SINCE the first preaching of the Gospel the unity of the followers of Christ has been a serious problem. We can scarcely doubt that the difficulty of the problem was foreshadowed by our Lord's prayer for unity, and we need not therefore wonder at the history of the past nineteen centuries. The centre of this unity has not always been the same. In the beginning it was spontaneous, and centred in the koinonia, or fellowship. In the New Testament, as we shall see, it becomes less and less spontaneous, and finally finds its centre in a number of symbols, or ordinances. When we move forward to the Ignatian period (c. 107-117 A. D.) we find that the single Bishop in each Church has become the embodiment of the unity of the Catholic Church. Then follows the long period of the infallible Church, broken at last by the Protestant¹ reformation, which set up in its place the infallible Bible. Protestantism as a principle can only result in a number of divisions, each standing for a single truth, or certain aspects of various truths. It can never, therefore, of itself, [28] serve as a principle of unification for the Church; though it bears witness to the necessity for the maintenance of the fullest possible degree of liberty in the re-united Church. The older Protestantism in every denomination based its claims upon the infallible Bible. Each body claimed to interpret the Bible aright, but it was obvious all could not do so and differ so widely. There must, then, be faulty interpretation somewhere, or otherwise the infallible Bible was no sufficient basis for the unity of the Church. Faced with this dilemma, Protestantism began to abandon the idea of organic unity, and to seek for an expression of fellowship in federation. Since the days of Sabatier's book² it has been customary to speak of the religions of authority and the religion of the spirit, and there can be little doubt that it has been too easily assumed that the former are inferior to the latter. There were circles where Christian unity was discussed, in which to speak in terms of authority was equivalent to being ignored; and some echo of this attitude was heard at the Geneva Conference of 1920. But, after all, experience shows that men demand some form of authority in matters of religion, and the real problem is to limit the field of this authority. There is really no such antithesis as was supposed between authority and spirit, and the Protestant Churches are returning once more to the idea of organic unity for the Church, which unity cannot exist without some measure of authority. This is all very evident from the various utterances on the subject of unity put forth during the past two years, and is perhaps most clearly seen [29] in A Compilation of Proposals for Christian Unity, published by the Continuation Committee of the World Conference on Faith and Order. The followers of Jesus Christ are again, as in the New Testament period, filled with a passion for unity.

      It is not necessary, therefore--as it might have been a generation ago--to make a plea for the desirability of the unity of the Church, but in passing it may be well to point out the most striking figure descriptive of unity used throughout those New Testament writings which are mostly concerned with the question. The Church is constantly spoken of as the Body of Christ. Just as Christ was incarnate in a fleshly Body during His earthly life, so now He resides in a real visible Body--His Church. The great object of many of the Pauline writings was to maintain the unity of this visible Body. Whatever we may desire for the unity of the Church in our day we are compelled to confess that the unity for which St. Paul, and, later, St. John, were striving was a visible unity, institutional in its character. There are those who will have nothing to do with an institutional religion. They are set for the religion of the spirit, as embodied in persons; but, after all, this is sheer individualism. The question in religion, as elsewhere, is not what is best for the individual, but what is best for the Society; and whilst it may be very beneficial for the individual to be absolutely free in his Christian experience, to be bound by no Church rules or ordinances, to be subject to no [30] authority outside the realm of his own spirit in its contact with God, yet it will be quite impossible along these lines to arrive at any organic union of the Society of those who believe in Jesus as Lord. Yet that such a union is necessary for the good of the Society, and the world in general, all are prepared to admit. Such a union, to be real can only be maintained by visible bonds, which we shall all agree must be as few as possible. There must be the maximum of liberty with the minimum of authority.

      Again, there can be no real unity of the Body of Christ to-day unless it is linked with the Church of the past ages, and this means with the Church of the first age. We may have a unity of something, but it will not be the unity of that Body which He came to give. The Church cannot cut herself off from her past. It is for this reason, amongst others, that the New Testament writings will always hold the place of supreme importance. It is therefore of the utmost importance for the question of unity to-day that we examine the situation in the light of those New Testament writings which bear on the problem of unity. It is also of importance that we recognise the fact that institutions form the chief element in the continuity of the Christian religion, as in a wider sense they are the constant and abiding elements in history. The One Body is itself the primary institution, but there are others which have always been associated with it, and which give it its own specific character. These will have to be considered in all discussions of unity. To rob the Church of these--its specific beliefs, its sacraments, its ministry--will be to rob it of its specific character, [31] and any union which leaves these outside will be a union of something less than the Church of Christ. Even Dr. Bartlet, who, as a Church historian, has stood most valiantly for those truths which the Protestant movement has enshrined, and who values as highly as anybody in the Free Church world to-day the religion of the spirit, has said of membership in the Church:

(1)	That it is first propagated by the preaching of the Word.
(2)	That it is safeguarded by the sacraments.
	(a)	Baptism is the seal of the covenant relation of salvation.
	(b)	Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist, is the sacramental means of renewing and deepening that relation between God and man.
(3)	That membership is expressed and realised afresh in public worship.
(4)	That membership is kept pure by discipline.
(5)	That to all of these means of grace a special ministry is normally requisite, with its own form of ordination.3

      We have emphasised the importance of examining the New Testament conception of unity. This was emphasised by most speakers at the Geneva Conference, but by none with such force and charm as Bishop Gore, who said: "I want to know whether [32] we cannot lay aside all the prejudices of our education and go back to the beginning and ask ourselves what really is the mind of Christ and the intention of His first interpreters with regard to the unity of the Church. I seem to see in the New Testament an ideal of unity which is consistent with that great variety which is the home of freedom, but which at the same time has limits and laws. It is liberty in law. I recognise that as time went on the spirit of liberty was lost; that it was tyranny which brought about license by way of reaction. I want to state that unity as I find it described in the New Testament."⁴

      This is not such an easy task as it may seem to some, but we may attempt it. We shall have to be careful not to do what Dr. Fairburn called "constructing a past that never was a present." We shall have to get at the standpoint of those who set up the Church and its institutions. We stand to-day with a completed Church--though more or less broken; and it is so easy for us to see everything in the New Testament from this point of view; whereas the New Testament gives a picture of a growing Church, purely missionary in its character, being led into all truth under the guidance of an Apostolic band, who often discover the working of the Spirit in the circumstances of the everyday life of the Church. In other words, the Church set up on the day of Pentecost is by no means that developed Church which we find in those magnificent epistles of St. Paul to the Colossians and Ephesians. The [33] Church of Pentecost has many marks of the Church of the Ephesian Epistle, but it is the Church in its infancy, with a firm belief in the Parousia hope, with no fully developed doctrines of either Christology or soteriology, with a limited conception of the world-wide character of the Gospel message, and having experienced no need for a permanent ministry. Especially is this idea of development seen in connection with the question of unity. The conditions of a unified Church are gradually worked out in the New Testament, and especially in the Pauline writings, as a result of threatened disintegration. Of course we may reject Paul and John as interpreters of the mind of Christ on these matters, but if we do so we are left without any possible basis for organic unity. Neither can we reject them and be consistent with the rest of the New Testament, and our Lord's teaching concerning the work to be done by His Apostles. The Church of which we have a vision must not only be holy and catholic, but Apostolic, if it is to be in any sense the Church which our Lord Himself came to usher in, and for which He lived and died, and rose again.

      What then do we find in the New Testament? First we find a Church in which unity is a sine qua non. There is a perfect horror of division of the Body. Our present condition was the very thing that the first Christians were concerned to avoid. All who endangered the unity of the Church were considered a danger to its very existence. Beneath [34] the polemics of the Galatian epistle one can read a certain restraint in St. Paul, occasioned by the over-ruling passion to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. He fights for liberty, but in no case must the unity of the Body be destroyed. Bishop Gore has well said: "In the New Testament I do not find anything entitled to call itself membership of Christ which is not also membership of this one visible Society. The one Society would be represented by local societies, but each of them was the embodiment of the one Catholic Society."⁵

      In the earliest ages, portrayed in the early chapters of Acts, and to some extent reproduced in parts of the Didache, the unity was more or less spontaneous. It was the corporate life expressed by the term fellowship which prevailed. Dr. Anderson Scott has shown what an important part this idea of fellowship played in the earliest Christian Church.⁶ In these earliest days it is the local Churches which figure most prominently and we have to wait till later for the idea of the one Body, the universal or Catholic Church. But between these local Churches, in the earliest stages, there is a bond of union in the one Gospel, which centres in the Person and work of Jesus, and which finds its expression in certain institutional forms. It is not without significance that Baptism and the Breaking of the Bread both appear prominently in Acts ii. Moreover, in the earliest Christian Churches, these institutions, including the Church itself, are relative to salvation. [35] Baptism is unto the remission of sins and procures the adding unto them. The characteristics of those added are enumerated. First they continue steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching or doctrine. They are thus brought, through their trust in a Personal Redeemer, to adopt certain beliefs which are conveyed to them by His appointed representatives. Secondly, they continue steadfastly in the fellowship, which is realised in the social rite of the Breaking of the Bread, and common prayers. "And they continued steadfastly in the teaching of the Apostles and in the fellowship."⁷ The next two clauses may be regarded as standing in apposition with the fellowship, and the passage would then conclude, "that is the Breaking of the Bread and the prayers."⁸ It is significant too, that following Westcott and Hort's text, we have, "All that believed unto unity had all things in common."⁹ As yet the universal Church and the local Church in Jerusalem are identical; doctrines are not formulated; theology is in a fluid state; there is a band of Apostles who are to become the missionary ministry of the wider universal Church, but there is no local ministry--unless indeed we may suppose the Church to be synonymous with a group of synagogues which have become converted to the new faith, and this is doubtful. Yet it is true to say as it would be of a later age, "there is no salvation outside the Church"; the Church has a sense of unity which in its future expansion it never loses. [36]

      Then comes the expansion of Christianity and the formation of Churches in various parts of the empire. The congregational idea prevails--each local assembly is the Church of God--but even here there is still the same sense of unity, maintained first by the oversight of the Apostolic ministry, and secondly by the acceptance by all of certain definite beliefs and obedience to certain ordinances. It could be said of the Pauline Churches that they became imitators of the Churches which were in Judæa.¹⁰ It was not possible for a single individual Church to settle points of theology or to interfere with those matters of practice which were considered as fundamental to the existence of the Church. At a very early stage groupings of Churches appear such as those in Galatia and Judæa, and we have no evidence that there was ever more than one Church organisation in a single city, though it is entirely probable that such a city Church met in a number of groups for worship. This is all preparatory to the final conception given to us by St. Paul in cosmic terms in the Colossian and Ephesian Epistles, where local Churches give place to the wider thought of the one Body, the holy temple, which includes both Jews and Gentiles, who have both been reconciled in one Body, the great mystery of the relationship of Christ to His Body the Church, the universal Church which is everywhere scattered throughout the Empire. In the Epistle to the Colossians,¹¹ only twice does St. Paul use the word Church for a local assembly, and in Ephesians, not at all; and in both cases as in all his later Epistles from the time of the [37] Roman Epistle--he addresses the letters not to the Church or Churches in a certain place, but to the saints, the saints and faithful brethren. The term Church is almost entirely reserved for the universal Body which he calls the one Body. It is the growing concern for the unity of this Body--faced with disruption through heretical teaching--that we have to trace, together with the safeguards which are considered essential for its unity.

      There is a temper which says, "We are not concerned with St. Paul, nor with the necessary conditions of unity which he worked out. We are concerned with the conditions necessary for our own day." It is sometimes a hasty temper, and perhaps it too readily assumes that there is a fundamental difference between the conditions necessary for the unity of the Church of St. Paul's day and the Church of our own. True! let us be concerned without measure for the unity of the Church of our own day, but is it not possible that the conditions of unity discovered by St. Paul may be the very conditions which will operate in our own day: and to produce a unity without those conditions may be to produce a unity of something less than the Divine Society which is the Body of Christ? The Church is an organism, and there are certain fundamental conditions to the life of every organism which never change, no matter what minor changes may take place in the organism itself.

      Of course, this special temper takes no account, [38] or at least, very little account, of any special task assigned to St. Paul or other of the Apostles, or of any special guiding in the formative days of the Church. Many would demur from any such position, but we must meet it on its own ground. In order to do this, we shall, before passing on to survey the Pauline position revealed in his epistles, review briefly the history of division and unity. In the first place, division has always been caused by Protestantism--that is, by those who have claimed the right to protest against abuses, or false beliefs, or too stringent organisation, as found in the parent body. Even the Roman Church has sometimes been protestant. Many times the Protestant has been right in his own belief or practice, and sometimes he has been wrong. As we read history, we cannot conceive that the Protestant at various stages could have done other than leave the parent fold; and yet we may question what might have been if all Protestants in all ages had remained within the larger Body, and sought to purify it. On the other hand, the parent body sometimes took action, and expelled those who protested. Here there was nothing for them to do but to submit to the expulsion and to teach what they considered to be the truth. Whatever may be our views on these episodes in the history of the Church; whatever our speculations as to what might have been; we cannot but admit that the principle of Protestantism carried to its extreme can never provide the means of unification. If every man, or every group of men, may settle for themselves all points of belief and practice, or even place their private interpretation on the New [39] Testament Scriptures to justify certain beliefs and practices, which they consider essential to the being of the Church, it will be quite impossible to arrive at a united Church, or to maintain such a united Church once it has been formed. This is exactly what was done by the various "confessions" which the Reformation produced, the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, the decrees of the Council of Trent; and what is done when any local body adopts a trust deed or other set of formularies, which impose extra conditions of membership upon those who seek co-operation. By this path it seems impossible to achieve union. The only logical outcome of the principle of absolute Protestantism is, in the end, perfect liberalism--that is, that every man for himself be allowed to settle all matters of faith and practice. However enamoured one may be of such a system of liberalism, whatever virtues one considers may spring from it, we cannot but see that it has no power to produce the visible unity of a visible society; and most liberals frankly admit that they have no desire for such a visible unity.

      But Christianity has never in any of its sections admitted the principle of absolute freedom from authority, not even in Unitarianism; for if intellectual tests have not been raised and made the ground of excommunication, ethical tests have. It is true that the spirit of our age is to magnify the ethical, even sometimes to the extent of making it the sum total of life; but whilst we may [40] value to the full the recovery of a keener sense of moral values, we must insist that a pure ethic for the mass of men is only possible, and can only be produced, by a strong belief. Christianity refuses to be summed up merely as a system of morals.

      There has always been--there must always be--some authoritative basis for the unity of the Church. There can be no interference with those things which are fundamental to the unity of the organism, though there may be the fullest degree of liberty and variety on other matters, and the fullest possible opportunity for growth and development. Too often the larger body has sought to rob men of this liberty; hence the tendency to refuse all authority--a tendency which has never succeeded in accomplishing the task it set itself.

      In all ages, then, Christianity has guarded itself against division by some authoritative principle. As we pass outside the New Testament, we see that the idea of unity gradually shifts its centre from the fellowship to the single Bishop in each City. There is nothing strange about this development, nothing unreal; in fact, it is very natural when we remember that it was the direct result of the many inroads of schism through the preaching of false doctrine, which began as early as the last quarter of the first century, and which came to be still more highly developed during the next century; so that we may regard the lovers of unity as being driven to adopt the expedient of maintaining that unity in the wider Christian Church by urging implicit obedience to the single Bishop in each city Church. We have not, however, by the time of Ignatius, [41] approached anything like a system of ecclesiasticism; each City Church is still independent, though it may listen with some measure of attention to the precepts of eminent men outside its own fold. In passing, we may say that the unity of the Church cannot depend on a single Bishop in a single Church, any more than on a rigid system of ecclesiasticism. But nevertheless such unity could only be established and made safe against the inroads of schism by some external means, in an age when guidance which came through the charismatic gifts had ceased to be evident.

      Fourteen centuries later--long after the unity had become symbolised not in a single Bishop in each city, but in a single Bishop for the whole Church--following a period of moral and intellectual awakening, during which the Western Church had striven hard to keep its unity by means which were a disgrace to the cause of Christianity, we see the full force of the Protestant Reformation working itself out. Tyranny had created license, and unity was gone. It was inevitable. But what do we see in the fold of this very Protestantism? How far is it willing to allow the principle to work? Does it lose the passion for unity or shun to use those very means to obtain it which had been used against itself? No! instead it at once begins to denounce the Church from which it sprang--it is no Church; it is Babylon, the mother of harlots. The true Church is only to be found in the followers of the [42] Reformers. Protestantism did not at first develop a doctrine of an invisible Church. It held a doctrine of the Church as real as that of the Roman Church from which it sprang; and once having become organised, it sought to guard the unity of the Church with no less zeal. Thus we find Luther, when the unity of his cause is threatened, instituting a terrible massacre of the Anabaptists. No follower of his to-day will wish to justify such conduct, though we may sympathise with his ardent desire to check the progress of that very principle which he himself had inaugurated. Again, we may learn much from the conduct of Calvin, and his stern repression of heresy, even to the burning of Servetus. The history of the Church in England tells the same story. Undoubtedly the Roman party excelled in the bitterness of their persecutions, but both in the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth, the Protestant party were not averse to the use of persecution, even unto death, to maintain unity. And, later, in the same country, we see the same bitter controversy being wrought out between two parties of Protestants--the Presbyterians and Congregationalists on the one hand, and the Episcopalians on the other. It will not do at this stage to claim that all that the Puritan party desired was freedom to worship God as they pleased, for when the power came to them in the period of the Commonwealth, they refused that freedom to others who differed from them. The Test Act, the Corporation Act, the Five Mile Act, and the Act of Uniformity, which constituted the Anglican bid for the restoration of unity, can all be matched from the Cromwellian period. Even the [43] Pilgrim Fathers, who left our shores that they might secure freedom to worship God as they pleased, later refused that very freedom to those who sought to dwell amongst them.

      No one to-day, to whatever party he belongs, can do anything but deplore the methods of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but the lesson seems plain that men have always found that some external forms--some real symbols--are necessary to the unity of the Church. It is for this reason that these centuries are crammed with confessions of faith, formularies, articles of religion, and catechisms, intended to guard the unity of each separate organisation. We to-day have come to realise that these heritages are a real hindrance to the unity of the whole Church, but history speaks loudly that we cannot do without the thing which they represent--some external bonds, some basis of authority for the unity of the Church. We may attempt to ignore the warning of history, but it will only be at great cost. As long ago as 1911, when the question of unity was beginning to assume greater proportions, Dr. Sanday warned us in the following words: "I am sure that, where history is ignored, in the long run it will have its revenge. After all, there are no short cuts in matters of greatest moment. Problems must be worked out, and worked out from the very beginning."¹²

      What Luther and Calvin were doing for the Protestant bodies in the first and second generations of their existence, St. Paul and St. John were doing for the Church of Christ in its first age, and even apart [44] from any special value we may attach to the work of these Apostles--any special authority we may regard as residing in them--we suggest that the Apostolic safeguards for unity are far superior to the various confessions of the sixteenth century or to the decrees of the Council of Trent; and again we may emphasise that to reject the New Testament authority on this matter amounts to leaving us without any hope whatever of real unity. Thus we are driven back upon the Pauline epistles, where we see a definite safeguarding of the unity of the Body of Christ along three lines: (a) the authority of a common faith; (b) the obligation of two common sacraments; (c) the recognition of a common ministry. Dr. Gore, in a speech at the Geneva Conference, 1920, summed up the matter thus: "There was not a variety of societies. The divine discipline brought to bear on the tendencies and varieties of human temperament consisted in the obligation of membership in the one visible society, and submission to its authority. There was first the common faith. In time it was more or less elaborated, but from the first it was there in principle. The authority of the common faith was for St. Paul and St. John the sine qua non in the matter of fellowship. Secondly, there was the obligation of sacraments, for the essence of a sacrament was this--it was a means of divine grace, but at the same time a social ceremony, wherein was expressed this principle, that the fellowship with God was nowhere to be attained and maintained except in the fellowship of the brethren. Thirdly, there was the divinely commissioned ministry, the [45] obligation to adhere to which both in its ministry of the Word and its ministry of the sacraments was again to be the divine discipline upon the universally disruptive tendencies of human nature, as regards both nations and individuals."¹³

      We come now to the Pauline literature itself, and the theological world meets us with a number of conflicting interpretations of St. Paul; but we live in a day when light is emerging. Within the last two years we have received two expositions of St. Paul from men as wide apart as Professor Robertson, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Professor Bacon, of Yale, who embodies in his book lectures delivered to Unitarian students.¹⁴ It is becoming more and more impossible for scholars to hold the once popular Protestant view that St. Paul can be summed up in his antinomianism, and that he stands as the champion of liberty and freedom as opposed to law and the principle of authority. Nor is it possible to associate with St. Paul's full teaching the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It is now admitted by Protestant scholars of all schools that the real Paul is not to be found in his polemical writings against the Judaising party, but that he was something more than an anti-legalist. Mr. Nathaniel Micklem, who edits the "Christian Revolutionary [46] Series" is not afraid to say, "It seems clear, however, that Paul was in some sense what we should call a sacramentalist."¹⁵

      It is interesting to note the development of thought in the Protestant field with regard to St. Paul. From the days of Luther, who took up the work of Augustine, St. Paul was more or less the preacher of liberty, an anti-legalist, and a teacher of justification by faith. With the rise of the Tubingen school, under Baur, this influence led to the rejection of all but four epistles as genuinely Pauline. But criticism has moved far from those days. Even within that generation it became apparent to leading scholars that St. Paul was not this one-sided figure whose sole work was a polemic against Jewish legalism. The four epistles accepted by Baur himself revealed a different figure, and there could be no reason against accepting the later prison epistles, which represent the more constructive side of St. Paul's work. To-day an increasing number of scholars accept the whole Pauline canon, and all but the hypercritical school accept the once doubted epistles of Colossians and Ephesians. Professor Robertson still looks upon St. Paul in the old way, and others still admire him as the champion of "those who can never satisfy themselves with institutional or legal religion,"¹⁶ but the real Paul as known to-day, both from his former and later epistles, is a vastly different figure. As Professor Bacon says, "Christianity was to Paul the Way of justification or peace with God, which he saw [47] symbolised in the two primitive observances of baptism and the supper."¹⁷

      As a result of this new picture--the only true one which can be drawn from the Pauline writings--there has arisen in recent times a school of liberal Protestants who in effect regard St. Paul as giving Christianity a turn in the wrong direction. He is the offender against the Gospel of Jesus, and he offends by introducing into Christianity the mysticism, ideas, and practices of the Greek mystery cults, thereby producing an institutional religion, with its central doctrine of the Atonement. St. Paul is therefore rejected, and the cry is "Back to Jesus and the ethical Gospel of Galilee." It may seem strange, but it is of real value, that the answer to all this is being received not only from Catholic scholars, but from the Unitarian and liberal schools represented by such men as Dr. Mellone and Professor Bacon. Professor Bacon, in his latest book, is concerned to show that the Gospel of the Atonement, with its attendant ordinances, did not originate with St. Paul, but was what he saw in the days when he persecuted Christianity. I cannot do better than quote some of his most striking passages. "This 'gospel,' so far as it found visible expression, was embodied, after the manner of ancient religion, not in books, but in symbolic ritual. Christianity consisted in the ordinances and their interpretation."¹⁸ "What Saul the persecutor saw and resented in the spreading sect was a new loyalty. It was attested by baptism, a new sacramentum, a ritual act of self-dedication whose significance was renewed by a frequently repeated [48] memorial act of fellowship. The Nazarenes or Christians were people who practised the rites of baptism and the Supper. The latter, a token of their 'communion' or 'partnership,' as they called it, came from the very hand and voice of Jesus Himself, on the night of His delivering up to the cross."¹⁹ "Not books then, but these two observances form the true Ur-evangelium."²⁰ Having proved that St. Paul found the Gospel--which he is accused of inventing--ready to hand, Professor Bacon goes on to deal with the desire for an ethical Gospel. "We have to-day a group of religious leaders in whom the prophetic and ethical motive predominates over the mystical and sacerdotal. These raise the cry, 'We have had too much of Paul, too much of individual salvation. Social salvation is the need of our times. Back to Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount.'"²¹ "Back to Jesus"? Yes! but Jesus did not stand still. He was a Prophet in Galilee. He was a Son of David, and Son of Man in the appeal to Jerusalem. He was a Mediator and Intercessor with God, when He passed within the veil of the temple not built with hands. Paul is our earliest witness, and Paul has already determined to know no Christ save a Christ not after the flesh. Had he done otherwise Christianity would not have survived its generation. . . . If our teacher is to be the eternal Logos of God, who leads into all truth; if it is the Creator Spiritus of the cosmos of soul-life who is to take of the things of Christ and interpret them to us, we shall need to take a leaf from the book of Paul and of the great [49] Ephesian evangelist, learning to look at things from the point of view of the Eternal."²² Could anything be more trenchant against the false estimate which has been placed on St. Paul, and the tendency to neglect the Pauline interpretation of Christianity, coming as it does from the extreme left of the Protestant school?

      Already it has been stated that St. Paul's safeguards for unity were three in number: (1) The two primitive ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which form part of the Gospel he received, and which we have seen closely connected with unity in Acts ii.; (2) the faith; (3) a ministry which is accepted throughout the whole Church. We shall see that this is the order of their working out as he finds himself compelled to battle with the growing tendency towards division.

      The earliest epistle which deals definitely with division is the first to the Corinthians, and it is well at the outset to note St. Paul's positive horror of anything like schism in the Body of Christ. In one single passage in his earlier writings we have met the expression which henceforth is to become his key-word for unity, "the Body of Christ,"²³ but in this epistle we meet with the expression constantly, as we do in the later Ephesian epistle. This in itself ought to have been sufficient warning against building on St. Paul the doctrines of spiritual unity and the invisible Church. St. Paul's idea of unity in [50] 1 Corinthians is certainly organic, and he denounces in unmeasured terms those who seek to destroy this unity: "For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk after the manner of men?"²⁴; and again, "Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God destroy."²⁵

      It is impossible to read this epistle without discovering that St. Paul finds the unity he seeks to preserve symbolised in the two primitive ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. It is true they are to speak the same things and to be perfected together an the same mind,²⁶ but to St. Paul there stand two great barriers to schism. How could they be divided when they recalled their Baptism into the one Name, in which alone there was salvation? How could they quarrel when they frequently had portrayed to them that one Body through which salvation had been procured, which Body they were? There is real significance in the part which Baptism and the Supper play in this epistle. Had Paul been crucified for them, or had they been baptised into the name of Paul? Even Israel had drunk of the spiritual rock, Christ, and been baptised unto Moses, and so were one unit, one nation.²⁷ And they, the Corinthians, by one Spirit had all been baptised into one Body.²⁸ Had they forgotten, too, that the bread which they broke was a communion of the [51] Body of Christ, and that they, being many were one bread, one body through the very act of their sharing the one bread?

      Dr. Gilkey, an American Presbyterian, says, "Visible unity is the true expression of an all-pervading love, and, spiritual unity,"²⁹ and this is what St. Paul must have felt when writing his Corinthian letter. There could be no spiritual unity unless it expressed itself in a visible way. It is unfair to regard visible unity as something lower than spiritual unity, or as a denial of spiritual unity. It is true, visible unity may be artificial, and then it is no real unity--that is, there may be visible unity without spiritual unity, but there cannot be spiritual unity without visible unity, for visible unity is the true expression of spiritual unity. Thus St. Paul sees in the two ordinances; which were not only means of grace, but social rites expressive of the koinonia, a perpetual barrier to the existence of that type of non-social Christianity which boasted in the possession of a superior gnosis, and was marked, as we know later from St. John, by an absence of love of the brethren. It is for this reason we find the emphasis on love as we have it in the famous thirteenth chapter.

      But St. Paul also realised what Dr. Gilkey has expressed when he says, "Jesus' ideal is for visible unity, because it is the only kind that is effective in leading the world to believe on Him and in His [52] Father's love for His children"³⁰; and thus he points out that the divisions and factions were made manifest in their eating of the Lord's Supper,³¹ the very ordinance which should have been an act of fellowship, or unity. He is quite definite that so long as the division exists it is not possible to eat the Lord's Supper; there can be no true celebration, for there is no real discrimination of the Lord's Body. The strength of his feeling about the matter is shown by the language he uses: "For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself if he discriminate not the body."³² It is useless to argue that St. Paul was indifferent to the visible unity of the Church, even at this early stage, when he wrote to a single local Church where disruptive tendencies were already at work. It is also significant that in this Church there was an endowment of the charismata superior to anything found elsewhere, and yet St. Paul places small store on these spiritual outpourings, as compared with abiding faith, hope and love. There may have been abundance of gifts, any amount of display of ecstatic conditions, but if when they came together to "break the bread" it was impossible to discern the Body; if there was no display of that love which found its expression in the fellowship, and so showed to the world a visible unity, what did it avail? The Corinthians were in danger of being satisfied with a low conception of the Church, but St. Paul was travelling forward to the position we shall next survey in the Colossian and Ephesian epistles, and the Church at Corinth must be brought into line. Harnack long ago summed up [53] the whole matter in the following suggestive words. "The conception of the Church originally, contained no authoritative element; but every spiritual entity which presents itself as a society, partly ideal and partly real, contains within itself from the beginning such an element; it is 'prior to' the individual; it has its traditions and ordinances, its special powers and organisation. These are authoritative; in addition it supports the individual and at the same time assures him of the validity of that to which it bears witness."³³

      We pass now to the later Epistles of Colossians and Ephesians, the latter the crown of St. Paul's work; and here we find Christianity stated in cosmic terms--the Gospel was to be preached in all creation under heaven; it is the mystery of God and the mystery of Christ. Moreover, it is the only unifying principle for the nations; there can be no Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman and freeman: but Christ is all and in all. But this is to come about through the Church, which is now catholic or universal: He is the Head of the Body, the Church: who is the beginning and first-born from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.

      To the Colossians he emphasises that their reconciliation is in the body of His flesh through death,³⁴ but they can only be presented holy and without [54] blemish if they continue in the faith grounded and steadfast.³⁵ There must be unity in the faith, whatever this may include. There is here at least a principle of authority. Further down he speaks of being with them in spirit, joying and beholding their order, and the steadfastness of their faith in Christ.³⁶ There was then in the Colossian Church a certain order, which St. Paul saw fit to commend--an outward and visible sign of that spiritual unity which was essential to His Body, the Church. Again, speaking of the tendency to disruption--and it must be remembered that the whole epistle is framed in this fear, lest the Body of Christ be rent--he goes on to refer to that which we have already seen in the Corinthian epistle was considered by him as a unifying principle, their Baptism, by which they had come into real relationship with the death of Christ, which with St. Paul is the sole unifying principle of the nations.³⁷ Thus in Colossæ there were marks of unity, visible to those who brought the message to St. Paul in prison--they belonged to the universal Church; for they had all been baptised into His death, they held the faith, and they possessed a certain order.

      The Ephesian epistle has well been styled the "Epistle of Unity," and this is all the more important if we regard it--and there is every reason for so doing--as having been written for general circulation to a number of local communities. His Body, given [55] on the Cross, is again set forth as the unifying principle between Jews and Gentiles; and again this unity is to come through the one Body--the Church; and this Church is not only to show the manifold wisdom of God in the world, but also to principalities and powers in heavenly places.³⁸ God's glory is to be wrought out not only in Christ Jesus, but in the Church. Seeing that this high doctrine of the Church is true--the Church now carrying on the principle of incarnation and linking up earth with heaven--they must walk "worthily of the calling wherewith they were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."³⁹ Then comes the seven-fold unity. They had all one hope, vividly portrayed in the Lord's Supper, linking them with heaven, as did also the one Spirit, where was the one Lord. Just as there was one God, who was over all, and through all, and in all, so there was one Body, and this was built on the one faith, and made manifest by the one Baptism. Lower down in this classic chapter he surveys the ministry of the Body, and maintains that its purpose is unifying. As in Colossians, unity is to be manifest in an adherence to the one faith; by the possession of a certain order which is seen in acknowledging a God-given ministry; and is to be sealed by the one Baptism through which they had all passed into the one Body. As Professor Bacon says; "It is not a speculative but a practical interest that leads Paul to supplement Colossians by the great parallel [56] epistle on the Unity of the Spirit. . . . It is a practical interest, which leads him to set forth how the possession of one Lord, one faith, one baptism, is the world's real hope of order and peace. . . . There may be those who can conceive of Christianity as the mere following of a high moral example. As for myself, I see not how it is possible for Christianity to be a world-religion (or indeed to be a religion at all) unless the Spirit of Christ, into which our own personality is merged in a self-dedication answering to His own, be nothing less than the eternal Spirit of the Creator and Father of all, the Spirit of righteousness and love. For in all the cosmos of life to which our sense extends there is but one body, and one ordering and redeeming Spirit, even as we were called in one hope of our calling. There is one Lord to whom all loyalty is due, one faith, one baptism. There is one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all. In this unity of the eternal Spirit lies our eternal Gospel of peace."⁴⁰

      We have seen then, the spiritual unity for which St. Paul wrought in real earnest, originally born of that spontaneity which expressed itself in the fellowship, establishing itself and making itself permanent against the inroads of schism, and expressing itself in three definite symbols--visible marks of a spiritual unity within--(a) the faith which was accepted by all, (b) the ministry which was [57] everywhere valid, (c) the sacraments, which were everywhere observed; and if we pass outside St. Paul we find nothing to contradict this. Indeed, this work of St. Paul is the only explanation of what we find thirty years later in the Johannine literature. We shall briefly consider each of these visible marks of unity, reserving fuller treatment for special chapters later.

      The faith is already, with St. Paul, something distinct from faith--an attitude of mind in the believer. Its content is hinted at in a comprehensive way when the Corinthians are exhorted to speak the same things;⁴¹ but in Colossians and Ephesians we have the faith and one faith. In the Pastoral epistles it is the sound doctrine, the faith, the mystery of the faith, the words of the faith, the good doctrine, the deposit, the pattern of sound words, and the good deposit. In Jude it is the faith once and for all delivered unto the saints. Whatever this faith was, it could certainly be expressed in some definite form or symbol, and the Christians of the first century must have understood what was meant by it. It must in some way or other have referred to the cardinal facts of the Gospel, and was certainly used as a test in rejecting those who were causing division in the Church, and as a bond between those in all parts of the Empire, who owned allegiance to Jesus as crucified and exalted to be the One Mediator. Was it in the form of a statement, or a creed, or a covenant (shema)? If the latter, then it was an oath of allegiance, and corresponded to the baptismal confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the [58] living God." But whatever it was, it represented some basis of authority, and such authority there must be if there is to be a united Church, which is the Church of Christ. Some bodies have tried to make the faith include more, others less, and so what was intended as a principle of unity has become a source of division; but this is so with all the marks of unity. This need not alarm us; for it is first, with the marks of unity, that it is possible for division to take place. Before the Church can be united the content of the faith will have to be settled, but we are not here contending for the content, but for the thing itself--this principle of authority which is necessary to organic unity.

      The ministry is another divisive factor in present-day Church problems. There is no doubt that in Apostolic times some permanent form of ministry was evolved. This had been preceded during the New Testament age, by a special form of ministry, both charismatic and missionary. But the New Testament itself bears witness to the fact that the permanent ministry was already in being. That the ministry was considered by St. Paul as essential to the unity of the Church we have seen from the Colossian and Ephesian epistles; but the fact is brought out still more clearly in the Pastorals, where schism has evidently assumed larger proportions, and St. Paul, recognising the inevitability of the nearness of his own end, sends delegates to complete the organisation of certain local Churches. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a unified Church with varying systems of ministry, each depending for its validity upon its own special theory of the ministry. Whatever the [59] theory is--that of Plymouth Brethrenism, or Roman Catholicism, or something in between--there must be a ministry which is recognised in every part of the united body.

      The sacraments, again, more than the faith and the ministry, divide the followers of Christ, and this perhaps because, of all the marks of unity, they are the most objective. But they were the Church's first centre of unity, as we have shown, and everywhere to-day where schemes of union are being drawn up, it is laid down that the two ordinances are to be accepted. Here are two visible symbols of unity--the one Baptism and the Supper--and there can be no real unity until the outstanding questions concerning them have been settled. There are differences of practice and differences of interpretation, and we must frankly and courageously admit these difficulties. No good can come of ignoring them--the only way is to solve them. Moreover, the spirit which says, "Why trouble about such things as Baptism and the Communion?" is seen at once to be a spirit which seeks to loose the Church from the bonds of its past history, and in so doing it will find that it has lost the Church.

      And now it remains for all the followers of Christ to face the facts. There are differences, and serious differences, but we may take courage and thank God that there is a feeling after unity. No one now seeks to justify the divided state of Christianity. On the other hand, there is a tendency [60] to ignore differences, instead of meeting the difficulties to which they give rise. Dr. Sanday recognised this as long ago as 1911, and gave a note of warning. "These differences constitute a real barrier that is not to be removed by any short and easy process . . . the sacrifice of that which is distinctive is often just the sacrifice of that which is in a sense most valuable, of the special contribution which the Church or society has to make to the fulness of the stature of the Body of Christ."⁴² In closing I am conscious of a certain type of objection which will be raised to the statement I have set forth, and I cannot do better in recognising it than quote the words of Bishop Gore: "I know quite well that any statement of this kind raises in the minds of people old objections against material conditions of spiritual grace, and I repudiate the involved imputation. I am sure that the healthiness of the Church has always consisted in keeping the moral and spiritual considerations the primary ones, and I think that the greatest of all the sins and failures of the Christian Church has been that it has allowed Hellenic and Roman and nationalist influences, either purely intellectual or purely ecclesiastical, or Erastian conditions, to assume the dominance; and people have thought of being a Church under some other terms than that of following the life of God. And I am quite sure that, after all, Christianity is first of all the Word of Life and the Way. The Church is never sound unless the thing which is most prominent is the moral obligation, and all the various expedients, the dodging people into heaven [61] without serious moral discipline, are the degradation of Christianity. Nevertheless, you always come back to this; there is no possibility of maintaining the unity of the Church unless you are prepared to accept the necessity of positive conditions of creed, sacraments, ministry, which are the external framework or backbone necessary to hold the spiritual order together. Otherwise the old effect will continually be reproduced. The disruptive tendencies will continually assert themselves and you will get vague expressions of unity, but absolute failure to have anything in the world which can believe and act together."⁴³ [62]

[EOCU 28-62]