And this is confirmed by another analogy, well worthy of close attention. This consists in the double and reciprocal relation in which the universal Church stands to particular Churches, and the institution of the Primacy to the institution of bishops, who, by Christ's appointment, govern those particular Churches: an agreement which ought to have especial force with those who believe in the divine institution of bishops. For as the whole society of true believers, and the particular congregations of which it is made up, are called in Holy Scripture and the Christian records by one and the same name of the Church, so is there the very closest analogy between the bond which connects the universal Church and that which connects its several parts.
Exactly, then, as it is asserted with great truth of all these particular Churches that they are one house, one city, and one fold, so must this be repeated of the whole Church, since it is set forth in Scripture by no other images, and has no less right to claim the property of unity. Hence S.[15] Chrysostome's golden saying, "If it is the Church of God, it is united and one, not at Corinth only, but in the whole world. For the Church is a name not of division, but of union and harmony;" and S.[16] Gregory calls it, "The tunic without seam, woven from the top throughout."
Now the same reason which existed for instituting particular bishops to govern and preserve in unity particular flocks, moved Christ to institute an universal Primate, and to set him over the whole fold. If in the former case the best description of a particular Church is that of S. Cyprian, "A people united to its priest, and a flock adhering to its pastor;"[17] in the latter the form of unity, which Christ established in the universal Primate, no less imposes on all, both taught and teachers, the necessity of saying with S. Jerome, "I following none as the first save Christ, am joined in communion with your blessedness, that is, with the chair of Peter. Upon that rock the Church is built, I know. Whoever outside of this house eateth the lamb, is profane. If any one was not in the ark of Noah, he shall perish. I know not Vitalis; I reject Meletius; I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoever gathers not with thee, scatters: that is, he who is not of Christ is of Antichrist."[18]
III. A great accession of evidence will accrue to what we have said if we attentively consider the reasons deduced from the texts containing the institution of the Primacy, and those proceeding from the inherent properties of the Church. To speak of the texts first:
1. Either they carry no meaning with them, or they prove at least this, that Christ, in instituting the Primacy, intended,[19] while exhibiting the whole Church under the usual image of a house and building, to give it a foundation, the bond at once of its strength and unity; and, again, while communicating to one the special gift of unwavering faith, to make him the channel for establishing and[20] confirming all the faithful; to[21] render the fold which he had gathered out of all nations one by the unity of a supreme visible pastor, and to[22] constitute in the Lord's family, amid so manifold a distinction of officers, one of such eminence as to be the Ruler and the Greater among all.
But can we, or ought we, to conclude from this as to the purpose of the Primacy, and as to its constituent force and principle? Assuredly these texts prove directly and categorically that the Primacy was set up as the efficient principle, whereby to mould the Church's visible unity, and was endowed with all that authority, without which unity could neither have been produced, nor maintained in existence.
2. And in this judgment we shall be confirmed if we investigate the properties of which the Church cannot be deprived, without taking a form and an appearance different from that which it received from Christ. The first which occurs is that identity by which the Church must always be like itself, and cannot be substantially different at its beginning and in its growth; one thing when it had Christ for its visible head, and another when His words had come to pass, "A little while, and now you shall not see Me—because I go to the Father." Now at its first commencement, in the time of our Lord's mortal life, the Church presented the form of a society governed by the supreme power of one, and deriving its visible unity from one supreme visible head. That it might not subsequently lose this identity, and put on another form, our Lord chose a Primate to be the principle of visible unity, and to have the power of a head over the whole body.
And indeed this was necessary to maintain the double character and test of[23] unity and[24] Catholicity, by which the Church is distinguished in Holy Scripture and in the records of Christian antiquity. As to unity, not only are the expressions in the creeds, and the more ample explanation of them in the[25] Fathers, most clear and emphatic, but likewise what is said in the Holy Scriptures of the end for which the Church was founded by Christ. For the[26] grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing those who had[27] changed the truth of God into a lie, and liked not to have God in their knowledge, that[28] denying all these things they might become an acceptable people, and[29] enlightened by Christ, and sanctified in the truth, might by the profession of one faith be[30] one body and one spirit, in the same[31] manner in which the Father and the Son are one, and might be[32] divided by no sects and dissensions, which are manifestly the works of the flesh, not of God, who is not the[33] God of dissension but of peace. For therefore[34] Christ, the only-begotten of the Father, gave His blood for it, to present it to Himself, a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, which would break peace, and disturb the agreement of faith; but that it should be holy and without blemish,[35] immovable through that rock on which it rests, and against which not even the gates of hell shall prevail; wisely ordered as the[36] house of God, in which[37] all hear his voice, who is set over as the[38] ruler, and has received his brethren to be[39] confirmed, and the[40] care of the whole flock;[41] endued with virtue from on high, and strengthened by the[42] Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father; possessing the power of[43] authoritative teaching, which if any[44] hear not, nor obey, they are to be accounted as heathens and publicans, by a judgment which binds both in heaven and on earth. Are there any who do not see that in this description, which sets forth the Church's pre-ordained end, its proper character and very lineaments, the Primacy itself is included, and exhibited as the principal cause which effects the unity of the whole body? I hardly think that any such can be, so apparent is the bond which ties these several parts together.
Yet perhaps this may be more vividly brought out if we shortly mention the common opinions among Protestants on the Church's unity. For, omitting those who hold an[45] invisible Church, and so expunge visible unity from its attributes, all the other opinions may be reduced to three.
A. Anglicans, whose belief has been set forth, besides Pearson on the Creed, with more than usual care by Dodwell, (in his Treatise on the Bishop, as the Principle of Unity, and S. Peter's Primacy among the Apostles as the Exemplar of Unity,) begin by noting that the question of visible unity cannot be determined in the same way as it respects the universal Church, or each particular Church. But why? Because, they say, it was indeed the will of Christ, that each particular Church should have a double unity, inward and outward, but it was not His will that the whole Church, the sum of these particular Churches, should have the same mark and test. Because, it was His will that both unities should characterise the particular Churches, to use a school phrase, separately and distributively, but not the whole body, and the sum of these, taken collectively. Whence they conclude that Bishops were chosen and made, by the command of Christ, to preside