Divine ideal of unity did not disappear because the outward expression corresponded with it imperfectly: and the thought of Judaic Christianity (even though St. Paul's great effort was so far successful) may serve still as a reminder how imperfectly, even from the first, the ideal was realized but it was the case, as emphatically then as afterwards—and as always-that the way to make spiritual ideas real, is to give them expression of reality in bodily life. The bodily expression may, and will, be inadequate: there will always be a contrast-discernible at least, too often deplorable between its meaning and itself: but even so, underneath whatever weight of failure, until it traitorously disowns its own significance, the imperfect outward will represent, will aspire towards, will actually in a measure express, that

would at once discover its sinfulness were she not too exclusively occupied with the thought of positive action on the world, instead of remembering that her primary and most important duty is to afford to the world a visible representation of her exalted Head. In all her branches, indeed, the beauty of unity is enthusiastically talked of by her members, and not a few are never weary of describing the precious ointment in which the Psalmist beheld a symbol of the unity of Israel. Others, again, alive to the uselessness of talking where there is no corresponding reality, seek comfort in the thought that beneath all the divisions of the Church there is a unity which she did not make, and which she cannot unmake. Yet, surely, in the light of the truth now before us, we may well ask whether either the talking or the suggested comfort brings us nearer a solution of our difficulties. The one is so meaningless that the very lips which utter it might be expected to refuse their office. The other is true, although, according as it is used, it may either be a stimulus to amendment, or a pious platitude; and generally it is the latter. But neither words about the beauty of unity, nor the fact of an invisible unity, avail to help us. What the Church ought to possess is a unity which the eye can see. If she is to be a witness to her Risen Lord, she must do more than talk of unity, more than console herself with the hope that the world will not forget the invisible bond by which it is pled that all her members are bound together into

one.

Visible unity in one form or another is an essential mark of her faithfulness. . . . The world will never be converted by a disunited Church. Even Bible circulation and missionary exertion upon the largest scale will be powerless to convert it, unless they are accompanied by the strength which unity alone can give. Let the Church of Christ once feel, in any measure corresponding to its importance, that she is the representative of the Risen Lord, and she will no longer be satisfied with mere outward action. She will see that her first and most imperative duty is to heal herself, that she may be able to heal others also.

perfect ideal which is waiting still to gain, in outward expression, its consummation of reality.

Often it will

There is, and there will be, a contrast. seem almost immeasurable. Thus it is that in the New Testament we seem to recognize two, more than distinguishable, pictures: and men may perhaps be excused if sometimes there has seemed to them to be little correspondence between the two. On the one hand, there is the living community of the Church, visible, militant, humanly organized, and subject to all the conditions and experiences of a secular organization of most imperfect humanities: on the other, there is the Kingdom of Heaven, without spot or flaw, transcendent, ideal, the perfection of holiness, the heavenly Bride, the Body of Christ. It would be impossible to deny that (however different their mode of presentment may be) each of these conceptions is, in the pages of the New Testament, most familiar. But what is the true relation between the one and the other? Will any one say that it is a relation merely of contrast? Or will it be said that the relation is so far one of likeness as well as of contrast, that the Church, though it never attains, is at least always aspiring after, and working towards, the ideal of the Kingdom? that the Churchthough essentially different—is yet a sort of representation, clumsily executed indeed, and in rough material, of an idea which is never realized by it? that the relation therefore between the Church and the Kingdom may be not unaptly compared to that between an artist's finished sculpture, and the inspiring vision, which it at once reveals, and yet fails to attain? It seems to me that this, even though in part true, is nevertheless a comparison quite inadequate to the truth. For it altogether omits the crucial fact, that the Church is, even on earth, through experience which includes real failures and fractures, still growing, and will (though not under present conditions) so grow as to realize actually and perfectly the whole ideal character of the Kingdom of God. If the artist's sculpture

were only the present stage of a work which, through all vicissitudes, would never cease to grow on and on, until it was actually the ideal vision, then and then only would it afford a true measure of comparison.

The Church militant does not merely represent the Church triumphant. The Church on earth will not be abolished and ended in order that the Kingdom of Heaven may take its place. But the Church which Christ founded on earth, which from Pentecost onwards, under all its failures and wickednesses, has yet been really the temple on earth of the Spirit,-the Church disciplined, purified, perfected, shall be found to be the Kingdom; the Kingdom of Heaven is already, in the Church, among men. Scripture, which knows so well both the Church and the Kingdom, knows nothing of any antithesis between the two. The 'Kingdom of Heaven' was the phrase under which the first announcement of the Church was made. The parables which portray the growth of the Church, even under human and secular conditions, even with reference, the most express, to the necessary presence and working of evil, not only round about but within the life of the Church, are the 'parables of the Kingdom.' Yet the full and characteristic picture of the Kingdom is not reached till the vision of the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation of St. John.

After all, then, for all our admission of the actual difference-too often the terrible contrast-between the Church as it practically is, and the ideal beauty of the Kingdom, we must claim that the proper relation between these two is not a relation of contrast, not even a relation of resemblance, but is, in underlying and ultimate reality (if the paradox of the phrase may be allowed), the relation of identity.

There is an illustration which seems to me to make this very clear-an illustration more pertinent by far than that of the ideal and the attainment. It is the

illustration of the continuous personality of an individual saint. What is the relation between Simon Bar-Jona, the affectionate but presumptuous disciple-St. Peter, the leader of the Apostles, the pillar of the Church, who yet (on one occasion) could be 'condemned 1'—and St. Peter, as we may reverently try to conceive of him, throned, crowned, glorified, in the glory of his LORD, in heaven? Difference there is indeed, no question-more than we can measure. Yet no vastness of difference impairs the far deeper truth, that they are one and the same. The rash Simon was not destroyed that St. Peter might be created in his stead. But the enthusiast became the saint-with imperfection; and the saint, with imperfection, became the saint in glory. Look backward in retrospect from the beatified saint; and he, even himself, was-Andrew's brother Simon. Look back in retrospect from the consummated Kingdom; and it, even itself, was the visible, humanly organized, struggling, imperfect, society of the Church. As, to scripture language, the individual Christian is, from the first, a 'saint'; so, to scripture language, that is, to the language of the divinest truth, the struggling organization and polity of the Church is, from the first-even when to us such words seem almost terrifying-all that the ideal vision of the Kingdom is.

There is another way in which this illustration will be helpful for our present purpose. Why does Scripture —that is, why does Truth-call a sinful man a saint? or a very human society the Kingdom of God? Not certainly as denying the humanness, or the sin; but because, in those whom God is drawing and perfecting, even the true fact of sin is not the truest fact of the character. Sinful and human they truly are: but they more truly are that which, by God's grace, they are even now becoming. There are grades of truth: truth more essential, and truth more accidental; truth more external, and truth

1 κατεγνωσμένος, Gal. ii. 11.

So

more profound; a more transient, and a truer, truth. with man, in the bodily life. What is he? It is the simple truth that he is flesh and blood. It is also true that he is a spiritual being. He is Spirit, of Spirit, by Spirit, for Spirit. Even while the lesser and the lower continues true, the higher is the truer truth. That man is spirit, is a deeper, more inclusive, more permanent, truer truth than that man is body. In comparison with this truth, the truth that he is body (though true) is as an untruth. It is a downright untruth, whenever or wherever, in greater measure or less, it is taken as contradicting, or impairing, or obscuring the truth that he is Spirit. Thus St. Paul does not hesitate roundly to deny the truth of it 'Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you'-denying it, of course, in the context of his thought, with absolute truth; even though the proposition that the Roman converts were in the flesh might seem to be, in itself, one of the most undeniable of propositions. Of course this is an inversion of the verdict of natural sense. If natural sense would say, Man's bodiliness is the fundamental certainty, man's spirituality is only more or less probable; there is another point of view to which man's spirituality is so the one overmastering truth, that even his bodily existence is only a truth so far as it is an incident, or condition, or expression, of his spiritual being. As method of Spirit, it is true, and its truth is just this to be method or channel of Spirit.

Such is the case of the individual man; he is obviously bodily, he is transcendently spiritual. His bodily life is no mere type, or representation of his spiritual; it is spiritual life, expanding, controlling, developing under bodily conditions. The real meaning of the bodily life is its spiritual meaning. The bodily is spiritual.

And conversely, the spiritual is bodily. Even when he is recognized as essentially spiritual, yet his spiritual being has no avenue, no expression, no method, other