UNION
134
UNION
dedicating them by baptism to the worship of (tls
t6 Bvofjui), and therefore to belief in, the Trinity in
Unity. (6) At the same time, that the human mind,
in thus giving its assent to doctrines so difficult for
it to conceive, may do no violence to its own rational
nature, the above passages tell us of the promise of
the Spirit to abide for ever in the Church, to guide at
all times the mind of the teaching body, organized
under its visible head, so that it may alwaj's be kept
from corrupting the sacred doctrine, and presenting
it for acceptance in a form foreign to its original
purity. Lastly, (7) that we may understand the
vital importance of this unity of communion, of this
unity of truth, for the due carrying out of the Church's
work, we have the prayer of Christ to His Father to
teach us that the spectacle of it was intended by Him
to furnish the world with the most signal and con-
vincing proof of the Divinity of the Christian reUgion:
"That even as the Father is in Me, and I in Him,
BO they may be one in Us, that the world may beheve
that Thou hast sent Me." We can appreciate the
character of this motive, we who live in an age when
the divisions of Christendom are cast in om- faces as
evidence of the uncertainty on which the Christian
pretensions rest. We can see how it would facilitate
Christian work at home and in the mission field, if
we could still say, as in the time of the Apostles,
"The universality of those that believe are of one
heart and one soul." We can understand how dis-
cerning observers, weighing the natural tendency of
human minds to differ, would, in the presence of such
a world-wide unity, be fain to exclaim, "This is some-
thing that surpasses the power of nature; the hand of
God is here."
(B) As understood by the Apostles and their Dis- ciples. — In the Acts and the Epistles we have a record of the way in which the Apostles understood their commission, and it is obvious that the two things corrcs]5ond. After receiving the promised gift of the Spirit, the Apostles go forth confidently and commence their preaching. Peter is their leader and, in those early days, so far their spokesman as for the moment to throw his fellow-Apostles almost entirely into the shade. Even St. John, great as he was, and, as we may gather from a comparison of the writings of the two, greatly St. Peter's intellectual superior, accompanies him as a silent companion, thus illustrating the completeness of the union that bound together the Apostohc band. In his preaching St. Peter follows an easily recognizable plan. First he seeks to accredit himself and his colleagues by appealing to the character of their Master, Whose life had been led before the eyes of the people of Jerusalem. He was Jesus of Nazareth, "a man approved by God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God WTOught through him in the midst of you" (Acts, ii, 22), One, therefore, to Whose teaching the people were bound to attend and Whose representatives they were bound to receive. It was true that He w-ho had thus been approved by God among them had afterwards fallen into the hands of wicked men who had taken and slain Him, thereby appearing to show signs of weakness hard to reconcile with such stupendous claims. But the Twelve, who were now addressing the people, were also known to them as having each and all been the companions of the Lord Jesus all the time He went in and out from the Baptism of John (Acts, i, 21, 22); and these could testify from their own immediate experience that what had befallen their Master, so far from being a real sign of weakness, had been ordained for His glorification "by the determinate counsel and fore- knowledge of God", Who, after thus permitting His Son's death for our .sakcs, had "raised liim up" from the dead, whereof they, the Apostles, were the wit- nesses (Acts, ii, 33), as they were also of His subse- quent Ascension,
Having thus declared and authenticated their
commission, and having received a further confirma-
tion of it by the miracles wrought through their inter-
cession (Acts, iv, 10, 29, 30; v, 12, 16), which made a
deep impression on the people, they take up a position
of the utmost authority (Acts, v, 32), proclaim their
Master's teaching, and, on the faith of their sole word,
demand credence for it and obedience to its require-
ments. "Therefore let the House of Israel know that
God hath made this same Jesus whom you crucified
both Lord and Christ. Repent and be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remis-
sion of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost" (Acts, ii, 36, 38). Thus did they teach and
claim to be beheved, and thus did they call upon their
hearers to enter the nascent Church by Baptism and
to place themselves as disciples under the Apostolic
instruction and rule. And this is what the hearers did
in large numbers. On the day of Pentecost itself
there were added to the Church, we are told, three
thousand souls (ibid., ii, 41), a number which a few
days later, after another discourse from St. Peter,
swelled into five thousand; and from thence the mul-
titude steadil)' grew, not only in Jerusalem, but in
Judaea, and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth
(iv, 4). In strict conformity with the words of Christ
(make disciples of all nations. . . . He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved), those who thus join
themselves to the Ajjostles are described invariably
as "believers" (Trio-Toi, Acts, x, 4.5), or again as "dis-
ciples" (/itoflijToi, Acts, ix, 1; xi, 26; xvi, 1), or in other
places as "those who are being saved" (ffufiSjuexoi,
Acts, ii, 47; I Cor., i, IS). On these principles the
Church was founded, and from these principles unity
of faith and communion resulted. "They continued",
we read, "steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching and
communion, and in the breaking of bread and in
prayer" (Acts, ii, 42); and again "the multitude of
them that believed were of one heart and one soul"
(iv, 32). Later indeed disputes arose and led to
critical situations. That was to be expected, for
human minds necessarily approach subjects that
challenge their attention from the standpoint of their
own antecedents, which means that their judgments
are apt to be one-sided and to differ. But the point
to note is that in those times the authority of the
Apostles was universally recognized as competent to
decide such controversies and to require obedience to
its decrees. Accordingly, they were controversies
which led to no breach of communion, but rather (o
a strengthening of the bonds of communion by ehcit-
ing clearer statements of the truths to which all
believers were committed by their faith. One
instance of a controversy thus happily terminated we
have in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts. It is a
valuable illustration of what has been said, for it
was settled by the authority of the Apostles, who met
together to consider it, and ended by affirming the
equality of Jews and Gentiles in the Christian Church,
together with the non-necessity of circumcision as a
condition of participating in its full benefits; and by
recommending to the Gentile converts a certain
(apparently temporary) concession to Jewish feelings
which might soften the difficulties of their mutual
intercourse. " It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost
and to us" (xv, 28) was the ground on which those
Apostles claimed obedience to their decree, thereby
Betting a type of procedure and language which sub-
sequent rulers of the Church have consistently
followed.
From t he second part of the Act s and from the remain- ing books of the New Testament we have the means of ascertaining how St. Paul and the other .\postles conceived of their mission and authority. It is clear that they, too, regarded themselves as clothed by Jesus Christ w-ith authority both to teach and to rule, that they, too, expected and received in every place a like
