MUCH time was devoted, at the late meeting of the General Assembly at Rochester [1860], to the discussion of the question, What is Presbyterianism? That question, indeed, had only a remote connection with the subject before the house. That subject was the Boards of the Church. These, on the one side, were pronounced to be not only inexpedient, but unscriptural and unlawful; not only useless excrescences, but contrary to the divine rule prescribed in the word of God, and a reproach to our blessed Saviour. We were called upon to reject them as a matter of duty, or forfeit our allegiance to Christ. On the other side, it was contended that the Boards were not only highly useful, as experience had proved, but that they were entirely within the discretion which Christ had granted to his Church, and therefore compatible with obedience to his will, and with our allegiance to his authority.
To make out any plausible argument in support of the doctrine that the Boards are anti-scriptural, required, of course, a peculiar theory of Presbyterianism; a theory which should exclude all discretionary power in the Church, and tie her down to modes of action prescribed as of divine authority in the word of God. That theory, as propounded by Dr. Thornwell in his first speech on the subject, was understood to embrace the following principles: 1. That the form of government for the Church, and its mode of action, are prescribed in the word of God, not merely as to its general principles, but in all its details, as completely as the system of faith or the moral law; and therefore everything for which we cannot produce a “Thus saith the Lord,” is unscriptural and unlawful.
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Consequently, the Church has no more right to create a new office, organ, or organization, for the exercise of her prerogatives or the execution of her prescribed work, than she has to create a new article of faith, or to add a new command to the Decalogue.
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That the Church cannot delegate her powers. She must exercise them herself, and through officers and organs prescribed in the Scriptures. She has no more right to act by a vicar, than Congress has to delegate its legislative power, or a Christian to pray by proxy.
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That all executive, legislative and judicial power in the Church is in the hands of the clergy, that is, of presbyters, who have the same ordination and office, although differing in functions.
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That all power in the Church is joint, and not several. That is, it can be exercised only by Church courts, and not in any case by individual officers.
In opposition to this general scheme, “the brother from Princeton” propounded the following general principles:
1st. That all the attributes and prerogatives of the Church arise from the indwelling of the Spirit, and consequently, where he dwells, there are those attributes and prerogatives.
2d. That as the Spirit dwells not in the clergy only, but in the people of God, all power is, in sensu primo, in the people.
3d. That in the exercise of these prerogatives, the Church is to be governed by principles laid down in the word of God, which determine, within certain limits, her officers and modes of organization; but that beyond those prescribed principles and in fidelity to them, the Church has a wide discretion in the choice of methods, organs and agencies.
4th. That the fundamental principles of our Presbyterian system are first, the parity of the clergy; second, the right of the people to a substantive part in the government of the Church; and third, the unity of the Church, in such sense, that a small part is subject to a larger, and a larger to the whole.
Without attempting any development of these principles, the remarks of the speaker in reply to Dr. Thornwell’s first speech, were directed to the single point on which the whole question in debate turned. That was, Is the Church tied down in the exercise of her prerogatives, and in the performance of her work, to the organizations or organs prescribed in the New Testament? In other words, is everything relating to the government and action of the Church laid down in detail in the word of God, so that it is unlawful to employ any organs or agencies not therein enjoined? If this is so, then the Boards are clearly unlawful; if it is not so, the having them, or not having them, is a matter of expediency.
As to the first of the above-mentioned principles, it was not presented as anything peculiar to Presbyterianism. It is simply an axiom of evangelical religion, admitted and advocated in every age of the Church by all opponents of the ritual or hierarchical theory. As no man is a Christian unless the Spirit of Christ dwells in him, so no body of men is a Church, except so far as it is organized, animated and controlled by the same Spirit. We may be bound to recognize men as Christians who are not really such, and we may be bound to recognize Churches who are, in fact, not governed by the Spirit. But in both cases they are assumed to be what they profess. We might as well call a lifeless corpse a man, as a body without the Spirit of God a Church. The one may be called a dead Church, as a lifeless human body is called a dead man. Nevertheless the Spirit makes the Church, as the soul makes the man. The Bible says that the Church is a temple, because it is the habitation of God through the Spirit. It is the body of Christ, because animated by the Spirit of Christ. It is said to be one, because the Spirit is one. “For,” says the apostle, “as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.” It is the baptism, or indwelling of the Spirit, therefore, which constitutes the Church one body. And as (so far as our present state of existence is concerned,) where the soul is, there the body is, so in like manner, where the Spirit is, there is the Church, and where the Spirit is not, the Church is not. The motto inscribed on the banner which the early evangelical fathers raised against the assumption of ritualists was, UBI SPIRITUS DEI, IBI ECCLESIA. That banner Popes and Prelatists, Patriarchs and Priests have for a thousand years striven in vain to trample in the dust. It has been handed down from one band of witnesses for the truth to another, until it now waves over all evangelical Christendom. The dividing line between the two great contending parties in the Church universal, is precisely this—Is the Church in its essential idea an external body held together by external bonds, so that membership in the Church depends on submission to a hierarchy? or is it a spiritual body owing its existence and unity to the indwelling of the Spirit, so that those who have the Spirit of God are members of the Church or body of Christ? The Papists say we are not in the Church, because we are not subject to the Pope; we say that we are in the Church if the Spirit of Christ dwells in us. Of course Dr. Thornwell believes all this as firmly as we do. He has as fully and clearly avowed this doctrine as any man among us. In the very latest published production of his pen, he says: