparent, and it is modified in various

VARIED THEORIES OF THE CHURCH

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ways. A distinction is made between the soul and body of the Church, and it is allowed that those who do not belong to the body may belong to the soul. The metaphor has never seemed to me to be a happy one, but it is interesting as exhibiting a method of escaping from a dogmatic position which is too obviously impossible. A similar claim is made theoretically by the Orthodox Eastern Church, but never, I think, quite seriously. There are also, I believe, some Protestant bodies who have held it. Then there are those bodies which have put forward certain conditions, the fulfilment of which is necessary to constitute a true Church. The most typical of these is the Anglo-Catholic theory that the essential thing is the possession of the threefold ministry of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and a valid ministry assured by the possession of Apostolic succession. modification of this theory is now held by some. demands that a Church, if it is to be Catholic, must teach everything which the undivided Church taught. It would, therefore, approximate more closely to the position of the Eastern Church-as the Church of the Seven Sacraments and the Seven Councils-and then would represent this as the teaching of the Church of England. As a counterpart to the theory of a universal Episcopacy, there is a certain tendency to develop a system of Pan-Presbyterianism. Then there are those who would divide the Christian world into Catholic and Protestant, and consider that truth should be found only among those who are Protestants, meaning by that those who accept, as the basis of their faith, the Bible and the Bible only. Or they would put forward a particular exposition of Christianity which is called the Gospel, and would say that the true Church consists of all those that preach the Gospel. While the tendency of one side is to lay particular stress on the visible Church, and therefore on external signs, such as ministry and sacraments, the tendency of others is to be indifferent to such outward characteristics. Some form of organization may be found useful, but the essential thing is the

possession of Evangelical truth. Such an attitude would be represented by the World Evangelical Alliance.

Now what is the criterion by which we are able to judge these different bodies or theories? The difficulty is that each of them puts forward its own standard of truth, and then claims to be true because it conforms to the standard that it has itself erected. One would maintain that the Bible was a sufficient source of truth. Another would remind us that the Bible was given us by the Church, and therefore it was for the Church to tell us what the Bible means; or, again, we are reminded that the Church is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that therefore there will be found to be development in the teaching of the Church. Some would appeal to reason as our authority, and forget that reason really depends for its conclusions on the premises with which it starts. We find ourselves in the old dilemma. It is easy, if have settled your standard of truth, to show that certain opinions conform to that standard, but it is much harder to start without any presuppositions, and then find your way through this tangled skein, and create for yourselves a satisfactory theory of what is really true.

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I think, however, that as we are approaching the subject from the point of view of the Church of England, we may be excused from making the very elaborate investigations which would be necessary if we had no presuppositions, and investigate the matter from our standpoint, and it is possible that the point of view that we attain may be one which we shall not shrink from putting forward for more general acceptance. Now we have a very good starting-point. We are agreed that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." What, then, may be gathered from the Scripture that is from the teaching of our Lord and His Apostles as to the essential characteristics of the Christian Church?