What Do You Mean by "The Church"?

HOLY CROSS TRACTS

THE Church is God's Kingdom on earth. It was set up by our Lord Himself. It is a visible society. Its members are persons who have been baptized and who profess the true faith. It is governed by true and lawful pastors. It was God who made the Church, not man. The Church is not a voluntary association. Christians do not choose whether they will belong to the Church or no. If they are Christians, they do belong to it, they are Church­men, members of God's Kingdom on earth. Just as men who are Englishmen are subjects of King George. They may refuse to obey the King's law. They may oppose themselves to those who are put in authority. In that case they are rebels. They are still subjects of the King and members of the Kingdom, only they are unworthy subjects. They have not made a new kingdom by their rebellion. Some men think that they can be Christians without being members of the Church. They think that they can first become Christians, and then decide whether they will associate themselves with the Church or with some other religious body, or make a new religious body of their own. This is because they do not realize that God has set up His Kingdom in the world. They think it is left to them to pick and choose, whereas God has settled that beforehand. It is not the case that there were Christians first and the Church afterward. If that were so, Christians would have made the Church. Whereas our Lord said, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." In the New Testament we read that the Kingdom of Heaven was set up, and then men were invited into it. They were called into something which already existed. Their being members of it depended upon their having been admitted to it. They did not con­stitute themselves the Church. In other words, the Church takes its origin not in the will of men, but in the will of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Church is a visible society, that is to say, we can know and recognize the persons who belong to it. It is called a "Body" in the New Testament. "There is One Body and One Spirit." Now, the very idea of a Body is that it can be seen. This is true when we speak of the human body. It is equally true when we speak of a relig­ious body or a scientific body or a political body or a mili­tary body. In these cases it means a group of persons who are known to be joined together for some particular object.


It is plain that in the New Testament the local Churches were visible. It was easy to know who belonged to the Church of Ephesus or the Church of Corinth or the Church of Antioch. But if the local Churches were visible, how could the Universal Church be invisible? It is an extraordinary thing that people should tell us that the Church is an invisible body, consisting only of the good, unknown to man, known only to God, concealed among the four hundred or so registered sects, without any organ­ization or rule of faith or officers or discipline or govern­ment. Yet this is the doctrine of most Protestants who are fond of saying that they go by their Bibles. Where, then, does the Bible speak of an invisible Church? No­where at all. It is an instance of how the Word of God is made of none effect by Protestant tradition. For this notion of an invisible Church is no older than the Reforma­tion. Fifteen hundred years of Christianity had gone by before it was thought of. When the outward unity of the Church had been broken by divisions, the question was asked, How can we say that the Church is one? Then this theory was invented to justify the divisions. It was said, "The Church isn't really divided, because it is invisible and consists of none but the good. Only God knows who belongs to the Church and who doesn't." But if St. Paul had thought this he wouldn't have spent so many words warning his people against divisions. Besides, our Lord in His great prayer on Maundy Thursday night, when He prayed again and again that His disciples might be one, went on to give the reason: "That the world might believe." This must mean an outward oneness, for it was to be some­thing which the world could see. The world cannot see an invisible Church. The members of the Church are persons who have been baptized, and who profess the true faith. No one can make himself a Christian, nor can he be made a Christian by any other way than that which was ordered by the Founder of the Christian Religion. Our Lord said: "Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Ghost." If a man has been baptized he is a Christian. He may not be a good Christian. He may be a bad one.

There are some people who will not allow that a Chris­tian can be anything but good. If he is not good he is not a Christian, they would say. But this is not what the Bible teaches. From the Bible we learn that in the field of the Church, tares are mixed with the wheat. In the net of the Church there are bad fish as well as good. On the True Vine there are branches which do not bear fruit and which are to be burned at the last. There are Prodigal Sons in God's family, foolish virgins, as well as wise ones. Among the guests at His feast all have not put on the wedding garment.
On the other hand, no one is a Christian who has not been christened. Repentance of sins, faith in God and a moral life do not make a Christian. They make him ready to be admitted into the Church, but these things do not themselves admit him. It is only the extraordinary self-will of the Protestant that makes him think that they do. The founder of the Christian Religion has appointed Baptism as the means of admission into the Church. We are to come to Baptism with repentance and faith. But here the Prot­estant makes a difficulty. "Why must I be baptized?" he asks. "Why are not repentance and faith sufficient without Baptism?" The answer is that we are servants, not masters. Since our Lord has said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," no humble and believing Christian can dare say that believing without baptism is sufficient. Moreover, since we know what the Lord has commanded, there can be no real faith without Baptism. "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" To believe that the Lord told us to do something, and yet that we need not do it, doesn't deserve the name of faith.

The Church is governed by true and lawful pastors. Every Christian is and must be a man under authority. When we are made members of Christ's household, we find ourselves under the authority of the steward whom the Lord has set over that part of His household to give them their portion of meat in due season. Every Christian is in the first place under the authority of the priest of his parish and the bishop of his diocese. Just as a soldier on enlisting finds himself under the command of some particular officer. We are told in the Bible to obey them that have the rule over us. This does not mean the earthly magistrates. It means the authorities of the Church, the spiritual magis­trates, His Majesty King Jesus' Ministers. We do not choose this state of things. It is not our own making. We find ourselves in it. We can refuse obedience, but we cannot get rid of the obligation. We are then disobedient and mutinous, not merely to the Lord's Minister, but to the Lord Himself, Whose authority he bears. For the Lord has said to His ministers: "He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me."
It must be remembered that the Church in America is not a religious body complete in itself. It is not a separate "denomination." It is not a "self-going concern." It is a small part of the great whole. It follows that all rules made by the Church for herself, and all statements of doc­trine put out by the Church, are subject to appeal to the much larger body of the Church throughout the world. In matters in which the whole Church has spoken, all Churches are bound. If a local Church should make a law that the Lord's Service should be celebrated without lights or vestments or incense, such a law would bind the con­science of no instructed Churchman. Or if a local Church said that people are not bound to receive Holy Communion fasting, or to be present at the Lord's Service on Sundays and great Festivals, or that the Blessed Sacrament must not be reserved, such a decision would have no force at all. All these matters have been ruled by the Holy Church throughout the whole world. They can only be repealed by the whole Church. Any contrary local custom is not a re­peal, but an abuse and a corruption.

But, it may be asked, what do you mean by true and lawful pastors? A true pastor is one who has received Holy Orders, i. e., who has been ordained by a Bishop. He is one who has received power to do certain things in God's Name, which he could not do before he was ordained. He has been made an overseer by the Holy Ghost to feed the Church of God which our Lord has purchased with His own blood. It is plain that this power must come from above, not from below. Men can appoint one of their num­ber to represent them and to speak in their name. They cannot appoint him to represent God and speak in God's Name. They cannot give him power which they have not themselves. So it follows that the Christian people, the laity, cannot make a minister of God. But Almighty God, the Giver of all good gifts, has of His Divine providence appointed divers orders in His Church. They have been in existence since the time of the Apostles. They have con­tinued to our own times. It is by the laying-on of the Bishop's hands that the power is given to be a minister and an ambassador of Christ. It has been handed on without interruption from the Apostles, who received it from the Lord Himself. This is called the Apostolic Succession.

However, a man may be a true pastor without being a lawful pastor. Every priest who has been properly ordained is a true priest. But he is a lawful priest of only one parish, namely, that to which he has been appointed by the Bishop. In his own parish he has full right to minister. But in another parish he can lawfully minister only by per­mission. It is the same with a Bishop. In his own diocese, he is the one true and lawful Bishop. No one can minister lawfully in that diocese without his permission. But outside his own diocese he has no authority. So we can see that the Church of God is a visible society of divine origin, existing in this world, having been founded by our Lord Jesus Christ. It has its laws and regulations, its circles and bounds, its proper officials who alone have authority to minister. A man is not a member of it because he believes in, or even practices its principles, but can become a member only by joining in the way and under the conditions set forth by our Lord—that is, by Baptism. There are many other religious organizations founded by men. Some of them believe a great deal of the truth, and their members are often holy people. But they are not the true Church of God, but churches founded by men often good but misguided. This divine society I have been describing, and it alone, is "the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth."