Chapter 7: The Foundation of the New Church

The foundation of the new church according to the norm of evangelical theology. First rule of its foundation: its members are holy. The holiness of the Jewish church is typological; of the Christian church, true. The preaching of John, requiring regeneration. And also of Christ Himself. And of the apostles. The holiness of the evangelical church proved. Second, it is established as Catholic. What its Catholicism is. Third, the institution of particular churches for the celebration of established worship; their nature. Fourth, the spiritual worship of the new church. Fifth, the written word alone, the rule of faith, worship, and obedience. Sixth, the presence of Christ through the Spirit.

I. We have shown, as we narrated the various degrees and modes of supernatural revelation, that divinely revealed theology has been the norm and root for the church of every age for the solemn celebration of the worship of God. We have also seen how, in these last days, through His only-begotten Son, who always is in the bosom of the Father, He set forth all the mysteries of His counsel concerning the demonstration of His glory in the salvation of sinners and concerning worship to be celebrated. We further pointed out the general nature of that most perfect revelation, insofar as it is communicated to men through the Holy Spirit. According to its norm, our Lord Jesus Christ instituted and erected the new church, which will endure until the consummation of the age. The plan of our undertaking requires that we briefly set forth its state and condition, insofar as they appear to depend on what has been expounded above. I shall speak, however, more briefly than so great a matter ought to be treated: partly because our present task is not to weigh directly and deliberately the nature of the evangelical church; partly because what remains to be said will be illuminated clearly enough by what has been said above; partly because we are called to other concerns, God so graciously disposing.

II. First, then, this theology requires that the evangelical church consist of the regenerate alone. Jesus Christ Himself, its foundation, the "living stone," admits only "living stones" to be laid upon Him and built into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:4). No mortal will ever become His disciple by any other means. Moreover, we have proved at length that the theology He Himself taught us requires the same. Let us add still other arguments. The Jewish people, into the state of the church [illegible]

"A holy people to Jehovah your God." Now just as all the institutions proper to that church were typological, and a shadow of spiritual good things to come, so that holiness which God ascribes to the whole people was nothing more than a certain prefiguration of that true holiness which the Lord Jesus was about to bestow upon His whole church through the Holy Spirit. We proved above that all their institutions were only a living edifice until the time of reformation. The Holy Spirit, therefore, looking forward to the end of these things which were to be abolished, describes in nearly every place in the Old Testament the enduring state of the future church. But nothing occurs more frequently in all the prophecies concerning that state, or is more solemnly set forth, than this true and saving holiness of the members of that church. See Psalms 2:6, 24:3, 4, 45:18, 68:18; Isaiah 11:8-10, 35:8, 54:11-14, 60:21; Ezekiel 47:9; Zechariah 14:20, 21; Malachi 3.

III. Now, when the kingdom of heaven had drawn near, John, who was sent to prepare the way of the Lord, expressly declared that true repentance — that is, new birth, or true holiness of life — was altogether necessary for entering the kingdom of God and obtaining the evangelical state of the church (Matthew 3:2). Furthermore: since very many were puffing themselves up with the external privileges which they enjoyed in the Jewish church by virtue of carnal descent from the stock of Abraham, he declares most plainly that those privileges would profit them nothing for obtaining any part in the kingdom of Christ, unless they truly repented (ver. 9, 10). Hence the prophets of old had declared that the coming of that Messiah, so greatly longed for by the Jewish church, would be exceedingly terrible to it; because He would utterly cut off from the bounds of the church all those who had not attained to true repentance, holiness, and piety (Malachi 3:1-5, 4:1-4). John teaches the same (Matthew 3:10). Christ, indeed, when He laid the foundations of the new church through His ministry, invited all sinners to Himself. Yet, just as He taught that no one could come to Him unless he were drawn by His Father (John 6:44), so He receives no one into His fold who has not professed true repentance. Indeed, He not only denies that anyone belongs to His church whose righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes (Matthew 5:20) — that is, the most rigorous profession of true religion and the most exact exercise of piety — or who has not denied himself (Matthew 10:38, 16:24; Luke 9:28); and who has not done many other things of that kind; but He also openly declares this at the outset of His preaching as the foundation and firmest rule of His entire church: namely, that no one, unless he has been born again, can either enter or see that kingdom of God which He was then erecting (John 3:3, 5).

IV. The preparatory ministry having been completed, the work of visibly gathering the church and separating it from the world was committed by Christ Himself to the apostles, evangelists, and other disciples, each according to his ability. What sort of persons they gathered into Christ's fold they themselves everywhere teach. They were born again, called with a holy and effectual calling, godly, faithful, holy, washed, justified, separated from the world and from all evil, children of God, instructed and anointed by the Holy Spirit, conformed to Christ, living stones, devoted to good works, and renewed in the image of God: Acts 2:41, 42, 47, 4:32, 8:37, 10:47, 13:48, 16:14, 15, 19:18, 19; Romans 1:7, 12:1, 2; 1 Corinthians 1:2, 9, 30, 16:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1, 8:5; Ephesians 1:1, 2, 18, 2:5, 9, 10; Philippians 1:1, 6, 7; Colossians 1:2-5; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; 2 Timothy 3:5; Hebrews 2:6; 1 Peter 2:4, 5; 2 Peter 1:1-4; 1 John 1:1-7; 3 John 1. But the profane, unbelieving, disobedient, ignorant of the mystery of the gospel, hypocrites, those conformed to the world, haters of good, and all others of that kind, they everywhere kept far from the bounds of the church. I acknowledge, indeed, that these things were done not in heaven, and not according to the heart-searching judgment of God, but among men. Although the greatest care was therefore taken that only Christ's sheep, and those who were obedient to Him, should be admitted into His holy fold —

— yet many hypocrites crept in, who afterward either disturbed the state of the church by shameful apostasy, or defiled it by their vicious continuance within it.

V. Secondly, this theology requires that the church be catholic with respect to its external condition. The church is no longer to be confined to one region, land, race, family, or nation; but by virtue of this theology, its boundaries were to be extended through all quarters of the world, through all languages, tribes, families, peoples, and nations, and through all conditions of men. No city, no mountain, no place or seat, no temple any longer enjoys a privilege above all others in respect of worship, presence, or divine blessing. The veil of the temple having been torn, the dividing wall broken down, the boundaries of the holy land removed and extended from the rising to the setting of the sun — all places and all peoples are held by God without distinction. Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, London, Oxford are no more pleasing to Him than the most obscure village in the remotest barbarity, where the evangelical worship is rightly celebrated and departure from iniquity is made through the Spirit of Christ. There is not even a shadow of such preeminence in all the preaching of the Old Testament, nor the slightest indication in the New of the priority of any seat, place, or city above others.

Testimonies to the contrary are found everywhere. Whereas it once pleased God to prefer one place above all others and to establish a particular seat of His worship, He not only everywhere pressed the honorable mention of it, but also commanded all His worshipers, under penalty of being cut off from the census of His people, to celebrate His solemn worship in that place. After the gospel was revealed, there is a deep silence about any such place or places, whether one or many. Concerning Rome there is nothing, except that in certain books its most shameful defection from Christ is wondrously foretold. "Wherever two or three are gathered together in the name of Christ, He Himself is in their midst." No one any longer can cast the faithful out of Christ's inheritance, since all the ends of the earth have been given to Him as His possession. Though they be driven by the force, fraud, and tyranny of the world and of Satan into deserted places and vast wildernesses, though they be banished to the far ends of the earth beyond the paths of the year and the sun — wherever they are, equally holy is the dust in which they sleep, equally holy their assemblies, as they would be in Rome, London, or Oxford. The sheepfolds of the poor, the barns of farmers, the dens of wild beasts, the summits of cliffs, caves and caverns of the earth — in which two or three, or more, of Christ's faithful servants are compelled to assemble to celebrate the worship prescribed for them by their Lord — these are no less pleasing to God than those buildings to which some would wish, in most foolish resistance to the whole genius of evangelical theology, to bind the solemn worship of God.

VI. Thirdly, the Lord Jesus, in this theology, gave commandment to all His disciples and subjects of His kingdom that the evangelical worship should be performed everywhere on earth visibly and solemnly, to the glory of God, the edification of the faithful in faith and mutual love, and their consolation — those who, being separated from the world, are united among themselves by the bond of brotherly love, in

— particular assemblies (in which they were to designate and choose, in His name, those who would preside over them). For He willed His people in the day of His power to be altogether willing. Accordingly, just as He established the bounds and limits of His catholic church by subjecting through the efficacy of grace the wills of the elect people to His authority — so that the church would extend exactly as far as the willing people were prepared to submit themselves to Him — so also for these particular assemblies, in which alone the evangelical worship instituted by Him can rightly be performed, He established no other limits than the wills of the faithful who gather themselves into them.

VII. That one family, one city, one town, or one village, one race, one people, or one kingdom should be one church — this Christ never anywhere taught. But the source of the constitution of a particular evangelical church is the voluntary obedience of Christ's faithful disciples; relying on His authority alone, they come together into the society He Himself established. For He, as we have said, instituted that all the faithful everywhere on earth should gather themselves into assemblies of this kind, in which they would devote themselves to evangelical worship according to His prescription, exercise the discipline instituted by Him, and, by holiness, zeal for good works, and the highest mutual observance of peace and charity, maintain and advance the welfare of the whole assembly. The faithful who were obedient to His word formerly established such assemblies everywhere on earth, and will continue to establish them until the consummation of the age.

VIII. Fourthly, this theology teaches that the religious worship which the Lord Jesus willed to be celebrated in those assemblies is plainly spiritual. Christ dismissed all external splendor and all carnal adornment, however resplendent with visible glory, by newly appointing to His worship very few ceremonies, and those simple ones. See (John 4:23; 2 Corinthians 3:6-11; Hebrews 9:1-12). But as long as it pleased God to employ in His worship those things which were glorious in visible and carnal adornment, He Himself prescribed everything expressly, at length, and accurately, down to the smallest detail. The Lord Jesus could therefore not more expressly have expelled all worldly adornment and all ceremonies — those beyond what He Himself expressly instituted — from any place in His worship, than He did by His silence throughout this entire theology. To worship He also added a discipline, the preserver of evangelical obedience, spiritual in nature and to be administered spiritually — of which we treat elsewhere.

IX. Fifthly, in order that all things in His churches might be rightly performed according to the will of God, the Lord Jesus willed this evangelical theology — committed to writing by His command —

1 Vol. 16 of the works of this edition. — Ed.

— to be the sole norm and rule of faith, obedience, and all worship; and thus He willed that His word be no less unique in the churches than He Himself is. Whatever is done in them beyond His prescription is done without His authority (Matthew 28:18-20). X. Sixthly, to these assemblies gathered in His name He graciously promised His presence through the Holy Spirit until the consummation of the age (Matthew 28:20; John 14:15, 16, 16:7). That one Spirit, whom He commanded the faithful to seek with all their prayers from the Father (Luke 11:13), He willed to be all in all throughout the whole of evangelical worship. See (Luke 12:10; John 3:5, 6, 8, 4:24; Romans 7:6, 8:1, 2, 9, 18, 26, 15:30; 1 Corinthians 2:4, 12:13; 2 Corinthians 3:8; Galatians 5:16, 25; Ephesians 2:18, 4:3, 5:18, 6:17, 18; Philippians 1:19, 2:1; 1 Thessalonians 5:19). And thus the Lord Jesus sent forth into the world His disciples, instructed in this theology, to glorify Him and His Father through the Spirit.