has now been illustrated.  This polity was obviously based upon the principle that “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” [621:1] At the meetings of the elders, information was multiplied, the intellect was sharpened, the brethren were made better acquainted with each other, and the Christian cause enjoyed the benefit of the decisions of their collective wisdom.  The members had been previously elected to office by the voice of the people, so that the Church had pre-eminently a free constitution.  And it is no mean proof as well of the intrepidity as of the zeal of the early Christian ministers that, at a time when their religion was proscribed, they sometimes undertook lengthened journeys for the purpose of meeting in ecclesiastical judicatories.  They thus nobly asserted the principle that Christ has established in His Church a government with which the civil magistrate has no right whatever to intermeddle.  It has been said that the early Christian councils “changed nearly the whole form of the Church,” and that by them “the influence and authority of the bishops were not a little augmented.” [621:2] But this is obviously quite a mistaken view of their native tendency.  The face of the Church was, indeed, changed at an early period, but it was simply because these councils yielded with too much facility to the spirit of innovation.  Had they been always conducted in accordance with primitive arrangements, they could have crushed in the bud the aspirations of clerical ambition.  But when the city ministers were rapidly accumulating wealth, their brethren in rural districts remained poor; and when councils began to meet on a scale of increased magnitude, the village and country pastors, who could not afford the expenses of lengthened journeys, were unable to attend.  Meanwhile Prelacy established itself in the great towns, and the influence of the city bishops began gradually to preponderate in all ecclesiastical assemblies.  When the prelates had once secured their ascendency in these conventions, they made use of the machinery for their own purposes.  The people were deprived of many of their rights and privileges; the elders were stripped of their proper status; the village and rural bishops were extinguished; and at length the ancient presbytery itself disappeared.  The city dignitaries became the sole depositories of ecclesiastical power, and the Church lost nearly every vestige of its freedom.  But, long after the beginning of the fourth century, many remnants of the primitive polity still survived as memorials of its departed excellence.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CEREMONIES AND DISCIPLINE OP THE CHURCH AS ILLUSTRATED BY CURRENT CONTROVERSIES AND DIVISIONS.