president of the little
Christian society meeting in any particular locality. Primitive
Christian organisation was anything but rigid and formal, and was as
far as possible from the sacerdotal model. I do not say that the
sacerdotal mode of organisation which gradually grew up was wholly
mischievous, nor do I say that the primitive Christian organisation
would be the best under all circumstances. All I maintain is that in
founding His new society Jesus did not ordain any particular form of
organisation.

+The evangelical theory.+--The other view of the meaning of the word
"church" to which I have already referred, is that it is the totality
of the followers of Jesus. Under this view organisation is a secondary
matter. There are many reasons why Christian societies should organise
themselves differently from one another. Temperament plays a great
part in the matter. But theories of church government have ceased to
be the burning questions that they once were. Most sensible men are
now satisfied that forms of government matter much less than the kind
of life which flourishes in the society itself.

+What the church exists for to-day.+--But what does the church exist
for, using the word in its primitive sense? What ought it to exist for
to-day? What is the justification for all the vast number of Christian
organisations which exist throughout the world? This is a subject upon
which a clear note needs to be sounded, for a great deal of mental
confusion exists in regard to it. Two inconsistent views of the work
of the church, as well as of the constitution of the church, have come
down the ages together and exist side by side in the world to-day. The
first is that the chief business of the church is to snatch men as
brands from the burning and get them ready for a future heaven. The
Fall theory has had much to do with this. The assumption behind it is,
as we have seen, that the world is a City of Destruction, as Bunyan
calls it. It is a ruined world, a world which has somehow baffled and
disappointed God, a failure of a world which, when the cup of its
iniquity is full, will be utterly destroyed as a general judgment.
When that dreadful day comes it will be bad for all those who are
outside the fellowship of Christ, for, like those who have died without
availing themselves of the means of salvation, they will be relegated
to everlasting torment in the world unseen. This view of the fate of
the world as bei