So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the {111} household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit. These are indeed metaphors expressive of glorious realities, which have no doubt become dulled in meaning through a conventional Christianity, which involves no sacrifice and therefore attains no sense of blessedness, but which a little meditation may easily restore to something of their original freshness. (1) The idea of the chosen people all through the Old Testament is that they are as a whole consecrated to God. Priests and kings appointed by God to their several offices may indeed fulfil special functions in the national life, yet the fundamental idea is never lost that the entire nation is holy, 'a kingdom of priests.' It is because this is true that the prophets can appeal as they do to the people in general, as well as to priests and rulers, as sharing altogether the responsibility of the national life. Now the whole of this idea is transferred, only deepened and intensified, to the Christian Church. That too has its divinely-ordained ministers, its differentiation of functions in the one body, but the whole {112} body is priestly, and all are citizens--not merely residents but citizens, that is, intelligent participators in a common corporate life consecrated to God. How truly realized this idea was in the early Christian communities, St. Paul's letters are our best witnesses. They are really--except the pastoral epistles--letters to the churches and not to the clergy. It is the whole body which is at Thessalonica and Corinth to concern itself with the exercise of moral discipline[4]--the whole body in the Galatian churches and at Colossae who are to concern themselves with the apprehension and protection of the full Christian truth. They are all to be 'perfectly initiated' in Christ Jesus, full participators in the affairs of the divine society[5]. Whatever needs to be said afterwards about the special functions of special officers, this is the first thing to be said and recognized; and it gives us a profound sense of the distance we have fallen from our ideal. The laity, it is generally understood among us, are to come to church and perhaps to communion, are to accept the ministries of religion at marriages and funerals, and are to subscribe a little money to religious objects; but they may leave it to the clergy, as a matter of course, to carry on {113} the business of religion--that is, worship and doctrine, for discipline has been dropped out--and confine themselves to a certain amount of irresponsible criticism of the sermons of the clergy and their proceedings generally. [Sidenote: _The catholic church_]