CHAPTER VII. —THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES
Section 3.—Rights of the Christian People.

topic, forming a remarkable exception to the progressive declension of the early church in point of doctrine and soundness of ecclesiastical practice, even during the first three centuries, is not one of such comprehensive magnitude and such commanding importance as that which we have already considered; still it, is one of no small moment, not only in its bearing upon the right constitution and administration of the affairs of the church, but also, as experience proves, upon the interests of spiritual religion and vital godliness: I mean the steady maintenance, both in doctrine and in practice, of the right of Christian congregations to an effective and decisive voice in the appointment of their own pastors. Here, as in the former case, it is to be observed that the topic did not become a subject of formal controversial discussion during the first three centuries, nor for many centuries afterwards; and that, therefore, the: testimonies upon the point are not so specific and precise as to preclude all caviling, though quite sufficient to satisfy any honest inquirers after truth. Indeed, I know very few questions in regard to which more elaborate and unceasing efforts have been employed to silence or pervert the testimony of Scripture and of primitive antiquity, as well as of the Reformers, than on this subject of the appointment of ministers. Papists, Prelatists, and Erastians have all labored with unwearied zeal in attempting to overturn the evidence in support of the rights of the Christian people in the appointment of their pastors. Some Papists and Prelatists have brought no small share of learning and ingenuity to bear upon this subject, though without success; while it is more: gratifying to notice that not a few even of these men have yielded to the force of truth and evidence, and have, in argument at least, abandoned the cause which their principles and position naturally inclined them to support.

The main direct and formal proofs of the doctrine and practice we have ascribed to the primitive church upon this subject, are to be found in the testimonies of Clemens Romanus, the friend and companion of the apostles, in the first century; and of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, soon after the middle of the third. These testimonies are full and satisfactory: there is not a vestige of evidence to be produced from the first three centuries that even seems to point in an opposite direction; while there are many collateral statements and incidental notices of the ordinary practice of the church to be found in the authors both of the intervening and subsequent periods, which decidedly confirm them. The testimony of Clement is very brief, but altogether conclusive: it is, that the apostles were accustomed to settle ministers—suneudokhashV pashV thV ekklhsiaV —with the cordial consent of the whole church; and the statement, moreover, is adduced by Clement as a reason why the people should submit to the authority of their pastors, and not endeavor factiously to remove or expel them, since they had themselves consented to their appointment. There is no fair or even plausible method of explaining away this statement. It unequivocally implies that, at the very least, the deliberate opposition of the congregation to the person, who might have been suggested or recommended as their pastor, was held by the apostles as of itself quite a sufficient reason why his appointment should not take place. There is not the slightest ground to doubt that this practice of the apostles was uniformly observed, not only during the first three centuries, but for several centuries afterwards; and, on the contrary, there is a great deal that confirms it.

In the apostolical constitutions, —which, of course; are not the work of Clement, to whom they have been ascribed, but which have been thought by many to have been compiled about the end of the third century, and are universally admitted to contain many interesting notices of the practices of the early church, —there is a minute account of the procedure usually adopted in the appointment of a bishop, in which precisely the same place and influence are assigned to the people as to the clergy, and in which not only the word suneudokew, but several others of similar import, —some of them perhaps more strong and specific, such as eklegw and aitew; and others of them somewhat more vague and indefinite, such as epineuw and apeskw, —are all equally applied to the joint or common acts of the clergy and the people in this matter. Blondell, who in the latter part of his great work, entitled "Apologia pro sententia Hieronymi" —usually reckoned the most learned work ever written in defense of presbytery—has collected all the evidence bearing upon this subject, and proved that the people continued generally to have a real and effective voice in the appointment of their ministers for nearly 1000 years after the foundation of the Christian church. After quoting this remarkable passage from the so-called apostolical constitutions, he adds the following inference as manifestly established by it, and confirmed by all other collateral authorities: " unde cortstare potest Clerutnque plebemque convenire, eligere, nominare, graturn habere, postulare, testari, annuere, rogari, consensus decretum edere, ante Constantini Magni tempora ex quo consuevisse."

The testimony of Cyprian is to the same effect. He was consulted by some people in Spain, whether they might forsake or abandon their bishops who had fallen into heresy: he answered that they might; and one reason he assigns for this is, "quando ipsa plebs maxime habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes, vel indignos recusandi;" and then he proceeds to prove that this is a principle fully sanctioned by the sacred Scriptures, and based jure divino. These scriptural principles continued to be professed and acted on long after a large amount of error and corruption had been introduced into the church; and this, too, although the whole tendency of the changes which were going on in every other department of ecclesiastical administration ran in the opposite direction, —i.e., tended to depress the influence of the people and to exalt the power of the clergy, and latterly of the civil authority, until in the dark ages they, too, were brought into almost entire subjection to the Papacy. The preservation in purity of this doctrine and practice for so long a period, in opposition to the whole stream of influences which was sweeping over the church and polluting it, affords a strong confirmation of the position, that it was firmly grounded on scriptural authority and apostolic practice.

We have some traces of the system of patronage, or of something like it, in the fifth and sixth centuries, in country parishes, though not in towns, originating as it did in the practice of landed proprietors building and endowing churches for the accommodation of their dependants, and then, upon this ground, claiming some influence on the appointment of the ministers (a statement, however, let it be observed, not in the least inconsistent with Beza's account of its origin—viz., that it was concocted in Satan's kitchen). Patronage, even in its infant form, seems soon to have led, through the corruption and subserviency of the clergy, to the intrusion of ministers upon reclaiming congregations; and, in consequence, we find that in the fifth and sixth centuries enactments were passed by councils and other eminent ecclesiastical authorities against intrusion contrary to the will of the people; and it is very remarkable, and quite conclusive, that all of them contain, in gremio, clear and explicit proof that the principle of non-intrusion was then understood in the same sense in which we understand it, —viz. this, that the opposition of a congregation in the full enjoyment of church privileges was of itself quite a sufficient reason why the person proposed should not be settled as their pastor. These enactments were embodied in the canon law—the law of the Church of Rome—and statements and practices founded upon them continued to hold a place in the public rituals of that church till the time of the Council of Trent, when it was proposed, though not agreed to, that they should be expunged, as giving a handle to the Reformers, who had restored, not only the doctrine, but, so far as they could, the practice of the primitive church on this subject, and were all strenuous supporters of the rights of the Christian people.

Perhaps it may be asked, What do Papists, Prelatists, and Erastians, who withhold from the Christian people their lawful rights in this matter, make of these facts—of all this evidence? The more candid, among them admit that it cannot be answered; and then, if their other principles allow of it, assert that the authority of the primitive church is not binding, or that the practice followed in this respect was not one that could not be changed. The defenders of the Gallican liberties—the most respectable class of writers, along with the Jansenists, whom the modern church of Rome has produced—concur with the Greek Church in maintaining theoretically, upon grounds of Scripture and primitive antiquity, the same principles, so far as intrusion is concerned, as we do. Many of the most able and learned writers of the Church of England have admitted—and their admissions maybe fairly regarded as the concessions of opponents wrung from them by the force of truth—that these were sound and primitive principles. It is sufficient to mention the names of Hooker, Bishop Wilson, Bishop Andrews, Dr Field, and Mr. Bingham.[1]

But still it may be asked, What is said by the more bold and unscrupulous, who do not admit that the doctrine and practice of the primitive church were as we have described them? They have labored to the best of their ability in obscuring and perverting the testimony of the primitive church, and especially by trying to show that it does not necessarily mean what they can scarcely deny that it naturally and obviously means. Cardinal Bellarmine has attempted it, and the substance of his evasion is just that which has been employed ever since, down to our own day, in all the efforts which have been made to pervert or set aside, not only the testimony of the primitive church, but that also of the Reformers, upon this question. The one point which they all—Papists, Prelatists, Erastians, and Infidels—labor to establish is this, that the power or influence which the testimonies quoted ascribe to the people, is merely aright of stating objections to the person proposed, of the validity of which another party is to judge; this other party, whether bishops or presbyteries, being entitled ultimately to dispose of the matter, i.e., to settle the person or not, according to their own judgment of the validity of the people's objections; and the one process by which they all strive to effect it is this: they select the weakest and vaguest term which any of the authors quoted has employed in describing what the people do, or are entitled to do, in this matter; they pare down this term to the lowest sense of which, in any circumstances or in any connection, it is capable; and then they put forth this diluted and perverted sense of the weakest and vaguest word employed as being the true and real meaning of the far stronger, more definite, and more specific words which are also employed. Thus Cyprian, in discussing the question, happens in one sentence to speak of the necessity of the people being present, and giving their testimony. This is immediately laid hold of, and is said to mean merely, or not necessarily to mean more than, a right of stating objections; and then at once the inference is drawn, that the power of choosing and rejecting which Cyprian unequivocally ascribes to them must also mean this, and nothing more than this. This, of course, is in plain contravention of the most obvious principles of sound and honest interpretation; but this one artifice, variously modified, according to the ingenuity, the learning, the sense, or the courage of the men who may have been tempted to employ it (from Cardinal Bellarmine to Sir William Hamilton), is all that has ever been brought to bear against the clear, unequivocal, unassailable testimony, at once of the primitive church and the whole body of the Reformers, in favor of the right of the Christian people to a real, honest, and effective voice, as opposed to a mere right of stating objections, in the appointment of their pastors.

Such is the testimony of the primitive church in regard to these two important principles. Almost everything else in the profession and practice of the primitive church, with the exception of the doctrine of the Trinity, underwent changes and modifications even during the first three centuries; and the tendency of the changes was almost universally to the worse—to a greater deviation from apostolic doctrine and practice. But, while almost everything else was changing, and changing for the worse, and while there was even a strong undercurrent running against the Bible and against the people, it is interesting and encouraging to see that these great Protestant principles of the supremacy and sufficiency of the Scriptures, and the rights of the Christian people in the choice of their pastors, continued to be openly and universally professed, and that no one ventured to deny them, or to propose to lay them aside. We do not, of course, attach anything like authoritative or binding weight to this consideration. We believe these great Protestant principles on the testimony of God's word; and upon that ground we would have believed them as firmly as we now do, even though, as was not improbable, they had been as much corrupted in primitive times as were some other departments of the doctrine and practice of the church. But the fact which we have established, is at least sufficient to disprove the charge of novelty, which, strange as it may seem, Papists, Prelatists, and Erastians have sometimes ventured to adduce against the holders of one or both of these principles; and considering the peculiar circumstances of the case, and the general tendency of the influences then undoubtedly at work, the professed maintenance of them for so long a period in purity, may be reasonably regarded as of itself a presumption—were presumptions needed when we have proofs—that, by divine authority and apostolic influence, they were deeply wrought into the ordinary train of men's thoughts, into the constitution of the church, and the administration of ecclesiastical affairs. Their influence was no doubt salutary and beneficial. They did not, indeed, prevent, though we are persuaded they retarded, the growing corruption of the church; and the whole subsequent history of the church proves that, whenever the Lord has been pleased to send times of reviving and refreshing, He has also brought out into prominence these great principles, where before they had been overlooked and disregarded. So it was at the period of the Reformation; and so it has been in our own church, and in our day: and most assuredly we are honored by God to tread in the footsteps of the primitive church, and to take up an important branch of the testimony of the Reformation from Popery, when we are called upon, as we have been, by His Spirit and in His providence, to contend for the exclusive supremacy of His word as the only law or rule by which the affairs of and for the right of Christian His church ought. to be regulated, congregations to a real and important influence, —an effective and decisive voice, —in the appointment of their own office-bearers.

ENDNOTES:

[1] Dr Waddington, now Dean of Durham, and the latest Episcopal historian of the church, most fully concedes this. He says (p. 40, 2d ed.) “The choice of a successor devolved on the members of the society. In this election the people had an equal share with the presbyters and inferior clergy, without exception or distinc­tion; and it is clear that their right in this matter was not barely testimonial, but judicial and elective.” He adds, in a note to this sentence: “This is made very clear, from the comparison of much contradictory evidence by Bingham, B. iv., c. ii. There were some variations in the mode of elec­tion, according to times and circum­stances, since no rule is laid down in Scripture upon the subject; but there is a great concurrence of evidence to show that no bishop was ever ob­truded upon an orthodox people with­out their consent.”

He speaks here of Bingham's com­paring much contradictory evidence; but there is no contradictory evidence in ancient times upon this subject. Waddington was evidently confound­ing the contradictory views (referred to by Bingham) of modern authors, in regard to the import of the ancient evidence, with contradictions in the ancient evidence itself.