e and function of the _ecclesia_, or
church of Jesus. One is the sacerdotal, and the other is what, for
want of a better name, I may term the evangelical. In outline the
former is as follows: before Jesus finally withdrew His bodily presence
from His disciples He formally constituted a religious society to
represent Him on earth. This society was to be the ark of salvation,
the "sphere of covenanted grace." Its principal work was to call men
out of a lost and ruined world and secure for them a blessed
immortality; those who were members of this church, and only they, were
certain of heaven. Membership therein was clearly defined; the gateway
was baptism. Those who were baptized in a proper way, even though they
were unconscious infants, were members of the church of Christ and all
others were outside. Within this sacred society souls were to be
trained in rightness of living, and, to an extent, made fit for heaven.
The Holy Spirit abiding in this society would sanctify the individual
members and guide them into all the truth. It is even held that Jesus
definitely appointed the way in which this church was to be governed.
Its affairs were to be managed by a threefold order,--bishops, priests,
and deacons. But here a division has taken place amongst the
sacerdotalists themselves owing to the necessity of finding some final
authority, some living voice, within this visible society to which
appeal in the last resort could be made. Romanists have found this in
the bishop of Rome whom they regard as the episcopal successor of the
apostle Peter. Devout Anglicans take their stand upon the faith as
defined by the first four general Councils, while in administrative
matters they regard the bishop as independent. The Greek church also
insists upon its autonomy.

This sacerdotal view has exercised enormous influence in Christian
history, and I have sufficient of the historic imagination to be able
to say that at certain times it has undoubtedly worked on the whole for
good. But did Jesus really found a church of this kind? I am quite
sure He never thought of such a thing, and historical criticism of
Christian origins does not leave the sacerdotalist much to stand on.
Jesus appointed neither bishop nor priest, and never ordained that any
merely mechanical ceremony should be the means of admission to the
Christian society or be necessary to the eternal welfare of anyone. In
the early church the bishop or elder was the