Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 1 ECCLESIA. Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 2 Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 1 ECCLESIA. EDITED BY HENRY ROBERT REYNOLDS, D.D. Quinta Press Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 2 Quinta Press, Meadow View, Weston Rhyn, Oswestry, Shropshire, England, SY10 7RN The format of these volume is copyright © 2009 Quinta Press For proof-reading purposes the line breaks are in the same place as the original, hence the stretched text Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 3 ECCLESIA. ECCLESIA: Church Problems Considered, IN A SERIES OF ESSAYS. EDITED BY HENRY ROBERT REYNOLDS, D.D., PRESIDENT OF CHESHUNT COLLEGE; FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. London; HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXX. Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 4 4 ecclesia ADVERTISEMENT. THE principles of self-government, and of personal and congregational freedom, are asserting themselves with great force through the entire ecclesiastical sphere. Reverence for conscience is widely associated with the craving for truth. Those who have enjoyed any special opportunities for acquiring knowledge, or whose opinions on controverted questions represent a peculiar phase of our national life, are encouraged to speak freely. The present is not, therefore, an inappropriate time for writers who have long been practically acquainted with the excellencies and aims of a considerable section of the Free Churches of Britain, to give combined utterance to some of the theological, ecclesiastical, and political principles, which are more or less embodied in these organizations. The following Essays have been written independently of each other. This circumstance may be held to explain occasional repetition of arguments from different points of view, and some variations of sentiment. The authors are severally and solely responsible for the ideas they have ventured to express. JANUARY, 1870. CONTENTS. I. PRIMITIVE ECCLESIA: Its Authoritative Principles and its Modern Representations. By JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D 1 II. THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH REGARDED IN ITS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT. By J. RADFORD THOMSON, Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 5 proof-reading draft 5 M.A. 59 III. THE “RELIGIOUS LIFE” AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. By J. BALDWIN BROWN, B.A. 133 IV. THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE STATE. By EUSTACE ROGERS CONDER, M.A. 195 V. THE FORGIVENESS AND ABSOLUTION OF SINS. By THE EDITOR 243 vi VI. page THE DOCTRINE OF THE REAL PRESENCE AND OF THE LORD’S SUPPER. By R. W. DALE, M.A. 315 VII. THE WORSHIP OF THE CHURCH. By HENRY ALLON 393 VIII. THE CONGREGATIONALISM OF THE FUTURE. By J. GUINNESS ROGERS, B.A. 463 IX. MODERN MISSIONS AND THEIR RESULTS. By JOSEPH MULLENS, D.D. 533 PRIMITIVE ECCLESIA: ITS AUTHORITATIVE PRINCIPLES AND ITS MODERN REPRESENTATIONS. BY REV. JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D. EDIN. Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 6 6 ecclesia 1 PRIMITIVE ECCLESIA: ITS AUTHORITATIVE PRINCIPLES AND ITS MODERN REPRESENTATIONS. THOSE who are acquainted with English Ecclesiastical Controversy must be struck with the change which has come over it of late years. It used to be the fashion to recognize Scripture as our supreme authority upon this subject, to repair to it as the main storehouse of argument, and to regard it throughout as the last standard of appeal. No doubt the old mode of discussion had its dis- advantages; texts were handled in a narrow unscientific spirit of criticism; some were applied to a service which a larger and more accurate acquaintance with the Divine records cannot justify; and some, by being squeezed, crushed, and distorted, were made to mean much more than could have been originally designed. The amount of information on ecclesiastical points was not carefully measured, not correctly estimated; more was supposed to be taught than a deep and thorough investigation warrants us to believe. By some controversialists little or no scope was left for the action of enlightened reason in the application of what the Bible teaches, and in the practical administration of matters concerning which the Bible is silent. 2 The method is now changed. Ecclesiastical subjects are commonly debated on grounds of history, expediency, and reason. By many writers no endeavour at all is made to ascertain, by a survey of those parts of Scripture which refer to the primitive Church, what was the nature of its institutes; and, consequently, the question is not asked—After what manner should the teaching of the New Testament be applied to the regulation of Church affairs in the present day? Here and there a text of Scripture may be cited, if it happen to agree with a prior Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 7 proof-reading draft 7 conclusion, or if it should chance to discredit an an- tagonist’s position. Interest and novelty may, according to this method, be imparted to a discussion of well-worn topics. The danger of a threadbare iteration of familiar quotations may be avoided; a philosophical cast may dig- nify a discussion. Light may be shed upon political and social problems, and practical suggestions of considerable value may be pertinently supplied; but the point is left untouched—What help does the Bible afford in these matters? Yet, surely, that is the chief question after all. At any rate the inquiry is one of great interest. If the classical scholar devotes himself to the study of all he can find in the literature of the ancients, bearing any relation to the rise of the Greek Republics, or to the early stages of the Roman Commonwealth—if English readers delight to trace whatever can be discovered respecting the early constitution of the government of this country; surely a Christian man must feel pleasure in examining every Scripture reference, even the most minute, to early com- munities,—which, beyond those of Greece or Rome, or England, are affecting our moral and religious destinies as individuals, and are really the parent stock from which have sprung all the ecclesiastical organizations of Christendom. If the sacred notices of a primitive Church be so few, 3 so scanty, and so insufficient, that no idea can be satisfac- torily formed of its fundamental principles; or if Scripture conclusions on the subject are inapplicable to the set- tlement of modern controversies; or if the conditions of society have so completely changed, that apostolical precedents are necessarily obsolete; at least let these positions be clearly established, that we may know just where we are, and search after sufficient reasons for placing the whole subject upon a new foundation. In the following Essay we must bear in mind the position into which Church questions have drifted, and direct our investigations accordingly. Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 8 8 ecclesia The main object will be to ascertain what may be learnt from the New Testament respecting the nature of the primitive Ecclesia; to consider how far its principles are binding upon Christendom; to discover the bearing of our conclusions upon a great question of the present day; and to point out to what extent the Scripture ideal is embodied in existing organizations. WHAT WAS THE CHARACTER OF THE PRIMITIVE ECCLESIA? The first Ecclesia—or Church–consisted of the be- lievers in Jerusalem, including the Apostles of Jesus Christ, the disciples who associated with them after the Ascension, and the persons who, on the day of Pentecost embraced the faith. Drawn out of the world by mutual sympathies springing from an experience at once new and blessed, and evincing a simplicity of character perhaps as great as their knowledge generally was small, they communed, worshipped, and worked together, in order to propagate the truths which they had received fresh from heaven. The genesis and formation of this kind of community —this clustering of men around certain Divine prin- 4 ciples of faith, fellowship, and order—and the unfolding of so new and strange a social nebula into new and strange social worlds, may be studied historically and analytically—the progress of the idea in its practical embodiment being traceable step by step through the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse until the word Church, at first popular and vague, assumes a technical precision—and the sympathetic gathering, on the first Pentecost at Jerusalem, reappears in the seven organized societies of Asia Minor. The earliest idea of a Christian Church is that of a brotherhood for the maintenance and diffusion of religious convictions. Associations for religious and benevolent purposes, apart from a distinct recognition of particular opinions, have been common enough in all ages; but such associations are plainly Ecclesia v1_Ecclesia 18 November 2009 00:54 Page 9 proof-reading draft 9 distinguishable from the Ecclesiæ of the Acts. For the disciples in Jerusalem were emphatically believers; the pupils of a Divine Teacher, the earnest and devout re- cipients and advocates of truths unknown to, or opposed by, the world around them. The new converts continued steadfastly in “the apostles’ doctrine;” their confederation from its commencement being “a pillar and ground of truth.” Whether or not the term doctrine be meant in the rigid sense of dogma—whether the word “truth” be equivalent to theological principles or Christian senti- ments—at any rate the shield as first displayed by the Church was not like the shield of Amphiaraus, a blank surface without device, but rather like the shield of Minerva, which Phidias made with his name inwrought in such a manner, that the one could not be extracted without destroying the other. No merely vague re- ligious feeling constituted the nexus of fellowship, but faith in a Divine name, the name of the world’s Redeemer: faith in Him as a Divine person, the ground of penitential trust, and the foundation of saintly, hope—faith in the 5 doctrines respecting Him taught by men who “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Primitive truth and the primitive Church were one: or at least so con- nected do they appear that the idea of the latter dissolves, when the idea of the former is withdrawn.