i8 7 7] THEOLOGY AND THE CHURCH 329 



Broad Church. It is observed that the divergent 

 tendencies of Christians become fixed in the antagonism 

 of parties only when allowed to take shape in explicit 

 doctrines and courses of action. It is suggested, there 

 fore, that the catholicity of the Church may be secured by 

 avoiding all such explicitness. Let it be understood that 

 constructive theology, which has so long placed barriers 

 between the Churches, has a purely speculative and 

 individual interest. The bond of Christian love should 

 be sufficient to secure unity among Christians, whatever 

 their individual type may be. This theory is so vague 

 in all points that it is difficult to criticise it. But it is 

 obvious that no society can be organised simply on 

 mutual love. Organised fellowship implies common 

 interests, a common aim, some function in which the 

 whole society visibly combines. In a word, the Church 

 is not the fellowship of Christian love which requires 

 no unity of organisation but the fellowship of Christian 

 worship. The common worship of many individuals 

 must be the expression in intelligible form of their 

 common relation of faith towards God. We have already 

 seen that all personal faith implies personal knowledge. 

 The intelligent expression of faith, therefore, implies 

 explicit and formulated knowledge. Put face to face 

 with this argument the Broad Church breaks at once 

 into two camps. The one camp gives up the conception 

 of the Church as the fellowship of worship, and proposes 

 to have a national church simply as an instrument of 

 national culture, a view essentially Socinian. The other 

 camp proposes either to omit everything from worship 

 with which some may differ, or aims at a spirit of Christian 

 charity which shall enable a man to be edified even by 

 expressions of a faith which is not his own. On the first 

 alternative, the Church must perish from inanition ; on 

 the second, worship becomes a mere sentimental enjoy 

 ment, and is no longer a real approach to God through 

 Christ. But both the Sectarians and the Broad Church 



