Part 7 — Chapter I. The Constitution Of The Church. Or Church Polity.

I. Definition of the Church.

(a) The church of Christ, in its largest signification, is the whole company of regenerate persons in all times and ages, in heaven and on earth (Mat. 16:18; Eph. 1:22, 23; 3:10; 5:24, 25; Col. 1:18; Heb. 12:23). In this sense, the church is identical with the spiritual kingdom of God; both signify that redeemed humanity in which God in Christ exercises actual spiritual dominion (John 3:3, 5).

Mat. 16:18—“thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it”; Eph. 1:22, 23—“and he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all”; 3:10—“to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God”; 5:24, 25—“But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it”; Col. 1:18—“And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence”; Heb. 12:23—“the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven”; John 3:3, 5—“Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. ... Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

Cicero's words apply here: “Una navis est jam bonorum omnium”—all good men are in one boat. Cicero speaks of the state, but it is still more true of the church invisible. Andrews, in Bib. Sac., Jan. 1883:14, mentions the following differences between the church and kingdom, or, as we prefer to say, between the visible church and the invisible church: (1) the church began with Christ,—the kingdom began earlier; (2) the church is confined to believers in the historic Christ,—the kingdom includes all God's children; (3) the church belongs wholly to this world—not so the kingdom; (4) the church is visible,—not so the kingdom; (5) the church has quasiorganic character, and leads out into local churches,—this is not so with the kingdom. On the universal or invisible church, see Cremer, Lexicon N. T., transl., 113, 114, 331; Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 12.

H. C. Vedder: “The church is a spiritual body, consisting only of those regenerated by the Spirit of God.” Yet the Westminster Confession affirms that the church “consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children.” This definition includes in the church a multitude who not only give no evidence of regeneration, but who plainly show themselves to be unregenerate. In many lands it practically identifies the church with the world. Augustine indeed thought that “the field,” in Mat. 13:38, is the church, whereas Jesus says very distinctly that it “is the world.” Augustine held that good and bad alike were to be permitted to [pg 888]dwell together in the church, without attempt to separate them; see Broadus, Com. in loco. But the parable gives a reason, not why we should not try to put the wicked out of the church, but why God does not immediately put them out of the world, the tares being separated from the wheat only at the final judgment of mankind.

Yet the universal church includes all true believers. It fulfils the promise of God to Abraham in Gen. 15:5—“Look now toward heaven, and number the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said into him, So shall thy seed be.” The church shall be immortal, since it draws its life from Christ: Is. 65:22—“as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people”; Zech. 4:2, 3—“a candlestick all of gold ... and two olive-trees by it.” Dean Stanley, Life and Letters, 2:242, 243—“A Spanish Roman Catholic, Cervantes, said: ‘Many are the roads by which God carries his own to heaven.’ Döllinger: ‘Theology must become a science not, as heretofore, for making war, but for making peace, and thus bringing about that reconciliation of churches for which the whole civilized world is longing.’ In their loftiest moods of inspiration, the Catholic Thomas à Kempis, the Puritan Milton, the Anglican Keble, rose above their peculiar tenets, and above the limits that divide denominations, into the higher regions of a common Christianity. It was the Baptist Bunyan who taught the world that there was ‘a common ground of communion which no difference of external rites could efface.’ It was the Moravian Gambold who wrote: ‘The man That could surround the sum of things, and spy The heart of God and secrets of his empire, Would speak but love. With love, the bright result Would change the hue of intermediate things, And make one thing of all theology.’ ”

(b) The church, in this large sense, is nothing less than the body of Christ—the organism to which he gives spiritual life, and through which he manifests the fulness of his power and grace. The church therefore cannot be defined in merely human terms, as an aggregate of individuals associated for social, benevolent, or even spiritual purposes. There is a transcendent element in the church. It is the great company of persons whom Christ has saved, in whom he dwells, to whom and through whom he reveals God (Eph. 1:22, 23).

Eph. 1:22, 23—“the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” He who is the life of nature and of humanity reveals himself most fully in the great company of those who have joined themselves to him by faith. Union with Christ is the presupposition of the church. This alone transforms the sinner into a Christian, and this alone makes possible that vital and spiritual fellowship between individuals which constitutes the organizing principle of the church. The same divine life which ensures the pardon and the perseverance of the believer unites him to all other believers. The indwelling Christ makes the church superior to and more permanent than all humanitarian organizations; they die, but because Christ lives, the church lives also. Without a proper conception of this sublime relation of the church to Christ, we cannot properly appreciate our dignity as church members, or our high calling as shepherds of the flock. Not “ubi ecclesia, ibi Christus,” but “ubi Christus, ibi ecclesia,” should be our motto. Because Christ is omnipresent and omnipotent, “the same yesterday, and to-day, yea and forever”(Heb. 13:8), what Burke said of the nation is true of the church: It is “indeed a partnership, but a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born.”

McGiffert, Apostolic Church, 501—“Paul's conception of the church as the body of Christ was first emphasized and developed by Ignatius. He reproduces in his writings the substance of all the Paulinism that the church at large made permanently its own: the preëxistence and deity of Christ, the union of the believer with Christ without which the Christian life is impossible, the importance of Christ's death, the church the body of Christ. Rome never fully recognized Paul's teachings, but her system rests upon his doctrine of the church the body of Christ. The modern doctrine however makes the kingdom to be not spiritual or future, but a reality of this world.” The redemption of the body, the redemption of institutions, the redemption of nations, are indeed all purposed by Christ. Christians should not only strive to rescue individual men from the slough of vice, but they should devise measures for draining that slough and making that vice impossible; in other words, they should labor for the coming of the kingdom of God in society. But this is not to identify the church with politics, prohibition, libraries, athletics. The spiritual fellowship is to be the fountain [pg 889]from which all these activities spring, while at the same time Christ's “kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 24, 25, 207—“As Christ is the temple of God, so the church is the temple of the Holy Spirit. As God could be seen only through Christ, so the Holy Spirit can be seen only through the church. As Christ was the image of the invisible God, so the church is appointed to be the image of the invisible Christ, and the members of Christ, when they are glorified with him, shall be the express image of his person.... The church and the kingdom are not identical terms, if we mean by the kingdom the visible reign and government of Jesus Christ on earth. In another sense they are identical. As is the king, so is the kingdom. The king is present now in the world, only invisibly and by the Holy Spirit; so the kingdom is now present invisibly and spiritually in the hearts of believers. The king is to come again visibly and gloriously; so shall the kingdom appear visibly and gloriously. In other words, the kingdom is already here in mystery: it is to be here to manifestation. Now the spiritual kingdom is administered by the Holy Spirit, and it extends from Pentecost to Parousia. At the Parousia—the appearing of the Son of man in glory—when he shall take unto himself his great power and reign (Rev. 11:17), when he who has now gone into a far country to be invested with a kingdom shall return and enter upon his government (Luke 19:15), then the invisible shall give way to the visible, the kingdom in mystery shall emerge into the kingdom in manifestation, and the Holy Spirit's administration shall yield to that of Christ.”

(c) The Scriptures, however, distinguish between this invisible or universal church, and the individual church, in which the universal church takes local and temporal form, and in which the idea of the church as a whole is concretely exhibited.

Mat. 10:32—“Every one therefore, who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven”; 12:34, 35—“out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The good man out of his good treasure bringeth forth good things”; Rom. 10:9, 10—“if thou shalt confess with thy month Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”; James 1:18—“Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures”—we were saved, not for ourselves only, but as parts and beginnings of an organic kingdom of God; believers are called “firstfruits,” because from them the blessing shall spread, until the whole world shall be pervaded with the new life; Pentecost, as the feast of first-fruits, was but the beginning of a stream that shall continue to flow until the whole race of man is gathered in.

R. S. Storrs: “When any truth becomes central and vital, there comes the desire to utter it,”—and we may add, not only in words, but in organization. So beliefs crystallize into institutions. But Christian faith is something more vital than the common beliefs of the world. Linking the soul to Christ, it brings Christians into living fellowship with one another before any bonds of outward organization exist; outward organization, indeed, only expresses and symbolizes this inward union of spirit to Christ and to one another. Horatius Bonar: “Thou must be true thyself, If thou the truth wouldst teach; Thy soul must overflow, if thou Another's soul wouldst reach; It needs the overflow of heart To give the lips full speech. Think truly, and thy thoughts Shall the world's famine feed; Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed; Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed.”

Contentio Veritatis, 128, 129—“The kingdom of God is first a state of the individual soul, and then, secondly, a society made up of those who enjoy that state.” Dr. F. L. Patton: “The best way for a man to serve the church at large is to serve the church to which he belongs.” Herbert Stead: “The kingdom is not to be narrowed down to the church, nor the church evaporated into the kingdom.” To do the first is to set up a monstrous ecclesiasticism; to do the second is to destroy the organism through which the kingdom manifests itself and does its work in the world (W. R. Taylor). Prof. Dalman, in his work on The Words of Jesus in the Light of Postbiblical Writing and the Aramaic Language, contends that the Greek phrase translated “kingdom of God” should be rendered “the sovereignty of God.” He thinks that it points to the reign of God, rather than to the realm over which he reigns. This rendering, if accepted, takes away entirely the support from the Ritschlian conception of the kingdom of God as an earthly and outward organization.

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(d) The individual church may be defined as that smaller company of regenerate persons, who, in any given community, unite themselves voluntarily together, in accordance with Christ's laws, for the purpose of securing the complete establishment of his kingdom in themselves and in the world.

Mat. 18:17—“And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican”; Acts 14:23—“appointed for them elders in every church”; Rom. 16:5—“salute the church that is in their house”; 1 Cor. 1:2—“the church of God which is at Corinth”; 4:17—“even as I teach everywhere in every church”; 1 Thess. 2:14—“the churches of God which are in Judæa in Christ Jesus.”

We do not define the church as a body of “baptized believers,” because baptism is but one of “Christ's laws,” in accordance with which believers unite themselves. Since these laws are the laws of church-organization contained in the New Testament, no Sunday School, Temperance Society, or Young Men's Christian Association, is properly a church. These organizations 1. lack the transcendent element—they are instituted and managed by man only; 2. they are not confined to the regenerate, or to those alone who give credible evidence of regeneration; 3. they presuppose and require no particular form of doctrine; 4. they observe no ordinances; 5. they are at best mere adjuncts and instruments of the church, but are not themselves churches; 6. their decisions therefore are devoid of the divine authority and obligation which belong to the decisions of the church.

The laws of Christ, in accordance with which believers unite themselves into churches, may be summarized as follows: 1. the sufficiency and sole authority of Scripture as the rule both of doctrine and polity; (2) credible evidence of regeneration and conversion as prerequisite to church-membership; (3) immersion only, as answering to Christ's command of baptism, and to the symbolic meaning of the ordinance; (4) the order of the ordinance, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, as of divine appointment, as well as the ordinances themselves; (5) the right of each member of the church to a voice in its government and discipline; (6) each church, while holding fellowship with other churches, solely responsible to Christ; (7) the freedom of the individual conscience, and the total independence of church and state. Hovey in his Restatement of Denominational Principles (Am. Bap. Pub. Society) gives these principles as follows: 1. the supreme authority of the Scriptures in matters of religion; 2. personal accountability to God in religion; 3. union with Christ essential to salvation; 4. a new life the only evidence of that union; 5. the new life one of unqualified obedience to Christ. The most concise statement of Baptist doctrine and history is that of Vedder, in Jackson's Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, 1:74-85.

With the lax views of Scripture which are becoming common among us there is a tendency in our day to lose sight of the transcendent element in the church. Let us remember that the church is not a humanitarian organization resting upon common human brotherhood, but a supernatural body, which traces its descent from the second, not the first, Adam, and which manifests the power of the divine Christ. Mazzini in Italy claimed Jesus, but repudiated his church. So modern socialists cry: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” and deny that there is need of anything more than human unity, development, and culture. But God has made the church to sit with Christ “in the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6). It is the regeneration which comes about through union with Christ which constitutes the primary and most essential element in ecclesiology. “We do not stand, first of all, for restricted communion, nor for immersion as the only valid form of baptism, nor for any particular theory of Scripture, but rather for a regenerate church membership. The essence of the gospel is a new life in Christ, of which Christian experience is the outworking and Christian consciousness is the witness. Christian life is as important as conversion. Faith must show itself by works. We must seek the temporal as well as spiritual salvation of men, and the salvation of society also”(Leighton Williams).

E. G. Robinson: “Christ founded a church only proleptically. In Mat. 18:17, ἐκκλησία is not used technically. The church is an outgrowth of the Jewish synagogue, though its method and economy are different. There was little or no organization at first. Christ himself did not organize the church. This was the work of the apostles after Pentecost. The germ however existed before. Three persons may constitute a church, and may administer the ordinances. Councils have only advisory authority. Diocesan episcopacy is antiscriptural and antichristian.”

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The principles mentioned above are the essential principles of Baptist churches, although other bodies of Christians have come to recognise a portion of them. Bodies of Christians which refuse to accept these principles we may, in a somewhat loose and modified sense, call churches; but we cannot regard them as churches organized in all respects according to Christ's laws, or as completely answering to the New Testament model of church organization. We follow common usage when we address a Lieutenant Colonel as “Colonel,” and a Lieutenant Governor as “Governor.” It is only courtesy to speak of pedobaptist organizations as “churches,” although we do not regard these churches as organized in full accordance with Christ's laws as they are indicated to us in the New Testament. To refuse thus to recognize them would be a discourtesy like that of the British Commander in Chief, when he addressed General Washington as “Mr. Washington.”

As Luther, having found the doctrine of justification by faith, could not recognize that doctrine as Christian which taught justification by works, but denounced the church which held it as Antichrist, saying, “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, God help me,” so we, in matters not indifferent, as feet-washing, but vitally affecting the existence of the church, as regenerate church-membership, must stand by the New Testament, and refuse to call any other body of Christians a regular church, that is not organized according to Christ's laws. The English word “church” like the Scotch “kirk”and the German “Kirche,” is derived from the Greek κυριακή, and means “belonging to the Lord.” The term itself should teach us to regard only Christ's laws as our rule of organization.

(e) Besides these two significations of the term “church,” there are properly in the New Testament no others. The word ἐκκλησία is indeed used in Acts 7:38; 19:32, 39; Heb. 2:12, to designate a popular assembly; but since this is a secular use of the term, it does not here concern us. In certain passages, as for example Acts 9:31 (ἐκκλησία, sing., א A B C), 1 Cor. 12:28, Phil. 3:6, and 1 Tim. 3:15, ἐκκλησία appears to be used either as a generic or as a collective term, to denote simply the body of independent local churches existing in a given region or at a given epoch. But since there is no evidence that these churches were bound together in any outward organization, this use of the term ἐκκλησία cannot be regarded as adding any new sense to those of “the universal church” and “the local church” already mentioned.

Acts 7:38—“the church [marg. ‘congregation’] in the wilderness” = the whole body of the people of Israel; 19:32—“the assembly was in confusion”—the tumultuous mob in the theatre at Ephesus; 39—“the regular assembly”; 9:31—“So the church throughout all Judæa and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being edified”; 1 Cor. 12:28—“And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers”; Phil. 3:6—“as touching zeal, persecuting the church”; 1 Tim. 3:15—“that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”

In the original use of the word ἐκκλησία, as a popular assembly, there was doubtless an allusion to the derivation from ἐκ and καλέω, to call out by herald. Some have held that the N. T. term contains an allusion to the fact that the members of Christ's church are called, chosen, elected by God. This, however, is more than doubtful. In common use, the term had lost its etymological meaning, and signified merely an assembly, however gathered or summoned. The church was never so large that it could not assemble. The church of Jerusalem gathered for the choice of deacons (Acts 6:2, 5), and the church of Antioch gathered to hear Paul's account of his missionary journey (Acts 14:27).

It is only by a common figure of rhetoric that many churches are spoken of together in the singular number, in such passages as Acts 9:31. We speak generically of “man,”meaning the whole race of men; and of “the horse,” meaning all horses. Gibbon, speaking of the successive tribes that swept down upon the Roman Empire, uses a noun in the singular number, and describes them as “the several detachments of that immense army of northern barbarians,”—yet he does not mean to intimate that these tribes had any common government. So we may speak of “the American college” or “the American theological seminary,” but we do not thereby mean that the colleges or the seminaries are bound together by any tie of outward organization.

So Paul says that God has set in the church apostles, prophets, and teachers (1 Cor. 12:28), but the word “church” is only a collective term for the many independent churches. [pg 892]In this same sense, we may speak of “the Baptist church” of New York, or of America; but it must be remembered that we use the term without any such implication of common government as is involved in the phrases “the Presbyterian church,” or “the Protestant Episcopal church,” or “the Roman Catholic church”; with us, in this connection, the term “church” means simply “churches.”

Broadus, in his Com. on Mat., page 359, suggests that the word ἐκκλησία in Acts 9:31, “denotes the original church at Jerusalem, whose members were by the persecution widely scattered throughout Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and held meetings wherever they were, but still belonged to the one original organization.... When Paul wrote to the Galatians, nearly twenty years later, these separate meetings had been organized into distinct churches, and so he speaks (Gal. 1:22) in reference to that same period, of ‘the churches of Judæa which were in Christ.’ ” On the meaning of ἐκκλησία, see Cremer, Lex. N. T., 329; Trench, Syn. N. T., 1:18; Girdlestone, Syn. O. T., 367; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 301; Dexter, Congregationalism, 25; Dagg, Church Order, 100-120; Robinson, N. T. Lex., sub voce.

The prevailing usage of the N. T. gives to the term ἐκκλησία the second of these two significations. It is this local church only which has definite and temporal existence, and of this alone we henceforth treat. Our definition of the individual church implies the two following particulars:

A. The church, like the family and the state, is an institution of divine appointment.

This is plain: (a) from its relation to the church universal, as its concrete embodiment; (b) from the fact that its necessity is grounded in the social and religious nature of man; (c) from the Scripture,—as for example, Christ's command in Mat. 18:17, and the designation “church of God,” applied to individual churches (1 Cor. 1:2).

President Wayland: “The universal church comes before the particular church. The society which Christ has established is the foundation of every particular association calling itself a church of Christ.” Andrews, in Bib. Sac., Jan. 1883:35-58, on the conception ἐκκλησία in the N. T., says that “the ‘church’ is the prius of all local ‘churches.’ ἐκκλησία in Acts 9:31 = the church, so far as represented in those provinces. It is ecumenical-local, as in 1 Cor. 10:33. The local church is a microcosm, a specialized localization of the universal body. קהל, in the O. T. and in the Targums, means the whole congregation of Israel, and then secondarily those local bodies which were parts and representations of the whole. Christ, using Aramaic, probably used קהל in Mat. 18:17. He took his idea of the church from it, not from the heathen use of the word ἐκκλησία, which expresses the notion of locality and state much more than קהל. The larger sense of ἐκκλησία is the primary. Local churches are points of consciousness and activity for the great all-inclusive unit, and they are not themselves the units for an ecclesiastical aggregate. They are faces, not parts of the one church.”

Christ, in Mat. 18:17, delegates authority to the whole congregation of believers, and at the same time limits authority to the local church. The local church is not an end in itself, but exists for the sake of the kingdom. Unity is not to be that of merely local churches, but that of the kingdom, and that kingdom is internal, “cometh not with observation”(Luke 17:20), but consists in “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). The word “church,” in the universal sense, is not employed by any other N. T. writer before Paul. Paul was interested, not simply in individual conversions, but in the growth of the church of God, as the body of Christ. He held to the unity of all local churches with the mother church at Jerusalem. The church in a city or in a house is merely a local manifestation of the one universal church and derived its dignity therefrom. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles: “As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, and being gathered became one, so may thy church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.”

Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 92—“The social action of religion springs from its very essence. Men of the same religion have no more imperious need than that of praying and worshiping together. State police have always failed to confine growing religious sects within the sanctuary or the home ... God, it is said, is the place where spirits blend. In rising toward him, man necessarily passes beyond the limits of his own individuality. He feels instinctively that the principle of his being is the principle of the [pg 893]life of his brethren also, that that which gives him safety must give it to all.” Rothe held that, as men reach the full development of their nature and appropriate the perfection of the Savior, the separation between the religious and the moral life will vanish, and the Christian state, as the highest sphere of human life representing all human functions, will displace the church. “In proportion as the Savior Christianizes the state by means of the church, must the progressive completion of the structure of the church prove the cause of its abolition. The decline of the church is not therefore to be deplored, but is to be recognized as the consequence of the independence and completeness of the religious life” (Encyc. Brit., 21:2). But it might equally be maintained that the state, as well as the church, will pass away, when the kingdom of God is fully come; see John 4:21—“the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father”; 1 Cor. 15:24—“Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power”; Rev. 21:22—“And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof.”

B. The church, unlike the family and the state, is a voluntary society.

(a) This results from the fact that the local church is the outward expression of that rational and free life in Christ which characterizes the church as a whole. In this it differs from those other organizations of divine appointment, entrance into which is not optional. Membership in the church is not hereditary or compulsory. (b) The doctrine of the church, as thus defined, is a necessary outgrowth of the doctrine of regeneration. As this fundamental spiritual change is mediated not by outward appliances, but by inward and conscious reception of Christ and his truth, union with the church logically follows, not precedes, the soul's spiritual union with Christ.

We have seen that the church is the body of Christ. We now perceive that the church is, by the impartation to it of Christ's life, made a living body, with duties and powers of its own. A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 53, emphasizes the preliminary truth. He shows that the definition: The church a voluntary association of believers, united together for the purposes of worship and edification, is most inadequate, not to say incorrect. It is no more true than that hands and feet are voluntarily united in the human body for the purposes of locomotion and work. The church is formed from within. Christ, present by the Holy Ghost, regenerating men by the sovereign action of the Spirit, and organizing them into himself as the living centre, is the only principle that can explain the existence of the church. The Head and the body are therefore one—one in fact, and one in name. He whom God anointed and filled with the Holy Ghost is called “the Christ” (1 John 5:1—“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God”); and the church which is his body and fulness is also called “the Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12—“all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is the Christ”).

Dorner includes under his doctrine of the church: (1) the genesis of the church, through the new birth of the Spirit, or Regeneration; (2) the growth and persistence of the church through the continuous operation of the Spirit in the means of grace, or Ecclesiology proper, as others call it; (3) the completion of the church, or Eschatology. While this scheme seems designed to favor a theory of baptismal regeneration, we must commend its recognition of the fact that the doctrine of the church grows out of the doctrine of regeneration and is determined in its nature by it. If regeneration has always conversion for its obverse side, and if conversion always includes faith in Christ, it is vain to speak of regeneration without faith. And if union with the church is but the outward expression of a preceding union with Christ which involves regeneration and conversion, then involuntary church-membership is an absurdity, and a misrepresentation of the whole method of salvation.

The value of compulsory religion may be illustrated from David Hume's experience. A godly matron of the Canongate, so runs the story, when Hume sank in the mud in her vicinity, and on account of his obesity could not get out, compelled the sceptic to say the Lord's Prayer before she would help him. Amos Kendall, on the other hand, concluded in his old age that he had not been acting on Christ's plan for saving the world, and so, of his own accord, connected himself with the church. Martineau, Study, 1:319—“Till we come to the State and the Church, we do not reach the highest organism [pg 894]of human life, into the perfect working of which all the disinterested affections and moral enthusiasms and noble ambitions flow.”

Socialism abolishes freedom, which the church cultivates and insists upon as the principle of its life. Tertullian: “Nec religionis est cogere religionem”—“It is not the business of religion to compel religion.” Vedder, History of the Baptists: “The community of goods in the church at Jerusalem was a purely voluntary matter; see Acts 5:4—‘While it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power?’ The community of goods does not seem to have continued in the church at Jerusalem after the temporary stress had been relieved, and there is no reason to believe that any other church in the apostolic age practised anything of the kind.” By abolishing freedom, socialism destroys all possibility of economical progress. The economical principle of socialism is that, relatively to the enjoyment of commodities, the individual shall be taken care of by the community, to the effect of his being relieved of the care of himself. The communism in the Acts was: 1. not for the community of mankind in general, but only for the church within itself; 2. not obligatory, but left to the discretion of individuals; 3. not permanent, but devised for a temporary crisis. On socialism, see James MacGregor, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1892:35-68.

Schurman, Agnosticism, 166—“Few things are of more practical consequence for the future of religion in America than the duty of all good men to become identified with the visible church. Liberal thinkers have, as a rule, underestimated the value of the church. Their point of view is individualistic, ‘as though a man were author of himself, and knew no other kin.’ ‘The old is for slaves’ they declare. But it is also true that the old is for freedmen who know its true uses. It is the bane of the religion of dogma that it has driven many of the choicest religious souls out of the churches. In its purification of the temple, it has lost sight of the object of the temple. The church, as an institution, is an organism and embodiment such as the religion of spirit necessarily creates. Spiritual religion is not the enemy, it is the essence, of institutional religion.”

II. Organization of the Church.

1. The fact of organization.

Organization may exist without knowledge of writing, without written records, lists of members, or formal choice of officers. These last are the proofs, reminders, and helps of organization, but they are not essential to it. It is however not merely informal, but formal, organization in the church, to which the New Testament bears witness.

That there was such organization is abundantly shown from (a) its stated meetings, (b) elections, and (c) officers; (d) from the designations of its ministers, together with (e) the recognized authority of the minister and of the church; (f) from its discipline, (g) contributions, (h) letters of commendation, (i) registers of widows, (j) uniform customs, and (k) ordinances; (l) from the order enjoined and observed, (m) the qualifications for membership, and (n) the common work of the whole body.

(a) Acts 20:7—“upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them”; Heb. 10:25—“not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another.”

(b) Acts 1:23-26—the election of Matthias; 6:5, 6—the election of deacons.

(c) Phil. 1:1—“the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.”

(d) Acts 20:17, 28—“the elders of the church ... the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops[marg.: ‘overseers’].”

(e) Mat. 18:17—“And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican”; 1 Pet. 5:2—“Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God.”

(f) 1 Cor. 5:4, 5, 13—“in the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.... Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”

(g) Rom. 15:26—“For it hath been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints that are at Jerusalem”; 1 Cor. 16:1, 2—“Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I [pg 895]gave order to the churches of Galatia, so also do ye. Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collection be made when I come.”

(h) Acts 18:27—“And when he was minded to pass over into Achaia, the brethren encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him”; 2 Cor. 3:1—“Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? or need we, as do some, epistles of commendation to you or from you?”

(i) 1 Tim. 5:9—“Let none be enrolled as a widow under threescore years old”; cf. Acts 6:1—“there arose a murmuring of the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.”

(j) 1 Cor. 11:16—“But if any man seemeth to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.”

(k) Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized”; 1 Cor. 11:23-26—“For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you”—the institution of the Lord's Supper.

(l) 1 Cor. 14:40—“let all things be done decently and in order”; Col. 2:5—“For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.”

(m) Mat. 28:19—“Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; Acts 2:47—“And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved.”

(n) Phil. 2:30—“because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death, hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me.”

As indicative of a developed organization in the N. T. church, of which only the germ existed before Christ's death, it is important to notice the progress in names from the Gospels to the Epistles. In the Gospels, the word “disciples” is the common designation of Christ's followers, but it is not once found in the Epistles. In the Epistles, there are only “saints,” “brethren,” “churches.” A consideration of the facts here referred to is sufficient to evince the unscriptural nature of two modern theories of the church:

A. The theory that the church is an exclusively spiritual body, destitute of all formal organization, and bound together only by the mutual relation of each believer to his indwelling Lord.

The church, upon this view, so far as outward bonds are concerned, is only an aggregation of isolated units. Those believers who chance to gather at a particular place, or to live at a particular time, constitute the church of that place or time. This view is held by the Friends and by the Plymouth Brethren. It ignores the tendencies to organization inherent in human nature; confounds the visible with the invisible church; and is directly opposed to the Scripture representations of the visible church as comprehending some who are not true believers.

Acts 5:1-11—Ananias and Sapphira show that the visible church comprehended some who were not true believers; 1 Cor. 14:23—“If therefore the whole church be assembled together and all speak with tongues, and there come in men unlearned or unbelieving, will they not say that ye are mad?”—here, if the church had been an unorganized assembly, the unlearned visitors who came in would have formed a part of it; Phil. 3:18—“For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.”

Some years ago a book was placed upon the Index, at Rome, entitled: “The Priesthood a Chronic Disorder of the Human Race.” The Plymouth Brethren dislike church organizations, for fear they will become machines; they dislike ordained ministers, for fear they will become bishops. They object to praying for the Holy Spirit, because he was given on Pentecost, ignoring the fact that the church after Pentecost so prayed: see Acts 4:31—“And when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” What we call a giving or descent of the Holy Spirit is, since the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, only a manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit, and this certainly may be prayed for; see Luke 11:13—“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”

The Plymouth Brethren would “unite Christendom by its dismemberment, and do away with all sects by the creation of a new sect, more narrow and bitter in its hostility [pg 896]to existing sects than any other.” Yet the tendency to organize is so strong in human nature, that even Plymouth Brethren, when they meet regularly together, fall into an informal, if not a formal, organization; certain teachers and leaders are tacitly recognized as officers of the body; committees and rules are unconsciously used for facilitating business. Even one of their own writers, C. H. M., speaks of the “natural tendency to association without God,—as in the Shinar Association or Babel Confederacy of Gen. 11, which aimed at building up a name upon the earth. The Christian church is God's appointed association to take the place of all these. Hence God confounds the tongues in Gen. 11 (judgment); gives tongues in Acts 2 (grace); but only one tongue is spoken in Rev. 7 (glory).”

The Nation, Oct. 16, 1890:303—“Every body of men must have one or more leaders. If these are not provided, they will make them for themselves. You cannot get fifty men together, at least of the Anglo-Saxon race, without their choosing a presiding officer and giving him power to enforce rules and order.” Even socialists and anarchists have their leaders, who often exercise arbitrary power and oppress their followers. Lyman Abbott says nobly of the community of true believers: “The grandest river in the world has no banks; it rises in the Gulf of Mexico; it sweeps up through the Atlantic Ocean along our coast; it crosses the Atlantic, and spreads out in great broad fanlike form along the coast of Europe; and whatever land it kisses blooms and blossoms with the fruit of its love. The apricot and the fig are the witness of its fertilizing power. It is bound together by the warmth of its own particles, and by nothing else.” This is a good illustration of the invisible church, and of its course through the world. But the visible church is bound to be distinguishable from unregenerate humanity, and its inner principle of association inevitably leads to organization.

Dr. Wm. Reid, Plymouth Brethrenism Unveiled, 79-143, attributes to the sect the following Church-principles: (1) the church did not exist before Pentecost; (2) the visible and the invisible church identical; (3) the one assembly of God; (4) the presidency of the Holy Spirit; (5) rejection of a one-man and man-made ministry; (6) the church is without government. Also the following heresies: (1) Christ's heavenly humanity; (2) denial of Christ's righteousness, as being obedience to law; (3) denial that Christ's righteousness is imputed; (4) justification in the risen Christ; (5) Christ's non-atoning sufferings; (6) denial of moral law as rule of life; (7) the Lord's day is not the Sabbath; (8) perfectionism; (9) secret rapture of the saints,—caught up to be with Christ. To these we may add; (10) premillennial advent of Christ.

On the Plymouth Brethren and their doctrine, see British Quar., Oct. 1873:202; Princeton Rev., 1872:48-77; H. M. King, in Baptist Review, 1881:438-465; Fish, Ecclesiology, 314-316; Dagg, Church Order, 80-83; R. H. Carson, The Brethren, 8-14; J. C. L. Carson, The Heresies of the Plymouth Brethren; Croskery, Plymouth Brethrenism; Teulon, Hist. and Teachings of Plymouth Brethren.

B. The theory that the form of church organization is not definitely prescribed in the New Testament, but is a matter of expediency, each body of believers being permitted to adopt that method of organization which best suits its circumstances and condition.

The view under consideration seems in some respects to be favored by Neander, and is often regarded as incidental to his larger conception of church history as a progressive development. But a proper theory of development does not exclude the idea of a church organization already complete in all essential particulars before the close of the inspired canon, so that the record of it may constitute a providential example of binding authority upon all subsequent ages. The view mentioned exaggerates the differences of practice among the N. T. churches; underestimates the need of divine direction as to methods of church union; and admits a principle of 'church powers,' which may be historically shown to be subversive of the very existence of the church as a spiritual body.

Dr. Galusha Anderson finds the theory of optional church government in Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, and says that not until Bishop Bancroft was there claimed a divine right of Episcopacy. Hunt, also, in his Religious Thought in England, 1:57, says that Hooker gives up the divine origin of Episcopacy. So Jacob, Eccl. Polity of the [pg 897]N. T., and Hatch, Organization of Early Christian Churches,—both Jacob and Hatch belonging to the Church of England. Hooker identified the church with the nation; see Eccl. Polity, book viii, chap. 1:7; 4:6; 8:9. He held that the state has committed itself to the church, and that therefore the church has no right to commit itself to the state. The assumption, however, that the state has committed itself to the church is entirely unwarranted; see Gore, Incarnation, 209, 210. Hooker declares that, even if the Episcopalian order were laid down in Scripture, which he denies, it would still not be unalterable, since neither “God's being the author of laws for the government of his church, nor his committing them unto Scripture, is any reason sufficient wherefore all churches should forever be bound to keep them without change.”

T. M. Lindsay, in Contemp. Rev., Oct. 1895:548-563, asserts that there were at least five different forms of church government in apostolic times: 1. derived from the seven wise men of the Hebrew village community, representing the political side of the synagogue system; 2. derived from the ἐπισκόπος, the director of the religious or social club among the heathen Greeks; 3. derived from the patronate (προστάτης, προῖστάμενος) known among the Romans, the churches of Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, being of this sort; 4. derived from the personal preëminence of one man, nearest in family to our Lord, James being president of the church at Jerusalem; 5. derived from temporary superintendents (ἡγούμενοι), or leaders of the band of missionaries, as in Crete and Ephesus. Between all these churches of different polities, there was intercommunication and fellowship. Lindsay holds that the unity was wholly spiritual. It seems to us that he has succeeded merely in proving five different varieties of one generic type—the generic type being only democratic, with two orders of officials, and two ordinances—in other words, in showing that the simple N. T. model adopts itself to many changing conditions, while the main outlines do not change. Upon any other theory, church polity is a matter of individual taste or of temporary fashion. Shall missionaries conform church order to the degraded ideas of the nations among which they labor? Shall church government be despotic in Turkey, a limited monarchy in England, a democracy in the United States of America, and two-headed in Japan? For the development theory of Neander, see his Church History, 1:179-190. On the general subject, see Hitchcock, in Am. Theol. Rev., 1860:28-54; Davidson, Eccl. Polity, 1-42; Harvey, The Church.

2. The nature of this organization.

The nature of any organization may be determined by asking, first: who constitute its members? secondly: for what object has it been formed? and, thirdly: what are the laws which regulate its operations?

The three questions with which our treatment of the nature of this organization begins are furnished us by Pres. Wayland, in his Principles and Practices of Baptists.

A. They only can properly be members of the local church, who have previously become members of the church universal,—or, in other words, have become regenerate persons.

Only those who have been previously united to Christ are, in the New Testament, permitted to unite with his church. See Acts 2:47—“And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved [Am. Rev.: ‘those that were saved’]”; 5:14—“and believers were the more added to the Lord”; 1 Cor. 1:2—“the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours.”

From this limitation of membership to regenerate persons, certain results follow:

(a) Since each member bears supreme allegiance to Christ, the church as a body must recognize Christ as the only lawgiver. The relation of the individual Christian to the church does not supersede, but furthers and expresses, his relation to Christ.

1 John 2:20—“And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things”—see Neander, Com., in loco—“No believer is at liberty to forego this maturity and personal independence, bestowed in that inward anointing [of the Holy Spirit], or to place himself in a dependent relation, inconsistent with this birthright, to any teacher whatever among men..... [pg 898]This inward anointing furnishes an element of resistance to such arrogated authority.” Here we have reproved the tendency on the part of ministers to take the place of the church, in Christian work and worship, instead of leading it forward in work and worship of its own. The missionary who keeps his converts in prolonged and unnecessary tutelage is also untrue to the church organization of the New Testament and untrue to Christ whose aim in church training is to educate his followers to the bearing of responsibility and the use of liberty. Macaulay: “The only remedy for the evils of liberty is liberty.” “Malo periculosam libertatem”—“Liberty is to be preferred with all its dangers.” Edwin Burritt Smith: “There is one thing better than good government, and that is self-government.” By their own mistakes, a self-governing people and a self-governing church will finally secure good government, whereas the “good government” which keeps them in perpetual tutelage will make good government forever impossible.

Ps. 144:12—“our sons shall be as plants grown up in their youth.” Archdeacon Hare: “If a gentleman is to grow up, it must be like a tree: there must be nothing between him and heaven.” What is true of the gentleman is true of the Christian. There need to be encouraged and cultivated in him an independence of human authority and a sole dependence upon Christ. The most sacred duty of the minister is to make his church self-governing and self-supporting, and the best test of his success is the ability of the church to live and prosper after he has left it or after he is dead. Such ministerial work requires self-sacrifice and self-effacement. The natural tendency of every minister is to usurp authority and to become a bishop. He has in him an undeveloped pope. Dependence on his people for support curbs this arrogant spirit. A church establishment fosters it. The remedy both for slavishness and for arrogance lies in constant recognition of Christ as the only Lord.

(b) Since each regenerate man recognizes in every other a brother in Christ, the several members are upon a footing of absolute equality (Mat. 23:8-10).

Mat. 23:8-10—“But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your teacher, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven”; John 15:5—“I am the vine, ye are the branches”—no one branch of the vine outranks another; one may be more advantageously situated, more ample in size, more fruitful; but all are alike in kind, draw vitality from one source. Among the planets “one star differeth from another star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41), yet all shine in the same heaven, and draw their light from the same sun. “The serving-man may know more of the mind of God than the scholar.” Christianity has therefore been the foe to heathen castes. The Japanese noble objected to it, “because the brotherhood of man was incompatible with proper reverence for rank”. There can be no rightful human lordship over God's heritage (1 Pet. 5:3—“neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock”).

Constantine thought more highly of his position as member of Christ's church than of his position as head of the Roman Empire. Neither the church nor its pastor should be dependent upon the unregenerate members of the congregation. Many a pastor is in the position of a lion tamer with his head in the lion's mouth. So long as he strokes the fur the right way, all goes well; but, if by accident he strokes the wrong way, off goes his head. Dependence upon the spiritual body which he instructs is compatible with the pastor's dignity and faithfulness. But dependence upon those who are not Christians and who seek to manage the church with worldly motives and in a worldly way, may utterly destroy the spiritual effect of his ministry. The pastor is bound to be the impartial preacher of the truth, and to treat each member of his church as of equal importance with every other.

(c) Since each local church is directly subject to Christ, there is no jurisdiction of one church over another, but all are on an equal footing, and all are independent of interference or control by the civil power.

Mat. 22:21—“Render therefore unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are God's”; Acts 5:29—“We must obey God rather than men.” As each believer has personal dealings with Christ and for even the pastor to come between him and his Lord is treachery to Christ and harmful to his soul, so much more does the New Testament condemn any attempt to bring the church into subjection to any other church or combination of churches, or to make the church the creature of the state. Absolute liberty of conscience under [pg 899]Christ has always been a distinguishing tenet of Baptists, as it is of the New Testament (cf. Rom. 14:4—“Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand”). John Locke, 100 years before American independence: “The Baptists were the first and only propounders of absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty.” George Bancroft says of Roger Williams: “He was the first person in modern Christendom to assert the doctrine of liberty of conscience in religion.... Freedom of conscience was from the first a trophy of the Baptists.... Their history is written in blood.”

On Roger Williams, see John Fiske, The Beginnings of New England: “Such views are to-day quite generally adopted by the more civilized portions of the Protestant world; but it is needless to say that they were not the views of the sixteenth century, in Massachusetts or elsewhere.” Cotton Mather said that Roger Williams “carried a windmill in his head,” and even John Quincy Adams called him “conscientiously contentious.”Cotton Mather's windmill was one that he remembered or had heard of in Holland. It had run so fast in a gale as to set itself and a whole town on fire. Leonard Bacon, Genesis of the New England Churches, vii, says of Baptist churches: “It has been claimed for these churches that from the age of the Reformation onward they have been always foremost and always consistent in maintaining the doctrine of religious liberty. Let me not be understood as calling in question their right to so great an honor.”

Baptists hold that the province of the state is purely secular and civil,—religious matters are beyond its jurisdiction. Yet for economic reasons and to ensure its own preservation, it may guarantee to its citizens their religious rights, and may exempt all churches equally from burdens of taxation, in the same way in which it exempts schools and hospitals. The state has holidays, but no holy days. Hall Caine, in The Christian, calls the state, not the pillar of the church, but the caterpillar, that eats the vitals out of it. It is this, when it transcends its sphere and compels or forbids any particular form of religious teaching. On the charge that Roman Catholics were deprived of equal rights in Rhode Island, see Am. Cath. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1894:169-177. This restriction was not in the original law, but was a note added by revisers, to bring the state law into conformity with the law of the mother country. Ezra 8:22—“I was ashamed to ask of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen ... because ... The hand of our God is upon all them that seek him, for good”—is a model for the churches of every age. The church as an organized body should be ashamed to depend for revenue upon the state, although its members as citizens may justly demand that the state protect them in their rights of worship. On State and Church in 1492 and 1892, see A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 209-246, esp. 239-241. On taxation of church property, and opposing it, see H. C. Vedder, in Magazine of Christian Literature, Feb. 1890: 265-272.

B. The sole object of the local church is the glory of God, in the complete establishment of his kingdom, both in the hearts of believers and in the world. This object is to be promoted:

(a) By united worship,—including prayer and religious instruction; (b) by mutual watchcare and exhortation; (c) by common labors for the reclamation of the impenitent world.

(a) Heb. 10:25—“not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another.”One burning coal by itself will soon grow dull and go out, but a hundred together will give a fury of flame that will set fire to others. Notice the value of “the crowd” in politics and in religion. One may get an education without going to school or college, and may cultivate religion apart from the church; but the number of such people will be small, and they do not choose the best way to become intelligent or religious.

(b) 1 Thess. 5:11—“Wherefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as also ye do”; Heb. 3:13—“Exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called To-day; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Churches exist in order to: 1. create ideals; 2. supply motives; 3. direct energies. They are the leaven hidden in the three measures of meal. But there must be life in the leaven, or no good will come of it. There is no use of taking to China a lamp that will not burn in America. The light that shines the furthest shines brightest nearest home.

(c) Mat. 28:19—“Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations”; Acts 8:4—“They therefore that were scattered abroad went about preaching the word”; 2 Cor. 8:5—“and this, not as we had hoped, but first they gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us through the will of God”; Jude 23—“And on some have mercy, who are in [pg 900]doubt; and some save, snatching them out of the fire.” Inscribed upon a mural tablet of a Christian church, in Aneityum in the South Seas, to the memory of Dr. John Geddie, the pioneer missionary in that field, are the words: “When he came here, there were no Christians; when he went away, there were no heathen.” Inscription over the grave of David Livingstone in Westminster Abbey: “For thirty years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, to abolish the desolating slave trade of Central Africa, where with his last words he wrote: ‘All I can add in my solitude is, May Heaven's richest blessing come down on everyone, American, English or Turk, who will help to heal this open sore of the world.’ ”

C. The law of the church is simply the will of Christ, as expressed in the Scriptures and interpreted by the Holy Spirit. This law respects:

(a) The qualifications for membership.—These are regeneration and baptism, i. e., spiritual new birth and ritual new birth; the surrender of the inward and of the outward life to Christ; the spiritual entrance into communion with Christ's death and resurrection, and the formal profession of this to the world by being buried with Christ and rising with him in baptism.

(b) The duties imposed on members.—In discovering the will of Christ from the Scriptures, each member has the right of private judgment, being directly responsible to Christ for his use of the means of knowledge, and for his obedience to Christ's commands when these are known.

How far does the authority of the church extend? It certainly has no right to say what its members shall eat and drink; to what societies they shall belong; what alliances in marriage or in business they shall contract. It has no right, as an organized body, to suppress vice in the community, or to regenerate society by taking sides in a political canvass. The members of the church, as citizens, have duties in all these lines of activity. The function of the church is to give them religious preparation and stimulus for their work. In this sense, however, the church is to influence all human relations. It follows the model of the Jewish commonwealth rather than that of the Greek state. The Greek πόλις was limited, because it was the affirmation of only personal rights. The Jewish commonwealth was universal, because it was the embodiment of the one divine will. The Jewish state was the most comprehensive of the ancient world, admitting freely the incorporation of new members, and looking forward to a worldwide religious communion in one faith. So the Romans gave to conquered lands the protection and the rights of Rome. But the Christian church is the best example of incorporation in conquest. See Westcott, Hebrews, 386, 387; John Fiske, Beginnings of New England, 1-20; Dagg, Church Order, 74-99; Curtis on Communion, 1-61.

Abraham Lincoln: “This country cannot be half slave and half free” = the one part will pull the other over; there is an irrepressible conflict between them. So with the forces of Christ and of Antichrist in the world at large. Alexander Duff: “The church that ceases to be evangelistic will soon cease to be evangelical.” We may add that the church that ceases to be evangelical will soon cease to exist. The Fathers of New England proposed “to advance the gospel in these remote parts of the world, even if they should be but as stepping-stones to those who were to follow them.” They little foresaw how their faith and learning would give character to the great West. Church and school went together. Christ alone is the Savior of the world, but Christ alone cannot save the world. Zinzendorf called his society “The Mustard-seed Society”because it should remove mountains (Mat. 17:20). Hermann, Faith and Morals, 91, 238—“It is not by means of things that pretend to be imperishable that Christianity continues to live on; but by the fact that there are always persons to be found who, by their contact with the Bible traditions, become witnesses to the personality of Jesus and follow him as their guide, and therefore acquire sufficient courage to sacrifice themselves for others.”

3. The genesis of this organization.

(a) The church existed in germ before the day of Pentecost,—otherwise there would have been nothing to which those converted upon that day [pg 901] could have been “added” (Acts 2:47). Among the apostles, regenerate as they were, united to Christ by faith and in that faith baptized (Acts 19:4), under Christ's instruction and engaged in common work for him, there were already the beginnings of organization. There was a treasurer of the body (John 13:29), and as a body they celebrated for the first time the Lord's Supper (Mat. 26:26-29). To all intents and purposes they constituted a church, although the church was not yet fully equipped for its work by the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2), and by the appointment of pastors and deacons. The church existed without officers, as in the first days succeeding Pentecost.

Acts 2:47—“And the Lord added to them [marg.: ‘together’] day by day those that were being saved”; 19:4—“And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus”; John 13:29—“For some thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus said unto him, Buy what things we have need of for the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor”; Mat. 26:26-29—“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread ... and he gave to the disciples, and said, Take, eat.... And he took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it”; Acts 2—the Holy Spirit is poured out. It is to be remembered that Christ himself is the embodied union between God and man, the true temple of God's indwelling. So soon as the first believer joined himself to Christ, the church existed in miniature and germ.

A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 55, quotes Acts 2:41—“and there were added,” not to them, or to the church, but, as in Acts 5:14, and 11:24—“to the Lord.” This, Dr. Gordon declares, means not a mutual union of believers, but their divine coüniting with Christ; not voluntary association of Christians, but their sovereign incorporation into the Head, and this incorporation effected by the Head, through the Holy Spirit. The old proverb, “Tres faciunt ecclesiam,” is always true when one of the three is Jesus (Dr. Deems). Cyprian was wrong when he said that “he who has not the church for his mother, has not God for his Father”; for this could not account for the conversion of the first Christian, and it makes salvation dependent upon the church rather than upon Christ. The Cambridge Platform, 1648, chapter 6, makes officers essential, not to the being, but only to the well being, of churches, and declares that elders and deacons are the only ordinary officers; see Dexter, Congregationalism, 439.

Fish, Ecclesiology, 14-11, by a striking analogy, distinguishes three periods of the church's life: (1) the pre-natal period, in which the church is not separated from Christ's bodily presence; (2) the period of childhood, in which the church is under tutelage, preparing for an independent life; (3) the period of maturity, in which the church, equipped with doctrines and officers, is ready for self-government. The three periods may be likened to bud, blossom, and fruit. Before Christ's death, the church existed in bud only.

(b) That provision for these offices was made gradually as exigencies arose, is natural when we consider that the church immediately after Christ's ascension was under the tutelage of inspired apostles, and was to be prepared, by a process of education, for independence and self-government. As doctrine was communicated gradually yet infallibly, through the oral and written teaching of the apostles, so we are warranted in believing that the church was gradually but infallibly guided to the adoption of Christ's own plan of church organization and of Christian work. The same promise of the Spirit which renders the New Testament an unerring and sufficient rule of faith, renders it also an unerring and sufficient rule of practice, for the church in all places and times.

John 16:12-26 is to be interpreted as a promise of gradual leading by the Spirit into all the truth; 1 Cor. 14:37—“the things which I write unto you ... they are the commandments of the Lord.”An examination of Paul's epistles in their chronological order shows a progress in definiteness of teaching with regard to church polity, as well as with regard to doctrine in general. In this matter, as in other matters, apostolic instruction was given as providential exigencies demanded it. In the earliest days of the church, attention was paid [pg 902]to preaching rather than to organization. Like Luther, Paul thought more of church order in his later days than at the beginning of his work. Yet even in his first epistle we find the germ which is afterwards continuously developed. See:

(1) 1 Thess. 5:12, 13 (A. D. 52)—“But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you (προῖσταμένους) in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's sake.”

(2) 1 Cor. 12:28 (A. D. 57)—“And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps [ἀντιλήψεις = gifts needed by deacons], governments[κυβερνήσεις = gifts needed by pastors], divers kinds of tongues.”

(3) Rom. 12:6-8 (A. D. 58)—“And having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith; or ministry [διακονίαν], let us give ourselves to our ministry; or he that teacheth, to his teaching; or he that exhorteth, to his exhorting: he that giveth, let him do it with liberality; he that ruleth [ὁ προῖσταμένος], with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness.”

(4) Phil. 1:1 (A. D. 62)—“Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops [ἐπισκόποις, marg.: ‘overseers’] and deacons [διακόνοις].”

(5) Eph. 4:11 (A. D. 63)—“And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers [ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους].”

(6) 1 Tim. 3:1, 2 (A. D. 66)—“If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. The bishop[τὸν ἐπίσκοπον] therefore must be without reproach.” On this last passage, Huther in Meyer's Com. remarks: “Paul in the beginning looked at the church in its unity,—only gradually does he make prominent its leaders. We must not infer that the churches in earlier time were without leadership, but only that in the later time circumstances were such as to require him to lay emphasis upon the pastor's office and work.” See also Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 62-75.

McGiffert, in his Apostolic Church, puts the dates of Paul's Epistles considerably earlier, as for example: 1 Thess., circ. 48; 1 Cor., c. 51, 52; Rom., 52, 53; Phil., 56-58; Eph., 52, 53, or 56-58; 1 Tim., 56-58. But even before the earliest Epistles of Paul comes James 5:14—“Is any among you sick? let him call for the elders of the church”—written about 48 A. D., and showing that within twenty years after the death of our Lord there had grown up a very definite form of church organization.

On the question how far our Lord and his apostles, in the organization of the church, availed themselves of the synagogue as a model, see Neander, Planting and Training, 28-34. The ministry of the church is without doubt an outgrowth and adaptation of the eldership of the synagogue. In the synagogue, there were elders who gave themselves to the study and expounding of the Scriptures. The synagogues held united prayer, and exercised discipline. They were democratic in government, and independent of each other. It has sometimes been said that election of officers by the membership of the church came from the Greek ἐκκλησία, or popular assembly. But Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 1:438, says of the elders of the synagogue that “their election depended on the choice of the congregation.” Talmud, Berachob, 55 a: “No ruler is appointed over a congregation, unless the congregation is consulted.”

(c) Any number of believers, therefore, may constitute themselves into a Christian church, by adopting for their rule of faith and practice Christ's law as laid down in the New Testament, and by associating themselves together, in accordance with it, for his worship and service. It is important, where practicable, that a council of churches be previously called, to advise the brethren proposing this union as to the desirableness of constituting a new and distinct local body; and, if it be found desirable, to recognize them, after its formation, as being a church of Christ. But such action of a council, however valuable as affording ground for the fellowship of other churches, is not constitutive, but is simply declaratory; and, without such action, the body of believers alluded to, if formed after the N. T. example, may notwithstanding be a true church of Christ. Still further, a band of converts, among the heathen or providentially precluded from access to existing churches, might rightfully appoint one of their number to baptize the rest, and then might organize, de novo, a New Testament church.

[pg 903]

The church at Antioch was apparently self-created and self-directed. There is no evidence that any human authority, outside of the converts there, was invoked to constitute or to organize the church. As John Spillsbury put it about 1640: “Where there is a beginning, some must be first.” The initiative lies in the individual convert, and in his duty to obey the commands of Christ. No body of Christians can excuse itself for disobedience upon the plea that it has no officers. It can elect its own officers. Councils have no authority to constitute churches. Their work is simply that of recognizing the already existing organization and of pledging the fellowship of the churches which they represent. If God can of the stones raise up children unto Abraham, he can also raise up pastors and teachers from within the company of believers whom he has converted and saved.

Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 2:294, quotes from Luther, as follows: “If a company of pious Christian laymen were captured and sent to a desert place, and had not among them an ordained priest, and were all agreed in the matter, and elected one and told him to baptize, administer the Mass, absolve, and preach, such a one would be as true a priest as if all the bishops and popes had ordained him.” Dexter, Congregationalism, 51—“Luther came near discovering and reproducing Congregationalism. Three things checked him: 1. he undervalued polity as compared with doctrine; 2. he reacted from Anabaptist fanaticisms; 3. he thought Providence indicated that princes should lead and people should follow. So, while he and Zwingle alike held the Bible to teach that all ecclesiastical power inheres under Christ in the congregation of believers, the matter ended in an organization of superintendents and consistories, which gradually became fatally mixed up with the state.”

III. Government of the Church.

1. Nature of this government in general.

It is evident from the direct relation of each member of the church, and so of the church as a whole, to Christ as sovereign and lawgiver, that the government of the church, so far as regards the source of authority, is an absolute monarchy.

In ascertaining the will of Christ, however, and in applying his commands to providential exigencies, the Holy Spirit enlightens one member through the counsel of another, and as the result of combined deliberation, guides the whole body to right conclusions. This work of the Spirit is the foundation of the Scripture injunctions to unity. This unity, since it is a unity of the Spirit, is not an enforced, but an intelligent and willing, unity. While Christ is sole king, therefore, the government of the church, so far as regards the interpretation and execution of his will by the body, is an absolute democracy, in which the whole body of members is intrusted with the duty and responsibility of carrying out the laws of Christ as expressed in his word.

The seceders from the established church of Scotland, on the memorable 18th of May, 1843, embodied in their protest the following words: We go out “from an establishment which we loved and prized, through interference with conscience, the dishonor done to Christ's crown, and the rejection of his sole and supreme authority as King in his church.” The church should be rightly ordered, since it is the representative and guardian of God's truth—its “pillar and ground” (1 Tim. 3:15)—the Holy Spirit working in and through it.

But it is this very relation of the church to Christ and his truth which renders it needful to insist upon the right of each member of the church to his private judgment as to the meaning of Scripture; in other words, absolute monarchy, in this case, requires for its complement an absolute democracy. President Wayland: “No individual Christian or number of individual Christians, no individual church or number of individual churches, has original authority, or has power over the whole. None can add to or subtract from the laws of Christ, or interfere with his direct and absolute sovereignty over the hearts and lives of his subjects.” Each member, as equal to every [pg 904]other, has right to a voice in the decisions of the whole body; and no action of the majority can bind him against his conviction of duty to Christ.

John Cotton of Massachusetts Bay, 1643, Questions and Answers: “The royal government of the churches is in Christ, the stewardly or ministerial in the churches themselves.”Cambridge Platform, 1648, 10th chapter—“So far as Christ is concerned, church government is a monarchy; so far as the brotherhood of the church is concerned, it resembles a democracy.” Unfortunately the Platform goes further and declares that, in respect of the Presbytery and the Elders' power, it is also an aristocracy.

Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, who held diverse views in philosophy, were once engaged in controversy. While the discussion was running through the press, Mr. Spencer, forced by lack of funds, announced that he would be obliged to discontinue the publication of his promised books on science and philosophy. Mr. Mill wrote him at once, saying that, while he could not agree with him in some things, he realized that Mr. Spencer's investigations on the whole made for the advance of truth, and so he himself would be glad to bear the expense of the remaining volumes. Here in the philosophical world is an example which may well be taken to heart by theologians. All Christians indeed are bound to respect in others the right of private judgment while stedfastly adhering themselves to the truth as Christ has made it known to them.

Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, dug for each neophyte a grave, and buried him all but the head, asking him: “Art thou dead?” When he said: “Yes!” the General added: “Rise then, and begin to serve, for I want only dead men to serve me.”Jesus, on the other hand, wants only living men to serve him, for he gives life and gives it abundantly (John 10:10). The Salvation Army, in like manner, violates the principle of sole allegiance to Christ, and like the Jesuits puts the individual conscience and will under bonds to a human master. Good intentions may at first prevent evil results; but, since no man can be trusted with absolute power, the ultimate consequence, as in the case of the Jesuits, will be the enslavement of the subordinate members. Such autocracy does not find congenial soil in America,—hence the rebellion of Mr. and Mrs. Ballington Booth.

A. Proof that the government of the church is democratic or congregational.

(a) From the duty of the whole church to preserve unity in its action.

Rom. 12:16—“Be of the same mind one toward another”; 1 Cor. 1:10—“Now I beseech you ... that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment”; 2 Cor. 13:11—“be of the same mind”; Eph. 4:3—“giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”; Phil. 1:27—“that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the gospel”; 1 Pet. 3:8—“be ye all likeminded.”

These exhortations to unity are not mere counsels to passive submission, such as might be given under a hierarchy, or to the members of a society of Jesuits; they are counsels to coöperation and to harmonious judgment. Each member, while forming his own opinions under the guidance of the Spirit, is to remember that the other members have the Spirit also, and that a final conclusion as to the will of God is to be reached only through comparison of views. The exhortation to unity is therefore an exhortation to be open-minded, docile, ready to subject our opinions to discussion, to welcome new light with regard to them, and to give up any opinion when we find it to be in the wrong. The church is in general to secure unanimity by moral suasion only; though, in case of wilful and perverse opposition to its decisions, it may be necessary to secure unity by excluding an obstructive member, for schism.

A quiet and peaceful unity is the result of the Holy Spirit's work in the hearts of Christians. New Testament church government proceeds upon the supposition that Christ dwells in all believers. Baptist polity is the best possible polity for good people. Christ has made no provision for an unregenerate church-membership, and for Satanic possession of Christians. It is best that a church in which Christ does not dwell should by dissension reveal its weakness, and fall to pieces; and any outward organization that conceals inward disintegration, and compels a merely formal union after the Holy Spirit has departed, is a hindrance instead of a help to true religion.

Congregationalism is not a strong government to look at. Neither is the solar system. Its enemies call it a rope of sand. It is rather a rope of iron filings held together by a magnetic current. Wordsworth: “Mightier far Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the [pg 905]sway Of magic portent over sun and star, Is love.” President Wayland: “We do not need any hoops of iron or steel to hold us together.” At high tide all the little pools along the sea shore are fused together. The unity produced by the inflowing of the Spirit of Christ is better than any mere external unity, whether of organization or of creed, whether of Romanism or of Protestantism. The times of the greatest external unity, as under Hildebrand, were times of the church's deepest moral corruption. A revival of religion is a better cure for church quarrels than any change in church organization could effect. In the early church, though there was no common government, unity was promoted by active intercourse. Hospitality, regular delegates, itinerant apostles and prophets, apostolic and other epistles, still later the gospels, persecution, and even heresy, promoted unity—heresy compelling the exclusion of the unworthy and factious elements in the Christian community.

Dr. F. J. A. Hort, The Christian Ecclesia: “Not a word in the Epistle to the Ephesians exhibits the one ecclesia as made up of many ecclesiæ.... The members which make up the one ecclesia are not communities, but individual men.... The unity of the universal ecclesia ... is a truth of theology and religion, not a fact of what we call ecclesiastical politics.... The ecclesia itself, i. e., the sum of all its male members, is the primary body, and, it would seem, even the primary authority.... Of officers higher than elders we find nothing that points to an institution or system, nothing like the Episcopal system of later times.... The monarchical principle receives practical though limited recognition in the position ultimately held by St. James at Jerusalem, and in the temporary functions entrusted by St. Paul to Timothy and Titus.” On this last statement Bartlett, in Contemp. Rev., July, 1897, says that James held an unique position as brother of our Lord, while Paul left the communities organized by Timothy and Titus to govern themselves, when once their organization was set agoing. There was no permanent diocesan episcopate, in which one man presided over many churches. The ecclesiæ had for their officers only bishops and deacons.

Should not the majority rule in a Baptist church? No, not a bare majority, when there are opposing convictions on the part of a large minority. What should rule is the mind of the Spirit. What indicates his mind is the gradual unification of conviction and opinion on the part of the whole body in support of some definite plan, so that the whole church moves together. The large church has the advantage over the small church in that the single crotchety member cannot do so much harm. One man in a small boat can easily upset it, but not so in the great ship. Patient waiting, persuasion, and prayer, will ordinarily win over the recalcitrant. It is not to be denied, however, that patience may have its limits, and that unity may sometimes need to be purchased by secession and the forming of a new local church whose members can work harmoniously together.

(b) From the responsibility of the whole church for maintaining pure doctrine and practice.

1 Tim. 3:15—“the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth”; Jude 3—“exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints”; Rev. 2 and 3—exhortations to the seven churches of Asia to maintain pure doctrine and practice. In all these passages, pastoral charges are given, not by a so-called bishop to his subordinate priests, but by an apostle to the whole church and to all its members.

In 1 Tim. 3:15, Dr. Hort would translate “a pillar and ground of the truth”—apparently referring to the local church as one of many. Eph. 3:18—“strong to apprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth.” Edith Wharton, Vesalius in Zante, in N. A. Rev., Nov. 1892—“Truth is many-tongued. What one man failed to speak, another finds Another word for. May not all converge, In some vast utterance of which you and I, Fallopius, were but the halting syllables?” Bruce, Training of the Twelve, shows that the Twelve probably knew the whole O. T. by heart. Pandita Ramabai, at Oxford, when visiting Max Müller, recited from the Rig Veda passim, and showed that she knew more of it by heart than the whole contents of the O. T.

(c) From the committing of the ordinances to the charge of the whole church to observe and guard. As the church expresses truth in her teaching, so she is to express it in symbol through the ordinances.

Mat. 28:19, 20—“Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them ... teaching them”; cf. Luke 24:33—“And they rose up that very hour ... found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with [pg 906]them”; Acts 1:15—“And in these days Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, and said (and there was a multitude of persons gathered together, about a hundred and twenty)”; 1 Cor. 15:6—“then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once”—these passages show that it was not to the eleven apostles alone that Jesus committed the ordinances.

1 Cor. 11:2—“Now I praise you that ye remember me in all things, and hold fast the traditions, even as I delivered them to you”; cf. 23, 24—“for I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me”—here Paul commits the Lord's Supper into the charge, not of the body of officials, but of the whole church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper, therefore, are not to be administered at the discretion of the individual minister. He is simply the organ of the church; and pocket baptismal and communion services are without warrant. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 299; Robinson, Harmony of Gospels, notes, § 170.

(d) From the election by the whole church, of its own officers and delegates. In Acts 14:23, the literal interpretation of χειροτονήσαντες is not to be pressed. In Titus 1:5, “when Paul empowers Titus to set presiding officers over the communities, this circumstance decides nothing as to the mode of choice, nor is a choice by the community itself thereby necessarily excluded.”

Acts 1:23, 26—“And they put forward two ... and they gave lots for them; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles”; 6:3, 5—“Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good report ... And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, ... and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus”—as deacons; Acts 13:2, 3—“And as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.”

On this passage, see Meyer's comment: “ ‘Ministered’ here expresses the act of celebrating divine service on the part of the whole church. To refer αὐτῶν to the ‘prophets and teachers’ is forbidden by the ἀφορίσατε—and by verse 3. This interpretation would confine this most important mission-act to five persons, of whom two were the missionaries sent; and the church would have had no part in it, even through its presbyters. This agrees, neither with the common possession of the Spirit in the apostolic church, nor with the concrete cases of the choice of an apostle (ch. 1) and of deacons (ch. 6). Compare 14:27, where the returned missionaries report to the church. The imposition of hands (verse 3) is by the presbyters, as representatives of the whole church. The subject in verses 2 and 3 is ‘the church’—(represented by the presbyters in this case). The church sends the missionaries to the heathen, and consecrates them through its elders.”

Acts 15:2, 4, 22, 30—“the brethren appointed that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem.... And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church and the apostles and the elders.... Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men out of their company, and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.... So they ... came down to Antioch; and having gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle”; 2 Cor. 8:19—“who was also appointed by the churches to travel with us in the matter of this grace”—the contribution for the poor in Jerusalem; Acts 14:23—“And when they had appointed (χειροτονήσαντες) for them elders in every church”—the apostles announced the election of the church, as a College President confers degrees, i. e., by announcing degrees conferred by the Board of Trustees. To this same effect witnesses the newly discovered Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, chapter 15: “Appoint therefore for yourselves bishops and deacons.”

The derivation of χειροτονήσαντες, holding up of hands, as in a popular vote, is not to be pressed, any more than is the derivation of ἐκκλησία from καλέω. The former had come to mean simply “to appoint,” without reference to the manner of appointment, as the latter had come to mean an “assembly,” without reference to the calling of its members by God. That the church at Antioch “separated” Paul and Barnabas, and that this was not done simply by the five persons mentioned, is shown by the fact that, when Paul and Barnabas returned from the missionary journey, they reported not to these five, but to the whole church. So when the church at Antioch sent delegates to Jerusalem, the letter of the Jerusalem church is thus addressed: “The apostles and the elders, brethren, unto the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia” (Acts 15:23). The Twelve had only spiritual authority. They could advise, but they did not command. Hence they could not transmit government, since they had it not. They could demand obedience, only as they convinced their hearers that their word was truth. It was not they who commanded, but their Master.

[pg 907]

Hackett, Com. on Acts—“χειροτονησαντες is not to be pressed, since Paul and Barnabas constitute the persons ordaining. It may possibly indicate a concurrent appointment, in accordance with the usual practice of universal suffrage; but the burden of proof lies on those who would so modify the meaning of the verb. The word is frequently used in the sense of choosing, appointing, with reference to the formality of raising the hand.” Per contra, see Meyer, in loco: “The church officers were elective. As appears from analogy of 6:2-6 (election of deacons), the word χειροτονήσαντες retains its etymological sense, and does not mean ‘constituted’ or ‘created.’ Their choice was a recognition of a gift already bestowed,—not the ground of the office and source of authority, but merely the means by which the gift becomes [known, recognized, and] an actual office in the church.”

Baumgarten, Apostolic History, 1:456—“They—the two apostles—allow presbyters to be chosen for the community by voting.” Alexander, Com. on Acts—“The method of election here, as the expression χειροτονήσαντες indicates, was the same as that in Acts 6:5, 6, where the people chose the seven, and the twelve ordained them.” Barnes, Com. on Acts: “The apostles presided in the assembly where the choice was made,—appointed them in the usual way by the suffrage of the people.” Dexter, Congregationalism, 138—“ ‘Ordained’ means here ‘prompted and secured the election’ of elders in every church.” So in Titus 1:5—“appoint elders in every city.” Compare the Latin: “dictator consules creavit” = prompted and secured the election of consuls by the people. See Neander, Church History, 1:189; Guericke, Church History, 1:110; Meyer, on Acts 13:2.

The Watchman, Nov. 7, 1901—“The root-difficulty with many schemes of statecraft is to be found in deep-seated distrust of the capacities and possibilities of men. Wendell Phillips once said that nothing so impressed him with the power of the gospel to solve our problems as the sight of a prince and a peasant kneeling side by side in a European Cathedral.” Dr. W. R. Huntington makes the strong points of Congregationalism to be: 1. a lofty estimate of the value of trained intelligence in the Christian ministry; 2. a clear recognition of the duty of every lay member of a church to take an active interest in its affairs, temporal as well as spiritual. He regards the weaknesses of Congregationalism to be: 1. a certain incapacity for expansion beyond the territorial limits within which it is indigenous; 2. an undervaluation of the mystical or sacramental, as contrasted with the doctrinal and practical sides of religion. He argues for the object-symbolism as well as the verbal-symbolism of the real presence and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Dread of idolatry, he thinks, should not make us indifferent to the value of sacraments. Baptists, we reply, may fairly claim that they escape both of these charges against ordinary Congregationalism, in that they have shown unlimited capacity of expansion, and in that they make very much of the symbolism of the ordinances.