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 1 Acts xiv., 21-23; xv., 36–41. 2 Stanley, "Jewish Church," 181, 182. 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 presbyters and bishops, or the transfer of power from selfgoverning Christian assemblies to a hierarchy. Constantine did not institute the episcopal form of government over the churches he found it already existing, with its roots in the past; and in adopting Christianity as the religion of the empire, he adopted that ecclesiastical polity. What, then, had become of the polity which we find in the New Testament? At what date was it superseded? Who introduced another constitution in the place of it? Such is the outline of an argument which often seems conclusive. The fallacy lies in the assumption that church government, once instituted, will perpetuate itself, and can be changed only by a revolutionary agitation. It is easy to assume that from what existed in the early part of the fourth century we may safely infer what existed in the early part of the third or of the second; and that from what existed when Christianity, early in the second century, emerges as an organized force into secular history, we may infer with certainty what existed in that formative and rudimentary period of which we have no record but in the New Testament. We know that the church polity which Constantine found in full shape and action was modified under his influence, and that the history of the church through all the ages from Constantine to Luther is full of changes in the polity of what was called the Catholic Church. We know, too, that in the earlier period, from the days of Ignatius and Polycarp onward, the constitution of the Christian commonwealth throughout the Roman Empire, the powers and functions of its officers, and the relations of local churches to each other, had been gradually changed. Need we marvel then if, in the early years of the second century, we find a difference between such bishops as Ignatius of Antioch or even Polycarp of Smyrna and those whom Paul exhorted at Miletus, or those to whom he addressed the epistle which he wrote for the church at Philippi, or those whom he described in his Pastoral Epistles? As the New Testament gives us no system of definite and formulated dogmas in theology, so it gives us no completed system of church government. Ecclesiastical polity grew, age after age, just as theology grew. What there was of organization in the primitive churches was more like the organization of a seed than like the organization of the tree in its maturity. The period between the day of Pentecost and the middle of the second century—or the narrower period between the date of the Pastoral Epistles and the beginning of that century-could not but be a period of rapid development in the Christian commonwealth. Nor did the growth of ecclesiastical polity terminate then. It went on, imperceptibly but steadily, to the age of Constantine-as it went on afterward to the age of Luther-as it goes on now, even in communities most abhorrent of progress and most observant of traditions. The circumstances of that early development determined, in many respects, its character and tendency. In that age the churches had no experience to guide them or to warn them. They knew nothing of what we know from the history of eighteen centuries. Why should they be jealous for their liberty? How should they be expected to detect and resist the beginning of lordship over God's heritage? We must remember, too, that in those times of inexperience the development of the Christian organization was a development under pressure. Christianity, often persecuted, always "an illicit religion," was making its way in the presence of powerful enemies. Its natural leaders, the "bishops and deacons," freely chosen in every church, were, of necessity, intrusted with large powers over the endangered flock, and, of course, power was accumulating in their hands. The churches were in cities; for it was in cities that the new doctrine and worship could obtain a foothold. Such churches, as they grew, were naturally distributed, rather than divided, into a plurality of assemblies governed by one venerable company of bishops or elders, and served by one corps of deacons. Equally natural was it for each mother church to |