the Church. For
the Spirit was given for this purpose that He might unify those who
differ in race and variety of habits.' This inward life is no doubt,
as we shall see, imparted, maintained and perfected through outward
means or institutions--baptism, the eucharist, human offices and
ministries; but none the less it is the inward life which makes the
Church one. So that her unity is like the unity of a family or a race,
a unity of blood and life which exists in spite of all outward
differences: and not like such a unity as is produced by outward
government, as, for example, Armenians, Syrians, Kurds, and Turks make
up the unity of the Turkish empire, or Englishmen and Frenchmen the
Dominion of {152} Canada. The unity of the Christian Church is thus a
unity which ought to express itself in 'the bond of peace,' but which
does not consist in that, any more than the unity of a family consists
in the affection and sympathy which yet brothers ought to have one to
another. This Pauline idea of church unity--which is the idea also of
the New Testament as a whole--constantly finds expression in early
Christian writings, but one particular expression of it may be cited.
Hilary of Poitiers, in argument with the Arians, is confronted with the
position that the phrase 'I and my Father are one' means only one in
will, not one in nature, like the phrase used of the Church, 'one heart
and soul.' He refutes the argument by urging that, in the latter case
also, what is referred to is not a unity of wills but of nature:
believers are 'one thing through a new birth into the same (new)
nature.' 'Ye are all one,' says St. Paul, 'in Christ Jesus.' 'The
apostle teaches that this unity of the faithful comes from the nature
of the sacraments.... What then can concord of minds have to do with a
case where men are already made one by being clothed with one Christ
through the nature of one baptism?[9]' This passage gives {153} a
striking view of what ultimately constitutes church unity.

It is necessary to call attention to this position because the great
Roman church, which occupies so large a space in the whole area of the
church, and impresses its ideas so powerfully upon men's imagination,
has perverted this idea of church unity by a one-sided emphasis on
unity of government. I find a typical modern Roman statement in Dr.
Hunter's _Outlines of Dogmatic Theology_[10]: 'The Church has a
principle of oneness which joins the members to