The exact ideas involved in the word church, the questions concerning its powers, its nature and essence and modes of governance and continuance, its relation to Holy Scripture, and its relation to the state—have all been fruitful matters of controversy. These questions have emerged in a marked manner during the controversy with the Gnostics, the controversy with the Novatians and the Donatists, and those arising out of the Reformation. Hence among the writings of the fathers, bearing upon the nature of the church, may be specially named those of St Irenaeus in opposition to the Gnostics, of St Cyprian against the Novatians, and of St Augustine against the Donatists. The relations of the church to the state became subjects of discussion directly Constantine had made Christianity the religion of the empire. These relations are illustrated by the history of Arianism, Donatism, and Priscillianism, by the career of St Chrysostom, and by the fierce conflicts of the Middle Ages between Guelfs and Ghibellines—the former siding with the Pope, the latter with the emperors. The contest between Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface, and that of Philip Augustus of France and John of England against Pope Innocent III. turned upon the same great controversy, again and again renewed during the Middle Ages. Some of the most striking mediaeval illustrations of the conflict are to he found in the life of Occam, and in the Divina Commedia of Dante. The points in dispute have been keenly discussed by modern historians;—those of the 18th century, as Hume, Henry, Mably, being strongly on the side of the state; those of the 19th, as Guizot, Voigt, Michelet, Palgrave, Arnold, Bridges, Mill, and even Macaulay, and, to some extent, Milman, more or less emphatically advocating the cause of the mediaeval church during at least a portion of the struggle.

The Reformation in great measure turned upon both sets of questions,—the relation of the church to the Scriptures and its relation to the state. Consequently, they occupy no small portion both of the controversial literature and of the political history of the 16th and 17th centuries. On the religious side they are illustrated by the lives and writings of Martin Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, and the Continental Reformers generally, as well by those of Knox and of Cranmer in Britain, and of their Roman Catholic opponents, such as Ignatius Loyola, and in a later age by Cardinal Bellarmine and by Hooker, by Andrewes and others; and on the political side by such events as the Thirty Years’ War, the Spanish Armada, the Revolution of 1688. The last two centuries have not witnessed any distinctively religious war. But these questions underlie the numerous “concordats” drawn up between the Church of Rome and various states in Europe and America, the entire history of Gallicanism and Jansenism, the Tractarian controversy commencing in England in 1833 a.d., and the contemporary discussion in Scotland, which ended in the Disruption of 1843 and the formation of the powerful and energetic body of Presbyterians, known as the Free Church. The disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Ireland raised cognate questions, and it is evident that disestablishment, already a fact in the United States, in France, in Ireland, and in some of the British colonies, may at any moment become a question of no slight political importance. Among more modern writers who have treated these questions may be named Bishop Warburton, De Maistre, the Rev. Sir W. Palmer, Rothe, Klee, the Abbé Mignet, Mr Gladstone, Dr Arnold, and many more, especially the commentators on creeds and confessions, as Möhler, Bishop Burnet, Bishop Harold Browne.

It remains to mention a few of the more prominent views and definitions prevalent among leading bodies of Christians.

1. As regards the church triumphant there would probably be little or no controversy. The great bulk of Christians would acknowledge it as “the whole body of the glorified, consisting of the holy angels and of the spirits of the just made perfect who have been redeemed by the merits (whether foreseen or actually wrought) of the divine Head of the church, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God.”

2. But concerning the church on earth, definitions vary considerably. In the first place there emerges the important question, whether it is a visible or an invisible body. This is not the place to discuss which is the view set forth in Holy Scripture,—that being of course the very point at issue. It must here suffice to say that the disciples of Calvin (followed herein by a very large number, probably the majority, of purely Protestant communities) maintain that it is invisible; while the Lutherans, the Roman Catholics, the Oriental Christians, and the great bulk of the more famous Anglican divines (in accordance with the Anglican formularies) maintain it to be visible. This latter view is, it need hardly be said, the one all but universally adopted by the fathers and the schoolmen. In one passage, however, of his later writings, St Augustine employs an expression at variance with his usual tone, and favourable to the Calvinistic view, by calling the church “the society of the predestined.”

3. The relations considered to exist between the visible church and Holy Scripture must necessarily be those of coordination, or of sub-ordination on one side or the other An impartial estimate of the Anglican formularies would probably be found to support that view of co-ordinate authority of Scripture and the church which is taken by a large body of her divines, such as Bishops Pearson, Bull, Kay, Dean Jackson, and others; though many of her adherents would undoubtedly incline, more or less completely, to that more Protestant view, which subordinates the church to Scripture, a view held most strongly by those bodies whose confessions of faith (as, e.g., the Westminster Confession) seem to imply that the books of Scripture attest themselves as divine. In the Church of Rome there can be no question but that the church is placed above Holy Scripture; for though Scripture proofs of doctrine are always, if possible, sought by her controversialists, and referred to in her symbolical standards (as, for instance, the Tridentine decrees), yet the traditions preserved in the church are spoken of as to be venerated not merely as comments on the meaning of Scripture, but as deserving equal honour and reverence with Scripture {Decret. Cone. Trident., sessio iv.) On the other hand, the Anglican formularies teach that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation (Art. vi.), though the church is described as the witness and keeper of Holy Writ and as having authority in controversies of faith (Art. xx.). The school of Anglicanism represented by Field, Hammond, Pearson, Bull,and Bramhall regards a judgmentof thechurch universal, such as that of the Council of Nice against Arius, as “irrevocable, irreformable, never to be altered.” (See Sir W. Palmer’s Church of Christ, part iv. ch. iv.) The Eastern Church seems to place the relation of Holy Scripture to itself in almost the same position as this school of Anglicans, though it would perhaps lay somewhat stronger stress on the insufficiency of Scripture without the voice of the teaching and interpreting church. It may be remarked that in this, as in other matters, belief has from time to time been greatly influenced by the course of events. In the first age of Christianity, before the canon of the New Testament was formed, the church is almost everything (as Reuss and others have observed), and the Bible, which chiefly consisted of the Old Testament, was subordinate. By about 200 A.D., when the gospels were becoming better known, the relation between Scripture and the church appears in patristic writings much more like one of co-ordination. During the Middle Ages, as the church’s political power increased, Holy Scripture became more and more subordinate, until we find Dante complaining of the way in which not merely creeds and fathers but canon law and the decretals are studied instead of the Gospel {Paradiso, ix. 133). The Reformation necessarily caused a reaction, built, as it was so largely, on new translations and on the circulation of the Bible; and in the following century we find the successors of the Reformers laying more stress upon what is commonly called the verbal inspiration of the Scripture and its infallible authority than had been done for the most part by the fathers (except perhaps St. Augustine) or by the first Reformers, Luther and Calvin, and their contemporaries, who never seem to have sanctioned the famous dictum of Chillingworth, “The Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.” Of late years the difficulties arising from science, philology, history, and criticism have tended to modify this view of the supremacy of Scripture. Not only in the unreformed communions and among Anglicans and Lutherans, but even in Calvi nistic bodies, is this effect perceived. Thus we find an eminent Presbyterian divine, a minister of the Scottish Establishment, writing as early as 1848, “The living church is more than the dead Bible, for it is the Bible and something more” {Life of Dr Norman Macleod). The comment made by Kant on the inconsistency of those Lutherans who virtually say “Go to the Bible, but do not find anything there except what we find” is well known {Streit der Facultaten).

4. Turning to the constitution and government of the church, it is singular that in none of the symbolical utterances of the leading Christian communities is there found such a definition of the church as would really include all that is believed by those respective bodies. Nor is it easy to supply the want by appeal to divines, though many have striven to set forth the “notes” of the true church (see, e.g., Klee, Dogmatik, and many others). Neither the Roman Catholic Tridentine decrees nor the Westminster Confession supply any definition, and the one given in the nineteenth of the Articles of* the English Church leaves the questions at issue between Rome and the Reformers, between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, entirely open. For all would claim to represent that “visible church of Christ” which is there described as “a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.”

Concerning the question of government there are four leading views. The first is, that no form of government was instituted by the divine Founder of the church or His apostles, that there was originally no distinction between clergy and laity, but that officers were in due time appointed as might happen in any human society, for the sake of order and convenience. This view, which is probably that of the majority of Protestants at the present time, has found a thoughtful, devout, and highly gifted exponent’ in the historian Neander; while the difficulties of reconciling it with the New Testament are all set forth by two independent translators of his work, the Rev. J. H. Rose and Mr Morrison. A second view is, that a government was in such wise instituted as rightly to claim a jus divinum, that this government resides in presbyters, and is handed down by succession through the presbyterate. This view was maintained by many foreign adherents of the Reformation, and in England by Richard Cartwright, the Puritan opponent of Hooker, and an entire school of his day. They appeal to history, especially that of the Alexandrian Church, and to the fathers, more especially to St Jerome. The third view resembles this in principle, but assigns the governance to a superior order, that of the bishops, and makes the succession pass through them. The Anglican communion acts upon this view, re-ordaining all ministers not episcopally ordained, but accepting Greek or Roman Catholic ordination; and it has been defended by many of the writers of the High Church school, above named, to whom may be added Bishop Bilson, and the able Scottish controversialist Bishop Sage in his work against Gilbert Rule. (See also Bishop Cotterill’s Genesis of the Church, and article Bishop), This school lays great stress on the decisions of the oecumenical councils, of which it recognizes six or (according to Bishop Andrewes) seven before the division of East and West This view, though strongly supported by the Eastern churches as well as by an historical and living school of Anglicans, is undoubtedly open to the difficulty, acknowledged by Mr Gladstone and others, of making the church as a collective body remain silent for some thirteen centuries and still unable to speak. There remains the fourth, the Roman Catholic view, which subjects the entire episcopate to the bishop of Rome, and makes full communion with him of the essence of churchmanship. This view has been supported ever since the Middle Ages with immense zeal and learning by many able Catholic writers. Although a strong case against it has been made out from the fathers, especially the Eastern ones, and although the state of matters just before the Reformation was everywhere one of gross abuses and much superstition, yet the good points of the Papacy have been fully recognized by Protestants and Anglican writers, such as Guizot, Michelet, Comte, Ranke, Sir James Stephen, Dr Arnold, Archbishop Trench, and Bishop Harold Browne. Nevertheless, the increasing development of the Papal claims has been strongly resisted within the pale of that church by the Jansenists, by the Gallican divines such as Bossuet, and by the entire body of the Port Royalists, including such brilliant names as those of St Cyran, De Sacy, Arnauld, and above all Pascal. All these display a Calvinistic element in their teaching, and more or less (as for instance Fleury in his famous Church History) modify the distinctively Roman characteristics most opposed by Protestants, and they pílace a general council far above the Pope. In our own day the counter-theory among Roman Catholics, of which De Maistre was a leading spokesman, has been seemingly ratified by the Vatican Council and the Pope declared infallible. This extreme step has provoked a schism among Roman Catholics, and alienated some of their most eminent men.

Of the different views entertained concerning the relation between church and state, it must be enough to say here that occasional collision seems almost unavoidable. For where two independent societies lay claim to a common ground, those claims, unless precisely defined, will sometimes militate. No state has yet been known to carry out the theory of Locke, and confine its attention purely to the preservation of life and property. But every state which considers public morality to be within its sphere, and legislates on such matters as marriage and education, must of necessity occupy to some extent the same ground as the various Christian communities which claim to be the local church. ( J. G c. )

OF ENGLAND and IRELAND is that established by law in England and Ireland, where it forms a part of the common law of the land, or constitution of the country.

When and by whom Christianity was first introduced into Britain, cannot at this distance of time be exactly ascertained. Eusebius, indeed, positively declares that it was by the Apostles and their disciples; Bishops Jewel and Stillingfleet, Dr. Cave, and others, insist that it was by St. Paul; and Baronius affirms, on the authority of an ancient manuscript in the Vatican Library, that the Gospel was planted in Britain by Simon Zelotes, the Apostle, and Joseph of Arimathea; and that the latter came over A. D. 35, or about the twenty-first year of Tiberius, and died in this country. According to Archbishop Usher, the British churches had a school of learning in the year 182, to provide them with proper teachers; and it would appear that they flourished, without dependence on any foreign church, till the arrival of Austin the monk, in the latter part of the sixth century.

By a particular church we understand an assembly of Christians united together, and meeting in one place, for the solemn worship of God. To this agrees the definition given by the compilers of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England: “A congregation of faithful men, in which the true word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered according to Christ’s ordinances, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same,” Acts ix, 31; xx, 17; Gal. i, 2, 22; 1 Cor. xiv, 34; Col. iv, 15. The word is now also used to denote any particular denomination of Christians, distinguished by particular doctrines, ceremonies, &c, as the Romish church, the Greek church, the English church, &c.

Episcopacy was early established in this country; and it ought to be remembered, to the honour of the British bishops and clergy, that during several centuries they withstood the encroachments of the see of Rome. Popery, however, was at length introduced into England, and, as some say, by Austin, the monk; and we find its errors every where prevalent during several ages preceding the reformation, till they were refuted by Wickliffe. The seed which Wickliffe had sown ripened after his death, and produced a glorious harvest. However, it was not till the reign of Henry VIII, that the reformation in England in reality commenced. When Luther declared war against the pope, Henry wrote his treatise on the seven sacraments against Luther’s book, “Of the Captivity of Babylon,” and was repaid by the pontiff with the title of “Defender of the Faith.” This title, in a sense diametrically opposite, and by a claim of higher desert, was transmitted by Henry with his crown, and now belongs to his successors. Henry’s affections being estranged from his queen Catharine, and fixed on Anne Boleyn, he requested a divorce from his wife; but the pope hesitating, the archbishop of Canterbury annulled his former marriage. The sentence of the archbishop was condemned by the pope, whose authority Henry therefore shook off, and was declared by parliament “supreme head of the church.” In the year 1800, when the kingdoms of Britain and Ireland were united, the churches of England and Ireland, which had always been the same in government, faith, and worship, became one united church.

On the subject of the church, opinions as opposite or varying as possible have been held, from that of the Papists, who contend for its visible unity throughout the world under a visible head, down to that of the Independents, who consider the universal church as composed of congregational churches, each perfect in itself, and entirely independent of every other. The first opinion is manifestly contradicted by the language of the Apostles, who, while they teach that there is but one church, composed of believers throughout the world, think it not at all inconsistent with this to speak of “the churches of Judea,” “of Achaia,” “the seven churches of Asia,” “the church at Ephesus,” &c. Among themselves the Apostles had no common head; but planted churches and gave directions for their government, in most cases without any apparent correspondence with each other. The Popish doctrine is certainly not found in their writings; and so far were they from making provision for the government of this one supposed church, by the appointment of one visible and exclusive head, that they provide for the future government of the respective churches raised up by them in a totally different manner, that is, by the ordination of ministers for each church, who are indifferently called bishops, and presbyters, and pastors. The only unity of which they speak is the unity of the whole church in Christ, the invisible head, by faith; and the unity produced by “fervent love toward each other.” Nor has the Popish doctrine of the visible unity of the church any countenance from early antiquity. The best ecclesiastical historians have showed, that, through the greater part of the second century, the Christian churches were independent of each other. “Each Christian assembly,” says Mosheim, “was a little state governed by its own laws, which were either enacted, or at least approved, by the society. But in process of time, all the churches of a province were formed into one large ecclesiastical body, which, like confederate states, assembled at certain times in order to deliberate about the common interests of the whole.” So far indeed this union of churches appears to have been a wise and useful arrangement, although afterward it was carried to an injurious extreme, until finally it gave birth to the assumptions of the bishop of Rome, as universal bishop; a claim, however, which, when most successful, was but partially submitted to, the eastern churches having, for the most part, always maintained their independence. No very large association of churches of any kind existed till toward the close of the second century, which sufficiently refutes the papal argument from antiquity. The independence of the early Christian churches does not, however, appear to have resembled that of the churches which, in modern times, are called Independent. During the lives of the Apostles and Evangelists they were certainly subject to their counsel and control, which proves that the independency of separate societies was not the first form of the church. It may, indeed, be allowed, that some of the smaller and more insulated churches might, after the death of the Apostles and Evangelists, retain this form for some considerable time; but the larger churches, in the chief cities, and those planted in populous neighbourhoods, had many presbyters, and, as the members multiplied, they had several separate assemblies or congregations, yet all under the same common government. And when churches were raised up in the neighbourhood of cities, the appointment of _chorepiscopi_, or country bishops, and of visiting presbyters, both acting under the presbytery of the city, with the bishop at its head, is sufficiently in proof, that the ancient churches, especially the larger and more prosperous of them, existed in that form which, in modern times, we should call a religious connection, subject to a common government. This appears to have arisen out of the very circumstance of the increase of the church, through the zeal of the first Christians; and it was doubtless much more in the spirit of the very first discipline exercised by the Apostles and Evangelists, (when none of the churches were independent, but remained under the government of those who had been chiefly instrumental in raising them up,) to place themselves under a common inspection, and to unite the weak with the strong, and the newly converted with those who were “in Christ before them.” There was also in this, greater security afforded both for the continuance of wholesome doctrine, and of godly discipline.

The acknowledged standards of the faith and doctrines of the united church are, after the Scriptures, the Book of Homilies and the Thirty-nine Articles. Her liturgy is also doctrinal, as well as devotional. The homilies were composed by Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, men of unexceptionable learning and orthodoxy; or, according to others, the first book was written principally by Cranmer, and the second by Jewel. They were appointed to be read in churches at the beginning of the reformation, when, by reason of the scarcity of learned divines, few ministers were found who could safely be trusted to preach their own compositions. The first draught of the Articles was composed by Archbishop Cranmer, assisted by Bishop Ridley, in the year 1551; and after being corrected by the other bishops, and approved by the convocation, they were published in Latin and English in 1553, and amounted to forty-two in number. In 1562 they were revised and corrected. Being then reduced to thirty-nine, they were drawn up in Latin only; but in 1571 they were subscribed by the members of the two houses of convocation, both in Latin and English; and therefore the Latin and English copies are to be considered as equally authentic. The original manuscripts, subscribed by the houses of convocation, were burned in the fire of London; but Dr. Bennet has collated the oldest copies now extant, in which it appears that there are no variations of any importance. During the last century, disputes arose among the clergy respecting the propriety of subscribing to any human formulary of religious sentiments. Parliament, in 1772, was applied to for the abolition of the subscription, by certain clergymen and others, whose petition received the most ample discussion, but was rejected by a large majority. It has been generally held by most, if not all, Calvinists, both in and out of the church, that the doctrinal parts of our Articles are Calvinistic. This opinion, however, has been warmly controverted. It is no doubt nearer the truth to conclude that the Articles are framed with comprehensive latitude; and that neither Calvinism nor Arminianism was intended to be exclusively established. In this view such liberal sentiments as the following, from the _Apology of the Church of England_, in 1732, are not of uncommon occurrence: “This, I know, I am myself an Anti-Calvinian; and yet, were I to compile articles for the church, I would abhor the thoughts of forming them so fully according to my own scheme of thinking, or of descending so minutely into all the particular branches of it, that none but Arminians should be able to subscribe, or that the church should lose the credit and service of such valuable men as the Abbots, Davenant, Usher, and other Calvinists undoubtedly were. And since our reformers were men of temper and moderation, it seems but justice, I am sure it is but reasonable, to think they intended such a latitude as I contend for, so that both parties, the followers of Arminius as well as of Calvin, might subscribe.” In a subsequent page, however, the same author says, “But what, if there was not so entire a harmony among the compilers or imposers, as was before supposed? What if several of them were Anti-Calvinian? This will incline the balance still more in our favour, and enlarge the probability of _the articles being drawn up in a moderate, indefinite way_. The divines who fled for refuge, in Queen Mary’s reign, to Geneva, Zurich, and other places beyond sea, (where, by conceiving a great veneration for Calvin, they were mightily changed in their sentiments and ways of thinking,) began to propagate his notions soon after their return in the next reign: and this seems to have been the prime occasion of Calvinism taking any considerable root in this kingdom. In King Edward’s time it doth not appear to have prevailed, except among a few ‘gospelers,’ and how they were reflected on by Bishop Latimer and Hooper has been already observed. When the articles were formed in 1552, I do not find that any deference was paid to Calvin’s judgment or authority: instead of that, the assistance he offered was, to his no little grief and dissatisfaction, refused. Next to the Scriptures and the doctrine of the primitive church, the compilers had an eye to the Augustan Confession, as appears from the identity of many of the articles; to the writings of Melancthon, whose assistance they desired, and whom King Edward invited over hither; the works of Erasmus; and the _Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man_. This last book was published by King Henry’s authority in 1543; and because it then had the approbation of most of those who compiled the Articles nine years afterward, it will be of consequence to see how it stands affected toward Calvinism. It teaches the cardinal point of universal redemption in several places; which strikes directly at the root of the Calvinian system, and, as Dr. Whitby expresses it, ‘draws all the rest after it, on which side soever the truth lies.’” This judicious amplitude has received much elucidation in Dr. Puller’s _Moderation of the Church of England considered_, 1679; and in other works of more recent date.

Church members are those who compose or belong to the visible church. As to the real church, the true members of it are such as come out from the world, 2 Cor. vi, 17; who are born again, 1 Peter i, 23; or made new creatures, 2 Cor. v, 17; whose faith works by love to God and all mankind, Gal. v, 6; James ii, 14, 26; who walk in all the ordinances of the Lord blameless. None but such are members of the true church; nor should any be admitted into any particular church without some evidence of their earnestly seeking this state of salvation.

In this church, divine service is conducted by a liturgy, which was composed in 1547, and has undergone several alterations, the last of which took place in 1661, in the reign of Charles II. Many applications have been since made for a review; and particular alterations were proposed in 1689, by several learned and excellent divines, in the number of whom were Archbishops Tillotson and Tenison, and Bishops Patrick, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Kidder, &c. This subject has been recently revived; and it is believed that some changes are under consideration. To this liturgy every clergyman promises at his ordination to conform in his public ministrations.

Church fellowship is the communion that the members enjoy one with another. The ends of church fellowship are, the maintenance and exhibition of a system of sound doctrine; the support of the ordinances of evangelical worship in their purity and simplicity; the impartial exercise of church government and discipline; the promotion of holiness in all manner of conversation. The more particular duties are, earnest study to keep peace and unity; bearing of one another’s burdens, Gal. vi, 1, 2; earnest endeavours to prevent each other’s stumbling, 1 Cor. x, 23–33; Heb. x, 24–27; Rom. xiv, 13; steadfast continuance in the faith and worship of the Gospel, Acts ii, 42; praying for and sympathizing with each other, 1 Sam. xii, 23; Eph. vi, 18. The advantages are, peculiar incitement to holiness; the right to some promises applicable to none but those who attend the ordinances of God, and hold communion with the saints, Psalm xcii, 13; cxxxii, 13, 16; xxxvi, 8; Jer. xxxi, 12; the being placed under the watchful eye of pastors, Heb. xiii, 7; that they may restore each other if they fall, Gal. vi, 1; and the more effectually promote the cause of true religion.

Ever since the reign of Henry VIII, the sovereigns of England have been styled “supreme heads of the church,” as well as “defenders of the faith;” but this title is said to convey no spiritual meaning; or, in other words, it only substitutes the king in place of the pope, with respect to temporalities, and the external economy of the church. The church of England is governed by two archbishops and twenty-four bishops, beside the bishop of Sodor and Man. The benefices of the bishops were converted by William the Conqueror into temporal baronies; and, therefore, all of them, except the bishop of Man, are barons or lords of parliament, and sit and vote in the house of lords, where they represent the clergy. The bishops’ representatives and assistants are the archdeacons, of whom there are sixty in England. The other dignitaries of the church are the deans, prebendaries, canons, &c; and the inferior clergy are the rectors, vicars, and curates. The united church knows only three orders of ministers; bishops, priests, and deacons: but in these orders are comprehended archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, rectors, vicars, and curates. The church of Ireland is governed by four archbishops and eighteen bishops. Since the union of Britain and Ireland, one archbishop and three bishops sit alternately in the house of peers, by rotation of sessions.

As to church order and discipline, without entering into the discussion of the many questions which have been raised on this subject, and argued in so many distinct treatises, it may be sufficient generally to observe, that the church of Christ being a visible and permanent society, bound to observe certain rites, and to obey certain rules, the existence of government in it is necessarily supposed. All religious rites suppose order, all order direction and control, and these a directive and controlling power. Again: all laws are nugatory without enforcement, in the present mixed and imperfect state of society; and all enforcement supposes an executive. If baptism be the door of admission into the church, some must judge of the fitness of candidates, and administrators of the rite must be appointed; if the Lord’s Supper must be partaken of, the times and the mode are to be determined, the qualifications of communicants judged of, and the administration placed in suitable hands; if worship must be social and public, here again there must be an appointment of times, an order, and an administration; if the word of God is to be read and preached, then readers and preachers are necessary; if the continuance of any one in the fellowship of Christians be conditional upon good conduct, so that the purity and credit of the church may be guarded, then the power of enforcing discipline must be lodged some where. Thus government flows necessarily from the very nature of the institution of the Christian church; and since this institution has the authority of Christ and his Apostles, it is not to be supposed, that its government was left unprovided for; and if they have in fact made such a provision, it is no more a matter of mere option with Christians whether they will be subject to government in the church, than it is optional with them to confess Christ by becoming its members. The nature of this government, and the persons to whom it is committed, are both points which we must briefly examine by the light of the Holy Scriptures. As to the first, it is wholly spiritual:--“My kingdom,” says our Lord, “is not of this world.” The church is a society founded upon faith, and united by mutual love, for the personal edification of its members in holiness, and for the religious benefit of the world. The nature of its government is thus determined; it is concerned only with spiritual objects. It cannot employ force to compel men into its pale; for the only door of the church is faith; to which there can be no compulsion;--“he that believeth and is baptized” becomes a member. It cannot inflict pains and penalties upon the disobedient and refractory, like civil governments; for the only punitive discipline authorized in the New Testament, is comprised in “admonition,” “reproof,” “sharp rebukes,” and, finally, “excision from the society.” The last will be better understood, if we consider the special relations in which true Christians stand to each other, and the duties resulting from them. They are members of one body, and are therefore bound to tenderness and sympathy; they are the conjoint instructers of others, and are therefore to strive to be of “one judgment;” they are brethren, and they are to love one another as such, that is, with an affection more special than that general good will which they are commanded to bear to all mankind; they are therefore to seek the intimacy of friendly society among themselves, and, except in the ordinary and courteous intercourse of life, they are bound to keep themselves separate from the world; they are enjoined to do good unto all men, but “especially to them that are of the household of faith;” and they are forbidden “to eat” at the Lord’s table with immoral persons, that is, with those who, although they continue their Christian profession, dishonour it by their practice. With these relations of Christians to each other and to the world, and their correspondent duties, before our minds, we may easily interpret the nature of that extreme discipline which is vested in the church. “Persons who will not hear the church” are to be held “as Heathen men and publicans,” as those who are not members of it; that is, they are to be separated from it, and regarded as of “the world,” quite out of the range of the above mentioned relations of Christians to each other, and their correspondent duties; but still, like “Heathen men and publicans” they are to be the objects of pity, and general benevolence. Nor is this extreme discipline to be hastily inflicted before “a first and second admonition,” nor before those who are “spiritual” have attempted “to restore a brother overtaken by a fault;” and when the “wicked person” is “put away,” still the door is to be kept open for his reception again upon repentance. The true excommunication of the Christian church is therefore a merciful and considerate separation of an incorrigible offender from the body of Christians, without any infliction of civil pains or penalties. “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which ye have received from us,” 2 Thess. iii, 6. “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump,” 1 Cor. v, 7. “But now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one, no not to eat,” 1 Cor. v, 11. This then is the moral discipline which is imperative upon the church of Christ, and its government is criminally defective whenever it is not enforced. On the other hand, the disabilities and penalties which established churches in different places have connected with these sentences of excommunication, have no countenance at all in Scripture, and are wholly inconsistent with the spiritual character and ends of the Christian association.

As to the _persons_ to whom the government of the church is committed, it is necessary to consider the composition, so to speak, of the primitive church, as stated in the New Testament. A full enunciation of these offices we find in Ephesians iv, 11: “And he gave some, Apostles; and some, Prophets; and some, Evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” Of these, the office of Apostle is allowed by all to have been confined to those immediately commissioned by Christ to witness the fact of his miracles, and of his resurrection from the dead, and to reveal the complete system of Christian doctrine and duty; confirming their extraordinary mission by miracles wrought by themselves. If by “prophets” we are to understand persons who foretold future events, then the office was from its very nature extraordinary, and the gift of prophecy has passed away with the other miraculous endowments of the first age of Christianity. If, with others, we understand that these prophets were extraordinary teachers raised up until the churches were settled under permanent qualified instructors; still the office was temporary. The “Evangelists” are generally understood to be assistants of the Apostles, who acted under their especial authority and direction. Of this number were Timothy and Titus; and as the Apostle Paul directed them to ordain bishops or presbyters in the several churches, but gave them no authority to ordain successors to themselves in their particular office as Evangelists, it is clear that the Evangelists must also be reckoned among the number of extraordinary and temporary ministers suited to the first age of Christianity. Whether by “pastors and teachers” two offices be meant, or one, has been disputed. The change in the mode of expression seems to favour the latter view, and so the text is interpreted by St. Jerom, and St. Augustine; but the point is of little consequence. A pastor was a teacher, although every teacher might not be a pastor; but in many cases his office might be one of subordinate instruction, whether as an expounder of doctrine, a catechist, or even a more private instructer of those who as yet were unacquainted with the first principles of the Gospel of Christ. The term _pastor_ implies the duties both of instruction and of government, of feeding and of ruling the flock of Christ; and, as the presbyters or bishops were ordained in the several churches, both by the Apostles and Evangelists, and rules are left by St. Paul as to their appointment, there can be no doubt but that these are the “pastors” spoken of in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and that they were designed to be the permanent ministers of the church; and that with them both the government of the church and the performance of its leading religious services were deposited. Deacons had the charge of the gifts and offerings for charitable purposes, although, it appears from Justin Martyr, not in every instance; for he speaks of the weekly oblations as being deposited with the chief minister, and distributed by him. These pastors appear to have been indifferently called BISHOPS and PRESBYTERS, and with them the regulation of the churches was, doubtless, deposited; not without checks and guards, the principal of which, however, was, in the primitive church, and continues to be in all modern churches which have no support from the magistracy, or are made independent of the people by endowments, the voluntariness of the association. A perfect religious liberty is always supposed by the Apostles to exist among Christians; no compulsion of the civil power is any where assumed by them as the basis of their advices or directions; no binding of the members to one church, without liberty to join another, by any ties but those involved in moral considerations, of sufficient weight, however, to prevent the evils of faction and schism. It was this which created a natural and competent check upon the ministers of the church; for being only sustained by the opinion of the churches, they could not but have respect to it; and it was this which gave to the sound part of a fallen church the advantage of renouncing, upon sufficient and well-weighed grounds, their communion with it, and of kindling up the light of a pure ministry and a holy discipline, by forming a separate association, bearing its testimony against errors in doctrine, and failures in practice. Nor is it to be conceived, that, had this simple principle of perfect religious liberty been left unviolated through subsequent ages, the church could ever have become so corrupt, or with such difficulty and slowness have been recovered from its fall. This ancient Christian liberty has happily been restored in a few parts of Christendom. See EPISCOPACY and PRESBYTERIANISM.

’ Considered as a department of universal knowledge, church history forms a special section of the religious history of mankind. It is an account of the growth and the transactions of the religious community which is marked out from others by its attachment to Christianity. This definition already excludes from consideration a region of inquiry important in itself, which is sometimes regarded as forming an integral part of the subject. Starting from that idea of the church which is represented etymologically by the undoubtedly false derivations of the word from the German küren, to choose, or the Greek κυρίου oικos, the (figurative) house of the Lord, various writers have assumed the church to be that special section of mankind who in any age have enjoyed the true revelation of God as given by himself, and they have in consequence regarded church history as bound to deal first with the Old Testament church and then with the church of the New Dispensation. This, however, involves an amount of dogmatic prepossession to which history, simply as such, cannot commit itself. Surveying the field of mere objective fact, history can single out, under the general appellation of the church, a great society whose origin can be distinctly traced up to the personal activity of Christ, who, for this society, forms a definite and wholly new historical commencement. Whatever etymology we assign to the word church under its various modifications of ldrche, kirk, kerk, cyrkeu), zerkow, <fcc.,—whether we follow the derivation suggested by Walafrid Strabo in the 9th century, and extensively held since, from το κυριακόν, the Lord’s house, as a term introduced by the Greek missionaries into the language of the heathen tribes whom they converted, or whether we adopt the not less probable conjee ture of Lipsius, and ascribe its origin to “circ” or “cere” (connected with the Latin dr eus), the local name for the temple of Northern paganism, adopted by ancient and medi&eval Christianity, in conformity with its principle of accommodating itself as far as possible to the usages of its proselytes—there can be no doubt that the community and the movement, which, under some form of the name church among the Germanic races, and of the name ecclesia, such as église, chiesa, <fcc., among the Latin nations, succeeded in subjugating the Roman empire, along with extensive regions beyond it on all sides, to a religion whose personal centre is Christ, form a fresh phenomenon in the history of mankind, as distinct and individual in its character as Hellenism, Hinduism, or Mohammedanism. In the view of history proper, therefore, the history of Judaism cannot be taken as forming a part of the history of the church.

For the same reason history cannot take action upon a class of distinctions recognized by many who assume the functions of the church historian. Such writers, adopting some strict and special definition of the church, confine the work of church history to that section of professing Christians whose condition satisfies the terms of their definition, any other so-called division of Christendom coming in for a share of attention only in the narrative of the opposition encountered by the church. History, in the proper sense, cannot undertake to decide questions of this description. To say which among many competing churches is the true church involves a dogmatic deliverance, which is beyond its province. It must do its work in a more rough and general fashion. Under the name church it comprehends all organizations avowedly basing themselves upon Christianity and recognizing Christ as in some sense their head and leader. It undertakes to delineate the story of these in the aggregate; and with regard to the distinctions between them, and their pretensions to condemn and exclude each other, it confines itself to narrative, without attempting adjudication.

Another limitation has to be introduced into the definition of church history, when regard is had to the exact point of time at which it ought to begin. The church did not come into full-formed existence in a moment. Regarded as a community with more or less of an organization upon a Christian basis, and conscious of itself and of its aim in the history of the world, it was the result of the activity of Christ and his more immediate apostles and followers The history of what they did in giving existence to the church, as such, is a different thing from the history of the church when once existing in that character. The case resembles the difference between embryology and biography in the history of the individual. The precise point of time at which the formative activity of the church founders issues in the actual church is probably to be determined by the emergence of the consciousness of a common Christian life and aim among the separate communities originally established by apostolic labour. By some writers this is placed as low as the destruction of Jerusalem, by others as high as the first rallying of Christ’s followers after his own disappearance from the world. In any case church history is relieved of a large amount of work with which it is sometimes burdened, but which does not properly fall to its share.

What church history has to do within the limits thus indicated will perhaps be best understood by considering its province as a department of scientific theology, and its relations to the theological disciplines with which it stands most closely connected, those, namely, of dogmatics and the history of doctrine. Strictly speaking, the history of doctrine is part of the history of the church. To exhaust its task, a history of the church must embrace at least five departments of inquiry and narrative,— one connected with the external relations of the church to the world at large and its political institutions, the remaining four treating of developments and relations internal to the church itself. (1) The Progress of the church must be described, either positively, in respect of its advance, or negatively, with reference to its retrogression, at any given period. To exist at all, it must exist under one or other of these conditions; it must be either attaining or missing, approaching or receding from, its rightful influence on the social condition and political organization of mankind. (2) Its Constitution must be described. The church exists as such, in virtue of its constitution. It is not the church until it is to some extent organized, and the growth and forms of this organization must be recorded. (3) The Doctrine of the church at the various points of its development must be set forth. Doctrine is the full and finished expression of conviction, and since the church owes its existence to certain convictions, some religious, some moral, the history of doctrine occupies the very central position of the church’s history. (4) Worship, under one form or another, is an essential development of church life, as well as one of the modes in which it announces its existence, and calls for historical recognition. (5) Life, as exhibited in the number and character of the members of the church, completes the division of the matter of its history. Doctrine and worship are directed to certain practical ends, either of making proselytes to the church, or of perfecting the character of those who already belong to it, and any such results must be collected and presented both in their numerical and their moral aspects.

But while the history of the church, in the strict and comprehensive sense, must treat fully these various classes of activity, there is a narrower, if also a somewhat looser sense in which it may be taken, for ends of practical convenience. We may distinguish between the organization and its life, between the church and Christianity. On this view, doctrine, worship, and hfe fall to be treated collectively by the history of the Christian religion or in separate histories, while the history of the church becomes a narrative of the successes or defeats experienced in the world by the Christian community and the varying forms of its constitutional framework, with only such allusions to the internal and religious side of its life as are necessary to explain its constitutional changes and external fortunes. By this division it becomes possible to treat both the inner and the outer sides of the subject, each for itself, and therefore more fully and vividly. In this way, since doctrine lies at the foundation of worship and hfe, and even constitution, the history of doctrine becomes the key to the whole history of the church, and the indispensable preliminary to a scientific comprehension of it. The hfe and action of the church in the world are simply the expression of the ideas by which it is governed; and it is the business of the historian of doctrine to record the vicissitudes and developments of these, whether he writes in the interests of mere knowledge and with absolute impartiality, or, as is more common, though less scientific, with a bias in favour of a certain class of ideas, all divergences from which he chronicles as errors. The difference between church history read in the light of the history of doctrine and apart from it is like the difference which the phenomena of health and disease present to minds that possess or that want an acquaintance with the principles of physiology.

Church history, including or co-ordinate with history of doctrine, stands in an important relation to dogmatics. Dogmatics (which also contributes the formal as well as, in part, the material element in Christian ethics) is charged with the scientific statement and proof of whatever is held to be the true doctrine. In the sphere of statement the history of the church is necessary, both as introduction and commentary. Doctrine is a growth, an evolution of part after part, under the influence of special circumstances at special times. The full meaning of doctrine can therefore often be understood only in the light of its antithesis, and its relative importance as essential or accidental ascertained only from the practical crisis which demanded its declaration,—aids for which recourse must be had to the history of the church and its doctrine. As regards, therefore, the scientific articulation, proportioning, and interpretation of doctrine, church history stands in the position of an essential preliminary to dogmatics.

As regards actual church life, and any new expression of it in worship, constitution, or propagandist effort, that assumes to be based on scientific principle, the history of the church is indispensable, not only for the extended view of present circumstances that may be requisite, but also to enable the church fully to know and judge its own mind. The existing church consciousness is the product of all the past, and cannot be fully understood and criticized except in the light of its history.

2. The Sources of church history are either Monumental or Documentary. Monumental sources yield such intimatious of past transactions as are to be found on avowed monuments, memorial tablets, gravestones, churches, and other public edifices or private dwellings, or upon articles of antiquity, seals, crucifixes, furniture, vestments, pictures, coins, weapons, &c. Documentary sources, as their name implies, include all manuscript or printed information, whether originals, copies, or oral traditions committed to record. In point of comparative value, the documentary sources are, of course, the more important, being, from the nature of the case, so immeasurably richer in information. At the same time, within their own range, monumental sources are often more valuable than documentary. Forgery has less chance of success in monuments than in documents; and certain classes of facts are frequently commemorated on them which writers do not think of recording. Dates and names and the like have been fixed by inscriptions on coins, <fcc., where documents have proved defective or wrong.

Documentary sources may be divided from the point of view of their destination into (1) Public and (2) Private, and from that of their authorship into (3) Direct and (4) Indirect. Under the head of public documents we have all deliverances of an official character, such as decrees of councils, Papal bulls, civil legislation affecting the church, rules of life for monastic institutions, liturgies, confessions of faith, and even sermons, theological treatises, &c. Private documents, again, consist of personal memoirs and journals, letters, secret correspondence, and papers not originally intended for the public eye. Then by direct documentary sources are meant those in which we have the actual word of a writer or actor in any event testifying to the nature of the opinion or transaction about which information is desired. Indirect documentary sources are those in which we obtain information about the opinions of an author or the actions of any historical character, not from statements of his own, but from the testimony of some one else about him. Thus a letter of Constantine would be a direct document in reference to some purpose or performance of his own, while it might be an indirect document in reference to the history or opinions of Athanasius or Arius.

In collecting and sifting these sources so as to place all and only the right materials available before the church historian, recourse must be had to the sciences of antiquities, bibliography, and diplomatics. Antiquities, in its various divisions of numismatics, ecclesiology, heraldry, <fcc., marshals all the relevant monumental testimony and discriminates the spurious from the genuine; bibliography, taken in its widest sense, as the science which enumerates, classifies, and values all that has been written upon the various heads of human knowledge, states what documentary material is likely to be available at the different stages of inquiry, and where it is to be found; while diplomatics, or the science of documents, defines the genuineness, completeness, and general trustworthiness of the material so indicated.

Besides these more immediate sources there are collateral sources on which church history must draw in fulfilling its task. These are mainly ecclesiastical philology, the general history of Christendom, with ecclesiastical geography, statistics, and chronology. Ecclesiastical philology points to acquaintance with those languages, more particularly Greek and Latin, in which the chief part of the historical materials is expressed, whether as original or translation. The necessity of this is obvious. Besides this, some knowledge of the general history of Christendom is indispensable to an understanding of the history of the church, just as the special history of the church is essential to a comprehension of general history. The events of the church and of the world are so inextricably bound up together that the one are intelligible only in the light of the other. Hence the history of policy, law, philosophy, literature, and art must be laid under contribution in constructing a full history of the church. Clear treatment further requires acquaintance with ecclesiastical geography and statistics, the distribution of the world into Christian and non-Christiau sections, divisions by patriarchates, dioceses, parishes, ⅛c., and the physical characteristics and social habits of different localities. And along with this, ecclesiastical chronology, the correct arrangement of persons and events, both in their contemporaneous appearance and in their succession to others, is requisite to complete the list of auxiliaries to church history,

3. After the Sources, the Method of dealing with them, so as to produce history, falls to be considered. Method here comprises two main divisions,—(1) Criticism and (2) Construction. In the criticism of the materials two qualities have to be called into exercise,—the judicial faculty and historic insight. The judicial faculty has to determine two questions,—first, How far are the sources to be relied on? and second, If to be relied on, what do they really say? The question how far the sources are to be relied on depends on both the ability and the willingness of the writer to tell the truth. As to his ability, we must consider how far he was in a position to be aware of the facts, and to what extent his judgment and penetration are to be trusted in matters of fact. He may have been credulous, or an incompetent or careless observer, or he may have been so greatly biassed by party feeling or personal animosity as to be incapable of forming an impartial opinion. Then, besides the writer’s ability to tell the truth, there must be considered further his willingness to tell it. A writer may be perfectly able to tell the truth, if he liked. But he may not like. He may have reasons or motives of his own for withholding the truth, or even for substituting untruth. In using his sources the historian must be able to judge exactly how far they are in these respects to be relied on. Then supposing he has decided that they may be relied on in a given degree, he must next be able to take from them precisely the testimony as to past fact which they convey, neither more nor less. That is to say, he must be impartial,—capable of holding the scales of fairness evenly, of controlling his mind so as to prevent any preferences of his own from weakening or distorting the statement of fact derivable from his authorities, in favour of his own opinions. The historic insight, which, in addition to the judicial faculty, is essential to the thorough criticism of the materials, is the power of fully comprehending the significance and connection of the facts yielded by the sources, by realizing the point of view of the actors or writers to whom the facts dealt with are due, and determining their import as related to a general philosophy of history, and embraces three forms of insight, which may be called philosophic, psychologic, and Christian. Philosophic insight implies, first of all, ability to enter into the various forms of speculative thought, metaphysical, ethical, or whatever else, that have appeared within the church’s history, and have in greater or less degree influenced its movements. It implies further an ability to see the whole recorded facts and their connection under the light of the philosophy of history; but as this obviously cannot take place until the facts in themselves have been completely understood, this aspect of philosophic insight will come into play only when the others have discharged their function. By psychologic insight is meant knowledge of human nature affected by scientific observation of mind and its operations. The facts of history are created by individuals, and each of them may be interpreted as an exhibition of the will and intellect, of the general subjective state of some one man or body of men. This subjective state, again, may be accounted for, in part at least, by the action of certain preceding facts upon the mind of the man or men in question, which facts again are to be explained as a manifestation of the mind of some preceding man or men, and so on. In short, history is the product of human nature, affected by and dealing with certain external data, natural or supernatural, furnished by God; so that, to understand it, there is needed the ability to place before the imagination what human nature is at any point in or between the moral extremes of goodness and wickedness, and the intellectual extremes of wisdom and folly. By Christian insight is meant special capacity for sympathizing with the spirit and ideas of Christianity. What we have in the history of the church is centrally the mind and motive of Christ organizing itself in a living institution that it may enter into conflict with the evil of the world, and by persuasion subdue it to willing submission. To comprehend the development of facts produced during the activity of such an institution, there would seem to be requisite at the very outset an understanding of the thought and feeling that constitute its inner life; that is to say, there must be an intelligent sympathy with the spirit of the New Testament, which, as the primitive record of the action of Christ’s spirit and career, is, were it on no other ground, the authoritative exposition and medium of the mind of Christ. And not only must there be this acquaintance with the ideas and spiritual impulses of the New Testament, but there would appear to be also necessary some experience of their power. If Christianity be not merely a series of intellectual propositions, but a spiritual force penetrating to the motives of the soul, it can scarcely be adequately comprehended by any one who has not known what it is to yield in his innermost being to Christian influences. For while many of the greatest occurrences in the history of the church have sprung from the spirit of evil, and are fully intelligible to the historian only in virtue of his own experience of at least germinal evil, a vast number of other events are due to men who were in their degree reproductions of Christ,...