We proceed to consider the dangers which beset that unity.
What during this period was the defence of the Church against errors of belief?
We may subdivide our answer into two heads: first, the question of the _principle_ which actuated the Church in all her conduct of promulgating her faith; and, secondly, the question of _fact_, or a review of the errors themselves which she had to oppose.
The principle of the Church was, in one word, that which defines her own being—a divine authority establishing a kingdom, Jesus Christ, her Lord and Founder, living and acting in her. The consideration of the faith which she promulgated cannot be severed from that of her government and her worship. If we put together that which we have been observing, we find a hierarchy stretching over the whole earth, developing itself in councils, hearing and deciding causes both in an exterior and an interior forum, having a fourfold gradation, the Bishop in the diocese, the Metropolitan in the province, the Primate in the larger circle of several provinces, the Pope in the whole Church. But, further, the whole of this authoritative government rests upon an identical worship, in which dwells, in a wonderful manner, the very Person of Him who is the Founder and Maintainer of the kingdom, and which exhibits daily to the hearts and minds of His people the sublime truths upon which His presence rests. Again, this worship itself is a part of that daily discipline of life in which the people live, and by which they are subjects of their sovereign in the spiritual world of thought and action. The administration of sacraments, which belongs to practice, embraces a whole world of doctrine. It is also the carrying out and application to daily life of the Scriptures which the Church holds in her hands, and presents to her people under the guarantee of her authority.
Again, in all that we are enumerating, in the whole system of government, worship, and teaching, is comprised _the Word_ of God committed to the Church, a word partly written and partly unwritten, but in both its parts equally the word of God, not human thought or inference; and the teaching office is exercised in the living administration of the one and the other part, which cannot in practice be divided.[155]