The Necessity of Church Government.
A Church without government must be a Church without order and without power. Even a State, to be powerful and united, must be well governed.
If there be government, there must be the rulers and the ruled. If there are no rulers, or if all are rulers, there is no government; and if there is no government, unity breaks up, compactness is gone, discipline is impossible, purity is hopeless.
The moment two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus, government begins; and when the two or three are multiplied then government develops itself, and the necessity for the control of law and for the recognition of some to carry out that law becomes indispensable. If all things in the Church are to be done decently and in order, law and administration must step in, otherwise every man will do what is right in his own eyes.
In the Church, as in the State, there have been in all centuries two extremes of rule - despotism and socialism. Did the Head of the Church mean either of these? Do we find, either in His own words or in those of His apostles, and intimation of these? He meant His Church to be governed. Has He anywhere indicated His purpose that it should be governed by one or governed by all?
Perhaps the ecclesiastical tendencies of our day do not favour the former so much as the latter, yet still it is needful that these two opposing governmental systems should be examined. It may be found that there is a more excellent way than either, a way which preserves all that is good in both, and yet exhibits something more perfect, more sufficient, and more scriptural than they.
One of the great truths brought up by the Reformation was individual responsibility and individual energy. The great ecclesiastical aggregate of ages was broken up and each man made to feel his own importance and power. Then came the question, How are these individualities to be regulated and brought into harmonious action? What government, or principles for the construction of a government, are to be found in the New Testament: Different answers were given, and the results of these still remain impressed upon the different Protestant Churches of the world. Rome has retained its ancient method of ruling the irresponsible aggregate for which she thinks and believes and performs religion; but for men beginning to exercise the birthright of individual responsibility, something less despotic was necessary. Consciences were alive, and living consciences were not to be pressed down and crushed by mere weight and power. England answered the question in one way, Germany in another, Switzerland and Scotland in another.
The object of the present volume is to investigate this great question, for great assuredly it is. The results of the author's investigations are now before the public. Let them be calmly studied. The subject has not been discussed superficially, but minutely and carefully, and learning and ability. The whole question has been most thoroughly gone into, yet without diffusiveness or irrelevant expansion.
The volume is one specially for our students and for the members of our churches, that they may know why they are Presbyterians, and that they may be able to give a scriptural an intelligent reason to others for their adherence to the ecclesiastical government which John Knox reared, Andrew Melville consolidated, and Samuel Rutherford defended.
Horatius Bonar
Edinburgh, January 1872.
Preface to "The Government of the Kingdom of Christ" by J. Moir Porteous (1872, 3rd Ed 1888).
[For a correction of Presbyterian mythology on the views of Knox and the early Scottish Reformers see Richard L. Greaves "Theology & Revolution in the Scottish Reformation" Christian University Press (W.B.Eerdmans) 1980, Chapter 4 "The Ministry and Government of the Church, especially page 81-82 where it is shown that the provision of Superintendents (Bishops) was to be a permanent feature of the Scottish Church envisioned by Knox and how Knox and others approved of the "Second Helvetic Confession" (1566) which sanctioned Bishops.]