transformation of the kingdom of this world in which unjust relations subsist into a kingdom of God in which just relations will subsist: this is the object for which Christ goes forth conquering and to conquer. We may add that this throws a clear light on the expectation of the Coming of our Lord in the Apostolic age. It would be vain to deny that in certain passages St. Paul repeats the language of ancient prophecy with a kind of literalism. The voice of the archangel, and the trump of God', and the saints caught up into the clouds, can hardly be explained otherwise than as a literal expectation of things never destined to be fulfilled. Nor can we deny that such literalisms are among the integuments which had to fall off when the age of childhood was past. When we look, however, at the words of our Lord Himself we have no similar difficulty. The angel with the great sound of the trumpet2 gathering the elect from the four winds is evidently the ministry of the Gospel going abroad through the world before the great crisis of the destruction of Jerusalem. The end of the age3,' about which the disciples ask, is the end of the Jewish dispensation. The passing away of heaven and earth is the rolling away of the existing fabric of society. The Coming of the Son of Man in a cloud (an image borrowed from Daniel) is the triumph of Christ over the world-powers of Judea and of Rome. The apostolic visions must be interpreted in a similar way. The day of the Lord is the great crisis of history, when Church and world must pass through a purifying furnace of suffering. And, 1 I Thess. iv. 16, 17. 2 Matt. xxiv. 31. 3 Ib. 3. + Ib. 30. beyond this, stands forth before the Seer's eye the new state of society, the abode of divine justice, the new heaven and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. How, then, was this result to be brought about? Partly, no doubt, by the influx of converts, and by the growth of the kingdom itself; partly by the general influence of Christian doctrine, the leaven leavening the whole lump. But, partly also, as a consequence and accompaniment of these processes, by the appropriation of human organizations, which, by the infusion of the Christian spirit, came to realize the Church idea, and thus to become Churches themselves. The most striking instance of this is the appropriation of the family, which, being itself a microcosm, presents a typical specimen and a commencement of the whole process. The family was, both among Jews and Gentiles, to a large extent the home of selfishness. By the facility of divorce, the absolute power of the father, and slavery, selfishness reigned supreme. So much was this the case that, even when Christianity had been three centuries at work, the family life was still worldly enough to make many of the great fathers despair of its redemption. But, in the New Testament, we find the family life recognized as the natural abode of the Gospel-spirit, and becoming, to use the words of St. Paul, the Church which is in the house.' 'Our Lord,' said Clement of Alexandria, ‘said that where two or three were gathered in His name, there was the true Church. Who are these two or three, but the father, the mother, and the child1?' For the investigation we are now pursuing, the passages which 1 Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. 10. speak of the family are the most precious in the New Testament. In our Lord's ministry we find occasions in which the whole household passes into the Church. In the Acts and Epistles this is still more frequent. The family of Cornelius1 and the family of the Philippian jailor2 are the two most familiar instances. The promise of salvation through faith is not to the individual alone, but thou shalt be saved and thy house3.' If we ask how a family can be said to become a church, we have but to go for an answer to the passages in the Ephesians, Colossians, and the first Epistle of St. Peters, in which the effect of Christianity upon the various sections of the household is described. We see there the Christian spirit of mutual deference and respect establishing true relations between husband and wife, parents and children, masters and servants. We have but to picture to ourselves a family living according to the Apostolic prescription, and we realize in the circle of the family what the Church is meant to be, society transformed by the Spirit of Christ. We have there the kingdom of heaven taking shape before our eyes. We must extend this to all other circles of human life, to social and commercial intercourse, to societies formed for the increase of knowledge or of art, but most of all to the sovereign state. As it is said by sociologists that the family is the miniature of the State, so also the family which has become a Church is the miniature of the State which has become a Church. 1 Acts x. 44-48. 3 Ib. 31. 6 4 Eph. v. 22-vi. 9. 1 Pet. ii. 18-iii. 9. The language of St. Paul1 and St. Peter2 concerning the sovereign state reveals to us the true destination of political society. When all officers of State are looked upon as ministers of God, and all orders of men who compose the state are brought within the action of Christian brotherly kindness, we see political society as a whole already transformed in the mind of the great Purposer. The ideal stands out before us in the words Honour all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honour the king3.' The whole fabric is there in the germ, already recognized as divine in its essence and in its destination. It is for those who are the special messengers of Christ not so much to change its organization as to breathe into it the Spirit of their Lord, and thus to convert it into a Church. That is the task of the growing Christendom. The history of Christendom, therefore, until the final condition at which we aim is reached, must be the record of an imperfect state, a becoming not a being. If the perfect state is that in which the Church and mankind are one, both must be constantly undergoing change. We may apply to them the words of Hebrew prophecy, 'I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, until He come whose right it is, and I will give it to Him.' Any theory which claims to be complete, while dealing only with the existing materials, must by its very terms be in error; and everything that can be said truly will appear vacillating and inconsistent. It is as in a country which is being gradually conquered, as, for instance, in the winning back of Spain from the Moors 3 1 Pet. ii. 17. 4 Ezek. xxi. 27. 1 Rom. xiii. 1-7. 21 Pet. ii. 13, 14. in the seven centuries from Charles Martel to Ximenes. Who can fix the exact limits of the conquest? At one moment it may seem that a line can be drawn, on either side of which stand the opposing armies and people. Yet, even so, the parts occupied by the invading hosts may merely submit, or may be in rebellion, or, again, may be governed with their own free consent; while on the side occupied by the defenders some may sympathize, languidly or actively, with the invaders. At another time no line at all can be traced. In such a state of affairs, the territory may be said to belong to one party or to the other, according to the views of the narrator, his information, or his temperament. At one moment the invaders seem ready to be surrounded and destroyed, at another the whole land seems theirs. The inhabitants and the invaders alike will give the most varying accounts of the state and prospects of the country. Who, during such a struggle, would undertake to give an accurate description of it? Or what description which holds good for one moment could fail to be false in the next? No one can give such a definition of the Church in its relation to mankind as will hold good for all time. It is a growing organism with universal capacities, destined to embrace the world, yet still far from accomplishing its destiny. But these two things seem to follow as practical conclusions from our review of the work of the Founder, and of those who planted the Church during its earliest age. First, since Christ demanded the complete allegiance of His followers, our duty is to strive that whatever calls itself by His name should be absolutely holy. |