Church government

“ Let any party in the Church universal advocate the divine institution of their own form of government. But I do not believe that any particular form of government is laid down in the Bible; and yet I admit that church government is as essential and fundamental a matter as a worldly government. Government, then, must be in both Church and State. This is recognized in the Scriptures. No institution or State can live without it. Men are exhorted by apostles to obey it, as a Christian duty. ”

“ So entirely have political ideas and jealousies infected our mode of judging of spiritual things—to such a degree is our peculiar civil liberty made the standard of Church government—that it is necessary to insist again and again on what to Christians ought to be a first principle, viz., that "all power and jurisdiction in the Church, like the Church herself, ought to rest not upon natural and human authority, but on the divine authority of Christ. ”

“ There was full power of church government in the church when no magistrate was Christian, yea, when all magistrates were persecutors of the Church, so far from being her nursing fathers, that they were her cruel butchers ”

“ Would the government, if it were accepted by the church, understand it as implying its obligation to respect and protect all churches equally as representing the spiritual order, or as asserting its freedom to govern and oppress all at will, the true church as the false? ”

“ It is beyond all just, human, or created power, to abolish or oppose the same, or the due execution thereof in the Church of Christ; for what is of divine right, is held of God, and not of man; and to oppose that, were to fight against God. The supreme magistrates in such cases should be nurse-fathers, Isa. xlix. 23, not step-fathers to the Church; their power being cumulative and perfective, not privative and destructive unto her; for she both had and exercised a power in church government, long before there was any Christian magistrate in the world ”

“ No state allows its government to dictate to any one what church he shall attend or compels him to contribute to the support of any church, the establishment of state churches being everywhere forbidden. ”

“ Under the guidance of that Spirit she has ever claimed, and still claims, the right of administering the government and directing the worship which, in their essential principles, are set forth in Scripture, neither superciliously regarding herself in any age as independent of those who have gone before, and so disregarding the legislation and practice of the fathers, nor, on the other hand, slavishly accepting such legislation and practice as binding upon the Church for all time, and as excluding for ever any progress or change. ”

“ But without pretending that the church enjoins any particular form of civil polity, or maintaining the infallibility or impeccability of the people, either collectively or individually, a calmer study of history, and the recent experience of our own country, have restored me to my early faith in popular forms of government, or democracy as organized under our American system, which, though it has its dangers and attendant evils, is, wherever practicable, the form of government that, upon the whole, best conforms to those great Catholic principles on which the church herself is founded. ”

“ If no such commission be needful to distinguish those that have such power from those that have none, why may not all without exception, young and old, wise and foolish, men and women, Christian and heathen, &c., equally lay claim to this power of church government? ”

“ For ourselves, we are purely and simply Catholic, and profess an unreserved allegiance to the church which takes precedence of, and gives the rule to, our allegiance to the state. If allegiance to the church demanded of us opposition to political principles adopted by our civil government, or disobedience to any laws which were impious and immoral, we should not hesitate to obey the church and God. ”

“ Yet it will be easily granted that there should be a government in the Church of God, otherwise the Church would become a mere Babel and chaos of confusion, and be in a far worse condition than all human societies in the whole world: and that some one church government is much to be preferred before another, yea, before all other ”

“ The Puritans demanded on these grounds their right to reject the old ceremonial of the Established Church, and in the place of those empty forms, the right to choose their own minister; the right to worship God in spirit and in truth, and the right of deciding for themselves their form of Church government. ”

“ We will, that each particular church as a body, actuated by the same spirit, choose her own preacher and support him by a free-will offering, without a written call or subscription, admit members, remove offenses; and never henceforth delegate her right of government to any man or set of men whatever. ”

“ By the time of the adoption of the Constitution, our history shows that there was a widespread awareness among many Americans of the dangers of a union of Church and State. These people knew, some of them from bitter personal experience, that one of the greatest dangers to the freedom of the individual to worship in his own way lay in the Government's placing its official stamp of approval upon one particular kind of prayer or one particular form of religious services. ”

“ We hold ourselves obliged, not only by the common duty of our ministerial calling, but also by the special bond of our solemn covenant with God, especially in Art. 1, to bend all our best endeavors to help forward a reformation of religion according to the word of God, which can never be effected without a due establishment of the scripture-government and discipline in the Church of God. And to make known what this government is from the law and testimony, by preaching or writing, comes properly and peculiarly within the sphere of our place and vocation. ”

“ There is here a certain antagonism, no doubt, between the church and the sects, but none between the church and the state or civil society. Here the church has, so far as civil society is concerned, all that she has ever claimed, all that she has ever struggled for. Here she is perfectly free. She summons her prelates to meet in council when she pleases, and promulgates her decrees for the spiritual government of her children without leave asked or obtained. The placet of the civil power is not needed, is neither solicited nor accepted. ”

“ So that church officers are rulers in the Lord, and the churches ruled by them; yea, ruling elders being one sort of church guides, have such an undoubted power of governing in the Church divinely committed to them, that of them it is said, "God hath set in the church governments", 1 Cor. xii. 28, i.e. governors, the abstract being put for the concrete. If God have set governors in the Church, then God vested those governors with a power of governing, whence they have their name of governments. ”

“ Is not this taking a latitude, in devising ways and means for accomplishing Divine and saving purposes, which the Divine law has nowhere prescribed, for which the Scriptures nowhere afford us either precept or precedent? Unless it can be shown that making human standards to determine the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the Church for the purpose of preserving her unity and purity, and requiring an approbation of them as a term of communion is a Scripture institution. ”

“ Whereas, among the infinite blessings of Almighty God upon this nation, none is, or can be, more dear unto us than the purity of our religion, and for that as yet many things remain in the liturgy, discipline, and government of the church, which do necessarily require a farther and more perfect reformation than as yet hath been attained: and whereas it hath been declared and resolved, by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, that the present church government, by archbishops, bishops, &c., is evil and justly offensive, &c. ”

“ As much as is said against Christians sitting in the Presidential chair of the government, they are the only suitable persons to rule, and should be taught of the Lord by dreams and visions. But after all the hue and cry about "Church and State," there has not been a President, nor a Governor, in our day, but what has been controlled, more or less, by priests who deny revelation, believe not in visions, and receive not the ministration of angels. ”

“ No church can exist without some government; but though there must be rules and orders for the proper discharge of the offices of public worship, though there must be fixed regulations concerning the appointment of ministers, and though a subordination among them is expedient in the highest degree, yet it does not follow that all these things must be precisely the same in every Christian country ”

“ If the government think a change in the church necessary, say the separation of the school from the church, the abolition of festivals, the appointing of infidel professors to theological chairs, the compiling of an enlightened catechism—and all these relate to the spirit of the times or the supposed welfare of the state—then the clergy must obey. ”

“ It doth not hence follow, that those who are called unto the ministry of the word, as pastors and teachers, who are elders also, are divested of their right to rule in the church, or discharged from the exercise of it, because others, not called unto their office, are appointed to be assistant unto them, that is, helps in the government. For the right and duty of rule is inseparable from the office of elders, which all bishops and pastors are. The right is still in them, and the exercise of it, consistent with their more excellent work, is required of them. ”

“ And this sacrilege creeps among us, because they cannot measure their office with certain and lawful bounds, but are of opinion they cannot reign, unless they abolish all the authority of the Church, and become the chief judges both in doctrine, and in the whole spiritual government. At the beginning they pretend some zeal; but mere ambition drives them, that so solicitously they snatch all things to themselves. ”

“ Parents and masters convey the same instruction that ministers do; but with a different authority: not as ministers of Christ, or officers in his Church. If other gifts or saintship entitled to preach the gospel, wo would be unto every gifted person, every saint, that did not preach it. If our adored Redeemer refused the work of a civil judge because not humanly vested with such power, will he allow his followers to exercise an office far more important, without any regular call? ”

“ Confining ourselves meantime to the oldest and indisputably authentic epistles of the Apostle, we find that the autonomy of the church in respect of organization, government, discipline, and internal administration is made prominent as the very basis of the constitution. ”

“ Now this is a certain rule, whatsoever hath a spiritual efficacy, must of necessity have a divine originall; humane institutions can but produce humane effects: And therefore, seeing Church Government is designed for divine and supernaturall ends, it must of necessity, plead its originall from God himself.
4. We argue from an enumeration of the substantials of Church-Government. The Word of God declares unto us, That there are Church-officers, and who they are, viz., [16] Pastors and Teachers, [17] Ruling-Elders, and [18] Deacons ”

“ Hence, not only do we exclude from our range all that concerns the ascetic life and the more intimate relations of religion, but we most willingly devote ourselves to the treatment of subjects quite remote from all religious bearing. Secondly, we have to remember that the internal government of the Church belongs to a sphere exclusively ecclesiastical, from the discussion of which we are shut out, not only by motives of propriety and reverence, but also by the necessary absence of any means for forming a judgment. ”

“ It is responsible to itself alone for its own government.
During the discussion two points were strongly insisted on by the opponents of my resolution, which contained an amendment of the Constitution, affirming the necessity and the responsibility of the Church for its own self-government. The first of these, I am free to admit, needs very careful consideration; viz.: the risk which our Church property may incur, should any step be taken by Synod legally affecting the right of the Church acquired by, or given to it, as part of the Established Church at Home. ”