This description is not very complimentary to that movement which started with the profession of renewing the religion of the Gospel and of primitive Christianity. Judged by Dr. Knox’s standard, it is clear that Protestantism, whatever it may be, is not primitive Christianity.
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH IS LOST.
The entire article under consideration is based on the supposition that the visible organic unity of the church that once existed, no longer exists, but is lost. “It is also,” says Dr. Knox, “universally admitted and expected that this lost unity will at some time be regained”
(p. 666). Now, that scandals would come, and tares would grow with the wheat, heresies, schisms, and sects would arise—all this we are told in the New Testament; but that the unity which Christ communicated to his church should be “lost,” and, therefore, his church fail—this we read nowhere in the pages of the inspired Word. On the contrary, we read in the Gospels that Christ promised to “build his church,” and that he predicted that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” And we also read: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” How one who believes in the divinity of Christ, the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and that Christ built his church, and can admit, nay, assert, that she has “lost” her unity, the very essence of her being—that, consequently, the church of Christ has failed—we are at a loss to know, and look for further explanation and instruction on this subject from Dr. Knox.
But it must be remembered also, and taken into account, that when Christ offered up his prayer for unity, he not only petitioned that his disciples might be one, but he also said: “And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me.” This covers all time, and leaves no room for the supposition that the unity which was the object of his prayer should ever be “lost.”
How to meet this difficulty is the question of questions among those who, under one pretext or another, have separated themselves from the unity of the Catholic Church. Their ingenuity has been exercised not a little on this point, and the world has listened to the Greek patriarchal theory, and to the Anglican branch theory, and the invisible church
theory of some of the so-called reformers, but all these theories are like clouds without rain and broken cisterns that can hold no water. For once admit that the unity of the church for which Christ prayed has ever existed, and concede that it has been lost, no matter what theory or hypothesis you may devise, at that moment, the conclusion is inevitable, Christianity is a failure.
The unity of the church of Christ was divine, and the human cannot create or give birth to the divine. This truth has been recognized and acted upon even among Protestants. The Irvingites and Mormons teach on this point their fellow-Protestants a lesson in sound logic. “We start,” they say, “as all Protestants do, in admitting that the Catholic Church was in the beginning the church of Christ, and that at some period of time afterwards she became corrupt and failed. This is our common premise. Now, to establish the church, which is a divine institution, requires a special divine mission and authority; hence our claim to this special divine inspiration and authority for the reinauguration of the church of Christ upon earth.” This reasoning on the part of the Irvingites and Mormons, as against other Protestants, is unanswerable and leaves them nowhere.
If the Christian Church ever existed, it exists now in all its vitality and force; for the divine creative act which called it into existence was as real, continuous, and immutable as the creative act which called into existence the universe. The same Almighty who said, “Fiat Lux,” said, “Edificabo ecclesiam meam”; and, considering the place she holds in the hierarchy of creation, there is less reason to suppose that
the church should fail than that the whole universe should go to utter wreck and ruin.