established an earthly monarchy, the germs of a schism began to manifest themselves. When, after the overthrow of Absalom, King David crossed back over the Jordan, "the men of Israel came to the king, and said unto the king, Why have our brethren the men of Judah stolen thee away ?" 1 And they said to the men of Judah, "We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye. . . . And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel."2 The whole passage shows clearly that the quarrel between the north and the south had begun. And at last the separation took place; and Rehoboam reigned in the south, and Jeroboam in the north. The visible unity of the people of God was suspended. But the people remained one. God's people were not limited to the two tribes who followed the house of David. When the prophet, who was Elisha's messenger, poured the oil on Jehu's head, he said unto him, "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over the people of the Lord, even over Israel." Israel had its great saints and prophets as well as Judah. One may almost say that in Elijah and Elisha Israel had greater saints than Judah; and the prophet expressly tells us that Samaria" did not commit half of Jerusalem's sins." Notwithstanding the suspension of political unity, the essential unity of the nation continued. S. Paul speaks of " the promise made of God unto our fathers; unto which promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain.” 7

I cannot doubt that this history of Israel was a prophecy of the Church of the new covenant. The Church, which is the new Israel, was organized by our Lord under twelve coordinate apostles. The apostles and their successors the bishops were the earthly guardians of the Church's unity; but in some sense the earthly organization was incomplete. There was no one central authority, no one permanent controlling power here on earth. The Church's Head was to be on high, within the veil. The constitution of the new Israel, as of the old, presupposed a living faith animating the militant Church and keeping it dependent on its Head. If the Church militant were a merely human creation, it would need, like other human societies, "a head in the same order of life as the rest of the body."8 But the Church is a divine

1 2 Sam. xix. 41.

2 Ibid., xix. 43.

3 Compare Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences, pp. 162–175 (8th edit.). On S. Cyprian's interpretation of the type of the rending of Israel from Judah, see note 9 on pp. 409, 470.

2 Kings ix. 6.

7 Acts xxvi. 6, 7; cf. S. Jas. i. I.

See Dr. Rivington's Authority, p. 5.

• Ezek. xvi. 51.

creation; and though it has a human Head, that Head is the Incarnate Son of God enthroned in glory, organically united to the Church on earth, the permanent Source of her essential unity, and perfectly able to secure her visible social unity, whenever He sees that her faith, and love, and humility, and unworldliness make it safe and desirable to grant to her that boon. In the early ages of the Church the Lord Jesus did grant to His Church the complete gift of visible unity. The Church was persecuted and unworldly and full of faith and love, and the Lord took care that her essential unity should be manifested visibly by the intercommunion of her several parts. Afterwards the Church made terms with the world, and the world was admitted within the sacred enclosure, and some leading portions of the Church began to cry out, like Israel of old, "Nay; but a king shall reign over us." Some were prepared to subject the Church to the Emperor, "the divine head," 1 as he was called by the imperial commissioners at the Council of Chalcedon. Others were willing to subordinate the whole Church to the usurped jurisdiction of the Roman pontiffs. But the mere fact that the notion of an earthly head should be seriously entertained was a token of how grievously the Church had fallen from her primitive fulness of realization of the things unseen. As the West came more and more under the dominion of the papal head at Rome, it became increasingly evident that the Church would lose, at any rate for a time, her visible social unity. Our Lord would not allow His Church to remain visibly united by intercommunion of her parts under any head but Himself; and so in process of time the East and West became separated, and later on Rome withdrew her communion from England. The analogy between Israel and the Church as regards this matter has been singularly complete.3

1 Tĥ dela kopʊpη (Coleti, iv. 1461).

He may be

2 The Bishop of Rome may be called "head" in two senses. called "head," as possessing from very ancient times a primacy of honour among bishops, just as the Duke of Norfolk may be called the head of the English nobility. He may also be called "head," as possessing a supposed primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church. It is in this latter sense that the word is used in the text.

3

It may be objected that, though there was no king at first in Israel, there was a high priest. But the high priest had, by the original constitution, no controlling power over the nation. The twelve tribal princes were not dependent. on him. The Lord God was the only King. When the nation asked for a king, they did not reject the high priest: they rejected God. The high priest went on. as before, at the head of the ministers of worship. The appointment of a king was not the substitution of one visible governor for another: it was the substitution of a visible for an invisible head. Among the Israelites the government of the people was not entrusted to the priesthood; but in the Church the bishops are not only priests, but princes, and it is as princes that they act as guardians of the Church's unity. If the Roman theory were true, the pope would be not only

And now to pass to a very important New Testament passage, which is often quoted as if it favoured the Roman theory that the Church is at all times a visibly united body. Our blessed Lord prayed on the night of His Passion, not only for His apostles, but, as He said, "for them also that believe on Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be [one] in us that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me" (S. John xvii. 20, 21).1 This was undoubtedly a prayer which was intended to result in the unity of Christian believers, and the unity of which our Lord spoke was a visible unity. It was to be a unity which the world could perceive, and which would, when perceived, draw the world to faith in the divine mission of Christ. So far we shall all agree. But then the Roman argument goes on to assert, that what our Lord prayed for must necessarily be granted in all ages of the Church as a permanent gift. It is supposed that Christ's prayer for visible unity is equivalent to a divine promise that visible unity shall never fail. Surely that is a very doubtful hypothesis. The final object of the prayer was that the world should believe in the divine mission of Christ; but the world as a whole has never yet believed in our Lord's divine mission. Doubtless the time will come when it will do so. The time will come when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea;" when "the kingdom of the world" shall "become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." I quite believe that that future conversion of the world will be brought about by a very wonderful restoration of visible unity to the Church, connected, it may be, with the future conversion of Israel; 4 the high priest, but also the monarch of the Church; and it would be as monarch that he would claim to be the centre of unity and the possessor of supreme jurisdiction. If the history of Israel before the Babylonish captivity is to help us in the present discussion, we must fix our attention on its kings and princes, rather than on its priests and Levites. It need hardly be added that, when I speak of the bishops as princes, I am alluding, not to any coactive jurisdiction which may in this or that country be granted to them by the civil power, but to the inherent spiritual jurisdiction which they inherit from the apostles.

"8

The passage discussed in the text is admitted by Roman Catholics to be a passage of primary importance in connexion with the teaching of Holy Scripture about the unity of the Church. Mr. Allies, in the third section of his treatise on the See of S. Peter (edit. 1866, p. 113 f.), in which he deals with the unity of the Church as being "the end and office of the primacy" of the pope, starts with a discussion of S. John xvii. And Father Bottalla, in the first section of his book on "The supreme authority of the pope " (edit. 1868, pp. 8-10), begins his discussion of unity by a consideration of our Lord's words recorded in S. John xvii. 20-23. See also Palmieri's Tractat. de Rom. Pont., edit. 1891, Prolegom. de Eccl., § xlviii., pp. 252, 253.

2 Isa. xi. 9.

3 Rev. xi. 15.

The Jesuit, Father Knabenbauer, quotes and adopts a very apposite passage from Cornelius à Lapide, bearing on this matter. He says, "Bene notat Lap. :

for, as S. Paul says, "What shall the receiving of" Israel "be, but life from the dead?" 1 But the point to be noticed is that, though our Lord prayed with the intention that, as the result of His prayer, the world should believe in Him, that result has not yet been produced.2 Our Lord's prayer, so far as it deals with the conversion of the world, is not equivalent to a promise applicable to all ages. And if the plain facts which history records, and which we see around us, compel us to this conclusion in regard to one object of the prayer, who shall venture to say that the same principle is not applicable to the other object? especially as the two objects of the prayer are so closely connected. Why may not the visible social unity of all believers be reserved for the future, as the conversion of the world is evidently reserved for the future? Moreover, it seems clear that the visible unity, which is to result in the conversion of the world, will be an unmistakable fact which the whole world will recognize. Its recognition will not depend on the world's accepting the private theory of one particular body of Christians. Roman

'tunc enim Antichristi regno everso Ecclesia ubique terrarum regnabit et fiet tam ex Judaeis quam ex Gentilibus unum ovile et unus pastor (Knabenb., Comment. in Daniel vii. 27, p. 202, edit. 1891).

1 Rom. xi. 15.

2 When our Lord says (S. John xvii. 20, 21), "Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on Me through their word; that (a) they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that (va) they also may be [one] in us: that (va) the world may believe that Thou didst send Me;" we are not to understand that our Lord is praying directly either for the visible unity of believers or for the conversion of the world. He prays for believers in general, as He had prayed for the apostles (vers. 11-15 and 17-19), that the Father would "keep them " and "sanctify them." That was the immediate intention of His prayer. But our Lord looks forward beyond the immediate intention. He wishes the faithful to be "kept" and "sanctified," in order that (lva) they may be one in the Father and in the Son, and in order that (iva) that unity visibly manifesting itself may result in the conversion of the world. The Church's visible unity and the world's conversion are the ultimate objects of His prayer. Compare the parallel prayer for the apostles in ver. 11, in which the immediate intention and the ultimate object are also distinguished.

Mr. Richardson (What are the Catholic Claims? p. 30) enumerates twelve claims, which he makes on behalf of the Roman communion. He formulates the fourth of these claims thus: "That not only did Christ pray to His Eternal Father for this visible unity, but that He also proclaimed the immediate answer to His prayer by the words, And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them, that they may be one as We also are One,' etc. (John xvii. 22)." On p. 49 he appears to identify this gift of "glory" with "the outward expression of unity." "All this is very strange and novel exegesis. The Fathers interpret the passage quite differently, and so does the great Jesuit commentator Maldonatus. S. Gregory Nyssen (in illud, Tunc Ipse Filius subjicietur, P. G., xliv. 1320, 1321) understands the "glory" to be the gift of the Spirit. S. Augustine and S. Bede understand it of the future glory in the world to come. S. Chrysostom and his followers understand it of the gift of miracles. Maldonatus understands it of the love which our Lord felt for His followers. In any case the "glory," which our Lord had given, cannot be "the outward expression of unity.' Our Lord implies that that is to be the ultimate result of the gift; it is not the gift itself.

Catholics may choose to imagine that they are the only people who really believe in Christ through the word of the apostles, and that, as they are visibly united, the first of the two objects, mentioned by our Lord in S. John xvii. 20, 21, has been attained in them. But it is evident that such a very partial realization of unity is no adequate fulfilment of our Lord's intention. What the world sees at present is a disunited Christendom; what our Lord desired was a completely united Christendom; and until that is attained, the promise implied in His great prayer remains unfulfilled. It is impossible to deduce from these words of Christ a pledge that the social unity of the Church shall never fail. The true deduction from what we are told about our Lord's prayer is just the opposite. If those for whom our Lord prayed constitute a body which of necessity is always visibly one by intercommunion, we should be obliged to say with all reverence that on that most sacred night our Lord had offered a needless prayer. We may gather, from the fact that He prayed, that the unity for which He prayed was a difficult thing, which could only be accomplished through the mighty power of the grace of God. Our Lord had in view a unity which would be brought about by the shedding forth of the Spirit of love, and by the Church's complete surrender of herself to the influences of that Spirit of love. He was not praying for a unity which should be the logically necessary outcome of a definition. Such a unity as our Lord prayed for is set before us in the history of the primitive Church, and such will be the visible unity of the finally reunited Church. For the present the Church and the world have made terms with each other; love has grown cold, and disunion is the necessary result. It is for us to labour and pray, and thus prepare the way for those "times of refreshing,' "1 which we know, on the sure testimony of Holy Scripture, are to come at last.

But on this question of the nature of the Church's visible unity, and on the cognate question as to whether communion with the see of Rome is a necessary condition of membership in the Catholic Church, Cardinal Wiseman appeals to "the doctrine of the ancient Fathers." To the Fathers, therefore, let us go. We shall have to reconsider, from a different point of view, some incidents of Church history which have already been discussed in the lectures dealing with the jurisdiction of the papal see, but I hope that I shall be able to avoid inonotonous repetition.

It will be remembered that Pope Victor (A.D. 188-198) "proscribed the Asian Christians by letters," and proclaimed

1 Acts iii. 19.