CHAPTER 1.

THE CONTSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH OR CHURCH POLITY.

I. DEFINITION OF THE CHURCH.

(a) The church of Christ, in its largest signification, is the whole company of regenerate persons in all times and ages, in heaven and on earth ( Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 1:22,23; 3:10; 5:24, 25; Colossians l:18; Hebrews 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). Matthew 16:18 — “thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it”; Ephesians 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 fullness 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”; Colossians 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”; Hebrews 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 truer of the church invisible. Andrews, in Bibliotheca Sacra, 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, not so with the kingdom. On the universal or invisible church, see Cremer, Lexicon N. T., transl., 113, 114, 331; Jacob, Ecclesiastical 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 Matthew 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 fulfills the promise of God to Abraham in Genesis 15:5 — “Look now toward heaven and number the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.” The church shall be immortal, since it draws its life from Christ: Isaiah 65:22 — “as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people”; Zechariah 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.’ Dollinger: ‘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 · 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 fullness 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 ( Ephesians 1:22,23). Ephesians 1:22,33 — “the church, which is his body, the fullness 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 today, yea and forever” ( Hebrews 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 conception is the preexistence 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 is 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 polities, prohibition, libraries or 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 in manifestation. Now the spiritual kingdom, which extends from Pentecost to Parousia is being administered by the Holy Spirit. At the Parousia — the appearing of the Son of man in glory — when he shall take unto himself his great power and reign ( Revelation 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). At that time, 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 a local and temporal form and in which the idea of the church as a whole is concretely exhibited. Matthew 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, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The good man out of his good treasure bringeth forth good things”; Romans 10:10 — “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt he 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 he a kind of first fruits of his creatures” — we were saved, not for ourselves only, but as parts and beginnings of an organic kingdom of God; believers arc called “first fruits,” 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 bit the beginning of a stream that shall continue to flow until the whole race of man as 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 Post-biblical 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. Matthew 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”; Romans 16:5 — “salute the church that is in their house” 1 Corinthians 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 Judea 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 lack the transcendent element (they are instituted and managed by man only). They are not confined to the regenerate or to those alone who give credible evidence of regeneration, they presuppose and require no particular form of doctrine. They observe no ordinances, they are at best mere adjuncts and instruments of the church, but are not themselves churches and 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 ordinances, 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” ( Ephesians 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 Matthew 18:17, ejkklhsi>a 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 anti-scriptural and anti- Christian.”

The principles mentioned above are the essential principles of Baptist churches, although other bodies of Christians have come to recognize 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 a courtesy to speak of pseudo-Baptist 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 kuriakh>, 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 signification of the term ‘church,’ there are properly in the New Testament no others. The word ejkklhsi>a is indeed used in Acts 7:38; 19 32, 39; Hebrews 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 (ejkklhsi>a , sing., a ABC), 1 Corinthians 12:28, Philippians 3:6, and 1 Timothy 3:15, ejkklhsi>a 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 ejkklhsi>a 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 [margin ‘congregation] in the wilderness” = the whole body of the people of Israel; 19:32 — the assembly was in confusion — the tumultuous mob in the theater at Ephesus; 39 — “the regular assembly”; 9:31 — “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace; being edified”; 1 Corinthians 12:28 — “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers”; Philippians 3:6 — as touching zeal, persecuting the church”; 1 Timothy 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 ejkklhsi>a , as a popular assembly, there was doubtless an allusion to the derivation from ejk and kale>w , 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 Corinthians 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. 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 Matthew, page 359, suggests that the word ejkklhsi>a 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 ( Galatians 1:22) in reference to that same period, of “the churches of Jafiza which were in Christ.” On the meaning of ejkklhsi>a 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 ejkklhsi>a the second of these two significant meanings. 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 Matthew 18:17, and the designation ‘church of God,’ applied to individual churches ( 1 Corinthians 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 Bibliotheca Sacra, Jan. 1853:35-58, on the conception ejkklhsi>a in the N. T., says that “the ‘church’ is the prius of all local ‘churches.’ ejkklhsi>a in Acts 9:31 = the church, so far as represented in those provinces. It is ecumenical local, as in 1 Corinthians 10:33. The local church is a microcosm, a specialized localization of the universal body. lh;q; , 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 lh;q; in Matthew 18:17. He took his idea of the church from it, not from the heathen use of the word ejkklhsi>a, which expresses the notion of locality and state much more than the lh;q;. The larger sense of ejkklhsi>a 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 Matthew 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” ( Romans 14:17). In the universal sense, the word “church” is not employed by any other N. T. writer before Paul’s writings. Paul was interested, not simply in individual conversions but he was more interested 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 Corinthians 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”; Revelation 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 center, 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 fullness is also called “the Christ” ( 1 Corinthians 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 skeptic 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 practiced 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 not for the community of mankind in general but only for the church within itself, it was not obligatory but left to the discretion of individuals and was it 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. More is shown from (i) registers of widows, (j) uniform customs, and (k) ordinances, (l) from the order enjoined and observed, (m) the qualifications for membership and of (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”; Hebrews 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) Philippians 1:1 — “the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.” (d) Acts 20:17,23 — “the elders of the church . . . . the flock, in which the Holy Spirit bath made you bishop, [margin: ‘overseers ‘1.” (e) Matthew 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 Peter 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 Corinthians 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 he saved in the day of the Lord Jesus...Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.” (g) Romans 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 Corinthians 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 Corinthians 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 Timothy 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 Corinthians 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 Corinthians 11:23-26 — “For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you” — the institution of the Lord’s Supper. (1) 1 Corinthians 14:40 — “let all things be done decently and in order”; Colossians 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 steadfastness of your faith in Christ.” (m) Matthew 28:19 — “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nation; 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) Philippians 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, of whom, are not true believers. Acts 5:1-11 — Ananias and Sapphira show that the visible church comprehended some who were not true believers; 1 Corinthians 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; Philippians 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. (judgment), gives tongues in Acts 2 (grace) but only one tongue is spoken in Revelations 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. Whatever land that it kisses, there the land 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, 79-142, 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) Pre-millennial 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. It 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, Ecclesiastical 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 Ecclesiastical 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.

They were derived from the seven wise men of the Hebrew village community, representing the political side of the synagogue system. Some were derived from the ejpisko>pov , the director of the religious or social club among the heathen Greeks, from the patronate prosta>thv proista>menov known among the Romans, the churches of Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, being of this sort. Others were derived from the personal prominence of one man, nearest in family to our Lord. James, being president of the church at Jerusalem and from temporary superintendents (hJgou>menoi , 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 into 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 church order be conformed by missionaries 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, Ecclesiastical Polity, 1-12; 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 Corinthians 1:2 — “the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to he 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 the church 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 selfgovernment.”

By their own mistakes, a self-governing people and a selfgoverning church will finally secure good government whereas the “good government” which keeps them in perpetual tutelage will make good government forever impossible. <19E412> Psalm 144:12 — “our sons shall be as plants grown up in their youth.” Archdeacon Hare: “U 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 needs 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 selfeffacement.

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 ( Matthew 23:8-10). Matthew 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 and draw vitality from one source.

Among the planets “one star differeth from another star in glory” ( Corinthians 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 Peter 5:3 — “neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but by making yourselves enemies 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. Matthew 22:21 — “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’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. Romans 14:4 — “Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made so stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand”). John Locke, years before American independence: “The Baptists were the first and only propounder 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 today 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 on 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 religions instruction, (b) by mutual watch care and exhortation, (c) by common labors for the reclamation of the impenitent world. (a) Hebrews 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) 1Thess. 5:11 — “Wherefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as also ye do”; Hebrews 3:13 — “Exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called Today; lest any one of you he hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Churches exist in order to create ideals, supply motives and 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) Matthew 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 Corinthians 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”; Jude23 — “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 po>liv 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 it is 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 ( Matthew 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 ( Matthew 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 [margin: ‘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”; Matthew 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 co-uniting 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, 14-1l, by a striking analogy, distinguishes three periods of the church’s life: First is the pre-natal period, in which the church is not separated from Christ’s bodily presence, secondly, the period of childhood, in which the church is under tutelage, preparing for an independent life. Third is 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) 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 selfgovernment.

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 Corinthians 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 fine the germ which is afterwards continuously developed. See: (1) 1Thess. 5:12, 13 (A. D. 52) — “But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you proi~stame>nouv in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work’s sake.” (2) 1 Corinthians 12:23 (A. D. 57) — “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophet; thirdly teachers, then miracle; then gifts of healing, helps [ajntilh>yeiv = gifts needed by deacons], governments [kubenh>seiv = gifts needed by pastors], divers kinds of tongues.” (3) Romans 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 [diakoni>an ], 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 [oJ poi`stame>nov ], with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness.” (4) Philippians 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 [ejpiskopiv , margin: ‘overseers’] and deacons [diako>noiv ].” (5) Ephesians 4:11 (A. D. 63) — “And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers [poime>nav kai< didaska>louv ].” (6) 1 Timothy 3:1,2 (A.D. 66) — “If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. The bishop [toskopon ] therefore must be without reproach.” On this last passage, [Luther 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 Schatt, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 62-75.

McGiffert, in his Apostolic Church, puts the dates of Paul’s Epistles considerably earlier, as for example: 1Thess., circ. 48; 1 Corinthians, c. 51, 52; Romans, 52, 53; Philippians, 56-58; Ephesians, 52, 53, or 56-58; 1Tim, 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 elder-ship 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 ejkklhsi>a, 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: “When 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. The first was undervalued polity as compared with doctrine, secondly, he reacted from Anabaptist fanaticism and thirdly, he thought Providence indicated that princes should lead and people should follow. So, while he and Zwingle alike held the Bible to teach that all ecclesiastical power inheres under Christ in the congregation of believers, the matter ended in an organization of superintendents and consistories, which gradually became fatally mixed up with the state.”

III. GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH.

1. Nature of this government in general.

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

In ascertaining the will of Christ, however, and in applying his commands to providential exigencies, the Holy Spirit enlightens one member through the counsel of another, and as the result of combined deliberation, guides the whole body to right conclusions. This work of the Spirit is the foundation of the Scripture injunctions to unity. This unity, since it is a unity of the Spirit, is not an enforced but an intelligent and willing unity.

While Christ is sole king, the government of the church, so far as regards the interpretation and execution of his will by the body, is an absolute democracy. The whole body of members is entrusted 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” (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 steadfastly 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. Romans 12:16 — “Be of the same mind one toward another”; Corinthians 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 Corinthians 13:11 — “be of the same mind”; Ephesians 4:3 — “giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”; Philippians 1:27 — “that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the gospel”; 1 Peter 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 cooperation 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 willful 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 or 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. 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 seashore are fused together. The unity, produced by the in-flowing 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 ecclesú . The members, which make up the one ecclesia, are not communities but individual men. The unity of the universal ecclegia 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 functional. There was no permanent diocesan episcopate, in which one man presided over many churches. The ecclesú 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 too 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 Timothy 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”; Revelations 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 Timothy 3:15, Dr. Hort would translate “a pillar and ground of the truth” — apparently referring to the local church as one of many. Ephesians 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 Muller, 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 is to observe and guard. As the church expresses truth in her teaching, so she is to express it in symbol through the ordinances. Matthew 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 chat 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 Corinthians 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 Corinthians 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, ß170. (d) From the election by the whole church, of its own officers and delegates. In Acts 14:23, the literal interpretation of ceirotonh>santev 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 aujtw~n to the ‘prophets and teachers’ is forbidden by the ajfori>sate are — 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 15:24,22,30 — “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”; Corinthians 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 ceirotonh>santev 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 upon 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 ceirotonh>santev , holding up of hands, as in a popular vote is not to be pressed any more than is the derivation of ejkklhsi>a from kale>w . 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 Celica” ( 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 — ceirotonhsantev 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 ceirotonh>santev 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 ceirotonh>santev 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. H. Huntington makes the strong points of Congregationalism to be a lofty estimate of the value of trained intelligence in the Christian ministry, a clear recognition of the duty of every lay member of a church. Each lay member is to take an active interest in its affairs, temporal as well as spiritual. He regards the weaknesses of Congregationalism to be a certain incapacity for expansion beyond the territorial limits within which it is indigenous and has an under valuation 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. Matthew 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.” These words are often improperly inscribed over Roman Catholic confessionals 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 Matthew 18:17, quoted above, we see that the church has authority, that it is bound to take cognizance of offenses, 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. 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. Numbers 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 Corinthians 6:4,5,13 — “ye being gathered together...to deliver such a one unto Satan...Put away the wicked man from among yourselves”; 2 Corinthians 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 self same 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 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 he should 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 in a Scriptural manner 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 to realize the privilege of church membership, to fit himself to use his privilege, to exercise his rights as a church member, 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]. 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. Matthew 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 ( Ephesians 2:20; Revelations 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 ( Galatians 2:11), and Peter calls himself only a fellow elder ( 1 Peter 5:1). Matthew 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 shalt 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, Introduction, 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. Ephesians 2:20 — “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief Cornerstone”; Revelations 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. Galatians 2:1l — “But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he stood condemned”; <600501> 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. He must have seen Christ after his resurrection so as to be a witness to the fact that Christ had risen from the dead. He must be a worker of miracles to certify that he was Christ’s messenger. He must be an inspired teacher of Christ’s truth so that his final utterances are the very word of God. In Romans 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”; Hebrews 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 Matthew 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 is 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; Protest- autism 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, — “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 when he speaks as pope, when he speaks for the whole church, when he defines doctrine, or passes a final judgment, 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. : unity, sanctity, universality and apostolic succession. 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 of 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. Hodge, in Princetoniana, 129 — “Three unproved assumptions are that Peter was primate, that Peter was bishop of Rome, 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; Romans 15:20; Corinthians 10:16.” Meyer thinks Peter was martyred at Rome but that he did not found the Roman church, of which the origin 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 and 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. 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 irrefutable 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 or 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 million. If it is said that the remainder has 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., Introduction, 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 Bibliotheca Sacra, 2:451; Princeton Rev., Apr. 1876:265.

Sixth, 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 klh~rov, ‘the charge allotted to you,’ which Peter gives to the church as ‘the flock of God’ ( 1 Peter 5:2), when warning the elders against being lords over God’s heritage.

This 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. 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 ejkklhsi>a in the New Testament ever means a national church organization. 1 Corinthians 12:28, Phil 3:6 and 1 Timothy 3:15, may be more naturally interpreted as referring to the generic church. In Acts 9:31, ejkklhsi>a is a mere generalization for the local churches then and there existing and implies no sort of organization among them. 1 Corinthians 12:28 — “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, Thirdly teachers, then miracles then gifts of healing, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues”; Philippians 3:6 — “as touching zeal, persecuting the church”; 1 Timothy 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 Judea 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, Ecclesiastical Polity of N. T., — “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 judgement 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 recognition of the teaching of the apostles as exclusive standard and norm of Christian truth, confinement to a specific office, the Catholic office of bishop and of the power to determine what is the teaching of the apostles and 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.”

Third, 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 to them. 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 center 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?”

Fourth, 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 its 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.”

Fifth, 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 baptized persons, not scandalously immoral, not having obtained office by bribery and 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 at “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 pipeline 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 either the pipeline 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 Episcopalian 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” (Revelations 22:2). Cf. John 10:16 — genh>sontai mi>a poi>mnh ei=v poimh>n — “they shall become one flock, one shepherd” = not one fold, not external unity, but one flock in many folds. See Jacob, Ecclesiastical 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 today 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 — “Cooperation 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, there is 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 — ejpisko>pouv poimai>nein (cf. 17 — presbute>rouv ); Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1,8; Titus 1:5,7; 1 Peter 5:1,2 — presbute>rouv ... parakalw~ oJ sumpresbu>terov ...poima>nate poi>mnion ...ejpiskopou~ntev . 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 aetatis. 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 [margin ‘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. Philippians 1:1 — “bishops and deacons”; <540301> Timothy 3:1, 8 — “If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work...Deacons in like manner must be grave”; Titus 1:5,7 — “appoint elders in every city...For the bishop must be blameless”; 1Pet 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 a and B in omitting ejpiskopou~ntev. Tregelles and our Revised Version follow A and a 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’ ejpiskopov and ‘elder’ or ‘presbyter’ presbu>terov. 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 mast 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. From the significance of the words, the fact that the same qualifications are demanded from all, the fact that the same duties are assigned to all and the fact that the texts held to prove higher rank of 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 Timothy 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; Ephesians4:11; Hebrews 13:7; 1 Timothy 3:2 — ejpiskopon didaktiko>n. 1 Timothy 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”; Ephesians 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.” Hebrews 13:7 — “Remember them that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God”; 1 Timothy 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, Ecclesiastical Polity of N. T., 56; Olshausen, on 1 Timothy 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 elder-ship 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; Philippians 1:1; Titus 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 elder-ship in every case nor does it render this elder-ship, where it exists, of coordinate 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”; Philippians 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 Titus 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”; Galatians 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 Timothy 3:2 — “The bishop therefore must be without reproach”; Titus 1:7 — “For the bishop must be blameless, as God’s steward”; cf. 1 Timothy 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 Revelations 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 elder-ship, particularly since churches exist that have only a single male member. A plural elder-ship 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 elder-ship, 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”; Hebrews 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. Matthew 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 Corinthians 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” ( Revelation 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 Timothy 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 Corinthians 12:28 — “governments” — here kubernh>seiv , or “governments,” indicating the duties of the pastor, are the counterpart of ajntilh>yeiv, or “helps,” which designate the duties of the deacons; 1 Peter 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 regime.

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 enactment 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, Ecclesiastical 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 and those who we may appoint over this business. But we will continue steadfastly 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; Romans 12:7 — “or ministry [diakoni>an ], let us give ourselves to our ministry”; 1 Corinthians 12:28 — “helps” — here ajntilh>yeiv, “helps,” indicating the duties of deacons, are the counterpart of kubernh>seiv, “governments,” which designate the duties of the pastor; Philippians 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 are wealth and the opinions in the church should be represented. The qualifications for the diaconate mentioned in Acts 6:14 and 1 Timothy 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 Timothy 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 oiJ new>teroi — “the young men” — and in the case of Sapphira they were oiJ neani>skoi — meaning the same thing. “Upon the natural distinction between presbu>teroi and new>teroi — 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 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 Romans 16:1,2, we have apparent mention of a deaconess — “I commend unto you Phúbe our sister, who is a servant [margin: ‘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 Timothy 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 Authorized Version had done 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 6:14 being called the institution, not of the diaconate, but of the Christian ministry. The use of the phrase diakonei~n trape>zaiv, 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 Deacon-ship; Williams, The Deacon-ship; Robinson, N. T. Lexicon, ajntilh>yiv 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 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 Timothy 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 Corinthians 9:16; 1 Timothy 1:12) but, secondly, the church must be persuaded also, before he can have authority to minister among them ( 1 Timothy 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 or to set apart. In 1 Timothy 2:7 — “whereunto I was appointed ejteqhn 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 Timothy 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. First, there is the call of the church, second, the decision of a council (the council being virtually only the church advised by its brethren) and third, 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 not yet ordained, 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. 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 is obligatory. A formal publication of the decree of the council, by the 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 produced 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 elder-ship 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 themselves been ordained. As the whole church is to preserve the ordinances and to maintain sound doctrine, and as the non ordained 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 this.

I. PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS

To be attended to by the candidate: 1. His letter of dismissal 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.

II. THE CANDIDATE AT THE COUNCIL:

1. His demeanor should be that 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 there will be need for questioning. (b) His statement should be positive, not negative (what he does believe and none of what he does not 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.

III. THE DUTY OF THE COUNCIL:

1. It should not proceed to examine 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.

This occurs not only in the examination by a Council, but also of his Christian experience, call to the ministry and views of doctrine and 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 is 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 education. 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 minutes. 3. Reading minutes of the Council, by the clerk of the Council: ten minutes. 4. Prayer of invocation: five minutes. 5. Reading of Scripture: five minutes. 6. Sermon: twenty-five minutes. 7. Prayer of ordination, with the laying on of hands: fifteen minutes. 8. Hymn: ten minutes. 9. Right hand of fellowship: five minutes. 10. Charge to the candidate: fifteen minutes. 11 . Charge to the church: fifteen minutes. 12. Doxology: five minutes. 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 who serve 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 dismissal 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. 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 and there remains no longer any divine call, 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 re-ordination, in such cases, virtually hold to the Roman 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 offenses are private or public. (a) Private offenses are to be dealt with according to the rule in Matthew 5:23,24; 18:15-17. Matthew 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 selfdiscipline 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 he 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 eijv se< — “against thee” — in Matthew 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 offenses.

When a brother wrongs me, I am not to speak of the offense 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 offenses are to be dealt with according to the rule in Corinthians 5:3-5, 13, and 2Thess. 3:6. 1 Corinthians 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 wrongdoer, as evidence that the church clears its skirts from all complicity with the wrong. In the case of gross public offenses, labor with the offender is to come, not before but after, his excommunication; cf. 2 Corinthians 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 truly injured but that he has at heart only his own selfish comfort and reputation. The 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 and 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 Corinthians 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” ( Corinthians 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. God blessed the action of the church at Corinth in the quickening of conscience and the purification of life by. 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 Matthew 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. Exclusion, dismissal and death are the only three methods of exit from the local church that are recognized. 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. 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 offense. In this way, neglect of the church or breach of covenant obligations may be distinguished from offenses 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, (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, one, who ferrets out 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 which case, 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. The difference between the New Testament order and that of a hierarchy is, 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.

IV. RELATION OF LOCAL CHURCHES TO ONE ANOTHER.

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 cooperation 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 dismissal, recognition of the pastors of other churches and all associated 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 interecclesiastical 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, 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 and no church can justly refuse to have such defects pointed out or to consider the Scriptural relationship 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 Matthew 18:19 — “If two of you shall agree” — sumfwnh>swsin , 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’ — sunefwnh>qh — 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. The value of the public opinion of the churches is 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 counselor, 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. 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 congregation 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. 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 cooperation and communion of the churches, which independence 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. He 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 cooperation 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 even 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, Ecclesiastical 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 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 modem church polity, see O. J. Thatcher, Sketch of the History of the Apostolic Church.

CHAPTER 2.

THE ORDINANCES OF THE CHURCH.

By the ordinances, we mean those outward rites, which Christ has appointed to be administered in his church as visible signs of the saving truth of the gospel. They are signs in that they vividly express this truth and confirm it to the believer.

In contrast with this characteristically Protestant view, the Romanist regards the ordinances as actually conferring grace and producing holiness.

Instead of being the external manifestation of a preceding union with Christ, they are the physical means of constituting and maintaining this union. With the Romanist, in this particular, sacramentalists of every name substantially agree. The Papal Church holds to seven sacraments or ordinances (ordination, confirmation, matrimony, extreme unction, penance, baptism, and the eucharist). The ordinances prescribed in the N.

T., however, are two and only two (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper).

It will be well to distinguish the words, symbol, rite and ordinance from one another. 1. A symbol is the sign, or visible representation, of an invisible truth or idea. For example, the lion is the symbol of strength and courage, the lamb is the symbol of gentleness, the olive branch of peace, the scepter is dominion, the wedding ring is marriage and the flag is country. Symbols may teach great lessons. As Jesus’ cursing the barren fig tree taught the doom of unfruitful Judaism and Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet taught his own coming down from heaven to purify and save and the humble service required of his followers. 2. A rite is a symbol, which is employed with regularity and sacred intent.

Symbols became rites when thus used. Examples of authorized rites in the Christian Church are the laying on of hands in ordination and the giving of the right hand of fellowship. 3. An ordinance is a symbolic rite which sets forth the central truths of the Christian faith, and which is of universal and perpetual obligation.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are rites, which have become ordinances by the specific command of Christ and by their inner relation to the essential truths of his kingdom. No ordinance is a sacrament in the Romanist sense of conferring grace but, as the sacramentum was the oath taken by the Roman soldier to obey his commander even unto death, so Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are sacraments, in the sense of vows of allegiance to Christ our Master.

President H. G. Weston has recorded his objections to the observance of the so called ‘Christian Year,’ in words that we quote as showing the danger attending the Romanist multiplication of ordinances. “ 1. The ‘Christian Year’ is not Christian. It makes everything of actions and nothing of relations. Make a day holy that God has not made holy and you thereby, make all other days unholy. 2. It limits the Christian’s view of Christ to the scenes and events of his earthly life. Salvation comes through spiritual relations to a living Lord.

The ‘Christian Year’ makes Christ only a memory and not a living, present, personal power. Life, not death, is the typical word of the N. T.

Paul craved the power of the resurrection but, not with just a knowledge, of it. The New Testament records busy themselves most of all with what Christ is doing now. 2. The appointments of the ‘Christian Year’ are not in accord with the N. T. These appointments lack the reality of spiritual life and are contrary to the essential spirit of Christianity.” We may add that where the “Christian Year” is most generally and rigidly observed, it is there popular religion is most formal and destitute of spiritual power.

I. BAPTISM Christian Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water, in token of his previous entrance into the communion of Christ’s death and resurrection or, in other words, in token of his regeneration through union with Christ 1. Baptism an Ordinance of Christ A. Proof that Christ instituted an external rite called baptism. (a) From the words of the great commission, (b) from the injunctions of the apostles, (c) from the fact that the members of the New Testament churches were baptized believers, (d) from the universal practice of such a rite in Christian churches of subsequent times. (a) Matthew 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”; Mark 16:16 — “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” — we hold, with Westcott and Hort, that Mark 16:9-20 is of canonical authority, though probably not written by Mark himself. (b) Acts 2:38 — “And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins”; (c) Romans 6:3-5 — “Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection”; Colossians 2:11,12 — “in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” (d) The only marked exceptions to the universal requisition of baptism are found in the Society of Friends and in the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army does not regard the ordinance as having any more permanent obligation than feet washing. General Booth: “We teach our soldiers that every time they break bread, they are to remember the broken body of the Lord, and every time they wash the body, they are to remind themselves of the cleansing power of the blood of Christ and of the indwelling Spirit.” The Society of Friends regard Christ’s commands as fulfilled, not by any outward baptism of water, but only by the inward baptism of the Spirit.

B. This external rite intended by Christ to be of universal and perpetual obligation. (a) Christ recognized John the Baptist’s commission to baptize as derived immediately from heaven. Matthew 21:25 — “The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or from men?” — here Jesus clearly intimates that John’s commission to baptize was derived directly from God; cf. John 1:25 — the delegates sent to the Baptist by the Sanhedrin ask him: “Why then baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah, neither the prophet?” thus indicating that John’s baptism, either in its form or its application, was a new ordinance that required special divine authorization.

Broadus, in his American Com. on Matthew 3:6, claims that John’s baptism was no modification of an existing rite. Proselyte baptism is not mentioned in the Mishna (A. D. 200). The first distinct account of it is in the Babylonian Talmud (Gemara) written in the fifth century. It was not adopted from the Christians but was one of the Jewish purification, which came to be regarded after the destruction of the Temple as a peculiar initiatory rite. There is no mention of it as a Jewish rite, in the O. T., N.

T., Apocrypha, Philo, or Josephus.

For the view that proselyte baptism did not exist among the Jews before the time of John, see Schneckenburger, Ueber das Alter der judischen Proselytentaufe; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:338-355; Toy, in Baptist Quarterly, 1872:301-332. Dr. Toy, however, in a private note to the author (1884), says: “I am disposed now to regard the Christian rite as borrowed from the Jewish, contrary to my view in 1872.” So holds Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, 2:742-744 — “We have positive testimony that the baptism of proselytes existed in the times of Hillel and Shammai. For, whereas the school of Shammai is said to have allowed a proselyte who was circumcised on the eve of the Passover to partake after baptism of the Passover, the school of Hillel forbade it. This controversy must be regarded as proving that at that time (previous to Christ) the baptism of proselytes was customary.”

Porter, on Proselyte Baptism, Hastings’ Bible Dict., 4:132 — “If circumcision was the decisive step in the case of all male converts, there seems no longer room for serious question that a bath of purification must have followed, even though early mention of such proselyte baptism is not found. The law (Leviticus 11-15; Num.’19) prescribed such baths in all cases of impurity, and one who came with the deep impurity of a heathen life behind him could not have entered the Jewish community without such cleansing.” Plummer, on Baptism, Hastings’ Bible Dict., 1:239 — “What is wanted is direct evidence that, before John the Baptist made so remarkable a use of the rite, it was the custom to make all proselytes submit to baptism. Such evidence is not forthcoming. Nevertheless, the fact is not really doubtful. It is not credible that the baptizing of proselytes was instituted and made essential for their admission to Judaism at a period subsequent to the institution of Christian baptism. The supposition that it was borrowed from the rite enjoined by Christ is monstrous.”

Although the O. T. and the Apocrypha, Josephus and Philo are silent with regard to proselyte baptism, it is certain that it existed among the Jews In the early Christian centuries and it is almost equally certain that the Jews could not have adopted it from the Christians. It is probable, therefore, that the baptism of John was an application to Jews of an immersion which, before that time was administered to proselytes from among the Gentiles. It was this adaptation of the rite to a new class of subjects and with a new meaning, which excited the inquiry and criticism of the Sanhedrin. We must remember, however, that the Lord’s Supper was likewise an adaptation of certain’ portions of the old Passover service to a new use and meaning. See also Kitto, Bib. Cyclop., 3:593. (b) In his own submission to John’s baptism, Christ gave testimony to the binding obligation of the ordinance ( Matthew 3:13-17). John’s baptism was essentially Christian baptism ( Acts 19:4), although the full significance of it was not understood until after Jesus’ death and resurrection ( Matthew 20:17-23; Luke l2:50; Romans 6:3-6). Matthew 3:13-17 — “Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness”; Acts 19:4 — “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”; Matthew 20:18,19,22 — “the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify...Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” Luke 12:50 — “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” Romans 6:3,4 — “Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the deed through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.”

Robert Hall, Works, 1:367-399, denies that John’s baptism was Christian baptism and holds that there is not sufficient evidence that all of the apostles were baptized. The fact that John’s baptism was a baptism of faith in the coming Messiah, as well as a baptism of repentance for past and present sin refutes this theory. The only difference between John’s baptism, and the baptism of our time, is that John baptized upon profession of faith in a Savior yet to come. Baptism is now administered upon profession of faith in a Savior who has actually and already come.

On John’s baptism as presupposing faith in those who received it, see treatment of the Subjects of Baptism, page 950. (c) In continuing the practice of baptism through his disciples ( John 4:1,2), and in enjoining it upon them as part of a work which was to last to the end of the world ( Matthew 28:19,20), Christ manifestly adopted and appointed baptism as the invariable law of his church. John 4:1,2 — “When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples)”; Matthew 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 you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (d) The analogy of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper also leads to the conclusion that baptism is to be observed, as an authoritative memorial of Christ and his truth until the time of his second coming. 1 Corinthians 11:26 — “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.” Baptism, like the Lord’s Supper, is a teaching ordinance and the two ordinances together furnish an indispensable witness to Christ’s death and resurrection. (e) There is no intimation whatever that the command of baptism is limited, or to be limited, in its application, that it has been or ever is to be repealed and, until some evidence of such limitation or repeal is produced, the statute must be regarded as universally binding.

On the proof that baptism is an ordinance of Christ, see Pepper, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 85-114; Dagg, Church Order, 9-21. 2. The Mode of Baptism.

This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:

A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse. We show this: (a) From the meaning of the original word bapti>zw. That this is to immerse, appears:

First, from the usage of Greek writers, including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.

Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon: bapti>zw, to dip in or under water; Lat. immergere.” Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to A. D 1000 — “bapti>zw , to dip, to immerse, to sink...There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.” Thayer. N. T. Lexicon: “bapti>zw, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerge, to submerge...metaphorically, to overwhelm... ba>ptisma, immersion, submersion...a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.” Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says: “The classical meaning of bapti>zw , which seldom occurs and of the more common ba>ptw, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”

In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86 — “It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251 — “The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a — “The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from the Didache that from a very early date “a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,” agrees that “such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul’s words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism ( Romans 6:3-5).”

Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples “drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science, from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers, from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology, from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives, from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, no example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.” See Stuart In Bib. Repos., 1883:313; Broadus on Immersion. 57, note.

Dale, In his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that bapti>zw alone means ‘to dip,’ and that ba>ptw never means ‘to dip,’ but only ‘to put within,’ giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163. “Plutarch used the word bapti>zw, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls and drinking to one another. Here we have bapti>zw used where Dr. Dale’s theory would call for ba>ptw. The truth is that bapti>zw, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale’s three meanings of bapti>zw : (1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition. The last is a figment of Dr. Dale’s imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that to baptize means to immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.” For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.

Secondly, every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning ‘immerse.’ Matthew 3:6,11 — “I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance...he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”; cf. 2Kings 5:14 — “Then went he [Naaman] down, and dipped himself [ejbapi>zeto ] seven times in the Jordan”; Mark 1:5,9 — “they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins...Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”; 7:4 — “and when they come from the market place, except they bathe [lit.: ‘baptize’] themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings [lit.: ‘baptizings’] of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels” — in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with a and B, read rJanti>swwntai, instead of bapti>swntai ; but it is easy so see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed bapti>swntai into rJanti>swntai ; but not easy to see how rJanti>swntai should have been changed into bapti>swntai. On Matthew 15:2 (and the parallel passage Mark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Matthew, pages 332, 333.

Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.

Meyer, Com. in loco — “ejaswntai is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.” The Revised Version omits the words “and couches,” although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373 — “Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a layer. For if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness. A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.” Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126. Luke 11:38 — “And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first bathed [lit.: ‘baptized’] himself before dinner”; cf .

Ecclesiasticus 31:95 — “He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body” baptizo>menov ajpo< nekrou~; Judith 12:7 — “washed herself ejbapyi>zeto in a fountain of water by the camp”; Leviticus 22:4-6 — “Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead...unclean until the even...bathe his flesh in water.” Acts 2:41 — “They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.” Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant during the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King’s Pool,15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time. Acts 16:33 — “And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately” the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T Greek, sub voce — “bapti>zw, immersion or submersion for a religious Purpose.” Grimm’s ed. of Wilke — “bapti>zw , 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging ( Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); & Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes, etc .” In the N.T. rite, he says it denotes “an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah’s reign.”

Dollinger, Kirche mid Kirchen, 837 — “The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party” — i e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb.19, 1885 — “ 1. Baptizein undoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N.T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a ‘sacred sense’ is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N.T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the word baptizein any other sense than eintauchen = untertauchen (immerse, submerge).” See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall Lectures.

Thirdly, the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with ‘water’ as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is “to immerse.” Never is it said that water is to be baptized upon a man. (b) From the use of the verb bapti>zw with prepositions:

First, — with eijv ( Mark 1:9 — where Iorda>nhn is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized). Mark 1:2 margin — “and it came to pass in those days; that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee; and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”

Secondly, with ejn ( Mark 1:5,8; cf . Matthew 3:11. John 1:26,31,33; cf . Acts 2:2,4). In these texts, ejn is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place. Mark 1:5,8 — “they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins...I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit” — here see Meyer’s Com. on Matthew 3:11 — “ejn ” is in accordance with the meaning of bapti>zw (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.” Those who pray for a ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith. Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre: “The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”

A.J.. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67 — “The upper room became the Spirit’s baptistery. His presence ‘filled all the house where they were sitting.” ( Acts 2:2) Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God’s gift is one thing; our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect. ‘God so loved the world, that he gave, his only begotten Son’ ( John 3:16). ‘But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’ ( John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners... ‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’ — take ye, actively — ‘the Holy Spirit’ ( John 20:22).” (c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance ( Mark 1:10 — ajnabai>nwn ejk tou~ u[datov ; John 3:23 — u[data polla> ; Acts 8:38,39 — kate>bhsan eijv to< u[dwr ...ajne>bhean ejk tou~ u[datov ).

Mark 1:l0 — “coming up out of the water”; John 3:23 — “And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there” — a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.

Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, In Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit, and Exegesis, Dec. 1883. Acts 8:38,39 — “and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water...In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says: “The baptism was apparently by immersion.” The Editor adds that, “practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word ‘baptize’ was to immerse.” (d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance. Mark 10:38 — “Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” Here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane; cf. Luke 22:42 — “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow; cf. Luke 12:50 — “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I am straitened till it be accomplished!” Death presented itself to the Savior’s mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering. Romans 6:4 — “We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” — Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that “it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.” On Luke 12:49, margin — “I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!” — see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225 — “He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which wherever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire” — the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit? 1 Corinthians 10:1,2 — “our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”; Colossians 2:12 — “having been buried with him in baptism, where in ye were also raised with him”; Hebrews 10:22 — “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed [leloume>noi ] with pure water” — here Trench, N. T.

Synonyms, 216, 217, says that “lou>w implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.” 1 Peter 3:20,21 — “saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” — as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them, that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes. “Oil, blood and water were used in the ritual of Moses and Aaron. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered” (Wm. Ashmore). (e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.

Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12 — “Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves, that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea.

It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea and another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.” Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565 — “Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.” Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570 — “Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.” Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says: “The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”

Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as “the primitive, apostolic and till the 13th century, the universal mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.” The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that “the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism and has altered the very meaning of the word.” Neander, Church Hist., 1:310 — “In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same. It was only with the sick, where exigency required it that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling. Many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”

Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism, i . e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practiced earlier than the time of Novatian in the third century. In these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back.

Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885 — “Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was even then facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Púnit., 6, and De Batismo, 12) is uncertain, and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles’ however, instructed us in that already. In very early times, people in the church took no offense when aspersion was put in place of immersion when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable. But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.” This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.

The ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’ section 7, reads as follows: “Baptize in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.” Here it is evident that ‘baptize’ means only ‘immerse,’ but if water be scarce then pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism 5, says that ‘The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles’ may possibly belong to the second half of the second century but in its present form is probably much later.

It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting and prayer must precede the baptismal rite.

Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new — a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt’s Ann. Book of Com.

Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the ‘Salisbury Use’ was the accepted mode and this provided for the child’s trine immersion. “The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549 but, in this too, immersion has the place of honor — affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said ‘Sprinkle or Pour,’ thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists.

They come before the world, with no partners or rivals or abettors or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.” (f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek Church.

De Stourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek Church, writes: “bapti>zw signifies literally and always ‘to plunge.’ Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say ‘baptism by aspersion’ is as if one should say ‘immersion by aspersion,’ or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek Church maintain that the Latin Church, instead of a baptismo>v, practice a mere rJantismo>v — instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling” — quoted in Conant on Matthew, appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.

The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings’ Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as “a rite wherein by immersion in water, the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons and his birth to a future he desires.” As regards the “mode of baptism,” he remarks: “That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning of baptizo , which is the intensive or frequentative form of bapto, ‘I dip,’ and denotes to immerse or submerge. The point is, that ‘dip’ or ‘immerse’ is the primary and ‘wash’ is the secondary meaning of bapto or baptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes. ‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law. Having heard, he plunges himself and comes up and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’ (Lightfoot’s Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practiced. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that ‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’ (c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors and from the statement of John 3:23 that he was baptizing in Ænon ‘because there was much water there.’ (d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expression Loutron palingenesias (bath of regeneration, Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul in Romans 6 of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi. 2).” The author quotes Bingham to the effect that “total immersion under water” was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries “except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism or where there is a scarcity of water.” Dr. Dods continues: “This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the ‘Didache’” (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).

The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word ‘baptize’ to be ‘immerse,’ but also that this is its fundamental, constant and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.

As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth. It is in the shape of a “fontgrave,” in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism. The Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.

Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211 — “As in the case of the Lord’s Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that ‘new creation.’ As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one’s self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith. According to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies and therefore, in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”

For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism. Per contra, see Hovey, In Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.

B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ. This is plain: (a) From the nature of the church. Notice:

First, that besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly, that the local church is not a legislative but is simply an executive body. Only the authority, which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly, that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly, that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome. Matthew 5:19 — “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”; cf . 2 Sam. 6:7 — “And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.” Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4 — “Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.” As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning.

To administer it to a walling and resisting infant or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus’ command and example is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance. (b) From the nature of God’s command:

First, is forming a part, not only of the law but also of the fundamental law of the Church of Christ. The power, which is claimed, for a church to change it is not only legislative but also constitutional. Secondly, is expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly, as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.

Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L.

Anderson: “In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people. In the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.” For advocacy of the church’s right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, In Works, 1:333-348 — “Where a ceremony answered and was intended to answer several purposes, which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time but which, afterward by change of circumstances were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.” For example, at first baptism symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ but also a personal faith in him as Savior and Lord.

It is assumed that, entrance into the church and personal faith, are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former and not to the latter.

We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance, and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879) though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows “how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”

We cannot with him call this spirit “the free spirit of Christianity.” We regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief. “Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles” (O. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245. Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable. We reply that when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed. 2. It is often dangerous to health and life. We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body. “Brethren, if your hearts be warm, ice and snow can do no harm.” The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek Church of that country. 3. It is indecent. We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable seabathing.

The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself. 4. It is inconvenient. We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance, which symbolizes his sacrificial death and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined. 5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them. We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him even by erroneous forms such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ’s commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil. 3. The Symbolism of Baptism.

Baptism symbolizes the previous entrance of the believer into the communion of Christ’s death and resurrection, or, in other words, regeneration through union with Christ.

A. Expansion of this statement as to the symbolism of baptism. Baptism, more particularly, is a symbol: (a) Of the death and resurrection of Christ. Romans 6:3 — “Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” cf. Matthew 3:13 — “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him”; Mark 10:38 — “Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”; Luke 12:50 — “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” Colossians 2:12 — “buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” For the meaning of these passages, see note on the baptism of Jesus, under B. (a), pages 942, 943.

Denney, in Expositor’s Greek Testament, on Romans 6:3-5 — “The argumentative requirements of the passage...demand the idea of an actual union to, or incorporation in Christ. We were buried with him [in the act of immersion] through that baptism into his death. If the baptism, which is a similitude of Christ’s death, has had a reality answering to its obvious import, so that we have really died in it as Christ died, then we shall have a corresponding experience of resurrection. Baptism, inasmuch as one emerges from the water after being immersed, is a similitude of resurrection as well as of death.” (b) Of the purpose of that death and resurrection, namely, to atone for sin and to deliver sinners from its penalty and power. Romans 6:4 — “We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”; cf. 7, 10, 11 — “for he that hath died is justified from sin...For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus”; 2 Corinthians5:14 — “we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died.” Baptism is therefore a confession of evangelical faith both as to sin, and as to the deity and atonement of Christ. No one is properly a Baptist who does not acknowledge these truths which baptism signifies.

T. W. Chambers, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1890:113-118, objects that this view of the symbolism of baptism is based on two texts, Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12 which are illustrative and not explanatory, while the great majority of passages make baptism only an act of purification. Yet Dr. Chambers concedes: “It is to be admitted that nearly all modern critical expositors (Meyer, Godet, Alford, Conybeare, Lightfoot, Beet) consider that there is a reference here [in Romans 6:4] to the act of baptism, which as the Bishop of Durham says, ‘is the grave of the old man and the birth of the new. It is an image of the believer’s participation both in the death and in the resurrection of Christ. As he sinks beneath the baptismal waters, the believer buries there all his corrupt affections and past sins and as he emerges thence, he rises regenerate, quickened to new hopes and a new life.’” (c) Of the accomplishment of that purpose in the person baptized, who thus professes his death to sin and resurrection to spiritual life. Galatians 3:27 — “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ”; 1 Peter 3:21 — “which [water] also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”; cf. Galatians 2:19,20 — “For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me”; Colossians 3:3 — “For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

C.H.M., “A truly baptized person is one who has passed from the old world into the new. The water rolls over his person, signifying that his place in nature is ignored, his old nature is entirely set aside. In short, that he is a dead man and that the flesh with all that pertained thereto, its sins and its liabilities is buried in the grave of Christ and can never come into God’s sight again. When the believer rises up from the water, expression is given to the truth that he comes up as the possessor of a new life, even the resurrection life of Christ, to which divine righteousness inseparation attaches.” (d) Of the method, in which that purpose is accomplished, by union with Christ, receiving him and giving one’s self to him by faith. Romans 6:5 “For if we have become united [su>mfutoi ] with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” — su>mfutoi , or snmpefukw>v , is used of the man and the horse as grown together in the Centaur, by Lucian, Dial. Mort., 16:4, and by Xenophon, Cyrop., 4:3:18. Colossians 2:12 — “having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith is the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” Dr. N. S. Burton: “The oneness of the believer and Christ is expressed by the fact that the one act of immersion sets forth the death and resurrection of both Christ and the believer.” As the voluntary element in faith has two parts, a giving and a taking, so baptism illustrates both. Submergence = surrender to Christ; emergence = reception of Christ; see page 839, (b) . “Putting on Christ” ( Galatians 3:27) is the burying of the old life and the rising to a new. Cf . the active and the passive obedience of Christ (pages 749, 770), the two elements of justification (pages 854-859), the two aspects of formal worship (page 23), the two divisions of the Lord’s Prayer.

William Ashmore holds that incorporation into Christ is the root idea of baptism, union with Christ’s death and resurrection being only a part of it.

We are “baptized into Christ” ( Romans 6:3), as the Israelites were “baptized into Moses” ( 1 Corinthians 10:2). As baptism symbolizes the incorporation of the believer into Christ, so the Lord’s Supper symbolizes the incorporation of Christ into the believer. We go down into the water but the bread goes down into us. We are “in Christ,” and Christ is “in us.” The candidate does not baptize himself but puts himself wholly into the hands of the administrator. This seems symbolic of his committing himself entirely to Christ, of whom the administrator is the representative. Similarly in the Lord’s Supper, it is Christ who, through his representative, distributes the emblems of his death and life.

E. G. Robinson regarded baptism as implying death to sin, resurrection to new life in Christ and entire surrender of ourselves to the authority of the triune God. Baptism “into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” ( Matthew 28:19) cannot imply supreme allegiance to the Father and only subordinate allegiance to the Son. Baptism therefore is an assumption of supreme allegiance to Jesus Christ. N. E. Wood, in The Watchman, Dec. 3, 1896:15 — “Calvinism has its five points but Baptists have also their own five points, which are the Trinity, the Atonement, Regeneration, Baptism, and an inspired Bible. All other doctrines gather round these.” (e) Of the consequent union of all believers in Christ.

Ephesians4:5 — “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”; 1 Corinthians 12:13 — “For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit”; cf . 10:3,4 — “and did all eat the same spiritual food; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ” In Ephesians 4:5, it is noticeable that, not the Lord’s Supper, but baptism, is referred to as the symbol of Christian unity. A. H. Strong, Cleveland Sermon, 1901 — “Our fathers lived in a day when simple faith was subject to serious disabilities. The establishments frowned upon dissent and visited it with pains and penalties. It is no wonder that believers in the New Testament doctrine and polity felt that they must come out from what they regarded as an apostate church. They could have no sympathy with the ones who held back the truth in unrighteousness and persecuted the saints of God. But our doctrine has leavened all Christendom. Scholarship is on the side of immersion. Infant baptism is on the decline. The churches that once opposed us now compliment us on our steadfastness in the faith and on our missionary zeal. There is a growing spirituality in these churches, which prompts them to extend to us hands of fellowship. There is a growing sense among us that the kingdom of Christ is wider than our own membership, and that loyalty to our Lord requires us to recognize his presence and blessing even in bodies, which we do not regard as organized in complete accordance with the New Testament model. Faith in the larger Christ is bringing us out from our denominational isolation into an inspiring recognition of our oneness with the universal church of God throughout the world.” (f) Of the death and resurrection of the body, which will complete the work of Christ in us and Christ’s death and resurrection assure to all his members. 1 Corinthians 15:12,22 — “Now if Christ is preached that ho hath been raised from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead.” For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” In the Scripture passages quoted above, we add to the argument from the meaning of the word bapti>zw the argument from the meaning of the ordinance. Luther wrote, in his Babylonish Captivity of the Church, section 103 (English translation in Wace and Buchheim, First Principles of the Reformation, 192): “Baptism is a sign both of death and resurrection. Being moved by this reason, I would have those that are baptized to be altogether dipped into the water, as the word means and the mystery signifies.” See Calvin on Acts 8:38; Conybeare and Howson on Romans 6:4; Boardman, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 115-135.

B. Inferences from the passages referred to: (a) The central truth set forth by baptism is the death and resurrection of Christ and our own death and resurrection only as connected with that.

The baptism of Jesus in Jordan, equally with the subsequent baptism of his followers, was a symbol of his death. It was his death, which he had in mind when he said: Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ( Mark 10:38); “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” ( Luke 12:50). The being immersed and overwhelmed in waters is a frequent metaphor in all languages to express the rush of successive troubles; compare Psalm 69:21” — am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me”; 42:7 — “AII thy waves and thy billows are gone over me”; 124:4, 5 — “Then the waters had overwhelmed us, The stream had gone over our soul; Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.”

So the suffering, death, and burial, which were before our Lord, presented themselves to his mind as a baptism, because the very idea of baptism was that of a complete submersion under the floods of waters. Death was not to be poured upon Christ, it was no mere sprinkling of suffering which he was to endure but a sinking into the mighty waters and a being overwhelmed by them. It was the giving himself to this, which he symbolized by his baptism in Jordan. That act was not arbitrary or formal or ritual. It was a public consecration, a consecration to death, to death for the sins of the world. It expressed the essential nature and meaning of his earthly work: the baptism of water at the beginning of his ministry consciously and designedly prefigured the baptism of death with which that ministry was to close.

Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism of repentance, the rite that belonged only to sinners, can be explained only upon the ground that he was “made to be sin on our behalf” ( 2 Corinthians 5:21). He had taken our nature upon him, without its hereditary corruption indeed, but with all its hereditary guilt, that he might redeem that nature and reunite it to God. As one with humanity, he had in his unconscious childhood submitted to the rites of circumcision, purification and legal redemption ( Luke 2:21-24; cf. Exodus 13:2,13 see Lange, Alford, Webster and Wilkinson on Luke 2:24) — all of those rites appointed for sinners. “Made in the likeness of men” ( Philippians 2:7), “the likeness of sinful flesh” ( Romans 8:3), he was “to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” ( Hebrews 9:26).

In his baptism, therefore, he could say, “Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness” ( Matthew 3:15). Because only through the final baptism of suffering and death, which this baptism in water foreshadowed, could he “make an end of sins” and “bring in everlasting righteousness” (Dan 9:24) to the condemned and ruined world. He could not be “the Lord our Righteousness” ( Jeremiah 23:6), except by first suffering the death due to the nature he had assumed, thereby delivering it from its guilt and perfecting it forever. All this was indicated in that act by which he was first “made manifest to Israel” ( John 1:31). In his baptism in Jordan, he was buried in the likeness of his coming death and raised in the likeness of his coming resurrection. 1 John 5:6 — “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not in the water only but in the water and in the blood” = in the baptism of water at the beginning of his ministry and in the baptism of blood, which was to close that ministry.

As that baptism pointed forward to Jesus’ death, so our baptism points backward by the same, as the center and substance of his redeeming work, the one death by which we live. We who are “baptized into Christ” are “baptized into his death” ( Romans 6:3), that is, into spiritual communion and participation in that death which he died for our salvation. In short, in baptism we declare in symbol that his death has become ours. On the Baptism of Jesus, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 226-237. (b) The correlative truth of the believer’s death and resurrection, set forth in baptism implies a confession of sin and humiliation on account of it, as deserving of death, a declaration of Christ’s death for sin, and of the believer’s acceptance of Christ’s substitutive work. It implies an acknowledgment that the soul has become partaker of Christ’s life and now lives only in and for him.

A false mode of administering the ordinance has so obscured the meaning of baptism. To multitudes, it has lost all reference to the death of Christ and the Lord’s Supper is assumed to be the only ordinance which is intended to remind us of the atoning sacrifice to which we owe our salvation. For evidence of this, see the remarks of President Woolsey in the Sunday School Times: “Baptism it [the Christian religion] could share in with the doctrine of John the Baptist and if a similar rite had existed under the Jewish law, it would have been regarded as appropriate to a religion which inculcated renunciation of sin and purity of heart and life.

But [in the Lord’s Supper] we go beyond the province of baptism to the very penetrale of the gospel, to the efficacy and meaning of Christ’s death.”

Baptism should be a public act. We cannot afford to relegate it to a Corner or to celebrate it in private, as some professedly Baptist churches of England are said to do. Like marriage, the essence of it is joining of self to another before the world. In baptism we merge ourselves in Christ, before God and angels and men. The Mohammedan stands five times a day and prays with his face toward Mecca, caring not who sees him. Luke 12:8 — “Every one who shall confess me before man, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God.” (c) Baptism symbolizes purification in a peculiar and divine way, namely through the death of Christ and the entrance of the soul into communion with that death. The radical defect of sprinkling or pouring as a mode of administering the ordinance is that it does not point to Christ’s death as the procuring cause of our purification.

It is a grievous thing to say by symbol, as those do say who practice sprinkling in place of immersion, that a man may regenerate himself or, if not this, yet that his regeneration may take place without connection with Christ’s death. Edward Beecher’s chief argument against Baptist views is drawn from John 3:22-25 — “a questioning on the part of John’s disciples with a Jew about purifying.” Purification is made to be the essential meaning of baptism, and the conclusion is drawn that any form expressive of purification will answer the design of the ordinance. But if Christ’s death is the procuring cause of our purification, we may expect it to be symbolized in the ordinance, which declares that purification; if Christ’s death is the central fact of Christianity, we may expect it to be symbolized in the initiatory rite of Christianity. (d) In baptism we show forth the Lord’s death as the original source of holiness and life in our souls, just as in the Lord’s Supper we show forth the Lord’s death as the source of all nourishment and strength after this life of holiness has been once begun. As the Lord’s Supper symbolizes the sanctifying power of Jesus’ death, so baptism symbolizes its regenerating power.

The truth of Christ’s death and resurrection is a precious jewel and it is given us in these outward ordinances as in a casket. Let us care for the casket lest we lose the gem. As a scarlet thread runs through every rope and cord of the British navy, testifying that it is the property of the Crown, so through every doctrine and ordinance of Christianity runs the red line of Jesus’ blood. It is their common reference to the death of Christ that binds the two ordinances together. (e) There are two reasons therefore, why nothing but immersion will satisfy the design of the ordinance. Nothing else can symbolize the radical nature of the change effected in regeneration, a change from spiritual death to spiritual life and nothing else can set forth the fact that this change is due to the entrance of the soul into communion with the death and resurrection of Christ.

Christian truth is an organism. Part is bound to part and all together constitute one vitalized whole. To give up any single portion of that truth is like maiming the human body. Life may remain, but one manifestation of life has ceased. The whole body of Christian truth has lost its symmetry and a part of its power to save.

Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:212 — “In the Eleusinian mysteries, the act of reception was represented as a regeneration, and the hierophant appointed to the temple service had to take a sacramental bath, out of which he proceeded as a ‘new man’ with a new name. This signifies that, as they were wont to say, ‘the first one was forgotten,’ that is, the old man was put off at the same time with the old name. The parallel of this Eleusinian rite, with the thoughts, which Paul has written about Baptism in the Epistle to the Romans, and therefore from Corinth, is so striking that a connection between the two may well be conjectured. All the more striking that even in the case of the Lord’s Supper, Paul has brought in the comparison with the heathen festivals, in order to give a basis for his mystical theory.” (f) To substitute for baptism anything, which excludes all symbolic reference to the death of Christ, is to destroy the ordinance. Just as substituting for the broken bread and poured out wine of the communion some form of administration, which leaves out all reference to the death of Christ would be to destroy the Lord’s Supper, and to celebrate an ordinance of human invention.

Baptism, like the Fourth of July, the Passover, the Lord’s Supper, is a historical monument. It witnesses to the world that Jesus died and rose again. In celebrating it, we show forth the Lord’s death as truly as in the celebration of the Supper. But it is more than a historical monument. It is also a pictorial expression of doctrine. Into it are woven all the essential truths of the Christian scheme. It tells of the nature and penalty of sin, of human nature delivered from sin in the person of a crucified and risen Savior, of salvation secured for each human soul that is united to Christ, of obedience to Christ as the way to life and glory. Thus baptism stands from age to age as a witness both to the facts and to the doctrine of Christianity. To change the form of administering the ordinance is therefore to strike a blow at Christianity and at Christ, and to defraud the world of a part of God’s means of salvation. See Ebrard’s view of Baptism, in Baptist Quarterly, 1869:257, and in Olshausen’s Com. on N.

T., 1:270, and 3:594. Also Lightfoot, Com. on Colossians 2:20, and 3:1.

Ebrard: “Baptism = Death.” So Sanday, Com, on Romans 6 — “Immersion = Death; Submersion = Burial (the ratification of death); Emergence = Resurrection (the ratification of life).” William Ashmore: “Solomon’s Temple had two monumental pillars: Jachin, ‘he shall establish,’ and Boaz, ‘in it is strength.’ In Zechariah’s vision were two olive trees on either side of the golden candlestick. In like manner, Christ has left two monumental witnesses to testify concerning himself — Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.” The lady in the streetcar, who had inadvertently stuck her parasol into a man’s eye, very naturally begged his pardon. But he replied: “It is of no consequence, Madame. I have still one eye left.” Our friends who sprinkle or pour put out one eye of the gospel witness, break down one appointed monument of Christ’s saving truth.

Shall we be content to say that we have still one ordinance left? At the Rappahannock one of the Federal regiments, just because its standard was shot away, was mistaken by our own men for a regiment of Confederates and was subjected to a murderous enfilade of fire that decimated its ranks.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two flags of Christ’s army and we cannot afford to lose either one of them. 4. The Subjects of Baptism.

The proper subjects of baptism are those only who give credible evidence that they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit or, in other words, have entered by faith into the communion of Christ’s death and resurrection.

A. Proof that only persons giving evidence of being regenerated are proper subjects of baptism: (a) From the command and example of Christ and his apostles, which show:

First, those only are to be baptized who have previously been made disciples. Matthew 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 2:41 — “They then that received his word were baptized.”

Secondly, those only are to be baptized who have previously repented and believed. Matthew 3:2,3,6 — “Repent ye...make ye ready the way of the Lord...and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins”; Acts 2:37,38 — “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said unto them, Repent ye and be baptized every one of you”; 8:12 — “But when they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women”; 18:8 — “And Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue believed in the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized”; 19:4 — “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.” (b) From the nature of the church, as a company of regenerate persons. John 3:5 — “Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”; Romans 6:13 — “neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” (c) From the symbolism of the ordinance, as declaring a previous spiritual change in him who submits to it. Acts 10:47 — “Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?” Romans 6:2-5 — “We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection”; Galatians 3:26,27 — “For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ” As marriage should never be solemnized except between persons who are already joined in heart and with whom the outward ceremony is only the sign of an existing love, so baptism should never be administered, except in the case of those who are already joined to Christ and who signify, in the ordinance their union with him in his death and resurrection. See Dean Stanley on Baptism,24 — “In the apostolic age and in the three centuries which followed, it is evident that, as a general rule, those who came to baptism, came in full age of their own deliberate choice. The liturgical service of baptism was framed for full grown converts and is only by considerable adaptation applied to the case of infants”; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists. 93; Robins, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 136-159.

B. Inferences from the fact that only persons giving evidence of being regenerate are proper subjects of baptism: (a) Since only those who give credible evidence of regeneration are proper subjects of baptism, baptism cannot be the means of regeneration. It is the appointed sign, but is never the condition of the forgiveness of sins.

Passages like Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:4; 16:16; John 3:5; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5; and Hebrews 10:22, are to be explained as particular instances “of the general fact that, in Scripture language, a single part of a complex action and even that part of it, which is most obvious to the senses, is often mentioned for the whole of it. Thus, in this case, the whole of the solemn transaction is designated by the external symbol.” In other words, the entire change, internal and external, spiritual and ritual, is referred to in language belonging strictly only to the outward aspect of it. So, the other ordinance is referred to, simply by naming the visible “breaking of bread.” The whole transaction of the ordination of ministers is termed the “imposition of hands” (cf. Acts 2:42; 1 Timothy 4:14). Matthew 3:11 — “I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance”; Mark 1:4 — “the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins”; 16:16 — “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved”; 1 John 3:5 — “Except one be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Here Nicodemus, who was familiar with John’s baptism and with the refusal of the Sanhedrin to recognize its claims, is told that the baptism of water, which he suspects may be obligatory is indeed necessary to that complete change, by which one enters outwardly as well as inwardly, into the kingdom of God. He is taught also, that to “be born of water” is worthless unless it is the accompaniment and sign of a new birth of “the Spirit” and therefore, in the further statements of Christ, baptism is not alluded to. See verses 6, 8 — “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit...so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Acts 2:38 — “Repent ye, and be baptized...unto the remission of your sins” — on this passage see Hackett: “The phrase ‘in order to the forgiveness of sins’ we connect naturally with both the preceding verbs (‘repent’ and ‘be baptized’). The clause states the motive or object, which should induce them to repent and be baptized. It enforces the entire exhortation, not one part to the exclusion of the other” i. e., they were to repent for the remission of sins, quite as much as they were to be baptized for the remission of sins. Acts 22:16 — “arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on his name”; Ephesians5:26 — “that he might sanctify it [the church], having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word”; Titus 3:5 — “according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration [baptism] and renewing of the Holy Spirit [the new birth]”; Hebrews 10:22 — “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience [regeneration]: and having our body washed with pure water [baptism]”; cf. Acts 2:42 — “the breaking of bread”; 1Tim 4:44 — “the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.”

Dr. A. C. Kendrick: “Considering how inseparable ‘believe and be baptized’ were in the Christian profession and how imperative and absolute was the requisition upon the believer to testify his allegiance by baptism that it could not be deemed singular that the two should be united, as it were, in one complex conception. We have no more right to assume that the birth from water involves the birth from the Spirit and thus do away with the one, than to assume that the birth from the Spirit involves the birth from water, and thus do away with the other. We have got to have them both, each in its distinctness, in order to fulfill the conditions of membership in the kingdom of God.” Without baptism, faith is like the works of a clock that has no dial or hands by which one can tell the time, or like the political belief of a man who refuses to go to the polls and vote.

Without baptism, discipleship is ineffective and incomplete. The inward change (regeneration by the Spirit) may have occurred but the outward change (Christian profession) is lacking.

Campbellism, however, holds that instead of regeneration preceding baptism and expressing itself in baptism, it is completed only in baptism, so that baptism is a means of regeneration. Alexander Campbell: “I am bold to affirm that every one of them who, in the belief of what the apostle spoke was immersed did in the very instant in which he was put under water, receive the forgiveness of his sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

But Peter commanded that men should be baptized because they had already received the Holy Spirit: Acts 10:47 — “Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?” Baptists baptize Christians, Disciples baptize sinners, and in baptism think to make them Christians. With this form of sacramentalism, Baptists are necessarily less in sympathy than with pedobaptism or with sprinkling. The view of the Disciples confines the divine efficiency to the word (see quotation from Campbell on page 821).

It was anticipated by Claude Pajon, the Reformed theologian, in 1673: see Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theologie, 448-450. That this was not the doctrine of John the Baptist would appear from Josephus, Ant., 18:5:2, who in speaking of John’s baptism says: “Baptism appears acceptable to God, not in order that those who were baptized might get free from certain sins, but in order that the body might be sanctified, because the soul beforehand had already been purified through righteousness.”

Disciples acknowledge no formal creed and they differ so greatly among themselves that we append the following statements of their founder and of later representatives. Alexander Campbell, Christianity Restored, (in The Christian Baptist, 5:100): “In and by the act of immersion, as soon as our bodies are put under water, at that very instant our former or old sins are washed away. Immersion and regeneration are Bible names for the same act. It is not our faith in God’s promise of remission but our going down into the water that obtains the remission of sins.” W. E.

Garrison, Alexander Campbell’s Theology, 247-299 — “Baptism, like naturalization, is the formal oath of allegiance by which an alien becomes a citizen. In neither case does the form in itself effect any magical change in the subject’s disposition. In both cases a change of opinion and of affections is presupposed, and the form is the culmination of a process. It is as easy for God to forgive our sins in the act of immersion as in any other way.” All work of the Spirit is through the word, only through sensible means, emotions being no criterion. God is transcendent, all authority is external, enforced only by appeal to happiness, a thoroughly utilitarian system.

Isaac Erret is perhaps the most able of recent Disciples. In his tract entitled “Our Position,” published by the Christian Publishing Company, St. Louis, he says: “As to the design of baptism, we part company with Baptists, and find ourselves more at home on the other side of the house.

Yet we cannot say that our position is just the same with that of any of them. Baptists say they baptize believers because they are forgiven and they insist that they shall have the evidence of pardon before they are baptized. But the language used in the Scriptures declaring what baptism is for, is so plain and unequivocal that the great majority of Protestants as well as the Roman Catholics admit it in their creeds to be, in some sense, for the remission of sins. The latter, however, and many of the former, attach to it the idea of regeneration, and that in baptism regeneration by the Holy Spirit is actually conferred. Even the Westminster Confession squints strongly in this direction, albeit its professed adherents of the present time attempt to explain away its meaning. We are as far from this ritualistic extreme as from the anti-rituals into which the Baptists have been driven. With us, regeneration must be so far accomplished before baptism that the subject is changed in heart and in faith and penitence must have yielded up his heart to Christ, otherwise baptism is nothing but an empty form. But forgiveness is something distinct from regeneration.

Forgiveness is an act of the Sovereign, not a change of the sinner’s heart.

While it is extended in view of the sinner’s faith and repentance, it needs to be offered in a sensible and tangible form, such that the sinner can seize it and appropriate it with unmistakable definiteness. In baptism he appropriates God’s promise of forgiveness, relying on the divine testimonies. ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved’; ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ He thus lays hold of the promise of Christ and appropriates it as his own. He does not merit it nor procure it nor earn it in being baptized but he appropriates what the mercy of God has provided and offered in the gospel. We therefore teach all who are baptized that, if they bring to their baptism a heart that renounces sin and implicitly trusts the power of Christ to save, they should rely on the Savior’s own promise — He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.’” All these utterances agree in making forgiveness chronologically distinct from regeneration, as the concluding point is distinct from the whole.

Regeneration is not entirely the work of God, it must be completed by man. It is not wholly a change of heart, it is also a change in outward action. We see in this system of thought the beginnings of sacramentalism, and we regard it as containing the same germs of error, which are more fully developed in pedobaptist doctrine. Shakespeare represents this dew in Henry V. 1:2 — “What you speak is in your conscience washed As pure as sin with baptism “; Othello, 2:3 — Desdemona could Win the moor — were’t to renounce his baptism — All seals and symbols of redeemed sin.”

Dr. G. W. Lasher, in the Journal and Messenger, holds that Matthew 3:11 — “I indeed baptize you in water unto eijv repentance” — does not imply that baptism effects the repentance. The baptism was because of the repentance, for John refused to baptize those who did not give evidence of repentance before baptism. Matthew 10:42 — “whosoever shall give...a cup of cold water only, in eijv the name of a disciple” — the cup of cold water does not put one into the name of a disciple, or make him a disciple. Matthew 12:41 — “The men of Nineveh... repented at eijv the preaching of Jonah” = because of. Dr. Lasher argues that, in all these cases, the meaning of eijv is “in respect to,” “with reference to.” So he would translate Acts 2:38 — “Repent ye, and be baptized...with respect to, in reference to, the remission of sins.” This is also the view of Meyer. He maintains that bapti>zein eijv always means “baptize with reference to (cf. Matthew 28:19; 1 Corinthians 10:12; Galatians 3:27; Acts 2:38; 8:16; 19:5). We are brought through baptism, he would say, into fellowship with his death, so that we have a share ethically in his death, through the cessation of our life to sin.

The better parallel, however, in our judgment, is found in Romans 10:l0 — “with the heart man believeth unto eijv righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto eijv salvation,” where evidently salvation is the end to which works the whole change and process, including both faith and confession. So Broadus makes John’s ‘baptism unto repentance’ mean baptism in order to repentance, repentance including both the purpose of the heart and the outward expression of it, or baptism in order to complete and thorough repentance. Expositor’s Greek Testament, on Acts 2:38 — “unto the remission of your sins”: “eijv , unto, signifying the aim.” For the High Church view, see Sadler, Church Doctrine, 41- 124. On F. W. Robertson’s view of Baptismal Regeneration, see Gordon, in Bap. Quar., 1869:405. On the whole matter of baptism for the remission of sins, see Gates, Baptists and Disciples (advocating the Disciple view); Willmarth, in Bap. Quar., 1877:1-26 (verging toward the Disciple view); and per contra, Adkins, Disciples and Baptists, booklet pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Society (the best brief statement of the Baptist position); Bap. Quar., 1877:476-489; 1872:214; Jacob, Eccl. Pol. of N.

T., 255, 256. (b) As the profession of a spiritual change already wrought, baptism is primarily the act, not of the administrator, but of the person baptized.

Upon the person newly regenerate, the command of Christ first terminates; only upon his giving evidence of the change within him does it become the duty of the church to see that he has opportunity to follow Christ in baptism. Since baptism is primarily the act of the convert, no lack of qualification on the part of the administrator invalidates the baptism, so long as the proper outward act is performed, with intent on the part of the person baptized to express the fact of a preceding spiritual renewal ( Acts 2:37,38). Acts 2:37,38 — “Brethren, what shall we do? Repent ye and be baptized.” If baptism be primarily the act of the administrator or of the church, then invalidity in the administrator or of the church renders the ordinance itself invalid. But if baptism be primarily the act of the person baptized, an act, which it is the church’s business simply to scrutinize and further, then nothing but the absence of immersion or of an intent, to profess faith in Christ, can invalidate the ordinance. It is the erroneous view that baptism is the act of the administrator, which causes the anxiety of High Church Baptists to deduce their Baptist lineage from regularly baptized ministers all the way back to John the Baptist, and which induces many modern endeavors of pedobaptists to prove that the earliest Baptists of England and the Continent did not immerse. All these solicitudes are unnecessary. We have no need to prove a Baptist apostolic succession. If we can derive our doctrine and practice from the New Testament, it is all we require.

The Council of Trent was right in its Canon: “If any one saith that the baptism, which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the church doeth, is not true baptism, let him be anathema.” Dr. Norman Fox: “it is no more important who baptizes a man than who leads him to Christ.” John Spilsbury, first pastor of the church of Particular Baptists, holding to a limited atonement, in London, was newly baptized in 1633, on the ground that “baptizedness is not essential to the administrator,” and he repudiated the demand for apostolic succession, as leading logically to the “popedom of Rome.” In 1641, immersion followed, though two or three years before this, or in March, 1639, Roger Williams was baptized by Ezekiel Holliman in Rhode Island. Williams afterwards doubted its validity, thus clinging still to the notion of apostolic succession. (c) As entrusted with the administration of the ordinances, however, the church is, on its part, to require of all candidates for baptism credible evidence of regeneration.

This follows from the nature of the church and its duty to maintain its own existence as an institution of Christ. The church which cannot restrict admission into its membership to such as are, like itself in character and aims, must soon cease to be a church by becoming indistinguishable from the world. The duty of the church to gain credible evidence of regeneration in the case of every person admitted into the body, involves its right to require of candidates, in addition to a profession of faith with the lips, some satisfactory proof that this profession is accompanied by change in the conduct. The kind and amount of evidence, which would have justified the reception of a candidate in times of persecution, may not now constitute a sufficient proof of change of heart.

If an Odd Fellows’ Lodge, in order to preserve its distinct existence, must have its own rules for admission to membership, much more is this true of the church. The church may make its own regulations with a view to secure credible evidence of regeneration. Yet it is bound to demand of the candidate no more than reasonable proof of his repentance and faith.

Since the church is to be convinced of the candidate’s fitness before it votes to receive him to its membership, it is generally best that the experience of the candidate should be related before the church. Yet in extreme cases, as of sickness, the church may hear this relation of experience through certain appointed representatives.

Baptism is sometimes figuratively described as “the door into the church.”

The phrase is unfortunate, since if by the church is meant the spiritual kingdom of God, then Christ is its only door. If the local body of believers is meant, then the faith of the candidate, the credible evidence of regeneration which he gives, the vote of the church itself, are all, equally with baptism, the door through which he enters. The door, in this sense, is a double door, one part of which is his confession of faith, and the other his baptism. (d) As the outward expression of the inward change by which the believer enters into the kingdom of God, baptism is the first, in point of time, of all outward duties.

Regeneration and baptism, although not holding to each other the relation of effect and cause, are both regarded in the New Testament as essential to the restoration of man’s right relations to God and to his people. They properly constitute parts of one whole and are not to be unnecessarily separated. Baptism should follow regeneration with the least possible delay, after the candidate and the church have gained evidence that a spiritual change has been accomplished within him. No other duty and no other ordinance can properly precede it.

Neither the pastor nor the church should encourage the convert to wait for others’ company before being baptized. We should aim continually to deepen the sense of individual responsibility to Christ and of personal duty to obey his command of baptism just so soon as a proper opportunity is afforded. That participation in the Lord’s Supper cannot properly precede Baptism will be shown hereafter. (e) Since regeneration is a work accomplished once for all, the baptism, which symbolizes this regeneration is not to be repeated.

Even where the persuasion exists, on the part of the candidate, that at the time of Baptism he was mistaken in thinking himself regenerated, the ordinance is not to be administered again, so long as it has once been submitted, with honest intent, as a profession of faith in Christ. We argue this from the absence of any reference to second baptisms in the New Testament and from the grave practical difficulties attending the opposite view. In Acts 19:1-5, we have an instance, not of rebaptism, but of the baptism for the first time of certain persons who had been wrongly taught with regard to the nature of John the Baptist’s doctrine. These people had so ignorantly submitted to an outward rite, which had in it no reference to Jesus Christ and expressed no faith in him as a Savior. This was not John’s baptism nor was it in any sense true baptism. For this reason Paul commanded them to be “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

In the respect of not being repeated, Baptism is unlike the Lord’s Supper, which symbolizes the continuous sustaining power of Christ’s death while baptism symbolizes its power to begin a new life within the soul. In Acts 19:1-5, Paul instructs the new disciples that the real baptism of John, to which they erroneously supposed they had submitted, was not only a baptism of repentance but a baptism of faith in the coming Savior. “And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” — as they had not been before. Here there was no rebaptism, for the mere outward submersion in water to which they had previously submitted, with no thought of professing faith in Christ, was no baptism at all — whether Johannine or Christian. See Brooks, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1867, art.: Rebaptism.

Whenever it is clear, as in many cases of Campbellite immersion, that the candidate has gone down into the water, not with intent to profess a previously existing faith, but in order to be regenerated, baptism is still to be administered if the person subsequently believes on Christ. But wherever it appears that there was intent to profess an already existing faith and regeneration there should then be no repetition of the immersion even though the ordinance has been administered by the Campbellites.

A rebaptism, whenever a Christian’s faith and joy are rekindled so that he begins to doubt the reality of his early experiences, would, in the case of many fickle believers, require many repetitions of the ordinance. The presumption is that, when the profession of faith was made by baptism, there was an actual faith, which needed to be professed, and therefore that the baptism, though followed by much unbelief and many wanderings, was a valid one. Rebaptism, in the case of unstable Christians, tends to bring reproach upon the ordinance itself. (f) So long as the mode and the subjects are such as Christ has enjoined, mere accessories are matters of individual judgment The use of natural rather than of artificial baptisteries is not to be elevated into an essential. The formula of baptism prescribed by Christ is “into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28:19 — “baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; cf . Acts 8:16 — “they had been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus”; Romans 6:3 — “Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Galatians 3:27 — “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ” Baptism is immersion into God, into the presence, communion, life of the Trinity. See Com. of Clark, and of Lange, on Matthew 28:19; also C. E. Smith, in Bap Rev., 1881:305-311. President Wayland and the Revised Version read, “into the name.” Per Contra, see Meyer (transl., 1:281 note), on Romans 6:3; cf. Matthew 10:41; 18:20; in all which passages, as well as in Matthew 28:19, he claims that eijv to< o[noma signifies “with reference to the name.” For the latter translation of Matthew 28:19, see Conant, Notes on Matthew, 171. On the whole subject of this section, see Dagg, Church Order, 13-73; Ingham, Subjects of Baptism.

C. Infant Baptism.

This we reject and reprehend, for the following reasons: (a) Infant baptism is without warrant, either expressed or implied, in the Scripture.

First, there is no express command that infants should be baptized.

Secondly, there is no clear example of the baptism of infants. Thirdly, the passages held to imply infant baptism contain, when fairly interpreted, no reference to such a practice. In Matthew 19:14, none would have ‘forbidden,’ if Jesus and his disciples had been in the habit of baptizing infants. From Acts 16:15, cf. 40, and Acts 16:33, cf. 34. Neander says that we cannot infer infant baptism. 1 Corinthians 16:15 shows that the whole family of Stephanas, baptized by Paul, was adults. It is impossible to suppose a whole heathen household baptized upon the faith of its head. As to 1 Corinthians 7:14, Jacobi calls this text “a sure testimony against infant baptism, since Paul would certainly have referred to the baptism of children as a proof of their holiness, if infant baptism had been practiced.” Moreover, this passage would in that case equally teach the baptism of the unconverted husband of a believing wife. It plainly proves that the children of Christian parents were no more baptized and had no closer connection with the Christian church than the unbelieving partners of Christians did. Matthew 19:14 — “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come unto me: for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven”; Acts 16:15 — “And when she [Lydia] was baptized, and her household”; cf . — “And they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia: and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed.” Acts 16:33 — The jailer “was baptized, he and all his, immediately”; cf. 34 — “And he brought them up into his house, and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, with all his house, having believed in God”; 1 Corinthians 16:15 — “ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have set themselves to minister unto the saints”; 1:16 — “And I baptized also the household of Stephanas”; 7:14 — “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.” Here the sanctity or holiness attributed to unbelieving members of the household is evidently that of external connection and privilege, like that of the O. T. Israel.

Broadus, Am. Com., on Matthew 19:14 — “No Greek Commentator mentions infant baptism in connection with this passage, though they all practiced that rite.” Schleiermacher, Glaubenslehre, 2:383 — “All the traces of infant baptism which it has been desired to find in the New Testament must first be put into it.” Pfleiderer, Grundriss, 184-187. “Infant baptism cannot be proved from the N. T., and according to Corinthians 7:14 it is antecedently improbable yet it was the logical consequence of the command, Matthew 28:12 sq ., in which the church consciousness of the second century prophetically expressed Christ’s appointment that it, should be the universal church of the nations. Infant baptism represents one side of the Biblical sacrament, the side of the divine grace but it needs to have the other side, appropriation of that grace by personal freedom, added in confirmation.”

Dr. A. S. Crapsey, formerly an Episcopal rector in Rochester, made the following statement in the introduction to a sermon in defense of infant baptism. “Now in support of this custom of the church, we can bring no express command of the word of God, no certain warrant of holy Scripture, nor can we be at all sure that this usage prevailed during the apostolic age. From a few obscure hints we may conjecture that it did, but it is only conjecture after all. It is true St. Paul baptized the household of Stephanas, of Lydia, and of the jailer at Philippi, and in these households there may have been little children but, we do not know that there were and these inferences form but a poor foundation upon which to base any doctrine. Better say at once and boldly, that infant baptism is not expressly taught in Holy Scripture. Not only is the word of God silent on this subject, but those who have studied the subject tell us that Christian writers of the very first age say nothing about it. It is by no means sure that this custom obtained in the church earlier than in the middle of the second or the beginning of the third century.” Dr. C. M. Mead, in a private letter, dated May 27,1895 — “Though a Congregationalist, I cannot find any Scriptural authorization of pedobaptism, and I admit also that immersion seems to have been the prevalent, if not the universal, form of baptism at the first.”

A review of the passages held by Pedobaptists to support their views leads us to the conclusion that were expressed in the North British Review, Aug. 1852:211, that infant baptism is utterly unknown to Scripture.

Jacob, Ecclesiastical Polity of N. T., 270-275 — “Infant baptism is not mentioned in the N. T. No instance of it is recorded there, no allusion is made to its effects, no directions are given for its administration. It is not an apostolic ordinance.” See also Neander’s view, in Kitto, Bib. Cyclop., art.: Baptism; Kendrick, in Christian Rev., April, 1863 Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 96; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 125; Cunningham, lect. on Baptism, in Croall Lectures for 1886. (b) Infant baptism is expressly contradicted:

First, by the Scriptural prerequisites of faith and repentance, as signs of regeneration. In the great commission, Matthew speaks of baptizing disciples and Mark of baptizing believers but infants are neither of these.

Secondly, by the Scriptural symbolism of the ordinance. As we should not bury a person before his death, so we should not symbolically bury a person by baptism until he has in spirit died to sin. Thirdly, by the Scriptural constitution of the church. The church is a company of persons whose union with one another presupposes and expresses a previous conscious and voluntary union of each with Jesus Christ. But of this conscious and voluntary union with Christ, infants are not capable.

Fourthly, by the Scriptural prerequisites for participation in the Lord’s Supper. Participation in the Lord’s Supper is the right only of those who can discern the Lord’s body ( 1 Corinthians 11:29). No reason can be assigned for restricting to intelligent communicants the ordinance of the Supper, which would not equally restrict to intelligent believers the ordinance of Baptism.

Infant baptism has accordingly led in the Greek Church to infant communion. This course seems logically consistent. If baptism is administered to unconscious babes, they should participate in the Lord’s Supper also. But if confirmation or any intelligent profession of faith is thought necessary before communion, why should not such confirmation or profession be thought necessary before baptism? On Jonathan Edwards and the Halfway Covenant, see New Englander, Sept. 1884:601-614; G.

L. Walker, Aspects of Religious Life of New England, 61-82; Dexter, Congregationalism, 487, note — “It has been often intimated that President Edwards opposed and destroyed the Halfway Covenant. He did oppose Stoddardism, or the doctrine that the Lord’s Supper is a converting ordinance and that unconverted men, because they are such should be encouraged to partake of it.” The tendency of his system was adverse to it but for all that appears in his published writings, he could have approved and administered that form of the Hallway Covenant then current among the churches. John Fiske says of Jonathan Edwards’s preaching: “The prominence he gave to spiritual conversion, or what was called ‘change of heart,’ brought about the overthrow of the doctrine of the Halfway Covenant. It also weakened the logical basis of infant baptism and led to the winning of hosts of converts by the Baptists.”

Other Pedobaptist bodies than the Greek Church save part of the truth, at the expense of consistency, by denying participation in the Lord’s Supper to those baptized in infancy until they have reached years of understanding and have made a public profession of faith. Dr. Charles B.

Jefferson, at the International Congregational Council of Boston, September 1899, urged that the children of believers are already church members and that as such they are entitled, not only to baptism, but also to the Lord’s Supper — “an assertion that started much thought!”

Baptists may well commend Congregationalists to the teaching of their own Increase Mather, The Order of the Gospel (1700), 11 — “The Congregational Church discipline is not suited for a worldly interest or for a formal generation of professors. It will stand or fall as godliness in the power of it does prevail or otherwise. If the begun Apostasy should proceed as fast the next thirty years as it has done these last, surely it will come that in New England (except the gospel itself depart with the order of it) that the most conscientious people therein will think themselves concerned to gather churches out of churches.” How much of Judaistic externalism may linger among nominal Christians is shown by the fact that in the Armenian Church animal sacrifices survived, or were permitted to converted heathen priests, in order they might not lose their livelihood. These sacrifices continued in other regions of Christendom, particularly in the Greek Church and Pope Gregory the Great permitted them. See Conybeare, in Am. Jour. Theology, Jan. 1893:62-90. In The Key of Truth, a manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia, whose date in its present form is between the seventh and the ninth centuries, we have the Adoptianist view of Christ’s person and of the subjects and the mode of baptism. “Thus also the Lord, having learned from the Father, proceeded to teach us to perform baptism and all other commandments at the age of full growth and at no other time. For some have broken and destroyed the holy and precious canons which by the Father Almighty were delivered to our Lord Jesus Christ and have trodden them underfoot with their devilish teaching, baptizing those who are irrational and communicating the unbelieving.”

Minority is legally divided into three separate tenets. 1. From the first to the seventh year, the age of complete irresponsibility, in which the child cannot commit a crime. 2. From the seventh to the fourteenth year, the age of partial responsibility, in which intelligent consciousness of the consequences of actions is not assumed to exist, but may be proved in individual instances. 3. From the fourteenth to the twenty-first year is the age of discretion.

This is the age in which the person is responsible for criminal action, may choose a guardian, make a will, marry with consent of parents, make business contracts not wholly void. This person is not yet permitted fully to assume the free man’s position in the State. The church however is not bound by these hard and fast rules. Wherever it has evidence of conversion and of Christian character, it may admit to baptism and church membership, even at a very tender age. (c) The rise of infant baptism in the history of the church is due to sacramental conceptions of Christianity, so that all arguments in its favor from the writings of the first three centuries are equally arguments for baptismal regeneration.

Neander’s view may be found in Kitto, Cyclopædia, 1:287 — “Infant baptism was established neither by Christ nor by his apostles. Even in later times Tertullian opposed it, the North African church holding to the old practice.” The newly discovered Teaching of the Apostles, which Bryennios puts at A. D.140-100 and Lightfoot at A. D. 80-110, seems to know nothing of infant baptism.

Professor A. H. Newman, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1884 — “Infant baptism has always gone hand in hand with State churches. It is difficult to conceive how an ecclesiastical establishment could be maintained without infant baptism or its equivalent. We should think, if the facts did not show us so plainly the contrary, that the doctrine of justification by faith alone would displace infant baptism. But no. The establishment must be maintained.

The rejection of infant baptism implies insistence upon a baptism of believers. Only the baptized are properly members of the church. Even adults would not all receive baptism on professed faith, unless they were actually compelled to do so. Infant baptism must therefore be retained as the necessary concomitant of a State church. “But what becomes of the justification by faith? Baptism, if it symbolizes anything, symbolizes regeneration. It would be ridiculous to make the symbol to forerun the fact by a series of years. Luther saw the difficulty but he was sufficient for the emergency. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘justification is by faith alone. No outward rite, apart from faith, has any efficacy.’ Why, it was against opera operata that he was laying out all his strength. Yet baptism is the symbol of regeneration and baptism must be administered to infants or the State church falls. With an audacity truly sublime, the great reformer declares that infants are regenerated in connection with baptism and that they are simultaneously justified by personal faith. An infant eight days old believe? ‘Prove the contrary if you can!’ triumphantly ejaculates Luther, and his point is gained. If this kind of personal faith is said to justify infants, is it wonderful that those of more mature years leaned to take a somewhat superficial view of the faith that justifies?”

Yet Luther had written: “Whatever is without the word of God is by that very fact against God.” See his Briefe, ed. DeWette, 11:292; J. G. Walch, De Fide in Utero. There was great discordance between Luther as reformer and Luther as conservative churchman. His Catholicism, only half overcome, broke into all his views of faith. In his early years, he stood for reason and Scripture, in his later years he fought reason and Scripture in the supposed interest of the church. Matthew 18:10 — “See that ye despise not one of these little ones” — which refers not to little children but to childlike believers. Luther adduces as a proof of infant baptism, holding that the child is said to believe — “little ones that believe on me”(verse 6) — because it has been circumcised and received into the number of the elect. “And so, through baptism, children become believers. How else could the children of Turks and Jews be distinguished from those of Christians?” Does this involve the notion that infants dying without having been baptized are lost? To find the very apostle of justification by faith saying that a little child becomes a believer by being baptized, is humiliating and disheartening (so Broadus. Com. on Matthew, page 334, note).

Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:342-345, quotes from Lang as follows: “By mistaking and casting down the Protestant spirit which put forth its demands on the time in Carlstadt, Zwingle and others, Luther made Protestantism lose its salt. He inflicted wounds upon it from which it has not yet recovered today and the ecclesiastical struggle of the present is just a struggle of spiritual freedom against Lutherism.” E. G. Robinson: “Infant baptism is a rag of Romanism. Since regeneration is always through the truth, baptismal regeneration is an absurdity.” See Christian Review, Jan. 1851; Neander, Church History, 1:311, 313; Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 258-260; Arnold, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:32; Hovey, in Bap. Quarterly, 1871:75. (d) The reasoning by which it is supported is unscriptural, unsound and dangerous in its tendency.

First, in assuming the power of the church to modify or abrogate a command of Christ. This has been sufficiently answered above. Secondly, in maintaining that infant baptism takes the place of circumcision under the Abrahamic covenant. To this we reply that the view contradicts the New Testament idea of the church, by making it a hereditary body, in which fleshly birth and not the new birth, qualifies for membership. “As the national Israel typified the spiritual Israel, so the circumcision which immediately followed, not preceded natural birth, bids us baptize children, not before but after spiritual birth.” Thirdly, in declaring that baptism belongs to the infant because of an organic connection of the child with the parent, which permits the latter to stand for the former and to make profession of faith for it, germinal faith already existing in the child by virtue of this organic union and certain for the same reason to be developed the child grows to maturity. “A law of organic connection as regards and the child, such a connection as induces the conviction that the character of the one is actually included the character of the other, as the seed is formed in the capsule.” We object to this view that it unwarrantably confounds the personality of the child with that of the parent. It practically ignores the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s regenerating influences in the case of children of Christian parents and presumes in such children, a gracious state which facts conclusively show not to exist.

What takes the place of circumcision is not baptism but regeneration.

Paul defeated the attempt to fasten circumcision on the church, when he refused to have that rite performed on Titus. But later Judaizers succeeded in perpetuating circumcision under the form of infant baptism, and afterward of infant sprinkling (McGarvey, Com. on Acts). E. G.

Robinson: “Circumcision is not a type of baptism. It is purely a gratuitous assumption that it is so. There is not a word in Scripture to authorize it.

Circumcision was a national, a theocratic and not a personal, religious rite. If circumcision is a type, why did Paul circumcise Timothy? Why did he not explain, on an occasion so naturally calling for it, that circumcision was replaced by baptism?”

On the theory that baptism takes the place of circumcision, see Pepper, Baptist Quarterly, April, 1857; Palmer, in Baptist Quarterly, 1871:314.

The Christian Church is either a natural or hereditary body or it was merely typified by the Jewish people. In the former case, baptism belongs to all children of Christian parents and the church is indistinguishable from the world. In the latter case, it belongs to spiritual descendants only and therefore only to true believers. “That Jewish Christians, who of course had been circumcised, were also baptized and that a large number of them insisted that Gentiles who had been baptized should also be circumcised, shows conclusively that baptism did not take the place of circumcision. The notion that the family is the unit of society is a relic of barbarism. This appears in the Roman law, which was good for property but not for persons. It left none but a servile station to wife or son, thus degrading society at the fountain of family life. To gain freedom, the Roman wife had to accept a form of marriage which opened the way for unlimited liberty of divorce.”

Hereditary church membership is of the same piece with hereditary priesthood, and both are relics of Judaism. J. J. Murphy, Nat. Selection and Spir. Freedom, 81 — “The institution of hereditary priesthood, which was so deeply rooted in the religions of antiquity and was adopted into Judaism, has found no place in Christianity. There is not, I believe, any church whatever calling itself by the name of Christ, in which the ministry is hereditary.” Yet there is a growing disposition to find in infant baptism the guarantee of hereditary church membership. Washington Gladden, What is Left? 252-254 — “Solidarity of the generations finds expression in infant baptism. Families ought to be Christian and not individuals only.

In the Society of Friends every one born of parents belonging to the Society is a birthright member. Children of Christian parents are heirs of the kingdom. The State recognizes that our children are organically connected with it. When parents are members of the State, children are not aliens. They are not called to perform duties of citizenship until a certain age but the rights and privileges of citizenship are theirs from the moment of their birth. The State is the mother of her children. Shall the church be less motherly than the State? Baptism does not make the child God’s child; it simply recognizes and declares the fact.”

Another illustration of what we regard as a radically false view is found in the sermon of Bishop Grafton of Fond du Lac, at the consecration of Bishop Nicholson in Philadelphia. “Baptism is not like a function in the natural order, like the coronation of a king. It is an acknowledgment of what the child already is. The child, truly God’s loved offspring by way of creation, is in baptism translated into the new creation and incorporated into the Incarnate One and made his child.” Yet, as the great majority of the inmates of our prisons and the denizens of the slums have received this ‘baptism,’ it appears that this ‘loved offspring’ very early lost its ‘new creation’ and got ‘translated’ in the wrong direction. We regard infant baptism as only an ancient example of the effort to bring in the kingdom of God by externals, the protest against which brought Jesus to the cross.

Our modern methods of salvation by sociology and education and legislation are under the same indictment, as crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting him to open shame.

Prof. Moses Stuart urged that the form of baptism was immaterial but that the temper of heart was the thing of moment. Francis Wayland, then a student of his, asked: “If such is the case, with what propriety can baptism be administered to those who cannot be supposed to exercise any temper of heart at all and with whom the form must be everything?” — Bushnell, in his Christian Nurture,-90-223, elaborates the third theory of organic connection of the child with its parents. Per contra, see Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Times, 179, 211; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 262. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh was not godly and it would be rash to say that all the drunkard’s children are presumptively drunkards. (e) The lack of agreement among Pedobaptists as to the warrant for infant baptism and as to the relation of baptized infants to the church, together with the manifest decline of the practice itself, are arguments against it.

The propriety of infant baptism is variously argued, says Dr. Bushnell, upon the ground of “natural innocence, inherited depravity and federal holiness. Because of the infant’s own character, the parent’s piety and the church’s faith, for the reason that the child is an heir of salvation already and in order to make it such, no settled opinion on infant baptism and on Christian nurture has ever been attained to.”

Quot homines, tot sententiæ. The belated traveler in a thunderstorm prayed for a little more light and less noise. Bushnell, Christian Nurture, 9-89, denies original sin, denies that hereditary connection can make a child guilty. But he seems to teach transmitted righteousness or that hereditary connection can make a child holy. He disparages “sensible experiences” and calls them “explosive conversions.” But, because we do not know the time of conversion, shall we say that there never was a time when the child experienced God’s grace? See Bibliotheca Sacra, 1872:665. Bushnell said: “I don’t know what right we have to say that a child can’t be born again before he is born the first time.” Did not John the Baptist preach Christ before he was born? ( Luke 1:15,41,44).

The answer to Bushnell is simply this: regeneration is through the truth and an unborn child cannot know the truth. To disjoin regeneration from the truth is to make it a matter of external manipulation in which the soul is merely passive and the whole process irrational. There is a secret work of God in the soul but it is always accompanied by an awakening of the soul to perceive the truth and to accept Christ.

Are baptized infants members of the Presbyterian Church? We answer by citing the following standards: 1. The Confession of Faith, 25:2 — “The visible church... consists of all those throughout the world, that profess the true religion, together with their children.” 2. The Larger Catechism, 62 — “The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.” 166 — “Baptism is not to be administered to any that are not of the visible church...till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him but Infants descending from parents either both or but one of them professing faith in Christ and obedience to him are in that respect within the covenant and are to be baptized.” 3. The Shorter Catechism, 96 — “Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized.” 4. Form of Government,3 — “A particular church consists of a number of professing Christians, with their offspring.” 5. Directory for Worship,1 — “Children born within the pale of the visible church and dedicated to God in baptism are under the inspection and government of the church. When they come to years of discretion, if they be free from scandal, appear sober and steady, and to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, they ought to be informed it is their duty and their privilege to come to the Lord’s Supper.”

The Maplewood Congregational Church of Maiden, Mass., enrolls as members as children baptized by the church. The relation continues until they indicate a desire either to continue it or to dissolve it. The list of such members is kept distinct from that of the adults but they are considered as members under the care of the church.

Dr. W. G. 2 Shedd: “The infant of a believer is born into the church as the infant of a citizen is born into the State. A baptized child in adult years may renounce his baptism, become an infidel and join the synagogue of Satan, but until he does this, he must be regarded as a member of the church of Christ.”

On the Decline of Infant Baptism, see Vedder, in Baptist Review, April, 1882:173-189, who shows that in fifty years past the proportion of infant baptisms to communicants in general, has decreased from one in seven to one in eleven. Among the Reformed, the proportion has decreased from one in twelve to one in twenty, among the Presbyterians it has gone from one in fifteen to one in thirty-three. Among the Methodists it has dropped from one in twenty-two to one in twenty-nine and among the Congregationalists it is from one in fifty to one in seventy-seven. (f) The evil effects of infant baptism are a strong argument against it:

First, in forestalling the voluntary act of the child baptized, and thus practically preventing his personal obedience to Christ’s commands.

The person baptized in infancy has never performed any act with intent to obey Christ’s command to be baptized, never has put forth a single volition looking toward obedience to that command. See Wilkinson, The Baptist Principle, 40-46. Every man has the right to choose his own wife. So every man has the right to choose his own Savior.

Secondly, in inducing superstitious confidence in an outward rite as possessed of regenerating efficacy.

French parents still regard infants before baptism as only animals (Stanley). The haste with which the minister is summoned to baptize the dying child shows that superstition still lingers in many an otherwise evangelical family in our own country. The English Prayerbook declares that in baptism the infant is “made a child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” Even the Westminster Assembly’s Catechism, 28:6, holds that grace is actually conferred in baptism, though the efficacy of it is delayed till riper years. Mercersburg Review: “The objective medium or instrumental cause of regeneration is baptism. Men are not regenerated outside the church and then brought into it for preservation but they are regenerated by being incorporated with or engrafted into the church through the sacrament of baptism.” Catholic Review: “Without baptism, these little ones go into darkness but baptized, they rejoice in the presence of God forever.”

Dr. Beebe of Hamilton went after a minister to baptize his sick child but before he returned the child died. Reflection made him a Baptist and the Editor of The Examiner. Baptists unhesitatingly permit converts to die without baptism, showing plainly that they do not regard baptism as essential to salvation. Baptism no more makes one a Christian than putting a crown on one’s head makes him a king. Zwingle held to a symbolic interpretation of the Lord’s Supper but he clung to the sacramental conception of Baptism. E. H. Johnson, Uses and Abuses of Ordinances,33, claims that, while baptism is not a justifying or regenerating ordinance, it is a sanctifying ordinance, sanctifying, in the sense of setting apart. Yes, we reply, but only as church going and prayer are sanctifying; the efficacy is not in the outward act but in the spirit which accompanies it. To make it signify more is to admit the sacramental principle.

In the Roman Catholic Church the baptism of bells and of rosaries shows how infant baptism has induced the belief that grace can be communicated to irrational and even material things. In Mexico people bring caged birds, cats, rabbits, donkeys and pigs for baptism. The priest kneels before the altar in prayer, reads a few words in Latin then sprinkles the creature with holy water. The sprinkling is supposed to drive out any evil spirit that may have vexed the bird or beast. In Key West, Florida, a town of 22,000 inhabitants, infant baptism has a stronger hold than anywhere else does at the South. Baptist parents had sometimes gone to the Methodist preachers to have their children baptized. To prevent this, the Baptist pastors established the custom of laying their hands upon the heads of infants in the congregation, and ‘blessing’ them, i.e ., asking God’s blessing to rest upon them. But this custom came to be confounded with christening and was called such. Now the Baptist pastors are having a hard struggle to explain and limit the custom, which they themselves have introduced.

Perverse human nature will take advantage of even the slightest additions to N. T. prescriptions and will bring out of the germs of false doctrine a fearful harvest of evil. Obsta principiis — “Resist beginnings.”

Thirdly, in obscuring and corrupting Christian truth with regard to the sufficiency of Scripture, the connection of the ordinances and the inconsistency of an impenitent life with church membership.

Infant baptism in England is followed by confirmation, as a matter of course whether there has been any conscious abandonment of sin or not.

In Germany, a man is always understood to be a Christian unless he expressly states to the contrary. In fact, he feels insulted if his Christianity is questioned. At the funerals even of infidels and debauchees the pall used may be inscribed with the words: “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.” Confidence in one’s Christianity and hopes of heaven based only on the fact of baptism in infancy are a great obstacle to evangelical preaching and to the progress of true religion.

Wordsworth, The Excursion, 596, 602 (book 5) — “At the baptismal font. And when the pure And consecrating element hath cleansed The original stain, the child is thus received Into the second ark, Christ’s church, with trust That he, from wrath redeemed therein shall float Over the billows of this troublesome world To the fair land of everlasting life...The holy rite That lovingly consigns the babe to the arms Of Jesus and his everlasting care.” Infant baptism arose in the superstitious belief that there lay in the water itself a magical efficacy for the washing away of sin and that apart from baptism there could be no salvation. This was and still remains the Roman Catholic position. Father Doyle, in Anno Domini, 2:182 — “Baptism regenerates. By means of it the child is born again into the newness of the supernatural life.” Theodore Parker was baptized, but not till he was four years old, when his “Oh, don’t!” — In which his biographers have found prophetic intimation of his mature dislike for all conventional forms — was clearly the small boy’s dislike of water on his face. See Chadwick, Theodore Parker, 6, 7. “How do you know, my dear, that you have been christened?” “Please, mum, ‘cos I’ve got the marks on my arm now, mum!”

Fourthly, in destroying the church as a spiritual body, by merging it in the nation and the world.

Ladd, Principles of Church Polity: “Unitarianism entered the Congregational churches of New England through the breach in one of their own avowed and most important tenets, namely that of a regenerate church membership. Formalism, indifferentism, neglect of moral reforms and, as both cause and results of these, an abundance of unrenewed men and women were the causes of their seeming disasters in that sad epoch.”

But we would add that the serious and alarming decline of religion, which culminated in the Unitarian movement in New England, had its origin in infant baptism. This introduced into the church a multitude of unregenerate persons and permitted them to determine its doctrinal position.

W. B. Matteson: “No one practice of the church has done so much to lower the tone of its life and to debase its standards. Godly and regenerated men established the first New England Churches. They received into their churches, through infant baptism, children presumptively but alas not actually, regenerated. The result is well known swift, startling, seemingly irresistible decline. ‘The body of the rising generation,’ writes Increase Mother, ‘is a poor perishing, inconverted, and, except the Lord pour out his Spirit, an undone generation.’ The ‘Halfway Covenant’ was at once a token of preceding, and a cause of further decline. If God had not indeed poured out his Spirit in the great awakening under Edwards, New England might well, as some feared, ‘be lost even to New England and buried in its own ruins.’ It was the new emphasis on personal religion, an emphasis, which the Baptists of that day largely contributed, that gave to the New England churches a larger life and a larger usefulness. Infant baptism has never since held quite the same place in the polity of those churches. It has very generally declined.

But it is still far from extinct, even among evangelical Protestants. The work of Baptists is not yet done. Baptists have always stood, but they need still to stand, for a believing and regenerated church membership.”

Fifthly, in putting into the place of Christ’s command a commandment of men, and so admitting the essential principle of all heresy, schism, and false religion.

There is therefore no logical halting place between the Baptist and the Romanist positions. The Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes of New York, said well to a Presbyterian minister: “We have no controversy with you. Our controversy is with the Baptists.” Lange of Jena: “Would the Protestant church fulfill and attain to its final destiny, the baptism of infants must of necessity be abolished.” The English Judge asked the witness what his religious belief was. Reply: “I haven’t any.” “Where do you attend church?” “Nowhere.” “Put him down as belonging to the Church of England.” The small child was asked where her mother was.

Reply:” She has gone to a Christian and devil meeting.” The child meant a Christian Endeavor meeting. Some systems of doctrine and ritual however, answer her description, for they are a mixture of paganism and Christianity. The greatest work favoring the doctrine, which we here condemn is Wall’s History of Infant Baptism. For the Baptist side of the controversy see Arnold, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 160-182; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 274, 275; Dagg, Church Order, 144-202.

II. LORD’S SUPPER.

The Lord’s Supper is that outward rite in which the assembled church eats bread broken and drinks wine poured forth by its appointed representative, in token of its constant dependence on the once crucified, now risen Savior, as source of its spiritual life. In other words, in token of that abiding communion of Christ’s death and resurrection through which the life begun in regeneration is sustained and perfected.

Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, 31, 33, says that the Scripture nowhere speaks of the wine as “poured forth”; and in 1 Corinthians 11:14 — “my body which is broken for you,” the Revised Version omits the word “broken” while, on the other hand, the Gospel according to John (19:36) calls special attention to the fact that Christ’s body was not broken. We reply that Jesus, in giving his disciples the cup did speak of his blood as “poured out” ( Mark 14:24); and it was not the body, but “a bone of him,” which was not to be broken. Many ancient manuscripts add the word “broken” in 1 Corinthians 11:24. in the Lord’s Supper in general, see Weston, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 183-195; Dagg, Church Order, 203-214. 1. The Lord’s Supper an ordinance instituted by Christ. (a) Christ appointed an outward rite to be observed by his disciples in remembrance of his death. It was to be observed after his death; only after his death could it completely fulfill its purpose as a feast of commemoration. Luke 22:19 — “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. And the cup in like manner after supper, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, even that which is poured out for you”; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 — “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. In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” Observe that this communion was Christian communion before Christ’s death, just as John’s baptism was Christian baptism before Christ’s death. (b) From the apostolic injunction with regard to its celebration in the church until Christ’s Second Coming, we infer that it was the original intention of our Lord to institute a rite of perpetual and universal obligation. 1 Corinthians 11:26 — “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come”; cf . Matthew 26:29 — “But I say unto you, I shall not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom”; Mark l4:25 — “Verily I say unto you, I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” As the paschal supper continued until Christ came the first time in the flesh, so the Lord’s Supper is to continue until he comes the second time with all the power and glory of God. (c) The uniform practice of the N.T. churches and the celebration of such a rite in subsequent ages by almost all churches professing to be Christian, is best explained upon the supposition that the Lord’s Supper is an ordinance established by Christ. Acts 2:42 — “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers”; 46 — “And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart” — on the words here translated “at home” kat oi=kon` but meaning, as Jacob maintains, “from one worship room to another,” see page 961. Acts 20:7 — “And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them”; Corinthians 10:16 — “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? Seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body for we all partake of the one bread.” 2. The Mode of administering the Lord’s Supper. (a) The elements are bread and wine.

Although the bread, which Jesus broke at the institution of the ordinance, was doubtless the unleavened bread of the Passover, there is nothing in the symbolism of the Lord’s Supper, which necessitates the Romanist use of the wafer. Although the wine, which Jesus poured out, was doubtless the ordinary fermented juice of the grape, there is nothing in the symbolism of the ordinance, which forbids the use of unfermented juice of the grape. Obedience to the command “This do in remembrance of me” ( Luke 22:19) requires only that we should use the “fruit of the vine” ( Matthew 26:29).

Huguenots and Roman Catholics, among Parkman’s Pioneers of Prance in the New World, disputed whether the sacramental bread could be made of the meal of Indian corn. But it is only as food that the bread is symbolic.

Dried fish is used in Greenland. The bread only symbolizes Christ’s life and the wine only symbolizes his death. Any food or drink may do the same. It therefore seems a very conscientious but unnecessary literalism, when Adoniram Judson (Life by his Son, 352) writes from Burma: “No wine to be procured in this place, on which account we are unable to meet with the other churches this day in partaking of the Lord’s Supper.” For proof that Bible wines, like all other wines, are fermented, see Presb.

Rev., 1881:80-114; 1882:78-108, 394-399, 586; Hovey, in Bap. Quar.

Rev., April, 1887:152-180. Per contra, see Samson, Bible Wines. On the Scripture Law of Temperance, see Presb. Rev., 1882:287-324. (b) The communion is of both kinds; that is, communicants are to partake both of the bread and of the wine.

The Roman Catholic Church withholds the wine from the laity although it considers the whole Christ to be present under each of the forms. Christ however, says: “Drink ye all of it” ( Matthew 26:27). To withhold the wine from any believer is disobedience to Christ, and is too easily understood as teaching that the laity have only a portion of the benefits of Christ’s death. Calvin: “As to the bread, he simply said ‘Take, eat’ Why does he expressly bid them all drink? And why does Mark explicitly say that ‘they all drank of it’ ( Mark 14:23)?” Bengel: Does not this suggest that, if communion in “one kind alone were sufficient at is the cup which should be used? The Scripture thus speaks, foreseeing what Rome would do.” See Expositor’s Greek Testament on 1 Corinthians 11:27.

In the Greek Church the bread and wine are mingled and are administered to communicants, not to infants only but also to adults, with a spoon. (c) The partaking of these elements is of a festal nature.

The Passover was festal in its nature. Gloom and sadness are foreign to the spirit of the Lord’s Supper. The wine is the symbol of the death of Christ but of that death by which we live. It reminds us that he drank the cup of suffering in order that we might drink the wine of joy. As the bread is broken to sustain our physical life, so thorns and nails and spear to nourish our spiritual life broke Christ’s body. 1 Corinthians 11:29 — “For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself; if he discern not the body.” Here the Authorized Version wrongly had “damnation” instead of “judgment.” Not eternal condemnation, but penal judgment in general, is meant. He who partakes “in an unworthy manner” (verse 27), i . e., in hypocrisy, or merely to satisfy bodily appetites, and not discerning the body of Christ of which the bread is the symbol (verse 29), draws down upon him God’s Judicial sentence. Of this judgment, the frequent sickness and death in the church at Corinth was a token. See versa 30-34 and Meyer’s Com.; also Gould, in Am. Com. on 1 Corinthians 11:27 — “unworthily” — “This is not to be understood as referring to the unworthiness of the person himself to partake, but to the unworthy manner of partaking. The failure to recognize practically the symbolism of the elements, and hence the treatment of the Supper as a common meal, is just what the apostle has pointed out as the fault of the Corinthians and it is what he characterizes as an unworthy eating and drinking.” The Christian therefore should not be deterred from participation in the Lord’s Supper by any feeling of his personal unworthiness, so long as he trusts Christ and aims to obey him, for “All the fitness he requireth is to feel our need of him.” (d) The communion is a festival of commemoration, not simply bringing Christ to our remembrance, but making proclamation of his death to the world. 1 Corinthians 11:24,26 — “this do in remembrance of me...For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this clip, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.” As the Passover commemorated the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and as the Fourth of July commemorates our birth as a nation, so the Lord’s Supper commemorates the birth of the church in Christ’s death and resurrection. As a mother might bid her children meet over her grave and commemorate her; so Christ bids his people meet and remember him. But subjective remembrance is not its only aim. It is public proclamation also. Whether it brings perceptible blessing to us or not, it is to be observed as a means of confessing Christ, testifying our faith and publishing the fact of his death to others. (e) It is to be celebrated by the assembled church. It is not a solitary observance on the part of individuals. No “showing forth” is possible except in company. Acts 20:7 — “gathered together to break bread”; 1 Corinthians 11:18,20,22,32,34 — “when ye come together in the church...assemble yourselves together...have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and put them to shame that have not?...when ye come together to eat...If any man is hungry, let him eat at home; that your coming together be not unto judgment” Jacob, Ecclesiastical Polity of N. T., 191-194, claims that in Acts 2:40 — “breaking bread at home” — where we have oi=kov , not oijiki>a , oi=kov is not a private house, but a ‘worship room,’ and that the phrase should be translated “breaking bread from one worship room to another,” or “in various worship-rooms.” This meaning seems very apt in Acts 5:42 — “And every day, in the temple and at home [rather, ‘in various worship rooms’], they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ”; 8:3 — “But Saul laid waste the church, entering into every house [rather, ‘every worship room’] and dragging men and women committed them to prison”; Romans 16:5 — “salute the church that is in their house [rather, ‘in their worship room’]”; Titus 1:11 — “men who overthrow whole houses (rather, ‘whole worship rooms’] teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.” Per contra, however, see 1 Corinthians 11:34 — “let him eat at home,” where oi=kov is contrasted with the place of meeting; so also 1 Corinthians 14:35 and Acts 20:20, where oi=kov ; seems to mean a private house.

The celebration of the Lord’s Supper in each family by itself is not recognized in the New Testament. Stanley, In Nineteenth Century, May 1878, tells us that as infant communion is forbidden in the Western Church, evening communion is forbidden by the Roman Church, solitary communion is forbidden by the English Church and deathbed communion by the Scottish Church. E. G. Robinson: “No single individual in the New Testament ever celebrates the Lord’s Supper by himself.” Mrs. Browning recognized the essentially social nature of the ordinance when she said that truth was like the bread at the Sacrament — to be passed on. In this the Supper gives us a type of the proper treatment of all the goods of life, both temporal and spiritual.

Dr. Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, claims that the Lord’s Supper is no more an exclusively church ordinance than is singing or prayer and that the command to observe it was addressed, not to an organized, church, but only to individuals. Every meal in the home was to be a Lord’s Supper, because Christ was remembered in it. But we reply that Paul’s letter with regard to the abuses of the Lord’s Supper was addressed, not to individuals, but to “the church of God, which is at Corinth.” ( 1 Corinthians 1:2). Paul reproves the Corinthians because in the Lord’s Supper each ate without thought of others: “What, have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and put them to shame that have not?” (11:22). Each member having appeased his hunger at home, the members of the church “come together to eat” (11:30), as the spiritual body of Christ. All this shows that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper was not an appendage to every ordinary meal.

In Acts 20:7 — “upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paid discoursed with them” — the natural inference is that the Lord’s Supper was a sacred rite, observed apart from any ordinary meal and accompanied by religious instruction.

Dr. Fox would go back of these later observances to the original command of our Lord. He would eliminate all that we do not find in Mark, the earliest gospel. But this would deprive us of the Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the Prodigal Son and the discourses of the fourth gospel. McGiffert gives A. D. 52, as the date of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and this antedates Mark’s gospel by at least thirteen years.

Paul’s account of the Lord’s Supper at Corinth is therefore an earlier authority than Mark. (f) The responsibility of seeing that the ordinance is properly administered rests with the church as a body and the pastor is, in this matter, the proper representative and organ of the church. In cases of extreme exigency, however, as where the church has no pastor and no ordained minister can be secured, it is competent for the church to appoint one from its own number to administer the ordinance. 1 Corinthians 11:2,23 — “Now I praise you that ye remember me in all things, and hold fast the tradition even as I delivered them to you...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.” Here the responsibility of administering the Lord’s Supper is laid upon the body of believers. (g) The frequency with which the Lord’s Supper is to be administered is not indicated either by the N. T. precept or by uniform N. T. example. We have instances both of its daily and of its weekly observance. With respect to this, as well as with respect to the accessories of the ordinance, the church is to exercise a sound discretion. Acts 2:46 — “And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home [or perhaps, ‘in various worship rooms’]”; 20:7 — “And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread.” In 1878, thirty-nine churches of the Establishment in London held daily communion; in two churches it was held twice each day. A few churches of the Baptist faith in England and America celebrate the Lord’s Supper on each Lord’s day. Carlstadt would celebrate the Lord’s Supper only in companies of twelve and held also that every bishop must marry. Reclining on couches and meeting in the evening are not commanded and both, by their inconvenience, might in modern times counteract the design of the ordinance. 3. The Symbolism of the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper sets forth, in general, the death of Christ as the sustaining power of the believer’s life.

A. Expansion of this statement. (a) It symbolizes the death of Christ for our sins. 1 Corinthians 11:26 — “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come”; cf. Mark 14:24 — “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” The blood upon which the covenant between God and Christ, and so between God and us who are one with Christ, from eternity past was based. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of the covenant, which ensures our salvation and of the atonement upon which the covenant was based. Cf. Hebrews 13:20 — “blood of an eternal covenant” Alex. McLaren: “The suggestion of a violent death, implied in the doubling of the symbols, by which the body is separated from that of the blood, and still further implied in the breaking of the bread, is made prominent in the words in reference to the cup. It symbolizes the blood of Jesus which is ‘shed.’ That shed blood is covenant blood. By it the New Covenant, of which Jeremiah had prophesied, one article of which was, “Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more,” is sealed and ratified, not for Israel only but for an indefinite ‘many,’ which is really equivalent to all. Could words more plainly declare that Christ’s death was a sacrifice? Can we understand it, according to his own interpretation of it, unless we see in his words here a reference to his previous words ( Matthew 20:23) and recognize that in shedding his blood ‘for many,’ he ‘gave his life a ransom for many’? The Lord’s Supper is the standing witness, voiced by Jesus himself, that he regarded his death as the very center of his work and that he regarded it not merely as a martyrdom, but as a sacrifice by which he put away sins forever. Those who reject that view of that death are sorely puzzled what to make of the Lord’s Supper.” (b) It symbolizes our personal appropriation of the benefits of that death. 1 Cor 11:24 — “This is my body, which is for you”; cf. Corinthians 5:7 — “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us”; or R. V. — “our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ.” Here it is evident not only that the showing forth of the Lord’s death is the primary meaning of the ordinance, but that showing our partaking of the benefits of that death is as dearly taught as the Israelites’ deliverance was symbolized in the paschal supper. (c) It symbolizes the method of this appropriation, through union with Christ himself. 1 Corinthians 10:16 — “The cup of blessing which we bless is it not a communion of [margin: ‘participation in’] the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of [margin: ‘participation in’] the body of Christ?” Here “is it not a participation” = ‘does it not symbolize the participation?’ So Matthew 25:26 — “this is my body” = ‘this symbolizes my body.’ (d) It symbolizes the continuous dependence of the believer for all spiritual life upon the once crucified, now living Savior, to whom he is thus united. Cf. John 6:53 — “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.” Here is a statement, not with regard to the Lord’s Supper, but with regard to spiritual union with Christ, which the Lord’s Supper only symbolizes. See page 965, (a). Like Baptism, the Lord’s Supper presupposes and implies evangelical faith, especially faith in the Deity of Christ. Not all that partake of it realize its full meaning but that this participation logically implies the five great truths of Christ’s preexistence, his supernatural birth, his vicarious atonement, his literal resurrection and his living presence with his followers. Because Ralph Waldo Emerson perceived that the Lord’s Supper implied Christ’s omnipresence and deity, he would no longer celebrate it and so broke with his church and with the ministry. (e) It symbolizes the sanctification of the Christian through a spiritual reproduction in him of the death and resurrection of the Lord. Romans 8:10 — “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness”; Philippians 3:10 — “that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.” The bread of life nourishes; it transforms me, not I it. (f) It symbolizes the consequent union of Christians in Christ their head. 1 Corinthians 10:17 — “seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body for we all partake of the one bread.” The Roman Catholic says that bread is the unity of many kernels, the wine the unity of many berries and all are changed into the body of Christ. We can adopt the former part of the statement without taking the latter. By being united to Christ, we become united to one another and the Lord’s Supper, as it symbolizes our common partaking of Christ, symbolizes also the consequent oneness of all in whom Christ dwells. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, ix — “As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and being gathered together became one, so may thy church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.” (g) It symbolizes the coming joy and perfection of the kingdom of God. Luke 22:18 — “for I say unto you, I shall not drink from henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come”; Mark 14:25 — “Verily I say unto you, I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God”. Matthew 26:29 — “But I say unto you, I shall not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my lather’s kingdom.”

Like Baptism, which points forward to the resurrection, the Lord’s Supper is anticipatory also.

It brings before us, not simply death but life, not simply past sacrifice but future glory. It points forward to the great festival, “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelations 19:9). Dorner: “Then Christ will keep the Supper anew with us and the hours of highest solemnity in this life are but a weak foretaste of the powers of the world to come.” See Madison Avenue Lectures, 178-216; The Lord’s Supper, a Clerical Symposium, by Pressense, Luthardt and English Divines.

B. Inferences from this statement (a) The connection between the Lord’s Supper and Baptism consists in this, that they both and equally are symbols of the death of Christ. In Baptism, we show forth the death of Christ as the procuring cause of our new birth into the kingdom of God. In the Lord’s Supper, we show forth the death of Christ as the sustaining power of our spiritual life after it has once begun. In the one, we honor the sanctifying power of the death of Christ, as in the other we honor its regenerating power. Thus both are parts of one whole, setting before us Christ’s death for men in its two great purposes and results.

If baptism symbolized purification only, there would be no point of connection between the two ordinances. Their common reference to the death of Christ binds the two together. (b) The Lord’s Supper is to be often repeated, as symbolizing Christ’s constant nourishment of the soul whose new birth was signified in Baptism.

Yet too frequent repetition may induce superstitious confidence in the value of communion as a mere outward form. (c) The Lord’s Supper, like Baptism, is the symbol of a previous state of grace. It has in itself no regenerating and no sanctifying power but is the symbol by which the relation of the believer to Christ, his sanctifier, is vividly expressed and strongly confirmed.

We derive more help from the Lord’s Supper than from private prayer.

Simply because it is an external rite, impressing the sense as well as the intellect, celebrated in company with other believers whose faith and devotion help our own and bringing before us the profoundest truths of Christianity — the death of Christ and our union with Christ in that death. (d) The blessing received from participation is therefore dependent upon, and proportioned to, the faith of the communicant, In observing the Lord’s Supper, we need to discern the body of the Lord, ( 1 Corinthians 11:29). To recognize the spiritual meaning of the ordinance and the presence of Christ, who through his deputed representatives gives to us the emblems and who nourishes and quickens our souls as these material things nourish and quicken the body. The faith, which thus discerns Christ, is the gift of the Holy Spirit. (e) The Lord’s Supper expresses primarily the fellowship of the believer, not with his brethren, but with Christ, his Lord.

The Lord’s Supper, like Baptism, symbolizes fellowship with the brethren only as consequent upon, and incidental to, fellowship with Christ. Just as we are all baptized ‘into one body” ( 1 Corinthians 12:13) only by being “baptized into Christ” ( Romans 6:3), so we commune with other believers in the Lord’s Supper, only as we commune with Christ. Christ’s words: “this do in remembrance of me” ( 1 Corinthians 11:24), bid us think, not of our brethren, but of the Lord. Baptism is not a test of personal worthiness. Nor is the Lord’s Supper a test of personal worthiness, either our own or that of others. It is not primarily an expression of Christian fellowship. Nowhere in the New Testament is it called a communion of Christians with one another. But it is called a communion of the body and blood of Christ ( 1 Corinthians 10:16) or in other words, a participation in him. Hence there is not a single cup, but many: “divide it among yourselves” ( Luke 22:17). Here is warrant for the individual communion cup. Most churches use more than one cup. If more than one, why not many? 1 Corinthians 11:26 — “as often as ye eat...ye proclaim the Lord’s death” — the Lord’s Supper is a teaching ordinance and is to be observed, not simply for the good that comes to the communicant and to his brethren, but for the sake of the witness which it gives to the world that the Christ who died for its sins now lives for its salvation. A. H. Ballard, on The Standard, Aug. 18, 1900, on 1 Corinthians 11:29 — “eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself if he discern not the body” — “He who eats and drinks and does not discern that he is redeemed by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, eats and drinks a double condemnation because he does not discern the redemption which is symbolized by the things which he eats and drinks. To turn his thought away from that sacrificial body to the company of disciples assembled is a grievous error, the error of all those who exalt the idea of fellowship or communion in the celebration of the ordinance.”

The offense of a Christian Brother therefore, even if committed against myself, should not prevent me from remembering Christ and communing with the Savior. I could not commune at all, if I had to vouch for the Christian character of all who sat with me. This does not excuse the church from effort to purge its membership from unworthy participants; it simply declares that the church’s failure to do this does not absolve any single member of it from his obligation to observe the Lord’s Supper. See Jacob, Ecclesiastical Polity of N. T., 285. 4. Erroneous views of the Lord’s Supper.

A. The Romanist view that the bread and wine are changed by priestly consecration into the very body and blood of Christ, that this consecration is a new offering of Christ’s sacrifice and that, by a physical partaking of the elements, the communicant receives saving grace from God. To this doctrine of “transubstantiation” we reply: (a) It rests upon a false interpretation of Scripture. In Matthew 26:26, “this is my body” means: “this is a symbol of my body.” Since Christ was with the disciples in visible form at the institution of the Supper, he could not have intended them to recognize the bread as being his literal body. “The body of Christ is present in the bread, just as it had been in the Passover lamb, of which the bread took the place” ( John 6:53 contains no reference to the Lord’s Supper, although it describes that spiritual union with Christ which the Supper symbolizes; cf. 63. In 1 Corinthians 10:16,17, koinwi>an tou~ sw>matov tou~ Cristou~ is a figurative expression for the spiritual partaking of Christ. In Mark 8:33, we are not to infer that Peter was actually “Satan,” nor does 1 Corinthians 12:12 prove that we are all Christs. (Cf. Gen. 41:26; 1 Corinthians 10:4). Matthew 26:28 — “This is my blood...which is poured out” cannot be meant to be taken literally, since Christ’s blood was not yet shed. Hence the Douay Version (Roman Catholic), without warrant, changes the tense and reads, which shall be shed.” At the institution of the Supper, it is not conceivable that Christ should hold his body in his own hands, and then break it to the disciples. There were not two bodies there. Zwingle: “The words of institution are not the mandatory ‘become’, they are only an explanation of the sign.” When I point to a picture and say, “This is George Washington,” I do not mean that the veritable body and blood of George Washington are before me. So when a teacher points to a map and says, “This is New York,” or when Jesus refers to John the Baptist, and says: “this is Elijah, that is to come” ( Matthew 11:14). Jacob, The Lord’s Supper, Historically Considered — “It originally marked, not a real presence, but a real absence of Christ as the Son of God made man.”

That is, a real absence of his body. Therefore the Supper, reminding us of his body, is to be observed in the church till he come ( 1 Corinthians 11:26). John 6:53 — “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves” must interpreted by verse 63 — “It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life.” 1 Corinthians 10:l6 — “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of [margin: ‘participation in] the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of [margin participation in’] the body of Christ?”

See Expositor’s Greek Testament, in loco; Mark 8:33 — “But be turning about, and seeing his disciples rebuked Peter, and saith, Get thee behind me, Satan”; 1 Corinthians 12:12 — “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.” cf. Gen. 41:26 — “The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one;” 1 Corinthians 10:4 — “they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ.”

Queen Elizabeth: “Christ was the Word that spake it: He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it, That I believe and take it.”

Yes, we say, but what does the Lord make it? Not his body, but only a symbol of his body. Sir Thomas More went back to the doctrine of transubstantiation, which the wisdom of his age was almost unanimous in rejecting. In his Utopia, written in earlier years, he had made deism the ideal religion. Extreme Romanism was his reaction from this former extreme. Bread and wine are mere remembrancers, as were the lamb and bitter herbs at the Passover. The partaker is spiritually affected by the bread and wine, only as was the pious Israelite in receiving the paschal symbols. See Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, 25, 42.

E. G. Robinson: “The greatest power in Romanism is its power of visible representation. Ritualism is only elaborate symbolism. It is interesting to remember that this prostration of the priest before the consecrated wafer is no part of even original Roman Catholicism.” Stanley, Life and Letters, 2:213 — “The pope, when he celebrates the communion, always stands in exactly the opposite direction [to that of modern ritualists], not with his back but with his face to the people, no doubt following the primitive usage.” So in Raphael’s picture of the Miracle of Bolsina, the priest is at the north end of the table, in the very attitude of a Protestant clergyman.

Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211 — “The unity of the bread, of which each enjoys a part, represents the unity of the body of Christ, which consists in the community of believers. If we are to speak of a presence of the body of Christ in the Lord’s Supper that can only be thought of in the sense of Paul, as pertaining to the mystical body, i e., the Christian Community. Augustine and Zwingle, who have expressed most clearly this meaning of the Supper, have therefore caught quite correctly the sense of the Apostle.”

Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, 40-53 — “The phrase ‘consecration of the elements’ is unwarranted. The leaven and the mustard seed were in no way consecrated when Jesus pronounced them symbols of divine things. The bread and wine are not arbitrarily appointed remembrancers; they are remembrancers in their very nature. There is no change in them. So every other loaf is a symbol, as well as that used in the Supper. When St. Patrick held up the shamrock, as the symbol of the Trinity, he meant that every such sprig was the same. Only the bread of the daily meal is Christ’s body. Only the washing of dirty feet is the fulfillment of Christ’s command. The loaf not eaten to satisfy hunger is not Christ’s symbolic body at all.” Here we must part company with Dr. Fox. We grant the natural fitness of the elements for which he contends.

But we hold also to a divine appointment of the bread and wine for a special and sacred use, even as the “bow in the cloud” ( Gen. 9:13) because it was a natural emblem, was consecrated to a special religious use. (b) It contradicts the evidence of the senses, as well as of all scientific tests that can be applied. If we cannot trust our senses as to the unchanged material qualities of bread and wine, we cannot trust them when they report to us the words of Christ.

Gibbon was rejoiced at the discovery that, while the real presence is attested by only a single sense, our sight [as employed in reading the words of Christ], the real presence is disproved by three of our senses, sight, touch, and taste. It is not well to purchase faith in this dogma at the price of absolute skepticism. Stanley, on Baptism, in his Christian Institutions, tells us that in the third and fourth centuries the belief that the water of baptism was changed into the blood of Christ. This was nearly as firmly and widely fixed as the belief that the bread and wine of the communion were changed into his flesh and blood. Dollinger: “When I am told that I must swear to the truth of these doctrines [of papal infallibility and apostolic succession] my feeling is just as if I were asked to swear that two and two make five and not four.” Teacher: “Why did Henry VIII quarrel with the pope?” Scholar: “Because the pope had commanded him to put away his wife on pain of transubstantiation.” The transubstantiation of Henry VIII is quite as rational as the transubstantiation of the bread and wine in the Eucharist. (c) It involves the denial of the completeness of Christ’s past sacrifice, and the assumption that a human priest can repeat or add to the atonement made by Christ once for all ( Hebrews 9:28 — ajpax prosenecqei>v).

The Lord’s Supper is never called a sacrifice nor are altars, priests or consecrations ever spoken of in the New Testament. The priests of the old dispensation are expressly contrasted with the ministers of the new. The former “ministered about sacred things,” i.e., performed sacred rites and waited at the altar but the latter “preach the gospel” ( 1 Corinthians 9:13,14). Hebrews 9:28 — “so Christ also, having been once offered” — here a[pax means ‘once for all,’ as in Jude 3 — “the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints”; 1 Corinthians 9:13,14 — “Know ye not that they that minister about sacred things eat of the things of the temple, and they that wait upon the altar have their portion with the altar? Even so did the Lord ordain that they that proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel.” Romanism introduces a mediator between the soul and Christ, namely, bread and wine, and the priest besides.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:680-687 (Syst. Doct. 4:146-163) — “Christ is thought of as at a distance and as represented only by the priest who offers anew his sacrifice. But Protestant doctrine holds to a perfect Christ, applying the benefits of the work which he long ago and once for all completed upon the cross.” Chillingworth: “Romanists hold that the validity of every sacrament but baptism depends upon its administration by a priest and without priestly absolution there is no assurance of forgiveness. But the intention of the priest is essential in pronouncing absolution, and the intention of the bishop is essential in consecrating the priest. How can any human being know that these conditions are fulfilled?” In the New Testament, on the other hand, Christ appears as the only priest and each human soul has direct access to him.

Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, 22 — “The adherence of the first Christians to the Mosaic law makes it plain that they did not hold the doctrine of the modern Church of Rome that the bread of the Supper is a sacrifice, the table an altar and the minister a priest. For the old altar, the old sacrifice and the old priesthood still remained and were still in their view appointed media of atonement with God. Of course they could not have believed in two altars, two priesthoods and two contemporaneous sets of sacrifices.” Christ is the only priest. A. A. Hodge, Popular Lectures, 257 — “The three central dangerous errors of Romanism and Ritualism are the perpetuity of the apostolate, the priestly character and offices of Christian ministers and the sacramental principle, or the depending upon sacraments, as the essential, initial, and ordinary channels of grace.” “Hierarchy,” says another, “is an infraction of the divine order; it imposes the weight of an outworn symbolism on the true vitality of the gospel. It is a remnant rent from the shroud of the dead past to enwrap the limbs of the living present.” (d) It destroys Christianity by externalizing it. Romanists make all other service a mere appendage to the communion. Physical and magical salvation is not Christianity but is essential paganism.

Council of Trent, Session vii, On Sacraments in General, Canon iv: “Ft any one saith that the sacraments of the New Testament are not necessary to salvation, but are superfluous, and that without them and without the desire thereof, men attain of through faith alone, the grace of justification.

Though all [the sacraments] are not indeed necessary for every individual, let him be anathema.” On Baptism, Canon iv: “If any one saith that the baptism which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the church doth, is not true baptism, let him be anathema.” Baptism, in the Romanist system, is necessary to salvation and baptism, even though administered by heretics, is an admission to the church. All baptized persons who, through no fault of their own, but from lack of knowledge or opportunity, are not connected outwardly with the true church, though they are apparently attached to some sect, yet in reality belong to the soul of the true church.

Many belong merely to the body of the Catholic Church, and are counted, as its members, but do not belong to its soul. So says Archbishop Lynch, of Toronto and Pius IX extended the doctrine of Invincible Ignorance so as to cover the case of every dissentient from the church whose life shows faith working by love.

Adoration of the Host (Latin hostia, victim) is a regular part of the service of the Mass. If the Romanist view were correct that the bread and wine were actually changed into the body and blood of Christ, we could not call this worship idolatry. Christ’s body in the sepulchre could not have been a proper object of worship, but it was so after his resurrection, when it became animated with a new and divine life. The Romanist error is that of holding that the priest has power to transform the elements; the worship of them follows as a natural consequence, and is none the less idolatrous for being based upon the false assumption that the bread and wine are really Christ’s body and blood.

The Roman Catholic system involves many absurdities but the central absurdity is that of making religion a matter of machinery and outward manipulation. Dr. R. S. MacArthur calls sacramentalism “the pipe line conception of grace.” There is no patent Romanist plumbing. Dean Stanley said that John Henry Newman “made immortality the consequence of frequent participation of the Holy Communion.” Even Faber made game of the notion and declared that it “degraded celebrations to be so many breadfruit trees.” It is this transformation of the Lord’s Supper into the Mass that turns the church into “the Church of the Intonement.” “Cardinal Gibbons,” it was once said, “makes his own God — the wafer.” His error is at the root of the super-sanctity and celibacy of the Romanist clergy and President Garrett forgot this when he made out the pass on his railway for “Cardinal Gibbons and wife.” Dr. C. H.

Parkhurst: “There is no more place for an altar in a Christian church than there is for a golden calf.” On the word “priest” in the N. T., see Gardiner, in O. T. Student, Nov. 1889:285-291; also Bowen, in Theol.

Monthly, Nov. 1889:316-329. For the Romanist view, see Council of Trent, session XIII. Canon III: per contra, see Calvin, Institutes, 2:585- 602; C. Hebert, The Lord’s Supper: History of Uninspired Teaching.

B. The Lutheran and High Church view, that the communicant, in partaking of the consecrated elements, eats the veritable body and drinks the veritable blood of Christ in and with the bread and wine, although the elements themselves do not cease to be material. To this doctrine of “consubstantiation” we object: (a) Scripture does not require the view. All the passages cited in its support may be better interpreted as referring to a partaking of the elements as symbols. If Christ’s body be ubiquitous, as this theory holds, we partake of it at every meal, as really as at the Lord’s Supper. (b) That the view is inseparable from the general sacramental system of which it forms a part. In imposing physical and material conditions of receiving Christ, it contradicts the doctrine of justification only by faith and changes the ordinance from a sign into a means of salvation. It involves the necessity of a sacerdotal order for the sake of properly consecrating the elements and logically tends to the Romanist conclusions of Ritualism and idolatry. (c) That it holds each communicant to be a partaker of Christ’s veritable body and blood, whether he be a believer or not. The result, in the absence of faith, is condemnation instead of salvation. Thus the whole character of the ordinance is changed from a festival occasion to one of mystery and fear and the whole gospel method of salvation is obscured.

Encyc. Britannica, art.: Luther, 15:81 — “Before the peasants’ war, Luther regarded the sacrament as a secondary matter, compared with the right view of faith. In alarm at this war and at Carlstadt’s mysticism, he determined to abide by the tradition of the church and to alter as little as possible. He could not accept transubstantiation and be sought a via media. Occam gave it to him. According to Occam, matter can be present first, when it occupies a distinct place by itself, excluding every other body, as two stones mutually exclude each other and, secondly, when it occupies the same space as another body at the same time. Everything, which is omnipresent must occupy the same space as other things, else it could not be ubiquitous. Hence con-substantiation involved no miracle.

Christ’s body was in the bread and wine naturally and was not brought into the elements by the priest. It brought a blessing, not because of Christ’s presence, but because of God’s promise that this particular presence of the body of Christ should bring blessings to the faithful partaker.” Broadus, Am. Com. on Matthew, 529 — “Luther does not say how Christ is in the bread and wine but his followers have compared his presence to that of heat or magnetism in iron. But how then could this presence be in the bread and wine separately?”

For the view here combated, see Gerhard, x:352 — “The bread, apart from the sacrament instituted by Christ, is not the body of Christ, and therefore it is ajrtolatri>a (bread worship) to adore the bread in these solemn processions” (of the Roman Catholic church). 897 — “Faith does not belong to the substance of the Eucharist. Hence it is not the faith of him who partakes that makes the bread a communication of the body of Christ nor on account of unbelief in him who partakes does the bread cease to be a communication of the body of Christ.” See also Sadler, Church Doctrine, 124-199; Pusey. Tract No. 90, of the Tractarian Series; Wilberforce, New Birth; Nevins, Mystical Presence. Per contra, see Calvin, Institutes, 2:525-584; G. P. Fisher, in Independent, May 1, 1884, Calvin differed from Luther in holding that Christ is received only by the believer. He differed from Zwingle in holding that Christ is truly, though spiritually, received.” See also E. G.

Robinson, in Baptist Quarterly, 1869:85-109; Rogers, Priests and Sacraments. Con-substantiation accounts for the doctrine of apostolic succession and for the universal Ritualism of the Lutheran Church.

Bowing at the name of Jesus however is not, as has been sometimes maintained, a relic of the papal worship of the Real Presence but is rather a reminiscence of the fourth century when controversies about the person of Christ rendered orthodox Christians peculiarly anxious to recognize Christ’s deity. “There is no ‘corner’ in divine grace” (C. H. Parkhurst). “All notions of a needed ‘priesthood,’ to bring us into connection with Christ, must yield to the truth that Christ is ever with us” (E. G. Robinson). “The priest was the conservative, the prophet the progressive. Hence, the conflict between them. Episcopalians like the idea of a priesthood but do not know what to do with that of prophet.” Dr. A. J. Gordon: “Ritualism, like eczema in the human body, is generally a symptom of a low state of the blood. As a rule, when the church becomes secularized, it becomes ritualized, while great revivals, pouring through the church, have almost always burst the liturgical bands and have restored it to the freedom of the Spirit.”

Puseyism, as defined by Pusey himself, means high thoughts of the two sacraments, high estimate of Episcopacy as God’s ordinance, high estimate of the visible church as the body wherein we are made and continue to be members of Christ. Additionally, it means regard for ordinances as directing our devotions and disciplining us, such as daily public prayers, fasts and feasts, regard for the visible part of devotion, such as the decoration of the house of God, which acts insensibly on the mind. It also means reverence for and deference to the ancient church, instead of the reformers, as the ultimate expounder of the meaning of our church.” Pusey declared that he and Maurice worshiped different Gods. 5. Prerequisites to Participation in the Lord’s Supper.

A. There are prerequisites. This we argue from the fact: (a) Christ enjoined the celebration of the Supper, not upon the world at large, but only upon his disciples. (b) The apostolic injunctions to Christians, to separate themselves from certain of their number imply a limitation of the Lord’s Supper to a narrower body, even among professed believers. (c) The analogy of Baptism, as belonging only to a specified class of persons, leads us to believe that the same is true of the Lord’s Supper.

The analogy of Baptism to the Lord’s Supper suggests a general survey of the connections between the two ordinances. 1. Both ordinances symbolize primarily the death of Christ. Secondarily, our spiritual death to sin because we are one with him. It, being absurd, where there is no such union, to make our Baptism the symbol of his death. 2. We are merged in Christ first in Baptism and then in the Supper Christ is more and more taken into us. Baptism = we in Christ, the Supper = Christ in us. 3. As regeneration is instantaneous and sanctification continues in time, so Baptism should be for once, the Lord’s Supper often or, the first single, the second frequent. 4. If one ordinance, the Supper, requires discernment of the Lord’s body, so does the other, the ordinance of Baptism. The subject of Baptism should know the meaning of his act. 5. The order of the ordinances teaches Christian doctrine, as the ordinances do. To partake of the Lord’s Supper before being baptized is to say in symbol that one can be sanctified without being regenerated. 6. Both ordinances should be public, as both “show forth” the Lord’s death and are teaching ordinances. No celebration of either one is to be permitted in private. 7. In both, the administrator does not act at his own option but is the organ of the church. Philip acts as organ of the church at Jerusalem when he baptizes the eunuch. 8. The ordinances stand by themselves and are not to be made appendages of other meetings or celebrations. They belong, not to associations or conventions, but to the local church. 9. The Lord’s Supper needs scrutiny of the communicant’s qualifications as much as Baptism and only the local church is the proper judge of these qualifications. 10. We may deny the Lord’s Supper to one whom we know to be a Christian, when he walks disorderly or disseminates false doctrine, just as we may deny Baptism to such a person. 11. Fencing the tables, or warning the unqualified not to partake of the Supper may, like instruction with regard to Baptism, best take place before the actual administration of the ordinance. The pastor is not a special policeman or detective to ferret out offenses. See Expositor’s Greek Testament on 1 Corinthians 10:1-6.

B. The prerequisites are those only which are expressly or implicitly laid down by Christ and his apostles. (a) The church, as possessing executive but not legislative power, is charged with the duty, not of framing rules for the administering and guarding of the ordinance, but of discovering and applying the rules given it in the New Testament. No church has a right to establish any terms of communion; it is responsible only for making known the terms established by Christ and his apostles. (b) These terms, however, are to be ascertained not only from the injunctions but also from the precedents of the New Testament. Since the apostles were inspired, New Testament precedent is the “common law” of the church.

English law consists mainly of precedent, that is, past decisions of the courts. Immemorial customs may be as binding as are the formal enactment of a legislature. It is New Testament precedent that makes obligatory the observance of the first day, instead of the seventh day, of the week. The common law of the church consists however, not of any and all customs, but only of the customs of the apostolic church interpreted in the light of its principles or the customs universally binding because sanctioned by inspired apostles. Has New Testament precedent the authority of a divine command? Only so far, we reply, as it is an adequate, complete and final expression of the divine life in Christ. This we claim for the ordinances of Baptism and of the Lord’s Supper and for the order of these ordinances. See Proceedings of the Baptist Congress, 1896:23.

The Mennonites, thinking to reproduce even the incidental phases of N.T. action, have adopted 1. washing of feet,2. marriage only of members of the same faith,3. non-resistance to violence,4. use of the ban and the shunning of expelled persons, 5. refusal to take baths, 6. the kiss of peace,7. formal examination of the spiritual condition of each communicant before his participation in the Lord’s Supper,8. the choice of officials by lot. They naturally break up into twelve sects.

Dividing upon such points as holding all things in common, i.e. plainness of dress. One sect repudiating buttons and using only hooks upon their clothing, whence their nickname of Hookers, the holding of services in private houses only, the asserted possession of the gift of prophecy (A. S.

Carman).

C. Upon examining the New Testament, we find that the prerequisites to participation in the Lord’s Supper are four, namely:

First , Regeneration.

The Lord’s Supper is the outward expression of a life in the believer, nourished and sustained by the life of Christ. It cannot therefore, be partaken of by one who is “dead through trespasses and sins.” We give no food to a corpse. The Lord’s Supper was never offered to unbelievers by the apostles. On the contrary, the injunction that each communicant “examine himself” implies that faith, which will enable the communicant to “discern the Lord’s body,” is a prerequisite to participation. 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 — “Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself if he discern not the Lord’s body.” Schaff, in his Church History, 2:517, tells us that in the Greek Church, in the seventh and eighth centuries, the bread was dipped in the wine and both elements were delivered in a spoon. See Edwards, on Qualifications for Full Communion, in Works, 1:81.

Secondly , Baptism.

In proof that baptism is a prerequisite to the Lord’s Supper, we urge the following considerations: (a) The ordinance of baptism was instituted and administered long before the Supper. Matthew 21:25 — “The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or from men?” Here Christ intimates that even before his own, God had instituted John’s baptism. (b) The apostles who first celebrated it had, in all probability, been baptized. Acts 1:21,22 — “Of the men therefore that have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John...of these must one become a witness with us of his resurrection”:19:4 — “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.”

Several of the apostles were certainly disciples of John. If Christ was baptized, much more his disciples were. Jesus recognized John’s baptism as obligatory and it is not probable that he would take his apostles from among those who had not submitted to it. John the Baptist himself, the first administrator of baptism must have been himself not baptized. But the twelve could fitly administer it, because they had themselves received it at John’s hands. See Arnold, Terms of Communion,17. (c) The command of Christ fixes the place of baptism as first in order after discipleship. Matthew 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 you.” Here, the first duty is to make disciples, the second to baptize, and the third to instruct in right Christian living. Is it said that there is no formal command to admit only baptized persons to the Lord’s Supper? We reply that there is no formal command to admit only regenerate persons to baptism. In both cases, the practice of the apostles and the general connections of Christian doctrine are sufficient to determine our duty. (d) All the recorded cases show this to have been the order observed by the first Christians and sanctioned by the apostles. Acts 2:41,46 — “They then that received his word were baptized....And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home [rather, ‘in various worship rooms’] they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart”; 8:2 — “But when they believed Philip...they were baptized”; 10:47, 48 — “Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ”; 23:16 — “And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on his name” (e) The symbolism of the ordinances requires that baptism should precede the Lord’s Supper. The order of the facts signified must be expressed in the order of the ordinances, which signify them, else the world, is taught that sanctification may take place without regeneration. Birth must come before sustenance — ‘nascimur, pascimur.’ To enjoy ceremonial privileges, there must be ceremonial qualifications. As none but the circumcised could eat the Passover, so before eating with the Christian family must come adoption into the Christian family.

As one must be “born of the Spirit” before he can experience the sustaining influence of Christ, so he must be “born of water” before he can properly be nourished by the Lord’s Supper. Neither the unborn nor the dead can eat bread or drink wine. Only when Christ had raised the daughter of the Jewish ruler to life, did he say: “Give her to eat.” The ordinance, which symbolizes regeneration, or the impartation of new life, must precede the ordinance, which symbolizes the strengthening and perfecting of the life already begun. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, dating back to the second half of the second century, distinctly declares (9:5, 10) — “Let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist except those baptized into the name of the Lord; for as regards this also the Lord has said: ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs’...The Eucharist shall be given only to the baptized.” (f) The standards of all evangelical denominations, with unimportant exceptions, confirm the view that this is the natural interpretation of the Scripture requirements respecting the order of the ordinances. “The only protest of note has been made by a portion of the English Baptists.” To these should be added the comparatively small body of the Free Will Baptists in America. Pedobaptist churches in general refuse full membership, holding of office and the ministry to persons not baptized.

The Presbyterian Church does not admit to the communion, members of the Society of Friends. Not one of the great evangelical denominations accepts Robert Hall’s maxim that the only terms of communion are terms of salvation. If individual ministers announce and conform their practice to this principle, it is only because they transgress the standards of the churches to which they belong.

See Tyerman’s Oxford Methodists, preface, page vi — “Even in Georgia, Wesley excluded dissenters from the Holy Communion, on the ground that they had not been properly baptized and he would himself baptize only by immersion, unless the child or person was in a weak state of health.” Baptist Noel gave it as his reason for submitting to baptism, that to approach the Lord’s Supper conscious of not being baptized would be to act contrary to all the precedents of Scripture. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 304.

The dismissal of Jonathan Edwards from his church at Northampton was due to his opposing the Halfway Covenant, which admitted unregenerate persons to the Lord’s Supper as a step on the road to spiritual life. He objected to the doctrine that the Lord’s Supper was “a converting ordinance.” But these very unregenerated persons had been baptized; he himself had baptized many of them. He should have objected to infant baptism as well as to the Lord’s Supper, in the case of the unregenerate. (g) The practical results of the opposite view are convincing proof that the order here insisted on is the order of nature as well as of Scripture. The admission of persons not baptized to the communion tends always to and has frequently resulted in, the disuse of baptism itself. It also obscures the truth, which it symbolizes, transforms scripturally constituted churches into bodies organized after methods of human invention and promotes complete destruction of both church and ordinances as Christ originally constituted them.

Arnold, Terms of Communion,76 — The steps of departure from Scriptural precedent have not infrequently been the following: (1) Administration of baptism on a weekday evening, to avoid giving offense. (2) Reception without baptism of persons renouncing belief in the baptism of their infancy. (3) Giving up of the Lord’s Supper as non-essential, to be observed or not observed by each individual, according as he finds it useful. (4) Choice of a pastor who will not advocate Baptist views. (5) Adoption of Congregational articles of faith. (6) Discipline and exclusion of members for propagating Baptist doctrine.

John Bunyan’s church, once either an open communion church or a mixed church both of baptized and not baptized believers is now a regular Congregational body. Armitage, History of the Baptists, 482 sq ., claims that it was originally a Baptist church. Vedder, however, in Bap. Quar.

Rev., 1886:289, says that, “The church at Bedford is proved by indisputable documentary evidence never to have been a Baptist church in any strict sense.” The results of the principle of open communion are certainly seen in the Regent’s Park church in London, where some of the deacons have never been baptized. The doctrine that baptism is not essential to church membership is simply the logical result of the previous practice of admitting non-baptized persons to the communion table. If they are admitted to the Lord’s Supper, then there is no bar to their admission to the church. See Proceedings of the Baptist Congress, Boston, November 1902; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 296-298.

Thirdly , Church membership, (a) The Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance, observed by churches of Christ as such. For this reason, membership in the church naturally precedes communion. Since communion is a family rite, the participant should first be a member of the family. Acts 2:46 47 — “breaking bread at home [rather, ‘in various worship rooms’]” (see Com. of Meyer); 20:7 — “upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread”; 1 Corinthians 11:18,22 — “when ye come together in the church...have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and put them to shame that have not?” (b) The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of church fellowship. Excommunication implies nothing, if it does not imply exclusion from the communion. If the Supper is simply communion of the individual with Christ, then the church has no right to exclude any from it. 1 Corinthians 10:17 — “we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread.” Though the Lord’s Supper primarily symbolizes fellowship with Christ, it symbolizes secondarily fellowship with the church of Christ. Not all believers in Christ were present at the first celebration of the Supper, but only those organized into a body, the apostles. I can invite proper persons to my tea table but that does not give them the right to come uninvited. Each church, therefore, should invite visiting members of sister churches to partake with it. The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance by itself and should not be celebrated at conventions and associations simply to lend dignity to something else.

The Panpresbyterian Council at Philadelphia, in 1880, refused to observe the Lord’s Supper together upon the ground that the Supper is a church ordinance to be observed only by those who are amenable to the discipline of the body. Therefore, it is not to be observed by separate church organizations acting together. Substantially upon this ground, the Old School General Assembly long before, being invited to unite at the Lord’s table with the New School body, with whom they had dissolved ecclesiastical relations, declined to do so. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 304; Arnold, Terms of Communion,36.

Fourthly , An orderly walk.

Disorderly walking designates a course of life in a church member, which is contrary to the precepts of the gospel. It is a bar to participation in the Lord’s Supper, the sign of church fellowship. With Arnold, we may class disorderly walking under four heads: (a) Immoral conduct. 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 — Paul commands the Corinthian church to exclude the incestuous person. “I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators; but now I write unto you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no, not eat...Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.” Here it is evident that the most serious forms of disorderly walking require exclusion, not only from church fellowship, but from Christian fellowship as well. (b) Disobedience to the commands of Christ. 1 Corinthians 14:37 — “If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto you, that they are the commandments of the Lord”; 2Thess 3:6, 11, 15 — “Now we command you, brethren...that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which they received of us...For we hear of some that walk among you disorderly, that work not at all, but are busybodies... And 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,” Here is exclusion from church fellowship and from the Lord’s Supper its sign, while yet the offender is not excluded from Christian fellowship but is still counted “a brother.” Versus G. B.

Stevens, in N. Englander, 1887:40-47.

In these passages Paul intimates that “not to walk after the tradition received from him, not to obey the word contained in his epistles, is the same as disobedience to the commands of Christ and as such involves the forfeiture of church fellowship and its privileged tokens” (Arnold.

Prerequisites to Communion,68). Since Baptism is a command of Christ, it follows that we cannot properly commune with the non-baptized. To admit such to the Lord’s Supper is to give the symbol of church fellowship to those who, in spite of the fact that they are Christian brethren are, though perhaps unconsciously, violating the fundamental law of the church. To withhold protest against plain disobedience to Christ’s commands is to that extent to countenance such disobedience.

The same disobedience which, in the church member, we should denominate disorderly walking must a fortiori destroy all right to the Lord’s Supper on the part of those who are not members of the church. (c) Heresy, or the holding and teaching of false doctrine. Titus 3:10 — “A man that is heretical [Am. Revisers: ‘a factious man’] after a first and second admonition refuse”; see Ellicott, Com., in loco: “aijretikodivisions by erroneous teaching, not necessarily of a fundamentally heterodox nature but of the kind just described in verse 9.” Cf . Acts 20:30 — “from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them”; 1 John 4:2,3 — “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist.” B. B. Bosworth: “Heresy, in the N.

T., does not necessarily mean the holding of erroneous opinions, it may also mean the holding of correct opinions in an unbrotherly or divisive spirit.” We grant that the word ‘heretical’ may also mean ‘factious’ but we claim that false doctrine is the chief source of division, and is therefore in itself a disqualification for participation in the Lord’s Supper.

Facetiousness is an additional bar and we treat it under the next head of Schism.

The Panpresbyterian Council, mentioned above, refused to admit to their body the Cumberland Presbyterians because, though the latter adhere to the Presbyterian form of church government, they are Arminian in their views of the doctrines of grace. As we have seen, on pages 940-942, that Baptism is a confession of evangelical faith, so here we see that the Lord’s Supper also is a confession of evangelical faith. No one who denies the doctrines of sin, of the deity, incarnation and atonement of Christ and of justification by faith, which the Lord’s Supper symbolizes, can properly participate in it. Such denial should exclude from all Christian fellowship as well.

There is heresy, which involves exclusion only from church fellowship.

Since Pedobaptists hold and propagate false doctrine with regard to the church and its ordinances, doctrines that endanger the spirituality of the church, the sufficiency of the Scriptures and the lordship of Christ, we cannot properly admit them to the Lord’s Supper. To admit them or to partake with them would be to treat falsehood as if it were truth. Arnold, Prerequisites to Communion,72 — “Pedobaptists are guilty of teaching that the baptized are not members of the church, or that membership in the church is not voluntary. There are two sorts of baptism. One of which is a profession of faith of the person baptized, and the other is profession of faith of another person. Regeneration is given in and by baptism or, that the church is composed in great part of persons who do not give, and were never supposed to give any evidence of regeneration. The church has a right to change essentially one of Christ’s institutions or that it is unessential whether it is observed as he ordained it or in some other manner. Baptism may be rightfully administered in a way, which makes much of the language, in which it is described in the Scriptures, wholly unsuitable and inapplicable and which does not at all represent the facts and doctrines, which baptism is declared in the Scriptures to represent.

The Scriptures are not, in all religious matters the sufficient and only binding rule of faith and practice.” (d) Schism or the promotion of division and dissension in the church. This also requires exclusion from church fellowship, and from the Lord’s Supper, which is its appointed sign, Romans 16:17 — “Now I beseech you, Brethren, mark them that are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling contrary to the doctrine, which ye learned: and turn any from them.” Since Pedobaptists, by their teaching and practice, draw many away from Scripturally constituted churches thus dividing true believers from each other and weakening the bodies organized after the model of the New Testament, it is imperative upon us to separate ourselves from them, with regard to communion at the Lord’s table, which is the sign of church fellowship. Mr. Spurgeon admits Pedobaptists to commune with his church “for two or three months.”

Then they are kindly asked whether they are pleased with the church, its doctrine, of government, etc. If they are pleased, they are asked if they are not disposed to be baptized and become members? If so inclined, all is well but if not, they are kindly told that it is not desirable for them to commune longer. Thus baptism is held to precede church membership and permanent communion, although temporary communion is permitted without it.

Arnold, Prerequisites to Communion, 80 — “It may perhaps be objected that the passages cited under the four preceding subdivisions refer to church fellowship in a general way, without any specific reference to the Lord’s Supper. In reply to this objection I would answer that, in the first place, having endeavored previously to establish the position that the Lord’s Supper is an ordinance to be celebrated in the church and expressive of church fellowship, I felt at liberty to use the passages that enjoin the withdrawal of that fellowship as constructively enjoining exclusion from the Communion, which is its chief token. I answer, secondly, that the principle here assumed seems to me to pervade the Scriptural teachings so thoroughly that it is next to impossible to lay down any Scriptural terms of communion at the Lord’s table, except upon the admission that the ordinance is inseparably connected with church fellowship. To treat the subject otherwise would be, as it appears to me, a violent putting asunder of what the Lord has joined together. The objection suggests an additional argument in favor of our position that the Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance. “Who Christ’s body doth divide, Wounds afresh the Crucified; Who Christ’s people doth perplex, Weakens faith and comfort wrecks; Who Christ’s order doth not see, Works in vain for unity; Who Christ’s word doth take for guide, With the Bridegroom loves the Bride.”

D. The local church is the judge whether these prerequisites are fulfilled in the case of persons desiring to partake of the Lord’s Supper. This is evident from the following considerations: (a) The command to observe the ordinance was given, not to individuals, but to a company. (b) Obedience to this command is not an individual act but is the joint act of many. (c) The regular observance of the Lord’s Supper cannot be secured nor the qualifications of persons desiring to participate in it are scrutinized, unless some distinct organized body is charged with this responsibility. (d) The only organized body known to the New Testament is the local church, and this is the only body of any sort, competent to have charge of the ordinances. The invisible church has no officers. (e) The New Testament accounts indicate that the Lord’s Supper was observed only at regular appointed meetings of local churches and was observed by these churches as regularly organized bodies. (f) Since the duty of examining the qualifications of candidates for baptism and for membership is vested in the local church and is essential to its distinct existence, the analogy of the ordinances would lead us to believe that the scrutiny of qualifications for participation in the Lord’s Supper rests with the same body. (g) Care should be shown that only proper persons are admitted to the ordinances, not by open or forcible debarring of the unworthy at the time of the celebration, but by previous public instruction of the congregation and if needful, in the case of persistent offenders, by subsequent private and friendly admonition. “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.” If there be any power of effective scrutiny, it must be lodged in the local church. The minister is not to administer the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper at his own option any more than the ordinance of Baptism. He is simply the organ of the church. He is to follow the rules of the church as to invitations and as to the mode of celebrating the ordinance and of course, instructing the church as to the order of the New Testament. In the case of sick members who desire to communicate, Brethren may be deputed to hold a special meeting of the church at the private house or sick room and then only may the pastor officiate. If an invitation to the Communion is given, it may well be in the following form: “Members in good standing of other churches of like faith and practice are cordially invited to partake with us.” But since the comity of Baptist churches is universally acknowledged, and since Baptist views with regard to the ordinances are so generally understood, it should be taken for granted that all proper persons will be welcome even If no invitation of any sort is given.

Mr. Spurgeon, as we have seen, permitted non-baptized persons temporarily to partake of the Lord’s Supper unchallenged but if there appeared a disposition to make participation habitual, one of the deacons in a private interview explained Baptist doctrine and urged the duty of baptism. If this advice was not taken, participation in the Lord’s Supper naturally ceased. Dr. P. S. Henson proposes a middle path between open and closed communion, as follows, “Preach and urge faith in Jesus and obedience to him. Leave choice with participants themselves. It is not wise to set up a judgment seat at the Lord’s table. Always preach the Scriptural order, which is 1. Faith in Jesus; 2. Obedience in Baptism; 3.

Observance of the Lord’s Supper.” J. B. Thomas: “Objections to strict communion come with an ill grace from Pedobaptists who withhold communion from their own baptized, whom they have forcibly made quasi-members in spite of the only protest they are capable of offering and whom they have retained as subjects of discipline without their consent.”

A.H. Strong, Cleveland Sermon on Our Denominational Outlook, May 19, 1904 — “If I am asked whether Baptists still hold to restricted communion, I answer that our principle has not changed but that many of us apply the principle in a different manner from that of our fathers. We believe that Baptism logically precedes the Lord’s Supper, as birth precedes the taking of nourishment and regeneration precedes sanctification. We believe that the order of the ordinances is an important point of Christian doctrine and itself teaches Christian doctrine. Hence we proclaim it and adhere to it in our preaching and our practice. But we do not turn the Lord’s Supper into a judgment-seat or turn the officers of the church into detectives. We teach the truth and expect that the truth will win its way. We are courteous to those who come among us and expect that they in turn will have the courtesy to respect our convictions and to act accordingly. But there is danger here that we may break from our moorings and drift into indifferentism with regard to the ordinances. The recent advocacy of open church membership is but the logical consequence of a previous concession of open communion. I am persuaded that this new doctrine is confined to very few among us. The remedy for this false liberalism is to be found in that same Christ who solves for us all other problems. It is this Christ who sets the solitary in families, and who makes of one every nation that dwells on the face of the earth. Christian denominations are at least temporarily his appointment.

Loyalty to the body, which seems to us best to represent his truth, is also loyalty to him. Love for Christ does not involve the surrender of the ties of family or nation or denomination but only consecrates and ennobles them. “Yet Christ is King in Zion. There is but one army of the living God even though there are many divisions. We can emphasize our unity with other Christian bodies rather than the differences between us. We can regard them as churches of the Lord Jesus even though they are irregularly constituted. As a marriage ceremony may be valid, even though performed without a license and by an unqualified administrator. As an ordination may be valid, even though the ordinary laying on of hands be omitted, so the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper as administered in Pedobaptist churches may be valid, though irregular in its accompaniments and antecedents. Though we still protest against the modem perversions of the New Testament doctrine as to the subjects and mode of Baptism, we hold with regard to the Lord’s Supper that irregularity is not invalidity. We may recognize as churches, even those bodies, which celebrate the Lord’s Supper without having been baptized. Our faith in the larger Christ is bringing us out from our denominational isolation into an inspiring recognition of our oneness with the universal church of God throughout the world.” On the whole subject, see Madison Avenue Lectures, 217- 260; and A. H. Strong, on Christian Truth and its Keepers, in Philosophy and Religion, 238-244.

E. Special objections to open communion.

The advocates of this view claim that baptism, as not being an indispensable term of salvation, cannot properly be made an indispensable term of communion.

Robert Hall, Works, 1:285, held that there are no proper terms of communion, which are not also terms of salvation. He claims that “we are expressly commanded to tolerate in the church all those diversities of opinion which are not inconsistent with salvation.” For the open communion view, see also John M. Mason, Works, 1:369; Princeton Review, Oct. 1850; Bibliotheca Sacra 21:449; 24:482; 25:401; Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6:103, 142. But, as Curtis remarks in his Progress of Baptist Principles, 292, this principle would utterly frustrate the very objects for which visible churches were founded, to be “the pillar and ground of the truth” ( 1 Timothy 3:15); for truth is set forth as forcibly in ordinances as in doctrine.

In addition to what has already been said, we reply: (a) This view is contrary to the belief and practice of all but an insignificant fragment of organized Christendom.

A portion of the English Baptists and the Free Will Baptists in America are the only bodies which in their standards of faith accept and maintain the principles of open communion. As to the belief and practice of the Methodist Episcopal denomination, the New York Christian Advocate states the terms of communion as being Discipleship, Baptism and consistent church life, as required in the “Discipline”; and F. G. Hibbard, Christian Baptism, 174, remarks that, “in one principle the Baptist and Pedobaptist churches agree. They both agree in rejecting from the communion at the table of the Lord, and denying the rights of church fellowship to all whom have not been baptized. Valid baptism, they consider, is essential to constitute visible church membership. This also we [Methodists] hold. The charge of close communion is no more applicable to the Baptists than to us.”

The Interior states the Presbyterian position as follows: “The difference between our Baptist brethren and ourselves is an important difference. We agree with them, however, in saying that non-baptized persons should not partake of the Lord’s Supper. Close communion, in our judgment, is a more defensible position than open communion. Dr. John Hall: “If I believed, with the Baptists, that none are baptized but those who are immersed on profession of faith, I should, with them, refuse to commune with any others.”

As to the views of Congregationalists, we quote from Dwight, Systematic Theology, sermon 160 — “It is an indispensable qualification for this ordinance that the candidate for communion be a member in full standing, of the visible church of Christ. By this I intend that he should be a man of piety, that he should have made a public profession of religion and that he should have been baptized.” The Independent: “We have never been disposed to charge the Baptist church with any special narrowness or bigotry in their rule of admission to the Lord’s table. We do not see how it differs from that commonly admitted and established among Presbyterian churches.”

The Episcopal standards and authorities are equally plain. The Book of Common Prayer, Order of Confirmation, declares: “There shall none be admitted to the holy communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed” — confirmation always coming after baptism. Wall, History of Infant Baptism, part 2, chapter 9 — “No church ever gave the communion to any persons before they were baptized. Among all the absurdities that ever were held, none ever maintained that any person should partake of the communion before he was baptized.” (b) It assumes an unscriptural inequality between the two ordinances. The Lord’s Supper holds no higher rank in Scripture than does Baptism. The obligation to commune is no more binding than the obligation to profess faith by being baptized. Open communion, however, treats baptism as if it were optional, while it insists upon communion as indispensable.

Robert Hall should rather have said, “No church has a right to establish terms of baptism, which are not also terms of salvation,” for baptism is most frequently in Scripture connected with the things that accompany salvation. We believe faith to be one prerequisite, but not the only one.

We may hold a person to be a Christian without thinking him entitled to commune unless he has been also baptized.

Ezra’s reform in abolishing mixed marriages with the surrounding heathen was not narrow nor bigoted nor intolerant. Miss Willard said well that from the Gerizim of holy beatitudes there comes a voice, “Blessed are the inclusive, for they shall be included,” and from Mount Ebal a voice, saying, “Sad are the exclusive, for they shall be excluded.” True liberality is both Christian and wise. We should be just as liberal as Christ himself was and no more so. Even Miss Willard would not include rum sellers in the Christian Temperance Union nor think that town blessed that did not say to saloonkeepers, “Repent, or go.” The choir is not narrow because it does not include those who can only make discords, nor is the sheepfold intolerant that refuses to include wolves nor the medical society that ‘excludes quacks nor the church that does not invite the disobedient and schismatic to its communion. (c) It tends to do away with baptism altogether. If the highest privilege of church membership may be enjoyed without baptism, baptism loses its place and importance as the initiatory ordinance of the church.

Robert Hall would admit to the Lord’s Supper those who deny Baptism to be perpetually binding on the church. A foreigner may love this country but he cannot vote at our elections unless he has been naturalized.

Ceremonial rites imply ceremonial qualifications. Dr. Meredith in Brooklyn said to his great Bible Class that a man, though not a Christian, but who felt himself a sinner and needing Christ, could worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper. This is the logic of open communion. The Supper is not limited to baptized persons or to church members or even to a converted people but belongs also to the unconverted world. This is not only to do away with Baptism, but also to make the Lord’s Supper a converting ordinance. (d) It tends to do away with all discipline. When Christians offend, the church must withdraw its fellowship from them. But upon the principle of open communion, such withdrawal is impossible, since the Lord’s Supper, the highest expression of church fellowship, is open to every person who regards himself as a Christian.

H. F. Colby: “Ought we to acknowledge that evangelical Pedobaptists are qualified to partake of the Lord’s Supper? We are ready to admit them on precisely the same terms on which we admit ourselves. Our communion bars come to be a protest, but from no plan of ours. They become a protest merely as every act of loyalty to truth becomes a protest against error.” Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 2, section 7 (A. D. about 250) — “But if they [those who have been convicted of wickedness] afterwards repent and turn from their error, then we receive them as we receive the heathen, when they wish to repent, into the church indeed to hear the word but do not receive them to communion until they have received the seal of baptism and are made complete Christians.” (e) It tends to do away with the visible church altogether for no visible church is possible unless some sign of membership is required. In addition to the signs of membership in the invisible church, open communion logically leads to open church membership. A church membership open to all, without reference to the qualifications required in Scripture or without examination on the part of the church as to the existence of these qualifications in those who unite with it, is virtually an identification of the church with the world. Without protest from scripturally constituted bodies, this would finally result in its actual extinction.

Dr. Walcott Calkins, In Andover Review: “It has never been denied that the Puritan way of maintaining the purity and doctrinal soundness of the churches is to secure a soundly converted membership. There is one denomination of Puritans that has never deviated a hair’s breadth from this way. The Baptists have always insisted that regenerate persons only, should receive the sacraments of the church. And they have depended absolutely upon this provision for the purity and doctrinal soundness of their churches.”

At the Free Will Baptist Convention at Providence, Oct. 1874, the question came up of admitting Pedobaptists to membership. This was disposed of by resolving that “Christian baptism is a personal act of public consecration to Christ and that believers baptism and immersion alone, as baptism, are fundamental principles of the denomination.” In other words, unimmersed believers would not be admitted to membership.

But is it not the Lord’s church? Have we a right to exclude? Is this not bigotry? The Free Will Baptist answers: “No, it is only loyalty to truth.”

We claim that, upon the same principle, he should go further, and refuse to admit to the communion those whom he refuses to admit to church membership. The reasons assigned for acting upon the opposite principle are sentimental rather than rational. See John Stuart Mill’s definition of sentimentality, quoted in Martineau’s Essays, 1:94 — “Sentimentality consists in setting the sympathetic aspect of things or their loveableness, above their æsthetic aspect, their beauty or above the moral aspect of them, their right or wrong.”

OBJECTIONS TO STRICT COMMUNION,AND ANSWERS TO THEM

(condensed from Arnold, Terms of Communion, 82): “ 1st . Primitive rules are not applicable now. Reply: (1) the laws of Christ are unchangeable. (2) The primitive order ought to be restored. “ 2d . Baptism, as an external rite, is of less importance than love. Reply: (1) it is not inconsistent with love, but the mark of love to keep Christ’s commandments. (2) Love for our brethren requires protest against their errors. “ 3d . Pedobaptists think themselves baptized. Reply: (1) this is a reason why they should act as if they believed it and not a reason why we should act as if it were so. (2) We cannot submit our consciences to their views of truth, without harming them and us. “ 4th . Strict communion is a hindrance to union among Christians.

Reply: (1) Christ desires only union in the truth. (2) Baptists are not responsible for the separation. (3) Mixed communion is not a cure but a cause of disunion. “ 5th . the rule excludes from the communion baptized members of Pedobaptist churches. Reply: (1) they, in promoting error, are persons walking disorderly. (2) The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of church fellowship, not of fellowship for individuals, apart from their church relations. “ 6th . A plea for dispensing ‘with the rule exists in extreme cases where persons must commune with us or not at all. Reply: (1) These people would be likely to encroach more and more till the rule became merely nominal. (2) It is a greater privilege and means of grace, in such circumstances, to abstain from communing, than contrary to principle to participate. (3) It is not right to participate with others where we cannot invite them reciprocally. It is hard to fix limits to these exceptions. “ 7th . Alleged inconsistency of our practice. (1) Since we expect to commune in heaven. Reply: This confounds Christian fellowship with church fellowship. We do commune with Pedobaptists spiritually, here as hereafter. We do not expect to partake of the Lord’s Supper with them or with others in heaven. (2) Since we reject the better and receive the worse. Reply: We are not at liberty to refuse to apply Christ’s outward rule because we cannot equally apply his inward spiritual rule of character. Even though they may be more spiritual than some of who are in the church, Pedobaptists with hold communion from those they regard as non-baptized. (3) Since we recognize Pedobaptists as brethren in union meetings, exchange of pulpits, etc. Reply: None of these acts of fraternal fellowship imply the church communion, which admission to the Lord’s table would imply. This last would recognize them as baptized, the former do not. “ 8th . Alleged impolicy of our practice. Reply: (1) This consideration would be pertinent, only if we were at liberty to change our practice when it was expedient or was thought to be so. (2) Any particular truth will inspire respect in others in proportion as its advocates show that they respect it. In England our numbers have diminished, compared with the population, In the ratio of 33 per cent. Here, we have increased 50 per cent, in proportion to the ratio of population. “Summary. Open communion must be justified, if at all, on one of four grounds.

First, that baptism is not prerequisite to communion. But this is opposed to the belief and practice of all churches. Secondly, that immersion on profession of faith is not essential to baptism. But this is renouncing Baptist principles altogether. Thirdly, that the individual, and not the church, is to be the judge of his qualifications for admission to the communion. But this is contrary to sound reason, and fatal to the ends for which the church is instituted. For, if the conscience of the individual is to be the rule of the action of the church in regard to his admission to the Lord’s Supper, why not also with regard to his regeneration, his doctrinal belief and his obedience to Christ’s commands generally? Fourthly, that the church has no responsibility in regard to the qualifications of those who come to her communion. But this is abandoning the principle of the independence of the churches and their accountableness to Christ and it overthrows all church discipline.”

See also Hovey, in Bibliotheca Sacra 1862:133; Pepper, in Bap. Quar., 1867:216; Curtis on Communion, 292; Howell, Terms of Communion; Williams, The Lord’s Supper; Theodosia Ernest, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub.