CHAPTER VI.

ON THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH.

THE sanctity of the church may be considered in several dif

ferent points of view.

those who founded it;

First, the sanctity of its Head, and of secondly, the holiness of its doctrine; thirdly, the means of holiness which it has in the Sacraments; fourthly, the actual holiness of its members; and fifthly, the divine attestations of holiness in miracles.

1. The Divine Head and Founder of the church is the essential origin and source of all its holiness. "He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." The glorious efficacy of his sacrifice procured the mission of the Eternal Comforter, the author of every good gift, and the source of all heavenly grace in the word and sacraments of Christianity.The apostles of our Lord were commissioned by Him, with the authority which he had received from the Father, to found the Christian church; and all churches must therefore derive their origin from the apostles, either by proving that they were originally founded by the apostolic preaching, and have perpetually existed as societies from that moment to the present; or else they must be prepared to show that, at their origin, they were derived peaceably and with Christian charity from the apostolical churches, or that they were subsequently received into Christian communion by such churches. These are the only conceivable ways in which any church can pretend to prove that it was founded by the apostles immediately or mediately. If any society was not founded actually by the apostles, nor yet founded by the successors of the apostles and the apostolical

VOL. 1.-18

a Tit. ii. 14.

churches, but in the moment of its birth separated itself from the communion and religion of all such churches; if it was never received afterwards, and engrafted into the communion of churches, apostolical in their origin or derivation; it is impossible that such a society can in any way show that it was founded by the apostles of Jesus Christ. This is a point which may be easily determined in any particular case by the facts of history, and it affords an excellent sign or test of the church of Christ.

2. It is undeniable that the end of Christ's mission on earth was the sanctification of his people. He "called us with a holy calling." His will is "our sanctification." Therefore if it could be clearly shown that any society professing to be Christian, denied the obligation of good works, and taught its members that they might freely indulge in wickedness, such a society would be evidently anathema from Jesus Christ. Nothing further could be required to prove it.

3. The means of sanctity in the sacraments cannot with propriety be reckoned among the signs of the church, for before we determine whether a society is deficient in any of these means, we must enter on the whole subject of the sacraments, which would lead to a discussion much too lengthened, and beyond the capacity of the majority of men. Romanists argue that the true and valid administration of the sacraments is not a note of the church, therefore they cannot consistently enter on the discussion of those sacraments as a means of holiness.

d

4. I now come to the question of the actual holiness of the members of the church. It is asserted by some that a society which includes a number of unholy men cannot be a church of

b 2 Tim. i. 9.

c 1 Thess. iv. 3.

a Tournely, de Ecclesia, tom. i. p. 63, &c. Bailly, Tractatus de Eccl. Christ. tom. i. p. 62. Bouvier, de vera Ecclesia, p. 79. Collet, Inst. Theolog. Scholast. tom. ii. p. 450.

e

[The seeming paradox that unholy men may be members of a holy church, and as such, therefore holy, arises in great measure from the ambiguity of the terms "sanctus," "sanctitus," "holy," "holiness." Between the ἁγιστης οι ἁγιοσυνη which the Scriptures and primitive writers ascribe to

Christ, that the true church comprises only saints or perfect Christians, and that sinners cannot be members of it. The Novatians and Donatists considered all who were guilty of great sins as forming no part of the church. The Pelagians held the church to consist only of perfect men free from sin. The Wickliffites taught that the church includes only the predesti

nate.

The Anabaptists and the English dissenters asserted, that it consists only of those who are visibly holy in their lives; and the latter founded their separation from the church on the principle that she comprised so many sinners in her communion. Therefore they departed from her to form a pure society of saints in which no sinner was to find place. Their whole system was founded, and continues to be maintained on the fiction that their communities are all holy, pure, perfect saints, incapable of passion, strife, tyranny, &c. Against these principles, which have unhappily been refuted long ago by experience, I maintain the following position.

THOSE WHO ARE SINNERS, AND DEVOID OF LIVELY FAITH, ARE SOMETIMES EXTERNALLY MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH.

This is proved from Scripture. Christ compares the church, or kingdom of heaven, to "a field" in which tares and wheat, that is, evil men and good, grow till the harvest, i. e. the end of the world (Matt. xiii. 24-30. 37-43); to "a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind," that is, both "the wicked" and "the just" (xiii. 47-50). The church is elsewhere spoken of under the figure of "a wedding feast," whereto the servants "gathered together all, as many as they

the visible church, and the Tns which is the characteristic of its lively members there is a clear and broad distinction, never left out of view. This is especially observable in the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians. It is to be regretted that writers on theology have so often allowed themselves to be entangled by the looser language of the Western church, when the precision of the native language of the church might have saved them from many difficulties and much discussion.]

See Chapter XIII.

found, both bad and good" (Matt. xxii. 10); and to "a great house," in which "there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour" (2 Tim. ii. 20). These texts prove sufficiently, that while the church of God exists on this earth, it will comprise evil men as well as good in its communion; and accordingly, as we learn from St. Augustine in his account of the conference at Carthage, the Donatists were entirely overcome by them. It is almost superfluous to add, that the primitive. church fully concurred with the above principle, as might be easily shown from Jerome, Augustine, Fulgentius, Gregory, &c. As soon as the Donatist and Pelagian errors on this subject were advanced, they were refuted by St. Jerome in his book "Contra Pelagianos," and by St. Augustine in his books against the epistles of the Donatists Parmenianus and Petilianus, and in other treatises. The Lutherans and Calvinists also maintained sound views on this subject. The former say, "We admit that hypocrites and evil men in this life are joined with the church, and are members of the church as far as relates to external participation in its signs, that is the word, the profession, and the sacraments, especially if they be not excommunicated." Calvin argues at great length, and with his usual energy, against the doctrine of the Anabaptists and the modern dissenters. He says, "In the church are many hy

August. Brev. Coll. et Liber post Collationem. Hier. dial. adv. Lucifer. ultra medium. Fulgentius de Remiss. Peccat. c. 18. Gregor. lib. 2. in Ezek. hom. iv. n. 16. See Pearson on the Creed, art. ix. Field, Of the Church, book i. ch. 16, 17, 18.

Apologia Confessionis August. iv. de Ecclesia. See also the Confession of Augsburg, art. viii. The Formula Concordiæ, another Lutheran Confession, "rejects and condemns" amongst the "Errores Anabaptistarum" this; "Non esse eam veram et Christianam Ecclesiam, in qua peccatores reperiantur." (Form. Conc. pars. ii. ad fin.) The Sax. Conf. (art. xii.) says, Improbamus et colluviem Anabaptisticam, quæ finxit ecclesiam visibilem, in qua omnes sint sancti."

* Calvin. Institut. lib. iv. c. i. sect. 13-29.

pocrites mixed, who have nothing of Christ except the name and appearance: many ambitious, covetous, envious, slandering men; some of impure life, who are tolerated for a time, either because they cannot be convicted by a lawful judgment, or because due severity of discipline is not always in force.”1

But the Donatists discovered a distinction which has been adopted by the more modern sects. They admitted that sinners might indeed exist in communion with the church, but they denied that open and manifest sinners could in any respect be of the church. In reply to this distinction I proceed to show, that,

MANIFEST SINNERS ARE SOMETIMES EXTERNALLY MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH, AND EXERCISE THE PRIVILEGE OF ITS MEMBERS.

St. Paul, in his epistle to the Corinthians, styles them "the church of God which is at Corinth" (1 Cor. i. 2); yet in this church of God "were envying, and strife, and divisions" (iii. 3); "Going to law against each other," and that "before the heathen" (vi. 1. 6, 7); and even "fornication, such is not so much as named among the Gentiles" (v. i). This clearly proves that manifest sinners are sometimes found in the church, for the person last alluded to was not separated from the church of Corinth, until the apostle had rebuked them, and commanded him to be delivered to Satan (v. 5); yet the Corinthian church is not considered by the apostle to have been apostate, because this sinner was in their communion. The same is proved by the words to "the church in Thyatira."—" I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to

Ibid. sect. 7. The same doctrine is taught by the Tetrapolitan Confession, in which it is said, that " many will be mixed in the church even to the end of the world, who do not really believe in Christ, but pretend to do so" (cap. xv.). It is also taught by the Helvetic Confession (cap. xvii.), the Gallican (xxvii.), the Bohemian (art. viii.).