The Church: its Ministry and Authority BY THE REV. DARWELL STONE, M.A. LIBRARIAN OF PUSEY HOUSE, OXFORD FORMERLY PRINCIPAL OF DORCHESTER MISSIONARY COLLEGE THIRD EDITION NEW YORK EDWIN S. GORHAM GHURCH MISSIONS HOUSE, FOURTH AVENUE, AND 22ND STREET 1908 702 5897ch 1908 PREFACE The THIS book is an attempt to state in a short and clear CHAP. CONTENTS 1. Anticipations of the Church before the teach- II. The Church in the Gospels,. III. The Church in the Acts of the Apostles, THE CHURCH: ITS MINISTRY AND AUTHORITY CHAPTER I ANTICIPATIONS OF THE CHURCH BEFORE THE TEACHING OF CHRIST Introductory.-The description of the Church contained in the New Testament is one of surpassing grandeur. It is there represented as the kingdom and family and household of God the Father, as the body of God the Son made Man, and as the temple and home of God the Holy Ghost. It would have been altogether contrary to the general method of the divine working in nature and in grace if so splendid and so overwhelming an idea had been given to the world without any work of preparation or without fitting surroundings in which it might live and from which it might extend. And, as a matter of fact, the preparation had lasted for many centuries; and it was amid surroundings in which this had been most fully carried out that the Church was proclaimed and began to be. The Preaching of S. John the Baptist.-As S. John the Baptist was the herald and forerunner of the teaching and work of our Lord generally, so also was he of the Church in particular. It was part of his office to foretell and proclaim the coming of the Saviour who as the Lamb of God should redeem mankind (Luke iii. 6; John i. 36). It was another part of it to preach and to administer that baptism of repentance which supplied the final stage in the preparation for the institution of the Christian Sacrament of Baptism (Matt. iii. 6, 11; A |