Unauthorized Ecclesiastical Systems, by W. E. Vine
the following is an excerpt from chapter 1 of W.E. Vine's excellent book THE CHURCH AND THE CHURCHES. It is available freely on the Internet, and also in printed form from various sources. Unauthorized Systems Events at Jerusalem, therefore, provide no support for the establishment of a controlling centre for the organization of churches. One will search in vain in the Acts and the Epistles for even an intimation of the establishment of such an institution. Apart from such matters as the supply, by churches in a district, of the needs of poor saints in another region, the only bond binding churches together was spiritual, that of a common life in Christ and the indwelling of the same Holy Spirit. There was no such thing as external unity by way of federation, affiliation or amalgamation, either of churches in any given locality or of all the churches together. Apostolic testimony is, indeed, against the organization of churches into an ecclesiastical system. There is...