What does the Protestant Church propose to itself as its end? To produce an abstract piety, instead of a concrete piety-not a piety embodied in life and conduct, but taking only the form of an inward experience. If the churches should set themselves the work of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, of removing the vices and crimes of men, of helping the outcasts and visiting the prisoners, they would have a more living piety growing out of this active charity. Their prayer meetings would be much more vigorous when they prayed in order to work, than when they pray in order to pray. Men should not be admitted into the Church because they are pious, but in order to become pious by doing Christian work. By loving, practically, the brother they have seen, they would come to love G.o.d, whom they have not seen.

Again: the Protestant Church feebly imitates the aristocracy of the Romish Church. In order to conquer Romanism, we must go on and leave it behind, seeking something better, and finding some more excellent way. Now, the sin of Romanism is its aristocracy; Protestantism ought, then, to give us, in its Church, a Christian democracy. But it keeps up the pernicious distinction between clergy and laity, making the clergy a separate cla.s.s, and so justifying Milton's complaint that the "Presbyter is only the old priest written large." It makes a distinction between men and women in the Church, not encouraging the latter to speak or to vote. It makes a distinction between the rich and poor, selling its pews to those who can buy them, and leaving those who are unable to do so outside of the sanctuary. It makes a distinction between Orthodox and heretics, excluding the latter, instead of inviting them in where their errors might be corrected. And finally, it makes an unchristian distinction between good people and bad people; for while Jesus, its Master, made himself the friend of publicans and sinners, the Church too often turns to them the cold shoulder, and leaves them to be cured by the law, and not the gospel.

The following saying of a saint of the desert, Abbot Agatho, is reported by Dr. Newman, who tells it as something wise and good. It seems to us to ill.u.s.trate, with much _navete_, the tendency of both Catholic and Protestant Orthodoxy, to put right opinion above right conduct.

"It was heard by some that Abbot Agatho possessed the gift of discrimination. Therefore, to make trial of his temper, they said to him, 'We are told that you are sensual and haughty.' He answered, 'That is just it.' They said again, 'Are you not that Agatho who has such a foul tongue?' He answered, 'I am he.' Then they said, 'Are not you Agatho _the heretic_?' He made answer, 'No.' Then they asked him why he had been patient of so much, but would not put up with this last. He answered, 'By those I was but casting on me evil; but by this I should be severing me from G.o.d.' "

According, therefore, to Agatho and Dr. Newman, the tongue "which is set on fire of h.e.l.l," does not separate us from G.o.d, but an error of opinion does. Pride, "which comes before a fall," and sensuality, which makes of a man a beast, do not come between the soul and G.o.d so much as an honest error of opinion.

The Protestant Church fails to overcome the Catholic Church only by being too much like the latter. With Protestant ideas, we have semi-Catholic Churches. We claim as our fundamental principle the right of private judgment, and then denounce and exclude those who differ from us. We claim that the soul is not to be saved by monkish seclusion, by going away from the world; and yet we do not preach and carry out in our church-action the purpose of saving the bodies of men as well as their souls. When the Protestant Church work gets more into harmony with Protestant ideas, we shall then see fewer relapses into Romanism.

-- 4. Christ's Idea of a Church, or the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Roman Catholics having made the visible Church, or outward Christian community, the central idea of Christianity, and having changed this into a close corporation of priests, it was natural, perhaps, that Protestants should go too far in another direction. Accordingly, the central idea in Protestantism is not the Church, but the salvation of the soul; not social, but personal religion; not the Christian community, but personal development; not the kingdom of heaven here, but heaven in a future life.

Yet it is true, and has been shown lately with great power,(68) that the direct and immediate object of Jesus was to establish a community of believers. This was implied in his being the Christ,-for the Christ was to be the head of the kingdom of heaven,-and the kingdom of heaven was to be an earthly and human inst.i.tution. Jesus took the idea of the kingdom of G.o.d, as it was announced by the prophets; purified, developed, deepened, and widened it; and it resulted in his varied descriptions of the "kingdom of heaven," This phrase, in the mouth of Jesus, expresses essentially what we mean by "the Church." This will appear more plainly if we sum up the princ.i.p.al meanings of the phrase "kingdom of G.o.d" in the New Testament. It is,-

1. _Something near at hand._

Mark 1:15. "The kingdom of G.o.d is at hand." Luke 9:27. "There are some standing here who shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of G.o.d." Mark 9:1. "There be some of them which stand here which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of G.o.d come with power."

2. _It was already beginning._

Luke 17:20. "And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of G.o.d should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of G.o.d cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, Lo, there! for behold, the kingdom of G.o.d is within (or 'among') you."

3. _It was not of this world._

John 18:36. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world."

4. _But was to be in this world._

Matt. 6:10. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

5. _In some respects it was to be an outward and visible kingdom, or an outward inst.i.tution._

Parable of the grain of mustard-seed. Matt. 13:31, 32.

6. _It would contain good and bad._

Parable of the net. Matt. 13:47.

7. _It would belong to Christ._

Col. 1:13. "Hath translated us into the kingdom of his Son." Luke 22:30.

"Ye shall eat and drink in my kingdom." John 18:36. "My kingdom is not of this world." Matt. 16:28. "Shall see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."

8. _It would be finally given up to G.o.d._

1 Cor. 15:24. "Then the end; when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to G.o.d, even the Father," &c.

9. _It is a spiritual kingdom._

Rom. 14:17. "For the kingdom of G.o.d is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

10. _Flesh and blood cannot inherit it._

1 Cor. 15:50. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of G.o.d; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption."

11. _The conditions of admission are spiritual._

John 3:3. "Except a man be born again," &c. Matt. 5:3. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," &c. 1 Cor. 6:9. "The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of G.o.d." See Gal. 5:21. Eph. 5:5.

12. _The kingdom was to be established by the Son of man at his coming._

Matt. 24:30; 25:1. "They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven," &c. "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened."(69)

Christ, therefore, had in his mind, as the direct object of his coming, to cause G.o.d's kingdom to come, and his will to be done on earth as in heaven. It was not his direct purpose to teach the truth in abstract forms, like the philosophers; nor to make atonement by his death for human sins; nor to set an example of a holy life; nor to make a revelation of G.o.d and immortality; nor to communicate new life to the world. These he did; but they came as a part of the kingdom of heaven. They were included in this great idea. His kingdom was a kingdom of _truth_, in which his _word_ was to be the judge. He was to reconcile the world to G.o.d by his death. He was to show what man was made to be and could become. He was to reveal G.o.d as a Father to his human children. He was to set in motion a tide of new spiritual life. But the METHOD by which all this was to be done was the method of a community of disciples and brethren, who should be his apostles and missionaries. They were to be an outward, visible a.s.sociation with the symbols of baptism and the supper. They were also to be an influence in the world, a current of religious life. We find that such was the result. We see the disciples embodied and united in a visible community, which spread through all the Roman empire, which soon had its teachers, officers, its meetings, its worship, its sacred books, its sacred days. But we find also the larger and deeper current of life, which const.i.tutes the invisible Church, flowing, like a great river, down through the centuries. All Christians in all Christian lands drink from this stream, and all their ideas of G.o.d, man, duty, immortality, are colored and tinged by it. We read the Bible by the light of the convictions we absorbed at our mother's knee in our infancy. We carry on our churches in the power of the holy traditions which have become a part of our nature. There is a Christian consciousness which grows up in every child who is born in Christendom, and is the best part of his nature. This makes him a member of the invisible Church before he outwardly becomes a member of the visible Christian community.

-- 5. Church of the Leaven, or the Invisible Church.

There are two parables of Christ which apply to the Church visible and invisible. The Church Visible is the Church of the Mustard-seed; the Church Invisible is the Church of the Leaven. The former is an organization, the latter an _influence_; the one is body, and the other spirit. The Visible Church is limited by certain boundaries; defined by its worship, creeds, officers, a.s.semblies, forms. It has its holy days, holy places, holy men, holy books. But the Invisible Church is not limited by any such boundaries; it exists wherever goodness exists. The Church of the Leaven is to be found inside and outside of Orthodoxy; inside and outside of professing Christianity; among Jews, Mohammedans, Heathen; among Deists and unbelievers of all sorts, who build better than they know. For says Jesus, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof.... So is every one who is born of the Spirit." A locomotive must run on a track, a wagon on a road. But there is no track laid through the sky for the south wind; there is no time-table to determine the starting and arriving of the soft breeze which comes from the far prairies, laden with the sweet fragrance of ten thousand flowers.

"So is every one who is born of the Spirit." Get out your Catechism, my Orthodox friend; establish, dear Methodist brother, your experience to determine whether one is converted or no. Settle for yourself, excellent formalist, the signs of the true Church, out of which there is no salvation; and when you have got all your fences arranged, and your gates built to your satisfaction, you are obliged to throw them all down with your own hands, to let THE CHURCH OF THE LEAVEN pa.s.s through. "n.o.body can be saved," says Dogmatic Christianity, "who does not believe in the Trinity and the Atonement." "n.o.body can be saved," says Sentimental Christianity, "who has not had a conscious change of heart." " n.o.body can be saved," says Formal Christianity, "who is out of the true Church and its sacraments." Here are the three fences of the Church of the Mustard-seed. But see! here comes an innumerable mult.i.tude of little children, who have never believed in Trinity or Atonement; have never been baptized at all; have never been converted. Yet neither Dogmatist, Sentimentalist, nor Formalist dares to exclude them from heaven. Logic steps aside; good feeling opens the three gates; and the little ones all walk quietly to the good Shepherd, who says, "Let them come to me, and forbid them not;" gathering the lambs in his arms, carrying them in his bosom, and tenderly leading them in the green pastures beside the still waters.

The little children must be allowed to go through; consistency requires them to be d.a.m.ned; but consistency must take care of itself; so much the worse for consistency. But who comes next? Here are all the heathen, who have not heard of Christ. Must they be d.a.m.ned? According to the creeds, yes; but modern Orthodoxy has its doubts; its heart has grown tender.

Somehow or other we think that we shall have to let them pa.s.s, before a great while. Then here are all the people whom we have known and loved.

They did not believe as they should. They were never converted, so far as we know; they were not members of any Church, true or false. But we loved them. Cannot the three fences be put aside again, just to let these friends of ours pa.s.s by. What kind-hearted Orthodox man or woman was ever wanting in an excuse for letting his heretical friends into heaven. "He changed his views very essentially before he died. He used very Orthodox language, to my certain knowledge. He said he relied on the merits of Christ; or, at least, he said he believed in Christ." And so all the good and kind dead people must follow all the little children, and pa.s.s the triple fence. They do not belong to the Church of the Mustard-seed; but they belong to the Church of the Leaven. These fences are like the flaming wall in Ta.s.so; they seem impa.s.sable, but as soon as one comes up to them they are found to be nothing. Blessed be G.o.d that common sense is stronger than logic; that humanity is stronger than forms; and that large, kind Christian hearts are more than a match for the somewhat narrow Christian head.

-- 6. The Church of the Mustard-seed.

This is not the spirit, but the body; not the life, but the organization of that life. There is no doubt that we need a Church visible as well as a Church invisible; need a body as well as a soul; and it is a very important question what sort of a body we shall have. Soul, no doubt, is infinitely more important than body; still we do not wish our body to be lame, blind, or dyspeptic. Because soul is better than body, we do not like rheumatism or neuralgia. Our visible Church, the body of Christ, is sometimes a little dyspeptic, and goes about looking very gloomy and miserable, when it ought to be as gay as a lark. Sometimes also it seems to be rheumatic; at any rate, it cannot go and attend to its work. It is very subject to fever and ague; plenty of meetings to-day, all alive with zeal and heat, but to-morrow it is cold and shivering. It has its pulmonary disease too; its lungs are not strong enough to speak when it ought; to cry out for truth and right in the day of trial. And as we find that hygienics are better than therapeutics for physical diseases, so, perhaps, it will be better for us to prevent the diseases of the Church by wise arrangements, which shall give it air, exercise, and a wholesome diet, than to cure it, when sick, by the usual medicine of rebuke, reproof, and ascetic mortification.

The visible Church may be looked at in four points of view. We may consider it as,-

1. The Primitive Church, or Church as it was.

2. The Church Actual, or Church as it is.

3. The Ideal Church, or Church as it ought to be.