1 H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jtsus Christ, 101.
ST. MATTHEW xvi. 18 293
fulfilled through His Spirit, under a sense of His presence. " Ubi Christus, ibi cccksia." Where Christ is, there is the Church. It is the organ through which the great truths He preached, those of God, of the meaning and worth of His words and life and passion and redemption, are declared. It is the witness to His resurrection, the evangelist of His message, the pillar and ground of His truth, the fold of His flock. Like every other society it must have its officers and its ceremonies. Like every other society it must have its functions and its services. These have been simply and fully described as " the word, sacraments, and prayer." Whatever more men shall plead they may and should add to the form and fashion of the Church of Christ nothing more than this was understood by the men of Christ's own time.1
2. The Church, or assembly of God's people, is represented as a house ; not a temple so much as a beleaguered fortress, accord- ing to the figure frequently used by the prophets immediately before the Captivity, and naturally suggested by the actual position of the palace and Temple of Jerusalem on their impregnable hills. But this assembly or congregation, which up to this time ' had been understood only of the Jewish people, is here described as being built afresh ; " built," according to the significant meaning of that word, which, both in the Old and in the New Testament, always involves the idea of progress, creation, expansion, by Him who here, as so often elsewhere, appropriates to Himself what had up to that time been regarded as the incommunicable attribute of the Lord of Hosts. It is of this fortress, this " spiritual house," to use the phrase in his own Epistle (1 Pet. ii. 5), that Peter is to be the foundation-rock. It was no longer to be reared on the literal rock of Zion, but on a living man, and that man not the high priest of Jerusalem but a despised fisherman of Galilee. He who had stepped forward with his great confession in this crisis had shown that he was indeed well fitted to become the stay and support of a congregation no less holy than that which had been with Moses in the wilderness, or with Solomon in the Temple.
Tj We are to be careful as to where we build, and with what
we build. The Eddystone Lighthouse was once demolished
because it did not properly rest on the rock ; and if we are not
built on Christ — His doctrine, merit, fellowship, promise — we must
1 W. M. Glow, The Secret oj the Lord, 4d.
294 MY CHURCH
be confounded. Let me be sure that I am morticed into the impregnable Rock! Careful with what we build! Eddystone Lighthouse perished once becau.se it was built of wrong material — constructed of wood, it was burnt. How much often enters into the Christian creed that is not jewel or gold — fancies, specu- lations, notions, utterly worthless ! How much often enters into the Christian life that is superficial, freakish, trivial, inferior, and in- harmonious ! Strange combinations of the true and the false, the precious and the paltry, the beautiful and the vulgar, the essential and the absurd ! Lord, grant me grace to build on the granite — to build on Thee.1
3. Christ describes the Church lovingly as " My church." If we read the Gospels carefully we shall see with what strictness of application our Lord used the word " My." He never said, " My house," " My lands " " My books," " My wife," " My child." He said, " My Father," " My friends," " My disciples." When w» think of it we shall see that His true possessions were His Father and His Church—" My Father," '* My Church."
The Church is the company, now indeed quite innumerable, of disciple-like souls who are for ever and ever learning of Him, some of them, the greater number, beholding His face, and serving Him day and night in His temple ; the rest not seeing Him yet, but rejoicing in Him with joy unspeakable and full of glory. In a word, the Church is the faithful souls of every place and name known and unknown to whom His name is unutterably dear and His words are more precious than fine gold, who love Him with a love that is more than human, who trust Him with a trust that is stronger than life or death, whose eager desire is to obey Him and serve Him, and whose fervent prayer for ever and ever is to get His truth made known, His salvation proved, and His name lifted above every name, until at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. Upon all these, wherever they are, the Saviour looks down as with the joy of one who looks upon a noble possession, and He says, " They are My Church ; and there is no other."
^| It is not our Church ; it is Christ's Church, first and last and always. We cannot do in it what we please : we must do what Christ pleases. He is its Builder. We may use the term " Builder " of Him very much as we use it of an architect to-day. Jesus Christ is the Architect of the Christian Church, and we are