in the definitions as given from our standards and from Scrip-
ture ; nor is it necessarily included in the complex conception to
which we give the name church. When we conceive of the
whole body of the elect, which have been or are to be gathered
into one under Christ, it is not as an external organized body
furnished with ministers and sacraments, but simply as the great
body of the redeemed united to Christ and to each other by the
indwelling of the Spirit. So too when we speak of the church as
consisting of true believers, we do not conceive of them as an
external organized body. We pray for no such body when we
pray for the church of God throughout the world. The word is
but a collective term for the saints, or' children of God. It is
equivalent to the true Israel; Israel Kara nvevna as distinguished
from the Israel Kara, odpKa. In like manner, when the word is
used for all those throughout the world who profess the true
religion ; the idea of organization is of necessity excluded from
that of the church. The visible church catholic is not an organ-
ized body on any but Komish principles. We are therefore sur-
prised that Theophilus should be thrown oft' his balance, by a
remark so obviously true, and of such constant recuiTcnce in the
writings of Protestants.

There is a fourth established meaning of the word church,
which has more direct reference to the question before us. It
often means an organized society professing the true religion,
united for the purpose of worship and discipline, and subject to
the same form of government and to some common tribunal. A
multitude of controversies turn upon the correctness of this defini-
tion. It includes the following particulars. 1. A church is an
organized society. It is thus distinguished from the casual or
temporary assemblies of Christians, for the purpose of divine
worship. 2. It must profess the true religion. By the true
religion cannot be meant all the doctrines of the true religion,
and nothing more or less. For then no human society would be
a church unless perfect both in knowledge and faith. Nor can
it mean all the clearly revealed and important doctrines of the



230 IS THE CHURCH OF EOME

Bible. For then no man could be a Christian and no body of
men a church, which rejects or is ignorant of any of those doc-
trines. But it must mean the essential doctrines of the gospel,
those doctrines without the knowledge and possession of which,
no man can be saved. This is plain, because nothing can be
essential, as far as truth is concerned, to a church, which is not
essential to union with Christ. We are prohibited by our allegi-
ance to the word of God from recognizing as a true Christian,
any man who rejects any doctrine which the Scriptures declare to
be essential to salvation ; and we are bound by that allegiance
not to refuse such recognition, on account of ignorance or error,
to any man who professes what the Bible teaches is saving truth.
It is absurd that we should make more truth essential to a visi-
ble church, than Christ has made essential to the church invisible
and to salvation. This distinction between essential and unes-
sential doctrines Protestants have always insisted upon, and
Komanists and Anglicans as strenuously rejected. It is, however,
so plainly recognized in Scripture, and so obviously necessary in
practice, that those who reject it in terms iu opposition to Prot-
estants, are forced to admit it in reality. They make substan-
tially the same distinction when they distinguish between
matters of faith and matters of opinion, and between those
truths which must be received with explicit faith {i. e., known
as well as believed) and those Avhich may be received with
implicit faith ; i. e., received without knowlege, as a man who
believes the Bible to be the word of Grod may be said to believe
all it teaches, though it may contain many things of which he is
ignorant. Romanists say that every doctrine on which the
church has pronounced judgment as part of the revelation of
God, is a matter of faith, and essential to the salvation of those
to whom it is duly proposed. Anglicans say the same thing of
those doctrines which are sustained by tradition. Here is virtu-
ally the same distinction between fundamental and other doc-
trines, which Protestants make. The only diiference is as to the
criterion by which the one class is to be distinguished from the
other. Romanists and Anglicans say that criterion is the judg-
ment of the church; Protestants say it is the word of God.
What the Bible declares to be essential to salvation, is essential :
what it does not make absolutely necessary to be believed and
professed, no man can rightfully declare to be absolutely neces-



A PAKT OF THE VISIBLE CHUECH? 231

sary. And what is not essential to the true cburch, the spiritual
body of Christ, or to salvation, cannot he essential to the visible
church. This is really only saying that those whom Christ
declares to be his people, we have no right to say are not Ms
j)eople. If any man thinks he has such a right, it would be well
for him to take heed how he exercises it. By the true religion,
therefore, which a society must profess in order to its being
recognized as a church, must be meant those doctrines which are
essential to salvation.

3. Such society must not only profess the true religion, but its
object must be the worsliip of God and the exercise of discipline.
A church is thus distinguished from a Bible, missionary, or any
similar society of Christians.

4. To constitute it a church, i. e., externally one body, it must
have the same form of government and be subject to some com-
mon tribunal. The different classes of Presbyterians in this
country, though professing the same doctrines and adopting the
same form of government, are not all members of the same ex-
ternal church, because subject to different tribunals.

Now the question is, Is this a correct definition of a church ?
Does it omit anything that is essential, or include anything
that is unessential ? The only things which we can think of as
likely to be urged as omissions, are the ministry and the sacra-
ments. Few things in our July number seem to have given
Theophilus more pain than our saying that the ministry is not
essential to the church. With regard to this point, we would re-
mark. 1. That we believe the ministry to be a divine institu-
tion. 2. That it was designed to be perpetual. 3. That it has
been perpetuated. 4. That it is necessary to the edification and
extension of the church. But we are very far from believing the
popish doctrine that the ministry is essential to the being of a
church, and that there is no church where there is no ministry.
Officers are necessary to the well-being of a nation, and no na-
tion can long exist without them. But a nation does not cease
to exist when the king or president dies. The nation would con-
tinue though every civil officer was cut off" in a night ; and
blessed be God, the church would still live, though all ministers
should die or apostatize at once. We believe with Professor
Thornwell, and with the real living church of God in all ages,
that if the ministry fails, the church can make a ministry ; oi



232 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME

rather that Christ, who is in his church by the Spirit, would
then, as he does now, by his divine call constitute men ministers.
It strikes us as most extraordinary for a rresbyterian to say that
the ministry is essential to the church, and that it must enter
into the definition ; when our own book makes i^rovision, first,
for the organization of a church, and tlien for the election of its
officers, A number of believers are constituted a church, and
then, and not until they are a church, they elect their elders and
call a pastor. Every vacant church is a practical proof that the
ministry does not enter into the definition of the church. The-
ophilus amuses himself at our expense for our venturing to say,
" Bellarmine has the credit of being the first writer who thus
corrupted the definition of the church," that is, by introducing
subjection to lawful pastors as part of that definition. We were
well aware of the danger of asserting a negative. We knew that
we had not read every writer before the time of Bellarmine, and
that we could remember veiy little of the little we had read.
We were, therefore, wise enough not to say that no man before
the popish cardinal had perpetrated a like interpolation into the
definition of the church, but contented ourselves with the safe
remark that he has the credit of being the first who was guilty
of that piece of priestcraft. That he has that credit among Prot-
estants can hardly be disputed. Dean Sherlock says : "I know
indeed of late the clergy have in a great measure monopolized
the name of the church, whereas, in j)roiDriety of speech, they do
not belong to the definition of a church," any more than a shep-
herd to the definition of a flock, which is his illustration. " The
learned Launoy," he adds, " has produced texts of ScrijDture for
this definition of the church, viz.: that it is the company of the
faithful ; and has proved by the testimony of the fathers in all
ages, even down to the Council of Trent itself, that this was the
received notion of the church, till it was altered by Canisius and
Bellarmine," the former " putting Christ's vicar into the defini-
tion," the latter, subjection " to lawful pastors." " Whereas,"
continues the Dean, " before these men, neither pastors nor
bishops, much less the Pope of Bome, were ever put into the
general definition of a church."' Very much the same complaint
is uttered by Dr. Thomas Jackson, against "Bellarmine, Valen-
tia, Stapleton, and some others," for troubling the stream of
1 See Preservative against Popery, vol. i., tit. iii., ch. i., p. 3G.



A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 233

God's word as to the nature and definition of the church.' It
surely does not hecome Presbyterians to exalt the clergy beyond
the place assigned them by these strong Episcopalians, and make
them essential to the being of the church, and of course an ele-
ment in the definition of the term.

Very much the same remarks may be made in reference to the
sacraments. We of course believe, 1 That the sacraments of
baptism and the Lord's Supper are of divine appointment. 2.
That they are of perpetual obligation. 3. That they are signs
and seals of the covenant, and means of grace. 4. That the ob-
servance of them is a high duty and privilege, and consequently
the neglect or want of them, a great sin or defect ; but to make
them essential to the church is to make them essential to salva-
tion, which is contrary to Scripture. If baptism made a man a
Christian, if it communicated a new nature which could be re-
ceived in no other way, then indeed there could be no Christians
and no church without baptism. But such is not the Protestant
or scriptural doctrine of the sacraments. The Hebrew nation
would not cease to be Hebrews, if they ceased to practice cir-
cumcision. They did not in fact cease to be the church, though
they neglected that rite for the forty years they wandered in the
wilderness, until there was not a circumcised man among them,
save Caleb and Joshua. Yet far more is said of the duty and
necessity of circumcision in the Old Testament than is said of
baptism in the New. It is the doctrine of our church that
baptism recognizes, but does not constitute membership in the
church. Plain and important, therefore, as is the duty of ad-
ministering and observing these ordinances, they are not to be
exalted into a higher place than that assigned them in the word
of God. Though the due celebration of the sacraments may very
Ijroperly be enumerated, in one sense, among the signs of the
church, we do not feel authorized or permitted by the authority
of Scripture, to make such celebration essential to salvation or to
the existence of the church. If any of our brethren should differ
from us as to this point, it would not follow that they must re-
ject the definition above given. For as the sacraments are a
means and a mode of divine worship, the due celebration of them
may be considered as included in that clause of the definition,
which declares that a church is a society for the worship of God.
^ Seo treatise on the church, pnge 50, Goodc's edition.



234 IS THE CHURCH OF HOME

We revert therefore to the question, Is the definition given
above correct ? Is a church an organized society professing the
true religion, united for the worship of God and tlie exercise of
discipKne, and subject to the same form of government and to
some common tribunal ? It certainly has in its favor the com-
mon usus loquendi. When we speak of the church of England,
of Scotland, the Free church, the Secession church, the Protest-
ant Episcopal church ; or when we speak of a single congregation
as a church, as the church at Easton, or the first, second, or third
Presbyterian church in Philadelphia ; or if we take the term in
the New England sense, as distinguished from parish or congre-
gation, still all these cases fall under the definition. By the
word church, in all such cases, we mean an organized society,
professing the true religion, united for the worship of God and
the exercise of discipKne, under the same form of government
and under some common tribunal. That common tribunal in a
Congregational church, is the brotherhood ; in a Presb}i;erian
church, the session ; in the Presbyterian church in the United
States, our General Assembly ; in the Episcopal church, the gen-
eral convention ; in the Church of England, the reigning sover-
eign ; in the Evangelical church of Prussia, the king. In all
these cases it is subjection to some independent tribunal that
gives unity to a church, in the light in which it is here contem-
plated.

2. This definition is substantially the one given in our stand-
ards. " A particular church consists of a number of professing
Christians with their ofispring, voluntarily associated together for
divine worship and godly living agreeably to the Holy Scriptures ;
and submitting to a certain form of government.' " Professing
Christians" is here used as equivalent to " those professing the
true religion," the form of expression adopted in the Confession
of Faith and Larger Catechism. It is obvious that the defini-
tion suits all the cases mentioned above, applying equally well to
a single congregation, and to a whole denomination united in one
body.

3. This definition suits the use of the term as it occurs in
many passages of Scripture. When we read of the church of
Corinth, of Antioch, of Rome, the word is universally admitted
to designate a number of persons professing the true religion,

' Form of Government, ch. 2, sec. 4.



A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 235

united for religious worship and discipline, under some common
tribunal.

4. This definition is one to which the principles laid down on
this subject in Scripture necessarily lead. The Scriptures teach
that the faith in Christ makes a man a Christian ; the profession
of that faith makes him a professing Christian. The true, or in-
visible church consists of true believers ; the visible church cath-
olic, of all professed believers ; a particular visible church, of a
society of such professors, united for church purposes and separ-
ated from other societies by subjection to some one tribunal.
These seem to be plain scriptural principles. If any thing else
or more than faith in Christ is absolutely necessary to union with
him, and therefore to salvatien ; then something more than faith
is necessary to make a man a Christian, and something more
than the profession of that faith to make him a professing Chris-
tian, and consequently some other sign of a visible church must
be necessary than the profession of the true religion. But we
do not see how consistently with the evangelical system of doc-
trine, and especially with the great doctrine that salvation is by
faith, we can avoid the conclusion that all true behevers are in
the true church, and all professing believers are in the visible
church.

5. Did time permit, or were it necessary, it could easily be
proved that in all ages of the church, this idea of the church has
been the prevailing one. We have already quoted the testimony
of Sherlock against the Komanists in proof of this point, and it
would be easy to fill volumes with quotations from ancient and
modern writers, to the same effect. " Church," says Hooker in
his Eccles. Polity, vol. ii., 17, " is a word which art hath devised,
thereby to sever and distinguish that society of men which profes-
scth the true religion from the rest, which profess it not, * '•'•" *
whereupon, because the only object which separateth ours from
other religions, is Jesus Christ, in whom none but the church
doth believe, and whom none but the church doth worshij) ; we
find that accordingly the apostles do everywhere distinguish
hereby the church from infidels and Jews, accounting them which
call upon the name of the Lord Jesus to be his church." And
again, B. 3, § 1, " The visible church of Jesus Christ is one by
outward profession of those things which supernaturally apper-
tain to the essence of Christianity, and are necessarily required



236 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME

in every particular Christian man." Barrow, in his Discourse on
the Unity of the Church says, " It is evident that the church is
one by consent in faith and opinion concerning all principal
matters of opinion." Bishop Taylor, in his Dissuasive against
Popery, says, " The church (visible) is a company of men and
women professing the saving doctrines of Jesus Christ." This
is but saying what TertuUian, Augustin, Jerome, Hilary, Chry-
sostom and the whole line of God's people have said from the
beginning.

6. Finally, we appeal in support of the essential element of
the definition of a church given above, to the constant testimony
of the Spirit. The Scriptures teach that the Spirit operates
through the truth ; that we have no right to expect his influence
(as far as adults are concerned) where the truth is not known,
and that where it is known, he never fails to give it more or less
effect ; that wherever the Spirit is, there is the church, since
it is by receiving the Spirit, men become members of the true
church ; and wherever the true or invisible church is, there is the
church visible, because profession of the faith is a sure conse-
quence of the possession of faith ; and, therefore, where these
true believers are united in the profession of that truth by which
they are saved, with a society or community — then such society
is within the limits of the visible church, {. e., is a constituent
portion of that body which embraces all those who profess the
true religion. All we contend for is that the church is the body
of Christ, that those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells are mem-
bers of that body ; and consequently that whenever we have
evidence of the presence of the Spirit, there we have evidence of
the presence of the church. And if these evidences occur in a
society professing certain doctrines by which men are thus born
unto God, it is God's own testimony that such society is still a
part of the visible church. It strikes us as one of the greatest
absurdities of Ritualism, whether among Romanists or Angli-
cans, that it sets up a definition of the church, not at all com-
mensurate with its actual and obvious extent. What more
glaring absurdity can be uttered than that the Episco2:)al church
in this country is here the only church, when nine tenths of the
true religion of the country exists without its j^ale. It may be
man's church, but God's church is much wider. Wherever,
therefore, there is a society professing truth, by which men are



A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 237

actually bora unto Grod, that society is within the dcfiuition of
the church given in our standards, and if as a society, it is
united under one tribunal for church purposes, it is itself a
church.

The next step in the argument is, of course, the consideration
of the question, whether the church of Kome comes within the
definition, the correctness of which we have endeavored to estab-
lish ? It was very common with the reformers and their success-
ors to distinguish between the papacy, and the body of people
professing Christianity under its dominion. When, by the
church of Rome they meant the papacy, they denounced it as
the mystical Babylon, and synagogue of Satan ; when they
meant by it the people, considered as a community jirofessing
the essential doctrines of the gospel, they admitted it to be a
church. This distinction is natural and just, though it imposes
the necessity of affirming and denying the same proposition. If
by the church of Rome, you mean one thing, it is not a church ;
if you mean another, it is a church. People will not trouble
themselves, however, with such distinctions, though they often
unconsciously make them, and are forced to act upon them.
Thus by the word England, we sometimes mean the country,
sometimes the government, and sometimes the people. If we
mean by it the government, we may say (in reference to some
periods of its history), that it is unjust, cruel, persecuting, rapa-
cious, opposed to Christ and his kingdom : when these things
could not be said with truth of the people.'

' "The church of Rome," says Bishop Sanderson, "may be considered, 1. Material-
iter, as it is a church professing the faith of Christ, as we also do in the common
points of agreement. 2. Formaliter, and in regard to what we call Popery, viz., the
point of difference, whether concerning the doctrine or worship, wherein we charge
her with having added to the substance of faith her own inventions. 3. Gonjundim
pro toto aggrejato, taking both together. As in an unsound body, we may consider
the body by itself ; the disease by itself; and the body and the disease both together,
aa they make a diseased body." Considered in the first sense, he says, it is a churL'li ;
considered in the second sense or "formally, in regard of those points which are
properly of popery, it has become a false and corrupt church; and is indeed an
anti-Christian synagogue, and not a true Christian church taking truth in the
second sense." Ho had previously said: "The word truth applied to any subject is
taken either absolute or respective. Absolutely a thing is true, when it hath verita-
tem entis et essentke, with all those essential things which are requisite to the being
and existence of it. Respectively, when over and above these essentials, it hath also
such accidental conditions and qualities, as should make it perfect and commendably



238 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME

Though vv^e regard the above distinction as sound, and though
we can see no more real contradiction in saying Rome is a church,
and is not a church, than in saying man is mortal and yet immor-
tal, spiritual yet carnal, a child of God yet sold under sin ; yet
as the distinction is not necessary for the sake either of truth or
perspicuity, we do not intend to avail ourselves of it. All that
we have to beg is, that brethren would not quote against us the
sweeping declarations and denunciations of our Protestant fore-
fathers against popery as the man of sin, antichrist, the mystical
Babylon, and synagogue of Satan, as proof of our dei^arture from
the Protestant faith. In all those denunciations we could con-
sistently join ; just as our fathers, as Professor Thomwell ac-
knowledges, while uttering those denunciations, still admitted
Rome, in one sense, to be a church. Our present object is to
enquire whether the church of Rome, taking the term as Bishop
Sanderson says, Conjunctim pro toto aggregato, just as we take
the term, church of England, falls within the definition of a
church given above.

That it is an organized society, is of course plain ; that it is
united for the purpose of worship and discipline is no less so.
That is, it is the professed ostensible object of the society, to
teach and promote the Christian religion, to convert men to the
faith, to edify believers, to celebrate the worship of God, and to
exercise the power of the keys, i. e., the peculiar prerogatives of
a church in matters of doctrine and discipline. This is the osten-
sible professed object of the society. That its rulers have left its
true end out of view, and perverted it into an engine of govern-
ment and self-aggrandizement is true, and very wicked ; but the
same thing is true of almost all established churches. It has
been palpably true of the church of England, and scarcely less