The keys of sect

Preface

Few words are needful to be said, in introducing the following work to the public. It embodies in this small compass the mature results of the thinking of a large portion of my life. It is but just to myself to say, that the subject was never chosen with any deliberate purpose, to be investigated as the theme of a book. I have not studied it because I wished to write a book, but I have written a book, because this subject seemed forced upon my attention by the irresistible providence of God, in connection with my appointed work as a Christian minister and an educator ; and because the results to which my mind has been brought by these lessons of experience seem to me worthy of the very serious consideration of the Christian public.

I am not unaware of the boldness, perhaps some would think it more appropriate to say the temerity, of some of the positions which I have felt constrained to defend in this treatise, — constrained, not by any considerations of mere expediency, but by a profound conviction of their truth and importance. I entreat the reader to bear in mind that, as in the diseases of the body, so in those of society, it .is sometimes necessary to apply heroic remedies, and courageously to resort to the knife of the surgeon. I regard that social disease against which the argument of this book is directed as being undoubtedly of this character. It seems to me, all intelligent, devout men must agree with me in saying, that that sectarian constitution of the Church which, in these pages, I have sought to lay bare to the view of all Chris-

IV PREFACE.

tians, is presenting itself at the present time in many shocking and alarming aspects, and we should not shrink from the application of any remedies which may be suggested by the devout study of the Word of God. The subject is weighty and important enough to enlist the prayerful and candid consideration of every Christian scholar and thinker. The appeal is not at all to any of the sectarian passions and prejudices of the hour, but to the Word of God only.

There are men in many of those religious bodies that now divide Christendom, who are thoroughly convinced that the sect system which is now so prevalent, is contradictory to the spirit of Christianity, and who are looking and praying for deliverance from this bondage. My appeal is to them, in whatever sect found. I may not have solved the problem ; but I entertain a cheerful hope that I shall not be found to have failed in quickening thought on this momentous subject, and in making some suggestions which will lead other minds along, a few steps at least, towards the desired solution. It is this hope that has encouraged me to offer this work to the public, in the midst of many misgivings and some sickness at heart. Consistently with my sense of duty I cannot do otherwise.

My final appeal is to Jesus Christ our Lord, who founded the Church, and gave assurance that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it. If this book sets forth a true conception of that moral kingdom which He came to found, it will be acceptable to Him, and He will secure for it its proper influence in the great conflicts of the present and the future. My humble effort will not lose its reward.

J. M. S.

Jacksonville, III., Nov. i, 1879.

Chapter I. The Question Stated

It will be conceded by all persons who have reflected sufficiently on the subject to form an opinion, that Jesus of Nazareth is represented in our gospels to have proposed to found a peculiar and perpetual society, which he sometimes called the church, 1 but more commonly the kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven; 2 and that he claimed that it was predicted in ancient prophecy that the Messiah should found such a society, insomuch that the assertion " The kingdom of heaven is at hand " was understood in the language of the time to mean that the Messiah was about to appear.

There is an equally universal agreement that the unique society now bearing the name of the Christian Church did originate in Palestine, almost synchronously

1 Matt, xvi: iS, 19.

2 The identity of the "church "and the "kingdom of heaven" is here assumed. For proof of this, the reader is referred to Part I., chap. iv.

with the crucifixion and alleged resurrection of Jesus, and that it was founded by men who represented themselves as his emissaries or apostles, acting in his name and by his authority. This will be conceded alike by Christians of all shades of opinion, and by unbelievers who reject the moral authority both of the church and of its founder. It will also be conceded by all Christians, that the church owes its whole moral authority to that same Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, whom his disciples represented to have risen from the dead, and that no doctrines or institutions of the church can have any claim to the moral allegiance of mankind, which cannot be shown to have originated in his teachings.

But questions of great gravity require our attention. What was the constitution of the church which Jesus founded? With what powers did he invest it? Or still more fundamentally, on what forces did he rely for its government, its enlargement, its perpetuity? In relation to such questions as these, Christian people are by no means united. Conceptions are widely prevalent and have existed for ages, which are exceedingly diverse and contradictory to each other. They exist not only in the thoughts of men, and as matter of opinion, but in corresponding forms of organization and government, some of them indeed of comparatively recent origin, others that have come down to us from antiquity. That church which claims to represent the kingdom of heaven which Jesus founded is not one but many, each with its own distinct constitution, government and laws, and each standing in presence of every other in sharp and conscious rivalry, seeking to extend its jurisdiction over the greatest possible number of subjects. Yet the Christian church is an exceedingly important element of the social life of every nation in

Christendom, and all Christian men trace the origin of that church which they recognize as truly representing the- society which Jesus founded, to his crucifixion and resurrection. In no other respect does modern Christendom present such an aspect of confusion and anarchy as in this. On no one subject is opinion so various and contradictory, as in respect to the place which the church should occupy in the adjustment of social forces, the powers with which it is invested, and the constitution under which these powers are to be exerted. Must these conflicts be perpetual ? Must Christendom forever present this aspect of confusion and self-contradiction ? Must a large portion of its energies still be expended in these mutual rivalries, which might otherwise be employed in co-operative effort for the benefit of mankind ? Must Christian nations which ought to be united in the bonds of a religious brotherhood, be separated from each other still, by sharp antipathies growing out of contradictory systems of church government ? Can the conception of Jesus never be understood, and applied to the constitution of the whole church of God ?

As we stand in the presence of these solemn questions, there are many who are ready to answer without a moment's hesitation, that this conflict of opinion is so wide-spread and complicated, and so intimately interwoven with the life of Christianity in all its ages, that any remedy of this state of things is quite hopeless ; that it evidently results from some deep and permanent relation of Christianity, and indeed of all religion, to human nature itself, which renders it inevitable ; that in this respect what is and has been must still be in all the future. Many persons are so entirely sure that this view of the subject is sound and true, that they regard the manifestation of a disposition to treat this state of things as though it were an evil capable of being remedied, as the sure indication of a mind unsound and incapable of forming a sober judgment on this or on any other subject. If they are believers in Christianity as a religion of supernatural origin, their theory of the case is that whatever of evil there is in this conflict of opinion is offset by many beneficial influences, and is at all events incurable ; and that our wisdom is to accept the present order of things as the best condition of Christendom which, human nature remaining as it is, is attainable , and mitigate the evils which proceed from it as much as we can by mutual forbearance and charity. If they are unbelievers, they are entirely confident that this conflict of opinion and organization is a fatal objection to Christianity itself, and must at no distant day bring it into general neglect and contempt.

This view of the matter, whether as held by the believer or unbeliever, seems to me rash, hasty and superficial. There may be apparent wisdom in asserting that if Jesus' conception of the kingdom of heaven, after the lapse of more than eighteen centuries, is not yet understood by his followers, there is no hope that it ever will be. But it is only apparent, not real. Such an assertion leaves out of the account the fundamental fact in the case. If God has sent to this world such a messenger as Jesus claimed to be, our short-sighted philosophy is quite inadequate to determine, how many ages must elapse, before the world will be prepared fully to appreciate either the messenger or the message. What John says of the Xoyog has been eminently verified in respect to Jesus. "The light shineth in the darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not." 1 The

1 John i : 5.

world has always been slow to appreciate its greatest minds. Their grand conceptions and penetrating insight have almost always surpassed the mental capacity of their contemporaries, and their great reputation has been for the most part posthumous.

Of no one that ever lived among men was this so eminently true as of Jesus. This must necessarily have been so. The age of Julius Caesar and Augustus could not appreciate the blessedness of meekness. An age only accustomed to the iron rule of Rome could not appreciate a kingdom ruled by moral forces. Such a social and moral system as he conceived of and proposed to establish in the world can be appreciated only in proportion as it becomes an actual reality. For example, it would be easy to show that in the time of the prophet Daniel, there was no language in which the Messianic kingdom could be foretold, otherwise than by symbols derived from the previous history of the world and its then existing condition, and that such symbols could only express it very inadequately. Nobody in that age could have formed, certainly no one could have expressed, that conception of it which we have in the present age. For the same reason the disciples had great difficulty in understanding Jesus, when he spoke as plainly as was then possible, of the future of his kingdom. If the disciples themselves, with all the advantage of personal intercourse with him which they enjoyed, experienced this difficulty, how much more must other men in that age have failed to understand him. If this impossibility of full appreciation existed in Jewish minds, trained for generations and ages under the influence of the prophets that foretold his coming, how much greater the difficulty must have been in the other nations, that had been subjected to no such discipline. Yet let it be borne in mind that, in the lifetime of the apostles, Christianity wad propagated from Jerusalem to Rome, and over all the region between. In a little more than two centuries from the death of the last of the apostles, its triumph was complete over all the Roman Empire. Nothing can be more manifest than that the immense masses who, in the progress of that mighty revolution, renounced paganism and embraced Christianity, could have had but a very imperfect appreciation of Jesus' conception of the kingdom of heaven. That all these millions should have become able to comprehend a system so refined and spiritual would have been as miraculous as the raising of Lazarus, or the resurrection of Jesus. Miracles indeed, when wrought, may impress men with a sense of divine presence and majesty, and that is what they are designed to do ; but they have no power at all to work such mighty intellectual and moral changes in the minds of men. These can be produced only by experience, and teaching Providence. It was not in omnipotence to have qualified the men of those ages to appreciate Jesus' conception of the Messianic kingdom.

It is therefore not only credible, that the men who composed the church in the first three centuries might not have understood Jesus' conception, but capable of demonstration that they could not have understood it. From the very nature of the case, it is certain that, in constructing the church as an organism, they were likely to be guided, not by a clear understanding of the thought of the founder, but by ideas with which they had been familiar from childhood, and had inherited from immemorial ages of paganism. Nothing then is more absurd and preposterous than to expect to find, in the centuries immediately succeeding the apostolic age, a full and complete embodiment of Jesus'

conception of the kingdom. It is to look for it where we might know it could not have existed. The apostles themselves had come at last with immense difficulty to understand the Master. It was therefore to be presumed, that the churches planted under their immediate superintendence would at the outset be conformable to the model; but it was to be expected that, as soon as the apostles were gone, organic changes would gradually occur, and that the churches would more and more conform to ideas which were of Roman and not of Christian origin. The best that could be hoped for was, that the influence of Jesus the crucified and risen Christ, would gain a foothold in all the regions over which the church extended, and gradually exert its reforming power; and that, after how many ages of providential teaching none can tell, a time would come, when the divine conception of the kingdo > of heaven could be appreciated by the whole multitude of the disciples. It is therefore no cause of wonder, no valid objection against Christianity, no ground of discouragement in respect to the future, that the thought of Jesus has been imperfectly understood for eighteen centuries, and that the practical attempts to embody it in organization which exist in this age present a strange scene of disorder and contradiction. Jesus of Nazareth is not yet appreciated.

There are many indications that there existed in the minds of Jesus and his apostles a sorrowful apprehension, that such a departure from the divine conception was soon to occur. Jesus himself distinctly predicted it. 1 It is evident that Paul wrote his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians under a painful foreboding that such an event was near at hand. 2 It is not my purpose to

» THE KEYS OF SECT.

enter on any interpretation of the language and imagery which he employs. It is not necessary to the purpose I have in view to do so. It is evident upon the very face of the passage in question, that he meant to express a grave apprehension of a great falling away from Christ, as soon about to happen. He even declares that the beginnings of it were already apparent. "For the mystery of iniquity doth already work." He writes as if discerning the present workings of those tendencies to evil which have been pointed out in the previous paragraphs as existing in that age, and the prospect cast a shade of gloom over his usually joyous spirit. He alludes with more or less distinctness to the same subject in other epistles. Similar apprehensions are indicated by John in his first epistle. 1 The same shadow falls deeply on the whole vision at Patmos. It is evident then, that this whole field of inquiry presents but a single question which is really worthy of any serious consideration. Is it possible to obtain any dear, definite and certaifi understanding of Jesus' conception of the kingdom of heaven ? If not, all our investigations will be vain and profitless. There is but one element of order which can be cast, like a nucleus of crystallization, into this fermenting mass of conflicting thought and opinion. That element is such a definition of the original thought of Jesus, according to which the church was founded, as can be understood by any inquiring mind, and substantiated by valid argument. If such a definition can be clearly evolved and soundly vindicated from the apostolic records of Jesus, it will sooner or later meet the universal acceptance of all his followers. It would by no means be a thing to be expected that such an acceptance of it would be ready and immediate. Experience does not justify us in expecting, that in this world any great social and moral reforms can be so easily accomplished. Neither economic nor political truth is ever received as soon as it is propounded. It is almost invariably at first resisted, and is only received and incorporated into the laws and organizations of the world after long conflict, often extending through successive generations. But received it will be, if it is truth, however long the conflict.

In the present instance it must be borne in mind, that those forms of religious organization which are most widely prevalent in Christendom, are the very forms which grew up in the first six centuries succeeding the apostolic age, and that their adherents assume, with no small degree of confidence, that the very fact that they can trace back their history to that early time is itself a convincing proof of their right to exercise authority over all the Lord's people. They are rooted deeply in the venerable usages of many ages, and cannot be expected therefore readily to yield to any argument which calls in question their fundamental principles. Other forms of organization now exist which arc of much more recent origin, but they have for the most part been developed by various causes from the historic churches of the middle and earlier ages. It is therefore difficult for us to assure ourselves that, in separating themselves from those churches, they have not brought along with them organic principles of great importance, which did not originate in the thought of the Founder. It is not to be expected that the conception of Jesus can be clearly evolved, and applied to all forms of organization now existing in Christendom, without calling in question organic principles widely prevalent, and received with undoubt-

IO THE KEYS OF SECT.

ing faith by men of nearly every creed, and perhaps accepting nearly every form of church order. If any one therefore natters himself, that a clear and defensible exhibition of Jesus' conception of the kingdom of heaven would meet with a ready and unresisted reception from the whole body of the faithful, he is certainly greatly mistaken. I certainly have undertaken the work I have in hand with no such chimerical expectations.

But there are minds that are prepared to receive such an exhibition of the subject, — prepared I would hope to welcome any devout and earnest attempt to make such an exhibition, — men who will lay hold of any truth which may be evolved by such a discussion, with such firmness of grasp as will insure its proper influence on the church of the future. Those men, whether believers or unbelievers, who think that the struggles of Christianity during these eighteen centuries have been profitless, are certainly deceived. The world is not so dark as it was when the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands. The kingdom of heaven, imperfectly as it has been understood, has been all along a light in the world, shining from age to age more and more brightly. It is possible now to understand the Messianic kingdom both morally and organically, as it was not when it began its career in the world. The apostles had great difficulty in understanding how it was possible that Jesus could be the Messiah, and yet die and leave the world, without restoring the kingdom again to Israel. From the higher stand-point which we have gained, we wonder at their blindness. Is it not possible in this age for the masses to understand a kingdom that is not of this world, — a kingdom of righteousness, governed only by moral forces ?

It is plain therefore that the question before us is one and simple. What is the nature and organic con-

THE QUESTION STATED. II

stitution of the kingdom of heaven which Jesus founded? It is not a question of "endless genealogies." I have not undertaken the task of tracing the pedigree of the religious organizations of the present, to ascertain which can fix its date farthest back in the centuries of darkness, conflict and gloom which succeeded the Christian era. All this is nothing and worse than nothing to the purpose. We should lose our labor, if we should prove that our favorite ideas of the church were received in the very first century after the apostolic age. Paul saw, in the apostolic age, the mystery of iniquity already working. It is highly probable from the nature of the case, that ideas widely divergent from those of Jesus the Christ gained much prevalence and acceptance within the first century after the apostles. That age could not appreciate Jesus. The only question worth a moment's thought is, — What was his conception ? Our answer to this question must come from his own words and deeds. Of these his apostles were competent witnesses, only because he had qualified them to be so by his own personal teaching and by the aid of his spirit. No subsequent age is competent to appear in court at the trial of this question. If Jesus has intelligibly expressed in words, or indicated by acts his conception, we can know what it was If he has not, the question is involved in a mystery which no investigation can penetrate

It is not however practicable or desirable, to view this question under exactly the same aspects which it presented to those who were contemporary with Jesus. It is not a question of mere curiosity, but a practical question we are called to consider. We are surrounded by forms of thought and organization, each of which claims to be an embodiment of the original conception of the Founder We have need therefore to consider the question in its relations to the interpretations which have been put upon the conception of Jesus, and the forms of organization in which those interpretations are embodied. The subject must be viewed from the standpoint of the present time. If one would conduct an inquiry in relation to the supernatural origin. of Christianity, in such- a manner as to exert any beneficial influence on the thinking of the present age, the subject must be viewed, not alone from the stand-point of the Christian era, but also from the stand-point of the present time ; not chiefly in view of the objections raised against it by scribes and Pharisees eighteen centuries ago, but especially in view of those forms of unbelief that are now prevalent. Indeed this necessity is universal. If one would enlarge the boundaries of knowledge in any department, he must prepare himself for his work by a full appreciation of the present condition of knowledge in that department. He must appreciate the labors of those who have gone before him. He must ascertain the boundaries of their knowledge, and distinctly propound the questions which remain yet to be answered.

With clear insight he must take his stand on the boundary which divides the known from the unknown, and lead the way into the unexplored regions that lie beyond, guided by the light shed upon those regions from that which is already known. This principle holds in full force in respect to the question I propose to investigate. The conflicts of eighteen centuries, in respect to the nature and constitution of the Christian church have been full of instruction. He who would assist us to a better understanding of the original conception must avail himself of all the light which has been shed on the question by the experience of all these Christian centuries. He must appreciate the present, or he cannot be its instructor. It is only by availing ourselves of all the lessons of the past and the present, that we can have any reason to hope that we shall be able to understand the conception of Jesus more perfectly than those who have gone before us. In treating the question under consideration, we shall therefore be constantly concerned with the underlying principles of the organizations which now exist, and with those which have existed in the past ages of Christian history. On all subjects, God teaches mankind by experience, and in nothing more than in respect to religious truth. It is not too much to affirm that, consistently with the nature of the human mind, religious truth cannot be taught otherwise. The whole history of Christianity is to be regarded as one long succession of experiments, each of which had its lesson for all that were to come after. If we, in the nineteenth century, are to gain a better understanding of the divine conception than those who have gone before us have had, it must be by gathering the light of all these experiments into one bright focus, and studying the question in the full illumination thus produced. It is therefore directly relevant to the question before us to inquire what interpretations have been put upon the conception of Jesus in the past, — how it is understood in our own age, and what modes of organization have resulted from these interpretations. In view of these, the whole inquiry must be conducted. Three propositions have been tenaciously held, probably by a majority of those who, in different ages, have borne the Christian name, as undoubtedly sanctioned by the Founder of Christianity. It is not at all necessary to inquire when or how that conception of the church, to which these three propositions are fundamental, originated. It is only necessary now to say, that it certainly originated in the early Christian ages, and has certainly exerted very great influence on the history of Christianity down to the present time. The three propositions referred to may be stated thus : —

i. That Jesus himself constituted the twelve apostles and their successors in the apostolic office, a self-perpetuating corporation empowered to govern the church universal to the end of time.

2. That baptism and the Lord's Supper are rites, the observance of which is of great importance to the spiritual welfare of all the faithful, and that these rites . are so intrusted to this same perpetual corporation, that in order that any believer may receive from the observance of them the benefits they are designed to confer, they must be exhibited by a ministry deriving its powers and functions from the appointment of this corporation.

3. That the whole Christian church or kingdom of heaven, as Jesus conceived of it, was intended to present a visible organic unity under the government of this sacred apostolic corporation.

Up to the time of the Lutheran Reformation, almost all Christendom had been for many centuries divided between the Latin and Greek churches, each realizing to the utmost of its power the system of which the three propositions stated above are the fundamental organic principles. Since the Reformation, church government has exhibited and does still exhibit very great variety and complication of forms ; but in them all, with perhaps very few exceptions, more or less traces of the influence of the three propositions above stated may be detected, though there are many organizations the adherents of which would earnestly reject them all, in the form in which they are stated above. Few if any of the Protestant denominations would accept either of them, yet perhaps it will be made to appear, that comparatively few have entirely escaped from their influence.

It is therefore exceedingly obvious what course our inquiries must necessarily pursue. If the three propositions enunciated above do express the conception according to which Jesus founded that kingdom of heaven, of which the church in all Christian ages has claimed to be the living representative, then there is no room for further inquiry. Nothing in that case will remain, but that all Christian people should place themselves under the authority of that sacred corporation which Jesus himself constituted, if indeed it can be ascertained which of several claimants is in the true apostolic succession, and endeavor by means of it to promote that reformation and salvation of a sinful world which Jesus promised to secure. One inquiry therefore meets us in the very outset, and imperatively shuts off all other investigation till it is answered. Are the three propositions stated above a true expression of what Jesus meant by the kingdom of heaven? Do they rest on his authority? If they do, further discussion is useless and impertinent. If they do not, then they are of no force or validity, and the whole superstructure of church government built upon them, in whatever age or land, is without any solid foundation, and can lay no valid claim to the reverence or allegiance of any portion of the human race. Its pretended authority is a usurpation. No matter how early it originated ; no matter how long or how extensively it has prevailed ; it is of no force or validity, and is entitled to no place in our conception of the church which Jesus founded. Our first question then is, — Are these three propositions sustained by the authority of Jesus, the Christ of God ?