(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 quasi organic 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 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 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.

(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.” 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. 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 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 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.”

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 __ 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 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 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..... 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 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 __ 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 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 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.

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.”

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 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 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 __ 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. 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.

(e) From the power of the whole church to exercise discipline. Passages which show the right of the whole body to exclude, show also the right of the whole body to admit, members.

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. Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”—words often inscribed over Roman Catholic confessionals, but improperly, since they refer not to the decisions of a single priest, but to the decisions of the whole body of believers guided by the Holy Spirit. In Mat. 18:17, quoted above, we see that the church has authority, that it is bound to take cognizance of offences, and that its action is final. If there had been in the mind of our Lord any other than a democratic form of government, he would have referred the aggrieved party to pastor, priest, or presbytery, and, in case of a wrong decision by the church, would have mentioned some synod or assembly to which the aggrieved person might appeal. But he throws all the responsibility upon the whole body of believers. Cf. Num. 15:35—“all the congregation shall stone him with stones”—the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day. Every Israelite was to have part in the execution of the penalty. 1 Cor. 5:4, 5, 13—“ye being gathered together ... to deliver such a one unto Satan.... Put away the wicked man from among yourselves”; 2 Cor. 2:6, 7—“Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the many; so that contrariwise ye should rather forgive him and comfort him”; 7:11—“For behold, this selfsame thing ... what earnest care it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves.... In every thing ye approved yourselves to be pure in the matter”; 2 Thess. 3:6, 14, 15—“withdraw yourselves from every brother that __ walketh disorderly ... if any man obeyeth not our word by this epistle, note that man, that ye have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed. And yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” The evils in the church at Corinth were such as could exist only in a democratic body, and Paul does not enjoin upon the church a change of government, but a change of heart. Paul does not himself excommunicate the incestuous man, but he urges the church to excommunicate him. The educational influence upon the whole church of this election of pastors and deacons, choosing of delegates, admission and exclusion of members, management of church finance and general conduct of business, carrying on of missionary operations and raising of contributions, together with responsibility for correct doctrine and practice, cannot be overestimated. The whole body can know those who apply for admission, better than pastors or elders can. To put the whole government of the church into the hands of a few is to deprive the membership of one great means of Christian training and progress. Hence the pastor’s duty is to develop the self‐government of the church. The missionary should not command, but advise. That minister is most successful who gets the whole body to move, and who renders the church independent of himself. The test of his work is not while he is with them, but after he leaves them. Then it can be seen whether he has taught them to follow him, or to follow Christ; whether he has led them to the formation of habits of independent Christian activity, or whether he has made them passively dependent upon himself. It should be the ambition of the pastor not “to run the church,” but to teach the church intelligently and Scripturally to manage its own affairs. The word “minister” means, not master, but servant. The true pastor inspires, but he does not drive. He is like the trusty mountain guide, who carries a load thrice as heavy as that of the man he serves, who leads in safe paths and points out dangers, but who neither shouts nor compels obedience. The individual Christian should be taught: 1. to realize the privilege of church membership; 2. to fit himself to use his privilege; 3. to exercise his rights as a church member; 4. to glory in the New Testament system of church government, and to defend and propagate it. A Christian pastor can either rule, or he can have the reputation of ruling; but he can not do both. Real ruling involves a sinking of self, a working through others, a doing of nothing that some one else can be got to do. The reputation of ruling leads sooner or later to the loss of real influence, and to the decline of the activities of the church itself. See Coleman, Manual of Prelacy and Ritualism, 87‐125; and on the advantages of Congregationalism over every other form of church‐polity, see Dexter, Congregationalism, 236‐296. Dexter, 290, note, quotes from Belcher’s Religious Denominations of the U. S., 184, as follows: “Jefferson said that he considered Baptist church government the only form of pure democracy which then existed in the world, and had concluded that it would be the best plan of government for the American Colonies. This was eight or ten years before the American Revolution.” On Baptist democracy, see Thomas Armitage, in N. Amer. Rev., March, 1887:232‐243. John Fiske, Beginnings of New England: “In a church based upon such a theology [that of Calvin], there was no room for prelacy. Each single church tended to become an independent congregation of worshipers, constituting one of the most effective schools that has ever existed for training men in local self‐government.” Schurman, Agnosticism, 160—“The Baptists, who are nominally Calvinists, are now, as they were at the beginning of the century, second in numerical rank [in America]; but their fundamental principle—the Bible, the Bible only—taken in connection with their polity, has enabled them silently to drop the old theology and unconsciously to adjust themselves to the new spiritual environment.” We prefer to say that Baptists have not dropped the old theology, but have given it new interpretation and application; see A. H. Strong, Our Denominational Outlook, Sermon in Cleveland, 1904.

B. Erroneous views as to church government refuted by the foregoing passages.

(a) The world‐church theory, or the Romanist view.—This holds that all local churches are subject to the supreme authority of the bishop of Rome, as the successor of Peter and the infallible vicegerent of Christ, and, as thus united, constitute the one and only church of Christ on earth. We reply:

First,—Christ gave no such supreme authority to Peter. Mat. 16:18, 19, simply refers to the personal position of Peter as first confessor of Christ and preacher of his name to Jews and Gentiles. Hence other apostles also constituted the foundation (Eph. 2:20; Rev. 21:14). On one occasion, the counsel of James was regarded as of equal weight with that of Peter (Acts 15:7‐30), while on another occasion Peter was rebuked by Paul (Gal. 2:11), and Peter calls himself only a fellow‐elder (1 Pet. 5:1).

Mat. 16:18, 19—“And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Peter exercised this power of the keys for both Jews and Gentiles, by being the first to preach Christ to them, and so admit them to the kingdom of heaven. The “rock” is a confessing heart. The confession of Christ makes Peter a rock upon which the church can be built. Plumptre on Epistles of Peter, Introd., 14—“He was a stone—one with that rock with which he was now joined by an indissoluble union.” But others come to be associated with him: Eph. 2:20—“built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone”; Rev. 21:14—“And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” Acts 15:7‐30—the Council of Jerusalem. Gal. 2:11—“But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he stood condemned”; 1 Pet. 5:1—“The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow‐ elder.” Here it should be remembered that three things were necessary to constitute an apostle: (1) he must have seen Christ after his resurrection, so as to be a witness to the fact that Christ had risen from the dead; (2) he must be a worker of miracles, to certify that he was Christ’s messenger; (3) he must be an inspired teacher of Christ’s truth, so that his final utterances are the very word of God. In Rom. 16:7—“Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen, and my fellow‐prisoners, who are of note among the apostles” means simply: “who are highly esteemed among, or by, the apostles.” Barnabas is called an apostle, in the etymological sense of a messenger: Acts 13:2, 3—“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”; Heb. 3:1—“consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus.” In this latter sense, the number of the apostles was not limited to twelve. Protestants err in denying the reference in Mat. 16:18 to Peter; Christ recognizes Peter’s personality in the founding of his kingdom. But Romanists equally err in ignoring Peter’s confession as constituting him the “rock.” Creeds and confessions alone will never convert the world; they need to be embodied in living personalities in order to save; this is the grain of correct doctrine in Romanism. On the other hand, men without a faith, which they are willing to confess at every cost, will never convert the world; there must be a substance of doctrine with regard to sin, and with regard to Christ as the divine Savior from sin; this is the just contention of Protestantism. Baptist doctrine combines the merits of both systems. It has both personality and confession. It is not hierarchical, but experiential. It insists, not upon abstractions, but upon life. Truth without a body is as powerless as a body without truth. A flag without an army is even worse than an army without a flag. Phillips Brooks: “The truth of God working through the personality of man has been the salvation of the world.” Pascal: “Catholicism is a church without a religion; Protestantism is a religion without a church.” Yes, we reply, if church means hierarchy.

Secondly,—If Peter had such authority given him, there is no evidence that he had power to transmit it to others.

Fisher, Hist. Christian Church, 247—“William of Occam (1280‐1347) composed a treatise on the power of the pope. He went beyond his predecessors in arguing that the church, since it has its unity in Christ, is not under the necessity of being subject to a single primate. He placed the Emperor and the General Council above the pope, as his judges. In matters of faith he would not allow infallibility even to the General Councils. ‘Only Holy Scripture and the beliefs of the universal church are of absolute validity.’ ” W. Rauschenbusch, in The Examiner, July 28, 1892—“The age of an ecclesiastical organization, instead of being an argument in its favor, is presumptive evidence against it, because all bodies organized for moral or religious ends manifest such a frightful inclination to become corrupt.... Marks of the true church are: present spiritual power, loyalty to Jesus, an unworldly morality, seeking and saving the lost, self‐sacrifice and self‐crucifixion.” Romanism holds to a transmitted infallibility. The pope is infallible: 1. when he speaks as pope; 2. when he speaks for the whole church; 3. when he defines doctrine, or passes a final judgment; 4. when the doctrine thus defined is within the sphere of faith or morality; see Brandis, in N. A. Rev., Dec. 1892: 654. Schurman, Belief in God, 114—“Like the Christian pope, Zeus is conceived in the Homeric poems to be fallible as an individual, but infallible as head of the sacred convocation. The other gods are only his representatives and executives.” But, even if the primacy of the Roman pontiff were acknowledged, there would still be abundant proof that he is not infallible. The condemnation of the letters of Pope Honorius, acknowledging monothelism and ordering it to be preached, by Pope Martin I and the first Council of Lateran in 649, shows that both could not be right. Yet both were ex cathedra utterances, one denying what the other affirmed. Perrone concedes that only one error committed by a pope in an ex cathedra announcement would be fatal to the doctrine of papal infallibility. Martineau, Seat of Authority, 139, 140, gives instances of papal inconsistencies and contradictions, and shows that Roman Catholicism does not answer to either one of its four notes or marks of a true church, viz.: 1. unity; 2. sanctity; 3. universality; 4. apostolicity. Dean Stanley had an interview with Pope Pius IX, and came away saying that the infallible man had made more blunders in a twenty minutes’ conversation than any person he had ever met. Dr. Fairbairn facetiously defines infallibility, as “inability to detect errors even where they are most manifest.” He speaks of “the folly of the men who think they hold God in their custody, and distribute him to whomsoever they will.” The Pope of Rome can no more trace his official descent from Peter than Alexander the Great could trace his personal descent from Jupiter.

Thirdly,—There is no conclusive evidence that Peter ever was at Rome, much less that he was bishop of Rome.

Clement of Rome refers to Peter as a martyr, but he makes no claim for Rome as the place of his martyrdom. The tradition that Peter preached at Rome and founded a church there dates back only to Dionysius of Corinth and Irenæus of Lyons, who did not write earlier than the eighth decade of the second century, or more than a hundred years after Peter’s death. Professor Lepsius of Jena submitted the Roman tradition to a searching examination, and came to the conclusion that Peter was never in Italy. A. A. Hodge, in Princetoniana, 129—“Three unproved assumptions: 1. that Peter was primate; 2. that Peter was bishop of Rome; 3. that Peter was primate and bishop of Rome. The last is not unimportant; because Clement, for instance, might have succeeded to the bishopric of Rome without the primacy; as Queen Victoria came to the crown of England, but not to that of Hanover. Or, to come nearer home, Ulysses S. Grant was president of the United States and husband of Mrs. Grant. Mr. Hayes succeeded him, but not in both capacities!” On the question whether Peter founded the Roman Church, see Meyer, Com. on Romans, transl., vol. 1:23—“Paul followed the principle of not interfering with another apostle’s field of labor. Hence Peter could not have been laboring at Rome, at the time when Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans from Ephesus; cf. Acts 19:21; Rom. 15:20; 2 Cor. 10:16.” Meyer thinks Peter was martyred at Rome, but that he did not found the Roman church, the origin of which is unknown. “The Epistle to the Romans,” he says, “since Peter cannot have labored at Rome before it was written, is a fact destructive of the historical basis of the Papacy” (p. 28). See also Elliott, Horæ Apocalypticæ, 3:560.

Fourthly,—There is no evidence that he really did so appoint the bishops of Rome as his successors.

Denney, Studies in Theology, 191—“The church was first the company of those united to Christ and living in Christ; then it became a society based on creed; finally a society based on clergy.” A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 130—“The Holy Spirit is the real ‘Vicar of Christ.’ Would any one desire to find the clue to the great apostasy whose dark eclipse now covers two thirds of nominal Christendom, here it is: The rule and authority of the Holy Spirit ignored in the church; the servants of the house assuming mastery and encroaching more and more on the prerogatives of the Head, till at last one man sets himself up as the administrator of the church, and daringly usurps the name of the Vicar of Christ.” See also R. V. Littledale, The Petrine Claims. The secret of Baptist success and progress is in putting truth before unity. James 3:17—“the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable.” The substitution of external for internal unity, of which the apostolic succession, so called, is a sign and symbol, is of a piece with the whole sacramental scheme of salvation. Men cannot be brought into the kingdom of heaven, nor can they be made good ministers of Jesus Christ, by priestly manipulation. The Frankish wholesale conversion of races, the Jesuitical putting of obedience instead of life, the identification of the church with the nation, are all false methods of diffusing Christianity. The claims of Rome need irrefragible proof, if they are to be accepted. But they have no warrant in Scripture or in history. Methodist Review: “As long as the Bible is recognized to be authoritative, the church will face Romeward as little as Leo X will visit America to attend a Methodist campmeeting, or Justin D. Fulton be elected as his successor in the Papal chair.” See Gore, Incarnation, 208, 209.

Fifthly,—If Peter did so appoint the bishops of Rome, the evidence of continuous succession since that time is lacking.

On the weakness of the argument for apostolic succession, see remarks with regard to the national church theory, below. Dexter, Congregationalism, 715—“To spiritualize and evangelize Romanism, or High Churchism, will be to Congregationalize it.” If all the Roman Catholics who have come to America had remained Roman Catholics, there would be sixteen millions of them, whereas there are actually only eight millions. If it be said that the remainder have no religion, we reply that they have just as much religion as they had before. American democracy has freed them from the domination of the priest, but it has not deprived them of anything but external connection with a corrupt church. It has given them opportunity for the first time to come in contact with the church of the New Testament, and to accept the offer of salvation through simple faith in Jesus Christ. “Romanism,” says Dorner, “identifies the church and the kingdom of God. The professedly perfect hierarchy is itself the church, or its essence.” Yet Moehler, the greatest modern advocate of the Romanist system, himself acknowledges that there were popes before the Reformation “whom hell has swallowed up”; see Dorner, Hist. Prot. Theol., Introd., ad finem. If the Romanist asks: “Where was your church before Luther?” the Protestant may reply: “Where was your face this morning before it was washed?” Disciples of Christ have sometimes kissed the feet of Antichrist, but it recalls an ancient story. When an Athenian noble thus, in old times, debased himself to the King of Persia, his fellow‐citizens at Athens doomed him to death. See Coleman, Manual on Prelacy and Ritualism, 265‐274; Park, in Bib. Sac., 2:451; Princeton Rev., Apr., 1876:265.

Sixthly,—There is abundant evidence that a hierarchical form of church government is corrupting to the church and dishonoring to Christ.

A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 131‐140—“Catholic writers claim that the Pope, as the Vicar of Christ, is the only mouthpiece of the Holy Ghost. But the Spirit has been given to the church as a whole, that is, to the body of regenerated believers, and to every member of that body according to his measure. The sin of sacerdotalism is, that it arrogates for a usurping few that which belongs to every member of Christ’s mystical body. It is a suggestive fact that the name κλῆρος, ‘the charge allotted to you,’ which Peter gives to the church as ‘the flock of God’ (1 Pet. 5:2), when warning the elders against being lords over God’s heritage, now appears in ecclesiastical usage as ’the clergy,’ with its orders of pontiff and prelates and lord bishops, whose appointed function it is to exercise lordship over Christ’s flock.... But committees and majorities may take the place of the Spirit, just as perfectly as a pope or a bishop.... This is the reason why the light has been extinguished in many a candlestick.... The body remains, but the breath is withdrawn. The Holy Spirit is the only Administrator.” Canon Melville: “Make peace if you will with Popery, receive it into your Senate, enshrine it in your chambers, plant it in your hearts. But be ye certain, as certain as there is a heaven above you and a God over you, that the Popery thus honored and embraced is the Popery that was loathed and degraded by the holiest of your fathers; and the same in haughtiness, the same in intolerance, which lorded it over kings, assumed the prerogative of Deity, crushed human liberty, and slew the saints of God.” On the strength and weakness of Romanism, see Harnack, What is Christianity? 246‐263.

(b) The national‐church theory, or the theory of provincial or national churches.—This holds that all members of the church in any province or nation are bound together in provincial or national organization, and that this organization has jurisdiction over the local churches. We reply:

First,—the theory has no support in the Scriptures. There is no evidence that the word ἐκκλησία in the New Testament ever means a national church organization. 1 Cor. 12:28, Phil. 3:6, and 1 Tim. 3:15, may be more naturally interpreted as referring to the generic church. In Acts 9:31, ἐκκλησία is a mere generalization for the local churches then and there existing, and implies no sort of organization among them.

1 Cor. 12:28—“And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues”; 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”; Acts 9:31—“So the church throughout all Judæa and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being edified.” For advocacy of the Presbyterian system, see Cunningham, Historical Theology, 2:514‐556; McPherson, Presbyterianism. Per contra, see Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 9—“There is no example of a national church in the New Testament.”

Secondly,—It is contradicted by the intercourse which the New Testament churches held with each other as independent bodies,—for example at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts. 15:1‐35).

Acts 15:2, 6, 13, 19, 22—“the brethren appointed that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.... And the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider of this matter.... James answered ... my judgment is, that we trouble not them that from among the Gentiles turn to God ... 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.” McGiffert, Apostolic Church, 645—“The steps of developing organization were: 1. Recognition of the teaching of the apostles as exclusive standard and norm of Christian truth; 2. Confinement to a specific office, the Catholic office of bishop, of the power to determine what is the teaching of the apostles; 3. Designation of a specific institution, the Catholic church, as the sole channel of divine grace. The Twelve, in the church of Jerusalem, had only a purely spiritual authority. They could advise, but they did not command. Hence they were not qualified to transmit authority to others. They had no absolute authority themselves.”

Thirdly,—It has no practical advantages over the Congregational polity, but rather tends to formality, division, and the extinction of the principles of self‐government and direct responsibility to Christ.

E. G. Robinson: “The Anglican schism is the most sectarian of all the sects.” Principal Rainey thus describes the position of the Episcopal Church: “They will not recognize the church standing of those who recognize them; and they only recognize the church standing of those, Greeks and Latins, who do not recognize them. Is not that an odd sort of Catholicity?” “Every priestling hides a popeling.” The elephant going through the jungle saw a brood of young partridges that had just lost their mother. Touched with sympathy he said: “I will be a mother to you,” and so he sat down upon them, as he had seen their mother do. Hence we speak of the “incumbent” of such and such a parish. There were no councils that claimed authority till the second century, and the independence of the churches was not given up until the third or fourth century. In Bp. Lightfoot’s essay on the Christian Ministry, in the appendix to his Com. on Philippians, progress to episcopacy is thus described: “In the time of Ignatius, the bishop, then primus inter pares, was regarded only as a centre of unity; in the time of Irenæus, as a depositary of primitive truth; in the time of Cyprian, as absolute vicegerent of Christ in things spiritual.” Nothing is plainer than the steady degeneration of church polity in the hands of the Fathers. Archibald Alexander: “A better name than Church Fathers for these men would be church babies. Their theology was infantile.” Luther: “Never mind the Scribes,—what saith the Scripture?”

Fourthly,—It is inconsistent with itself, in binding a professedly spiritual church by formal and geographical lines.

Instance the evils of Presbyterianism in practice. Dr. Park says that “the split between the Old and the New School was due to an attempt on the part of the majority to impose their will on the minority.... The Unitarian defection in New England would have ruined Presbyterian churches, but it did not ruin Congregational churches. A Presbyterian church may be deprived of the minister it has chosen, by the votes of neighboring churches, or by the few leading men who control them, or by one single vote in a close contest.” We may illustrate by the advantage of the adjustable card‐catalogue over the old method of keeping track of books in a library. A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 137, note—“By the candlesticks in the Revelation being seven, instead of one as in the tabernacle, we are taught that whereas, in the Jewish dispensation, God’s visible church was one, in the Gentile dispensation there are many visible churches, and that Christ himself recognizes them alike” (quoted from Garratt, Com. on Rev., 32). Bishop Moule, Veni Creator, 131, after speaking of the unity of the Spirit, goes on to say: “Blessed will it be for the church and for the world when these principles shall so vastly prevail as to find expression from within in a harmonious counterpart of order; a far different thing from what is, I cannot but think, an illusory prospect—the attainment of such internal unity by a previous exaction of exterior governmental uniformity.”

Fifthly,—It logically leads to the theory of Romanism. If two churches need a superior authority to control them and settle their differences, then two countries and two hemispheres need a common ecclesiastical government,—and a world‐church, under one visible head, is Romanism.

Hatch, in his Bampton Lectures on Organization of Early Christian Churches, without discussing the evidence from the New Testament, proceeds to treat of the post‐apostolic development of organization, as if the existence of a germinal Episcopacy very soon after the apostles proved such a system to be legitimate or obligatory. In reply, we would ask whether we are under moral obligation to conform to whatever succeeds in developing itself. If so, then the priests of Baal, as well as the priests of Rome, had just claims to human belief and obedience. Prof. Black: “We have no objection to antiquity, if they will only go back far enough. We wish to listen, not only to the fathers of the church, but also to the grandfathers.” Phillips Brooks speaks of “the fantastic absurdity of apostolic succession.” And with reason, for in the Episcopal system, bishops qualified to ordain must be: (1) baptized persons; (2) not scandalously immoral; (3) not having obtained office by bribery; (4) must not have been deposed. In view of these qualifications, Archbishop Whately pronounces the doctrine of apostolic succession untenable, and declares that “there is no Christian minister existing now, who can trace up with complete certainty his own ordination, through perfectly regular steps, to the time of the apostles.” See Macaulay’s Review of Gladstone on Church and State, in his Essays, 4:166‐178. There are breaks in the line, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest part. See Presb. Rev., 1886:89‐126. Mr. Flanders called Phillips Brooks “an Episcopalian with leanings toward Christianity.” Bishop Brooks replied that he could not be angry with “such a dear old moth‐eaten angel.” On apostolic succession, see C. Anderson Scott, Evangelical Doctrine, 37‐48, 267‐288. Apostolic succession has been called the pipe‐line conception of divine grace. To change the figure, it may be compared to the monopoly of communication with Europe by the submarine cable. But we are not confined to the pipe‐line or to the cable. There are wells of salvation in our private grounds, and wireless telegraphy practicable to every human soul, apart from any control of corporations. We see leanings toward the world‐church idea in Pananglican and Panpresbyterian Councils. Human nature ever tends to substitute the unity of external organization for the spiritual unity which belongs to all believers in Christ. There is no necessity for common government, whether Presbyterian or Episcopal; since Christ’s truth and Spirit are competent to govern all as easily as one. It is a remarkable fact, that the Baptist denomination, without external bonds, has maintained a greater unity in doctrine, and a closer general conformity to New Testament standards, than the churches which adopt the principle of episcopacy, or of provincial organization. With Abp. Whately, we find the true symbol of Christian unity in “the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of __ fruits” (Rev. 22:2). Cf. John 10:16—γενήσονται μία ποίμνη, εἶς ποιμήν—“they shall become one flock, one shepherd” = not one fold, not external unity, but one flock in many folds. See Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 130; Dexter, Congregationalism, 236; Coleman, Manual on Prelacy and Ritualism, 128‐264; Albert Barnes, Apostolic Church. As testimonies to the adequacy of Baptist polity to maintain sound doctrine, we quote from the Congregationalist, Dr. J. L. Withrow: “There is not a denomination of evangelical Christians that is throughout as sound theologically as the Baptist denomination. There is not an evangelical denomination in America to‐day that is as true to the simple plain gospel of God, as it is recorded in the word, as the Baptist denomination.” And the Presbyterian, Dr. W. G. T. Shedd, in a private letter dated Oct. 1, 1886, writes as follows: “Among the denominations, we all look to the Baptists for steady and firm adherence to sound doctrine. You have never had any internal doctrinal conflicts, and from year to year you present an undivided front in defense of the Calvinistic faith. Having no judicatures and regarding the local church as the unit, it is remarkable that you maintain such a unity and solidarity of belief. If you could impart your secret to our Congregational brethren, I think that some of them at least would thank you.” A. H. Strong, Sermon in London before the Baptist World Congress, July, 1905—“Coöperation with Christ involves the spiritual unity not only of all Baptists with one another, but of all Baptists with the whole company of true believers of every name. We cannot, indeed, be true to our convictions without organizing into one body those who agree with us in our interpretation of the Scriptures. Our denominational divisions are at present necessities of nature. But we regret these divisions, and, as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth, we strive, at least in spirit, to rise above them. In America our farms are separated from one another by fences, and in the springtime, when the wheat and barley are just emerging from the earth, these fences are very distinguishable and unpleasing features of the landscape. But later in the season, when the corn has grown and the time of harvest is near, the grain is so tall that the fences are entirely hidden, and for miles together you seem to see only a single field. It is surely our duty to confess everywhere and always that we are first Christians and only secondly Baptists. The tie which binds us to Christ is more important in our eyes than that which binds us to those of the same faith and order. We live in hope that the Spirit of Christ in us, and in all other Christian bodies, may induce such growth of mind and heart that the sense of unity may not only overtop and hide the fences of division, but may ultimately do away with these fences altogether.”

2. Officers of the Church.

A. The number of offices in the church is two:—first, the office of bishop, presbyter, or pastor; and, secondly, the office of deacon.

(a) That the appellations “bishop,” “presbyter,” and “pastor” designate the same office and order of persons, may be shown from Acts 20:28—ἐπισκόπους ποιμαίνειν (cf. 17—πρεσβυτέρους); Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:1, 8; Titus 1:5, 7; 1 Pet. 5:1, 2—πρεσβυτέρους ... παρακαλῶ ὁ συμπρεσβύτερος ... ποιμάνατε ποίμνιον ... ἐπισκοποῦντες. Conybeare and Howson: “The terms ‘bishop’ and ‘elder’ are used in the New Testament as equivalent,—the former denoting (as its meaning of overseer implies) the duties, the latter the rank, of the office.” See passages quoted in Gieseler, Church History, 1:90, note 1—as, for example, Jerome: “Apud veteres iidem episcopi et presbyteri, quia illud nomen dignitatis est, hoc ætatis. Idem est ergo presbyter qui episcopus.”

Acts 20:28—“Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops [marg. ‘overseers’], to feed [lit. ‘to shepherd,’ ‘be pastors of’] the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood”; cf. 17—“the elders of the church” are those whom Paul addresses as bishops or overseers, and whom he exhorts to be good pastors. Phil. 1:1—“bishops and deacons”; 1 Tim. 3:1, 8—“If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.... Deacons in like manner must be grave”; Tit. 1:5, 7—“appoint elders in every city.... For the bishop must be blameless”; 1 Pet. 5:1, 2—“The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow‐elder.... Tend [lit. ‘shepherd,’ ‘be pastors of’] the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight [acting as bishops], not of constraint, but __ willingly, according to the will of God.” In this last passage, Westcott and Hort, with Tischendorf’s 8th edition, follow א and B in omitting ἐπισκοποῦντες. Tregelles and our Revised Version follow A and אc in retaining it. Rightly, we think; since it is easy to see how, in a growing ecclesiasticism, it should have been omitted, from the feeling that too much was here ascribed to a mere presbyter. Lightfoot, Com. on Philippians, 95‐99—“It is a fact now generally recognized by theologians of all shades of opinion that in the language of the N. T. the same officer in the church is called indifferently ‘bishop’ (ἐπίσκοπος) and ‘elder’ or ‘presbyter’ (πρεσβύτερος).... To these special officers the priestly functions and privileges of the Christian people are never regarded as transferred or delegated. They are called stewards or messengers of God, servants or ministers of the church, and the like, but the sacerdotal is never once conferred upon them. The only priests under the gospel, designated as such in the N. T., are the saints, the members of the Christian brotherhood.” On Titus 1:5, 7—“appoint elders.... For the bishop must be blameless”—Gould, Bib. Theol. N. T., 150, remarks: “Here the word ‘for’ is quite out of place unless bishops and elders are identical. All these officers, bishops as well as deacons, are confined to the local church in their jurisdiction. The charge of a bishop is not a diocese, but a church. The functions are mostly administrative, the teaching office being subordinate, and a distinction is made between teaching elders and others, implying that the teaching function is not common to them all.” Dexter, Congregationalism, 114, shows that bishop, elder, pastor are names for the same office: (1) from the significance of the words; (2) from the fact that the same qualifications are demanded from all; (3) from the fact that the same duties are assigned to all; (4) from the fact that the texts held to prove higher rank of the bishop do not support that claim. Plumptre, in Pop. Com., Pauline Epistles, 555, 556—“There cannot be a shadow of doubt that the two titles of Bishop and Presbyter were in the Apostolic Age interchangeable.”

(b) The only plausible objection to the identity of the presbyter and the bishop is that first suggested by Calvin, on the ground of 1 Tim. 5:17. But this text only shows that the one office of presbyter or bishop involved two kinds of labor, and that certain presbyters or bishops were more successful in one kind than in the other. That gifts of teaching and ruling belonged to the same individual, is clear from Acts 20:28‐31; Eph. 4:11; Heb. 13:7; 1 Tim. 3:2—ἐπίσκοπον διδακτικόν.

1 Tim. 5:17—“Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in teaching”; Wilson, Primitive Government of Christian Churches, concedes that this last text “expresses a diversity in the exercise of the Presbyterial office, but not in the office itself”; and although he was a Presbyterian, he very consistently refused to have any ruling elders in his church. Acts 20:28, 31—“bishops, to feed the church of the Lord ... wherefore watch ye”; Eph. 4:11—“and some, pastors and teachers”—here Meyer remarks that the single article binds the two words together, and prevents us from supposing that separate offices are intended. Jerome: “Nemo ... pastoris sibi nomen assumere debet, nisi possit docere quos pascit.” Heb. 13:7—“Remember them that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God”; 1 Tim. 3:2—“The bishop must be ... apt to teach.” The great temptation to ambition in the Christian ministry is provided against by having no gradation of ranks. The pastor is a priest, only as every Christian is. See Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 56; Olshausen, on 1 Tim. 5:17; Hackett on Acts 14:23; Presb. Rev., 1886:89‐126. Dexter, Congregationalism, 52—“Calvin was a natural aristocrat, not a man of the people like Luther. Taken out of his own family to be educated in a family of the nobility, he received an early bent toward exclusiveness. He believed in authority and loved to exercise it. He could easily have been a despot. He assumed all citizens to be Christians until proof to the contrary. He resolved church discipline into police control. He confessed that the eldership was an expedient to which he was driven by circumstances, though after creating it he naturally enough endeavored to procure Scriptural proof in its favor.” On the question, The Christian Ministry, is it a Priesthood? see C. Anderson Scott, Evangelical Doctrine, 205‐224.

(c) In certain of the N. T. churches there appears to have been a plurality of elders (Acts 20:17; Phil. 1:1; Tit. 1:5). There is, however, no evidence that the number of elders was uniform, or that the plurality which frequently existed was due to any other cause than the size of the churches for which these elders cared. The N. T. example, while it permits the multiplication of assistant pastors according to need, does not require a plural eldership in every case; nor does it render this eldership, where it exists, of coördinate authority with the church. There are indications, moreover, that, at least in certain churches, the pastor was one, while the deacons were more than one, in number.

Acts 20:17—“And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to him the elders of the church”; Phil. 1:1—“Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons”; Tit. 1:5—“For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge.” See, however, Acts 12:17—“Tell these things unto James, and to the brethren”; 15:13—“And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Brethren, hearken unto me”; 21:18—“And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present”; Gal. 1:19—“But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother”; 2:12—“certain came from James.” These passages seem to indicate that James was the pastor or president of the church at Jerusalem, an intimation which tradition corroborates. 1 Tim. 3:2—“The bishop therefore must be without reproach”; Tit. 1:7—“For the bishop must be blameless, as God’s steward”; cf. 1 Tim. 3:8, 10, 12—“Deacons in like manner must be grave.... And let these also first be proved; then let them serve as deacons, if they be blameless.... Let deacons be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well”—in all these passages the bishop is spoken of in the singular number, the deacons in the plural. So, too, in Rev. 2:1, 8, 12, 18 and 3:1, 7, 14, “the angel of the church” is best interpreted as meaning the pastor of the church; and, if this be correct, it is clear that each church had, not many pastors, but one. It would, moreover, seem antecedently improbable that every church of Christ, however small, should be required to have a plural eldership, particularly since churches exist that have only a single male member. A plural eldership is natural and advantageous, only where the church is very numerous and the pastor needs assistants in his work: and only in such cases can we say that New Testament example favors it. For advocacy of the theory of plural eldership, see Fish, Ecclesiology, 229‐249; Ladd, Principles of Church Polity, 22‐29. On the whole subject of offices in the church, see Dexter, Congregationalism, 77‐98; Dagg, Church Order, 241‐266; Lightfoot on the Christian Ministry, appended to his Commentary on Philippians, and published in his Dissertations on the Apostolic Age.

B. The duties belonging to these offices.

(a) The pastor, bishop, or elder is:

First,—a spiritual teacher, in public and private;

Acts 20:20, 21, 35—“how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.... In all things I gave you an example, that so laboring ye ought to help the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive”; 1 Thess. 5:12—“But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you”; Heb. 13:7, 17—“Remember them that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.... Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account.” Here we should remember that the pastor’s private work of religious conversation and prayer is equally important with his public ministrations; in this respect he is to be an example to his flock, and they are to learn from him the art of winning the unconverted and of caring for those who are already saved. A Jewish Rabbi once said: “God could not be every where,—therefore he made mothers.” We may substitute, for the word ’mothers,’ the word ’pastors.’ Bishop Ken is said to have made a vow every morning, as he rose, that he would not be married that day. His own lines best express his mind: “A virgin priest the altar best attends; our Lord that state commands not, but commends.”

Secondly,—administrator of the ordinances;

Mat. 28:19, 20—“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: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded”; 1 Cor. 1:16, 17—“And __ I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” Here it is evident that, although the pastor administers the ordinances, this is not his main work, nor is the church absolutely dependent upon him in the matter. He is not set, like an O. T. priest, to minister at the altar, but to preach the gospel. In an emergency any other member appointed by the church may administer them with equal propriety, the church always determining who are fit subjects of the ordinances, and constituting him their organ in administering them. Any other view is based on sacramental notions, and on ideas of apostolic succession. All Christians are “priests unto ... God” (Rev. 1:6). “This universal priesthood is a priesthood, not of expiation, but of worship, and is bound to no ritual, or order of times and places” (P. S. Moxom).

Thirdly,—superintendent of the discipline, as well as presiding officer at the meetings, of the church.

Superintendent of discipline: 1 Tim. 5:17—“Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in teaching”; 3:5—“if a man knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” Presiding officer at meetings of the church: 1 Cor. 12:28—“governments”—here κυβερνήσεις, or “governments,” indicating the duties of the pastor, are the counterpart of ἀντιλήψεις, or “helps,” which designate the duties of the deacons; 1 Pet. 5:2, 3—“Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock.” In the old Congregational churches of New England, an authority was accorded to the pastor which exceeded the New Testament standard. “Dr. Bellamy could break in upon a festival which he deemed improper, and order the members of his parish to their homes.” The congregation rose as the minister entered the church, and stood uncovered as he passed out of the porch. We must not hope or desire to restore the New England régime. The pastor is to take responsibility, to put himself forward when there is need, but he is to rule only by moral suasion, and that only by guiding, teaching, and carrying into effect the rules imposed by Christ and the decisions of the church in accordance with those rules. Dexter, Congregationalism, 115, 155, 157—“The Governor of New York suggests to the Legislature such and such enactments, and then executes such laws as they please to pass. He is chief ruler of the State, while the Legislature adopts or rejects what he proposes.” So the pastor’s functions are not legislative, but executive. Christ is the only lawgiver. In fulfilling this office, the manner and spirit of the pastor’s work are of as great importance as are correctness of judgment and faithfulness to Christ’s law. “The young man who cannot distinguish the wolves from the dogs should not think of becoming a shepherd.” Gregory Nazianzen: “Either teach none, or let your life teach too.” See Harvey, The Pastor; Wayland, Apostolic Ministry; Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 99; Samson, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 261‐288.

(b) The deacon is helper to the pastor and the church, in both spiritual and temporal things.

First,—relieving the pastor of external labors, informing him of the condition and wants of the church, and forming a bond of union between pastor and people.

Acts 6:1‐6—“Now in these days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a murmuring of the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. And the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not fit that we should forsake the word of God, and serve tables. Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will continue stedfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus a proselyte of Antioch; whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands upon them”; cf. 8‐20—where Stephen shows power in disputation; Rom. 12:7—“or ministry διακονίαν, let us give ourselves to our ministry”; 1 Cor. 12:28—“helps”—here ἀντιλήψεις, “helps,” indicating the duties of deacons, are the counterpart of κυβερνήσεις, “governments,” which designate the duties of the pastor; Phil. 1:1—“bishops and deacons.” Dr. E. G. Robinson did not regard the election of the seven, in Acts 6:1‐4, as marking the origin of the diaconate, though he thought the diaconate grew out of this election. The Autobiography of C. H. Spurgeon, 3:22, gives an account of the election of “elders” at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. These “elders” were to attend to the spiritual affairs of the church, as the deacons were to attend to the temporal affairs. These “elders” were chosen year by year, while the office of deacon was permanent.

Secondly,—helping the church, by relieving the poor and sick and ministering in an informal way to the church’s spiritual needs, and by performing certain external duties connected with the service of the sanctuary.

Since deacons are to be helpers, it is not necessary in all cases that they should be old or rich; in fact, it is better that among the number of deacons the various differences in station, age, wealth, and opinion in the church should be represented. The qualifications for the diaconate mentioned in Acts 6:1‐4 and 1 Tim. 3:8‐13, are, in substance: wisdom, sympathy, and spirituality. There are advantages in electing deacons, not for life, but for a term of years. While there is no New Testament prescription in this matter, and each church may exercise its option, service for a term of years, with re‐election where the office has been well discharged, would at least seem favored by 1 Tim. 3:10—“Let these also first be proved; then let them serve as deacons, if they be blameless”; 13—“For they that have served well as deacons gain to themselves a good standing, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Expositor’s Greek Testament, on Acts 5:6, remarks that those who carried out and buried Ananias are called οἱ νεώτεροι—“the young men”—and in the case of Sapphira they were οἱ νεανίσκοι—meaning the same thing. “Upon the natural distinction between πρεσβύτεροι and νεώτεροι—elders and young men—it may well have been that official duties in the church were afterward based.” Dr. Leonard Bacon thought that the apostles included the whole membership in the “we,” when they said: “It is not fit that we should forsake the word of God, and serve tables.” The deacons, on this interpretation, were chosen to help the whole church in temporal matters. In Rom. 16:1, 2, we have apparent mention of a deaconess—“I commend unto you Phœbe our sister, who is a servant [marg.: ‘deaconess’] of the church that is at Cenchreæ ... for she herself also hath been a helper of many, and of mine own self.” See also 1 Tim. 3:11—“Women in like manner must be grave, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things”—here Ellicott and Alford claim that the word “women” refers, not to deacons’ wives, as our Auth. Vers. had it, but to deaconesses. Dexter, Congregationalism, 69, 132, maintains that the office of deaconess, though it once existed, has passed away, as belonging to a time when men could not, without suspicion, minister to women. This view that there are temporary offices in the church does not, however, commend itself to us. It is more correct to say that there is yet doubt whether there was such an office as deaconess, even in the early church. Each church has a right in this matter to interpret Scripture for itself, and to act accordingly. An article in the Bap. Quar., 1869:40, denies the existence of any diaconal rank or office, for male or female. Fish, in his Ecclesiology, holds that Stephen was a deacon, but an elder also, and preached as elder, not as deacon,—Acts 6:1‐4 being called the institution, not of the diaconate, but of the Christian ministry. The use of the phrase διακονεῖν τραπέζαις, and the distinction between the diaconate and the pastorate subsequently made in the Epistles, seem to refute this interpretation. On the fitness of women for the ministry of religion, see F. P. Cobbe, Peak of Darien, 199‐262; F. E. Willard, Women in the Pulpit; B. T. Roberts, Ordaining Women. On the general subject, see Howell, The Deaconship; Williams, The Deaconship; Robinson, N. T. Lexicon, ἀντιλήψις. On the Claims of the Christian Ministry, and on Education for the Ministry, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 269‐318, and Christ in Creation, 314‐331.

C. Ordination of officers.

(a) What is ordination?

Ordination is the setting apart of a person divinely called to a work of special ministration in the church. It does not involve the communication of power,—it is simply a recognition of powers previously conferred by God, and a consequent formal authorization, on the part of the church, to exercise the gifts already bestowed. This recognition and authorization should not only be expressed by the vote in which the candidate is approved by the church or the council which represents it, but should also be accompanied by a special service of admonition, prayer, and the laying‐ on of hands (Acts 6:5, 6; 13:2, 3; 14:23; 1 Tim. 4:14; 5:22).

Licensure simply commends a man to the churches as fitted to preach. Ordination recognizes him as set apart to the work of preaching and administering ordinances, in some particular church or in some designated field of labor, as representative of the church.

Of his call to the ministry, the candidate himself is to be first persuaded (1 Cor. 9:16; 1 Tim. 1:12); but, secondly, the church must be persuaded also, before he can have authority to minister among them (1 Tim. 3:2‐7; 4:14; Titus 1:6‐9).

The word “ordain” has come to have a technical signification not found in the New Testament. There it means simply to choose, appoint, set apart. In 1 Tim. 2:7—“whereunto I was appointed [ἐτέθην] a preacher and an apostle ... a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth”—it apparently denotes ordination of God. In the following passages we read of an ordination by the church: Acts 6:5, 6—“And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen ... and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus ... whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands upon them”—the ordination of deacons; 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”; 14:23—“And when they had appointed for them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they had believed”; 1 Tim. 4:14—“Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery”; 5:22—“Lay hands hastily on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins.” Cambridge Platform, 1648, chapter 9—“Ordination is nothing else but the solemn putting of a man into his place and office in the church whereunto he had right before by election, being like the installing of a Magistrate in the Commonwealth.” Ordination confers no authority—it only recognizes authority already conferred by God. Since it is only recognition, it can be repeated as often as a man changes his denominational relations. Leonard Bacon: “The action of a Council has no more authority than the reason on which it is based. The church calling the Council is a competent court of appeal from any decision of the Council.” Since ordination is simply choosing, appointing, setting apart, it seems plain that in the case of deacons, who sustain official relations only to the church that constitutes them, ordination requires no consultation with other churches. But in the ordination of a pastor, there are three natural stages: (1) the call of the church; (2) the decision of a council (the council being virtually only the church advised by its brethren); (3) the publication of this decision by a public service of prayer and the laying‐on of hands. The prior call to be pastor may be said, in the case of a man yet unordained, to be given by the church conditionally, and in anticipation of a ratification of its action by the subsequent judgment of the council. In a well‐instructed church, the calling of a council is a regular method of appeal from the church unadvised to the church advised by its brethren; and the vote of the council approving the candidate is only the essential completing of an ordination, of which the vote of the church calling the candidate to the pastorate was the preliminary stage. This setting apart by the church, with the advice and assistance of the council, is all that is necessarily implied in the New Testament words which are translated “ordain”; and such ordination, by simple vote of church and council, could not be counted invalid. But it would be irregular. New Testament precedent makes certain accompaniments not only appropriate, but obligatory. A formal publication of the decree of the council, by laying‐on of hands, in connection with prayer, is the last of the duties of this advisory body, which serves as the organ and assistant of the church. The laying‐on of hands is appointed to be the regular accompaniment of ordination, as baptism is appointed to be the regular accompaniment of regeneration; while yet the laying‐on of hands is no more the substance of ordination, than baptism is the substance of regeneration. The imposition of hands is the natural symbol of the communication, not of grace, but of authority. It does not make a man a minister of the gospel, any more than coronation makes Victoria a queen. What it does signify and publish, is formal recognition and authorization. Viewed in this light, there not only can be no objection to the imposition of hands upon the ground that it favors sacramentalism, but insistence upon it is the bounden duty of every council of ordination. Mr. Spurgeon was never ordained. He began and ended his remarkable ministry as a lay preacher. He revolted from the sacramentalism of the Church of England, which seemed to hold that in the imposition of hands in ordination divine grace trickled down through a bishop’s finger ends, and he felt moved to protest against it. In our judgment it would have been better to follow New Testament precedent, and at the same time to instruct the churches as to the real meaning of the laying‐on of hands. The Lord’s Supper had in a similar manner been interpreted as a physical communication of grace, but Mr. Spurgeon still continued to observe the Lord’s Supper. His gifts enabled him to carry his people with him, when a man of smaller powers might by peculiar views have ruined his ministry. He was thankful that he was pastor of a large church, because he felt that he had not enough talent to be pastor of a small one. He said that when he wished to make a peculiar impression on his people he put himself into his cannon and fired himself at them. He refused the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and said that “D. D.” often meant “Doubly Destitute.” Dr. P. S. Henson suggests that the letters mean only “Fiddle Dee Dee.” For Spurgeon’s views on ordination, see his Autobiography, 1:355 sq. John Wesley’s three tests of a call to preach: “Inquire of applicants,” he says, “1. Do they know God as a pardoning God? Have they the love of God abiding in them? Do they desire and see nothing but God? And are they holy, in all manner of conversation? 2. Have they gifts, as well as grace, for the work? Have they a clear sound understanding? Have they a right judgment in the things of God? Have they a just conception of salvation by faith? And has God given them any degree of utterance? Do they speak justly, readily, clearly? 3. Have they fruit? Are any truly convinced of sin, and converted to God, by their preaching?” The second of these qualifications seems to have been in the mind of the little girl who said that the bishop, in laying hands on the candidate, was feeling of his head to see whether he had brains enough to preach. There is some need of the preaching of a “trial sermon” by the candidate, as proof to the Council that he has the gifts requisite for a successful ministry. In this respect the Presbyteries of Scotland are in advance of us.

(b) Who are to ordain?

Ordination is the act of the church, not the act of a privileged class in the church, as the eldership has sometimes wrongly been regarded, nor yet the act of other churches, assembled by their representatives in council. No ecclesiastical authority higher than that of the local church is recognized in the New Testament. This authority, however, has its limits; and since the church has no authority outside of its own body, the candidate for ordination should be a member of the ordaining church.

Since each church is bound to recognize the presence of the Spirit in other rightly constituted churches, and its own decisions, in like manner, are to be recognized by others, it is desirable in ordination, as in all important steps affecting other churches, that advice be taken before the candidate is inducted into office, and that other churches be called to sit with it in council, and if thought best, assist in setting the candidate apart for the ministry.

Hands were laid on Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, not by their ecclesiastical superiors, as High Church doctrine would require, but by their equals or inferiors, as simple representatives of the church. Ordination was nothing more than the recognition of a divine appointment and the commending to God’s care and blessing of those so appointed. The council of ordination is only the church advised by its brethren, or a committee with power, to act for the church after deliberation. The council of ordination is not to be composed simply of ministers who have been themselves ordained. As the whole church is to preserve the ordinances and to maintain sound doctrine, and as the unordained church member is often a more sagacious judge of a candidate’s Christian experience than his own pastor would be, there seems no warrant, either in Scripture or in reason, for the exclusion of lay delegates from ordaining councils. It was not merely the apostles and elders, but the whole church at Jerusalem, that passed upon the matters submitted to them at the council, and others than ministers appear to have been delegates. The theory that only ministers can ordain has in it the beginnings of a hierarchy. To make the ministry a close corporation is to recognize the principle of apostolic succession, to deny the validity of all our past ordinations, and to sell to an ecclesiastical caste the liberties of the church of God. Very great importance attaches to decorum and settled usage in matters of ordination. To secure these, the following suggestions are made with regard to

His letter of dismission should be received and acted upon by the church before the Council convenes. Since the church has no jurisdiction outside of its own membership, the candidate should be a member of the church which proposes to ordain him. 2. The church should vote to call the Council. 3. It should invite all the churches of its Association. 4. It should send printed invitations, asking written responses. 5. Should have printed copies of an Order of Procedure, subject to adoption by the Council. 6. The candidate may select one or two persons to officiate at the public service, subject to approval of the Council. 7. The clerk of the church should be instructed to be present with the records of the church and the minutes of the Association, so that he may call to order and ask responses from delegates. 8. Ushers should be appointed to ensure reserved seats for the Council. 9. Another room should be provided for the private session of the Council. 10. The choir should be instructed that one anthem, one hymn, and one doxology will suffice for the public service. 11. Entertainment of the delegates should be provided for. 12. A member of the church should be chosen to present the candidate to the Council. 13. The church should be urged on the previous Sunday to attend the examination of the candidate as well as the public service.

of an applicant. Since he asks the favorable judgment of his brethren, a modest bearing and great patience in answering their questions, are becoming to his position. 2. Let him stand during his narration, and during questions, unless for reasons of ill health or fatigue he is specially excused. 3. It will be well to divide his narration into 15 minutes for his Christian experience, 10 minutes for his call to the ministry, and 35 minutes for his views of doctrine. 4. A viva voce statement of all these three is greatly preferable to an elaborate written account. 5. In the relation of his views of doctrine: (a) the more fully he states them, the less need there will be for questioning; (b) his statement should be positive, not negative—not what he does not believe, but what he does believe; (c) he is not required to tell the reasons for his belief, unless he is specially questioned with regard to these; (d) he should elaborate the later and practical, not the earlier and theoretical, portions of his theological system; (e) he may well conclude each point of his statement with a single text of Scripture proof.

the candidate until proper credentials have been presented. 2. It should in every case give to the candidate a searching examination, in order that this may not seem invidious in other cases. 3. Its vote of approval should read: “We do now set apart,” and “We will hold a public service expressive of this fact.” 4. Strict decorum should be observed in every stage of the proceedings, remembering that the Council is acting for Christ the great head of the church and is transacting business for eternity. 5. The Council should do no other business than that for which the church has summoned it, and when that business is done, the Council should adjourn sine die.

It is always to be remembered, however, that the power to ordain rests with the church, and that the church may proceed without a Council, or even against the decision of the Council. Such ordination, of course, would give authority only within the bounds of the individual church. Where no immediate exception is taken to the decision of the Council, that decision is to be regarded as virtually the decision of the church by which it was called. The same rule applies to a Council’s decision to depose from the ministry. In the absence of immediate protest from the church, the decision of the Council is rightly taken as virtually the decision of the church.

In so far as ordination is an act performed by the local church with the advice and assistance of other rightly constituted churches, it is justly regarded as giving formal permission to exercise gifts and administer ordinances within the bounds of such churches. Ordination is not, therefore, to be repeated upon the transfer of the minister’s pastoral relation from one church to another. In every case, however, where a minister from a body of Christians not Scripturally constituted assumes the pastoral relation in a rightly organized church, there is peculiar propriety, not only in the examination, by a Council, of his Christian experience, call to the ministry, and views of doctrine, but also in that act of formal recognition and authorization which is called ordination.

The Council should be numerous and impartially constituted. The church calling the Council should be represented in it by a fair number of delegates. Neither the church, nor the Council, should permit a prejudgment of the case by the previous announcement of an ordination service. While the examination of the candidate should be public, all danger that the Council be unduly influenced by pressure from without should be obviated by its conducting its deliberations, and arriving at its decision, in private session. We subjoin the form of a letter missive, calling a Council of ordination; an order of procedure after the Council has assembled; and a programme of exercises for the public service. LETTER MISSIVE.—The —— church of —— to the —— church of ——: Dear Brethren: By vote of this church, you are requested to send your pastor and two delegates to meet with us in accordance with the following resolutions, passed by us on the —— ——, 19—: Whereas, brother ——, a member of this church, has offered himself to the work of the gospel ministry, and has been chosen by us as our pastor, therefore, Resolved, 1. That such neighboring churches, in fellowship with us, as shall be herein designated, be requested to send their pastor and two delegates each, to meet and counsel with this church, at — o’clock —. M., on ——, 19——, and if, after examination, he be approved, that brother —— be set apart, by vote of the Council, to the gospel ministry, and that a public service be held, expressive of this fact. Resolved, 2. That the Council, if it do so ordain, be requested to appoint two of its number to act with the candidate, in arranging the public services. Resolved, 3. That printed letters of invitation, embodying these resolutions, and signed by the clerk of this church, be sent to the following churches, —— —— —— —— ——, and that these churches be requested to furnish to their delegates an officially signed certificate of their appointment, to be presented at the organization of the Council. Resolved, 4. That Rev. ——, and brethren —— ——, be also invited by the clerk of the church to be present as members of the Council. Resolved, 5. That brethren ——, ——, and ——, be appointed as our delegates, to represent this church in the deliberations of the Council; and that brother —— be requested to present the candidate to the Council, with an expression of the high respect and warm attachment with which we have welcomed him and his labors among us. In behalf of the church, —— ——, Clerk. ——, 19—. ORDER OF PROCEDURE.—1. Reading, by the clerk of the church, of the letter‐missive, followed by a call, in their order, upon all churches and individuals invited, to present responses and names in writing; each delegate, as he presents his credentials, taking his seat in a portion of the house reserved for the Council. 2. Announcement, by the clerk of the church, that a Council has convened, and call for the nomination of a moderator,—the motion to be put by the clerk,—after which the moderator takes the chair. 3. Organization completed by election of a clerk of the Council, the offering of prayer, and an invitation to visiting brethren to sit with the Council, but not to vote. 4. Reading, on behalf of the church, by its clerk, of the records of the church concerning the call extended to the candidate, and his acceptance, together with documentary evidence of his licensure, of his present church membership, and of his standing in other respects, if coming from another denomination. 5. Vote, by the Council, that the proceedings of the church, and the standing of the candidate, warrant an examination of his claim to ordination. 6. Introduction of the candidate to the Council, by some representative of the church, with an expression of the church’s feeling respecting him and his labors. 7. Vote to hear his Christian experience. Narration on the part of the candidate, followed by questions as to any features of it still needing elucidation. 8. Vote to hear the candidate’s reasons for believing himself called to the ministry. Narration and questions. 9. Vote to hear the candidate’s views of Christian doctrine. Narration and questions. 10. Vote to conclude the public examination, and to withdraw for private session. 11. In private session, after prayer, the Council determines, by three separate votes, in order to secure separate consideration of each question, whether it is satisfied with the candidate’s Christian experience, call to the ministry, and views of Christian doctrine. 12. Vote that the candidate be hereby set apart to the gospel ministry, and that a public service be held, expressive of this fact; that for this purpose, a committee of two be appointed, to act with the candidate, in arranging such service of ordination, and to report before adjournment. 13. Reading of minutes, by clerk of Council, and correction of them, to prepare for presentation at the ordination service, and for preservation in the archives of the church. 14. Vote to give the candidate a certificate of ordination, signed by the moderator and clerk of the Council, and to publish an account of the proceedings in the journals of the denomination. 15. Adjourn to meet at the service of ordination. PROGRAMME OF PUBLIC SERVICE (two hours in length).—1. Voluntary—five minutes. 2. Anthem—five. 3. Reading minutes of the Council, by the clerk of the Council—ten. 4. Prayer of invocation—five. 5. Reading of Scripture—five. 6. Sermon—twenty‐ five. 7. Prayer of ordination, with laying‐on of hands—fifteen. 8. Hymn—ten. 9. Right hand of fellowship—five. 10. Charge to the candidate—fifteen. 11. Charge to the church—fifteen. 12. Doxology—five. 13. Benediction by the newly ordained pastor. The tenor of the N. T. would seem to indicate that deacons should be ordained with prayer and the laying‐on of hands, though not by council or public service. Evangelists, missionaries, ministers serving as secretaries of benevolent societies, should also be ordained, since they are organs of the church, set apart for special religious work on behalf of the churches. The same rule applies to those who are set to be teachers of the teachers, the professors of theological seminaries. Philip, baptizing the eunuch, is to be regarded as an organ of the church at Jerusalem. Both home missionaries and foreign missionaries are evangelists; and both, as organs of the home churches to which they belong, are not under obligation to take letters of dismission to the churches they gather. George Adam Smith, in his Life of Henry Drummond, 265, says that Drummond was ordained to his professorship by the laying‐on of the hands of the Presbytery: “The rite is the same in the case whether of a minister or of a professor, for the church of Scotland recognizes no difference between her teachers and her pastors, but lays them under the same vows, and ordains them all as ministers of Christ’s gospel and of his sacraments.” Rome teaches that ordination is a sacrament, and “once a priest, always a priest,” but only when Rome confers the ordination. It is going a great deal further than Rome to maintain the indelibility of all orders—at least, of all orders conferred by an evangelical church. At Dover in England, a medical gentleman declined to pay his doctor’s bill upon the ground that it was not the custom of his calling to pay one another for their services. It appeared however that he was a retired practitioner, and upon that ground he lost his case. Ordination, like vaccination, may run out. Retirement from the office of public teacher should work a forfeiture of the official character. The authorization granted by the Council was based upon a previous recognition of a divine call. When by reason of permanent withdrawal from the ministry, and devotion to wholly secular pursuits, there remains no longer any divine call to be recognized, all authority and standing as a Christian minister should cease also. We therefore repudiate the doctrine of the “indelibility of sacred orders,” and the corresponding maxim: “Once ordained, always ordained”; although we do not, with the Cambridge Platform, confine the ministerial function to the pastoral relation. That Platform held that “the pastoral relation ceasing, the ministerial function ceases, and the pastor becomes a layman again, to be restored to the ministry only by a second ordination, called installation. This theory of the ministry proved so inadequate, that it was held scarcely more than a single generation. It was rejected by the Congregational churches of England ten years after it was formulated in New England.” “The National Council of Congregational Churches, in 1880, resolved that any man serving a church as minister can be dealt with and disciplined by any church, no matter what his relations may be in church membership, or ecclesiastical affiliations. If the church choosing him will not call a council, then any church can call one for that purpose”; see New Englander, July, 1883:461‐491. This latter course, however, presupposes that the steps of fraternal labor and admonition, provided for in our next section on the Relation of Local Churches to one another, have been taken, and have been insufficient to induce proper action on the part of the church to which such minister belongs. The authority of a Presbyterian church is limited to the bounds of its own denomination. It cannot ordain ministers for Baptist churches, any more than it can ordain them for Methodist churches or for Episcopal churches. When a Presbyterian minister becomes a Baptist, his motives for making the change and the conformity of his views to the New Testament standard need to be scrutinized by Baptists, before they can admit him to their Christian and church fellowship; in other words, he needs to be ordained by a Baptist church. Ordination is no more a discourtesy to the other denomination than Baptism is. Those who oppose reördination in such cases virtually hold to the Romish view of the sacredness of orders. The Watchman, April 17, 1902—“The Christian ministry is not a priestly class which the laity is bound to support. If the minister cannot find a church ready to support him, there is nothing to prevent his entering another calling. Only ten per cent. of the men who start in independent business avoid failure, and a much smaller proportion achieve substantial success. They are not failures, for they do useful and valuable work. But they do not secure the prizes. It is not wonderful that the proportion of ministers securing prominent pulpits is small. Many men fail in the ministry. There is no sacred character imparted by ordination. They should go into some other avocation. ‘Once a minister, always a minister’ is a piece of Popery that Protestant churches should get rid of.” See essay on Councils of Ordination, their Powers and Duties, by A. H. Strong, in Philosophy and Religion, 259‐268; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 114; Dexter, Congregationalism, 136, 145, 146, 150, 151. Per contra, see Fish, Ecclesiology, 365‐399; Presb. Rev., 1886:89‐126.

3. Discipline of the Church.

A. Kinds of discipline.—Discipline is of two sorts, according as offences are private or public. (a) Private offences are to be dealt with according to the rule in Mat. 5:23, 24; 18:15‐17.

Mat. 5:23, 24—“If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift”—here is provision for self‐discipline on the part of each offender; 18:15‐17—“And if thy brother sin against thee, go, show him his fault between thee and him alone: if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be established. 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”—here is, first, private discipline, one of another; and then, only as a last resort, discipline by the church. Westcott and Hort, however omit the εἰς σέ—“against thee”—in Mat. 18:15, and so make each Christian responsible for bringing to repentance every brother whose sin he becomes cognizant of. This would abolish the distinction between private and public offences. When a brother wrongs me, I am not to speak of the offence to others, nor to write to him a letter, but to go to him. If the brother is already penitent, he will start from his house to see me at the same time that I start from my house to see him, and we will meet just half way between the two. There would be little appeal to the church, and little cherishing of ancient grudges, if Christ’s disciples would observe his simple rules. These rules impose a duty upon both the offending and the offended party. When a brother brings a personal matter before the church, he should always be asked whether he has obeyed Christ’s command to labor privately with the offender. If he has not, he should be bidden to keep silence.

(b) Public offences are to be dealt with according to the rule in 1 Cor. 5:3‐5, 13, and 2 Thess. 3:6.

1 Cor. 5:3‐5, 13—“For I verily, being absent in body but present in spirit, have already as though I were present judged him that hath so wrought this thing, in the name of the 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.” Notice here that Paul gave the incestuous person no opportunity to repent, confess, or avert sentence. The church can have no valid evidence of repentance immediately upon discovery and arraignment. At such a time the natural conscience always reacts in remorse and self‐accusation, but whether the sin is hated because of its inherent wickedness, or only because of its unfortunate consequences, cannot be known at once. Only fruits meet for repentance can prove repentance real. But such fruits take time, And the church has no time to wait. Its good repute in the community, and its influence over its own members, are at stake. These therefore demand the instant exclusion of the wrong‐doer, as evidence that the church clears its skirts from all complicity with the wrong. In the case of gross public offences, labor with the offender is to come, not before, but after, his excommunication; cf. 2 Cor. 2:6‐8—“Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the many;... forgive him and comfort him;... confirm your love toward him.” The church is not a Mutual Insurance Company, whose object is to protect and shield its individual members. It is a society whose end is to represent Christ in the world, and to establish his truth and righteousness. Christ commits his honor to its keeping. The offender who is only anxious to escape judgment, and who pleads to be forgiven without delay, often shows that he cares nothing for the cause of Christ which he has injured, but that he has at heart only his own selfish comfort and reputation. The truly penitent man will rather beg the church to exclude him, in order that it may free itself from the charge of harboring iniquity. He will accept exclusion with humility, will love the church that excludes him, will continue to attend its worship, will in due time seek and receive restoration. There is always a way back into the church for those who repent. But the Scriptural method of ensuring repentance is the method of immediate exclusion. In 2 Cor. 2:6‐8—“inflicted by the many” might at first sight seem to imply that, although the offender was excommunicated, it was only by a majority vote, some members of the church dissenting. Some interpreters think he had not been excommunicated at all, but that only ordinary association with him had ceased. But, if Paul’s command in the first epistle to “put away the wicked man from among yourselves” (1 Cor. 5:13) had been thus disobeyed, the apostle would certainly have mentioned and rebuked the disobedience. On the contrary he praises them that they had done as he had advised. The action of the church at Corinth was blessed by God to the quickening of conscience and the purification of life. In many a modern church the exclusion of unworthy members has in like manner given to Christians a new sense of their responsibility, while at the same time it has convinced worldly people that the church was in thorough earnest. The decisions of the church, indeed, when guided by the Holy Spirit, are nothing less than an anticipation of the judgments of the last day; see Mat. 18:18—“What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” In John 8:7, Jesus recognizes the sin and urges repentance, while he challenges the right of the mob to execute judgment, and does away with the traditional stoning. His gracious treatment of the sinning woman gave no hint as to the proper treatment of her case by the regular synagogue authorities. 2 Thess. 3:6—“Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which they received of us.” The mere “dropping” of names from the list of members seems altogether contrary to the spirit of the N. T. polity. That recognizes only three methods of exit from the local church: (1) exclusion; (2) dismission; (3) death. To provide for the case of members whose residence has long been unknown, it is well for the church to have a standing rule that all members residing at a distance shall report each year by letter or by contribution, and, in case of failure to report for two successive years, shall be subject to discipline. The action of the church, in such cases, should take the form of an adoption of preamble and resolution: “Whereas A. B. has been absent from the church for more than two years, and has failed to comply with the standing rule requiring a yearly report or contribution, therefore, Resolved, that the church withdraw from A. B. the hand of fellowship.” In all cases of exclusion, the resolution may uniformly read as above; the preamble may indefinitely vary, and should always cite the exact nature of the offence. In this way, neglect of the church or breach of covenant obligations may be distinguished from offences against common morality, so that exclusion upon the former ground shall not be mistaken for exclusion upon the latter. As the persons excluded are not commonly present at the meeting of the church when they are excluded, a written copy of the preamble and resolution, signed by the Clerk of the Church, should always be immediately sent to them.

B. Relation of the pastor to discipline.—(a) He has no original authority; (b) but is the organ of the church, and (c) superintendent of its labors for its own purification and for the reclamation of offenders; and therefore (d) may best do the work of discipline, not directly, by constituting himself a special policeman or detective, but indirectly, by securing proper labor on the part of the deacons or brethren of the church.

The pastor should regard himself as a judge, rather than as a prosecuting attorney. He should press upon the officers of his church their duty to investigate cases of immorality and to deal with them. But if he himself makes charges, he loses dignity, and puts it out of his power to help the offender. It is not well for him to be, or to have the reputation of being, a ferreter‐out of misdemeanors among his church members. It is best for him in general to serve only as presiding officer in cases of discipline, instead of being a partisan or a counsel for the prosecution. For this reason it is well for him to secure the appointment by his church of a Prudential Committee, or Committee on Discipline, whose duty it shall be at a fixed time each year to look over the list of members, initiate labor in the case of delinquents, and, after the proper steps have been taken, present proper preambles and resolutions in cases where the church needs to take action. This regular yearly process renders discipline easy; whereas the neglect of it for several successive years results in an accumulation of cases, in each of which the person exposed to discipline has friends, and these are tempted to obstruct the church’s dealing with others from fear that the taking up of any other case may lead to the taking up of that one in which they are most nearly interested. The church which pays no regular attention to its discipline is like the farmer who milked his cow only once a year, in order to avoid too great a drain; or like the small boy who did not see how any one could bear to comb his hair every day,—he combed his own only once in six weeks, and then it nearly killed him. As the Prudential Committee, or Committee on Discipline, is simply the church itself preparing its own business, the church may well require all complaints to be made to it through the committee. In this way it may be made certain that the preliminary steps of labor have been taken, and the disquieting of the church by premature charges may be avoided. Where the committee, after proper representations made to it, fails to do its duty, the individual member may appeal directly to the assembled church; and the difference between the New Testament order and that of a hierarchy is this, that according to the former all final action and responsibility is taken by the church itself in its collective capacity, whereas on the latter the minister, the session, or the bishop, so far as the individual church is concerned, determines the result. See Savage, Church Discipline, Formative and Corrective; Dagg, Church Order, 268‐274. On church discipline in cases of remarriage after divorce, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 431‐442.

1. The general nature of this relation is that of fellowship between equals.

Notice here:

(a) The absolute equality of the churches.—No church or council of churches, no association or convention or society, can relieve any single church of its direct responsibility to Christ, or assume control of its action.

(b) The fraternal fellowship and coöperation of the churches.—No church can properly ignore, or disregard, the existence or work of other churches around it. Every other church is presumptively possessed of the Spirit, in equal measure with itself. There must therefore be sympathy and mutual furtherance of each other’s welfare among churches, as among individual Christians. Upon this principle are based letters of dismission, recognition of the pastors of other churches, and all associational unions, or unions for common Christian work.

H. O. Rowlands, in Bap. Quar. Rev., Oct. 1891:669‐677, urges the giving up of special Councils, and the turning of the Association into a Permanent Council, not to take original cognizance of what cases it pleases, but to consider and judge such questions as may be referred to it by the individual churches. It could then revise and rescind its action, whereas the present Council when once adjourned can never be called together again. This method would prevent the packing of a Council, and the Council when once constituted would have greater influence. We feel slow to sanction such a plan, not only for the reason that it seems destitute of New Testament authority and example, but because it tends toward a Presbyterian form of church government. All permanent bodies of this sort gradually arrogate to themselves power; indirectly if not directly they can assume original jurisdiction; their decisions have altogether too great influence, if they go further than personal persuasion. The independence of the individual church is a primary element of polity which must not be sacrificed or endangered for the mere sake of inter‐ecclesiastical harmony. Permanent Councils of any sort are of doubtful validity. They need to be kept under constant watch and criticism, lest they undermine our Baptist church government, a fundamental principle of which is that there is no authority on earth above that of the local church.

2. This fellowship involves the duty of special consultation with regard to matters affecting the common interest.

(a) The duty of seeking advice.—Since the order and good repute of each is valuable to all the others, cases of grave importance and difficulty in internal discipline, as well as the question of ordaining members to the ministry, should be submitted to a council of churches called for the purpose.

(b) The duty of taking advice.—For the same reason, each church should show readiness to receive admonition from others. So long as this is in the nature of friendly reminder that the church is guilty of defects from the doctrine or practice enjoined by Christ, the mutual acceptance of whose commands is the basis of all church fellowship, no church can justly refuse to have such defects pointed out, or to consider the Scripturalness of its own proceeding. Such admonition or advice, however, whether coming from a single church or from a council of churches, is not itself of binding authority. It is simply in the nature of moral suasion. The church receiving it has still to compare it with Christ’s laws. The ultimate decision rests entirely with the church so advised or asking advice.

Churches should observe comity, and should not draw away one another’s members. Ministers should bring churches together, and should teach their members the larger unity of the whole church of God. The pastor should not confine his interest to his own church or even to his own Association. The State Convention, the Education Society, the National Anniversaries, should all claim his attention and that of his people. He should welcome new laborers and helpers, instead of regarding the ministry as a close corporation whose numbers are to be kept forever small. E. G. Robinson: “The spirit of sectarianism is devilish. It raises the church above Christ. Christ did not say: ‘Blessed is the man who accepts the Westminster Confession or the Thirty‐Nine Articles.’ There is not the least shadow of churchism in Christ. Churchism is a revamped and whitewashed Judaism. It keeps up the middle wall of partition which Christ has broken down.” Dr. P. H. Mell, in his Manual of Parliamentary Practice, calls Church Councils “Committees of Help.” President James C. Welling held that “We Baptists are not true to our democratic polity in the conduct of our collective evangelical operations. In these matters we are simply a bureaucracy, tempered by individual munificence.” A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 149, 150, remarks on Mat. 18:19—“If two of you shall agree”—συμφωνήσωσιν, from which our word “symphony” comes: “If two shall ‘accord,’ or ‘symphonize’ in what they ask, they have the promise of being heard. But, as in tuning an organ, all the notes must be keyed to the standard pitch, else harmony were impossible, so in prayer. It is not enough that two disciples agree with each other,—they must agree with a Third—the righteous and holy Lord, before they can agree in intercession. There may be agreement which is in most sinful conflict with the divine will: ‘How is it that ye have agreed together’—συνεφωνήθη—the same word—‘to try the Spirit of the Lord?’ says Peter (Acts 5:9). Here is mutual accord, but guilty discord with the Holy Spirit.”

3. This fellowship may be broken by manifest departures from the faith or practice of the Scriptures, on the part of any church.

In such case, duty to Christ requires the churches, whose labors to reclaim a sister church from error have proved unavailing, to withdraw their fellowship from it, until such time as the erring church shall return to the path of duty. In this regard, the law which applies to individuals applies to churches, and the polity of the New Testament is congregational rather than independent.

Independence is qualified by interdependence. While each church is, in the last resort thrown upon its own responsibility in ascertaining doctrine and duty, it is to acknowledge the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in other churches as well as in itself, and the value of the public opinion of the churches as an indication of the mind of the Spirit. The church in Antioch asked advice of the church in Jerusalem, although Paul himself was at Antioch. Although no church or union of churches has rightful jurisdiction over the single local body, yet the Council, when rightly called and constituted, has the power of moral influence. Its decision is an index to truth, which only the gravest reasons will justify the church in ignoring or refusing to follow. Dexter, Congregationalism, 695—“Barrowism gave all power into the hands of the elders, and it would have no Councils. Congregationalism is Brownism. It has two foci: Independence and Interdependence.” Charles S. Scott, on Baptist Polity and the Pastorate, in Bap. Quar. Rev., July, 1890:291‐297—“The difference between the polity of Baptist and of Congregational churches is in the relative authority of the Ecclesiastical Council. Congregationalism is Councilism. Not only the ordination and first settlement of the minister must be with the advice and consent of a Council, but every subsequent unsettlement and settlement.” Baptist churches have regarded this dependence upon Councils after the minister’s ordination as extreme and unwarranted. The fact that the church has always the right, for just cause, of going behind the decision of the Council, and of determining for itself whether it will ratify or reject that decision, shows conclusively that the church has parted with no particle of its original independence or authority. Yet, though the Council is simply a counsellor—an organ and helper of the church,—the neglect of its advice may involve such ecclesiastical or moral wrong as to justify the churches represented in it, as well as other churches, in withdrawing, from the church that called it, their denominational fellowship. The relation of churches to one another is analogous to the relation of private Christians to one another. No meddlesome spirit is to be allowed; but in matters of grave moment, a church, as well as an individual, may be justified in giving advice unasked. Lightfoot, in his new edition of Clemens Romanus, shows that the Epistle, instead of emanating from Clement as Bishop of Rome, is a letter of the church at Rome to the Corinthians, urging them to peace. No pope and no bishop existed, but the whole church congregationally addressed its counsels to its sister body of believers at Corinth. Congregationalism, in A. D. 95, considered it a duty to labor with a sister church that had in its judgment gone astray, or that was in danger of going astray. The only primacy was the primacy of the church, not of the bishop; and this primacy was a primacy of goodness, backed up by metropolitan advantages. All this fraternal fellowship follows from the fundamental conception of the local church as the concrete embodiment of the universal church. Park: “Congregationalism recognizes a voluntary coöperation and communion of the churches, which Independency does not do. Independent churches ordain and depose pastors without asking advice from other churches.” In accordance with this general principle, in a case of serious disagreement between different portions of the same church, the council called to advise should be, if possible, a mutual, not an ex parte, council; see Dexter, Congregationalism, 2, 3, 61‐64. It is a more general application of the same principle, to say that the pastor should not shut himself in to his own church, but should cultivate friendly relations with other pastors and with other churches, should be present and active at the meetings of Associations and State Conventions, and at the Anniversaries of the National Societies of the denomination. His example of friendly interest in the welfare of others will affect his church. The strong should be taught to help the weak, after the example of Paul in raising contributions for the poor churches of Judea. The principle of church independence is not only consistent with, but it absolutely requires under Christ, all manner of Christian coöperation with other churches; and Social and Mission Unions to unify the work of the denomination, to secure the starting of new enterprises, to prevent one church from trenching upon the territory or appropriating the members of another, are only natural outgrowths of the principle. President Wayland’s remark, “He who is displeased with everybody and everything gives the best evidence that his own temper is defective and that he is a bad associate,” applies to churches as well as to individuals. Each church is to remember that, though it is honored by the indwelling of the Lord, it constitutes only a part of that great body of which Christ is the head. See Davidson, Eccl. Polity of the N. T.; Ladd, Principles of Church Polity; and on the general subject of the Church, Hodge, Essays, 201; Flint, Christ’s Kingdom on Earth, 53‐82; Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity; The Church,—a collection of essays by Luthardt, Kahnis, etc.; Hiscox, Baptist Church Directory; Ripley, Church Polity; Harvey, The Church; Crowell, Church Members’ Manual; R. W. Dale, Manual of Congregational Principles; Lightfoot, Com. on Philippians, excursus on the Christian Ministry; Ross, The Church‐Kingdom—Lectures on Congregationalism; Dexter, Congregationalism, 681‐716, as seen in its Literature; Allison, Baptist Councils in America. For a denial that there is any real apostolic authority for modern church polity, see O. J. Thatcher, Sketch of the History of the Apostolic Church.