It is true that this notion contained in it something very flattering to the human mind and the natural feelings, for it supposed an immediate relation between Christ and the individual, and an illumination of the readers mind by the influence of the Holy Spirit, the sole instrument of which was the reading of the Scripture. Thus this notion got rid at one stroke of Church, sacraments, discipline, and all spiritual rule.
The objections to it at once apparent were: First, it was not only without warrant from Scripture itself, but directly opposed to its plainest statement, such as "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," and all those other passages in which the foundation of spiritual authority is set forth. Secondly, it was directly opposed to the historical fact in the way in which the Church was actually instituted. Thirdly, it was no less opposed to the way in which the Church had been carried on in every age and every country through the fifteen centuries. A fourth objection was made to it as soon as it was set up, but only the actual experience of three centuries and a half could adequately express its force. It has been found to produce not unity of belief, but every possible variety and opposition, until at last the final point has been reached, that this variety and opposition are viewed as being a good in themselves, and an assurance of the mind's freedom; and the possession of one faith, which was the glory of all Christians, and viewed by the Fathers as a sensible token of Christ's Godhead, has ceased, by those who received and transmitted Luther's notion, to be deemed practicable or even desirable. In other words, those who deserted the unity of the supernatural kingdom have been broken without hands into a shapeless anarchy.
If, then, we consider as a whole the work of positive promulgation carried on by the Church from the Day of Pentecost to the bestowal of civil liberty upon it by Constantine, we find it to consist in the action of the Spirit of Christ animating that teaching Body which began with the Apostles and was continued in their living succession. We find the method of internal promulgation which that teaching Body pursued was the creation everywhere of a Christian polity. Of this the main parts were the discipline and direction of the whole spiritual being which the sacraments embraced. One of them contained the great central act of daily worship and the supersubstantial bread of daily life. Into this polity men were admitted after careful probation and instruction of each individual by word of mouth, and the chief articles of belief were delivered to him upon his admission by an act of supreme authority. The Creed was the soldier's oath of fidelity when he entered into the sacred army. The censure and restoration of sinning members were provided for by other acts of supreme authority. Nor did it only impart to the incoming disciple what he should believe summed up in the Creed, but it presented to its members collectively the Sacred Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Thus the living society carried both the written and unwritten Word, not as separate and disjointed, but as one treasure-house of truth committed to its perpetual guardianship. For all these means were comprehended in a divine unity which excluded partition. That unity was the mystical Body of Christ, and these means subsisted in and by force of the Body of Christ; for just as the human soul[154] is the life of the human body, without which its members would cease to be an organism and fall back into dust, so the Spirit of God animated this Body of Christ, binding together in one life those manifestations of doctrine, worship, and government the system of which we have been trying to follow.