CHAPTER IV. 



THE FEATURES OF THE CHURCH IN THE 

 x\POSTOLIC AGES. 



SIMILARITY OF CHARACTER AS EVERYWHERE PLANT- 

 ED — A KINGDOM ON EARTH, NOT OF THE EARTH 



BAPTISM CONFIRMATION EPISCOPACY LORD'S 



DAY LITURGIES. 



It is quite improbable that our Lord, in commis- 

 sioning the Apostles to establish His Church in the 

 world, would have left them without some directions. 

 What were those directions ? We do not find them 

 all fully recorded in the Sacred Scriptures. How 

 then can we ascertain what they were ? The 

 answer is briefly this : — So soon as the Church was 

 established in any place we find it possessed certain 

 prominent features. In whatever places it was 

 established those features were the same. It is fair 

 then to conclude that it assumed the form which 

 it possessed because of the directions the Saviour 

 gave the Apostles. 



Some of these features we do find explicitly stated 

 in the New Testament. Others of them are inci- 

 dentally alluded to. Others were doubtless com- 



