ized-is what we value. And the forms of organization which the religion of Christ has taken, whether recent or historic, are no exception to the rule that the life is more than any outward structure that it builds. Back of them all may be felt the heartbeat of human ideas, energies, passions, conscience, aspirations. Their history, therefore, is easily susceptible of illustration, from beginning to end, with personal characteristics and incidents. Above all, there appears, by its proper tokens, though without violence to even the most perverse wills of men, the sovereign purpose of God in his Church's life on earth. It is, then, the humanity back of every ecclesiastical question, with the Divine hand in the human struggle, that makes the story great. Now the organization of a local church, in this or that instance, may indeed appear quite truly as little more than mechanism. But so likewise may the utterance of prayers, the singing of hymns, the delivery of sermons, the offering of money, the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper, in the Christian congregation. Yet no one would declare this to be the proper character or design of these devotional observances. On the contrary, it is a sign of degeneration-they are losing their life. And the case is just the same with the forms of organization under which, together with certain forms of worship, a church of Jesus Christ would live its life and do its work in the world. They are simply untrue to their idea, unless alive. The present treatise is designedly expository. Its aim is to relate the facts as known, or supposed to be, with as near an approach as possible to truth in explanation and criticism. I have hoped to set down a good deal in the way of fact and truth, with something of inference and something of suggestion. But Argument, indeed, cannot be wholly avoided; and what may seem to be a polemic trend will here and there intrude. whatever bias of judgment as to any particular organization may betray itself would plead to be charitably condemned as an unconscious intellectual vice. Of course it may be none the less real on that account; for "who can understand his errors" or claim to be free from "secret faults?" It is so easy for feeling and will to distort fact, minifying or magnifying, confusing segment and circle. Nevertheless one must recognize the obligation, and may be permitted to profess the intention, at least, of speaking the whole unperverted truth in love. And as to controversy, it is worse than vanity (in both senses of this word) unless it be purely for truth's sake and love's sake. The topical method of treatment has been chosen in preference to the chronological. In following this method I am aware of having incurred the danger of undue repetition. But this, I hope, has been guarded against, and the various topics permitted only to reappear without intruding. To touch the same fact or idea in different connections at different times is indeed one of the best ways to make its acquaintance. From the introduction of the footnotes that cumber so many pages I would willingly have been excused. More than once have I felt inclined to throw aside all these digressions-"for what is a footnote but a digression?" But the nature of the discussion pleaded for them with much show of reason; and so they remain. Let them serve, more or less satisfactorily, as authority for views presented in the text, as confirmatory (or contradictory) views, and as some indication of the literature of the subject. I am glad of this opportunity to acknowledge indebtedness to several honored scholars and church leaders for consenting to criticise my manuscript with reference to the history or the present organization of the churches which they respectively represent to Dean E. I. Bosworth, of Oberlin Theological Seminary; President E. Y. Mullins, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Professor Williston Walker, of Yale University; Professor J. W. Richard, of the Lutheran Theological Seminary (Gettysburg); Professor W. N. Schwarze, of the Moravian Theological Seminary; the Rt. Rev. F. F. Reese, of Savannah, Ga.; Dr. W. L. Watkinson, ex-President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference; the Rev. J. H. McNeilly, D.D., of Nashville, Tenn.; and Professor Y. Tanaka, of the Kwansei Gakuin, Kobe, Japan. The courteous kindness with which the requested corrections and suggestions were offered has made even my sense of obligation a pleasure. If the reader will call attention to any errors, whether of fact, inference, or emphasis, which I have not as yet been able to correct, it will be a truly appreciated service. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, April 23, 1910. CONTENTS. THE UNIFYING TRUTH: "ONE MAN IN CHRIST JESUS". Organization as Developed Out of Brotherhood. 1. Christ as the Unifying Truth. His personality. The prophet- teacher, the holy one, the Lord of the conscience, the personal ideal, 2. The Response of Love-in Emotion, Will, Service. 3. But Is Not Self-Love a Common Motive of Church Membership? Yes, but self-love is even necessary to love for others. Yet the con- SOCIAL DEPENDENCE: ADMISSION INTO MEMBERSHIP. 1. Christianity a Social Religion. Contrast with pagan cults. Jesus' recognition of the social need in religion. Sharing the new life. 2. Social Dependence in Worship and in Work. 3. The Church Idea in the Acts and the Epistles. A Christian life 4. Original and Later Conditions of Membership. In apostolic times. PAGE SOCIAL DEPENDENCE: DISCIPLINE.. Significance of Church Membership. I. Formative Discipline-Personal, Official. 2. Corrective Discipline in the New Testament Period-Personal, Official. Jesus' word as to "binding" and "loosing." The case in the Corinthian church. Arbitration. 3. Corrective Discipline in Post-Apostolic Times. Two distinct grades of excommunication. Relation of prophets, martyrs, bishops, to 4. Corrective Discipline in Medieval Times. The confessional and SOCIAL DEPENDENCE: DISCIPLINE, ORGANIZED FELLOWSHIP. Corporal Punishments for Religious Offenses. 1. Discipline Emphasized in Protestant Reformation, and Why. 2. Illustration Found in the Calvinian Discipline, in Independency, 3. Present-Day Laxity of Discipline. Need of administrative fidelity, wisdom, love. Certain embarrassing limitations. The personal the 4. Positive Provision for Fellowship in the Church. Social sig- nificance of the Lord's Supper, of the primitive love feast, of the INDIVIDUALISM: PARISH, MONASTERY. Social Dependence Not Repression but Development of the Indi- I. Individualizing Effects of the Teaching and Personality of Jesus. Moral love as an element of personality. 2. Repression of the Individual in the Early Church. Due to im- 3. Formation of the Parish. Original and subsequent meanings of the word. Mechanical unification of the Church under the diocesan 4. Rise and Growth of the Monastery. Its rise favored by the solidarity of the parish. Motives. 5. Social Development of Monasticism. Wherein did the freedom 6. Regulation and Supervision of the Monastery. In the East-Basil the Great. In the West-Benedict. Were not the principles of free- 7. Monastic Learning and Missionary Zeal. Rise of the preaching INDIVIDUALISM: THE PROTESTANT CONGREGATION. The Church Promoting or Invading Personality. 1. The Reformation Protest against the Invasion of Personality. Representative character of Martin Luther's experience. 2. The Roman Catholic Reaction. Due to passivity and timidity. Annihilation of the individual in Jesuitism. |