وو 1. The Gospel, as the apostles preached it, was essentially a story and a hope-the story the warrant of the hope. Even now we talk about "the story of the Gospel," though preachers, as well as theologians, ordinarily find it more natural to talk about "the doctrines of the Gospel." We still speak of the four books which record the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as "the four Gospels." But to the apostles and their hearers the story was all-the story about Jesus of Nazareth. All doctrine was involved in that story, all duty was related to it. All the inspiration which made the believer " a new creature was in the story, and in the hope which it warranted. Those who received the story, and into whose consciousness its inspiration entered, were related to each other as brethren. The religious element in human nature is pre-eminently social, and the new religious consciousness which believers had in common made them members of a new society. At Philippi, for example, Lydia and the other converts were in a new relation to each other from the hour of their conversion. By virtue of their new faith `and hope, they became at once, independently of any conventional arrangement, the church of Christ in Philippi. 2. Wherever the Gospel found reception, the converts must needs have their meetings for prayer, for mutual encouragement and help, and for such instruction as the best informed and most gifted among them could impart, if no other teaching was at hand. A convenient time for such meetings-a season redolent of sacred memories-was the first day of the week, beginning with the sunset of the Sabbath, and this they called "the Lord's day.' 3. The first converts, who were the earliest members of such a meeting, had made profession of their faith in Jesus the Christ, and of their joining themselves to the new kingdom of God, by a simple ceremony of washing, significant of the divine cleansing which was their entrance into a new 1 Acts xvi., 12-15, 40. 2 Acts xx., 7; 1 Cor. xvi., 2; Rev. i., 10. and holy life. Of course, any who afterward came into their fellowship were in like manner baptized. 4. As at Jerusalem, so in all other places, the believers, assembled for mutual help and the mutual expression of their fellowship in the Gospel, had a certain "breaking of bread" together in remembrance of him whom they gratefully acknowledged as Christ the Lord. Their eating and drinking as at their Lord's table, and their initiatory washing, seem to have been all that was distinctive in their formal observances, unless we add their habit of meeting on the first day of the week. 5. The name which they gave to their religion, as distinguished from the story by which it was inspired—the name of that new life which they had begun to live-was “godliness," or the right worship [evonßeìa]; and the name by which they spoke of themselves as a community, or of each other, was "saints," or "holy brethren." Having such thoughts and aspirations, they were under a necessity of sympathizing with each other in any trouble, and of helping each other in any distress. That necessity was not imposed upon them merely by rule or stipulation-it was an instinct of their new life. 6. At first, such a society may have been without formal organization. The most capable, by a certain law of human nature, would lead the rest. Each member, prompted by his new ideas and sympathies, would use, for the common cause and the edification of his brethren, whatever gifts he had, and of whatever kind.1 But soon organization, in a more definite way, would become necessary. There must be a recognized distribution of duties: one must do this work, another must do that. Somebody must preside in their meetings, and take the lead in worship and conference or in more formal teaching. Somebody (and naturally somebody else) must receive contributions and expend them. If we would know 1 Rom. xii., 4-8. 1. how the organization was completed by the appointment of officers to perform these various functions, we must forget for the moment all modern systems of ecclesiastical polity, and let the apostolic documents teach us. Paul and Barnabas revisited carefully the places where they had, in the first visit, made disciples. They went, "confirming the souls of the disciples,” or, in another phrase, “confirming the churches;" and one thing in that work of confirming or consolidating the believers in the fellowship into which they had been introduced was the leading of them to a formal choice of officers in each society as "the seven" were chosen at Jerusalem. It was to that work of "confirming the churches" that Timothy and Titus were afterward designated, when they were commissioned to set in order the things that had not been completed, and to constitute "elders in every city." When a missionary, the modern evangelist, in some unevangelized country, gathers his converts into churches. leads them in the choice of the officers necessary to the completeness of their organization, trains them to habits of selfsupport and self-government, and at last leaves them to the protection of God's providence and the guiding influence of God's word and Spirit, the difference between him and those whom he ordains in every city is surely intelligible. Such was the difference between those primitive evangelists, the apostles, with their fellow-laborers, and the presbyter-bishops in every city. Such was the simplicity of organization in the primitive churches. There was no complex constitution, no studied distribution of powers, no sharp distinction of ranks. Each congregation—like a patriarchal tribe, like a Hebrew village, like a synagogue-had its "elders."2 Some were to preside in the assembly, leading and feeding the flock; others to serve in the communion of the saints, almoners for the church to the needy, comforters to the afflicted. Bishops or dea cons, they were servants of the community, not lords over it. In a brotherhood where all were "kings and priests to God," no elder was king over his brethren, or stood as priest between them and the Father of their Lord Jesus Christ. [The reader who would examine more in detail the subject of the foregoing chapter may be referred to the following works accessible in the English language: Neander, "Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles." Books I.-III. Schaff, "History of the Apostolic Church." Books II.-IV. Mosheim, "Historical Commentaries." Century I., Sections 37-48. Jacob, "Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament." C CHAPTER II. FROM THE PRIMITIVE TO THE PAPAL. WHEN Christianity, by the conversion of Constantine (A.D. 312), became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, the church polity then existing was in some respects widely different from that of the primitive churches. Less than three hundred years after the beginning at Jerusalem, the government of churches had become essentially episcopal, though the bishops every where were elected by the Christian people. Often, if not always, the authority of the bishop, instead of being simply parochial, extended over many congregations, the mother church, in which the bishop had his throne, or sedes [see], being surrounded with dependent congregations, all under one government. The bishop had under him a body of presbyters, who were his council and helpers, and to whom he assigned their duties. Not unfrequently the bishops of a district or province were assembled in synods. or councils to deliberate on affairs of general interest, such as disputed points of doctrine, and questions about uniformity in worship and discipline. There was a firmly established distinction between clergy and laity, the clergy consisting of three orders or gradations, bishops, presbyters, and deacons. It has been sometimes assumed that what was in the fourth century must have been from the beginning. The fact, so conspicuous in the survey of that age, that the then existing church polity was substantially what is now called episcopal, has been thought to prove that the churches never were organized and governed in any other way; especially as there are no traces of any revolutionary conflict by which one polity was substituted for another, and no exact line can be drawn to mark the beginning of the distinction between |