Fourthly, The universal visible church. While they are in the way, and in the midst of their conflicts, it is possible many hypocrites may take up the profession, as in the great house are many vessels, some to honour, some to dishonour. From these ariseth an external promiscuous multitude, who also are called the catholic church, for the sake and with respect to those holy ones among them who truly belong to Christ's mystical body. We read often the kingdom is like to a net wherein are good and bad fishes, Mat. xiii. ; to a thrashing- floor wherein is chaff and wheat ; to a field wherein groweth good corn and also tares. Mat. xiii. 24, 25. Now all these ways is the universal church taken.
Fifthly, There are particular churches wherein the ordinances and means of grace are dispensed, as the church of Corinth, Cenchrea, Galatia, Greek, Roman. None of these particular churches contain all believers or the elect of God, that out of them or any of them there should be no salvation. Again, the universal church may remain in the world total and entire, though these particular churches, one or other of them, may successively be destroyed, as it hath often fallen out. And it is a great sin so to cry up a particular church as to exclude all the rest from saving communion with Christ ; and for any one particular church to arrogate power over the others, they being but members.
This church is called a body in two respects : —
Col. I. 18.] christ the head of the church. 457
(1.) In regard of the union of all the parts.
(2.) Dependence upon one and the same head.
(1.) With respect to union, as in man all the members make but one body, quickened by the same soul, so in the mystical body of Christ all the parts makeup but one body, animated by the same vital principle, which is the Spirit of Christ, and are joined together by certain bonds and ligaments — faith and love; and all iscovered with the same skin — the profession of the faith of Christ. Look, what the soul is in man, the form in the subject, life in the body, and proportion in the build- ing ; that in the universal church of God is the union and communion of the several and single parts, with the head among themselves. Take away the soul from man, the form from the subject, life from the body, proportion and conjunction from the parts of the building, and what will man be but a carcase, and the building but ruin and confusion ? So take away union and communion from the universal church, then Jerusalem will become a Babel, and Bethel a Bethaven; and for life there will be death, and for salvation eternal destruction. How else shall all that come out from one, return again to one, and all and every one have all things in one, that at length they may acquiesce in the enjoyment of one — that is God — as their chiefest good ? Alas ! without this union with the head, and among themselves in necessary things, what can they expect but wrath and the curse, and everlasting destruction ?
(2.) With respect to dependence on one head : Rom. xii. 5, ' We, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members of one another' — that is, all things make up one body, of which Christ is the head, and are fellow-members in respect of one another. As necessary and as desirable as it is to be united to God, to life and glory ever- lasting, so necessary and desirable it is to depend upon Christ, the head ; for no man, after the entrance of sin, can return to God, or enjoy God, without Christ the mediator: John xiv. 6, ' I am the way, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh to the Father but by me,' Acts iv. 12 ; ' There is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved, but only Jesus Christ,' 1 Cor. iii. 11 ; ' Other foundation can no man lay, but that which is laid, Jesus Christ,' 1 John v. 12 ; ' He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life.' God pro- claimed from heaven, Mat, iii. 17, ' This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' He being one God with the Father and the Spirit, of the same substance and essence, he only can procuremerit, and effect our union with God. He first assumed our nature, and united it to his own person, and so became one flesh with us : but then all those that belong to that nature, if they believe in him, and enter into his covenant, ai-e not only literally one flesh, but mystically one body, and so also one Spirit, 1 Cor. vi. 17 — that is, by the bond of the Spirit he hath brought them into the state and relation of a body to himself. To gather up all : Man's return to God is necessary to his blessedness, that he may be inseparably conjoined to him as his chiefest good. To this purpose the Son of God assumed our nature in the unity of his person, and there- by bringeth about the union of the church with himself as our head, and our communion with one another in faith and charity, if we desire to be blessed, and so is according to Christ's prayer : John xvii. 21,