particular causes, and it is highly essential to our purpose that
we understand them. One was a misconception both of the Fundamental
constitution of the true church itself as designed by its Founder
and of Christ's perpetual relationship to it; and the second was
the imperialistic tendencies of that age to which the first error
naturally exposed the church.

It is unnecessary here to recite at length that conception of the
primitive church which we have described in preceding chapters as
the concrete expression of the kingdom of God. Such was the only true
_catholic_, or universal, church. Its catholicity, however, was a
moral and spiritual dominion exercised over men by the truth and
Spirit of God, and was rendered visible only in the society of
redeemed believers who held the truth and bore its appropriate fruits
of righteousness. Being composed of the redeemed, it lovingly embraced
within its membership the entire brotherhood of Christ.

[Sidenote: Two theories of catholicity]

It is not too much to say that in the age in which Christianity first
appeared it was difficult for men to appreciate the conception of a
purely moral and spiritual authority which was to be universal and
perpetual. Another idea of catholicity soon began to take possession
of men's minds--the idea of a temporal and earthly organization of the
kingdom of heaven. In this conception of the church the bond of union
was not moral and spiritual--not the inevitable result of divine life
and love in the individual members--but its pretended catholicity was
to be secured by official, administrative, legislative, and judicial
functions under a human headship and a self-perpetuating human
magistracy. Such was the "mystery of iniquity," and in its developed