Theodosia Ernest. Volume II.: or, Ten Days’ Travel in Search of the Church. (continued 4)

“Lydia was not baptized until the Lord had first opened her heart, so that she attended to and believed the gospel, as it was preached by Paul.

“The jailer believed in Christ, with all his house, and then they were baptized.

“Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, with all his house; and many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed, and then they were baptized.

“All the Churches to whom the epistles were addressed, consisted, as we have seen, of believers in Christ. And, in the language of the famous Pedobaptist, Richard Baxter, author of the Saint’s Rest, I can say: ‘In a word, I know of no one word in Scripture that giveth us the least intimation that ever man was baptized without the profession of a saving faith, or that giveth the least encouragement to baptize any upon any other faith.’”

“I think, gentlemen,” said Doctor Thinkwell, “we shall be obliged to let this test stand on our tablet. It seems to me that, if any thing can be proved from Scripture, this has been, namely, that the first Churches consisted only of professed believers. And now let us hasten on, or we will finish our voyage before we have completed our examination. Is there any other peculiarity which invariably and of necessity characterized these ancient Church members?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Courtney. “They were, of necessity, every one of them baptized; for it was by the rite of baptism that they were admitted into the visible kingdom; and the visible Church could not go outside the visible kingdom for her members.”

“Then you do not claim that baptism is the door of entrance into the Church?”

“Strictly speaking, it is not, sir. It is the way of entrance into ‘the visible kingdom;’ and through the kingdom to the Church. No one can reach the Church, except through baptism; but every baptized believer is not a Church member. The eunuch was in the visible kingdom as soon as he was baptized; but he was not a member of any Church. The Church consists of such baptized believers as have voluntarily associated themselves together according to the scriptural constitution, to administer Christ’s ordinances, and enforce his laws among themselves. But it is just as true that no one can be a Church member who has not been baptized, as though baptism were itself the door of entrance into the Church.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Courtney,” said Theodosia; “but do not Baptists receive members into the Church by baptism?”

“Certainly not, madam. They sometimes think they do; and, in fact, a formal admission is dispensed with, and their membership is taken for granted. But the facts are these: The candidate comes before the Church and asks for baptism. (If it were not convenient to come to the Church, he might ask it of any one whom the Church had previously authorized to administer it. But it is always desirable and prudent to have the advice and sanction of the Church when it is practicable.) The Church, after hearing his experience of grace, in order that it may be able to judge whether he is really a penitent believer, directs him (if his experience be satisfactory) to be baptized. And then, after his baptism, the members of the Church, or the pastor in their name, gives him the right-hand of fellowship, in token of his reception as a member. He first gives himself to Christ in his heart, by faith; then he goes to Christ’s people, and makes profession of his penitence and faith. Upon this they are authorized and required to admit him into the visible kingdom by baptism; and he then gives himself to some company (ekklesia) of Christ’s people, to walk with them in all Christ’s ordinances: to aid them in their labors, and be subject to them in love. In general, however, the application for baptism is regarded by both parties as an application for reception into the Church as a member, and the determination that he ought to be baptized is accompanied by a resolution to regard him as a member so soon as he shall have been baptized; and he is, therefore, immediately upon his baptism, a member, to all intents and purposes, even without any formal act of recognition.”

“All this is nothing to our present purpose,” said Mr. Percy. “The question before us is not whether one is made a Church member by baptism, but whether he can be a member before baptism and without baptism? Whether baptism makes him a member, or only qualifies him to become a member, it is certain that all the members of the apostolic Churches were baptized people.”

“Let me so write it in the tablet,” said Theodosia. She wrote, and it then read thus:

Signs or marks by which to recognize a true Church of Jesus Christ.

I. It consists only of professed believers in Christ.

II. Its members must have been baptized upon a profession of their faith.

“I think, my dear,” said Mr. Percy, when she read it aloud, “you have slightly exceeded our instructions in adding that last clause. We have seen that the Scriptures teach that they were all believers; and we know they were all baptized; but our friends here may object to your making the baptism necessarily subsequent to a profession of faith, for that will cut off even real Christians who chanced to be baptized before they were old enough to believe or make profession.”

“What if it does?” she answered. “I thought we were to decide these questions by the teachings of the Book; and if the Book teaches that Church members must be professed believers, it teaches just as plainly, and by the same passages, that baptism must follow faith. It was ‘repent and be baptized,’ ‘believe and be baptized,’ that John and Christ commanded; and all Church members that we read of, first repented and believed, and were then baptized upon profession of their penitence and faith. We have not found a single case of baptism first, and faith and penitence coming after it.”

“She is right, sir,” said the Doctor, “so far as our investigations have gone; but is it certain that we have seen all teachings of the Word upon this point?”

“If there were even the shadow of proof that any such instance existed, we should have had it paraded by our Pedobaptist friends long ere this,” said Mr. Courtney. “They have told us that infants were circumcised, and, therefore, ought to be baptized: that Christ took little children in his arms and blessed them, and, therefore, they ought to be baptized: that he told his disciples to let them come to him, in order that he might put his hands or them and bless them, and, therefore, they ought to be baptized: that the word of God nowhere forbids their baptism in direct terms, and, therefore, they ought to be baptized: they tell us that children are born sinners, and, therefore, ought to be baptized: that they are called holy, and, therefore, they ought to be baptized. They tell us that they are born in the Church, and, therefore, ought to be baptized; and that they ought to be baptized to bring them into the Church. They give a vast number and a great variety of strange and contradictory reasons why they ought to be baptized; but they have never presented any single instance in which either an infant, or any other who had not made profession of penitence or faith, ever was baptized by John or Christ, or any of the apostles—except so far as they may take it for granted that the baptized households or families were not believing families—a supposition which we have seen is utterly untenable.”

“If,” said Theodosia, “the baptism of these families proves that little infants were baptized, I will undertake to prove that little infants voted for General Taylor when he was chosen President; for I can find a dozen men who will each of them testify that he and all his family voted for the hero of Monterey and Buena Vista. But, since little infants are not capable of voting, and since the Constitution requires that every voter shall be twenty-one years of age, I take it for granted that these families consisted of grown-up boys, or others legally qualified to vote. What would you think, Doctor, of a writer on the constitutional conditions of citizenship in the United States, who should maintain that little infants were certainly entitled to vote, for the history of the country records several instances in which whole families had voted for Washington, for Jefferson, for Jackson, and Taylor!”

“I would think,” interrupted Mr. Courtney, “that he exhibited quite as much common sense, and quite as much acquaintance with the rules of logic, as those doctors of divinity who maintain that infants must have been baptized, because among the thousands and thousands who believed and were baptized in the apostles’ days there were some half a dozen households.

“But we are discussing again a position which we had already settled. We have seen that none but professed believers could be Church members; and we are now to inquire whether they could be Church members before they had been baptized?”

“I hardly think it necessary to make an argument on this point,” said Mr. Percy, “since all denominations, so far as I know, substantially agree that no one can be admitted to the Church without that ceremony which they call baptism.”

“I would be glad, nevertheless,” replied the Doctor, “to know upon what scriptural authority all denominations rest this item of their faith and practice.”

“That is very easily made out, Doctor. 1st. Christ commanded them to believe and be baptized, and this is, therefore, after profession of faith and penitence, the first formal act of external obedience.

“2d. All of whom we read in the Book were at once baptized upon profession of their faith. The three thousand who believed upon the day of Pentecost, and all the many thousands who were added to them in various places afterwards, were all baptized. No instance is on record of one being received without it.

“3d. The first Christian Churches were habitually addressed as baptized persons. We are told that they had ‘been baptized into Christ,’ ‘buried with him by baptism,’ and the like.

“These proofs are so strong and complete that, although some have dispensed with any personal profession of faith, yet no denomination claiming to be a Christian Church has ever dispensed with what they called baptism, or considered those as complete Church members who had not received something which they regarded as baptism.”

“How, then,” asked the Doctor, “can this be a characteristic or distinguishing mark, since all the claimants possess it in common?”

“The true Church, sir,” said Mr. Courtney, “must not merely have a rite which is called baptism: it must have actual baptism: it must have that very baptism which Jesus Christ commanded, and these first Churches practiced. That cannot be a true Church of Christ which has abolished his baptism and substituted some other ceremony in the place of it, even though that other ceremony should be called by the same name with his.”

“But, my dear sir,” exclaimed the Doctor, “don’t you see that if we attempt to make any practical application of this mark, we shall be first obliged to go over the whole baptismal controversy in order to ascertain what was the act which Christ in fact commanded?”

“Not at all, sir. It will not be necessary to prove what was the original act, since they themselves admit it; nor will it be needful to prove that they have changed it, for they have, some of them at least, confessed it, and openly claim the right to change it again—as often in their discretion as they may think best.

“Very well. Then we may consider ourselves as having taken at least two steps in our investigation. We have ascertained that a Church, as regards its members must consist of professed believers, and that these believers must have beet baptized. What have we next?”

“If you will permit me to suggest another mark,” said Mr. Percy, “I will remind you that in our examination yesterday we found that the Church, when regarded as an actual, visible, working body, was in every instance a local and an independent body. Now, since it is the actual and visible Church for which we are looking, we will find it a local, separate, and independent organization, complete in itself, and not bound up with others in any great ecclesiastical establishment. It cannot be any collection of federated, religious societies, mutually bound together and subordinated to each other, or to some common head. It stands alone, supreme under Christ, as regards its own membership; but having no authority beyond the pale of its own number. There is, in the Scriptures, no appearance of subordination of Church to Church, of one Church to many, or of all to one. There were no territorial Churches and no national Churches. The Church at Jerusalem was one Church: the Church at Antioch was another Church: the Church at Ephesus was another. Each of the multitude of the Churches which were ‘scattered about throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria,’ was just as much a Church as the Church at Jerusalem. There was no Church of Judea including them all; nor did any one of them, or all combined, pretend to exercise authority over any other.”

“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “If we have discovered any thing about the Church, we have discovered that it is a local and independent organization.”

“And this is equally true of the Church,” said Mr Courtney, “whether we consider it as an actual, visible, and working assembly, met together for the worship of God and the administration of the laws and ordinances of Christ, or whether, in accordance with the usage of modern language, we employ the term generically to signify our mental conception of all the visible Churches in the world, as if they were united in one great universal assembly. The whole cannot be different from the parts of which it is composed.

“If every true Church is, as we have seen, a local and independent organization, then the aggregate of them all cannot include any that are not thus local and independent; and if federated ecclesiastical establishments are not true and scriptural Churches, then such establishments can make no part of a true and scriptural conception of a visible Church universal.”

“It is of no consequence at all to me,” said the Doctor, “what this imaginary body may be composed of. I want to find the real. I can readily conceive of a great visible Church universal, including all true visible Churches. I can conceive, also, of a great visible Church, including all that claim to be Churches. I can conceive of a vast invisible Church, including all believers, past, present, and to come; but these are not the objects of my search. I want to find that visible organization to which Christ has intrusted the administration of his laws and ordinances; and I am satisfied that when I find it, it will be a local and independent organization, composed of baptized believers.”

“Let me write this third mark in my tablet,” said Theodosia.

When she had written, the tablet read thus:

Signs or marks by which to recognize a true Church of Jesus Christ.

I. It consists only of professed believers in Christ.

II. Its members must have been baptized upon a profession of their faith.

III. It is a local organization, and independent of all others.

“I do not feel quite satisfied with this last mark,” said Mr. Courtney. “It tells the truth, but not the whole truth. Each Church of Jesus Christ is a separate organization, complete in itself, and competent of itself to exercise all the functions of a Church. It can receive members. Rom. xiv. 1. It can exercise discipline (1 Cor. v. 1⁠–⁠13) by expelling or suspending members. It can restore them upon repentance. 2 Cor. ii. 1⁠–⁠11. It can reject false teachers, and cast out those who hold false doctrines. Tit. iii. 10; Rev. ii. 14, 15, 20. It can elect its own officers. Acts vi. 1⁠–⁠7; xiv. 23. It can ordain and send out missionaries, or evangelists, to found other Churches, which, however, when established, shall be as independent as itself. Acts xiii. 1. And it can do all that, in the Scripture, is predicated of any Church of Christ. But, while it is independent of all other Churches or federations in its organization, and in the exercise of its functions, it is so absolutely dependent on Christ its Lord and King, that it can make no laws, but only execute the laws which Christ has made; and it can exercise no authority, but such as was specially delegated to it by Christ. It is simply and only the executive body to which Christ has intrusted the administration of his kingdom, according to the constitution and laws which he made for its instruction and government. I would therefore have preferred that when you wrote it down as an independent organization, you had added some word to slow the limit of this independence.”

“I think, sir,” replied Mr. Percy, “that we will understand well enough what we mean by our mark, especially after your explanation; but let me ask if this absolute recognition of Christ as its only head and lawgiver does not itself constitute one characteristic mark of a true Church? If it is the executive of his kingdom, it must, of course, execute the laws of the King. Christ is its sole and only Lord. He makes the laws. It is as his laws, and only as such, that the Church can execute them; and in doing this it must proceed in strict accordance with the requirements of the King. The executive cannot make laws for itself. It is bound by those already made, and must carry them into effect alike, whether it approves or disapproves. It cannot abrogate them. It cannot nullify them. It cannot change or modify them. It can only ask, What was the intention of the Lawgiver? What did he say, and what did he mean by what he said? When this is known, it has no discretion left. If it changes the law; if it refuses to execute it as it was given, it is a virtual rebellion and secession from the dominion of the King. It is no longer his executive. It is no longer his Church. But if it goes still farther, and permits other lords to make laws for it, and acknowledges allegiance to other powers, then it has not only rebelled against and seceded from the rightful sovereign, but has united with his enemies, or at least with his rivals. It is, then, not only no longer a Christian Church, but it is anti-Christian; not only not Christ’s, but against Christ’s Church. Nor will it make any legal difference whether these new lords and lawgivers make their new regulations in their own name, and openly and avowedly on their own authority, or whether they claim in the name of Christ a right which he has never given them. A Church of Christ has Christ alone for her King and Lawgiver, and can never acknowledge the authority of any man or body of men—not even of herself—to change one jot or tittle of Christ’s law, or to institute new laws or regulations in regard to her ordinances, her terms of membership, her rules of discipline, or any thing else that comes within her province as a Church of Christ.

“That is most certainly an indisputable conclusion, which grows of necessity out of the admission that Christ is her only King. And I do not suppose that any man, or body of men, claiming to be Christians, will deny that Christ is the head over all things to his body, which is the Church, or that any thing is to be received by the Church as a rule either of faith or practice which does not rest upon ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ as its authority.”

Mrs. Percy took up her tablet again, and entered this mark, and it then read—

Signs or Marks By Which to Know a True Church of Christ

1st. It consists only of professed believers in Christ.

2d. Its members must have been baptized upon a profession of their faith.

3d. It is a local organization, and independent of all others.

4th. It has Christ alone for its King and Lawgiver, and recognizes no authority but his above its own.

“We have now seen,” said Mr. Courtney, “the characteristics of a scriptural Church in regard to its membership and its constitution. We need yet to learn what were its peculiar doctrines, and what were the objects or purposes of its organization.”

“I remember,” said Theodosia, “that when we were studying the nature of the kingdom, the other day, we found that all its subjects were voluntary subjects, who had come of their own free will and accord, and had sought for admission. Is it not also a characteristic of a Church within this kingdom that its members must have become such by their own personal and voluntary act?”

“Certainly it is; and I thank you for reminding us of it; for I had well-nigh forgotten it,” said Mr. Courtney. “You may add this mark also to your tablet; for nothing is more certain than that the members of these first Churches (which must ever be the pattern of the true Churches of Christ) became members with their own personal consent, and by their own voluntary act. Each one for himself ‘gladly received the word.’ They voluntarily ‘consorted with’ the company of the believers. They were not driven to it by the government, with fines, imprisonments, and stripes. They were not forced by the authority of parents, or of masters. They were not carried in while they were little helpless babes, and made Church members without their own knowledge or consent. Nothing is plainer than the fact that the members of Christ’s Church were designed to be converted people—those who had been renewed in the temper and disposition of their minds—who had been regenerated by the power of God, and made new creatures in Christ Jesus. They had been aliens, but now were sons. They had been in darkness, but now were light in the Lord. They had lived after the flesh, but now they lived after the Spirit. Old things had passed away, and all things had become new. Those who had thus been changed would love Christ and love his people, and desire to be associated with them. Such would desire the prosperity of Christ’s kingdom, and in their hearts would pray for its advancement. Such, and only such, could be with any propriety intrusted with the management of the business and the administration of the ordinances of the kingdom. Religion is a voluntary thing. Religion is a personal matter. It has to do with personal opinions, personal feelings, and personal actions. No one can be religious by proxy. He must repent for himself, believe for himself, love the Lord Jesus for himself: and for himself he must obey, by submitting to baptism as the ordinance of Christ, and uniting with his Church as the people of Christ.”

“I do not see,” said the Doctor, “that there can be any objection to this test. We certainly did not find in the Scriptures any instance of involuntary Church membership.”

Theodosia wrote in the tablet a fifth mark, namely:

“5th. Its members have become such by their own voluntary act.”

“Now, what shall we say in regard to its doctrine?” asked the Doctor.

“That,” replied Mr. Courtney, “is a much more difficult question than would at first glance appear; for, while all agree that there are certain fundamental doctrines, upon which the whole gospel system is based, it would take too much time, and would too much complicate our present investigation, to examine and determine precisely what they are, and just how far a Church may lose them, or depart from a full belief of them, without ceasing to be a true Church of Jesus Christ.”

“There is, however,” said Mr. Percy, “at least one doctrine which is involved in the very nature of the ancient profession of faith; and that is, the Divine nature and Messiahship of Jesus.”

“So also,” said Theodosia, “was the doctrine that man is a sinner, and Christ the only Saviour; for these ideas are both involved in penitence and faith.”

“It will answer all our purposes,” replied Mr. Courtney, “to say that a true Church of Jesus must believe and teach the fundamental doctrines of the gospel of Christ. We shall not probably disagree about what these doctrines are, so far as to make any difficulty in the way of applying our test; and if we happen to do so, the question can be settled then as well as now.”

Theodosia added therefore this sixth mark:

“6. It holds, as articles of faith, the fundamental doctrines of the gospel of Christ.”

“We need now, it seems to me, but one thing,” said Mr Percy, “to complete our tablet. It is not every association of Church members, or every assembly of Church members, that constitutes a Church of Christ. His Church was instituted for a specific purpose. It has certain objects in view: certain duties to perform; and it can only be regarded as a Church, when it is considered in its relation to these objects and duties.”

“That is very true, sir. There may be associations or meetings consisting exclusively of real members of a true Church, and even including all the members of such a Church, organized for some secular or moral, or even for a religious purpose, and yet it would not be a Church.

“The ekklesia of Christ is not a mere association or assembly of his real and visible people; but it is an official assembly, for specific purposes, clearly designated in the Word.

“The jury is not a mere assembly of twelve men; or of twelve men properly qualified to be jurors; or of twelve actual jurors (when released from their official duties as jurors and) engaged in some other business. It is ‘a jury’ only when properly qualified, duly organized and acting in its official capacity, in accordance with the laws of its existence. So the Church is not a mere assembly of Church members, when met together for any of the common or uncommon purposes of life; but only an official assembly, for the purposes enjoined in the law of the King, by whose authority it exists, and in whose name it acts.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked Theodosia, “that the Church is in being only so long as it is in official session? Would a Church cease to be a Church when it is dismissed, and only become one again when it has again assembled?”

“Only in the same sense, madam, that our legislature ceases to be a legislature when it adjourns for dinner. Its members are still members, duly qualified and reads to act; but they cannot act as a legislature till they come together again as an official body. And if, in the interval, nay of the members, or all of the members, had gone to a political meeting, and passed resolutions, or nominated candidates, or formed a temperance society, those would not have been acts of ‘the legislature,’ and would have no legal sanction. So the Church, when it has been dismissed, still exists in the being and qualifications of its members; but it can perform no Church action, as the judiciary and executive in the kingdom of Christ, until it shall have come together as an official body. But we were about to inquire concerning the specific objects for which Christ’s Church was constituted. These we must learn, as we have all that we know about the Church, from the teachings of the book. We must ascertain what the Church was instructed to do, and what the apostolic Churches actually did, in their official capacity, as Churches of Jesus Christ.

“This will not give us much trouble, after the examination we have already made. From the instructions which the Master gave to the offended brother, Matthew xviii., we have seen that one of its duties was to adjust disagreements which might arise among its members. From Acts i. 22, vi. 5, we learn that it was to choose its own officers. From Acts xi. 22, xiii. 3, we see that it was its province to set apart and send out missionaries. From 1 Cor. v. 13, we find it was to exclude the sinful and disorderly; and from 2 Cor. ii. 8, to restore such upon evidence of their repentance. From 1 Cor. xi. 20⁠–⁠34, we learn that it was to regularly observe the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, in remembrance of him. From Rev. ii. 14, 15, that it was to take proper measures to preserve the purity of doctrine; and from 2 Thess. iii. 6, and 1 Cor. xi. 2, that it must maintain the ordinances in their purity, as it had received them.”

“I think,” said Mr. Percy, “we might sum up the whole matter in few words. The Church is the visible executive and judiciary of the kingdom. As the executive, it receives members, elects officers, ordains ministers, sends out evangelists, or missionaries, observes ordinances, and provides for the regular and public worship of God. As the judiciary, it settles disputes, excludes the disorderly, restores the penitent, condemns false doctrines, and does whatever is needful to preserve the peace and purity of its members.

“We have found no instance of its exercising legislative powers. It makes no new laws. It ventures not to repeal, or even modify, the laws of Christ: this were to invade the prerogative of the King.

“The only instance which seems, at first glance, like an act of legislation, is that in which the apostles and elders associated the Church with them in their decree about circumcision. Acts xv. 22, 23. But it was to the apostles and elders that the Church at Antioch had sent. And care is taken to show that the binding authority of the decree is not in the Church, but in the Holy Ghost. And from Acts xvi. 4 we learn, that although the brethren had been apparently associated with the inspired apostles and elders, yet it was only in the sending of the messengers; for the decree is here expressly called the decree of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem, as distinct and separate from the Church. They were inspired and fully authorized to legislate; but the Church could only execute the laws which the King had enacted, or might enact, through those whom he inspired to speak his words.”

Fifth Day’s Travel.

In which the Tablet is completed—The great difficulty—A new character.

When our company had assembled on the morning of the fourth day, they found themselves surrounded by a group of eager listeners. The discussion had begun to excite great interest among the passengers. Even the irreligious were delighted to find something which would in some degree relieve the monotony of the tiresome voyage; and Church polity became a prominent subject of discussion in every part of the boat.

It must be admitted, however, that, except in the ladies’ cabin, where Mr. Percy, Theodosia, and Mr. Courtney could speak for themselves, the party which they represented met with very little favor. The prevailing sentiment was, that all who professed faith in Christ, and obedience to his laws, belonged to his Church. And it was regarded a sufficient answer to any argument in favor of a strict adherence to the scriptural model, that if it were received, it would at once unchurch some of these professors.

Here is, in fact, the great difficulty in the way of the general reception of the truth in regard to this subject. Every professor of religion who has united with any religious society, fully believes that he is a member of Christ’s Church; and his mind will receive nothing as truth which is opposed to that belief. If you reason with him out of the Scriptures, and show him the New Testament model of a Church, and point out to him the utter discrepancy between his society and the institution of Jesus Christ, he may not attempt to reply. He probably will not, even in his own mind, try to reconcile the differences; but he will say to himself, “I am not able to understand all the teachings of the Scriptures, but I know that my good minister, and my dear brethren, and myself, belong to the Church; and any doctrine that turns us out is false.” This is an impervious shield: no shaft of Scripture truth can penetrate it: no power of logic can wrest it from his hand. He will readily receive any theory of the Church which counts himself as a part of the Church, even though it should include the practical infidelity and open profligacy of material Christianity—all the abominations of Antichrist himself. But any theory, however scriptural, which excludes his darling self and those whom he esteems as honest Christian people, is to him a simple absurdity, about which it is not worth while to reason.

It is, nevertheless, a fearful truth, that all cannot be right. If there be any Scripture pattern, men have departed from it at their peril. Christ’s Church must be what Christ established and enjoined upon his people to maintain. This is one definite and specific thing, plainly described and easily recognized in the Holy Word. And if Christ’s people have been blinded by the mists and clouds of traditional error, and led astray by leaders blinded like themselves, he may forgive them: he will forgive them. But he makes it now their solemn and imperative duty to go back to the Book, and “inquire for the old paths,” and return to that organization which he established.

“Will you do me the kindness,” asked the bishop of Theodosia, when they were seated around the table, “to let me see the little tablet you were making yesterday?”

“Certainly, sir.”

He ran his eye down its several heads, and, directing his question to Mr. Courtney, asked what, according to those rules, would be his definition of the Church?

“The Church, sir,” replied the schoolmaster, “is the local and visible judiciary and executive of the kingdom of Christ. It consists of such members of the kingdom as have voluntarily associated together for the maintenance of the public worship of God, the observance of Christ’s ordinances, and the execution of his laws. But, if I do not forget, we had not quite completed our tablet yesterday. When finished, it will read thus:

Signs or marks by which to know a true Church of Christ.

1st. It consists only of professed believers in Christ.

2d. Its members have been baptized upon a profession of their faith.

3d. It is a local organization, and independent of all others.

4th. It has Christ alone for its King and Lawgiver, and recognizes no authority but his above its own.

5th. Its members have become such by their own voluntary act.

6th. It holds as articles of faith the fundamental doctrines of the gospel of Christ.

“Now, these gentlemen, who have been present all the time, will bear me witness that we have found each of these marks distinctly recognized in this Holy Word. The claimant to Church honors, which cannot show these marks, is therefore not a scriptural Church. It is not the Church which Christ established. It is not that Church which he founded on the rock of faith. It is not that Church which he authorized and ordained, to exercise the authority of his kingdom in his name.”

“I do not feel disposed to discuss these positions with you,” replied the bishop. “This is no fitting time or place for such a discussion. I am willing to grant that you verily believe that you have, after careful and diligent search, discovered that these are the distinctive and peculiar marks of a true Christian Church, as laid down in the Scriptures. I am willing to grant that these intelligent ladies and gentlemen, who have so patiently listened to you, and seen you turn from chapter to chapter, and read the very verse on which your opinion rests, may have been compelled to agree with you; and yet I will show you that you have great cause to distrust your own conclusions.

“I suppose that you will not deny that you, as well as other men, are human, and, therefore, liable to err. I do not now say that you are wrong, but only intimate the possibility that you may be wrong. If you are right, the Church of Christ is a very insignificant affair. I do not know where it is. I have read no account of it. I have no certain knowledge of its existence; for I confess to you that I have not seen or heard of any body of people, claiming to be a Church, who unite in themselves all that I think would be demanded by that tablet. But if there be somewhere, in some secluded neighborhood, such an assembly, or, if in some strange country there should be a hundred or a thousand such assemblies, it is certain they have never been recognized as the Church of Christ by any but themselves; and when this little company of ignorant people, unknown to history, and unknown to scientific theology, sets up its claim not merely to be a part of the Church, but to be itself the Church, and the whole Church, and the only Church, against the countless thousands of the most devoted followers of Jesus, not in this age alone, but in all the past, from the days of the apostles down to the present hour, does it not seem, even to yourself, that it is more likely that you and your little company are wrong than that all the congregated and successive hosts of God have been mistaken?”

“If it were true,” said Mr. Courtney, smiling, “that the multitude were always right, I would concede much to your suggestion. It might, in that case, be prudent for no man to go to the Bible for his religious faith, but simply to inquire what opinions are held by the majority. If we adopt this plan, we shall, as Christians, all be driven into Romanism; and then, as men, into idolatry; for I suppose at least two-thirds of all the race are worshippers of idols, and a vast majority of all professing Christians are Roman Catholics. For myself, I prefer to be guided by the teachings of Jesus and the apostles rather than by the vast and countless majority. I say with Paul, that even though ‘an angel from heaven’ teach any other doctrine than that which I find here in this Holy Book, let him be accursed. I dare not follow the multitude to do evil.”

“Oh, no, my dear sir! you do not understand me. I do not deny that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith and practice. I am willing this question shall be tried by the Word; but what I say is this: You and your little company are more likely to be mistaken in your understanding of the Scriptures than all the multitudes of Christendom in every age. We must be governed by the Word; but is it the Word as you and your little company understand it? or as countless thousands of the people of God, as they are known to history, have understood it, and practiced it in every age? Is the faith of the ancient Church to go for nothing? Is the understanding of the Fathers to go for nothing? Is the practice of the holy martyrs to go for nothing? The Church of Christ, my dear sir, is not a verbal abstraction, to be gathered out of the Testament, and written down upon a tablet. It is an historical verity. We can trace it on the map of history from the earliest beginnings down to the present time. At first a little stream, then a mighty river: at length a vast sea, and now a mighty ocean, which is, at last, destined to become a world- enveloping flood, which shall overwhelm all enemies and all opposers.”

“Oh, yes,” replied Mr. Courtney, “I would like to talk to you an hour about this ‘historical Church,’ and, perhaps, it may come in our way presently. But I am afraid just now I shall forget your argument, which, if I understand you rightly, amounts to this: Every man is to go to the Scriptures to see what the Church is, but when he reads them he is not to understand them to mean that the Church is what they say it is; but he must take it for granted that they mean what the ancient historical Church says it is—what the Fathers say it is—and what the martyrs say it is. Now, the Fathers and the martyrs were, no doubt, very good people. They believed for themselves, and have gone to give account for themselves. You have the same word of faith which they had. You must believe for yourself, and God will hold you personally accountable for your faith and your practice. He charges you to found it on his Word, and not on traditionary legends, or uninspired historical records of early Churches, Fathers, or martyrs.

“The fact is, sir, we do not know and cannot know with any considerable degree of certainty, what the fathers and the martyrs did believe and teach. Their writings have been mutilated and interpolated until they would now hardly recognize them; and history is often the mere record of traditions, and traditions are often mere old wives’ fables. I want something better for my religious faith and practice to rest upon than the vague and contradictory accounts of the faith of ancient Churches, Fathers, and martyrs. Then, you say that I, as an individual, may be mistaken, and am, in fact, more likely to be mistaken than all good Christians of every age. I might grant this, and yet I should feel that as I am personally responsible, I must personally examine and personally determine for myself in this as in other things. When I surrender my right to use my private judgment to determine for myself what the Scriptures teach, I will go to Rome and procure an infallible priest. Nothing less would answer my purpose. No other could take the whole responsibility.

“But I will meet you on your own ground. I will accept our historical test; for the truth is—and I will prove to you by your own historians—the constitution of the ancient Church and the faith and practice of the Fathers and the martyrs, in regard to this subject, was, down to the time of Cyprian, just such as is expressed in this tablet. I will go still farther. I will show you that it continued, down to the Reformation, to be the faith and practice of all those Christian communities which recognized the Bible as their authority, or which permitted their people to read the Bible. Now, if you ask me to receive the interpretation which any Church or any people give to the Scriptures, let it, I beseech you, be that Church and those people that had the Scriptures and searched the Scriptures, and were free to understand them according to the meaning of the language, and not those who were forbidden to read them, or to believe any thing different from their priests, on pain of death.”

“Stop a minute, if you please, Mr. Courtney,” interrupted Doctor Thinkwell. “Let us make this matter practical as we go along. I want to see just what bearing it has upon the matter in hand. I asked you to tell me which was the true Church of Jesus Christ. You proposed rather to show me than to tell me, and directed me to look for it in the Book. We have seen it there, as it was organized and established by Christ and the apostles. We have thus ascertained that it was a local company of baptized believers, voluntarily associated in accordance with Christ’s law, to administer his ordinances and execute his laws. For the sake of convenient reference, we have, as we ascertained from time to time some distinctive peculiarity of this Church, put it down in our tablet. We have thus far been guided entirely by the Scriptures. We have not been at all dependent on history or tradition. Now, if our tablet is complete, that is, if it has all the distinctive marks, or enough of the distinctive marks of a true Church to enable us to recognize one when our attention is directed to it, why should we complicate the issue by turning aside to explore a question of history? If it can be avoided, I do not want my faith to hang on any other testimony than the inspired record. That I can trust. Outside of that I am afraid to go. I do not care what other people think; I do not ask what they believe. It is nothing to me: I must decide for myself. I shall use my own judgment, and be determined by the teaching of the Book, as I understand its language. It seems to me, therefore, that we may, for the present at least, dispense with any historical testimony on either side of this question. I do not see why we cannot at once proceed to try the various claimants, and decide who it is that has the characteristic marks.”

“It will, sir,” replied Mr. Courtney, “be very possible to decide the matter without any other information but that which we can gather from the Scriptures on the one hand, and our own personal observation on the other; but, at the same time, it will be more satisfactory, where we have undoubted historical testimony bearing upon the case of any claimant, to bring it before our minds, in order that we may decide in full view of all the circumstances. Such testimony will, however, come in by the way, and may be omitted till the occasion calls for it.”

“Then, please let us begin to make some practical application of the rules we have discovered. I am impatient to make some progress.”

“Whom shall we try first?”

“I should think that the Roman Catholic Church, by virtue of her age, and the extent of her claims, is entitled to our first consideration. I suppose there is no one present who regards her as the true Church of Christ, but I would like to understand precisely the grounds upon which we are compelled to reject her.”

“I do not much like,” said Mr. Courtney, “to take any course which will exclude, or even appear to exclude, from our tablet any scriptural test which may be suggested; and as it is evident from the declaration of our Saviour to Peter, that ‘the gates of hell should not prevail against his Church,’ and from the various prophecies which represent his kingdom as a perpetual and increasing kingdom, that the Church of Christ, as he established it, must have continued ever the same in all that is essential to its being, I would gladly add such a historical test as will enable us to identify among ourselves the Church of the earliest fathers, and of the holy martyrs, whose testimony seems to be so highly prized by our friends that they set it above the literal meaning of the Word itself. It is true, we can recognize the Church without this mark; and it is also true, that to those whose knowledge of ecclesiastical history is limited it may be somewhat difficult of application; but it is not the less valuable to those who have the needful information. The test itself is simple and scriptural. The Church of Christ began with Christ. It did not exist before his day. It has existed ever since. Any organization claiming to be that Church, and yet originating a thousand years after it was established, cannot surely be what it claims. This is self-evident. And to all these who know the origin of the claimant, the argument is quite as valid and convincing as though it were in the power of the most ignorant to apply it as perfectly as themselves; and to those who do not know, it may be made available by reference to unquestioned historical authority. Consequently, though I would be very unwilling to make it the only test, I cannot but regard it as a most certain and infallible one. And you will observe that we need not, in our application of the test, require of any claimant to prove an origin in the time of Christ. We are willing to take it for granted that each and all of those organizations which claim to be Christian Churches did begin with Christ, unless we can show for them a more recent origin. The history of most or all these claimants has been written by themselves, and this history gives their own statement of the time and place and manner of their beginning: now if we show the origin of each by their own account of themselves, I am sure none of them can reasonably complain.”

“But do you not see another difficulty in the way of applying this test?” inquired the Doctor. “We have ascertained that a Church of Christ is a local and independent organization. Now, the Church that was organized somewhere last year began more than 1800 years after Christ, and, consequently, if your rule should be adopted, could not be regarded as a true Church of Christ.”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Courtney. “We are speaking now of the institution which Christ ordained and called his Church, and not of any particular individual example of that institution. If I say the jury was first established in England a thousand years ago, and has existed ever since, I do not deny that the jury which was empanelled yesterday was a real jury. To make it a jury, it is only necessary that it should be composed of similar materials and organized for the same purposes with its ancient English prototype. We use the word church in its generic sense. We are speaking of the executive body in the kingdom of Christ. That kingdom still exists as he set it up. It has the same Lord and the same laws. It has also the same ordinances and the same executive. That executive is the Church. The kingdom cannot exist and be perpetuated without the Church, for it is the Church only that is authorized to receive members into the kingdom, either by her own act or that of officers appointed by her. Now, the kingdom has come down, by a regular succession of subjects, from generation to generation. There must have been, therefore, a regular succession of Churches to receive and cherish them. But these Churches must have been all formed upon the same Scripture model, and have been regular successors to each other. If we find at any time a new organization, with a new constitution, consisting of different materials, and governed by different regulations from the original Church, as established by Christ, then we can readily understand that it is not his Church, but some new thing that has come in its place. We do not say that the model Church which was at Jerusalem, or any other of the Churches which were founded in apostolic times, has continued to the present time, but only that there have always been Churches formed upon the same model. Those first Churches were not extinct till others were in being, descended from themselves, and having the same Lord, the same faith, the same baptism, the same objects, the same offices, the same character of members, and, like themselves, executing the laws and observing the ordinances of the kingdom. So I trust Mrs. Percy may add to her tablet this test, also, viz.:

“It began in the time of Christ, and has continued to the present time.”

“If you will permit me,” said Mrs. Percy, “to suggest one other mark, I would say that the Church of Christ can never be a persecuting Church.”

“That is true, madam,” said Mr. Courtney, “and since we have admitted one historical test, we need not object to receiving another; for, like the other, it will be very valuable to those who know enough of history to apply it.”

“But first,” said the Doctor, “let us see whether it has, like the others, the sanction of the Scriptures. We must not forget that this alone is our authority.”

“Certainly,” replied Mr Courtney. “The Scriptures teach that it should be a persecuted Church, but never itself a persecutor. It should suffer wrong, but not inflict it. If it were persecuted, the persecutors must be outside itself. The Church of Christ could never persecute itself. Its law was the law of love. The world might hate it, but it was to bless them that hated it. The world should kill and destroy it, but it should pray for them that spitefully entreated and persecuted it. The beast and the false prophet should make war upon it: the great dragon should seek to destroy it: the woman sitting on the beast should be drunken with the blood of the saints; and there was a power which should set itself in the place of God, and should ‘wear out the saints of the Most High’ with the bitterest and most fearful persecutions; but the Church of Christ was not to persecute or retaliate upon her enemies. No New Testament Church was a persecutor, and there is no intimation that Christ’s people ever should become persecutors. We may, therefore, very safely say, that whenever we find a claimant to Church honors upon whose skirts is found the blood of the saints, she is not a Church of Jesus Christ.”

Theodosia added to her tablet this eighth mark: “It never persecutes for conscience’ sake.”

“Now,” said Mr. Percy, “let me suggest one other mark, and then I think our tablet will be complete. It is also so far historical that it will require some knowledge of history to apply it, but it is most undoubtedly a scriptural test. It is this: No apostate Church can be a Church of Jesus Christ.

“Individual members, who have hypocritically professed to take Christ for their King, may become apostates, and may go out or be cast out; as the apostle says, ‘They went out from us, because they were not of us.’ Whole societies may by rejecting Christ’s rule, changing his ordinances, or submitting to other rulers than Christ in matters of religion, place themselves without his kingdom; but in doing so they surely cease to be Churches of Christ. They may retain the name, but they are no longer what the name implies. They cannot be in his kingdom and out of it at the same time. They cannot be subjects of Christ while owning allegiance and yielding submission in religious things to other masters. Whenever a Church becomes apostate, and denies the faith or departs from the practice of the first Churches in any essential particulars, it ceases at that very moment to be a Church of Christ, and has no longer any authority as the executive of his kingdom. It is itself a rebel.”

“I do not know so well about that,” said Theodosia. “We find that the first Churches fell into very serious errors, both of doctrine and of practice; yet they were not at once disowned.”

“You are both correct,” said Mr. Courtney. “It is not every error in doctrine, or every departure from the simplicity of the practice of the first Church, that constitutes apostasy; but there are some doctrines and some practices which are incompatible with the very nature of the gospel, and if a Church embraces these it is an apostate, and is no longer a Church of Christ.

“The Church of Christ is everywhere in the Scripture represented as faithful and true. She never gives up her allegiance to her Lord. We read, indeed, that ‘there should be a falling away,’ but it was a falling away of the parasites who had attached themselves to the kingdom, and not of the kingdom itself. It was only the man of sin and the son of perdition, a dead and putrid mass of religious corruption, that fell off. There is no intimation that ‘the Bride,’ ‘the Lamb’s wife,’ should forsake her faithfulness and abandon her Beloved. She was to be tried: she was to be persecuted: she was to be driven into the wilderness, (that is, into obscurity:) she was to be hidden from the eyes of the world for many a century; but she was always and ever to be a faithful, loving, and obedient wife. She was never to become the drunken bawd that sat upon the scarlet-colored beast, nor was she ever, like the offspring of that bawd, to become a harlot or the associate of harlots. If any people, therefore, calling themselves by the name of Christ, have at my time cast aside the peculiar characteristics of his people, they are surely no longer to be counted as his people. A Church which consists of subjects not designated by him, submits to rulers not authorized by him, and observes ordinances not commanded by him, is not his Church, whatever it may once have been. Christ has no revolted, no rebel Churches. When any Church rejects him as its sole King, it is no longer in his kingdom, and all its authority as his executive is gone. Its baptism is not the baptism of the kingdom, for it has no longer any right to admit members. Its ministry is not the ministry of the kingdom, for it is no longer authorized to ordain ministers. It may propagate its sentiments and perpetuate itself, but it cannot continue or originate a Church of Christ.”

“One thought more,” said Mr. Percy, “and then I think we are ready to proceed with the claimants. It is this: Whatever is now an essential characteristic of a true Church, has always been such since the Church was established. If for example, the Church of Christ cannot persecute now, there never was a time when it could persecute; and if an apostate Church cannot be a Church of Christ now, there never was a time when a Church that had become apostate could have been authorized to administer the laws or ordinances of Christ’s kingdom. If it be true that any Church which should now become apostate would, by that act, utterly incapacitate herself for the performance of any official act under the authority of Christ, then it must be equally true that every Church that ever did at any time become apostate did, at the time of doing so, become incapable of conferring genuine baptism, or real ordination. In short, from the moment it ceased to be a true and genuine Church of Jesus Christ, according to the scriptural characteristics which we have ascertained, from that very moment all its official acts were null and void.”

“It strikes me,” said the Bishop, “that your search for the true Church will now be very much like looking for a cambric needle in a stack of hay. You have pruned her away on every side until she will be of necessity so small as to be almost or quite invisible. I confess I begin to feel a great curiosity to be present at the finding.

“I would like to see that Church which has had a visible and actual existence from the time of Christ, which has never persecuted, never temporarily apostatized, and which has always held the fundamental doctrines of the gospel; consisting in its membership only of those who have first believed, and then have been baptized, and by their own personal and voluntary act have become its members. I say, if there be any Church which embraces all these characteristics, I would like to see and become acquainted with it. But if I regarded myself as in any sense a party in this discussion, I should solemnly protest against the trial of my Church by any such rules.”

“And so should I,” said the Methodist, “for I see no necessity of such extreme strictness of construction. The people of God are those who love him and trust him, and wherever they assemble, there is a Church of God.”

“That, in a certain sense, is true,” replied Mr. Courtney; “but every assembly of those who love God is not that Church to which Christ has committed the affairs of his visible kingdom. Every assembly of his people is not such a Church as that which Christ established, and requires you, as an obedient subject of his, to unite with and sustain. That Church is a peculiar assembly; and if it has been described in the Book by such distinctive marks as we have discovered, your protest is simply a declaration that you are not willing to be tried by the Word of God. If there is any one of these marks which we have invented ourselves, and did not find plainly put down in the Book, tell us which it is, and we will at once blot it out of our tablet. You will surely admit that there is some way to know a true Church. If you can tell us of any better way than this, we will adopt it. But until some one can point out a more certain and reliable course, we must follow this. We have ‘searched the Scriptures to see whether these things are so;’ and for myself, I know of no better and no other way to ascertain what the Church is, than to find it in the Scriptures.”

“I want no other,” said Dr. Thinkwell. “When God has spoken in his Word, I ask no other test of truth. I take the Bible, and the Bible alone, for my guide in all matters pertaining to religion. What I cannot find there I do not care for. What I do find there I trust I shall be found willing always humbly to receive and joyfully to obey. I acknowledge that I had no idea that there was so much in the Word concerning this matter. I had fancied, since I found so many and such different opinions among professed Christians, that the Scriptures must have been very indefinite, and have left the whole subject undetermined. But I find it is not so. These which we have found were certainly characteristics of the Churches of the apostolic days. I do not know whether there are any Churches now that have these same characteristics or not; but if there be but one, and that so lowly and despised that the world does not so much as know it by name, with that Church I will, if possible, unite, and help, so far as God may give me strength, to build it up. I can never be contented with any human substitute for what my Lord himself ordained. Nor do I see why any people who love Jesus, and desire to obey his laws, should hesitate to bring their Church organization any more than their faith or their practice to the Bible, and try it by the simple teachings of inspiration. And now, Mr. Courtney, if you are not weary, let us bring some one of the claimants to the Book, and try it. I am anxious to make some visible progress. We have spent several days merely in arranging preliminaries. I hope we can now get on more rapidly.”

“I have been so much interested in the preliminaries,” said Theodosia, “that I had almost forgotten for what purpose we were arranging them.”

“Well, we are now ready for the application, and will first see how the Church of Rome will look, when we examine her in the light of the Holy Word. Does she look like the Church of Jesus? Has she the signs and marks which Christ has put upon the executive of his kingdom?”

“Would it not be better to postpone our examination of this claimant until to-morrow?” asked Mr. Percy. “We cannot tell how long it may require, and it is most likely we shall all grow weary before we get through. There is danger that, in our impatience to reach some tangible result, we shall hurry over some matters which should not be lightly passed, or overtask the patience of these friends, who seem to feel an interest in the subject almost equal to our own.”

“You are right,” said the Doctor. “I am myself weary already with the long sitting of to-day; but when we meet in the morning, let it be understood that we are to waste no further time on preliminaries.”

Sixth Day’s Travel.

In which the Church of Rome is tried by the Scripture tests, and found to be no Church of Christ.

When the party had collected the next morning, they entered at once upon the subject, like people anxious to get through with a long-anticipated task.

Mr. Courtney commenced the conversation by saying, “Be kind enough to let us have the tablet, Mrs. Percy, to refresh our memories. This, you will all remember, is its only use. We have found certain things in the Scriptures concerning the Church; and when we were sure they were there, we entered them here, merely for the convenience of reference, and in order to give some system to our application of the Scripture teachings. Mark this: We do not try the Churches by our tablet, but by the Scripture tests, of which our tablet is a mere memorandum. We found—

“1st. That the Church of Christ, according to the Scriptures, consists only of professed believers in Christ, and not of believers and their children. [See pp. 138 to 149.]

“2d. That its members have all been baptized upon profession of their faith. [See pp. 149 to 156.]

“3d. We found the Church to be a local and independent organization, and not a great collective ecclesiastical establishment, consisting of many societies subordinated to each other, or to a common head. [See p. 156 to 157.]

“4th. We found that while it was subject in all things to Christ as its king and lawgiver, it neither made laws for itself, nor submitted to any others but those of Christ. [See pp. 158 to 160.]

“5th. We found that its members became such, not by compulsion or restraint, but freely and voluntarily by their own personal act. [See pp. 160 to 162.]

“6th. We found that the Scripture Churches held certain peculiar doctrines, which of necessity are contained in the very enunciation of the gospel. [See p. 162 to 163.]

“These tests we can apply without any other knowledge of the different claimants than we can gain by our personal observation of the professions and the practices of each. By these the question, which is the Church, can be readily settled without any acquaintance with the past history of the several claimants. But as the Church of Christ was the subject of prophecy, and we can, in Scripture, see not only the peculiarities which it then possessed, but those which it should exhibit in all coming time, we availed ourselves of this circumstance, and looked into the glass of prophecy for some peculiar features, and must look into that of history to see the correspondence. Thus we found—

“7th. That Christ foretold his Church, which began with him, should be perpetual; and the true Church, therefore, is one which has not been destroyed or overcome by Satan and the gates of hell. [See pp. 174 to 176.]

“8th. It appeared evident to us, moreover, that the Church of Jesus, the executive of his laws, could never be a persecuting Church. [See pp. 176 to 177.]

“And lastly, we found, 9th, that no apostate Church could be the true Church of Christ, nor have any authority within his kingdom. [See pp. 177 to 179.]

“These marks belong to every true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That claimant which cannot show them we must reject. We need not care what she may be called. We need not ask how numerous or how intelligent or how pious her membership may be, for it is not numbers or intelligence or piety that constitutes a Church. To be a Church of Christ, it must consist of such people as he has designated—that is of baptized believers. It must be organized according to his instructions, and in conformity to the models which he furnished in the Scriptures, and in doctrine and practice as an official body it must be conformed to his laws. Now, if even a very numerous body of very intelligent and very pious people have associated themselves together as Christians, and yet not in accordance with the Master’s instructions concerning his Church, they cannot be regarded as his Church. Theirs is not the institution to which Christ, as King, intrusted the executive authority of his kingdom; and if they attempt to exercise it, they are (though it may be unconsciously, yet no less truly) usurpers and rebels. They may be the friends of the King. They may, in their hearts, wish well to the kingdom. They may earnestly strive to promote the invisible extension of the kingdom in the hearts of men. They may believe on Christ to the salvation of their own souls, and be the means of bringing thousands of others to believe and to be saved; but those organizations into which they are incorporated are no more the Churches of Christ than if they were not called by that name. To be his Churches, they must not only consist of his people, but be organized upon his constitution, and governed in their official acts by his rules.”

“Certainly,” exclaimed the Doctor, “we all understand that. We have collected out of the Scriptures the scriptural marks or characteristic peculiarities of a scriptural Church, and all that now remains for us to do is to apply them fairly and honestly, without fear or favor, to the several claimants which ask to be recognized and treated as the Churches of Jesus. If any one will not be tried by these scriptural tests we may, it seems to me, regard that fact as in itself a sufficient reason to reject its claims, since it is evident that no Church of Christ could be unwilling to bring herself up to the requirements of her Lord, as laid down in his Word. And now please do not let us spend any more time on the preliminaries, but go at once into our work.”

“Let me,” said the Bishop, “suggest—not for the purpose of embarrassing your inquiries, (you have made your path sufficiently narrow already,) but merely to show that you are not yet quite ready—that you have in your tablet taken no notice of the officers or ministers of the Church. You have not inquired whether there are in the true Church one order, or two orders, or three orders of the ministry.”

“Nor,” replied Mr. Courtney, “have we any need to do so now, since this subject will necessarily come up when we come to apply our fourth test; for if Christ did not appoint prelatical bishops, then the Church that submits herself to the rule of such bishops has gone out from the fold of the gospel order, and submitted to the authority of other lords than Christ. By doing so she ceased to be a Church of Christ, and became the Church of the bishops: so, as episcopos signifies a bishop, your Church is rightly named the ‘Episcopal,’ that is, the bishops’ Church.

“I will merely say, however, at this time, that the Church at Jerusalem was a Church competent to receive members and administer the ordinances before she had any deacons; and we read in Acts xiv. 23, of Churches which seem to have existed without any elders or presbyters, from which I infer that a Church may exist without any officers until it can choose its deacons and its pastor, and have them properly ordained. It is not complete, but still it is a Church, and has within itself the authority to perfect its organization by the election from its own members of a pastor to minister in the Word, and deacons to minister in its temporal affairs. But we will have occasion to look at this again as we progress with our investigations. And we are now ready, Doctor, to go on as you requested, and apply our tests to the boldest and most arrogant of all the claimants to Church honors. How is it with the Church of Rome? Does she consist only of believers?

“Certainly not. Her members are almost all made members in their infancy, without personal faith or any pretence that it exists. And, unlike the American Presbyterians and Methodists, Rome does not in practice repudiate her theory, and virtually disown her members till they give evidence of conversion, or at least of a desire to escape from hell. She counts them as having been made Christians in fact, as they were in form, by the ceremonial mummery of their baby baptism. In that, they say, they were regenerated and made members of Christ, and of his Church, before any act of personal faith in Christ was possible. Even, therefore, though we should concede that all her adult members are real believers in Christ, yet she embraces in her membership thousands and thousands who, so for from being qualified to act their part in the transaction of the business of Christ’s kingdom, do not so much as know their right hand from their left. Apply your second test. Have her members all been baptized?”

“Our answer to that question,” replied the Doctor, “must depend upon our decision of another, and that is, What is baptism? If sprinkling a little babe is baptism, then they have been baptized: if only the immersion of a believer is baptism, then they have not been baptized. You will remember that I doubted the propriety of introducing this test, (if it could have been avoided,) on the ground that it would, subject us to the necessity of going over the whole field of the baptismal controversy.”

“We need do nothing of the kind, sir,” replied Mr. Courtney. “The Roman Catholic Church has never pretended that sprinkling was valid baptism, only so far as it was made such by the Pope, or by ‘the Church.’ That it was immersion which Christ commanded, which the first Churches practiced, and which was everywhere and always practiced (except in supposed cases of necessity) for over thirteen hundred years, no Roman Catholic will pretend to deny. It remained for Protestants, for men professing a purer Christianity, and a more sacred regard to the authority of the Scriptures and the truth of history; it remained for Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists, to distort and falsify history, and pervert and mystify the Scriptures, in order to obtain at least some shadow of support for the sprinkling ceremony which they have substituted for the baptism of the New Testament. The Roman Church felt no necessity for such a course. She asked no Scripture sanction. The decree of a council or the bull of a pope is all the authority which she requires. It is on such authority, and only on such, that she has openly and avowedly substituted sprinkling for immersion. She makes no secret of the business; she openly and boldly declares, in the face of God and man, that she has changed the rite; that though Christ commanded and the first Churches practiced immersion, yet she had the right to change laws and ordinances, and she has changed this to sprinkling or pouring. She will tell you when she changed it, and give you the reasons why she changed it; and she habitually and justly taunts the sprinkling Protestants with having adopted her rite, instead of the baptism of Christ and the Scriptures, while they pretend to disown her authority and submit only to that of the written Word.

“The only question for us to decide is, therefore, whether the popes and councils of the Church of Rome had any right to abolish the ordinance of Christ, and in its place to substitute another, bearing the same name indeed, but altogether different from it in form and in fact?”

“There can surely be no hesitation about the proper decision of that point,” replied the Doctor. “But are you sure that the facts are as you have stated?”

“If I had not been, I should not have stated them. But I do not ask you to receive them on my authority. I will point you to the means of verifying, to the satisfaction of the most incredulous, the fact as I have stated it.^[6]

“1. I might refer you to the statements of ecclesiastical history. What says Neander? What says Mosheim? What says Schaff? What say the Magdeburg Centuriators? What says every learned and candid historian, whether he be himself an immersionist or sprinkler, who has carefully investigated the subject?

“No one can carefully read what they have collected on this point, and not be ready to say, with that eminent Pedobaptist, Professor Stuart, ‘It is a thing made out, namely the ancient practice of immersion. So, indeed, all the writers who have thoroughly investigated the subject conclude. I know of no one usage of ancient times which seems to be more clearly made out. I cannot see how it is possible for any candid man who examines the subject to deny this.’

“2. I might refer you to those massive monuments of the ancient practice, the baptisteries, with their immense artificial pools deep enough to swim in; and I ask for what purpose they could have been constructed, at so much cost and labor, if baptism had not been immersion.

“3. I might refer you to the otherwise inexplicable fact that in the Roman Catholic Church, for many ages, adults and children, male or female, were always divested of their clothing when about to be baptized. ‘Revolting as this custom was,’ says Stuart, ‘yet it is as certain as testimony can make it.’

“But I need not try to prove what the party concerned has never pretended to deny, namely, that immersion was the original baptism, and that it was so recognized and practiced by the Church of Rome, and that, by the authority of the popes and councils, it has been changed to pouring and sprinkling.

“That very learned Roman Catholic, Doctor F. Brennan, in his work on the history of baptism, says, expressly, that such has been the case. Dr. Chase gives the following translation, of the first paragraph of what Brennan presents as a

‘Synoptical View of Ancient Times and Modern in Respect To Baptism, [Among Those Who Acknowledge the Papal Authority.]’

‘Formerly. ‘At Present.

‘Thirteen hundred years baptism was generally and ordinarily an immersion of the person under water; and only in extraordinary cases a sprinkling or pouring with water; the latter as a mode of baptism was, moreover, called in question; ay, even forbidden.’ ‘Now baptism is generally and ordinarily a pouring of the person with water; and only in the Church of Milan immersion still continues, as something peculiar to this Church alone, and extraordinary; elsewhere it would be punishable.’

“Bossuet, the famous Roman Catholic Bishop of Meaux, says: ‘We read not in Scripture that baptism was otherwise administered, [than by immersion,] and we are able to make it appear, by the acts of councils and by the ancient rituals, that for thirteen hundred years baptism was thus administered throughout the whole Church as far as possible.’ Again, speaking of the fact that baptism is immersion, and was thus given by Christ and practiced by the apostles: ‘Though these are incontestable truths, yet neither we, [Roman Catholics,] nor those of the pretended reformed religion, hearken to the Anabaptists, who hold immersion to be essential and indispensable; nor have either they or we feared to change this dipping, as I may of the whole body, into a bare aspersion or infusion on one part of it.’ In another work, in which he is defending the Roman Catholic usage of denying the cup to the laity in communion, he makes the following argument: ‘Baptism by immersion, which is as clearly established in the Scriptures as communion under two kinds can possibly be, has, nevertheless, been changed into pouring with as much ease and as little dispute as communion under one kind has been established; for there is the same reason why one should be preserved as the other. It is a fact most firmly believed by the reformed, (though some of them at this time wrangle about it) that baptism was instituted to be administered by plunging the body entirely in; that Jesus Christ received it in this manner, and it was thus performed by his apostles; that the Scriptures are acquainted with no other baptism; that antiquity understood and practiced it in this manner; and that to baptize is to plunge: these facts, I say, are unanimously acknowledged by all the reformed [Protestant] teachers, by the reformers [Protestants] themselves; by those who best understood the Greek language and the ancient customs of both Jews and Christians; by Luther, by Melancthon, by Calvin, by Casaubon, by Grotius, with all the rest, and, since their time, by Jurieu, the most ready to contradict of all their ministers. Luther has even remarked that this sacrament is called Tauf in German, on account of the depth; because they plunged deeply in the water those whom they baptized. If, then, there is in the world a fact absolutely certain, it is this. Yet it is no less certain that with all these authors baptism without immersion is considered lawful, and that the Church properly retains the custom of pouring; and the Church, in supporting these two customs which tradition proves are equally indifferent, has not done any thing unusual, but maintained against troublesome persons that authority upon which the faith of the ignorant rests.’

“In perfect accordance with these are many other Roman Catholic writers and teachers. They all admit and are ready to prove (if necessity require) that Scripture baptism was immersion, and was so received and practiced; but as the external act was not of the essence of the sacrament, the Church had the right, and has employed it, to change the rite, and substitute the aspersion of a part of the body for the immersion of the whole.

“If, in the face of these open concessions of their own most eminent men, a single doubt remains that the Roman Church has changed Christ’s rite and put another in its place, that lingering doubt will be removed by the simple fact that all the industrious research of the learned Dr. Wall could find no instance of any pretended baptism by sprinkling or pouring among the early Christians, except in cases of supposed necessity from dangerous sickness; and no country, which had not been under the dominion of the Pope, in which this substitution had been made. ‘All those countries,’ he says, ‘in which the usurped power of the Pope is or has formerly been owned, have left off dipping of the children in the fonts, but all other countries in the world, which had never regarded his authority, do still use it.’

“If any shadow of a doubt should still remain, it must surely be dispelled by the account which Catholics themselves have given of the time and manner, when and how, the change was made.

“Mr Robinson has gathered from their Latin documents the following facts:

“‘In the year seven hundred and fifty-three, Astulphus, King of the Lombards, oppressed the city of Rome. Pope Stephen the III fled into France to implore the assistance of Pepin, who had been lately elected king. He, whom many considered as a usurper, availed himself of this event, and with the address of a great politician turned it to his own advantage. He examined with profound reverence a letter which Saint Peter had written and sent him from heaven by the hands of Stephen to persuade him to assist the Church. He promised instantly to execute the celestial commission, and he fulfilled his promise by freeing Italy from the Lombards, by replacing Stephen, and richly endowing the Church. Stephen was not ungrateful to his benefactor. He sanctified his title to the crown by giving the royal unction to Pepin in the Church of St. Denis, made him the first anointed sovereign in Europe, and denounced an anathema on the French if they should ever bestow their crown on any other family than that of Pepin. Stephen resided in France all winter, and had a severe fit of sickness, occasioned by the fatigue of journeying and the perplexity of his affairs, from which, however, he soon recovered.

“‘During his residence in the monastery of St. Denis, he introduced the Roman ritual. In the spring of the next year, seven hundred and sixty- four, in answer to some monks of Cressy, who privately consulted him, he gave his opinion on nineteen questions, one of which is allowed to be the first authentic law for administering baptism by pouring, and which in time was interpreted to signify sprinkling. The question proposed was, whether, in case of necessity, occasioned by the illness of an infant, it were lawful to baptize by pouring water out of the hand or a cup on the head of the infant? Stephen answered: If such a baptism were performed in such a case of necessity in the name of the Holy Trinity, it should be held valid.’

“The learned James Basnage (a Roman Catholic antiquary) makes several very proper remarks upon this canon, as, that ‘Although it is accounted the first law for sprinkling, yet it doth not forbid dipping; that it allows sprinkling only in case of imminent danger; that the authenticity of it is denied by same Catholics; that many laws were made after this time in Germany, France, and England, to compel dipping, and without any provision for cases of necessity; therefore, that this law did not alter the mode of dipping in public baptisms, and that it was not till five hundred and fifty-seven years after, that the legislature in a council at Ravenna, in the year thirteen hundred and eleven, declared dipping or sprinkling indifferent.’

“It is not denied that pouring and sprinkling had in case of necessity been employed before this, but it was done without legal authority, and it was ever doubtful whether it were valid baptism. It was, however, legalized in cases of necessity by Pope Stephen the III, and in all cases by the popish council at Ravenna.”

“I do not think,” said the Doctor, “that we need spend any more time on this point. If any thing can be made certain by testimony, it seems to be certain that this Church once baptized by immersion, and now do it by pouring or sprinkling. If the first was the baptism commanded by Christ, they have abolished it, and substituted another act; and so are now no Church. If the first was not the baptism commanded by Christ, then they were forages without baptism, and were, consequently, no Church.”

“But,” said Theodosia, “they were no Church even though their act of baptism had been the scriptural act. They would have been no Church, according to our test, though they had been immersed, unless it had been done upon a personal profession of their faith. We found in our examination of the Scriptures not only that all were baptized before they were counted as members of Christ’s Church, but they were not baptized until after they had made profession of their penitence and faith. So far, therefore, as these or any other people have been baptized before they believed, they are not scriptural Church members. The immersion of an unconscious babe is no more gospel baptism than the sprinkling of such a babe.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said the Doctor; “I will think of that hereafter. Let us now go on to our third test.

“Is the Roman Catholic Church a local and independent society of baptized believers, or is it a great establishment embracing many local societies? To ask the question is to answer it. Everybody who knows any thing of this hierarchy is familiar with the fact that each of all its thousands of local congregations is but a part of the great combination called the Roman Catholic Church, the central power of which is in the city whose name it bears, or rather in the Pope, wherever he may be; and it is very certain that we found no prototype of any such a Church in the New Testament. The Church of which we saw so many examples there was in every instance independent of all other Churches. It was never itself subjected to any other Church, or to all the other Churches; nor did it in any single instance demand or receive subjection from all others, or from any other, to itself. And even though we should admit the existence of a scriptural universal Church, that Church must be made up of scriptural Churches. If the single Churches were independent local bodies, the great collective Church must be made up of just such independent bodies. The whole could not consist of different materials from the parts of which it was composed. No great confederation of so- called Churches can be, therefore, in this general sense, the Church of Christ, unless each member of that confederation be itself a Church complete within itself, and as a Church entirely independent of the confederation of which it may be supposed to make a part. Even though we should conceive of something the parts of which are Churches, and the whole combined the Church, and call this conception the visible Church universal, it could embrace within its limits no ecclesiastical establishment consisting of local societies subordinate to some national central power, or even subordinate to each other. If the visible Church of Christ considered as a local organization is complete and independent within itself, then his visible Church considered collectively must be composed only of such local and independent societies. The whole can embrace no more than all its parts. But let us go on to apply our fourth test. Has the Roman Church any lawgiver but Christ? Does she recognize any authority but his above her own?”

“Surely not,” exclaimed Mr. Percy, “if by the Church you mean the whole establishment, including the popes and cardinals; bishops and priests! The Church of Rome admits to power above herself, and does not hesitate to abrogate and change even the laws of Christ. But if you mean to ask whether any one of those local congregations which are called Roman Catholic Churches recognizes any authority but Christ’s above its own, that is another question.”

“Our friend the Doctor,” replied Mr. Courtney, “is looking for the visible Church of Christ. He desires to join it. He can only unite with it as a local assembly. In fact, we have already settled that the Church of Christ is a local assembly, and nothing more. The question, therefore, which we have to decide is, whether any of the so-called local Churches which may come before our observation are Churches of Jesus Christ; and if we find any such Church, which as a Church recognizes the authority of any power but Christ’s outside itself to make laws for it, or to exercise discipline for it, or over it, that Church is not a Church of Christ. It has rejected Christ as its sole King, and submitted itself to other lords. It is not Christ’s executive, but, so far as it exercises any authority, it carries into effect the laws of some other; or, what is worse, it abandons the exercise of all authority, and tamely submits to the government of fallible men. So far from being herself the administrator of the laws of Christ, exercising under him the supreme authority of his kingdom a regard to its own membership; so far from deciding for herself, according to Christ’s law, whom she will admit and whom she must exclude, whom she will have to minister in holy things, and by what means she can best enforce her Lord’s requirements, she leaves all this to a minister, a priest, a bishop, a pope, a council, a conference, a presbytery, or some other controlling power, which she, as a Church, recognizes as having authority to determine for her, and to which she as a Church is under obligations to submit. Now, the local Roman Catholic society is subject to the priest; it is subject to the bishops; it is subject to the councils; it is subject to the Pope; and if it should have the unheard- of temerity to appeal to the Scriptures, determine their meaning for herself, and, in obedience to what she thought to be the law of Christ, reject the authority of these human rulers and lawgivers, she would be at once disowned and cast out. She would be no longer a Roman Catholic Church.

“She is not as a Roman Catholic Church free to examine and decide for herself what are the requirements of Jesus, as the King in Zion, and carry them into effect: but she must believe and do what is required by the Pope. As a Church she has no power to say who shall be her members, who shall be admitted to or who excluded from her communion. As a Church she cannot choose her ministers, nor refuse the most abject submission to such as it shall please her human masters to place over her. The popes and councils make laws for her, and the bishops exercise discipline for her. She is a slave, whose only duty is to obey unquestioningly every command, not of Christ, but of men who have taken it upon themselves to lord it over God’s heritage.

“But new, if you look at the Roman Catholic Church as a great collective body, and inquire if this hierarchy has Christ alone for its Lawgiver and King, the answer must be no. She makes laws for herself. The decrees of her councils are of equal authority with the commands of Jesus. She is not the simple executor of the laws of Christ, but she has taken upon herself to change his laws and his ordinances, refusing to obey him, and requiring obedience to her own enactments. The Pope is to her the king and lawgiver, and what the Christ has commanded, her members are not even permitted to inquire for themselves.

“If now we apply our fifth test, and ask if her members have become such by their own voluntary act, the answer must be no. With very few exceptions, they were made such without their own knowledge or consent. They were made members by the acts of others before they were capable of understanding any thing about the matter.