which there was a synagogue, to go thither first and deliver their sacred message to the Jews and 'devout (or proselyte) Gentiles ;'-according to their own expression (Acts 13: 17), to the men of Israel and those that feared God:' adding, that it was necessary that the word of God should first be preached to them.' And when they founded a church in any of those cities in which (and such were, probably, a very large majority) there was no Jewish synagogue that received the gospel, it is likely they would still conform, in a great measure, to the same model.”6

It is, then, an admitted fact, as clearly settled as anything can be by human authority, that the primitive Christians, in the organization of their assemblies, formed them after the model of the Jewish synagogue. They discarded the splendid ceremonials of the temple-service, and retained the simple rites of the synagogue-worship. They disowned the hereditary aristocracy of the Levitical priesthood,7 and adopted the popular government of the synagogue.8

We are here presented with an important fact in the organization of the primitive churches, strongly illustrative of the popular character of their constitution and government. The synagogue was, essentially, a popular assembly, invested with the rights and possessing the powers which are essential to the enjoyment of religious liberty. Their government was voluntary, elective, free; and administered by rulers or elders elected by the people. The ruler of the synagogue was the moderator of the college of elders, but only primus inter pares, holding no official rank above them.9 The people, as

6 Kingdom of Christ, pp. 78-80.

7 The prelatical reference of the Christian ministry to the Levitical priesthood is a device of a later age, though it has been common from the time of Cyprian down to the present time.

Totum regimen ecclesiasticum conformatum fuit ad synogogarum exemplar. Hugo Grotius, Comment. ad Act. 11: 30.

9 Vitringa, De Vet. Syn. L. 3. c. 16.

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Vitringa has shown,10 appointed their own officers to rule over them. They exercised the natural right of freemen to enact and execute their own laws,-to admit proselytes,― and to exclude, at pleasure, unworthy members from their communion. Theirs was a democratical form of government," and is so described by one of the most able expounders of the constitution of the primitive churches.11 Like their prototype, therefore, the primitive churches also embodied the principle of a popular government and of enlightened religious liberty.

10 Comp. Vitringa, De Synagoga, Lib. 3. P. 1.c. 15. pp. 828-863. Nihil actum absque ecclesia, [i. e. the synagogue] quae in publico consulta est, et quidem hac ipsa formula:

sive ios quam in vertere ecclesia in eligendis episcopis adhibitam meminimus, p. 829. In vita Josephi, ... publica omnia ibi tractari videmus in synagogis, consulto populo, p. 832.

11 Rothe, Anfänge der Christ. Kirch. S. 14.

CHAPTER III.

INDEPENDENCE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCHES.

THE churches which were established by the apostles and their disciples exhibit a remarkable example of unanimity. One in faith and the fellowship of love, they were united in spirit as different members of one body, or as brethren of the same family. This union and fellowship of spirit the apostles carefully promoted among all the churches. But they instituted no external form of union or confederation between those of different towns or provinces; nor, within the first century of the Christian era can any trace of such a confederacy, whether diocesan or conventional, be detected on the page of history. The diocesan, metropolitan and patriarchal forms of organization belong to a later age. The idea of a holy catholic church, one and indivisible, had not yet arisen in the church, nor had it assumed any outward form of union. Wherever converts to Christianity were multiplied they formed themselves into a church, under the guidance of their religious teachers, for the enjoyment of Christian ordinances. But each individual church constituted an independent and separate community. The society was purely voluntary, and every church so constitu ted was strictly independent of all others in the conduct of its worship, the admission of its members, the exercise of its discipline, the choice of its officers and the entire management of its affairs. They were, in a word, independent

1 1 Cor. 12: 12, 13. Eph. 2: 20. 4: 3.

republics, as Mosheim and Neander justly describe them. "Each individual church which had a bishop or presbyter of its own, assumed to itself the form and rights of a little distinct republic or commonwealth; and with regard to its internal concerns was wholly regulated by a code of laws, that if they did not originate with, had at least received the sanction of the people constituting such church." This is said with special reference to the earliest churches.2 "In regard to the relations of the presbyters to the churches, they were appointed, not to exercise unlimited authority, but to act as the leaders and rulers of ecclesiastical republics, to transact every thing in connection with the church, not as lords of the same, but as its servants."3 The opinion of these great historians of the church, in respect to the independent, popular character of the government of the primitive churches, is sufficiently obvious in these passages.

Particular neighboring churches may for various reasons have sustained peculiar fraternal relations to each other. Local and other circumstances may, in time, have given rise to correspondence between churches more remote, or to mutual consultations by letter and by delegates, as in the instance of the churches at Antioch and Jerusalem, Acts xv, and of Corinth and Rome; but no established jurisdiction was exercised by one over the other, nor did any settled relations subsist between them. The church at Jerusalem, with the apostles and elders, addressed the church at Antioch, not in the language of authority, but of advice. Nor does ancient history, sacred or profane, relating to this early period, record a single instance in which one church presumed to impose laws of its own upon another.

This independence of the churches, one of another, is fully and clearly presented by Mosheim. "Although all the churches were, in this first stage of Christianity, united to

2 Mosheim, De Rebus Christ., Saec. 11. § 22.

3 Neander, Allgemein. Gesch., I. 291, 2.

4 See Epistle of Clement of Rome, to the Corinthians.

in

gether in one common bond of faith and love, and were, every respect, ready to promote the interest and welfare of each other by a reciprocal interchange of good offices, yet, with regard to government and internal economy, every individual church considered itself as an independent community, none of them ever looking beyond the circle of its own members for assistance, or recognizing any sort of external influence or authority. Neither in the New Testament, nor in any ancient document whatever, do we find anything recorded, from which it might be inferred that any of the minor churches were at all dependent on, or looked up for direction to, those of greater magnitude or consequence. On the contrary, several things occur therein which put it out of all doubt, that every one of them enjoyed the same rights, and was considered as being on a footing of the most perfect equality with the rest. Indeed it cannot, I will not say be proved, but even be made to appear probable, from testimony human or divine, that in this age it was the practice for several churches to enter into and maintain among themselves, that sort of association which afterwards came to subsist among the churches of almost every province. I allude: to their assembling by their bishops, at stated periods, for the purpose of enacting general laws, and determining any questions or controversies that might arise respecting divine matters. It is not until the second century, that any traces of that sort of association from whence councils took their origin are to be perceived; when we find them occurring here and there, some of them tolerably clear and distinct, others again but slight and faint, which seems plainly to prove that the practice arose subsequently to the times of the apostles, and that all that is urged concerning the councils of the first century, and the divine authority of councils, is sustained merely by the most uncertain kind of evidence, namely, the practice and opinion of more recent times."

5 De Rebus Christ, Saec. I. § 48.