set upon
what are commonly known as 'ecclesiastical tendencies.' {164} Now it is
time to emphasize the other side of the representation. For without a
strongly engrained prejudice, there is not, it seems to the present
writer, any possibility of doubting that St. Paul meant by 'the Church'
in general, a society visible and organized, represented by a number of
visible and organized local societies or churches[18]. The Church is
in fact ideal in its spiritual character, but not one bit the less an
association of human beings, a society with quite definite limits,
ties, and obligations. For, to begin with, the 'one baptism' which
conveyed the spiritual gift of incorporation into Christ was also the
initiation into an actual brotherhood, with its rules of conduct,
worship, and belief: 'we were all baptized into one body[19].' The
'one Spirit' was normally bestowed by the 'laying on of' apostolic
'hands'--that is, the hands of the chief governors of the Christian
corporation. This rite followed upon and completed baptism, and its
administration had {165} been one of St. Paul's first ministerial acts
after he began his preaching at Ephesus[20]. Again, 'the breaking of
the bread' or eucharist, according to St. Paul's teaching, both
nourished the life of Christ in the Church, as being the communion of
His body and blood, and also, in the 'one loaf,' symbolized its outward
corporate unity[21].

Thus the bestowal of gifts of grace through outward rites, which
belonged to the corporate life of a society, insured that a Christian
should be no isolated and independent individual. More than this, the
necessary dependence of each individual Christian upon the one
organized society is made further evident by the existence of
spiritually endowed officers of the society who were as 'the more
honourable limbs of the body'--'some apostles, some prophets, some
evangelists, some pastors and teachers'--without whom the body would
have lacked its divinely-given equipment for ministry and edification.
These were not merely more or less gifted or (as we say) talented
individuals who undertook particular sorts of work on their own
initiative, or by the invitation of any group of Christian individuals.
We find that the apostles at least were a definite {166} body of men
who had received special commission from Christ Himself to govern His
Church[22]. The Christian 'prophets' were men of special supernatural
endowment, to know and declar