gift qualifying for some particular form of service-teaching, evangelizing, healing, ruling; together with the gift, the grace of Christian love, enkindling the heart for service; then the exercise of the imparted gift in actual ministration; and then the recognition, formal or informal, of such service, by the congregation, and its regular continuance under their sanction.

And in this process of office-making appear the three formative ideas with which our attention has just now been engaged: those of representation, Divine appointment, and the service of love.

9

II.

OFFICERS AND PEOPLE: LOSS AND RECOVERY OF THE IDEA.

We have seen that in the apostolic age church officers as such had no exceptional powers. What they did was not some act of administration from outside which no others could share, and without which no others could come into covenant with Christ. It was a ministration which the congregation itself performed through them as its representatives. The Christian congregation itself had authority to preach, to teach, to baptize, to administer the Lord's Supper, to elect its own officers, to exercise discipline as God might give ability. So far as these offices were committed into the hands of chosen or accepted individuals, it was a matter of order and efficiency, not of distinction in spiritual power. There was no clerical caste.

In a word, officers were ministers Divinely appointed by the gifts bestowed upon them, chosen or accepted for service, and in all their functions representative of the congregation.

Now from this apostolic starting point the history might be called, in the language of familiar metaphor, the development of a planted seed just breaking the crust of the soil, into the many-branched and majestic tree. But it might also be described by a very different figure. The fall of the snow "from white sky to black earth, that," it has been said, "is the history of an organized faith"-inevitable contamination attending the truth of Christ in the hands of its organizers. Perhaps we shall find the two metaphors equally true and equally onesided.

To what extent, then, has the original, or New Testament, idea been followed by the subsequent generations of Christians? That is the question before us now.

I. IDEA OBSERVED IN SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE.

The idea was followed without misgiving or deviation, so far as can be gathered from the scanty information available, in the generation immediately succeeding the apostolic age. The relation of officers and people was the same as before. All spiritual functions still belonged to the local congregation. The Christian people were still permitted to preach or teach,' to administer baptism and the Lord's Supper, to elect and dismiss officers, to expel from membership in the Church.

And some

'Let him that teaches, though he be one of the laity, yet if he be skillful in the word and grave in his manners, teach; for "they shall all be taught of the Lord." (Apost. Const., VIII. 32.)

Of like import is the case of Origen, who, as a layman, preached and expounded the Scriptures in the public congregation in Cæsarea, at the request of the bishops of Palestine, and was rebuked by the bishop of Alexandria, not for the preaching and teaching but for doing it when a bishop was present. (Eusebius, H. E., vi. 16-18.)

"Even laymen have the right to baptize; for what is equally received can be equally given. Unless bishops or priests or deacons be on the spot, other disciples are called-i. e., to the work." (Tertullian on Baptism, c. 17.)

"In many places we find it the practice [for the bishop to baptize] more by way of honoring the episcopate than by any compulsory law. If necessity so be, we know that even laymen may, and frequently do, baptize." (Jerome, "Against the Luciferians," c. 9.)

"Let that be deemed a proper eucharist which is [administered] either by the bishop or by one to whom he has intrusted it." (Ignatius to the Smyrnæans, c. 8.) The tone of this, together with other passages in the letters of Ignatius, indicates that the presidency of a church officer at the Lord's Supper was not the law or universal custom.

"Now appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord." (Didache, c. 15.)

"Those therefore who were appointed by them [the Apostles] or by other men of repute, with the consent of the whole church, . . . these men we consider to have been unjustly thrust out of their ministrations. For it will be no light sin for us, if we thrust out those who have offered the gifts of the bishop's office unblamably." (Clement, "Epis. to Corinthians," c. 44. Cf. Polycarp to Philippians, c. 11.)

"Who, then, among you is noble-minded? who compassionate? who full of love? Let him declare: 'If on my account sedition and disagreement and schisms have arisen, I will depart, I will go away whithersoever ye desire, and I will do what the majority command; only let the flock of Christ live

of these things were done by them, as the references just given show, through successive generations or even centuries.1

2. PERVERSION OF THE MINISTRY INTO A HIERARCHY.

But in the swift course of the years a radical and far-reaching change was wrought. The ministry of gifts gradually declining, the ministry of government meanwhile elevated itself more and more above the people. Not only, indeed, did it rise above them: it finally separated itself from them by a sharply defined caste distinction.

What were the causes of this fateful separation between official and non-official members of the Christian brotherhood?

(1) One cause was the increasing tendency to lean upon constituted authority. The churches, growing larger in membership, were at the same time becoming poorer apparently in spiritual gifts. Meanwhile the need of a strong government for the maintenance of unity in the midst of heresies and schisms was more keenly felt. Therefore let the chosen leaders, on whom rested the chief responsibility, speak the word of counsel or judgment or command, and let the people hearken and obey. Such was the measure of self-protection and orderly procedure that came to be adopted.

As early, indeed, as the close of the first century we find Clement of Rome drawing an analogy between the relation of priest to people under the Mosaic economy, and the relation of officers to people in the Christian Church. And only a few years later Ignatius of Antioch urges absolute submission to the bishop, or pastor, as to Christ himself."

(2) This undue officializing movement was accelerated by the form in which the Lord's Supper came to be celebrated. It is

on terms of peace with the presbyters set over it.'" (Clement to Corinthians, c. 54.)

'Here the claim and custom of modern congregationalists are almost entirely scriptural and primitive. (Cf. Heermance, “Democracy in the Church," pp. 141, 142.)

To the Corinthians, c. 40.

Ephesians, 6; Trallians, 2; Magnesians, 3.

true that Jesus' memorial feast should have had just the opposite effect; and so it might, had the manner of its observance remained the same as in the beginning. For at that time all the communicants sat together and partook of the sacramental meal at a common table. But when the bishop, with his council of elders, had been appointed in each congregation, and when, also, the number of communicants had become too large to admit of their sitting at the table together, the bishop sat there as president, and on either side of him the elders, while the people came to the table, a few at a time-the deacons waiting upon themand received the bread and wine standing.'

There were the bishop and the elders seated, like the ruler and the elders in the synagogue; or, as the Church of that age conceived it, like the Lord and his Apostles at the Last Supper. Here were the people standing apart, or merely approaching their office-bearers to receive the holy symbols at their hands. It was an object-lesson of official separateness rather than of congregational unity and fraternity. Taking part in it, Sunday after Sunday, would exert its proper (yet most improper) influence upon the participant's mind. It would familiarize him with the idea of occupying the lower place.*

(3) Another cause was financial. The officers were supported, at least in part, by the people. Not as a matter of professional fees or of hirelings' wages, but of brotherly coöperation and practical necessity, they were made recipients of contributions of money or provisions. "Tend the flock of God," says the Apostle Peter to presbyters, "nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind”—an injunction which implies that the presbyters

'Const. Apos., VIII., ii., 12, 13.

"Neh. viii. 4; Matt. xxiii. 6.

"It can hardly be doubted that the separation which was here involved between the congregation on the one hand, and the bishop, presbyters, and deacons on the other, was a potent factor in developing the idea of the clerus as a separate class in the community. It must at once have accentuated the notion of rank." (Lowrie, "The Church and Its Organization," p. 287.)

'I Pet. v. 2. Cf. 1 Cor. ix. 14; Gal. vi. 6; 1 Tim. v. 17, 18 (in which passage unless the meaning of the word honor (Th) be "price," or "hon