GIFT OF THOMAS RUTHERFORD BACON MEfs^ORlAL LIBRARY DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/democracyinchurcOOheerrich DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH BY EDGAR L. HEERMANCE If THE PILGRIM PRESS NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 1906 Hf Copyright 1906 By EDGAR L. HEERMANCE J. Horace McFarland Company Harriaburg, Pa. ^ ^thmtion TO PROFESSOR GEORGE P. FISHER: May I dedicate this volume to you, as a slight tribute to your services for Congregationalism and the Church Universal and as a grateful recogni- tion of your life -long interest in me and mine? E. L. H. 282104 PREFACE Democracy Is a sacred word among us in America, not only in the State but in the Church. In American Protestantism, more than forty per cent of the churches have Democracy as the basis of their polity. If we include indirect democracy, nearly all our churches may be classed as democratic. It is this theme. Democracy in the Church, which we set before us. We shall study it from the standpoint of one of the democratic bodies, the Congregationalists. For many years there has been no treatise on Congrega- tional polity. Statements of polity have appeared, and his- tories, but no fresh attempt to draw democratic principles from their source and lead them, Hfe-giving, across the fields of church activity. Dexter, Ross and Ladd served a previous generation. But the years since their works were published have been full of change. The sciences of Exegesis and Church History have made great advance, and with this advance comes the need of readjustment in the theories of church polity. New problems have arisen in our denominational life. The present air is filled with clamorous voices, demanding a more centralized polity, or warning us that any step in that direction is a sale of our birthright. "We must become more compact," say some, "if we are to do our work in the Kingdom. Consolidation is the tendency of the age." "What is wanted," says another, "is not a change of system but a change of heart." (vii) Vlll PREFACE Which is right, or are both right ? This unrest is common to all democratic bodies today. It is time that democratic church polity should be stated again, in the light of mod- ern scholarship and in terms of the age in which we live. Today we hear everywhere the demand for Christian unity, that we put an end to the evils and losses which come from a divided Church. It is a note all the denomi- nations must heed. In the face of it they must justify their existence. Each body of churches must set itself to deter- mine what in its polity is essential and what is not. Only the essential is worth standing for in this practical age. Among Congregationalists and sister bodies, Democracy in the Church is on trial. If this is fundamental in the Chris- tian Church, let us live for it and die for it. If not, it is merely standing in the way of a united and efficient Church. We must ask anew whence that Democracy is derived, what it means, and how far it involves a separate denominational life. Here again is a need for the restate- ment of our polity, perhaps a series of restatements by dif- ferent hands. The steps we have recently taken, looking toward union with United Brethren and Methodist Prot- estants, have made the need imperative. This is the apology for our book ; it aims to supply a need. Our book deals with the problems common to Church Democracy the world over. We have borne constantly in mind the history and present conditions and needs of sister bodies. But we have felt that we could be of more service by looking at the subject from within one of the demo- cratic bodies than by looking at it from without all of them. Hence, as has been said, the standpoint of the book is that of American Congregationalism, and this fact will explain the selection of material in the later chapters. So far as is PREFACE IX known, every important action or paper which has appeared in recent years, up to the time of going to press, has been studied and utilized. But Congregationalism is moving so rapidly that completeness is difficult and finality of treat- ment impossible. We merely seize the present moment for an attempt to register and interpret some tendencies at present existing. An Appendix of documents is added, as an aid to further study and as offering many practical suggestions to the churches. Thanks are due to Professor Williston Walker, Presi- dent Charles H. Cooper, Dr. George R. Merrill and others who have kindly assisted by criticism or the furnishing of material. The author will welcome further criticisms and suggestions, with a view to recasting the work in a more permanent form at some future time, if the reception war- rants. In its present form it is tentative, with something of the character of a tract for the times. EDGAR L. HEERMANCE Mankato, Minn., December ig^ 190S ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I METHOD OF APPROACH Two assumptions: pack 1. The Church is founded on Christ; relation of this truth to the Protestant doctrine of Sacred Scripture i 2. Each age is free to adapt Christ's principles to its particu- lar needs 3 Permanent and transitory elements in the Church ; the proper use of precedents 2 Plan of the work, as determined by these two assumptions ... 3 CHAPTER n THE CHURCH IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS First reference to the Ecclesia, following Peter's confession ... 4 What this passage gives us : (a) The idea of a distinct religious community 5 (b) The idea of an authority to be vested in the Church ... 6 Promise made to Peter as the first Christian 6 Repeated in Matt. 18 and other passages 7 Christ ''in the midst "; His identification with the disciple ... 8 Reason for this identification : the redemption of the world ... 9 Why Christ chose a collective agency 9 Christ's second reference to the Ecclesia: Offences within the Christian community, the law of brother- liness 10 Simplicity of Christ's ideal ; the Church to embody the spiritual Kingdom n (xi) Xll ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS The four essentials of a church : page (fl) A company of Christians. (b) Close and permanent association. (c) Promotion of the Kingdom as their object. {d) Genuine loyalty 12 Official presumption rebuked ; an earthly democracy 13 The essential unity of the Church 14 CHAPTER III THE NATURE OF CHRIST'S LORDSHIP IN THE EARLY CHURCH Two objections to the foregoing inferences, one critical, the other exegetical ; must be tested by the actual organization of the primitive Church . . . 15 Distinct Christian communities from the beginning; "house- churches" 15 Use of the word ecclesia; each church complete in itself ; merely a spiritual unity 16 Picture of the church at Corinth 17 The "prophetic ministry" 19 The local office-bearers; two qualifications, service and "gifts" . 20 The mooted question of "presbyters" ;si Paul's letters are addressed to the church membership 22 His relation to these churches ; claims merely a moral authority . 23 Personal responsibility of each Christian to Christ 24 A case of church discipline 24 "The body of Christ" 25 Shows his idea of the nature of their democracy 26 Paul's practical idealism 26 An inspired community ; the priesthood of believers 27 Fruits of Christian democracy ; Christ's words justified and our induction proved 27 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XUl CHAPTER IV THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY Changes in the local office-bearers ; three stages : pagi (a) The church board taking over the functions of the pro- phetic ministry. {b) A single bishop, serving under the board 28 (c) Letters of Ignatius ; the bishop as president of the church board ; a three-fold ministry 29 The bishop comes to be voucher for Tradition, a historical succession 30 Passing of the prophetic ministry; failure of the Montanist revolt. 31 Early church synods, their democratic character 32 The work of Cyprian 33 The fiction of Apostolic Succession 33 The ministry becomes a mediating priesthood 34 Summary of the changes under Cyprian ; externalizing of the idea of the Church 35 Was the resulting Catholic System in line with Christ's prin- ciples ? 36 Democracy as feasible in the later centuries as in the first .... 36 Could Democracy have done the work required ? 37 Comparison with the Catholic System (a) On the side of the propagation of Christianity 37 {b) On the side of the unity of Christendom 39 Natural fruits of the Catholic System 42 CHAPTER V THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY The emancipating work of the Reformation 43 Why the Reformers stopped short of a pure democracy 43 Return of the "Reformed" churches to the model of the early third century 44 A return to the Biblical model : ((fl) The Anabaptists 45 {b) Robert Browne and English Separatism 45 XIV ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS FAGS Summaty of Browne's system 46 His achievement and influence 48 Barrowism 49 The Scrooby-Leyden-Plymouth church 51 The " Congregationalizing of Puritanism " 52 Formulation of Congregational polity ; the Cambridge Platform . 54 Tendencies in Congregational history to the Great Awakening : 1. The Presbytery ; its rapid disappearance 55 2. Status of the Ministry ; rise of a semi-sacerdotalism ... 56 3. Church Membership. The status of baptized children left open ^ 57 Two tendencies. The Half-way Covenant ; views of Solo- mon Stoddard 58 4. Connection betiveen the Churches. The Middle Way . . 60 Tendency toward centralization ; the consociation system in Connecticut 61 Opposite tendency in Massachusetts ; John Wise 62 5. Relation of Church and State ; union less close in Ply- mouth and Connecticut. Interferes with liberty of con- science 62 The Baptists as radical Brownists 64 Their rigid insistence on a regenerate membership ; separation . 64 Corollaries of this principle : {a) Believers' baptism 65 {b) Liberty of conscience, involving absolute separation of Church and State 65 (r) Right of Christian association 67 The Congregational churches in the i8th century 68 Effects of the Great Awakening 68 Nathaniel Emmons 69 His "Jacobinism" 70 Summary of his system 70 The triumph of a pure democracy 72 The idea of Fellowship; differentiates Congregationalism from other democratic bodies 72 Other American churches ; enforced voluntarism 73 The Presbyterians; an indirect democracy 73 Methodism 74 Tke Episcopalians 75 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XV CHAPTER VI INTERPRETATIONS OF DEMOCRACY FAGK Importance of the democratic renascence : {a) Recovery of the right of local association ; what this in- volves 76 (b) Recovery of the right of private judgment, as carried to its logical conclusion 77 How these rights are modified by the doctrine of fellowship ... 78 Two interpretations of the fundamental democracy of the Church : (a) Theory of delegated powers ; an indirect democracy ... 79 {b) Theory of associated powers ; a direct democracy .... 80 Congregationalism defined 81 Digression on the term "church"; may be used in a real or an ideal sense 81 The two theories contrasted 82 How far is it possible or wise to delegate residual powers ? Appeal to the analogy of American civil government .... 84 CHAPTER VII A DEMOCRATIC STATE AND A DEMOCRATIC CHURCH Close connection between Congregationalism and the American State 85 The Mayflower compact 85 Congregationalism supplies two legal fictions : (a) All men are created equal 87 (b) Social compact is the basis of government 87 Congregationalism and the representative principle make an indi- rect democracy possible ; the American State germi- nally complete 88 Proof from other colonies : Connecticut 89 Providence and Rhode Island 90 New Haven 91 The later history of the American State 92 XVI ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS PACK Why has Congregationalism continued to be only a direct democ- racy ? 92 The two truths at the basis of our American government : (a) Powers reside in the individual citizens ; {b) Self-government generates responsibility 93 Democracy indirect only in such matters as demand collective action 93 Democracy in the Church based on the same truths 94 Possible functions of a legislative body in the Church : 1. Legislative. Creed-making; the inevitable dilemma . . . 94 Similar failure of legislation in the sphere of conduct ... 96 Christ the o^ily law-giver 97 Necessary difference between the Church and the State . . 98 2. Judicial. Christ gave no such function to the Church ; the family vs. the law-court 98 3. Administrati've. Matters which demand collective action; analogy of the State 100 The power here residing in the Church is cumulative . . . loi May be delegated for the sake of greater efficiency .... loi Representative bodies, when confined to administration, do not endanger liberty 102 Conclusion : the proper proportions of direct and indirect democ- racy in the Church 103 CHAPTER VIII THE BASIS FOR CHURCH UNITY Bearing of these conclusions on the problem of Church unity ; ultimately a question of polity 104 1. A reunion of Christendom will not come through absorp- tion 104 2. Must be inclusive rather than exclusive 105 The Lambeth Quadrilateral 105 Its inadequacy; historical injustice of the "deposit" theory. 106 3. The Disciples, in their attempt to reproduce the Apostolic Church, have made the same error 106 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XVll PAGE 4. Creeds not necessarily divisive ; real point at issue the at- tempt to assume legislative and judicial functions . . . 107 Historical instances of their divisive character 108 5. Creed-making and judicial bodies stand in the way of reunion ; futility of diplomacy 109 6. The Congregational proposals; the parish system modified and extended no Local variety within one administrative whole in Division into schools rather than into sects in Necessary congregationalizing of the American churches in their external relations 113 But not internally 113 7 Beginning at the lower end 113 The witness of Congregationalism ; need of cultivating a still larger inclusiveness 113 Our relation to the United Church of the future 115 Comity, while we wait for unity 116 CHAPTER IX FELLOWSHIP AND OVERSIGHT Need of developing an administrative system in Congregation- alism 118 Material for such a system which already exists 118 1. The Council. Called to settle difficulties; a distinguishing feature of Congregational polity 119 Its nature and value 119 Fails today in other functions 120 "Parochial selfishness"; some remedies suggested .... 121 2. Must be supplemented by Associations, or Conferences. 122 Their rapid development in the last century 122 The key to the problem of local oversight. Recent experi- ments : (a) The Boston plan , 123 {b) The Maine plan 1 124 {c) The California Plan 125 XVlll ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS PAGE Superiority of the latter ; why it is more efficient than the Council 126 The function of fitting ministers to churches should be added 127 Plan of nomination ; its superiority to Conference " ap- pointment" 128 3. Home Missionary Superintendents, The "moral episco- pate"; present anomalies 129 Its possible development in the future 130 The elasticity of Congregational polity ; suggests a solu- tion of the question of organic union with United Brethren 131 4. Local Consolidation. Some recent experiments : {a) City federation : the United Congregational Church of Newcastle 132 {b) The collegiate plan : the Westchester Congrega- tional Church 134 (f) The branch church 137 {d) Yoking stronger and weaker churches r37 CHAPTER X THE MINISTRY Christ's conception : not masters but servants 139 How the early Church preserved this ideal 139 Attempt of the congregational churches to apply it to the pro- fessional ministry 140 Confusion of ideas ; need of a better adjustment 140 1, The Ministry in general simply a rank of service; the priesthood of believers must be preserved 141 Need of correcting sacerdotal tendencies in Congregation- alism ; means suggested 142 2. The professional ministry ; necessary to certify qualifica- tions and standing 143 Laxness of the present system 144 "Ordination" should be put in the hands of the local Con- ference 144 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XIX PAGE No "ordo"; suggestions toward a new terminology and procedure 146 Plan proposed would solve certain anomalies: "ordination at large"; the evangelist ; the lay preacher 147 3. The multiple ministry; desirable in larger churches . . . 148 4. Relation of the minister to his church ; Paul's doctrine of "gifts" 149 The democratic ideal considered in detail : {a) The life of the church ; importance of the individual . . 150 "Members one of another" 151 {b) The worship of the church ; to each a gift 151 (f) The work of the church ; havoc wrought by the profes- sional ministry ; revival of the idea of the church as a working body 152 (d) The government of the church ; participation of every member through the mass-meeting 153 Note as to voting ; minors and women 154 CHAPTER XI THE BAPTISMAL COVENANT Reasons for discussing the subject of Baptism 155 Immersion the primitive form 155 Change natural and legitimate 156 Baptism of infants in the early Church probable but not certain . 157 The significance of Christian baptism: Jesus' relation to the rite . 157 Two historical sources : Jewish baptism and the baptism of John . 158 Fused into a new rite, the covenant of adoption 159 The term "covenant" in the New Testament , 160 Confusion in early Congregationalism between the covenant of grace and the church covenant 160 The Church and the Household of God are not identical .... i6i Baptism of children as the "seal" of God's covenant of grace, the symbol of admission to the Household or Kingdom rather than to the Church 162 Helps to realize Christ's ideal of Christian nurture 164 XX ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS PAGE Influence of Horace Bushnell 165 Plan of formal covenant by the church in infant baptism .... 165 This theory avoids both extremes, individualism and sacramen- tarianism 166 The church covenant; view of the Cambridge Platform .... 167 Realizes Christ's ideal of the church as an active body 168 Must avoid the fallacy of the social compact 169 Possible separation of baptism and church membership for adults. 169 The sacraments as ordinances of the visible Church 170 Conditions of church membership ; broader idea of " regeneration" today 170 CHAPTER XII THE WORK OF THE CHURCH Missionary activity involved in the very nature of the Church . . 172 Democracy means every Christian a missionary; "Apostolic suc- cession" 172 On what the prosperity of a church depends 173 The democratic churches as nurseries of missionary zeal .... 173 Spheres of radiation in the work of the Church : 1. Local missionary and evangelistic work; the sense of indi- vidual responsibility 174 2. Organized home mission work. The two theories: vol- untary societies and church boards 175 Why the latter is to be preferred 176 {a) Voluntary societies of Congregationalism undemo- cratic, as not representative of the churches ; re- cent changes 177 (b) Overlapping on the present system 178 Further specifications with reference to "Home Missions": {c) Friction between the Society and the "auxiliary" states 179 {d) An unfortunate distinction ; the cry for " Home Rule" 179 {e) Tendency to pauperize the aided states 180 (/) Givers have let the Society do their work for them. 180 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS XXI PAGE Springfield meeting ; revolution in the Home Missionary Society along democratic lines i8o Distinction between the states retained, however, with some modifications 182 Reconstruction of the theory of home missions ; the local Conference as " the churches at work " 185 Extension of the principle to the state home missionary society 186 And to the national 186 Should involve the identification of the state Associations and National Council with these missionary societies . . 187 Building an adequate administrative system 188 Lessons from other bodies ; the new constitution of the Con- gregational Union of England and Wales 188 Foreign mission work ; a distinct corporation required . . 191 Democratizing of the American Board ; lessons in mission- ary administration taught by the Rockefeller dispute . . 191 CHAPTER XIII CONCLUSION What democracy in the Church means : the continuous leader- ship of the Spirit 193 Not a mystical but a practical doctrine 193 The sole lordship of Christ, negatively 194 Positively 194 Congregationalism the attempt to realize this Lordship in practical church life 194 Its mission in the American Church 195 Probable changes in our polity 195 The place of a democratic Church in American life 196 Personal responsibility ; realizing Christ's ideal 197 XXll ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS APPENDIX PAGE A. Plan of Union with United Brethren, etc 201 B. Federation of Churches— The Interdenominational Com- mission of Maine 208 C. Boston Union Conference 211 D. Cumberland Conference, Maine 215 E. Michigan Plan of Fellowship and Oversight 218 F. Wisconsin Plan of Unification 223 G. Congregational Church of Newcastle, N. S. W. . . . 225 H. Westchester Congregational Church 230 I. Branch Church, Mankato, Minn 242 J. Reception of Members (Council Manuel) 244 K. Congregational Union of England and Wales .... 247 L. Amended Constitution of the Congregational Home Missionary Society 258 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH CHAPTER I METHOD OF APPROACH We start out on a reexamination of the theory of church polity with but two assumptions, both of which concern method. The first is that the Christian Church, like the Christian religion of which it is the bearer, is founded on Jesus Christ. Christianity, as a historical re- ligion, has a historical person for its founder, lawgiver and leader. And so with the Church. It is on that person, on his principles of church polity and his permanent place in the Church, that we shall concentrate attention. The facts needed for our investigation are found chiefly in the Bible, and Protestantism has made the Bible, rather than Christ, the formal basis of the Church. Each of the Protestant systems has attempted to give the New Testa- ment scriptures a regulative value, even in the details of church polity. Congregationalism in particular has modeled its usages on those of the primitive Church, as preserved in the narrative of the New Testament. Without meaning to disparage either the Bible or Protestantism, we lay down the truth that the Christian Church is founded primarily on Jesus Christ, and only secondarily on the Bible. The latter has, in the matter of church polity, not a regulative A (x) .> <.* .' ^, / i^ll-y>^r MihcKACY in the church but merely an interpretative value. The Church existed before the Bible, w^hich is, in a sense, its product. And even those Protestant systems which supposed themselves founded on a divine book were really founded on a divine person. Only a few sects, such as the Dunkards, have been consistent in their attempt to make the Bible the basis of the Church, and such attempts have always ended in absurdity. It is time that we recognized this fact and revised our theories accordingly. The movement of our age, "Back to Christ," has already proved fruitful in the field of doctrine. It is likely to prove equally fruitful in the field of church polity. The doctrine that the Church is founded on the Bible is true in this sense, that it is founded on Christ and the Bible preserves and interprets him. Our first assumption, therefore, stated more explicitly, is this. The fundamental principles of the Christian Church must be derived from the words and work of Christ and his abiding functions, as we find these recorded in Scripture and attested by Christian history. We put our second assumption in a conditional form, in order that it may cover a method rather than a dogma. If the Christian Church is a divine institution, under divine guidance, it must be free at any period to adapt the funda- mental principles which it derives from Christ to the exigencies of its life. So far as it follows that divine guid- ance, it is not only free to do so, but competent to do so. We believe that no narrower statement than this can do justice to the facts of Christian history and to our modern sense of historical perspective. In the Church as an institution there are both perma- nent and transitory elements. The permanent are derived METHOD OF APPROACH 3 directly from Christ ; the transitory are the result of chang- ing conditions and demands. Conditions may change, and with them the forms of church polity, but the principles of church life and polity abide, — the same principles, how- ever adapted or logically expended, however obscured, it may be, by the place given in any age to extraneous prin- ciples and non-essential forms. Hence principles, not prece- dents, must be the guide for each generation. In ecclesi- astical circles, and among Congregationalists as much as any, usage has been given a regulative value. Denomina- tional usage, like the usage of the New Testament Church, may have an interpretative value. The whole history of the Church may be so used. But we shall in- sist, in the name of the churches, on absolute freedom to apply fundamental principles directly to present conditions, whatever may have been the usage of the fathers. The rule must be, not what our fathers did but what Our Father would have us do. The plan of our essay is determined by these two assumptions. They explain both the method of approach, the use made of Scripture and History, and the greater pro- portionate emphasis on the modern Church. Our study will be first inductive and then deductive. After deriving from Christ's teachings the fundamental principles of church poHty, we shall trace these briefly through the course of church history and then apply them to various phases of church life in the present. CHAPTER II THE CHURCH IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS As Jesus' work was to be carried on through his follow- ers, as the success of his mission depended on their organi- zation into a distinct religious community, we should ex- pect the future "Church" to be much in his thought. We should expect to find references to it, exphcit or impHcit, in such of his teachings as are preserved to us. These ref- erences are few and scattered, but they may prove sufficient for our purpose. The word ecclesia occurs twice in the Greek version of Jesus' words. The first reference is in the scene at Caesarea Philippi, Matt. 16:13-20. Interpreting Jesus' state- ment by its setting, we gather that the Christian Church began, actually or potentially, with a membership of one. The setting is important. In the quiet of their northern tour, the Master put to his disciples the question: "Who say ye that I am?" Apparently he had never told them, in so many words, who he was. He had left them to find out for themselves, as they lived with him and watched his work and felt his power on their own lives. Had they learned the open secret of his person? By their answer the success of his training was to be tested; on it depended the future of his cause. And from one man of them, at least, the answer came back swift and true. Simon Peter answered and said: "Thou art the Christ of God."^ ^ As in Luke 9 : 20 ; Mark 8 : 29 omits " of God." (4) THE CHURCH IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS 5 Just how much was involved in this confession, we can- not say with certainty. Should we, in face of the parallel passages, follow Matthew in reading "the Christ, the Son of the living God"? It is not probable that the thought of Jesus' divine sonship was yet present to the disciples' minds in a developed form. But if the confession was sim- ply that of Jesus' Messiahship, we are safe in saying that it was a higher conception of the Messiah than was then current among the Jews. Jesus had concealed his claim to the Messiahship just because it would be understood on too low a plane. This answer of Peter was perfectly satis- factory to him. The disciple had learned to give the Master the place He wished to be given. Jesus accepted Peter's answer as the expression of a proper spiritual loy- alty. We catch, in the following verses of Matthew's narrative, the intensity of Jesus' joy over this confession. "Blessed art thou, Simon son of John; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven." Jesus' first reference to the Church comes now, in a play on Peter's name. "And I also say unto thee, that thou art Petros, and upon this petra 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 shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Just what does this passage give us? It gives, first, the idea of a distinct rehgious community. "Upon this rock will I build my Church^ The word used by Jesus was almost certainly the common Old Testament word qahaly "assembly" (usually rendered ecclesia in the LXX), which signified, "the theocratic convocation of Israel, the gather- 6 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH ing of the people in their religious capacity."^ "My Israel," Hort renders it, and so the word would be understood by Jesus' hearers. My Israel, related to the old and yet dis- tinguished from it. The word cannot have been malkuth, "kingdom," which was Jesus' favorite term. The reasons are suggestive, (a) The Kingdom, when used specifically by Jesus, always has the qualifying phrase "of God," and is never called his own. (b) Ecclesia and Kingdom are here contrasted, the former possessing the "keys" of the latter, (c) The whole passage points to a new creation, a building or rebuilding, whereas the Kingdom has been represented as at hand and already among men. (d) The Kingdom is invisible, while the Ecclesia, as in the Old Testament, is visible, even though Jesus here (in distinc- tion from Matt. i8: 17) uses qahal in an ideal sense, as the world-wide Christian community of the future. To this distinction between Church and Kingdom we shall have occasion to return. We are at present concerned merely with the idea of a Christian community. This passage gives us, second, the idea of an authority to be vested in the Church. It is authorized to "bind and loose," that is, on Biblical and current Jewish usage, to "prohibit" and "permit," to "admit" and "exclude."^ The figure is that of the major-domo with his keys. Leaving, for the moment, the exact significance of the figure, we ask, to whom was this authority given by Christ? The promise was not made to Peter in some official capacity. There is nothing in the history of the following years to justify such an inference. Peter was a leader in the early Church, but not supreme leader. The official ^Enc. Bib. art. Assembly; Cf. Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 3 f£. 'C/. Isa. 22 : 19-22 ; Matt. 23 : 2-4, 13 ; Rev. 3 : 7. THE CHURCH IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS 7 primacy of Peter is a historical fiction. His primacy was a spiritual primacy. He was the first Christian. The prom- ise of binding and loosing was made to Peter as the first member of the Church of Christ, of the new religious community founded by Him. This is at once clear when we turn to the i8th chapter of Matthew. Jesus has foretold His death and resurrection ; the disciples' faith has been strengthened by the Transfig- uration. Others have joined in Peter's confession. And a second time Jesus promises this spiritual authority, using the same words with the change from singular to plural. "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."^ The power of the keys is delegated to those who make the same confession of spiritual loyalty which Peter made. On this living rock of confessing men Christ builds his church. Further Hght is shed on this promise by other passages. In Matthew 28:18-20 He appears to the eleven and says: "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore (i.e., as my disciples, sharing my authority) and disciple 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." Jesus has himself claimed authority on earth to forgive sins,^ and in John 20:21-23 He says to those He is leaving in His stead: "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." And when He had said this. He breathed on them and said : " Receive ye the Holy Spirit : *Vs. 18. "Mark 2 : 10 and II '8. 8 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them ; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."^ In the teachings of Jesus, no truth stands out more prominently than this promise of the Spirit, of His spiritual yet personal presence. In the hght of it the figure of bind- ing and loosing is to be interpreted. And, y^^ith the promise of the Spirit before our minds, Matthew i8 proves to be rich in suggestion as to Christ's theory of His Church. In the verses which follow the promise of spiritual authority, we gain light on the way this authority is to be delegated and wielded. "Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."^ We see from this what is the nature of the authority vested by Christ in His followers. The right to ask things of God "in his name "^ is more than the power of attorney. It is the iden- tification of the disciple with Christ. "If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you."* When Christ leaves the earth, He does not retire from the business of evangelizing the world. Through His Spirit in the lives of His followers. He is still personally conducting the business. Their authority is simply His personal authority, working through human agencies; their power to convert the world is His power; their claim on the Father is His claim ; their judgment is His judgment. The one sin which can never be forgiven is the sin against this inner light.^ *C/., also, Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8; and John i/\.-i6 passim. 'Vs. 19-20. *John 15:7. 'John 14: 13, etc. *Matt. 12:31 and ||*s. THE CHURCH IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS 9 Probably we are not warranted in making any more specific application of the figure of the major-domo with his keys. Nor is a specific application necessary. Where Christ is so identified with the disciple, every Christian act of the disciple is as the act of God. But we pause to em- phasize the apparent reason for this identification, for this promise of the Spirit. Through all the words and work of Jesus runs a redemptive purpose. It is for the work of world-redemption that He commissions and empowers His followers. The great instances of the promise have a mis- sionary reference, as we have seen. "The field is the world," He says,^ and again, "Ye are the salt of the earth ... ye are the light of the world. "^ "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father,"^ to return as a spiritual presence. And in choosing human agents to represent Him in the world, to be the bearers of His Spirit, Christ chose a collec- tive rather than an individual agency. The promise of the keys is to those gathered in His name, if it be only two or three. Every "abiding" man has the guidance of Christ's Spirit, but a company of such men has it in a special sense. The reasons for this are apparent from the nature of the case. Human life is essentially social. Christ could do more for them as a group than as individuals. It would deepen their religious life if they could share with one another the truth, the love, the strength which Christ had given to each. They could do more for Him as a group than as individuals. They could live better and work better and worship better, if they lived and worked and *Matt. 13:38. '^Matt. 5:13-14. 'John 14:12. lO DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH worshiped together. For these reasons Christ built a Church, founded a distinct Christian community. How far did this building go ? What did this work of founding involve? Merely, it would seem, the giving of some fundamental principles on which his followers were to organize Christian societies throughout the world. Loy- alty to the Spirit was one of these principles. Brotherly love was another. We turn to the verses which precede in Matthew i8, which contain Christ's second explicit reference to the Ecclesia. He is speaking of offences with- in the Christian brotherhood. "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 be 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."^ Then follow the words on the collective spiritual authority of the church. We note, in passing, an inference of some importance. Such spiritual authority is vested, not in the Church universal, but in the local company of Christians, the "two or three" gathered in his name. "Tell it unto the church" refers, of necessity, to the local congregation. The Synagogue is evidently in Jesus' thought. "The offender is to be treated as the Jewish Synagogue acted to- ward a Gentile or a publican. He was to be looked on as if he had never belonged to the society, or as if he had voluntarily excluded himself by the course of life he had chosen to persist in."^ Jesus apparently looks forward to ^Vs. 15-17. ^T. M. Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry in the Early Cen- turies ^ 28. THE CHURCH IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS II the organization of Christian societies, on the general model of the synagogue, which bears out our inference as to the visible community He intended. But the analogy covers merely the fact of organization in some simple form. What Jesus is emphasizing is the law of brotherliness which is to govern these Christian societies. The proud, persist- ent offender has broken the bond which holds the society together. The others are not to withdraw their fellowship from him until they have done all that brothers can to make him acknowledge his fault. Such brotherly love is to govern Christ's men in all their relations. "This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you."^ The Golden Rule is the divine principle of human association. In searching the gospels for the fundamental principles of the Christian Church, we cannot but be struck by the extreme simplicity of Christ's ideal. The Christian com- munity is a community of brothers, acknowledged sons of a common Father. The word generally used by Jesus is "Kingdom," which, to an Oriental, meant a kingship rather than a community, the personal rule of the king over his subjects. The visible brotherhood of Christian men and women is to represent, as far as may be, the spiritual King- dom of God. They are the "sons of the Kingdom;" they have "the keys of the Kingdom." ^ To God, and to Christ as representing God, every subject owes allegiance. The nature of this allegiance, and the relations of the subjects to each other, are determined by the character of the King, as God the Father. Love {agape) to God and man, — this is the law of the Kingdom, and so, as we saw in the last *John 15: 12. 'Matt. 13 : 38 ; 16 : 18-19 cf, ante p. 6. 12 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH paragraph, of the visible brotherhood, the Ecclesia. Christ seems to consider that, in stating this principle, He has given all that is necessary for the guidance of His followers in their associated life. The Church, for Jesus," is simply the community of Christians, vt^ith Him in the midst. However, from the foregoing and other passages, we may venture to go further and give this as Christ's definition. A church, on its human side, is a group of Christ's men, banded together to promote the work of Christ in their own lives and the lives of those around them, and living in loyalty to Him and love to one another. This would involve four things as essential to a church, on Christ's view. Firsty there must be a company of Christians, a group of persons who have taken Him for their spiritual Master. This is apparent from Peter's confession, and from Christ's words as to confess- ing Him before men.^ Second, there must be organization, or at least habitual association with an implied agreement to live together as a Christian company. The form of the organization is not specified, nor how complex such organization should be. But the fact of church discipline (if that is not too strong a term), through the withdrawal of fellowship, implies a close and permanent association. The same thing is implied by Christ's giving the rites of baptism and the Lord's Supper.- Third, the object of such asso- ciation must be, not merely occasional worship, but a com- mon Hfe, as including both work and worship. The Church, as we have seen, was to be a working body, a missionary society. It is to represent and promote the Kingdom, not only in the lives of its members, but in the *Matt. lo: 32, etc. *See Note p. 17 and Chap. XI. THE CHURCH IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS I3 world outside its membership. It is, primarily, a corporation for doing spiritual business. Christ said : " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to accomplish His work." ^ And Christ's followers, when banded together, must have the same double purpose, — to do the will of God and to spread among others the divine righteousness and love. Fourth y the company must really be doing what it is banded to do. It must "have his commandments and keep them." It must, as a body, follow loyally the instruc- tions of Christ, the ever-present Head. It must realize, in its membership, the rule of brotherly love. This follows from the nature of the case ; for otherwise Christ's prom- ises would be meaningless. Christ's idea of the Church is an ideal, whose perfect realization was difficult, perhaps impossible. But here, as in all His teaching. He "taught man to attain, by shadowing forth the unattainable." Wherever and just as far as these four simple condi- tions are fulfilled, if it be only among two or three, there is a true church of Christ. To every such company of Chris- tians Christ gives His presence. His guidance, His authority, not to one man or set of men, but to the members of the Church individually and collectively. Jesus expressly re- buked official presumption. When two of the disciples asked places on his right and left, to the great indignation of the others, the Master called them all together and said: "Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you : but whosoever would be- come great among you, let him (or, shall) be your servant, and whosoever would be first among you, let him be your slave ; even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered ^John 4: 34. 14 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH unto but to minister. . . ."^ In the foot-washing at the Last Supper, He taught the same lesson, — the dignity and blessedness of service. "I am in the midst of you as he who serves."^ And again, "Neither be ye called Masters; for one is your Master, even the Christ." ^ Here is the third fundamental principle of the Church which Christ gave, — the principle of equality. Perhaps we should consider it as a corollary of the first two. The rule of love involves equality. And an earthly democracy is the necessary com- plement of the absolute spiritual monarchy of Christ. Each Christian company, with Christ in the midst, must be qualified to carry on all the functions of a church. It is complete in itself. And yet it must sustain an intimate relation to those companies which with it make up the visible Brotherhood. This thought of the essential oneness of the Christian Church is not developed by Jesus, but it follows from the fact of the common Lord who is present with each group of believers. John brings this out in Jesus' intercessory prayer : " Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word ; that they may all be one, even as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee. . . . The glory which Thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them and Thou in me, that they may be perfected into one."* iMatt. 2o:2off and ||'s. 'Matt. 23:10. 'Luke 22 : 27 ; John 13 passim. *John 17 : 20-23. CHAPTER III THE NATURE OF CHRISTS LORDSHIP IN THE EARLY CHURCH We meet two objections to these inferences as to Christ's theory of the Church. First, that the passages in Matthew i6 and i8, on which we have chiefly based our argument, are not trustworthy. Jesus did not found or make provision for founding a distinct reHgious community, and these isolated passages cannot have come from him in their present form.^ Second, that our exegesis of these and other passages is incorrect, and therefore our infer- ences are untrue. We proceed to test our induction by a brief study of the Christian Church as actually existing in the middle of the first century. Did the men who were under the immediate influence of Jesus' ideas follow the general principles of the Church's organization and life which we have given ? If so, our induction is proved to be correct. After the Ascension, if not indeed before, we find a group of Christians at Jerusalem, living together as brothers, in close and permanent association. Whatever their rela- tion to the Jewish Ecclesia, they have their own meetings (in private for edification, and in public for purposes of evangelism) and their Christian ordinances.^ As Chris- ^So Schmiedel, Enc. Bib., 1876, 3104-5. ^Baptism and probably the Holy Supper, following the agape, Acts 2 : 42, 46. (•5) l6 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH tianity spreads, we find similar groups of Christians in vari- ous cities of the Empire, often several "house-churches" in the same city, as the meetings were necessarily held in private houses and one house could not accommodate all. "At the close of the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul sends greetings to three, perhaps five, groups of brethren gath- ered around clusters of distinguished Christians whom he names.^ One of these groups he calls a * church ' and the others were presumably so also. . . . When it was possible, that is, when any member had a sufficiently large abode and was willing to open his house to the brethren,^ com- paratively large assemblies, including all the Christians of the town or neighborhood, met together at stated times, and especially on the Lord's Day."^ In the earliest literature accessible, we find the word ecclesia, with a definite Christian content, which suggests the derivation of the term from the Lord Himself.* Be- sides its occasional use in the ideal sense of the Christian community throughout the world, ^ the word is specifically applied to the Christians in a given community, associated as one body.^ We read "the church which was at Jerusa- lem," "the churches of Galatia."^ These local churches do not form a compact and organized body. Each is inde- iRom. 16:3-5, i4» i5i 10. II- ^f- Philemon 2; Col. 4:15. ^Gaius was "the host of the whole church," Rom. 16:23. Acts 19 : 9-10 probably an instance of a rented hall. 'Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry ^ 42. *Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 9. * Especially in Paul's Roman epistles. The same is implied in the phrase "the Church in Corinth." *No "Church of Rome" or "of Colossi" is mentioned by Paul, probably because not yet able to assemble as one body. For Laodicea cf. Col. 4: 16 and 4: 15. 'Acts 8:1; Gal. 1:2. CHRIST'S LORDSHIP IN THE CHURCH 1 7 pendent and complete in itself. They form a unity, but this unity is essentially spiritual.^ They are bound to- gether by moral rather than organic ties. One church asks and receives advice from another, as in the relations be- tween Antioch and Jerusalem.^ But it is never more than advice. Ephesus commends ApoUos to Achaia.^ Paul's churches send gifts of money to Jerusalem. They unite in the support of their general missionary, and look to him for counsel. But there is no trace of any general organiza- tion of the churches. Even the Twelve Apostles exercise no special prerogatives, outside of the first chapters of Acts, which are to be accepted with great reserve. The idea of the author of Acts (or his source) that the Twelve were a sort of official board,^ is inconsistent with what we know of the term "apostle" from the rest of the New Testament and from our earliest extra-canonical literature. It is probably a case of later idealization, like his view of the speaking with tongues. For the picture of a Christian church of the first cen- tury we turn to Paul's letters to the Corinthians,^ both as ^E. g., Paul in Eph. 4:4-6. ^Acts 15 and Gal. 2. 'Acts 18:27. * 6 : 2 ; 8:1, 14 ; 11 : i ; cf. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, 45 ff. * It is hardly necessary to prove that Paul may be included among "those under the immediate influence of Jesus' ideas," and therefore available for evidence in this chapter. Acts and Galatians indicate his close association with the leaders at Jerusalem and his agreement with them on fundamentals. Whether or not Paul was acquainted with the whole range of Jesus' teachings, his letters show how saturated he was with their spirit. It is of some importance to note that Paul gives the eucharistic formula as coming from Jesus (and, as in Luke, intended by Jesus as a permanent memorial); and he implies that he was him- self baptized, thus confirming the evidence of Acts as to the existence of this rite in the Christian community from the beginning. B 1 8 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH the fullest picture and most nearly contemporary. Two meetings may be distinguished, and probably three. The first is the public meeting,^ full of "prophetic" enthu- siasm, whose closest modern analogy is the Free Methodist camp-meeting, or, perhaps better, the meetings of the Welsh revival. The second is the private meeting for thanksgiving on the Lord's Day, a common meal ending with the Holy Supper.^ Probably a third meeting was called, when necessary, for the transaction of business.^ This is not certain ; but much business was transacted, for which the other meetings seem to allow no place. There are delegates to be appointed,* and letters despatched in the church's name.^ Members are disciplined and restored to fellowship.^ When necessary, a vote is taken, and the vote of the majority decides the case.^ Probably there would be further business, financial or otherwise, to come before the meeting. "Such," says Lindsay, "is the picture of a Christian church in the Apostolic age, as it appears in the pages of the Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, and, although no such clear outline is given us of any other Christian community, still we are warranted in assuming that the Church in Corinth did not differ much from the other churches which came into being through the mission work 1 1 Cor. 14. 'i Cor. 11:17 ff. 'Lindsay, op. cit., 54 f; Weizsaecker, Apostolische Zeitalter^ 3te Aufl., S. 603 et ante. *2 Cor. 8: 19. *i Cor. 7: 1 ; 2 Cor. 3 : 1,2. « I Cor. 5 : 1-13 ; 2 Cor. 2 : 6-9. Cf. Gal. 6 : i; 2 Thess. 3 :6 ; all in the spirit of Christ's great rule. ^2 Cor. 2:6. Christ's lordship in the church 19 of the great Apostle to the Gentiles. We see a little self- governing republic — a tiny island in a sea of surrounding paganism — with an active, eager, enthusiastic life of its own. It has its meetings ior edification, open to all who care to attend, where the conversions are made which mul- tiply the little community; its quieter meetings for thanks- giving, where none but the believing brethren assemble, and where the common meal enshrines the Holy Supper as the common fellowship among the brethren embodies the personal but not solitary fellowship which each beHever has with the Redeemer; its business meetings where it rules its members in the true democratic fashion of a little village republic, and attaches itself to other brotherhoods who share the same faith and hope, trust in and live for the same Saviour, and have things in common in this world as well as beyond it." ^ As to who administered baptism in the church at Cor- inth, or presided at the Lord's Supper, we are completely in the dark. Ministry in the modern sense there was none. Any male member might take part in the worship. The only check on absolute liberty, to keep it from degenerating into license, was the Christian good sense of the society.^ Such preaching as found place was done by men who were put forward, or put themselves forward, by reason of their charismata or gifts. In the earliest extra-canonical litera- ture we hear much of itinerants, with no pastoral duties, having no definite connection with any one church, but serving the Church universal. This "prophetic ministry" of the early Church, as it has come to be called, may be roughly divided into "apostles," or missionaries; "prophets," or exhorters; and "teachers," whose chief function was in- ^Op. cit. 57. 2 1 Cor. 14: 26 ff. 20 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH struction.^ The influence of this prophetic ministry, and the honor in which it was held, were profound.^ They were supported wholly, or in part, by the gifts of the brethren.^ Distinguished from these ministers of the Word* are the office-bearers in the local church ; or rather the services are to be distinguished, for the local office-bearers must often have possessed prophetic gifts, particularly on the side of instruction.^ Each church has its own leaders in practi- cal affairs, and this leadership depends first (as Christ taught) on service. Paul tells the Corinthians, with refer- ence to Stephanos, that they should "also be in subjection unto such, and to every one that helpeth in the work and laboreth."® And to the Thessalonians he says: "We be- seech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you."^ Second, this leadership depends on "gifts," or special endowments of the Spirit. Among these are antilepseis and kuberneseis, translated in our version "helps" and "governments."^ Out of these apparently grew two types of local administration, and later permanent offices, the diakonein and the episkopetn. Roughly, the body of deacons, widows, etc., rendered sub- ordinate service, while the body of bishops or shepherds (and the presbuteroiy whether identical or not) took the oversight of the congregation. The latter, or perhaps the * Paul's two lists are in i Cor. 12:28 and Eph. 4:11. See espec. Didache, XI ff. ^E. g., Heb. 13:7, 17, 24, the Church's ijyovfj^rjoi. ^ I Cor. 9 : 6-14 ; Gal. 6 : 6 ; 2 Cor. 11:7-9; Phil. 4 : 10 ff. *Acts 6:1 ff. "^i Thess. 5:12. (C/. I Tim. 5:17). •i Cor. 16:15, 16. 'i Cor. 12:28. Christ's lordship in the church 21 two bodies together, "watched over the Hves and behavior of the members of the community ; they looked after the poor, the infirm, and the strangers; and in the absence of members of the prophetic ministry they presided over the pubhc worship, especially over the Holy Supper."^ They must also have had certain administrative duties. As Lind- say further remarks: "The quahfications set forth for office are those which every Christian ought to possess; and the duties said to belong to office are those which for the most part all Christians ought to perform." ^ We are already trenching on dangerous ground. The scholastic calm which followed Lightfoot's identification of episcopoi and presbuteroi (making the latter the technical name for the officer, while the former describes the work done) was disturbed by Dr. Hatch's lectures and completely broken by Harnack. From the nature of our argument, it is quite unnecessary for us to enter into this discussion. The view to be taken depends chiefly on the date of cer- tain documents, such as Acts, James and the Pastoral Epistles. Even if we give these documents the dates com- monly assigned, there is nothing in their references to pres- buteroi, etc., that conflicts with the democracy of the Paul- ine Church, in its relation to the local office-bearers.^ It 1 Lindsay, 155. 'Id. 31. 'The supposed sacerdotal functions of presbyters may be worth a brief notice. In i Tim. 4:14, Paul speaks of Timothy's gift, given him by prophecy, "with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." This might be called ordination, if we could find any trace of an "ordo." Timothy seems to be simply a missionary, or missionary's deputy. In 2 Tim. 1:6, the phrase is "through the laying on of my hands." With these should be put Acts 13:3, the setting apart of Bar- nabas and Paul for missionary service, apparently by the prophets named; 19: 6, Paul giving the Spirit in this way to those only nominal 22 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH is important to remember what Lindsay points out, — the double character of all pioneer missionary work like that of the early Apostles. They must train their converts in the art of living together in a Christian society, and do this "in such a way as to foster social as well as individual respon- sibility. So on the one hand they can be represented [as by Sohm] as shaping constitutions, selecting and appointing office-bearers and generally controlling in autocratic fashion the communities their teaching had gathered together ; and on the other hand this very work can be truly described [as by Loening] as the almost independent effort of the communities themselves." ^ Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus would show us the way the missionary had to do his work; the general Epistles show him throwing all the responsibility on the people themselves, as we shall see. The democratic character of these early church offices comes out in the salutations of Paul's letters. For example, "unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints"; "to all the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons."^ "He addressed his letters to the whole community, who, in his eyes, are responsible for the progress and good behavior as for the misdeeds and Christians before ; 8:17, similar, of Peter and John; and 6:6, by the Apostles after the deacons had been elected by the church. The Im- position of Hands was certainly common among the first Christians, as among the Jews. That one of its uses was in the setting apart of a presbyter by the presbytery is possible, even probable, though the evi- dence is scanty and not specially reliable and usage may have varied. Good order would have required something of the sort, after the rise of a regular presbytery. But it does not follow that the presbyter had, or claimed to have, any spiritual right not inherent in the ordinary Christian. iQp. cit. 86. ' I Cor. 1:2; Phil. 1:1. Christ's lordship in the church 23 decline of the society and of individual Christians within it. His letters are quite consistent with the existence of ministering officials who owe their position to the assembly and are responsible in the last resort to it ; but they are not consistent with the existence within the community of any authority whose power comes directly from a source outside the brotherhood."^ Let us look more closely at Paul's relation to the churches which he had founded and which still looked to him for leadership. It is here that the democracy of the Church comes out most clearly. Paul claimed to be an Apostle, a missionary of Jesus Christ by a special call. In his work, when it concerns the Gospel or the Kingdom, he assumes an authority from Christ Himself. This tone of authority sounds through his preaching and his writing.^ It arises from his consciousness that Christ's Spirit is with him, inspiring him and blessing his work.^ But this is Christ's authority, not his. And the humblest Christian, in his inmost conscience, shares the same authority. In the interesting passage at the close of the second letter to the Corinthians, where they seek a proof that Christ is speaking in him, his answer is: "Try your own selves, whether ye are in the faith. Prove your own selves. Or know ye not as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you? unless indeed ye be reprobate.'^* His authority over these churches is simply a moral authority. In doubtful cases he advises ; he cannot command. Some of his words in I Cor. 7 are suggestive. "But this I say by way of con- 1 Lindsay, 58. ^E. g., 2 Thess. 2:15 ; 3: 14; Gal. i:8. '1 Cor. 2:3-5. *2 Cor. 13 : 5. Cf. "in Christ," passim; given in Gal. 3 : 26-28 as basis for the fraternal equality of all believers. 24 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH cession, not of commandment. Yet I would that all men were even as I myself. Howbeit each man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that."^ "Now concerning virgins I have no command- ment of the Lord : but I give my judgment as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be trustworthy. . . . But she is happier if she abide as she is, after my judg- ment; and I think that I also have the Spirit of God."^ We find a somewhat similar discussion in Romans 14. "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it as unto the Lord: and he that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, unto the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself. For whether \ye live, we live unto the Lord ; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living."^ In Paul's view, of which we have quoted a single proof, each Christian was personally responsible to Christ for his conduct. No Apostle even would dare to take Christ's place as the master of any man's soul. Next we may turn to a case that concerns Christians more in their collective capacity, the matter of church dis- cipline. We probably have the history of one such case in I Cor. 5 and 2 Cor. 2. In the first passage he urges ex- communication in the following terms: "I verily, being absent in the body but present in the spirit, have already as though I were present judged him that hath so wrought iVs. 6-7. '^Vs, 25, 40. 'Vs. 5-9. CHRIST'S LORDSHIP IN THE CHURCH 25 this thing, in the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gath- ered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan." ^ And in the second passage he thus comments on their rather tardy action: "If any hath caused sorrow, he hath caused sor- row, not to me, but in part (that I press not too heavily) to you all. Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the many."^ It is the church which excommunicates, not Paul. And though he as much as commanded it, and speaks in the following sentences of their "obedience," it is rather "the obedience of Christ,"^ in whose name he wrote. For Paul the only Head of the Church is Christ.^ The emphasis is always on the personal responsibility of Christians to Christ, individually and hence collectively. Still following Paul's letters, let us look at this from another side. In i Cor. 12 he is using the figure of the body and its members to describe the differing gifts of Christians. These various endowments are gifts of the one Spirit, manifestations of the one Lord in his fellowship with them.^ "Now ye are the body of Christ," he says at the close, "and severally members thereof. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of heaHngs, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets ? Are all teachers ? Are all workers of miracles ? Have all gifts of healings ? Do all speak with tongues ? Do all interpret ? But desire earnestly the greater gifts. And moreover a most excellent way show ^i Cor. 5:3-5. '2 Cor. 2:5-6. '2 Cor. 10:5, *Eph. 5:23 ; Col. i: 18, etc. *Rom. 12:4-8. Cf. I Peter 4:10. 26 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH I unto you,"^ — the common gift of brother love, which may be a fruit of the Spirit in each Christian heart. "Ye are the body of Christ." Paul is writing to the Christians at Corinth, the little church he himself has gathered. He says "the body of Christ," not "a body of Christ"; though the Corinthians alone are in his thought, we should perhaps allow for a certain forensic foreshorten- ing. But Paul's words show his idea of the essential democracy of the church, and the nature of that democ- racy. The church at Corinth is not simply a society made by men. They have banded together in the name of Christ. More than that, they are the body through which Christ's blood flows, the body His Spirit is animating and directing. As Christians they are members of Christ's body, "severally members thereof." Each Christian stands in a direct relation to Christ and is being led by His Spirit, each in his own part, his own work. And so, when they come together as a church, they are really carrying out Christ's orders and representing Him in the world. They form a complete organism, "the body of Christ present in every Christian society."^ This may be called an ideal, rather than a statement of literal fact. Paul was an idealist. He looked on each be- liever as a vice-regent of Christ, an executor of His will, in humble ways or in great. He assumed that each mem- ber of the church was living so close to Christ that he was a channel of Christ's Spirit. This was not true of the church at Corinth, or the church at Ephesus, or the church at Jerusalem. But Paul believed, as Christ believed, that the best way to make the ideal real was to bring it into 1 1 Cor. 12:27-31. »C/. Eph. 4:4-6; Col. 3:15. CHRIST'S LORDSHIP IN THE CHURCH 27 practical church life and try to follow it. He said to this company of Christians, "You are the body of Christ." Not "you ought to be," but "you are." We recall Christ's words as to the promise of the Spirit, both in John and in the synoptic gospels. The Church is represented by the New Testament writers as an inspired community. The writers of Sacred Scripture claim nothing for themselves which the humblest believer may not, does not share. The Church is represented as a sacerdotal com- munity. "Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood to oflFer up spiritual sacri- fices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."^ There was no need of a special priesthood, for each believer stood in the immediate presence of the God whom Christ re- vealed. And we cannot deny that the Lord was present, "work- ing with them." In no other way can we explain the growth of the early Church and its remarkable triumphs, as it steers its way safely between the formalism of Jerusa- lem and the sensuous excesses of Corinth. The ideal it held and practiced of the personal responsibility of the in- dividual to Christ was justified by the fruit. It justified the words of the Master, "greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to the Father." We find here that to which the Master looked forward, — an earthly democracy, bodying forth in the world the absolute spiritual monarchy of Christ. In the fundamental principles of its organization and life, the primitive Church followed the teachings of Christ, as we have gathered them from the gospels. 1 1 Peter 2:5. Cf. especially Hebrews. CHAPTER IV THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY We may glance briefly at the history of the Christian Church in the succeeding ages. From the beginning of the second century, Democracy gradually passes through Aris- tocracy to Monarchy. A study of this change, its causes and effects, is instructive for a student of church polity. The changes in the constitution of the Church center about the local office-bearers. The period covered by the second century is largely obscure, but some relics of Chris- tian literature suggest the stages through w^hich church office may have passed, at varying rates of speed. In the Didache we find the church board, of w^hich w^e savsr the germ in the New Testament churches, but now it begins to take over the functions of the prophetic ministry. "Ap- point for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek and not avaricious, and upright and proved; for they, too, render you the service of the prophets and teachers."^ In the document which Harnack calls the Original Sources of the Apostolic Canons, we find a pastor or bishop, elected to preside over the puMic worship of the church and to administer its property, under the direction of the college of presbyters, who are the real rulers in the congregation. The Church is beginning to have a settled ministry. iChap. XV. (28) THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY 29 The Letters of Ignatius, though earlier in date, show a third stage, the bishop as president of the college of pres- byters and ruler in the congregation. It is an ideal, perhaps, in his letters, rather than a statement of generally accepted polity. In the dangers, the heresies, the disturbances of the Christian society, he sees the need for some center of unity, some recognized authority and guarantee of order in each local congregation, and so in the Church universal. "Do nothing without the bishop," he cries; "keep your flesh as a temple of God ; cherish union ; shun divisions ; be imitators of Jesus Christ, as He Himself also was of His Father."^ The change in the Church's constitution for which he gives his dying breath may seem a legitimate and necessary development of the church organization which Christ had given only in outline. "The Ignatian bishop is in every essential respect the minister of the local con- gregation, and the presbyters are his assistant ministers or curates. ... In the interest of unity, the time, it seemed to him, had come when the supremacy in the congregation should be vested in one individual man."^ If he urges sub- mission, almost a blind submission, to bishops and other church officers, it is because he assumes them to be so filled with the Spirit that when they speak Christ speaks. The change to a three-fold ministry, which Ignatius advocated, and in a sense reflected, came gradually and pro- voked no opposition. By the end of the century, practically every church had its bishop, presbyters and deacons. The rise of a permanent president of the church session — the pastor or bishop — had brought no essential change in the character of the Church. It was still extremely democratic. 1 To the Philadelphians, 7. 'A. V. G. Allen, Christian Institutions y 70. 30 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH The bishop served without salary; no traces of financial support for the ministry appear until a considerably later period. He worked at his trade through the week Hke the ordinary members, and his social position was in no way diflferent from theirs. In the government of the church his power was merely that of moral suasion.^ Final authority resided in the congregational meeting. In his relation to the presbyters, the bishop was simply primus inter pares. This theory persisted long after the practice was changed. Thus Jerome said at the beginning of the fifth century : "With the ancients, presbyters were the same as bishops, but gradually all the responsibility was deferred to a single person, that the thickets of heresy might be rooted out. As the presbyters therefore know it is by the custom of the Church they are inferior to him who has been set over them, so let the bishops recognize the fact that they rank above presbyters more by custom than by any express arrangement of the Lord."2 But the change did not stop where perhaps Ignatius would have wished. Under the pressure of heresy, there arose a new idea of the bishop's office, simple in itself but leading on to other ideas that were radical. He became, above all else, the voucher for Tradition, for the true faith handed down from the days of the Twelve Apostles, by writing or word of mouth. This function, instead of re- maining with the presbyters as a whole, was given more and more into the hands of the pastor. And Christian imagi- nation projected this satisfactory arrangement backward in a necessary succession. The bishop of the local church, instead of being, as for Ignatius, the direct representative of 1 Ignatius, To Polycarp, 2, 3, 5. ' Commentary on Titus 1:5. THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY 3I Christ, came to be the historic representative of the Apostles. Thus Irenaeus, writing at the end of the century, says: "It is within the power, therefore, of all in every church who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tra- dition of the Apostles, manifested throughout the whole world ; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the Apostles instituted bishops in the churches, and the successions of these men to our own times." ^ In other passages Irenaeus' emphasis is on the presbyterate in general. But by the time of Tertullian it is the bishop alone who is mentioned as the Apostles' successor and voucher for Tradition. The term "Apostle" has now become restricted to the Twelve, which means the passing away of the first rank of the prophetic ministry ("first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers"). But the passing of the "prophets," through the rise of a regular ministry and an orderly wor- ship, roused very serious opposition. Doubtless prophecy had been deteriorating in many quarters. Then, too, the temper of the Church was changing, — its ideas of worship, its attitude toward the world. But it was the new idea of the local office-bearers, as vouchers for, and, in increasing measure, instructors in the true faith, which put the pro- phetic order in an inferior place. "Every prophet who speaketh in the Spirit," the Didache had said, "ye shall not try nor judge." ^ This is the unpardonable sin. With Irenaeus, the test of a true prophet is "to obey the elders who are in the church."^ This change amounted to a revolution, and the great movement known as Montanism "^Against Heresies^ III, c. 3:1. 'Chap. XI. * Against Heresies ^ IV, c. 26:2; cf. Ill, c. 11:9. 32 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH (A. D. 156 onward) was in essence a conservative revolt, an attempt to bring the churches back to the untrammeled enthusiasm of their earlier worship. In their emphasis on the power of the Spirit and in their rigid discipline, the Montanists might be called the Methodists of the second century. Though Montanism drew strong men like Ter- tuUian into its ranks, the exaggerations and fanaticism of the movement led to its downfall, or, we might say, its suppression. And with it passed the "hberty of prophesy- ing" in the Christian Church. The first known ecclesiastical councils since the earliest days appear in Asia Minor about 160 A. D., in connection with the Montanist movement. They seem to have been informal meetings of church officers and members to ad- vise in local difficulties and settle questions of common con- cern. Stated synods soon came to be a regular institution in the Church. The Original Sources of the Apostolic Canons directs the weak church to call for representatives of the stronger churches in the neighborhood to assist in the choice of a bishop.^ In the third century this had become the custom for all the churches, the neighboring pastors assisting in election and ordination. But of the synod or council (for whatever purpose called), the local congrega- tion concerned formed a part, and with it the final decision rested. As Lindsay says: "If left to itself the democratic genius of Christianity might have evolved an organization which, starting from the unit of the congregational meet- ing, and rising through a series of synods with widening areas of jurisdiction, might have culminated in a really re- presentative oecumenical council or synod which would have given a visible unity of organization to the whole Christian * Cf, references in Lindsay, 328, 178. THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY 33 Church, and at the same time would have preserved its primitive democratic organization."^ The actual development w^as to take an altogether dif- ferent line. With the changes in the Church and its min- istry during the third century the name of Cyprian^ is inseparably connected. Through the bent of his mind and his natural abilities, this great North African statesman seems to have been the chief factor in the result. But his wrork was in line with certain tendencies of the age ; the failure of the Montanist revolt had served to exalt still further the position of the local office-bearers, and strong men in the bishop's office grasped, consciously or uncon- sciously, at further power. In the time of Cyprian the bishop is still the local pas- tor, though his parish is now coming, in many cases, to include a number of congregations in his city or the out- lying country. The congregational meeting still persists, and the bishop can do nothing without carrying the peo- ple, and especially the presbyters, with him. He is elected by the people, and the local church is virtually indepen- dent and self-governing. But a sharp distinction is beginning between clergy and laity. And the bishop is coming to be regarded, not so much as the historical successor of the Apostles and so able to vouch for tradition, but as their official successor, possessing all their gifts, rights and powers as Christ's vice-regent. This legal fiction of Apos- tolic Succession Cyprian supported by practice and speech and pen, with all a Roman lawyer's passion for authority and precedent. It involved an extraordinary change in the position of the bishop. On this theory, he alone had power to ordain, to restore the lapsed, to administer the Euchar- 1 Id. 334. '^Bishop of Carthage from 248 A.D. 34 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH ist in person or by deputy. "Once appointed, the bishop possessed the * subHme power of governing the Church/ and was responsible to God alone for his deeds. He was the autocrat within his own Church, and every act and office culminated in his person, just as the emperor absorbed in one man all the legal powers which under the earlier republican government had been distributed among several officials."^ The magnitude of this change in the idea of the Ministry may be seen by comparing the words of Tertullian half a century earlier : " Considered in itself, the laity also have a right to administer the sacraments and to teach in the church. The word of God and the sacra- ments were, by God's grace, communicated to all, and may therefore be communicated by all Christians as in- struments of God's grace. But the question here is not merely what is lawful in general, but also what is expedi- ent under existing circumstances. . . . From regard, therefore, to the necessary order of the church, the laity ought to exercise their priestly rights in administering the sacraments only when time and circumstances require it."^ Cyprian would have looked with horror on such a pos- sibility. For his idea involved the further thought that the bishop was a special priest who had a special sacrifice to offer. The analogy of the Old Testament priesthood as the "shadow of things to come" had been working in Christian thought. Cyprian seems to be the first to apply this analogy specifically. He repeatedly quotes the text: "The man that doeth presumptuously, in not hearkening unto the priest that standeth to minister there before Jehovah thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall * Lindsay, 303. ^ Of Baptism, 17. THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY 35 die ; and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel."^ For him, as for succeeding ages, the Holy Supper, in its bread and wine, is a divine sacrifice ; and the church officer who alone can preside over the rite is a priest, like the priests of the heathen cults or the Old Dispensation. Thus the ministry in the Christian Church becomes a mediating priesthood. The "priesthood of believers" has passed, like the Hberty of prophesying. Summing up these changes for which Cyprian stood sponsor, we may say that they involved the externalizing of the whole idea of the Church, in the supposed interest of unity and orthodoxy. "Whoever he may be, and wher- ever he may be, he who is not in the Church of Christ is not a Christian. "^ And the Church is "defined by its ministry." It means for Cyprian, first, the local congrega- tion for which the bishop, as the Apostles' successor in the vice-regency, offers sacrifice and obtains pardon. Where the bishop is, there is the church. Where the bishops are, there is the Church, in the larger sense, now coming to be known as the " Great Church " or the " Church Catho- hc," in distinction from the minor heretical sects. Out of this Church, with its true Apostolic succession, there is no chance of salvation. Cyprian's theory, though it gave the power of episcopal appointment and ordination into the hands of the bishops of the province, involved the indepen- dence of each bishop so appointed, even if he were only the pastor of a small country church. The Unity of the Church was the unity of a corporation, or rather as yet a federation, to which each bishop belonged by virtue of his office. The synod came to be practically a "house of ^Deut. 17: 12; Epist. Ill: I, etc. 'Cyprian, Epist. y LI: 24. 36 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH bishops." The congregational meeting, if it persisted, was only a fifth wheel to the coach. It should be added that the theory of the equality of bishops, in this form, was peculiar to Cyprian and hardly survived his death. The further development of what may be called the CathoHc System need not detain us. Natural historical causes led to the gradual change from a parochial to a diocesan episcopate, to the inequality of bishops, the rise of metropolitans and the supremacy of the Roman see. But we may close this hasty and necessarily imperfect out- line with some remarks on the effects of this radical change in the Church's constitution. Christ left the Church to work out the details of its polity under the enlightenment of His Spirit. Was the ac- tual development due to that enlightenment? Or was it due to motives of expediency, acting (consciously or un- consciously) under the pressure of circumstances, and to the introduction of ideas foreign to the spirit of Christian- ity? This is a question which it is, of course, extremely difficult to answer. The actual result always appears the inevitable, in the struggle of opposing forces. It is easy to say, and difficult to prove, that any given course of historical development might have been different. The further ques- tion arises. Was it possible for the Church to preserve the democracy formulated by Christ? We face the tremendous practical difficulty of applying democracy in an unenlightened age, with such human material as the early Church had at its disposal. But the leaders in the first age of Christianity did not find this dif- ficulty insuperable. Paul put responsibility, as the Master had done before him, on the Christian individual, the Christian company. And it seemed to work well, on the THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY 37 whole. Nothing develops responsibility like responsibility. If the Christian community at Corinth, as Paul describes it, drawn largely from the lowest classes of Roman society and with the taint of heathenism still upon it, was able to practice democracy under the guidance of Christ, the same community should have been much better fitted to practice it two centuries later, with the increasing stability of Chris- tian character from one generation to another, and the increasing enlistment of wealth and culture in the service of the despised Nazarene. Democracy would seem to have been as practicable in the third or fourth century as in the first. Could it con- ceivably have done the work demanded of the Church of Christ in the later age ? It has often been said that we owe the preservation of Christianity to the CathoHc Church. The "CathoHc System" was necessary for the propagation of the Gospel, especially among the barbarian tribes. And through the powerful unity which it developed it kept the Church from falling a prey to Mohammedanism and other enemies. Let us look at these points briefly, considering the Catholic System as such, that is, separating it as far as possible from its entangling aUiance with the state, and from the legahsm and superstition for which it may or may not have been responsible. First, as to the Propagation of Christianity, In the first two centuries, when the Democratic System was still in force, the gospel was spread by individuals. Sometimes it was the missionary work of an apostle, a traveling evangel- ist, who gave his Hfe to preaching and the organization of churches. Sometimes it was the work of itinerant "proph- ets" and "teachers." But the greatest work was done by those who were not professional missionaries. Exiles, 38 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH soldiers, business men, all carried the Gospel with them. And humble Christians spread the faith among their neigh- bors, through their lives, their deeds and their words.^ Not every Christian was a professional apostle, but almost every Christian was a missionary. Missionary responsibility rested upon every member of the Church of Christ, and mission- ary zeal was general. Christianity never spread faster than in these first centuries. And the work was done in the face of the greatest obstacles. No better engine for con- quering the world could have been devised than an army in which every Christian was enlisted as a soldier. > This general missionary impulse seems to have lasted through the era of persecution. It overlaps the change in polity. Its decay in the succeeding centuries is due largely to other causes. But the Catholic System tended to remove missionary responsibility from Christians in general and put it on the hierarchy. The machinery was more complex, but we doubt if the engine had the same power. There seems to have been no more missionary statesmanship in the later centuries than there was in the first two. The hierarchy by itself proved so insufficient for the propagation of the Gospel that it had to be supplemented by orders of monks, working more or less independently. The work of foreign missions continued to be done by individuals who were on fire with missionary zeal. Ulfilas, Patrick and Bqniface may be put in the same class with Paul ; such men are prod- ucts of Christianity rather than of any particular ecclesias- tical system. The Cathohc System could bring to bear on its work, in Gaul for instance, at the barbarian conquest, all the iHarnack, Mission u. Ausbreitung d. Christ, in ersten drei Jahrh.f S.23off. THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY 39 power of the ecclesiastical machine. But there was little danger that Christianity in Gaul, under a democratic sys- tem where each Christian was supposed to feel a mission- ary responsibility, would have been swallowed up by pagan- ism. The analogies of History go to show that where a conquered civilization is strong enough to impose on the conquerors its language and arts, it will impose on them its religion also.^ Force can never make more than nominal Christians. For propagating a nominal Christianity among the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, the Democratic System might have been less fit than the CathoHc. Something more than a nominal Christianity is necessary for a demo- cratic polity to exist at all. But the achievements of the first two centuries indicate that such a polity could have established a spiritual Christianity in the more settled por- tions of Europe, and gradually leavened the adjacent tribes. We glance next at the Unity of Christendom, The unity achieved by the Catholic System was far from com- plete. At the close of the Middle Ages, instead of one Church, we find the Latin, the Greek, the Coptic, the Jacobite, the Armenian, the Nestorian, — to mention only the largest, — and many of these were subdivided. Besides these permanent divisions, the Church was vexed with schisms almost innumerable. And for almost every one of these schisms and divisions the Catholic System was di- rectly responsible. The unity sought was, in the nature of the case, an external unity. A connection with the One CathoHc Church, derived from the Apostles through a succession of bishops, was essential to salvation. We might liken it to a great religious Trust. And Hke monopoHes in other Hnes, it used its power to crush competitors. When- 1 C/. Ripley, Races of Europe ^ 27. 40 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH ever an opposition arose to its exclusive authority, or a divergence of doctrine, the powerful engines of the System — bishops, legislative councils, popes — were brought to bear to compel uniformity. The case of the Nestorians will furnish a typical instance. In the controversies as to the divine and human nature, Nestorius, patriarch of Con- stantinople, and Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, take oppo- site ground. Anathema is answered by anathema. In the General Council at Ephesus, each faction organized and condemned the other. The deputies from the Roman bishop turn the tide in favor of Cyril. The final result of the affair is the banishment of Nestorius and other leaders of his party, who organize an independent sect in the farther East. The result of such methods, which a powerful mo- nopoly is always liable to follow, was one of two things. If, as in this case, the opposition was sufficiently strong, and its geographical position made such a step possible, it pro- ceeded to form a new Church of its own, on the general model of the old. If these favorable circumstances were lacking, the sect was crushed out, after a few centuries. Thus the Montanists, the Donatists, the Pelagians never achieved an independent life. But their life as sects was often prolonged for several centuries by the very methods taken to extirpate them. The history of the Catholic Sys- tem is strewn with the wrecks of unsuccessful rebellions, and stained with the blood of their martyrs. The organic and doctrinal unity of the Western Church was real, and in some sense valuable. But it had been achieved by force and required constant exercise of force to keep it in being. We place beside this the unity of the Church in the first two centuries. There was no organic unity. Only in THE PASSING OF DEMOCRACY 4I the ideal sense was there one Christian Church. But the unity of spirit was remarkably strong. It bound the Chris- tian churches into a whole, that was powerful in fact and powerful in its effect on the imagination of both Christian and pagan. The Christians served one Lord. They be- longed to a common brotherhood. When a Christian went to a strange city, he would carry with him letters of commendation. And he at once found friends and hospi- tality. Between the churches communication was constant, and mutual help was common. Councils of churches were held, for a smaller or larger area, in cases of emergency or controversy. Ecumenical councils, for deliberation rather than for legislation in the strict sense, were among the possibilities of the future. The enlightened consciousness of the churches had brought a New Testament into being, and gone far toward settling the limits of its canon. Sub- stantial agreement on the fundamental points of doctrine found expression in the "rule of faith." In short, the Democratic System had achieved for the whole Church a unity that was as powerful as that of the later Catholic System for a part of the Church, and as valuable for pur- poses of historical development. In these centuries various sects arose, principally Judaiz- ing or syncretizing sects. Gnosticism was rife. The Mar- cionites established separate churches, and later the Mon- tanists. But the power of the Truth and the personal influence of trusted leaders checked these as effectually as the later ecclesiastical machinery. In the course of cen- turies, the Christian Church might have split up into a greater number of sects on the Democratic System than on the Cathohc, and these sects would probably have been coterminous, the lines of division running through the 42 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH same locality. But on the other hand there would have been a less sharp line of division between Latin, Greek, Syrian and Egyptian, a division for which the Catholic System was responsible and which made vast areas too weak to resist the Mohammedan conquest. And the wounds of sectarian controversy in a given country would have been less deep and quicker to heal. Among the sects there would have been the underlying unity of the invisible Church and the common brotherhood, which tended to erase the lines of division. In other words, the Democratic System contained a centripetal force, as well as a centrifu- gal. Such rapprochement was practically impossible on the Catholic System, where efforts at restoring unity merely served to increase the irritation. Amputation was the only remedy to prevent the spread of disease. The real test of a system of polity is the test of its fruits in human life. It is difficult to isolate a system sufficiently to apply this test. Certain causes tend to lower the stan- dards of Christian life, on any system. And on any system Christianity has within itself a recuperative power. But when we pass from the first centuries to the later, and note the deterioration of character in the average believer and the increasing externality of his religion, we cannot but feel that part of the change was due to the change in system. The Catholic System took the believer out of his immediate relation to the Deity, relieved him of his sense of direct spiritual responsibility. And the system bore fruit after its kind. CHAPTER V THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY The Reformation of the sixteenth century did for Reli- gion what the Renascence had done for Arts and Letters. It broke the authority of tradition through the revival of an older and better standard. The Bible, put into the hands of the people as the rule of faith and practice, w^orked as much of an emancipation as classical models in the hands of artists and scholars. The monopoly of the Catholic Sys- tem vf2iS broken in a large portion of Europe. The sacer- dotal notions of ministry and sacraments were overthrown and the "priesthood of beHevers" put in their place. Thousands were, for the first time, introduced to Christ in a direct, personal relation. Thus the soil was prepared for a spiritual democracy like that of the early centuries. Christ was once more the living Head of the Church, with believers as His vice-regents. In the field of church polity, however, the Reformers as a body stopped short of the full impHcations of Christ's monarchy. Passages might be quoted from Luther's writ- ings to show that he read from his New Testament the democratic theory of the church and its government.^ But many causes led Luther and his associates to modify this view when they came to practice, — the apparent necessity of alliance with the civil authority, their paramount inter- ^G. P. Fisher, The Reformation, 488 ff. (43) 44 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH est in doctrine rather than in polity, and particularly their reaction from the excesses of the democratic Anabaptists. Zwingli, holding substantially the same theory of the Church, thought, with Luther, that the people were not ripe for self-government.-^ Calvin, whose influence was to be so wide-spread, had a natural preference for aristocracy.^ And though he believed the Bible should be regulative in church polity, he admitted that some features of his system were dictated by expediency.^ The "Reformed" churches were returning, partly con- sciously and partly unconsciously, to the church constitu- tion of the beginning of the third century, the theory of which had persisted through the Middle Ages. "There is common to both the conception of the three-fold ministry of pastor or bishop, elder or presbyter, and deacon, and both have the theoretical equivalence of the offices of bishop and elder (save only a special seat in the Church and the right to ordain elders and deacons), while in prac- tice the bishop or pastor is the real head of the whole of the ecclesiastical life. In both there is the idea that the unit of organization is the Christian community of the place, and the conception that the unity can be preserved by a collegiate administration. Both have the thought that the whole congregational activity centers in the bishop or pastor, who is the leader in public worship and who cele- brates the sacraments. Both believe strongly that each con- gregation is a portion of the visible Catholic Church, that catholicity can best be reduced to a polity by means of representative councils with gradually widening areas of control, and that the ordination of a bishop or pastor is to Ud. 495. ''J. Calvin, Epist., 54. Md. 496, 198. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 45 be performed by the pastors or bishops of the bounds as representatives of the Church Catholic."^ But it was possible to go farther back in the history of the Church for a model, and thus apply their new standard with more logical consistency. With the Bible open before them as the sole and sufficient rule of faith and practice, it was to be expected that some would wish to return in all lengths to the New Testament way. As Professor Walker has said, "granting the correctness of the Reformers' prin- ciples, it is always right for a man, or a body of men, to apply this test to the actual condition of any organization claiming to be the church, and if it be found wanting, to attempt its alteration into conformity with the prescrip- tions of that divine standard."^ This was done by the various bodies of so-called Anabaptists on the continent of Europe. Their aim was to restore primitive Christianity. They made the Church consist of the congregations of true believers scattered throughout the world, rejected infant baptism, and denied the right of civil magistrates to inter- fere in matters of conscience. The aim was praiseworthy, but the vagaries and fanaticism of many Anabaptists more than counterbalanced the contribution they might have made to the renascence of democracy in the Church. The movement toward Democracy which was to affect America and here find its fruitage was English rather than continental. From one of its corollaries it came to be branded as "Separatism." The English Puritans in general followed Calvin, and on his lines fought the battle with the Crown for a completer reformation. They held to the * Lindsay, Church and the Ministry y 259; cf. 205. 'W. Walker, History of the Congregational Churches in the United States y 4. 46 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH theory of a national church, of which all baptized inhabi- tants of England were members unless excommunicated. The first literary exponent of Separatism or Congregation- alism was Robert Browne, a graduate of Cambridge, which was then, as afterward, a hotbed of Puritan ideas. Adopt- ing radical views and being inhibited from preaching at Cambridge, Browne went to Norwich." There he began to develop his system and about 1580 gathered a small Con- gregational church.^ The main part of the church fled to Holland soon after and there his various treatises were published. The successive steps in Browne's system have been thus admirably summarized by Dr. Dexter.^ " i . It is nec- essarily the first duty of every true Christian to endeavor the highest attainable purity of faith and life. ... 2. The Church of England was inwardly so corrupt, and out- wardly so under subjection to an unscriptural hierarchy, that every true Christian ought to strive at once to obtain its reform, or, faiHng that, to separate from it to follow Christ elsewhere. ... 3. There was no hope of reform for the Church of England from the civil power, neither any obligation to wait for Prince or magistrate.^ . . . 4. No reasonable hope of reform was offered by the Pres- byterian plan. This was not merely open to the objection ^ H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, 70. 'Op. cit., 98 ff. See in the foot-notes the quotations on which his summary is based. '"Robert Browne, I must think, is entitled to the proud preemi- nence of having been the first writer clearly to state and defend in the English tongue the true — and now generally accepted — doctrine of the relation of the magistrate to the church. He says the magistrates ' have no ecclesiastical authority at all, but only as any other Christians, if so they be Christians.' " Dexter, op. cit., loi flf. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 47 of tarrying for the Prince, but, in its best estate, it offered nothing but a transfer of the parish churches with all their objectionable features, to another state likely to be worse than the first. . . . 5. It followed that it must be the duty of all true Christians to gather themselves from its defilements into separate churches. ... 6. Any com- pany of apparently true believers, separating themselves thus from the corrupt State church, and rightly associating themselves together, in so doing constitute themselves a true Church of Christ, independent of all control but His. ... 7. Such persons rightly constitute themselves a church by a public willing covenant made with God and with each other, in which they promise to submit them- selves to His lordship and government. ... 8. Church authority resides solely in the lordship of Christ over these local companies of affiliated believers, and that authority makes itself manifest and practical for the government of these churches through its individual members interpreting, exercising, and submitting to, those principles and laws which the Great Head of the Church has laid down for them — all under the promised guidance of His Holy Spirit. ... 9. The Scriptural ordinary officers of such a church are a Pastor, a Teacher, one or more Elders, *for over- sight and counsel, and redressing things amiss,* one or more ReHevers and one or more Widows, all to be first tried and then 'duly chosen.'^ . . . lO. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is the seal of the * growing together ' of this church 'in one body, whereof Christ is the head.' . . . * Browne provides in his system (Dexter, 107 n) for officers "who have their several charge over many churches," — apostles, prophets and evangelists. He probably came nearer to the real nature of the minis- try in the Pauline churches than any man until the last half century. 48 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH II. Since the great object of such a church is to train its members to be in themselves perfect as their Father which is in heaven is perfect, and, in their relation to others, workers together with God until His will be done in earth as it is in heaven ; it is one of its functions as a body to examine constantly the lives of its members, with a view to test their rate of pious advancement, and check and correct all that is not as it ought to be. . . . 12. Every such church sustains a relation to the headship of Christ identi- cal with that of every other, so that being one in Him they must be one with each other. As to Him making together one family, their mutual relation must be a sisterly one; admitting no control of one over another, but always invit- ing kind offices, and, when needful, friendly advice and aid from all to any." Provision is expressly made in Browne's system for the Synod, which he says is "a joining or par- taking of the authority of many churches met together in peace, for redress and deciding of matters which cannot well be otherwise taken up."^ Robert Browne's system is remarkable, not only for its logic and self-consistency, but for its insight into the spirit of Christ and Paul which shows beneath the Scriptural letter. As Dr. Dexter says, "By one long leap over fifteen centuries, it replaced the idea of the church upon the original platform of the Acts of the Apostles [we should prefer to say of the Pauline epistles and the i8th of Matthew]; restoring it to be in harmony with all pre- cepts, promises and warnings of the Word."^ "It was an absolute monarchy so diffused in the channels of its work- ing, as to become, to the cognizance of that philosophy ^Booke nuhich Shewethy 51; quoted by Dexter, 109. 'Op. cit., no. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 49 which catalogues results, a pure democracy — one king supreme, reigning through as many viceroys as he has faith- ful subjects, each governing himself and offering all friendly aid to the government of all, by the king's law."^ Browne deserves to rank as the Prophet, in some sense the Father,^ of ecclesiastical democracy in modern times. The little church he gathered was dissipated in Holland, largely through its inquisitorial discipline. Browne himself, never a practical leader of men, met mental and spiritual shipwreck.^ But the seed had been widely scattered and bore fruit in many places and in different ways. Separatists in general came to be known as Brownists. This term of opprobrium they in general repudiated, but the fact that the term was used is significant of Browne's influence. Henry Barrowe ranks with Browne as the exponent of Separatism. A man of unusual gifts, graduate of Cam- bridge, lawyer in Gray's Inn, he connected himself, soon after his conversion, with the Congregational Church in London. He was in prison for conscience' sake from 1587 until his execution in 1593.^ His expositions of church polity were issued from prison, in collaboration with his friend Greenwood. Barrowe's theory of church polity is of ^Op. cit., no. ''Browne's indebtedness to the Anabaptists, whether in Norwich or Holland, has never been proved, and is improbable on several grounds. Cf. Walker, History^ 35 f« The similarities in the matter of church covenant which Mr. Burrage has noted (Champlin Burrage, The Church Co'venant Idea^ Philadelphia, 1904) were such as might occur to any, and probably did occur to many, open-minded readers of the Old and New Testaments. 'Dexter, n6 ff. * Walker, History, 42 ff. Professor Walker has furnished the cor- rection of the former date (printed 1586). 50 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH importance from its influence on America. He accepts most of Browne's positions or reaches identical ones, — the duty of separation, the nature of the true church, and its initiation by covenant. But, warned it may be by the con- spicuous failure of popular government in some of the Brownist churches, he introduces an important change in the matter of church office. The Elders^ are to be "chosen and ordained by all by pubHc consent." But, once chosen, they are "diligently and faithfully to execute their office unto all, not prejudicing the liberty of any, ambitiously assuming any inordinate authority, or abusing or neglecting their office, neither holding nor executing it in regard or in respect of person ; but uprightly and indifferently perform- ing it unto all men, as in the eyes of God. . . . If in anything they transgress or offend, they are, as well as any other members, hable to the censure of the church ; which is, to reprove, depose or excommunicate them according to the quality of the sin and estate of the offenders."^ From other references we see that, though the congregation retains the right of election and of deposition,^ they were chiefly to follow where the Elders led. "They are an hum- ble, meek, obedient people ; they will hear and follow the true shepherd."^ We might class the system as indirect democracy in local government, certain powers residing in the church membership being delegated to the office- holders. The Eldership, as events proved, would mean ^"Some of them to give attendance unto the public ministry of the word and sacraments, as the Pastor and Teacher ; the other Elders, together with them, to give attendance to the public order and govern- ment of the church." ^ Brief Discoverie, 46; quoted by Dexter, 237. 'But not of nomination. Dexter 351. ^ Brief Discoveries 167; Dexter, 239. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 5 1 more or less, according to the temper and antecedents of those who held the office. The early Barrowist churches suffered the same ship- wreck as the Brownist, on the matter of discipline. But a happier course was in store for the little church gathered at Scrooby about 1606.^ Its internal peace and prosperity in three countries were largely due to the character of its leaders, Brewster and Robinson, both of them educated men and men of singular depth of character and breadth of view. Robinson held to Barrowism in a mild form, but the congregation was Barrowist only in theory. "As the church for a considerable time had had only its Pastor ; and never at Leyden more than one Ruling Elder, whose place seems to have remained unfilled after the Speedwell sailed; it was never managed on Barrowe's plan. Such control would have been absurd. Nominally the office existed. Practically, since matters were handled and set- tled by free discussion in the presence of all, and by the Elders exerting a merely moral leadership, such as belonged to them unofficially as strong men and wise men and godly men, rather than officially as Elders; the Barrowism of the church was reduced to its minimum of the element of the 1 An offshoot of the Congregational church of Gainsborough, gathered by John Smyth some years earlier. Bradford thus refers to the covenant, apparently the covenant of the original church, though probably the same was repeated at Scrooby. "As the Lord's free peo- ple they joined themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate, in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all his ways, made known or to be made known unto them, according to their best en- deavors, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them." Hist. Plim. Plantation, 6. The date for the organization of the Scrooby church is that furnished by Professor Walker, on the basis of recent investigations. 52 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH Eldership, and exalted to its maximum of the element of the choosing and consenting action of the membership." ^ The course of events in Plymouth, after the emigration of the majority of the church, served to develop still further a practical democracy hardly to be distinguished from Brow^nism.^ The fact that the Plymouth church, though Separatist and practically democratic, w^as in theory Barrowist with a government through the presbytery, proved of immense importance for the propagation of Congregational principles. The general body of Puritans vv^ho came to Massachusetts were still Nationalists, hating the very name of Separatist, and with a strong preference for the Presbyterian way. The first detachment reached Salem in 1628. Sickness in the company led to their sending to Plymouth for Dr. Fuller, who was not only a physician but one of the dea- cons in the church. He so well improved his opportunity to allay their prejudices that Endicott wrote: "I acknowl- edge myself much bound to you for your kind love and care in sending Mr. Fuller among us, and rejoice much that I am by him satisfied touching your judgments of the outward form of God's worship. It is, as far as I can yet gather, no other than is warranted by the evidence of truth, and the same which I have professed and maintained ever since the Lord in mercy revealed himself unto me; being far from the common report that hath been spread of you touching that particular."^ That is, the Plymouth church, however democratic in practice, was in the theory of its government a semi-Presbyterianism. Thenceforward the two churches sustained close fraternal relations. Whether from the influence of Plymouth, or from re- * Dexter, 397 ff. 'Id. 414. 'Bradford, Hist. 172. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 53 flection, or from the force of circumstances, Salem and the later churches of this immigration came to take substantially the Separatist position. Probably all these causes entered into the " Congregationalizing of Puritanism," but in proportions we cannot now determine. At Salem two ministers were chosen and inducted into office with the laying on of hands, although previously ordained in Eng- land. This was a recognition of the fact that the authority of their officers came directly from the people. Within a month they had gone further. Instead of including as church members all baptized persons in the community, as they evidently started to do, and then purifying the church by the exercise of discipline, they adopted the Separatist practice of "culling out the well approved disciples from the general multitude and constituting them into a church by themselves."^ Thirty persons were named as first members, who then constituted themselves a church, by formal covenant with God and with one another. The officers previously chosen were then "ordained" over again. A belated delegation from Plymouth declared their appro- bation and concurrence, and greeted the new church with "the right hand of fellowship." Similar proceedings were followed elsewhere.^ *L. W. Bacon, Story of the Congregationaltsts, 36. 'We have followed the uniform representation of later historians, as against Professor Walker's inferences from Gott's contemporary let- ter {Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism , 104). If we re- member that on the Nationalist position there was already a "church" at Salem, with "members," there is nothing in the letter to discredit the received picture, unless it is his single reference to "covenant," which seems to be loosely used. It is probable that they would reach the Separatist position by successive steps ; and the double ordination of later tradition is hard to explain on any other theory than the one 54 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH The course taken by the churches in New England excited curiosity and criticism among the Puritans of the mother country. Hence grew the formulation and defence of Congregational polity by the ablest leaders in New Eng- land — Davenport, Mather, Cotton, Hooker and others. Their views were not uniformly acceptable. Certain of the New England ministers held to a strict Presbyterianism. This fact and the debates which flowed from it led to the Cambridge Synod, which in 1648 adopted the famous Platform of Church Discipline. The Cambridge Platform is a landmark in Congrega- tional history, and expresses the general theory of church polity held by the early New England churches. As was to be expected, it is Barrowism and not Brownism. Thus, in the vital point of the source of church power: "Ordi- nary church power is either the Power of Office, that is, such as is proper to the Eldership: or Power of Privilege, such as belongs unto the brotherhood. The latter is in the brethren formally, and immediately from Christ; that is, so as it may, according to order, be acted or exercised immediately by themselves. The former is not in them formally or immediately, and therefore cannot be acted or exercised immediately by them, but is said to be in them, in that they design the persons unto office who only are to act or to exercise this power." ^ As a later section expresses it: "This government of the church is a mixed government. ... In respect of Christ, the Head and given, and hard to explain away. {Cf. L. Bacon, Genesis of the N. E. Churches, 472 flF). Further, the formation of the Charlestown church (as New Haven, and probably others) by a few put forward to be first members seems to imply a model at Salem. ^Platform, Chap. V, 2. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 55 King of the church, and the sovereign power residing in him and exercised by him, it is a Monarchy; in respect of the body or brotherhood of the church, and power from Christ granted unto them, it resembles a Democracy; in respect of the Presbytery and power committed to them, it is an Aristocracy."^ Taking the Cambridge Platform as our starting-point, we shall note some tendencies in Congregational history up to the time of the Great Awakening. I. The Presbytery, — The Platform provides for a College of elders, including pastor, teacher and ruling elders. Among their functions are the following : to call the church together on occasion; to prepare matters in pri- vate, that in public they may be carried on with less trou- ble and more dispatch; to be guides and leaders to the church in all matters pertaining to church administration and action. 2 But this Presbyterian element in the govern- ment of the New England churches soon perished through attenuation. Even before 1648 the functions of Pastor and Teacher had begun to coalesce in one man, as was inevita- ble with their limited financial resources.^ And the College of Elders soon reduced itself to one RuHng Elder (besides the Pastor), and finally to none at all. So that, as Dr. Dexter says, by the first quarter of the eighteenth century the Eldership had come to consist of "only one man — the pastor, who received from it the legacy of general control, with a specific veto power which made his sole negative outvote 'the Positive' of the whole church beside."* The lid. X, 3. 'Id. VII, 2. Ten specific duties are enumerated. ' C/. Dexter; op. cit., 435. *Id. 485 et ante. 56 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH Barrowist theory broke down by its own weight and reduced itself in practice ad absurdum, 2. Status of the Ministry. — The Platform leaves no loop- hole for sacerdotalism in its theory of church office. " Ordi- nation we account 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 Hke the installing of a magistrate in the commonwealth. . . . The essence and substance of the outward calling of an ordinary officer in the church doth not consist in his ordination, but in his voluntary and free election by the church, and in his accepting of that election. ... In such churches where there are no Elders, imposition of hands may be performed by some of the brethren orderly chosen by the church thereunto. . . . Church officers are officers to one church, even that particular church over which the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers. ... He that is clearly loosed from his office-relation unto that church whereof he was a minister, cannot be looked at as an officer, nor perform any act of office in any other church, unless he be again orderly called unto office; which, when it shall be, we know noth- ing to hinder but imposition of hands also in his ordination ought to be used towards him again. "^ With the increas- ing power of the Pastor, as residuary legatee of the Presby- tery, came a semi-sacerdotal notion as to his office. By Cotton Mather's time, "plebeian ordination" would have been a matter of "discourse and wonder." ^ Ordination came to be regarded as "for hfe," admitting a man once for all into a special order of the ministry, with certain almost priestly prerogatives. But these assumptions of ^Chap. IX passim. ' Dexter, 482. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 57 church power by the ministry were steadily resisted by many churches.^ 3. Church Membership. — The Platform expresses the view of Brownists as well as Barrowists^ when it defines "the matter of a visible church" as those who give evi- dence of regeneration (those who "in charitable discretion may be accounted saints by calling") together with their infant offspring.^ Repentance and faith are the two things required for church membership. And "the weakest meas- ure of faith is to be accepted in those that desire to be admitted into the church ; because weak Christians, if sin- cere, have the substance of that faith, repentance and holi- ness which is required."* The Platform specifies a personal relation and confession, but says that "severity of examina- tion is to be avoided." "The like trial is to be required from such members of the church as were born in the same, or received their membership and were baptized in their infancy or minority by virtue of the covenant of their parents, when, being grown up unto years of discretion, they shall desire to be made partakers of the Lord's Sup- per. . . . Yet these church members that were so born or received in their childhood, before they are capable of being made partakers of full communion have many privi- leges which others (not church-members) have not: they are in covenant with God; have the seal thereof upon them, viz.. Baptism; and so, if not regenerated, yet are in a more hopeful way of attaining regenerating grace and all 1 Cf. id. 487. ^ Cf. Browne, Booke luhich Sheiveth, 37 fF ; Se'ven Articles of the Leyden Church, 2nd explan. note; Hooker, Sur'vey, i. 13 ff. (Walker, Creeds, etc.^ 13, 91, 143). "Chap. HI. *Chap. Xn, 3. 58 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH the spiritual blessings both of the covenant and seal ; they are also under church watch," etc.^ Now on these points the Platform had sought, through general statements, to evade the issue. The Cambridge Synod was convened for the express purpose of settling the questions as to baptism and church-membership which were agitating the colonies.^ But the roUing away of the Pres- byterian cloud (political events in England were the back- ground on which the Platform was painted), and the emer- gence of great diversity of view in the assembly, caused the Synod on this point to reject Mather's original draft. This had provided that "such as are born in the church as members, though yet they be not found fit for the Lord's Supper, yet if they be not culpable of such scandals in con- versation as do justify church-censures, it seemeth to us, when they are married and have children, those their chil- dren may be received to Baptism."^ This whole question, left unsettled by the Synod, was to prove a fruitful source of trouble. Were baptized children members of the church or not? We might say that technically they were not. They did not as such receive the franchise in Massachu- setts and New Haven.* But it would take very little to consider them church-members, as by the text of the Plat- form they were, which meant a backsliding to the "parish way." We note two tendencies. One was to leave the large charity of the Cambridge Platform and put an undue stress ^Chap. xn, 7. 'Walker, Creeds y etc., 244. 'Id. 224, n. 3. * It must always be remembered that the questions centering around the Half-way Covenant were religious and ecclesiastical, rather than political. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 59 on the experience of regeneration. Cotton Mather, writ- ing at the end of the century, notes that the personal relation on admission into membership had been surrounded with "unscriptural severities," which were "as a scarecrow to keep men out of the Temple."^ But with the decay of introspective piety in the second generation it was increas- ingly difficult to bring persons, otherwise exemplary, up to the standard required for full communion. .The facts of the situation gave rise to a second tendency, in line with Mather's original draft for the Cambridge Platform. By the illogical system nicknamed the "Half-way Covenant," baptized persons of exemplary life could transmit to their children the right of baptism, with its implicit church- membership by covenant. This position was adopted by the assembly of ministers which met at Boston in 1657, and again by the Massachusetts Synod of 1662. In both Massachusetts and Connecticut the opposition to the Half- way Covenant was strong. But, though never universally adopted by the churches, its supporters were a growing party. And the tendency kept on tending, in its natural direction. The churches grew less and less scrupulous as to the character of those admitted into half-way covenant ; they broadened the amount of church privilege to which this covenant entitled them.^ The tendency reached its climax in the view of Solomon Stoddard, at the end of the century, that the Lord's Supper is a converting ordinance, that it is to be appHed to visible saints, and that visible saints are "such as make a serious profession of the true rehgion, together with those that do descend from them, till rejected of God.V^ This view, adopted by the majority ^Dexter, 483. 'See Walker, Creeds, 281 f. Md.475. 6o DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH of the churches in western Massachusetts and largely entertained elsewhere/ was scarcely to be distinguished, in theory or practice, from the parish way of England. 4. Connection between the Churches. — The Cambridge Platform is an excellent statement of what Cotton termed "the Middle Way between that which is called Brownism and the Presbyterial government as it is practiced."^ It says: "Although churches be distinct and therefore may not be confounded one with another, and equal and there- fore have not dominion one over another, yet all the churches ought to preserve Church-communion one with another, because they are all united unto Christ, not only as a mystical but as a political Head ; whence is derived a communion suitable thereunto."^ This communion of the churches is exercised in six ways, — (i) mutual care ; (2) consultation, by means of a synod, or a council of the churches concerned; (3) admonition of one church by an- other, and, if necessary, with the aid of synod or council ; (4) participation; (5) recommendation of members; (6) relief and succor. The Platform further says that "when a com- pany of believers purpose to gather into church fellowship, it is requisite, for their safer proceeding and the maintaining of the communion of churches, that they signify their intent unto the neighbor churches walking according unto the order of the Gospel, and desire their presence and help and right hand of fellowship, which they ought readily to give unto them, when there is no just cause of excepting against their proceedings."* Provision is also made for Synods, composed of elders and messengers of the churches, but without ecclesiastical functions.^ 1 Id. 282. «Chap. XV. I. "^XVI. 2 Dexter, 434. *XV, 3. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 6l Though this continued to be the way of the New Eng- land churches, we note two opposing tendencies, especially in the latter part of the period under consideration. The general decay of faith, evidenced by the Reforming Synod of 1679, and some dangerous innovations in Boston church circles which it seemed impossible to check, led to the Pro- posals of 1705, representing a wide-spread feehng among Massachusetts ministers in favor of stricter church gov- ernment.^ The proposal for standing councils was never prosecuted, however, the opposition in Massachusetts, both lay and clerical, being too strong.^ In Connecticut this proposal fared better. A synod convened by the General Court in 1 708 drew up the Saybrook Platform. Consocia- tions, or standing councils, were created, one or more for each county, made up of the elders and messengers of the churches. "When any case is orderly brought before any Council of the churches, it shall there be heard and de- termined, which . . . shall be a final issue, and all parties therein concerned shall sit down and be determined thereby; and the Council so hearing and giving the result or final issue in the said case as aforesaid shall see their determinations or judgment duly executed."^ Refusal of any pastor or church either to attend or to conform to the decision is considered "scandalous contempt," involving a "sentence of non-communion." There is no appeal, though one consociation may call in others if it sees fit. This system, backed by the Connecticut legislature, went into operation in all the counties of the state. Some of the churches were not in sympathy with it, and from the beginning there was a difference of interpretation. Some 1 Walker, Creeds, 491. ^Saybrook Platform, 5. 'Id. 492. 62 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH counties read in the platform a virtual Presbyterianism. New Haven county made the decisions of the consociation inoperative vi^ithout the approval of the church concerned.^ Along w^ith this tendency toward a more centralized polity went one in exactly the opposite direction, toward greater liberty for the churches. As early as the calling of the Cambridge Synod we note a sensitiveness on the part of some of the churches as to any encroachment on their liberty,^ and the feeling had evidently been growing in Massachusetts. It was strong enough to cause the mis- carriage of the Proposals of 1705. The Hberty of the churches found a champion in Rev. John Wise, of Ipswich (Essex), Mass., whose stinging little books, published in 1710^ and 1 71 7, were called out by the establishment of Consociationism in Connecticut. His attempt was to bring the churches back to the Cambridge Platform as their Magna Charta. But his second book was, in fact, an orig- inal demonstration of the nature and value of Democracy. The conclusion Wise reaches is, "i. That the people or fraternity, under the gospel, are the first subject of power ; ... 2. That a democracy in church or state is a very honorable and regular government according to the dictates of right reason ; and therefore, 3. That these churches of New England, in their ancient constitution of church order, it being a democracy, are manifestly justified and defended by the law and light of Nature."^ 5» Relation of Church and State. — The Cambridge Plat- form states that "the power and authority of magistrates is *See interpretations printed in Walker, Creeds ^ 513 ff. »Id. 171 ff. 'A second edition in 171 5. ^Vindication of the Neiv England Churches, ed. i860, p. 60. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 63 not for the restraining of churches or any other good works, but for helping in and furthering thereof."^ They have no power to compel their subjects to become church-members or to partake of the Lord's Supper.^ But their authority extends to the first as well as the second table.^ "Idolatry, blasphemy, heresy, venting corrupt and pernicious opinions that destroy the foundation, open contempt of the word preached, profanation of the Lord's day, disturbing the peaceable administration and exercise of the worship and holy things of God, and the Hke, are to be restrained and punished by civil authority."* Here also there were two currents in New England his- tory. In Massachusetts and New Haven, Congregational- ism was set up as the State Church, regulated by the General Court in certain particulars such as the setting up of new churches, and with the electoral franchise Hmited to those who were full church-members. No such provi- sions existed in Plymouth and Connecticut. But in these colonies the relations between Church and State were close, and organized dissent was likely to be put down by the secular arm. So the two currents were not yet widely divergent. It is not easy for us to appreciate the position taken by the fathers. The historic prejudice against Ana- baptist and Quaker anarchy must be given due allowance. As a political measure the attempt of the colony govern- ments to compel religious uniformity may have been justi- fied at the beginning. But on the whole this relation between Church and State worked ill. It meant injustice and persecution. By its interference with Hberty of con- science, that is with the Lordship of the Spirit in the soul iChap. XVII, 3. 'Id. 6. ''Id. 4. Md. 8. 64 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH of each believer, it unwittingly struck at the very basis of Christian democracy. We here leave for the moment the course of Congrega- tional history to glance at another movement in the Ameri- can Church, which took the line of an exphcit democracy. The current of English Separatism began to divide into two streams as early as 1609.^ At that date part of the Gainsborough- Amsterdam church (of which the Scrooby church was an offshoot) adopted anti-pedobaptist views under the leadership of the pastor, John Smyth. This was to follow the course already taken by the Anabaptists on the continent, and partly as a result of their influence.^ Thus the "Baptists" who came to New England were radi- cal Brownists, boldly carrying the principle of a regenerate membership to its farthest logical conclusions. Even had they been more temperate in the expression of their views, they must have come into conflict with the churches of the standing order, which, as we have seen, were Barrowist not Brownist.^ The result of denunciation on the one hand and persecution on the other was the founding of the new settlements of Providence and Rhode Island, where the Baptists were free to propagate their radical views. A regenerate church-membership had been the demand of Puritanism. The various congregational churches took the logical, and, as events in England proved, the only practical method of attaining this, — separation from the corrupt national church. The New England churches, ^ A. H. Newman, Hist, of the Baptist Churches in U. S., 38 f. ^Id, 42, etc. 'The actual conflict, as we might expect, was sharper with the Massachusetts colony than with Plymouth, and Salem which was strongly under the influence of Plymouth. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 65 however, were quite ready to fellowship the parish churches of England. They believed, as John Robinson had beheved, that "though there was no true Church of England, there were many true churches in the bounds of the Establish- ment."^ But to Roger WilHams nationalism was a sin, a sin that had something contagious about it.^ Even fra- ternal fellowship with unseparated churches would taboo a church for him and true Christians Hke him. Though car- ried then and often to these ultra-logical extremes, the insistance of the Baptists on a regenerate rather than a nominal church - membership was sincere and valuable. Their protest was needed in the face of the standing dan- ger that the Congregational churches would return to inclusive church-membership. As a corollary of the principle of a regenerate member- ship, the Baptists held that only the regenerate (which meant for them believers sufficiently mature to be con- sciously regenerate) were proper subjects for baptism. This in itself was hardly ground for setting up separate churches. Baptist views would probably have spread faster if this had not been necessary. But the attitude of the Established Order, as it shows in a string of cases from 1642 on,^ notably the case of President Dunster, made separation not only a right to be claimed but a duty to be followed. A further corollary was the freedom of conscience before the law. Robert Browne had insisted on the absolute sepa- ration of Church and State. And this partly on principle, because there could be no rule in the Church but that of Christ, and partly from practical experience, because the 1 Walker, Hist., 218. HA. 124 ff. ^ Cf. Newman, op. cit., 64. dd DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH interference of the magistrate was the chief hindrance to purifying the English Church.^ The New England colo- nists, overlooking the principle, thought that the practice would do very well if you got the right sort of magistrates. All honor to Roger Williams for rediscovering this last corollary of the Separatist position. He "advocated the most complete separation of church and state at a time when there was no historical example of such separation ; nay, when to the mass of Christian men everywhere such a separation was almost inconceivable."^ He not only advo- cated it, but he set up a new colony where separation of Church and State was embodied in the frame of govern- ment, and where liberty of conscience was allowed from the beginning. The code of laws drawn up for the incor- poration of "Providence Plantations"^ closes with these words: — "These are the laws that concern all men, and these are the penalties for the transgression thereof, which by common consent are ratified and established throughout this whole Colony ; and otherwise than thus what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God. And let the saints of the Most High walk in this Colony without molestation in the name of Jehovah their God forever and ever." Rhode Island stands with Pennsylvania as an oasis of toleration in an intolerant age. Here and there, in the outer desert, Baptist and Quaker suffered side by side for the same principle, often reinforced, through a strange trick of circumstance, by Episcopalian and Romanist. 1 See ante p. 46 and note. '^Newman, op. cit., 69. ^Newman, loi. Largely the work of John Clarke, who, if he had published more, would probably outrank Williams as an advocate of Toleration. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 67 To the Baptist churches in America belongs the honor of being the first to hold, both in theory and practice, a direct democracy. Their influence in democratizing the Congregational churches was probably Httle or none. But their contribution was great along two mutually related lines — the right of Hberty of conscience, and the right of Christian association. The former we have already dis- cussed, but we should dwell on the latter for a moment. The Baptists claimed the right of any company of Chris- tians to come out and form a new church, if they could not conscientiously abide by the principles and practice of the church where they were. And this even if it must be a church of one, hke that of Roger Williams in his later years.^ As long as this right of local association was denied, there was a reason for the Baptist protest. The little Baptist church in Boston, for instance, in its suffering for conscience' sake from 1665 to i68o,^ was fighting for a principle. By the opening of the eighteenth century Baptist churches were tolerated in Massachusetts, which meant a tacit recognition of the truth of their position in this mat- ter. This recognition became more than tacit when, in 1718, Increase Mather and his son Cotton took the leading parts at the ordination of a pastor in the Boston Baptist church, and the latter in his sermon said : "Let good men go as far as they can without sin in holding communion with one another. But where sinful terms are imposed, there let them make their stops ; there a separation becomes a duty ; there the injunction of Heaven upon them is, Be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you."^ All very true, even if a century late, and even if Cotton Mather said it. ^ Cf. Newman, 80. ^Id. 195, et ante. ^Id. 196. 68 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH In the Congregational churches the early eighteenth century was a period of slow internal ferment. The half- way covenant was not working well. The decay of religion was viewed with general alarm, and attempts at ecclesias- tical consolidation did not better matters as the leaders had hoped. Non-church members were growing restive under the restriction of the franchise. The estabhshed connection between Church and State received a severe shock in Massachusetts in 1725 when a sack-cloth-and-ashes Synod was forbidden to meet by the governor. John Wise had formulated a new theory of Congregational polity that planted it on a foundation of pure democracy. Though Wise in his lifetime was a good deal like a voice crying in the wilderness, his views were becoming more potent every year.^ The Great Awakening of 1734 onward began the pre- cipitation of tendencies and forces that had long been in solution. Good and evil were mixed up in it, but both the good and the evil turned out to the purifying of Congre- gationalism, as a system of polity. The revival of religion again created a soil in which a spiritual democracy could grow. For though the Awakening was followed by a period of lethargy, this in turn was followed by a second wave of revival. The emphasis of the Edwardian theology on "conversion," no doubt an undue emphasis, opposed the Half-way Covenant and gradually undermined it.^ The controversy between Old Lights and New Lights in Con- necticut, with the "gathering of churches out of churches," strained the Consociational system until this too was un- iC/. Walker, History, 211. ^Practically at an end by the close of the century; some vestiges as late as 1828. Walker, Creeds, 287. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 69 dermined/ especially after the withdrawal of state support for it in 1784. Some vestiges of "Establishment" lingered for a time, in Connecticut until 1818, and in Massachusetts until 1833. By the first decades of the nineteenth century the pure democracy enunciated by John Wise, and a century and a half earlier by Robert Browne, had practically leavened New England.^ The Cambridge Platform, even on a liberal interpretation, no longer represented the practice of the churches. But the direction taken by the later Congre- gationalism was chiefly due to the personahty and work of Nathaniel Emmons.^ His emphasis on the independence of the local church was extreme, and the effects of such excessive emphasis are still seen. But, as Professor Walker has said, "the development of the Congregational churches throughout the eighteenth century was such as to make natural the teachings of Emmons regarding polity. The first two generations on American soil saw the growth of the principle of fellowship. That principle then became so embedded in American Congregationahsm that it has continued, and found constant manifestation down to the present day. But from the time of the Great Awakening, if not earlier, this centralizing tendency was supplanted by an emphasis on local independence. Many causes contrib- uted to this result ; the growth of democracy in political thought culminating in national independence, the doctrinal ^ For details see Walker, id., 515. Four Consociations still re- main, representing about one-fifth of the Connecticut churches, but they differ little from Conferences. '^Dexter, 506. '1745-1840. His influence lay partly in the fact that he was "for more than forty years in himself a theological seminary, graduating in all at least one hundred pupils." Dexter, 507. 70 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH divisions, the differences of opinion as to method arising out of the revivals, the rapidly lessening interference of the civil governments in ecclesiastical affairs, all tended to make the local church free and democratic ; w^hile the new im- pulses tow^ard voluntary union springing out of missionary efforts at home and abroad, v^^hich have tended to centralize modern Congregationalism in united endeavor, did not begin to appear till the very close of the eighteenth century." ^ Emmons has been accused of Jacobinism,^ and w^ith considerable reason, though the term is ill-chosen. Like John Wise, he follows the social compact theory in its literal and fallacious form. But the church polity reached by this line of reasoning is identical with that which Robert Browne derived from the principle of association, with Christ and through Him with fellow Christians. It is with church polity rather than with the theory of church polity that we are at present chiefly concerned. For the principal points in Emmons' system we again quote Dr. Dexter: "i. A specific form of church govern- ment was instituted by Christ in the eighteenth of Mat- thew — which is Congregationalism. 2. Christ is the sole lawgiver of His church, and all the power which Congre- gational churches have is to interpret and apply His law ; being entrusted with no legislative, but only with ministerial, functions. 3. A Congregational church is a pure democ- racy. 4. The pastor of such a church has never the right to negative its votes ; being simply its moderator, and one of its brethren. 5. No Congregational church is superior, and none inferior, to any other. Their fundamental relation to the Great Head makes them, whatever their outward 1 Walker, Hist., 307. 'L. W. Bacon, The Congregationalists, 188 et passim. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 7 1 estate, equal sisters. 6. There can be no appeal from the authority of a particular church to any higher Ecclesiastical tribunal, for God has constituted no such tribunal. Churches may ask advice of each other, and may associate for mutual advantage ; but such an association can take from those churches no power higher than theirs, and consequently can possess none."^ This may stand today as being, for substance of doctrine, the pohty of the Congregational churches. We may put beside it the brief statement adopted by the Boston Coun- cil of 1865. "This Council recognizes as distinctive of the Congregational polity — First, the principle that the local or Congregational church derives its pow^er and authority directly from Christ, and is not subject to any ecclesiastical government exterior or superior to itself. Second, that every local or Congregational church is bound to observe the duties of mutual respect and charity which are included in the communion of churches one with another; and that every church which refuses to give an account of its pro- ceedings, when kindly and orderly desired to do so by neighboring churches, violates the law of Christ. Third, that the ministry of the gospel by members of the churches who have been duly called and set apart to that work implies in itself no power of government, and that ministers of the gospel not elected to office in any church are not a hierarchy, nor are they invested with any official power in or over the churches."^ ^ Dexter, 507. See Emmons' sermon on the Platform of Ecclesias- tical Government Established by the Lord Jesus Christ, on which the summary is based. The "Jacobinism " must be apparent to every reader of the sermon. ^Walker, Creeds, 567. The substitute resolution proposed by Professor Park. 72 DEMOCRACY IN THE CHURCH Nathaniel Emmons' position is a far cry from the decla- ration of John Cotton in 1636, that democracy was never ordained of God "a fit government either for church or commonw^ealth."^ Democratic tendencies had triumphed, and the various issues in Congregational history which we have noted had all been settled along democratic Hnes. Our churches reached the position as to internal polity inherited by both Congregationalists and Baptists from the first English Separatism. A direct democracy is today repre- sented by a large and influential portion of the American Church.2 In external polity the Congregational churches are still distinguished from the Independents of England and from other bodies in America which are essentially congrega- tional, by their mutually responsible fellowship.^ The devel- opment of our missionary societies and of a system of local, state and national associations have checked, but not over- come, the Independency with which Congregationahsm was infected a hundred years ago. Fellowship, however, has always been recognized and practiced, and the last few years have given indications of a new centripetal tendency. Only a brief glance will be necessary at other American ^ Dexter, 354. 'Taking Dr. Carroll's classification and figures, based on the cen- sus of 1890 (H. K. Carroll, Religious Forces in the U. S., 398 ff), and counting simply the Protestant Christian bodies, the congregational polity is represented by 5,616,605 communicants, or 40 per cent; the episcopal by 5,300,080, or 38 per cent; the presbyterian by 3,088,184, or 22 per cent. Using Dr. Carroll's figures for 1904 {Social Progress Year Book, 1905), with the same classification, we have congregational, 8,029,635, or 41 per cent; episcopal, 7,183,215, or 37 per cent; pres- byterian, 4,222,920, or 22 per cent. 'Walker, History, 436, etc. THE RENASCENCE OF DEMOCRACY 73 Churches. One point to be noted is that from the Revolu- tion, or very soon after, all the churches in America have been on a voluntary basis. Outside of New England, Establishment had been attempted for the Episcopal Church, and on a very limited scale for the Reformed. But a com- bination of circumstances caused the abandonment of this close connection of Church and State. Thus various religious bodies, w^hich historically and as a part of their polity w^ere "national," have been forced to the democratic position of gathering churches by voluntary association. The Presbyterian Church has seen a further movement toward democracy, due partly to the number of New Eng- land Puritans in its ministry and membership, and partly to the individualism of the Great Awakening. The effect was chiefly on the conceptions of Baptism and church-member- ship. In the words of Dr. Thompson, "The 'judgment of charity ' of the Reformed churches was displaced by the Anabaptist demand for a church-membership giving 'credi- ble evidence of regeneration.'"^ On this side the purely democratic theory of the local church has largely replaced that of historic Presbyterianism.^ There has also been a change in the conception of the eldership, until the elders are practically, and for some writers theoretically, merely the lay representatives of the people.^ The chief contribu- tion of the Presbyterians to American church polity has been their method of synodical government. In their view the Church "consists of a series of assemblies, congrega- tional, presbyterial, provincial (or synodical), national and ecumenical. Each larger body embraces as its parts all the iR. E. Thompson, Hist, of the Presb. Churches in the U. istricts. In these districts the Board of Directors and its Executive Committee shall have power to appoint superintendents, to employ missionaries, to establish churches; and on this work they shall report fully at the Annual Meeting of the Society. It shall be the constant aim of the 'Board of Directors, its Executive Committee, and its officers, so to promote the growth of Congrega- tional churches in these Missionary Districts that, in the case of the said States, approved State Societies may be established, and, in the case of said sections of the population, individual churches may be brought into such a condition, especially through the adoption of the English language in their public worship and Sunday Schools, that they may be passed under the care of the Home Missionary Society in the States to which they severally belong. ARTICLE XVII. MEETINGS This Society shall meet annually at such time and place in the United States as it shall appoint, or on failure of such appointment, as the ^oard of 'Directors (Executive Committee) may, with due notice, appoint (direct). ARTICLE XVIII. AMENDMENTS No alteration shall be made in this Constitution without a vote of two-thirds of the members present and voting at an Annual Meeting, nor unless the same shall have been proposed in writing at a previous Annual Meeting, or shall be recom- mended by the 'Board of 'Directors (Executive Committee). THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. ^ FEB 17 1939 FEB 18 U39 19Mav'53vVv' 3Nov'5SVl ''f''t9'^1956 MAR 2 8 fggB ly NOVl e 1953 LU ^h^552X- JUL2 31955LIJ l9Mar'56K0 32Tr23_ LD 21-95m.7,'37 YB 29213 283104 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY