The War and Unity | Page 6

members might even have no true part in it at all and require removal. But Christ Himself "sanctifies and cleanses it that He may present it"--that very same Church--"to Himself a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish[13]."
Now while one can understand the point of view from which in later times so deep a line of demarcation has been drawn between the Visible and the Invisible Church as to make of them two entirely separate things, and although to many it may still seem hard to do without this distinction, or in the existing condition of the nominally Christian world to employ that primitive conception of the Church even as, so to speak, a working hypothesis, I would ask whether the primitive conception is not a nobler and sounder one. Surely it places the ideal in its right relation to the actual. The full realisation of the ideal no doubt belongs only to another world; yet if we believe in it as an ideal we must seek to actualise it here. There is something unwholesome in acknowledging any ideal which we do not strive so far as we can to actualise. And plainly participation in the same grace, and the spiritual ties arising therefrom, ought to find expression in an outer life of fellowship, of intercourse and common action, and such common organisation as for human beings in this world these require. No doubt it is always too possible that the outward may hinder the perception of the inward. But if we can guard successfully against this danger, the inward and spiritual will become all the more potent by having the external form through which to work; while the outward, if it is too sharply dissevered in thought from the inward, loses its value and even becomes injurious.
Again, a view of the Church is more wholesome which does not encourage us to classify its members in a manner only possible to the Allseeing God; to draw a line between true believers and others, and to determine (it may be) on which side of the line different ones are by their having had spiritual experiences similar to our own, and having learned to use the same religious language that we do; but which on the contrary leads us to think of all as under the Heavenly Father's care, and subject to the influences of the Holy Spirit, and placed in that Body of Christ where, although the spiritual life in them is as yet of very various degrees of strength, and their knowledge of things Divine in many cases small, all may and are intended to advance to maturity in Christ.
It is necessary that the relation of the idea of the Church upon which I have been dwelling to her subsequent history for centuries should be clearly apprehended. Its hold on the minds of Christians preceded the very beginnings of organisation in the Christian communities, and it would probably be no exaggeration to say that it governed the whole evolution of that organisation for many centuries. Particular offices were doubtless instituted and men appointed to them with specific reference to needs which were making themselves felt. But all the while that idea of the Church's unity and of her holiness was present in their thoughts. And certainly as soon as it becomes necessary to insist upon the duty of loyalty to those who had been duly appointed to office, and directly or indirectly to defend the institutions themselves, appeal is made to the idea, as notably by the two chief Christians in the Sub-Apostolic Age, Clement of Rome and Ignatius.
It is in itself evidence of a common spirit and common tendencies that broadly speaking the same form of constitution in the local Christian communities, though not introduced everywhere with quite equal rapidity, was so nearly everywhere almost on the confines of the Apostolic Age, and that soon it was everywhere. Ere long, with this form of government as a basis, plans were adopted expressly for the purpose of uniting the local Churches on terms of equality among themselves, especially in combating error. And at length in the name still of the Church's unity there came, however much we may regret it, the centralisation of Western Christendom in the See of Rome.
All these measures of organisation, from the earliest to the latest of them, were means to an end; and we shall regard them differently. But we ought not any of us to regard means, however they may commend themselves to us, and however sacred and dear their associations may be, in the same way as we do the end. There must always be the question, which will present itself in a different light to different minds, whether particular means, even though men may