stated directly as follows: 'The analogy so much presented to us in Holy Scripture, of the natural body of a man, can hardly, as it seems to me, be pressed too far in its strong and close bearing upon my present point. One vitality diffused over the whole, special organs for special services of general and indispensable use, all needful for each, each needful for all; - does not the likeness seem to fit in every particular, showing by an example of which every one of us is fully capable of judging how "the whole" spiritual "body fitly framed together, and compacted by means of every joint of the supply, according to the working in the measure of each several part, maketh the growth of the body unto the building up of itself in love?" The strength and health of the whole natural body is needed to enable each separate member and limb, each bodily organ and faculty, to discharge its own proper functions successfully; and yet no one of these separate members or organs derives its own peculiar functions nor the power to exercise them in the first place from that strength and health. The nervous sensibility helpful to the eye as the organ of sight, or to the ear as the organ of hearing, or to the other organs for the discharge of their respective offices, is diffused over the whole body; yet not only do these organs not derive their peculiar powers from that diffused sensibility, but if the organs themselves be from any cause inoperative, no such diffused sensibility can restore them. The body is absolutely blind, if the eye cannot see, and entirely deaf if the ear cannot hear. The case appears to be closely, I might say singularly, parallel to that of the spiritual body, and may very justly, as it does most forcibly, illustrate the case of a priesthood, strictly representative in its own proper being, yet receiving personal designation and powers, not by original derivation from the body which it represents, or continual reference to it, but by perpetual succession from a divine source and spring of authorizing grace.'

The thought thus expressed appears to be exactly

reflected by Canon Gore, when he is speaking of the relation of ministry, as such, to the Body as a whole: 'It is an abuse of the sacerdotal conception, if it is supposed that the priesthood exists to celebrate sacrifices or acts of worship in the place of the body of the people or as their substitute. . . . . The ministry is no more one of vicarious action than it is one of exclusive knowledge or exclusive spiritual relation to God. What is the truth then? It is that the Church is one body. The free approach to God in the Sonship and Priesthood of Christ belongs to men as members of “one body," and this one body has different organs through which the functions of its life find expression, as it was differentiated by the act and appointment of Him who created it. The reception, for instance, of Eucharistic grace, the approach to God in Eucharistic sacrifice, are functions of the whole body. "We bless the cup of blessing," "we break the bread," says St. Paul, speaking for the community; "we offer," "we present," is the language of the liturgies. But the ministry is the organthe necessary organ-of these functions. It is the hand which offers and distributes; it is the voice which consecrates and pleads. And the whole body can no more dispense with its services than the natural body can grasp or speak without the instrumentality of hand or tongue. Thus the ministry is the instrument as well as the symbol of the Church's unity, and no man can share her fellowship except in acceptance of its offices 1.'

It is a cognate thought which is in Dr. Milligan's mind

1 The Church and the Ministry, pp. 85, 86. I refrain from quoting, but must make reference to, a similar passage on pp. 93, 94, which substitutes a Christianly corporate, for Bishop Lightfoot's individualistic, basis of Church polity (see above, p. 46): Each Christian has in his own personal life a perfect freedom of access. But he has this because he belongs to the one body. . . . The individual life can receive this fellowship with God only through membership in the one body and by dependence upon social sacraments of regeneration, of confirmation, of communion, of absolution-of which ordained ministers are the appointed instruments. A fundamental principle of Christianity is that of social dependence.'

when he says, of the prophetical office of the Church, 'It may, for the sake of order, be distributed through appropriate members; but primarily it belongs to the Church as a whole, the life of Christ in His prophetical office being first her life, and her life then pervading and animating any particular persons through whom the work of prophesying is performed 1.' It is hardly necessary, at this point, to canvass the precise meaning or adequacy of the phrase 'for the sake of order.' Dr. Milligan is engaged rather in vindicating the priority of the corporate life and powers of the Church than in distinguishing the exact nature or sanction of the authority of those who, ministerially, exercise her powers. And it is plain, I imagine, that his thought, even when emphasizing most the priority of the collective Church, never, as if by necessary logic, infers that ministerial authority must needs be either conferred by those who themselves have it not, or implicitly possessed, de jure, by all Christians alike.

It would not be very good logic to confound the universal with the distributive 'all.' If all Englishmen,' i. e. universally, the total nation, could abolish rights of property, it does not follow that 'all Englishmen,' i.e. distributively, any one who is English, has authority to abolish property; nor, if the rights of 'all Englishmen,' i. e. universally, are, for certain purposes, representatively exercised by the sovereign, does it follow either historically that the sovereign was appointed by popular vote, or even that there could not be such a thing as a sacred succession and Divine right to be king.

The distinction, then, between these two thoughts, the thought on the one hand that the ministry represents the whole Body, and (under whatever sanction) wields, ministerially, authority and powers which, in idea and in truth, inherently belong to the collective life of the Body as a whole; and the thought, on the other hand, that every member of the Body is equally of right a minister, 1 The Ascension of our Lord, p. 236; cp. also pp. 222, 223, 229, &c.

or that, if there be a distinctive right to minister, it is conferred by the voice of the Body simply, without authorizing or enabling empowerment of directly and distinctly Divine ordaining, is a distinction of absolutely vital importance for the understanding of the rationale of ministry.

This distinction, however, is one which, for whatever reason, is not before the mind either of Dr. Hatch or of Bishop Lightfoot at all. I said just now that it was impossible not to sympathize with the generous warmth which seems to underlie much of Dr. Hatch's language upon the priestly character of the Church as a whole. But it was not easy to quote language which would express this without ipso facto implying that, in the original and ideal Church, one and all had the implicit right of ministering alike in sacred things; an idea which, I venture to think, even the New Testament alone is sufficient to disprove 1. I may now however venture to quote some of his sentences, strongly commending the one half of his meaning, whilst as strongly protesting against the ambiguous inclusion (as I must hold) of untruth in the other half. In those early days before the doors of admission were thrown wide open, before children were ordinarily baptized and men grew up from their earliest years as members of a Christian society, before Christianity had become a fashionable religion and gathered into its net fish "of every kind," both good and bad-the mere membership of a Christian Church was in itself a strong presumption of the possession of high spiritual qualifications. The Christian was in a sense which has often since been rather a satire than a metaphor, a "member of Christ," a "king and priest unto God." The whole body of Christians was upon a level; "all ye are brethren." The distinctions which St. Paul makes between Christians are based not upon

1 Cp. e. g. Acts xiv. 23; xx. 28; 1 Cor. xii. 29; to say nothing of the pastoral Epistles.

office, but upon varieties of spiritual power." Again: 'There was a vivid sense, which in later times was necessarily weakened, that every form of the manifestation of the religious life is a gift of God—a xápioμa, or direct operation of the Divine Spirit upon the soul. Now while this sense of the diffusion of spiritual gifts was so vivid, it was impossible that there should be the same sense of distinction between officers and non-officers which afterwards came to exist. Organization was a less important fact than it afterwards became 2' Upon the exaltation of the ideal of the lay life, which clearly ennobles these passages, I shall have something to add presently. Meanwhile, Dr. Hatch, after speaking of the growth of Church organization (in the second instance as he thinks, and in exaggerated form), goes on: 'Then came a profound reaction 3' (i. e. Montanism). 'They' (Montanists) 'reasserted the place of spiritual gifts as contrasted with official rule 4.' 'The view which he (Tertullian) took of the nature of office in the Church was that it does not, as such, confer any powers upon its holders which are not possessed by the other members of the community 5. The fact of the existence of Montanism, and of its considerable success, strongly confirms the general inferences which are drawn from other evidence, that Church officers were originally regarded as existing for the good government of the community and for the general management of its affairs: that the difference between Church officers and other baptized persons was one of status and degree: that quoad the spiritual life, the two classes were on the same footing: and that the functions which the officers performed were such as, apart from the question of order, might be performed by any member of the community??

1

p. 121.

2 p. 122.

3

p. 122.

4 p. 123.

5 p. 124.

6i. e. no doubt, orderliness, Táis, 'propter ecclesiae honorem'; not technically Ordo' or 'Orders.' It is like Bishop Lightfoot's phrase 'has for convenience entrusted'; see below, p. 76,

7p. 125.