I. I cannot think of the Christian Church as if it were a selection out of humanity. In its idea it is humanity. The hard, iron-faced man whom I meet upon the street, the degraded, sad-faced man who goes to prison, the weak, silly-faced man who haunts society, the discouraged sad-faced man who drags the chain of drudgery they are all members of the Church, members of Christ, children of God, heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Their birth made them so. Their baptism declared the truth which their birth made true. It is impossible to estimate their lives aright, unless we give this truth concerning them the first importance. Think, too, what would be the meaning of the other sacrament, if this thought of the Church of the living God were real and universal. The Lord's Supper, the right and need of every man to feed on God, the bread of Divine sustenance, the wine of Divine inspiration offered to every man, and turned by every man into whatever form of spiritual force the duty and the nature of each man requires, how grand and glorious its mission might become! No longer the mystic source of unintelligible influence; no longer certainly the test of arbitrary orthodoxy; no longer the initiation rite of a selected brotherhood, but the great sacrament of man! The seeker after truth, with all the world of truth freely open before him, would come to the Lord's table, to refresh the freedom of his soul, to liberate his soul from slavery and prejudice. The soldier going forth to battle, the student leaving college, the merchant getting ready for a sharp financial crisis, all men full of passion for their work, would come then to the Lord's Supper to fill their passion with the Divine fire of consecration. They would meet and keep their unity in beautiful diversity this Christian Church around the Christian feast. There is no other rallying place for all the good activity and worthy hopes of man. It is in the power of the great Christian sacrament, the great human sacrament, to become that rallying place.
II. And then the ministry, the ministers, what a life theirs must be, whenever the Church thus comes to realise itself! We talk today, as if the ministers of the Church were consecrated for the people. The old sacerdotal idea of substitution has not died away. What is the release from such a false idea? Not to teach that the ministers are not consecrated, but to teach that all the people are; not to deny the priesthood of the clergy, but to assert the priesthood of all men. When that great chain is made, and justified in life, then, and not till then, lordship over God's heritage shall disappear, and the true greatness of the minister, as the fellow-worker with, and servant of, the humblest and most struggling child of God, shall shine out on the world.
III. Yet once more, here must be seen the true place and dignity of truth and doctrine. It is not knowledge anywhere that is the end and purpose of man's labour or of God's government. It is life. It is the full activity of powers. Knowledge is a means to that. Why is it that the Church has magnified doctrine overmuch and throned it where it does not belong. It is because the Church has not cared enough for life. She has not over-valued doctrine; she has under-valued life. When the Church learns that she is, in her idea, simply identical with all nobly active humanity, when she thinks of herself as the true inspirer and purifier of all the life of man, then she will what? not cast her doctrines away, as many of her impetuous advisers would have her do. She will see their value as she has never seen it yet; but she will hold them always as the means of life, and she will insist that out of their depths they shall send forth manifest strength for life, which shall justify her holding them.
Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons,p. 42.
References: 1 Timothy 3:15. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vi., No. 393; vol. xxiv., No. 1436; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 359; Plain Sermons,vol. ii., p. 177. 1 Timothy 3:15; 1 Timothy 3:16. Expositor,1st series, vol. iii., p. 74; Preacher's Monthly,vol. viii., p. 207.