or Philippi. To say that the church of a given place was always congregational, in the sense of never meeting for worship in two places at once, or of not being divided into two or more assemblies, with one body of "elders" or of "bishops and deacons," would be to say what can hardly be proved. But that the organized church, in the primitive age of Christianity, was always a local institution-never national, never provincial or diocesan-is a proposition which few will deny.

II. Each local church was complete in itself, and was held responsible to Christ for its own character, and the character of those whom it retained in its fellowship. The apostles, indeed, had a certain authority in all the churches, as they have now in all churches built on their foundation, for they were Christ's commissioned witnesses to testify what he had taught, as well as the facts of his life and of his resurrection and ascension. If a question arose involving a doubt as to the nature and extent of the new kingdom of heaven-for example, the question whether all converts to Christ must be naturalized in the Hebrew commonwealth, and so brought under the restrictions and obligations of the national law; or the question whether, in the fellowship of Christ's disciples, there should be a caste distinction between converted Jews and converted Greeks or Romans-there might be "no small dissension and disputation," as happened at Antioch and in many other places; but if the question could not be settled in that way-if the disputants could not, by arguments from the prophetic Scriptures and from the story of the Gospel as they had received it, bring each other and the church to agree in a common conclusion-the apostles were of course appealed to as most likely to know the principles of the Gospel and their application, or, in other words, as most likely to know the mind of Christ.

The reference from Antioch to Jerusalem' was a reference

1 Acts xv.

to the apostles for information concerning the nature and genius of that Gospel which they were commissioned to publish, and which, at that time, had not been put upon record in any authoritative Scripture. If we permit the story to speak for itself, we see that the reference was not made because the church at Jerusalem was supposed to have a metropolitan jurisdiction over the church in the capital of Syria, but because some ill-informed and narrow-minded men from Judea had alleged that the practice at Jerusalem under the teaching of the original apostles was opposite to the practice at Antioch and in the churches founded by Paul and Barnabas, whose authority as apostles was itself in question. What the brethren at Antioch wanted was information, full and conclusive, on a question of fact, and that information could be obtained at Jerusalem, if they would send competent messengers to get it. The question of fact was: Did the original apostles, in the holy city of the Jews, preach another Gospel than that which was preached by the new apostle to the Gentiles? Had they contradicted that catholic doctrine of justification by faith without the deeds of the law, on which the church at Antioch was founded, and which had been proclaimed so widely by the missionaries. from that new centre of evangelization? The party which Paul afterward stigmatized as "the concision”—the narrow, ultra-conservative, anti-evangelical party of the apostolic age -had begun to show itself; and it must be encountered and put down at Jerusalem as well as at Antioch. So far as the two churches were concerned, the procedure was not an appeal from an inferior court to a higher, but only the sending of a committee from the one to confer with the other, so that there should be no misunderstanding between them on a question of great interest to both.

III. Particular churches, in that age, were related to each other as constituent portions of the Universal Church. Their unity was their one faith and hope. It was the unity of common ideas and principles distinguishing them from all the

world besides of common interests and efforts, of common trials and perils, and of mutual affection. It was manifested not in their subjection to a common jurisdiction, nor in dogmatic formularies, nor in identity of liturgical forms, but in their common willingness to labor and suffer for Christ, and to do good in his name. When in that conference at Jerusalem it had come to be clearly understood that the Gospel in Palestine and the Gospel in Syria and Cilicia, and the regions beyond, were one Gospel, and when James, Cephas, and John "gave the right hands of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas," one permanent manifestation of the unity thus ascertained and professed was stipulated for. Paul tells us what the stipulation was- "Only that we should remember the poor, the same which I also was forward to do."1 The "contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem," which Paul had been concerned in at Antioch, from the beginning of his labors there,2 and which he was zealous for wherever he went, answered the purpose, which is more imperfectly answered by doctrinal standards and books of common prayer, by ruling priesthoods and ruling preacherhoods, or by representative assemblies receiving appeals and complaints from all points of the compass, and exercising jurisdiction co-extensive with the boundaries of nations. word [kovwría-koinonia], in its twofold meaning, was at once the "contribution" for impoverished and suffering brethren and the "communion" of the saints. As the unity of the three thousand, after the day of Pentecost, and then of the five thousand, was manifested in their generous and loving koinonia-when none of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had "all things common;" so afterward, when "it pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia" to do the same sort of thing for suffering brethren whom they had never seen, that contribution of theirs was the recognition and manifestation of unity. The

3

1 Gal. ii., 9, 10. 2 Acts xi., 27-30.

3

3 1 Cor. xvi., 1; 2 Cor., viii., ix.

communion "in things carnal," expressed and testified the communion in "things spiritual."1 More significant than any other symbol could have been, such transactions were a demonstration of the fact that all the particular churches, however separated by distance, or diversified in forms and circumstances, were the one Catholic Church of Christ. In this way it became palpable that believers in Christ, wherever dispersed, were members of one holy commonwealth, and that there was "one body and one spirit, even as they were called in one hope of their calling."

IV. In all the churches there was one rule to be observed in dealing with offenders. Christ had given an explicit law: "If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican."3 It would be preposterous to suppose that when the apostles gathered their converts in one place and another into societies for spiritual communion and fraternal helpfulness, they were forgetful of that rule, or that in any arrangements which they made for the working of such societies that rule was superseded.

V. The earliest stated assemblies of Christian worshipers were formed on the model of the synagogue, with its simple arrangements for orderly worship and for instruction out of the Scriptures, rather than of the Temple with its priesthood and its ritual. Centuries before the coming of Christ, there grew up in Palestine, and afterward among the Jews of the dispersion, a religious institution which has outlived the Temple, the sacrifices, and the altar of ancient Judaism—the simple institution of local assemblies on the Sabbath-day for

1 Rom. xv., 27.

2 Eph. iv., 4.

* Matt. xviii., 15–17.

prayer, and for the public reading and explanation of the holy books. In the synagogue, as may be seen now wherever there are Jews enough for a meeting, there was the worship of God without priest or altar-an intelligent worship, impressive in its simplicity. The Sabbath created for itself the synagogue, and thus became a day of public worship every where, instead of being only a day of religious abstinence from labor and of home enjoyment. The earliest Christians, whether in Palestine or in any other country, were Jews, or "devout" Gentiles, who found in the Gospel, not a new religion, but the fulfillment of God's ancient promises; and on all sides they were regarded as a Jewish sect, like the Pharisees or the Sadducees, though more obnoxious because of the newness and the revolutionary tendency of their opinions. In whatever place they were excluded from the assemblies of the Old-school Jews, or withdrew of their own choice, they became a Christian synagogue. Perhaps in some instances the synagogue itself became Christian. In the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, two words—εкkλŋola [ecclesia], and ovvaywyń [synagoge]—are used interchangeably for the word which in the English Bible is "congregation." Once in the New Testament the latter word is used to denote a Christian assembly;1 but it seems to have come to pass, in the gradual separation of Christian from Jewish congregations, that the name ecclesia was given distinctively to the worshiping society of believ ers in Christ.

Such were the churches at the date of the New Testament Scriptures. It is not difficult to understand the process of their origin and organization if we recollect distinctly what Christianity was at the beginning, before it was developed into what is now called doctrine, and what change it wrought in the consciousness and relations of those who received it.

1 James ii., 2: "If there come into your synagogue," etc.