Chapter I: The Constitution Of The Church. Or Church Polity (1)

I. Definition of the Church.

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

_Mat. 16:18_—“_thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it_”;
_Eph. 1:22, 23_—“_and he put all things in subjection under his
feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which
is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all_”;
_3:10_—“_to the intent that now unto the principalities and the
powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the
church the manifold wisdom of God_”; _5:24, 25_—“_But as the
church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their
husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ
also loved the church, and gave himself up for it_”; _Col.
1:18_—“_And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he
might have the preeminence_”; _Heb. 12:23_—“_the general assembly
and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven_”; _John
3:3, 5_—“_Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of
God. ... Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God._”

Cicero’s words apply here: “Una navis est jam bonorum omnium”—all
good men are in one boat. Cicero speaks of the state, but it is
still more true of the church invisible. Andrews, in Bib. Sac.,
Jan. 1883:14, mentions the following differences between the
church and kingdom, or, as we prefer to say, between the visible
church and the invisible church: (1) the church began with
Christ,—the kingdom began earlier; (2) the church is confined to
believers in the historic Christ,—the kingdom includes all God’s
children; (3) the church belongs wholly to this world—not so the
kingdom; (4) the church is visible,—not so the kingdom; (5) the
church has _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.”

II. Organization of the Church.

1. The fact of organization.

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

That there was such organization is abundantly shown from (_a_) its stated meetings, (_b_) elections, and (_c_) officers; (_d_) from the designations of its ministers, together with (_e_) the recognized authority of the minister and of the church; (_f_) from its discipline, (_g_) contributions, (_h_) letters of commendation, (_i_) registers of widows, (_j_) uniform customs, and (_k_) ordinances; (_l_) from the order enjoined and observed, (_m_) the qualifications for membership, and (_n_) the common work of the whole body.

(_a_) _Acts 20:7_—“_upon the first day of the week, when we were
gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them_”;
_Heb. 10:25_—“_not forsaking our own assembling together, as the
custom of some is, but exhorting one another._”

(_b_) _Acts 1:23‐26_—the election of Matthias; 6:5, 6—the election
of deacons.

(_c_) _Phil. 1:1_—“_the saints in Christ Jesus that are at
Philippi, with the bishops and deacons._”

(_d_) _Acts 20:17, 28_—“_the elders of the church ... the flock,
in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops_ [marg.:
‘_overseers_’].”

(_e_) _Mat. 18:17_—“_And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto
the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be
unto thee as the Gentile and the publican_”; _1 Pet. 5:2_—“_Tend
the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not
of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God._”

(_f_) _1 Cor. 5:4, 5, 13_—“_in the name of our Lord Jesus, ye
being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord
Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the
flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord
Jesus.... Put away the wicked man from among yourselves._”

(_g_) _Rom. 15:26_—“_For it hath been the good pleasure of
Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor
among the saints that are at Jerusalem_”; _1 Cor. 16:1, 2_—“_Now
concerning the collection for the saints, as I __ 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_”).