Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

354 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMhepherd over My sheep," had been understood andCarried into practice. The One Flock was to remainOne. It was propagated from the Primacy of Peter,and in the Primacy of Peter it remained for ever oneand indissoluble. The more the brethren of Petermultiplied, the more they required to be confirmed.This was the bond of the faggot, without which thearm of the opponent could break every separate stick.This the keystone of the arch by which alone it coheres,and bears the weight set upon it. This the formwhich impressed unity of teaching and government onthe whole body. And the Christian priesthood, oneand the same throughout the whole, and making upthe multitude of teachers in each diocese, might betermed the blood of this body. The great variety offunctions which it discharges answers to this similitude.The Church which Constantino beheld acted throughoutand in all its work as one body. To contemplatepriest or bishop or primate as acting separately andby himself would be to separate and so extinguish thelife which makes the body.The unity just described is not a sort of super-induced perfection adding a lustre to its subject, butis indeed that without which the subject cannot exist.This will be seen by considering what are those greatworks which in her teaching, her spiritual rule, and herpriesthood the Church is bound to exercise. Sheexercised those works in the time of Constantine, sheexercises them now, and will exercise them for all time.I. The first of these is the manifestation to theworld of the fact that Grod had become Incarnate, andof the consequences springing from that fact, whichbegin with the individual man, but permeate thewhole human society and transform it. This is the