PASTORS CHOSEN BY THE CHURCHES.

123

III. EACH OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCHES ELECTED ITS OWN PASTORS DIRECTLY, IN THE EXERCISE OF THEIR FREE SUFFRAGE. This they did by stretching forth their hands as the sign by which they cast their vote, as many deliberative bodies now cast their vote by the uplifted hand. This was the power of ordination, which was lodged in the local Church, which ordination consisted in their election. In the Apostolic Churches ordination did in no way consist in the laying on of hands; for the appointment of a man to the pastoral office was his ordination, with or without this. The laying on of hands was often connected with the setting of any one apart for office, or for a special service, but not always, in either of these cases. Our Lord ordained' his Apostles, but not by the laying on of hands. He observed this form when he healed the sick and blessed little children, because both these acts couched a special benediction. For the same reason it accompanied the bestowment of supernatural gifts, as when Peter and John laid their hands on the Samaritan believers, and they received the Holy Spirit (Acts viii, 17), and as when Timothy received the same 'gift given through prophesy, with the laying on of the hands of the eldership.' 1 Tim. iv, 14. So Paul, who had long been an Apostle, and had preached the Gospel abundantly, received the laying on of hands at Antioch, not to induct him into the Gospel ministry, but into a special missionary work on a special missionary journey. Acts xiii, 2, 3. Dr. Hacket says on this passage: Paul was already a minister and an Apostle (see Gal. i, 1, seq.), and by this service he and Barnabas were now merely set apart for the accomplishment of a specific work. They were summoned to a renewed and more systematic prosecution of the enterprise of converting the heathen.'

Again, sometimes the laying on of hands was attended by prayer, and sometimes it was not. But in time it became subject to abuses in common with other apostolic practices, some of which have continued unto this day. It became, in post-apostolic times, an efficacious accompaniment of baptism, of the Supper, of the restoration of the excommunicated, and of the ordained to the work of the ministry. In fact, it was perverted-made a superstitious and sacerdotal act; and Cyprian did not scruple to say of the baptized what the hierarchy now says of ordination: Receive the Holy Ghost through our prayer, and the laying on of our hands.' When hands were laid on deacons and elders, or on men set apart for any special work, it was the sign of their appointment only.

In the election of a pastor, the whole Church united in prayer for the blessing of God upon the man whom they had chosen to serve them; and the laying on of hands by the presbytery of the local Church publicly attested their suffrages. The elders or bishops of another local Church had no right to interfere in the matter. The man selected was a member of the Church in which he was to exercise oversight. But so far from the laying on of hands indicating that the work to which the Church had called him was perpetual and changeless, he might cease to be the

124

METHOD OF THEIR ELECTION.

pastor of that Church at any time, and his election and the act of the Church in his case left him where they found him.

The fullest, clearest and most reliable account known to the writer, setting forth this whole matter, is from the pen of the learned Dr. Gill, and may be profitably quoted here:

'Epaphras, a faithful minister of Christ for the Church at Colosse, is said to be one of you, a member of that Church, Col. i, 7, and iv, 12; one that is not a member of a Church cannot be a pastor of it. . . . As every civil society has a right to choose, appoint and ordain their own officers, as all cities and towns corporate their mayors or provosts, aldermen, burgesses, etc., so Churches, which are religious societies, have a right to choose and ordain their own officers, and which are ordained, avros, for them, and for them only; that is, for each particular Church, and not another. Acts xiv, 23. The election and call of them, with their acceptance, is ordination. The essence of ordination lies in the voluntary choice and call of the people, and in the voluntary acceptance of that call by the person chosen and called; for this affair must be by mutual consent and argument, which joins them together as pastor and people. And this is done among themselves; and public ordination, so called, is no other than a declaration of that. Election and ordination. are spoken of as the same; the latter is expressed by the former.... Paul and Barnabas are said to ordain elders in every city (Acts xiv, 23), or to choose them; that is, they gave orders and directions to every Church, as to the choice of elders over them; for persons sometimes are said to do that which they give orders and directions for doing, as Moses and Solomon with respect to building the tabernacle and temple, though done by others; and Moses particularly is said to choose the judges. Exod. xviii, 25. The choice being made under his direction and guidance.' '

Gill further says of elections in the Apostolic Churches:

'This choice and ordination in primitive times was made two ways: by casting lots and by giving votes, signified by stretching out of hands. . . . Ordinary officers, as elders and pastors of Churches, were chosen and ordained by the votes of the people, expressed by stretching out their hands; thus it is said of the Apostles, Acts xiv, 23. When they had ordained them elders in every Church, xeporovεiv, by taking the suffrages and votes of the members of the Churches, shown by the stretching out of their hands, as the word signifies, and which they directed thei to, and upon it declared the elders duly elected and ordained.'

But he explicitly denies that there was any imposition of hands used at the ordination of elders or pastors in apostolic times, in these words:

'No instance can be given of hands being laid on any ordinary minister, pastor or elder at his ordination; nor, indeed, of hands being laid on any, upon whatsoever account, but by extraordinary persons; nor by them upon any ministers, but extraordinary ones; and even then not at and for the ordination of them.' 8

He also claims that whatever'gift' was bestowed upon Timothy, no 'office' was bestowed upon him either by the laying on of the hands of Paul or of the presbytery, but that the whole proceeding was extraordinary. He further deprecates the practice as needless' at the present day, and as a weakness.' This, however, he gives as a mere opinion, in view of the abuses to which the imposition of hands has been subjected, and not as an authoritative utterance based on the requirements

6

CHURCH FREE FROM THE STATE.

125

If

of Scripture. In keeping with these views, however, the English Baptists have never held councils, nor, as a custom, used the imposition of hands for the ordination of men to the ministry, but have left the whole matter in the hands of the Church which calls a man to this work; a prerogative which Christ lodged in that Church, and which all the Churches on earth cannot remove. The ordinary Church may invite sister Churches to advise her, and assist her in the matter, or she may dispense with this as she pleases. But when once her sister Churches avow that there is something defective in the ordination if they and their elders or presbyters are not called in to assist, on the pretense that men are ordained for a denomination,' and not for an individual Church; they introduce a new element into the Gospel system, and deliberately rob a Gospel Church of her inalienable rights. hands must be laid upon a pastor when he is first chosen to serve a Church, it is infinitely better to repeat that act every time that he changes his pastorate, than that outside Churches should interfere with the Gospel rights of a sister Church under the pretense of fraternity. Once violate this principle in the genius of the Gospel, as neighboring pastors and Churches, and we depart therefrom, as much as any priest, primate, or pope whatever, and become partakers of their sin. According, then, to the New Testament, the right to ordain pastors is given by Christ to the individual Church which calls them severally, with or without a council as she pleases; and to resist her right in this matter is to resist a divine ordinance; to arrogate a prerogative which would disgrace any honest pope, while it honored his disgraceful office. Leave Christ's Churches where he left them; to their own Master they stand or fall. It were better that we never hold another council while the world stands, than that such a body should tyrannize over a sister Church by pretending that it can set any man apart to the work of the Gospel ministry, even if a Church should pretend to delegate its power to such a body; a thing which it cannot do by any permission or example of the New Testament.

IV. THE APOSTOLIC CHURCHES WERE ACTIVELY INDEPENDENT OF THE STATE. We have seen that Jesus laid the corner-stone of religious freedom in liberty of conscience, so that in the voluntary service of God his followers should not be vassals to human dominion. That he alone should be obeyed in all matters of faith and practice, is the spring from which all their other liberties flow. In this law he set forth his great doctrine of the majesty of the soul, when left to the sway of intelligence and responsibility. He treated a man as a man, and all men stood before him on a common level; hence, he addressed each man personally, inviting him to voluntary discipleship, through his own reason and conscience, making himself the absolute King of willing subjects. Then, his inspired Apostles carefully guarded this holy principle of soul-liberty by requiring implicit obedience to him, and enforcing among his followers all the relations of brotherly democracy. All intrusion between these they condemned as foreign and oppressive. They, therefore, neither asked permission of human governments to preach and form Churches, nor would

126

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE.

they desist from doing so at their command. Christ being their only religious Sovereign, they neither sought favor nor feared blame from the State; every man must be fully persuaded in his own mind, and give his account to God. M. Guizot clearly expresses the Apostolic idea when he says:

'We can conceive that a man can abandon to an external authority the direction of his material interests and his temporal destiny. But when it extends to the conscience, the thought, and the internal existence, to the abdication of self-government, to the delivering one's self to a foreign power, it is truly a moral suicide, a servitude, a hundred-fold worse than that of the body, or than that of the soil.9

Neander, in applying this principle laid down by the great civilian, lodges the right to soul-liberty in the peculiar nature of the higher life that belongs to all true Christians.' This is but Christ's doctrine: Ye must be born again,' words which demand that the whole mental and moral nature, with the passions, be consecrated to him. Here, our Lord lifts the religion of the individual soul above all organization, whether in Church or State; the existence of the Church itself being dependent upon the vital, spiritual life of the individual Christian. As Head of the Church, therefore, Jesus retained all judicial power in his hands and is its only Lawgiver, taking no account of the pains and penalties of civil law; for the civil power in religious matter ends where the law of conscience begins. As Jesus himself was all that he required his followers to be, both toward God and man, so he made duty to God throw light on duty toward man. With him, personal conviction said, 'Render to God the things that are God's;' and after that, Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's.' That is, obedience to his Father was the first obligation, and having perfectly met that, Rome, by her highest local authority, pronounced him spotless: I find no fault in this man.' His disciples were to make duty to God their calm, staying power, without any civil or ex-cathedra utterances; and then obedience to the State would cheerfully follow, for in the nature of things the most God-fearing man is the truest citizen.

6

We have already seen that in matters of faith, all forms of paganism led the State to trample upon the rights of conscience at will; so that at the coming of Christ the whole world was educated in this false theory of civil government. Such Statecraft cared nothing for the individual, but only for the State, in its arbitrary and conventional claims. Cicero maintained those claims when he said: 'No man has a right to have particular gods, not recognized by the law of the State.' But Christ threw himself into direct opposition to all such tyranny, by uplifting the natural rights of man God-ward; and the Apostles sustained this teaching when they introduced a new issue with the law, in the face of the current civilization. They demanded the right to worship without molestation, and if need be, contrary to the mandates of the law; nay, and to invite all men to do so. Somehow the State has always been troubled with what it had no concern. Free religious inquiry has always disturbed its equanimity, and on that subject it has far transcended its real

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE.

127

functions. Jesus never invoked its aid to enforce his religion, and never hinted that it had the power to decree opinions, or to frame and propagate creeds. He left it to attend to its own material and political affairs, to keep its hands off his religion altogether; but on the other hand, he enjoined obedience to its rightful powers, and interfered in no way with its proper governmental rights. Both he and his Apostles recognized the Roman Empire, in all that related to the fundamental idea of civil government. They submitted to it, and supported it in all that concerned its civil well-being. All that they asked, was a free and open field for the proclamation of Christian doctrine in every civilization, and that it might adjust itself every where to its natural surroundings. But that the Churches should be put under its control, was not left an open question. Because the pagan faith had made itself an engine of the State to coerce men by State forces, and in its turn built up all sorts of State policy he said: 'My kingdom is not of this world.'

Why should kings, rulers, and magistrates hold in their hands the government of the Church of Christ? Are not they to obey the Gospel personally, and to be subject to its saving influences, the same as all other sinners? and when they are converted to him, are they not to stand on a parity with all other converted men? But as to having a voice in the control of Christ's Church when they are not holy men, or above other holy men when they become regenerate, the idea is preposterous in the extreme. Civil rulers have generally sought to obtain ascendency in his Church as a tool in their secular aims; and where they could not so use it, they have commonly looked upon it with jealousy. The potentates of the earth, with few exceptions, have not recognized such a thing as a soul, a conscience, a man; but only a body and a sword, which placed society under abject domination. Hence, it never did matter what the civilization of the State might be, the moment it interfered with Christianity it became narrow and bigoted, and held in contempt all who dissented from its dictates. In the nature of things, every form of governmental religion is intolerant and persecuting, and disgraces itself when it prescribes any form of faith for its citizens. In Europe and Asia, both before Christ and since, religions have always cursed all lands with mobs, and massacres, and wars of the most bloody character. Paganism knew the kingdoms of this world and none other. The fact that Christ gave birth to a perfect individuality in each man, and personal responsibility for its use, forever separated pagan oneness of religion and legislation. A man is born into the State without choice; but if he worships. sincerely he worships voluntarily; to bind the Church to the State is to destroy the true nature of both. The first act of Christian martyrdom drew a line beyond which despotism could not pass. It slew the enslaved body, but left the native freedom of the soul untouched.

to a

Neander says of the Church:

The form of a State cannot be thought of in

connection with this kingdom. It is a community whose whole principle of life is Outward law forms of judicature, administration of justice, all essential to

love.