I select for a text for the morning's discussion a passage of scripture in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 23, verse 8:

"One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren."

Liberty, fraternity, equality are the thrilling ideas of this text. This is, therefore, a lawful text for a further investigation of our Baptist principles and practices. These noble ideas, liberty fraternity and equality are fundamental to the life of our Baptist people.

There is also a paradox in this text and it is also found in the polity of our Baptist churches. This Scripture announces in the same breath and in the same sentence the Mastery, the Kingship, the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ in the words, "One is your Master?" And announces also the freedom, the fraternity and the democracy of the saints in the last words, "All ye are brethren." The paradox of a Baptist church is that it is both an absolute monarchy and a pure democracy. So far as it relates to Christ and spiritual things, it is an absolute monarchy. It recognizes him as sole Sovereign, as both Lord and Master. In so far as a Baptist church relates tu earthly affairs, it is a great brotherhood, big and broad. Every member is equal to every other member. No member or body of its members exercises lordship over any other member; in other words, it is a pure democracy.

I might read from documents, both local and general, that have been passed upon by our people in all the years since we have begun to write confessions of faith which would justify the statement that I have just made. Let me take words from the Constitution of our Louisiana Baptist Convention:

"This Convention shall have no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the churches nor act as an advisory council in cases of differences between the churches, nor shall it interfere with the Constitution of any church or Association."

I quote from the Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention to this effect:

"That the Convention shall fully respect the independence and equal rights of the churches.''

I quote these words from Prof. Soars, Ph. D., D.D., of the Chicago University:

"The independence and equal rights of the churches have been most jealously guarded."

In the discussion of this subject this morning we are concerned only with the latter part of the text, having already discussed that part belonging to the absolute Lordship of Christ. "We shall see, then from this text and in our study that a pure democracy of the saints, as taught and practiced by our Baptist people is Scriptural, is reasonable, is right and is practicable.

First of all, then, let us see that this democracey of the saints, where there is a big, broad brotherhood with no individual saint or body of saints lording it over any others, is Scriptural. We read in Acts 1st, 15-26: where the Apostles called the brethren in Jerusalem together for the purpose of selecting a successor to Judas Iscariot and in these words we are told that all the brotherhood was called together and the matter laid before them and two brethren were nominated for the position and they were asked to stand up; and the 26th verse says of the congregation, of the brotherhood:

"They gave forth their lots" (that is, they cast their ballots) "and the lot fell upon Matthias and he was numbered with the eleven apostles."

That looks democratic, doesn't it? That looks practicable, doesn't it? That looks reasonable and right, doesn't it? It was a new thing in the world when Jesus Christ introduced that pure democracy, when there were monarchies in all the governments of the world.

We read again in the 6th chapter of Acts, verses 1 to 7, that a peculiar condition arose in the churches wherein there was much charity to be dispensed and the Apostles found it impossible to do all that work personally and also give themselves to the study of the Bible and to prayer, as was the apostles' duty, and so the twelve called the multitude of the disciples to them and said:

"It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables, wherefore, brethren look ye out among you seven men of honest report."

Why didn't the apostles ecclesiastically and domineeringly appoint those men themselves? They called the whole congregation together and the congregation elected seven brethren whose names are given:

V. 5. "And this saying pleased the whole multitude and they" (the congregation, the brotherhood, the church, by ballot by vote, democratically) "chose Stephen a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." etc.

In chapter 14 of the same Book of Acts, verse 23, we have these words.

"And when they had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting they commended them to the Lord whom they believed."

The word '' ordained,'' translated by leading scholars of every denomination, and which translation was not changed until the King James' translation, when a word was selected to fit into certain prevailing ideas, was translated "elected." The word is a combination in the Greek of two words which means "the hand" and "stretched forth." When preachers were to be selected by the churches, when missionaries were to be sent out, the whole congregation was called together and they were asked to pass upon the matter. They did it, as this word means and signifies, by stretching forth their hand. That is familiar isn't it? We see that in any Baptist church. "Make known your approval of this proposition by the show of the hand." it is Scriptural. The election of preachers by the congregation itself so done.

Barnes, the great Presbyterian commentator, and I might quote many others to the same effect, says:

"It evidently means they appointed them in the usual way of appointing officers, by the suffrage of the people."

And, by the way, these early churches which were started by Christ and the Apostles, were the original equal suffrage clubs, if you please.

Romans 14:1: We are told in this passage of Scripture that the church itself is to vote upon the reception of its members for a democracy must have a say-so as to the personnel of its membership and that the members are not to be put into the organization by the ecclesiastical authority or by priestly authority but by the vote of the church itself.

In 1st Corinthians, chapter 5; 1 to 5: we are told how these early churches excluded their members, not by a Pope or Bishop or ecclesiastical authority excommunicating them but by the vote of the congregation itself. We are told the same thing also in
2nd Thess, chapter 2, verse 6. In 2nd Cor. chapter 2, verse 6, there is a very important matter for democracies to consider, and that is the voting for the reception of members! or of the exclusion of members or the return of members or the choosing of a preacher or any other proposition that is before the congregation is to be done by the majority. Minorities have rights in democracies but not the right to rule. In democracies the majority is the authoritative voice and this is brought out in this Scripture.

Now that my interpretation of the Scriptures is clear, let me quote from some very eminent scholars. Moshiem, being himself an eminent Lutheran scholar and personally prejudiced against the Baptists, is not likely to say anything about the Baptists prejudicial to them. But here are his words:

"The churches in those early times were entirely independent, none of them being subject to any foreign jurisdiction but each governed by its own rulers and its own laws, for though the churches founded by the Apostles had this particular deference shown to them, that they were consulted in difficult and doubtful cases, yet they had no judicial authority, no sort of supremacy over the others nor the least right to enact laws for them."

Archbishop Whately, an eminent Episcopal scholar, says this about the early churches:

"They were each a distinct independent community on earth united by the common principles on which they were founded and by their mutual agreement, affection and respect; but not having any one recognized head on earth, or acknowledging any sovereignty of one of these societies over others."

I quote again from Archbishop Whately:

"Each church seems to have been perfectly independent as far as regards any power of control."

That students of the New Testament, unbiased and unprejudiced will come to this same conclusion concerning early churches by studying the splendid example that they set and which is demonstrated likewise by other lines of suggestion. Whenever a body of earnest Christians have gotten together for the study of the New Testament and for the organizing of themselves into an organic body for promoting the teachings of the New Testament, they have always been formed into a democracy. Take the story of Oncken in Hamburg, Germany, who with a few friends in 1834, got together for the study of the New Testament Scriptures. They organized themselves into a body for the propagation of the New Testament truths and from this little organization in Hamburg have come most of the Baptists of Germany.

Take the story of Baron Uixkull. He attended our Baptist World Alliance in Philadelphia a few years ago and traveled through the United States thrilling the people wherever he went with the story of the beginning of Baptists in Russia. They began in an investigation of the New Testament teachings without knowing any theory of the great Baptist brotherhood in the outside world.

The same story is repeated in the little Bethlehem colony of Mexico, and is repeated in other instances in Brazil.

One of the most interesting of these stories comes from the mountains of Switzerland. In the little mountain village that was shut out from the outside world and knew nothing of what was going on, a small band of men and women got together to study the New Testament and form themselves into a little body. Here they met and formulated a system of doctrine, prominent among them being the absolute authority of the Scriptures, the separation of the church and state, and the individual right of every Christian to worship God as the Word of God revealed itself to his own conscience, the democracy of the saints, baptism only upon a profession of faith in Christ. And after formulating this little system of doctrines, this little band of people wrote to a paper and said: "We are here and this is what we believe. If there is anybody else in all the world that believes the things we do, we would like to hear from them." They did not know whether in the great big world outside there was anybody that believed as they did or not. This little word found its way to some papers in Europe, England and Russia and went through Baptist papers around the world and that body of people was flooded with letters saying:

"Those are the fundamental doctrines of the Baptists, and there is a great body of us, more than seven million of us. It may be a matter of comfort to you to know that there are so many of us whereas you did not know there were any at all."

The simple study of the Word of God will reveal unmistakably these great principles, Let me quote a few words from Dr. Lipcomb, a noted Methodist scholar who has written much about the doctrines of his own church:

'' The Baptists maintain a democracy so absolute as to be almost without a parallel in history,''

Our second point is that the democracy of the saints is reasonable. That all should be brothers and that no master should lord it over them is perfectly consistent with individualism and with liberty. It is also reasonable from the standpoint of being consistent with the divine leadership. Is our access to God and our leadership from God to be by direct contact or indirect? When the Lord impresses upon your conscience and your heart a religious duty, are you to come by the way of a Priest or any other individual in an indirect process to reach God to find out what he wants you to do? In the matter of the selection of pastors, the selection of church officers, the performance of church duties, is the church to reach God and God's mind and God's will direct in prayer for its self or is it to go indirectly by way of Pope, Priest, Bishop, or Presbytery?

The doctrine of the democracy of the saints is perfectly consistent with the fundamental principle which we will admit that each individual soul has, absolute right to come to God for himself and no other. I read just recently of a minister of the Gospel who was called to another church. He offered his resignation to the church he was serving and asked to be released. He said: "I have prayed earnestly over this matter and I am sure God wants me to go to the other field of labor." The church passed the resignation on to the governing authority. The governing authority considered it for a while and said the minister must not go and he did not go. Now he had announced unequivocally that after long prayer and earnest searching for the mind of God he felt it his duty to go but somebody else said "No."

This democracy of the saints not only admits of the highest intellectuality in the individual but it requires that, if a man's doctrines are to be chosen by another and his principles are to be determined by another and his pastor is to be selected by another and all the work of the church is to be dominated by another then there is no need for him exercising very much intellectual concern over those matters. But if every individual is responsible for himself, for his vote, for an intelligent action in the matter of democratic direction of the church's affairs, he is under the bounden obligation to acquaint himself with all the practices, principles and politics of that organization in order that he may intelligently cast his vote.

I pass all this hurriedly to the last point and that is that the democracy of the saints is practicable. It is said over and over again that this principle of individualism in the churches will not work. It worked gloriously from 1770 to 1850 and the Baptists in the United States in those times of persecution grew from a little handful in Rhode Island and in Virginia to three hundred and fifty odd thousand. It has worked admirably in this latter half century when they have grown from three hundred and fifty thousand to over five million and there is a bond of unity and activity that is unparalleled. It will work because in concerns and matters of creeds, these individual bodies have no legislative duties. The law is already made in the New Testament. Confessions of faith may interpret those teachings but when confessions become binding they are injurious and not helpful.

"Creeds are useful" says Dr. Mullens, "as to the interpretation of the Scriptures at any particular period but as soon as they become binding they become decisive."

Whenever a creed or a human-made book of any sort becomes authoritative over the church there is at once set up a double standard of authority, one being the Word of God and the other the human book and it becomes confusing. The work of the church is administrative and not legislative.

It is composed of a regenerated membership. Our democratic form of church government is perfectly consistent with all its principles. If the membership is to be regenerated membership then why should it not be a democratic membership. Following the fifth century when the Roman Catholic church began to flourish and it was admitting to membership the unregenerated, the unsaved, the unredeemed, there was of necessity a bounden obligation to establish over them ecclesiastical authority, for an unregenerated, unredeemed one is not capable of exercising the purest democracy. That might be said with reference to our civil affairs. We boast of our democracy in government but I have sounded before and do so again the alarm that the greatest danger of a democratic government is the right of franchise in the hands of wicked men.

I trust that I am getting that principle clear before you for it is a fundamental and it is tremendously essential. You have found in our own government the danger of the corrupt vote of the negro or the unintelligent foreigner who is unacquainted with American principles. The church then that admits the unregenerated into its membership must of necessity have ecclesiastical authority over them. But the Baptist church that has only regenerated members must not have that authority for every saved man must be brother to every other saved man.

The functions then of the church are the propagation of the glorious Gospel of the Son of God. I quote again Dr. Mullens:

"Certainly the congregational polity was quite suited to the New Testament age and ere long the beacon fires of a new hope for mankind were kindled around the shores of the Mediterranean sea. Spiritual power waned as these democracies were left behind and Christianity went forth into the wilderness of the dark ages beneath the giant of sin, not with the spiritual weapons of the earlier days which under God had conquered the Roman power but with the carnal weapons which she had wrested from the hands of her conquered foe."

And wherever the democracy of the saints has been subjugated to ecclesiasticism, spirituality has waned in proportion and wherever the democracy of the saints has flourished, spirituality and missionary zeal for the propagation of the Gospel of the Son of God has likewise flourished.

The democracy of the saints is Scriptural, reasonable, right and practical.