The Clergy: Is It of God?
Unknown Author
Table of Contents
The Clergy: Is It of God?
That God has appointed or given a ministry in His Church, for its edification and for the evangelizing of the world, is as certain as the word of God can make it. The question does not lie there, but in this: Is the clergy that ministry? Mr. I. [a colonial clergyman] would permit irregular ministrations. He is very kind, no doubt, if God sent them. But there is another question: Is not his own position the false and irregular one, and a hindrance and denial of true ministry If there be a ministry given of God, and man has set up another, it is this which is in fault, this that is false, evil, worse than irregular. I will make what I mean very plain. If the Apostle Paul were to come to Quebec, he could not preach, according to Mr. I.'s system. He has never been ordained. It will be said, This is ridiculous; he is an apostle, and would preach of course. I agree—sovereignly ridiculous; but the ridiculousness is in those who have concocted a system which leads to such a result. Paul would preach assuredly (and no thanks to Mr. I. or his clerical system), because God sent him. And so would every one sent of God. The irregularity, according to the word of God, is in the clergy, not in the preaching of those whom God has sent.
I will put another case, one which Mr. I. knows to be quite common (alas! the most common): an unconverted clergyman in a parish, and the parish spiritually in the dark; or, if the clergyman be converted, a determined Puseyite, teaching to worship the Eucharist, as hundreds do now in England. Well! an evangelist sent of God is blessed to the conversion of many souls: that is, the Holy Ghost has wrought by him, and souls are brought to Christ. Which is irregular—I appeal to Mr. I.'s conscience—the evangelist who has wrought with God, or the unconverted clergyman? Who brought the latter there? Not God: it were a heinous blasphemy to say so. Who brought the evangelist there? God's grace; but this on Mr. I.'s system is irregular. Well, in this world it is so. But it is a mercy there is such. But perhaps Mr. I. will say, Let him keep to his place as evangelist, and put these converted souls under the existing orderly pastoral care. What pastoral care? That of an unconverted man? or a worshipper of the Eucharist? or a rationalist? aye, or even a man who, if he is honest, believes he was made a child of God and a member of Christ by his baptism? is this regular? What is the real state of the case according to the system (imperfectly carried out perhaps in a colony, because they cannot help themselves, and are happily more irregular)? The country is divided into parishes; and universities and other schools supply incumbents, without the smallest or most distant reference to the Church of God, or gift fitting on God's part for the office. If they are good men, so much the better—if, indeed, it do not help on delusion. But, good or bad, the ordaining prelate gives, if they are priested, the Holy Ghost to all alike, in order that they may have power to forgive sins. Is this what Mr. I. calls regular, and the free action of the Spirit of God according to the word irregular ministry?
A sober, godly mind, a mind taught by the word, let me tell him, will count such a system worse than irregular. He may—ought—to mourn and weep over it, not expose it, save as the growing power of evil forces us to inquire what can be trusted in as true, and what cannot. This feeling alone makes me speak thus. An Edomite— “down with it, down with it” —I have no sympathy with whatever. But we are forced (and, as an occasion, forced by such statements as Mr. I.'s) to inquire what is of God and what is not—to separate the precious from the vile.
I would receive every saint, episcopal or anything else, with my whole heart; but the system is leading souls by thousands into popery and falsehood on one hand, and infidelity on the other, because there is no plain, solid truth in it. Evangelicals do not believe what they sign and acquiesce in. Can Mr. I. be surprised if I doubt that he believes the bishop conferred the Holy Ghost on him that he might have the priestly power of forgiving sins? And it is a serious thing to trifle and make empty forms of serious things—a serious thing for the state of the soul. The state of things is forcing all this into view. It may be so best in God's wisdom, for all is surely hastening to the end; but, at any rate, it is sorrowful. Whether it be wise in Mr. I. to draw attention to it, he must judge. I should have a great deal more to say on this head, but I refrain. The great principles are what we have to inquire into.
I turn to more general points; and I will state some general principles—I am bold to say, incontrovertible according to the word of God. Mr. I. will see it is not against his system more than another, but that I speak of what the word of God teaches.
Member of a church is a thing unknown to scripture. The words, the thing, the idea, are unknown there. Christians are members of Christ, and, if you please, one of another, and of nothing else; and membership of anything else is only schism, and denying the true meaning of the word.
A flock, other than God's flock, is equally unknown. God's flock alone is known in scripture, of which Christ is the Chief Shepherd. There is one flock, and only one, meeting it may be in different localities, and elders belonging to those localities, but all the faithful there at any time were of it, because they were of God's flock. A pastor and his flock, in the modern sense, is wholly unknown to scripture, and an utter denial of its contents, if it be not of the words: “I am of Paul, and I of Apollos,” &c. These statements I leave for every honest-minded saint, to see whether they are according to scripture or not.
I will now take up the proofs by which Mr. I. attempts to justify the ecclesiastical forms of his system. I only press the fact, that these forms say nothing as to the substance of the system—namely, sacramental birth to God, priestly forgiveness of sins, pretending to confer the Holy Ghost by ordination in order to that power. Anglicans must accept this; they must pretend to do it, at any rate; they all sanction it. It is important to keep this clearly before us. A man may prove meat to be good; but if poison is in it, the proof of its goodness means nothing, or a snare.
But I will take up the alleged proofs of the forms, and show what scripture teaches as to the ministry. In doing this, I must apprize my reader that there is a constant confusion in most minds between ministry and local office. I do not reproach Mr. I. in particular with this. I remember when, from habit, I made the same confusion. But, for all that, the difference is important. Nay, my own conviction is, that the gradual decline of gift led to the confusion of the two, ministry and office, and, thus establishing the clergy, led the way for papal anti-Christian claims. The elders and deacons were local officers; ministry, in the sense of the exercise of gift for edification, was not. It was a given member (eye, foot, ear, as is said) of the whole body of Christ. Elders were ordained in every city; but God set in the Church various gifts. This difference is all important as to the nature of ministry, and the whole clerical and denominational system crumbles together under the unquestionable scriptural fact.
Let me add a question here, which I have often and long ago put, as showing the practical result—If Paul were to address a letter to the Church of God which is at Montreal, who could get the letter It was necessary for me to begin with this distinction, because Mr. I.'s first question involves the denial of it. His question shows, indeed, ignorance of what he might see all over Canada and Europe, and everywhere else. It is this: Has God ordained a divinely appointed ministry to rule and teach in the Church? Now, it is perfectly clear that scripture recognizes teachers who do not rule, save as far as general influence goes, and rulers who do not teach. That teaching was a desirable qualification for those who ruled, but that all had it not. The, whole Presbyterian body, whatever their other defects may be, recognize ruling elders who are not teachers. But, further, Mr. I. having his mind filled with the identity of ruling and teaching, supposes that the admission of a divinely given ministry is rested, by those whom he opposes, on 1 Timothy, and that they think that 2 Timothy has set it aside. He deceives himself and his hearers altogether. It is because we believe in a divinely given ministry, that we do not believe in the geographical system of parishes, and a ministry ordained of man and not of God. Some clergymen may be ministers; but a divinely given ministry sets aside the clerical system, in which Paul and all the early laborers of scripture could not have been permitted to exercise their ministry.
I shall quote the passages which speak of a divinely appointed ministry, quite distinct from local elders, that we may know how scripture presents the ministry to us. In Eph. 4, which Mr. I. quotes, when condescending to sanction what he calls “irregular laborers,” we shall see what ministry is. Christ, who descended into the lowest parts of the earth, is ascended above all heavens, and has led captivity captive, and received gifts for men—a glorious origin and source of ministry. “And he gave some apostles and prophets; some pastors and teachers, and some evangelists, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ, till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” We cannot conceive a more full or glorious expression of ministry than this, complete in every possible respect, in its source, in the sphere it belongs to, in the completeness of its objects, and in the enduringness of its character. And note, we have no miraculous gifts, no tongues, no healings, no miracles. It is proper ministerial service. The apostles and prophets, we read in this Epistle, were the foundation; they have had their place, but pastors, teachers, evangelists abide. Nor is there an idea of ordination: Christ “gave.” They are, Mr. I. being witness, the irregular laborers, though Timothy, he tells us, proves there were regular ones.
And note, these are the talents conferred when the nobleman went away to receive the kingdom and to return; and woe be to that servant who, in order to trade, waited for any other authority than the possession of the talents committed! And it is very striking here that so distinct is the character of gift by an exalted Christ that the apostle knows nothing here of the apostles till Christ was gone on high. He recognized of course, as we know, the fact; but he cannot know them other than endowed from on high, as he did not, in the same sense, know Christ after flesh. But this is certain: we get the regular ministry in the Church (pastors and teachers) to the world (evangelists), by gift from on high, without the most distinct hint of bishop, presbyter, or ordination. It speaks, Mr. I. does not deny, of the irregular laborers on his system. I should say a divinely appointed ministry in its fullest character, and without any so-called merely supernatural or miraculous gifts, but that by which the Church was to be edified till we all come to a perfect man. I somewhat pity the regular ministry if this was the irregular.
But let us search if scripture warrants this view elsewhere. We have a more general list in 1 Cor. 12. Here the Spirit divides to every man severally as he will, and the gifts are given to every man to profit withal. These are various members in the one body. God has set in the Church—the sphere of action is the one body, the Church—apostles, prophets, &c., amongst which we have gifts of government distinct from teachers. Some of these gifts are lost, others not; but I suppose what remain are to be used. Yea, I might almost dare to say, It is not irregular to use them, to trade with the talents, if they are given to profit withal. Scripture will surely, and does, regulate their use, both as to order and morally. Not more than two or three were to speak—that is a wise rule of order; “Be not many teachers” —a moral instruction and warning. But neither could have any application at all in the clerical system. They could have had no application to the system Mr. I. belongs to. We are not talking of what are called extraordinary or miraculous gifts, but of teachers, of divinely appointed ministry. Or does Mr. I. intend to tell us that the Holy Ghost is no longer in the Church to give teachers, but to make priests for the forgiveness of sins? Is that what he considers regular?
But I proceed. We have in Peter positive orders on the point. (1 Peter 4:10.) As every man has received the gift, so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Here again it is the irregular labor, but within, “one to another.”
Evangelical history tells the same tale, as Mr. I. admits. “They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.” And “the hand of the Lord was with them.” Philip, one of the seven, purchases to himself a good degree, and an evangelist, Stephen, has a still brighter crown—at least as far as man can say, and so in numberless instances. It is the history of the evangelizing the Gentiles. Paul boasts that he was neither of men nor by man. John in his second epistle has no rule for a woman to go by, but the doctrine brought. Gains and Demetrius are commended for receiving these irregular laborers. Diotrephes, indeed, objected. Such are the instructions, rapidly reviewed, which the word gives us of divinely appointed ministry. We may add Rom. 12, in which each is directed to confine himself to his own gift.
I now turn to Timothy. This does give us order and care of the Church, and watching over sound doctrine; which last was the immediate object of his being left at Ephesus. But it does not give us anything of appointment of ministry. Indeed though scripture may and does regulate the use of gift, if God has given a teacher or other gift, he cannot, he dare not, wait on man to exercise it, and hide it in a napkin till then. Scripture does regulate; and where prophets were to speak, the rest were to judge. But the gift of God is to be exercised and not await the permission of man, as to the general fact of serving by it, though all of us have to be subject one to another, and we are to obey God rather than man, if man forbid us to speak in Christ's name. Timothy was left specially to watch over sound doctrine, and watch against false teachers; but the general order of the Church is unfolded. But there is no establishment of a ministry. He was to communicate to faithful men the things he had learned; but here there is not the remotest hint of appointing to office, and its absence is most significative. He was to instruct, not ordain. No such thought was or could be true.
We have seen that the ministry was in full exercise and its order established in 1 Corinthians. It depended on gift, and gift had its place in the whole body. If Apollos was a teacher at Ephesus, he was a teacher at Corinth, and so of all. Indeed every Jew was familiar with this, and the rulers of the synagogue, as to office, were distinct from the teachers. Christ could stand up to read and teach, so Paul and Barnabas were invited at Antioch.
As to the form, there was thus a well-known liberty of teaching, and the distinction of teaching and ruling was thoroughly understood. They might, doubtless, be united in one person, but they were distinct. It was the habit of our blessed Lord, of Paul, and of Apollos to teach and preach in the synagogue, none of these pretending to be ruler there. And, in the Christian assemblies, elders were local. Thus Paul and Barnabas chose elders for them in every church. Acts 14. So, Titus was to establish elders in every city. Gifts were exercised everywhere, as such or such a member of the body: so the whole history and doctrinal teaching of the New Testament show. Elders were local officers. For this office it was desirable that they should be apt to teach; but their business was to oversee and guide the flock of God where the Holy Ghost had made them overseers. And we know that some recognized elders did not teach, though they might rule well. The apostle in this same epistle distinguished those among them who labor in word and doctrine. (1 Tim. 5:17.)
But, so far from ordaining teachers, or the elders alone being the regular teachers, there is in the epistles a prohibition which makes such a notion ridiculous: “Let your women keep silence in your churches;” “For I suffer not a woman to teach.” Can any one in his senses conceive such a phrase, where the only orderly teaching was in the hands of elders? But it is certain that in the synagogue and in the early churches all who could teach to profit were to teach. Elders there were. It was desirable that elders should he apt to teach; but of their being the teachers there is not a hint, but exactly the contrary. Women were not to teach; all men who could were free to do it according to their gift, and bound, too, so to minister the same as good stewards. No honest man can doubt it if he takes the word of God. In France, Switzerland, Germany, it is not now denied by those who have considered the subject. It was considered a whole day at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance at Berlin. Do not suppose I mean that they act, or mean to act on it. This is a very different thing. One German professor after an evening's discussion with a third person said to me: It is impossible that any upright Christian can deny it is so in scripture; but think of the folly of acting on it after 1800 years!
But Mr. I. appeals to the word. Let him produce the appointment of any one to preach by ecclesiastical authority. Timothy is directed to communicate the truths he has learned to faithful men able to teach; but to ordain teachers, never, neither he nor any one else.
Having gone through the teaching of scripture, let us, now see what Mr. I. has to say. He will already have perceived that I believe in a divinely-appointed ministry, and, because I do, I do not own his office—his system—which denies wholly that of scripture. He will have seen that it is not from 1 Timothy I draw the proof of such a ministry (for there is nothing about it, but about the order of the house of God, in which the ministry of all is supposed possible to the exclusion of women, aptness to teach being desirable in an elder). All the New Testament shows there was such a divinely given ministry. 1 Timothy gives the order of the Church.
It is not even said that hands were laid on elders. I dare say they were, as it was the common expression of commending to God, and communication of blessing or curse; but it is not said. Such has been the wisdom of God. He knew what was before the Church in the way of clergy. We have how Timothy was to behave himself in the house of God, to have it in order. As to elders, deacons, widows, &c., 2 Timothy altered no principle as to ministry, as 1 Timothy established none; it gives individual guidance in the last days and perilous times when the Church should be in disorder.
Mr. I., I cannot help saying, shows much ignorance on scripture questions, and even as to what he is attacking. He takes Bishop Lloyd's chronology for gospel as to the date of the two epistles to Timothy, and even founds on it his argument as to the difference he supposes we make between the two. I do not pretend to decide any question in so intricate a matter as chronology, still less so vexed a question as that of the two Timothys. Some have thought the second the earlier—I cannot conceive why, I confess. At any rate it involves the question of Paul's release from captivity on which volumes have been written. He speaks in 2 Timothy of events which it is impossible to find in the history of the Acts (hence they are to be supposed to have happened after the end of that history). Thus he had left Trophimus sick at Miletus; but when last at Jerusalem Trophimus was there, and he did not touch at Miletus on his way to Rome. On the other hand, in Acts 20 at Miletus he did not expect to see their face again. However now (in 2 Timothy) he saw his end to be close. In Philippians he expects to get free from his first captivity, and in Philemon tells him to prepare a lodging. It would rather seem that 2 Timothy is the very latest of all his epistles. If so, it is at least four years later than the first; for we have four years of imprisonment in the Acts, perhaps eight or ten or more later, unless the first was written after getting free from his first imprisonment, which is full of difficulty if we take Acts 20 as a divinely given presentiment; but this is partly met by the direction to Philemon to prepare a lodging. These questions I do not pretend to solve here.
(To be continued.)
The Clergy: Is It of God?
On the face of the epistles one gives us the order of God's house, the other tells of departure and perilous times. All the beloved ones of Asia, whose order he had established, bad turned away from him; and while insisting more than ever on Christian courage, grief comes out in every passage. The scriptures, and immediate apostolic teaching, are the resource when the power of godliness was gone and its form there; and the house, once set as the pillar and ground of the truth, had become as a great house full of vessels to dishonor from which a man had to purge himself, as well as of honor. Nor has Mr. I. paid attention to the directions of this last epistle touching the last and perilous days. To this I beg his attention, and that of every one who may deign to read these pages. The Second Epistle to Timothy states, that in the last days perilous times shall come, which it describes, when there would be a form of godliness denying the power of it. 2 Timothy does not contemplate the godly order of the first epistle, but a state of things in the professing church analogous to the state of the heathen as described in the Epistle to the Romans. And it does direct us to have done with it— “From such turn away.”
It is not a question of breaking up the Church. Alas! what Mr. I. calls the Church is breaking up by its own decrepitude, by the contradictory principles it contains within itself, and the absence of all power of self-government, and leaving us exposed to, or rather dragging us unto, the deadly evil of popery and infidelity, so that we have to inquire where the resource of the individual is when he has to turn away. In 2 Timothy that resource is declared to be in the scriptures, not in the professing church, and not in the clergy. If Mr. I. cannot find out the difference between the directions for godly order in 1 Timothy and the directions to individuals when false profession has brought in perilous times in 2 Timothy, his position must have singularly blinded his eyes.
Nor is this all. In chapter 2 we have a totally changed state of the Church contemplated. In the beginning of the Acts we read— “The Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved.” To that one well known assembly at Jerusalem, where the whole Church then was, souls were added. In 2 Timothy how different the language! False doctrines are overthrowing the faith of some; but the sure foundation of God abides. There is this comfort— “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” They may not be brought out into the blessed unity of a manifested assembly as at the first; they may be hidden in the recesses of Rome, or in the dark ignorance of Greece; but the Lord knows them, and that is a comfort.
But there is a direction addressed to our responsibility also— “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” If a godly man thinks it iniquity to say that a person has received the Holy Ghost, perhaps from an unconverted man, so as to have the power of forgiving sins, and such like; if his conscience tells him it is iniquity to establish crowds of unconverted men, who hate the gospel, as ministers of God in parishes, what is he to do? Mr. I. may call it breaking up the Church, but the word of God commands him to depart from iniquity.
But while this is a direction for individual conscience of the plainest kind, the passage in 2 Timothy goes farther. The apostle gives what I may call ecclesiastical teaching. When the Church becomes a great house, we must expect this evil. In a great house there are all kinds of vessels, and some to dishonor too. What is to be done? The great house is Christendom. No one thinks of leaving this. We turn neither heathens nor Jews nor Mohammedans, nor renounce Christian profession; but we are called to purge ourselves from the vessels to dishonor who are in this Christendom. Mr. I. may object to this, and call it breaking up the Church; but the word of God directs us to purge ourselves from these, and we must follow it. But if Mr. I. cannot see the difference between this and the beautiful order of God's house, as depicted in 1 Tim. I repeat, his position must have sadly blinded his eyes.
A divinely appointed ministry is then not only admitted but insisted on, in contrast with the apostate and anti-Christian principle of a clergy (which calls the blessed action of the Holy Ghost, and what is admitted to be such, irregular, and puts a human establishment in its place). 1 Timothy does not speak of the appointment of ministry, nor does 2 Timothy take it away. A divinely appointed ministry subsists to this day. 1 Timothy shows the order of the house of God; 2 Timothy tells us what to do in the perilous times of the last days, when we have to say, “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” There was order in 1 Timothy. There is disorder everywhere now.
The clergy means that the title to ministry depends, not on gifts and teaching the truth, but on human establishment, in the immensely vast majority, of unconverted men by unconverted men. The Romish priest, or Greek pope, is a clergyman; so is Mr. I. who is bound to own an ordained man who teaches the contrary of what Paul taught, as a brother minister. Why? Because he is a clergyman. But he cannot own the one sent of God as a brother minister, because he is not a clergyman. He may condescend to own from on high the Holy Ghost's irregular laborers. Let him not be offended by my referring to Romish priests as clergymen. So far does this principle of clergy go, that if a Romish priest came over to the Anglican body to-morrow, he is owned as in holy orders, and a fellow clergyman. If the greatest instrument God had in the world—who was not a clergyman—were to come, he could not be owned. It is this horrible wickedness that I reject, and from which I withdraw—the principle of clergy. And I do so just because I believe in a divinely appointed ministry. I know there are good men among the clergy, and I love them; but the system is a denial of the Holy Ghost and His work, and a substitution of man in His place. Nor did I ever see one who was a good man, who has not suffered in his soul by being of the clergy, by falsifying his conscience in solemn things.
A few words will suffice for Mr. I,'s select passages. He tells us Christ ordained twelve apostles. No doubt. What Christ ordained, we own, of course. Yet even this, most assuredly, was not the Christian commission nor the Church of God. When they were sent out, they were forbidden to go to the Gentiles, or to any but Jews; they would not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man was come. Is this what Mr. I. presents to us as ministry in the Church? It was after Christ's death and resurrection that they received their commission for the world, and were then told to tarry at Jerusalem till endowed with power from on high. It is in this character accordingly Paul owns them as apostles—in their church character. He ascended up on high and gave gifts unto men, and he gave some apostles, &c. But it is natural for those imbued with the idea of clergy to overlook all the doctrine of the Holy Ghost.
As to the seventy being deacons, it is a new notion, if I am not mistaken, not very long got up, and absurd as it is new; or if indeed not new, an old absurdity. The seven are not called deacons, but Mr. I. cannot reject their being So, for the Anglican service for the ordination of deacons, treats them as such, and they are generally so accounted. They were to serve tables, as contrasted with the word, as every one knows; they were the ministering servants of the Church. The seventy were sent before. Christ's face, wherever He was coming, as a last warning to Israel, on Christ's last journey up to Jerusalem, to warn their cities that the kingdom of God was come unto them, the devils being subject to them as a testimony. (Luke 10:9, 11, 17.) No one, I conceive, but a clergyman, could have dreamed of connecting this with deacons The next proof is that the apostles ordained a successor to Judas. This is an unfortunate example. Peter takes up Psa. 109 to show that the word of God expressly taught that another was to take his office; of ordination there is nothing. “Ordained” is an interpolation—with what good faith others must judge. All that is said is, “must be a witness.” They, the 120, it would appear (for no others are spoken of in the plural), set forth two as answering Peter's description, and then they cast lots which it is to be, after the Jewish manner, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, and he was numbered with the twelve. The choice was given to the Lord by lot, and there was no ordination of any kind, nothing regular. Deacons are set apart, if so we are to call them, to serve tables that others might give themselves up to the ministry of the word. Was this setting apart to rule and teach—ordaining to serve that others might have full time for teaching? It is the only express case of laying on of hands for office we have in the New Testament. True, some of them who had gift became “irregular laborers,” but no wit, even of a clergyman, can make out of it an ordination to rule and to teach. We read that they who use that office of service well would acquire a good degree and great boldness in Christ Jesus—would be efficient irregular laborers, as Philip and Stephen were in Jerusalem and Samaria, and in the desert of Gaza, according to the power of the Spirit of God.
In Acts 14 Paul and Barnabas chose elders (“ordained” is really a false translation) and rulers in a true scriptural sense; but of teaching there is no question. There is no doubt that the apostle appointed several elders as overseers or bishops, by the authority of the Holy Ghost, in churches which he founded. I say by the authority of the Holy Ghost, because in Acts 20 Paul says of the elders of Ephesus “The Holy Ghost has made you bishops.” They were to shepherd the flock of God (feed is a different word). It is ruipaive, not pdarce, Yet it was desirable they should be apt to teach; and, in such case, doubtless did so. But we also know, by the same apostle, that some did not.
As to Timothy's being the first bishop of Ephesus, it is a mere fable. Every one who has inquired into these things knows that the superscriptions of the epistles have no authority whatever. Some, as on the face of it 1 Corinthians, are notoriously false. All of them were sentences tacked on by late copyists. But Acts 20 is a clear proof that Timothy was not so; for the apostle calls for the elders of Ephesus on his last voyage; and there is not the smallest hint of any Timothy, or any other bishop. On the contrary, language is used which excludes such an idea. “Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you bishops;” and then he commends them to God, and the word of His grace. It is not merely the word bishop applied to them, though it does show those whom he owned as alone made their bishops by the Holy Ghost, but he looks to them as the ones to watch for themselves and all the flock; and the fancied bishop is ignored in the most absolute and unceremonious way. No man in his senses can suppose that there was another superior functionary to whom the chief care of the flock was entrusted. Besides, Timothy, and so Titus, was called away when his special service was ended. They were employed as confidential agents by the apostle to complete needed order in new churches, but permanent bishopric they had none. Gifted saints they were, and the apostle's own sons in the faith, in whom the apostle, as he declares, reposed especial confidence.
As regards the angel of the church, who told Mr. I. that he was the presiding officer? It is quite certain that, where all is plainly stated, there were several presiding officers or elders. The angel in the Jewish synagogue was not the presiding officer; that is well known. If the angel was the presiding officer—that is, if the original constitution of the churches had been changed—the Spirit of God would not own directly and openly any such change from His own constitution, but gives a symbolical name. And it was when the Church had left its first love, and was already threatened with having the candlestick removed; while its history is preserved till, having had opportunity to repent, it had not done so, and was threatened with the sorest judgments on one hand, and on the other was found pretending to be rich, and was just about to be spued out of Christ's mouth. I do not believe that the angel was a presiding officer, but a symbolical representative of the Church viewed in those responsible in it. For this reason, that the way the plural is used in Smyrna, Thyatira, and the interchange of it with the singular, as in chapter ii. 10, 24, so, indeed, the language to Pergamos and to Philadelphia—in truth, I might say, to all the churches—makes it impossible to apply it to an individual presiding officer, and obliges us to see a symbolical representative of the Church. This is certain that if it was a single presiding officer, the Holy Ghost would not own him as such, by any direct name of office, and it was so only when the Church had left her first love, and was now threatened with being cut off. I cannot enter into a discussion of the interpretation of the seven churches here: but the plain declarations of scripture present several bishops in a church, never one. That this crept in early, no one denies, when all sought their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. But it is certain that it was not so at first. Acts 20 demonstrates the contrary. And we have the best ecclesiastical authority, Jerome, confirmed by other so-called fathers, telling us that there was no such difference in the beginning, no such presiding officer, but that it was introduced for peace' sake, when the presbyters or elders began to seek to make separate parties for themselves. Clement, the earliest post scriptural authority we have knows only presbyters in Corinth; and if we have Ignatius, who boasts abundantly of them, we have not only interpolations, but forgeries, as has been fully proved, to make good the ambition of men. It is a sad history, but a predicted one. Paul's remedy for the very case Jerome speaks of was not Jerome's. Of that the Papal abominations have been the gradual and legitimate growth. Of this we have too many remains (in the pretension to confer the Holy Ghost in priesthood, which, as a distinct order, is the denial of Christianity, in priestly absolution, in baptismal making members of Christ, where episcopacy prevails, to say nothing of making the whole population the Church) to feel any confidence in substituting such a presiding officer for the word of God, to which Paul commends us in the perilous times of the last days, and the Holy Ghost by which alone the humble soul can rightly use it, and who alone can give a true and effectual ministry.
For my own part, then, I am so far from rejecting a divinely given ministry, that it is because I believe in one that I reject the clergy, which is not a divinely given one, but the fruit of the Church's departure from the faith. I beg Mr. I. to believe I have no enmity against him, or any godly member of the body he belongs to. I receive them as members of the body of Christ; but in these last days, these perilous times, we are forced to see where the sure foundation is. The Holy Ghost, through Paul, assures us it is in the scriptures, not in the professing body. That would come, and it has come, to have the form of godliness and to deny the power of it. The part of the professing body he belongs to is, of all others, a scene of confusion and incompetency, which confounds beholders. Presbyterianism, with its deserted kirk and U. P.'s, and Free Kirk almost split upon the point of which they should unite with, has little to boast over it. I assure him, I say it with profound and unfeigned sorrow. The breaking up of these Protestant bodies will only let in, and is letting in, Popery and infidelity; and I have not one atom of sympathy with the worldly-minded ambitious dissenters who are joining papists and infidels in seeking to pull it down. I must leave all this in God's wise and holy hand; but saints must in such a time look for some sure foundation.
They have it, thank God, in the word of God, in the faithfulness of the true and exalted Head of the Church, soon coming to take us to Himself and set all things right in heaven and in earth (blessed time to think of!) They have the Spirit of God to guide and help them if they are humble, and provision in the word of God for the very times we are in, moral provision for godly rule and order when official has been perverted and corrupted; not, perhaps, the order of the external Church restored, but the presence and faithfulness of Him who can never fail it, an ark of God, which, if its ordered place was in the midst of the camp, can go a three days' journey in condescending grace before the host to find in the wilderness a place where we may rest.
I have done. The clergy I reject, because the system denies, in principle and fact, the title and prerogatives of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, the unity of the body, and the gifts by which Christ, its Head, edifies the Church and calls sinners, and has substituted geographical divisions for faith, or sectional membership for membership of the body of Christ—has substituted human arrangements of one kind and another for a divinely given ministry. There is no scriptural ground of any kind for church membership other than the unity of the body of Christ; none for a pastor and his flock; none for the divisions which have resulted from the attempts to rebuild the church when, three hundred years ago, excessive ecclesiastical corruption in the great professing body, led masses, under God's mercy, to break loose from its galling and degrading chains. But the energy of faith which brought about that result has passed away, and the result is fallen into decrepitude, giving occasion to the energetic recrudescence of popery and the wide spread influence of pretentious intellect, and infidelity. It is under this we are now suffering; but we are forewarned in the word.
I cannot close this without pressing on my reader's attention, though briefly, the warnings I allude to. We have the solemn declaration in Rom. 11 that if the Gentile Christendom (which has taken the place of Judaism) did not continue in God's goodness, it should be cut off. Has it so continued? Was popery continuing in God's goodness? If not, Christendom will be cut of, Laodicea spued out of God's mouth, as Thyatira punished with grievous plagues (both to give place, as you may see, to the throne and scepter of Christ, and, it is added in Thyatira, heavenly possession of the morning star). The mystery of iniquity, begun in the Apostles' days, would continue till it resulted in open apostasy, and the man of sin to be destroyed at Christ's coming. Evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse. Is there fear then for the saints? None. Not more than for the saints of Judaism, who, when it fell, were transferred into the Church of God. But their external props will fail them. They will have to walk by faith as they were ever called to do. The Lord is coming, according to His promises, to receive them to Himself, that where He is they may be also. He will gather the wheat, not into a church on earth as the remnant of Judaism, but into the heavenly garner. Meanwhile they have the word of God, and the Spirit of God—God Himself and the word of His grace—a word able to make them wise unto salvation. Let them recognize every gift God gives, for He is yet calling sinners, or edifying His saints. These will continue in virtue of the faithfulness of Christ Himself, till all the work He has to do is done. The denial of gifts is the denial of the sovereign title of the Holy Ghost, and Christ's authority in the Church, just as the clergy is.
Appointment to office is lost, the Church on earth being in confusion and ruin. If elders are to be appointed, I ask, not only who is to appoint them with authority, and there is no one, but where is the church over which they are to be appointed? A sectional body may choose for itself (an act of mere human will), but they can have no authority beyond the will of those who have chosen them. They cannot be what elders were in the early Church—bishops, whom the Holy Ghost appointed over the flock of God. It is a mere unlicensed powerless imitation by human will over a little self-constituted corner of the Church (perhaps, indeed, of the world). But scripture has provided for this case also, not officially, but morally, not only in the gift to rule, but in faithful service. See 1 Cor. 16:15, 16; 1 Thess. 5:12, 18; Heb. 13:17. In none of these is official authority given as the ground of subjection and obedience. It is an exhortation involving the spiritual state and duty of the saints themselves, founded on moral grounds, always true and available, and which, if the sorrowful need arise for it, can be enforced by the saints themselves according to 2 Thess. 3:14-16, and Rom. 16:17, 18.
My object is not now to enlarge on this. I notice it only to show that the blessed Lord has provided in His word, even for the ruin in which our unfaithfulness has involved the Church. Only I beseech every saint to look the confusion and ruin which exists in the face, to see how surely we are in the perilous times of the last days, to be ready for the Lord, loins girded and lights burning, waiting for God's Son from heaven; to arise and trim their lamps, and to see what is the sure foundation of God which will abide, and thus build up according to the grace given to them, and leave to the enemies of the Lord and the selfishness of men and sects to pull down. We shall have enough to do in these days to deliver souls from abounding error, and help them in the path of grace and peace. Only may they remember, that wherever there is a priesthood (save that of all children of God), there is the denial of Christianity. A priest means one who goes to God for you—is between you and God. Christianity is the blessed truth that the veil is rent, and that, through the efficiency of the precious blood of Christ, we can go boldly into the holiest ourselves—that through Him we have ourselves access by one Spirit unto the Father. An ordained or consecrated priesthood is the denial of true Christianity.
(Concluded from page 125.)
Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.