02.05. The Doctrine of the Church

V. THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH The church is not the expression of one idea, but of many. Only the most salient and distinctive ideas are here cited:

(1) The church is a spiritual body. None but the regenerate should belong to it. It is not a savior, but the home of the saved. I once heard a preacher say: "Join the church if you have no more religion than a horse. Join the church to get religion." When my own soul was concerned about salvation, a preacher urged me to partake of the Lord’s Supper in order that I might be converted thereby.

(2) Separation of church and state. The state, a secular body for secular ends, can never be united to the church, a spiritual body for spiritual ends, without irreparable injury to both. United with the state, the church can never obey Christ. "Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers, What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Come out from among them and be ye separate." There cannot be union of church and state without persecution for conscience’ sake. There cannot be a pure and converted ministry when politicians appoint the preachers. There cannot be free speech by the church against national sins when the state holds the purse, See the awful consequences of Luther’s mistake on this point in Germany. There, today, the owner of all licensed sins, gambling houses, race tracks, saloons, houses of prostitution, must exhibit certificate of church membership. The blackest pages of American history are those which record the evils of the union of church and state in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia. And in everyone of them Baptists were persecuted unto blood, stripes, imprisonment and confiscation of property. Massachusetts whipped Obadiah Holmes, imprisoned Clark and banished Roger Williams. At Ashfield, in Connecticut, our Baptist fathers had the choicest parts of their farms and gardens sold under the sheriff’s hammer to raise a fund for building a house of worship for another denomination and for the support of its preacher, who had virtually no congregation in that community. In Virginia, Craig, Lunsford, Waller and others were imprisoned. The products of Baptist farms were seized to support a cock-fighting, horse-racing, hard-drinking Episcopal ministry. In England and on the continent of Europe time would fail to tell the story of their wrongs, scourgings, cruel mockings, imprisonment and bloody death at the hands of the state church. In every age of the world they have testified for a free church in a free state. From its spiritual nature the church cannot rightfully become a political factor. Its members, indeed, as individuals and citizens merely, may align themselves at will with political parties according to each several judgment. On this very account the politician does not court the Baptist church. But any general organization called the church that becomes a mighty political factor, controlling the vote of its members through its clergy, they will court. They censure that church only with hated breath and in confidential whispers. They laud it from the housetops and often make occasion for public eulogiums.

(3) The church is a particular congregation and not an organized denomination. This idea of the church is fundamental and vital and yet least of all understood by the rest of the world-even the religious world. Here, therefore, I would make everything clear and plain. With Greeks, Romanists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists and many others the church is an organized denomination having appellate jurisdiction over its particular congregations. In history, the church as an organized general body, or denomination, has assumed the following forms:

(a) Papistical or autocratic.

It starts with the idea of an earthly head. This autocrat must be the successor of some apostle, himself a primate. Inspiration must rest upon him. All Christendom must be under him. Commencing with the union of church and state under Constantine, the idea reached its final development in the Vatican Council, A. D. 1870, which declared the Pope infallible.

(b) Practical or episcopal. That is, the church is a general body, governed by the bishops, bishop now having lost its New Testament meaning.

(c) Presbyterian. That is, the church is a general body or organized denomination, governed by its presbyters, through synods and general assemblies. In all of these the particular congregation is under the appellate jurisdiction of the higher power, the General Assembly for the Presbyterians, the General Conference for the Methodists, the Bishops for the Church of England, the Pope for the Romanists. It follows that all these general organizations must have a graded series of courts, ending with a supreme court whose decisions bind all the denomination. And of course these higher courts provide for regular trials, with all necessary forms of law. And also, of course, the sessions of these high courts must last quite a long time in order to attend to all these trials. With all of them the church is an organized denomination having appellate and final jurisdiction over all particular congregations.

Now, in opposition to all these, the Baptists hold that the New Testament church is a particular congregation and not an organized denomination. According to the New Testament: "In Christ, each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into holy temple in the Lord." Each congregation is complete temple in itself, and has final jurisdiction over all its affairs. This is the church, to which grievances must be told, and whose decision is final. (Matthew 18:15-18) The most forceful and popular objection urged against this idea of the church is that it will be powerless to secure unity of faith, uniformity of discipline, and co-operation in general work among the churches. This objection comes from the viewpoint of human reason. And we frankly admit that whatever theory of the church fails necessarily and generally to secure these great ends discounts itself in probability as scriptural in favor of any other theory which does secure these great ends, simply because we cannot conceive of God’s wisdom failing. On this account, once in the Northern States of our Union, and more recently in the Southern States, there have been tendencies among Baptists which if they had been successful and followed to their logical consequences would have resulted in this idea of the church:

(d) A federation, like the United States. In this the representative system prevails. Each state selects its representatives, delegates powers to them, projects its sovereignty into the general body, and there merges it into a supreme government for national affairs. These mistaken brethren, North and South, started out with the contention that a Baptist general body, whether district association, state convention or national convention, must be composed of churches alone, represented by delegates having delegated powers. But a Baptist church cannot project or merge its sovereignty into a general body of any kind, nor delegate its powers. There is not and cannot be a Baptist federal body.

Read again Dr. Wayland’s great book, The Principles, and Practices of the Baptists, and there see how the unscriptural idea perished before the wisdom of the brethren. As the good doctor says, "we now wonder that anybody ever supposed that there could be a representative Baptist general body." In like manner, in the South, all attempts to reduce our Southern Baptist Convention or state bodies to this basis have failed for similar good reasons. Our general bodies are purely voluntary, and composed of individuals, not churches. They are solely for counsel and co-operation. They cannot have trials, seeing they possess no ecclesiastical powers. Their sessions have no time for trials, lasting only three or four days. In considering the one question of eligibility for membership in the body they must necessarily act in a summary way on account of time. Their declining to seat any man in no way affects his ecclesiastical status. To ask for regular trial before a Baptist general body, or to claim all the legal forms of procedure in regular courts, whether ecclesiastical or civil, is all absurdity on its face and betrays ignorance of fundamental Baptist principles.

It is just upon this point the world, with its graded courts, and other denominations, with their graded courts and regular forms of trial, fail to understand Baptist principles. They look upon any decision of our general bodies touching membership as similar to the decision of their courts and marvel at our lack of regular forms of trial. The average man thinks of the Methodist Conference and of the Presbyterian Assemblies or of the courts of the country in deciding upon the merits of a decision on membership by a Baptist general body, and wonders why we do not observe the usual forms of regular courts. They fail to see that a Baptist general body, unlike a Methodist Conference or Presbyterian Assembly, is not and cannot be a court, because with Baptists the church is a particular congregation and not an organized denomination. The particular church is a court and does have its regular forms of trial. No Baptist general body could complete one trial, according to forms of law, in ten years, considering the time at its disposal and the multitude and magnitude of legitimate work that must be considered in its short sessions. The supreme question then arises, can we with our ideas of the church secure unity of the faith, guard against hurtful schisms, bring about substantial uniformity of discipline, and, above all, secure co-operation in the great departments of work beyond the ability of a single church, namely, missions, education, religious literature and philanthropy?

It is simply stated as all historical fact, without argument here, that Baptists come nearer to uniformity of faith and discipline and have fewer hurtful schisms than the denominations which seek to secure these results by their iron general organizations. With history before us we are willing to compare results. As to the success of co-operation by our simple methods, we may here in Texas point to a denomination. Since our session in San Antonio in 1897, which eliminated non-cooperation and obstruction, this State Convention has raised more than a million dollars in cash for education, missions, orphanage, Church building and other departments of work. We can find no building that will hold our Convention when assembled. Spiritual power, mighty faith, melting prayer and marvelous unanimity characterize our assemblies. While the world stands this demonstration will avail for justification of our theory of the church.

(4) The church is a pure democracy.

Indeed, it is the only one in the world. There is no disbarment of franchise on account of race, education, wealth, age or sex. In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, bond or free, man or woman or child. All its members are equal fellow-citizens, and the majority decides. It is of his people, for the people, by the people. This democracy receives and dismisses its members, chooses or deposes its own officers, and manages its own affairs.

(5) It is the supreme court in Christ’s kingdom.

All cases of discipline come before it, and its decisions are final and irreversible by any human power apart from itself. Of course, it is under law to Christ. It possesses judicial and executive but no legislative powers. Christ is the only lawmaker and the New Testament is his law. Its judicial powers cover all cases of grievances and fellowship. It is Christ’s court. Our Lord foresaw the inadequacy of secular courts to adjudicate religious differences. The very atmosphere of secular courts is adverse to the religious spirit. Our Lord himself was a victim before the courts of Pilate and Herod. He warned his people that, in every age, they would he dragged before these courts, and clearly foretold what they must expect at the bar of these tribunals.

One of his most impressive lessons of the New Testament is the recital of the trials of his ministers before them. Nearly every one of his apostles was put to a violent death by their decisions. Who has not thrilled at the story of Paul before the magistrates at Philippi, before Gallio, Felix, Festus, Agrippa and Nero? Our Lord carefully provided for the settlement of religious differences before his own court. Hear the indignant protest of his apostle against the violators of his law in this respect: "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before his saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life! If then ye have judgment of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are at least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?"

(6) The officers of the church are bishops and deacons, the first charged with spiritualities and the second with temporalities. The idea of a metropolitan bishop, having charge of all the churches of a great city, or of a diocesan bishop, having charge of a province, or state, is of post-apostolic origin and subversive of the scriptural idea of the bishop.

(7) The ordinances of the church are but two, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, neither as a means of grace, but both purely figurative and commemorative. The elements of validity in baptism are: (a) it must be by proper authority; (b) its subject is a penitent believer or saved person; (c) the act is immersion; (d) the design is a declaration or confession of faith, symbolizing the cleansing from sin and commemorative of the resurrection. The Supper is a festival observed by the church as a body, and commemorates the atoning death of our Lord and anticipates his second advent. Who may deny that this doctrine of the church is a distinctive principle of the Baptists? Allow me to sum up in one sentence the complex idea of the church: It is a spiritual body; it must be separated from the state; it is a particular congregation and not an organized denomination, whether Papistical, Episcopal, Presbyterian or federal; it is a pure democracy; it is Christ’s executive and judiciary on earth; its officers are bishops and deacons; its ordinances are baptism and the Lord’s Supper. And now, brethren, allow me to put before you a mental diagram embodying the most of what has been said and which itself as a whole is distinctive of the Baptists. We will call it