even as ye are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all , who is above all , and through all, and in you all.” (Eph. iv. 4—6.) This is the great central truth in the person of Christ, and in the fellowship of the Spirit, around which all our Church associations and feelings are to gather, and flowing out of which all our individual life and activities as saints must proceed; for, continues the Apostle, “Unto each one is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ; wherein worketh that one Spirit, towards the perfecting of the Saints, unto the work of the ministry, unto the edifying of the body of Christ.” The body is nothing less than the whole mystic body, the bride of Christ; which, in the Revelation, is presented to us in her destined place in heaven, that body for which the Saviour prayed (John xvii.), that the members of it might be one and partakers of his glory.
Opposed to this grand principle of Church unity, that finds its resting place in Heaven, its centre in Jesus, and its life in the indwelling Spirit, is the notion of an earthly external oneness, guarded by an array of articles and creeds, and canons, which seeks to manifest union in a uniformity maintained, rather than in a life enjoyed. This principle of unity we see in Romanism; but there is more Romanism than that which is connected with Rome, and there are more popes, than he who occupies the chair of St. Peter; and there may be bonds of fellowship only the more inslaving, because the more undefined.
Besides the “great mystery” of which the Apostle speaks in Ephesians, touching the oneness of the Church in heaven, there is “the mystery of the seven candlesticks,” spoken of in the Revelation, which concerns the Churches on earth, seen not as one, but as many. Before the throne there stands the one candlestick, with its seven branches and its seven lamps of fire, which is represented in the golden candlestick of the Sanctuary of Israel; but, on earth, the candlesticks are seven, each standing on its own base, each separate and distinct, though all in the mystic number seven bound together, as having one common centre, but yet each standing separately under the guidance of the Lord, amongst which He is presented as walking, whose feet are as fine brass, and His eyes as a flame of fire. It is the confounding together of these distinct mysteries, which has led to those assumptions, to which the Church has been witness from the earliest days; and to stigmatize with the name of independency, of heresy, or of schism, the individual responsibility each Church has to the Lord; and to represent the acting on such responsibility as subversive of the funda-
