FEDERATION OF CHURCHES by Alonzo T. Jones

Pacific Press Publishing Company · MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA · Feb 14, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 7.

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FEDERATION OF CHURCHES

By Alonzo T. Jones

THE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR.

(Concluded from last week.)

Increase of Assumed Authority.

AND of this thing in the third century the record is as follows:

"It is to be observed, however, that, notwithstanding the primitive and venerable mode of church government, which had been established by the apostles, appeared for the most part still thus firmly to maintain its ground, it was yet in reality on the wane, and gradually giving way, more especially in the larger churches, to a form that inclined rather to the despotic or monarchical nature. For as is commonly the case in human affairs, the bishops who presided over congregations of any consequence, being elated by their situation, and not feeling satisfied with the limited degree of power that had been originally committed to their hands, began to arrogate to themselves an extent of authority and importance to which they had not before made pretensions, and artfully encroaching step by step, no less on the rights of the presbyters than on those of the people, they eventually succeeded in altogether dispossessing both of their ancient and undoubted privileges, and placing everything at their own immediate judgment and disposal.

"Innovations of this kind, however, could not, of course, be attempted without requiring some sort of justification, and we accordingly find, about this time, certain new maxims and dogmas propounded respecting the right government of the church and the functions and authority of bishops; the force and validity of which, however, so far from being easily perceptible, should seem to have been but very imperfectly comprehended even by those who may be considered as the first promulgators of them.

"In furtherance of these episcopal encroachments we find Cyprian standing forth a distinguished example to his brethren. Being of the episcopal order himself, and, as is too obvious to be denied, of an ambitious, domineering spirit, he entered the lists as a most strenuous advocate for the dignity and authority of bishops, and in order to prevent any part of what he considered as their just rights, from being at a future time, under any pretense whatever, either wrested from them or even called in question, labored earnestly to establish the whole on an immovable and eternal basis."—Mosheim's "Commentaries," Cent. III., Sec. XXIV.

Cyprian declared that "the church is founded upon the bishops, and every act of the church is controlled by these same rulers." And further, "Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the church, and the church is in the bishop; and if any one be not with the bishop, then he is not in the church."

Thus the system of federation and centralization for power that began in the second century and which in the third century had developed an episcopal despotism and monarchy in the church, culminated in the fourth century in the grand world-federation for power with and in the state, and thus developed the world despotism and world monarchy of the bishopric of Rome—the Papacy. And it can not be denied that the final development of the actual working Papacy is but the steady, logical growth and development of the very first step away from the individuality, the integrity, and the liberty, of the Christian congregation. And the Papacy was in that first step just as truly, though not in such full and vigorous working, as it was in the later steps in the fourth century and onward.

The Nature of the System.

Note that the history says specifically that this scheme of "federation," "Confederation," etc., had its origin "among the Greeks, with whom such confederations of several cities, and the consequent conventions and their delegates, had long been in use." It was therefore plainly in its very origin the application of the human, the worldly, the heathen, system of government to the divine, the heavenly, the Christian living organization. For the church which Christ and His apostles left on earth was, and was ever to be, organized from God alone, through Christ the Head, with the divine life sent straight down from heaven in the Holy Ghost. Eph. 4:15, 16; Col. 2:17-19; 1 Cor. 12:11-13, 25, 26. By the divine life alone, from God alone, through Christ alone, by the Holy Spirit alone, that church was, and is ever to be, organized; and so was, and is ever to be, a living "building," built of living stones, fitly framed together in Christ by the Holy Spirit, and growing "unto an holy temple in the Lord," "for an habitation of God through the Spirit." 1 Peter 2:4, 5; Eph. 2:19-22.

Now to think of applying to this divine, heavenly, Christian, living church the form of a human, worldly, heathen state or government, was utterly to miss the true idea of the church and its organization. It was at once to put a human figmentary conception in the place of the divine thought. And in its workings it was nothing else than an attempt to repress, to confine, and to stereotype, in a dead, human, and heathen form of earthly government, the divinely living, growing, and heavenly church.

But the heathen idea and conception of things, passed off for the Christian idea and conception, is nothing but the Papacy. The heathen idea and conception of the church of God, passed off for the Christian idea and conception of that church, is the very essence of the Papacy. And the heathen form of a federated state, passed off as Christian and as the divine order and organization of the church of Christ and of God, is the Papacy full-formed. And for professed Protestantism, in spirit and in letter, to reproduce this thing, is to present to the world an image of the Papacy full-formed. And that the Congregationalists, whose very name stands for the independence of the congregation, should be found in this church-federation is a sufficient evidence of apostasy. But that the Baptists of all people, the Baptists, who have all these ages stood so nobly for the great truth of the individuality, the integrity, and the liberty, of the churches and of other people—that the Baptists should be found taking an active and leading part in this federation of churches, certainly indicates that the apostasy of the Protestant denominations is about complete.

That all that the Papacy has ever been should spring from the original church-federation and "confederation," is not at all surprising. Indeed, in view of the facts, it is the only thing that should be expected, or that could logically or intelligently be expected. And that now the living image of the Papacy will spring from church federation again, is the only thing that should be expected or that can logically or intelligently be expected. To say, to point out, that such can be the only outcome of church-federation, confederation, etc., now, is not in any sense to be considered extreme, it is in nowise to raise any prejudiced cry, nor yet is it to sound a mere scare-alarm. It is but the application of the calm faculties of sober sense, of intelligent discernment, and of logical deduction, to the unquestionable facts of history and truths of the Scripture; and is but the learning from these facts and truths the most obvious lessons—lessons that are plain everywhere on the very surface of the thing, and which grow only more forcible and more impressive the deeper the study is carried.

The errors in church-federation and of church-federation are many. They are palpable, they are deceptive, they are destructive. But of all these errors, the fundamental error is church-federation itself.