VIII.

THE IDEA OF DIVINE RIGHT.

If any one form of government be so prescribed of God as to make it universally obligatory upon the Church, then, at least according to evangelical belief, that form of government will be found set forth as obligatory in the New Testament. Is such a polity, then, to be found there? This is the question of divine right in church government.

Let us make sure that the question itself is perfectly clear. It is not whether the Church is of divine origin. It is not whether the power of government in the Church is of divine origin. It is not whether any definite form or forms of government are outlined in the New Testament. It is not whether there was originally-that is to say, in the apostolic age-any one universal form.

Nor, again, is it a question of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any particular form of church government existing at the present time. Anything is lawful that is not, either directly or by fair implication, prohibited. It is lawful, for example, to have congregational worship on seven days or on only two days of the week, to offer prayer according to a written formulary or to pray extempore, to preach with unity of idea from a selected passage of Scripture or simply to exhort, to employ instruments of music or only the human voice in worship, to administer Christian baptism in a church edifice or in the open air, to kneel or to sit or to stand or to recline at the table of the Lord. ask concerning these things whether they are expedient, not whether they are lawful. Similarly a mode of ecclesiastical government, not having been divinely prohibited, may be lawful, whereas, not having been divinely commanded, it is not mandatory.'

We

'Stillingfleet, "Irenicum," Part I., ch. i.

The question is, whether there be satisfactory proof that some specific form of church government, whatever it may be, was instituted by Christ himself, either immediately in his own spoken and recorded words, or mediately through the inspiration of his Spirit in the mind of the Apostles, and thereby made mandatory upon his followers throughout the world and unto the end of time.

Congrega

The answer has been chiefly in the affirmative. tionalism, Presbyterianism, Prelacy, Papacy-for them all alike the exclusive claim of divine right, as shown in the New Testament, has been put forth. Though it cannot be added that the boldness of the assertion has always been nicely adjusted to the force of the supporting argument.

But just here is a distinction that ought to be drawn. It may be held that a certain form of government is essential to the very being of a church; in which case to assert that it exists jure divino is to assert that there can be no church without it. This is the prelatic and the papal position.

Or it may be held that no one form of government is essential to the very being of a church; in which case to say that some particular form is jure divino is to assert that, while there may be a true church, there cannot be a regularly-i. e., scripturally, -organized church without it. A Christian society, therefore, which, though possessing the gospel and the sacraments, misses the scriptural organization suffers loss, but does not thereby invalidate its title to recognition as a church of Jesus Christ. This seems to be the Low-Church Episcopal, the Presbyterian, the earlier Congregational, and the Baptist position.'

1"Differences of view in relation to ecclesiastical polity need be no bar to mutual recognition and reciprocity. It seems to us that that should be confessed to be a true Church of Christ, in which His Spirit manifests His saving and sanctifying power, in which His truth is professed, His Word preached, and His ordinances dispensed; and it may be so confessed even by those who hold a theory of Church polity according to which its organization is imperfect and irregular." (Committee on Church Unity of the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1887.)

I. THE EXEGETIC ARGUMENT.

Now the exegetic proofs of the claim of an ecclesiastic divine right are not of the highest order. They belong to that multitudinous class of well-intentioned arguments that bring conviction chiefly to those who have it already, or who for some reason are strongly predisposed to receive it. It is mainly on other than exegetic grounds that the idea has been cherished. Often neither Scripture nor logic but some sentiment or desire has appeared as father to the thought.

First of all, perhaps, is the desire to have the path of duty and achievement clearly marked out. For would not one be thus spared the labor of painfully finding it for one's self? I once heard a prominent religious leader say: "It will be a blessed thing to get to heaven, where we shall be told what to do and shall only have to do it." No more thinking and deciding for ourselves: to the mind weary and perplexed with either speculative or practical problems, that may seem indeed the essential joy of the heavenly rest. Let some one whose authority is acknowledged and whose person is revered utter his commands, and the whole energy of loyal minds will be employed in doing them. The division of mental energy between planning, originating, judging, and then executing the plan, is what tries men's strength. It is a sweet mental narcotic that steals into the soul of him who consents to say, Our form of church government is divinely ordered, and we are not responsible except for maintaining it.

Not only is such a sentiment restful to the mind, but it also greatly exalts the organization of one's church in one's own eyes. It is in itself a powerful sentiment: This form that I love and am identified with is of divine ordering-a sacred trust from Christ himself. Not only expedient: that were a feeble idea in comparison. Not only established and existing as a fact: that is true even of the political organizations under which we live. Not only ancient, approved, agreeable to the Scriptures. But of direct divine right; attested by the seal of Christ and his Apostles; no human arrangement, but a tabernacle built according to the pattern shown in the Mount of God. Is it any wonder the

feeling awakened by such a conception should seem to be sufficient unto itself?

Besides, the exigencies of controversy have had much to do with the maintenance of this high claim. Especially since the spiritual despotism of Rome was broken, in the sixteenth century, have there been many separate ecclesiastical bodies and much controversy. Each church has contended for its own right to be. How shall it make good the contention? The short and simple method would be not to show that its constitution and economy are reasonable, or effective, or expedient, or in accordance with Scripture precedent; but to show that they are scripturally authoritative. And this is the method that has usually been followed.

Still again, the controversial position that a certain type of church organization has an exclusive divine right to be, is much stronger practically than the position that no type of church organization has such a right. I have heard baptism by immersion recommended to a company of young Christians, on the ground that, while many persons who had been baptized by sprinkling or pouring were troubled with doubts as to the validity of their baptism, nobody baptized by immersion ever had such a doubt; and that it is good common sense to choose that mode of the ordinance which everybody acknowledges as genuine. Similarly a Roman Catholic priest might say to men hesitating between the Roman Catholic and the Episcopal communion: "Even Episcopalians acknowledge ours to be a true church, but we deny with the utmost assurance that theirs is a true church: choose, therefore, that church about whose genuineness there is no doubt on either side." Or a similar bit of this reasoning (argumentum ad timorem) might be used by a Protestant Episcopal minister with reference to his own communion and non-episcopal communions. All such arguments, though not intellectually convincing, are adapted to practical effectiveness, because of their strong appeal to a motive of self-love-namely, the desire to be on the safe side. So the church that asserts a divine right to its organization has a practical advantage over one that denies all such assertions;

for if the former prove its claim, there may be loss or danger attendant upon membership in the latter, whereas if the latter make good its denial, even then the two simply stand together on the same plane. Who would not prefer in everything to be on the safe side?1

But a not uncommon effect of controversy is to strengthen each party in adherence to his own views rather than to overthrow the opposing proposition. And it has doubtless been so a thousand times in this case. The ecclesiologists believed and loved that which they contended for, and grew stronger apace in their convictions.

2. A PRIORI CONSIDERATIONS.

Let it not be rashly supposed, however, that no argument worthy of the name has been adduced in support of the jure divino idea in ecclesiastical polity.

To begin with, there is an apparent presumption in its favor. Might we not expect a priori that the constitution, offices, and organization of the Church would be given it, at the beginning, by its Divine Founder? Shall these matters, which mean so much for the accomplishment of its mission, be left to the imperfect wisdom of successive generations of men? Moreover,

"If therefore we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us and the strongest against them [ecclesiastical opponents] were to hold, even as they do, that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular form of church polity which God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all churches, to all times. But with any such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the truest which are fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow." (Hooker, "Ecclesiastical Polity," Bk. III., sec. 10.)

"Whether we look abroad upon the symmetry of creation at large, or at home on the smallest arrangement of His hand, we see regulation designed, both mediately and immediately, by himself. And can we believe that he would build the most favored construction of his hands with accident and confusion allowed, as men left to themselves have always built toward heaven since they were confounded on the plains of Shinar?" (McGill, “Church Government," p. 27.) But such a mode of putting the question disregards, among other things, the difference between the Divine method in the natural creation and in the sphere of moral personalities.