ccepted by its members, and which admits
of being formulated in order to be preserved; still this truth may be
advanced and defended mainly by one of two methods--that of external
regulative authority, or that of appeal to principles, discussion,
controversy, {158} exhortation. And it can hardly be denied that St.
Paul prefers the latter. Sharp appeals to authority are indeed to be
found in St. Paul[15], but they are very rare. For example, in none of
his epistles against the Judaizers is the authority of the apostolic
decision, as to what might and what might not be required of the
Gentile Christians 'in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia[16],' brought into
requisition; though that decision 'settled the question.' He prefers
to prove that 'circumcision is nothing.' This may be in part accounted
for by St. Paul's refusal to admit that his own apostolic authority
needed the support of the twelve, and by the limited area to which the
decision was addressed; but there is another reason as well. For he
plainly, as all his epistles show, prefers to appeal not to authority
at all but to the spiritual reason; to expound principles, to argue, to
awaken the heart, conscience, and mind of Christians. It must be
admitted that there is very little in St. Paul's epistles about
differences of doctrinal views among Christians as distinct from
differences in practices. Yet there is enough--as in the vigorous
passage about the 'regarding of one {159} day above another[17]'--to
justify the belief that he would not have viewed with any disapproval
the existence in the Church of tolerated differences of opinion where
they did not touch the basis of the Church's life. Such differences of
view are hardly separable from what St. Paul glories in--a unity which
is consistent with great variety of gifts and character, and great
freedom. It is unity in variety which he has as his ideal, such a
unity as is always characteristic of a unity of life, like that of
nature or of a free people; or a unity, again, like that of a great
Gothic Church, or of the Bible.

It is quite certain that St. Paul would have deprecated that 'short and
easy' method of promoting unity which has constant recourse to the
external pressure of dogma and authority.

iv.

It follows naturally from what has been just said, that St. Paul should
look not so much to ecclesiastical enactments as to a right Christian
temper for preserving outward unity. 'Making it your mora