“We are prepared to say, in the fourth place, that the one thing remaining to render this union complete—a perfect unity, such as Christ prayed for—is oneness of organization. By organization is meant, as the word imports, everything pertaining to the outward structure and furniture of the church—its government, methods of operation, ordinances, worship, etc.”
DR. KNOX ON THE NECESSITY OF THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
“We can but observe,” he says, “in the first place, that most of the good we know in this world is connected with organization, and is nothing without it. It is the nature of all life to organize, and the most perfect of organisms is that which we have in the human form—Scriptural type, by the way, of the organization belonging to the spiritual life that is in Christ’s body, the church. No one thinks it necessary to depreciate the organic part of man in order to exalt that which is intellectual and moral.… It is not enough to say of human life in the general: ‘What we want is good-will, right understanding between man and man—no matter about society and government. That is merely exterior and organic; we wish to do with essentials.’ For all the ends of social welfare it has ever been found that organized society is one of the essentials, and without it the public weal cannot be promoted.”
“It is the nature of all life to organize.” Precisely so. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the nature of all life is organic; for life and organism are related to each other as cause and effect, and hence are inseparable. Christianity unorganized would be a pure nonentity. Christianity is a life—specific life; it is therefore by its very nature specific, visible, organic.
“For all the ends of social welfare it has ever been found that organized society is one of the essentials, and without it the public weal cannot be promoted.” Organized
society is essential to all life, and no less essential to its own defence and preservation; for what would have become of Christianity without organization when the colossal power of the Roman Empire was set to work to exterminate it? Christianity would have been strangled in its cradle. What would have become of Christianity unorganized when the barbarians from the North overthrew the Roman Empire? Christianity would have been swept from the face of the earth. What would have been the issue if Christianity had been left to individual effort when the Moslems attacked Europe and threatened to feed their horses from the altars of Christian churches? Why, Europe would be to-day Mohammedan, and, if any Christians were left, they would be at the mercy, as the Servians were, of the Grand Turk. Christianity unorganized, facing an organized, hostile, powerful force, would have been as chaff before the wind.
THE SECOND REASON FOR CHURCH UNITY.
“Especially,” says Dr. Knox, “ought we to note how this fact of exterior organization has been recognized in the provision for the general spiritual well-being. If you say the elements of that well-being are primarily interior and spiritual, such as love, faith, fellowship, yet as positively are they never dispersed from the exterior and physical—that is, from the organism through which they obtain their manifestation. The church is that organism. Hence whenever, under apostolic preaching, there was in any community the beginning of Christian knowledge, faith, obedience, there was the immediate beginning of a Christian church.… In all their epistles and prayers it was the visible as well as vital thing—the church at Rome, Ephesus, Corinth—which they have in their eye as an object of beauty and blessedness:
‘Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular, ye are all baptized into one body.’… Their virtual unity must become visible; their essential unity, organic unity.”
In this passage there is laid down a most important principle: “The interior and spiritual are never dispersed from the interior and physical.” That is, an invisible church is an absurdity, and a simple interior piety a dream. On this principle we would change the last sentence, and make it read thus: “Their virtual unity is always visible; their essential unity, organic unity.”