THE BAPTIST RECORD AND BIBLICAL REPOSITORY. APRIL, 1845. THE CHURCH OF CHRIST-WHAT IS IT?, A MORE difficult question than any now presents itself, viz., whether there is evidence of the Saviour, either by himself or his apostles, having founded a visible society or corporation having an outward visible unity, an assembly of assemblies, distinguished by uniformity of doctrine and discipline pervading them, and having rulers and teachers in whom resides Christ's delegated authority on the earth. Did Christ, in such a sense as this, found a church? It is needful for us to observe the distinction between this idea and that which has been already described as the visible church. According to the latter idea the church denotes an association, having members, wheresoever they are found, which are visible; for they are earthly and human, but not necessarily united by any visible bond to each other; the union between them being of a strictly spiritual and invisible kind. In this latter sense it is admitted, that Christ did found a church on earth of which all believers in him become members, and which is indestructible by the ravages of death or the power of Satan. But between this idea and that of a corporate church, which is before us, there are many distinctions. The corporate church appends to the former a oneness of an external kind—uniformity in doctrine and disciplineand an order of ministry exclusive in its pretensions to divine authority; besides rendering the signification of the term church no longer an assembly of individuals, but an assembly of assemblies. These three elements are generally united in the opinions and practices of those VOL. II.-NO. IV. T who advocate a church corporate; but, inasmuch as one or more of them may be taken separately, it may be well briefly to consider each by itself. As each one may be discovered deficient in evidence to sustain it, so must it be subtracted from the idea of a corporate church; and if all be found wanting, very little indeed will remain beyond that which has been defined as Christ's visible church on earth. Is there, then, evidence in support of a church having its oneness, whether in part or whole, consisting in the maintenance of an external uniformity in doctrine and discipline amongst its members? Now, here let it be premised, that those ties of which we have spoken as uniting the members of the visible church, would naturally occasion much apparent uniformity in thought, emotion, and conduct amongst Christ's disciples, without this uniformity being enjoined and instituted by Christ. The exhibition, therefore, of a measure of uniformity among the early Christians, even supposing we discover it, will be no proof of its appointment by Christ, except as we find the thing itself expressly enjoined by him in addition to that spiritual union, which, as perhaps all will confess, subsists amongst Christ's followers. And, on the other hand, the want of uniformity may proceed from the absence of such spiritual union with the Saviour, and be condemned by him as denoting this absence. The question is, whether such uniformity is enjoined, or its absence condemned, for its own sake. Those who reject the notion of Christ having founded a corporate church, are free to admit that amongst his followers there will be found to prevail much uniformity; but that uniformity is conceived of by them as resulting from their spiritual union. They conceive that Christ ordained the spiritual union, leaving its natural consequences to follow-that these consequences are never enjoined by him, except as they proceed naturally from the cause-and that the way to secure uniformity is, not to deal with it by itself, but to endeavour to strengthen the cause from which only it can safely proceed. Suppose that there is spiritual union, is anything else than this enjoined in the New Testament? Now it is by no means a difficult task for us to imagine, how Christ might, in addition to such spiritual union, have enjoined uniformity. Those who are at all acquainted with the writings of the early Christian fathers, cannot fail to observe how such uniformity is recommended and enforced. In the course of their writings, uniformity of an external kind is first introduced as a matter of divine appointment in connexion with spiritual union; gradually the attention is withdrawn from the latter, and directed principally to the former; until, when the cherished thought of a provincial, national, or universal corporate church had grown up to maturity, we find the attention of the reader and the energy of the accomplished writer exhausted in the praise and advocacy of uniformity alone. Upon the difference in this respect, between their writings and those of divine inspiration, the question might be made safely to rest. Christ and his apostles did not enforce uniformity, though for the most part they secured it. In after ages, as it was enforced, it departed. The conduct of the Saviour and his apostles is that, surely, which should command our imitation. But we may venture even further still. Variety of opinion, necessarily in a conscientious mind leading to variety in practice, is admitted and provided for in apostolical precepts. So far from condemning such variation, the New Testament sanctions it, inviting the exercise of individual judgment, requiring only that such judgment should be conscientious, and that practice should correspond. Such variety is the prescribed path towards a real and consistent union. The distinctions which subsisted between the Jewish and the Gentile converts, the opinions of tender consciences respecting meat slain to idols and sold in the markets, demonstrate the absence of uniformity in opinion and practice. Not only, therefore, is there an utter absence of all appointment of such uniformity, without which it fails to be imperative; but there is very much recorded in the New Testament, which is quite inconsistent with the supposition of such appointment. The attempt to enforce uniformity has ever been the signal for its immediate departure; and its false assumption amongst bodies corporate, calling themselves churches, has served as a flimsy veil, partially to conceal differences of the most momentous kind. Fervently is it to be hoped, that, if nothing else will, at length the repeated failure of attempts to secure it, may induce its advocates carefully to examine the truth of that theory which recognises its enforcement as an institution of Christ. The object which they desire will be truly accomplished, in proportion as they abandon their weapons and retire from the field. "Who art thou that judgest another? to his own master he standeth or falleth." No other oneness is recognised in the New Testament, as subsisting among Christians, than that which naturally proceeds from their common spiritual union with the Redeemer. Our next inquiry respects the continuance on the earth of an order of men, who, by succession to the apostles, possess the delegated authority of Christ, and can rightfully claim to be exclusively his ministers; in obedience to whose teaching, and according to whose guidance, it can only be esteemed safe for any to hope for eternal salvation. The reception of this tenet is intimately connected with the idea of Christ. having established a community united by external and visible association; since there is no method by which we can conceive such a community more easily established and securely maintained, than by the appointment of a peculiar and restricted priesthood. Accordingly, in the opinions of those who most fully, and, as it seems to us, most consistently advocate the idea of a corporate church, validity of ministerial ordination is essential. With them, in common speech, the church generally signifies the body of the clergy. As the task which is thus assigned to such a priesthood is solemn and tremendous, it is to be expected that their claims and duties should be established by clear and indisputable evidence; so that they themselves may be assured, notwithstanding every mortal weakness, that God has called them to such awful service; and that those whom they are to teach and save, may be brought to yield them a willing and religious obedience. In order to establish and point out such a priesthood, it is necessary to show, first, that the apostles had successors on whom such authority was conferred; and then, secondly, to discriminate, by marks so precise as to admit of no mistake, that certain persons now living are such successors and possess such authority. On either of these points the absence of sufficient evidence renders the notion of apostolical succession frivolous and vain. We affirm that the position can never be maintained, that in their office, and in their extraordinary endowments which accompanied it, the apostles had successors at all. The men who were the apostles were also the members of the early church, and many precepts and promises are given to them simply as the servants of the Lord Jesus, and not to them in their apostolical capacity. Their apostolical office was in some respects of such a kind as absolutely to preclude the idea of succession in it. They were to be the witnesses of the truth of the resurrection of the Messiah, by having beheld him, and been assured of his identity after he had risen from the dead. In order that he who was as one born out of due time might have his qualification for apostolic office complete, it pleased Christ to reveal himself to Paul even from heaven. Epaphroditus, Titus, and Timothy can never be proved to be the successors of the apostles. Their office, whatever it was, and its nature it is not difficult to determine, was, as that of the officers ordained by the apostles over the churches, held and exercised during the apostles' life-time. There is, indeed, an orderly ministry which is spoken of in the New Testament, but it is not by succession to the apostles. Its authority is not that of the apostles, and its nature not that of a priesthood. From those who boast of extraordinary and peculiar apostolical succession now, it is well to demand the evidence of apostolic signs which even Paul did not think it beneath his dignity to adduce. On this subject, the advocates of a priesthood are accustomed to point with affected triumph to the order and succession of the Jewish priesthood; but every man who will read his Bible with care, may learn from the Epistle to the Hebrews that this priesthood has been changed, and that, in the place of the priesthood of Aaron, there is now one priest after the power of an endless life. Nor does the Mediator of the new covenant supersede only that priest who went into the most holy place once a year, but those Levitical priests who stood prepared for the daily service (Heb. x. 11-14). The ancient institution is now abrogated, and the new and living way laid open, without an intervening priesthood to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Nothing, therefore, can be determined from a commandment which is disannulled, concerning any present obligation. The law by which the former statute is repealed, as no longer necessary, decides the present will of the divine lawgiver. And even if this first fact was granted, there would yet remain the insuperable difficulty of distinguishing who are the present possessors of the authority of Christ. The claimants contradict and repudiate each other. Although Oxford, with generous forgiveness, will acknowledge Rome, Rome declines to acknowledge Oxford. Here, as in the other case, the Scriptures furnish no aid. Admit that a pope is wanted; admit that a pope is given; yet who shall solve the problem to find the pope? Paul pronounces, indeed, an anathema; but it is on the perversion of the one gospel, not on the breach or the neglect of the one order of the Christian priesthood. Let a godly man become somehow convinced, that in this wide world there are even now to be found men, with whose ministrations Christ has in this strange manner connected an especial blessing, and whom to forsake is to cast himself on the uncovenanted mercies of God, still how can such a man possibly unravel the thread of spiritual genealogy, and ascertain on whom, without treachery, mistake, or imperfection, the mystic gift of Christ's authority to teach has been conferred? Granting even all the theory of apostolical succession, it is one incapable of being reduced to practice. In rejecting as inadmissible the two preceding elements which compose the idea of a corporate church, there have been cast aside those which are the more dangerous; yet it is right to devote a short time to the last subject, viz., whether the word church may, according to inspired authority, be applied to a society which is not an assembly of individuals, but of assemblies. That by an act of the human imagination churches may be considered as a whole, and the word church given to the compound idea of many or few of them, there can be no doubt. But is there for the use of the term in this manner any scriptural precedent? It is submitted that there is not. The simple and earliest meaning of the word church is, as it was employed by the |