church government serves almost exclusively to keep the preaching pure and the sacraments
from being profaned. Hence it is not expedient to say: “If the Word of God be only preached
in its purity and the sacraments rightly administered, the church order is of minor import-
ance”; eliminate these two from the church order and very little remains of it.
The question is, therefore, whether these means of grace are to be arranged according
to our pleasure, or according to the will of Jesus. Does He allow us to trifle with them accord-
ing to our own notions, or does He rebuke and abhor all self-willed religion? If the last, then
also He must from heaven direct, govern, and care for His Church.
However, He does not compel us in this matter; He has left us the awful liberty of acting
against His Word and of substituting our form of government for His own. And that is the
very thing which misguided Christendom has done again and again. Through unbelief, not
seeing the King, it has frequently ignored, forgotten, deposed Him; it has established its
own self-willed régimein His Church, until at last the very remembrance of the lawful Sov-
ereign has been lost.
The individual church, still mindful of the kingship of Jesus, professes to bow uncondi-
tionally to His kingly Word as contained in the Scripture. Therefore, we say that in the state
198church of the Netherlands, whose church order not only lacks such profession, but lays the
supreme legislative power exclusively upon men, Christ's Kingship is mocked; that a pre-
tender has usurped His place, who must be removed as surely as it is written: "Yet have I
set My King upon My holy hill of Zion." (Psalm ii. 6)
Hence it must be maintained firmly and fearlessly that Jesus is not only the King of
souls, but also King in His Church; whose absolute prerogative it is to be the Lawgiver in
His Church; and that the power which contests that right most be opposed for conscience'
sake.
To the question, why the Church is so apt to forget the Kingship of Christ, so that many
a godly minister has not the slightest feeling for it, often saying: "Surely Jesus is King in the
realm of truth, but what does He care for the external church? I, at least, a spiritual man,
never attend the meetings of the official board"; we answer: "If Jesus had an earthly throne
and thence reigned personally over His Church, all men would bow before Him; but being
enthroned in heaven at the right hand of the Father, the King is forgotten; out of sight, out
of mind. Hence ignorance concerning the work of the Holy Spirit is the cause. Since Jesus
governs His Church not directly, but by His Word and Spirit, there is no respect for the
majesty of His sovereign government.
The spiritual eye of the believer must therefore be reopened for the work of the Holy
Spirit in the churches. The unspiritual man has no eye for it. A consistory, classis, or synod
is to him merely a body of men convened to transact business according to their own light,
the same as a meeting of the directors of a board of trade, or some other secular organization.
One is a shareholder and a committeeman, and as such assists in the administration of affairs
XXXIX. The Government of the Church