of Christ or those worshiping in local assemblies distributed over the
earth. The tie which united these members of Christ in one body
was their common faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and the life of the
Spirit. But as in those times vast centralized imperial power was
a divinity that every one worshiped, it was impossible properly to
appreciate _the moral and spiritual dominion_ of Christ by which
alone he designed to rule his church; therefore men soon proceeded to
pattern the church of Christ after the political government, first
by grouping together under one administrative human headship the
congregations of a province or section of the empire, and then finally
uniting these different provinces under one administrative headship
at Rome. From that day until the present time the church-idea that has
generally prevailed in Christendom has been an organization fashioned
according to the kingdoms of this world; a human organization in which
the administrative functions of government are centralized under some
form of human headship; a unity that is not moral and spiritual, but
official and administrative, as well as legislative and judicial.

[Sidenote: Wrong standard of church-membership]

Coincident with the creation of foreign ideals concerning church
societies was the formation of of a foreign idea of church-membership
and church-relationship. In the beginning, as we have shown, the
church was simply the divine family. Therefore salvation through
Christ was its sole condition of membership. "And the Lord added to
them day by day those that were being saved" (Acts 2:47, R.V.). And as
the local congregation was but the concrete expression of the ideals
of the general body or church, that membership in Christ which made
men members of the general body, made them, by a moral and spiritual
law, members of all the other members of Christ, and therefore fixed