i8 7 ;] THEOLOGY AND THE CHURCH 327 



on earth is simply the sum of the independent growths 

 of individuals; that Christian fellowship is not an 

 essential factor in Christian life, but merely an orna 

 mental addition to that life, a pleasure which the 

 believer enjoys when he falls in with men of like religious 

 tastes, not a Christian duty towards men even of unlike 

 tastes. But all Christianity which has any pretence to 

 be catholic, not sectarian, proceeds on very different 

 principles, remembering that, according to the New 

 Testament, it is the Church as an organic unity that is 

 the object of God s electing love and of Christ s re 

 deeming work, and that each member of the mystical 

 body of Christ grows up towards Him who is the Head 

 only in sympathy with the growth of the whole body. 

 On this view Christian fellowship is an essential thing ; 

 and like all the essentials r of Christianity it is a thing 

 which cannot be left to be secured by unconscious 

 agencies. It is true that every believer is ipso facto a 

 member of the organic body of Christ. But this member 

 ship is a moral, not a physical fact, and thus it is a supreme 

 Christian duty to give practical and conscious realisation 

 to the truth that growing union to Christ means fellow 

 ship in the united growth of all them that are His. The 

 Church, therefore, is a Divine ordinance, in which men of 

 all possible types of religion, and in every stage of spiritual 

 growth, are to come together on the broad ground of 

 professed faith in Christ and obedience to Him, and 

 unite in such common activities as shall give fit expression 

 to their unity and conduce to common edification. 



There can be no difficulty in deciding the nature of 

 the common exercises in which the Church of Christ 

 expresses its conscious catholicity and seeks common 

 edification. The fellowship of the Church is oneness in 

 fellowship with God in Christ ; the growth of the Church 

 is increasing nearness to God of the life of the whole 

 society. Thus the proper activity for which the Church 

 is visibly organised is just to sist itself before God in 



