Questions on Chapter 4.

notion that there is no government prescribed for the New Testament Church.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER 4.

QUESTION 1. On what is the first Scripture argument on this subject founded?

2. How is the relation between the law and the gospel shown?

3. In what respects are the two dispensations contrasted?

4. In what particulars were the instructions as to the Mosaic economy specific?

5. Upon what is the next argument based?

6. What is the substance of the position here taken by Watson?

7. How is it shown that the position, that “no form of government is established for the New Testament Church,” is irreconcilable with the identity of the Church under the two dispensations?

8. Upon what is the third argument on this subject founded?

9. What are some of the terms of the Old Testament designating the Church under Messiah?

10. Can these scriptures be reconciled with the position that there is no visible organized Church set up by Christ and his apostles? CHAPTER 5. — FORM OF CHURCH-GOVERNMENT —

SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY — THE NEW TESTAMENT.

BEFORE we proceed to examine the New Testament on this subject, it is important for us to understand the precise point of inquiry now before us; therefore we will consider, first, what is implied in “a particular form of government” — what is necessary to constitute it. We think it probable that much of the difficulty on this subject has resulted from a misapprehension at this point. Many have hastily imbibed the notion that unless a minute detail be exhibited of all things, great and small, which properly should be connected with a constitutional government, no form of government whatever can be established. With this preconceived and erroneous basis fixed in their minds, they have opened the New Testament, and, failing to find that minute detail of parts and particulars which they had conceived essential to a “form of government,” they have assumed that none whatever has been established; and that, consequently, all are left perfectly free to the guidance of their own views of propriety for expediency.

In reference to this subject, persons have erred in two opposite extremes. Some have supposed that every thing, great and small, proper to be connected with Church organization and government, is expressly laid down in Scripture; and that, consequently, no regulation, however minute, should be sanctioned in the Church, unless we can find it expressly taught in the New Testament. Others have concluded that on the subject of Church government no system, form, outline, or constitutional basis, has been prescribed; and that therefore no one form is of greater obligation than another. Now, the true position will be found between these two extremes.

If it be found, upon the examination of the New Testament, that the organization and government of the Christian Church have not been exhibited in minute detail, then it will follow that, in regard to that minute detail, all Christians are left to the guidance of their own judgment of propriety or expediency. On the other hand, if it be found that the organization and government of the Christian Church have been exhibited, so far as some great leading principles are concerned, either by the official acts of the apostles, in establishing or setting the Church in order, or by their instructions authoritatively delivered, then it will follow that, in regard to those great leading principles, all Christians are under sacred obligations, as far as practicable, to conform to those divinely instituted regulations.

Contemplating the fact that the Christian Church is an institution designed to be extended throughout “all the world,” and to be perpetuated to the latest period of its history, and at the same time reflecting on the almost endlessly diversified circumstances of mankind throughout this widely-extended and long-continued range, it could scarcely be inferred, judging a priori, that the government of the Church, in minute detail, should be divinely prescribed, and thus rendered authoritatively binding throughout all ages, and amongst all nations. On the other hand, in view of the important facts that the Christian religion is, and of necessity must be, essentially the same in all climes and in all ages, that human nature is also essentially the same in all places where the gospel is to be proclaimed, that the Christian Church is an institution claiming to be divine in its origin, and designed to be perpetuated to the end of the world; in view of all these facts, it would seem unreasonable, judging a priori, to suppose that no great leading principles, pertaining to the organization and government of this Church, should be divinely prescribed. And if it can be shown that although the minute detail is omitted, yet some great leading principles of Church-government are set forth in the New Testament, then these leading principles will constitute a “form of Church-government;” nor can they be any the less such, because the minute detail is omitted.

Some constitutions are exceedingly brief, containing only the great principles on which the government is based, while others are more extensive, going farther into detail. Would any one conclude, merely because a constitution is brief, that the principles it embraces are therefore of less authority, or that the constitution is any the less a constitution, or a government, or a “form of government,” on that account? Surely not; hence we conclude that if it can be shown that Christ and his apostles prescribed certain leading principles pertaining to the organization and government of the Christian Church, then they did, to the same extent, establish a “form of Church-government.” And so far as they did thus establish it, it is divinely authoritative; and all Christians, in all places and in all ages, are in duty bound to conform to “the pattern thus shown them in the mount.”

The principles essential to the organization and government of the Christian Church, and the Articles of Faith essential to salvation, are few in