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ter of second century; Tertullian's Works, second and third centuries; the Clementines, first half of third century; Canons of Hippolytus, 235-258; Origen, Against Celsus and the Epistles and Treatises of Cyprian, the middle of the third century; Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., first quarter of fourth century; Epistles and Sermons of Leo the Great, middle of fourth century; Apostolic Constitutions, the third and fourth centuries (with later additions); Epistles and Treatises of Jerome, fourth and fifth centuries; Epistles of Gregory the Great, near the close of the sixth century.

Now the divergences of scholarly opinion as to the dates of these sources and authorities is not to be lightly treated. But neither should its importance for the question of church organization be overestimated. And this may easily be done. Because the case is one in which the significance of the facts is really but little affected by a difference in the chronological views. The critic-to take an extreme example-who will not allow the Pastoral Epistles to be any proper part of the New Testament, but assigns to them, either in whole or in part, the very latest date that has been conjectured, will entertain no doubt that the forms of organization to which these books refer did exist when the books were written. He will also have no doubt that it had existed for a longer or a shorter period theretofore. And as to how long a period it had thus existed, he must accept the testimony of the books themselves, unless there be found some conclusive reason to the contrary. At most, as Principal T. M. Lindsay has expressed it, "the matter involved does not concern a general conception of ecclesiastical organization, but whether a certain stage of development, which did exist sometime, was of an earlier or a later appearance-a question which, when we consider the utmost limits of time involved, is comparatively unimportant.'

991

"The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries," p. 138.

Part I.

BROTHERHOOD.

(1)

O Cross that liftest up my head,

I dare not ask to fly from thee:

I lay in dust life's glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

-George Matheson.

The Church is spiritual life-the life of individual souls-organized, knitted together in organic forms for ends of worship and service.-W. H. Fitchett.

When the Church takes upon itself to see to the salvation of my soul, it has done its best to ruin me for time and eternity.-W. L. Watkinson.

This man is freed from servile bands

Of hope to rise or fear to fall-
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing yet hath all.

-Sir Henry Wotton.

So that each one of us stands before Thee as an only child.—William J.

Young.

(2)

I.

THE UNIFYING TRUTH: "ONE MAN IN CHRIST

JESUS."

BROTHERHOOD and organization, though somewhat near akin, are not always found together. They do not imply each other. On the one hand, there may be an unorganized brotherhood. For all like-minded people will become aware that they are fellows; and so, without a dream of organizing themselves, will be drawn into some form of actual and outward fellowship. Thus arise groups of friends, "hordes" of savages, circles of society, cliques, "gangs" of boys, and other more or less worthy and noteworthy fraternities. It is true that in all these cases there may be 'supposed to exist a latent tendency to organize. But the tendency may fail to become operative, and so the brotherhood remain a brotherhood only.

On the other hand, there may be a non-fraternal organization. This will appear when men unite as coworkers, under the principle of the division of labor, through purely self-regarding motives. It may be, for example, the case of a business partnership. Or it may be that of an employer with a number of employees, each discharging his particular and appointed function, in the various processes of some mercantile or productive industry. It is quite possible for such men to work side by side for one-third of their time, and yet be actuated by a brotherly spirit little more than are the papers they sign, the tools they handle, or the machinery they manage.

But the higher type of organization is that which is developed out of brotherhood. It is an inner life and fellow-feeling finding organs of activity-then regularly and variously at work for some common purpose. And here the preeminent example is that institutional representative of the kingdom of God on earth, the Church of Christ. A church in the New Testament time was, first of all, a simple Christian brotherhood, which afterwards,

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