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was needful that the women who filled the baptized Churches should be recognized in the truth,' for the truth's sake.' Paul had sent four sacred books to individual men, but from Moses down no sacred writer had addressed one to a woman. In youth the natural vehemence of John had earned for him the appellation, Son of Thunder. The unlovely heat of his spirit had prompted him to ask his Master whether he should not call for fire from heaven to consume a Samaritan village which had rejected his message, when the rebuke of Jesus told him that he was ignorant of his own spirit. Possibly he inherited this fiery ambition from Salome, his honored mother, who wished her two sons to sit as prime ministers at the right and left of the Messiah, on a political throne. But John had learned more heavenly

lessons on Jesus' bosom, at his cross and tomb. Then, he had sheltered Mary, the revered mother of Jesus, under his own roof, and had been as a nursing father' to the Ephesian Church. All these, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, had mellowed him and qualified him to write in hallowed strains to an Elect Lady for her confirmation in the New Commandment, which we heard from the beginning.'

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Tradition assigns the labors of Matthew (Levi) to Ethiopia, and different parts of Asia; Philip to Phrygia, in Asia Minor; Thomas to Parthia; Andrew to Syria, Thrace, and Achaia; Thaddeus to Persia or Arabia; Bartholomew (Nathanael) is said to have labored in India; Simon (Zelotes) in Egypt and Lydia; and Matthias in Ethiopia. But of this there is not reliable evidence; the record of their life and death, aside from the New Testament account, numbers the band of glorious worthies with the hidden ones of our Lord.

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CHAPTER IX.

THE APOSTOLIC CHURCHES THE ONLY MODEL FOR ALL

WE

CHURCHES.

E now come to the task of setting forth the great principles on which the Christian Churches stood at the close of the Apostolic Age; for these are to be copied as the exact model to the end of time. Our chief work is to find what this model was; as the inner and divine life of those Churches molded their entire organization. When we have determined this standard, we may easily see how far it has been followed or abandoned by succeeding Churches. Many misconceptions arise in Church history from the failure to stop at this point, and to thoroughly weigh the divine history of the Churches before proceeding to consider the human. It is lamentable to witness the haste and light treatment with which this age is passed over, as if the New Testament history were but the starting-point in the great story, to be disposed of as casually as possible; whereas, it is the end of all controversy in the matter of Church life.

In this way the course of Church history is inverted, and the human record is made to falsify and cover up the divine. The true historian must fix his eye steadfastly at the beginning of his work, upon the New Testament pattern, and never remove it; because it is the only guide to truth in every age, and the only authority of ultimate appeal. An exact likeness, therefore, of the Apostolic Churches should be sought at the outset, as the test to which every position and fact in the whole investigation, must be brought back and tried. We never can be wrong in following the pattern found in the Constitution of the Apostolic Churches; for here we find an imperious shield for the true ecclesiastical rights of all Christian men. If we make the Apostolic Churches the mere stepping-stone to the investigation, instead of finding in them the standard of all true fact, how can we measure our way through the centuries, or exhibit their wide differences, without confounding all their real distinctions? Hatch goes to the root of this matter when he says: The virtue of a canonist is the vice of a historian. Historical science, like all science, is the making of distinctions; and its primary distinctions are those of time and space. . . . The history of Christianity covers more than three fourths of the whole period of the recorded history of the Western World. It goes back, year by year, decade by decade, century by century, for more than fifty generations. If we compare what we are and what we believe, the institutions under which we live, the literature which we prize, the ideas for which we

...

contend in this present year, with the beliefs, the institutions, the literature, the prevalent ideas of a hundred years ago, we shall begin to realize the difference between one century and another of these eighteen centuries of Christian history. The special difficulty of studying any such period of history arises from the fact that the centuries which are remote from our own, seem, in the long perspective, to be almost indistinguishable. Between the third century and the fourth, for example, or between the fourth and the fifth, there seems to all but scholars who have trod the ground, to be a hardly appreciable difference. If a writer quotes in the same breath Eusebius and Sozomen, or St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Leo the Great, he seems to many persons to be quoting coeval or nearly coeval authorities. And yet, in fact, between each of these authorities there is an interval of a hundred years of life and movement, of great religious controversies, of important ecclesiastical changes. The point is not merely one of accuracy of date; it is rather that usages and events have at one time as compared with another a widely varying significance. For different centuries have been marked in ecclesiastical as in social history by great differences in the drift and tendency of ideas.'1

For these reasons, if for none other, we must bring every event in whatever century, every drift, tendency and change, of whatever character, back to the law and the testimony of the New Testament, and must measure it by the life and letter of the Apostolic Churches, or we shall run the risk of substituting the vile for the precious and the spurious for the genuine, in Christian history. The foundation principles then, that we find in these divine organizations, are these, namely:

I. THAT THE WORD OF GOD WAS THEIR ONLY RULE OF FAITH AND PRACTICE. During the last half of the first century, this rule was perfected by the completion of the New Testament. From A. D. 52 to the close of the century, each Epistle was received as authority by the Church or person to whom it was sent; and copies were used by interchange amongst the Churches, until their contents became generally known, and took rank with the Old Testament. Of necessity, the remoter Churches did not possess all the books, and some might not have reached them until they were collected in one canon. All their doctrine and practice were gained either from the Old Testament, from the direct influences of the Holy Spirit orally, or by these new books. The first century presents Christianity in its fullness and freshness, its variety and unity; and all its revelations ceased with the death of the Apostle John. After the order of nature, the New Testament gave the Apostolic Churches no systematic formula of doctrine, but left a happy liberty in its expression which reached the truth in other ways. It was centuries afterward before any thing was known of scientific theology; so that millions of souls came to the full truth as it is in Jesus without this. A systematic theology has been helpful to many thinkers, while others have been hindered thereby in reaching Christ personally, because they could see only so much of him as was discernible through the system, which was largely a net-work of human propositions. Perhaps, this is

unavoidable, as human interpretations constantly change; but the Apostolic Churches were founded on primary truth, as it is found, and ever will be found, in the Inspired Text.

Words without Bible knowledge have so often darkened New Testament counsels, that it is wonderful that men have discovered Christ at all as a living Saviour, by the teaching of many modern Churches. But often, a true heart takes men farther Christ-ward than even a true head; and so Bible truth is ever proving its divinity by doing this great saving work. But still, wherever a human standard is set up in place of the Scriptures, it is always more jealously preserved than the teachings of revelation. A fanatic who corrupts the word of God is more heartily fellowshiped by many modern Churches, than he who opposes human decrees and inventions against the Scripture; while he who insists upon obedience to their authority, excites the greatest possible odium, because, to do this wounds the pride of man. Men pay a great price for saying, that the right to legislate for Christian Churches belongs to Christ alone. Yet, he has given his law in the Bible, and every form of Church life that is not in accordance with that law, directly sets it aside. So then, in a very important sense, it partakes of disloyalty to say that Christ has not made sufficient provision for his Churches in the Scriptures, in every thing that affects their well-being.

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We have seen that the only appeal made to authority by the founders of the Apostolic Churches was, to the truth as it is found in the Old Testament, the teachings and acts of Christ, and the direct inspirations of the Holy Spirit. In the Epistle to the Hebrews alone, there are thirty-four quotations from the Old Testament, while in that to the Romans there are forty-eight. Christ and his Apostles always appeal directly to the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, and to their co-relative sentiments, facts and precedents, where they are applicable; and where they are not applicable, a new revelation was granted. They always cite the Old Testament as the direct word of God, or of the Holy Spirit, by such forms of speech as these: 'It is written,' God says,' or 'Isaiah,' or 'Moses saith.' The Apostolic Churches were never allowed to fall into the dangerous popular notions of modern times, namely: That all religious teaching is simply an opinion, which happens to be held differently by certain bodies of men. Such an assumption makes mere Church doctrine a powerful weapon, and gives life to all that falls under the sacramental system; which itself is based upon human dogma and patristic belief. This makes the Church and not the Bible the standard of faith and obedience; and men come to be satisfied with the substitution after this form: We believe the whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles-as committed by them to the Church-and as declared by the Church to us.' And, it follows, of course, that the Scriptures were intended to prove doctrine, but not to teach it, for that the Church is to teach it through its creeds and formulas. This doctrine shifts the whole standard of authority from the Bible to antiquity, makes

NO SUPPLEMENT TO THE BIBLE.

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antiquity the true exponent of Christianity, and forbids all appeal from its traditions to divine authority. Thus, tradition nullifies the law of Christ, by making it a dream, a sentiment and finally a mockery.

The very reverse of this was the law in the Apostolic Churches. In the hands of this human, mystical and sacramental principle, sacraments become the expression of great truths in human language; and the doctrine is fostered that material phenomena become the instrument of communicating unseen things, to which the mind of man is unequal; as if water could purge away the pollutions of sin, or bread and wine could give eternal life, and so nature becomes a parable, and revelation an allegory. The inevitable consequence is, a Church armed with awfully mysterious sacraments and rites as channels of saving grace, and with a narrow religious teaching founded on the will of the Church, as she chooses to define it from time to time. After that, of course, the Rule of Faith is found in the Catholic teaching of the early centuries--in the decrees of councils-and in sanctioned usages. At this point, the right of private judgment is entirely cut off, because a new power has been created on earth which is competent to push aside the individual right to reason and judge about the demands of Divine Truth, as its facts and exactions assert themselves. That right once yielded, the Church claims to judge infallibly for all men on all religious questions; and it must be obeyed without a word. Independency of mind being thus destroyed, paralysis of the intellect follows, the courage of the soul dies with its liberty, discussion becomes dangerous ; and so, all must submit and be silent, as it is safe to yield to absolute authority where one dare not dissent. The final consequence is, that it becomes a crime to claim the personal right to obey that truth which rests on the sole authority of the Inspired Word.

Yet, this fact is perfectly clear, namely: That the New Testament contains all that entered into the faith and practice of the Apostolic Churches. Whether it contains little or much, it covers all that they had, and all that we have, which has any claim on the Churches of Christ. It is the only revealed record of Christian truth. It is stamped with the divine character, and it utterly excludes every species of authority from uninspired sources. Its authority stands out alone, and will allow of no parallel or supplementary authority whatever, however venerable. The most revered antiquity stands on purely human ground, without any thing in common with the New Testament, when that antiquity is not in the Holy Book. The age of a custom is one thing, its nature is another. The question of time merely has nothing to do with authority. When the line is drawn between the close of inspiration and all after-time, what follows stands upon another and a lower level, and can be no authority whatever. Even the Roman Catholic body admits this, in the claim that inspiration is still needful and is continued in her deliberations and decisions; hence, that they are of equal value with the New Testament. The purest and best of the ancient fathers, being outside of the finality of Bible inspira