330 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



forget that church - fellowship has a moulding and up 

 building power on those who take part in it, that all 

 believers are led by the one spirit of Christ, and that the 

 unity of faith is stronger than the diversity of personal 

 experience. It is not the shallowest and most jejune 

 apprehension of Christianity which forms the basis for 

 a worship truly Catholic. A full and all-sided develop 

 ment of Christian motives cannot fail to appeal to all 

 true faith, if its fulness is not that of individual fancy, 

 but of generalisation from the normal data of the Bible. 

 Wheresoever the mind of Christ is set forth, there faith 

 will be awakened and instructed. Men of diverse ex 

 perience will not, indeed, lay hold with equal fulness and 

 readiness on every aspect of Christian truth ; but a truth 

 really Christian, when set forth in a devotional shape, 

 will at length draw forth the sympathy of every child 

 of God. 



These considerations, I think, make it clear enough 

 what the real problem of Church administration is, and 

 in what direction its solution must be sought. The 

 object to be attained is the practical expression of the 

 catholic faith of the Church in acts of worship, in which 

 the fellowship of believers unites to the praise of the 

 glory of God in Christ. The faith that utters itself in 

 such acts is necessarily articulate, otherwise there could 

 be no conscious fellowship. If the articulate utterance 

 of faith expresses only the personal experience of an 

 individual, the like-minded alone are edified ; if it avoids 

 everything that is definite, no one is edified at all. But 

 the extremes of sectarianism and the Broad Church may 

 both be avoided if we observe that there is such a thing 

 as a normal Christian faith, which is, in fact, the faith of 

 the Church made perfect, and which has the power to draw 

 all believers to it ; that whenever this normal faith is 

 intellectually apprehended in all its bearings, and practic 

 ally applied to the administration of every function of 

 the Church, the Church has attained to catholicity, and 



