III. At peace with all the world, dear Lord, and Thee, The morning light may break! K. BOSTON REVIEW. VOL. III.-JULY, 1863.-No. 16. ARTICLE I. THE CHURCH OF GOD: ITS ORIGIN AND CONSTITUTION. FROM very early times God has had a Church in this world. At the first the human family was wholly on the side of God, and so no distinct organization was needed to mark his friends. But this period was one of sad brevity. In Adam all died and the race in rebellion went out from under the divine government, so far as a disloyal purpose and overt acts could carry them. They became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools; and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness." Rom. i. 21, 22, 28, 29. Yet God was not wholly without friends and witnesses, in any of those earlier days of the revolt. The grace implied in that first Messianic promise to our apostate parents, a promise no doubt greatly amplified and expounded and made practical at the time, and continuously afterward by those who received it, wrought effectually in many hearts, regenerating and producing faith in Christ, and a holy walk with God. By faith [in this promise] Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than 66 Cain," having come to a good perception and acceptance of Him, who, in the fulness of time should bruise the serpent's head. Enoch also walked with God, and obtained honorable mention among those who were saved by faith. So was it with Noah, Abraham and the other patriarchs. There has probably been no era in the race when God has not had some open friends and followers. At length these friends of God came to be an organization or body with central principles and visible outlines more or less distinct, and with a power of visible continuance from age to age. Of this body the Lord Jesus Christ is the head, and he is made to show this in every age with a distinctness greater or less, proportioned to the doctrinal understanding and spirituality of the body of that age. This headship pertains to him as having the world under his charge in his labors of Redemption, in the working out of which this body is the visible centre of labor and fruit and hope. This body constitutes the party in this world, nominal or actual, on the side of God, and in distinction from those who, as the only other party, adopt systems of pagan and false religions, or who confessedly reject the divine system without adopting any other. 66 This organization or body, as loyal for God in a revolted province, is known by various names and titles in the Old Testament as : The congregation ;" "The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel;" Ex. xii. 6; My chosen;" "His chosen ;"The children of Jacob, his chosen ;"The holy seed; "The people of the God of Abraham; "The assembly of the people of God;" "Israel his ple; Jacob, his people; " "A special people; " Dt. vii. 6; "The generation of the righteous;" "A seed." xxii. 30. peo Ps. When we come into the New Testament we find the same variety and definiteness of expression to point out a people specially called and devoted to God; and as Knapp well remarks: "All the terms used to designate the Israelites as the peculiar and favorite people of God are transferred to Christians in the New Testament." Christian Theology, p. 470, 2d Am. Ed.. It will be necessary to give but a few of these titles: "The Church." This is the xxλola of the Septuagint and of the New Testament Greek, and is the rendering of the Hebrew, an assembly. So the dying Stephen speaks of "the church in the wilderness," meaning the body of God's ancient people on the way from Egypt to Canaan. "Christ loved 66 the church and gave himself for it, . . . . that he might present it to himself a glorious church." Eph. v. 25, 27. "God hath set some in the church, first Apostles," etc. 1 Cor. xii. 28. "And the Lord added to the church daily." Acts 2. 47. "As. for Saul, he made havoc of the church." Acts viii. 3, "Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God." 1 Cor. x. 32. If he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church." Mat. xviii. 17. In two instances the word synagogue is used to express the assembly of God's people: James ii. 2, Heb. x. 25. We have also such expressions as the kingdom of heaven," "the kingdom of God," ""the body of Christ," " the temple of God," "the house of God." The phrase xxλnota tov Ocoù "the church of God" is the common rendering in the New Testament of the Old Testament phrase the congregation of the Lord." Comp. Ps. xxii. 22, and Heb. ii. 12 in the Hebr. Sept. and Grk. All these expressions, and many more, refer to one and the same thing, the body of the people of God and of the true religion, as distinguished from all others. And it is worthy of special remark and notice here that many of these terms are the same in the Old and the New Testament, and are employed to point out the same class of persons and the same organization. The terms change only with a change of language, while the body they describe remains the same. These titles, scattered with much indiscriminateness through the entire scriptures, point to an organization or body of men. They bear the same titles in different ages and different titles in the same age, yet are they for substance one people through all the ages, the avowed friends of God. Nor can it be said that these persons are no more than the elect of God, scattered along through the centuries, unassociated, and known only to God. They are spoken of as an assembly, a society having limits of belief and of ceremony that both include and exclude. In apostolic times they constituted a visible body that could be increased, persecuted, appealed to. Before this, and in the time of Christ's ministry and before there was any "Christian" church, they constituted a visible, judicial and executive body; "If he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." There was then no "Christian" church in existence, but only the "church of God"; an organic, limited, disciplinary body, and in the estimation of our Lord worthy to exercise spiritual jurisdiction. They had exercised it for ages preceding, even back as far as when they were "the church in the wilderness." The covenant embracing this body, has in it the gospel, and the offer of it to all the families of the earth on the condition of faith. Gal. iii. 8. Hence there was committed to it the divine records, sacraments, and a ministry in holy things. All which must pertain to a visible kingdom, and not to the invisible, scattered and unknown number of the elect. For an invisible and unknown body cannot be the subject of human offices and functions. Moreover it is beyond dispute that under the ancient as truly as under the modern dispensation there was a visible body of the friends of God, in distinction from the unknown elect. Very many of the prosperous and adverse events recorded in the Old Testament derive their character and importance from their connection with this company of God's friends. The Messiah is represented as their head, and the glowing prophecies concerning his triumphs have their centre of interest in the welfare of this society. That they and the Jews are not identical is evident from the fact that some of these prophecies of Zion's enlargement by the ingathering of the Gentiles are not to take place and do not till after the Jewish nation is destroyed. The continuance and enlargement of the ancient Zion run on into the times when it is conceded that there is a church, and then the ancient and modern religious interests so blend in names and substance and aims, as to show that the two were never but one. The total similarity proves identity, and the effort to make them two ends in mere questions of development and chronology. That there was one broad and general church, independent of particular times and local branches, and more comprehensive than the church at Jesusalem, or Corinth, or Ephesus, is |