CHAPTER II. THE PRIMITIVE CHURCHES FORMED AFTER THE MODEL OF THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUE. THE apostles and the first disciples were Jews, who, after their conversion, retained the prejudices and partialities of their nation. They observed still all the rites of their religion; and, firmly believing that salvation by Christ belonged only to the circumcision, they refused the ministry of reconciliation to the Gentiles. All their national peculiarities led them to conform the Christian to the Jewish church. With the temple-service and the Mosaic ritual, however, Christianity had no affinity. The sacrificial offerings of the temple, and the Levitical priesthood, it abolished. But in the synagogue-worship, the followers of Christ found a more congenial institution. It invited them to the reading of the Scriptures, and to prayer. It gave them liberty of speech in exhortation, and in worshipping and praising God. The rules and government of the synagogue, while they offered little, comparatively, to excite the pride of office and of power, commended themselves the more to the humble believer in Christ. The synagogue was endeared to the devout Jew by sacred associations and tender recollections. It was near at hand, and not, like the temple, afar off. He went but seldom up to Jerusalem; and only on great occasions joined in the rites of the temple-service. But in the synagogue he paid his constant devotions to the God of his fathers. It met his eye in every place. It was constantly before him, and from infancy to hoary age, he was accustomed to repair to that hallowed place of worship, to listen to the reading of his sacred books, to pray and sing praises unto the God of Israel. In accordance with pious usage, therefore, the apostles continued to frequent the synagogues of the Jews. Wherever they went, they resorted to these places of worship, and strove to convert their brethren to faith in Christ, not as a new religion, but as a modification of their own. In their own religious assemblies they also conformed, as far as was consistent with the spirit of the Christian religion, to the same rites, and gradually settled upon a church-organization which harmonized, in a remarkable manner, with that of the Jewish synagogue. They even retained the same name, as the appellation of their Christian assemblies. “If there come into your assembly, ovvaywyýv, if there come into your synagogue a man with a gold ring, etc." James 2: 2. Compare also novvazwyýv. Heb. 10: 25. Their modes of worship were, substantially, the same as those of the synagogue. The titles of their officers they also borrowed from the same source. The titles, Bishop, Pastor, Presbyter, etc., were all familiar to them, as synonymous terms, denoting the same class of officers in the synagogue. Their duties and prerogatives remained, in substance, the same in the Christian church as in that of the Jews. So great was this similarity between the primitive Christian churches and the Jewish synagogues, that by the Pagan nations they were mistaken for the same institutions. Pagan historians uniformly treated the primitive Christians as Jews,1 As such, they suffered under the persecutions of their idolatrous rulers. These, and many other particulars that might be mentioned, are sufficient to show, that the ecclesiastical polity of the Jewish synagogue was very closely 1 Vitringa, De Synagog. Vet. Prolegom. pp. 3, 4. copied by the apostles and primitive Christians in the organization of their assemblies. In support of the foregoing statements, authorities to any extent, and of the highest character, might easily be adduced. Let the following, however, suffice, from Neander, who is generally acknowledged to be more profoundly skilled in the history of the Christian church than any other man now living. "The disciples had not yet attained a clear understanding of that call, which Christ had already given them by so many intimations, to form a church entirely separated from the existing Jewish economy; to that economy they adhered as much as possible; all the forms of the national theocracy were sacred in their esteem; it seemed the natural element of their religious consciousness, though a higher principle of life had been imparted, by which that consciousness was to be progressively inspired and transformed. They remained outwardly Jews, although, in proportion as their faith in Jesus as the Redeemer became clearer and stronger, they would inwardly cease to be Jews, and all. external rites would assume a different relation to their internal life. It was their belief, that the existing religious forms would continue till the second coming of Christ, when a new and higher order of things would be established, and this great change they expected would shortly take place. Hence the establishment of a distinct mode of worship was far from entering their thoughts. Although new ideas respecting the essence of true worship arose in their minds from the light of faith in the Redeemer, they felt as great an interest in the temple worship as any devout Jews. They believed, however, that a sifting would take place among the members of the theocracy, and that the better part would, by the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah, be incorporated with the Christian community. As the believers, in opposition to the mass of the Jewish nation who remained hardened in their unbelief, now formed a community inter nally bound together by the one faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and by the consciousness of the higher life received from him, it was necessary that this internal union should assume a certain external form. And a model for such a smaller community within the great national theocracy already existed among the Jews, along with the temple worship, namely, the synagogues. The means of religious edification which they supplied, took account of the religious welfare of all, and consisted of united prayers and the addresses of individuals who applied themselves to the study of the Old Testament. These means of edification closely corresponded to the nature of the new Christian worship. This form of social worship, as it was copied in all the religious communities founded on Judaism (such as the Essenes), was also adopted, to a certain extent, at the first formation of the Christian church. But it may be disputed, whether the apostles, to whom Christ committed the chief direction of affairs, designed from the first that believers should form a society exactly on the model of the synagogue, and, in pursuance of this plan, instituted particular offices for the government of the church corresponding to that model-or whether, without such a preconceived plan, distinct offices were appointed, as circumstances required, in doing which they would avail themselves of the model of the synagogue with which they were familiar." The latter supposition is forcibly advocated by Neander,3 who proceeds to say, "Hence, we are disposed to believe, that the church was at first composed entirely of members standing on an equality with one another, and that the apostles alone held a higher rank, and exercised a directing influence over the whole, which arose from the original position in which Christ had placed them in relation to other believers; so that the whole arrangement and administration of the affairs of 2 Apost. Kirch. 3d edit. p. 31. Comp. 179, 198. 3 Comp, also, Rothe, Anfänge, p. 163. Note. the church proceeded from them, and they were first induced by particular circumstances to appoint other church officers, as in the instance of deacons."4 To the same effect is also Neander's account of this subject in his Church History, where he shows that this organization of Christian churches was the most natural under existing circumstances, and the most acceptable, not only to Jewish converts, but to those who were gathered from the subjects of the Roman government.5 If the reader require other authority on this subject, he has only to examine Vitringa, De Synagoga Vetere, especially his third book, to say nothing of Selden, Lightfoot, and many others. Vitringa himself has fully sustained the bold title which he gives to his immortal work, -“Three books on the ancient Synagogue; in which it is demonstrated, that the form of government and of the ministry in the synagogue was transferred to the Christian church." It is gratifying to observe, that these views of the great Lutheran historian are fully avowed by Archbishop Whately with his usual independence and candor. "It is probable that one cause, humanly speaking, why we find in the Sacred Books less information concerning the Christian ministry and the constitution of church-governments than we otherwise might have found, is that these institutions had less of novelty than some would at first sight suppose, and that many portions of them did not wholly originate with the apostles. It appears highly probable,-I might say, morally certain, that, wherever a Jewish synagogue existed, that was brought, the whole, or the chief part of it,-to embrace the gospel, the apostles did not, there, so much form a Christian church (or congregation,* ecclesia), as make an 4 P. 33. Comp. 195, seq. So, also, Rothe, Anfänge, S. 146–148. 5 Kirchen, Gesch. I. S. 183-185. * The word "congregation," as it stands in our version of the Old Testament, (and it is one of very frequent occurrence in the Books of |