tions, but vivified and energized by the Spirit of truth, holiness and love, dwelling in the whole Body as its Soul, and thereby making it, as a whole, His temple; while in each member He also dwells, according to the measure of the gift of each, thereby making the mortal body of the individual a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in him, which he has of God." "This mystery of grace,' says the Bishop, “ is the basis of the whole superstructure both of faith and holiness." pp. 20, 21. In other words, faith is indeed essential to justification and salvation; but the church, the priesthood and the sacraments are equally essential. Faith is indeed essential; but faith itself fastens upon the church, entrusts the soul to the authority and legitimacy of the priesthood, and apprehends Christ and the benefits of his redemption, only as they are exhibited and sealed in valid sacraments. A personal experience of the inward work of the Holy Spirit is essential; but the Holy Spirit is given only in the true visible (that is, the Episco pal) church, by a legitimately constituted ministry, through valid ordinances. There is indeed a certain "union and communion of the Head with the individual members," (p. 23,) but it is only a union and communion of the Head with those who are members, not directly of Christ by faith, but of the organized visible church by a participation of the sacraments; and in the words of our author, if you "aim at maintaining the individual access of the believer to his Lord, independently of his connection with him in the Body, [that is, in the Episcopal church,] you isolate him from the fount of blessing, and lead him to broken cisterns that will hold no water." p. 23.

This whole scheme of religion seems to originate in the idea that "the church" which Paul frequently calls a body, and which in several instances he calls "the body of Christ," (Eph. i, 23; iv, 12; v, 23;

Col. i, 18, 24 ;) is a visible corporation or society, organized after one particular form, and that therefore there is no membership in Christ's body, no vital union with Christ, except by a visible membership in that visible society or body politic. If that idea is shown to be unfounded, it will need but little argument to convince a candid man that the whole system is erroneous. And on the other hand, if that idea is warranted by Scripture, there is a fair presumption that the remainder of the system is not far out of the way.

It is worth while then to inquire, What is the church' which the Scriptures speak of as "the body of Christ"? What does the New Testament mean by church,' in such a connection?

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In ascertaining the answer to this inquiry, it is first to be observed that in strict propriety of speech there is no such word as church' in the New Testament. The word church,' or some other word identical with it in signification, is found in all the modern languages of Christendom. It is the word which grew up in the middle ages to denote that vast and powerful institution which, centering at Rome, overshadowed the world. It had at the beginning one definite and unequivocal meaning,-a meaning very little differing from that which Bishop Whittingham and those of his way of thinking attach to the same word now. But at the Reformation, when the Bible was translated into the vernacular languages of Europe, this word was assumed in some translations as the proper word to represent some of the meanings of a certain word in the New Testament. Our common translation of the Bible was made in this way; so that in English the word 'church' is a Bible word, and its meaning in popular use has been modified in consequence of its standing in the Bible. The authors of the Geneva version, which King James's version was designed to supersede,

avoided the use of this word from the dialect of the middle ages, wise ly judging that if introduced into the Bible it would carry something of its own associations along with it. In this they followed the example of Luther, and this was one of the things which made their version unpalatable to the powers that ruled in England. The word 'church,' all redolent of tradition and the middle ages, stands in King James's version, as the word "Easter" stands there, (Acts xii, 4,) to produce an effect upon the reader, which a literal and exact translation would not produce. True, he who reads the English Bible merely as it is, if he will read it carefully, comparing Scripture with Scripture, and allow ing the sacred record to be its own interpreter, need not be misled. But he who reads carelessly, presuming that the word church in the New Testament has the same meaning which it has in history, or the same meaning which it has in the conversation or the preaching with which he is most familiar, will easily misunderstand the matter. With this explanation, then, we repeat the seeming paradox-There is no such word as 'church' in the Bible. Neither the Hebrew language nor the Greek, in the days of the Apostles, contained or could supply any word analogous to the word church' in English and in other modern languages. word could not precede the thing.

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Pursuing our inquiry, we may next remark that the word translated, 'church,' has, in the New Testament, at least five different meanings. 1. There is the original and generic meaning, ¶meeting,' an 'assembly,' a congregation,' for whatever purpose, and on whatever occasion. Thus (Acts xix, 32-41) the word is used twice to denote the mob in the theater at Ephesus, and once to denote a regular town-meeting.* 2. The same word is used

* See the New Englander, No. III, p. 398.

to denote an assembly for the worship of God under the Mosaic dispensation. Thus (Heb. ii, 12) it stands in the translation of a verse from the Hebrew of the twenty second Psalm, (ver. 22,) "I will declare thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee:" the allusion being evidently to the worshiping assembly before the tabernacle or in the temple. 3. The same word is used, as the corresponding Hebrew word is frequently used in the Old Testa ment, to denote the Hebrew nation or commonwealth. "This is that Moses," said Stephen, (Acts vii, 38,) "who was in the congregation in the wilderness," that is, who there led and governed the nation of Israel. 4. The same word is used to denote the meetings or assemblies of believers in Christ, for worship, communion and instruction. A word in the most common use, and of the most extensive signification, a word very much like our word meeting,' was most naturally employed, first to denote the daily meetings of the disciples at the temple and from house to house in Jerusalem, and afterwards to denote similar meetings in other places.* Whenever the word is so used, the context always de termines the signification, just as the word meeting,' in our language, whenever used to denote a religious assembly, is understood without dif ficulty. 5. By a natural transition from the use of the corresponding word in the Old Testament, as one of the designations of the Hebrew nation, the same word 'congrega tion' is used in a figurative sense, to denote the general community of Christ's followers, the commonwealth of believers.†

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community' may mean the community of those who are known and recognized as Christians. So it is obviously to be understood in the passage, (1 Cor. x, 32,) " Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the [church] congregation of God,"-all men being comprehended by the writer in the three classes of Jews, Gentiles or pagans, and Christians. So in the three passages, (1 Cor. xv, 9; Gal. i, 13; Phil. iii, 6,) in which Paul speaks of himself as having "persecuted the [church] congregation of God;"-he had been the enemy of all who bore the Christian name. So in another place, (1 Cor. xii, 28,) Paul says that "In the [church] congregation," that is, among Christians, "God has appointed some to be, in the first place, apostles, secondly, prophets," &c. These are all the clear instances of this shade of meaning which occur to us. Το these we may add the doubtful instance (Rom. xvi, 23,) “ Gaius, mine host, and of the whole congregation," where the apostle may mean to commend the hospitality of the well-beloved Gaius, either as exercised towards the members of some particular congregation, well enough known to those whom he was addressing, or as exercised towards all Christians. But let the sacred writer be speaking of Christ's followers, not as such in outward profession and recognition, but as such in spirit and in truth, and then if he has occasion to use the word in question, it assumes a higher and more spiritual tone. In such a connection, it denotes that great spiritual community of chosen, redeemed, forgiven, sanctified souls, of which Christ is the founder and redeemer, and in which he is the prince or head. This, and not any outward organization, is the true kingdom of Christ the kingdom of God; it is Christ living and enthroned in the regenerated hearts of ransomed men; it is God in Christ reigning in the

grateful and obedient affection of those whom he has reconciled to himself. It is a community, a king. dom, a congregation on Mount Zion, which includes all those whom God has chosen from eternity to be his own, and whom in time he calls by his word and renews by his Spirit. This is "the church" by the progress of which is "now made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places"—that is, to the an gels that rejoice over one sinner that repenteth," the manifold wisdom of God."

This is "the church" in which glory is given to God "through Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end." This is "the church" the relation of which to Christ is like the relation of the bride to her husband, and which Christ "loved, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious [church] assembly" of redeemed and sanctified ones, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." This is "the church" which is "the body of Christ," and to which Christ is "head over all things."

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It may be here observed that almost every instance of this particular use of the word is found either in the epistle to the Ephesians or in that to the Colossians-epistles, the whole scope of which is removed very far (quam longissimè) from such topics as the outward institutions of Christianity. To that man who imagines that "the church” spoken of in the Scriptures as “the body of Christ," must be a visible body politic, a certain organized corporation, we say, Read those two epistles carefully, see what it is that fills the apostle's mind, analyze his arguments and the various combinations and successions of his thoughts, and then judge whether the congregation of which he speaks is not identically that of which he speaks in the epistle to the Hebrews, (xii,

22-24,) "Ye are come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and congregation of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel." Who will tell us that such language as this describes a certain outward corporation, with its prelates, its priests and its ordinances,―a corpotion which includes such men as Leighton and Usher only by a principle which excludes such men as Watts and Bunyan, and which has a place for Henry Martyn only by shutting the door against Gordon Hall and Robert Morrison.

That "church," then, which is Christ's body, is none other than the universal community of penitent and believing souls. Another inquiry connected with the subject is,-In what sense is that church Christ's body? It is a body only as the individuals are united by some principle of unity. What is the unity, by virtue of which a countless multitude of individuals, scattered among all nations, and living in successive ages, are the one body of Christ? That principle, on the theory of the Episcopalian, or, as he loves to call himself, the Churchman,-is the principle of unity in outward organization; it is the principle of subjection to the divine institution of prelacy, the principle of outward communion with a certain priesthood through operative sacraments. On this theory, as exhibited by "church" authors of standard reputation, the essence of the body of Christ, the uniting principle by virtue of which its many members are one body, is just the difference between Episcopalianism on the one hand and Presbyterianism or Congregationalism on the other hand. It is Vol. I.

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just that which, to borrow terms from the dialect of that party, distinguishes all "Churchmen" from all Dissenters." It is just that which Bishop Onderdonk and Bishop Doane have in common with the Archbishop of Paris and the Patriarch of Constantinople, and to which Dr. Alexander, Dr. McAuley, Dr. Merle D'Aubigné, and the missionary Goodell, have no title. It is just that which unites (!) the Anglican, the Roman, and the Oriental branches of the one complex and discordant "Catholicity"-one but manifold, and which separates them, not from each other, but from every body else. This one "Catholic" bo dy-the unity of which, with all its boasted visibility, is about as metaphysical as the unity of three monarchies, two of which are at war with each other, and both with the third, is the one body of Christ, by virtue of its outward and "perpetually visible" unity; and it is Christ's body, because Christ loved it as a corporation, and gave himself for it as a corporation, and endowed it as a corporation with sacraments, priesthood, prelacy, and the grace that is thus administered. Such is the church' or 'high church' theory. According to the opposite or evangelical theory, the church, the congregation or community of Christ's disciples, is Christ's body, because all who belong to it belong to him, and are individually and personally united to him. It is their union with him which unites them with each other, and makes them one body; and it is not their formal union with each other in one visible body, which unites them to their Savior. Christ is the vine and his disciples are the branches, (see Christ's own statement on this point, John xv, 1-10,) every individual believer is united directly to him, as the branch to the vine,-not indirectly, as the branch to the root, through the trunk; and the unity of the branches is nothing else than the

union of each with the living vine. Let him who reads the New Testament in its spiritual and sublime simplicity, without the blind guidance of early tradition and the corrupting glosses of the Fathers, judge for himself which of these theories is scriptural.

One question more may help to put the subject in a still clearer light. How does a man become a member of "the body of Christ," and therefore a member of that 'church' which is his body? What child that reads the Bible, and has not been diligently taught to misunderstand it, can fail to answer this question aright? Is it by the ordinance of baptism that a man is united to Christ? Simon Magus was baptized; and the validity of his baptism was never called in question. But Simon Magus was not a member of Christ's body. Is it by any formal and complete connection with a particular assembly or visible society of Christ's disciples, that a man is united to the Redeemer, and is made a branch of the true vine? Where is the scriptural evidence that the Apostles received any man to baptism-much more, where is the evidence that they "confirmed" him, or by any form received him to complete and permanent membership in an organized society of Christians-unless they first had reason to believe that Christ had already received him as a disciple, and thus that he was already reconciled to God by virtue of a personal union with the Redeemer ? The man who intelligently and honestly offers himself for membership in a society of Christians, does so not in order to become a Christian, but because he is a Christian, and as such desires the benefits of Christian communion. His presenting himself there, if it is done intelligently and honestly, implies that he comes as one of Christ's disciples to join himself to the company of his fellow disci

ples, and to unite himself in outward relations with those with whom he is already one in the fellowship of the Spirit, and in a living union with the Redeemer of sinners. How then did he become one with Christ, a partaker of the pardon and the spiritual life which Christ has purchased with his own blood for all penitent and believing souls? Sim. ply by the personal acts of repent ance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, to which he has been led by the grace and power of the renewing Spirit. Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, preached as the conditions of union with the Redeemer and of acceptance with the Father-this is the Gospel. Baptism is the formal declaration and recognition of a fact-the fact, that the person baptized belongs to Christ, and has a right through grace to the benefits of the great salvation. Union with a visible church by confirmation, or by whatever form may seem more scriptu ral, is the profession and recogni tion of a fact, the fact of a union with the invisible and universal congre gation of Christ's redeemed. This we say is the gospel of the New Testament. But there is another gospel, the gospel of tradition and of catholicity." It proposes to unite the sinner to his Redeemer, and to make him a member of Christ-by baptism. It proposes to give him the Holy Spirit, and to seal him an heir of heaven-by confirmation. It proposes to make the blood of Christ's atonement effi cacious to the cleansing and the life of his soul-by the eucharist. It proposes to make him one of the general assembly and congre gation of the first-born-by making him a member of its own schismatic 'church.' It propounds the sign as the potent means of producing the thing signified, and builds much on the hystero-proteron of putting the outward profession before the in