<- Previous   First   Next ->

which lie beyond our reach. Everywhere we find this twofold action of ‘building’ and of ‘growth.’

Thus in the material building we have to notice the influence of natural powers which we cannot control. The sunshine and the rain;—the silent, ceaseless action of the air,—bring to the fabric some of its greatest charms.

In the body again there is room for the effects of care and discipline. We grow by a force which is independent of our will: but of ourselves we can within certain measure retard or hasten or guide the growth.

So God Himself works, and He works also through us. As His fellow-workers we recognise on the one side inexorable laws, on the other the results of personal endeavour.

This thought applies alike to the individual Christian and to the Church. It applies, I say, to the Church, the Society of Christian men. For the Church is built and yet it grows. Human endeavour and Divine energy co-operate in its development.

The Church a Temple.

The Church is ‘a structure complex and multiform—a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit’—a temple ‘reared through long ages, each stone of which fills its special place and contributes its share to the grace and stability of the fabric.’ It includes many buildings, but all equally parts of the sanctuary ( naov" ). Of this temple Christ Himself is the corner-stone; Apostles and Prophets, united with and having authority from Him, form its foundation (cf. Apoc. 21:14).

The Church the Body of Christ.

Again, the Church is ‘a Body, where a royal will directs and disciplines and uses the functions of every member’—Christ being ‘the Head, from which the body receives its divine impulse.’

‘The Body is one: it is multiform; and it is quickened by a power which is not of itself but from above.’

‘For unity is not uniformity. Differences of race, class, social order obviously have no influence upon it. They are of earth only. But more than this, it is consistent with serious differences in the apprehension of the common faith in which it reposes....The Unity of the whole is consistent with a wide variety of parts, each
having to a certain degree a corresponding unity in itself.’

‘And the essential bond of union is not external but spiritual; it consists not in one organization but in a common principle of life.’

‘It follows—that external, visible unity is not required for the essential unity of the Church.’

‘But though the principle of the unity of the Christian Church is spiritual and not necessarily connected with uniformity of constitution or even with intercommunion, it by no means follows that the outward organization of the whole of the constituent Churches is a matter of indifference.’

‘The range of variation in the constitution of the Christian societies must be limited by their fitness to embody the fundamental ideas of Christianity.’

‘Divisions, as we see them, are’ indeed ‘a witness to human imperfection.’ But, ‘if we regard the imperfection of our nature,—division appears to be the preliminary of that noblest catholicity, which will issue from the separate fulfilment by


<- Previous   First   Next ->