INTRODUCTION, BY DR. AUGUSTUS NEANDER, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN, CONSIS TORIAL 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. ward principle alone, the necessity of some outward form is asserted as an indispensable means of grace, we readily perceive that the purity of its character is impaired. The spirit of the Old Testament is commingled with that of the New. Neither Christ nor the apostles, have given any unchangeable law on the subject. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, says Christ, there am I in the midst of them. This coming together in his name, he assures us, alone renders the assembly well pleasing in his sight, whatever be the different forms of government under which his people meet. The apostle Paul says indeed, Eph. 4: 11, that Christ gave to the church certain offices, through which he operated with his Spirit, and its attendant gifts. But assuredly Paul did not mean to say that Christ, during his abode on earth, appointed these offices in the church, or authorized the form of government that was necessarily connected with them. All the offices here mentioned, with the single exception of that of the apostles, were instituted by the apostles themselves, after our Lord's ascension. In making these appointments, they acted, as they did in everything else, only as the organs of Christ. Paul, therefore, very justly ascribes to Christ himself what was done by the apostles in this instance as his agents. But the apostles themselves have given no law, requiring that any such form of government as is indicated in this passage should be perpetual. Under the guidance of the Spirit of God, they gave the church this particular organization, which, while it was best adapted to the circumstances and relations of the church at that time, was also best suited to the extension of the churches in their peculiar condition, and for the development of the inward principles of their communion. But forms may change with every change of circumstances. Many of the offices mentioned in that passage, either were entirely unknown at a later period, or existed in relations one to another entirely new.2 Whenever at a later period, also, any form of church government has arisen out of a series of events according to the direction of divine providence, and is organized and governed with regard to the Lord's will, he may be said, himself, to have established it, and to operate through it, by his Spirit; without which nothing pertaining to the church 2 One peculiar office, that of the prophets, in process of time ceased in the church, while something analogous to the gift of prophecy still remained; indeed it might be easily shown that the prophetic office continued at that early period, so long as it was necessary for the establishment of the Christian church, under its peculiar exigencies and relations. Pastors and teachers are mentioned in this passage, in the same connection. Their office, which related to the government of particular churches, is distinguished from that of those who had been mentioned before, and whose immediate object was the extension of the Christian church in general. And yet a distinction is also made between these pastors and teachers, inasmuch as the qualifications for the outward government of the church, nvßiovncis, were different from those which were requisite for the guidance of the church by the preaching of the word, didaonahia. The first belonged especially to the presbyters or bishops who stood at the head of the organization for the outward government of the church. Certain it is, at least, that they did not all possess the gift of teaching as diddonahor, teachers. On the other hand, there may have been persons endowed with the gift of teaching, and qualified thus to be teachers, who still belonged not to the class of presbyters. The relations of these offices to one another seem not to have been the same in all stages of the development of the apostolical churches. |