Opposed to the example of Christ and the apostles, Unauthorized by the instructions of Christ and the apostles, 325 INTRODUCTION, BY DR. AUGUSTUS NEANDER, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN, CONSISTORIAL COUNSELLOR, ETC. IN compliance with the request of my worthy friend, the Rev. Mr. Coleman, I am happy to accompany his proposed work, on the Constitution and Worship of the apostolical and primitive church, with some preliminary remarks. I regard it as one of the remarkable signs of the times, that Christians, separated from each other by land and by sea, by language and government, are becoming more closely united in the consciousness that they are only different members of one universal church, grounded and built on the rock Christ Jesus. And it is with the hope of promoting this catholic union, that I gladly improve this opportunity to address my Christian brethren beyond the waters, on some important subjects of common interest to the church of Christ. This is not the proper place to express in detail, and to defend my own views upon the controverted topics which, as I have reason to expect from the respected author, will be the subject of an extended, thorough and impartial examination in his proposed work. My own sentiments have already been expressed, in a work which, I am happy to learn, is offered to the English reader in a translation by my friend, the Rev. Mr. Ryland, of Northampton, in England.1 I have only time and space, in this place, briefly to express the results of former inquiries, which, with the reasons for them, have on other occasions already been given to the public. It is of the utmost importance, to keep ever in view the difference between the economy of the Old Testament and that of the New. The neglect of this has given rise to the grossest errors, and to divisions, by which those who ought to be united together in the bonds of Christian love, have been sundered from each other. In the Old Testament, everything relating to the kingdom of God was estimated by outward forms, and promoted by specific external rites. In the New, everything is made to depend upon what is internal and spiritual. Other foundation, as the apostle Paul has said, can no man lay than that is laid. Upon this the Christian church at first was grounded, and upon this alone, in all time to come, must it be reared anew and compacted together. Faith in Jesus of Nazareth, the Saviour of the world, and union with him, a participation in that salvation which cometh through him,—this is that inward principle, that unchangeable foundation, on which the Christian church essentially rests. But whenever, instead of making the existence of the church to depend on this in 1 History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church, by the Apostles, by Dr. A. NEANDER, Ordinary Professor of Theology, in the University of Berlin, Consistorial Counsellor; translated from the third edition, by J. E. Ryland. |