CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

DIFFERENT Societies or communities of Christians claim each for itself, either exclusively or in common with others, the name of a Christian Church and opinions widely differing from each other, are held and strenuously maintained on the question-What societies or communities are entitled to that designation, or to be considered as branches of the Church of Christ? Nor are men agreed as to the definition of THE CHURCH. A preliminary inquiry, therefore, arises-what is the meaning of the word Church as used in Scripture.

The word translated Church, is, in its proper and primary meaning, an assembly, convocation, or congregation.1 It is accordingly in the New Testament

1 Parkhurst, adverting to the etymology of the word, considers it as importing an assembly called out; and the Christian Church as an assembly or society called out of the world: and perhaps some such notion may have been implied, when Stephen spake of "the Church in the wilderness." (Acts vii. 38.)

used to express, sometimes a merely secular assembly; and at other times a congregation or society of persons united together as being, or professing to be, believers in Christ.

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I. We have mention made of particular churches, i. e. congregations of Christians meeting for worship in one place. Thus St. Paul says: "Greet Priscilla and Aquila .. likewise greet the church that is in their house," (Rom. xvi. 3, 5) "Aquila and Priscilla salute you "" "with the church that is in their house" (1 Cor. xvi. 19), "Salute Nymphas, and the church which is in his house" (Col. iv. 15) and the same Apostle in his Epistle to Philemon (1-3), wishes grace and peace "to the church in his "house"That in these instances the church included other Christians besides the household of the individual named, may reasonably be inferred both from the original meaning of the word Church, and from the circumstance that in another epistle the same apostle says: "Salute the household of Onesiphorus," (2 Tim. iv. 19) and does not call that household a church.

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The recognition, it may be proper to observe, of these particular churches determines nothing as to their being independent of other churches, or being connected with or subordinate to any other church.

II. We have also local churches, either mentioned or addressed in the New Testament, as the church at, of, or in, a particular city or town, or of its inhabitants.

1 So in Acts xix. 32, 39, 41, where it is rendered "assembly" in the authorized version.

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Thus we have the Church at Jerusalem,' at Antioch, at Cenchrea,3 at Corinth, at Babylon 5 the Church of Ephesus, of the Laodiceans,7 of the Thessalonians: the Church in 9 Smyrna, in Pergamos, in Thyatira, in Sardis, in Philadelphia. These I call local churches, because they do not appear to have been limited to congregations meeting in one building; they comprized, or were calculated to comprize, several particular congregations, indeed all particular congregations (if more than one), within the same city or

town.

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This will clearly appear to have been the case with the "church at Jerusalem," if we examine what is recorded of the numbers which it contained. On the day of Pentecost about three thousand were converted (Acts ii. 41), which number (however) probably comprized strangers then at Jerusalem for the feast. Afterwards "the Lord added to the Church" daily such as

1 Acts viii. 1.

2 Acts xiii. l.

4 1 Cor. i. 2. and 2 Cor. i. 1.

3 Rom. xvi. 1.

5 1 Peter v. 13. Whether this mean the real or mystical Babylon is immaterial to the present purpose.

8 "Thessalonians”—Deoσaλovikéwv (1 Thess. i. 1. and 2 Thess. i. 1.)——— inhabitants of Thessalonica (a city of Macedonia)- not of the country called Thessaly.

9 Rev. ii. 8, 12, 18. iii. 1, 7.

10 It is indeed (v. 44.) added: “ and all that believed were together," πάντες δὲ ὁι πιςέυοντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τὸ ἀυτὸ ; by which, if the translation be correct, it can only be meant, that they all had more or less of intercourse with each other. But, considering the context, perhaps a more correct rendering would be-" and all that believed were for the same thing "-i. e. pursued the same object.

11 "The Church" in this place may mean, either the universal church,

should be saved." (Acts ii. 47).

At a later period, occasion of healing

when Peter had preached on the the cripple at the gate of the temple (Acts iii.), "many of them which heard the word believed, and the number of the men was about five thousand" (Acts iv. 4). Even this number was afterwards increased: for "believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women" (Acts v. 14). The number of Christians, therefore, at Jerusalem must have greatly exceeded five thousand, when, at a subsequent period, "there was a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem." That church consisting of so many thousand believers, obviously had no building in which they could all meet together.

Further with regard to the church of Ephesus-St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, written 1 after the great progress of the gospel in that city recorded in the first twenty verses of xix. Acts, sends salutations to the church of Corinth from Aquila and Priscilla "with the church which is in their house” as well as from "the churches of Asia" (1 Cor. xvi. 19), of which the church of Ephesus was one. The church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla, we may therefore infer, was a particular congregation, not comprizing all the disciples then at Ephesus---a portion of the then church of that city.

Each of these local churches constituted one body,

or the body of Christians then at Jerusalem. It is not material to our inquiry which is the meaning.

See Appendix I.

2 See Rev. i. 11.