and provided formulæ for all that was necessary. The vast extension of the ecclesiastical laws, in their attempts to cover the whole of human life, had created a system too burdensome to be borne. That system was retained in an appearance of stately grandeur by a subterranean labyrinth of subterfuges. What had been established for the promotion of morality provided means for the utmost immorality. It was impossible to find a way out of the confusion in which good and bad, right and wrong, were inextricably confounded. What had really occurred was this. The Church, in its desire to represent God on earth, had undertaken the impossible task of reconciling, here and now, God's justice and God's mercy. Its laws represented justice; but that justice was felt to be of overwhelming severity. So mercy was called to its aid, and an attempt was made to apply it in mitigation. Justice may be administered by many judges, for they are the servants of the law. Mercy can only be granted by one who is superior to the law. It was this which more than anything else contributed to the growth of the papal power, and led men to acquiesce in papal pretentions. They wished for mercy, and thought that the Pope, if he was only made powerful enough, could dispense from the irksome bondage of the law. At last a point was reached when mercy, formally distributed, destroyed the law altogether; and men learned to look to the Church, not as the guardian of the Gospel, but as the power which could reduce its precepts within the limits of mechanical compliance. It was not accidental, but inevitable, that the revolt in Germany

arose concerning the most conspicuous of these abuses -Indulgences. It was not a mere personal question, but it was the exhibition of a judicial system in all its ineptitude, which led English common sense to abolish it.

207

THE IDEA OF A NATIONAL CHURCH.1

IN the remarks which I shall make, I shall confine myself to an attempt to show what is meant by a National Church. Objection is taken to the conception in itself on the ground that it is opposed to the great idea of a Catholic, or Universal Church, which it was our Lord's object to found. I will briefly state some considerations bearing on this point.

The Church of Christ is one, in the same way as mankind is one. As God is the Father of all men, So Jesus is the universal Head of the human race. His Church is the body of those who recognise Him as such. It exists by union with Him; it can have no object of its own apart from Him; its work is to bear witness of Him, and its power to do so comes from the indwelling of His Holy Spirit. Its unity is one of common faith, common hope and common love.

Mankind is one because it is God's family: but it cannot recognise this fact, and the corruption of human nature is manifest in perpetual discord. The Church of Christ is one in a much more intimate sense, because it has a knowledge of its unity, and of its obligation to set forth that unity in the world. Why is it also divided into differing and hostile bodies? The answer is, that though the Church is

1 A paper read at the Shrewsbury Church Congress, 1896.

a new creation and belongs by right to the spiritual order, its home on earth is in the natural order, by which it is constantly limited, and from which it cannot be completely disentangled. The Church of Christ, in spite of variances, is the greatest bond of union which exists. It has created an attitude towards life, the power of which can only be understood by comparing Christian and non-Christian peoples. Why is it not a greater bond? My answer will be that the conditions of human life have ruled that, to accomplish its work, the Church must admit differences of organisation. This admission, however, has never been made. Men in the past failed to recognise any unity that was not structural; and though the course of the world's history has declared against this conception, it is still not abandoned. Human frailty, unable to realise the spiritual order save in the forms of earthly polity, has passionately striven to retain an ideal of the Church which has become obsolete, and has sacrificed unity, which is possible, to uniformity, which is impossible. In support of this I must ask you briefly to consider historical facts.

The Church grew up within the political framework of the Roman Empire; but the immediate result of the spread of Christianity was to revive national sentiment. Differences of thought and character, which were in abeyance under the Roman rule, began to show themselves again in the modes in which Christianity was apprehended and applied. The framework of the Roman Empire remained long enough for the settlement of Christian dogma, i.e., of the intellectual meaning of Christian truth, on one universal basis.

Then the great system of the world's government fell in its outward form; but the Christian Church survived, supplying a bond of connection between the new peoples, and impressing upon them all that was best worth preserving of the spirit of the old civilisation. It could not, however, maintain unity of organisation. The declining Roman Empire found it necessary to have two capitals, Byzantium and Rome, corresponding to the different tendencies of its Eastern and Western subjects. The difference became more strongly marked, and in the ninth century led to a separation between the Eastern and Western Churches-a separation not arising from any real difference about the contents of the Christian faith, or its application to life, but arising from differences of language, modes of thought, and conceptions of the nature of civil authority. The State continued to exist in the East, when it had fallen in the West. The Church went with it, and continued to present the faith in the old forms with which the Eastern peoples were familiar. In the West where the old State had disappeared, the Church stepped into its place, and maintained the appearance of a religious commonwealth, whose civil affairs were administered by local rulers. It organised itself on the lines of the Roman Empire, and adapted its system to meet the needs of the various peoples whom it undertook to govern. It set up the papal monarchy, and a theory of development in theology, both of which were rejected as unlawful innovations by the settled and conservative East. The consequent separation destroyed the idea of one Church,