Chapter 1. — Foundation Principles Examined.

CHAPTER 1. — FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES EXAMINED.

ALL societies, institutions, and organizations, must be either human or divine in their origin. When human, those who establish them, or unite in their organization, possess the prerogative of arranging their constitution according to their pleasure.

In a political point of view, although some forms of government may combine more advantages than others, and be far preferable to them, yet no nation or people can be required to adopt any particular form of government when they deem another form better, but all are properly left in this matter to judge for themselves. They may make an unwise choice — they may choose an aristocracy, when a monarchy would be more suitable to their condition; or a monarchy, when a republic or a mixed government would be much more beneficial — but in this they are not to be arbitrarily controlled by a foreign influence. If they choose to make a bad selection, they will, of course, suffer the evil consequences, but they may not rightfully be molested in the exercise of their own choice. This right of choice cannot be trampled upon, except by the foot of tyranny. All communities, or conventions of persons, possessing the right to establish a constitution for their own government, have not only the right to choose their own form of government, but they may incorporate in it any principles, ceremonies, or penalties, they please, so that they do not infringe upon the rights and prerogatives of others; and in the exercise of this right they are accountable to God alone.

The same principle applies to all voluntary benevolent associations. These being merely human institutions, those who unite in their organization are their own judges, both as to the expediency of originating them, and as to the peculiar character of their constitution. This principle is of universal application to human institutions.

By a divine institution, we understand one which has been founded by the Almighty himself. Here we readily perceive that, in the very nature of things, there is something radically different from all institutions merely human. A divine institution, whether political or ecclesiastical, or whatever be its character, originates in the will and appointment of God, It is the appointment of God that causes it to be, and to be what it is. God, being the creator and supreme governor of the universe, possesses the right to prescribe for all or any portion of his creatures whatever form or constitution of government he may please, whether political or ecclesiastical; and whatever God has appointed, or prescribed, is of universal and absolute obligation, to the last jot and tittle, according to the true intent and meaning of the divine appointment. It follows, moreover, that whatever God has appointed or established must remain in force, unchanged and unmodified, until the same authority which gave it being and force shall disannul or modify it. No power of man may alter or modify an ordinance of God.

Again, as God possesses the right to establish among his creatures whatever institutions he may please, so also it is his prerogative to select the method or plan according to which such institutions shall be set up. He may choose to exercise his agency through the medium of angels or of men, or whatever being or agency else he may select, as a suitable instrumentality for the accomplishment of his own purposes; but those agents, whether angelic or human, can only proceed so far as they are clothed with the authority of God, and act in accordance with the divine commission with which they are invested. Should they transcend or deviate from their commission, all their acts in thus transcending or deviating, so far as the establishment of a divine institution is concerned, are null and void; but this would not vitiate, or tend in the least to weaken, the force of such acts as may be performed in accordance with their commission. Having now premised some of the radical and general principles pertaining to human and divine institutions, we proceed to consider their connection with and bearing upon the Christian Church.

The Christian Church must be either a divine or human institution. A divine institution, according to the principles laid down, derives its authority from the appointment of God — a human institution from the appointment of man. It should not, however, be overlooked, that an institution may be divine in some respects, and human in other respects; but the distinction is obvious. So far as it originates in the appointment of God, or has been prescribed by his authority, it is divine; but so far as any thing pertaining to it has been left to the judgment and discretion of uninspired man, it is human.

It may be said, with propriety, that the State and family are, to a certain extent, divine institutions; for the one originates in the express appointment of God, and the other is of God; for it is written: “There is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.” Romans 13:1. Therefore it is true, whether we speak of the institution of the Church, the State, or the family, the same principle applies in precisely the same way. Just so far only as they originate in the appointment or by the authority of God, to the same extent are they divine institutions.

That the Christian Church is a divine institution, in a high and important sense of the word, is admitted by all Christians. Every thing essential to its constitution is founded upon the appointment of God. We are not, however, to infer from this, that every thing should be excerpted from the Church which God has not expressly appointed. To say that God has prescribed nothing in reference to the institution and organization of the Church, is to deny that it is a divine institution at all; but to contend that nothing may be connected with its organization except what God has expressly appointed, is a position unwarranted by the word of God — nor is it maintained by any denomination of Christians.

From the above, it will follow that, in the establishment and organization of the Christian Church, some things are expressly laid down or prescribed in Scripture, but that all things which may properly be connected with that organization are not thus expressly prescribed. It also follows that, so far as the constitution and organization of the Church have been expressly laid down or prescribed in Scripture, it is the duty of Christians to conform thereto; but in reference to the less important matters, not prescribed in the Scriptures, they may be guided by the dictation of circumstances, or their judgment of expediency.

In opening the Bible to learn the true character of that organization called the Christian Church, our first inquiry will be: Through what agency, or by what means, has God established and organized this Church? Here we may observe that, since the Fall of man, God has only been approachable by the human family through a mediator; but the great Mediator was not fully revealed to man under the Mosaic dispensation. Although all the merciful manifestations of God to man since the Fall were virtually and really through the mediation of the Messiah, yet, until this Messiah was manifest in the flesh, there was instituted a sub-mediation. God, ever since the Fall, could only look mercifully upon man through the Messiah, but until the actual coming of the Messiah, man could only look up to that Messiah, and thus have access to the mercy of God through signs and symbols, types and shadows, which properly constituted a sub-mediatorship, through which man could apprehend that only true and real Mediator between God and man.

All the typical array of the Mosaic law was adumbrative of the gospel. Moses, with his priests and altars, his victims and his offerings, foreshadowed Christ and his gospel, his atonement and his Church; but the Mosaic institution, notwithstanding its typical and shadowy character, was nevertheless an appointment of God — it was divine in its origin, and, for the time and purposes for which it was intended was as much an institution of God, and of as binding obligation, as the gospel itself now is. But we ask, How did God give his sanction to that institution, and stamp it with the seal of his authority? We answer, It was through the ministry of Moses. To him he gave his law, inscribing its great moral heart upon the tables of stone with his own finger, and presenting in minute detail all the precepts and commandments, the ceremonies and rites. Thus, having qualified and instructed him in all matters, great and small, pertaining to the politico-ecclesiastical organization about to be set up, in all the minutia in reference to the government and worship of the people, the tabernacle to he reared, and the offerings to be presented, he sends him down from the mount of revelation, yet quaking with the touch of Divinity, commissioned with the solemn charge: “See that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.”

Thus we perceive that, in the establishment of the divine institution of the Mosaic law, the chosen mediator of the Sinaic covenant was not only endued with miracle-working powers for the attestation of the divinity of his mission, but was charged with minute and specific instructions in reference to all the parts and appurtenances of the extensive and complicated fabric for the erection of which he was the divinely-constituted agent. The point specially to be borne in mind in the Mosaic institution is, that Moses was not commanded to erect among the Israelites a civil and religious polity of some indefinite character, but that minute and specific instructions were given, pointing out in detail the principles to be incorporated, the ordinances and services to be observed, and the various classes and kinds of sacred persons and things, together with the special offices they were to perform, and the uses to which they were to be appropriated — from all which it is clear that the institution of the law was only divine so far as it was conformed to the true intent of the divine prescription. Had Moses proceeded to the erection of a tabernacle of service, and a political and Church-organization, framed according to his own conceptions of propriety, utility, or expediency, independent of his instructions, in the same proportion as he deviated from the “pattern shewed him in the mount,” would the institution cease to be divine, and rest all its claims to reverence and obedience on the basis of mere human authority?

The remarks already made may pave the way for the better understanding of the new institution commonly called the Christian Church. Upon this point, the first position we take is, that Christ Jesus, the Son of God, was the great agent and mediator, properly and plenarily invested with the highest authority which God could impart, for the establishment of the gospel dispensation and the erection and organization of the Christian Church. In reference to this authoritative investment of the Messiah, we hear him exclaiming, by the mouth of the prophet, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek,” etc. And the delivery of the grand evangelical commission to the apostles is prefaced with these remarkable words: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” Again he saith: “The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” Hence we see that Jesus was properly invested with all the authority necessary for the establishment of a divine institution. As Jesus Christ is thus invested with the supreme authority of Heaven, it necessarily follows that, in the erection and organization of the gospel Church, he may perform the whole work by his own immediate personal agency, or he may delegate to others, whom he may select and qualify, the whole or any part of that work. From the plenary powers with which he was invested, it follows, in the event of his conferring upon others the whole or any portion of his commission, that those thus commissioned, and acting according to that commission under him, are invested with all the authority to act in the premises which Christ himself possessed. And as Christ was endued with all the authority of the Godhead, and as those commissioned by him were invested with all his authority, so also they were clothed with all the authority of God himself; and any institution they might establish and organize, in the legitimate exercise of that high trust, would be as really divine in its character, and as strictly binding and authoritative, as if the work had all been performed by the direct personal agency of God.