If you return to the truth of the scriptures no doubt you will suffer persecution, but no pen can tell the blessedness, and deliverance, and deep enjoyment, of communion with Christ that is the portion of every child of God gathered together truly to Christ, in His precious name.
Do you think it is a light matter to refuse the gifts of Christ and the guidance of the Spirit in the assembly; and to set up in its place an ordained man-be that man who he may? Can you thus grieve and quench the Spirit, and not suffer in soul? Impossible.
Oh, fellow Christians, awake, awake, to these solemn truths. Search the scriptures. Will you? Will you obey them? Do you own their authority? God give you decision and purpose of heart. I write to you thus in the love of Christ. I long for your deliverance, and am not ignorant of Satan's devices to keep you where you are. I write strongly, but there is power in truth to the children of God.
Just think, if all the believers in your town were gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus, truly owning Him as Lord, and all filled with the Holy Ghost, all of one mind and soul, each having one object-the glory of Christ-no clerical hindrance to the gifts of Christ, the Spirit using all the gifts in divine power, sectarianism not received-abhorred; tell me now, what would be the effect on the world of all this? The gifts are so rejected and disallowed, that we can form no idea how many are laid aside now. I heard of one minister in Ireland saying lately, he had found forty evangelists in what he called his church! All these had been dormant. Ah, can you conceive anything so dreadful, so hindering, as this ordained ministry received from Rome?
One question more, Is it not said that Timothy was ordained the first bishop of the church of the Ephesians?
Certainly not in scripture, but in a note which has been added to the end of 2 Timothy. It is impossible that this could be true. It would not only have entirely set aside the order of God; but when the apostles sent for the elders (Acts 20), there is not the slightest allusion to such a person as the bishop of Ephesus; and there must have been, had such been the case.
Well, but he might have been after this time?
Then he could not have been the first, for the elders are called bishops as we have seen. It was evidently another name for the office of elder. We must conclude then, the more we search the scriptures, the more evident it becomes that the whole pretensions of episcopacy have no foundation in the word of God.
Only once more. Is it not true, that the episcopacy is found in the most early church history?
It is. And what does this prove? That the most early so-called church history, is the history of that ecclesiastical system which so soon entirely set aside the order of ministry we find in scripture. The one is of God, and found in His word; the other of man, and found in his history. Which shall we follow?
Many of these remarks apply to the episcopacy, falsely called the church-whether of Rome, or England. But what of all the various bodies of Dissenters?
I am not aware that any of them has returned to the scriptural order and constitution of the assembly of God and its ministry. Is the presence of the Holy Ghost, dividing to every man severally as He will, owned in any denomination?
Well, but the church elects its own pastor or minister. Is this anywhere found in scripture?
Nowhere. The ministers are Christ's gifts to the assembly; and is the assembly to elect whether they shall have a gift from Christ? The glory of Christ and the heavenly dignity of the Christian ministry is lost in such a carnal system. I do not mean the painful scenes that occur at such elections-rejections and splits-but merely to the principle of daring to call in question the prerogative of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Ghost; failure there is everywhere, but man's failure does not alter God's principles. It is, too, in vain to try to find the order of God, as found in scripture, in Wesleyan organization. Do we find a conference in scripture daring to dictate where the gifts of Christ shall be placed? God may be working by one of His servants in such a town, the conference says, No you must obey us, not God, you must leave that town and go to such a place. Can you show me anything like this in the word?
Impossible. Not even an apostle ever dare so set aside the administration of Christ.
But do not these people pray to be guided by the Holy Ghost in appointing the ministers?
Yes, indeed, they do; and what must such prayer be to God? Asking God to guide them in acting in direct opposition to His word.
(Continued and To be continued.)