CONGREGATIONS IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE.
In the New Testament the word church or congregation [1587] denotes sometimes the Church universal, the whole body of Christian believers spread throughout the world; [1588] sometimes a particular congregation at Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome, or any other place. [1589] The congregations are related to the Church as members to the body. The denominational and sectarian use of the word is foreign to the Scriptures, which know of no sect but the sect called Christians. [1590] Denominations or Confessions are the growth of history and adaptations of Christianity to the differences of race, nationality, and psychological constitution; and after fulfilling their mission they will, as to their human imperfections and antagonisms, disappear in the one kingdom of Christ, which, however, in the beauty of its living unity and harmony, will include an endless variety.
An organized local congregation in the apostolic age was a company of saints, [1591] or a self-supporting and self-governing society of Christian believers, with their offspring, voluntarily associated for purposes of worship, growth in holiness, and the promotion of Christ's kingdom. The Apostolic churches were not free from imperfection and corruption, but they were separated from the surrounding world of unbelievers, and constantly reminded of their high and holy calling.
THE ANTE-NICENE CHURCHES.
In the ante-Nicene age a distinction was made between the church of believers or communicant members and the church of catechumens or hearers who were in course of preparation for membership, but not allowed to partake of the communion. [1592] Public worship was accordingly divided into the service of the faithful (missa fidelium) and the service of the catechumens (missa catechumenorum).
MIXTURE OF THE CHURCH WITH THE WORLD.
With the union of Church and State since Constantine the original idea of a church of real believers was gradually lost, and became identical with a parish which embraced all nominal Christians in a particular place or district. Baptism, confirmation, and attendance at communion were made obligatory upon all residents, whether converted or not, and every citizen was supposed to be a Christian. [1593] The distinction between the Church and the world was well-nigh obliterated, and the Church at large became a secular empire with an Italian sovereign at its head. Hence the complaint of Dante (in Milton's rendering):
'Ah! Constantine, of how much ill was cause,
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains
That the first wealthy Pope received of thee!'
ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE THE PURITY OF THE CHURCH.
Monasticism was an attempt in the Catholic Church itself to save the purity of the congregation by founding convents and nunneries secluded not only from the world, but also from all ties of domestic and social life. It drained the Church of many of its best elements, and left the mass more corrupt.
The Bohemian Brethren and the Waldenses introduced strict congregational discipline in opposition to the ruling Church.
The Reformers of the sixteenth century deplored the want of truly Christian congregations after the apostolic model, and wished to revive them, but Luther and Zwingli gave it up in despair from the want of material for congregational self-government (which can never be developed without an opportunity and actual experiment).
Calvin was more in earnest, and astonished the world by founding in Geneva a flourishing Christian commonwealth of the strictest discipline, such as had not been seen since the age of the Apostles. But it was based on a close union of the civil and ecclesiastical power, which destroyed the voluntary feature, and ended at last in the same confusion of the Church and the world.
The Anabaptists and Mennonites emphasized the voluntary principle and the necessity of discipline, but they injured their cause by fanatical excesses.
The German Pietists of the school of Spener and Francke realized their idea of ecclesiolæ in ecclesia, or select congenial circles within the outward organization of the promiscuous national Church, from which they never separated. Wesley did originally the same thing, but his movement resulted in a new denomination.
The Moravians went farther, and established separate Christian colonies, which in the period of rationalism and infidelity were like beacon-lights in the surrounding darkness.