Thus we see that the apostolic Church was a home for Christ's family (Matt. 12:49); a school for his disciples; a fraternity of brethren. For discipline, it had officers, but no clergy, nor priesthood, for all were priests, and all took part in the services. (1 Peter 2:5; Rom. 1:6; 1 Cor. 14:26.) Its only creed was a belief in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. (Acts 8:37; 16:31. 1 John 4:15; 5:5, 10. Rom. 10:9.) The unity of the Church was not the unity of opinion, nor the unity of ceremonies, but the bond of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3), and the central unities of faith, not of doctrine (Eph. 4:5.) The object of the Church service was not merely to partake the Lord's Supper together, nor to maintain public worship, nor to defend and propagate a creed, nor to call men into an outward organization, nor to gather pious people together, and keep them safe as in an ark, but to do good and get good—to grow up in all things into Him who is the Head. And the condition of membership was to wish to be saved from sin, and to have faith in Christ that he could save them; it was to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
§ 8. The Actual Church, or the Church as it is.
Now, if we turn from the Church as it was to the Church as it is,—from the apostolic Church to those around us,—we see a difference. Instead of the freedom and union which were in the early Church, we find in the Roman Catholic communion union, but no freedom; in the Protestant Churches freedom, but no union. In both we find the Church built on the ministry, instead of the ministry on the Church; the priests everything, the people nothing; fixed forms, instead of a free movement; dead creeds, instead of a living faith. The spirit of worldliness has entered the churches, and they try to serve God and Mammon; God on Sunday, and Mammon on the week days. The members of the churches are more devout and more religious, but not more moral or more humane, than many who are out of their body. And because they do not love man whom they have seen, they find it hard to love God, whom they have not seen. Their want of humanity destroys their piety.
A vast amount of good is done by the churches, even in their present state; but when we think of what they might do, it seems nothing. Yet it is not nothing. Could we know the good done by the mere sound of the church bells on Sunday, by the quiet assembling of peaceful multitudes in their different churches; could we measure the amount of awe and reverence which falls over every mind, restraining the reckless, checking many a half-formed purpose of evil, rousing purer associations and memories, calling up reminiscences of innocent childhood in the depraved heart of man; could we know how many souls are roused to a better life, made to realize their immortal nature, reminded of a judgment to come; could we see how many souls, on every Sabbath, in our thousands of churches, are turned from sin to God, how many sorrowing hearts are consoled by the sweet promises of the gospel; could we see, as God sees and the angels see, all this,—we should feel that the churches, in their greatest [pg 411] feebleness, are yet the instruments of an incalculable good. But when we look at what is to be done, what ought to be done, what could be done by them, their present state seems most forlorn.
It is one of the most difficult of our duties not to despise an imperfect good, and yet not to be satisfied with it.
One of the greatest evils of our churches is, that they are churches of the clergy, not of the people. Our clergy are generally pure-minded, well-intentioned men, less selfish and worldly than most men; but they are not equal to the demands of their position. We take a young man, send him to college, then to a theological school, where he studies his Greek very faithfully, and learns to write sermons. He comes out, twenty-two years old, a pleasing speaker, and is immediately settled and ordained over a large long-established church. As he rises in the pulpit and looks down on his congregation, one would think he would despair. What can he say to them? He knows nothing of human nature, of its struggles and sins, its temptations in the shop and the street. Men do not curse at him, nor try to cheat him, nor entice him into bar-rooms, oyster-cellars, billiard-rooms, and theatres. He cannot speak to men of their vices, their stony and hard hearts, their utter unbelief, their crying selfishness, for he knows nothing of it. He must speak of sin in the abstract, not of sin in the concrete. If he did, what could he say? What weapons has he? The sword of the Spirit is in his hands, but he has not tried it; he has no confidence in it. The awful truths of the Bible, which smite the stoutest sinner to the earth, these he might utter, if he dared; but he knows not how. And yet he is the teacher of these gray-headed men, and their only teacher. Had he gone out as Jesus sent his disciples, without purse or shoes or two coats, and preached the gospel for ten years by the way-side, in cottages, in school-houses, living hard, sleeping on the floor, seeing men and women everywhere without disguise, [pg 412] and taking no thought beforehand what to say, but leaning on God for his inspiration,—then might he have learned how to say something weighty even to a great congregation. Or if this poor boy were surrounded by a living active church, helping him by advice, going with him into the house of sorrow, the haunt of sin, kneeling with him by the sick couch and death-bed, and adding to his small experience the whole variety and richness of theirs,—then might he be a man of God, thoroughly furnished for every work.
If there were Judaism and Paganism in the early Church, they still, no doubt, linger in our churches to-day. The Church Judaizes in this—that it still puts forms above life. For example, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that if you take a child, and put water upon him, repeating the baptismal formula, and with the intention of baptizing him, the child becomes in that moment regenerate. If he had died the moment before, he would have been damned forever in eternal torments; if he dies the moment after, he will go to eternal bliss in heaven. Now, if an earthly parent should cover his child's body with camphene, and then set it on fire, because somebody had not baptized it, we should say he was a very cruel parent. But this conduct is attributed to the good God by the Roman Catholic doctrine. Moreover, when an outward form is made thus essential, when everlasting salvation or damnation depends on it, it behooves us to know what it is. Baptism consists of three parts—the water, the formula, and the intention of the baptizer. But as to the water, we may ask, How much is essential? Is it essential that there be enough to entirely immerse the body? The Catholic Church replies, “No.” Is the aqueous vapor always present in the air enough? It answers, “No, that is not enough.” At what precise point, then, between these two, does enough begin, does baptism take place, and the child cease to be a child of perdition, and become an heir of salvation? The Roman Catholic Church, being obliged to [pg 413] answer this question, has answered it thus: There is no baptism until water enough to run is put on the child. A drop which will not run, does not baptize him; a drop which will run, baptizes him. The difference, then, between these two drops, is the difference to the child between eternal damnation and eternal salvation.[70]
How does this sound by the side of the declaration of the apostle Paul—“He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart”? Judaism, if anything, was an outward institution; Christianity, if anything, is an inward life. And yet that which the apostle Paul said of Judaism we hardly to-day would venture to say of Christianity. “He is not a Christian who is one outwardly, neither is Christianity in outward belief, profession, or aspect; but he is a Christian who is one inwardly.” “O, no!” we say, “there must be a distinction. A man who does not believe in the miracles, for example, may be a good man, but you must not call him a Christian.” But he who follows Christ, we think, is a Christian. And as Christ walks before mankind on the divine road of goodness, truth, love, purity, he who walks on that road cannot help being a follower of Christ, whatever he may call himself.
How the Church Judaizes about the Sabbath—pretending, first, that there is a Sabbath in Christianity, and teaching [pg 414] people that there is a sort of piety in calling Sunday the Sabbath, and next putting this ritual observance, this abstinence from labor and amusement, on a level with moral duties! When men tithe mint, they are apt to forget justice and mercy. If Jesus were to return, after all these centuries, and were only to do and say just what he did and said about the Sabbath when he was here before, there are many pious Protestants who would think him rather lax in his religious principles. How long he has been with us, and yet we have not known him!