same reason, because it contains a mixture of good and bad men, of real and professing believers, of consistent and of merely nominal Christians: and to both we return the same answer, that such is precisely the sort of Church which the representations of Scripture lead us to anticipate'. If the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, visibly 'The names and titles given to the Church are of two sorts: for there are some that are verified of it in respect of the whole considered generally, and as it comprehendeth all those that concurre in the same intire profession of heavenly verities, and outward meanes of salvation, though they be of very divers, different, and contrary condition: so it is named, a great house, wherein there are vessels of honour and dishonour, in which there are that walke according to the rule of Christianity, and worthy of God; and others that walke inordinately. It is named a field, in which is wheate mingled with tares. It is a floore, in which there is wheate and chaffe. It is a company of virgins attending the comming of the bridegroome, whereof some are wise, having oyle in their lampes, others foolish, having none. It is a net cast into the sea, that gathereth into it good fishes and bad. Other names and titles there are, which are not verified of the Church considered generally in all her parts, but onely in respect of some parts, and those the best and principall; so it is named the spouse of Christ, and the wife of the Lambe, a royall Priesthood, an holy nation, and a peculiar people, the Love of Christ, all faire, undefiled, and without spot, the onely Dove, an orchard inclosed, a well sealed up, a fountaine of living water, a Paradise with all precious, delectable, and desireable fruit, and that nothing may be added to the honour of it. It is the mysticall body of Christ, which he doth animate, formalize, and quicken with his owne spirit: of this body the wicked are not members, though they bee members of the body of the Church generally considered. It is therefore a vaine dispute betweene them that say, they are members of the mysticall body of Christ, though not living members, and them that say they are parts, but not members: for they are neither parts nor members of the mysticall body of Christ, though they be both in respect of the body of the Church considered generally. And it is false that Bellarmine affirmeth, that we require inward qualities to make a man to be of the Church, thereby making it unknowen who are that Church, to whose authoritie and direction the Lord commandeth us to submit ourselves. For we doe not require inward qualities in a man, before hee can be at all of the Church; but before hee can bee fully, and of the mysticall body of Christ.-FIELD. On the Church, book i. pp. 17, 18. marked and circumscribed in the world (for in no other sense can the original phrase be thus rendered), comprehend within its sacred fold, as defined by the Lord himself, two descriptions of persons, contrasted in character, and agreeing only in a common profession, shall we hope to construct a Church that shall include the one, and exclude the other? Can we find in Scripture any permission to make the attempt by schism, any encouragement to hope for success within the Church itself? The necessity of Church discipline, the propriety of ecclesiastical censures, the lawfulness of excommunication itself, are not here disputed. As the first Advent of Christ affords a type and prophecy of the second, the predictions which were partly fulfilled in the one, waiting for their full and final accomplishment in the other, so the kingdom of God on earth presents a faint and preparatory outline of the same divine economy, as it will hereafter be made perfect in heaven: and doubtless it is right and fit, nay, and our bounden duty, so far to anticipate those judgments, which the King shall make, when he shall come in to see his guests, as may be consistent with the known laws of the same heavenly Potentate. For in a lower sense, that desired visit has been already paid, and every one who refused to put on the garment of righteousness, excluded from the banquet of grace. The sentence is already past, and so far as it can be certainly known, "his servants" are bound to carry it into execution; and if the privileges of the visible Church be at once an image and preparatory state of the marriage supper of the Lamb, as it will be celebrated in his Father's kingdom, to be shut out from that favoured company, justly, and with the warrant of him in whose name it is assembled, may exhibit a warning symbol of that "outer darkness, where there is weeping, and gnashing of teeth." But when all is done, the separation can never be complete. Gross offenders may be thus visited, and in fact, by the laws of the Church here and every where, they are so visited, however imperfectly those laws may be executed'. But where external decency is not violated, we cannot hope to distinguish the true Christian from the false, the worldly from the spiritual man, with sufficient certainty to enable us to divide the one from the other, and, on that very account, we are expressly forbidden to attempt it. This is strongly marked in the parable of the wheat and the tares, as contrasted with that of the marriage supper. In the latter, the difference between the approved and the reprobate is open and palpable: in the former, there is a general similarity. In the one case, the king says to "his servants," " bind him hand and foot." In the other case, the direction is, " Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together till the harvest." Again, the guest who had not on a wedding garment, is but one, a presumptuous and remarkable offender; but the tares are largely intermingled with the wheat, the exact proportion being indeterminate. It is not here contended that we gain from these passages of Scripture a direct authority for Church censures, which are plainly defensible on other grounds: but as the penal jurisdiction of the Church does, in fact, extend to gross derelictions, but does not, and cannot, take cognizance of mere worldliness and insincerity, it is shown that there is nothing inconsistent in the above parables with such a practice: that the expulsion of the 1 See the Rubric to the Communion and Commination Services. intruding guest does not suggest the necessity of such a process of excommunication as should leave no further separation to be effected at the day of judgment: nor, on the other hand, the prohibition to root out the tares from among the wheat, tie up the hands of the Church, in those cases where there is no danger of mistaking the one for the other. 121 SERMON VIII. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. MATTHEW xiii. 11. Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. HAVING thus considered the nature of our Saviour's heavenly kingdom, as exhibited in his own prophetic announcement, it only remains to examine somewhat more nearly, the objections which may be raised to the above statements, by those who take a different view of the Gospel economy. The kingdom of heaven, it will be asserted, is not "the Church," certainly not any visible Church, but the reign of Christian principles, represented in the persons of true believers, known to God alone, and bound together in a mystical body. It has no outward representative on earth, fixed by divine authority. Or again, if a fixed outward developement were contemplated by our Saviour, and actually effected by his Apostles, the whole scheme has been frustrated by the corruption of mankind, and the wiles of the devil. That the kingdom of heaven, or of God, is the Church in the sense given to these terms by our Saviour, appears (as above shown) from his own words. That the Church actually founded, and so named by the Apostles, should correspond to this idea, and tend to realize it, (not a hint in Scripture appearing to the contrary,) is, to say the least, a probable conclusion. That this Church, if it ever existed, should have been immediately lost-that in the short and 1 |