Is any form of Church polity divinely ordained? Perhaps the conclusion on this point most generally adopted at the present day is that, while certain fun- damental principles of Church government are laid down in the N. T., no specific form of polit}' is there enjoined. Comp. Matt, xx, 20-28, with Mark x, 35- 45, and Matt, xxiii, 1-11. These passages clearly pro- hibit all arbitrary rule in the Church, and are utterly inconsistent with hierarchical assumptions ; there is "but one Master, and all are brethren." The doc- trine of these passages is that the members of the Church are on one level in presence of Christ the Head. We gather some elements of polity from the practice of the apostles as recorded in their acts and writings. This polity is not presented as legislative enactments, but simply as facts, showing how the apostles acted in given cases. In the first account we find the Church composed of the apostles and other disciples, and then of the apostles and " the mnltitude of them that believed." Hence it appears that the Church was at first composed entirely of members standing on an equality with one another, and that the apostles alone held a higher rank, and exercised a directing influence over the whole body, which arose from the original position in which Christ had placed them (Neander, Planting and Training, p. 32). The Gospel is designed to extend to every climate, in every age, under everj' variety of race, of national life and character, and of civil institutions ; accordingly, its settled, fundamental, necessary rules are few and sim- ple; it establishes principles rather than rules; the very regulations which the apostles made were in many instances of local, temporar}^ use only.
The claim of divine right on the part of the clergy to govern the Church grew up with the hierarchy. See Episcopacy. Even after the introduction of episcopacy, in the earlj' Church, the bishops and teach- ers were chosen by the clergy and people ; the bishop managed the ecclesiastical aflfairs of his diocese in council with the presbyters, and " with a due regard to tlic suffrages of the whole assembly of the people." " In whatever way the control of ecclesiastical affairs by the laity, or, rather, I)}- the whole community, is exercised, there can be no question that it is in them that by the New Testament and by the first ages of Christendom the supremacy over the Church was vest- ed. They elected their ministers. They chose their own faith, thej' moulded their own creed, they admin- istered their ov,'n discipline, they were the Ecclesia, the Assembly, 'the Church' " (Dean Stanley', Address on Church and State, 18GS). But the union of Church and State under Constantine consolidated the hierar- chical power, and the rights of the laity gradually fell into abej'ance. It is an essential doctrine of the hie- rarchical system that the duty of teaching includes also the power of ruling ; and all Church authoritv
therefore belongs to the clergy, who constitute the ec- clesia docens. In the Roman Church the government is entirely in the hands of the organized clerical hie- rarchj', at the head of which stands the pope (see be- low). At the Reformation, Luther adopted the doc- trine of the universal priesthood (1 Pet. ii, 5, 9 ; Rev. i, 6), and this forms the basis of the Lutheran theory of Church polity, in which the rights of the laitj' are fairly regarded. " Properlj', all Christians have a right to teach — every father his own family ; and even to administer the sacraments, as even Tertullian truly observes. There is, therefore, truly a. jus laicurum sa- cerdotale, as Grotius, Salmasius, Bohme, and Spener have maintained. Even among the Jews the teachers of the people were not priests, but laymen ; and any one who had proper qualifications might teach in the synagogue or in the temple. Among the ancient Is- raelites the prophets were commonl}' not from the or- der of the priesthood, but, for the most part, from other tribes, classes, and orders of the people" (Knapp, Lec- tures on Christian Theology ,Woods^ s translation, Phila., 1853, 8vo, p. -178). Calvin {Institutes, book iv) sets out from the idea of the Church as the body of Christ. He finds a certain " mode of government delivered to us by the pure word of God" (iv, 1), and traces this form of government in the early Church until its "subversion by the papal tyrannj^" (ch. v). In sub- stance Calvin asserted the following principles : 1. That it is unwarrantable and unlawful to introduce into the government and worship of the Church any- thing which has not the positive sanction of Scripture. 2. That the Church, though it consists properh' and primarily only of the elect or of believers, and though, therefore, visibility and organization are not essential, as Papists allege thej^ are, to its existence, is under a positive obligation to be organized, if possible, as a visible society, and to be organized in all things, so far as possil)le — its oflSce-bearers, ordinances, worship, and general administration and ari'angem^nts — in ac- cordance with what is prescribed or indicated upon these points in the New Testament. 3. That the fun- damental principles, or leading features of what is usually called Presbyterian Church government, are indicated with suflicient clearness in the New Testa- ment, as permanentlj' binding upon the Church. 4. That the Church should be altogether free ^nd inde- pendent of civil control, and should conduct its own distinct and independent government by presbj'ters and synods, while the civil power is called upon to af- ford it protection and support. 5. That human laws, whether about civil or ecclesiastical things, and wheth- er proceeding from civil or ecclesiastical authorities, do not, per se — i. e. irrespective of their being sanc- tioned Uy the authority of God — impose an obligation upon the conscience. Calvin professed to find all these principles more or less clearly taught in Scn|>- ture (B. and F. Ev. Pev. April, 18G0, p. 4G4). On this principle Tulloch remarks (Lenders of the Reformation, p. 179 sq.) that Calvin went too far in asserting that Presbj'terianism "is the form of the divine kingdom presented in Scripture." " Presbyterianism became the peculiar Church order of a free Protestantism. It rested, beyond doubt, on a true divine order, else it never could have attained this historical success. But it not merely asserted itself to be wise and conforma- ble to Scripture, and therefore divine, but it claimed the direct impress of a divine right for all its details and applications. This gave it strength and influence in a rude and uncritical age, but it planted in it from the first an element of corruption. The great concep- tion wliieh it emltodied was impaired at the root by being fixed in a stagnant and inflexible system, which became identified with the conception as not only equally but specially divine" (p. 181). "But were not those 'elements,' some will say, really Eililical? Did not Calvin establish his Chnrch politj' and Ciiurch discipline upon Scripture ? and is not this a warranta-