The learned doctor has an inkling of this insurmountable difficulty, and hence he looks forward to one scarcely knows what kind of supernatural action which is to “compose” out of the existing different evangelical sects a visible organic unity. The idea of composing the unity of the church is a contradiction in terms. If lost, only a new divine creative act can restore it. To expect this after the Incarnation and the Day of Pentecost is a chimera. The only escape from this, and the only perfectly consistent one, is that this unity is still existing, clothed with “a divinely-appointed organism jure divino,” and open to all who really and sincerely believe in Christ. He does not deny that the church of Christ does still exist; he admits its possibility, and says:
“We do not base our argument for ultimate unity of organization on the assumption that there is a divinely appointed organism defined in the New Testament. We may believe the Scriptures contain nothing explicit on this point—no jure divino model of church polity. If, however, there is such an appointed form—which is here neither affirmed nor denied—we insist that it is the best form, and our point holds good—viz., in the coming development of an earnest faith and fellowship, that form will ultimately be apprehended and accepted. In that mental condition into which the church is soon to come, it will be recognized that the end is the main thing, and the agency of no account except as it is adapted to the end. And as in the arts of ordinary life, as in politics and public education, it is at length discovered what the best way to the desired result is; and as the earnest effort for the valued result lays hold at last of the best method, which thus becomes the common one, so must it be in the great earnest religious movement of these latter days, looking to the millennial age. Mark
well the process. The faith and love of the church, quickening into new life in these pre-millennial efforts, will emerge into a spiritual earnestness little short of a new experience; this earnestness will content itself with nothing short of the most effective method; the effective method will be accepted as the best, and the best method is the one method which shall complete the spiritual unity of God’s people in an organic unity.”
Agreeing with Dr. Knox in “the nature of the unity of the church,” and that the principle of “life is organic,” and also that the church with this unity and organic life has existed, the conclusion is evident: either he must yield up his premises, or enter into the fold of the Catholic Church as the only claimant to this unity and organization whose title is unimpeachable. May that day “of earnest faith and fellowship” of which he speaks be hastened, when will be apprehended and accepted “that church polity” “defined in the New Testament,”[156] and which “completes the spiritual unity of God’s people in an organic unity!” “May the generation now coming upon the stage … not pass away until these things are fulfilled!”
[153] “The Organic Unity of the Church. By Wm. E. Knox, D.D., Elmira, N. Y.” The Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review, Oct., 18;6.
[154] St. John xvii.
[155] Dr. Jenischuber, Gottesverehrung und Kirche, § 210.
[156] To those of our readers who are desirous of seeing the argument drawn from the New Testament on this point, and at the same time the whole question as between the Catholic Church and the Presbyterians or evangelicals fully treated and placed in a clear light and in a masterly manner on the basis of the Holy Scriptures, we recommend the volume entitled The King’s Highway, by the Rev. Augustine F. Hewit. The Catholic Publication House, New York.